For that huge cross-section of baseball fans who like ancient Japanese poetry

Let’s face it, baseball is dull. To watch and to talk about. The only reason it’s so popular to begin with is because from June to September, it’s the only option. Then, football comes back, and we leave baseball behind, along with any harebrained idea that it’s still our “national pastime.” So, let’s spice things up a bit! Predicting baseball is sort of boring because it takes a while for a shitty team to become not shitty. As a result, we find ourselves with a lot of standings that look identical to the year before. How do we make that fun? With haiku! Of course. That’s right, it’s the 2012 All-Haiku MLB preview! Read More

God trades crappy players in mysterious ways

Our national nightmare is over. Peyton Manning has a new team, and Tim Tebow isn’t a starting quarterback anymore. Yes, the Denver Broncos gave Manning — who missed the entire 2011 season with a vagina neck injury — a massive 5-year $95 million contract, and sent the would-be messiah to the New York Jets to fill the role he was born to play: second fiddle to a quarterback who isn’t very good.

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If you read the NBA preview I wrote around Christmastime, you know that things aren’t going very well for me. I was right about the Celtics and Mavs taking a step back, and wrong about… everything else. The Clippers aren’t a title contender — they have the players, but their coach is awful, Derrick Rose isn’t winning another MVP, and the Spurs are not going to miss the playoffs. Yeah, I was way off on that last one. Eh, blame it on post-lockout confusion. Please? Read More

New Orleans Saints plan football version of Death Race 2000

Hey, did you know that football players get paid large sums of money to beat the shit out of each other? I know! I was shocked, too! Oh, and get this, apparently hockey players get paid to fire a cylindrical bit of rubber at a net! Barbaric, right? Read More

Review of Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball

In Bruce Springsteen’s late period, there’s been one constant: the shittier America, the better his music. In 2002, when the country was still reeling from 9/11, he gave us The Rising, the one musical statement about the attacks that didn’t feel like a massive pile of jingoistic garbage. Then, in 2007, when Bush was just about done destroying the universe, he released the excellent Magic, which made the already painfully obvious point that Dubya was an awful president somehow seem interesting and relevant. By contrast, in early 2009, when America was willing to overlook its many problems because “OMG Obama! YAY!” he released the decent, but rather lightweight Working On A Dream. Quite simply, the man thrives on pointing out America’s flaws. Read More

Baseball star’s steroid-filled pee tossed out by arbitrator 

In the early 2000s, we found out that nearly every relevant baseball player of the 80s and 90s was on steroids. America collectively agreed that they were irredeemable pieces of shit for jamming drugs in their asses so that baseball would be something approaching entertaining. Granted, this had more to do with the fact that sports writers make their living obsessing over things most people don’t care about beyond the age of twelve. But we listened to them anyway. Read More

Asian basketball guy > GOP debate

When I got home the other night, and prepared to sit on my ass for another lazy evening of television viewing, there was one question that immediately crossed my mind: Would I rather watch a gaggle of assholes who have no chance whatsoever of becoming president argue about who hates women and gays the most for the ten trillionth time, or do I watch the most awesome sports story in about a decade? Read More

BEAST Metal Geek is Mad

Like many suburban white kids who don’t get to be part of the popular clique, I acquired a taste for heavy metal in my high school years. There were plenty of metal bands I was (and still am) into — Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, Slayer, etc. — but the band I identified with the most was Megadeth. The pissed off ravings of Dave Mustaine really spoke to me. Whether he was rallying against the negative influence of religion on “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due,” or the military industrial complex on “Hangar 18,” I understood what he was saying, and as someone who was new to being a bleeding heart liberal, it felt like it mattered.

Now, however, all that is gone forever. In recent years, Mustaine had shifted to the right a little bit, becoming a born-again Christian, and his last album had a song called “We The People” which seemed to just be a straight up endorsement of the Tea Party.

This was disconcerting, but nothing to get too worked up about. Now, however, Mustaine has truly gone often the deep end, endorsing Rick Santorum for President. Rick Fucking Santorum?! Are you shitting me, dude?! The most vile, racist, homophobic piece of shit in a race crawling with them? That’s just fucking low.

It wouldn’t have shocked me too much if he had endorsed Ron Paul. Mustaine seems like the kind of guy who screams about liberty in a way where you’re not completely sure what he’s talking about. But no, my heavy metal hero had to go all the way into the deep end, endorsing the absolute worst of the worst.

Why does this matter, you ask? After all, as Chuck Klosterman pointed out, it’s not like this is going to actually help Santorum. It’s because this a complete betrayal of everything I thought Dave Mustaine stood for. He seemed like a crusader for the little guy, someone who actually cared about the outcasts of the world. Not in a sloganeering sort of way like Lady Gaga, but in a way that was actually relatable. If he thinks a man who wants to treat gay people as less than human should be president, however, then I know that was all a lie.

Additionally, so many of Mustaine’s classic lyrics seem like utter bullshit now. Like the aforementioned “Holy Wars…” Its opening line spoke against “killing for religion, something I don’t understand.” So wait, killing for religion is wrong, but justifying hatred on the basis of religion is fine? And in “Hangar 18,” he delivers the immortal line “military intelligence/two words combined that can’t make sense,” but he’s cool with a President who wants to bomb the fuck out of Iran as soon as possible? Both those lyrics came from the Rust In Peace album, which Megadeth was performing in its entirety as recently as 2010. Why sing that shit if you clearly don’t believe it, Dave?

So yeah, I’ve loved Dave Mustaine and Megadeth for a long time, but now, he can fuck off. In the immortal words of the Simpsons’ Jimbo Jones, “You’ve changed, man! I don’t believe in nuthin’ no more, I’m goin’ to law school!”

UPDATE: Apparently, Dave saw how pissed everyone was getting about this, and released a statement on Megadeth.com saying that he never truly endorsed Santorum. This feels like blatant backpeddling, though. His exact words were “I’m hoping that if it does come down to it, we’ll see a Republican in the White House next year … and that it’s Rick Santorum.” Even if he didn’t actually use the word “endorse,” it doesn’t matter. That quote is practically the definition of an endorsement. Just like Metallica can’t undo the damage they did to Mustaine’s psyche when they kicked him out, Mustaine can’t undo this dumbassery.

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The Confusing State Of The Simpsons

When people talk about The Simpsons, they tend to come to one of two conclusions. There’s the “It’s just fucking awful now” crowd, which insists that the show has not produced a single laugh since 1997, and there’s the “It’s still good!” crowd, which completely denies that there has been any decline, and that The Simpsons is as good as ever, and the fans who think otherwise are just a pack of ungrateful curmudgeons. Read More

I can’t decide if the Grammys are relevant. On the one hand, they have a nasty habit of ignoring modern trends — like when Kanye West and Amy Winehouse lost Album of The Year to Herbie Hancock doing Joni Mitchell covers, or that time Radiohead and Lil Wayne lost to Robert Plant’s and Alison Krauss’s bluegrass concept album about how Robert Plant hates touring with Jimmy Page. But on the other hand, humanity has a few scant generations left before global warming decimates our civilization, and wipes out most life on planet earth.
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