Reggie! Reggie! Reggie!

I'm caught in a rabbit hole of 30 for 30 AV Club recaps, and will probably be posting more. Via Winning Time, which, along with the Bo Jackson and Marcus Dupree episodes, is a personal favorite from the series:

The funny thing about those two epic playoff battles between the Knicks and the Pacers in ’94 and ’95 is that neither team went on to win the NBA Finals. And yet, as fans, what do we remember? We remember this.

You can watch the whole thing here:

Hanks for the Memories

I'm caught in a rabbit hole of 30 for 30 AV Club recaps, and will probably be posting more. Via The Guru of Go:

Loyola-Marymount beat Michigan in the second round of the 1990 tournament by a score of 149-115. Tonight I watched Butler beat Michigan St. in a Final Four game 52-50. Different times.

ZING!

I'm caught in a rabbit hole of 30 for 30 AV Club recaps, and will probably be posting more. Via the June 17, 1994 one:

If I see historical footage of the Knicks in the playoffs, I have a foolproof way of remembering whether they won a title that year or not. If Patrick Ewing is in the footage, I know they didn’t.

Good Point

I'm caught in a rabbit hole of 30 for 30 AV Club recaps, and will probably be posting more. From the NC State one:

Game footage of the 7-foot, 4-inch Sampson is the most startling thing in the film. I’d forgotten how effortlessly dominating a player he was (when healthy). Guys that big and athletic shouldn’t be that graceful, too. It’s just not fair.

But of course you fans already knew that. 

Good Question.

Via HERE:

How has there not been a Friday Night Lights-style series about a high-school basketball team somewhere in Indiana or the blue-collar northeast?

This is a cow whose trip to Europe is, and I quote, off to a rough start.

State du Moi

I realize that I am an unapologetic Beatles freak. But sometimes I feel like the end of Hey Jude is a gift to humanity. Bigger than The Beatles, bigger than us, bigger than god. - XMASTIME

Preznit Jeter

George W. Bush met Derek Jeter tonight before his final game in Texas:

Then, the Rangers brought out former Rangers owner George W. Bush, who later spent eight years in the White House, to present Jeter with a framed autographed photo of himself and Bush from the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium.

Bush's appearance with Jeter was one of the many, MANY highlights of the HBO classic Nine Innings from Ground Zero (sorry for the shitty video quality.)

WHOA

A few years ago I announced Silas Marner has the best opening chapter ever; today, I pass that honor along to Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. Man. It's as if George Costanza wrote a novel.

These Kids Today

When I was a kid we played baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball in the winter and then basketball outside any day it wasn't raining, year-round. Not once did it occur to any of us to "specialize" in one sport in the name of getting a college scholarship, which is how it goes now:

... when I tell parents that their kid’s chance of scholarship money is less than 2 percent, they shake their heads in sympathy for the other 98 percent. 

I treated two teenage sisters who had career-ending knee injuries in the same year. Fifteen thousand dollars of their father’s annual income had been going to three different elite traveling softball teams. His goal was a college scholarship. Now their knees and chances at athletic scholarships were ruined. But $15,000 a year would have been a great D.I.Y. college fund.

Carl Yastrzemski Apparently Drunk Full-time Now

Xmastime Confessions

I'm not 100% sure I gave Winnie Cooper enough credit for being hot during her run in the Bartlet White House.

Xmastime Classixxx

This may still be my greatest moment of the last decade:

Today was just one of those days The Short Bus decided to make my life miserable: after the tortuous walk home, he barraged me with nary a second of peace, including standing next to me and repeatedly howling like a wolf. Just before I was about to snap and drag him to the closest bodega backroom to enter him in a cockfight, I finally got my revenge:

"Rats, what's this say?" (Pointing out a dinosaur from book)
"I dunno, I can't see."
"It's (sloooooooowly sounding out each letter with his finger) S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"What?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"I'm sorry, what's that?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"I missed that, say it again?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"What?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"What?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"What?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat
"Huh?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"I'm sorry, what?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"What?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
"I'm sorry, what's that?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"I missed that, say it again?"
"S.....T....E....O....N....Y.....C......H....O.....S....A...U........R.....U....S."
(Beat)
"What?"

HA!  A rare victory for Rats!!!!

John & Paul

The Atlantic writers debunk the myth of the lone genius, using John and Paul as it's best example:

For centuries, the myth of the lone genius has towered over us, its shadow obscuring the way creative work really gets done. The attempts to pick apart the Lennon-McCartney partnership reveal just how misleading that myth can be, because John and Paul were so obviously more creative as a pair than as individuals, even if at times they appeared to work in opposition to each other. The lone-genius myth prevents us from grappling with a series of paradoxes about creative pairs: that distance doesn’t impede intimacy, and is often a crucial ingredient of it; that competition and collaboration are often entwined.

Of course years ago Slate had a long series on the same thing:

Though he lived another six years, John Lennon never took the stage for a major show again. His strange words have a peculiar and lasting echo. By then, Paul and John had been the most famous exes in the world for four years. But somehow, they were still "fiances"—prospective spouses. As much as had passed, the energy between them was always in front of them—always, somehow, in the future.

This is a cow wondering what the heck this thing in front of him is.

Please Let's See This!

Like the fantastic Muscle Shoals doc and the Funk Brothers of Standing in the Shadows of Motown before it, there's a Wrecking Crew doc waiting to happen.

I'm On Her Side

Dammit.

THIS GUY beat me to it.

Bruce!

I went to three nights of the Meadowlands run in 2003, but of course the 1999 15-shows were the rebirth of the E Street Band:

Inside the arena, before the show began, it was very emotional. Like waiting for an Ali-Frazier fight, the Super Bowl or the seventh game of the World Series. We had waited a long time, we finally had our Bruce and the E Street Band back!

