Ol’ !@#$%& Face Strikes Again

Kommissar Cistulli has already regaled you with the back-story of Billy Ripken’s “Fu*k Face” card, which is beautiful in its awfulness and awful in its beauty. And now we learn that Fu*k Face has a legacy that’s as enduring as any other cherished artifact of Western civilization — like the Magna Carta or Vicky Lawrence. Let Billy’s lesser known older brother Calvin tell the story …

Peter Sagal, host of the show, asked Ripken if he ever gets tired of living up to his good-boy image.

“Does that ever get to be a drag?” Sagal asked. “Do you ever, like, want to go out and behave really badly, but you can’t because you’re Cal Ripken Jr.?”

“The answer to that is yes,” Ripken said. “I’d like to be able to behave really badly and not have it matter. … I’m OK with being out in public, except when you get in a fight with your wife or you get in a fight with your kids or your daughter calls you a name and storms off and you feel pretty helpless to do anything.”

Faith Salie, a panelist on the show, piped up: “Did she call you the name that was on the bottom of your brother’s bat?”

“Sorry,” Ripken said. “My daughter’s name is Rachel. Sorry, Rachel, but yes, she did.”

Because it will make me sound like the Man of Letters that I am not, I’ll leave you with a quote from something called “Mark Twain”: “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”

What should the elder Mr. Ripken take from this? Consolation, that’s what. The next time your daughter calls you “fu*k face,” it should be viewed as something more uplifting and adorable than whispered prayers at bedtime.

Remember, children of the world: Curse without ceasing.

(Curtsy: Da’ HBT)