Giada De Laurentiis is really hot

I really don't know shit about the NBA (at least compared to Senor Huevos, or KB, or Pineapple), but this Sportsguy penned draft diary is pretty hilarious, readable and succinct in its summation of the draft and lot's of things that are wrong (or maybe just entertaining) with ESPN at this point. I haven't read the whole thing so I'm anxious to see what he says about the Knicks (or did the Knicks even have a pick in the first round?). This guy writes like I was trying to write in college when I used to write the column for my frat in the OU newspaper. Obviously, he's way better than I ever thought about being.

Top 5 reasons why Germany will win the World Cup

This is the first 4KS report from the soccer capital of the world – Berlin.

Germany is different these days and the main reason is the World Cup. Soccer is everywhere here. There is no newspaper that doesn’t report on this number one topic, no store that doesn’t have some sort of advertisement using a German soccer star, and even the huge ball on top of the TV-Tower here in Berlin is covered in the colors of one of the main sponsors.

The people don’t talk about anything else. I witnessed a conversation between two women pushing strollers today in which they were discussing whether Totti’s penalty kick against Australia in the 95th minute that brought the Italians in the quarter final was indeed justified or not. I saw a little ice cream-licking 8-year-old girl getting angry after her mother told her that Brasil won against Ghana because the girl had bet on a victory for Ghana.

The one thing that is the most amazing (besides the German team actually playing like gods) are German flags everywhere. It was a strange thing for me to see cars with German flags, German flags on houses, people wrapped in them, German flags painted on faces, …. and all this even if Germany doesn’t play. One just has to understand a little bit of German history to realize that this is kind of a big deal. If you would have driven around with a German flag on your car even 3 or 4 months ago people would have put you in the right wing racist corner. It changed and it does Germany a whole lot of good. The newspapers are talking about the new “we” feeling in Germany. And you can indeed feel it in the streets when you watch soccer in beer gardens or in public viewing areas in the parks around. There are huge screens everywhere. For the last German game, nearly one million people gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate to watch their heroes win 2:0 against Sweden. The World Cup is doing Germany so well that I am a little worried about what will happen after it’s over….

There are people from all corners of the world here in Berlin to see their team win. All they will see, however, is the German team getting to the final game and claiming the cup for themselves. If people, including me, expected the German team to embarrass themselves they talk now about winning the thing. Even our coach talks about it. Newspapers call it the “new German confidence” - I call it the survival of the fittest. If you look at all the games and compare the teams Germany can, without a doubt, win it.


Here are the top 5 reasons why Germany will become the World Champion this year:

No. 5 I’m back in Germany and I didn’t come here for nothing.

No. 4 None of our players are dumb enough to marry an ex-Spice Girl.

No. 3 Players who are used to beer and „Bratwurst“ for breakfast just won’t lose against south American tortilla-eaters.

No. 2 If you have about 5000 performers dancing around in “Lederhosen” during the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup you just have to win the Championship to regain at least some respect.

No.1 According to statistics Germany always becomes World Champion in Germany (seriously, just look it up).


My guess for the game against Argentina tomorrow – 3:2 Germany. And I hope I’m right because I am so sick of seeing Maradona sitting in the VIP lounge behaving like an idiot…

…if it’s 2:3, I don’t know what I’ll do….

Three Six Mania

Just went to see the Omen remake, which was probably better than most of the remakes they have trotted out as late. There is one particularly classic scene, near the beginning of the film, involving Damien's wall decor. Damien's mom walks into his room and in the background you see some of Damien's recent artwork, tacked to the wall for viewing: a picture of what I assume are the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, another picture with some diabolical figure/face in brown with the word "Damien" printed on top, and then a nice crayola job featuring Damien's depiction of his last nannie hanging herself. Give whoever came up with that a raise.
Pre-Damien, I got to see the following trailers:
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning-Looks exactly like the last one they remade, which I was under the impression, at the time, was the beginning.
Miami Vice-Michael Mann may just out-Michael Mann Michael Mann with this one. The trailer for X3 fooled me so maybe this one will too but I'm not betting on it. And for all you Colin Farrell haters, see The New World and you might change your mind.
Little Man-I'm hoping that it will be logistically possible to work this in as some kind of double feature with Snakes on a Plane if they come out at the same time. I've seen this preview about five times and it never gets old.
The Wicker Man-I was talking to some guy at a cookout the other day and when I mentioned that Neil Labute was doing this he mentioned something or another about how Neil Labute was the king of satire and sadism or something like that. OK, maybe so. None of that changes the fact that there is absolutely no need to remake a perfect movie, which is what the original is in my opinion. Lord Summerisle. The innkeeper's daughter. That great scene where he's walking around the town and all that weird shit just keeps disappearing and reappearing. Trade that for Nicholas Cage and some boring location in America.

