The Monday Morning Power Digest: April 11, 2022

Utah, get me two.

After a brief hiatus, I have returned. Scottsdale, man. More on that below.

Let’s get back to business. We got a lot to catch up on, but first, head on up to that little heart icon up there and give it a click or tap.

Another thank you to everyone for subscribing, liking, sharing and forwarding this little thing called the MMPD. The more it gets shared, the more it grows, the thing stays 100% free to my people.

Here we go.

What I Wrote This Week

There is NOTHING like going viral. I ranked the top chicken wing spots in KC and it took off. Have a read.

The Definitive Ranking of the Best Chicken Wings In Kansas City (Do A Win Today)

Grievance of the Week

The only complaint I got about that list was that I went heavy in on ranch and that ranch is an inferior dipping option for chicken wings to bleu cheese. RANCH? We’re gonna argue about ranch dressing? Delicious ranch dressing? You ever had a bad batch of ranch? Not all bleu cheese dressings are created equal. If we’re talking about The Peanut’s amazing house-made bleu cheese, then yes, absolutely. The greatest dressing ever created. But run-of-the-mill food supplier bleu cheese? You people disgust me.

Processed chunks of bleu cheese suspended in cream and mayonnaise? Get real. Again I ask if you ever had bad ranch? Didn’t think so. If you did, it was probably a one-time thing.

Coming this week: The Definitive Ranking of the Best Ranch Dressings in Kansas City

Gaudy Scottsdale Golf Courses of the Week

Went and dropped entirely too much money on golf in Scottsdale two weeks ago at my good buddy Chris’s bachelor weekend. Absolutely worth it.

Talking Stick - Piipaash

Standard resort golf course. Enjoyable play. Played a sunset round with some close personal friends. Was tough to find a place to pee on the course. Shot a 96. 5 a.m. wakeup + three-hour flight + two-hour time change + back tightness starting around #8 = less than stellar result. Greens fee: $90

TPC Scottsdale - Champions Course

The Stadium Course gets all the hype, but the Champions Course is one of my favorite courses I’ve ever played. This was my second time playing it and it was just as fun as I remember. It backs up to the runway at Scottsdale Airport. We played Friday afternoon and it was PJ city. Also got a nice little fly by from some F/A-18s. Shot an 88. We’ll call it a success. Greens fee: $106

The Phoenician

My god. Breathtaking. Place is immaculate. Before the round, our starter gave us a five minute speech on the course full of tidbits like “you’ll be playing with the city of Phoenix at your feet” and “Don’t try to hit your ball out of the desert, you’ll destroy your clubs. Take a drop.”

This place was rich. Cushman Wakefield and Blackstone bought out the course before noon for a celebrity charity scramble. On a Saturday. Big money. Celebs of note in attendance: Johnny Gomes and Neal McDonough (Buck Compton in Band of Brothers and the bad guy from season two of Yellowstone).

It winds through a five-star resort, nestled right up against Camelback Mountain. #13 and #14 are built into the side of the mountain. I played like ass. Turns out my game doesn’t respond well to 48+ hours of Mexican food, pasta, Trulys and blackjack ‘til 3 a.m. the night before. Don’t want to tell you the monster number I put up here and how much I paid to put up said monster number. Chalk it up to handicap management.

Thing That I Am Weirdly Into of the Week

YouTube Ambience videos.

Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me how. The algorithm knows me better than I know myself.

Mad Men Quote of the Week

“You’re going to need a stronger stomach if you’re going to be back in the kitchen seeing how the sausage is made.” -Bert Cooper to Don Draper when Don tells him to fire Pete Campbell for insubordination. Bert overrules him because Pete’s family literally used to own Harlem.

Zillow House That Would Financially Ruin Me of the Week

39250 Ortega Hwy, Murrieta, CA 92562

Pricetag: $22.95 million
Acreage: 1,225 acres
Beds: 4
Baths: 3

This, my friends, is a modest four-bed, three-bath organic olive and lemon farm in Orange County. This place has everything: organic lemons, Tuscan finishes, 2,100 square feet of administrative office space, statues of children riding manta rays, a bronze effigy of Poseidon (or maybe it’s Neptune) naked. Exquisite.

This is not just a house. This is a lifestyle. This is a place in which you build a long lasting personal brand that can only be rivaled by a minuscule percentage of humans who have ever walked the planet.

“So, Brian, what do you do?”
”I own an organic olive and lemon farm in Orange County and have a bronze statue of a Greek god with his hog out.”
”Wow, you’re the man.”

The estate includes a true replica of Michaelangelo’s famous “La Pieta” statue from St. Peter’s Basillica in Rome. That’s the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church FYI. The previous owners commissioned the statue because, and I quote, the “Seller commissioned the 10k lb statue from the same artisans who repaired the original after it was attacked by a madman with a hammer in 1972.”

Every home tells a story, and this home’s story is “I may or may not be heavily involved in human trafficking.”

Buona sera.

“The Culture Is Dead” Moment of the Week

That is MTV’s programming schedule from last week.

I have long held the opinion that American culture has been in steep decline for the last 10 years. What better evidence do you need than this putrid weekly lineup on MTV. Literally hundreds of hours of Rob Dyrdek and Chanel West Coast giggling and saying things like “Oh, that is lit.”

This is straight out of “Idiocracy.” MTV used to be a beacon of America’s cultural supremacy, now it’s the “people getting hit in the nuts” channel.

MTV’s content used to be the most diverse and entertaining on television. I’m sure there was some letter to the editor in 1999 about Jackass and how it relates to the moral decay of society, but man. I don’t think I’m just some old man yelling at a cloud here. This is depressing.

Viacom is evil. Pure evil.

New DongTown Tees Merch

8-Bit Tees

“Wittness” Tee

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Thank you for all the support. This thing just keeps growing.

Let’s go get ‘em.