(Click the picture for delicious detail)
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!

And yes Drew, the next time I go off-topic I’ll be sure to include a butt wiping anecdote.

Bear:

Represented by the UCLA Bruin. If you’re getting a little tired of UCLA winning, as it seems some are, you probably shouldn’t vote for the Bear. Bruins also represent that Boston hockey team, and we know what you all think of Boston.

Stephen Colbert has made the bear out to be a “godless killing machine” and the label has caught on. Remember, though - his tongue is firmly planted in cheek as with all other things. The bear is actually quite devout and not very machine-like at all. They’re actually pretty lazy creatures.

Jet:

Possesses “smart bombs” that frequently miss targets and kill hordes of civilians. Cost to taxpayer via ridiculously bloated Defense Department budget: a cool $30 million. Only as good as the person flying it, which could be Chad Pennington. F-22 Raptor (pictured) not designed as resistant to bear claws (pastry, nor actual claw).

Like Bear, is able to roll around and do tricks for the amusement of yokels. Unlike Bear, requires “Rock You Like a Hurricane” for production value. Also loses points for failure to bomb the galactically stupid self-aggrandizing dipshit Arianna Huffington.

Voting is closed on this contest. The Bear won with 52 percent of the vote.

Welcome back to another year of Better Know A Draft Pick. Leading up to the draft we’ll profile all the top prospects that are worth knowing.

Name: Glenn Jamon Dorsey
Nickname: “Putt”
Origin: A young Glenn was so enraptured by Putt-Putt commercials as a young child he would stand up and walk to the television whenever they come on. He’s also the anonymous author behind Putt’s Law.

Hometown: The Jambalaya Capital of the World, Gonzales, Louisiana.

Height: Tall enough to ride the ride.
Weight: 297? Maybe on Uranus. (ed. note: Uranus!)
Strength: Belied by fat.

Urine Sample: Tangy.
Stool Sample: Still caked on the bathroom floor.
Blood Sample: Red.

Early Setback: Had to wear metal braces as a child to correct bowed legs.

Mainstream Comparison: Warren Sapp
KSK Comparison: Forrest Gump

Strengths: He has the feet of a ballerina. Literally, he ripped off her feet at the ankles in a disturbing display of strength.
Weaknesses: Chop blocks and crawdads.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Earlier in the month erroneous reports indicated that Dorsey had a secret knee surgery. Some believed this was the reason Dorsey accumulated a mere 27 tackles and 3 sacks last season, while people who are not total dumbfucks realize that he was triple-teamed more often than Kobe Tai.

The Truth: He doesn’t actually have knees, they just stuffed a bunch of old socks in between his femur and tibia.

Best Known For: Winning the National Championship along with every collegiate award imaginable for a defensive player.

Who Wants Him: Cincinnati
Who Will Take Him:Oakland

Favorite Food: Buffet

Story ESPN Will Shove Down Your Throat: He dabbles as a motivational speaker, for kids! His inspirational overriding message, “dream big,” comes from an influential dream he had about eating the world’s most glazed ham.

Immediate Impact: An explosive force.
Down the Road: A pronounced limp.

Previously on BKADP: Matt Ryan

Most of you already realize that Earth Hour took place last Saturday at 8 pm. The newly-created event designed to raise awareness for energy conservation was not a big hit with KSK’s Monday Morning Punter, and that contributor commemorates the event with a running diary of how he answered the World Wildlife Fund’s call to help the environment.

7:59 - Turned on every light in house, including both TVs, which are both in the living room. The 32-inch and 19-inch sets are tuned to CBS and FOX, respectively. The PlayStation 2, despite not being used, is also turned on, but with no game in the system.

8:02 - Answered the door from disgruntled next-door neighbor complaining about “light pollution” and how I’m not “doing [my] part.” Gives a confused look when I scold him for lack of butane conservation after he lights up a cigarette.

8:06 - Order two large pizzas from Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s. Tell each person taking my order that I will tip generously if the pizza arrives before 9, but insist that if the pies arrive right at 9 or later, I will not pay.

8:09 - Wife calls and tells me she’s running late from work. I remember that I have a wife. I leave the cell phone on the table.

8:12 - Throw one sock in washing machine. Set wash cycle for a full load with hot water. Without soap.

8:17 - Pull out electric guitar and amp from closet and set up on front porch. Attempt to spraypaint PUNTER-PALOOZA in the front yard grass, but realize too late that I’ve made my letters too big.

8:19 - Ignore unattractive woman walking by that asks, “What’s PUNTE?”