It was such a big event that VH1 broadcast the first two songs live. As the lights went down, Bruce and the band came out one-by-one to a deafening ovation.

"Good evening New Jersey! We're going to bring it to you," Bruce said before beginning "My Love Will Not Let You Down."

And "bring it to you" was Bruce and the E Street Band did for 15 sold-out shows in East Rutherford that summer.

Announcement du Jour

Xmastime buddy The Girl Who's Walk On the Wild Side video has over 10 million views.

Meanwhile, my Kill Rock City classic video has 143.

In other words, I hate everybody.

MLB Hall of Fame Thoughts, IV

Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre each had exactly four 100-win seasons. No more, no less.

MLB Hall of Fame Thoughts, III

Of course I love Joe Torre as much as the next guy, and maybe he was the perfect beacon of calmness for an NY team, but I feel like Snoopy could've coached that team to a few World Series. And certainly Buck Showalter could've.

MLB Hall of Fame Thoughts, II

Even having watched their careers, Greg Maddox and Frank Thomas' career numbers are absolutely shocking.

MLB Hall of Fame Thoughts

If they ever make a movie about Greg Maddox, Rob Lowe would play him.

Bill Maher with Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I always hear that the moon landing was the last great thing America did. I think the last great thing it did was giving healthcare to thirty million people. - Bill Maher

He then went on to ask which was the "greater achievement." I'd say the two are different. Healthcare was accomplished just by enough people having the will to do it. Sign some things into law, bada-bing, bada-boom. But after we decided "let's go to the Moon!", someone had to figure out how to do it and then actually do it, which is insane. Two different things.

Line du Jour

"The waiter goes away like a bridesmaid with his bouquet of unwanted silver." - John Updike from Rabbit, Run 

Can't say I like this book. Too may words spent on needless exposition, a la To Sir With Love.

This is a cow wondering how the Yankees are gonna fucking blow this one.

Better Things

As much gay shit as I've put here, I don't think I've ever posted song lyrics here. Until now. God, I love The Kinks:

Here's wishing you the bluest sky,
And hoping something better comes tomorrow.
Hoping all the verses rhyme,
And the very best of choruses to
Follow all the doubt and sadness.
I know that better things are on the way.

Here's hoping all the days ahead
Won't be as bitter as the ones behind you.
Be an optimist instead,
And somehow happiness will find you.
Forget what happened yesterday,
I know that better things are on the way.

It's really good to see you rocking out
And having fun,
Living like you just begun.
Accept your life and what it brings.
I hope tomorrow you'll find better things.
I know tomorrow you'll find better things.

Here's wishing you the bluest sky,
And hoping something better comes tomorrow.
Hoping all the verses rhyme,
And the very best of choruses to
Follow all the drudge and sadness.
I know that better things are on the way.

I know you've got a lot of good things happening up ahead.
The past is gone it's all been said.
So here's to what the future brings,
I know tomorrow you'll find better things.
I know tomorrow you'll find better things.

Speaking Of Covers...

Is Always On My Mind unique in that it had TWO definitive covers, both of which were awesome?

Cover Me

Sully is having a great contest, the best cover song in rock. I feel like it should stick to 1980 onwards, as so much of what came out before were, in fact covers (really, is anything going to top The Beatles version of Twist & Shout? or Elvis' Always On My Mind?) And we can't count the kings of the great covers, The Ramones. So far I nominated The Clash's version of The Equals' Police on My Back and The Pixies great cover of the unconquerable Head On by the Jesus and Mary Chain. What a great contest - like you, I've thought of about a million other examples since I started this post :)

Favorite Site du Jour

Go Art Director Go!

Maybe the Universe Really DOES Revolve Around Me?

After a series of horrendously botched high-fives at work today, I made things right:

And then, look what happened to pop up on Grantland today!!!!!!!

The Blahness That is Tom Petty

I just watched about an hour of a Penny Marshall Tom Petty concert on tv. It's a weird show to watch; it's an endless series of "Hey, I know that song. That's a good song." But there's no GREAT songs, there's no "ohmygod" moments. I mean, at a Bruce show you know you can take a piss break during the 57-minute middle of Mary's Place, but there's no way in hell you're missing the breakdown on Badlands. At the Petty show, every minute could be a piss break or not a piss break, it never seems to matter. - XMASTIME

Grantland goes over his career and mentions a similar thing:

Here’s what I think I know: Tom Petty has been a rock star for almost 40 years. He has a dozen or so songs that will be played on classic rock radio for as long as there is classic rock radio. If you’re a music fan of a certain age, there was a time in your life when he seemed inescapable. Even now, Petty is still a guy that most people know, even if you don’t actively care about him one way or the other. Tom Petty’s music doesn’t necessarily demand a value judgment. It’s like having an opinion on tap water or concrete. Why bother? It’s just there, reliable to the point of invisibility. If it went missing, you would notice. But it’s never going missing, because Tom Petty has existed since the beginning of time, and will continue to exist until time is extinguished.

Questions. I Have Them.

Am I the last idiot in the world who wondered if the Apple start-up sound was a shout-out to the last chord in A Day in the Life?

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Sometimes I wonder if we're in a race to prove H. L. Mencken right about everything.

Doc du Jour

Inside the life of a 52 year-old pizza delivery man. (Thought I recognized the place- it's the old Brooklyn Star)

Worst TV Character of All Time?

I still say it's either Grandma Walton or Kelly Taylor, but here's an interesting case made that Julie Taylor from Friday Night Lights was the worst tv character of all time.

