Brendan and Brian Burke. And Me.

Let’s hit the links.

Yesterday, ESPN’s John Buccigross posted the Brendan Burke story - as was to be expected, the article has been passed around on Twitter like  it’s running a five-on-three powerplay.  As a result, I’m back in the mix (“the mix”, being the 286 comments received on my gay slurs article for USA Today).

I did an email interview on the story for Yahoo! hockey blogger “Puck Daddy” (Greg Wyshynski).  You can check that out here.

Also, I responded via email to a Buccigross question – he’ll be running that response later today, and of course, that’ll be up on here when he puts it up.

For my Canadian readers, I’ll be going on CBC’s primetime show “Connect with Mark Kelley” if one of the Burke’s are unable to make it – that’s at five o’clock today.  All I can say is, I’m cut out for radio today, not TV.  I look like I got lost in the woods, found and drank some grain alcohol, fought Manny Pacquiao, then slept in a ditch.  In reality, I just haven’t shaved in a week and couldn’t sleep because of late-night rec hockey.  …and I may have had a Stella or two.

***AMENDED*** – Apparently, it IS for TV.  Five o’clock Arizona time on the CBC.  I just scraped a razor over my dumb face, and will be heading to the studio in a bit, if the CBC can track down a willing partner in this.

And again, I received further confirmation in my inbox today that, yes, I am indeed a “flaming homo”.  So… I’ve got that going for me.

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Since I’m receiving a bit of an influx in the ‘ol number-of-hits category today, I thought I’d direct some first-time Bourne’s Bloggers to a few things I wrote that managed to not suck.

*An inordinately serious column on leaving the game of hockey, for The Hockey News

*The “How I Met Your Mother” of Bourne’s Blog.  The story written for Islanders Point Blank on how I ended up engaged to Clark Gillies daughter, Brianna.

*And the story of how I ended up being a writer, for The Hockey News – I’m having trouble getting their site to work right now, so you can find it as the bottom article on this page.

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So that’s all you get today, friends.  Looking forward to more feedback, and when the ESPN bit gets posted, you’ll be the first to know.

The Land After Time

I stumbled onto a massive discovery.  In trying to run some early morning errands, I had to kill some time waiting for the bank to open.  I went to the mall, only to see a sign saying that the stores weren’t open there either.  Yet people were still walking into the place.  Old people.

If we could mine the precious deposit of old people that were in the mall before it opened we could start a nursing home.  They were everywhere.  Alone, in couples, men, women, with ipods and walkmen, jogging shoes and stretchy pants.  They were using the closed mall as a big track to walk laps around.

Hundreds of them.

I took a few steps in and got caught up in the current… it all made sense:  Air conditioning, nicely sanitized tile, a food court (with a cafe that opens early to cash in on these clunkers), and it occured to me:  this is exactly the same thing I used to do when I was 12, with my friends.  We’d go public skating, move around in a big circle, be social, listen to music, and grab a hot chocolate from the concession stand. 

The ciiircle of life…….. it’s a wheeeel of fortuuuuneeee…  What a discovery.

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Green Bay Packer Nation probably owned a collective 23 rafillion Favre jerseys.  I’m not proposing that the “Favre goes WWE villain and switches teams” moment wasn’t genuine, but how much money do you think they made selling new GB Pack jerseys to slighted fans who didn’t wan’t to wear a jersey with “Arnold” on the back anymore (read: Benedict)?

And how many Rodgers jerseys have they sold?  This guy could be the best QB in the league this year.  How well timed was his rise to prominence right when Favre basically tore down the un-built statues of himself in Green Bay?

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Does anybody else think that the mom and kid in the AT&T rollover minutes commercials have a priceless chemistry? (Can’t believe I’m about to run an AT&T commercial after they grinded me for $43.57 as a broke freshman in college, but it really does make me laugh)

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But if there’s a set of commercials you have to watch, it’s ESPN’s “this is SportsCenter” commercials.  Spend some time on YouTube.  I still love this one:  “…that was a poor effort”

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Scott Van Pelt is priceless.

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I’ll link to my take on the Phoenix Coyotes situation later today or tomorrow…  I know you need your hockey news fix.

In the meantime, I have a light-hearted article up on www.hockeyprimetime.com -- my thoughts on the experience of sharing a cold tub with another dude after a hockey game.

Also, tomorrow:  The first of a series of video blogs on the upcoming NHL season.