8:24 - Papa John’s guy shows up during uninspiring solo performance of “Wild Thing.” I tip half the bill. Before tax, of course. Neighbor shows up (holding a candle) to complain about something after dropping his newspapers in the green bin by his garage, and then storms back into his house when I don’t offer him any pizza. He leaves in such a huff that he forgets his lighter.

8:31 - Go inside to take a shit. Realize I have no toilet paper, either on the roll or under the sink, but I do have a whole can of hairspray. I fumble through the wastebasket hoping to find a partially used tissue that I might have either bled on or blown my nose on, something that still has enough life that it could withstand one good wipe of the ass. I immediately abandon this plan when I realize that I would be, in fact, recycling.

8:36 - Cell phone rings, but I’m stuck on the shitter, so I can’t answer it.

8:40 - Finally suck it up and wipe ass with a picture of Kate Bosworth ripped out of Marie Claire. I mutter something sexual and unclever during the act. Flush toilet several times to make sure paper doesn’t clog the toilet.

8:42 - Fuck, the toilet did clog. Plunger time!

8:46 - Head back out to the front porch to start my second set when I hear a loud crash. I get outside and see that the Pizza Hut delivery driver has rear-ended the Domino’s delivery driver. I realize they’re both okay when I hear the Domino’s driver ask, “What’s PUNTE?”

8:51 - Shitbag neighbor comes back out during performance of “Louie Louie” and threatens to call the police, but gets shouted down by the Domino’s and Pizza Hut drivers, who are enjoying the show while they’re waiting for, ironically enough, the police to show up and take an accident report. But now the neighbor’s not backing down, and the three of them are shouting toe-to-toe.

8:53 - I run back inside to the bathroom and grab the can of hairspray under the sink . I run back outside and pick up the lighter my neighbor left on my porch and run over to his recycling bin, which is full of newspapers. The lighter lights on the first try, and I hold the can of hairspray just behind the flame.

8:55 - BIG. FUCKING. NEWSPAPER FIRE! My little bitch neighbor is squealing with fear, and running for the garden hose. The Pizza Hut driver actually tries to approach the blaze. Until a piece of newspaper flies off and nearly hits him in the face. I hear the neighbor’s squealing turn into homicidal screams of horror. I look over and see him tugging on the valve. Is he really too big a pussy to turn on the hose? Domino’s guy shoves him out of the way and cranks the valve open. By now the plastic bin holding the papers is melting, and the stink of burning plastic is filling the air as the Domino’s guy manages to put out the flame.

9:02 - Wife pulls up, with local police right behind. Neighbor is laying face-down in his own driveway, panting. The pizza guys storm the police cruiser as my wife stares at the lawn, and asks…

“Why’d you make the letters so big, dumbass?”

We’re done with our internecine (pretentious!) fighting for now, and ready to get back to what’s important: determining the most murderous of the mascots. We’re down to the Elite Eight and have reached one overriding, indisputable conclusion: you people hate upsets. Other than the Chief in the Construda Region, there’s not anything beyond a 1 or 2 seed to be found. We take it as a compliment to our seeding abilities, but shit - let’s make this interesting.

Well, this book draft got some tempers frayed within the Gay Mafia, beginning with each member mocking Ufford for his reference to his writing as “my prose” then he countering that Drew is an Exeter and Colby-educated oaf who is fond of the salmon-colored shirts and calling people a douchebag for not agreeing with his tastes in music, movies or the Vikings.

It’s up to you, dear reader, to settle this. Which one of us is the haughtiest, snootiest member of Mount Pretent-more? We’re even getting Falco in on it (dying is so elitist).

Consider:

Ufford:
Lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Disdainful of everywhere else on the planet. Especially wherever it is you live.
Uses words like antediluvian in Fanhouse columns
Not in the military? Not getting eye contact.
Blazers galore!
So insecure about his own pretentiousness he had to ask With Leather readers not to vote for him
Wrote shit for McSweeney’s, for shit’s sake

Drew:
“Disagree? Douchebag!”
Buries people’s posts at whim
Picture turning its nose up at definition of WASP in dictionary
Fat but not jolly
Attended Colby
Attended Exeter
Lives in Bethesda
Didn’t really vote for Obama

Unsilent:
Wine snob
Born wealthy
Lives in Georgetown
Raised in Potomac
Hates that, ugh, white people music THAT THEY STOLE ANYWAY
Pretend black person
Non-pretend half-Jew (pick a side!)

