BREAKING NEWS: NY Governor Eliot Spitzer Resigns—Effective Monday March 17th. Lt. Gov. David Paterson To Serve as Gov. Til 2010

The Spectacular Comet “Client 9 From Outer Space” Plummets To Earth.

Thus endeth one age, and beginneth one anew...

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace Wednesday after getting caught in a call-girl scandal that shattered his corruption-fighting, straight-arrow image, saying: "I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people's work."

Spitzer made the announcement without having finalized a plea deal with federal prosecutors, though a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said he is believed to still be negotiating one. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

"Over the course of my public life, I've insisted, I think correctly, that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself," Spitzer said at a Manhattan news conference with his wife, Silda, at his side. He left without answering questions.

Spitzer will be replaced on Monday by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who becomes New York's first black governor. He also will be the state's first legally blind governor and its first disabled governor since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It was a spectacular flame-out—lightning-quick, and replete with all manner of hypocrisies. From the “White Knight” Spitzer having cast himself as miles above reproach, then being found to have partaken at cost—of the “evils” he so vehemently fought against, to the naked double-standardism of the Right—as evidenced by their knee-jerk-to-the-chin calls for Spitzer's impeachment, a certain selective obsessing over the story (The hacktacular Glenn Reynolds hasn't worked his typing hands this hard since he rhetorically hand-jobbed for the Swiftboaters and the Fred Thompson campaign).

It may well have been aided by the likes of a wholly compromised Justice Department that is now being exposed as little more than a crude sledgehammer in the thuggish hands of a GOP/Bush administration bent on settling all “Family Business” before their movie fades to black. We shall see. Spitzer wasn't set up, that much seems clear. But the Siegelman-esque pall over his obviously being targeted for investigation is a whole other kettle of fish. One I imagine we'll be getting a closer look at as the initial hormone-fueled furor wanes and keener eyes lock in as they have started to on a now-ineffectual Bush administration and it's skullduggery.

But the focus now is on old New York, and the kicking out of the table under the chess game that is Empire State politics.

In short:

On St. Patrick's Day, Monday—New York State will see something I thought I'd never see in my lifetime, an African American in the governor's seat. If you're a NY politics buff, the office of Lt. Governor is something of an extended bad joke, populated by the likes of the vanilla non-entity, and weird Milton Berle-lookalike Malcolm Wilson (who?) who became governor when Nelson Rockefeller was chosen as Veep by Gerald Ford in '74. (You may not remember how ambitious ol' ex Gov and Veep Rocky ended up in the end. He croaked out in the apartment of—naked and probably on top of—a pretty young aide named Megan Marshak—who instead of calling 911, called a female friend to help her out of a cheating-on-his-wife, 200 pound-plus, dead-weight bind.)

The office was also the butt of jokes when a recent occupant, one Betsy McCaughey Ross goofily and embarassingly stood for the full length of then-governor Pataki's televised State of the State address in 1996, weirdly drawing attention to herself. That gaffe, as well as a tendency to do things that appeared at times equally loopy and “All About Eve” grasping got her unprecedently bounced from the ticket when Pataki ran again in 2000. Ouch.

It was considered a joke office—almost to the point that David Paterson, Spitzer's choice was very much looked on as a throw-in, an afterthought in the campaign in much of the reportage leading up to the election.

That office will never be looked on that way again after the unexpected turn of events in the last 48 hours. You had best believe that.

The tasks of the Lt. Governor will be assumed by the State Senate Majority Leader or president pro tempore, the odious wingnut Joseph Bruno of...Muttontown, a small upstate community. Bruno, himself under a shadow of investigation for years for shady dealings will retain his office as State Senator and also be referred to as “Acting Lieutenant Governor” for the remainder of Paterson's term and is next in line of succession.

