DOWN WITH PANTS!

Two things tonight...

1. Out of respect for my wife and all of the other fine ladies that frequent Down With Pants! I rarely, if ever, post links to pictures of girls in bikinis or anything like that. But there has been an LAist post in my Bloglines for the past few weeks that is too good not to share.

These are pictures from a volleyball tournament in Manhattan Beach a couple weeks ago and they are crazy. I still have a hard time believing I live in Southern California and this happened, basically, in my backyard. There's a little something for everybody, girls and guys, to look at, so have at it. Here's the full set of 288 pictures on Flickr. Enjoy!

2. The other day my co-worker and I were talking about some of the crazy things that we did in high school. My high school years were pretty tame, especially in comparison to his, but I do have one up on him. I stole street signs like it was my business. All of my friends did and really, just about everybody I knew did. It was practically a varsity sport at our high school.

But he never stole street signs and he said that nobody he knew ever stole them. I was amazed. I thought this was a pretty typical hobby of the young male. He grew up in Oxnard while Oxnard was particularly dangerous, so maybe that explains why nobody stole signs. In Olympia, Washington it was a much easier crime to commit than I'd imagine it is in Oxnard. He's also a little bit younger than me and maybe it just fell out of style after I left school.

Either way, I wonder if anybody else used to steal street signs. Did you? If you did, what was your prize possession?

Today at the gas station, I watched an old lady wash her entire car with the windshield squeegee. I don't think she even filled up her gas tank, she just washed her car. I've never seen that before, I guess there's a first time for everything. I just stood and stared, mouth agape. It was mesmerizing. She was so slow and so meticulous and so focused, it was incredible, like she's been doing it all her cheap-assed life.

Dude, If there is one thing that I know about parenting, it's this...

DON'T PUT YOUR KID'S NAMES ON THE BACK OF YOUR VEHICLE!!!

Isn't that common sense? Why does anyone have to say this? People won't let their kids go to the playground unaccompanied in the middle of suburbia because they fear someone will snatch them up, but they advertise their names to anybody and everybody.

"Avoid clothing and toys with your child's name on it," says a list of child safety tips. "A child may not fear someone who knows his/her name."

Duh! And the same goes for your stinking SUV.

Sometimes I feel like I know more about half of the families in Ventura just from sitting behind them in traffic than I do my own family. I learn so much about them just from their family stick figures, and I am of no harm. Imagine all the information that Chester the Molesting BLT is able to gather for future use.

Take my future family for example, it isn't too hard for some creep to figure out that Mad Dog loves to play guitar in his Christian nu-metal band (oh, the shame) or that Midori loves fastpitch chants (oh, the shame) or that Malibu can easily be carried off by a kitty cat.

I don't need people to know this. They should know three things about my family when they look at my car. I love The Big Lebowski, The Washington Huskies are my favorite team(s) and that I am a big ass dude that will kick some serious ass if anybody were to lay even one malicious finger on my kids.

That's all the information they need, and that's all the information they should get.

Also, since when did a car become a gravestone? Please. Shitty driving in a shitty car is no way to honor a dead best friend.

Dude, I was going to announce a winner of the DWP! Mascot Challenge (I know, it's been a while) but when I checked the voting, I found that we currently have a tie. Chester the Molesting BLT and Kevin Federline are tied with six votes each out of a whopping 18 total votes (a testament to DWP!'s popularity).

So I will bump the finalists back up to the top of the page tonight and keep the voting open for one more week. Will K-Fed or Chester the Molesting BLT pull ahead of the other or will one of the trailing darkhorses make a run at honor of representing Down With Pants! across the worldwide webs?

The other night while shopping at Target, we overheard a mother yell “come back here, Hennessy” at her child who was running down the aisle (and who could blame her).

Hennessy? Seriously? Considering the sheer amount of trashy people who are still idolizing 2Pac in this town (seriously, a grown ass person shouldn’t be caught dead in an airbrushed 2Pac t-shirt), it shouldn’t come as a surprise, they’re just keeping it real. Or did they name their child after the liquor that was responsible for their mistake? Either way, it’s kind of….I don’t know….awesome?

I guess if it’s good for Ventucky trash, it’s good enough for us to at least consider. We’ve more or less already decided on names for our kids, but I owe it to myself to at least explore the possibility of naming my child after my favorite way to get fucked up. I’m sure that it wouldn’t cause any problems in their future.

Here are the top ten names that I can think of off the top of my head that would be perfect. I’m sure there are others that could easily displace some of these, so feel free to give me some of your ideas. I don’t post my last name here, but let’s just assume that it rhymes with Sharks.

