The MCA Memorial Monkey Shake Promotion and 30-Bag Giveaway!

"Monkey tastes def when you pour it on ice -

Come on y'all it's time to get nice ... "

- Beastie Boys, "Brass Monkey" (video after post)

Two quite unrelated topics today - one sad, one happy - that I'll try to combine in some sensible manner by the time we're done ...

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First, the sad part, which is belated news from earlier his month:  RIP, Adam Yauch.  And most likely, RIP Beastie Boys.  I'm almost ashamed to admit how profoundly sorrowful I was to hear about MCA's passing, but I can't tell you how many hours I spent memorizing lyrics from Licensed To Ill, or how many times the Beasties' distinctive combination of humor and hip-hop brought a smile to my face in the years since their debut album.

Anybody remember the flip side of this cover?

Intellectually, it doesn't make sense that I'd be sad about a rap singer who died too soon - an occurrence that happens so often as to be cliché.  Perhaps there's something about being obsessed with a band at a formative age that makes the attachment more heartfelt than it would later in life; if that's the case, my 15-year-old self spinning Licensed to Ill over and over again would make me the perfect candidate. 

However, I think there's another element of Yauch's death that hits closer to home: mainly, he had become just a regular guy.  As he grew older, Yauch left the insane hip-hop miscreant persona of his youth behind, and became a family man concerned with providing for his loved ones and doing his part to serve the greater societal good.   And it wasn't a rap squabble that brought him down - it was cancer, which cuts the lives of most victims far too short, usually for no reason at all.  So maybe there was something in his transformation from basic idiot to respectable, vulnerable person that I identified with. 

Whatever the case, he'll definitely be missed.  Like a lemon without a lime, a lime without a lemon.

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On to our good news for the day, which is courtesy of the Monkey Shake company I've endorsed a few times in the past.  They have a cool promotion going on this month, and they're also offering a killer contest prize for one of my readers.

  

Here's the promotion, which we'll call the Tuesday Special: for the rest of the month May, if you buy any two items in the Monkey Shake store on a Tuesday, you'll get a third item for free.  All you have to do is put three items in your shopping cart, and if it's a Tuesday, the discount will automatically be applied.  

And if you'd rather take your chances with a contest entry, we've got a tempting one: this weekend, I'll award a huge 30-serving bag of Monkey Shake original mix to one lucky reader chosen from the comments section below. 

Monkey love!

The company was kind enough to provide me with one of these bags a few weeks back, and it's been one of my key refueling strategies during the high-volume training weeks of my early season ultras.  If there's a better post-20-miler recovery drink than Monkey Shake with yogurt, banana, frozen berries, honey, and orange juice, I haven't tasted it.  Like the Beasties said, Monkey tastes def when you pour it on ice ... or on frozen berries, as the case may be.

The ground rules for this one are that I'm making the contest entry process a Beastie Boys / MCA memorial.  To enter, leave your favorite Beastie Boys lyric in the box below - and you'll get two entries if it's a line by MCA.  I'll announce the winner next Saturday, May 19th - but remember to shop at the Monkey Shake store on Tuesdays throughout the month as well, because there's only one winner for this thing.

Special thanks to the Monkey Shake company for this contest, and good luck to everybody.  I think you know what time it is - it's time to get ill in the comments!

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Beastie Boys, "Brass Monkey" (click to play):

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