Nurse the Hate: Getting Checked Out, An Old Daredevils Record, and NFL Week 8

 

I was at the dermatologist.  It's not a place I normally go, but had been scolded that "you should be checked out" by so many various friends that I succumbed.  The great thing about being my current age is that medical calamities have now crept under the gates of my peer group and threaten unforeseen disaster at every turn.  There is now a smaller degree of separation from various physical misfortunes and the cozy confines of your inner mental security.  Regardless of the symptoms, someone will now pop out of the woodwork with a cautionary tale.  "Oh, you've had a cough?  My brother-in-law had a cough just like yours, didn't get it checked out, and he was dead in four days."  Wait... what?  The person telling you the story will probably leave out that the guy had been installing fiberglass for three decades without a mask, but it doesn't matter because now the thought has crept in "shit, maybe this isn't a cold after all".

I am not eager to switch my small talk with acquaintances from weather/local sports teams to medications/ailments as appears to be inevitable with the onset of age.  There is nothing worse than a group of seniors taking turns recounting their medication history and doctor's office visits with each other.  My fear is this is how it starts.  The "go get checked out" visit to the dermatologist turns into me talking about struggles with my insurance company for payment.  Next thing you know, all I am talking about with strangers is how I have to go pick up my special cream, and how I applied my special cream, and how much my special cream costs.  I just don't want to go down that road.

Still, in this moment of weakness, I did "go get checked out".  It turned out that the skin blemish I wanted to have looked at was no big deal.  But just like if you have a mechanic get under the hood of your car at a car dealership, they're going to find something.  I got a couple of things biopsied and then one of them was "A little irregular.  Not cancerous.  But it's a little irregular.  So we should probably remove that.  But it's not something you should be concerned about.  But let's remove that just to be sure."  Let's be honest, when I walked in there I was going to leave with a follow up for some sort of revenue generating procedure that could be rationalized to my insurance company.  Hence, I found myself reclined on a medical chair with a couple hillbilly girl assistants prepping me for a minor surgery while talking about their Halloween single mother lifestyles.  

When you have become an object like I have, Procedure #5 on the Thursday docket, the workers forget you are there.  The two women had a depressing conversation about how one of them had won Machine Gun Kelly tickets.  Both Mom and Child loved Machine Gun Kelly, but she would be selling the tickets. This greatly disappointed the kid, but what are you going to do?  She needed the money for Christmas presents.  That's when the other one asked about trick or treat, and there was discussion about a community event where the kids went from sponsor table to sponsor table getting candy and had a page of a book read to them as they went.  She was intending to take her kid(s) herself as the father of the child was busy "doing something for his Mom, and plus he really likes the freedom of his new place", which I took to mean he liked getting wasted and having intercourse with similar women as the one talking.  I had a vision of a guy with a goatee, beat up truck, threatening decal about guns/America, and Speedway Shopper Card.

Both women agreed that it was great that the kids heard a story as they went table to table, at which point I spoke up, slightly startling the ladies who had forgotten I was a person.  I asked, "What's the book?  Like if it's "Crime and Punishment", they better wear comfortable shoes because that's gotta be 587 pages long.".  I was quickly put at ease when they let me know it wouldn't be "Crime and Punishment", not because reading Dostovesky to 6 year olds in costumes wasn't a good idea so much as the community of Lagrange OH didn't have the necessary 587 vendors to work through all the pages.  With that cleared up to their satisfaction, they went back to jabbing my rib cage with a numbing agent.

The doctor finally came in, an older woman I had never met who said, "It's nice to see you again.".  She told me that I would have to take it easy for a few days after this skin removal thing.  I let her know I was playing a gig the next night and would be jumping around a bit which captured her interest.  "You're in a band?" is one of the deadliest questions someone that toils in a rock subgenre can be asked.  There is no way for the doctor and hillbilly assistants to have any grasp on what we do.  To them "a band" is either Machine Gun Kelly or a wedding band.  There is no way to conceptualize to them the idea of a scaled down concert tour circuit of clubs featuring original music that cater to weird subcultures.  It also feels a little ridiculous to try and explain how you make music based on some of the previous ideas of a bunch of bands they have not and will never have heard of in their lives.  

