The Disaster Artist

***Guest post from Lukewarm Jonah***

Today, December 1, 2017 is a big day.  It’s my birthday, a big birthday, a monumental birthday, my 34th birthday.  This birthday is widely known as your Kirby Puckett birthday, and is considered one of the most important in your life.  With my Kirby Puckett birthday coming up, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.  What should I do with my life?  How can I find a balance between what seem to be my two choices of jobs, either I hate my life and get paid a good amount, or enjoy work and literally live around the poverty line.  In this line of thought I picked up a book I got four years ago which addresses dream chasing, money vs. happiness and other similar themes and decided to give it another read.  It’s The Disaster Artist, the story of the making of the greatest bad movie ever “The Room” told by it’s co-star Greg Sestero.  It’s also an upcoming movie with a lot of buzz starring the Franco brothers, Alison Brie, and Seth Rogen, and it’s how I’ll be spending my Kirby Puckett Birthday.

My Kirby Puckett birthday is the day that I really have my hipster moment.  I’ve never cared when bands I liked got popular, but for some reason this feels different.  Maybe it’s because I put a lot more effort into “The Room” than I ever really did in music.  I mean I bought CDs, went to concerts, but it wasn’t the same level of fandom.  I’ve given “The Room” three trips to see a screening in which Tommy Wiseau, the enigmatic director, producer, writer and star, appeared in person.  Met him all three times and even shared the stage with him twice. Maybe it’s because this group feels even more personal than being a fan of a small band did.  I mean there’s a wide range of “The Room” fans, but I’m not sure if any of them wouldn’t describe themselves as geeks, nerds, dorks, or some variation of that.  I definitely feel like I fit in with my nerdy brothers and sisters when we’re laughing our asses off at the nonstop lunacy which is “The Room”.

When The Disaster Artist comes out it’s going to get Oscar buzz.  This is going to lead to the masses discovering that it’s a true story and some absolutely insane movie called “The Room” was made.  They’re going to watch it and try and pretend like they were in on the joke all along.  Maybe my fear is that these screenings and Tommy Wiseau meetings become packed with bros instead of dorks.  While the book revealed some of the darkness in Wiseau, it was at it’s heart a story about the ultimate underdog and his refusal to accept the fact that he was one.  Tommy was us, we were Tommy.  We were people of different ages, races, genders, who could say my dream isn’t that insane compared to Tommy’s and look at him, he made his movie and comes to screenings like this to be adored by his fans.  If Tommy Wiseau can be a movie writer, director, and star, then there’s literally nothing that we can’t do. 

So on my fateful Kirby Puckett birthday I’ll go to a screening of “The Disaster Artist” with my lovely wife.  I’ll enjoy watching this insane story play out on film with talented actors and actresses playing the parts.  I’ll enjoy watching it with the majority, if not all of the audience in on the madness of “The Room” waiting for their favorite parts of the movie to be created and acted out on screen.  It will be fun, and I’m sure it will be a great movie that tells a story that I’m fascinated by, but it’s the beginning of the end for us weirdo fans.  I’ll get to hang on to that feeling for a little while longer as the week after this screening we’re heading back to Portland for another screening of “The Room” but with never before seen special guest Greg Sestero. 

Am I really mad at the masses finding out about this fantastic movie that makes you wonder if you’ve done some sort of mixture of peyote and angel dust, gotten on a plane, and ended up in Bulgaria?  No, not really.  I can’t help but be happy for the success that this will bring to Tommy and Greg, and hopefully some of the other forgotten members of “The Room”.  I think I’m just stressed out because my Kirby Puckett birthday is coming up and I’m clearly receiving some signs from whatever heavenly beings are up there that I need to make my Kirby Puckett year count.  I need to chase my stupid dreams for at least a year.  I mean if a guy who can’t speak, write, or understand English fluently can make a movie, then why can’t I accomplish my dreams?    

