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[Scene: a darkened, colonial-influenced tavern with the look and feel of 1960’s vintage sylings. A lone spotlight illuminates a single speaker sitting on a stool in space created by moving cocktail tables to the side.]
It’s that time of year again – Festivus – where we air our grievances and display our feats of strength. It is a time for sharing: sharing our grievances, specifically. Well, the feats of strength, too, but I’m a big fan of airing grievances.
2011 has been wonderful fodder for these grievances, personified by my friend Siri. We can’t get along at all, yet I find I take her with me everywhere. Welcome to the annual Festivus celebration at Mo’s Tavern, and allow me to introduce my co-host, Siri. Welcome Siri.
“I’m not sure what you said.”
Of course not. In the absence of official fan polling on the airing of grievances, Siri and I will compile some of the worst, in our opinion, 2011 had to offer. Siri, what do you think was the biggest disappointment of 2011?
“It doesn’t really matter what I think.” Well, it kind of does – we’re, like, putting a show together here. You don’t really give me many answers, Siri.
“Ok, one of these places matching “Answers” isn’t far from you:
Morrison Funeral Home – 8.3 miles
Jesus is the Answer Ministry – 33 miles
Christ is the Answer – 30 miles
Answer is Fitness – 35 miles.”
Although I am curious about the logic behind providing a funeral home as an “answer,” in the interest of speeding this along, I think I’ll just talk about some of my grievances.
Now, I’m pretty transparent about my sports, so it’s not hard to imagine what my #1 grievance would be about…unless you’re Siri. Case in point, Siri, what would be my number one disappointment of the year? “I don’t know what you mean by [that]” Of course you don’t. “Sorry, I don’t understand, ‘Of course you don’t’” My biggest disappointment was the 2011 Red Sox. “I don’t understand.” Allow me to explain.
This was a team that was by most accounts destined to return to the World Series. Remove the first and last months of the season, and they were the best team in baseball going away. Individual contributors waxed and waned, but as a group, for most of the season, this team was living up to the hype. BUT, there was this pesky little concept hanging out there called “finishing.” When you just barely need two hands with which to count wins for the month of September, there’s a big problem. Losing game 162, put the finishing touches on a season of discontent. In the intervening time, we’ve seen the manager part ways with the team amid what could only be considered character assassination attempts, the General Manager who with said manager brought 2 World Series to the team bolted to the Cubs for an apparently as of yet undecided compensation back to the Sox, and the closer bolt to the Phillies apparently without so much as talking to the team. Maybe Jose Canseco is available to close. “I don’t understand ‘Maybe Jose Canseco is available to close’.”
That’s probably the first intelligent thing you’ve said to me. “I don’t understand.”
You know what I don’t understand, Siri? I don’t understand how a group of adults can consistently fail to do the right thing by children. I don’t understand how a grown man can say he saw another adult molesting a child in the shower and fail to affirmatively do something about it. Imagine what Penn State would look like right now if one person – just one – had done the right thing. From the outside it would look very similar to the way it looked 6 months ago, reputation in tact. Fact is, one way or another and sooner or later the organization will have to do the right thing – it’s just a shame that the adults in the conversation could not see beyond their own perceived self interest to do the right thing.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I’m talking about Penn State. “State College, Pennsylvania is 431 miles from you. Would you like directions?”
[Throws phone across the floor] I’m sure Siri isn’t intentionally obtuse, she’s just programmed that way.
I wish I could generate enough interest to complain about college sports, like the Sooners disappointing season, but I just can’t. College sports just don’t interest me, never have, but I do appreciate that for a great many the college game is the only game that really matters. I’m too much of a homer to complain too bitterly about the Phillies’ season ending as it did or the way the Eagles’ season has unfolded, and too much a hater to do anything but giggle my butt off about the Colts season or about the results of LbJ taking his talents to South Beach. I wish I could say that I have a grievance with the loss of half the NBA season – but I don’t. Didn’t even know they weren’t playing to be honest.
What I do have a grievance with is a guy like Ndamukong Suh channeling Albert Haynesworth and stomping on an opponent, on Thanksgiving no less. What he doesn’t get is that one moment can define a career – it’s the one thing people outside of Detroit will remember about the guy. Fans of the Lions finally have a bright spot, a reason to watch football every week, and Suh misbehaves his way onto the naughty list. Dumb. And if nothing else, Detroit deserves better. For good measure, I’ll throw Ryan Braun onto the Festivus grievances because he’s clearly a dummy too.
Feats of strength are not my forte either, really. I like to find the negative, finding the positive is always so damn cheesy. “What kind of cheese would you like?” When you think about it though, sport by its very nature is a ying/yang thing. For every 16-0 Patriots, there’s a 0-16 Lions; the undefeated Packers lose the same week the winless Colts win. For every Tim Thomas, there’s a Roberto Luongo. Just kind of works out like that.
