Blarfk

Why haven't you read Cloud Atlas yet??

2011-06-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

I recently heard author David Mitchell on NPR, and despite Terry Gross’s SHODDY interviewing skills, the show convinced me to read his most recent novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. And damn if it wasn’t really, really good. The writing is excellent in a Michael Chabon kind of way. Mitchell’s descriptions of what would otherwise just be necessary exposition are poetic and synesthetic. If you’ve read either author you know what I’m talking about – you read a chapter involving poignant character development and some masterful plot twist and its awesome and everything, but then there’s a line or two about someone waking up or what fish in a pond look like and you’re like “holy shit.” And then you think of all the ways you could possibly describe even the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen, look with disdain at your own forced, trite prose, and begin planning how you could kill Chabon or Mitchell and devour their still-beating hearts to gain their powers.

I enjoyed Thousand Autumns so much that I bought Cloud Atlas without knowing a thing about it, it just happened to be the only other book by Mitchell in the store. Just as a little literary experiment I even skipped the summary on the dust jacket and dove right in, having no idea at all what the book was about. And DAMN am I glad that I did. In fact, I recommend you do the same! The structure is unique and delightful and before I talk about it I feel like I should tell you that the unfolding construction of the novel is almost a plot-twist in and of itself. So ya know, don’t read on if you want the PURE experience.

But anywho, away we go!

Cloud Atlas begins as the journal of Adam Ewing circa 1850. Ewing is an American notary returning from the Chatham Islands to San Francisco across the Pacific Ocean. He is a PROPER GENTLEMAN and does not like the surly drunk crew aboard whose ship he sails. Its kind of boring.

According to some fancy high-brow “what is my precious fiction coming to” critic at the New York Times the writing here is inspired by Herman Melville, whom you may remember from Moby Dick, his 5 billion page treatise on the function and design of 19th century merchant maritime vessels. And damn does it show. This part is a bit tough to get through and at first you are dreading having to read 500 pages of it. There are a lot of ampersands and run-ons and inappropriately capitalized letters and other old-timey shit, and not much happens. Ewing falls down a hill and hurts himself but then his friend the doctor decides to accompany him on the voyage to America so he can mend an infection sustained from a wound and the two discuss the ramifications of race relations within an indigenous island settlement and aaaagggg this is so fucking boring! But you keep reading because you want to feel smart, when suddenly there’s a chapter break in the middle of a sentence.

Seriously, it goes “the forenoon & morning watches so both starboard & port shifts might” and then you turn the page and it’s a new chapter. And not just a new chapter, but a new character, in a different place, in a different time, with seemingly no relation to the first one. It’s a very “well, well, well, what have we here” type moment which serves as a great device to get you to keep reading, though one gets the feeling there’s more literary purpose behind it than when the same type of trick is deployed by a clumsier author – say for instance, the dubious cliffhangers which punctuate the three-page chapters of Dan Brown’s trash.

This new character is Robert Frobisher, a once prominent young composer living in 1930s Belgium, recently expelled from his academy for being a Byrony jackass. He is absolutely broke and disgraced from the aristocracy and so travels to the house of a curmudgeonly, syphilitic master composer, whose wife has been not-so-discretely finding refuge from her husband’s senility in the dicks of other local noblesse and hmmmm I wonder where this is going.

Frobisher’s story is written as letters from him to a man named Rufus Sixsmith, his presumed lover. Mitchell’s talent as a writer really becomes apparent here, as his antiquated language is believably genuine. He did this same thing in Thousand Autumns and it is really impressive, as you get the feeling he must have poured over hundreds of late 19th century works just to get a feel for the diction before even beginning to craft a narrative. And you would be right, as it turns out he studied history at Cambridge prior to writing, so God knows he had plenty of exposure to this type of material.

But I digress! The Frobisher section is entertaining, albeit slightly predictable, especially if you’ve ever seen The Graduate. About halfway through it though something very interesting happens – while sifting through volumes in an old family library, a character finds Adam Ewing’s journal. You remember Adam Ewing, the main character from the first story. And so the skeletal structure of Mitchell’s work begins to take shape. Frobisher’s letters end not long after the Ewing revelation, and are in turn found by the main character of the next vignette. The jump between sections is again pretty jarring, constituting a shift in setting, characters, and writing style (though Rufus Sixsmith appears herein playing a fairly prominent role, so there a is a bit more cohesion between chapters).

Ah, I see what you’re doing here, you smugly say to the portrait of a goofily coy Mitchell printed on the back inside jacket. Each section ends in the main character’s implied demise, whose story is then somehow recounted to the protagonist of the following vignette. There are a total of six stories – I’m not going to talk much about the third or fourth. They are each very good but summarizing them wouldn’t shine much more insight on the novel overall, though the fifth does deserve a quick mention.

