Man Up: NFL Edition

19 Comments

I’m a big supporter of NFL Football. But with the exception of my Atlanta Falcons sitting at 3-0, this season is a complete mess. Let’s start with the easy stuff.

Replacement Refs:

You know what’s the worst part about this picture? The outcome of the game? No. Knowing RIGHT NOW that we will DEFINITELY be talking about this in January as the playoff schedule gets put together? Horrible, but not the worst thing. The fact that this isn’t about replacement refs and their inexperience. This isn’t about the NFL putting a horrible product on the field. But the fact that this issue is all about RACISM and no one is talking about it.

Why is it racist?

Because the BLACK REF gets the call right and the WHITE REF is calling a touchdown. Does the brother get his respect for getting the right call in a high pressure situation? Hell Naw. The head referee rolled right up and went with the call of the white dude. Always want to believe the white man. It’s a damn shame. We could straighten all this out if it wasn’t for racism. See? It isn’t out in the open anymore. Racism is underground, insidious. Keep your eyes open people. I need the ESPN reporters to cover that angle. God knows they’ve worn out every other angle possible.

New Orleans Saints:

The New Orleans Saints are winless this season. I guess coaches actually do something on Sundays. Who knew? The Saints can’t get it together at all. So here’s my question, do they take down this ridiculous picture of Sean Payton that is hanging up on the practice field?

I guess being threatened by a 30 foot tall picture of your coach who isn’t allowed in the building anymore isn’t working as proper motivation for grown ass men. I’m supposed to be scared of you when you aren’t even allowed in the building? Nilla please. The other problem? Is the meanest Sean Payton can look the duckface? If you want to rock a picture of Blue Steel as motivation, you might as well go all the way.

If the Saints win this weekend, you know who’s responsible.

Same look on Sean Payton’s face though. His picture is more ridiculous than this one.

My UvT Fantasy Team:

I don’t have much room to talk about the Saints though because my Fantasy Squad is also 0-3. Now I’m not an excuse guy, but I think I may have drafted every injured player in the league. Check it out.

All those “Q’s” don’t stand for “Quick, put him in your lineup because he’s awesome”, it stands for “Questionable”. I’m gonna go ahead and admit the majority of the choices I made were questionable, but I didn’t need to catch this many L’s this early in the season.

Even with all this, I lost my first game by 3 points because of a scheduling problem, then I got beat up the last two weeks. I gotta get a win. It’s kinda embarrassing. I’m gonna rally for the people though. I think I might only have another 2 losses before I’m essentially out of the playoffs. That’s not Team Us level effort. Otherwise I might have to put this squad out to pasture.

The NFL settles with the referees in 5…4….3…2…

-Brock

 

Man Up Monday Alex Cross – A Few Things Have Changed…

7 Comments

Alex Cross movies aren’t exactly Bourne movies, but they have their own thing. Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider. Those movies were so good it just made it seem like Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd were in about 15 movies together. I even want to give them credit for Long Kiss Goodnight and that was Samuel L. Jackson and Geena Davis. Plus, Morgan Freeman was about as smooth as you could be with a hightop fade.

So they are bringing back Alex Cross. You thought recasting Jason Bourne was controversial? Check out the new Alex Cross.

I actually wish I was joking. This is about as close to the truth as anything else. They’ve signed up Madea as an action hero. As a detective. As a leading man. He might as be wearing a costume in this one too, he looks just as fake.

You think a gun and a goatee is supposed to make me forget that this dude usually wears a dress and says “Heller, How ya dern”? You think a badge and a mini fro are going to change all of that? Because they aren’t. This is horrible.

The worst part is the rest of the movie actually looks really good. The took Jack from Lost. A solid hero type and the dude totally transformed himself into a complete psycho.

I’d be pissed off if I signed up for a movie and got all shredded up and found out this was the first time my co-star was a man for an entire movie. Seriously, dude looks like he hasn’t had a carb since he died on the island. (Uhhhh, SPOILER ALERT?)

