Smokers like Goof...

January 1, 2011...the day that Pinkie Master's died.

Of note from the article:

They also worried that smokers like Matt Crider, who works downtown but lives on Wilmington Island, will head outside the city limits and outside the limits of the new ordinance.

"I don't want to smell the smoke in a restaurant. I agree with that," he said Monday as he curled against the wind on a cigarette break near Reynolds Square. "But at a bar, there's an age limit. If you aren't 21, you don't get in. And to make someone of legal age go outside to smoke a cigarette, that is wrong."

The Home Stretch

A very merry Christmas from all of us here at BMBS.  The remaining 6 days of 2010 remain pivotal for Messrs. Murray and Schwarz.  Will Rick be the comeback kid?   

Santa Shrugged

Good call, Pat. Pinkie's on the 24th??

What Could Have Been

150 years ago this week, our neighbors across the river officially seceded from the United States to become The Republic of South Carolina. Apparently fireworks, video poker, the Heritage, and all-nude strip clubs were not providing the requisite amount of excitement.

In all seriousness, slavery was the cruelest and most horrific of practices. Don't let anyone (Webber) tell you otherwise. The concept of secession, however, is neither cruel nor crazy, and sometimes I think it deserves another shot.

Tran Legacy

Jeff'd

This is really stupid, but for some reason, I find it hilarious.

I am backing the Nomination of Shane Murray

I can not elaborate much more than Hank, but as I was sitting here the other day about to put my nominee up, I felt mine was not as good as a class act like Shane Murray.

An Ayn Rand Christmas

What's so wonderful about bailing out society's least productive and trustworthy members?  

While driving the other day, I heard a radio ad for Best Buy, promising to help customers save up to 30% on certain gifts before 12pm Saturday. Following that was another ad for a website that helps shoppers find the lowest prices on popular items this year. I have an even better idea that will save people even more money. I have posted it below for all to see.

Don't even buy anything for anybody in the first place.

This year, if you're going to get something, get it for yourself. My suggestion would be the Ayn Rand box set, available at Amazon for $13.95. We were all subjected to The Christmas Carol/Wonderful Life stories and adaptations growing up, but the truth is that Uncle Scrooge and Mr. Potter probably created thousands of jobs for people, because they actually cared about how their money was spent and made sure it was invested wisely. I'm sure Bob Cratchit and George Bailey were nice guys, but how many factories did they build?  How many people did they ever actually hire?

Voting begins. I left Kayne off because I'm guessing Ryan was just joking. Tried reading his post but it took too long to figure out what it all meant. Anyways, good luck gentlemen!

Ryan's Nominee: Kanye West

Since I don't really talk to anybody's dad or ever see anybody from Only in America, I will continue my tradition of worthless Man of the Year nominations. Made even more worthless by the fact that I missed the deadline, and I'm only awake at 6:15 on Saturday morning because my cat stabbed me with his talons to let me know how badly he wanted his breakfast salmon.

Here we are at the end of 2010. I feel like 2010 was really what the past decade has been cooking up and building towards. The total downslide of all pop culture just happened to coincide with our exits from the carefree and fun times of high school and college right into the abyss of 40-hour work weeks (apologies, Chris and Tim). It all coincided with the expansion and evolution of the internet, and what exactly it offers to the entertainment industry and its consumers. Try to imagine what a classroom looks like today, or even lunch period. Every kid on a smartphone, tweeting about how boring English class was, posting a sweet pic of that fat nerd kid sleeping at the table, while listening to some soulless, overproduced trash in his cheap earbuds, and updating his Facebook status to let all of his personality-free friends know how crazy it's gonna get up in this bitch tonight.

Art always reflects its generation, and I appreciate that for its lack of complexity, because at least it's very clear how depraved America is these days when Kanye West sits atop most music publications' best-of-the-year lists. Most of you reading probably have no idea how much acclaim and sincere praise his album received, from the old guard of Rolling Stone and Spin, to the "blogosphere" sites like Pitchfork and AV Club (these are real things). With the music sites it's even more disturbing, given that most of the time they're fondling bands that are "challenging" and sound like the aural equivalent of anal fissures. However, as a music dweeb, these sites actually help me find the occasional decent band, because MTV sure as hell doesn't offer a damn thing musical these days. So how do supposedly sophisticated music journalists come to give Mr. West the rare 10.0 score? And, in extension, why do I see statuses reflecting this adulation in my Facebook news feed?

