On Behalf of St. Louis, Screw You Stan Kroenke and Roger Goodell

Let me spit on St. Louis before I leave

My Wednesday blogs usually focus on greatest American bands, but this whole deal with the Rams moving back to Los Angeles takes priority today. I'll get back to greatest American band tomorrow.

Now, just to get it out in the open, I'm not a Rams fan, never have been, never will be. I'm a Packers fan through and through. But, we've had the Rams in Saint Louis since I was 12 years old, my formative years of football fandom. I watched them every Sunday, until the Red Zone network was created, and it was always nice to see a pro team in my hometown. It only took them 4 years in Saint Louis to win a Super Bowl too. It was kind of cool seeing the parades and having school called off so we could watch on tv if we couldn't be there in person.

Even for a non fan. I will always remember the "Greatest Show on Turf". They were high octane, fast paced offense before it was the en vogue thing to do. Seeing guys like Marshall Faulk, Torry Holt, Issac Bruce and Kurt Warner was pretty cool. Their defense was decent too. In the late 90's, early 2000's, the Rams were a fun team to watch.

The past decade and a half though, they've been mediocre at best. People around here got excited for 8-8 seasons. That's not something to wish for. It should always be Super Bowl or bust. And the dome is a trash heap. It's one of the worst stadiums I've been to. But, they were going to build a new, outdoor stadium that looked cool and the team, although they didn't show it this season, is getting better. They have a stout defensive line and Todd Gurley is a star in the making.

All that and the built in group of die hard Rams fans in Saint Louis wasn't enough for that dick face Stan Kroenke. None of that was good enough because the team wasn't in LA. The letter that he wrote about the city of Saint Louis basically being a trash heap is wrong on so many levels. What kind of awful human being attacks an entire city full of big time Ram fans? I don't think he realizes how much this hurts the fans. He only cares about dollar signs and lining his already extremely fat pockets. I mean, Kroenke is filthy rich. How much money does one person truly need? And why was he so possessed to move them to LA? As I said before, Saint Louis was willing and able to build an entirely new, state of the art stadium. The blue prints were already drawn up. Kroenke seems like the Donald Trump of sports owners. He says whatever pops into his tiny, idiotic and mildly racist mind. Go read that letter he wrote, it's disgusting and very offensive (ed note: we will not link to the letter because it sucks). He is truly a garbage person in every sense of the word.

Why does LA need two more professional teams? The Chargers are probably going to move there too. They already have two pro baseball teams, two pro basketball teams and one pro hockey team. Now, they'll have two pro football teams. What kind of shit is that? Saint Louis, now, only has hockey and baseball. For a great sports town, we need more professional teams. I don't watch hockey and baseball games can be boring, but going to Rams games were fun. Now, we don't have that anymore. But hey, at least LA and Kroenke are bringing another two sub par franchises to add to their already crappy array of pro teams. The Angels and Dodgers have humongous payrolls and neither can get out of the divisional series or even in the playoffs. The Lakers are a joke of a once proud franchise that's letting 38 year old Kobe Bryant run them into the ground. The Clippers are world class chokers and they have a horrible collection of whiners and overrated players. The only good team they have is the Kings, but I don't watch hockey, so I know very little about them. Now, you get the 4-12 Chargers and the either 6-10 or 7-9 Rams. Congratulations, you guys get two more sub par to very mediocre pro teams to root for.

Screw Stan Kroenke and screw Roger Goodell for this decision. They are trying to destroy America's most popular sport and this move to LA, while it might look good on paper, will blow up in your stupid faces. At least this will make it easier for me to make my son a Packers fan, but it still hurts. Even for someone that's not a fan. I usually don't care for burning jerseys and other stuff, but in this case, I'm all for it. I'd also like to leave a flaming bag of dog shit on Stan Kroenke's front door. He's an asshole that deserves the worst in life.

Screw you.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He once attended a Rams game with the editor when Mark Rypien was the quarterback. The Rams lost. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ken Griffey Jr is 100% a Hall of Famer

Piazza and some outfielder made the Hall of Fame

Last week the Baseball Writers Association of America voted Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr into the Hall of Fame. Both are well deserved. Piazza is, probably, the greatest offensive catcher of my lifetime, maybe of all time. He was a threat to get on base almost every time he stepped to the plate. He left a lot to be desired on defense, but his offense was extraordinary.

Ken Griffey Jr, on the other hand, was my generations Willie Mays. He was the best hitter, the fastest player and the greatest center fielder since Mays himself. Look at these career stats. He was a .284 lifetime hitter in an era of dominant pitchers that were on steroids. He hit against guys like Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson and hit them regularly. Those guys 100 percent used steroids, in my opinion, and he still hit almost .300 for a career. He hit 630 homeruns with 56 being the most he hit in one season. That's incredible. He did not use steroids, was never accused of using steroids and he still hit 630 career homeruns. You have to be a pretty dominant hitter to put up those home run numbers for a career. He had almost 2,000 career RBI's coming in at 1,836. That means, he consistently knocked in 100 runs every year. Also amazing. He also had an on base percentage of .907. Insane. He was on base almost all the time. He either put himself in position to score, or other people scored because he was always getting on base. He also stole 184 bases in his career. That may not sound like a lot, but for a power hitter such as Griffey, that's phenomenal.

Forgetting about offense for a moment, Griffey is the greatest defensive player I'd ever seen. Some of the catches he made were astonishing. Go and look at them on the internet, they're wonderful. The way he tracked the ball and would chase it down was awesome. He was so fast, could climb the wall with ease and seemed like he could jump out of the stadium for a ball. He was an incredible center fielder, the best since Willie Mays, in mine and many others opinion.

I know that when he left Seattle to go to Cincinnati his career took a turn due to many injuries, but what he did for the first 11 years of his 20 year career were more than enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. Going home to Cincinnati was not the right choice for him, but when he was healthy there, he was still lethal. People seem to forget that, but he was just as dominate. When he signed with the White Sox and later a two year deal to end his career in Seattle, he was a DH and that suited the end of his run to perfection. Just let him bat, his injuries took away his speed and his aggressiveness in the field, and put that fear in pitchers that he still held over them.

Griffey is also the first player ever drafted number one overall to make the Hall of Fame. He lived up to the hype and then some. Griffey is one of the top ten baseball players of all time easily.

All this brings me to my main point of my blog today, how does he not become the first unanimous player to be elected into the Hall of Fame? What asshole writers, there were three of them, didn't think he was worthy of all 100 percent of the vote? What point are they trying to prove? What else could he have done for these people to get their vote? Did he need to hit over 700 homeruns? Was it the fact that he was a career under .300 hitter? Could he have stolen more bases? Is it because he never won a World Series? If so, that's asinine. Sure, Barry Bonds hit over 700 homeruns and had an over .300 career average, but he also took a ton of steroids and HGH and anything else that could give him an advantage. He's still not in the Hall of Fame, but he's getting more and more votes every year. Sure, Rickey Henderson, who is and deserves to be a Hall of Famer, stole more bases, but he was a terrible teammate and he wasn't 1/10 the fielder that Griffey was. And the whole "he never won on the big stage" debate is tired. Many, many undeserving guys have been key cogs in World Series victories for other teams. Do you all remember David Freese in the 2011 World Series? The huge game he had that gave my beloved Cardinals the game 6 win in the World Series won't get him even a sniff to the Hall of Fame. He will never even be in the discussion for the Hall and he was part of multiple World Series titles and appearances while in Saint Louis. I'm sure Griffey is much happier with his overall body of work in baseball than David Freese will ever be. Do these three writers really think, just because David Freese won a couple of World Series rings, that he is more deserving than Griffey Jr? If they truly do, they're more moronic than I initially thought. These three particular writers seem to want to be contrary just to be contrary. No real thought, they just figured that he shouldn't be unanimous since no one has ever been unanimous. They are the "hipsters" of the BBWAA or they are just mad racist or they're just dumb. Ken Griffey Jr is an all time great and that was proven by him getting 99+ percent of the vote, but he deserved all 100 percent of the vote. Shame on those three particular writers. You guys are dicks for the case of being dicks. I hope they feel bad about themselves because they are world class douchebags.

Thank you to Ken Griffey Jr for being an awesome baseball player and an even cooler person. You were an inspiration to me as a young little leaguer and I fully intend to show my son videos of you playing as he gets older and more involved in baseball. I can't think of a better pro for my son to emulate.

One more thing. Please wear your hat backwards, your trademark, for your Hall of Fame bust, it would be awesome.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He once climbed a ten foot chain link fence to rob someone of a wiffle ball homerun. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Thank You David Bowie

Today we have lost a legend in the music business. He was not only a legend in music, but a pioneer, a fashion icon, an actor and an all around great guy. This morning, I turned on my phone, went to Twitter and saw that David Bowie had passed away.

I was shocked.

I first thought it was one of those celebrity death hoaxes. A couple of months ago there was a story being passed around the internet that Macauly Caulkin had passed away. I thought this was bizarre because I'd just seen his band, Pizza Underground, open for Har Mar Superstar. They were terrible, but I didn't think he should lose his life over it. It was found out about an hour later that he was still alive and all was well. That's what I thought when I read about David Bowie this morning. At least, that's what I hoped. But, further research proved that the stories online were true.

We lost David Bowie very unexpectedly. I really didn't know how to process this. I do not know him personally. I just came to his music about a decade ago, I was admittedly very late to his genius. I really liked him in "Zoolander" and "Labyrinth". But, I found myself pretty upset. It's not like losing a family member, but it still hurts. He was an inspiration to me musically. The first album of his I had was "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" and it completely changed my preconceived notion of his music. I assumed he was a disco, rock type of guy. He seemed more poppy than what I really like. Well, "ZSATSFM" totally floored me. It was rock, psychedelic and pop all blended perfectly together. Songs like "Soul Love" and "Five Years" and "Starman" are all classic pop songs. "Soul Love is beautiful and moving. "Five Years" is a very cool intro to this album. I like the quietness at the beginning and I love a song that explodes at the end, much like this one did. "Starman" is just an absolutely perfect pop song. Then there's the mega hits on this record, "Suffragette City" and "Moonage Daydream" and "Ziggy Stardust". "Suffragette City" is such a cool, punkish rock song that only Bowie could pull off. "Moonage Daydream" is the personification of the perfect psychedelic/pop song. And "Ziggy Stardust" has the hippest, coolest and most innovative guitar riff in almost all of rock music. The moment I first heard that riff, I went out and learned it on my Gibson immediately. I was so into the riff, I couldn't go on without teaching myself how to play it. The song, lyrically, is so perfect. I absolutely adore that song. I know that I'm only focusing on one of his albums, but why not this one that is so perfect. I know he has many, many other hits and beautiful songs, but "ZSATSFM" is his best and one of the best albums of all time. It's the perfect rock/psychedelic/pop album.

Bowie was a pioneer of the movement in the late 70's and early 80's of musicians taking on new personas. He became Ziggy Stardust, and all of the sudden, "new" people showed up. Without Stardust, we'd never gotten the band KISS. There'd be no new career for Rod Stewart, he would have disappeared just like Faces did. Mick Jagger, who was already mega famous, started to wear make up at the same time as Bowie and he became even more famous. These guys, and many more owe a lot to Bowie for being the first to do it and do it well.

As far as his acting career, I mean, how great and extremely weird was he in "Labyrinth". That movie is so nutso, but only a guy like Bowie could pull off that role and pull it off so awesomely. Try to imagine anyone else in that role, it's impossible. "Labyrinth" is one of the most bizarre movies I've ever seen, but Bowie's performance is so perfect, it makes that movie very enjoyable and very, very memorable. He was also excellent in his five minute part in "Zoolander". He just shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, and crushes it. He was funny. His hair was on point. He looked dashing. He seemed normal. And him judging the runway walk was so hilarious and so great. I loved when Stiller tried to pull his underwear off like Owen Wilson did, fails at this task and they cut to Bowie making a hilarious ouch face. It was great. I hope he had some kind of role in "Zoolander 2", since they already filmed it, because that would be great to see him one more time so we can remember how great of an actor he was. His movie choices were weird, but he pulled them off like only he could.

David Bowie was married twice, but you never heard of spats or disputes in public like we seem to with every other celebrity. I didn't know much about his first wife, but he's been with super model Iman for 14 years and they seemed to be very happily married and very happy to be with each other. Two beautiful people being married for that long and looking that good in the modern day social media society is incredibly admirable. I feel very upset for Iman. We, the fans, lost a musician and guy that we adored, she lost her husband whom she knew inside and out. I'm incredibly sorry for your loss Iman.