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #42 David Vaughn

I just read "The Jordan Rules," Sam Smith's story of the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls season that primarily focuses on Michael Jordan, but through nearly 400 pages, everybody gets a fair amount of ink. It made me long for those Chicago Bulls glory days, so I am going to go back and rank every player's contribution to the Bulls six NBA Titles during the 1990s.

David Vaughn
David Vaughn had a solid pedigree. He was drafted out of Memphis in the first round by the Orlando Magic. His biggest claim to fame is nothing he did on the court, but he was involved in some notable transactions.

Right before the 1997-98 season got started, he was traded, along with Brian Shaw from Orlando to the Golden State Warriors in order for the Magic to acquire four-time All-Star and three-time league leader in free throw percentage, Mark Price. Unfortunately, this would be Mark Price's last season as he has the lowest free throw percentage since his rookie season, shooting just 84.5% from the stripe.

Then, in February of 1998, he was traded, along with two second round picks, to the Chicago Bulls for two-time NBA Champion, Jason Caffey. To say Michael Jordan was excited would be an understatement as he told reporters, "I don't know anything about David. Every time I've seen him, he's never been in uniform. I think that says a lot."

Alas, his impact for the Chicago Bulls was fairly minimal. He played in three games for a total of six minutes but shot perfect from the field in that limited time. Still, perfection was not enough, as the Bulls released him just two weeks after acquiring him, a decision they would surely regret.

After being released, he was acquired by the New Jersey Nets. And in the first round of the playoffs, those Nets would take on the Bulls in a best-of-5 series. Vaughn was all over the court as he averaged 36 blocks per 36 minutes. Luckily for the Bulls, the Nets only played him for a single minute as they got swept 3-0.

Although this is not the block from the playoffs, there was a time when David Vaughn got a block on Michael Jordan, and it is WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY more awesome than you can possibly imagine. It might be the greatest block on Jordan in basketball history.


I am just getting started with this list, but I doubt anyone else will be able to say they were part of the Bulls Dynasty as well as coming just three games away from ending it in a single season.

Previous Entries:

#45 - Jack Haley

#44 - Rory Sparrow

#43 - Chuck Nevitt

The Post Y2J Crisis: What Happened After Chris Jericho Made His WWE Debut - Part 2

For those who missed it, part one is here.

When we last left Chris Jericho's run in WWE, he had just ended Ken Shamrock's career on a random episode of Smackdown. That was his most notable feud as he had also injured Road Dogg earlier in his run, but he had already gone a long ways down since going toe-to-toe with The Rock. Sadly, things were about to get a whole lot worse before they were going to get better.

First off, he went to Unforgiven, and since he had ended Shamrock's career, it was time to move on, so he fought X-Pac. Jericho lost when the Road Dogg came out to help out X-Pac.

The next night he took a giant step up in competition when he faced Big Show. But he lost by disqualification when Prince Albert interfered. Yep, Jericho was a side character in a Big Show/Prince Albert feud. On top of that, Jericho did the most painful move in pro wrestling to Big Show behind the ref's back, the low blow, and Big Show shook it off three seconds later. The low blow is enough to knock out Brock Lesnar, and Jericho couldn't even take Big Show off his feet with it. That's bringing incompetence to a new level.

Later that week, Jericho and Hughes took on the New Age Outlaws, and yet again, they were just there to set up the Outlaws for their illustrious feud with The Super Heavyweights, Crash and Hardcore Holly.

But Jericho flashed again with main event talents, as he interrupted The Rock n' Sock Connection.

Outside of dropping a hard R on Mankind, this was the most entertaining thing that Jericho accomplished in his early run in the WWE. It even had The Rock dropping shade on Juventud Guerrera, which may have sparked him to turn into Juvy Juice. But it set up a match between The Rock and Y2J, which at least made Jericho seem important again. Unsurprisingly, The Rock won, and also unsurprisingly, this match was more done to further the feud between The Rock and the British Bulldog as the Bulldog immediately ran down at the conclusion of the match. Yes, yet again, Jericho was the third wheel in a feud for two.

but Jericho would not stay down for long as he tagged with his new best friend, Curtis Hughes, to take on the newly reformed Headbangers. I thought about embedding the link to this match, but it was awful. Jericho got mad at Curtis Hughes, left the match, and the Headbangers had their triumphant return.

