September 2008 Archives

Baglovers know I LOVE making it sporting, and what better way is there than to make a ridiculous and potentially costly bet over bad teams?  Last year's bag boy and I (pictured) made a wager over which of our bag teams would have more wins - Randie's Poisonous Fish from Miami or my Black GloryHoles from Oakland.  The winner of the bet would choose a road game, and the loser would get them there - and so we found ourselves in the rustic confines of the Westport district of downtown Kansas City, MO.  But our story doesn't begin there.

(Aside:  Notice the uber-white trash yet fantastically functional makeshift handle on that cooler.  That project has Randie written all over it, and was conducted in the parking lot of a hardware store the night before the game.  The obvious fate of the apparatus will be documented later, but I wanted to call that little glimmer of engineering prowess to your attention.  Also notice the $20 Dan Marino jersey he's sporting. We're both wearing classic QBs, as the current crop for both teams are pretty god damned underwhelming.)

We settled on Kansas City for a couple of reasons.  Raiders/Chiefs is one of the NFL's ultimate hate-fests - closely followed for me by Raiders/Broncos, and in line with other rage-a-thons such as Dolphins/Jets, Browns/Steelers, Packers/Vikings, Cowboys/Eagles/Giants/Redskins, etc. Since I'm an expert at being "that guy," we thought it would be damn cool to go into one of these hostile environments and live to tell about it.  That, and we asked ourselves, "when the hell are we ever going to go to Kansas City again?"

It so happens that we'd decided much earlier in the year that we were going to do a Yankees road trip as well (and before you tell me how much they suck, you're welcome to put a fucking sock in it).  Scanning the weekend series, and rating cities for "fun factor," we settled on Seattle - nice, relatively new park, reportedly awesome downtown area chock full of bars and restaurants (thanks for the hospitality, Isaac), and none of us had ever been there.  Everything sounded great, until we realized the games were on consecutive weekends.........

.......so we settled on Vegas for the week in the middle, instead of coming back East just for a few days.  This seemed like a fantastic plan, mostly because my liver can't talk (well, I think it does have some way of communicating with my intestines, as I'm quite certain the two conspired to inflict me with a chronic and extremely unpleasant bout of mud butt for most of the last two days of the trip).

And so it was decided - 10 full days of rock-solid debauchery,  utterly excessive binge drinking and professional Sporting as only your friends here at FWTBT can git 'er done.

The first night in Seattle is mostly gone from my consciousness, as I drank no less than 8 Jacks on the flight in.  I do have this classic pose to remember the cab ride by:

The Seattle weekend was fantastic, other than almost getting no-hit by a guy in his first major-league start for the worst team in the Majors (Brian Cashman was sitting right next to us, so I guess we weren't the only ones who were displeased). We lost the series, but did some A-class drinking - highlights included the deliciously shitty Hooverville (Ranier and PBR on tap, among many others), the Seattle Aquarium, the Pike Place Market, Slugger's (which had this truly awesome framed SI cover with young A-Rod and Jeter) and the historic Triangle Pub.

Vegas was... Vegas.  The first night, I had the distinct displeasure of watching my Raiders get absolutely walloped by Brodie Croyle some SEC QB with a bowl cut and the hated Broncos, while listening to an entire Bellagio sports book full of douchebags root against my team. That "early night" ended around 3am, and the week continued with lots of losing poker sessions, raucous blackjack tables, little to no food or sleep and late nights early mornings like this one:

We finished off with a bang - had to have at least one nice dinner while we were there.  This was the appetizer we got:

After that dinner - and an all-night blackjack session - we went straight to LAS to catch an 8:30am flight to KC through Denver.  This was a fairly miserable leg of the trip, as we'd both been drinking Jameson for what seemed like a year since we'd last slept, and arriving in KC at the same time as Ike didn't really perk things up much.  Still, we stayed in a jazzy little section of downtown called Westport that had lots and lots of bars and restaurants within walking distance of our hotel, so while Randie caught a nap, I headed out to see what I could see.  While I doubt anyone else would make a special trip to KC, if you're ever there I definitely recommend Kelly's Westport Inn (since 1947!) and one80. We spent most of our time at Kelly's - it's a classic shot-and-a-beer Irish bar.

The night before game day, we took it easy.  This was taken at about 3:40am - we were scheduled to be on a 9:30am bus to Arrowhead:

That's exactly what you think it is in Randie's cup.

Anyway, GAME DAY rolls around and both of us were feeling pretty rough.  We pulled it together, though, and grabbed our cooler full of PBR and hopped on the Chiefs Express to the game.  As you can see from the pic, folks aren't thrilled with us, but in general people were a lot more civil than I expected - it seems having Herm Edwards as your coach, and actually KNOWING you're probably going to lose at home to a bitter rival that only had 4 wins last year, will do that to you.

Once we got to the parking lot, we met up with some members of Raider Nation that were in from Omaha:

These guys were great, letting us tag along on their tailgate, feeding us Busch Light for posterity (it tasted just as delicious as it did in high school), and giving us a place to stash our cooler until after the game.  The crazies parked next to them were painting faces, and although I didn't get a shot of any of their work, they did make me an awesome Raiders balloon hat.  If I didn't fear death, I'd have worn THAT into the stadium!

As dysfunctional as the Raiders are - and they're like a bizarro-world Big Brother house these days, with the head coach, the D coordinator and the owner all doing and saying ridiculous things on a daily basis - they played great against the Chiefs.  Our seats were fantastic, right on the 40-yard line on the Raiders side of the field about 20  rows up, and we even got a flyover before the game.  Darren McFadden exploded for 164 yards and a touchdown, Kirk Morrison and the defense gave up a paltry 190 yards of total offense and all-time idiot Nole Sebastian Janikowski actually kicked three field goals including a 56-yarder as the Raiders bitch-slapped the punch-drunk Chiefs 23-8.

