Apparently, You Can Leave

Well, that aged like friggin' milk, didn't it, kids?

I'm referring to my last post, approximately six months ago, when I asked the powers that be to not release Tua and Mike from the Twilight Zone because why should they have it so damn easy?  Is it too much to ask to have the direct protagonists of your suffering have to endure said suffering?  Just a little suffering?  A teensy, little, microscopic suffering perhaps?

Perhaps not.

They both got their walking papers and I'm still sitting here like I wasn't paying attention when they called my name and I'm too much of an introvert to get up and ask anybody and now I'm just going to sit here until my untimely death because that's less stressful to me somehow.

Now, there's some new guys.  We've got new guys now.  That's great.  I was just thinking that maybe the thing that could really jumpstart this whole thing and really give it a swift kick in the ass, is just some new guys.  Why didn't anybody just go out and get some new guys before all this shit happened?!

I don't even know their names or where they came from or whatever possible Hell they might've endured before this, but, heh, strap yourselves in fellas, shit gets weird around here.  It is now April of 2026.  The Miami Dolphins last won a playoff game on December 30th, in 2000.  That's 25 and a half years ago.  A quarter of a century of just nothing but bed-shitting and farting in the bathtub.  You know that goddamn game went into overtime?  CAN YOU EVEN FATHOM WHAT I'M TELLING YOU?!  The Dolphins needed extra time to sneak in a playoff victory in a world that DID NOT HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT EVENT HAPPEN ON SEPTEMBER 11th YET.

But hey, we've got some new guys now.

Mike McDaniel went to the west coast to go and make an offensive juggernaut out of the San Diego...er...Los Angeles Chargers of Anaheim...er...whatever.  Because they have Justin Herbert, the guy that the Dolphins SHOULD have drafted instead of Tua, right?  Because that guy has just been wrecking it, right?  Or, he will, now that Mike McDaniel is there.  Isn't that exactly what's going to happen? It's so damn obvious from my seat in the penthouse of the Twilight Zone that if I were a betting man, I mean I'm obvioulsy not because HELLO, but if I were, I would put mucho dinero on the Chargers being the best offense in the NFL next year.

Tua goes to the Atlanta Falcons to be the backup quarterback in a situation where it almost seems like he can't lose no matter which way you spin it.  He's getting paid almost nothing from the team to be there because the Dolphins are paying the bill.  He's immediately entrenched as the backup to the current starter, Michael Penix (yes, that's actually his name), who is already on borrowed time because the Falcons drafted him WAY before he should have gone.  So, inevitably when Penix is benched, and Tua goes out there, he's going to be received very well by the fans because they don't even expect him to color within the lines very well at this point, so as long as he doesn't just completely barf all over himself, which he won't do because Tua has never done that, he's gonna be on easy fuckin' street there!

And I sit here, knowing full well they should have called my name by now but it's well past time for me to do anything about it and the end of the world can't come soon enough.

I often wonder how I felt on that day in December of 2000 because I honestly can't remember what it was like because it seems obvious now that was the last day I experienced a new emotion.  How ridiculous.  25 years?  That's what some people get sentenced to prison for killing someone for.  I could have killed someone, done hard time, and still not have missed a Dolphin's playoff victory.

There we go.  There's my Twilight Zone.

You Can't Leave

You know it's a wonderful thing when a baby unicorn is born into this world.  The weight of it all feels a little lighter, there's multiple rainbows in the sky, and Skittles are half off at every gas station.  We've had a number of newborns over the years down here at the farm and I've been proud to be present at each and every birth.

It's very important to me that as soon as the little unicolt witnesses the world for the first time in its existence that I'm there to grab it and hold it close and whisper ever so gently, "I'm so sorry, you're going to be a Miami Dolphins fan."  And then I give it a little kiss on the head, smack its ass, and off we go into this whole fantastic voyage. There's no sense in coddling in this day and age--it's going to hit you regardless.

The year is now 2025.  I've written about Andrew Luck being the potential savior of the Miami Dolphins but instead fate had him go to the Colts and he's now retired and in charge of Stanford making sure they keep winning math competitions and shit like that.  I've also written about Ryan Tannehill, my little Fuzzby, being the potential something of the Miami Dolphins but instead he went to the Titans and now he's retired and...welp...I don't honestly have a clue what he's doing now.  But now the Dolphins have Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa and things have been...the goddamn same.  IT'S THE SAAAAAAAAMMMMMEEEE!!!!