The answer stands on the stage, but also behind the curtain. In the shadows, the music industry suits have watched their empire crumble to a pile of dust over the past ten years. The number one source of revenue, record sales, has shrunk to a small fraction of what it used to be because of piracy. Nearly all money is made now from licensing to TV shows and commercials, and by getting artists to sign a 360 deal, which gives the label a portion of the artist's main source of income: touring and merchandise. As a record label executive, how do you make big bucks when MTV does not show music videos anymore, people steal all their music, and the internet has fractured any sense of centrality to your product?

You do what sports media and the movie industry has done: you create stories out of celebrities, and celebrities out of stories. You make your artists into some over-the-top lightning rod of shenanigans, who resemble more performance art than actual human being. There are so many opportunities to run with! And no matter what story you turn your employee into, you know for a fact the public will buy it, because they buy everything. For the sake of not frying the BMBS circuits, I'll cut it down to one particular trend.

The redemption story. Mind you, the 2010 version of redemption, as presented in the media, resembles nothing close to the humble, inward path of atoning for one's mistakes. Nah, "redemption" (you have to hear it in your head as said kinda slow and with a sing-song cadence - try it: "Hey...yo...this my re-DEMP-shyun...word") nowadays is a polite way of a celebrity's management telling us, "Eeeh, sorry, guys. We still have lots of money to make on our client. Despite the fact that he [rode around with loaded automatic weapons] [punched his celebrity girlfriend's face in] [electrocuted and drowned dogs] [interrupted a pretty white girl's acceptance speech at an awards show], he's really sorry and looking to redeem himself! Let's watch as the drama unfolds!"

So Vick performs well in his return to football. Chris Brown has gone on to do just fine after his latest album release. Lil Wayne and T.I. have probably gotten more famous since their jail time. They appear in magazines, posing with their eyes closed and their hands clasped near their face as if they are praying. The public are so quick to forgive and forget, not because they believe in the power of the human spirit or anything, but because they don't want to be bothered. They just want the next hit, the next story (Pat Holland snap, snap, snap), more things to tweet about, more things to give thumbs up to on Facebook, or showcase our educational system's successful teaching of grammar through YouTube comments.

And Kanye West's whole debacle perhaps demonstrates the worst of all of those. At least those fine gentlemen had the decency to actually commit a real crime. See, Kanye and his handlers, they went even lower. They saw the bar wasn't just low for the masses; it was buried under a trailer home along with the meth stash and scattered body parts. Why bother having to go to court or jail? Just manufacture a problem, and rather than have it be criminal, why not just reflect the shallowness, the vanity, and the emptiness of the buying public? That's it! JUST BE ANNOYING.

It's brilliant. "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Okay, there you go - talked about for at least a year. Oh, by the way he's a rapper, and in the intelligent, black-rimmed glasses and beard group, rap, or "hip hop" (come on, let's be highbrow here), is the untouchable. You can never criticize hip-hop, and it's because those greaseball, tight cut-off jeans wearing, bicycle-riding crackers don't want you to think their liberalism is tainted by potential racism. It's rap, and it sucks. Always will. The only way it can be of any value is when it's being parodied, and even that's obnoxious. But, if they treat hip-hop as equal to creating notes from instruments and using your vocal cords to sing rather than talk, well then it shows how, like, duuuude, all art is equal, brah.

Kanye uses all available tools of media to his gain. He apparently has quite the nutty and cuuuhrazy Twitter account! He makes press conferences that are so wacky that late night hosts have jokes about them in their monologues. South Park thoroughly nails him on all his obviousness, and I guess only some people get it. And, then, of course, the much publicized "I'ma let you finish" interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV VMAs. How this became such a phenomenon, we will never really know. How nearly every single dingleberry who ate it up could not clearly see it was all planned out by Kanye and his management as just another ploy for the spotlight goes beyond comprehension. Let's also not forget the victimization of poor Taylor Swift, who represents the same spectrum, but just the other end of it. See, with one hand the industry serves the controversy of Kanye, but with the other hand offers the safe, inoffensive, and violently bland Taylor Swift as a palate cleanser. One is the heel, the other the face - it's all wrestling.