The doctor was working away and asked "what's the name of the band?".  After I replied, she directed one of the hillbilly assistants to switch the music (I had requested Miles Davis) to the Whiskey Daredevils on the Pandora feed.  I don't know why she thought I wanted to hear myself during a minor surgery, but that's what happened.  Thus, I found myself suddenly listening to the Whiskey Daredevils rarity "A Lid Of Bluegrass" from The Essential Whiskey Daredevils as a woman cut at skin on my rib cage with a scalpel.  This was an unexpected turn of events.

As you can imagine, the Machine Gun Kelly fans didn't suddenly embrace the idea of country punk even as "A Lid Of Bluegrass" gave way to "Jack Evans Wants His Lighter Back".  As they started to stitch me up I was thinking about that guy that was trying to find his Bic disposable lighter in the drunken chaos of a Charleston IL bar on a Saturday afternoon in the late 1990s.  The women had moved on from their curiosity of me and the music I was doing to joke around about all the mistakes they had made this week.  Hahahaha.  I had morphed back into an object again.  I sat there staring at the ceiling listening to the recording thinking "We probably could have done that better.".

Speaking of doing things better, I could have done better on my NFL picks last week.  It was Black Sunday over at my house.  But just like recording songs, you have to keep trying to improve.  I have a few ideas about the games this week, and I am hoping that last week was an abberation and not an indication that I don't know what the hell I am talking about.  I think the key to not knowing what the hell you are talking about is to keep pressing ahead with the idea that you do and if you just keep swinging away, eventually you'll be right and then scamper up again to the high ground.

The Browns are 4-2 and feeling good about themselves.  If not for two consecutive games where the officials inexplicably gave them the wins, they would be 2-4 and the fanbase would want to burn Deshaun Watson at the stake.  But, a win is a win in the NFL and the Browns are right in the playoff  mix as planned.  The problem is that you can't move ahead with a gameplan of "play good defense and hope the refs blow some calls late".  PJ Walker might have gotten a couple of wins, but he's not The Answer.  The bad news for the Browns is that they are on the hook to a guy for $60M+ the next three years that isn't much better than Walker, the 33rd-40th best QB in the league.  I don't see how they win a grimy game in Seattle against a pretty good Seahawks team with Walker probably turning the ball over 2+ times.  Seattle money line.

The Jets are sort of like the Browns in that they felt like they were one QB away from their dreams coming true, and it turns out their 2023 is going to be a repeat of 2022.  Yet, Wilson has played above his "that guy can't fucking play at all" level to a "that guy isn't very good" level, which doesn't sound like much but it is.  A Jets vs Giants game isn't exactly the peak of excitement when it's a Tyrod Taylor vs Zack Wilson game, but it does level the playing field when both teams have their backup.  Taylor's upside is that he doesn't make mistakes with the ball.  The downside is he doesn't take chances, so it's tough for his team to score.  The Jets are an average football team, and the Giants kind of suck.  The only way the Giants win is if Wilson makes some big mistakes.  I hate betting on Wilson to not make mistakes, but this is where we are on it.  Jets money line.  

For my weekly teaser, I am going to tie Pittsburgh into it.  The Steelers are doing what the Steelers do, which is win ugly by sheer force of will.  They are getting +2.5 at home versus Jacksonville, who is coming off a TH night game and extended rest.  I don't know if Pittsburgh wins, but they don't lose many games at home by double digits.  San Francisco is the only team to do it to them, and that was in Week 1 when the 49ers were healthy.  Pittsburgh +8.5 against a Jags team I can't quite get a handle on feels pretty good.  

I will take the Lions at home Monday night against the Raiders.  The Lions got smacked around and embarrassed last week vs Baltimore in a game I was on the wrong side on.  This is a Dan Campbell "let's be manly men" spot where a max motivated Lions get to go out on a national stage and play a crappy Raiders team led by Josh McDaniel And His Culture Of Losing and either Jimmy G trying to come back from a back injury that put him in the hospital or Aiden O'Connell.  I don't need the Lions to cover a touchdown +, I just need a win with the tease.  Pittsburgh +8.5/Lions -1.5

Current record: 9-12-1   

 

Nurse the Hate: Welcome to the Silo and NFL Week 7

 

It's interesting that when you speak with people at any sort of length, you can quickly make a logical guess as to where they get their news.  For example, I was speaking with a woman this week that told me how the car dealership she represents is selling every $70,000 pickup truck they can get in stock.  She and her husband had just returned from a ten day vacation in the Caribbean at a swanky resort.  She had to cut the call short because she was driving over to another car dealership to allow her son to take delivery on the new KIA they had just purchased for him.  But before she left, she whispered to me "The economy is so bad...".  Despite her just giving me anecdotal evidence to the contrary, she was adamant on repeating Fox News/Far Right talking points.  This is her reality, and she is absolutely convinced Doomsday is just around the corner because Joe Biden is president.

