You’ve GOT to love Charles Barkley.

Not only does he have complete lack of that thing that makes most of us carefully choose our words before we let them out, but every few years or so he does some fool-ass thing that entertains us all. Who’ll ever forget his tossing of a midget (aren’t we all midgets to Chuck?) through a bar window? Or the time some other hapless chump tried to screw with Mr. Barkley in some bar after he’d had a few (I consider myself a fairly tough guy, but I can think of at least 6 billion other people I’d fuck with before C. Barkley)? The great thing about Chuck, was the way he would just tell the media “Yeah, I kicked his ass, so what?” He made us think the shrimp or the drunk deserved it, and we were entranced by his boorish candidness. That Charles. He said the things we all wanted to say, but were too tactful to say them.

Over the years, he has become an entertaining figure on TNT’s basketball broadcasts, refreshing us with his candidness, a guy who always comes in with the high cheddar when the other guys are tossing softballs. Those incidents seemed behind Chuckles until this week, when he got pulled over for suspicion of DUI in Scottsdale, AZ. Doesn’t it seem, just like everyone apparently will end up being in the cast of Saturday Night Live, that everybody gets pulled over in Scottsdale for DUI? Except Danica Patrick, that is… Between the DUI and those goddamn speed trap cameras, I’ll bet Scottsdale has the best Policemen’s Ball of any municipality. I’m surprised the cop cars aren’t friggin’ Bentleys, seeing they have so many ways to separate us chumps and chumpettes from our moolah.

But, as usual, I digress. On New Year’s Eve, Sir Charles coasted through a stop sign in Old Town Scottsdale at 10 MPH in plain view of the Law. Fox News, “fair and balanced” as usual, reports that Mr. Barkley was in a hurry, sports fans, to get a hummer from a young lady he had just picked up. I’m sure Bill O’Reilly can relate to that! Sometimes Charles is just a little TOO candid. Y’know, he is mulling a run for the Governorship of Alabama. Another former Governor from another Southern state with 3 A’s in its name received some famous fellatio, allegedly. President Barkley? Maybe…
Well, I would probably be speaking accurately when I say it probably took even longer for Chuck to get that blow job, if he got it at all. By all accounts, Chuck was cooperative and pleasant with the police staff during his very sweaty mug shot.

Charles even offered to have the name of a Police Department civilian employee tattooed on his ass if they could get him off from the DUI. Jesus, Charles, from the looks of you, you could have offered to have every officer in Maricopa County’s name tattooed on that ass.

He didn’t get off.

The cops didn’t let him off either.

Thank you Detroit Lions.

In going 0-16 this season, you have shown us that nothing is impossible. If you really set your mind on a goal, get that goal in your crosshairs and go for it week after week, there is no limit to what one can achieve. In losing to the Green Bay Packers 31-21 today, the Lions have boldly sucked like no team has sucked before.

Here is a list showing the fallout of the Lions’ dreadful season:

1. The 1976 0-14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were down on the sidelines popping open bottles of Ripple to celebrate.
2. New theme song: Waah - waah - waah -waaaaah!
3. Comedians seen in clubs reading from the Lions’ Playbook.
4. Berry Gordy moves Motown’s headquarters to Grand Rapids.
5. Jerry Lewis given back his gun at the airport on the condition he do something about the Lion problem.
6. Despite the team’s shameful performance, Detroit still is really good at murder. That’s gotta count for something, doesn’t it?
7. Ted Nugent and Bob Seger now claim to be from Toronto.
8. They will have won the same amount of Super Bowls this season as the 16-0 New England Patriots did last year.
9. I guess they shouldn’t have used the US auto industry as a role model for success.
10. The cheerleaders? Well, maybe they just didn’t cheer hard enough!

Detroit! Duuuuuude! You were the city of Bobby Layne, Alex Karras, and Joe Schmidt! Billy Sims, Barry Sanders and Charlie Sanders. The MC-5 and Iggy Pop. Jackie Wilson and the Supremes. Aretha Franklin. Denny McLain. Kirk Gibson. Gordie Howe. Steve Yzerman. Joe Dumars. Joe Louis. Victory Riots.  You were the home of Thomas the Hit Man Hearns and the Kronk Gym. You were a hard-edged city that would kick our ass if we looked at you wrong.

