Sunday, September 23, 2007

Mmm Hmm

Associated Press photographer Michael Conroy captured this image of Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen after the Irish's sixth straight home loss to Michigan State.

I couldn't help noticing Clausen's similarity to my favorite wiz with small engines, Karl Childers.
Charlie Weis must have eaten all of Jimmy's french fried puhtaters.

Better keep Jimmy away from your lawnmower blades.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Success At Last


You've been playing this game since the pee-wee league in the park.

You took your high school team to unexpected heights.

You parlayed that college scholarship into numerous accolades and even got yourself drafted into the upper echelon on football.

But you're still not at the top...until you become a verb.

That's right,
Michael Vick is now a verb (not too shocking considering Vick's previously fast and loose use of language).

Someone at Franklin Central High School in Indianapolis posted a banner that read "Vick the Bulldogs" ahead of their football contest against the Columbus North Bulldogs. By the way, Franklin Central are the Flashes. Intimidating indeed. All this and the Flashes got Vicked up the ass 42-14.

Let this lapse in judgment serve as Michael Vick's final foray into famedom. He is truly an ath-lebrity of the nth degree. It reminds me of a trip to a fireworks store circa 1996 when the man thumbing through bins of bottle rockets ahead of me was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Shut up, bitch, before I O.J. your ass."

Other great celebri-verbs
  • "Friends don't let friend drink and Billy Martin."
  • "I'm gonna have to hit the teaser card unless I want to Pete Rose my paycheck."
  • "I've got this job nailed. I totally George O'Leary-ed my resume with a PhD from Dartmouth."
  • How'd you do on finals? "Jim Harrick-ed my way to a 3.8, beyotch!"
  • "My landlord was gonna put my ass on the streets of Ann Arbor until my dad went all Ed Martin and bailed me out."

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The Hurt Doesn't Show But the Pain Still Grows

When "Don't Stop Believin'" was uses to underscore the final scene of "The Sopranos," it inspired a flurry of articles celebrating and/or deriding the self-diagnosed "renaissance of Journey." Most of the arguments put forth filled me with self-righteous smugness. In my world, the Journey comeback had started years before. In fact, over two years before "Don't Stop Believin'" appeared while Tony Soprano stuffed his face with onion rings, I attended the wedding of one of my best friends, and saw that he had made good on a promise to convince his bride to walk down the aisle while the wedding pianist cranked out the opening chords from the Journey masterpiece. As she walked down the aisle to get married! It was far and away the greatest thing I've ever seen at any ceremony, and nobody in attendance needed David Chase to tell them that it was OK to appreciate Steve Perry.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that people go apeshit when a classic song from decades ago forces itself back into pop culture, either genuinely or in a ironic sense. Case in point: Phil Collins is back people.

Exhibit A: The promo for a new sitcom "Carpoolers" centered around "In The Air Tonight." I know nothing about this show (other than Vern is riding shotgun!) but I'm betting the ad will run for a longer duration that the series.



Exhibit B: A stunning ad for Cadbury running in the UK. Apparently this ad launches a £6.2m campaign for the company, which may help explain why they're cutting costs by shrinking the Cadbury eggs.


Perhaps things are simply coming full circle. Today, virtually every television series uses commercial music in episode montages/flashbacks/establishing setups, but it was "Miami Vice" producer Michael Mann who in 1984 first had the vision to combine cheesy overdubbed drum compressions with amazingly hackneyed dialogue between Don Johnson and his ex-wife.


23 years later, Phil Collins is back in the forefront of the worldwide psyche. We are a nation of Alec Baldwins, repeatedly enjoying our mixtape from Tracy Morgan.