Lighten the Fuck Up, Harper Lee

Today is Harper Lee's 85th birthday, and while she's famous for being a recluse, not having given a public interview in 45 years (even staying away from THIS GUY!), I hope she realizes that at 85 there's not a lot of time left and really needs to get moving if she and John Grisham are ever gonna get together and give us A Time to Kill a Mockingbird. - XMASTIME

Vulture on the decline of Harper Lee:

It wasn’t just infirmity that kept Nelle from basking in those 2010 celebrations; it was disillusion. Allergic to both attention and commerce, she’d always found the Mockingbird-industrial complex tacky and intrusive, but had managed to carve out a separate existence in its shadow. Now, too many “well wishers” were stopping by her new apartment—including her literary agent, whom she eventually barred from the facility. 

I've never read anything other than Lee has always been a needlessly freakishly-reclusive person who greatly resented people for appreciating her (one) work - she reminds me of this about George Harrison:

Finally, the film really never investigates the real mystery of Harrison: What was he so morose about?...Harrison... has always had a sense of the aggrieved about him. I just don't know what the source of it was. In Harrison's mini-autobiography at the front of I Me Mine, the unasked-for collection of his song lyrics, he seems mostly unhappy about … the travel indignities he suffered during the Beatles years.

In other words, lighten the fuck up, Harper.

YES!!!!

They're making a movie about Marco Pierre White!!!! Based on his memoir:

White's memoir tells the story about his "tumultuous childhood upbringing" before he became a superstar chef in London in the 1980s. Deadline notes that white was the youngest chef to win three Michelin stars and that he was also the first person to give them all back. Prominent chefs like Mario Batali and Gordon Ramsay (who White had a major falling out with) have all trained under the British chef.

You KNOW I loves this shit!

And please tell me Tom Hardy is playing him.

18 Years Ago Today

Happy Anniversary Rrthur (YES, ladies, THAT Rrthur!!!!!)

via HERE:

2) Wedding B (summer 1996, Connecticut) - sorry ladies, this was RRTHUR's wedding. Some highlights here. Almost got into a fight with a whole band after telling one of their wives to "shut the fuck up." They were nice enough to document the night with some flattering photos of me on the floor of the hotel hallway, naked and with their balls in the general vicinitiy of my face. Nice.

Of course, that wasn't even the highlight of this wedding. After, oh, 7000 beers the night before the wedding Xmastime starts recieving amorous attention from Sheena Baughn (name changed to protect the old, withered, sexless and GUILTY!!!) You should know that Mrs. Baughn was a) recently widowed b) next door neighbors to RRTHUR'S parents c) oh, I'd say about 65 years old. Did this matter to our guy Xmastime? Nah. tongues down each others' throats like the plane was going down. Hands all over each other. Hey, it was a woman - I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said "beauty is only a light switch away." Anyways, somehow I got out of actually sleeping with her, but you can imagine the horror the next morning of running into her, then explaing to RRTHUR's parents that on the eve of their son's wedding night I hooked up with their neighbor 40 years my senior. Between the fright of that PLUS spending the weekend crying and whining about my first love being there (high school gf, NOT Sheena Baughn!) that wedding day was pretty traumatic. WEDDINGS 2, XMASTIME 0

ps - fast forward 2 years. I had moved to NYC, and RRTHUR and MRS. RRTHUR (sorry ladies!) went down home to visit, and ended up at a barn dance. No, that doesn't mean I danced with a barn. So we get there and BAM! there's Sheena Baughn, dancing away. Oh, shit. I immediatly decide "This might be a good night to NOT drink 100 beers. Or one drop. Or smell booze from someone talking." Total precautions were taken - I avoided her all night, spent most of the time talking to my old jv football coach Charlie Futchko who, what with his creamy-white doughy body, 70's porn mustashe, collection of skintight coach's shorts and inability to say the letter "r" "Gwegowy!! dwop your dwawers!!" deserves his own Xmastime post. But anyways I made it through the whole night without running into her, and as we're getting ready to load up to go home I breathe a sigh of relief when...an old, withered, senior citizen hand that was pumping equals parts feral sexuality and Ben-Gay landed on my shoulder and sent ripples through my young body not seen since I almost got caught beating off as a kid (by Mr. Futchko…4 times. I mean caught BY Mr. Futchko, not that he was beating me off…where was I...oh yeah, about to hit some skins with an old lady). I turn with dread to a beaming smile “Do I get a dance?” she asked. Why not? I thought, you already took away my ability to sleep with the lights off. My brain was racing – I knew if I just ran off to the car, word would get back to RRTHUR’s parents (no ladies, he wasn’t merely sent down from angels!) that I acted like a jerk. I quickly ingested the upcoming song – it was midtempo, meaning I didn’t have to fast dance, and I didn’t have to rub up all over her wrinkled-up groins either. I mumbled okay, we hit the dance floor and I started counting down the seconds that I knew were left in the song. So we’re bopping along, “dancing”, and then she says “You’re a good dancer.” I mumble somehting like “thanks” and BAM!!!!!!! She yanks me close, pulling me right up to her and says “what else are you good at?” POOOOOINGGG!!! I was sitting in the mini-van screaming at everyone to load in and got the fuck out of there tout suite.

Footnote:
POSSIBLE ANSWERS SHE WAS LOOKING FOR FROM ME WHEN SHE ASKED “WHAT ELSE ARE YOU GOOD AT?”

a) “Cunnilingus”
b) “Sitz baths”
c) “Being a stepdaddy to people older than myself”
d) “Fuckin old ladies on hay bales”
e) “Analingus”

Happy 45th Anniversary

Every photo taken during Apollo 11 HERE.

Slice du Jour

"Oh, you'd like to explain the difference between the national debt and the deficit to us? Please, by all means, go ahead."

WELL, Well, Well...

YESTERDAY:

TODAY:

THE ALL-STAR GAME FUCKING SUCKS

MLB is still searching for solutions to a problem that doesn't exist by tinkering with the All-Star Game. Wow! Awesome! It's almost perfect guys, don't give up!! Well, except for the fact that nobody fucking gives two shits about it, and the idea that the winner determines the home field advantage in the World Series is beyond asinine. The only people who care about this game are Bud Selig and the company that prints up all the fucking ballots.

