Monday, August 30, 2010

Monday Classic Video: The Boob Apron

From KSK, someone invented some stupid cleavage-hider, and this is the infomercial for it, but with some gie dubbed over the voice making fun of it. Pretty funny. (note: it's nothing too scandalous, but don't open at work if you are sensitive about that kind of thing.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Ground Zero Mosque: Naked Chicks Edition

Earlier this week, we offered up some cutting satire about the so-called Ground Zero Mosque controversy. We laughed, we cried; it was better than Cats.

Today our focus turns to some of the other affronts to human dignity within sultry strutting distance of the WTC site: strip clubs. Both New York Dolls and the Pussycat Lounge are close enough to the WTC site for workers to make a pilgrimage at lunch, or just visit five times a day (too much?). (Note: I can't access the link because our computers at work have all sorts of filters, etc. I assume it's fine, but you've been warned).

[see above re: big brother; now imagine a picture of a really hot stripper here]

God Bless America!

Apparently it is insensitive and an insult to those who died on 9/11 to construct an interfaith Muslim community center within a few blocks of the WTC site. But there is nothing wrong with some light human trafficking and sexual debauchery around the corner. Got it?

Conditional props go to the Wall Street Journal for picking this up and writing it down. The condition is because they are right-leaning and the story was a little too fair and balanced for my taste (like actually fair and balanced; not the way Sean Hannity means it), but props because anyone with 1/10th of a brain (i.e., most of the WSJ's readers - zing!) would appreciate the contrast between people getting fired up about a church (yes, a church, that's all it is to them you bigots) on the one hand and nobody giving a shit about a bunch of strip clubs on the other. (Run-on sentence alert. Open Bar awards me -5 points).

According to the WSJ:

As supporters held signs extolling religious freedom at the site of the proposed Islamic center Wednesday, a stripper who gave her name as Cassandra was working the afternoon shift at New York Dolls on Murray Street — just around the corner.
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Cassandra said. “It’s freedom of religion, you know?”
And according to Chris, a stripper who volunteered in the Ground Zero recovery, and who lost eight friends on Sept. 11, 2001 - firefighters from the Brooklyn firehouse next to her home at the time:
“They’re not building a mosque in the World Trade Center,” she pointed out. “It’s all good. You have your synagogues and your churches. And you have a mosque.” She concluded: “The people who did it are not going to the mosque.”
Amen. Out of the mouths of babes . . .

Thursday, August 19, 2010

A Douche, a Whole Douche, and Nothing But a Douche

It is a little known fact that I went to law school. While I was in law school, we learned some very arcane rules that most people have probably never heard of, like . . . oh, I don't know . . . you can't lie to Congress when you are under oath. It's called perjury.

As Open Bar put it, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Yes, it is true, this man has no dick.

Somewhere, Mike Piazza is smiling.

Have fun in the slammer, ass.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

A Modest Proposal*

On September 11th, 2001, this country was the victim of an unprovoked attack perpetrated by murderous thugs from another country. Almost 3,000 people died. Some were Christian, some were Jewish, some were Muslim. Some were men, some were women. Some were old, and some were so god damned young. Some of the dead were Mets fans, some were Red Sox fans, some were Yankee fans. Some of them were married, and some of them never got the chance. Some of them had kids. Their families and friends grieved their loss. And New York began, slowly, to rebuild and to heal.

Countless songs, essays, and stories were written about that beautiful fall morning (some of which were downright poetic), and no one who lived through the experience - whether here in New York or watching from afar - could ever forget even one small detail of the events. Now, almost a decade removed from that terrifying day, as we still struggle to find the balance between moving forward and never forgetting, some people think it is acceptable to betray the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center. People who just don’t get it, people who would ask the families of the victims to look the other way, and pretend it didn't happen.

People who would openly and without apology operate a bar just two blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood that serves as an affront to the memory of so many people who died that day.

The Ground Zero Yankee bar.

The Dakota Roadhouse, located at 43 Park Place is just a stone's throw away from the site of the World Trade Center. And despite the Red Sox and Mets fans who died on that day, the Roadhouse is undoubtedly and unapologetically a Yankees bar. Even their website brazenly advertises a "FREE COORS LIGHT FOR EVERY YANKEE HOME RUN."

I caught up with the owner of this establishment by phone earlier this week and asked him how he could be so insensitive to the memory of the victims of 9/11, and wanted to know whether he would refudiate his business.

Me: Is it true that you operate a Yankee bar?

