casual ultimate » club

There were a lot of great things that happened this weekend at Nationals. I talked to Becky about life. I said what-up to Vijay after he sent me a benediction last week. I saw that Mischief is a really great group of people who care about each other immensely. I saw Tim Murray as a pretty respectable, mature individual who loves the game (that was really over the course of the season and not just this weekend). I saw the Ring/Backhoe social circles in motion. I saw how nothing really changes in that regard and how the lowest common denominator: drinking, mocking, hooking up, and other pretty dumb things seem to shine through in most cases. I felt the tug towards romance, and resisted it. I struggled not to judge myself and my team-mates at times. By Sunday, some of my better friends on the team had become so irritating to me that it was almost too much to be in a room with them.

Mischief lost in Quarters. Shazam showed up and played hard in all their games. They are good folks. I saw my humor turn towards ridicule and mockery this weekend instead of just light-hearted observation. I saw stress and anxiety bring out the best in some people (our late innings come-back against Shazam really made me happy to be on Brass Monkey). I saw one of the sickest D’s I’ve ever seen AGAIN from Wendy Chan on game-point against Shazam against a guy (Ladd). It was just unbelievable. Better, I think, than the one last year in semis that Wendy had. I saw Nate, the guy I would lie down in traffic for, one of the greatest team-mates and players I’ve ever seen grace a field, not win a title this year.

The sacrifices that people make to be at Nationals and to play at Nationals are unreal. I think maybe the best moments of the weekend were Saturday night after games were over, seasons were over, and dinner was over. Monkey sat around one of our condo units and told stories and gave speeches and just really enjoyed each other. I laughed more on Saturday night than I have since the last session of One Degrees in Tempe. What a soulful, filling experience it is to just laugh with each other.

I got to introduce Nate and Becky on Saturday night. It was like introducing someone to my family. I got to just say, “Look, Becky. This is the guy that I’ve told you about. This is why I love playing for him.” They talked for 10 seconds and Nate drove the conversation as he does the huddle, and it was just pure and simple. She looked at me after Nate had left, and I could just see that she understood. In 10 seconds, she just understood why I like him.

The first time I went to Nationals was in 2004, and I had been diagnosed with mono on Monday and was not able to play at all. My team, Machine, went 0-7, my new girlfriend at the time, Sarah, had way cooler friends than mine (Brood et al), and way cooler ex-boyfriends than me (Michael Jamkung, formerly Namkung). I had a knot in my stomach that weekend as big as a fist and I didn’t play a single point. I do believe the antibiotics that I had taken gave me a skin reaction that made me look like I had frickin pink polka dots all over my body too. I was so terribly unhappy. I was so hurt and hopeless.

My second trip to Nationals was in 2006 with Brass, and I had not played a point of Ultimate (other than the weekend prior) since the end of August due to a horrible ankle sprain. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to play at all. I prayed that my higher power’s will be done and that I could just be present and do his will. I played and played great. I really brought joy to my team, and in our big semifinal loss, I played one point, and I didn’t feel, at any time, like I was being cheated. I wasn’t hurt or hopeless. I was proud and honored to be on this team. My team had a lot wrong with it that year, but it had a lot right with it too. We have a rookie this year named Mike that reminds me of me last year. He’s just happy and proud to be with this group, and that’s a really awesome way to approach Ultimate, I think. On Saturday night last year, I left the team dinner to be with a good friend in a hard moment and grew closer to a few people. I wasn’t the life of the party that night. I wasn’t making some hot girl. I wasn’t doing anything but being me and doing what I thought was right. That was awesome.

This year, I went to Nationals healthy for the first time, again with Brass Monkey. This year, we had something that we didn’t have last year: the ability to pull together and play big in big moments. Our hearts weren’t fragmented and in close games, we were able to play up. I wish that we could have given ourselves a chance against Shazam instead of dropping down to a 7 point deficit and not getting our engine started until 12-5 or whenever it was. We played them to 11-14 and were really close to a couple blocks on that final point. It’s a little too much to ask to score 5 in a row against a great team like Shazam with the season on the line. I wouldn’t have put it past us though, the way we were playing.

On a personal note, I don’t think I’ve ever pulled as well as I did this weekend. They were huge airy bombs and they were all in bounds until the Shazam game. I would kind of like to just go up to Seattle or somewhere and scrimmage Shazam for 4 or 5 hours with Brass. I just like playing against them. I want to play a lot of points against them. It’s really fun. I don’t have very much fun at all against Mischief, and I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I can’t really think of anyone on that squad I like to guard for some reason. With Tyler, I’m usually backing him. With Kyle Smith, I’m usually busy nearly biting my tongue off while he elbows me in the face. With Shazam, it’s just a battle though. I love it. They are good, they are fast, the throws are on the mark, and for whatever reason, I like playing them. I like playing d and beating them and mashing their faces into a fine paste and then dousing their faces in kerosine and lighting them on fire and then breaking their mark, zipping down field for a wide-open 15 yd under and throwing a buttery goal to Nate up the line, while a faceless Shazamer runs after me with his burnt eyes trying to figure out what happened and why he will always be hideous for the rest of his life and never have children or friends. Whoa, sorry about that. What I mean to say is: Ultimate is fun.

This week’s episode of the Chris Farley show:

Chris Farley: Hey, Steve Finn. ‘member when you were on Sockeye?

Steve Finn: Well, yeah Chris, I do.

CF: Man, you guys were awesome…

SF: Why thank you, Chris.

CF: ………God, I’m so STUPID. I’m such an IDIOT.

SF: No, no, Chris, you’re doing fine…

CF: Really?…Oh, man…..You remember when you were on Brass Monkey?

SF: Yeah, yeah I remember, we won it in 2005.

CF: Man, you guys were soooo good….

SF: Thanks, Chris.

CF: …..God, I don’t know what I’m DOING on this interview. I’m such a FAILure….

SF: You’re doing fine, Chris. Really.

CF: You’re just saying that.

SF: No, really, Chris.

CF: Well…remember when you won your third consecutive Masters title at age 47?

SF: Chris, I’m not sure that’s happened yet although I’m sure it will.

