Something 4 The Weekend # 244

The Kinks:  "Do You Remember Walter?"  [mp3]

I had just turned onto Wright Street over by MATC, so I was only about half a mile from home.  It was quarter after six, and I was looking forward to watching the Olympics opening ceremony.  I had a bag full of groceries that included a pound of Ranier cherries and a healthy wedge of Double Gloucester, my favorite cheese.  The cheese they roll down a big hill in Gloucester every year, and dozens die. 

....

I was behind a small black car that was behind a dude on a motorcycle, and I had noticed as he made the turn before me, that his bike was jerking a bit, as if the guy had little experience and was popping the clutch too fast whilst not giving it enough gas. 

You know. 

Not long after I had successfully navigated the turn myself, I see his front wheel start to violently wobble, and then, quite suddenly, the front tire jerks to the left and the bike and rider go down fast and hard.

The small black car stops immediately behind him, and I creep around the whole scene and park soon after.

The dude is able to get himself out from under the bike, which can be difficult as his ride probably weighed about 500 pounds, but when he attempts to stand up, his legs crumple and he goes down hard again, rolling around on the asphalt and now wildly trying to peel off his helmet.

By the time I reach him, it's apparent that his left knee is fucked up.  The kneecap is not where it should be, and his leg was bent in an unsettling position.  His bike, meanwhile, is leaking oil like a mofo, and the front brake assembly is smoking rather impressively.  His front brakes had locked up, simple as that.

It's a busy intersection, due to MATC and the fairly large apartment complex facing this street and the accident, so I'm only one of about 15 people that seemingly appear out of nowhere in a matter of seconds.  A middle-aged woman who identified herself as a registered nurse quickly took control of the situation, compelling me and another guy to fireman carry the guy over to the grassy curbside as she keeps his knee immobilized. 

Done and done.

She's taking his pulse, and says he's going into shock, information that a young MATC coed is relaying to the 911 operator via a very gaudy cellphone.  Others are taking pictures and video with their phones.

The first cop is there within a minute, I shit you not.  Perhaps more impressively, a firetruck with a paramedic is there about two minutes later.

The dude was fairly coherent, but definitely in pain.  He would laugh softly from time to time, and somehow that seemed like an appropriate thing to do when suffering a dislocated knee.  The whole thing made me a bit nauseous, so I lit a cigarette and went to take a look at the bike, waiting to give my statement to the officer, which I eventually did.

I wished the fucked-up dude good luck, and drove the last few blocks to my house.  The broadcast of the opening ceremony was well underway on NBC by the time I got home.

I don't really have anything to say about the ceremony at the moment, although I kept thinking that if I had produced it, I might have used nothing but Kinks tunes for the "soundtrack".

Hotcha!  Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 226

Seam: The Pace Is Glacial: "The Prizefighters" [mp3]

There was a huge story in athletics this past week that was unfortunately eclipsed by an even bigger sports story. I'm talking about the passing of Smokin' Joe Frazier, of course, one of boxing's greatest heavyweight champions, who succumbed to liver cancer on Monday at the age of 67.

And just as his death this week was eclipsed by the horrific news coming out of Penn State, so too was Frazier's career overshadowed by Muhammad Ali's. The two battled three times, with Frazier winning the first match at Madison Square Garden, losing a rematch again at MSG, and finally and famously losing their third match, the legendary "Thrilla In Manila" bout of 1973.

Boxing skills aside, Frazier was overshadowed in the popular culture by Ali's outrageous and outspoken personality. Even this blog post can't escape Cassius Clay. It didn't help that Ali called Frazier an "Uncle Tom" and "a gorilla" in the media, nevermind that Ali was more warmly embraced by the white community, and himself seemed more willing to "play to" the white community than Frazier. And all of this after Frazier had strongly supported efforts to get Ali's boxing license reinstated, and had even given Ali financial support. In short, Ali was a total dick towards Frazier.

In any event, the "Thrilla In Manila" certainly lived up to it's advanced billing, being rightfully considered one of the very best boxing matches of all time, and perhaps the greatest heavyweight bout ever. Both men took absolutely brutal poundings, but one might say Frazier was nearly beaten to death and not be exaggerating.

