Scoreboard, Brought to You By The Emperors Club

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O’NEALS

  1. He Who Speaks to Spear Tooth 96
  2. We Got Nothing 87
  3. Young, Old and Restless 67
  4. Buzztime Tattoo 59
  5. Johnny Bettertimes 57

BARDS

  1. Sofa Kingdom 110
  2. Narcotyzing Dysfunktion 108
  3. Clients #10 and #11 80
  4. Cutz Dat Flo 69
  5. Um, I Think You Did Hook Up W/ Him 53

LOCUST RENDEZVOUS

  1. Ganjer or Mary Anne (aka Jams) 114**
  2. Trust Us We Know 101
  3. 1022 85
  4. Someone Went Corporate 74
  5. Grady Bunch 69

BLACK SHEEP

  1. Duane’s World 108
  2. Spitzer Swallows: Prince of Thieves 99
  3. The Original Spitzer Swallows 88
  4. Emperors Club VIP 86
  5. Trashtastic 82

GOOD DOG

  1. MAGMA 111
  2. Shomer Shabbas 83
  3. The Underachievers 81
  4. Lucille II 63
  5. The Misfitz 50

BARDS

  1. Western Omelette 104
  2. Hurtin Bombs 100
  3. Rather have a bottle in front of me…100
  4. Sofa Kingdom 95
  5. Yes You Can’t 83

**Had a perfect score going into final question. Missed “Who sings Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots?” Answer was Flaming Lips.

JGT Gets Blasted In Letter to the Editor

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The Metro received quite possibly the greatest letter ever after my column on Thursday. While I will admit that Thursday’s piece wasn’t my strongest work, I am frankly flattered that it inspired this young writing genius, Michael Pomranz, to respond with a diatribe that was longer than the piece itself. For your reading enjoyment, I have provided footnotes. You’re gonna like this:

Dear Involved Parties:

On Thursday, March 13, 2008, the Philadelphia Metro printed a column by author Johnny Goodtimes under the heading Goodtimes File entitled “Johnny Oldtimes”.

Rarely in my life am I privy to reading such uninspired hack (1). How being a “local quizmaster and blogger” qualifies someone to be a comedian, or even a commentator, is beyond me, and this article further confounded the decency of my senses (2).

Not only has this bit been played out by every comedian on the face of the planet (3) — let’s be honest, if this is the first time you’ve seen or heard the “things I know ’cause I am old that young people don’t know about and boy is that funny” bit, you may want to resign as an editor, or figure out why VH1 is blocked by your cable provider (4) — but given the opportunity to mine humor from it, Mr. Goodtimes (5) instead foregoes any inspiring commentary and simply settled for compiling a boring list.

For example: “They don’t remember when the Berlin Wall fell.” Wow? They don’t? That’s probably because they weren’t alive then (6). How about turning it on itself to say something like: “When they hear about the falling of the Berlin Wall, they think it sounds easy. That thing didn’t fall on its own. It took a lot of Germans with pickaxes to bring that sucker down.(7)”

See, Johnny. That is called adding humor and perspective (8). The topic is still a bit hacky, but at least I added some personal spin on it (9). We (10) could continue to dissect the inadequacies of every item of pedestrian babble on this list provided for Philadelphia’s reading pleasure, but since the Metro is (I can only assume) paying you (11) for your writing services, maybe you should put some more time into them yourselves in the future.

cheers!
Mike Pomranz

1) Occasionally Michael is privy to such hacks. But this is very rare.
2) You’d be amazed at how decent Michael’s senses are. They remind me of Tipper Gore’s senses.
3) Not true. Carrot Top refuses to use this bit in his act “on principle”.
4) Dorothy resigned earlier today, stating that letter to the editor writer Michael Pomranz made her realize that she just wasn’t cut out for this job.
5) Thank you for addressing me formally, Senor Pomranz.
6) Actually, they were alive then. The Berlin Wall fell in 1990. But math isn’t Michael’s strong suit. Comedy is, as we can see by…
7) HA! Oh my-HA! Germans with-HAHAHAHAHA! Did he just say that the Germans had pickaxes! No he didn’t! I didn’t even think about that! (Loud guffawing, reader falls to the floor, holding sides.) Stop it! Stop it, Michael, no more about the Germans! I bet Hitler had a pickaxe! HAHAHAHAHA!
8) If there is one thing your 300 word diatribe to the editor about a 300 word column has taught us, Michael, it is perspective.
9) I’ll say you did! Pickaxes! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
10) Did he just invoke the royal “We” in a non-ironic fashion while complaining about a hack writer?
11) They are Mike, but after this tour de force of a letter to the editor, I think they might just be paying someone else to do some writing in the near future 😉 LOL!

Around the Horn

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  • This is kind of sweet. Ben Franklin impersonator Ralph Archbold (above, with duck) is going to marry a Betsy Ross impersonator. I’m still hoping to marry an Ashley Dupre impersonator.
  • Quizzo continues to get no respect. The City Paper has a bracket of 76 things that are quintessentially Philly, and quizzo apparently got knocked of early in its conference tournament by the Spiral Q Puppet Theatre and didn’t make the dance. Anyhow, the brackets are a lot of fun, and you can vote for Trivia Art over at Foobooz when you fill ’em out.
  • Here are Philly natives Tim and Eric in a vodka ad with Zach Galifinakis that is hilarious.
  • My kind of movie critic: What distinguishes “Horton Hears a Who!” from the other recent Dr. Seuss film adaptations is that it is not one of the worst movies ever made.