It is with a heavy heart today that I take pen
to paper… and by that I mean fingers to laptop; just another phrase that, given
modern technology, has come to represent something that doesn’t exist anymore.
Other phrases include “dialing the phone” or “trusted
college coach”… but I digress. The world
lost a great comedian yesterday as Patrice O’Neal passed away at age 41 due to
complications from a stroke. If you’ve
never had the chance to see his stand up just take a moment and google The
Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen or go online and buy his CD “Elephant in
the Room” as proceeds will go to his surviving wife and daughter.
And while I know you come here everyday for my unique take
on sports, NFL picks and comedy it is moments like this that make me even stronger
in my conviction of every joke I tell.
And while some people continue to be offended by my jokes about the
holocaust, domestic violence, and the ridiculous adjectives of political
correctness that people think bring us closer together when all they do is give
us something else to waste our time with when all that really matters is being
alive. It is moments of pause like this that make me more sure of what I am
saying with each.
And while some may be offended when I use nicknames like
Curtis “I’m the biggest failed” Painter since Hitler and Matt “reading ain’t my
thing but hitting bitches is my” Forte, the point of these nicknames are not to
make you laugh as you say wow wasn’t the holocaust great or isn’t it funny
hitting women; No, we are laughing at the very opposite whether we realize it
or not.
That, as the Buddhists tell us, this world is born of
suffering and the very essence of this life is this body which not only is put
here with the end result being death, but in between ties us to so many fleeting
physical desires. And the real secret in
life is not laughing at what is easy and crying at what’s sad - that is boring,
easy and dare I say a lazy waste of time.
No my friends, the secret to living is crying with tears of joy and
laughing in the face of tragedy and that is what I ask you to do with every
joke that comes out of my mouth and every statement that hits this blog.
So when I do jokes like “John Fox is a modern day OJ Simpson
as they’re the only two people that have ever made such amazing escapes using a
slow white Bronco” and “the Raiders may have won this week, but their offense
looked anemic as they needed six Sebastian Janikowski field goals to do it—the
last time I saw a white guy do that much desperate kicking out West I wasn’t
watching football, I was watching Rodney King. At least the black ones came out
on top this time.” I am not saying any race is better than the other; I am
pointing out how laughable the people that believe that always inevitably
appear.
All my jokes are an attempt to make you laugh in the all too
brief time you’re here on earth while reminding you of just that. And that is why I love writing for the
SBRForum site as—while many people think gambling to be a vice—so long as you
bet with your head not over it, as the saying goes, I dare say gambling is so
much more that the useless money we bet.
Gambling is a way of reminding us how precious every moment is. While so many “regular” people had gone to bed
Monday night as the Saints finished their pummeling of the New York Giants—I can tell
you my fiancée sat glued to the TV screaming for the Saints to bring in Kasay
for a FG to give her a win and the #1 playoff seed in her fantasy game. Welcome to world of gambling Angel, whether
you love it or hate it, it mirrors the most basic lesson this life has to
offer, there is no greater rush we get when we find meaning in every single
moment, especially those mundane moments everyone else takes for granted.
Patrice O’Neal was a brilliant man who also reminded us of
that very same thing.
Speaking of tragedy - Geno’s Picks is up Friday and I am
back tomorrow with more football.