It's Been A LongTime...

I shouldn't have left you.

I know... I've been delinquent over the past few months, but with good reason. I don't have to tell y'all how the economy affects us all in many different ways.

So I'm back...

And apparently you must've missed me (or something).

I've been reading a lot of news, forming a lot of opinions and for brevity's sake, lemme pull ya coat as to where my head is at right now (pause).

1.) The Big 3 Bailout: NAH! This is equal to putting a band aid on a bullet wound. Let them reorganize and get a solid working plan. I say this knowing that mass layoffs (but not all, this would not be a liquidation, but a reorganization) may create the need for a real RoboCop and ED209 on the streets of Detroit. Maybe they should manufacture those instead??

2.) Kanye West's "808's And Heartbreaks": I hate it. I've wasted alot of time in my life and realize that time is gone, but I really do want this hour of my life back.

3.) Barack Obama's Cabinet: So, where exactly is this change? Are these not the same people that worked for Bill Clinton that Hillary would have hired had she won?

4.) Sarah Palin: The key to any good performance is to know when to leave the stage. She is not aware of this. Someone please get Sandman Sims on the phone. We're going to need him as she embaks on her press junket for this huff ass book.

5.) President Bush Pardons John Forte: If you put me and the seven other people that bought his album "Poli Sci" in the same room for weeks, we would have never saw that coming and could never rationalize it. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but the Drugs he was caught with did originate in the state where the Pardoning President was Govenor when the offense took place. Not saying that it was GW's weight, but could John Forte be receiving this pardon for keeping his mouth shut? Stop Snitching indeed

6.) Hank Paulson: Idiot.

7.) Plaxico Burress: Bigger idiot. There are so many things that went wrong with Cheddar Plax that I don't know where to start. I will just say that 2K could have saved him a few mil. I know that math is not everyone's strong suit but 1 Mil signing bonus > 2K for security for the night.

8.) Joe Biden: Quickly discovered Dick Cheyney's undisclosed location. Really, what is THIS vide-president going to do.

9.) College Football: Needs a playoff. I understand that we'll never see it, especially since ESPN just belw a wad on rights for the next decade, but the BCS is really a joke.

Feel free to ask me any questions related to these or any other topics that come to mind and I'll answer them.

Straight from the bottom of the pot . . . ..

Harvest

I love the fall.

I was one of the few kids that always looked forward to going back to school. As a shy elementary school student, it was the time of the year to get back to the one place I always felt comfortable. Minus my mother grabbing the crotch of my pants and asking if I had enough room while we were in the middle of crowded department stores, I loved back to school shopping. As a high school student, it meant back to football. Football was such a great outlet. Aside from just loving to play the game, I was legitimately able to beat on people without much repercussion. If I had a long day in school, SOMEONE was going to catch it at practice. And if I had a long week, Lord save the poor soul from some other school that had the misfortune of lining up against me. In college it meant new music, new classes and new women!!! What more could you want or need?

I love the fall weather.

You still get a hint of summer with the warm days, but the nights are cooler. Long sleeves replace the shorter ones. Clothes get flyer. The red and yellow leaves are so much more pretty than the spring and summer green. I can remember being on the side of a mountain in New England where the wind blowing the fall leaves looked like a fire spreading. That still stands out as possibly the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen. Of course, I say this as a person that doesn't have to rake leaves.

I've always appreciated the change in seasons which is one of many reasons that I've passed on moving to California in the past when the opportunity had presented itself. I'll pass on getting more Robert Frost than I already have, but I will say that its like feel a new energy with the change of season. Can it be something in the solstice? Is it that whole harvest of the summer's crop thing at play? Can it be National Set Your Bunny Roster for the Winter Day? I think it is.

You may be asking yourselves, what exactly is National Set Your Bunny Roster for the Winter Day¹, but you already know! It's that magical day in the fall, when you assess the status of your summer bunnies, and decide who gets to continue onto the winter. At this point, you should have racked up plenty of Bunnies during your summer excursions, evenings out on the town and barbecues. While many of them were adequate to kick it with during the summer months, they probably just don't cut it for the fall and winter. See, while summer may hold a greater quantity of events, the events of fall and winter are usually of greater gravity. Does anyone really care about the bimbo that you show up to a wedding with? No! Now, is it important who you go to an office party, or charity event with? Emphatically YES! I'm only verbalizing what we all do naturally. While we may not be a predominantly agricultural society anymore, we still spend the summer months tending to our fields (Going out, meeting people) so that we can reap the rewards of that hard work during the harvest and live well during the winter (having the right bunny or team of bunnies) and be held over until the spring (wash, rinse, repeat).