Quit trying to make the All-Star game "mean something," and just get fucking rid of it. Have three days of those sausage races, that would be less destructive to the game. - XMASTIME

That is, of course, fucking insane - teams play 162 games over 6 months so that if they make it to the most important games of their lives, they're controlled by a fucking mid-season exhibition game in which the players who are chosen by the fans hope to get out of the game as soon as possible so they can clown around?  Or leave?  What the fuck.  You may win 83 games, to my 110, but if in a pretend game 4 months ago someone on your All-Star game hit the gw-rbi against some shitty relieveer who was only there because every team has to be repesented and then everybody is supposed to play? Fucking absurd.  Oh, and the pitcher who leads the majors in wins isn't even playing this year, therein crippling my team that much more? - XMASTIME

Everyone’s making a big deal of Wainwright possibly grooving one in for Jeter in the All-Star game. Which is, as always, the least inane part of the whole thing. The idea that Wainright grooved one in for Jeter during a should-be meaningless exhibition game isn’t inane; the idea that the single most important games of the season and October are affected by it in a huge way is inane. Just like Ripken’s good-bye dinger years ago, these moments are exactly what these games are fucking for. Fans paying tribute to players who have had such a huge impact on the game and saying goodbye, or the country being introduced to the next generaton. That’s it. Fucking hell.

Pic du Jour

Here's the cover if I ever record another record, entitled "Uh huh...yep...and then what happened?...you don't say...so, ahhhhh...tell us more about this 'third phase index planning system'..."

Whats a 6-Letter Word For "Hey, Remember When I Used to Give a Shit About Coming Up with Snappy Headlines?"

Over at Sully we read about apps being the future of crossword puzzles:

But apps are the future of crosswords, and puzzle aficionados realize this. According to a Pew report, tablet usage has spiked among those over 65, with 27 percent of senior citizens owning a device; only 18 percent of seniors own a smartphone.

Which is unfathomable to me. As i wrote years ago:

I don't know if I love doing the Daily News crossword puzzles every day for the sake of doing them or because I really, really love the way my pen sinks into that weirdly soft paper. Can you buy blank paper like that to write on?  Hmm.

And then of course there's the original Xmastime crossword puzzle. Enjoy!

Is This The Best Commercial of Our Generation?

This Will Never Get Old

HOLY CRAP!

Worlds colliding: Tommy Ramone, who produced The Replacements' Tim, playing their early classic, If Only You Were Lonely.

Mukluks: The Gnat

Post by We Love The 'Mats.

Last Time All-Star

Derek Jeter just tied Lou Gehrig's career hits record for the Yankees. I wonder how many I've seen, watching games on tv. I'd be surprised if it was lower than 2,200, 2,300. As an A-Rod apologist I get (foolishly) frustrated by Jeter devotion, but when he retires I'm gonna cry my eyes out; my Yankee fandom has mirrored his career.  - XMASTIME

There's a lot of great Derek Jeter All-Star Game video I'm sure I'll be posting later on, but one thing I don't remember from the 1999 All-Star Game in Fenway is this:

Jeter entered the game mid-inning so Red Sox fans could cheer Nomar Garciaparra, then did an impression of Garciaparra's mannerisms at the plate.

This is a cow that went to South Africa, got attacked by a monkey but made it back alive and doesn't think he's particularly interested in taking crap from anybody anymore.

The Ramones

Moi ICI:

No one was better at covers than the Ramones. The first time I tried to get permission to go to a Ramones show, my parents, who had been born in 1576, said "hellz no." A few days later I brought my mother a cassette I had made of all the old songs The Ramones had covered, including Let's Dance, California Sun, Do You Wanna Dance, Needles & Pins, Baby I Love You, Little Bit of Soul, Indian Giver and Palisades Park. This led to my mother thinking "oh, it's an oldies group, great!" and allowing me to go.

Ha!

Oh, For Chrissake

I'm not made of stone, people.

More Tommy Ramone

In a tribute from some guy from They Might Be Giants:

The influence of the Ramones is certainly musical—as much about reintroducing the charm of a short song as the power of a barre chord—but it goes far beyond music. A Ramones song cannot be unheard. The Ramones changed the pH balance of rock music’s pond water. Their existence challenged everyone else’s. They’re not part of a school. They built the building

The summer's out. And I want some.

MORE Happy Bastille Day

Happy Bastille Day!

Nobody could remotely give two shits Some people have been clamoring for last year's brilliant THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT FRANCE series that I posted throughout last Bastille Day, so here they are:

The Uniforms

Ratatouille

Winning Our Revolutionary War

Remembrance of Things Past

First Lady

French Class

Croissants

Buzzed

Holy crap, Buzz Aldrin was answering questions on Reddit this past week. One of them was how they chose who stepped on the moon first:

I felt that there was an obligation on my part to put forth the reasons why a commander who had been burdened down with an enormous amount of responsibility and training for activities (and because of that, in all previous missions, if someone, a crew member, was to spacewalk, it was always the junior person, not the space commander who would stay inside). We knew this would be different because 2 people would be going out. There was a group at NASA who felt the junior person (me) should go out first, but many people felt the great symbology of the commander from past expeditions or arrivals at a destination. The decision that was made was absolutely correct as far as who went out first, symbolically. However who was in charge of the what happened after both people are outside, I believe, could have been done differently. I was not the commander, I was a junior person, so once both were outside, I followed my leader, because we (NASA) had not put together detailed jobs of people outside. I believe it could have been improved. But it was very successful for what it was. And the decision wasn't up to me, or Neil, it was up to people much higher up in NASA. 

