On The Seventh Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...7 Cocktail Recipes...

Here are seven drinks just in time for all yr New Year partying needs...One for each of the six major spirits, plus amaretto, cuz I've always got a bottle of amaretto in the house...

I kept the recipes simple and kinda classic...Maybe next year I'll crack out a couple of my Pernod recipes...

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Amaretto Stone Sour

2 oz AMARETTO
2 oz TEQUILA
2 oz SOUR MIX
splash ORANGE JUICE

SHAKE amaretto, tequila and sour mix with ICE...STRAIN into HIGHBALL GLASS...ADD splash of OJ...GARNISH with orange slice and marischino cherry...


Brandy Alexander

1 oz BRANDY
1 oz CREME DE CACAO
1 oz LIGHT CREME
NUTMEG

SHAKE all ingredients (except nutmet) with ICE, and STRAIN into COCKTAIL GLASS...SPRINKLE with nutmeg and sip contemplatively while smoking a pipe.


The Polish Martini

5 oz VODKA
1 tblsp DRY VERMOUTH
3 oz PICKLE JUICE
2 COCKTAIL ONIONS garnish
2 GHERKIN PICKLES garnish

SHAKE vodka and pickle juice with ICE and STRAIN into MASON JAR...WAVE the tablespoon of vermouth above the mouth of the jar, then DISCARD...DROP the onions and pickles into jar. REPEAT five or six more times until you reek like a Krakow hooker.


Sweet Gin Rickey

3 oz GIN
juice of 1 LIME
CARBONATED WATER
1 LIME wedge
2 tsp SUGAR

POUR gin and lime juice into HIGHBALL GLASS with ICE CUBES...FILL with carbonated water, ADD sugar, and STIR...GARNISH with lime wedge...


05: Hot-Buttered Rum

3 oz DARK RUM
3 tsp SUGAR
3 tsp BUTTER
3 CLOVES

PUT rum, sugar and butter into MUG...FILL with BOILING WATER...STIR...ADD cloves...A supremely tasty and toasty drink for the winter season here in the land of the ice and snow...It's only the end of December, and already Madison is on track to set another new snowfall record for the season...

06: I Am Curious Orange Margarita

3 oz TEQUILA
2 oz TRIPLE SEC
5 oz ORANGE JUICE
1 splash SOUR MIX

COMBINE tequila, triple sec and OJ with ICE and STIR...POUR into MARGARITA GLASS...ADD a splash of sour mix...Delicious, and whatever you do - do NOT salt the rim of the glass...


07: The Sherlock

3 oz WHISKEY
1 oz JAGERMEISTER
7-Up

PUT exactly 4 ICE CUBES in a ROCKS GLASS GLASS...ADD whiskey and Jagermeister...STIR, then FILL glass with 7-UP...If you drink five or six of these things, you'll be solving crimes and wooing women with elementary precision and aplomb...And what I mean is that you'll be acting like a third-grader, and isn't that almost the point of New Year's Eve?


Hotcha New Year! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 20

My 8 Favorite Songs Of 2008

Like alot of you, I hear plenty of music in any given year, so compiling a list like this is far from definitive...Basically, when I thought of putting this list together, I went with the first eight songs that popped into my noodle, and then made a couple of adjustments upon reflection...And since I'm an ALBUM guy, most of these great songs happen to come off great albums...Enjoy, and get it on!
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08: Fucked Up: "Crooked Head" [mp3] Why not start off this lump of tunes with a drum intro? Classic. Then bring in the chiming guitars and feedback like it's 1985. Sweet. And here comes the bassist, doing his fat-bottomed thing. Wicked. Now let's let Pink Eye bellow on the mic like he's got more than one axe to grind. Fuck yeah. And if this shit ain't enough to keep an aging crank like me awake, these guys have ten more tunes on the beautifully ragged The Chemistry Of Common Life album, and each of 'em is packed tight with hardcore surprises.

07: Be Your Own Pet: "Becky" [mp3] The last BYOP recording we're ever gonna get, cuz they broke up, and appropriately enough it's about asskicking and teenage homicide...About two BFFs who couldn't make it work when "Becky Facelift" made the scene and got in the way...RIP, BYOP!

06: Fuck Buttons: "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" [mp3] It all starts out so gracefully...The gentle bells...Like a spring breeze at sunset running through the windchimes on the front porch...A good friend, a pipe and a bottle of wine. It's a good life. Five minutes later, you become aware of the shift, that something isn't quite right, and then a minute after that, there's a crack in the sky, a crack in the dirt, a crack down the middle of the house and through the center of yr mind...Can it all be pulled back together again? Not the way it used to be. No.

05: M83: "Kim & Jessie" [mp3] I'm old enough to remember the 1980's rather well, and for those of you who came of age in that decade too, I think you'll agree with me that "Kim & Jessie" sounds exactly h0w it was...Exactly perfect...That was then, and this is now, 25 years beyond Mr. Walker's Current Events class, and this song makes it feel like last Friday afternoon right now. Heading to the Electric Connection to drop some serious quarters into Galaga.

04: Love Is All: "Wishing Well" [mp3] Another rollicking drum intro, this time leading into a trim and sarcastic 2:45 of girl group gang vocals, a roller rink organ, plenty of piss, vinegar, and even more drum rolls...It's wild! It's wooly! Now it's on yr iPod, babycakes!

