Thar she blows!

Pity the poor Central Washington Wildcats.

Not only do the upstart Wildcats have to contend with NCAA Division II juggernaut Grand Valley State in the national quarterfinals Saturday, they’ll be keeping a nervous eye on Louie the Lecherous Laker, Grand Valley’s unpredictable mascot.

The Lakers have won 39 straight games, including the last two national championships. They are the top-ranked team in Division II, or as the NCAA calls it, the Football Subdivision Cul-de-sac. They haven’t lost a game since 2004. They have a sophomore quarterback, Brad Iciek, who has thrown for 27 touchdowns.

And they have a sexually omnivorous fisherman for a mascot.

He’s only a mascot, you say? Why should this faux salty seamen concern the upstart Wildcats on the eve of their biggest game since joining Division II? Well, if you saw Louie taking liberties with a defenseless goal post during Grand Valley’s 21-14 victory over North Dakota last week, you’d tremble in fear. It was a bit of lascivious pole gymnastics that might make Gypsy Rose Lee blush.

We’re not sure if this is what Andy Fry, the director of the “Lounatics” student section at Grand Valley State U, had in mind when he told the student newspaper this week that “We expect good behavior out of our Louie, on and off the field,” but …

You might expect this sort of freaky, fully clothed frottage from a Bulldog, a Wildcat, possibly even a Moss. But a jug-headed mascot for a Division II powerhouse?

Maybe there’s a reason that the Lakers insist all their Louies remain anonymous.

Central quarterback Mike Reilly said he’s not afraid of the big, bad, ball-shaking Laker.

“We’re not concerned about any (expletive) sex-freak mascot, we’re worried about beating the two-time defending champions on their own damn field,” Reilly said. “Besides, if that giant-jawed, little-eared pervert so much as lays a hand on one of my guys, his goal-post humping testicles will be on the receiving end of a statement pass that he’ll never forget.”

You’re better off, Hulkster (but not you, Nature Boy)

“Hollywood, you call yourself the leader of the NWO? Don’t you know that half the guys in the NWO right now are shaking your hand, smiling in your face, and they wanna STAB YOU IN THE BACK AT A DROP OF A HAT! “- Randy “Macho Man” Savage, March 5, 1998

Hulkster,

So here we are, damn near 10 years later, and Macho’s prophetic words come true again. Only replace “the NWO” with “your house” and “shaking your hand” with “giving you a handjob” and you’ve got yourself a surprise divorce.

According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times last Friday, you didn’t even know your wife had filed until a reporter called you.

“I’m kind of shocked,” you said. “You caught me off-guard. My wife has been in California for about three weeks. … Holy smokes. Wow, you just knocked the bottom out of me. … I just pulled over to the side of the road for five minutes to find out what was going on here.”

But now that you’ve got your bottom back under you, let’s face it: getting dumped by Macho, Kevin Hall and the lovely Miss Elizabeth is a far crueler fate than getting sold out by the washed-up piece of tavern trash you inexplicably married. And looked what happened to them – shit, half the Wolfpack is dead now! Karma’s a bitch. And still, not to be crass, but even Miss Elizabeth’s rotting four-year-old corpse has more sex appeal and personality than your soon-to-be-ex wife.

At least you still have some dignity. Not so for our buddy Ric Flair, who either invested the last of his WCW money in Botox, or somehow had a large vat of plastic erupt under the skin in his face. But that’s no big deal in the context of Flair’s recent crusade to get Mike Huckabee elected president (starts at about 2:30):

That’s right: our favorite cokehead, the limousine ridin’ jet-flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin’ dealin’ son of a gun, is spending his days campaigning for a guy who thinks abortions cause immigration and compares them to the Holocaust (abortions, not immigrants, but we haven’t even hit the first primary yet, much less Mississippi, so stay tuned).

So Hulkster, to borrow a phrase: Fuck it dude, let’s go bowling. To recap – adulterous necrophelia with your former tag-team partner’s dead wife is preferable to being with that soul-sucker Linda, and that’s STILL better than whatever the fuck it is Nature Boy is doing. So buck up, champ! Do some training, say some prayers, take some vitamins, believe in yourself – you’ll move on, you’ll win a few more belts, and I hear Stacy Kiebler is still available.

And Nature Boy: Maybe you can arrange a bat-shit-crazy competition between your man Huck and The Ultimate Warrior.

PS: I hear Warrior’s a conservative, too.