An Orison of Sonmi~451, the fifth story of Cloud Atlas, could be an award-winning short sci-fi story even when examined on its own, out of the framework of the rest of the novel. It is told as an interview with the clone (or “fabricant”) Sonmi~451 in which she confesses her part in an attempted revolt against the Orwellian, corporate-dominated, society that created her. Yeah, bet you didn’t see that one coming during the discussion of Dutch-Caribbean trade relations back on page 37.

Sonmi’s story almost bears a reread, as Mitchell is very unforgiving in his description of the setting. There is no quick rundown at the beginning (thank God, as that type of thing really sucks, and has been ruining fantasy for years. You know what I’m talking about – you go to read some awesome epic saga but first the author needs to spend a few chapters telling you all the rules of the world he or she has created, usually through the mouth piece of an otherwise useless character whose dialogue with a foreign traveler (you, the reader) begins with “you mean you’ve never heard the history of [magical kingdom, futuristic society, whatever] before? Well sit down and let me tell you!” And then awaaaay we go into mystical land of boring as fuck exposition). Instead you need to pick it up as the story unfolds.

In the distant future, we find out, corporations and government have become intermingled into one evil totalitarian regime, which has created fabricants to work as slaves in a permanent service industry. Sonmi, one such fabricant, works in what is essentially a McDonalds. Through her confession she tells the story about how she “ascended,” inexplicably learning to question existence, understand the concept of individuality, and experience all sorts of other free-thinking emotions that fabricants are specifically designed not to feel.

The story is great. I don’t want to go too much into it lest I spoil more than I already have, so I’ll just add that even if you don’t particularly care for sci-fi its still worth a read. It’s not so much about the usual dystopian “watch out for the future!” message, or the tired “look at what technology has wrought on man!” sci-fi shtick, but more an (and I cringe to even write this, because it sounds like such hackneyed bullshit but trust me when I say that in this particular story it exists well within the bounds of taste) examination of the human spirit.

Upon finishing the Somni section you kind of wonder where the novel is going to go. If you’ve been paying attention you’ve noticed that each jump consists of a rather large flash forward in time, and where’s one to go after futuristic dystopia? Why the post-apocalypse of course!

The sixth story constitutes the very middle of the book. Here we meet Zachry, a primitive tribesman who lives in a sort of barbaric hunter-gatherer island society. The link between this one and the last is particularly clever, as we find out that (and I really want to emphasize here that I’m about to give some major plot points away) Somni’s revolution did indeed come to some sort of fruition – the corpocracy has fallen, leaving only bits and pieces of technology strewn about for the descendents of mankind to salvage. One such device, the “orison,” is a holographic projector containing the confession of Sonmi from the last story, which we come to find out is the basis for the religion of the new world. Damn is that good.

Zachry’s saga is unique in Cloud Atlas in that it is uninterrupted. A fair amount of action takes place and you keep expecting to turn in the page only to run into the (by now familiar) wall of a chapter break, which of course would mean a new setting to familiarize yourself with. But if the second story was where the skeletal structure of Cloud Atlas appeared, the end of the sixth is where it leaps out of the closet, dons a fancy top hat, and dances delightfully around the room.
The narrative is taken over by Zachry’s son, who in a post-script mentions that his father passed the Orison of Somni down to the children of his village. They don’t understand it but they think the ghostly image of the girl in the hologram is beautiful, and continue to watch and worship it. And what follows, we are informed, is what they see…

Then you turn the page, and its Somni’s story again, picking up right where the cliffhanger left us. Her story concludes (with a bit more of a sense of finality than before) and she mentions a film she had once seen. She begins to reminisce, and you turn the page to see she is talking about a movie adaptation of…

The fourth story.

And it keeps going. In reverse order, backwards through time. Do you see? Finally we get back to boring Adam Ewing, who we now know began a chain of influence culminating with the foundation of future-earth’s new religion. Gone is all drudgery from the first part of his story, as suddenly all of Ewing’s actions contain far-reaching consequences, apparent only in the hindsight of knowing the future.

Mitchell has said that each character is meant to be a reincarnation of the former, but I honestly didn’t get that feeling, and I’m perfectly happy having read through the book without that information. Rather it seemed to be a thesis on our relationships with one another, and the legacies that we leave behind. At the end of his story (and indeed the novel itself) Ewing determines to devote his life to the abolitionist movement, as the events of his life convince him of the equality of all human beings. His father chastises him for wasting his time on such a fool’s errand, as a lifetime is fleeting and insufficient to affect any lasting cause. We know better though because hey – future religion!

Cloud Atlas is amazing. I’ve barely skimmed the surface of everything that happens in this book, and I DARE you to go read it without any more prior knowledge. I recommend it to anyone who is literate. It is unlike anything you’ve ever read before (much to the apparent chagrin of a bunch of reviewers, who believe it is somehow a direct attack on literature as we know it). Also don’t wait too long – you should really pick it up before the Wachowski Brothers ruin it with what is inevitably going to be a horrible film adaptation.

