- I laughed and laughed, then I laughed some more. In fact, it took me nearly the entire weekend to stop laughing after watching the University of Michigan football team lose its season opener to Division 1-AA Appalachian State. The Wolverines became the first-ever ranked Division I team to lose to a I-AA school, a loss that will not only cost UM its #5 ranking in the Associated Press poll but could knock them out of the poll entirely. The 34-32 defeat came in the sort of season-opening cupcake game that top teams schedule so they can start off their season with an easy win and impress the home fans in the process. Instead, there were looks of shock, awe and depression all around Michigan Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Despite questionable play calling by Appalachian State’s coaches, electing to kick a field goal on first and goal from the Michigan 5-yard line with 30 seconds on the clock and three time outs still in hand instead of at least taking a knee and forcing Michigan to use its timeouts, ASU got the win. Things definitely got interesting when UM got a good kickoff return and a 54-yard pass on its first play of the subsequent drive to move the ball all the way down to the Appalachian State 20-yard line. However, the Mountaineers blocked their second Michigan field goal attempt of the day and recovered the ball to secure the win. Aside from the sky-is-falling vibe emanating from Ann Arbor Saturday, the hilarity of the situation was further amplified late Sunday with video of somber, stone-faced Wolverine players arriving at the team’s practice facility for their film sessions. Seeing them with their grim expressions, waving off TV cameras and acting like convicted felons headed off to jail was the highest of high comedy. Whether you believe this is the biggest upset in college football history (it’s not, by the way), and whether or not you believe it should cost Lloyd Carr his job (it won’t yet, but another loss to Ohio State will), this was the highlight of the opening weekend of college football and at season’s end, it could definitely still be holding up as the highlight of the entire season.
- I’ve been eagerly anticipating Challengers, the new album from Canadian alternative artists the New Pornographers. Each of their first three albums (Mass Romantic, The Electric Version and Twin Cinema) have been awesome albums, full of odd beats, quirky lyrics, a consistently fast pace and the vocals of one of my longtime favorites, one Neko Case. Challengers goes in a different direction, falling into the trend of bands “growing” and “exploring their sound” once they’ve established themselves with a few good albums. Throughout this album, the Pornographers eschew the frantic, upbeat sound from their previous offerings and instead choose to incorporate mandolins, harps, acoustic guitars and French horns into a much more midtempo vibe. The opening track, My Rights Versus Yours, serves as the harbinger of this new sound, offering simply an acoustic guitar and the voice of singer/songwriter David “A.C” Newman. The familiar, always awesome voice of Case highlights the album’s title track, another acoustic groove about the challenges of finding love while also finding ways not to screw it up. The “old” Pornographers do show up for a few songs, bringing plenty of style and energy to songs like All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth and Mutiny, I Promise You. In the end, those who give this album a chance and don’t reject it just because it’s not the same Pornographers they’ve become accustomed to will be rewarded. Challengers is a great album, even if it does take some getting used to.
- I have seen the future, and it holds what could easily be one of the five worst movies of the past half-century. The movie is Dragon Wars, a truly unimaginative movie set to hit theaters on September 24 that embodies the very essence of what unimaginative stands for because the movie is all about ginormous, hundred-foot-tall mutated lizards doing battle as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. The problems with this movie are obvious and plentiful. First, Anthony Anderson plays one of the film’s main characters and although I have nothing against A.A. personally, every single movie he’s ever been in has been abysmal (Kangaroo Jack, anyone?). Second, giant mutated lizards terrorizing the world may be the single most absurd and idiotic premise in cinematic history. Third, that absurd, idiotic premise has been done over and over and over, including one specific ginormous movie lizard you may have heard of, Godzilla. Sadly, those early Japanese Godzilla films w/ their badly out-of-sync audio and terrible cinematography may actually be better than Dragon Wars. Seriously folks, this one could be a stinker for the ages.
- You can look at Andy Dick’s evening at the Funny Bone Comedy Club in Columbus, Ohio last weekend in one of two ways. You could see Dick’s act, with wildly inappropriate on-stage comments, groping patrons, taking women into the men’s restroom and urinating on the club’s floor and at least one patron and label it a thoroughly awful night. One of the club’s co-owners subscribes to this school of thought, calling it one of the worst performances in the club’s history. I, however, choose to look at things differently. At least this time, Dick didn’t have his a** kicked by Jon Lovitz like he did a few months ago at the bar in an L.A. comedy club when Lovitz bounced Dick’s head off the bar and administered an all-around beatdown on the waifish, weird comedian. By comparison, making a complete horse’s a** of yourself and bombing out on stage should rank as a pretty decent evening. So take heart, Andy Dick, because at least this time your face avoided any direct hits with blunt objects and/or fists. Too bad the same can’t be said about your badly flagging rep……
- Carlos Zambrano needs to learn that just as you don’t poke a sleeping bear with a stick, wave a Twinkie in front of a starving Rosie O’Donnell or leave your young son in a room alone with Michael Jackson, you do NOT, under any circumstances, take a shot at the uber-loyal Chicago Cubs fans in Chi-town and around the world. I am one of those fans, so when I heard Big Z rip those who booed him Monday at Wrigley Field following his fifth straight subpar start, I was pissed. Zambrano seems to think that fans shouldn’t boo him even though he’s pitching like a drunken, blindfolded wombat trying to throw a medicine ball through a two-inch wide target. He’s basically pitched like a giant sack of sh*t ever since signing the 5-year, $91.5-million contract he was so adamant about getting. His record in three starts since signing the deal is 0-3 with a beefy 9.56 E.R.A., making him just about the least effective starting pitcher in baseball over that span. Those stats come as his team is in the middle of a heated pennant race against not one, but two division rivals. (Milwaukee and St. Louis). Those stats also come from someone who is supposed to be the ace of the Chicago pitching staff and who acts (and is paid) like it. So when I hear Zambrano say that those booing him only care about themselves, I’m peeved and a bit confused. You mean, Z., that those of us who have been rooting our butts off for a team that breaks our heart year after year and hasn’t won a World Series in 99 years should be happy when you pitch like crap? You can’t turn in a single quality start right now and your pathetic performances are killing your team when they need you the most. What you need to do is stop sniping at the fans and start figuring out why opposing hitters are battering you around like a piñata at a child’s birthday party. Shut your mouth, Z., and while you’re at it, start shutting down opposing offenses.
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