The Beatles Still Rock

"And another tip for all bands who are starting out: When you’re in a van, and you fart, own up. It’ll cause hell if you don’t own up, because everyone will blame everyone else. Make a pact that you’ll own up to it. We did, and that’s how we get on so well.” - Ringo Starr in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

It's a testament to how much The Beatles mean to us almost 50 years later; any rock event is at a certain level, but when a Beatle shows up it becomes a THING, and when two of them show up fucking forget it, it's an OMG! moment.

Draft Day

According to Marley, do not see this movie:

This is the anti-Moneyball. This is not merely one of the worst sports films ever made. It’s one of the worst films ever made.  It is so bad, you have to see it.  It’s mandatory.

And it was endorsed by the NFL. When current NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell walks out to open the draft, the audience erupts in applause.

Which is bullshit.

Shoutout du Jour

My friend & co-worker Erica doing something I could never do in 100 years: talk brilliantly for 20 minutes without dropping an f-bomb.

Happy National Burger Day!

Apparently today is National Burger Day, and Xmastime fans  couldn't give two shits what I think about this  have flooded my inbox that'swhatshesaid asking for my thoughts, so HERE'S THE LINK to my post about the different types of burgers.  And yes, I also think it's odd that Obama brought up his millionaire tax bill today, and he calls it The Buffet Bill, after Jimmy Cheeseburger in Paradise Buffett.  Nice!I will now list my five favorite lines from this post  even though nobody gives a shit and are sorry they started reading this post in the first place:

1) Megaburgers: Like my college girlfriend: uneatable.
2) Extreme Burgers: Like the Republican party, these always seem like an exercise in stupidity done by people who have way too much money. Tho if one of those grilled cheese-as-buns joints fell into my lap, I think I would enjoy it. Thumbs down on any burger involving a glazed donut; I do not need to be looking at Rosie O'Donnell's face when I'm trying to eat a gotdam cheeseburger.
3) Steamed Burgers: I do not want my cheeseburger to be such a fucking mystery that it has to be an "acquired taste." Living with the bitter disappointment of complete failure and having no hope, that's an acquired taste. A burger should not be.
4) Butter Burgers: Now THIS is more like it!! This is a burger I could fucking get into (not a burger I could get into fucking.) Also, the owner of Solly's Grille in Milwaukee presumably naming the restaurant as a joke re: how Pat Morita from Arnold's would apologize to his girlfriend = priceless.
5) Deep-fried Burgers: Just like the female orgasm or black people that can swim, when I first heard of this I thought "if this actually existed, wouldn't it be EVERYwhere?" In theory it sounds amazing, but why are these hard to find? There's burgers everywhere. There's deep-fried food everywhere. Why don't they just make the fucking airplane outta the deep-fried burger then? Weird.

Also, here's my post about The 16 Pearls of Wisdom.  What's that, you ask? Why yes, of COURSE I'll pat myself on the back with some faves!!  No no, thank YOU!!!!

1) Tallgrass beef, for the most part, lacks the unctuousness, moisture content and brawny flavor I seek. I have no idea what this means, although I do know "unctuousness" means "addicted to mouse ass." I don't know what that has to do with cheeseburgers, but if you're having sex with mice maybe you have bigger problems than some dude doesn't like the taste of your "tallgrass beef." Not sexy, brah.
2) Favorite casual sit-down chain restaurant burger? He says Red Robin's A.1. peppercorn burger. I'd say Wendy's, which is unfortunate since if I could've truthfully said Dairy Queen it would give me a chance to remind you guys for the 18000th time I fucked a girl in the. But alas. Maybe just to spice things up a bit, next time I'll switch the words around and say "I fucked a girl in the shitter at the DQ once." That help move things along, make it a lil more exciting? Yes? No? How bout if I throw in a midget and his wheelchair-bound Indian sidekick?
3) Lettuce and tomatoes end up getting in the way. YES!! TOTALLY AGREE!!. Especially tomato, one big honking slice of tomato, and that's all you can fucking taste or feel. Never understood why this was a default condiment. But then I'm on the verge of almost thinking about getting my own checking account, so I've had bigger things to be thinking about.
4) Look out, bacon. Egg with runny yolk is the new sexy topping. Eeeeeeeeeeeewww. The only eggs I wanna see running are in the toilet bowl after a "scare."
5) Steer clear of feta, bleu and brie as cheese options. I didn't know these were fancy-schmancy cheeses were options for burgers. Where's this guy eat, The White House? I was gonna throw in a "of course not, they have fried chicken at the White House now" joke, but I had already hit "PUBLISH POST," so it was too late.

"...celebrate with some hardcore ass-fucking."

Inbetweeners Reminder

Of Jay Cartwright's brilliant bullshitting.

Happy 70th Birthday John Fogerty!

In the late 60s/early 70s, dude had an 18-month run that could go up against anyone else in rock history. His guitar is instantly recognizable like nobody else. Here he is rocking with someone even older than him.

I Don't Wanna Be a Pig, but...

...if a girl in a skirt is straddling your groin, I don't think you touching her ass is that far out of bounds.

You're Welcome

The first episode of Only Fools and Horses.

Yankees du Jour

Say what you want about A-Rod, but there's something magical about someone passing both Babe Ruth AND Lou Gehrig on the RBI list in a single swing.

GOP Debates? YES PLEASE!!!!!!!

