ApeDonkey Power Rankings - 3/14/11

Here's the power rankings. They're a day late but considering it's spring break, I'm surprised I didn't close the entire site and burn my laptop. I'll be heading to San Antonio this week so I'm sure next week's bottom five will fill up quickly.

Top 5

1. Kemba Walker - I don't watch a ton of college basketball but the conference tournaments were pretty good and Kemba Walker killed it in the Big East tourney. The UConn freshman did his best 2003 Carmelo Anthony impersonation and carried UConn to the Big East Title despite being the ninth seed and needing to win five games in five days. He averaged 26pts - 5 reb - 4 ast over the five day tourney to win Tournament MVP honors. I've got UConn making it to the round on eight in the NCAA tourney before being knocked off by my beloved Longhorns.

2. Buy Buy Buy - It's that time of year to buy as much stock in the makers of Gold Bond as possible. The days are getting warmer getting over 80 degrees here in Houston and with the warm weather comes the scourge of every man. It goes by many names Monkey Butt, Swamp Ass, Crotch Rott but regardless of what you call it, it will soon become a nuisance. Load up on powder fellas, switch to boxers or boxer briefs and prepare to go to battle again. Just at a warning, stay clear of the extra strength medicated powder. It burns in places you don't want burning.

3. Scott Conant - I sent this tweet out while watching an episode of Chopped last week "@LanceZierlein @heydannyv If you guys ever have Scott Conant on Southbound can you ask him where he studied to perfect his dickhead persona?" A few hours later I get a notification that it had been retweeted. By whom you might ask, Scott Conant himself. That right there made me do a 180 on what I thought of they guy. OK maybe a 165 but anyone who can either laugh at themselves or embraces the public perception of his or herself is alright in my book.

Long time readers may recall I made a similar tweet about Chef Michael Symon last year. I was tired of seeing Iron Chef America episodes with him. So I tweeted begging Food Network to please show an episode without him. He like many fringe celebrities obvious searches for mentions of his name and replied to me saying that wasn't cool and to take it easy on him. That is not how you change my perception of you. So if you're keeping score Scott Conant - Cool. Michael Symon - Not Cool.

Pengergast doppelganger Vic Makey

4. The Sean Pendergast Show - I've been a bit of a critic of The Sean Pendergast Show since its inception in January. I'm not a big fan of shows with a single host. I felt like he was spending too much time trying to be Travis Rodgers Now lite instead of crafting his own unique show. More than that though, there seemed to be a real disconnect between Sean's show and the rest of the 1560 station. Last week though it was as if a demon had been cast out and the old Sean that made the Sean & John show so enjoyable had returned. I found myself really enjoying what Sean was doing last week. Then came Thursday and his tournament updates from stringers across the country. It was absolute comic and radio genius. If you haven't hear them yet and have a few minutes to spend here's the links update 1, update 2, update 3, update 4, update 5, update 6, update 7, update 8. Welcome back Sean, I hope you're back to stay.

5. Ark Music Factory - I'm sure by now you've seen the video by Rebecca Black. It was featured on Tosh.0, Yahoo and John and Lance this morning. The bigger story is the company who made the video Ark Music Factory. They've made a ton of these videos and they're all equally awesomely terrible. It's an auto tuned cornucopia of untalented young girls singing ridiculous songs and schmaltzy videos. You can literally get lost for hours in their YouTube catalog. My fear is that the 6 million and counting hits of the Rebecca Black video will somehow alter the way they go about their business and we'll lose the magic touch that is Ark Music Factory.



More Ark Music Magic


Bottom 5

1. Quanell X - I don't comment much on political or racial topics because either I don't care or I don't know enough about the subject to form an opinion. However, as the father of a 6 year old girl the Cleveland, TX gang rape case is one that has grabbed my attention. In a case that involves all kinds of disgusting, horrible things, I thought Quanell X holding a rally for the men and boys accused of raping the 11 year old was one of the more disgusting, attentions seeking, pandering events. Look, I understand if you're the parent of one of the boys who did this, you have to support you child the best you can but this rally held by Quanell X in which he showed Facebook pictures of the girl dressed provocatively was way over the line. The message circulating around this rally was that the girl was either "asking for it" by the way she dressed or she lied about her age. What? She's 11. What did she look 13? does that make it OK? Does dressing inappropriately make it OK for 17 men some as old at 27 to have sex with an 11 year old? Come on. Hell may be a terrible place but it damn sure won't be a lonely place.

