My heartfelt apologies for being incommunicado since the Kiss concert, but I’ve kinda been sequestered in the Man Cave lately. I’ve also had my plateful with some issues on the homefront (see below) as well as a music project I’ve been working on, and haven’t had the time or urge to blog lately…
PLEASE WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER…
Is it Saturday yet? It’s getting to the point where December 26th is becoming one of my favorite days of the year anymore. Hate to be so Grinch-y during this festive time of year, but as the years go by, I grow to detest the holiday season more and more. How does something that’s supposed to be so fun and uplifting always wind up being so damn aggravating? The end of the year is already stressful enough for me under normal circumstances—with year-end tax and insurance bills due, then add the Christmas crush on top of it, and it’s just not worth it anymore to me.
And this year has been even more stressful thanks to the miscreant who stole my tote bag out of my car two weeks ago. I’m normally pretty vigilant about locking my car whenever I go somewhere—even when I just stop for beer at a Quicky-Mart—but I got a little careless and left my passenger side door unlocked while I stopped at the library to drop-off and pick-up one evening on the way home from work. I couldn’t have been in the building more than five minutes, but that was enough time for some palooka to purloin the tote bag I’ve taken to work virtually every day for the last 17 years, which contained my checkbook, two fairly expensive books (mine, not the library’s) and a project I’d been working on in conjunction with them, along with my iPod charger cord, et al. The douche also made off with my “portable drug store”, the Zip-lock bag that I kept my Tylenol, nasal spray, asthma puffer, Band-Aids, ointments, etc., in, along with not one, but both pairs of sunglasses I had in the car, a sweatshirt and sweatpants, my heavy winter gloves and sundry other items. Hope this ass-wipe is happy, because I closed my checking account the next day and opened a new one, and in reality, the stuff he/she/it took was really only valuable to yours truly and no one else. All they really succeeded in doing was inconveniencing me with some collateral damage, as two of the checks I’d sent out before this happened got returned by the bank and I’m out $64 in bank charges. I was kicking myself for a couple days afterward because I left the car unlocked, but the more I thought about it, if they wanted my shit that badly, they’d have thought nothing of busting the window open and taking it anyway, thus leading to an even bigger FUBAR, not to mention a chilly ride home on a 10-degree night…
Therefore, dear friends, I’m feeling fairly salty as this wretched year and decade hurtle to an ignominious end, and Christmas is just exacerbating that vibe with me. Maybe I’m just getting old and jaded, but I’ve grown weary of the whole Christmas rat-race that seemingly starts around Labor Day each year. Hell, you have the stores selling Xmas decorations in September, the radio stations playing wall-to-wall Yuletide tunes before Halloween, and just after Halloween, I have to endure the intrepid Salvation Army bell-ringers. Couldn’t they at least show a little mercy on us and provide these poor schlubs with melodic bells to ring?!? And let’s not forget the people in my neighborhood who have become so obsessed with out-doing each other in their annual competition to see who can create the biggest Christmas shrine in their front yard and/or have the most Christmas lights adorning their house. And then there are these insipid Walmart TV ads depicting these idyllic family units where everything’s just peachy-keen and lovey-dovey in their little worlds. Poffeycock, I say!
I used to look forward to Christmas as much as anyone else, but time and age have chipped away at my enthusiasm. I no longer subscribe to the idea that Christmas is some sort of magic elixir that’s supposed to make everyone suddenly all warm and fuzzy and “get happy”. It’s particularly hard being a single person like me during the holidays, especially one who doesn’t groove to the whole family dynamic thing—I feel very much like an outsider amongst my friends who are in the family way (or whose families are in the way, in some cases). I used to love shopping for gifts for close friends because I always knew what to get them, but in spite of being more well-connected to my friends (via e-mail, Facebook, etc.) than I ever have been, I now often wind up punting by doling out gift cards instead because I don’t have a clue what they could use. Even in my paltry excuse for a love-life, I’ve never had a warm body to wake up with on Christmas morning—not counting my cat who crawled in bed with me in ’85, that is. Ironically, I lost my virginity on Christmas Eve of ’84 (25 years ago tomorrow night?!?) but we didn’t spend the night together—my parents would’ve flipped if they’d known what was going on in their basement that night, let alone if my first girlfriend had stayed over. In my second relationship, my girlfriend wanted very badly to be with me over Christmas, but she’d made previous plans to visit her family back East long before we ever met, so that was a no-go, and my third girlfriend was a long-distance relationship, so Xmas with her was a bust too.
