Your letters:
Brian:
Which will happen first? Tom Brady retires, or Donald Trump finishes being our president?
Brady retires. After what happened last year, I have no faith that we will ever be rid of Trump. A lot of my friends/colleagues don’t think he’ll serve out his term without being impeached and/or dying of pancreatic exhaustion, but that’s all wishful thinking. I’ve already learned my lesson from predicting Trump’s demise. He’s gonna come in, get rid of term limits, gerrymander voting districts into balloon animal shapes, and then live to 140 despite subsisting entirely on sucrose and canola oil. We’ll all die before he’s gone.
If the rally assaults and pussy grabbing and tax evasion and shady Russian ties didn’t do him in, nothing will. He’s fucking invincible. None of the braying dickfaces in Congress seem willing to defy him. And every time he fucks up, he only engenders more support from his voters. They love it when he gets away with everything because it makes them believe that THEY can too. As our Billy Haisley explains, “It’s about showing that the cultural and social and political gatekeepers don’t actually have the power they assume they do.” Trump could serve out his term naked, covered in honey, at a bear farm. Nothing would happen to him. He should write a self-help book about how you can live longer by shunning all criticism and worshipping your own dick.
I think that’s why a lot of dirty liberals like me were so crushed by Election Night. I know it’s disingenuous to say I’m putting politics aside here, but I was anticipating a more general kind of relief that night. I was looking forward to a world where Trump no longer dominated the news cycle and I wouldn’t have to look at him or hear him every goddamn day. I had the “Thank fucking God that’s over” tweet all set to go. And then, in flash, I was subjected to the prospect of FOUR MORE YEARS of his face being everywhere, and those four years are a likely minimum. I feel like I have a boil on my ass that won’t go away.
As for Brady, I know he plans on playing forever, if not living forever, and relies on secret stretching routines and soil milkshakes and equipment tampering and Scientology-tinged supplements to help defy old age. But when players break down, they break down fast. In Peyton Manning’s final season, he threw 30 fewer touchdowns and saw both his completion percentage and YPG totals go into freefall. It’ll happen to Brady, unless his bestie Trump somehow stumbled onto the Death Becomes Her potion and shared it with him. I put nothing past those two.
Ian:
How many slices of cheese in a grilled cheese? At least two right?
If you’re using Kraft singles or any other kind of American cheese, then yeah. You need two slices, otherwise the sandwich will be a millimeter thick. You need enough cheese for some of it to be absorbed into the bread and the rest to form a warm and gooey center. If you just use one slice, you won’t have a center. You’ll just have two pieces of bread glued together.
I have a confession to make, which I’m not proud of: I don’t like standard grilled cheese sandwiches. I can make the kids a decent one, but I never bother eating them myself. I’d much rather have a grilled sandwich that has some meat and some other cheese in it, like provolone or cheddar. I used to hate orange American cheese as a kid for no reason at all, and I’ve mostly gotten over it, EXCEPT when it comes to grilled cheese sandwiches. Something about the Kraft cheese leaking out of the fucker… it’s like the mayo of cheese. I should see a therapist.
Dan:
Let’s say you were given one million Euros, cash. Doesn’t matter how or why, but you have to 1) Tell your family you have it but not where it came from (you can’t say you found it or otherwise lie except to say it’s a “secret”) and 2) You can’t put it in a bank, have to keep it in the house, but must take a wad no more than 100 Euros to exchange places every time you wanted to use it. How long until your marriage falls apart?
I think I could keep the marriage going. I would say to my old lady, “Listen, I can’t tell you where this came from, but I swear it’s all good,” and I think that would probably be enough. I’m not saying that as some limp brag about my wife trusting me. It’s just that I’ve been married for nearly 15 years. We’ve got three kids, joint assets, and all that shit. To undo it all would be a COLOSSAL pain in the ass. I know it. My wife knows it. We got pictures sitting on the floor that we’ve been too lazy to hang up for a fucking decade. We’re not getting divorced. My old lady could chop my pinky toe off in the dead of night and I still wouldn’t bother to file papers. And she stuck around even after reading Men With Balls. So I bet we could both easily look the other way when it comes to the Mystery Cash. So long as I keep her away from any On Demand showings of A Simple Plan, I’m all good.
Jason:
How come, whenever the networks cut to head coaches running to the locker room for halftime, or interview the head coaches on their way to the locker room for halftime, the coaches are flanked by 18 State Troopers/Police personnel? I find this comical. Dabo Swinney does NOT need three cops protecting him as ESPN interviews him at halftime. Why are their lives so very precious and everyone else’s on the team is not?
