Monday, March 28, 2005

A Dozen Other Truths Revealed in Jose Canseco's Juiced by Brian Cogan and Mike Faloon

To the extent that any of us think about Jose Canseco, we all knew he would write a book some day. And it’s not surprising that he confessed to using steroids, but endorsing steroids? That’s weird, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg because Canseco’s tome contains a bushel full of other stunning revelations.

1) Infinity has been defined! Simply tally up the number of clichés contained in the lyrics to the new Green Day cd and the mysteries of the mathematical universe shall be revealed! “Boulevard of Broken Dreams?” Sweet Lord! (Note: Jose—“π = 3.15.” We’ve all been making a mistake in our long division. Go ahead, double check, seven goes into 30 five times, with no remainder!” Thanks, Jose!)

2) Will and Grace is merely the same old trite sitcom crap only with ostensibly gay characters, not really a ground breaking televised endorsement of gay rights.

3) Not only was Lucille Ball not a red head but much of the cast of Wings was truly talented, see later work by Tony Shaloub (Monk) and Thomas Haden Church (he was amazing in Sideways as the big, dumb actor friend). (Note: Many television scholars—and yes, another truth revealed, there are people claiming to be such—debate to this day whether or not Wings ever aired on a major broadcast network or was anything more than a perpetual rerun on the USA Network.)

4) Merciful Fate/King Diamond lead singer King Diamond is an ordained Eucharistic minister in Fairlawn, Ohio. Meanwhile, Mrs. Amelia Diamond runs a local flower shop, located between Baja Fresh and the Mustard Seed health food store, with her children Lucritia and King Junior, affectionately known as Li’l King.

5) The ending to Franz Kafka’s The Castle, long thought never to have been written, goes exactly like this: Comments made by K. at the Reagle Beagle, while flirting with Mrs. Roper, were actually, literally, about fixing his plumbing, much to Mrs. Roper’s angst-ridden disappointment. Chrissy, sitting one table over, yet inexplicably unnoticed by either K or Mrs. Roper, breathes a sigh of relief. End credits. (Note: Kafka’s Castle is not to be confused with the Robert Redford/James Gandolfini prison movie.)

6) Derek Bell’s “Operation Shutdown” is still underway.

7) If you end page 120, chapter six by disclosing a slew of secrets with more shocking revelations to be found on page 250, chapter nine, you can fill the intervening pages by typing nothing but “Mary Had a Little Lamb” over and over again. Everyone just skims the damn book for the juicy stuff anyway!

8) Canseco shot Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmero with pure Happy Time horse, a.k.a. uncut smack, for those who are a bit tardy on the uptake, leading to their emaciated, post-baseball frames and Palmero’s continued need for Viagra. Bonds? He was just sipping Kool-Aid, chewing on Flintstones vitamins, and reading Spiro Agnew’s How to be Surly and Win Friends and Influence People.

9) Former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot was misunderstood. Wait, sorry, that’s from Philip Short’s Anatomy of a Nightmare

10) Welfare mothers actually do make better lovers.

11) Missing aviator, Amelia Earhart, better known as Mrs. King Diamond, runs a floral shop in Fairlawn, Ohio.

12) On the periodic table of elements, Einsteinium (Es; atomic number 99; atomic weight 252 [Jose’s a very thorough researcher]) is merely a composite of previously known elements. However, no one had the balls to point out to the then-senile physicist that what he thought was a new element was in fact just a pile of Morton’s table salt (NaCl), which the legendary scientist was attempting to sprinkle on to his Schwin.

13) Yes, Juiced is ghost written, but Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Ben Hecht, and Dorothy Parker, all of whom are currently residing in Purgatory and worked on this project to absolve their sins, feel really bad about the whole thing. (Note: It’s not working, oh dear god, it’s clearly not working.)

Brian Cogan and Mike Faloon enjoy meeting up on Sunday afternoons, over pitchers of Pennant Ale, to discuss the Mets and write musicals. Their current project is titled, How Can I Serve? The Life and Times of Lyndon LaRouche.

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