Ape:
Former film critic
Journalist (dismissive by nature)
Listens to NPR
A monkey, therefore incapable of pretension
Gives you the Marmalard posts you love

Punter:
Lives in South Carolina (the pretentious Carolina)
Owns hedgehog (uncommon pet!)
Has donkey sex only because it’s obscure
Runs political web site

flubby:
Thinks you’re an idiot for not still liking the Grateful Dead
Lawyer
The Sugar Sheet is funded by the National Endowment of the Arts (taxpayer money!)
Secretly a Guggenheim fellow
Name doesn’t make sense and is purposely not capitalized = PRETENTIOUS
Leery of fellow bumpkin Kentuckians

“Your mother and I want you to have a good time this weekend. Maybe you’ll go to the batting cages with the fellows or catch a picture-show with your best gal. Whatever you do, if someone offers you a “reefer”, run away as fast as you can and call 911 immediately. Reader’s Digest says that a “bad trip” is not very “groovy”. I clipped the article, it’s on the front of the fridge if you want to read it. I also put a copy in your sock drawer. Maybe you want to show it to some of your friends. All we want is for you to not to grow up to be a burnt-out hipster uploading shoe-gazer NFL fight songs on YouTube. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

If you voted for the Lion or Bengal, avert your gaze at once.
These pictures are not for you!

Lots more of this lass can be found here. You’re welcome.

This week’s mock draft, about which we were entirely too passionate for a bunch of idiot bloggers, concerns books. And just for fun, we invited a guest draftee: author and noted essayist Will Leitch, who is otherwise unaffiliated with sports blogs.

The guidelines: These are books that you’re going to force a class of high school seniors to read. Assume that it’s a public high school in a mostly middle class town: a few of the students are exceptional, a few are just passing time until they get pregnant or turn 18, and most are intelligent enough to read and enjoy a book but are generally too uninterested to do so. You may select a book for any reason: to better their enjoyment of literature, to educate them, or to torture them with highfalutin bullshit — as long as you yourself have read the book cover to cover. It can be any one-volume bound book, any genre, and by any author except Will Leitch. Once a book is selected, all other tomes by that author are off-limits.

This is a long motherfucker (three rounds), so I edited out most of our douchey faux-intellectual repartee. Most of you will probably appreciate that, but if you’re dying for more Gay Mafia + Leitch chatter, transcripts of the email threads can be purchased by sending $10 to my PayPal account.

1. CHRISTMAS APE: My Dark Places by James Ellroy

“These dewy eyed little shits need something that conveys some sense of the ugliness of the real world. Better still if it’s expertly written and unstintingly honest. “My Dark Places” is at once a harrowing autobiography of a great writer and his youth spent on the streets, dealing with and trying to solve his mother’s murder and a compelling detective procedural all in one. Thank me later, kidlets.”

2. FLUBBY : Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 by Hunter S. Thompson

“Seriously kids, save yourself the time and expense of a political science major/minor. Read this, read “All the King’s Men” and you’re good to go.”

Thanks, flub. Where were you when my adviser told me I needed to take a mere seven poli sci classes my senior year to upgrade my minor to a double major?

Drew: Punter’s up. Will he take some sort of donkey fucking book? I say yes.

3. MONDAY MORNING PUNTER: Harrington on Hold ‘em, Volume II, by Dan Harrington

“Are we going to teach young people about money management? Risk? Reading people? Relative value? Poker is a great laboratory for all of those things, and I’m not alone in that assessment. The Harrington on series are probably the best books for the best poker game out there. But Volume I isn’t really practical for home game play and III is really just a workbook. For shorthanded game instruction, theory, and analysis, II can’t be beat.

“They probably already teach this in junior high in Nevada, anyway.”

4. LEITCH: The Long Walk, by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)

“This is one of the ‘Bachman Books,’ that collection of four novels that Stephen King wrote when he was, like, 19. Two of these aren’t very good (even the one that inspired The Running Man, which is, god yes, quite good), one is decent if kind of creepy in the wake of all the school shootings (Rage) and one is balls-out fucking awesome. That’s The Long Walk.

“The premise of the book is simple. In one of those not-too-distant futures that people love to write about, a dictator called The Major stages a yearly ‘race’ called The Long Walk. One hundred young men all line up and walk. That’s it. You have to walk four miles an hour, and if you go under that speed three times in an hour, you’re shot dead. That’s the whole book. We meet all the different competitors, some of whom are compelling, some cliched, some just faceless nameless dead guys. Because he was about 20 years old when he wrote it, there’s a lot of psychological metaphorical mumbo-jumbo that King would be smart enough to remove when he got older. But it’s just a long, long walk, with a bunch of guys talking to each other, watching each other die. It’s a brilliant idea for a book, and it’s a book I must have read about 100 times in high school. When I’m in-between books now, I’m prone to pulling out my old ratty, rotting copy of The Bachman Books to read this again. It’s not brilliant, but it rivets me every time I read it, even if I always know how it’s gonna turn out. I read a lot of really boring books that I’m ’supposed’ to enjoy. I still read this, over and over; it never fails me.”