Douchebag Yankee Bar Operator: Not really. I am a Yankee fan, and we get mostly Yankee fans in here, but we usually show the Mets game and a few other games in here, too. Pretty much anyone who is a baseball fan and wants to have a good time after work is welcome as long as they keep it under control.

Me: But what about all the people who died on 9/11? How can you operate a Yankee bar on such hallowed ground?

DYBO: What? What the hell are you talking about? Who is this? The bar is two blocks away - it is like a five-minute walk from Ground Zero. Is this a fucking joke?

Me: No, it is not a joke. I just want to know why you can't operate your Yankee bar somewhere else. Why does it have to be so close to Ground Zero? Isn't it just a little insensitive to the families of the victims who were Mets fans and Red Sox fans?

DYBO: Dude, lots of Yankee fans were killed on 9/11. And the people who killed them were murderous thugs from Al-Qaeda, not Yankee fans. Are you dense?

Me: No, but I am a Mets fan.

DYBO: Same thing.

Me: See! See! You are a Yankeeist. A radical perpetrator of supporting the Yankees to the exclusion of all other baseball teams.

DYBO: Relax. I was just kidding. I hosted a party in here for a group from Boston just the other night. And they are welcome back any time. By the way, where are you calling from? I didn't recognize the area code.

Me: I live in Kansas. But I am a really big Mets fan and I love this country, just like all Americans.

DYBO: Wait, if you live in Kansas, then why the fuck do you care what we do in New York? There are Red Sox and Mets fans in New York and they don't care at all about my bar. In fact, they come in here sometimes (though usually they go the Mets bar around the corner, or the Red Sox bar up the street). I have lots of friends who are Mets fans, and a few who are Red Sox fans. Why are you calling me from Kansas to give me shit that no one in New York cares about? Are you just bored?

Me: People in the real America want to know that the hallowed ground of the WTC site is not being desecrated.

DYBO: I thought you people were all for local control and states' rights? Don't answer that. Look, I really have no idea what this is about. We were here before 9/11, and we have just as much of a right to be here as anyone else. There were dozens of Yankee bars in New York before 9/11 because there have always been thousands of Yankee fans in New York. I know some of them are assholes, and believe me, we hate those guys more than you do. But the overwhelming majority of Yankee fans are good people who just happen like a different team than you do. They probably got it from their parents.

You know, in the aftermath of 9/11, Americans rightly celebrated what is great about our country, including the freedom to follow whatever baseball team you want, whenever, wherever, and however you choose to follow them. Nothing could be more un-American than to question that most basic of our founding principles. Let the triumph of tolerance and American values over bigotry, hate and misinformation be the enduring lesson of 9/11, and let that be our lasting memorial to the fallen.

Me: That was pretty eloquent. Are you sure are not an allegory being used as a literary device to make a larger point?

DYBO: Whatever.

*This essay is a parody meant to demonstrate the author's views about . . . wait, forget it, if you don't get it then you are a moron. Either way, if anyone took this the wrong way or was truly offended, you have our and my sincere apologies. Seriously.**

**Unless you are a Yankees fan. In that case go cry it out with the other haters of freedom and peace and tolerance at the Dakota Roadhouse.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Where's Luke Concert Review: Arcade Fire

About two weeks about, Open Bar and I went to see Arcade Fire in concert at Madison Square Garden. Were I not on blog vacation (industry jargon, YP, MP) I may have blogged about it in a more timely fashion.

The preamble is that only the two of us went, but we also invited Side Bar who had mentioned that he was developing an interest in Arcade Fire in previous goings on. But he didn't want to go. If he had gone and we could have bought the tickets on his AmEx card, then we would have had floor seats. Instead we were in the nosebleeds, but actually they were pretty good seats. Long and uninteresting to tell that whole story, but that's the bulk of it.

Anyhow, the concert was super fantastic awesome. It started with Owen Pallett, the dude who arranges the strings for Arcade Fire. He does this thing where he loops violin parts and plays more violin on top of it and the resulting sound is really pretty. I have his two albums and they are good. His one album, "Has a Good Home" is actually in constant rotation on my iPod. Except one dude playing one violin in a half empty arena doesn't exactly translate to a rockin' performance. I thought it was interesting, however. During that time, Open Bar went to watch the Mets game.

After that dude came Spoon. Open Bar said he recognized one of their songs from the radio, but I didn't recognize it. Their set started with a bunch of people on stage, most notably a horn section and the first couple songs rocked. Then the horn section left and I didn't enjoy the middle part as much. Then the horns came back and I enjoyed it again. They were actually pretty good overall, but I liked the horns.

