Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns N’ Roses

This week’s classic music video was spurred on by a couple of things. First, Slash has been plastered over the airwaves lately in his new Volkswagen commercial. (I always love how car companies believe that you can be enticed to plunk down $30,000 or more for a car by throwing in a guitar or iPod that you can buy for a couple of hundred bucks on your own.) Second, I received an email ad this past week for the new Guns N’ Roses (which at this point consists of Axl Rose and a bunch of former roadies) Chinese Democracy concert tour. Receiving an email ad about a concert tour certainly isn’t in and of itself unusual, but the fact that it came from the Major League Baseball mailing list definitely threw me for a loop. After investigating this, it turns out that Guns N’ Roses has entered into a strategic partnership with Major League Baseball Advanced Media. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised that Bud Selig has agreed to determine which league gets home field advantage for the World Series based upon the city where Axl gets arrested next. Regardless, no matter how far the mighty have fallen, this song still rules.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

The Bears Are Who We Thought They Were!

By the middle of the fourth quarter of last night’s game between the Bears and Cardinals, I was pretty convinced that this was going to be the capper of the one of the worst sports weeks I’ve endured in a long time. Illinois basketball lost its prize recruit in Eric Gordon, Illinois football managed to lose to a MAC school, and the White Sox might need a new starting shortstop since Juan Uribe could soon be rotting in a prison in the Domincan Republic by the time next season rolls around. However, at that point, the sports gods made up for it all and then some. I don’t know how much more I can add to the commentary on the ridiculous comeback by the Bears within the last five minutes of the game against Arizona. I’m still on a buzz after witnessing the Bears give up six turnovers yet score three touchdowns without the use of its offense. Windy City Gridiron posted some initial thoughts on the Bears side, while Deadspin’s Will Leitch, an avowed Cardinals fan (both Phoenix football and St. Louis baseball), will almost certainly be under suicide watch if the Mets end up winning tonight. Honestly, that was one of the most thrilling ends to any football game that I’ve ever seen, much less one involving my favorite NFL team on the winning end. A few other thoughts:

1) I profusely apologize to Jerry Angelo for ripping his draft picks this past spring. Devin Hester alone has made that day a success for Bears management. Once again, I’m sorry.

2) Brian Urlacher proved again why he’s one of the biggest superstars to ever come out of Briscoe High. There are only a handful of defensive players ever that have almost single-handedly taken over a game the way he did in the fourth quarter last night.

3) There was no doubt in my mind that Neil Rackers was going to miss the field goal at the end. Not only is he cursed by being an Arizona Cardinal, but there’s also been an obvious hex on all Illini not named Steve Chen over the past couple of weeks. There might as well been the Bambino throwing a black cat in the middle of the field while riding a billy goat.

4) The everlasting memory from this game will almost assuredly be Dennis Green’s postgame press conference (shown above uncensored), which I believe will rank up there with Jim Mora’s “Playoffs?!” tirade and Rick Pitino’s speech about how “Larry Bird’s not walking through that door”. I must have watched Green’s press conference at least a dozen times since last night and I still (a) can’t figure out who they thought we were and (b) laugh my ass off every single time.

And finally…

5) There’s certainly a lot of critical analysis on tap about Rex Grossman’s putrid performance and how our defense allowed the Cardinals to pass unabated in the first half, but considering that there’s plenty of time to talk about that since the Bears are heading into a bye week, we’ll save that for later. For now, let’s just enjoy one of the most stunning comebacks in the history of Monday Night Football. Hooray Bears!!!

Hoosier Fleecing: A Q&A with Frank the Tank on the Eric Gordon Debacle

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When I heard the news on Friday that Eric Gordon, the top-rated shooting guard in the nation for the high school class of 2007, was backing out of his oral commitment to Illinois in order to attend Indiana, I was ready to rip into a Tourettes-induced rant that would have drawn multiple fines from the FCC. After letting this situation simmer for a couple days, however, I’ve decided to pare down the ranting (although just a little) and instead have a question and answer session on the fallout from this mess and where everyone goes from here:

Q1: Should anyone be suprised by Eric Gordon’s decision?