A legend passes: Kevin DuBrow 1955-2007

While the world mourns Sean Taylor’s murder, I’m still in denial over the passing of a rock legend. Well, maybe not a rock legend, but a rock legend of my tormented, misinformed, Catholic-school youth — Kevin DuBrow, a big, screaming, leather pants-clad, booze-drinking front man, passed away at his Las Vegas home at the age of 52. No details have been released on the cause of death and probably won’t be for some time.

Regardless, I ask everybody to raise a shot of Jack Daniels (the preferred drink of heave metal singers) and wish him a restful journey into that big, groupie-filled arena in the beyond.

Sure, this blogging generation probably has no idea who DuBrow was and what he did to further pop culture. But the man sporting this very bad collection of hair plugs and extensions was once one of the coolest guys in popular music in the mid 1980s, which is basically like bragging you’re skinniest kid at a fat camp. Still, DuBrow, who back then had a nasty receding hairline (see below), probably managed to roll more groupies than all of the Backstreet Boys have ever rolled (well at least the heterosexual ones, if there are any) and provided this country with two of the greatest heavy metal anthems that were played in stadiums nationwide. Even today they hold more meaning and bring more energy to the average football game than Soulja Boy’s lyrically unchallenging “Soulja Boy.”

Still don’t know who DuBrow is? Well, he was the lead singer of Quiet Riot. Yes, that guy. Yes, that band. His voice had that edge as if he just drank a fifth of Jack, smoked a carton of Lucky Strikes and then gargled with asphalt. And “Cum on Feel the Noize” and “Metal Health (Bang your head)” were perfect for songs for him.

Let’s not kid ourselves, neither song was lyrical poetry or musical genius. I mean …

“Cum on feel the noize. Girls rock your boys, we’ll get wild, wild, wild.”

or

“Bang your head! Metal Health’ll drive you mad”

But for kids my age, these songs were cool, especially compared to the music around at the time (Hall & Oates, Toto). And Quiet Riot was one of the first bands to really spur the hair band movement — maybe not the best time in our musical history, but a period that most will remember nonetheless.

DEAR MR. BULFINCH: IS THE BCS A MYTH?

Espn.com’s Gene Wojciechowski says the notion that the BCS produces a legitimate, defensible national championship pairing is a myth.

A myth!

Gene, Gene, Gene.

The notion that Athena burst forth full-blown from the forehead of Zeus while Big Daddy was drunk off his godly ass, that’s a myth.

Same with the belief that world began as a big blob of moldy, worm-riddled cheese.

The BCS?

Nah.

The BCS (Bowl Cartel Syndicate) is a sham of a mockery of an unintentionally hilarious joke and as such cannot possibly rise to mythical status.

Furthermore, in order for a theory or system to achieve mythical proportion, somebody somewhere must have believed in it at sometime. By somebody, we’re not talking about the cynical collection of capitalists, charlatans and thieves behind the BCS. These are the people you can thank on Jan. 7 when they bring you the Allstate BCS National Championship Game, which will crown some dubious team the champion of the entire realm known ludicrously enough as the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Wojciechowski says that Missouri is a nice, little team, but the Tigers are not the No. 1 team in the land.

Out there in the post-armageddon wasteland, Jason Whitlock demurs.

Naturally, anyone who disagrees with Jaylock (editor’s note: this shows true restraint. Because if Jason Whitlock were to disparage someone named “Jason Whitlock” with a moronic celebrity nickname, he would dub the poor SOB JayWhitless. This is inarguable. Go ahead, try.) is clueless.

Missouri a national champion? Could be. West Virginia? Maybe. Ohio State? Unlikely, but why not? Hawaii? We’ll never know, because the BCS in its infinite and compassionate wisdom naturally eliminates the nation’s only undefeated team from the conversation.

Gene and the rest of the rational wing the college football cognoscenti still believe that a playoff is the only reasonable and fair means to the national championship end.

But you know what? Fuck the playoff. I’m too tired of the boilerplate excuses the cartel trots out like so many over-bread springer spaniels sachaying down the runway at the Westminster Kennel Club. A playoff? Too much logic doomed it from the start. Might as well hope Israel sees fit to give the Palestinians a livable state of their own.

But there is one time-tested system that would be an improvement on the BCS charade.

You know what that is? That’s right, the polls!

Bring back the AP and USA Today coaches poll.

Give me UPI. The Helms Athletic Foundation. The Dickinson System.

Give me anything, but spare me the BCS.

Sure, I once thought the poll system illogical, unfair and hopelessly archaic. I was young, arrogant and hopelessly stupid. That was pre-BCS.

While it might seem reactionary, the poll system is superior to the BCS in every imaginable way. Sure, it seemed a bit arbitrary and mean-spirited in years like 1994, when both Nebraska and Penn State finished undefeated and yet the polls only gave a national title to one of them.