The secondary importance of Spitzer's flameout is that for the first time in decades, Dems were on the verge of re-taking the State Senate, having claimed the governor's office, state legislature and being down one seat in said senate. Spitzer for all his faults had huge coattails and a brilliant fund-raising arm and was probably going to swing the senate to the Dem side had he not so compulsively and furtively ass-wrangled. Paterson is no such funding “rainmaker” and is considered much more the upstate policy wonk, albeit a much-respected one for his integrity and can-do-ishness.

What this all holds for the state senate's political balance is not yet known. What is known is that it effectively raises from the ashes a one-time New York political powerhouse—The “Harlem Clubhouse”. Said clubhouse was the one-time seat of Black political muscle in New York, boasting Charlie Rangel, former Mayor David Dinkins, political fixer Herman “Denny” Farrell, and high-minded old lions Percy Sutton and Basil Paterson—David's father as its most influential members. But that clubhouse's power had been on a precipitous slide and has been looked on in recent years as a dinosaur graveyard populated by silver-haired old men in gas-guzzling old Caddys, listening to echoes of Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole in their heads.

The younger Paterson, a scion of that clubhouse breathes some life into those ashes, re-animating them a little bit with his youth and ascension to a higher office than any of the elders ever attained (Dinkins became a one-term Mayor of NYC, while Paterson the elder was a New York Secretary Of State and Sutton a Deputy NY Mayor).

An interesting and wholly unexpected scenario here in 2008. I can only wonder how many months/weeks/days it'll be before the barely-in-the-closet bigots up-and downstate start sniping at Governor-To-Be Paterson.

Man...it's still a difficult thing to wrap my New Yorker brain around.

There's more...

BACKGROUND: NY Governor Eliot Spitzer Implicated In Prostitution Ring

“Hey Gov, You Wanna Give It a Go? Mmmmm-hmmmmm!”

The wife called me a little while ago, breathlessly asking me, “Hey! You hear about 'my boy' Spitzer?” Being absurdly busy, I hadn't. So, I checked in on the news online....and ohhhhhhhhhh my!

This...is ugly.

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

An affidavit in the federal investigation into a prostitution ring said that a wiretap recording captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

Mr. Spitzer today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.”

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.”

“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

Before speaking, Mr. Spitzer stood with his arm around his wife; the two nodded and then strode forward together to face more than 100 reporters. Both had glassy, tear-filled eyes, but they did not cry.

The governor spoke for perhaps a minute and did not address his political future.

He declined to take questions and promised to report back soon. As he went to leave, three reporters screamed out, “Are you resigning? Are you resigning?”, and Mr. Spitzer charged out of the room, slamming the door.

Eliot, we hardly knew ye...

My wife was particularly interested in this because of a deep, personal enmity for Spitzer dating from his State Attorney General days . In a major probe of impropriety in the insurance industry involving underwriters, kickbacks and lots of shady skullduggery, her company, people she knew and clients she worked with were involved. Files that passed through her hands were subpoenaed and she had to answer some questions to investigators—which pissed her off because it inconvenienced her. She reveled for a minute in the once-ascendant (electorally) Spitzer's getting some come-uppance. He was touted as “Eliot Ness 2000” for his crime-busting, imperious ways. Always a bit above it all and more than a bit of the rough-handed scold, this scathing story pretty much aborts the launch of his skyward political path and is the source of much martini-clinking in the Wall Street set who feels that he cracked the whip on them unfairly and made their jobs that much harder. The wife says that the mood down there is almost euphoric in many quarters. He was NOT well-liked amongst the “Big, swinging”...uh, “deposit” set.

He's on tape in this scandal procuring, arranging payment for, and lining up the lay-down spot for “the ill na-na” as we call it around the way. It should be a death-knell for his governorship—a ridiculously short governorship as he was only sworn in in December of '06. The white-knight crime-fighter's been payin' a fee, for the stuff that rhymes with the word wus-sy.

