Game on 2008

The crowd tight into my hand with the loud
Intro, then throw lyrics from a cloud like Zeus
I'm the one to get the ladies loose
Baby, you just got seduced and juiced...

As the brink of the brink of the 2008 baseball season, a few things the SG would like to see this year from the Rockies:

-Aaron Cook be a legit #2 starter. When you hear that term: "#2 starter" you think of 13-15 wins, especially on a squad that is considered a contender. Cook has never won double digits in his career, albeit injuries have played a factor in his IP.

-Cheap beers at Coors Field. Come on, one random Tuesday night game versus some nondescript opponent why not have $2 or even $3 beer night. A usual 24,000 crowd would grow a bit. And don't give me that 'Guys Night Out' BS; I don't need some lame t-shirt. Frat boys, former Slushy Gutter winners, and rehab dropouts throughout Colorado would offer a hearty cheers.

-Slick Willie sets the tone. Willie Taveras wasn't exactly Rickey Henderson in Tucson, batting near the Mendoza Line and harboring an OBP not endearing to a table setter. If Willie can't get it going, it'll be time for 2006 postseason stud Scott Podsednik (who averaged nearly 100 points better in BA and OBP in preseason) to get his at bats.

-Out of sport scores at Coors. During the Avs' Stanley Cup runs of yesteryear, their scores were a fixture on the Coors Field right field scoreboard and Bob Hartley even threw out the first pitch next to the Cup. Rumor has it that Larry Walker spit his sunflower seeds in it. Let's hope the Avs' and Nugs' current pushes warrant a spot on the board.

-Value for Fuentes. Injuries will undoubtedly play a role in the long season, and the Rox cannot continue to pay a setup man over $5 million a year. If a viable setup man emerges from the pen, look for the front office to unload the former All Star Fuentes for more pitching or a strong bat off the bench.

-Dinosaur Love. The long standing trend has been to bash the Rockies' Dinger as the some sort of lowly scum throught the team's existence. Yeah, he's kind of goofy, but he's a mascot. If he shot beers out of that t-shirt cannon or robbed the beer vendor, that'd be a good start to get folks on his side.

Putting the 'D' in Mickey D's

With the strange news surrounding Donk WR Brandon Marshall this week, a new trend is growing in the copycat style NFL. After Marshall was slowed by an alleged McDonalds’ bag, other teams’ are looking at fast food options to solve their defensive dilemnas.

“We watch around the league, especially the division. With Marshall’s breakout 07 campaign, we had him pegged as a major threat in 08.” Said San Diego GM AJ Smith. “We have to counter him, that’s why we’re bringing in the Hamburgler at safety.”

San Diego isn’t alone in the trend, as Kansas City has Colonel Sanders and the Arby’s Oven Mitt in their mini-camp.

“Colonel Sanders is a beast out there,” said KC Head Coach Herm Edwards. “Rather surprising given the fact he’s been dead for some time, but he sticks to the receiver like spices on chicken.”

The signings have extended beyond the AFC West, with the “bigger names” going to the big market teams: the Jets have signed the Burger King to play corner while Ronald McDonald is believed to be heading to the Colts.

Jets’ management defended the large contract given to the King. “Look at the receivers in this division. Moss, Welker. Lee Evans. The King will help us counter them. Now if we can just find him a size 20 helmet, we’ll be set.” A Jets rep said.

NFL scouts have been spotted at various corporate fast food headquarters as well as smaller venues. A Houston Texans scout was seen working out with the Chick Fil-A cows on their practice fields. An unnamed source pegged the cows as “being able to bring the heat to the QB, as well as get some sweet discounts on those waffle fries.”

The Raiders, true to their last place and unorthodox style, have lagged behind the league in the newest frenzy. Al Davis and crew have only been able to secure Jeremy, the nighttime drive thru worker at the Oxnard Taco Bell.

KRS Has Beef (Again)

Here's a new KRS joint with the legendary Premier on the beats and decks. Big surprise that KRS is sh*tting on the new realm of rappers, bragging on how he goes way back in the game, that he kicks the pure knowledge and understanding, that the rap game should crown him high exalted MC supreme, that he invented the phonograph just to facilitate raps' growth, how he battled King Arthur's poets when all of us weren't even gleams in our ancestor's oatmeal, and that he is thinkin gof taking a UFO to another galaxy becuase the MCs on Earth are so easy.

And you know what, it's still hot as sh*t. "KRS writes poetry..."

