Remember to call us with your questions/comments/suggestions for the show #708-316-8822…
0:00:00 – What’s happening…
0:08:30 – BSV: Right off the hop! The guys check in on the BS Voicemail. New callers, random topics and who the fuck is JV!
0:37:30 – AROUND THE LEAGUE: NOPE! Fantasy Football is discussed….well, TM bitches about it. Then we discuss this weeks Championship between Emo Kev & Chad C!
0:48:52 – AROUND THE LEAGUE – AGAIN: Does anyone know what a catch is anymore? I would think almost everyone in the world thought Jesse James caught the ball… except the NFL. What rules do we hate… what rules are stupid… and what rules can be determined by pieces of paper.
1:29:05 – THE PICKS: TM extends his lead… PJ sucks and the guest try to hold their own. We get another call in from our guest picker this week!
Keep an eye out for the Binge Sportscast on a weekly basis through the NFL season!
Remember to call us with your questions/comments/suggestions for the show #708-316-8822…
0:00:00 – What’s happening… snow, that’s what!
0:10:15 – BSV: Right off the hop! The guys check in on the BS Voicemail and they all incept eachother and NFL violence. Well, we beat that topic into a pulp and hopefully won’t talk about it again…until next week!
0:34:45 – 60 SECONDS: What’s happening in the world of sports outside of the NFL… let TM break it down for you!
0:50:20 – AROUND THE LEAGUE: GOOD GAMES! GOOD GAMES! GOOD GAMES! FINS UP!!! Guess who got their asses handed to them by TM’s boys! That, on top of the rest of the good games, we welcome a refreshing weekend of actual good football games. Sure, they were still riddled with injury, fighting (Fuck the Seahawk Douches), and endless penalties, but we saw some good match-ups and some great finishes. Where does everyone stand in the playoff hunt after week 13? Pittsburgh and Philadelphia clinch their divisions… but that #1 seed is still up for grabs. Do the Packers have a shot with A-A-Ron coming back? Where do the Eagles go from here?
1:27:50 – THE PICKS: TM extends his lead over PJ and the guests. Is there enough time for them to catch up in the final 3 weeks. This week we get a special call in from our guest picker!
1:41:10 – FANTASY: The first round of the playoffs is complete! Did we get an upset, or did it go as planned? How do this weekends injuries affect the playoffs? Apparently there are consolation games… and only Chad D. knew!
Keep an eye out for the Binge Sportscast on a weekly basis through the NFL season!
After what proved to be one of the greatest sporting events of all time, SportsCast hijackers Valley and PJ are back to give their thoughts on the biggest night in sports (at least until next year).
So last week during our fantasy football draft for the Binge Football League, I had the opportunity to go to a meet and greet with New York Times Bestselling Author R.A. Salvatore. Now, I will say in advance that I was unable to get him to sign a Babadiiiiick! into my book, but I purchased a copy and got it signed with my name in it. I wish I had been able to podcast with the rest of the boys, but I jumped at the chance to meet a really great author with a lot of credit to his name. I wanted to touch on his discussion here today because I thought it was a really interesting experience to share. I’ve only read three of Salvatore’s many books, most of which are contained within fantasy realms. The three I have read make up the Dark Elf Trilogy which is the character Drizzt’s origin trilogy, as he was not intended to be the main character when Bob first started writing his stories under the banner of Forgotten Realms. However, once his original trilogy was completed, it was obvious to him that the dark elf Drizzt had become the central character, and thus Bob’s character to write. It was strange to hear him talk about his experience with Wizards of the Coast and Forgotten Realms, and how the outlook on continuing Drizzt even after the first book was not that great at all. But he continued to write the character and the stories and I suppose it came to be one of the more popular fantasy series to date.
