Episode 20: Has anyone seen Trevor?

It’s just Jeris and Adam for our landmark twentieth episode. But even though we’re missing our ornery third partner, don’t worry: I’ll be darned if the Jeris & Adam monster still didn’t put out one heck of a cast.

Not saying each podcast episode is like one of our children, but if they were this one would be the tall, good looking athletic one that everyone loves.

Today the DSD crew speaks out about:

• Our sucky game against Gonzaga
• Brock Zylstra’s no-show
• WCC tournament confidence
• A musical tribute to BYU’s seniors
• Just a little tiny bit of Oscar Talk
• The return of Police Beat!
• Jeris’ US Capitals quiz

And remember, if you want to open the show for us, record your voice and send us the mp3 at DeathStarD@gmail.com

A running diary of ’90s Pop on Pandora Radio

Bad music is everywhere. And even though it seems especially bad today, I’m pretty sure music was just as bad in the ’90s. Fortunately the powers that be have done us a great service by putting all bad music into one, easily avoidable category: Pop.

But sometimes it’s just as fun to listen to really bad music as it is to listen to really good music. It’s like movies. I love it when I’m watching a movie and I realize it’s awful. It gives me something to talk about for weeks!

So I decided I want to do that with music. I want to listen to bad music, and then whine about it here on the DSD blog. so I dug in the headphones and turned on the ’90s Pop station on Pandora. Here are the songs, the artists, and my snarky little commentary. The only rule? I can’t hit Thumbs Down on anything.

Creep – TLC: RIP, Left-eye. No, Lisa “Left-eye” Lopez didn’t impact my life in any meaningful way. That’s just what you have to write when you listen to a TLC song.

All the Small Things – Blink 182: I admit, I went through a punk phase in Jr. High. And when Blink 182 went mainstream with “All the Small Things” I felt like James Bond when he discovered the true identity of Janus in Goldeneye. ’90s.

Oops I Did it Again – Britney Spears: Fine. I’m a sucker for the spoken-word astronaut love scene in the middle of this song. But seriously, I think every guy my age became an expert at tuning out Britney’s music in Jr. High.

I Saw the Sign – Ace of Base: Whatever happened to those guys? They struck gold with “All that she wants” and then left us standing in the streets, empty handed. It’s either great showmanship, or a crime against humanity.

Killing Me Softly – Fugees: Ah, a ray of light bursts through the clouds! I really do like this song. Wyclef and Lauryn were my generation’s… Donny and Marie? Woah… Yikes! who is that random angry guy at the end of the song?! Have you guys heard this? Weird.

Right Here Waiting – Richard Marx: I pride myself on my musical knowledge, but this is a no-brainer. There are some songs that just seep into your brain, and this is one of them. I’m pretty sure you could sing the opening lines of the chorus to a Burmese headhunter and he’d be able to sing the rest back to you without skipping a beat.

Barbie Girl – Aqua: Seriously considering violating my only rule…

Hit Me Baby One More Time – Britney Spears: Seriously? I thought I’d get at least one H&TB song before I got more Britney Spears. That’s my abbreviation for Hootie and the Blowfish, by the way.

I Love You Always Forever – Donna Lewis: I’ve always wondered who sang this song. It reminds me of being in the car on my way to swimming lessons. I’m definitely not going to go home and put this in my permanent rotation…

Tearin’ Up My Heart – *NSync: JT must look back on *NSync like Teddy Kennedy looked back on Chappaquiddick. He’s in a good place now, but he knows that if he takes one bad step we’ll bring up his dark past. (A big sorry to my friends on email who already saw that joke).

Give Me One Reason – Tracy Chapman: I love this song, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. In fact, this song has found a place on my ultra-exclusive “Five-Star Generals” playlist, reserved only for songs who receive the coveted five-star rating.

