Revenge. Now you’re talking. That’s what I’ll be focused on next weekend, when I travel to Minnesota (where it’s about a million degrees below zero) to see the Vikings play the toady Dallas Cowboys, the only sports franchise that’s even more loathsome than the New York Yankees.

Watching that chimp-grinning former president up there last night, in the owner’s box without a care in the world while everyone else is suffering, made me rethink my pregame wish to root for the Eagles. I was planning to do only so that next weekend we could put a third beat-down on our bucktooth, country cousins, the Green Bay Packers.

I quickly switched my allegiance and rooted for the Cowboys because I want to beat the smirk off of that stupid QB, the Botoxed, freak show owner, the coach, who I would guess wears womens underwear. And the owner’s best buddy, George Bush. Not the bad one, the worse one.

While many of the Vikings fans will be deliriously happy just to have a home playoff game, I will have not traveled that far to witness a mere win. I want my pound of flesh.

Allow me to explain.

The year was 1976. I was a large, curious child who had already established a deep fondness for an NFL team that had, the year prior, choked away the 3^rd of their Super Bowl games. I was miserable, inconsolable, and I remember carrying the sense that there was a cosmic plot against them and, to a lesser extent, me.

As I sat there, darker than an Edward Gorey character, on the last day of the ’75 season, after we’d been manhandled by the Pittsburgh Steelers 16-6 in the Super Bowl, I still had reason to be optimistic. I was also nine.

The 1976 season started promisingly. The Vikings were the clear class of the NFC, starting the 14-game season by going 10-0. In the playoffs, they faced a Dallas Cowboys team filled with flashy tools like Roger Staubach, the Pearson brothers, and a great, mean defense.

Still, with the game being played outdoors in the Twin Cities’ old Metropolitan Stadium, and the temperature hovering around zero-minus-infinity, I liked our chances. Then again, I also liked Donny & Marie and naps.

The Vikings led the game 14-10 and were mere moments away from winning, when the Cowboys QB threw a bomb toward WR Drew Pearson, who ran a fly pattern down the sideline. The Vikings all-pro cornerback Nate Wright drifted back and all-pro safety Paul Krause charged over from midfield.

As the ball closed in, it appeared that Wright would make the interception, or at least knock the ball to the ground. All of a sudden his body jerked violently forward, and then twisted sideways, as if he had been pushed in the back with two hands.

Pearson, suddenly and inexplicably, was able to make the catch and the Cowboys took a 17-14 lead as Wright lay prone and Krause, the elder statesmen, advanced on the back judge, screaming. It was the moment for which the term “Hail Mary” had been coined  and I would imagine that at the moment, the back judge was hoping for some divine intervention.

Hands balled into tiny fists, I was apoplectic as I watched the scene unfold. The crowd, incredulous that such an obvious call had been missed, erupted in a fury, hurling debris onto the field. And we’re not talking about drunken Philly yahoos. Vikings crowds have always been older, more family-oriented. But they are also filled with men and women who knew right from wrong and they couldn’t grasp how this could’ve happened to them. In their house. But outside.

With time for one more play, the officials huddled and decided to let the Cowboys kick off, amid the strewn trash. To win, the Vikings would need to run the kick back the length of the field. But before the kick, the refs made a last, fateful decision: they decided to penalize the Vikings 15 yards for complaining. Literally.

The crowd’s visceral reaction to that news, moments later, was evident: a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels flew from the crowd, hurtling across space and time until it connected with a referee’s head, splitting it wide open. The bloody penguin did a quick pirouette, before collapsing unconscious as the crowd roared its approval.

The following season, the Vikings made it all the way to the Super Bowl, where they were shellizacked by the Oakland Raiders. But that’s beside the point.

What is the point? This is an opportunity for the referees working next week’s division championship game to make good, when the Cowboys wide receievers push off.

Or, you know, else.

If Ba’al, the great Canaan god of wine, orgies & naughty hijinks, were standing here before me right now, I would reach up and shake his hoof. (Then I would boil my hand in alcohol, because Lord knows where that hoof has been.)

For as the god who handled fertility way back in the day, he encouraged mega-procreation, behavior that eventually ended up bringing into the world the geniuses behind Sir Frances Bacon bacon-flavored (stay with me) peanut brittle, quite possibly the single greatest invention since corn syrup solids. Or some cancer drug that has not yet caught my attention.

Let me catch my breath.

On New Years Eve, I was given a sample of this brittle at a lovely home in the Berkshires. It was a very small piece, the last in the box. Like a giant crumb. I put it in my mouth and immediately said, “mmm mmm”, which I probably would’ve said even if it tasted like a goat’s eyeball. Why? Because I’m well-mannered. Duh.

