Now that his special skill taking the temperature of New Hampshire's voters has become useless for another four years, Kevin Flynn is expanding his portfolio to include taking the temperature of New England's football fans. Here's his report:

So…what is it with Tom Brady's ankle in that walking cast?   Everyone outside of New England loves to ponder just how injured he is and whether it means the star quarterback won't play like…well…like Tom Brady.

As a lifelong Boston sports fan, I'm not really worried about Brady's injury. I'm more worried that, as a lifelong Boston sports fan, I'm not worried about it.   

It was only a few years ago when the Patsies or the Red Flops would faithfully find a spectacular way to lose a big game. And losing those games in ways that rivaled Greek mythos or Shakespearean tragedy. That's all we had as Boston fans: our fatalism and the grace of losing.   

That changed in September of 2001, thanks to the Jets Mo Lewis. He put a lick on Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe that caused internal bleeding. The injury allowed 2000 draft pick #199, Tom Brady, to take over the team, changing the fortunes of the team and the region.

Even when the Pats were driving to that last minute field goal in Super Bowl XXXVI, Boston sports fans like me were wondering how our team was going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But when Adam Vinatieri made that 48-yard kick, everything began to change.

No, it didn't happen overnight. Boston sports fans had to grow accustomed to success. Uneasy were the heads who wore the crowns.   When Vinatieri missed two field goals in the Pat's next Super Bowl appearance I thought, “How do we turn the only sports hero of our lifetime into a goat? Watch him blow the next championship.” That was the pain of Bill Buckner and Bucky Dent crying out.

But the Pats won three Super Bowls. The Red Sox, heaven help me, the freakin' Boston Red Sox have won two World Series. The Celtics look like they could win it all too. The Patriots excellence has been so ubiquitous that a perfect season and championship win on Super Sunday have been forgone conclusions in our minds for months.

So…no. I don't worry about Brady's ankle. Here in New England we're confident, cocky, and damn set on going any length to win. We're kind of become…well…like Yankee fans.

Footnote: That walking cast that Brady was seen in…know what it's called?   It's called a Bledsoe Boot.   Thanks, Mo Lewis.

Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), has been contemplating immortality, wondering if the Patriots could possibly be the greatest . . . NFL team. . . of all time. Here's his report:

We're over one week into the Super Bowl dissection. So far, Tom Brady's ankle, Lawrence Tynes brother and the length of the rendition of the national anthem by Jordin Sparks (over /under set at 1:42) have spent time under the microscope. Every facet of the game has been hashed out and the water cooler is running dry, but one question - possibly the preeminent one - remains answer-less: If the New England Patriots win, are they the best NFL team of all-time?

Of course there is no real answer. But a website called whatifsports.com, which allows you to pit the greatest teams of all-time against each other and simulate a matchup, can give us the next best thing. Here is a list of 10 matchups, which square up the 2007 Patriots against some of the other great teams of all-time on a neutral field in Arizona (home of Super XLII) in 60-degree whether (expected temperature at kickoff). As Mike Myers' former Saturday Night Live character Linda Richman would say, "discuss amongst yourselves".

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 “It's a one-game season.” “We're just happy to be here.” “Brady is listed as 'Probable.'”

There are enough generic, canned quotes being rolled out by players and coaches this Super Bowl Week. I decided instead to turn my attention to the lovely Quinn Kingston, a Patriots cheerleader. Why a Patriots cheerleader? As you know, I'm a Pats fan and actually worked for the organization at Patriots Football Weekly. Yes, before I was lucky enough to see girls lining up for Playboy castings in this office, I was lucky enough to see cheerleaders parade through the PFW office. Oh yeah, and the New York Football (Puritan) Giants don't have cheerleaders. Why Quinn? I have a thing for intelligent blondes.

PLAYBOY: What experience are you most excited about having in Arizona?
QUINN: Just leaving for Arizona in the morning so....     I am still in shock that the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl... again!  I don't know exactly what to expect, but am sure it will be a weekend full of late nights, early mornings, and tons of fun.  All 24 members on our squad are Super Bowl "rookies", so I'm sure we will be on overload trying to take in the experience.  This has been such a record breaking, history making season, and one that will be remembered and talked about for all time, so to be able to say that I've been a part of it, is simply unreal.

PLAYBOY: What has been your favorite part about cheering for the Pats?
QUINN: Each and every opportunity I've been given as a Patriots cheerleader has been amazing, but the real reason we all aspire to be on the team is for the time put in on the sidelines.  The rush of adrenaline I felt when stepping onto the field at Gillette stadium for the very first time will never be matched.  It's a feeling that returns with every game, and something I'll never lose appreciation for.  

