Sick Boy

"Some people would be chuffed by the endorsement, but not me.  I firmly believe that a good character reference from a witless moron is far more damaging to one's standing than condemnation from the hippest ranks of the cognoscenti."

"Then there's an involuntary stall as I work my way around two ballooning thirty-somethings who've ditched the diet for good and decided that the rest of their lives will consist of vodka, Red Bull amd comfort eating."

2015 book list

Vagos, Mongrels and
Among the Thugs
Not Cool
Girl with Curious Hair - David Foster Wallace.  Work, but moments of genius that more than make it worthwhile
Gone Girl - Clever, probably because I don't read many books like this.

Mork

 

Feel sad and, in a strange way, angered by actors whom I at one time somewhat respected putting out trash like Expendables 3, Red 2, or whatever else Hollywood spews out these days. They don't need the money (My God Jason Statham has brutally disappointed since Snatch and Layer Cake), they need to be "loved".   They need approval.  They need validation that they "matter" (staring directly at you Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, et al).

And now people are so upset that a guy who hasn't done anything relevant in 16 years decided to get his name on the marquee one last time. Someone who couldn't retire quietly and with dignity.  It must be depressing indeed to live only for other's  adulation.  And when the masses turned their fleeting attention to the next bozo, it was too much to take.

I felt nothing. Not out of (I hope) being cynical, but because why would I?  He always reminded me of a circus clown, a one trick pony that jumped out of a vw bug and ran his schtick.  And then peeled off his makeup, sulked back to his trailer and stared despondently into the mirror asking - who is the fairest of them all??

Diggity

"It was as if some plague, which they all thought had been eradicated at last, had sprung back up in the midst, more virulent than ever."

"Fear had remapped the moral geography very quickly."

""Well, in that situation dogs are smarter than humans," said Sherman. "The dog doesn't cling to the notion that he's a fabulous house pet in some terrific dog show, the way a man does.  The dog gets the idea.  The dog knows when it's time to turn into an animal and fight."

2014 book list

Fishboy - Mark Richard. Unexpected find from and unknown source.
Keyboard presents The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music - Opened my eyes to this very incredible way of making music
Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
The Wind up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
From a dead sleep - daly
A supposedly fun thing i'll never do again - david foster Wallace

2013 Book List

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - David Foster Wallace
Exodus - Leon Uris.  Probably my last Uris novel for a while.
Outlaw School
Scorecasting - The hidden Influences Behind how Sports are Played and Games are Won - Tobias Moskowitz & L Wertham
Drown - Juno Diaz
Eating the Dinosaur - Chuck Klosterman
The Taj - Leon Uris

Infinite Jest

"He had never been so anxious for the arrival of a woman he did not want to see."

"What Mario perceived as a sudden radical drop in the prevailing temerature was in fact the U.S.S.
Millicent Kent's sexual stimulation sucking tremendous quantities of ambient energy out of the air surrounding them."

"... how the drunk and maimed both are dragged forward out of the arena like a boneless Christ, one man under each arm, feet dragging, eyes on the aether."

"Keep a flashlight by the bed.  It helps with the dreams."

"The road widens, and many of the detours are seductive."

"...to get him special Hefty SteelSak trashbags, fiber-reinforced for your especially sharp or uncooperative waste needs, descibed by Ken E. as 'Irish Guccis', ...

"This was the night Lenz had to have another recourse to the hollowed-out cavity in his Principles of Psychology and The Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion after just beating curfew home, which who wouldn't need a bit of an unwinder after a stressful close-call-type situation with a flaming cat chasing you and screaming in a way that made porch lights go on all up and down Sumner Blake Rd."

" ' The letters were hostile, savage, and luridly descriptive. He'd come the think the show's character Major Burns embodied some sort of cataclysmic, Armageddon-type then that was slowly assembling itself on the program and prgressively being hinted at and emerging in the gradual succession of seasons of the "M*A*S*H." ' ?

"The whole thing had been queer, and lonely, until she'd been approached by Orin, who made no secret of the fact that he had balls of unrejectable steel where horrifyingly pretty girls were concerned."