I'm still miffed he didn't try this:

5) If you had been Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, wouldn’t you at least have thought about shoving Neil Armstrong aside and being the first man on the moon? I’ve read a lot about how he always resented Armstrong stepping on the moon first, him being the Commander of the flight. Hey, asshole – there was NO ONE ELSE ON THAT WHOLE WORLD!!! Who coulda stopped you? Let’s see: shove Armstrong aside and be known as the first man to set foot on another world, or as the guy named after the sound a vibrator makes. Tough one.

Fuck Yeah Charlie

The final scene in the classic Two Cathedrals episode of The West Wing is great and I've sen it like a million times, but just now was the first time I noticed that after the President refuses to put on the raincoat Charlie offers him despite being about to walk out into the storm of the century Charlie takes his own raincoat off. I mean, who doesn't fucking love Charlie, amirite?
The West Wing - End of "Two Cathedrals" (Season 2 Episode 22) from Eric Geller on Vimeo.

HAPPY GRIZZADAY!

GrizzaDay (n) - July 13, the day between Mamalizza and Xmastime's birfdays. Also: excuse to eat a whole ice cream cake guilt-free.  

2008 Grizzaday HERE.

2010 Grizzaday 2010 HERE.

 

More Thoughts. I Have Those Too.

I hate when I say or write that I think/thought "to myself"...like, who the fuck else could I possibly be thinking to?

Thoughts. I Have Them.

One great thing about being a creative (a word I HATE as a noun) is when you present ideas and everyone likes one other than the one you think is best. You get to bitch "this one's the best!" and they go "no no, these ones are great!", meaning they think you're good at your job and you get to sit back and smugly think to yourself "what a bunch of fucking idiots!"

;)

Bio

The Ramones' first bio, written by Tommy in 1975.

In My Email Hall of Fame

There was a time you could email Tommy Ramone and he could come to your house.

"Hey Johnny, hey Dee Dee, Little Tom and Joey"

Notwithstanding getting to show off my Photoshop skills, this makes me sad. See: :(

Joey Ramone

3. I don't wanna be pissing in the Cheerios here, but in all the books I've read about Lou Reed not once did anyone say anything other about his personality other than he was a complete asshole. - XMASTIME

Just in watching Rock 'n Roll High School for the 100th time, I'm reminded that Joey Ramone was the exact opposite of Lou Reed - there is not a single account that I'm aware of of anyone having a single bad word to say about him. It's always the same story, he went out of his way to be kind and generous with everyone he met, no matter who they were.

Also, the backstage scene reminds us that they seemed to be incapable of speaking words out loud (via IMDB: "Dee Dee Ramone was such a bad actor that his lines were cut from five down to two, in the dressing room after the concert: "Hey, pizza!" and "Hey, pizza! It's great! Let's dig in!""), but Johnny throwing the pizza is still funny.

Interesting.

Rock 'n Roll High School came out in 1979, but seems to have taken place in 1980.

Rock 'n Roll High School

Question: Who took longer to show up onscreen in their own movie, The Ramones in Rock 'n Roll High School (almost 38 minutes in) or the shark in Jaws? 

Rock n' Roll High School is on Netflix. Even better, the whole thing is on YouTube, posted below. 
Originally posted in 2008:

I just watched "Rock n Roll High School." Which I also dvr'd, so I can watch it all day very day if I want. I also see it's coming on tv in 2 hours again anyway. Boy, watching tv has really changed, ain't it? Remember when you were a kid, and if you missed a special or a movie you had no idea if you'd ever get to see it again? "Well, that's that!" you pictured the tv execs saying after the movie was over as they loaded it into a cannon and shot it to Saturn. When I was in 8th grade my friend Ryan told me that he had "Rock n Roll High School" on VHS at his house - I hyperventilated for days, counting the seconds til I could get over to his house for a viewing. Of course I get there and...had been taped over. Devestated. My one chance ever to see my gods on film for 2 hours, gone forever.

Then three years later I saw that the flick was coming on tv one night. FINALLY!!!! Monday night at 7pm, Channel 35. To use a phrase I would later coin, I'm SO there! Of course that Monday we ended up having an extra long football practice cause we had gotten our asses handed to us the previous Friday...IN A SCRIMMAGE. Not even a real game!!! Our Coach was furious, and I remember it rained and we ran and ran and ran our guts out. The whole time, I'm going razy, knowing I'm missing my movie. Run run run, hand on the line, tweet tweet run run run. I also remember we sent Coach even more off the edge earlier while watching the game film by erupting into laughter when we watched James Beverly intercept a pass and start running the wrong way. Comedy ensued onscreen, we laughed, Coach was pissed. Tweet tweet. Hand on the line.

Finally we get sent home, I'm begging my brother to drive like a lunatic, hoping to catch ANY of what's left of the movie. Burst into the house soaking wet, 10 minutes of the movie are left, I turn on the tv and...no reception. Like scrambled porn, could barely see through the snow onscreen to even be able to tell the Ramones were back there somewhere. Heartbroken. Can still see that gotdam screen. And now here we are...I can watch it now, I can watch it later, I can load it onto a computer and stick myself into the "I Just Wanna Have something to Do " car scene. Shit's changed.

The Ramones Are Officially Dead

Tommy Ramone dying means it's probably gonna be all Ramones all day. Here's Xmastime buddy Drew from a few years ago when their box set was released, not long after Johnny died:

The strange thing is I expected my grandparents to be gone by now, but not the Ramones.


The precise moment that the door slammed shut on my adolescence was April15, 2001, the day Joey Ramone died. I spent that night taking and making calls, spreading the news and reminiscing about the band that changed our lives.

Tommy

"It wasn't just music in The Ramones: it was an idea. It was bringing back a whole feel that was missing in rock music – it was a whole push outwards to say something new and different. Originally it was just an artistic type of thing; finally I felt it was something that was good enough for everybody." - Tommy Ramone, 1978

Dammit.

