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The first rule of Monday Night Football is you don't talk about Monday Night Football.
Used to be you couldn't rebroadcast any part of the game, and that seemed fair. Now
[are] prohibited." The Voice tells you that in every game. Keep in mind that lawyers who
get paid NFL salaries don't dick around with imprecise wording, particularly the word
"any." It means "one, some or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity."
So to clarify: When you're scooping icy sludge from a backed-up sewer line in Iowa on a
Tuesday morning, and you turn to your coworker and describe the Vikings-Panthers
game as "a riot of color, a hideous clash of teal and purple," you may soon be facing
NFL sanctions. More likely, NFL thugs will suddenly appear and beat you with your
own shovel.
To clarify further: "any pictures of the game" include the plays you fingered onto a fogged
window, and the cheerleaders you sketched on cocktail napkins, and those images in
your dreamy head where you're Doug Flutie facing a nickel defense.
Stay safe: Forget everything you ever saw and heard on Monday Night Football.
* * *
Houston Texans Quarterback B.J. Symons reveals his favorite new flavors of Skoal
smokeless tobacco:
Fudge Dip
Bacon Blend
Hillbilly Chum
Grilled Cheese Chaw
Pinch of Pork Rind
Hot Buttered Crumpet
Peanut Butter Swirl
Potpourri
* * *
Monday Night Football's commentators can talk about Monday Night Football all they
want. They have special powers. John Madden started the Korean War, and it still hasn't
ended. Don Meredith has diplomatic immunity in 47 nations, including Syria and Bahrain.
O.J. Simpson not only gets away with murder, but also cannibalism and shoplifting.
Dennis Miller has an indestructible sense of high self-esteem. Al Michaels and Lisa
Guerrero are changelings--shape-shifters, if you will--able to transform into any form of
animal and water, respectively. Dan Fouts can fly. Dan Dierdorf doesn't have any special
powers per se, but he does have skills, both mad and evil.
Perhaps most impressive of all is former NFL High Priest Pete Rozelle, who had this
thing he could do with his eyes that enabled him to command entire armies of the undead.
It is said that his name appears on the original manuscripts for both the Papyrus of Ani
and the Bardo Thodol. If you haven't yet read those works, you should.
* * *
Baltimore has this raven mascot, Poe, named after a poet who died in one of Baltimore's
many famous street gutters. Poe, the mascot, does all the standard mascot capering, but
really he's not all that amusing. I can't put my finger on it; he's just not funny. I think the
NFL is aware of the problem, which is why I commend them for sticking with Poe as
part of their ongoing efforts to combine football with literacy.
Imagine the enormous potential for literacy campaigns if all NFL teams chose literary
mascots. Dallas might play better with the Lorax on their sideline. People might respect
Detroit if they adopted a character from a Dostoyevski novel. And what Oakland fan
could refrain from joining a cheer led by Anne Frank?
All I'm saying is we got to do whatever it takes to get football fans to read, because
reading is fundamental.
* * *
More than 30 miles of radiant-heat pipes snake beneath the turf at Lambeau Field,
maintaining a ground temperature of 70 degrees throughout the winter. The system is
crucial to traditional halftime entertainment, which consists of several children from the
Make a Wish Foundation parading onto the field. They're allowed fifteen minutes to
warm their cockles before fullback William Henderson rips open their sternums and feeds
their still-beating hearts to snarling badgers in a ritual designed to appease the Great Spirit
of Vince Lombardi. What most people don't know, however, is that without the ritual,
the pipes freeze up, and William Henderson hates playing on a cold field.
* * *
Philip Rivers slaps puppies for good luck.
* * *
I had this friend once. His name was Billy. He talked about Monday Night Football. One
cold Tuesday morning in September 1996, while we forked hay on Sweetwater Farm,
Billy started talking about Monday Night Football, said the Colts beat the Dolphins
ten-six. He said it was the dullest game he'd seen in his life. About that time, a mule
kicked Billy upside the head, knocked him dead before he hit the ground. Colts, mules --
I didn't need schematics to see the connection: The second rule of Monday Night
Football is you don't talk about Monday Night Football.
