Somewhere in the depths of my hoarding, I have a dancing chipmunk that sings this song, in a Chippendales-style faux-tuxedo. I used to listen to that little bastard when I was drunk in law school before I'd go watch my pet scorpion, Bea Arthur (couldn't tell if it was male or female), for hours hoping it would sting the shit out of a cricket. It never did. Anywho, this about as perfect a song as you can get for David Lee Roth, other than anything he did with Van Halen.
Daughter
exposed herself to a tortoise this weekend.
Apparently, when a two-year-old is wearing a dress, you need to ensure
that she doesn't take off her underwear before leaving the house to head to
another kid's birthday party, especially when that birthday party has exotic animals and your kid is sitting in the front row. Live and
learn. Thankfully, we don't reside in
the Galapagos, or else she could have been charged with a Class B felony.
Out
of nowhere, fall is unofficially here.
College football is back, beginning this Thursday night when #9 South
Carolina visits Vanderbilt (7 EST, ESPN).
I love college football, so I am understandably giddy.
Here
are the ten things I'm most looking forward to this college football season (in
no particular order):
10. The second season of the Kevin Wilson era at
Indiana
There
aren't too many people in the world, relatively speaking, who are looking
forward to Kevin Wilson's second season at the helm at IU, but I am, even
though I know the college football season is merely a chance for the Hoosiers
to break my heart 12 times. After an
abysmal first season (winning a grand total of one game), Wilson can only go
up. Given the insane number of
underclassmen that played last year, I think the Hoosiers will be better this
year. I'm not expecting a bowl or
anything, but at least it looks like we're moving in the right direction, with
a couple 4-star recruits already committed for next year.
9. Crazy alternate uniforms
The
last couple years have seen Nike and Adidas come out with some awesome and some
not-so-awesome alternate uniforms for Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, Notre Dame,
Virginia Tech, Boise State, TCU, Maryland, and others.
Here are some from this year:
Notre
Dame's uniforms for their game against Navy in Dublin (not great)
Virginia
Tech (yes, those are turkey feet and yes, that's camo)
Maryland (I think we've gone far enough with the Maryland flag)
Wisconsin (weird, but not terrible)
Nebraska (similar to Wisconsin, since they are both wearing the alternates when they play each other)
Oregon (decent enough, and not as chartreuse as previous alternates)
Southern Miss (throwback to their 1970 team, quarterbacked by Brett Favre)
Arkansas (I like the helmets, not sure about the unis)
West Virginia (nothing like an all-gray uniform to make your fans want to kill themselves)
Frankly,
I want to see some alternate uniforms for IU, with candy-striped pants, a
helmet with a basketball court pattern on it and the old center court from
Assembly Hall with the "I" and the State of Indiana on both sides of
the helmet.Take "basketball on
grass" to a new level.
8. The first weekend's slate of games
There
are some great games this weekend, starting off the season with a bang:
-#24
Boise State at #13 Michigan State (Friday 8pm EST, ESPN)
-Notre
Dame vs. Navy (in Dublin, Ireland) (Saturday 9am, CBS)
-#14
Clemson vs. Auburn (in Atlanta) (Saturday 7pm EST, ESPN)
-#2
Alabama vs. #8 Michigan (in Dallas) (Saturday 8pm EST ABC)
-Indiana
State at Indiana (Saturday 8pm EST, Big Ten Network)
-Georgia
Tech at #16 Virginia Tech (Monday 8pm EST ESPN)
7. College Game Day
There
is nothing better to wake up to on a fall Saturday morning than the College
Game Day crew, aside from my wife, of course.
Love ya, hon. I'm sorry I won't
be able to speak to you from 9am to 11pm for the next 14 Saturdays. This is non-negotiable.