And not the just-outside-the-Lincoln Tunnel rough-trade “Tunnel Bunnies” either—this is the high-priced um...“spread” as it were. $3600 a pop, with “buy-out” options into the five-figure range if an extended-time tryst was desired (supposedly $50,000 for such calls). The whole “Pretty Woman” package—minus an adoring, Richard Gere-ish looking john and a happy ending. (The Hollywood kind, you little nasties!) Same kind of money, though.

And of course, he took part in the traditional “Let's embarrass the living hell out of the wife” press conference with her standing at his side. Lord...what an awful scene. But as usual, there's some back-story and juicy stuff the press seems to be missing as they''re caught up in the more obvious secrets and secretions.

1.) The possible political payback angle: Spitzer has got more enemies than a three-legged fox after “Tally Ho!”'s been called. The state GOP's been on his ass like mad since he rose in the public eye and he took down certain criminal parties in bed (pun unintended) with them, and his main enemy has been State Senate Leader Joe Bruno—a crooked, but crafty-ass GOP mover and shaker who Spitzer especially disliked, and who hated Spitzer in kind.The soon-to--ex-governor bent rules in going after the slimy Bruno in using state resources to spy on him to catch him doing wrong. He—unlike Bruno was sloppy in his dirt-doing and got caught up in it, allowing Bruno to play the indignant victim (!) while simultaneously drawing the disingenuous Bruno's wrath. And as the top dog in NY's upstate-run government, Joe Bruno was able to launch ethics investigations that helped tarnish Spitzer's do-gooder image quite a bit.

But it didn't do as much damage as the venomous, vindictive Bruno probably would have liked. Thus speculation is that this damning probe may be the result of favors and chits being called in by a waning northeast GOP. It is a federal wiretap that he got his ass caught up in, and one can only wonder if this is possibly the result of some of that not-so-long-ago talked about abuse of the NSA wiretapping that was suggested as being targeted at political opponents. Nobody told ya to go hoochie-chasin' Eliot, but something smells just a wee bit dead-rattish about this probe. Hmmmmmmm...

2.) The fallout from Spitzer's seemingly inevitable resignation: There are of course the calls for Spitzer to step down, and those calls will grow louder as this spools out sordidly. The Republican Governor's Conference has piously called for him to resign, as again Spitzer is so hated by them that their call is knee-jerk obvious. It sets up a scenario for them to steal the governorship back in 2010—and for them their candidate would seem clear, one Rudolph W. Giuliani, who through his long-standing connections to the U.S. Prosecutor's office (He is the former Southern District Attorney—the office that is presently dogging Spitzer) probably got a head-up about this when the investigation started late last year. It is their chance to resurrect a once-and-former-champion, albeit a lame-ass chance what with Rudy's own “sexy-time” baggage that addled his campaign this past year. It is exceedingly doubtful that he could pull that off, what with the state's GOP in disarray right now anyway. There will be another Dem candidate put up by state's newly powerful Dem machine, (probably the son of former Dem governor and present state Atty Gen. Andrew Cuomo—finally able with this to take an office that has eluded him in the past) and two years is an awfully long time to wait before something else awful about Rudy breaks in the news—you heard it here, first.

But the undiscussed development of Spitzer's stepping down is the following:

It would elevate to the office of Governor of the state of New York an African American. An African American with deep familial ties to the old-school Black wing of the state's Dem machine, “The Harlem Clubhouse”. One David Paterson, son of Basil Paterson, former NY Deputy Mayor, Secretary of State, and State Senator and bigwig in that clubhouse along with the one-time kingmaker and NY Boro Prez Percy Sutton—who also co-founded Inner City Broadcasting Corp. (of WLIB, WBLS and “Showtime At The Apollo” fame) and Congressional Rep. Charles Rangel.

Repeat—“It would elevate to the office of Governor of the state of New York an African American.”

Paterson, who is legally blind due to a childhood ailment that robbed him of total sight in one eye and drastically impaired vision in the other (and would also be the first blind governor in the country) was considering a run at Sen. Hillary Clinton's abandoned seat were she to win the Democratic nomination and presidency, but of course...things never do run according to Hoyle.