It's interesting how everyone lives in a silo now.  There is no such thing as shared truth, but more importantly, no desire to even know what the truth is.  I spend most of my week talking to people that blissfully don't know anything about anything and talk about reality TV stars like they are personal friends.  There was a guy that was telling me that Climate Change isn't a real thing, and is just a scam by "The Left" to sell solar and wind power schemes.  Let's just set aside that the Fossil Fuel Industry is the group with ALL of the money and lobbyists.  It's not like powerful Wind Farm Barons are coming to town like New Age Boss Hoggs.  All the anti climate change misinformation is placed by special interests, i.e. "people that make money when you burn fuel". 

I offered to let him log into an agriculture webinar I was attending where farmers were talking about how to deal with the various challenges the climate is presenting them.  If you're growing a crop for money, all you care about is bringing a profitable harvest in, right?  No one is going to sink the family business because they are so committed to left wing dogma.  Yet, I could not convince this person to take in real information on a topic they were so emotional about (for some reason).  The guy did NOT want anything to get in the way of his daily Fox News/social media feed narrative.  He had his reality, and the threat of that being shaken up clearly made him uncomfortable.

Let's talk about misinformation that REALLY matters.  There is this narrative out there that Gardiner Minshew is a really good quarterback that comes in as a backup and wins games.  Now "the guy" in Indianapolis, the common belief is the team is better with Minshew as the starter.  Look, that might be true, but he's still 2-10 as a starter in his last 12.  This week he gets to play the Browns and their historically good defense that has only allowed 1000 yards in the first five games.  Yes, the Browns offense is sort of shitty, and PJ Walker stinks.  However, give me the shitty QB with the great defense instead of the shitty quarterback with the average defense.  I got on this at Cleveland -2.5 and it's moved to 3.5.  I'd consider Cleveland money line if the math works.  

OK, I think the Lions are legit.  It's weird to even type that out.  The Lions are one of those teams that are like the Browns Jr.  You know they will find a way to lose in heartbreaking fashion, but you just don't know how.  I was trying to push for Detroit and Cleveland to merge and make one average team a few years ago, and maybe play the games at Cedar Point.  Maybe the dipshit Haslams and dipshit Ford families could just argue and let the football guys do their thing.  But this Lions team is really good.  They went down to Tampa last week and took care of business.  Now they catch Baltimore coming back from London, a great letdown spot.  I think the Ravens sorta suck, and the Lions defense can keep Lamar in check.  Give me the Lions +3.

Denver is probably the worst team in the NFL.  Their defense is either just plain awful or has given up.  I think the ownership group is going to blow that whole thing up after this year and let Sean Peyton do his thing, and I think the players know it.  I am going to use them in my now traditional weekly teaser and go Green Bay over Denver and tie them into the Rams over Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh's offense is stunningly bad.  I think the Kenny Picket era will come to a merciful end after this season, but until then we will watch them limp through trying to win low scoring games with big defensive and special teams play.  That's not exactly a formula for success.  Green Bay +6/LA Rams +3. 

Season Record:  9-9-1

Nurse the Hate: A Shit Progressive Insurance Ad and NFL Week 6

 

I've worked in marketing/advertising for a long time.  If you ever want someone to ruin a TV viewing experience for you, I'm your guy.  I can tell you exactly why the station is doing what they are doing, or what ill advised marketing campaign the advertiser is driving.  Almost everyone in marketing is a C student that went to a lot of parties in school, has read almost nothing, and is blissfully unaware of their surroundings.  If you ever want to feel like a genius, sit in on a marketing meeting.  You'd be stunned at how stupid everyone is yet is convinced they are cracking some sort of code.

