It is an unassailable fact of the historical record that Jim Palmer was tasked with writing very specific passages of the Constitution. “But James,” Gouverneur Morris cautioned him, “pen only the sexy parts.”

Jim Palmer, framer-to-be, was en route to the Constitutional Convention to fulfill his obligations as a member of the Patriotic gentry when the urges of Jim Palmer, passionsmith, took firm yet tender hold. “Milkmaids,” he said to them, “when the loins speak, the heart can’t help but listen.”

No one ravished another, yet there was ravishment …

In Philadelphia there was heard the unmistakable click of many fingernails against a single headboard. Hamilton sighed resignedly. “Lord Palmer will not be joining us, it seems,” he said. “Jefferson, you may write the soiled parts.”

On this, that and every day and night, Jim Palmer set these prairies ablaze with dirty rapture.

One day, Joe Pettini will show them all …

Joe Pettini’s far-off gaze — it smoulders at the today about him just as it aches for the tomorrow before him. He is, for miserable now, a Le Tigre wearer lost in a remorseless hierarchy of Those Who Don Privileged Izods. Whatever mastery the lunchroom table — that steering committee of knaves, where he is not welcome — holds over Joe Pettini, it is as fugitive as the pupa.

The ribs of Joe Pettini encase not only a mighty heart, but also a concrete intake facility — painted in mute, industrial gray, the color of Prussia’s lost battles. Inside that cell subsists Joe Pettini’s numbed will. It is disembodied save for two crispy fingers, and those fingers, each night, summon the hardihood to scrawl a prisoner’s tally of the crudest hours until July 10, 1980.

On that day, all will be shown because Joe Pettini will show them all.

So assail him for now, invertebrates of the homerooms and hallways, but know this: the hunches you mock are the very wounds from which Joe Petini’s thunderclap wings will grow. You shall know him by his talons.

How can one tell if a refreshing can of alcohol is made not only of hops, barley and melted snow from Valley Forge but also honor itself? Reach for a can of Narragansett Beer, the one with the baseball-diamond scar tissue on the cask, and you can be sure that said beer will meet your daily requirements for honor …

You earn honor by punching thieves. You earn honor by giving up mortality for Lent. You earn honor by recounting your night terrors to no one save the dog. You earn honor by playing baseball.

Yea, verily: Play baseball, and no matter what else you do, you shall have honor. You shall be swollen and veiny with honor. Elijah Dukes once had honor because he played baseball — his name on his driver’s license was “Honorgood Stoutsterling” — but then he squandered that honor by not drinking Narragansett Beer, by drinking something sold not on merit but on avarice. His driver’s license then read “Communisto Slackweakling.”

Drink Narragansett Beer. You are free not to drink Narragansett Beer with the baseball diamond on the hogshead, but if you don’t drink Narragansett Beer with the baseball diamond on the hogshead, then you shall be slaughtered by a Bible.

The following action-news photographic images, airlifted from the front lines of media sociale, prove beyond all doubt that veteran tosser LaTroy Hawkins is a rooter of not only Kansas Jayhawks basketball, but also of the Nippled Mounds of American Ladies …

And …

Having read and re-read the Zagat Guide to the Good Life, I have long been aware that an appreciation of both Dr. Naismith’s game and lady paps signify a striving toward said Good Life.

So it is with LaTroy Hawkins, Sommelier of Titties.

Whoa, whoa, whoa …

What the fuck did you just say to Rich Gale? What in the living fuck did you just say to this 6-foot-7, 225-pound sum-buck?

Rich Gale will set those gold-rimmed Foster Grants aside — maybe hand them for safekeeping to Pete LaCock, who will mutter, “Shit, you shouldn’t have said that,” — give a considered stroke of his mustache with thumb and pointer finger and get the shit down to business. Don’t let the feathered body wave fool you: If Rich Gale’s smoky baritone doesn’t get through to you, then these got-damn soup bones will do the rest of the talking.

Yes indeed, I’d pump the brakes over there, tadpole, lest you want Rich Gale to use these meaty shilelaghs to beat some wits into you. Within the last fifteen minutes, Rich Gale has factually pinched off a crap bigger than you. Say something like that again, and Rich Gale’s going to get around to tenderizing some meat.

You started in on him, and he told you that tiny boats should stay near the shore. But you kept at it. And now he’s giving you that smoldering, 12-gauge glare that says it looks like it might be time to take out the trash. Maybe what’s coming — and what’s coming for you is a mouth full of bloody Chiclets — will give you pause the next time you take a notion to nip at the heels of Rich God Almighty Damn Gale. Shoulda left your mouth at home, you dumb dumbass dummy.