"It always seemed a little prepsosterous that Hamlet, for all his paralyzing doubt about everything, never once doubts the reality of the ghost."

"I felt denser now; I felt more solidly composed, now that I was horizontal.  I was impossible to knock down."

it was a tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

And like all fans he was frustrated by the knowledge that the best he could do would be to run onto the field and cause some kind of illegal trouble, then be hauled off by guards while the crowd laughed.



this years's esquire 78-word fiction submission:

fight or flight? though santiago never realized it, his situational statistical analysis was much better than the average homie.  13 hits off the foil and the blood trickling from his left ear had muddled his decision making skills.  he was fast, but also had a legendary right cross.  belatedly, fear won out.  he’d been shot before, but this time was different.  legs no longer tree trunk solid. time slowed, tunnel vision creeped.  survival slipped from his vicelike grip.

2012 Book List

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Tattoo - Earl Thompson
Rum Diary -  Huter S thompson, what can i say, he is and always will be the man.
the Extra 2% -  Jonah Keri.  Not close to as good as moneyball, but still interesting.
Tyranny of Cliches -  Jonah Goldberg - must read for college kids
The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For - Naomi Shaefer Riley
The Devil All the Time - Donald Pollack
The Dark Stuff - Nick Kent
Titanic Thompson - Kevin Cook

Trinity - Leon Uris - poor redheads, can't get out of their own way
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell - Tucker Max
Death to the BCS - Dan Wetzel - corrupt bastards - burn in hell.

dusty

"I invite you to realize that this program does nothing other than present us with a protagonist, a coyote, functioning within a system interestingly characterized as a malevolent Nature, a protagonist who endlessly, tirelessly, disastrously pursues a thing, a telos - the bird in the title role - a thing and goal far, far less valuable than the effort and resources the protagonist puts into his pursuit"

"The thing pursued - a skinny meatless bird - is far less valuable that the energy and attention and economic resources expended by the coyote on the process of pursuit."

"Why doesn't the coyote take the money he spends on bird costumes and catapults and radioactive road runner food pellets and explosive missiles and simply go eat Chinese food?"

from - The Broom of the System

 "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Every day nearly 16,000 children die from hunger and related causes. One dollar can save a life. . . . Poverty is a death sentence. Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels. Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline." - FOIA



waking up from crazy dream - realize all dreams are crazy, that crazy dreams are normal.  are there people that dream of making bacon and eggs, balancing their checkbooks, watching two and a half men?  these dreams would be abnormal.

shower first thing.  always have great ideas at this time.  showering in middle of day does not provide same inspiration.  link to recent contact with dreams?  today's inspiration is to send email to hockey loving raggedy ann met at bar last night.  know first name and little else.  act on one in 4 of these early morning shower inspired ideas - of the others, about half are realized to not be good ideas after all, while the others are overcome by lethargy, apathy and procrastination.

think about alternative outcomes.  usc scored apparent tying td in 3rd ot, however marqise lee stepped out of bounds by half inch at 4 yd line on review.  if game was 10 years ago (of course no ot) there would not have been a review.  if marqise (nice derivation on the spelling) just stays in bounds...  instead curtis mcneal fumbles ball on next play, game over, stanford still alive for mythical nc.  plane leaves 45 minutes late due to computer malfunction.  man has seizure 1 hour into flight.  would he still have seizure if plane not delayed?  what would have been the situation if seizure occurred during turbulent descent?  this is what drives people insane and leads to dreams about changing baby's diapers.

"The shoes and murmurs of shoppers passing him sounded impatient, as pedestrian movements always do to someone at rest, creating a patter so unbearable that only joining it could bring relief. "

"He wasn't a chuch goer, of course, but he'd long allowed the Resurrection a certain margin of credence, maybe 37 percent in a random sampling of his mind's constituents."

