BARBARO GRANTS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW FROM HEAVEN

Rivalfish Featured Contributor Andy Kissko, our Horseracing Expert, once obtained an exclusive copy of Barbaro's one known interview. Now he's trained as a Medium so that he could interview The Champ posthumously. - Rival Room Editor-in-Chief
By Andy Kissko, andykissko@yahoo.com

Andy: Barbaro, first of all, I would like to thank you for being the only athlete I have ever interviewed for Rivalfish. You helped get my career in faux-journalism going, and my gratitude will always be there; you never forget your first. Also, I would like to express my sympathy for your untimely passing and difficult last few months where you courageously (not like you had a choice) battled Laminitis, the same disease which claimed the life of Secretariat, the only horse that Rivalfish readers have ever heard of.

Barbaro: Thank you, Andy. I wish I were still around too. Competing, grazing, kicking away horses down the stretch of Grade 1 races, my life was a fun 3 years.

Andy: Does it irritate you that you won’t go down in history as undefeated? I mean, the only race you lost is the only race in which you broke your leg. Seems kinda unfair.

Barbaro: Well, here in heaven they all know the story. I guess my Earthly legacy isn’t hugely important to me. Maybe I could be known in the annals of history as a horse that was undefeated on 4 unbroken legs.

Andy: I like how you phrased that. I know I won’t forget where I was when I saw that.

Barbaro: Where were you?

Andy: Fort Wayne, Indiana at the Clauser residence.

Barbaro: Don’t watch horse racing from there anymore. If I could, Andy, I’d like to thank Gretchen and Roy (Editors note: Gretchen and Roy Jackson are Barbaro’s owners) for all the affection and perseverance and consideration they showed me. It wasn’t their fault things ended as they did, seeing them suffering from heaven is rather difficult, so I hope they can enjoy the time we had, smile, and look for their next Derby winner. I’d also like to thank the medical staff at U. of Pennsylvania’s equine hospital. They could not have performed any better, God told me that, himself. It was just my time.

Andy: I am sure they will be happy to read that. Now that the sappy stuff is out of the way, how is heaven?

Barbaro: Can’t complain. The food is good, I actually get to eat human food, which is kinda cool and sleep on actual beds, not just hay on the floor of a barn. I don’t know how I got by without those amenities while I was on Earth. The weather is good in heaven, no commercials on TV, people are friendly, flowers abound. It’s pretty chilled out, it’s probably not too far from what you pictured it would be.

Andy: That’s reassuring. So what is God like? I am guessing there is one, since you are in heaven, after all.

Barbaro: He prefers us to not say too much about him. And let’s face it, he’s paying the rent and controls the guestlist so I wouldn’t want to upset him. I will say however, that he has alarmingly good breath and does not wear sandals, like he is in every religious depiction. He wears blue low-cut Chuck Taylors, actually. When I asked him about it he said that at first he wasn’t sure about the sandals-to-Chucks-switch, but said he gained confidence in his decision after Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Lodi Dodi” when he sings “Now I’m fresh dressed, like a million bucks/ Threw on my white socks with my all blue Chucks/ Stepped out the horse, stopped short, oh no/ I went back in, I forget my indo”

Andy: Wait….God wears “White Socks (Sox)” He really does hate the Cubs doesn’t he?

Barbaro: What??? Noooo, why would you say that??? God? Hating????

Andy: Just say it.

Barbaro: Yes, God hates the Cubs. It’s weird how much he hates them, to be honest. He made sure to give them the best, most loyal, caring, loving fans just to get their hopes up every year and keep them on national TV. If a team that crappy resided in Florida or Phoenix, no one would ever show up and they would be off the national radar. This way the hopes get higher, the expectations are artificially inflated, the media exposure stays high, and the disappointment seems all the greater. Andy, I’d be lying if I said no one up here speculates that what fuels God’s infinite love is the misery of the Cubs fans.

Andy: I thought so. So what other sports luminaries do you hang out with up there?

