The J.J. Krupert April 2012

First edition of The J.J. Krupert (April 2012), which is the old J.J. Krupert format but condensed into a single entity that can be gotten freely for your preferred e-reader or just a simple ass pdf to bust open on your computer like the olden days of fucking off on the internet. This is the first one, and my first e-publishing experience, so give us a couple months to get our feet under us and come with the for-real crazy shit. Still though, 12000 words of at least entertaining reading for that ass, at the link below...
The J.J. Krupert April 2012

work

another day, another passing freight train
another button-up shirt that's got me choking with shame
another day pretending that Charles is my name
I guess it's all part of playing the game

can't wait for America to crumble though

"it ain't nice like purty, but it's nice like nice"

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Huginn & Muninn

So my absence has been part personal turmoil as I started having anxiety attacks do to the prolonged hostile work environment created by my boss, who also is my bro-in-law, and I didn't have much creative energy. But it's also just as much because whatever create energy I have is being channeled into a short story collection to hopefully be published in the next year or so. I hope that all of you who have regularly and religiously read this blog will also cop the book when it becomes available, because I am supposed to do this shit - I've seen it etched in quartz in future travels.
The work thing has been weird because I've never had anxiety attacks before, and don't much like them. I've willed them away for the most part, being well-schooled in breath meditations and removing myself mentally from physical situations - part of the benefits of a wild-assed upbringing I guess. I can compartmentalize well.
Strange thing is I had this dream last night - first dream I can remember in forever, as usually I dream words so when I dream images it is very vivid to me. This was that. I was looking through a window and this huge ass cobra was coming, like 20 feet long, right outside the window and poking at the pane with his head. Then these two huge twin ravens, like four feet tall when they landed on the ground and almost walking like bow-legged people, came swooping in and just attacked the cobra, trying to kill it and carry it off. One got it in its mouth and started leaving, then the snake, who was resisting with complete jiggly snake resistance, fell back down, like ten feet further away from the window. But the other giant raven was right there and swooped in and snatched him again and started dragging him off further. And they carried him out of eyesight in this manner, him fighting the entire time.
Being well-schooled in the stories of Huginn and Muninn - the twin ravens of Odin - I know what the fuck is going on with all that. I also feel better about my bro-in-law - the cobra - because sure he is resisting and manipulating as much as he can, but his ultimate desire is to destroy me because that is his cobra nature. But I have spirit protectors in place who can clear the perimeter. Which makes me feel better, just a little.

update

What's up peoples of the Cyberian Empire? Just wanted to hit you up with to let you know I ain't dead, didn't fall off a freight train or blast off into space with Mayan Prophets or start wandering the insides of Afton Mountain on spirit quests (though that last one's probably a good idea). Been cutting down on the Cyberian oppression of my life, as I sludge my way through some stories that have percolated in my head the past couple months, hopefully to be published as a collection next year at some point. You can reach me at all them places in the sidebar for the most part (twitter, gmail, whispers on the wind), so I'm still checking my Cyberian passports regularly, getting 'em stamped and shit, but won't be no rojonekku posts beyond the occasional update like this for the foreseeable moments. But I'm still here. And you're still there. So we are still connected. If that ain't strong enough, twit or electronic mail me. Or fuck man, if you put something into PO Box 270 Scottsville, VA 24590, that'd be like four cups of coffee and a line of crank all at once, because that is real. I like real shit. Real shit is the best shit. Always has been and always will be.

t r k b x

battery cables jiggled
one last time, for good measure,
and then we let the grass grow

r r b a f

crooked ladder iron jabbed
my thigh - the stab wound is black,
so we poured vodka in it

g r f b k

run where the forty bottles
break, where freedom's concealed by
overgrowth and rainbow blight

b e t a y

monsters snarling in my head,
cutting scary promos on
what I should know to be truth

p o w a e

smokestack brickwork like not seen
no more ascends from homeless
camp in an abandoned plant

t r e z m

dilapidated roots get
exposed as those with profits
in mind erode their support

r o a d z

vdot done mowed the roadside -
chopped up my wild blackberry
bushes; fuckin' government

p h n a g

phoenix got best design for
bedazzled pinewood derby
car, and smiled her special smile

x m a s e

celebrate mythology -
man's mind makes up amazing
stories to keep his self sane

h a t e c

so much anger built inside;
designed for demise, but my
dreams still rise as the days break

Redskins 1-0 Positives/Negatives Metasciences Week 1 Recap

(kicking off another season of scientifical spiritual soul-jazz
about this Redskins franchise - and an
Armchair Linebacker simulpost)