"... the character of their drinking began to change, to cross the line between lubrication and anesthesia."

from The Twenty-Seventh City

greed

                The passing of Steve Jobs and the Occupy Wall Street "movement" provide a most interesting juxtaposition.  One of the protestors #1 targets is corporate greed.  But how do we define or measure greed?  I would think the best way would be profit, and an easy way to compare companies is via profit margin %.  Common examples of these greedy corporations are in the Oil and Banking Industry.  Exxon's most recent annual profit margin = 9.7%, which is pretty solid and has been aided by higher prices at the gas pump.  Bank of America's most recent profit margin was 1.9%, and this was before another round of restrictive regulations were imposed to further limit their avarice.

                But how about Apple?  I would guess that there are a fair amount of IPods and IPads are being used among the protestors, and millions upon millions of people get to enjoy the fruits of Steve Jobs' brilliance.  Jobs was self admittedly liberal on most issues, and probably someone many of the Occupy Wall Street truly admire.   Apple's last reported Profit Margin was 23.5%.  That is nearly 2.5X of the robber barons at Exxon and over 12X the evil bankers at BOA!  Jobs definitely charged more than he could have for his great products - is this not the "greed" being chanted about on city corners across the USA?  But, if he had settled for less than the market would bear in terms of pricing, maybe the incentive to create such awesome devices would not have been there, and we would not even know the name Steve Jobs today.  Something for you to think about as you tweet about evil business today on your Mac.

word up

we get one shot at this deal - dont fuck it up and waste time living in the negative. Surround yourself with positive influences, and be a positive influence in as many lives as possible. It is really that simple.

Training

When the head of the family bursts into tears, all the women in the family start to shout, beat their chests and rock back and forth making high-pierced shrieks. And when he stops crying, all the women once again fall silent. - Gomorrah

2011 Book List

The Broom of the System  - David Foster Wallace
The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen
The Visible Man - Chuck Klosterman
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
Righteous Indignation -Breitbart
Gommorrah - Roberto Saviano
Murder City - Charles Bowden. Author is a certified nut, but interesting writing style and a look into a world that that will blow your mind.
The Warlord's Son - Dan Fesperman
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun - Peter Godwin

2010 Book List

Stalking Bret Easton Ellis - Caroline Weiss & Margaret Wallace
I Hate your Guts - Jim Norton
The Chris Farley Show - Tom Farley
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell, not as good as outliers
Watch you Bleed, the Saga of Guns n' Roses - Stephen Davis
The Ruling Class - Angelo Codevilla - Extrmely important book, plan to re-read
An Expensive Education - Nick McDonell, recommended by Esquire, to me it was average
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
86'd - Dan Fante
We the Living - Ayn Rand
Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk

hollywood genius

Denise Richards had do look down at least 3 times because she could not remember the words while singing "take me out to the ball game" at wrigley filed. I say at least 3 times because the camera panned the crowd for the majority of the "song". i imagine the spawn of her and sheen will cure cancer, so thank god for that. she's still hot, so i guess all the rest is fairly irrelevant...

anyone that knows me knows that music is a super important part of my life. these are not necessarily the greatest, or even my favorites - but are/were influential to me:

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana - Blew my mind. Knew immediately that this was exactly what I was looking for
Back in Black - AC/DC - Like Bon Scott era better, but this introduced me to them
So Whatcha' Want - Beastie Boys - game changer
Dammit - Blink 182 - Just a great punk/pop jam
Wicked Game - Chris Isaac - Only time I ever karaoke'd in my whole life, how I stood up for 4 straight minutes at that point in te game was a miracle
Nothin' but a "G" Thang - Dr Dre - Snoop comes onto the scene
Jump Around - House of Pain - Remember the first time I heard this at O'Furrys, crazy scene with people tearing the place apart. Also, headliner for greatest concert I have been to, Rage opened for them
Stacy's Mom - Fountains of Wayne - Extremely underrated band, and this is areally great pop song
Welcome to the Jungle - Guns n Roses - What an album
Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash - The live version gives me chills
Livin' After Midnight - Judas Priest - First song I learned on guitar, thanks Steve Sheldon!Bawitdaba - Kid Rock - Another one of those first time you hear it songs...
Detroit Rock City - KISS - I remember staring at the cover of this album and listening to it over and over, it was almost mystical
Nookie - Limp Bizkit - the band turned out to be a bunch of dicks, but this CD is seminal
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Metallica -Still rocks beyond compare
Badfish - Sublime - Favorite song of my all time favorite band
Plush - Stone Temple Pilots - Cool guitar riffs without needing a solo
Looks that Kill - Motley Crue - Favorite metal band of that time, think I saw them live 6 times
My Name is - Eminem - Was hooked immediately
It's the End of the World as we Know it - R.E.M. - MY first post-metal band in college
Bombtrack - Rage Against the Machine - Wow, obviously our politics are 180 degrees out of phase, but these cats rock like no other
Anarchy in the U.K. - Sex Pistols - Glad I got to see Johnny Rotten live, one of the most interesting people ever
Undone (Sweater Song) - Weezer - Great songwriters
C.R.E.A.M. - Wu Tang Clan - These guys are just flat out good