What I like most abut Bowie is the fact that while incredibly famous, he always seemed to come off as a genuinely good guy. There weren't any stories, at least not to my knowledge, of him taking his celebrity seriously. You never heard about off stage demands or illicit affairs from him. I'm sure he did a lot of drugs, who didn't in the 70's and 80's, but it didn't wreck his life. He was super cool all the way to the end of his life. He didn't seem to have any enemies or people that didn't like him. I've never run into someone that is not a fan of Bowie in some capacity. He was just an all around good guy for the most part. I'm sure he's made mistakes, but it was never really aired out in the media and who among us hasn't made mistakes.

David Bowie was an incredible artist and he will be missed. He's an influence to a countless number of people and will continue to influence people posthumously. Rest In Peace Mr. Bowie, you had a great life that was cut way, way too short. Enjoy making music with Freddie Mercury wherever the two of you are now.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

SeedSing's 10 Most Popular Posts of 2015

Follow me to great writing

SeedSing was born into existence in May of 2015. The idea behind the website was to bring a common voice to the politics and pop culture of our society. We started with the goal to post 3-5 articles a week and hoped to get around 100 unique visitors in each week. We are grateful that the websites traffic has grown beyond those numbers and are looking forward to all the new readers, and contributors, 2016. Today we present the 10 most read articles on SeedSing for 2015.

10. Thank You for Inhaling: Money, Freedom, and the Legalization of Marijuana  The movement to legalize Marijuana made its way to Ohio in 2015. Head editor RD Kulik takes  a look at the reasons for the sudden acceptance, and failure, of marijuana legalization.

9. We Must Halt the Dumbening of our Society  When Tina S contributes to SeedSing, it is always brings the intelligent discourse up a few notches. As someone who respects science, and facts in general, Tina is appalled that we  embrace and celebrate stupidity in our culture. This needs to end.

8.  The Greatest American Band Debate: The Introduction  SeedSing is filled with music lovers. In July Ty decided we should argue about who is the greatest American Band ever. With this introduction the debate was set, and many bands have been nominated since, with more to come.

7. Marty Will Be Here Soon. Do We Have All the Tech He Needs?  Kirk Aug wanted to kick off the celebration for Marty and Doc's arrival to 2015 by wondering how far we have come in inventing all the tech from Back to the Future II. We have come a long way, and even surpassed, many of the films predictions. Still no time travel.

6.The Ohio Problem  One of the very first posts on SeedSing discussed how the national political parties are leaving the cupboard bare for the local politicians. With the 2016 Presidential campaigns kicking into high gear the Ohio Problem will rear it's ugly head once again. Something must be done.

5. Our Future Source for Meat Will Not be the Animals  One of SeedSing's most recent posts quickly has become one of our most read. Kirk Aug looks at the present, and future, of lab grown meat. On top of the nutritional value, what will be the moral value of meat from the lab?

4. What is Real Food?  The debate of genetically modified organisms and how we label food intensified in 2015. Kirk takes a look at the science, and law, surrounding gmo's. Does the place your food was created really matter to the value of your meal?

3. In an Era of Bad Sports Announcers, Cris Collinsworth is the Worst  Early in the 2015 NFL season Ty decided to blow off some steam and label NBC sports personality Cris Collinsworth as the worst announcer in America. The public seemed to agree. Every Sunday night, SeedSing has seen a spike in readership based solely on Ty's piece. Maybe Cris Collinsworth really is the worst of a bad lot.

2. #ILookLikeAnEnginner Needs to have Meaning  Over the summer the twitter campaign #ILookLikeAnEnginner became a big news story. Tina S, a real engineer, was concerned with how this campaign was distorted the world of engineering. Many people agreed with Tina, and her post was shared on a variety of sites across the internet.

1. Please Leave Me Out of Your Cool Beard Club Ty decided to write a small rant about the rise of "cool beard guy" and why he did not care  for their club like mentality. What was supposed to be a small, humorous, post quickly turned  into the most popular piece ever on SeedSing. Dudes with beards seem to be very protective,  and sensitive, about how others view their facial hair lifestyle. If they are not careful, Ty may  just have a few words to say about their jeans and glasses.

Thanks to everyone for your support in reading SeedSing during 2015. We look forward to bringing more intelligent, humorous, and thought provoking pieces in 2016. We are the only place on the internet where you can read about the future of food, the current structural problems in politics, and the annoyance of the "cool beard guy". What more could you want?

RD Kulik (and the contributors to SeedSing)

RD is the creator and Head Editor for SeedSing. You can make the most read list of 2016 by writing for us.

It is Such a Shame that "Southpaw" Wastes so Much Talent

Southpaw is not worth bothering the microwave

I'm predisposed to like movies about boxing. One of my all time favorite movies is "Raging Bull". That's the watermark for me and almost every other movie critic there is and ever will be. I also enjoy movies like "Ali", "The Great White Hope", "Million Dollar Baby", "Fighting" and even "Girlfight", that's a very good, very underrated boxing movie and, probably, Michelle Rodriguez's best acting performance to date and yes, I'm including her small, but recurring role as Anna Lucia Cortez on "Lost".

So, naturally, I was excited to see the movie "Southpaw" when it came out last year. I even mentioned it on one of our very early, possibly first, podcasts. I was expecting big things from this movie. It had Jake Gyllenhall, whom I really like, Rachael McAdams, who is an excellent actress and it was directed by Antoine Fuqua who directed "Training Day", another one of my all time favorites. It was also written by the guy that wrote "Sons of Anarchy". I never watched that show, but I heard only tremendous things about it.

I was on board. I didn't get to see it in the theaters, but I just recently watched it via my Netflix account and it may be the most melodramatic piece of overacting I've seen in quite some time. I was so underwhelmed and kind of mad that this movie I had such high hopes for, felt like a 2 hour waste of time. It starts out cool, with a bruised and battered Gyllenhall screaming into the camera and it pulls back to show him in the middle of a title bout, but, it was really downhill from there. It was almost like watching a soap opera. The story was a good idea. Prize fighter with a temper gets into a fight with his next opponent at a benefit and someone accidentally shoots his wife and kills her. Gyllenhall is now alone with their daughter and he's lost and drunk and high all the time. He loses custody , cleans his life up and gets his kid back.

Simple story, but the boxing is what had me intrigued. It was the direction and over acting and chewing of the scenery that lost me. Gylenhall is a wonderful actor, but there is only so many times I can watch him scream in agony over his deceased wife. Same goes for him getting drunk and stoned or threatening to hurt or kill other people. Rachel McAdams is only in the first 20 minutes of the movie, but her New York accent is dreadful and the way she interacts with Gyllenhall, there's absolutely no chemistry. Even her death scene was a bit too over the top. The little girl that played their daughter was the most generic "hard on her luck" kid they could find. Her direction and attitude was way to "woe is me" for a movie. Curtis Jackson, you may know him as 50 Cent, was a terrible villain. He tries to win you over at the beginning by seeming like he really cares about his fighter, but I think we all knew he was only in it for the money from the get go. It was way too obvious. The bad guy needs to have depth and almost a likability before we turn on them. Not in the case of 50 Cent's character. I knew almost immediately that he was a money grubbing bad guy. The only really decent acting in this movie came from Forrest Whittaker. He played Gyllenhall's new mentor, after his life fell apart, and even though he was paint by the colors character, Whittaker did a pretty good job. That's to be expected from an actor of his caliber though. I did enjoy most, definitely not all, but most of the scenes that he was involved with.

This brings me back to Gyllenhall. Not once did I believe his character. Sure, he got into great shape for this role, but aside from that, he was not very good. He was too moody in some scenes. Too angry and over the top in others. He didn't play the part of antihero very well at all. He's much more suited for a movie like "Nightcrawler" because he can really dig deep into that character. In "Southpaw", he was chewing all of the scenery. If McAdams accent was bad, Gyllenhall's was atrocious and I like Jake Gyllenhall, just not in this movie or this role.

That brings me to the director, Antoine Fuqua. He came out of the gate with guns blazing, directing the totally kick ass "Training Day". Then he tried to do a very similar project with "The Equalizer". That movie isn't very good. And "Olympus Has Fallen" was a train wreck. And now we have "Southpaw". I think he belongs in the same class as M Night Shyamalan and Neill Blomkamp. These guys started with a bang and now, they are going out with a whimper. It sucks too because I really like both Blomkamp and Fuqua, I could care less about Shyamalan.

I was very disappointed with "Southpaw". If they focused more on boxing and less on the melodramatics, I probably would've loved the movie. If you're thinking about watching this movie might I suggest you go watch "Raging Bull" instead. It's ten thousand times better and you already know you will enjoy it. "Southpaw" is not a good movie.

Don't waste your time.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He once thought about becoming a championship boxer, then he heard about all the hitting. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Let Me Respectfully Explain Why Your Team Stinks: Ty is not impressed with Northwestern Football

This is to you Northwestern. You try so hard every year.

Today I'm going to re visit one of my favorite topics to talk about on the site. I'm going to go back to my irrational hatred blog.

I haven't written one of these in quite some time, and with college bowl season all but done, I realized how much I hate Northwestern Wildcat football. This has been a bubbling hatred for some years now. It's grown and grown a lot since they hired Pat Fitzgerald. I'll get to what I dislike about him in a bit.

I feel like they may be one of the most overrated, way to often talked about on ESPN, mediocre football teams I've ever seen. They seem to go 5-7 for three years, they'll up that to 6-6 or 7-5 for four or five years, then they'll have a season like this most recent one, when they finished 10-3 and everyone and their mother seems to think they are on the rise, especially world class blow hard, Mike Wilbon. I swear, if you listen to him long enough, you'd think Northwestern football is as good as the 96 Chicago Bulls. He's that blinded by his fandom. I mean, I love Michigan football, but I also realize that they've been very underwhelming for almost a decade now. Things seem to be turning a corner, with Harbaugh and how they finished the year, but I'll wait to start popping off at the mouth until they prove it on the field a bit more. Not the case with Wilbon. Northwestern can beat Rutgers by 1 point and you'd think they knocked off the number one team in the country when Wilbon inevitably talks about it on "PTI" the following Monday. I cannot take him seriously as a journalist anymore because of his blind love for his alma mater. I understand being a fan of your school, but when you are in journalism, as he is, you cannot be biased, especially when you have a talk show that focuses on sports. It's not a good way to conduct yourself at work.

Let's get back to some other things I don't really care for about Northwestern. I absolutely hate how arrogant and entitled their student athletes act. Sure, you guys are the Harvard of the Big Ten, but who really gives a shit. You know what other schools in your very conference are just as hard to get into? Michigan, Maryland, Penn State, Minnesota and Indiana. Really the only Big Ten school that's an absolute joke when it comes to grades is Ohio State. They could care less if you flunk out of high school as long as you are a good athlete. They are the Florida State of the Big Ten. So, knock it off with the excuse that it's harder for you to recruit elite athletes because your standards are too high. I don't care. Michigan and Penn State have equally as hard academic standards yet they're competitive and get top flight recruits in football almost every year. Hell, Maryland is almost impossible to get into and they have a top ten basketball team this year with one of the best sophomores in all of college basketball, Melo Trimble. He has to go to class just like all the Northwestern student athletes so he can make the grades to play. That excuse is old and tired. I'm done with it.

Then there's your coach, whom I've mentioned earlier. He is the WORST. The only coach I hate more than him in the Big Ten, and maybe all of college football is, Urban Meyer. At least Meyer wins, but he is a cheater, don't get that twisted. Fitzgerald's whole "blue collar" attitude and his teams very hard "work ethic" nonsense that he's always yelling is stupid. It's the worst kind of generic coach speak. He is way too giddy on the sidelines too. A head coach needs to keep his act together until they are in the locker room, where no one, except you team, can see you. I can count on both hands how many times I've seen him cheering late in a game because he thinks his team has the win sealed up, but then they blow it in typical Northwestern fashion. I love how much of an idiot this makes him look. All giddy and excited one second, then something bad happens to his team, then he's all flush with embarrassment and tries to make up excuses in the post game press conference. What a boob. He should have been fired five years ago, but a 10 win season this year has probably bought him, at least, another three or four years.

