In honor of Groundhog Day, here’s Ned Ryerson. You remember him, right? Needlenose Ned? Ned the Head? The guy who did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn’t graduate? Ned!
Sean Keane Comedy
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Thursday, February 2nd 2012
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Tuesday, January 31st 2012
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Friday, January 27th 2012
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The Business Returns to the Meltdown
The Business SF heads south in just TWO SHORT WEEKS for a return engagement at the Nerdist Theater at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood. On February 10th, enjoy Alex Koll, Chris Garcia, Bucky Sinister, and yours truly, along with two, count ‘em, two special guests: Elevator astronaut Louis Katz and comedian/hobo poet Kyle Kinane. All this, and a medically-transported-burrito raffle too!
This is going to be a good one, so why not save two bucks and get tickets in advance? Maybe you could plan something ahead of time for once in your miserable life. Just grow up already, and come to the show. You’re welcome.
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3:44am|reblogged from Power Violence:
These guys seem like they mean business.
I’ve been on the cover of the East Bay Express myself, so I know that these are the kind of tactics you need to make inroads with the alternative press. Sure, my face was there without a name, and sure, the headline underneath implied that I was a member of a “Hip-Hop Power Trio,” but that does not matter. I made it.
LA Weekly and the hookers that advertise in the LA Weekly need to take a long hard look at this video and decide for themselves if these are enemies they want to make.
It’s Time for Power Violence to RISE UP! A shit tide will wipe you out LA WEEKLY!
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Thursday, January 26th 2012
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3:07pm|reblogged from MLB Off-Season:Moneyball 2012: Jose Canseco Director’s Cut
(via mlboffseason)
Moneyball 2012
By Aaron Sorkin & Sean Keane
(SCENE: The ramshackle Oakland front office’s conference room. Oakland scouts fidget nervously, staring at their own pagers rather than each other. Billy Beane bursts into the conference room waving a printout.)
Billy Beane: Guys, you’re still trying to replace Gio Gonzalez. I told you we can’t do it. We can’t do it. Now what we might be able to do is recreate him, in the field of social media.
Grady Fuson: The field of what?
Billy Beane: No one is talking about this team as contenders, but the real problem is no one is talking about this team, at all. We haven’t been a trending topic since Dallas Braden’s perfect game.
Ron Hopkins: What’s a Trending topic?
Billy Beane: Peter, get Wikipedia open for Ron. Gonzalez has 19,586 followers on Twitter. Andrew Bailey has 11,835 followers. Trevor Cahill is not on Twitter, but his Facebook fan page has 2,128 likes. What’s the total?
(He snaps his finger and points to Peter )
Peter Brand: Do you want me to speak?
Billy Beane: When I point to you, yeah. Why couldn’t Milton Bradley have been like you?
Peter Brand: Thirty three five forty-nine.
Billy Beane: Divided by three.
(Billy snaps his finger again)
Peter Brand: Eleven one eight three.
Billy Beane: That’s what we’re looking for. Three ball players whose average Klout score is…
Peter Brand: Sixty-three!
Billy Beane: Now here’s who we want. @LoMoMarlins, AKA Logan Morrison.
Ron Hopkins: Logan Morrison! That guy’s a head case.
Grady Fuson: The Marlins sent him to the minors last year even though he had 17 home runs.
Billy Beane: And he has 88,700 followers! Number two, @JoseCanseco.
Grady Fuson: Jose Canseco! Come on, Billy! He’s 47 years old!
Ron Hopkins: He proposed to Lady Gaga!
Grady Fuson: Didn’t he box a kangaroo on pay-per-view?
Billy Beane: Well, his social media reach is all we’re looking at here.
Ron Hopkins: Why do you like this idiot?
Billy Beane: Peter?
Peter Brand: (shrugs) 400,000 followers, 2,000 Tweets. He gets online.
Billy Beane: Number Three, @RobDelaney.
Grady Fuson: For crissakes Billy, he’s not even a baseball player!
Billy Beane: Peter’s computer says Delaney’s received over 70,000 “Favorites,” some of his stuff has been retweeted over 6,00 times, and he looks good in baseball pants.
Ron Hopkins: Billy, we’re not selling jeans here.
Billy Beane: Maybe we are selling jeans. If we have players with followers, we can use sponsored tweets. We make a deal with Levi’s, and we might earn enough to afford hot water in the locker room showers. They’ll like him for the same reason we like him. Because…?
The Scouts: He gets online.
Billy Beane: He gets online!
Grady Fuson: So he Tweets a lot.
Billy Beane: He gets online a lot. Do I care if it’s a blog or a Facebook status update? Do I, Pete?
Peter Brand: You do not. Hey, who do I talk to about getting my character’s name changed?
Billy Beane: Fausto Carmona.
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Tuesday, January 24th 2012
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Contraband: What Would You Family to Family Your Family?