slam

so espn has decided to totally rip off fox sports and start doing countdowns of the greatest things in sports - greatest super bowl plays, best hockey fights, top 10 kobiyashi hot dog pukes, etc. it's weird that it's exaclty the same format as fox, complete with rapid fire images of the number they are on. i guess there is no copyright on the list idea, and apparently people, especially sports people really like lists. anyway, i was at oc's and they were running down the top 20 dunkers of basketballs of all time and they were on like #10, i think it was larry nance (who was a bad ass dunker indeed). as soon as i saw the topic, i knew MJ would be #1, as he is #1 in every one of these lists that he is eligible, including #1 worst golf gambler and #1 worst hitter of the curve ball for the birmingham barons. turns out i was right, and this infuriated me so much (apparently had a short fuse that day) i had to do my own top 4 list.

4) Dr J. he was obviously so ahead of his time, but in general i don't give credit for being in a different era. when I compare Shaq and Wilt, i just think could Wilt cover Shaq in both of their primes? (short answer - no). but the doc could throw down with the best of em, the quintessential one for me was over Coop in the finals. it was over after that.

3) MJ. i definitely underrated him in my mind because most of my memories today are of the last 3 seasons with the bulls and the horribly conceived willie mays with the mets show he did with the wizards. but seeing the highlights reminded me of the major throwdowns on Ewing and Mutombo. #3 is not where his airness is used to finishing, but still not too shabby.

2) Dominique. dude was just a freaky athlete and was strong as a bull. i don't remember him having much of a jump shot ( i may be wrong about that) so even with guys playing off, he still attacked and beat them to the tune of 26,534 points. and the windmill was always a winner for us short white boys on the 8.5 foot rim.

1) Vince Carter. i do not like his game. i do not like his attitude (at least my perception of his attitude, i could easily be convinced otherwise over a beer). I do however like watching Vinsanity throw down inconceivable one handed alley oops in traffic. he must have giganto hands (take note ladies). and even at 31 he still can out athlete alot of nba players. but there was a 2 to 3 year span in the early 00's that every time i caught a game he was in that i would spew my beer all over and scream a chris tucker "DAMN" (not really on the Damn part) after a particularly vicious dunk. he is a mind blower.

2009 Book List

Havana Nocturne - TJ English - Castro is a scumbag
Paddywhacked - The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster - TJ English
Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg - Eye opening,
Liberty and Tyranny - Mark Levin - Excellent book!
The Live of Laura Diaz - Carlos Funtes
IV: A decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas - Chuck Klosterman
Guilty - Ann Coulter
Killing Yourself to Live - Chuck Klosterman
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman - Love this book even though I am a Laker fan, love soccer and believe the media has an agenda, at least admit the New York Times does!
The Other Hollywood -The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry - Legs Mcneil & Jennifer Osborne - An absolutely insane world.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz - Excellent book. I had absolutely zero idea that the Dominican had such a ruthless tyrant as a ruler. Far too often, we take our freedom for granted, with the faux persecuted reduced to comparing the Patriot Act to being in the gulag.