[Each week, I will metaphysically speak upon the positive and negative influences on my beloved Washington Redskins team, as seen in their on-field - or television to be truthful here - performance. As the year goes on, we shall have a metascientific tabulation of who is the most valuable or biggest detriment to their future.]
The Redskins pulled off a victory, and pulled away in the 4th quarter, both of which were not habits of this team in the previous three seasons. They usually found ways to lose, or even if they won kept it way too close and never had that kill instinct. But today, they pulled it off, and didn't let it hang until the last possession either. That was relieving, so much so that I was actually angry at the end of the game because it felt odd and abnormal. But I feel good about this team.
I want to make it clear though, that my "feeling good about this team" means I think they can go .500. Anyone thinking playoffs, even after this win, is jumping the gun, and shifting into standard Offseason Champs Redskins fan mode, just a little later than usual. My feelings are that if this team can go 8-8, that's a successful season, because let's be honest - this is a rebuilding year, and the first legitimate rebuilding process the team has gone through in a decade really. And Snyder's various management regimes have left the Redskins infrastructure more damaged than Afghanistan. But Shanahan's in his second year, and I continue to stick to the thinking that we will judge his successes or failures by his third year. If they go 8-8 this year, we are on pace. If they somehow miraculously make the playoffs, then Shanahan truly is a genius. But he won't be.
However, enough of my jaded cynicism to temper my momentary joy at beating a massively hobbled and still overrated division rival. Let's get into the positive and negative forces on this football team on this anniversary of the terrorists hating the freedom to think either Coke or Pepsi doesn't kill you...
EIGHTH DEGREE POSITIVE: NT CHRIS NEILD - Neild was a 7th-round draft pick out of West Virginia, who had to pass up his preferred #95 roster number because a veteran player already had it. The fact he ended up sporting the old Dave Butz #65 in only solidified what I had thought upon first checking into this dude - he is going to be this team's defensive Chris Cooley - meaning a goofy-assed dude who is impossible not to love. Sure enough, not only did Neild beat out Anthony Bryant for a roster spot (and the number 95, which he wore today), but even as a back-up to highly-touted free agent Barry Cofield, Neild showed and proved today with two sacks and just generally showing himself to be a greatly disruptive influence as a true NT in Jim Haslet's 3-4 defense. And really, this speaks greatly not only of the Neild himself, but of the draft this Redskins front office had this past year, where they actually got a lot of value out of all their draft picks. If you can take a 7th round pick and get you somebody who could potentially be a legitimate starter by the end of his rookie season, well that's something that hasn't really been a habit of Dan Snyder front offices. But if this young defense can really shapeshift into a stunner on a weekly basis as the weeks/months/years progress, I can see this dude being the dirtbag NT heart and soul of that defense, while the Brian Orakpos and Ryan Kerrigans get all the Pro Bowl trips.
SEVENTH DEGREE POSITIVE: TE FRED DAVIS - With Cooley's knee all swolled up, and it seeming more and more like he might end up having another of those dreaded trips to Dr. James Andrews down in Alabama, the Redskins needed Fred Davis to show up the beginning of this season. And show up did he ever. Dude was playing like Kellen Winslow the Elder out there today, and his previous penchant for coughing up footballs wasn't there, as he held tight, even through a couple of minor concussive hits. He looked good, and like he can be that punisher on pass plays that Cooley has always been. (Before anyone gets all wacky again, like they did last offseason, and somehow thinks Cooley is expendable or too old or something, it's usually not a bad idea to have a pair of great TEs, if you can afford them.)
SIXTH DEGREE POSITIVE: OLB RYAN KERRIGAN - Kerrigan seems to be getting this defense quickly, more so than Brian Orakpo did last year in the switch to standing up as an outside LB. Still, Orakpo is a monster, and Kerrigan seems to be more one of those stereotypical gritty players, with some good athleticism to boot. He got pushed around a good bit at the beginning of the game, but settled in, and the tip and INT for TD to start the second half really helped set the tone for that defense to puff out their feathers and feel good. It's as great a first round rookie debut as I can remember in the Snyder years.
FIFTH DEGREE POSITIVE: LB ROCKY MCINTOSH - When the Redskins passed on the retreads available to them and kept Rocky McIntosh, I have to admit I was not too excited. McIntosh never really developed into what he was supposed to be coming out of the U of Miami. But man, he was all over the place today, and actually looked a good bit like his mid-field mentor London Fletcher at times. Maybe a new contract and showing him he was still wanted here gave Rocky some comfort and confidence. Lord knows Sam Huff loves him. This was the best game I can remember McIntosh playing in a while.
FOURTH DEGREE POSITIVE: LB LONDON FLETCHER - Look, even if he doesn't have a highlight reel stop or sack or anything, Fletcher is going to be a positive for this team. There are very few on-field coaches of London Fletcher's caliber. In fact, probably the only other one was Peyton Manning, and he's out with a crookneck. Very fitting that London Fletcher now has the longest active continuous games started streak in the NFL after Peyton clocked out for the first time in a decade. About the best thing you could say for a player to show how much you think of them is to wish they finished out their career on your team; I hope London Fletcher is a fucking coach here the day he hangs up his cleats. I don't want that dude to ever leave.
THIRD DEGREE POSITIVE: WR SANTANA MOSS - I have bad-mouthed Santana and threw him under the bus when he had shady ties to that Canadian HGH doctor, but Santana just keeps proving you wrong. He's always a consistent presence on offense. He's not gonna have a gamebreaker player at his age, and he's going to over-celebrate every fucking meaningless first down he gets, which is annoying, even as a Redskins fan (probably because Art Monk is the high watermark at the position, and Art would never do vainglorious shit like that), but Moss gets his. It can't really be considered his fault the Redskins mostly ran with just him as a competent WR many seasons. This year though, looks to be different, and if Santana can continue to be Santana, it won't be as intolerable if it's part of a larger receiving corps, like it was today.
