(Editor’s note: Mixed into a rambling narrative about the current state of affairs in the NFL loaded with historical and pop culture references, Mr. Brutal makes some football picks. Why does he call it the “War of 1812 Football Prognostication”? He likes history, he’s Canadian, and it probably has something to do with those two facts. That’s all we’ve got.)
New England (-1) @ SEATTLE SEAHAWKS 48
Well, the moment of truth has arrived, the two best teams in the NFL are here in the Super Bowl.
The cream does rise to the top.
… but so does the scum.
We are now in the midst of “Deflategate,” the latest missing Malaysian airplane, Benghazi, UN black helicopter invasion, missing birth certificate pseudo-scandal that has garnered the attention of the mainstream & extremestream media alike for the better half of two weeks.
Is it a big deal? Depends on your perspective. Is it cheating? Depends on your perspective. Is it surprising?
Well, only if you believe that Global Warming is a hoax orchestrated by the air conditioning industry, Lance Armstrong was totally setup by the traitorous anti-American Charlie Hebdo-led French press corps and that Elvis Presley is still alive and for the better part of 40 years has been working on a highway construction crew based out of Fresno, California.
Many people have watched the developments around this pounds per square inch debacle with outrage, disbelief and shock. We have looked on with belated amusement.
The New England Patriots have been a scummy, odiferous tumor on the sporting landscape for the better part of this past millennium. The stench originates from the top.
1.) Owner Robert Kraft
Bob Kraft has embraced and encouraged his teams’ underhanded methods for a long time. He is the one who originally hired coach Bill Belichick away from the Jets through questionable means, breaking all sorts of rules and paying fines as a result. This week, at a press conference, Kraft not only adopted the chameleonic azure-orange skin tone of the Republican Speaker of the House, he also sobbed like John Boehner and demanded that the NFL apologize once the Patriots were cleared at the end of this latest comprehensive FBI-style investigation “if they didn’t find comprehensive proof” that the Patriots were guilty.
What weasel words of jurisprudence jabberwocky!
Kraft is only angry that his entire organization is being labelled for the dishonest cesspool that it truly is– that people are being reminded of the past shady escapades of the Pats, and those pathetic pictures of him canoodling with young women who are a quarter of his age are constantly being shown in retrospectives on television stories outlining the never-ending parameters of this never-ending story.
Mostly, he is angry that his good friend Roger Goodell is not making this story go away quickly and he feels jilted that his recent influential support for the beleaguered Commish has not resulted in a typical NFL Cosa Nostra style quid pro quo.
Nothing like billionaire babies bawling like bereaved brats over perceived injustice inside the bubble of the privileged.
2.) Tom “Golden Boy” Brady
Anyone who believes that the pressure inside the footballs he handles was altered without his knowledge, approval and possible direct instruction probably believes that Katy Perry is on an artistic par with Billie Holiday, would bring new artistic meaning to her sociological masterpiece “Strange Fruit” if she sang it during the Super Bowl half time show and that her performance will be completely “live.”
Let’s face it, the Patriots have cheated for a long time, and a lot of stats are coming to light that are confirming what many opponents have cited for years. Their incredibly low fumble rate, and amazingly high bad throw completion percentage in bad weather have until now been statistical anomalies that have been chalked up to Brady’s athletic brilliance & Belichick’s superior brain & preparation.
The Golden Child squirmed like Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny this week as he fielded questions from reporters as to his role in the psi scandal. Captain Queeg Brady needs some “Strawberries Solution” angle to bail him out of this quagmire and he might just get one before Sunday.
The spectre of a “Rogue Ballboy” kidnapping the balls and altering them in 90 seconds in a bathroom stall like a “hurting junkie” bent on causing mayhem and disrepute to the Patriots is the latest, current best hope for absolution before kickoff.
3.) Bill “The Brain” Belichick
The number one likely culprit/perpetrator/mastermind crook in this fiasco. Bill started off in this controversy by denying everything & claiming total ignorance about the nature of footballs, the process of their being broken in, the role of air pressure, etc. Many at first believed him. He received some sympathy in the media and he even suggested that everyone just go ask Tom Brady.
We couldn’t stop laughing.