Barbaro: I met Lyle Alzado and Ken Caminiti. Nice guys, really out going. They stopped by my stall like 10 minutes after I checked in, gave me some carrots, pet me, the whole 9. I guess they were huge fans of mine.

Andy: Right, then they asked you if you had any horse-steroids that you could get them….

Barbaro: Ummmm, yeah. How did YOU hear about that?? I guess they have horses of their own that needed some help.

Andy: Even for a three year old horse, you’re pretty naïve, B Money. So who else is cool up there?

Barbaro: Michael Richards’ career just checked in, seems like a nice enough entity. The other day I ran into Arsenio Hall’s fame, it was hanging out with Geraldo Reviera’s journalistic integrity. Micahel Jackson’s normalcy is popular up here as well. Oh, Andy, your grandfathers wanted me to say “Hi” and that they love you, they’re great guys.

Andy: That they are. I have a lot more family-related questions for you, Barbaro, but I will spare my reader(s) the question that have only to do with me..

Barbaro: Sorry to cut you off, Andy, but to that end, your dignity is also up here. Been here since 1997, seems pleasant.

Andy: I’ve been looking for that…. Anyway, have you met any other famous race horses?

Barbaro: Secretariat came by. It was a lot like in The Mighty Ducks movie, when the hotshot team The Hawks skate by the pick-up game the Ducks are playing and try to big-time them all and just talk smack.. What an arrogant horse he is. I guess he does it with all the new horses. I met Electrocutionist, talk about a sudden death of a superhorse, he speaks Japanese, but seems polite. Seabiscuit also gave me some pointers on negotiating your movie deal from beyond, and control who portrays you in the movie. I am pulling for Bernardini or Invasor, so if you can tell someone that in Hollywood, I’d appreciate it.

Andy: I’ll do what I can. As you no doubt recall, we are a celebrity obsessed culture down here in the States…Any other celeb dish you can afford me would really help my websites get hits. What can you give me??

Barbaro: Picasso did a painting of me, it looked really cool, but I had no idea the painting was of me until he told me. I thought it was something completely different, but I was honored all the same. I liked Warhol’s rendering of me more, but it seemed like he just put colors over a stock photo of me…Anyway, Teddy Roosevelt is cool, he asked if he could hunt me- in jest of course. Even Sid Vicious is a super nice guy up here. Wilt Chamberlin is still up to his old tricks. Get it?

Andy: *groaning* yes, Barbaro, I get it. *still groaning* It didn’t have to come to that, you know….

Barbaro: Make sure that one gets in the article! Chris Farley stopped by my stall a bit ago. We did some shots of Jack Daniels, joked around, I rode him for a bit, then he just told me some stories. Everyone up here loves Chris. Then of course all this week Walter Payton and Johnny Unitas have been making all kinds of bets and talking all kinds of crap to one another about the Super Bowl. Walter was busting on Johnny U’s old school crew cut and high tops, then from out of no where, Unitas pulls out this hilarious gheri curl wig and starts singing Payton’s line from the Super Bowl shuffle. Unitas definitely won that round.

Andy: Now THAT I would pay to see. I appreciate the scoop. Speaking of the big game have you heard anything on who God is gonna let win the Super Bowl??

Barbaro: I did. First of all, God was joking the other day about how funny he finds it when athletes pray for on-the-field success during professional sports. With numerous wars going on, namely in Iraq and Darfur, AIDS in Africa still rampant, continued unrest and inequality in the middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, athletes are still arrogant enough to assume that god gives a “Him Damn”, as he calls it, about their millionaire asses playing a game.

Andy: I have always wondered that myself.

Barbaro: That being said, in the heavenly memo this morning God did give us a cryptic clue about the winning town: It begins with a “C”, ends in an “O” and in the middle there is “hicag”. He dislikes gambling, so he didn’t indicate the margin of victory or if the Colts would cover the spread.

Andy: Thanks again, Barbaro. All of us horse racing fans miss you. We will speculate about what you would have achieved for a long, long, time -only the good die young, I guess. Also it’s nice to know that God is quoting Bob Swerski.