CF: Oh….why did I SAY that?! I’m such a MORON!

SF: No, Chris. You’re really giving a good interview.

CF: No, I’m not. I’m making all kinds of mistakes all the time.

SF: Well, Chris. You know I’ve learned over the years that it’s not about whether you do things perfectly or not. Everyone makes mistakes. It has more to do with whether your mistakes ever result in something other than a National Championship. I think that’s where I’ve had a lot of success in my life. I only make mistakes that somehow lead to me being a National Champion.

CF: ….

I saw Ray Parrish’s teeth from about 500 yards away, and a few minutes later, I could see that the rest of him was also there as he continued to walk towards me. That guy was so huge for me at Sandblast when I had heatstroke and couldn’t take care of myself. I would marry him if I were some girl with really huge fake breasts, the way he likes. Sidenote: Can I just say that the reason Starsky and Hutch is a masterpiece is because it makes fun of homophobia? Can I just say that right now? I have made a living on that kind of humor (or no money at all as I look a little closer), and guys acting like they have no emotions and like they don’t care about their friends or anything for that matter is just not human. I care about my friends.

Thank you to Bil Elsinger for all the great photos and write-ups of the Mixed Division this year, which is a real division with uniforms and everything.

Dragon foot, ball of yarn, bamboo pole, Chinese boy…Prune Candy.

When’s Tempe?

cleats? check.
jerseys? check.
toiletries? check.
socks? check.
butler’s rain jacket? check.
OU jersey to trade with Nielsen for haymaker jers? check.
Non-playing Machine jersey for Soda’s Doublewide jersey? check.
one frisbee? check.
book to read on flight? check. (Ira Glass’ New Kings of Non-Fiction…pretty awesome)
UnderArmour everything? check.
cash? working on it…
camera? bill’s got it. check.
OU wristbands? check.
Ipod and ITrip? check.
swim trunks? check.

condors? check.
bravo? check.
doublewide? ohhhhhhh check!

the ability to bring it together? CHECK.
focus? CHECK.
determination? CHECK.
blood-hungry defense? CHECK.
cool-as-cucumber offense? CHECK.

i think that’s all i’ll need for this trip…

love,
vijay

Cheers

So my team does cheers after games sometimes. Not really all that often these days as my room-mate, Henrik (the mastermind behind all of the cheers), is no longer an active player on the team, but we still do some crazily elaborate cover-cheers when he makes it out. Last year the big hit was Gin and Juice (the Gourds - folky version) “mind on my monkey and my monkey on my mind” kinda thing. It was a solid jam with me laying some heavy fiddle on it and Lauren Casey filling it out with some mando. We never did get around to doing a cover version of Devil Went Down to Georgia, although on the train in to work the other day, a homeless guy sitting near my feet asked me if I had a viola in the case, and I said “Naw, it’s a fiddle”, and he immediately launched into the first few verses of that Charlie Daniels classic on a crowded commuter train. Awesome. Thank you so much for doing that. Without grassroots support from people like you, this day would never have been made possible (the words of Aaron W, my former room-mate from Paulina).

Back to the lecture at hand. This year, I have some work to do to cover a really tricky riff from some Chili Peppers song called “Hey-o” maybe and an awesome bassline from a Beck tune. If you are going to Nationals and are in our pool, that’s good news for you. If not, maybe get elinimated before us and then check out some of the post-game magic.

Why do I like the cheers? It really brings this great energy to the team. It is something that is very Brass Monkey, and without it, it just doesn’t feel like the team for some reason. We F around a lot and have a good time regardless, but cheers bring it to another level. It’s also indicative of the idea that Brass plays great Ultimate because we’re having fun and enjoying each other. Last year, in my opinion, we didn’t enjoy each other as much. There was some chemistry that was a little off, and there was a general lack of ease that isn’t there this year that kept us from playing great when we needed to. That is not to say that we will go any further or even as far as we did last year, but I think the soul of the team is intact this season. It feels good and loving. Sidenote: maybe one of the things that I don’t completely like about Open is that this loving piece is pretty much missing. At least it doesn’t show up in the same way as it does in coed. Nothing says loving like spiking on each other in practice and kicking a water bottle. What Open gives up on the positivity scale, it may make up for on the humor scale though. Ladies, I love you, but guys are just WAY funnier. I met this guy once. Oh man. So funny.

Flying, Magic

So Regionals briefly: it was cold, windy, and rainy. Needless to say, I excelled in that environment coming from the Midwest and practicing on the shores of Lake Michigan for 3 years in college. We had a relatively easy road to finals with arguably the easiest pool (Bozos, Night Train, and Denial) and Golden Spike upsetting Mischief to face us in semis. Golden Spike, by the way, is a phenomenal team, and deserves to be at Nationals. However, since they have a couple of guys on their team that are COMPLETE pricks, no one is too sorry to hear that they lost 3, count them, 3 games to go to finish 5th. Our game against Shazam was VERY upwind-downwind, and each team had 2 breaks I believe. 12-11 was the final with both teams essentially holding serve. These guys play really well. I like playing against them because they don’t cheat, they don’t really get chippy, and they play good Ultimate, even though they have one of the stupidest names I’ve ever heard. By the way, there is an awesome story about Shazam in this month’s issue of Poof magazine. With Shazam, everything is so dramatic and flamboyant; it makes me just want to set myself on fire!

Ok, enough. Love from the Left.

a guest post from another of our friends in the dirty south… mike d.

I’ve been playing ultimate for some 12 odd years. I love the game, love the people I’ve met, love the competition. I guess through my career I’ve been blessed with some awesome experiences: throwing the game winning goal to go to college nationals my senior year, being involved in some great back end games to get to Sarasota, coaching a sectional qualifying northwestern team. But, something I had yet to experience was a stomach punch game.

Well, that experience, I’m sorry to say happened last weekend.