I saw “Contraband,” the movie where reformed-but-world-class smuggler Mark Wahlberg has to go back to a life of crime in order to save his family. Specifically his brother-in-law, who owes money to gangster Giovanni Ribisi, but later his kids and wife are threatened, too. Just when he thinks he’s out, they smuggle him back in!
Mark Wahlberg might be the heir to Harrison Ford, in terms of family-protecting intensity. When a double-cross gets him caught in a firefight between machine-gun toting thugs and the Panamanian army, Wahlberg yells, “You put my family in danger!” as he pummels the double-crosser. He doesn’t mention the fifteen minutes of automatic weapon fire or his own near-death; just the family, in danger. Then he relents on the pummeling, because the double-crosser is also family, and he loves his family.
This is one reason why “The Fighter” works. Even though Micky Ward has a terrible, manipulative family, it’s unimaginable he’d ever ditch his family, simply because he’s played by Mark Wahlberg. This is why Mark Wahlberg might genuinely think he could have prevented 9/11. He said, “If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’” (emphasis mine) In a movie, the presence of his children would have made Wahlberg an unstoppable fighting/smuggling force, so why couldn’t he draw on that family-based berserker rage in real life?
Accents
This movie is set in New Orleans, though Giovanni Ribisi is the only actor who does a New Orleans accent to any degree. And it’s possibly the worst movie accent I’ve ever heard, at least in the same class as Keanu Reeves in “Dracula,” Tim Curry in “Congo,” Kevin Costner in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” Christian Slater in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” and Keanu Reeves in “The Devil’s Advocate.” Joey Devine asked, “Is he like Dr. John’s son?”
You can also tell the movie is in New Orleans because of the scene where Wahlberg explains that, if he’d been with his kids, those levees wouldn’t have went down like they did in 2005.
Chemistry
My favorite line of the movie comes when Wahlberg explains part of his ingenious smuggling plan by shouting, “Didn’t you take chemistry in school? Salt dissolves in water, bitch!” That is the least-tough statement that has ever been punctuated with “bitch.” Also, is that a piece of knowledge that’s reserved for chemists? Chemists, and master smugglers. I don’t think Wahlberg’s character studied chemistry either, but maybe his family had a history of high blood pressure, so he had to learn how to defeat their nemesis, salt.
“You’re trying to give my family hypertension! I’m gonna dissolve you in water, bitch!”
All in all, “Contraband” is really stupid but fairly enjoyable, and I look forward to not really watching it but also not turning it off some future Sunday afternoon when it’s on USA.
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Sunday, January 22nd 2012
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We Are the 49%: Why the 49ers Should Be the Team of the Occupy MovementMIC CHECK! Sports fandom and political activism are not mutually exclusive, but it’s understandable that activists in the Occupy moment have not been following the NFL season closely this fall. Who should they support today? I think the general consensus should be the San Francisco 49ers.
- In the pre-season, pundits gave the 49ers only a 1% chance to reach the Super Bowl.
- The 49ers defense lacks superstars, but it’s quietly devastating. One could call it…Anonymous.
- Their opponent is the New York Giants, a team from Wall Street itself. Last week, they faced off against a community-owned non-profit from Wisconsin and they crushed them, like some kind of Koch Brothers wet dream.
- Just as corporations will incorporate themselves in Delaware for tax reasons, the Giants claim New York City as their home, despite playing their games in New Jersey. Stop the corporate lies, John Mara!
- Eli Manning is their quarterback, a player who got his opportunities because of his family connections. His signature move is to throw passes wildly downfield, and hope that his wide receivers will bail him out. Hakeem Nicks might as well have “TARP” written on the back of his jersey.
- Coach Tom Coughlin did once wear a V For Vendetta mask on the sidelines, but it was only to keep his face from freezing off. His favorite Natalie Portman movie is actually “Where The Heart Is,” a movie that takes place at Wal-Mart.
- Alex Smith was an honor student in both high school and college. He earned his degree in just two years, but once he joined the workforce, he kept losing his job over and over again. Some say it was a quarterback competition; I call that layoffs.
- For years, the 49ers were run by Dennis Erickson, Mike Nolan, and Mike Singletary, which means they were a leaderless organization YEARS before Zucotti Park.
- San Francisco starts Michael Crabtree at wide receiver. In Oakland, I believe someone briefly occupied a crab tree.
- Candlestick Park provides less protection from the cold than a teepee at Justin Herman Plaza.
- Like protesters, 49er fans now have to worry about cops infiltrating their groups.
Who’s got it better than us? Economically, it’s the 1%, but on the gridiron, nobody!
Whose Stick? Our Stick! Whose Stick? Our Stick! Whose Stick? Our Stick!
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9:07am|reblogged from NFL Off-Season:Championship Game Commercial Predictions
SPORTS JOKES
(via nfloffseason)
- If the 49ers win, expect Alex Smith to immediately sign a deal with Domino’s Pizza. “Everyone thought I sucked, and then I got a lot better. While that still only bumps me up to mediocre, I’m also cheap.”