But all rational, unbiased people outside of Nebraska understood that neither team could indisputably claim to be a true national champion. And the subtle beauty of the poll system was its endearingly nonsensical format which allows fans and alumni of schools to continue the debate across the decades.

True, some go off the deep end and actually submit formal claims to ancient national championships.

But with the poll system, the season would be over by Jan. 2, leaving one group of players, coaches, fans and alumni to celebrate a spurious national championship, and others to shake their fists at the gods and cry foul.

Best of all, a return to the poll system would spare us the disgusting spectacle of the TitleSponsor BCS National Championship Game. It would spare us the charade of a legion of second- and third-rate columnists descending upon the host city and, by virtue of their wise pontifications, lend a veneer of legitimacy to a hopelessly fraudulent enterprise.

The pick here for this year’s national champion?

The University of Nobody.

Because this is as fitting a year as any to admit the one obvious truth produced by the BCS: Nobody’s No 1!

Seahawks deny spitball allegations

One misfortune, that might happen …

Two separate-but-eerily similar misfortunes, that’ll never happen.

The hell you say?

No, Brian Leonard hasn’t just killed Gus Frerotte. But he’s thinking back to his freshman criminal justice class at Rutgers and trying to remember possible grounds for justifiable homicide.
Frerotte pulls a Tony Romo on 4th-and-goal from the 1, and the Seahawks slip away with another undeserved victory.
Not so fast, says federal investigator Jay Novitzky, who’s looking into allegations of foul play.
Rumors, suggestions and innuendo? Maybe. Novitzky’s J. Edgar Hooveresque nose for illicit garbage reportedly has turned up traces of a slippery substance, reported to be a blend of 75 percent rendered pork fat and 25 percent flaxseed oil, on a discolored jockstrap in a Dumpster frequented by Seahawks sideline lackey Burleigh Grimes. This squirrely looking character>>>>
“This is nothing but inflammatory, irresponsible and baseless innuendo,” said Seahawks spokesman Gary Wright. “And on top of that, there is no truth, none whatsover, in these charges. What’s more, suggestions that the Seahawks in any way have engaged in the practice of doctoring game balls are just flat-out lies.”
The lack of substantive proof, however, shouldn’t necessarily kill the growing momentum these ugly yet juicy allegations have gathered.
“Evidentiary proof is one thing,” said a federal investigator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “What you feel in your gut is another thing entirely. And that tells me these bastards are guilty.”
Stay tuned.

Anything can happen, right?

Anything can happen, says Ashley Fox.
Yay!
At least she didn’t repeat the “Any Given Sunday” cliché outright.
Some bastard copy editor in Philadelphia probably killed the reference.
By anything, you see, Ashley’s talking about A.J. Feeley’s Iggles.
If the stars align in a once-in-a-century formation, she says, if Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn engage in an interplanetary orgy in the sky over Gillette Stadium just before kickoff, the low-flying Eagles can beat the Tommy the Terminator’s Patriots.
This season.
Tonight.
In Massachusetts.
Suspend your disbelief.
Stranger things have happened, offereth the Oracle of Ashley.
Given that we’re seven years into the Dubya imperium, I’ll allow that as an abstract truth.
So stranger things have happened.
Yet few have been documented with empirical evidence.
Yet. … And yet, what doth A.J. say?
“It would be awesome. It would keep this thing going. To put three wins together and to do it in New England … it would be a great win. That’s what you expect to do, though. You expect to go there and win.”
Exp-p-p-pect to win? A.J., are you the hollow man?
When A.J. says “It would be awesome” to beat the New England Blitzkrieg, he sounds something like a high school volleyball player whose plucky team from East Loserville is about to get mutilated by the 10-time defending champions from Leviathan Prep in the first round of the 7-A state tournament.
World peace would be awesome, too.
There was a classic “Simpsons” episode from 1992, ‘Lisa the Greek.” As his team prepares to play the N.Y. football Giants, and Homer is desperate for gambling insight, the animated Eagle says to the sideline reporter: “This team is fired up. We came here to play.”
As Lisa said about the cartoon Eagle, much the same goes for his three-dimensional avatar.
Imagine the fear in his eyes. Listen for the quiver in his voice.
Eagles beat the Patriots tonight in New England?
There’s as good a chance Barry Bonds will win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Look at Ashley.

All dimples and cheeks. Ain’t she cute? Nurturing. Maternal, almost.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if Ashley evolves into a nice little columnist one day?

ARMAGEDDON! ARMAGEDDON!