This was a big sticking point for ol’ Gregggggggggggggg Easterbrook back when he used to write Tuesday Morning QB, and Gregg was kinda right! In fact, Gregg was right about a handful of subjects—don’t blitz too much, mutual funds are a scam, etc.—it’s just that he was so goddamn insufferable about it that no one ever wanted to listen.
Anyway, a lot of these police escorts for college coaches are supposedly staffed by officers who are either “volunteering” their time, or paid a stipend (usually a thousand bucks or so) by the university to cover the cost of travel, food, and lodging. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge expense compared to the millions upon millions of dollars that schools spend on coaches and training facilities. And college football fans are fucking insane, so it makes sense to protect Nick Saban from whatever deranged Finebaum callers are lurking out there.
The real problem it the ceremony it confers upon coaches, who are already megalomaniacal dipshits anyway. Here’s a Georgia State Patrol rep on protecting Mark Richt back when he coached there:
“To be there, assigned to the coaches, it’s an honor.”
And here’s a Mississippi Highway Patrolman:
“We consider it an honor because college football is such a public part of life in the south.”
In theory, it’s the job of your local police officer to protect everyone equally, and not prize protecting one asshole over another. Shit gets really blurry when coaches and other VIPs are able to use local police as a private security detail, because I guarantee you that chumminess extends well beyond gameday. A coach who’s tight with his local sheriff can make all sorts of problems disappear—fights, assaults, bestiality keggers, and so forth—while the sheriff gets the “honor” of having Jimbo Fisher on speed-dial. It’s gross. Colleges should be forced to hire biker gangs instead.
John:
In the future will there be a way that I can turn the volume down on just one announcer in the booth? Like if I just want to hear Jim Nantz but not Phil Simms.
Even if they figured out a way to mute Phil, you still wouldn’t use it. I just sat through the college national championship where ESPN offered 12 different alternative broadcasts, and I barely looked at them. They had stoned Bill Walton in an Uncle Sam outfit for no reason. They had coaches boring you into submission with tape study (no one can make football boring faster than football coaches). And they had the Finebaum room and homer broadcasts. I love bitching about the announcers as much as anyone, but I’m a creature of habit. Those Megacast alternatives are cute, but in the big moments I want normal play-by-play, and I want a concussed old man chirping, “That was a heckuva block!” over the replay. Simms is the absolute worst, but I can always sync up the radio broadcast instead (I never do this because I’m lazy). I can’t mute him out and listen to 100 percent Nantz. That would make the broadcast all stilted AND give everyone diabetes.
They don’t have to overhaul the current play-by-play setup. They just have to optimize it. The fact that there are virtually no three-man booths anymore is already a quantum leap forward. Remember: there used to be a Sunday Night telecast that had Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann AND Paul Maguire. Do you know how fucking awful that was? Imagine Simms sharing a booth with a clone of himself, and then hit that clone on the head with a mallet. I wanted to die. All they have to do is kick Simms to the curb and ban ALL canned sideline reports (“Well Al, Aaron Ripkowski told me he’s been waiting for this game since he was seven! Back then his father bought him a football and he played with it!”), and we’re already in a nicer place.
Cory:
I’m the best man at one of my buddy’s weddings. The mother of the groom wants the groomsmen to do a choreographed dance. We (I) can tell her no, right? I thought the only responsibility of the best man was bachelor party and short speech!
As with all unreasonable wedding requests, I suggest that you A) Go along with it, and B) Trash the mom privately to anyone else grousing about her micromanaging of the affair. As best man, your job is to do whatever the bride and groom (and their overbearing families) say. That is your way of providing “support,” even when the mom goes too far and has you moving refrigerators on the morning of. If the groom wants to tell his mom that she should fuck off, and that no one dances to Chris Brown at weddings anymore because he’s a wifebeater, that’s his right.
But YOU can’t do it. That will cause a Category 6 shitstorm that floods the tent. It has to come from the groom. He has to stand up to his mommy and be a MAN for once in his life. Or, conversely, he can cower like a scared little dog and throw your dignity under the bus. In that case, you do as ordered. After that, you get to drink like a fish and mutter, “Can you believe this fucking lady?” to all other guests in attendance. That is what’s fair. The whole point of going to a wedding is to complain about it.
Thomas:
I like flour tortillas as much as the next gringo, but corn tortillas are invaluable for enchiladas and authentic tacos. If I go to a Mexican joint and they give me tacos that have been double wrapped with corn tortillas, I already know I’m in for the good shit. There’s probably an old grandma in the back who’s been standing there stewing a pork shoulder in green sauce for six straight decades, and THAT lady knows which tortilla goes best with what hunk of dead pig. I’m not tortillasplaining nothing to her.
HALFTIME!
