Limerick Friday LXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXII: “True Detective” Has You Chasing Shadows, Plus Comedy Will Never, Ever Be The Same

Far and away TV’s best thing

“True Detective” will make your nerves ring

From Marty’s anal fixture

To Rust’s distorted picture

And who the fuck is the Yellow King?!

Nearly over, a winter of worsts

A back-porch beer thirst

Spring beckons, with all that it means

Sipping Sierras and trampolines

Just need a new job first

Warren turned them into a joke

Had poor Roy drunk on Coke

The refs got involved

A problem that can’t be solved

But the bottom line is yet another choke

Oh, the Walking Dead

Once filled with intensity and dread

Now it may have jumped the shark

And instead of being afraid of the dark

Ho hum are my feelings instead

Farewell to a genius prince

Harold Ramis made us laugh and wince

Of “Vacation” & “Animal House” fame

And way too many more to name

Comedy as we know it bears his prints

Last time …

Limerick Friday LXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXI: Free At Last, Free At Last, Plus Yet Another State Screw Job By The ACC

Of their style, I’m not fond

Over five years, just couldn’t bond

So now I bid adieu

To the wanker lot of you

Here’s a middle finger ‘cross the pond

Those Jersey nights, I can

Recall listening to 660 the Fan

Cheering for Mets teams of crap

Even the Kiner’s Korner wrap

RIP Ralph, you were the man

A missed call or 23

Just life in the ACC?

At Syracuse, the Pack got jobbed

A monumental victory robbed

Some say pull a Maryland and flee

In the head, they’re all soft

With the vision of Magoo, I scoff

Bipolar and passive-aggressive

Lack of leadership that’s actually impressive

F you, I say, or how about sod off?

 

Miami burned while Philbin did sit

Ignored all manner of immature shit

No accountability, though

So I ask you, Joe

Do the right thing and quit

Last time …

Deep Thoughts By No-Look McFadden: Episode 71

#1

I would like to live to there ...

#2

“The rise of a different kind of mainstream press, devoted to telling the plain, unvarnished truth, without fear or favor, instead of propping up a false equivalency and calling it objectivity, would also be a great improvement.” ~Sean Wilentz, Rolling Stone

#3

OK, I’ll bite ... how is more not made of Gene Steretore performing as an NFL referee AND a high-Division-I college basketball official?! Dude has essentially reached the pinnacle of two professions.

#4

There was never enough time, manly pacifier. There was never enough time.

#5

There has never been a more Ohio State name than Jack Mewhort. Who plays for Ohio State.

#6

When TV is realer than real-life, or That Time When Edward Snowden Met Harold Finch.

#7

I’ve heard George Costanza described in a lot of ways and even more things that have been attributed to him, but a “hipster pioneer”? Hell, I’ll buy it.

#8

A four-year-old moved to tears by a song. No words from me, just two thumbs up.

#9

Finally, a rug that truly ties everything together ...

#10

When AT-ATs meet snowboarders in Hoth Sochi.

A Very Google Reunion

Hadn't seen this one. Totally didn't cry or such like.

"The Games Have Always Been A Little Gay"

Freaking hysterical.

Limerick Friday LXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX: Russia Can Even F Up The Olympics, Plus Get Your Shite Together, Canada

A nation of abuse and repression

Has lived up to their perception

Sochi a disaster of corruption

A gay-bashing, dog-killing eruption

The rules for these Olympics, not the exception

Russell Wilson represents what’s right

Punctuated on Super Bowl night

He’s got a State degree

So he’s a Wolfpacker by decree

But O’Brien extinguished his intrinsic light

Signing Day come and gone

Over 17-year-olds they fawn

State did well, it appears

But ask me in three years

Creepy hype just goes on and on

Inconsistency in hoops

Shooting like poops

Questions about competitive fire

Have drawn Pack fans’ ire

Costanza once called them “Moops”

Bieber enjoyed his jail stay

Ford seems to never pay

Two wrecking trains

Just a coupla Canadian stains

What’s in the water up there, eh?

Last time …

“A Drink Before The Wars” Captures Dennis Lehane Finding His Gritty Voice

“She looked into my eyes and hers were swimming with alcohol and exhaustion and ghosts. She said, ‘Civilization seems to be something we choose when it fits our purpose.’”

“Not much I could argue with there.”

“Fucking whole country’s filled with nasty, unhappy, confused, pissed-off people, and not one of them with the brain power to honestly deal with their situation.”

Having read a number of other Dennis Lehane works, I figured it was high time I took a crack at his first novel, “A Drink Before the War.” His initial foray also represented the introduction of the Patrick Kenzie-Angie Gennaro detective partnership/dynamic. Parts of their relationship reads like “Encyclopedia Brown”-meets-‘tween-flirt-paperbacks, but there are enough good parts to let you know that Lehane is a budding crime writer to be taken quite seriously.

This quick read gets a bit self-righteous on the sidebars and race talk, but Lehane is quite clever in how he weaves the plot through a number of explosive variables. “A Drink Before the War” is a bleak, pessimistic read on how big-city politics runs roughshod on the disenfranchised and marginalized in society.

Tackling gang violence, race wars, cultural chasms, political intrigue, child porn, blackmail and daddy issues feels like a bit much for a book of this scope, but Lehane doesn’t shrink from the challenge. The Kenzie-Gennaro interactions take on all sorts of submeanings, and Kenzie’s relationship with his father overhands the entire book. There’s also a well-crafted twist that succeeds in tying the entire novel together.

The result is a promising first effort, and fast-forwarding to the present day, we can see that Lehane capitalized on that promise with tremendous works such as “Mystic River” and “Shutter Island.” The author now seems engrossed with the pursuit of big-screen success, but seeing him digging into the mud that comprises his roots is a welcome throwback.

“L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it’s simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won’t have to hear the screams of the drowning.”