(Editor’s note: Mixed into a rambling narrative about the current state of affairs in the NFL loaded with historical, music and pop culture references, Mr. Brutal makes his football picks. Bob Gaughan makes his, too. It is called “The War of 1812 Football Prognostication” probably because he is Canadian, Bob is American and they have some huge unknown cross border stakes riding on their year-to-year competition. So get with the programme, honour the concept, and enjoy the colourful Canadian flavour.)
Thursday, September 8, 2016
8:30 pm Carolina (-3) @ DENVER 42
Comedian Jeff Foxworthy, creator & host of the long running “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?” television show on Fox, says he is quite pleased that his one dimensional, guilty pleasure time waster has been so unexpectedly successful.
We’re pretty sure he never imagined that it would prove to be a litmus test too hard to pass for the Presidential Nominee from the GOP.
Donald Jonathan Trump, …… or “Drumpf” if you are to use the original German derivation, ….. or “Whiny Little Bitch” if you are to follow Bill Maher’s assignation, …… or “Fuckface Von Clownstick” if we are to assume & adopt Jon Stewart’s creative re-branding of the cantaloupe skinned foghorn, …… is now leading in some National Polls.
However, before we address the “King of Multiple Bankruptcies” relative demeanor, emotional stability or intelligence, we first must address these objectionable sobriquets.
1.) “Drumpf” Many people’s ancestors chose to Anglicize their names, or change them so they were easier to pronounce in English upon their arrival in North America. This was because people just weren’t as enlightened as they are today. So, it’s certainly not any reflection on Mr. Trump that he uses the name his family chose over the original, …..after all, they’ve used it for a few generations now.
Thank goodness it isn’t really necessary anymore as times have changed. People don’t have to change their names if they sound too ethnic or are just too hard to enunciate. Our society is more tolerant today and racism is pretty much a thing of the past ever since the election of President Obama. That’s progress!
One can witness that new and enlightened 21st Century reality anytime you attend a Donald Trump rally. Just strike up a conversation with any of the ethnically, culturally & educationally diverse constituents in attendance.
You will revel in their tolerance. It is something to cherish, the magnanimous philanthropy they show towards their fellow man, ….. especially those who differ slightly in physical appearance, sexual orientation, possess different political viewpoints or have actually read real, actual books not authored by Anne “The Toothpick Witch” Coulter.
2.) “Whiny Little Bitch” This is offensive on so many levels. First, it is misogynist in nature and we never like to insult anybody of any gender by invoking derogatory names that depict women in an unflattering light, even if it is fundamentally accurate in describing the male subject.
Two wrongs do not make a right and we hope in this one case that political correctness will eventually win the day & the usage of words like “bitch” used in their incorrect context beyond discussions regarding canine husbandry will be erased from our culture in their entirety.
This is unlikely however, as professional dominatrices & the authoritarian half in FLM’s ( Female Led Marriages ) are unlikely to read or act upon the memo.
Regardless, all of this was a result of Bill Maher’s ongoing feud with Mr. Trump that resulted in some lawsuit being brought against Maher, by Trump because the HBO host offered the opinion that Mr. Trump had ancestors who were real Orangutans.
Oh children!
Despite the preseance of copious amounts of orange hair on both subjects, and the fact humans share 97% of the DNA of Orangutans, there is no familial genetic link.
One is behaviorally intelligent, pronounces three and four syllable words, can solve semi-complex cognitive problems, possesses a nurturing instinct, and a preference for private quiet reflection over needless aggression, untethered emotional outbursts or bombastic grandiloquence.
…… and the other is Donald Trump.
3.) “Fuckface Von Clownstick” Yes, it is humorous, but it unfortunately leaves a mark. The stigma that all the innocent people with the “Von Clownstick” surname would now have to carry is just a burden too heavy.
Donald Trump is a phenomena unto himself, nobody could have seen this coming, ….. almost. If we have to give this carnival barker, walking infomercial, snake-oil salesman, travelling medicine show con man a nickname we should go right to the source.
When screenwriter Bob Gale wrote the “Back to the Future” trilogy he mostly based the character Biff Tannen on Donald Trump. In the second film of that series, Biff becomes a very rich and powerful tycoon who lords over the town of Hill Valley where crime, injustice, pestilence and poverty grow to disturbing levels, much as a result of his corrupt actions.
Gale says he never thought he was predicting the actual future and couldn’t imagine an America where even a caricature of his creation would one day run the country.
Oh if America could only be that lucky.
Biff Tannen would be a far better choice to run the country than Donald Trump. This is because he is a far better businessman.
Yes, sure he made his fortune by using a time travel trick to bet on sports games that he already knew the outcome to, but there is no evidence that any sports books or casinos went under due to his H.G. Wells inspired mischief.
Biff built and ran a 27 story hotel and casino, and although he is the consummate greedy, narcissistic sleazeball, there is no evidence in the films that he was losing money due to the application of poor business principals.
But then, who loses money running a casino?
Well, Donald Trump did, at least three times. That is hard to do. However, when you ignore sound advice, finance the purchases with 14% Junk Bonds and then believe through egomaniacal self disillusionment that owning three casinos in one small city won’t result in them cannibalizing each other, …. well, shit happens.
This is based on the misguided confidence that the sight of your simple name in giant, blinking letters on the top of each building will just draw more customers to the city, like moths to the flame, eventually tripling the handle at all three.
Didn’t happen.
Mr Trump has gone under about six times. ( We’re counting the two or three times Daddy Trump bailed him out in the early days. ) His brilliant business acumen, something he touts all the time, …. is at best an unfeted myth and time after time has resulted in dismal failure.