PLAYBOY: Do you  wish the team played in better weather or, perhaps. a dome?
QUINN: No, I think part of what makes cheering in New England so exciting is the unpredictable weather.  The Patriots have the most loyal, tough fans, and no matter if it's scorching heat, or freezing rain, they'll be there making themselves heard loud and clear for 60 minutes of football.  People are always amazed that we'll remain on the field during the cold, winter conditions, but we love it because it proves our loyalty and throughout the season we get to show off so many different uniform pieces.  Sometimes the games that we remember and talk about the most are the ones where we end up drenched, muddy and with no feeling in our fingers and toes.
 

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Sleepless intern Ben Conniff has been watching the watchers. Here's his report: 

Since 9/11 and the Patriot Act, everyday Americans can assume that their internet history, library records, and private conversations are making lively water cooler banter at the FBI building. We complain, but the Feds have been snooping into the private lives of celebrities for a whole lot longer. Recently declassified documents from the 1940s to 1970s show that J. Edgar Hoover had an intimate knowledge of the A-list's doings. Very intimate.

Among the FBI's findings: Elvis Presley got some special “treatments” from a male dermatologist in the army, while Jimi Hendrix couldn't stop practicing solo in his barracks. Comedy duo Abbott and Costello were porn addicts. Even our first centerfold, the unimpeachable Marilyn Monroe, may have had a sex tape stashed away. Read the full story on J. Edgar's voyeurism here.

Rob Walton of Playboy.com finagled a sitdown with the immortal John Cleese of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and other fertile deltas of laughter. Here’s his interview:

It seems almost quaint in retrospect, but in 1979 Monty Python's Biblical satire Life of Brian was met with angry movie theater picketers (who helped word of mouth immensely). Today a two-disc DVD version hits video stores, without benefit of any protest. In need of a backlash to promote this "Immaculate Edition," Life of Brian co-writer and co-star John Cleese turned to Playboy to generate some controversy. To that end, Cleese -- who played Q in two Bond Films and earned an Oscar nomination for writing A Fish Called Wanda-- names his favorite Bond Girl and uses our Vice President to illustrate the fundamental flaw of blind faith. He also recalls how Playboy had a hand in launching Monty Python onto the big screen in 1971 when it financed the British TV troop's first feature film.

PLAYBOY: You've had first-hand experience with being boycotted, censored and protested by religious groups. So why was Martin Scorsese's poetic The Last Temptation of Christ protested while Mel Gibson's super-violent The Passion of the Christ was not?
CLEESE: It's only the fundamentalist kind of personality that bothers to protest those things. Marty's film would have been offensive to a lot of people who call themselves fundamentalists, whereas Mel Gibson's is exactly the version of Christianity that a lot of the fundamentalists seem to be taken in by. I've often said that the fact that Jesus suffered in this terrible way is not in itself a good reason to accept to his teaching. In other words, if somebody crucified Dick Cheney, I would feel sorry for Dick Cheney -- eventually -- but it wouldn't bring me any closer to Dick Cheney's views. A person who lays down a set of beliefs as Christ did, whether or not we accept those beliefs should be based on how we evaluate those beliefs, not on whether the guy who set them down was hurt badly or not. It's irrelevant.  We ought to believe in him because he suffered so much? Bullshit! We should believe in him because it is the most beautiful teaching -- along with Buddhism -- that I've ever come across. That's why I believe in his teaching. 
 

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Thanks to multiple late-night viewings of the Russ Meyer oeuvre, I was a fan of Playmate Eve Meyer even before I happened upon her stunning photo in Playboy: the Complete Centerfolds. Beyond serving as Russ Meyer’s wife and muse, Eve produced some of the best cult films of her time, if not all time. 

At first glance, I couldn’t help noticing Meyer’s strong resemblance to Grace Kelly. After a second look, I realized a defining difference between the two- Meyer is as hot as Kelly is cool. While no one can deny the appeal of an icy Hitchcock blonde, it’s hard to imagine one of those taking any delight in the lurid joys of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. For that brand of fun, you need a woman like Miss June 1955.   

We tip our hat to intern Seth Feigerman, who wrote this entire entry with using the phrase ``cunning linguist.’’

George Steiner has long been considered one of the towering intellectuals of our time. As a scholar and literary critic, he has tackled everything from crucial cultural issues to analyses of poetry and philosophy. But in his new essay collection, My Unwritten Books, Steiner explores seven subjects he never had the courage to write about during his long intellectual tenure. These seven essays cover a vast amount of academic terrain, from the plight of Jewish identity, to the theology of emptiness.

Tucked amid these dense subjects is a colorful essay on the relationship between language and sex based largely on Steiner’s own experiences as a multilingual love machine. Apparently, this busy professor has managed to have sex in four different languages. It must happen when he’s not writing his books.

