In case you haven’t heard, the Ravens are going to the HarBowl…er, HarBaughl…Super Bro-wl…They’re brothers! Anyway, I’ll have a few posts between now and Super Bowl Sunday about the scene here in Birdland (preview: inebriated and combative), but before we look at the cast of characters who will be competing in a couple weeks, let’s look back on who won’t be; more specifically, let’s laugh at the Patriots.
I had no intention of devoting an entire post to the Patriots until I saw this article, entitled, “Never Forget: They Hate Us Because They Want To Be Us.” I don’t know who “el presidente” is, but I’m assuming he’s the illiterate ghost of Dan Shaughnessy. Obviously, most Pats fans would read this and cringe, much in the same way that I would cringe if a video of Philly fans beating the shit out a Laberdoodle puppy in a Cowboys jersey emerged (probably already exists). It’s stereotypical. It’s unrepresentative. It’s low-hanging fruit….but I haven’t done this in a while, and low-hanging fruit can be delicious, so let’s take this line-by-line, shall we?
First things first. Shannon Sharpe is probably top 5 most pretentious assholes on the planet.
Couldn’t proofread the very first sentence, huh? That’s not the eloquent Barstool prose I know.
Bill Belichick is Bill Belichick. He doesn’t like giving interviews when the Pats win. He doesn’t like giving interviews when the Pats lose. Same guy.
“See?? It’s asshole double jeopardy! He’s always a curmudgeonly taintmuffin. All is forgiven!”
I have no problem with the media hating on him, but this isn’t a Lebron situation where he seeks out cameras and adulation when he wins and hides when he loses. You want to call Belichick a sore loser that’s fine. But just make sure you call him a sore winner too because his attitude doesn’t change.
Uh, we do call him a sore winner. Like, every time he wins. See Exhibit A: The 9,700 SportsCenter segments about the Patriots running up the score during their undefeated regular (LOL) season.
Anyway as much as I wanted to avoid talking about the Patriots today it’s impossible. Not when the entire world is open firing on us like they are right now. See that’s the thing about being a Pats fan. Everybody wants to see you fail.
Other things about being a Pats fan: Having persecutory delusions, masturbating to Mark Wahlberg, most likely being racist.
We’ve been king of the mountain for so long that it’s only natural for the rest of the league to hate us.
This statement sounds absurd until you consider the minor topographical distinction that on top of Patriots’ mountain is another mountain that’s for teams that won a Super Bowl in the last 9 years.
For the rest of the country the only thing better than their own team winning is us not winning.
1. Who’s “us”?
2. That statement is blatantly untrue.
3. Fuck you.
I don’t blame them. If I didn’t live here I’d hate us too. Like nobody cares that the Falcons lost. Nobody cared when the Packers got bounced. The only team people care about is the Patriots.
I’ll ignore the wild narcissism of this statement and give him the fact that nobody cares that the Falcons lost.
They hate us with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.
This means nothing. “Hate” and “heat” may sound similar with a Boston accent but that does not make them synonyms. The intensity of hatred isn’t measured in temperature. It’s measured in cubic joules or light years (if you use the metric system). Everyone knows that.
It makes days like today that much harder to endure when everybody and their grandmother is piling on.
Grandma Pino: “…and that’s what it was like seeing untold horrors as a nurse during World War Two while your grandfather was gone for two years fighting for his life and his country in the South Pacific. Anyway, did you happen to see that Patriots game?”
Horrible Pats Fan from out of nowhere: “FACK YOU GRANMDA YOU-AH HAVE NO I-DEE-AH WHAT I HAVE TO ENDURE ROOTING FOR BRADY AND WELK-AH”
When you have the Shannon Sharpes and Terrell Suggs of the world mouthing off.
That is not a sentence.
The bottomline is this.
“What is, ‘not a compound word,’ Alex.”
Idiot.
In an era where parity is king
Parity is king of the era, just like sticktoitiveness is the prince of the times and waffles are the jesters of the fortnight.
and the NFL strives for equality the Pats have been to 5 superbowls in 12 years, 7 AFC title games and 10 division titles.
Incoherent boasts about AFC East titles are the natural defense mechanism of bitter Pats fans.
If you throw out the year Brady got hurt that means Brady and the Pats have been to the Superbowl in half the seasons he’s been in the league. Before every season begins we know we have a 50% chance of being in the final game.
