Nurse the Hate: Disaster in Pontiac and NFL Week 11

 

Of all the unsuccessful shows we have played in Greater Detroit, and there have been many, I believe the least successful gig of all time was at a bar in Pontiac MI whose name escapes me.  This was a Cowslingers show in probably 1994-95 because I remember our old bass player Tony was there.  These were truly the Early Days Of Bitter Struggle where I hadn't learned what gigs to take and what to avoid.  At this point, if someone from out of town agreed to take us, we'd play it.  We just wanted to gig.  Any show would be a crazy adventure and a chance to play our stupid songs.

I am fairly sure I heard about this club from the Flyin' Saucers or maybe Pistol Pete had Twistin Tarantulas going by then.  The logic went that because those guys had a good show at this club, we would too as we played music of a similar sensibility.  This ignored the obvious key factor of that they were local and we hardly knew anyone in Detroit, much less the Detroit suburb of Pontiac.  I think we were being willfully ignorant thinking that the Detroit rockabilly clique, centered around those two bands, would drive out to Pontiac to see us.  Frankly, we weren't very good in 1994-95, and I wouldn't have driven out to see us either.    

I had the suspicion then, which has since been confirmed dozens of times over, that the rockabilly scene is not a music scene.  The rockabilly scene is mainly centered on antique collecting, old cars and vintage clothes with the music providing the backdrop.  For example, if we had rolled into that club with two tables of vintage auto patches and just unearthed L and XL bowling shirts from 1958, we would have put 300 people in that room.  There would have been a line out the door if we made a poster that said "Estate Sale From Just Opened Clothes Trunk from 1959".  Instead we had sent hand drawn fliers promoting us.  Big mistake.

The good news was we had a local band that we were opening up for.  This was when I learned the other painful lesson that most club owners and booking agents cannot be trusted to pair up bands.  I cannot tell you how many times we had played gigs where the booking person decided "Since the girl fronted pop band brings in one crowd and the stinky cowboy boot guys bring in another, we can double the size of a normal show by pairing them up!".  While it would appear that you have appealed to everyone, in fact, you have appealed to no one as the creepy male fans and empowerment seeking women that want to stare at the young woman pop singer DO NOT want to watch drunk cowboys jump around before or after the set they came to see.  Likewise, the heavy drinking dudes that come to see the stinky cowboy boot guys DO NOT want to stand around while some limp version of Top 40 radio gets played out in front of them.  Therefore NO ONE comes.  It was, and is, a recipe for disaster.

In this case, we had been booked with a band that had no possible relationship to the stuff we were doing.  They sound checked before us, and it took them longer than I would imagine it takes The Moody Blues.  The sound check didn't take so long because they were perfectionists.  It was more because each member of the band had some sort of different vision as to what the band was going for, and it was impossible for the sound guy to lock in on anything.  Imagine if a Stewart Copeland wannabe drummer was with the guitar player from REO Speedwagon while a young girl keyboard player from A-ha played songs fronted by a glam lead singer that thought he was in a West Village version of Joy Division.  Sometimes disparate musical influences can create something edgy and exciting.  In this case, it was forgettable songs being executed poorly by four people all doing their own thing simultaneously.  It was a horrible lack of vision, yet being executed so poorly that a casual onlooker might just focus on how bad it was being done.  It was a high school rock-off version of free jazz.

When it was time for us to play, there were about 5 people in the club that weren't band members.  They were a table that looked uncomfortable, as if they didn't normally do "this sort of thing".  They had the look of people that worked with the girl keyboardist and weren't hip enough to know that if the gig was listed for 9p, they'd have to endure us for 45 minutes and wait for tear down until they could politely sit through their friend's terrible show.  We got up there, played to no reaction whatsoever, and meekly ended.  When I was tearing down I saw the guy in the next band backstage applying face paint and putting on a cape.  I knew what was about to happen on that stage was going to be worse than I had anticipated. 