Other than discussing his character Drizzt and where he is headed with the Legend of Drizzt, he touched on a lot of the other things he is working on. He said after he finishes this new Homecoming trilogy, the first book of which is what we were there to hear about and get signed, he plans to return to his original world in the DemonWars Saga. DemonWars was illustrated as a passion project for him, something that he wanted to do earlier in his career but it didn’t quite work out to be. Before DemonWars he had worked on another series that was an original work, but it didn’t quite shape up to be what DemonWars has eventually become. He also discussed having just finished recently a Kickstarter, that was basically put together in order to publish and make available his own tabletop RPG. Me being the most curious cat when it comes to tabletop games and RPGs now, found this to be one of the more interesting tidbits in the discussion at Joseph Beth last week. Salvatore simply said, multiple times, that during his free time away from meeting deadlines and writing, he’s been playing the shit out of some DemonWars: Reformation. I don’t know the first thing about how to play an RPG, so I couldn’t necessarily tell what made Reformation so great, but he couldn’t stop talking about how much his group has played it.
So while I don’t have the first clue on the details of what the RPG is really like, and what kind of stuff these people were talking about, I definitely thought all of it was cool. Fortunately for my lady and I, we had a co-worker of mine come with us who is a huge Salvatore fan. So we didn’t feel entirely out of place, but we definitely had no idea what the group was talking about a good deal of the time. A lot of the questions asked pertained to characters, worlds, or things that Salvatore was involved with, outside of my knowledge. It was really interesting to hear him talk about all of these things though, as he was an excellent speaker. No question was dumb, and no question was out of his reach or hard for him to answer. He found a way to not only please the person who asked the question, but also kept his crowd interested. I had been told that R.A. Salvatore was a class act when it came to these events, but I was super impressed. I was at a loss for what to small talk with him about when it came my time to be at the table, so I considered having him take a pick in the draft for me if it was my time. Unfortunately it was not, but the guy is a Boston man, and even took a moment out of his time to mention that Tom Brady was free and everyone could suck it. I was positive in that moment that Episode IV could easily become a Bob Salvatore fan, and I thought back to this knowing what Bob’s answer would be to my fantasy draft. Tom Brady, and I had already picked him. Good luck to the rest of the BFL this year, but beware the Jaws of Geno! My squad comes unhinged week one.
If you’re interested in more of what Bob Salvatore had to say at the meet and greet, feel free to leave a comment below and I can answer! I retained all of what he talked about, I just don’t have as clear a perspective because I’m not as familiar with some of his work. He also discussed Star Wars and his infamous “command” to kill Chewie! Apparently the hit came down from the King… As school has taken up a lot of my time though recently, I have been left with very little time to actually read. I’ve read some assorted things over the past few weeks, but I haven’t had much that is discussion worthy since my last Comic Binge. I am currently working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer omnibus editions, and then I’ll be getting to my stack of new stuff hopefully here soon. Now that I’ve gotten a good feel for my school schedule the first few weeks of this semester, I should be able to find some time to do some more Comic Binging! But for now, I’ll leave you with this. Signing off until next time folks. Hope everyone had an excellent Labor Day weekend. Let’s go Pats football team and Tom “Free Bird” Brady tonight!!!
Guys, football season is almost here, and to commemorate, I’m taking you on a trip down memory lane. Since I can’t think of anything worthwhile to write about, I’m hooking all of you up with some seriously legitimate Awards-caliber shit. That’s right, here it is in all its glory, the New England Patriots first Super Bowl win highlight film from NFL Films. Enjoy and Binge On!
It’s difficult for me to be objective in this matter, but I am going to really try here. I’ve been here defending the wall since this story broke with a few moderate mentions here and there, most notably when Luke invited me to the Binge SportsCast to give some thoughts on the sordid saga of Deflategate, or how I will now and forever refer to it, Deframegate.
There’s a lot of venom being spewed in all directions right now and I feel like it’s important to look at everything in perspective and get this out of our collective consciousness before real football finally starts. Look, I get it. The Patriots have (unless you’re the Giants) successfully bested you some time in the past decade-and-a-half. They are the Scarface of the NFL in the eyes of everyone not living in New England or central Florida (there’s a huge demographic of New England transplants living down there). At some point over the past 15 years the Patriots probably at least beat you, if not completely dismantled you morally and spiritually. The hatred for them rivals that of America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, which was also brought on by a run of solid wins. Look, success breeds envy, and if you want to cheat yourself of enjoying one of the greatest athletes of his sport go to work, then good on you. Nothing I say will change that, and I don’t aim to. Pissing in the wind isn’t a hobby of mine.
