Although the NFL is the only one out of the four major North American sports through which you don't have to suffer through at least 82 games a season, die-hard fanatics like myself still look forward to this time of year. While teams like the Browns, the Jaguars, the Rams, the 49ers and the Bears were long eliminated from the mix, the hard work of twelve teams has the potential to pay off as they duke it out for a month in the ultimate "let's separate the men from the boys" tournament. Unlike the NBA, the NHL or MLB, the beauty of the NFL Playoffs is you only get one shot to win or lose. However, one of the biggest downsides to NFL Wild Card Weekend is the chance for at least one or two blowouts because unless we're talking the 2005 Steelers or the 2010 Packers, the higher-seeded teams usually handle their business. Unfortunately, none of the games were competitive for longer than two-and-a-half quarters, but I'm still going to discuss them anyway...
Imagine a song like Klymaxx's "I Miss You", Lillo Thomas' "Wanna Make Love (All Night Long)" or TWENTY ØNE PILØTS' "Heathens" being on your mind for five to ten minutes straight. None of those songs might be your favorites, but it wouldn't be the end of the world either way because they didn't stay on your mind for long. Now imagine the equivalent of hearing the same song stuck in your brain space for nearly nine hours straight. If you tend to be on the depressed side of the game or you're not wrapped too tight, then you might look a little more at that nearby bottle of Bacardi 151 to drown your sorrows and/or even a revolver to put yourself out of your misery. While the No. 1 song in this month's "Get Out of My Brain!" Countdown didn't quite put me in that mindset, I believe you all have a better idea of what I deal with from month to month. With seven brand new culprits and three repeat offenders ranging from residual Christmas music to a few shameless plugs, let's kick off 2017 with some insanity and I don't mean Shaun T...
With Christmas now in the rear view mirror, this introduction could easily qualify as a "Plus/Minus Take of the Week". The plus: football fanatics everywhere were treated to a Christmas Eve full of football; it was like being able to open presents at midnight instead of waiting until 9 a.m. long after Santa done crawled his dusty behind back up with milk in his mustache and Christmas cookie crumbs in his beard. The minus: although they had two pivotal division matchups with playoff implications--one being in prime time--they had to sacrifice most of Christmas Day to the NBA. Either way, outside of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and spending time with family and friends, there aren't too many other things I'd rather do than watch football on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For some teams--as well as some coaches and GMs who will get their pink slips before Black Monday--jolly old St. Nick had lumps of coal. However, if you were like the first team featured in this week's edition, then you felt like you got straight As and minded your manners at the 11th hour...
When Gladiator, Ransom Rellic and my alter ego twin A.J. Throwback got together the first time around for "The Grinch...A Christmas Story" back in 2010, it was a zany ride passing the mic from a grumpy grinch with some perspective to the cooler head prevailing to the co-signing misfit encouraging the grinch's behavior with some mischief of his own. Fast forward six years later and the trio is back at it again with a sequel which could've easily made the soundtrack to Office Christmas Party, abandoning any form of "good tidings" for an even crazier set of strategically-placed-mistletoe-and-spiked-eggnog-ready tales. To stream and/or download "The Grinch Part 2", please visit https://ajthrowback.bandcamp.com/track/the-grinch-part-2. If you like or love what you hear, then PLEASE share your thoughts in the comments and PLEASE spread the word! Thanks to everybody for your support in advance!!!
Once the Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches subsided, I cared about one thing: when would I hear that first Christmas song to make the holiday season official? What I'm about to say is guaranteed to both validate and increase the amount of gray hairs in my goatee: today's generation is missing out when it comes to Christmas music. Not only is most of the new stuff often swaggerless retreads of classics, but you darn near have to wait until Christmas Day to hear the radio play anything seasonal and it seems like only the adult contemporary stations play Christmas music at least most of the day. Although I was more excited to wake up early in the morning to open presents with Big Little Brother Scribbler, one of the greatest joys of Christmas was tuning into WHUR 96.3 FM and hearing Christmas music from sunup to sundown while having some memorable moments with the fam. So in the spirit of the season--and because I haven't done a new edition of this series for two months now--allow me to share five songs I must hear to feel like the Christmas season has arrived decked with boughs of holly, sleigh bells and inappropriate mistletoe placements...
