“Hunter” Dominates for the Horns

Fred Dryer doesn’t live in a house or an apartment. He usually sleeps wherever he happens to park his white Volkswagen bus the New York Times reported in 1973.

“It’s not fancy inside,” he says. “I got my clothes and my bed in it, that’s all. But it’s home. Except sometimes I hole up in somebody’s house for a couple of days, up in the mountains or down at the beach.”

But as a Ram,, he conforms. Particularly under the new head coach, Chuck Knox, and the new defensive coordinator, Ray Malavasi.

“Our coaches are teachers first,” the 6‐foot‐6‐inch, 240‐pound pass‐rusher says. “With the Giants, it was ‘Let’s try this, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.’ But here things this year are really well organized. Last year, when Tommy Prothro was the head coach, guys were doing and acting the way they wanted to. There was no lesson plan. And when Tommy did say something, sometimes it didn’t make much sense.”

At a pregame meal, for example, each Ram was permitted only one boiled potato.

“Coach,” asked Dryer one day, “I think it would behoove me to have another potato.”

After a long thoughtful pause, Prothro replied, “I believe one potato is enough.”

“I walked away like I was a little kid,” Dryer remembers. “It was ludicrous.”

Now he’s permitted more than one boiled potato. He’s also positioned at right defensive end, which he prefers. Last season he played mostly on the left side after being on the right side with the Giants for three seasons.

“I feel I’m a better pass‐rusher from the right side,” he says. “I feel like I’m sneaking in the back way.”

Against the Green Bay Packers last Sunday, he sneaked in twice to tackle a quarterback in the end zone, the first player in N.F.L. history to record two safeties in one game. He isn’t likely to record another today, not with Tarkenton’s ability to avoid a tackler or to throw the ball away.

“I don’t remember ever being caught for a safety,” Tarkenton says. “But it always can happen, especially if Freddy gets a shot at me. I don’t think the Giants realized how sincere Freddy is about football, how much it means to him.”

***

I’d like to give a shout-out and a wholehearted “thank you” to Michael over at the Rams 702 Club for sending me some awesome stickers in the mail. Please check out their site for some really great t-shirts, beanies, pins, and stickers. If you’re in the Las Vegas area they have weekly family-friendly gatherings for all the games during the season. It really is a great organization, and if I didn’t live a thousand miles away I would definitely be a weekly attendee…although I’m proud to support them from afar in Texas. Keep up the good work, gentlemen!

Flingin’ It Around the Yard

When The Pretenders performed “Talk of the Town,” I don’t think Chrissie Hynde was crooning about Baker Mayfield, but here we are. He was all over the airwaves and floating in the ether, passing through the lips of every talking head with a microphone that seemingly overloads the brains of bored sadists. This was the disposed-of young man from the Sooner State (aka Texas’ little brother) always seemingly pointing west in perpetuity, beating the team from the desert with a pirate logo (hardly intimidating, half-asleep and with a butt-chin) and a glorious past flooded with modern-day mediocrity, 17-16.

Popular consensus told us that Baker was washed-up and relegated to a career clipboard holder, whispering into the head coach’s ear when he didn’t have his thumb up his butt. He was a complex melange of overrated talent and immature assholism. I’ve been told that Americans love a comeback story, but the only problem is they also love to knock a success story off its pedestal in a uniquely self-centered American way of subconscious competitiveness and jealousy. One of the hardest things in life is trying to retain your own definition of success when so many people around you are feeding you their definition bit by bit. If you’re not careful, it’s going to chip away at your definition until it’s completely replaced by theirs.

This Team Stinks

It was November football at its worst, played in the shadow of a billionaire’s shiny new toy and a cadre of bored celebrities. I have so many projects left unfinished–paintings left unattended and books left unread. Yet, I still find time to watch this team without fail every week and every week it’s the same lifeless dumpster fire. I’ve also considered that I could be doing other things like going for a hike, chugging suds at the local brew pub, or kayaking on the river. More life-affirming, nuanced pursuits. 