Yeah, this is gonna hurt you a whole helluva lot more than it hurts Streets of Fire Rich Gale.

We present an inglorious return to the non-cherished genre of “Men Surrounded By Things.” In today’s episode former Expos third baseman Coco Laboy is surrounded by, as you might expect, cocoa and boys …

This has been Coco Laboy surrounded by cocoa, boys.

Earlier tonight, your foul-smelling scribe wrote a post inspired by a Don Wilson baseball card in which the subject appeared vaguely distressed. I riffed on this in the long-banal manner familiar to those endure me and then moved along. Then I read the first two comments to the post, which can best be described as containing “soft yet earnest outrage.”

“Don Wilson,” I said to myself. “Something awful must have happened to this man.”

So I went to Wikipedia and read, to my mounting chagrin, this passage:

On January 5, 1975, Wilson died at his Fondren Southwest Houston home he shared with his wife, daughter and son. Wilson was found in the passenger seat of his brown Ford Thunderbird inside the garage with the engine running. The garage was attached to the house, which caused his son, Alex, to die also and his daughter and wife to be hospitalized in a coma. The official cause of death states that Wilson’s death was accidental.

Egad. This is a grim bit of baseball history of which I was pathetically ignorant. As such, the harm was not intended.

The post was subsequently removed, not — as has been the case so often in the past — by the administrator, but rather by me. My apologies to all who have witnessed my buffoonery.

This latest incident brings us to tonight’s poll …

Today, while strolling to my morning massage, I happened upon this rolling through the dawn-Frenched streets of America, U.S.A. …

I flagged down a taxi and followed it to the shopping center that features TG&Y and Otasco. Like you, I assumed Enos Cabell had merely slathered his poon schooner in Greg Minton Fatheads. Upon closer inspection, however, I discovered that each commissioned Greg Minton image was lovingly crafted by Olan Mills himself.

I studied the Greg Minton customized van for the duration of eight cigarettes — in the back, I could make out what appeared to be a velveteen sofa the color of an eggplant beaten with a liver — and then I noticed Enos Cabell sprinting toward me out of the TG&Y.

What happened next, I dare not say.

The Astros of Houston — I approve of their new uniforms, the progressive bent of the front office and the early work done by GM Jeff Luhnow on the superfund site that he inherited. Still, there is no doubt that when we think of the Astros of Houston these days we think of sadness. Invoking the name of Astros is not unlike summoning the Curtis Mathis to life and seeing overhead news-copter shots of an evangelical stronghold — you know something awful and ridiculous is unfolding.

So it was with a not-insubstantial sense of dread that I entered the search terms “Astros” and “sadness” into Google Images. After first abandoning all hope, please walk with me …

First:

I am confused. I thought a horse was one of the three animals Texans would not kill, the other two being a happy dog not presently on the far corner of your property uninvited and a grandma still capable of making a tasty pie.

For reasons sufficient unto themselves, however, the Astros have decided to drown a horse in mud.

Second:

Tents suggest unwelcome bonding time foisted upon wives and children, or perhaps one last stupid trip with old high-school buddies soon to enter hospice. It occurs to the man who pulls into his garage and sits in the car until the song is over that he resents his choices. So he takes his family camping. The lack of shade and the distinct possibility that Texas is the setting suggest a hot, shitty day. Although it seems unlikely, it’s also possible that this is an outdoor music festival, which is the worst human idea since organ meats.

I can’t imagine why the Astros are making us go to an outdoor music festival.

Third:

Ah, Bull Durham. This is the movie everyone says they like. However, if you watch the movie and pay special attention to things like the words and moving images, you’ll notice that it is a stupid, crappy movie. It might have zero funny parts to it, or fewer, depending on if you have to go to goddamn grocery store later. The mystery is not why it is an insipid film; the mystery is why no one will acknowledge that Bull Durham is as ass-dumb as Tango & Cash.

I don’t know why the Astros insist on watching Bull Durham on surround sound at their apartment yet again, especially when I don’t have a ride home and the Astros are out of weed.

In which Pete Rose translates towering works of poetry.

In today’s episode, Pete Rose will translate “A Poison Tree” by Romantic luminary William Blake from the original English into Pete Rose American.

Mr. Blake’s original:

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright ;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Mr. Rose’s translation:

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright ;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Hey, 7-11 clerk,
Let’s make this shit work.
My rebuilt Dodge in the handicap spot,
The .38 in my hand that I have not yet shot,

And an autographed, severed finger of mine
For 10 Powerball tickets (for which I typically stand in line),
And enough Schlitz my thirst to quench.
Anybody asks, my name’s Johnny Fucking Bench.

This has been “Poetry, Translation by Pete Rose.”