Rambling Rhodes

Argh! That *Effen* Nick Coleman

There is a saying that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. So, considering that Nick Colemen, through dozens if not hundreds of crappy, brain fart columns, has proven that he not only lives in a glass house with eggshell windows, he probably has no business throwing stones and crowing in his Mrs. Doubtfire "Heloooooo!" way when Minnesota Governor Pawlenty (a Republican, naturally) accidently lets an expletive fly.

But, not only does Coleman throw stones, he devotes an ENTIRE COLUMN TO IT.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty was just supposed to drop the puck, but he dropped something else at Wednesday night's return of professional hockey to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul:

The effenheimer.

Oh no! Won't somebody think of the children?!! Burn him! Burn the governor!

The governor and First Lady Mary Pawlenty were in the crow's nest, high above the crowd of 19,000 fans ready to celebrate the resumption of hockey after a year's hiatus. His task was to intone the Minnesota Mantra that has been said before every Wild game since the team had its first regular season game on Oct. 11, 2000:

"Let's plaaay hockey!"

Quick, pick out the sentence rragment that drips with typical Coleman disdain. high above the crowd of 19,000 fans

Why, that uppity Pawlenty, thinking he's so much better than the fans. He's practically Caligula up there, sitting on high. He'll probably decree a rash of random beheadings between periods.

But the governor tripped on his tongue. TV reports had to bleep Pawlenty when he led up to the Minnesota Mantra with an introductory line: "The time has come to drop the puck."

Pawlenty bungled it:

"The time has come to drop the (bleep)puck," he said, with "bleep" used here in place of a word that rhymes with duck but which wasn't puck.

It RHYMES with duck, people! *hint, hint* It also rhymes with truck, and pluck, and muck and schmuck, as in: "I'd like to pluck myself a truck, and drive that Coleman schmuck into the muck."

Remember now, this is the same Nick Coleman who proclaimed that he knew, with absolute certainty (he said it was "unmistakable), that George W. Bush flipped off reporters, despite nearly exhaustive evidence that Bush was, in fact, giving a thumbs up.

Given Coleman's history of seeing fingers where they don't exist, it's reasonable to assume that he hears words where they don't exist. For example, I think it's entirely likely that Pawlenty had a stumbled tongue moment wherein he briefly choked on the word puck, said fuck, and then corrected himself by saying puck. But, what does old wolf-eared Coleman hear? "fucking puck." Whatever inspires a column out of the old boy, I guess.

You can take the boy out of South St. Paul, but you can't take South St. Paul out of the boy.

Ooh, it's a class column! And we all know how drippingly empathetic Coleman is when it comes to those with roots in the lower classes.

Pawlenty is the son of a truck driver from the earthy slaughterhouse culture down Hook 'Em Cow Way, as they used to call South St. Paul, where "Bleep you" is a term of endearment.

Now, if Pawlenty were, say, CURRENTLY a truck driver from the earthy slaughterhouse culture down Hook 'Em Cow Way,' I'm sure Coleman would devote a column to this middle-aged salt of the earth, trying to scrape his way through existence, being kept down by the man. I'm sure Coleman would write something along the lines of: "This Pawlenty chap, his faced lined with the concerns of making it through every day life, proudly spews expletives like a Greek orator. It's inspiring in a way, like he's talking back sourly at the society conspiring to keep him down."

But, because Pawlenty is Minnesota's governor, what do we get?

He also is a born-again Christian and smooth-talking politician, a guy who plays nice in a suit but hard-nosed on the ice. A guy who can sweet-talk you into a budget deal or run you into the end boards.

A guy who can convince you to buy a bullet and then shoot you with it. A guy who'll screw your wife, and convince you the kid is yours. A guy who shakes hands with God, while giving Satan a reach-around. Man, I could do this all day!

It can't be easy to reconcile all those pieces, the high sticking with the backslapping. Something has to give. Wednesday, it was the mouth.

