SP
Wears a Chicago (AL) hat.
Center, ring-collector, victim (and fomenter) of infamous Boston racism, autograph-refusing asshole.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Class of 2028
Bill Russell
SP
Wears a Chicago (AL) hat.
Center, ring-collector, victim (and fomenter) of infamous Boston racism, autograph-refusing asshole.
SP
Wears a Chicago (AL) hat.
Center, ring-collector, victim (and fomenter) of infamous Boston racism, autograph-refusing asshole.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Class of 2027
Chicago
OF
Wears a Washington hat.
Some faggotron musical with everyone walking around in their underwear and doing jazz hands and hats, so many hats.
Maxaman - WB
SP
Wears a Philadelphia hat.
Pills that make your dick bigger. The ingredients are things like "Tribulus" and "l-Arginine" and "Sarsaparilla" and "Oyster Meat". The guy on the bottle's dick is so big, he won a trophy, in some sort of dick measuring contest I guess.
OF
Wears a Washington hat.
Some faggotron musical with everyone walking around in their underwear and doing jazz hands and hats, so many hats.
Maxaman - WB
SP
Wears a Philadelphia hat.
Pills that make your dick bigger. The ingredients are things like "Tribulus" and "l-Arginine" and "Sarsaparilla" and "Oyster Meat". The guy on the bottle's dick is so big, he won a trophy, in some sort of dick measuring contest I guess.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Class of 2026
C.R.E.A.M.
C
Wears a Pittsburgh hat.
Can Raekwon Enjoy Another Muffin? (It doesn't matter, he's going to have one anyway.)
Dick Diver
SS
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Dives for dicks, and the occasional bag of dicks. (lol, all women are crazy, both fictional and real.)
Emerson Drive
LF
Wears a Cincinnati hat.
The enemy fleet was rapidly approaching. The Captain, sweat dripping from his brow, barked orders at his first mate.
"The Cylons are closing fast! Is the Emerson Drive ready?"
"Almost set, Captain Kirk! Just a few more calculations.....there!"
"Punch it, Chewie!"
The ship lurched, the stars flared into star bursts, and the crew exploded into spontaneous applause. The Drive had worked. The Spice was safe.
Hedda Gabler
3B
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Manipulative cunt. Norwegian.
Iggy Pop
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Part time rocker, part time bad actor, one-time junkie. Does not believe in shirts. Not Dr. Manhattan.
Monsieur Meursault
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.
W supposedly read this on one of hisbrush-clearing environmental rescue trips to his ranch in Crawford. It'll take a team of psychiatrists to figure that shit out.
C
Wears a Pittsburgh hat.
Can Raekwon Enjoy Another Muffin? (It doesn't matter, he's going to have one anyway.)
Dick Diver
SS
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Dives for dicks, and the occasional bag of dicks. (lol, all women are crazy, both fictional and real.)
Emerson Drive
LF
Wears a Cincinnati hat.
The enemy fleet was rapidly approaching. The Captain, sweat dripping from his brow, barked orders at his first mate.
"The Cylons are closing fast! Is the Emerson Drive ready?"
"Almost set, Captain Kirk! Just a few more calculations.....there!"
"Punch it, Chewie!"
The ship lurched, the stars flared into star bursts, and the crew exploded into spontaneous applause. The Drive had worked. The Spice was safe.
Hedda Gabler
3B
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Manipulative cunt. Norwegian.
Iggy Pop
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Part time rocker, part time bad actor, one-time junkie. Does not believe in shirts. Not Dr. Manhattan.
Monsieur Meursault
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.
W supposedly read this on one of his
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Class of 2025
John Shaft
2B/SS
Wears a Cincinnati hat.
Here's the dirty little secret about Shaft - it's not that good. Oh, it starts off well enough, John Shaft walking the streets of New York, cutting in front of traffic, flashing his badge, talking to a white street vendor (who, one assumes, is friends with Shaft because he is, quite literally, blind and therefore doesn't realize that his buddy is an Uppity Negro). That Song playing the whole time. But then it sort of just turns into a standard actioner. Shaft isn't even all that recognizably black, not the way some other blaxploitation heroes were. He's not trying to get one over on The Man, he's more or less just doing his job.
Or, to keep with the blaxploitation theme, a crude sexual metaphor - The Theme From Shaft works, in part, because it's all foreplay. The anticipation builds and builds through that long-ass intro, until the beat finally changes and Isaac Hayes' voice comes over, smooth as silk. Sings a few lines, the ladies sing back and then, post-coitally, he gets the hell out of Dodge. Shaft, on the other hand, is all orgasm - the opening scene is John Shaft, walking around and being badass, but then the film lingers around all night to cuddle as a pretty rote genre movie. So, if you've never seen it, this will probably suffice:
2B/SS
Wears a Cincinnati hat.