Eric:
Recently I got up late for work and didn’t have time to shower, but I put on clean clothes. That night I stayed at my girlfriend’s place, so in the morning I got to shower, but had to wear the same clothes to work as the previous day. On which day was I more disgusting?
It’s the second day, because your clothes are already pitted out from the day before, which means the BO has had 24 hours to ferment and age. Even though you showered at your lady’s place, that smell is still in the fabric. Also, if you’re like me, the effects of a shower wear off after—oh I dunno—10 minutes of commuting. You step out of that house fresh and clean, and then after being in a car or on a subway for a moment, you are RIGHT back to being a disgusting pigman.
By the way, my BO has accelerated at a frightening pace. I thought it was bad before, but now that I’m 40 I smell like a cab seat that the driver spent eight years farting into. If I don’t toss on deodorant before hitting the gym, the smell goes EVERYWHERE. My BO hits the fucking rafters. I’ve seen people jump off the machine next to me and I know damn well that they moved because I smell like a goddamn cave. It’s awful. From now on I’m gonna have to wear a hazmat suit whenever I walk out the door.
Kyle:
What cities/states should people be most/least proud of admitting that they are from? For example, I grew up in Florida, went to grad school in Austin for three years, and have recently moved to San Francisco. Although I have no issues with my upbringing in the Sunshine State, it’s rare for me to casually admit that I’m from there. And if I do, I automatically add the caveat that I went to school in Austin, even though it was just grad school and I did my undergrad in Florida. Note that I never say I’m from or lived in “Texas,” but instead specifically say “Austin.”
I think it’s all about presentation. For example, if you tell me you’re from Boston, but you’re pleasant and don’t seem like a complete asshole, I swear I won’t assume the worst about you. But if you have a filthy Sox hat on, and a goatee, and you’re spitting Kodiak onto my carpet screaming “FACKIN’ QUINZEE TILL I DIE!” well then I’m allowed to shape my first impression accordingly.
Where you’re from doesn’t have to define you. I’ve met Floridians who aren’t crazy. I’ve met Texans who aren’t gun-toting assgrabbers. You don’t have to be ashamed of being from somewhere shitty (Jacksonville!). And conversely, you don’t get to brag if you happen to be from somewhere cool (Portland!). Be secure in your individuality and I can judge your sorry ass on a case-by-case basis. I was born in Australia but only lived there for four months, so I feel like I don’t have the right to tell people I’m from there even though it would be fucking SWEET if I could. And my folks have lived in Connecticut for over two decades, but I never say I’m from Connecticut because people think Connecticut is full of preppy assholes, and it is!
The best is when someone tells you they’re from somewhere and it takes you completely by surprise. “Oh, you’re from Alabama? Really? But you don’t have a stupid accent!” Or, “You’re from ALASKA! I’ve never met anyone from Alaska!” There’s nothing better than meeting people from far-flung locales and treating them like a souvenir you’re collecting. “Look at this shiny Alaskan I found!”
John:
Do NFL owners determine whether or not they’re shown on TV when they’re in the press box?
Oh, sure. I think they can specify how much or how little they’re shown. You already know that Jerry Jones wants his Brazil face on TV every half-second. And so it is done. Then you have guys like John Mara who only want to be shown once, sitting way back in the luxury box like fucking Gatsby, with Al Michaels solemnly intoning that he’s so CLASSY and GENEROUS. He’s not one for the spotlight, no sirree. He prefers to stay out of the limelight and feed dying children soup.
Thomas:
Why do grocery stores hide chicken noodle and the other good soups? They are never at eye level. It’s always the crazy soups like Italian wedding or tomato or fat free soups that are in the prime grocery snatching view. Yet Chicken noodle, potato, etc are hidden away like some kind of twisted game of Waldo in the soup aisle. Why is that? Like you wouldn’t hide original Doritos and highlight the crap brands like extreme and Mountain Dew Doritos.
Ah, but you would! Grocery stores give premium placement to impulse purchases (in fact, they are often paid handsomely to display such items), because they know you’re already gonna buy chicken broth even if they have it stored in a vault located above the ceiling tiles. They want you to buy that AND some other newfangled soup that you haven’t tried before, like lamb bisque, or cream of beef, or green bean & barley, or Chunky crawfish head, or Thai blood soup. Now you have two soups in your cart instead of one. PROFIT. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wandered around the store in a daze, unable to find a seemingly basic food staple that should be prominently displayed. Where is the fucking peanut butter? Why is it in the ketchup aisle? What kind of black magic is this?
Matt:
On an onsides kick, why doesn’t the opposing team call for a fair catch? Is there a limit to the number of players who can signal for a fair catch at the same time?
