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A plucky draft prospect receives no ordinary fowl honor

Former Auburn University quarterback and 2011 Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton may go as the Number 1 NFL draft pick when it starts this evening but he won’t have one unique honor that another Alabama collegiate player and Heisman winner has already received. That would be a life-sized, 40-pound sculpture made of chicken salad.

A Subway sandwich shop in Midtown Manhattan built the sculpture depicting Mark Ingram Jr., which is constructed from “a combination of wire, plaster, raisins, bread, celery, cranberries and, of course, lots of chicken,” according to a New York Daily News story.

The son of former pro football great Mark Ingram will likely become a top NFL draft prospect. The running back who helped the Crimson Tide beat Texas for the 2010 National Championship — it didn’t hurt that the Tide knocked Texas star QB Colt McCoy out of the game on their first drive — said he was thrilled by the honor.

“It’s a chicken salad of me, man,” he told the Daily News.

Seriously, it’s good to see Ingram can lighten up some on the cusp of being drafted. He has had injury problems over his two past college seasons and most notably his father overshadowed the son leading up to the latter’s 2009 Sugar Bowl appearance. The senior Ingram was on the lam, having failed to report to federal prison for a 92-month-sentence on bank fraud and money laundering charges. Ingram Sr. was arrested by U.S. Marshals just two hours before the kickoff to his son’s nationally-televised game. At least his Dad had the TV tuned into the game. Not the best memory for some of the son’s great career moments. Well, maybe not so great that time since Utah beat Alabama in that game. But you know …

It could be a stellar occasion for younger Ingram over these next few days while his dad, perhaps, watches only a few miles down the road from where I live in Beaumont, Texas. That would be at Federal Correctional Institute-Beaumont.

Maybe you really can, unlike President Lyndon Johnson surmised, make chicken salad out of chicken s**t.

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See! I could have told you this wouldn’t change anything.

This afternoon I couldn’t wait to get off work and go to my personal computer to read some of the reaction to today’s “big news.” The news, of course, was that President Barack Hussein Obama II finally released his birth certificate — again.

Whenever it was, eons ago, that Obama first released the short form of his certificate of live birth didn’t satisfy those who were absolutely aghast at having a black man in the White House. That is the long and short of it. The national media, mostly the cable networks, loved for the controversy to drag on because it is was more amusing than budget deficits and pages upon pages of health care policy.

But when a man who theoretically could buy his way into the White House threatened Obama’s presidency — I’m talking about Donald “Mr. Bad Hair” Trump whose billions could be overstated — Barack finally relented and released the long form version of his birth certificate. It didn’t change anything and if he had asked me I would have told him that although it isn’t like he would ask me. As this excellent piece from The Christian Science Monitor relates, birthers will still be birthers. And from Politico, the pols spin it to where Obama is the bad guy for engaging in this “distraction” from all those big issues the Republicans don’t really want to discuss.

While I don’t think the White House chose to bring this “freak show,” as it was described by Politico, it certainly wasn’t worth their time and effort. If anything the certificate release will continue the useless hubbub for a few more news cycles to come before the silliness du jour comes around. Barack, you should have asked me. I would have told you what would happen.

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Our queens will go to the YMCA, the YMCA …

There is no escape. You will watch the wedding and all the hoopla surrounding the wedding  nuptials of the  future king and queen of England and you will like it!

Well, not exactly.

I could care less that the Duke Duke Duke Duke of Earl is getting married. Actually he isn’t the Duke of Earl. He’s the Prince of Whales, I mean Wales. He could be a duke after he is married to Catherine “Don’t Call Me Kate” Middleton on Friday, perhaps the Duke of Windsor or Duke of Avondale or Duke of Clarence. Yeah, Clarence. I s**t you not.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for William and Kate. Marriage can be a good thing, especially if you will someday be king. A king needs a queen, right? Well, not exactly.

The British are getting a holiday out of it. Who knows what else? Millions of dollars are being spent on security. What’re you going to do, huh? You got to protect your future king and queen. And current queen and prince consort. Why isn’t Phillip King? He couldn’t pass the physical. Just joking, I think it’s because a king can marry and his wife is queen in Britain but a queen’s husband can’t be king just because he married a queen. Make sense? It’s all that inbreeding. Really, bad grammar. Not the Queen’s, nor the King’s, English. Sorry. I only took two semesters of Spanish. Nevertheless, I’m sure someone will make some money out of the wedding.