So now we are left with the culling of the crop. How do we know who to cut and who to keep? There are just a few simple rules that one must follow:

1. Identify the cream of the crop. It's fairly simple to decide who your blue chip prospects are. Once you do that, you have to close the deal by making sure you are on the same page. Never spend too much time or energy trying to keep someone that does not want to be kept. If your summer rosters were assembled correctly, you should not be bereft of choices.

2. Never burn bridges. Just because someone did not make the big club is no reason to go slander them or create a hostile relationship. You never know who will be the next successful mid season call up, or which other franchises that one may sign with.

3. If you're good, you never stop looking. The summer may be over, and people are more reluctant to come out, but there are still plenty of opportunities to meet people. Having your ears to the street and your eyes wide open can never hurt you. Remember, options is the name of the game!

4. Are you dealing with any bussdowns ? If so, this is not an absolute deal breaker. A bussdown or 2 can prove beneficial on those cold nights when your high level bunnies are unavailable.* Like any successful team, your winter roster has to have role players. Someone's got to be the go to player that you can always rely on in the clutch, and someone has to grab rebounds or play lockdown defense. It's important to note that you have to keep your Top Notch to Bussdown ratio skewed heavily toward top notches, lest you become a haven for bussdowns!

Follow these rules, and use your good common sense and you will have happy harvest indeed!!!

********************

¹ This is not gender specific.

America: The Absurd

My everyday perusal of these here fine internets take me across a number of "traditional" news sources (newspapers, etc.), music sites, sports sites and various forms of social commentary. It's not surprising when all of these sites converge on a single topic. It is surprising how banal that topic can be to me. No, I'm not talking about the political conventions that will dominate the airwaves for the next few weeks or the celebrity worship that has become bigger business than even religion or even reality TV. No, I am talking about the further degradation of American culture, what that great thinker of our time, George Carlin, often refered to as "The Pussification of America". This Pussification is going to lead us all into a full blown Idiocracy ¹.

Click to read more ...

At Times My Going Forward Seems Like Retreat

As I be writing rhyme after rhyme, and throw away beats"

- The Artist Formerly Known As Sense, Invocation, from the album One Day It'll All Make Sense

This may come as a shock to some of you, but there was a time in life when The Champ was not so deliberate and precise with his syntax. Some use to call it outright smart mouthed. I liked to think of it as a sense of candor that only the most honorable of souls could possess. My mother and my dear Aunt Betty were like bad cop and badder cop in how we shall say, correcting this behavior. On her most diplomatic of days, my Aunt Betty would say "You can think anything you want, nobody can take that away from you, but you don't always have to say what you are thinking.” I really didn't (and sometimes still don't) see what the big deal was, it was not like I ever lied. Honesty is the best policy, right? There were plenty of times where I saw what Aunt Betty was saying, as this much candor sometimes caused uncomfortable situations. I really couldn't help myself and sometimes I thought I was born with a disability, that disability being the lack of the mechanism between thought and speech. Well, after 3 decades, I think I finally am able to put what Aunt Betty was trying to teach me into practice.

Click to read more ...

If It's, Trains, Planes, or The Back of The Bus - Part 1

Fuckin' with us, trust (We travel)
If the, price is right and the crowd is tight
Yo any time of night (We travel)
Just put us on the road (We travel)

-Masta Ace from the song Travelocity from the album A Long Hot Summer

Fam, what's really good? I know The Champ has been slacking in the blog department, but it's been real in the field, but we'll get to all that. Let's just say that the last year plus has been interesting¹, in a good way. Last summer was one of the better summers in recent memory and I owe it to you all to document it here. I promise that I will, but we got some things we gotta get out of the way first. I promise that we'll get to the story of King Slick and the Old Bunny, The Most Random Night Ever and How I Got Dumped by A Pregnant and Engaged Bunny That Was Not Pregnant By Nor Engaged to Me. For now, we'll talk about how The Champ had quite the international experience recently. My experience can best be summed up but the European experience of fellow Harlemite, Dame Dash, as told to Gentleman's Quarterly magazine:

Click to read more ...