I was lucky to share an office with Miss Julie Connolly at WBCN back on Boylston Street and it was honestly amazing. Because she was amazing. She was the cussin’ Queen of Traffic @ WBCN – the backbone who made sure spots got PLAYED – and in-between rage fits at idiotic sales people and checking my work, we talked for hours and hours about music – because that’s why we were both there. We both loved radio and WBCN and music of all kinds, and while we waited for the last sales person to check in and confirm an order much too late most nights, that’s what we talked about – and her laugh and sense of humor were two of the most sincere things I can honestly say I’ve ever encountered. She fucking rocked.
She really did. To me, she WAS BCN. She was exactly what you dreamed of an office mate to be – sweet, kind, incredibly patient – but also some one to look up to – she was PROUD to be in that building, and she knew it only ran by the grace of her good hand – which was very very true, and she reminded us of it often. She owned it, and loved it, and I’m really going to miss her – so I made her a playlist of songs. Songs from bands she loved and songs she hated with a passion – there’s some on here I only know of because of her – and her taste in music was FLAWLESS, so I put some tracks on that remind me of her in completely random ways. So i’m just going to leave this here, because it’s the only thing I can think to do for her since she left such a big impression on me.
I wish like hell she could tell me how much it sucks.
Feel free to add to it, too – it’s collaborative, and EVERYBODY who worked with Julie had to have a special song or band or album of show you bonded over. Because Julie was cool like that.
RIP, Jules.
When people hate and fear government, they vote to harm government. And that makes government work poorer and less in their interests. While leads them to vote against it again. Etc.
Which is why the Republican “government is always bad” mantra is so damaging. Of course it’s bad when you never fund it, refuse to fix it, and just try to get rid of it everywhere.
If we all actively decided that it wasn’t Government that was the problem, but rather the *specific ways the current laws go about things*, then maybe we could focus on *fixing* those things, and making things better.
Or we can just keep moaning and going on tirades against the whole concept of having government at all. Because that’s helpful.
I’m voting for Bernie. I want to end the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, the war on aperture much everything. He seems like quite a catch – now it’s time to bring him home to meet the family.
I feel like Mikey would’ve liked him, too.
I’m a little rusty, so you’ll have to excuse me if this isn’t up to snuff – but I’ve got to do it. Almost feels like there’s something pressed up to my giant head… or something.
THAT GUY – THE GUN NUT
(Clears throat)
WELL HEY THERE, DUMPCAKES. (Where ya been, buddy?) I’m coming out of (forced) retirement for a hot minute to call out all y’all who are hootin’ and hollerin’ like Yosemite Sam and firing your six-shooters in the air in slapnut solidarity with all the other slapnuts who think the school shooting epidemic in this fine fucked-up country of ours would be solved by adding more guns to the equation, and not less.
…Really?
I can’t believe I’m allowing myself to be sucked into this, but… I’m sick of seeing the “UCC massacre was a result of it being a Gun Free Zone” discussion being passed around social media as a valid argument – it’s hogwash. At Umpqua CC you’re allowed to carry a concealed weapon – and a responsible level-headed gun-owner was doing exactly that on the day of the shooting. Wisely, he didn’t get involved – WHICH WAS THE RIGHT CALL – watch This video to find out why, and as you do – allow me to riddle that counter-argument you’re already crudely crafting in your cabeza with more holes than a mini-gun can make in a like-minded melon.
Stop trying to make this about “gun free zones” – and how MORE guns would’ve stopped this from happening – UCC wasn’t a gun free zone, and it didn’t make a difference. People HAD guns on campus that day, and it didn’t make a difference.
There needs to be strict gun laws. We need recurring background checks, a waiting period, and mental health screenings before you can buy anything above a BB gun – across the board. No exceptions. Everywhere.
Don’t come at me with the “Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the country and look at how that’s working out” thing, either. Last time I checked, it’s an hour ride outta Chicago to a state that’ll sell you a gun. So a simple carpool or a bus ride runs that ridiculous rise right off the road.
