Beer and football V — week fifteen

The game: Dolphins at Patriots
The beer: Northampton Humbug Ale
The result: Win, 41–13; Natalie, 4–2–1
The commentary: Nine o'clock: I knew something was wrong when I queued up Patriots Game Day, which I only record for its three-minute segment with Mike Reiss. "OK, fast-forward through this Steve Burton crap. Fast-forward through Dan Roche's fantasy crap." Hey, why is the screen black? Why isn't the little progress tracker moving? Oh no. The game. The game! Black. None more black. This has happened in the past when shows mysteriously would seem to record—they would be listed right there alongside The Simpsons and six-month-old documentaries on Penn Station, they would take up space on the DVR drive, but "playing" them resulted in the void. "At least it wasn't the Pats game," I would tell a nonexistent Keith Morrison. "I can live without your carnage."

Not this time. All day we're running around, eating breakfast, shopping for Christmas (we're hosting for the first time ever), avoiding the news. (Yes, it's also a matter of time until my media blackouts are sabotaged during a self-imposed eight-hour game delay.) After trying to skip ahead, rewind, delete, restore, restart… the so-called recording was only watchable in some alternate reality. I deleted it for good, pouted for a few minutes, watched the rest of Friday's Patriots All Access (fast-forwarding through Scott Zolak and Christian Fauria's "Teaching U Repressed Homosexual Tension" crap) and resigned myself to the fact that I would not make it to Solution (x) without learning what happened. Out comes the phone and the score reveals itself, a twenty-eight point hat-and-T-shirt victory by the good guys. Great! Rats!

I then set about ways to watch the game and found that the best option—and the lone legal one—was to sign up for a free trial week of NFL Rewind on NFL.com. The rub was that no week fifteen games would be made available until the primetime game was over, which meant Patriots–Dolphins would be my own non-Saints, non-Bears Monday Night Football affair. I'll take it. Until then, I could boost my spirits with the knowledge that the Chiefs had won earlier, and I would have taken them had I not already won my knockout pool. It felt significant as I collected the lone deadbeat's forty-five units yesterday. Meanwhile, my "week sixteen pick" Eagles lost to the Redskins today. I am now properly motivated to win again next year.

Monday night—Monday Night—I navigated an unusually seizure-inducing NFL app interface on my dusty Xbox 360 (because it wasn't available to stream on our Roku) (because… why exactly?) and eventually figured out how to use the controller as a remote control. It was awkward all around but the quality was decent, and I could appreciate how beneficial the package would be to someone who wants to watch a bunch of out-of-market games each week. People without jobs. Just remind me to cancel by Sunday night.

I knew of the game's ups and downs from skimming Monday's headlines and understood the first half would be ugly. I'd already seen highlights of Collins's field goal block and Harmon's interception and was curious how I'd have felt were I watching live. Likely, outside of fifty–fifty hindsight, it would have been one of those where I'd felt comfortable up by a point at halftime after the way they were playing. I wouldn't have guessed they'd turn it around so thoroughly in the third quarter—I know nothing about football—but some improvement had to be expected. This felt like a playoff game, even if it was played against the opposite of a playoff contender. Can Brady play this way for two quarters against the Ravens or the Broncos and expect to win? I'm not sure. But I don't rule it out.

Survivor XXIX was a good season. Even Logan Ryan doesn't create as many opportunities for me to yell at the television as Survivor or Project Runway. (Also-Rans finale coming soon!) Oh, Natalie. I'm impressed by her win but she maybe (maybe not) made it harder than it needed to be. Two weeks ago when Jon won immunity, she decided against (and, onscreen, never considered) voting out Jaclyn in order to cripple him. Pardon me? She then excellently knocked him out the following week and was lucky to have the opportunity. Wednesday night, Keith wins immunity so she masterminds Missy's Baylor's exit, which is a brilliant strategic startling mindfuck maneuver. I'm not sure Baylor would have gotten a single vote in the end, even from her mom. After that—knowing Jaclyn really had no chance to win—she had to choose between Keith (who, it turns out, would have won had Natalie taken him) and Missy (who A. and I grossly overrated as someone people would vote for) instead of Keith and Baylor, which would have been a no-brainer. Oh well. She won and she deserved to, but probably could have used less antiperspirant if it were her, Jaclyn and Baylor in front of the audience. I know nothing about Nicaragua-based reality television competition. And Alec knows nothing about breathing through his nose.

On Saturday we drove to Northampton to get dinner at the Brewery, sell more CDs at Turn It Up and, apparently, buy a pink and purple stuffed kitten before heading to "Bright Nights at Forest Park" in Springfield, by some accounts the most depressed city in the country. I printed a coupon and everything. We hit traffic within a quarter mile of exiting 91 and, despite G's pure rage, turned around to go home, offering vague promises of returning by year end (probably the weekend after Christmas). On that note of disappointment, in between last week's company Christmas party at the InterContinental Vagina and next week's acronym subset one at a Mexican joint—and in honor of new family member "Spotty Kitty"—I present 2014's playlist to enjoy while trying to pry your wife and daughter out of Thorne's Marketplace. Set it to repeat for as long as necessary.

1. Lightnin' Hopkins – Santa
On my iPod I break Christmas songs into three playlists: "Christmas," appropriate for family events with Perry Como, Jimmy Smith and friends; "Xmas," introducing newer pop stuff like Belle & Sebastian and Yo La Tengo that A. and even G. would enjoy; and "Xmas Blues," of which around fifty percent is blues, twenty is soul/funk, fifteen is punk/metal, ten is rap and five is psychedelic (only because there isn't that much out there).

2. Kenny Burrell – The Little Drummer Boy
It was this or Beck's "The Little Drum Machine Boy," up there with "In a Cold-Ass Fashion" from the Jabberjaw series as one of his great unknown contributions to Western culture. Burrell's brass punctuations in the last forty seconds won over the Youth Percussion judging panel.

3. Bing Crosby – Looks Like a Cold, Cold Winter
I heard this in Crate & Barrel the other day while browsing the cutlery section. I am forty years old.

4. George Harrison – Skiing
Presented as "Ski-ing" on 1968's Wonderwall Music sleeve but that looks odd. Trust me, George, to understand that "the act of traveling over snow on skis as sport or recreation" is not pronounced skeeeng. Featuring a soon-to-be-irrelevant Eric Clapton.

5. Vashti Bunyan/Twice As Much – Coldest Night of the Year
Sound Opinions aired its annual Andy Cirzan holiday playlist last week a good fifteen days after I downloaded "Coldest Night of the Year" from the Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind compilation. I guess you don't have to dig through dusty Alabama record bins for everything.

Up next: Thee Geno Smith. Merry Christmas!

Beer and football V — weeks thirteen and fourteen

Week thirteen
The game: Patriots at Packers
The beer: Smuttynose S'muttonator Double Bock Lager
The result: Loss, 26–21; Colts win, 49–27
The commentary: Super Bowl preview? Perhaps. I'm curious how this game would have turned out on a neutral field, but the Packers played better than any Wisconsin advantage provided. I never understood the Aaron Rodgers mystique and, as an infrequent viewer, had a hard time believing he belonged on a tier with Brady and Manning (even though he was throwing sixty-yard touchdowns whenever I did tune in). I get it now. He's probably still a prick but watching him buy time, scramble and hit his receivers in the hands was something to watch… until reaching the red zone, that is. That's why I hope it really was a Glendale preview.

I thought I'd sewn it up with the Colts. I didn't know until afterward but Bruno went bold with the Rams over the Raiders in a game that might have meant something in 1983. I admire his strategy of saving stronger teams for when you really need them but does he realize there are only four weeks left in the regular season? Ask me next week.

I snagged the Smuttynose while shopping for clementines and gingerbread muffins to bring to G's preschool on Monday as part of my "parent of the day" duties. I really didn't know what to expect with the bock after a college run-in with a blue-bottled Samuel Adams Triple scarred my gag reflex (though their Chili Bock was a hit three seasons ago) but A. and I agree it was fantastic. Should this "Super Bowl preview" be realized I might heavy-handedly compare the S'muttonator to Brady, Gronkowski or Revis during the bye week à la 2011/2012. My reader (!) can hope.

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Week fourteen
The game: Patriots at Chargers
The beer: Victory Headwaters Pale Ale
The result: Win, 23–14; Lions/Jarrod win, 34–17
The commentary: "Lions for the win." So I stated in my email to the knockout pool… commissioner?… on Thursday, cautiously optimistic that I'd be the last man standing by Sunday evening. Never mind that I'd also emailed "Colts for the win" seething pure arrogance the Thursday before. Who cares, because this time I was right: after the Lions' performance against the Patriots two weeks ago scared me off of picking them against the Bears on Thanksgiving, that performance (and the overall ugliness of the Buccaneers since, oh, 2002) told me it was time.

And Bruno? And Bruno! Bruno, who never took the Patriots or the Ravens. (Or the Cowboys, whom I don't trust either.) Bruno, who didn't realize that the 49ers almost broke up my marriage two weeks ago, didn't sweat like I did while following their typographic progress on a five-inch screen. As much as I know I got away with something in choosing Ryan Fitzpatrick in week one (and as much as I would still take the Bengals over the Bears last season) I realize it will only lead you so far. After the Texans? Patriots, Saints, Chargers, Packers, etc. All teams that were expected to win handily, even the then-winless (and now hopeless) Saints, without crippling me as the season progressed. Bruno started off poorly with the Bucs losing at home to the Panthers, then bought back in for an opportunity to suss out the first of three total Redskin wins this season. OK. Since then he and I basically shuffled the same teams—even lining up in weeks four, five, nine, ten and eleven—and followed the same philosophy of playoff contenders against weak opponents (I went against the Redskins and the Vikings three times each) through November. So what happened?

As noted above, Bruno picked the Rams last week. I compare it to when the Pats are first and goal at the two after a big play and McDaniels outsmarts himself by hurrying Brady to the line before the defense is set so he can hand off to Shane Vereen for minus one yard. You got this far, why turn cute? Why not continue what's worked? It reeked of him saving his best options for a late-December showdown that, it turns out, is never to be. On to Sunday: the 49ers haven't scored more than seventeen points in a month and topped that (with twenty-four) once since mid-October. Not researching this trend two weeks ago was my fault and it almost cost me, but I was looking more at a terrible opponent (Redskins) flying across the country. If that game were available on Sunday, knowing what I knew the morning after I would have steered clear without temptation. Not Bruno. Not coming off a blowout, shutout win a week earlier by a sparky basement-dweller against… hey, it's the Raiders again! Niners all the way!

Who am I to criticize a man's methods when they line my undefeated wallet with hundreds of units? Especially after I learned he was also considering the (hopeless) Saints. It's like he grew bored of stress-free winning. See you next year, Bruno. See everyone next year, since the Bears—the Bears!—knocked out four of you idiots. (Sorry to break it to you, dude who lost with the Bears in week one and then bought back in to get knocked out by the Bucs in week two, but you suck at this. Maybe save your dough for pornography or something.) Incidentally, I was planning to take the Chiefs over the Raiders, the visiting Eagles over the Redskins and (probably) the Falcons over the Panthers to close out the season if necessary. It's not. You're goddamn right.

Up next: The Dolphins solidify their standing as a mediocre team by keeping things interesting in Foxborough long enough for writers to declare them a team to watch in the playoffs… until they get blown the fuck out at home against the Vikings next weekend. Cheers!