How? How is this possible?  

How can you be so ridiculously mediocre for two decades?  TWO!  DECADES!  Decades, kids, in this instance is the amount of time it takes to fill ten years and two, is well, TWO OF THOSE!  Could you imagine, just for the sake of humoring me, going twenty years and not being able to do something that is completely in your wheelhouse of doing?  Like, just for shits sake, let's say that I needed you to change someone's brake pads on their car and you don't know brake pads from the hole in your ass.  You don't think, in twenty years, you could not only change brake pads but also probably become goddamn Callahan Auto Parts from Sandusky, Ohio! Twenty years. I'm giving you twenty years to be Chris Farley in Tommy Boy and you can't fuuuuuuuuucking do it.

I say all of this because it's 2025 and the Dolphins are currently 1-5 and looking damn shitty doing it too!  The talking heads are calling for the heads of everyone from top to bottom and that sounds like a rational response to me for a team that somehow has little expectations and falls short of them anyway like the little rascals they are.

Rational.  Uh oh.

I used a 'no no' word.

You see, kids, we're stuck in the Twilight Zone and things like 'sense' and 'rationalization' have no meaning here.  In fact, they're flagged as 'no no' words.  Can't use 'em.  

So that leaves me with the alternative.  I propose something radical and hear me out--or don't--I don't care.  Don't fire them.  Make them stay.

MAKE THEM STAY.

If they stay, and after every loss, they have to face a battery of questions from the astounded media that have been hired and retired since you've been relevant, well then maybe we're getting close to where I feel.  A whole cycle of reporters asking why you're still shitty when everything else that has been shitty became unshitty? That sounds like purgatory and that's exactly where I've been for TWENTY YEARS.

And I want them here with me.  Mike, Tua, get yourselves comfortable because we should be joined at the goddamn hip.  You don't deserve the luxury of being fired.  You have to stay, right here, with me. So grab a shovel because this unicorn shit piles up like you wouldn't believe.

The Old Man And The See?

 What?

What's everybody looking at?

Sheesh.

So it's been...oh shit...years.  It's been years. I was in a coma.  Just bluntly like that.  Coma.  Tell me I wasn't?  Be that jerk.  You see the thing about a coma is that it's so convenient for just disappearing for huge amounts of time while simultaneously being immune to the world's struggles.  And also letting that body hair have a reason to grow like a jungle before...well...white men.

Is all this still kosher?  Was it ever?  I'm sorry, I just got defrosted.  Did I mention that?  I was in a coma, while frozen, because you can do both.  It wasn't anything planned, funny story, I fell into a vat.

But then I got out of it and was subsequently put into a coma and frozen.

I'm clearly talking out of my ass, but who isn't these days?

I mean, clearly you knew I was coming back for this, Nick?

We don't go gently into the night.

I'm referring to of course, Nick Satan...I'm sorry, still defrosting, Nick Saban.  He retired this year and I barely noticed except for the fact that sunshine happened again.  What an absolutely legend...ary ass-wipe.  He's the epitome of "smug asshole" face, and if you are unsure, it's not pronounced eppy tomb but more like ep pit of me.  It helps to break it down by the syllables, which is another word he can't say either because the Devil's tongue is forked and it sounds like szzzzzzzz.

I wasn't really in a coma, I just felt like we needed a break.  Didn't we need a break?  Don't we all need a break from some time to time?  I just happen to have no idea of the affects of time so I just went away for...well...this amount.

I've wanted to come back for so many other things but my publicist wouldn't let me.  I'm just kidding, my publicist was begging me to come back.  It was embarrassing for her because none of this is published and it's definitely not for the public and beyond that, the public doesn't want it, in fact, I asked them and they collectively said, "NO".

But Nick Saban retired!  I always come back for the death of a villain!

Now, as happy as I am, that a truly, horrible person, that definitely hates dogs, announces his "retirement", which I know just means "I'll be back in another form and you'll never truly defeat me, szzzzzzzz." He's still considered the greatest.

The greatest?!

