“Dirt Preachers” by All Them Witches! Sent in by Alex:

These guys rule. A great mix of stoney, bluesy rock with a silky Rhodes piano for that groovy feel. Plus, no one makes music videos like that anymore.

They sure don’t. My first priority for any music video is nudity. But after that, I want lots and lots of SICK AND TWISTED stoner animation, with a big hooded* guy and a little hooded guy riding a mutant camel monster, and a dude with a long nose that’s dripping stuff, and a monster on a stick. Those are just real solid heavy metal fundamentals, folks.

*Hoods are VERY important. You gotta have hoods if you wanna frighten people with your monstrous riffs.

Gregg Easterbrook Memorial Haughty Dipshit Of The Week

Bob Kravitz is the man who gave the world Ballghazi, and for that deserves to spit roast on a dick for all eternity. But my man also has TAKES! Big takes. RAW takes. 100% made-from-concentrate, old-man-yelling-at-cloud takes. Reader JT just noticed that Kravitz just laid down the spiciest of LeBron takes late last night. And he wasn’t even mad about The Great Posse Debate Of ‘016! No, Kravitz was mad at Bron-Bron for an entirely different reason. Let’s dig in!

The wussification of America is complete now.

Excuse me? Complete? Were you not around last week when we voted to DE-PUSSIFY the whole country. America big and strong now! America have very big balls.

Now, though, we have LeBron James sitting out the 11th game of the regular season. The 11th. Not the 56th. Not the 71st. The 11th.

The 11th game! That’s many games earlier now, isn’t it?! You see, most blokes, you know, will be resting at Game 56 or 71. Where can you go from there? WHERE?! ELEVEN.

“He needs rest. So we’re going to rest him,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said before Wednesday night’s 103-93 Pacers victory over the LeBron-less (and J.R. Smith-less) Cavs.

Seems like a good explanation. Let’s completely disregard it.

Remember the old days when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson routinely took the night off three weeks into the season so they could properly maintain their bodies and get the proper amount of beauty sleep?

Oh god FUCK LARRY BIRD. Fuck Larry Bird with Bill Simmons’s canceled dick. Larry Bird retired with crippling back injuries, so maybe he SHOULD have taken a night or two off during the regular season.

No, me neither.

I REST MY CASE, FOLKS.

Somewhere, Cal Ripken, Jr. is smirking.

Somewhere, Cal Ripken is sitting in a paraffin ice bath to soothe his brittle pelvic floor muscles.

Yes, it’s true, you buy your ticket and you take your chances. Sometimes you go to a Broadway play and get a night with the less-talented understudy. This isn’t like attending a movie where you’re guaranteed that you’ll see all your celluloid heroes. I get that. Really, I do.

No you don’t.

But the 11th game?

ELEVEN! THE GAMES ALL GO TO 11!

How soft have we become?

LeBron James has played over 100 games for six straight seasons, and beat the Warriors last June pretty much all by himself. He’s fucking Wolverine. Your average sportswriter throws a hissy fit if his hotel is 10 miles outside of town.

(Now, before my old city of Cleveland crushes me and suggests I’m calling James soft, understand, I am not. Repeat: I. Am. Not….

You. Just. Did.

…I’m just saying, these guys are now surrounded by so many specialists, so many sports scientists and sleep doctors and nutritionists and folks who monitor their every bodily function…

POSSE THUGS!

…even the gross ones…

It’s true. LeBron’s urine stylist makes over $75,000 a year plus bonuses.

…they end up being pampered and babied and convinced they need a night off in just the 11th game of the season.)

I’m not calling LeBron soft. I’m just saying he’s a pampered baby. TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

Last week, Philadelphia’s talented young player Joel Embiid sat out the Sixers’ game here in Indianapolis because of something called “load management.” At the risk of sounding like some aging curmudgeon who wants the kids to get off his lawn, what in the heck is “load management”

I dunno but one of LeBron’s bodily function monitors should look into it.

In a more perfect union, fans would come to Bankers Life to watch the Pacers team against the Cavs team.

And no names on the back of the jerseys! In fact, the names of players would never be made public. We would assign them a number and shave them bald and they would spend their time off the court deep underground, turning a very large wooden turbine to help power the city electrical grid.

