Mugger Blog

Dancing

2012-02-02T05:30:00.000-08:00

You may have read Sam's recent column on the Vice site about goddamn fucking shit that doesn't fucking work right. The very server that hosts this right here very blog is a perfect example of what he's addressing. I'm doing everything I can to remedy this situation immediately. In the meantime, here are some people enjoying church. God bless.

Vontaze Burfict

2012-01-25T06:50:00.000-08:00

I wrote in my profile that I’d be using this blog not only as a clearinghouse for Mugger, but also to write about my many high falutin’ interests like Ethnomusicology, Continental Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology, and the like. All of this remains true. I will do this one day. Which brings me to the issue at hand, which is HO SHIT VONTAZE BURFICT IS FUCKING PISSED SUCKS TO BE YOU:

The following is all true: at the age of three, Vontaze Burfict burned down his family’s one bedroom apartment in West Covina, armed only with a Bic lighter and an acute curiousity as to what fire might taste like. At thirteen years old, he and his mother survived a terrible crash on the 210 freeway, getting sideswiped by an 18-wheeler and pushed over a cliff. In the aftermath, Burfict dusted himself off, leisurely walked up to the driver of the truck, and beat him with a CHP officer’s baton as all emergency responders stood around watching, too paralyzed with fear to do anything to stop it. Fortunately for Burfict and probably the whole of society, American Football exists for people just like him as an avenue whereby this sort of behavior and worldview is publicly exalted and praised. After starting off as a quarterback, he moved to linebacker as a 10^thgrader at Corona Centennial in Corona, CA. And an archetypal linebacker for the 21^st century he is: at 6’3” and 255 lbs., Burfict runs a 4.4 40-yard dash—incredibly fast for any human of any shape, but absolutely freakish for a man his size. But what really separates Burfict from everybody else, and the reason why I’m so fascinated by him is the language that has followed him throughout his tenure as The Meanest Man in Football (as The Sporting News called him last year). Words like “scary,” “deliciously violent,” “what you get after you kick Ray Lewis’ dog,” and “fuck I just peed in my uniform sorry can’t play” only come around once in a generation or so in reference to a single player.

Even when a football player does have a reputation for general nastiness, none that I know of possesses both the depth and quality of the Burfict mystique. I remember hearing stories of him during his junior year in high school from Compton High players, and the awe in their voices as they described the carnage witnessed during his games. A good friend watched him play in his senior year, and regaled me with eyewitness accounts of Burfict leaping over the offensive line timed perfectly with the snap (a la Forest Whittaker in Fast Times at Ridgemont High), destroying a hapless quarterback one nanosecond into the play. His signature became pursuing running backs desperately trying to get out of bounds, cutting them off, and picking them up off the ground mid-stride only to body slam them on the sideline. “His switch is always on,” USC’s Matt Barkley has said of him, “and it isn’t a good switch.” My favorite moment came his freshman year at Arizona State, when they traveled to Athens to play Georgia. During the fourth quarter in a close game, Burfict spotted a gap in the defensive line that he didn’t like. Because Burfict has only one speed, and that speed is FuckRageKill, he did what any reasonable linebacker would do: proceed to literally pick up the umpire who had just placed the ball at the line of scrimmage and heave him into the line, causing a delay that allowed his defense to get set. If I recall correctly, he wasn’t even penalized for it, because who would ever think to create a rule that you can’t pick up an umpire and throw them onto the line of scrimmage? This is the sort of crazy that one has no choice but to admire, yet do so with the sincere hope that you’re never on the wrong side of it.

I’ve watched the above video countless times. There’s something about a perfect form tackle that brings a tear to my eye. I never played football myself, probably because I had (and still have) a very firm desire to never be hit like this poor bastard from Idaho Fucking State. Burfict has declared for the NFL draft, which means he will be fined into oblivion if he tries playing the way he always has. But goddamn, the man could never play another down and still I will watch this clip and remember fondly the fucking horror of Vontaze Burfict.