2008 Book List

Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates - Outstanding writing. Captures suburuban dementia like no other.
Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis
Glamorama - Bret Easton Ellis
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk - Crazy book, curious how they get all these themes into a movie.
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis - It's been nearly 20 years since I read this, and I had forgotten how great of a book it is. The gore gets all the attention, but the rest of the book is such a piercing statement on the culture and a must read.
Rules of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis - 3rd time I have ready this one
Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk - Can see the Bret Easton Ellis influence when Tender gets famous. Worth reading another of his books.
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk - Great writing, wish i did not know the ending from the movie, would have been better
Cell - Stephen King. Pretty sub standard knock off of the stand and dark tower.
Into the Wild - John Krakauer
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess. Pretty crazy book with all the Nadsat language. You pick up on what most of the words mean and there's always the good ol internet. Watched the movie right after, pretty faithful to the book, other than the "controversial" 21st chapter.
Less than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis - 2nd time I have read, 20 years later. Still really good. funny how uncool the 80s is now, even for us refugees from that era.
The Delivery Man - Joe McGinnis Jr
KnockemStiff - Donald Ray Pollock http://www.donaldraypollock.com/index.htm
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - really good book. the movie follows the story very closely. so sad how vibrant afghanistan once was and what religious tyranny has reduced it to.
I am Legend - Robert Neville
Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party - David Limbaugh
Hooking Up - Tom Wolfe
The Blind Side - Michael Lewis
Sacred Hoops - Phil Jackson - Life changer
Teacher Man - Frank McCourt
On Writing - Stephen King
The Natural - Bernard Malamud

why things are...

"On the verge of tears - because I was dealing with the fact that we lived in a world where beauty was considered an accomplishment..." - Victor Ward, Glamorama

Wha' happened?

Well, last night's results definitely did not go the way i wanted on a local or national level. Colorado is a full fledged blue state at this point, with Obama and Udall winning decisively here.

But when I woke up this morning and looked at the initiative results, I came to a different conclusion. Prop 46, which bans discrimination and preferential treatment is 50/50 with 87% of the precincts reporting. The 2 major statewide tax increase requests were crushed. And prop 59, trying to get around tabor was beaten back by 55% of the electorate. So what gives?

How do people vote for the 2 dems at 52 and 53% clips who most definitely will raise taxes more severely than these proposals and who are definitely for affirmative action and then turn around and vote against proposals that are pillars of what Obama and Udall stand for?

60% of the nation put the economy as their first issue. It is the repubs fault for not squarely putting the blame for the financial collapse on Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama for creating, prolonging and worsening the problem. The dems created an environment that was based not on free market principals but their social engineering, racial justice, bs - forced banks to make a lot of bad loans and then a lot of other people took advantage of the real estate market and easy money. When the artificial housing price bubble inevitably burst, you had dual issues - all the poor people, idiots who were in way too much house (both qualifying for more than they could afford), and house flippers found out that the free market always corrects itself and they were left holding the bag. But thanks to cradle to grave government, the bailout occurs.

But the spineless repubs let the media and pelosi put the blame on, of course, George Bush. So people voted purely against the republican brand. But, when people had the opportunity to vote on actual policies, they voted conservative. When the Obama/Pelosi/Reed clan inevitably overreaches, the conservative majority will throw the bums out.

blackout

celebre

"I would demand to wear Ray-Ban sunglasses. Expensive Ray-Bans," I say carefully. "In fact I would demand that everyone wear Ray-Ban sunglasses." - Patrick Bateman, American Psycho on his wedding requirements...

capitulation

ok, since i posted the manny effect, the dodgers offense has reverted to what I have been subjected to the last 20 years, singles hitting misery. you win, i lose. great.