Summer Girls – LFO: Yes! I was waiting for this song, and here it is! You know, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for LFO. Their songs are so bad, but I always considered it a wink at the boy band era. Like their songs were just a big inside joke. Whether that’s true or not, that’s what I’m going with. Seriously though, do yourself a favor and look up the lyrics to this song. You’ll be rolling. “Stayed all summer then went back home, Macauly Culkin wasn’t Home Alone. Fell deep in love, but now we ain’t speaking, Michael J Fox was Alex P Keaton.” You can’t make that stuff up.

I better call it here. End on a high note, you know? This was fun, though. I’ll definitely do this again soon. Heaven knows there’s enough bad music to go around.

Episode 19: Winnsanity

I can’t believe it took us the length of the entire podcast to come up with the Winnsanity joke. But it’s here now, and it’s not going away.

Episode 19 is chock full of all the crazy stuff you love about Death Star D. Stat Man Steve makes another appearance, and Trevor fights the blues to bring you true A-game content.

Listen to Episode 19 now, and hear juicy morsels like these:

• Adam’s experiment with the ‘Today’s Top Hits” station on Pandora.com
• Jeris’ expanding Presidential platform
• Trevor’s wife’s nickname for Charles Abouo
• A Jimmer update from Stat Man Steve
• Oh yeah, and great BYU sports coverage. BYU at USF, Santa Clara, and a Gonzaga preview

Episode 18: Sorry, no Whitney

Jeris requested we use Whitney Houston to open the show, but I don’t have any Whitney songs. Please forgive me. To make up for it, just hum “The Greatest Love of All” as you read this little introduction.

The DSD trio is back for a shocking 18th week in a row, and they’re here to deliver quality podcast content for your listening pleasure.

In episode 18:

• A critical analysis of Hoosiers: Was Norman Dale or Jimmy Chitwood the key to the Huskers’ success?
• How did Buddy make it back to the team?
• Shooter: A brilliant assistant or a coaching liability?
• Oh yeah… and some other stuff.
• Like BYU basketball!
• BYU blasts Pepperdine
• The Cougars leave their shooting slump behind, Matt Carlino lingers.
• The Grammys: Who are all these people?

Cuddle with your Valentine sweetheart, and enjoy!

Bad basketball diaries: Refs suck

Note: After much thought, I have decided not to name the elbow-happy maniac who put me and my teammate out of commission in this post. But if you follow me on Twitter you could figure it out pretty easily.

I need you to know something before I begin this post: I was a ref before. Believe it or not, I was dumb enough to seek out and apply for a job officiating BYU intramural basketball.

I guess we all do some stupid crap in college, right?

It didn’t take long before I realized I wasn’t compensated near enough to take the kind of abuse I was subject to on a nightly basis, so I quit.

It’s because I have that experience, however, that I’m a little forgiving when it comes to amateur officials. These guys are not trained, first of all, and they are definitely not compensated enough to really take their responsibilities seriously. So even though I allow myself to yell and talk back occasionally, I never go overboard.

But every once in a while, they deserve everything they get. And it just so happens I was a part of such a night this week.

It was a tough game. The score bounced back and forth all night. Both teams were playing their hearts out. The refs were inconsistent and silly, but that’s nothing new. No, it didn’t get egregious until about four minutes were left on the clock. That’s when the elbows started flying.

I was the first victim. I was anchoring the middle of a 2-3 zone, and my team was defending an out-of-bounds play. I noticed the guy throwing it in give a little signal to one of his teammates on the perimeter. They wanted the alley-oop. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, they could have pulled it off. The oop-ee already proved through the course of the night that he could throw down.

So I set out to defend it best I could. I turned around only to find myself in the middle of a tornado of fists and elbows. I don’t know what happened, or how it happened, but the next thing I knew I was on the ground and my head felt like it had been hit with a brick.

I lay there for a while in a haze. I could hear the game being played around me, but I was a little confused as to why whatever happened to me didn’t stop play. Eventually the refs whistled a dead ball and I staggered to my bench, not missing the opportunity to give the dead-eyed ref a piece of my mind.

