I'm on the NRA Blacklist. I signed up my very own self. I think that being on the blacklist of an organization whose goals I oppose is a good thing. I always wondered if my political beliefs put me on a blacklist during the Nixon years. I'm pretty certain that if John Ashcroft knew my name and ever stumbled across my other blog, the Peaceblog Project, that I'd be on HIS list with a bullet.

If you oppose ending the ban on assault rifles and other stupid ideas that the NRA is bullying the spineless morons in Washington to pass, then you should sign up to be on their list, too.

Here's the link.

NRA BLACKLIST

It's been a busy weekend here at Girlyshoes. On Halloween, we went out to dinner with friends, at a lovely little place that had a special, all-black and orange menu for the night. The stuffed squash blossoms (stuffed with goat cheese and chopped kalamata olives) were particularly delicious. The black risotto, not so. All was made good, however, by the arrival of our creme brulee with a spider web of spun sugar and a champagne flute full of reduction of blueberries. A snifter of brandy, and a seat outside, and the evening was complete.

Saturday we got up at the crack of oh dark thirty and drove downtown to participate in a little (totally voluntary) community service. It was Hands on Miami Day, and we pitched in with a couple thousand other like-minded individuals to clean up and spruce up and just in general make good various projects around Miami. My group had the pleasure of spreading mulch around about 200 trees in a seaside park on the north end of Miami Beach, in the still un-gentrified stretch between the hot forties, and the even hotter eighties.

Yesterday we did Dim Sum with my girlfriend and her daughters to give her a send off as she starts a 6-month commute to Philly. Then home and did all the household stuff we hadn't done on Friday night or Saturday.

And today, I'm back at the old same place, doing the same old same old. But tonight, I'm off to the triple digit street numbers north, to say good bye to another friend who has decided, by virtue of some random survey or another, to move to what the survey said was the hippest place in America: Austin, Texas.

I'd like to know how that survey worked, and who, exactly, took it. But since this particular woman has been channeling Martha Raye for years, and since you can buy cigarettes in Austin, I think she'll be fine.

Yesterday the train was packed on the morning ride. It was a sea of teal and black as folks flocked downtown to grab a spot on the curb for the Marlins' tickertape parade. Parents with kids and old people and business women who just happened to have chosen to wear a black suit with a turquoise blouse to work that day.

From somewhere behind me came a voice, a judgmental and carrying voice. "Where are these people's priorities?" the woman whinnied. "Why should these men be called heroes just because they can hit a ball? Why have a parade? Those men dying in (pause as she struggles to remember exactly where we've sent our men and women to slaughter and be slaughtered) Iraq, they're heroes, because they didn't want to be there."

Forgive me as I stifle a yawn. Au contraire, my humorless worker bee, every single one of the men and women in Iraq signed up for the privilege of defending our right to have a parade for baseball players. Maybe not in so many words, but there you are. In case you don't remember, America has a totally volunteer military. Not one person is there because they were conscripted. They may not have actually wanted to serve in a hot war, but they chose a career where that was a possibility.

And that begs the question, Madame, did you, if you think that the war in Iraq is a bad thing, did you write or call your legislator and voice that opinion? Did you vote in the last presidential election? Do you ever vote? Do you ever voice an opinion to the men and women representing you in Washington, who have the power to send those young heroes to war? Or do you just yap on the train, hoping to convince the world of your moral superiority, because you don't think a World Series deserves a parade.

Here's another question, you-who-are-too-serious-for-sports: would you rather your child be honored as an athlete, or a dead soldier?

When, as a nation, did we become so humorless? Is this grim reality a product of September 11, which the pundits claimed would put an end to irony forever? Or is this an outgrowth of political correctness, where all people must be equal, dammit, even if it means putting ballerinas in lead boots, and athletes in vision-destroying glasses.

That was the premise of Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions", which, I recall, I found tedious when I read it. Perhaps Mr. Vonnegut was more of the visionary and less of the burned-out hack I thought him to be. Maybe it's time to re-read that book.

In the meantime, get over it. Tell a politically incorrect joke and smoke a cigarette while you drink a martini at lunch.

My team won that night. I was sitting in the middle of a clutch of Yankees fans. Hmmm, not particularly gracious in defeat, that bunch. But then, my motto has always been "Obnoxious in victory, bitter in defeat.", which actually could be the motto of both the New York Yankees and the University of Florida Gators.

On Saturday, I watched the game with my 85-year-old father. Daddy summed up the experience when he said "The only thing that would have made this sweeter would have been to have the TV cameras on George Steinbrenner when his head blew up. You know he won't be sleeping tonight. He'll be up figuring out who to fire and who he can buy."

To all of the so-called baseball fans out there who complained that this wasn't the series the fans deserved, that they should have seen the Red Sox and the Cubs, I'd like to say: Bite my teal blue ass.

This was a great, a fucking great, a fucking great, classic World Series. The Marlins came from behind to get into the wild card race, and beat Philllie. They were down against the Giants, and came back in three straight to beat Barry Bonds. They were down against the Cubs, and came back in three straight to beat Prior and Woods, back to back, in freakin' Wrigley Field. Something that hadn't been done in over a year. They were down against the New York Yankees, the dynasty, the mythology, the big honking money and egos, and popular opinion and what did they do? They came back and beat them, in the greatest baseball cathedral in the world. They beat the Yankees in Yankee Stadium with Babe Ruth watching from Monument Garden. They played better, they played harder, and they played for the love of the game, because they were getting about 12 fans a game, and about minimum wage.