Beer and football V — week twelve

The game: Lions at Patriots
The beer: Lagunitas Imperial Red Ale
The result: Win, 34–9; 49ers win, 17–13
The commentary: The world will surely end if the 49ers and the Steelers meet in the Super Bowl. The last two weeks all I needed was for each of them to win a single game and, taking advantage of my being limited to "TheScore" app, I was pushed to levels of panic unrealized since that time I did a one-eighty on Storrow Drive during a snowstorm. On Sunday I felt like an addict trying to distract myself from what my body craved, and that was for the game to end. Just end! Win or lose, just end! I washed the dishes and didn't allow myself to check the fourth-quarter score until they were done. I prepped the chili ingredients for Monday's potluck and couldn't peek until everything was ready to go. Deep breaths as I measured out the ground cumin (greatest smell in the world). With six minutes remaining and the Redskins up by a field goal I went into my daughter's room for bedtime with the Redskins up by a field goal. I told A. "My team is close to losing" and she almost cried. In September I spent twenty bucks for what's turned into three months (so far) of a little extra NFL enjoyment—the substantial pot felt like it was slipping away but it wasn't our mortgage payment, G's savings. It wasn't even beer money. Is this what degenerate gamblers go through daily? How are these people still alive?

After my cue to exit—curse a man's milk-less body—I took my Steve mug of coffee into the living room to relax on the couch and refresh my phone once per minute. Once. By this time the Niners had scored and were up four points—of course they didn't make it easy and gave the Redskins two more chances in the remaining three minutes. I wasn't too worried with Griffin being forced to throw but still… Kaepernick and friends can't advance a single first down on that twenty-eight-second drive? Twenty-eight seconds! Had 'em all the way.

My workplace opponent, whom I'll call Bruno since this might go on awhile, had a much easier time of it as the Eagles soared (har! har!) past the very same Titans who pushed us (we've picked the same outcome five times out of twelve so far) to the limit nine days ago. Joke's on him though: I still have the Eagles and he still has the Niners. Despite the scare I'm leaning toward the Redskins losing again this weekend, this time in Indy to the Colts. If every stray dog's worst nightmare can get a quick lead I'll be all set. The Colts were an option against the Jaguars on Sunday—who isn't?—but I deliberately kept them in my pocket for the following week because Bruno wasted them in week three. (I had the now four-win Saints. Burn.) As I refer to my tidy spreadsheet I see he's in a bit of a tough spot: if I were in his shoes, with his options, the only team I'd be comfortable with is the somewhat shaky Ravens hosting the Chargers. Maybe the Chiefs hosting the Broncos? The Giants in Jacksonville? Yikes. This could be my week.

Until Sunday night (the Pats game was a primetime affair for me) I considered the Lions hosting the Bears on Thanksgiving. We'll be in Connecticut and the TV will be on—I insist—so why not make it interesting? Oh, the Lions are why not. Fuck Dominic Raiola. (The awkward conversation with my father-in-law about why I brought my own beer when he has skunky, year-old Sam Adams in the fridge will be interesting enough.) In lieu of sitting on a couch on a beautiful afternoon (welcome to New England) we found a lovely playground and adjoining field in Beverly where I broke out the easiest-to-fly kite ever invented. If there's a lick of wind you take one step and it's airborne—even a three-year-old can do it and then run around like a crazy person because she doesn't understand physics. "Honey, run that way! Don't run toward the kite. Or… yeah, you're OK." It was worth the eight bucks. I was surprised by how many fathers were also enjoying a Pats-less couple of hours, particularly the one wearing a mark-two number eight-four Deion Branch jersey. I'm surprised G. didn't fight him for it, as Branch was once her favorite player. I don't know who it is now. I'll have to ask.

After making chili and setting it to slow-cook for six hours I finally turned the game on around nine. Any minimal worry over a scrappy Lions team was quickly erased as the night wore on and the red ale transformed to yellow pee. I fell asleep in the middle of the fourth quarter, woke up in time for Blount's second touchdown (this benching might be the best thing that could have happened to Jonas Gray) and promptly fell asleep again. Finishing Monday night, I couldn't remember ever seeing a losing team kneel on the ball to end a game. That's what this season is becoming around here.

Up next: Yeah, some of you ever been up to Wisconsin, they got a lotta cheeeese. Happy Thanksgiving!

Beer and football V — week eleven

The game: Patriots at Colts
The beer: Evil Twin Ashtray Heart Smoked Imperial Stout
The result: Win, 42–20; Steelers win, 27–24
The commentary: "And then there were two." So it goes as two more knock themselves out, including the Denver Cheater, who "actually" picked Baltimore last week. Right. The other lone survivor (?) also gnawed at his fingernails over a nerve-racking Steelers win in Tennessee. We downgraded our cable package to save a few bucks and no longer have ESPN as a result (what the fuck am I going to do on draft night?) so I was following along on my phone's "TheScore" app. Why is it called "TheScore"? Don't they know it gets sorted under T instead of S in the app drawer? These are the problems Android developers create for themselves.

Vibrate! Vibrate! Vibrate! all in a row during the second and third quarters signaled field goal, touchdown, touchdown for the Titans. PFW was high on Zach Mettenberger going into this year's draft and I was afraid the game was validating them with each passing minute. Did I really make myself wait until Monday so I could put my faith in a serial rapist? After San Francisco and Kansas City, two teams I considered, had won the day before? (Buffalo, Cleveland and Washington—Buffalo, Cleveland and Washington—not so much.) I was resigned to losing. A. was pissed because I'd gone undefeated so far, whereas everyone else bought back in at least once. "It isn't fair!" Two more vibrations settled the mounting tension and I showed her the three-point differential: "Final score." I fear she has already spent the money.

It's good to see Sergio Brown hasn't changed from his time in New England. For two seasons I progressively referred to him as a disappointment who celebrated accidental success, made Patrick Chung look like a superstar and teamed up with Brandon Meriweather to form an ongoing nightmare. I'll take Gronk's fifteen yards all day. And oh yeah: Jonas Gray. Four touchdowns, two hundred yards, countless "Fifty Shades of Gray" headlines and the cover of Sports Illustrated. (Sports Illustrated is still around? I will forever treasure its 1990 caption of Steffi Graf "aiming her décolletage lensward." Lensward!) Nowhere to go but up for him, right? Belichick might want to keep LeGarrette Blount's number handy.

On Saturday evening we drove up to the Anchorage by the Sea in Ogunquit after buying a Groupon voucher… for the Anchorage Inn in York. Whoops. Luckily it wasn't Bar Harbor. We made the most of our eight-mile assumptive error (A. and I have stayed at Ogunquit's Anchorage a number of times—including one weekend a few years ago when G. was likely conceived (!)—and when we saw a deal for "the Anchorage" in "Maine" we never considered there might be another. Drag. After a demoralizing conversation with the front desk we decided to continue a little farther out of our way north toward Federal Jack's again for dinner while A. looked up nearby alternatives that might satisfy a cranky three-year-old. She hit on Féile Restaurant and Pub in Wells: good reviews, impressive beer selection and a decent children's menu? Six miles closer (so, twelve) to where we were actually staying? Let's try it. Oh good, G. soaked through her pull-up.

Once that was squared away we chose the happening pub space over the lifeless proper dining room and it was the right choice. For example, did you know that Féile is Irish for "country/western theme night"? We settled into a roomy booth next to a lovely older couple who heroically tolerated/encouraged G's post-nap craziness, A. ordered a glass of wine and I got the above-mentioned stout, which was delicious despite what I suspect was a dirty tap line. My fried haddock was alright once I got through all the fried—I had to wash it down with more beer, so I ordered a Green Flash Cedar Plank Pale Ale. Another triumph! I love a beer menu that lists a bunch of stuff I've never heard of and then groups Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, etc. under the heading "The Usual Suspects." Two dudes strolled in just before we left and weren't having it when the waitress suggested Harp, a lager I've always favored. "Bud Light bottle." "Me too." Is it Friday already?

Up next: The Lions pack themselves into a 98 Olds for a pre-holiday road trip to Foxborough. Please keep Ndamukong Suh away from Brady's and Gronkowski's knees. Cheers!

Beer and football V — week ten (bye)

The beer: Samuel Smith Organic Chocolate Stout
The result: Seahawks win, 38–17
The commentary: "What can happen?" So I asked as I considered the Samuel Smith on the shelf. The stout and a six-pack of Founders Porter accompanied me to the car when it hit me that Rob Gronkowski was on the professional athlete version of Spring break and, yes, anything could happen. Would the Samuel Smith Curse (broken—temporarily?—last September) cripple the midseason MVP? Later, when I cracked it open during the Seahawks–Giants game—my Seahawks–Giants game—I realized "Oh no."

The first half did nothing to ease my anxiety but that passed once Marshawn Lynch started pulverizing the Giants' spirit in the second. I don't think they can back into the playoffs, finally turn it on and give me sleepless nights wondering "What if…" again this February. There is hope.

Controversy! It looks like someone in my knockout pool chose Denver for a second time. No. Am I the only one who maintains a detailed spreadsheet to keep track of what I pick, what everyone picks, week after week? Attention to detail, folks: my greatest contribution to mankind. Excluding this cheater/dead head (whether on purpose or not, Denver is about the least likely team to scheme "No one will notice" or assume "Probably haven't picked them yet") there are three of us remaining. Not that I have great options this weekend: Buffalo or Miami? Ugh. Cleveland? Washington? Cleveland? Washington?? Not-Chicago? Pittsburgh after last week? "I'm scared to death to pick against the Jets until they win again." Maybe I do know something about football after all. Ask me Tuesday morning.

Up next: Shit, maybe I'll just pick the Pats again. Cheers!

Beer and football V — week nine

The game: Broncos at Patriots
The beer: Port Board Meeting Brown Ale
The result: Win, 43–21; Bengals win, 33–23
The commentary: In my inaugural beer-and-football diary I brought up Peyton Manning's penchant for not removing his helmet during post-loss handshakes. I have come to admire Manning over the years and I find this to be his one evident character flaw—as a fan of a team whose coach once ran off the field during the Super Bowl before time had expired I know what a sore loser looks like. Once again, there he is out in the middle of Gillette Stadium shaking hands with Malcolm Butler while doing his best sad-LaDainian-Tomlinson impression. Can one of his dozen handlers please point this out to him sometime?

Anyone who says he saw a twenty-two-point victory coming is lying—the Broncos were favored and they should have been, even in Foxborough. But those people calling PFW in Progress afterward saying "I knew it, I told you!" without explaining how or why (as my man Paul Perillo criticized) can eat a bowl of dick up. Back in 2001, while slumming in the college publishing world, I attended a sales meeting in San Francisco before the football season started. The Pats were coming off five wins the year before (ex-Browns coach Bill Belichick's first, after Pete Carroll wasted a talented core of Patriots for three years), Drew Bledsoe was slipping into iffy territory and the local media were apoplectic that Richard Seymour was the team's first-round pick. Fan morale was low, expectations were nil and Carl Everett was probably hogging all the headlines. I was chatting with a Massachusetts colleague one morning and, as every year, he proclaimed "You watch, the Pay-tree-itz are winning the Super Bowl." Sure, man. How? The question wasn't asked because the notion was ridiculous and I probably rolled my eyes, wondering if there was a toaster around.

