Power Rankings and Weird Formatting problems in one blog, Oh My!

Best Horrible Songs On My iPod Power Rankings:

Before we get to the list, I want to make it clear that I own these songs because they are so bad, they're funny. I don't like them at all. Okay? It's always awkward when someone looks at my iPod, because I have so much bad music on it. So, let's make it official for the universe. I know it's bad. Don't make fun of me.

The List:
14. Superbowl Shuffle, by the 1985 Chicago Bears – I actually think this song and video are great. But it's on the list because only Bears fans would agree.

The best aspects of this song are 1) In the most confident move in sports history, it was recorded before the Superbowl. 2) The lyrics. This is the verse of my second favorite athlete of all-time, Walter Payton:
Well, they call me Sweetness,
And I like to dance.
Runnin' the ball is like makin' romance.
We've had the goal since training camp
To give Chicago a Super Bowl chance.
And we're not doin' this
Because we're greedy.
The Bears are doin' it to feed the needy.
We didn't come here to look for trouble,
We just came here to do
The Super Bowl Shuffle.

Mos Def can't even write like that.

13. Cruel Summer, by Bananarama – This is an all-around awful song. Actually, any song that is talked up by Kimmy Gibbler on Full House, could make this list. But this is the only one on my iPod. My favorite thing about this song, is its video. There is nothing cruel going on. It actually looks like a fun summer. Plus, it's in London. It's in the mid 80s during the summer, in London. That's a mild summer.

12. Get Out of My Dreams, by Billy Ocean – There aren't many things that are more fun to sing than, “Get in the backseat, baby!” from this song. This song sums up 80s pop music better than any. It could only be better if it contained multiple references to dancing, phrased in variations of “catch me on the floor, girl.” Only recently did I find out that Billy Ocean is black. The next day, I found out that an 80s pop singer(I don't remember who), who I thought was black, is actually white. For some reason, I always thought Billy Ocean looked like Don Johnson in Miami Vice. What a mindfuck.

11. Everybody Dance Now, by C&C Music Factory – If you've heard this song, or seen this video, it doesn't need to be explained. One question though, why is the guy in the video so greasy? I'm glad I was never an adult at the same time that someone thought that was a good look. I would have had to kill myself in order to distance myself from the human race.

10. You Gotta Be, by Des'ree – I don't know what to say about this song or video. It's just bad. And why does she have an apostrophe in her name? She's only cutting out one letter. Put the “i” back. You're obnoxious, Desiree.

9. The Final Countdown, by Europe – This theme song from the movie, The Final Countdown, should have been the theme song to Over The Top as well. If that had happened, I think people would be talking about Over The Top today in the same way we talk about Roadhouse.
Side note: Why would a studio ever think it would be a good idea to make a movie about arm-wrestling?

8. What's Up Doc, by The FuShnickens and featuring Shaq– The saddest part of this song isn't the chorus, “Can we rock? Yeah, What's up doc,” or the lyric, “Supercalifradgilistic Shaq is alidocious.” It's the fact that the FuShnickens were Shaq's favorite rap group and he wanted to do a song with them. How could they be anyone's favorite? That's like if your favorite band today is Three Doors Down. It reminds me of the scene in The Office (UK), when Tim says, “You know the thing that bothers me most about Gareth? His favorite band of all-time is Mike and the Mechanics. 50 years of popular music and he picks Mike and the Mechanics. Mike and the Mechanics.”

7. Milkshake, by Kelis – I only have this because I used it as intro music for a show. But we can all agree that this is one of the worst popular songs of the last 10 years.

6. Don't Sleep on the Subway, by Petula Clark – This is on par with Over the Top when asked the question, why did it need to be made? I just can't imagine the moment of inspiration that would lead to this song. She falls asleep and misses her stop. “Oh, that's a song! Let's put it on wax!” I think that's what she said.

5. Rock You Like a Hurricane, by The Scorpions – Any song that contains the phrases, “Rock you” or “on the dance floor,” and is sung by a guy with a mustache like the one on my myspace page, is automatically on the list. It mentions nothing of dance floors, but two out of three is enough. This song was in the news last year when the New Orleans Saints played in Cincinnati, months after Katrina, and Cincinnati played this song as they were introduced. Poor taste.

