zilla rocca’s CLAP COWARDS

I’ve been pulled knee deep into the “music business” lately, hence the lack of quality pieces here at the blog.  Looking for sponsors for the Rap Pack Miami Tour as well as gearing up the 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers release has been the gift and the curse–hell, even my Netflix que is backed up like Roosevelt Blvd (props to Philadelphia for closing 1-2 lanes on one of the busiest, most dangerous roads in the country in the thick of spring–good stuff, guys!). 

In the meantime, here’s some stuff I been thinkin’ on:

• I haven’t had a chance to commend my boys on setting the record for 13 straight home victories to start off a season.  Just got my Andre Ethier t-shirt in the mail yesterday and I’m geeked to be going to Phillies vs. Dodgers this Thursday afternoon.  And yet….the Manny Cloud looms.  I’ve watched him since his ’94 rookie season in Cleveland, through his dominant near-decade in Boston, and the renaissance he ushered in last year for Dodger baseball while he carried the team to the NLCS for the first time in 20 years.  I’m still totally shocked that he did use PED’s, but I’m not shocked another Hall of Fame baseball player cheated.  The incomparable Bill James say it best via Joe Posnanski’s blog:   “You give me the opportunity to earn $22 million a year by taking steroids, I’ll shoot the pharmacist if I have to.   I’m not saying it’s right.   I’m not saying I shouldn’t be punished for shooting the pharmacist.  I am saying it is self-righteous to pretend that I don’t have the same human failings that these guys do, and further, if you are insisting that you don’t have them, I don’t believe you.”
• I don’t know what’s going in Philadelphia and it’s surrounding areas, but I’ve been saying way too much roadkill lately.  It’s beginning to get scary, like I’m being warned of an upcoming plague or catastrophic epidemic via cats, skunks, possums, squirrels, and rabbits on Route 73.  Slow down, party people.
• I just found out yesterday that I train alongside this guy at my boxing gym.  It’s cool to know I’m jumping rope and hitting speed bags next to the first fighterto ever knock down Evander Holyfield.  Harbody!
• I love hip hop in 2009 because Slum Village is fully reformed with T3, Elzhi, and Baatin and they’re making great breezy singles about women.  “Cloud 9″ featuring Marsha Ambrosious is no exception.
• I watched Annie Hall for the first time ever last weekend.  Two things: 1) I can see now why Woody Allen became a lady killer–he is relentlessly talking shit to women, no matter how young or old or attractive they are.  2) this movie won best picture in 1977.  The year before?  The Deer Hunter.  The year after?  Rocky.  Weird right?
• House ends tonight.  Hugh Laurie is a prime actor and yet this seaso they decided to spend 75% of the time NOT featuring him doing wild stuff or coming to new conclusisions.  We get it: he’s a brilliant and miserable man who manipulates and pushes buttons because he’s a crank addicted to his job.  The last four episodes have gone a long way in redeeming the otherwise awful Season 5, and I’m genuinely thrilled to see how the writers wrap up a year where people died, annoyingly bad actors were forced to hook-up and become central plot pushers, and old characters with bad hair choices reemerged to shake things up (I purposely wrote a vague summary because SPOILER ALERT doesn’t always work).  Anyway, I’d give this season a C – for wasting 15 hours of my life earlier in the season.  At least 24 turned it up this year.