I keep that in lower-case so you don't confuse that with the actual "Greatness", Muhammad Ali, and I will DIE before the two are considered one and the same.

But still, he says that he has a problem with college kids making money, while in college, which affectively ruined his advantage over the rest of his competition, so he effectively said, "Fuck it", and just retired.  And he mentioned a 'touching' story about his wife, how they would host breakfast and invite the new 'recruits' over and how that doesn't mean anything now.

Barf.

I have no high-horse, no box to stand on, it's literally me and the unicorns and now they're wondering why I don't pay them, Saban!  What the fuck!  Just retire and keep your big mouth shut!  

Kidding.

They don't even know what money is, they just go ape-shit for honey combs.

The big problem here, is that Santa, errrr...whatever his name is, retires when, finally, college players are getting paid.  He's afraid of the future when the rest of us were always afraid of the past.  If I break my neck on an oil rig as an intern, who cares?  Uh, probably my family, everyone that's watched me grow on oil rigs over the years, and, I don't know, the muuuueeellllliiiiiioooons watching at home on their goddam tv!  Maybe, just maybe, before I sacrifice literally everything I have there can be some compensation first?  You know, in case I break my neck?

The old man left because he was afraid that the future wouldn't be in his favor.

No shit.

The future isn't something to be afraid of, or run from, we embrace it.

Float on, graceful swans.

Los Delfines Son Malos

 To illicit fear in the heart of your enemies, one must choose a symbol of strength and ferocity.  A symbol so powerful that just upon the very sight of it would speak volumes and send you running with your tail betwixt your legs.  That word of the day is brought to you by Subway.  Eat fresh, douchebags.

My symbol is a dolphin.  An elegant, sophisticated, and incredibly intelligent marine mammal, fair enough, but not exactly the animal you want to strike fear into the hearts of your combatants.  Most people would probably associate the dolphin with balancing a beach ball on it's nose, or whatever the Hell you call a dolphin's nose.  Beak?  Weird protruding mouth with way too many teeth?  But also weird, gummy teeth?  Also, let's not forget the blowhole, my favorite feature of the dolphin.  So how does it breathe?  Oh, there's a hole in the top of it's head that it surfaces from the depths of the water and takes a deep breath from and goes back down into the abyss again.  You see, the dolphin is so smart, that it breathes from a hole in it's head.

Athletically?  Dolphins are incredible!  They swim through the water like a knife through cheese and also jump through hoops just to flaunt their own talent.  When it comes to physical contact though, dolphins are like the poet laureate of the seas.  They'd rather just sit back and talk about how intelligent they are.  Which is fine...for dolphins.  Now when it comes to human Dolphins, specifically from Miami, they're not very athletic at all.  In fact, they also have a blowhole, but it's not for breathing, it's just a giant gaping hole in their brains.  That's it.

Kids, I've been in the Twilight Zone for quite some time now, so I'm not so easily surprised these days.  It's no shock to me that the Miami Dolphins are terrible because that's all I have ever known.  Did you hear me?!  I've only known failure from them and I've been alive...well...a while.  It's coming to the point where I give up on me and just hope the best for the unicorns because those dum dums followed my footsteps and became fans of them too!  If not for me...for the unicorns?!

Miami is crap.  Tua is hurt, our starting quarterback is named 'Jacoby', and the offensive line is made up of whatever was left of the stockpile of Fatheads.  You guys remember Fatheads?  Good concept, but their clientele was very limited.  As a grown ass man, how do you explain to your wife why a life-size sticker of Ray Lewis on your wall is a good idea?  

What does the future hold for my dear Miami Dolphins?  Cheap ticket prices.  There's nothing else.  You know, they say that purgatory is worse than Hell, and I agree.  At least with Hell, you've made it to your destination.  

It's all blowholes, kids.  Take a deep breath.

Ahoy Matey!

 How's everybody doing out there?

