Well, it’s been a long road. We’ve talked about screenplays. We’ve talked about leading performances and supporting performances. We talked about all of the categories that are on when you decide to take a bathroom break. But now, it’s time for the two big categories. Let’s get predictin’!!!
Continue reading “FBC Oscar Coverage, Part X: Predicting The Winners (Part 5)”
It’s October, something unfamiliar to the Detroit Tigers. The last time they won a playoff series was the 1984 World Series, twenty-two years in the rear view mirror. They’ve already won one this year taking three straight games over the dreaded Yankees after dropping the first. Tonight, they could sweep the perennial postseason participant Athletics. The game is tied at three as it turns to the bottom of the ninth. The first two Tiger batters went down quickly, Marcus Thames on a flyball to center and Curtis Granderson, in his first full season, on a liner to right. Craig Monroe singles. Placido Polanco follows suit. The pennant-clinching runner is in scoring position. In steps Magglio Ordoñez, the ten-year veteran from Venezuela. His opponent is the 2005 Rookie of the Year, Huston Street. They had only met twice before, the first time back on July 4th of the current year, when Street got Ordoñez to strike out swinging on four pitches. The second, three days earlier that ended in a groundout. But every at bat is another chance to undo a previous mistake. Comerica Field is shaking in anticipation of a World Series berth. Magglio steps into the batter’s box, grinds his front cleat against the dirt to get a strong foothold. Street gets the sign, winds and delivers.
Continue reading “Baseball, Art out of Time: High Into The Night”
We’re less than two weeks away from the Oscars. It’s movie’s biggest night! Are you pumped? GET PUMPED. FUCKING DO IT.
Next week, we’ll cover who will win for Best Director and Best Picture. But there are tons more categories for the Oscars! Let’s get my predictions on what hasn’t been covered yet!
Continue reading “FBC Oscar Coverage, Part IX: Predicting The Winners (Part 4)”
It’s 11:35pm on a cool Thursday night in April, 2015. Hustle Bankroll, the opening act for the night has just completed his second set, having been asked to fill time. The headliner, nearly three hours late, is Earl Simmons, the now late DMX. The Vogue theater on the north side neighborhood of Broad Ripple is packed full of people. Near the sound booth is a contingent from a sorority, a pack of AKA women dressed in their unmistakable pink and green. By the bar, a group of twenty-something men in tieless dress shirts and jackets. On stage, a man in an oversized Pelle Pelle jacket starts to make an announcement and is stopped by a tall man in a long Ruff Ryders t-shirt. “What?!” He exclaims, pulling the mic away. He’s shocked. Both men rush off stage. Despite reassurance from promoters that he’s coming, DMX is nowhere to be seen. A man two rows from the stage says to his friend, “how much you wanna bet his ass got arrested?”
Continue reading “From Then Til Now, Don’t Ask Me How”
Last week, I gave you my predictions for the supporting categories. Let’s take a look at the leads!
Continue reading “FBC Oscar Coverage, Part VIII: Predicting The Winners (Part 3)”
It’s a clear, cool night in Anaheim. The season is not yet a week old, and trends from the prior year linger like cirrocumulus clouds dotting the sky just west of the ballpark. The Seattle Mariners have lost four of their first five games. They’ll lose this one too, despite beginning the game with a pair of runs off of Angels’ pitcher Ricky Nolasco. It’s April 8th, 2017. The Mariners’ starter is Felix Hernandez, King Felix to the Seattle faithful. He’s in the twilight of a career that included a Cy Young award, a perfect game, and not a single start in the postseason. Hernandez gets Angel hitters Yunel Escobar and Kole Calhoun to ground out to start the bottom half of the first inning. Into the box steps the best player on Earth. His name is Michael Nelson Trout, Mike for short, and he’s the reason many people are watching this game.
Continue reading “Baseball, Art out of Time: The King’s Gambit”
There’s a dry-erase calendar hanging up behind me as I begin to write this. It mostly displays my work schedule and reminders of an occasional virtual D&D session. I bought it a couple years ago because I thought having a physical calendar would give me one less thing to rely on my phone for, as if my eyes being constantly glued to a screen would be a calendar’s fault and not the dark, endless ocean of internet garbage. Right now, however, as I write these very words, there’s something different written at the bottom of the calendar: “Days Left: 26”.
I chuckled to myself this morning at how vague it would look to an onlooker, and I laughed even harder knowing that a realtor would be showing my apartment to potential new tenants this afternoon. I considered planting ominous objects near the calendar to further the mystery. Mostly, I contemplated the large dive knife in a shoebox on my closet shelf, as purchasing a spool of rope would perhaps be a bit extravagant and in poor taste. All sight gags aside, the event the countdown represents is not even close to sinister, but it represents one of the most significant events I’ll ever experience; I’m leaving the only area I’ve ever known my whole life to move across the country.
Continue reading “One Dipped Beef to Go”
I cannot imagine it feels good to be called a liar whom no one should take seriously. I assume it would feel even worse if the person saying that about you is supposed to be an ally you trust. However, I have no idea what if feels like to have a person whom you trust say that about you because they’re using it as a legal defense… but I can’t imagine you’re feeling great, even if you’re the Kraken.
This is exactly what is happening in the defamation lawsuit right now that Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. has brought against Sydney “The Kraken” Powell for $1.3 billion (yes, with a “b”). Dominion is suing other people including former Trump attorney (and Razzie nominee) Rudy Giuliani and the guy who owns MyPillow, whose name I do not care enough to find out so I will just call him Mike Pillow.
I find these lawsuits fascinating, but there are three things that I am absolutely floored by as I’ve been following this story and thinking about how it relates to the state of modern conservative politics. The first is watching a lawyer argue that not only is their client a liar, but that everyone knows their client is a liar and no person who isn’t a fucking idiot should know not to take anything they say as a fact. The second is that Tucker Carlson, arguably the most viewed voice in conservative media, also used the same defense a few years ago. But it’s the third thing that’s maybe the most frightening to me, and should be the most terrifying to all of us:
Legally, this defense works.
Welcome to modern conservative politics.
Continue reading “Tucker Carlson, Sydney Powell and Why Republicans Lie So Fucking Much”
Last week, we looked at the screenplays. Today, let’s get supporting!
Continue reading “FBC OSCAR COVERAGE, PART VII: Predicting the Winners (Part 2)”
It wasn’t supposed to end the way it did. It seemed like an institution, but in the grand scheme of the wrestling industry, it was more of a comet that shone brightly through the night sky of the industry, and flamed out just as spectacularly, imploding into itself like a neutron star. They filled some of the biggest venues in the country. Every week, millions of wrestling obsessed fans watched them. They even wrestled in North Korea.
And then it all ended, at spring break in front of drunken revelors in Daytona Beach of all places.
Continue reading “The Death of WCW Turns 20”
Fancy Boys Club 