Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Brady's baby.

Hugging the pigskin, but not the baby.

by Kevin John Sowyrda



I don't' know where Tom Brady's been hiding, but I do know where his baby is and where the father isn't. Tom's baby is the little secret of Boston society which apparently no reporter will have the temerity to querie the Patriot's Quarterback on, who at this precise moment in time has been elevated in status comparable to that of God, or maybe the next best thing.

Quite Frankly, before leaving Bean Town on Sunday, had any Bostonian seen Pope Benedict walking between them and Tom Brady, His Holiness would have had hoof prints on his face as crowds stampeded to view the third coming of Christ; New England's ace quarterback, part-time hunky male model, and father in absentia.

The 'B' word (baby) not withstanding, Tom's not just at the top of his game, he's at the top of the world. Sir Edmund Hillary never saw heights like this, and it probably doesn't get any better in the world of fame and acclaim and adoration. If the broad smiled Tom announced for president on the Democratic side today, Bill Clinton would probably beg to be the campaign manager and Mrs. Obama would likely jump on board to write the ads. Really.

In this uber sports compulsive town...make that uber sports compulsive nation.... where jocks are literally worshipped like Buddha, Tom Brady is a jock's jock, pure as the white driven snow. New England's Q.B. loves his pig skin, tosses it better than anyone ever has, and makes us feel just a little bit better about our boring lives as we live extemporaneously through him, dazzled for some ridiculous reason because the boy from San Mateo, California can run fast and throw.

But with all do respects to the Pontiff of pig skin, where the Hell is the little bundle of joy? And, why can't we just ask the following questions at those Foxborough Press conferences where I've learned more about the Human groin than I thought possible outside the marbled edifice of Harvard Medical School.

How about 90 year old sports reporters like Bob Lobel putting the cards on the table with the following inquiries at the next sports gaggle, where Tom likes to sport that winter cap despite the pressing 100 degree temperature of all the klieg lights.

"Excuse me, Tom, but as you're someone whose a phenomenal role model to young people everywhere, can you tell us what you are doing to play an active role in your new baby's life?"

or,

"Excuse me, Tom, but since the paparazzi would not have missed your jetting off to California anymore than they'd miss Martians landing in Central Park, can you tell us why you're spending zilch time with your son?"

or,

"Excuse me, Tom, but since women are a huge constituency to the Kraft financial empire, where the football team franchise is now the crown jewel, can you tell us if they might start to be turned off a little were the press to remind them that after making a baby on one coast, you quickly jetted off to Europe with super model what's-her-name from an airport on the other coast? Is this how men should treat women and is this how the young men in American high schools should behave when it's their turn on the gridiron of modern romance?"

But the Q and Q we're exposed to is instead, dreadfully oblivous to Brady's painfully obvious flaws. How will you trounce the Giants, is the ankle a problem, and when was the last time you actually saw your jet-set super model Gisele Bundchen eat?

But in my playbook of old fashioned values - they being that paternal responsibility is equal to maternal responsibility - Brady's Achilles heel going into the football game of the century is hardly his ankle. It's his broken relationship with his son and his Clintonian narcissism that turns me off even more than the duplicitous Boston press corp which is needlessly mesmerized by six feet, four inches and 225 pounds of impish immaturity.

So pretend, if you will, how things would be different if.......Tom Brady were Black. Let's say our star Q. B. was, shall we say, Vince Young of Tennessee Titans fame. Can you imagine the typical Bostonian reaction? I can almost visualize the Bill Cosby tour de force on yet another example what he would call the broken Black family. Then then there'd be the columnists, chirping away accordingly.

And I'll bet you a year of tolls on the Tobin that last Saturday's Boston Herald page one would have been a little different if Brady looked like Young. Instead of that comical photo of Tom Brady posted as a milk carton missing person, it would have been a likeness of Young's baby with some editorial about what a bum this guy is.

But Brady's no bum, atleast not from the Bostonian point of view. He's very pretty, very preppy and very white. If he's not sending the baby hugs and kisses that's no problem; as long as the public doesn't see him on one of those dead beat dad posters.

On Sunday, baby John Edward Thomas Moynahan will be about six months old. His Dad's the undefeated quarterback going into the Superbowl, but the poor kid can't even get a ticket to sit with his grandparents and be hugged by his dad when the Patriots bring home the big win.