Good?  Not so good?  Yeah...it's a struggle, I get it, but at least we don't have scurvy?  I apologize if you do have scurvy, but how hard is it to eat a goddam piece of citrus?  Eat some citrus, goddammit.  There's at least five I know of off the top of my head.  Oranges, limes,  lemons, tangerines, grapefruit, and...well...that's all I've got.  I told you I knew five.  Now personally, I feel like grapefruit was made from the Devil and if that was the only piece of citrus available, I would take my chances with scurvy.  Grapefruit tastes like everyone hates you and your parents still make you go to school.  I bet you Cole Hamels has a grapefruit every morning for "tribute".  We call it breakfast, but Cole calls it "tribute".  It really is a shame that he goes such ape-shit over the Devil's fruit because I would really like him to suffer from scurvy.  And really, it's because one of the symptoms is "change of hair" and I think he would really lose it over that and that would make me really happy.

Sorry, I'm rambling, I'm talking about scurvy for some reason and that's a disease you don't really have to worry about unless you're a pirate and at sea for months at a time.  August does this to me.  I have a real problem with the "herald of my fleeting mortality" that I tend to lash out in random directions.  I understand that time is a human construct and that birthdays don't really matter and all of it is just some sort of weird measuring tool anyways but my number is starting to get higher and I don't like it one bit.  "You're only as old as you feel!"  Yeah, sure, try putting that on your Tinder account.

I don't have a Tinder account so I'm not exactly sure how it works but I imagine it's mostly people with scurvy trying to convince you they don't have scurvy, then you meet up at a local eatery, and share stories over some grapefruit.

Wow.  I'm a mess.

But at least, at the very least, when I wake up in the morning and present myself to the world, I can proudly say that I'm not Alex Rodriguez.  The reasons are endless but the latest one added to the collection was that he recently said that the Los Angeles Dodgers are the New York Yankees of baseball.

That's a weird connection to make considering that the New York Yankees do, in fact, also play baseball and Alex Rodriguez was a member of their team.  They also play in the same league.

Now, before I continue, I would be a tremendous asshat if I didn't tell you a quick story.  We all know that I'm a huge North Carolina Tar Heels basketball fan.  Well, I was watching the game, one random day, with a girl that could care less about the actual gameplay or results.  She was on her phone the whole time and that was perfectly fine with me.  It just so happened that at halftime of that particular game, Michael Jordan came out and announced some charity or scholarship program he was funding.  Cool.  That's awesome.

He spoke for a little bit and told everyone what he was doing and it was going quite well.

Then he said it.  "The roof is the ceiling!"

I obviously heard it clear as a bell but I was praying to whoever would listen that she didn't hear it.  Then she puts down the phone and says, "Did he just say the roof is the ceiling?"

Dammit.

Now, you know, that I'm a lyrical wordsmith and I talk pretty, but, if you didn't think that I knew MJ said the wrong thing but I still defended him anyways then I don't know what we're really doing around here.  I lawyered the shit out of that and I'm damn proud of it.  I'm sure he meant to say something along the lines of "The sky's the limit" or maybe even "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!" but instead he had a little mix-up and just referenced a thesaurus.  We've all done it, just not as the greatest basketball player that ever lived, on national television, in front of his alma mater as he's announcing this great contribution to society.

So, I told you that story to get to my point.  There's a distinction.  Michael Jordan has no business even being mentioned alongside Alex Rodriguez.  The very obvious point I can make is that Jordan is not a broadcaster on basketball.  Alex Rodriguez is a baseball broadcaster, he gets paid for that, yet he said that the Dodgers are the Yankees of baseball.  I'm sure he meant maybe that the Dodgers are the Yankees of the National League, or that he meant the Dodgers are following the blueprint of the early 2000's Yankees, or maybe he's got the mush-brain ever since he lost J-Lo.  I definitely think I would have the mush-brain after losing J-Lo.

Or?  And hear me out, A-Rod has scurvy.  Can somebody get A-Rod a grapefruit?

Float on, graceful swans.  I don't know how much time I have left, but as long as I have time, I think I'll spend it right here with you.

To The Face!

It's the end of May and that means that the 'dog days' of Summer are upon us.

Very soon, basketball and hockey will get out of the way, and all we will be left with is baseball, the so called 'boys of summer', which is also a really good song...which I don't think has to do with baseball?

I'm not sure.  Don Henley was on a lot of drugs, pretty much all the time, so he could have been watching a Phillies game on acid when he wrote that song.  So it could mean that he was really into the lineup that featured Mike Schmidt, Von Hayes, and Steve Carlton.  Or, in the most likely scenario, he's never seen a Phillies game in his life and the "Boys of Summer" is based off of some sort of drug-induced nightmare, despite it's playful beat and hopeful optimistic lyrics.