Here's the dirty little secret about Shaft - it's not that good. Oh, it starts off well enough, John Shaft walking the streets of New York, cutting in front of traffic, flashing his badge, talking to a white street vendor (who, one assumes, is friends with Shaft because he is, quite literally, blind and therefore doesn't realize that his buddy is an Uppity Negro). That Song playing the whole time. But then it sort of just turns into a standard actioner. Shaft isn't even all that recognizably black, not the way some other blaxploitation heroes were. He's not trying to get one over on The Man, he's more or less just doing his job.
Or, to keep with the blaxploitation theme, a crude sexual metaphor - The Theme From Shaft works, in part, because it's all foreplay. The anticipation builds and builds through that long-ass intro, until the beat finally changes and Isaac Hayes' voice comes over, smooth as silk. Sings a few lines, the ladies sing back and then, post-coitally, he gets the hell out of Dodge. Shaft, on the other hand, is all orgasm - the opening scene is John Shaft, walking around and being badass, but then the film lingers around all night to cuddle as a pretty rote genre movie. So, if you've never seen it, this will probably suffice:
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Class of 2024
President Abraham Lincoln
SP
Wears a Cleveland hat.
If only. The words that haunt. If only President Lincoln hadn't gone to the theater on that cold, gray evening in April. If only he'd stayed home to play cards, or have sex with his wife, or even a prostitute. Or a dude. Whatever his fancy, if he had stayed home we could have been spared the horrors of the next century and a half (and counting). But he went, and Booth was there too, and he had a gun, and our Abe didn't. And by the end of 1862 the war was all but lost, but the Union hung on for another 3 years, slowly giving ground to the encroaching Confederate forces. If only they had signed the treaty in 1862, perhaps the Union could have removed some of the more onerous passages.
But none of that happened. Abe died, and the war was lost, and the Confederacy proved to be the true dominant force on the North American landmass. Someday perhaps the tide of history will be turned once again, but that day is somewhere on the distant horizon, and this author confesses he can't see it. Perhaps his children, or his grandchildren will see that day.
Norwegian Elkhound
3B/RF
Wears a Brooklyn hat.
Prior to the late-19th century, Norwegian Elkhounds were fairly rare in North America. Today, of course, they're on practically every street corner, pawing through the trash and trying to hump your leg. It is unclear who first brought them over from the Old World but one thing is clear - they make excellent Negro-hunters. With so many slaves fleeing to the Canadian hinterland, and with British Canada showing more and more reluctance to turn slaves over to American authorities (which reached its breaking point with the secession of Alberta to join the renamed Confederate States of North America, from which point forward a de facto state of war has existed between Great Britain and the CSNA), slave owners needed a dog that was capable of hunting your average Negro escapee. Enter the Norwegian Elkhound, particularly suited to cold-climate hunting. A militia of CSNA soldiers wandering across the 49th risks instigating a full-blown nuclear showdown with the Brits, but a single man with a pack of Elkhounds can easily track a runaway slave as far north as Great Bear Lake. In a way, the lowly Elkhound has single-handedly prevented World War IV, and for that perhaps we all owe it our thanks (and our leg).
Shane MacGowan
SP
Wears a New York(NL) hat.
The Minstrels (as they were later dubbed by a hostile Union press) first began arriving on the shores of South Carolina around 1911. Catalans, Roma, Irish. A few Kurds. All came for the same promise - to share their culture, their heritage and especially their music with the well-paying slave-owners that made up the landed gentry of the CSNA (neé CSA). That was the desire, anyway - in truth, many of them ended up as essentially indentured servants, playing shows with other Minstrels for the local slave-owner for little more than a subsistence wage. The Northern press may have called them Minstrels, and created very exaggerated, even offense, caricatures of them in editorial cartoons, but for them it was a living, and it was life.
Shane MacGowan was one such Minstrel, but even from the beginning he was different. He travelled the CSNA as Shane MacGowan and his Minstrel Band of Pogues, but he never accepted the status quo of second-class citizenship, for him or for the slaves who he saw every day tending to their masters while they watched his show. He famously lost most of his teeth as a young man, in a brawl with the son of a local slave-owner, after he allegedly referred to the man as a certain ethnic slur for white people that it is illegal to print. And his music contained many lines that challenged the unfairness of life in the CSNA, always partially hidden from his audiences with his thick Irish brogue. Though his life may have come to a tragic end due to his love of the bottle, he should be remembered for his music above all, and not as the man who's body was found lying face down in an alley in Macon, bottle of gin in hand, his time all too short on this Earth at a mere 15 years, 4 months, 22 days.
MacGowan, with his Minstrel Band in happier times. Note the line about "blacks and Paks and Jocks".
SP
Wears a Cleveland hat.