6. A mid-major messing up the BCS
Every
year, it seems like a team from a non-major conference gets closer and closer
to getting to the BCS championship game, whether it's TCU, Boise State, Utah,
Hawaii, Houston, BYU, or whoever. TCU
and Utah can no longer be considered mid-majors, now that they've joined the
Big 12 and Pac-12, respectively, and Boise State and Houston have another year
before they join the Big East (which is just weird). With the tough schedules that are facing the
top-ranked teams this season, it's not unreasonable to think that there will be
no undefeated major-conference team.
That may allow a team like Boise State (preseason #24) to rise up the
BCS rankings and steal a spot in the championship game. Of course, to do that, they would have to go
undefeated, which would mean upsetting Michigan State in East Lansing this
Friday.
5. Gunner Kiel tearing his ACL
Fuck
that guy.
4. A non-SEC BCS champion
The
SEC has won the last six BCS championships.
That's disgusting, but I suppose we can expect that when they pay their
players. I've seen Johnny B. Good. I know what goes on. This year, I think we have a good chance of
seeing the SEC's run come to an end. LSU
lost the Honey Badger, who was probably the most dynamic football player in the
NCAA last year. Alabama lost Trent
Richardson and some other key players.
Georgia is in the top ten, but I think we can all expect them to lose a couple
games. South Carolina and Arkansas are
known for choking down the stretch. Unfortunately,
it looks like Lane Kiffin's USC Trojans are the team to beat this year. Someone needs to slap his smug face. Oklahoma is also looking poised for a Big 12
title, although they have a really tough final four games. And let's not sleep on Oregon. This could be the Ducks' year. Then again, when Cam Newton led Auburn to the
championship a couple years ago, the Tigers weren't even in the Top 25 to begin
the season, so I'm gonna throw the Hoosiers out there as a dark horse national
title contender.
3. Notre Dame's inevitable 7-win season
A
couple weeks ago, Rick Reilly wrote a really good article about how Notre Dame is no longer significant and does not deserve to be considered a football power anymore.
I've been saying that for years, but I also hate Notre Dame. The Irish have always scheduled mostly
cupcakes, but then Navy and Stanford got good (and Tulsa, of course). This year, the Irish play Navy (in Dublin),
at Michigan State, Michigan, Miami, Stanford, BYU, at Oklahoma, and at
USC. I'm not saying they'll lose all of
those games, but with Tommy Rees suspended for the first game and starting RB
Cierre Wood suspended for the first two games (and the recent season-ending
injury to their starting CB), Irish fans should be cautious with their
expectations for this season. Looking at
the schedule, 6-6 or 7-5 seems realistic.
2. The Hoosiers' 25% chance of winning the
Leaders Division
Thanks
to the repeated cover-up of a child rapist and free tattoos for players, Penn
State and Ohio State are ineligible for a bowl or a spot in the Big Ten
championship game this year. That means
IU, Illinois, Purdue, and Wisconsin technically each have a 25% chance of representing
the Leaders Division in the Big Ten title game.
Realistically, this means Wisconsin has a 100% chance of representing
the Leaders Division in the Big Ten title game.
1. The end of the BCS system
This
is the last year of the BCS bowl system, which means we won't have a bullshit
national champion like last year, when Alabama beat LSU on a neutral field
after LSU had beaten Alabama in Tuscaloosa earlier in the season. Both teams ended with one loss (to each
other), yet, thanks to the BCS, Alabama was somehow considered the national champion. Beginning with the 2013-2014 season, there
will be a four-team playoff, which isn't perfect (I would prefer 8 or 16), but
it's a step in the right direction.
Bartender after patron mentions this morning's shootings: "The Empire State Building is in New York, right?"
--Chicago, Justin's, Southport & Roscoe
Eavesdropper: DDT
This one goes out to all of my teacher friends who have started back up or will be starting soon. I hope you all reenact the beginning of the video. Particularly, I expect you to threaten a portly boy with "I've got a good mind to slap your fat face." On another note, my brainwashing of Daughter is coming along nicely. When I say, "I wanna rock," she yells "Rock!" I am the greatest dad ever.
