Well, Jason found a new target this past weekend: our good friend Martellus Bennett. Specifically, Whitlock takes issue with Marty B's Black Olympics clip on YouTube…

There's a backup tight end for the Dallas Cowboys who is doing everything he can possibly do to invite self-promotional controversy…

Now, in the past week, he debuted a video showcasing the "Black Olympics," a Kool-Aid-, fried chicken- and watermelon-eating contest between himself and his brother, a rookie free agent with the Seattle Seahawks… I am not easily offended. Perhaps it's my size and affinity for food, but I take virtually no offense to good-naturedly delivered jokes about food stereotypes. Everybody I know - black or white - loves properly seasoned fried chicken.

I don't know about you, but I don't even need proper seasoning to enjoy friend chicken. You could season it with anthrax and I'd still devour it. Anyway, back to Whitlock's rambling…

Watermelon is extremely healthy and very tasty. And it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I kicked my Kool-Aid habit.

When people e-mailed me on Friday asking what I thought of Bennett's "Black Olympics," I didn't know what to think.

I wasn't offended. I was sad. I grew even sadder throughout Friday and Saturday as it became apparent to me that Bennett's grab for controversy was being ignored.

Let's pause right here. So Whitlock starts off his column by trashing Marty B for inviting attention to his antics, but then professes sadness that people failed to pay attention to his antics. I think that merits a solid, "Juh?" But we've only begun to plumb the depths of Whitlock's increasingly unhinged attacks.

I've reluctantly made peace with the fact that black comedians and rappers can make millions of dollars shouting the N-word and lampooning/promoting negative black stereotypes.

If Barack Obama made use of the N-word a death-penalty offense, commercial rap music would disappear and nearly every black comedian would have to rewrite their material.

Oh, let's do it, then. Perfectly sane idea.

My point is I understand the economic impact of outlawing our (black) self-hate.

What I don't understand is when and why it became OK for a black athlete to milk the same cow.

I assumed that Bennett's "Black Olympics" would cause an uproar among the groups that claim to stand against just this kind of racial exploitation.

But Whitlock, isn't it better that NO ONE gave a shit about the video? Do you really want people ginning up outrage and giving Marty B more attention than you believe he deserves?

I like Whitlock, and 99% of the time he writes shit that's more interesting than pretty much any other sportswriter out there. In fact, I'm sure those are his exact marching orders from FOX. "Hey Jason. Go write some crazy shit that people will notice." But his efforts to stir up controversy now seems to scream, "OPRAH! HAVE ME BACK ON!" It's a neat little bit of irony, given that Whitlock is chastising Marty B for drawing unwarranted attention to himself while using his column to more or less do the exact same thing.

I emailed Marty B and his manager for comment on Whitlock's article, but they never got back to me. However, Marty B did respond to the criticism on Michael Irvin's radio show, apparently emerging from his appearance without Irvin having stabbed him in the neck with scissors. Some clips…

I don't really think it's offensive. It depends on your sense of humor and how you look at things. We were just having fun and it was very funny for me and my brothers, when I look at it I just can't stop laughing. If someone takes offense, I apologize. That wasn't my intention. It was just us having fun. Some people like what you do and some people don't. Always in life, anything you do, someone is going to have a different opinion than what you have…

I'll get criticized regardless. I don't do it to get crities (sic) or people say it's me fighting ot (sic) get attention, but it's not. ...It's just me being me. That's why I have Marty B TV for the fans to see what type of person I am outside of football. ...In my spare time I like to have fun and make these youtube videos. We're just having fun.

Now obviously, I have some bias in this argument. But doesn't Bennett sound like the sane person in this fight? "Hey, we decided to fuck around and make a stupid video. If people don't like it, oh well." Sounds like a perfectly rational rebuttal to me. Much more so than, "Hey everyone! Pay more attention to this camera hog so that we'll finally realize how much we black people hate ourselves and do something to correct it!" That argument's a bit of a stretch, particularly when you used column space the week before to call Serena Williams fat and lazy.