As most of you know, I moved to North Carolina this past spring for a job in the big city. I started playing in Spring league and met a couple people from this team called Los(including Haley’s brother-in-law Jb, who is Hales south.) They suggested I try-out. The schedule seemed light enough and the team competitive enough to keep me interested without burning me out like in year’s past. In all honesty, by November for the last 5 years, I’ve vowed never to play this game competitively again because:
a. My body is a wreck.
b. This sport is filled with cheaters.
c. In college, I always ran into this dude on Indiana, who was roughly my size, but like 20 years my senior, 20lbs heavier, looked like Grizzly Adams, and walked with a hellacious limp. He kept playing and playing, looking more ragged everytime I crossed his path. I did not want that to be me.
…So throwing caution to the wind, I ended up trying out.

Unknown to me, there was a talent influx, including 5-6 former ring players, some out-of town ballers, and a bunch of talented college kids. I could tell within the first practice that there was a lot of unharnessed talent. It was just a question of if there was enough time to gel.

Flash forward 4 months to last Sunday…after battling in the ac regionals, including a revenge victory against a team we were 0-3 against on the season, we met up with pike for the second time on the weekend in the third place game to go.

I can’t remember the exact play-by-play, but we took half 8-5. I had a couple of scores(I play offense now, who would’ve thought), one from chasing down a play, the other off of a tipped pass on an underthrown disc. The celebration is seen here…

Dance for me monkey…

Anyway, after the first half, we turned it up, making some sick athletic plays including…

…this from a sick defensive freak named Matt Thomas. I’ve seen him get more lay-out d’s in a weekend, than most teams get in a tourney…

a sweet hammer catch off a blading hammer…

and Ray Parrish being…

…a crafty…

…veteran…Score!

Anyway, we run the score up to 14-9. And from here it is kind of a blur, but we had several scoring opps, including a couple endzone drops/throw-aways, and a game winning score called back because the thrower’s foot was in the endzone.

This is a picture after said score…

…not so fast Los.

So, Pike battles back and rattles off 5 straight, then takes two out of the final three to win 16-15…season.

So, I’ve experienced the stomach punch game and it is more painful than I could ever imagine, but unlike the past 5 years, I really have a desire to get back on the ultimate field already. This year’s experience of meeting all these young and hungry players, mixed with the crafty veteran talent you need to have a national caliber team has rekindled my fire faster than years past. Hopefully, my teammates share this desire and grow enough to bring Los to Sarasota next year.

Anyway, good luck this weekend Chi-town teams and my Iowa boys and girl. Hope you all make it and maybe we’ll meet up next year…or in 10 years when I look like a hobbled garden gnome.

mike d out

Ring and Backhoe dominate their respective divisions. Ring cruises through the double-elimination format defeating Truckstop in Finals, while Backhoe’s Sunday semis and finals opponents (Scandal and Wicked) score 3 and 2 points, respectively. Tourney champs line the sidelines with some well-deserved brewskies to cheer on NC’s Los in the game-to-go. Los seemingly has the game in hand, leading 14-9 when the cap goes on. Unfortunately, Los blows the lead – maybe nerves and inexperience got the best of them. It was hard to watch and we feel for our los buddies and wish they were making the trip to ’sota with us.

Can everyone please stop moving west to play ultimate? It’s so frustrating to only see “real opponents” twice a year - sorry if this is rude or offensive to our recent opponents, but come on. Backhoe faces their serious competition only once before nationals when the team spends over $10k (and countless travel hours) to fly across the country to face all the tough teams at once at ecc, which takes place over 2 months before Sarasota. And probably more than 2 teams from the northwest region that failed to qualify could paste many of the teams that get bids from other regions – let’s spread the wealth around!

What’s the solution? How can I be casual about this?

In other news…. Nope. I have no other news. Life is ultimate right now. With the exception of griping about fast food establishments – I would normally avoid fast food at all costs, but driving to tournaments dictates otherwise. Due to a massive pile-up traffic mess on hwy 95 on Sunday, we were forced to an exit that had McD’s and Wendy’s (which had failed me on Friday) – we stop at the golden arches. Why do fast food places insist on putting cheese on burgers that don’t come with cheese? I specifically order the Big’n'Tasty b/c it doesn’t have cheese. “Do you want cheese on that?” NO. Get my burger… they’ve added cheese. I go up and get a new one. I hate doing that shit but I hate processed cheese even more. Friday’s Wendy’s experience, I order the “regular” ¼ burger whatever that doesn’t come with cheese. Do I want cheese? No, thank you. Not once, not twice, but 3 times I get the wrong order, once with cheese, once with absolutely nothing, and the 3 rd with cheese again (can I get some extra spit with that?) I’d better stick to fine dining.

BIIIIIIG shoutout to all my teams that have regionals this weekend. Obviously good luck to Machine, NEMESIS, Mr. Briefcase in TULSA-town (sorry ’bout it), and my other fave teams: Brass Monkey, Golden Spike, Ambush, Black Molly, Olio, Boneyard, list goes on. DOMINATE!

Warning: this post will be lengthy.

Saturday was quite a long day. And I’m gonna start from the top.

Morning: Machine has a double practice scheduled so that a Machine/Nemesis potluck could go down. Bill Finn and I jump in the ZamDog (my ‘91 Camry), make a quick stop at McDonald’s so I can fill up, and get to practice just in time. Nemesis, Dish, Madison, and UofC/Northwestern/UIC combo are already in the midst of the women’s sectionals. A BEAUTIFUL day, sunny, blue skies, mid-70’s. God invented ultimate frisbee for days like this.

Practice went well. Doubles are usually a horrid affair where by the end of the day I feel as old as Gary is. However, with the potluck/party coming ahead and the meningitis behind me, I felt great the whole day. The practice seemed to revolve around the escalating O-line vs. D-line battle. The morning had us do some basic flow drills and then an O vs. D endzone game…make it take it. O-line won best of 3. I think there was a game to 7 also.

Lunch break called and we go over to root/heckle Nemesis on. They just started their game vs. Madison in the finals. A lot of hooting and hollering, some calls of “Yeah Dirty! (Megan Sweas)” and “Yeah Skanky! (i’ll leave this one alone ), etc. Dane finally gets over a hangover and starts challenging people to cone races. I beat him and get his plum. Taste it blondy. Andy Neilsen roshams Denis Agniel and loses…consequence: he has to introduce himself as McLovin’ all night at the party. (I’m gonna get a good pic of Andy and McLovin’ for the CU lookalike post). General shenanigans.