A1: No. Although I was keeping up hope through the summer that Gordon wasn’t serious about the overtures from Satan’s Spawn, er, Kelvin Sampson, the longer that he refused to affirmatively reject to Indiana, the worse and worse it looked for Bruce Weber and the Illini. Mark Tupper also noted in his blog that Gordon was feeling incredible pressure in his hometown of Indianapolis to be the savior of IU, which certainly must have had a large impact on his decision.

Q2: Was Kelvin Sampson breaking any rules with his actions?

A2: As much as it pains me to say this, I would answer no. An oral commitment is not binding, so Sampson was in his rights to bombard Gordon with text messages and other sweet nothings such as hiring Gordon’s father’s college coach as an assistant. This is also assuming that Sampson didn’t use the same phone calling tactics that got him sanctioned by the NCAA back in May.

Q3: Notwithstanding any judgment regarding compliance with NCAA rules, is Kelvin Sampson a douchebag that can be proven to be the Spawn of Satan?


A3:
Unequivocally yes. You can be technically ethical and playing within the rules yet still be a douchebag. Sampson has single-handedly made the oral commitment worthless in college basketball, which is going to have an derelict effect on the recruiting process from this point forward. As a result, that proves that he’s Satan’s Spawn on top of being an old-fashioned douchebag. (I’m keeping true to my word from a few months ago.) I know that Indiana fans are on a high right now, but let’s revisit how they feel when Coach K eats one of their oral commits in the future.

Q4: How will this impact the Illini basketball team in 2007-08?

A4: With Gordon, Illinois would have been a legitimate national championship contender as long as he stayed in school. Without Gordon, the Illini still have a decent recruiting class coming out of the Class of 2007 led by point guard Demetri McCamey, but the expectations will have to be pared down considerably. I firmly believe that Bruce Weber is as good of an Xs-and-Os coach as anyone in college basketball today, so I have faith that he will the most out of each of his players and then some. The reality, however, is that you still need top tier recruits of you want to get past just being a tournament team to a perennial national championship contender. Even the Illinois team that made the championship game in 2005, which was the supposed superior “team” in contrast to North Carolina’s better “talent”, had its roots in a monster recruiting class from 2003, where Dee Brown was the top-rated point guard in the country coming out of high school. There’s no getting around the fact that you need both talent and hard work to reach the pinnacle.

Q5: Speaking of Bruce Weber, how much responsibility does he bear for losing Gordon?

A5: This is a situation where Weber can’t really be blamed per se for this happening, but every single question mark on his recruiting skills that were supposed to have been put to rest when he got Gordon to orally commit a year ago will now come back to the forefront with avengeance. While there were obviously a lot of factors in play in terms of Gordon backing out, it begs to question whether Satan’s Spawn, er, Sampson would have been able to lure the recruit away if Bill Self were the head coach instead. Even though I wish it weren’t true, I have a hard time believing that Self would have lost out to Sampson and maybe anyone other than possibly Coach K in this situation. More importantly, I doubt that Sampson would’ve even tried to do this against someone like Self in the first place. The perception right now is that Illinois is getting beaten in every single key recruiting battle. I don’t think Weber is a bad recruiter by any means, but the comparisons to his predecessor are going to be inevitable, particularly in light of the fact that a number of the top players that have come out of the Chicago area over the past few years that are playing in Lawrence rather than Champaign. Like I’ve said before, I’d put Weber in terms of pure basketball knowledge up against anyone. However, there needs to be a world-class recruiter at the helm of every top program, as well. There are definitely a lot of doubts as to whether Bruce Weber fits that mold and as long as that’s the case, Illinois is going to be vulnerable to this same situation again in the future.

Q6: Is there something wrong with obsessing over where some pimply-faced 17-year old high school kid goes to college?

