Unlike last year's 25-22 squeaker won by the Alumni, this year's spanking was closer to 48-22. I can't say exactly because even the referees weren't keeping score. But the alumni tacked on eight of nine splendid tries to the young boy's four. It was a great turnout and a terrific party afterwards that continued late into the night at the Temple Rugby house near campus on 16th Street near Oxford.
Five of my former players from Temple RFC 1989 when I coached showed up for the game and acquitted themselves with distinction, if not blazing speed. Like athletes in any sport, the first thing to go is the legs, but the last rugby skill to desert an old boy is the cunning. And the extra pounds don't hurt in applying the cunning to action.
Now, if we could only teach these young boys to sing.
]]> "I don't know whether to be touched or appalled by this. All three stations (make that four, including Channel 29) are covering the cop's funeral live. It started at noon. It continues even now. Dear God, they're talking about following the funeral procession to the cemetary in Bensalem.
"They're covering it like the funeral of a head of state. The full Catholic mass at the Cathedral with Jim Gardner (a hat) explaining the ritual. It's been raining hard in Philadelphia all morning. It's clearing now as they bring the casket out of the Cathedral. Bagpipes are playing, drums are drumming.Michael Nutter just looked at his watch.
"Inside the Cathedral the dead officer's son spoke. He said tonight is game one of the NHL Eastern finals between the Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins. He asked everyone in the Cathedral to sing the Flyers cheer with him loud enough that his father could hear. And then the entire Cathedral sang,'Let's Go Flyers! Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.' I honestly don't know what to make of this."
I still don't. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the whole thing. In life, I can't imagine Stephen Liczbinski ever dreaming that his death would cause Channels Six, Ten, Three and 29 to suspend their regular programming, includng the noon news, to cover his funeral. I didn't know Sgt. Liczbinski, but I'm sure he would be the first to laugh when I add, "but he's no Jack Kennedy."
Al, crusty curmudgeon that he is, replied quickly:
"Trying to attract viewers, and not be the guy that DOESN"T carry it. Plain and simple. Not that deep.
Sheepish, disingenuous bull shit. I know that's MY line of work these days. And I hate it. And everyone else."
Did Philadelphia really need all four network affiliates to devote close to two-and-a-half hours of programming for live coverage of a somber religious rite. The Pope's mass at Yankee Stadium didn't get this kind of blanket coverage. And I fear Al is right. It wasn't a decision made by four individual news directors who honestly believed it was in the public's best interests to devote this much air time to the funeral of a slain Philadelphia police officer. This over-the-top live broadcasting had the stink of cover-my-ass all over it. Nobody wanted to be the "guy" didn't do it. And it's not like each didn't know what the other was doing. "Oh, Jeez, if I had known three, six and ten were doing this I wouldn't have spent all this money and lost all that advertising revenue."
No, they did it because nobody would criticize them for doing it (except for guys like me and Al). They did it because they didn't know what else to do without appearing insenstive to a city's grief. They clicked into their default mode. They didn't want to be the only kid in class who didn't jump off the roof when the rest of their friends did. They didn't want to be the station who dared to air The Young and the Restless, All My Children, Days of Our Lives or Divorce Court like they do ever other weekday. Thank God Channel 17 didn't interrupt Jerry Springer. At least viewers had a choice between dreadfully off-key priests singing and shirtless hillbilly misogyny.
And then into the midst of this insincere media genuflection in front of the coffin of a murdered hero comes the son, Matt Liczbinski, doing a Flyers cheer in the FREAKIN' CATHEDRAL , for crying out loud. I didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Like I said to Al, I didn't know whether to be touched or appalled. Matt, who mentioned that he was 24 (and I know I wasn't the only one quietly doing the math -- Sgt. Liczbinski's 40th birthday was Tuesday) described his father as being the kind of father who could beat up any other father in the neighborhood.
This was a compliment. I understood that. But it sounded as dissonant and off key as the priests' singing,
Matt went with his heart, and I appreciate that, but no sooner had he said that than he led the hushed Cathedral mourners in a Flyers chant. And then he was gone. That was it. My dad could beat up your dad. Go Flyers.
And there were four TV stations capturing the honesty live.
And you know what the worst part is, for me, because it revealed something to me about the way I think. My immediate reaction was, "He just jinxed the Flyers." What a sorry asshole I am. But beyond that, it puts pressure on the Flyers. Someone asked me later, "Do you think the Flyers know?" Well, DUHHHH. We're talking live TV coverage by four network channels in a world where a snarky comment on someone's blog gets emailed to China within seconds. Yes, the Flyers know. And I'm sure they are as in awe of it all as I am.
