chestysite

…so they can get arrested. And have sex scandals.

Turner Gill is in for a DOOZY of a downfall…

“Coach Gill really indoctrinates us with the fact that if you really believe in something and you’re going to commit yourself whole-heartedly to it, good things will happen. You’re going to hit speed bumps along the way, but he’s there to guide us. He’s there very much as a father figure and a mentor to us. And that’s not typical for Div. I coaches. For a guy who has his own family. He has a daughter in college and a daughter in high school. He has his own family to take care of and he calls us his sons. When he says it, he means it. It’s powerful. It means a lot to us. And we’re willing to go out and lay it on the line for him.”

- Senior right tackle, Brad Thorson

I believe in Coach Gill. I have no confidence on how this season plays out, or whether he succeeds at all here at KU. But if I need to choose a guy to back, why not pick a good guy? The positive guy? The guy who makes you gag from cornball instead of sliminess or snakeskin oil?

Heck, sweaty July days like today are PERFECT for this kind of quote. Today – this exact moment – I have no doubt that KU will go 11-1. No doubt they’ll win a BCS bowl game. And, of course, all of our senior class will advance on to noble careers in medicine, legislature or the priesthood.

Will I feel different by Sept. 1? Of course. But shut it. I’m going to enjoy the silliness while I can.

He’s not feeling well. Spent the morning with Stacey’s mom and now has the afternoon with dad. So he’s kinda pissed right now. (Cause Yia Yia lets him run the show a lot more than me.)

And how do you know when your son is getting tired of you? When he packs up his most-prized possessions and bids you farewell.

Fortunately, the Benadryl kicked in before he made it to the front door.

(That’s 2006 KU/NU being replayed by FSMW in the background. Brought back a flood of frustrating memories. Adam Barmann definitely did his part for population control in the state of Kansas. Lord knows he took a couple years off my life that night.)

Ultimate Fakebook’s new album – first in seven years – can be downloaded from their website.

FOR FREE!

Honestly, I’m glad Nick Saban called out nefarious player agents yesterday at the SEC media day. Beyond making Saban’s job a lot harder than it should be, it’s time that we start to expose these people who OUTRIGHT EXPLOIT THE TALENT AND SWEAT of student-athletes for their own personal gain.

Unrelated: Saban is set to make $4 million this season.

I’m currently in the middle of watching the final season of “The Wire,” which has the newspaper industry as one of its anchoring themes. Good stuff. With that in my head in recent days, it was fun to read this last night and this early this morning.

Those links demand a truckload of grainy salt. If Whitlock and Hall end up being the flag-bearers for any kind of journalism, we’re all doomed. But does anyone not believe Hall’s cheap-pay-for-a-column story? Too weird to come up with out of nowhere, especially with an actual dollar amount. Is it all that scandalous? Not really. Whitlock is a fringe writer anyway, more concerned with the argument than the delivery. And writing your own work is probably hard when a Don Imus controversy doesn’t pop up every day.

I’ll save my outrage for the hit on JoPo. Here’s Hall:

It is why Whitlock has little respect for JoPo. Add 100 pounds to Mitch Albom, remove all but three of his hairs and you have JoPo staring you in the face with a bland, formulaic, rags-to-riches story about Buck O’Neill or Priest Holmes playing checkers (twice).

Posnanski can tell a story – yep, a schmaltzy story – when he needs to. And yes, his growth at the Star included some columns dripping with sentimentality. But the criticism is from someone (Hall) who either doesn’t read much of Joe’s mega-volume output, or he just doesn’t like him. Either way – that’s fine. Different strokes. But to pair Posnanski up with Albom, while the latter’s being criticized for BAD JOURNALISM – that makes the analysis demand a little more objectivity.

JoPo’s blog and SI features are generally smart, funny, uber-researched, argumentative, compelling and… smart. Whitlock strains to get 500 words out of his recycled (how can bring up O.J.?) topics. Hall listens to the radio (admittedly, with great devotion) and reacts in quick sentences. Neither of these guys, as writers, could hold Posnanski’s… whatever writers protect their testicles with. And seriously, this market has so little to be across-the-board proud of when it comes to sports journalism. Radio, TV and newspapers are a near-wasteland. So when good ones reside here, why spend energy tearing them down?

That’s not much of a defense, actually. But I’m not a writer. And, in varying degrees, I respect what these guys do. While I like all the inside-baseball stuff (I seek it out, obviously!), their entire discussion would be miles more persuasive if it stayed in the theoretical. Kindred’s original criticism of Albom avoided the Whitlock-ish personal stuff. I’d guess that was intentional. Cause readers can deal with the ethical questions and contradictions rather than, like I did with Whitlock’s column, spend as much time recalling JW’s sins as I did Albom’s.

Anyway, that’s what I was reading this morning. Not in a newspaper, by the way.

Cause if I type “streaking,” then I might jinx it. Wait…DANG!

This might be the most fascinating thing I’ve seen on the internet in years. I had to watch the whole thing last night. Some thoughts…

- Seminars? I can’t find a list of session topics, but I did find this. Sessions will be presented by the likes Blaze, Boondox and Twiztid. So you get where they’re going with this – 401k advice and stock portfolio strategies.
- Sugar Slam… Erin Andrews best not slip up. She’s ready for the big-time.
- Comedians include Tom Green and Gallagher. Which sounds about right.

And just when I started to get bored with the video, there’s that ICP movie at the end. Wow. It’s a western with people in clown faces. Who are these people? Who are their fans? And how can I get a copy of that film?

I have to say, though, that I would find all this much more enjoyable to mock if I didn’t have a son who will inevitably reject my tastes in music and entertainment some day. And this would be the perfect nerve from him to stomp on. I’m going to have nightmares about him coming home from grade school in clown makeup.

- Reports are that Eddie Kennison has agreed to a 1-day contract with KC so that he can retire as a Chef. We already know how this plays out: hours before the press conference he calls the team to say that he’s quitting football. He’ll be signing a 2-day contract with the Chargers on Wednesday.

- “He’ll never be Jordan. This clearly takes him out of the conversation. He can win as much as he wants to. There would have been something honorable about staying in Cleveland and trying to win it as ‘The Man’ … LeBron, if he would’ve in Cleveland, and if he could’ve got a championship there, it would have been over the top for his legacy, just one in Cleveland.” Charles Barkley, who forced a trade from Philadelphia after 8 years so he could join the Suns (with a far-superior roster than Philly’s). Lebron was in Cleveland for 7 years.

- Can’t wait to get the 3D experience in my home. Right? What? Oops. “Sony recommends consulting a doctor before 3D consumption”… always a good endorsement for fun!

- Need some background music for work this week? NPR is streaming Jesca Hoop’s new album free. Good stuff. Hoop trivia: was a nanny for Tom Waits’ children. If she was a little screwy before that….

Happy week…

Anvil!: The Story of Anvil (imdb)

Enough’s been written about this well-done doc. Watching it last night for the first time, I also had a recent Village Voice interview with Ted Leo rattling in my head. (Related.) His music and Anvil’s couldn’t be more different, but both lead you to one place: that biz is definitely a young person’s game.

You hear plenty of successful entertainers (musicians, athletes, etc) say that they’d do it for free, even if there wasn’t the fame, money or audience. And it’s easy to be cynical and doubt that. They may be the exception, but Anvil drowns that cynicism since they’d been doing it for relatively zero money (and fans) for years now.

It’s a terrific look at music as business vs. passion. And even though the band is laughably-metal, it’s hard not to root for them for 90 minutes.

3.5 out of 5 ice cream sandwiches