Boski's Blogopoluza!

Yes, I am off the dole. Well at least for two months. Working as an HR grunt for the County Water district. But it was actually kind of nice working. Who the hell am I kidding. I am only saying that because I gave up PS2 for lent. We will see when this week is over. I really need to get my Keno skills sharpened so I can make it big and be the greatest Keno player of this century.

Right now, I know that this blog is not very interesting and that there is very little traffic to see this work of art so I am asking for help from the good people in blog world to help out and give me suggestions on how I can improve this blog, other than quit. I would like to spice it up and make it something you can hang on the fridge next to your kid‘s finger painting. Maybe if I can improve the looks. I can find a writer to add content to it. Free "mints" with comments.

I had fun the other day recounting books I have read that do not have pictures or require coloring. Your Uncle will sit and tell you about the books that I have enjoyed.

1. A Confederacy of Dunces – this is the book that I have read repeatedly. And a book that will keep reading until I die. This would be the one I would take with me to a deserted island. A book my father, mother and brothers read and loved. I will need to check to see if my sisters read it. It is a story that is incredibly humorous and yet is incredibly poignant with out being too sappy. I also love the story behind the book. So listen to your Uncle Boski and read it. Side note. I hear that they are trying to this into a movie. They could really screw this is up. I hear they are going to have Will Farrell play Ignatius. He is the right height, but this cannot be Ron Burgundy II Electric Bugaloo. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the other person they have talked about in the role. He has the chops to do it. But who am I to judge. I watched the XFL for crap sake. I think John Goodman would have been the choice, about 10 years ago.

2. Less than Zero – I read this in high school and I glad it did not screw with my head. Nothing like reading about people with screwed up relationships, coke habits and seeing people be forced into prostitution (man on man love) to stay strung out on the horse. Good times. It was a book that I really enjoyed because of the visual picture the Bret Easton Ellis laid out. Also, since it took place in LA and made a number of references to some pop culture items and pieces of scenery that brought it to life for me. The drugs, the parties and other main themes. I did not have really any insight into. Though people have accused me of being on drugs with some of the things I have said and have done. The movie disappointed me, but visually the movie did meet my expectations and Robert Downey’s non-acting were the only things I can take away from it. Wait what am I say. How can I forget LL Cool J. Damn I can still listen to that song and he is the only man I can tolerate hitting on a 20. Take that Rick Rubin.

3. Huck Finn – I did not read this book until I was a college senior. I had only read parts of Tom Sawyer in elementary school. Fortune smiled upon me when this was my senior class for my major. I could go on and rave about this class and that I actually turned in something that someone wanted to publish. Naturally I did not clean it up that last little bit and never turned it in. Well enough about my failures. What made this book standout and enter the Boski Canon is the story behind Twain’s writing of the book and how it reflected what Twain saw was going on in America at the time. How the book was a look at American and its issues with slavery.

4. Bright Lights Big City – A great book, shitty movie. Had one of the funniest things I had ever read. All I need to say is Ferrets. But a great book about a writer who is struggling with his personal life and professional life. I am going to have to pick that back up again.

5. October 64 – a wonderful book about baseball, by David Hallberstan. I hate to break it to you, but your Uncle Boski use to be more into baseball. I use to have a very serious baseball habit until 94 MLB strike. It is a wonderful look at baseball and society at a crossroad. The story looks the old establishment the Yanks and Cards the new Turks. How the Yankees were trying to hold on what was left of the Yankee mystique. While the Cardinals were a symbol of the new. As they built a mini dynasty of there own in the mid to late 60’s. It is more than just a baseball story.

6. King Leopold’s Ghost – a very dark and disturbing account of what happened with the Belgian’s in the Congo. It is a story that makes Heart of Darkness look like a walk in the park. Actually the author discusses Conrad and the people who Kurtz is based on. After you read this book you get a good idea on why the Congo is f’ed up.

7. The Delta Star – One of Joseph Wanbaugh cop novels. I read this in elementary school, go figure. It was not the Onion Field or the Choir Boys, but I enjoyed the characters that Wambagh laid out and the settings he established. It was an interesting tale about a burned out cop, Cal Tech and the Noble Peace Prize. Again you write about LA I can really get a feel for it and see it in my head. Underrated. I have been meaning to read more of his work. I did enjoy Line and Shadows, a tale about the Boarder Patrol.

8. Casino – Much better than the movie and you can read it with enough time to still catch the last 2 hours of this film. Hey Marty, you can shorten it up. If you are looking for a great book about Vegas, the Mob, murder, intrigue, then this is a book for you.

9. Loose Balls – The History of the ABA – It is not about porn, but a great recount of the ABA and a time when people could hit jumpers, games were 131 – 128, but there was a lot guys who were slow and could not jump. A great look at how the league was fly by night at the start, but managed to challenge the NBA. The fought to get a partial merger with the NBA.

10. Friday Night Lights – I love me football, but them Texans have the crazy. It is an unflinching look at a powerhouse Texas high school program in God’s armpit of West Texas. I have to see the movie, I hear it is good, but does not follow the book completely.