There are different measures of time.  An hour of a great film passes in the blink of an eye.  An hour with the band we opened for playing at top volume was like a life insurance seminar blasted though Ozzy Osbourne's sound system in a way that made time elongate.  It was like the last five minutes of the last day of school in 5th grade, but with a guy in a cape and white face paint singing the worst songs you had ever heard.  It would never end.  We sat at this little bar in the back, drinking well past our comp beer limit, effectively losing money on the show by drinking ourselves into debt.  Our gear tucked behind the stage, we were trapped in Pontiac MI with no escape.  Whenever I think something looks grim, or it can't get worse, I think of sitting in the back of that room in Pontiac MI.   

This feeling of being trapped into something that might never end is how the Chicago Bears must feel this season.  They embarked on the year as an obvious "lost season" where the main goal was to determine if Justin Fields was a QB to build around and then getting their salary cap in order.  Fields, when allowed to run around and use his freak athleticism, looks like an intriguing player.  Of course, he also separated his shoulder last week.  This means the Bears, with the worst offensive line ever, are going to try to win on Sunday running a version of their "QB runs around until something good happens" offense with backup Trevor Siemian, who is a statue.  I can't see the Bears scoring.  The bad news is that means we have to take the Jets.

The Jets are 6-4, but are somehow in turmoil.  That's because they are the Jets.  It's also because their "franchise QB" Zack Wilson is a bust and the guys on the team hate him.  Normally when a QB gets hit, the linemen all jump over to help him up.  Not Wilson.  They let that dude get up on his own.  After Wilson had one of the worst QB performances in his already awful career, a reporter asked if he felt he had let down the defense in the 10-3 loss.  "No".  Yeah, that didn't play well in the old locker room.  Wilson is out, and Mike White is in.  I'll say this.  I consider ANYONE an upgrade over Wilson.  I'd bet the Jets over the Bears this week anyway, but with Zack Wilson off the field I do so with great enthusiasm.   Jets money line.

I'm buying low on the Cleveland Browns and selling high on the Bucs.  The Browns face the Bucs, a team with two very public wins recently.  It is well known that it is easy to run on the Browns.  Cleveland spent no resources on interior D-line or linebackers, so as a result running backs scamper right up the gut for 6 yards whenever they want.  The good news for Cleveland is Fournette is out for the Bucs.  He would have killed them.  Instead, they will slog through a rainy NE OH day trading handoffs with the Browns with whoever is left on the worst rushing team in the league.  This is a game where the Browns are just going to hang around in a boring low scoring game.  I also like the motivation on the team for Brissett's last start.  Cleveland +3.5

Seattle needs a win to keep pace in the NFC West.  The Raiders are done.  Who do you like in this coaching matchup, motivated Seattle with Pete Carroll or disinterested Vegas with Josh McDaniels?  There are all kinds of stats about how good Seattle has been with Carroll after a loss, how bad Carr is on the road, and how bad McDaniels is period.  I don't have to give you the numbers, do I?  We all know how this one is going to go.  Seattle -3.5.

Season record:  18-13-1     

Nurse the Hate: Thanksgiving

I went to a Thanksgiving parade in Philadelphia when I was about five years old.  There was a chill in the air.  The outdoors smelled like leaves and cigars and roasted nuts.  That's what Philadelphia smelled like in Fall in the early 1970s.  Leaves, cigars and roasted nuts.  I can't remember much about the parade.  I do recall Santa Claus passed though at the end, the official kickoff to the retail season I suppose.  It seemed odd to me that Santa needed to make a PR appearance in November when it seemed like he had already sewed up December, but everyone else seemed jazzed up about it, so why make a fuss.  Santa smiled and waved.  The nut vendors roasted away.  The cigar smoke wafted.  The crunchy leaves blew around our feet.

My father drove us there in his Grand Torino wagon.  One of the great tragedies of your parents passing away is being unable to ask them questions like "Why did you get that station wagon as a man in his twenties with one kid aged 5 as opposed to a 1971 Mustang?", but life is unfair that way.  He sold paper, and based upon current and retroactive pay scales, it's reasonable to assume he had limited choices, but a Grand Torino?  Jesus.  I feel like I need to look up the prices of those cars and run the numbers today.

