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Articles by Nick M. W
A Quick Hit: September Swoon
The end of the 2025 MLB season is around the corner, waiting to put most of the league to bed for the off-season and carry twelve other teams into the playoffs. I can't wait for it to end, not because I'm looking forward to the playoffs that much; but because this season has been exhausting to watch. As a Dodgers fan, I should still feel good about the team being the defending champions of baseball.
2025: agosto
Press enter or click to view image in full size Now, it's starting to resonate with more people. In the past few blogs, I've written about how quickly the year is passing us by. Fact check me, but I think I've been feeling this way since May. Actually, I just checked, and I definitely didn't mention it in May, or June. Anyway, my point is that I've heard people in my atmosphere talking about how they can't believe it's already August, and I'm with them. 2025 is cooking.
A Quick Hit: Cuban Linx Anniversary
You might think you need the Urban Dictionary to figure these lyrics out, but you can pick up their context within the song with the skillful way Ghost and Rae use their rhymes to set a scene. They dance on tracks the way Ali did in the ring, offering punch and counterpunch with contrasting styles. On most tracks, Ghostface hits the beat like the Tasmanian Devil while Rae offers the measured approach to his lyrical murder. This duo is two-thirds of the reason why Cuban Linx… is a masterpiece.
2025: junio
Rock a fly jersey in the summertime God. One of my favorite months of the year and the official kickoff to summer, June just came and went. It’s a celebratory month usually filled with grad parties and wedding receptions. Historically speaking, this month has mostly been good memories to me. As a youngster, I anticipated the first of June as early as the first day of school. June signaled the end of school and a break from all that work. No more early wake up calls. Hello all-nighters. Baseball.
The Final Chamber
Legendary rap group is calling it a career after this last tour. Wu-Tang Clan’s “The Final Chamber” tour made a stop at Toyota Arena in Ontario, CA last Friday, June 20. The rap generals from the slums of Shaolin rocked the I.E. for nearly two hours in what was a near-perfect set. Along for the ride were Run The Jewels (RTJ) to open an evening of unity through hip-hop. The Good Let’s start with the opening act, RTJ.
2025: abril
You could put some joy upon my face. April is the appetizer month of the year. Spring has settled and is now stretching its legs and making its allergy inducing presence felt. The weather in my corner of the So Cal suburban sprawl, dances between pleasantly warm and unseasonably chill. Winter’s cold grasp doesn’t quite want to let go, but the hope of warmer days ahead can be felt. Soon, the showers give way to flowers and then the flowers wilt under the oppressive summer heat.
Hop-Heavy: Iron Maiden Does Not Exist
Far From Professional is the digital crossroad where the pursuit of a stellar buzz intersects with writing: fiction, reviews, retrospectives, and sports. Follow publication Central Coast brewery and metal legends make a hell of a pair. Brewery: There Does Not Exist Brewery (San Luis Obispo, CA) Artist: Iron Maiden Beer: “Star or Stone” (6.66% ABV) Song: “The Number of the Beast” How’s the beer?
2025: marzo
Member-only story Where the eagles cry on a mountain high. Nick M. W. · Follow 7 min read · -- Screenshot by Nick M.W. (WBN) We have completed twenty-five percent of 2025, which means were closing in on twenty-five percent of this century gone. History. The 21st century has mostly been a mess. It’s been a long time (in the U.S. at least) when things felt normal, when things were calm. Socially in the U.S., it’s been a clusterfuck since 2016. Perhaps aliens are messing with us. Maybe it’s all their fault.
ODB: The Dirty Version
Member-only story Wu-Tang Clan founding member and master of the drunken style revisted for 30th anniversary. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 4 min read · -- Image by Rekless What I loved about “C.R.E.A.M.” the first time I heard it was how different it sounded from all of the rap music that I had heard at that point in my life. The song, its sound, was authentically unique, and not manufactured to be unique. It was visionary.
