Tuesday's Fortune: 12 July 2011

MEAL: 2 Roast Pork Egg Rolls + 1 small order Chicken With Pea Pods = $6.45 + $1.55 tip

Hotcha! Hank

2011 LAMINATED LIST #1

Surprise, surprise! My adoration and lust for Winona Ryder is neverending. What else can I possibly say about her that I haven't already said? She is my hope.

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Winona Ryder Films And/Or Grunge Albums

05: A Scanner Darkly: A Philip K Dick novel turned into an animated disassociative disorder full of bright colors and a dull sense of dread. Plus +++ Winona's animated boobs.

04: Lucas: Winona's debut film at 15, as tomboy Rina who has a crush on Corey Haim's Lucas. It's possible that Winona Ryder (or maybe actually Goldie Hawn) shaped my preference for women with shorter hair.

03: Heathers: Teen angst illustrated. The film that ended my infatuation with Molly Ringwald, and put the '80s to rest. What's your damage?

02: Mudhoney: Superfuzz Big Muff Plus Early Singles: I considered In Utero, Ultramega OK, and Melvins' Lysol, before deciding that for my purposes, Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles is the definitive Grunge album. Touch me, I'm sick.

01: Night On Earth: My favorite Jim Jarmusch film, and therefore one of my 10 favorite films, wherein a 19 year old Winona kinda mostly holds her own with Gena Rowlands in the first 20 minutes of this hilarious and oftentimes poignant film about five cab drivers in five cities around the world during one night on earth. Plus +++ Scored by Tom Waits.

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

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 1

James Joyce's ULYSSES is the one book in my collection that I'm 100% certain I will never actually read all the way through...When I think about what little I know about this novel, I imagine WINONA RYDER as Molly Bloom. And in the winter months, when my beard is full-blown, I imagine myself Odysseus, trying to make my way home to my beloved Penelope, as played by my beloved Winona... I've read plenty of Joyce, but I'll never read this book, front to back. Maybe back to front, but that seems like more of a Finnegan's Wake maneuver.

This particular picture looks like some sort of Great Gatsby scene...Winona as Daisy Buchanan. I've read Fitzgerald's novel. It's okay. Fitzgerald lucked out with that novel, that's for sure - assuring himself a permanent place in American letters on the strength of one fairly mediocre novel. Whatever.

Now, supposedly Winona is a smart, literate person. She's read plenty of good and important books, supposedly, if we believe the interviews and bios, so I assume she's read Gatsby as well. I bet she's never read Ulysses, though she's probably read The Odyssey. Either way, she remains the dearest to my heart, atop the laminated list in my mind for the past two decades.

Hotcha! Hank

Ryder Sideways!

Winona Ryder does a rare TV talkshow appearance on Conan in January of 2000.

Ayup, the most righteous babe alive.

Hotcha! Hank

Filler, 3 AM...

Ben mentioned this Natalie Portman video in this Tuesday's Tuesday's Fortune post, so I figured I might as well post it...More filler, if nothing else...

I responded that my feelings for Ms. Portman are conflicted...

If I were ten years younger, I suppose Natalie Portman might be my Winona Ryder, you know? But I'm not, so she isn't...

Adorableness aside, I generally don't like most of Ms. Portman's more notable roles and films...I do not like Leon - The Professional...Her character in Garden State annoys me beyond belief, in a film that annoys me in general...The Star Wars films? Pffft...

But I must say, I really like Beautiful Girls quite alot, and her role as a Lolita in the film is a good one, and Portman's performance stands out in a big cast full of good actors giving good performances themselves.

Anyways, here's 7 minutes of Natalie on Letterman, being smart, being cute, being a bit snarky...

Hotcha! Hank

Happy Birthday, Winona!

Because I am 100% certain that Winona Ryder reads HOT POOP regularly, I would just like to take this opportunity to wish her a very happy birthday, so...

Happy birthday, Ms. Horowitz!

Dare I say you are more lovely and talented and intriguing than ever? Yes, I dare...Time brings a kind of grace...