Given the opportunity to respond? What might a keen, informed fan have answered? "Well, Drew Bledsoe threw fifty-eight interceptions over the last three years, and if he starts slowly then Tom Brady might take over in a matter of weeks. He's a better quarterback, on paper, for Charlie Weis's system anyway." To which I, and everyone around, would have said "Who the hell is Tom Brady?" No one—media, fans, blowhards—said "Bledsoe is the only thing keeping this team from winning it all." When he went down in week two, no one said "Now's the time!" No one predicted that Brady would do well "filling in" and then Bledsoe wouldn't regain his job. No one knew the Patriots would be champions. Just like no one knew the Broncos would get blown out Sunday night. (Until halftime, at least.) The ones pretending they did are either blind homers or cynical radio personalities setting up a gleeful postmortem should the team fail to win it all for the tenth straight season.

Another top beer, another knockout-pool victory. Survive and advance. You bet your ass I was afraid to pick the Bengals but almost everyone else (four of the remaining five) did too. Five days later they let Brian Hoyer and friends do the opposite of everything the Browns have accomplished since 2010. Thank god I can't touch this team anymore.

I don't feel great about my Seahawks pick tomorrow. Historically, the Giants are one of those teams (Dolphins, Steelers, Niners, et al) that looks like it could win anywhere between six and twelve games in a season. What pushed me over the edge—beside the fact that the Eagles (hosting the Panthers: I'm too impatient to wait until Monday) and the Steelers (in Jersey against the Jets: I'm scared to death to pick against the Jets until they win again) were my only other realistic options remaining—is that the Seahawks must feel the need to prove themselves after a disappointing first half of the season. Right? Brother Eli probably feels he has to prove something too and that means hucking the ball downfield every other down—against this secondary, in Seattle, I favor the home team. It's unfortunate that I know nothing about football.

Happy Halloween! Like nine out of ten girls her age, G. went as a princess this year.

Her scepter lights up whenever it's struck against a hard surface like the couch or my skull. We trick-or-treated for a good ninety minutes and that meant the five bags of candy A. bought in a moment of lunacy went undented. My waistline and complexion will make the ultimate sacrifice. G. is pretty psyched though, especially once you pile on the bounty she took home.

After watching a retarded (inferred) pedestrian wear all black, walk out in the middle of the road and get hit by a car moving ten miles per hour, we detoured into a charming, tucked-away little neighborhood. All the residents were sitting on their front porches, greeting kids with smiles and endearing questions (one older woman couldn't get over G's curls), beaming with pride over their themed holiday displays (pictured). Polar opposite of the darkened porch at our house. By the time we got back with a half hour of official Halloween remaining we received all of two children—five pieces each, and you know they'll be back next year. Bring your friends!

Lastly, here's our rainy-day princess frolicking around some furniture at the mall. A. and I were snapping pictures as she protested "Stop looking through my window!" This was during our wait for the family bathroom to become vacant so G. could use the potty. The lone middle-aged man who eventually showed himself (after several flushes) had dropped a giant, stinking shit bomb on the entire zip code. Happy Halloween, you monster you. Let's find another bathroom.

Up next: The bye weekend marks the end of my love affair with The Wire, six years late, as I watch the closing episodes of its fifth and final season. Shiiit. Cheers!

Beer and football V — weeks five, six, seven and eight

Week five
The game: Bengals at Patriots
The beer: Left Hand Oktoberfest Märzen Lager
The result: Win, 43–17; Packers win, 42–10
The commentary: Football season aligns a little too well with birthday season. The only defense is hoping a majority of preschooler parents are devoted fans. As in, I would never schedule a non-emergency event if it were opposite a Patriots game. Queue up "Cat's in the Cradle" if you'd like but there are so many hours in a week—thousands, if my math is right—that it's easy enough to avoid a single three-hour window. I'm not alone: two Sunday children's birthday parties so far, zero conflicts. September 29? Pats were on Monday Night Football. October 5? Sunday Night Football. It's important for a parent to maintain his identity. Hers too. Right.

Here we were, likely the last beautiful weekend day of the year, eating in a park and watching a bunch of three- and four-year-olds beat the shit out of a Spider-Man piñata. All except for my angel, who literally handed me the bat and gave Spidey a hug instead. She is beautiful. That night, the Cincinnati Bengals paid dearly for trying to ruin a Misfits concert last year. Plus that whole Bears thing. Following the unpleasantness in Kansas City it was good to have the 2007 Patriots back. We do not live in Jacksonville. We do not live in Oakland. Football is fun again. (For at least a week.)

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Week six
The game: Patriots at Bills
The beer: Pretty Things Meadowlark India Pale Ale
The result: Win, 37–22; Cardinals win, 30–20
The commentary: Over the weekend we visited a farm in Amesbury to buy cider doughnuts, find a pumpkin for the front porch and make a bee line to the exit with a screaming three-year-old in my arms. We accomplished one of these. In there somewhere, G. played on a pretty cool wooden train that A. eventually noticed had a giant rusty nail sticking out of it. Our exit was so sudden that we didn't have time to tell anyone about it, so A. called from the car. The proprietors, apparently, could not have been less interested. Score one for tetanus.

I'm all set with Pretty Things. Not the Biffy^®-winning band—"city liiife was too heh-vehhh"—but rather the local brewer. St. Botolph's Ale? Absolutely, and keep them coming. Hedgerow Bitter? If I want to mix it up. Jack d'Or Saison? Meadowlark IPA? Keep walking. The labels are beautiful, I'll give them that. Otherwise they're a little too precious for me, a little too Somerville-twenty-something. A good friend of mine is an acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Things so I'll leave it to him to recommend anything new going forward. For now I'll throw my support to Berkshire, Newburyport and Notch.

Down goes Mayo! Down goes Mayo! Oh hi, new Bills owner Terry Pegula. One of the cogs of our defense has twenty-five members of the team's medical staff standing around him looking sad but let's keep talking to Pegula about what an "exclusive privilege" it is to be rich enough to own a professional football team. I'm not as bothered as Chad Finn (literally the only Globe columnist worth reading, and occasionally at that) by Fox squeezing commercials in wherever they fit. It's the nature of the beast, and the alternative is to pay the NFL as games become "premium content." Like the Globe online! Just get yourself another beer, Chad. However, I'd like to know which one of the dozens of people behind the broadcast had the veto power to proclaim "No! Keep Terry in the booth! This is my ticket to the BBC." It was a perfect combination of strange, awkward and stultifying. Kudos to Chad for the personal attack of "wearing a No. 1 Bills jersey roughly 3½ sizes too large" as well. See you on the unemployment line, Chad, when the Globe goes under. Anachronism is not an exclusive privilege.

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Week seven
The game: Jets at Patriots
The beer: Stone Rick and Robbie's Spröcketbier Black Rye Kölsch-Style Ale
The result: Win, 27–25; Ravens win, 29–7
The commentary: I present the longest beer name of the season. I struggle with how to list the beers I drink, dropping "Brewery," "Brewing Company," etc. from the name, so "Berkshire Brewing Company Coffehouse Porter" becomes "Berkshire Coffehouse Porter." Clean, right? Tidy. I hope I'm not going too fast for you.

But what to do with the Stone Spotlight Series offering "Rick and Robbie's Spröcketbier Black Rye Kölsch-Style Ale"? Mouthful City! Should it instead read "Stone Spotlight Series: Rick and Robbie's Spröcketbier Black Rye Kölsch-Style Ale"? "Rick and Robbie's Spröcketbier Black Rye Kölsch-Style Ale (Stone Spotlight Series)"? Is there a series number to add? Is Stone distancing themselves from the product and should I remove their name altogether? Do "Rick and Robbie" make other beers, with or without Stone's branding? These are the problems I create for myself. After all this the beer was just OK. Drag.

Here are the results of Pats–Jets during Rex Ryan's tenure, which is sure to end before January even though he's a good (defensive) coach saddled with a horrible general manager: 9–16, 31–14, 14–28, 45–3, 21–28, 30–21, 37–16, 29–26, 49–19, 13–10, 27–30, 27–25. Eight wins for the good guys and four for the bad, with a season's first meeting leaning toward a nail-biter or a straight-up loss and the second toward a blowout win. This year the Jets are a one-win team and Geno Turnover is leading the offense while Tom Brady and the offense are finally showing signs of life. Put me down for a two-touchdown win that's not as close as it looks. But wait! It never, ever plays out the way it's supposed to against the fucking Jets. Look at those scores: plus seventeen, minus fourteen, plus forty-two, minus seven… through to plus two this week—see you a few days before Christmas for more furious madness. Holy shit.

We spent a lot of the day Saturday at the Rockport Harborfest eating hot dogs, climbing trees and getting Hello Kitty painted on our arms. The weather was iffy and a brief shower produced a double rainbow that stuck around for a half hour or so. T-Wharf featured a decent Beatles cover band and a delicious seafood chowder alongside food trucks and a booth serving Pretty Things beer. The offerings? Meadowlark and Jack d'Or, of course. What in the worldwide fuck. On the way back to the car we couldn't pull G. away from a pink-bow-wearing lobster and her pals Gumby and Pokey. She just kept hugging and dancing with the lot of them. Ten minutes later she was passed out in her car seat. Exactly as planned.

---

Week eight
The game: Bears at Patriots
The beer: Brooklyn Post Road Pumpkin Ale
The result: Win, 51–23; Broncos win, 35–21; Sean, 4–0–0-0
The commentary: The first four weeks of the season I was blogging like it's 2005. Nine posts that August? Eight in September? All that before the whole beer-and-football thing, before marriage, before fatherhood… and before I'd erased a bunch of crappy quick sizzle that would have inflated those figures. (My first playlist—since designated Volume 0 on yonder sidebar—is cute though.) October 2014? We've returned to the land of last season and thirteen total posts across nineteen weeks of football. Blogging is a dead medium but it's my dead medium and I am accountable. In retrospect, the Pink Floyd playlist took a lot out of me—that temple of light is actually pretty dark.

Something I have been better at is watching complete games. I'm no longer fast-forwarding between plays and it takes me the full three hours to get through it all, even if I don't start watching until it's long over, as I've done for four of eight games so far (including this). How else to absorb all of Trent Green's, Jon Gruden's and Phil Simms's precious insights? You score-watchers don't know what you're missing! Once again the Bears are a disappointment (where were you assholes last year?) and once again a Brooklyn beer doesn't live up to the hype. Odd how hidden that logo is though. Until now I never even knew the Post Road was theirs.

Kiwi Sean sort of came out of nowhere to win Project Runway XIII. He underwhelmed until episode five with the blue fringe dress that defined his efforts the rest of the season. It was fantastic and photographed even better, though I remember liking someone else's better (Sandhya's, I think). He went on to win three out of four (sounds familiar!) before two of the subsequent three found him in the bottom. He wowed in the rain challenge but I thought the dress itself was pretty plain, except where it wasn't (that frill!). The watercolor effect was super clever and the most creative idea to come out of the show since Mondo was robbed all those years ago but I think surprise and risk won it for him rather than design and execution. Imagine if it hadn't worked—snooze. Instead, smear your daughter's crayons on an old parchment-colored shower curtain and make Nina Garcia blush. Create real art like Kini did from a predictable umbrella inspiration and take the silver.

All season long I was convinced Kini would win and I blame the editors. He was so goddamn confident throughout and worked crazy fast, how could he not get to choose between thirty looks for Fashion Week? I forgot that efficiency doesn't equate quality, as many sleepless nights and subpar results from my Mass Art days had demonstrated. Five weeks proved more challenging than five hours (he won three challenges, was in the top for three more and in the bottom only once, compared to four bottoms—har! har!—for Sean) and he couldn't even finish in the top two. Maybe he choked. I'm just glad Edie Brickell didn't win.