One of the real downsides of watching NFL Football is absorbing the multi kazillion dollar ad campaigns of the big corporate players.  By Week 6, you're sick of Flo, Danny Devito, GMC Trucks, and all the other corporate pitch people.  What becomes evident rather quickly is how reactive and afraid Corporate America is of cultural blowback as each client skews towards what they perceive as "safe" messaging while trying to dance on the edge of being "fun".  Instead of delivering a message that resonates with their key target customer, they regard these paid ads as little movies they hope everyone will respond to with excited clapping.  Now me, if I'm selling cars to men, I don't care if women don't respond to my advertisement.  That's not what I'm paying for.  I want to reach my consumer and make money.  "Attention dudes.  Here's a truck that makes you seem manly.  Go buy it.  It's kickass."

I'm about as far from a Trumpy Right Wing Heartland New Facist as possible, but I do find that the swing to finger wagging "you can't think that" has turned off a wide swath of the lunchbox normal population.  Our society is so concerned about being "safe" that now all corporations will err to the side of ineffective ads.  It's tough in light hearted advertising as you are trying to get a chuckle but at minimal risk.  Perfect example...  There is a Progressive Insurance ad in rotation where they spoof the idea of the challenge flag in football.  The concept is that people in normal life toss a challenge flag and review the tape to see who made the mistake that led to the unfortunate situation.  The one that caught my eye after running in every game I watched last weekend, a couple gets in the car and discovers the seats are wet.  The woman is driving and the man in the passenger seat adamantly insists the woman driver left the sun roof open leading to the seats being wet.  

There are quite a few ads like this running and there is a common theme.  It is ALWAYS the man that is the bungling doofus that not only made the error that led to misfortune, but also can't seem to remember he's the one at fault.  The man is always white and middle aged.  He's incapable and laughable.  He's also almost always a member of an unlikely looking interracial couple where his patient partner puts up with this buffoon.  It's interesting for a couple of reasons.  1.  These ads have been put together by corporate committee that want to play it safe, tick numerous demographic boxes and make the messaging appear "diverse" and "inclusive".  2.  All of these corporate entities are blissfully unaware that they are unified in presenting a mosaic to a huge audience weekly that their key target customers are stupid and worthy of scorn. For three broadcast hours Corporate America spends a fortune to tell the highest prized potential customers that they are stupid and laughable.  Can you imagine if the reverse happened?  Progressive runs an ad campaign where the middle class 45 year old white guy straightens out the stupid Hispanic woman. Sit back and watch the fireworks.  Shiver me timbers.  

If Progressive really wanted to cut through the clutter, they'd run that ad where the man returns to the car to find the seats wet and points out "Hey, I didn't fucking drive.  It's your car.  You left the sun roof open.  Why are you pointing the finger at me?  Do you see a sun roof control over here?  Get me a fucking towel.".  I mean, c'mon...  What passenger is in charge of the sun roof?  Also, how many times has a guy gone to a football game and a woman drove over to his house to pick him up?  Did the guy lose his license to a DUI?  The whole situation is absurd.  If Progressive wanted to really resonate with the target audience on a football game ad, they'd have had the guy say "I told you so!" to his girlfriend when they found the seat wet and she suffers a comeuppance.  I mean, that's the fantasy ending the NFL viewers want to see.  Instead this fear of blowback ruins the entire point of the advertisement.  What a waste of money.  Lord, I hate corporate America.  

There's no escaping reality.  That's what the Cleveland Browns are going to find.  The SF 49ers might be one of the best NFL teams of the decade.  They have multiple weapons that can line up in multiple positions leaving the offense undefensible.  The pass rush is brutal.  The 49ers haven't lost a game after trading for McCaffrey except when they had zero (0) healthy pro QBs in that game versus Philadelphia.  The Browns are in their familiar spot of being on the precipice of yet another lost season.  So now we have to pretend the Browns with PJ Walker at QB is going to beat San Francisco?  Ummm...  I got on this early on the week at SF -5 and now its at -10.  I don't see how Cleveland scores in this game. 

I am confused as to why the narrative on the Bears switched from "Holy shit do they suck" to "They turned it around" based on a Thursday night game where Washington came in after playing an extra OT quarter the week before to provide the Bears a victory.  I am very much a believer in the Bears being awful.  Minnesota is the polar opposite of last year, getting a total reversal of last year's consistent good fortune.  I think the Vikings are an 8-9 sorta team, and the Bears are a great place to get one of those 8 wins.  Minnesota -2.5 

Here's today's teaser idea.  How about getting on the Lions, who I think are the 3rd best team in the NFC right now, and tie them into Dallas?  Tampa has been clipping along winning games thanks to a fortunate schedule and shockingly competent play.  The Lions are going to be a test though.  Meanwhile we can tie in a Dallas team fresh off an embarrassment on a national stage and taken them to +4 over a Chargers team that never wins by more than three.  The other key trend to bet on is the "Chargers coach making a shit stupid decision late" that will somehow cost them the game.  Lions +3/Dallas +4. 

