Variance

Congratulations to the Colts. While their Championship is largely due to circumstance, officiating, and luck they still had to win the games and as such are deserving of that credit. Now, with a large mouthful of sour grapes I'm done with the NFL until April and the draft.

Of course my problem going forward is that we have nowhere to go from here. The Celtics have lost 16 straight games and are only seven losses away from the all time NBA record (with a five game west coast swing coming up...). As much as I want to I cannot, as a fan of the team who ended up with Chauncey Billups instead of Tim Duncan ten years ago (when the Celtics had a franchise record low 15 wins) put 100% of my hopes into the Greg Oden / Kevin Durant sweepstakes. Even if the C's don't win another game this season there is no guarantee (only about a 60% chance)) that they will end up with one of the first two picks. Such is life with a draft lottery.

The Bruins draw about as well as the Revolution and their play is reflective of that apathy. Granted I'm not a huge hockey fan, but I can't get behind a team that can give up three goals in less than 100 seconds like they did last night. Not to mention the NHL is still having serious trouble recovering from their strike and the subsequent fallout.

So lest I delve into an in depth analysis of BC women's tennis, I am going in a different direction.

Today, I'm going to blast a former Irish mafia boss with serious (?) connections to Whitey Bulger. To read John "Red" Shea's memoir (again ?) Rat Bastards and believe it (which you really can't) is to worship at the altar of the self proclaimed biggest badass and greatest overall human being in the history of badasses and human beings.

To be honest he lost me on page six where he explicitly details his first night after after being released from prison. His buddies from Southie, being the good ol' boys that they are, leave him a little present in his hotel room, "two Oriental girls." Rascist misnomers aside, the story degenerates quickly from that point culminating in a paragraph so inconceivable that I actually laughed out loud.

"Of course, after a bit I'd had enough of watching them and had to get into it. I worked on the older one first. After a half hour of that, I switched to the smaller one. She couldn't take it. She couldn't quite take me. I couldn't believe it. She was screaming like I was killing her. The older one said, 'Too big for her, mister. Too big.' The small one said, 'Me Chinese, you too big.' She tried to squirt this lubricant, and I knocked it away. I just continued to slam her. She was grimacing in pain, but she finally stopped screaming and yelling, 'Too big, too big!" I was slaughtering her. Fast slow, hard, soft, it didn't matter. I thought, What did they send me a virgin whore?"

The problems with this paragraph clearly abound, but the highlights for me are the following. After 12 years of prison with nothing but memories and of course the showers as entertainment (in which he vehemently denies any participation, of course) am I really supposed to believe that "Red" is such a sexual dynamo that he can watch two girls go out it, then have sex with one for half an hour without any sort of...incident? Pardon my phrasing but the guy hasn't had pussy in over a decade, nobody has that kind of control. Furthermore, as far as I know prostitues get paid to have sex, a lot of sex, and Shea is an Irish name. I guess anything is possible but even if he's hung like a zebra why the hell do I care? Does that have anything to do with his time in the mob, his drug dealing, his life story, anything at all other than his desire to tell the world about his allegedly prodigious package?

This story is an excellent example of my biggest problem with the book as a whole: there is no burden of proof. He could have made the whole thing up. I remember reading a criticism of Jame's Frey's A Million Little Pieces, which centered on the fact that since the entire story takes place in an anonymous environment (a rehabilitation clinic) there is no one in the world that can prove his outlandish tales true. The same can be said for Shea and Rat Bastards. Nearly everyone involved in his tales, from Bulger down the line, eiither flipped and testified or vanished off the face of the earth. He could claim that Whitey had a third hand growing out of his ass and there would be no one to refute it, there's no accountability.

I'm not debating the fact that he was a major player in the Irish Mob and that he worked closely with highest members therein. I'm sure all of that is true or he wouldn't have done 12 years in prision. What I question is the personal braggery inherent in every detail of the story.

