Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering river rats, mustaches, hypocrisy and more.
Your letters:
BR:
I have tried for a long time now to convince my wife to make a sex tape. She refuses, believing I will show said tape to people I know. Am I wrong to just videotape it without her knowing? I only want it for my own personal fap sessions.
You can't videotape it without her knowing because it's probably illegal and because it would be a breach of trust.
I can't blame her for not wanting to star in an amateur porn tape. If your husband is careless, that shit could fall into the wrong hands with minimal effort. Even worse, your shady husband could share it with people without your consent. Ever see the movie Breach? That's the movie where Chris Cooper plays Robert Hanssen, the notorious CIA FBI mole. Turns out that not only did Hanssen sell government secrets to the filthy Soviets, he also secretly taped himself nailing his wife and had friends watching the video on a closed-circuit TV in a nearby room. Guys like Hanssen have RUINED the sex tapes hopes of millions of hard-working, horny American men. What woman is gonna trust a man enough to make a sexy sex tape if there's a chance he's a fucking scumbag? Stupid Robert Hanssen. MORE JAIL FOR HIM, PLEASE.
Anyway, since your wife apparently doesn't trust you enough to make a tape, and since you're willing to videotape her without her consent, I dare say you have larger issues to work out. That's my bestest DEAR PRUDENCE analysis.
Johnathan:
How much better do you think sports would be if commentators could swear?
It depends on the commentator. It sounds fun in theory across the board, but I don't think swearing will help improve Dan Dierdorf much. GREG, THAT PASS WAS COMPLETED THANKS TO AN OUTSTANDING FUCKING BLOCK BY ORLANDO FRANKLIN. Actually, that does kinda sound better. Most analysts would be just as annoying with swearing as they are without.
However, I do believe that swearing could help improve certain analysts. Like Gruden. I'm sure that Gruden spends every commercial break cursing up a storm. WHAT KINDA HORSESHIT EFFORT ARE THOSE GUYS PUTTING OUT THERE, MIKE? TOO MUCH CUM IN THEIR BRAINS! I'd very much like the unhinged Gruden on all MNF broadcasts instead of the spastic cheerleader we get now. The only time I liked Ron Jaworski was when this happened. For once, he stopped selling the broadcast and spoke his mind. That's all any NFL viewer wants. We always know that announcers have to hold their tongues. At least swearing would help cut out the bullshit.
Wally:
What percentage of Oscar statues that have been awarded over the years do you imagine have been used by someone as a sex toy? Hollywood's probably a pretty free-swinging culture, and the size and shape of the statue seems like it could penetrate with minimal damage (certainly less than an Emmy). I feel like it has to be at least twenty percent.
Fake Robert Evans says it's closer to ninety percent. You'll also notice that the Oscar trophy is male while the Emmy trophy is female. I promise you that Evans has hosted at least one orgy in his lifetime where all the men dressed up as Oscars and all the women dressed up as Emmys and Elton John dressed up as half-and-half.
By the way, I watched some of the Golden Globes the other night and while it's fun to rag on the Golden Globes, I totally imagined myself there, hobnobbing with all the famous people, buying Clooney a fancy scotch and talking Free Trade agreements or some stupid shit like that. I wonder what kind of hors deuvres they got to eat at the after parties. Just tray after tray of Wagyu beef, ALL FREE! I bet Lena Dunham didn't even appreciate it. I bet she just went on and on about "being inspired" or something. God, famous people suck.
I bet TV people adore the Golden Globes because it finally puts them on equal footing with the movie people. There's not an Emmy winner alive who doesn't wish their Emmy trophy were an Oscar. They know damn well they got the lesser trophy.
Tom:
What would happen if the President Obama grew a mustache? Would he get universal hatred? Would the moustache become popular again for non-hipsters? Would the terrorists win?
Why would he be hated for growing a mustache? Tumblr would fucking explode with Obama porn. Here's Obama's mustache getting off a plane! Here it is dancing with Michelle at a state dinner! Here it is playfully boxing with a young White House visitor! Here it is charmingly turning down our Death Star petition! I LOVE THAT THIS MAN IS OUR PRESIDENT! The mustache would become a national sensation. Hipsters would revere it. Conservatives would note that it makes the President look more "sinister." CNN pundits would note that the 'stache portends a newer, tougher Obama, especially when it comes to matters of the debt ceiling.