Lets talk a little about Wildcard Weekend

2011-01-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

First of all, let me just put this out there. I couldn’t be happier with how Wildcard Weekend went. I couldn’t be happier that the Seahawks beat the Saints in what turned out to be a hilarious display of defensive buffoonery and inexplicable mismatches, culminating in six missed tackles on a single running back on a single play, the resulting cheers of which registered at a Seattle seismological center as a small earthquake.

As a Steelers fan I can’t help but feel a little but sorry for Seattle. Not because we beat them in the Super Bowl (fair and square I might add, according to basically every pundit, former player, analyst, and former head of officiating Mike Pereira, so don’t even bother bringing it up) but because they hate us so much more it. And I quite honestly couldn’t possibly care any less about them. They’re not our rivals and they never will be. It takes more than one hand to count the number of teams who consider Pittsburgh among their arch-enemies, and sorry Seattle, you just don’t make the cut.

That being said, I hope they beat Chicago, because of one man.

For those of you who don’t recognize this dopey looking moron, allow me to introduce you to quarterback and diabetic, Jay Cutler (for a fun surprise, do a google image search for "Jay Cutler" because apparently he is not the only one). Once considered to be a superstar, Cutler proved to be baby-like in action as well as face when he demanded to be traded away from the rapidly improving Denver Broncos. During Cutler’s last year in Denver, the management fired long-time coach Mike Shanahan after a failed playoff bid, replacing him with Josh McDaniels, who had been the offensive coordinator for New England when they won all those Super Bowls. But apparently the genius strategy of “let Tom Brady throw the ball” didn’t quite translate to being the head coach of another team, and McDaniels’s tenure became an embarrassment before the season even began. Among a steaming smorgasbord of bad decisions, he let it get out publicly that he was hoping to bring then New England quarterback Matt Cassell to Denver, presumably to compete with Cutler for a starting job. As dumb an idea as that is, Cutler somehow made himself look even worse in the situation, moping about being replaced and eventually, as if the whole thing couldn’t possibly more resemble a middle school slap fight, stopped returning the Bronco’s phone calls.

The drama continued for an embarrassingly long time, and finally, when everyone in the situation had hit a solid public relations rock bottom, Cutler found himself in Chicago. Once considered a top-five quarter back he now barely scratches the top 12, displaying the occasional flash of brilliance between two to three weeks of nonsensical interceptions, disastrous fumbles, and all around hilarious temper tantrums. He sucks and I hate him, and I hope Seattle continues to make fools of the NFC in their run to getting beat by the Steelers again in the Super Bowl.

I also couldn’t be happier with Green Bay’s superior performance over Philadelphia (and the Pack was certainly superior, despite the close score and the fact that the result came down to one awesomely heartbreaking Vickerception), and let me tell you why.

Having grown up living in Philadelphia as a Steelers fan I have faced a fair amount of animosity, though I don’t really understand why. We play one game against each other every four years, not one of which has ever been controversial or memorable. We share common rivals in the Patriots and the Cowboys (who we similarly only play once every four years, but whose enmity stems from our Super Bowl victories against them in the 70s and theirs against us in the 90s). And we both appreciate the same style of play – the blitz-heavy defenses of Dick LeBeau and the late Jimmy Johnson mirror one another in the same manner as the power running games of Bettis and Westbrook.

And though it would be easy for me to accept my role as football antagonist to my fellow Philadelphians (lavishing, say for example, in the warming glow of one of Pittsburgh’s six (6) Lombardi trophies – a sensation so wonderful as to escape description, each silver laurel a memento to the glory of thirty-one bested opponents whose each subsequent defeat wrung in more and more elation amongst friends and loved ones as we celebrated our superiority – a divine pleasure which, like the fallen angel Samael grappling for the divine light of God, you will only ever dream about but never know, finding instead the black abyss of almost – a vast and hollow emptiness, the impossible enormity of which only compounds your despair) I hold no grudge against the Eagles. On occasion I even cheer for them, at least as much as I will ever cheer for a team who is not the Steelers. It is not with vitriol or acrimoniousness that I rooted for Green Bay, but rather primarily a sense of schadenfreude.

It’s something in the misery of defeat. Especially in the playoffs, wherein a loss carries within it a finality. That while there is always next year (or at least hopefully, in the case of this year) this season – this particular incarnation of your team and all the unique challenges and struggles they fought and suffered and overcame – has ended. Forever.

And just as you die, we continue to live. Yours is one less defense standing between us and a championship. And your sufferings only increase my excitement that we are still here. And while others fell this weekend, it is the mournful swan song of Philadelphia within whose sad melodies I bathe. Because that’s what surrounds me. Not the hilarious front office shenanigans of Miami, or the incompetent coaching boobery of Washington. But you. Your cries to fire Andy Reid. Your furor to trade DeSean Jackson to San Diego. Your predictable lamentations over another season of almost. I’m sure there are plenty of other teams with entertaining worries and insurmountable front-office problems, but I don’t listen to the drunks who call in to their sports radio. I don’t listen to their ill-advised solutions on how to right their ships. For that, I have you. Their losses may be as real, but yours are just so much more palpable. Sure, its always fun hooking up with a complete stranger for some casual action, but its way better with someone who you actually know and care for.