Leitch making a sentimental pick? So unlike him.

5. BIG DADDY DREW: A Confederacy Of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

“A story about a big fat arrogant masturbator who farts a lot? I win.”

“It smells terrible in here.”

“Well, what do you expect? The human body when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I ,too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.”

6. CAPTAIN CAVEMAN: The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien

I can’t find a single fault with this book. O’Brien captures every aspect of combat in the present tense perfectly — the foolhardy romance, the boredom, the instant surprise of death — while toying with how memory changes our stories. It is a novel made from perfectly interwoven short stories, a work of fiction that feels like a memoir, and a contemplative meditation on story-telling all at once. It is a fucking masterpiece.

Ape: [after a quiet lull] How long does it take you to do a write-up on Invisible Man, Maj?

Maj: oh fuck

7. UNSILENT MAJORITY: Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

“I read this one three times over the course of my high school career, once with a fantastic teacher who loved teaching the book, once with a good teacher who would rather have been reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, and once more on my own. I continue to read it on a regular basis today, I even have a copy here at work. I’m not sure how much a class of average high school students would get out of a single reading, but I’d make damn sure they read it at least that first time.”

8. MAJ: Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

“Because those fuckers better start learning how to stand up to the government.”

9. CAVEMAN: Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

It’s hard to single one book out, because Philip Marlowe kicks so much fucking ass in every Chandler novel. I don’t read enough mysteries to judge whether the plots hold up next to other giants of the genre, but the hardboiled prose, crystal-clear characterizations, and vividly gritty settings should be required for any teenager who’s played Grand Theft Auto.

I’m still pissed that I had to find Chandler on my own. Fucking worthless education.

10. DREW: 10. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

You put so much stock in winning wars. The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how spendidly we’ve done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn’t a chance of winning. But now that we’re losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.

“Yep, that’s my kind of book.”

Me: Catch-22’s narrative arc is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen in fiction. That said, Heller needed an editor to kick his ass for his over-use of two-dollar words.

Drew: What are you, the dad from “Squid and the Whale”? Piss off.

Me: [opens up Catch-22 to random page] Page 45, these are the dialogue descriptors:

asked replied informed repeated reflected wondered mused echoed

SAID. The word is fucking SAID. It’s a pet peeve of mine when writers use words that get in the way of dialogue.

Drew: I have an idea. When YOU write one of the greatest novels of all time, you can nitpick Heller’s dialogue descriptors all you please.

Punter: Drew will change his tune when they release the updated, salmon-colored paperback.

11. LEITCH: Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem

“Typically, I hate it when smart people tell me which great books to read. Sixty-five percent of the time, I can’t make it halfway through; this is a decided disadvantage of not being smart. This is not one of that 65 percent. It’s such a fast, gritty story that you don’t notice you just read a Great Book until you’re done. And, if you’re lucky, not even then.”

Everyone who’s read it agrees: that book is fucking awesome.

12. PUNTER: Way of the Turtle, by Curtis Faith

“It’s fucking sweet; think Trading Places without the ‘comic’ ’stylings’ of Dan Akroyd. Of course, all of you hate finance, but had you been exposed to it at a younger age, you’d understand that markets and volatility are to be treasured, and that pedestrian dipshits like Matt Lauer should just shut the fuck up. There IS NO RECESSION!”

13. FLUB: The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon

“Because it is important for youngsters to learn sooner rather than later that every observer has their own take on what constitutes ‘reality’ — and when your reality starts to get a little squishy… well, the fun is just beginning.”

14. APE: Palestine by Joe Sacco

“Yes, it’s a graphic novel. It’s also one of the main things that got me into journalism (Which I could hold against it, but am choosing not to). Sacco, an American Jew, delves deeply and powerfully into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, getting a lot of the narratives from people that are never heard from in typical reportage. His drawing style both assists and propels the narrative, at once lifting comics and journalism into art.”

15. APE: Ulysses by James Joyce

“‘Cause it’ll take the little fuckers the rest of their adult lives to read it.”

Maj: and I thought Dickens would be harsh.