SECOND DEGREE POSITIVE: WR ANTHONY ARMSTRONG - Double A still shows some of the signs of a guy who played in arena football - dropping passes at times, making mistakes. But the dude is a blazer, and a true deep threat, and hard to not love the dude either, knowing his history as a football player. Every time they went deep to him, it got my adrenaline pumping, and I'm glad he got that TD. Oh man, that one pass that got knocked away at the 10 or so? That would've been immense had he caught that. I think that would've blown this game wide open.
FIRST DEGREE POSITIVE: CB DEANGELO HALL - Hall is never as good as he would have you believe, but I did not see him falling on his face as a Giants WR burned him down the sidelines for a TD, like sometimes can happen with #23. And he gave Manning a nice, painful shot when he got a clear line on him from a CB blitz. All in all, when the weakest part of this potentially wondrous defense is the secondary, and Hall is the leader by default of that secondary, if he can at least look competent and have a presence, then I'm gonna be happy with him.
STAY MEDIUM DEGREE: QB REX GROSSMAN - If you saw the highlight clips and stat lines, it may look like Rex Grossman has resurrected his career this weekend. But as someone who watched every down, let me tell you, there's a lot of the old Rex Grossman left inside the Rex Grossman who started at QB today. Aikman/Buck really pushed the angle of how this system limits Grossman's abilities to make mistakes, and said Grossman even said so himself. But if you have to limit the stupid mistakes your QB makes because he is stupid, well, that's not so good. My man Mavpa Van Cleef put it best when he said Grossman looks like a 15-year-old playing Madden, running backwards for 20 yards then mashing all the buttons at once. No starting NFL QB should lose 18 yards on a sack, like Grossman did today. And he flew some floaters up three or four times that are gonna make better secondaries salivate during film studies. Not to mention some of the high passes he was laying guys up with in the first half that would've gotten them knocked the fuck out, if the Giants had even half a Laron Landry lurking in their defensive backfield. That being said, he won today, so I can't outright hate the dude, though I do feel the whole John Beck/Rex Grossman QB battle was just a long con by the Shanahans to not have to admit they were going to start Grossman from the beginning, because people like me would've been like, "BOOOOOOOO!" about us ending last season with a questionable offensive line and a shitty QB, and not having done a damn thing to address that before this season.
FIRST DEGREE NEGATIVE: K GRAHAM GANO - Gano looked dialed in during the preaseson. First attempt today - just right, showing us that Gano is already in mid-season form. What the fuck man? Are there just no decent placekickers left in this world? Shouldn't there be a second generation of Zendejas kids coming up by now?
SECOND DEGREE NEGATIVE: S REED DOUGHTY - Reed Doughty is one of those guys who ends up coaching high school football and you read about him and they say he had a 9-year NFL career and you think to yourself, "Reed who?" Somehow, he practices well, and tries hard, and is legally deaf, and makes this team every year. And somehow, somebody gets injured (or sucks, if they are Adam Archuleta) and Reed Doughty gets on the field. And then Reed Doughty gets owned, regularly. He is quite simply not an NFL starter, not even due to injury nor illness nor having three other safeties arrested and suspended all at once. He's not an NFL starter. By all accounts, he's a chill dude, and a solid locker room presence, but he is not very good. You could make a highlight package of him having notable moments of suck (the end of the Texans game last year comes immediately to mind, where Andre Johnson and Doughty jump for the same pass, and it looks like Doughty jumped from four feet lower). Today, I was embarrassed for Doughty at times. He was manhandled at the line, and he was spun around or out of position multiple times, giving up long passes. Laron Landry is a dominator on defense, and I want him to be 100% so badly because he will fuck up some motherfuckers, but hell man, I'd be glad with him just standing around out there at half-speed than Reed Doughty playing. The dude is a straight up liability.
THIRD DEGREE NEGATIVE: OWNER DAN SNYDER - Things looked better today, and it seems Shanahan & Son are giving this team some needed direction. But make no mistake about it, Snyder lurks. As Redskins fans, we are like the poor villagers of a fairy tale kingdom, with an evil King who doesn't deserve the crown, who stole it from the previous King, with whom we'd known wonderful successes as a people. And even if our collective fortunes turn, we are still under the rein of this demented syphilitic-brained King of ours, and all it takes is one bright blast of his ridiculous incompetence, and all that had been built over the past couple of years will be unraveled. Seriously, there was a PR story in today's Washington Post about Snyder wanting to hire Shanahan that had tons of fingerprints of Snyder's PR guys all over it that really allows me to tell the full tale of what an evil and manipulative piece of shit owner Dan Snyder is - and the story was meant to be a positive one! Also, on the night before the season starts, Snyder dropped his defamation lawsuit against the Washington City Paper because various news outlets were going to report that Snyder never actually read the piece in question. A fucking first class piece of shit, self-important and delusional, and the most I can hope for is him not having a reason to start running people off and waving his little dick around to show how important he is and how much he only wants to win and what a true Redskin fan he is, not a stupid asshole businessman who has fucked up a once proud franchise with steady illogical meddling from the owner's box.
ACCUMULATED INFLUENCES UPON THIS FRANCHISE 2011, BEST TO WORST: NT Chris Neild (+8), TE Fred Davis (+7), OLB Ryan Kerrigan (+6), LB Rocky McIntosh (+5), LB London Fletcher (+4), WR Santana Moss (+3), WR Anthony Armstrong (+2), CB DeAngelo Hall (+1), QB Rex Grossman (even), K Graham Gano (-1), S Reed Doughty (-2), owner Dan Snyder (-3).

