I know, I know, this post was supposed to be dedicated to the Kent Lounge. It was supposed to be the second part of my 100th post, but I decided to go with something else. Part II of my Kent memories will come later. Today, I was browsing through some old files and found a few pieces I wrote in October of 2007. I found them to be somewhat interesting and amusing so here they are.
“Dude, I had pocket Aces and this donkey calls me with Jack-Nine of Diamonds…”
Thanks to ESPN and the popularity of the World Series of Poker, we have all been introduced to one of the most horrific things on earth. While a certain level of skill is needed to succeed in poker, it is still a game of luck. However, there is only one certainty in the game of poker, wherever the game is being played, someone is telling a bad beat story.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to listen to friends, strangers, opposing players, give me their own bad beat story. While the stories continue to change, one thing doesn’t. I don’t give a damn. Neither does the dealer, neither does the guy sitting next to you, neither does anyone anywhere. Push comes to shove in the game of poker, your gambling. Every time someone’s pocket Ace’s get “cracked” by Jack-Nine of Diamonds, someone is outraged and has a bad beat story to tell for days. Seriously, you gambled, you lost, it’s going to happen again, sit down, shut the hell up, and get over it. Have you ever gotten a phone call and had to listen to your buddy say, “dude I was watching the mega-millions lottery drawing, I so had the first two numbers right and than out of nowhere comes a 12 ball. Its complete bull-shit, how does my luck run this bad? It happens every time.” No, you haven’t because lottery players have accepted that their gambling, poker players not so much. Bad beat stories are like that mosquito bite on the middle of your back that you just can’t scratch. You know it’s there, you feel it itching, but no matter how many times a day you try and scratch it you just cant reach it. All day it sits there nagging you, bothering you. You’ve tried the left hand over the right shoulder and than taking the right hand and going around the left side of your back, but you just can’t reach it and now you’ve reached a point where you’ve become so frustrated you just accept it for what it is. That’s what bad beat stories have become, when you go to play poker, you know your going to hear them, you know theirs nothing you can do about them and you just accept. While the story is told are you really are thinking is “I don’t care, I don’t care,” but yet the words out of your mouth are “Dude, that’s horrible,” or “Are you serious? What I joke, what’s he doing calling with that hand?”
Bad beat stories have become so annoying, that I think the Devil has installed a new torture chamber in hell, where hell’s inhabitants must sit in a room and hear bad beat stories for days straight. By the time these inhabitants are released from the room, returning to the bottomless fiery pit and gnashing teeth must seem like you’re getting a Swedish massage from a gorgeous blonde compared to the bad beat poker room. Seriously, if you give me the option of having to listen to a string of bad beat stories or listening to Roseanne Barr sing the National Anthem, while performing a striptease, well I’m facing a dilemma and may God bless my soul, with whichever choice I choose.
A Football Paradox
Bone-crushing tackles. 6”6 300 pound men. Aggression. Testosterone. Fearless competitors. Freakish athleticism. These are just some of the words or phrases you might hear when someone is asked to describe the National Football League. However, whenever I attend a game in this day and age, these things are rarely one of the first things I notice. As I am sitting at a pre-game tailgate or walking into a stadium one of the first things my eyes tend to catch, is a pink uniform.
Every team in the NFL, now sells pink uniforms for their star players. Can you imagine Ray Lewis busting through the defensive line and delivering a jaw-dropping hit against LaDainian Tomlinson, all of this while donning a pink jersey? Something in that situation, just doesn’t fit. Football is supposed to be the pinnacle of masculinity, yet these pink jerseys are selling off the charts. I just wonder what former legends such as Lawrence Taylor, Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert, and “Mean” Joe Greene, all players who were known for their ferocious defense and devastating mean streak, would have thought if they looked up in the stands and saw someone wearing a pink jersey. Now, I personally do not have a problem with the color pink, I just never thought it find its way into a football stadium. A place where the masculinity is soaring, where fans can yell at the top of their lounges, drink beers, curse, and for their actions they are given high-fives and compliments.
However, the strange part about this pink jersey is its appeal. For some reason, the appeal of a woman wearing a pink jersey is off the wall. It’s a combination of two of the greatest things God has put on this earth. Women and football, what more could a man ask for. Seriously, the NFL marketers have found a way to make a football uniform sexy. They have found a method to keep football as that manly event, a place where a man can go out and have a few beers with his boys and cheer for his favorite team, and now he also gets to have the feeling of seeing women dressed up and supporting his favorite team, while still being able to keep that girly attire that is so attractive.
Pink and the NFL, it may sound like a paradox, but it has worked. Throughout time we have seen pioneers in the world of mixing two great items. These pioneers have given us beer and buffalo wings, peanut butter and jelly, and now pink uniforms and football, America owes them all a thank you. Now I’m not proposing that an NFL team designs a pink uniform for its players to wear, because Jared Allen staring down an opposing quarterback while wearing pink may not work, but, if your watching the game from your seat and happen to stare two aisles down, you may see a couple of petite blondes sporting a pink Ray-Ray jersey and at that time, you will see the paradox working.
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