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

fond

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English fonned, from fonne fool

Date: 14th century

01: foolish, silly; "Ach, you and your fond dreams of wealth and fame."

02: prizing highly, or having an affection (used with of); "Anyone who knows me, knows I'm quite fond of butterscotch, Winona Ryder, and thoughts of Winona Ryder covered in butterscotch."

03: foolishly tender, indulgent; "Fond mothers make for spoiled kids."

04: cherished with great affection; "My fondest memory may be building a go-kart with my grandpa one weekend when I was nine."

Hotcha! Hank

2009 Laminated List #1

Surprise, surprise! Winona Ryder has been #1 on my Laminated List for the better part of two decades now, and there's absolutely no reason to change that in 2009...She's still my muse, quite literally, and still the most beautiful woman in the world in my mind.

At the age of 37, she still radiates youthfulness, and a pure kind of beauty that belies the years of (alleged) pill-popping. Maybe it's all the (alleged) sex with flash-in-the-pan rockstars that keeps her looking so young and radiant. Whatever.

I don't really care about all the sex and pills and shoplifting. Well, I do, but I can't judge Ms. Ryder. I've had plenty of experience with indiscriminate sex and random drugs (whom among us hasn't?), and when I was 11 years old I got busted for shoplifting a fucking 7" of Sweet's "Love Is Like Oxygen" from Kohl's Department Store, so who the hell am I to cast stones?

Damn, she's gorgeous...

My sweet grunge pixie princess. Her eyes forever pulling me in...forever falling for her...

Forever #1 on my Laminated List???

Eh, probably.

Hotcha! Hank

The Joy Of Your Sideways Maneuver

If this were actually the video to MC Paul Barman's other hit song, "Cock Mobster", I'd be quoting the line "Winona Ryder? Goin' inside her!" , and getting lost in a thousand yard stare, a slight smile on my lips...

This year's Laminated List is still four months away, so for now, I'll quote this:

"It was time to copulate but we didn't want to populate...So my bold groin reached for my gold coin proooophylactic...I unwrapped it, you can't know how I felt...It wasn't a gold coin condom, it was chocolate Chanukah gelt...The white part crumbled on her tummy and the rest began to melt...Foiled again..."

I wonder who's gonna be numbers 3 through 5 this year...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 108

Zombi: Surface To Air: "Digitalis" [mp3]

I believe I'm showing my age when I tell you that I don't care, and have never really cared, about zombies...And what I mean is that we've got a full-blown zombie "thing" happening out there in CultureDataLand™ right now, especially among Gen Y and whatever the current teenage generation is called, and I'm ambivalent about it...

And when I say there's a full-blown zombie thing happening right now, they (the kids) know exactly what I'm talking about...I'm not exactly sure when it started, but off the top of my head, I'd rattle off films like Shaun Of The Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Zach Snyder's well-liked 2004 remake of Dawn Of The Dead, and next month's remake of Day Of The Dead...Ya got the amazing book World War Z (even I loved it) and The Zombie Survival Guide (both by Max Brooks, son of Mel), the recent mashup novel Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (which has already been optioned for a film), and the popularity of such video games as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Stubbs The Zombie, and Dead Space...

I'm on the older end of Gen X, and we had the whole vampire thing happening. Some cultural critics have theorized that it had to do with AIDS, and that makes as much sense as any other theory I could toss out...Our generation came of age with such films as Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu, Coppola's Dracula (Winona!), Interview With A Vampire, The Lost Boys, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the movie and the TV series), The Hunger, Vampire Hunter D, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the Blade trilogy...In terms of TV, I could also mention The Night Stalker, The X-Files, and Angel...

Of course, I would argue that Gen X was also the heyday of the whole alien thing, and also serial killer culture, but I won't blather...

No, what I want to say is that it seems pretty apparent that right now the whole zombie thing is gaining serious momentum, and since I believe that on the internet I am an old compared to most I encounter around the tubes, this whole zombie thing is a Gen Y and beyond thing...

Why is that?

Is it a cultural representation of the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? A response to the walking wounded stumbling off airplanes at American airports, limbs missing and souls stunned...Shell-shocked and leg-locked...