"I Thessalonians, Chapter Five, Verse Twenty: "Despise not prophesyings."" - Tender Branson, Survivor

Trade for Manny

the website where i get my daily dose of baseball analysis is baseballprospectus.com, love the writing and the analysis is top notch even if i don't agree with it all of the time. my latest disagreement is on the trades the dodgers made to obtain manny ramirez and casey blake. i think there is a very important factor that is being missed. disclaimer alert, i am a dodgers fan, most definitely to a point where they are going to get the benefit of the doubt.

at first, i mostly agreed that players like laroche and santana were too valuable to part with for a couple of 2 month rentals. since manny played in the al his entire career, and my rotisserie league is a life long nl league (causing me to watch about 90% nl games), i knew knew he was one of the best hitters in the game but i never really watched the red sox play many games in a row because i hate them more than any other team on the planet. so, i had never seen a motivated manny ramirez over a sustained amount of time. i now have, and it is fairly impressive. dude finds meat of the bat in almost any area of the strike zone and he does not swing at many outside of it. so the question is, how can 2 months be worth a couple of pretty solid prospects?

i think the area of the trade unexplored by bp.com is the absolutely enormous financial impact on the dodgers if they were to win a playoff series, a feat not achieved by the boys in blue in 2 decades now. the immediate impact of manny is a large boost in ticket sales and alot of number 99 jerseys in LA. but that is a very short term financial benefit that if they do not win is not sustainable.

right now, the nationwide interest in the dodgers is rising, but not to a fevered pitch. if the dodgers win a playoff series, all that changes. only out of town baseball jerseys that are prevalent these days are the yankees, red sox and more and more the cubs (if they win, the same raging bile duct reaction i had to the red sox winning will surely repeat itself). but that all changes if the dodgers win a playoff series or make the WS. there are as many if not more dodgers fans out there just waiting to taste some serious success. and if dodger fan makes a serious reappearance and spends his jack on dodgers gear and games, then the dodgers can easily run with the sox and yankees dollar wise. so the bet mccourt is making on manny is pretty damn big in the long term scheme of things.

so the question becomes, with manny and blake in the lineup everyday and andy larcohe (and the cast of suspects when laroche doesn't play) and juan pierre not in the lineup everyday - will they win a playoff series? laroche may become a great player, i hope he does - but in a tight race down the stretch and in a presumed playoff series, he has not yet proven with his results at the major league level so far that he is up to the task. blake in the 6-8 spot is more than adequate to make the dodgers a legit power lineup when before the trades they were one of the weakest in the majors.

but the enormous impact is obviously - manny in, juan and andruw out. now that ethier and kemp are more consistently putting together the production that has been only seen in spurts, the addition of manny has finally relieved dodger fans of daily doses of the jp and dru show, 2 guys making outs at 67 and 74% clips to a guy making them only 59% of the time. and when you add that manny is outslugging the duo by 246 and 310 points respectively, well now you are cooking with fire. the national talking heads (another despised squad of humans for the most part) are talking about whether there is a "manny effect" or are guys like jeff kent just getting hot. what a waste of time, it's clear kent's strike zone has shrunk back to bonds era kent size and he is hitting line drives. i don't think he will ever get the power back, but he can hit a fastball in the strike zone hard.

Zona has the better pitching, but LA now has the edge offensively and remainder of the year schedule wise. the problem is the winner of the west most likely matches up against the cubs, a team they are not better than either offensively or pitching wise (i do like that zambrano is springing a leak though here late in the season). have to hope for pumpkin treatment on the edmonds/johnson combo and that big blue can score runs off of dempster and lilly.

bottom line - winning now is so imperative to l.a. that they had to make a trade like this. but make no mistake, they are pretty damn close to all in - not making the playoffs or stumbling again in the first round would most defintely set them back substantially.

p.s. - for next year dodgers should offer manny 2 years, $45-50M. Any longer or more money would be a poor decision. unfortunately my faith is pretty low in ned colleti not giving old guys too much money and bogging down the franchise for too many years in the future.

Go Buffs!

What were his impressions of the Buffaloes?

"They have some big boys there," Roberts said. "They want to, just like every program, but I think they want it more, they want to win another national championship soon. They were working out hard. They are going to be on the up rise in the next couple years."