____________________
Used to be you couldn't rebroadcast any part of the game, and that seemed fair. Now
[are] prohibited." The Voice tells you that in every game. Keep in mind that lawyers who
get paid NFL salaries don't dick around with imprecise wording, particularly the word
"any." It means "one, some or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity."
So to clarify: When you're scooping icy sludge from a backed-up sewer line in Iowa on a
Tuesday morning, and you turn to your coworker and describe the Vikings-Panthers
game as "a riot of color, a hideous clash of teal and purple," you may soon be facing
NFL sanctions. More likely, NFL thugs will suddenly appear and beat you with your
own shovel.
To clarify further: "any pictures of the game" include the plays you fingered onto a fogged
window, and the cheerleaders you sketched on cocktail napkins, and those images in
your dreamy head where you're Doug Flutie facing a nickel defense.
Stay safe: Forget everything you ever saw and heard on Monday Night Football.
* * *
Houston Texans Quarterback B.J. Symons reveals his favorite new flavors of Skoal
smokeless tobacco:
Fudge Dip
Bacon Blend
Hillbilly Chum
Grilled Cheese Chaw
Pinch of Pork Rind
Hot Buttered Crumpet
Peanut Butter Swirl
Potpourri
* * *
Monday Night Football's commentators can talk about Monday Night Football all they
want. They have special powers. John Madden started the Korean War, and it still hasn't
ended. Don Meredith has diplomatic immunity in 47 nations, including Syria and Bahrain.
O.J. Simpson not only gets away with murder, but also cannibalism and shoplifting.
Dennis Miller has an indestructible sense of high self-esteem. Al Michaels and Lisa
Guerrero are changelings--shape-shifters, if you will--able to transform into any form of
animal and water, respectively. Dan Fouts can fly. Dan Dierdorf doesn't have any special
powers per se, but he does have skills, both mad and evil.
Perhaps most impressive of all is former NFL High Priest Pete Rozelle, who had this
thing he could do with his eyes that enabled him to command entire armies of the undead.
It is said that his name appears on the original manuscripts for both the Papyrus of Ani
and the Bardo Thodol. If you haven't yet read those works, you should.
* * *
Baltimore has this raven mascot, Poe, named after a poet who died in one of Baltimore's
many famous street gutters. Poe, the mascot, does all the standard mascot capering, but
really he's not all that amusing. I can't put my finger on it; he's just not funny. I think the
NFL is aware of the problem, which is why I commend them for sticking with Poe as
part of their ongoing efforts to combine football with literacy.
Imagine the enormous potential for literacy campaigns if all NFL teams chose literary
mascots. Dallas might play better with the Lorax on their sideline. People might respect
Detroit if they adopted a character from a Dostoyevski novel. And what Oakland fan
could refrain from joining a cheer led by Anne Frank?
All I'm saying is we got to do whatever it takes to get football fans to read, because
reading is fundamental.
* * *
More than 30 miles of radiant-heat pipes snake beneath the turf at Lambeau Field,
maintaining a ground temperature of 70 degrees throughout the winter. The system is
crucial to traditional halftime entertainment, which consists of several children from the
Make a Wish Foundation parading onto the field. They're allowed fifteen minutes to
warm their cockles before fullback William Henderson rips open their sternums and feeds
their still-beating hearts to snarling badgers in a ritual designed to appease the Great Spirit
of Vince Lombardi. What most people don't know, however, is that without the ritual,
the pipes freeze up, and William Henderson hates playing on a cold field.
* * *
Philip Rivers slaps puppies for good luck.
* * *
I had this friend once. His name was Billy. He talked about Monday Night Football. One
cold Tuesday morning in September 1996, while we forked hay on Sweetwater Farm,
Billy started talking about Monday Night Football, said the Colts beat the Dolphins
ten-six. He said it was the dullest game he'd seen in his life. About that time, a mule
kicked Billy upside the head, knocked him dead before he hit the ground. Colts, mules --
I didn't need schematics to see the connection: The second rule of Monday Night
Football is you don't talk about Monday Night Football.