Good podcast talk a few weeks ago. That's Kreative with a K, Kontrol with a K. This week on Jekyll & Hyde (actually from March of last year) was an interview with Justin Trosper of Unwound, one of my favorite bands from 1994 to the present. (It's the most recent episode available so I suppose they've gone kaput. Drag.) The format was interesting in that they interspersed full songs from Unwound (and Survival Knife) throughout the interview, so when discussing the early days of the band they would cut away (in postproduction) to, like, "You Bite My Tongue." It was a little choppy and I wish they'd kept the flow of the discussion intact—the interview itself was maybe fifteen minutes long—but it did provide a good opportunity for the host (Jekyll? Hyde?) to admit that Challenge for a Civilized Society is his favorite Unwound album before shifting to its five-minute instrumental "Sonata for Loudspeakers." I like the song but it's not exactly an "I must hear more of this band!" chartbuster, especially when you follow it with five more Civilized minutes of "Lifetime Achievement Award." The answer, though I favored New Plastic Ideas and "Usual Dosage" for a long time, is Repetition's "Go to Dallas and Take a Left" and then "For Your Entertainment." That bass!

That bass player! The one segment of the interview where I could have used some Vish Khanna muckraking was when Justin was asked, in light of contemporaries reuniting, if Unwound would ever get back together. His response? "The fact of the matter is we just can't [reunite] because… um… Vern, the bass player, is… really just not functional to play in a band with. You know, we're good friends and we're in touch and stuff, but until some life changes happen, it won't be happening." Um… Jekyll? Hyde? Follow up that shit! Hyde?? Nothing! Here's "Lucky Acid." Remember the disastrous Middle East show? We're all standing there like assholes waiting for order to be restored. Standing there, drinking fucking Bass Ale or some shit, for a long time. Finally they square it away, having found which plug some hipster kicked out of the wall, and the band is ready, the crowd is ready, the equipment is ready (so we thought). Justin is ready! Sara is ready! Vern is rea–

Hold on. Vern remembers the Nirvana episode of Unplugged, with Kurt Cobain wearing that green cardigan, Kurt Cobain overtaken by Stardom, Kurt Cobain so deliberately scratching his chin with the side of his finger while singing the last lines of "All Apologies." Christ, I even remember it without having to go to YouTube. Soak it in, Kurt Cobain. America is watching. You are the show. Hey Vern: Cambridge is watching. Cambridge is watching you. You're not just going to launch into "Kantina," are you? Cambridge is watching. Soak it in. You are the show. Stardom. Stardom craves. Stardom craves… a cigarette. Cambridge will wait for you to light a cigarette. Do this for ten seconds. Milk the moment. Cambridge is watching and it is waiting. Cambridge is waiting all night and will continue to do so. Cambridge does not wish it stayed home to watch Friends. Cambridge would not rather be at the Bow and Arrow. Cambridge is waiting for you, Vern. Will you play? It is all for you, Vern. Play.

Here we are. I took my daughter trick-or-treating a few hours ago. Vern trolls Vegas in need of "life changes." Good podcast talk.

Up next: Brady–Manning XVI. Happy Halloween!

Beer and football V — week four

The game: Patriots at Chiefs
The beer: Clown Shoes Pecan Pie Porter
The result: Loss, 41–14; Chargers win, 33–14
The commentary: "No pictures of my little girl will accompany losses, especially losses as ugly and perplexing as this." Almost. Here's an outtake from week one, basically summing up the game.

The porter was delicious and might prove to be the best beer of the season. I sampled it at a recent Clown Shoes tasting up the road and meant to ask the sales rep if the company had run out of ethnic stereotypes to exploit. They've now moved on to fantasy origin stories about "Genghis Pecan" repelling violent turkey revolts because nothing counterbalances overt race-baiting like heavy-beer mania.

Speaking of furious madness, now's as good a time as any—since I'm not emotionally prepared to write about the state of my football team—to present a homemade compilation of a few Pink Floyd bootlegs recordings of indeterminate origin I've… acquired… in our digital era. All are live cuts and span the meaty post-Syd/pre-stardom era from September 1969 through September 1971. The transitions aren't graceful—are Dobson and Thompkins seriously inactive simply because they can't cover kicks?—but I favor the pacing, like James Earl Jones reading "The Night Before Christmas" while tumbling down the stairs: "The prancing and pawing of each little oof!" Clown Shoes's gleeful prejudice and I present: Pass the Tequila, Manuel.

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Fat Old Sun
3. Atom Heart Mother
"Good morning." The first three tracks are lifted as-is from Smoking Blues, recorded in Montreux, Switzerland in November 1970. Surely the best version of "Astronomy Domine" I've heard. "Fat Old Sun" is striking and lovely as heartthrob David Gilmour giggles halfway through—if "Money" is Pink Floyd's "Brown Sugar" then "Fat Old Sun" is their "Sway." "Atom Heart Mother" is stripped down from its overindulgent studio source (with "brass and chorus") and vastly improved as a result.

4. Grantchester Meadows (a.k.a. "Daybreak")
Roger Waters's solo piece from Ummagumma is retitled "Daybreak" to open The Man and the Journey, a two-part conceptual touring suite featuring four grown men drinking tea onstage. This version, along with tracks 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14, were recorded in Amsterdam, Netherlands in September 1969. Is it "Netherlands" or "the Netherlands"? Is a "the" derogatory like with Ukraine? These are the problems I create for myself.

5. Green Is the Colour
Electric Factory 1970. Great name for a Philadelphia club. "We'll head to the Electric Factory after Hextall gets ejected." "The fucking Mummers mean we gotta detour past the Electric Factory." "I can't believe those Electric Factory pricks cut the power in the middle of Bardo Pond's third encore."

6. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
All back to Montreux! Recorded almost a year after the Smoking Blues set. This was retitled "Beset by Creatures of the Deep" when played as part of The Journey. I wish more things were titled "Beset by Creatures of the Deep." "Helen Hunt and Sidney Poitier are… Beset by Creatures of the Deep."

7. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
"The second stall in the Electric Factory's ladies' room is out of toilet paper."

8. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (a.k.a. "Doing It")
9. Cymbaline (a.k.a. "Nightmare")
Skipping over "Work," "Teatime" and "Afternoon"/"Biding My Time," we observe our Man taking his lady friend to bed, having some efficient four-minute English sex and (bypassing "Sleep"/"Quicksilver") suffering from night terrors about special teamer Matthew Slater being the Patriots' MVP for the second week in a row. The alarm clock bleeds beautifully into…

10. Echoes
"Ping!" Get comfortable for the next twenty-four minutes. This Meddle standout comes from the '71 Montreux show and it's the most poorly recorded one of the bunch. Drag. If I could travel back in time, save Jim Morrison's beard and follow Pink Floyd around Europe to hear one song it would definitely "Echoes." "Quiet, Jim Morrison's beard. I love this middle section."

11. Interstellar Overdrive
A subdued, experimental and nearly nineteen-minute "Overdrive" was all they could talk about for years at the Electric Factory. "Pink Floyd were super trippy at the Electric Factory." "The Electric Factory hand stamp gave me the HIV."

12. Pow R. Toc H. (a.k.a. "The Pink Jungle")
13. The Labyrinths of Auximenes
14. Behold the Temple of Light
"The Pink Jungle" is a good interpretation of the first album's filler track (I like the song but it's as filler as they come), though not as good as the thirty-second segment recorded in 1967 for BBC Look of the Week and featured during the band's Behind the Music as it cuts to commercial. I love that thirty seconds—if you think Peter Jackson wasn't taking an occasional break from C Average to listen to Roger Waters's proto-Nazgûl screeching then I still don't know what to tell you. Wikipedia says "The Labyrinths of Auximenes" incorporates parts of "Let There Be More Light" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" but I don't hear it. "Behold the Temple of Light" seems to be otherwise unreleased. This Amsterdam threesome (Amsterdam Threesome now playing in back-alley theaters across the country) is followed by "The End of the Beginning," which is actually the "Celestial Voices" portion of "A Saucerful of Secrets" and formally closes The Journey. But…

15. A Saucerful of Secrets
This Electric Factory version ("Seriously, the HIV!") is superior to The Journey's and includes all four parts: "Something Else," "Syncopated Pandemonium," "Storm Signal"and "Celestial Voices." It's as strong a performance as the one recorded in '69 and released on Ummagumma's live disc. A never-realized fifth section was entitled "Thrice Against the Vikings" and I hope to hear it tomorrow night.

16. More Blues
"Ze Pank Floyt!" We close with nine minutes of "More Blues," returning us to Smoking Blues and ending three hours of curious excess. Much better, truly, than the three hours of entropy witnessed in Kansas City the other night. I am here to help.

Up next: The Misfits are not walking through that door. Cheers!

Beer and football V — week three

The game: Raiders at Patriots
The beer: Belhaven Scottish Stout
The result: Win, 16–9; Saints win, 20–9
The commentary: Our first home game of the season is also the first primetime game of the season. What's that you say? It did not begin after How I Big Banged Your Theory? Well, it did at our house, after G. went to bed (and from bed) several times over. The challenge remains throughout the day to not skim or overhear the outcome but I've managed for three weeks now. Besides, it's nice to maintain a pleasant Sunday afternoon blowing bubbles, riding bikes and flying a kite in Nahant while the Patriots go three and out after a series of incomplete/ineffective passes against the league's worst run defense.

Also on delay: listening to all four of April's "The Jesus Lizard Week" interviews on the Kreative Kontrol podcast. That's Kreative with a K, Kontrol with a K. I mentioned the podcast on my playlist write-up earlier this year (see track thirty-three) (!) and referred to host Vish Khanna as a muckraker—he did not let me down this time either. My favorite part (and my own validation) came during the Duane Denison segment when, after being asked several questions about the band's sour relationship with Steve Albini, Denison made a great point about Albini's criticism of the band for signing with Capitol Records: "Why is it that he gets to take major-label money [as an 'engineer'] and we don't? Why does he get the moral high-ground?" He goes on to explain that the topic still makes him angry twenty years later and so is sick of talking about it, to which Vish replies "I appreciate that you're tired of addressing it, but…" and wonders if Down instigated the aforementioned tension. Denison admits no one was particularly happy with how that album turned out (in particular, the poor vocal mix… as if lyrics had been distinct up through Liar?). It certainly provides context to David Wm. Sims pretending to rip my Rapeman CD sleeve in half when I offered it during the band's autograph session at Tower Records on a 1994 promotional junket. (The goddamn full-sized Down poster signed by all four members has joined the realms of the nonexistent.)

And then? And then! "Yeah, I have to– Man, I do have things I gotta do. Um… how– I'm sorry, how much longer do we need to talk?" "How much longer do we need to talk?" Reading it back makes Denison sound like an asshole. I'm impressed he held his cool for so long. Vish fits in one more question about what David Yow referred to as 1996's "reenactment tour" and Denison, after a few seconds of processing what he'd just heard, interrupts with "Did you say 'reenactment'?" Without a doubt the highlight of all three MP3 hours. As a result, the new-ish Book is on my Christmas wish list, as is the Live document. It was filmed at the old Venus de Milo across from Fenway Park in 1994. I was at that fucking show.

Up next: An assassin's quick stopover in Memphis ensures that Bernard Pollard will be nowhere near Kansas City on Monday night. Also, Gamblor instructs me to take the Chargers over the Jaguars. Cheers!