Any control freak who strategically marks the declination path of the Sun in all opposing ball parks, records the bio-rhythms of all team employees including bus drivers, pedicurists and cafeteria staff & studies individual Napoleonic battle plans and how they relate to football strategy, knows more about the physical nature of the actual football than the plant manager of the factory that makes them.
Of course we were proven right just a few days later when “The Brain” could not resist his control freak nature, abandoned his Sergeant Schultz defense and stepped to the microphone once again, this time spouting far-flung theories on air pressure properties that defied logic to anyone with a sixth grade knowledge of basic science. He made a fool of himself and we were surprised that he didn’t try to also solve the missing gap in the Nixon Whitehouse tapes by doubling down on the Rosemary Woods’ “Secretary Yoga Twister Contortionist” explanation and declaring it confirmed.
Belichick looked like a bad SNL parody version of Irwin Corey crossed with Professor Julius Sumner Miller & Bill Nye explaining physics over the television air waves to the great unwashed.
Bill is as guilty as sin, but his pathological maniacal countenance will never let the man admit it. This is because we believe him to be an individual who has made a deal with the dark forces that inhabit the spiritual universe to achieve success, and as a trade-off, his conscience has left the building.
Bill was a very mediocre head coach in Cleveland, somehow was in huge demand in New York and then was whisked away by Kraft before he could even coach a game there. Maybe Robert Kraft knew something we all didn’t about the success that was yet to come.
These types of deals are resplendent throughout recorded history.
i) Paradise Lost by John Milton
Scholars disagree widely as to the meaning of this long 17th Century poem and to the relative righteousness of Man, God and Satan. Some say it is a morality message warning man to follow the dictums of the Old Testament or suffer eternal damnation. Some say it was meant to warn away the growing number of literate peasants from questioning the church or authority in general. Others believe it glorifies Satan and the phantasmagorical myth regarding his existence and his/its relationship with his minions.
And others claim it started out as a tone poem praising an iconic hero like King Arthur, Alfred the Great or Robin Hood but ended up being altered for commercial considerations of the 1600’s. In other words, Milton’s ego was stroked by his publisher and he sold out.
We can’t believe that Belichick hasn’t at least read (or tried to read) this tedious English Major prerequisite at least once. We have to believe he relishes the role the underworld figures inhabit and the subsequent satisfaction they enjoy by tormenting mortals.
Belichick’s dismissive contempt for reporters and the public in general confirms this suspicion beyond all reproach.
ii) The Evil Emperor in Star Wars
Yes, George Lucas isn’t quite Milton, Shakespeare, Moorcroft or even Stephen King, but his “Emperor” made some sort of diabolical bargain with a dark demon and is obviously the fashion inspiration for Belichick’s constant sporting of a George Zimmerman resistant hoodie.
iii) Faust
The classic Germanic fable seems to best fit the circumstances of Belichick, Kraft & Brady. Faust, the bored scholar, sells his soul for knowledge and success. At the end of the bargain, he relinquishes his eternal quintessence to Satan or his emissary. This visit may have happened just before Bill headed off to Boston– maybe Robert Kraft is Mephistopheles & maybe he first met Tom Brady at a Walpurgis Night celebration in nearby Salem, Massachusetts.
Maybe Belichick’s eternal damnation is that after attaining initial success, he is to be tormented like tragic Greek hero Sisyphus who had his liver constantly pecked at by ravenous birds. This has manifested itself through a decade of torturous “close but no cigar” Super Bowl wins for the Patriots who seem truly eternally damned by the actions of their cheating architects.
iv) Robert Johnson at the Crossroads
The apocryphal story has origins in African, Native American, Biblical, Celtic and numerous other mythologies but manifests itself best in the classic Blues tale.
Mr. Johnson goes to the location in rural Mississippi to meet “Mr. Scratch”, who teaches him how to play guitar like a god, but the price, of course, is the eventual surrendering of his soul to this mysterious spectre– who, of course, is a manifestation or messenger of Satan.
Eric Clapton wrote a song about it. As usual, like most of his best ideas it was stolen/borrowed/inspired from African American culture– but at least it introduced the blues musical form to many people who only take direction from the school of mass popularity.