Ultimate 100: 65 thru 61

#65: SAM STOUT vs. SPENCER FISHER - I do not care and am sewing patches onto my patch jacket so my reviews will be shorter and stupider, which is probably better anyways. Sam Stout is not a beer, contrary to his name, and Spencer Fisher is a leprechaun looking motherfucker, and has bad tribal armband tattoos so he is probably better, of course. The Irish got a bloody eye, but kinda dominated at least from what I heard while not paying attention. The other dude is a kickboxer and the Joe Rogan stupid color commentator guy was like, "Oh you don't become a world champion kickboxer by being a pussy." I hate using that term "pussy" for weakness. The vagina is a strong motherfucker, and alpha dudes need to get over this aversion to acknowledging the power of the vagina. I am alpha as hell and will love on a vagina all day long, and never call it derogatory slang terms, ever, even if I was writing gangsta rap songs, because a true gangsta fucks up conventional thinking with his gangsta ways, not perpetuates tired stereotypes. The little Irish leprechaun dude won, and he looks old in the eyes, like he has seen things - strange nasty things that can't be unseen.
#64: CHUCK LIDDELL vs. RENATO SOBRAL - I would doubt the little fake Travis Bickle ultimate fighter Dana White pal numero uno Chuck Liddell aka the stupid fucking Iceman is going to lose in this thing at all. This is starting to seem like one of those WWE DVD sets where they push the internal corporate agenda instead of give you an actual compendium of the best shit. Of course if you want an actual compendium of the best shit, that involves going inside the interwebs and having a group of nerds analyze, rank, and dissect all the possible fights, and your getting into real hollow-point-bullet-into-your-own-brain territory once you go there.
Oh, I always read dudes talking about Babalu and I never knew who the fuck he is but apparently he is the Brazilian guy partially covered in stupid tattoos who is fighting Mr. Face of the UFC Chuck Liddell.
Liddell is basically punching the fuck out of him, but the Babalu dude rolls around to stop from getting knocked out, but it just doesn't really end because the one dude is on his back getting punched and if it was a bar fight it would've already been stopped. Travis Bickle wins.
#63: GEORGES ST. PIERRE vs. MATT HUGHES - Oh lord, not again. Didn't I see this fight already? It's hard to like either of these dudes. This is the type of IMMENSE SHOWDOWN that you hope Al Qaeda wins. Five 5-minute rounds is not promising, because it might go forever, but luckily Matt Hughes beats St. Pierre with a submission out of nowhere at the end of the first round. Thank god, although I still would've liked to see Al Qaeda win, being they were in Atlantic City when they did this fighting thing on the old paying per watches screens.
#62: TYSON GRIFFIN vs. CLAY GUIDA - Man, if you pause these fights on the opening pics of the two fighters, like I do to type their names, it straight up looks like a gay porn is about to bust out with Tyson Griffin and Clay Guida's faces. And MMA people say wrestling was gay. Although as the fighting is happening, I don't mind Clay Guida so much, because he looks like he would listen to some Kreator. Tyson Griffin however, no, that dude is not cool. I still have never figured out Griffin's back tattoo. LIke it's a retarded dragon eagle or something. And why the fuck does Joe Rogan know and care so much about ultimate fighting?
The Guida dude seemed like he was pretty great every time I looked up, because he'd be doing back spinfists or weird rolls off the Tyson dude's back or whatever, but obviously I don't understand MMA because the judges' had a split decision in favor of the Tyson dude. Sucks.
#61: B.J. PENN vs. JOE STEVENSON - Oh man, another B.J. Penn fight! I'm not going to pay attention at all! But I will let it play so I can send this shit back to Netflix and get the second disc of the second season of East Bound and Down!
The Joe Stevenson dude does this weird "AISH! AISH! AISH!" Monica Seles yell when he throws punches, which I'm sure some old ass dude who does maintenance in his apartment building taught him. Stevenson just got an elbow in his forehead and he is bleeding grossly, like Puerto Rican wrestling blood, like Mexican murder magazine blood. "Well, let's see what they can do to close it up," and the old Grady from Sanford & Son cut man is on it, earning them dollars with his voodoo magic. But they get into a second round, and then the Joe dude is punching like a boxer with his "AISH! AISH! AISH!" yell but all bloody and stupid looking.
So bloody but yet so boring. I guess this is considered a great fight because one dude bled a whole bunch. I would actually be concerned about this dude's blood loss, but then he gets caught in a choke, and he taps out and for a brief second while the camera is overhead and Penn is on the bottom reaching around with the Joe dude on top of him, bloody as fuck, grimacing from a choke, quitting, it made me realize just how disgusting this shit is. Not because of the blood, because I'm not like that, but it's just misguided alpha male energy, directed into a pseudo-sport that really is Romanesque. But hey, we are in the decline of the American Empire so it makes sense, doesn't it? Enjoy your handbaskets bros, I'm moving to China now while the getting is still good for English-speaking middle management types.