He paints himself as the unflinching moral, ethical, and social compass for all of South Boston and the United States prison system. Everyone who flipped on Whitey (even though he had already ratted many of them to the FBI) for whatever reason is a useless piece of garbage who should be killed. Anyone who ever backed down from a fight isn't a man and should be viewed as a spineless weasel. Anyone who ever tried to stand up to him or fight him was cowed by his intimidation and ferocity, even the most hardened criminals in jail, because lest we forget, John Shea invented to the words bad and ass and it was his idea to put them next to each other.

From being the unquestioned leader in all of his multiple houses of correction to getting a getting a fellow inmate to quit his job rounding up stray cats on the prison grounds because animals don't like to be caged any more than humans (I shit you not, page 250, "Red" Shea drug dealer, ass kicker, lover of kittens) it was always the "Red" way or the wrong way. And of course the wrong way was always swiftly punished with Chuck Norris justice.

It just reeks of bullshit. I'm sure he dealt a lot of drugs, won a lot of fights, and that he really does despise anyone who ratted to keep themselves out of prison but you just can't read this book and believe it word for word. His last story from prison is a indicative punctuation mark to a series of tales that go from entertaining to wildly improbable. Shea was just 30 days from his release date after 12 long years, all he had to do was keep his nose clean and he was free. Of course a Cuban guy decides to call him a pussy, because clearly he was unaware that you don't mess with John Shea no matter what. In a shocking plot twist "Red" finds the guy and pounds him into the ground whispering into his ear in a very badass Van Damme kind of way, "A real pussy huh?" as the Cuban lay flat on his back with a broken jaw.

For his indiscretion Shea got to spend his last month, plus a few extra weeks for his behavior, in the hole. But our hero "Red" he wouldn't have it any other way.

" Sure enough, thirty days in the hole: narrow bunk, twenty-three hours a day lockdown, meals shoved at you through the door, no company, nothing. But I did what I had to do. If I didn't stand up to this Cuban, I'd be like Vinny Black and Dominic (guys who got out of jail on time because they are big bleeding vaginas who wouldn't fight to keep themselves in longer...). No matter when it happens, even if it's two minutes before I'm supposed to be released, no one is going to fuckin' treat me like a punk. If it means staying in jail, picking up a new case, or another ten years. so be it. I walked into prison a man, I am going to leave a man, no matter what. Can't let it happen, as I told these guys and as I proved. Practice what you preach."

Maybe I'm looking at this with too much rationality, but that's just stupid. If you've really kicked ass and taken names for 12 years you've proved your toughness and your worth. To just call this Cuban a punk, laugh in his face, or at least make him hit you first, makes a hell of a lot more sense than purposefully buying yourself more time in the joint.

I do have to give him credit, if he means all of this crap, then he is more set in his convictions than most other people, and that is probably to a fault. To take the rap when everyone around him was jumping off the sinking ship takes a serious amount of fortitude, and his rage at those who, in his mind failed to do the right thing, is somewhat understandable. While the actions that brought him to that point certainly aren't admirable, his ultimate unwavering support of what he believed in is, if only to a point.

The story of John Shea's life would make an interesting read, and I would like to see it someday. Unfortunately Rat Bastards skips too much of the story in favor of street morality lessons and and one overwhelming message: John Shea wants you to know that he is the hardest guy in the history of Boston's hardest neighborhood (of course everyone who could swear to that is conspicuously missing...) and if you question that undeniable fact he will come directly to your house to kick your ass too. And God help you if you tell on him for it...

Apathy

I want to care about the Super Bowl. As an admitted sports fanatic I am obligated to care about the Super Bowl. But damn it, I just don't care about this fucking Super Bowl.

What has happened to me? Am I such a sore loser that my team's elimination means I can no longer take pleasure in one of the premier sporting events of the year? Do I really need a vested personal interest in the outcome of the game in order to have a passing interest?

Of course I want the Colts to lose, badly. But on that same token I don't want the Bears to win. I think they are a mediocre team, at best, with a terrible quarterback and an overrated defense that sailed through the softest division in football and won an NFC Championship in a year where that title is comparable to being the best of the worst. How tough it is to win 13 games when you have four to six guaranteed victories in your division at the outset?