So please forgive me if I’m in full-goose-bozo Grinch/Scrooge mode this year. More succinctly, in the words of Ozzy Osbourne, “I hate fucking Christmas!”
Okay, on to new business…
OUI, OUI, MONSIEUR!
Congrats to my man Martin Brodeur of my beloved New Jersey Devils, who broke the coveted career shutout record for goaltenders Monday night in Pittsburgh, breaking the late Terry Sawchuk’s record of 103. While not quite the same as the home run record in baseball (still held by Hank Aaron, IMO), #104 is an impressive milestone for a guy who still has plenty of gas left in his tank, and MB could easily reach 125 before it’s all said and done, if he remains healthy and has the desire play that long. And while Sawchuk set his mark with several different teams, what’s even more impressive about Marty’s record is he recorded all 104 of his shutouts with the same team—that’s something you’ll never see happen again. Even better, Martin Brodeur is one of the truly good guys in sports—you never see him in the headlines for getting drunk and stupid in a bar fight or for cheating on/beating on his wife (he’s divorced anyway)—and he’s a credit to his sport. He’s bad, he’s nationwide, indeed…
HERE COMES YOUR 20th NERVOUS BREAKDOWN…
As for a guy who used to be a credit to his sport, although it didn’t quite shake out the way I envisioned, Brett Favre is indeed causing friction in the Minnesota Vikings locker room after all. Just like I predicted before the season started, Favre is proving to be a drama queen and divisive figure, given his much-publicized blow-up this week with head coach Brad Childress, who wanted to remove Favre from the game in Carolina during a crappy performance on Sunday night and BF protested. While Favre has performed most impressively and far exceeded my expectations this season, there’s still something rather amiss when an inmate runs the asylum. Would Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana or Peyton Manning have pulled crap like this? I think not. It’s becoming ever so clear that in Favre’s mind, it’s all about him this season and not the team, and I saw today where a former teammate, Leroy Butler, labeled BF as a “diva”. I hope Favre is attacked by the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs (in words of Dr. Niles Crane), “like a drag queen at a tractor pull!”—if the Vikes even get past the first round, that is. And if I have to sit through his annoying Wrangler jeans commercial one more time, I may blow up my TV!
YOU BET YOUR SWEET BIPPIES!
I’m proud to report that my fantasy football team, the Sweet Bippies, are in the Super Bowl this weekend. I’m the #2 seed in our league, and survived a major scare in the first round from #3, and held on to win by five points, thanks mostly to the ineptitude of the Washington Redskins on Monday night. Now the Bipsters face the #1 seed, which features Randy Moss, Matt Schaub and Dallas Clark, among others. Get your tickets now—plenty of good seats still available…
WE DIDN’T MISS A THING
I was actually pleased that the Chefs’ game with Cleveland was blacked-out on local TV Sunday. It gave us the opportunity to watch a much better game—Dolphins/Titans—on CBS instead. From what I hear, it was Fan Depreciation Day at Arrowhead, as the team gave out $5 food vouchers to fans entering the stadium, but only opened like half the concession stands and none of the ancillary beer carts. They also apparently ran out of Coke and Sprite by halftime. Oh, and then the Chefs let the Cleveland Clowns run all over them (literally) and beat them 41-34. Is there any doubt that this team is a total train wreck, both on and off the field, right now? It feels like 1978 all over again, minus the Disco music on the radio. Let’s blow this whole thing up and start over again…
HARMFUL IF TAKEN ORAL-LY
Good ol’ Oral Roberts kicked the bucket since I last posted. As you should well know by now, I consider TV evangelists to be the lowest form of species this side of child pornographers, rapists and Hummer drivers, especially those who extort emotional cripples (and sometimes just plain cripples) for money and turn them into a legion of check-writing morons just so they can lead lives of luxury and keep their LearJets in the air. People like Roberts give organized religion a bad name, and just as I did when Jerry Falwell died, I’m not about to praise the man just because he’s dead now—you know me better than that! Good riddance to another asshole, I say…
MORE TIGER TALES…
Excellent cartoon in Newsweek last week: Tiger Woods is sitting on Santa’s lap and Santa sez, “HO! HO! HO!” and TW responds, “WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?”. Friggin’ brilliant, and evidently pretty accurate, too, since Tiger seemingly has a chick in every port on the PGA Tour to philander with. I’m proud to see that his wife’s actually divorcing his cheatin’ ass too, rather than doing the standard stand-by-your-man act that so many famous wives do, like Elizabeth Edwards, for instance. Not only can’t I relate to being filthy-rich and having the wherewithal to doink any woman I please, I also can’t even relate to cheating on my significant other. It pisses me off no end whenever I see people do this—cheating on someone who treats them well—including a good friend of mine who used to do it with some regularity back in the day before he finally settled down, even though he had a real sweetheart of a girl at home. Given the dearth of relationships in my life, I’ve never even been in a position (let alone had the desire) to cheat on anyone anyway, and from my point of view, it’s just a real shitty thing to do to someone you supposedly love. As for Tiger, as the old Motorhead song goes, “Just ‘cos you got the power, that don’t mean you got the right.”