Season Record 7-8-1

Nurse the Hate: Southern Culture On The Skids, Taylor Swift, NFL Week 5 and Me

 

We have a couple of shows this week with Southern Culture On The Skids, like ourselves, one of the last bands standing from the roots garage tidal wave of the early 1990s.  Yes, there was a time in America when you could find in every town a band that took early rock n roll/garage rock and then twisted it up with a punky sensibility and made their own songs up.  It seems quaint now, a simpler time, when it was subversive to drink Pabst in a can and everyone in the club knew Link Wray and Sonics songs by the first few notes.  That was a long time ago.  To put it in perspective, it would be like if I was graduating high school and was pining for Perry Como and Patti Page to rule the charts again.  It's a period of time that keeps fading.  Yet, 30 years after the first time we played with SCOTS, we are both still here.  It's either a testimonial to both of our bands belief in what we do or just plain inability to stop.  Hard to say which really...

The early 1990s were an odd time.  I heard some early 90s chart topping songs recently.  You know what was on the charts in 1993? "Whoomp There It Is" by Tag Team and "I Would Do Anything For Love" by Meatloaf.  Not exactly the Golden Age of Rock and Roll on the radio.  Those sounded dated a few years later, and for my money "Voodoo Cadillac" by SCOTS still sounds like something that could have come out in 1968, 1988, 1998, or 2008.  The songs and the recordings hold up.  I think what was true then is even more true now.  If you want to find the real stuff, you have to look a little harder.  However, when you find it, it's that much more rewarding.

I have no clue why people have such horrible taste in music, yet The People have always been predictable in that way.  I worked at a radio station once where people lost their minds because we did an appearance with Geraldo, the guy that did the song "Rico Suave".  I wonder what that guy is doing now.  It's odd why some shitty music hits and other shitty music misses.  While suburban America goes apeshit for Taylor Swift, I can't figure it out.  There have always been pop stars, but I usually understood why they exploded after the fact.  For example, when Lady Gaga was white hot and everyone was all flustered about her, I understood it.  It was a smarter and edgier Madonna.  Got it.  Beyonce?  Yeah, I get it.  This Taylor Swift thing is baffling.  I don't dislike her.  I'm totally indifferent.  Disliking her music is like disliking cardboard.  It's something that is just sort of there.  How can you get all worked up about it one way or another?  

The real issue I have is that Taylor Swift has done something unforgiveable.  She has infiltrated my beloved NFL Sundays.  When I am deeply involved in an otherwise meaningless late NY Jets drive to cover the spread versus KC, the last thing I want is to see a cutaway to Taylor Swift in a crisp red Chiefs jacket fresh from the team shop clapping like a lunatic for her boyfriend of 16 minutes.  Look, Taylor Swift lived outside Philadelphia until she was 14 and then moved to Nashville to chase the dragon when she was 14.  The fact that she isn't in Eagles gear or wearing an ugly ass Titans shirt tells you all you need to know about her loyalty.  She's no Chiefs fan.  She's just passing through.  This Travis Kelce fella is flying too close to the sun.  When their inevitable breakup happens every white bread suburban woman in America is going to turn on Kelce and his sponsors.  Is Corporate America ready for the moment when The Swifties say "Fuck Travis Kelce and fuck Chunky Soup!".  I think not Dear Reader.  Those soup guys are going to be scrambling.  Yet until that moment comes, all NFL degenerates like myself will live in this media firestorm.

The only form of penance that I think is acceptable is that Taylor Swift and her world now be forced to endure something from my bubble.  She's all up in my world, now my world can get all up in hers.  This is why I am putting forth the proposition that Southern Culture On The Skids open for 7-10 dates on the Taylor Swift Tour.  During this opening slot all ticket holders must remain in their seats and absorb the full set of music before scampering off to the Taylor Swift merchandise huts to purchase whatever the fuck they're selling in there.  If the resulting fan outcry doesn't force Swift off of my NFL Sundays, the opening slot will then fall to the Black Lips, and then to The Oh Sees and so on.  Hell,  I will get on stage and deliver a lecture on Burgundian winemaking methods and philosophy complete with powerpoint and handouts if necessary.  Whatever it takes.  It has to stop.  