monday potpourri

one of my high school chums recently sent me this picture of us back in the day hangin with sid williams, president of life college [they used to have nba rookie/free agent summer league games there]. this picture was taken in the summer of '97 after i broke my arm, sat around taking codeine and not eating, and ended up losing 30 pounds. note my tan yet skeleton-like hand.


check out this east timorese dude, celebrating the resignation of their prime minister. if bushy ever gets impeached, i pledge to throw down like that.


you can listen to phosphorescent's netherlands public radio appearance here. the thing is an hour long. the first half is phosphorescent, the second half is the castanets. just click on the audio icon to the right.


lastly, check out what this supper rich guy is doing. cool.

How was Athfest this year?

And whose brilliant idea was it to have Corndogorama on the same weekend? I think its been like that for a few years now, and I want my voice to be heard: that officially sucks.

i never knew...

this is pretty awesome.

Shocking Asia II

a few more things about Shocking Asia 2006 and then some comments on Athens...
Witness the awesomeness of Malaysia..
1) Watching a monkey (surrounded by other monkeys) rip a bag of potato chips out of some guy's hands and proceed to open the bag and eat the contents at the largest Hindu temple in Malaysia, set in a cave, reached by climbing 272 steps behind a giant statue of some Hindu god. Will to me soon after: "Let's get the fuck away from these monkeys."
2) Going to KL's version of Boar's Head and picking out the cute Malaysian girls that were obviously prostitutes as they were hanging out with fat Americans twice their age.
3) Eating durian, the national fruit, which tastes like what I assume raw chicken tastes like. It was not very awesome. Out of season I guess.
4) Accidentally (no joke), wandering into a very seedy brothel with booths, beds and curtains. Will asked, nervously, if it was a hostel.
Back to Japan...
5) Watching the world cup with our new Japanese friends in a bar that was kind of like someone's living room that just happened to serve dinner and drinks.
6) Taking more photos of Japanese kids. Also being interviewed by lots of Japanese kids.
7) Riding the elevator in an onsen naked, with an 80 year old Japanese guy, also naked, and then stumbling on an actual yakuza guy with full back tattoo.
8) Talking to our kaiseki waitress about The Omen

Onto the sad stuff...
Obviously I'm very touched by Senor Huevos' note and the responses that followed. I realized in my days back from Japan that I am going to seriously miss all of you, and Athens as a whole. It made me really, really sad. I think the last five years have been the best five years of my life and I owe it to all of you, oldies and newies, for making it that way.
Not to overkill the list thing, but here goes, in no order, Athens (Hill St. Penal Era) 101:
1. Any trip to La Parilla
2. Senor Huevos being asked to put his shirt back on while playing foosball at the Engine Room at my birthday party
2.5. Deuce Deuce and DCB kicking mine and Sauce's asses at foosball at the Engine Room
3. Spelling Bee I and II
4. Rock and Jock I and II, specifically Sauce's bout with the bat-man task in R&J I. Also, any day at the old Penal League field.
5. Sauce thinking I was gay and hitting on him the first time we met
6. Any trip to the Watson Mill Catfish Lodge
7. Italian horror month at DJ Mahogany's
8. Costa Rica
9. Senor Huevos asking me, while walking on North Campus a few years ago, something along the lines of "Have you ever dated an Asian girl?" He He He.
10. Innumerable shows including Les Phair, Will Oldham, The Outfit, Masters, HGAF, SM, Ham 1, OTC, Sonic Youth, Divorce etc etc etc
11. Pineapple's neverending stories about Athens seedier side and OK dick breakers
12. Saturday brunch at RuSans with the Poet

