Sex, Drugs. Sports & Whimsy

DATELINE: HUMOR!

In 1941 in the film Two Faced Woman the mercurial Greta Garbo changed her image. She went from the heavy-handed, temperamental queen of drama to the light-hearted bon vivant.

The personality change shocked audiences and fans. It also ruined her career and forced her into early retirement.

The advertisement and tagline for the last movie Garbo made was: “Garbo Laughs!”

Now we have a parallel event in Boston.

After the comedy of trade rumors and obituaries burying Rajon Rondo with all the aplomb of George Romero offering a new dawn for the dead, Rondo has re-emerged with a personality transformation.

He is now positively giddy. Might that be slap-happy, fans?

Emerging from a cocoon of five years in Boston, he came across as the light and carefree Rondo. He says his life has never been better and every day is a joy and thing of beauty.

It’s as if Clarence the Angel has made a visit to Rondo, or perhaps that was Jacob Marley coming early this season. In any respect, the press and media reaction was agog, overwhelmed by the new Rajon Rondo at the Celtics training camp.

“Rondo Laughs!” The Celtics ought to use it for this season’s refrain.

Yes, the first press conference of the new NBA season nearly had Rondo dancing around the court as Ninotchka, the commissar cutting loose.

Not even a visit to the dentist can deter the new Rondo (pictured), the sportsbeat writers’ dreamboy. He talks, and he laughs. The game is on.

Rondo ran around the first practice shirtless, letting those broad shoulders flaunt their contrast to his Scarlett O’Hara waistline.

The year before Garbo tittered, Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind swore she’d kill to achieve her ends. If that doesn’t put a chill into the Celtics front office, then they are not old movie fans.

After being castigated as an unpleasant sort, Richard Nixon transformed himself into the New Nixon. It won him election to the White House.

Of course, Watergate soon followed.

Pooh pooh to all that. We have a new Rondo, dedicated to the proposition that he is no longer moody or peremptory.

Though Boston laughs, Rondo may have the last laugh.

Research and polling reveals the shocking fact that Chad Ochocinco is the sixth most disliked player in the NFL.

To no one’s surprise among the worst cases, egregious in their flagrant bad boy lives, Michael Vick shares the top with Plaxico Burress. Occasional victim of rape charges, Ben Roethlisberger rounds out the top offenders.

Vick is disliked by 60% of the polled fans, and Burress is not far behind. Both have served jail time. Roethlisberger has 49% of disapproval. This is not unexpected.

The New England Patriots have managed to put on the most disappointing team in a decade during the off-season two of the top ten despised NFL players.

These are Albert Haynesworth and Chad Ochocinco. Now we recall that sexual harassment charges were filed against Haynesworth, but Ochocinco is merely guilty of being a serial tweeter and overly media savvy social media mogul.

To lump him into the crowd of criminal types seems a bit overboard. However, the idea that genius coach Bill Belichick signed two of the most disliked people in the game of pro football may be emblematic of how bad the season of 2011 is going.

The poll was taken before Albert Haynesworth starting fighting with one of the coaches on the sideline during the Sunday game with the New York Giants. Haynesworth and Coach Pepper Johnson had to be separated by NHL referee Bill Belichick.

Of course, Ochocinco is now in the company of losers like Tony Romo (#10 on the hit parade) who also seems only guilty of finding his face on the pages of the tabloids.

Carson Palmer, formerly retired Bengal quarterback who thought he might end up an endangered QB, went to the Oakland Raiders to try to improve his popularity. Sorry, Carson, it didn’t work. He is #8 on the all-despised list.

Ocho, however, remains a case of injustice. He has not played injured, has tried to play, wants to play, but has been a non-factor in the multifactorial Patriot scheme.

To be despised may be a good thing if you are into name recognition. After all, the old axiom was to make sure they spell your name right in the stories.

Alas, many an old grandmamma used to believe that you only had your name in the media twice: when you married for life, and when you died. Hated NFL stars would laugh out loud at that quaint notion.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

DATELINE: HUMOR!

The great oldtime movie Little Caesar offers many lessons to the NBA.

In it, the archfiend threatens authorities of society, “A little buzzard like you will never put cuffs on me.”

As he is plugged with machine gun fire, Edward G. Robinson as the tinplate gangster mutters his famous exit line. It sounds a bit like the NBA union squawking to reporters as the final ultimatum is tossed at them.