So this whole movie needs to Man Up. Can we sub in someone else? Anyone from the Wire will do. Stringer. Marlo. Avon. Omar. Chris. Bunk. Cutty. Hell, I’d take Cheese, Bodie and Snoop too.

Someone Man Up Alex Cross. Please.

-Brock

Man Up Monday: Olympic Edition

6 Comments

We’re more than a full week into the Olympics now. Coverage sucks in America overall, but it REALLY sucks on the west coast. We get spoiled twice out here and it is damn near half a day before we get to see anything anyone is talking about. Usain Bolt wins a race…spoiler at noon. Then NBC decides to show it on the east coast, spoilers again at 7 while everyone who already knows how the race ends STILL comments on what happened in the race. Then I get to see it about 10 hours after it happened.

Thanks.

By the way…when do they air the USA Basketball? They NEVER get any coverage. Anyone?

The thing that really strikes me about the Olympics is how they decide which sports are in and which ones are out. I’m down with any sport where someone needs to be faster, stronger, or jump higher. That all makes sense. Gymnastics? Fine, they need somewhere to compete. Fighting? Also good. Shooting stuff? Only because archery was a legitimate life skill when the Olympics started. Horse jumping? Not so sure about that.

But those aren’t even the worst ones. What the hell is trampoline?

How do you get into that? Is this synchronized? Why do these cats get the same medal as the world’s fastest man again?

There actually is an exception to the “faster” rule too. What about “racewalking”?

Who decided to make a race called “run, but not too fast?” Running wasn’t good enough? I’m sure these people are in good shape, but it is hard work to make sprinters…who wear tights…look like their outfits are completely legit. Those silky short, shorts are the worst piece of athletic equipment ever invented.

Worst. Ever.

Then there are sports that aren’t in. Where is cricket? Isn’t that popular somewhere? Ultimate Frisbee? Why not Olympic golf? Indy car racing? That stuff is out, but you know what is in? Horse Dancing. Also known as Dressage. (I’m going to go ahead and assume you say that fancy, like massage.

Not jumping, not running fast (if you’re gonna let horses in…why aren’t they racing again?) We’re talking about dudes in jackets with tails making horses dance. It sounds like some B.S., but that horse up there is really high-stepping right now. Does the horse get the medal or the dude in the high boots? Who is the athlete here? By the way, you want to know how rich people get down? Mitt Romney owns that horse up there. Listen to me now, Mitt Romney owns an Olympic level dancing horse. THAT’S how you know you might have a lot of loot laying around. I guess horses need jobs too.

So all these sports need to Man Up. There should be some kind of review every 4 years to kick out the sports no one should be doing in 2032. Was there really some kid sitting at home this week thinking about how they want to dedicate themselves to horse dancing for the next 20 years?

I hope not. I really do.

One thing that makes no sense that i can get behind though? Beach Volleyball is already one of the most visually engaging sports in the olympics. They already have women dressed in bikinis running around in sand. Yet, they feel the need to roll out the Olympic beach dancers. No medal, no competition, just some entertainment. It’s like having having a bikini model contest intermission during a bikini model contest.

That’s to say it’s great.

Nope. That’s an Olympic tradition that seems like it might stand the test of time. I’m thinking the 2016 Olympics in Rio might really revolutionize  the beach dancers in a few years.

Olympics…Man Up!

-Brock

 

Man Up Monday: Dirk Nowitzki Needs To Man Down

5 Comments

It’s Baseball season so I’m going to have to reach back into the NBA season for this one. I was a bit disappointed in the Dallas Mavericks this season. I think they really fell off. In the finals last season, Dirk Nowitzki was completely unstoppable. People were talking best player in the league. People were talking about him being the best international player ever (maybe). People were talking about him being top ten all time (getdafuggouttahere). I will say this, respect for the dude for working on his crossover and dating the black woman.