- Jeramie Roberts, CU recruiting target, Rivals.com

truth

"Mr. Ricardi only looked away. And Clay thought, not without wonder, This is how a man looks when he's deciding that the risk of death is better than the risk of change." Clay, Cell

weeds

"White folks get soda pop, niggaz get bullets" - Heylia James
"Let your freak flag fly" - Celia Hodes
"You made your bed, now fuck in it" - Nancy Botwin

"Here's your coffee partner" - Waiter at
"Oh, I fucking hate chains" - Doug

Flat out crazy shit!

so, i am taking my daughter to her first ever concert, and due to some changing schedules we decided on tickle me pink at the black sheep on July 14. i order the tickets at 1:41pm 7/1 and when i hit the send/receive button on my email i get 2 new messages. one is the order confirmation. the other is, as you can see (click on the picture to get a closer view), that the bassist in tickle me pink was found dead. this timing pretty much boggles the mind...

Hell Hath No Fury

as a preacher scorned...

"When the last movement had gone round for the second time with all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy Joy, then these two youngs ptitsas were not acting the big lady sophisto no more, They were like waking up to what was being done to the malenky persons and saying they wanted to go home and like I was a wild beast. They looked like they had been in some big bitva, as indeed they had, and were all bruised and pouty. Well, if they would not go to school they must still have their education." - Alex, A Clockwork Orange

the HAWK

Awesome night - I was privileged enough to meet CU football coach Dan Hawkins, CU AD Mike Bohn and players George Hypolite and Ryan Miller (thanks Mick!). This is the 3rd time I have heard Hawk speak in person and he was just dynamite. The guy is simply an incredible human being. Both players were absolutely the best representation of student athletes there could possibly be. And Mike Bohn is the leader of the whole show and the undisputed in my mind best man for the job.

ohio grim

"he was just trying to latch on to something that would fill up his days so he didn't have to think about what a fucking mess he had made of everything. It's the same for most of us; forgetting our lives might be the best we'll ever do."
- Tom, Knockemstiff

"and I crave junk food like a baby craves the tit. Besides, I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it."

- Big Bernie, Knockemstiff

lunch date

I like comics like this that really hit the reader on multiple levels. I wonder what the author was thinking other than possibly where to get some more absinthe. Mommy is obviously fully dosed on the Xanax, and Junior, well Junior has only a couple more years til he’s a full blown Ritalin kid.

exerpt from soon to be released (2010) book by the midzman

...the florescent hue permeated my mind, not to the point of blinding my blurred vision - but still it provided enough penetrating invasion of my thoughts that coherence was difficult to maintain. how many undiagnosed maniacs are out there? i mean, psychiatric diagnosis is an extremely expensive proposition, and the majority of maniacs have difficulty with mundane chores such as showing up to work every day. in any case, how many of these particular breed of humans are walking around Wal Mart at 3am on a Weds morning? They either are tweekers, swing shift workers or people who shun human contact at all practical costs. and now i was subjected to extreme...

more great poetry from the land of rap...

there's 3 things that keep me from being a nazi,
i'm black, a fag, my dad's liberace


thankyou bizarre, thankyou

McLovin

just dispelling any brewing mclovin rumors. dude, check out the collar and matching vest, now thatz some dope shiznit.

It helps every team in the Big XII North if Kansas loses on Saturday, but one of the pillars of life is never, ever, ever, ever root for the Skerge in anything. I faced a similar quandry when NU played ND. I seriously just rooted for both teams to fuck up - and non-career threatening injuries were welcome too.

But now, a new paradigm arises. NU is the bottom of the barrel and it is like rooting against Baylor, I mean what's the point? At some juncture in your fan career you have to look at what benefits your team and not worry about the Iowa States and lil reds of the world. The trick is to root against NU's opponents and not FOR anyone. blah, blah, blah...

FUCK that, I hope the NEVER win a game again! Still salivating awaiting the Nov 23 smackdown - go buffs!

I am STOKED for the game this weekend, it's going to be as tough a circumstance as we have faced all year, but I know Hawk has the team pointed in the right direction, so I am ready to roll.

GO BUFFS!

Boo yah

I love this picture of Cody and his bro after CU beat the Sooners. This was a Top 3 game I have attended** along with 62-36 and when Hessler came in for Detmer to beat Top 5 A&M when gameday came to Boulder. Coach Hawk is the real deal, stoked to see what he can accomplish. Go Buffs!

