Howlin' for Boof: A Coaches Guide to Motivating Werewolves

That shirt was to Stiles what leather jackets and VD were to the Fonz.

Following the same layout as my previous post, this one will attempt to give you some insight to one of the most complex characters ever to plaster themselves across the silver screen.  Unfortunately, that character (Stiles from Teen Wolf) had only one legit youtube clip and it was one of his weaker scenes.  It appears that youtube was hijacked on the Teen Wolf movie clips in exchange for some lame reboot MTV version. FACT: The actor who played Stiles went on to direct half of the great episodes from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's stellar third season. 

So I instead turned to the third-greatest film character in that movie, as well as third-greatest in the history of cinema, (behind Stiles and the fat guy, Boof which went on to be the 4th most popular boy's name in Thailand in 1986, the year after Teen Wolf hit theatres) that character's name is "Coach Bobby Finstock."  For your consideration as the Nebraska school system's anti-role model, Coach Finstock's unconventional style of inappropriate advice, complete lack of basketball fundamentals, and questionable hygiene ethics leads his high school basketball team to new heights.

Attention: here is a comment on Teen Wolf's imdb page that needed to be mentioned about a story set in Nebraska.

-There are no palm trees in Nebraska.


00:04 - I am hazarding a guess that the actor playing Coach Finstock was Steve Guttenberg's stunt double during the food fight scene in It Takes Two.

00:10 - Master motivational tool - offer fried chicken in return for excellent basketball play.  That is probably an excerpt from Pat Riley's The Winner Within talking about how he used to motivate the Showtime Lakers in the 80's.  Finstock is clearly well-versed in the study of motivation.

00:22 - Good to see there's a coach out there taking up his mantle as role model seriously, he let's his player know that he is here to help.

00:29 - So much for that.  Solving problems is hard and requires effort that clueless high school coaches like Finstock don't have time for.  I see his point.

00:49 - I've been covering the IRS vendetta against the Finstock brood since my first year on my grade school newspaper.

1:05 - "I'm sorry I didn't notice, but I haven't been hanging around the locker room all that much."  A major implication that he usually keeps an eye out for his athletes going through puberty and reacting with a congratulations or at least a Hallmark card for growing hair down there.  I'd be upset If I were Michael J. Fox as well.  He had to sit through and watch everyone else get the coaches attention upon reaching their manhood, but Fox reaches werewolf-hood and all he gets is a belated offer of stale fried chicken.  Maybe if Finstock had the same attentive eyes on his financial statements he wouldn't be running into repeated IRS trouble.

1:44 - Tougher adolescence: being the fatherless kid in that story, who dropped out of high school to help out his crippled mom or being a fat kid named Boof?

1:49 - Notice the "No Students Allowed" sticker on Finstock's office window.

1:55 - He didn't need a third-stringer, but he does need a less annoying habit that doesn't involve him chomping down gum like Violet Beauregarde.

Shoop-da-Boof was Salt-N-Peppa's ode to this stud.

 2:20 - BOOOOOOOOF!!!!! Don't cry.

2:29 - He really doesn't have much pride in his job, and I can't help wondering if he is just in that locker room staking out who is going through ch-ch-ch-changes.

2:50 - I didn't think he had it in him.  But Coach Bobby Finstock just gave the best three pieces of advice I've ever heard.  Not only that, but he was able to stick a, "and everything else is cream cheese," in there.  BREAKING NEWS: not ironically "cream cheese" was in Finstock's word-of-the-day for toddlers calendar that day.

Fear and How I Came to Stop Worrying and Loathe Mark Wahlberg

An artists rendering of Vonn Mexico, my pet gnome/best friend/ editor/future secretary of the interior

After weeks of brainstorming (choosing on the first thing that came to my mind) and a heated debate between myself and the editor-in-chief of this blog (Vonn Mexico), I decided to start a new segment in which I will pick an acclaimed and influential film, post the first (or funniest) clip I find on youtube, then break it down for you on this blog with the wit, insight and depth that only a person like myself, who considers Fievel Goes West the major turning point of my life, can. I considered making the inaugural post in this vein Citizen Kane.  But fuck that.  Why critique the film considered the pinnacle of American cinema when you can instead critique the movie that Orson Welles famously referred to as, "The one thing I wish I had lived to see, with Arvydas Sabonis winning the gold medal a close second." (said to Maxim magazine in Marky-Mark's dream).