This lack of a perferential option has led me to what would have previously been an inconceivable apathy. I'm rooting for the Bears in theory, although I'm not sure they can win, but in practice the game is almost meaningless to me. A win for the Colts does not elevate them into the same class as the Patriots of recent years, nor does a victory for Peyton Manning put him on the same level as Tom Brady. A loss sets them back of course, but Manning's statistical dominance will always lend the uneducated and the uninclined to exhault his greatness regardless of his ultimate failures. The advertising can't get any worse, and I can't hope that it will lessen even with a loss.

So what's actually at stake here? Sure the media will be horrendously obnoxious in their praise of Manning should the Colts prevail, but will that really be much of a change? Mainstream sports media always degenerates into hyperbole immediately following champtionships, as they extol the victors as the greatest team in memory, forgetting that memory is extremely recent and ultimately fleeting. And if the Bears win they will join the annals of lousy teams who got lucky with circumstance, scheduling, and perhaps one miracle game.

Neither of these teams are worthy, and that vacuum has robbed me of a passion for this event that has almost always been ample in years past.

For the NFL however this is the dream, their highest profile player against one of their largest and most passionate markets. This game will get huge ratings, as everyone in the Chicago area will obviously tune in, while the rest of the country (save a few intelligent New Englanders) will watch to see if everyone's favorite nice guy can finally earn his birthright (pardon me while I throw up a little bit in my mouth). Regardless of the outcome it's a win for the league.

On that same note, I heard an interesting theory on WEEI this morning. Mustard and Johnson fielded a caller who made a statement to the effect that the NFL is absolutely thrilled with this Super Bowl matchup, and that with a victory Peyton Manning will vault over Tom Brady as the most respected quarterback in the game. After predictably and correctly lambasting the caller's final point their response was to say that a victory for the Colts is actually another dream for the league as well because it will set up the best rivalry between two quarterbacks that the NFL has ever seen. They made the obvious comparisons to Bird v. Magic, and the Red Sox and Yankees. Oddly I think I would agree.

Should the Colts win tomorrow Manning will obviously have a huge monkey off his back, and that perceived vindication will put him closer to equal footiing with Brady. Without the obvious caveat of, "Well, where's Peyton's ring?" dominating the debate any longer the league would have a rare circumstance on its hands where two premier quarterbacks both in their primes, both with Super Bowl championships will be squared off consistently in a meaningful and wildly entertaining rivalry. It's a ratings and publicity bonanza which would invoke memories of the glory days of the NBA when Magic and Bird combined for eight championships in their historic duels.

Believe me I hope it doesn't play out that way, but for everyone other than Patriots fans it would set up a yearly drama the likes of which football has not seen in years.

To be honest, sports wouldn't be what they are without rivalries. I hate the Yankees, but Red Sox season would be just a bit duller if both teams weren't competitive every year and didn't play each other 19 times and often in the post season. In the same regard I hate the Colts, but I can't ever remember being more excited about a game, and more engaged in the actual contest than I was two Sundays ago. To consider your team the good guys there has to be a villain. To really love one team, you need someone to hate with equal passion. Why do you think that the most passionate sports fans also have the most venom? Do you see many foaming at the mouth maniac Brewers fans? Of course not, but who would they hate, the Rockies? Sports rivalries transcend the games themselves, enrapturing cities, colleges, and neighborhoods the way no physical competition ever could on its own.

So while I hate the Colts and wish them nothing but failure, on some level I'm glad that they're around because rooting for is not nearly as fun as rooting both for and against.

As for this Super Bowl itself I'm not actually invested enough to make any analysis beyond the following. It's going to rain and that gives the Bears a chance. The blueprint on how to beat Manning is there, hit him in the mouth and hope he starts crying. Shorten the game with the run and whatever you do don't fall behind. Also, don't let Rexy kill you and try to win the field posiition game. If the Bears have one advantage it is that they have far less to lose than the Colts. There is no pressure on them, they're not supposed to win, but the exact opposite is true for Indy.

Can you tell I'm searching for ways the Bears can win?

Well they can.

But they won't. Colts: 24-13.