That's my best guess...What you got?

(Like I said, I won't blather.)

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

Huddled In Storms

So...Winona Ryder is flying from LA to London (which these internet tubes told me is an 11 hour flight) when she had some sort of medical emergency that the British tabloids are reporting was an overdose of Xanax.

Since Ms. Ryder has been #1 on my Laminated List for about 15 years now, I feel it is my duty to blindly defend her honor, because anyone who gets on an 11 hour flight unmedicated is a fool. Winona is no fool, she just needs to get a grip on her dosages, and always factor in those tiny bottles of in-flight vodka...They add up fast and pack a wallop at 40,000 feet...

Hotcha! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 19

My 19 Dream Dinner Parties

You know the scenario - If you could have dinner with any three people, living or dead, who would you choose?

This has long been one of my favorite little daydreaming activities, just sitting around with soft music in the background, thinking about interesting combinations of personalities and the kinds of conversations that might arise...And also being able to ask questions of historical figures, to sift the myth from fact...For this reason, alot of my favorite combinations are dead people, but I sometimes wonder if Beethoven would be any more enlightening or fun than Philip Glass.

So, anyways, I've written down dozens of these combinations of Dream Dinner Guests over the years, littering the margins and open spaces of countless notebooks and index cards...Here are my favorite nineteen cuz I'm self-indulgent like that...Here comes some blather on a lazy afternoon...Just remember, as always, this information is not knowledge...

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

19: John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby...Uncomfortable! For the meal, I'd serve a variety of "Five Dollar Footlongs" from Subway, assorted bags of Frito-Lay chips, and whatever Coca-Cola brand soft drink flavors they've got on the self-serve machine...

18: Lewis Carroll, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Fred Rogers...This dream dinner best represents my childhood, I suppose...Now, if I could have a dream dinner with fictional characters from my childhood, I'd probably choose Grover from Sesame Street, Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown (or maybe even Sherlock Holmes), and Paul Bunyan (or maybe Bigfoot)...Anyways, for the meal, I'd serve grilled cheese sandwiches, tater-tots with tartar sauce for dipping, cottage cheese, celery with peanut butter, and ice cold 2% milk...For dessert, warm oatmeal raisin cookies and more milk...Marjory The Trash Heap???

17: King George III, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson...Three prominent figures from the late 1700's, and the revolutions in America and France...For the meal, Chinese take-out from China Wok, where I get those messed-up fortunes every Tuesday at lunch...

16: Abraham Lincoln, Audrey Hepburn, Richard Pryor...I think this dream dinner is pretty self-explanatory...LOL...For the meal, I'd serve soft-shell steak tacos, heavy on the guacamole and onions...Pitchers of Horchata, and soft snickerdoodles for dessert...

15: Meg White, Rosario Dawson, Monica Bellucci...What can I say? This dinner party is all about the company of three luxurious, voluptuous ladies...For the meal, Oysters Rockefeller, caviar, steamed artichoke hearts, Pernod, Absinthe and Champagne, strawberries and chocolate sauce, butterscotch pudding...

14: "The Leatherman", Tom Waits, "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman...The Leatherman was a famous vagabond who travelled western Connecticut and the length of the Hudson River in New York in the latter half of the 19th century...He was that rare famous hobo, famous because he wore nothing but handmade leather garments from head-to-toe = shoes, pants, shirt, suit coat, top hat...All dirty, stinky leather...Rather than re-tell his fascinating story here, I'll direct you towards a handy Wiki link...Johnny Appleseed was another traveller, though he had a more defined purpose for wandering around...Tom Waits is simply cool, and he gets around, you know? For the meal I'd serve tins of sardines, fancy crackers, loaves of thick-sliced bread to sop up the sardine oil, a five pound block of cheese, a large quantity of hot apple pies, Thermoses™ of hot, black coffee, flasks of Korbel brandy, and one pint of beer for each of us. For dessert, more hot apple pie, a la mode...And a bushel of apples for each of us to take with us afterwards...