9:07pm  T-Paw says God is in the Preamble to the Minnesota Constitution.  "That's the only fucking place you'll find me in Minnesota," God answered. -XMASTIME

Article HERE re: the GOP presidential debates will once again be the greatest reality show of all time:

If the point was to subdue the freak show, it’s not clear this new rule is going to accomplish what the party wanted it to. Indeed, what they seem to have done is combine the new propensity of eccentric billionaires to meddle in the nominating process with the celebrity conferred by the right-wing media machine. In this era of big-money politics, the old concept of going to Iowa and New Hampshire and glad-handing every single voter to jump start a national campaign is giving way to something new:

“We live in a society that values celebrity, and our nominee is going to have to go up against Hillary Clinton, who’s got a million percent name ID,” [GOP strategist] Rick Wilson said. “And, in reality, all of these campaigns are working to build the same thing. Your political operation now is a start-up operation that lasts for a year and half, and that’s your time to build a celebrity.

Sink into your Xmastime rabbit hole with my history in GOP debates, including THIS ALL-TIME CLASSIC.

Dr. Seuss Was an Asshole

A racist Dr. Seuss cartoon is heading to auction.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't you call bullshit on Dr. Seuss five years ago?"

A-Rod Exists

Two months sago I pointed out some Yankees pettiness vis-a-vis A-Rod:

I’ve mentioned before the potential backlash of the media’s disdain for A-Rod incredibly turning public favor into his corner, and it looks like the Yankees themselves are continuing their pettiness by ignoring his home run in yesterday’s spring training game.

Yes, it’s just a pretend game, but the account did a rolling play-by-play throughout the game and “just happened” to ignore A-Rod’s dinger.

The Yankees seem to be softening a bit; of course it helps that A-Rod's been one of the most productive hitters on a team currently in 1st place in the AL East. Amazing what that'll do to public/private opinion.

Inbox Fever

There are two kinds people in the world, those who meticulously keep their email inbox and those who let thousands of unread ones pile up:

Still, the chasm between these groups seems too wide to be just about technology. The icky feeling I get when I catch a glimpse of someone’s inbox junkyard of unread emails is the same one I get when I see the pile of magazines I have yet to read, or when I know there’s an errand that needs running—the itch isn’t constrained to technology. My email theory is really just a corollary of another, more expansive pop philosophy: Muppet Theory, proposed by Dahlia Lithwick, a writer at Slate. Under Lithwick’s classification, everyone is either a Chaos Muppet (“out-of-control, emotional, volatile”) or an Order Muppet (“neurotic, highly-regimented, averse to surprises”).

My itch is definitely constrained to email - in every other part of my life I am the Chaos Muppet, but when it comes to my inbox I'm a fucking Nazi with keeping that shit straight. I see a number/notification pop up I'm like goddam Batman when the commish sends the signal: I'm on it!

Should We Let Little League Die?

Fewer kids are playing it and the ones that do seem stressed out. Is it even a good thing to begin with?

I played organized youth baseball until I was 14 or so, and the fun moments I remember are vastly outnumbered by the terrible and stressful ones: botching a critical play and feeling horrible about it for a week, failing to make all-star teams because the coaches nominated their own kids, the tension and agita of pretending these games have actual stakes, and the sense that if you don’t perform at your best, you’re letting everybody down.

I had a great time playing Little League (including my off-the-charts amazing pitching career!), but was blessed by a perfect set of parents for it: a father who couldn't know any less about sports who was glad we played but never went to any games, and a mother who spent the entire game with her back to the field gabbing with the other moms.

This guys solution? Pickup baseball:

In contrast, the most fun I had in childhood was with ad hoc games with other kids from my neighborhood: basketball on my driveway until dark, baseball with maybe four other kids in a vacant lot. Spontaneous play is better than organized play. The two can coexist, of course. But spontaneous play allows children to be in charge of their worlds for a while, to set and explore their own rules and boundaries, to exercise their imaginations in addition to their bodies.

I also had non-sanctioned baseball fun:

As much as I knew about baseball (or, looking back, as much as I THOUGHT I knew), before Little League my baseball life had primarily consisted of playing catch with my older brother. We’d go outside and throw the ball back and forth to each other until I, fed up with the broiling heat and gnats engulfing my head, would “accidentally” throw the ball over my brother’s head and into the corn field behind him. Now, my brother is still one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. But over the years, I pulled the ol’ “whoops!” trick maybe, oh, 19,000 times…and EVERY time my brother would spin around like a dog that sees a pork chop flying over it’s head and sprint after the ball…while I walked back inside the house. Oh, every single time I would get my ass beat once he got the ball and came back inside; but at least I was back inside in the air conditioning. Prolly watching reruns of “Family.” Cough. The other game we came up with during those years was a game that involved a crushed Coke can as a “ball.” We’d play behind the shed, wherein one of us would pitch the can and the other would try to hit it over the shed for a home run. Hits the roof it’s a triple, over a certain line a double etc etc. Needless to say, after about 18 seconds the “ball” is basically a shredded disc of aluminum. You know what wins in a battle between shredded metal and human skin? Needless to say our hands would be shredded and bloodied almost immediately; also probably needless to say at this point is that of course it wouldn’t stop us from playing for another 3 hours. Though I did have to give up my idea for salt mittens.

Nangulance Report

Nangulance: n. the minor turbulences of life that, while small and nebulous, can collect to make your head explode.

The nangulance at the Giant self-checkout line was exceedingly, if not record-breaking, high this evening.

More Xmastime nangulance HERE.

Happy Birfday...