** I saw some great games from 84-92 or so that deserve to be in my Top 3, like seeing Alfred Williams send Jeff George to the locker rooms with an undisclosed "injury", but sobriety was definitely an issue in my recollections 20 years later...

"Fools are the only folk on earth who can absolutely count on getting what they deserve." - Stephen King Dark Tower IV

Mommie Dearest

this picture is definitely worth a thousand words...

One of these days

Evan understood that everything in and out of his control was spiraling completely out of his reach. As he rumbled down I-76 towards Brighton in his ’69 GTO convertible with the Johnny Cash staple Ring of Fire playing over an over, everything became clear. Nothing matters, but everything matters. The a.m. radio static fills the synapses with the creative mass that is needed to keep the dual, dual exhaust purring like the smooth cat rolling around in catnip, like jerry Garcia in a pit of juicy tangerines where everyone loves to eat the little squirrels that have been completely taken over by the acorn farm’s dead hamsters rolling thru cash like a drunken Andy Griffith at a laffy taffy store. Focus, once regained, was formidable. He snapped out of the hypnotizing oncoming headlights long enough to veer to the right thus avoiding smacking the back of a volvo. adrenaline is a mighty fine stimulant in times of severe depression or destruction.

2007 Book List

Power to the People - Laura Ingaham - Continuning my theme of reading blonde conservative authors. Fairly mediocre.

Godless - Ann Coulter - HILARIOUS leftist beatdown

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower - Stephen King - Plowed through the last 4 with alacrity. Was definitely worth my time and would recommend if you have a few idle months to do the same, may it do ya fine - say thankee.

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah - Stephen King

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass - Stephen King - Halfway to completion of this mess i've gotten myself into...

The Dark Tower III: The Wastelands - Stephen King

On the Road - Jack Kerouac - Killer book, 'nuff said.

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King

NeoConservatism: Why We Need it - Douglas Murray

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - Stephen King

Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby Jr - Moves into my Top 5 favorite books

Rabbit at Rest - John Updike

Rabbit is Rich - John Updike

Buffs getting better

That is undeniable. What is also clearly evident is these freshman have the talent to play in the Big 12. What is scary to me about Ricardo leaving is that prior to him we had fringe B8/12 talent, and that is being generous. I hate to beat a kid down, but when Matt Daniels is your starting PG, you are in trouble. Ricardo took recruiting to a level far above anyone at Boulder, at least since I have been going to games starting in 1982. To me, talent is 75% of the game in basketball, coaching is WAY overrated by the ESPNs of the world. How many titles did Dean Smith win before he fielded a lineup of Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Sam Perkins? I know Ricardo has some limitations in the gameday coaching, but his kids always play hard and they have the talent to compete in the Big 12. I pray the next coach's teams have these traits at a minimum.

2006 midzman book list

Next Man Up; A year behind the lines in today's NFL - John Feinstein - great insight into the NFL.
Fargo Rock City - Chuck Klosterman - If you were a metalhead in the 80's, you HAVE to read this book. After reading you will be pulling out your copies of Out of the Cellar and Skid Row.

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Rabbit Redux - John Updike
Rabbit Run - John Updike
The Village - John Updike
Devil's Feather - Minette Walters - Bought this in Germany in the tiny english section, quite a dropoff in writing skill between updike and percy, but sometimes mindless suspense is just what the dr. ordered
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy - Meaning of life book, Love the writing style. Very Bret Easton Ellis in the 60s.
My Friend Elmore - James Barry - Disappointing follow up to MLP. Not sure there is a reason to read this.
Fantasyland - A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe - Sam Walker - Absolute must read for anyone that has played rotisserie or fantasy sports of any kind http://www.fantasyland.com/
Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr.
A Million Little Pieces - James Barry - Excellent book, the irrelevance of whether it is "true" of not is not to be debated.
Buffaloed: How Race, Gender and Media Bias fueled a Season of Scandal - Bruce Plaskett - Must read for all the haterz
Angels & Demons - Dan Evans - Poor 2nd half of the book like Da Vinci Code