Beast of Bourbon

'80 / '08... Phillies rule!!

Who doesn't love a good sequel?  2008's turning out to be a wonderful year so far, unless you're a Patriots fan or their loathsome coach.  I've had to endure a horrific nightmare of Patriot "dominance" since the hellish 2002 Snow Bowl, the first in a long series of Satanically lucky breaks New England has enjoyed... until now.

Congrats to the heroic Giants and special props to coach Tom Coughlin, who had as uphill a climb as anybody's ever had in an NFL season.  The man and his gritty, gutsy team have my respect.  And expect a call from Canton, Michael Strahan.

P.S. You got off light, douchebag.
 
 

I wrote my last post almost a year ago, inspired by the hiring of Art Shell as coach of the Oakland Raiders.  I was filled with excitement, as I felt things would finally start to look up for my favorite team.

How duped I was, yet again.  Art Shell was fired yesterday after one dismal, 2-14 season.

Back in February 2006, I wrote, "My big concerns at this point are, how will Hall-of-Famer Shell deal with the changes in the pussified and mediocre referee-dominated NFL,and who will be QB'ing the team?  I'm not gonna worry too much.  Art may struggle his first year back, but I'll be patient.  I know good things await."

The "pussified" NFL has not changed, and that was made evident by worthless pieces of shit like Randy Moss and Jerry Porter, who apparently are uncoachable and can't perform unless they're pampered with Terrell Owens(TM)-brand silk diapers.  No-class asshats that won't take orders.  Fuck them.

Referees continued to heap penalties on the Raiders too; that's a tradition that won't change until Al Davis is dead and gone.

As for the QB situation, the Raiders could have stuck John Elway in there and they would still have blown goats.  With an offensive line that bad, no quarterback is going to succeed.  Shell certainly didn't help things by hiring Tom Walsh as his OC... the guy had zero credentials other than being a close friend of the Hall-of-Famer.  Evidently Shell felt fortune would swing his way so much that things like blocking and protecting the QB would just fall into place.

However, I definitely felt that Shell deserved one more year to try and pull the Raiders out of the shithole they'd gotten themselves into in the post-Gruden years.  But with nasty old bastard Al Davis lording over most aspects of the organization, no one aside from a glutton for punishment like Shell would be foolish enough to take the reins.

With more and more within and outside the league treating Oakland like a disease-ridden corpse, the Raiders will be forced to hire from within, which means Rob Ryan will likely become their next coach.

Unless Davis drops dead at last, Ryan ain't gonna take the Raiders anywhere either.

It's been a long four years.

But I am back in(to) the game.

Art Shell was re-hired as the head coach of my beloved Oakland Raiders, and as far as I'm concerned, the cosmos have re-ordered themselves back to where they oughta be.

Al Davis' second-worst decision after letting Jon Gruden go was firing Art Shell after an "unsatisfactory" 9-7 season in 1994.  Art Shell is as much the Raiders as Al Davis is, and even Al knows that.  Shell was the first black NFL head coach of modern times, and he was a damn good one to boot... Davis was too hasty to get another Lombardi, and as the mighty Bill Cowher has shown, you gotta give the good ones time.  Darth Al will live to be a thousand as most evil people do, so he has nothing but time... best to just let the fucking team be now, cap'n!

With Shell returning, Madden making the Hall of Fame and the Patriots booted out of the playoffs with a serious ass-kicking, it truly does seem the football gods desire that Oakland return to the days of yore.  Alegate XI, here I come!

Oh sure, there are naysayers who expect Shell to drop dead on the sidelines from a diabetic fit while being bitched at on the sidelines by some hack QB like classless chump Jeff Hostetler did to Shell back in the day.  Fuck 'em.  Half this game is about attitude, and that's what the Raiders have been lacking under milquetoasts like Mike White, Bill Callahan and Norv Turner.

My big concerns at this point are, how will Hall-of-Famer Shell deal with the changes in the pussified and mediocre referee-dominated NFL, and who will be QB'ing the team?

I'm not gonna worry too much.  Art may struggle his first year back, but I'll be patient.  I know good things await.

And I can watch pro football again without feeling like a conned whore.