03: Deerhunter: "Nothing Ever Happened" [mp3] "Well, Dick...I like the guitars quite a bit, and that chorus slays me every time. But mostly, it's got a nice, propulsive beat, and I can dance to it...So I'm gonna give it an 88. Dick."

02: Animal Collective: "Street Flash" [mp3] Animal Collective have lately mastered the sythesis of Pop chops with their trademark experimentation, and this song off their Water Curses EP is perhaps their best fusion of those two sensibilities yet...It's a weird and lovely tune, haunting and uplifting at once, from a band that makes me wish I had waited until the 00's to experiment with hallucinogens.

01: Santogold: "Lights Out" [mp3] The most perfect pop song of 2008 to my ears, barely edging out Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" or Beyonce's "Single Ladies" as far as these radio-ready massive pop things go, though you'd never find that bi-curious circus sideshow tune on this list..."Lights Out" is both retro and a few minutes into the future, making it timeless right now...Now, I might get sick of it someday, the way I can't listen to "Hey Ya!" anymore, but for earlier this year and even on New Year's Eve, this is the song.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 30 December 2008

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 order Steamed Dumplings = $9.00 + $1.00 tip

Hotcha! Hank

On The Sixth Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...SIX NEW BEARDS!!!!!!


Directly from Doug Fudge's mind to yr face...All at a reasonable price...

Hotcha! Hank

You're No Sideways Maneuver Fun

I will never get sick of this song, or the video...Simple, effective, rawk...

Hotcha! Hank

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...FIVE LAUGHING BABIES (Well, technically six)...Cuz the New Year is right around the corner, babycakes! Make a Jazz noise here...I'm telling ya, these laughing baby videos are addictive...

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Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

vigorous

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English vigorous, vigrous, from Anglo-French vigour

Date: 14th century

1: possessing vigor; full of physical or mental strength or active force; STRONG; The chick had a vigorous mind.

2: done with vigor; carried out forcefully and energetically; After a couple of drinks and a game of Scrabble, we got down to some vigorous noodling.

Hotcha! Hank

Jumpers Maneuver Sideways

Sleater-Kinney...David Letterman...Two great tastes that taste great together...Or something...My love for Janet Weiss goes undiminished...

Hotcha! Hank

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...FOUR FANTASTIC MILFS*...

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Cate Blanchett

Jennifer Connelly

Chrissie Hynde

Helen Mirren

*Technically, Helen Mirren isn't a MILF, but I'm not a technician, so whatever.

Hotcha! Hank

On The Third Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...3 Sitcom Pitches...Absolutely free...

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01: Crowd Of Drifters Based on a song called "Crowd Of Drifters" by The Magnetic Fields, this character-driven, single-camera sitcom follows the life of a 35 year old white man named Steve, who loses his job as a travelling salesman...A chance encounter with that crowd of drifters on his defeated retreat back home to Michigan offers him a chance to escape his job and life, and he takes that chance...These are his stories...Stories of scavenging, and hunting, and drinking, and trainspotting and sleeping deep in the woods of western America...All the while, still wearing his blue suit and carrying his black leather briefcase. What's in Steve's briefcase? And did you know, he left a family behind in Michigan?

02: TXR-28 And Me Meet Calvin. Calvin works in Sector 6-F of a microchip manufacturing plant. Meet the ensemble cast of 34 other workers in Sector 6-F. They all wear those "spacesuits" while they're working, so as you can imagine, communicating through those suits is difficult, and leads to many hilarious misunderstandings. But mostly they all work alone, lost in their own thoughts, inside their own helmets, some listening the greatest soundtrack of your fucking life on their iPods (product placement and music video-style montages that the kids just love), others simply lost in thought. Calvin works with a robot called the TXR-28 that he calls "Tex", and the funny thing is - Calvin believes Tex is sentient, and the two of them have long, weird talks all day long. (For the voice of Tex, I'm thinking Patton Oswalt). These talks lead to daydreams, in which we see Calvin doing all sorts of fantastic things. At lunch, all 35 characters (the biggest cast on TV?) congregate in the cafeteria, or out in the garden/park out back. More hilarity ensues, plus mild sexual situations and innuendo.

03: The Silver Hammer Isn't it about time we had another sitcom situated in a tavern? This time the place is called The Silver Hammer, and it's a British-styled Pub set in the city of Albuquerque, NM. The owner of the place is an eccentric British chap, and much of the humor is derived from him being a fish outta water out there in the desert Southwest...Naturally this will be an ensemble cast, and will borrow liberally from Cheers, of course. Featuring a Britpop soundtrack heavy on The Kinks.

Hotcha! Hank

Oh My Sideways God Maneuver

Ida Maria: "Oh My God"...There are still good/great music videos being made out there...The song's pretty good, too...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 99

Sleater-Kinney: The Hot Rock: "Burn Don't Freeze" [mp3]

99 divided by 3 equals 33...Add a third to that and it's a real longplayer, babycakes!

So of course it's a good time to catch up with three wild cats who wailed and hailed from Olympia, Washington, with three, count 'em, three songs from their 1999 album, The Hot Rock, natch...Plus, the first time I streamed Sleater-Kinney here at HOT POOP, way back in the spring of 2006, I served up three other nuggets from three other S-K albums...

Not The Hot Rock album...