4. Boom! Shake the Room, by Will Smith – I'm not sure, but I think this song is about loud bass. So loud, in fact, that it will shake a room. Similar to the idiocy of Petula Clark's song, Will Smith's muse was bass. Most powerful songs tend to be about the human condition, social injustices, or intense personal stories. Will Smith doesn't bother with that stuff. He gets straight to the essence of life: bass.

3. You Raise Me Up, by Josh Groban – I only have this because Rory Scovel needed me to get it for him to use for intro music, and I've never listened to the whole song. But what I've listened to sounded like the 7^th Heaven of music. That's no good.

2. She's Like the Wind, by Patrick Swayze – This is on the all-time worst soundtrack, Dirty Dancing. I don't know why anyone thought Patrick Swayze should record a song, but whatever their reasoning was, they were wrong. The lyrics and music are as corny as it gets, and the vocal melody contains 5 or 6 notes. I'm still not sure what it means to be like the wind. Does that mean she blows everything in sight?

1. Say Brah, Twerk that Thang and Hoody Hoo, by Master P – I couldn't narrow it down to one Master P song. These are awful. I'll think that Hoody Hoo is the worst, then I remember Twerk That Thang, and I think nothing could be worse, then I remember Say Brah, and I think nothing could be worse, then I remember Hoody Hoo. It's a vicious circle.
   If you aren't familiar with these songs, familiarize yourself.

Feel free to comment with bad songs on your iPod.

New, short, bloggy

-At conservative Catholic colleges, you can't say “shit,” but you can say “God damn,” and “Jesus Christ” as substitutes. This marks the first time in recorded history that a religious institution has been hypocritical.

-A school in the midwest, that has been descried to me as the Radford of the midwest, cancelled my show because on my website, I called friendster.com, “myspace with a gayer name.” Had they canceled the show because that's not all that funny, I could accept it. But they balked because they thought it was too controversial of a statement. I'm not exaggerating at all.

-Somehow I just found out about The Flaming Lips. This band is amazing. Go buy “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and “The Soft Ballad,” now. Do it. My ass isn't playing. Fo' shozo.

-I left out a great name on my baseball power rankings. Brandon Ivey sent me an email to remind me of Gaylord Perry.

-Where will Charome Cox fit on the upcoming football players' names power rankings?

Let's get RAW

-Last week, a couple friends called to ask if I wanted to go to a taping of WWE's Monday Night Raw. I wasn't sold on it at first, because I hadn't watched since my sophomore year in college, before the World Wildlife Fund stripped the WWF of its name. I don't understand that. Who would get the two confused. Someone thinks they have tickets to Wrestlemania. They show up at the venue. It's the other WWF. So what. They still get to watch pandas and monkeys race on unicycles. Who's losing there? No one.

I didn't want to go at first because I hadn't seen it in so long. I thought I wouldn't know any of the characters, and the storylines would be even more ridiculous. But then I stumbled upon Gene Shallot's review of this year's Survivor Series... “Best show of the year... for a moment I thought I was watching O'Neill's “The Iceman Cometh.” I was sold.

The taping was this past Monday, and my hesitance was warranted. It was nothing like it used to be. What was different? Oh, I'll tell you...

-Ric Flair is 62 years old and still wrestling. When I used to watch, he was only 54.

-Shawn Michaels is the most popular wrestler. The last time I watched, he was reduced to a speaking role, because the diagnosis was that if he wrestled again, he could die, due to having 4 vertebrae fused together. Danger... watch yo'self.

-Hacksaw Jim Duggan is wrestling in the WWE. When I watched in 2000, he'd been retired for about 6 years. What is going on? Did they get the Karl Pilkington anti-aging shot? That's a reference to the Ricky Gervais Podcast. Get it from iTunes.