13: E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara...I've got 11,640 pages of half-baked metaphors and dull images from my 20's sitting in boxes in my closet that my two cats take turns protecting...At 32 I burned myself out on a few meager accolades and 12 credits of Poetry labs on my transcript ...Nowadays I contemplate burning some of those volumes while I try to figure out how to hot poop...These are my three favorite American poets of the 20th century, tokens of the years before my own millenial crash...For the meal I'd serve all-beef hot dogs with ketchup, Peppadew mustard and diced onions, a huge pot of baked beans, salt & vinegar potato chips, and 4 gallons of creamy root beer...For dessert, Bananas Foster...

12: Piet Mondrian...Max Ernst...Bill Griffith...This dinner party would satisfy the comic-stripping, MUCKO-ing artsy-farter in me...Mondrian was part of the De Stijl movement in the first half of the 20th century, and his colorful geometric paintings wholly satisfy my right-brained tendencies...Ernst was a German Dada/Surrealism artist in many different mediums...Griffith is the creator of the Zippy The Pinhead comic strip, my favorite strip of all-time, and loaded with tons of absurdity (and stellar art)...For the meal, I'd serve porcupine meatballs, mashed potatoes and sweet peas, ice cold milk, and for dessert, hot apple pie leftover from a previous dream dinner...

11: Woody Allen...Terry Gilliam...Joel & Ethan Coen...After music, movies are the biggest passion in my life. I watch tons of films, and I take alot of notes cuz I've got Final Draft on my computer and farfetched dreams of screenplay glory in my head. If I had to choose my three favorite filmmakers, it would have to be these four because the Coens come as a pair, natch...What I like best about all of these guys is that they write most of their own scripts, which is what kept Scorsese from making this table...For the meal, I'd put a pitcher of ice water and an enormous bowl of Cobb Salad in the middle of the table and just let everybody have at it...

10: Amelia Earhart, Joni Mitchell, Emily Dickinson...This is a strange one...A WTF? kinda dinner party....But I'd really like to find out what happened to Ms. Earhart...And Joni Mitchell because she wrote a beautiful song called "Amelia" , and simpy because she's Joni, you know?...I am fairly ambivalent about Emily Dickinson's poetry, but I always understood the reclusive life she led...For the meal I'd serve ham & cheese omelets and potato pancakes, warm buttermilk...For dessert, coffee and cigarettes.

09: Hunter S Thompson, William S Burroughs, Ulysses S Grant...My best guess is that we'd talk about guns, and probably shoot off a few rounds...Maybe go hunting for our meal before actually sitting down to eat...Grilled rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, wild turkey...Maybe some venison...Mashed potatoes and sweet corn...Heavy mugs of dark lagers, possibly some port wine...Scotch and cigars and LSD for dessert...

08: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill...The Yalta Conference revisited, around my kitchen table...Nuff said...For the meal, I'd serve cheeseburgers, onion rings and milkshakes of many flavors...For dessert, a very large platter of assorted Hostess products = Twinkies, Ding Dongs, HoHo's, Snowballs, Chocodiles, Suzy Q's, Pudding Pies...

07: d. Boon, Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Sharrock...My three favorite dead guitar players...Kurt Cobain was a close fourth, and then there's Eddie Van Halen and Jeff Beck still among the living...I figured this dinner party would be a good chance to get some guitar lessons...For the meal, fucking corndogs on sticks (Minutemen fans will get the reference) and a vat of ketchup to dip 'em in, plenty of tater-tots, and a fridge full of bottled pure-cane sugar Coca-Cola that you can only get at the Mexican grocery store and/or during Passover...

06: Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos...Paris after the the first World War...The feast moves to my dining room, if only for a night...Racks of roasted lamb with carmelized shallot and thyme crust, a sizzling casserole dish of Gruyere Potato Gratin, a big bowl of steamed cauliflower, and bottles of fresh Beaujolais Nouveau...Crème brûlée and dark roast coffee for dessert...

