6 Man

For grades 7 and 8 I went to school in Veribest, TX. It is a small, unicorporated community about 6 or 7 miles east of San Angelo. I think there were maybe 12 kids in my grade both years I was there. Schools of this size don't produce enough players to fill an 11 man roster, so they have to play six man football.

When I was in seventh grade, Veribest didn't have its own team yet (it didn't even have a high school then). Instead, we had to play for Paint Rock Middle School in Paint Rock, TX. This setup meant taking a bus another 20 miles east every afternoon for practice.

Here's a map.


In eighth grade, we finally got our own football team. Falcon football hit the big time. Just so you are aware of the talent level we were dealing with, I was a starting back. Yeah, we were bad.

Six man is a helluva fun game to play. Offensively, you have to line up 3 on the line, and 3 in the backfield. Everyone is an eligible receiver, but the person to whom the ball is snapped can't advance it unless he first tosses it or hands it off to another player, then has it passed back to him. Basically, you end up with every permutation of option/sweep ball imaginable, along with a few post routes for good measure, in an ultra fast paced game.

You play on an 80 yard field, and it takes 15 yards for a first down. If I remember correctly, you get two points for kicking the PAT, and only one for running a play - reversal of normal 11 man. Also, there was a mercy rule - if you are losing by something like 40 points by haltime, you lose nad the game is over. We got shown the mercy more than a couple times.

Some teams I remember playing against are Blackwell, Panther Creek, Eden, Rochelle, Abilene Christian, Iraan, and our arch-rivals, the Olfen Mustangs. For a look inside a small town six man team, watch this video about Blackwell. Veribest is even featured as their opponent in the second half of the show (blue and gold team).

Warning: it's a fucking tearjerker.



This one's a little more glorious:

How fucked up is it that this movie is 20 years old now?!?!

I couldn't even begin to tally up how many times I watched this when I was a kid.





I think this should cover most of the songs...









I need to buy it on DVD for the sake of The Buddy's posterity. If you've never seen it, kill yourself.

Attack of the Killer Europeans

Before the supposed European "takeover" of the NBA of the last few years, international players were few and far between. Still, it seems like they used to be much more memorable as individuals than the prototypical guys you get in the league now. These were my favorites:

Toni Kukoc. Croatia.

When I think about the Bulls in the 90's for more then 3 seconds, I spontaneously orgasm. Whoops, there I went. Toni Kukoc was the 6th Man par excellence there during the second three-peat, 1996-1998. You know your team is going to be damn near unstoppable when you can rely on a powerhouse like him coming off the bench.



Detlef Schrempf. Germany.

Before Dirk, there was only Detlef. Another great sixth man, he could nail the three like nobody's business as well as post up. Though he established himself as a power player with the Pacers, it wasn't until he was traded to the Sonics that really thrived. If not for the juggernaut Bulls (cream) of 1996, he and the stacked Sonics (Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, Hersey Hawkins, et al) would've been a gimme for the championship.



Rik "The Flying Dutchman" Smits. Holland.

Ohhhh, the sky hook. Remember it? Remember the big, lanky white guy with the little blonde moustache sky hooking in Patrick Ewing's face? It was a thing of beauty. I never even knew Rick Smits was foreign until I heard him speak in a postgame interview after a playoff series against the Bulls (cream). I always figured he was just a big Larry Bird.

Sarunas Marciulionis. Lithuania (former USSR).

What I remember most about Sarunas is the power drive. As clutch as he was in the NBA though, His greatest accomplishment was probably singlehandedly resurrecting the Lithuanian national team. In 1995, he led them to the European Championship, which they lost Yugoslavia, a team led by...

Vlade Divac. Yugoslavia.

Oh, Vlade. So big. So Slavic. So smooth with the passes. I always like to think of Vlade as a young Laker, when he played with Magic, James Worthy, and Byron Scott. He and the 1990-1991 Lakers made it to the Finals where they became the first victims of (cream cream) Michael Jordan's Bulls. Of course, as we all remember, he was later traded to Charlotte for the draft rights to one Kobe Bryant, the future lifeblood of the L.A. squad.

Watch this one, for sure.



And then, there's the greatest, EVER:

He's not MY-vydas, he's not YOUR-vydas, he's Arvydas!



THROW IT DOWN, BIG MAN, THROW IT DOWN!

Bryan Adams Soundtrack Appreciation Day

Bryan Adams: King of the Movie Theme Smash Hit.

Rivaled only by the Queen of Pop Soundtrack Hits, fellow canuck, Celine Dion.

"Heaven" from A Night in Heaven. A gay song from a gayer movie. As it is lacking in film footage, I think this video is probably from the Reckless album release a couple years later.