...Count Jackula!   mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Chris Christie Spotted

Onion du Jour

Costanza!

Is coming to Hulu.

Twitter du Jour

Livefromsnacktime

Bern Baby Bern

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”- John Steinbeck

Bernie Sanders is calling out the 1%:

"The gap between the very rich and everyone is wider than at any time since the 1920s. The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time and it is the great political issue of our time, Sanders roared, before thousands of supporters in Burlington, the liberal city he once served as mayor.

'Enough is enough," Sanders said, warning he was putting the "top 1%" -- the biggest beneficiaries of what

"To the billionare class I say your greed has got to end," he said.

Which of course pretty much guarantees political suicide, as the 99% who are worried they’ll wake up tomorrow as billionaires who would have to pay more in taxes will be offended at Sanders’ stance.

Hump Day!

Leaving my apartment this morning I actually heard myself thinking “something amazing could happen today!” which was barely finished before I also heard “what are you, a fucking idiot?”

State du Moi

The guys that hang out on the corner of my block were jawing about who had the best hops in NBA history; the consensus seemed to be Vince Carter until an old-timer evoked the name David Thompson. You’re goddam right I smiled.

Underdog Bullshit

Via Salon that the New York Times (or, as I call it, "The Times") somehow portraying Taylor Swift as an underdog:

Swift’s current tour will take her to stadiums all over the world, including Metlife Stadium in New Jersey, capacity 82,600. Her net worth is roughly $200 million – that’s about 3,550 times the median net worth of an American household. By every available measure, she seems to be doing pretty well, and at 25, she’s probably just getting started with her world domination.

But to the New York Times, she is, apparently, an “underdog.” The paper of record used the term twice in its review of her show in a relatively intimate 13,000-seat arena in Louisiana and pulled it out for the headline as well: “On Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ Tour, the Underdog Emerges as Cool Kid.”

Well, Taylor Swift may be a lot of things, but we’re not really sure “underdog” is one of them. Let’s back up a little bit.

Like a lot of country singers – that’s how she first broke in – Taylor Swift grew up on a farm. It wasn’t a subsistence farm in the rough part of Kentucky but a Christmas-tree farm in Pennsylvania. “Her mother worked in finance,” a New Yorker story says, “and her father, a descendant of three generations of bank presidents, is a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. (He bought the tree farm from a client.)” In Swift’s hometown, she told the magazine’s Lizzie Widdicombe, “it mattered what kind of designer handbag you brought to school.”

I'm not here to bitch about T-Swizz or implicate that her music is any less meaningful because of this, but rather to remind you of when years ago HERE I bitched about how rich & successful people demand we see them as some sort of scrappy underdogs who through individual struggle and against all odds triumphed over their own good fortune:

I think the need to feel like an oppressed underdog who has succeeded against all odds is as American as apple pie.  One thing America is fascinated by is the ruling class of the uber-wealthy, and the more uber-wealthier they get the more we're fascinated by them, and yet they always feel like they have to win some public relations war for our affection that doesn't exist, be it corporations crying foul on being asked to pay taxes, or NFL owners having to swallow only making a trillion dollars a day.  Nobody likes to admit out loud "part of my success is due to economic and social conditions cemented long before I was even born"; we must be made to believe that Successful Person X was left to die in a dumpster, then pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and became a real rags to riches story.  Nobody's happy simply to have been given the keys to the kingdom, they also hafta portray themselves as "victims."

Wedding$ $aving$

Today it occurred to me that a similar juxtaposition has been happening with the modern wedding - the more inured we've become to the outrageously absurd high costs of a wedding (ie $10k for a cake that nobody really gives a shit about), the higher the divorce rate rises. The more we insist on being made to pay for weddings, the less likely we'll be married as time goes on. Wtf? - Xmastime

Did you pay too much for your wedding? Would you have been better off using that money to invest? See how much $crillah you''d have by now with this calculator!

Thanks...for Giving Us Another List

Speaking of Best-of Movie lists, here's one for thanksgiving movies. Not bad, but it should include Dutch, which is as much about Thanksgiving as the others (except for the Peanuts one - good to see my slice get some love!)

Are You Shitting Me?

Here's a list of the best baseball movies of all time which you shouldn't immediately dismiss with extreme prejudice since it doesn't include Bull Durham WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!?!?

Fucking Guv'nah!

Bobby Jindal is the latest in a now-long line of GOP governors willing to completely destroy their own state for the national spotlight (certainly Sam Brownbeck is eyeballing the White House the way he's destroying Kansas.)

From 2009 on, Jindal has steadily debased himself for right-wing votes. He’s run Louisiana into the ground and spent most of his time fellating conservatives across the country with gaseous stump speeches and childish Op-Ed pieces. Since becoming the GOP’s golden boy, he has thought of nothing beyond his national conservative brand. Instead of reforming the stupid party, he’s encouraged it.

This reminds me of my old dream in which governors can't run for President:

It's too bad there can't be a rule that governors can't run for president. I've noticed the recent trend is for governors to throw their own state under the bus in the name of "fiscal responsibility", a la Walker/Christie/Perry et al, hoping to use their "tough love!" to impress the rest of the country for their eventual presidential run. Otherwise, if there's so much work to be done in New Jersey, why is Rex Ryan  Chris Christie on Morning Joe every ten minutes screaming about how "tough and serious!" he is?  Why would the rest of the country give a shit?  Why is he making his "case" on national tv?