Beer and football V — week two

The game: Patriots at Vikings
The beer: Shipyard Summer Ale
The result: Win, 30–7
The commentary: Hector, Ivan and I are all forty this year. In April we traveled to Portland, Maine to celebrate Ivan's turn. (Mine was at the New England Brewfest in New Hampshire. Hector's will be at the Chili's across from the Burlington Mall.) Before the trip I compiled a list of twenty or so restaurants, seven breweries/distilleries and a few tourist traps like the International Cryptozoology Museum, all for an overnight stay. Yeah. We did well on the booze front, starting at Allagash on the way into town (a cool spot offering better beer than I was expecting, given their Belgian tendencies) and peaking at the wonderful Rising Tide (please and thank you). In between was old mainstay Shipyard with the informative video, the fun gift shop (complete with children's books for some reason) and the wonderful free samples. I don't know what it is about Shipyard—everything I sample at the brewery is amazing. Amazing! Then I try a new bomber, whether it's the Prelude Special Ale or the Smashed Pumpkin Ale, and I'm unimpressed. (Exceptions are the Double Old Thumper Ale—a.k.a. Matt Light—and the Blue Fin Stout, which I already knew I liked.) The Summer Ale falls in the same category. Maybe it's the thrill of having machinery pointed out to you during the brewery tour that makes it all taste better there. It's also free. I guess we'll have to go back.

I'm starting to think A&J King puts cocaine in their pastries. Queue the chorus: No nap for G./My daughter never sleeps/I guess we'll watch the game/I'll never take the blame. She joined me before halftime and almost became a Vikings fan. "Purple!" "Dad, where's the purple guys?" "Purple!" "These ones are purple and these are white." "The purple guys fell down." "Purple!" It only took a minute of insisting she's a Patriots fan for it to take.

The hometown victory means I survive another week in the knockout pool. Three people are out after picking the Buccaneers against the lowly Rams. I like the application of my Texans–Redskins philosophy but they forgot that the previous sentence should have read "…the lowly Buccaneers against the lowly Rams." I'm glad the rules prevent you from taking the same team to win more than once instead of lose because I'm… leaving?… the Vikings again this weekend. No way the Saints drop three straight to start the season.

The internet is crowding me out as media left and right criticize a league that enables domestic abusers. Blowhards, as we know, make the best parents. Very brave, too, of Anheuser-Busch to loudly proclaim their dissatisfaction "with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code" and then quietly hope it all goes away. I see through your Shock Top bullshit and I see through this.

Up next: The Raiders purchase the flashiest jetliner to fly across the country but get bogged down along the way when the pilot struggles to understand basic flight patterns. Cheers!

Beer and football V: I chewed my fuckin’ arm off and made an escape

Week one
The game: Patriots at Dolphins
The beer: Notch Mule Corn Lager
The result: Loss, 33–20; Texans win, 17–6
The commentary: Pictured is the exact moment in time when the scales tipped in Miami's favor. (Well, about two hours after the fact—I was watching on a delay. Again. But still.) I did not pause when Mike Wallace caught the (essentially) game-tying touchdown with Revis all over him. I did not say "OK, G., let me rewind and pause it right… here! Since you're not napping why don't you put on your tutu and stare at the screen so I can take a picture. And do something ballet-ish."

Regular-season losses don't affect me like they used to. A game ends and then G. and I go back to tucking in all her stuffed animal friends with silk scarves and/or giggling while bonking them over their heads with her inflated butterfly. Even during the game, as it got uglier and uglier, depression wasn't an option. It took a minute to remind her that she actually enjoys football when she exclaimed "I don't like football, I like soccerball!" Then we settled in on the couch and I reminded her again of who her favorite players are. "They keep falling! Why are they falling?" Excellent question.

What I've come to dread the most following a loss is the backlash by media, "fans" and more media. The shouting ranges from "Belichick the coach is better than Belichick the GM!" (rational and accurate) to "Mankins wouldn't have let us get out-physicaled!" (maybe, but it's happened with him before; also, "out-physicaled" is accepted compound nonsense) to "James Develin should get the ball more!" (classic New England racism) to "Trade Brady and put in Garoppolo now!" (ludicrous from all angles, regardless of Brady's standing as an elite quarterback). It would be and has been an insufferable week to root for a team with such a rich history of losing. Oh wait!

Houston Texans: I am alive. It was hard to resist checking that score on my phone but I didn't want to risk seeing the home team's outcome. The goddamn crawl… individual statistics and fantasy breakdowns? Who gives a shit? (Though seeing RG3's thirteen completions for fifty-nine yards in the second quarter was encouraging and amusing. Four and a half yards per completion? Even Ryan Fitzpatrick had to feel bad for him.)

I also had my eye on Bills–Bears. Nine of nineteen people were knocked out of the pool and five of them have the godforsaken Bears to thank. Where were you assholes last year? Only one guy took New England—I hoped that, if nothing else, Jordan Devey brought more down with him. Rats. Another person picked the fucking Super Bowl-winning Seahawks against a Packers team that, on paper, had a chance to win. Congratulations, you no longer have the best team in the league to fall back on. After this week, I'll be unable to fall back on a team that made it to the last three AFC Championships—I trust that Belichick & Co. will make enough adjustments to keep from losing two in a row to start the season.

The Mule is the real deal. Likely the lightest colored beer I've had in years but as flavorful a lager as you'd expect from Notch. It was a pleasant surprise to find it in bomber form at Pamplemousse in Salem in a moment of needless panic following lunch—turns out I'd already been chilling a "week one" beer for a month or so. By six o'clock Sunday it will find a home in the plumbing under my house.

Up next: Smooth Jimmy Apollo ensures me the Patriots are his Lock of the Week against the Vikings. When you're right fifty-two percent of the time, you're wrong forty-eight percent of the time. Cheers!

Beer and football V — training camp/the all-important third preseason game

The beer: Samuel Adams Summer Ale/Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
The commentary: G. and I relived last year's agenda and visited Foxborough the first Saturday of training camp, bringing along my father this time. It was more of the same: minimal football viewing, excessive scampering, one diaper change and a lot of fun. She even wore the same dress—sign us up for next year! We went to the Olive Garden for lunch afterward. I don't know why. The garlic bread was greasy but the Sam Summer did a good job washing it down. Traffic wasn't bad going home and she fell asleep on the 93 onramp. 2013 all over again—see you at the AFC Championship.

I remember nothing of the all-important third preseason game. I drank a ubiquitous Sierra Nevada because Deadspin recently called it "one of the finest pale ales in all the land." And lo! It's as safe and insulting a pick as Harpoon sending its IPA and UFO to this Summer's New England Brewfest (which I'm happy to say I attended as part of my fortieth birthday celebration). Because you can't get Harpoon IPA or UFO anywhere? I'll take a Dale's over their entire output.

Old age is a bastard so I found myself sitting on a park bench at lunch on Friday, skimming headlines before returning to work. For hopefully the last time in my life, as I become more aware of swearing out loud now that my daughter is old enough, I proclaimed "Holy shit!" upon reading that Logan Mankins had been traded. More shocking than Richard Seymour a few years ago but probably not as big a hit—I love the guy, but he's a guard. An "early second-rounder" guard. Ask me again after Olivier Vernon decapitates Brady on Sunday. (Jesus Christ, look at her!)

My baby is three years old. I fibbed to Boston Harbor Cruises and said she was two to save fifteen dollars because what kind of monster charges that much for a child? It was a magical holiday weekend of beaches (a personal sacrifice), a carousel, Tangled and the Burlington Mall. I also finished season two of The Wire. G. agrees that you don't want to mess with Omar.

Here we go with the knockout pool again, lifting twenty bucks from my wallet instead of ten. I'm leaning heavily toward the Texans over the Redskins because I would still take last year's Bengals over last year's Bears. All day. Give me that game opening weekend right now and I'll pick it again, fax that twenty over to the guy running things, get busted for counterfeiting and use my one phone call to make sure he still had me on the Bengals. My thought process last year was that the Bengals probably wouldn't amount to much (whoops) but the Bears really wouldn't amount to much, and you don't want to blow your week-one load on a team heavily favored to go far into the postseason—or, conversely, against a team expected to go nowhere. Half the people in the league picked the Bucs over the Jets because they bought the hype that the Jets would lose and keep losing, forgetting that the lowly Bucs were on the other sideline. At the end of the season (only then, says my man Fred Kirsch, can one fairly judge each team) the Jets won eight and the Bucs won four. In September I figured the Bengals could win nine (they won eleven) and the Bears could win seven (eight), and even if my long view was proven right I was wrong that day. A one-game difference based on an educated guess should have forced me to look elsewhere… but goddammit, I remain convinced the Bengals would have taken four of five contests last season!

This year, the Texans are set to be the rebound team of the year (right?) and might even earn a wild card in a weak division. They won two last year and I think they're good for eight or nine this year. The Redskins? "The Washington Football Squad"? Can they improve from three to… six? Five? Herein lies the genius of my imperfect plan: start with a sleeper instead of the Seahawks, Broncos or Pats so you have those teams to chose from later on. Herein lies the flaw: a sleeper is a sleeper.

Project Runway is back! And so is: Amanda? Whose idea was it to let viewers choose from her, Alexander and Krazy Ken? Just make Nina Garcia design something if you're looking for a gimmick. I sort of hate this cast. Char was cool but didn't shoot out of the gate the way I thought she would and I was sorry to see her go last week. Korina is a genuine no-talent asshole, even if she was right about Amanda being a fraud (though it was odd that we never actually heard her say it to Amanda's face on camera the way it was portrayed—such is the life of the reality show editor). Kini is pretty talented, works super fast at creating the same silhouette every week and, at thirty (!), is a walking advertisement for the perils of sun exposure. He should have won last week. Samantha has made as much of an impression with me as those Patriots fan-oriented mailbags that Mike Reiss posts and I ignore every week. Alexander goes to the same hair salon as the bully kid from King of the Hill. Angela flamed out like no other after demonstrating (during the casting special) that she "works quickly," which on Lifetimethenetworkforwomen translates to "single lapel" or "FRANTIC" depending on the usage. I'm rooting for Sandhya since everyone has it out for her for using colors that aren't black or gray.

I thirst! Last Spring, in anticipation of its forthcoming television adaptation, I read all four thousand pages of Stephen King's Under the Dome. It moved quickly and was a lot of fun, even if the ending was a little clumsy and rushed. (King's payoffs usually are—it's all about the journey with him, particularly in The Dark Tower when the final confrontation consisted of maybe two hundred words.) I liked it. The small-screen version? The small-screen version! Season one made some odd editorial choices like applying familiar names to different characters. Sure, don't use the crystal meth subplot so soon after Breaking Bad, but was Phil Bushey the only available name for a local disc jockey/sheriff/quick-healing gunshot victim? I continued to watch because it was supposed to be a single-season mini-series and I was curious about the reportedly rewritten ending. But then CBS picked it up for another season because they realized, I suppose, that there wasn't much actual dome talk for a show about a dome. (Also, it's a literal dome here, unlike in the book. Way to make people forget about The Simpsons Movie.) I swore off season two but, hey, King himself wrote the teleplay for the first episode. Give it another chance (equally bad). But then: The Onion. The satirical non-satirical AV Club's weekly reviews are enough to keep me watching. Here are the episode grades so far: B-, C-, C+, D, D, D, B-, C-, B, D-. Middle three again: D, D, D. One reader comment supports every viewer's excuse to keep watching: "It occurred to me today how I spend all of Monday looking forward to watching a show I despise." I'm better off re-reading the excerpt from the never-published/never-finished The Cannibals. I'll settle for The Green Mile. Someday, Trout Mask Replica. Someday.

Up next: The only thing worse than having to play in Miami the first week of September is having to play there eight times a year as a member of the Dolphins. Cheers!