I sat on the bench, angry, eye swollen shut, and the thought occurred to me that I better not check in because I might actually hurt someone. I silenced that voice and went back in the game anyway.

I didn’t hurt anyone, but I did witness the sacking of the second victim: my teammate Erik. The game was just about over. Thirty seconds, in fact. We were going to lose, but that didn’t stop us from trying to finish the game with a little dignity.

Erik trapped his man on the sideline, the same guy that took me out, by the way, and tied him up. Both were struggling for the ball when the opposing player swung an elbow and viciously tagged Erik on the temple, putting him down on the court, and down for the count.

I was just a few feet away. I saw the whole thing, and there was definitely malice in the offender’s face. It wasn’t surprising; the guy was playing dirty all night. It was a brutal elbow. It was the kind of thing that would probably get most people ejected.

Only the numb-skulled, cowardly and incompetent refs just stood there, breathing out of their mouths, letting play resume.

That’s when all hell broke loose. My team, collectively, blew up. We charged at one official (who called the game by this point) and demanded some reason why he didn’t punish the thug who dropped not one, but two of our players. I turned to the other ref and I asked him point blank if he saw the elbow. He didn’t answer, so I asked again. He looked the other way. I kept asking while he sulked away and tried to ignore what just happened.

Erik was still on the floor.

Meanwhile, ref No. 1 was still being accosted. One of my teammates, let’s call him… Greg, was in the ref’s face dropping just about every curse word you can imagine. He was absolutely livid, as we all were, that a member of our team was clocked while the offender went unpunished.

Greg made the conscious decision to see this thing through to the bitter end, regardless of consequence. He kept shouting until both refs, the program administrator and other onlookers threatened to call the cops. Greg was informed he would never play in the league again, but he didn’t care. To him, Erik was more important than a stupid city league.

At this point, I left. I decided it would be best to go somewhere and calm down before I did something I would regret. Besides, I could barely see. I figured it was time I went home and put a bag of ice on my face, or failing that, a nice juicy t-bone.

It was a crazy night. One that made me seriously consider giving up bad basketball forever.

Everything is okay now, I guess, even though I still get a little fired up when I think about it. I guess the parting message I want to leave with you, though, is this: If you ever find yourself officiating any kind of basketball, and you see a player tag another player with his elbow, blow your freaking whistle.

Episode 17: A SUPER podcast

Really, though, we only spend like five minutes on the Super Bowl. Episode 17 features the return of Trevor, a dirty joke by Jeris, and 48 of the best minutes of podcast you’ll find on that vast network of tubes we call the Internet. Won’t you give it a listen?

Episode 17 highlights:

• Our first “You start the show” intro featuring… you’ll have to see.
• Super Bowl festivities. What did we eat? What commercials did we like? Who got bored?
• Adam’s joke about Madonna that he stole off Twitter
• A whole bunch of BYU Hoops Talk
• The Marriott Center gets its groove back
• Jeris’ ideas for how to fix the 3-point shooting
• Another issue of Police Beat!

Enjoy! I know I always do.

We want you to open our shows!

If there’s one thing we love, it’s our listeners. You listeners are the steam that powers our 19th-century-era Riverboat. Without you, it’s just three guys sitting in a basement, recording their pointless conversation. Creepy, kind of. See? You save us from being creeps.

That’s why we want you to open our show, each and every week. Here’s the vision: You record a brief, personal opening to Death Star D. We play that recording before any given episode. You rejoice, because you are now an official Internet superstar (just ask Justin Bieber how that worked out for him).

Here’s some examples of what you could possibly record:

• “Hi! This is Chuck Norris, and I’d like to personally welcome you to Death Star D.”
• “What it be? It’s Slizzle McNizzle and you’re about to get BLITZED with Death Star D!”
• “Hey everybody. My name is Mitt Romney, and I approve of Death Star D for your listening pleasure.”

But be sure to include your own name. Or, failing that, be sure to make it hilarious.

Record your opening as an mp3 file, and email it to DeathStarD@gmail.com. Thanks in advance. And thanks for listening!