Yeah, all those years of political chess-playing. All those years of making political connnections and running compaigns. It all came to a stressful head during an unfortunate hockey night. "Behold the beating of the hideous heart!"

Oh, time for a patented Nick Coleman history lesson, by the way.

The Minnesota Mantra -- Let's plaaay hockey! -- was coined by Bob Utecht, the rinkside announcer for the North Stars club during the first 14 years of that since-departed franchise. One night, Utecht had an inspiration and spoke to the ref just before game time. "Don't drop the puck until I say something," Utecht told the ref.

By the way, I'm sure you've noticed, all the way into this column so far, that there is nothing, NOTHING, even resembling a point. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

Voila!, as they say in Quebec when they aren't swearing a blue streak in French: "Let's Plaaay Hockey!" was said at the start of every North Stars game until Utecht and the franchise parted company and Bob refused to let the team keep it up. Years later, Utecht revived the Mantra when the Wild first took the ice in 2000, getting the honor, at age 80, of bestowing his phrase on our new team.

Zzzzzzzzzz. . . hmm? Wha? Zappening? He's still doing history?

It's corny, and it's us.

But maybe Gov. Effinator has stumbled upon something besides his tongue. Maybe the Mantra needs a modern edge, a profanity update to give it some bleeping muscle.

You can just about imagine Coleman, chortling away at his Star-Tribune desk, a jiggly hula girl dancing on his monitor (covered conservatively in construction paper, so you don't see her *gasp* legs), really thinking his column was going to be a major political blow to the governor. "I'm gonna get you this time, evil governor!"

Just to prepare you, Coleman's about to dabble in what he thinks is humor. Ready? *deep breath*

Instead of "Lets's plaaay hockey!" How about if we just say:

"Drop the freaking puck!"

ROTFLMAO!

So let's cut Pawlenty some slack. I never trust a governor who doesn't cuss.

So, what's the fucking point of your fucking stupid fucking column! You fucking dumbass!

Besides, it was refreshing: It was the first thing Pawlenty has said that might make Phyllis Schlafly red in the face, even if it was just a tongue malfunction.

It's like two completely different columns crumpled clumsily into one. The first part is dedicated to making Pawlenty into a jerk who has swearing engrained in his dark, fork-tongued soul. The second part is dedicated to saying "Oh, that Pawlenty! I wouldn't trust him if he DIDN'T swear. I don't know what I'm talking about! I'm OLD!"

"I realized that as I was starting to say 'puck,' other sounds were coming out of my mouth," an abashed governor told reporters Thursday. "It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue. ... It just came out wrong. I apologize for that."

Wow, a politician who slipped up and apologized. Sounds pretty cool to me.

Let's not make a bleeping mountain out of @###!! molehill.

Or, for that matter, dedicate an entire @###!! column to it.

Hockey and the F-bomb always have gone together in hotbeds of the game, and I have heard many a puckster swear like a meat packer with a dull cleaver and a shaky hand.

That, ladies and gentleman, goes into the Nick Coleman analogy/metaphor/simile hall of fame, along with his all time one liner about Ann Coulter: What have we learned, class, about free speech after listening to Coulter call Democrats traitors to the country, threaten to give a Muslim student's name to homeland security and toss insults faster than a kid with a Dixie cup full of fish parts can toss herrings at a seal exhibit?

Pawlenty's locker-room language rang true to fans who went without hockey for a year because of a stupid standoff between players and owners.

Ohhhhhh, so it's a column about last year's hockey standoff! Now he's found his point. Just in time for his last fucking paragraph!

You're damn straight it's time to drop the bleeping puck, governor. Jacques Lemaire couldn't have said it better.

Or taken as fucking long as Nick Coleman to say it.

BY THE WAY: Yes, overall, I realize Nick was kinda, sorta, in a roundabout way, being nice to Pawlenty. But, given his past diatribes against the governor, I'm pretty sure he did so grudgingly, at best.

Posted by Ryan at October 7, 2005 12:05 PM | TrackBack