So Long, Suckers!

Three Bands That Must Be Forcibly Disbanded:

1. The Fray...am I the only one who thinks the Fray is the worst band of all time? They make Counting Crows (to whom they bear a passing resemblance) sound like the fucking Butthole Surfers. At least Adam Duritz can write a decent verse. In "How To Save A Life" they rhyme 'right' with 'right', 'best' with 'best', and 'thing' with 'everything.' Even my three-year-old daughter knows that is lazy songwriting.

2. Nickelback...they're Canadian, which is an immediate red flag, and the lead singer has the worst Jheri-curl/mullet in history. They had a fluke hit with "How You Remind Me" and they've been rewriting it ever since. The big mystery is, "Who likes them?" Do you know anyone who has any of their albums?

3. The Killers...I kinda dig "Mr. Brightside" but after that I don't get them at all. Hot Fuss is just Duran Duran B-sides, and while the new album is supposed to be Springsteen-style tales of Americana, they seemed like such poseurs on SNL that I thought they were fucking with me.

Weekly Soundtrack

Matthew Sweet Edition:

1. "Falling" from Altered Beast...An overlooked tune buried on Side Two of an overlooked album. The critics didn't like this record because it was bitter and pissed-off-sounding, but that's exactly why I like it. This song perfectly encapsulates that helpless, hopeless feeling of losing something forever, and it has the added bonus of letting Richard Lloyd absolutely burn nonstop for five minutes.
2. "Ugly Truth Rock" from Altered Beast...The angriest tune from that record and, also, the most fun.
3. "You Don't Love Me" from Girlfriend...This has become the soundtrack for my failing marriage. For maximum misery, grab a drink and set on infinite repeat.

Weekly Soundtrack

1. "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain...great riff, great lyrics, great cowbell. The holy grail of Big Dumb Rock Songs.
2. "Love Removal Machine" by the Cult...a close, close second. Good guitar heroics, nuance-free bellowing vocals, no cowbell. "Check this one!" Rock on, dude.
3. "Take It So Hard" by Keith Richards...so ramshackle and seemingly tossed-off, yet soooo cool. He was the musical guest on SNL when this album came out, and I taped it and watched it over and over. Every time my dad saw it he said the same thing: "He sucks." Yeahhhh...

Tigers Win! The Tigers Win!!!!

Way to go, Detroit! The Tigers flat-out smoked the Yankees, and real baseball fans everywhere rejoiced. This is sure to sound like sour grapes since I'm a Red Sox fan, but, trust me, I'm not a knee-jerk Yankee hater. Well, maybe I am, but humor me here.
The Tigers lost 119 games just a couple years ago, which is an American League record. Jeremy Bonderman, who won today's series-clinching game, lost 19 games that year. Today he totally dominated a powerful lineup that looked like they really wanted to be somewhere else. This was a huge comeback for the Detroit Tigers, one that's been three years in the making.
The most puzzling thing is that there was no resiliency to the Yankees. They couldn't get anything going, and once they got behind they couldn't come back. And let's not even talk about a $200 million payroll that has to start Jaret Wright in any kind of big game. The New York pitching was just wretched.
Perhaps now we can stop all this Jeter as the most clutch player of all-time stuff. Jeez, to hear some people talk you'd think he performs a few miracles every day on his way to the ballpark. As a member of freakishly gifted teams from 1996-2000 he was a big time winner. As a player on underachiving teams with huge payrolls he hasn't shown an ability to carry them or overcome their deficiencies (see: Ortiz, D - 2004). I'm not saying he's a stiff like that punk Sheffield, but he's not a player who can dominate games like Ortiz or Pujols.
And let me also smile over the imminent demise of Mr. J. Torre. My dislike for him has already been documented, but this series really tops it off. Sheffield at first base in an elimination game? Nice! Letting the useless A-Rod totally drag you down? Sure thing, Joe! Everyone makes excuses for Torre when the Yankees lose in October: the team didn't have enough pitching, the hitters didn't come through. Eventually though a team's shortcomings has to fall on the manager, and maybe this is finally the year. And for that I personally want to thank Detroit. I hope thay go on to win the whole thing.

The True Meaning of Football

So I'm in this pool at work where we pick every NFL game against the spread for the whole season. The winner will get around $300, so I'm taking it seriously, but, man, it's fucking exhausting. I don't even know who's playing this week and it's already friggin' Thursday. I guess the Patriots are gonna maul the hapless Dolphins, but beyond that I'm lost.
See, the thing is: I suck at picking games. I picked Miami two different times after it was clear that they couldn't beat Ball State. I picked San Francisco to cover against a pissed-off Eagles team who butchered them by 30 points. My strategy is to pick against Oakland every week, but beyond that it's a crapshoot.
The good thing is that the other guys in the pool are just as bad as I am. Or they're sandbagging me so that I don't get too far behind and drop out and cost them loot. All I know for sure is that the Carolina Panthers are killing each and every one of us.

I toyed with the idea of posting my picks every week, but ultimately I think that would be pretty dull (read: embarassing). If I'm still in first place around week 10 I might check back, but there are a lot of games to pick and the potential for a backbreaking 3-13 week is pretty good, so I'm gonna play it close to the vest for now.
The funny thing is that anyone can sound like an expert when they're talking about games before they are played. "Oh yeah, Dallas is gonna be so distracted by the TO suicide thing that Tennessee will be able to keep it close." And then Dallas wins 45-14. And you look like a jerk. But for just one shining moment you sounded like you knew what you were talking about. And maybe if you were lucky you convinced someone in your pool to take Tennessee, too. So it's the bullshitting before the games that's almost as much fun as being right. The genius of the NFL is that the buildup to the games is as much fun as the actual contests (or if the game in question involves Cleveland, it's actually more fun to talk about it and then watch something else.)

Weekly Soundtrack

If I wasn't so incompetent there would be a music player on this page so anyone who wanted to could listen to the songs on this soundtrack. But after more than a weekend of fucking around I gave up and just posted the songs like always. If you know anything about posting mp3s or RSS feeds, leave a comment. If not, leave a comment.

1. "No Surprises" by Radiohead

2. "Inside Out" by The Mighty Lemon Drops...I heard this song on the radio and it really caught my ear. A decent song, even though I had totally forgotten that it existed.

3. "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green...such a friggin' great vibe on this song. The whole album is so masterfully underplayed that it could never get made today. A producer would hear it and decide that it needed some samples and fucked-up drum loops and a shitty guest rapper from the Black Eyed Peas and the whole magic of the music would just get crushed.