Nurse the Hate: The Horror of the Bengals

I am going to embrace my destiny today and bet on the Cincinnati Bengals +4.5 over the Houston Texans.  This is going to happen no matter how much sense anyone tries to talk into me over the next few hours.  I am powerless to stop what is about to unfold.  There are only a few things I know to be true deep in my bones.  I literally only know about three things to be absolutely true.  This is one of those things.  God help me, I am going to bet on the Bengals in a playoff game…

You can often see disaster on the horizon and be unable to do anything about it. Almost as if you have seen the movie before, read the book, or been told the ending.  Terrible events are coming to pass right in front of your eyes, and yet you sit on your hands and do nothing to prevent them from happening.  Like the feeling you get just when you notice the car is going too fast to negotiate the upcoming turn, a bad accident is about to happen and all you can do is brace yourself for impact.  This is how I feel.

I am no more able to prevent this Bengals wager from happening than I am able to stop the sun from rising tomorrow.  I am going to bet a large sum of money, sure in my heart that I will lose.  Pity me poor stranger, for I am on Cincinnati.  Cincinnati +4.5

(For the hell of it I might take Minnesota too if the line stays around 9.5 and it’s windy as shit in Green Bay.  I hope no one brings up a teaser with the underdogs…  This is just the kind of day where Cincinnati +10.5 and Minnesota +15.5 starts to really sound like it makes sense.  Oh the horror, the horror…)

Current Record Vs Spread:  14-14-1

Johnny Cash Project:  Disc 18 Carrying On with Johnny Cash & June Carter is the kind of record I normally hate.  I like Johnny Cash when he sounds kind of scary and mean.  You toss in those happy June Carter vocals and it can start to feel like when Bruce Springsteen trots his wife out to play guitar with the E Street Band.  Well, if Springsteen’s wife was talented that is…  I was surprised by how much I liked this, and how really good it was.  I even added most of this to the old iPod.  “Jackson” is the big hit off this record, but “Long-Legged Guitar Pickin Man”, “It Ain’t Me Babe”, and “No, No, No” are pretty charming.  I like the groovy electric guitar line on “Fast Boat To Sydney”.  Beware, the cover of “What I’d Say” is maybe one of Cash’s most misguided moments in the 1960s.   Disc 19 Live At Folsom Prison is without question one of the most essential records in the American Music canon. If you are reading this, I find it hard to believe you don’t already own this.  If you don’t, mention that to no one and acquire a copy immediately.  This is everything that is great about Johnny Cash in one perfect package.  The songs, the delivery, and his interaction with the prisoners are better than anything you could imagine.  Essential.