File under pathetic.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

NH PRIMARY

Romney's Wrinkles
by Kevin John Sowyrda
Reporting from New Hampshire

Maybe the hair was just too pretty, the boys too pretty, the wife too pretty, the Belmont
Mc Mansion too pretty or the manse at Lake Winnepesaukah too pretty. Maybe it was hurling the dog Seamus on the station wagon roof for a half day sojourn to Ontario. And maybe it was none of the above.

Maybe voters in New, New Hampshire decided that a veteran Republican whose also a decorated veteran was a better bet than a nouveau rich Republican who just seemed too decorated.

In the end, the history book on Romney's evaporating presidential ambitions will showcase the following key chapters of discontent and old fashioned arrogance.

Chapter One - Romney should have scheduled a sit down with Dr. Phil. Broadcast on the airwaves or not, some form of intervention was required for a man who is unquestionably clinically homophobic. If you Google 'Mitt Romney Gay,' you'll get about 451,000 hits. I kid you not. Do you think the Mormon Bishop was a bit obsessed with a certain subject?

Based on empirical data from an event on January 14th, in a state with as many steepled churches as fat and happy cows, the Romney social agenda sold about as well as what the fat and happy cows leave behind in their trail. Even Governor Huckleberry Finn.....whatever.... an unabashed Baptist preacher for Christ's sake........didn't lash out at Gay people like our x-governor.

Lesson learned? When right wing social issues don't sell even in Iowa - even in Iowa - you know that political figures like Romney are as out of fashion as Greg Brady's bell bottoms.

Chapter Two - Think twice before you pick two certifiable political hacks to run your campaign. For Romney, two princes of the blood in his imperial Romanov-like family were Eric Fehrnstrom and Beth Myers; both top operatives in the campaign according to the Washington Post. The "evil twins," as one Beacon Hill Democrat used to call them, are perfectly infamous for running the Massachusetts State Treasurer's Office exactly when nine million dollars was embezzled. Fehrnstrom was the deputy treasurer at the time as was Myers the chief of staff. Of course, they were never implicated and knew nothing at all about what was going on. Really. They also knew nothing about New Hampshire.

Chapter Three - Hypocritical pontificating will get you no where. During heated debate exchanges with Senator McCain, Mitt Romney hurled insults at the senior senator regarding his authorship of the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, co-written with Senator Ted Kennedy in 2005. It was only out of gentlemanly generosity that McCain didn't remind Romney that while he, McCain, was trying to address the issue of illegal aliens, Romney was employing them to cut his grass.

Chapter Four - Given his 61 years on the planet, one might have expected some semblance of consistency from the corporate chieftain who knew how to make money by buying out companies and laying off trucks loads of workers, and I don't mean illegal ones. But Romney didn't know how to make up his mind. He flipped and flopped on core public policy issues more than that fish I caught at Castle Island this summer, and it hurt him more than he was ever counting on.

Chapter Five - When searching for a political pinata to pulverize, choosing something other than your own state would be a great idea. Forget the given that Massachusetts voters were somewhat irked when the incumbent governor Romney used Massachusetts as the negative punch line when traveling to venues far from Beacon Hill. Observers from bordering New Hampshire may have also seen that routine for what it was - classless and un presidential.

Chapter Six - Never, never, never lecture a war hero on leadership. You might as well try to beat Tiger Woods in an eighteen hole golf game. Though the final Republican debate in New Hampshire was spun as Mitt's triumph, I saw it as his ultimate demise in the Granite State. After Romney sermonized about his executive leadership skills, McCain shot back with his resume of leading a jet fighter squadron; which clearly triggered sympathetic thoughts of the senator's five years in a P.O.W. camp.

And finally, this epilogue to the Mitt Romney campaign book. Though he's stubbornly not ready to throw in the towel, Mitt's starting to look wrinkled. It's sort of like his dad before him, George Romney, who ran for president in 1968 until his three month fledgling campaign folded after Romney senior claimed he had been brainwashed by the military.

Romney junior, now tired, frumpled and electorally bashed, was never himself brainwashed; just the voters who supported him who are now drifting away, having come back to their senses that McCain's the best bet for the G.O.P. in November.