Rest in peace, Smokin' Joe. When you were good, you were truly one of the greats.

Hotcha! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 32

My 9 Favorite Milwaukee Brewers [1976 Season]

09: Darrell Porter [C] Porter had a Fu Manchu, and the requisite '70s sideburns, and that's good enough for me.

08: Gorman Thomas [OF] "Stormin'" Gorman was reckless (but good) in the outfield, and all or nothing at the plate. He was popular in Milwaukee because of his everyman image - beer drinking, Harley-riding, hard-working, and I liked him too, but in the end, he was only ever an average baseball player. Years later, when I was old enough, I went to his southside tavern that he owned with pitcher Pete Vukovich, Stormin' & Vuke's, but it was only an average tavern.

07: Pedro Garcia [2B] Pedro Garcia was small and fast and had no teeth.

06: Sixto Lezcano [RF] Sixto was always on the verge of greatness, but never quite attained it. In 1976, he had the team's highest batting average, but at .285, that's nothing to really brag about. I always liked Sixto. He was a great outfielder, and even won a Gold Glove in 1979.

05: Kurt Bevacqua [OF] Bevacqua didn't start many games for the Brewers in 1976, and when he did, he was a complete non-factor. However, he was crowned the Bazooka Bubble Gum Blowing Champion of 1975, and believe it or not, my dad's factory's holiday party that year featured a variety show that included Kurt Bevacqua blowing bubblegum bubbles up on the stage. For the record, the Hudson Brothers (featuring Kate Hudson's dad, Bill Hudson) headlined that party, and when they did their big hit "Rendezvous", I squealed like a 10 year old girl rather than a 10 year old boy.

04: Don Money [3B] I thought a guy with the last name "Money" was the coolest thing when I was 10 years old. I still do, really. Aside from that, Don Money was one of those solid, dependable players whom sportswriters like to call "scrappy".

03: Robin Yount [SS] The young phenom from Arizona! Robin Yount was the future of the Brewers' organization, and would eventually lift the team out of the malaise of the 1970's with the help of another phenom, Paul Molitor. But that was the '80's. This is the '70s, and man, did the Brewers suck.

02: George "Boomer" Scott [1B] As legend has it, George Scott wore a necklack made out of Pedro Garcia's teeth. He also hit his fair share of home runs, which always pleases the crowds.

01: Hank Aaron [DH] Hank Aaron has been one of my heroes since I was old enough to understand that I was named after him. Not only is he one of perhaps the five greatest baseball players of all time, but a man who's demeanor has always reminded me of the Buddha.
Hotcha! Hank

2011 LAMINATED LIST #5

Is it weird, or even creepy, that a middle-aged guy such as myself posts an annual Laminated List on this stupid, pointless blog of mine?

Would it help if I said I feel young? Would it help if I told you that three of the five women on my Laminated List are completely age-appropriate?

Connie Britton, for instance...She's 44 years old. Under completely different circumstances, we could have dated in high school.

As it stands, she's simply a gorgeous redhead playing what I believe is the best female character on network television (Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights), and giving one of the best performances as well. It's impossible not to adore and admire Tami Taylor, the no-nonsense high school guidance counselor, mother and wife of the school's football coach - the character I believe is the absolute center and anchor of the entire show. And human psychology, being what it is, it's difficult not to imagine that Connie Britton is a similar kind of awesome woman in real life.

Whether she is that kind of cool or not, I still find myself transfixed by her beauty, and with this being the final season of Friday Night Lights, an excellent TV drama that I'm sad to see going, I've been thinking more about her and her character these past couple of months, and I realized just how attracted I've been Connie Britton over the years, going all the way back to Spin City, which debuted in 1996.

This Laminated List, being what it is, will probably not include Ms. Britton next year, but for now, for 2011...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 206

Dangermouse & Jemini: Ghetto Pop Life: "What U Sittin' On?" [mp3]

I swaggered up to the checkout at Best Buy tonight with the new Tyler The Creator CD in hand, and the black college dude working the register kinda looked at me like he might've dropped a deuce in his drawers, like "what's this greybeard doing with some Golf Wang shit?".