We get back into it for the afternoon scrimmage. O vs. D game to 13. A heated battle ensues. Kolb calls a lot of bullshit. Finn calls Kolb every name in the book. Ferrari spikes cones and says something about hating this team. I wish every practice could be like this. D-line pulls away to win 14-12 I think. Both sides were looking more pumped than usual. The fire is building and the only thing that’s gonna put this baby out is a Regional Championship.

Afternoon: The Domers: Butler, Kreece, and Mini come over to RWLS (Real World Logan Square bitches!) so that Mini can make yellow curry, so that we can shower, and for pre-partying. Butler is wearing my former/his current OU Sooners sweatshirt the entire time (it was 90 degrees that day). He paid me 30 bucks, a carbomb, and his shitty rain jacket for it. Biggest mistake of my life.

After 45 min of telling jokes, Kreece decides he’s gonna bake a cake for the potluck. This is about an hour before we’re supposed to leave. I hate this guy. He mixes everything together and decides to bake it there. Mini has a delicious yellow curry, I have hummus and jello shots, Moy has beef with rice noodles, and Rich Aycock made Irish sodabread. We’re ready to roll baby. In the car, Butler decides what with Mini having an entree, and Kreece making dessert, he’s gonna have to make appetizers. He puts peanut butter on 20 Triscuits. They are the hit of the potluck.

Potluck: So the potluck was an idea I’ve had for awhile. We used to do these at OU all the time and it was fun to see people get creative with food, and then it was more fun to eat the food. So we decided to have a Machine/Nemesis Potluck with a party for everyone afterwards. Both teams threw down…very impressive. There was a wide array of entrees and desserts with a scattering of appetizers. Some notables: Beef’s “Better than Sex” cake, Moy’s beef/noodles, Shiel’s enchilada casserole, a lot of food I can’t remember. It was good. Nemesis decided to have a team theme and they showed up in meningitis prevention gear. Very funny ladies. Machine was thinking of wearing Sectionals Champions t-shirts. OHHHHHHHH SNAP! Nooooo he didn’t?!! Well…you bet your ass I did bitches.

(I forgot to mention…Nemesis lost to Madison in the finals after being up at half. We saw them shake hands while we were practicing and a lot of dejected faces but none of us believed it until I talked to Beef quickly during practice. Revenge is sweet ladies; show those college hussies what ultimate is really about in Tulsa.)

Back to the potluck…our theme ended up being dress as your favorite Chicago Ulty player. A lot of good ones out there, but the winner by far was Hensley dressing up as our boy Denis Agniel.

I wish the pic was better, but you get the gist. The potluck proceeded, everybody ate a little, but there was a whole hell of a lot of drinking going on too. This is where it gets interesting. Weasel and I agreed to go 1 for 1 for the whole night till one of us passed out. I brought the leftover Bacardi O I had from the jello shots and we started the night with an O-bomb. We decide at the party that we have to go one for one on drinks, food, and girls. Beautiful.

Party: The potluck quickly escalated into the party. I think I was drunk by 8:15. Weasel and I have 2 more beers and another shot somewhere in there. At some point, Schulze gets 2 of Ferrari’s American Apparel underwear that really only look good on him. One is purple, one is neon green. One for one. Weasel and I don are new gear and the party continues. Many of the Nemesis ladies showed up a little buzzed and the dancing went down full swing. There was the requisite flip cup in the kitchen speared by Zales/Berg. Schulze, the veteran partier that he is, sets up an ulty frisbee version of “The Dating Game”. 6 girls sit on Bryan King’s futon while Weasel sits in an office chair facing the other way. Kolb is the moderator and asks all sorts of questions that the girls have to answer. By far the best question/answer…”What 3 things would you bring to a deserted island?” Bachelorette #6 (Annie Miller): “I would bring a razor, shaving cream, and Bachelorette #4 (Shawn Wall).” #4 ends up being King Weasel’s pick. More drinking ensues.

So most of my party memories are sketchy at best. I’ll tell you my highlights and other people can add theirs.

Highlight #1: Sally shows up with carbombs. I request 1 for her, 1 for me, 1 for Weasel, and 1 for Butler (it’s his fav). We’re all set to go and Butler says..”Vijay, shirts off shot right?” How can I argue with such logic? Shirts come off..and I get pwned.

Highlight #2: Weasel and I take god knows what number shot around 10:45? with Brody’s gf. Weasel and I are gasping, Heather is ready for another shot. Weas calls it quits. He goes and yaks in the bathroom, in Dane’s bed, and on himself. I’m worried the entire time that Butler is gonna pee on him.

Highlight #3: Candice. That girl brought beer can chicken (delish) and her drunk ass to boot. Every time I turned my head, she was headbutting Katie B, wrestling Kolb, getting wrestled to the ground and having her pants ripped off, etc.

Party is escalating, and the 1.5 kegs for the party are bled dry. Angela and I make a quick beer run and we get back to the house with 4 cases and some liquor and walk into drunk Dane trying to calm his downstairs neighbor who is not happy with the partying/noisemaking. Classic: Dane trying to explain to his livid neighbor that our contraband would not keep the party running. Neighbor wins and we have to get everybody out. Only after a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday! for Mini and some shotgunning. Exiting the party became a mess when Akira told everyone to go out the back and Ferrari told everyone to go out the front. Everybody just returned to the kitchen and drank more.

Finally people got hustled out. Most went their merry way. A brave bunch of 15ish made it to some local dive not far from RWIP. Crew: “You’re only open till 2 right? We’ll have enough time to get a beer I suppose.” Bartender: “Naw man..we’re open till 5.” Dropped jaws and gleaming eyes. The bar was when the beast was let loose. Men, women, and alcohol. Inevitability folks. Although at one point I think Ferrari gives Bjorn quite the lap dance. Men and alcohol. Inevitability folks. Winner of the party: well, the pic says it all.