Of course these governors are hoping to cash out their own states' electoral votes for many more across the country. They know that come campaign season, voters will hear how "kick ass!" these governors are, will be impressed with their bluster in front of the cameras, and won't really bother to look any further and see the things they brag about were in fact crushing their own state's economy and people. With 10 seconds of homework, someone could see that [Scott] Walker's little aria could be avoided with slight changes that make things better for everybody, but he's chosen to do the OPPOSITE, a la Koch-fueled tax cuts for the wealthy etc. He's actually making things worse, but is creating a very impressive national narrative by being on the news 24/7, which is more important if one has presidential hopes. Likewise, people will be impressed with Christie pounding the podium about refusing federal money in the name of "fiscal responsibility"; pretty much nobody will notice that doing so loses thousands of potential jobs, crumbles infrastructure even more and sets the state back another decade or so, all of which will of course end up COSTING New Jersey billions of dollars. But that doesn't matter, since being a shithead YouTube sensation fuels a hopeful presidential run better than thoughtful, competent governing does.

Fun with Headlines!

Stil the Greatest Song of All Time

Torture

The latest episode of Frontline is not only totally depressing, but once again conveys the sneaking suspicion that the Bush Administration thought they were playing a game of Cowboys & Indians, with no real consequences.

Things I Know I Know

From what I've ascertained, a big part of marriage is asking each other if you have your keys when leaving the house.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

My plan to eventually marry into money in my old age is the equivalent of someone taking confession for absolution of their sins on their deathbed.

Happy 35th Birthday

Pac-Man!

I've never been a video game guy, but when I was a kid it'd be tough to say there was a bigger cultural phenomenon than Pac-Man. To this day it's the only video game that even mildly interests me, probably because of its simplicity.

Play it HERE.

To me, the most interesting part comes from its inventor:

Iwatani said he did not personally profit from the creation of Pac-Man, saying, "The truth of the matter is, there were no rewards per se for the success of Pac-Man. I was just an employee. There was no change in my salary, no bonus, no official citation of any kind."

That's pretty in credible. And then of course there's the evil Billy Mitchell.

Peanut Butter Announcement

I've evolved to organic, but I'll be gotdammed if I ever switch to creamy.

FEELING LIKE DON DRAPER

Summer Fridays have begun. #bloody  #oldbay

Dammit Bill.

Chocolate cake may be good for you? Wtf?

But even I don't think I can work up a "Bill Cosby called this 33 years ago" joke :(   #dadisgreat  #givesusthechocolatecake.

Who says dreams don't come true? #america #HEARDofit?

Yes, This Makes Me Better Than You

Free Work

Article yesterday on the second job you didn't even know you had:

 I define shadow work as all the unpaid jobs we do on behalf of businesses and organizations: We are pumping our own gas, scanning our own groceries, booking our travel and busing our tables at Starbucks. Shadow work is a new concept, so as yet, no one has compiled economic data on how many jobs we, the consumers, have taken over from (erstwhile) employees. Yet it is surely a force shrinking the job market, and the unemployment it creates is structural. Thanks in part to this new phenomenon, widespread joblessness could become entrenched in the social landscape.

I of course have been bitching about this for years:

Which reminds me. Grocery stores: what happened to your bag boys? The $0.49/hr you were paying got too steep? What the fuck, now I find myself having to fucking bag my own shit? And it’s always that awkwardness; I’ll fumble with my money extra long so that the cashier will finally decide to do it. Cause you feel like an asshole just standing there until she finally does; people behind you sighing and rolling their eyes. I’ll time it til she starts it, feign starting to reach for a bag “oh, you got it, okay.” Is having someone bag my groceries too much too ask, too steep a service? I don’t wanna fucking bag, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m putting the milk and croutons in the same bag with my Over-Sized Specially Made I Hope She’s a Horse Hefty Bag Condoms; can someone else fucking help me please?

Mad Men Memories, I

At the end of tonite's episode, Telstar came on as we see Don on a plane to LA. A super, SUPER all-time slice by the TRULY one and only Joe Meek. Whenever I hear this I go back to being a kid, lying out in the backyard and looking at the stars; anytime something up there would move I'd play this song in my head, wondering what it was that was moving so far, far away in the darkness. That's what sucks about living in the city, where the only stars you can see are on the ground. This song, even without words, has an amazingly instant poignancy about it that kills me every time. Absolutely a funeral slice; prolly my favorite instrumental of all time.

I Thought I Was a Fuckboy

But a fuckboy does these things, of which I do exactly none.

A fuckboy…
– Likes your Instagram but doesn’t text you back
– Thinks stoplights are a great place to talk to women
– Has at least two mirror pictures on social media
– Posts memes on Instagram
– Uses Snapchat as his preferred method of communication
– Says things like, “The problem with feminism is…”

Dammit.

Letterman's finale Did the Goddam Impossible

Made Sting funny. Wow. And yes that's James Corden from my 2014 slice, The Other Man(s).

Rumor Central

Are an avec-Serge Marah getting offically back together, along with an If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry era Adam/Petey?

I had a soul epiphany playing music with these badass people the past few days. Just really magic for me. Looking forward to more. Marah/'The Hustle'. Enjoy.
Posted by Serge Bielanko on Thursday, May 21, 2015

Riki-Tiki-Tavi

One of the big thrills when I was a kid was the annual airing of Riki-Tiki-Tavi, including that iconic rotating CBS logo that announced it and other specials (Peanuts, etc.)