5 out of 11 is 50%. NO ONE DENIES THIS.
If we don’t win it all than the entire season is viewed as a gigantic waste of time. We are left stunned and depressed and questioning the existence of god.
Note: “god” is the code name for Belichick’s spy cameras.
Meanwhile other cities treat just making the playoffs like they won a world championship.
Right. That definitely happens.
Why am I saying all this?
Because you’re a disillusioned, page-view baiting, feeble-minded narcissist?
Because on days like today it’s easy to forget how lucky we are to be Pats fans. There has never been anything like this run in the NFL and there never will be again.
NEV-AH….except for that time the Niners won 5 Super Bowls in 13 years, the Steelers won 4 in 6 years, and the Redskins won 3 in 10 years and the Cowboys won 3 in 4 years and the….
You wonder why everybody hates the Pats?
Not after reading this article.
It’s because for the past decade we’ve ruled the NFL with an iron fist the likes of which this league has never seen before.
Zero Super Bowls in nine years. What a magnanimous and charitable iron fist.
Does it suck we lost? Of course it does. Would I trade places with any other fan base? Not in a billion years.
NAWT YOU, NAWT YOU AND NAWT YOU.
Because when the season starts anew we know we already can pencil ourselves in for the AFC title game.
(Pencils in “lose to Joe Flacco or Eli Manning” on calendar)
Quite simply they hate us because they want to be us and who wouldn’t?
Well…the facts are Brady hasn’t won a big game since 2005. He hasn’t won a big game since the media has deemed him the golden boy. And once again yesterday he made some uncharacteristic mistakes in big moments highlighted by his clock mismanagement at the end of the first half. Things that if other QB’s did they’d get vilified for. Football is definitely a team game. And since the Patriots have become a Brady first team we haven’t won shit.
Those aren’t my words, they’re from THIS WRITER’S own sulking post from the same day this was posted. So who wouldn’t wanna be you? For starters- you.
(The following is an unedited and extended version of an article that ran in the papers I work for. If you’d like to read that abridged version, go here. Otherwise, enjoy the following kilo of uncut Colombian holiday cheer.
Need a holiday party playlist in a pinch? Good news: After literally thousands of hours of research, yours truly determined the top 20 holiday songs of all time then ranked them using a groundbreaking harmonic algorithm…Okay, these are based solely on my opinion, but I think you’ll like them.
20. “The Christmas Shoes” by NewSong – Just kidding. This is tied with “Mad World” by Gary Jules as the most depressing song of all time and it belongs nowhere near a party unless you are subtlety trying to get people to leave, or cry. What the hell were the sociopaths of NewSong thinking when they put together the lyrics to this song?
-”Hey I think I just wrote this really beautiful Christmas song!”
-”Awesome, what’s it about?”
-”This little kid whose mom’s about to die on Christmas Eve.”
-”Wait, what?”
-”Yeah yeah, and he’s at a store buying her shoes.”
-“Why wouldn’t he be at home? If anything, she needs shoes less than just about anyone on the planet.”
-”No, they’re for Jesus.”
-“Oh”
-”But he can’t afford them.”
-“Jesus?”
-”Her son.”
-“That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
-”Yeah but then I come in and buy them for him, and then I realize that he had REALLY been sent by God the whole time.”
-“Jesus?
-”No, the son.”
-So the Mom was never actually sick?”
-”What? No she’s dead.”
-”Wow. Well at least she got new shoes.”
-”It was never about the shoes.“
-”Oh. What’s the name of the song?
-”Christmas Shoes”
20. “We Need a Little Christmas” by The Muppets- From the underrated classic, A Muppet Family Christmas. Listen to this song and try not to smile. Seriously, try it. You can’t.
19. “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Burl Ives- Did you know Burl Ives is white? I have no idea why I thought he was black all these years but I seem to preemptively assume people’s race all the time. I thought Robert Griffin was white until like eight weeks into his last season at Baylor when I finally saw him and realized that he was, in fact, decidely nonwhite. In my defense, Rob Parker still hasn’t made that revelation just yet. This has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, does it?
18. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” by Mannheim Steamroller- Listening to this song, you may think to yourself, “What is a mannheim steamroller and what does construction equipment have to do with Christmas?”, “What instruments am I listening to?”, “Are you sure this isn’t Trans-Siberian Orchestra?” All valid questions, still a great song.