Finally, Jericho's attitude caught up to him as he brawled with Curtis Hughes in the locker room at the next Smackdown. They then had a match where they brawled some more, but Jericho got the upper hand when Howard Finkel distracted the ref so Y2J could hit him with a chair. Since Jericho is such a gracious winner, he gave Curtis Hughes a consolation gift after their match, the services of Harold (Jericho could never remember his name) Finkel. And most importantly, Jericho was back in the win column and would surely use this for unstoppable momentum.

At the No Mercy pay per view that week, Jericho stole the show by...not appearing or even being mentioned. He was instead downgraded to a Sunday Night Heat match against D-Lo Brown. Y2J did not win.

Somehow, someway, Jericho made it through all of this and would begin his first run to a title, but we'll get to that next time. 

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #43 Chuck Nevitt

I just read "The Jordan Rules," Sam Smith's story of the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls season that primarily focuses on Michael Jordan, but through nearly 400 pages, everybody gets a fair amount of ink. It made me long for those Chicago Bulls glory days, so I am going to go back and rank every player's contribution to the Bulls six NBA Titles during the 1990s.

Chuck Nevitt
Chuck Nevitt is a man who maximized his time in the NBA. He never played in more than 43 games in a single season, his career high in points was just 3.8, and that was in only six games, but this man managed to play from 1982-1994. There were three years in there where he didn't play in the NBA spread out throughout that career, but a twelve year stretch of playing in the highest organization is pretty impressive.

How did he manage this? Um, long story short (no pun intended), he was tall as shit. Seven feet, five inches, but weighing just 217 pounds. Nevitt managed to make Shawn Bradley look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Also, the 1991-92 Chicago Bulls were not the first championship squad that he played on, as he also won a title with the 1985 Los Angeles Lakers, making him the tallest player to ever be on a NBA Championship roster.

He played the preseason in 1991 with the Bulls but was released before the season started. Then, a few weeks later, he was signed again and would last a month with the team. In four games with the Bulls, his greatest contribution may have been the nine minutes he provided. Yes, he did have an assist, a rebound, and two points, but even that was on three field goal attempts. But in those nine minutes, he also managed two fouls and three turnovers. I can't imagine he shared the court with Michael Jordan at all, as I think Jordan notoriously hated big men and may have murdered him on the court for his performance.

Chuck Nevitt may have not been the best player in Bulls history. Actually, I think we can definitively say he wasn't. But he was the tallest, and that counts for something.

Previous Entries:

#45 - Jack Haley

#44 - Rory Sparrow

How To Make Money Online: TaskRabbit Is a Total Scam

I heard about TaskRabbit the same way that everyone heard about TaskRabbit: On an episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Since I'm looking for odd ways to make money, I decided to look into doing tasks for people, since some of it, you don't even need to leave your own home. Well, this review is going to be a short one, because TaskRabbit is some bullshit.

I didn't last long TaskRabbit, because they are charging way too much to verify people aren't murderers on Craigslist. It was like $20 or $25 to sign up to be a tasker. Then, TaskRabbit takes 30% of all of the earnings. This is an incredible scam.

Do not sing up for TaskRabbit. Just use Craigslist. Most of the time you won't be murdered, and with TaskRabbit, your bank account will be murdered every time by hidden fees.

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #44 Rory Sparrow

I just read "The Jordan Rules," Sam Smith's story of the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls season that primarily focuses on Michael Jordan, but through nearly 400 pages, everybody gets a fair amount of ink. It made me long for those Chicago Bulls glory days, so I am going to go back and rank every player's contribution to the Bulls six NBA Titles during the 1990s.