Sometimes Tuesday sneaks up on me like a legitimate rapist, and I don't have a Tuesday Top Ten prepared. This is one of those weeks. Thankfully, the incorrigible bastards at a variety of websites bombard my email inbox daily with links to articles on their sites with lists of their own. As I've mentioned before, most of these are completely irrelevant to me or this here blog. For instance, just this week, I've received links to such articles as "50 Best Blogs for Post-Pregnancy Weight Loss," "Top 25 Education Blogs for Proactive Parents" (everyone knows I'm a reactive parent), or "10 Back to School Apps." I used to reply to the people who send those by saying it has nothing to do with GMYH, but that has had no effect, so I just delete them. Anyway, every now and then, something interesting actually finds its way into my inbox. Here are some of those, in no particular order.
1. 7 Great Road Trip Movies to Kick Off Your Summer
Obviously, this was sent to me a couple months ago. One glaring omission: ROAD TRIP. [NOTE: CarInsuranceQuotes.net has since asked me to remove this link, because apparently their site "has been hit with a Google penalty."]
For me, it's constantly telling co-workers about my weird dreams. Like last night, I had this dream I was an Olympic athlete (clearly) in the Olympic Village. There was some end-of-the-Olympics prom going on that night, but a couple I was hanging out with was from Lebanon, so they weren't allowed to go because of some Lebanese-government-imposed anti-prom rule. It was a real kick in the pants because the woman had a sweet '80s prom dress. I guess that style just made it to Beirut. Anyway, they were bringing me down, so I hopped into Bo Diddley's limo and got a ride over to a soccer field –- not before Bo and I sang his eponymous song in the parking lot. When we got there, a huge soccer game was going on with athletes from all over. Usain Bolt was playing. Tom Brady was the goalie. Joe Buck and the cast of Saved By The Bell were watching from the sidelines in their bathing suits. Apparently, all these people were Olympic athletes, including Buck, who was a non-medaling diver. I played soccer for a few minutes, then made my way to the sidelines after a timeout to talk to my heroes. Buck comes up to Elizabeth Berkley and basically says, "Come up to my room. I'm going to give you AIDS." Kapowski and Turtle were a little stunned. Now, Jessie Spano was Bayside's salutatorian, so I figured she would say no, but she was all about it. I couldn't believe it, so I followed them (with their permission, of course). We get up to Buck's room, which had a porthole-style circular window that looked out over the soccer game, so I start watching the game, figuring they want some privacy for the impending infestation. No. Berkley's like, "Videotape this," and she hands me a camera. FYI, she was wearing a bikini and she looked great -– like when her dad was going to marry that fitness instructor and she shoved the fitness instructor's head under the water in what should have been a friendly swimming race in a Palm Desert hotel pool -- so of course I say yes. She's about to go down on Buck, and then she looks at me and says, "Well, I guess I'm gonna get AIDS." Before anything is inserted into anything else, and I say, "Whoa whoa whoa, why don't you have sex with me instead? Then you won't get AIDS." She says, "I guess I can do that." Before Buck had the chance to leave the room, I woke up, sobbing and laughing uncontrollably. I looked at the clock and had only been asleep for 2 minutes. Pretty fucked up, right? I guess all of my co-workers didn't think so, or at least those that responded to my firm-wide email.
I'm not sure you can really figure this out, unless you have an annual World's Stongest Man-style competition amongst all collegiate coaches. Also, last time I checked, Bob Knight was never the coach at Indiana State, nor was he the football coach.
Well, we know nothing in West Lafayette is going to be on this list, unless by "most impressive athletic buildings" they mean "athletic buildings without national championship banners."