We Takes The Moeney

2012-01-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

That John Goodman did not even get a fucking nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1998 remains one of the greatest travesties of the 20th century. Pathetic.

I once gave a philosophy final prompting a class of 11^th and 12^th graders to write an analysis of Taoism in the Big Lebowski. The best paper I received was from a junior named Kevin who wrote a fantastically surreal account whereby he inserted himself into the story and became water. A year later, his AP English teacher came to me asking if I could give a little talking-to to Kevin. He had apparently turned in a (very well-written, in my opinion) paper entitled “Charles Dickens Was a Slut.” Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Kevin.

Circuit Rider

2012-01-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

In the last few years there has been a huge surge of interest in private press albums from the past. Boutique labels that specialize in these sorts of things love touting their releases as “essential”, while the truth is that the overwhelming majority of “lost classics” and “unearthed masterpieces” are, in fact, half baked drivel that really never should have existed in the first place. Amongst the crap, however, there are those few that make you wonder how they weren’t radio hits the first time around—Damon’s wonderful two albums, for example, or The Rising Storm LP come to mind. Then there’s Circuit Rider, which does not provoke such suspicion. There is no question whatsoever why this wasn’t picked up by more than a few psychopaths when it came out. The fact that there’s debate as to when it was even recorded—some say 1971, while most place their bets on 1980—adds to the total neglect and lack of appeal this album arouses. Patrick the Llama rightfully placed it on his Top Ten Albums a Serial Killer Would Own. I absolutely love this album for the glorious piece of shit that it is. Were they actual Hell’s Angels, as “Forever Angels Proud” would lead one to think, or mere hangers-on trying to suck up to the gnarlier dudes in Toledo, OH? Whatever the case may be, one must believe that the reference to staying up nights on No-Doz was lightweight shit next to what these guys were actually getting up to. One could easily be convinced that these were the very gentlemen who came up with the formula for bathtub meth, and then smoked some sherm on top of it just to keep things interesting during band “practice.” “Chinese”, the song I’ve chosen here, is my particular favorite. It has a bizarre SST burnout vibe to it; one can almost imagine the Meat Puppets digging this heavily in the tour van. These are dudes I hope to never have a beer with. Enjoy.

The Other Way

2012-01-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

When Sam and I first discussed doing a book together, our conversation centered around this scene. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the very formation of Mugger owes itself to these 27 seconds. You might think it a bad business model to form a publishing company in 2012 based on the dialogue of a fictititous drug dealer. Perhaps this is true. But the universal application of what Marlo Stanfield is saying here is interesting beyond what it means just for Mugger. I actually tried this line with my mechanic last week. He didn't catch the reference and wasn't amused. I suggest trying it out in any number of settings. Who knows? That IRS auditor might be a huge fan of The Wire.

The Dawn of Mugger

2012-01-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Mugger Books. My name's Anthony and I run the show here. A few things about me: I teach English and Philosophy at Compton High School. I grew up in Fresno and obsessively follow Notre Dame football, which both seem problematic at first glance (and are, in fact, quite problematic at every glance.) I've worked with several rare book dealers in L.A., and my own interests in publishing - Atlas Arkhives, Hamburger Eyes, Twisted Spoon, Verba Mundi - will hopefully shine through in the projects Mugger takes on in the future.

Right now, I'm working hard on our first publication, Sam McPheeters' The Loom Of Ruin. Sam and I have known each other for over a decade, and I'm very excited to be releasing his debut novel. If you're unfamiliar with Sam's work, you can check out his blog here. If you're so excited about The Loom Of Ruin that you can't wait until the April 1 release date, you can preorder the book on Amazon here. Or if you're really, really excited, feel free to order multiple copies for yourself, your parents, bosses, pets, or plants. Really, you owe it to yourself to do this.

Check with this blog in the days and weeks to come for more updates!

2011-11-25T21:51:00.001-08:00

COMING 2012.