The players are now threatening to disband their union and charge the owners with a RICO crime. Can this be the start of RICO?

For those wondering, the acronym stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization act, a law against public enemies.

It’s hard to believe that billionaire owners are racketeers when they offer millionaire players a barrel of money.

For many living in poor economic times, the NBA thug union begins to give the slick greedy owners a run for the money on the racketeering veneer.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep straight who the real bad guy is. We often think of James Cagney as another infamous gangster, sneering about “You dirty rat,” as he fires his pistol with paranoic abandon.

We almost feel like the NBA players union and owners group are a shootout where no one is okay at the corral.

Someone will end up like the Clantons in Tombstone.

They may have been too tough to die, but die they did with their boots on.

The players union of basketball greedballs may die with their high-top kicks kicking the bucket of bucks.

Can this be the end of the NBA? With so much money at risk, we suspect that some form of basketball will find its way to a new league on a new day.

The days of high rollers and low ballers may be reaching the crescendo. In the final reel, like a 1930s crime melodrama, the little caesars will end up public enemies.

The scarfaced fans may throw the switch on the NBA electric chair. “Top of the world, Ma,” another bad guy cried out as it all exploded around him.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

DATELINE: HUMOR!

Not since movie character stars like S.Z. ‘Cuddles’ Sakall or even John Goodman has there been quite the big star character actor like Rex Ryan.

Fans may hope that Hollywood calls soon with a fistful of dollars and supervillain scripts, and that Ryan realizes his true calling is on the big screen. He should give up that stressful day job as a New York Jets coach in the NFL.

He could provide more entertainment playing the next James Bond villain, giving Daniel Craig a run for his Ferrari.

Ryan is making a Hollywood splash again, bigger than Fatty Arbuckle. He is acting up a storm in the new Adam Sandler movie. His thespian skills can be called remarkable as he plays both a lawyer and a New England Patriot fan.

Such method acting has not been seen since Marlon Brando stuffed his cheeks with Kleenex in The Godfather to achieve the effect that Rex Ryan gives naturally.

Ryan comes with his own personal body double for the heavy lifting parts of the role. We are sure Rob Ryan would be more than willing to do the stunts to keep his twin brother’s million dollar looks in tact.

Hollywood has lacked for generations the kind of big man like Sydney Greenstreet as the Fat Man in The Maltese Falcon.

Who could play a better Babe than Rex Ryan? We mean Ruth, of course, not the pig.

John Belushi and John Candy are gone, thought irreplaceable until Rex Ryan came to light.

From comedy to tragedy, Ryan has already shown his range in every press conference with the New York Jets.

After his debut role in the forthcoming Sandler film, Ryan is talking up his Oscar chances. Not since Barbra Streisand won her gold statuette on her first movie has there been a buzz like the one building for Rex Ryan.

We urge Rex Ryan to expand his talent and let loose the leash football places on him. Hot-foot it over to the Other Coast, Rex. Hollywood awaits you with legendary fame and fortune.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

DATELINE: HUMOR!

Before you emblazon New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski’s bare chest with that scarlet letter, you’d be advised to hear the plausible deniability.

Yes, the pornstar in question, self-proclaimed adult film star and hard worker Bibi Jones has regretfully noted to Boston media that nothing happened between the hulking mass of masculine pulchritude and the sleight of hand young adult film star in a hotel room in Arizona over bye weekend.

If you believe her, you likely believe there was never alcohol in the Red Sox dugout. The two young stars discussed how to increase Gronk’s Twitter following during their contretemps in the rented room.

When handsome bachelor allows tweets for tweeters that include photos of himself, stripped down, in an Arizona hotel room with a young woman known for working her tail off, you may lose some credibility. One way or another.

No, Gronk says he is not a gronker. No, Bibi never imbibed him. Jones later indicated she did not even have Gronk’s number to arrange another conference. She did get his number on the Patriot jersey.

Remove that sign “for unlawful carnal knowledge” from above the Gronkowski locker at Gillette Stadium. You can leave the “Me, Gronk” sign there.

Not since President Bill Clinton told the world that he did not have relations with that woman named Monica Lewinsky have we heard a better cover up.