No #1

It's the beer drinkin, breath stinkin, sniffin money I throw my hands up and say, "it's good" like Gene Tunney...

Haikus for the departed Jason Elam:

Kicker fifteen years
Big Money in Atlanta
Eat alot of grits

Huge jack for Jason
No more extra roster spot
Weak leg no touchback

Super Bowl links gone
Get rid of Braxton jersey
That shit is real old

Hey Mike Vanderjact?
Peyton calls him idiot
He might be Donkey

Deep Sixed

It's like that, you know it's like that
I got it hemmed, now you never get the mic back
When I attack, there ain't an army that could strike back
So I react never calmly on a hype track…

Quick hitters from the excruciating loss to the Sixers last night:

-The love fest between the Sixer crowd and AI was almost uncomfortable, you know, like that brother and sister who are a little “too close” and it makes you kind of uneasy. I thought Rocky Balboa was gonna come onto the court and give AI a back rub. AI’s almost remorseful comments postgame were from the vein of a man who just saw a chick he dropped a few years back and now she’s rock hard and flaunting it.

-For the first time maybe all year, Marcus Camby looked his age. The second night of back-to-back’s might be wearing on him this late in the year. Along with his front line mates of K-Mart and Melo, they were getting ridiculously hammered on the boards. K-Mart and Melo seemed disinterested in getting into position and snatching some boards. On the other hand, Kleiza and Eddie Najera were active as ever, they just can’t compete physically with the Sixers’ bigs.

-0 for 14 to start the 4th quarter? When you go 1976 Tampa Bay in any stretch of any basketball game, the odds are stacked high you will not win.

-Call me an alarmist, but last night was the beginning of the proverbial nail in the coffin. Two and half back with 14 to play? Say it ain’t so, Mr. Kroenke, but your luxury tax team is going to be watching ping pong balls this year.

Your Want Your Mummy

Stress the elevation, wrap my thoughts like a mummy

It's funny, how sometimes some smart one's a dummy..

Of course everyone you know, have ever met, or might be a friend of your mother's hairstylist has invited you to be in their NCAA Bracket contest. Now, the Slushy Gutter is no different. We have our own NCAA Challenge fresh for 08:

YAHOO Tourney Challenge

ID #: 72683

PASSWORD: beer (case sensitive)

No money is involved, just for the "love of the game." However, The Commish will be taking on former two-time Slushy Gutter Winner TDub in the confines of the game. Whoever has the shittiest bracket will be forced to dress as a mummy at one CU football game this fall. Yes, a mummy.

Good luck to all.

Paddy's Points

Ya see I'm Irish, but I'm not a leprechaun
You wanna fight, then step up and we'll get it on...

COLORADO SPORTS

***Denver native and Tennessee Titans running back Lendale White was gaffled by Dever’s Finest post Parade Day outside of a Denver nightclub. Lendale was most likely trying to buy the burrito lady’s entire stock and was mad when she refused.

***The Nuggets harkened back to the days of Maxie Minor, the Crayola Unis and $2.00 Coors by absolutely pummeling the Sonics 168- 116. The current edition of the Nugs has scored 300+ points versus their Northwest Division foes in the last two meetings. The game was a laugher midway through the 2nd quarter as George Karl emptied his bench and even Rocky, the Elvis looking cop at courtside, the chubby cheerleader with the mullet, and Scott Hastings finished out the game with Taurean Green.

HIP HOP

***This St Patrick’s Day there is inevitably a lot of House of Pain played on you local or national Hip Hop shows. Nearly 16 years ago they hit the scene with “Jump Around” which to the mainstream, is a one-hit wonder, but to the Hip Hop realm their other work also stands out. However, was HoP a viable part of the history or a cleverly crafted gimmick? Everlast went from a coiffed Ice-T associate to a tatted, flannel wearing, Irish hooligan. Their Irish angle seemed a curious by-product of the Afrocentric movement of just a couple years earlier. Aided by just ill Soul Assassin (one may argue the HoP debut beats were better than the seminal classic Cypress Hill self titled debut) production, the group’s first album was an early 90’s classic. The group quickly faded in both the mainstream and the Hip Hop realm, although their third album Truth Crushed to Earth Shall Rise Again is worth a second look and can be had in most used CD bins. VIDEO: Fed Up featuring Guru

BEER

***Slushy Gutter's recipe for your very own St. Patrick's Day beer:
1- Start with a can of beer; Coors Light preferred
2- Open
3- Enjoy
4- Repeat
5- Watch Jennifer Aniston's classic Leprechaun after completing steps 1-4 a minimum of seven times and you'll think it's a fu*king Oscar winner.