If I wanted a gun, I’d pass the current protocols and get licensed, and I’m a teacher now – but putting guns in school officials’ hands won’t stop this from occurring again. It just won’t. People who work in schools have enough to worry about without the added responsibility of being the single armed ever-vigilant protector of hundreds, if not thousands of kids. That’s insane. Purposely putting guns on school property to prevent shootings – can you honestly in your right mind NOT see that’s ludicrous? That logic is on par with whoever keeps handing Donald Trump a mic instead of a script every morning – “Hey, maybe today’s the day he WON’T say something ridiculous!”
I’m not saying NO ONE should have guns – far from it. I’m just saying we should make it REALLY HARD TO GET ONE.
If you really want one and are competent, have at it. Go nuts, bucko – I’m not trying to say you don’t have a right to it. I’m just saying the mild annoyance of filling out a few more forms, taking a few more tests, and waiting a few more days to get one is worth it if it means one more family doesn’t have to bury their child, don’t you think?
I can’t believe people are trying to pin this on the idea NOT ENOUGH people had guns in this situation. If you’re making that argument, or are allowing other people to make it in your presence, you’re nuts. It might’ve happened in Oregon, but turning that campus into the Wild West wouldn’t have saved a soul. It probably would’ve cost us more innocent lives, if anything.
More guns aren’t the answer. More common sense is.
Everybody carried a gun back in the Wild West, and not too many of them lived to see 50. The gun in your gun cabinet or glovebox isn’t going to do a lick of good to protect your kid from a wacko with an assault weapon while you’re at work, and we all know it. Making that wacko jump through hoops and try to pass himself off as a normal functioning me member of society as he struggles to pass the tests in an attempt to get that assault weapon in the first place would.
Think about it: How many times have you said “You know what? I really want to stop for a coffee at Dunks – but that line at the drive thru looks really long – there’s like, 3 whole cars. Fuck it, I’ll grab a soda at work.” Then you get to work, but you don’t need that caffeine, because you’re already awake after screaming into your rear view mirror at the jackass who tailgated you on the highway for the last 20 minutes of your commute FOR NO GODDAMN REASON. You’re good, you’re late for a meeting anyway. Maybe you’ll grab a soda at lunch, if you’ve got the time.
Now imagine if that was for a gun.
No offense, but you’re not going to bother, right? You’ll just go down to the range and rent one to blow off steam. Maybe this weekend. Or next. If you’ve got the time.
My point? Minor hurdles and tiny speed bumps may be annoying; but they’re there for a reason – to stop runaway lunatics from careening unchecked into the rest of us. Yeah they piss us off, but it’s a lot better to pump the brakes a few times than to have some texting bimbo barrel into us at breakneck speed.
If the hassle of getting a gun dissuaded even one demented dumbass from doing something diabolic – isn’t that worth it to you?
If it isn’t, you probably haven’t bothered to read this far, and you’ve already left in a huff and clicked on that bookmark you’ve got up in your Dogpile toolbar that takes you to Drudge, in which case you can take your head out of the sand along with them Tea Party pamphlets and promptly cram it all up your cramhole. In the unlikely (but not impossible) scenario I’m wrong, please – just do me a favor? Take a minute. Breathe. Listen to reason…
… and don’t be that guy.
Consider this a surprise retrospective – a throwback – a call to the woebegone era where we – the unchosen few – found a place where we could talk, share, and commiserate among ourselves in the fact that we had no idea what to do with our lives, but were more than ready to throw ourselves into the mess with all our half-baked ideas, theories and dreams – as long as we had each other.
As crackpot as that sounds, I doubt any of us would argue with it. Yeah, we were dumb, drunk, and brash to a fault – but with the backing of our friends, we believed we could make our mark – whatever that might be.
BACKSTORY: A few weeks ago, my ex-girlfriend Shannon Glaser contacted me through Facebook about a couple rolls of unprocessed 35mm film she found in her house. Turns out, she had done a photo project for a class at while we were at Emerson together with Mikey as the subject, and she had found the film. She asked if I wanted to develop them, and OF COURSE I did, and she produced some AWESOME photos from way back when Mikey (and Colt Monday [the weekly event/shitshow this blog is dedicated to] was held in Downtown Evan Brown/Gregors/That “FAME”-d asshole-who-shall-not-be-named/Aponte’s apartment) was in its glory. (…while we’re at it, let’s talk about my hair in these photos: my mane was freakin’ MAJESTIC – right?!)