By the way, plenty of people have already envisioned what the President would look like with a mustache. And if you guessed that half those Photoshop jobs were Hitler staches, you'd be right! This one is my favorite. There aren't nearly as many mustache photoshops of Joe Biden, which is a shame because I think that's something we'd all like to have for future reference.
Alas, it's unlikely that you'll see a President with facial hair any time soon. The last President to rock a mustache was William Howard Taft, back in 1913. A full century ago! Clearly, political operatives have done their homework and concluded that you cannot endanger a presidential run by sporting a goatee or a Van Dyke. I can't blame them for their reticence. Look at that John Bolton guy. He looks like he molests puppies.
CPS:
It's a proven scientific fact that water tastes better coming out of a Gatorade squeeze bottle, right?
That's because you look so athletic while you're doing it. GUYS, GOTTA FUCKING HYDRATE. Rough day out there playing pond hockey. Gotta replenish my mineralytes.
Matt:
Not sure if you're familiar with scorpions, but in my final four of shit that shouldn't exist, they win.
Found this fucker a few months ago out here in Arizona. Did you know they carry their babies on their backs? Killed one a few years back and the spawn scattered off onto the floor. I ran.
See, but that's what you get for living in Arizona. Nothing but scorpions and random shootings. You can avoid those deadly creatures easily enough simply by relocating, so they do NOT make my Final Four of creatures that shouldn't exist. My final four remains (and this is not counting all ecological consequences):
1. Roaches
2. Jellyfish
3. Bees/Wasps/Hornets
4. Mosquitoes
5. Horse flies
I know that's five species, but horse flies have to be in there because fuck horse flies.
Alex:
Have you ever sharpened a knife on one of those V-shaped kitchen sharpeners? Every time I sharpen a knife, I feel like a serial killer preparing for a kill. Weirdly exciting.
I have a rod sharpener. I like to pretend I'm a mafia foot soldier tasked with having to cut up a corpse. Ugh. Fucking Frankie The Green Bean. It's gonna take ten fucking hours to dump this fat fuck in the swamp. Somebody get me a smock and order some fucking Chinese food (sharpens knife while shaking head).
I also like to pretend I'm about to enter the "Chopped" studio. I'm ready for you, Zakarian. Bring on the duck feet and green harissa paste, you whore. You know those contestants who are WAY too eager to show off their knife skills in front of the judges? I would totally be one of those jackasses.
Andy:
What is the proper etiquette on late night toilet flushing? Do you flush the toilet at 2am and piss off your relatives by waking them up in the middle of the night or let your yellow mellow in the toilet and have your relatives think you're a pig for not flushing?
I'm on Team No Flush. Except in the case of shitting, of course. Then what's done is done. If you have to shit at 2am, your night is already ruined anyway. God, that's such a lonely experience: late at night, just you and five minutes sitting on the toilet. I bet death feels similar.
Anyway, it's fine not to flush your piss at night as a courtesy to others. I also don't bother washing my hands because I want more sleep. There are few things more satisfying than waking up Sunday morning to find out just how potent your beer piss is after being left to ferment for six hours. Sometimes the water LOOKS like old beer. It's great.
Ryan:
What's the one thing you tell your kids the most that you yourself NEVER practice?
It's gotta be "take little bites" right?
Swearing beats it. I get on my kids all the time for potty talk. NOW NOW, CHILDREN. LET'S NOT HAVE ANY POTTY TALK. Meanwhile, I'm online eight hours day going SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCKITY FUCKITY GREASED CUNT CRATERED ASSHOLE. My hypocrisy knows no bounds. Other such "do as I say not as I do" instances:
• "Don't drink!"
• "If you can't say anything nice..." (Meanwhile, let's talk about what a dipshit Greggggg Easterbrook is)
• "Bedtime is 7pm."
• "Quit grabbing yourself."
