Well, in the most direct way possible for a politician, President Barack Obama has publicly come out in support of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Superbowl XLIII.
He said that although Kurt Warner is closer to him in age of anyone on the field Sunday, that behind the Bears, the Steelers are very close to his heart.
Watch the somewhat grainy (a la Zapruder film) video evidence here:
Everything he touches turns to gold… so here’s to hoping that on Sunday, he can lend a little help to the Black ‘n Gold. Go Steelers.
ALSO: Steelers’ owner and lifelong Republican Dan Rooney as ambassador to Ireland in Obama’s administration? Check it out here.
There’s a Superbowl on Sunday. Raise your hand if you didn’t know that. Now quickly bring that hand in contact with your face. Thank you.
Anyway, as such, ESPN has posted stories all week about the Steelers’ match up against a delicate, avian creature indigenous to Arizona (HA!) known as the Cardinal. Today, they did an in-depth look at one of sport’s most enduring symbols: the Terrible Towel. Longtime readers will remember that last February, the Terrible Towel’s creator and mastermind, Myron Cope, passed away. You can click here for the video I posted that day.
ESPN released a video of their own, created much from the same footage. This one, however, gives a better history how the towel came to prominence in Pittsburgh. (Sorry, there might be a quick ad before the video starts.)
The story that goes with the video, written by Greg Garber, is truly remarkable and gives a great insight into the towel’s almost personification, brought to life by Cope and former Steelers’ wide receiver Lynn Swann. You can read the story here. Below is an excerpt:
The towel, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers in “The Wizard of Oz,” has no inherent magical power. It’s what you bring to the towel. The Steelers’ fans who wave it have an enduring optimism that something good will come of it.
The photo story that goes with the piece can be found here. To the best of my knowledge, this will be the first Steelers’ Superbowl that Myron Cope will not be a part of. I have a funny feeling, though, that he might be checking the score every now and then, where ever he is.
Go Steelers.
Alright, so I’m beginning to have a bit of an identity crisis as a blogger, because there are blogs/sites out there doing a much, much better job at making fun of things in culture than I ever could. With that being said, I have no problem acting as a vehicle to get you from here to there.
I love Bruce Springsteen. He’s the one “big name” I have yet to check off my wish list. Lucky for me, he’s playing at the Superbowl halftime! A little (or much, much) better than when the Steelers were last there and Paul McCartney crawled out of the casket to bring the house down with a rousing rendition of “Live and Let Die.” There were boobs in the previous year’s halftime show, and somehow this undead Beatle is supposed to suffice.
Anyway, Bruce has just released a new album. The critics… have not been kind. Let me just say, however, that his 2002 release “The Rising” is one of the best albums I’ve ever bought–truly fantastic. This latest release, “Working on a Dream,” received 5 stars from Rolling Stone, and is getting blasted by just about everyone else with ears. I’ve not heard it yet, so I can’t judge.
I have, however, heard what some are dubbing his “worst song ever.” It’s a little ditty called “Queen of the Supermarket.” Yes, you read that correctly. Courtesy of StereoGum, here are what the critics are saying (my favorite being the San Jose Mercury News):
“The worst song Bruce Springsteen has ever written.”
- Detroit News“At the 3:00 mark, it accidentally turns into a Meatloaf song.”
- Blender“Removes this record from consideration as one of the best releases of his career.”
- Chicago Tribune“Unintentionally ludicrous.”
- San Jose Mercury News“Unbelievably melodramatic … sounds like someone doing a Springsteen parody.”
- Orlando Sentinel“Might be the worst song Springsteen has ever released.”
- Philadelphia Inquirer“May be the worst thing he’s ever written.”
- Pitchfork
You should decide for yourself. Someone has put the song to video footage of a grocery store. It… sort of makes it all too real. Enjoy.
So this Rod Blagojevich thing is just too good to pass up. As some of you know, he’s the governor of Illinois who decided to auction off former-senator and current-leader-of-the-free-world Barack Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. Besides being horribly illegal, Blagojevich (whose name itself is now sparking “that’s what she said” comments—genius!) was also caught cursing like a sailor in the midst of this pay-to-play (i.e. quid pro quo for any nerds reading this) scandal. Sadly, I was not able to find any audio (is it out there anywhere?) of Blago dropping F-bombs faster than John Rocker on a New York City subway. If, however, you have 3:30 minutes and want to listen to some bitterly ironic statements of Blago’s from 2006, check out this YouTube video. If you don’t, here’s the highlights: his mother told him when he won to 1. be honest, 2. don’t take bribes and 3. be for the people, the last of which he cites as the difference between Democrats (his party, for those of you just joining us) and Republicans.