As a child, my mind worked very similar to how it does today.  I have never spoken to anyone about this, but I have always been a middle aged man's mind in whatever body my age was.  This has been a drag as a seven year old looking at friend's parents thinking "What the fuck is with Nancy's dress and why does Mr. Schneider think I'm his best pal?", but has been a surprising benefit as I consider shark diving locations and new song ideas while my contemporaries focus on retirement health care.  So as I walked from that Thanksgiving parade, I wasn't thinking "Holy Shit!  Santa was RIGHT FUCKING THERE.".  I was thinking "Why would the organizers of this event place an obvious fake Santa as the closer when it was so disjointed amongst the marching bands and balloons?".  

We climbed in the Grand Torino and started driving home.  Before we hit the highway, we hit some action.  A fire had broken out in an apartment building.  As a seven year old, I was a very big fan of the TV show "Emergency".  I was more of a John Gage guy than Desoto, but they were both swell guys in my book.  To see an actual fire roaring out of a brick building was absolutely incredible.  A boy ran down the sidewalk.  Orange flames roared from a fourth floor window.  A woman screamed.  It was jaw dropping.  The fire trucks pulled up and the men got to work.  It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.       

We went home after a short bit of rubber necking.  I rushed into the room with perhaps the most important information a five year old could ever have:  We just saw a fire.  My mother did not seem to grasp the magnitude of the event.  My father put the TV on.  I looked it up.  He either watched the Detroit Lions beat the Chiefs if it was 1971 or the Jets if it was 1972.  Either way it's mindblowing to think of the Lions winning games period, much less two Thanksgivings in a row.  I will admit, the Greg Landry Lions seem much more charming than the Jared Goff Lions.  I think I have romanticized the, at best, competent Landry and unfairly downgraded the, at best, competent Goff, but what are you going to do? 

Like many middle aged men of my generation, I am preparing for Thanksgiving the only way I know how.  I will bet on the Lions as big underdogs and then have it ruin my Thanksgiving.  I know in advance that taking the Lions as part of Krusty and I's annual "Galaxy of Wagers" will be the lynch pin that destroys my day, but I am also powerless to stop it.  What am I going to do, take a road underdog Bills that have looked painfully underwhelming since Allen's elbow injury?  I can't do that, so let's embrace certain disaster and the Lions.  

The key to the Galaxy of Wagers is have a staggering number of bets all rolling in an interconnected fashion.  That way, no matter what happens in a game, you have been hurt somehow and can blurt out things like "Jesus fucking fuck!" and "Why the fuck didn't they take the fucking field goal?" in front of relative strangers that never asked for that kind of intensity at a family gathering.  Another key is to tie in The Egg Bowl, a rivalry game between Mississippi and Mississippi State in which I have no (zero) information on and will yet be heavily invested as last legs of an ill-advised teaser.  College basketball?  Yep, let's tie it in there.  World Cup?  Hell yeah.

Here's what I'm considering today:

Detroit +9.5

Detroit +15.5/Giants +16

New England +3

Detroit +18.5/Giants+19/New England +12

Mississippi St +8/New England +9

Northeastern -3.5 (college Basketball)/Buffalo -9.5/Minnesota -3 parlay 

Wisconsin UNDER/Lions OVER/Minnesota UNDER parlay

Portugal -300

The point is that The Galaxy of Wagers is a living entity, ever expanding.  It is only when the plates are being loaded into the dishwasher that the triumph or disaster of the day can be fully realized.  With any luck, I'll see a house fire today and have a real good old fashioned Thanksgiving.

        

Nurse the Hate: New York and NFL Week 10

I haven’t been to New York in a year.  The last time I was in New York was right as covid was getting under control.  Dining was still primarily outside and masks were enforced everywhere.  When so many people live in such close proximity, it was understandable why regulations were as tight as they were.  Corpses were stacked up in refrigerated semi trailers for a time, so the city still operated with a cautious sense of dread.  The visit to the city that time was sort of like walking around a New York set.  There was none of the energy, but it looked the same.