What happened? Well, the Rams are a horrible excuse for a football team, losing 27-17 at home to the god-awful Arizona Cardinals (who played without their own starting QB) to fall to 3-6 in a game that really wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. This was an unwatchable display from every perspective and one could compare the experience to spending the weekend in a rainstorm with an ex-girlfriend that you particularly despise. This team has challenged the theory over and over that there are limits to incompetence. Still, as always, my loyalty remains…it’s just how I’m hardwired.  

Football is undoubtedly bread and circuses, but when it fails to appease why would you sit around and subconsciously suck up the endless array of overblown and heavy-handed truck and beer ads if you didn’t have to? Why would you watch an endless number of exasperating 3-and-outs while holding your head in your hands and wishing that lunatic Putin would just push the goddamn nuke button? Popular consensus and the good ol’ fashioned eyeball test tell me that this squad, frankly, sucks.

I have followed this team since 1986 when I (unfortunately?) fell head over heels in love, and have endured decades of dark and forbidding futility, including a prepubescent and unstable bedroom thrashing after a Wild Card loss to the now antiquatedly named Redskins. (that loss was a highlight compared to the 90’s dregs decade, and was also an early sign of my future psychotic behavior, or “fandom.”) Heed this stubborn and broken fan’s amusing and unjust example of testicular fortitude: “Wait ‘till next year!”

Horns Beat the Red Birds in the Desert

I usually don’t give the best advice, but smoking half a doobie and having a few man-sodas before your afternoon walk isn’t the worst thing in the world. My tiny neighborhood world seemed hushed and restful and Billy Joel’s Big Shot was blaring through my headphones. I have a precarious relationship with this “hangover” song–sometimes I find it to be charming and at others it makes me want to tear my eyeballs out with its repetitive chorus that open palm slaps the nouveau rich NY coke scene.

The Piano Man was an infamous alcoholic/car crash aficionado who is doing much better these days now that he is sober and finally accepting of his divorce from Christie Brinkley. (ever notice how banging supermodels makes you borderline suicidal in the end? depression as humble pie.) I was having none of that, however, as today I was going to watch some ol’ pigskin on the tube and cheer until my heart burst while pounding a Wade Boggs-on-an-airplane amount of beer. ‘Merica.

I was three-sheets-to-the-wind by halftime and had crushed about 8 of the self-styled “King of Beers.” Budweiser tastes like beer-flavored water because it’s not something you’re supposed to sit around and contemplate. The taste of “nothing” (or a fizzy water drink lightly flavored with grains and a touch of malt) is nostalgia. Its advertising campaigns – its entire ethos – seem designed to target a particular drinking style and drinking public, more than any particular flavor. It’s meant to be quaffed mindlessly until your running back fumbles the ball on the 1-yard line and you can sense your inner maniac slowly rising from the pit of your stomach in a crescendo of childish and loosey-goosey irrational behavior that ends with a copy of Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill album being hurled against the wall. Good times.

In the end, the Rams held on for a very hard-fought 20-12 divisional road win against a pesky Arizona Cardinals team that hung around all game but faltered in part thanks to some very strong red zone Rams defense. I thought Matt Stafford played very well. He was 18-25 249 yards for a rating of 103.6, was sacked once, and threw no interceptions. Aaron Donald also added to his legacy by garnering his 100th sack. It’s always good to get that first divisional win, and the Rams are sitting at 2-1 having won two in a row. The squad still hasn’t hit their stride, however, and is definitely not in championship form, but the season is young and there is no reason to fret or wax poetic quite yet.

Hiccup.

Jack Snow, Palm Springs, and Chuckie Manson

“Hippie is all yesterday’s headline bullshit.” –Allen Ginsberg

Snow and Elizabeth Montgomery

Sherri was from Florida and smoked Marlboro Lights. She was from a very small town–a coastal town so humid that it called for tube tops and short shorts that barely concealed the beads of sweat dripping down her hairless legs. This was an existence of double-wide trailers, crack cocaine, titty bars, barely legible tattoos, and a life philosophy of “I need my shit.” 

Despite her dubious upbringing, I liked Sherri, so when she asked me to house-sit over a weekend in Palm Springs I obliged because I wanted to soak up some rays by her pool and maybe even party with her degenerate neighbor, who just happened to be a semi-famous game show host (now cancelled) from Vancouver that didn’t have many friends and was adamant about global warming denial. A relaxing way to commune with myself. 