The majority of his players are mediocre as well. Their version of the spread is laughably bad and extremely slow. They haven't had a decent running back since Darnell Autry, and I cannot think of one time, at least in my lifetime, when they've had a legitimately good college quarterback. The players are sub par and it shows when they face real competition. Let's look at this most recent season as an example. Sure, they beat Stanford in the very first game of the year. It was an 11am kickoff time, making it 9am in Palo Alto, and I as I said on a blog earlier this week, that may not sound like an advantage, but it is. So, they get their signature win of the year during their very first game. Then, they rip off five straight and people are actually calling him a potential playoff team. Totally insane and totally off base. Luckily, for me and all college football fans, they went up to Ann Arbor and Michigan dismantled them 38-0. It was glorious. The following week, with some media, Mike Wilbon, saying that the game was an aberration and they'd easily recover with Iowa coming to Evanston, they got crushed. So, two legit opponents in two consecutive weeks destroy them and their "playoff" hopes. They won their next four games, against very weak Big Ten teams, to finish the year 10-2 and they were actually ranked, by the playoff committee ahead of the same Michigan team that shut them out. They finished inside the top 15, coming in at 13. They were extremely overrated by the committee at the end of the season and it showed when they played Tennessee in the Outback Bowl. Tennessee was very up and down all year, couldn't hold leads against quality opponents and finished the year at 8-4, I believe. Well, they hammered a very overrated Northwestern team to the tune of 45-6. So, against four quality opponents, Stanford, Michigan, Iowa and Tennessee, they went 1-3 with a combined score of 131-29. That's not what a top 15 team does when it plays real competition.

Now don't worry, I'm sure ESPN and Mike Wilbon will have them as a preseason top 25 team going into this year and they will regress back to their 5-7, 6-6 or 7-5 ways. The hype for this nothing program needs to end sooner rather than later. I loathe Northwestern football and it will be nice to see them float back into mediocrity for the next decade. The only really good thing I have to say about them, it's easy to get tickets when Michigan travels to Northwestern and since there's more Michigan fans there, it feels like a home game for them and their stadium and fans, for the most part, are genuinely nice people. But when that's all you have going for you as a football team, well, you will always be mid to lower level. I'm sorry, but it's true. Northwestern is to the Big Ten what Missouri is to the SEC. Very overrated, very underachieving programs.

The love for this team needs to end.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He will never respect a school who has a compass direction in their name. Hear that Parkway West? Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik. 

The Greatest American Band Debate: Run The Jewels

SeedSing is filled with music lovers. We can not agree on who is the best band from the States. The Greatest American Band Debate will be a regular feature where we discuss and compare bands who started in the good old USA. If you have any suggestions of bands we should debate Contact us seedsing.rdk@gmail.com

With the new year here and all of my best of lists done, I'm going to get back to my regular writing schedule. So that means, on Wednesdays, we will be getting back to our greatest American band debate here on SeedSing.

Today I have a newer group, but I feel like they are on their way to superstardom. It's another hip hop group, so get used to me writing about hip hop because it's one of my favorite styles of music and I've been listening to a ton of it lately. The band that I'm going to nominate today has only put out two albums, one in 2013 and the other in 2014, but they are currently working on their third record as we speak. This is a "super group", but it only consists of two rappers. The band I'm speaking of is Run The Jewels.

This group is rad. The members are Killer Mike and EL-P. Killer Mike is part of the dirty south rap movement. I first came to know him from his guest appearances on older Outkast records and the Dungeon Family stuff he did. I was always a fan of his style. He is gruff, disturbing and phenomenal. His rapping is so fast yet so clear, I'm amazed at what he can do with a mic. He is a wizard with words. He has become bigger over the years, stepping away from the Dungeon Family and the Outkast stuff, doing his own solo thing, and that has benefitted him very much. He found his own voice and had crushed on several solo albums, most notably "R.A.P. Music". Killer Mike is a beast. EL-P is a new discovery for me. I had heard his name as a producer when I was in my early twenties, but I had no idea he was a rapper too. The person that introduced me to him rapping was my brother Seth, who's made an appearance on our podcast. He is a great rapper as well. He has a slower delivery, but with his New York accent, it works like a charm. He has a smooth voice and since he's a producer and a beat maker, he has a great ear for making great rap songs. He is a legendary producer, but with Run The Jewels, he can become a legendary rapper. Basically, he's a better version of what Kanye West is doing, but since he isn't married to a reality star, he doesn't get the love he deserves. He gets it from the indie hip hop community, but he needs to be known nationally. EL-P is a great rapper.

The two of these guys got together a couple of years ago and immediately connected. They both like the same style of music and they both have unique styles that, when put together, makes some fantastic music. They couldn't be more different in their deliveries, but it works so well together. In 2013 they released "Run The Jewels". This record is a must have for hip hop fans. It's so good. They open with the title track, "Run The Jewels" and it's a beast of a song. EL-P has the first verse and he crushes. He has that smooth delivery going over a very hypnotic, yet oddly loud beat that works so well. Killer Mike comes in, and even when talking about shooting a poodle, I can't help but nod my head to his lyrics and the beat. This is a great entry way into the world of Run The Jewels. You get both rappers styles and the beats are top notch. The very next track has Killer Mike teaming up with Big Boi, from Outkast, on a song called "Banana Clipper". The great thing about his song, Big Boi only has one verse and it's at the very end. Usually, when you have a guest, they get about half the song. That's not the case on "Banana Clipper". Killer Mike has the first verse, he crushes, EL-P has the second, it's excellent and Big Boi closes the song out with one of his best verses since early Outkast. This is an awesome song. And props to Big Boi for letting EL-P and Killer Mike shine, most big time rappers would want the spotlight, but Big Boi takes a back seat. I like that. They actually close out "Run The Jewels" with a "Christmas" song called, "A Christmas F&^%*&g Miracle". Now, this is by no means "Jingle Bells" or "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", and it's not meant to be. This is a jokey holiday song that is made awesome by these two kick ass rappers. They even made an ugly sweater that goes along with this song and the sweater is very ugly and very cool.

In 2014 they followed up "Run The Jewels" with "Run The Jewels Volume 2". This is another thing I like about these guys. No pomp and circumstance, no weird album titles with weird album art, just give me the title and the same art and I know exactly what I'm getting. I like that they get straight to the point. This album is just as good as their debut. On "Close Your Eyes(And Count to F&%k)", they are exceptional and it's made better by the reappearance of Zach de la Rocha. Everyone that reads my stuff knows that I'm a Rage Against the Machine fan and I love de la Rocha, he's a legend. He actually does the chorus which is also the beat by saying "run them jewels fast, run them jewels fast, run them, run them, run them f&%k the slow mo" and I was instantly on board when I heard this. This is a lot like "Banana Clipper", with EL-P and Killer Mike getting the first and second verses and de la Rocha closing it out, and it's equally as good, but better in my personal opinion. EL-P and Killer Mike do their thing and de la Rocha absolutely destroys the final verse. It is so good to hear his voice and hear that he is still one of the best rappers/singers/activists out there. He's a monster and I wish he did more music. "Close Your Eyes" is my favorite Run The Jewels song, and it's the one I always listen to first when I put their albums on my iPod. "Jeopardy" is another great tune on the album that lets both guys do what they do best. Killer Mike is there with his super fast, super awesome flow and EL-P produces an excellent beat and gives us that smooth style that we have grown accustomed to.

In my personal opinion, I think they are a better "super group" than Odd Future, and I love Odd Future. They are the best "super group" since the Wu Tang Clan. They only have two guys also, how crazy is that. I've heard that their live shows are phenomenal, and if they come to, or close to Saint Louis, you better believe I'm going to see them. I cannot wait to see what they do for this third album. I know it will be awesome, and hopefully even better than their first two. I know it's hard to put a band in this conversation that has only released two records, but damn it, those records are incredible and these guys belong in our conversation. The future is bright for Run The Jewels.

These guys can become legends.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is currently try to form a supergroup of bad rapping rec center basketball stars. Join his team by following Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty's (first) Annual NFL Playoff Predicitions

Playoff football and chili. Must be January

The NFL playoffs start this weekend and I have given a preseason (NFC, AFC, and postseason) and a mid season report, now I want to give a playoff preview and prediction. Both my preseason and mid season picks were way off the mark, I'm looking at you Indianapolis and Green Bay. But, with the playoffs now set, I'd like to give it one more crack, maybe this time I'll do better.

This upcoming Saturday we get the AFC first round playoff matchups between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans and the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. Both these games should be decent, but I think it's pretty obvious who the winners will be. In the Chiefs-Texans game you have one team, the Chiefs, riding a 10 game winning streak. The Texans were in the AFC South, so 9 wins easily made them the division winners. The AFC South is a joke of a division and while the Texans have a pretty good defense, they have zero offense. They've used way too many quarterbacks this year that are all below average NFL starters. They have had no running game since Arian Foster went down for the season and save for Deandre Hopkins, they have no threats in the passing game. Hopkins is great, but if you can hold him to a 6 or 7 catch game, you can pretty easily beat Houston. The Chiefs aren't much better on offense, but they have way better playmakers. Alex Smith is a much better QB than anyone Houston will throw out there. They have struck gold with their backup running backs, Charcandarick West and Spencer Ware, after losing Jamaal Charles to a torn ACL. They also have a receiver that's almost as big a threat as Hopkins in Jeremy Maclin and they have a much better tight end in Travis Kelce. Oh, and there defense is just as good, if not better than the Texans. Sure, JJ Watt may get a couple of sacks, but what will Houston do with the ball on offense and will they be able to totally shut down the Chiefs? I don't think so. The only thing they have as an advantage is, they're playing at home, but that won't matter. Chiefs win by 10, with the final being 20-10. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati could have been a game, if not for the Andy Dalton injury. Cincinnati gets short changed every season. Sometimes it's their fault, other times, injuries derail this team. They have an okey running game with Giovanni Bernard and Jeremy Hill and they have one of the best receivers in the game in AJ Green, but that won't matter with AJ McCarron throwing and handing the ball off. The Bengals defense is top notch, but they have no one that will be able to slow Antonio Brown even a little bit. The Bengals line may stuff the run and even pressure Roethlisberger a bit, but he will still find Brown. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, has an elite offense clicking at the perfect time. They don't have their typical stout defense, but they can and will outscore opponents. I may not like the person, but Ben Roethlisberger is playing elite football right now. And, as I've mentioned before, he has Antonio Brown to throw the ball to. He also has Markus Wheaton, Heath Miller and Martavis Bryant to throw too as well. They lost LeVeon Bell earlier this year and DeAngelo Williams appears to have gotten injured in their finale, so that leaves the running game to Fitz Toussaint, former Michigan running back, but the Steelers don't need to run to win, In fact, I bet they run only 10 to 15 times the whole game. Steelers win in Cincy, crushing the Bengals playoff dreams in the first round once again, final score of 28-14. 

This Sunday we get the NFC first round matchups of Green Bay and Washington and Seattle and Minnesota. Both should be good, hard fought, close games. Green Bay travels to Washington to face the DC team on a roll right now. Whoever thought Kirk Cousins would be this good is a god damn liar. They have an okay run game, but they like to throw and they play some solid defense. Green Bay is a total enigma. They can never seem to get it going until it's too late, or they play to their ability and they blow out inferior opponents. Green Bay cannot protect Rodgers, their run game is non existent at times, but can also be great and their receivers can't get open, or if they do it's too late because Rodgers got sacked. Rodgers deserves a lot of the blame too for those sacks. Sometimes, when he does get good protection, he just holds on to the ball for way too long. Green Bay's defense is sub par at best. One week they totally shut a team down, the next, they give up big plays This is a total toss up, but I'll take Green Bay because of experience in big games. Washington's players haven't really been in big time playoff games and Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers have. Maybe I'm blinded by my fandom, but so be it. Green Bay wins 17-14. In the other game we get Minnesota and Seattle. Everyone and their mother is back on Seattle's bandwagon, but not me. I have to give credit to Bill Simmons for this, I was listening to his podcast this morning, and reminded me that the Seahawks just lost, only scoring 10 points at home to the Rams 2 weeks ago. Everyone wants to forget that because Russell Wilson has been putting up big numbers and their defense is playing better, but the Rams went to Seattle and owned them. The Vikings are a better version of the Rams. They have a better QB, receivers and a better, albeit a child abuser, running back. Their defense isn't as good as the Rams, but it's still good. The game is in Minnesota at noon as well. That means in Seattle, it's 10am. I know that doesn't sound like an advantage, but it is. I truly believe that Minnesota can replicate what the Rams did even better and I think they win this game. That would be great so everyone, including Chris Collinsworth, can shut the hell up about how great the Seahawks are. I'll take the Vikings in a very low scoring game, 14-10.

