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September 25, 2006: The Case for Donkey Basketball

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(* = new)

Artist	Track	Album	Comments	New	Approx. start time
Susan Christie	Yesterday, Where's my Mind?	Paint a Lady		*	0:00:00 Pop-up)
Elton John	Tiny Dancer	The Greatest Motherpussbuckin' Hits of Elton John 2xCD			0:09:03 Pop-up)
Curse Ov Dialect	Bury me Slowly	Wooden Tongues	Brilliant!	*	0:15:13 Pop-up)
George Brigman & Split	Blowing Smoke	Cherrystones Word	compilation	*	0:19:31 Pop-up)
Doris	Beatmaker	Mama's Got a Bag of Her Own	compilation	*	0:22:03 Pop-up)
The Wombats	Split in Two	Zontar Must Die!			0:25:34 Pop-up)
The New Clear Family	All Little Angels Got Wings on their Feet, Got Blood in their Pants	Sweish Exotica, Volume One	Compilation, 1989		0:28:24 Pop-up)
Madvillain	All Caps	Madvillainy			0:38:06 Pop-up)
Mossa	Dedans le Dash	Some Eat it Raw		*	0:40:06 Pop-up)
The Red Krayola	Easy Street	Red Gold		*	0:46:02 Pop-up)
A Hawk and a Hacksaw	In the River	The Way the Wind Blows		*	0:50:07 Pop-up)
Santo & Johnny	Sleepwalk	7"			0:56:09 Pop-up)
Jennifer O'Connor	Century Estates	Over the Mountain, Across the Valley, and Back to the Stars		*	0:58:26 Pop-up)
Walter Salas Humara	Upside Down Instead	Love is my Only Crime 2xLP	compilation		1:00:25 Pop-up)
Boneshaker	Sweetness	Neurotic Reactions: 20 Worldwide Mod Psych Freak Rock Smashers!		*	1:04:39 Pop-up)
The Genteels	Take it Off!	Las Vegas Grind	compilation		1:07:24 Pop-up)
The Nightingales	Born Again in Birmingham	Out of True		*	1:17:33 Pop-up)
		Strummin Mental Vol. 4			1:28:01 Pop-up)
Channels	Unreal Estates	Waiting for the Next End of the World		*	1:29:18 Pop-up)
Subtle	Middleclass Stomp	For Hero: For Fool		*	1:32:27 Pop-up)
The Everlasting Doug Easley Experience	Pildecide	Shangri-La B-Sides	compilation	*	1:34:40 Pop-up)
Stu Gardiner	Devil in a Man	Slurped....2! 2xLP			1:37:26 Pop-up)
Hank Levine & his Orchestra	Image, Part One	Bob			1:41:41 Pop-up)
The Saints	Messin' With the Kid	(I'm) Stranded			1:44:00 Pop-up)
The Mobius Band	Electronic Piano	Idol Tryouts Two 2xCD	compilation		1:49:52 Pop-up)
Pernice Brothers	Conscience Clean (I Went to Spain)	Live a Little		*	1:54:23 Pop-up)
Trevor Dandy	Is There Any Love in this World	Good God! - A Gospel Funk Hymnal	compilation	*	2:07:57 Pop-up)
Tujiko Noriko	Pop Skirt	Shojo Toshi+		*	2:12:01 Pop-up)
The McGuire Sisters	Sincerely	Billboard Pop Memories, 1955-1959	Severly pitch shifted		2:16:15 Pop-up)
Krackdown	Blinded	Long Island Hardcore 2xCD		*	2:19:13 Pop-up)
Dead Moon	It's OK	Echoes of the Past 2xCD	Much-deserved retrospective	*	2:20:56 Pop-up)
Distance	Cyclops	Science Faction: Dubstep	compilation	*	2:24:24 Pop-up)
The Menstruation Sisters	(Track 4)	Ma		*	2:27:51 Pop-up)
Uainica Doble	Fulgencio Pimenter	Psicodelico!			2:29:39 Pop-up)
De Kift	Narrow Miter	De Kift		*	2:34:10 Pop-up)
Steve Lawrence	The Bad Donkey				2:43:15 Pop-up)
Martin Denny	The Donkey Serenade				2:45:45 Pop-up)
The Newcomers	Pin the Tail on the Donkey				2:48:31 Pop-up)
Ivor Cutler	Living Donkey				2:51:26 Pop-up)
Wild Man Fisher	Monkey vs. Donkey				2:52:08 Pop-up)
Johnny Horton	The Electrified Donkey				2:54:10 Pop-up)
From Listener Kurt: When I was working at [a] daily newspaper [in] Norwalk, CT, I covered a local animal rights group protesting the school district's donkey-basketball fundraiser. Somehow it's not a clip Ii held on to, but I can confirm for you. As I recall, there was an organization that "toured" it, setting up the fundraisers for schools.
From Listener Wendy: I grew up in Morris County NJ, and I went to a tiny little private school. we were lucky to have a gym at all, let alone TEACHERS ON DONKEYS! Damn, what a delightfully humiliating experience for them. Do you think the union sanctions this? Whaddabout PETA?