Bloggy bag – Today's leftovers.

The back page of Sports Illustrated was something that for many years sports fans knew and loved.  Most males who had 6 minutes to spend in a waiting room grabbed the most recent SI, and read ‘”The Life of Reilly”, Rick Reilly’s sometimes funny, always smart piece on not sports, but people in sports.  Well what in the name of Christmas is going over there at SI? This has seemingly been the worlds longest tryout of inadequate candidates for any job (unless you count the previous two presidential elections).  I suppose it takes time to build the credentials and gain the experience and yadda yadda whatthehell? You’re kind of a well known sports magazine over there guys. I understand Rick wrote some tear-jerkers, but this semi-sappy carousel of pseudo-serious articles is more disappointing than getting your bag of McNuggets home to find no sweet and sour sauce.  I’m over it.  ESPN, you have my attention.

Random: In the pit of a particularly glaring college hangover, myself and two roommates made our way to a McDonald’s to grease the engines with some sustenance. I remember taking a bite and uttering “this sweet and sour sauce is spicy…”   NO.  No.  No it wasn’t.  It may have been sweet, it could have possibly even been sour.  The name of the sauce is two describing words, and I nailed neither of them.  Wow Bourne.  Lock it up.

I think I need to talk about the documentary I just watched.  I know I hinted at a movie ratings system, but hold on to your hats, it’s still in the developmental stage (read: received 0 seconds thought).  I have some time to kill, what with the wired mouth, pain meds and no car here in Boise, so I rented 7 documentaries on Thursday. I went through them faster than Winehouse does blow.   30 hours, 7 shows.  Yeah.   That.  Just.  Happened. 

Random: If you time the pain meds just right, every nature show is amaaazing, I assume because I’m duller than a two-use razor at Robin Williams house. Planet Earth, for example, gets 11 of whatever it is i’m going to award for awesomeness points (which won’t be awesomeness points. Those aren’t awesome.)

STONEHENGE: DECODED

Thenarratorhadalisp.  Sorry, I couldn’t get that out there fast enough.  The narrator had a lisp.  Still does, I assume.  Talk about things that warrant a “That. Just. Happened”.  You know why?  Because it did. I was there.  I sat there, and used my ears, to hear the sounds coming from the speakers, which in turn relayed messages and information.  From that information, I discovered, that some of the stones in Stonehenge can  ”weigh up to 45 tonth”.  Ohhhh, boy.  Let’s be clear here, I’m not making fun of speech impediments; hell my teeth are wired shut.  On the other hand, I’m not exactly handing out resumes for jobs that involve MAKING SOUNDS INTO WORDS.  And what a difference in enjoyment the narrator can make, am I right? Has anyone seen Planet Earth (everyone just replied yes, in the imaginary room I’m apparently doing stand-up comedy in)?  David Attenborough is like… the personification of what I imagine a full body massage from a cloud feels like.[polldaddy poll=1284960]

Highlight of my tenure on the couch: 

Let me set this up:   Sweatpants, old t-shirt, slippers.  DQ peanut buster parfait, sans peanuts.  Girlfriend.  Flat screen HD TV, Planet Earth’s “shallow seas”, lights off no talking allowed.  David Attenborough’s words gingerly dancing about the Caribbean. Also, no talking allowed.  I mean…. right?  Isn’t this the stuff guys discover when they’re like… you know what… I never really liked the bar that much.  I mean… I guess I could just catch the guys next week… maybe this how men become the p word they call each other 90% of the time in any all male situation.

Guys just get older though, and they like it.  It starts with “man, it sure is cheaper to drink at home” and ends in “Grandpa’s just set in his ways, leave him be”.  I’m halfway to a Sunday scotch, the crossword puzzle and racial slurs (oh, Grandpa’s from a different time).  Speaking of that character, Gran Torino was amazing.  On a scale of red, it gets a tiger-shark (the scale is  a work in progress).  I didn’t realize you could degrade someone of Hmong descent in so many ways, but Eastwood goes above and beyond.  In that sense, and in his role as Walt Kowalski .  Clint is like the two guys in the balcony on the muppets, minus the laughing and the having a friend.  But you warm up to him, you just have to.  I won’t play spoiler, but his family doesn’t get him, his neighbors don’t either and he doesn’t care.  And you have to admire anyone who speaks how they feel, with the exception of people who speak for a living and feel like total bigots (see: Don Imus, Michael Richards).

I’ll work on that system.