"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The golden standard of Theme Songs. Remember how they played the video right after the end of the movie? Alan Rickman was clutch city in this.



"All For Love" from The Three Musketeers. Performed by A.S.S. - Adams, Stewart, and Sting. Sadly, the video fails to incorporate film footage of Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland, and instead opts for the standard "impromptu circle jerk" theme.



"Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" from Don Juan DeMarco. I remember that this song made me want to have babies when it came out. I learned how to play it on guitar in the hopes of someday being able to woo a woman with it. No such luck, though, and I was forced to stick to my strict regimen of chronic masturbation. Depp's in the video.



And just for shits:



It cuts like a knife, but it feels so fucking right. So much goodness.

I'm gonna go drink one for ol' B.A. now.

Mmmm... Thundercats... Cheetara... *fap fap fap fap*

New Transformers trailer, in glorious HD. Maximize that bitch.

As with other comic/cartoon/video game to live action ports, the potential for major suckitude here is endless, but who really cares? It's fucking Transformers.

A few other nostalgiac slices of my childhood that would make my weiner hard and cause it to spontaneously splooge, were they to be made into live action feature films:

The Centurions. Man and machine, Power Xtreme.



Voltron: Defender of the Universe. That's right, the universe, baby.



ProStars. Suggested casting: Arsenio Hall as Jordan, Kevin Nealon as Gretzky, Bernie Mac as Bo, and Cher as Mama.



Silverhawks. Wings of silver, nerves of fucking STEEL.



Kidd Video. I really think this one could work, if we got Giz to play the part of Whiz. You'll know who I'm talking about when you see him. Roll tape.



And Video Armageddon?



Get the star, Jimmy, the star!

Put your junk in that box!

The history of PunkRockerVince

Way, way back in the day my family had AOL. Well, I say "my family," but it's probably more accurate to just say "I had AOL," because even though my dad paid for it, I was the only who used it. Ever.

My original screen name was MrSmee069. Clever, yes? I pretty much lived in the VH1 chat room, wasting hours and hours talking shit about Hanson and The Wallflowers, or praising the Smashing Pumpkins and Bush, or trying to pick up chicks. Online. Pick up chicks. Online.

[Pause. Navigate Ipod to "Sixteen Stone." Continue]

This is how every, single conversation I ever had with any girl on AOL *EVER* went:

some chick: a/s/l?
me: 13/m/tx, you?
chick: 14/f/ca (they were all from California, defying both logic and geography)
me: what do you look like?
chick: 5'3", blonde, blue eyes, tan, slim. what about you?
me: man, you sound hot. i'm 6'(!?!), brown hair and eyes, half-Mexican.
chick: you sound cute, too. what kind of music do you listen to?
me: alternative, grunge, punk, inustrial (!?!), ska, hard rock. you? (no, I never listened to anything industrial, but it always sounded cool to claim it)
chick: i like anything but country.
me: yeah, i hate country. i won't listen to rap either.
.
.
.

Etc.

And so the seeds of the punk rocker were sown, even though I think the punkest thing I was listening to then was "Dookie."

Eventually, my dad cancelled AOL, so I had to give up the MrSmee069 screen name. Thank Jesus. This was right around the time that Netzero did their "free internet" advertising blitz, maybe 9th or 10th grade, and I jumped right on board with that.

["It's the little things that kill..."]

Obviously, priority numero uno was getting back into the AIM swing of things. So there I was, staring at the screen, wondering what could ever replace Mr Smee as my handle. In what would reveal itself to be a moment of divine inspiration, I looked up, the clouds parted, and God the Father himself placed the word "PunkRockerVince" on my tongue.

And it was born. Of course, by now I had upgraded my punkness to Epitaph fanboy status, so it was a legitimate name. From this point forward, every electronic identifier I had was PunkRockerVince: log-ins, user names, email addresses. It wasn't until about my sophomore year in college that I realized how retarded it was for me to actually give out an email address that automatically identified me as an adolescent with anarchy envy.

But because I'm a lazy fuck, I've never changed it. Besides, I've gotten over the embarrassment. PunkRockerVince will live on.

["Got a machine head..."]

Something else I just thought of: I downloaded a LOT of porn for a LOT of years on a shitty dialup connection. I think this speaks to my dedication and perseverance. Word.

From the height of my "punk" days:

Diamonds are forever, and so is Ric Flair

Ric returns, ca. 1998. Fucking legendary.

I really should be working

You know those songs with which you have very vivid memories associated? Those are the best.

Westside Connection - "Bow Down"

I was a Boy Scout for about ever. In seventh grade, my troop reached its peak diversity, when we had not one, not two, but three black kids active. It was November, and we were on our annual camping trip at Enchanted Rock. One of the black kids, maybe Ivan, maybe Roger, had a mix tape with this song on it, and we listened to it all weekend.

