I was watching ‘The Bear’ when I realized I hadn’t written this post yet, which is dumb because I’ve known what it was going to be all week, but knowing that meant that I could just keep kicking that can down the road because I knew what it was going to be.

Anyway, Richie was apologizing to Natalie when I remembered this, so I put the show on pause right when Natalie was looking all pensive and

Hnggh!  And she’s damaged from a hellacious upbringing with a batshit crazy mother?  Sign me the fuck up and bring me my tool kit!  I can fix her.

Hang on, Mrs. Horatio is informing me that Natalie is not real and that even if she were I could likely not, in fact, fix her.

We’ll get the draft in a second but if you are not/have not watched The Bear, and if you have not seen The Banshees of Inisherin you need to remedy both of those with a quickness.

/looks at word count

Anyway, the draft!

This week we rely once again on Rikki-Tikki-Deadly who, when not dodging vacuums, does a great job coming up with draft ideas, as does Scotchnaut.  The rest of you, frankly, could be doing better.  As this off-season draws to a close and we prepare to move out of this space for Hippo Thoughts I do want to thank both of them;  you’ve definitely made my life easier.

RTD was so excited about this draft that he kept after me for a couple of weeks, and I do think it’s a good one, although maybe not for Redshirt who might be too young to know what the hell’s going on.

This week we’re drafting bands from that long ago decade of mystery, mirth, and Ronald Reagan fucking up everything he touched like some kind of reverse Midas.  Seriously, fuck that guy and his goblin, (that’s a pun!), wife.

The rules are simple yet complex.  It must be a band.  No solo acts.  The band does not have to have only existed in the 80’s but it must have had its greatest impact in the 80’s, which is completely subjective and likely to generate all sorts of arguments, which is something I’m looking forward to.  I already plan to get pretty much no work done tomorrow.

For instance, one of the bands RTD mentioned was The Ramones.  The Ramones were indeed active in the 1980’s, but to me, (who is very old and for whom everything hurts), The Ramones are a 70’s band because that’s when they got their start, that’s when their best albums came out, (fight me on this), and that’s when they got their reputation as America’s first punk band.

But you could (and someone almost certainly will), argue that they were an 80’s band because they did a lot of stuff, (some of it even legal), in that decade as well.  So go for it, but be prepared to make an argument.

Rikki has given me his first pick.  Ladies and gentleman, The Smiths are off the board.

Not sure Rikki’s reasoning behind the pick, but to me they’re a perfect representation of the 80’s because they were never as good as people said they were, and also the lead guy made a bunch of money and then turned into a reactionary asshole when he got older.

With the second pick I’ll go with a band I think is a great representation of the 80’s as well, albeit for different reason, Athens GA’s REM.

Probably the first of what I’ll call the “jangle-rock” bands to make the leap from heavy college-rotation enjoyed by the 80’s version of hipster dipshits, (like me), to selling out arenas, (like the New Haven Coliseum, may it rest in peace), REM had, (imo), its best work in the 1980’s with albums, (remember those?), like Murmur and Life’s Rich Pageant.

The rest of you are on the clock.