She’s bad too. But for Dirk this was just the beginning. He didn’t just want the Black fiancee, he really wanted to get involved in the black community. First he went with the obvious stuff.

No creativity there. But that’s a good start. Why not shoot right for the top. Get down with president Obama. After this Dirk apparently watched all the classics. New Jack City, Boyz in the the Hood, Juice, Hollywood Shuffle, Friday, he just immersed himself in Black culture. The Mavs didn’t win this year because Dirk was studying all of Black History month. He just didn’t have time for hoops. But he had to show his lady he was ready to keep it real.

Then it all went terribly wrong.

You see, even part of being on the inside of the culture is knowing which pieces of the culture you don’t really have to go for. Which pieces you need to shut down. Dirk doesn’t know when to pump the breaks. He’s trying to man up to prove how down he is for his lady, but he might need to man down on this one.

Check it out.

Dear Dirk, even Black people don’t break out the traditional African gear…especially not with the hat. Never the hat dude. Can you imagine seeing this guy? He’s seven feet tall! That hat makes him 7’3″. The hat might actually brush up against the bottom of the net of a regulation NBA goal. I hear in the town he was in, people reported seeing a tiny hovering orange UFO flying through the sky.

Believe it or not, it gets worse.

He got up on that Conga line? (Errrrrr…maybe in this instance it is a congo line?). I hope it worked out for you Dirk, you really went all out. There has never been a challenge in the history of The Bachelor or For the Love of anyone that has gone this hard.

Dirk, I usually use this space to tell someone to Man Up, but I’m going to tell you to Man Down. We know you love that girl…but you don’t have to do all this. No means No man. You don’t have to go out like this. Here’s a tip, if your lady says she really needs you to go out into the jungle for a three day tour with nothing but a knife, three leaves and a canteen of water, just say “nah baby, I ain’t going no where.” That’s all it takes. I believe in you.

Dirk Nowitzki…Man Up and Man the hell Down.

-Brock

Man Up Monday: Joe Paterno’s Statue

8 Comments

There is never a great way to go out. It’s hard to be happy for someone who died just a few months ago. But Joe Paterno got out while the getting was still kinda good. Sure, he knew his boy Sandusky was already in trouble. Sure, he wasn’t able to coach that last game. But I’m not sure he would have made it through all of this anyway. His boy is locked up for the next 1,000 years. The list of boys who were abused keeps getting longer. The Freeh report essentially says everyone at Penn State knew or should have known what was going on, including Joe Paterno, and not they’ve yanked down the Joe Pa Statue.

They threw up the statue in 2001. You’ve gotta love when a guy gets his statue while he’s still coaching at the school. Joe Pa was a special case though, dude started coaching in 1966. That might lead you to believe he started coaching when he was 8, but no…he was 40 when he started coaching. Then he rolled with the job for 45 years. He actually was a living legend.

Jerry Sandusky couldn’t have been found more guilty than he was. The stories are so disturbing I just wanted the coverage to end. I didn’t need any of the details. Just let me know when and how long he’s going to be in jail. The trial was so ill they even had to blur out the faces of the accusers in the courtroom sketches.

What the hell is up with courtroom sketches anyway? If you’re gonna allow this, why not pictures? Who are these people who draw these things? How long does Jerry Sandusky have to sit still to get that drawing? And why is the picture talking about a bear hug from behind? Dammit that dude is a real-life monster.

So the NCAA is priming up to slap Penn State with what they are already calling the wildest and hardest sanctions ever. They were also trying to decide whether they were going to take Joe Paterno’s statue down. What was the debate again?

Look. Joe Paterno clearly did a lot of great things and is an icon in Pennsylvania. He lead a lot of players and changed lives. This doesn’t wipe out his legacy and there are a lot of people who still love Joe Pa. After all, Joe Paterno didn’t commit any crimes. Maybe he will be the new icon of the stop snitching movement.