The following week we'd get the second round games in each conference. The four teams that had byes will all be in play and the big time games start happening. In the AFC the matchups will be Chiefs-Broncos and Steelers-Patriots. The Broncos will lose this game if they start Peyton Manning. Sure, he came in relief last week and they won, but it was their run game and their number one ranked defense that won, not Peyton Manning. Brock Osweiler deserves his shot. The Chiefs are good, as I mentioned above, but I cannot trust Andy Reid to win a big time playoff game on the road, I just can't. The Broncos have a stable of running backs, they have DeMaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders to throw to and they have the best defense in all of football. I don't see how they lose this game, unless they rely on Peyton Manning to make plays. He's a Hall of Famer, but he's done. Let your young QB start, rely on the run game and let your top of the line defense send you to the AFC title game. Broncos win 20-13. The Patriots-Steelers game will be interesting. Pittsburgh is elite offensively, but so is New England, if healthy. They have Gronk, Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and a rejuvenated Steven Jackson on offense. But, their O line is very bad and are Gronk, Edelman and Amendola really healthy. Also, Brady took a hit in the Miami game, so who knows if he'll be one hundred percent. Neither of these teams are great on defense, but the Patriots are better. That won't matter because no one can guard Antonio Brown. Sorry New England, but the Steelers will steal this game in Foxborough and head to the AFC title game. Final score, 35-30.

The NFC will feature Green Bay-Carolina and Minnesota-Arizona. Carolina is on fire right now. They're 15-1, they have the MVP in Cam Newton, they have decent and very tall receivers and they have a pretty great defense. They also control the clock with their elite run game. Green Bay is a sitting duck. They've already been beaten once by Carolina this year, one of two teams with a winning record that Carolina has beaten, and they have not learned a thing from that game. Green Bay's season will end and it won't be pretty. Cam Newton is playing fantastic football and they will grind this game out and walk away with an easy victory. Carolina wins 20-7. Arizona and Minnesota will also be a blow out. Arizona has a better defense, a better QB, an equally as good run game and much, much better receivers. Carson Palmer in the runner up MVP and playing some of the best football of his career. Larry Fitzgerald has morphed into the best blocking receiver and best slot guy in all of football. David Johnson has filled in quite nicely for Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington and their offensive line is the best in the NFL. Minnesota had a good run, but it ends in resounding fashion in Arizona. Cardinals win 35-10.

Now we are down to four teams. In the AFC championship we have Denver-Pittsburgh. One relies on offese, the other on defense. Denver has some great corners capable of shutting down Antonio Brown, but I feel like typical Broncos will show up and blow this game. They should win easily. They can rely on their run game to chew clock and keep Pittsburgh offense off the field, but John Elway, Gary Kubiak and Peyton Manning will try to win with Manning being the hero and it will back fire. This game will be close, but Pittsburgh will pull it out and win 27-20. Arizona and Carolina could be a close game, but it won't. Carolina will finally see up close and personal what a real NFL team looks like, with a real offense and a legit defense. They will shut Newton down, they will force them to pass and that will cause turnovers. On offense, Arizona will do whatever it wants. This will be a runaway for the Cardinals. Arizona wins 38-14.

So that leaves us with a Pittsburgh-Arizona rematch in Super Bowl 50. Arizona has the one corner, Patrick Peterson, that can actually give Brown some trouble. They also have an offense that will light up a weak Pittsburgh defense. This game also has the makings of a blowout. I think it will be close until midway through the third quarter and Arizona will run away with the game. Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald will finally get their rings and Bruce Arians will be recognized as one of the best coaches in the NFL. Cardinals roll to a Super Bowl win, final score 35-20.

I feel good about this one.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is working on a fifth alarm for his big game four alarm chili. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty is Not a Big Fan of Johnny Clipboard

Johnny's money will still come from daddy, just not from the NFL

Now that the NFL has finished it's regular season we are about to see a bunch of coaches get fired, players declaring for the draft, free agents signing elsewhere and players opting out or asking to be traded. One such player that will be asking for a trade, or will just be traded straight up, no questions asked, is Johnny Manziel.

Now, before I get going on a roll, it needs to be said that I'm not a Johnny Manziel fan. I really, really hate the player and the person. He's an entitled, snotty, frat boy douchebag that's never worked that hard for anything in his life. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he acts like it. Take the court side seats he had in Miami while he was still in college. I mean, come on, how much more of an asshole can you look like. It's not enough that you are getting your college paid for with your scholarship, but you get to sit courtside at Miami Heat games when they had Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh? That's unfair. First of all, I'm sure there are lifelong Heat fans that are much more deserving of those tickets. Secondly, don't flaunt it in this day and age of very prevalent social media, you know that people are going to roast you, such as I'm doing right now. It makes you look even more douchey than you already do.

Then, there's the antics while at Texas A&M. Sure, as a red shirt freshman, I found you a bit enjoyable to watch. You were exciting and you made games fun to watch, even for a person like me that thinks the SEC is wildly overrated. You deserved the Heisman that year, but that's when you became the supreme asshole that you are now. You got way too big for your britches. You thought you were some kind of superstar when you are not. Yes, you won the Heisman, but the competition for it that year was very light. Manti Teo was up for the award that year. Anyone else remember him?

During the offseason between freshman and sophomore year, you were spotted at many night clubs and bars partying way, way too hard for someone that's under age. I get it, young kids make stupid decisions, it happens to everyone, especially in college, but you are on the national radar. You have to make the right decision, not the fun decision. That's the price of being a high profile college football player. You did get suspended going into your sophomore year, but only for a half of the first game against a nobody opponent. Then, when you got in the game, you popped off at the mouth and kept doing that dumbass money gesture where you rubbed your fingers together. That's when my hatred reached a boiling point for you. I don't mind celebrating, go ahead and celebrate your accomplishment, but keep it to a minimum, don't make it all about you, involve your teammates. But, Manziel only celebrated himself. So much so, Kevin Sumlin pulled him out of the game because he kept getting personal foul penalties for excessive celebrations and taunting. That's childish.

During his sophomore year, Manziel was not the same player. He bought into the hype and played like he thought the other teams would lay down because "Johnny Football" was coming to town. Quite the opposite happened. Opponents wanted to crush him. Linebackers, safeties and the defensive line would gang tackle him and just hope that they'd get a blindside hit on him. Texas A&M finished his sophomore year with a whimper and he declared for the draft, to no one's surprise.

Then, there was talk that he would not only be a first round pick, but he could be the first overall pick of the draft. I couldn't believe my ears. Let's leave the fact that he's a selfish, self involved dick head out of it and just look at his ability. Yes, he's good enough to be a backup in the NFL, but no way is he a starter and no way is he the first overall pick. He abandons plays way too early, he relies on his legs way too much, he doesn't slide, he takes too many hits, he's wildly inaccurate and he's not interested in putting in the work to be a starting NFL quarterback. GM's and owners, for the most part, realized all of this and he dropped to the late first round, I think 21 or 22 overall to the sorry ass Cleveland Browns. I still couldn't believe he was a first round pick, but at least he was with a terrible team and I could go on irrationally hating this guy. What made it even better, he continued his partying ways and failed to do his job and was a backup behind Brian Hoyer his rookie season. There were national media guys, mainly Tony Kornheiser, saying he should start, but we all knew he wasn't a starting QB. He wasn't even good enough to beat out Brian Hoyer. When he did get a start, the Browns started hot, cooled off as they always do and Hoyer got hurt, so he was pushed into the starting role, he failed tremendously. He missed on his first four or five passes against the Bengals, his first completion was to a Bengal defender and he was sacked and hit repeatedly. It was exactly what I thought would happen.

After this game, he was relegated back to clipboard duty and that's when one of the greatest t shirts ever created came out. His nickname in college was "Johnny Football", still a god awful nickname, so some other haters of Manziel created the "Johnny Clipboard" t shirt of Manziel doing his money celebration, but he's holding a clipboard. It is genius.

He obviously didn't take this well and retreated to being an asshole alcoholic. He tried to get better last offseason, even going to rehab, but he still had his arrogant, asshole attitude. He threw a water bottle at a heckler during an open practice in Cleveland. I know that hecklers are the worst, but you have to carry yourself in a professional manner no matter what, especially in sports because there's always going to be people that hate you. He once again was a backup to start this season to Josh McCown. He hadn't done enough in the offseason to get the starting job and he was "Johnny Clipboard" once again. The Browns were the Browns all year, playing awful football and being covered by ESPN like a god damn super bowl contender.

Manziel got to start, again against the Bengals and while he played a teeny bit better, he still played with his legs more than his arm, over and under threw passes and complained all the way to a blowout at the hands of the Bengals again. He was covered like an All Pro, something I will never understand, and people thought he turned a corner, but they were all wrong. He was spotted partying again. A video surfaced of a drunken Manziel, he went to rehab I remind you, and then he tried to get people to cover it up. He lied to his employer but, did they fire him, no, they gave him his ten thousandth chance, something he didn't need or deserve. They should have cut him right then and there, but they didn't. They even let him start again.

Now, the night before the season finale, he missed curfew and was spotted at a casino in Las Vegas. How arrogant and childish is that?! You are a professional football player. You have one of the easiest, best jobs in the world. Show some god damn gratitude for the awesome lot in life you have.

Reports have come out the past couple of days saying that he wants out of Cleveland and they want to be rid of him too. Finally is all I have to say. I also read that he wants to play for Dallas. Please, please let this happen. I cannot think of anything better than Jerry Jones signing Johnny Manziel and the Cowboys being 2-14 for the next couple of seasons until they finally cut Manziel. It would be glorious.

Manziel is at a point in his career where he either needs to accept the fact that he's not a starter in the NFL or be relegated to playing in the CFL or any other "minor" league football. I don't even think he's good enough for the CFL, but that's me. This prick needs to grow up and realize that he's not the superstar that he thinks he is. He's a never was that will never be. He had his highest moments in college and he is a nothing player in the NFL. He's the equivalent of a freak show. People cover him because it's an easy story, not because of his playing ability. The love for Manziel needs to stop and stop now. He's a mediocre QB at best who only cares about himself and partying.

Johnny Manziel is a selfish asshole.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. His enjoys flashing the money sign to his kids when they ask for a new toy. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The SeedSing (half) Year in Idea Farming

We have a few ideas

Part of SeedSing's mission is to highlight the ideas and technology that will create a better future. We call this collection of essay's The Idea Farm. Contributors seek out and discuss these innovations on the pages of the website. What began as a few book reviews posted in the Politics/Society portion of SeedSing has grown into its own community. Join us as we highlight the (half) year in Idea Farming.

Kirk Aug started his posting career on SeedSing by taking a look at the unintentional benefits brought to us through piracy. He stayed in the world of computers and customization with a look at a future without an installed dedicated operating system on our computers. The use of one's electronic devices may one day allow us to communicate with anyone around the world. The pirates of yesterday have become the innovators of tomorrow.

How we conduct our day to day lives through technology is rapidly changing. Your car will soon not need your participation to get from point A to point B. The Microsoft Band and Android Wear watches started occupying space on our wrists long before Apple's offering. Even as we speak, unmanned drones are slowly filling our skies, confusing many of library patrons. The productivity of one's office is rapidly changing. Guest contributor Matthew Young highlighted many new technologies beneficial to the business world.  While there does not seem to be a lot of use for 3-D printing in the home, the technology is radically transforming the world of manufacturing. The technology innovations of today will be parts of our normal lives in the future.

The Idea Farm was not only about looking at future tech. Tina S asked us why we celebrate stupidity in our society. RD wanted to know if it is time we give up on the poisonous ideas of capitalism. Kirk wanted to give a proper name to the communicator he carries around to make calls and search the internet. The future is full of questions and uncertainty. Once we have worked our way through these questions, it is best to relax and mediate.

The Idea Farm was very interested in the food of the future. One of our most popular posts came from Kirk and asked us all what is real food. The rise of lab created nutrition may create a safe and guilt free hamburger. If the idea of eating something that looks and taste to natural turns you off, one could always take a sip of some Soylent. The farms of tomorrow are being cultivated in the lab.

The world we are creating is exciting and unknown. Electronics have moved away from the desktop and inhabited every aspect of our world. Hunger and global climate change can be reversed with some of the innovations surrounding nutrition. We have a lot to be hopeful for, and a lot to be anxious about. When the drones fill you with dread, go home and have a nice meditation session. It will all be ok.

