Still basking in that Super Bowl afterglow, I wrote an article all about my favorite football team and girlfriend, and now it’s on Giants.com. Dag.

paranoia’s heavy
looking through
the peep hole

why is that grey
lincoln idling
right outside my window?

Garlic knots just don’t get the respect that they deserve. You forget all about them until the day that you’re hungry but you’ve only got a dollar, which is about fifty cents short of a slice. Everybody knows that knots are 3 for $1. That’s the universally accepted garlic knot price point, and it isn’t going anywhere. The knots are putting in work every day, making the pizzeria smell good, taking up the empty space on the counter, soaking through the wax paper with oil and parmesan, and you’re going to tell me that they’re less important than calzones? Get that out of here.

Garlic knots were invented in 1973 in Ozone Park, Queens. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact location, because garlic knots were sort of a simultaneous invention, like the telephone, and they spread like wildfire. The goal was to find a way to re-use the leftover scraps of pizza dough, so it wouldn’t go to waste. The result was the most greasy, the most pungent and the most delicious $1 worth of food to ever get pushed over a cash register. Let me get 6, and sprinkle some red pepper on that too.

MEET ME AT THE KNOT SPOT, SON!

He creeps up quick
inside the coat check
beer broke
and invisible.

give me sixteen dollars
or I’ll blow my goddamn brains out

life tax, life tax
I gotta be holding something

ten time the sex
ten times the money

life tax, life tax
I gotta be holding something

I used to have a football blog, but I gave up on it after last season. It’s just been sitting there, catching crazy page hits and comments on two-year-old gambling picks, so I decided today to shut it down. But there is one thing I had to salvage, an interview with the guy who claims to have invented the D-FENCE sign. This was originally published in September, 2006.

The first time I ever saw a D-FENCE sign was during a Knicks game in the 1996 NBA playoffs. It was so popular with fans during that series, the two guys who brought it to the games were interviewed on television as the sign’s creators. Lorin “Big Lo” Sandretzky says that these guys are liars, because he made the very first D-FENCE sign in 1984. Here’s what he has to say.

Where did the D-FENCE come from?

BL: I was walking home from school with my friend, and there was this piece of picket fence that had broken off next to the drug store. The DE-FENSE chant had always been popular at ball games, and my friend and I just looked at one another, and said “D-FENCE!” It was a joke, but that’s what gave me the idea. Then that weekend, I stenciled out a cardboard D and a piece of cardboard fence, and I brought it to the Seahawks v. Raiders game. The first time people saw it, everyone was like, “What’s with the D and the fence?” I was a senior in High School at the time.

Does it piss you off when the Seahawks are in the Superbowl, and you see Steelers fans holding up the signs?

BL: No, I don’t let it bother me. It’s just one of those things. It kind of gives me a tingling inside, like hey, these people are all using something that I created. It’s a good feeling.

Is there any chance that the D-FENCE sign was a simultaneous invention, like the telephone?

BL:Well I suppose it’s possible, but I know for a fact that the cameramen who first filmed me with the sign told me that they had never seen anything like it before. They thought it was genius, and they said, “Hey you should copyright that.” But I was just a kid making a sign, I wasn’t thinking about copyrighting anything. I’m kicking myself now, though.

As a big Seahawks fan, what do you think about the accusations made by the Giants in the New York Times that Seattle is somehow amplifying crowd noise at Qwest field to make it harder for visiting teams?

BL: Completely not true in any way, shape, or form. I know the sound guy, and it’s just false. I was one of the first people in the stadium after they built it, and the first thing I did was to try out the different seats and see what the views were and how it sounded. And it’s incredible how much noise just one person can make in that place. It’s just how the stadium is designed; it’s an intimate space. And if one person can be loud, imagine how loud 70,000 screaming fans sound. And let me tell you, we can’t wait to play the Giants this weekend, because people are really mad about the claims. They just opened up a can of whoop ass.

What do you think Deion Branch’s role is going to be with the Seahawks, both in this weekend’s game against the Giants, and long term?

BL: This weekend he’ll get limited play, but he’s going to be a great asset because now defenses aren’t going to be able to double cover Darrell Jackson and Bobby Engram, and we’re going to be able to spread out the field.

Have you invented any other signs besides the D-FENCE?

BL: Well, there were so many of the D-FENCE signs around that I had to switch it up. So now for Seahawks games I’ve got the SEA-FENCE sign. My motto is: “SEA-FENCE on the field, SEA-FENCE in the stands, nothing’s more powerful than the Sea.”

In addition to being Seattle’s biggest fan, Big Lo has his own action figure! Check it out.

The New York Giants win the Superbowl. People are going crazy all over the street on Third Avenue. High fives are flying everywhere. Little kids cursing out Tom Brady and swinging from scaffolding. People hugging people yelling people. We go past Red Sox bar Professor Thom’s and yell at the losers. Boston sucks! That’s what you get for cheating! That’s what you get for running up the score! High five ground zero. It’s a nice night too, mild. There are tears and beers. I also won a wing eating contest. So epic.

blue bubblegum
bikini babe

curling her hair
around a finger

like winding up
a yo-yo string

about to start
again.

Been a long time since I posted up on Bread City Basketball. I’ve been grinding on grad school and next week, I’m going to be teaching an undergraduate class at Brooklyn College. Too crazy. Meanwhile, my little publishing company is finally ready to put our first book!

TWO ADVENTURES includes eye popping artwork and two childhood adventure stories by myself and my friend Sam Decker featuring: danger, canoes, weird hermits, baseball, dogs, guns, and Hawaii.

You can buy it here.

Bread City Basketball has been blowing the back in of the internet for one whole year! Time to take a vacation. If you don’t know, now you know.

photo by Mark Portillo

Classic Knicks set to the classic bar mitzvah dance-off jam. Memories of Hubert Davis and pigs in a blanket. If you from the hood I know you feel me.

Kid ‘N Play killin it with positivity. Check out the throwback jersey.