If only. The words that haunt. If only President Lincoln hadn't gone to the theater on that cold, gray evening in April. If only he'd stayed home to play cards, or have sex with his wife, or even a prostitute. Or a dude. Whatever his fancy, if he had stayed home we could have been spared the horrors of the next century and a half (and counting). But he went, and Booth was there too, and he had a gun, and our Abe didn't. And by the end of 1862 the war was all but lost, but the Union hung on for another 3 years, slowly giving ground to the encroaching Confederate forces. If only they had signed the treaty in 1862, perhaps the Union could have removed some of the more onerous passages.
But none of that happened. Abe died, and the war was lost, and the Confederacy proved to be the true dominant force on the North American landmass. Someday perhaps the tide of history will be turned once again, but that day is somewhere on the distant horizon, and this author confesses he can't see it. Perhaps his children, or his grandchildren will see that day.
Norwegian Elkhound
3B/RF
Wears a Brooklyn hat.
Prior to the late-19th century, Norwegian Elkhounds were fairly rare in North America. Today, of course, they're on practically every street corner, pawing through the trash and trying to hump your leg. It is unclear who first brought them over from the Old World but one thing is clear - they make excellent Negro-hunters. With so many slaves fleeing to the Canadian hinterland, and with British Canada showing more and more reluctance to turn slaves over to American authorities (which reached its breaking point with the secession of Alberta to join the renamed Confederate States of North America, from which point forward a de facto state of war has existed between Great Britain and the CSNA), slave owners needed a dog that was capable of hunting your average Negro escapee. Enter the Norwegian Elkhound, particularly suited to cold-climate hunting. A militia of CSNA soldiers wandering across the 49th risks instigating a full-blown nuclear showdown with the Brits, but a single man with a pack of Elkhounds can easily track a runaway slave as far north as Great Bear Lake. In a way, the lowly Elkhound has single-handedly prevented World War IV, and for that perhaps we all owe it our thanks (and our leg).
Shane MacGowan
SP
Wears a New York(NL) hat.
The Minstrels (as they were later dubbed by a hostile Union press) first began arriving on the shores of South Carolina around 1911. Catalans, Roma, Irish. A few Kurds. All came for the same promise - to share their culture, their heritage and especially their music with the well-paying slave-owners that made up the landed gentry of the CSNA (neé CSA). That was the desire, anyway - in truth, many of them ended up as essentially indentured servants, playing shows with other Minstrels for the local slave-owner for little more than a subsistence wage. The Northern press may have called them Minstrels, and created very exaggerated, even offense, caricatures of them in editorial cartoons, but for them it was a living, and it was life.
Shane MacGowan was one such Minstrel, but even from the beginning he was different. He travelled the CSNA as Shane MacGowan and his Minstrel Band of Pogues, but he never accepted the status quo of second-class citizenship, for him or for the slaves who he saw every day tending to their masters while they watched his show. He famously lost most of his teeth as a young man, in a brawl with the son of a local slave-owner, after he allegedly referred to the man as a certain ethnic slur for white people that it is illegal to print. And his music contained many lines that challenged the unfairness of life in the CSNA, always partially hidden from his audiences with his thick Irish brogue. Though his life may have come to a tragic end due to his love of the bottle, he should be remembered for his music above all, and not as the man who's body was found lying face down in an alley in Macon, bottle of gin in hand, his time all too short on this Earth at a mere 15 years, 4 months, 22 days.
MacGowan, with his Minstrel Band in happier times. Note the line about "blacks and Paks and Jocks".
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Class of 2022
Bishop
LF/1B
Wears a Boston hat.
Bishop is a Badass Negro From The Future (is there any kind of Negro From The Future other than a badass one?). See that M on his face? In the future that Bishop is from, that's how Badass Negro (and, to be fair, Lillylivered Cracker) mutants are identified. Bishop's mutant powers involve absorbing and re-channeling energy but really, who needs powers when you can just look at a motherfucker cockeyed and they'd run away?
Steve Diggle
1B
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Steve Diggle basically became Howard Devoto Mk.II, when Devoto left the Buzzcocks to form Magazine. And if you think it's tough following a legend, well, it's probably not that hard to follow someone who kind of hadn't done shit up to that point. Shelley and Diggle were (are?) the 'Cocks, and if there happens to be a straight line that can be drawn between them and Green Day, well, they'll pay for it in hell some day.
Steve Van Buren
SS/OF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Look at that jaw - you could remove his head and use it as a goddamn wrecking ball. If you're surprised to see him wearing kelly green just remind yourself, yes, the Eagles were once the toughest motherfuckers on the block. Perhaps it's true that sports franchises take on the aspects of the city in which they play - the Eagles and Flyers represent the city's rough and tumble nature, and the Phillies represent its latent racism and inferiority complex.
LF/1B
Wears a Boston hat.