The year, was 1996, with the world still wrapped up in mourning the dissolution of the Funky Bunch, three years prior, Marky Mark Wahlberg proved to the world, he wouldn't disappear into the frosted-tips pages of boy band history.  But instead he would bring honor to the Wahlberg house with a powerhouse performance as bad-boy David Mccall in the motion picture Fear.  The following clip is one of the top hits on youtube.

00:01 - Unfortunately, I've never had the opportunity to initiate a shady meeting place on a random street corner/back alley/underneath a bridge.  People are always picking strange meeting places in the movies.  In real life it usually turns into, one person is to lazy to leave their house, so you meet there.  Or you take it as an excuse to get a corn dog so you meet at the fair.

00:08 - "Beat around the bush," cheeky foreshadowing, just exchange the word bush for, beat yourself in the chest with nobody watching and you can skip the rest of this conversation.

00:20 - Is Gil Grissom trying to out tough a tough guy?  He better start talking very quietly and furrowing his brow more if he thinks he can out Marky Mark the master.

00:26 - Gil sounded generally surprised by that.  What?  You insult me after I tried to put an end to your evenings of joy rides on joy rides with my daughter?  But you were such a polite, clean-cut and respectful boy the rest of the movie....

00:35 - It's go time once someone stands up straight out of their Fonzi lean against their overtly and economically unbelievable classic car.

00:42 - You better wait a minute, Mark is waxing poetic here.  "I'm hip to your problems."  I think he borrowed that psychology line from Freud like he used to borrow song titles from the Beach Boys and beats from C + C Music Factory.

00:50 - Licking sweet tears doesn't really sound like something you should brag about Mark. 

1:00 - He sure studied up on old Gil, if he only he showed that kind of commitment to not sounding so douchey all the time, he would be a likeable guy.

1:24 - I'm not entirely sure that's how friends are supposed to talk to one another.  Seems unhealthy.  Not once did you ever hear Bert telling Ernie he was going to rip his striped sweater or rubber duckie off and shove so far up his ass it would come out his enormous mouth.  Well, maybe that was off camera, I missed Vh1's Behind (literally) the Puppet special: The Henson Confessions.

1:32 - 357 Red is not a very imaginative vanity plate Gil.  The basic description of your 357 Chevy just makes it easier to fill out the police reports later.

1:37 - Are you intimidating Gil, or your left pectoral muscle?  Because there is nobody there to ogle your triceps.  If I was a neighbor on that street and walked out to that I would think he was having a heart attack vis-a-vis the SNL Chicago Sports Guys.  It's less intimidation, more infarction.  Was he ever considered cool?

It's Been a Long Time....

"It's not a dog, it's a (sweater wearing couple of) ferrets you idiot," Governator Schwarzznegggis!?xyegger.

Welcome back!  Not to whoever is reading this why would I welcome you.  But welcome back me, to the internet.  It has been awhile since you last held me in your sweet embrace of endless cute animal pictures like the top of this page and new videos of Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young.

Now that I've reacclimated myself to the web, I'll break down where I have been.  I recently started a new job fighting crime in St. Louis, while still finding the time to work at an advertising company.  It's a full-time gig with my days and nights split between being the moral protector of a city that turned it's back on me years ago and the software of Adobe.  As you can tell that hellish mix scared away one or two AT&T internet repairmen, who also apparent lack in the superpower of MapQuesting my secret hideout.

Unfortunately, these new-found jobs have kept me from what my parents were starting to believe was my vocation...sleeping all day.  I mean delivering pizzas.

There truly was nothing like my life on the road, which is what I had at the hut and Nancy's.  The people you meet out on the old dusty trail taught me many a thing about - life, love, acceptable clothing when expecting someone at the door and the isolationist behavior of the obese.  For more lessons, just read On the Road by Jack Kerouac because I was once told by a homeless man (who exists in my dreams) that the book centers around a pizza delivery man and his trials and tribulations with his addiction to Rocky Road Ice Cream.  Back to my purpose of this entry.

Here are my thoughts on all the cliched, yet well-intentioned advice I was given/experienced in my first month on the job:

-Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.   Makes sense.  Kind of a yuppi-fied version of Johnny Tsunami's fortune cookie that read "Go big or go home."  While most people mean this as a way to trick you into dressing like a 1930's British banker,  I take it seriously.  Considering that the job I want is a professional NBA basketball player, I end up looking like this guy at work everyday.