She took some amazing photos of Mikey and Colt Monday – please enjoy them -and share them with all that might have experience the magic that was Mikey – and to much lesssr extent – Colt Monday. If you choose to share them with anyone – online or otherwise, please credit Shannon Glaser (and THANK HER) for capturing them.
Looking at these for the hundreth time tonight, I can’t help the fact – I miss him and what we all had every day while he was here. He was the most exceptional person I’ve ever met, and will ever meet. We were all better for having known him – those that were lucky enough to do so. So it goes, and all that. Godspeed, 17.
RIP, Mikey. 
We love you and we think of you often, fella. We’ll see you again, but not soon enough. You’re remembered fondly by a lot of good folks, and missed by even more.
I didn’t always enjoy Mad Men (I have an unnatural disdain for Betty Draper & Glenn, and despised how much screen time they both ate up from other actors the entire series) but you can’t say it wasn’t damn good storytelling with some tremendously creative characters. It definitely leaves a hole in the TV landscape – there’s not a show near its quality left on TV. We had Mad Men to fall back on when Breaking Bad left us. Now what do we have?
I can’t believe I haven’t done this yet, but if you haven’t checked out my new site over at NAPTIMEFORDADDY.COM, please do. It’s a little project I’ve started starring the exploits and adventures of my son Griffin. It’s a lot like this blog, but instead of beer and Celtics talk, it’s filled with a 20 lb. sack of adorableness as the main focus (along with my attempts to not screw him up. PROGRESS REPORT: I’m pretty sure I’m failing.)
Who’s ready to see what the mad genius Brad Stevens can pull off when planning for a 7 game series?
This just in: LeBron is STILL a little bitch.
And I’m fairly certain Mikey would love this team.
#CeltsIn4
I’ve long been a fan of Local H, and I’m not the only one. They were a staple on the speakers at Colt Mondays when we used to duck down under his lofted bed and play songs (using Winamp, naturally) on Downtown Evan Brown’s computer.
Local H is a band straight out of the early 90’s – they’re an obvious example of what the grunge movement would’ve continued sounding like if it hadn’t died out with the deaths of Cobain, Staley, with a big assist from the corporate record labels’ over-saturation of the market with inferior bands and ham-fisted fidgeting with the format. ‘Bound For The Floor’ was always a mainstay as we huddled up in Evan’s room, but we also loved ‘High-Fiving MF’ (which could now be Tom Brady’s theme song – GO PATS!) and of course – ‘Eddie Vedder’.
The band is still very active, and they’ve done a TON of covers over the years – and I’m always a sucker for a good cover – so I decided to put as many as I could find together into a playlist for you (but really for me) to enjoy. They’ve released one whole album of just covers so far (Local H’s Awesome Mixtape #1) and have another in the works and set for release soon. If you know of any more good covers they’ve done, please let me know, and I’ll add them to this list. I also included some of their original favorites in at the end to round it out.
So here you go: Local H’s version of tunes from The Misfits, Lorde, The Pixies, TV On The Radio, Wolfman, Concrete Blonde, Pink Floyd, Rush, and even Britney Spears! Now all we gotta do is get them to cover ‘Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster’ by the Geto Boys and I’ll name them Colt Monday’s House Band for life.
I pretty much had a kid just so I could do stuff like this. Well, this and to have someone to play video games with.
That fro was out of control, bro.
If the Heat had won last night, this would’ve made more sense,,but I made the above GIF instead of doing meaningful stuff, so…. here you go. Oh, and I hate David Stern. Yes, he’s no longer the NBA Commissioner… or at least, that’s what he wants you to think. I still believe he’s pulling the strings behind the scenes – either by fixing the Draft again for the Cavs so he can finally get that Cleveland/Miami rivalry off the ground, or getting the refs to call a foul on any Spur brazen enough to scowl at his beloved pet & meal ticket “King” James during these NBA Finals. I believe he swung the league to favor Jordan, then Kobe, and now LeBron – because they are his stars, and he wants to set the narrative to the most lucrative setting possible, and that doesn’t happen when teams are allowed to dictate the outcome of the NBA.