A6: At a rational level, this answer should be yes. I certainly wasn’t ready to commit to anything at that age, so it’s tough for me to be angry at a child for not choosing the college that I attended. However, for better or for worse, those that follow college sports have a lot more pure emotions attached to their school as compared to pro teams. If one of your favorite baseball players ends up signing with the Yankees, you might feel jilted, but at some level you can rationalize it as a matter of the George Steinbrenner throwing wads of money around while eating his calzone for lunch. In the case of college recruiting, though, when a recruit chooses another school over yours, it’s as if though it’s a statement that your school is somehow inferior, which means that you take it a lot more personally. That’s why you see college message boards such as IlliniBoard buzzing with volumes of comments that dwarf equivalent pro team message boards. This isn’t a commentary of whether this is good or bad, but that’s the way it is. If you’ve been able to read this far in this post, you know that I’m as guilty of this as anyone.

Q7: What do Illini fans think of Indiana right now?

A7: Speaking for myself as an Illini fan, my disdain for Indiana before the Eric Gordon situation was rooted in a general hatred of Bobby Knight when he coached there. Since Mike Davis was such an awful coach and the Hoosiers took several steps back in recent years, the hate for Indiana had tapered off as of late.

After the events that just transpired with Eric Gordon, however, the Indiana Hoosiers have catapulted to a special pedestal: Frank the Tank’s most hated team in all of sports. Considering that the Green Bay Packers and Duke Blue Devils were at the top of the list before, that’s saying something. If there’s one silver lining in all of this, it’s that Illini fans can get off of our lame desire to make Michigan our rival and instead turn our hatred toward Indiana, a program that deserves it at a personal level and will also reciprocate it a bit. Make no mistake about it – I truly hate the Hoosiers now.

Q8: Where will Illinois basketball and Illini Nation go from here?

A8: Illinois is arguably the top basketball program in the nation that has never won a national championship. As a result, Illini Nation is essentially in the same state as Red Sox Nation before 2004, meaning that we’re neurotically obsessive about finally getting that championship for experiencing the glory while also shedding a century of baggage. That also entails us being hyper-hyper-hyper-sensitive about everything that happens with our program, ranging from huge events such as this Eric Gordon debacle to minor offhanded comments by Dick Vitale.

Nevertheless, Illinois basketball is a whole lot stronger than Eric Gordon or any other recruit. The very first substantive post that I ever wrote on this blog was entitled “The Paranoia of Illini Nation”, which was a call for Illinois fans to take a step back and try to become the classiest fans in college basketball as opposed to being the most petulant. While it’s fine for us to enhance our hatred of Indiana and refer to Kelvin Sampson as Satan’s Spawn as I described above in order to take care of the fresh open wounds of this spurning by Gordon for the time being because it is definitely a major deal, I hope that we’re still not harping on this same story five years from now. Illini basketball and Illini Nation are strong, so let’s reflect that from this point forward.

(Image from BadgerNation)

Your New Mission: Save ‘Friday Night Lights’

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For the most part, I think the American public is a lot savvier and smarter than what Hollywood gives them credit for. I believe that most people are craving for deep story lines that challenge viewers in terms of their emotions as opposed to just going for the easy feel-good ending. However, when I see that a show as nuanced and gripping as ‘Friday Night Lights’ is struggling to find an audience, I start to understand why Hollywood goes for the lowest common denominator.

Cindy had some interesting concerns before this show aired about whether this would inappropriately glorify high school sports at the expense of other important educational issues, but after viewing the first two episodes of the show, I believe that it’s as dark and upfront as H.G. Bissinger’s classic book about the obsession of a small Texas town that is both ridiculously misplaced and spiritually uplifting at the same time. The show is a lot less about football and much more about the triumphs and problems of society weaved through a coach, his family and players, and the town that they live in. It amazes me that the television show that is almost universally lauded by the critics as the top new program of this season is getting trounced in the ratings by ‘Dancing With The Stars’ (which I’ll admit isn’t even really a bad show, but everyone ought to be horrified of the prospect that the vein on Joey Lawrence’s Kojak-style head is going to pop out through the TV screen).

