First off, I would like to thank all the well-wishers out there who, well, wished me well.  I’m finally back up to speed and my new glow-in-the-dark balls are working out just fine.  Remember – never expose Chi-Chi’s “Fiesta Salsa” to open flame.  Or, you know, dip your balls in it and then slap them puppies on the ol’ George Foreman Grilling Machine.  Trust me, it isn’t the humorous display of gregarious abandon that one would think once you’re slapping haphazardly at Big Ben and the Twins out of sheer procreative necessity. 

Well by now you have no doubt read that Rob has announced his candidacy for President of the United States.  So it is in the spirit of the season that I announce my own candidacy for Head Lesbian of the National Organization of Women.  Since some of my more sober advisors have informed me that it isn’t actually an elected office I also plan to invoke my 6^th Amendment Right to Run For a Whole Bunch of Things At the Same Time.  That’s why I’m also running for Mad Dogs 20/20’s “Wino of the Year”, Ambassador to the Sicilian Mob, Head Gaffer for Fletch III, Pope of the Royal Electrified Church of the Once Immaculate Blue Dress, and, of course, Cookie Monster.  

So please remember to vote for me whenever.  I promise that, if elected, I’ll spend the entire tax surplus on hookers and cheap whiskey, have the Pentagon buy me a whole lotta military strength plastique, and send that cute, innocent little ankle-biter Elian Gonzalez right on back to Dad in Cuba.

And sitting in a cubicle 40 hours a week, waiting to be staff-adjusted when somebody needs to make the bottom line look a little prettier for all the Porsche-driving, Viagra-chugging stockholders is better how?  Sorry but the last time I checked, you still can’t outsource a tuna, fuckhead.

I know, I know… it isn’t a very popular stance but I look at it this way:  Mom takes a six-year-old on a joyride on an inner tube across the Atlantic with a guy she just married after knowing him a couple months.  Gee, Watson, how could that voyage have gone so horribly FUCKING wrong?  Hell, it couldn’t have been more cursed from the start if it had a theme song, a professor and a first mate named Gilligan. Yeah, I’d say the side of the family with common sense and sound parenting skills is still alive and smoking.

So now the kid’s cousin and great uncle think they can raise him better here than his dad can in Cuba.  Personally, I thought “great uncle” was one of those arbitrary titles they gave to people who got wasted at the wedding and threw up on the bride, like “crack whore” or “El Presidenté.” Unless you can prove to me that his Dad was beating the hell out of him, you give the kid back to his father.  But now they have lawyers and are trying to argue that it is in his best interests to keep him here in the US.  Right, well let’s look at their main arguments, shall we?

Point:  In Cuba, he faces the possibility of physical violence that can occur from abject poverty and a life on the streets in a depressed economy.

Counterpoint:  Chicks dig scars.

Point:  In Cuba, he would experience only a heritage and culture that was suppressed and stifled by an omnipotent Communist dictatorship.

Counterpoint:  He would have ready access to Cuban cigars.

Point:  But poor little Elian has been telling his lawyers for months now that he does not want to go back to Cuba.  He is scared of going back to Cuba.

Counterpoint:  Really?  Amazingly enough, when I was his age I didn’t want to go to school.  I liked sitting around by myself all day, playing with my Legos and my Etch-A-Sketch.  In fact, I was so scared of school that my first day there I cried like a baby in the corner of the classroom while routinely pissing myself.  I actually have no point here; I just wanted to make everyone aware that I’ve been wetting my pants for a loooooooonnnng time now.

Point:  With limited education and no outside means of advancing himself, he would almost certainly have to become a poor fisherman like his father and his grandfather before that.

Counterpoint:  And sitting in a cubicle 40 hours a week, waiting to be staff-adjusted when somebody needs to make the bottom line look a little prettier for all the Porsche-driving, Viagra-chugging stockholders is better how?  Sorry but the last time I checked, you still can’t outsource a tuna, fuckhead.

Point: You can’t be serious!  Everyone knows that there is no opportunity to advance yourself in communist Cuba!

Counterpoint:  Bullshit.  What everyone knows is that Cuba is the best Goddamned breeding ground for baseball players in the entire fucking free world.  I guess it has something to do with the “cigars and hookers” clause they put in their contracts over there.  That or, you know, the “shooting you dead square in the testicles if you lose” clause.  That Castro, he’s a wacky guy.  Whatever the motivation, those people got glove. 

So you see that he is much better off in Cuba - you take the same kid and put him in America and what do you get?  A basketball player who is just good enough to almost get a scholarship to a Division II college.  What’s he going to do then?  Watch all his boyhood Cuban pals driving their Bentleys down to Sun Devils Stadium while he asks customers if they’d like a reach-around for only $15 more. 

I’m not making this shit up – it’s a matter of supply and demand.  Major League Baseball has thirty teams with rosters of over twenty players apiece.  Plus they all have three or four farm teams they fill with hundreds of talented young up and comers such as “Player to be Named Later” and “That Other Guy.”   According to my abacus that’s 3,942,721,980 players total in pro baseball.  On the other hand, basketball has twenty-nine pro teams with only eleven players each and no farm system.  This gives us a total of roughly fourteen players in the entire NBA. {Editors Note: Mr. St. Fakename, Esq.’s figures have a 4% - 145% margin of error, depending on how close it is to St. Patrick’s Day.}

Look, I’ll grant you that Cuba probably ain’t the best place to live and grow up.  But, no matter how attached Elian Gonzalez gets to Chicken McNuggets and Skinemax, that isn’t a good enough reason to keep him away from his father and the rest of his natural family.  Hey, all kidding aside, a little national pride is a good thing and it’s nice to tell yourself daily that you live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, but you know what?  Every single day, several billion people actually enjoy living in other countries.  Hell, many of them wouldn’t want to live here even if you threw in reasonably affordable sex. 

Of course, those people also can’t vote me “Wino of the Year.”  So I need all you dumb bastards to elect me to something…anything…ok, anything I can do while drunk.  Remember, whatever position you consider me for, I’ll be the only candidate who can use his balls as a flashlight.  That’s got to count for something.