Billy Mays

[note from the editors: Normally we wouldn't publish something about the non-living, but because of the proximity of our last post to the death of Mr. Jackson we thought the following would be worth sharing.  Keep in mind that it is simply a draft, created a few weeks ago by one the staff who was planning on finishing it up this week.  If you know any of us personally you might want to think twice if we offer to buy you a beer.]

We here are deadman/party are all late-night and hangover television watchers and are simply fascinated by what shining beacon Billy Mays is.  His over-excited holler delivery is far superior to that of his close second in the arena of television pitch-men, that vaguely colonial british accent guy.  It is a fond, foggy memory we have of a bearded hulk of a man selling us washing powder mixed with oxygen.  From there he has branched out into the arena of hanging things, ladders that one would use to hang such things and magical kitchen implements that will make tiny burgers meant to travel through the intestinal tract in a flash.

Also, we assume that his penis bears more than a passing resemblance to a mink and, like Charles Bronson’s flesh hammer, has a knuckle.

Michael Jackson

Is there anyone on Earth that needs a beer more than this man?  A beer and a shot?  We here at deadman/party would be more than happy to buy the motherfucker the whole bar.  Because we love the music. We wake up in the morning, sleepy and hop in the shower.  While in that shower, getting all sudsy we know that we can throw any Michael Jackson single and our day just got happy.  We could be on our way to a funeral but we would be farting unicorns and rainbows all the way to the cemetery.  No other artist even comes close to this pinnacle of positivity.

And before you mention it, we are sick and tired of people bringing the whole molestation thing up.  It is truly sad how often people find a Jay Leno cast-off joke wise.  (And if you must, we would prefer a well timed OJ joke.)  Time and time again we will be extolling the virtues of “Man in the Mirror” and some tired fuck will heave a big sigh, push their glasses up their nose and complain, “You know he touches kids.  Also, wrestling is fake.”  So he has probably touched some kids.  Or he is probably feeling a little conflicted about wanting to touch some kids.  But if you are gonna toss out your copy of Thriller because Michael Jackson is a pervert you best be prepared to toss out Who’s Next; Cats, Cops and Stuff; Ferris Bueler’s Day Off; The Frugal Gourmet Cooks with Wine; Howl and that Gary Glitter suit you’ve been wearing to church.

Leave the man alone and let us buy him a beer.  He has been working hard and deserves a sholder to cry on.  Let it be ours.  And after the tears we can share a few choice words about the ladies in the place.  What good times we will all have.  As long as he keeps his hands above the bar.

Sade

We must admit we feel a certain hesitancy about this post. To date, the entire roster of deadman/party beered musicians consists of Mike Love, Phil Collins, Ludacris, and Neil Young. All upstanding gentlemen to be sure, but not exactly indicators that we are particularly cool or have heard any music (save Luda) in the last 20 years. Still, we can’t help but throw our support behind the smoothest chanteuse we know of, Sade.

Aside from her good looks, it is difficult to explain exactly why we love Sade so much. Her music contains nearly lethal doses of smooth jazz, which ranks as our least favorite genre of music (well, do pop-punk covers of 80’s hits constitute an entire genre?) and she is beloved by an especially obnoxious brand of liberal yuppie who think that listening to a Nigerian born singer means they are into world music. In spite of ourselves, we can’t help but surrender to her husky, honey soaked alto and those easy repetitive grooves. Try to spend 15 minutes listening to Sade songs and see if you can get those damn things out of your head (spoiler alert: you can’t).

We aren’t the sort of lads who have a secret cabinet full of scented candles and oils used to dish out erotic massages, but if we ever decide to get a cabinet like that, rest assured that it will include a Sade mix cd (we must note that there is a distinct possibility that in jamming to “The Sweetest Taboo” while doing the dishes we are actually creepier than the silk bikini-briefed fellow listening to it while giving his lady a sensual rub down). Sade’s tunes are just about the smoothest things on earth. If you are in the kind of mood where listening to Steely Dan’s Gaucho or the assorted works of James Ingram more of an aural assault than you can handle, pump up the Sade and let quiet storm roll over you. Damn that shit is smooth.

