Captain's Meeting: Side Kick?

INTRO

FOUR DAYS UNTIL THE DRAFT!

DISCLAIMER:  As is usually the case, this BLOG is based on actual events.  Only the names, locations and events have been changed". 

And there you go.  The last captain's meeting before the draft is in the books.  We welcomed some new guys and said "fair thee well" to some former captains.  All in all the meeting was going swimmingly until I decided to ask a question. 

For those of you that haven't attended captain's meetings, there is a small unwritten rule that I should let you know about:  "I'm not allowed to talk".  You see, I've developed a bit of a reputation over the past few years as a guy that 'starts stuff' and gets everyone into a loud and sometimes bitter debate.  Many reputations and stereotypes are rooted in fear and lies.  Sadly, this one probably isn't.  If you've been to these meetings or any of the Annual General Meetings that I've attended, you'd know that this is strongly rooted in FACT.  This is why I'm not going to the AGM anymore; but I need to be at the captain's meetings because, well....you just never know.

So I had the audacity to ask, "how does everyone feel about a balanced schedule this year?"

Silence.

Jeff Dancey:  Farah, I thought we had an agreement?
Rob Farah:  Yeah, well I can't CONTROL him. 
Hugh Armstrong:  Come on Farah, keep a leash on your side kick.

The cat calls and verbal shots got worse, but I disconnected....And in my head I waged my typical silent conversation.

SIDE KICK????  Are you kidding me?  A side kick?  Lets see, what do side kick's have in common? 

• They aren't the hero!
• They are usually significantly smaller than the hero.
• They usually state only pathetically obvious things.
• They are usually only good for the occasional laugh.
• They are usually stupid.

Sure I can be a little arrogant and a little less self-aware than I should be, but I don't think I'm a friggin' side kick.  Then I started thinking about how much I dislike side kicks in general and came up with my list of side kicks and what bugs me about them. 

THE LIST. 

Woodstock....the worst type of side kick because he's the side kick of a side kick.  Snoopy was Charlie Brown's side-kick and Woodstock was Snoopy's.  Tough gig. Let's see, he or she is pretty much devoid of any personality, contributes little if anything beyond some mild comic relief and doesn't talk.  Great character!

Vanna Friggin' White.  Oh, the talent.  Lets see...doesn't talk either.  Isn't funny. Although, to her credit, she is a lot bigger than Pat Sajak, which is kind of an anti-side kick characteristic.

Twiggy.  Another androgynous side kick.  But that matters less than the fact that this stupid "futuristic" robot pushed robotics back to its infancy.  Honestly, it was supposed to the 25th century!  My digital watch in 1978 had more personality than Twiggy.  And really, did thing have any joints?  It walked like Ingofische with two broken legs. And a robot with a bowl cut?  A bowl cut?

Poor, poor Tattoo.  He never could get out of Mr. Rourke's shadow.  Again, the comedic input was about all he did. 

Sonny Bono is the most complex of all the side kicks.  The reason is that he had no awareness that he was the side kick and really thought that he was the hero / star.  It actually borders on perverse that he was the only one who didn't get the joke. 

Smithers.  I have nothing to say.

Silent Bob is one of the few side-kicks that I can put on the good side of the ledger.  Clever, bigger than the main character, when he says anything at all...it isn't obvious. 

Ron Frickin Weasley.  Is there a worse fate for a side-kick?  He's not 10% of the wizard that Harry is.  Not on his best day. (Oh, and I don't give a rats you know what that I'm totally selling myself out by knowing the finer details of the Potter series).  When he 'occassionally' gets a spell right its more used for comedic value than anything else.  He can't even play quiddich anywhere near Harry's calibre.  Ron sucks.  Despite his evident suck-ness, he got the hot girl.  That part is inexplicable. 

Oh wait.  I just thought of something worse than Ron Weasley.  Robin gets the lame outfit compared to "The Batman", but really - that's only the beginning.  He's the 'holy' king of the obvious; captain obvious if you will. Holy "heart failure", "marathon", "horseshoe", "costume party" or "priceless collection of Etruscan snoods" Batman are just some of the endless litany of the readily apparent.  Oh, and having his initial on his uniform is a great way to prevent it getting mixed up with all the other superhero's who are dressed like dorks. 

Patrick.  Possibly the stupidest of all side-kicks.  Think about it.  Sponge Bob (he's a sponge....really) is stupid.  In fact, Sponge Bob is so stupid that 6 year olds find it unwatchable.  I'm not saying that 6 hear olds are stupid, just that they have taste.  They'll sit catatonic in front of Dora the freakin' explora, but don't have the tolerance for the Sponge Bob.  At any rate, on the stupid scale, Patrick needs to be stupider than a SPONGE!  That makes him the stupiderest.

Newt. Anyone that had to endure the torture of the Hercules cartoon with its 'sort of' stop time animation had to also deal with the mental anguish inflicted by Newt who had the propensity to say everything twice.  Twice.  "That's me, that's me".  There may not be a worse cartoon, cartoon.  There may not be a worse side-kick, side-kick.  Newt met all side-kick criteria, criteria.