I’m the type of person that has the television attention span of a gnat (while I probably watch as much TV as anyone, I can count on one hand the number of shows that I make the commitment to watching every week), yet ‘Friday Night Lights’ has already made it to my must-see list. I don’t ask for much, but please check out ‘Friday Night Lights’ on Tuesday if you haven’t already regardless of whether you even care about football in general – you’ll be thankful.

(Image from Sports Illustrated)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Same Song – Digital Underground

Everyone remembers “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground (it was on my wedding song list), but the group’s other mainstream hit “Same Song” hasn’t enjoyed the same staying power. This is a shame because while nothing will ever compare to “The Humpty Dance”, “Same Song” has the distinction of being the only music video in history to feature Humpty, a cameo by Dan Aykroyd playing bagpipes, movie clips of Demi Moore, Chevy Chase, and John Candy, the presentation of a multitude of ethnic and religious stereotypes, and, of all things, the rap debut of Tupac Shakur. Can you believe that it’s been ten years since Tupac died – that is, if you believe that he’s dead?

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Land-o-Links – 10/10/2006

Prediction for next Monday Night’s game: Bears 423, Cardinals -7.

On to today’s links:

1) A Message From Chad and Steve (YouTube) – With hundreds of millions of Google stock in his pocket at age 28, it looks like Steve Chen has leapfrogged me as the most successful member of the Class of 2000 from the University of Illinois.

2) Rocky Horror Football Show (Chicago Tribune) – Eric Zorn’s history of the “There’s a Timeout… Where?… On the Field” ritual between the Soldier Field PA announcer and Bears fans. (Question for the Illini faithful out there: didn’t we do this long before 2000 or is my memory colored? Help me out here!)

3) Zook Defends Decision To Go For Two Early (Chicago Sun-Times) – Initially, I thought Florida fans would have eaten even Bill Belichick alive if he were the first Gator coach to follow Steve Spurrier, but now I’m starting to realize why Ron Zook didn’t last very long in Gainesville.

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4) Most Overexposed Celebrities (Forbes) – No surprise at #1 here, although K-Fed can never be too high for my tastes.

5) Steve Irwin Memorial Meast of the Week – Week 5 (Kissing Suzy Kolber) – A fitting honor for our beloved Bears defense.

And finally…

6) IHEARTBACON.COM – I want to eat my computer right now.

(Image from Deadspin)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Jump – Van Halen

For most Chicagoans, this Van Halen song conjures up images of Harry Caray pounding cans of Budweiser during the 1984 Cubs run to the playoffs. (Remember this commercial?  Van Halen spelled backwards is Nelah Nav.) After being reacquainted with this video, however, it’s going to be hard to get rid of the thought of David Lee Roth gazing into my eyes with his pink tank-top or whatever the hell he was wearing. Enjoy!

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Drunk Off Bears Kool-Aid and Illini Juice (Plus Other Random Thoughts)

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Alright, I’m excited now. The Bears just mauled the defending NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks on all facets of the game. Rex Grossman is leading a balanced offensive attack brilliantly (with Bernard Berrian turning into a Willie Gault-esque deep threat), while Tommie Harris is blossoming into a star on defense. With the Bears’ next four opponents having only a combined four wins total so far, we’re in excellent shape. I’d still like to have a little more confidence in the running game in the first half, which is going to become more important as the weather starts turning colder, but considering this is pretty much the first time Chicago has had a legitimate passing threat at the quarterback position since the days of Erik Kramer, I’m ecstatic about the offense overall. The most difficult thing for me now is to avoid getting too wrapped up in the Super Bowl Shuffle Redux hype that’s going to blanket the city for the next few months (let’s hope Ricky Manning Jr.’s community service doesn’t include a suspension from the NFL). However, I’ve definitely put the Bears Kool-Aid on ice.

