Fancy Boys Club

2021 NBA Preview: 30 Guys To Watch

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020by Michael GraceLeave a Comment

Imagine being a Bulls fan in your 30s. The glory days came and went long before Hi-Def TV, DVR, and handheld-miracle supercomputers. The name Derrick Rose probably elicits more trauma than fondness, and that’s it. That’s all you know since childhood. Pain. But what if you could appreciate the league from a different perspective? Instead of basketball being a causeway between football pain and baseball pain, why not enjoy the beauty of the game through the players that make any night something special? I’m here to help. This isn’t going to be a list of stars. You know who LeBron James and Kevin Durant are. You know they’re worth watching. This is a list of 30 players, one per team, that deserve some attention this season.

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Music/Movies

The Five Best Christmas Rock Songs

December 17, 2020by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

A while back, I made a list of great songs for your different Christmas mixes and I mentioned that I would make a list of the best rock songs for your holiday playlist. For a while, I’d forgotten I’d said that. However, I remember NOW. So let’s get into it. We’ll make this short and sweet so there’s not a lot of reading and a whole lot of rocking!

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Music/Movies, The Swiftening

The Swiftening, Part 1: Taylor Swift (2006)

December 16, 2020December 16, 2020by The Fancy Boys10 Comments

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Earlier this week, I reviewed the new album from Taylor Swift. My friend, the perfect and hilarious Jordan Holmes, responded as such:

I've never purposefully heard a full Taylor Swift song, maybe there was a reason at some point, but it's more like one of those stubborn things that just gets out of hand and then you're 33. I might just listen to her catalog and write snarky things to piss off @IHateMattDrufke
— Jordan Holmes (@gotobedjordan) December 14, 2020

From that tweet came great discussion. From that discussion came the idea for Jordan to review Swift’s entire discography. Here is part one, a look at the 2006 self-titled debut.)

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Sports

Fancy Bags Football Mailbag: Week 14

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020by The Fancy BoysLeave a Comment

Week 13 of the NFL season has come and gone. As always, Matt Drufke- who watches none of the games- has so many questions. Fortunately, Brendan Andreasen does. And he’s got all the answers Matt needs. Let’s get to it.

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Advice

Brandon’s Guide to Adulting: Christmas (Covid Edition)

December 14, 2020December 14, 2020by Brandon AndreasenLeave a Comment

Being an adult sucks. No matter what think pieces written in large publications like The New York Times and Highlights Magazine tell you, there is no easy way to hit your post-fun-of-not-worrying-about-catching-an-STD days. Getting older involves a series of inevitable truths:

1: You will get a gym membership you will never use, even though you tell yourself this is the month you turn it all around.

2: You are going to develop opinions about certain craft beers you enjoy, no matter how many times you try to shake that feeling by drinking way too much Keystone Ice.

3: Stuff that you promised yourself you would never stress will come down on you like an avalanche. Examples include bills, affording diapers, and tapas.

4: You will lose your friends(more on this in a minute).

5: You are going to start to enjoy music you promised yourself you hated during their youth. You know how your dad always plays Electric Light Orchestra in his car when you are driving around with him? When he was young, he swore up and down that he would never like that shit, and that Black Sabbath was god. Keep that in mind when you are making fun of Bruno Mars, The Weeknd, and Pentatonix.

6: You know what? No. Fuck Pentatonix. They should be burned at the stake to redeem us from an angry god for all of our sins.

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Music/Movies

Lady Of The Woods: A review of Taylor Swift’s evermore

December 14, 2020December 14, 2020by Matt Drufke1 Comment

Guess who’s back? Back again? Taylor’s back! Tell a friend!

Let’s just get down to the nuts and bolts here and lay out everything you need to know: On Friday, Taylor Swift released evermore, her second album of 2020 and her third album in two years. According to Swift, she just enjoyed the process of working with her folklore collaborators Aaron Dessner (of indie-rock darlings The National), Jack Antonoff (longtime collaborator and Bleachers frontman), and Joe Alwyn (boyfriend who works under the pseudonym William Bowery) that the team just kept working and making music. The album, unsurprisingly, has dominated Spotify streams over the weekend while the Swift Boats (my personal name for her fans and I’m not going to stop calling them that) have lost their minds.

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Uncategorized

Miss – Won’t Miss – a list for the Prairie State

December 11, 2020December 10, 2020by copperwriteLeave a Comment

Three quick notes before I get on a roll here. One, I’ll miss a lot of people and there are so many I won’t name them. Note two? Well, COVID took a lot of what I’ll miss and that’s fucking sad. Note three – oh yeah, I moved to Colorado, hence the list.

MISS

Going to Art Galleries, especially Tony Fitzpatrick’s The Dime. Those were some nice nights and Saturdays – fuck COVID.

Driving to Rockford, etc with Steve Marshall to Open Mics even when he can’t fucking see half the time at night and he’s a prop comic who’s got an apartment full of stuff to take. Goddamn funny though.

Meeting at 6AM at Cesaroni’s Deli in Woodstock to watch the Tottenham Hotspur – the brothers Cesaroni open up, we buy lots of coffee and sammiches and yell at the TV.

Theatre and being a reviewer for the Northwest Herald – I got paid in tickets and that was perfectly fine… until COVID shit all over that. FU COVID. Speaking of theater…

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Uncategorized

Cry Like A Man

December 9, 2020by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Here’s something that’s not so secret about me: I’m a crier. Not like a town crier; It’s not a profession or anything. The British aren’t coming. I mean, who knows? Maybe they are, but I wouldn’t be the person to tell you.

Let’s start over.

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Sports

Are Mitch Trubisky and Adam Shaheen the Worst Draft Combo Ever

December 8, 2020December 7, 2020by Brandon AndreasenLeave a Comment

As the Bears fritter away a 5-1 start and find themselves fading into mediocrity for another season, it’s worth looking at the biggest reason they are here right now. In 2017, the Bears famously didn’t bring in Deshaun Watson before the draft because they were so taken with the kind of man Mitch “kissing titties” Trubisky was. He drove an economical car! He was so polite and well spoken! There were a lot of superlatives used to talk about how great of a quarterback they thought Trubisky would be. And all of those words that were ejaculated out of the mouths of Ryan Pace, Ted Philips, and the rest of the Apple Dumpling Gang in Lake Forest, Illinois, turned out to be completely meaningless.

Mitch turned into the Derek Zoolander of professional quarterbacking. He couldn’t throw left. The truth was, throwing to his right and deep downfield weren’t strong suits of his, either. Matt Nagy, who is increasingly in over his head and quite possibly headed for unemployment after the season, doesn’t have a fix and instead of trying to find new voices to help Mitch and the Chicago Bears offense, instead filled his coaching staff with sycophants and yes men, which created a shield around him to protect him from his own terrible play calling. Any doubts about his ability should have been quieted after Nick Foles, who he pushed for because HE KNOWS THE SYSTEM!! went out and completely crapped the bed, his pants, and everyone’s pants around him.

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Sports