Bishop is a Badass Negro From The Future (is there any kind of Negro From The Future other than a badass one?). See that M on his face? In the future that Bishop is from, that's how Badass Negro (and, to be fair, Lillylivered Cracker) mutants are identified. Bishop's mutant powers involve absorbing and re-channeling energy but really, who needs powers when you can just look at a motherfucker cockeyed and they'd run away?
Steve Diggle
1B
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Steve Diggle basically became Howard Devoto Mk.II, when Devoto left the Buzzcocks to form Magazine. And if you think it's tough following a legend, well, it's probably not that hard to follow someone who kind of hadn't done shit up to that point. Shelley and Diggle were (are?) the 'Cocks, and if there happens to be a straight line that can be drawn between them and Green Day, well, they'll pay for it in hell some day.
Steve Van Buren
SS/OF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Look at that jaw - you could remove his head and use it as a goddamn wrecking ball. If you're surprised to see him wearing kelly green just remind yourself, yes, the Eagles were once the toughest motherfuckers on the block. Perhaps it's true that sports franchises take on the aspects of the city in which they play - the Eagles and Flyers represent the city's rough and tumble nature, and the Phillies represent its latent racism and inferiority complex.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Class of 2021
Siberian Husky
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Poor Harry the Husky, cursed with a perpetual case of bukakke mouth. I guess it's preferable to working alongside Cuba Gooding Jr.
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
Poor Harry the Husky, cursed with a perpetual case of bukakke mouth. I guess it's preferable to working alongside Cuba Gooding Jr.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Class of 2020
Guys and Dolls
CF
Wears a St. Louis hat
The plot summary for this thing is really fucking long on wikipedia so instead of reading it, I'm just going to make up my own.
Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson are two students in Miss Adelaide's 10th grade class. They both have their eyes on the same girl, who happens to go to the Catholic school across the street and is studying to be a nun, Sister Sarah Brown. They are also tormented by the bullies in the class, Nicely-Nicely Johnson Johnson, Harry the Horse and Rusty Charlie. Along with the kids learning how to count in old-timey increments ("A Bushel and a Peck"), we learn that Miss Adelaide secretly believes she is a man trapped in a woman's body ("Adelaide's Lament") and that Sister Sarah has an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia ("If I Were a Bell"). Eventually, Nathan and Sky engage in an old-fashioned game of War in order to determine who will win Sister Sarah's affections ("Luck be a Lady"). Nathan wins the contest and Sister Sarah is forced to marry him after being caught in a compromising position with Nathan behind the bleachers ("Marry the Man Today"). Everyone returns for the last number ("Finale") including a very pregnant Sister Sarah.
CF
Wears a St. Louis hat
The plot summary for this thing is really fucking long on wikipedia so instead of reading it, I'm just going to make up my own.
Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson are two students in Miss Adelaide's 10th grade class. They both have their eyes on the same girl, who happens to go to the Catholic school across the street and is studying to be a nun, Sister Sarah Brown. They are also tormented by the bullies in the class, Nicely-Nicely Johnson Johnson, Harry the Horse and Rusty Charlie. Along with the kids learning how to count in old-timey increments ("A Bushel and a Peck"), we learn that Miss Adelaide secretly believes she is a man trapped in a woman's body ("Adelaide's Lament") and that Sister Sarah has an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia ("If I Were a Bell"). Eventually, Nathan and Sky engage in an old-fashioned game of War in order to determine who will win Sister Sarah's affections ("Luck be a Lady"). Nathan wins the contest and Sister Sarah is forced to marry him after being caught in a compromising position with Nathan behind the bleachers ("Marry the Man Today"). Everyone returns for the last number ("Finale") including a very pregnant Sister Sarah.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Class of 2019
Jamie Gold
SS
Wears a Boston hat.
Let's take a trip in the way back machine to 2006. The World Baseball Classic was captivating the attention of people across the globe. Chamillionaire was just beginning his ascent to the apex of the pop world. Myspace was allowing teenagers of all stripes to blast "S.O.S." at top volume directly to your computer and tell you why Night at the Museum was the Best Movie Evar!!!!!1111111oneoneoneoneone. And the world of poker, which continues its stratospheric rise in popularity to this day, was being conquered by this man:
We will all no doubt remember where we were when ESPN announced, via tape delay, that Jamie Gold had entered our lives to stay. It was a magical year.
Peter Hook
1B
Wears a New York (AL) hat.
Besides being the owner of the world's longest-running, wispiest beard, and having the world's most annoying Myspace page (you've been warned), Peter Hook also spent some of his time in two bands that managed to amass a small, if loyal, following. And how does one follow up that sort of career? By forming a band with two other totally not washed-up bassists called, get ready for hilarity, Freebass. The sky's the limit for this young go getter.
SS
Wears a Boston hat.