17. “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms- Nothing about bells screams “rock,” and yet Bobby Helms convinced America that jingle bell rock was something that could exist in nature, so credit Helms with paving the way for future generations to make literally anything rock- jail houses, planets, even crocodiles. Bobby Helms was a pioneer and Jingle Bells was his Plymouth Rock.
16. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Bruce Springsteen- Even Springsteen recognizes that come Christmas Time, Santa Claus is The Boss. Bruce provides an excellent rock n’ roll tune-up on the tale of Santa and his E-Street Reindeer.
15. “Oh Holy Night” by Luciano Pavarotti- It’s basically everything that “Christmas Shoes” was going for, only successful.
14. “Sleigh Ride” by Johnny Mathis- Like Burl Ives, Mathis has a voice that instantly evokes the Christmas spirit. Whether you’re hanging ornaments on the tree or storming Toys R’ Us at 5 a.m. to viciously battle for the last Furby, this cheerful tune brightens any holiday tradition.
13. “Up on the House Top” by Jackson 5- Written in 1864, by Benjamin Hanby, it is believed that this song was the first to put forth the idea that Santa and his reindeer landed on the roof of homes. It thankfully supplanted the 1863 holiday hits, “In through the Crawlspace” and “Santa’s on the Dumbwaiter Again.”
12. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” by The Ronettes- The lyrics tell the rather dark tale of a child seeing Mom ostensibly cheating on Dad with a magical, obese man who snuck into the house. This song is proof that Motown can make absolutely anything sound good.
11. “Let It Snow!” by Dean Martin- Only the Rat Pack could turn an ominous weather forecast into a legendary love song. The solution to global warming is employing more meteorologists who can croon.
10. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee- What exactly is the “new old-fashioned way” to dance, besides a paradox? Is it a new interpretation of an old dance, like adding a hip new flair to the Charleston? Or is it whatever dance has most recently stopped being popular? If people start doing the Dougie around your Christmas tree, you’ll know it’s the latter.
9. “White Christmas” by The Drifters- The original Bing Crosby version may be a classic, but The Drifters’ cover featured prominently in the Home Alone scene when Kevin McCallister lip-syncs in the mirror before dousing his face with aftershave. Advantage: Drifters.
8. “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” by Nat King Cole- Perhaps the most iconic holiday song ever written, it was ironically penned by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells in the middle of a mid-summer heat wave in 1944 as a way to try and stay cool. Huh.
7. “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” by Thurl Ravenscroft- Name another Christmas song that can get away with containing lyrics like, “Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of rubbish imaginable.” “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was the original diss track; ”Hit Em Up” has nothing on that fire.
6. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey- Far and away the most recent addition to the catalog of holiday mainstays, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was an instant classic and has provided the soundtrack to every drunken ugly sweater party ever since.
5. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Frank Sinatra- Like watching “Miracle on 34th Street” or hearing the phrase, “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings,” this song captures the holiday zeitgeist of the mid-20th century, the golden age of Christmas in pop culture. It’s funny, ’cause there’s a 90 percent chance that Sinatra was doing blow off a cocktail waitress’s tits while recording this song.
4. “Little Drummer Boy” by Bing Crosby and David Bowie- This song and video are amazing and if you disagree I hope your house burns down on Christmas Eve.
3. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer- The chemistry throughout the duet is so pitch-perfect that it completely overshadows the fact that this is a song about a man’s relentless attempt to date rape court a partner.
2. “Christmas Eve in Sarajevo” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra- This list could have easily been comprised of nothing but Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs. Their hits, especially “C.E.i.S.” sound as if John Williams, Axl Rose and Dracula were locked in a recording studio together with an oil drum full of Four Loko and a told to compose the perfect Christmas song. There’s few places I’d rather been on Christmas Eve less than Sarajevo, so I don’t understand the title for this song, but I can only imagine this is the kind of music the Bosnians blast as they prepare for civil war, so really this song should be called “Every Day in Sarajevo.”
1. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams- No Christmas song encapsulates the joy and enthusiasm of the holiday season like Williams’ version of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Andy Williams sounds likes the lounge singer at the world’s happiest casino. If Santa has an iPod, which is probable seeing as he has a sweatshop full of elf slaves and apparently limitless resources, this is the only thing on it. Well, that and the video Slutty Claus made for him.