Simply the Best: 2024
AGS podcast highlights from the 2024 fantasy football season. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 2 min read · -- Any Given Sunday 2024. Image by Nick M.W. Football is officially over. Fantasy football ended over a month ago, and after the confetti settles post Super Bowl, we are in for the long, dark winter. No NFL until August.
2025: enero
Member-only story There is a light, and it never goes out. Nick M. W. · Follow 4 min read · -- Image by Nick M.W. (WBN) January is the “Monday” of every year. A lot of people don’t like Mondays, but I’m okay with them. They draw so much attention on approach, when they loom on the horizon of a dying weekend. You can see them coming, which creates a sense of anticipation and that usually creates a little buzz of adrenaline. I’m ready for Mondays. Tuesdays can get fucked, but Mondays aren’t so bad.
Kings of L.A.
The greatest era of Dodgers’ baseball has only just begun. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 9 min read · -- Long live the kings. When I sat down to write this piece about the Dodgers, it had been the first time I had the chance to reflect on the team’s off-season moves and what the 2025 roster would look like heading into Spring Training.
Festivus
Round 2 of the AGS playoffs ended with two podcast hosts heading to next week’s Super Bowl. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 2 min read · -- AGS Fantasy Football.
Hop-Heavy: Juice Dust & Korn
Staying true to flavor and to sound. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 3 min read · -- Image by Nick M.W. Brewery: Elysian Brewing Company (Seattle, WA) Artist: Korn Beer: “Juice Dust” (8.2% ABV) Song: “Ball Tongue” Do you respect a sellout? Can you understand why someone would choose money over their artistic principles? Can you respect a move like that? Nick, you like Metallica, right? Fact. I do.
November 2024: GRATITUDE
The year winds down as the celebrations turn up. Nick M. W. · Follow 4 min read · -- Image by Nick M.W. (FFP) This is the season of “gratitude” which is not the same as Thanksgiving. That’s the term for the holiday that celebrates Indigenous People’s genocide, not togetherness, so we show gratitude rather than give thanks. Yet, I fall into old habits and often refer to the final Thursday in November by its name of horror. I realize that this reeks of cynicism.
Lipsgiving
AGS wives come on for some banter and fun only to get Lip serviced. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 2 min read · -- AGS Fantasy Football. Image by Nick M.W. The stretch run to the playoffs looks like it will be another chaotic affair. The sixth seed is still up for grabs after an eventful Week 12 in the Any Given Sunday standings. Penthouse Pimps, Rebel Scum, and Who’s Coming In 2nd?
Toilet Bowl: “Somebody has to win it.”
The two worst teams in AGS dookie it out for self-respect and pride in one of Week 11’s best games. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 2 min read · -- AGS Fantasy Football. Image by Nick M.W. No one wants to finish last in anything. Finishing last in Any Given Sunday fantasy football carries the added (and mild by comparison) humiliation of having your team’s name changed along with its avatar on the app.
Inch by Inch
AGS heavyweights went toe-to-toe, blow-for-blow in a classic matchup for the ages. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 2 min read · -- AGS Fantasy Football. Image by Nick M.W. We’re past the halfway point in most fantasy football league’s seasons and definitely past it in Any Given Sunday.
From the Grave
This week was a house of horrors for some AGS managers while one little guy got his first win. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 2 min read · -- AGS Fantasy Football. Image by Nick M.W. For seven weeks of this fantasy football season, one AGS owner (West Koast Voodoo) last every matchup. For seven weeks, he averaged around 101 points per game while his opponents regularly outscored him by double digits.
Protect Your Neck
AGS teams begin to separate from each other in the standing as pressure mounts to rack up wins. Nick M. W. · Follow Published in Far From Professional · 1 min read · -- AGS Fantasy Football. Image by Nick M.W. Have you ever lost a fantasy football matchup by 80 or more points? How did you cope? I’m asking for a friend. Hurts something fierce, right? The NFL season has turned the corner into October, which means the wins and losses carry more weight now.