Ultimate 100: 70 thru 66

Not sure what will give first - the end of this compilation, or my motivation to continue with this losing project. It's like water filling a rowboat, and I'm trying to scoop it out with a bucket, but damn, it's hard to care. I might just jump out the boat and see how far I can swim instead...
#70: PETE WILLIAMS vs. MARK COLEMAN - Old shit. The clock counts up instead of down. I am not paying attention. Every time I look up, two white dudes are hugging each other on the ground beside a chain link fence.
Oh wow, they had a whole long match and now we're in a three-minute overtime. This really is old shit, and I haven't paid attention to a fucking ten second piece of it. Luckily though, I looked just in time to see Mark Coleman get kicked in the head, have his eyes roll back into his head, and fall into a lump against the edge of the cage. God Bless America.
#69: B.J. PENN vs. CAOL UNO - I saw this fight one time before, and honestly am having a hard time paying attention to this shit tonight. I would rather drink my spring water with a splash of mango peach juice in it, and just kinda chill, maybe read some Chinese poetry, sitting around on the couch naked and all. But I can't take off my shorts, because I'd feel weird watching MMA naked. But fifteen seconds in, this was over, as Penn dropped him, punched him, then split the arena before Uno was even revived. Slow motion replay of the entire match took like twenty seconds, and ends with Uno in a lifeless hump with one eye open and one shut in a lump.
Haha, they make B.J. Penn come back in, and Dana White has a crewcut of dark hair at this point in his life. He look stupid.
#68: LYOTO MACHIDA vs. TITO ORTIZ - Hey, I think this is our first time seeing the bigheaded Ortiz, who beats his porny wife. I can't stand Ortiz, and he and Jenna Jameson as a married couple actually caused me to join Al Qaeda for about seven months a couple years ago. But then I realized they didn't actually smoke hash anymore when training to be assassins, and I felt it wasn't true to Hassan I Sabbah's teachings, so I left.
Lyoto is called The Dragon, which means he will win, because a dragon punch against a giant watermelon head is no for-real fair match. The crowd is chanting "TITO! TITO! TITO!" though because your average MMA crowd is half-drunk and half-retarded. Unfortunately it's the same half of them that is those two things, so they can carry on normal human lives, yet be completely dim-witted, and still function.
Again, I didn't care, but the crowd got loud because at the end of the first round Lyoto took down Bighead McGee and then started dropping elbows, punches, and knees to that huge noggin. When the commentator resets things and says, "Tito Ortiz, Lyoto Machida," linguistically it sounds like foreign jibber jabber while negotiating with day laborers. I mean, no offense to foreigners. I'm just saying it had an interesting linguistic rhythm, and English is what I've known all my life. And even more specifically, I've known southern dialect of English, which is slurred and drawled out and lacks a good rapid hard linguistical rhythm, because most of the last consonants in words are sort of left off in order to have a nice drawl. I think it's the humidity maybe, it makes our tongues thick with saliva.
The fight is already to the third and final round, and I have not commented much at all. That's what I'm going for here these five fights. I don't think you care for play-by-play. I don't even think anyone is reading this. It's going to be one of those things that sits on the website forever, and nobody looks at, then all of a sudden, like in the middle of January, some dude will send me an email and be like, "Dude! I read your Ultimate 100 stuff and it was the best thing I ever read. You are crazy!" and it will be true because the dude will be like 11, and I will have helped corrupt him, just partially, but this will be a gateway into deeper and darker dungeons of the internet. I can't help that though. Things are what they are at this point.
Minute and a half left and Machida is destroying Tito Ortiz, and it looks Ortiz, who has lost all three rounds, is content to just finish the match and go home to his skeletor wife's crumpled vagina.
Haha, Ortiz got a triangle armbar doohickey with half a minute left, but Machida squirmed away from watermelon doom, and made it to the final airhorn. Both men are on their knees and give each other the bow of honor. Fuck honor.
#67: SHONIE CARTER vs. MATT SERRA - Oh man, one of the seasons of The Ultimate Fighter I watched was Shonie Carter. That dude is a hoot. He is wearing some garish speedo with all sorts of international flags, and already Matt Serra has a giant strawberry on his thigh. They are rolling around back and forth doing flippy flop shit, which means this is technically superior according to the commentators. Matt Serra is a grapple beast, and though Shonie is a virile and strong proud black man, the little midget dude from the northeast is putting on him. But Shonie did one of those spinning back fists while Serra came charging in when the spin went on, and got clobbered on his forehead with Shonie's biceps, which almost knocked out Serra. It was straight up kung fu bro, like you would expect from a black guy with a fu manchu.
Serra keeps catching Shonie in strange near-submission shit, but Shonie can just very calmly shift himself around and get out of it or at least minimize the effect so it doesn't make him have to quit, or TAP OUT in the parlance of mixed martial artistry.
Actually, I just watched closely for like two minutes, and this really is a fun fight. Shonie has gotten his ass kicked, so to speak, even though it's mostly technical ass-kicking and not literal one, but he might be able to outlast Serra's onslaught, and Serra is getting tired. We shall go into a third round and this may be a case of Carter just surviving long enough to put away Matt "The Little Tiny Intense Dude" Serra. Oh man, they seem to be tired, and drop to the ground in the guard right away. I hope this is not a five-minute group hug final round to get a split decision. Carter has underwear or a jock strap or something puffing out the back ass cheeks of his international speedos, and it makes it look like he's wearing a diaper. Maybe he is, who knows?
With like 15 seconds left in the last round, Shonie actually nails one of those spinning backfists, and Serra goes down blank-eyed, so Shonie shimmies in celebratory glee, and it is over very amusingly. Kong fu ass brotha.
#66: GEORGES ST. PIERRE vs. B.J. PENN - Oh man, my least favorite two dudes from the previous 30,000 fights NOW GET TO FIGHT EACH OTHER! THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC! Epically suck. And gay. Although while they got their pre-fight instructions, Penn was just standing there, but St. Pierre was kinda lurching like he was about to punch or pounce or something, so I automatically have to say B.J. Penn is the lesser of these two evils. Still though.
I muted the TV and put on some Van Morrison Astral Works instead to listen to, and oddly enough, just like pornography, UFC is far more tolerable with the sound off. Whereas normally about two minutes in, you're like, "ugh, how fucking long am I going to torment myself by trying to get through 37 minutes of trifling bullshit for that four minute part that's cool," with the sound off you can just tune in and tune out and eventually you develop an extra sense to where your peripheral vision knows that awesome shit is about to happen. See, I just looked up and... well, nothing awesome happened. Just stupid Georges St. Pierre trying to move in and punch Penn upside his coconut. As the first round ended I did notice that Penn's trunks have a pretend black belt around the waistline with pretend straps screen-printed down the front like it was a real black belt. That's fucking stupid. And between rounds St. Pierre has some dude massaging his temples like reiki. That's strange, and out of place, and makes me uncomfortable to be honest with you.
Every time I look up, it's Penn on his back and St. Pierre moving all around on top of him, so without the sound on, I have to assume St. Pierre has dominated this fight. Yeah, the round ended and I just saw a highlight reel of St. Pierre concussing Penn, cracking his ribs with a knee, and just straight bitch-punking him. In a battle between two evils, the lesser of two evils never actually wins, because evil wins, and the lesser one tends to suck, so why am I even watching this stupid evil shit?
Fuck, the third round ended and they are talking to the dudes in their corners, meaning this is a five-round affair. I think I will go to sleep on the couch. SEE YOU NEXT TIME ANYONE WHO ACTUALLY SEES THIS WITH THEIR EYES AND CAN PROCESS THE MARKINGS INTO COMMUNICATED LANGUAGE!
(Whoa, I woke up and St. Pierre must have won because him and two other dudes were wearing matching shirts and were bouncing around in a circle with their arms interlocked and heads leaning in on each other in some weird ass French Canadian celebration jig. It kinda freaked me out. No one should wake up from starting to fall asleep and be greeted with something like that, because once you see something, you can't unsee it. That's inside me forever now.)

