Fantasy Isthmus

Hey there 'Redheads... I'm still coming down from the high of the first weekend of NFL football. By the time I fully recover, it'll be time for kickoff again. This is the most wonderful sports time of the year. The first full slate of Sunday games nudged the status quo a little bit. The big shocker of the weekend was the upstart Texans beating the Colts while riding on the back of Arian Foster and his 231 yard/3 TD performance. I do feel bad for Arian Foster. He's the newly minted star of the NFL season and he's going to have a devil of a time finding a name for his fan club. "Arian Nation" is probably a bad idea, is all I'm sayin'... It was also nice to see the Redskins put on their yellow big boy pants and win a game. Or should I say, "not lose"... The only reason why the DC media jackals aren't tearing them completely to shreds is because of that glaring holding call on Cowboy Alex Barron...I've taken a good look at the play from various angles and I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't holding. It was a Cobra Clutch. He didn't have much of a choice. It was either put Orakpo in the Million Dollar Dream or let him break Tony Romo into bite-size pieces. Kinda like what Ray Lewis did to the tight end from the Jets...

I'll resist the urge to make an Old Spice body wash commercial reference. Instead, I'll just say that Ray Lewis hit him so hard, it tore Kris Jenkins' ACL. A lot of injuries in the first week. Packers RB, Ryan Grant is gone for the season, Eagles QB, Kevin Kolb got his brain meat tenderized, and Colts S, Bob Sanders got his annual catastrophic injury. It's probably wrong, but most of football watching America doesn't much care except for how their fantasy teams will be impacted. Screw these guys' careers, I might lose $25. Speaking of which, I did ok in the first week of tripping the football fantastic. In one league, I scored the most points, and in another league, I ate a double-decker turd burger and scored the fewest. I went 2-2, the two wins coming in my money league and my keeper league, so I'll take a slight setback in the other two.

But enough of that. I did manage to shower and extricate myself from the ass groove in my couch to take in some fine cinema at the local multiplex. I checked out the bloody burrito, Machete. It was everything it needed to be for my taste. A tortilla thin plot, bad guys getting their brains splattered like chunky salsa, and some tasteful nudity. I had my disbelief precariously dangling overhead, waiting for Robert Rodriguez to pummel it with his pulpy revenge fantasy until ludicrous candy spilled out. Steven Segal as a Mexican drug lord? Sure. Rappelling down the side of a building on a guy's disemboweled intestines? Great. Jessica Alba falling for Danny Trejo, who makes Edward James Olmos look like Zac Efron? Sign me up. It was also nice to see Don Johnson found work. By the way, when you go see Machete, keep in mind that Danny Trejo is 66. That completely blew what was left of my mind. I'm steps away from 35 and I have about as much chance of being an action hero as BP does of getting a float in the Mardi Gras parade.

For those of you in various parts of Virginia, I'll be in your neck of the woods this weekend. On Friday, I'm featuring at the Lynchburg Comedy Zone and on Saturday, I'll be in Colonial Beach at The Riverboat with comedy compadres, Tommy Sinbazo and EJ Edmonds. Laugh at me, won't you?

To be continued...

Touching Down

Hey there 'Redheads... Happy Jew Year! Wow, it's 5771 and shit is crazy... Seriously, where did the time go? Yes, last night the matzoh ball dropped and it's Rosh Hashanah. A happy and sweet new year to one and all. One of my Jew Year's resolutions is to check my lunch meat. Yesterday, I was halfway through a sandwich before I realized that beneath the bread and mustard on my hid the reptilian metallic sheen of bad corned beef. But there's another high holiday to observe today. NFL Kickoff. I've got the preseason ass groove in my couch ready for some football. To celebrate, let's take a ride on the blog flume...

Before I get to the promised breakdown of my fantasy football teams that I know you've all been waiting for, I want to take a quick second to thank my buddy T. Brad Hudson for including me in his Charm City cavalcade of comedy, Laffapalooza, last weekend. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with some of Baltimore's finest: Mike Storck, Sonny Fuller, Tommy Sinbazo, Mike Shader, Matt Baetz, and Dorian Gray. The venue we were in was right next door to the Maryland State Fairgrounds, where Justin Bieber was scheduled to perform that night. Thousands of people were crammed into the surrounding area. Parking was tighter than one of Bieber's groupies. I'll go ahead and admit, the bulk of this paragraph was just so I could type that last line. Anyway, it was a great show and I was flattered to be included.

Now, as I mentioned in the last installment, I'm an obsessive degenerate who is inexorably drawn to the statistical lap dance of fantasy football. I drafted four teams last week, one of which will hopefully rise above mediocrity and bring me virtual victory. My four teams are: The Minnesota Vicarious, The Wiseacres All-Pros, The Pandora Blueskins, and Viva El Comix Cafe. The last team is in a keeper league that I was invited to through a guy who saw my show at the Comix Cafe in Buffalo. The club has since shuttered, so I'm using the team to keep the memory of great laughs and greater buffalo wings alive. By the way, I realize that alot of you have tuned out at this point because you could not possibly care less about such things. While I'm hurt, I do understand. My blog. Deal with it. Aside from the keeper league, where my draft position was determined by last season's middle-of-the-road performance, I got shafted in my random draft placement. I picked 12th of 12, 10th of 12, and 9th of 10. My other three teams are pretty similar because I had to use the same bottom-of-the-order draft strategy. So, let's focus on Viva El Comix Cafe... My three kept players from last year's team were Maurice Jones-Drew (JAX RB), DeSean Jackson (PHI WR), and Antonio Gates (SD TE). Keeping in mind that most of the other elite players in the league were kept by the other 11 teams in the league, here's my roster:

QB: Sam Bradford (STL)
RB: Maurice Jones-Drew (JAX)
RB: Arian Foster (HOU)
WR: DeSean Jackson (PHI)
WR: Wes Welker (NE)
WR: Dez Bryant (DAL)
TE: Antonio Gates (SD)
OP: Ahmad Bradsahaw (RB-NYG)
K: Bill Cundiff (BAL)
D/ST: Green Bay

I realize I'm a little thin at QB, but I picked up the suspended Ben Roethlisberger to pick up the slack later in the season. I also think Bradford will have a better than average rookie season. I'm also banking on rookie Dez Bryant to come through. And hopefully Arian Foster lives up to the massive hype. By the way, OP stands for "Offensive Player" and can be filled by any offensive position, including another QB. There's a guy in the league who has Drew Brees and Phillip Rivers in the same starting line-up.

Ok, that's all I'll put you through for now. I just wanted to get it out there. Can't wait for the stats to start flying.

To be continued...