In addition to creating an entire catalogue of smooth masterpieces, Sade (if her 80’s video output is to be believed) is an avid equestrian. The bulk of her videos feature at least one shot of her burning through the desert atop her trusty steed. Her horseback riding is the perfect compliment to the whole Romancing the Stone vibe she was cultivating in those days and even though we should know better, we admit the whole exotic post-colonial thing was pretty fun for awhile. It probably came pretty naturally to her, being born in Nigeria to an African father and English mother and raised in London.  Not cringe inducing like the “Hungry Like the Wolf” video at least. We have a hunch that Sade doesn’t even drink beer, but we want to buy her something. Maybe a nice cognac? Something smooooooth.

Neil Young

Neil Young is the type of grumpy old man we here at deadman/party aspire to be, the type that has been ornery his whole life.  The earliest moment we know of was the infamous Woodstock incident in which he told whoever was filming CSN&Y, and we quote, “One of you fuckin’ guys comes near me and I’m gonna fuckin’ hit you with my guitar.”  We find this to be the perfect balance between celebrity (CSN&Y at Woodstock for goodness sakes!) and refusing celebrity (but not refusing it in some sort of Billy Corgan, “waaaaaa, stop looking at me like I’m a freak.  Boo-Hoo, The Elephant Man is my favorite movie. I shaved my head!”).  Mr. Young was again captured angry in his Live at Massey Hall recording, sternly telling a photographer to stop taking pictures of him as it messed him up.  Somehow it comes off as cantankerous and badass more than the way in which Eddie Vedder admonishes ‘Josh’ to turn down the lights because ‘it’s not a t.v. studio it’s a rock concert’ in the music video for Even Flow.  Something about Mr. Young just seems more manly than Mr. Vedder.  Maybe because he is not as pretty.

Mr. Young also collects two things that we admire, guitars and cars, but both in a way that treads the fine line between decadent and manly.   He has enough guitars to devote a section of his website to them which, unlike Steven Seagal, he does not.  (Though he does find quite a lot of space to devote to how much he hates Bush and the Iraq war, enough space to make him the hero of any liberal arts college in America.)  And unlike Steven Seagal, his guitars are famous because they once belonged to Neil Young.  With the exception of one that belonged to Hank Williams.  We will accept that homage.  Another proof of Mr. Young’s fire and ice mentality is his love of old cars and his efforts to make them green.  There is definitely some sort of penis-directed yearn in all of us to praise old Detroit rolling stock, though our politics demand we like something much better for the world but much more pussy, like a Prius.  Lucky for us, Mr. Young is forging the path of ridiculous mid-life crisis autos that run on ethanol.

Getting a beer with Mr. Young would certainly be at some sort of dimly lit dive bar where they let you smoke cigarettes somewhere in the Central Coast. And from there it would go one of two ways: either a many beers, swapping stories late into the night or some sort of cosmic jam session at some strange dude named Kripsy’s bunker/recording studio near the beach.  Playing folk tunes for about three days straight. Either way would be great, as long as no one mentions Chaney.

Kyle MacLachlan

David Lynch may be a little too weird and a little to college for us to offer him a beer (though this is amazing).   Not that we would having anything against getting a beer with a  midget, giant or one armed man by themselves but toasting the greatness of Fidelio with all three and Mr. Lynch in the middle of a red-draped taxidermy studio may be beyond our collective enjoyment at this moment.  However we would much enjoy grabbing a cold one with his muse for the better part of a decade, Kyle MacLachlan.

Though we may have thought the first time we watched Blue Velvet that Mr. MacLachlan was nothing but a pretty face (amazingly pretty), we later came to understand that the wooden acting was a stylistic choice rather than a lack of ability.  For watching him as Agent Dale Cooper we are consistently amused and drawn to his pretty, pretty face.  And surely he is the only person besides Paul Verhoven involved in Showgirls that we could even tolerate for a second.  How he let Elizabeth Berkely thrash about his muscled body without completely losing his shit is beyond us.  Allow us at least one drink to salute his walking out of the premiere.

Outside of his career Mr. MacLachlan has a devotion to his dogs which is commendable.  Though we at deadman/party would not condone the videos, voiceovers and website–which is enough to make your average Minnesotan, elastic waistband jean wearing, basket collecting mother blush–we all do love our four-legged friends and appreciate his devotion to them.  And we also like that he at least pretends to run his own website and runs it with a humility rare in Hollywood.  Also, he makes wine.  Which is something all men pretend to want to do “if only we had the time.”  The home brew kit we got last Christmas currently gathering dust in the corner is piffle compared to this awesome achievement.