Now you’re a pathetic joke. No bailouts from the Government can help you now. I suggest you cut the entire team, coaches and executives, and make them re-interview for their jobs. At least the team will make it to the Hall of Fame, though it’s not in those cool yellow jackets. Those are reserved for winners. The NFL should make you a special trophy for your achievement.

Except you’d probably lose it, like you did everything else this season.

You should give your fans free home games next season, and beg their forgiveness for them supporting you after being so unbelievably crappy.

On the bright side, you’ve got nowhere to go but up.

A guy in New Bedford, in my home state of Massachusetts, nearly earned his way to the top of the Darwin Awards pool, when he got the brilliant idea to melt the ice off his back porch. Sounds innocent enough… guy lays down some rock salt in an effort to combat those icy patches that are the bane of every New England homeowner. No harm, no foul. But we all know that wouldn’t earn this genius a shout out vis a vis this blog. Nope. Our hero said, screw that Rock Salt crap. Besides, it might just damage the wood that his porch was chiefly comprised of. There’s got to be another way… Can you think of something else that melts ice, children? That’s right.

With the aid of a torch hooked up to a 20-pound propane cylinder, our plucky protagonist found out the hard way that fire will damage a wooden porch much more efficiently than rock salt. To put it mildly, the fire kicked the house’s ass to the tune of 30 thou. The blaze quickly spread to the second and third floors, causing damage as only fire can. The good news? He succeeded in melting the ice from his porch. The bad news? The 25 firemen who helped extinguish the blaze probably added more ice to the ashtray where the back of his house used to be.

Fortunately no one was injured in the blaze; surprisingly, alcohol doesn’t seem to have been involved. However, I just have to ask, how in the Wide World of Sports did this Einstein qualify for a mortgage?

Well, he may have a tougher time getting fire insurance in the future.

Burglary is never a funny thing. Unless it involves some jackass getting stuck in a chimney. Then it’s a little funny. It seems that Paris Hilton’s Hollywood Hills home was broken into by some loser in a hoodie and a pair of brass ones. The perp made off with over $2 million (gulp!) worth of jewelry and other items from Ms. Hilton’s boudoir. I can only imagine what those other items were, but I will bet they were skimpy, bejeweled and scanky. Jeezus. 2 million dollars’ worth of jewelry? Ms. Hilton’s obviously crack security staff called the cops around 5 am to report the break-in. If Paris doesn’t have an all-new security staff by tomorrow morning, she’s a bigger short busser than I thought.

Of course she’s got a pretty bad track record for responsibility.

Paris! You wipe your ass with money, thanks to being born. You have become a celebrity with no discernible talent, and have (had) millions of dollars worth of jewelry and a pink friggin’ Bentley! I’m no expert on anything, much less celebrities, but girlfriend, mix in a driver so you can get as shitfaced as you need to, and get a damn security system! You have a security staff, so that’s a start. But apparently they were about as good at doing their job as David Brown was at running FEMA. Again, I’m no expert… but I’m guessing your security retards may have been in on the break-in.
You’re a top-shelf celebrity. I mean, you did a Carl’s Jr. commercial, for cryin’ out loud.

Get yourself a bunch of mean-looking guys to watch your back and keep you from doing stupid stuff. And pay them enough so they don’t have to steal from you!

Or at least set your alarm.

The mysterious shadowy figure known as “Deep Throat” has died. W. Mark Felt, whose clandestine meetings with the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward helped pry the lid off the Watergate scandal and hipped us to the inner workings of the out-of-control Nixon White House, was 95 years old. Not 2 months ago, Gerard Damiano, the director of the seminal (stop me before I pun again) porno flick Deep Throat, passed away at 80. Creepy coincidence or not, it’s still damned interesting.

I always wondered why Mr. Felt chose that sobriquet. Today I realized why; Nixon did to the country what was done to Linda Lovelace often in the movie.

Bon Voyage, Deep Throat. Say Hi to Linda, Mr. Damiano and President Nixon. Even though you might not all be in the same place.