And now you can read how Chuck Jones, the King of animation, drew him:

Jones drew up a model sheet that described how the mongoose should enter the frame. “When Rikki enters the scene, let him fill an imaginary Rikki until his nose reaches the proper point,” he wrote. “[T]hen the rest expands and the last movement is when his whiskers pop out and vibrate.” He also noted how the mongoose should leave: “When Rikki leaves the scene, follow the angle of his pose. Hold tail until head is well out—the snap tail along path and out.” 

According to Kenner, Jones described this method in 1977 as akin to a number of cars stopped at a light: “When the light changes, the 15 cars won’t move off en bloc,” Kenner writers. “No, car 1 must move ahead several feet before car 2 can even start moving, likewise car 3, car 4 … so the string lengthens as it gets into motion.” (He also used this analogy to describe how Wile E. Coyote fell.) This take on the character's movement made it one of the most fondly remembered things about the film.

Xmastime TV Review

I previously lambasted the stodgy, hamfisted, pretty awful Undateable. For some reason I feel compelled to keep watching it, pretty much because the Justin character is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny even if everything else about the show sucks.

But I just watched an episode that they aired live, and must say it was actually pretty funny. The guest stars helped as well as the acknowleding several times that they were on tv. And Justin cracking up was dynamite.

So I actually thohguht to myself "fuck it, why don't they do all their shows live? There's nothing original at all about the show, but that could really set it apart and give it some life." And if they actually waxed the dude's stomach hair, even better.

I'm almost never right - but then VOILA!  All of next season will be live!

Plans. I Have Them.

Seriously thinking about doing a major sock drawer purge tonight.

Goodbye, Dave

I won't go too deep into the goodbye Letterman stuff,  but there was a time when he loved Soul Asylum.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Announcement

T-Swizz may have claimed the most recent Mrs. Xmastime title. Sorry, Brit-Brit.

Original list HERE.

Of Course.

If the US does something terrible today we'll know who to blame.

The Greatest Show of All Time

Del-boy instructs Rodney on how to act when his wife has a miscarriage. Incredible scene.

God Bless Joe Biden

Happy Birfday!

Thin the Herd? Yes Please.

No one's more anti-gun than me, so if these idiots wanna get together and shoot the fuck out of each other, I for one am not stopping them.

Mad Men Integrated

THIS is pretty awesome. My favorite:

Even More Thoughts. I Have Them.

I never even remotely thought about having kids until I realized how much fun attacking them with cold water from a garden hose is.

More Thoughts. I Have Them.

Pretty sure I'll never have kids simply because of that 90 seconds of them dawdling to avoid getting into the car seat while I'm standing in 90 degree heat roasting on asphalt.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

I don't have kids, but if I did I'm pretty sure I'd be one of those "because I said so!!!" parents.

Mad Men Withdrawal?

Don't fret - watch the real thing.

White Riot, I Wanna Riot

But if I did go on a shooting spree, unlike if I was black, cops would apparently bring me cupcakes:

...the photo appears to depict "a remarkably casual treatment of individuals who could be potential suspects for mass murder. No one is handcuffed and several people appear to have access to their cell phones."

Umm, hello...nobody's heard of a little thing called "Photoshop"? I mean, is this 1989, people??!??!! jeez.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Sometimes, I think my raison d’etre on this swiftly tilting planet is to remind people of what an overlooked and underrated tv show Wings is.

What Took So Long?

Kenny Cosgrove's story in The Atlantic.

Haven't These People Been Through Enough Already?

RIP

B.B. King has died.

Xmastime, many years ago:

That's a superslice. When I was living in Oxford we went to BB King's restaurant in Memphis, and when I looked at the menu I saw a section titled "Samitches." While I'm sure I'd used that for "sandwiches" in conversation before, I'd never actually seen it in print and got a tremendous kick out of it, repeatedly laughing about it as the pitchers of what I'm sure was crappy Michalob Lite kept coming and coming. Finally the band goes onstage, and the front man shouts out "What d'yall want?" The response was supposed to be "the blues!", but before everyone could shout that I yelled "samitches!", which cracked up the old, fat black ladies a few tables away. "Get that white boy over here!" they yelled, and I spent the next two hours eating and drinking all I could for free, with everything I said totally cracking them up. It was awesome.

Propers

I was curiously miffed when I saw Paul Rudd pop up in my superslice, of superslices, Moone Boy. Hey, wait a second – if ever an American guest-starred on the show it should be ME!!!

But I must admit – he killed it. Was hilarious.

Facebook du Jour

Badly Drawn Album Covers.

Though hell, they're way better than what I could ever do...

#amtrakvote

Oh For Fuckssake

If you wanted to finally make Conservative bend on their unwillingness to fund Amtrak, you could't write up a better script than "have some people killed in a derailment that grabs the nation's attention. Oh, and make it happen just hours before the vote." And that's what happened....and they still reduced funding. Fucking hell.

But then, Sandy Hook did nothing but raise gun sales, so whatthefuck is surprising?

"Fuck you, jerkoffs!"

Don't Nobody Call or Text Me Over the Next 3 Hours. #season3

Shaking Head in Wonder

Donald Trump is nobly using the Philly Amtrak accident as an opportunity to point out how awesome he is, and how politicians can’t do anything.

The irony of course is that politicians could totally save all of our infrastructure problems with a snap of their fingers. If they got together and said “okay people are dying now, let’s fix this shit” (oooh, an example of our “Tits Up” domestic policy!!!) then they could print some money and it would all be fixed, to say nothing of an insane number of jobs being created.