RD Kulik (and the SeedSing contributors)

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Come join the conversation of tomorrow by writing for SeedSing today.

The SeedSing (half) Year in Pop Culture: The Top Five Sports Moments of 2015

Reenactment of the year in sports

Closing out my best of 2015 countdown I'll pick my top five sports moments of the year. Being a Cardinals, Thunder, Packer and Wolverines fan, it's been a struggle for the most part. Sure, they've all had good seasons, but they've suffered some tough loses and missed opportunities. My countdown is actually filed with sour grapes. Teams that I loathe lost games and series in spectacular fashion and it made me happy, the irrational side of me at least. On with the countdown.

At number five I have the most brutal Michigan football loss that I've ever seen. The list is sports moments that I will remember for the rest of my life, so some will be bad and this one takes the cake. I mean, Michigan had this win. It would've, at the time, put them in the conversation for the college football playoff. Harbaugh would've beaten MSU, who's bullied Michigan for the past five years. It was all coming up Michigan, then they muffed the punt. It was shocking. All they had to do was catch and kick the ball. Blake O'Neil, after muffing the snap, could've just fallen on the ball where he was and forced MSU to try a very long field goal on a windy afternoon. Harbaugh could've sent his offense out there and held the ball as long as possible and then chuck it in the air to run the clock out. There's a million other options, but the most unfortunate thing happened. This win got MSU in the playoff, where they promptly got their asses beat by Alabama last night. Without this game, MSU would be playing in the Citrus Bowl today and Michigan would've had a shot at the playoff or a New Year's six bowl. But that's not what happened. Also, the people that attacked Blake O'Neil on social media need to get a life. He's a kid that made a mistake in a game. Get over it. This was a very brutal, brutal game, but I will always be reminded of it, so it goes on the list.

At number four the sour grapes come into play. The Clippers collapse in the second round of the Western Conference playoff last year was a thing of beauty to watch since I'm such a big Clipper hater. They had this series wrapped up. They were up 3 games to 1 and held a 20 point lead in the second half of game five. Surely, they'd close it out and go on t the conference finals to get crushed by Golden State. But something magical happened. The Rockets made a furious comeback in the fourth quarter of game five, all while James Harden was on the bench, and won that game. Then, they crushed the Clippers in game 6 and then closed it out in game 7. I loved it. The Clippers were the Clippers once again. Chris Paul moped and griped at players and refs alike. DeAndre Jordan sat on the bench in crunch time because he can't shoot a free throw. Blake Griffin became the disappearing "superstar" that he is. He's a choker. JJ Redick was too busy fixing his hair and playing lackluster defense. And Doc Rivers was making terrible coaching decision after terrible coaching decision. What made me most happy was that stupid moron Steve Ballmer getting his comuppence. He had that stupid grin and wild activity on the sidelines all season and it annoyed the hell out of me. Almost nothing made me happier than seeing that stupid asshole have a frown affixed to his face in game 7. And now, the Clippers look worse than they did last season and I love it even more. Screw that team forever.

At number three I have the blazing hot start that the Golden State Warriors got off to at the start of this season. They won their first 24 games. That's unheard of. I'm not a Warriors fan, but to watch them play, when they're on fire, is almost as beautiful as watching the Spurs ball movement. Steph Curry raining threes at an extremely high rate, Klay Thompson playing lockdown defense, Draymond Green, inexplicably, being the best overall player on the best team and Andre Iguodala playing like an all star. Let us not forget about Harrison Barnes taking the next step towards super stardom. He's been excellent all year. They also did all this with Steve Kerr sidelined due to a back issue. Luke Walton has been the coach for them all season. This team is scary good and they look like they could win back to back titles. The Warriors became must watch TV for me this season and I already stated I'm not a fan. When they get on a tear, you cannot look away. What they did to start this season was magical and it will be talked about forever.

Number two is Malcolm Butler picking off Russell Wilson to end Super Bowl 50. This was a HUGE moment for football and sports fans everywhere. After Jeramine Kearse made that catch, the ball bouncing all over his body, never touching the ground, I thought that I'd have to suffer through another love fest for Jesus and the Seahawks. They were easily going to run the ball into the end zone with little to no time left and walk off the field with their second straight Super Bowl win and I'd have to hear all those players talk shit and their dumbass fans talk on social media. Then, after play faking to Marshawn Lynch, which already made my mind explode, then Wilson telegraphing his slant pass and Butler coming up with the pick, I mean, it was the most exciting three seconds I've witnessed during a football game. Now, I'm not a Patriots fan, but my hatred for the Seahawks completely outweighed my neutrality for the Patriots. Looking at the Seahawk sideline prior to the pick, seeing Richard Sherman smiling and joking with his teammates, hearing Russell Wilson talking about how it's god's will that they win, seeing Pete Carroll's shit eating grin, I was angry. But, right after the pick, I was elated. Sherman's smiles and laughter immediately turned to a frown and questions. Wilson walking to the sideline asking why his receiver didn't make a quick enough cut, because it's never his fault and Carroll not admitting he made a massive mistake was delightful. This team, for all the shit talking they do, one hundred percent deserved to lose this game the way they did and I'm glad it was a team like New England, whom every outside of Boston hates, beat them. It was glorious.

My number one moment occurred almost exactly one year ago, the start of 2015, when Michigan hired Jim Harbaugh as their new head coach. I didn't like the idea at first, he never stays at one job for more than four years and he works his players tirelessly, but what he did in year one made me a believer. I picked the Wolverines to go 7-5 and play in a lowly bowl game. The team came out rough against Utah, but a season opener on the road is always tough, and it was a close game all the way to the end. Michigan even had a chance to win. Then, they crushed Oregon State at home. After that, they went on a three game winning streak, not allowing a single point. That's what made me happy. Their offense was blah, but their defense was playing lights out. That's the Michigan I know and love. Sure, there was the MSU game I mentioned earlier and they got crushed by Ohio State and Indiana and Minnesota should have beaten them, but they found ways to win close, tough games. That wouldn't have happened under Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke. The team would've given up because that's what I saw for seven years. Harbaugh has brought back a sense of urgency and toughness to this team that has been lacking. I'm glad Michigan did everything they could to get him there and he's turned me into a supporter. I hope he sticks around for awhile because I believe he can do great things in the college game. College fits his coaching style perfectly. As I like to say, I'm proceeding with caution as to how good this team can be, but with Harbaugh aboard, I know they won't quit, they'll always fight to the last whistle.

There you have all of my best of 2015 countdowns. See you all next year when I get back to my regular writing schedule. Happy New Year everyone.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is looking forward to the good karma coming Michigan's way after their one disasterous play of 2015. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The SeedSing (half) year in Pop Culture: The Top Five Podcasts of 2015

Time to remember the mic's best guests

Continuing my week long best of 2015 countdown today I'll pick my top five podcast episodes of the year. I'm a very, very big fan of podcast, mostly comedy podcast. Comedy podcasts are very well represented in this countdown, but there's one pretty serious, not very comedic episode that tops my list. I could've easily done a top 25, 50 or even 100 for this topic, so paring it down to five was tough. Here it goes.

My number five podcast episode of 2015 was the return of "Go Bayside" when they critically deconstructed the "Saved By the Bell: Hawaiian Style" movie. By they I mean the excellent and very hilarious host, April Richardson and her equally as funny best friend, Millie De Chirico. I was so pleasantly surprised and happy when my podcast app showed me that there was a new "Go Bayside". I put time away to go on a hike so I would not be bothered while I listened. April Richardson took a long time off after she finished doing all the pertinent episodes of "Saved By the Bell", but she promised to return to do this movie and the one when Kelly and Zack get married. This episode made it well worth the wait. Richardson and De Chirico come out hot from the start, just chastising the racism in this movie. It was so funny. I loved how upset they both got t the fact that there was a principal's convention in the exact same spot of Hawaii that the students were vacationing in. They couldn't fathom a world that in all of Hawaii these people picked the same spot to vacation in. I couldn't agree more with them. They constantly bad mouthed Kelly's vacation boyfriend for being a creep and this actor totally deserved it, he was terrible. My favorite thing in the whole episode was how they kept going back to the piece of paper that the hotel lease was written on that was literally, a plain sheet of paper. They kept asking why this wasn't a more important document that they would keep in a special place and I found myself asking the same questions. It's baffling. This was such a great episode of my all time favorite podcast and I can't wait until April Richardson does the wedding of Zack and Kelly on what I assume will be the final episode ever of "Go Bayside".

Number four is the episode of "Doughboys" where they talk about In and Out Burger. "Doughboys" has been my new favorite podcast and this episode takes the cake. In most episodes, there's a back and forth between Mike Mitchell and Nick Wiger and the guest just chimes in with whomever they are friends with. It's all very funny, but this episode was bizarre in the best possible way. Their guest was Armen Weitzman. Comedy fans know who Weitzman is, and how weird he can be, but he was off the handles in this particular "Doughboys". He would go back and forth between talking about the food to talking straight nonsense. While I was listening, I was enthralled at how wacky this episode was becoming. Even Mitchell and Wiger seemed to be taken aback at where all this was going. They even stopped their bickering towards each other and let Weitzman go on some long, strange rants. The best part was Weitzman explaining why his basketball podcast with Mitchell never came to fruition. This was the most bizarre thing in a completely absurd episode. I loved every second and I've listened to it multiple times just to hear the craziness. Not every episode is like this one, but I'm glad they have this, because it's one for the ages.

Coming in at number three I have "The Bill Simmons Podcast" episode with Michael Rappaport. As we all know by now, Simmons was fired from ESPN, took a social media hiatus for a couple of months and finally announced he'd be returning with a podcast and a TV show soon. The podcast was first and his early episodes were with friends and former athletes. It was basically the same thing as the "B.S. Report". Then, he had Michael Rappaport on and it was magical. He talked about everything fro his love for Knicks basketball to Rocky's trainer being a ladies man. He professed his love for Knicks rookie Kristaps Porzingis, calling him the "Latvian Gangster". He also kept calling Latvia, Lativia. He added an "I" that didn't need to be there. He also pushed Simmons to say something bad about ESPN. I loved how he was all in his business trying to get Simmons to say anything about his firing and what led to it. Simmons didn't say anything on air, but I like to imagine he crushed ESPN off air. Rappaport was a great relief from all the Patriots, Red Sox and Celtics love that flooded the first month of Bill Simmons new podcast. He was lively, constantly cursing and just being himself. I loved it and I know most of his listeners did too. I can't wait for part two because there needs to be a part two.

My number two podcast episode was Comedy Bang Bang's fourth edition of "Farts and Procreation". This was bittersweet. Harris Wittels unfortunately overdosed and died the week before this episode came out. It was tragic and he has been greatly missed. He died way too young and had a horrible addiction problem. I didn't even know him and I miss him, so I can't even imagine what was going through Scott Aukerman's head when he did the intro. Well, his intro was an absolutely beautiful homage to his friend. He spoke of the good and the bad times they had and their close friendship. These two were very good friends. I'll admit, the intro brought me to tears. Then, they played their annual episode and it was as funny as one could've hoped for. Wittels, Chelsea Peretti and Adam Scott were as goofy and funny as they were on the previous three. Aukerman did his thing as the host, keeping the pace. Wittels did his classic "Harrison's Foam Corner" where he tells jokes that aren't ready for the stage yet and it was, once again, riotous. Peretti and Scott were great too. This was a great sendoff to the great career of Harris Wittels that was cut way too short. This is another episode I go back and listen to because it reminds me how truly talented Harris Wittels was. He was a great comedy writer nd he will be deeply missed.

And that brings us to my number one podcast episode of 2015, the "WTF with Marc Maron" episode where he interviewed President Barack Obama. This was a watermark moment in podcast history. I know that Obama was on other podcast, but not a comedian's podcast that thousands of hard core comedy fans listen to. This was a huge deal to me because I am an Obama supporter and I'm a Maron fan, so put those two together, I'm immediately on board. Maron did a great job with the interview, asking him all types of questions. Obama was even better, answering everything and telling more. He spoke of his father not really being around. He spoke of his love for his mom. He praised his wife. He talked about being a dad to teenage girls. He came off as a regular guy, not the President and I loved that. This was easily the best one hour of podcasting I listened to every year. And, I'm glad it was Maron that got the interview. He's gotten some big time people to be on his show, but he got the President and to people of my generation, this was great for us to hear this powerful man sound like an everyday guy. Maron and Obama did a great job with this episode. I mean, how could anything else be number one beside this episode.