Rory Sparrow
Rory Sparrow is way too good of a basketball player to be this low on the list. He played 12 years in the NBA, and he was good. Oh, but there is a slight addendum to that, as he was good for every team except for the Chicago Bulls.

Excluding his first and last seasons, Sparrow averaged double digit points per game for every team he played with for at least one season except for the Chicago Bulls. Probably his best season was his 1984-85 season with the Knicks where he averaged ten points, seven assists, two rebounds, and a steal, all while shooting over 50% from the field and 86% from the free throw line.

But let's get to how Sparrow did for the Bulls. Looking for help early in the 1987-88 season, the Bulls traded the Knicks a second round pick for his services. He received a good amount of playing time, averaging 18 minutes per game, but he made little impact in games. This was probably only partially due to deteriorating skills as this was in the prime of Michael Jordan hogging the ball and verbally abusing anyone else who dared to take a bad shot.

He was released before the 1988-89 season and provided solid play for the Miami Heat and Sacramento Kings. In 1991, the Los Angeles Clippers signed him for the preseason but released him before the season began. The Bulls swooped in to sign him to strengthen their bench as the season began.

Unfortunately, the second stint was shorter and less productive than the first. He played in four games, and his most impressive stat was getting four assists during his 18 minutes of play. He was 1/8 from the field and really didn't offer much beyond that. He lasted just 19 days with the team before being waived.

Out of everyone on this list, he probably belongs in the top-15 for overall career, but we're judging how much he helped the Bulls Dynasty, and he had very little positive impact on that 1991-92 season.

I think he's okay with that. He won Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year in 1987 for his charitable endeavors, and he currently works for the NBA league office. On top of that, he's the greatest Rory in NBA history. Not too shabby for a fourth round pick out of Villanova.

Previous Entries:

#45 - Jack Haley

The 45 Most Important Players to the Chicago Bulls Dynasty - #45 Jack Haley

I just read "The Jordan Rules," Sam Smith's story of the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls season that primarily focuses on Michael Jordan, but through nearly 400 pages, everybody gets a fair amount of ink. It made me long for those Chicago Bulls glory days, so I am going to go back and rank every player's contribution to the Bulls six NBA Titles during the 1990s.

Jack Haley
Somebody had to come in at 45, and just like many other roles that most would not have wanted to take, I feel like Jack would embrace his role in kicking off this series. Jack Haley spent ten years in the NBA. Well, okay, not really. He started in 1989 and ended in 1998, but he had some stops at other leagues in between there. His best work was during his first stint with the New Jersey Nets. In the 89-90 season, he started 26 games for the Nets and averaged six points and five rebounds per game. He also had less illustrious stints with the Spurs and Lakers.

Although it may not be greatly remembered, Haley also had two stints with the Bulls as he got there before they started winning championships as he was drafted in 1987 and played for the Bulls in 1988-89. He was claimed on waivers by the Nets in 1989 but came back to the Bulls for the 95-96 season.

His impact on the court was about as small as it could get. He played in a grand total of one game. He played seven minutes but did manage to put up six shots and two free throws. I have not been able to confirm that Jordan made him sit on the bench for the rest of the year because he was jealous of anybody getting up that many shots in that little of time.

But Haley made the most of his experience on the bench as he was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the team and provided a friend to Dennis Rodman which is not an easy job to do.

Unfortunately, Jack Haley passed away in 2015 due to heart disease. He was only 51 years old. He's one of those guys that seemed like a great guy and you never really heard anything bad about him.

I don't want to end on a sad note, so just in case you forgot how awesome Jack Haley was, here's some photos to help jog your memory.

I know what you're thinking. There is no way there is a better picture than that. Oh, but there is.

I know that now you are thinking, that this is the photo that cannot be topped, but it was.

Perfection.

