Go Zagly Early

Last night, we had a pleasant surprise. Dave "Flounder" Shepley and his wife Kim were making a pit stop in Sunny D on their way up from NC for Thanksgiving. So, the Shepleys, the Belangers, and Jester and I went out for dinner and had a grand ol' time discussing current events and the various rubes who were dining around us.

After dinner we all went back to the Belangers' hizzie to converse and such. We started watching the Michigan State/Gonzaga basketball game when there were still about 2 minutes left in regulation (Gonzaga ended up winning 109-106 in 3OT). Over the next hour, I came to a realization that I've been fighting for so many years: Gonzaga is the ugliest college basketball team in America.

Led by Mark Few, who comes across as an angry half-leprechaun, half-Skeletor, it should come as no surprise.

The unnecessarily hirsute and mustached Adam Morrison, Gonzaga's star player who set a Maui Invitational record with 43 points, looks like a cross between Russell Hammond, guitarist of the fictional band Stillwater from "Almost Famous," and satanic serial killer Richard Ramirez, who won the hearts of southern Californians in 1985 as the "Night Stalker," with a string of break-ins, abductions, rapes, and murders.

Meanwhile, Derek Raivio is a feisty guard, with ice water running through his veins. He also looks like a Ukranian prostitute with a shaved head. "Forty hryvnias for you to have love make with me for all of the night long." Alternatively, I'd be hard-pressed to find anyone else on Gonzaga's campus that could hold a candle to Raivio in a Sinead O'Connor look-alike contest.

Colin Floyd, a rarely used senior guard, is listed as being born on June 21, 1983, when in fact he was born on June 21, 1963. He has been running Floyd's Feed and Supply Store in downtown Spokane for the past fifteen years. Come on Gonzaga, everyone knows that. Hell, he sat on Spokane's City Council from 1998 to 2002.

The pumpkin-pie-haircutted Nathan Duodney not only looks like he will molest children and various domesticated animals in less than five years, but he also has the least intimidating nickname on the team: The Duodenum.

What you may know about David Pendergraft is that he is an affable sophomore guard on Gonzaga's basketball team who likes listening to records and taking girls to the A&W. What you may not know is that in the early '90s, his family emigrated to Brewster, Washington from New South Wales, Australia, soon after changing their last name to Pendergraft from Serious. His father, Yahoo Pendergraft (shown to the right performing with the New South Wales Symphony Orchestra in 1990), teaches both music and theater and drama at Brewster High School.

Erroll Knight lost his eyebrows at age 17 in a freak accident involving sparklers, Bacardi 151, and a double dog dare. Since then he has been unable to paint them on in a way that doesn't make him look like Endora from Bewitched, often using a headband to mask them. By day he is a guard/forward on the Gonzaga basketball team. By night, he is The Fabulous Desdemona, Spokane's most popular psychic drag queen.

Please be on the lookout for Sean Mallon, aka Mega Mallons, aka The Marshmallon Man and Stephen "Shaggy" Gentry. They were last seen on Monday in the parking lot of Floyd's Feed and Supply, forcing a mother and her two children into a silver mid-to-late 1980s Dodge van with Idaho license plates. Mallon is a white male in his mid 30s, with long light brown hair, standing between 6'8" and 6'10" and weighing between 217 and 219 pounds. He has a small tattoo of a bulldog on his left forearm. Gentry is also a white male. He is in his mid-to-late 30s, with thinning blond hair, standing between 6'1" and 6'3" and weighing between 174 and 176 pounds. Gentry has served time for armed robbery at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, where he received several black jailhouse tattoos, including a "509" on his right bicep, the initials ACAB below the knuckles on the fingers of his left hand, and a bullseye on his lower back. The mother has been identified as 32-year-old Jennifer Hochman of Spokane, and her children are 6-year-old Bradley and 4-year-old Jennifer, Jr., or JJ. The van was last seen heading east on I-90. Mallon and Gentry are armed and considered extremely dangerous. Both men are highly unstable and have been known to harm complete strangers. If you see them, do not confront them. Instead, immediately call 9-1-1, the Washington State Patrol at 1-800-POL-WASH, or the Idaho State Police at 1-800-NO-UDAHO.

GMYH will be taking a haitus for several days, so go eat some turkey and watch some football. And be thankful that you're not a member of the Gonzaga men's basketball team.