So I guess what I’m saying here is thank you, Philadelphia, for turning me into some kind of evil fucked up football vampire. There is no one’s misery whom I would rather gorge myself on than yours.

Not to be confused with a football Nosferatu.

Let me tell you about the NFL Playoffs

2011-01-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

oh hello there everyone!

LET ME TELL YOU AOBUT THE PLAYOFFS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2011

as you know it is THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR when the national football league goes to playoffs! There are 32 teams in the league, and 12 make the playoffs HERE IS HOW THAT PART WORKS

- There are 2 conferences each made up up four divisions which form the NFL. The team with the best record in each division makes the playoffs (the steelers are in the same division as the ravens and bengals which is a big reason i hate those two teams so much - games against those two teams (and the browns lol) are always important for playoff implications). in addition the two teams in each conference with the best record who DID NOT win their division go to the playoffs - these are called wildcards.

HERE ARE THE TAEMS WHO PLAY INT HE FIRST ROUND THIS WEEKEND!

The SEATTLE SEAHAWKS vs. the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

The Seattle Seahawks are really shitty. Remember like 5 years ago when the Steelers beat them in the Super Bowl? They have basically sucked ever since then. A bunch of their players retired in disgrace and their star running back lost hope or soemthing because he inexplicably went from one of the best players in the league to one of the worst and was cut by the team two years after losing the Super Bowl.

Since then they have limped into the playoffs I think once?? but never gone anywhere since.

THIS YEAR IS FUNNY because

THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS made the playoffs with a record of 7-9 which, for those of you who know anything about which number is bigger than the other number, is a LOSING RECORD. but if you read THE RULES AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS POST you know that the winner of a division always makes the playoffs, and the seahawks play in a terrrrrrrriiible division (the arizona cardinals funnily enough are also in this division. you may remember them as another bird team the steelers beat in a recent super bowl). anyway this is the first time in the history of the NFL that a team with the NFL has made the playoffs with a losing record. vegas has the odds of them winning the super bowl at 100-1 (so if yuo have 10 bucks you want to waste put it on seattle and if they wint he superbowl you will be 1000 dollars richer). they are quarterbacked by Matt Hasselbeck

whose wife is on oprah or something sometimes. he has been a lousy quarterback ever since he lost the super bowl. and other than him i dont really know anyone else on the team because they all suck. it would be pretty funny if it happened but it probably wont because today they are playing...................................the

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

you may remember the super bowl last year when the new orleans saints slew the indianapolis dragon. it was cool because god knows nobody wanted peyton manning to win another ring but much like the nonsensical mythos of THE STAR WARS TRILOGY the saints have become what they have defeated, having taken their place as champions of the DARKSIDE. they are quarterbacked by DREW BREES who you will recognize from television commercials as that guy with the awkward birthmark on his face.

he is really good and throws reeaaaally long passes to his receivers!! through this foul trickery (what we in the football following biz call "a predominant passing game") he held the league at ransom for a good portion of the year. THE ONLY PROBLEM was that the atlanta falcons were EVEN BETTER!!!! than drew brees's passes and won their division!!!!! MAKING new orleans a wild card! but everyone is still really afraid to play them because they are the defending champs and fucking drew brees is really good at throwing. they probably wont win the super bowl but i think they will beat seattle .

AND THEN TONIGHT

we have THE NEW YORK JETS!!!! PLAYING asgainst peyton manning and whatever team he is the quarterback for

the NEW YORK JETS

are this up and coming really young team full of loud mouths and drug users. their QB is in only his second year and is a MEXICAN named MARK SANCHEZ. people cant really make up their mind if he is any good (sometimes is good at passing but other times not so much) because other than that thing in paranthesis you just read the NEW JORK YETS have a very good defense and running game (they have a guy naemd LADANIAN TOMLINSON on their team who used to play for san diego and was basically a legend there but then they cut him because they thopught he was TOO OLD but whoOOOOPS jokes on them because it turns out he is still really good and actualyl san diego just fielded a lousy team but anyway the jets picked him up because they believed in HIS OLD BONES)

they are also coached by this big fat baffoon named REX RYAN

who is a bit of a loudmouth. he is always talking trash and saying how is team is gonna win the superbowl and he is really really fat and he once gave a press conference with a pillow under his shirt and a ladys blonde wig to make fun of his brother who is also fat and has long hair and coaches for the CLEFELAND BROWNS.