Penn State is gonna be in trouble for a long, long time. I’ll update the post when it news comes down, but people are already saying it would be better for Penn State to catch the death penalty and lose their team for a year or two. How many scholarships and bowl games to you need to lose for it to be better to just shut the program down instead? So the statue is down, and in a crazy way, it has almost become a tribute to how terrible this situation is.

Hopefully they are planning on sandblasting that wall this week. Now it just looks like the ghosts of the football program are haunting the stadium. They couldn’t leave the football players in the back? Did random anonymous players 1-4 know too? They are really cleaning house.

Where’s the Man Up in all this? Oh yeah, all the players, students, admins, alumni and backers of Penn State who had nothing to do with this. The fact that Jerry Sandusky ruined lives both specifically and generally. There are 18 year old kids who have dreamed of playing at Penn State for their lives and had nothing to do with a dude who was abusing kids for the last three decades who are marked by this for the rest of their lives. It’s pretty horrible.

Penn State, Man Up! You’re gonna need it.

-Brock

—————-UPDATE———————

I see the Roger Goodell method of policy enforcement is spreading. The NCAA went on ahead and hit Penn State with $60 Million in penalties, a 4 year ban from the post season, 40 lost scholarships, and vacated every win from 1998 to 2011. Which drops Paterno’s wins from first all time to 8th on the list. At least when Joe died he had the record. That’s gotta count for something.

Is there anything worse than vacated wins? Other than the slap to Paterno in the record books, once again marking him with this story every time someone looks through the history books at his legacy, what exactly do vacated wins do? Those games didn’t happen? Do the kids who put up stats during that time even exist in the record books? Good news? If you were a second tier High School player who always wanted to play at Penn State, there should be some openings available soon. Look for the rest of the Big 10 to try to steal these players and reload. Prepare for a full exodus of any player with real skill to run away from Penn State in 5…4…3…2…

 

Man Up Monday: The Comedic Stylings of Daniel Tosh

9 Comments

Most days I love the internet. There is something incredible about the fact that anyone can actually have an opinion and publish it and people might actually get noticed. You can find someone talking about anything. You can find out all the weird things people are into. Slight downside, you might also be able to find pictures of those weird things. But there are certain points where I actually hate the “internet” as a whole. That’s because there are certain times when the internet becomes a faceless mass that is impossible to fight against.

You have to learn a few things about the internet. First, it is impossible to fight with ghosts. It’s like what I brought up when we discussed the “Shackle” shoes. Once it was declared racist, people who didn’t even know what the hell was going on decided they were racist and were ready to boycott Adidas forever sight unseen. The same thing is happening right now to Daniel Tosh.

Come on, how are you gonna be mad at that guy? Daniel Tosh is behind the show Tosh.0 which is pretty much the most offensive show on television. He’s pretty equal opportunity offensive which becomes it’s own defense in a certain “South Park” kind of way. He’s funny but, you kinda know you are either going to see something ridiculously disgusting, or he is going to say something so ridiculously disgusting that you will have at least one WTF? moment. His latest joke is his own version of “marry-fuck-kill” (offended yet?) called “Slap-Lick-fondle” where you take three people and choose who to do each of those three things to. He’s also come up with the theory that any contact less than five seconds isn’t actually sexual harassment. So he taped himself grabbing ass for four and a half seconds then letting go. I say all that to say this. His writing room seems like the most dangerous work environment ever constructed. Also, he’s created a character who is a complete dick. It is also hilarious. He also seems to get the essence of Us Versus Them.

So he’s in trouble this week because he told a “rape” joke in a comedy club one night last week. I’m not even positive it was a joke. I wasn’t there. I don’t know the set up. I don’t know what he was talking about. There were probable 100 people in the room, maybe. But somehow they are talking about it on the front page of cnn.com. You want to know how to make a joke NOT funny?