But it's the very guys like Trump, who condescend to an audience that is trained to believe that a dollar spent by gub’ment on anything other than bombing the shit out of countries halfway across the globe is a waste of money and un-American Kenyan-based socialism, who are keeping this from happening.

OMG YA'LL!!!

It looks like Xmastime superslice Moone Boy's 3rd season is coming to Hulu IN 78 MINUTES!!!!!

Happy Birfday Yogi!

Yogi Berra turns 90 today. Holy shit. 90 fucking years old!  Can you believe Yogi Berra is only 90 years old? Incredible.

Everybody has a favorite Yogi-ism, and here's mine:

"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."

It was also on his triumphant return to The Stadium that David Cone threw his perfect game. Don Larson threw the first pitch to Yogi. Shit was spooky.

Inbetweeners Irony du Jour

While he is by far one of tv's all-time raunchy, disgustingly bullshitting (and funniest) characters of all time who's sole raison d'etre is to put up a facade as a ladies mans, Jay Cartwright is also the only character who has some real, actual vulnerable tender moments throughout the series. Not just horrible things like what happens to all of them via bullies/physical humiliation et al, but moments of heartbreak over girls which surprises even himself, or his horrifying home life thanks to his terrible father, or his (albeit brief once he's jerked back into Jayland) connection with the "fat-ass" guy everyone hates at the Xmas party. Interesting.

Here's Jay being hysterical with his bullshit, even while collapsing into tears!!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

As an epic, not a comedy. Fucking dynamite.

Fucking Idiot du Jour

Here’s the poster child for the “idiot Republican (‘the party of personal responsibility!’) votes against and rails against healthcare and now has a debilitating disease and is asking for handouts online while railing against politicians for letting this happen scenario.

A South Carolina conservative who refused to sign up for Obamacare is going broke and blind – and he blames Obama.

The 49-year-old Lang, a self-employed handyman and Republican who works with banks and the federal government to maintain foreclosed properties, has never purchased insurance and always prided himself on paying his own medical bills.

Lang and his wife blame President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats for passing a flawed law – although not even private insurers allow people to forgo payments when they’re healthy and cash in benefits after they’re sick.

I don’t want anybody to suffer and I hope he gets the money he needs, but it’s a crystallization of people voting against their own interests and then bitching about the very people that were there the whole time who could’ve helped him if he wasn't a fucking idiot.  More importantly, his gofundme page is worth reading for the comments alone, here’s a few gems:

I want to donate enough to really help you out, but I can't figure out how to get GoFundMe to accept bootstraps.

If only there was some type of program that would allow people to pay money into a pool even if they were healthy so that if the time ever came when they would need it, they would not have to worry about losing evetrything they worked for. Maybe they could even have a preexisting condition and not have to worry about it being covered. Oh, and if they couldn't afford the premium, maybe the state they live in could expand medicaid so it it can help them afford it. A subsidy, if you will. If that was offered by the Federal Government to states it would be CRAZY for the states to deny that to their citizens. Yeah, if only.

...all of your tea bagging buddies would tell you to just go die because you wouldn't take any responsibility for yourself, that you're a lazy good-for-nothing who expects other people to float the bill. You sicken me. But thankfully, I've got insurance and can see my doctor. 

Every one of your donors identifies as liberal. Your conservative right-wing friends gave $800,000 to an homophobic pizza place, but not one dime for you. Think about that.

Perhaps you could have your GOP senator put you on his lifetime socialist death panel nightmare of a healthcare plan with his family. While you're at it have your doc check you for an irony deficiency. BOOTSTRAP TIME!

I already helped you. I voted for Obama. He offered you health insurance and you turned it down. Now you want help? Ha!

Good news is that you will still be able to hear Fox News.

Ouch!

Of course the odds are about 100% of Hannity or someone nobly swooping in to pay his bills to stick it to Obama.

This list doesn't include 1952 Black Vincent Lightning or Fairytale of New York...

...or have Hank Williams at #1; ergo, I'm officially calling bullshit on it. Though it gets one right:

25. Bruce Springsteen – “The River”

Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” isn’t just sad—it’s absolutely soul-crushing. A brief summary of its events: a teen couple in a dead-end town accidentally get pregnant. There’s a shotgun wedding, and Bruce does all he can to remind us no one’s exactly psyched to be getting hitched (“for my 19th birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat” ... “no wedding-day smiles, no walk down the aisle, no flowers no wedding dress”). The narrator works construction, but there’s no work because the economy is terrible. Their relationship is a shell of what it once was, and memories of their early sparks “come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse.” And if that’s not enough, it also contains one of the biggest bummers of a line ever: “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”—Bonnie Stiernberg

Credit Where Credit's Due

As idiotic as the whole Benghazi thing is/was, at least it gave us another suffix other than "-gate" to name our scandals.

Just the Non-facts, Ma'am

Joint over at Salon re: Republicans discrediting the science on climate change but somehow believing "facts" when it comes to the economy:

It’s a commonplace for Republicans like John Boehner to profess ignorance regarding climate science, while pretending to know that “every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs.” 

Preach on, Xmastime:

Interesting that when it comes to global warming, Republicans can cast doubt on it by saying "hey, I'm no scientist", and yet have no problem demanding there is ZERO doubt in their minds that the right thing to do for the economy is lower taxes on the super-wealthy, without ever claiming "hey, I'm no economist."

Thoughts. I Have Them.