I believe it would be fair to blame Gregg Popovich for all this.

So write about HIM!

This isn’t about winning in mid-November; it’s about being fresh and ready to do what the Cavs did last summer, fighting back from a three games to one deficit and beating the Warriors in seven games.

Right. Exactly. Why the fuck are you here again?

So if they rest a guy in the middle of the dog days, if they tell a guy to take the night off in March or early April when the playoff spot is secured, that’s fine. But the 11th?

There’s that number again! CURSE YOU 11. Eleven! The devil’s parallel lines! Eleven. Really?

Really.

Goddamn.

This is why there’s such a disconnect between pro athletes and ordinary working people, and why that chasm is getting greater.

You see, athletes are RICH while many fans are NOT RICH and that’s a problem that we don’t really talk about these days.

So many millions of people in this country work a 40-hour work week, or work two jobs, or even three, and struggle to feed their families and stay financially afloat while working themselves half to death.

Blood runs red in the streets! If you walk around the inner cities, you get shot!

So you’ll pardon them if they see a multi-zillionaire taking the night off to get proper rest and react by going slightly ballistic.

But on the other hand… I TOTALLY get the risk involved when you buy your ticket, folks.

And why is it always Indianapolis?

Because eat shit, that’s why.

Is it because we’re a red state and James vigorously campaigned for Hillary Clinton?

I hope so. That would be awesome.

(Just kidding. Really. Kidding).

Kidding not kidding

That’s three straight times the Cavaliers have come to Indianapolis, and three straight times James has been a healthy – but weary, oh-so-weary – scratch.

Now I want him to take off every Pacers road game. He should skip those games and spend his time wiping his ass with old magazine cutouts of Larry Bird, and then send those cutouts to Indiana residents.

At this point, it must be noted that I’ve written 1,365 words in this column (headline not included), and this is my third column in three days. So I’m going to go home, drink a recovery drink (beer) and lay down for a while. The King needs his rest, and I do, too.

Three columns? That’s eight less than 11! You pampered little shit.

Curt Schilling’s Facebook Lock Of The Week: Dolphins (+1)

Schilling 2016 record: 4-5-1

Fantasy Player Who Deserves To Die A Slow, Painful Death

Cole Beasley. YOU LITTLE FUCKER. When I pay basement auction rates for a tiny white fella, I expect that tiny white fella to PRODUCE. I expect 11 catches for 39 yards and maybe a score. Instead, I got this little jackrabbit dropping passes all game long. Who said you could drop passes, Beasley? DROP AND GIVE ME 20.

Fire This Asshole!

Is there anything more exciting than a coach losing his job? All year long, we’ll keep track of which coaches will almost certainly get fired at year’s end or sooner. And now, your potential 2016 chopping block:

John Fox

Jeff Fisher*

Rex Ryan

Mike McCarthy**

Marvin Lewis

Todd Bowles

Hue Jackson

Gus Bradley*

Chip Kelly

Bill O’Brien

Mike Tomlin

Chuck Pagano

(*-potential midseason firing)

Honestly, Jeff Fisher doesn’t deserve to have Jared Goff work out for him. If I were Goff, I’d just throw every pass into a linebacker’s tummy until Fisher got shitcanned and I could restart my career with a proper coach. Same with Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers should whip passes at Beav’s face until the Packers finally unload him.

Great Moments In Poop History

Reader Thomas sends in this story I call GET TO THE POOP ON TIME:

It was the late 80's and I was 9 or so years old. I grew up (and still live) in a fairly urban part of New Jersey near New York City. My cousin, who had recently moved to Connecticut, was going to a sleep away camp near his house for a week. Our mothers talked about it and thought it would be good for me to go to this camp with him. The only thing was that it was one of those Bible Camps. With morning prayers, friggin songs, all that shit. I didn’t care, I could swim in a lake and paddle a canoe and all that. It was gonna be great.

The camp was a fairly typical setup, cabins with triple(!!!) bunk beds, about 20 kids to a cabin. And of course one barely working toilet. By the 2nd hour of day one, the toilet in our cabin was fucked. There were other, cleaner toilets to use, but they were a decent walk from our cabin, so in my 9 year old brain, I just decided to pinch it for a few days until I either: a) really had to go, or b) was near one of the other bathrooms.