Weasel made it to church the next day. May god have mercy on his soul.

sectionals sends machine out to the plush polo fields of naperville for the third weekend in a row. if meningitis doesn’t take down our team, this three week stretch of running on concrete will. one layout was enough to let me know that i didn’t ever want to do that again; i think the grass out there is currently more abrasive than that old-school astroturf. fortunately, we weren’t going to have to hit the ground too often to make it through to regionals.

saturday morning greeted us with crisp fall weather - clear skys and chilly air, with temps in the mid 40s. good hittin’ weather, as john madden would say. the open bracket consisted of 7 teams, which makes for a less than ideal schedule, with 2 guaranteed spots to move on to round two. but with regionals in scenic tulsa, it stands to reason that pretty much any team that wants to make the trip, will get to play. oklahoma, the sunshine state. gorgeous. gorgeous. anyway, first game puts the 1 seed (machine) against the 2 seed (haymaker), because that makes perfect sense. whatever. the game goes to machine 13-7. i think, you’ll have to verify with score reporter. during a game, i, at best, know what half we’re in. what’s the score? i don’t have a fucking clue. when people start shaking hands, that’s how i know the game is over.

next game puts machine against the wizards of ball state. for a while, i was worried they weren’t going to show, it’s not sectionals without ball state. the one thing you can ALWAYS count on from ball state - as a defender, you have no fucking idea when, how, or from where they are going huck the disc; but huck they will. they don’t give a shit if their receiver is 5′2″, 50 yards downfield, and double covered; that disc is going up. i think they scored 3 on us, in a game that lasted about 35 minutes, resulting in an hour and half wait until our next game. sweet. i love sectionals.

next game was against some team, presumably from indiana somewhere, and apparently not good at ultimate. i wish i had more to say on this one, but i don’t know what happened, i blacked out. 13-2.

at this time of the day, we’re scheduled for a 4th round bye. as is the team we’re going to play in the 5th round (illinois). and there’s an open field. wtf? i love sectionals. captaining occurs, and machine vs. illinois gets under way promptly. good work guys. illinois comes out fired up, as they always do against us; we come out mildy awake, as we always do against them. half is 7-5 machine, with our offense getting broken twice (good work us). but, we will not have a repeat of 2005, and machine takes the second half 6-1 to make the final score 13-6 (again, score reporter, it’s highly possible that i’m an idiot).

saturday night’s entertainment was supposed to be watching the michigan/notre dame game (tivoed), with tbrizzle and pfil doing shots for their respective team’s miscues. two 0-2 teams.. two rookies QBs.. the scouting report said tbr was going to be hammered quick, and that’s almost as entertaining as drunk cho. but someone had to go throw a wrench in those plans. dissappointing to say the least.

meanwhile, back at sectionals sunday morning. first round bye for machine, awesome. apparently some team bailed saturday night, which left the schedule at one more game of round robin, then finals. the last round robin game was illinois B. we almost let them score a point, but brown bear had some sweet goal-line D to deny the youngsters. 13-0 machine. saturday afternoon, illinois had beaten haymaker in a tight game to take over the #2 spot and earned the right to play us again in the finals. again, illinois was hanging around early in the game, thanks to some offensive miscues by machine. but again, we woke up at halftime and only let them get one in the second half. 13-6 maybe? yay, machine is sectional champs. sweet.

at this point, some rookies went on a beer run, and we settled in to watch the haymaker/illinois rematch game-to-go; or some meandered over to heckle the briefcasers. post-tourney shenanigans included:
- watching football on a tv that schulz brought out (plugged into tbr’s truck for power).
- brown bear trying to make me do a shot of soco with him. no way i’m sharing a bottle with menigitis boy, so i suggest we wrestle for it; he wins i do a shot. i think you can guess what happened.
- kolb getting hammered off 2.5 old styles and running around the coed field between points.

i don’t know what to say about this weekend other than (a) puppet regime is an awesome team to play with and (b) we won our section. i am so psyched to be able to play this fall - i realized at around 10 am on saturday morning, as i was changing my pants on a sideline filled with strangers, that i would have gone nuts without playing some sort of organized ultimate. plus, it was great to play with justin again (same attitude, different glasses) - no carrie this weekend but i’m looking forward to seeing that lady again. i also ran into tucker of 30-year-old spring break fame, although apparently i’m blacklisted because i couldn’t score her a sandwich. sorry.

enough mushy stuff, onto the weekend. thankfully we had a first-round bye saturday, because it was raining cats and dogs and quite cold. we pulled up to the fields just as the sun was coming out. after a round of introduction, running, stretching, tossing etc. we played mako (15-4 - they seemed to do better in other games later that day), then levitation holmes (15-6), then a long delay followed by sandwiches and then AMOB out of brooklyn (12-3) and harpoon, the new haven team (12-6). it was windy as hell, every point was upwind-downwind. puppet’s offense did very well against the wind, aided by a number of h.o.t. lady and gent handlers.

a bunch of us went for dinner at el bandito, a killer local mexican joint in middletown, ny that serves tequila shots with the check. luckily we didn’t have to pick up that check, because the TD was with us and bought us dinner in exchange for garbage and cone pickup on sunday. we drank the tequila shots anyways, then watched men in black II and went to bed.

the best thing about going into the finals game on sunday morning was the 11:30 start time. the hotel crew ate a hearty meal of pancakes, french toast, oatmeal and lots and lots of butter at a local diner. seriously we each had a half a stick of butter on our meals. that gave us all the energy we needed to power through a game of long and windless points against crafty, another brooklyn team and the #2 seed (shocking sectionals spoiler: top 3 held seeds). we ended up beating them 15-11. i felt like there was a bit more competition than we had last year in the
central plains section. apparently there are a few former puppeteers playing for crafty.

that’s it for the east coast correspondent. the surprise in the region was in the east new england tourney, where slow white lost to quiet coyote and had to play through the 2nd place bracket on sunday, eventually beating quiet coyote to take 2nd place overall (tandem was first).

Dudes and female-dudes, it’s time for some of that hot nasty Frizbone action. Brass Monkey is going to compete until you can’t feel anything but pure ecstasy. We are going to swing your dumps and pump it deep to our streaking strikers. We are going to have intercourse on your team, bigtime. Here’s a picture of me intercoursing two people.