I don’t really care about the Patriots one way or the other but the idea that Brady got suspended 4 games for deflating ball and Leonard Little got 8 for killing someone while drunk driving seems a bit incongruous to me.

Speaking of The Ronettes

No day should go by without remembering that Phil Spector was the greatest producer of rock and roll. Ever.

The Sound of Heaven (Back When You Actually Had to be a Good Singer)

Isolated vocal tracks from Baby I Love You.

Whogivesashitgate

The idea that what Brady did is equal to what A-Rod did is beyond laughable, but this is an interesting bit on the disparity of their respective sport's Hall of Fame:

In neither case will their Hall of Fame fates involve matters of image rehabilitation. Both are cheaters, that much is proven. Rodriguez was first convicted of PED use by his own admission in 2009, and then by a preponderance of evidence in the Biogenesis mess in 2013. Brady was convicted by a mountain of “most likelys” and “in all probabilities” in the Wells Report that put a bow on DeflateGate in a tidy 243 pages.

Yet, football will let Brady in. It must. Baseball will keep Rodriguez out. It can.

Was Blown Away By This...

...until I realized it happens again next year. And the next. And the next. And the next.

The Inbetweeners

Not only is Jay Cartwright the biggest pussyhound who's never gotten any of all time, I look at his face and think he could somehow play all 5 Monty Pythons simultaneously.

"You better bring your wellies, because you'll be knee-deep in clunge." 

"Morning benders, jump in the minge mobile."

"This girl's so wet for me I can hear the waves breaking in her fanny."

"Don't worry about me, mate, I'm up to my neck in sluts at the moment."

His quotes and bullshit stories even have their own Facebook page.

I Can't Stop Watching This Awesome Show

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Your UberX driver is gleefully blaring a Collective Soul concert. Do you:

a. Realize hey, this is his car, you're merely a guest, let him do his thing.
b. Politely ask him to turn it down.
c. Wait for him to slow to less than 20mph and stop drop & roll out the door into traffic.

?

Last Night #replacements4ever

I never got to see The Replacements back when they were together, so it was a thrill see finally see them last night, even if I was person # 4000 in a room of 4000 people.

I find this interesting: every Replacements song, ranked:

14. “Hold My Life” (Tim) – This was the first song on the band’s first album after they jumped from Minneapolis indie label Twin/Tone to the majors (Sire Records). There was a lot of trepidation among fans that the move would diminish the band, especially coming after the fine Let It Be. This song reassured everybody that the band hadn’t suddenly been turned into a corporate rock product. In fact, Tim would turn out to be at least the equal of Let It Be, and perhaps its superior. “Hold My Life” is great Westerberg wordplay strung along a restless Tommy Stinson bass line like Christmas lights. The best line is one that can’t be rendered as effectively in print. “If I want, I could die,” Westerberg sings with earnestness. “My hair,” he adds after a playful pause, making plain that the proceeding “die” is actually “dye.” The rest of the lyrics powerfully sum up the youthful feeling that every emotion, every thought, carries such gravity that one might die, or crack up, as a result. “Time for decisions to be made,” Westerberg repeatedly sings. A perfect song for young romantics. (As the only Replacements song with the word “life” in the title, I must throw this next tidbit here: Supposedly, Westerberg has had very few words exchanged with fellow Minneapolis musician Prince over the years, but one of them was the following exchange: Westerberg: “What’s up?” Prince: “Life.” End of scene.)

Here's Paul letting one rip (and I don't mean a solo.)

#deeznutsgate

All the talk about Brady & Deflategate reminded me of this old Xamstime gem. You're welcome, Earth.

I just noticed that the Watergate is still an operating hotel. I don't know, I guess when something is so frozen in time and history, you don't think of it as functioning anymore. Like Harper Lee, or women having pubic hair. Looking at the name, I realized how lucky we got that it was such a cool name, you know? Having "gate" at the end made it so easy to stick onto other scandals, the name really snaps right in there nicely. "Watergate." "Troopergate." "Whitewatergate."

"Whothefucklettheslavesfreegate." And on and on. "Gate" is perfect. What if the break-in had been, for instance, at the Ritz? Then all of our scandals sound like crackers. Or, worse, Jewish! "Katrinaritz." "Nippleritz." "Seriously,wholettheslavesfreeritz." In a strange way, don't we owe Nixon a debt of gratitude for this?

I Mean, Really?

Surely I can’t be the only person who thinks the Starbucks logo looks like a princess who’s about to blow her brains out with guns on both sides of her head?

Thoughts. I Have Them.

The best part of being single & living alone is that if there’s hair in the butter you know it’s yours.

Wow du Jour

In the Kurt Cobain doc Montage of Heck Courtney Love just showed her tits and said "and this is just the half of it." I've never been particularly impressed with Love, but I certainly will be if she has four tits.

Petty BS

Yankees put A-Rod passing Willie Mays on the same level news-wise as the team sticking with Stephen Drew, and I quote, "for now." Of course.

Cobb

I don't know if i buy it, but Ty Cobb's theory on why, unlike the chippy little hitters of the day,  Babe Ruth was such a free-swinger at the plate is an interesting one:

For Cobb, the idea that Ruth had come into the pastime as a pitcher was key to his somewhat unearned success. As a pitcher Ruth “could experiment at the plate,” Cobb said years later. “He didn’t have to get a piece of the ball. He didn’t have to protect the plate the way a regular batter was expected to. No one cares much if the pitcher strikes out or looks bad at bat, so Ruth could take that big swing. If he missed, it didn’t matter. And when he didn’t miss, the ball went a long way. As time went on, he learned more and more about how to control that big swing and put the wood on the ball. By the time he became a full-time outfielder, he was ready.”