I don't know if you have seen this or not, but Oxford professor Eric Clarke has started a project called Six Songs of Me. One of my Facebook friends posted a link to an NPR article about it, and it immediately piqued my interest. The project asks people to submit their song choices in response to six questions, with the goal of analyzing why people like the music they like. Here is a link to the website where you can enter your own six songs. Since I love anything music related and, more importantly, anything that seeks my opinions, of course I entered my "Six Songs of Me." Here are the six questions and my songs: 1. What was the first song you ever bought? Culture Club's Colour By Numbers was the first album I bought, so I guess the first song would be "Karma Chameleon." Looking back, I find it odd that my parents had no qualms with me spending my birthday money or allowance (or however else a 6-year-old obtains money) on an album by a band whose lead singer was a cross-dressing gay man. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
2. What song always gets you dancing? "Steal My Sunshine" by Len, as anyone who attended a wedding with me between 2000 and 2006 is painfully aware. I once dove between a woman's legs on the dance floor when this song was played at a wedding in 2003. I have impregnated that woman twice in the years since then.
3. What song takes you back to your childhood? This is a tough one, since a ton of '80s songs fit this category, but "Panama" by Van Halen and "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper immediately take me back to when I was 6 or 7. For some reason, "Panama," more than any other song on the 1984 album, reminds me of listening to that tape in my friend Sean's room in the Houston suburbs right after he got it. It was one of those songs that made you feel like you could do anything. And I don't know what it is about "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" that instantly reminds me of being a kid -- maybe it's that I have never owned it and I don't hear it that often, so it's time and place is firmly 1983 and 1984 for me.
4. What is your perfect love song? "In My Life" by The Beatles. It still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Tied for a close second are "The Fuck Shop" by 2 Live Crew and "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)" by W.A.S.P. Take THAT, Tipper Gore. FYI, the only problem I found with the Six Songs of Me website is that the song options are powered by Spotify, so The Beatles are not on there. Thus, I had to choose a version of "In My Life" performed by some Beatles tribute band. Also, Grooveshark doesn't have it either, so it's not on the playlist below. Here is a link to it on YouTube with some slow motion images of The Beatles.
5. What song would you want at your funeral? Trick question, since I'm a vampire, but just in case I meet the true death, I'd have to go with "Since You Been Gone" by Rainbow. I also expect there to be more than one song played at my funeral, so I'll also throw in "The Black Angel's Death Song" by The Velvet Underground, "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" by Cinderella, "In My Life" by The Beatles (yes, it can be both a love song and a death song), and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" by The Rolling Stones. I hope to keep things relatively light.
6. One last song that makes you, you. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leppard. Frankly, it has it all: a killer riff, hooks galore, a stadium-worthy chorus, sexual undertones (and overtones), and sometimes indecipherable lyrics. It has been my favorite song since the first time I heard it on Z95 in 1988. Once I heard it, it shifted my musical focus from pop and oldies to hard rock and metal. I've expanded since then, but, as you know, I have never lost my love for hair metal. Feel free to post your own. Or don't. I don't care either way. Here's a playlist of the songs I just listed (including the bonus tracks). Six Songs of Me by GMYH on Grooveshark
Thirtysomething businessman walking down sidewalk to other businessman: "Man, all I gotta tell you is watch out for those blowjobs because they're addictive."
Other businessman: "My wife doesn't give blowjobs, but I know she has in the past. Fuck those guys."
--Chicago, Wacker and Wabash
Eavesdropper: Gregerson
As a fan of pop culture references, plays on words, and serial killers, I found this to be pretty funny. (Thanks to Ryan for sending it to me.)
"And all the other boys / Refused to lay me / But here's my basement / It's where I'll slay thee." It's safe to say this is not what Carly Rae Jepsen and the other songwriters envisioned when they wrote the song. Then again, Canada doesn't have serial killers. Or clowns.
For the seventh time in eight years, I went to Lollapalooza -– all three days, as usual.Daniel joined me for all three days, Chandler was there for Friday, and my brother-in-law Will was there part of Friday and the rest of the weekend.My goal for the weekend was to be flirty, fun, and fearless.And so help me God, I killed it.