oh also they just found out his wife does foot fetish porn and theres a good chance you can hear rex ryans voice in one of the videos lol. oh yeah they also have santonio holmes who you may remember from THIS

becayse they like picking up OTHER TEAMS GOOD PLAYERS :mad:

they probably wil l lose because tonight they PLAY

THE PEYTON MANNINGS

this is a really boring team and nobody likes them and once petyton goddam manning retires they are goign to be terrible again (peyton manning was picked first overall in the draft meaning the year before the colts were the absolute worst team int he league (that is how the draft works you see do you understand???)) and once he is gone - a day i cannot wait for - they will HAVE THE NUMBER ONE PICK AGAIN BAHAHAHA

they are so goddam uninteresting their coach is named jim caldwell and i cant tell you anything aobut him because he sucks and basically just lets peyton run the team

everyone is big on them because all their receivers are injured this year but PYETON MANNING still has thrown very many yards!!! also they have one of the worst running games in the league so because of taht i dont think they will wint he superbowl (even though they will probably win today).

----

Editor's note:

Seattle 41
New Orleans 36

New York 17
Indianapolis 16

Football is stupid.

I hate you Chase Jones

2010-03-09T17:51:00.000-08:00

Back in the 60s when the Pittsburgh Steelers were fielding teams of bumbling, drunk convicts, coach Vincent Lombardi made a career out of takings names and giving no fucks. He lead the Packers to five world championships over seven years, including the first two Super Bowls. You get that? The NFL finally got its shit together and merged the two conferences into an actual world championship – the most super of bowls – to increase competition. And coach Lombardi took even more names and gave not a single fuck.

In 1966 he lead his team to the NFL championship against a little known team called the Dallas “god damn” Cowboys. Lombardi took one look at their obviously inferior squad, coached by renowned slave catcher Tom Landry, and guffawed his way into Super Bowl 1. The Packers, being of laughably superior talent, won that shit. Fuck. And then hey, look at that, its 1967 and again here see the Cowboys, pitifully flailing about the icy tundra of Lambeau field. This was back when the Packers were basically writing the history of the sport, and reporters specifically named the game the Ice Bowl, due to the brutal cold of the Green Bay winter. Of course the Cowboys lost, because they are bitches. The Packers followed the lead of Vince Lombardi (the greatest coach in the history of football) and gave nary a fuck about the sub-zero temperatures, completing passes here and intercepting there, whooping and whaling all the while.

That is why when you win the Super Bowl you hold up a Vince Lombardi trophy. Not a Tom Landry trophy. Certainly not a Chuck Noll trophy, the old drunkard. A God damn Vince fucking Lombardi trophy. You hoist that silver piece of metal high above your head in hopes that maybe you are as good as him. You’re not, but you should be thanking Christ that you are worthy enough to even have your pitiful accomplishment be mentioned in the same breath as him. The Super Bowl athletes of today are like third graders winning speech competitions because they talked about how hard it was learning to ride a bike or moving away from California or some shit, and then the principal comes out and gives them the Martin Luther King Jr. public speaking trophy. And its like, that’s great and all kid, but really?

And what mild-mannered American hero quarterbacked this group of Herculean super men? Enter Bart Starr, the MVP of a couple of scrimmages they ended up naming the first two fucking Super Bowls. Bart Starr called his own plays because he was not only the best athlete of his time, but a certifiable genius. This lies in stark contrast Terry Bradshaw, a literal retard. Starr spent the 60’s sneaking balls into the end zone against the Oakland “fucking” Raiders. Bradshaw spent it exchanging venereal diseases with cross-dressing Louisianian hookers. Have you seen that bald idiot babbling on about God knows what on fox news lately? What an asshole.

So that was back in the “good ol days” of the sport. Lets move onto the modern era.

Well look at that, the Packers are still fucking owning. And speaking of owning, did you know that the Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned franchise in American professional sports? They’re not run by some greedy money-grubbing billionaire like, say for example, Dan Rooney, convicted racist. All the money they make goes into a community pool which is just used to better the team. Holy shit. You got that? No one makes any fucking money off this God damn franchise. All the sales revenue goes back into a public pool used to benefit the team. The Rooney family dumps all the profits from the Steelers into various Scrooge McDuckian money bins lining the Allegheny like outhouses surrounding the pit of an abandoned, smoldering construction site, occasionally withdrawing enough tax-payer cash to fuel their multi-billion dollar racing debts, impulsively buy cabinet positions from the Obama administration, and continually perpetuate the pyramid scheme that is the economy of the city of Pittsburgh.

Brett Favre.

What was that?

That was the fucking gunslinger himself, coming out of nowhere. You probably didn’t see him coming, because he is literally the best Quarterback to ever play the game. He holds every record a passer can have – shit, he even got bored and got some of the bad ones just because he could. Also do you know what his middle name is? “Lorenzo.” You got that? Brett Lorenzo Favre. Holy shit.