05: Jesus Christ, Siddhartha Gautama, Lao Tse...I was raised and confirmed Catholic, before lapsing into Buddhism for awhile and finally falling into Taoism...For the meal I'd serve a good old-fashioned Wisconsin Friday night, all-you-can-eat fish fry = An endless serving of delicate pieces of deep-fried perch filets and piles of golden french fries...Tubs of creamy coleslaw and bowls of tartar sauce, tall stacks of buttered rye bread, and a never-empty pitcher of Spotted Cow Farmhouse Ale...

04: William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, King Henry VIII...The "Bard Of Avon" and two of his most famous and interesting subjects...A chance compare stories, so to speak...For this dream dinner I always imagine a spacious hall of feast befitting kings...Perhaps a small troupe of actors would perform the two relevant plays for us...Perhaps the four of us would simply do a table read...For the meal, a fat pig, roasted on a slowly-turning spit, roasted turkey, duck, and chicken, racks of lamb, grilled venison tenderloin, baked potatoes, carrots and turnips and onions...Mead and milk and heavy lagers...For dessert, prostitutes...

03: Philip K Dick, Brian Eno, Winona Ryder...PKD is perhaps my favorite writer, if I had to choose one...Eno is one of my favorite producers and the name of one of my cats, and I believe he would have some interesting things to discuss with PKD, able to bridge that gap into the esoteric and metaphysical sci-fi...And Ms. Ryder? I think we all ought to be surprised she isn't on the #1 guest list...For the meal, I'd set about 50 kinds of cereal on the counter in my kitchen, and gallons of ice cold whole milk on the table...

02: Frank Zappa, Groucho Marx, Salvadore Dali...Three smart and funny men in the vanguard of their respective fields, all sporting distinctive facial hair configurations...Strange, dry, trim and sarcastic...For the meal, I'd serve fried leftover spaghetti, baked garlic bread soaked in butter, bottle after bottle of robust red wine, and amaretto cheesecake and espresso for dessert...

01: Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Bob Dylan...What can I say, when I think of America, I think of these three men probably more than any others...Ben Franklin, the witty and ribald statesman, inventor and storyteller of the 18th century, Mark Twain the wittier and more sardonic storyteller and world traveller of the 19th century, and Bob Dylan, folk poet and singer of American myths in the 20th century...Man, I gotta believe this dinner would be wild and drunk and loud...And between Twain and Franklin and me, I bet we could get Dylan to smoke a pipe...For the meal, I'd serve roasted Cornish game hens with wild rice stuffing, steamed asparagus, sweet iced tea, and bread pudding for dessert...

Hotcha! Hank

Blood Makes The Grass Grow

It's that time of year, babycakes!

The 2008 NFL season begins next week, so of course that means Fantasy Football is back in full swing, and that means it's the return of everyone's favorite FF franchise, the beloved Winona Rough Ryders...

Man, it seems like it was just seven months ago that the Rough Ryders took second place in the APFL...

Which reminds me - the league has been renamed this year to the Fantasy Inner Circle League, or the FICL, and yeah, there's a part of me that thinks Wino is being fickle with this league re-christening, but he's a good commissioner, and our beloved Rough Ryders are going to win it all this year no matter what the league is called...

So, as you can see from the graphic above, the FICL had our draft on Monday night, and that would be this year's Winona Rough Ryders! All in all, I was quite happy with my draft this year, although in hindsight I do have to second guess myself a couple times...

Eighth pick in the draft, and going into it, I had seriously considered grabbing QB Tom Brady or WR Randy Moss with a later pick like mine, but both of those players got nabbed right in front of me, so that decision was essentially made for me...Conventional wisdom is to draft an RB in the first round, and with Brady and Moss off the table, Frank Gore was my highest pre-ranked RB, so I grabbed him...My thinking that he'll become a formidable and prolific receiving RB in Mike Martz's new offensive scheme in San Francisco, making him a fantasy stud...

It was a tough draft this year in terms of RB...There are a few that are still young and unproven (Adrian Peterson, Ryan Grant, Marshawn Lynch), and there are even more that are starting to age, losing a step or two, being more prone to injury (LT, Steven Jackson, Brian Westbrook, Rudi Johnson, Jamal Lewis)...

