“Nobody has ever lost basketball games in more novel settings than Klotz. He’s lost in a leper colony, on an aircraft carrier, in a bullring, a prison, the deep end of a swimming pool. He’s lost before kings and queens and four popes. He’s lost in 50 states and 117 countries. He hasn’t lost in … Read more
The trouble with the BMW 330i is that its been on top so long it’s always in danger of losing its mojo. When a car is this popular it runs the risk of appealing to flighty “high fliers” and flight attendants a little too much. At the risk of sounding last century, it is constantly … Read more
Molly, once a month with you is not enough I came across an internal memo from the Star Tribune today. It may show up in their Reader’s Rep column…or it may not. A reader of the Strib went to the trouble of counting the syndicated columnists that have run on the Strib’s Op-Ed page the … Read more
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I understand that much of this material –such as it is– falls under the category of inscrutable. Some have gone so far as to call it impenetrable. At any rate, I’m willing to acknowledge that the bulk of what I have to say is more … Read more
Tom Turkey Tim Turkey It was amusing to hear Governor Pawlenty’s State of the State message today start off with a discussion of turkey droppings and end with the biggest gobbler gunk of all: “And let’s make sure that courts can’t throw out our defense of marriage laws in Minnesota, like they have in other … Read more
A retired railroad brakeman named Eliot Show was cleaning his barbecue grill one afternoon when he inadvertently spilled a bucket of ashes and loosed a swarm of jinns on the neighborhood. A cleric who was later summoned for advice on dealing with the infestation informed the neighborhood council that jinns had long been disposed to … Read more
Puck was a man of huge appetites. I don’t mean the ones that made him prone to stroke, but the ones that made him figuratively larger than life. I knew Kirby, not well, but some. I helped report a little about the Twins when I was at City Pages. I played in his pool tournament … Read more
I’ve spent all night trying to find the words to describe the way I felt when I heard that Kirby Puckett was dead, and to describe what his life –primarily as a baseball player, but also as a complex, larger-than-life character– meant to me. Because he did mean something to me. He meant more to … Read more
Sad to hear about Kirby Puckett’s stroke yesterday. I happened to be building a fire yesterday afternoon, and had last week’s Times ready to crumple up into tinder. It was the sports section, which I have to admit I rarely read. Which is a shame because it’s lately gotten just as good and entertaining as … Read more
An actor for president? No way Americans would ever do that. Our old friend David Carr did a nice job of blogging from the Oscars yesterday. But perhaps his best observation was to simply quote George Clooney’s acceptance speech. In case you were watching a basketball game or something, here it is: “You know, we … Read more