Anyhow, sometime during the weekend I got into a bit of a scuffle with another kid, which culminated in me pinning him down to the ground by his throat, and yelling at him that he'd better - you guessed it - bow down.

Actually, I lied, that wasn't really the culmination. After I let him go and was walking away I heard someone else holler "Watch out!" I spun around just in time to see a tent stake zing by my head, narrowly missing its intended target. The kid then grabbed another stake, gripped it Psycho style, and charged me. I fled, until he was stopped by an assistant Scoutmaster. Good trip.



Soul Asylum - "Runaway Train"

When I was in elementary school, I used to listen to the request and dedication hour on 98.7 K-Lite religiously. It was from 9-10 PM. There were several songs for which I would wait in eager anticipation to hear: Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love", Bon Jovi's "Living On a Prayer", Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!", and of course, "Runaway Train". I loved that one.

We all know what the song is about, right? Right, keep that in mind. One day I got my dad to call it in and request it for me. I was so excited, until I finally heard him on the radio, ending his request with, "...and I'd like to dedicate it to my son, Vincent." Gee thanks, Pop, for the public humiliation.



Lisa Loeb - "Stay"

Remember those general fitness tests you used to have to do when you were young, where they would measure your body fat, and time your sprints, and stuff like that? Well, we were doing one of those. We were in the chin-up phase, it was my turn. Oh yeah, and our coach had the radio on.

I was probably on about chin-up number 12,000 when this song came on. All the girls started singing, and I fell immediately. It was like fucking kryptonite.

Lisa Loeb is pretty cute, though.



The entireties of both the Black Album and Appetite for Destruction

In fourth grade, we took a week long field trip to the Prude Ranch, out in the Davis Mountains near Ft. Davis. It was maybe a 5 or 6 hour drive. We counted on parents to drive, and I drove with Jon's mom.

A little about Jon. He moved to my city/school in second grade. Under his tutelage, it didn't take long until every boy in the class was dropping f-bombs with the greatest of ease. Also, he introduced me to the joy that is marathon, all-night Nintendo playing. And I may have even had my first homosexual experience at his house (kidding...). He moved away in fifth grade, but his four years with us left a life-long impression.

Now, not only was this a 10 hour round trip, there were several more hours of driving involved once we were actually at the ranch - off to Marfa to see the lights, went to check out McDonald Observatory, etc. In the Suburban, Jon not only had an anti-skip Discman, but he had the car kit! (He had fucking everything.)

Guess which two CDs were alternately played, non-stop, every second we were in the car?

I had nightmares starring Axl's voice and Hammett's fingers for a month.



George Strait - "I Cross My Heart"

Eighth grade. School dance. Last song. Pure Country. You fucking know it.

So here I am slow-dancing with this chick, when I pop a mad, mad chubby. She's pretty much a pro though, so she just proceeds to rub one out with her hip like there is no tomorrow, no questions asked. Seriously, she had the moves of a seasoned stripper. What can I say?

Our love was unconditional; we knew it from the start.
I saw it in her eyes, she could feel it in my... err, heart.

I found out that the next weekend she had sex with some douchebag seventh grader in her parent's pool.

Fucking skank.

How I became a genius

Other than the obvious genetic factor, I've come up with five environmental agents from my small childhood that each contributed to the development of my now genius level intellect.

1. Eggs. Specifically, egg sandwiches. Sunny side up, on buttered white toast with mayonnaise, sliced American cheese, and liberal doses of salt and pepper. From ages 2-17, I probably consumed thousands of these. I'm not sure exactly how it worked, but somehow the massive, sustained protein intake worked like some kind of wonderful on my brainpower.

2. Sweet Pickles. And not just the books. I'm talking about the activity cards that came in their own little plastic carrying bus. And a plethora of activities there were - from alphabet stuff, to numbers and counting, arts and crafts, finger puppets, and experiments, Sweet Pickles covered it all. Good investment, Mom.
3. Sesame Street. A steady, daily diet. Learning to recognize the guest stars also added to a general pop culture basis of knowledge.
4. The encyclopedia set. Collier's. Also a good investment, although I think this one was Pop's. When I was a kid I can remember browsing the encyclopedia for hours on end. I'd start on a subject, read the article, and then follow up with whatever it told me to "See also..." In this way, I gave our 24 volume set some major mileage. (This is really interesting because even to this day I still do the exact same thing, for hours on end, only via the internet. Ah, progress...)
5. Equal parts Television and Reading time. Ass-loads of both. Obviously.

And that about does it. So now you know what you need to do to produce a genius child in my mold.

Or, if you're a hot chick, I'll just impregnate you and we can call it even.