Go ahead and try to name a better Quarterback in the modern NFL era. Dan Marino? The same Dan Marino who consoled himself about never winning a Super Bowl by playing straight man to 90’s funny man Jim Carrey in a movie culminating in the plot twist that they both made out with the same man.

Who’s that you say? Professional serial rapist Ben Roethlisberger? Please. It’s a miracle that he even had the mental capacity to hand the ball off enough times to Jerome Bettis with that cracked, concussed skull full of grey ooze that used to be his brain. Good thing the refs were big enough Steelers fans to rig Super Bowl XL or else Hines Ward probably would have cried like a little bitch on national television again. And if that other Super Bowl win is enough to convince you that maybe Big Ben is a smart, talented, team player, just wait until next off-season when, assuming he is not in jail, he will drunkenly crash his motorcycle into a seventeen year olds vagina.

When he is not winning Super Bowls against the unholy beast that is the New England Patriots, Brett Favre spends his time in muddy Louisiana fields clad in his Levi jeans, playing pickup games of football with his multiracial group of friends while dogs look on from the back of their pickup trucks.

And even though Favre recently left Green Bay in a boring, non-newsworthy ordeal, the Packers have once again shown themselves to be masters of the sport of American Football by bringing in mustachioed handsome man Aaron Rodgers.

The Green Bay Packers have the best fans in the league, the most badass stadium, the most league championships, and the most players in the Hall of Fame. They are poised to win another Super Bowl, and soon no one will be able to stop them. Maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers will cheat their way into another Super Bowl, and the two will be able to face off. Ryan Grant will run for hundreds of yards against the Steelers aging, over-hyped, spousal abusing linebackers. Charles Woodson will intercept pass after errantly-thrown pass. Atari Bigby will snap Hines Ward’s spine in two. Nick Barnett and A.J. Hawk will break Big Ben’s frail and brittle bones. Aaron Rodgers will throw for 600 yards and 9 touchdowns, shattering records and turning what is supposed to be the most competitive game into a base, abject humiliation.

And when the final seconds tick away, Mike McCarthy will bring home another Vince Lombardi trophy to its rightful place in Green Bay. All fans around the country – not only Green Bay fans – will cheer and celebrate long into the night, because the Steelers are a universally hated gang of rapists and drug dealers, unlovable by everyone except vile, sub-human ghouls. Fuck them. Arrest every player who has ever worn the Black and Gold. Send Dan Rooney to Guantanamo Bay for his crimes against humanity. Burn Heinz Field to the ground and salt the earth where it once stood. Drop a thermonuclear device on the city of Pittsburgh.

Green Bay forever. Packers forever. Go Pack go. Go pack go. Go pack go. Gopack go. gOPac kgo. Go Pa

From the Archives of the Memoirs of Lord Byron of Jacksonville

2009-01-08T23:07:00.000-08:00

Ah the mimsey pursuits of warfare! The fineries of dejected rank and disillusioned file! Alas, how I have missed supping on the spirits of victory during my sabbatical. Had it not been so long since I’ve bathed in the vinegars of warfare I dareseay I may not even have waved a signal at these Cleveland barbarians!

Dare I entreat such a peevish tale upon you? Fine then in order to waste my time and yours. Gen. B. Roethlisberger took upon him such a blow to his (albeit already thick) head that from my bathhouse I heard the calling of the need for gentlemanly leadership. Whom am I to turn asunder these lads whom have fit to pay my tenure as general-on-retainer? Though the notion of simply riding side saddle onto victory did sound pleasing I admitte I felt the old tickle of battle downe my spine, and so stepped into the fray to reclaim the fame of my yester years.

Ande of course you know the reste. With a calooh and a callay I myselfe rallied the offense after poor Benjamins ill-timed incapacitation. And with the help of that zealous (if not a bit crass) Lt. Parker I made waste to the enemy like so many bested social opponents that I daresay the battle became a bit droll, if not for the vivid additions it will no doubt carry into my memoirs.
I have recently read in the periodicals that an up and coming gang from San Diego has come to challenge my knowledge of warfare. Let them flog like children at my defenders, for my repertoire is vast and unyielding; by the time they have unlocked the pattern of my attack I will have concocted thousands of new ways to humiliate them! Though the uneducated novice may hold him in high standard I will toss the head of Lt. Q. Jammer to the masses of Pittsburgh like the common pheasant on a thanks-givings eve lottery!

And shall that poor galoot Benjamin get the better of himself and take commande may he do so happily in the pursuit of battle! For the longer this Pittsburgh brigade call upon my veteran hand, the more ammunition I obtain for defending my own reputation in the periodicals! I almost felt the need to write a letter of thanks to Admiral Tomlin for calling upon me to personally render victory against my oldeste rival Lord D. Gerrard of Jacksonville, may the debt collectors and press gangs hound his immortal soul forevere. Indeed it is almost as if I have felt a bond with these men. . .

. . . but such talk is foolishness. Look unto the field of Hienz come sunsday wherein we shall prove once and for all whose autobiography is the most worthy of reviews and excerpts.

