Wikipairs

Becoming famous as part of a duo is hilarious, especially when the duo is composed of parties who apparently don’t warrant individual attention. As testament to just who is and is not famous or enough outside of their esteemed twosomes, let’s take a look at what Wikipedia has to say about the matter. I’ve arranged the following duos into three groups:

Wikipairs: Tandems of exactly two nouns that share a collective Wikipedia entry whose individual members are not featured in their own pages.
Examples: Patty & Selma Bouvier, Mutt & Jeff, Woodward & Lothrop, Bill & Ted, Sigfried & Roy, Bebop & Rocksteady

Individies: Tandems of exactly two nouns that share a collective Wikipedia entry and whose individual members are also featured in their own pages.
Examples: Bert/Ernie, Lenny/Carl, Loggins/Messina, Corned Beef/Cabbage (collectively listed as New England Boiled Dinner)

Half-Breeds: The rarest of rare; tandems of exactly two nouns that share a collective Wikipedia entry and only one of whom is also featured in its own page.
Examples: Flotsam & Jetsam (Flotsam)

The most important discovery of this exercise actually has nothing to do with Wikipedia’s content, but in fact, a lack thereof, as it has been discovered that one of Rake Blog’s highest rated duos of all time, incestuous homosexual lovers Akbar & Jeff, of Matt Groening’s Life is Hell, are without either individual or collective Wikipedia entries. Lava Sauce, Marion Black and now Akbar & Jeff; am I the only one disappointed with the free encyclopedia’s lack of omniscience?

They Have Stuff In Baltimore Other Than Lake Trout, Poverty and Brian Roberts

No less a Baltimorean than The Wire’s Chris Partlow, a brutal enforcer for precocious drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, once claimed that familiarity with Baltimore Club music is obligatory for any true city resident. While acquaintance with the repertoire of Young Leek may not be the life-or-death scenario it becomes when Chris and his partner Snoop roll up on an interloping New York mofucka, it is perhaps only a matter of time before Leek’s “Shake It & Jiggle It” and other Baltimore Club hits find their way into the mainstream.

If Baltimore Club stands alone as an indigenous genre of music, DJ Scottie B could be considered its Chuck Berry. A native of West Baltimore’s Park Heights neighborhood, Scottie has been merging hip-hop, house, and club beats with the filthiest of vocal samples since the early ’80s at clubs across Bmore and beyond. This month he’ll take his act on a tour across Western Europe…

Continue reading at Gelf Magazine…

Gnarls Biggie

Biggie Smalls is was arguably the greatest rapper of all time. My beef with much of his catalogue, however, is that his beats were often lackluster (“Juicy” especially; regardless of Big Poppa’ familiarity with Word Up! magazine). Luckily, Baltimore-via-Brooklyn DJ’s Sound Advice has mashed together some of Biggie’s best raps with the music of another big fat black dude (and his nerdy white associate), Gnarls Barkley, in the creatively named album, Gnarls Biggie. The album appears to have come out sometime during the summer of 2007, and also seems to have been the subject of a hunt-down-and-kill campaign, as it was nearly impossible to track down a full copy online and the record’s free download site, Gnotorious.com, is offline. For those of us who have nearly unlimited time to spend hunting down rare music albums on the internet, however, it can be done. This site has it, although you need to create an account first, which takes roughly 1 second but is still a pain in the ass. Enjoy!

“Huffin’ Glue” Now Available!

Fjorn’s highly anticipated follow-up to last year’s #1 single, “Lick My Nuts” is now available for free download on the band’s website. The new single, entitled “Huffin’ Glue” takes Fjorn’s music in a bold new direction, combining the sexual energy of “Lick My Nuts” with the intoxicating culture of getting loaded on inhalants.

Thunderous drum samples and infectious rhymes (about huffing glue) are abound on the latest installment from Fjorn’s near-mythical upcoming debut album, Gays in the Military.

