The Inevitable Has Finally Happened

There are some things you can just see coming.

You know M. Night Shyamalan's next movie will suck. You know the ending to Lost will disappoint everyone. You know I will somehow find a way to make a song by The National number one on my year end list. You know Bill Simmons will reference Shawshank Redemption in his next post. You know a high school boy will say something unfunny today in every high school throughout the nation.

So it should come as absolutely no surprise that I have changed my mind about something I once very passionately despised. So here it goes.

I love Tom Brady.

Not respect or like or find funny. I literally LOVE Tom Brady.

In the words of Ra Ra Riot in my Kermit the Frog voice (sorry, way too inside of a joke), what am I supposed to do? Look at that picture! He's even wearing the Big G uniform!

In all seriousness how am I NOT supposed to love a guy who says what he said in GQ's new issue?!?

IN PRINT- for all Masshole, meatball, truck driving, Wrangler wearing, Patriot fans to read- he has this gem...

"Flat fronts. Always. I see so many guys, really athletic guys, wearing pleats and I just shake my head. Like, Tiger Woods used to wear pleated pants! I'm like, C'mon, Tiger!"

How can I not love a guy who says to millions of New Englanders who sit on their couch in their tasseled shoes and dad jeans that their wives bought for them fifteen years ago this...

"I think any man who lets a woman pick what he should wear... I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere as a man. I see these guys, 'My wife told me to wear this!' And I just shake my head."

How can I not love a guy who is the very ANTITHESIS of the sport I hate?!? He lives in the Back Bay (not Medfield or Sharon), he hangs out with fashion designers (most of whom are likely gay and thus, loathed by football fans), he presses the flesh with world renowned photographers who have no care what he does for a living, and instead of talking about about Michael Vick and roughing th passer penalties in an interview, he talks about the pros and cons of straight leg and boot cut jeans.

Throw in the fact that in the offseason, this guy bounces off to his pad in Manhattan (when he's not jet setting across the globe for photo shoots), throws on a Yankees hat, and kills episodes of Entourage and this guy HAS to be my man.

He's the NFL's version of my boy Becks. And I officially love it.

I mean, there is no blog on WEEI. There is no trip to Fenway for a Sunday night Yankee game. Hell, this guy doesn't even show up for a charity bowling event or golf tournament. Short of having to work in this state for seven months per year, this guy is as Massachusetts as a George Bush.

And so again, what am I supposed to do?

He is the single most recognizable player in his stupid sport (to steal a line from the GQ interview, would you have any idea who Drew Brees is and he may win MVP this year?!?) and he is so against everything that is football and that just must make that season ticket holding dude who paints his head silver absolutely INSANE!!!

Part of me wants Brady to fail, just to see the backlash against him in this town because it would be epic. The fans would turn on him like Ray Liotta turned on his boys in Goodfellas (I was channeling my inner Simmons with that dated analogy) and we all know why they would. Because he isn't one of "them." he isn't a Masshole who gets his uniform dirty like Lou Merloni or scrambles around with reckless abandon like Doug Flutie. He is HOLLYWOOD and if there is anything I know, every Masshole from Stoughton to Saugus to Swansea to Southborough HATES Hollywood.

And so it must drive all these football fuck heads NUTS that they can't hate Brady because short of Joe Montana, he is the best player to ever play the most important position on the field. He wins and wins and wins. He's more clutch than David Oritz and before his freak injury last year, he was NEVER hurt. He is everything a Masshole Pats fan wants him to be.

Except he's not.

He's not that everyman because he hates pleated pants, knows what a pocket square is and is savvy enough to know that you always pair brown shoes with a navy blue suit, and rocks the gingham dress shirt with the solid skinng tie regularly (did I mention that I wore a suit to Brennan's wedding because Brady wore it and this was months before the man crush was established?!? I didn't? Well, I bet you can guess what I wore).

And I just love it.

Some things could be better. He could like coffee more. And he could drink a beer after the game. And maybe he could sit around and blog and play Playstation.