The irony is that Paterson himself joked about the general dead-end nature of the Lt. Governor's job not long ago:

David Paterson, who is 51 (his younger brother, Daniel, works for the Office of Court Administration), has few illusions about a job that has frustrated more than one predecessor. (Comparing the salary, staff and other perquisites, Alex, his 12-year-old son, who aspires to be an investment banker, recommended he remain in the Senate, adding, “I know a bad deal when I see one.”)

David Paterson said, “I’m learning what the title really means,” and added that many people are “focused on what the governor is doing and could care less about what the lieutenant governor is doing.”

I'm sure someone has pointed out to him the stunning truth of that last statement in the last three hours or so.

Fate is a funny, funny thing.

And a 12-year-old's prognostications are at this moment in Black New York's clubby political circles probably even funnier.

Yowtch!

This is going...to be verrrrry interesting.

There's more...

“Unconscious.”

Yes, that's actually a photo of Barack Obama flippin' a lefty layup on the court.

“It's Like...I Was The Only Person On The Court...”

The first time I ever heard that word—“unconscious”—used to describe a shooter on a basketball court who was freakishly “on fire”, to the point where he absolutely could not miss and hit a ridiculous number of consecutive shots was in the late 80's in a game between the Motor City “Bad Boys”—the Detroit Pistons, and the Utah Jazz.

The game was close-ish, until the Pistons' Vinnie Johnson, nicknamed “The Microwave” for his ability to generate “instant” offense, took over and proceeded to—as we say around the way, “go nut” throwing in 19 consecutive points in mere minutes. He did it with treys from beyond the arc, drives, little pull-up jumpers and then, when they started fouling him, from the line for a few charity shots. But I remember watching that game with a bunch of people and us all falling down on the floor awe-struck as “The Microwave” just went berserk in that quarter—single-handedly tearing the Jazz apart.

He could NOT be stopped. Bob Costas was doing commentary for the game and it was he I heard say “Vinnie Johnson is just unconscious out there. It's just him and the hoop. He's making it look that easy.”

I saw the Cavaliers' Lebron James go off the same way last season against the Pistons (imagine that!) in the playoffs when he just...freaked it in the fourth quarter of game five, scoring the last 25 points in the game, AND 29 OF THE LAST 30 FOR HIS TEAM. Dunks. Threes. Crazy-ass lay-ups. I was in a bar watching that one and people were falling back against the wall with their hands on their heads over what they were seeing.

He was unconscious.

It's the kind of thing you see so rarely that it's stunning when you do see it.

And I'm frankly stunned watching Barack Obama's campaign doing that equivalent right now.

It's ten straight victories. Trey, deuce, deuce, trey, deuce, trey, trey, dunk, dunk plus one on the foul, and then a crazy tomahawk slam and one on the hack.

I guessed wrong on Louisiana—pragmatically figuring on the de-Blackification thanks to Katrina hurting him among the once-huge African American base there.

Wrong.

I really miscalculated on Maine, thinking the Nor'easters would do their usual “buck the wave” thang and contrarily and “Yankee-ly” turn back the Obama tide.

Blew that one too.

And as for last night, I guess I had it in my head that Wisconsin would tighten up a bit as it seemed unlikely for Obama to keep pulling out food service cases of whipass and opening them like so many sugar packets. I had it in my head that Clinton's “base”—which Wisconsin seemed to be largely composed of, would step in and stem the tide.

Strike three on LowerManhattanite and ”grab some bench” while yer at it, ya bum.

I've been an avid watcher of elections since 1972—a childhood hatred of Richard Nixon entranced me early—and I honestly can't recall a turnaround and breakaway like this one, ever.

Right about now, he is...unconscious.