To me, it seems like New York has returned to a sense of normalcy.  There are a few differences though.  Weed was legalized here, and as a result, the entire city smells like a Freshman dorm at Kent State.  Literally at any time of day, at any location, the entire place stank like weed.  It’s 815 in the morning walking to get an espresso.  Weed.  Kids walking out of a high school.  Weed.  Four business guys striding past talking about their little fiefdoms.  Weed.  I am fairly certain 70-80% of NYC is stoned at any given moment.  Maybe because Manhattan is so expensive, all the worker bees that toil to make life enjoyable for the gilded class that actually can afford to live there tolerate their days with self-medication.  I’m not really sure.  But I can tell you that any block in NYC today is more likely to smell like weed than the parking lot of a Phish show.

The other major takeaway is that the city is filled to the brim with 22-30 year olds, all of whom are scrambling to scurry up whatever employment ladder they have hopped on, all of them oblivious to the fact that the only people making a real living are the ones that own the businesses.  These are all 2020s serfs.  Young women preen about the city with a confidence that New York is a movie set that has been constructed just for them to provide backdrop for the drama of their lives.  They might not be wrong.  Still, you’d have to be just out of college to endure the reality of sharing a 60 square foot living space with three people.  It’s like paying $1800 a month to live in a submarine.  The only way to make that work in your head is to convince yourself “I’m Where The Action Is, And I'm A Star” even if you’re only working retail and can’t afford to go out to do any of the great things everyone else is doing.

There appears to be no rock music in any of the old haunts, music having migrated to Brooklyn years ago.  There are however 216,567 coffee shops, and 113,653 places to buy things to smoke weed out of.  There are also plenty of places to buy cheap slices of pizza, which is perhaps the last concession to Old New York.  I didn’t buy any slices of pizza while I was there, but I thought about it as I dodged young women that spoke excitedly seemingly to themselves but instead into hidden devices “…and then I was like THAT. WAS. SO. RANDOM. And then I had to fucking go all the way back to fucking Midtown because…”. It’s all people looking at their phones, stoned to the gills, listening to whatever the fuck they’re listening to, walking back and forth to low paying jobs.  Meanwhile I’m focused on what they should be focused on… The New York Football Giants.

Are the Giants any good?  I don’t know.  It seems like their schedule is Washington/Houston/Carolina and then back again.  They might play U Mass next week.  But they are 7-2 and you can only beat who they schedule you to play.  Brian Daboll, the new Giants coach, seemed to take a logical stance that for the team to win games they should not make mistakes, hang around in games, and make a play in the fourth quarter.  They’ve got the Lions this weekend who take an opposite tactic of "fall hopelessly behind and then try to score enough points to backdoor cover".  The Lions have somehow won two in a row, which is amazing because they have a fairly bleak roster of talent.  The 3-6 Lions are not going to go anywhere on the road and win a third game in a row.  Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the team is likely trying to have a strong draft position to get a franchise QB, and with two wins in a row, a loss to the 7-2 Giants will go right under the radar.  The last thing the organization wants is to draft the next Jared Goff next year.  They already have that.  Is that a conspiracy theory?  Yes.  Will it come true?  Also, yes.  Giants -3.

The Raiders are not in a good place.  It’s Week 9 and the owner has had to say publicly he isn’t firing the new coach.  The QB and face of the franchise was crying at the press conference after last weekend’s asskicking.  The Raiders are 2-7.  They were in the Playoffs last year playing for a coach they all loved.  Every one of their preseason goals has been lost.  Now they are trying to play out the string and it’s not even Thanksgiving.  Does this seem like a team that is going to stand up after their season essentially ended last Sunday to go to notoriously difficult Denver to handle the Broncos?  Sure, the Broncos can’t score a lick, but the Raiders defense is awful.  The counterpoint is the Broncos might have the best “D” in the league.  I think they can keep a dispirited Raider team in check.  Josh McDaniels once again brings his tradition of losing to primetime.  This game will be unwatchable.  Denver -2.5