Listen to and download “Huffin’ Glue” here…

Note: Although the song is in fact entitled “Huffin’ Glue,” Fjorn has adopted a staunch advocacy of huffing anything, be it is gasoline, nail polish, turpentine, etc. The band apologizes for any confusion.

Civil War II: Revenge of Civil War?

I love the idea of the Federal Government “warning” State Governments governments about dissent. This has “Nullification Crisis of 1832″ written all over it!

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One…

Former Oakland Raiders kicker Cole Ford was arrested in 2004 for firing a shotgun at the shared house of magicians Sigfried and Roy. That’s right, they live together. Cole has since been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull (the neo-medieval British rock band, not the 18th century agriculturalist) maintains an Indian food guide on the band’s website, concluding:
“Wagner, Beethoven and Hendrix might have chanced the Vindaloo but Mozart, Debussy and John Denver were probably Korma or, perhaps, Dhansak guys on a daring night. Got the picture? See you in Curry Heaven.”*

In the 1893 case of Nix vs. Heddon, the Supreme Court ruled that despite their botanical fruitiness, tomatoes are legally vegetables.

Oliver Stone’s 2008 G.W. Bush biopic, W., features two different actors who have portrayed both the President and Vice President of the United States in different films: James Cromwell (Prez in Sum of All Fears, VP in W.) and Richard Dreyfuss (Prez. in Fail Safe, VP in W.)

I don’t feel the need to make a joke about this video clip from The View.**

*Courtesy Ted Berg
**Courtesy Adam Rosen

Quote of the Day

“I’m going to play ’til they tear this uni off me. What am I going to do — seriously? Maybe be a bouncer at a strip joint — that’s all I’m qualified to do.”
-Jason Giambi,
in a surprising moment of reflective self-awareness

Note: This was the first photo that Google Images retrieved upon a search for “Jason Giambi.” 3 of the first 5 are photos of the Giambino partying with chicks, and it’s not until the ninth (going right-to-left, top-to-bottom) that a photo of him playing in a real baseball game appears.

At Last! A Digital Haven For The Saddest People On Earth!

Pleasures are abound on the “Activities” section of Craig’s List, where the dregs of the Earth congregate to make an electronic announcement to the rest of the world that they are not satisfied with their current situations and would like to improve their lives via the vast connectivity of the Internet. While it doesn’t sound so bad when put in those terms, those of us who make our bones by bringing down others can have a field day perusing the freakshow taking place on the world’s largest classified ads.*

Highlights! (click the image to see the full ad):

Finally! An opportunity for people who are both poor and extremely bad at math to gather in a group setting in which they do something that doesn’t involve Kid Rock!

*I imagine some Craig’s List knockoff in China or India is actually the largest classified ads in the world. There are so many goddamn people in China and India.

Bodie On Phelps: “You’re Gonna Smoke Some More.”

The best part of New York Magazine’s short article about the former cast of The Wire reacting to the recent weeding of fellow Baltimorean Michael Phelps is not Andre “Bubbles” Royo’s advocacy of Phelps as a spokesman for the legalization of marijuana (“You, too, can get eight medals if you smoke a bong.”), nor is it the revelation that the actor who played Ziggy Sabotka is worthy of interview in New York Magazine.

Instead, the high point of the article (no pun intended) is when J.D. “Bodie” Williams expresses confusion over why Phelps, in so many words, snitched on himself like a punk-ass bitch. Quoth the former Mr. Broadus:

“He could have said, ‘Actually, there was no weed in there. I was just showing everybody, like, how if I was doing it, how I’d put my lips on the bong.’ It would have boiled over. But he just gave it up right away! Like, ‘Yeah there was weed in the bong and I was smoking it. I’m young. It will never happen again.’ You’re 23, homeboy! Trust me, if you’re 23 and smoking weed now, you’re gonna smoke some more.”

Thanks to Bmore correspondent Adam Rosen

She Thinks She’s Out, But I Drag Her Back In…

At one point during last fall’s Presidential Election, I suggested that maybe Sarah Palin was faking it. I now admit that I was wrong and she is probably actually very stupid, like her retarded son, except with more political connections and a nicer body.