Hop-Heavy: Alestorm & Space Pirate
If you’ve read a few other “Hop-Heavy” articles I’ve written, then you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I drink a lot of beer from Escape Craft Brewery. It’s local to my residence, but my regular consumption of their brew is more than just a relationship of convenience. I dig their beers, particularly their IPA varieties.
AUGUST 2024: CAESAR
The eighth month of the Gregorian calendar is a wrap. Did you know that August was named for the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, in 8 BCE. He seemed like an asshole. That’s based on a couple of quotes I read off his Wikipedia page and a brief but general assessment of his mood, as it was depicted on that website. Understandable. I write a lot about time and mention it often on Saturday Night Special, but I usually write about how quickly time is passing in the moment.
One Draft Time
It’s hard to believe that we are back for another Any Given Sunday fantasy football season. Somehow, we survived the offseason. As usual, the league chat thread saw a lot less action without football to stir up emotions and stoke rivalries. One week out from our annual Draft Party, the thread returned to life with a familair vitriol. Owners traded jabs and talked shit. The current league champ, NJC, flexed his second ring. Other owners flexed. Losers stayed silent, and then a draft happened.
Standard Issue: Hip-Hop, Vol. 1
Here at Far From Professional, we write about things that we love. On occasion, we may write just to get our freak on, but most of the time we write about something that is near and dear to us. If what we put down matches your vibe, then we hope you check out our work. This Standard Issue article is perfect if you’re sitting at a tire shop or in your dentist’s office killing time, or if you’re taking a shit.
450 North Brewing & The Breeders
The best of the Mid-West. 450 North Brewing Company and The Breeders. Image by Nick M.W. Brewery: 450 North Brewing Company (Columbus, IN) Artist: The Breeders Beer: " Slushy XL - Cotton Candy Shake" (7% ABV) It's that time of year in the northern hemisphere when the heat stretches across this part of the world, like a stroke-inducing solar blanket. We need relief.
Great Notion Brewing & Aesop Rock
Brewery: Great Notion Brewing (Portland, OR) Beer: " MoMo" (7% ABV) "MoMo", one of Great Notion Brewing's many delicious brews, is to be desired by lovers of the haze. The hazy IPA is truly a gift from God, and a divine reward like "MoMo" deserves an equal sipping partner. Allow me to introduce you to Aesop Rock, the indie rap legend residing in Portland by way of Long Island. Why these two? Because "MoMo" brings the chill, and chilling out max, relaxing all cool is good for your mental health.
Use Their Illusion
Oregon Trail Millennials, Gen Xers, Boomers and beyond have all witnessed decades of incredible basketball from the Los Angeles Lakers. Championships (in-season and the real thing). Winning Time. The three-ring Kobe/Shaq/Phil circus. Threepeats, repeats, and Bubble Chips. There have been a lot of core memories made for Lakers fans throughout the years, but we are in a rough stretch right now. Dr. Buss passed away in 2013, and the franchise has not been right since then.
MAY 2024: PROMOTION
May is a month of growth. Always has been, right? "April showers bring May flowers." April showers also bring us some delicious fruits and veggies, like strawberries, pineapples, cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes. The bountiful spring harvest is probably why May was The fifth month of the year provides us with some healthy foods (if you're into stuff that grows out of the ground), but the plants aren't the only growth that occurs.
Real Love Is Forever
Goth was never my style, but The Crow was an obsession for me. Brandon Lee's tragic death on set in 1993 created a morbid buzz before the movie arrived in theaters a year later. I was swept up in it. I didn't get a chance to catch it in theaters when it was released. I was eleven and didn't know a single grown up who would take me to see it. When it dropped on VHS in June of '95, my mom refused to rent "that trash".
APRIL 2024: INFECTION
Plans change, so flow like water. I enjoy hearing facts. Sports facts. Movie facts. Facts about history. Facts about the area I live in. Family facts. All kinds of facts. I should have been opening these blogs with some fact about the month or whatever it was that inspired me in the moment. In this moment, it’s just some basic historical facts about April, presented to you by me, courtesy of Generative AI.
