This just in:

A Brooklyn Bar hosted the World’s Smallest Penis Pageant. Once again, Justin Bieber won in absentia.

Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

In Florida, a couple is accused of making meth in a public library. Yeah, they made it in the “How to cook Meth” section that is in all Florida public libraries.

What an amazing time in sports. World Cup starting, and the NHL and NBA playoffs are great, even the Chicago Cubs . . . well the World Cup has started and the NHL and NBA playoffs are great.

Barack Obama’s youngest, Malia, turned 13 this week. So now Obama is living with two teenage girls and his mother-in-law. No wonder he made that deal for Bowe Bergdahl; if you’re living with a mother-in-law and two teenage girls, five terrorists is nothing.

The Islamic extremists who have taken over cities in Iraq have been deemed too radical and dangerous by al Qaeda. Wow, that is like Florida calling someone too drunk, high and stupid.

Golfer Phil Mickelson has been under investigation for insider trading, but now he has been cleared. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods is still leaning on Waffle House waitresses for hot tips in dog-race betting.

What an amazing thing.

I’ve been contributing free lance jokes to “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” for just under 20 years – cut my teeth with the OJ trial. One night when they were in Chicago, I got four jokes on in the same monologue. (Later I found out a factor was the writers had gone out and gotten wasted on Clark Street the night before)

On a good week I would get three or four jokes on, but a month could go by when I did not. But generally, it was very fun and a kept me from going to the ATM for weeks at a time.

So when Jay retired, I was very happy to hear his assistant, the wonderful- in- every- way LNM, tell me to keep sending jokes in. So I did off and on for these past months.

Yesterday I got this call;

“Hey, Alex, this is Jay. Listen, I just wanted to call and thank you for sending in jokes. They’re great and I really appreciate them. I’m going to send you a check for (very generous) as a way of thanks. Keep sending them in.”

That was about a 10 on my Holy Crap-O-Meter. So cool. So nice. It’s good to eat the bear.

The World Cup in Brazil is about to begin. 

Here are the top things you are going to hear American sports fans say during the World Cup.

 “Hey, that guy used his head. Is it legal to use your head?”

“Oh no, I am pretty sure that guy just got shot. He went down without anyone touching him.”

“That is a lot of guys with one name and ponytails.”

“The British announcer said there is a kent-trah-ver-see. (controversy) “What the hell is a kent-trah-ver-see?”

“The British announcer said the player seemed to be in “a spot of bother.” Is that the same thing as being screwed?”

“Oh, look, before the game, they all brought their kid out with them.”

“So I guess when a soccer announcer says unlucky, he means they messed up?”

“Wait a minute, the guy in front of that big net thingy used his hands. How come he gets to use his hands?”

“Shouldn’t they be kicking it toward the goal? Why aren’t they kicking it toward the goal?”

“As soon as the game was over, a bunch of guys switched over to the other team handing over their jerseys and everything.”

"Now the announcer is saying the score is one, nil. Who the hell is Nil?"

“So tell me again why they can’t catch it with their hands?”

Rapper Lil’ Kim had a girl and named her Royal Reign. Apparently the name Therapy For Life was already taken.

Now Donald Sterling says he his not selling the Clippers and he is not dropping his $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA. Roses are red, violets are blue, Sterling is schizophrenic and Sterling is to.

A Japanese clothing maker is in trouble for labeling their pants skinny, fat and jumbo. They have changed it to small, medium, large and Kardashian.

Rapper 50 Cent blamed his errant first pitch on too much masturbation; at publicist school they call this: throwing gas on the fire.

Pitchers throw a curve ball called a yacker. 50 Cent throws a pitch called a whacker.

An Australian man was arrested for driving a motorized beer cooler while intoxicated. He was detained and then extradited to Florida

In addition to the CIA, a tribe of the Taliban is on Twitter and so is the IRS. One is a group of cold-blooded mercenaries and the other is the Taliban.

Since you asked:

The Oxford comma can bite my run-on sentence-writing butt.