Does anyone find it odd that this woman felt it necessary to tell her grown son to not take bribes? Could she have clued us in a few year ago and saved us from this… well, actually, I guess we owe her. Anyway, reports initially came out that the guy for the job was none other than Jesse Jackson Jr., a member of Illinois’ delegation to the U.S. House. Now, however, Blago has apparently decided to come clean and reveal his true intentions. In fact, he’s probably doing this in an attempt to “Live [his] best life.” Oh you guessed it: it was Oprah, all along. And the best part is, it wasn’t even his idea. He admits that he “got the idea from a friend.”
I’ll leave you with two things: First, is the beautiful prose of Eileen Smith, a blogger and editor of TexasMonthly.com. In a recent interview, Blago compared his arrest to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. She writes:
Well, when you think about it, the emotional abuse that Blagojevich and his family have suffered since these unsubstantiated allegations surfaced isn’t so different from 2,400 American fatalities and a world war.
Despite the sinking of four of his battleships, Blago says there’s no f—king way he’ll resign before the start of his impeachment trial next week. “I’m going to fight this to the very end,” he said bravely, conjuring up images of FDR.
And finally, a Blago greatest hits, collected by Politico.com of his interview tour on GMA, The View (the toughest, smartest, most articulate journalists of our time), the Today Show and some MSNBC show where they discuss that “the football,” carried by a member of Blago’s staff, is a briefcase containing his hair brush. You’ll enjoy the part where he compares himself to Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi.
The Annette Strauss Institute For Civic Participation, a group of distinguished professors, researchers and scholars associated with the University of Texas at Austin, released their annual report sometime recently. For those of you new around here, these are lovely people that allowed me to exist this summer… at Senator Specter’s office. At the end of the internship, I had to write a letter to the institute, informing them of what I did, what I learned, etc.
You can find the newsletter by clicking here. They decided to give me an entire page while the other suckers (just kidding! I know Lauren, she’s lovely) had to share a page among themselves. Anyway, it’s on page seven and is a little embarrassing because of how hard I’m selling this internship, but really, nothing I wrote was untrue. Anyway, just thought you’d like to know the latest way that I’m making waves…
BAHAHAHA!
For those of you interested (i.e. very few of you), ESPN did a great bio-esque story of former Steelers coach Chuck Noll. Highlights include:
It has been reported over the years that Noll turned to his players on that first team in 1969 and said they weren’t winning because they weren’t very good.
Every morning, the Steelers coaches gathered in the kitchen at Three Rivers Stadium for coffee. Often times, Kiely and Noll got into arguments about politics. Kiely was a Democrat; Noll, he says, leaned to the right. “He never got mad,” Kiely says. “He would just walk away and go, ‘Aw, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’”
Here’s a mind-bender: In 1969, the Steelers wanted to go with a coach who was a little more well-known and a little older. That coach was Penn State’s Joe Paterno, who turned them down.
The story’s full of interseting quotes, facts and stories like these. Steelers fans should definitely check it out. He did, after all, get us those first four Supebowls. It’s the least you could do. Go Steelers.
Tip of the hat to Candace for telling me about this one… and if she’s not posting it on her blog, well… I’m not above stealing it. This is fantastic.
I can’t do the introduction the justice it deserves, so I’ll leave that to the comedic geniuses at Video Gum:
Trying to wrap your mind around this found, professionally-produced video of a very opinionated prissy woman sharing her unasked-for opinions about phone manners is impossible, so I’m just going to assume she used a time machine to travel to the future, learned about vlogs, and went back and made her own. This is a drop-everything-and-watch -this-hilarious-video situation
Simply wonderful. If only there were more ridiculously opinionated, professionally-produced-for-no-apparent-reason videos available for consumption on these Internets. If you enjoyed that one, check out these two kids debating with their principal about the definition of “grinding” at school dances. If you thought your principal was dumb…
(Is it sad that I’ve just resorted to openly stealing ideas for this blog? I used to be better at hiding where I stole ideas.)
They said it couldn’t be done. Rico, my beautiful gun-metal gray Ford Taurus is in Austin, Texas. The only casualty: $180 from my bank account, going to the Loogootee Police Department in the nothingness state of Indiana. All tolled, that’s not too bad.