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”

They’re playing a football game in Kansas City tonight. Missouri, Kansas. Ancient hatreds, 116th meeting, the meek inheriting the Earth, college football division. Big 12 North. BCS title ramifications. Blah, ha ha.

Fuck that shit. This is war, pestilence, famine.

Biblical prophesy in the bloated, tortured, rotting flesh. Kind of like Iraq.

The Kansas and Missouri rivers will burn with the petroleum stench of mortal sin, and the hell-bound heathens of the heartland will pray to their righteous God that they may drown peacefully before being consumed in the boiling flames of eternity.

Yes, says that esteemed voice of Kansas City, it is “Armageddon at Arrowhead.”

Nice, alliterative.

Punchy, almost sexy.

Raw and manly. Memo to Jason: Call Vince McMahon, he’ll eat that shit up.

Passing over the obvious inappropriateness of cloaking a mere football game in apocalyptic imagery …

Dear Jesus, we can’t pass by that.

It’s like a dozen scantily clad college cheerleaders gyrating around an armed nuclear warhead at the 50-yard line while Gale Sayers raps the national anthem. There is no passing by that.

Armageddon at Arrowhead?

You can do better than this, Jason. You are better than this. I think.

Many readers, including yourself, think you straddle this forlorn profession like a journalism colossus. But think of it, Jason: Iraq, Afghanistan, Nick Sabin’s post-traumatic loss disorder, U.S. soldiers offing themselves at alarming rates (http://counterpunch.com/whitney11172007.html), the entire Middle East teetering on the brink of collapse … Aw fuck it, Jason, I was about to get all pontification-happy on your ass. I’m such a mean-spirited busybody.

Sorry, Jason. Really. I know how pleased you are with “Armageddon at Arrowhead.” Because I see you’ve become shit-faced, shambling, rolling-in-your-own-puke drunk own your own Promethean creation.

Hell, maybe you didn’t invent it, but you sure loved the shit out of it, Jason. You reminded us no fewer than 13 times this week, including a staggering five-spot in Monday’s table-setting column, that Armageddon was coming to Arrowhead.
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/368904.html

I understand, Jason. When you’re a creative genius in the troglodyte world of the postmodern newspaper, you can’t trust the reader. Subtlety is no good. You write “Armageddon at Arrowhead” one time, the obtuse reader might pass over it without notice in search for some nugget of deeper wisdom, i.e. which team you think will prevail in the apocalyptic clash.

But if you repeat the phrase, say, five times, or even a mere four – http://www.kansascity.com/167/story/366049.html - the slower-witted among us will catch on and realize we’re in the presence of a visionary talent.

And all kidding aside, I hope your visionary powers do not intersect with John Brown’s tonight in Kalamitous Kansas City, that the good states of Kansas and Missouri shall not be summarily wiped from the map like rival Sodams and Gomorrahs so that they might remain stolid bastions of decency, common sense and rock-ribbed Republicanism, and that a good, clean, spirited game will unfold at Arrowhead.

And, oh yeah, may the best team win.

Jayhawk the Hut vs. Jabba the Hutt

Sure plenty of people poke fun about Kansas head coach Mark Mangino’s gargantuan appearance. You know why? It’s easy and it’s fun. Maybe he’s not related to Jabba the Hutt — directly. But I can see them as shirt-tail relatives. Let’s break them down ….

Mark Mangino

• Head coach of undefeated, whoops, 10-1 Kansas team
• Married to Mary Jane, father of a son and a daughter
• Over 6 feet and well over 300 pounds
• Low point: Driving an ambulance for a job until his late 20s
• Best decision: Changing his entire life around to become a coach
• Famous for being the largest coach in NCAA Division I football and dressing down punt returner Raimond Pendleton for picking up a unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty for celebrating a touchdown.
• Downfall: Perhaps a soft non-conference schedule that included Central Michigan, Toledo and one of those shitty Florida schools, Missouri’s Chase Daniel, or the return of the stuffed crust pizza at Pizza Hut.
• Remembered for: Turning Kansas into a legitimate NCAA contender

Jabba the Hutt

• Former head of an intergalactic crime and smuggling syndicate
• Father of countless out-of-wedlock worm-type creatures and one-time slave owner of the sublime Princess Leia.
• Approximately 7 feet tall and about 15 feet long, weighing at least a ton.
• Downfall: Meeting Han Solo
• Best decision: Forcing Leia to wear that bikini.
• Famous for not being affected by the Jedi mind trick and displaying nemesis Han Solo in frozen carbonite.
• Downfall: Underestimating the power of the rebel forces, the overall strength of Princess Leia despite wearing a bikini and employing such scalawag bounty hunters as Boba Fett as security.
Remebered for: Licking Princess Leia in the face with a 14-inch tongue or his tail violently wiggling and then falling quietly upon his death.