What the fascination Americans have with British royalty I’m not sure. Perhaps we could spend millions of dollars for a family to dress up in quaint costumes and be ultra-socially correct. Sounds like The Village People to me. Well, at least the costume part of it.

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A question of usage and frightening colloqualisms

My mind ponders usage this afternoon. Specifically, data usage is what I have been examining.

The Verizon broadband plan I have has a 5 gigabyte limit before I incur overage charges for data usage. During the last couple of years, exceeding that limit hasn’t been a problem. But since I bought a new computer last month I cracked that invisible ceiling last month and look on track to do the same sometime between now and May 9.

Verizon does have some pretty good bells and whistles on their My Verizon site that lets you monitor your usage throughout the billing cycle. I can pinpoint when I used some live streaming music sites, for instance. But by Verizon’s own gadget for determining how much data one would need either for a smart phone or a broadband plan, the company only projects I need 3-something gigs.

The company said that probably the overages come from live updates, which get to be pretty numerous with a new computer. Whether that is the reason I don’t guess I will know until another month or so. If it continues, I predict a whole lotta bitchin’ going on, and one should have an easy guess as to its origin.

Technology. We haven’t had such fun since the hogs ate little brother.

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Don’t it make you oil want to rock and roll all night long?

Coming home from work just now I thought of a line from a Warren Zevon song that was first released in 1976 — although I first heard it in 1978 — called “Mohammed’s Radio.” Even to this day I am not sure of the song’s meaning. I suppose if you believe our president was born in Kenya as a keystone to some complicated plot for the Muslims to overtake our country, then perhaps you might figure the song has something to do with Islam. The closest to the religion of Islam that I can find in the song, though is the name Mohammed, who happens to be running a pirate (unlicensed, not Arrrrrrh matey!) radio station.

I feel I had to get that out of the way before I can make my point, which is about a line in the song. There happens to be some magnificent lyrical lines in the song, which Zevon performs while touring with Jackson Browne in 1976 in the above You Tube clip. One of my favorite ever is in the song where Zevon sings: “You know the sheriff’s got his problems too. And he will surely take them out on you … “

And here we are at paragraph three. As I was driving home after a hard day of looking at how much things cost I reflected upon all the gasoline signs showing prices edging to the side of $4 a gallon. Some grades of gasoline are already there, here in Beaumont, Texas, — ironically where the modern oil business began with the Spindletop boom in 1901 and is in an area that is home to some of the nation’s largest refineries –and elsewhere in the U.S. An Orlando, Fla., gas station is charging $5.69 per gallon.

So the late Warren Zevon sings: “Everyone is desperate, trying to make ends meet. Work all day, still can’t pay the price of gasoline and meat.” Yes, this was 1976 when the song was released on the self-titled “Warren Zevon” album. Meat prices aren’t all that expensive yet but they slowly climb along with everything else when gas prices go skyward as a result of exorbitant oil prices spurred this week perhaps by the Middle East perhaps getting a case of “Independence Fever.” Who knows what will be the raison d’etre next week?

History just keeps repeating itself, at least when it comes to gasoline prices. The minister for oil barrels of Uzbekistan gets a cold and watch out! There goes gas prices flying sky high and then you have to take out a second mortgage to buy a porterhouse. If you have experienced a gas crisis, be it from World War II, to the rationing and “outrageous” jumps in price with the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, then you might just remember what else inflated in cost. It seems like every time a tropical storm blows toward our nearby Gulf of Mexico, up goes the gas prices and practically all other items for sale.

I exaggerate, of course, but not by much. History can be good to find where one goes forward. But it also can be pretty damned depressing.

Perhaps that’s why rocking all night long with Mohammed on the radio was some comfort food for the soul in Zevon’s mind. Maybe something similar will provide you some solace, although that may not be the case if you are a confirmed “Birther.”

Sorry for burying the lede. Some day it will work for me. Happy Easter Egg.