• "Don't take free weed from strangers, because that would be wrong."
• "You can't have a goddamn cell phone."
Every parent has to eventually come to terms with their own hypocrisies. The truth is that adults get to do some shit that kids don't. Being a child means living in a world that is patently unfair, and they may as well learn that sooner rather than later. It'll teach them to appreciate the freedom to get stoned once they have it. At least, that's how I justify being such a shitty parent. I sleep well at night!
Nick:
My cousin recently had a baby girl. She decided to name her baby Ambyr Lynn. Never mind the atrocious spelling of the name; that is the name of a well known porn actress. Do I pull her aside to explain the situation?
No. It's too late. If she already has the name, then the damage is done. All you'd be doing is shitting on her parade. In this case, the alternate spelling at least helps with Googling. Now, when your second cousin grows up and joins the adult film industry, people won't get her videos confused with the old Amber Lynn's. That's important.
HALFTIME!
Joe:
What do you think about an NFL schedule where each NFC team faces each other once, and each AFC faces each other once? No inter-conference games in the regular season.
No more inter-conference games? But then Tom Brady would never get to play a game in Oakland San Francisco, and Peter King would find that WEIRD and INTERESTING.
Anyway, your schedule would make it a 15-game season. You'd still have to play one team twice, perhaps a designated "rival" team that you always play in Week 1 and Week 17. Then you could brand those weeks on the schedule "Rivalry Week" and ESPN could create fancy graphics for every game. I hope you're as excited as I am for the Jags/Titans Battle For The Old Oaken Meth Pipe.
I don't mind the idea of eliminating divisions and making each conference one gigantic battle royale. Divisions are so tiny now that a division title doesn't really mean anything. It's just a cheap selling point for a team looking to sell tickets. Chances are, unless you root for Cleveland or Buffalo, your franchise will stumble into a division title once every five years or so. It's not exactly the greatest accomplishment, and it often means a shitty division winner gets in over a more deserving team. But you and I know the Ginger Hammer wouldn't allow it. It would tarnish shield traditions or something.
(By the way, there needs to be a rule that teams that meet in Week 17 can't meet again in the playoffs, because that's fucking awful. I'm not just saying that because my team got smoked in a Wild Card rematch with the Packers. Those second games ALWAYS end up sucking. It's horrible.)
Matt:
What if you were given one dunk in your life? When would you use it? Who would you use it on? Would you be an idiot and do it while fucking around by yourself or wait for the perfect time (like MJ's Space Jam dunk)? What friend/enemy of your past would you use it on? Or would you do it on some athlete/celebrity to show your dominance on a big stage?
But how would you cajole a famous athlete into getting into a dunk contest with you? That's not easy. Much better to use your dunk for hustling purposes. Wait until you're fifty or sixty, find a pickup court that's loaded with wealthy assholes and maybe a few ex-NBA players, play for a few weeks there so everyone has a good handle on your skill, and then stroll in one day to announce that you plan on dunking during a game. Then all the ex-NBAers will be like, "No way, honky boy" because they are RAYCESS. Then you bet them thousands of dollars and have a friend videotape you rocking a tomahawk jam over that one annoying fuckstick who always demands to play point guard (I always assume this is what Bill Simmons is like while playing pickup basketball). BINGO BANGO. Now you're rich and the proud owner of 13,000 YouTube hits. Totally worth the wait. I would hang on the rim for eight years.
Lars:
I was out walking my dogs in my neighborhood and saw this.
He'll grape you in the mouth!
Blake:
Why do we still have the no-kick rule in basketball? I think I could be onboard with 2-point dropkick free throws.
And think of all the torn ACLs! A new ACL shredded once every five seconds. Cut that time in half for women's basketball players. Works for me.
Bob:
The way I see it, there are two different types of people in a dishwasher-less kitchen. The first group is populated by people who use a cup, and then place the dirty cup next to the sink to be washed. The second group are the savages who will just put cups in the sink with no regard for how dirty the sink is, or the arrangement of dirty dishes that are already there.