I’m on the Colts.  I don’t know if Jeff Saturday can coach, but he was smart enough to start Matt Ryan instead of Sam Ehlinger.  The narrative around the Colts is that Irsay is intentionally killing the season to start over, that’s why he hired Jeff Saturday.  The sports media is furious that Saturday got that job without "paying his dues", which is laughable as every one of those network NFL guys is an ex-player that never had to do a weekend shift at a radio station in Flint MI for two years paying dues before being handed their high paying cushy gig.  I dunno.  Maybe those guys have this situation wrong.  Maybe Frank Reich just sucked.  The Eagles Super Bowl win with Reich coaching Nick Foles looks like one of the greatest flukes in NFL history.  My focus is on those very same Eagles.  Those guys lost AJ Brown, their starting TE, starting run stopping defensive tackle Jordan Davis, and have lingering injuries all over the o-line.  Now they go on the road after a short week with a Monday Night loss to Washington under their belt.  I’m not saying the Colts are great, but they beat the Chiefs at home.  Why can’t they stay within 7.5 of Philly?  Indianapolis +7.5  

Season record:  16-12-1    

Nurse the Hate: West Side Bowl, The Gods and NFL Week 9

 

We played a show last night at West Side Bowl in Youngstown, a fiercely independent venue that gets by with a combination of local beers, bowling, good pizza, and fucked up live bands like us.  It's not easy these days as post-pandemic people have become comfortable with nesting at home as opposed to venturing outside into The Great Unknown.  If you spent the last two years buying comfort items like fire pits, hot tubs, enormous screen TVs, and smokers, I get it.  Who knows what could happen when you leave the cocoon?  I appreciate the grass roots efforts of venues like West Side Bowl that work harder for less in places like Youngstown where it's tougher to make things happen.  Yet, probably because it's harder to get the ball moving, it's more satisfying when it does.  I appreciate all of the people that came out and gave energy to us so we could give it right back.  We have some stupid ideas about what music sounds good, and it's always refreshing when we see other people agree with our conclusions.  We appreciate you.  It's venues like West Side Bowl which keep creative music alive in a time of great uncertainty.  Kudos. 

When playing a bowling alley, I immediately think of my past as a pre-teen bowling scoundrel.  I was on a bowling team which we called "The Gods" as it immediately annoyed all the other league officials and participants.  It wasn't so much a bowling team as performance art.  We did everything possible to position ourselves as villains in the rough and tumble world of age 14-15 amateur bowling.  There were over the top celebrations when we did well that would get a flag in the NFL as "taunting", as well as psychological warfare on the opponents.  For example, I remember one of my teammates saying to a kid from a neighboring community as he eyed up a spare "You'll miss it kid, cause you're a loser just like your Old Man".  I don't think most of the other league participants were ready to hear "suck a dick loser" when their opponent got a strike, which clearly added to our aura of invincibility.  Kids cried to their parents and the parents yelled at us and we gave zero fucks. 

During the playoffs I was called for a phantom foul in the 10th frame of the third game that enabled our opponents to beat us by four pins.  It was rigged by the parents that didn't want to see us win.  It was absurd.  There wasn't a foul light that went off.  Two parents just decided to call it knowing we couldn't do shit.  At the awards banquet at the end of the season, full families rose out of their seats to boo us as we accepted our bullshit second place trophies.  It's hard to imagine a ballroom of Moms and Dads screaming at some kids, but that's what happened.  It does fill me with pride even now that as a 15 year old I was able to drive an entire community to insanity that allowed them to catcall boys accepting trophies.  I have a crystal clear vision in my head even now of a heavy set woman screaming at me "You are fucking trash!" as I stood up on the stage with both arms raised above my head holding #1 signs as we took our trophies.  My teammate Paul yelled out "We will bowl any of you hillbillies right now!  Let's fucking go!".  We were doing WWE and they were all frothing at the mouth in the false reality we had created.  It was really fun and maybe the first time I enjoyed being on a stage, which might provide some insight to some of the terrible things I say into a microphone now just to see what happens.     