No word on Cobb's thoughts re: all that trim the Babe was getting.

Black Is White, Up Is Down...

...Texieria is hitting before August and A-Rod is getting curtain calls. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Hearing Rodriguez talk about how the ovation and the curtain call made him uncomfortable almost reminded me of Derek Jeter. Of course, I’m not trying to compare him to the squeaky clean Captain, but the A-Rod of the past seemed to love when the attention was on him. That probably led to a lot of his mistakes. But this new, more humble version of A-Rod comes across as much more likable — whether you think it’s an act or not.

Shamed

Yesterday I wrote about the absurdity of Stephen Colbert having to step in with 800 large for South Carolina schools, and today this person agrees:

That was indeed laudable. 

But it is not so good when schools, teachers, and children must rely on the charity of rich patrons.
Public education is a public responsibilty. When states fail to fund their schools and send their teachers out to beg for help, the state deserves a badge of shame. 

Shame on South Carolina.

13 Years Ago Today...

...Allen Iverson launched his "Practice?!!?" rant.

Say what you will about it and how silly it may be, but if you simply say "Practice? We're talking about PRACTICE?!" to any American male born between 1957 & 1995 and they immediately know exactly what you're referring to.

Education 101

This popped up on my Facebook feed, a well-intentioned note on Stephen Colbert generously (to say the least) donating $800K to South Carolina teachers because of the budget cuts to education.

I say well-intentioned because while of course we should celebrate Colbert, I think the post copy should have been "The world needs more people who act so that we don't need Stephen Colbert to do this."

Fucking Kill Me

Of course the one A-Rod at-bat I miss all season so far is the one he hits #661...THANK YOU MLB BLACKOUT RULE!  FUUUUUUCCCKKKKKK!!!

Worlds Colliding, People!

As you people know Only Fools and Horses is now one of my all-time favorite shows, and now after years of hearing about it I'm finally watching The Inbetweeners. Awesome show, and the bawdiest character is a fucking tour de force of hilarious inappropriate shit-talking about all things pussy. He looks like a teenaged, foul-moth Pete Campbell, for fuck's sake. And just now I realize the actor plays young Del-boy in the OFAH prequel, Rock & Chips!

ps - more worlds colliding: the actor who played the same Inbetweeners character in the short-lived American version (and was the only reason to watch) is the one and only A-Aron.

Because It's Been Too Long Since I Posted This

Thoughts. I Have Them.

I'm way too obsessed with watching old sitcoms and then Googling the actors to see if they're dead.

In Cae You Were Worried...

...yes, they've finally made that Kentucky Fried Chicken scented candle you've been waiting for. Featuring the surprisingly good Double Down, of course.

Zeke's Back! Rejoice!

Celebrate Jimmy Dolan's record-setting tone deafness in hiring Isiah Thomas with a trip down Xmastime memory lane!

"Need someone to burn ISIS down to the ground? Have a job application? I'm on it!"

This Post Brought to You By the Letter "WTF"?

OMG YALL BIG BIRD WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE FUCKING CHALLENGER!!!

Spinney, now 81, apprehensively agreed, but was later told Big Bird "would not fit in the spacecraft," which would have been the Challenger, a TODAY show segment on the documentary revealed Wednesday.

The puppeteer — and the world's most famous giant bird — narrowly escaped death.

A Plea to JT

I get  a kick out of Justin Bieber. I see him as the next Justin Timberlake, as in I could give fuck-all about his shitty music, but I got a feeling he’d kill on SNL. - XMASTIME

Someone else is finally stating the obvious: Justin Timberlake needs to stop bothering with shitty music and do comedy full-time:

So far, most of what he can do comedically has come from his SNL appearances, in which he often sings, dances, quarrels with other celebrities, or plays a pompous famous person — all stuff that’s naturally funny. (“Dick in a Box” is in its own category.) His singing and dancing is better as parody than it is played straight. Why not his own sketch comedy show?

The Clips!

It may be hard to remember in a Blake Griffin world just how awful the L.A. Clippers were for so long, so here's a refresher:

Johnson: I had an automobile that was stolen. I went to the police department down there near the Sports Arena off of Vernon to report my car being stolen and the detective, he looked up and said, “Marques Johnson, I ought to arrest you and the rest of those Clippers for impersonating a basketball team.”

Great stuff throughout the article. And at least Elgin Baylor's gone, who should be running the War on Drugs.

1986 Duke

This is interesting:

Krzyzewski’s 1982 recruiting class of Bilas, Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie and David Henderson still ranks as the highest scoring single class in college basketball history.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Interesting that the people who are worried about Obama invading Texas (pause for laughter...still pausing...stiiiiil pausing...) are the very people who continually insist that the federal government increase its military budget as much as possible. I'd make a "this is like the chickens buying more deep fryers for Colonel Sanders" joke here, but I'll take the high road instead. You're welcome.

Well. This Is Amazing.

Looks Like I'm Moving to Dallas

It's been real, D.C.

James Dolan Worried the Liberty Aren't Being Run Into the Ground Quickly Enough, Calls in the Cavalry

Onion du Jour

I'm putting this one down as an all-time classic.

Mad Men

Must say, I dig the way they handled Peggy's coffee cup dropping. Usually on tv dropping a mug means it shatters into a thousand pieces, but not here. Nice touch.