Ultimate 100: 75 thru 71

Sigh. What a stupid fucking idea this was. Oh well...
#75: ROYCE GRACIE vs. GERARD GORDEAU - This is from the very first UFC tournament, and Gracie is actually wearing a full gi, and I guess this is the end of the tournament. Did I not see this before? I thought I watched all the early UFCs back in the day, actually a few of them with the drummer from Lamb of God back before he was a rock-n-roll drummer and was just this dude Chris and we both had wives/girlfriends, and they'd get high and we'd drink beer and play Sega or watch UFC or something. But I don't remember a Gerard Gordeau at all. Maybe this is for retro value as the main event of the first ever UFC, and to give Royce Gracie some early pioneer of our great pseudo-sport love. Gracie is slowly and methodically getting around to a naked choke, and the crowd is booing, and the announcers are explaining it, and wow, it's really funny to see how far we've been educated by these programs to know what the fuck is up. They are explaining the tap out, and I think that's George Foreman talking on commentary. Man, low budget as fuck. They even use a boxing/wrestling ring bell instead of the air horn. But they were nice enough to give us a long, boring interview with Royce, even asking about why he wore a gi, and what the rear choke was about. "There is no plan for the future. I am just Royce, that is what I am." Nice.
#74: RICH FRANKLIN vs. DAVID LOISEAU - Another Franklin fight, against the crazy black Canadian dude who I saw on some other independently made MMA comp, where he was just straight fucking dudes up with some next level fucking dudes up style. Here is in standard UFC looks, sponsors all over the place, on trunks, ring aprons, ring bars holding the cage in place, all sorts of shit. I doubt there will be some next level greatness at this point in Loiseau's career as it has been exploited already. That's the thing about climbing the levels of something like this - you start out on a little level, do crazy shit, people know you, you move up, so on and so forth, and even if you start at a good MMA school, you've got two or three levels to climb. I saw some MMA at the skating rink in Charlottesville, and Steve Blackman, former WWE karate character, was the head trainer of one of the four schools who brought fighters to this thing, his school coming all the way from Pennsylvania. His guys pretty much won every fight they were in, and were on a different level than the local MMA academies, but that was what these guys probably had to do - drive down to Virginia, run their record up to like 2-0 or 4-0 against podunk ass dudes, then move up to the next level with better competition, after learning some basic shit and experiencing a live crowd and strange opponent and all that. Levels. By the time they get to the UFC, I imagine most of their passion has been crushed from their soul, and they are just trying to not only get paid, but guarantee their position in future money-making matches. There's as much self-preservation for your future match-making position as there is protecting yourself in the fight.
That's why The Ultimate Fighter was such a great idea as a TV show, although painful to watch at times, because you bring in all these lower level guys and give them a shot to skip a level or two, on national TV, and in the process you create new stars for your MMA monopoly. Dana White is a genius at exploiting this thing to Zuffa and his self's full benefit. I'm amazed nobody has outright been like "Fuck you, Dana," from a high profile position and made a stink about the way this thing goes down.
Anyways, Franklin nails a near knockout punch on Loiseau, aka The Crow, at the very end of the first round, with the air horn going off same time Loiseau hit the mat. Second round is pretty much Franklin dominating the dude, with The Crow on constant back pedal mode. The crowd is chanting "USA! USA!" because Loiseau is Canadian and the crowd is fucking retarded.
Zoning out, and Loiseau is bleeding and Franklin was good, but as soon as I typed that, Franklin got knocked the fuck out, and The Crow went in for the kill, but Franklin regained himself and is back in clutch control. Loiseau's eye looks like it exploded, and Franklin apparently has a broken left hand. One of The Crow's eyes is almost swolled shut, which probably wouldn't be allowed to continue in boxing. When boxing is more stringent a sport than what you do, there should probably be some re-evaluation of what's going on with your sport internally.
They are in a fourth round now, and the commentator says, "And this sport is filled with really polite and nice guys." Yeah, whatever on that bro. Loiseau's eyes are swelling out of his forehead, like sickly looking, on some alien shit, and the commentator dude is like, "I have no idea how somebody could watch this and then go back and watch baseball." While I understand that, yes, baseball is boring as fuck, you have to have a certain suspension of sensory perception to accept MMA as a regular, chill ass thing. I mean, I'm a fucking social degenerate, and even I find some of this stuff (like The Crow's eyes right now) sick and disgusting. But I am also a scientist, and enjoy studying the human ability to be sick and disgusting. But they stumble around together long enough to let the clock run out on all five-minute five rounds, and Franklin is your winner, and getting pushed to the high moon in this series of 100 ultimate fights.
#73: GEORGES ST. PIERRE vs. JASON MILLER - More St. Pierre and this crazy Mayhem Miller dude. Like I think I've mentioned, I'm really not into Georges St. Pierre, and Mayhem Miller comes out the gate in the intro hype package saying his style is a combo of streetfighting, jiu-jitsu, Thai boxing, and something or other else. "Nobody in my weight class can handle my rhythm," say St. Pierre in broken English by way of French Canadia, and I think to myself "lolol".
Miller is unorthodox to say the least, and is making this automatically entertaining as fuck from the very beginning. St. Pierre through but missed a vicious backspin fist, which is the most ridiculous move ever, but still pretty awesome in MMA when it hits. Mayhem has a goofy smile on his face most of the time, or maybe he just looks like it, but it really adds to the fun of the fight, because he's kind of loopy, which he is. But then St. Pierre starts just clobbering him in the face, and Mayhem is bleeding all over the earth, yet he conceals it well and attempts to fight his way to the end. His hair is red, his face is gory, and he still has the goofy retarded smile. And when the round ended, that goofy fucker actually pulled away from the cut man for a second.