So for the 2010 VMAs the angle (or storyline, learn your wrestling jargon, noob) was, "What will happen with, like, Taylor and Kanye? Will they, like, come out together and do a skit? Or will Taylor, like, oh my god, this would be so funny, would she, like, interrupt Kanye if he wins an award? OMG - must tune in. REtweet!" None of those things happened. Instead Taylor "Well, I had a banana for breakfast, and then I drove to work. And, I'm pretty sure I hit every red light on the way. So, yeah, went to work, did some work, went to lunch. Had another meeting, ugh, don't you just hate meetings? And, then went home. Traffic was pretty bad, but the weather was nice. What's the weather supposed to be like this weekend?" Swift sang about the incident in the most hilariously serious way. And you knew it was serious, because they were flashing the lyrics on the screen.

Kanye ends the show by coming out to perform a song off the aforementioned acclaimed new album. I remember the chorus saying something like, "This is a song for all the assholes, for all the douchebags," etc. The intended effect being that it makes you tilt your head, put your hand under your chin, and nod several times and say, "Hmm. I see that he's reaching out. Normally his lyrics are the typical braggadocious, arrogant content of the hip-hop genre, but I am impressed with his humbled and contrite new approach. Perhaps I shall have discussions with my other hiveminded brethren who treat music with intellectual discourse, and we will then come to a collective position on the significance and cultural impact that is the new Kanye West music album. If we have time, I will propose we assign it a crackling new label, such as 'hip-pop.' Or 'hip-hip. Together we shall proclaim this jawdropper of a record, with its rhyming of words and patterns of electronic backbeats, the record of the year. We will state this so assuredly that we'll even start to believe it to be our actual opinion, rather than a way to increase page hits and ad dollars!"

And so the 21st century releases the Kraken, its tentacles mashing together the ships of popular culture, celebrity obsession, and supposedly intelligent music journalism and opinion. The hype machine pumps itself into an undying frenzy, and Kanye West fuels it, laughing with his interesting wardrobe and deliberate eccentricity. He embodies Man of the Year, Man of 2010, because nothing else represents the disgrace of this moment in time more than the success of Kanye West.

Boring Sidenote

Curious to hear some opinions on the new START treaty. This means you, Pat.

I personally think that it can only hurt America. Reducing warheads and delivery systems sounds like a wonderful thing down on Happy Street in the Land of Swirly-Whirly Gum Drops, but what does it accomplish in the real world? I believe it jeopardizes our abilities in terms of missile defense. It won't save a single life. It won't eradicate chemical, biological, or nuclear attacks as a threat against the global community. It won't even lessen the costly toll of a war that involves either the US or Russia.

I understand the logic for the initial START treaty as a means to an end of the Cold War and arms race, but it's a different world now. The Russians have been trying to curb our efforts towards a missile defense shield in Europe for decades. To ratify this treaty is to give them a small victory towards that end. Feel-good, symbolic victories may be great for the "Aesop's crowd", but serve only to make me more cynical towards politicians here in reality.

One More Time!

GSU vs. Delaware, tomorrow at 12. Winner goes to the National Championship. Loser goes home.

Facebook Status Update of the Year

This man coached the '92 BSS B-Team football squad when Hank and I were in 4th grade.

3 MORE MONTHS!!!

Kevin Barry's tonight. Vote for Rick!

Hank's Nominee: Shane W. Good-Murray

Shane is the product of when a Savannah teen goes through BC without drinking, and then unleashes the tiger in the Boro. Shane does not have many "accomplishments" to speak of, but he is living the dream as far as avoiding responsibility goes. I doubt Shane will receive any votes, but this is the best I could come up with besides nominating myself.

As Shane's' name suggest, he is the better of the three Murray brothers (believe or not.) The other two siblings are known as Bad-Murray and Medium-Murray. If you know the Murrays, no explanation is necessary.

It all started during the winter of 2007. After meeting Shane at the annual "Beer Fest" in Statesboro, I found out he actually graduated on time from GSU and was looking for a place to live. Joe and I contracted Shane to be our roommate on Tattnall St. Shane was weary of trusting us at first, but saw the glitz and glammer of downtown Savannah living and signed the lease. Our apartment became the home to Shane and his 5 or so drinking buddies, Weazle being the most frequent and prominent. I think Shane had keys made for them, since they were all propped up on couches at 5:45 every Thursday and Friday, downing a 12 pack and munching on Red Barron pizza, and Shane nowhere to be found.

Shane started his illustrious career at Stingray's on Tybee. Which is great money and free booze during the summer. With Fall approaching, I was worried we would not make our monthly rent, so I signed him up for a data processing job at the office where I worked. After many months of downtown debauchery, Shane, Joe, and I moved into my new house in Fall 2008. Shane and Joe promptly became my tenants; with no lease agreement… the rest is history.