Sleater-Kinney: The Hot Rock: "Banned From The End Of The World" [mp3]

It was S4TW #6 back then, a time when I still wasn't uploading album cover art, and the songs streamed from ye olde ButterScotch Threshold...Ah, such innocent days...

And here we are now, at the end of a year that kinda feels like the end of the world really might be right around the corner...But we don't really wanna consider the number crunchers and broke-assed brokers who are dragging all of us over the edge, do we?

No. So this is # 99 in a high performance series, and next week it will be the 100th something else 4 the weekend, and it will be 1-2-2009 and I suppose there's a whole lotta fantastic equations in all of this, but quite frankly, I'm still drunk on ham, and in no mood for more math.

Neither are you, I'm gonna guess, cuz guessing is the arch-enemy of arithmetic, and I never hung around with mathletes. I was on the debate team, which was really all about word problems, you know?

Sleater-Kinney: The Hot Rock: "Get Up" [mp3]

I dunno what a song about death/near death and a triumphant afterlife/re-awakening has to do with any of this, but it satisfies the pattern I got going here with Sleater-Kinney and the magical number 3, so I'm gonna go reheat some mashed potatoes, make a kong gravy, and get down to some Ted Nugent because I listened to Sleater-Kinney on my entire roundtrip to/from Mount Horeb yesterday, a trip I cannot and will not speak of, ever.

Strictly for commercial reasons.

I'm still drunk on ham (And troll mustard [don't ask]). Good morning.

Hotcha! Hank

On The Second Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...TWO random and radical tunes from that dynamic duo, TAPE JAZZ MASSACRE, fellow denizens of the true ButterScotch Threshold, which means we go way back, way deep...Backer and deeper than you can ever know...Ornette Yukahiro and Big Jimmmmie Cakefingers, two dudes from MKE by way of two other places, who sample and manipulate other people's music for strictly educational and recreational purposes...

Enjoy. Or learn something. Big Jimmmmie doesn't care. He's eating cake, right now. I just got off the phone with him, and I could hear him chewing softly and kinda wheezing on the other end. He says happy Boxing Day to all of you that he doesn't know and one or two he does, and he told me I should stream these two TAPE JAZZ MASSACRE songs, so here they are...

Oh, and he sez, "100%!"

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Tape Jazz Massacre: 100%: "Smokin' Aspirin" [mp3]

Since Ornette does 73% of the music sampling for Tape Jazz Massacre, Big Jimmmmie wasn't sure where the music lumpen for this song came from...He guesses either Thelonious Monk or Matthew Shipp...My votes for Shipp...I seem to remember Ornette borrowing the Circular Temple album from me a few years ago...I seem to know he still has it...

What Big Jimmmmie does know is that this is one of only four TJM songs that his vocals can be heard...Most of the time (54%) he's the one responsible for sampling other people's words. These are his words:

One time, I smoked aspirin and it made my foot numb. One time I snorted Gold Bond powder, and it gave me a headache. One time I found this toad, and I licked it, but nothing happened. One time I drank a bottle of White-Out, and I had a fever dream that I was a Chinese weatherman, and I was married to my dog. One time I smoked aspirin and it made my foot numb.

Big Jimmmmie claims none of this is true, except the part about smoking aspirin.

Tape Jazz Massacre: Cookin' With Tape Jazz Massacre: "Tape Jazz Massacre Is Rolling In Dough" [mp3]

Big Jimmmmie sez exactly 50% of this song was his doing - namely the sampling and manipulation of Martin Yan, a Chinese-born cook who host the popular Yan Can Cook television show...Ornette contributed the music samples, the other 50%, and again, Big Jimmmmie has no idea where they came from, so he guessed Stetsasonic, who were no doubt sampling somebody else...I took a wild, wild stab at it, and said Autechre and ESG...He laughed, and I swear I could hear specks of cake and flecks of frosting hitting his mouthpiece...

Anyways, there are too many words in this song for me to transcribe 'em here, but all you really need to know is that it's all about making Mandarin Scallion Pancakes, and another thing you don't need to know but might want to know (or that I might want you to know) is that I do all of Tape Jazz Massacre's artwork. 100%

Hotcha! Hank

On The First Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...ONE OF THOSE NAKED SANTA PIX I LIKE SO MUCH...

Well, semi-nude, anyways...Merry Softcore Christmas, babycakes!

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Hotcha! Hank

A Message To The People Of Stubbington, Hampshire

Are you people nuts?!? You don't stand around idly gawking in awe at a purple fucking squirrel! And you certainly don't name him "Pete"!! Yes, I realize this thing is hanging around the grounds of Meoncross School, and it's bad enough that the kids find him cute and harmless, but allowing them to name the nasty creature is only asking for true and lasting emotional trauma when this thing that they love and have humanized turns viciously on one of them, and trust me, this thing will...My point is, you never make friends with a purple fucking squirrel!!!

If you see a purple fucking squirrel you do two things...

FIRST - You run away as fast as possible without looking back. In this case, you close down that school immediately, lock it up, and then...

SECONDLY - You kill the damn thing. You don't even trap it, you kill it. In this case, the best marksmen on the local police force should use a 12 gauge shotgun with a full choke, and some 4 (or even 3) Buckshot...Yes, I know the common wisdom is using 5 or 6 shot, but this is a purple fucking squirrel, and you want him dead, in several large pieces, so have the constable use something meant for a much larger animal. If he uses the conventional 5 or 6 shot, you might as well just give all the kids at Meoncross some BB guns and let them take futile potshots at "Pete" from their classroom windows.