The Post Y2J Crisis: What Happened After Chris Jericho Made His WWE Debut - Part 1

For the WWE, the Countdown to the Millennium came a few months early (and technically, a year and a few months early) as it arrived on August 9th, 1999 with the debut of Y2J, Chris Jericho. Everybody remembers the debut of Y2J as it is one of those transcendent moments that is still talked about nearly 20 years later. It helped that there was a countdown for weeks in advance; it helped that it came during the middle of a promo from The Rock, and it helped that Jericho is one of those wrestlers who doesn't just have fans, he has fanatics. If you need a refresher on the moment, take a gander below.

Even though The Rock shut up Jericho, Y2J got his revenge later in the night when he interfered in The Rock's match with The Big Show and helped Mr. Ass beat up The Rock. Maybe the most important takeaway from all of this is that yes, the WWE had a lot of stupid names during the attitude era.

The debut was obviously great, but today, I want to focus on what happened after the debut. There was a ton of momentum with Jericho coming in, but it's not like he immediately took the belt off Stone Cold Steve Austin and become the top guy in the company, so where did Jericho go from here?

Well, the next week he kept the momentum going as he interrupted The Undertaker and The Big Show which was a true "Save Us Jericho" moment as Undertaker should never speak for more than 30 seconds. He rightfully called The Undertaker "the personification of boredom." Still, it ended much like Jericho's first segment where Jericho went on his rant about saving WWE, but the WWE stalwart got the last word.

He then went on to SummerSlam to talk trash to Road Dogg, and it goes exactly like all of Jericho's previous interactions where he lambastes the stalwart WWE Superstar, and the WWE Superstar gets the last word in. Maybe the best part is when Road Dogg gets on commentary right after and admits to not owning a computer. Back then, computers were for nerds. But in a matter of a couple weeks, Jericho has gone from feuding with The Rock to The Undertaker to The Road Dogg.

Well, at least there is nowhere to go from there but up. Haha, nope, the next night he interfered in a hardcore match with Road Dogg and Al Snow. After that, Y2J needed to use Howard Finkel, who was basically being cast as a poor man's Ralphus, as bait so he could get one up on Road Dogg. And he did this all in Ames, Iowa.

Jericho finally had his first WWE match on the very first episode of Smackdown. Jericho lost the match by disqualification after putting Road Dogg through a table. After the match, he put the Walls of Jericho on Road Dogg while he was passed out on the broken table, and the entire crowd cheered the nefarious heel. Since submissions hurt far more if they are done on a table, this injured the Road Dogg, leaving Jericho to move onto his next feud.

Later in the show, Jericho saved Howard Finkel from a Ken Shamrock beatdown by hitting Shamrock with a chair before sprinting away. This led to Jericho tricking Shamrock into fighting him in a parking lot where Jericho beat him down with a shovel. Then, in a very underrated moment that I wish would have become a thing, he made Howard Finkel take polaroids of him while he had Shamrock locked in the Walls of Jericho. Finally, Jericho agreed to meet Ken Shamrock face-to-face at the following week's Smackdown.

The biggest thing that came from this was the firing of Howard Finkel as Jericho could not depend on The Fink and needed to find better help.

And so Jericho brought in Mr. Hughes. That gave him protection against Ken Shamrock without any worries of personality, so he got dressed up like this.

Before Jericho could get his hands on Shamrock, he had a match with Mr. Ass, another heel, for some reason which just showed how little WWE actually cared about Jericho's impact.

Instead of waiting until a PPV for Shamrock's first match with Jericho, they instead had Jericho take him on in a first blood match on the Smackdown immediately before INSERT PPV. Jericho wore full hockey gear to protect himself, and thanks to help from Curtis Hughes, was able to win the match by causing Ken Shamrock internal bleeding. Ken Shamrock LOVED to internally bleed. And this, yes, a comedy match, on a random Smackdown, with Jericho making him bleed with a splash while wearing hockey gear, would be Ken Shamrock's last match in the WWE.

Chris Jericho's first real feud ended with no hoopla and limited buildup, but he did technically retire Ken Shamrock. Would Jericho use this momentum to take him to new heights? LOL, it gets WAY worse from here, but I'll tackle that next time.