Lord Byron

2008-12-02T19:57:00.001-08:00

I write you this day with a Mightey weight havving been lifted from my Shoulders. Let it Be sung throughout evvery Beer Stall and Wine House of Pennsylvania that The Curse of Foxborough hath Been Lifted! With hott tempers and fierey intentions we mett that albatross which has plagued us and soured our Intentions and Vexxed our goings on for nigh on a Decade and in the darkest New Englande stormery we Did render victory! Tell your fellows That we make returne to Pittsburgh heroes all! Tell them we Defeatted The Beast!

O miserable was the Nighte that we Did come face to face with the Fiends! Throgh Winde and Fogg they came upon us, unrelenting in their Aggression like we have seen so many times before! Their infernal Commandre, first among the fallen, Gen. Cassell, reached his Hoary claws deep out into our Ranks and I must admitte that I felt a Terror in my heart. In his Eyes I swear I could see the Bidding of his Dark Lorde, that nosferatu whose name I dare not put to quill until I knowe I am safetly within the Borders of Pittsburgh but whom you surely know and whose dreaded Word echoed in their actions.

Though our lads fought braveley their dark arts Befuddled us at every Turn and for every step we tooke they seemed to take two in returne! Then like a beacon of light into that most dismall place Lt. C. Hampton (who in his experience has been defeated by these devils aforre) founde in his rage a divine strength And with the Might of twentey leagues of men Penetrated the defense of The Host and struck to Cassell such a blow that I wonder if Lucifer himself did not quiver in Hell!
Here lay our pathway to victory! Those brave men those Champions of Seattle Founde a rekindled Spirite the likes I have not seen since I was a youngre man and they did turn it towards their oldeste enemey! Lt. Harrison (he is the Bravest man in all the Land and Sea) Tore throgh their ranks like a thresher throgh stalks of wheat! Polamalu the Wilde ran amok here and their with his savage mane flowing ferociously and once again bringing pride to his barbarian fathers And laying waste to the Fiends whome he Hates so Dearely!

I havve not been so proud of my men in years and when I called them forwarde durring battle they Threw themselves into that Shambling Horde with suche violence and metall That nary a single one of the demons could maintain their taste for battle and yet still we would not allow an easy surrendre! The Darkness crepte from our feet as we marched and even He, the Beast himself, the most unclean, did shudder at our approach! Next to his cowering visage Admiral Tomlin appeared a Giant and it was with Great pride that I reported our victory too Him.

Though the Demon has fallen we Now return back to Three Rivers with haste! We have reports from the Frontier that a Southern army makes march against us lead by the Mexican, Antonio Romo. But Pittsburgh is a harsh mistress to her strangers and after our latest victory I looke forwarde to unleashing my men upon him!

General Benjamin Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Brigade, American F.C. North Commander of Forces

Private Letter from General Roethlisberger

2008-11-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

Private latter to _______, the Seconde of Novembre __07

Scrambling to recover from our Bloodey defeat at the hands of Gen. E. Manning of the New Yorke regiment, we marched, nay, hobbled into the fields of Washington yester day eve. Tho our ranks had Been worn thin by the Hands of that Detestable Elijah (a thousand poxes on his House and most hated kin!) our lads marched with high spirits upon Washington against the forces of Gen. J. Campbell.

The battle startted grimm! Our offensive forces missed Their targets here and again! I must admitte that I did question the vitality of Lt. S. Holmes, whose courage which I myself have knowne on so many Occasions, may have been Shaken by that accursed devil weed whose addictive hold incapacitated him during the battle of New Yorke! Yet his return marked a high raise of morale within the ranks, as too with Col. William Parker whome had taken a round of iron from Those green devils in Philadelphia! Yet even with these veterans back within our lines the Washington defenders held Ground mightily!

I almost feared the Worst when Gen. Campbell signalled his men to attack. Legends of their Cavalryman C. Portis had beene travelling up and down the coast and I myselfe have read reports of Commanders within Whose ranks he has run Amok! But I tell you the truth even he, that Scourge of Dallas, was no match for Our hardened veterans! Lt. J. Harrison leapt here and about, a whooping and a whailing like a fearsome Savage! His latest protoge Lt. L. Woodley, a young man ripe from the academy, has once againe proven himself an Invaluable membre of our cause. Togethre they routed the Washington forces and with the help of the rest of the lads (even that Col. Taylor, whose name you surely have heard me curse before!) brought the boot down on Old Campbell himself!

But alas, the Victory did not comme without a price. I regret that while leading my battalion deep into the enemies ranks I took a mighty Blow to my rifle arm, which left me useless and encumbered for the rest of battle. But Courage took many forms that night and the venerable Lord Byron of Jacksonville, whose service we illicited earlier in the year picked up my command (the Lord is a well studied student of warfare) and with the help of Liutenants Ward and Holmes (whome I am proud to say found his old stallwortness when duty neccessitated it) picked apart the battered remains of Washington's Forces.