Enjoy this excellent clip of the former future possible President of the United States refusing to answer Katie Couric’s hard-hitting question, “What are some of the newspapers that you read?” The whole thing feels like Will Ferrell trying to coax a Final Jeopardy response on Celebrity Jeopardy: “Just say the name of a newspaper that you have read. You can even lie to me and just say the name of any newspaper. There is almost no wrong answer.”

Anything to get Sarah Palin back into my life.

Micellaneous 2008 Baseball Numbers

1.) Of the 21 right fielders who qualified for the batting title in 2008, the bottom six in OPS:
16.) Ichiro Suzuki (.747)
17.) Jose Guillen (.738)
18.) Kosuke Fukudome (.738)
19.) Jeremy Hermida (.729)
20.) Mark Teahen (.715)
21.) Jeff Francoeur (.653)

2.) Eight of the top 10 individual home run totals came from players in the National League, including Manny Ramirez as an NL-er.

3.) Three of the top four in pitches seen per plate appearance are former or current Oakland Athletics (Nick Swisher, Jack Cust, Jason Giambi).

4.) Orlando Cabrera finished in the top 10 in sacrifice flies for the third consecutive season, but was otherwise predictably sucky at hitting.

5.) Five of the top 10 batting averages in the NL came from players who failed to crack the top 30 in 2007 (Cristian Guzman, Lance Berkman, Ryan Theriot, Andre Ethier, Skip Schumaker).

6.) Only five catchers (Brian McCann, Geovanny Soto, Joe Mauer, Bengie Molina, A.J. Pierzynski) and seven shortstops (Hanley Ramirez, Stephen Drew, J.J. Hardy, Jose Reyes, Jhonny Peralta, Guzman, Jimmy Rollins) met or exceeded the Major League-average .416 slugging percentage, compared to 43 outfielders.

7.) Scott Richmond, who had never pitched in the major leagues or affiliated minor leagues prior to 2008 and a year earlier was pitching for the Edmonton Cracker-Cats of the Independent Northern League, finished second to Mariano Rivera among pitchers who threw at least 25 innings, with a 10:1 K:BB ratio.

8.) No. 3 hitters in the lineup led the majors in OBP, at  .361, versus leadoff hitters, who reached base at a .345 clip.

9.) The San Francisco Giants led the majors in ERA against, with pitchers posting a 3.61 against them, barely edging the Washington Nationals, who were held to 3.64 earned runs per nine innings.

10.) The American League champion Tampa Bay Rays did not have a single hitter post an OBP of .400 or better (save for pitchers Andy Sonnanstine and James Shields, who came to the plate 9 and 5 times, respectively) and Carlos Pena was their lone 30-HR hitter.

In The Tradition Of Crazy Louisiana Politics…

Word has it that Stormy Daniels, seen here with a cock in her mouth, is contemplating a run against incumbent Senator David Vitter in the Republican primary for the 2010 midterm elections.

If elected, Daniels will instantly become the U.S. Senator with the second-highest pounds of dick to have entered the mouth total in U.S. history, trailing only Idaho’s Larry Craig. [zing? no? aight.]

Nate Silver believes that between Louisiana’s crazy political history and the possible opponents who may run against her, she actually has a shot. What’s funny about the potential Daniels candidacy, other than her pre-political career of being videotaped while having sex with strangers for money, is that the idea did not originate with her, but with an anonymously maintained website, www.DraftStormy.com.

DraftStormy.com is consistent in its devotion to Ms. Daniels as a serious candidate, leading me to believe that it probably began as a joke. However, as sometimes happens, the joke makes as much sense as the reality in this case, and Daniels would probably be no worse at being a Senator than some of the other candidates Louisiana has thrown out there in the past, including Ku Klux Klan superstar David Duke, former four-term Governor and current Federal inmate Edwin Edwards and Daniels’ primary competition, David Vitter, whose passion for abstinence-only sex education in schools is matched solely by his love of hookers.