“You can smoke pot inside, but there is no internet so I’m not sure you’re gonna make it out of here with your mental health intact,” she briefed. “And keep it mellow…no Miles Davis crap.” (I didn’t get the reference either, perhaps she was intimating his infamous heroin habit?) 

There was, however, a television from what looked to be the Nixon era, so I decided to embrace the nostalgia tapestry and settled on a show called Bewitched from 1969. LA Rams receiver Jack Snow just happened to be a guest on this episode, and Snow was magically transported (by a witch, of course) in this fictional world from the gridiron to a department store where high jinks ensues. When informed he was now in New York he looked dumbfounded. 

“I was just playing the Cowboys in Dallas, Texas,” he said, “and was running a down and out pattern.” (Snow was known to have excellent hands, and his son, J.T. inherited those trusty mitts as he was a 6-time gold glover in the big leagues)

There was also a Rosemary’s Baby reference in this episode which was a sobering moment as director Roman Polanski’s wife would be murdered roughly six months after it aired. A group of brainwashed, hippie dope fiends snuffed out her and her child’s life over an unrelated dispute between Charles Manson and Byrds producer Terry Melcher, who just happened to be Doris Day’s son. The so-called end of the “Summer of Love” thanks to a drug-addled criminal and a bored Beach Boy (Dennis Wilson’s solo project left much to be desired) who just simply wanted to fuck mud-caked hippies proves that there truly is only one relevant subject–the relation of beings to time. 

Remember the L.A. Rams Ode to “Ramming?”

“I learned long ago that if you Ram It just right, you can Ram It all day and Ram It all night”.

If you’re just listening to this song in a strictly audio context, (see sidebar to listen) it might vaguely register in the adolescent portion of your brain that there are some lyrics in “Ram It” that could be considered references to, like, fucking. The question as to whether these references are naive and accidental or wink-and-nudge purposeful eventually evaporates into a damp cloud of mortified discomfort when the visuals are added in. It is one thing to hear Gary Jeter describe his defensive prowess in terms like “I come from the end, lookin’ for the sack/I don’t stop comin’ ’til I put ’em on their back.” It is another, far more bewildering situation to actually see it with his accompanying shimmies and wiggles and scowls.

There are other bits that scan as embarrassing in more bad-showbiz ways. Jim Collins, already dealing with the disappointment of being sidelined with a season-long shoulder injury, delivers his lines with a dissociative, middle-distance stare and a half-hearted shoulder shake. Carl Ekern both looks and sounds like he’s rapping through gritted teeth as he hunch-straddles over a motorcycle. But let’s face it: there are a lot of verses in this song that juxtapose a fondness for Ladies and an enthusiasm for Rammin’ It in a pretty suggestive way. And that’s where the comments section comes in.

Trying to track real-world sentiment through YouTube comments is like trying to follow the news from bathroom graffiti. Suffice it to say that a lot of them are along the lines of “this is gay”—not merely in the teenage “synonym for unmacho corniness” sense but in the belief that “Let’s Ram It,” despite being an actual NFL Officially Licensed Product created in the nauseatingly normative heart of 80s Reagan America, is literally an expression of homosexual desire. I’m not at the proper Kinsey scale point to confirm this in the positive, and I’m not struck with the kind of anxious-hetero Penis Panic that immediately jumps to the negative interpretation. But something seems to be at work here, even with the full assumption that this video was intended as “a little something for the ladies.”

This is because there’s no camp in football. Nope. No thanks. Save your comedic irony or your Tim & Eric weirdness for lower-stakes sports like baseball or basketball, the ones with a modicum of tolerance for absurdists and eccentrics like Bill Lee or Shaq or Ichiro. Under the imperium of The Shield, where punk meant Jim McMahon writing passive-aggressive Pete Rozelle callouts on his unauthorized headband, there is only Pride and Honor and Battle; humor and irreverence seem to be abandoned unless it is somehow accidentally buttfumbled into existence.

The NFL, as it exists at this moment, is an anti-nonconformity machine constructed to make examples out of the Cam Newtons and Ricky Williamses of the world, and the one game that’s least aware of its status as a game. It has leveraged that self-serious attitude to become the single most omnipresent entertainment institution in the entire United States. Our valiant gridiron heroes must never look like anything less than the most constricting, conservative version of True Manhood; if they fuck that up somehow, then that facade has crumbled. One must never let that mask slip, ever.