Spoon didn't go off stage until like 9:45 and I lamented to Open Bar that Arcade Fire wouldn't go on until 10:15 and wouldn't finish until like 1:00 and I wouldn't get home until like 2:00 or 2:30. He seemed to think they would finish before 12:30, but I wasn't feeling that.

So, as predicted Arcade Fire comes on at 10:15. They fucking rocked it out. The second best part about watching an Arcade Fire concert is that they rock the shit out of a song and they all jump around and put tons of energy into it and you can't help but reciprocate that energy. The single best part, however, is that as soon as each song is finished, all of them (and there are like 12 of them) put down their instruments and run around and pick up new instruments to play the next song. Regine, also known as the little tiny girl in the shiny dress, ran from one side of the stage to the other in between every song. She played at least 6 instruments during the concert and also sang. They played a bunch of songs everyone knows and some songs from their new album, which had come out just the day before. (Awesome Music Week review coming on that one once I wrap my head around it a little more.)

And my pre-concert request as stated to Open Bar, "I hope they play all the 'Car' songs," came to fruition. The second song they played was "Keep the Car Running" and then during the encore they played "No Cars Go". They also rocked "Power Out", another of my favorites. And the highlight of the show was, of course, the finale. Their last song was "Wake Up", during which the chanted chorus was, well, chanted by everyone in the audience. Fucking rocked.

Finish time, 12:30, as Open Bar predicted. Plus I got a t-shirt. And even though it's a medium and not large, it isn't embarrasingly small, only "hipster tight" as I'm going to call it. I would fit in well in Williamsburg wearing that shirt.

This concert jumps near the top of the list of concerts I have ever attended. The first Dave Matthews concert I ever went to in 1996 I think is still at the top, just because it represented way more than just a concert to me, and also because me and Side Bar were in the 10th row. But aside from that one, I think this one is next. It was just so damn good. As my Facebook status the next day said: "Arcade Fire at MSG last night. Awesome. Sofa King Awesome."

Dear ESPN,

I must tell you, "Brett Favre arrives in Minnesota" IS NOT DEVELOPING NEWS. It's certainly not "Our top story at this hour". That's not even A story.

SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT BRETT FAVRE ALREADY!!!!!1!1!!1!11! I DON'T GIVE A FUCK.

I'm confident at this point that this whole ESPN / Brett Favre thing is going to end with Chris Berman literally fellating Favre on the steps of the football hall of fame in Canton.

Fuck you guys.
Love,
ChuckJerry

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Wait Until Next Year, Again

We write a lot about the Mets on this blog. We might even risk alienating a few of our readers by consistently harping on, complaining about and ridiculing our beloved team. And so, for those of you who would prefer to read about something - anything - other than the Mets (or just like looking at pictures of our spokesmodel, I have good news: the 2010 Mets' season ended last night. (And don't worry. Even though the Mets put together a nice win today, after I had drafted this essay but before I could post it, it doesn't change anything. Call it a dead cat bounce).

The fourth place Mets (yep, fourth) lost a heartbreaker by the score of 6-2 to the Rockies on Wednesday night, despite holding a 2-1 lead going into the top of the eighth inning. In that frame, with two outs and the bases loaded, manager Jerry Manuel opted to let his best pitcher idle in the bullpen so that Manny Acosta (I have no idea) could hang a slider to light-hitting (at least when he's not on steroids) Melvin Mora. Mora promptly added his name to the list of ballplayers who have hit grand slams off of the Mets this year, a list that now stands at nine. The Rockies added one more run for good measure, and the impotent Mets couldn't mount a challenge in the last two innings.

On July 1, the Mets were 44-34, just a game and a half behind the Braves for the division lead. Since then, the Mets have gone 13-23, falling to fourth place, and are now nine games out of first. David Wright can’t hit (0-4 last night with four K's), Jose Reyes can't field (admitting that sometimes he gets bored in the field, and hey, you can't pay attention on every pitch, can you?), and the delusional Jeff Francoueur wants to be a traded to a team - presumably a major league team, but who knows - where he will play every day. And don’t forget the ineffective but still expensive Jason Bay, who was going to return from a belatedly diagnosed concussion "inside a week," and now may end up being sidelined for a month or more. Somewhere, Ryan Church is getting a mild headache and cursing this team.

Also, Johan Santana just might be a rapist (but probably not).

Yet the lackluster performance and disappointing result from last night's game aren't quite enough to pronounce the team legally dead. Not with these Mets. Because sure, miracles happen, right? A hot streak; the Braves collapse; Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt all die in a tragic bass fishing accident . . . it's not over until they are technically eliminated, right?