For some reason it reminded me of the time a few years back when the black college dude and his friends next door heard me pumping this album through my living room windows while they were shooting hoops. The next evening when I came home from work they called me over, asked me about it, and in quick order we were talking about Hip Hop and playing a loose game of H-O-R-S-E. I actually schooled their asses a bit about Hip Hop, but I couldn't hit from downtown to save my life.

Anyways, after that night I drank and smoked and played dominoes with those guys a few times in their garage, but Luke moved to Minneapolis a year or so later, and that was that. It was fun while it lasted.

A Filipino lesbian lives there now, and she seemed pretty cool the couple of times I've talked to her. I don't know if she likes Danger Mouse & Gemini, or Hip Hop in general, and I'm not gonna guess.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 185

New Order: Power, Corruption & Lies: "Age Of Consent" [mp3]

The following story is true, only the names have been changed to protect my innocence.

It was homecoming weekend in the autumn of 1983, about ten at night, and I found myself walking home from my buddy Stan's house on the other side of town because I was trashed on cheap beer and cheaper weed. My usual path between our two places took me past Lime Kiln Park, and it was here that I encountered two teenaged girls sitting on the hood of their car in the parking lot of the park, about 50 yards away from the sidewalk along which I was stumbling.

I had no idea who these two girls were, but being a teenaged boy recently broken up with my girlfriend, when they started whistling at me and called to me to come over and talk to them, I hornily obliged.

As it turns out, they were from Port Washington, whom we were playing football against the next afternoon. Port scags or not, they were cute and I was, as I said, trashed and horny, so their hometown hardly mattered.

What mattered was that five minutes into our conversation, one of the girls pulled out a handgun and aimed it directly at my chest, ordering me to remove all my clothing. Again, I obliged, although my libido had vanished at this point. As a general rule, hand guns do not make for sexy fun times.

So there I was, standing naked in the Lime Kiln Park parking lot with my clothes piled at my feet. While the one girl continued levelling the gun at me, the other pulled a small can of lighter fluid from her jacket pocket and proceeded to douse my clothing.

"What the fuck is going on?" I asked.

"You're gonna dance for us", gun girl replied as lighter fluid girl bent down and lit my doused clothing on fire.

"What?"

"Fucking dance!"

And so I danced, naked, as orange-blue flames licked my knees, the two girls giggling as teenaged girls tend to do.

When the flames had died down, leaving behind a pile of scorched clothing, the two girls got back into their car and sped off into the night.

"Age Of Consent" by New Order was playing on the car's stereo.

I gathered up my scorched clothes, and jogged the rest of the way home, about a mile away, avoiding the streets the best I could by going through some cornfields and Bones Woods.

I hated New Order, being the punk metal kid that I was, but after that night, I didn't anymore.

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2010: Week Three

Well, our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS defeated THE HAIRY NIPPLES this week to bring our record to 2-1, but I gotta say, I'm still not entirely happy with my team's performance this week.

Namely, my running back corps have been fairly abysmal thus far this season, and in hindsight, it was likely a mistake to draft Maurice Jones-Drew, a good running back playing on a really shitty offense. Another week, another failure, although he was able to break double digits in fantasy points. Meanwhile, Brandon Jackson appears NOT to be the answer in Green Bay as Ryan Grant's replacement, and here we are in week three, and when all is said and done, this fantasy season might very well boil down to Grant's injury in week one. Losing him, and unable to find a comparable replacement, automatically takes our beloved ROUGH RYDERS from serious contenders to middle-of-the-pack also-rans. Sigh.

Elsewhere, Tony Romo played well, Donald Driver had another great game, and the Steelers' defense played huge again, but it was Anquan Boldin (Fuckin' Anquan!) who saved the day and led us to victory with a whopping 40 FP. Unbelievable.

Anyways, I'm glad we won, but I'm not exactly happy.

Forward!

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2010: Week Two

Our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS destroyed BUGMANIA in both meetings last year, so this loss must certainly taste sweet for Gregor...

I'm not bitter...Oh sure, I'm pissed at Maurice Jones-Drew, who has been useless through two weeks, but even if he had played to his stud potential, I probably still would have lost. If we were going to lose this week, it's good that MJD hopefully got this shit out of his system. 6.8 FP, and 3 of those were for tackles after turnovers. Unacceptable for the third pick in the draft.