Scouts call my mullet less athletic, but still maintain that I'm less of a dirty player than Rambis.

-Be the first one there in the morning, and the last one to leave at night.  Fair enough, I can appear to be a hard worker and a team player.  But we can't all follow this rule, otherwise the times get earlier at one end and later at the other until your 9-5 workday becomes a round-the-clock job without the Costanzian under-desk bed.  Plus, I'm afraid of the mornings.  I don't trust the sun until I have seen it at it's highest point.

Ben Savage: post Boy Meets World.

-Network/meet people/be friendly.  I enjoy meeting people as long as they are not this guy to the right.  But some folk take this to the extreme.  I recently met a nice enough person, or so I thought.  After walking half a hallway with said new friend I detoured for the bathroom.  He deked right, noted my direction change, spun left and followed me into the linoleum plaza.  I thought no biggie, he must just have urinate as well.  But what he did was far worse.  He stood within urine-splashing distance behind me continuing his Rolodex of getting to know you questions while I fought to hide my extreme unease.  "Where are you from?" "Wow, your name is Patrick, I know someone named Patrick." "Why have you not started peeing yet?"  Well the last one was a lie, but I half-expected it so I made fake peeing sounds just in case, and also as inspiration to get started.

There are plenty more examples I could and should come up with about work advice, but this has already gone to long and you probably stopped reading anyway, plus I should probably get back to clearing the streets of the bank robbin', old ladies' purse stealin', garbage pickin' field goal kick' Philadelphia phenomenon.  Damn, I've done it again, confused my life with a Tony Danza classic.  Now that I'm in a Danza-state of mind, I'll leave you with this.

SOPA - Not Only Spanish for Soup

This week loads of internet backlash has been hurled at SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act).  This bill currently being debated in Congress would pose great threats to numerous user-generated sites like Youtube, Wikipedia, Funny or Die and Reddit as well as illegal music and video downloads.  Needless to say, if those sites are shut-down or altered, it threatens weakly researched term papers, this blog and videos of talented individuals like this.

In honor of protesting this proposed bill, I devised a list below that Congress should be more focused on censoring and shutting down before they attack the web.

The WNBA All Star Game
-There are a bevy of talented women athletes in the world, but in no way is there a need to label these players as stars and subject television viewers to highlight reel deflected passes and layups.

Taxi cabs whose headlights look Cop cars in my rear-view mirror at night
-They must find it odd how every car in front of them slows down when they approach.

LMFAO
-I'm not sure how these guys are considered musical, talented or worthwhile.  Judging by this picture, their talent may be standing stiff while wearing crudely geographic t-shirts.

TTYL
-Chances are this will be the name of a music group in the future that will once again leave me considering the benefits of going deaf.

The Miami Heat
- Enough said.

Anything Associated with Michael Bay.
-Even if that means going back in time to censor the original Transformers action figures.  I would gladly trade in childhood joy to save myself from Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Transformers 1-3, etc.  Wait, he didn't direct Face/Off did he?  Because if so I may need to take his face...off...this...list...ok good I checked IMDB, he's not associated with that masterpiece.

Celebrity Baby "News Stories"
-"Con Air star Ving Rhames names his new child Chobani, after his favorite Greek yogurt brand,"  is a fake headline I hope to never read.  Wow, Jay-Z named his kid Blue Ivy and Chris Martin has a kid named Apple.  Is that really considered news or is it just a way to remind us how very "artistic" and just plain effing weird celebrities are?

Judgmental Fast Food Employees
-Just once I would like to feel safe ordering a fine 50-piece chicken nugget meal, for myself, without getting a third-degree grease burn from the lady taking my order.  I understand it is unhealthy and an absurdly large quantity of food, but if I wanted advice I wouldn't have skipped my doctor's appointment to watch that Married...with Children marathon last week.

Second-Hand Sports Stories
-Oh, you scored 14 points in the District Semi-Regional Opening Round Preseason Squash Tournament in high school?  Not even your pet cactus would enjoy hearing you retell your old sports glory stories.  Ed. note: Full disclosure if you played high school Squash I would love to hear about it, because I know nobody who plays that sport.

The Reality Show Ink Master
-Television networks seem to have lost any clue as to what might resemble quality programming with this reality gem.  "Hey, let's get that alien looking guitarist from Jane's Addiction to host a show where we find the next great American tattoo artist!"  "Finally a reality program that will find the person to fill that void there has been in American Tattooing for the past decade," says nobody except that guy sleeping in the bus station who has 5 head tattoos instead of hair.