From Listener Steve: Mike, I grew up in Dayton, Ohio. I do not think you are a filthy liar...at least about donkey basketball. While I have indeed heard of and even seen pictures of donkey basketball, there was never an occurance in my school.
From Listener Jason: I'm originally from the central San Joaquin (pronounced 'Wa-keen') valley of California. And yes I have seen donkey basketball. It was in a HS gym, and faculty members comprised one of the teams. The other team was comprised of the officers of the FFA (Future Farmers of America). Yipes!
From Listener Andy: I think I smell a big monkeymaker here for the station! I never ever heard of this and am amazed and perplexed by this.
From Listener Mark: I certainly do not believe you to be a filthy liar, but even after you explained what donkey basketball was, I still assumed that you did not mean the term "donkey" literally. I seriously thought you must have meant that teachers were standing on the shoulders of other teachers, or some such scenario, which might, in truth, be even more bizarre than a literal interpretation of what you had said. So in a sense I guess I didn't believe you. But I too promptly went to google in search of visual clarification of the phenomenon that you had described. And there I found the incontrovertible and amazing evidence of my eyes. Where did the donkeys come from???... I come from the suburbs west of Philadelphia. I went to a private school, where the mostly rich kids in attendance could have been expected either to spurn such an event or, perhaps more likely, to traditionalize it in some even stranger way. In any event, I don't think it was actually played at my school.
From Listener John: I witnessed donkey basketball in the Liverpool High School gymnasium (Liverpool NY -- just north of Syracuse NY). It was in the mid-1970s. They had a game on one or two occasions to raise money for some dang thing. It was always teachers vs. celebrity students (student council folks, cheerleaders, etc.), and they were held in the evening. There was a guy who had a horse truck who travelled from town to town putting on these games. I've often wondered if he was the only guy in the USA left who did this for a living. He probably travelled to a lot of places, so a lot of people from that era saw genuine donkey basketball. I wonder if it still exists -- it seems to involve cruelty to animals, especially when the guy poked a donkey with a pin to get the action going. It really wasn't much fun to watch. Check this out: I don't know if it ever really existed, but my father said back then that he had seen donkey BASEBALL. My memory may be bad about that, though. Don't let them call you a liar!
From Listener Katrina: I'm not sure if we have any spare donkeys in Australia for ridin' round the gym. In fact I don't even know if we have donkeys here at all. Or gyms.
From Listener Katherine: DONKEY BASEBALL! I had forgotten about that (but in truth had not heard of that either, until i probably got an alert that there was a protest happening in the area . . . ) Stupid as these "games" are, still not nearly as gruesome as dog fighting, etc., -- crap where the animals REALLY get the &$^#*#@ beat out of them, killed, whatever (all in the name of "entertainment" I guess) DONKEY BASEBALL reminded me of another *sport* where donkeys (or maybe even horses, cows, other four legged mammals too? sorry I am being so vague on this, just do not recall all the details) are forced to dive off diving boards -- and not just "regular" diving boards but the "high dive" type -- YIKES! Don't know if this goes on in our wonderful Garden State, I think I heard about it being real popular in Florida? (I know there were protests organized against these events, a lot of the animals were seriously injured and/or died) FREE THE DONKEYS!
From Listener Irwin: No one likes this calypso shit. Cut it out.
From Listener Scott: Yes, we played Donkey Baskeball in Essex County NJ in the 1980s. My only specific memory is 1985 or 6, sophomore year, and it was students playing. Motherfuckin jocks v. freaks! Yep, band fags vs. jocks. I didn't play because I was an underclassman, but the band fags won. This is explained simply: 1. nobody can ride a stranger donkey, let alone ride one and shoot, so the jocks had no advantage. 2. jocks were drunk, and therefore unable to negotiate the, um, physics of the thing, while the band was on acid and therefore interested in nothing more than the "weird" challenge at hand. I know there were earlier donkey basketball events in My Hometown, but my memories are foggy. I do believe they were faculty only, and I believe that's because we students were really young - too young to be riding donkeys anyhow, and whatever comeback you have to that is, I'm sure, spot on. I'm sorry you got called a liar over this! Maria says she would've called you a liar too. She went on to say "how could you ever do such a thing and not spend the rest of your life talking about it?" Good point, to which I could only suggest that anything becomes normal once you've seen/done it.
From Listener Therese: Hi. We had donkey basketball fundraisers at my high school. They took place in the evening, and you had to pay to attend. Students rode the donkeys. (Probably teachers too, but I don't recall. I'll have to find my sophmore yearbook.) They added an extra exciting wrinkle -- one of the donkeys was given a laxative before the game, which resulted in that donkey crapping all over the gym floor. Then the person riding that donkey would have to clean up the mess for the enjoyment of the assembled student body/community. This must have raised a ton of money, because the phys ed department got pissed if someone walked on the gym floor in hard-soled shoes. I can only imagine what they said when they heard that pack animals were not only going to be trotting all over their precious floor, but defecating on it! I think it fell out of favor around 1989, at my school at least. We switched to Jell-O Wrestling after that.