Mini-me.  I have more pity than hatred for Mini-me.  I've never been a fan of exploiting someone for their physical appearance.  It would be like me nicknaming James Taylor something like "Travelocity".  Stuff like that just isn't appropriate. 

John Stockton.  Love the shorts!!!  So, this is a classic example the side-kick being better than the hero, but no one really caught on and the better of the two ends up living his life in the shadows.  Poor Stockton played second fiddle to Karl Malone for his entire career in Utah.  Don't get me wrong, Malone had a great career.  Second all time in points, minutes played, shots taken, and 11th in career steals.  Stockton however, is # 1 all time in assists and #1 all time in steals.  He joins Silent Bob as being 'nobody's side-kick'. 

Jiminy Cricket.  Ah, the know-it-all conscience side-kick.  I've got 3 words for you Jiminy Cricket....."SHUT-UP"!!!! 

Ed McMahon.  Weird, but Ed is the only 'real life' side-kick beside Stockton and unlike Stockton, he really should have been a cartoon character.  Ed was a former game show host, joining such notable entertainers as Chuck Barris, Bert Convey, Louie Anderson, Gene Rayburn and Peter Marshall.  That should be a hint.  I don't wish harm on anyone.  Ever.  But I am thankful that I no longer have to hear that fake belly laugh.  Oh incidentally, you might consider Vana White to be 'real' as well; but for the purpose of this discussion, I'm not counting plastic. 

Donkey.  The only TRUE side-kick (in that he meets all the criteria) that I actually like.  Donkey rules.  He's even a donkey (an ass) to reinforce the point.  I could live with being donkey.  I love when Shrek explains how Ogres are like onions because they both have layers and donkey replies with, "Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions. What about cake? Everybody loves cake!  You know what ELSE everybody likes? Parfaits! Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "Hell no, I don't like no parfait"? Parfaits are delicious!"  I can relate to donkey.  And cake. 

Chewy is a dolt.  Not only a dolt, but why would the hairiest character in the star wars saga have a Cross Bow with touchy trigger mechanism and being difficult to load.  Stupid.  It would be like horse doing paint by numbers. Sure, they can count the numbers with their hoofs, but they ain't any good for gripping a brush.

On the topic of dolts.  At least Barney Fife knew he was stupid.  But he was difficult to watch.  Good old Andy Griffith was always the one with the sage wisdom, bailing our Barney after he'd let a prisoner (usually a local drunk) escape or when he'd set the police station on fire.  Barney was dumb ass in the classic sense of the term. 

Speaking of Barney and dumb....how about Barney Rubble.  He was off course modeled after the classic side-kick from the Honeymooners, Ed Norton. Barny was small.  He was stupid, which when compared with Fred is a difficult trick to pull off!  He never had anything to say that wasn't obvious.  "Gee, I don't know Fred...".  Really ... could they have not written another line?  Just occasionally?

UP NEXT Apr 9:  We Start the Draft Breakdown and Season Predictions!  BOLD PREDICTIONS (i)

We Were The Champions

Pre-INTRO

Well, the first captain's meeting is in the books for this year.  It was fairly uneventful.  Minutes are of course available (or soon will be) on the league website as per normal.

We recapped the AGM.  Talked about some of the significant dates for the coming year.  Again, all are available on the website.  There was a status provided on registration.  Currently, (this was written March 1st and will have undoubtedly changed) we had 70 people register online.  Jason Bowers was the first to register at 12:04am on the morning registration opened.  This of course ended Rob Farah's 3 year run as the "first to register".  I would say Rob is a tiny bit bitter about it, he even cried a little.  Truth be told, they were big manly tears.

Rob was second to register, or as Jason calls it, "first among all the losers".  I can see Jason is going to be tough to play against this year!

We also said good-bye to four captains, Dave McKendrick and Bob Vienneau (from the Torn Ligaments) and Anthony Mrasek and Ed Vonda (from The Wild).  Some may be back as players....we'll wait and see.  Anyway, there will be more on these folks in a future BLOG.

We then said hello to some new captains.  Bear in mind, this will depend on registration numbers, but the next folks in the queue are Jens Lepa, Steve DeLand (I'm unsure of the team name, so I'll wait before screwing it up like I did to the Beer Bros. last year) and Tim Schrank and Jason Bowers (Tap Masters - a name decided through a poll right here on the BLOG - Yay!)

More on these 4-clowns later.  I haven't been able to fillet new captains yet, so I'm looking forward to this experience.  More importantly, I'm now #23 in experience among captains!  I'm climbing up the seniority ranks!  Look out Laird and Candy, I'm on my way.  I still have the least baseball aptitude among captains though. (as was kindly pointed out....read the next paragraph)

Other than that, we had the usual assortment of sarcastic barbs for the usual sarcastic captains.  I don't want to center Hugh out - that wouldn't be fair - so I'll just say there were 'general' comments.  By the way, if anyone finds the rest of Mr Armstrong would you let him know?  Only about 75% of the guy I remember from last year showed up at the meeting.  He's fading away to nothing.