- If the Giants win, Eli Manning will film another Double Stuff Racing League commercial, but his new partner will be Andrew Luck.
- Depending on his postgame press conference, Tom Coughlin could end up a miniature coach in a beer commercial within two years. It would be easy to suggest that his face has also been “frost-brewed.”
- Any win by a Harbaugh brother will set up a “Who’s Got It Better Than Us?” campaign for Best Western.
- Joe Buck will work the phrase “Jumbaco” into the broadcast, because he is the fucking worst.
- A triumphant Tom Brady will film a Mitt Romney endorsement at midfield; a losing Tom Brady will film himself shame-eating a giant sundae from the Coldstone Creamery in the back of his town car.
- Rex Ryan will shill for Six Flags. “Since I’m clearly not going to Disneyland any time soon, I might as well visit Six Flags. But I’m not taking Mark, because he’s scared of roller coasters.”
- You’ll hear the song “Bad Day” more than thirty times today, while an announcer suggests, incorrectly, that it’s perfectly acceptable to start playing fantasy football in late January.
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Saturday, January 21st 2012
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9:00am|reblogged from NFL Off-Season:
Matt Saracen vs. Alex Smith. I went into a lot of depth on the topic.
If they win on Sunday, I promise to explore the connections between Eddie Debartolo and Buddy Garrity.
(via nfloffseason)
The fantastic Joe Mande called it; Alex Smith is the closest thing the NFL has to Dillon Panthers quarterback Matt Saracen, from Friday Night Lights. Let’s explore the parallels.
- Alex’s final drive on Sunday contained a miraculous last-second touchdown pass, like in the Season One state championship game, and a heart-breaking comeback from the opposing team, like the Season Three state championship game, and everyone cried tears of joy, like when Tami Taylor found out she was pregnant. (Please no spoilers, I’m still in the middle of Season Four)
- Matt Saracen had to care for his elderly grandmother, who was in the early stages of dementia. Alex Smith had to deal with offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye, who occasionally forgot what down it was. Once, in a goal-line situation, Smith had to burn a timeout AND sing “Mr. Sandman” to Raye just to get him to send in a play.- Neither Matt Saracen nor Alex Smith has ever had a legitimate wide receiver to throw to. The emergence of Delanie Walker as a receiving threat is kind of like the episode where Landry caught a touchdown pass and Coach Taylor still called him “Lance.” Although Delanie Walker never murdered anyone.
- What they did have were Tim Riggins and Vernon Davis. Both are former disciplinary problems turned team leaders. Both started off as blockers, but when they were actually made a part of the offense, they became devastating weapons. Each has a brother with a drinking problem. Also both looked like full-grown men as teenagers, although for Riggins, that was because he was played by a 28-year-old.
- They also had Frank Gore and Smash Williams. Both running backs had obvious talent, but were ignored due to a knee injuries, and eventually paid huge dividends for the team that took a chance on them. Frank Gore never resorted to steroids, but then again, he also never had to work at an Alamo Freeze.
- Saracen was abandoned by his mentor, Coach Taylor, who left for a better job at TMU. Smith was abandoned by his mentor, Norv Turner, who left to run the San Diego Chargers into the ground. Frankly, I don’t think Norv is even qualified to be the head coach of TMU.
- Later, Coach Taylor chose J.D. McCoy over Saracen, and blew the state championship game because of it. Coach Mike Singletary started Troy Smith ahead of Alex, and blew the easily winnable 2010 NFC West division.
- Smith also lost his job to J.T. O’Sullivan, which might as well have been the name of a Friday Night Lights character. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz preferred O’Sullivan to Smith, just like Wade Aikman supported J.D. McCoy.- In his title game win, Saracen defeated his archrival, Voodoo Tatum. In his division round win, Smith defeated a team from New Orleans, the most voodoo-friendly city in America.
- Matt Saracen had sex with his coach’s daughter. On the sidelines, Coach Mike Singletary once angrily suggested that Alex Smith go have sex with himself.
So what are we to expect as fans on Sunday? Will Alex Smith triumph against the New York Giants, the Arnett Meade of the NFL? Will the rain turn Candlestick into a Mud Bowl? Will Alex Smith be distracted by his father’s unexpected return from Iraq? Did anyone ever find out what happened to the Latino kid that Buddy Garrity adopted?
All will be answered soon. Who’s got clearer eyes and fuller hearts than us? Nobody!
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Thursday, January 19th 2012
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"Offensive holding: This happens when an offensive player grabs a defensive player by his jersey, to keep him from tackling his teammate. It’s a ten-yard penalty. This is a good penalty for people to complain about during commercials, after the game, or in some cases, five years later (see: Seattle fans, Super Bowl XL). Mission District take note: Just because a player is flagged for holding, that does not necessarily mean he has cocaine."
My NFL rules guide appeared on the East Bay Express blog today. This could be the beginning of a beautiful alt-weekly friendship.
