Word count: 1032 | Reading time: 5 min read
Pretzel Logic
SOLLOG sez: Randall’s neck to snap like twig if he doesn’t quit football — and renouce the Bomb.
He’s baaaaaaack.
That wacky, witty, wild and crazy coot calling himself SOLLOG (Son of Light, Light of God) has returned from his self-imposed hiatus (which probably had something to do with his death threats against myself and others) with a new round of profound prognostications.
SOLLOG, you might remember, is the guy who placed ads in City Paper connecting seemingly unconnected events like the OJ Simpson case and the Susan Smith case. He then went on to use those spurious arguments to shill a book and claim that he was spreading the word of “The ONE above.”
When I made fun of him in a column for blaming me for the Oklahoma City bombing, he made bomb threats against me. Then, after I contacted the FBI, he disappeared. But not until threatening to sue City Paper for one billion dollars..
And now he’s resurfaced.
SOLLOG’s target this time around?
Well, he’s predicing “Unnatural Death Within One Year and Loss of Soul” to a group of 60 “journalists”, including Howard Stern, Gene Roberts, Max King, Jann Wenner, Mike Missinelli, Irv Homer, Ukee Washington, Bruce Schimmel, Everett Landers and Larry King.
But SOLLOG’s reserved particular enmity for Randall Cunningham, smooth dude extraordinaire and some-time Eagle QB who, when not injured or coughing up the ball to the defense has shown flashes of ballfield brilliance.
Well, Randall, my man SOLLOG has a message for you.
“The ULTIMATE WEAPON in Philadelphia, known as RANDALL, has TWO choices!” SOLLOG says. “He can retire in HONOR of the ONE above and condemn the ULTIMATE WEAPON of MAN of 50 years ago! Or he can choose to play in ONE more REGULAR game for the EAGLES! If RANDALL choses to IGNORE the WORD of the ONE above, and play in ONE more REGULAR game for the EAGLES, then the neck of RANDALL shall be snapped like a twig in an EAGLES game within ONE year of this GUARANTEE by the ONE above to show that the ULTIMATE WEAPON was WRONG!”
And Randall thought he had some heavy pressure trying to prove that, this year, definitely this year will be the year that he finally guides the Eagles to glory.
He’s found love.
He’s found God.
He’s found what he swears are the keys to a successful season.
But the skeptical media, myself included, just shrug and say, yup, been there, heard that, see you on the disabled list.
And now this “guarantee” by SOLLOG.
Keep on playing and snap your neck like a twig, or save your neck and retire and renounce the A-bomb.
Talk about crosses to bear.
I tried to reach Randall for a comment.
I wanted to know how he felt about SOLLOG’s “guarantee.” I wanted to know about how the oft-victimized quarterback felt about getting yet another shot at potential victimhood. And I wanted to know his position on this country’s use of the atomic bomb.
Afterall, if he is going to save his neck, he is going to have to renounce Little Boy and Fat Man. I was, out of the beneficence of my heart, offering him this space to do so.
To save his neck.
Unfortunately, Randall was, as they say, unavailable for comment.
“He only speaks on Wednesdays,” an Eagle flak told me, as if Cunningham were some mountaintop guru who doled out dollups of wisdom once a week from on-high.
Sadly, Wednesdays are too late for this column, as I generally write it in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, during the shift change on 13th Street when the ho’s and crack peddlers slink off to be replaced by the suits and construction workers starting their days.
Just for the record, if I had talked to Randall, I would have told him that Truman’s decision to drop the bombs might not have been right, but it was the only decision when you consider that it was made in the summer of ’45, after more than three years of bloody war and just weeks after the invasion of Okinawa, the most horrific battle of the war and a vision of what might have been had the U.S. been forced to invade the Japanese home islands.
But alas, Randall only speaks on Wednesdays. So I had to settle for Jim Steiner, Cunningham’s agent.
Jim and I talked about what is going on now, in this day and age of wackos and sickies where athletes like tennis star Monica Seles wind up being stabbed by those who, like SOLLOG, have a tenuous grasp on reality.
“It is ludicrous that anyone would even consider writing something like this,” Steiner said after glancing at a copy of SOLLOG’s manifesto that I faxed him. “You have to be a lunatic to write something like that. It is sick.”
At first, Steiner was dismissive. SOLLOG’s missive may have been ominous, but it was not a direct threat. Merely a guarantee.
But, after mulling it over, after thinking about what happened to Seles, Steiner said he is considering contacting the National Football League’s security office.
[The NFL, by the by, offered no comment, other then “Eww, yuck” uttered by one of the league’s public relations people upon hearing SOLLOG’s guarantee about the fate of Randall’s upper spinal column.]
“He is not threatening Randall,” said Steiner. “But in this day and age we live in, you have to take precautions. There are a lot of crazies out there. You have to be careful.”
Steiner said he “intends on talking to Randall” about the SOLLOG soliloquy.
But he doubts that the quixotic quarterback would pay much attention to it.
“He would probably ignore it, slough it off,” said Steiner. “He has other things on his mind.”
Which is pretty much what the Eagles flak told me.
“I don’t want to bother Randall with this. He has enough on his mind.”
That much I understand.
Trying to turn Philly sports fans into believers after so many years of mediocrity is enough to make any man’s neck chaffe.
Who needs to worry whether it will snap like a twig?
