A bad year for the Gagne family

First, Verne Gagne, one of the first major pro wrestling stars on television in the 50s and 60s, got into a fight at a nursing home which led to the death of a fellow resident. (Gagne is suffering from dementia, so the legal process is complicated)

Now, it turns out that Verne's granddaughter, while working in a high school, had a sexual relationship with a 16 year old boy.

Yowsah. That's a hell of a 2009 for that family.

Classic Baltimore TV moment- WJZ Chanukah Candle Lighting

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Jerry Turner was a fantastic broadcaster and a hell of a man. Watch him lose it once he goes to break. Brilliant.

President Barack Obama (so far)

Has he lived up to the time he spent on the campaign trail in 2008 as the most exciting, intelligent political/social/whatever force we've ever seen?

Absolutely not.

How could he? He is not some supernatural being.

Has he done a good job as president? I don't know, which points to "no".

But that's not really the story so far:

The story is that his presidency is irrelevant at this point, because many Americans refuse to accept it or believe that it is and/or could actually be real. Some Americans are angry. Some Americans are scared. Some Americans have developed phobias that have no basis in reality, but since there are people on TV and radio who encourage this kind of fear/anger, it just feeds the anger.

What happens from here is anyone's guess. And I'm anyone, so here we go:

The angry Americans will not shut up, and the voices that profit from warning people about the boogeyman will not shut up, and will not draw a line in the sand of how far their anger should and will go.

Obama is a nice, intelligent man, but that doesn't mean he's a great president, and he may very likely be despised enough my some people to either shift the balance back to the Republicans, or something much, much scarier than we have seen in our lifetime.

I kind of hate typing this, but here it is

I am trying to protect myself from getting too comfortable about President Obama because I am pretty sure that one of the countless pieces of psychotrash in this country will eventually assassinate him.

It's a self-defense mechanism kind of thing.

I sort of hope he quits so that he and his family live, because if he lives to get re-elected: the angry folks will completely snap.

Believe me, the anger is real. Real stupid, but real. It knows no limit now, and it is festering like an uneducated, backasswards tumor on our country's backside.

It can't actually be stopped.

It's terrifying to me.

The AdamAnnapolis Workout Soundtrack

I will eventually compile the ultimate playlist to help you get through a productive vigorous therapeutic workout, which will leave you feeling stronger, more alive, more powerful, and more prideful than you ever would have been if you had not pushed yourself to kick your own ass into gear...but for now, here are some albums that do the trick remarkably well..(warning: you may find yourself sneering and grunting like an angry animal in between sets, but thats what this music is made for...and most of this is stuff you may not sit and listen to in front of the fireplace...this is revved up, aggro tension releasing noisy rawk)

At the Drive In- Relationship of Command
Bad Brains- Bad Brains and/or Rock For Light
Battles- Mirrored
Big Black- Atomizer
Nine Inch Nails- The Downward Spiral
Public Enemy- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
The Stooges- The Stooges
Fun House
Raw Power
Nirvana- In Utero

I know that this is out of most of your musical wheelhouses, but this is the gym: get into character....you are a beast who will not give in to laziness. You are a machine. A badass. A killer. No one else can stop you from reaching your goals. Those that try will be devoured and/or crushed.

Benny Mardones "Into the Night" (1980)

How special must a pop song be to chart in 1980 AND again in 1989. Well, special, but not really in a good way.

Sonically, it sounds for the most part like standard Michael Bolton type faux Adult contemporary soul/pop/pabulum.

...but this song has a sick underbelly, which isn't really a belly, and really isn't under...

In fact, check out the very first lyric: "She's just 16 years old/'leave her alone' they say"

You think, Benny?

Statutory Rape is what it's called, you sick freak. She's a child.

Besides, there is not a 16 year old alive ever who would listen to this kind of music. It's late night cocktail white pop.

Benny has a rock edge to his dirty old man voice on the chorus, where he gets downright gritty and exclaims "If I could fly, I'd pick you up...I'd take you into the night and show you a love like you've never seen"...

"Love" in this case, is Benny's manhood which he brags about throughout and apparently he wants to feel supernatural (flying) and teach this 16 year old all about his power by severing her hymen in the most violent of ways...which will make him feel powerful because he can't figure out women his own age, and thus is regressing to his horny puberty days.

This would be standard pop crap if it wasn't for the last minute, when Benny GOES BERSERK, and screams and grunts in ways that would make Kurt Cobain proud. Except unlike Cobain, Mardones's screams come, not from inner pain, but from a ridiculous desire to chase young girls.

Loser. Check the National Sex Registry for Mr. Mardones.

A Political statement from an average Joe/Adam

is, in some ways, a socialist. I find the attempts to use the word in a demonizing fashion in the same way people use the word "Nazi" and "terrorist" completely misguided and stupid. I don't think it works on a large scale...but that bullshit about how Reagen won the Cold War for us is revisionist propaganda. If Gorbachev hadn't have been willing to change things, and he and Reagan hadn't become close, the events of 20 years ago would not have occured. Sorry Fox News!

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

is a legitimate hero of mine, and I don't think I have more than a few.

While being a dominant, excellent athlete...the man is one of the pre-eminent historians writing today, and a man whose intellect seemingly knows no bounds.

He is a quiet, intense athletic nerdy book type.

And he was phenomenal in Airplane!.

He announced this week that he is battling a rare form of leukemia. The prognosis is actually good, but I wanted to take this time to praise and marvel at the man and his life.

We are lucky to have him here.

a scary great story about modern technology

So, I'm at a bar, talking about porn, and I discuss the amputee porn fetish that finds people either attracted to deformed lovers, or surgically removing limbs of their own. The person I told refused to believe me (as if I would make this stuff up).

Within seconds, this person grabs their iPhone and finds photos backing up my story, while also showing graphic photos of a woman and a dog. In seconds.

In the middle of a crowded bar.

This is when it hit me that Steve Jobs has really changed our lives.

"Too Big To Fail"

Sounds like it should have been used in reference to John Holmes drug related impotence in the 1980s.