Happy Birthday Charles Bukowski! I miss most people’s birthdays, but seem to always remember his, and give him a shout out every year.

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. -C.B.

Here’s some more of his stuff.

In case any of you were wondering if Dutch had come to his senses, the answer is Not At All. Go here if you wanna hear what he said. Or you can read it here.

Dutch says he talks to lizards. I remember when I was like 6 and I told my neighbor that my dog had said my name. My mom was pissed. I’m not sure why. Probably because she didn’t want her neighbors to know how dumb her son was.

-So I’m reading about Edna Parker, the world’s new oldest woman, because, um, that’s what I do, and I came across this: Parker lives in the same retirement center as Sandy Allen, the tallest woman in the world. Sadly, Sandy is not married to Mark Eaton. Anyways, some old Japanese lady died (tragically) and left Edna as the world’s oldest person. USA! USA! USA! USA!

-Here’s Trivia Art’s latest for the Metro.

–Umpires love white pitchers. Man, can you imagine how bad Adam Eaton would be if he was black or Japanese?

-Happy Birthday, Napoleon Bonaparte! And what in the hell happened to your penis? (Word on the street is, Napoleon was no Rasputin, if you catch my drift.)

A great underground hip hop group performing manana at Johnny Brenda’s. I saw Little Brother a couple of years ago open for Blackalicious, and they were fantastic. They are a rare commodity in modern rap: a combination of smart and funny, and they actually realize that there are other words besides “Bitches” and “riches” that rhyme. Of course, that type of intelligence is punished by the rap community and BET owner Bob Johnson:
Almost 2 years ago, Little Brother’s video, “Lovin It” was banned from BET due to the program director saying that the song was too intellectual for the station’s 12-19 year old African American female demographic. As a result, the Atlantic recording trio, Little Brother got the cold shoulder from the network for not having dumbed down content, which resulted in their anticipated debut lp, The Minstrel Show not seeing it’s full potential, due to no promotion.
-From Streethop.com

Anyways, Little Brother is playing Wednesday night at Johnny Brenda’s at 9:30 p.m.. I highly recommend attending. Oh, and here’s some pretty hilarious stuff on their Myspace about Mike Tyson’s Punchout being racist.

-This exchange between Mike Schmidt and Harry the K over the weekend is pretty amazing. “I’ve been beating the hell out of my wife pretty regularly.”

-White House dumps Rove, picks up Ripken. Now we just need to convince Bush to drop Cheney and acquire Eddie Murray.

–Merv Griffin passed away. This gives us a great opportunity to show Kramer taking over the set of the Merv Griffin Show.

–David Lee Roth has rejoined Van Halen, and they are scheduled to appear in Philly on October 1. Oh Man, I hope this also means Roth is gonna be coming out with the movie Crazy From the Heat II: Even Crazier. The odds of Roth and Eddie Van Halen still being on speaking terms come October 1 are roughly 1,000,000,000 to 1.

I have extremely sad news to pass along. Rob Schiller, the captain of the renowned Champs team (on the right, holding the money), passed away yesterday. He was best known in the quizzo community for hosting quizzo at Rembrandt’s, and for being one of the biggest (and funniest) smack talkers on the local quizzo circuit. He was a consumate jokester, a man of my own heart, always trying to bring the spirit of the wrestling world into quizzo. (He also had the smarts to back it up, as his team is well known for being one of the best in the city.) He demanded that his team enter to theme music before the past two Quizzo Bowls, and revelled in the cacophony of boos that rained down upon he and the rest of his teammates as he held his hands to the sky and then snagged french fries off unsuspecting people’s plates. About the stolen food, he explained to the City Paper in a write up about the team last year, “We were just trying to save some money.” As heartbroken as I am to hear of his passing, I take a small amount of solace in the fact that every memory I have of Rob brings a smile to my face. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and his many friends.

Yeah, I’m kind of a numbskull, so I threw their paper away before I did my write up on the Constitution Center quizzo from last friday and forgot their team name. I do remember that they kicked some A, finishing with an impressive 110. Anyways, there is one more Constition Center quizzo, coming next Friday night. Hope to see you there!

-Looks like my niece is already working on her Elvis snear.

-City Paper says that the Locust Rendezvous has the best fries in the city.

–What song should Brett Myers enter his games to? I think “Muskrat Love” by Captain and Tennille would be epic. Or “Sailing” by Christopher Cross.

–Excuse me, sir, do you know that there is a monkey on your head?

-Happy Birthday Kurtis Blow! The video to the song Basketball is the Citizen Kane of music videos. Or at least the Ishtar of music videos. The dunk by the white guy with the moustache and mullet is nothing short of remarkable.

Be back with some thoughts on Bonds this afternoon, but in the meantime, I’m still working on my Metro piece (thanks for you help last night). Here’s a couple of quick things worth checking out;
-The Democrats prove that they’re spineless when dealing with Alberto.

-Faith on Tap, a group that meets regularly to discuss religion, has their weekly happy hour every Thursday…at the Devil’s Alley. Brilliant.

–Newsweek challenges the Darth Erns of the world on global warming

-Happy birthday JC Chasez! Don’t listen to the haters, JC, just keep doing how you do.

Remember when hip hop didn’t suck? That was kool. Oh, and peep Chuck’s hat.