1927: "We're going to lynch this nigger!"

1938: "Colored washroom's round the corner, boy."

1944: "Negro soldiers are completely segregated from the white soldiers on the base."

1963: "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

1963: "One day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed."

1965: "I firmly believe that Negroes have the right to fight against these racists, by any means that are necessary."

1974: "Put your hands up, take your pants down, spread your cheeks!"

1984: "It's time for a change!"

1987: "I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager."

1988: "During the slave period, the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid—that's where it all started."

1992: "We the jury find the defendants not guilty of the crime of assault by force."

1998: "This is our first black president."

2002: "Black people love us!"

2005: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

2006: "For war billions more but no more for the poor."

Rest in peace, Mrs. King... we'll carry on with the dreaming.

Give us a-la-carte channel selection and you might see profits increase rather than fall, you monopolizing bastards.

As for Anheuser-Busch's earnings decline, I can't tell you how satisfying and amusing it'll be to pay the same amount of money for fine, locally-crafted beers like theirs, theirs and theirs as poor souls round the nation will soon be paying for the carbonated mule piss that is Budweiser.

Wilson Pickett has died, sadly, just a short while after Lou Rawls passed on.   I hope this means that, at least for a few days, arenas and radio stations around the world will play the Wicked Pickett's definitive take on "Mustang Sally" instead of the irritating, soulless cut from the Commitments soundtrack that has been the only version of the song apparently available since 1991.

As much as I'd like to believe that's true, it's not.

I watched part of the Texas-USC game tonight, as I have only passing interest in football these days and only at the college level.   The NFL can go fuck itself.   (By the way, the Patriots—America's team!—will win the Super Bowl again... it's been decreed by the powers that be once more.)

Anyway, there were five glaring mistakes that USC made tonight which allowed Texas to pull this one out.   Mind you, I did not follow the season very closely, I didn't even watch the whole game, so I am not pretending to be a brilliant analyst.   But I'm generally right about what I see, my mama didn't raise no dummy.

( Read more... )

Take a look at this.

I went ahead and submitted a note:

"Dear Chairman Wright:

I am disappointed that NBC has decided to air "The Book of Daniel."

Why do you hate America and hate The LORD Mr. Wright? Jesus will be coming back soon and He is going to kick your a**. I also hope He puts a good man like Rv. Wildman in charge of your network so for once we can have family fair all the time insted of a homofest with homos. So take your Tinky Winkey and your gay Spongbob and your Book of **** (i will not disrespect God by mentioning Daniel!) and go live in China with the rest of the liberal pigs. Like our President we want to live in a Godfearing America not in a godless sociaty.
Praise Jesus Halaloya!
Abner L. Farkass
Fackler, Alabm."

If you submit something, paste it here for our amusement why don'tcha?

Richard Pryor has just died at home in Los Angeles.   He apparently died of a heart attack; he'd had several over the course of his life.   And what a life it was.

Out of all those I've admired through my own life, Pryor was the biggest.   To many, especially in this day and age, that may seem odd or even disrespectful as there are so many other idols to worship, like Jesus, John Paul, or John Paul George & Ringo.

Sorry.   Pryor was my hero.

I could, and I will soon, write a lengthy essay more fully explaining the importance he held not only to me but countless others of my generation.   His influence is pervasive, but he's largely forgotten in the media, which relegated him years ago to junkie has-been status.

Richard Pryor was not only the greatest comedian of all-time, he was one of the greatest storytellers of all time.   Through his humor, infused with social commentary and keen characterization, he indirectly carried on the fight for equality in America.   He was also a terrific actor that never got his fair shake in the hell that is Hollywood.

To me, Pryor's finest moment was in Live on the Sunset Strip, in which he talked about his trip to Africa.   His explanation as to why he would never throw the word "nigger" around again was so moving and inspiring to me that I felt ashamed that I'd ever harbored a micron of prejudice in my heart.   I've thought about that moment often over the years, even writing a term paper in college with his soliloquy as the theme.