NOW I REMEMBER…
…why I loathe Rolling Stone magazine so much. A copy of their end-of-decade issue was laying around work last week, and I perused it. True-to-form, their Top 50 albums of the ‘00s list was practically all Kanye West, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. Kanye West is a douche, U2’s output this decade has been mediocre at best, and while a couple of Brucie’s albums over the last ten years weren’t bad, I still say he is grossly overrated, especially by Rolling Stone, as if he can do no wrong. Hell, The Boss could record an album of nothing but nursery rhymes and RS would praise the shit out of it.
I AM A PROPHET! WELL, 60% OF THE TIME, ANYWAY…
“So, here’s who I think should get in [to the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame] this year: Kiss, ABBA, Genesis, the Hollies, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And here’s who I think will actually get voted in this year: The Stooges, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff and Laura Nyro.”--B. Holland, September 24, 2009
Well, in both cases, I got three out of five right, as Genesis, ABBA, the Hollies, Jimmy Cliff and the Stooges are (for better or worse) the 2010 Class of the Crock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. I knew (and correctly predicted) that Kiss wouldn’t get in this time, but I’m a tad surprised the Chili Peppers didn’t make it. Then again, these are the same people (Rolling Stone critics) who think Leonard Cohen is a Rock star…
PLEASE WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER…
Is it Saturday yet? It’s getting to the point where December 26th is becoming one of my favorite days of the year anymore. Hate to be so Grinch-y during this festive time of year, but as the years go by, I grow to detest the holiday season more and more. How does something that’s supposed to be so fun and uplifting always wind up being so damn aggravating? The end of the year is already stressful enough for me under normal circumstances—with year-end tax and insurance bills due, then add the Christmas crush on top of it, and it’s just not worth it anymore to me.And this year has been even more stressful thanks to the miscreant who stole my tote bag out of my car two weeks ago. I’m normally pretty vigilant about locking my car whenever I go somewhere—even when I just stop for beer at a Quicky-Mart—but I got a little careless and left my passenger side door unlocked while I stopped at the library to drop-off and pick-up one evening on the way home from work. I couldn’t have been in the building more than five minutes, but that was enough time for some palooka to purloin the tote bag I’ve taken to work virtually every day for the last 17 years, which contained my checkbook, two fairly expensive books (mine, not the library’s) and a project I’d been working on in conjunction with them, along with my iPod charger cord, et al. The douche also made off with my “portable drug store”, the Zip-lock bag that I kept my Tylenol, nasal spray, asthma puffer, Band-Aids, ointments, etc., in, along with not one, but both pairs of sunglasses I had in the car, a sweatshirt and sweatpants, my heavy winter gloves and sundry other items. Hope this ass-wipe is happy, because I closed my checking account the next day and opened a new one, and in reality, the stuff he/she/it took was really only valuable to yours truly and no one else. All they really succeeded in doing was inconveniencing me with some collateral damage, as two of the checks I’d sent out before this happened got returned by the bank and I’m out $64 in bank charges. I was kicking myself for a couple days afterward because I left the car unlocked, but the more I thought about it, if they wanted my shit that badly, they’d have thought nothing of busting the window open and taking it anyway, thus leading to an even bigger FUBAR, not to mention a chilly ride home on a 10-degree night…
Therefore, dear friends, I’m feeling fairly salty as this wretched year and decade hurtle to an ignominious end, and Christmas is just exacerbating that vibe with me. Maybe I’m just getting old and jaded, but I’ve grown weary of the whole Christmas rat-race that seemingly starts around Labor Day each year. Hell, you have the stores selling Xmas decorations in September, the radio stations playing wall-to-wall Yuletide tunes before Halloween, and just after Halloween, I have to endure the intrepid Salvation Army bell-ringers. Couldn’t they at least show a little mercy on us and provide these poor schlubs with melodic bells to ring?!? And let’s not forget the people in my neighborhood who have become so obsessed with out-doing each other in their annual competition to see who can create the biggest Christmas shrine in their front yard and/or have the most Christmas lights adorning their house. And then there are these insipid Walmart TV ads depicting these idyllic family units where everything’s just peachy-keen and lovey-dovey in their little worlds. Poffeycock, I say!