And in my life, when I've seen “players” go like that, it's almost scary. There is NO DEFENSE when somebody starts feelin' it that way. I saw a friend go berserk in a game against an opponent who had five inches and 30 pounds on him. Dude was straight-up hardwood muscle, and my friend just went into a zone and lit him up for like ten or eleven straight shots. My man even stopped calling fouls as the guy was forced to hack at him something fierce. Didn't matter. Every fucking shot went down. He backed this monster down and turned for a fade-away and this guy slapped my buddy on the arm so hard on the shot that a spray of sweat was visible in addition to the firecracker “pop” of the blow itself.

“Swish!”, still. Fuck a call. “Check!”

My friend told me afterward as we left the park that “It's like...I was the only person on the court...I was feelin' somethin;...you tap into 'the shit' and you just go with it. Don't question it. You just go along for the ride and shoot 'cause it's flowing.”

“It's bigger than you.”

That's what Barack Obama's doing here. He's just shooting. Tapping into “it”. 'Cause “it” is bigger than he is. And that “it” is a tidal wave begun with the Supreme Court's December 2000 judgement that Bush be installed, fluttering down into the collective water of history. The ripple began there, rolled into larger ones with the Iraq debacle, became waves then and rose higher with the repeated flouting of the Constitution—FISA, glad-handing torture, and then, the open subverting of justice, and now crests eight years later on a sweat, shit and pee-inducing Tsunami that isn't about a grumpy bark of “Throw the bums out!”.

No. This is a level beyond that. It's a “Throw the bums out, then burn down the place we were in, so we don't have to remember it and let's build some place completely new that's got no ties to the old bullshit.”

Obama just happens to be the dude who was out there on the breakers when that wave rolled in, and for what it's worth—he's riding the living hell out of it, while everybody else, including unfortunately (for her) Senator Clinton—is directly in the looming shadow of and in the path of the top of that curl's monstrous, white-capped downbreak.

He may not even know how he's doing it. But he does know that he's tapped into “it”.

That intangible, hard-charging “it” that moved those thousands of kids mentioned downpage to walk ten Texas miles to vote early yesterday when their county tried to thwart their exercise of voting rights, and the same “it” that's spreading Obama's appeal well into Clinton's demographic strongholds. Yes, frankly...I'm stunned.

Stunned like I was at Vinnie Johnson in '89.

Stunned as I was on seeing LeBron's scoreboard-shorting crazy last year.

Stunned when I saw my friend tap into that magical tributary of “it”, and then run the hardwood table in that game.

Sometimes...it ain't you. It's the moment. Something in the air. And you just...go with it.

Trey, deuce, deuce, trey, deuce, trey, trey, dunk, dunk plus one on the foul, and then a crazy tomahawk slam—and one on the hack.

Damn.

The game ain't over. There will be several ugly stretches of “Hack-a-Barack” to blunt the run and wear down the presently-unconscious scorer. The “Big Dog” is gonna stand in the lane and take charges and throw hard elbows. Ohhhhh, it's gonna be tough and bloody yet. But we're in the final minutes—and the Clinton early-game strategy of hanging back and letting Obama shoot without a hand in his face during the caucuses was so Goddamned dumb that her advisers and handlers—the Mark Penns and Howard Wolfsons of the world...need to be sued for mal-fucking-practice. Then, beaten with a rusty boat chain.

The seconds are ticking away though...and Obama's really feelin' it. Unconscious right now.

“It's Like...He's The Only Person On The Court...”

Up for the shot—“Whap!” “Swish!”, still. Fuck a call. “Check!”

Or as the kids like to yell in that song, “Ballin'!

There's more...

Well, GODDAMN!

The Lucky LT Jersey Comes Through Again! (Shot of Maker's Mark not pictured)

GIANTS WIN SUPER BOWL XXXXII 17-14—IN DRAMATIC UPSET OVER 18-0 NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS


Against the Number One offense in NFL history.

Against the undefeated New England Patriots.

Boasting the 50-TD tossing Tom Brady at QB.

The unstoppable Randy Moss ay WR.

The Gridiron Genius (and poor sport) Bill Belichick on the sideline grinding his teeth to smooth nubs.