But the fact of the matter is he is the man and while you might criticize me for liking a football player, I say the fact he plays football makes him even BETTER because he is being the man in a sport where being THIS type of man is unacceptable. And that's awesome.

Oh yeah, there's one more, minor detail that makes him absolutely the man.

He's married to this...

The Yankees Really Do Suck, Football Fans Are Really Liberals, 81-1, Best Of Boston Is Stupid, The End Of The Fall Beer Season, And One Great Ass

So yes, the Yankees won a week ago and it's old news. But you have heard me say for years that they are my second favorite team because I am a "baseball guy." Well, after watching these tool bags in the playoffs, the Yankees are not my second favorite team. Teixeira is an absolute fuckin goof, A-Rod has posters of himself as a Centaur, and if I met Nick Swisher in person, I'd want to kick him (you know he wears the outdated by three years Ed Hardy shirt, overly bedazzled and flared True Religions, and a faux hawk). Throw in goober Joba and shit stick Burnett and they have an awfully dislikable team. They still have Mo and Pettitte and that's good, but it is going to be fun absolutely hating these guys next year...

Believe the hype about Paranormal Activity as it is great. As my friends Dave and Scott will tell you, I let out a man scream in the theater and then had a hard time sleeping that night...

I feel like liquor stores rotate out the fall beers far too quickly. They come out right at the start of September and at that time, I am in fall denial and so I don't want the fall beers until later in the season. And now it's November 11th and liquor stores and bars are already out of fall beers and have transitioned to Winter Lagers. That's bunk...

Hideki Matsui as a DH instead of David Ortiz? Absolutely, if for no other reason than he drew a picture of his wife to introduce her on media day...

So I've been paying attention to this Bill Simmons WEEI feud and while I loathe Big O, Simmons can be a huge baby. Yes, EEI has been shredding him and I would certainly want to fire back if I were Simmons, but he SHOULD fire back and stop whining. He's made a career of absolutely crushing people and that's fine, but he has to understand that he is going to burn some bridges along the way. And if that is the case, I wish he'd just man up and fire back. He actually said some really funny things on The Sports Hub (like saying Big O surrounds himself with garbage talent who will never take his job... That was gold, Jerry, Gold!), but I wish he fired away at Big O on air. I mean, Christ Bill, I have four people who read my blog and three of those people likely hate me. You should recognize that the same is going to happen to you Bill. That said, I'll still buy his book...

Speaking of books, a new Chuck Klosterman book is out and it is called Eating The Dinosaur. It is absolutely hilarious and easy to read as it is a collection of essays. I am so jealous of the way he writes and I wonder if lines like this, "What are the things that make adults depressed? The master list is too comprehensive to quantify (plane crashes, unemployment, killer bees, impotence, Stringer Bell's murder, gambling addictions, crib death, the music of Bon Iver, et al.)" take him a while to think about or do they just come to him? "We used to read something called The Weekly Reader in second grade. This was like a newspaper for four foot tall illiterates." There is no way he came up with this on a whim is there? It's just incredible. He also writes in one sentence what I have been trying for ten years to say about Oprah, "Oprah is doing something good, but not necessarily for the motive of goodness." But his best chapter is on football. No, he doesn't shred it. He in fact loves football (I have known this for years and it doesn't bother me... Too much), but he writes how it can be compared to politics and if sports were politics, then football would be the screaming, ACLU card carrying, LIBERAL. He writes how that goes against what every fan thinks of the game (he cites that most fans of the game are Republicans polls say) because they see it s a gladiatoresque battle without guaranteed contracts and what have you. But really, it has changed more so than anything and that "liberal" coaches and coordinators who invented things like the no huddle offense, the Wildcat, and the West Coast offense were first seen as liberal freaks, but then were copied by everyone. So see football fans... You should be liberals because the game you love so much is The Bill Clinton of major sports...

