Interview with US Presidential Candidate Mark Graham

Every four years, Americans are given a choice. A choice that determines who will represent them and lead their nation. Unfortunately, the leading American presidential candidates are often pre-determined by media conglomerates and corporate interests.

This year many frustrated Americans have announced their candidacy and are running in the 2008 US Presidential Election. These independent candidates are using every platform available in an attempt to break the mainstream media's stranglehold on popular candidate selection.

With the common goal of giving the masses an alternate option, it is only natural bloggers should extend their small corner of the Internet to independent presidential candidates. After finding a complete list of candidates on Politics1.com, The Serious Tip contacted local Florida candidate Mark B. Graham and asked for an interview. Mr. Graham was kind enough to respond.

The Serious Tip: Who is Mark Graham?

Mark B. Graham: Well, Mark Graham is 47, lives in Florida over 30 years. Married with 3 loving children. And was a youth coach in football and baseball in Okeechobee. Goes to the Methodist church. Also he is a hard working man who loves hobbies like fishing, hunting, and playing golf.

TST: Why run for president?

MBG: The reason I am running for President: I am tired of the Republicans and Democrats parties saying they are for every American in the United States. My Vision as an independent president: get elected by and serving you the American voters, not the political parties. My goal is to help the people of the United States.

TST: What did you have to do to become a candidate?

MBG: Well, first i had to meet the requirments of becoming president

The age of 36 and older

Born in the United States

Then I wrote to (FEC) Federal Election Commission and requested form STATEMENT OF CANDIDACY fill out and return to FEC

TST: What are your expectations as we enter the last few months before the election?

MBG: My expectations the last few months before are to get the word out about my campaign and show the people of the United States there is a third choice for President that can cover all the issues to work toward a better America.

TST: What type of campaigning have you done?

MBG: Well I have Campaign on the World Wide Web. Also have done a few radio shows also signs and fliers (ed note: Mark B. Graham is also on YouTube and Myspace.)

TST: What has been your biggest challenge?

MBG: Well my biggest challenges in 2008 is the Media. They dont want to give full coverage all the Candidates running for President in 2008.

TST: Being that I have written quite a bit on sports, what is your position on sports-related political issues such as steroid abuse in baseball, the Olympics in China, etc?

MBG: I feel that as a nation we try to show the world we are the best in sports and we must strive not to get a black eye from people striving to make money from steroid use in Baseball and Football. As one of the Nations around this world the Olympics is for the best athletes.

TST: Have you yet decided on a running mate?

MBG: No, not yet

TST: How can someone join the Mark Graham movement?

MBG: Well there is many ways to join the Mark Graham movenment. First www.markbgraham2008.com or you can e-mail me at markbgraham2008@yahoo.com.

Please remember to sign my petition on my web site www.markbgraham2008.com.

TST: Who are you going to vote for in November?

MBG: Mark B. Graham

Mobb Deep live from Jail

What an amazing tool this Internet has become. People have live-blogged elections, TV shows, sports, and public events. Now, for the first time that I have ever seen, someone is live-blogging their prison sentence. Rapper Prodigy of the group Mobb Deep is being allowed to live-blog his prison sentence on Vibe.com.

How cool is this? We used to have to rely on diaries and letters to feel the vibe of life in the pokey. Now we have blogs. Amazing.

In his latest post, Prodigy drops this nugget of wisdom, which is actually pretty deep:

"ANYBODY THAT GOT SOMETHING AGAINST KEEPING A BLOG, YOU SHOULD STAY FARRRRRR AWAY FROM THE FOOL AND NEVER TRUST EM’. A BLOG IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY, JUST LIKE RAP MUSIC ISN’T FOR EVERYBODY. A BLOG IS INTERNET SLANG FOR A LOG AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A LOG IS—IT’S WHAT BOAT CAPTAINS WRITE AND KEEP IN ORDER TO DOCUMENT THE DAYS OF LONG VOYAGES AND TRAVELS...IT’S LIKE A DIARY."

By the way, Prodigy gets the The Serious Tip Seal of Approval due to his interest in the Illuminati, conspiracy theories, and his valiant fight against The Man.

Keep doing your thing, Prodigy. The temperature's risin, and it's nothing surprisin'.