Take it out of context. Let a few “experts” analyze it. Treat it like news.

Jokes never have a chance in that environment. When I say Michael Richards what do you think of? His wild “n*gger” rant on stage, right? Dude made a decade of the greatest television, arguably ever. He created one of the most memorable characters ever on television. That shit happened in 2006. But it’s above the fold on his wiki page and I can get a video of it in three seconds. Fuck you internet! (Did I prove my point or mess it up by linking to the video? It’s so messed up there is video of that by the way) Tracy Morgan caught it for gay jokes last year. Now it is Daniel Tosh’s turn.

I get it, rape isn’t funny. Hell, I know I need to talk about the Penn State controversy, but it is hard as hell because there isn’t anything funny about a grown man creating an entire infrastructure dedicated to enticing and capturing young men underprivileged boys and sexually assaulting them. Not funny. But I guarantee “Penn State” will be a punch line for jokes for years to come. It’s now short hand for a horrible, horrible incident. Why explain something when you can do it in two words? So rape isn’t funny. There are very few things you can take from someone that are more valuable. But throwing something up on a blog that says Daniel Tosh said it would be really funny if five guys raped her in the Laugh Factory like some twisted performance art. See? Not funny? Also. Probably about 20 seconds of his 15 minute set.

That sucks. Comedians are just out there trying to figure it out. There are a lot of things in the world that don’t make sense and comedians pointing those things out and breaking them is a valuable service. Taking the most taboo subjects off the table is exactly the opposite of what we need. If we never talk about them they stay these super scary boogie men. I’m not saying rape jokes are funny or that rape is something we can make a lot of fun of, but the idea that comedians can be attacked by the internet if they slip up is terrible.

So Internet, stop being an asshole. Group decisions are made much worse on the internet. At least go check it out and get some context first. Tosh should lose his show? Not as long as it is the #1 show on Comedy Central he won’t. Nice try internet.

I’m not sure any of that was funny. But sometimes you just gotta buck shots on Man Up Monday. I’ll try extra hard to be funny on Wednesday. I’m thinking rape, oil spills, plane crashes, 9-11, hunger and famine. It’ll be hilarious.

Internet, Man Up!

-Brock

Man Up Monday: Dwight Howard

13 Comments

I’m actually hype for the NBA season right now. There are trades all over the place. Nash in LA (which I think makes them MUCH better.) Deron Williams decided to stay in Brooklyn (why?), Ray Allen is adding some new firepower to the Heat (Hey Boston, He was a Buck FOREVER before he was a Celtic, no loyalty there). But there is one player who is still floating out there.

Dwight Howard.

What the hell is wrong with this dude? I’m not even a “you need to be loyal to your team” guy, but DAMN Dwight. You managed to take yourself from one of the NBA’s nicest, most entertaining, best players to a dude who just seems like a little kid whining all the damn time when he doesn’t get his way. Howard is the BEST CENTER IN THE LEAGUE. You know what it takes to be a center in the NBA? You need to be 7 feet tall and reasonably mobile. You will STICK and you will GET PAID. Do you know who Meyers Leonard is? ME NEITHER. Guess what? He went 11 in the 2012 NBA draft. ELEVENTH. That’s a lottery pick. That’s guaranteed money. He was HONORABLE MENTION ALL BIG TEN! That means there are 5 people in the Big Ten better than he is. Yet, he still went number eleven because he is 7’1″. Centers are rare.

If fact, every time I see a big ass 6’10″ 300 pound bouncer at a club, I just feel like they lost at life. There are several high paying jobs out there where you can get paid for being big and tall. Human shield is probably the least appealing of all of them. Dwight is actually good at his job. He’s a max player for as long as he wants to be.

He just can’t make up his mind.