Yeah, the series starts this weekend, and as Zaz would say, “I’m getting old and I like math.”

We get to play Mischief this weekend who is missing (I presume) Tyler Grant who is “the straw stirring the drink” for that team with a pretty bad ankle sprain. They’re pretty damn good without him though. A win against them would be big because they have a couple of girls that are faster and taller than me or so, and their offense is REALLY hard to deal with because they throw to people that aren’t open and oftentimes do that without putting any air under the disc. It’s like playing Ball State or something where you have your guy so covered that you just assume the throw won’t go up and then the guy catches it behind your head and you bitch at your team-mates for not making “up” calls because you’re still blaming your parents for your shortcomings as a man. Actually, that wasn’t really as much of a hypothetical as it was a snapshot from my past.

We, Brass Monkey, played Shazam twice a couple of weeks ago on home court at Labor Day and split games with them. They have Steve Finn on their team, who is extremely old and also plays boardgames with people on my team when he comes to town. I still don’t understand the boardgame thing. Tony, Carlo: I don’t get it. They were boring when I was a kid, and they’re still boring. You guys should hang out with Steve Finn. Anyway, other than that one loss, Shazam has had their way with everybody they’ve played this year, including the final of that tourney in decisive fashion over Brass. Mischief has had a couple of close ones with Shazam, including once being up 7-2 or something in pool play at ECC and then losing on double-game I think. Shazam is still clearly the team to beat in the coed division, but luckily, I love beating the team to beat. There’s nothing more gratifying than playing big and upsetting a 1-seed and then taking all their girls out for a nice seafood dinner and then never calling them again.

There’s literally nothing better. I challenge you to find something better than that…………..Dorothy Mantooth is a saint.

Time to take Glucosamine, Chondroitin, and MSM combo pills. Is everybody ok after the meningitis outbreak? That’s a serious disease from what I understand.

So at ECC this weekend, the Buzz Bullets descended on the US. They won worlds in Perth, AUS last November, and everybody kind of wrote that win off since a lot of the top men’s teams didn’t make it down to Worlds. They came to ECC this weekend though and really frustrated teams. I saw some of their semifinal against Jam and most of their final against Sockeye (which they lost on double-game-point after being up the whole game).

On D, they run a transition zone-man-zone that my friend Stephen was trying to describe to me, having played against them before in international competitions. They apparently come down in zone, flip to man, and then they go BACK into zone or something like that. It’s pretty confusing, and I’m no strategist, so you’ll have to read more about it from the “thinkers” out there. One other thing they do is bid huuuuge. They are springy and explode on their lay-outs.

On O, they force throws through traffic and jam it up the line and throw outside-in hucks that don’t hang in the air and just are faster than their opponents a lot of the time. A couple of throws went up in the final that just looked like poor choices really, but BB read them well and were really effective even against the big guys. In the rain, they all had these really cool gloves too. I’ve gotta look into these gloves because the catches they were making in traffic were pretty fantastic.

They are sponsored by a “shutter company” (not sure if it’s camera shutters or window shutters), and most of them work there. They’re all really tight and play and work together, and they all have all the skills. That was a really noticeable difference: they’re not specialized like US teams. (Note to self: move to Japan for that reason alone.) On Sockeye, you’ve got Chase and Nord dominating in the air, Ben Wiggins and Jeremy Cram exclusively behind the disc, and a bunch of other highly specialized O and D players. The Buzz Bullets all have great skills, all play both sides of the disc well, and are all EXTREMELY FAST and hyper-intelligent…and hairless.

Nord got skyed twice this weekend by guys that were about a foot shorter than him on the Buzz Bullets. Pretty sick springy bids by these guys. All in all, they really won over the crowd and everybody was rooting for them and at times booing certain members of Sockeye. It seems like BB is on to something that the rest of the world may need to get wise to or be overtaken, like in so many other areas other than sex, by the Japanese.

I guess the only other comment I wanted to make was that this game was played really cleanly. There were no cheap calls that I could see, and Sockeye did not make any calls to give themselves the edge. There were a couple of times that I expected a foul-call when the Buzz Bullets made a physical play on a high disc and in Sockeye’s defense, they did not stop play and just hustled back on D. I thought this was awesome. It inspired me to play cleaner Ultimate and really take it on myself to win the damn disc, no matter what.

In the coed division, Brass played pretty poorly. We are ironing out some things and were not short on players by any stretch (with 20 or so). We lost to Flaming Moe, Shazam, Slow White, and Mischief. We beat Horde (Whoreshack) and Flycoons (they are really good this year having picked up Tim Murray and what’s-her-face). There was a great moment where I called a foul on an accidental collision Basically, I started coming under after a deep cut and then Greenough ripped a bomb to the back of the endzone and so I turned back around and ran into my defender who was trailing by about 10 yards and didn’t see the disc go up. Timmy yelled from the sideline, “No one from Northwestern could’ve gotten that disc.” Luckily, one of his other team-mates standing close to me said I had a play on it. Nice spirit, guy.

Shazam handled everyone except Mischief who gave them the game after being up 7-2 only to lose on double-game-point. I think the rematch in the final went to Shazam as well and it was not a 1-point win. I don’t know the score though. They beat us in a rainy, zone-y, game in which we took half and then lost 11-15. Their trap zone looked pretty good, and they were trapping on both sidelines.

That’s all I have to report from ECC. I saw Becky and met her boyfriend, Pat. I approve.

(this just in for ms. mimms, our nemesis correspondant)

It’s been an exciting week to be a Nemesis player.

Last Friday, the eleven of us that got into Boulder early went on a rafting trip where we almost, but not quite, managed to launch Candice out of the raft going over a class IV rapid. That girl is tenacious.

Saturday we mostly got whooped on by other teams (ok, all our games were actually close but we only won one, grrrr), but that night featured a pre-hot tub group shower and an exciting 45-minutes of full-contact pool keep-away. During keep-away, we learned that Candice “has no off switch” and that Val thinks it’s amusing to pretend to lick the ball.