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

2013 and 2014 have seen progress with the purge. The purge! As part of this… process… I've become reacquainted with much of my music collection, listening to the likes of Helmet and Gang Starr for the first time in years. Some of this history will pop up below, to the point where an unheralded decade (no, not the eighties) is our new champion and 1968 is left wanting. Oddly, I didn't register this until after everything had been sequenced, played through, considered, adjusted and played through again. The eighty-five outtakes are another story, with a sixties and seventies bloat party, but that's a story for the deluxe mechanism-(x) reissue in twenty years.

I turn forty in a matter of days. I was thirteen when my mother turned forty and I remember it clearly as a night of pure hell—she was miserable and made no effort to hide it. Maybe it's wishful groupthink since all my older friends agree but times have surely changed—turning forty is no longer what it was (for example, G. will still be two). I imagine technology has something to do with it, as it's easier to keep in touch with the likes of Hector and Ivan, laugh at pictures of their kids and email vague plans to drink beer with them in the future. The plans may remain vague for months or more but, via effortless correspondence, we won't fall out of touch. I've known Ivan for over twenty years and Hector for almost as long—that's half my life! And what, I'm supposed to feel like an old fart even though I'm regularly reminded of getting plastered with them every Friday in Allston? That feels like it was five years ago. It feels like A. and I moved to the People's Republic just after Christmas and G. was born a few weeks later. I can't explain the passage of time—it would be way over your head—but I appreciate it. I accept it. And maybe that's why, when I turn forty, my misery won't exist for others to recall in twenty-seven years. A regular Monday, in other words.

OLD FRIENDS KEEP YOU YOUNG. It's reads like a bad greeting card/refrigerator magnet. THE STARS WHISPER LIKE OLD BLOOD AT THE EDGES OF THE BODY OF NIGHT. That one doesn't sell as well. Here is my playlist representing the last twelve months. I hope to continue this into my forties but make no promises. The writing, I'm sorry to say, is not as fun, easy or clock-friendly as the compiling. Maybe I should limit the number of songs. Maybe you should shut up. Reliving this music, much of which I first loved between 1992 and 1999… I remain young. Bring on fifty, motherfucker.

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1. Bedemon – Skinned
Pity the misguided virgin who, in our opening seconds, suffers a grisly death as Bedemon impales her with wave after wave of electric feedback. Child of Darkness is a collection of unreleased doom recorded in 1974—there is no better way to start things off then with the year of my birth, following the barely disguised fear of my introduction. The wizard approves. The wizard appeared to me as we drove Connecticut roadways to my in-laws' for Christmas. Having stopped for gas on the way (before crossing over from Massachusetts, of course, because Connecticut prices will kick you in the nuts) I did a cursory job cleaning the windshield and back window with the filthy gas station squeegee, a clumsy instrument that never travels gracefully around wiper blades. One hundred miles of highway residue crusted over and in the rearview mirror I saw it: wizard observes slam dunk. Wizard observes slam dunk for miles and miles. I took this photograph because of course wizard observes slam dunk. Wizard observes slam dunk forever.

2. Steven Jesse Bernstein – Come Out Tonight
"I am with the important women now." My heavy-handed instrumental/spoken-word pattern was averted in its infancy but still left a mark (I'll get to the instrumental part later, times four). My friend Oskar (who will play a larger role in a someday-posted Captain Beefheart essay) used to make mixtapes for Ivan, Pierre and me in high school and college. These were formative cassettes and I'll speak of them another time. "Come Out Tonight," taken from 1992's Sup Pop 200 compilation, graced one of Pierre's tapes and we thought it was the funniest thing. "'Jackie O'? 'Jackie O'??" Who was this odd man? Oskar later put "More Noise Please" from the posthumous Prison album on his fourth and final volume for me—it was still humorous but somehow more moving. By then I'd learned Bernstein killed himself and maybe that added the weight (it surely wasn't Steve Fisk's muzak soundscape). "The whole world was praying for silence and it was up to me to shut the window and I couldn't get it down. I was just making more noise." But it's the conviction of his imperfect reading of "Come Out Tonight" that draws me to place Bernstein's poetry among forty-seven rock songs about pornography and oppression. As track two!

3. Zombies – Tell Her No
I considered sandwiching both parts of Bernstein's "No No Man" around this Zombies hit and naming the playlist Tell Her No No Man but there are only so many seats on our forty-eight-passenger bus. "Tell Her No," alternately titled "No-No-No-No-No" by G., is one of her favorite songs in the world, alongside "No Milk Today" by Herman's Hermits, "Baby It's You" ("Sha-La-La-La-La") by the Shirelles and just about anything by the pre-1966 Beatles. Unfortunately she also likes that Haim nonsense "The Wire." I'm going to have a talk with her about overproduction one day.

4. Old Time Relijun – Cold Water
Sort of a dark start here. If it weren't for the Zombies cheerfully… warning… against a… soulless… sexual predator then it'd be four downers in a row. I was introduced to Old Time Relijun (the nod to Captain Beefheart's "Moonlight on Vermont" extends beyond their name) via Selector Dub Narcotic's inclusion of "Siren"—it and Uterus and Fire's "Jail" demanded honorable positions on a couple of late-nineties mixtapes. "Cold Water" is pulled from 2004's Lost Light, which seemed to hold together some kind of concept about vampires and water. All of their albums are about vampires and water.

5. T. Zchiew & the Johnny – Let Your Life Be Free
Another Forge Your Own Chains hit following Ofege's "It's Not Easy" in 2010 and Top Drawer's "Song of a Sinner" in 2012. T. Zchiew's name seems to vary as "T. Zchew" or "T. Zchien" depending where you look—such is the life of the internationally compiled. And "The Johnny"? The Johnny! The Johnny is just the Johnny.

6. Six Finger Satellite – Simian Fever
"Mickey's Monkey." "The Monkey Time." "Simian Fever." Richard Anthony & the Blue Notes' "The Boston Monkey" didn't make the cut so local-ish outfit Six Finger Satellite are filling in G's monkey song this year. "There's trouble in the monkey house!" Sounds like my living room. It's possible I already owned the Weapon EP but I'm pretty sure Severe Exposure was the first 6FSCD I bought. I was in college and Ministry would have been the closest companion in my collection—that shows how far I reached (Weapon was much tamer by comparison). I wish I could remember my reaction upon playing it for the first time—likely one of regret, after the easing introduction of "Cock Fight" tried my patience and the Nazi war crimes of "Board the Bus" challenged my politically correct student mind. Twenty years later, few bands give me more pleasure. "You will never change!" Except when you do. "…my simian ways!" Oh, that.

7. The Julie Ruin – Oh Come On
The best song of 2013, even if Kathleen Hanna insists against a brand new name for this project. She's a regular reader of the blog and, I imagine, would be equally troubled if I just started calling it The! Biff! Bang! Pow! and writing about "the beer and the football" and "the Nico" without purging my archive and changing templates. How much HTML does she think I know, anyway?

8. Richard Berry – Next Time
This 1955 B-side finally became digitally available last Summer as part of the Rockin' Man compilation. The A-side was "Crazy Lover," and my man Henry Rollins must have grown up with the single because he covered both sides early in his solo career. Rollins Band's 1988 take on "Next Time" is very true to Berry's original, which speaks to how timeless a writer and performer Berry was.

9. Make-Up – Do You Like Gospel Music?
Make Up? Make-Up? The Make-Up? Kathleen Hanna calling! Almost fifteen years ago I attempted to see these guys at an apparent house party around Washington Street in Somerville. It was a Saturday night and I went alone because my friends preferred garbage like Rancid or Rusted Root. The world's smallest violin. It was dark as I pulled off the McGrath Highway toward the "venue," which I immediately realized was just someone's house. An actual house! They advertised in the Phoenix and everything! After struggling to park (I ended up on some industrial driveway under a bridge and it scared the shit out of me) I squirmed my way inside among the smoking hipsters to discover, I think, that the whole thing was bullshit, a scam. Ian and friends must have reached the same conclusion because there was no sign of them. Drag. Returning home I probably drank Boston Ale, played Jedi Knight and contemplated driving to Buffalo for sex.

10. The Dave Clark Five – Hold On
PBS recently aired a fine documentary on the DC5 called, naturally, Glad All Over. It was produced by Clark himself and therefore very "authorized"—you'd think the five guys shared a flat together and compared smiles all day. It's ridiculous, though, how well you know their music, and if you're anywhere between thirty and seventy you grew up with them. "Do You Love Me," "Glad All Over," "Bits and Pieces," "Any Way You Want It," "Catch Us If You Can," "Because," "I Like It Like That." What in the worldwide fuck! I wish it had been a little more critical with regard to the band's place in the scene (among peers like the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, et al) and a real lack of evolution in their sound (rawk sax in 1969?). I also could have done without the extended handjob over the Time musical (from the clips it looked and sounded awful). But that's nitpicking. "Hold On" was presumably featured in 1968's television special Hold On! It's the Dave Clark Five, the marvelous closing segment (acting out "Five by Five"—Rolling Stones much?) of which was shown in full toward the end of the documentary. Marvelous! Everything about it—the dancers (the dancers!), the outfits, the reverb, the "superstar" element of Clark's choreographed stand-up drumming—resembles '66 more than '68 but it's a lot of fun, like Glad All Over itself. Early television appearances didn't need to pretend Clark was the lead singer instead of Mike Smith (a heroic vocalist burdened with shoddy, annoying material like "Do You Love Me") because he was already the real deal—brains (owning his publishing and leasing it to record companies—Paul McCartney, on camera, laments his own business decisions), face (strikingly handsome), manager and all-around musical/creative director. "H! O! L! D! O! N!" A true maverick whose songs didn't change the landscape but didn't need to. (Phew, not one crack about his present-day eyebrows!) (D'oh!)

11. Led Zeppelin – We're Gonna Groove (Live)
Robert Plant: "My enthusiasm sometimes got in the way of finesse. I listen to it and go, 'Wow, why didn't I shut up a bit?' I kind of overcooked it." Christ, but that sounds familiar. This version of "We're Gonna Groove" is ripped from the Royal Albert Hall performance on the Led Zeppelin DVD because I now know how to do that. It's odd that Coda's liner notes still insist its "version" is sourced from a studio outtake captured during the Led Zeppelin II sessions when it's obviously the same live 1970 base recording, with Jimmy Page trimming, remixing and overdubbing almost two years after the band folded and twelve after said concert. He pulled the same bullshit with a "rehearsal" take of "I Can't Quit You Baby" from the same show. Remember that I love this band.

12. Shadows of Knight – Taurus
"Taurus" is our first of four instrumentals, closing "side A" of this "double LP" set. That's the nice thing about a forty-eight song playlist, it can be carved evenly into halves (two sides of a cassette), thirds (three CDs) or quarters (double album). Dare to embrace excess. The Shadows of Knight are barely recognized on this B-side to the wonderfully titled (but weak) 1969 single "My Fire Department Needs a Fireman." Incidentally, "Taurus" is also the name of a Spirit instrumental that Zeppelin might have annexed for "Stairway to Heaven." Big fan.

13. NWA – 100 Miles and Runnin'
The first song released after Ice Cube left NWA is possibly the best they produced with or without him. From Wikipedia, verbatim: "In the video the intro begins with NWA members being arrested by the police and exactly when the song begins they flee and appear on several scenes including jumping onto roof of a car, fleeing to back of a van and others. In the end someone wears a baseball cap similar to the ones NWA members wear, so the police get into the house and grab the cap, so they understand that it's someone else dressed similarly to the NWA members. Also in the middle of the video a car is seen exploding while the NWA members run." Sentences are also seen running—the Wikipedia editor was on a family vacation with his wife and his daughter and his son and they got direct flights to Florida, so the Wikipedia editor was not in the Wikipedia office to proofread the entry, so it was posted by someone else who works there. Also, the Wikipedia editor and his family visited his cousin in Clearwater and they rented a boat and also they went snorkeling and it was a nice family vacation so they have many photographs.