Corned Beef & Rappage

Especially when you're not, college material
Wake up every morning to your Lucky Charms cereal...

Like Christmas in March, St. Patrick's Day here in SG Land is greeted with the joyous celebrations, the company of drunks friends, and plenty, plenty, I mean plenty of beer.

Irish beer, green beer, heavy beer, light beer, leprechaun piss, it doesn't really matter. Since one of the pillars of Slushy Gutter Summer is beer, we got that on lock. Add in a weekend of Colorado sports (usually some Avs or Nugs this time of year) and we got two of the three held the f*ck down. So, about 7 years ago, I blessed the third pillar of the SG- Hip Hop- with its own St. Paddy's mix.

Mrs. Commish and the crew cringe each St. Paddy's weekend as I break the mix out of the year long slumber and play it backwards and forwards all weekend long. Now, I bequeath the Slushy Gutter Corned Beef and Rappage mix to the faithful SG readers, all three of you. You'lll find the usual "Irish" and "drinking" songs you'd expect plus a few lost classics...Enjoy...Erin Go Braugh.

Track Listing:
1- Gin and Juice- Snoop Dogg
2- Shamrocks and Shenanigans (Muggs Mix)- House of Pain
3- Drink Away the Pain- Mobb Deep f/ Q-Tip
4- King Tee's Beer Stand- King Tee f/ Ice Cube
5- Here's a Drink- The Beatnuts
6- Jump Around (Pete Rock Remix)- House of Pain
7- Hip Hop Drunkies- Tha Alkholiks f/ Ol' Dirty Bastard
8- Tap the Bottle- Young Black Teenagers
9- Tequila Sunrise- Cypress Hill
10- Saturday Nite Live- Lordz of Brooklyn
11- Too Drunk to Fuck- Hi-C
12- On the Rox- King Tee
13- Last Call- Tha Alkaholiks
14- Who's Da Man- House of Pain
15- Bakardi Slang- Kardinal Offishall
16- Only When I'm Drunker- Tash f/E-Swift and J-Ro
17- Lab Drunk- Bobby Digital
18- Anotha Round- Tha Alkholiks
19- Put Your Head Out- House of Pain f/ B-Real

DOWNLOAD HERE

***Note to all the Denver headz reppin at the St Patrick's Day Parade in LoDo; check for the SG Crew, look for the only idiot in the shirt from my profile and I'll let you buy me a beer.

Kenyon Drives the Lane Fast, Very Fast

I don't need no lights, no cameras, just action goddammit
Never no superstar, I'm more like a planet...

It seems a Denver muckety muck lawyer in the DA office hooked up Kenyon “Lead Foot” Martin by looking the other way over the Nugs’ forward’s speeding tickets.

(Note: yes, those are 100 MPH plus speeds; Kenyon is apparently angling post-career for NASCAR)

In a related note, the DA has been retained by Nugs’ brass to see if he can “look the other way” and pass along Kenyon’s overpriced contract to some other NBA/D-League/Chinese League/Globetrotters/Gus Macker team.

The DA has also been approached by the Nugs coaching staff to see if he make Kenyon’s play hard half the time attitude “go away.”

Other duties the organization has considered for the DA include: erasing some of those bad tats, passing along Kenyon’s sometimes ridiculous technical fouls to teammate Linas Kleiza, and being able to handle Western Conference big men.

Del Fresh Co?

You really make me sick with ya fraudulent behavior

you're gonna make me flip and then an army couldn't save ya...

Tuesday's highlight release is Eleventh Hour by Del.

When we found out that Del The Funky Homosapien had found a new home on the Def Jux label, I was instantly brought back to Del’s last solo offering, 2000’s Both Sides of the Brain. The stand out track on that joint was easily “Offspring” with Def Jux head honcho El-P. The prospect of Del, coupled with the Def Jux sound for an entire album was intriguing. However, Eleventh Hour bares no resemblance to a typical Def Juxie; no scattered and complicated beats, no Cage/Aesop/Breez Evahflowin cameos, no thesaurus utilizing lyrics.