While the media has been the true center of this entire story, I think it’s an important thing to observe this whole debacle from a distance. There are may suspicious goings on throughout this whole affair. As a die-hard Patriots fan, even I will admit that. McNally taking the game balls into the bathroom before play is a little odd, but so is finding out that the NFL edited a supposedly “Independent” investigation before it was released to the world. Brady destroying his cell phone doesn’t look great, but when you read in the Wells report that Ted Wells told him he didn’t need the phone, nor would that effect his decision, it makes you suspicious as to why the NFL is outrightly lying about what is happening here.
As a fan of football, all I really want is to go to games, enjoy myself and smack talk with friends and family via fantasy football every year. Personally, I don’t think that’s too much to ask of the sport. I’ve spoken before about my adoration for the team and Brady in particular because I have a connection to this team from an early age. It’s frustrating hearing people try and convince me that the team are a bunch of cheaters. The truth of all of this, though, is that for those who actually know the details of Spygate, that was an issue of arrogance on Belichick’s part, and even his statement earlier this year at the press conference regarding air pressure measurement affirms his stance that the rule they broke was, in his eyes, silly. But in the case of Spygate, you had a situation where the team was caught, told to move their cameras to another angle and carry on. Belichick refused, and his ego unfortunately led to that scenario. I understand that, I can move on from that. Moral of the story there is don’t be an arrogant prick.
Cut to the AFC Championship Game against the Colts this year. The Patriots manhandled the Colts for what is becoming an annual party with a blowout win. The next morning, a story gets out about balls being under-inflated and Brady says on sports radio “Well, I’ve just about heard it all.” with a laugh and verbal shrug. Fast forward a few months and Brady is suspended for being “at least generally aware” of football deflation. Think about that, NFL fans. If tomorrow Peyton Manning’s limo driver kills someone in a car accident after dropping Peyton off at home, wouldn’t it be insane to think that Peyton was “generally aware” of the crime, and likely to be thrown in prison alongside the driver? That is the precedent Roger Goodell and the league are standing on at the moment. At this point in the game, court documents and emails have confirmed that the NFL and, specifically, Commissioner Goodell, are lying through their teeth. They’re doing this because they know they can, and backing down now would make the man look even more useless.
While nothing is likely to be done about this, I believe the league’s true intention with all of this hoopla was to keep the NFL in the news throughout the offseason and, most importantly, deflect the real issues that need to be addressed. Does anyone care about domestic violence now that we can point at Brady and the Patriots and cry “Cheaters!”. The NFL’s concussion issue, a potentially $700,000,000 lawsuit, hasn’t been mentioned since January (to my knowledge) because it’s a lot more fun and satisfying to look the other way and try and get one over on the World Champions. Sheeple, take notice, we’re being played.
Was Brady “generally aware” of deflating footballs? My answer is no. I don’t think the guy had anything to do with it, and frankly I don’t see the evidence to be damning towards him. Can anyone prove, one way or the other, that anything happened? Where you fall in this whole debacle is largely based on your level of butthurt. I will say though, that for the first time, I sympathize with Saints and Dolphins fans. If this level of incompetence was similar to what you folks went through in the Richie Incognito and Bountygate scandals then I have to give all of you fans an apology, because if your team was railroaded the way mine is being right now then the NFL has a much more damning issue than some footballs with low air pressure.
Once upon a time I was bitten by the creativity bug and I believed I was put on this earth to make movies. Turns out, I fucking wasn’t, but that’s fine. I’m where I am today, in a great place, due to the support of family and friends like you fine readers, and that’s all good, but picture, if you will, a young 18-year-old die-hard Tarantino fan trying to film shit with his buddies in the most moronic ways. Lucky for you readers, that dream can become a reality because I have unearthed some of my old film projects. I chose three of the more notable ones because to take you through every single piece of the puzzle would be exhausting and most likely embarassing. None of them make any sense, but for today’s article I wanted to walk you down memory lane, to a simpler time. A time before Babdiiicks and Tom Brady man-love (obviously).
