Monday monday

I know I don't update this very much. Not nearly as much as my Livejournal days. I either have nothing to say, or simply can't talk about certain things on a public forum like this. So enjoy this superficial update of my recent shenanigans for all 2 of you that read this nonsense. My apologies, I'll try to write more and open up some more in the near future.

Went to see Suicidal Tendencies last night at Terminal 5. Never been there before. Nice place. Would go again. Didn’t enjoy ST nearly as much as I did a couple of years ago at Starland Ballroom. Underdog was first. I never gave a shit about them. They were decent, I guess. I know (and enjoy) one song of theirs, and only because it was on the GTA 4 soundtrack. Cro Mags were up next. They absolutely killed it. Still doing the typical Bloodclot-Mags set of mostly Age Of Quarrel, Crush the Demoniac from Best Wishes and a couple of Bad Brains covers. Supposedly they’re actually gonna do a new record next year! It’s about god damn time. The nuthuggers can say what they will about Paris & Harley, at least they tried putting out a new record (Revenge), and it was a good god damn record! Let’s see if Bloodclot and his band of all stars can one up Harley & Paris by putting out a better record. Suicidal Tendencies took almost an hour getting on stage. I doubt they were pulling a Guns n Roses, I’m putting the blame on production. Cro Mags got offstage at 940, ST didn’t go on til 1030. I don’t know if promoters/production thought CM had a 60 minute set or what, but it was really annoying waiting that long. Hell, going to mostly smaller scale shows these days, the half hour wait between bands was annoying. Mike Muir talks WAY too much. I know his odd brand of rambling is part of his shtick, but that shit got real old, real quick, especially when he’s going on for damn near 10 minutes before there was any hint of a song being played. They kept throwing pseudo-funk interludes into the middle of classic songs, which drove me nuts. If I wanted to hear that shit, I’d listen to Infectious Grooves. Since I don’t own any IG records…yeah. Lead guitarist Dean Pleasants looks like Carlton Banks. Drummer Eric Moore looks like Weezie from Old School. Bassist Steve Brunner was wearing a tail…? I didn’t even watch their entire set, I split around 1130, I reckon they wrapped up at midnight.

Friday night went to a show at FLC for the first time in a very long time. It was weird being there, especially since they no longer book “heavy” bands and I really don’t care about most of the pop punk/emo/whatever stuff they’ve been booking lately. Also weird being there while surrounded by little kids. I think the only people that were older than 17 were myself and the staff. Too bad they don’t book heavy shows anymore, Everything’s Ruined always had great shows there. We’re no longer welcome in our homebase. Life goes on. Afterwards, went to Jimmy Ryans and had a few drinks. When I got there, a friend of mine was talking to some weird dude. I say hi to my friend and greet this stranger. I immediately regretted that, since it was pretty obvious that this dude has intimate relations with a glass pipe. A little while later, I’m in the bathroom, in the stall. I hear the door open and thought to myself “my luck, it’s that dude.” Sure enough, it’s that dude. After brief small talk, he asks if I could buy him a drink. Nah bee! Then he starts going on about how he’s going to buy the bar and give all his friends a round of drinks on the house when he becomes owner. Year, good luck with that, guy. Avoided that dude like the plague for the remainder of the evening. Later on, I was having a smoke out front when I see him walking out with some fat chick and get into her car. WOW! Talk about rock bottom: going home with a crackhead. I don’t know if she already knew him and was giving him a ride to where ever, but I like the more amusing scenario I had playing out in my head.

Went to the Halloween parade this year. First time I’d ever been. Went with my lil buddy my latest and greatest BFF Amy, we were dressed as The Dude & Walter from The Big Lebowski. Her facial scruff as the dude was amazing and I kept laughing every time I looked over at her. The parade itself was an absolute zoo. It took us about 15 minutes just to get out of the train station, since there was so many people going as well. We managed a halfway decent spot to watch the parade up against a bank handicap ramp. After a little while we tried to move along the parade route, but simply couldn’t move. We went back in the other direction and managed to escape down Bleeker towards 7th Avenue and simply walked/people watched our way up 7th towards 23rd street. We saw at least 3 Gumbies, a very impressive Boba Fett and a couple of other random/amusing costumes. Then we hopped on the N train towards Astoria (where we parked) and went home. Good time, but not sure if I’ll go again.