14. Off! – Man From Nowhere
"To the Bloods I'm the man from nowhere… to the Crips I'm the man from nowhere." I guess Keith Morris and friends are listening to NWA too. Keith does not sound like he's aged one day since Nervous Breakdown—he looks like it, but he doesn't sound like it. Off! (I don't go all-caps unless it's an acronym) gradually took home the 2012 prize even though it's not even sixteen minutes long. Those post-2009 winners have really gone through the ringer.

15. Damien Jurado – Silver Timothy
Indeed, recent Biffy^® ceremonies haven't been as crowded as in years past (warning: until January). "Silver Timothy" is our calendar year's lone representative and, therefore, Jurado's Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son is a potential candidate to kneel before the Lower Galactic Biffy^® Council. I may be a young forty but I'm still forty and completely out of touch with popular culture (it has its advantages), but that's OK. I worked hard enough discovering bands in the second half of 1994 to last a lifetime.

16. The Jesus Lizard – Slave Ship
"Really, no room for the Jesus Lizard at all?" So I wondered five years ago when critiquing my 1997 Interrupting Cow Blues mixtape (I love the gratuitous swipes at Calvin Johnson, which have continued elsewhere on the blog—Pow!). The Jesus Lizard was and is one of my favorite bands… and yet, through five volumes on these same inter-nets, I still found no place for them. I think the problem is that most songs are on the shorter side, with only eight longer than four minutes and two of those ("The Associate" and "Zachariah") longer than five. Long songs anchor a mix and determine where everything else of the what-would-sound-good-here variety falls. Since their albums hold together so well, too, it's hard to choose: "Puss" or "The Art of Self-Defense"? "Mouth Breather" or "Seasick"? You must choose, brothers, you must choose! "Slave Ship" is one of those four-minute numbers and its opening guitar dirge and closing white noise shake me by the collar and scream "Really, no room at all??" Right again, 2009 Jarrod, even if Google no longer deems the post a top "mass constipation" search result.

17. Gong – Squeezing Sponges Over Policemen's Heads/Fohat Digs Holes in Space
"Squeezing Sponges Over Policemen's Heads" sounds like a life mission I could support. Race riots? Traffic jams? Thank you for your service! And have you seen these POLICE DETAILS SAVE LIVES bumper stickers? Yeah, let's pay these armed lardasses triple overtime to play Candy Crush on their iPhones, yuk it up with equally lazy construction bozos and dare you to fuck with them while I slalom my way down Canal Street. (Ahem.) A well placed saxophone transitions "Fohat Digs Holes in Space" out of a Pink Floyd cosmos and into, well, Gong-land. Fuck the police.

18. The Damnation of Adam Blessing – Strings and Things
A little melodramatic but I like the melody during the chorus. Nice minute-plus wah-wah to close out too—nod once more in the direction of "Song of a Sinner." I love the contrast of a doom-laden "The Damnation of Adam Blessing" and a light-and-fluffy "Strings and Things." I like strings and I like things/I even like things wrapped in strings/I like to string all sorts of things/Upon my walls of strings and things/The fairer things are paired with strings/But a life of sin casts you to a barren hell where despair and loneliness shall destroy all you love/Beloved fair things and fair strings.

19. Frumpies – Duvet Ta
Fear the Bedspread Uprising of '94! Also: a second appearance by Kathi Wilcox of all people. The Casual Dots' "Clocks" was an early contender as well, imagine the shitstorm? Kathleen, again a regular reader, would have gotten insanely jealous and renamed her band Thee Julie Ruin just to poke me, keep me from dismissing her. (Never.)

20. Atlantics – Come On
Beat! Beat! Beat! Why is this woman giving our hero such a hard time? Doesn't she hear the urgency in the chorus? "So come on!" Doesn't she hear that bass? That bass! The drums? The keyboards? The amazing guitar fuzz that doesn't really emerge until the bridge? "Wirrrrrrwww."

21. Sleater-Kinney – Let's Call It Love
Oh! I see. The woman he's after also plays guitar, is more successful and can afford longer studio sessions. You're lucky to have her, Atlantics Lead Singer, as Sleater-Kinney shakes off residual preciousness and punches the entire world in the stomach. (Either they or Edan released the best album of 2005 but Sleater-Kinney, undoubtedly, released the best song.) Let's get a beer, Atlantics Lead Singer—I didn't think they had it in them after The Hot Rock either.

22. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Flavor
How do you follow an eleven-minute epic that ends so gracelessly (since "Let's Call It Love" cuts immediately into "Night Light" on The Woods)? Why, only with (probably) my favorite song off (probably) my favorite album of all time. I remember reading an Orange-era interview with Russell Simins and he was asked about new golden boy Beck's contribution to the album and if the band expected an uptick in sales. Simins responded something like "That would be fine, but it's not like we're going to put a sticker on the cover that says 'Featuring two minutes of Beck!'" I love that. It should be noted that of all the CDs I ripped over the last five years, all the thousands of songs I then listened to and cataloged, "Flavor" was the only one that didn't survive—an irreparable scratch on the disc mars Beck's performance (skipping throughout and going dead after "…and I can't be satisfied") to the point where I had to pay for the download. It's "Flavor." It's Orange. "The blues is number one!" It's worth it.

23. The Velvet Underground – The Gift
Straddling the line between spoken word and instrumental is "The Gift," with John Cale's dry telling of Waldo Jeffers's adventure on the left channel and the band jamming some "Booker T." flavor on the right. Got the flavor! Are we to believe Waldo was in transit over a single weekend? How much did that cost him? I love the open wound of "She would kiss him, and then maybe they could see a movie," the contrasting "She had to remember not to drink like that" and the unnecessary detail of "her mother's small, beige pocketbook in the den." Poor Waldo.

24. Can – Millionenspiel
Does a breathy "Fahhhh" at the beginning negate an instrumental label? Maybe it's a Moog. Side A departs on rails to a post-Malcolm Mooney/pre-Damo Suzuki land of speed and straight lines—alright. I have to think this Lost Tapes opener was featured on some soundtrack or other—you can hear it over any sixties caper and any seventies chase scene, any eighties montage and any nineties masturbation punchline.

25. The Fall – I'm Into CB
"In the UK, small but growing numbers of people were illegally using American CB radios during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The prominence of CB radio grew in Britain partly due to the popularity of novelty songs like CW McCall's 'Convoy' and the film Convoy in 1978." You could pretty much sub anything in for those bold terms. "The prominence of cocaine after-parties grew in Kansas City partly due to the popularity of novelty songs like CW McCall's 'Convoy' and the film Convoy in 1978." "The prominence of way too many spare tires grew in my back seat partly due to the popularity of novelty songs like CW McCall's 'Convoy' and the film Convoy in 1978." "The prominence of quasi-official Fall compilations grew in exponential leaps and bounds partly due to the popularity of novelty songs like CW McCall's 'Convoy' and the film Convoy in 1978."

26. Mr. Lif – Status
I Phantom's introductory "Handouts" (not included here) lays it out: Lif, after being reborn as a "new man" in the album's narrative, needs to get it on wax. Pronto. He calls Insight for a beat but is dead broke. "You get what you pay for, man." That's what it feels like to tour Bull Moose Music locations (the closest is in Portsmouth), handing over a box of CDs and getting fifteen cents on the dollar. On a good day. I'm thankful for Discogs and turning a profit on a handful of items there, which is why I'll hang onto my old Kill Rock Stars and Touch and Go releases and hope for more Australian hipsters to provide the sweetness of one dollar on the dollar. "You got a dollar?"

27. Sebadoh – Shit Soup
A few months ago I took it upon myself to edit my song file names in case an older G. is ever browsing my hard drive for music—you wish, old man—and wonders "What does a song called 'Cocksucker Blues' sound like?" So "Rolling Stones – Cocksucker Blues.mp3" becomes "Rolling Stones – C. Blues.mp3." It's a very sophisticated system. Sebadoh simplified the process by already editing Jason Lowenstein's "Shit Soup" as "S. Soup" on the Bakesale sleeve. If only the Dwarves were as cooperative.

28. Butthole Surfers – To Parter
Band names though? Band names are more artful and it would seem a shame to abbreviate the Butthole Surfers (a.k.a. "BH Surfers"), Pussy Galore and the Fucking Champs in any way (very sophisticated system). I'm not naive enough to think she'll never drop an F-bomb in her life—maybe she'll even produce the 2038 equivalent of a blog and swear all over the place like her dad. Just lay off the Quaaludes, kid.

29. Big Boy Pete – Cold Turkey
"Peter Jay Miller, also known as Big Boy Pete, is an English singer, songwriter, recording engineer and record producer." English?? Wikipedia also says "Cold Turkey" was "one of the first English psychedelic songs" when it was released in 1968, which wasn't even the second year of English psychedelic music. Riiight. Sounds like late '66/early '67 Texas anyhow.

30. Groundhogs – Free From All Alarm
Can, Six Finger Satellite and the Groundhogs. You, reader, will rarely be free of their greatness come late May. 1974's "Free From All Alarm" starts off all Two Sides of Tony (TS) McPhee before the band kicks in halfway through to mark a Solid end to the band's classic era. Har! Har!

31. Thee Headcoats – He's So Popular With the Girls
From 1994's Conundrum, which is so out of print I can't even find a good image of the cover to stick on Sonik Truth II. Now that I've converted my entire collection to ones and zeroes, is a higher-capacity Sonik Truth III on the horizon? I'll be so popular with the girls, on the cover of the NME, so fuckin' broad-minded, underneath the disco lights… the girls being my wife, daughter and cat, of course. What kind of masher do you take me for? And are iPods even produced anymore?

32. De La Soul – Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)
"Don't flaunt that the candy is good unless you can get plenty." Good (gōōd): of high quality; enjoyable or satisfying. Plenty (plen·ty): a large or sufficient amount or quantity. In February, De La Soul offered up their entire discography as a free download. Proper albums, hits collections, B-sides (mostly from the 3 Feet High and Rising bonus disc) and other rarities like soundtrack cuts and the Clear Lake Auditorium EP. It was In Rainbows times a hundred.

33. Nirvana – Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle
Steve Albini was right. Again. In Utero is all over the place right now… at least, it was late last Summer in celebration of its twentieth anniversary. Vish Khanna interviewed Steve Albini, Chris Novoselic (useless) and others (David Yow… really?) on his mostly interesting Kreative Kontrol podcast in August and then Mojo's September cover story revisited a between-overdoses interview with fickle mush-head Kurt Cobain alongside retrospective remarks from Novoselic and Dave Grohl. This demonstrates how far behind I am in my magazines and podcasts. No rock icon is as annoying as Cobain, who battled daily with world fame vs. artistic credibility, and it all comes through in that Mojo package—he loved Albini's original recordings and mixes, he wanted the songs to be more accessible for a mainstream public, he thought Nevermind was too slick… make up your mind, asshole! To Albini's credit, he doesn't shit on Cobain in the KK interview and seems to regret some of the "pompous" (his term) elements of his preliminary "missive" (his term) to the band. The interview takes a strange turn with Khanna determined to hear the story behind Grohl's "Marigold" (relegated to single B-side status) even after Albini repeatedly (politely) states that he had little to do with recording or mixing it. Then Khanna rakes the muck by asking about Courtney Love, who showed up halfway through the sessions and seemed to drag everything down. Albini responds (around Khanna's buts) "Yeah, I don't have anything to say about that woman… I don't even want to have her on my mind right now… you're still talking about it!" Twenty years on and this is what you want to know? Anyway, read the letter. It's amazing. As such, scruples-baiting "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" or "Milk It" would have been more appropriate choices here but I prefer the dynamics of "Frances Farmer." I am principled.