My Cees will be 81-1. It's going to be awesome. It will be especially awesome when they have a better record than the 1986 Celtics and they win it all. Because then, hopefully, white people from Boston will stop talking about the 1986 Celtics...

Speaking of sports and liberals, kind of surprising to see that Morgan Freeman is playing the role of Nelson Mandela in the Clint Eastwood film Invictus. I guess the Wayans brothers had a prior commitment and couldn't take the part...

Sticking with the film theme, this could be a big awards season for me. Early buzz is that Damon may grab an Academy Award nom and that Clooney DEFINITELY will for Up In The Air. If my boy Cloon Dog wins he will have won the same amount as lame Niro and one more than stupid Pacino. Yes, this is what I think about...

My nut bag conservative friend (love you Steve!) who loves to toss political bombs at me via text (since I'm easier to reel in than a sunfish, he gets me with these all the time) told me an awesome story about Boston magazine and their "Best of Boston" issue. He relayed to me a story about a good friend who was nominated. After the nomination, the magazine then asked the nominee to make a $5000 donation. When the nominee said they did not have the money, the nomination was revoked. I've got to say that I completely buy this story because that Best of Boston issue has always irritated me and I haven't been able to figure out why. Well this is why. Every time I read that issue, I always feel like the "best" stuff really isn't the "best," but instead, is always just the most expensive. Or the most pretentious. I'm not a hard core follower of the magazine, but it feels like the winners are ALWAYS the same places and they are likely the same places because they give the most money to the magazine. In the words of Rob Gordon, I never liked Boston magazine much and I fuckin HATE it now...

I asked in my last post why the topic of every single conversation leading up to Halloween wasn't about skanks. Well, a couple of weeks ago, there was this shot of Erin Andrews at a college football game that showed up on TV and was then on Barstoolsports:
Like the Halloween conversation, how was this not absolutely the number one thing people were talking about for days?!? I mean, it should have been the most searched picture on Google and Yahoo! for days straight. I mean, people talked about J-Lo's ass for two years and everyone talks about Kim Kardashian's ass and this ass is way, WAY better than theirs combined. I mean, this is literally the best ass I have ever seen. Couple that with the outfit she's rocking and she's moving up my list. I've always liked her (as evidenced by an old post) and I'm pretty sure that if she met me, she'd like me...

Is there anything worse than unexpected car problems? I go today to get a slow leak in my tire fixed and my friggin rim is cracked. This is bad, both for safety reasons and monetary purposes. For some reason, my Jetta has "performance" tires and rims that are apparently so expensive, they belong on Shaq's car. $700 later, I got my slow leak fixed...

I'm mere weeks away from my song post (my favorite post, likely not yours) and what has been a weak year in music has picked up the last couple of weeks. Bat For Lashes is a phenomenal disc as is the new one from The Raveonettes, but if you have 99 cents to spare (and if you need a slow leak fixed, you likely don't) please download Passion Pit's "Little Secrets." There is not a song that will make you happier than this...

The Office has done an amazing job with the whole Jim and Pam thing. Marriages and babies are the two things that will make a show Jump The Shark, but The Office has handled the Jim and Pam marriage thing perfectly. They don't make it a central plot point and instead of having a silly will they or won't they thing (hello Cheers and Friends), they just made them get married and moved on with the show. It was a great move...

The Entertainment Weekly holiday film preview was awesome and I love the early Oscar discussion. There looks to be a few great ones out there but that stupid musical Nine with that stupid all star cast led by the stupid Daniel Day-Lewis will be... Wait for it... So stupid. I just absolutely hate musicals and this can and likely will be a great rant when I finally see Nine (yes, I see movies I know I will hate. More normal behavior.). I mean, in what situation do people just break into song and dance? God, musicals are stupid...

So very year my mother asks for a Christmas list. For whatever reason, this tradition has continued well into our adulthood and it always becomes a source of discussion in our family. Well, my list is 29 items long and features pictures and links to where to purchase said item. It took me almost two hours to complete. Yes, you are my friend...