Aside from MJD, I can only bitch about my fucking kicker, Lawrence Tynes and my DL's, Julius Peppers and Aaron Kampman. Certainly my first mistake was drafting a NY Giant named Lawrence who isn't named Taylor, and I'm gonna need to do something about that in the next week or two...Peppers is on alert as well, and I can only imagine how the Bears' front office is thinking right now, giving the dude a six-year, $91 million contract, with half of that guaranteed. For that kind of money, he oughta have six sacks already.

$45 million guaranteed for a defensive lineman. I played DE my JV year. I was pretty decent, but I wanted to be a linebacker. I wanted to be Jack Lambert. Jack Ham. Lawrence Taylor.

Now I'd want to be Clay Matthews. That dude does have six sacks already. I don't expect him to keep it up, but as a Packer fan, I'd say he's a real-deal ballhawk and all-around free-range lunatic.

Poor AJ Hawk. He was the crazy white linebacker hope of Packerland just two short years ago. He was a beloved Rough Ryder, for chrissakes! He was doing car dealership commercials and that PSA about manners that they play before every film at the theater around here. Poor AJ Hawk is seemingly dead. Long live Clay Matthews. If he shows up in a Culver's commercial, we'll know for sure that the torch has been passed.

Anyways, on the other side of the ball for the Packers (and our beloved ROUGH RYDERS) all I can say is Brandon Jackson ain't Ryan Grant, but he could be. I mean, he was poised to be the Packers' starting RB until Grant showed up from the Giants.

This week's MVP for the ROUGH RYDERS is the Pittsburgh Steelers' Defense. Not only did they hold the Titans' offense to 11 points, but they had four sacks, four fumble recoveries, three interceptions, and a kickoff return for a TD to start the game. That all adds up to a stunning 36 FP.

The beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS still lost, but I'm not bitter.

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2010: Week One

Another NFL season is upon us, babycakes, and that means another year of fantasy football!

Another year of the WINONA ROUGH RYDERS!!!!! Another year demanding CAPITULATION every single week, and hopefully destroying those foes who won't...

And this year, unlike most, began with a victory in Week One.

Rather poetically, the stud this week for our beloved ROUGH RYDERS was FUCKIN' ANQUAN, who you might remember exploded for 41.2 FP in my league's championship game in 2007 and singlehandedly cost us the TICPL crown that year to Thee Fractioneer.

But here he is in 2010, playing for us, and he had a great (not stellar) 18 FP to lead our team to a somewhat convincing victory over the BLATZ BLASTERS, a team that was flat once you got past the foamy head that is Manning and Wayne at the top of their roster...

Meanwhile, I had MATT FORTE putting up a rather beastly 41.1 FP while sitting on my bench. I opted for TERRELL OWENS in my flex spot, and he contributed a relatively meager 12.3 FP instead. Luckily I didn't need FORTE. With RYAN GRANT, my RB2 going down with a season-ending ankle injury early in the game, this week could have been disaster with or without him. Thankfully DONALD DRIVER started out this season with a BANG, adding 15 FP of his own to solid performances in the top half of my roster.

Things were a bit disappointing on the defensive side of the ball, and rest assured that ERIC WEDDLE and RAY EDWARDS have already been tossed back into free agency in exchange for (hopefully) better defensive numbers next week. I can get rather impatient with defensive players.

So say hello to OSHIOMOGHO ATOGWE, a tackling machine in St. Louis who put up great numbers for our beloved ROUGH RYDERS last year.

Say hello to AARON KAMPMAN, the ex-Packer DE/LB who now calls Jacksonville home.

Say hello to the Packer's own CLAY MATTHEWS, who had a monstrous week one game while hanging deep and unclaimed in the free agency pool.

Hello, Clay!

So here we are, the WINONA ROUGH RYDERS, 2010 edition. I had a great draft, and if I can avoid any more serious injuries like GRANT'S, I believe I've got a real solid chance of reclaiming the TICFL crown this year, which I haven't worn since 2004 when DONOVAN McNABB and MUSHIN MUHAMMAD led our team all the way to the mountaintop.

Muhsin Muhammad!