With this in mind, I'd like to point out that I don't think I am alone in this anti-Swift sentiment.  Somehow the KC Chiefs are only a 3.5 favorite over the 1-3 Minnesota Vikings after opening up -5.  I am becoming more anti-KC every single day, and with each numbing Travis Kelce commercial sponsorship and Taylor Swift cutaway shot, I think American NFL junkies are joining me.  I think people might be actively betting against Kansas City, driving this number down.  It seems like a slam dunk, doesn't it?  KC should cover a 3.5 spread easily!   It's an eel.  I don't understand it, so I am backing away slowly and observing.  

I am going to continue to bet against peg leg Joe Burrow and the Bengals.  Burrow is the 29th rated QB right now, which is amazing that he's that high considering he can't move or drive the ball downfield playing on a fucked up Achilles.  The narrative that Arizona is tanking is false.  This team is playing hard and giving effort each week.  Sure, they kind of suck but not as badly as perceived.  Meanwhile the Bengals are still thought of as AFC elite.  They're not.  At least not right now they're not.  This team is going to have to come to grips with the fact that Burrow needs time to heal and that time is most of the season.  Give me the Cardinals and the points at home.  I got on this at the open with five, but I think Arizona might win outright.  Arizona +3     

San Francisco is head and shoulders the best team in the league right now.  Since they traded for McCaffrey, they have done nothing but win, with the exception of when they had no quarterback in that doomed NFC Championship Game last year.  Dallas is a good team.  They might even win the NFC East.  They just don't have enough to go on the road and beat SF right now.  San Francisco hasn't been tested yet this season, so I think they'll be max focused.  I have some concerns about the hook on this line, but I'm taking San Francisco -3.5.

There are a couple of teams that have great difficulty scoring that are favored this week.  I am going to tease the underdogs and move the spreads into comfortable zones past key numbers.  Denver shouldn't be favored against anyone.  They are the worst team in the AFC.  While I do have great reservations about putting money on Zach Wilson and the Jets under any circumstance, I'm doing it.  Denver can't stop anybody.  If the Jets coaching staff has any sense, they will try to grind out a low scoring boring game that I have no intention of watching.  

The other piece of this poorly conceived teaser is the Colts.  The Titans are on the road, and this is an offensively challenged team.  The Titans might feel good about themselves after beating a toothless Bengals last week, but the Colts have the look of a team that is shockingly middle of the pack, i.e. a mirror image of the Titans.  I don't know or really care who wins this game, but it should be close.  Let's move the line for Colts +8.5/Jets +8.5.   I look forward to launching forth a fountain of profanity when Wilson tosses a pick six late to allow the Broncos to cover.

Season Record:  5-7-1

Nurse the Hate: Nashville Gig and NFL Week 4

We played a show at the 5 Spot in Nashville on Friday night.  I love to play in Nashville.  The sound systems are always good, the people are enthusiastic and informed, and we often get to play with our friends in Hillbilly Casino.  When you have done it as long as we have, there aren't many people that are on the same wave length as you, and I count the Hillbilly Casino boys in on that ever shrinking circle.  The best part of playing a show with them is it forces you to play well so you don't look like an asshole in  comparison, and you also get to watch them play when you're done.  

Nashville is so different than when we first played there in the late 1990s.  Back then it was a sleepy mid sized city with some quaint local customs and surprisingly half assed local music scene.  There were not very many venues for people playing rock music to crowds of less than 500.  We would show up, play a disappointing show in a weak venue, and then get to Atlanta to where the real action was located.  Once in awhile you'd find a good cowboy shirt in a thrift store and have a filling meal in a "meat-n-three".  I bought an Earnest Tubb Record Store shot glass once.  That was about it.