Honorable Mention: “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys, “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt, “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses and “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time” by Paul McCartney.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Detroit Lions- The Lions had an encouraging 2011 season and made their first playoff appearance since 1999. Their first round playoff game, however, got ugly quick, as Drew Brees threw for 466 yards and the Saints hung 45 points on the Lions’ brutal secondary. It was a disappointing and dark time for Detroit, or as they call it in Detroit, “time”.
Added- Sean Jones, Jacob Lacey, Reilly Reiff, Jonathan Scott, who are all, I guess, professional athletes?
Lost- Aaron Berry, Eric Wright.
-You merely adjusted to the dark, Jim Schwartz was born in it. I’m 60% percent sure the man is legitimately psychotic. The GIF above is following a WIN. Look at this press conference- you can actually see the aggression boiling below the surface like a volcano. I guarantee that Jim Schwartz gets into a road rage altercation every single time he gets behind the wheel of a car. He’s the kind of guy who honks his driver’s horn when he’s sitting shotgun, screams at baristas for using Splenda instead of Sweet N’ Low and confiscates kids’ soccer balls when they go into his yard. Jim Schwartz has ZERO fucks to give this world.
-A comical amount of Lions got arrested this season, which is perfect. This team has completely taken over the role of villain in the NFL, which is astounding considering they play in the same division as Jay Cutler. With their savagery both on and off the field, Roger Goodell might end up suspending this entire franchise by year’s end.
-Ndomakong Suh’s favorite sideline beverage is a mixture of bacon grease, marshmallow fluff and the blood of opposing quarterbacks.
-Henry Rollins’ psychotic white supremacist character in Sons of Anarchy was base entirely on Kyle VanDen Bosch.
-Matt Stafford refuses to have sex unless there is another bro in the room with whom he can exchange mid-coital high fives and “hang ten” hand gestures.
-Jahvid Best believes he is living in a post-apocalyptic society, in part because of his 4 concussions, but more so because he lives in downtown Detroit and he always sleeps on the team bus when they go to other cities.
-Tony Scheffler was once kicked out of Disney World for cut blocking Pluto.
-Ugo Chinasa is both the fourth string defensive end, and the words that the prisoners chant when people try to escape Bane’s prison.
FANTASY ZONE
John Gruden says draft THIS GUY- Megatron, Stafford, Pettigrew, Titus Young aka this year’s popular “sleeper” pick, which means he’ll get taken six rounds too early.
Hate Draft- Every running back. They are all varying degrees of injured and terrible and eager to thieve each others’ fantasy points.
Don’t Draft-Backup QB Kellen Moore. Some interesting notes on Moore- the former Boise State star just found out about Youtube three months ago, refuses to use magic markers because of “his religious beliefs” and died his pubes blue to match the turf before every home game at Boise. Those are what scouts refer to as red flags.
Fun With Names!
Hey aren’t you…-RB Kevin Smith. His nickname should be 2 Phat 2 Fly. At the very least, that would have been perfect in the 90s at least, although I guess it’s kinda outdated and shitty today though, which makes it the perfect nickname for Kevin Smith.
How aren’t you a porn star-TIE: WR Lance Long and LB Carmen Messina. They took home “Best Inverted Pyramid 69 by a Duo or Group” at this year’s American Porn Awards. Huge upset.
How aren’t you playing professional lacrosse – OT Gosder Cherilus. That name is white exceptionalism at its finest. Guarantee he and Vanden Bosch are best friends.
NameVP- Gotta go with 19th century French sailor-turned-running back Mikel Leshoure, although he’s suspended the first two games of the season for “misuse of treasure” and “scurvy profiteering.”
Over/Under- 9.5 wins.
Pino 911 Official Pick- Way over…or way under…I can’t decide. Like Jim Schwartz’ range of natural human reactions, this team only knows extremes. All I know is that this team is either going to be unbelievable and win 11 or 12 games in a brutal division, or they’re going to completely melt down and win 6 games. It doesn’t really make a difference, because it’s gonna be amazing when the Lions either get eliminated from playoff contention in November and Schwartz punches the opposing coach, or when they win the Super and Schwartz celebrates by punching the opposing coach. Jim Schwartz is a paradox.