11. Anything by Andrew Keegan – I have enjoyed his books on the First and Second World War.

That is what I have for now. If you would like a transcript of tonight's show, please send $75.99 to:

Boski Blog of Fun

1313 E Coli Lane

Love Canal, NY 00666

Greetings good people, it is your Uncle Boski back again. As I sit here on a rainy Friday, in the lawless and rough and tumble land of Costa Mesa in the O.C. Well I thought it was going to be another jobless Friday. Well I was wrong. I actually did some work today, for pay. I thought I was going to make some cash and have a half a day to mess around. All I had to do was make some deliveries for my temp. agency. Well that was the plan until my car and another car got a little too close and my car tried to. Thanks to the wet road conditions, my car tried to have relations with the other vehicle. No one was hurt thank God. The only thing hurt was my feelings. If my writing improves then we will know I did suffer some head trauma. So I go from having a shot at a good day to a shitty one. Great I went from making money to looking down the barrel of at least $700.00 good times.

How about that Super Bowl, what a great way to kick off Pro-Bowl Weekend. Well as the football season winds down, I am still up to my chin in football. Well actually, I can lower that to about my waist. I gave up PS2 for lent. I am not the greatest Catholic in the world(probably not even a good one) and I got my issues/concerns with the church, but each year I still do my Catholic duty. Enough about that. Over the last week I was gearing up for the Super Bowl. I will say that the NFL network and ESPN did me no favors by playing all those Super Bowl Highlights. Thanks, I really needed to get stuff done. I can sit there and watch that stuff over and over again. I love watching them all except Super Bowl XXIV. That was too much of an ass beating. Along with that I have been doing some reading. I have gone through two book over the last few week. They were quick reads.

Bloody Sunday - Not the U2 song, or the unfortunate event in Belfast that inspired the song. It was a book by a sports writer who had been on the Giants beat. He took a look at couple of aspects of the NFL. The lives of coaches, players and the games that are played on and off the field. God I sound like a freaking blurb. Boski gives it 4 and half Elways, could have been five, but not enough about the Broncos.

Long Bomb - How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco - This was a great book on a complete failure. Yes, I will stand before everyone and say that I did watch the XFL. I could have cared less for WWF bullshit. I just wanted football. I did not care what they were cutting it with. I needed until NFL Europe. Just give me a fix. I watched as much as I could. I can even remember watching some at Trader Vic's in L.A. with the wife as I treated her on her Birthday We went up to see a presentation at the Museum of Radio and Television. As we sipped tropical drinks and enjoyed the goodness of Trader Vic's I was concerned with the outcome of the L.A. Extreme and the New York/New Jersey Hitmen. Good news, L.A. won 22-7. Good job guys, I had the under. Yes you can call just start calling me "HE HATE HIMSELF". Well I have veered off again. But the author Brett Forrest spin a surprising, but yet not surprising tale about XFL. It seem too bizarre, but with McMahon involved anything was possible. (I am happy to say that I was apart of the lowest rated show in the history of TV. Hey XFL, Manimal kicked your ass!)
Mr. Forrest who spent four months in Vegas following the Outlaws, also looks at the souls that played in this circus.(That includes He Hate Me, Rod Smart. Who now is running back kicks for the Panthers) These human interest stories were actually interesting. But read the book and you will get a better understanding that very dark period in American History. I give it 3 He Hates Me, 2 Wild Samoans, and a Ughandan Giant.

My next book that I have just started is - The 1$ Dollar league - The Rise and Fall of USFL. But good news folk. The book after that is not about the WFL. I am reading Barbara Tuckman's the Guns of August. Well thank you for coming to the book corner. Now please pay for that book, this is not a lending Library.

Well kids your Uncle Boski has been pounding the virtual pavement and getting the virtual door slammed into my virtual face. It seems that having a resume in crayon is not the best way to go. Well, since I do not have a job right now it affects the this blog. I know that the literary world has been on edge waiting for me to wax poetically on such important issues like: football, 80's TV, the NFL, horticulture, College football, ham, Arena Football, Danish fascism and football. Well not having a job where I can screw around and use high speed connection leaves me with my dial up which is sweet. You are not living until you take a half and hour to download something. When I get my candy ass a job we have to get this taken care of. We do have a wireless laptop now. My wife found a kick ass bargain on one and it rocks, but if we want to use it, then it is off to the library. Which is not too bad, you can see the ocean from the library. But I would just love to get a set up where we can use the laptop and this clunker I am on at the same time without using the phone line. We have to have dreams.

Well I expect to get some kind of assignment next week. I had a wonderful one this week. For two days I sat in a room and hand wrote address on envelopes for a company. If you know me, and have seen my hand writing along my very tenuous grasp of spelling. Then you know that this was 14 hours in a little place called hell. But the best or worst part about this is that this was not the worst assignment I have been on. I have had worse. Also I am still young and still without a career path so there is many more chances to work for $10 and hour doing great, great things.