Kurt Cobain: Formulate Infinity
Kurt Cobain: Formulate Infinity Thirty years after his suicide, Kurt Cobain’s artistry still resonates with sonic youth. Kurt Cobain: February 20, 1967 — April 5, 1994 I spent the last couple of weeks going through Nirvana’s discography and reading articles about the band and Kurt Cobain to prepare myself for this inevitable day: the 30th anniversary of Cobain’s suicide. After taking this plunge into Nirvana, I achieved…
March 2024: REMEMBRANCE
March 2024: REMEMBRANCE Carry the fire for the ones you love. We never fully heal, but the scars help us remember (WBN, 2024). I don’t like St. Patrick’s Day. Nothing against Catholicism or Irish people. Green beer is fine, and I was always stoked when my mom made her annual batch of corned beef and cabbage. I don’t like this day because it holds the terrible memory of loss and pain. My grandma died on St. Patrick’s Day.
The Perks
And things were going so well. September 2010 Providence Perks offered the best espresso in Portland with some of the city’s best people-watching. Sure, this was Rick’s opinion, and if he was honest with himself, Rick has to admit that it’s impossible to make this type of claim without having tasted every espresso from every one of the Rose City’s roughly 2,500 coffee shops. He’d visited two hundred and thirty-six in the past year since his release from prison.
February 2024: Ascension
We were all there on the same trip. Music I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a lot of concerts in my life. I got to see the children’s music legend Raffi strum out “Baby Beluga” live when I was a kid, back in the 80s when Raffi’s name was synonymous with children’s music, before Kidz Bop came through and turned treasure into trash. Peak Raffi. That was technically the first show I ever attended, but the first concert I ever bought my own ticket for was the Hard Knock Life Tour in 1999.
TOOL in the I.E.
The masters of prog-metal macabre psychedelia rocked Ontario’s Toyota Arena. I fell in love with music somewhere around fourth grade. There was this perfect storm of awesome music that played on radios back in the early 1990s. You could spin the “Wheel of Jams” in any genre and land on a song from artists like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, or Nirvana, Metallica, and Depeche Mode, or Michael Jackson. I could go on and on name dropping artists because these were the days of legends.
Reborn, Again
This second chance will come at a heavy cost. October When Alice didn’t smirk, smile, chuckle, shrug, or even blink, Rick knew that she wasn’t fucking around. “You can’t be serious about that,” he looked past her, at the edge of the rock several feet behind her. Rick gave it a quick glance before he looked at her unblinking gaze. “There’s no way. Why — ?” his words stuck in his throat, refusing to speak to life what he was thinking.
One More Time
Round 2 of the AGS playoffs signaled the end of the line for The Curse and Rudy’s Replacements. Hungry for that elusive third title, owner Joey Bryant can’t seem to break through the semifinal wall. There’s no doubt that he’ll bring another terrifying squad into the 2024 season, but that’s a summer away. Meanwhile, America’s team, Rudy’s Replacements, shat the bed in his first playoff game since Trump was in office.
A Quick Hit: DMX: 25th Anniversary
Christmas morning 1998. I’m sixteen, but the entire event was still a thrill for me. Sticky buns were baking in the oven. Coffee pot sat near empty, having already been raided by my folks. There was a December chill in the air familiar to Southwest Washington. Frost on the grass. Karen Carpenter, with the voice of an angel, wishing us a “Merry little Christmas.” It was a scene out of a holiday movie. As we began to unwrap our presents, I went for one of the smaller gifts with my name on it.
Fight Christmas
As told by Emmitt Smith for FarFromProfessional.com. ’Tis the season. Are we singing songs of cheer this holiday, or will you be taking your coal-stuffed stocking to Cancun, sitting your ass in purgatory until next August? Welp, it’s time to justify that trade, roster managing, waiver wire pickups, all to see who’s going to hoist up the 2023 AGS bobblehead.
The End is The Beginning
The End is The Beginning Amidst the season-ending injuries, the underperforming disappointments, the players you cut and later regretted, the players you drafted who gave your roster herpes when they screwed you over, the bad trades you made and the brilliant moves that never went down, you managed to navigate our way to the end of another fantasy football season. For some of you turds out there — including me — this week marked the end of meaningful football.