My point is - now is no time to be cute or conservative. Full-choke 12 gauge buckshot, right now. And after the marksmen is sure the thing is dead, have him blast the head one last time with a slug.

No mercy for purple fucking squirrels!!!!!

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2008: 3rd Place

Well, babycakes, our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS won our consolation round matchup with NESTOFDEATH this weekend, finishing 3rd and bringing home the bronze for the trophy case...

All of my offensive players had good to great games, the kind of games they should have had last week...So close, and yet so far, from the gold...

Bronze? Meh...

What can I say? It was a great season, staying within one game of first place the whole season with the second highest scoring team in the league...And then last week our beloved ROUGH RYDERS simple had a bad week as a team...A perfect storm of ineptitude...One game, and it was enough to keep that gold trophy in somebody else's trophy case...

APPLESAUCE, to be exact...The very same absentee manager who beat us in week twelve, then again last week in the playoff semi-finals...APPLESAUCE is the FICL champion this year, and he doesn't even know it...

Meh...

There's always next year...I think next year DeAngelo Williams might be the guy to go for...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 23 December 2008

MEAL: 1 order Fried Crispy Bean Curd + 1 small order Boneless Spare Ribs = $8.45 + $1.55 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Meanwhile In Innsbruck...

There was 15 inches of snow on my car, so I actually used the snowshovel to clean it off cuz the brush just wasn't gonna cut it...And then I got down to business of shoveling my driveway...

But first - I actually got out my stainless steel yardstick and measured the snow, which was 12-15 inches deep in most places, depending on the drifting...The snowbank that the plows had left across the end of the driveway was 27 inches deep. I always leave that shit for last...

And so I shoveled.

*bend and push and lift and throw*
*bend and push and lift and throw*
*bend and push and lift and throw*

Did that for about an hour or so, stopping every ten minutes to catch my breath and wipe the half-frozen snot from my moustache and beard, adjust the thermal longjohns getting scrunched up under my oldest, rattiest pair of jeans...

And the whole time I daydreamed about Innsbruck...I thought about the Alps, and how they must look through the expansive windows of a warm and rustic ski lodge...I imagined Winona Ryder snuggled up next to me, under a blanket in front of a fire...We examined a map of the ski runs around Innsbruck, and talked about which one we would attempt next...All eyes were on Hoadhaus, and then I had shoveled my way to the daunting 27 inches of the snowbank at the end of the driveway...Innsbruck and Winona would have to wait, there was serious work to do...

(I'll shovel out the mailbox tomorrow...)

Hotcha! Hank

Winter Is Already Hard...

Last night/earlier this morning, I posted a bunch of videos because I was bored at the moment, having spent all day Friday stuck inside while 11 inches of snow fell outside...Here in Madison we're already on track to set new records for total snowfall in December, and we're already ahead of the season total record pace from last winter...

I spent half the day watching old episodes of Saturday Night Live on VHS tapes, spent another healthy portion of the day napping on the couch with the Isaac and Eno nestled somewhere in there...Later on I ate two large bowls of homemade Cheddar-Broccoli soup, and read the first few chapters of Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge while Brian Eno music streamed softly in the background...

Then I hung around YouTube...Until this...

Shit got real weird, babycakes...

First, all the power went out...But before I could stumble around by the light of my Djeep disposable lighter, and go downstairs to hit the circuit breakers, all the power came back on, and when I say ALL the power, I mean every last thing in the house that was powered by electricity suddenly came ON, including all those lights and appliances and musical gear and whatnot that wasn't on before the power went out...This didn't quite startle the cats, but it certainly freaked me out...

And then the two televisions, two boomboxes, the clockradio and my guitar amp all were suddenly interrupted by what I can only describe as harmonious, melodic static...Like a choir of digital angels from some other dimension...Both cats sat by the front door and kinda chittered the way they do when they're watching birds and squirrels from the windows, and this absolutely freaked me out, so I turned everything off, ate a chocolate chip muffin which I washed down with an extra-large, extra-strong Brandy Alexander, and layed in bed for the next hour or two, wondering what the world was coming to, or if I had merely lost my mind...

When I finally slept, I dreamt of that time I went raccoon hunting with my cousin Chico and that enormous barn owl swooped down out of the darkness and attacked Grinch, the young mutt on his first hunt that night...Actually tried carrying Grinch away, but the poor dog was just a little too heavy, and the owl couldn't lift him more than a couple feet off the ground before he had to drop him...

The dream ended on the beach, like so many of my dreams do...Or maybe it was a dream within a dream...Or maybe it was the soup.

Hotcha! Hank

An All-Meat (All GOOD Meat) Palate Cleanser

I couldn't go to bed tonight with post # 666 being the most current entry on HOT POOP...Call me superstitious like that, I'm a lapsed Catholic...

Good night at 1:51 AM, and if you know me, you know THAT'S a magic number...

Hotcha! Hank

Tear The Roof Off The Sideways Maneuver

Alright now, let's bring this whole sordid thing back round to the Bootzilla, with this otherworldly chunk of Parliament-Funkadelic funk, from their 1976-77 P-Funk Earth Tour...