My girlfriend went to her night class and stuck me with a day's worth of dishes. This would normally be fine, except that she made something called "apple cider caramel" on the stovetop today while I was working. She spilled said caramel all over the stovetop too so the electric range coils are with the dirty dishes. I shit you not, the towers of dirty dishes looks like something an IDF air strike did. When I've finally reached the bottom I see that these insane twin towers of Babel in my fucking sink have a foundation of coffee mugs and mason jars thrown into the sink willy nilly.
Am I within my rights that I demand that she start putting her cups on the side of the sink? Why didn't her parents teach her about this?
Did you get to at least EAT the apple cider caramel? Because if you had to clean up stove coils encrusted with rock-hard sugar drippings and you didn't even get to eat the caramel, that's grounds for a spanking. Spilling sugar onto a range top is ANGUISH. That shit burns and then has to be scraped off with a putty knife. You may as well douse your stove in cement.
It's fine to pull her aside and politely ask her to place the cups outside the sink. My wife does this with me all the time. She tells me we need to talk, and then I think she's gonna tell me she wants a divorce, and then it turns out that I didn't put the baby formula back in the right place. If women can briefly lecture you on basic house duties, then you should be able to do likewise.
You need breathing room when washing dishes. Anything that needs to be hand-washed should be rinsed out immediately after being used (especially anything containing Mexican food) and then set off to the side of the sink. How you gonna get a full lather on your saucepans when there are five million other goddamn things in there? And what if she left a knife on the bottom of the sink? Ever stick your hand into a soapy sink and find a knife plunged through your fingertip? It's unpleasant. Gently tell your girlfriend to stop being a filthy animal and learn the rules. And get an apartment with a dishwasher. It's worth it. I lived in New York for six years without a dishwasher and I don't know why.
Adam:
As a Jags fan, I'm hearing every day about who the team is interviewing to replace Mularkey, and that got me thinking: What is an NFL coach's interview like? It surely isnt like the dopey corporate-world interviews regular people go on ("What are your three biggest strengths? Describe a situation where you had to show leadership"), but I am also assuming they aren't showing stills from some game, like a defensive alignment and asking, "Okay, what play do you call here?" So what do you think one of their interviews is like?
I'm always amazed at the length of the reported interviews. The Chiefs interviewed Andy Reid for eight hours. What the fuck could they have to say to each other after Hour Six? Do they introduce Andy to everyone in the goddamn building? It's Andy Reid. He barely talks. I bet you have to do rounds of interviews with six different people, which is awful. By the sixth interview, you want to kill yourself.
I think they shoot the shit for an hour, eat a leisurely meal, casually talk about what it means to build a team, and then talk about next steps. Ever interview for a job and pretend like you already have it? Tell me what you're working on now, Mr. Dumas. Oh, pork belly futures. Very interesting. I think we can make good headway there. Let me round up everyone from sales for a download. It seems like a such a good strategy!
Anyway, I daydream all the time about being an owner and I have my fantasized job candidate interview all mapped out. First, the coach and I have a light getting-to-know-each-other chat, preferably over dinner at a nice restaurant. Brandy and cigars follow. Then, once properly drunk, we talk SERIOUS about what it means to build a football team. I don't just want to win, Coach Buffalobutt. I want to win WITH CLASS. And I want the team to have an identity. And I want to be in the war room on draft day. You don't have to take my advice. All I ask is that you listen when I tell you we need to tank all of next season so that we can draft that Clowney fellow. Then I offer the coach hookers and we have a three-year deal by the morning.
Dave:
Do you think the following has ever occurred: A reasonably successful professional athlete (10-15 year career) retires, then proceeds to watch every game/match of his career in chronological order. I think I would want to do this. If so, who is the most likely candidate to be doing this right now?
I guarantee you Lenny Dykstra did this the day after he retired. He watched every game and laid out newspaper all over his apartment so he could spit dip juice on the floor.
There are plenty of athletes out there who have no discernible life or personality outside of their athletic achievements, so I'm sure thousands of them have gone all Gray Ghost and spent their retirements staring at trophies and watching old game tape. Perhaps not in sequential order, but close enough to what you describe. Pretty fucking sad, if you ask me. And I say that because I suck at sports and want them to be unhappy because I'm bitter.