____________________
Frank was the subject of erotic fantasies in the nursing home where he worked. And if
ladies and three resentful gentlemen, he might've realized that he wasn't as ugly as he'd
been told. He might've understood how they loved him.
But love from sexually confused geriatrics is your favorite blue tick hound succumbing to
rabies. It can turn on you, sink its teeth in you, and drain you in the way your mind will
plague you during a nightmare in the daylight hours of crucial sleep.
So Frank somnambulated through bleached out nights, a zombie, a solitary minion to
seven cruel masters. They beat him with bedpans and prolonged his torture with stories of
the days when a sawbuck could get you two whores and a pint of sake, and rutabaga pie
was all the rage.
They stuffed his head with a lifetime of regrets, the men they should've mounted, the
children they should've aborted. Then there was the if only's -- "If only I defected to
North Korea when I still had the chance," and, "If only I'd gone to the grocery store
naked when I still had the body," and, "If only I thought to gun my Buick through a
crowded flea market before they took away my drivers license, then I could die in peace."
If only Frank had known their droning complaints were cautionary tales meant for him,
urging him to live beyond the pale of window box gardens and hospital beds. Because
they loved him, and not in that sentimental, surrogate grandchild way. They wanted him.
And they wanted him to live the life they'd so diligently suppressed. But opportunities are
ephemeral. Chances vanish into ether. You only get so many offers to preside over a
pagan orgy, only so many invitations to drink absinthe in a Turkish bathhouse. And if a
tweaked out pirate asks you if you want to see his booty, tell him yes, because he may
never ask again.
The landscape of your life can be a gorgeous design of Celtic crosses and Japanese
bondage knots, a delicate latticework of sin and salvation. It can be a kingdom of candy
and tax-free cigarettes, the power of gunning down a soldier on his own soil, and the
glory of urinating freely in your own backyard.
Or your life can be a long, lonely walk through dimly lit halls, with intermittent fits of
searing chest pain to remind you that time is indeed passing.
"It's your choice, Frank," they would whisper before their meds kicked in. "Seize the day."
____________________
ladies and three resentful gentlemen, he might've realized that he wasn't as ugly as he'd
been told. He might've understood how they loved him.
But love from sexually confused geriatrics is your favorite blue tick hound succumbing to
rabies. It can turn on you, sink its teeth in you, and drain you in the way your mind will
plague you during a nightmare in the daylight hours of crucial sleep.
So Frank somnambulated through bleached out nights, a zombie, a solitary minion to
seven cruel masters. They beat him with bedpans and prolonged his torture with stories of
the days when a sawbuck could get you two whores and a pint of sake, and rutabaga pie
was all the rage.
They stuffed his head with a lifetime of regrets, the men they should've mounted, the
children they should've aborted. Then there was the if only's -- "If only I defected to
North Korea when I still had the chance," and, "If only I'd gone to the grocery store
naked when I still had the body," and, "If only I thought to gun my Buick through a
crowded flea market before they took away my drivers license, then I could die in peace."
If only Frank had known their droning complaints were cautionary tales meant for him,
urging him to live beyond the pale of window box gardens and hospital beds. Because
they loved him, and not in that sentimental, surrogate grandchild way. They wanted him.
And they wanted him to live the life they'd so diligently suppressed. But opportunities are
ephemeral. Chances vanish into ether. You only get so many offers to preside over a
pagan orgy, only so many invitations to drink absinthe in a Turkish bathhouse. And if a
tweaked out pirate asks you if you want to see his booty, tell him yes, because he may
never ask again.
The landscape of your life can be a gorgeous design of Celtic crosses and Japanese
bondage knots, a delicate latticework of sin and salvation. It can be a kingdom of candy
and tax-free cigarettes, the power of gunning down a soldier on his own soil, and the
glory of urinating freely in your own backyard.
Or your life can be a long, lonely walk through dimly lit halls, with intermittent fits of
searing chest pain to remind you that time is indeed passing.
"It's your choice, Frank," they would whisper before their meds kicked in. "Seize the day."
____________________
Monday Night Football Secrets and Trivia
The Night Nurse