Crossfire
Did I mention before that I was a big Tarantino fan? Well I still am, but back in my younger days Tarantino was the end-all-be-all filmmaker for me. Pulp Fiction was a huge source of inspiration and my fandom of Tarantino’s flicks led me to making this short trailer. When Grindhouse was in theaters, there was a contest to make the best grindhouse-esque trailer possible, the winner of course ended up being Hobo With A Shotgun (and we all know what happened there). Me, being the naive asshole that I was, had no idea what a grindhouse movie was, but we gave the trailer a shot anyways, because at the end of the day what would we have to lose? What you see above was the trailer. Yes, we kill my buddy at least four different times throughout the trailer and yes, the editing switches aspect ratios, but god-damn it this was a fun trailer to shoot and I still love watching it.
Super Bowl Ad
Further on in my early filmmaking career (career? hardly, fucking narcissist…) my buddies and I teamed up with the then called Karate Werewolf productions to make some film festival entries for the local university’s festival. I don’t think that we strictly adhered to whatever parameters they set for us, but we came up with this overlong punchline for a joke. The filming is what it is, and the editing makes little sense, but again this was another great night that I look back on fondly.
The Test of Time: Four Decades of The Who
This right here, this was my crowning achievement, yet to be topped. You might have noticed in that video there’s a lot of footage spanning an entire career. Well, you guessed it, I didn’t film a single frame of this. However, this was the project that helped me realize filmmaking wasn’t for me, and it was actually in the editing that I really enjoyed myself. This video was born, with equal credit being given to my good friend Bill, out of a need to put something together. We both love The Who, and we realized this was a great song to make this sort of video for. Six years after we finished it I’m still proud of the job we did. Yes, the video quality is terrible in some areas, but we were working with YouTube clips to begin with and I still stand by the fact that our editing was spot on. Hell, this video even got me my current job, so there ya go kids!
Another Jack Attack Tuesday in the bank. That’s right, slingin’ knowledge your way week-by-week keeps me going, so I hope you guys dig this week’s piece. Let me know below and, if you guys have some short films of your own that you’ve worked on, I’d love to see em, so leave a link below. Binge On!
Welcome to a special “championship” edition (as my co-host called it) of the Binge SportsCast. Things are pretty simple this week. I gave in and decided to talk about Deflategate and Tom Brady’s deflated balls. And who better to discuss this with than the biggest and only New England Patriots fanatic on the staff, our very own MovieFreak, Mr. Jack Falvey IV.
With the conference finals in the NBA and NHL just getting underway, and Kupka being absent from this week’s show, this seemed like the perfect time to tackle (damn, that’s funny because we’re talking football) the topic that unfortunately has been dominating the sports world.
And I’m a man of the people, as I so eloquently discuss in my opening segment. I gave you the chance to vote to have Jack on the show, and you responded with giving him 67% in the affirmative, so I really didn’t have a choice in the matter. I aim to please. Over the course of the show, we get into the entire situation and how he’s reacting to it, especially on social media (it’s bad). I ask the tough and honest questions on whether or not he thinks Tom Brady cheated, why the Patriots aren’t fighting their punishment, and more. But don’t worry, we have a lot of fun in the process. He talks his hatred for the Colts,
his love for Tommy Boy himself,
and just for grins, we talk about the state of the AFC East, which ultimately leads to a quick discussion about Ryan Tannehill’s wife (and gives me an excuse to put up a few pictures of her).
It’s another solid Binge SportsCast. Keep checking back for more from Binge Sports and the rest of the boys as we all continue to keep busy. Is there something you’d like to hear on the show? Where do you come out on this whole thing? Let me know below or follow me @BingeSports and/or @THElukenorris. And certainly don’t forget to give Jack some shit @MovieFreak4702.