What does it all mean? Stephen Liczbinski is the new Kate Smith? Will they win one for the Gipper? Will we forget that this Gipper wasn't Ronald Reagan dying quietly off screen but a Philadelphia cop torn in half by an assualt weapon fired by a burqa-wearing bandit whose family can't find a mosque willing to bury him. Is it fair to say that all this is unfair to the Flyers. I'm not talking if they lose. But what if they win?
God bless America, but I'd hate for a dead cop to be the lucky charm that wins the Stanley Cup.
]]>Three black men blow away a white police officer on a quiet corner in Port Richmond, one of the few ethnic enclaves in Philadelphia where the name Liczbinski sounds like the guy living in the rowhouse to your left or right. White neighbors rush to his aid, try to stop the bleeding, hear his last words, "Tell my wife. . ."
Yes, there is rage out there. And unspeakable hurt. The kind that makes grown men double over and sob in solitide, like Capt. Miller in a ditch in Saving Private Ryan. He wipes his eyes and goes back to his duty. And in the end he gets shot by the same German soldier he let go.
But nationally the image of Philadelphia police will again be on the news, not in heartbreak, but in brutality. And it's not fair, is it? None of it's fair. It's never been fair. But as a wise man once said, "we must learn to live with what we can't rise above." We owe it to ourselves, our children, and our city. We owe it to the family of Stephen Liczbinski. God bless his soul.
]]> Actually, Betty and I go way back -- at least two weeks -- when we started to work as actors in a movie about the incredible Ellen (that's the nickname for the museum featuring the works of the late Ellen Powell Tiberino, her husband, Joe Tiberino, and their children Raphel, Gabriel and Ellen, accomplished artists all. In the movie under production on weekends and whenever the cast and filmmakers can get together I play the role of a TV reporter (don't I look like one in the photo above) who is investigating the influx of clowns who have migrated across the Schuylkill from subterrainean caverns and sewer inlets in Center City where they practice their clown craft in
secret.
Betty plays a beautiful and gifted clown who can swallow two-and a half feet of a stretched out wire coat hanger and then bend her head forward and look you in the eye with the hook part of the hanger sticking out of her mouth. And people ask me why I like clowns!
With 10 minutes remaining in the match, Media found its offensive afterburners and rallied to within a single point. of the suddenly vulnerable red and black jersies. Brandywine turned away the yellow peril with a nifty drop kick between the uprights with two minutes to play, eliminating Media's possibility of winning on a penalty kick or a drop goal of their own (they had two in the match).
The boys from Brandywine are 15-1 on the season, their only loss being a 51-10 spanking at the Maryland Exiles.
]]>I KNOW PEOPLE, people who are friends of mine, white people who are friends of mine, who use the word nigger like you or I would say motherfucker or cocksucker. Which is to say not often, but often enough to recognize that we say motherfucker and cocksucker more often than we should. I miss a shot in a game of pool and I bark, "Cock-SUCK-er!"
Sometimes afterwards I apologize in front of women. But it's less of an apology than a "God bless you" after a sneeze. "Cocksucker." Sorry. "Motherfucker." Sorry. They're naughty words without the meaning of nigger.
To me nigger isn't only a bad word, it is the unreachable star of bad words. It is the Arc of the Covenant of the unspeakable. It is the frozen flagpole of tongue-worthiness. You could say that nigger is the new cunt but nigger was the old cunt as well. Nigger is a word that has frightened and fascinated me since I was old enough to know not to say it.
I guess my parents never had to tell me not to say motherfucker. They never had to tell me not to say nigger either. My mother set the tone. She was cultured. Academy of Notre Dame and Manhattanville College educated. She used the word jigaboos. Or jigs for short.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has reminded us why the word nigger will never go away. Not that he is one, but that he thinks I think he's one. He thinks that I go back to that secret society of white people and say, "Did you see what that nigger said?" And he's right in a way. Except that my secret society of white people is as public as Dirty Franks or the Daily DeLeon. And the words that I used to describe the Rev. Wright were, "Did you see what that nutcase said?" There was a nigger lawyer sitting to my left when I said it, and a athiest professor sitting to my right. Neither of them had to ask which nutcase I meant.
Jeremiah Wright, who has become the pedophile priest in Barack Obama's background -- "Why didn't you report this abuse the first time it happened?" -- flew over the cuckoo's nest on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. After a thoughtful and restrained appearance on PBS with Bill Moyers on Friday night in his first public interview since his famous "God damn America! God damn America!" video became the focus of one of his congregants presidential campaign, Wright allowed the Holy Spirit to reveal his true nature on Monday. And his true nature is pissed off. And not in a Jesus way. Jeremiah Wright is an Old Testament preacher, weaned on Hebrew prophets of doom, not redemption. In other words, a nutcase.