So, obviously, Ben, Sauce, Mike, MB, Jeff, Zig, Reno, and anyone I missed, I already miss you guys. For the forseeable future I will be (a) eating at Milo's, (b) trying to find Sun Ra's grave, (c) hanging out at Sloss Furnaces, Horseshoe Bend and the Vulcan, and (d) looking for a job.
See you soon.

an epitaph for an era:

athens is a transient town. most people come here for school; they may stay around for a few more years, but most eventually head out. the reasons people leave include employment, relationships, or simple change of scenery.

i love this town, and i'm pretty much here for the long haul. though i understand the appeal of the "big city", i have absolutely no desire to move down 316.

but people do leave. friends leave.

yesterday, mcsquared left athens. he's going to stay with his folks in birmingham for a bit, but will be in hotlanta in the fall.

the hill street penal league crew has taken a number of big hits. dave c was a tough loss for me, my top wingman. AG and LB, my pals from a different lifetime. il gato and willis, the funniest motherfuckers i know. deuce deuce, sauce's oldest friend and adversary. ghost and madame parson; though i always knew they were leaving, they stayed just long enough to make me hopeful. same went for knasselhoff: we were lucky to have him as long as we did.

but this one stings in a different way. not necessarily more painfully, but more fundamentally. jknight was my home base in athens, my family; his departure leaves me feeling uprooted. a loving contingent from the old crew remains [pineapple, reno, and the sauce], and i continue to happily call this town home. but i will always mark this day as the official end of the hill street penal league era.

and i will always remember that era fondly.

Beck

Beck may be a Scientologist, but in my book he is still the coolest dude around. I'm no music critic, so I won't try to convey how awesome last night's show at the Georgia Theater was except to say it RAWKED.

He played songs from every phase of his career. My only disappointment was that the crowd seemed not to acknowledge when he turned it down a notch to do some acoustic "Sea Change"/"Mutations" stuff.

Beck is known I guess for having a sort of performance art element to his act. At Vegoose, he had Boy Scouts on stage building a campfire for some reason. Last night, there was a puppet show enacting the show in real time and broadcast on the screen behind him. It was cooler than it sounds.

no shit, mr. president.

it took bushy four fucking years to figure this out.

The Great American Road Trip

I'm driving across the country until July 4th. Check out my blog for the trip.

http://americanrt.blogspot.com

would a williams by any other name not play as sweet?

hawks draft update:

the good news is that marcus williams, who i've been pleading for the hawks to take for many months now, is now projected by most pundits to be their pick. the bad news is that while i still believe that marcus williams would be the perfect distributor for this young, athletic team, it seems that hawks GM billy knight has another williams in mind.

check out this story. supposedly dukie center shelden williams has received a guarantee from a top 5 team; and there is really only one top 5 team it could be [possibly portland, but that's very doubtful].

how does shelden williams project into the hawk's lineup? though i loathe him for his pedigree, i concede he could be a decent nba player: kind of a carlos boozer / antonio davis cross. but a top 5 pick? will he lead the hawks into the playoffs next year? no. the hawks will continue to be mired in mediocrity. at least until they fire knight and hand me the GM job.

that zany saucy:

"OG Air Jordan. Mint condition. Money blend."

ok. i recognize that this observation is at least a few years overdue, but the vintage t-shirt fad is completely out of hand (in addition to being pretty tired). check out this site. no news flash there, we're all aware that fake vintage t-shirts are sold on a huge scale (and are available at most every store in the mall). but what will genuine vintage items run you online? check out the prices on the "original" t-shirts here. check out this one, and this one. and how bout this shit. is it possibly that anybody would pay that much for a t-shirt?