Wrong.

With this team, you can always just sort of tell. When there is that little something extra, usually something off of the field, that's how you know that it is time to go buy an NFL preview magazine. Think Tom Glavine getting his teeth knocked out in a taxi, Mike Piazza having to hold a press conference to deny that he is gay, or David Cone doing that thing in the bullpen that time.

And so it was yesterday when, in addition to losing, the Mets provided another installment in their annual soap opera. First, as noted above, the morning news stories reported on a civil suit filed against Johan Santana by a Florida woman who claims that he raped her. In Johan's defense, the criminal investigation went nowhere for lack of any credible evidence, but it is a distraction nonetheless. Then, not to be outdone, Frankie Rodriguez - the team's effective but occasionally erratic closer - got into a fistfight with his father-in-law after last night's game. K-Rod (a more appropriate name in 2003 when he was really good) allegedly KO'ed his wife's dad (see what I did there?) and is going to face third degree criminal assault charges in Queens.

K-Rod has been good as a closer - in fact, he has been one of the better closers in baseball this year - but these are the shenanigans that befall the Mets every goddamned year. Some crazy, out-of-left-field (man I am killing it today), off-the-wall, bullshit that becomes a huge distraction, and scuttles any hope of just playing regular, winning baseball.

It has been a fun ride, and there have been some memorable moments in 2010 (not to mention hysterical texts from Open Bar), but like every Mets' season in history, save only two, it will end in disappointment. And it concludes with a familiar, hopeful phrase, but one that feels just a bit more desperate each time we have to say it:

Maybe next year.

50 Songs From the Golden Era of Rap -- A Playlist (With Updates)



A few weeks ago, we went over what the Golden Era of Rap was and what albums comprised it. It was such a smashing success that I've spent the last two days every day since then compiling a playlist from those selections.*

* And by the way, I got all these songs for free using this little trick you may or may not know and which I'm sure there are a million other ways to do but I used this one so that's why I chose to describe it:

Find the song you want on YouTube. Copy the URL and paste it into Dirpy. That will convert the YouTube clip to a downloadable mp3, which you should then, well, download. Save it to a folder on your desktop, then open up iTunes. Pull down the File menu and select "Add file to library." Then select all your mp3s and voila! Free shit. You're welcome.

Also, with Dirpy, you can edit out the beginning or end of any video, so if you wanted Naughty by Nature's "Ghetto Bastard" but don't want that kinda-silly hospital scene/skit thing at the beginning, you can just chop it off. Very helpful.

This trick (if you want to call it that) is especially great for live recordings, which YouTube is packed with. Like this version of Arcade Fire's "Headlights Look Like Diamonds," which is way better than the album version, IMO.
You can also use it to make ringtones, like I just did with Will Ferrell-as-Robert Goulet. "Dinkle donkle dinkle donkle someone's calling you Goulet" indeed.

So, here are 50* tracks from 1991-1994 that you should add to your iTunes pronto.

* I picked 50 because as a human being I have a rather pointless habit of attributing greater importance to numbers that are multiples of 10, perhaps due to the number of digits on my hands and feet, though that's just one stupid theory to explain why some people still think some guy with 99 RBIs is somehow clearly inferior at hitting to the guy with 100. And that doesn't even address the fact that RBIs are stupid and -- much like the aforementioned boner people get for multiples of 10 -- vastly overrated as a way to evaluate a hitter since (aside from home runs) a hitter only has an opportunity to get an RBI if some other guy did the work of getting on base in front of him. On top of that, it's easier to drive a guy in from third rather than first -- another thing the hitter has no control over. Basically, RBIs are a completely circumstantial statistic and tell you absolutely nothing about a hitter's ability that you couldn't get using a million other, better ways.

Also, shouldn't they really be called RsBI? Paging William Safire.