I used to look forward to Christmas as much as anyone else, but time and age have chipped away at my enthusiasm. I no longer subscribe to the idea that Christmas is some sort of magic elixir that’s supposed to make everyone suddenly all warm and fuzzy and “get happy”. It’s particularly hard being a single person like me during the holidays, especially one who doesn’t groove to the whole family dynamic thing—I feel very much like an outsider amongst my friends who are in the family way (or whose families are in the way, in some cases). I used to love shopping for gifts for close friends because I always knew what to get them, but in spite of being more well-connected to my friends (via e-mail, Facebook, etc.) than I ever have been, I now often wind up punting by doling out gift cards instead because I don’t have a clue what they could use. Even in my paltry excuse for a love-life, I’ve never had a warm body to wake up with on Christmas morning—not counting my cat who crawled in bed with me in ’85, that is. Ironically, I lost my virginity on Christmas Eve of ’84 (25 years ago tomorrow night?!?) but we didn’t spend the night together—my parents would’ve flipped if they’d known what was going on in their basement that night, let alone if my first girlfriend had stayed over. In my second relationship, my girlfriend wanted very badly to be with me over Christmas, but she’d made previous plans to visit her family back East long before we ever met, so that was a no-go, and my third girlfriend was a long-distance relationship, so Xmas with her was a bust too.
So please forgive me if I’m in full-goose-bozo Grinch/Scrooge mode this year. More succinctly, in the words of Ozzy Osbourne, “I hate fucking Christmas!”
Okay, on to new business…
OUI, OUI, MONSIEUR!
Congrats to my man Martin Brodeur of my beloved New Jersey Devils, who broke the coveted career shutout record for goaltenders Monday night in Pittsburgh, breaking the late Terry Sawchuk’s record of 103. While not quite the same as the home run record in baseball (still held by Hank Aaron, IMO), #104 is an impressive milestone for a guy who still has plenty of gas left in his tank, and MB could easily reach 125 before it’s all said and done, if he remains healthy and has the desire play that long. And while Sawchuk set his mark with several different teams, what’s even more impressive about Marty’s record is he recorded all 104 of his shutouts with the same team—that’s something you’ll never see happen again. Even better, Martin Brodeur is one of the truly good guys in sports—you never see him in the headlines for getting drunk and stupid in a bar fight or for cheating on/beating on his wife (he’s divorced anyway)—and he’s a credit to his sport. He’s bad, he’s nationwide, indeed…
HERE COMES YOUR 20th NERVOUS BREAKDOWN…
As for a guy who used to be a credit to his sport, although it didn’t quite shake out the way I envisioned, Brett Favre is indeed causing friction in the Minnesota Vikings locker room after all. Just like I predicted before the season started, Favre is proving to be a drama queen and divisive figure, given his much-publicized blow-up this week with head coach Brad Childress, who wanted to remove Favre from the game in Carolina during a crappy performance on Sunday night and BF protested. While Favre has performed most impressively and far exceeded my expectations this season, there’s still something rather amiss when an inmate runs the asylum. Would Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana or Peyton Manning have pulled crap like this? I think not. It’s becoming ever so clear that in Favre’s mind, it’s all about him this season and not the team, and I saw today where a former teammate, Leroy Butler, labeled BF as a “diva”. I hope Favre is attacked by the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs (in words of Dr. Niles Crane), “like a drag queen at a tractor pull!”—if the Vikes even get past the first round, that is. And if I have to sit through his annoying Wrangler jeans commercial one more time, I may blow up my TV!
