So
I am sitting at my computer at around 8 p.m. EST trying to calculate every single yard, sack and touchdown that occurred in my fantasy football matchup this week.. Suddenly, I get an IM from His Holiness, Widro. He wants me to fill in for Hyatte’s Midnight News column and would like something in his inbox by tomorrow.
Well, considering that I spent most of this Sunday cleaning up vomit that was left over in my car from a weekend of partying at the Enemy’s Campus, I figure I might as well make another attempt at a Mop Up job. And just like with the vomit, where I removed just about every single stain, chunk of food and line of drool from every article of clothing, seat of the car and stuff laying in the back seat, I will not leave any stone unturned. Nor will I fail. You expect comedy, wrestling news, non-wrestling news, pornographic material, random bitterness and insight.
This is exactly what you are going to get. In fact, I’m even going to make an unscheduled substitution for Eric S. and give you my own brand of liberal bile to share with your conservative friends. I will give you what you want.
Play Ball!
Some of you asked why I didn’t write a column last week. The power, which was knocked out for over a week due to Isabel, has long since been restored, you have at least a few hours to spare in-between sleeping and working and you aren’t sick either. What gives?
It’s called October, folks. The undisputed best month of the year for the sports fan. Well, March is a close second as it brings us baseball, the home stretches in basketball and hockey and the always-maddening Final Four. However, October clearly rules the roost. Both the college and professional football seasons are in full swing, baseball gives us its playoffs, which I still believe are the most exciting of any major sport, and hockey and basketball get underway. Tailgating, fantasy football match-ups, curses, pitching changes, pulling against the Yankees, figuring out who the Hell is where after another off-season of free agency, and drinking, drinking and more drinking. You cannot beat October. Only the strange pull of this month could induce a 72 year-old bench coach into bum rushing the opposing team’s star pitcher.
So to those who expected the column on Tuesday, I must apologize. There was a thrilling 9th inning clash between the Bo Sox and A’s on and it was immediately followed by one of the best 4th quarter comebacks in football history. I didn’t even have it in me to remember that I had a column to write.
Check the archives, though. I have an amazing attendance record in my one year here despite natural disasters, a lull in the business, sickness, my demanding job and hardly ever resorting to writing about topics unrelated to wrestling. Or even tirades and name-calling directed at other writers. How many writers can say that?
Music To My Ears
I want to make a comment about music that I feel is long overdue and sorely unnoticed. There is a reason why hip-hop, among other musical genres, is gradually eating into the market share that rock music has generally occupied. If you look at hip-hop, it has unfettered control over the sex and drug aspects of music and it definitely rocks more than any of these weak-ass rock bands out on the market today. You can pretend to be excited about that new Staind album, but I’m not going to lie to myself.
Less than 4 years ago, I was a diehard Metallica fan who completely turned his nose to anything pop or hip-hop. My how things change.
Who Books This Crap?
While I try to cover the bases that are usually rounded on Sundays, I thought I would offer a few books that I have found particularly influential and/or entertaining. I used to be an English major at the The University, so I don’t consider myself to be stepping out of bounds. Just trying to continue a worthy cause.
To start, if you like stories about cunning women, try William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Moreover, if there are any students thinking about taking the AP English exam out there (and if so, get back to work the test is 7 months away, slacker), Chopin’s book is particularly good to know, especially for the open-ended part. Over half of the AP committee that grades the exam is comprised of women and they love to hear someone extolling the virtues of that book, i.e., independence, femininity, individuality, bucking social conventions and so on.
I know from experience.
Faulkner is good across the boards by the way. There is no shame in going to your local Barnes and Noble or Waldenbooks and buying a set of Cliff’s Notes or trolling around on the web for a guide to help you through some of his books. A lot of people can’t keep up with the guy anyway.
Anyone who wants to know how to properly debunk the virtues of the South should be familiar with Mr. Faulkner
Hyatte recently added Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions to his reading list. He got a good tip from someone. If his science fiction writing tends to lose or bore you, try Mother Night, which he wrote before he developed into the mad genius we know him as today. Still very funny and still gives a strong, moral message about individual responsibility while doing so.
Finally, if you want to just flat out laugh, you cannot go wrong with Catch-22 by the late Joseph Heller. It is the satirical equivalent of a surgeon’s scalpel and also delivers a strong moral message regarding the absurdity of war.
Did Someone Say Absurdity Of War??
A lot of you do not know this, but it was the writings and unadulterated vitriol of one Eric S. who brought me to this website. Not Hyatte, not Scott Keith and not anyone else. When I arrived here as a refugee of the Wrestlemaniacs shutdown and Bill Milano’s retirement from DDT Digest, I encountered Eric fully engrossed in the Barbara Olson controversy for which he is famous. Or infamous, if you must. Anyone that could write about wrestling, liberal politics, science fiction, technology AND be interesting was definitely worth a read to me. I became hooked and a year later I submitted to Ashish and got my own column. Now I’m in the King’s throne writing about myself.