I called this "The Golden Era of Rap Playlist" because I'm creative. The list is in no particular order other than alphabetical by artist. Enjoy!
  1. "Tennessee," Arrested Development
  2. "C'mon Wit da Git Down," Artifacts (Incidentally, typing "C'mon Wit da Git Down" made me feel really, really white.)
  3. "Wrong Side of da Tracks," Artifacts (Again, white.)
  4. "I Gotcha Open," Black Moon (Yup, still white over here.)
  5. "The Choice Is Yours," Black Sheep
  6. "Flavor of the Month," Black Sheep
  7. "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down," Brand Nubian
  8. "Flava in Ya Ear (Remix)," Craig Mack, feat. Notorious BIG, LL Cool J, Rampage and Bustarhymes
  9. "Hand on the Pump," Cypress Hill
  10. "How I Could Just Kill a Man," Cypress Hill
  11. "Insane in the Brain," Cypress Hill
  12. "If Only," Das EFX
  13. "They Want EFX," Das EFX
  14. "Bitties in the BK Lounge," De La Soul
  15. "My Brother's a Basehead," De La Soul
  16. "Mistadobalina," Del the Funky Homosapien
  17. "Rebirth of Slick," Digable Planets
  18. "Where I'm From," Digable Planets
  19. "Nuthin' But a G Thang," Dr. Dre, feat. Snoop Dogg
  20. "Dre Day," Dr. Dre, feat. Snoop Dogg
  21. "Deep Cover," Dr. Dre, feat. Snoop Dogg
  22. "Mass Appeal," Gang Starr
  23. "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta," Geto Boys
  24. "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," Geto Boys
  25. "360 (What Goes Around)," Grand Puba
  26. "Loungin," Guru
  27. "Check Yo' Self," Ice Cube
  28. "It Was a Good Day," Ice Cube
  29. "Halftime," Nas
  30. "It Ain't Hard to Tell," Nas
  31. "Represent," Nas
  32. "Everything's Gonna Be Alright (Ghetto Bastard)," Naughty by Nature
  33. "Hip Hop Junkies," Nice and Smooth
  34. "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow," Nice and Smooth
  35. "Big Poppa," Notorious BIG
  36. "Juicy," Notorious BIG
  37. "The What," Notorious BIG, feat. Method Man
  38. "Slam," Onyx
  39. "They Reminisce Over You," Pete Rock and CL Smooth
  40. "Passin Me By," The Pharcyde
  41. "Time 4 Sum Aksion," Redman (More like "Whiteman" for me, amirite?)
  42. "Ain't No Fun," Snoop Dogg
  43. "Gin and Juice," Snoop Dogg
  44. "Award Tour," A Tribe Called Quest
  45. "Check the Rhime," A Tribe Called Quest
  46. "Scenario," A Tribe Called Quest
  47. "Regulate," Warren G, feat. Nate Dogg
  48. "M.E.T.H.O.D. Man," Wu-Tang Clan
  49. "Protect Ya Neck," Wu-Tang Clan
  50. "I Get Around," 2Pac

Damn, that is a solid list of 50 songs. Maybe the best ever put together. Probably. Better than any other playlist on this blog, anyway.

UPDATE:

Here are a few suggested by readers:

"DWYCK," Gang Starr, feat. Nice & Smooth (from Yankel)
"Life's a Bitch," Nas (Yankel)
"I Used to Love H.E.R.," Common (Yankel)
"Don't Sweat the Technique," Eric B & Rakim (Yankel)
"Juice (Know the Ledge)," Eric B & Rakim (Yankel)
"Crooklyn," Crooklyn Dodgers (I just remembered that one)

Friday, August 6, 2010

An Open Letter From The Knicks To Their Remaining Four Fans

Dear Our Fans,

Oh, hello. Frankly, we're surprised that there are any of you left.

What do we have to do? We've been irrelevant for a decade. We've had scandals, losing record and horrible personnel decisions.

We didn't get LeBron. Instead we signed Amare' Stoudemire along with his balky knee and fucked up eye. Well, him and three gies none of you have ever heard of.

We even traded your favorite player, David Lee.

Really guys, you're pathetic! Don't you have any self respect at all?

Ha! Just kidding, we don't think you do. We don't respect you either!

Seriously, here's the deal: fuck you.

Fuck you, bitches! We suck and we are going to continue to suck and there's nothing you can do about it!

Just to prove our point, we're going to kick you in the balls. Proverbially speaking, of course because it'd take too much effort for us to go kick all of you in the balls. Frankly, we don't think you have any balls anyway.

You're like the Tina Turner of basketballs fans. That would make us Ike, of course.

That's right, bitches, we just signed Isaiah Thomas as a consultant.

Yes, that Isaiah Thomas. The Isaiah Thomas who signed Eddie Curry. The Isiah Thomas who traded for Zach Randolph. The Isiah Thomas who got us dragged to court of sexual harassment. The Isaiah Thomas who OD'ed on sleeping pills and tried to make people think that his daughter was the one who OD'ed. The Isiah Thomas that ensured that we are going to suck for years and years and years. Yep, that one, bitch! How you like them apples?!

Now, he's just a consultant. Not a major role, that's true, but we think it's just enough to remind you that we don't give a fuck about you. Really, we don't.

We're not kidding.

Fuck you.

Love,

The Knicks