Then again, I am a white person. And like Leitch, there's a very good chance I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about when it comes to bojanglin' matters such as these. Perhaps the best way to settle this fight is to turn to the most democratic, articulate, and diverse group of voices in the world… YouTube commenters.

house niggers, always shucking and jiving for white people.

Why that dude isn't on welfare and instead makes a big paycheck is the American tragedy ! !

how bout a white olympics? who can snitch the most, who can bitch the most, and who is the most stuck up.

Thats great, I've got a few events in mind. the 40 OZ. Chug a lug - Crack pipe relay - Run to the mailbox for the government check, Most kids by different fathers, etc, etc. LOL

Uh oh. We may not settle this thing for a while.

UPDATE: Video response to Whitlock from the Marty B camp. Complete with handy screengrab! "He's a cross between Al Sharpton and Sean Hannity, if ever was a person." Indeed.

Kids. Very small children enjoy the YouTube a lot more than you may be aware of, and I'm not lying when I tell you that the only videos they enjoy are the fucking weirdest and most annoying ones. We have one desktop computer in our house. At least three times a day, my kid will climb up on the office chair and just start surfing away, watching completely random shit for as long as she can. This annoys me, because A) I have shit to do on that machine. Hey kid, you already colonized the TV. Leave the fucking computer to Mr. Breadwinner. And B) Because the stuff she clicks is so harrowing to both watch and/or listen to.

In a child's hands, YouTube is like a long hallway, with doors leading to ever stranger and more inexplicable places. You click on a Wiggles video, you find a link to a homemade video of an animated dinosaur lighting his own farts, which leads you to a link to a crude drawing of a volcanic ass, which leads you to news footage of Mount St. Helen's blowing up, which leads you to a clip of Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker" dubbed in Korean. It's like Six Degrees Of Fuckedupness. And when I beg my kid to watch something relatively normal, like a Cookie Monster clip, she immediately clicks away to something awful. Here are some of the things you might find if you leave the surfing to a kid who doesn't know any better:

FUCKED UP EUROTRASH CARTOON ARTISTS

This is the Gummi Bear song. Unfamiliar with it? Well, just take one listen. After that, this horrible anthem will bore directly into your cerebellum and nest there for eternity. "Oh I'm a gummi bear. Yes, I'm a gummi bear! Oh, I'm a yummy chummy funny looking gummi bear!" DIE, gummi bear. I never thought I'd pine for the relatively mature beats of Crazy Frog. I now have a reflex in me where, if I see a bag of Haribo in a store shelf, I grab it, throw it on the ground, and stomp the shit out of it.

LARGE-GUMMED WOMEN MAKING AMATEUR NURSERY RHYME VIDEOS

This woman's name is Cullen, and she has produced dozens of creepy videos where she stares at the camera with her big Baba Booey gums, and waves and sings songs DIRECTLY TO YOUR KID. It's fucking creepy as shit, mostly because my kid seems to enjoy it. Listen lady, don't you have real kids somewhere that you can sing to? Are you barren? Do you really have to expand your empire digitally? It's like I'm stuck at Gymboree with the world's most annoying instructor.

LAZILY PRODUCED EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS

This is Puppy Dog. Even his name is lazy. And for the next five interminable minutes, this big shithead in a dog suit will talk to your child as if they're legally brain dead. "Hello! Hi! Hi! I'm puppy dog! Let us play!" Holy shit. These are children you're talking to, Dog. Not fellow dogs. To give you an idea of how poorly written these videos are, I transcribed the lyrics to one of the songs. This one is done to the tune of "When The Saints Come Marching In"

The train is yellow
The train is yellow
The train is yellow yellow yellow yellow
Oh yes the train is yellow
The train is yellow yellow yellow yellow

THAT IS A FUCKING HORSESHIT EFFORT, PUPPY DOG. Mix up your lyrics, or I will put arsenic on your Beggin' Strips. When you have kids, you quickly figure out which children's programming is well thought out, and which is written by six monkeys locked in a room with typewriters. This is the blurst of clips, I tell you.