Curiously, while watching him speak I thought of Adolph Hitler -- and, yes, I am comparing Jeremiah Wright to Hitler, another nutcase (albetit a nutcase with one testicle) -- whose manner of speaking was more communicative than the words he used. Jeremiah Wright could have been speaking German, but I would have understood that he was pissed off and not going to take it anymore. And my understanding would have been just as nuanced as my understanding of Hitler speaking a language I do not understand. I didn't need to understand the language to comprehend the anger.
And for Barack Obama this was like presidential candidate John Kennedy hearing Fr. Patbottom explain why he likes altar boys.
What I found incomprehendible about Wright's remarks on Monday was his lack of Christian conscience regarding the impact of his statements on Obama. He knew exactly what he was saying -- nutcases aren't crazy -- and he said it anyway. As distrustful as he is about white America, sounding like a World War II great uncle raging about the Japs until the day he died, Wright did what black people distrustful of authority know not to do. He snitched.
In front of white people he revealed the Gordian knot of rage in the heart of so many successful African Americans. By calling the criticism of his remarks an attack on the Black Church he sounded like a Roman Catholic bishop describing the spiritual sanctity of a confessional booth equipped with a glory hole and saying it's no one else's business . It's a Catholic thing. You wouldn't understand.
Well it isn't. A black thing. A Catholic thing. An anything but American thing. Wrong is wrong, you nutcase. And now you may have poisoned the well for the first black man to have a chance to show this country that "it doesn't have to be this way." You have renewed white America's license to be suspicious. And believe me, I know how many white racists are racing around out there without a valid license.
Let me tell you a story: I was in a bar in South Philly having a terrific time talking to a funny guy I've known for years. This is a racist-friendly Irish bar where I am known to be racially sensitive. Which is to say that when they use the word nigger they look at me and smile. So I see a lot of smiles. This funny guy is telling me a story about this Iranian guy who has become his friend and at first I think it's a story about getting over false impressions or prejudice. But it turns out that the point of the story is that this Iranian guy broke off with a white woman he was dating because he found out that she had a child by a black guy.
The funny guy looks at me with a "YouknowwhatImean?" look and I reply, "Did I ever show you a picture of my granddaughter?" He sort of ignores my first mention and continues seeking my confirmation about the correctness of his and his immigrant friend's revulsion to the white girlfriend's unforgivable past. I persist. "Did I ever show you a picture of my granddaughter?" and something about the way I pull out my wallet to show him Daphne DeLeon's photo leads him to interrupt, "Don't tell me you've got a nigger baby."
And as happily as I could muster, I replied, "As a matter of fact, I do."
I haven't been back to that bar since. Not because of that. Not because I'm angry or hurt or bewildered or even disgusted. But if someone were to ask why, I suppose they would understand if I replied, "The chickens have come home to roost."
]]>
Luckily still-young Ponce happened upon some refreshing waters in Florida and became known as the conquistador who discovered spring break.
Prom Night for the rest of the DeLeons thoughout history has been a story of travail. There was Edwin Deleon's disastrous "Fort Sumpter Is A Happening Place" in Charleston, S.C. in 1861 and Daniel DeLeon's ill-fated "I've been drinking but I ain't Wobbily" IWW prom in 1913. My father, Harry DeLeon, graduated from Northeast High School in 1928 with a banner over the auditorium at the spring dance that read, "Just Think. In Another Year We'll All Be Broke."
Then there was my Junior Prom at Lower Merion High School where I wore a white tuxedo jacket and on my way to pick up my date I stopped by a friend's house to show off my duds and happened to lean against a freshly painted door. A freshly painted green door. In a white tux. A year later we missed all but a half hour of my Senior Prom because we had dinner at a formerly famous restaurant (Kona Kai) on City Avenue and due to a flood in the kitchen we sat for hours and our food wasn't ready when we walked out at 10:30. The waiter followed us out insisting that we pay for the meal that was presented to us in doggie bags. And we paid.
So when our children walked out the door from their proms I was prepared for anything ranging from catastrophe to cataclysm. Molly's Senior Prom was Friday night. Do you remember the traffic jam across Philaldelphia on Friday? It was like the Perfect Gridlock. So who do you think went to King of Prussia to get their hair done on prom day? (Hint: Molly and her friends from Little Flower High School) And who do you think arrived home with 10 minutes to dress before the limo arrived a half hour before they had to be at the prom or they'd be locked out?
