Boom! This is Books & Biceps #321!

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🚨NEW BOOK COVER REVEAL🚨

One of my favorite things about our awesome Books & Biceps crew is that I’ve gotten to know so many of you personally through DMs and emails and social media.

And as I type this, there are a ton of fellow 80s and 90s kids who I personally KNOW will love this book and book cover and who I’ve been dying to show for a while…

I’ve been teasing this idea since the summer, but truth be told, I’ve had this project in mind much longer than that - ever since I wrote 1996: A Biography.

When I finished the manuscript for that book and made all the edits with the publisher I felt like I had so many more awesome things to write about; so many more things from our 80s and 90s childhood to explore…

So I began compiling them. And writing them as columns. And the list grew from 10 to 20 to 200+ things…which I then whittled down to 90.

Specifically: The 90 greatest dude things from the 90s.

And that led me to the idea of a ranking and a theme and a title and cover I’ve been dreaming of showing you all for years…

In fact, this isn’t just a cover - it’s your childhood distilled down to a single image.

AAAANNNNNDDDDDD NOWWWWWW…..

THE COVER:

LOOK AT HOW DOPE THAT IS.

SAVOR IT! ZOOM CLOSE!! TAKE IT IN!!!

My goal was to make the book cover look just like one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games: Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest:

And I’m proud to say we NAILED IT.

The book is titled:

GENERATION GRIFFEY: RANKFEST - The Ultimate 90s Dude Countdown (90 Columns Ranking What Made Us Legendary)

If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you will LOVE this book. It is a Books & Biceps guarantee.

And more importantly, I’m putting this digital book out myself through my Meathead Media imprint. Which means it’s even more rewarding when you buy it because it is 100% on me. I wrote it, hired the designers, editors, etc…

I love these digital books because we can be super creative and break some publishing rules with dimensions and layouts and stuff.

The book comes out 12/18/24…

Our goal is 100 PRE-ORDERS TODAY so let’s gooooooooooooo:

HERE IS A FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK:

Let’s start with a quick Q&A: 

What is a rankfest? 

It’s a festival of ranking things in book form. Obviously. Also, I made it up. In this case, we’re ranking 90 of our favorite 90s things across 10 categories:

Commercials, Comedies & Comedians, College, Television, Sports & Action Movies, Food, Gear, Personalities, Video Games, Athletes 

Why ‘Generation Griffey’?

First, it’s a great name. We’ve got alliteration, ‘generation’ and the quintessential athlete from that era: Ken Griffey Jr… Junior is the perfect person to define the era of late 80s and 90s kids because the apex of his career matches our childhood perfectly. From the day he entered the Mariner’s lineup in 1989 through the next decade, nobody typified 90s style (the backwards hat), 90s swagger (the swing, the smile, the commercials) and 90s coolness (the kicks, the cameos, the crossover stardom) like Griffey.

His reign at the top of the sports/celebrity pyramid (with Jordan) from his rookie year in Seattle to when he joined the Reds in 2000 is the perfect bookend for all of us who grew up around the last decade of the last century. 

See, Generation Griffey is a spectacular name for this book.

What Are We Ranking?

Everything. Well, not everything, but the 90 most nostalgic things that make us dudes smile all these years later: the movies we quoted, the athletes we loved, the cards we collected, the foods we ate, the shows we watched and more. All of it. 

How Are We Ranking Things?

Glad you asked. If we were just ranking a list of similar items (movies, athletes, foods, etc…) it’s easy. We create several categories, assign them an objective number based on how we evaluated them in that area and… boom… we’ve got a ranking

However, in this book we're doing a countdown of everything, which means we’re putting things up against each other that have no common traits (like, let’s say, Hot Pockets, Barry Sanders and Saved By the Bell) . In this case, we need a much looser ratings system that can encompass everything without using an actual concrete number.

After careful consideration, these are the three categories I used as my baseline when considering how I rank every 90s thing:

1) Hold-Up-Ability: Does this thing hold up today? This is a simple question we all ask ourselves when we rewatch a movie or try a food we used to like or watch highlights from thirty years ago: Does this hold up? Do I still like it? Is it still bad ass?