-In probably the most disturbing trend... I remember a day when only the wrestlers carried championship belts. Now, literally one in every 10 people carried a championship belt. I don't now why. I'm not sure what they thought it accomplished, other than looking like they're a little too into it. That's like wearing pads to a football game or a cape to a magic show. When I was standing in line to spend $20 on chicken strips and a Coke, there were 11 people in front of me. Eight of them were wearing belts. I tried taking a picture with my phone, but their backs were facing me, so you couldn't get the full effect. My friend told me he saw a guy wearing three belts. Who's going to believe someone won three belts? That's ludicrous.

One of my friends owns one of the belts, but he only drapes it over his shoulder when playing Madden. So, that seems very normal after going to this show.

-In the eighties, the WWF paralleled the Cold War. But not in a realistic way. Not even in a Rocky IV way. It was more like the movie, Victory. The good guys were the Americans. Everyone else was an enemy. Whenever Nikita or Ivan Koloff, The Iron Sheik, or anyone else who pretended to be from another country came out, chants of “U-S-A... U-S-A...” would fill the arena. For some reason, that jingoism is still present. They introduced a guy as a Russian Sambo and mixed martial arts champion, and people instantly started booing and chanting U-S-A. Then, when I thought it couldn't get worse, they made his character sound like a complete idiot. People who wore championship belts in public were laughing at him.

Also, of course there's a gay French character. My only question there is, did they say, “Should we make the French guy gay?” or “Should we make the gay guy French?”

-They've copied the most annoying feature of NBA games... The Kiss Cam. It's even more pathetic at the WWE show though. At an NBA game, the crowd is all normal people that you'd run into at any restaurant that happens to be in public. They handle the Kiss Cam in a civil manner. “Oh, the camera is on me and my wife. I'll kiss her.” Then they move on to the next couple. At a wrestling show, only about 30% of the crowd consists of normal people. The crowd is also very dude-heavy. So, when they actually find a woman on the camera, she usually looks a little rough. Instead of just letting them kiss like they do at an NBA game, they have an announcer who shouts, “I want to see some tongue... Come on, get on it...” I swear I'm not exaggerating at all.

Sometimes at an NBA game, they'll put the camera on two guys who aren't together, as a joke. The guys laugh and the camera moves on. At RAW, they put the camera on two guys, and you could read their lips, as they yelled, “Fuck no. I'm not gay. I'm not gay,” all while giving the middle finger to the camera.

- Kevin Federline was there, challenging the champion to a match. He's smaller than me. The last three celebrities who got involved in wrestling who weren't wrestlers that I remember, were Mr. T, Mike Tyson, and Zeus (Tiny Liston). They all looked like wrestlers. Kevin Federline looks like the bastard child of Ricky Morton of the Rock 'n' Roll Express.

- There is a guy named Chris Masters, who might be the least charismatic speaker and worst actor in wrestling history. This would unseat early 90s character Isaac Yankem D.D.S. He was a deranged dentist, who would say things like, “Beating you at Wrestlemania will be easy. It won't be like... pulling teeth.” Then he would growl.

Pick up a case of Michelob. The race is on.

-I've been out of commission for the last week, in terms of blogging because I was busy every night preparing for the Poonanza. I don't have much to write this time, but I will pick it back up on Wednesday.

-Congratulations to Rory Scovel for getting Comedy Central's “Live at Gotham.” Pat him on the back if you see him. Don't say anything. Just touch his back.

-The Poonanza was a really good, tight show. If you were there, and a certain thing that happened completely grossed you out, just know that it was not in the script. They just decided to do what they did for some unknown reason. A few people have told me it caused them to throw up in their mouths. If that happened to you as well, we're all sorry.

I had an amazing mustache at the Poonanza. Jon Mumma and Danny Rouhier had good ones too. But I think mine was superior. I thought there was an agreement that we'd all have mustaches for the show, but apparently some people were joking about it. In all fairness, Andy Haynes tried to grow one, but he only has 14 active hair follicles on his face. So, it didn't work out. Here's a picture of me at the Poonanza “afterparty,” when I was in the Scorpions.

