george carlin, r.i.p.

Always was a fan of his act, but especially the one in which he articulated the differences between baseball and football. RIP.

no joke: watch the real world tonight

Keep your eyes peeled for winged pigs: the life of kings is asking people to watch television tonight. Not just any television, mind you, but MTV. And if that weren't ridiculous enough, to be even more specific I want you to watch that silly reality show called The Real World, which comes on at 10 p.m. EDT. No, gentle reader, I haven't lost my mind, though I do realize this request goes against just about everything I hold near and dear. Rather, I'm doing this for a group of friends in a local band called Pawnshop Roses, whose ballad "All the Way Down" will play tonight during the show, perhaps even as one of the program's brainless drunk chicks loses one of her heels while staggering home not long after some douchebag made her cry because he walked off with some other broad he picked up at some meathead bar right after he tried to drink a shot of Jaegermeister off her midrift. Or something. Seriously, the boys from PSR are a good group of dudes who play good rock 'n roll. Guitarist Kevin Bentley told me Sunday he had always dreamed one of his songs would be on MTV. Tonight, it will be. Check it out.

apologies for the lack of posts

the life of kings has been tending to some personal and professional matters in recent days, so please excuse the dearth of material on the site. We just know you've been waiting with baited breath.

oh, my...

Mike Wise, writing in today's Washington Post, describes the fan environment at last night's Flyers-Capitals playoff game with this: "The fans wore orange instead of the Capitals' red, and many of the women and children looked as if they could work security for Megadeth."

That's just fantastic.

Then there's this: "Did we mention they show fights on the video scoreboard every period here, more than most arenas show dunks in the NBA? ... Five minutes into the game, they showed a video of Philly's top brawls this past season, many involving [Riley] Cote grabbing hold of an opponents' shirt for leverage before pummeling him to the ice, which is just a swell environment for children ... They flat-out market and sell violence here, sanctioned, unbridled assaults disguised as sport. The Flyers are an instant repudiation of what Gary Bettman wanted the league to become. They are a reminder of the NHL's pugilistic past that just won't go away."

You mean, the Flyers' organ-I-zation caters to (and even encourages) that which goes "beyond the bounds of loutish fan behavior"? Who knew?

UPDATE: Here's a video of Philly fans showing off their creative collective vocabulary in reference to Capitals star Alex Ovechkin. Any chance these folks were on their way to the library?

"a rumor of angels"

It's the little things, day in and day out, that most often give us joy, even if we rarely take the effort to ponder, as we experience them, how good they make us feel. I still have a contact high from having spent Sunday afternoon with friends in Baltimore, indulging in the many simple pleasures of Fells Point, so maybe that's why I so thoroughly enjoyed John Derbyshire's most recent "The Straggler" essay in National Review, "A Rumor of Angels."

Money quote:

A young woman comes to wipe my table. Her name tag bears a common Hungarian surname. Guessing she is an H-2B (that is, a bearer of a seasonal-guest-worker visa), I offer her a greeting in that language, of which I know a few tourist’s phrases. She is delighted, and favors me with a stream of animated Hungarian. Of course I can’t understand a word.

We switch to English. She is indeed an H-2B, a student from Transylvania. I passed through that region once, a couple of decades before Miss Nagy was born, and we trade Transylvanian reminiscences till she is called back to the serving counter. For a while I sit there sunk in memories of my Wanderjahre while savoring the glow that a man — any man, even an incurably married old guy — gets from the attentions, however brief and accidental, of a pretty young woman. Do they have skiing in the Carpathians nowadays, I wonder? I forget to ask. Back to my book.

Fantastic. The end of the essay is a treat, too. Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.