I don't know and I don't really care, because I used all of that as a literary bridge.  You see, also on the 1984 Philadelphia Phillies was a pitcher named Jerry Koosman.  He spent 12 years with the Mets and won 140 games.  Jerry was no bum, but this story isn't about him.  It's about another Met.

Literary bridge crossed.

This is the story of Kevin Pillar, the Mets outfielder that was hit in the face with a 94 MPH fastball.

Picture this: You're in the great state of New York, more specifically in the city of Kingston.  You decide you want to get away for the weekend, maybe just get a breath of fresh air, but whatever you do...you're just getting away.  It's important.  It's healthy.  It's mental healthy.

You decide to go to the city of Massapequa.  Small, quiet hamlet, on Long Island.  It's the perfect getaway for the constant grind you face in Kingston.  Kingston is always go, go, go, and this is Massapequa...slow, slow, slow.  A guy can really get some thinking done around here.  There's a lot of history there, as well.  The Massapequa people spoke Algonquian, which is a real cool party trick these days.  Also, Jerry Seinfeld is from there!

Anyways, you are leaving from Kingston to spend your wellness time away in Massapequa, and you're in a hurry.  There's not a time limit on working on yourself but nevertheless, you've got to get there.  You'll get there as fast as you can...say...like within an hour.

Kingston is 90.4 miles away from Massapequa.  You could go 90 MPH in a Volvo to get from Kingston to Massapequa and still not be faster than the baseball that hit Kevin Pillar in the face a few days ago.

Kevin Pillar got hit, in the face, with a baseball, traveling faster than you could get from Kingston to Massapequa in an hour.  A baseball.  To the face.

A Major League baseball is comprised of cork, rubber, cotton, wool, and cowhide.  I don't know how many of you have been smacked in the face with cow-skin that has a cork and rubber core, but I can't imagine it feels good, let alone at a speed that's faster than you can drive from Peekskill to Baldwin and back again.

Well, Kevin Pillar took that super fast cow-skin to the face and was upset he had to leave the game!  What an absolute beast.  I've got to be honest here, maybe I'm soft, but a 94 MPH to the face sounds like a sweet retirement insurance plan.  I mean, 94 to the face?!  I thought I played baseball and wasn't an UFC fighter!  Diamond, right?  Not Octagon?

I'm better than that joke, but I'm letting it ride for the new readership.

Look, it's rare when you love your job so much that you're willing to take a 94 MPH fastball to the face.  I guess there's always the possibility that he didn't see it coming or also could react in a way to shield himself.  It would be weird if I got hit with a 94 MPH baseball.  That would be a story.  Guy walking across the street gets hit in face with fastball from Major League player.  That's enticing.  But only because I'm not a baseball player.

As a baseball player there's an inherent risk that you could get hit in the face with a ball made of cow, traveling faster than northern New Yorkers on vacation.  I'm pretty sure that's in the contract.

As for Kevin?  He went to the press conference after the game.

He. Went. To. The. Press. Conference.

I'm not saying that Kevin Pillar is impervious to fast cow because it definitely jacked up his face...a lot.  Like how you would expect...it was gross.

But he went and spoke to the media!  Looking like Quasimodo!

I talked about how it would be weird if I got hit in the face with a baseball going 94 MPH, because I'm just a civilian.  I've played co-ed softball and got plunked on the square of the back.  I only got hit because I saw it coming high and inside and I turned in time, you know, for the team.  It stung for a hot minute.  I also learned that getting hit by the softball doesn't grant you first base like it does in real sports and I felt really ashamed.  I was ashamed because what kind of screwball rules are we doing here?!  God forbid I took a softball to the face!

I didn't.  Even still, it would have been at a cool 35 MPH, which could maybe give a toddler a few stitches and also amnesia...for a little bit.

Kevin Pillar took an '84 Volvo to the face and then described it at the press conference following the game.  Kudos to you, sir!

Float on, graceful swans!

