Post by Jim H. on Mar 12, 2023 21:33:21 GMT -5
Guess who’s back
Back again
Paulie’s back
Tell a friend
It took us a long time to work an Eminem reference into the blog but every rapper, just like every dog, will have his day. We actually sat out the whole Eminem era. If truth be told, we have been stuck in a Talking Heads ’77-induced funk since…well…1977 come to think of it. That all changed Friday morning when we were on Youtube watching highlights of the Rangers-Canadiens game. Thirty-five seconds into the game (and 14 seconds into the highlights) Kaiden Guhle for Montreal literally pirouetted the puck into the net from the face-off circle. The announcer—a real homer by the sounds of it—waxed poetic:
Guess who’s back
Back again
Guhle’s back
Tell a friend
We instantly detected a pop culture reference with which we were not acquainted. Finding out its origin would be a cinch because as a keyboard jockey we can ride the rails with the best of them. We paused the video, opened a new tab and clicked away, entering “guess who’s back etc.” into the search bar. That’s how we discovered the Eminem song “Without Me”. In another instant we had our lead-in for the blog. For what better way to hype the return of Paul Egan from Chamonix than with a reference to Eminem, a rapper who is so cool even the name he was born with—Marshall Mathers—sounds cool. Surprisingly there’s only three degrees of separation between Eminem and Paul:
1) Eminem mainstreamed rap music like no other artist
2) The band Blondie pioneered mainstreaming rap with its song “Rapture” in 1981
3) Paul had a poster of Deborah Harry on his wall in high school
Now to Week 24. All afternoon Rich Devlin was questionable. But then he sat on his exercise ball, bounced up and down a few times, and gave himself the green light. The real clincher, however, was that he was back on Blue—PGA/Sawgrass/Blue and not those Saudi/LIV/Red upstarts like last week. When we got to the rink a half hour early eight skaters and one goalie, Eli Reid, were already on the ice warming up. The other goalie, Mark, didn’t arrive until 5:55. Last time he played Old Bucks was February of last year.
“Got some new faces, Mark,” Rich Devlin told him.
“Some of them are even hockey players,” Bob Freiling added.
Mark got no warm-up which might account for the fact that Blue jumped out to a VERY fast 6-0 lead. They had a marquee threesome—Ben David, Bob Freiling and Josh Hunter—that were absolutely racking up the goals. But Mark got sharper as the game wore on and from Red’s depth chart a couple scorers finally bobbed to the surface, Brian Urban, one, and Aaron Kibbey, two, both of whom were in fine form and, long story short, were instrumental in Red outscoring Blue 7-6 for the rest of the game.
In the meantime Rich Devlin was back in his office but suffering from Zoom fatigue which in Old Bucks means constantly watching Bob Freiling zoom past him on fast breaks. Still he finished the game unlike Paul Egan who had to bow out early, his injury very familiar to elite skiers in the 55+ category called “Chamonix hamstring” which is usually the result of combining black diamond terrain with bunny slope agility. Undaunted, Paul still made it to the after party along with his retinue of friends and admirers. Perhaps now that he can cross off Chamonix from his bucket list, he'll dedicate next year's funds to something more domestic, something that really lasts, like a Koi pond.
Week 24, incidentally, was marked by Tim White Savings. That’s a March tradition when the 24 hour day gets shortened to 23 hours and Tim has to forgo hockey because with less hours in the day “something’s gotta give”. He still made it to the after party because, after all, priorities are priorities. We overheard him say he took 20,000 steps this weekend: 13,000 yesterday and 7,000 today. One thing’s guaranteed: of those 20,000 steps, some of which could have been fruitful of experiences and accomplishments, none could possibly compare to the last 40 he took going from the parking lot to the booth.
Back again
Paulie’s back
Tell a friend
It took us a long time to work an Eminem reference into the blog but every rapper, just like every dog, will have his day. We actually sat out the whole Eminem era. If truth be told, we have been stuck in a Talking Heads ’77-induced funk since…well…1977 come to think of it. That all changed Friday morning when we were on Youtube watching highlights of the Rangers-Canadiens game. Thirty-five seconds into the game (and 14 seconds into the highlights) Kaiden Guhle for Montreal literally pirouetted the puck into the net from the face-off circle. The announcer—a real homer by the sounds of it—waxed poetic:
Guess who’s back
Back again
Guhle’s back
Tell a friend
We instantly detected a pop culture reference with which we were not acquainted. Finding out its origin would be a cinch because as a keyboard jockey we can ride the rails with the best of them. We paused the video, opened a new tab and clicked away, entering “guess who’s back etc.” into the search bar. That’s how we discovered the Eminem song “Without Me”. In another instant we had our lead-in for the blog. For what better way to hype the return of Paul Egan from Chamonix than with a reference to Eminem, a rapper who is so cool even the name he was born with—Marshall Mathers—sounds cool. Surprisingly there’s only three degrees of separation between Eminem and Paul:
1) Eminem mainstreamed rap music like no other artist
2) The band Blondie pioneered mainstreaming rap with its song “Rapture” in 1981
3) Paul had a poster of Deborah Harry on his wall in high school
Now to Week 24. All afternoon Rich Devlin was questionable. But then he sat on his exercise ball, bounced up and down a few times, and gave himself the green light. The real clincher, however, was that he was back on Blue—PGA/Sawgrass/Blue and not those Saudi/LIV/Red upstarts like last week. When we got to the rink a half hour early eight skaters and one goalie, Eli Reid, were already on the ice warming up. The other goalie, Mark, didn’t arrive until 5:55. Last time he played Old Bucks was February of last year.
“Got some new faces, Mark,” Rich Devlin told him.
“Some of them are even hockey players,” Bob Freiling added.
Mark got no warm-up which might account for the fact that Blue jumped out to a VERY fast 6-0 lead. They had a marquee threesome—Ben David, Bob Freiling and Josh Hunter—that were absolutely racking up the goals. But Mark got sharper as the game wore on and from Red’s depth chart a couple scorers finally bobbed to the surface, Brian Urban, one, and Aaron Kibbey, two, both of whom were in fine form and, long story short, were instrumental in Red outscoring Blue 7-6 for the rest of the game.
In the meantime Rich Devlin was back in his office but suffering from Zoom fatigue which in Old Bucks means constantly watching Bob Freiling zoom past him on fast breaks. Still he finished the game unlike Paul Egan who had to bow out early, his injury very familiar to elite skiers in the 55+ category called “Chamonix hamstring” which is usually the result of combining black diamond terrain with bunny slope agility. Undaunted, Paul still made it to the after party along with his retinue of friends and admirers. Perhaps now that he can cross off Chamonix from his bucket list, he'll dedicate next year's funds to something more domestic, something that really lasts, like a Koi pond.
Week 24, incidentally, was marked by Tim White Savings. That’s a March tradition when the 24 hour day gets shortened to 23 hours and Tim has to forgo hockey because with less hours in the day “something’s gotta give”. He still made it to the after party because, after all, priorities are priorities. We overheard him say he took 20,000 steps this weekend: 13,000 yesterday and 7,000 today. One thing’s guaranteed: of those 20,000 steps, some of which could have been fruitful of experiences and accomplishments, none could possibly compare to the last 40 he took going from the parking lot to the booth.