Rake Blog officially endorses Stormy Daniels in the 2010 Louisiana Republican Senate Primary Election, should she choose to run.

Thanks to Dear ol’ Dad for the tip.

A Series of Facts Surrounding The Curious Cases of Roberto Alomar & Hannah Montana

1.) The lead in the New York Daily News’ article about Roberto Alomar’s current predicament raises the bar for irresponsible journalism to previously unforeseen heights:

Baseball great Roberto Alomar has full-blown AIDS but insisted on having unprotected sex, his ex-girlfriend charged Tuesday in a bombshell lawsuit.

2.) Alomar’s ex-girlfriend, Ilya Dall, is a professional competitive arm-wrestler.

3.) Dall claims that Alomar confided to her that “He was raped by two Mexican men after playing a ballgame in New Mexico or a Southwestern state when he was 17.”

4.) John Hirschbeck, the umpire whose face Alomar famously spit in during an argument in 1996, had this to say about the matter: “I wish him nothing but the best.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the famous people spectrum:

Far more noteworthy than the pictures of Miley Cyrus pulling on her eyelids to make them look slantier, like an Asian person, is the lawsuit that has been filed against the 16-year-old by a group of LA-area Asian people, with damages totaling $4 billion. No word yet on what damages were suffered by the group, other than “Civil Rights violations,” which is apparently an offense worthy of suing a teenage girl for billions of dollars.

Forbidden Fruit

Hypothetically:

You are offered a hamburger. You accept and take a bite, and the flavor you experience is 20% better than anything you have ever tasted in your life. As you swallow that initial bite, you are informed that the hamburger is crafted not of beef, bison, ostrich or any of the other standard animals that are commonly made into burgers, but is in fact the meat of a human being. Do you finish the burger?

I have heard variations on this hypothetical scenario posed many times, by Ted Berg, among others, and I’ll start by saying “Yes.” I would absolutely, without thinking twice about it, devour the shit out of the tender human flesh and, if available, wash it down with a glass of the person’s tears. That’s obviously an exaggeration, but I would almost definitely finish the burger. Think about how goddamn delicious food already is; now imagine something 20% better than that. You can’t, because you have no frame of reference for something that good. Any way, where all of this is leading is that I can’t shake my current bout of curiosity regarding the taste of dog meat.

We’ve all heard stories of the sumptuous canine feasts savored by the exotic natives of the Far East. But what about here in the ol’ U.S.-of-A? I have to imagine that somebody in America is eating dog, and I want to get in on the action.

==It is at this point in writing this column that I discover PuppyBeef.com==

I actually no longer want to eat dog meat. If it was presented to be as regular meat, I would probably go for it, but the picture found on the “Recipes” section of PuppyBeef.com, in which the meat’s head is prominently displayed on a platter next to it’s butchered foodstuffs, has all but extinguished any interest I may have had to seek out and acquire the meat of a dog.

I’m sorry I wasted your time. Click here to watch that episode of The Simpsons with Frank Grimes.

==Addendum==

My mom called me while I was writing this column and I happened to mention PuppyBeef.com to her, at which point she began peppering me with questions about whether I planned on selling them our family dog, Amazin’ Larry (pictured right), as meat and how much they might be willing to pay for such a friendly dog, to which I explained that I am fairly certain PuppyBeef.com is solely a business and not a one-stop dog meat-bartering emporium. I could be wrong, though.

More From Ivana Mandic

Of the 64 girls named “Ivana Mandic” listed on the Facebook, 10 have accepted my friend requests, as of 2am on Thursday 2/12/09. Of those 10, just four have seen fit as press time, to join the Facebook group I created, “Jake Rake & The Ivana Mandics,” in which I am the lone admin and hold the office of “Mandic.”

If, by any chance, your name happens to be “Ivana Mandic” and you have a Facebook profile, please feel contact me about joining said group.

Thank you.

-Jake Rake
Mandic, Jake Rake & the Ivana Mandics