That's the thing.  It's hard to know what is a legitimate narrative these days.  We live in a world of dis-information, especially when it comes to the NFL.  If you believe the hype, Tom Brady has righted the ship after a dramatic last minute drive over the Super Bowl champ Rams and is ready to take the spotlight in Munich in an NFL highlight show.  Here's the way I see it.  The Bucs sort of suck.  They can't run the ball.  They don't protect Brady well.  Brady doesn't have the tight end or flanker he loves to use in his offense.  Tampa is a team people that casually follow football bet.  Seattle is the real deal.  I was skeptical, but Geno Smith is playing as well as anyone.  He is the right guy in the right situation at the right time.  The Seahawk defense is a top 5 NFL defense in the last month.  Why is Seattle getting points versus Tampa?  They should be giving 2.5.  I absolutely LOVE Seattle with the points tomorrow morning in Munich.  This is free money.  Seattle +3.

The Bears aren't good.  Neither is Justin Fields.  However, Justin Fields is a fabulous athlete, and the Bears are living for today to see what happens if Fields runs around like RG3 II.  That story ends with Fields broken BUT not necessarily this week.  The Lions are terrible.  We can all like Dan Campbell as a high school coach motivator, but dude has shown no ability to out scheme anyone.  The Lions scored a ton of points early, but in the last month have scored 0/6/27/15.  It seems odd to eagerly jump on the Bears, but they seem slightly less shitty than Detroit.  It seems absurd to give points AND take the Bears, but I'm doing it.  What?  Is Detroit winning two in a row?  Chicago -2.5

Season Record: 16-10-1  

    

    

Nurse the Hate: Hate Kyrie and NFL Week 9

 

I have been fascinated by Kyrie Irving’s self destruction this week. Kyrie, a basketball player that only occasionally plays basketball, gets paid an insane amount of money in the hopes his undisputed skill on the court can translate into a championship for his employer. The downside to Kyrie is that he brings a huge amount of baggage to the organization. Kyrie sees himself as some sort of crusading intellectual though his actual causes are rather murky. He plays the part of someone extraordinarily engaged in scholarly matters and social justice.  He tends not to be able to back that up as he often says shockingly stupid things and is generally obtuse.  Kyrie seems to think people see him as a social activist when I think it is more accurate to say people see him as a freakishly good offensive basketball player who always creates pointless controversy.  As a casual Kyrie observer, I tend just to notice what Irving is up to when something blows up around him. There are always two sets of narratives around these incidents with Kyrie.

The first is the logical one. That goes like this. Kyrie says or does something inflammatory. He’s amped it up from his "the earth is flat" days to veering into conspiracy theory waters with his refusing to get a covid vaccine and now this spotlight he is placing on an antisemitic documentary.  The sports media gets all revved up and reports the crap out of it.  Kyrie then usually doubles down on whatever he said/did that got him into trouble.  The sports media goes even crazier, especially if it's midweek with no NFL stories breaking.  Ultimately either his team or the league itself gets Kyrie to issue some half assed position change so they can settle their sponsors and fans down.  For example, Nike isn't eager to be seen as associated with someone that promotes and then refuses to denounce an anti semitic viewpoint.  This I see as being completely understandable on Nike's part.  If they don't sell you a Kyrie shoe, they'll just sell you another one. 

The other less popular but still living narrative is that Kyrie is a victim of the media and of cancel culture.  Just because Kyrie says something that is unpopular, he is then unfairly scapegoated when he is just speaking his mind.  Kyrie is a man that is growing through self education and is seeking to move the conversation past basketball and point out the various injustices brought on by those in power to voiceless victims.  As Kyrie didn't specifically say anything antisemitic, therefore the media has snowballed him into being an antisemite.  Thus, Kyrie is actually a victim in these cases when he is just hoping to spark dialogue that will create growth.

