courtesy of D.C. Sports Bog

Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato, the poster children of the Prague Spring for Redskins fans, have been dubbed "Dumb" and "Dumber" in much of the agit prop that Redskins security has worked so hard to keep out of FedExField.

Awesome trivia: In "Dumb and Dumber," 1994 movie that informs the insurgency, there's a character named "Karl Swanson."

Really. You can look it up.

And in real life, as outlined by Paul Farhi in today's Washington Post, there's a Karl Swanson who's the third wheel in the Snyder/Cerrato continuum. (Full disclosure: I'm briefly in the story.) The flesh-and-blood Swanson has been Snyder's spokesperson since before he took over the Redskins. Swanson and Cerrato are the longest-tenured Skins staffers in the Snyder regime. They ride golf carts with the boss, and Swanson drives.

I don't know Karl Swanson much at all, but over the years he has returned a huge percentage of my phone calls and emails, even though long ago he grasped the likelihood was that Snyder wasn't going to come out great in whatever City Paper wrote about him. So I've come to admire Swanson a good bit. He's got the toughest job in Washington.

But dang if I didn't giggle when I Googled upon the "Dumb and Dumber" character  with his name. Makes his voyage to Redskins Park seem like destiny.

The newspaper began charging $345 for an online subscription, and the impact has been stark: Discontinue-my-subscription calls stopped; newsstand sales of the paper surged by 200 copies a day for a paper with a daily circ. of 13,000.

Woohoo, good news for the industry???!!!

But hold on—what do you do if your newspaper has always been free
.

Even the announcers and sideline reporters were in on the act. Everyone was decked out in Redskins-logo shirts (shame on Channel 4 sports anchor Lindsay Czarniak and Comcast Sportsnet reporter Kelli Johnson, who apparently are now employed part-time by the Redskins as sideline reporters; isn't that a conflict of interest?).

That was the scene, anyway, at last Saturday's 'Skins-Steelers tilt. McKenna cited the same infractions at the previous preseason 'Skins outing:

Lindsay Czarniak showed up during the game broadcast and the post-game show wearing a licensed Redskins shirt, logo and all. That makes sense, since she was working for the Redskins Broadcasting Network, owned by Dan Snyder.

But Czarniak was carrying a WRC microphone. She took off the Redskins costume and put on a blue fluffy top for her 11 o’clock news segment from Baltimore, so clearly her superiors have some inkling about the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Why is this dual role allowed? Czarniak works for the news department of an NBC affiliate. But she works for Dan Snyder, too. For the ethics police, other than the import of the subject matter, what’s the difference between Czarniak’s Redskins deal and Armstrong Williams taking money from the Bush White House?

There's something about TV, I guess. People's expectations of local TV news broadcast have been so abused, so debased, for so long, that the notion of holding these folks to any standard of conduct is just too much for the public to pull off.

***

The Great Dan Steinberg posts a Great Video of Ryan Zimmerman talking up D.C. United to promote next week's U.S. Open Cup championship game.

You know the U.S. Open Cup, right? That's the one where to get to the finals United had to march through neighborhood powerhouses like the Ocean City (N.J.) Barons, the Harrisburg (Pa.) City Islanders, and the Rochester (N.Y.) Rhinos, in games played at a suburban community center field.

It appears that before the promo shoot Zimmerman hit the quaalude table in the green room hard.

Either that, or like the rest of the world he can't even fake enthusiasm for the U.S. Open Cup.

AFTER THE JUMP: Keith Urban fans don't know who Ryan Zimmerman is? There is no "I" in arson? Paul Farhi goes ground-and-pound on Dan Snyder? Nats win!? Nats win!?

(Speaking of Zimmerman: I went to see country superstar Keith Urban last week at Verizon Center. He changed the lyrics of one of his many hits to include "Nationals," and told the crowd he'd gone to see the Nationals play the night before and that he'd sat in seats provided by Ryan Zimmerman. The fan response to all Urban's Nats references was equal and, well, non-existent. It was sad. Urban might as well have talked up the U.S. Cup.)

(Speaking of urban: Perhaps the chance at living closer to the SoccerPlex, host of so many of United's U.S. Cup clashes, motivated Steinberg to abandon D.C. for the Maryland suburbs. Nothing else makes sense!)

***

Nobody shows up for class reunions like football stars. But what if you burned down your high school — like, really burned it down? And what if your burning down your school meant your classmates had to spend most of their senior year shuttled around town to finish up at rival schools that weren't burned down by football stars?

Then, do you show up for your reunion?

Well, the Class of '79 at Fort Hunt High School held its 30-year reunion.

Matt Musolino didn't show, according to organizers.

Musolino was a star fullback on the 1978 Fort Hunt team that won the Gunston District title. His partner in the backfield, Rocky Belk, went on to star at Miami. Musolino was going to get a free ride to Louisiana Tech.

But then he burned down his school.

Musolino was one of three kids convicted of arson for the December 1978 fire that knocked Fort Hunt High out of commission. He told the Washington Post shortly after the trials that he went to his father's service station on Route 1 and got the gas for the molotov cocktails that they used to torch the school during a night of drinking over Christmas break. (Must have been something in the water in that area: In 1971, Fort Hunt Elementary was burned down by students, too.) To add a touch of Shakespeare to what was really just a dirtball prank gone horribly wrong: Musolino's uncle was a successful architect who had designed the school.

A million kids from our generation had probably boasted about burning down their school just like the Fort Hunt kids did –  That's the climactic scene in the Ramones' "Rock and Roll High School," ain't it? But these guys went out and did it.

I was a senior at Falls Church High the same year, and the burners were instant folk heroes among the dazed and confused adolescents in my small Northern Virginia circle.

But, don't try this at home, kids: These guys all got caught and did jail time, and they screwed up the lives of all their classmates, who had to finish the year at rival Groveton and never got to go back to Fort Hunt.

The other moral of Musolino's story, of course, is that if you do burn down your school, you won't show up for your 30-year reunion. Even if you were a football star.

***

Sally Jenkins' write-up of Little League World Series creepiness hit home with me. When I was in Little League, I practiced hard to be like Bert Blyleven. I didn't care to match the Twins' pitcher's famous curveball, Lord Charles I think they called it back then. No, I spent hours and hours trying to spit like Bert Blyleven spit from the mound during an NBC Game of the Week broadcast. And after a whole summer, I could shoot a stream of saliva a good distance without any noticeable movement of facial muscles, and without a sound. I still find myself spitting whenever I walk on grass fields. Sad but true.

Guess the ballplayers really are role models.

***

Also yesterday, Washington Post writer Paul Farhi's regular chat with his readers about local radio ("Station Break") turned into a head-to-toe bashing of all things Dan Snyder.

Farhi and his flock went after Lindsay Czarniak for wearing licensed Redskins apparel, after WRC for airing all those Redskins infomercials, after concession prices and parking and pretty much everything at FedExField, after management of Six Flags, after his deal with StubHub, etc.

It was less a chat than a stoning. And no stone was left unthrown.

By the time the Snyder crushing was over, there wasn't any time left to talk about radio.

But, if Snyder's looking for something to cling to, Farhi did have nice things to say about "Valkyrie." Now there's a zig instead of zag!

(Radio update Snyder might like: The must-surf dc media site DCRTV, meanwhile, posted a new batch of Portable People Meter radio rankings that show Snyder's WTEM beating rival new sportstalker WJFK. Tho, with WTEM in 19th place in the market, and WJFK the 20th most listened to station, neither's lighting up the market.)

***

Nats crush the next-to-last team to fire Jim Riggleman. I'm going on vacation.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com