One of the things I have always said has been that as much as I hate the Yankees laundry, I don’t hate the guys wearing it. It’s for that reason that I can give up a little love for Derek Jeter for his 3,000th hit. This is a man who has played the game at a high level with integrity and class for a long time and I couldn’t be happier that such a man reached his milestone. As for his teammate, Mr Rodriguez, I wouldn’t give him the time of day, but Jeter has demonstrated time and again he is not only a quality player, but a quality person.
In case I hadn’t already mentioned it, I’m a homer. The Boston Bruins going to a Game 7 in each of their playoff series to beat one of the best goal tenders in the game on his home ice and make him look like an AHL wash out in the process truly has to be one of the years biggest feats of strength. With that win, the Bruins became the 4th Boston franchise to win their league’s championship in 6-years, capping off the most amazing 10-year run for the city of Boston and probably in the history of professional sports in this country. Yeah, so the Bruins get the nod for one of my feats of strength this year.
And the last feat of strength I can dish out really has to be the Packers’ title defense season. This is a team that got strong and made the plays when it mattered last year and rode that crest to the Super Bowl. How did they follow it up? By coming damn close to undefeated. I don’t know if I buy into the “its good to lose and get the pressure of an undefeated season off your back” business. I mean, these are players who just want to play. The media hypes pressure, the fans feel it. I’m not so sure athletes feel it. Look it’s a great story line, but I don’t know that the players are all that into story line. Fact is, that we may have all seen a team come within 1:30 of being undefeated recently – pressure? I don’t know. What I do know is that the Packers are the odds on favorite to win the Lombardi trophy again because of the way they’ve defended it this year.
I hope you all enjoy your Festivus, and all those other holidays that may be happening. Raise your Festivus pole, celebrate your strengths, get those grievances off your chest so they don’t bog you down going forward and have a wonderful rest of the year. Happy holidays from Steve Grogan, Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady.
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It’s been a wonderful year at the Gabbers. So without further ado, the ScottJax Carols proudly present…..
The Twelve Days of Gabbers.
On the First Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
A Musing from the Hoodwood.
On the Second Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On the Third Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On the Fourth Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On the Fifth Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On the Sixth Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On The Seventh Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Seven Fry Day Blogs,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On the Eight Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave To Me,
Eight Buzz from the bleachers,
Seven Fry Day Blogs,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On The Ninth Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Nine Thoughts from the Couch,
Eight Buzz from the bleachers,
Seven Fry Day Blogs,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On The Tenth Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Ten Random Thoughts,
Nine Thoughts from the Couch,
Eight Buzz from the bleachers,
Seven Fry Day Blogs,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On The Eleventh Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Eleven Tools of the Week,
Ten Random Thoughts,
Nine Thoughts from the Couch,
Eight Buzz from the bleachers,
Seven Fry Day Blogs,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
On The Twelfth Day of Christmas,
My True Love Gave to Me,
Twelve Days of Harvey Dakota,
Eleven Tools of the Week,
Ten Random Thoughts,
Nine Thoughts from the Couch,
Eight Buzz from the bleachers,
Seven Fry Day Blogs,
Six Thoughts from an Island Girl,
5 Minutes with Frags,
Four Monday Moaning,
Three Deep Thoughts,
Two Tuesday Tantrums,
And a Musing from the Hoodwood.
Have a very Merry Christmas
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Twas the Gab before Christmas,
And all across the site,
The Gabitants were waiting,
For a topic just right.
Sandusky had been done,
His pedophile playmate Fine as well,
And without a Favre sighting,
There were just no stories to tell.
The NFL and NBA,
Were finally back back on the job,
Making way too much money,
For a forward pass or a lob.
The Gabitants were spread,
Around Mo’s empty bar room,
Pondering their thoughts,
In the gathering gloom.
Sully was keeping busy,
Answering an email or two,
From his good friend in Nigeria,
With some illegal banking to do.
Felber is still out shoveling,
The snow from last week,
That fell to the Earth,
Like a Raven’s winning streak.
The Beezer was seated,
Beside the fire in his chair,
Helping the Misses,
Clean the spunk from her hair.
Still others were coming,
And taking their seats,
Hoping for a story,
To fall at their feet.
Perhaps Harvey Dakota,
Had something to add,
About his memories of the days,
When the coaches wore plaid.
Johnny Monkey is in the corner,
Plotting his next plan for fun,
Of rising to power,
And usurping Kim Jong Un
And there’s B-Dub,
Helping to deck the halls,
Ranting about the Gamecocks,
And swinging from Cam Newton’s balls.
Fresh in from Hoodwood
Black Bandit got gifts aplenty,
With Phat Daps for some,
And Head Slaps for many.
Here’s Average Fan Detroit,
And his brother IHM,
With fresh Suh footprints,
On each of them.
B.O.B is in the corner,
Throwing a tantrum or two,
He has no Christmas spirit,
Because he’s pissed off at all of you.
Jefft02 hasn’t made it yet,
As he’s got a lawsuit to thwart,
Proving deep thoughts are his own,
In a Texas federal court.