You can’t call for a fair catch if the ball has already hit the ground. That’s why the kicker usually drives the ball directly into the ground during an onside kick. Not only does it make the ball pop, but it takes away the option of a fair catch. This is good, because do you REALLY want the receiving team to have another way of thwarting that play? What a fucking letdown. The onside kick is one of the most exciting plays in football when it works, and it NEVER works. As far as I’m concerned, they should make it even harder for the receiving team to field them. You should only be allowed to use one hand or something.
Josh:
If you have a teleporter that can take you instantaneously anywhere imaginable, yet each use takes a day off of your lifespan (as well as anyone you teleport with), how judicious are you in using it? As a parent, would you use it for family vacations? Sure, you’re in essence killing your children BUT I’LL BE DAMNED if I’m driving to Florida again.
Yeah I think you would use it for trips that, in essence, take the entire day away from you anyway. For example, let’s say you’re going to Australia. That’s 15 hours from L.A., plus God knows how much extra time at check-in and customs and delays. That means I’ve already sacrificed a day of my life to travel. So why not sacrifice it on the back end instead? I would much rather be stone dead for a day than stuck in coach on Qantas.
My rule would be that any trip longer than 10 hours gets the teleporter. I would then violate that rule weekly in order to teleport to the beer store when it’s raining outside. My willpower is alarmingly poor.
Daniel:
Was the “don’t choke on your ambition” line in Rogue One shade directed at George Lucas’ notoriously terrible dialogue? That was a terrible fucking pun, and pretty incongruous with what was otherwise pretty good writing in the rest of the movie.
I like that theory, but I doubt it. I think they stuck that line in there because if anyone is gonna get away with terrible wordplay, it’s Darth Vader. He’s not supposed to be funny. He doesn’t have to be. He’s too busy slicing you into deli meat with his light saber to say anything clever. Also, thinking your own bad joke is clever is a king asshole move. It fits with the character. That’s how I, a born-again Star Wars apologist, justify that crummy line of dialogue. He probably could have said something cooler, like, “I hope you don’t find my orders difficult to SWALLOW, Director.” Is that better? That’s probably much worse.
Jordan:
I’m a Cowboys fan (I make no apologies; they’ve been my team since I can first remember) and I’m still devastated about the loss. So who to hate more? Tom Brady and the insufferable Patriots, or Aaron Rodgers and the smug Packers? At this point, I’m leaning on hating Rodgers more. All this GOAT talk after the Cowboys game is really bothering me, plus Tom Brady is maybe the least annoying aspects of the Patriots.
I root for the Packers’ divisional rival, and I don’t hate Rodgers so much as I just accept that he’s better than any quarterback my team has ever had or will ever have. I hated Brett Favre much more because Favre would do something fucking stupid out on the field and the announcers would go out of their way to suck his dick anyway. “He’s a gambler out there!” By comparison, the praise for Rodgers is more or less justified. They’ll still blame every incompletion of his on the wideout, but it’s usually correct. He’s doing all this with a bunch of dipshits and nobodies. Jared Cook is one of the most annoying players in history, and yet here Rodgers is, turning him into a fucking sideline ballerina. All I can do is grudgingly respect his efforts and hope that Mike McCarthy botches the game anyway. I would hate the Patriots more if I were you, because Marky Mark.
Eric:
What is your favorite bad smell that you secretly enjoy? For me, it’s the inside of my golf glove.
Scrotum? Scrotum. It’s male nature to stick your hand down your pants and then take a good hearty whiff. NO ONE DENIES THIS. I think I saw the seven-year-old doing it the other day. He knows what time it is. Fromunda smells like home.
Darrell:
Is Pootie Tang a good movie? Yes it is.
It’s not a good movie. Louis C.K. has already said that the movie was taken away from him and re-cut into near-gibberish (although I’ve watched Louie and can’t say with confidence that C.K.’s original cut wouldn’t also be just a bunch of random crap). There are certain movies that are much more fun to quote than watch, and that’s one of them. WA DA TAH.
Email of the week!
Cal:
I was bored around the house one evening and my wife was wrapped up in some terrible show she was watching . So for whatever reason I decided to go upstairs into the bathroom and view some adult content on my phone. The first clip I played seemed to have no sound and after about 10 seconds of making sure the volume was all the way up I came to a horrifying realization. Earlier, I had been listening to music on my phone through our bluetooth speaker in the kitchen. I forgot to shut the bluetooth off on my phone so downstairs my very confused wife was being treated to porn sounds blasted out of the speaker. I had to think fast, so I quickly pulled up some fart sound effects and played those too. When I went back downstairs, I started laughing and played it off like I was just messing with her by playing raunchy sounds. I’m pretty sure she bought it.