YOU BET YOUR SWEET BIPPIES!
I’m proud to report that my fantasy football team, the Sweet Bippies, are in the Super Bowl this weekend. I’m the #2 seed in our league, and survived a major scare in the first round from #3, and held on to win by five points, thanks mostly to the ineptitude of the Washington Redskins on Monday night. Now the Bipsters face the #1 seed, which features Randy Moss, Matt Schaub and Dallas Clark, among others. Get your tickets now—plenty of good seats still available…
WE DIDN’T MISS A THING
I was actually pleased that the Chefs’ game with Cleveland was blacked-out on local TV Sunday. It gave us the opportunity to watch a much better game—Dolphins/Titans—on CBS instead. From what I hear, it was Fan Depreciation Day at Arrowhead, as the team gave out $5 food vouchers to fans entering the stadium, but only opened like half the concession stands and none of the ancillary beer carts. They also apparently ran out of Coke and Sprite by halftime. Oh, and then the Chefs let the Cleveland Clowns run all over them (literally) and beat them 41-34. Is there any doubt that this team is a total train wreck, both on and off the field, right now? It feels like 1978 all over again, minus the Disco music on the radio. Let’s blow this whole thing up and start over again…
HARMFUL IF TAKEN ORAL-LY
Good ol’ Oral Roberts kicked the bucket since I last posted. As you should well know by now, I consider TV evangelists to be the lowest form of species this side of child pornographers, rapists and Hummer drivers, especially those who extort emotional cripples (and sometimes just plain cripples) for money and turn them into a legion of check-writing morons just so they can lead lives of luxury and keep their LearJets in the air. People like Roberts give organized religion a bad name, and just as I did when Jerry Falwell died, I’m not about to praise the man just because he’s dead now—you know me better than that! Good riddance to another asshole, I say…
MORE TIGER TALES…
Excellent cartoon in Newsweek last week: Tiger Woods is sitting on Santa’s lap and Santa sez, “HO! HO! HO!” and TW responds, “WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?”. Friggin’ brilliant, and evidently pretty accurate, too, since Tiger seemingly has a chick in every port on the PGA Tour to philander with. I’m proud to see that his wife’s actually divorcing his cheatin’ ass too, rather than doing the standard stand-by-your-man act that so many famous wives do, like Elizabeth Edwards, for instance. Not only can’t I relate to being filthy-rich and having the wherewithal to doink any woman I please, I also can’t even relate to cheating on my significant other. It pisses me off no end whenever I see people do this—cheating on someone who treats them well—including a good friend of mine who used to do it with some regularity back in the day before he finally settled down, even though he had a real sweetheart of a girl at home. Given the dearth of relationships in my life, I’ve never even been in a position (let alone had the desire) to cheat on anyone anyway, and from my point of view, it’s just a real shitty thing to do to someone you supposedly love. As for Tiger, as the old Motorhead song goes, “Just ‘cos you got the power, that don’t mean you got the right.”
NOW I REMEMBER…
…why I loathe Rolling Stone magazine so much. A copy of their end-of-decade issue was laying around work last week, and I perused it. True-to-form, their Top 50 albums of the ‘00s list was practically all Kanye West, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. Kanye West is a douche, U2’s output this decade has been mediocre at best, and while a couple of Brucie’s albums over the last ten years weren’t bad, I still say he is grossly overrated, especially by Rolling Stone, as if he can do no wrong. Hell, The Boss could record an album of nothing but nursery rhymes and RS would praise the shit out of it.
I AM A PROPHET! WELL, 60% OF THE TIME, ANYWAY…
“So, here’s who I think should get in [to the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame] this year: Kiss, ABBA, Genesis, the Hollies, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And here’s who I think will actually get voted in this year: The Stooges, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff and Laura Nyro.”--B. Holland, September 24, 2009
Well, in both cases, I got three out of five right, as Genesis, ABBA, the Hollies, Jimmy Cliff and the Stooges are (for better or worse) the 2010 Class of the Crock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. I knew (and correctly predicted) that Kiss wouldn’t get in this time, but I’m a tad surprised the Chili Peppers didn’t make it. Then again, these are the same people (Rolling Stone critics) who think Leonard Cohen is a Rock star…