Tommy Ramone, the last surviving original member of The Ramones, has died. His Wiki:

When the Ramones first came together, with Johnny Ramone on guitar, Dee Dee Ramone on bass and Joey Ramone on drums, Erdelyi was supposed to be the manager, but was drafted as the band's drummer when Joey became the lead singer and found that he couldn't keep up with the Ramones' increasingly fast tempos. "Tommy Ramone, who was managing us, finally had to sit down behind the drums, because nobody else wanted to," Dee Dee later recalled.

He remained as drummer from 1974 to 1978, playing on and co-producing their first three albums, Ramones, Leave Home, and Rocket to Russia, as well as the live album It's Alive.

He also produced The Replacements' Tim.

Cursed in their career with no sales, The Ramones were curiously cursed with early deaths - 55, 50, and 49. Jesus. The fact that Tommy lasted 10 years past the most recent death (Johnny) and still was only 62 is crazy.

Here he is on the classic Rockaway Beach.

A Project

I'm too lazy to do it myself, but can someone compile all the food references in Marah songs? Thanks!

XMASTIME TV Review

Undateable is decidedly unoriginal and pointless so of course I've watched 6 straight episodes because I'm a fucking idiot. It represents pretty much what's terrible about most sitcoms: the lead guy who goes through an insanely hot girl a week and claims to be allergic to any commitment over 10 minutes, a group acts like they've known each other all their lives despite having just met, impossibly quirky side characters including one that's fat & black to give themselves license to hiply make white people jokes and fat jokes, the woman in her 30s who for some reason is desperate and throws herself at any man who wanders onscreen despite her being hot as balls, and of course a bar they all hang out at which is totally quiet enough that they can casually chat and totally empty while still managing to stay open. Oh and of course pretty much nobody has a job.

But this guy is funny and OMG CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH HE LOOKS LIKE A YOUNG JERRY LEWIS?!?!?!?!

Awards Season!

I've spent hours explaining to him not to waste his energy playing defense (and not to pass - you can't shoot if you're passing!) and save it for shooting, but of course I'm prouder than hell of Big Bear winning his camp's Walt Frazier Best Defensive Player Award :)

Mind. Blown.

Post by Louise Bourque Garnett.

The Today Show!

I mentioned the Girl Who's article re: why is Serge a fucking hero for doing his job the other day, and this morning they're on The Today Show! :)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

1990's MTV Was Mildly Watchable

Salon has a 2-part collection of one-hit wonders from the 90’s. 90% are absolutely terrible. But it’s a testament to the ancient memory of a time when MTV actually played videos; almost every one of these videos I can picture clearly on what tv I saw them on, therein knowing when they were played, and I can divide them into my days in college/Missisissippi/Brooklyn.

Costanza

I've mentioned on this blog a million times that as I get older, life seems to always comes down to being George Costanza. And this guy at Grantland agrees:

Now that I am myself a nominal adult, I think of George as more of a documentary.

Williamsburg Rox

Freewilliamsburg.com has a running thing going on, what songs reference Willaimsburg or Greenpoint?

Marah's 2005 album-opener The Closer makes it in the comments section...oh gee, is the song about a certain somebody you people might know? Who makes an appearance during the lead? Cough. ;)

Cupcake Place with Terrible Name Closing

People are crying in their almond soy milk over the closing of the Cupcake Chain Crumbs:

The chain has struggled financially over the past few years. The WSJ notes that according to securities filings, Crumbs announced losses of $18.2 million last year and $10.3 million in 2012. The chain had also closed 15 stores in recent months and announced that more closures would be on its way. The biggest blow happened earlier this month when the Nasdaq Stock Exchange dropped the company after its price fell to less than 30 cents a share.

My question is why on Earth would you name a cupcake place "Crumbs"? Doesn't really connote flavorful moistness, does it? It'd be like someone being dumb enough to put "bones" in the name of a fish restaurant OHWAITTHEYFUCKINGDID.

The Great War

100 years ago this month World War I began, which means it's time to re-post some shit I wrote a few years ago about blah blah who cares blah:

Last week HERE I mentioned my newfound interest in the WWI era, thanks to my  being a woman  love of Downton Abbey.  As I said, pretty much all I'd ever thought about WWI before was that it's partly responsible for us never really hearing about the 1918 Influenza (which is odd since 3x more Americans died of it than WWI) the US wasn't involved in it for too long, and it was greatly overshadowed in the US by it's sequel (a á Godfather II being better than The Godfather.)

Of course in Europe it was a much bigger deal, and this article in the NY Times (as usual, the world has followed my lead and said "hey, yeeeeaaah...I wanna know about WWI too!"...get a life, people!) mentions several reasons why: besides it being the first war to be largely filmed, it was the first one of weapons of mass destruction, which greatly changed what man was willing to put up with in a war:

But there is another deeper, perhaps more profound reason the war continues to preoccupy us. It was a conflict between 19th-century armies equipped with 20th-century weapons — hence the unprecedented carnage. The tactics were 19th century — advance on the enemy. But the enemy had weapons of mass destruction — the battlefield was dominated by tanks, machine guns, howitzers, aircraft and poisonous gas. Some 117,000 American servicemen died in the 19 months of United States participation in World War I — more than twice as many as in Vietnam, nearly 20 times as many as in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

No society today would accept such a horrendous casualty count. At the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, on July 1, 1916, the British Army suffered 60,000 dead and wounded — in one day. It was arguably the worst butcher’s bill in military history, of army versus army. There is a very real sense in which the modern world — our world — was born between 1914 and 1918. Something changed in human sensibility. Soldiers wouldn’t be willing to engage in such slaughter.