Lastly, if you haven't already done so, please go to the Tottenham Oldtimers Facebook Page (by clicking the highlighted words behind this) and click "LIKE".  This will provide you with on-the-fly information about the league and has proven to be a very beneficial communication tool for both league and non-league matters over the past few months.  Jamie McClean and Jeff Dancey are regular contributors, but there are a number of others who also post there. (note to Rob McCarron, "Facebook" is an alternate name for "The Face File")

Now....the first real fun of spring............

INTRO

(Ahhhhh....technology.  As I sit here in Florida soaking up the sun and drinking something fruity...here is a BLOG for you folks left in The 'Ham to enjoy!!!  18 days until the draft!!!)

And so ends the Championship off season!

Man, it was a wicked tour.  The party after the Championship game was a bit of drunk up though.  I managed to save the receipt. We all went back to the Legion (strange but true).  All the Grisslies, a bunch of Cleats and assorted other players.  We spent a bomb!  By the way.....Sallustio still owes me for a diet coke!!!  The fact that I got stiffed with this bill was like a Todd Bertuzzi sucker punch!

Yeah...you'd think that would be it .... but no!  Then came Rob Farah locking himself in the posh Grisslie Estates for 4 days and producing one of last years most talked about literary works. Of course you all remember....

Oh, the lessons we all learned from this book.  I know that Paul Hargreaves, Rob McCarron and Chuck Cragg quote from it regularly.  In fact, Danny Chiasson's inspirational Facebook updates are often directly from these pages. 

Well, you can't write a book without a tour, so Rob hit the road.  First was the Leno appearance, followed by Letterman and then Rob said "screw it. I don't like being off my street, they can come to me."  Yep, that's Rob!

I have to say, that from that point on the off-season went a little crazy. 

Dave Argue toured the middle east with a National Geographic film crew.  In typical "contradiction" fashion he disputed everything the film crew said and ultimately left in a huff.  Then came word that The David was no longer so fond of his "contradiction" nickname.  Well, we'll work hard to find something appropriate for this two time Grisslie. 

"For Those About To Rock" gained instant acclaim with his nickname and was added to the roster of Farm-Aid 2011 last fall.  It was quickly discovered that he actually couldn't sing or play an instrument, but that didn't stop him from getting on the cover of RockStar magazine!

Friggin' Brad Pitt, jumping in front of my photo op.  I hate that guy!

Bob Smith parlayed his new found fame into an honorary degree from UofT and followed it up with a stint through the winter as a professor of Quantum Baseball Mechanics.  Fortunately, the students at UofT are more into brownies than they are into actual physics so no one noticed that weren't learning a heck of alot. 

 Rob Hayward was approached by a new firm called "Bill-a-thong" that had new remote control underwear which is operated at a molecular level.  Rob initially thought that he was signing a lucrative contract to be part of a 'think tank' within the scientific community.  However, it turned out that they were looking for an underwear model.  He gladly accepted the money anyway.
 

 Hip-hop-hurray, ho, hay, ho!!!  Rob Farah's lyrics/speeches are legend in the hip-hop community.  He has reworked Eminem lyrics 5 times alone, to say nothing of his shots at Jay-Z, Young MC and MC Hammer.  The Champ is now teaching young suburban children how to rap.  Stop....Farah time!

No one had any more immediate success than did Catfish Hunter.  He had a brief guest shot on The Simpson's playing Bart's smart-ass half brother and it blossomed into a recurring role.  Of course, he will long be remembered for his catch-phrase, "we all stand in a buffalo stance, try to beat us and you got no chance."

Not to be outdone, Dave Doucette (DCMT) latched onto the cartoon theme and created his own Cartoon show staring himself.  You can watch it everyday on TV-O from 3:00-3:30.  Its on before Caillou and after Arthur.  Its based on a rookie ball player who teaches life lessons to children through hard work and business cards.  Its quite compelling. 

Gord Robinson became an Internet Mogul with the development of a new online music program.  Gord-o, never one to miss an opportunity, realized that there was a huge market out there of seniors with old and under performing PCs.  So Gord developed Old-ster which is like Napster but only works on 286 PCs that boot from floppy discs.  SWEET!!!  The thing that really made this a money making hit was that it only allows downloads of Queen songs. 

The Fresh Prince of Pointe-Claire, was approached immediately after the season by Model Magazine.  As someone who is so obviously 'cover-material', it took a little sweetening of the pot for Stephane to finally submit to having his picture displayed.  But when they threw in a free trip to Pottageville (because it sounds French), the deal was done! 

Was there a doubt?  Mickey has a certain Je ne sais quoi when it comes to the ladies.  Sure....he's a playah.  Smooth like butter, voice like Barry White, hot like a pistol, killer pick up lines like vertical and moves like Jagger.  Playah's got game.  Of course, once he was exposed in the magazine above, that was the end of the game.   

  When Fashion Icon needed to display their fall fashions, no one else was really in consideration when Popeye was willing to go.  Rocking the shirt from the Toronto Maple Leafs last playoff drive (its 10 years old), this edition of Fashion Icon outsold all previous releases. 

NEXT BLOG:  Captain's Meeting:  Side-Kick?