The Big Deal
Oh, what a glorious day it was yesterday for the Dodgers organization and its fans. We got him! Hats off to Andrew Friedman Shohei Ohtani will play the rest of his Major League Baseball career for the Los Angeles Dodgers, to the mind-blowing tune of ten years and seven hundred million dollars. Crazy, right? That’s three hundred million dollars more than the total career earnings of the other huge international sports star currently playing in Los Angeles: LeBron James. Have you heard of him?
The Battle of Playoff Hill
As told by Emmitt Smith for FarFromProfessional.com. One week left in the regular season, and the playoff picture (from first seed to last) is still for the taking. This is war. Battles have been going on for thirteen weeks, and it still comes down to the last episode where it’s the duel of the fates type theater — multiple battles at the same time.
November 2023
November is my favorite month of the year. It has been for a minute. Two years ago, on November 6, my dad passed away. Nice timing, dad. Now I get to kick off my favorite month with the bittersweet memories of your life and death - mostly the irritating little splinter in my mind that reminds me of the fact I never got to say "goodbye" after all the splendid times we had together. It's unfair, but we know that life rarely is that. Death is fair, though.
Under Pressure
Every win matters when you're twelve weeks deep into the fantasy football season. One win pushes some teams closer to the first goal on any fantasy football owner's agenda: make the playoffs. One win also pushes some teams further away from last place, where in our league (as has been mentioned weekly on the podcast) finishing in last place means you get your team's name and logo changed to something offensive enough to get you cancelled.
25th Anniversary
This would have dropped yesterday on the proper 25th anniversary of the release of RZA's Bobby Digital in Stereo, if Thanksgiving festivities (and some day drinking) didn't throw me off schedule. I hate it when I miss the opportunity to publish a piece on a special day, like a silver anniversary, but when there's a major holiday involved, that's how it goes. Earlier this month, Wu-Tang Clan celebrated the 30th anniversary of their culture-shifting debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers.
The Breast Choice
Week 11 of the 2023 fantasy football season put a definitive end to the little bit of hope I held for a magical playoff run. The 8th loss of my season was delivered by The Curse, a pre-season favorite to win it all. That was pretty messed up of him to piss in my gravy like that and is no way to usher in this Thanksgiving week. Rebel Scum is now the Macy's parade turkey leading the march towards the name change at the end of the season.
By The Dawn's Early Light
As told by Emmitt Smith for FarFromProfessional.com. Hope all of you fantasy footballers had a wonderful Week 10. Whether you won or not, you got to play this beautiful game. The Any Given Sunday Podcast rolls out the red carpet on this special Veteran's Day weekend. It started with our rookie manager, Oops Babies, hosting all the NFL action at his fine headquarters in the historic neighborhood of View Park in Los Angeles.
October 2023
The Fall Israel and Palestine are now at war. Russia and Ukraine are still at war. What's going to happen next? Sometimes I'm not so sure that we (humans) deserve what we've got. Here on Earth, we have the absolute perfect arrangement conducive to the existence of life, a situation so unique that it's the only one we know of that has life to this degree in our entire galaxy. We have all kinds of environments and animals and weather and people and music and food.
Street Philosophy
Yet another gem from the 90s. Sonny's wisdom applies to fantasy football as much as it does to organized crime. You want to be feared. You want your opponents in the league to lose sleep over you. You want them to hate the weekend they have to play you. You want them to know that any point they score against you won't be easy, and every point you hit them with is going to hurt like Hell.
The End is the Beginning
The End Dodger fans say "goodbye" to the postseason in an old familiar way, through tears, confounded by the events that transpired. Again. Another division opponent clubbed the Dodgers with their bats and befuddled them with their pitching. There isn't anything else I would like to say about this early playoff exit, but the bottom line is bold and plain as day to see. The Dodgers' starting pitching was atrocious, and their hitting was disappeared. Again.
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