The Bishop's Charities Blog

Day five: XXXI

2011-02-02T18:05:00.004-06:00

Not only did no one in the bar besides me and T-Bone come to the defense of 66, who was being thrown out of the dump, no one inside or out on Bourbon Street even recognized him.

I like to think that baby Jesus or Santa's elves or somebody with some clout saw what we did with Ray that night and that it had an impact on the game itself.

Any current or former Packers expecting to be in need of a helping hand on Saturday night, please call my cell.

Day five: XXXII

2011-02-02T17:59:00.007-06:00

Another trip back to the sunny skies and baggy jeans of Super Bowl XXXII at Qualcomm. This was our gametime spot in the parking lot. Dave fucking Rouse showed up with some boytoy and expected us to share our beer with the both of them. Note the Packer RV of NFL Films fame in the background. That cat needed to make it back to work -- in Green Bay -- on Monday night after the game.

Through some good old-fashioned journalist work, I was able to uncover this Super Bowl scoop: I got grifted on my Super Bowl ticket deal! To say my situation is bummin' would be a grievous understatement. I'm leaning heavily towards bailing on the travel altogether unless I get a Deadhead-sized miracle in the next 36 hours. I'm working on convincing myself that the Super Bowl event itself is Babylon anyway (it's in Dallas for crissakes). And I'm trying wholeheartedly not to wallow in my own trip and focus on what's not only everything but the ONLY thing -- the fucking PACK are going to the Super Bowl, and what's more, our D is going to corner Rapistberger in a filthy public bathroom and fuck him for a lot longer than 30 seconds, I tell you what (doesn't your mind totally picture the can at the Wildcat when thinking about Big Ben's sexy den?)!

Also, if this Lil' Wayne Packer classic somehow escaped your clutches, don't miss it: Download: "Green and Yellow" Just simply send me $2114 via Western Union in the next six hours.

Day four: XXXII

2011-02-02T17:56:00.004-06:00

Our room on Coronado. We got this room at the eleventh hour courtesy the late great Uncle Rathert, who later accused me of stiffing him for the bill.

Check out this true academic - it's Super Bowl Sunday and the cat's got his nose buried in some study materials.

Day three: XXXI

2011-02-02T06:42:00.004-06:00

The victory celebration spills into Bourbon Street (and the Thai bathhouses of Canal Street).

We kind of look like Muppet Babies in this snap.

Day two: XXXII

2011-02-01T06:11:00.002-06:00

There's Paris in the springtime, and then there's the parking lot at Qualcomm.

If this snap doesn't make you want to attend the Super Bowl this year, nothing will.

Day one: XXXI

2011-01-30T20:16:00.005-06:00

It's like this: a Super Bowl XXXI or XXXII picture per day until I leave for Dallas, which is Saturday morning.

Feel free to distribute, ridicule, enjoy, hang your head in shame, and so forth.

Newcastle Brown Can Really Smack You Down

2007-09-14T08:07:00.000-05:00

I've finally come up with an exit strategy for George W. Bush and his criminal pals. Spend a couple weeks slowly adopting a Johnny Paycheckian persona, comparing your own struggles with the Congress, the media, and, well, pretty much the rest of the fucking world to the bullshit Joe Six Pack has to put up with from his know-it-all boss. Then the whole administration resigns, using "Take This Job And Shove It!" as a catchphrase. Think about it - my plan isn't any stupider than the lies that got them in this pickle to begin with.

Andy Reid surely needed a taste of his sons' stash after watching his team absolutely gift-wrap Sunday's game for the Pack. Fuck it, though - I'll take it. Better to steal a win like that than to pull your hair out looking up at the playoffs thinking, man, if we only hadn't pissed that game away against the Eagles (see also Saints, Bills (2006)).

The D was outstanding throughout. Most any other NFL starting QB would have been sacked six times or more last Sunday. The difference between Donovan McNabb and 4 at this stage in their careers was remarkable. 4 was awful, and was the victim of poor line play on top of that. McNabb missed a few of his own but moves so much more efficiently in the pocket and made plays when things broke down, situations in which 4's more likely result would have been a mistake.

We ended up getting good and creamy down at Crank's Saturday night to the tune of some band whose name I didn't catch. The bartender gave me a stern warning about the local brown ale (whose name I also didn't catch) and damn if that Packerland Cassandra wasn't right. We were well into our cups when who should absolutely stagger through the barroom doors but an ex of mine I haven't seen in at least 15 years and really had never given any thought to seeing ever again. She was practically carried to a stool close to us by an older, completely put together woman later revealed to be her sister.

The ex in question was fine in her day - she had a body like a magician's assistant and a nephew who was older than her. We went a few dates that were rather, um, one-sided. Once she told me to kiss her where it stinks, so I took her to Kaukauna. After I moved on down the line, she supposedly got around more than Todd Zeile, which I've always felt some measure of responsibility for; I can't quite decide if feeling that way is sexist or feminist. Hey, give me a break - I'm a Catholic.

