Good fucking afternoon, everyone. Let’s rise up, let it shine, and get something done today-but first, a message from your bald South City representative of Princeton Heights.

What am I drinking? I’m on cup of coffee #3, delivered straight from the Keurig machine to my right. I buy the cheap Walmart Great Value brand. Breakfast Blend that goes for less than 50 cents per cup of dirty water. If you consume as much as I do on a daily basis, you have to be practical with how you consume it. There’s a time and place for the fancy shit, but home is not one of them.

So, I have some things to say and you may or may not like them. This is my unfiltered zone, a place where I can be myself and take the “diet” off my content label. As a friend named John would say, it’s time to get lazy with my words. In other words, say “fuck” a lot. As a man who goes by Bruno says, “oh, look at me, I’m saying fuck a lot”. It’s true. I can’t haul off and say “these fucking Cardinals are about as delightful as a crotch rash discovered on the first day of a seventeen day camping trip”. It wouldn’t fly with my bosses at the KSDK offices, so I come here.

Let’s get going before you click on some bullshit clickbait article detailing Blake Shelton’s preferred plaid shirts for concert tours.

• 14,000 kids have been murdered with a gun since the Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre. That’s fucking insane. Think about all the hope, dreams, and love lost in those moments. And for what? A senseless goon pulled a trigger and took a life. Whenever I post something on Facebook about gun violence, people immediately attach a left or right leaning angle to it. Those people don’t know me. I am NOT a political honk. I don’t care about politics, because I don’t trust our government to know its ass from its elbow. This is about right and wrong, and our kids are dying. I am up for discussion on how to prevent it–or at least lessen the frequency. If this means Billy Joe Bob Frank can’t have an AR-15 anymore, so be it. We all make sacrifices. Parents have made sacrifices with their kids being murdered. It’s time the NRA and the US Government made a sacrifice and stopped lining their pockets with cash. For the person who just said, “well, he’s clearly a democrat,” go fuck yourself.
• No, this isn’t the only problem, so quiet down while I finish.
• There’s a movement going around schools where you find 17 strangers and say hello to them in order to reach out to people you don’t know and be kind. That’s lovely for public relations reps, but let’s try this instead: be nice to your fellow man and woman all the time. Is it so damn hard to smile more and speak up instead of slamming someone or being rude? Let’s all slow our lives down, take a minute, and be kind to others. Do whatever your mother would want you to do. If your mother is an asshat who ran out on you or doesn’t care, be better than her and be nice.

• I started a Go Fund Me on Monday night to help out a friend in need. If you read the front page of the Post Dispatch on Sunday, you saw that Dan Millheim and his family are being screwed over by their former insurance company, Anthem Blue Cross I Suck a Shield Bullshit Suits, or something. In 2016, Dan’s kid fell from a loft on a camping trip and fractured his skull. He needed an air ambulance and it was out of network, something the Millheims didn’t know at the time and would later find out when their bill was $32,000! I have a simple train of thought. If you work hard and provide for your family, insurance should cover crazy shit like this. Why else do you have insurance? Why is medicine so expensive? If the government can bail out banks, they can provide hard working families with medical care and not empty their bank account. Please donating to the Millheims GoFundMe. I wanted to help a family man in need.
• I know, there’s a lot of sense being made here. It’s almost too much. Let’s fill up the coffee cup and keep going.
• I was raised by two hard working parents who would pull tooth and nail for their kids, but I have these ideals because I choose to think a certain way and not be fooled by bullshit. Call me nuts, but if we just took care of each other, maybe there’s a way out of the dark. Let’s lighten things up a bit, but first, a random picture of something to break up the prose being dispensed here…

Damn, that’s sexy! A hot cup of black coffee being poured is a pure mind boner.

• Like boxing or not, you should tune in when Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez enter a ring for the second time in May. The first time, they were like a pair of models feeling each out on a runway. They threw a few bombs at each other’s jaws, but were too afraid to truly let it go. If there had to be a winner and draws weren’t allowed, I’d have given the decision to GGG. He imposed his will, landed more, and took more of the rounds. This time, I expect him to beat Canelo.
• Speaking of draws in boxing, let’s throw them out. If the scorecards come up even, take the referee out of the ring and let the two fighters have 90 seconds to go toe to toe without rules. I’m talking Mike Tyson ear chomping and foot smashing. No weapons. Just reckless abandon. Whatever. Revenue would go up. Draws would happen a lot less.
• Whoever greenlit A Wrinkle in Time needs to be given his/her walking papers. That movie was grade A shit. Next time, make the movie stars blink before they get their check.
• Rest in peace, Stephen Hawking. If someone truly had a cup of coffee with the cosmos, it was you. All done without the use of their body. Amazing. He was given two years to live and he lasted 76.
• The Blues don’t make any sense, but that’s their style of play for years. Zig, zag, and drive fans mad. All the time.
• As of right now, I expect the Cardinals to win 85 games this year. Probably not enough to win the division or get a playoff spot, but looking at this roster and rotation, I have a lot of worries. Maybe 86-87. Now, if they make a huge trade at the deadline-I’m talking Matt Holliday type huge-that total could change. Right now, 85-77.
• Can people stop using the word “like” forty times per conversation? Thanks.
• A pair of drunk passengers totally got hot and bothered in my car on Friday night/Saturday morning. It was dark, huffing and puffing, and lip smacking action back there. Thank goodness the window was cracked.
• Sam Bradford led teams lose a lot, but somehow, the dude got $20 million from Arizona to play quarterback. Whatever that GM is smoking, pass the joint, dude.
• Frank Grillo played a bad guy named Big Daddy in a Chinese action film called Wolf Warrior 2, and it’s on Hulu now. You can bet your ass I’m watching this so-called propaganda flick. Need to get my Grillo on.
• Currently bored with the new season of Jessica Jones. When Killgrave died, the show may have died with him.
• Loving the first two episodes of Hulu’s The Looming Tower, which documents the clash of heads between the CIA and FBI leading up to 9/11. The idea that two agencies sworn to protect the world didn’t work together with nearly 3,000 people losing their lives as a result is pretty powerful stuff. Like watching a movie you know the end to, but remain glued anyway. It’s based off a Pulitzer Prize winning novel and Jeff Daniels is in it. Start watching now.
• Netflix’s Seven Seconds may be its best show to date.
• Hey parents in the carpool line, chill the fuck out. We are all trying to get our kids and escape.

I have more to say, but time is up, so I’ll leave you with this message. Take care of your family first and foremost, but damn it, don’t forget about the common stranger who you happen to interact with. A simple smile or hello could help.

If you see a Cubs fan, you know what to do: middle finger and smirk.

Until next time,

DLB