Let's take a trip in the way back machine to 2006. The World Baseball Classic was captivating the attention of people across the globe. Chamillionaire was just beginning his ascent to the apex of the pop world. Myspace was allowing teenagers of all stripes to blast "S.O.S." at top volume directly to your computer and tell you why Night at the Museum was the Best Movie Evar!!!!!1111111oneoneoneoneone. And the world of poker, which continues its stratospheric rise in popularity to this day, was being conquered by this man:
We will all no doubt remember where we were when ESPN announced, via tape delay, that Jamie Gold had entered our lives to stay. It was a magical year.
Peter Hook
1B
Wears a New York (AL) hat.
Besides being the owner of the world's longest-running, wispiest beard, and having the world's most annoying Myspace page (you've been warned), Peter Hook also spent some of his time in two bands that managed to amass a small, if loyal, following. And how does one follow up that sort of career? By forming a band with two other totally not washed-up bassists called, get ready for hilarity, Freebass. The sky's the limit for this young go getter.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Class of 2018
"The Art of War", by Jomini
OF
Wears a Cleveland hat.
If there's one thing the French like more than eating cheese and being uppity assholes, it's writing books on military theory. This book was hot shit during the Civil War, when people still killed each other by marching around on battlefields and trying to gain miniscule geographic advantages - nowadays death mostly comes from above, so the only people who read this crap are the fighting Keyboard Commandos who conduct theoretical asymmetric war against the brown peoples of the world from the comfort of their living rooms. I guess if you read it you'd become the world's awesomeist Axis and Allies player or something.
Robert A. Toombs
SP
Wears a Cleveland hat.
Speaking of uppity assholes....just look at this high-collared shitbag. Look, I have little patience with these douchesacks who decided the best way to deal with laws they didn't like was to quit the game like a fucking 4-year-old. And Toombs quit motherfucking everything - the Confederate cabinet, his military commission, his fucking post-war citizenship. On the positive side, that's a pretty sharp vest.
OF
Wears a Cleveland hat.
If there's one thing the French like more than eating cheese and being uppity assholes, it's writing books on military theory. This book was hot shit during the Civil War, when people still killed each other by marching around on battlefields and trying to gain miniscule geographic advantages - nowadays death mostly comes from above, so the only people who read this crap are the fighting Keyboard Commandos who conduct theoretical asymmetric war against the brown peoples of the world from the comfort of their living rooms. I guess if you read it you'd become the world's awesomeist Axis and Allies player or something.
Robert A. Toombs
SP
Wears a Cleveland hat.
Speaking of uppity assholes....just look at this high-collared shitbag. Look, I have little patience with these douchesacks who decided the best way to deal with laws they didn't like was to quit the game like a fucking 4-year-old. And Toombs quit motherfucking everything - the Confederate cabinet, his military commission, his fucking post-war citizenship. On the positive side, that's a pretty sharp vest.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Class of 2016
Sir John Falstaff
OF
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Falstaff shows up in 4 works of Shakespeare's (The two Henry IV plays, Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor) although he doesn't have any lines in Henry V and the character in The Merry Wives of Windsor is kind of a Bizarro (not to mention: sucky) version. First, Falstaff is fat. If you want to play him, you have to be fat, or wear a fat suit. Second, Falstaff lies, steals, cheats and generally acts like kind of an asshole. But everyone loves him anyway, especially Henry V. Probably because he's just so goddamned fat. Like Santa Claus, if instead of giving you toys, he came down your chimney every Christmas to steal your jewelry and consumer electronics. Other characters who are based on Falstaff include Harry Mudd, George Costanza, and late period Orson Welles.
OF
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Falstaff shows up in 4 works of Shakespeare's (The two Henry IV plays, Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor) although he doesn't have any lines in Henry V and the character in The Merry Wives of Windsor is kind of a Bizarro (not to mention: sucky) version. First, Falstaff is fat. If you want to play him, you have to be fat, or wear a fat suit. Second, Falstaff lies, steals, cheats and generally acts like kind of an asshole. But everyone loves him anyway, especially Henry V. Probably because he's just so goddamned fat. Like Santa Claus, if instead of giving you toys, he came down your chimney every Christmas to steal your jewelry and consumer electronics. Other characters who are based on Falstaff include Harry Mudd, George Costanza, and late period Orson Welles.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Class of 2015
Xanax
SS
Wears a Philadelphia hat.
Xanax is what you take if you're a panicky idiot, but not if you're a "duh duh" idiot. There's no pill you can take for that.
SS
Wears a Philadelphia hat.
Xanax is what you take if you're a panicky idiot, but not if you're a "duh duh" idiot. There's no pill you can take for that.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Class of 2014
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase
SP
Wears a Cleveland hat.