He’s always given off the vibe he could use a good ass-kicking at the mitts of a bubblegum-less Roddy Rowdy Piper, so I decided to do this mashup of his ugly mug & stills from the classic 80’s horror flick “THEY LIVE”. So, you’re welcome, I think?
Can you imagine what it must be like to hang with him for a day? ‘m getting a contact high just by thinking about it.
For anybody who’s seen this show: you gotta admit, the resemblance is UNCANNY.
Check these out if you haven’t seen them yet.
DMX Llama!
I’m the Daddy! I’m Grown!
And finally, I CAN’T EVEN!
“Pro wrestling is for kids.” they say.
Damn right.
The WWE does an amazing job helping making sick childrens’ dreams come true, and this recounting of the final days of “Connor The Crusher” illustrates that perfectly, and also hits you right in the feels with a sledgehammer.
My kid will grow up watching wrestling. It’ll be a great bonding experience, as I LOVED wrestling as a kid – even if I had to sneak down ninja-style from my bedroom to watch it, because my mom was horrified by it and thought it would rot my brain. But The Macho Man Randy Savage was my idol, and whenever my brothers and I would tear the cushions off the couch and beat the ever-loving shit out of each other, I’d alway climb up on the armrest, point to the sky with both arms, and then attempt the flying elbow.
Yeah, it was stupid and dangerous – we knew that – but it WAS FUN. That’s all wrestling is. Big stupid fun that helps you escape reality for a few fleeting moments. And kids, especially terminally ill ones – need that.
These guys are worth supporting publicly. What they do in and out of the ring is amazingly difficult and challenging. There’s no shame in what they do.
Quite the opposite.
RIP Connor.
Perfecto.
Welp, it’s all downhill from here, folks. We’ve reached the mountaintop.
Gregors is gonna lose it over this.
“The British were not hanging around the Pacific Northwest in the 1600’s.”
They committed a lot of movie sins in this one, but it’s still an amazing part of my childhood.
All credit goes to the amazing Bill Watterson.
After foolishly stoking the coals on Facebook and bringing up the anti-vaccination debate, only to be engaged by people who 1) can’t even put a proper sentence together, let alone a cohesive argument, and/or 2) think EVERY damn thing is a government conspiracy – I’m just going to leave this here.
oh, and this.
There is no legitimate scientific controversy about whether or not vaccines are safe. The original study that started us down this insane path by linking the MMR vaccine to autism has been retracted outright. The evidence against administering the MMR vaccine to healthy individuals is utterly without merit.
But people continue to make the utterly baffling choice to refuse it anyway. Dispiriting new information seems to indicate that they are immune to persuasion when confronted with facts inconvenient to their worldview. Indeed, writers at prominent online media outlets chide us for “demeaning” vaccine-deniers, saying to do so “defies explanation.”
The explanation is simple, and is as accessible as the nightly news. Vaccine-deniers are responsible to the resurgence of once-eliminated illnesses. Their movement is responsible for sickening people. They are to blame for the word “outbreak” appearing in headlines from coast to coast.
The anti-vaccine crowd may think they’re only making a decision for their own family. In fact, they’re threatening to make the rest of us sick. Refusing to vaccinate your children means you are contributing to a worsening public health crisis. There is no denying it, and there is no point in sugar-coating it.
But no, anti-vaxxers – your kids are the only ones who matter, right?
A clink to Billy Finnegan for bringing this to my attention. Just like Blue, it’s very well made.
Gonna be good day.
And here’s the Guardians trailer mashed up with the Parks & Rec theme, because “Bert Macklin, FBI!”
Y’all can suck it.
If you’ve never seen or heard it, watch this RIGHT now.
You know, if I ever meet him. Here’s hoping.
Oh look! The world still sucks. Proof:
Heard a rumour the girl makes over $576K via webhits, playing up her dumb blonde persona. Sitting at home, talking nonsense to a webcam. She has millions of followers. Yep. We’re doomed.
Oh, it’s me. Wow, I have gotten pudgy.
NSFW. Hilarious.
These need more views.
So yeah, Stevie, me & a bunch of buddies have hopped on the Movember Mustache Ride (wait… there’s gotta be a better way to phrase that.) If you could look deep into your soul (and pockets) and help us raise money for Men’s Health research, we’d really appreciate it. Thanks. To donate and/or check out all the other team members and their awful awful mustaches, click here!