There was a pharmaceutical fog haloing her that got me the closest I've ever come to a pill contact high. She was fucked up beyond description, but the way she was talking made it clear it wasn't Boone's Farm at the helm. I'd say we've all been there, but, truly, not that far.

She recognized us quickly enough, and with nowhere to hide, we made small talk. Her fuckedup-edness made it easy to steer the converstation away from anything meaningful. She shared a quick personal update with me - turns out she lives in my town. It would have been easy enough to slip into the Bukowski story laying open like a rose in front of me but I wisely resisted. It was nearly gameday. Adulthood gets me out of so many jams like that - I love it.

I can tell I'm getting old because I 'get' Linda Ronstadt now. Part of what makes Linda great for me is that she hung up her rock & roll shoes for good at exactly the right time in her career, never to lace them up again. Artistically, a genius move from Linda - please, Linda, don't try to rock ever again.

Linda Ronstadt - Living In The U.S.A.

All I want to know is, did the cop at the center of the Larry Craig story at least have the decency to give the Senator a happy ending?

After patiently waiting for my gracious host to finish puking up his unfortunate choice of bartime Cocoa Pebbles, we got to Kroll's only a cunt hair or so late. I drank Summit Scandia, Point Oktoberfest, Schell's Zommerfest, and, good ol' Premo at the tailgate on Sunday, with the Preemies garning the most attention from the assembled crowd. We also partied with the granddaughter of Fred "Fuzzy" Thurston on gameday morning, whose charm and beauty pulled all of our guards. The tune that I remember most during the tailgate was !!!'s classic "Me And Giuliani Down By The Schoolyard", which meets several vital gameday criteria - loud, rockin', lengthy. And hey, I'm a sucker for tunes about mayors.

!!! - Me And Giuliani Down By The Schoolyard

Through the majik of Directv and Tivo, I'll be watching each game of every NFC North team via the indispensible NFL Short Cuts. The Vikings looked good on D but Tarvaris was still all over the place, plus they were playing the Falcons. Adrian Peterson runs way too upright - I thought he was supposed to be a can't-miss guy? The Lions were lucky to beat the Raiders. Seabass missed two FGs and had another blocked. The Raiders bounced back by turning the ball over twice, both leading to Lions TDs, inside of four minutes down only 5. The Lions run the ball about as well as we do. The Bears looked worst of all. Everything bad in the Rex Grossman scouting report was manifest against the Chargers. Their offensive line looked so 20th century and slow. The Chargers had a FG blocked, got jobbed by the zebras on a fumble at the Bears' 1 yard line and then took a knee deep in Bear territory after a killer drive to salt away the victory. The final score gave no indication of the beating the Bears took.

Nobody in the division had a game nearly as good as Nick Barnett, Johnny Jolly, or Cullen Jenkins last week. Probably the only other guy in their class in the North last week was Mike Brown, so that's a positive too. I'm pinning it all on Morency, who looked great at times last year. His tenuous status this week is a real blow. While I think our D is going to blow a game or two at some point this year, I think they have the look of something truly special and have done so all offseason. While I'm usually firmly against this kind of thing, I may advocate doing something rash if we can't start scoring some points.

Watching the tape a couple times, Brandon Jackson looked better than I had remembered him in person, particularly late. Skip and I were screaming to keep running the ball with 40 seconds and three timeouts left at the end of the game because it finally seemed like Brandon was clicking, though the Eagles' look surely contributed to that. But we won't win four games this year if we can't do any better than that on offense. A.J. Hawk needs to step up his game as well. That missed tackle on Westbrook in the first quarter did limited damage but was unacceptable. I'm starting to question his football intelligence as well after watching him get sucked in on play action time and again.

Prince's vocal is present but buried in the mix on many of his ghost-written eighties hits, most of which are fantastic like this Sheila E. number that I remember was huge on opening day 1984. A killer vault release for the funky purple midget would be a compilation of them with Prince's vocal mixed as the lead.

Sheila E. - The Glamorous Life

I listened to the Giants-Cowboys game on the way home from Lambeau but shit if I've ever learned anything about a football team by listening to them play on the radio. But I'm drooling at the chance to take advantage of a chance to get the Giants in the state they're likely to be in on Sunday. I don't think they're any good to begin with but I wouldn't expect us to beat them in the swampland if they were at full power. We're going to fucking torch Mathias Kiwanuka. Hard to believe that fucking clown R.W. McQuarters is still in the league - the Bears cut him loose three years ago and their defense immediately improved. Plus their kicking game - weren't the Giants one of the teams whose preseason kicking situation was bleak enough to cause us to hope to steal a pick from them for Dave Rayner? And I think the Packer organization has the moral responsibility to rub some shit in ex-Forrest Gregg assistant Tom Coughlin's face for making Tim Lewis take the fall for the mess Coughlin created with the Giants last year.