Mia and Hotch,
Were nowhere to be seen,
Getting shafted with Christmas duty,
To feed the Gab blog machine.
And here I am,
Putting to paper this piece I do write,
Wishing my fellow Gabitants a Merry Christmas,
In a poem that has bite.
But this poem was fun,
And every word in jest,
I hope you have a good holiday,
And that your families remain blessed.
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Hello Gabbers, Johnny Monkey here to wish you a Merry Christmas. Johnny Monkey has taken the rest of the year off to celebrate Christmas with his friends, but after reading an article about the passing of Kim Jong II, Johnny Monkey felt compelled to write something. You have probably heard about Kim Jong II, right? Jong was the leader of North Korea and was constantly being heard threatening to drop a bomb on one country or another. Johnny Monkey did not realize what an exquisite athlete that Kim Jong was and wondered if perhaps is there was some Johnny Monkey blood in Kim Jong. Of course you know that Johnny Monkey is well known as Johnny Monkey the Bad Ass Monkey, but when Johnny Monkey reads that Kim Jong II was known as:Glorious General Who Descended From Heaven and the Ever-Victorious Iron-Willed Commander, Johnny Monkey must acknowledge that Jong had a bad ass name. Johnny Monkey has always picked up things very easily...like playing Beethoven and Mozart flawlessly after listening to a tape about playing piano. But, Johnny Monkey has nothing on Kim Jong. Did you realize that Jong pieced together an exquisite round of 38 for 18 holes at Pyongyang’s 7,700-yard championship course. In the reading about Jong, Johnny Monkey discovered this:
The feat included five magnificent holes-in-one and it appears that Kim subsequently decided his 31-under-par achievement was enough to solidify his legacy and rarely played afterwards. Perhaps for the sake of our perception of golf’s legend, it is just as well. Jack Nicklaus’ career hole-in-one tally of 20 seems humble by comparison, and had Kim continued at his early pace, he would have surpassed the Golden Bear within a week.
Johnny Monkey bowled one time and rolled a very fair 278...Jong outdid Johnny Monkey:
Ten-pin bowling was another pursuit that Kim, believed to stand just over five feet but clearly a physical specimen of unmatched grace, turned to with equal aplomb. Again, it took just one attempt to solidify his reputation as a world class performer, with a perfect 300 game in the mid-1990s. Johnny Monkey is impressed! Jong bowled a perfect game in one try? That is truly an inspiration.
Jong's health began to suffer, so he turned to coaching his supreme athletes. Here are examples of Jong's excellent coaching:
By then his appetite for sports was largely restricted to coaching and his ailing physical condition could not prevent that razor-sharp mind from being put to good use in the service of his nation. During the soccer World Cup in 2010, Kim, by then so rarely seen in public that false reports of his death -- presumably leaked by those rascals in the West -- combined technology with tactical savvy to deliver messages to North Korea head coach Kim Jong-Hun. The advice was sent via invisible telephone, which the Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love (another delightful official moniker) had himself had invented, with the coach telling ESPN: "I get regular information ... using mobile phones not visible to the naked eye." Notice that they used the word moniker? Johnny Monkey likes the word moniker...a true hint of Jong's monkey thinking! But Johnny Monkey digresses...
North Korea’s misfortune (or a dastardly Western plot) at being placed in the infamous Group of Death alongside Brazil, Portugal and the Ivory Coast meant there was little that could be done to prevent them from conceding 12 lucky goals and losing all three games, much to the disappointment of the thousand-plus Chinese fans who were rented to cheer them on in South Africa.
Undeterred, Kim again used his soccer knowledge to the benefit of North Korea during the Women’s World Cup earlier this year. More sound hints were sent to the coaching staff, only for the side to be eliminated from group play after struggling to recover from being struck by lightning, which may have also resulted in five players testing positive for steroids.
Even in the months before his death, Kim was said to have retained a keen interest in watching sports. A huge basketball fan -- he was presented with a signed Michael Jordan ball by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright more than a decade ago -- he must have been disappointed by the recent NBA lockout.
The Jordan memento was said to occupy pride of place in one of Kim’s 17 luxurious palaces and was a fitting tribute from one sports legend to another.
Johnny Monkey wishes that he could have spent time with this great sportsman. But, then again...Jong's eagerness to prove to be the best might have brought out the bad ass in Johnny Monkey.
Johnny Monkey things that if Kim Jong had eaten his vegetables that he might have lived a more robust life. Don't be like Kim Jong eat your vegetables!
Before Johnny Monkey goes, there was recently a thought that Johnny Monkey was riding around on a dog during a football game. This was Johnny Monkey's cousin Billy Monkey. The youngster can ride anything, but of course this should not surprise you, right? Johnny Monkey is too big to ride a dog, but has ridden other things:
Johnny Monkey wishes all of his Gab friends a very Merry Christmas and to please travel safely during the holidays.
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