Also, has our collective enjoyment of this person or thing diminished over time because of external factors like technology or a sport changing or culture changing or humor being different or anything like that? That’s a secondary thing to consider.

2) Take You Backness: How much does this take you back? This is perhaps the most important category. When you think of this thing/person, are you instantly transported to the 90s? Do you get that same feeling? Does it put a smile on your face? Do you instinctively nod? If ‘yes’ to all three then we are at peak “take you backness”.

3) Modern Influence & Relevance: How much did you quote, mimic, copy, or use this thing back in the day AND does this thing still matter in today’s culture? Some things/people had their moment and disappeared; others stand the test of time. The more often that something on this list is still referenced or referred to today, the more weight I’ll give that thing in my final consideration.

After coming up with a master list of a few hundred nineties things, I used the categories I mentioned earlier to rank the top 90 overall. I have no doubt you’ll find something I egregiously left off and that you’ll want to revoke my 90s card for putting something on. 

I’m a big boy, I can take disagreements. When you’re done reading, you can hit me on social media (@Jon_Finkel) for Twitter/X and Instagram and let me know where I nailed it and where I blew it.

Got it? Good. Let’s go.

BICEPS

Unfortunately, every week can’t be all gas, no brakes when it comes to biceps and butterfly and this week I got hit with my twin arch-nemeses: bad back pain and swimmer’s ear. Oddly, at the same time.

This was especially annoying because typically the #1 thing that helps me loosen up and fix my back quickly is swimming - and I had to stay out of the pool all week while my ear healed.

Which meant this has been me since Sunday:

Some things to know: no matter how many stretches and low back specific-strengthening exercises I do every day to avoid it - once a year my back will go out.

Usually it’s from something dumb like putting on my socks or grabbing the laundry basket quickly and ZAP, I’m down… But this time, I have no idea what I did to trigger it.

I walked the dog and then went for a great swim on Thursday AM and when I got out of the car I felt that familiar, radiating tightening as it started to lock up. If you have back pain, you know it all too well.

I immediately did my full “reduce the pain” stretching routine and it worked to a point, but as soon as I cooled off the tightening continued. I could barely bend down Friday, but worked my way through my stretches every 3 hours or so and things got better.

By the time I finished my swim Saturday, I thought I was past it. I felt good. Loose.

But the very lowest part of my back, just above my hips, would not release and felt like a brick on Sunday morning. Then my ear went haywire and I needed drops and I was out of the pool and gym for 4 days. Good times!

I write all this to say that when stuff like this happens, I used to get super bummed out. I hate not being able to train… But as I get older, I take the time to analyze my workouts and see how I can switch things up to improve them. In this case, I’m fairly confident that while I’ve been diligent about a 10-minute AM and PM back routine, I’ve ignored my hips, quads and hamstrings… Also, I’ve been on a swim-lift-swim-lift-swim-lift routine that doesn’t leave space for breaks. I’m going to switch to one double session day (lift AM, swim PM) so that I can get a mobility day in between and give my back/shoulders a rest.

And while I’ve sensed that I need to commit to 2-3 days of mobility work a week, I haven’t done it yet. And now I will.

I’m curious: How many of you have a back that acts up?

And if you’re interested in my 15-minute quick fix back routine to help get you back on your feet, here it is (just google any of these moves if you don’t know them):

10 × 10 second pelvic bridge (10 second hold at top)

5 × 10 seconds windshield wipers with knees bent

10 sets each side of elevens

10 bird dog movements each arm/leg

10 x supermans on the ground

10 x piriformis movements on the ground

1 minute knee to chest hold

1 minute child’s pose hold

QUICK FLEXES

I realize that most of you may not be current wrestling fans. And some of you may just drop in at WrestleMania or the occasional Pay Per View…

But my son and I still watch the big events and if you missed the Bad Blood event this weekend, the Final Boss, AKA, The Rock made a surprise appearance and I gotta say… The pop this dude gets when he shows up out of nowhere at an event is insane. Watch this if you missed it (it was ludicrous when it happened live):

therock

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AND DON’T FORGET:

Get Your Copy of Generation Griffey HERE:

BUY YOURS NOW

PS: You still reading Gus and Mallory? Thanks for getting through the whole thing! No skimming!

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