Some other random thoughts:

1) Juice Digs John L. Smith’s Grave – The Bears and Illini winning in the same weekend?! Next thing you know, Screech Powers is going to star in a porno video. Not only did Illinois ruin Michigan State’s homecoming by securing an upset as 25 1/2 point underdogs, but the Illini did it in clutch fashion with Juice Williams leading a charge downfield in with less than three minutes to go in the game to set up the game-winning field goal by Jason Reda. Obviously, there are going to be a lot more growing pains with a freshman quarterback being thrust into Big Ten play, but seeing the potential of what Juice can do is making the future of our program appear a whole lot more positive. (What was up with our team trying to plant a flag on the field after the game, though? That was completely unnecessary and Ron Zook rightly apologized in his postgame press conference.) Needless to say, after the Spartans’ debacles against Notre Dame and Illinois in consecutive weeks, firejohnlsmith.net is extremely fired up. With the next two games on the Illinois schedule being at home against Indiana and Ohio (as opposed to Ohio State), this season could end up looking a whole lot better than what we expected just a week ago.

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2) College Football Potpourri – If all goes according to plan, the Michigan-Ohio State game is going to determine who gets into the national championship game as opposed to “just” a Rose Bowl bid… Troy Smith rules. I still don’t know how the national media got so wrapped up in the Brady Quinn bukkake in the preseason that Smith wasn’t the Heisman Trophy favorite from the get-go. Now they know… After a spanking by Notre Dame (and Darius Walker in particular), Purdue’s defense might very well prove to be the worst in the Big Ten. If the Illini want to make a glorious comeback to vindicate my greenie-induced preseason prediction of the team making a bowl, it’s going to hinge on the Purdue game on November 11th.

3) NFL Football Potpourri – How is it that my one fantasy team that lost Shaun Alexander to the Madden Jinx is taking no prisoners with a perfect record so far, while my other fantasy team with Drew Brees, Edgerrin James, and other solid players is winless? I’ve never had such a dichotomy between my two franchises… When Peyton Manning does what he did against the Jets on Sunday in the playoffs against a top-tier defense, then I’ll take notice of the Colts. Until then, they’re always going to be suspect… As much as the nation might be going through a Terrell Owens hype overload, I’ll admit that I’m extremely excited for T.O.’s return to Philadelphia next week. As someone that has spent more time in Philly than any place other than Chicago since I have so much family that lives there, I’m forecasting a downpour of pill bottles raining onto the Cowboys’ sideline on Sunday. I love Philly fans!

4) Baseball Hangover and Postseason Predictions – You know that feeling where your team has been competitive all year but there’s a sudden point where it’s all over for that team and you lose sight of the fact that the season is still going on? While this happens to Cubs fans every year around the middle of June, the White Sox kept my full attention up until about two weeks ago. Since that time, I’ve been in such a baseball funk that I didn’t realize that the Tigers had blown the AL Central on the last day of the season until last night. The best comparison that I can think of are of the times immediately following Illinois getting eliminated in the NCAA Tournament – I kind of have a hangover for a bit where it’s tough for me to get into the other games. I’ve just about gotten over the malaise where I can watch the baseball playoffs with interest again, so here are my predictions (which you should immediately bet against):

a) AL Division Series: Twins over A’s in 5 (even without Francisco Liriano, Minnesota has the best pitching staff out of the postseason participants and the team has simply been playing out of its mind), Yankees over Tigers in 4 (Detroit has been wheezing for the last couple of months)

b) NL Division Series: Dodgers over Mets in 5 (I’ve been saying all along that the Mets are overrated and with Pedro Martinez being out, they’re bowing out in the first round), Cardinals over Padres (just a gut feeling even though St. Louis has looked awful lately)

c) AL Championship Series – Twins over Yankees in 6 (You can talk about you want about the Yankees’ reincarnation of Murderers’ Row at the plate, but their number one starter is Chien-Ming Wang. Even as a fellow Asian, a 19-game winner with only 76 strikeouts in 218 innings pitched is fool’s gold.)

d) NL Championship Series – Dodgers over Cardinals in 7 (Should turn out to be a great series. There’s some type of magic with L.A. this season.)

e) World Series – Twins over Dodgers in 6 (It doesn’t matter which AL you put into this slot. Whoever comes out of the Junior Circuit side of the bracket is going to smoke the NL champs.)