Requiem

Brian, purveyor of many a keg and sixer of Icehouse tallboys, recently struck me dumb with the news that Bongo Bar-b-q, which has always existed in my memory and on the tongues of those answering the phone there as Bongo's Bar-B-Q, would be soon closing. His explanation left much unclear in my grief-stricken mind, but the general idea was an inability to renew their lease (How could such a successful business not own?) was going to take Bongo's away from me, and I guess other people, in a matter of days. So, I humbly request a moment of silence during the death knell of an institution that supplied all I really grew to love or need in college:





As Gizmo once told me, this fine establishment was at the forefront of, if not solely responsible for, the Bill Food trend that would characterize my freshman and sophomore years. Unfortunately, the place later fell out of favor with the distinguished alumnus and almost all trips there were later done out of pocket, but as a brotherhood we continued our patronage, cursing only their decision to close on Sundays and ruin the chance for post-chapter gluttony. Though the barn half will remain open until its stores are exhausted, the restaurant will be closing within a fortnight, I believe.

If you have any, I will take requests for menu items you would have me consume in proxy during my daily, death-bed visitations. So far I have consumed two burgers (one with grilled onions) and two order of fries. If requests overwhelm me, I'll enlist Donut.

EDIT: Closing date is actually June 30th. Deluxe Brisket burrito covered. My God, was it good.

The G-Funk Era

G-Funk is pretty much my favorite genre of hip hop. Let's go over a few classics.

The Chronic (1992) - Seminal G-Funk. Sure, Dre had given us hints of what was to come while he was still in N.W.A., but the tracks on this record codified the genre. It had all the essential elements: synths, whining portamento, P-funk samples, and hedonistic-as-hell lyrics, delivered in the infamous lazy drawl.



While Dre's rap style was still a bit awkward at this point in his career ("Well I'm peepin', and I'm creepin', and I'm creep-in"?!?), his genius as a producer was nearly unparallelled. Besides, every other rapper on this album - and on the entire West Coast, for that matter - was an immediate afterthought after Snoop busted out his first "Bow wow wow, yippy yo yippy yay" on "Fuck Wit Dre Day".

The world would never be the same, as the scene was now set for...

Doggystyle (1993) - Definitive G-Funk. Snoop has become such an overblown, farcical character these days, that it really is difficult to imagine what he must have been like as a 22 year old kid recording this stuff. Never the hard-ass G of Death Row, it's as if he knew he had to put up a tough front, but still managed to play it off almost as a joke.



It's obvious to tell when Snoop is keepin' it real - classics like "Lodi Dodi" and "Ain't No Fun" flow smooth as silk and are just that: fun. And lest we forget, Dre's beats provide what can only be described as the perfect accompaniment to Snoop's laid back style. The synths are even more heavily layered, and the beats are smoothed out to perfection. Both these cats were at the very top of their games here.

Regulate... G Funk Era (1994) - Family friendly G-Funk. Dre's step-brother and Snoop's former groupmate Warren G was the heart of West Coast G-Funk, even before this album came out. He didn't care much for pimpin' bitches or cappin' niggaz; he and his buddy Nate Dogg were always happy just cruisin' in the California sunshine, passing blunts. The video for "This DJ" is telling of his sensitivity:



G benefits greatly from the contributions of Nate Dogg. Those tracks in which Nate offers backup are true standouts. Though they would ultimately go their separate ways, their collaboration on this record is great, great stuff for a non-Death Row release. (Bonus points if you know which movie the intro of "Regulate" is ripped from.)

And "Regulate", of course, was featured on the soundtrack of "Above the Rim", which starred....

All Eyez on Me (1996) - Real gangsta ass G-Funk. One of the greatest rap albums ever released, from the most compelling character in hip hop history. Obviously, the real story of this record is not G-Funk, but Pac himself.

It is the stuff of legends. In a little more than a year before the album hit shelves, he had been shot five times, was convicted of sexual assault, and spent 11 months in prison. Suge Knight bailed him out, posting a million dollar bond, under the agreement that Pac would release three records on the Death Row label. Just days after he was released from prison, he began recording. He was 24.

This is him while shooting the video for the title track.



R.I.P. Pac.

With Tupac's death and Suge Knight's legal meltdown in 1996, the G-Funk Era effectively came to a close. If we take a step back and look at it, I think it's pretty obvious that it had run a course that was only fitting for the lifestyle it glorified.

Sure, Dre really was straight out of Compton, and he had some street cred, but he was also under control. Given the subject matter, he and his immediate succesors had managed to keep the genre as light-hearted as possible. Tupac, however, was one angry G out of prison, and by the time he had permeated G-Funk with the self-destructive "thug life" philosophy, it was only a matter of time before both he and the music style were ended by the sound of gunfire.

To live and die in L.A...