"Tear The Roof Off The Sucker", and now, if ya don't mind, I'm gonna go eat a chocolate chip muffin while the water heats up, take a shower, and go to bed while Christmas songs play softly from my boombox on the nightstand...

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Maneuver 'Em All

Well, how the hell did we get from Bootsy Collins to this, a compilation of every Cliff Burton solo from the Cliff 'Em All documentary?

I have no story to tell about Cliff Burton, I only saw Metallica live in concert once, on the Justice For All Tour, when the new kid, Jason Newstead, had stepped in on bass after Cliff's passing...

No disrespect to Jason, but I'm not going to post any of his bass solos tonight, or probably ever...

Hotcha! Hank

Sink Your Teeth Into This Sideways Maneuver

Speaking of rock bassists of the mid-80's with permed and teased hair, here's Billy Sheehan from Talas, laying down a significantly better bass solo than Gene Simmons could ever fake with a DAT tape...

Now, I have a story about Billy Sheehan that is almost exactly the same as my Stevie Ray Vaughan story, and it is this:

For all I know, that is the top of my fucking head at the feet of Mr. Sheehan in this video...

Which is to say, Murph, Rosie and I saw Talas live at The Palms in Milwaukee in 1983, and we were pressed right up against the stage in front of Billy, and we talked and joked with him between songs, and handed him bottles of beer and cups of water...Unlike the SRV story, Billy Sheehan chatted with us after the show and autographed the covers of our Talas LPs...And then HE went backstage and drank some more and eventually made his way downtown via Lincoln Towne Car to the Hilton, where he fucked a thick Milwaukee groupie with fat Wisconsin tits out on the balcony of the 23rd floor. Or at least I imagine he did...

Murph and Rosie and I went to George Webb's for burgers and coffee, and then drove I-43 back to Grafton, all three of us sitting silently and listening to the ringing in our ears.

Hotcha! Hank

The Ugliest Sideways Maneuver Ever

OH MY! While perusing the Bootsy Collins videos at YouTube, I came across this stunning bit of footage of a bloated Gene Simmons bringing down the house somewhere on the 1985 KISS Animalized World Tour with an absolutely ridiculous bass solo...

Now, I had the pleasure of seeing KISS ALIVE! on two occasions - the Love Gun World Tour in 1978, when the original band was still intact and wearing their paint, and again on the Lick It Up Tour of 1983 when the make-up was gone, and so were Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, replaced by Vinnie Vincent and Eric Carr, respectively. At both shows Gene Simmons unleashed a bass "solo" as positively wretched as the one in this clip...And trust me when I tell you that his singing in concert is equally as horrid...The sick growl of a dying beast amplified through a 40k watt PA system...God of thunder and rock'n'roll, my stinkin' ass...

This man has more fame and money and sex than me and you and, oh, I dunno, Mike Watt, who quickly comes to mind as the greatest rock bassist alive...I'm sure he's got tons more fame and money than Bootsy Collins, and probably the sex as well, but who knows cuz I bet Bootsy pulls plenty...

Hotcha! Hank

Stretchin' Out With The Sideways Maneuver

Funk, gettin' ready to roll..."Stretchin' Out" with Bootsy's Rubber Band...Bootzilla effect, y'all...We gotta turn this mutha out! PLUS+++David Sanborn wailin' on the saxophone!!! Oh my!

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 98

Bootsy Collins: Christmas Is 4 Ever: "Happy Holidaze" [mp3]

The only thing keeping this album from being a bonafide Parliament and/or Funkadelic recording, I suppose, is the fact that George Clinton only shows up to wish Bootsy Collins a Merry Christmas on an answering machine introduction, one of many which litter this golden holiday longplayer...

Otherwise, there are tons of former and current P-Funk players all over these jams. Most are appropriately funky renditions of holiday classics, plus a few originals, like this song, "Happy Holidaze" which features Snoop Dogg in an appropriately festive purple haze, bong-gurgling sound effects and Bootsy, of course, bringing the original sticky icky thump...And speaking of answering machine introductions, this one features the Bishop Don Magic Juan, offering his pimpin' blessings to Bootsy...Don't ask me about the shaving cream coda...

It's all "totes redonk", as the kids apparently say, if my niece Tina is to be trusted...She's not doing so well in freshman English.

Merry Christmas to her, and my other niece Shorty, and sister Starsky, natch...Big ups to my pops, roasting a whole hog with uncle Phil and a bunch of other friends and family somewhere on the outskirts of Sheboygan...Word to my cousin Chico, wherever the hell he is this year...

"Happy Holidaze" to all of you in these most wintery of times...And "remember to remember somebody" as Bootzilla sez...

Hotcha! Hank

Larytta - Souvenir de Chine

Well, this video by Korner Union is pretty much the definition of "Hot Poop Filler". Happy Thursday, I guess.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Christmas Steps Maneuver

At first I felt kinda sad for this band, Tyrell Corporation, because the crowd is talking loudly over their capable rendition of Mogwai's "Christmas Steps", and they're not paying attention, and one of the musicians even *shushes* the crowd, which is one of the worst fucking things a performer can do...

So then as the music crescendos for the first time, the crowd gets louder still, and for a split second I wondered if maybe they were subconsciously feeding off the energy of the music, but quickly decided, no, they just didn't care...

