All posts by Matthew Callan

Football, Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: A Fashion Plaxico-No

Today, Scratchbomb hands over the reins to nationally syndicated sports columnist Skitch Hanson, as we’ve done many times before. You may know him as the author of the highly popular syndicated column “Up The Middle.” You may also have read his best-selling book Numbers Don’t Lie Except When They Do . He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show Tiny Elf-Like Men Shrieking. Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

I want to thank The Scratchbomb for having me back. I’ve turned into a bit of a “pariah” around the office ever since I got back from Beijing. My newspaper didn’t appreciate some of the charges I ran up during the Olympics. I tried to explain to my boss that it wasn’t my fault, but he hasn’t trusted me since the Rental Car Incident of 2003.

(My loyal readers will remember that well, but for the rest of you, let’s just say that you should never try to force a cassette tape into a car stereo CD player, no matter how badly you want to hear “Sweet Baby James”. And remember: even if you’re trying to be helpful to the good people at Hertz, marinara sauce is no substitute for transmission fluid.)

Here’s what happened: One night in Beijing, I ate a crazy vegetable the locals call “egged-plant” and found myself in some gastric distress. A friendly cabbie brought me to the local pharmacy to get some Pepto Bismol, after I made myself understood with 15 minutes of an embarrassing set of hand gestures.

When we go to the pharmacy, the cabbie asked if he could borrow my corporate AmEx. He said he needed some medicine for his sick wife. I know it sounds crazy now, but I felt I owed the guy. Plus, I wasn’t really sure this place was a pharmacy at all. I’ve never seen a drug store that had crap tables and roulette wheels, and guys guarding the doors with
switchblades.

So imagine my surprise when I get back to the States and the only pharmaceutical purchases on the statement were 500 gross of Viagra! Plus 17 flatscreen TVs, and a bunch of charges to some Web site called LithuanianBrides.com. That sounds like a place where you could get something nice for your wife, so maybe the cabbie wasn’t totally lying.

Continue reading Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: A Fashion Plaxico-No →

Authors Cornered, Literary Endeavors, The Funny

Authors Cornered! L.X. Magruder, Creator of The Darkening

library.jpgHere at Scratchbomb HQ, I get a lot of review copies of upcoming books. Oh my yes, I’m practically inundated with literature. But while I love to read, I rarely get a chance to speak with the authors behind these works. But that ends today! Because today begins a regular feature on the site, Authors Cornered!

My first interviewee is L.X. Magruder, best known as the creator of dozens of young adult novels. He’s the man behind such beloved children classics as The Sleepover Pals and Wikipedia Jones. Next month, Slapdash Books releases the first volume in his first series for adults, a twisted universe of vampires and other monsters called The Darkening.

First off, I’m surprised you decided to write a series of vampire novels. It’s quite a departure from your previous work.

I’ve always been a huge horror fan, so I didn’t see it as such a reach. If you go back and reread at my books, you’ll see many elements of the supernatural.

Even though your last five novels were in the Johnson High Cheerleader Squad series?

The supernatural elements are subtle, to be sure, but believe me, they’re there. I mean, there’s no way those really complicated pyramid moves could have been accomplished without the occult.

How did you come up with the idea for this new series?

Vampires are huge in publishing right now. Particularly, books where vampires fight humans and/or other types of monsters. While these works raise some intriguing issues, I don’t think they explore them as deeply as they could. That’s what I hope to do with The Darkening series.

What kind of issues?

Like, what would happen if a werewolf did it with a mummy? How would that work? I’m sure you’ve wondered about that before.

I can’t say I have.

That’s the role of the artist–to ask the questions no one dares contemplate.

Continue reading Authors Cornered! L.X. Magruder, Creator of The Darkening →

Politics Schmolitics

John McCain: Ambushed

John McCain had to die for George Bush’s sins.

In a fair world, the economic meltdown costs George Bush an election, not John McCain.

In
a fair world, George Bush runs against a charismatic, photogenic
candidate who conducts one of the most brilliantly organized
presidential campaigns ever, a man who arrives at the precise moment in
history when he’s needed the most. And McCain gets to run against a
robot and the winner of a Ted Cassidy look-alike contest.

In
a fair world, George Bush is roasted in the media for idiotic
misstatements, catastrophic misjudgments, and overall out-of-touchness.

In
a fair world, none of these things happen to a man who spent five years
as a POW in Hanoi. They happen to the guy who spent the war doing
kegstands at Yale and protecting El Paso from the Viet Cong

In
a truly fair world, George Bush doesn’t have a powerful daddy to get
him in the Texas National Guard, so he has to go to Vietnam, and maybe
the experience transforms him, so when he becomes president he doesn’t
send servicemen to be maimed and killed on a complete fucking lie.

bushmccain.jpg

Last I checked, life isn’t fair.

Continue reading John McCain: Ambushed →