But the thing is: very quickly I realized that whatever was in my mouth getting mashed on by Supertooth, my back bottom right molar that my dentist fashioned into a porcelain killing machine (Don’t ask to see it.) was a true game-changer. Salty, sweet, smoky—the candy version of my favorite character traits. Filling as hell, too. Wow. Like a one-piece candy snack.

Relatively expensive (three small boxes for $20), Sir Frances Bacon Peanut Brittle is the Steve McQueen of non-chocolate confectionary. The Adriana Lima of bacon-infused products. The Me of food with nuts. Or did I get that last one backward?

You can get it by going to baconpeanutbrittle.com, giving them your credit card information and waiting by your mailbox for three or four days trying not to drool.

It’s that good.

Old people. Man, they’re something, aren’t they? I love ‘em, don’t get me wrong. I adore how they don’t give a crap what people think of them. When you’re on borrowed time you can do that. I also love how they have the kind of knowledge that only experience can bring, and are more than happy to impart their wisdom upon you, if you would just shut up for two seconds.

Shutting up, however, is my one bone to pick with much of the older set: they act like a movie in a theater is the ideal setting for a three-way conversation between themselves, the other audience members and the folks up there on the silver screen.

On Christmas Eve day we took my mom and GG’s mom to see The Blind Side. My mother promptly fell asleep, as she so often does when it is dark, but when she awoke she said loudly to me, “Look hon, they made deviled eggs!”

Had I not been mentally preparing myself for a full weekend of her shenanigans, I would’ve thrown myself from the balcony. Except it was only ten feet, and I would’ve just been really banged up, and not in a cool “sign my cast” kind of way. More like a “change my bag, without looking” situation.

The thing is, my mother isn’t alone, or even in the minority. This past weekend we went to a movie theater in a small town in the Berkshires called Granolawaxcandle, where we saw that new Alec Baldwin-Meryl Streep film. The movie’s entire marketing campaign can be summed up in three words: Attention Old People.

We saw it because it worked, time-wise, and because both actors are really good. As far as the film itself, two of the more pain-in-the-ass of my group used words like “wretched” and “insipid” (but they were from Brooklyn—irony alert), while the rest of us didn’t go in expecting Citizen Kane and were not terribly disappointed.

But anyway, as we took our seats, I felt as if I had been dropped into a Greatest Generation reunion. In front of me behind me, beside me, even. I sensed cataracts growing as I sat, elegantly consuming my candy.

The woman in front of me looked like Bette Davis in All About Eve had Eve been living off of inhalants for a few years. I mean, her wrinkles had craters. And she carried on a dialogue with John Krasinski, the guy who played Meryl Streep’s son-in-law. While watching him she seamlessly shifted from informing, “he’s a good boy” to the people seated around her, to “you’re a good boy” by the time he was helping to plan his own wedding.

The guy next to me was both sleeping and talking in his sleep. And there was enough murmuring to think that a George Romero film festival was going on.

I was so tempted to say something, despite the fact that I have always respected my elders, even University Place’s own Homeless Joe who always asks me for money to buy drugs and pizza. Yet just before I did so I realized: those old people couldn’t give a crap if they were bothering me.

Like I said, old people have it all figured out.

Today was a rare win for me, sports-wise. I needed two things to happen for the Minnesota Vikings to get a bye week before their first playoff game. They needed to beat the New York Giants, a team I generally loathe, and the Cowboys, a second team I generally loathe, had to beat the Eagles, a third team I generally loathe. It all happened and now I can rest easy, thankfully.

The stakes were piled so high because five weeks ago I did something that I swore I would never do: I counted on the Vikings and booked a non-refundable trip to Minneapolis for the weekend of January 17^th —the date of the playoff’s second round. I also bought a game ticket, booked a hotel room, my favorite restaurant and the car to take me from the airport. I basically rolled the dice, with a trembling hand.

I booked the trip when I did in large part because my friend Mikey from London informed me that he had done so, and although I knew that it was going to be a bumpy ride, I am a loyal friend. I am not blaming him, though—especially since GG warned me against it. Matter of fact, her exact words were, “Don’t you go blaming Mikey for this. He didn’t even know where Minnesota was before he met you.” I had to agree.

As weeks have gone on and the Vikings have been busy vikinging, I have been beside myself, filled with fear and self-loathing. I had been keeping it together on the home front, managing to convince GG that all was well, which she grew to realize was not the case.

It all came to a head last Monday evening, when the Vikings came all the way back against the Bears before succumbing in overtime. It was 3am, London-time, and my insomniac friend called and I was giving him the play-by-play. When it was over, I began whispering to him about resorting to “Plan B.”