Pryor was also, unfortunately, his own worst enemy and sadly we bore witness to that.   How much greater could he have been?   I'm not sure.   Perhaps the question is, as it might be put in this age, how could he have marketed himself better?   I truly don't care.   He was who he was and I will miss him terribly, flaws and all.   He was genuine, he was passionate, he was sensitive, he was brilliant... and he was all too human, a quality that we seem to obfuscate in these times of fakery, lies and deception.

Goodbye, Richard, and thank you.

x-posted to jazzfromhell, neph_politics and 5th_estate

Oh, those nutty French and their dildo de la mort.

Methinks there's a They Might Be Giants song in this.

* Congress is going to investigate the college football BCS system, which is designed to prevent the obvious and logical (but less enriching) solution of playoffs, as all other college divisions use.   AHAHAHAHA!   Congress isn't gonna do jack shit... this is all for show, just like John McCain's laughable attempt to stop corruption in boxing a few years ago.  

In an astoundingly sardonic backhand right to the Congressional panel's face, the current chairman of the BCS said soberly, "If members of the subcommittee have ideas on how the college football postseason can be improved, we welcome that input."   Egad.   Almost spoken like a Corleone.

Face it, college football is gonna stay fucked for the rest of eternity.   There's just too much money floating in the ancient bowl system to ever consider deigning to playoffs.   Do you ever see all-inclusive elimination tournaments for boxing titles?   I rest my case.

* "I've said repeatedly, I think Gary Barnett may be the best coach in the country," said Mack Brown, head coach of Texas's football team.   He said this after directing the Longhorns to a 70-3 victory over Barnett's Colorado Buffaloes, their worst thrasing in almost 60 years.   Colorado's been outscored 130-22 in its last three games.   Say again, Coach Brown?

UPDATE 4 December 2005: There's a difference between "wants" and "wanted."   If Barnett's coaching the Buffs next season, I'll be watching even less CU games.

UPDATE 7 December 2005: The deed is done.   Let's move on, Buffs.   Onward and upward towards a brighter future... well, except for this dude.

* In a pre-fight press conference to promote the acrimonious Jermain Taylor-Bernard Hopkins middleweight title rematch, Taylor showed off a doll wearing a pink shirt with "Cry Baby Hopkins" on it and played an audio tape of a baby wailing.   Hopkins responded, "...Not only am I going to beat him, I will destroy his future, and he won't be able to be recycled.   It's not good for Jermain Taylor to get back in the ring with me.   I beat the guy the first time and I'm going to do it again.   This time, it won't go the distance."   Last night, Taylor won a unanimous decision over the aging ex-champion.   Ah, the egregious hyperbole and comical theatrics of the manly art...

Eons of human evolution, a century of mind-boggling technical advancements, and what do we have to show for it?

A retired ice cream salesman with 12 satellites and 5,000 cable channels.



Don't TELL me this dude isn't watching Mongolian porn.

It's a welcome return.   He'll be sans chains, tho.   Hope his neck muscles don't atrophy.

Check these couple of gems from the article, a very interesting read:

On his upcoming reality show: "It's going to be about helping people.   We're not going to be eating worms or swapping wives."

On the T: "To the bad guys it's thug or tough, but for the women and children it stands for tender."

Lastly, kinda cheapening the story, there's a funny little blurb at the bottom: "You can get Mr T to leave a mobile phone message for your friends and family by going to www.celebritymessages.com.   Voicemails range from 'happy birthday' to 'you're dumped.' "

British scientists may have found a way to keep the evil forces of bovine fartitude at bay.   Next up, muscular dystrophy, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, crabs...

Egad... at first I thought the Daleks were going to be used as gigantic dildos.   Instead they just "grope them with their plungers."

I can't remember who said it, prolly Hendrix or someone from Foghat or KISS, but there was some oldtime rocker who said he wished he could put a hole in the back of his guitar so he could make love to it during shows.   I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing had come out of the mouth of Aron "Mardo" Marderosian, guitarist and vocalist of the throwback rock band Mardo, one of several openers for grunge gods King's X last Friday at Cervantes Ballroom in downtown Denver.

( Read it and rock )

Here's a poignant story about the college football season that the Green Wave of Tulane University, based in New Orleans, just endured.   It may be their last ever.