14-point underdogs!

11 consecutive road wins.

And somehow with Eli Manning (?) at the Goddamned helm. (I'm as shocked as you are!)

Ho-leeeeeeee shit!

The lucky Lawrence Taylor jersey comes through again!

Steve! For you!

For ALL underdiogs!

As Rick James is said to have said...“IT'S A CELEBRATION!”

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Giants Beat Packers 23-20 in OT—NY Football Fans Say “WTF?”

Dug out the 1986 Lawrence Taylor jersey for good luck—Son-of-a-bitch worked!

I just got home a little while ago, after doing something I never do—which is go to a local sports bar to watch the “big game” and all that stuff. I'm not the football fan I used to be in my youth, when I worshipped the smash-mouth defensive / pounding running game offense teams like my Steelers, Raiders and Giants (I lived in a house full of Dallas Cowboy fans in the Landry/Staubach era and rooted for the anti-Cowboy teams). I played the game like a madman until my early 20's at wide out, half back, and at linebacker and safety. My love affair with the game ended on Thanksgiving 1988 when I nearly ripped every bit of soft tissue in my left ankle in a pile-up. I stopped playing, I sorta stopped caring.

But every once in a while, the love comes back. I throw a ball around with my son and he burns spirals into my chest with a better QB gun than I ever had. I collect classic jerseys—Jim Brown, Earl Campbell, Namath (Jets and Rams), and Montana to name a few. A bit of the old fire has come back recently. I was entertaining friends from out-of-town a few weeks ago and we caught the amazing Giants/Patriots game at the bar of the W Hotel here in Union Square. the air was electric. That the Jints even competed against the mighty Pats had people wound up in a big way. They more than competed—they played their asses off. That game set things up in town emotionally, giving these Giants fans a bit more confidence than we should have had, what with our general feelings about the team and the QB Eli Manning.

Better than half the team's fans hate the coach Tom Coughlin, and maybe even more hate the QB “Porcelain Pants” (as one bar game-watcher called him) Eli Manning.

Coughlin's a stodgy, stubborn jerk of a man, prone to toss players under the bus and a real red-ass when he gets his defensive shield up—which is all the fucking time.

Manning, the QB has spent his young career as “Mr. Potential”—a pretty good QB in terms of his skill set, but frankly as a fan, I say nowhere near his brother Peyton Manning as far as QB gifts go. Probably the worst thing about him is being Peyton's brother and everybody looking at him through that prism of near-perfection. Eli's been soft too many times—soft and cocky, which has engendered a load of ill will. His post-loss press conferences where he sports a “Nailed it!” smirk and persona just makes a lot of us hate him that much more.

The kid ain't well liked 'round home, to say the least.

But something happened late this year, where Manning seemed to stop trying to be something he wasn't—which is his frighteningly gifted brother. He stopped forcing balls into double coverage and rudimentary zone traps set by secondarys. He—God, I hate using this phrase, but it's apt—started playing within himself, doing what he could do. The Giants improbably managed to beat the Buccaneers, the hated fucking Cowboys, and now, the immensely respected Brett Favre and the Packers in minus-24 degree wind chill on “The Frozen Tundra At Lambeau Field” in Green Bay. People were at the spot worrying about Coach Coughlin's uncovered and apparently cold-damaged face. “He's fuckin' frostbitten!” a friend said.

“A win'll make all that pain feel better.” another said. “Only thing good about a brick-cold game is winnin' it. Lose that bitch and you feel like a corpse on a slab.”

We went to the bar tonight because the big-screen TV at my house is ensconced in the back bedroom, where we parked it upon moving it from my late father-in-law's house. And the wife didn't want me and a bunch of writer friends of mine spilling Dr. Brown's Black Cherry soda, various beers, lime-infused tortilla chips and salsa and whatnot all over stuff in our bedroom. The old 25-incher in the living room ain't what she once was—so out we were banished, into the 18º degree cold.