Eventually, of course, the band ratchets up the tension just enough to grab the crowds attention, and then they basically just rock it out and take everybody home...

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

hinky

Function: adjective

Etymology: Probably derived from obsolete Scottish word hink, from Old English inca doubt. Possibly from hank, a loop or coil OR figuratively, anything that curbs or restrains. Derived from American slang hincty, suspicious.

Date: 1956

1: slang; nervous, jittery; That dude was hinky as fuck - did you see the way his leg was twitchin'?

2: slang; suspicious; The bastard just sat in the corner eyeballing the place like he was planning something hinky, ya know?

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2008: Playoff Semi-Finals

I don't want to write this recap, but I suppose I ought to say a little something...

You might remember that back in Week Twelve, I lost to Applesauce by .93 FP, and that I was appropriately sickened by it...Well, here we are in the FICL playoff semifinals, and I lose once again to Applesauce, although this time his victory was much more convincing.

What bothers me is that from what I can tell, Applesauce hasn't managed his team since the very early part of the season, and it's soul-crushing to lose to a team that isn't even trying...They had three starting players out with injuries, and still they beat our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS by 22 FP...Soooo frustrating.

But, to be fair, even if he had been actively managing his team, we still would have lost...

In other words, this was one of those weeks when too many of my players underperformed. It's not quite a perfect storm of suckitude, but it's close enough...

Fucking Cuts had one of his worst games of the season...

Greg Jennings had 3 lousy catches for 22 yards, and it was really only luck that one of those catches happened to be a TD...He still underperformed, like most of his Green Bay Packer teammates...Man, the Packers are good at losing games in the closing minutes...They're now officially eliminated from playoff contention...As such, all I can do now is hate on the Minnesota Vikings with all my heart...Better the Chicago Bears represent the NFC North...

Terrell Owens had another shitty game...He's had more shitty games than good ones this year, and there's no doubt that he was the biggest "bust" on my team...A smarter manager probably would have benched him at some point, if only for a week or two...My problem is that I genuinely like T.O. Oh sure, he's a bigger asshole (and less fun) than Chad Johnson (my #1 WR last year), but I still think that a great NFL receiver should be a bit of a diva, and I think T.O. is misunderstood moreso than actually being a "lockerroom cancer" as he's been called repeatedly throughout his career...Now, I tend to believe that where there's smoke, there's usually fire or a bong, but in Terrell Owens case, I just think he mistakenly says the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time, and yeah, I imagine he's got a bong. Anyways...Biggest bust on my team this year, and I hate to say it, he's probably too old to be a viable #1 anymore, kinda like Marvin Harrison, and possibly even Randy Moss...

The Pittsburgh Steelers' Defense had another great game in reality (they're statistically the best defense in the NFL), but in fantasy, they didn't quite deliver...While they held Baltimore's offense to only 9 points and won the game, they only had 2 sacks and 2 turnovers, and because the score was so low, didn't get the opportunity for many return yards...Thus, not as many FP as they are capable of garnering...Meanwhile Applesauce had Baltimore's Defense, and even though the Ravens lost the game, they scored 12 more FP than my Steelers' Defense, all because they had 140 more return yards...Who says the punting and kicking game isn't important? Fuck.

Tied into this, of course, are the individual performances of Troy Polamalu and James Harrison, neither of whom did very much of anything, giving me only 6 FP combined when in a normal week they would have given me 15-20 FP...

None of my other defensive players did anything either...

All told, 11 of my 15 players didn't hit their projected scores...You don't win many games that way, obviously...

The other big story, I suppose, was Frank Gore. My big, bruising #1 draft pick was out with an injury this week, the first time in the last two years he's missed a game...

Now, I actually did a fairly good job in covering for his absense...I spot started rookie Jonathan Stewart for the first time since Week Two or Three, and he held his own against his Carolina Panther teammate DeAngelo Williams, who started for Applesauce...And I pulled the trigger on recent acquisition Tashard Choice from the Dallas Cowboys. He ended up leading the Cowboys in rushing and receiving yards, and contributed a healthy 33 FP to the ROUGH RYDER cause...In the end, with Thomas "Green Moses" Jones having his typical great day, my running backs did as well as they do in any typical week...

But the bottom line is, our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS fucking lost to a team with an absentee manager, and now we're relegated to playing the consolation game for 3rd place, rather than making a return trip to the Championship game, which we've done 2 of the last 3 seasons...

This could have been the year when whispers of "dynasty" started bouncing around the FICL message board, but instead, we're probably going to get our asses handed to us by NESTOFDEATH, and finish in 4th place...

Sigh. It can all go to hell so, so quickly...

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Maneuver Is Dangerous

An interesting animated music video for the song "Travel Is Dangerous" off Mogwai's 2006 longplayer, Mr. Beast. Apparently the song itself is about the Kursk, a Russian submarine that suffered a deadly explosion in the Barents Sea back in 2000 that claimed all personnel onboard.

Hotcha! Hank

Diversification Is The Key To Fiscal Success

At first I thought this was a hoax, and a small part of me still believes it may be just that - a body spray called FLAME by Burger King. Because, you know, they've mastered the art of making undeniably delicious food, so the next logical step is getting into the body fragrance market.

"Behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat."