Next week we take on BUGMANIA, whom we utterly destroyed in both our meetings last season.

Here we go again...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 136

The Jim Carroll Band: Catholic Boy: "People Who Died" [mp3]

One night, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I climbed up on the roof of our garage and masturbated under the moonlight. I did it because Jim Carroll wrote about doing the same on the roof of his apartment building in NYC when he was a teenager. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does, really. The raw primacy of the act outdoors - it was quite a powerful experience, and one that stayed with me...There's nothing quite as exciting as outdoor sex, I don't think - fucking like animals...

Anyways, The Basketball Diaries blew my teenaged mind, and is definitely one of the most influential books I've ever read...Sex, drugs, basketball - that was essentially my teenaged life, although I never had to sell my mouth and ass for heroin money...Instead, I worked a dishwashing job for $3.75 an hour for weed and booze money, which I often smoked and drank at the basketball court on 3rd Ave...

The Basketball Diaries was influential because it was one of my earliest forays into adult fiction, and led my reading to what might be considered the more transgressive writers - William S Burroughs, Hunter S Thompson, the Beats, JG Ballard, Kathy Acker...It was an autobiography that seemed to give me permission to experiment, as it were...Now, I never got strung out on smack at 13, let alone 43, but when I was young, I never shied away from trying any drug at least once, including heroin...Most drugs I never did again, including heroin, but two or four were worth repeating...Sex too - just about anything goes, you know, and you never know when a favored safe word might come in handy.

Anyways, Jim Carroll died last Friday, though I didn't hear about it until Tuesday...Go figure...

This song selection is the obvious one, but it truly is a great song and worth hearing again...What is Rock'n'Roll if not a raging against the dying of the light?

RIP, Jim Carroll...

"I just want to be pure."

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Parliament-Funkadelic

05: Funkadelic: Maggot Brain [1971]
Featuring..."Maggot Brain", "Hit It & Quit It", "You & Your Folks, Me & My Folks","Wars Of Armageddon"

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time...For y'all have knocked her up! I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe...I was not offended! For I knew I had to rise above it all...Or drown in my own shit! Come on Maggot Brain! Go on Maggot Brain!

(I wanna know if you can get to that!)

I want you to hit it! Good god, hit it and quit it! I want you to (hooo-whoaa) Oh mama, hit it! Good god, hit it and quit it!

If you and your thing dig me and my thing, like me and my thing dig you and your thing, and we all got a thing, yeah, and it's a very good thing...

(We are back in our minds, again!)

More power to the people, more power to the people, more pussy to the power, more pussy to the people, more power to the pussy, more pussy to the power...Power to the pussy!

(Right on, brother...)

04: Motor Booty Affair [1978]

Featuring..."Mr. Wiggles", "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)", "The Motor Booty Affair", "Deep"

DG was the only black kid in my middle school, circa 1977-1979...The comfortably numb white middle-classed suburbs of Grafton...DG's family had moved to our languid town from the north side of Milwaukee, an area I knew well on account of my grandparents...

Stereotypes be damned, DG excelled at basketball and boxing...During recess, out on the playground, playing hoops, he'd take it to the rim and totally smoke some taller, gawky kid of ambiguous Nordic descent, and just to make things clear that the only black kid in the school wasn't to be trifled with, he'd start shuffling his feet like Ali when he was done with the rope-a-dope, and start jabbing and dancing, jabbing and dancing, getting in a quick lick or four, and then take off running in the opposite direction of Mr. Stangle.

I was a decent enough basketball player myself in those days, and smart enough not to get sucked into any boxing matches with DG, and so we became pretty good friends...Good enough friends that Stan, Paul and me would go over to DG's house during lunch sometimes, and we'd sit in his bedroom in the basement, passing around a bottle of rhubarb wine his mom had made, and listen to Parliament and Bootsy Collins records...

Never any Funkadelic, for some reason, though...I got into them via the One Nation Under A Groove album, which I bought for myself after DG had schooled me in the ways of George and Bootsy and the rest of the P-Funk crew...

I was a 12 year old white Polack in the suburbs, getting drunk on Parliament! So it shouldn't be so strange to consider the 43 year old white Polack in hipster Madison getting high on Parliament right now?