Maybe the dude's hair is dyed blood red in one weird spot and he's not bleeding up top. I'm not quite sure what to make of this guy, other than he's the best shit ever. He and the War Machine should just fight every Friday night. And Miller's coach is yelling at him, "RETARD STRENGTH! RETARD STRENGTH!" because, well I don't know, but that's what they're yelling.
Georges St. Pierre fight trunks said mopal.com so I just checked it in case it was wacky fun, but it was about mortgage brokers or some shit. Just another reason to dislike St. Pierre. But he's dominating this thing in the second round, and Mayhem Miller is losing his goofy smile. St. Pierre was on Miller's back, but then Mayhem did this head tuck flip roll underneath himself to escape, which was just straight crazy, and it seems like when dudes do straight crazy awesome things they say it's jiu-jitsu so I think I just want to watch capoira motherfuckers fight in the streets of Brazil. At the end of this second round, St. Pierre had Mayhem Miller's arm bent backwards and fucked up looking, but the round ended, and Miller jumps up, without the retard smile, but shaking his head stupidly like, "I'm straight, I'm straight."
Third round starts and they talk about Miller's history working in a junkyard, stripping parts off cars for other cars, and how he claims he's one of the great redneck fighters of Georgia. Junkyard dudes doing jiu-jitsu on each other just changes how I look at this whole thing, to be honest with you. But then I notice Georges St. Pierre again and go back to dismissing MMA as closeted homosexuality-based anger expression. Then I stopped paying attention because St. Pierre was just brutalizing the dude, but Miller never stopped, and gets a standing ovation for tolerating three rounds of getting his ass kicked.
Some dude is trying to clean up Mayhem Miller with a towel and he's like, "I'm alright, man, I'm alright. Get the fuck outta my face." Beautiful. It is a shame he did not win, because I want to see like 37 more Mayhem Miller fights on this list.
#72: MINOTAURO NOGUEIRA vs. FRANK MIR - Whoa, there's an obvious Brazilian crazy man named Minotaur with brown cauliflower ears in this, and I bet he is going to be amazing as fuck. Frank Mir is just your average boring white dude MMA fighter with either weird tiny tattoos across his belly, or strange hair, or Frankenstein stitches. Nogueira has an expression on his face that makes Tony Montana look friendly. Seriously. It also makes me wish Mexican drug lords started a rival to UFC, and hopefully lop off Dana White's head.
The fight does not match my initial expectations as the Nognog dude just kind of keeps pacing forward, gets knocked down a couple times, but does not get finished. He's kind of like Jason Voorhees in that sense, except he doesn't have a meat cleaver to kill the white dude with. First round is all Mir, and he's all smiley and goomba looking, like it's no thing. He should remember Nognog is Jason though, so we move into the second round, hopefully not of all five.
I have a really large television I just realized. We don't buy things, instead just using whatever the fuck we have. My wife's brother bought us our last two TVs, this giant one, and then the previous one we got in like 1998. Fuck buying new shit all the time. This TV will last us for probably two formats beyond blu-ray.
Oh, the white dude knocked Nognog on the ground, pummeled him, and won the fight He basically just boxed the dude right the fuck out. I wish R.A. the Rugged Man did commentary for this shit. He has a boxing book coming out at some point, which I think will be the greatest sports writing of the past 20 years - way better than that stupid soccer book about the dude that loves that one soccer team and talks about it that's supposed to be so great but really isn't. I've even blocked that fucker's name out of my head, that's how much I hated that book.
Frank Mir is crying after winning the belt, so he covers his face with a hat, so he's just standing there with a garish title belt, being cheered at, and hiding his face in a baseball cap where everyone knows he's crying, and yet it looks even stupider than if he would just cry in the open. Macho fuckers are so stupid. Which reminds me, the Macho Man would fuck all these dudes up, with that elbowsmash off the top of the octagon.
#71: TANK ABBOTT vs. DON FRYE - Old school throwback fight right here, a final of one of those early ultimate fighting tournaments, so both these dudes have already fought on this night. Tank Abbott, if you do not know him, is the most awesome dude ever. I had a friend who saw Abbott in Las Vegas one time trying to get more money at a casino, and they wouldn't give him more credit, so he took them to his ATM to prove he had like $200,000 in the bank so that they'd give him more credit. I found that funny, but also wondered why Tank didn't just withdraw some money at that point. And did he pay ATM fees to just get a balance? Because that'd be a real waste. Don Frye also is awesome, because he looks like Magnum P.I. but in tiny fighting shorts, and it's a straight up 15-minute fight, with 3-minute overtimes. It was a way different MMA back then.
Tank comes out like you would expect, beer belly flopping as he slugs away on Frye, knocking him down, and this is just straight up Philo Beddoe shit right here. Tank slips and falls, and Frye is no top of him, behind him, and then almost chokes him out. To his credit, Tank escapes, but this shit is way less jiu-jitsu technical than nowadays MMA, but still Frye chokes him out. It's a shame there's not straight up bareknuckle fighting beside old boxcars anymore, because Tank Abbott would be the best at that shit. The best ever. And I really wonder what Tank Abbott is up to nowadays.
Nary a sponsor on the apron, just the old Hulk smashing fist UFC logo dude center ring. It was not as technical, but it was a simpler, more beautiful sport back then. Tank Abbott is wearing Asic sneakers I notice in the replays. Man, what a great fighting tournament nonsense thing turned into highly-produced shiny garbage by shyster businessmen. (I thought for a minute of a good Public Enemy lyric to insert, but couldn't come up with one easily, so I'm just gonna give up and leave after this parenthesis ends.)