For some Rams players, participation in the “Let’s Ram It” video wound up defining them more substantially than their actual playing careers. Norwood Vann, who caps off his verse with a hip thrust that would make “Ravishing” Rick Rude stammer, has more Wikipedia verbiage on his “energetic appearance” in the video than on his actual pro career. For others, it’s a goofy footnote, the kind of thing that might get dragged out as a clip if the Hall of Fame induction ceremony ever doubled as a roast. (“Hey Slater, are you actually playing that saxophone?”)

They are all worth saluting: grown men unafraid to look like total goofy ding-dongs, many of them not far removed from historic athletic landmarks or careers that would enshrine them in Canton. This song is silly, yeah. It’s definitely easy to laugh at, even if it means inadvertently laughing with it, too.

And if you’ve sincerely believe there’s no place for this kind of ridiculousness in professional sports? Well, these dudes have a suggestion as to what you can do with it.

Written by: Nate Patrin, Vice Magazine, Feb. 2016

Rams make Bangles feel a “Manic Sunday”

Poor girls never stood a chance.

I decided to try something different and be a bit more social, so I attended a SB party at the behest and invite by my equally anti-social “lady friend.” This was the type of party where everyone would listen in rapt attention as someone recounted a plot in a movie they had seen recently or a trivial disagreement with a co-worker: a mishmash of nightmarish, repetitive, anti-narrative while the most mundane modern pop and Axe Body Spray wafted and commingled in the background.

There was a sense that everyone was desperately trying to be charming and urbane. Of course, I was made to feel like a caveman for drinking beer instead of margaritas, unapologetically tearing into the hors d’oeuvres, (kudos to the hired old lady that created them–and who was obviously unimpressed by the soul-crushing atmosphere) and actually being concerned about the outcome–but with both parties enjoying the consummate pinnacle of self-congratulatory, late capitalistic, trashy, commercialized absurdity…who can judge?

What can I say that hasn’t been blathered ad nauseam about this game? (even I’m tired of hearing about the X’s and O’s) I certainly didn’t start writing to become redundant, and that seems to be the MO of any sports writing hack with a laptop and limited knowledge of sports history and even more limited writing skills. These Bangles weren’t the mustache-twirling villains like the Patriots. No, my friends, these were the dumb-luck, up-and-comers who gave Cincinnati fans the delusional fantasy for about 2 weeks that they had the greatest QB of all time! Perhaps a fool’s paradise is a better option than a loser’s purgatory–and don’t most of these nitwits live in (shudder) Ohio? I seriously want to imbibe on whatever psychedelic substance they were collectively smoking, (I’m envisioning a Jefferson Airplane video with Grace Slick twirling around in a Ja’Marr Chase jersey, bathed in a spinning, multicolored strobe light with a couple guys off camera whipping bath towels to spread the dry ice smoke.) but as I like to often say, “sports does weird shit to people.” 

A random idiot had the gall to say L.A. was “Raiders Country” until I finally spoke up, no doubt miffed by the Radiohead/PM Dawn remix in the background. 

“I have lived in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade, good sir, and not ONCE have I seen a single piece of Raiders gear being worn by an actual human.” 

Another ham-fisted narrative, spoken for the sake of narrative, burned to the ground. Tinseltown is a city where you can’t even walk to the corner store without seeing a Dodgers cap, so the unadulterated fandom is there–just not on the side of the one-eyed pirate and their billionaire owner whose hair is occasionally cut by a blind 8-year-old with a salad bowl and pruning shears. 

We all know what happens. Cooper Kupp on a jet sweep on 4th down. Matty Stafford with the no-look pass to Kupp for a 22-yard-gain that destroyed the hearts, minds, and delusions of many Cincinnatians, (Perhaps the death of WKRP’s fictional Johnny Fever was a close second?) as Aaron Donald impersonated Lawrence Taylor in Tecmo Bowl “beast mode” to end the game. Grown men crying, formulating excuses and conspiracy theories, essentially making Cowboys fans look like the apex of masculinity and good sportsmanship. The good guys get the trophy and I’m elated because I waited 20-plus years to see this again, and all the B.S. seems to drift into the background. I stumble home knowing my cats were going to be troubled that I wasn’t there to give them dinner. It’s hard to believe, but they really don’t give a toss about the Rams or the Super Bowl…the hungry little bastards. 