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According to Oscarology I am a Gandhi, meaning: “I am charismatic and inspiring, and willing to take risks and make personal sacrifices to achieve their goals and to do the right thing. But I’m not always able to understand or predict the full consequences of my actions, often to the detriment of myself and those around me.”

Sounds fairly vague (like most horoscopes) but it is interesting to think that the pop culture—which mirrors the current attitude of the people—could act as the barometer of the nature of the village you were nurtured in.

A brouhaha has broken out over the “anti-virgin” bias of the hosts of American Idol. Last week, Bruce Dickson, 19, showed up at the Dallas auditions. When asked by Simon Cowell what the judges should know about him besides his love of music, Dickson revealed that he had never kissed a girl. A devout Christian, he says he plans to have his first kiss at the wedding ceremony. His father had given him a key that he wears around his neck to symbolize that “there’s one woman out there for me.”

Randy Jackson advised him to “go kiss some girls,” and Simon Cowell suggested he “avoid Ryan (Seacrest) on the way out." For good reason – Seacrest ended the segment by saying, "Maybe next year he'll come back less a boy and more a man."

The comments were rude, although nothing you don’t expect to hear on American Idol auditions. Later Dickson would say: “A real man would rather wait than just do whatever with whoever…. I respect women and don't think of them as a sexual object, and I'm the freak?"

The next day on Fox News, Shepard Smith invited Sarah Preston, an editor at Playboy.com, to provide some perspective. "I would have told him to go to first, second, third, fourth and fifth” bases, she said. “I'm not belittling Bruce's Christian beliefs, but I do think being in tune with one's own sexuality goes a long way in being confident with yourself. Confidence is key, especially for American Idol.” 

 

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Lauren of Philly writes to let us know that “everyone says my stretch mark looks like a Rabbit Head.” Does the mark of the Bunny indicate a boy or a girl? (In this case, it was a boy. Congratulations.)

Earworm, or ohrwurm as they (apparently) say in Germany, had its little moment a few years ago -- it was on those neato words-of-the-moment lists that come out periodically. An earworm is a tune that gets stuck in your head; a refrain or hook that you just can’t stop repeating. Now that advertising seems our primary means of discovering new music, we often find ourselves afflicted with earworms without having heard the whole song -- or knowing its title -- or the artist. Our latest cryptic earworm comes from a Dewar’s commercial, and it’s a single line. The ad cites the old saying “Minds are like parachutes: They only function when open.” The music is a foot-stompin’ riff that rolls along through most of the ad, then at the very end we hear one line: “Would you believe, I’m crawlin’ up the walls again.” God damn it sounds familiar. Like late-70s or early-80s power pop. The Knack? The Producers? The Flashing Lights? The Jags? All way, way, way off. It’s not old at all, it’s brand new. It’s “Up the Walls” by PT Walkley and the Adventures of Track Rabbit, and it is our new favorite song.

Sometimes good things happen to good people. My friend and former colleague Jim Collins is one of the nicest guys I know--funny, smart, unflinchingly decent, and very tall. He has just come out with a wonderful novel called Beginner's Greek, which I devoured this past weekend. The book is a very lovely romance, beautifully held together by Jim's superb voice, which is benign, tolerant and above all, warm.

Permit me to quote: ``Needless to say. . . now that he was actually presented with the possibility of falling in love with a beautiful oung woman sitting next to him on an airplane, Peter was terrified. Terrified that he might actually get what he'd dreamt of getting and terrified that now, having the opportunity to get it, he would screw up. If he did not find some way to speak to the young woman, and charm her, he would kill himself. If he spoke to her and she, without even looking at him, gathered her belongings and moved to another seat, he would also kill himself. . . .For without even speaking to her, Peter was convinced, he knew for a certainty, he had not the slightest doubt, that he could spend the rest of his life with the young woman who happened to sit next to him, and it would be blissful.''

Congratulations, Jim! Breathlessly I await Intermediate Greek.

 

 

 

It’s a good day at the office when I can sit back and take an hour out of my schedule to examine The Complete Centerfolds book. Narrowing down the field to just one Playmate was a tricky and unscientific process, but after much deliberation I decided on Sandy Johnson, Miss June 1974. Besides her obvious beauty, I can’t point to a definite reason as to why I chose Miss Johnson. Maybe it’s because she’s wearing a baseball hat and knee high socks. Perhaps it’s the way she is biting her lower lip and gazing at me with innocent brown eyes. Or it might just be the way her name makes me giggle like a third grader whenever I say it aloud. As phone calls go unanswered and emails go unread, one thing is certain—I was entirely more productive before Mi