Sconnie Tomorrow Mornie

Kaukauna's wedding beckons.

Off to Madison.

I've spent the better part of two days standing in place spinning in circles preparing for Friday morning, hoping that I can cancel out the hangover spin.

It will not likely work, but Mikey and Becky will still get my very best on Saturday afternoon, as those two lovebirds deserve no less. On the contrary, they deserve much, much more.

I love ya, Cowboy:

Desert Island Installment #1

As I have posited this exercise to every living thing I have ever met, I have a handy response to virtually any desert island querie. I still can't decide which breakfast cereal I'd take along (Life, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch are all heavy hitters in that particular debate), but I have thought about such questions with staggering regularity. So often, in fact, that I should probably avoid traveling to any desert islands for fear of an ironic death.

That being the case, we'll forge into the Great Known with the requisite "Three Desert Island Albums, No Mixtapes Allowed, In Any Order."

Beatles - White Album

Pixies - Doolittle

Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet

I am suddenly reminded of an enormous 100 disc CD player I had in college. When put in shuffle mode, there were certain songs that would get played far more often than the would "random" would ordinarily suggest. We (the roomies and I) realized that the thing clearly had a personality, and began to look for signs of intelligence. And while I never caught my CD player playing chess or reading Seneca, you could tell who was sitting in the room by which songs it chose.

Now I'm wondering what the rest of my top ten desert island albums would look like. Hmmm... more to come indubitably.

Hey! Look! I'm a wunderkind.

If you're reading this, I can blog from my phone.
If you can not, this has been a waste of 40 seconds.

Muss Dis Mana

No Way That Just Happened

As promised, here's my abbreviated axiom regarding the existence of alternate universes as proven by Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, specifically Dave Roberts' 9th inning theft of 2nd base and the subsequent game-tying single courtesy Bill Mueller off of Mariano Rivera (the first of many strange goings on that resulted in Boston winning 4 straight games over the hated Yankees.)

Quite simply, I still don't believe the base-burgle (and the subsequent 7-game Sox victory over the then-invincible Yankees) ever took place. Here's what makes more sense:

It didn't happen.

I haven't decided what exactly did happen, but Occam's Razor and the history of the American League East would suggest that Dave Roberts stole 2nd, then Bill Mueller popped up to 3rd. I, however, would like to advance that Dave Roberts stole 2nd but was somehow called out in yet another Yankee gift . This not only seems possible, it seems probable.

This must be what happened.

I didn't realize it at the time, but when Roberts was called safe I had slipped into a traversable wormhole into what I must now consider to be My Reality. This, of course, is only one of many realities that the fleet-footed Roberts forged that evening. When Roberts was called out (in what I can only refer to as the Probable Reality), I must have flipped the fuck out. Flipped. The fuck. Out.

As I was in New York City at the time watching at The Riv, I probably had a lot of company in spewing vitriolic verbal venom in the general direction of the T.V.

Dozens of half-full $9 Budweisers were made airborne.

But here's the best part: were it not for the wormhole, I, for the rest of my life, along with millions of like-minded Boston fans, would have to argue that the series "might have" "turned out differently" had Roberts been awarded 2nd base. Everyone else, in particular millions of smug Yankee "fans" would guffaw loudly at any such theories and speak of Yankee Magic and 1918 and blah blah blah.

But guess the fuck what, Billy? I'm in the universe where the Yankees choked harder than anyone had ever choked before in the history of organized sport. I can prove that the Roberts steal mattered. It mattered. It wiped the smirks off the collective pin-striped face of the sense of entitlement. There's nothing else I can say about what happened; I haven't sufficient knowledge concerning the intricacies of the spacetime continuum. Surely, though, logic dictates it should have never happened.

But it did happen.

Any Objections?

I believe I'll start posting actual "personal" photos over there in the "Never Learned to Read?" section. Nothing too personal though.

Not that I'm doing anything worthy of such documentation, but I don't recall where I found half of those pictures and I believe in doling out credit when said credit is due. That being the case, props to my gal pal Stacy because hers are the absolute tops, babe.

Coming later tonight: a postulation upon the existence of parallel universes as suggested by Dave Roberts stealing 2nd base in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. If that doensn't have you pressing Refresh on your browser of choice, nothing will.

That, but more likely you'll be busy looking up "pr0n."

Football Tent Pole

I may well be imbuing a different brand of nostalgia than you're used to, but I think I speak for all sports fans of discerning taste when I applaud NBC for bringing back the greatest SportsCenter duo of all time. Nights of the Sabbath just got hella hilarious.

Also, NBC: way to go on 30 Rock. That science is tight.