They obviously don't circulate anymore, but if you're lucky enough to get your hands on one of the few remaining 10,000 dollar bills in existence, you'll see Chase's mug staring back at you. It's an arguable point, but I'd say that Chase is less famous for being Chief Justice than for being Secretary of Treasury during Lincoln's first term, which led to an interesting historical irony - as Secretary of Treasury, Chase (against his will, more or less) presided over the first printing by the Federal Government of paper currency, money which was unbacked by anything tangible - since the government had lots of war debts to pay, the easiest way of doing so was to simply print money and not worry too much about future inflation; as Chief Justice 10 years later, he determined that, by doing this, the government had violated the Constitution. Needless to say, this didn't stick, and today US currency (like most currencies around the world) is unbacked. If I was some Libertarian weirdo who had actually named his son Rand, I'd probably think Salmon P Chase was superhappyawesomefuntime for his stance against fiat money - since I'm not, he gets a meh-plus from me; some good, some bad, stupid name.
SP
Wears a Cleveland hat.
They obviously don't circulate anymore, but if you're lucky enough to get your hands on one of the few remaining 10,000 dollar bills in existence, you'll see Chase's mug staring back at you. It's an arguable point, but I'd say that Chase is less famous for being Chief Justice than for being Secretary of Treasury during Lincoln's first term, which led to an interesting historical irony - as Secretary of Treasury, Chase (against his will, more or less) presided over the first printing by the Federal Government of paper currency, money which was unbacked by anything tangible - since the government had lots of war debts to pay, the easiest way of doing so was to simply print money and not worry too much about future inflation; as Chief Justice 10 years later, he determined that, by doing this, the government had violated the Constitution. Needless to say, this didn't stick, and today US currency (like most currencies around the world) is unbacked. If I was some Libertarian weirdo who had actually named his son Rand, I'd probably think Salmon P Chase was superhappyawesomefuntime for his stance against fiat money - since I'm not, he gets a meh-plus from me; some good, some bad, stupid name.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Class of 2012
Ray Guy
RP
Wears a Milwaukee hat
Did you know:
- that Ray Guy attended the University of Southern Mississippi, and was its most famous alumni until Lou "don't shoot until you see the whites" Beesley and some guy named Favor or Furtive or some bullshit?
- that Ray Guy's foot is on loan to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, still incased in the shoe in which it was frozen and then hacked off at the request of Hall curators?
- that Ray Guy backwards is Yugyar, which sounds like a character in some Piers Anthony crapathon?
- that you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day?
- that Ray Guy would be a good name for those guys in the black helmets who push the buttons and pull the levers to activate the Death Star's laser?- why do they need those big black helmets if they're just sitting at a console pushing some buttons anyway?
- shouldn't firing that laser require some sort of failsafe, like needing to have two top-level commanders turn keys at the same time or something?
- I mean, we do that on submarines, and those can't blow up planets. As it stands, one of those black helmeted guys could just blow up a planet that, say, an ex-girlfriend that cheated on him with a TIE pilot lived on.
- And considering how lax security on the Death Star is, it seems entirely possible that a small band of rebels could sneak into the superlaser control room, turn it on, aim it at, like, a mirror that's positioned some distance away in space and voila, no fuss, no muss, Death Star blows itself up with its own superweapon. The irony alone would probably destroy the Empire.
So, in conclusion, Ray Guy: awesome punter.
RP
Wears a Milwaukee hat
Did you know:
- that Ray Guy attended the University of Southern Mississippi, and was its most famous alumni until Lou "don't shoot until you see the whites" Beesley and some guy named Favor or Furtive or some bullshit?
- that Ray Guy's foot is on loan to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, still incased in the shoe in which it was frozen and then hacked off at the request of Hall curators?
- that Ray Guy backwards is Yugyar, which sounds like a character in some Piers Anthony crapathon?
- that you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day?
- that Ray Guy would be a good name for those guys in the black helmets who push the buttons and pull the levers to activate the Death Star's laser?- why do they need those big black helmets if they're just sitting at a console pushing some buttons anyway?
- shouldn't firing that laser require some sort of failsafe, like needing to have two top-level commanders turn keys at the same time or something?
- I mean, we do that on submarines, and those can't blow up planets. As it stands, one of those black helmeted guys could just blow up a planet that, say, an ex-girlfriend that cheated on him with a TIE pilot lived on.
- And considering how lax security on the Death Star is, it seems entirely possible that a small band of rebels could sneak into the superlaser control room, turn it on, aim it at, like, a mirror that's positioned some distance away in space and voila, no fuss, no muss, Death Star blows itself up with its own superweapon. The irony alone would probably destroy the Empire.
So, in conclusion, Ray Guy: awesome punter.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Class of 2011
Kilgore Trout
CF
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Kurt Vonnegut's fictional alter-ego, Kilgore Trout is both a brilliant thinker and a terrible, terrible writer. Mostly he gets his science-fiction short stories published in porno mags - he's sort of like Philip K Dick, but without the paranoia and crippling methamphetamine addiction.
