R.I.P. Ass-Headed... Ummm... What was his name again?

It was that whore-of-all-whores, Helen, who first got me hooked on nepenthe, not long after she got back from Troy--ashes from that once-proud city still bedaubing her infamous knockers. She became a nep-head in Egypt, while her dingle of a husband was off conversing with seals. She would swirl the distilled liquor into her wine--turning the anti-depressant up to 11--and by the time Telemakhos and I crashed her son's wedding years later she was mixing the legendary cocktails for everyone, whether they were into it or not. She got so good at it that no one could catch her in the act (we were, we confess, looking at her divine boobs, and by then she was in her forties... sheeeeeet...). It took a few minutes, admittedly, but it wasn't some cheap high. It made you forget your sorrows. All of them. You could be history's most notorious whore, and still you could have a good time.

Lately I've been swilling down more and more of it. Not that I have many sorrows. Chiefly one. The fact that last season, with an ass's head for a head, I warred against the league and almost won. Ah, y'all don't remember it now--all you nepped-up motherfuckers--but it did come down to the last damn game of the season vs. Amphetamine (Nepenthe's nemesis!).

I was proudest, of course, of my hee-haw effrontery. What business did I have, with my asinine patchwork of a team, planting hoofprints in my opponent's shriveled scrotum each passing week? Each week a hee-haw for ya, until the anti-Ass posts on our league page proliferated like leaves in everybody else's sad little autumn. And the Ass-Head is forgotten now (Frank F-ing Sobotka didn't even remember him long enough to send him his silver-medal money)...

And my twelve moves a week? Forget it. Zeus on high recently singed my Ass-Head off with a lightning bolt, and left me, let's face it, with few options. Because it's a keeper league now, and I came within a few innings of gold last year with pure waiver-wire ass-shit. It was beautiful while it lasted. The looks on your virtual faces...

Hence Sweet Nepenthe. Let's forget the past. Let's forget everything! For starters, let's try to forget that each of my keepers is really a third-round draft pick:

Youk, obviously. Notice that back then size wasn't everything.

Rios. So many times last year I wanted to crucify him. This year maybe he'll save me.

Adrian Gonzalez. Oy.

And now, L'chaim!, my fellow Noses! With keepers like these, I must drink up!