This Movie Is Watchable When Drunk

Oh, boy. Another gratuitous movie review that will undoubtedly float unread in the ether, and I’m going to keep it short and sweet. Before I get into this flick–I feel the need to add that I admire Kurt Warner as a person. I always thought he was kind of humdrum–but overall he’s a likable guy, a funny prognosticator, a snazzy dresser, and someone who brought this once-proud franchise a bit of respect after being a laughingstock for a decade. 

The Kurt Warner movie American Underdog can be summed up by, “You don’t have what it takes.” 

And then he, indeed, has what it takes–the ultimate football movie trope. 

This is a very simple movie.  I expected a down and dirty, gritty football film, ( à la Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard) but what I got was The Notebook with a sprinkling of working-class “don’t have a pot to piss in” schmaltz and vague spirituality around the edges. The football scenes feel artificial, with players moving in slow motion and the QB having the follow-through of a 12-year old who has never thrown a football in his/her life. The green screen effect makes you feel as if you’re in some sort of ethereal dimension (Shazam in the Multiverse?) rather than a football stadium, and that’s once you get past the multitude of quick-cut-edits that give you a vague sense that you’re having a stroke. 

In multitude were the scenes with Kurt’s wife trying to inspire #13 and giving him advice “a man can really stand by,” which are obviously supposed to be the tear-jerking, moral fabric, meat of the movie, but I was constantly distracted by Anna Paquin’s bad wig–a haircut never seen on a woman in my general stratosphere, which can only be described as “Star Wars Cantina” or “Canadian Chic.” There was also enough 90’s denim in this movie to throw Japanese hipsters into a collective murder frenzy. (but that could be a good thing?) All of the aforementioned coagulates into giving this movie a tinge of “it’s so bad it’s good” but never quite getting there because it takes itself way too seriously even though it teeters dangerously on being a Lifetime throwaway “chick flick.”

Coping mechanism

Actor Zachary Levi is the only thing that makes this movie somewhat watchable. I loved him in Shazam! and his character is just as likable here, but his sense of humor and comedic timing–which made the DC movie so enjoyable–is sorely missing. It’s almost a joyless slog. By the hour and a half mark of the film I was screaming, “Can you please just become a great player and win the goddamn Super Bowl already!”  

What it boils down to is that this is essentially a Christian propaganda film made to appeal to the pious, family-oriented, megachurch crowd…or a Rams fan. (but juuuust barely) Otherwise, I’d pass. Call me cynical, but all this over-the-top “inspiration” can sometimes prove to be exhausting, and also demonstrates that NFL scouts either have to embrace better analytics or that players can greatly improve by playing in inferior leagues rather than standing around and carrying a clipboard with their thumbs up their butt. 

** out of 5

Vintage Cardboard Gems

I recently received these awesome vintage cards in the mail from Mark over at RetroSimba, (Check it out, it’s one of the most important baseball publications out there) and I was curious about the history of these cardboard gems. Here’s a wonderful vignette Mark wrote about those origins:

My boyhood world in the 1960s was Bayonne, N.J., a working-class city of ethnic neighborhoods across the bay from New York City. Depending on what part of town the Catholic church was in, you could hear Masses conducted in Polish, Italian, German, Spanish, English, and, of course, Latin.

Chuck Wepner, the heavyweight prizefighter, operated a liquor store on Broadway. They called him “The Bayonne Bleeder,” because of the pounding he took in the ring. Sylvester Stallone acknowledged Wepner was the model for the “Rocky” movie character. Like the city he came from, “The Bayonne Bleeder” was tough and streetwise. He went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. When he worked the champ into a corner, Wepner stepped on his foot so he couldn’t shuffle, then knocked him on his ass.

Around the block from where I lived on 31st Street was Sam Pope’s candy store. Sam and his wife ran the place. She always was nice. Sam always was all business. He wore a wide, white apron and would pass for the twin of actor Vincent Gardenia.