Bad Taste

 Sorry, I know I've been gone for a hot minute, I was busy making sure the damned unicorns didn't catch Covid.  I spent months showering them down with special shampoo, making them eat out of food bags instead of troughs which takes way more time to do, and also sanitizing their hooves every time they leave the barn.  

They let me do this for months until just the other day I caught them snickering and asked what was so funny and come to find out that unicorns are immune to all viruses and infectious diseases.  Good one, you horned bastards.  I revoked their internet time for a week, that will teach them.

What did I miss?

Oh.  I see Tom Brady won another Super Bowl.

I could easily take the approach of how much I hate Tom Brady and how most of his Super Bowl rings are centered around some sort of cheating but I would be wasting my time.  I told you all, long ago, that Bill Belichick was a Sith lord and he alone was responsible for the Patriots success...because he did it out of pure evil.  Tom Brady was Belichick's Darth Vader.  With him gone, there was no immediate apprentice, and the empire crumbles.  For the first year, in about twenty, I didn't have to assume the Patriots were going to win the division.  In fact, they only didn't finish last because the Jets shouldn't even play football.  They're more of a lacrosse team.  It's kind of like why all great classical music comes from Germans, you have to be evil to produce the absolute greatness.  If that starts World War III, I apologize.

To be honest, this is the first year that I didn't hate Tom Brady.  How could I hate him, you ask?  He has chiseled good looks, married to a model, and has had nothing but great success in the NFL and maybe has earned him self the title of the best to do it ever.

That last sentence was from his publicist.  I could never write that.  I would vomit, and then vomit again, upon seeing and smelling the vomit.  It's a terrible cycle.

I hated Tom Brady because in the first year he took over because Drew Bledsoe got hit so hard he had a ruptured spleen.  A ruptured spleen spawned the birth of Darth Vader of the New England area.  The Patriots lost that game by a huge margin and that only stirred the hate in Palpatine.  They made it all the way to the Super Bowl that year and, as underdogs, beat the Greatest Show On Turf, the at the time, St.Louis Rams.

It should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyways, that Dan Marino is the greatest quarterback of all time.  He never won a Super Bowl, in his last game he lost 63-7, to the fucking Jacksonville Jaguars, and still, I think he's the best.

And, in his first year, because of a ruptured spleen, Tom Brady has a ring.

What the fuck does the spleen even do?  Do we need it?  Why would that sideline a professional athlete?

A goddamn spleen.  That's how we got Tom Brady.

And I immediately hated him for a few reasons.  One, he's already accomplished the highest goal in football, which my idol never did, and he played for the Patriots.  Kids, keep in mind, this was 2001 when the Patriots won the Super Bowl for the first time.  Before that?  They were an absolute joke.  Again, think of the Jets of today and you get the Patriots before this.  It was a dumpster fire from bad grease removal, and they kept throwing water on it instead of flour because what the Hell do they know about grease fires? 

The Patriots were never supposed to happen.  They weren't supposed to have this much success.  I believe that Bill Belichick used his time as a horrible coach in Cleveland to figure out the secrets of how to win, unlawfully, in the NFL.  The guy came from Bill Parcells, come on!  If you are so star-spangled brilliant then why cheat your way to the top?

So Tom, Darth Vader, becomes the bane of my existence the next twenty years or so, and then jumps ship to Tampa Bay.

And I was immediately happier for two reasons: one, he left the evil empire, and two, I don't give a flying fuck about the Bucs.

Good for him, he's clearly retiring into the sun and great weather we have here and that's finally that.

Nope.

They surround him with great talent and he has that fuck you mentality against Palpatine that propels them enough to win the goddamn Super Bowl...and they do it in their own stadium.  First time that's ever happened.

So, I started about how this is the first year I didn't hate Tom Brady, despite all my rambling, I should probably address that point.

First of all, I liked that he didn't play for the Patriots anymore which was always a huge detriment to the Miami Dolphins, a team that I love, despite their continual misgivings.  Second of all, I took it as a huge slap in the disgruntled face of Belichick/Palpatine.  I would akin it to finding out an ex got engaged to someone else.  It's all terrible.

In essence, I've hated Tom Brady for twenty years.  Now that he's in Tampa, I don't give a shit.  But never forget, you got here because of a ruptured spleen, you smug asshole.

Float on, graceful swans.