So there you have my top five podcast episodes of 2015. Come back tomorrow where I wrap it up with my top five sports moments of 2015.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Next year his top five podcasts will all be ones he is a featured guest on. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik. 

The SeedSing (half) Year in Pop Culture: The Top Five Television Shows of 2015

Find the nob and change the channel

Day three of my best of 2015 countdown will be my top five shows pf the year. All the shows are in their second, third or fourth season except for one of them. The shows don't have to necessarily be shows that premiered this year. Sometimes the second or third season of a show is the best. Take the US version of "The Office". That show peaked in year four but they went on to make five more seasons. The majority of my countdown is all comedy shows. That's what I prefer. Sure, there's one show that could be considered a dramedy, but I'm a comedy fan. No "Mad Men", which I loathed this final season. I also don't watch any of the superhero one hour shows, be they on Netflix or basic cable. So, don't expect what the majority has put as their best of 2015. Comedy takes a certain taste and most publications writers don't have that taste. On with the countdown.

At number five I have "Better Call Saul", the dramedy of the group. I was very skeptical of this show when I first heard about it. I thought the writers of "Breaking Bad" did an excellent job of tying up the story of Saul Goodman, so why make a prequel type show for him? I began to get on board when I saw that Vince Gilligan and the majority of the "Breaking Bad" writers were hired to write the series. Then I watched and I couldn't look away from the TV. This was a show when it was on, I was focused. No cell phones or computers to look at, "Better Call Saul" needed my undivided attention. The show has many characters but make no mistake, this is Bob Oedenkirk's show, he's the star. And he does a damn fine job as the title character. We meet him as Jimmy McGill, his name before he became a "criminal" lawyer and he's a schlubby, down on his luck kind of guy. He lives in his brothers shadow, played excellently by Michael McKean. His brother has a melt down and won't leave the house, so Jimmy tries to take up the slack. There's a ton of great episodes in the first season. Jimmy becomes a lawyer for the elderly, he gets some skateboarders involved in a hit and run scam and he even helps a family launder thousands of dollars. You can see early on that he is a shady person. The best episode, by far, of the first season was when we get Mike Ehrmantraut(Johnathan Banks) back story. We all remember Mike from "Breaking Bad" and this episode lets us see why he does what he does on both shows. It's an incredibly moving and powerful episode. It's one of the finest 44 minutes TV has had on in quite a while. "Better Call Saul" goes into season two in February and if it's half as good as season one, we will have a mega hit on our hands.

My number four show is "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp". This show was perfect in every sense. I love that all the original actors from the cult hit "Wet Hot American Summer" recreate their roles. They've all aged the 10 or so years since the movie, but they're actually playing younger versions in this series. The fact that it was on Netflix was awesome because I watched the whole thing in one day. I loved this show. I also like that they brought in new actors like Kristin Wiig, Chris Pine, Jordan Peele and Jason Schwatzman. They were all great. Jon Benjamin as the camp counselor that becomes the can of talking vegetables was hilarious. This show was great in every possible way. Paul Rudd shines once again and Michael Showalter was just as hilarious. My favorite episode was when Elizabeth Banks, who's a reporter at a magazine, poses as a teenager to get a story on how real teenagers act. All she has to do to look like a teenager you ask, pull her hair into a side ponytail. Hilarious. I hope they do more episodes because this show was just what the fans of the movie needed.

My number three show is "Last Man on Earth". When we left the first season, Phil(Will Forte) and Carol(Kristin Schaal) were on the move from Tucson. We picked up this season with them trying to find a new place to live. Nothing was as good as Tucson so they went back to find it completely abandoned. We come to find out that every else moved to Malibu. When Phil and Carol end up in Malibu, that's when all the hilarity starts. First of all, we get a cameo from Will Ferrell. He doesn't say one word and is spooked to death by Carol, literally. Everything else that ensues is great. Phil, who is now going by his original name, Tandy, is put in stocks and has an electric dog collar on until they find it fit for him to live with everyone again. Carol is her usual upbeat self, even when the worst things are going on around them. Todd(Mel Rodriguez) and Melissa(January Jones) break up. The other Phil(Boris Kodjoe) professes his undying love for Carol, but finds out he's impregnated Erica(Cleopatra Coleman). And Gail(Mary Steenburgen) is deeply distraught by the fact that her lover, Ferrell, was scared to death. There's a lot going on this season and the season finale was very heavy, but this show was pretty damn funny all season long.

My number two show is "Review". This show is the weirdest, most innovative thing I've seen on TV ever. Andy Daly plays Forrest McNeil, a guy that reviews everyday life. Not movies or TV or music, just life situations much to his and the people he loves demise. This season saw him start a cult and lose the cult to his girlfriend. The girlfriend he got in an earlier episode was from a review that was to sleep with a teacher. He gets his first girlfriend locked up for stealing pills from a hospital on the first episode of the season. He now lives with his dad and he got both his dad's home and summer home destroyed this season. He also tries to get the perfect body, but becomes addicted to steroids. Everything is so hilariously messy and the best episode was when he had to review, "killing someone". He doesn't want to, obviously, but he accidentally kills a man that he was in a fight with earlier in the episode. This leads to him going to jail and reviewing life experiences from jail. He says that the producers of the show are not who he thinks they are and that they want him to struggle and lose everyone he loves. He even has a chance to get back together with his ex wife, but that blows up in his face as well. "Review" is an excellent show and I love that Andy Daly finally has a project that suits his comedy to perfection.

Coming in at number one is "Nathan For You". What else is there to say about this show that I haven't already said. He's made man caves in women's clothing shops, he's walked a tight rope to make someone else famous, he made a play that was literally just people sitting at a bar smoking cigarettes and talking about absolutely nothing. He did so many crazy things this season. The best for me was the outerwear that supported Holocaust history and the fitness craze, The Movement, that he started. The Holocaust thing was absurd, upsetting and hilarious. The setup he had, with a rabbi's blessing, in that store was downright appalling, but he found a way to make it funny. He's also earned over 300,000 dollars for Holocaust awareness due to his new line of jackets and hats. The fitness craze episode was just bizarre. He convinced a body builder type guy to be the spokes person for losing weight and gaining muscle by only lifting and moving boxes. The episode as a whole is one of the most cringe worthy, yet laugh out loud funny things on TV all year. I'm currently reading the book that a ghost writer wrote, who Nathan Fielder hired off of Craigslist, wrote in two days. "Nathan For You" is by far the best show on TV and I cannot wait to see how he tops himself in season four.

So there you have my top five TV shows of the year. Come back tomorrow for the best podcast episodes, in my opinion, for 2015.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is building muscle mass by moving Christmas presents from one house to another. Learn all about his secret by following Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The SeedSing (half) Year in Pop Culture: The Top Five Albums of 2015

These are the records to put on

Day two of my Best of 2015 countdown will be my top five albums of the year. I'm a huge music fan and there has been a decent amount of music put out this year. Bands and musicians like Sleater-Kinney, Earl Sweatshirt, Thundercat, Kurt Vile and Father John Misty all put out excellent records. I've also been introduced to some older bands and albums from years past this year. For example, I love both Run The Jewels albums. Shit, I was this close to putting them on this countdown because they're so good and I just recently started listening to them. I also recently got way into AC/DC. Their older stuff is excellent rock and roll music, but it wouldn't be fair to put them in this countdown. I picked five albums that were released this year. They are my five favorites and the ones I go back to the most. They're all fairly popular, but that doesn't make the music any less listenable. On with the countdown.

At number five I have a band that I was just introduced to five days ago, but I can't stop listening to their record. The band is Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats and the album is self titled. This album is great. It hearkens back to the good old days of early alternative soul music. I was introduced to this band while listening to the Sklar Brothers music podcast and the guy that was talking about them gave the perfect comparison. He said that Rateliff sounds like Van Morrison and the band is like the studio bands for soul music in the 60's and 70's. I couldn't agree more. This album is good from top to bottom. Rateliff has that Morrison/old soul gruff voice and the band is tight. The highlight of the record for me is the song, "Howling at Nothing". It has everything you could want in this style of music. Great vocals, great background music and a kick ass guitar solo. This record is excellent.

Coming in at number four I have what every other publication has at number one, Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly". Oh my god, this album is so complex and so awesome. It's a total detour from his record last year, "good kid, M.A.A.D. city", but that's oaky. The funny thing about this record, I didn't care for it the first time I heard it, but on the second, third, fourth and so on and so forth listen, I grew to love this album. It's so god damn good. Lamar is a beast. He has taken over the throne as the best rapper out there right now. He is the best writer and his delivery is top notch. This is more an art piece than a rap album. Lamar pays tributes to the people that influenced him and the last track where he reads a letter to Tupac and has Tupac responding is chilling. I love this album. I'm a big rap fan and the things that Kendrick Lamar does on "TPABF" is light years ahead of any rapper out there right now. He's so much better than Drake or Kanye West, it's funny that they're mentioned in the same sentence as him. I cannot wait to see what he will do next.

My number three album is "Yours Dreamily" by The Arcs. I've heard some hipsters complain that this album is no good or complain that Dan Auerbach needs to stop doing side projects, but why not work with some good musicians and do some different, interesting things. Sure, it sounds a bit Black Keysish, but most stuff will if Auerbach is the lead singer. I think "Yours Dreamily" is better than any indie rock or alternative album that was put out this year, with one exception that I will get to at number two. The album spans many different genres of music and I like to hear what Auerbach can do with a full band. When I wrote about this album earlier this year, I said it was like a western movie soundtrack, but in the best way possible. Upon further listens, I still feel the same way, but I also think it's just a downright awesome rock album. Songs like "Velvet Ditch" or "Outta My Mind" are awesome rock/blues songs with Auerbach crushing on vocals and guitar. Auerbach can do no wrong musically. The best track on this album is "Stay in My Corner". There's a different singer, but the song is sweet, rock and roll and blues all mixed into one song. The vocals are great, the music is great and the chorus is memorable. This will be a wedding song for the hipsters that like this band for many years to come. "Yours Dreamily" is a great record, don't listen to the music snobs out there saying that it's not so good, they're wrong.

My number two record is the one alternative record I like more than "Yours Dreamily". That album is "Sound and Color" by the Alabama Shakes. I mean come on, how did they top their debut record, "Boys and Girls" so easily? "Boys and Girls" was a revelation to me, "Sound and Color" has the makings of a classic album. This is a record that I feel my kids will play for their kids. Alabama Shakes could've easily stayed in their little indie corner and make more swamp records and been very successful, but they took a huge chance by playing poppy prog rock and they hit a grand slam. This album is so different from their debut and I love that. "Sound and Color" proved that they were willing to take huge chances and showed a lot of diversity. This is the type of album you put on and listen all the way through without skipping one song. The highlights for me are "Sound and Color", "Future People" and "Dunes". "Sound and Color" is a super trippy, slow burning tune that works perfectly. You may have heard it on the most recent Apple Mac Air commercials. The marimba and Brittany Howards vocals are hauntingly beautiful. "Dunes" is another slow song with flat out awesome music in the back ground. Howard, once again, crushes the vocals as well. "Future People" is the high light of this phenomenal album. It's slow, it's heavy and it builds to be the perfect rock song. The guitar effect used during the chorus is one of the coolest things I've ever heard. "Sound and Color" is so good, Alabama Shakes is now one of the best and most talked about rock bands of the 21st century. Best alternative rock record of the year by far.

My number one album of 2015 is Leon Bridges "Coming Home". I've been on the Leon Bridges bandwagon for about nine months now. I've written about him twice on the website and my first blog on him was about a YouTube video I saw of him before he released his debut album. This album is so wonderful. It brings 60's soul and R&B into the 21st century. Bridges vocals are perfect for this style of music. His background band reminds me of the ladies that sang with guys like Rufus Thomas, Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes. The band plays and records on retro equipment. I mean, this is the coolest thing I've heard in quite some time. The fact that Bridges is only 25 years old makes this album all that more impressive. He is going to be a humongous star if he continues on this path. "Coming Home" is the best 30 minute album I've ever listened to. Songs like "Brown Skinned Girl" and "Better Man" sound like Stax Records re opened their doors and let him record there. Those songs are timeless. My favorite track on the record is "River". It's a quiet song that just builds and builds to a beautiful ending that has Bridges softly and smoothly singing the final lyrics. I love his voice and his band and everything about this album. "Coming Home" is far and away the best record I heard in all of 2015 and it was the first of my top five that I listened to. It's stayed with me all this time, that's how awesome it is.