-Sometimes I think about what super power I would most like to have (invincibility excluded). I've always come to the conclusion that the gift flight would be the best, except for one summer when I was partial to being able to swim “really fast.” After the Poonanza, I've decided to move flight into the runner-up position and make the number one super power the ability to grow a mustache instantly. It started as a joke. I was thinking, “What if I could just snap my fingers and have a mustache, then make it disappear seconds later?” That would be cool. But now it actually seems practical. I shaved it off yesterday. And today I got notice that I have an audition tomorrow for a character who has a mustache.

That's it for now. I will write interesting/entertaining things on Wednesday.

Poonanza

Just a reminder...
The Poonanza 3: Very Larry Christmas: Four-Square Round Robin: Sketch Comedy Show is this Friday at Warehouse Mainstage in DC at 10:30. I've been telling people to show up early and get tickets at the door. It looks like it might be easier to reserve them in advance though, because it will sell out..
To do this, email me at ryanconner@gmail.com and let me know how many tickets you'll need. We can hold them for you until 10:25.

Thanks.

dvds

This is a weird post, but it's easier than sending out a bunch of emails.
I let people borrow some dvds, and forgot who has them. If you have my copy of one of the following dvds, please let me know:
Cannibal! The Musical
The Best of The Chris Rock Show: Season 2

Thanks. I know this is weird.

All-Time MLB Names Power Rankings

Of all the major professional sports, somehow baseball is above and beyond the others when it comes to producing guys with awful names. The names are even funnier than soccer names, and with soccer we're picking from a pool that consists of the whole world, instead of about 20-25 U.S. States and a few other small to smallish countries countries.

Without further adieu, here are the 11 worst names in baseball history, in descending order.

11. Brian Asselstine – Nothing could ever be done that could convince me this is a real name. I just don't believe it. What could possibly be the origin of that name? “Oh, you're an Asselstine? That's Belgian, right?” No, I descend from Queen Asselstine of the Moores.

10. Johnny Wockenfuss – I've never met a Wockenfuss either. Little known fact... Wockenfuss was Attila the Hun's last name, but Attila dropped it because no one took him seriously. The name pretty much died out then. But there was one lineage of Wockenfi that made it to Wisconsin, producing little Johnny Wockenfus. As of date of research, they had all died.

**I have his card, but can't find a picture of him online due to overwhelming results of another famous person who shares his name.

9. Mike Tyson – Think about how excited this guy was when the other Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in history and probably the greatest knockout artist as well. Imagine the pride this guy had in his name. Then, woops, rape! Uh-oh. Not a cool name any more. “I'll fuck you 'til you love me, faggot,” is just one of dozens of Mike Tyson quotes that must have made this guy cringe over the years. On the positive side, he can probably get dinner reservations anywhere, any time, out of rape-fear.

8. Dickie Thon – As a general rule, don't name your kid any variation of the word “Dick,” especially if when combined with your last name makes him sound like the name for a gay porn marathon.

7. Biff Pocoroba – He's probably a nice guy, but I don't think there's ever been a more douchebag sounding name. He was definitely born to play cricket, but grew up in the wrong country.

6. Heine Manush – This name sounds cool, but also sounds like it would be a cartoon character. If I was one of his friends, I'd keep asking him, “Yeah, but what's your real name?” It sounds like a character like Larry Poon, from a time when you couldn't say “Poon.”

5. Alberto Pujols – I'd like to thank my friend Martin for pointing this out. Pujols. Pu-jols. Poo holes. Rectum. In Spanish, Pujols actually means, “foot like a lion,” so you can't fault anyone for his name.

4. Dick Pole – Going back to the previous general rule, never name your kid any variation of the word, “Dick,” especially if your last name will only remind people that his first name is “Dick.” In this regard, the only name of this variety that could be worse is “Dick Stick.”

3. Pete LaCock – At least Pete LaCock didn't go by “Peter.” This shows a level of self-awareness not demonstrated by Dickie Thon. This would be number one, but I met a family of LaCocks in Sheboigan, and they were good people.

2. Rusty Kuntz – His name is Rusty Kuntz. There are hundreds of first names his parents could have gone with to soften the blow of being a Mr. Kuntz, and Rusty is not one of them. Rusty with any last name is awful. Even a Rusty Smith would have made this list. But with Kuntz, it's beyond comprehension. Can you imagine being in high school and everyone calls you Crusty Kuntz. The fact that he didn't kill himself is amazing.