10. Sambuca – Nice alliteration, very exotic, Sam for short?
9. Seagram – Again, I’m loving the alliteration.
8. Belevedere – Keeping it real: Jay-Z and The Game name-drop it. But can he do anything but be a butler?
7. Stolichnaya – Again, nice alliteration. I don’t have a lick of Russian in me though.
6. Old Crow – My bloodline includes a Sioux Indian chief named Little Crow.
5. Tanqueray – Tank for short.
4. Absolut – Imagine how cool the Christmas cards could be.
3. Malibu – A tribute to our time in Southern California, but she’ll be stripping in no time.
2. Beefeater – “Hi I’m Beefeater, and I’m a vegan.”
1. Mad Dog – Alcohol or not, we have a winner. Welcome to the world Mad Dog!

First of all, I took my Heelys for a spin at the supermarket tonight and let me give you some advice...go get yourself a pair of Heelys for your trips to Safeway. It's awesome! Going up and down empty aisles with a cart at high speed is the only way to get your groceries. And some little kid pointed at me and tugged on his mom's shirt and said "look, look, he has Heelys!". I've never felt so cool.

Secondly, Beastie Boys in Santa Barbara tomorrow!!! Wooooo Hoooooo!!!

Thirdly, yesterday I picked the order for the DWP! Fantasy Football draft. Congratulations or condolences, however you look at it, go out to Hilly and her Snackielicious team for winning the first pick. I promised some proof of the picking so here you go. This is less about football and more about how we spend our time at work in the middle of the summer...

The first step was to put all of the teams into a hat. This took me a good three and a half hours, from when I first got to work until lunch time. I first had to read and then rip a bunch of days off of my Onion calendar to provide me with enough scrap paper. Then I had to remember all of the names of the teams. Why I didn't just go to the league website and write them down instead of wasting all morning trying to remember is beyond me. Oh well, I had nothing else to do.

After lunch, I had my co-worker stick his hand in my nasty hat and pull out the names. I filled the draft slots in from twelve to one. So the first name pulled was Culture Kills Lions and the last was Snackielicious. It's just how I decided to do it before the pulling started.

One interesting side note. That's the same co-worker that got a ticket in the mail on a car that he had donated to charity. Now you can understand how hilarious that ticket is to us.

And there you have it, all of the names picked and the draft order set and one whole working day down the drain (just kidding bosses, if you are reading. And if you are reading, can I have a raise?).

Good luck to all, you'll need it!

As you know, I try to keep Death?'s secret identity under wraps. So far, over three and a half years of writing this blog, I have never used her real name and I have only posted a picture of her once.

Well, if you've been dying to see her again and try to piece together the pieces, Green Goblin, it's your lucky day. Today you get the most revealing picture of her that I probably will ever post here. So without further ado, I give you Death?, future super mommy...

Taken at the super cool Pearl River Mart during out trip to New York City in May.

Tonight was Friday-night-after-work-movie-night for the fourth straight week and I saw Superbad. Instant classic. If this were any other summer I would say that it is the funniest movie of the year, but Hot Fuzz and Knocked Up barely beat it out. Superbad is like a combination of Freaks and Geeks if the show lasted and the characters aged and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, without some of the hacky directing that H&K suffers from.

What I love about the Apatow creations is that they celebrate that middle group of high schoolers that never were represented before. Normally movies focus on the extremes, the pretty and popular or the biggest losers. But most of us resided under the radar in the middle, neither popular or unpopular. In all of the Apatow movies or TV shows dealing with younger people they get this group exactly right and as a proud member of the middle I appreciate my tales being told.

One thing is for sure, McLovin will forever be a part of the lexicon. Hopefully not so much that we start hating it, like Napoleon Dynamite, but I fear that might be the case. McLovin lunch boxes will be in stores soon.

Again, with apologies to the missing Greg.

I love it when a band builds a cultish, holier-than-thou following the way that The Shins did with first Oh, Inverted World and then the absolutely amazing Chutes Too Narrow and a mention by Natalie Portman in Garden State as a band that will change your life. You know that no matter what happens, their first fans will never outwardly be satisfied with a follow up album that will be the first to hit a much larger audience. Modest Mouse is a humongous example of this.

Such is the case with Wincing The Night Away. It's so easy to find old fans crying that The Shins have lost it and this album can't compare to their first two. Wincing the Night Away isn't perfect, but if it were the band's second indie label album instead of their major label debut, nobody would be complaining. I will say that it isn't as good as Chutes Too Narrow, but that's only because Chutes is almost perfect, a true gem and something that no band should have to live up to, even if they are the band that put it out.