Here are the bands whose shows I saw at least a portion of (in chronological order): Animal Kingdom, O Rappa, Anamanaguchi, Michael Kiwanuka, The Black Angels, Tame Impala, Metric, Die Antwoord, Band of Skulls, Passion Pit, DJ Zebo, Black Sabbath, JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound, FIDLAR, JEFF the Brotherhood, Delta Spirit, FUN., The Tallest Man on Earth, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Red Hot Chili Peppers, White Rabbits, Gary Clark, Jr., The Gaslight Anthem, At the Drive In, Miike Snow, and Jack White.
Other than the bands, here are some highlights:
-During one of the shows Friday afternoon, there was this couple standing in front of us that couldn't take their hands off each other. I'm sorry, but there is no need for neck kissing and taint touching during a Black Angels show.
-On Saturday at about 3:30, we were waiting for a band to start, when someone came on the mic and said something like, "The National Weather Service has advised us that severe storms are approaching Grant Park.Everyone must evacuate the park immediately.Please proceed to the nearest exit."That's a new one, but in the wake of last year's Indiana State Fair tragedy, it was completely understandable.Amazingly, it was about as smooth of an evacuation of 90,000 people as you could imagine.We went to Kasey's, a bar a few blocks away, but Lolla had thought ahead for others and rented out an underground parking garage.Around 4:15, it started to rain in Biblical proportions.Here's a time-lapse video of the storm from an apartment overlooking Grant Park (notice the boats tossing about in the harbor):
At that time, Will, Daniel, and I were enjoying $17 buckets of Bud Light.
At about 5:30, we got word through Tweets and the Lolla app that it was opening back up at 6, so we made our way back and that was that. Unfortunately, this meant that the Alabama Shakes were canceled, which was a bummer.
-During the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a reverse centaur made an appearance
Here are the top ten shows I saw:
10. O Rappa
This was the second band I saw. They are from Brazil, and I guess I would describe them as a mixture of rap, hip hop, dub, funk, and rock. It was a fun show, even if I don't understand Portuguese.
9. Band of Skulls
I have one of their albums, and I like it, so I decided to check them out. I'm glad I did. They put on a good live show.
8. The Gaslight Anthem
One of my favorite bands from the last few years, and they are great live. I'm just pissed that their slot was only 45 minutes and some dickhole ten feet in front of me had an inflatable palm tree.
7. Gary Clark, Jr.
Clark brought the blues to Lolla. Every now and then, you need a guitar hero to remind you why the blues are awesome. The guy can play. Sadly, he probably drew more people here than he would at Blues Fest.
6. Franz Ferdinand
I've never seen Franz Ferdinand, so I was excited. This was the first big band to play after the Great Evacuation, and they, like Arctic Monkeys last year, reenergized the crowd. Plus, I love a good Scottish accent.
5. JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound
I saw these guys last December at Schuba's, and they were great. They didn't disappoint at Lolla. It's a neoclassical soul band, with a Stax and James Brown kind of feel. While I was watching them, I questioned why I wasn't on their email list. That has been remedied.
4. Delta Spirit
This was the last band we saw before the Great Evacuation, and they kicked ass. I bought their album earlier this year, and I was a little disappointed, but that might also be because I bought it at the same time I bought the Alabama Shakes album, which I really liked. Anyway, Delta Spirit played a great show. The lead singer even dumped buckets of water on the crowd, which was a nice gesture given the 95-degree temperatures.
3. Jack White
I'm still bitter that the White Stripes canceled their tour date at the Aragon back in 2007, since they never came back to Chicago after that. So, if I can't get Jack and Meg, Jack will do. He was excellent. Oddly enough, he had two bands. When he first came out, his backing band was all dudes. Then at some point, it became all women. No matter the backers, it was all good. He played mostly White Stripes songs, which I loved, as well as a few songs from his new solo album and one Raconteurs song. Here's a video I took of "Seven Nation Army" (it may not be fully loaded for a few more hours). Notice the hippies dancing in the foreground. [NOTE: The video didn't upload. Apparently, it takes five hours to upload a 4-minute iPhone video to YouTube. Once it's uploaded, I will post it here, and then redemption will be my concubine.]