The endless supply of small blogs on the internet....
-I mean, um, heh, ta-da, cue the video of a zebra dancing. 

Musical Bloopers

You may have heard about the terrific outpouring of internet hate for singer Lana Del Ray about her performance on this weekend's SNL (her critics include NBC Nightly News Host Brian Williams).  Posted above is the SNL performance of her internet hit "Video Games."

As you can tell, she seems about as awkward and out of place as Mitt Romney at a Phish concert.  Aside from her squirmy swaying, she looks generally disinterested in her music, life or the fact that Harry Potter just introduced her.  The stage most likely was a little too big for her, but I found this performance wildly entertaining due to the epic voice changes from line-to-line.  She hilariously drifted between a comically low grumble to an attempted angelic lilt.  She brings to mind some classic musical bloopers and gaffes that have received their due share of criticism.

William Hung (first name might as well be Will.I.Am because I find his music far more enjoyable than The Black Eyed Peas)

American Idol has made a malicious name for themselves by shamelessly humiliating some people that have as much business singing as I do performing quadruple bypasses.  But one contestant set a new musical bar for complete lack of talent or maybe even vocal chords.  William Hung won over audiences with his enthusiasm, smile and shameless attempt to make it in the music world.  It's almost hard to believe a voice can sound this weak.  Despite a voice that makes a 10-beer deep karaoke singer sound like Whitney Houston, Hung's first album sold over 190,000 copies in the US, and he scored a hilarious cameo in Arrested Development.  He gained fame with his cover of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs," but it wasn't all sex, drugs and latino rock n' roll for Hung. The video below is of his R. Kelly "I Believe I Can Fly" cover that puts his more sensitive side on display.

Fred Durst

Not much can be said about the rap-rock-popwannabe that hasn't been said already.  The Limp Bizkit front man's musical ability ran the gauntlet of considering "C'mon!" as a powerful lyric, to covering George Michael's "Faith" by just screaming the chorus.  Check out his mind-melting guitar solo below, that was most likely taught to him by his pet cat on a Kleenex-box rubber-band guitar.

Breakdown of the Solo:

0:06 - Fred's going to setlle the crowd in with this slow rocker.
0:07 - Good to hear that he plans on playing that guitar as loud as possibly.  Therefore, we will be able to hear the terrible-ness coming from him louder than we ever dreamed possible.
0:11 - He must be a pretty legit "artist" to refrain from sponsors, judging by the unmarked black baseball hat and white T-shirt.  It's good knowing that he was a role model for the children.
0:19 - It's been 19 seconds, and it's almost safe to say that the only word he knows in the English language is "Nevermind." At least he is singing and playing in rhythm......HAH.
0:20 - Uh-oh.  No more messing around with that slowed down Alanis Morisette crap.  Heeeeeere's Freddy!  And he has come prepared to play some open strings very fast.
0:24 - A few stumbles out of the gate, but he soldiers on past a couple awkward silences.  BOOM!  Did you hear that wahhhhh!  Now he's on a roll.
0:25 - And there goes that roll, he had a genuine look of panic for a second there following his wah-note.  He couldn't find the top of his fretboard, despite the fact that it stayed in place.  His head shook just enough, and I imagine he was trying to think back on his decades of musical training to decipher where his guitar begins.
0:26 - He found it! Good work, Fred!
0:29 - Oops.  Freddy flubbed another note.  Luckily, he knew he could save it if he just leaned back and gave a good "I'm rocking out face."  It almost distracts the viewer from noticing that the rest of his muscles have locked up from fear of not knowing how to play the instrument in front of him.
0:35 - Another big mess-up featuring a complete lack of sound.  It looks like he's beginning to realize the futility of this rock-out session.  He might be throwing in the towel soon.
0:37 - Following another failure he calls it quits and beelines for the microphone with a message for all the kids listening out there.  I believe he says "Shag my friends tonight!"  Poignant.  But you can't sneak one past me.  Mr. Durst must be quoting Dante's "The Divine Comedy."  Nice try.
0:41 - Big applause, I'm astounded the crowd actually celebrated that display.


Poison

This was a real band?  With actual fans????