The store was stuffed with stuff, but my attention was on the same items: Comic books, Spaldeens, popsicles, Chuckles candy, gum, and baseball cards.

A pack of baseball cards cost a nickel. I’d dig out a pack near the bottom of the shelf, the theory being that’s where Sam Pope was stashing the ones containing my favorite players. Nothing quite matched the exhilaration of spilling out onto the sidewalk, tearing open the pack, and examining each card, hoping that behind every Washington Senators player or checklist was a Hank Aaron or Roger Maris.

The start of the school year meant the end of the baseball card supply at Sam Pope’s. It felt like another lifetime or two would have to pass before the new sets arrived in spring.

Bring back these uni’s, please.

Then, on a visit to the store one autumn day, a batch of cards appeared on the shelf. What’s this? Football cards? Sweet Jesus. What genius thought of this?

On TV, football players were faceless people in helmets with big numbers on their backs. The football cards brought them to life. So, that’s what Merlin Olsen looks like.

The names and faces captivated the imagination. Is there a more perfect name for an offensive lineman than Tom Mack? On his football card, he looked as solid as the truck, too. A quarterback with the name of both a gladiator and an archangel? There he is–Roman Gabriel, looking the part.

I saved my baseball and football cards, adding more over the years. They accompanied me on every journey from childhood to adulthood.

Now, I like to give them to others to enjoy. Some go to a school in Indiantown. Others delight sons of friends or kids in my Florida neighborhood. And a few have found their way to a Rams blogger, a young talent with an old soul.

Horns Move On to the Bowliest of All Bowls

Not a good day for Jim Everett and company.

I needed to quell my pre-game anxiety on Sunday by self-induced psychosis, so I smoked a doobie and went on a long bike ride while listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Yes, I know it’s glorified stoner music with the lyrical content on par intellectually with the conversations I had last Saturday at 3 AM after drinking about 28 beers, but goddamn if it wasn’t working on this melancholic day. I actually saw a dog in a park running in slow motion over a large swath of grass and it made me feel quite peaceful. This 1973 album was subversive capitalism at its finest, (are those Jewish space lasers on the cover?) quite the opposite of the NFL, who punches you in the face with over-the-top commercialism while singing God Bless ‘Merica and skull-fucking logic, debate, and artistic sensitivity. I know what you’re thinking…have a beer and don’t overthink it, dummy.

These two teams had met in the playoffs only once before the current contest–the 1989 NFC Championship in which a Joe Montana-led 49ers group destroyed the Rams 30-3. I watched the game with a friend at my house, (on my mom’s forever 80’s couch that had vomited pastel flowers) and we were pre-teens so we drank sodas, ate popcorn, and talked about girls, heavy metal videos, and the new Batman movie. I quickly lost interest in the game as the boot-stomping commenced, and Montana further cemented his “Joe Cool” legacy, but the malady still lingered. I had experienced the highest of highs the week before when “Flipper” Anderson ran into the tunnel after a game-winning TD catch against the Giants in the frigid Meadowlands, and now I was going to receive piles of somewhat good-natured tauntings when I returned to school on Monday. That’s cool though, it’s all part of what it means to be a fan, and kids back then didn’t sweat the small stuff before youths became ketamine-snorting trauma-vultures and perceived slights had been raised as an art form.

This 1970 Billy Truax card was used as a sort of “good luck totem,” and it worked like a charm.

Sunday’s contest was a knock ’em down, gritty game, and I was feeling more uncomfortable as it unfolded because it seemed as if we were playing into their hands by mimicking their game. It took a brilliant 4th quarter by Matty Stafford and Cooper “YAC” Kupp to come out victorious by the smallest of margins, 20-17. I’m not going to bore you with statistics here, because that’s not what I do, but in the end, we served up revenge as it was meant to be served–cold. I can consequently let that game from 1989 be lifted from the recesses of my mind, but not before my 14-year old self dusted off a few cobwebs, climbed out from under a heavy load of memories, self-esteem issues, worthless knowledge, and mental psychosis to gift that team from San Francisco the middle finger. And I can assure you, that boy had been lying in wait for a very long time to do just that.