And then there are the rookies...I drafted the two best rookie RB prospects this year, and it's one of those gambits that will either blow up in my face, or make me look like a fucking genius and wish the FICL was a keeper league...Darren McFadden finds himself one of four potential starters out in Oakland, though I suspect he'll rise to the top of the depth chart by mid-season, so grabbing him in the fourth round as my 2nd RB looks fairly foolish in hindsight...At the moment, anyways...

Meanwhile, rookie RB Jonathan Stewart is running like an All-Pro this pre-season down in Carolina...The problem there is, DeAngelo Williams (a back I've drafted and championed the past two seasons) is running like an All-Pro as well...Having said that, I was able to draft the first (or second) best rookie RB prospect in the eleventh round, which is fucking sweet no matter how ya look at it...Even considering that I took McFadden in the fourth...(Why?)

Anyways, I did the conventional thing and took Gore with my first pick, and my strategy has always been to grab WRs with the next two picks, which I obviously did...Terrell Owens was a great pick for me, I believe, and there's really nothing else to say about it...Barring injury, he may very well be my leading fantasy scorer this season...

In the third round, I grabbed WR Marques Colston of the New Orleans Saints...He was the ninth WR drafted, and in a rare stroke of insight, I had him pencilled-in as my #3 pick in the days leading up to the draft...And here he is, a proud Winona Rough Ryder! I expect a huge year from the young man...

I usually grab my QB within the first three rounds, but this year I waited until the fifth round, and ended up taking Ben Roethlisberger...As a die-hard Steeler fan, it was an easy choice, perhaps too easy, because in reality, the Steeler's O-line is a porous mess, and the receiving corp, quite honestly, could be better....Hines Ward is a fucking champ, but he is getting old, there's no denying that...With rookie Mendenhall joining Willie Parker in the backfield, the Steelers might be content to just grind it out on the ground this year...

It might not matter, because looking at my team right now, I think I'm going to be starting my other QB, Jay Cutler of the Denver Broncos...He's young, he's smart, and he's got promising receivers, including my 2nd TE, Tony Scheffler, who might also end up starting for me instead of Owen Daniels...

Usually, I draft my starting TE within the first five rounds, but this year I ended up waiting until the seventh round to grab Owen Daniels of Houston...In Round 5 of our draft, both Antonio Gates and Jason Witten were grabbed ahead of my pick, and frankly, those were the only two TEs I considered good enough to take that early, so when they were gone, my decision was once again made for me...I briefly considered grabbing Tony Gonzalez with that 5th pick, but he's now the oldest active TE in the NFL, and he's playing for a KC offense that may very well be a mess this year...He served me well last year, but that was last year...

So I grabbed another WR with my fifth pick, Greg Jennings of my own beloved Green Bay Packers...It may have been a risky pick considering that Aaron Rodgers is now the Packers' QB, but Jennings has proven to me that he's got the potential to be a truly elite NFL receiver, and if nothing else, he's the best Packer receiver, and wouldn't ya know it, he grabbed a 60 yard TD pass on the first drive of tonight's pre-season game against the Titans...

Yeah, add Anthony Gonzalez, my 10th pick, into the mix, and I believe I've got a dynamite receiving situation this year...TE and QB, maybe not so much, but ya can't always have it all...

Elsewhere...

New York Jets' RB Thomas Jones in the 8th round? It was absurd when I saw he was still available with the 73rd pick, and it's absurd even now...With Brett Favre at QB in NYC, and future Hall-Of-Fame guard Alan Faneca on their line this year, Thomas Jones could bounce back and have a stellar season...Could...And if he does, I don't see any reason why our beloved Rough Ryders won't be charging hard towards the FICL title...

In Pittsburgh and Jacksonville I have two of the best six defensive units in the NFL...Plus, as I've mentioned many times before, the Steelers are my second most beloved NFL team after the Packers...Having said that, Jacksonville might very well win out in the long run...It will likely come down to which team faces the most inept offense each weekend, and the Jaguars definitely have a much easier schedule than the Steelers do...