Winner: Mangino, or should we call him Jayhawk the Hut.

I love grass! By Shaun Alexander

Some of my teammates really like to go to the movies. Some like to ride around on motorcycles. Me? I love grass!

No, not the kind the “stoned” kids in college smoked. I’m talking about good ol’ fashioned fescue, bluegrass, Kentucky grass (just the grass though … the heck with the Wildcats!!!) Even FieldTurf is fine with me, just so long as it’s green and it’s on the ground. In fact, the ground is where you’ll find me lots of the time, too!

Sometimes, I’ll be running the football up the middle of the line and see a couple of ticked off linebackers chugging my way. Well, my momma always told me I’ve got a problem with letting my mind wander when I get to feeling nervous, and sure enough! I’ll start thinking about how nice and soft that grass would be to lay on. I’ll admit, I can’t help myself, and next thing you know, those confused linebackers are jumping on top of my already prone body (or, let’s be honest, the football) while I’m enjoying the soothing sensation of grass on my forearms!

I know sometimes the kids in the stands get sad cause I like the grass so much, and their parents even boo me! Heck, it really gets me down … for about five seconds! All I have to do is think about how Pastor Casey says Jesus just wants us all to be happy. (Man, that guy always knows what to say. Note to myself: Tithe more!)

So I always know that the next sweep is only a couple plays away, and I’ll be feeling better just as soon as I can get back to my happy spot – on the grass!

Man, I’m such a goof! Coach Mike is always saying, “Look, Shaun, I know you love the grass. Heck, who can blame you? Everybody loves the grass! But we need you to… “

I’ll be honest (again!) and tell you this is where I usually forget to listen because I’m too busy trying not to giggle at his funny mustache! And once I’m in a silly mood, I start thinking about other things that make me happy, and next thing you know, there I am, lying in the grass again, but with Coach Mike saying bad words! Man, it seems like he’s always cussing up a storm at one thing or the other! I think after practice one day, I’ll pull him aside, tell him to take his shoes off, and see if – you guessed it! – he calms down after a nice long walk across the grass with me!

I hope you’re fucking happy!

So now you know.
I’m making $512, 664 this year.
Those sons of bitches down in Harrisburg have been hounding me for five years, poring over my garbage, looking under my doormat, saying you needed to know. Now you know.
Does that make you happy? I fucking hope so.
Kind of makes you feel a little ashamed, doesn’t it?
You say my offense is as archaic and predictable as a “Three’s Company” plot line? Well, I’m getting paid in 1970s dollars. So fuck you.

So I’m making more than a half-million simoleons a year. Big fucking deal. Did you know that I’ve won 371 games in my career? I guess that means nothing. You know that I’ve won more games against Division I opponents than any coach in NCAA history? Didn’t think so. So fuck you!

That asshole Saban is raking in $4 million down in Alabama, and he can’t even beat the sisters of the poor from James Monroe, Louisiana-Monroe, or whatever the hell it is. Fifty-six years old, and he’s making 4 mil. And me at 80, barely breaking a half-million.

You’d think I’d still be coaching if I got beat by Akron? Temple? You tell me. You know how many college wins Saban has? Nine-tee-fucking-eight!

That’s right. Did you know 90 percent of the people in Zambia are living on less than $2 a day? Is that my fault? Fuck no. Ask that fucker Saban. He’s making eight times what I’m making, and he’s not fit to sniff my Ivy Leauge jockstrap. And how about that $4 million I’ve donated to the university? Think they’ll name a goddamn library after Saban in Alabama? Didn’t think so.

Saban! He’s the Jackie Sherrill of his day. A carpetbagger with no sense of place, history or soul. You think he’s going to be in Tuscaloosa in 2047?

No. So fuck him. And fuck you, too!

He loses to some school my old Brown team could’ve whipped, and he has the audacity to compare a game of football to a national tragedy like Pearl Harbor, the September 11 terrorist attacks or the massacre of the Melos during the Peloponnesian War.

Bet you philistines never heard of the Peloponnesian War? So fuck you!

Think I’m overpaid? Maybe you didn’t see this. I got my fucking leg nearly sheared in two by a Badger last year, when I was making less than half a mil.

Cicero said it best: “A life of peace, purity and refinement leads to a calm and untroubled old age.”

Allow me to translate for you neanderthals: I’m worth every fucking penny this goddamn university sees fit to pay me. And more. So fuck you!