I foolishly listened to their greatest hits album once, and I don't think I made it through more than 42 seconds on any song in the compilation.  They might be in on the biggest joke in music history.  Read this gem of a lyric from "I Want Action" that should only be greeted with 20 years in the state penitentiary for singing about a potential sexual assault.

"I can't wait to get my hands on them/I won't give up until they give in," then "If I can't have her, I'll take her and make her."  And their band leader starred on a reality show where he "looked" for love.

Rebecca Black

This girl has gotten plenty of attention for being part of the most vapid song ever.  That is a difficult title to take, considering the other Disney-ish teen stars like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez and their entire catalog of soul-sucking, useless and IQ-lowering tunes.  But here is her epic fail (not views-wise, because in that realm this song is incredibly successful) "Friday."

Marketing the Un-Marketable

Ernie's smile is frightening.  He may have just smoked some PCP for the first time.

Searching for my first job of out school often intersects with a meditative yet purpose-driven searching of my soul.  How can I capture the essence of myself in a resume?  What makes me attractive to potential employers?  Why is Jersey Shore still on the air?  All of these are pressing questions that I intend to answer at any cost, even if it means going broke to assemble a think tank of Will Hunting like characters to explain the Nielsen ratings of Jersey Shore to me.  I don't care about their numbers; I moreso fear for the lack of moral accountability of those MTV producers that may be brainwashing and creating legions of greased-up Guidos hellbent on the destruction of all that is good and decent.  How about dem apples. Anyways...the question I want to poke holes in on this post is how to market my skills for a job interview.  I have put together a list of my skills that I believe are of utmost importance to the morale and day-to-day operations of any American workplace, but at the same time I wouldn't dare list these attributes to any HR representative out of fear of being laughed out of any interview until my only hope is shooting up some 'roids, getting a spray tan and signing up for Season 17 of Jersey Shore.

Un-Marketable Marketing Skills

1.  Never have I ever burnt a piece of toast.
         -Excuse the gamey-tone of that sentence and drink in the gravity of that fact.  It is true, I am the preeminent toast-maker in these United States.  You may be incredulous after reading that claim, even going so far as to call me a half-baked nincompoop (though I doubt you used those words).  Rest assured, I don't take my role as toast-master lightly.  That's why I often get mistaken for Spiderman.  With great toasting power comes great responsibility.  And I vehemently watch over my toast like a heroic evolutionary-freak would watch over the citizens of his city.  What office wouldn't enjoy having the toast of the town in their break room each and every morning?

2.  Mustaches!

What mustaches were, and can be again.

        -Often reserved for maniacal villains, adult film stars or documentarians, the mustache has been a victim of Hollywood propaganda for too long.  Aside from joining a motorcycle gang or wrestling alligators, growing a mustache is the final act of complete and total freedom we have left in this world.  And on multiple occasions I have tried to uphold that sentiment by morphing into the resident mustache-man.  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind having a guy with the guts to grow such a vilified facial hair style on my side.

3.  Board Game extraordinaire.
        -However unlikely, landing a major client may one day come down to which firm can succeed in a no-holds barred winner-takes-all game of Hi-Ho! Cherry-O.  I do not accept failure in any board game.  Yes, I play to have fun.  But isn't it the most fun when you win?  And win is what I will do repeatedly in the name of your company.  I will have collected all 10 cherries before they can even say "Hasbro" (eds. note: Hi Ho! Cherry-O is a Milton Bradley title).

4.  Telling time.
        -I can do it.  Therefore, I am rarely late.

5.  Top High-Five Man this side of the equator.
        -Holding the mantel of 8-time winner of the "Best of the Western Suburbs Slapper of Hands" isn't the easiest position.  Every year literally multiple up-and-comers flock to the western suburbs of Chicago with one goal in mind: to dethrone the Skin Slapping Shaman.  High-five Times has described my streetwise salutes as "riding the line between worldwide acclaim and forbidden sex appeal."  The Dalai Lama wrote in his memoirs, Hello Dalai, that his first true religious experience came after I congratulated him on a speech-well-done with one of my heart stopping high-fives.  If someone in your office continually lacks self-confidence and therefore blows presentation after presentation, don't get them a prescription for Zoloft, instead hire a prescription of five fingers creating sublime contact with their own depressed digits: take 3 times a day with food.

Christmas Time is Gremlins Time

Many of you may have already seen this over at Mad Mike's Blog, but I thought I should post the link here also for my post on the 13 Lessons I Learned as a Child from my Favorite Christmas Movie: Gremlins.