Sachin Tendulkar
CF
Wears a Cleveland hat.
Would you believe this guy is Indian, and that he plays cricket? No? You have some attitude, jackass. Well he is, and he does. One of his nicknames is "Master Blaster" which is a game that's always seemed like more fun than it really is. Anyway, Tendulkar is crazy popular in all those loser countries that play cricket like India and Australia where they drive on the wrong side of the road and spell words wrong. Hopefully this will be my last cricketer because I have clearly run out of ways to make fun of the sport and my next bio will simply be a treatise on the book "Life, the Universe and Everything".
Basil Fawlty
SP
Wears a Washington hat.
English people think this show is fucking hi-larious. I saw it a couple of times - some hijinx, a few misunderstandings, some over-the-top physical humor. Nothing ages worse than a sitcom. Okay, Mickey Rourke. Nothing ages worse than a sitcom other than Mickey Rourke.
CF
Wears a St. Louis hat.
Kurt Vonnegut's fictional alter-ego, Kilgore Trout is both a brilliant thinker and a terrible, terrible writer. Mostly he gets his science-fiction short stories published in porno mags - he's sort of like Philip K Dick, but without the paranoia and crippling methamphetamine addiction.
Sachin Tendulkar
CF
Wears a Cleveland hat.
Would you believe this guy is Indian, and that he plays cricket? No? You have some attitude, jackass. Well he is, and he does. One of his nicknames is "Master Blaster" which is a game that's always seemed like more fun than it really is. Anyway, Tendulkar is crazy popular in all those loser countries that play cricket like India and Australia where they drive on the wrong side of the road and spell words wrong. Hopefully this will be my last cricketer because I have clearly run out of ways to make fun of the sport and my next bio will simply be a treatise on the book "Life, the Universe and Everything".
Basil Fawlty SP
Wears a Washington hat.
English people think this show is fucking hi-larious. I saw it a couple of times - some hijinx, a few misunderstandings, some over-the-top physical humor. Nothing ages worse than a sitcom. Okay, Mickey Rourke. Nothing ages worse than a sitcom other than Mickey Rourke.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Class of 2010
Patti Smith
RF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
There's a story in Legs McNeil's indispensible Please Kill Me where some punk icon is talking about Patty Smith and says something to the effect of "you couldn't tell, because she always wore masculine clothing and baggy shirts, but Patty had really big tits" which stuck with me, for some reason. I guess because it's such a contradictory story about a woman who looks kind of like Susan Sontag and carries herself like a dude, and I like to imagine that Patti would laugh about it.
In any case, Patti Smith is a bad bitch.
William Murderface
SS/3B
Wears a Kansas City hat.
William Murderface is the bassist for Dethklok, fictional band featured in Adult Swim's "Metalocalypse". This show is, unsurprisingly, popular among the young, stoned and unemployable. Murderface has one of those Lou Holtz lisps, is really violent and pisses in inappropriate locations. If you don't think that description can sustain one of the main characters in a cartoon sitcom over 26 (and counting) episodes, you've never seen Adult Swim.
Ben Matlock
SP
Wears a Washington hat.
Andy Griffith is all grown up, and now he's got a law degree and is asleep on the couch in front of "Wheel of Fortune" by 8:00 every night! Despite running for 24 seasons, from 1972 to 1995, and spawning the hit catch-phrase "That's my monkey!", centerpiece of Steve Garvey's successful 1988 Presidential bid, "Matlock" is still probably best-known as the series that spun off hit television show "Jake and the Fatman".
Lily Munster
SP
Wears a Washington hat.
The Munsters seems like the classic example of pitch-as-premise (they're living in suburbia, but they're monsters!) As far as I can tell (and I've never watched this stupid show, so I could be wrong) they pretty much go through all the sitcom motions: weird new jobs, long-lost cousins, double-entendre misunderstandings. Yvonne DeCarlo also played Moses' chaste cipher of a wife in The Ten Commandments - alongside uber-hams like Chuck Heston, Anne Baxter and Yul Brenner, the character she played might as well have been played by a two-by-four with a smiley face painted on it.
RF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.
There's a story in Legs McNeil's indispensible Please Kill Me where some punk icon is talking about Patty Smith and says something to the effect of "you couldn't tell, because she always wore masculine clothing and baggy shirts, but Patty had really big tits" which stuck with me, for some reason. I guess because it's such a contradictory story about a woman who looks kind of like Susan Sontag and carries herself like a dude, and I like to imagine that Patti would laugh about it.
In any case, Patti Smith is a bad bitch.
William Murderface
SS/3B
Wears a Kansas City hat.
