Jack Ascii

I am going to post for 30 straight days. Yep, guaranteed. I think I just heard someone somewhere say “bull#@$%”.  Anyway, here it goes. By the way, I don’t appreciate the lack of support here.

Subject A: The Ultimate Fighter Saturday night saw the latest season of “The Ultimate Fighter” get crowned. The winner was Amir Sadollah, who now, after the win, is undefeated (he’s 1-0). I watched all of his prelim fights this season and what stuck out in my mind about this guy is he never quits. He doesn’t appear to be a great striker, wrestler, of grappler and his cardio also seems to be suspect. What he is good at, though, is winning. I don’t think he’s going to be a world beater anytime soon, but I think he’s worth keeping an eye on. Also, the guy has the type of personality that should endear him to fans; very humble and somewhat insecure (not your typical mixed martial artist). Before his quarterfinal fight against Matt Brown, he said something like “of course I’m scared, I’m going to get in the ring with a trained killer”. For the record, he subbed Matt in the third round. Other not so flashy winners (past and present): Chauncey Phillips, Steve McNair, Bernard Hopkins, Lloyota Machida, and Bill Russell.

Topic 2: I picked up the Flobots “Fight with Tools” album this past week. Good good stuff. I pretty much left played the whole album 2 or 3 times this weekend while I finished painting my deck. I especially like “May Day”, “Handlebars”, and “Fight with Tools”. I was a big 311 fan back in the day, and these guys sound a great deal like 311 (and there’s nothing wrong with that). Give them a listen - as always they are on the shelves at your local iTunes store.I also picked up Iggy Pop’s remastered “Raw Power” album, and Joy Division’s “Closer”. Both are great great great albums that I need not comment on. If you don’t have these I suggest you put some pants on and go pick them up presently.

Item III:  Jen’s Pulver. I like Jens Pulver. He is one favorite mixed martial arts fighters. He is the everyman’s fighter - he’s not rich, and this is his chosen profession. A few weeks ago he suffered a tough loss to one of the best, if not the best, featherweight fighters in the world; Urijah “the California Kid” Faber. The fight was kinda like a passing of the torch, as Jen’s is arguably one of the best lightweight/featherweight fighters to ever lace them up. I hope the guy doesn’t retire any time soon. Even if he is relegated to a gatekeeper for Faber for the rest of his career, I don’t care. I just want to see him fight. Anyway, if you “Jens” find yourself somehow ending up on this page, I have a suggestion for you (granted, this is highly improbable and the chances of me winning the lottery are significantly greater). I think you need to change your intro music. Might I suggest “Gimme Danger” by Iggy Pop and the Stooges. 

D: Tiger Woods is done for the year. Many sportswriters are predicting that this will have a significant economic impact on the rest of the season (I concur). Here’s an interesting fact that I believe John Feinstein recently mentioned on some sports show I was listening to on Saturday. Prior to Tiger joining the tour, there were 17 millionaires. Now there are over 100. That’s pretty impressive. I think I also read that Tigers caddy makes more in prize money that most of the other tour players. This got me thinking, what other athletes would have the biggest impact on the economics  of their sport if they missed a season?

Basketball: Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade. I think it would take having all three miss the season to have a significant impact. We already have seen a season without Dwayne, and although I have no clue what impact it had on the NBA’s  bottom line, I gotta think the league still did well.

Football: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, LT, Eli Manning, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens. As with basketball, I think it would take having all these guys miss the season to impact the NFL economic season. I think NFL fans are accustomed to seeing star players go down from time to time to have too significant of an impact on the NFL’s  economic outcome.

Baseball: The Yankees and Red Sox. I can’t really speak to baseball because I ussually don’t tune in until October anyway. If I didn’t have the Yankees to root against every year, I probably wouldn’t even watch in October either. 

One question I would really like to have answered is how much does sports (specifically professional basketball, football, ad baseball) contribute to the U.S.’s economy? If it’s significant, I wonder if anyone in any government agency thinks about this kind of stuff? 

1 Comment » Posted by Jack Ascii / Mixed Martial Arts and Music and Sports

I discovered Aesop Rock late last year. I pretty much own his whole discography now. I’m not sure what it is about this guy. Part of it is I like the poetry in his lyrics, part of it is the beats, and yet another part of it is his story.

If you liked this, check out “Big Bang”, “Coffee”, “Skip Town” (my current person favorite), and “Battery”.

No Comments » Posted by Jack Ascii / Music

Here is a great live performance of “The Regulator” by Neil Fallon of Clutch. 

If you haven’t ever heard of Clutch, do yourself a favor and check them out. If you liked this one, fire off a search for “Basket of Eggs”, “Drink to the Dead”, or “Electric Worry” on the ole YouTube. My personal favorites are “A Shogun Named Marcus”, “I Have Discovered the Body of John Wilkes Booth”, “Yeti”, and “The House that Peterbuilt”.

No Comments » Posted by Jack Ascii / Music

If you haven’t heard of Aesop Rock, me and you had something in common up until November last year. I’m a fan of Hip Hop (but don’t label me as just a Hip Hop fan, as I like it all sans country). I pretty much own every Public Enemy and Beastie Boys album out there, but you can also catch me listening to anything from Kanye, to the Pharcyde, to Del the Funky Homosapien. Anyway, in November I finally came across this fella called Aesop Rock. My first listen was his “Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives (2005)” album which I picked up off of iTunes. I was blown away. For about three straight weeks this album was just about the only thing getting airtime on my iPod. Since November, I have picked up the Daylight EP, Labor Days, None Shall Pass, Bazooka Tooth, and the Nike Original Run remix albums.

Why I dig Aesop Rock: Beats are fantastic, but this guy really shines from a lyrical standpoint. Here are just a couple of samples:”

But man those wings will never leave the ground, without a feather and a lottery ticket, now settle down… (DayLight from Labor Days and the Daylight EP)“

“My name is something hands can’t hold but hearts part ocean scapes just to watch the starlet unfold (Battery from Labor Days)“

Songs to check out on iTunes (my personal fav’s from each album):

Bazooka Tooth - The Greatest Pac-Man Victory in History, LimeLighters

 DayLight EP - Maintenance, DayLight 

Labor Days - Daylight, Battery, Boombox  

Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives - Fast Cars, Number Nine

 None Shall Pass - None Shall Pass, The Harbor is Yours, Coffee, Pigs

Nike + Original Run - There’s only one song on this album. I’d hold off on this one till you check out the others.

 I’ll leave you with some lyrical creativity from the hidden track at the end of the DayLight EP album. This track (1 of 4 - Thank You) starts of with this intro, all delivered by way of one of those text to speech programs (a computer voice):

“My name is Ian Mathias Bavitz, I was born in 1976 at Biosfet hospital located in Long Island, New York, I am  foot four, I weigh 200 pounds, I have brown hair and green eyes, I enjoy writing songs, painting, movies and diner food, I have two brothers, Chris and Graham, and two parents, Paul and Jameija, In August of 2001 I went crazy..“ Then Aesop starts in…

For more information, check out Aesop’s Myspace page. I refuse to link to it cause I think myspace sucks. However, its the first page that comes up when you google ‘Aesop Rock’.  

No Comments » Posted by Jack Ascii / Mass Media Update and Music