Off Asides is out of the office this week. Thus, the Metroplex’s most heralded sports column (note: no heralds actually heard) will not be entertaining you with the wit, insight, non sequiturs, puns, and pathos you’ve come to expect on the morning after each Dallas Cowboys game.
Had Off Asides been available to write this week’s column it would have mentioned the beautiful weather we’ve been having. Probably veered off for no reason into an odd story about Claude Akins, Claude Rains, Claude Monet, or somebody else named Claude, and then gone into a 500-word discussion on why you don’t meet many Claudes anymore. Probably would have pretended to call an expert on names and then made up a quote like, “Our latest research into this phenomenon uncovered the fact that ‘Claude’ is pronounced like ‘Clod,’ which is another word for a dummy. Would you name your kid Dummy?”
After a while, the column would mention something about the Cowboys, but in such a vague manner that you would suspect the writer had actually slept through the game.
Man, it would have been a hell of a column.
But before you flood Fort Worth Weekly with your cards and letters and add even more work for the overburdened person whose job it is to sort cards and letters, rest assured that this award-winning column (note: no awards actually won) will be back next week, bigger and badder and with at least two more non sequiturs than usual.
P.S. It’s a shame there’s no column because Off Asides actually stayed awake and had 27 interesting thoughts while watching the Cowboys pummel the New Orleans Saints on national TV, leaving the ‘Boys tied for first place. The resulting blog post would have been the best ever, grabbing the attention of ESPN corporate executives, who might have come courting your favorite columnist with mad cash and vanloads of strippers while trying to get my Claude Hancock on the dotted line of a seven-figure contract.
Off Asides, of course, would have said, “You, sirs, are all cads (when indignant, Off Asides speaks like Rains in one of his old movies). Your tainted currency and your women of questionable virtues but obvious endowments do not tempt me. I am loyal to the Weekly and to the place of my birth, beloved Fort Worth. Now please remove yourself from my presence, although you may leave the money and the strippers. And the contract. And could you send more money and strippers?”
Go Cowboys!
Yeah, you watched the game!