Oh, and Amanda HATES it, naturally.
Walking on crunchy ice? SO GOOD.
Also, that baby’s adorable.
(Man, I’m soft.)
Well, my day can only get worse from here on out.
These are amazing. (Pete Holmes is the guy who’s getting a show after Conan on TBS.) This first one is NSFW, but the funniest of the bunch.
Yep. Pregnant.
We posted it on Facebook a few weeks ago, but in case you missed the announcement, here it is. Our first collaborative effort has a tentative release date of March 8th.
I’m not going to go soft on you; we know and are fully aware people have babies all the time, and we’re NOT going to act like we’re the first couple ever to do it and rub your faces in our exuberant glee. That’s annoying. We ain’t those kinda folks.
There will be no ultrasound pictures posted here or on Facebook. That’s gross and weird.
No positive pregnancy tests, no “me holding her swollen naked pregger belly while we gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes” photoshoots. That’s weird and gross and stupid.
I pretty much summed up my feelings on all of this during a “That Guy” rant a few weeks ago on the show. Listen to it here.
So yeah, it’s happening. We’re very excited, Amanda for obvious reasons… and well, I’m jazzed I’ll finally have someone to play video games with! Also, it means I’ll get to do stuff like this:
If it’s mine, then yeah, poops are going to be the highlight of the day, too.
*furiously taking notes*
Comin’ for you, Gregors.
How my internal argument went the first time I was watching this video went something like this:
“Wow.”
“I should totally post this.”
“But you’re married now, this is rather immature and it’ll seem creepy.”
“Did YOU SEE those boobs?!”
“Yeah, but c’mon. It’s a little below you, isn’t it? What are we, Barstool?”
“No, because everything will be spelled correctly. It’s definitely worth sharing.”
“Yeah I guess. Just don’t be gross.”
“*MOTORBOAT SOUND*”
New stuff from Cold War Kids, Beck, Grouplove & Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, plus great jams from Black Joe Lewis, Surfer Blood & others!
I forgot to post this last week (again) but here it is! New Arcade Fire, Pixies and Frightened Rabbit, plus great tunes from Lorde, Titus Andronicus, Best Coast & many more!
I will always – ALWAYS – post Ron Swanson stuff as soon as I’m made aware of it. Sorry I’m not sorry.
Enjoy the nightmares, indeed.
I know he’s just making nonsense noises with his mouth, to mimic rapping, but… I kinda jammed out to this for a bit. The crazy part is that he’s ACTUALLY laying down those beats on a drum pad/keyboard thing… and they’re REALLY GOOD.
Or am I nuts? Maybe the bar has been lowered SO DAMN LOW by the crap that’s out there for hip-hop right now, but this sounded good to me. Here’s another one where you can definitely see him play the instruments:
Let me start by saying that I had a blast at this weekend’s edition of Boston Calling, the awesome music festival down on Boston’s City Hall Plaza. I (and a lot of fellow, like-minded music fans) got to see a ton of great bands, like Local Natives, Vampire Weekend, and Passion Pit over two days, and the people who put on the festival do an AMAZING job.
It’s too bad one of the bands who “performed” took the opportunity to shit on their fans and an opportunity to connect with the other people in the crowd. Then got all pissy when I voiced my displeasure on twitter.
I showed up early on Saturday, specifically for Deer Tick. I WAS a big fan of the band. Some great songs, and some very listenable albums are out there. They’ve got a new one dropping in a few weeks, appropriately called Negativity.
Well, they get up on stage, and the lead singer – who’s really the songwriter/impetus behind the whole band; a guy named John McCauley, from Providence – lackadaisically just mumbles into the microphone, quote “Uh… we’re just gonna play the new album front to back, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Oh. Well, fuck you too then, pal.
He proceeded to do as promised, and wasted an hour of festival exposure playing an album NO ONE HAS HEARD YET OR IS FAMILIAR WITH. It doesn’t come out for another 2 weeks – but I can tell you, after listening to this performance, it sucks and it needs a lot of work. It’s slow, and meandering, and BORING. Nothing like his uptempo stuff, and nowhere near as good of a record as War Elephant or even Divine Providence, which he totally should’ve played.