Sunday brought one more win (Layuma - avenging a Boston Invite loss), and two other losses by small margins. It’s clear that we need to learn to close games. That night 6 of us didn’t get into Midway until 2am due to a delayed flight. Thanks to Brownbear, Bill Finn, and other Machine boyz for making the time fly by.

Wednesday featured practice followed by the Beefster’s 21st birthday celebration. I think she said it best, so I’ll just reproduce her “morning-after” email verbatim:

“First and foremost, thanks to everyone who came out and bought me drinks last night. I had a great time and it just reminded me how much I love Nemesis. Seriously. I love you guys and couldn’t have asked for better teammates.

But now to recap:

From 9pm to around 10pm I consumed more shots than I can remember. I tried to count them this morning and came to the conclusion that I consumed AT LEAST 10 drinks between 9 and a little after 10.

10:30 - Ended up in the Black Beetle bathroom (that was inevitable) at which point Yaya decides it’s a good time to head home. Good call, Yaya. So we head home and I’m going to assume we teleported back to Hyde Park because I don’t remember the 30 minute drive home AT ALL.

The next thing I know it’s 4 in the morning and I’m waking up on my bathroom floor. So, I crawl into bed and wake up 3 hours later at 7am to get ready for work. While walking to the bathroom I was shocked to discover that I didn’t have a headache and wasn’t feeling nauseous.

And that’s when I realized I was still drunk.”
Finally, Thursday involved an email exchange with the TD’s to Cooler, at which point we realized that Nemesis does not in fact have a bid. They won’t just add us because 9 teams is wacky, so we’re now exploring a situation where we split into two teams. We have no idea whether that will work out, but opposing team names are being solicited nonetheless. Meagles favors Autobots and Decepticons. Beef’s suggestions include: Unicron and Primus (more transformers), Apocalypse, nemesis of Cable (more X-Men), Ares and Cheetah, nemesises of Wonder Woman, Deacon Frost, nemesis of Blade, Doctor Doom, nemesis of the Fantastic Four, Judge Death, nemesis of Judge Dredd, Sabretooth, nemesis of Wolverine (X-Men, again), The Legion of Doom, nemesises of the Justice League. Candice votes for Dumb and Dumber. Your suggestions appreciated.

Game for game..here we go

Game 1: Jam
We go up 6-3. Offense was flawless. Defense got breaks, but we never really created a turn, Jam just dropped a lot. Then there came the timeout. Jam decided to stop sucking. We decided otherwise. They went on to win 15-6 if I’m not mistaken.

Game 2: SubZero
Zero got rid of some scrubs, got rid of some old guys, and took the top half of the College Champion Wisconsin Hodags team. They were solid, and we came out like chumps. Another spanking.

Game 3: Revolver
We finally got acclimated to the mile high air. We finally got pissed off at our piss-poor performance. We decided to hurt on Revolver. Offense was literally FLAWLESS. It was beautiful to see. Defense decided to put a hurt down and got some sweet layout D’s with breaks to boot. Fun game.

Game 4: Boston Ultimate
The combo Dog/Twisted team has had a rough start so far this season. Lots of big names still. Tight game the whole way through with us trailing most of the way. At the end, Boston is up 13-12, and straight to 14. Offense scores. 13-13. We pull, Mini gets a layout D and then puts up a perfect flick to Joel Wooten streaking into the endzone. Game. First time Chicago beats Boston.

Saturday overall: 2-2. Started roughly with us craving EPO more than Floyd Landis. Ended beautifully. We got our pizza, tried to watch the showcase game b/t Rare Air and Ozone, but got rained out.

Went back to the hotel (Boulder Outlook..awesome), and jumped in the pool/hot tub with Nemesis. Well, everyone did but me. I like the first shower.

Team dinner at some restaurant that wasn’t memorable, and then most of us are too bushed from the day and the lack of oxygen to do anything that night. Except for Hens. He parties it up with the Ambush ladies and says that Jam was out in full force that night also. I hate those guys.

Sunday

Game 1: Johnny Bravo
First time I felt like a team had a bunch of dudes who just plain outran us. And I’m not talking about Beau alone. Home fields, the entire team, and acclimated to crazy thin air…recipe for success. I’m not sure what was with us either, but we were NOT ready for this game. We came out flat and timid. 15-6 or something embarrassing like that.

Game 2: Truck Stop
TS came off losing to Boston on universe point. This was our game to win. We ended up losing on universe to them. I can’t describe how disappointing this game was to us as a whole. We should have crushed this team.

Game 3: Condors
Once again a slow start buries us. To be honest I don’t remember much from this game. Offense wasn’t looking good. Defense was getting the turns but crashed and burned when it came to converting. Looking forward to a very cold Boulder Brewery beer near the end of this game.

Thoughts from the weekend (basically the real stuff that I paid attention to):

1. Mike Shiel is awesome. I mean AWESOME. Best player in Midwest?
2. Mini. Man I’m glad we stole this kid from Briefcase.
3. New guys. Awesome. Ed, Andy, Denis (and Mini, Mike S.) Made contributions all weekend. Are gonna be pivotal come Regionals/Nationals.
4. We were missing some of our BIG names…Timmy, Bill F., Kolb, Gary, Cash, IU boys (Dave Campos and Gravy). Could this have been a completely different weekend?
5. Bjorn Gunderson. He’s starting to love grass again. It ain’t all beach in his world anymore.
6. Joel Wooten. He’s good. Like better than Mike Shiel good.
7. Will I stop turning the disc over?
8. Are we doomed without a small, squirrely Asian handler? (Cho-bot and Tyson are both gone this season)
9. I’m pretty confident about this team. I think we will be better than last year. (I realize this weekend’s results are not reassuring..but trust me). However, I wonder if we can break into quarters/semis? Playing Bravo (not so much Jam) was a real awakening. These guys are solid top to bottom. And I mean SOLID.
a. Beau Kittredge. A lot of us talk about how we are athletes, etc etc. The truth is most club players are still at most, really good ex-high school athletes. (Hens is also an exception). Beau is the real deal. That dude is an ATHLETE. On 2 different occasions I saw him run down hucks where he was the 4th dude. He outran THREE guys ahead of him (including his own teammate) in a span of like 40 yards. That is nuts. I am by no means the first person to notice this, but I guess it really struck me this weekend (I was pretty drunk during semis last year at Natties…you can hear Bill and I arguing on the UV disc during the game about who is better…Beau or Alex Nord).
10. As you can tell..I have crushes on many dudes in ultimate.
11. Machine. Cooler, CHC, Sectionals, Regionals, Natties. Not much time, but I am confident that things are gonna fall in place real quick. A tourney like this creates a massive learning curve. I’m glad we started out with such intense competition; we know what we need to do now to get to the next level. Watch out Bravo. I don’t plan on ever feeling like I did after that game against you in Boulder. You’re on the shit list.