1. George Brett – Who names their kid George, when their last name is Brett? Some people...

I'd like to thank Alan Skontra for introducing me to almost all of the guys I mentioned... introduced, as in he gave me their baseball cards.

Dirrrrrty

-”Oh hula-hoop, you still got that samurai cat?”
-My brother, Joaquim. I have no idea what he was trying to say. Neither does he.
-Everyone talks about that new show, “Heroes.” I haven't seen it and probably never will. But I want to remind everyone who watches that it's only one letter from being “Herpes.” Do you still like the show? I doubt it.
-Matt Mayer and I were on the L train from Manhattan to Brooklyn last week, when a woman who was either crazy, weird or homeless, and definitely dirty, said, “You guys should make a movie out of the book, 'Girlfriend in a Coma.” I decided against it, because it's called 'Girlfriend in a Coma.' Sounds like a book with a pink cover to me. I looked it up, and this was confirmed. Maybe I could make the next “The Notebook.” Probably not. Then she told us about how it's her favorite book and we'll be hooked from the first sentence. I looked up the first sentence. “I'm Jared, a ghost.” Holy shit, am I hooked or what? I bet $14 that she has told at least 500 people that she met Steven Spieldberg and Tom Selleck, they're making a movie out of “Girlfriend in a Coma,” and she's probably going to have some input on set design.
-I just bought some True Religion jeans. I suggest you do so as well. They are the most comfortable things that have ever touched my person. Honestly, I'm surprised they're legal.
-Bryson Turner is really funny. If you're in DC, and he's on a show, watch him.
-A couple weeks ago, I talked about how awful I am at golf. At the time, I had probably played about 63 holes in my entire life, with the last round being in 2002. A few days after writing the blog, I happened to play again. Golf is fun. I didn't get to warm up, because the driving range was scrapped for condo construction, so my first swing of a club in over 4 years was off the tee on the first hole. Not surprisingly, I hit the ball about 200 yards and it landed in a pond that was nowhere near where I needed to be. I think the term is “slice.” Next shot: Hit a house. Oops. After that, I started doing pretty well though. The only other bad moments were: 1) I thought I hit from the tee to the fringe on the green on one hole. Then, as I went to chip it onto the green, I was informed that I was playing to the wrong hole. The correct hole was in a different direction, 150 yards away. 2) In the middle of the fairway on a long hole, I hit the ball really hard, and sliced it, going about 70 yards away from what I thought was the correct green. The ball curved through a small forest and landed on the edge of the green that I was supposed to be playing to... a green that I didn't even know existed. I finished with a 101 or 102, which I'm told is good for someone who doesn't play.
-I think I might have the best defense in Madden history right now. Seriously guys, savor the moment. We may never see anything like this again. Last night, in beating the Redskins 65-0, I produced the following stats that you don't care about: 8 ints (including the first three passes of the game), 12 sacks, 3 def tds, held them to 0 yards of offense, 2 forced fumbles, 212 yards for Cedric Benson, 42 fourth quarter points. Unbelievable.
- I have 11 brothers, but only had one until I was seven. This brother is almost four years older than me and pretty much used me as an ongoing science experiment (same brother that I mentioned in a previous blog, who convinced me that he was "Fall Guy," and he kidnapped my brother and put on his face.) For example, he used to get me to eat dirt, paper and one time, a balloon. I just found out yesterday that not all kids did that. He made it seem like being a dirt-eater was an ultra-cool, exclusive thing, so I ate all kinds of it... strawberry dirt, chocolate dirt, blackberry dirt, and my favorite, ice cream flavored dirt. I don't know why I'm sharing this info, but I am. I don't know why I fell for this. I could do long division in my head when I was three, but I believed that some dirt was marshmallow flavored. He might be the greatest salesman ever.
Also, the paper in black and white composition notebooks tastes like brown sugar.
I will post a power rankings tomorrow, I promise. I have to decide which one to write though. I have it narrowed to 3 subjects as of now.

Go to the Poonanza at The Warehouse Mainstage in DC on December 15th.