34. Public Enemy – Live and Undrugged
From dead and drugged to "Live and Undrugged." I set them up and I knock them down. A hushed "Say you want a revolution…" at the three-and-a-half-minute mark apparently kicks off the officially listed "Part 2" of this even though I hear no real "Part 1." Some extra urgency becomes apparent, as if Chuck and live drummer Owsley Stanley III Nathaniel Townsley III know they're running out of time (Flavor Flav went five thousand after thirty seconds of minimal hype). I ignored Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age upon its release in 1994 and wasn't alone—the reviews weren't great and a lackluster Apocalypse '91 (excepting highlights like "How to Kill a Radio Consultant") made me content to spin the first three albums on repeat instead. Over time I bit the bullet and am pleasantly surprised that it holds up so well, previewing some of the psychedelia (the real kind, not this contemporary techno bullshit) they would embrace on the excellent There's a Poison Goin' On… and the fair New Whirl Odor a few years later. Their attacks on gangsta rap culture were twenty years ahead of anyone else (Questlove's wishy-washy new essay series on the topic has nothing on "So Whatcha Gone Do Now?") and left others to claim they were washed up and out of touch. Wrong again, white liberals like yourself!

35. Devo – Penetration in the Centerfold
Forgive me as I de-Anglicize the spelling. I always hear "There's something in the middle and it's giving me a rush" as "…giving me a rod." I prefer my version. Pussy Galore's cover (Julie Cafritz: "Bark! Bark! Bark!"; Bob Bert: "Metal! Metal! Metal!") is featured as a bonus track on the reissued Sugarshit Sharp EP, which I sold a long time ago for next to nothing. Copies are currently available on Amazon for $24. Goddammit.

36. Automator – The Good, the Bad and the Chutney
Side C closes with another questionable "instrumental"—sampled dialogue doesn't count, right? Bombay the Hard Way was formally credited to Bollywood composers Kalyanji Virji Shah and Anandji Virji Shah and likely deleted after they caught wind of it. Kalyanji–Anandji must have a spectacular team of singing and dancing lawyers.

37. Goat – Golden Dawn
A strong band with a weak singer, that's why the microphone gets disconnected after fifty seconds. I think World Music (not "world music") could have overtaken Off! last January if that mic had stayed disconnected. "Golden Dawn" is well placed after "The Good, the Bad and the Chutney." I am running out of steam.

38. The Band – Baby Don't You Do It (Live)
Abbreviated as "Don't Do It" on Rock of Ages for some reason. If you're going to cover a song then do what you want with the arrangement and leave the title alone, right? Like the MC5, renaming the Troggs' "I Want You" as "I Want You Right Now" on Kick Out the Jams—Larry Page and Colin Frechter did not write a song called "I Want You Right Now." For the sake of neurotic fussbuckets who consider the factual purity of their music collections to determine societal worth, please correct the listing on future-mechanism (x) Rock of Ages reissues.

39. Shirley Ellis – The Nitty Gritty
I like the fake "Farmer John" live feel of this one (I'm not convinced the Band had a legitimate audience a few minutes ago either). Wikipedia calls this 1963 single a "novelty hit"—fuck them, the studio was the place to be that night. Novelty is writing for Wikipedia. Gladys Knight & the Pips covered "The Nitty Gritty" in '69 with decent but far less effective results—the horns, the vocals, the whole thing, just too Motown-ed. Ellis's grungy original, which sounds like it was recorded and mixed in a half hour, is sixties soul perfection.

40. Peggy Sue – Cut My Teeth
I will no longer apologize for neglecting women on my playlists. It's condescending to measure "female" music any differently than "male" music and if they don't represent a large-enough piece of the pie here then it's not my problem. Peggy Sue (?) takes her/their time on the six-minute "Cut My Teeth" and delivers our most menacing number since Bedemon's ritual sacrifice at the start—that low end has a nice Rid of Me-era PJ Harvey feel to it and the general vibe is very Duke Spir– there I go, comparing women to women again! It's your round to buy, Atlantics Lead Singer.

41. Hogwash – Witch Doctor
Split: 1971 album by the Groundhogs. Hogwash: 1972 album by the Groundhogs. Split/Hogwash: two post-Jungle Rot groups led by George Brigman. "Mighty Scratching" is a good name too. "Solid Save." "Obituary Bomb." "Surface Christ." You're welcome, George.

42. Cake Like – Suck
Kerry Kinney from The State was in this band. The State had nothing on Exit 57. "Suck" is the sixth and final song from 1994, my midpoint (so far) and the formal dawning of my love of underground music. Tearsheeting at an advertising agency, arguing over The Bold and the Beautiful vs. (inferior) The Days of Our Lives in the lunchroom, crushing on every older woman within ten blocks and listening to WZBC eight hours a day: so went Summer and Fall that year. (Also, getting into bars as a twenty-year-old without needing a fake ID and subsequently barfing all over the little alcove outside Small Planet in Copley Square that one night. Good times defined.) Much of Delicious was in heavy rotation on 'ZBC and I can't hear any of it without being immediately transported to my little mailroom on Temple Place.

43. Dead Meadow – Till Kingdom Come
Dead Meadow, somehow making their first appearance Among the Forty-Eight (an eighty-minute cap was one of Volume 1's shortfalls), nearly came through with Three Kings's "That Old Temple" or Warble Womb's "In the Thicket" or "This Song Is Over." "Till Kingdom Come," though, stands out from the February show—I recorded their performance of it and "Sleepy Silver Door" on my phone. Distortion does a single tiny speaker no favors and it sounds like ass but still looks great. I didn't care for that Six Point Bengali Tiger IPA, though. Brooklyn remains overrated.

44. Hawkwind – Children of the Sun
At least Dead Meadow made the cut once, but Hawkwind? But Hawkwind! Shunned through five volumes. I considered fifteen minutes of "You Shouldn't Do That" (the first song on In Search of Space, which is not called X In Search of Space because the "X" is clearly a design element; "Children of the Sun" closes the album) until ruling it out for, I don't know, etiquette. When the dozens of guys from Hawkwind left the room I walked out behind them and shut the door, failing to notice Sleater-Kinney sneaking in through the window. Sadly, four Creedence Clearwater Revivalists and their "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" cover never made it past security.

45. Neil Young – Revolution Blues
A. took the train home the other night after staying a little late at work. Within a minute of walking through the door, earbuds still in place, she told me "'Cowgirl in the Sand' might be my favorite song right now… it's, like, perfect." Understand that her taste rarely strays beyond the conventional four-minute mark and even she's surprised ("Revolution Blues" was already in place here as we've both been on a Neil Young kick lately). She does not like long songs. "Sister Ray" is her nightmare. "Cowgirl in the Sand" should be her nightmare but it's "like, perfect." Another favorite of hers right now is Kurt Vile's nine-and-a-half minute "Wakin' on a Pretty Day." Nine and a half minutes! We're seeing him and his band the Violators this weekend in Northampton—after a dinner date at the Brewery and a (hopefully fruitful) stop by Turn It Up to sell more CDs and help cover expenses—and we'll see if there's anything to this media-created Neil Young/Kurt Vile thing. (G. will be OK in the car for a few hours, right?) Expect something from Vile next May as I dig into his discography following the show. Unless he sucks. [Edit: It will be Loud Song No. 1 "The Hunchback" or Loud Song No. 2 "Freak Train."] Also on the concert calendar: "You wanted the best and you got it!" So you'll get it.

46. Nick Drake – Road
Sentimentality upon purging: "I'll always favor the lovely 'Road' following its appearance in Hideous Kinky. I feel like I should see that movie again now that I have a lovely, precocious daughter of my own." Yes. Is there a lovelier two minutes? Is there a lovelier purple-bow-wearer? A friend shared some Huffington Post bullshit about things daughters can't do because they're girls. Baseball, hockey, wear blue clothes… except the "author" goes on to say girls actually can do all these things. It was very confusing. To top it off, in a parenthetical aside "clarifying" what he meant by the phrase "a few of those instances," we get this nugget: "there have been almost two entire handfuls of times this has happened." Feel free to stare blankly at something for a moment. "Almost two entire handfuls." "Two" actually means something on its own. "I'll take two slices of pizza, please." "Are two quarters enough for the meter?" "You owe me two dollars for this bullshit Huffington Post column." "Almost two." Does that mean one? "Almost two entire." OK, so we're dealing with fractions—one and nine tenths? "A handful." This is a metaphor—we're not talking about grapes or cashews. "An entire handful." Adjectives are supposed to provide more detail. "Almost an entire handful." You are qualifying something that has yet to be defined. "Almost two entire handfuls." And then doubling it. You can be a hack, Mike Reynolds, if you really want to/Though I can see quite clearly that you already are/I can see quite clearly that you already are.

47. Love Battery – Between the Eyes
Love Battery has aged well—even the best of their contemporaries like Mudhoney and Tad had that drum reverb going on for a year or two. Oskar included "Between the Eyes" (the A-side of their first single and an immediate career peak) and the subsequent Between the Eyes EP's "2 and 2" on a couple of those old tapes. I continued to like them enough to buy 1993's Far Gone disc and rock that shit while driving the shuttle (minivan) between JFK/UMass Station and the Globe all those mornings and afternoons—a girl I knew once asked "Is this the Dead Batteries again?" She was cute and probably liked Lisa Loeb. Another time I had the Doors' LA Woman playing and a black woman stepped on just as the bloated singer announced "The negroes in the forest, brightly feathered." Thanks, Jim. Anyway, Far Gone's non-instrumental "Instrumental" would probably have worked here in some capacity, but since we're one song away from ending this year's inter-net nightmare you can forget it.

48. Witthüser & Westrupp – Illusion I
A rueful (thanks again, Jim) number from 1971's Trips und Träume takes us home, thus ending 2014's quarterly instrumental experiment. "Illusion I" (does "Illusion II" exist anywhere?) is popular on Songza's Krautrock channel. They play a lot of Kraftwerk too, am I the only one who doesn't get them? "Jackie O received fresh oranges from John Kennedy!" Oh, hey Steven. You're still here? "The president is alone in a room! He is unimportant!" Help yourself to the last doughnut but it's almost time to shut down. "As we eat his oranges the sky grows blacker!" Do you need a ride home or anything? "In the planetarium!" You're going to the planetarium? Now? "You will never be on the whip-end-end of slavery!" "The whip-end-end"? What kind of planetarium is this? "Hang up the phone, I can't dance with you anymore!" I was just calling to see what time they close. "Heaven will never be an extension of your body!" OK man, you convinced me. Witthüser, Westrupp und I will meet you at the science museum in an hour. Should we bring the oranges? "Silly girl!"

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Numbers never lie: one song from the fifties, only eight from the sixties (three from '69), twelve from the seventies (three each from '71, '72 and '74), four from the eighties, thirteen from the nineties (!), four from the aughts and five from the teens. Our three shortest songs total four minutes and thirty seconds. The three longest? Twenty-seven minutes and thirty seconds. God bless you, daughter, for daring to embrace excess from time to time.

More furious madness: Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5