Even MORE interesting to me, the war remains a bigger deal to Britain than other countries partly due to poetry:

One of the reasons for this is, paradoxically, the resonance of the poetry. The poets of the First World War — Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Isaac Rosenberg — are taught in almost all British schools. I can remember Wilfred Owen’s terrifying poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” about a mustard-gas attack, being read aloud to us in the classroom when I was 10 or 11. One boy actually ran outside, he was so overcome and upset. The war poems shaped your earliest perceptions of the First World War and were swiftly buttressed by the familiar images of the trenches and the histories of the futile, costly battles.       

I remember reading Dulce et Decorum Est, but I don't really remember giving a damn about it being set in WWI.  Which, as an American, shouldn't really be a surprise.

I'll tell you one thing though: if those krauts so much as mess up a hair on Captain Crawley's beautiful head, they best be ready to knuckle up and guard their grill.

Newest BBC Superslice

On PBS now: Vicious!

Laugh out loud funny and has the single coziest set I've ever seen - it's like The Steven Banks Show and Vicar of Dibley had a baby. Also looks and sounds like a play. Awesome. Watch the first episode at the link above.

Does This Make Me Better Than You?

Of course this make me better than you!!!

(Referencing THIS POST from yesterday.)

Superdad!

Xmastime buddy The Girl Who has an interesting take on people going overboard exclaiming her ex-husband to be a superhero because he’s now a single dad:

Don’t get me wrong, Serge is an amazing dad and his kids are lucky to have him. But he’s just pulling a freakin’ wagon. What’s with him doing next to nothing and getting praised to the high heavens like he just lifted a truck off a toddler? And it happens all the time. It happened all the time even before now. But this single dad thing? Every Band-Aid administered, every incident of baby-wearing, every act of parenting becomes EPIC.

You want to know what happens if I post a photo of me taking my kids for a walk? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

This of course gives me an excuse to break out two excerpts from my long-awaited, soon-to-be-self-published-much-to-Marley’s-chagrin debut novel, which of course I will soon be badgering you people to buy (actually reading optional, of course):
____________________________________________

Watty getting credit for changing a diaper was absurd to me.  He’s the father - if he didn’t want to change it, he didn’t really have to.  After all, he’s not going to get fired.  If a father’s watching his own child (what a great guy!) and the mother comes home to discover the kid had a dirty diaper, she changes the diaper.  The father could even say “Oh yeah, I haven’t even checked in a while, I got caught up watching the game.”

But if mom or dad came home to the Manny and discovered a load in the kid’s diaper they’d assume it hadn’t been changed all day, and obviously the Manny had been goofing around on porn sites and making prank phone calls for eight hours instead of watching the kid.  Never mind that maybe The Manny had changed the shittiest diaper of its generation at 4:55pm and the kid inexplicably shit again five minutes later as the parent was walking through the door; it was taken for granted that the kid had been basting in his own feces for hours due to The Manny’s negligence.

I always timed the day’s last change as closely as possible to when the first parent came home.  Hell, I could’ve just waited until 4:59pm to change the kid for the only time all day and the parents would’ve been happy, no questions asked.  Of course, thanks to the hyper-attentiveness of the greatest Manny in the world, I never did such a thing.

____________________________________________________________

I could sense everyone was starting to get annoyed at Chuck’s barking and wanted to give me dirty looks, but this was one of those times when it actually paid to be a guy.  A mother would be expected to nonchalantly juggle four kids on her lap while knitting winter caps and handing out juice boxes, and if one of those kids so much as let out a peep everyone would get bitchy and roll their eyes, thinking “control your damn kids!”

But a man with a baby?  Hell, everyone was mildly surprised I’d been able to put pants on the kid before bringing him outside the house, much less take him anywhere on the train.  I’d put on my harangued, beleaguered “oh my god I’m so helpless” face, and everyone gave me a pass.

“Poor bastard,” they’d think, “look at him, doing his best.  God bless him.  And where the hell is the mother?  That bitch!”

I perfected my “woe is me” act the same way other guys practiced their air guitar moves: in front of the bathroom mirror.  And when it came to putting on this little show I was, simply put, the best.

Ralph Malph Was the Greatest

I just overheard someone say "the flip side", which made me flash to that scene in Happy Days when they're performing some sort of exorcism on Al to remove a curse he thinks has been cast upon him, and Ralph Malph delivers what I consider to be the greatest line in Happy Days' history: "the flipside, oh fiendish one!"  Been killing me for two decades . Unfortunately, can't find the fucking video :(

Here's how Happy Days ranked in some "Best High School Tv Shows" list back in 2009:

15. Happy Days – how is this so low….an American Institution!! Favorite moments were always Ralph Malph; in particular when he wouldn’t come outta the locker for the rumble in the gym. What can you say about Happy Days? One of thsoe shows that had 400 episodes, and you can't actually remember a single one of 'em. Should have it's own channel.
Mrs. Xmastimes: Maybe Joanie for a brief moment in the end…the Tuscadero chicks. A surprising paucity, must say. Hmm…did I just write my own epitaph? “Here lies Xmastime…a Surprising Paucity.”

More Pleased to meet Me

Can’t Hardly Wait (Tim version) – The Replacements
Rocking, rollicking, heartbreaking, will never understand why they later went with the wimpier version for it’s official release. Supposedly it was because the song’s about suicide; am I the only one to have since figured out that they pussified the lyrics to stick on a later album which featured a song (“The Ledge”) about…suicide. Christ. And if this had made Tim, there would be no doubts possible about what the single greatest album of all time was. - XMASTIME

Every version of Can't Hardly Wait is great - the Tim version is on my short list of best songs ever. BUT SERIOUSLY, How many version of Can't Hardly Wait are there out there? There's the album version. The (best version) Tim version. There's the acoustic version. There's versions with horns, without horns, with/without strings. Then there's another version that's a mix of the Tim and album version. Sounds more like a demo than an "alternative version" as it's listed.But still cranks (duh.)