The most interesting materialization of this legend took form in the 1986 movie “Crossroads.” It is quite a stretch to have the “Karate Kid” Ralph Macchio take the role of Robert Johnson and try to be convincing in this face-squirming rendition of the fable.
It is an even bigger stretch to have Ralph Karate face-off against legendary shredder Steve Vai in the big guitar showdown. Even through the lame script manipulation and the magic of Hollywood editing, it is obvious Vai is a hundred thousand times better than Kid Macchio. Even after pulling a Buffalo Sabres-Philadelphia 76ers-style tank job for the cameras, making several questionable mistakes, and throwing this fight like a 1920’s boxer indebted to the “Black Hand,” we still think Vai actually wins this contest.
But the script and movie say otherwise & the crowd cheers the pajama-wearing Stork in his defeat of the demon masquerading as Steve Vai– rendering the credibility of this movie into the territory of the Patriots’ “Spygate” Super Bowl victory.
There is also a “Crossroads” movie that stars Brittney Spears. It goes without saying that a stink bomb like this waste of celluloid further confirms beyond reproach that deals with the Devil are made in Hollywood all the time. Watching this atrocity could result in actual loss of several IQ points.
We have it on good authority that Belichick has shown the first movie to his team as motivation and the second Brittney Spears’ version as punishment.
On paper, the Seahawks are an easy matchup for the Patriots. New England is good against power runners like Lynch and excellent at covering average receivers like Seattle’s.
On offense, they have Gronk, and Seattle’s one weakness in the red zone is big, talented tight ends. To stop Brady, one needs to usually put top pressure on the GQ Model, but the Seahawks don’t blitz much & the Patriots’ line is probably the league’s best right now.
However, we morally cannot back the Patriots. We will not make our own deal with the devil just to win some short-term cash.
The Seahawks have their own musical inspiration to lead them to victory at the Super Bowl.
After their horrific first half against the Packers, many thought the Seahawks’ reign as Super Bowl champs was due to end after one year. Then a little-reported event outside the State of Washington took place at halftime.
Seattle grunge legends Alice in Chains performed a rousing set of two chord distorted sludge from the “Twelfth Man” platform atop the stadium. The crowd went nuts, and as revisionist history dictates, nobody in the stadium lost faith or left early.
(Those hundreds of empty seats in the fourth quarter were only temporary as most of those fans were forced into the concourse to get better phone reception to quickly make Super Bowl travel arrangements.)
For the last few weeks, Seattle stations have been superstitiously playing the entire “Alice in Chains” catalog, despite the depressing nature of the music. Everyone is recalling the solemn history of this band and the tragic life & drug-induced death of original singer Layne Staley in 2002 who never got over the premature death of his fiancée in 1996 due to an acute bacterial infection.
Seattle is a community that thrives on the dark inspiration derived from the even darker form of music the community spawned. Kurt Cobain was hardly the only casualty of the grunge rock ethos & the countless sunless and rainy days that smother the Emerald City. Seattle leads the nation in suicides, serial killers & per capita psychiatrists.
(It was no accident that “Frasier” was based in Seattle and one has to wonder if too many doctors the caliber of Niles & Frasier Crane are partially responsible for the poor mental health results in the city.)
There has even been an attempt to crowd source funds to buy tickets & send Alice In Chains to Phoenix to continue the lucky streak.
Seahawks are tough, predatory shore birds who are noble in the hunt and defend their kills against larger predators like eagles, cougars & bears. They were revered by the Northwest coastal Indians who regarded them above many other more famous animals. They held prominent positions on their totems and were regarded as direct messengers to the greater spirits and even the great Manitou himself.
18th Century English writer Samuel Johnson warned extensively against those who are self-proclaimed Patriots. He saw their self-labeling as inherently deceptive. He saw them as self-interested frauds whose loyalty could never be equivocated or trusted to boost the positive developments inherent in nation building.
In concert with this thinking, Bob Dylan on his landmark “Infidels” album proclaimed:
“They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings. Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you King.”
We’ll take the aboriginal spirituality of the Seahawks over the murky morality of the jingoistic, self-promoting Satanists from New England.
Pick: SEAHAWKS (+1)
Bob: Patriots -1
