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Lefty Rosenthal died today at the age of 79.  You may not recognize the name, but he was the character that DiNero portrayed in the film “Casino”.

Lefty’s legacy can best be exemplified by his reliance on the fifth ammendment, which he invoked time and time again when in court or in front of Congress.  In one case, Lefty actually pleaded the fifth to the question “Are you, in fact, left-handed?”

That’s dedicataion.

For several years, my Sunday morning ritual has included picking up a NY Times from the Paper Guy in Providence and struggling with the crossword over a coffee.

No matter the time of year or the weather, Paper Guy would drive from his home in Southern New Hampshire and set up shop at the corner of Lloyd and Elmgrove on the East Side of Providence at the crack of dawn every Sunday morning. From then until until early afternoon, you could find him there selling every imaginable Sunday paper from the trunk of his car, and doing so with unfailing good cheer. It did not matter if you pulled up in the middle of a sleet storm in the dead of Winter, he would take the time to make sure every section of the paper was there for you and would never fail to thank you – sincerely – for your business. He was great.

Today, Paper Guy had no New York Times. In fact, his normally resplendent trunk was bare except for a few local papers.  He then broke the really bad news; this was his last week, and he would no longer be bringing that tiny ray of sunshine to my world each Sunday morning.  The drive was just too much, and he wants to spend his Sundays at home with his kids, and who can blame him?

Most of the time when you hear someone use the phrase “I plan to spend more time with my family,” it is just as some politician or CEO resigns from office after being caught with a dead hooker or a live goat. But in the case of Paper Guy, I believe him. Driving down from NH to stand on a corner for eight hours could not have been easy.

I never found out what the Paper Guy’s name was. I’m not sure anyone I know ever found out, and that was part of his mystique. Some of my friends refer to him as “The Russian” because of his accent, althoug I learned that he is actually Portuguese. One friend told of having a dream in which he was rescued from a burning house by none other than the paper guy, and could only offer; “Thank you, Paper Guy” in return.

Getting the paper from some mindless clerk at a convenience store is not going to be the same. I for one will really miss Paper Guy.

In his prayer at a Davenport, IA rally for John McCain today, Rev. Arnold Conrad, the rally’s official mouthpiece for god, had this to say to their imaginary friend:

I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent [that infidel Obama] wins for a variety of reasons.

And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.

If I read this correctly, Conrad is saying that his God had better not let any of those other piss-ant gods push him around or treat him like a new piece of prison meat. This means that if they try slapping him with their eight arms, or spraying him with water from their elephant trunk, he better show them who is the boss with a well-placed earthquake or two or else he’ll lose all his street cred.

It would be unfortunate indeed if Conrad’s god gets sold to the Latin Kings for a pack of Kools, but that’s just what is going to happen unless he grows a pair of god-nads and shivs one of these other punks pronto.