Gronking to the full extent of the law is not a sin we can place on Rob Gronkowski. Those stains on his Patriot jersey came from playing touch football out on the grass.

Unfortunately for Gronk, he must dress in the media infested lockerroom of life, where all his blemishes are open sores to the world.

Miss Jones wishes it were so, but it didn’t happen. So far Rob Gronkowski has not been caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, the old yardstick of scandal.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

The Monster has escaped from the laboratory, and no NFL team is safe.

Yes, fans, Tim Tebow has won a game against one of the worst teams in the NFL, the hapless out-of-water Dolphins.

Lightning has brought the football creature to life, and now football fans will have to endure endless sequels as the Monster will meet and beat Dracula and the lifeless folks over in Bon Temps, Louisiana.

And that means a rampage of media slaughter over at ESPN.

Already the legend of the foggy bog has combined with Dr. Frankenstein’s creation to give us the new Bigfoot of the Gridiron, Tim Tebow.

Tebow’s detractors have been sent packing faster than you can say, “Find me another body part in the cemetery.”

Fleet of foot and lumbering of gait, this creature looks like a quarterback whose hands have been attached on at the wrists with Velcro.

Like the original creature created by Mary Shelley, Tim Tebow is a literary masterpiece, thrown together by writers with bylines and radio blabmeisters with an axe to grind.

The jury may still be out on Tebow in terms of the meaning of his hubbub. However, once the fate of football settles in, we may expect that crowds of fans will soon be at the gates with pitchforks and torches, ready to throw Tebow to the werewolves.

Tim Tebow may be tilting at windmills with a victory in Miami, but he is no purveyor of the Impossible Dream. Fasten your seat belts, Bronco-busters. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

DATELINE: HUMOR!

Another lucky individual has escaped the curse of being on the Red Sox in 2012.

Curt Young will no longer be a member of the coaching staff of the Boston Red Sox.

Pitching coach Young received more disrespect from his starting rotation than just about anyone in Major League Baseball history.

The faint praise heaped upon him by everyone from Jon Lester to Clay Buchholz may have sped his signing with his favored old team, the Oakland Athletics, where his kindly personality and attempt to treat adult men as adults seems to have won accolades.

In Boston a group of man-children seemed unwilling to act like men and acted out the adolescent attitudes of a Texas cowboy. They made the clubhouse at Fenway their personal saloon.

Josh Beckett and John Lackey have become the epitome of overindulgent bullies who stuck together to the detriment of their team.

Along the way they dragged Buchholz and Lester. Of the foursome only two may return to Boston unscathed by fan scorn.

Already the Sox are shopping Lackey, and if the chips fall where they may, Josh Beckett may be a goner too.

The treatment of Curt Young by the four major starters was disgraceful and an affront to baseball dignity. The Three Blind Mice of ownership treated him better, did not fire him, and let him find another job within 24 hours of his request.

If there ever needed to be a wakeup call to men of all ages that adulthood means putting childish habits behind them, the lesson of the 2011 Red Sox was that case.

Lame, inadequate young fans in Boston still defend the beer guzzling, disrespecting louts. They may never grow up, and their attitudes may more accurately depict the problems of American society in the 21^st century.

The Red Sox prove to be merely a symptom of bigger fish caught with a hook in their crop.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

DATELINE: HUMOR!

After winning two World Series and serving eight years, Theo Epstein discovered leaving Boston is not sweet sorrow.

The cold Red Sox announcement late on Friday night in October simply noted that “Mr. Epstein” would join the Cubs.

There were no thanks, but plenty of no thanks for Theo.

If you want to gauge how snippy the Red Sox ownership is, this is only the latest test of character they have failed miserably.

After years of good press and bonhomie, the principal owners of the Red Sox have emerged from the shadows of their Green Monster as less than stellar personalities.

They are vindictive, mean-spirited, and foolish.

They smear departing employees, have no gratitude for hard work and cannot recognize sloth on the field. They cower at bullies on the pitching staff and suck up to snide players who gain weight, refuse to play doubleheaders and laugh at the cheap bribes Mr. Henry gives them on his yacht.

This fall has been the fall of all-time for this Red Sox ownership who have ruined the team and set forth a nuclear winter of baseball that has not been seen hereabouts since the dark days of the early 1960s when Billy Herman and Pinky Higgins showed what jokes could be played at Fenway.