Jimmy:
"Your best friend Harry has a brother Larry, In five days from now he's gonna marry. He's hopin you can make it there if you can, 'Cause in the ceremony you'll be the best man." What the fuck happened between Harry and Larry that I'm the best man?
Maybe Harry broke his foot and can't stand by the altar and you're the sub. It doesn't make sense, really. You should be Harry's best man, not Larry's. And what kind of flaming asshole steals the bride from Larry during the wedding? That's wrong on about eighteen different levels. So what if she wants to dance to a different groove. How many marriages has Young MC ruined with these unethical GLORY BOY rhymes? I demand answers. UPDATE: I fucked up. In the song, you score with the bridesmaid. Not Larry's bride. Larry and his bride get married and then divorce when she won't let Larry film them banging.
Email of the week time.
Chris:
My wife and I decided that we'd had enough of the suburban life about five years ago, and opted to move to a house that was right by the river, out in "the country", about five miles out of town. This move came complete with all sorts of creatures and critters that we'd previously had no experience with, including snakes, coyotes, flying red beetles straight from hell, gigantic moths, huge spiders that liked to wrap themselves in weird cocoons where the wall meets the ceiling (and dangle in doorways about face-high), and what was to become my new least favorite vermin in the world –huge fucking RIVER RATS.
It was an old house built on a levee with a walk-out basement/garage on the lower floor. The gaps around the garage door made it easy for rats and mice to get inside, which we could live with (or at least pretend wasn't happening) since nobody lived down there…until we started hearing them clunking and gnawing and skittering around in the walls, and next, in the attic. We hired an exterminator, who blocked up their entrance to the attic, poisoned them, and left them to rot in our attic in the 100-degree summer heat, making the house reek worse than my meager writing skills could possibly describe. It took at least a month for the smell to fully dissipate and there were flies all over our house, to the point that we invested in fly strips and spent as much time as possible away.
We thought that was the end of it, until one fateful day when our landlord surprised us with having a dishwasher installed. The dishwasher dude didn't close up every gap around the base when he did the install, which apparently was all the rats needed to gain access to inside the kitchen and house. We started finding shredded up paper behind the oven, hearing chewing late at night, and finding little rat turds on the kitchen counter. It was so repulsive. We couldn't even bring ourselves to cook or eat anything outside of the fridge because we didn't know what it's nasty little vermin paws had touched or what it had licked or pissed on.
I tried so many things to keep them from getting inside and/or to kill them, and nothing worked. I certainly wasn't going to poison them again and deal with that unbearable stench. They started venturing outside of the kitchen while we were still awake and running across a room we were in, right in plain view (while my idiot dogs did nothing).
I invested in "t-rex traps" – steel traps that look like a t-rex's open mouth.
About 11:30 one night, just as I had finally started to drift off to sleep, a couple days after setting the traps out, I heard a snap, an inhuman scream, then violent clattering. The rat! My dogs were going nuts. I peeked in the cabinet and the trap wasn't there. But there was a trail of rat blood leading back to under the dishwasher.
I decided the best course of action was to let the vile creature die a painful, excruciating death for all the shit it had done to me. Surely he'd bleed out overnight and die, right? Wrong! The next morning he was still clattering around, so I reluctantly gave him the day to die. That night, when he was still alive, I knew I was going to have to face him. I called my dad over for backup since my wife and daughter were useless, and we uninstalled the dishwasher to find the bitch with his rear leg and tail trapped in the T-Rex trap's vice grip. It was about the size of a kitten, and when it looked up at me with malice, I lost it, and before I knew it I was hacking his head off with a machete, which was horribly messy and probably not the wisest choice.
We screwed a steel plate over the hole, put the dishwasher back, and I then proceeded to shiver with revulsion for the rest of the night. We moved out of that house a few weeks later, and gave my daughter's guinea pig away on Craigslist because I had developed a raging hatred for all things rodent. Fuck, I hate rats. And fuck living in the country. Never again.
Let's add rats to my final four, which is now six.