An Ideal [Excuse to Drink w/ Oscar Wilde]

A couple of quick notes:

(1.) For those of you lucky enough to live in this sweltering tinderbox of scorched earth we call Northern California, I encourage, nay, decree, you to do your grey matter a favor and check out An Ideal Husband at the staggeringly-gorgeous Bruns Amphitheater.

And for all you lushes out there, it's BYOBB.

Also, the ingenuous, fair, and literate Briana is stage managing the production, so anything that goes wrong can be directly attributed to her; lightning strikes and/or locusts are somehow her fault in my book. Mine is an awesome book.

(2.) Shifting gears and updating a previous post, the funky handyman Hajji, a.k.a. Rodger Collins, gave me a sneak preview of his new CD, and I don't mind telling you that it kicks your ass and the ass of anything you have hidden inside your ass, pervert.

You'll be hearing a lot of track #2 in the future if I have anything to say about things. Which I of course I do not; but I wish I did, especially if I could throw my voice.

Installments

It occurs to me that the failings of my past blogs was due to my not having anything to write about. Or, more to the point, not having anything remotely interesting to write about. I can only go to the "I Played FreeCell at Work Today" well so often.

To remedy this, I've decided to install the first of many installments (hence the name) that will hopefully amuse and inspire reader commentary. There will be the requisites, e.g. "Desert Island Albums" and "Marry Bang Kill," as well as the new classics: "Baseball's Greatest 'Staches".

This one came up last night with Timmy Sondreal in town. We will, in our winter years, open a bar in which the only wall hangings are framed photographs of moustachioed ballplayers. More on Tim at a later date (when he shares the photos he took), but one quick note: he had a date within 30 minutes of landing at San Francisco International Airport. Kavorka.

That being said, on with the show. I only vaguely recall this guy, but I recall with startling clarity his hairy horseshoe.


You are encouraged to offer suggestions or, God willing, links to some of your favorites. Rollie Fingers is too easy, and Ingrid: Jack Morris' is a given.

Funky Handyman

It's one of dem bomp chicka WAH WAH chick-a-chick-a-chick-a WAH WAAHHH Wednesdays.

At noon today our maintenence man, Hajj, buzzed the door to come fix our "vintage" oven; if the stove is plugged in, any one of the four burners will every so often light itself. This is rarely a good thing unless you can plan to install spontaneous combustion machines into the homes of your enemies.

After I answered the door in my jammy-jams, Hajj came in and, after a brief how-do-you-do, preceded to the kitchen, home to the offending appliance. Whilst walking through our [impeccably-decorated] parlor, he started, well, grooving. Head-bobbing, backside-wagging. The mixtape from an earlier post was playing on the hi-fi, and he was diggin' that strange.

"Never heard this version before... that Ike and Tina?"

Over the next 30 minutes I sipped a cup of ultra-yummy joe whilst Hajj made things right and talked tunage. It turned out that my unassuming handyman, née Rodger Collins, released several well-received albums, toured with some big, big time acts, and even had an extended stint in Vegas with some guy named Elvis. In a remarkable coincidence, he mentioned he was a pallbearer for the late Ike Turner.

So Hajj, thank you kindly for putting the strut in my step today. I encourage all my loyal readers to funk along with me and the Foxy Girls in Oakland.

That's right he said it.

Moreover...

My favorite part of any ballgame is when I've had my third beer and the umpire takes his mask off between innings and I stand up and shout "Holy shit... It's Enrico Pallazzo!"

Never fails. Never.

(too esoteric, Audio?)

That Was A Decideldly-Outside Joke

As an explication to the post three prior, I offer you this.

Imagine my duress when I posted Mr. Richie's ode to fine art as my Yahoo! avatar only to receive no fewer than three inquiries as to the origin of the orange bust with the freakishly-well pronounced chin. For shame, ye bumpkins, for shame.

Hmmm... what would be the artistic equivalent of the uncanny valley? Because that blind chick's statue was almost certainly a definitive example.

More 80's-era edification is sure to follow. Speaking of which, am I on the outside looking in if I didn't recognize at least half of the inside jokes herein?

Musics In Lieu Of Verbosity

Radio Silence

As many of you (well, two of you... hello to Ingrid and Audio) are aware, I have been patiently awaiting my DNS to update after I changed my CNAME to blah blah blah. My readers shouldn't have to look at that horrible ".blogspot." portion of the BumperSmash address; I decree it.

Alas, I have now waited well over the requisite 48 hours for said DNS to update (no, that means nothing to me either) and am still left with an Under Construction page at what should by now be the home to the rawkingest site in cyberspace, home to my ever growing legion of adoring fans, the female portion of which fills my inbox with photos of themselves in various states of undress.

But can they find BumperSmash? No.

So I'll probably post another mixtape and call it a day.