That's their copy, not mine, and all I can think of is that old put-down, "You so ugly, yo mama had to tie porkchops around your neck to get the dog to play with you." My assumption is this fragrance is meant to attract women who have a higher daily caloric intake than the man who wears it. Or possibly dudes who like to fuck dogs and other assorted carnivores.

You can actually order this stuff online:

http://www.rickyshalloween.com/flame_0153_body_spray_p/flame.htm

But keep in mind that the shipping & handling cost ($8) for this product via USPS is twice as much as the price of the product itself, and as someone who has extensive experience in the shipping industry, Ricky's is making a nifty profit off their handling charge, a common industry practice that has always been a bullshit ripoff in my book.

Personally, I'm holding out for a deoderant that smells like gyros, so that I can attract hirsute Greek women such as Tina Fey.

Hotcha! Hank

The Reasoning For The Seasoning

It's easy to forget about the Flying Spaghetti Monster during this season celebrating the birth of baby Jesus (nevermind that scientist have recently concluded that he was born in June), and to that end, I give you these two wonderful Pastafarian light displays.

Also, where Christians are obliged to adhere to the 10 Commandments, the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster asks adherents to follow the 8 I'd Rather You Didn'ts...

The Eight "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts"

1] I'd really rather you didn't act like a sanctimonious holier-than-thou ass when describing my noodly goodness. If some people don't believe in me, that's okay. Really, I'm not that vain. Besides, this isn't about them so don't change the subject.

2] I'd really rather you didn't use my existence as a means to oppress, subjugate, punish, eviscerate, and/or, you know, be mean to others. I don't require sacrifices, and purity is for drinking water, not people.

3] I'd really rather you didn't judge people for the way they look, or how they dress, or the way they talk, or, well, just play nice, okay? Oh, and get this into your thick heads: woman = person. man = person. Samey = Samey. One is not better than the other, unless we're talking about fashion and I'm sorry, but I gave that to women and some guys who know the difference between teal and fuschia.

4] I'd really rather you didn't indulge in conduct that offends yourself, or your willing, consenting partner of legal age AND mental maturity. As for anyone who might object, I think the expression is "go fuck yourself," unless they find that offensive in which case they can turn off the TV for once and go for a walk for a change.

5] I'd really rather you didn't challenge the bigoted, misogynistic, hateful ideas of others on an empty stomach. Eat, then go after the bitches.

6] I'd really rather you didn't build multi million-dollar synagogues / churches / temples / mosques / shrines to my noodly goodness when the money could be better spent (take your pick): Ending poverty, Curing diseases, Living in peace, loving with passion, and lowering the cost of cable...I might be a complex-carbohydrate omniscient being, but I enjoy the simple things in life. I ought to know. I AM the creator.

7] I'd really rather you didn't go around telling people I talk to you. You're not that interesting. Get over yourself. And I told you to love your fellow man, can't you take a hint?

8] I'd really rather you didn't do unto others as you would have them do unto you if you are into, um, stuff that uses a lot of leather/lubricant/vaseline. If the other person is into it, however (pursuant to #4), then have at it, take pictures, and for the love of Mike, wear a CONDOM. Honestly, it's a piece of rubber. If I didn't want it to feel good when you did it I would have added spikes, or something.

...All praise His Noodly Appendage...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 16 December 2008

MEAL: 1 order (8) Fried Dumplings + 2 Roast Pork Egg Rolls = $7.45 + 1.00 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Bettie Page, RIP

I was talking to an old friend from Milwaukee last night on the phone, and she was lamenting the passing of Bettie Page. "I know she lived a long life, but I'm still very sad about her death" my friend said.

Aside from death being sad in general, I wasn't exactly sure why Bettie Page's death seemed to matter to my friend so much, and so I asked her about it. To paraphrase, my friend felt that not only was Bettie a pop culture icon in general, but that she was a feminist icon as well, and my friend is nothing if not a feminist. I think.

I was still at a bit of a loss. A feminist icon? Is it because she took control of her own sexuality in an era with distinctly more gender biases than exist today? Because I would argue that an objectified woman is still an objectified woman, no matter who "controls" that objectification.

My friend seems to think that because Bettie Page allowed herself to be objectified, it took a certain amount of power away from the patriarchy. "And if there are less gender biases today, as you say, then we have to thank Bettie Page, in part, for that."

"But," I countered, "no matter who made the decision, she was still the one being photographed, she was still under a somewhat authoritarian male gaze."

"But it was her choice", my friend responded.

"Well, if that's the case, then just about every woman who's ever posed provocatively for explicit photographs is a feminist icon, every porn starlet who ever existed is a feminist icon, because none of these women are forced to do it at gunpoint. They've all made that decision."

"And Bettie Page made it okay for all those women to make that decision for themselves." My friend went on to argue that some women didn't, and still don't, have much of an economic choice. That society has left plenty of women with few viable options outside of stripping, prostitution and/or pornography. As Bettie Page herself said, posing the way she did was more fun than being a secretary, and paid better as well.

I couldn't necessarily argue with that, but I still wasn't exactly sure how or why the woman might be considered a feminist icon. When all is said and done, she posed for those photographs for a series of male photographers, and those photos were consumed mostly in secret, by a legion of men in "camera clubs", what today we might call Hustler magazine's subscribers list.