Every song is good, some great, and all of them are different from the next. Australia is one of my favorite songs ever, it instantly makes me happy when it comes on. In fact, I was a little pissed off after softball tonight and on my drive home Australia played on my iPod and I sang it at the top of my lungs and I was no longer angry. I still came home and complained to Death?, but I no longer wanted to beat one of my own players with my bat. And while Australia is my favorite, it could've been any of a handful of songs that made me feel better. Sleeping Lessons, Phantom Limb, Turn On Me, Girl Sailor - whatever.

And that's all that I really ask out of an album. Does it make me happier when I hear it? Wincing The Night Away does, and that's good enough for me.

I'll give you a topic. While watching the great Judd Apatow comedy Undeclared tonight, Death? made a ponderable statement that neither of us really think is true, but might not be that far off...

"Seth Rogen is this generation's Molly Ringwald."

Discuss...

Last week I made a purchase that I’ve wanted to make for quite a few years. Trying to recapture my youth, I am now the proud owner of a pair of Heelys roller-skate shoes, size 12...

What can I say? I love kid's stuff like Heelys. Now if only I can find adult sized light-up shoes, Underoos and Big Wheels.

Although I have tried them on and petered around the house and office in them, I have yet to take them out for a spin on solid ground. Since I was never a skater and they sure as hell didn’t have these when I was a kid, I’m a little bit frightened. They were a much better idea in my mind than they are in real life.

In anticipation of me stepping out onto the concrete, Vegas has set the odds and bookies around the country are starting to take bets on what will become of me. Remember, if you are going to gamble, know when to stop before you start.


Even: Neighborhood kids point and laugh at Brandon
This is a sure thing. Little kids make Heelys look easy and I make them look very difficult. When I went roller-skating a couple years ago I had a handful of little kids doing circles around me while I struggled to stay upright. They were seriously making fun of me and my little baby steps around the rink. My neighbors won’t be any different.

2-1: Neighborhood adults point and laugh at Brandon
While you would expect the grownups to be more mature than the kids, that isn't the case in my neighborhood, so this is probably a pretty good bet as well.

3-1: Pulled groin lands Brandon in hospital
While I’d be willing to bet that I do pull my groin sooner or later, I doubt that I’ll have to go to the hospital. I can get treatment from my doctor wife at home, so this might not be a very wise bet. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to pull my groin.

5-1: Brandon breaks a bone
There are two ways to look at this bet. I’m sure I’ll fall down a couple times risking bone breakage along the way. However, I’m pretty bad about giving up when I’m not good at something right away limiting the chances of me breaking something.

5-1: Brandon gives up before he ever gets a chance to break a bone
See, told you so. The odds makers know me well.

10-1: Brandon learns how to use them but only at the supermarket while holding onto a shopping cart
First of all, supermarkets seem to be the best place to skate. Typically the floors are nice and smooth and without cracks. Secondly, I'm already getting decent at holding onto our cart at work and pushing myself along, so this is definitely a good bet. I'm not that far away right now.

25-1: Brandon learns to skate without holding on to anything
The way it's going so far, I don't know. I'd put the odds of this happening at around 100-1 especially given the high odds of me getting hurt or me quitting before I learn because the neighbors made me cry.

100-1: Heelys weight limited exceeded and wheel breaks
There isn't anything mentioned anywhere about a weight limit, but I might be the largest man to ever try Heelys, they probably never expected a big man like myself attempting to use them.

1000-1: Brandon goes to skate park and tears it up
There's a skate bowl just down the road, perhaps I'll give it a try when I get really good. Yeah, right.

10,000-1: Brandon gets laid while wearing Heelys
Death? called the odds makers herself and had them add this one.

First of all, Death? has had to work on Friday night each of the last three weeks so I've started going to movies after work instead of fighting traffic, and let me tell you, that is the way to go. When Death? is home, I'll definitely brave the traffic and get home and take her out, but when I have had to fend for myself, going to see The Simpsons Movie, The Bourne Ultimatum and Once on successive Fridays on a matinée discount and a fifteen minute drive home instead of 30-45 has been awesome.

On to Once, the absolutely beautiful musical that I took in after work today. Quick question, if you saw a 300 pound man in a backwards baseball cap and a Try Evil t-shirt sitting by himself in a theater with tears streaming down his face, what would you think?

Well, that's what I was reduced to tonight by this movie. Not out of sadness, this movie is far from sad other than using dreary Dublin as a backdrop, which for me made it even more powerful because Dublin looks strikingly like the Puget Sound area, it very well could've been shot in Seattle.

Instead my tears were out of the shear range of emotions and the honesty expressed in each and every amazing song sung by The Guy (Glen Hansard of The Frames) and The Girl (singer-songwriter Marketa Irglova).