Today YaySports!, Tomorrow the World

This post originally appeared on YaySports!.

(This post was not written by The Caviar. As a matter of fact, no posts will be written by The World Famous Mr. The Caviar until further notice.)

Good evening. Readers, do not attempt to adjust your browser. There is nothing wrong. We have taken control has to bring actual posts. We will return it to the Cav as soon as there is a movie.

Welcome to YaySports!, better known as The Blog the Cav Left, or better still, The Jordi and Cobra and Delta Ep Show. Home of extra-exceptional bloggers, dealers of funky blogging. NBA blogging. Uncut blogging. The bomb.

Coming to you directly from the Mothervessel, top of a caramel Mars bar, 1.21 gigawatts of pure blog power. So kick back, dig, while we write words that mess with your optics.

Me? I’m known as Jordi Scrubbings, alias “The Baldhead Longjumper”, alias “The Tampa Teh-Lma“, alias “Jordi Scrubbings”. My motto is …

Well, I don’t have a motto. But if I did, it would be something cool. Like “Succotash Me, Baby!” or “Flapjacks on Mount Zion!”. Anyway, if the readers of this blog were Texas, me, Cobra, and Jeremiah the Mexican Vagabond would just happen to be America circa 18-whenever - annexing and flexing our juice cards when needed.

This is way it has to be.

Soon you will understand.

Further transmissions will follow.

JJ Grey and Mofro: Tampa, Fla. 2/22/08

Friday night, I attended the first part of JJ Grey and Mofro's epic two-day concert at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa, Fl. For those who never heard of Mofro, Billboard describes their latest album as

"A glorious, soul-drenched delight...down-home funk, blues and Dixie-fried rock, unmistakably Southern, undeniably soulful"

I'll admit, I caught on to the Mofro bandwagon kinda late. Although I heard about them while I was in Tallahassee, the only album I have is their latest, Country Ghetto. But after hearing that, and having numerous people tell me that their show is not to be missed, I took the chance to see them live.

About the show:

In a word: amazing. Although I didn't know more than half of Mofro's songs (those from their first two albums), the band lived up to expectations. A lot of groove, soul, blues, and southern-rock. Stuff that makes me proud to live in the south. And that's what JJ Grey tries to do: invoke a non-redneck southern pride. Not the Dixie flag-waving Confederate type of pride, but a different, back-to-nature, "oh-why-are-they-building-another-housing-development?"-type of Florida pride. So many of the songs lament of things and times long gone, where grandma's home-cookin' of grits, cornbread, collar greens, and fried chicken made it worth getting up on Sunday. Musically, Mofro incorporates trumpet, sax, slide guitar, blues harp, and piano to a drum beat full of funk. For some reason I thought the saxophone was really impressive. I haven't seen one of those live in a long time.

As mentioned, I only knew about a third of the band's songs. Most of the crowd however, knew all of them, which led to some interesting call and response sing-alongs. Surprisingly, for a blues club the call and response that disappointed me the most was Mofro's cover of Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Workin'". At first, most of the crowd didn't know to respond. Fortunately, they got it quick. Or I would have had to slap someone.

About the venue and crowd:

Skipper's Smokehouse is one of those new-age blues venues. Not quite the old juke joint, it's a good place to see live music. Hippie memorabilia, old show posters, and other random miscellanea decorate the walls. As it doubles as a restaurant, there is the whole seafood, beach vibe going on. Nothing wrong with that.

The crowd, however, took some getting used to. Granted, there were some beautiful college-age women there, but accompanying them was some of the most rudest people I've ever been in a crowd with. People who see an inch between two people, and they think they can fit themselves and their girlfriend, her friends, and their boyfriends closer to the stage. At heavy metal shows these are the first people to get pushed into the mosh pit. Trust me, the band doesn't get even better when you are two feet closer.

Oh, one more complaint. To those who smoke out at the show: if you don't bring enough to share, please get high before you show up. Thanks.

(Note: Pic not from Friday night's show. Acquired via Google images.)

