Da Bears and other assorted goods

Enjoying some bro-man-dude time with Monday Night Football. Green Bay and Chicago. I've always been a Bears fan. This can first be evidenced from an elementary school class picture where I can be seen posting up hard on the Big Toy, decked out in Bears gear (I'll have to track this one down). I don't know what it is about them. I was too young to remember their prominent years with Jim McMahon and William "The Refrigerator" Perry. Though I do remember Ditka coaching. And I put in serious time on the original Tecmo Bowl for the NES, breaking off huge runs with Walter Payton. There is just something captivating about that navy blue and orange.

The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily
by Dino Buzzati

Another cool thing involving bears - this one in the form of an Italian children's book. I use the word "children's" hesitantly, because there's a lot of text, filled with words like "incredulously" and "bivouacked". Add the presence of advanced concepts like national history, cultural/individual identity and a narrator who can be a tad misleading and this one might end up beyond the scope of the ragamuffin who is content with booger nourishment. So feed them another Curious George. Keep this essential read for yourself.

B Is for Beer
by Tom Robbins

Another "children's book". Well, only if you consider the story of a six-year-old girl who gets drunk and then receives a visit from the beer fairy appropriate for that age range. Regardless of how you want to categorize it, in addition the magical journey detailing the glorious combination of grains, barley and hops, Robbins examines a kid's difficulty to make sense of the complicated and contradictory adult world. The fact that its written as if it were for young'uns is rather funny, considering most adults who drink beer (myself included) couldn't even begin to explain the process in which it is made. But yeah, this one's pretty unique.

The Last Picture Show
by Larry McMurtry

Ever hear old people talk about the past with wistful romanticism? A time when innocence prevailed; Leave It To Beaver was an accurate representation of life. I never really bought into it. Moreover, after reading McMurtry's tribute to his home, Texas a.k.a. "God's Country", it's clear that even people back in the day were teeming with deviance. Kids drank. Kids fought. Kids fucked. And I'll be damned if a couple of them didn't take an impromptu road trip down to Mexico in order to bang a pregnant whore and watch mixed species pornography. All of this before the existence of a Bret Easton Ellis novel.


CURRENT FAVORITE

A Tribe Called Quest - The Love Movement

Tribe has been an all-time favorite of mine for quite some time now. Since I was about 14 - which is when this, their final album, came out. Giving it a few retrospective listens, it's clear that it doesn't exactly warrant swansong status. (But the competition is tough, sharing a body of work with genre classics like The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders.) Still, there are a number of feelgood jams here. Bottom line: you can't go wrong with smooth beats and butter rhymes.