Plus the opportunity to face a backup QB! Jared Lorenzen is almost fat enough to pass as a Packer fan. Of course, that always leads to the possibility of The Rock dusting off the Brad Hoover Award. But just for non-Packer reasons I'd love to see Manning sit and Lorenzen start. I've never seen a QB that looked even a little like him ever start an NFL game, so his start might be some kind of freak show. And this may be the Wisconsin blood talking, but the collision of a Packer game and a freak show sounds like just the kind of spectacle I'd like to see.

Urinals - Black Hole

Jerry Jeff Walker - Gettin' By

Erase Errata - French Canadia

King Uszniewicz & the Uszniewicztones - Yukkum Yukkum

Let Us Proclaim The Mystery Of Faith

2007-08-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

A hippie walked past my house the other day carrying a tie-dyed futon mattress, inspiring me to chronicle this, perhaps the final chapter in the career of the greatest human being that ever lived, Brett Favre. In fact, as strict Packer moralist when dealing with issues related to this individual, I shall not again call him by his earthly name, much as some followers of Islam forbid the visual depiction of their Prophet, but shall instead refer to him as 4.

I bumped into an old friend of mine, former Bush administration Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, in the lavatory at the airport in Minneapolis flying home from Game 1 of the Northwoods League finals and bounced my blog idea off him over a couple Manhattans. He flipped, promising to give me some ink in the memoirs he's currently writing. Karl's a great guy and a huge football fan; he's always reminded me of LBJ's old chief of staff, Walter Jenkins. And anyway, he owes me for picking up all those flyers about McCain during my fucking vacation in Hilton Head during the 2000 campaign. So, hey, with that kind of unbeschränkte Gewalt on my side, who am I to question the will of God?

My only credentials are that I'm a fan and have managed to set up a blog. Plus I watch a lot of film and go to all the games, I suppose. I shall deliver no news, but rather will report on the season as I experience it - the games, the tailgates, the team, the rock & roll that serves at its soundtrack. I've lined up a host of contributors who promise to chime in with a column or two over the course of the season.

My opinion about the team is that we could be seriously going places this year. We're young and talented and have shown real hunger on D throughout the preseason. I'm completely worried about the offense. I love Kool Aid Man (James Jones) but I've seen WRs flash in the preseason before and not be worth a warm twelver of Hamm's once they started keeping score (see also: The Bill Schroeder Award). I can certainly see what they like about Brandon Jackson but he seems fathoms away from being able to handle the tasks assigned to an NFL starting back at this point.

This also is starting to seem like the year, even more so than 1994, that one could credibly imagine 4 being replaced as a starter at some point if things aren't going well offensively. I'm currently rewatching all of the 2006 season and one thing that really sticks out on offense is how many balls 4 flat out missed last year. I've been extremely down on Aaron Rodgers in the past but he has scored many brownie points with me this preseason, a significant bonus to which was awarded for his sensational Fu Manchu. My unwavering faith remains with 4, though, don't worry - I'm still the same guy that named his four daughters Brittany, Breleigh, Favre, and Kiln (who reports her first week of kindergarten's been a little bumpy since'n she's had to explain a zillion times why her name's pronounced 'The Kill').

Next to the uncertainty on offense, one of my bigger concerns about the state of the Pack is the creeping belligerent ignorance of its fanbase. I've always felt Packer fans' football intelligence was grossly exaggerated (anybody who has ever been to a game and seen the Lambeau crowd start the wave while the Pack were on offense can attest to that), but the disgraceful draft day behavior of Packer fans as the Justin Harrell pick was announced at the Atrium, the inexplicable booing of Kurt Schottenheimer at this year's scrimmage (I'm still not sure what they were so frustrated about - was it that Charles Woodson merely had eight picks?), and the overall criticism of Ted Thompson's rebuilding strategy have brought real shame to the Packer family. Is that a consequence of Mike Sherman's calamitous stewardship, or a symptom of the greater ESPN-ization of sports fandom? We'll discuss as the season progresses.

One thing I do know for sure is that God will make certain the Packers are well taken care of since He loves the Packers the best. America too, for that matter, and the Pack are America's Team and all that. So whether it be giving Nathan Poole his career highlight to clinch a meaningless win in the desert or flattening an apartment building full of children in Qana, the Lawd sure takes care of His own and I expect nothing less this season.

On gamedays, we party up over at Kroll's on the west side of the stadium, and I take my place in the stands under Paul Hornung's name. Used to be Jimmy Taylor's, a change I was bummed about at first but grew to realize was more appropriate for us anyway, which will soon become plain to you after you hear our tailgating tales.

I gots to run because the Percocets are starting to kick and I've got to work on the words I'll be saying at Hilly Kristal's funeral, but I promise that as long as they keep brewing Point Beer I'll file a weekly report during the season.

mp3: Rolling Stones - Criss Cross Man

mp3: Scout Niblett - Dinosaur Egg

mp3: The Last Poets - Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution

mp3: Eddie Rabbitt - Drivin' My Life Away

mp3: Don Majkowski - Every Rose Has Its Thorn