Lawrence Blatterfein: The greatest Yankee fan alive

Now and then, a story reminds us that the American dream can never be put into the giant corporate-military-government Etch-a-Sketch, turned upside down and shaken like a sloe gin fizz. Today, let us visit the saga of Lawrence Blatterfein.

The brave New Brunswick, NJ, entrepreneur is battling the Man in his quest to open "Buck Foston's Road House," a place of food, drink and - clearly - conversation akin to the 1950s Algonquin Club. Considering the current economic blight, plus the cloud of cultural Tony Danza-ness that permanently haunts New Jersey, you'd think the political oil cans would be camping outside to get their opening night bracelets.

Imagine: A place where you and I can gather, without being attacked for our way of life. Isn't that what George Washington (a Yankee fan) crossed the Delaware for? Isn't that what Lady Gaga (a Yankee fan) is asking in her song, "Born This Way?"

Blatterfein wants Mayor James Cahill — an avowed Redsock fan — to grant him a liquor license so he can reopen a dead Bennigan’s.

Blatterfein believes the application is being held up because the restaurant’s name is a play on words of an epithet heard commonly in the Bronx.
He said last month when he filed suit that Cahill applauded his efforts to open a new restaurant, but called the proposed name "vulgar" and said it didn’t belong in New Brunswick.

Here's how it works:

First, they deny you a liquor license. Soon, they're rooting through your wardrobe, searching for the Lou Piniella pinstriped teddy that your wife wore on your wedding night.

Damnitall... last I looked, people, this was still America. Maybe it's time for a little Arab Spring, right in Jersey. A couple riots, and let's see if Boss Cahill wants to walk the parkway in his Pedroia dwarf pantaloonies. If the city hall brownshirts can't handle free speech, let them open their own Redsock sympathizer restaurant. They can call it Sankees Yuck.

That's a mouth-watering name for any eatery.