I definitely wanted Packer LB Nick Barnett on my team again this year, although taking him in the 12th round was silliness...He would have lasted until near the end, I reckon...

Patriot K Stephen Gostkowski was shockingly available for my 13th pick...I always draft my K in the 13th round, but I still can't believe Gostkowski, potentially the most valuable kicker in the NFL, was the eighth kicker taken when I grabbed him with my #13...Plus, he's a fellow Polack...I like most Polacks...

Marcus Trufant led the NFL in interceptions last season, if I'm not mistaken...Atari Bigby is a Green Bay Packer, he plays a bit recklessly, and has my favorite name in the NFL, although if fellow Packer DB, Scorpio Babers makes the team, I may have to rethink it...In any event, I've got a solid DB tandem...

I've also got a decent DL tandem as well...James Harrison of the Steelers, and Brian Posluszny of the Bills...Another tough Polack...

And that's about it...A blathering rundown of our beloved Winona Rough Ryders...Stay tuned to HOT POOP for weekly recaps...

HINES WARD!

Hotcha! Hank

Sweet Sideways Laminated Weekend Maneuver

Well, I certainly didn't plan this, or even give it a single thought, but I direct your attention to the #1 and #2 ladies on my 2008 Laminated List...

Winona Ryder and Evangeline Lilly...

I now direct your attention to tracks 5 and 6 on Matthew Sweet's 1991 album, Girlfriend...

Matthew Sweet: Girlfriend: "Winona" [mp3]

Matthew Sweet: Girlfriend: "Evangeline" [mp3]

Like I said, I didn't plan any of this, so I can only attribute this phenomenon to one of two possibilities...First, that I've listened to this album so many times over the past 17 years (sweet lord, 17 years!), that this sequence has been floating around in my subconscious for awhile now...OR secondly, that Matthew Sweet is a warlock...

Now, these two songs are fine songs, but they're definitely not the strongest cuts on this great album...However, if I wanted this to be a stronger post, there'd hafta be hot starlets named "Divine Intervention", "Thought I Knew You", or simply "Girlfriend"...

If only Dr. Girlfriend was real...

Hotcha! Hank

2008 Laminated List # 1

It's probably not mere coincidence that this post is #500 at HOT POOP...Winona Ryder has been #1 on the Laminated List Of My Mind™ for damn near 20 years now...The film Heathers, from 1989, was when my adoration for the actress was cemented, although I became quite smitten with her in Beetlejuice from the previous year. My point is, I've had a thing for Winona Ryder for a long time, and it only seems right and natural that she's a part of a somewhat landmark post for this blog...

Since last year's list, I Netflixed A Scanner Darkly for the first time on DVD, which convincingly displays her deceivingly ample bosom...I also saw a rerun of the Friends episode wherein she shares a pretty decent kiss with Jennifer Aniston, and that's always fun to see...Watched most of the Winona films I have in my DVD collection - Heathers, Night On Earth, Reality Bites, Edward Scissorhands...etc...

Since last year's list, the tabloid blogs have romantically linked Winona to one of the guys from Rilo Kiley, as well as Keanu Reeves...Well, Keanu's dating a semi-obscure actress named China Chow, so that story's dead, but a dude from Rilo Kiley is possible, considering Winona's historically questionable taste in second-rate musicians, of which I am one (possibly third-rate), which helps keep my dreams of laminated glory alive...

She was also accused of shoplifting again, this time in the pages of the National Inquirer and nowhere else...Just some make-up from a CVS Pharmacy in Hollywood. Nothing to worry about. A false blip on a faulty radar.

It's also been reported, and I believe confirmed, that she will play young Spock's mom in the upcoming Star Trek movie...She will probably get about 3 minutes of screen time, and will be the sole reason I actually watch a fucking Star Trek movie...Netflixed, however, cuz not even Winona will get me to pay for a ticket to one of those things...Not even with JJ Abrams at the helm...Anyways, another year, another top spot for Winona in the Laminated List Of My Mind™ and the archives of HOT POOP!

Onward...Sideways...

Hotcha! Hank