If any of us inherited between 200 and 300 million dollars when he did and just invested it in a balanced portfolio of conservative Treasury Bills and stock index funds, …. after taxes, we’d probably have at least 2.5 to 3 billion dollars today.
Trump according to most sane estimates is worth well under 1 billion and holds massive debts, totaling at least 650 million. Nobody knows for sure, because he won’t release his tax returns or any meaningful evaluations of his net worth. In typical fashion, he speculates that:
“Some say I’m worth 10 billion! Who knows! I don’t know!”
The man might win though. Politics as usual has soured people for good reason and many are embittered beyond the norm.
Enough so it appears that they are willing to hand the keys to the DeLorean over to the “Whiny Little Bitch Orangutan named Fuckface Von Clownstick.”
Carolina Panthers’ head coach Ron Rivera is starting to sound an awful lot like Donald Trump lately. Starting off the new year the way his team ended it after losing the Super Bowl to Denver last season, …..
….. whining like a little baby.
“Wahhh! Why do we have to face the Super Bowl champs again! On the road, in that altitude, with a quarterback who can throw down field this time. It just isn’t fair! We went to the Super Bowl and lost to Denver and now we have to face them again!”
The Panther’s have become the team that is easy to hate and dislike this year in the NFL.
If it isn’t Carolina’s poor handling and salary dump of All-Pro CB Josh Norman, it’s QB Cam Newton in interviews continually bitching, complaining, claiming he isn’t respected and generally not really dealing with the Panthers’ Super Bowl loss like an evolving adult.
Newton does have really big target WR Kelvin Benjamin back this year, after missing his rookie year with injury. Expect him to look for that tree downfield all night.
The Broncos have said good bye to Peyton Android and are starting the year with Trevor Siemian at QB. The Northwestern rookie will be treated with kid gloves by the offensive brain trust, so expect the Broncos to run a lot and play for field position and eat the clock.
They can probably afford to with their defense. Maybe they won’t get six sacks like the Super Bowl, but Von Miller will still be a factor chasing down Newton like he did in that same game where he recorded three sacks himself.
Siemian has a big arm if they want to try some deep throws to test the Normanless secondary of the Panthers. Since the Wildcat went to Northwestern, the Harvard @ Evanston of the Midwest, ….. we can assume he has some smarts and won’t try to do too much.
This game has low scoring field goal orgy written all over it. So getting three points at home, at the 5,280 foot elevation with the best defense in football, it’s hard not to take the Super Bowl Champions. We took them last year in the big game and profited mightily, even though they are one of our least favourite teams to watch.
This is the first game of the year, so let’s not over anticipate or over analyze. Maybe we shouldn’t mess with the streak either.
Besides, Ron Rivera’s transformation from tough guy linebacker on the 1985 super Bowl Champion Bears to respected NFL head coach, to this sulking, insincere Drama Queen is disturbing. It could be having a negative effect on the Panthers.
Things can go from fragile to fractured in a short time on a team that has a extraordinarily talented but wavering captain like Cam Newton and his Tom Brady inflated ego leading it when things go bad. Rumours are that the locker room is already badly divided over the Josh Norman incident.
Rivera knows they need this win for more reasons than revenge for the Super Bowl, but he has not appeared to be himself this year during the preseason. He lets himself utter self absorbed outbursts at press conferences or whenever a microphone is thrust in front of him that are far too close in nature to what you would expect from the actual Donald Trump.
Maybe he can take another page from the Trump playbook and pout, preen and pose his demands in the manner of an over-privileged, under-disciplined child. He should demand the NFL mandate a red carpeted staircase be rolled out to the team charter when it lands at Denver International Airport.
If that isn’t available, an expensive, portable escalator should be flown in from Trump Towers so Ron Rivera & the Carolina Panthers can descend down to the tarmac from the plane as a 44 piece high school marching band plays Neil Young’s “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” without the artist’s permission.
If said conditions are not met upon arrival and the Panthers are not shown the respect they feel they should be bestowed as Super Bowl, finalists, ……
… they will immediately close the door on the plane, taxi down the runway, ignore the emergency phone calls from Park Avenue, take their toys & head back home to Charlotte. That will show the NFL and the American people a preview of what shuttle diplomacy will look like in the possible, upcoming era of the pseudo Biff Howard Tannen presidency.
…. and if the public reaction goes against them, …. Blame China!
You wonder why we’re seeing all this insecurity with Rivera? You’d think he didn’t have Superman starting at Quarterback.
P.S. The DeLorean DMC used in the “Back to the Future” movies is a gutless Frankenstein’s Monster of various ill fitting parts, concepts and dreams. The overall design, workmanship & quality control on a typical DMC can best be described as lying somewhere between a 1974 Bricklin and my former neighbour Gary’s many failed attempts to make an amphibious vehicle out of a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado land yacht.
The automatic transmission version of a DeLorean took about 11 seconds to realistically hit 60 mph. The gutless, hybrid Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 engine was spotty and there was lag in the acceleration curve. All of this means that we never bought that this thing could be relied upon to smoothly hit the time warp window at88 mph at the crucial moment required, …… working flux capacitor or not.
We had the privilege/chore/headache of cramming our lengthy frame into one of these stainless steel snails once and test driving it down the road, so we know of what we speak.
There are some credibility issues with the overall, riding premise of the “Back to the Future” films. That should be self evident to most normal, relatively well educated people, since it is just a Hollywood movie and not reality, ……. but then so it seems is the 2016 election.
The real Biff Howard Tannen in 2020!
Pick:
Brutal: Broncos +3
Bob: Panthers -3