One review I just read describes their opening duet in a music store as "like their first kiss". I couldn't describe it any better, that's kind of how all of their duets are in this very unconventional and simple love story. They lead to a climax that is both exactly what you wanted and exactly not what were hoping for but is so satisfying and makes so much sense that it's completely perfect.

Despite not being anything like them on the surface, Once takes it's place next to some of my favorite movies (Amelie, Millions, Little Miss Sunshine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) that walk an emotional tightrope of beautiful, exuberant, but bittersweet joy.

Or, as they are better described, movies that made this big man happily cry.

OK people, this is starting to become a critical matter. We need one more team for our DWP! Fantasy Football League. If you want to join all of your good blogger buddies in some hardcore good-natured competition, please email me or leave me a comment and I will invite you to join.

Here are the teams so far...

johnnyhongkong
Snackielicious
Roast Ducks
Honea Express
CineRobots
Warped
Culture Kills Lions - last year's champs
sinkintothepacific
Kapgar's Kapitans
Turbo Chic
Down With Pants!

We have a live draft scheduled for Sunday, August 26th at 12:00 PM Pacific Time. I hope you can make it. Don't be shy, we won't bite.

UPDATE: DutchBitch is back and has joined our league. We are now at capacity. Good luck to all!

Hallelujah! We can now finally put this long national nightmare behind us and forget that it ever happened.

Perhaps this guy, seen at the Inland Empire 66ers game in San Bernardino this weekend, should be the new Down With Pants! mascot.

Fried food and manure. These are the usual smells at the Ventura County Fair. But for one night those familiar aromas were replaced by felt and sweat as 52 wannabes turned out for the opportunity to become the first mascot in local blog Down With Pants! history.

Competition was fierce in front of a couple hundred drunken idiots at The Drunken Idiot Beer Garden Presented by Miller Chill. The judges had their work cut out for them trimming the first group of 52 down to six finalists. Here are a few of the highlights…

Thanks to Fun & Folly for selling the absolute worst mascot costumes ever.

Dude, I just got back from my softball game and from the big Down With Pants! mascot competition. We lost the game but I had a blast at the mascot tryouts where we whittled down a field of 52 contestants to six. Tomorrow I'll post a complete recap of the competition and the six finalists and you, the reader, my friends, will help me choose our very first DWP! mascot.

Tonight, though, I'm frantically making some mix CD's for my Mom so Death? can take them with her when she flies home tomorrow (she's leaving for the weekend for her ten year reunion and a wedding and I'm not. I probably won't see her for more than half an hour at a time until next weekend).

I'm so glad to have grown up with such amazing and cool parents. I can't imagine what life would've been like with uptight, conservative, asshole parents who listen to things like Celine Dion or Enya or...gasp...Christian hymnals. And while my Mom's choice in music isn't always compatible with mine (she tends to like more hippie music, she is a child of the '60's after all) at least she doesn't go to see Toby Keith in concert.

When I upgraded my iPod I gave my old mini to her and kept a bunch of songs on it that I thought she might like. She loved the Eels and The New Pornographers songs that I kept on there. So tonight I'm making her copies of The New Pornographers Electric Version and Twin Cinema, Daisies of the Galaxy by the Eels (one of my favorite albums ever) and a mix tape of Eels songs from their other albums.

The funny thing is a lot of my friends don't even have the same taste in music that I do so I never make them mix-tapes.

But my Mom? One of her favorite bands is The Shins. What more do I have to say? That's a cool parent if I do say so myself.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - FOR MORE INFO CONTACT DWP! MEDIA RELATIONS

VENTURA, CA - Down With Pants! is looking for a mascot to represent the worldwide leader in pantsless blogging throughout the series of tubes called the interwebs.

Tryouts will be held tonight in the Drunken Idiot Beer Garden presented by Miller Chill at the Ventura County Fair. Mascots interested in trying out must bring one head shot, a choreographed dance routine, their own music on a CD and a picture ID.

Pants, unfortunately, are required for admission to the fair.

Dude, I didn't do shit tonight. I sat here and got my fake football team's team shop up and running and that's just about it.

I could've gone and saw The Format, but the possible three hour drive to LA (sixty damn miles) was the clincher in me not going.

I also could've gone to the Dodger's game to boo Barry Bonds, but again, three hour drive and $15 parking did that idea in.

Or I could've gone to the demolition derby at the Ventura County Fair, but I didn't want to go by myself. Death? is on the 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM (or later) shift for the next two weeks so she couldn't go.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love residency? I've seen her for a total of half an hour since Monday and with the largest hospital in the county closing next week to do fix it's mold problem, the patient load for my wife in the ICU of her hospital could double or triple or worse. She's going to be pretty much wiped out even during the time that we're both home at the same time.

You know what the great thing about being old is? Complaining!