"Back in the 1950's, most of those photographs were deemed illegal, and many of the negatives were actually destroyed by court order. At that time, hardly anybody outside of those camera clubs had seen Bettie Page photographs, or even knew who she was. Certainly the typical American woman wasn't aware of Bettie Page in 1955. How can she be a feminist icon if hardly any women were aware of her existence?"

My friend shot back, "But in hindsight, many women became aware of her and her photographs, and in the aftermath, those women realized that they could own their sexuality, and not feel ashamed of doing so."

"I'm just not buying it," I responded. "If you want to argue that Bettie Page helped introduce bondage and other fetishes to a wider audience, I'd have to agree with you there and give the woman her due, but being a feminist icon, I just don't really see it."

"In fact, if we want to call somebody a feminist icon on your terms, what about Marilyn Monroe? She was exceedingly famous worldwide, and yet she posed naked for Playboy. In the 1950's that's a much more powerful and provocative statement than anything Bettie Page ever did, and it reached a much, much wider audience, including other women."

I didn't really have much else to say on the matter. Our discussion boiled down to matters of opinion in the end, and I don't believe either my friend or myself was 100% in the right. In my mind, the most conciliatory idea I could muster was that Bettie Page made it okay for other women to allow themselves to be objectified. She paved the way for Kim Kardashian to be pissed on in a home video available on DVD for $19.95.

Is Kim Kardashian a feminist icon? If she profited from those DVD sales, I guess she is.

I dunno. Women are still mostly a mystery to me, in or out of bondage gear.

Rest in peace, Bettie Page. You were something.

Hotcha! Hank

Too Soon?

Back in the days (2001-2006) when Tim Russert was still alive, and I was uploading a couple thousand MUCKO! to The ButterScotch Threshold, there was the running "gag" of Russert MUCKO! in which he always and only said "My head is full of starchy, potato goodness." It was a juvenile riff on the Irish and their massive, lumpy heads and their love and reliance on potatoes.

(I never claimed to be very funny or clever.)

I genuinely liked Tim Russert, and on those Sundays when I am up at 9 am, I always watch Meet The Press...I liked his questioning style, which was entertaining, even if he never actually went in for the kill, you know? I think if he wanted to, he could have nailed plenty of Washington's most powerful, but I suppose that's simply not the way it works on television...Those kinds of questions and answers and accusations and convictions are best left to high-minded books by Beltway insiders that nobody actually reads...

And even though I'm elitist enough to admit I watch Meet The Press, I'm not quite sophisticated enough to avoid the potato head jokes. The utterly juvenile mind that actually thinks the Russert=Russet thing is actually funny...The guy was Irish-American, after all, and I have no shame, apparently...

Anyways, Tim Russert passed away six months ago, and the formula Tragedy + Time = Comedy is really nothing but variables, so I'm not sure if this stupid MUCKO! is too soon, or not. I leave that to you to decide.

So, for the record, and in the interest of fairness:

I smell like Gouda cheese... You're reading Hot Poop!

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 97

Mogwai: The Hawk Is Howling: "The Sun Smells Too Loud" [mp3]

Mogwai are a bunch of hard-drinking troublemakers from Glasgow, Scotland who were inspired by Post-Rock bands such as Slint and My Bloody Valentine to start their own band around 1995, and they've been pretty much the standard-bearer of instrumental Post-Rock ever since...

But what is "Post-Rock"?

Well, it's pretty much a completely useless term for music that uses "traditional rock instrumentation (bass, drums, guitar) for non-rock purposes", a definition put forward by legendary critic Simon Reynolds (often mis-credited for coining the phrase) that is just as useless as the term itself. Useless because many of the bands who get categorized under the umbrella of "Post-Rock" don't sound anything at all alike. Semi-discerning and knowledgeable ears would never confuse Mogwai with Stereolab, for example, and neither of those bands sound anything like Gastr del Sol...

If we were to try to pin a certain sensibility and style to the "Post-Rock" name, it might be long, repetitive instrumental tracks that are more about textures and layers built around a simple, central melody, and variations emerging from that central idea. If we accept this premise, we then might point back to Krautrock bands such as Can and Neu! to find the movement's genesis, although we could never completely discount some of the music being made under the banner of Prog Rock by bands like King Crimson. Personally, I think the first true Post-Rock band (at least some of the time) was The Velvet Underground, with songs like "Sister Ray" or "Heroin".

Whatever.

Now, at heart, I'm a Pop purist, and what I mean is that when all is said and done, I tend to prefer well-written songs with verse-chorus-verse-bridge structures built around a strong melody and a well-defined lyrical conceit. When I tell you that my favorite band of all time is The Kinks, I think you get the idea.

But damn, do I love the Krautrock bands, or any band that builds long, repetitive "groove" tracks around a good melody and a spiffy bassline. Can and Stereolab rank among my favorite bands of all time because of this general style of songcraft, and I gotta say, the music that I myself have made over the past 25 years has tended to gravitate towards this kind of style moreso than anything else...

Anyways, I was smitten with Mogwai the very first time I heard them, and they really haven't disappointed me since. If I do have a major disappointment, it's the fact that Mogwai are one of the few bands I love that I have never actually seen live in concert. Thankfully, there's still time and hope that I can rectify this, because as I understand it, Mogwai shows are loud as fuck, and oftentimes transcendent.

Hotcha! Hank