Fuck yeah.
Anyhow, given this history, I feel obligated to not only write about politics, but write about it with some umph. Some fire. Some bile. Especially since Flea said this country would be better off over the next 4 years under Bush than any of the Democratic hopefuls while filling in for my mentor.
When I hear a statement like that, I wonder to whom it applies. Perhaps a worker at a local manufacturing plant that lost his job because his factory has been ordered to shut down? How about an investor who has seen what was once a decent nest egg gradually erode over the past 4 years? Maybe a solider who is thousands of miles away from his family in a foreign land that doesn’t seem to be welcoming him with open arms like he was told? Maybe the family of that soldier? How about if you are the husband of a CIA operative whose name got leaked over a political squabble?
I cannot agree with that statement because this administration has a good track record of looking out for itself first and the people second.
In 2002, a year removed from the Enron fallout, Harvey Pitt, then chair of the Securities Exchange Commission, the federal body in charge of policing corporate America and regulating securities markets, faced a demanding workload. Enron and Worldcom had shaken the confidence of American investors and the need for more legislative initiatives and staff to meet this workload was clearly evident. The White House promised a budget of 760 million dollars to meet this need but backed off of that number by about 200 million dollars over the summer. The country could not afford it, said the White House, which was running sizable budget deficits. Pitt, who was chosen by Bush, openly admitted that such a budget would not allow the SEC to accomplish its duties and possibly help prevent corporate wrongdoing and better protect investors.
Less than a year later, our President requested 87 billion dollars for the rebuilding of Iraq. To compare the incremental figures, 200 million is less than a quarter of a percentage point of 87 billion. He has also recently suggested that an “education committee”be formed to educate the public as to why we went to war with Iraq. This committee, assumedly, is not working for free and is instead being paid with taxpayer dollars, for the record. We are one year away from an election year and the President’s approval ratings have slipped to around 50%. The weapons have still not been found. Oh, and soldiers are dying in that country on an almost daily basis.
When you put the news together, it speaks for itself. It’s almost painful.
Did Someone Say Pain?
I would be remiss to neglect the plight of Rush Limbaugh while I’m purging my system here. This is exactly the type of fellow who previously would have supported tougher laws, harsher sentences and increased policing to fight the drug problem in this country. As opposed to more programs, increased treatment and other nonsense of the like. I hope he feels a little bit closer to those who are struggling with a drug addiction in life, who feel their bodies clinch as the methadone they receive can’t fight back the urge to shoot up again or the local alcoholic who doesn’t even know where the local halfway house is located in his community. I doubt it will change anything in that thick skull of his and, more than likely, he will use the even to write a f*cking book or make himself a martyr in some other fashion.
I do feel sorry for him in a lot of respects, though. I really do.
As far as the ESPN mess goes, if you don’t believe that an African-American QB can build his own legacy on his own merits in this league without the media to inflate his value, then you, my friend, obviously don’t have Steve McNair on your fantasy team this week.
Belee dat.
Oh Yeah, Wrestling
I will abandon my trademark Little Things approach and simply make some observations about what is going on in the news. This is really all you can do when you haven’t been watching it on television and didn’t even know that there was a pay-per-view on the horizon.
The Louisville RAW house show recently had the chance to vocally decide which match the Dudleys and La Resistance. Sometimes I think that in life it is truly not what you do, but what you could’ve done. How would the WWe crew have reacted if the fans had swallowed that “Tables, Tables!”chant for one damn minute and instead asked for an Inferno match, or Hell in the Cell or something interesting like a panties on a pole match. Anything. How about no match at all? I guess it’s another instance of don’t blame me, blame the guy next to me.
Booker T is back. This is good for a lot of reasons, but one in particular – Booker is not afraid to smile and let people know he is enjoying himself. You don’t see this anywhere in life anymore let alone the wrestling ring.
I for one am sad that Test is going on the shelf. I really thought he was close to breaking through with his character as I’ve mentioned in my column.
Remember when Zach Gowen was going to deliver WWe back to the mainstream? Me neither. I also couldn’t remember this month’s pay-per-view.
Disclaimer
Given the recent controversy abound at the 411 over writers, styles, plagiarism and so on, I thought I should note that this column was an intentional attempt to mimic the styles of some of my favorite writers at this site. I have my own style, which of course borrows from the styles and ideas of other writers that I enjoy. However, that style is reserved for when you click on my column every Tuesday. This column was designed to try and give you a little of what you normally expect on Monday from this slot. It is not the original, but it will have to do until He makes his return.
Oh, almost forgot.
Definitely would want to see that tomorrow morning.
Haley