I rolled out of the driveway Friday morning with my friends Jackie, Jordan and Eliot, leaving behind the -3.5 degree temperatures of Western Pennsylvania. After a couple pit stops, we arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio for lunch with a friend of mine from high school, Sara Roper. After one of the best lunches of my life (sandwiches from a local deli–hot pastrami and cheese!), we got back on the road and charged quickly through Kentucky and slowly through Indiana.
But not slowly enough, apparently. The sun set slowly in front of us, and after hopping outside to take a few pictures next to an abandoned set of boxcars on winding railroad tracks, we wound our way along highway 50, weaving in and out of small towns as we went. One of these towns, Loogootee, apparently had a problem with the way I was trying to get the hell out of it. I guess it could have been worse: the officer could have mistaken the girls’ knitting needles for drug paraphernalia, or I could have gone O.J. Simpson all over the guy and driven continuously at 35 mph (which it turns out is the speed limit in Loogootee). I considered briefly asking the officer “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”–the old standard of people who think they’re mildly famous (if only this guy knew how many daily readers I have…)
We arrived at family friends of Jordan’s in Lawrenceville, Illinois at around 7:45. I think. To be perfectly honest, no one really knows what time it was, because apparently this town lies at the vortex of the universe, where cell phone clocks hop back and forth between eastern and central time zones. After 8.5 hours of driving, it felt good to sit back and relax with pizza and beer. The next morning, we were off again, this time to Memphis, Tennessee.
Before we got there, I added a few “new states” to my list (which also included Kentucky). We traveled mostly through Missouri and briefly through Arkansas (two new ones, unless you count an airport in Kansas City) before crossing the Mississippi into Memphis. At this point, the car was sufficiently funkified, so I hit the showers before heading down the Beale Street (think Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis”). We had ribs for dinner at the Rum Boogie Cafe and watched the band that performed afterward. Later, we moved on to B.B. King’s Blues Club and caught “The B.B. King All Stars” who did a 12-minute medley based off Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” Great stuff—a city I could definitely get to know better.
The next morning, we got up at 6:30 (I owe you guys) so we could hit Austin at about 5:30—the start time of the Steelers game against the Ravens. In case you missed it, uh, PITTSBURGH’S GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!! To be honest, the last day was a little grueling. We managed to save the longest travel day for last, but we split the driving three ways, which certainly helped.
Sure enough, we hit Austin at around 5:30 p.m. and everyone was still speaking to each other! No small feat in itself. I’m sure I’ve left some details out, but if you’ve made it this far, you’re either related to me, or I will probably be discussing the trip with you in person or by phone. Anyway, the driving wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I recommend it.
But I might bypass Loogootee.
Today, I am bored out of my mind. And, lucky for you, that means I’m turning to the Joint to somehow fix that. Will it? Probably not. I’ll probably write about half of this, get bored, lean about 90 degrees to the left on this couch and call it an afternoon, waking up sometime mid-Pardon the Interruption.
But in the meantime, let’s talk sports. Full disclosure: for some reason, I hate change. Always have. And every single year, when it’s time to change from baseball season to football, I hate football for about a week. The transition from hockey to baseball isn’t a terrible one, but it still throws me. However, the shift from football to basketball is my own personal Hell. For starters, I absolutely refuse to watch “professional” basketball (i.e. the NBA, and yes, those quotations around professional are sarcasm quotes). But to be perfectly honest, college basketball isn’t much better. Sure, I go to one of the best schools in the country at the sport… but we’re also exceptional at swimming, track and chess (last one’s a guess, but who’s going to doubt it?), and you don’t see me champing at the bit to watch those “activities.” (sarcasm, again)
I realize people are going to hate me for this, but that’s okay. I’m sure I lost half my readership during the election, anyway. But it’s just not my bag. I get into March Madness, but that’s about all I can take (and it’s a result of gambling, not the sport itself). I mean, one team runs down court, puts the ball in the hoop, and then the other team does likewise. When that doesn’t happen, and my team fails to score, anxiety begins to set in. When Vince Young or Colt McCoy give me anxiety, they (almost–barring November 1, 2008 from memory) always end the night on a good note (…or pass, or run). Simply put, basketball is too volatile for me. Begin your quiet loathing… now!
And the only other thing that is able to make basketball season worse than it already is, is Gus Johnson. ESPN has gone to the trouble of ranking the CBS announcer’s “Top 5 Calls.” Ugh, just when I got over hating Joe Buck, this guy comes along. Watch (or more accurately, listen, there’s no video content) the below. If you get past the 1:50 mark, I owe you a dollar.
Shouting… is not announcing. This is. (If you do one thing I ask from this post, watch that video. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. I may even predict tears from the laughter. Not to overplay my hand.)