Drew: Could have been worse for them. He could have picked Finnegan’s Wake. Nothing like trying to parse experimental, complex linguistic tricks typed out by a man who’s nearly stricken blind. With footnotes that make equally little sense.

Maj: We aren’t allowed to stop until Ufford picks a Nabokov book.

Ape: /awaits pale fire joke

Me: I love Nabokov, but I don’t think I’d push it on high schoolers.

Drew: That’s the guy Sting sang about, right? He’s gay.

Me: Nabokov could ass-rape Joe Heller.

Maj: he’s also a vastly superior writer!

16. FLUB: V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore

“Moore gets cranky when people compare his fictional British totalitarian government to American neo-conservatives. I say if the shoe fits, use it to kick Karl Rove in the nuts.”

17. PUNTER: The GM, Tom Callahan.

“Probably the best inside peek of a football team that there is, although Next Man Up by Feinstein is awfully close. GM wins out because it’s a little dirtier, a little less sympathetic. The resilient quote from the book is when Ernie Acorsi, right as he’s leaving his dream job, adresses the team he literally built and announced plainly, ‘I believe there is a championship in this room.’ As it turns out, he was right.”

18. LEITCH: World War Z, by Max Brooks

“Because books about the impending zombie holocaust are not just instructive, they’re vital.”

19. DREW: The Dirt by Neil Strauss and Motley Crue

“I’m not subjecting my kids to some bullshit Toni Morrison book. For the final book on the syllabus, they learn important lessons, like to how survive a Ferrari wreck while ensuring that Hanoi Rocks never records another album, and learning how to do a speedball and then nail a guy’s ear to the floor of your apartment.

“Most entertaining book I ever read? Fuck and yes.”

20. CAVEMAN: The Contortionist’s Handbook, Craig Clevenger

Clevenger writes his ass off in this novel about a forger with polydactyly whose drug addiction threatens to land him in a mental hospital. It’s an addictive read, and I always pick it up whenever I feel my prose is uninspired and flat.

21. MAJ: World’s End by TC Boyle

“I’m passing on the obvious (anything written by Michael Chabon) this time around, and I’m also forgoing any book that they’d likely have read by now. Instead I’m selecting World’s End because I’ve always felt that it’s the kind of book I should have been reading in high school.”

World’s End? More like DRAFT’S END! Boosh!

One thing is readily apparent from the results of the Kill, Kill, Kill bracket thus far: you bastards love the chalk. All four of the big cats– like other high seeds– sailed through the first round. Subtle attempts by fellow Mafia members to spur some upsets have been underwhelming at best. Accordingly, we are stepping up our efforts to subvert democracy.

The tiger you are voting on is Daniel Stripèd Tiger from Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. He has some serious self-esteem issues and for some reason wears a watch even though he lives inside of a friggin’ clock. His best friends are an alcoholic lesbian museum curator and a pompous owl who thinks he knows every goddam thing there is to know. Only a quivering nancy would vote for him.

The jaguar, on the other hand, is a Jaguar XF with three hot chicks hanging on it. If you don’t vote for the Jag it means you don’t like cars or girls. Enjoy your skateboard, fruit-loop.

The lion you are voting on is Snagglepuss. Snagglepuss is a third-tier character from Hanna-Barbera. He never got his own show and his principal claim to fame is hosting the Laff-a-Lympics. Snagglepuss is without a doubt the most pathetic specimen in the annals of lion-dom (not counting, of course the Detroit Lions). If you love America, you will not vote for the lion.

The panther you are voting on is the one from L.L. Cool J’s “Walking with a Panther” album cover. Pros: He wears a gold rope chain and keeps top secret shit in a Haliburton briefcase. Cons: Fuck you, what did you not understand about the gold rope chain??? If you don’t vote for the panther, you are worthless in the eyes of your God, and should probably consider suicide.

Vote at the top of the right column. The poll closes at the end of the day. Voting is closed. The Bengals won with 56 percent of the vote and the Lion won with 54 percent.

Think I’m finally getting a handle on all this grief weight. I know the founder of Popeyes isn’t coming back, but he’d want us to soldier on in his memory.

And there are really so many fast food options, for all parts of the day. Heck, Taco Bell invented a whole new meal. A fourth meal.

I’m like Prufrock — I can measure out my day in drivethroughs. But I’m thinking healthy now. Maybe I’ll use one of those fancy innernet gizmos to map out my course of eating tomorrow. This time, I might even walk it.

Let me just sign in real quick.

Hey, what’s this?

“Egg McMuffin inventor Herb Peterson dies”

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

[Eats handful of Funyuns]

Omm mom mom erm foom