And finally…

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5) Bull Market Around the Corner – It’s hard to believe, but Bulls training camp has already opened with Ben Wallace at the helm. I just secured tickets to the first meeting of the year between the Bulls and Pistons, so I’m one of the handful of people on Earth ready to get the NBA season started. Let’s just hope our Big Ben sinks just a few more free throws this season.

(Images from Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Tribune again)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Your Mama’s On Crack Rock – The Dogs

This week’s classic music video is fitting considering that Terrell Owens’ publicist looks like she had an allergic reaction to the crack rock.  In the meantime, to this day, I’m still perplexed as to how The Dogs don’t have the same notoriety with my generation as other flash in the pan rap luminaries such as Vanilla Ice, M.C. Hammer, and Sir-Mix-a-Lot. That needs to change starting today.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

I Doubted the Madden Jinx and Got Punk’d (Plus Other Random Thoughts)

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I’ve tried to avoid much fantasy sports talk on this blog, but I need to vent here. I heard all of the calls prior to the season about the Madden Jinx and that I should avoid drafting Shaun Alexander for my fantasy football team. However, I’m way too left-brained to believe in such theories, so I ignored all of such talk and grabbed the Seahawks running back when I got the number three pick in one of my drafts (although I would have taken my main man LaDainian Tomlinson if he had been available). Needless to say, we’re not even a month into the season and Shaun Alexander went ahead and broke his foot, meaning that he will be out indefinitely. With the long list of marquee players (compiled nicely by the SportsColumn Blog) either having injuries or numbers drop off drastically immediately after being on the cover of Madden, I’m now a full believer in the jinx. Some other random thoughts:

1) Bears Escape the Hump Dome – Without Tommie Harris, the Bears would have lost Sunday’s game against the Vikings. That being said, Rex Grossman showed that he could rebound from a Favre-esque aggressive mistake with a clutch play at the end. At the same time, it was jarring to no longer see Mike Tice prowl the sidelines in Minnesota after he was hired away in a bidding war by Isiah Thomas to be an assistant coach with the Knicks.

2) Juice Needs Some More FermentingRon Zook finally decided to start Juice Williams at quarterback on Saturday for the Illini, which resulted in the freshman not completing his first 450 passes of the game. I’ve come to the point where I was actually ecstatic when the game was still scoreless near the end of first half for Illinois (although Iowa promptly scoring three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the second quarter snapped me out of my semi-joy). What kind of crack/smack/crank hybrid was I smoking when I said the Illini were going to make a bowl this season?! I’m sure all of you have learned by now to never take me seriously on anything.

3) Sparty Crying in His Irish Coffee – I’ve watched countless Bears and Illini games in my lifetime, which means that I’m a certified expert in pathetic football performances. Therefore, I can unequivocally tell you that Michigan State played the worst fourth quarter I have ever seen in my life against Notre Dame on Saturday. I don’t think anyone watching that game on Saturday thought there was any way that the Irish would come back against the Spartans. In fact, the Chicago Tribune that arrived on my doorstep on Sunday morning, which was published before the game ended, had headlines and a page-long article proclaiming MSU’s dominance along with ripping the lackluster performance of Notre Dame. With the new college rules in place that make the clock run faster than even the NFL and the way that Michigan State was running the ball, even the worst coach could avoid giving up three touchdowns in the final quarter, right? Well, the flurry of turnovers, botched play calls, and the continued insistence of the Spartans to run the option even though they kept getting stuffed as opposed to using their 260-pound running back to pound the ball downhill (it should be noted that ABC announcer and former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie said on multiple occasions that MSU ought to keep using the option to keep the Irish off-balance, which is empirical evidence of why he is no longer coaching anywhere). Congratulations, Michigan State – your 2006 team picture is now next to the definition of “fugly” in the dictionary. I’m not even a Spartan fan and I was mortified by that performance, so you can only imagine how the Enlightened Spartan feels. I think I just saw John L. Smith’s head roll by my desk.

A post-mortem on the disappointing White Sox season will come at some point. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday!

(Image from Wikipedia)