Yes, it is obnoxious how hard he milks Twin Peaks to shill everything from canned coffee to Vodaphone.  And we don’t much care for Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants or Desperate Housewives either. But he is so handsome.   Even if he turns out to be obnoxious and megalomaniacal we could at least stare at those long eyelashes and listen to that soothing voice as we slowly sip our beers.

Jim Brown

Anyone who has met any of us at deadman/party knows that we don’t put much of a premium on being a badass. We are never looking for a fight, aren’t particularly imposing, and are deeply suspicious of tough guys. That being said, we can’t help but salute the awesome power of Jim Brown.

Unlike its endlessly entertaining baseball counterpart, old time football footage generally looks pretty silly. Nobody really throws the forward pass, the kickers all kick from straight back, and it seems pretty obvious that USC would probably beat any old NFL team by 40. I’m sure that Y.A. Tittle and Red Grange were fine athletes and tough sons of bitches, but they weren’t really playing anything equivalent to today’s game. Jim Brown represents the beginning of the end of the old days. He looks like fucking Godzilla on the field dragging helpless opponents into the end zone, their best efforts but a minor inconvenience to Mr. Brown. And then, before he even turned 30, Brown retired. Former Cleveland Browns owner and official Ohio state pariah Art Modell wouldn’t allow Brown to report late to training camp (because he was filming a movie), so Mr. Brown told him to go fuck himself. We at deadman/party think this was a badass move, mostly because it offends the sensibilities of so many high school football players who spend their lives bitter that they never got a shot at the big time (pissing off Modell didn’t hurt either).

Of course football skills alone do not a beered man make. Brown starred in the Schwarzenegger dystopian masterpiece The Running Man, Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! and in his spare time became the greatest lacrosse player of all time (sorry bro!). He also works with convicts and gang members with his Amer-I-Can program. Could anybody be better qualified for that task than the baddest dude in America? He has that quality that makes everything he says seem like the absolute truth (perhaps because he only speaks the absolute truth). I think he could probably convince us to jump off a building in about 5 minutes. Thankfully, he uses his powers of persuasion for good.  The only thing working against him is that he is only our second-favorite person named James Brown.   Mr. Brown, even though we suspect that you could drink 300 beers without cracking a smile or having to pee, we would still like to buy you one.

John Goodman

When asked about John Goodman, someone of our age and disposition is likely to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about his portrayal of Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski. While there is no denying the strength of his performance in that role, we don’t imagine you need to hear a litany of stale jokes about being out of your element or what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass. There is plenty of Goodman goodness to go around without more blunt trauma to that dead horse.

First of all, he is freaking Dan Conner. Most of us at deadman/party spent our formative years in one of the rust belt’s real-life Lanford, Illinois equivalents. Even if Rosanne wasn’t ever the hippest show and we might not have admitted it in our younger and cooler days, we appreciated our dirty little corner of America being in primetime and would spend an evening at the Lobo sucking back brews with Dan Conner any time. We imagine if the real Rosanne had hitched her wagon to John Goodman instead of Tom “Best Damn” Arnold, she would still be going strong.

There is plenty else to appreciate about Mr. Goodman’s career including a slew of non-Lebowski Coen brothers projects and perhaps most importantly, the greatest monologue in modern film. Still, the thing we like most about him is probably the sheer unlikelihood of his celebrity. We have taken a gander at the current crop of Missouri State Bears footballers and doubt that its ranks include any stars of Mr. Goodman’s caliber. Of course, it was probably equally unlikely during his tenure on the squad. Maybe Missouri State is the “Cradle of Character Actors.” In any event, it would be our distinct pleasure, despite never quite figuring out the line of succession that resulted in the coronation of King Ralph, to buy John Goodman a beer.

Chuck Todd

Contrary to what most 1980’s movies would lead you to believe, America’s nerd population is not a monolith. In addition to the rare taped-glasses-pocket-protector-hiked up pants-Urkel variety, nerddom encompasses band nerds, drama nerds, Ren-fair nerds, metal nerds, and Booger Presley on the lead guitar, among a host of others.

We suspect that Chuck Todd was the type of nerd nearest and dearest to our hearts: the adult in waiting. Adults in waiting don’t do things as overtly nerdy as some of their nerd brethren, but they get wedgied for things like asking a question about the commerce clause with only one minute left in class. We imagine a sixteen year-old Chuck Todd sitting by himself in the cafeteria, eating a Pop-tart and memorizing every county in Indiana, satisfied in the knowledge that someday he would dominate the shit out of adulthood. Mr. Todd brings something to the cluttered TV news landscape that almost nobody else does: actual information.

