Life, the universe and everything...No way out for A-Rod?...Bathroom humor

OK, we're going to get back to having fun with the blog. But first, I had an epiphany about blogs the past week, and it means I will be blogging like a fiend for the next month or killing Freddy's World once and for all. We'll see.

First, bear with me. I promise there will be some funny A-Rod stuff in a minute. But first, my epiphany:

My favorite thing in the world is writing fiction. More than poker, football, horse racing, spider monkeys, evil clowns and bathing in green jello.

I've gotten away from it recently for a lot of reasons, but that's about to change. So F World will either benefit or suffer.

I recently picked up a copy of The Salmon of Doubt, a collection of some of the final writings of the most brilliant writer ever, Douglas Adams.

Adams wrote the single greatest collection of books ever conceived: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. (One of my proudest moments as a father happened recently when Will started reading the series. He loves it. Smart kid).

Adams was uniquely brilliant. I had the great fortune to meet him once at a book signing. He was tired, clearly not enjoying it, but he was affable. (He was also one of the few people I have met outside the sports world who towered over me).

I am never impressed by famous people; I've been around them from the time I was a spud.

But I was too nervous to speak to Adams. I mumbled something about being inspired by his writing and wishing I was 1/1-millionth as talented and brilliant as he was.

He asked how important writing was to me.

I thought of the only clever thing that came to mind. I answered with a number.

"42."

He laughed, signed my book "to someone who has found the answer to life, the universe and everything, Douglas Adams."

(Read the books and that will make perfect sense. You'll also appreciate that all my goodbyes contain the phrase, "So long, and thanks for all the fish.")

The book was stolen from my car several years ago, which sucks, because Adams passed away far too young in 2001 at the age of 49. Whoever stole it took a bunch of CDs, and it just happened to be sitting on top. The book couldn't have meant anything to them and it probably ended up in a dumpster somewhere. Adams would have probably found that amusing.

I have had a great life and would only change one thing -- I wish I had gotten the opportunity to know Douglas Adams.

Adams was brilliant for a simple reason; he took sentences in directions no one would ever dare try. He wrote prose like he was writing a song. His mind was so brilliant and out there, he could try almost anything and it would work. He was an amazing combination of Asimov, Monty Python and Aristotle.

He would write a sentence like, "it hung in the air in exactly the way that bricks don't."

The great ones do that, like the truly great bands. The Beatles took the interior of their music in directions no one could; it was the key to their charm. Guns and Roses did the same thing. It wasn't the hook or the melody, it was the layers underneath that made the music unique.

They see on a different level; they write for the ethereal plane as well as the real world.

That kind of brilliance stands out. Some people appreciate the brilliance without understanding where it comes from. Some people understand it, but can't duplicate it.

Hence my epiphany. The Salmon of Doubt is a collection of essays, short thoughts, things Adams left behind that his editors found.

I hang on every word. Even letters about his childhood are brilliant.

They are blog entries before blog entries. I think how wonderful it would have been if Adams was alive and blogging. The humor, the insights...I can't imagine how incredible it would have been.

I can't do that. People will never hang on my words like that. So is this blog worthless? Is it a waste of time? Should I kill it?

Or should it be a place to keep mentioning the freaks? Keep honing my chops? Pull your entertaining comments into fiction? Use it to improve my writing?

I don't know. I will never play basketball like Michael Jordan, but I can still play and enjoy it.

I'll never write like Douglas Adams, either. No one ever will. I'll always enjoy it. But will anyone else?

So it's either Life, the Universe and Everything or So Long and Thanks for all the Fish for F World.

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While we're considering cosmic questions about the blog, please take a second to click on the ads. And please check out my examiner commentary before they decide I am not getting enough hits and decide to reassign me to Madonna Examiner.

Speaking of Madonna, her new wife, Alex Rodriguez, has become the biggest liar in baseball.

Madonna once starred in A League of Their Own, with the famous line, "there's no crying in baseball."

Good thing no one ever said "There's no lying in baseball."

A-Rod the Roid Freak has become the biggest liar on the planet. Every day, we find out something new.

My favorite is his mysterious cousin, "Yuri."

A-Rod has hired all sorts of PR freaks, consultants and lawyers to tell him what to say. One of them had obviously spent too much time watching No Way Out.

Kevin Costner turns out to be a Russian spy at the end. (Sorry if I spoiled it. It's 21 years old, if you haven't seen it by now, tough).

They created the mysterious Russian "Yuri."

Why not Kaiser Soze?

Million dollar consultants, and that's what you get? Bad Kevin Costner movie references?

Imagine how that meeting went.

Consultant 1: "Let's create a Yuri."

Consultant 2: "Yeah, but the fake cousin is supposed to be Dominican, not Russian."

Consultant 1: "What does it matter? We are making him up."

Consultant 2: "How will he look?"

Consultant 1: "Like this."


Consultant 2: "We can't use that."

Consultant 1: "Why not?"

Consultant 2: "That's A-Rod at spring training."

(OK, that was a long way to go for a weak joke. It's Friday. What did you expect?).

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We have the worst bathrooms in history at the station. They are cleaned about once a week, the toilets don't flush...it smells like the floor of a shrimp boat on a good day.

On a bad day, it smells like hairspray.

We have a sales person who apparently lives in his car. He's a kid, early 20s, short, weighs about 80 pounds.

Apparently he bathes in the sink, and spends a good 30 minutes each day grooming himself, complete with hairspray.

I'm not sure what brand, but whenever I walked into the fog cloud each morning, I long for the days of stale urine and unflushed floaters.

I finally said something today.

"Dude, what's with the cloud?"

"Yeah, it smells in here."

"I meant the spray."

"Yeah, that really helps, doesn't it?"

He then excused himself to bathe in an equally pungent cologne.

Next time, I'm flushing him.