This narrative is obviously full of flaws.  Kyrie Irving has 17.5 million Instagram followers.  He gave a platform to the documentary "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America" which was shot for $8000 by an amateur filmmaker.  The "documentary" contains a number of conspiracy theories and complete falsehoods which the ADL noted as "global Jewish conspiracy to oppress and defraud Black people, allegations that Jews are in part responsible for the transatlantic slave trade and the claim that Jews falsified the history of the Holocaust in order to “conceal their nature and protect their status and power.”   An $8000 film couldn't pay for that kind of advertising.  That would be a $250,000 ad buy WITHOUT the implied celebrity endorsement.  Kyrie takes the position that he didn't make the documentary, so he's not responsible.  That's like if Salma Hayek posted a picture of a Klan rally where they were burning a cross and said "Hey, I didn't hold the rally.  Don't get on my ass.".

The second big flaw in the logic is that Kyrie is not allowed to speak freely.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It's because he could speak so freely that he got in this hot water.  You can say whatever you want.  You just have to be able to answer for it when you do.  The media didn't create this issue.  He put the post out.  He said to 17 million people, "Can I have your attention?  Check out this film.  I am enthusiastic enough about this that I posted it."  If you don't want to talk about your fringe beliefs, don't bring them to everyone's attention with a social media post.  And then when are asked if you are anti semitic, the correct answer is "No." if you're not.  If you are, now's the time to discuss how the Holocaust is falsified.  I'll tell you this.  That's a press conference I'm not going to miss.   

When everyone goes crazy when Kyrie refuses to say he's not antisemitic, what does he do?  Doubles down.  A guy playing in one of the largest Jewish communities on the planet won't say "I thought the documentary raised some interesting points on the origins of black culture, but I don't agree with the anti semitism.  It was a mistake for me to post that on social media as it doesn't reflect on my feelings regarding the Jewish people and their history.  I'm sorry to put the team and the league in this position.".  Nope.  Instead he gives a press conference where he didn't follow through on his agreement with the team/league and then later had his agent put out a written apology that clearly wasn't written by him.  Nike pulled their sponsorship with $17M a year, the team indefinitely suspended him without pay, and he is going to be a free agent next season.  Who wants to sign a player that refuses to denounce hate speech and hold that press conference?  Is Tehran getting an NBA franchise?  It's an amazing self-destructive turn of events that I cannot look away from.         

Where Kyrie just lost millions, I'm making money.  Why?  Because I see things for the way they are in the NFL.  One of my beliefs, and that of Vegas local Ken "Krusty" Miller is that Raiders head coach Josh McDaniel is a loser that brings in his losing culture to create losses.  The Raiders made the playoffs in 2021, signed a #1 receiver in Adams, and brought in McDaniel to coach.  Now they're 2-5.  I'm not saying things are going poorly for the Raiders, but I'm taking Jacksonville to beat them today with less than a field goal on the spread.  It's not easy to take your money, put it in a little pile and say "Yes, I'd like to hand this money to you so you can place it on Trevor Lawrence.".  That's not an easy thing to say, but I'm saying it.  Jacksonville +2.5

The Colts are in the sad sack "we can't find a quarterback, so we will try anything" spot the Broncos have been in for a decade.  Phillip Rivers to Matt Ryan to Sam Ehlinger.  Ouch.  There's this myth that Ehlinger is a mobile quarterback.  He is compared to Matt Ryan I suppose, but not Fields/Lamar.  Those guys can enter decathalons.  Ehlinger will be a monster in "office olympics" when is football career ends in 2025.  The Colts go to New England today.  The Hoodie is undefeated at home versus rookie quarterbacks.  You see how Wilson looked last week?  Belichick is cooking up something Sam Ehlinger has never seen before.  I mean, the Colts can't score anyway.  How are they going to do in this scenario?   New England -4.5

The Bucs and Rams both look injured, old, and ordinary.  The Bucs still look like they are trying.  The Rams look like they quit last week, and Stafford looks broken.  I'll take Brady at home in a game they have to win to remain relevant in the 2022 season.  You think that guy wants to get divorced AND have his career go down the shitter at the same time?  I think the Bucs have enough left in the tank.  The Rams got nuthin'.  Tampa -3

Season record:  14-10