SLIDESHOWS OF RANDOM VEHICLES SCORED BY A TERRIBLE LOCAL ROCK BAND

Complete with star wipes!

HOMEMADE NURSERY RHYME CARTOONS FROM UNKNOWN FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Eighty percent of the homemade videos your kid stumbles on will not come from America. Like this one. Where was it made? China? India? I can't spot the accent, it's that fucking weird. The nursery rhyme "Ding Dong Bell" is strange enough on its own without a pidgin interpretation.

Ding dong bell
Pussy's in the well
Who put her in?
Little Johnny Thin.
Who pulled her out?
Little Tommy Stout.
What a naughty boy was that
To drown a pussycat

The way these rhymes go, it's stunning to me that the fat kid doesn't eat the cat at the end. Would it shock you to know the comments for this video include such tidbits as…

O M G ! S O s o r r y ! I ' m j u s t t o o s c a r e d ! O k . . . . T h e r e w a s a l a d y w h o w a s w a l k i n g i n t h e f o r e s t w i t h h e r d o g a n d w a s k i l l e d . I f u r r e a d i n g t h i s , t h e n u w i l l f i n d a d e a d b l o o d y b o d y h a n g i n g i n u r c l o s e t . U w i l l b e h a u n t e d a n d k i l l e d b y h e r . t o s t o p i t˛ˇ p o s t i t h i s t o 6 o t h e r v i d e o s i n 3 0 G O O D L U C K

So yeah. Pussies in wells, homicidal skinny kids, and dead bodies in closets. Your kid is better off watching a George Romero film. But these videos get even creepier as they drift into pseudo-anime territory. Like this one.

"Allow me to interdoooce myself! I'm your friendly neighborhood Rhyme Man! And say hello to Rhyma! And Rhymey!" Nearly four million people have watched this video. All of them will have night terrors for the next three decades. CLAP YOUR HANDS! CLAP YOUR HANDS! LISTEN TO THE MUSIC AND CLAP YOUR HANDS, OR WE WILL SLIT YOUR LITTLE THROAT.

NAUGHTY TALKING BABY SONGS

These videos are produced by a company named FlowGo, whose headquarters I hope burn to the ground in an enormous gas leak explosion. There are thousands of these things out there. And while I love a good fart joke, they lose their charm when spoken by a creepy talking baby with a sped-up Alvin and Chipmunks voice effect. This is why the E-Trade baby needs to be beheaded.

OCCASIONALLY WELL-CRAFTED SONGS EVERYONE CAN ENJOY

Wait, what's this? Say, this isn't awful! Oh, thank you, Mr. Rhino. Thank you so very much. You are a welcome oasis in a giant pool of suck.

Because, this time around, the people at Pixar didn't bother wasting time taking out my heart and tearing it to fucking pieces. They decided there was no point in waiting until the end of their little movie to turn me into a blubbering lump of shit. No, they had to do that shit RIGHT AWAY, packing in as much sad shit as they could into the first ten minutes of that fucking thing: aging, cancer, infertility, and death. Hey, thanks a lot, Pixar. Thanks for gutting my insides with a fish scraper. I really enjoyed that. Fucking infertility? In a movie about balloons? How is my Cambodian son Maddox Pax Zahara Pitt Magary supposed to feel about that, YOU FUCKS?

What the fuck is wrong with these people? I'm here to tell you folks out there that Pixar is not the sweet and wonderful little filmmaking giant that everyone makes them out to be. They are the single most sentimental, emotionally manipulative filmmaking entity to come along since Steven Spielberg was conceived by his parents.

These people are fucking sociopaths. They know damn well that all parents out there have been turned into oversensitive pussies thanks to the child rearing process. You should see the look in my eyes when I watch my kids laughing. I look like a goddamn AT&T ad. They know we'll cry the second we see some stupid fucking animal parent hug his stupid fucking animal kid. AND THEY USE THAT AGAINST US.