One out-of-the-box writing teacher said, while it is important for a good writer to know the rules, flaunting and even breaking the rules can be good too.

There are art critics who believe only the old masters were great painters, and there are art critics who swear by Jackson Pollock.

That is a wide birth. The rules of writing probably fit in between.

It is good to remember writing is an art, but it probably isn’t a good idea to, ala Pollock, fling random words to a page like so many monkeys flinging poop at zoo tourists.

Earnest Hemingway allegedly never turned in a manuscript with a mistake in his life – though that is hard to believe if the account of his drinking are anywhere close. 

And there are great writers and journalist, like Cameron Crowe and the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who turned in assignments written on the back of cocktail napkins and recorded on tape.

Dear Former Blockbuster Clerk with the Dragon Neck Tattoo:

Remember that time you told me the reason the Blu-ray disk would not play on my brand-new Blu- ray player was because it was cheap and unsophisticated and I was too technically unsophisticated to understand why? (It wasn’t, the disk was blank)

How is the job-hunting while sleeping/ masturbating on your mother’s futon?

Just wondering,

Lex

Big Red his own self . . . 

New York is ending their 15-year-ban on owning a ferret. If I want to see a weasel in New York, I’ll just pet that thing on Donald Trump’s head.

The controversy continues over the trade of 5 Taliban members for Bowe Bergdahl. My problem with it is this: would it have killed President Obama to throw in a middle-reliever for the Cubs?

In Tennessee, one woman was arrested with a pistol in her vagina, and another woman walked down the aisle dragging her new-born baby tied to her wedding dress train. Interestingly, Tennessee is actually an old Cherokee word that means: Florida.

A New York man shot his mother in the back and then walked her to the hospital. And you thought your Father’s Day was going to be dysfunctional?

Next Sunday is Father’s Day, or as NBA players call it: “Uh, I’m not here...”

Against her new husband, Kanye’s, wishes, Kim Kardashian will appear on “Khloe and Kourtney Take the Hamptons.” Apparently Kim and Kanye’s marriage is going through that tricky Seven Day Itch.

Since you asked:

The bright side of Triple Crown failures is all the justified attention it brings to the greatest athlete – not just greatest horse – the greatest athlete of all time, Secretariat.

Secretariat still holds all the records for all three races in the Triple Crown 41 years later. And those are just numbers. The thing that sticks out about Secretariat was the deep and abiding love the people close to him had and still have.

From his breeders to his vets to his keepers to his trainers and his jockey and owner, including the secretaries at the office of Claiborne Farm. They all wept unabashedly when Secretariat was put to sleep.

41 years after his Triple Crown, hard drinking and tough horsemen openly cry when they talk about Big Red. The great writer, William Nack, described him in “Pure Heart” as lovable and playful as a puppy, as smart as a gifted child, and with a heart and soul beyond anything imaginable.  Human or Equine.

Secretariat was beloved by those around him before he ever ran a race. His kind and funny nature combined with his incredible physical gifts and good looks flat out made people - and other horses - fall deeply in love with him.

For me I will always be thankful to Secretariat for taking our minds off a bleak, bleak time. In the Spring of 1973, my grandfather had just passed, the winter had been rough, my grades were as terrible as the economy. Not to mention at age 14, I was cranked full of more hormones than most Midwestern towns. The whole world before that 1973 spring seemed like a Soviet-made black and white movie.

Then Secretariat burst through our TV screen and our magazines in red, white and blue living color.

My favorite story of the incredible 31-length Belmont win was by a sports writer - whose name escapes me – writing about how the stands shook and went crazy when Big Red came thundering down the Belmont stretch.

But then he noticed something odd.

For a moment it got quieter. He looked around to see why and it was because so many people were crying. They were simply overcome by the spectacle they were both amazed and lucky to be seeing

Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Gale Sayers, Rafer Johnson, Joe Montana and Babe Ruth were truly great. But they didn’t make grown men and women weep at the sheer beauty and majesty of their performance.