Yes, I said tax-free weekend and welcome to the dirty south. They actually do something really cool in NC by eliminating tax for a weekend so everyone can save money on back to school supplies. So how does someone with no kids who isn’t in school benefit from that? SHOES! (now I have Ms. Casual’s attention…) Although my purchases were functional and not fashionable, I hit up the New Balance store on Friday and then Great Outdoors from some hippie sandals on Sunday. I would’ve done more shopping but my stomach kept me close to home.

How or why might one sabotage this wonderful weekend, you ask? So I accidentally got hammered Friday night. I know some of you are wondering how you “accidentally” get wasted, but it starts off with a lovely idea called First Fridays in downtown Raleigh. Art galleries, beer vendors in the streets, live music… forgetting to eat dinner, 7 hours feels like only 2, Sierra Nevadas, Big Boss beers, old pal Budweiser and his good friend Jameson. Apparently, after you turn 30, hangovers last 48 hours instead of the normal 8. I guess playing ultimate in the 98 degree heat (90 billion percent humidity) doesn’t really assist in recovery. For “fun” – we played nearly savage make-it take-it ultimate at practice on Saturday. The team had a pool party social Saturday night, it was remarked that Beckhoe lacked a beer in hand. Couldn’t choke one down…

After Sunday morning’s gnarly practice – I turned on some golf to nap to. Does anyone else think Twirly is a dead ringer for Rory Sabbatini?
The afternoon got better with a 2nd viewing of 300 (HOOH HOOH HOOH) at the dolla fitty theatre down the street. Next time I’ll bring some Febreeze for my seat. Stinky people see cheap movies.
Looking forward to the Colorado Cup updates…. Peace out from the SE side.

Good Morning, United States.

Now I will begin vomiting all over this blog, much in the same way I vomited all over the finals of Sandblasty except instead of red gatorade, it will be metaphors. Also, I *think* I can use capitalization and punctuation because my sister is no longer able to stop me. If this sentence and the title of the post aren’t followed by a bunch of commas, then I am wrong. , , , , , ,,,, , ,, , , ,, , , ,,, ,

I’d update you on the West Coast, but what is there to say really? It’s way better than everywhere else, people are open-minded, the straight-male-to-straight-female ratio is 1:10 in San Francisco, and the straight-male-to-gay-male ratio is also 1:10 in San Francisco. In other words: I’m kind of a big deal out here. I’ve been walking around the city, whipping my hair wildly in the summer (50 degree summer) breeze and occasionally turning abruptly to freeze a whole block of Market St. with a little “blue steel”. I usually arch my back when I do that…like a dragon.

Enough about casual though, what about Ultimate? Well, here’s the deal. July out here is for the most part everyone’s break for the season. Players enjoy kayaking, hiking, camping, surfing, and making sweet love on their wives. What have I been doing? Oh, the usual: almost dying at Sandblast, writing profiles for the Brass website (http://brassmonkeyultimate.googlepages.com), and not hating my parents anymore. Yeah, you read that right. I sort of stopped doing that a few weeks ago and by communicating that across the internet, I am making it even more real.

The team I took to Sandblast was called Dago Tea (pronounced “day go tee”) and was dedicated to my mom, Mary Jane, aka Mama Town. We celebrated our Italian heritage and family, and I think that was part of a shift that really took place the following weekend at this thing called the Landmark Forum. Now, Landmark is a little weird, but it sort of gave me permission to make some changes in my life that I really like, and it talks a lot about keeping your past behind you, living a life of possibility, and creating whatever meaning you want, instead of letting your past dictate the meanings of things in your life.

One of the possibilities I created was being responsible for loving my Mom and Dad, exactly as they are and with all of our history. I always have the choice to resent them and in doing so avoid responsibility in my own life. “If my parents hadn’t raised me the way they did, I wouldn’t be such a moody bastard right now.” It’s a fun game with big payoffs and even bigger costs. The costs are that I am not present in my life a lot of the time, and I don’t take responsibility at times for my work, my play on the field, and for my relationships.

…

I feel a little bit like Ron Burgundy after he says, “And that, of course, was our newest reporter, Veronica, Corningstone. She’s really great. I’d also like to share with you that we are currently dating and that she is quite a handful in the bedroom.” Maybe I shouldn’t have broadcast all that to the world, but what can I say. I love my parents, and I wanted to sing it from on top of a mountain, but I didn’t have a mountain, I had a blog and new priveleges from my sister…

So back to disc, Brass starts practices up again next week, ECC (or Spawnfest for the coed division) is in 3 weeks up near Seattle, and the coed division is crushingly good this year. Mischief is returning its all-star cast (including Tyler Grant who played Dago Tea at Sandblast), Shazaam Returns is a Seattle powerhouse team that went out to Boston and dominated for the most part and boasts one of the all-time greats in Steve Finn (Let’s recap his last 3 years of Ultimate, shall we? ‘06 Masters National Champion with Throwback catching a callahan on championship point, ‘05 Mixed National Champion with Brass Monkey, ‘04 Open National Champion with Sockeye), and Slow White is making the trip out from Boston after losing in Finals of Nationals last year to Mischief and beating Brass in semis. It should be a good time, and I hear that they have decided to have Open and Women compete this year as well. How fun for them.

I just joined a new band out here called The Wayside State which you can check out here: http://www.myspace.com/thewaysidestate. They have really good, original songs, and all they want me to do is solo on the fiddle. Perfect.

I’m the CTown Hustler; you stay classy, planet earth.