I realized this as my kid was forcing me to watch "Finding Nemo" for the 90th fucking time. There's that scene right at the end, right after Nemo's crazy clownjewfish dad (Nazi Shark does not approve of Albert Brooks voicing fish) rescues him and all that shit. There's that little scene where you think you're going to make it out of that fucking movie without crying. But noooo. No, they have little shithead Nemo come back into the picture juuust when you think the movie is over. "Oh, and Dad? Love you."

YOU FUCKING DICKS.

/dabs at cheeks with a chamois

YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT SHIT.

/eats gallon of Cherry Garcia, grows vagina

WHY MUST YOU TOY WITH ME LIKE THIS?

Take a look at the entire Pixar filmography (Brad Bird's entries thankfully excepted, along with "Cars," because it's fucking terrible). They're all the same: sweet little toy/robot/old man/fish/monster/bug/lizard/dingo/paramecium has to go on some bigass adventure to rescue someone. Then everyone gets reunited. Then there's some gentle piano music. And then, you cry. You cry like the little bitch you are. It's a formula, deceptively packaged as innocent whimsy.

Well, I'm sorry. These movies are not whimsical. THEY ARE FUCKING DEVASTATING. You ever watch Toy Story 2, where the lesbian cowgirl is abandoned by her lesbian little girl owner? Forever? And they play that really sad Sarah Maclachlan song? And everyone in the theater starts bleeding saline out of their eyes? What is the point of that scene? Plot? Character development? No, I don't think so. I think the point of that scene was to reduce you to a quivering pile of emotional afterbirth. You went to go see a comedy about toys. You ended up halfway through flashing back to sitting at your grandma's bedside as she passed away. NO! GRANDMA! DON'T LEAVE ME! I'M NOT READY FOR YOU TO DIE YET! NOOOOOOO!!!!! Oh look! The dinosaur toy is on roller skates! I feel better now.

Worst of all, these Pixar movies are so well done, so meticulously animated and written, that they stand up over the test of time, which means you have to watch them again and again and again. It's horrible. Every time I watch Monsters, Inc., and they show that last scene where Sully opens the door and hears Boo giggle… I just get… (chokes up)… I don't wanna… (bursts into tears)… GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, WILL YOU JUST LET ME BE A MAN AGAIN, YOU JACKALS?! Honestly, these people may as well make me watch my grandpa die on a continuous loop. They should just film him in his hospital bed, with his pulse flatlining, add a nice Randy Newman song, and then force me to watch it over and over again.

Because that's what the really want to do, you know. No, God forbid they ever produce a straight comedy, one I can watch without turning my shirt into a roll of Bounty. No, then their fucking precious movie wouldn't be timeless. And timeless movies are ones that ruin your shit. You, the paying customer, must pay for your yuks. Oh, you like hijinks, do you? Well, they'll give you your hijinks, WITH A LITTLE BRAIN CANCER ON THE SIDE.

Seriously, get fucked Pixar. Next time, I'm taking my kid to that fucking Ice Age movie. It'll suck. But that'll be the only reason I cry. STOP MAKING ME WANT TO HOLD MY KIDS TIGHT AND TELL THEM HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM.

FREE REIGN
You know a band blows when their press photo shows them all wearing matching Affliction t-shirts. Whatever Leonard Davis is doing with this band almost certainly defines the opposite of keeping it real. You can sample some of the band's musical afterbirth right here. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Listening to Free Reign gave me a newfound appreciation for Puddle of Mudd. Colombo sings about as well as he pass blocks. The worst part is that, like any nu metal singer, he sings as if he's saying some REALLY DEEP SHIT. Oooooh, look at me! I'm baring my tortured soul! EXPERIENCE MY WHITE PAIN! Let's sample the lyrics, shall we?

You listen to no one but you, taking you further from the truth!

Oh, that is so directed at Jason Garrett. Any time I hear an amateur band on MySpace (and who among us has not occasionally been forced to click on a CHECK OUT MY BAND! link from some asshole?), I always think back to the Visiting Day episode of The Sopranos, when the engineer goes off on the lead singer of the shitty band Adriana likes:

Where are the fucking choruses? All your songs, you got no choruses. Your choruses are basically just another verse. I mean, what happened to "She Loves You", huh?… Started with the chorus. There is structure. That's how you build a song.