I had not sat down in nearly two hours and when I went up to bed after the game, my shirt was caked in sweat and I was wild-eyed with fury and grief. The cat leapt from the bag when GG asked me what the hell was going on with me and I shrieked, “Stop staring at me like…I’m an animal!”

Oy vey. But unlike in the past million-or-so years, everything seemed to work out for the Vikings, which is further proof that 2010 is going to be a great year.

Because if the Vikings can win a big game, anything can happen. Believe that.

I have been regularly following a blog and, in what is probably a subtle form of harassment, recently pestered its young writer as to why she has been updating it so infrequently. (I know: Like it’s any of my business.)

I did not ask because I need more stuff to read. Heaven knows I have a million different things to keep me busy. I just see writing as a discipline, and one doesn’t get better at it, unless one practices. Plus, she’s a real good writer with an important voice and sometimes everyone needs a nudge. I certainly did.

Her reasoning for the slowdown in production sounded all-too-familiar: she said she was happy. In her mind (as far as I can gather) the best writing comes from a dark place, where only a tangled web of melancholic emotion can summon anything of substance.

Fair enough. I was in her shoes at one time in my life and I thought the same exact thing. Yet, my opinion has since done a 180. Happiness, while not as sexy as sadness, is still a powerful dramatic tool, and is interesting to read about. That may sound obvious to you. To her and me? Not so much.

When I was but a precocious child, one of my favorite stories was Aesop’s fable of the lion with the thorn in his paw.

Here’s the “Aesop For Dummies” synopsis: An escaped slave named Androcles was wandering around in a forest, starving, when he came upon a hurt lion. Normally, a person would high-tail it away, but, hell, when you are an escaped slave, where are you really going? Exactly. So he approached the howling lion and saw that old boy’s paw was swollen and bleeding, with a huge thorn protruding from it.

The slave pulled the thorn out and the lion, as one would expect, was overjoyed. They became friends, in that way that never actually happens between man and beast. Just ask Steve Irwin.

Sadly, both Androcles and the lion were captured shortly thereafter. The royally pissed Emperor ordered Androncles to be “thrown to the lion” and not in any kind of euphemistic way.

Everyone came out to see the show and, when Androcles was led out into the middle of the arena, the place went bananas. Soon his friendly neighborhood lion was set loose and came tear-assing across the arena. But the moment he recognized his friend, they hugged, traded a few “what have you been up to?” stories and other pleasantries, while the crowd booed lustily.

The Emperor, was like, “what the…?” and, upon hearing Androcles amazing story, let both he and the lion go. And, just like the end of Running Scared, the two buddies rode off into the sunset. (Well, the starved lion stumbled and the beaten slave limped, but you get the idea.)

Sometimes I think of myself as the lion, and certainly, in re-reading some of the tortured stuff I wrote when I was a youngster, most all of what I can see is fueled by isolation, desolation and a few other –ations. Put it this way: When I was in high school I wrote a story about a cancer victim who, after being cured, got hit by a bus.

GG removed my thorn about fifteen years ago and, you know what? I think that I am much better at this now. Less self-pitying and more self-deprecating, certainly.

Perhaps this young writer is walking a similar path and is in the process of shedding her thorn. Maybe she hasn’t realized that happiness can actually make her, too, better at this.

She will, though, sooner than later. I have no doubt about that.

I hate French coffee presses, the world’s second greatest affectation since Madonna’s accent. I say this with full knowledge that most of my friends own them, and utilize them at their weekend houses, of which GG and I so graciously visit, and will probably be wondering what else of theirs I dislike. The answer to that is: nothing. And their 13-inch televisions.

I am probably opening up a huge can of worms here, but I believe that I am performing a service, by mentioning this. Some of you are young, and may be setting up a home soon with a partner. You may have visited Paris in college and seen them utilized in a café and thought: this makes me look like an intercontinental sophisticate.

(insert buzzer sound here)

Pretentious as hell and impractical as all get out, the coffee stays warm for about…never. And the last cup from a French press is all thick and grainy, which means the moment your host pushes the plunger down; it’s a race to see who gets stuck sucking on the sludge. In a room full of caffeine addicts, the French press becomes the dwindling stash of crack in a ‘house. (Naturally, I always happen to be the guy standing next to the guy when he pushes it down. I’m like that.)

I always find it funny when people eschew technology on a pointless quest for simplicity. A friend of mine actually has a push lawnmower from the 1940s. Not sure why. He’s pretty rich-ish. He could afford a John Deere and a little man driving it. And yet, whenever I stay over, I peek out the window of the guest cottage (yep) and watch him lugging this slab of rusted gear uphill, sweating like a mofo. Sometimes I think his family will eventually find him slumped over it dead.

Could the same thing happen with the French Press? Boy, I sure hope not. I would need a whole mess of new friends.

And we all now how that would turn out.