And who do you think was totally freaked out? (Hint: Not Molly.) And she looked gorgeous. Even with the green paint stain on her gown.
]]>And now I've spoiled it by sharing it with you.
Am I a Dad or what?
]]>The plaque was cleaned and back in place by Tuesday afternoon.
]]>(Which goes back to my original observation that Obama didn't lose any votes by the uproar over those comments because he wasn't going to get their votes in the first place. In fact pollsters on election day said the "bitter" backlash was mentioned by exactly zero percent of people in exit polls across Pennsylvania.)
The big story, of course, is Larry Farnese blindsidng Johnny Doc in the First District State Senate race to replace Vince Fumo. I can't wait to see who claims credit for that piece of Philadelphia electoral alchemy. For the last two weeks it seemed like the entire Pennsylvania primary was brought to you by Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electoral Workers who sponored so many get-out-the-vote public service ads on TV that you almost forgot that Dougherty was, in fact, the leader of that union who happened to be seeking elective office.
Until more reasonable and prudent election analysis is forthcoming, I am going to insist that Dougherty's campaign was doomed by the bitter dago turnout in South Philadelphia.
Oh, by the way. While the Democratic race is being placed under the microscope -- why can't Barack finish this off; did Hillary's win only postpone the inevitable? -- let us not lose sight of the fact that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain still lost 12 percent of the Pennsylvania GOP vote to Mike Huckabee, a candidate who isn't even running Between that and the "bitter" Ron Paul voters, McCain lost close to 30 percent of the votes in an unopposed race.
]]>Pennsylvania has been in the spotlight for so long in this presidential primary, and so much has happened during that time, it's hard to remember when Hillary and Barack weren't stopping by the house for coffee every morning. This must be what it feels like to live in Iowa or New Hampshire every fourth year with candidates offering to shovel your walk. Pennsylvania voters aren't used to this sort of prolonged courting by presidential hopefuls. But we sure got a taste for it over the last six weeks.
When the Hillary Express and the Obama Tsunami arrived in the Keystone State back in March, it seemed like the news media had grown impatient with the primary election process. The talking heads looked ready to explode if this thing wasn't settled in Texas or Ohio. But since setting up camp in Pennsylvania the national media seems to have lost that anxious "get it over with already" edge.
Perhaps because of the quickening pace of embarrassing campaign disclosures, starting with the Obama's Chicago preacher's post-9/11 remarks followed by Hillary's Bosnian sniper recollection and culminating in the media-fueled contraversy over "bitter" small town Pennsylvanians. What future generations may remember most about the Pennsylvania primary may not be the outcome, or the manufactured gaffs, but rather Obama's ground breaking speech on race at the Constitution Center. YouTube has made that 37 minute address accessable to anyone with a computer, and I believe it will be the one lasting memory to come out of this six-week focus on Pennsylvania.
Unless Obama wins tomorrow. If the Illinois senator can pull off an Iowa-like upset in the face of unbudging polls that have shown Hillary leading consistently, if not in double digits, it will be the coup de grace for the Clinton campaign. Certainly the barking of the news media hounds will be deafening if Hillary loses in Pennsylvania and contuinues her campaign through the Democratic National Convention. Pennsylvania is Hillary's to lose, and she better not.
]]>It was kind of like that. I mean, when was the last time you spent three hours standing shoulder to shoulder with someone, lots of someones, you've never met before?
What, last week?
Well it's still new to me.
I'm headed down to the Obama rally at Independence Hall Friday evening. Hope to get some great shots.
]]>That is what they believe and they represented. And as jarring as their images are, as horrible as their taste, they chose the perfect place.
Free Tibet. Free the Fetus. Free us all. Stand up for what you believe.
]]>This entrepenuer said he staked out the southwest corner of 6th and Arch Streets across from the Constitution Center around noon and despite his corner being overwhlemed by Hillary-poster bearing enthusiasts, he managed to do a brisk business in Obamabalia such as T-shirts, buttons and longsleeve shirts reading, "He's Black and I'm Proud!!"
Despite being outnumbered something like 100-to-one (The Hillary people were organized out the kazoo) the Obama sign bearers seemed to co-exist harmoniously with everyone, including the anti-abortion protesters who showed up with eight foot-tall signs showing aborted fetuses magnified to the size of full grown men.
A block away the right to protest guaranteed by the Constitution was was being demonstrated by a group of about 100 people holding up "Free Tibet" signs with Independence Hall in the background. In the foreground was a large chest-high pale granite block with the words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abriding the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grieveances." Below that it said, "The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
Sometimes it all seems too good to be true.
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