2. Red Hot Chili Peppers
After the evacuation, a lot of shows got pushed back, so the Chili Peppers went on from 9 to 10:45, rather than 8:15-10. This meant there was more time to drink, which added to the experience. I haven't seen them since 2000, and they still bring it. They played a nice mix of old and new.
1. Black Sabbath
This was the band I was most excited to see, since I've never seen Sabbath before. It was the original lineup, except for drummer Bill Ward. The remaining originals were phenomenal. Ozzy sounded great, even if he had to prop himself up with the mic stand. It's amazing how clear he sounds when he sings and when he talks to a crowd, as opposed to the bumbling we're used to seeing from The Osbournes. Tony Iommi was amazing. He played every riff and solo like it was 40 years ago. Geezer Butler was just as good on the bass. Plus, they played some less popular songs that I wasn't expecting them to play, like "The Wizard" (which is one of my favorites) and "Electric Funeral." Also, two 50-year-old middle-class men in front of me were, I kid you not, smoking hash. Unfortunately, my phone died long before the show started, so I have no pictures of Sabbath or the hash.
Vanity
license plates are often nothing more than a chance for people to embarrass
themselves. Sure, they can sometimes be
witty, like the one I once saw in Road & Track magazine -- T1HS ON –-
which, when read in a rearview mirror, offers hilarity and vulgarity, two
things I like. Most of the time,
however, vanity plates are horrible, ranging from the vain ("YALE JD")
to the geeky ("TWITTER" –- I saw that one on a minivan) to the douchy
("TEDS BMW") to the confusing ("UNICORN") to the 90210
("I8A4RE").
Thanks
to cheap vanity plate costs, Illinois is plagued by these awful things. Here is one I saw the other day:
I
seriously shook my head when I saw this.What moron thought that
would be a good idea to put "HIPSTER" on his license plate?I immediately came to the conclusion that the
person who drives this car cannot actually be a hipster.Here's why:
1. Hipsters do not drive tricked-out Jeep
Cherokees, not even ironically. Had this
been a ten-speed from 1985 with Fugazi sticker on the frame and a splash guard
over the back tire, then I might believe a hipster owned it, except for the
fact that . . .
2. Hipsters, like douchebags, are usually
not self-aware. If you ask a guy with
horn-rimmed glasses, ear gauges, black skinny jeans, low-top Chucks, a retro Schlitz
t-shirt covered by an unsnapped Urban Cowboy style patterned shirt, a terrible mustache, and an unacceptable haircut if he is a hipster,
he will most likely say no. Because he has no idea he's
a hipster.
3. This car was seen in Lincoln Park, a
neighborhood hipsters generally avoid like it's a 40-hour-a-week job.
So,
if it's not an actual hipster who has this license plate, then it has to be
someone who thinks he is so hip that he should project that hipness onto the
world through his license plate. I think
that actually might be worse.
I've been insanely busy, so I haven't yet had time to do a recap of Lollapalooza. Look for it next Tuesday. Red Hot Chili Peppers were one of the headliners, so this video seems appropriate. This is the song that brought the Chili Peppers from the underground into the mainstream. It's about doing hardcore drugs under a bridge.
Thirtysomething woman who has never run hurdles, watching Olympics: "I hate hurdles. There's just no good way to get over 'em without bashing your knees, at least in my experience."
--Chicago
Eavesdropper: GMYH
Thirtysomething woman: "Just because we're eating dinner in Indiana, doesn't mean I am going to dress like it."
--somewhere in Indiana
Eavesdropper: Floppy Burrito
We're gonna take a week off of the "Retro" portion of "Retro Video of the Week," since this is not a "retro" video. But it's timely. God damn, it's timely. The US swimmers are killing it in London, which, in my mind, makes their video tribute to "Call Me Maybe" worthy of airtime here on GMYH. I also thought the following comment on the YouTube page was pretty funny: "I'll call you. I'LL CALL THE SHIT OUT OF ALL OF YOU."