"I got a string on my thing, rhythm in my thing (Wind me up)... I can do my thing underwater!!! I got a string attached to my thing, when you pull my string, I can do my thing like I oughta!!!"

03: Mothership Connection [1975]

Featuring..."P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)", "Mothership Connection (Star Child)", "Unfunky UFO", "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)", "Night Of The Thumpasaurus People"

Back in those same middle school years, I used to go with my parents to rummage sales, and one breezy Saturday morning I was rummaging through crates of vinyl, both 7 inch and longplaying varieties in some crumpled uncle's garage, and I happened upon a promotional 45rpm of Parliament's "P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)" with an extended, somewhat dirty version on the flipside...Rather rare these days, and you bet yr ass I got that baby tucked away in a sturdy case in the front hall closet...

Imagine a middle-aged man of ambiguous Nordic descent selling a Parliament 45 to a 12 year old kid of Polish descent out in the whitewashed bedroom community of Grafton!

And damn if I didn't jam that sweet sweet single frequently, full volume in my big fat KOSS cans, bouncing around at the foot of my bed, watching the neighborhood girls ride past and thinking about teenaged sex...

"Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong. We have taken control as to bring you this special show. We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving. Welcome to station WEFUNK, better known as We-Funk, or deeper still, the Mothership Connection. Home of the extraterrestrial brothers, dealers of funky music. P-Funk! Uncut Funk! The BOMB!!!"

02: One Nation Under A Groove [1978]

Featuring..."One Nation Under A Groove", "Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?", "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo-Doo Chasers)", "Into You", "Lunchmeatphobia (Think, It Ain't Illegal Yet!)", "Maggot Brain [Live]"

So wide can't get around it! So low you can't get under it! So high you can't get over it! Do you promise to funk, the whole funk, nothin' but the funk??? One nation under a groove, gettin' down just for the funk of it! One nation and we're on the move...Nothin' can stop us now!

'Bout that time they asked me where was I going, ya know? I, said, " Well, you have to be reasonable...So you know I've never been away from home before...And, uh, besides, they gave me a good deal, and I think that, uhhhh, Funkadelica is...you know... the nation, uhhhh, you know, I would like to, live under..."

(What in the world is this boy talking about?)

The world is a toll-free toilet...Our mouths neurological assholes...And psychologically speaking, we're in a state of mental diarrhea...Talking shit a mile a minute! Or in a state of constipated notions, can't think of nothin' but shit...And in this world of stinky futures, shitty memories and constipated 19 now-nows...Emerges from the hiney of your head...The doo doo chasers!! The Promentalshitbackwashpsychosisenemasquad!!! The prune juice of the mind! The doo doo chasers!! Friends of roto-rooter!!! Bringing you music to get your shit together by...The band in the tidy bowl of your brain!

(Fried ice cream is a reality!)

You know, it was in my hands, it was in my feet...I got it all over me! Yes, I did! I got it all over me! Got to go, got to go, got to go with the funk!

01: Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome [1977]

Featuring..."Bop Gun (Endangered Species)", "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk", "Wizard Of Finance", "Funkentelechy", "Placebo Syndrome", "Flashlight"

What I consider the greatest Funk album ever made...Six fat, sick slabs of groove and hardcore funk, bookended by arguably the two best songs in the entire Parliament catalog...Or at least the two best-known and most-sampled...

I guess it isn't much of a surprise that two of my favorite Hip-Hop albums, Ice Cube's Death Certificate and Digital Underground's Sons Of The P, infringes upon this album hardcore...

I don't know what else to say at this point, about my favorite album by a band you might never expect would mean so much, and run so deep, for a guy like me...What might I have missed if I hadn't been such good friends with the only black kid in Grafton in the 1970's? Would we have jammed Grandmaster Flash on the boombox in the JV football locker room a couple years later? Would I have loved Run-DMC if they hadn't teamed with Aerosmith? What about Fela Kuti?

Of course, they were on the same label as KISS, so maybe all of this was inevitable...

"Everybody's got a little light under the sun!"