The crowd? Excited, but pragmatic. They wanted the Jints to win, but didn't expect it against badass Brett Favre at home in that arena of legends. Somehow, Manning kept his cool in spite of the repeated preidictions from patrons. “Inteception here!“ “I'm calling a fumble!” “Here comes the fuck-up...” What they didn't say, many of us thought. Manning has that tendency to fucking implode at the key moment in a big game, and has done it too many times for many of us to have much faith in him. Whan Favre got the ball first in OT, the place cleared out quite a bit, with everyone sensing that the silver-bearded chucker would dink us down the field only to have it finish at the end of a kicker's uncreased cleat.

And yet, here we are...with the Giants (and at least one Manning brother) going on to the Super Bowl after vanquishing the Pack.

The assembled at the bar were happy, but still realistic enough to ask repeatedly, “How did this happen?” Nobody was bragging—just openly wondering “When's he gonna fuck up?”

And somehow, he never did. One guy was doing a cross between Dave Chappelle in the Wayne Brady skit and ESPN's Chris Berman, constantly screaming “What the fuuuuck? What the fuuuuck?” every time Manning and the Giants managed to answer back or stand their ground. The bartender served a round on the house for everyone because “them winning that shit didn't make sense—and neither does free drinks, but hey, the first thing happened, sooooooo...”

And the house whooped and went batshit.

We left the place all wondering, though not quite as loudly as the Chappelle/Berman dude, “What the fuck?”

In retrospect, a few things did happen:

1.) Manning stopped trying to be Superman in tough moments of games. It's easier to throw a Bat-a-Rang than to move a planet. Plus, he's actually reading defenses. Color me shocked as shit.

2.) The offense diversiffied. There was Burress at wide out, supported by a resurgent and clutch-crafty Amani Toomer and the rookie Steve Smith, Plus the backfield strength deepened with the emergence of Ahmad Bradshaw to support the bulling Brandon Jacobs. Give a half-way decent QB a bunch of options to use—particularly a running game that can eat clock like Fridge Perry ate hot wings, and a little time in the pocket and he can do some amazing things. The offensive options developed at just the right time for Manning. Go figure.

3.) The defense also diversified, going from just Strahan terrorizing QB's to Umienyora and Tuck joining him in swamping offensive lines late in the game. That, and the fact that the NFC's “top teams” are ridiculously flawed when compared with their stronger AFC counterparts and if one team got hot as the Jints did, it would “run the table”.

And run the table the Giants fucking did—much to NY football fans surprise. “I dunno who put the bug in his ear,” one patron said, “But whoever told him to stop goin' for K.O.s and just out-point the opposition and got him to listen deserves half the little shit's salary.”

“He can afford it now—his endorsement rate just doubled.” another barfly chimed in.

This was capped by my friend “J” musing aloud “You know who's sayin' 'What the fuck?' louder than anybody else tonight?”

“Peyton-fucking-Manning.”

The Jints have been installed as 14-point underdogs against the stupid-talented, perfect-recorded Pats in the Super Bowl as of a half-hour ago.

As they should be.

As they have been against every team worth a damn this season.

And yet.....I mean, it's fucking impossible. It makes no sense. Like me getting a top-shelf drinky—a bone-warming blast of Knob Creek—on the house along with the house, right?

If this annoying shit (Manning) manages to pull this off, a truckload of NY-ers are gonna have to get dumpsters to unload all the debris from our basement-fallen mouths.

Happy? Yes we are.

Dumbfounded over the win? Yeah...that. too.

And I'd put Steve, a rabid Giants fan, God rest him—solidly in that realistic, no bullshit camp of Jints fans.

Happy as hell over the wins, while kinda stunned at exactly how.

Props to “The Pack” and their loyal, crazy-ass fans in Green Bay—who shovel the snow off their stadium's bleachers on an off-day 'cause they're hard-core like that.

And go, Big Blue...and do...whatever you've been doin', and keeping us “WTF?”-ing our asses off.

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