I managed to make it a whole FOUR DAYS without shitting. I remember it being four days, because the camp lasted for five. I figured, “Hell, let’s finish off this perfect game.”

On the morning of day 5, we all gathered for our morning prayers in the camp chapel, which was about 1000 yards from my cabin, and in the opposite direction from the other bathrooms. It held like 200 people. We sat with the same group of kids we bunked with, organized by age. Because I was in one of the youngest groups, I sat towards the front. Early on in the proceedings, it happened.

Now this isn’t your run of the mill “I sharted everywhere,” or, “It ran down my leg,” stories. After going over 100 hours, what came out of me could best be described as a slender football.

It weighed a good 2-3 lbs, and was trapped in my tighty-whities. I slowly stood up, hoping the elastic on the bottom of my Fruit of the Looms would hold. One weak point and the dam would collapse. I slid past the few kids to my left and made it to the aisle, where I turned towards the door. A 19 or 20 year old counselor grabbed my arm and asked me where I thought I was going. I had no time to think of a good lie. I gave it to him straight.

“I pooped my pants.”

He immediately let go, and I waddled out through the doors, through the field, across a road, and into my cabin. The two counselors in charge of my group were sitting on the opposite side of the building, probably smoking weed, and they didn’t see me sneak in to grab some clean shorts before I went to the bathroom. I made it to the disgusting toilet, sat down, and expelled a second football sized load. I left my 2.5lb undies in a trash bin, cleaned up, changed into my new clothes, and made it back to the chapel in time to see everyone outside, tossing a football around. I kinda chuckled to myself at the symbolism, and sat on a bench, waiting for my mom to pick me up.

 

Gametime Snack Of The Week 

Stroopwafels! They have these on airplanes now, and not just for the hoity toity first class people. I was flying coach a few weeks ago and they gave me one and I was like OMG A BELGIAN WAFFLE TREAT! It felt so exotic. “Rhapsody in Blue” played in my head the whole time I was eating it. Lavishing me with fine European treats is a real easy way to distract me from the fact that I’m wedged into a hat box in midair.

Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week

VERGINA! Ahhhhhhh, nothing quenches your thirst like an ice cold Vergina! From Jonathan:

I’ve had Greek beer in Greece, I’ve had it at Greek restaurants, I toast with it at Greek festivals, weddings and baptisms, pretending it’s good, all in honor of my family’s homeland. Anyway, after having had probably a dozen Greek beers over the years, I thought I’d seen them all. Then I stumbled on a new one at the longtime Connecticut Ave. institution, The Parthenon. I’d like to say it was so good I just wanted to go grab another, but it was not.

But it says PREMIUM right on the label! It wouldn’t be like the Greeks to overexaggerate things! Anyway, I would definitely order this beer just to say the name out loud to the waiter. “Yes, we’ll have two orders of tzatziki, an order of grape leaves, a spanakopita, a big bowl of that carp roe dip, and FIVE VERGINAS THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” Then I’d snicker for eight straight days. I think we could ALL use a six-pack of Vergina these days, my friends.

Jim Tomsula’s Lifehack Of The Week!

“Uber? Uber is just organized hitchhiking. These kids think they reinvented the wheel with this stuff. If you got a thumb, you got a ride. You don’t even NEED the thumb, frankly. Thumbless Joe from El Paso used to get us rides all the time just by sticking his stump out on the highway. Drivers weren’t scared off. In fact, they were usually happy that Joe didn’t have enough fingers to operate a gun, you know what I mean? Anyway, you can hitch a ride anywhere, especially if you got a sweet mouth on you.”

Sunday Afternoon Movie Of The Week For Browns Fans 

 Draft Day. Never hurts to get a head start on the offseason, Cleveland. That’s your time to shine.

Gratuitous Miller’s Crossing Quote

“People’ll speak ill of me if I let him break your legs.”

“People’ll say I had it coming.”

“And they’d be right but that’s not the point.”

Enjoy the games, everyone.