Hotcha! Hank

Six-Four

June 4th, 1974 - Hoping to jack up ticket sales at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the Cleveland Indians offered all fans an unlimited supply of 10 cent cups of Stroh's beer. Drunken unruliness ensued and the Indians were forced to forfeit the game to the Rangers because the umpires were unable to get the crowd under control. I wish I could have been there.

June 4th, 1989 - Crowds of different protesters and activists had initially assembled in Tiananmen Square in Beijing to mourn the death of a pro-market, pro-democracy official, and they had assembled there for almost two months before the Chinese military moved in and clamped down on the crowd which had grown to more than 100,000...An estimated 2600 people died in what is sometimes called the "June Fourth Massacre", and its immediate aftermath...I don't believe we know what happened to "Tank Man", standing there at the heart of one of the most amazing images ever captured on film.

Hotcha! Hank

On The Eighth Day Of Christmas

I give to thee...EIGHT AMAZINGLY ACCURATE PREDICTIONS FOR 2009 AND BEYOND...

[Wagering implied]

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

01: In defiant response to the passing of Proposition 8 in California, the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences awards the Oscar for BEST ACTOR to Sean Penn for his portrayal of gay activist and politician, Harvey Milk in the film Milk. Sorry Mickey Rourke, although it's always an honor to even be nominated, isn't that what they say?

02: President Barack Obama is attacked by a gang of squirrels while taking a smoke break out in the White House rose garden...Secret Service agents are able to eliminate the small and furious attackers before the president is seriously hurt, but NOT before the entire scene is captured on a Sony DCR-HC62 MiniDV camcorder by a tourist from Houston, who's identity isn't coming to me at this time. This young man will become famous, however, when he sells the footage to YouTube for $600,000.

03: Paris Hilton will suddenly and unexpectedly marry David Lee Roth, and their honeymoon will be the basis for a reality show on VH1. The dynamite ratings will naturally lead to a second season, in which the couple record and album together and talk about having a baby...Paris wants a kid just like her old friend Nicole Ritchie, but it seems Diamond Dave's sperm aren't nearly as lively as they used to be...Stay tuned, babycakes, in Season Three we find out whether or not DLR has what it takes to knock up his all-American princess once and for all...

04: Spring flooding of the Mississippi River devastates farmland along the river, and in cities such as Dubuque and Burlington, Iowa, and St. Louis, Missouri...REO Speedwagon write and record a charity song about lost corn crops which fails to generate any interest among the general population.

05: The Carolina Panthers will defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 20 to 16 in Super Bowl XLIII at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida on February 1st, 2009. During Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band's halftime performance there will NOT be a wardrobe malfunction, however Clarence Clemons will purposefully whip out his dick on stage during "The Promised Land" portion of the second medley. A 3 second delay is enough to keep the footage off the air, but in March an unedited version starts showing up on P2P network filesharing sites, and soon becomes an internet sensation...Naturally Christian and Pro-Family groups are outraged, but the FCC has no idea who to sue.

06: In May, actor George Clooney is horribly disfigured in a freak deep-frying accident. A series of complicated facial-transplant surguries leave him looking like Kevin Spacey.

07: Sometime in the first half of 2009 this very HOT POOP blog will begin to use Google Adsense. As a result, I will make 16 cents a month from this site, and can finally put "professional blogger" on my business card.

08: Scientists in Finland will make the startling discovery that puppies cause cancer. Two months later the less-startling discovery will be made that those Finnish scientists were funded by Cat Fancy Magazine to try boosting their subscription base. Ultimately, however, they will be vindicated when several other unbiased scientific teams determine that yes, puppies do indeed cause cancer, as well as Type II Diabetes.

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

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

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

The Golden Age Of Sideways Maneuver

This is a music video I made back around 2003 or so. I had found the ping pong footage somewhere on the internet, and the footage is only 24 seconds long at it's normal speed, making the athleticism within all the more impressive, perhaps...But after downloading the clip, I opened it up in Vegas and slowed it down to really get the full-flavor of the amazing table tennis action...Simple curiosity...

It was mesmerizing at such a slow speed, and I thought it would be a really cool music video...

But what song?

To be honest, I wasn't struck by sudden inspiration. "The Golden Age" by Beck didn't suddenly bounce through my noodle...Like at least half of all creative endeavors, there was a bit of trial and error involved in the process...But when I matched the footage up with this song, it clicked instantly...