He already got his coach fired. He already got his GM fired. He already AGREED to stay with the Magic. He’s already complaining about coming back to Orlando. He could have left! RIGHT NOW! HE came back and signed with the Magic. No one told him to do that. Dwight, no one cares. No one believes you got “tricked” by Orlando management. No one wants to listen to you complain and bitch about playing basketball in the NBA.

Oh, by the way, do you think everyone forgot you just had back surgery? No one knows if you will even be good when you come back. Orlando doesn’t have to trade you until long about next March. Hell, NBA tipoff isn’t even until October. You think we want to hear you complain about going to Brooklyn for another 8 months? We don’t. I’d rather watch to your baby momma Royce Reed on a basketball wives marathon for the next 8 months than listen to you. And I have NO DESIRE to watch even the first minute of that show. But that’s pretty much because there is always a chance she might do this again.

(side note: she is really focused before she starts to wind it up on that one. That is the face of someone who knows she is about to really get after it.)

So does Dwight Howard need to Man Up? I think my man Bryce Harper knows the answer to that.

That’s exactly how I feel. I fully agree.

Clown question. Clown situation. C’mon Dwight, Man Up and put your head down and get to work. You’re gonna max out your next contract. By the way, ASKING to go to Brooklyn is a REALLY bad idea. The only people who go to Brooklyn are really high picks in the NBA draft. Here’s to never seeing you play basketball again once you’re on a team that gets no coverage.

Man Up!

-Brock

————–UPDATE————–

The comments on this one are incredible courtesy of XXBOMBERXX. Read that. Now. For real. Click it dammit. It’s f’n hilarious.

 

Man Up Monday: 10 Days In Mayweather Wants OUT!

7 Comments

Floyd Mayweather got one more great fight in a few weeks ago. He beat up Miguel Cotto, pulled down a clean $32 Million, took some pictures with Bieber and Fifty, got to go home with Ms. Jackson, he was a winner all around. Every time someone asked him about jail, he was acting really tough. Like it was just part of growing up. Acting like it was something every man just had to do at some point in his life. Dude was going hard.

First thing Floyd, jail is not something you just have to do. I mean it is something you have to do, but not everyone. I know street cred sounds great from the outside. Every wanna be tough knucklehead thinks it sounds cool to do a bid in jail, but then you find out you are spending 23 hours a day in this:

Sink right over that no seat toilet. If you miss that shot, you end up pissing on your bed. Floyd isn’t even in Gen Pop. He’s in solitary for his own protection. He got about 10 days in to this little personal challenge and ended up more like this:

Uhhh, Floyd, you knew when you lawyer filed that motion about you wanting to get out of jail early and sent home for house arrest we were all going to find out about it right? No, we don’t care that you don’t like the food. No, we aren’t worried that you are losing muscle tone fo the 90 days you will be in there. No, none of us care that you can’t train like you normally would…although I’m a little sad you didn’t know that was the case when you went to jail.

Floyd is talking about how he normally eats 4000 calories a day and is only getting 800. Sounds like they are actually saving him. Unless he is somehow training as hard as he does for a fight, eating 4000 calories a day when you are trapped in 80 square feet isn’t a great idea.

Like your boy Fifty said, “Damn Homey, I thought you were the man homey, F*ck happened to you?”

Have you seen Floyd’s house?

I’m pretty sure when you commit and get convicted of a crime, being limited to staying in that house with people to bring you anything in the world you can possibly want isn’t most peoples idea of house arrest. Even Floyd knew it was a little much so he offered to stay in a worse house than the one he owns. Thanks Floyd, real classy.

Floyd better not pretend he went hard in jail when he gets out. He better get on scared straight and let everyone know jail is not what you want to do. What I want to do is get Floyd some help. We’re not hating here at Us Versus Them. I still want to see Mayweather – Pacquiao and so I need Floyd to make it through strong. So I got him a motivational speaker. Naymond’s mom De’Londa from the Wire.

Floyd, Man Up and stop crying about baby booking.

-Brock

«Older Posts
Newer Posts»