Football PSI, Cobain: Montage of Heck and The Superhero Bubble
Timing is everything, and as I write this article news is breaking of the punishment for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots regarding the football PSI scandal (I’m done using “-gate” terms for this shit, it’s annoying). You guys know me, I’m a die-hard Pats fan and I have no shame in admitting I have issues with how this entire debacle came together, was propagated by the media and continues to leave Patriots-haters salty. Look, human beings make mistakes. If there truly was evidence found implicating Brady and the team in some sort of wrongdoing, I’d walk away, angrily, but I’d get on with my life. Because of what was found in the Wells Report and the media’s reaction to and reporting of the findings, this is a sad day for the Patriots and the NFL. The message that was sent with this ruling was clear; wife-beaters, child abusers and possible murderers are a-ok, but if you may be “generally aware” of a ball being deflated, you have committed crimes against football and you must be tarred, feathered and shamed in public.
If you’re someone who Brady has repeatedly spanked over the years and you don’t like the guy, that’s fine. You have that right, and frankly if I didn’t have Brady as my QB I’d probably hate the guy too. The problem with this ruling is the precedent for rules and guidelines in the NFL does not exist, and furthermore isn’t clear. Why is this important? Because it now says that without any good reason if tomorrow Odell Beckham Jr. is found to have used deer antler spray on his inner thigh that contains an illegal substance the league has deemed unuseable the commissioner can have his first-born and enact Prima Noctra. It’s bullshit, and while you non-Pats fans may be happy that you won’t have to deal with Brady for potentially a quarter of next season, you should all be just as pissed as I am. The PSI rule being broken carries a $25,000 fine with it, which for some reason is being overlooked in this case. Whatever, I can’t go on about it any further, but I will say this here and now: next season is tainted. Whoever gets the Lombardi (and I include the Patriots in this) needs to have an asterisk next to their title, standing for the non-Brady handicap. Fuck Goodell. #FreeTomBrady.
So much piss and vinegar this week! It has a lot to do with the fact that moments before I read my special boy Brady is suspended that I saw Cobain: Montage of Heck, the documentary about Kurt Cobain’s life. While I found the documentary to be understandably one-sided and curiously absent of any interview with Dave Grohl it was still affecting and disturbing. Kurt was clearly a broken individual with a tough background, but at times the documentary seems to be using that as an excuse for how he treated others and, ultimately, what led to his suicide. Still though, I can’t help but find the documentary to paint a pretty vivid picture of the type of person he was, while maybe ignoring some of the more unsympathetic aspects of who he was. 8/10 all day.
Finally, I, like many of the people on this planet, got to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, and like many I felt a little underwhelmed by the film. I’ve grown up in the golden age of the superhero. I never read most of these comics but with the first two Spider-Man films, the first two X-Men films and Nolan’s Batman trilogy I have become a huge fan of these cinema landscapes. It was a given that I’d like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and at this point these films have a certain level of quality to them that sticks the landing every time. As a non-comic book reader, I can’t appreciate Vision embracing Scarlett Witch on screen the way some others can, but I do appreciate the fuck out of my boy Paul Bettany getting to beat some ass on-screen. What I’m getting at with all of this is that we are very spoiled right now. If you like superhero stories, you’re getting at least one good one a year for the foreseeable future. The bubble, however, is about ready to burst, and while I think I’m in for the long haul on most of these even I can see where in the wrong hands these stories can start to fall apart. Ultron felt like the lead-up to another Marvel film rather than a story on its own merits, which was disappointing. The first Avengers had finality to it. By the end of that film, all the characters went on a certain journey and concluded that adventure in a satisfying way, with some laughs, serious thrills and enough strands of future stories that setting up the next few films didn’t seem like a gimmick. Ultron was too full of gimmick for me. Why bring in Andy Serkis for two scenes? So he can have his arm ripped off and set up Black Panther. Tony Stark wasn’t held accountable for creating Ultron in this film? That’s just so he and the Cap have something to fight over in Civil War. There’s a lot of intentional story-threading here and it’s a little disappointing that there was so much intent put on that rather than just making this story work well. All that being said, I still enjoyed the movie as entertainment, it just didn’t have the resonance the first one had with me. Still though, I’ll go 8/10 just because Paul Bettany is my boy. How much longer will these films be good? That remains to be seen.
One last time: fuck Roger Goodell. I will be protesting this ruling in my own special way, so stay tuned for that, but as always, Binge On!