William Murderface is the bassist for Dethklok, fictional band featured in Adult Swim's "Metalocalypse". This show is, unsurprisingly, popular among the young, stoned and unemployable. Murderface has one of those Lou Holtz lisps, is really violent and pisses in inappropriate locations. If you don't think that description can sustain one of the main characters in a cartoon sitcom over 26 (and counting) episodes, you've never seen Adult Swim.
Ben Matlock
SP
Wears a Washington hat.
Andy Griffith is all grown up, and now he's got a law degree and is asleep on the couch in front of "Wheel of Fortune" by 8:00 every night! Despite running for 24 seasons, from 1972 to 1995, and spawning the hit catch-phrase "That's my monkey!", centerpiece of Steve Garvey's successful 1988 Presidential bid, "Matlock" is still probably best-known as the series that spun off hit television show "Jake and the Fatman".
Lily Munster
SP
Wears a Washington hat.
The Munsters seems like the classic example of pitch-as-premise (they're living in suburbia, but they're monsters!) As far as I can tell (and I've never watched this stupid show, so I could be wrong) they pretty much go through all the sitcom motions: weird new jobs, long-lost cousins, double-entendre misunderstandings. Yvonne DeCarlo also played Moses' chaste cipher of a wife in The Ten Commandments - alongside uber-hams like Chuck Heston, Anne Baxter and Yul Brenner, the character she played might as well have been played by a two-by-four with a smiley face painted on it.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Class of 2009
Dilsey Gibson
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.
This is, of course, a relatively easy bio to write - Dilsey Gibson is the Mammy character from William Faulkner's best-known work, The Sound and the Fury. You can write your own Aunt Jemima joke here (Aunt Jemima herself actually has a pretty colorful history, no pun intended. Look her up some time). The Compson family is privileged, Southern and white, is (naturally) full of retards and fuck-ups, and Dilsey is the black servant who takes care of and observes them.
I learn more from some bios than others. Doing the bio for, say, Duff Man doesn't require a lot of research, but sometimes I don't know a lot about the subject and I try to read enough to give a reasonably rounded portrayal. I've never read Faulkner - I knew him as that guy who wrote all those stories about a fictional Mississippi county (Yoknapatawpha). He grew up during, and wrote about, the post-Reconstruction, pre-civil rights era South, so naturally his books have been studied extensively in terms of their racial politics. There is anecdotal evidence
that suggests he actually had a servant when he was little who he called Mammy, so it's hard to fault him for what might be a less than full portrayal of a central black character. His own view of the civil rights movement (he died in 1962) is difficult to pin down, but near as I can tell it went something like this: full civil rights for blacks is a morally unimpeachable position, but practically speaking it is better for blacks to be slowly or partially integrated into white society, rather than fully and all at once. That seems kind of stupid really, but I would wager that many ostensibly liberal white Southerners felt that way. Faulkner obviously had a lot of affection for Dilsey Gibson, even if it was impossible for him to draw her as a fully three-dimensional character. His writing captures a time, and a place, in American history, and I would guess that he will remain an author that can be enjoyed more than just ironically (yeah, I'm looking at you Harriet Beecher Stowe).
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.
This is, of course, a relatively easy bio to write - Dilsey Gibson is the Mammy character from William Faulkner's best-known work, The Sound and the Fury. You can write your own Aunt Jemima joke here (Aunt Jemima herself actually has a pretty colorful history, no pun intended. Look her up some time). The Compson family is privileged, Southern and white, is (naturally) full of retards and fuck-ups, and Dilsey is the black servant who takes care of and observes them.
I learn more from some bios than others. Doing the bio for, say, Duff Man doesn't require a lot of research, but sometimes I don't know a lot about the subject and I try to read enough to give a reasonably rounded portrayal. I've never read Faulkner - I knew him as that guy who wrote all those stories about a fictional Mississippi county (Yoknapatawpha). He grew up during, and wrote about, the post-Reconstruction, pre-civil rights era South, so naturally his books have been studied extensively in terms of their racial politics. There is anecdotal evidence
that suggests he actually had a servant when he was little who he called Mammy, so it's hard to fault him for what might be a less than full portrayal of a central black character. His own view of the civil rights movement (he died in 1962) is difficult to pin down, but near as I can tell it went something like this: full civil rights for blacks is a morally unimpeachable position, but practically speaking it is better for blacks to be slowly or partially integrated into white society, rather than fully and all at once. That seems kind of stupid really, but I would wager that many ostensibly liberal white Southerners felt that way. Faulkner obviously had a lot of affection for Dilsey Gibson, even if it was impossible for him to draw her as a fully three-dimensional character. His writing captures a time, and a place, in American history, and I would guess that he will remain an author that can be enjoyed more than just ironically (yeah, I'm looking at you Harriet Beecher Stowe).
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