2. Gene Smith - Ohio St. AD Gene Smith had an outstanding week. First Yahoo broke the story that OSU head coach Jim Tressel had known about players selling memorabilia eight months before the NCAA found out about the infractions. Then he lied to the NCAA about his knowledge of the situation. So how does Gene Smith and the OSU brain trust punish their coach? They slapped him with a limp wet paper towel. Suspending him two games and $250K. How will OSU ever survive games against perennial powerhouses Akron and Toledo without their sweater vested leader?

If the Tressel punishment wasn't a big enough joke, Gene Smith was the chairman of the NCAA tournament selection committee. You know the committee that got everything but the four number 1 seeds wrong. He then went on national television to defend the committee selection process. This was a big mistake. Unless confusion and contradiction was the committees PR strategy. If that's the case then awesome job Mr. Smith. My friend and fellow blogger Tony Prock had a thing or two to say about Mr. Smith and his selection committee.

3. Rolling Stone - When I bought my tickets for the Old 97's I received a free subscription to Rolling Stone. I haven't bought the magazine in probably a decade and within a couple of issues I was reminded why. On the cover of the latest issue was none other that Snookie. Yeah that Snookie. The magazine that used to cover people like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and The Clash is now trying to sell me with a nasty four foot tall skank. No thanks. The worst part of all is that now that magazine is sitting in my bathroom ruining my most treasured time of all. Every time I take a trip to the throne to do a little reading or play some Words with Friends, there I am stuck looking at that disgusting saddle bag with hair. Thanks for the free issue RS but I think I'll be passing or continuing my subscription. Who knows maybe Playboy will offer me a free subscription with Courtney Love on the cover.

4. The NFL - We all know the NFL entered a lockout of the players last week. Now the PR barrage from both sides is coming in full force through the press, twitter and any other media outlet the NFL and NFLPA can get to tell their side of the story. Well let me tell my side. I don't give a shit what either of you have to say. Get to the damn table and hammer it out. The fans don't care who gets how much money as long as the ball gets kicked off in September. 50/50, 60/40 who cares, with $9 billion to divvy up there's plenty to go around. Hell what you ought to be doing it figuring out a way to give the season ticket holders and tax payers some of our money back.

5. Harbingers of Death - My distaste for Christmas and Halloween is well documented but now there's a new contender for my most hated time of year, Daylight savings time/spring break week. Lets talk about daylight savings first. Kids have no concept of time change so they keep trucking along on their own whacked out biological clocks when the time changes. So what you end up with is your 2 year old running around like a crazed jackal at 10:30 pm. Then your 6 year old is up at 5:30 waking everyone else up. I understand why they created DST to help farmers and the such but the last time I checked we're an urban nation now. Not many of us have kids who need to plow a field when they get home from school. How about we just pick one standard time and stick with it year round. I'd even be willing to split the difference with you and adjust the clocks 30 minutes if we can just leave it there.

Now spring break. How much am I hating spring break? Let me cover day 1. By 9am the 6 year old was already throwing a fit because she was bored. The 2 year old got into a bottle of stool softener, ate one of the capsules and then proceeded to vomit chocolate milk all over the house. There are no ruins left of the clean house the maid left me on Friday. While I was out of the room the 2 year old decided the 50" plasma was his gigantic coloring book and took a crayon to the screen. The 6 year old tried to balance her lunch plate on a 1" pipe and spilled it all over the play room. There is no less than 6,000 toys scattered between me and the front door. The 2 year old has bumped his enormous head no less than 1200 times. Worst of all, the wife and I spent March 14, Steak and BJ day eating peanut butter sandwiches and sleeping with the kids in separate bedrooms. Fuck you Mr. inventor of spring break.