Now for MMA talk, the exit point for those of you that don’t care about that…

World Extreme Cagefighting, UFC’s sister promotion (both owned by Zuffa) has finally been absorbed into the UFC. There will be one more WEC event in December. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this. WEC focuses on lighter-weight fighters: Bantamweight (135lb), Featherweight (145lb) and Lightweight (155lb). The Bantamweight & Featherweight Champions are now the first UFC BW & FW champions. FW Champ Jose Aldo will defend his UFC Featherweight title against Josh Grispi in January. Dominick Cruz defends the BW title for the final time as WEC champion at the swansong December show against Scott Jorgensen, the winner shall be the first UFC Bantamweight champion. The only overlapping division is the Lightweight championship. It shall play out thusly: Also on the December show, WEC LW champ Ben Henderson defends against Anthony Pettis. At the UFC show in January, UFC LW champ Frankie Edgar (Jersey represent!) defends against the most boring fighter alive, Gray Maynard. The winner of Henderson/Pettis takes on the winner of Edgar/Maynard in a title unification match. I hope Ben Henderson takes the whole thing, and he’s got the skills to do so. However, I’m hoping that Anthony Pettis pulls off the ultimate underdog come from behind impossible and takes the whole thing. He was featured recently on an episode of The World Of Jenks. It was a really touching look at his upbringing and his family and what he’s had to face in life. I think it would be a total Rocky story if he somehow managed to be the dark horse in this 4-way dance and ends up UFC Lightweight Champion. Coming from nothing and reaching the top of the mountain. Would make for one hell of a follow-up episode of Jenks, too.

This WEC/UFC needed to happen. When Zuffa purchased WEC several years ago, they kept it active as a separate promotion, focusing on the lighter weight fighters. However, they didn’t have the name recognition or TV presence that UFC has. (how many of you have even heard of Versus, the network WEC is on?) More often than not, WEC’s fights outperforms those on UFC ppvs, in terms of excitement, action and pace. Last week’s WEC 52 was no exception, featuring the debut of former WEC Featherweight champ Urijah Faber at Bantamweight, taking on Takea Mizugaki. Faber is one of the most exciting fighters to come out of the WEC and will finally get the exposure he deserves with the UFC-brand push behind him. Faber won via rear naked choke at 4:50 of round 1. That was the only fight I had a chance to watch so far, since I had rehearsal and got home in time to catch that fight. Will need to watch the rest that I had DVRd.

UFC 122 was on Spike TV Saturday night, and what a hunk of shit that was. Lately, UFC ppvs have been quite boring, with fighters more concerned with point-fighting and grinding out a decision, than actually throwing down. It’s smart, but not exciting. The main event was Yushin Okami vs Nate Marquardt, winner gets a shot at the UFC Middleweight title (after champion Anderson Silva defends against Vitor Belfort at UFC 126 in February.) I’m a big fan of Nate Marquardt, but as is the case with Greg Jackson’s fighters, he was playing it a little too safe and eventually lost the decision. Cagepotato said it best (and bold by me for emphasis:

After effectively nullifying each other through the first 10 minutes, Yushin Okami and Nate Marquardt absolutely sleepwalked through the final round of a fight where a shot at the middleweight title was on the line. Okami won (I guess) because he pushed forward and threw some grazing jabs and because Marquardt couldn’t do one damn thing with his takedowns. In a word: Pathetic. Seriously, just have the winner of Anderson Silva-Vitor Belfort cool his heels until Chael Sonnen gets back, because I’d way rather see that juicehead Republican pathological liar get the next shot at the UFC gold than either of these two.

Chael Sonnen is the only person to actually take a fight to Champion Anderson Silva as no one had done before. At UFC 117, he actually dominated the previously-thought-to-be-untouchable Silva for four rounds before finally getting caught in a triangle choke at 3:10 of round 5. To think, he was 110 seconds away from becoming the Middleweight champion. People were itching for a rematch, however Sonnen was cited during the post-fight drug screen for “elevated levels of testosterone”. Basically, he pissed hot and is under suspension for a year (from the date of the fight, Aug 7, 2010), pending the outcome of an appellate hearing in December, at which point his suspension may be reduced or upheld.

Since UFC events have been great big hunks of shit lately, the entire MMA community is excited for the addition of the WEC roster, a bunch of supercharged midgets that actually fight with a sense of urgency and fight to finish instead of snoozing along on points.