It was a glorious day for yours truly.  Check out the guy behind me and imagine what he's feeling at that moment:

Hoorah! Football is here! We can finally stop youtubing Sarah Palin videos and move on to issues that matter. It's likely un-healthy to do so much deep visualizing about the future, anyway - especially alone in my room. Four years of a Palin Vice-Presidency... then the strategic (but respectfully good-humored) impeachment of McCain... then eight blissful years of Sarah Palin in the White House.... oy vey, that's 12 years from now, longer than I ever expected to live!

Truth is, I haven't been this sexually excited about a political candidate since my freshman year in high school, when this ridiculously hot Senior girl ran for student body president and plastered posters of herself all over school in her bare-midriffed blowjob billboard cheerleading uniform. Tits like the Hindenburg and body like a rack of lamb - no male freshman paid attention in class for two weeks. Obviously I tried to get on her ticket and give her some polling data, but she thought my positions were too mainstream. Live and learn - now I yoga.

Wait, where was I going? Oh, right. Football. Thank you to Lenny for actually emailing the results from Week 1. Because of the clear, diametric opposition between attending the bag payoff and remembering anything about it, I had no idea who anyone drafted and wondered if maybe someone tied me this week at 2-0. But I've never had any doubt I will win this whole season going away. Atlanta and Philadelphia? Come on. You might as well start calling this page my blog.

Still, despite the lack of suspense around the bet, I've vowed to engage with the NFL on a deeper level this season. Not that more engagement is necessary to win the bag bet - that'll be easy enough - just that between my therapist, and the people who love me, all three of them were unanimous in the opinion that I should be a more "present" person and try to "engage." If you're asking, I don't know what the fuck that means, but like most things my therapist says, it's designed to be generally helpful, but just vague enough to keep me coming back and giving him hundreds of dollars. And over the last decade-and-a-half, as I've begun to heal, I've found a way to interpret nearly all those things to mean that I should watch more televised sports, or even more pointedly, drink and watch more televised sports. So far, the results are positive - consider that every minute I spend watching sports is one less minute I spend thinking about how much I hate you all (unless of course you're in the room).

So like I said, I watched some NFL this weekend. Luckily, NFL coverage isn't that big of a transition from Sarah Palin youtube videos. It's loud, larger than life, sexy, shiny, self-aggrandizing, completely devoid of any depth, and everyone is laughing all the time for reasons I can't for the life of me figure out. I really liked it! I like Sarah Palin, too! A whole lot!

Though to be honest, I'm not sure I could pass the test on what I saw on Sunday - even after just a couple of bourbon-and-cokes, I couldn't tell any of the commentators apart, even the ones in the studio. Phil Simms is Troy Aikman is Cris Collinsworth is Howie Long... I mean, what's the difference, and who cares anyway? Just keep talking so I don't have to think. Certainly no problem there - every studio commentator looks as if they've been intravenously force-fed some futuristic hybrid marijuana/crystal meth cocktail, with all the irrationally giggly benefits of weed, but laced with enough unbridled hyperactive meth-energy to make you want to walk out into the street and start happily bashing in car windshields with a baseball bat. Whoo-pee! Actually, this probably is just what my college football hangover needs. "Pass the duchy, JB." (ha ha ha ha - won't he laugh at everything I say, too?)

But beyond secret, intravenous super-drugs, I noticed there is another level of genius the network uses to keep viewers hooked. Just in case you might get sick of all the non-sensical talking and walk away, they do this genius thing where they quickly cut to commercials for inane shit I don't want, played so ear-splittingly loud that I'm literally diving for the remote and spilling Jack Daniels all over the dog, and finally begging for those silly bastards to just please, for the love of God, come back on and start talking again.

But like I said, I liked it, and I even went back for more with MNF last night. Well, sort of. I had TiVo'd Hardball and Countdown because I knew they'd be talking about Sarah Palin, so I started out the night with MNF on picture-in-picture in the bottom-right-hand-corner, so I could follow the NFL action in the little window, while still cultivating a wicked hard-on keeping up with MSNBC's latest Sarah Palin clips in the Daddy screen.

But a funny thing happened: every once in a while, they'd start talking about "the issues" on MSNBC, so of course I'd flip the game back onto the main screen because who cares about all that. Then after a while, I'd see one of those cute little Sarah Palin videos pop up in the PIP window - you know, the one where she's hunting with one of her pregnant daughters, or holding up a big haul of salmon, or decorating the Town of Wasilla's 4th of July Parade float with replica fetuses - and then I'd flip MSNBC back onto the big screen.

But at some point in the night, maybe during a key drive with the crowd in full-throated roar, maybe after several amazing feats of NFL-caliber athleticism, maybe after Rachel Maddow came on, I stopped flipping back to MSNBC and stayed on the game. And not too long after, I turned off the picture-in-picture altogether, and even put my laptop to the side on the couch next to me.

And I found myself once again in the mental grip of the greatest game in the world - the greatest game ever invented - watching athletes competing at the highest level in the their league's most storied venue, commentators blocked out of my mind as I became one with the rhythm of the sport, my laptop's Sarah Palin screensaver quietly humming God Bless America beside me, and I knew I was back. Back where I belonged. Back, back, back, back..... aw, Berman..... ARE YOU STILL FUCKING HERE?

Click.

1. Philadelphia (Ryan)
2. Chicago (Jason)
3. Baltimore (Randie)
4. Oakland (Lenny)
5. St. Louis (Lenny)
6. Houston (Randie)
7. Miami (Jason)
8. Atlanta (Ryan)

Let's get it on!