This blog does not pay the mafia

"A WHOLE PEOPLE WHO PAYS THE PIZZO IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT DIGNITY"

Now that The Serious Tip is a commercial entity, certain business-like decisions have to be made. Among these are how to cover the extraneous costs that come with being a commercial entity owner. To quote the wisened philosoph, Mr. Thorton Melon,

"First of all you’re going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there’s long term costs such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the boyscouts."

However, thanks to the confidence and organizational chutzpah of several Sicilian business owners, people are starting to say "no" to the Sopranos, Gottis, and Corleones of the world. To this small band of entrepreneurs, I say bravo, and I am proud to join your league.

By the way, if standing up to the mafia means I can't get rid of my waste here at The Serious Tip, so be it. I'm not backing down. But don't be surprised if this place starts looking like the Collyer House.

Rent an Airfield or Sign a Starting Pitcher?

While surfing the international news, I saw a report that stated the United States spends 17.5 million per year to use Kyrgyzstan's Manas Airbase.

17.5 million.

Or approximately five million per year less than the New York Mets will pay pitcher Johan Santana for the next seven seasons.

So this begs the question, would you rather have an airfield in the middle of Central Asia or an ace pitcher?

Let's first examine the benefits of having an ace pitcher:

Acquiring Johan Santana means acquiring quite possibly the best pitcher in baseball. This of course means more wins, higher attendance, more ticket sales, hopefully a playoff berth, maybe even a championship. Unfortunately, this final result may also cause riots, destruction, mayhem, and general disorder through the metropolitian area.

What about renting an airfield for a year?

Acquiring a Situational Operations AirField (SOAF) - kinda like the LOOGY of military bases - means you can use 37 acres, four watchtowers, 300 tents, a fitness room, a chapel, a post office, a recreation room, and a $5 million, 60-bed military hospital. It's like your own little town. Imagine the party potential if you can convince your friends to visit. And while baseball might not be the national pasttime of Kyrgyzstan, you can probably find it in your heart to root for the local Yak Racing team.

So on one hand you have seasonal fame and the eventual sacrifice of civil order and on the other, the sacrifice of social contact for one year in your own area of self-sustaining blissful solitude, albeit cold, barren, and 25 miles from civilization. But you get to see yaks.

Tough call, if you ask me.

The Serious Tip Dot Com Now Got It Goin' On

Representatives for the Internet drive a hard bargain.

The Serious Tip has acquired the rights to The Serious Tip (dot) com . After hours of deliberation, representatives for The Serious Tip and The Internet agreed to terms allowing the site to be hosted at the following addresses for the infinite future. According to The Serious Tip, the deal took skillful politicking and artful negotiation.

"We were sweating there in the final minutes", said Jordi Scrubbings, writer of The Serious Tip. "I was afraid we weren't going to get the deal done. Once The Internet agreed to pay for our sixth pitcher of beer though, I realized we had it in the bag. Either that, or we got the Internet really drunk."

Lawyers for The Internet also admitted the deal with The Serious Tip was one of its more difficult, although between drunk drivers killing webpages and sharks with laser beams cutting half the world's service, the Internet had other concerns than dealing with an independent blog with global aspirations.

With the transaction finally complete, loyal followers of The Serious Tip are encouraged to change their bookmarks, update their feed readers, and spread the word. The Serious Tip.com now got it goin' on.

YaySports!: Where Blog Abandonment Happens

Few bloggers are more unpredictable than The Cavalier of YaySports!. A self-proclaimed disinterested Cleveland Cavaliers fan, the eccentric genius has in the past year run his site much like Osama Bin Laden - dropping an occasional rambling message while his acolytes (myself included) keep hope alive. He termed his negligence towards his blog "Blog Suicide", and it was supposed to be part of his epic plan prior to releasing "The Mother of All Sports Blog Media", a secret movie known as "Who Shot Mamba?".

As of Thursday morning however, mere hours after I filed my weekly Thursday post on the site, YaySports.com was shut down. After contacting the Cav and expressing my disbelief, I was told that a "redesign" was in progress and that the site could be closed for as long as a week. In light of this revelation, and my disappointment therein, I have decided to re-post my artistic depiction of new teammates and blogger favorites Kwame Brown and Darko Milicic on my own site. It might not be much, but I was proud of it, damnit.

Drunk Sign Language

I just got back from a night gallivanting around town ...