A commanding win for us as the men of Washington are by no means reputed to be a rag tag group of militia or roughians like so many of our other bested foes, but whose skill is renowned and admired throughout the forces of the National F. C. We travel now back to our Beloved three rivers where we will ready to make Stand against the Brother of that cursed General Manning! Though his kin did defeat us we shall exact the price of vengence upon Him! I relish in the thought of writing Gen. Manning to personally tell him the news of his brothers disgrace at my hands So that he may see the Price that comes with His cowardly tactics!

I hope this letter reaches you well and I look forward to your correspondence. Look next week to the Confluence wherein victory shall again be ours.

General Benjamin Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Brigade, American F.C. North Commander of Forces

Boston

2008-10-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

I visited my extended family in New England a few weeks ago, which was good because they are nice people and I like spending time with them, but bad because that is where the Patriots are from. I stayed in Boston for the most part, but we made a trip to the town of Hull (about an hour east of the city) to fulfill a sort of mission that my Mom had concocted.

Somewhere along the line she heard that my great grandmother played the organ on an island where they kept Italian prisoners of war during the 40's. I guess back then pianists were hard to come by - every Sunday the military would ship her over to the prison island (they had to keep the Italians on the island because otherwise people would try to throw things at them and shoot them and stuff) where she would play the organ during church.

My mom called the park service to see if there was any way we could get onto the island to check out the old church and snoop around. Normally it was close by this time of the year but for some reason they really went out of their way to help us and said they would pick us up in a boat at a pier outside of town to take us over. I guess it was supposed to be his day off or something because the captain was the angriest man in the world.

This was a view from the boat. One of the houses belongs to my great aunt who is awesome. Also the Kennedys have been in like all of them.

There was a dog on the boat. A motherfucking boat dog.

The island is just an old fort anymore. A bunch of dilapidated buildings, which I would have thought was awesome when I was ten, and which I still thought was awesome at 22.

An angry building.

There was a garden full of this stuff, sitting out in the open nonchalantly as if everything was okay and not out of the ordinary at all.

Lazy buildings are no match for the wily grip of mother nature!

The oldest fire hydrant in the world. Built by a caveman perhaps??

This residents of Hull allowed this windmill to be built at the end of their peninsula (and geographically, the end of their town) because it saves them a lot of money on energy costs and it is neat. The rich people there don't like it because they are assholes. Sometimes these assholes are also senators named Ted Kennedy.

We saw the church where my great grandma allegedly played but it was locked up and pretty much looked like every other wooden building in the universe from the outside. I snapped a picture through a giant keyhole, but inside it was just old pews, boxes, and a propane tank I think.

After a few hours of meandering around ruins and paths through the woods we got a boat back to Hull, which is a very nice little town.

All of the houses along the bay look like this. It would be a nice place to live if you were either retired or you are a salty sea captain.

Also this:

One day I too hope to rule over my enemies and neighbors with a life sized bear weather vane.

David made a new video

2008-06-27T00:16:00.001-07:00

It is the best video.

http://vimeo.com/1240833

The New Indiana Jones movie was not very good

2008-06-03T22:14:00.001-07:00

I have in fact been telling people that it “failed on every conceivable level,” but I suppose that is a bit harsh. It wasn’t an awful movie; it was just an awful Indiana Jones movie. If it had instead been called National Treasure 3: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, I probably would have walked away from the theater saying something like “well that was fun,” which is an attitude that some people think is unfair. These people are wrong.

Pretend for instance that you are (for some reason) a fan of the Jurassic Park series. Imagine if Spielberg released a fourth installment, and when you went to see it on opening night, it turned out to be a romantic comedy about a dysfunctional but loving family of walking talking T-Rex’s. It wouldn’t really matter how good of a romantic comedy it was. It could be the best damn romantic comedy the country has ever seen, but you would still be disappointed.

Of course I exaggerate. Indiana Jones 4 is still a comedy/action movie with all the same major elements as the originals. But it is chalk full of little details which permeate throughout, creating an overall atmosphere which just doesn’t feel right, kind of like one of those cheap Halloween costumes of a copyrighted figure with just enough changes as to escape lawsuits. You know the ones I mean – like a cheap kit that has all the attire of The Joker only it’s labeled something like “dapper clown criminal” and the jacket is blue instead of purple, but it’s still the Goddamn Joker and you want to call up the company and ask them just who the hell they think they are fooling.

That is what the new Indiana Jones is like. Which is sad, because it wasn’t directed by some poor sap they picked off the streets, or even by George Lucas (whose continuing insistence on being a part of films makes me cry oily tears of pure liquid disdain), but by Steven Spielberg, who was a part of the trilogy from the beginning and whose films I have always had a really fun time watching.

Also I saw a new preview for The Dark Knight and it was great.