I think it's brilliant, if I do say so myself...

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2008: Week Twelve

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS have lost two games in a row since 2005, and while last week's loss to NESTOFDEATH was fine with me, this week's loss to APPLESAUCE sickens me...

It's sickens me because two of his players didn't play, and he should have known they weren't playing, and even though they didn't score any points, his team still beat projections by 40 points, while our beloved ROUGH RYDERS fell 16 points short of projections, and thus, in the end, we lost by .93 fantasy points!

.93! Less than one point in a very high-scoring league...It's sickening, and would be heartbreaking if our beloved ROUGH RYDERS hadn't already secured a play-off spot...

One point was all I needed to win this week. That's one more rushing attempt by Frank Gore...He wouldn't even need to gain any yardage on the play, which he probably wouldn't have, considering how the Cowboy's defense shut him down all afternoon...But I'm not gonna bitch about Frank Gore...He's been reliable and consistently high-scoring all season, so he's allowed one bad game...I just want to point out exactly how close this loss truly is, and therefore how sickening it is...One more tackle by any of my defensive players, and I win...One more catch by Marques Colston, and I win...One more completed pass by Jay Cutler, and I win...

FUCK!

Speaking of Marques Colston - fuck you, Drew Brees...I mean, I appreciate the 70 yard TD bomb you guys connected on, but c'mon, you completed 20 passes in that blowout over the Green Bay Packers, but that 70-yarder was the only completion Colston had the entire game...Naw, fuck you, man, that's just not right...And double fuck-you for blowing out my beloved Pack...

Anyways, onward to Week Thirteen, the last week of the FICL regular season, wherein our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS take on BLACKANDBLUE, who are currently in first place with a record of 10-2. One of those losses was to us back in week four, so we'll see what happens this week. If we lose for the third straight week this weekend, we're still in 4th, and will have to go through BLACKANDBLUE to the championship...If we win, well, who fucking knows...

Hotcha! Hank

ROUGH RYDERS 2008: Week Eleven

Listen, I don't mind losing to NESTOFDEATH...Kae is a good FF manager, who's involved every day of the season, and trying to improve his team until the end, and I definitely respect him for that...I'd much rather lose to somebody like him than to somebody who gives up on his team after a couple weeks, doesn't make any personnel moves, and still manages to pull a couple of ill-timed victories outta his ass...

It's the WAY I lost this week that's so fucking bitter...Two referee calls directly impacted my team's score, taking 16 FP away from our beloved WINONA ROUGH RYDERS, which would have been enough for a victory this week, rather than this defeat...

First, one of my DB's, Nick Collins, intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown, which would have netted me 8 FP...Instead, the play was nullified by an illegal blocking penalty that not even Joe Buck and Troy Aikman could find after several replays, and which I couldn't see either...Coach McCarthy didn't throw his red flag for a review of the play (the Packers were already crushing the Bears at this late stage of the game), and in the end, no interception, no touchdown, no 8 FP for me...

Then there was the final play of the Chargers-Steelers game...I've got Pittsburgh's team defense, and after Charger's QB Philip Rivers dumped a short pass to LaDainian Tomlinson, the RB lateraled to a teammate, who tried lateraling again, only to have the ball batted away and scooped up by Steeler's safety Troy Polamalu, who ran the ball in for a touchdown as time expired...Again, this single play would have netted me another 8 FP, except that the referees flagged one of the Chargers (I'm still not sure which one) for an illegal forward pass, negating the turnover and the touchdown, and taking those sweet 8 FP off my board...Again, this was the absolute wrong call, and yesterday the NFL even issued a statement admitting that the call was wrong, and were reviewing measures to keep the mistake from happening again...Bottom line, I lost 8 invaluable FPs, which added to the other 8 FP denied me by the referees in Green Bay, makes for a convincing case that I was robbed of this monumental FICL victory by forces beyond my control - the referees of the NFL...

So yeah, I'm bitter about this week's loss, but at least I lost to a good team, a team I very well might face again in the upcoming playoffs...And that's about all I want to say about Week Eleven...

Hotcha! Hank

How To Play Third Base

Hotcha! Hank