At one bar I visited, there were several deaf people. They had to signal the bartenders in sign language or write down what they wanted. So I got to thinking:

Does deaf people's sign language get sloppy as they drink more? You know how people with normal hearing slur their speech when they are drunk? Does the same apply to the hearing impaired? Do they sign slower? Do they sign the wrong words? What if they get pulled over? Do they sign "Occifer, I swear I only had one beer."? Will the cop know the difference?

These are the things I wonder about.

My Favorite Super Bowl Memory

When MCBias of Moderately Cerebral Bias emailed me asking me to write my favorite Super Bowl memory, I really had to think. What should I write about? The games come and go, usually beer is consumed, food is thrown down the gullet, and commercials are watched. How different can each experience be? I had to really think back - 2007, 2006, 2000, 1994, 1991, 1987 ... all the way to the earliest Super Bowls I could remember watching. After much contemplation, one game - Super Bowl XXXVII (37) between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders - stands out above the rest.

Going to a university like Florida State, a school known more for its athletics than its academics, alumni and students love to namedrop the more famous athletes they had classes with. Some brag about sitting next to Charlie Ward, some talk about Chris Weinke's classroom habits (whatever they may be), so on and so forth.

Personally, I shared class space with a few Seminole football stars. Probably the most famous of these were current NFL players Chris Hope and Darnell Dockett. The athlete I knew the best, however, was an fourth-string linebacker who probably never once saw any action at Doak Campbell Stadium on a game day.

After knowing [name withheld] for only a few weeks, my new football-playing friend invited me to his place for his Super Bowl shindig. Not having any plans outside of the usual beer, buddies, chips and dip, I accepted his invite.

Arriving at [name withheld]'s apartment in late afternoon, I knew I was in for an interesting time. As I pulled into the parking lot, there about a dozen big dudes, all throwing the remnants of barbeque chicken bones across the road I just arrived on. I guess I was lucky they weren't done eating when I drove down the road.

As game time neared, we all hung out in the parking lot of my friend's run-down apartment (football players don't get paid, remember?). Much beer, chicken, and other assorted grilled meat were consumed, and yes, I even competed in a few chicken bone throwing contests.

Not surprisingly, my friend was completely at ease as the master of ceremonies. Apparently, what was risky and exciting to me was par for the course for him. He tossed chicken bones, drank like a champion long before Rothlisberger, bragged about the many women he slept with, and matter of factly yelled insults at two young ladies jogging down the street. I'll admit, a pillar of society he was not, but at least no one threw a chicken bone at the girls.

Of course, no interesting party around Florida State would be complete without a visit from Tallahassee's finest. When the cops eventually showed up, my friend casually told them we would calm down and be a tad less rowdy. Fortunately, the validity of his claim was never tested as the football game started shortly after the police visit.

As the Bucs and Raiders began play, my friend and I and the dozen or so others at the party all huddled into his small, barely furnished apartment to watch the game. Surprisingly, despite being in Florida, there were few, if any, Bucs fans at the party. Those who were there however might have been scared into silence after my friend claimed his admiration for the Raiders' Jerry Rice and placed his 9mm pistol on his coffee table with the declaration of "This is how I'm livin'". Who was I to argue?

During the game, the chaos, as predicted, was toned down, although most likely because the high quantities of alcohol we drank prior to kickoff were starting to sink in. Although I was quite buzzed, I was one of the lucky few not completely trashed and in a few cases, passed out.

As for the game itself, well, any sports fan can tell you former Seminole Brad Johnson led the Buc to victory and fellow former Seminole Dexter Jackson was named MVP. But few outside of the dozen or so people in attendance can tell you that former Seminole [name withheld] threw one hell of a Super Bowl party.


For more Super Bowl stories see MCBias's Moderately Cerebral Bias as he talks about rooting for the Patriots against the Rams and fellow blogger The Extrapolator shares football memories with several generations of Extrapolator kin folk. Also available is Dan from Foxborough's haunting memories of Desmond Howard and the Green Bay Packers and Signal to Noise discusses John Elway's rise to Super Bowl glory.

Take a moment and read some great bloggers and more importantly, enjoy your Super Bowl this year.