t o y z m

we all have our wars to fight,
although most are more conflict
without sensible exits

w i n d d

duct tape holding windowpanes
into worn down wood mullions -
still looks better than plastic

J.J. Krupert Top 13 Countdown - July '11 #8: "Satan Is Real/Straight To Hell" by Hank Williams III

If I could have one piece of music on vinyl to add to my collection, it would be Straight To Hell double LP by Hank Williams III. I first bought this on CD when I was painting an old dinghy building in downtown Richmond at night, riding a creepy ass freight elevator upstairs to haunted floors, alone by myself in this cavernous building. I bought Straight to Hell, pretty stoked for it, as I dug Lovesick, Broke & Driftin' a lot, even if Tricephus didn't. Man, little did I expect that Hank III would make a drug-addled masterpiece of modern American music. Seriously, I don't think there's ever been a better encapsulation of what it means to be southern small town proud but fucked, and endlessly talented but hopelessly doomed, than this double CD. The thing is the first CD is normally broken down into different songs, like you would expect, but the second more experimental CD is like the greatest shit ever done, and I wish there were whole genres of music like that CD, but instead there's been nothing else like it, ever, not even from Hank III. That album was done on the exact same type of recording equipment that Prolo used to use too, so me and Boogie Brown always felt an added affinity for it. When you make music in haphazard old ways with hardware not software, you become attached to those methods as not just method but ritual, precious artistic rituals that unlock what it is you are truly trying to do through rhythm and word patterns. And though that description is far too pretentious sounding for Hank III to ever agree that's what he was doing, he knows that's what he was doing.
But this double CD echoing through that cavernous fucking old warehouse on Franklin Street in Richmond, working through the night into the early morning hours, to where when I loaded my equipment back up so things could dry before regular work crew came in during the day, the streets of RVA had that beautiful ghostly silence broken up only by distant sirens or the shuffling of a drunkard and/or homeless dude across the street through the chill overnight air. Shit made sense, and it would always be after midnight, plus I had an hour and a half drive home, so I didn't have beer in the ride to travel home with, but this album would make you want to have just that.
In fact, this song - the first off the double CD, pretty much creates a Pavlovian response in my household. The ol' lady will crack open a beer and have extra sashay to her walk, and I will think about how great music through headphones sounds when you've taken 500 mg of oxycodone for a minute, but realize that's not where I'm at right now, and smile and act like I act, doing something like wrestle the dog playfully and say she hadn't earned that white patch on her belly yet, pretending to be an Aryan in jail, or putting on wrestling masks and running around the house with the little ones, and sneaking up on unsuspecting people to mumble "LA MOMIA LA MOMIA" which is Mexican for mummy. I still understand getting fucked up as shit, and appreciate it, and often miss it to be honest with you. But at this point, looking at how many chilluns I've made and the crooked ass world they're gonna get left to live in, I'd rather fuck up the world than leave it at fucking up myself. So I do what I can, when I can, and try to stay calm with that, hoping it's enough to quell my inner-demons.
STEAL "Satan Is Real/Straight To Hell"
NEXT: Some serious ass sangin'!

r o d a c

beady-headed black vultures
flying like predator drones,
waiting to peck at my brains

J.J. Krupert Top 13 Countdown - July '11 #9: "Nomads (acoustic)" by Howlin' Rain

We are neural nomads, stifled into sedentary physical positions, but letting our minds wander nowhere in a thousand directions at hyperspeed cyberpace. We feel more connected than ever to our physical disconnect, and pretend this is empowering. Though it's nothing like the old B-movie sci-fi flicks looked like, with us blank-eyed, soaking in a body-sized cylinder of amniotic fluid with sensors and gadgets hooked up to us, unconscious zombies to be harvested by some higher power that sees societal chess moves we aren't even trained to understand, that's exactly what's going on.
My mind wanders constantly with questions and concerns about what the fuck I'm doing, where I'm headed, why am I where I am, and does it ultimately serve my larger purpose as a person? The answers are all over the place, as my brain has been shifted by the algorithmic shackles of our today world. Nothing is processed at human speed, with gut intuitiveness or chance encounters anymore. Your google search results, your Netflix suggestions, your Facebook friends, your twitter feeds, your sidebar advertisements and other items you might like on Amazon or Ebay or Half or whatever - all algorithms programmed by smart people with no realization they are ultimately doing the work of the worst, most vile marketers man has ever known. It is becoming a relentless barrage of consumer stimuli, even if there doesn't seem to be a price tag attached.
It sort of occurred to me today that just as the fast food movement that still occupies most but is seen by some as a slow death mechanism towards failure exploded across the American landscape, and still is far more prevalent than anyone actually slow cooking food in their own house for hours a day, because our pre-packaged grocery store options are just microwaveable fast food anyways, our internet-led information overload is fast food knowledge, little tidbits of alleged intelligence or knowledge about the world around us that actually is lacking in spiritual or scientific nutrition. We are actually making ourselves stupider by thinking we are smarter.
I guess what I am trying to say is run the fuck off into the woods, find yourself a sit spot, and read a book, motherfucker, read a book. I've got Ecology of a Cracker Childhood to dig into (thanks to a suggestion in a comment on this page, so please, comment and interact - it feeds us both in this nutrition-less internet), plus I'm back into my Red Pine translations of the hermit poets of China. Also, there's still some passages in my Outlaw Book of American Essays I want to get into, but I've also wanted to go through the boxes of old books in the camper this weekend to dig out both Hell's Angels by HST and a few William S. Burroughs books. I definitely feel like the way my mind has been lately, I could use some of Burroughs prose to ground me back to reality. Good lord, what kind of fucked up cyberworld have we wrought where William S. Burroughs grounds us? These fucking lizard alien overlords are real beasts.
(Also, props to the always awesome Aquarium Drunkard site, for first exposing me to this, or this to me, or whatever it is that we do in this internetted age.)
STEAL "Nomads (acoustic)"
NEXT: The most fun anthem to reckless endangerment to one's self that has ever been made!