Enough of the sappy story line. Below I listed "Shane-the-Drain"events which should be considered when voting for BMBS MOTY. The list is not to show how "cool" or "bad ass" Shane is, he is certainly not either. But rather, to reveal his inherent disregard for the future or well being of himself and others. For this care free attitude, he deserves slight recognition.

1. Informing everyone of his data processing job's new starting salary.
2. Bragging at his new office of how many tips and free booze he scored the prior night at Sting Rays.
3. Talking for days about how hot Miley Cyrus was while serving her free booze at Sting Rays, when she was 16 years old.
4. Walking away with several handles of top shelf liquor after a company event, all because the lady said he could have a drink.
5. Having a one-eyed dog named "Sparks."
6. Passing out every time a dentist or doctor pulled out a needle.
7. Passing out repeatedly at Donnie's beach house, uninvited.
8. Following a drunk girl home downtown, only to have her pass out on his feet just as a SPD patrol car pulls up.
9. Passing out at Benny's bathroom floor (which the CDC has declared unsafe) in a pull of vomit and urine after smoking a cigar.
10. Getting kicked out of Benny's after event #9.
11. Gaining access to Benny's shortly after event #10 and a quick nap.
12. Faithfully paying rent to Hank each month somewhere between the 20th and 30th of each month, when it is actually due the 1st.
13. A faithfull adherent to "The Seventeeners" club at Kevin Barry's.
14. Not realizing his converted attic room had an air vent, after living through the hottest summer on record.
15. Blowing 3/4 of his disposable income on alcohol, dog tracks, and football trips.

LJP 2010

Join Mr. & Mrs. Snuffy for the 2010 Letter Jacket Party on Dec. 26th at 7:00 PM. BYOB. We will provide light hors d'ouvres. It's a Sunday, so be sure to buy your beer in advance. All are welcome. Letter jackets are encouraged, but not required.

It is that time of year...

Snuffy's Nominee: George F. "Rick" Schwarz IV

In an earlier discussion on the future of the BMBS MOTY competition, I wrote that it is difficult to judge a candidate based soley on one calendar year. Rick Schwarz is the exception to that rule.

It did not take long for Rick to get rolling in 2010. In February, a hired hitman attempted to take him out during a night out in Buckhead. Rick was struck by a car travelling at an estimated 35 mph and lived to tell about it!

March is a special month for Rick, and for BMBS. After recovering from the attempt on his life, Rick landed a new job. Always eager to make a good first impression, Rick had to call in on his first day because he chose to attend the Celtic Cross ceremony in Savannah, and stay for the Reception and the Post-Reception Party. On Tuesday of that week, Rick showed up ready to work. However he had to infom his boss that afternoon that he had a death in his family and would be flying to Charlotte that night and not returning until Thursday. This was obviously a ruse to allow Rick the opportunity to get home for St. Patrick's Day, which was on Wednesday. When Rick did not show up on Thursday, it was evident that it would be beneficial for both Rick and the company to go their separate ways.

That one-month stretch from mid-February to mid-March is more than enough to prove that Rick is a worthy candidate for MOTY. Will the third time be the charm for Rick? You decide.

Hall of Fame of the Year: Coach Jeff Monken

Webster's Defines the words "Man" and "Year" as "an adult male person" and "a period of 365 or 366 days, in the Gregorian calendar, divided into 12 calendar months, now reckoned as beginning Jan. 1 and ending Dec. 31," respectively.(Webster, et al.)

Put those two words together and what do you get??? Jeff Motherf@$%kin' Monken, head coach of the Georgia Southern Eagles.

In less than 10 full months on the job, Coach Monken has taken the once proud Eagles back into the national semifinals by beating (then) #10 Elon, #1 App State, #10 SC State, #4 William and Mary, and #3 Wofford. On 9/11/10, the Eagles came within a touchdown of upsetting the bowl-eligible Navy Midshipmen. With wins over hated rivals App State, Furman, and Wofford, coach Monken has cemented GSU's place as the class of the Southern Conference once again.

In addition to respecting the proud traditions of Eagle Football (yellow school buses, G.A.T.A., Beautiful Eagle Creek, and so on), Coach Monken has started a new one, by having his players sing the Alma Mater to the student section after games. The result: I now know that we have an Alma Mater. And it's awesome.

Why are we already attached to the ball coach??? For his inspirational pregame and halftime speeches:



And my personal favorite:



Coach Monken, a 13 year disciple of Paul Johnson, unites the GSU and GT contingent of BMBS, and he is not, I repeat, IS NOT Mark Richt.