Happy Birfday

To the oldest Beatle - Ringo! :)

Here's his first solo composition, which took 6 years to be recorded, finally finding a home on The White Album (on which Don't Pass Me By made the Xmastime cut!!! Congrats Ringo! And Beatles!)

Starr first played his song for the other Beatles soon after he joined the group in August 1962. Its earliest public mention seems to have been in a BBC chatter session introducing "And I Love Her" on the radio show Top Gear in 1964. In the conversation, Starr was asked if he had written a song and Paul McCartney mocked him soon afterwards, singing the first line "Don't pass me by, don't make me cry, don't make me blue, baby."

Oh Please Please PleasePlease Please PleasePlease Please PleasePlease Please PleasePlease Please PleasePlease Please PleasePlease Please Please

Sniffy-Wiffy might have her beady little stupid eyes on co-hosting The View!

Asked by the Hollywood Reporter if she had any interest in doing a "political talk show," she replied, "I hear everyone recently got canned from 'The View,' maybe a show like that needs a punch of reality and a voice of reason from America's heartland to knock some humble sense into their scripts. You know, someone willing to go rogue."

Jesus Christ. This chick knows how to cling to a goddam script, doesn't she?  2014 and we still gotta hear "go rogue"? Sarah Palin thinking herself as having somehow being an innovator in the "using one's brains to do what they think is right or smart" department is a little like Papa John's claiming to have invented pizza.  And yes, what better way to show what a brave pioneer you are than to sit in on a mid-morning talk show on one of the three big networks to talk about exactly why did Beyonce's sister attack Jay-Z  in the elevator that time, or what summer fruits to turn into cocktails this summer? Gee. How rogue!

And of course I'd like to hear someone in The View writing room saying: "hey, can we fucking get someone from America's heartland that is so humble he or she will take what we've carefully, pain-stakingly written and then just ignore it to blather on and on any way he or she wants to? Please?"

Luckily we'll always have her "reality" show.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, DIDN'T WE GIVE THEM FEBRUARY?

Variety makes the claim that Elvis invented rock n' roll and all hell rightly breaks loose.

Kings Pharmacy

Me, back in 2010 I waxed about my slice Kings Pharmacy:

Now, to me, I wouldn't call Kings Pharmacy a "mom & pop" joint either. Let's not pretend it's an old Williamsburg relic (I'm pretty sure it's been there 7-8 years, if that), with "Pops" passing out penny candy to neighborhood kids. But they have generic drugs correctly priced. They're always very friendly. AND, strangely, whenever I walk in, the music that's always pumping through the PA is some 80's music station. And not always just goofy obvious "Come On Eileen" etc songs, but songs I ain't heard in 20 years, or Smiths album cuts, that kinda genre/vibe. Not even really my thing, but unique in the field of stores like that. Very strange, but in a good, breezy way.

So yeah, of course now it's fucking leaving for Red Hook. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

America. Still Lagging Behind.

In some countries, 2+2=5 is not given as much credence as 2+2=4 simply for being mentioned.- XMASTIME

The BBC is doing what America needs to do, refusing to give crackpots equal air time in the interests of "fair and balanced":

In other subjects, it’s possible for honest people with different values to come down on different sides of a debate. But when it comes to science, especially firmly established and consensually agreed-upon science, putting on some crackpot who disagrees is not “fair and balanced.”

News shows don’t put on a flat-earther whenever they show a map. They don’t get an opposing opinion from a young-Earth creationist when a new dinosaur fossil is found. They don’t interview an astrologer when a new exoplanet is discovered. So why put on a climate change denier when we’re talking about our planet heating up?

Interesting.

John F. Kennedy is still famously our only Catholic president; meanwhile, all but one of our current male Supreme Court Justices are Catholic. Is this why they seem to be more and more interested in such cultural issues as women's contraception?

Happy Birthday Album I Love

Apparently Pleased to Meet Me came out 27 years ago today.  I bought it a few weeks after that; I can still picture riding in Brothatime!!'s Shitvette to Doc's and finding the cassette among the unalphabetized stacks (thanks, Doc.)

Mostly, I remember how I got the $crillah to buy it.  The summer after 9th grade I got a job cutting the grass at the DMV, which was a TINY square of grass that took maybe 15 minutes to cut.  I got $10 to cut it every Saturday, and of course after about one Saturday the scorching heat completely killed the grass, so there was no reason to cut it.  But I'd still show up every week, go through the motions and then walk in to collect my ten fat ones (that's cash money, ladies; from Day 1 I demanded "folding money only, please.") The lady would always be a little confused, "gee, did it really need it this week?" to which I'd look like she was ridiculous "oh yeah, yeah it really did" and then take my ten bucks to invest in some little-known company at the time called "Google."

I will now rank the songs:

IOU
Can't Hardly Wait
Valentine
Never Mind
The Ledge
Alex Chilton
Red Red Wine
Skyway
I Don't Know
Nightclub Jitters
Shooting Dirty Pool

That's a pretty fucking solid track list.  Meanwhile, here's Paul Westerberg inexplicably wearing shorts.

Ain't No Party Like An Overlook Party Cuz An Overlook Party Don't Stop

This shit is hilarious:

I first want to say what a pleasure it is to be back as the summer caretaker for the Overlook Hotel. The grand architecture, its beautiful location in the Colorado mountains, the pleasant staff and clientele; it’s truly an honor to work here.

I must be upfront, though, and tell you I’m here to ask for a raise. There are a few factors that come into play. As I understand it, the winter caretaker position pays just as much as the summer position. And that’s just not fair, since the job of summer caretaker requires much more work than that of winter caretaker. In addition, our winter caretakers tend to murder their families and kill themselves halfway through the winters. So this year, I’d like to ask for a raise in pay in addition to the typical cost of living increase.

I bet the bear blowjobs are still awesome in the summer.