Some might say that’s a good thing. Del, the Bay Area legend, forgoes the usual Def Jux formula to produce a sometimes funk-driven album that is pretty tame lyrically and a bit too tame musically. As a whole, it is an easy listen, as Del still offers a smooth lyrical flow and style.

Del takes on production almost exclusively by himself, which seems mainly focused on bounce driven beats and minimal composition (witness the average lead single, “Workin It.”) The first two tracks, “Raw Sewage” and “Bubble Pop” are nice tracks which fit the all-too-familiar rail versus the current state of Hip Hop that many older artists subscribe to.

Del goes nearly the entire album without any guest appearances (the entire Hiero crew is absent throughout.) Ladybug Mecca (yes, the same one) shines on one of the album’s strongest tracks “I Got You.” The very last track, “Funkyhomosapien” is the strongest of the bunch, with a “Catch a Bad One”-type bass line and a heavier feel, in which the sample “what is a homosapien” is asked throughout. If you’re looking for something like past Del triumphs, this “homosapien” is vastly downgraded.

***CHECK IT: "Workin It"

***CLASSIC MATERIAL: "Catch a Bad One"

Shaq a Wack

Shaquille O'Neal f/ Method Man and RZA- "No Hook" (1995)

Watching Shaq at the Pepsi Center last night brought visions of Emmitt Smith in a Cardinals uniform to my mind. The Nuggets simply ran by the Suns, who suddenly look like the over-40 team at your local rec center. Shaq looks like a fatter Greg "Cadillac" Anderson; he barely moves on defense, he doesn’t go for long rebounds, and he has a penchant for virtually camping in the lane.

If Shaq has lost it on the floor, has he lost it on the mic too? Did he ever have it on the mic? Maybe, maybe not, but Shaq and his riches and label (Jive) could conjure up some great guest MCs and producers of the day. Now, if we could just find that Steve Nash hidden verse.

Check this box if you like us

The road ahead goes on and on
The shit is gettin' longer than the mutherfuckin' marathon...

Dear Foppa:

After your stellar, inspiring, once-in-a-lifetime performance at the Pepsi Center last night, I came home and put on Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” and settled in with a smooth glass of Merlot. I lit some candles and leafed through some late 90’s Avs’ media guides and thought of yesteryear.

We thank you for coming back to Our Fair Town, for getting off barely mentioning the Avs to penning columns, to live stand ins by your locker (it smells so delish), to full photos of those piercing blues on the web.

My gosh, Peter, we thought Paul Stasny was the Nuggets equipment manager before last night!

Now you have rekindled our relationship with you and your mates; we’ll even forget that you left to join some other team, or some other league, or wherever it is you were. We’ll forget the numerous injuries and missed time; we couldn’t be mad at you with that scruffy beard!

Your team, we hear, was mired out of the playoff race until recently, but now with you back in the fold, we can fully expect another grand parade down 17th street where you look like a conquering Nordic warrior perched on top on a magnificent steed known as a DFD truck.

We’ll be here now, Peter…

Love always,
The Denver Media

Free Agent Frenzy?

Kick styles by the piles, as I leave a trail for miles
Skins when I please, hit from here to Tel Aviv...

While the rest of the NFL goes on the free agent feeding frenzy, the Donks have chose to make their big splashes by:

-Re-signing Nate Jackson (Print up those playoff tickets! He used to be a wide receiver, now he's a tight end. Or is it the other way? So he's a hybrid type guy? Either way, he's not very good at either of them, so he's a dirty Honda Prius that the weirdo guy in the cubicle by the copier drives.)

-Signing Kerry Colbert (Find me one fantasy league where this dude isn’t always on the Waiver Wire. And if you can't, it is the worse fantasy league in the world; who's your other starter at WR? Al Toon?)

-Signing Niko Koutouvides to a three year deal (Seriously, did this dude even play in the NFL or is he the Eastern European gangster from The Sopranos?)

-Re-signing John Lynch to a one year deal (Does this come with his walker and/or motorized cart in the contact?)

- DT Marcus Thomas (He wasn't signed, but got plenty of ink by being popped by 5-0 this weekend for coke. Yes, cocaine. Someone inform Mr. Thomas that the late 70’s NBA called and want their blow back. Was he snorting with Dirk Digler and Roller Girl? This comes from a player who was kicked off the University of Florida team during his senior year due to other transgressions. Apparently that didn’t scare Shanny off from bringing him into the fold. While the Broncos slowly morph into Bengals West, the man at the helm seems more and more like the coked up one.