For all of these reasons, I humbly submit my nomination for BMBS Man of the Year 2010 for Coach Jeff Monken.

Credit Where It's Due

Score one for the President.  More Clintonesque decisions like these during the next 23 months and he'll win re-election.  The economy is going to start coming back now too because of this.  After 2 years of stimulus failure, the reality finally sinks in - private citizens are what make the economy grow, not Washington.

Just watch out for inflation - I'm convinced it's the biggest threat we'll face the next 2-5 years  The price of a tall boy at Pinkie's is currently $2.50.  We will use this to track the inflation rate in the coming months and years.  Sorry but you just can't trust CPI (it is, after all, calculated by the government).  "PBRI" will be a far more accurate measure.

Best Looking Blog Around

Great job, Pat! This new layout design just took BMBS to a new level of excellence.

MOTY 2010 Nominee

George Schwarz III

1. He is Rick's Dad.
2. He is an avid reader of BMBS.
3. He is the St. Patrick's Day parade adjutant. (I have a soft spot in my heart for adjutants)

Here is my best impression of Mr. Schwarz this morning:

Another Tweak

Traditionally around this time, we hold our Man of the Year contest.  I've been thinking about changing the name of this award though, to the annual "BMBS Hall of Fame" inductee.

The title makes more sense:  there are plenty of upstanding members of society who might deserve recognition, even if they haven't done all that much in the past year.

Or we can keep calling it Man of the Year.  I don't really give a rat's ass as long as people actually make nominations.  Snuffy and I are the only two people left that actually contribute to this blog, and I should have kicked everyone else off a long time ago, but I am giving you one last chance.  Last year we had the most publicized MOTY contest ever.  Let's try and keep things at least half as interesting this year.

Nominations are due by Friday, December 17th.  


Past Recipients:


2006 - Tom Powers
2007 - Michael Reardon
2008 - Jack Holland
2009 - Coach Curley
2010 - ????

10 Years Ago: Gannam Day

Due to the unseasonably cold weather, today's George K. Gannam '38 Merorial Review & Awards Ceremony will be held in the gym. This ceremony has only been held in the gym one other time during LTC Owens' tenure. Guess which year...That's right, our senior year. I don't remember exactly why it was held indoors that year, but I know the fact that JMO3 did not trust Houser to lead the review had something to do with it.


















Perhaps more significant than 10 years ago, was 12 years ago, when CDT/SSG Lane was presented with the Gannam Award. It is worth noting that BMBS members won both awards given out on Gannam Day.

Carey, Carey, Who Can I Turn To? (355-2468)

December has always been a month near and dear to my heart. Why? Because the best item on Hilliard's entire menu is on special.  Cut out the cole slaw and get extra fries instead. Throw in some cocktail sauce and Christmas comes early.

The one, the only: Seafood Platter, for $12.99

A few tweaks

I had to change things up because our old format was outdated according to Blogger, which was preventing me from changing the blog's width so YouTube videos could be posted unless I adopted one of the newer templates like this one.

Also looking for a good new subtitle. The Jimmy Ray quote will remain unless ya'll can think of something better.

Top 10: Beatles Songs

30 years ago this week, John Lennon was shot and killed in New York City. In his memory we list the best 10 songs the Beatles ever released; coincidentally, all have one thing in common: they are all John songs. Nothing against Paul, who is great, it just turned out that way somehow.

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Barstool and Pat, Your Thoughts?

As our two resident barristers, I'd like your opinions on this.

Jim Leyritz: How does he get off of the manslaughter charge? He drives drunk on a suspended NY license (which would render his FL license suspended), gets into an accident and kills a mother of two. Furthermore, his bail was later revoked for drinking alcohol, a violation of his bail conditions.

His Conviction: misdemeanor DUI.
His Penalty: $500 fine and 1 year probation. If he violates probation, its six months in jail.

Where is justice? How is this possible?

Here's my guess, too many New Yorkers in Florida. They couldn't let their two time World Series champ rot in prison where he belongs.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Etc.

It's been quiet around here lately. Too bad Tech lost. I did see Lamar on TV, though. I heard that the main topic of discussion amongst the tailgaters was not about the game, but about the search for a football coach at a small, Catholic boys school in Savannah. Apparently, we've already hired four different coaches. I'm not sure how we're going to pay all of them, but I guess four is better than one. Also, we need to do this again.