So, there you have my top five albums of the year. Tell me why I'm right or wrong in the comment section and let me know what I left out. Come back tomorrow for my top five TV shows of the year.

Also, RIP Lemmy Kilmister, you were a guitar god and you will be greatly missed.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. Next year he is planning on getting into the BeeGees and Black Flag. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The SeedSing (half) Year in Pop Culture: The Top Five Movies of 2015

Time to fire up the projector

Being that the new year is coming up on Friday, I'll be doing my best of 2015 all week. Today, I'm going to start the week off with my top five movies of the year. Everyday I'll do a different top five and today I want to start with movies.

I see a lot of movies. Some I see in the theaters and others, I watch at home. I love movies and this has been a pretty good year for movies. So good in fact, movies like "Inside Out" and "Me and Earl and The Dying Girl" and "The Wolfpack" didn't make my top five and I really, really liked those movies quite a bit. So, on with the countdown.

Coming in at number five, we have a tie. My number five movies are "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Kingsman: The Secret Service". These are both blockbustery type movies, "Avengers" way more so. "Avengers" was fantastic. Go back and read my review. This was an absolutely breath taking super hero movie. There was action, adventure and even a bit of a love story. We also got Hawkeye's back story, and that made me like a character I once never really cared for. My favorite scene was when the Avengers were fighting Ultron and his army of robots and everything was in slow motion and we got to see each hero fight in super slow motion, it was excellent. "Avengers" Age of Ultron" is one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. "Kingsman", on the other hand, was a gory, action heavy, hand to hand and weaponry combat movie for the ages. This movie was criminally under the radar. I heard almost nothing about it while it was in the theaters and I didn't watch it on DVD for about five months. But, I'm so glad that I took the time to watch because this movie was incredible. My review was put up fairly recently. I loved pretty much everything about this movie. The opening fight scene with Colin Firth and the bar patrons was phenomenal. The fight scene in the church, once again featuring Firth, was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long, long time. The tests given to the future Kingsman were heart racing and incredible to watch. The main character, Eggsy, was expertly played. Samuel L Jackson was excellent as the villain. "Kingsman: The Secret Service" is the perfect summer action movie. Go check it out if you haven't seen it and I promise you, you'll love it.

My number four movie is "The End of the Tour". This is one of the most quiet, yet most poignant movies I've seen. Jesse Einsenberg is great as Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky. He plays the jealous, yet enthralled writer perfectly. I cannot picture anyone else in this role. Jason Segel, as David Foster Wallace, is absolutely phenomenal. He plays Wallace so realistically, it's almost like watching a documentary. He shows vulnerability, anger, sadness and genius all very, very expertly. He one hundred percent deserves an Oscar nomination for this role. This movie is basically just these two talking for two hours, but it never seems boring or dull. I was into the story and the movie the whole time. "The End of the Tour" is great.

Coming in at number three, I have "Ex Machina". This movie was so creepy and eerie because something like this could very well happen in the very near future. I mean, honestly, how far away are we from having robots walking amongst us? It's going to happen. Some rich, eccentric genius is going to create a humanoid robot and it will only grow bigger and bigger from there. Oscar Issac plays that eccentric genius billionaire so well. He is every bit creepy as he is lonely in this movie. He has his own lush home in the woods and he invites an employee, played by Domhnall Gleeson, to come out for what seems to be a vacation. It couldn't be more different. He is thrown into a type of lab project to see how he interacts with a female robot played so well by Alicia Vikander. This is another movie small in structure, but huge in story. As I said, something like this is going to happen very soon and this movie made me terrified for that future. It was haunting and terrifying and I'm not looking forward to the robots taking over. The final scene, I won't spoil it, was one of the scariest things I've seen in a movie in a very long time. It still aunts me. "Ex Machina" was the best horror movie of 2015, even though it's categorized as science fiction.

My number two movie is "What We Do in the Shadows". This was the funniest movie of the year by far. "WWDITS" follows the lives of vampires living together in a flat in New Zealand. Being that it was made by Taika Waititi, one of the "Flight of the Conchords" primary directors, it was so funny. It was done mockumentary style and it was perfect. Jermaine Clement, playing Vlad the Poker, was so great. A once powerful vampire, he now was not so powerful after his break up with "The Beast". He was excellent in this movie. Taika Waititi played Viago, the pretty boy vampire, and he was great as well. He was worried about keeping the flat clean and he longed for his lost love that was now in her mid to late 80's. The scene where he lays paper down to keep the blood of a victim off the couch, then hits a vein and bloods spills everywhere, is hilarious. The star of this movie, to me, was Johnny Brugh who plays Deacon. Deacon was a German vampire during the reign of the Nazis and he fled to New Zealand after stating, "if you are a Nazi, people hate you. If you're a vampire, people hate you. If you're a Nazi vampire, forget about it. I had to get out of there and flee to someplace safe". His character had me in stiches the whole movie. "WWDITS" is the best comedy of the year by far.

My number one movie should come as no surprise to anyone, "Mad Max: Fury Road". What else is there to say about this movie that hasn't been said already? It's the best action movie ever. It has the best social commentary. It lets a female be the lead badass. It has the best imagery in a movie in about 30 years. I mean, this movie is perfect from start to finish. Tom Hardy is excellent as Max. He's just as understated and hard core as Mel Gibson was in the original "Mad Max". Hugh Keys-Byrne was so creepy and so good as the ultimate bad guy, Immortan Joe. His breathing apparatus he wore still scares me when I watch the movie. Nicolas Hoult, playing war boy Nux, was surprisingly badass and totally cool. All the young ladies that played Joe's wives were awesome for many different reasons. But, Charlize Theron as Furiosa was absolutely phenomenal. She was the biggest badass, the toughest fighter and the smartest person in the whole movie. She was so great. Much like Segel for "The End of the Tour", Theron one hundred percent deserves not only an Oscar nomination, but she deserves to win. She was so perfect in this role. She beat so much ass and won at the end of the day. Theron was incredible. "Mad Max; Fury Road" is not only the best movie of 2015, it's probably the best movie I've ever seen. It's that good.

So, there you have it, my top five movies of 2015. Tell me what I left out in the comment section and come back tomorrow for my top five albums of the year.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is lover of movies and a passionate lover of good movies. Feel Ty's love by following him on twitter @tykulik. 

The SeedSing (half) year in Politics and Society

What is the opposite of progress?

SeedSing was launched on May 1st (National Workers Day) so we could look at politics and pop culture from the common person. We are not interested in influence or telling stories that will protect the egos of the well connected. What started out as one man's personal political philosophy has grown into a discussion covering a variety of topics. Join us for a look back at the year in politics and society.

The first article posted on our Politics/Society section was about The Ohio Problem. Every presidential election states like Ohio become very important to the national Democratic Party. Out of state consultants are brought in to fund raise and create a massive voter outreach program for the presidential nominee. In their effort to secure the state, the Democratic Party forgets about the local candidates. The lack of voter turnout during non-presidential elections is a direct consequence of the Ohio problem. There was another election in November of 2015, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky saw the election of a Tea Party zealot for Governor, large in part because voter turnout was so low. This is directly related to the Republican Party taking over the majority of local offices in many blue states. We identified the The Ohio Problem, and then tried to find out how to solve this issue. Technology and an emphasis on local messaging are two solutions we put forward. In 2016 SeedSing is looking forward to many other solution oriented ideas on how to fix a problem like Ohio.

The how and why of the modern Republican Party was featured many times on SeedSing. The hypocrisy, lack of global leadership, the need to be hateful, the absence of vision, and the celebration of failure, were all on display for the Republican Party this year. The only glimmer of hope in their dreary future seems to be Senator Rand Paul, but the Republican Party does not seem to care about a candidate who can grow the parties voter base. The parties faithful base would rather rally behind a loudmouthed bigot idiot that has never heard of Muhammad Ali or Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

The traditional press and the original internet taste makers were beginning to show their incompetence in 2015. The rise of Donald Trump is upon us because the news people on television love to have a good story. It is time to ignore the press before they really bring disaster to our society. The old icons of the internet were not behaving any better than their television counterparts. Reddit and Gawker may be letting out their final breaths. At SeedSing we believe it is time for the old walled ways of the internet to die, and it is time to make way for a new open discussion.

How we live and the way we define people became a topic of discussion all over the internet. Tina S shared her views on what #ILookLikeAnEngineer really means. The saga of Rachel Dolezal briefly made us talk about how we identify race. Kirk Aug recommended books on  the failure that is the war on drugs, and the policy side of death. We took a look at the legalization of marijuana, and it's eventual failure at the Ohio ballot box.  Who we are and how we live will determine the type of society we will die in.

Gun violence became a larger problem with a solution falling farther away. Guns were used as tools of destruction for a racist. Guns were used to kill two people trying to do their jobs. Guns were used to cause terror at rural community college. Guns were used by crazy people to insight terror in Paris. Predictable we decided to fight this terror with more destruction. Each event was covered by the news, and as a society we tried to find meaning. The public was never able to discuss the gun as being part of the problem, and the violence continues. 

We had many challenging discussions at SeedSing about the state of our politics and our society. 2016 looks to be an even more exciting year. We have a Presidential election to look forward to. Will Hillary win it all (probably)? Have something to say about the state of politics and society? Come join our conversation.

Thank you for 2015. On to 2016

RD Kulik (and all the SeedSing contributors)

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Do you love SeedSing, but do not want to write? Money is always welcome around here.

SeedSing's Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Music: Day 24 - Snoopy's Christmas

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a new awesome holiday song for every day of Advent. This is the greatest music of the season. Enjoy.

Day 24: Snoopy's Christmas by The Royal Guardsman

Opened doors: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

 Eleven Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen,Sixteen,Seventeen,Eighteen,

Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty One, Twenty Two, Twenty Three

The Christmas season can feel like a battle. There are large crowds and everyone seems to have their own agenda. People are constantly fighting each other for parking, space in line, and the hot holiday gift. We move through the malls and hardly acknowledge one another. On Christmas Eve, the holiday season reaches its peak while everyone rushes past one another to complete their individual goals. Christmas Eve is the final struggle we face on the battlefield of the holiday season.

"Snoopy's Christmas" is the 1967 follow up to The Royal Guardsman hit "Snoopy vs The Red Baron". The band made their name by incorporating in their songs the Peanuts character of Snoopy, and his exploits of aerial dog fighting against The Red Baron. "Snoopy's Christmas" reads like a classic tale from Charles Schultz's Peanuts comic strips. The Red Baron is terrorizing the skies, and Snoopy with his trusty Sopwith Camel (his doghouse) must engage in  battle high in the sky. While Snoopy valiantly tries to defeat the German ace, disaster strikes. The Red Baron shoots down the pup in German territory. Snoopy lands and believes that the end is here, then suddenly the bells ring out over the countryside marking the beginning of Christmas. Being inspired by the spirit of the season, the Red Baron offers Snoopy a drink and wishes him a Merry Christmas. The brotherhood of Christmas Day causes the foes to befriend, and they then go on their separate ways. Christmas Eve saw bloodshed, Christmas Day is about peace.

The exciting tale being told in "Snoopy's Christmas" is based on a true event, the 1914 Christmas Truce of World War I. British and German troops were shelling each other on December 24th, suddenly the firing stopped when both sides heard the bells from the countryside ring out for the beginning of Christmas Day. The Germans invited the British troops to cross no man's land and have a peaceful celebration. The enemies shared food and drink, showed pictures of their families, and even played games together. The magic of Christmas stopped sworn enemies from killing each other. The feeling of brotherhood trumps the anger of war. It is a magnificent piece of human history.

Christmas Eve can be a tough day. Many people are frantically trying to get that last must have gift. We have no time to be kind and courteous to our fellow man. If you are not relentless, you will lose the battle of the Christmas Season. Once midnight hits and the bells of the village rings out for Christmas Day, a new feeling takes hold. Our disagreements on religion, geopolitics, and philosophy take a day off. Christmas makes us one family. Enjoy your holiday, and thank you for your eyes this Advent Season. As the Red Baron would say, "Merry Christmas my Friend".

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. No matter who you are, or what you believe, the bells at midnight will make you the editor's new friend. Join our circle of joy by liking SeedSing on Facebook.  

SeedSing's Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Music: Day 23 - Christmas in Hollis

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a new awesome holiday song for every day of Advent. This is the greatest music of the season. Enjoy.