live from manga cafe

...despite the fact that there are about 12 million people in a tightly cramped city (to say the least), tokyo is undoubtedly the quietest, most orderly and clean, most adorable city i have ever visited. i have yet to witness anyone, child to adult, who i could in any way classify as annoying or obnoxious. everyone goes completely out of their way to be polite to you, so much that you feel guilty leaving your bed unmade in the morning in a quality hotel. i have yet to see a stray cup or bottle on the street, all in a city with the greatest lack of trash cans i have ever witnessed. and finding adorable little japanese kids to take postcard quality pictures of has become so akin to shooting fish in a barrel i feel like a pedophile. i could reprise my comment about costa rican women with an exclamation point in reference to japanese women, but i don't really think anyone that reads this board would find such a statement in any way surprising or revealing. in short, there is absolutely no way i can do justice to the aural and visual experience that is tokyo (a start would be to say that it's like a combo of nyc's population density, vegas' lights, rome's winding, non-grid pattern, all with lot's of japanese people and some whities, and lot's of little subtleties) but a few of recent remembrances and some upcoming pictures might help...
1) my kimono, provided by my hotel, with, fittingly, HOTEL EXCELLENT printed on the back.
2)the astounding degree of politeness and ceremony with which EVERYTHING, from paying for a pack of candy at a drug store, to paying 60 bucks for dinner, is approached by the Japanese store clerks, waitresses etc we have encountered. it's to the point that you feel bad throwing away the bag they put your pocky sticks in because you feel like they put so much thought into folding the bag in a certain way and closing it with a small piece of tape.
3) the waitress who chased will and i down the street yesterday to insist that we accidentally left the japanese equivalent of a dollar on the table at the sweets emporium we visited, vehemently refusing to take the money when we insisted it was meant as gratuity, seemingly oblivious to the thought of such a thing.
4) the enormous testicles (intentionally) on the racoon statues in one of the shrines we found today.
5)the mario bros nintendo music that is an everpresent feature of the JR rail lines that run throughout the city, reinforcing the notion that you are a star in some sort of city wide arcade game
6)the chef's choice meal of 4 hour fresh sushi we had for breakfast this morning at the largest fish market in the world, at the smallest, most densely populated restaurant i've ever been in, which we waited for an hour before being admitted. i tried to get an order of sperm sac of cod but the chef said it was out of season.
7)the trio of trendy female tokyoites who, when i approached them for directions using a phrase straight from the phrase book, elected to walk us all the way to the destination. one of the many times in two days i really wished i spoke japanese. i probably would have proposed to one of them.
8)the minimalist, manmade, zen creek that ran down the sidewalk on the edge of the mall we visited yesterday. imagine a creek running down the sides of the halls at lenox.
9) japanese tv, which is everything you want it to be and more. the weather segment basically consists of some cute anchor talking about the weather while some little animated creature bounces around the map, reinforcing her points to the audience. last night i watched a news special, lasting upwards of ten minutes, completely focused on these 8 year olds dressed as ninjas throwing fake throwing stars at a wall.
10) sitting in the starbucks overlooking shibuya intersection (the walking dinosaur on the vidi-screen from lost in translation) , watching endless waves of 3 to 400 people cross the street in about 50 different directions every five minutes.
11) later sitting in the audience (and perhaps appearing on japanese tv) at, from what i could tell was, a japanese tv show for high school to college kids centering on a group of four japanese guys, sitting at a bar, which was basically a table, one of whom was wearing only a tight black leather speedo and a leather jacket. apparently the kids in the crowd think it is utterly and completely hilarious; the line of 6 16-17 year old girls on the front row were hanging on to every word spoken, frowning and smiling at every twist and turn. the weirdest part was our entry, in which we were led down a spiral staircase to what amounted to a reception desk, made to show our passports, and then given a ticket and token, the ticket to get in, and the token to put in an adjacent vending machine so that we could be filmed in the audience drinking the japanese root beer concoction that we received from the machine. i'm guessing they were sponsors. it was AMAZING.
12) chatting it up with a girl from Hokkaido last night. she drew a map of japan on a napkin to show me where Hokkaido was (like i didn't know). i then demonstrated my knowledge of Karate Kid II by drawing an arrow to the southern island and writing OKINAWA by the arrow. the best part came when i drew a map of the USA, highlighting GA, to which she excitedly said, "OHHHHHHHHHHH."
in Kuala Lumpor now. more later.

more to follow soon...pictures too

PUSH!

tonight is the debut performance by sauce's new band, PUSH! (that's right, the exclamation point is part of the name). PUSH!'s lineup includes 3/4ths of the astra mandala, plus a new chick singer (i wonder if a certain suave drummer has nailed her yet). the boys have described the new sound as similar to that of the pretenders. i'm expecting something more like the cranberries, though a mazzy star type direction might be more consistent with the band's roots.

in any event, PUSH!'s first show is tonight at the caledonia. they're the first act, so expect them to take the stage by 11. come on out and show sauce and co. some love.