We hope that Mr. Todd can steer our national discourse in a direction where a premium is placed on data and real analysis above endless conjecture and bluster. Its not that we at deadman/party think that math can solve all our problems (our backgrounds read like a competition in picking the least math intensive major: Music? Philosophy? Creative writing? Pretty tough call.), but it is nice to know that at least people are thinking about things in a new, and often times more useful way. Along with Mr. Todd, people like Bill James and Nate Silver approach their respective fields in a novel way: they look at the information in front of them. It is difficult to say whether or not Mr. Todd’s hard data approach will be quite as valuable outside of a campaign environment, but we look forward to finding out. Paul Begala once said “politics is show business for ugly people.” If that’s true, Chuck Todd is George Clooney. Have a beer on us Mr. Todd. You have earned it.

Ludacris

Deadman/party functions more or less like a judicial body. We hear cases (well, we don’t actually hear them), deliberate, and hand down a verdict and opinion. However, if we ever feel compelled to expand our powers to include a legislative branch, our first order of business will be to mandate a Ludacris verse on every song ever recorded. The man is a net benefit to every track he touches. He makes the good ones great and the bad ones tolerable. What’s that you say? Ludacris already has a verse on every song? Well, he is certainly prolific, but to date, he has limited himself to hip-hop and r&b tracks. We propose giving Mr. Bridges free reign over all of recorded sound. You’ve heard him with with Usher, Fergie, and Nate Dogg, but how about Bob Dylan featuring Ludacris or Symphony No. 1 “Titan” by Gustav Mahler featuring Ludacris or Singing Birds: Nature’s Relaxing Sounds featuring Ludacris? Sign us up.

In addition to his guest appearances, Ludacris has a solid solo catalogue full of the kind of songs you hope to hear on the radio every time you get in the car. We remember fondly the days and weeks following the debut of “Area Codes,” turning the knobs with baited breath hoping to catch it. Hip-hop could use more songs like this (“Throw Some D’s” is but a distant memory) and we hope Luda’s new album can deliver some of what has been missing.

We think the most appealing thing about Mr. Bridges is that he seems to really love rhyming. These days Hova is always doing his hip-hop CEO schtick, Kanye is reminding us what a damaged artist he is (can you believe he didn’t finish college?!), and 50 is, by his own admission, more interested in formulating some new Vitamin Water variety than rapping. While Mr. Bridges has ventured into some other projects (he nearly stole the show in Hustle & Flow), we like to imagine that he spends most of his days thinking of shit that rhymes. We appreciate a guy who likes his job and takes some pride in his work, so take a load off Mr. Bridges. It would be our pleasure to fill your cup like double d’s. Luda!

Lance Armstrong

At first we figured that Mr. Armstrong should be commended for racing minus a testicle, but when we stopped and thought about it, we wondered what difference one testicle would really make in a sporting contest.  Though John Updike could probably write a novella about this supposed lack of masculinity, he is not on the editorial board of deadman/party and we don’t count living a new life as Juan Bahl an achievement worthy of a beer.  But, beating cancer is cause enough to put the highball on us, much less beating cancer, going on to win the most prestigious bicycle race in the world seven fucking times in a row and then retiring only to return after a few years of selling bracelets with the goal of winning the next available Tour.

Unfortunately, he is from Texas, counts Geroge W. Bush among his friends, gives a very awkward interview and was engaged to that useless flap of skin, Sheryl Crow.  Then again, anyone who has to spend more than 3 minutes in the company of that screechy waste of space deserves a shot.  How about a beer in celebration of the break-up and the ensuing courtship of a 21-year-old?

We know that any man willing to ride a tall bike with the crusty, smelly artists who create them would not be above sharing a few Lone Stars with us.  He has also been spotted in the T-shirt of everyone’s favorite cycling shit-talker Bike Snob NYC (who would be the subject of a beering if we weren’t convinced he was a nebulous cloud of gas), which proves that Mr. Armstrong can, at the very least, read and has a sense of humor.  Two things that make for an excellent drinking companion.  So let us raise one high and toast your soon to be eigth Tour de France win. USA! USA!