We fully expect the next ones out the door will be the owners themselves. Having saved Fenway Park from the wrecking ball, and energized it and the fans for most of the 21^st century, they are leaving a legacy of horror in their wake.

The sellouts at Fenway are in the owners’ box, and they may not be found at the box office next season.

These owners should sell the team and leave unceremoniously. We only fear that their professed love for the Red Sox may be as hypocritical as their tenure.

What follows may be dark night after the long day. Woe to the Red Sox and their fans. We still have the Three Blind Mice.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

Patriots Paul Revere and Tom Brady.

DATELINE: HUMOR!

The super Patriot of 21^st century has found the super patriot of 1776 did not ride by his fancy Beacon Street house to announce the Jets were coming.

The lovely townhouse residence in the middle of historic Boston was nowhere near the route taken by Paul Revere to get out of town fast one night in 1776. Tom was also shocked to learn that Paul Revere rode north to Lexington, not south to Foxboro.

Tom Brady originally thought that George Washington had slept there in the spare bedroom, and the possibility made him a better Patriot.

Now Brady’s dream house in Brentwood is nearing completion and makes this Beantown bachelor pad look like a foreclosure on the northside of Las Vegas.

Tom Brady is trying to unload his white elephant of a mansion on Beacon Street in Boston. The property has been listed at fire sale price of $10.5 million.

Something must be rotten in Boston because this is the second time the happily wedded superstars Tom and Giselle have tried to move out of this oversized crib.

The master bedroom features the usual his and her dressing rooms and a bathtub in which you may dock the Queen Mary. There are also separate vanities for those whose vanity is so strong that they need to be isolated from the other half.

The modest home is actually a greystone amid brownstones, which was the popular home living in the 19^th century.

Alas, the house features poor onstreet parking, and if you are not careful, some fool will run a stoplight nearby and collide into your leased gift car.

Whether noise or proximity to bars is leading to Tom’s decision to take his hausfrau out the neighborhood could be related to the infestation of college students that frequent the area.

Mortgage payments must be eating up Tom because he is now lowering the asking price to $10.5 million, down a half mill from a lack of interest.

No offer will be overlooked, and no word has been offered on where Tom and Gisele may open their next local digs. After Manny Ramirez left the neighborhood several years ago, the neighborhood hasn’t amounted to a hill of beans in Beantown.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!

Carl Crawford and Theo Epstein, Orphans of the Storm!

DATELINE: HUMOR!

Sometimes a child feels like he was not wanted by his parents, or that he is so alien from his guardians that they cannot possibly be related to him. A child may know he is not the favorite of his father.

Now, as a full-fledged millionaire adult, Carl Crawford of the Boston Red Sox has now experienced those feelings. His owner, John W. Henry, principal owner of the Red Sox admitted that he didn’t want Crawford, but the baseball people overruled him.

That makes Carl Crawford the poor little rich kid of the Red Sox. He becomes the unwanted child born to old parents. He becomes the “accident” of poor timing.

Unfortunately for John Henry, he cannot put Carl Crawford up for adoption. No other team in the league wants a pampered and overpaid spoiled brat playing in their backyard.

Henry has also divided his own house so that players like Crawford and Gonzalez will inherit the wind. Fenway Park is now like a creepy mansion in dark shadows.

Carl Crawford may turn out, like David Copperfield, to be the hero of his own life, or he may end up like Lillian Gish as another Orphan of the Storm.

If any Red Sox player thought there might be a Hall of Fame in his future, the amount of cholesterol in the fried chicken and beer may have tipped the scales toward being an orphan of baseball in their retirement years.

John Henry has turned Carl Crawford into extra dessert you shouldn’t have eaten. “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” will be Henry’s complaint to the fans on his next impromptu radio appearance.

Well, John Henry, you did eat the whole thing, and you may now have to eat the whole contract too.

We don’t know whether billionaire Thurston Howell, III, and his wife Lovey owned a baseball team in Boston or F.C. in Liverpool, but they certainly did not have to pay child support to a grown man who cannot pull his own weight like the Green Monster that Henry has created.

Crawford will run rampant around the Boston countryside, like the Frankenstein creature of baseball for six more years.

Carl Crawford may feel unloved and unwanted in Boston over the duration of his contract, but he can always throw a temper tantrum and demand a trade.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!