Nashville now exists to host Bachelorette Parties.  It's a place for people that look at Lower Broadway as Jason Aldean Fantasy Camp and think the Real Housewives shows are documentaries.  Then you pop across the river.  When you get into East Nashville, it's a sea of 25 year olds that a couple decades ago would have moved to Atlanta/Chicago/LA but now goes to Brooklyn/Nashville/Austin to live their best Instagram Lives.  Nashville is now the apex of "hipster service", where if you go order an overpriced coffee someplace, you'd better buckle up because that coffee isn't coming any time soon from the indignant help that feels that this job is beneath them and they don't have to shower or put on clean clothes before going to work.  You'll get the coffee when they feel like making it, and it's almost like you asked them to make you the $8 espresso as a personal favor.  I do find something satisfying about pressing the "amount of tip-ZERO" button when I go to pay for something.  Chances are I've taken the purchased item from a cooler just like I was at a 7-11 yet the business feels justified in suggesting tipping their employees.  If you don't do anything but ring the register or hand me a cup, it's not a professional service.  Fuck the business for asking and fuck the employee that doesn't feel embarrassed in begging for the tip.  I'm a crank now and this is my role.

In the morning I picked up Basset #2, Elaine.  The breeder was located in Jackson TN, which was a great bit of serendipity.  Hector and I met her right outside of the hotel and after a brief conversation she drove off, leaving Hector and I to walk inside the hotel with the puppy and all the dog gear.  We were both aware of looking like Nashville's Newest Gay Power Couple.  As people inevitably stopped to greet the puppy, I felt like needing to explain we weren't a couple.  "Yes, we are in a band and played a show and it just worked out that we could pick up the puppy and we aren't a couple not that there's anything wrong with that..."  It didn't really go well.  We scrambled to get the van, Leo/Sugar and prepare for an eight hour drive with a 16 week old basset hound.

At the elevator I saw a couple walk out in matching Cincinnati Bengals gear.  I remembered that Cincinnati was on the road, in town to play the Titans.  I suppose there are worse ways to spend a weekend than watching one legged Joe Burrow play a toothless Titans team after a long wait for hipster coffee and digestive system churning hot chicken.  Nashville is a perfect road trip town.  It's important to know where the real places are so you don't get fleeced like a tourist Rube.  Of course, a better weekend would have been to go to London to see the Jags play the Falcons.

The Jags play in London annually, the ownership group happy to take the team on the road as no one in Florida really cares about the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Jacksonville is Toledo on the ocean.  It's a great place to buy meth, but not ideal to be a pro football fan.  Rooting for Jacksonville is like being all in on Olive Garden.  It's a faceless corporate concern meant to provide slightly entertaining but ultimately disappointing experiences for their customers.  However, since the team goes there each year, it does provide them a modest edge.  While the Jaguars opponents are trying to remember to not get run over by cars on the wrong side of the road and discovering "chips" are "fries", the Jags are over that excitement.  It's a modest edge.  And when you play the Falcons, how big of an edge do you need?  The Falcons can do one thing, run the ball.  The Jags stop the run relatively well.  I'm hoping the Jaguars aren't as bad as they've looked so far this year and can win a poorly played and forgettable game.  Jacksonville -2.5

Full disclosure.  I got on the Browns -2.5 early this week as I assumed it would go to 3.  Of course, I didn't know Watson had an injured shoulder and wouldn't practice and David Njoku would light himself on fire with a fire pit/grill or whatever the hell he did.  Who else but the Browns has a key player go on the IR because he lit himself on fire?  If a dude was going to miss a game because of a "falconry accident", it would be a Brown.  I might buy myself out of this position if I can get a sense of how hurt Watson is.  There is no way the Browns are beating the Ravens with a rookie QB and no Nick Chubb.     

Here's an easy handicap.  I am betting against the Bears because they are fucking terrible.  It was a real gift that Denver got historically blown out by 50 points last weekend, because that's the only time this year the Bears will be sitting around a 3 point underdog.  These NFL players do not take being a laughingstock well.  The Broncos defensive meetings must have been a bit tense all week.  I think Denver comes out with a max defensive effort which should be helpful against a Bears team that is fundamentally inept.  Justin Fields in three weeks went from "Dark Horse MVP Candidate" to "Total Bust" in a month.  The Bears defensive coordinator resigned "to focus on his family" which I take to mean "he pulled his weinar out at work".  It's a new regime in Chicago, so this feels like a total slash and burn coming.  They are three games in and already everyone is talking about the #1 pick in the draft.  The Broncos have to win somewhere, so why not here?  Denver -3.  

Season Record:  4-7