Look, everyone hates it when a band you paid to see plays new stuff at a concert (after all, we all wanna hear the hits), but it’s expected that if they have a new album out, you’re GOING to hear one or two songs from the new record. That’s understandable. But to play a FULL album full of ballads? At a festival? Where a ton of people aren’t familiar with you, and you have a chance to bring a TON of people onto your bandwagon if you rock some new faces out in that crowd? You don’t do it.
It was a dismal set, and when the nicest thing people can say about it was how it was “neat” you brought one-hit-wonder Vanessa Carlton on-stage with you for a song because you’re dating her, it’s a bad sign.
You play your good, fast, familiar stuff at a festival. That’s Music Promotion 101. You do stuff like Matt & Kim did during the first Boston Calling session back in May:
Which apparently this chump never took.
It becomes even more apparent when you see how he responded to me on Twitter. Let’s do a tweet-by-tweet account, shall we?
This is taken during their first song, and before he had addressed the crowd. I was still excited to see them at this point.
Yup, this is right after the third song, when I realized he wasn’t kidding about playing the new album.
I was really pissed I’d hurried down to see them. They were just lazily playing the songs, going through the motions, not interacting with the crowd, which had dwindled considerably by that point.
I think that’s the one that set whoever handles their Twitter off, because soon after:
Well, that’s very scenester douchebag of him, isn’t it? Not “Sorry you didn’t like it” or offering some sort of explanation or reasoning. He pretty much made a wanking motion at me through the internet. Turns out this guy has a history of doing stuff like this and might be a little sensitive when it comes to criticism. Sounds to me like someone’s got a MIGHTY big opinion of himself, don’t it? Oh, and it gets worse after I fired back.
… and let’s be clear: They are NOT a successful band. Yeah, you can sell out clubs in Providence. So could Buddy Cianci’s hairpiece. It’s not that hard. This guy has been getting a little bit of buzz from the Pitchfork crowd and all of a sudden he thinks he’s the fucking Rolling Stones. You’re not there pal, and with an attitude like this, you’ll NEVER get there. Maybe you say you want it that way, in typical hipster fashion. Fine. I hope I can help oblige.
Will do, bucko. Hope you enjoy being less relevant and successful than your has-been girlfriend.
Moral of this story: DON’T BE A DICK TO FANS. Or else you’ll end up with a career worse than Vanessa Carlton.
Hey, I didn’t do so bad last year! I nailed all but one team in the conference title games, and I called Doug Martin having a big year. With that said, let’s just go ahead and ignore my prediction of the Bills making the playoffs last year, ok?
Onto the fearless picks!
SUPER BOWL CHAMPION – Patriots (12-4) Over Lions (11-5)
AFC East Champs – Patriots (12-4)
AFC North Champs – Bengals (11-5)
AFC South Champs – Texans (13-3)
AFC West Champs – Broncos (12-4)
AFC Wild Cards – Browns (10-6), Colts (10-6)
NFC East Champs – Redskins (11-5)
NFC North Champs – Packers (12-4)
NFC South Champs – Falcons (12-4)
NFC West Champs – 49ers (12-4)
NFC wild cards – Saints (11-5), Lions (11-5)
AFC Champion – Patriots over Broncos
NFC Champion – Lions (YUP!) over 49ers
Coach of the Year – Andy Reid, of all people
MVP – RGIII (Eat it, Stevie)
Offensive ROY – Eddie Lacy
Defensive ROY – Barkevious Mingo ( picking him mostly on name alone)
Teams that make a big jump: Lions (in the Super Bowl!), Saints, Browns
Teams that take a step back : Ravens (outta the playoffs!), Seahawks, Jets (Rex’ll be gone by week 8.)
Our public transportation system here in Boston (The MBTA) is corrupt, bankrupt, & terribly inefficient; so instead of putting money towards fixing those problems, they made this hot mess of a safety video instead, because OF COURSE THEY DID.
The money that was spent putting this together would’ve been better put towards bringing back the Night Owl, wouldn’t it?
COLTMONDAY.com - On Amateur Hiatus 