And I gotta say, too, and please don't make a liar out of me, Mr. Loria, that the owner, when he took the mic in the locker room after it was all over, sounded like an old time baseball guy. Like someone who loves the game. He thanked the fans, the coaches, the team, the manager, the staff. He grinned like a mule eating briars. He looked like a guy who isn't going to sell off the team so fast that by the time they get to the obligatory White House dinner, there won't be anyone left in a Marlins uniform who was on the field that night.

That's what Wayne Huizenga did, the bastard, and that's why the Marlins only get a handful of people in the park. Because we are STILL PISSED OFF.

And because it's a football stadium, dammit, no matter how many hot tubs you stick in the corners, and how many times you tell us it's really convertible to baseball. It isn't. It's hot. It's a cement funnel for heat. But that didn't matter to the fans at the end.

And what an end it was. That baby-faced, rocket-armed Beckett got the tag to end the game, the series, the season.

Damn, but I love this sport. And a thank you for some excellent reporting, Mr. Dan LeBatard, of the Miami Herald.

I'm going to my first World Series game tonight, and I am so psyched for this it's ugly. I'm wearing the lovely teal and black of my not-so-stinky Marlins. I have my official Marlins baseball cap. I'm wearing earrings best described as psycho-rainbow pirrahnas.



And I've made a sign to hold up as a shout out to all my friends in the Baseball Swap. It says, simply, GLUB!.

Why glub? Because the Tigers fan signs her e-mail with a roar. And what do fish say? Right.

I'll be in the right field foul corner, just above the Marlins' bullpen. Does life get any sweeter for a baseball fan? Yes, but only if we win.

GLUB!

You know it and I know it. All women love baseball. It's outdoors, there are no stupid pads to distract from the players, uh, charms, and it's almost like ballet. It's a great sport, and when the cameras pan the stands, who's out there but women and lots of them.

So why, then, are all the World Series ads directed at men? Viagra, Levitra, Ford F150 trucks, Hummers, beer and jock itch powders. Oh. And that ratty Fran Drescher ogling a Carson Kressley look-alike commercial for Old Navy. Tell me that's aimed at straight women? I think not. I think not lesbians, either. In fact, I'm not really sure who that ad is for.

The last time I went to Shea, the Mets PR group had it figured out. They sold baby doll shirts for women, hair scrunchies, scarves. Like that.

I tell you, I'd like to see some chick ads during the world series. Victoria's Secret ads. Perfume ads. Sports car ads that show women driving. And speaking of women driving, has anyone ever seen a man drive a Hummer anywhere other than in the commercials? Not me. I only see the ubiquitous soccer moms, with cell phones up to their ears and no visible children. Which raises another question: since when is soccer the American Child's sport? What ever happened to baseball and softball? Or even kiddie football? What spin meister figured out that the most ear-catching sobriquet for that particular market sector should be "Soccer Mom"? Are the Soccer Moms married to the NASCAR dads?

Why can't there be Soccer Dads and NASCAR moms? Are there even NASCAR moms? What do they drive? Ford F150s? Rusted out beaters because the old man ain't paying child support like he's supposed to? Ick. I don't even want to think about this.

What I do want to think about is how those hot baby fish are going to bounce back tonight and beat the snot out of those overpaid, overexposed, over confident big, bad Yankees. And what I'm going to wear to the game tomorrow night.

I tried, I really tried. I went to the gym and worked out for an hour, to raise my tolerance for dumb. I got home, pulled some freshly-made guacamole out of the fridge, opened a bag of blue corn chips and collapsed on the couch.

I watched as the poor, dumb schmuck David was schooled in how to address the butler. He couldn't do it. Not a nice boy raised in the Southwest, he couldn't. Anybody older and/or in a position of authority is addressed as sir. Except, the butler kept trying to explain that David couldn't call him sir. David's response to this? "Yes, sir. Oops, sorry, sir, uh, Paul..." and it trailed off as he bit down on that last "sir."

The girls, on the other hand, had no problems ordering the staff around and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. And smoking, lord love 'em, they are smokers. They also sleep really late, and bitched and moaned about having to get up at 8 in the morning, hung over. They come down to breakfast in sunglasses, discussing how they look like rock stars.

At the meeting where the joke is set up, they fall for it, hook, line and sinker (fishing reference for people looking for a comment on the World Series and the Marlins). The chick hostess says, the guy who wants to meet you is an American cowboy. This pushes buttons like you cannot believe. Someone says something like "We are European women, we do not think this is funny." The hostess says, "An American cowboy with an 80 million dollar oil inheritance." The girls think that this is no longer a joke, and start getting all slitty-eyed at each other, calculating what it will take to win the cowboy's heart.

Cut to the cowboy getting to pick out his own horse for the next part of the scam. Ladies, I am here to tell you now that he is more attached to that horse than he will ever be to any of you. He took longer to pick it out, and felt better about it, than he will ever feel running this scam. The horse is real. You women are not.

And that was when I realized that I will not be able to watch this train wreck, no matter how much I wanted to. It just isn't fun to watch raw greed and unscrupulous behavior on display. Unless it's national politics, and then, well, it's a little bit slicker.

So, Jodi, don't worry. I just can't watch it. I'm going back to VH1, and the Independent Movie Channel, now.