Day 23: Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC

Opened doors: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

 Eleven Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen,Sixteen,Seventeen,Eighteen,

Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty One, Twenty Two

For SeedSing's Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday music, I'm going to talk about the phenomenal "Christmas Time in Hollis" by the great RUN DMC. This song is one of the greatest holiday songs of all time. I've mentioned many times before that I don't care for holiday music, but this tune and "Christmas Time at My House" are the two exceptions.

"Christmas Time In Hollis" is a rap song about the holiday. This could only be done by RUN DMC. They're the only straight forward rap group that could pull off a holiday song. Do you think Eminem or Wu Tang Clan or Tribe Called Quest could really pull off a holiday song? I love all those people, but no way. This was one of the first holiday songs I heard that I wanted to hear over and over again. The beat is classic RUN DMC. It's repetitive and thumping and just downright awesome.

I love the way it starts out. The opening lyrics give you the date and the place, then they say, "When I see a man chillin with his dog in the dark". So, they think they just see an old haggard man walking a dog, but then, "I approached them very slowly with my heart full of fear. Looked at his dog, oh my god, a illin reindeer". It may sound corny, but when they rap these words, I'm in. They've grabbed my attention and I'm fully on board for what RUN DMC is going to tell me throughout the entirety of the song. They go on to say, "But then I was chillin because the man had a beard and a bag full of cookies, 12 o'clock had neared". They realize that it's Santa. This is not only a perfect song for rap enthusiasts, but for kids too because they keep the myth alive that Santa is a real person. I love it. Then they turn their heads and Santa is gone, off to do his work since it was midnight, making it Christmas day technically. I also love that they check out his wallet, because he dropped it, and they find a million dollars in it. I didn't know Santa rolled like that. He's a baller. Being the good people that they are, RUN DMC doesn't steal the money from Santa, they mail it back to him that night. What a bunch of saints. But when they get home, they realize the wallet and the money was a present for them from Santa, he left it there purposefully. The boys were bummed, but they'd soldier on.

Then the greatest chorus in holiday music history is spoken, "It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens, mama's cooking chicken and collard greens. Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese and Santa putting gifts under Christmas trees". Poetic. This is the coolest chorus in, not only holiday, but all of music history. I love the rhyming structure and the ferocity that they deliver it with. This chorus has been in my life so long, when playing one of the first iterations of Madden on PlayStation One, the Jaguars had a kicker named Mike Hollis and my brother and I would sing the chorus after every extra point and kick off. I still hum this chorus in my head all year long. I absolutely love it.

In the second verse, they talk about decorating the tree and the house with the excellent line, "snow's on the ground, snow white snow bright". RUN DMC are lyrical geniuses. It seems simple, but it's complex and fantastic. Then they say, "The rhymes you hear are the rhymes of Darryl's, but each and every year, we bust Christmas carols". I love that they don't have to be hard core, or gangster. They are rappers that like holiday music, how cool is that. They almost make me like holiday music. If only every holiday song could be like "Christmas Time in Hollis". I like how upbeat they are throughout the song. Lines like, "Jack Frost chillin, the hawk is out and that's what Christmas is all about", or, "The time is now, the place is here and the whole wide world is filled with cheer". It's so great. They're the happiest rappers in the world. They work clean too, so, like I said before, I can listen to this song with my three year old and not worry about any swear words.

They close out the song with some of the best lyrics in rap history. The final verse goes as follows, "My name's DMC with the mic in my hand and I'm chillin and coolin just like a snowman. So open your eyes, lend us an ear, we want to Merry Christmas and a happy new year!". It's so upbeat! I can't get enough of it. I love this song, but the chorus is the greatest part by far. As I said before, I still hum it year round and my son even gets involved now. RUN DMC can do no wrong, so no wonder I enjoy their one and only holiday song. This song is great and everyone should go listen to it now and enjoy all the merriment. It's not only a great holiday song, it's just a great song.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. It is not Christmas in his house until he gets a nice helping of chicken and collard greens. Wish Ty a merry Christmas by following him on twitter @tykulik

Happy Retirement to Charles Woodson, the Greatest Player Ever

It is an honor calling Charles Woodson a Wolverine

Yesterday Charles Woodson announced that he's retiring at the end of this season. Woodson has been in the NFL for 18 years. I wrote last week about him, comparing his and Peyton Manning's careers. Today, I'm going to heap praises solely on Charles Woodson and what has been an illustrious career.

First and foremost, Charles Woodson is my all time favorite football player. He's passed Barry Sanders within the past five years. Woodson is the man. Let's start all the way back at his late high school career. He was an all world recruit coming out of Ohio. Everybody wanted him to come play football at their school. Some wanted him to play running back, where he also excelled, but a select few wanted him to play corner back or safety. One such school was the University of Michigan. In what has been one of their best recruiting signings, they signed Charles Woodson in 1995. His first two years at Michigan were stellar for him, but the team was finishing 8-4 or 9-3. They were good, but not as good as they could be. During his freshman year at Michigan, Woodson saw the field quite a bit as a cornerback and in their nickel coverage. He was great. He won Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He was an All Big Ten performer and led the team with five interceptions and eight total takeaways. Pretty great freshman season. During his sophomore year, he was the man in the secondary. He set a then record with 15 pass breakups. He was named the Chevrolet Defensive Player of the Year and was named an AP first team All American. He was a finalist for the Jim Thorpe award, given to the top defensive back in college football. He also garnered first team all Big Ten honors. A star was born.

During his junior year, Woodson blew up. He was the leader and the best player on one of Michigan's all time great defenses. He also expanded his game to punt and kick returns and played some receiver. Michigan opened the season as a top 20 team, I think they were preseason number 19, but we all know how that season ended. Michigan played suffocating defense, they had a great running game and Brian Griese and Tai Streets dominated in their passing offense. Michigan defeated Washington State in the 1997 Rose Bowl and won the National Championship. I will not say co champs because Missouri beat Nebraska, although the past scores will say different. Michigan played a tougher schedule and beat a tougher opponent in their bowl game. Prior to their Rose Bowl win, Charles Woodson won the Heisman trophy. He beat out Ryan Leaf, Randy Moss and Peyton Manning. This was unheard of at the time. He was, and still is, the only primary defensive player to win the Heisman. Sure, he had some great moments as a receiver and his punt return against Ohio State is one for the ages, but he was such a lock down cornerback, the voters thought that was sufficient enough to give him the Heisman. He lived up to the award in the Rose Bowl, intercepting Ryan Leaf in the end zone to secure the national title for Michigan. Also, go back and look at the pick he had against Michigan State earlier that season, best interception I've ever seen.

Woodson left for the NFL after his junior year and was the fourth overall pick in the 1997 draft by the Oakland Raiders. His first run with the Raiders lasted from 1998-2005. He was exceptional from the start. He won the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award. He started every game and led the team in tackles from a defensive back. He was third in the league with five interceptions, returned one for a touchdown and forced a fumble. He was selected to the Pro Bowl and was named an All Pro by the Associated Press. Much more of the same accolades and production from Woodson for the next couple of seasons. In 2003, after getting over a shoulder injury, he started every game for a Raiders team that made the Super Bowl. He had an interception in a losing effort against the Buccaneers. Previous to this Super Bowl, Woodson was involved in one of the most controversial calls in playoff history. Woodson appeared to strip sack Tom Brady and the Raiders looked like they would make another Super Bowl by beating the Patriots, but that's when the "tuck rule" was created. The officials said that Brady was bringing the ball back in, so they called it an incomplete forward pass, instead of a fumble, and the Patriots kicked a chip shot field goal and went on to the Super Bowl and won. Woodson caused that fumble, I will go to my grave believing that. Later in his Oakland career, they hired the god awful Bill Callahan and he and Woodson did not get along. His contract was up at the end of the 2005 season and he signed with the Green Bay Packers. He was revitalized, although he didn't need any revitalization. He was with the Packers from 2006-2012. His first year with the Packers Woodson led the league with 8 interceptions. He also got back to retuning punts and did a fine job, averaging almost 10 yards per return. In 2008, after putting up stellar numbers once again, Woodson was named to his fifth pro bowl team, first while with the Packers. For his fantastic 2009 season, Woodson was named the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year. His stats improved every year with the Packers and he was a much better player there than with Oakland, and he was great in Oakland. In 2011, Woodson was lock down all the way through the season and playoffs, helping the Packers reach the Super Bowl. He hurt his shoulder in the first half of the game, but was integral to the Packers winning that Super Bowl. He had tremendous season and was capped off with a Super Bowl ring. In 2013 Woodson retuned to Oakland. He wanted to end his career were it started. The Raiders were not very good, but he has helped turned that team into a viable NFL defense and they are on the verge of their first .500 season since Woodson was last there.

Charles Woodson announced yesterday that he will hang it up at the end of the year, and I truly believe that he is the greatest defensive football player of all time. Look at all the accolades. Heisman trophy and national title and multiple all American nods in college. In the pros, He's won a Super Bowl, the Defensive Player of the Year, 8 pro bowls, Rookie of the year and a member of the all decade team in 2000. He's a stud. He is the GOAT and he does it all with class and grace. No showboating and trash talking. He has let his play do his talking for him. Thank you for all the many, many productive years of football that you've provided me over the past 21 years. You are a sure fire Hall of Famer and you are the greatest defensive football player to ever step on a field.

Thank you again and enjoy your retirement.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. His views on the 1997 College Football co-champs has been warped by the editor's love of Mizzou football. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

SeedSing's Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Music: Day 22 - Patton Oswalt talks about The Christmas Shoes

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a new awesome holiday song for every day of Advent. This is the greatest music of the season. Enjoy.

Day 22: Patton Oswalt talks about The Christmas Shoes (language NSFW)

Opened doors: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

 Eleven Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen,Sixteen,Seventeen,Eighteen,

Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty One

I really love Christmas music. This entire Advent Calendar project is a way to show the people who hate Christmas music that there are great tunes available to the uninitiated. My love for holiday music is directly related to the fact that while I was growing up my parents would regularly take me and my brothers to church. I was never super psyched to go to our little suburban catholic cathedral, except for one time of the year. The Christmas season was the only times of the year I was happy to go to mass, and it was the songs that created my excitement. Many of the best holiday songs come from the religious tunes the congregation would sing. Hope, light, the betterment of mankind. That is the true religious meaning of Christmas, and it sounds beautiful.

A couple of years back I heard the song "The Christmas Shoes" and I was left dumbfounded. I first thought that this "christian" song was some kind of SNL parody. It was atrocious. The basic plot centered on the story of a poor kid who wants to buy shoes for his mom on Christmas. These shoes are very important because the kid's mom is dying, and he wants her to look pretty if she meets Jesus. That plot is dumb enough, but what puts "The Christmas Shoes" into the stratosphere of appalling is that the song is from the point of view of some grumpy dude in line behind the kid. The narrator thinks that "God" sent this kid, and his dying mom, to be in this man's life so he will feel the Christmas spirit. It is a truly disgusting message.

In 2009 comedian Patton Oswalt dedicated part of his stand up set discussing "The Christmas Shoes" Everything he says is spot on. Oswalt talks about how manipulative and downright sinister the message behind "The Christmas Shoes" is. He also imagines a world with a God being pissed about people being grumpy on Christmas and a Jesus who is bitchy about a person's fashion sense. What Patton Oswalt does in the YouTube video attached to this article is take one of the worst Christmas songs ever, and give it a new hilarious life. You can skip the song and get a dose of the Christmas spirit by hearing Patton Oswalt tear this piece of trash apart. His thoughts on "The Christmas Shoes" makes the song listenable, because I hear Patton Oswalt's words behind every horrid verse.

A few weeks back my son was being rude to the checkout person at a store. When we were heading home, my wife and I were scolding him about his behavior. At one point I told him that Christmas is about being nice to your fellow person. My son was not listening and being quite defiant. As I was getting more angry and frustrated I heard the opening notes of "The Christmas Shoes". My wife and I stared at each other and smiled. My son was forgiven. The rest of the car ride was filled with joy and laughter. Patton Oswalt has made "The Christmas Shoes" a holiday tradition. Not the song, it is awful, but his thoughts about the tune's idiotic message is what Christmas means to me. Mr. Oswalt, I owe you a pair of some great Christmas shoes.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of The X Millennial Man podcast. Every year he tries to buy his wife some ugly shoes for Christmas, but he never has quite enough pennies. Help him buy those shoes by supporting SeedSing.