It's amazing how many times you listen to some shitty band's demo and there's nothing there resembling an actual song. You might think a band like Puddle of Mudd sucks, but at least they bother to have things like verses and choruses and bridges in there. They're all shitty, but they're there.

CHICKENFOOT
I'll happily admit that I enjoyed the album "5150" back when I was a kid. "Dreams" is still in my library. I bought every Van Halen album up to "Balance," which is much further than most people were willing to go. My brother even went so far as to buy all of Sammy Hagar's solo albums, even the ones that didn't have "I Can't Drive 55" on them. Ever hear "Three Lock Box"? Don't.

Anyway, time has borne out that the Hagar portion of the Van Halen catalog has aged about as quickly as your average issue of Sports Illustrated. So when I heard that Hagar was forming a "supergroup" with guitarist Joe Satriani, bassist Michael Anthony (the Bob Golic of hard rock), and RHCP drummer Chad Smith, I knew it had fantastic potential for sucking. And holy shit, does Chickenfoot suck.

Everything about this band is fucking terrible. Their name is awful (how is Buckethead not a member?). Their logo is somehow even dumber. As for the music, you can sample it here. Hagar sounds old. He's basically Jimmy Buffett now. I bet Jimmy Johnson loves playing this shit at his swinger boat parties. Lyrics!

OH YEAH!
C'MON BABY TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT!
OH YEAH!
C'MON BABY TELL ME WHAT YOU NEED!

/bobs head, bites bottom lip

This is a terrible waste of Satriani, who long ago competed with Steve Vai for the title of "Best Hair Metal Guitarist To Use His Guitar To Kind Of Sing Lead Vocals." As shitty as Chickenfoot may be, it doesn't diminish the awesomeness of "Always With Me, Always With You" (all guitarists should be forced to wear trench coats), or the majestic slab of cheese that is Summer Song. Damn if Chickenfoot doesn't try, though.

Chickenfoot recently cancelled some shows in Europe due to the fact that Chad Smith has an injury. Really? They had to cancel over that? Chad Smith is that indispensable? Would anyone have noticed if that guy had been missing? He wasn't even the Chilis' original drummer.

SEETHER'S COVER OF CARELESS WHISPER

Yep. Someone did this. Good God. My ears have AIDS now. Congratulations, the Ataris. Your horrible cover of "The Boys Of Summer" is no longer the single worst cover song I've ever heard that makes me want to jump in front of an oncoming train. I bet Marc Colombo thinks this is the awesomest shit ever.

I stumbled upon this information when Mrs. Drew told me to read this article in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof. This is typical. If there's a piece of information out there that will make parents FREAK THE FUCK OUT, my lady will find it and tell me I have to read it and start worrying about it. Embedded in this article, and treated way too fucking casually by Kristof, is this sentence…

And up to 1 percent of boys in the United States are now born with hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the penis improperly, such as at the base rather than the tip.

GAHHHHHHH! One percent of ALL boys? Let's just do the math for a second. Four million babies are born here in the US every year. Split the number in half, take one percent of it, and you've got 20,000 boys born annually who have this condition, which I will from here on out refer to as "Bong Dick". This is the worst thing I've ever heard. I wanted to know more about this condition, so I've done a little bit of research to help keep you, the properly dickholed male population out there, aware of this grotesque and terrifying Bong Dick pandemic.

According to the Mayo Clinic…

Hypospadias is a condition in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside of the penis, instead of at the tip.

Well, now it really IS a skin flute. As opposed to the traditional skin flute, which is really more of a skin recorder, or skin slide whistle.

You may feel distressed if your son is born with hypospadias.

May? MAY?! Who is not distressed to find this abnormality? "Hey, that's odd. Little Johnny's dickhole is on his taint. Oh well, win some, lose some."

However, hypospadias is common and doesn't cause difficulty in caring for your infant. In fact, surgery usually restores the normal appearance of your child's penis. With successful treatment of hypospadias, most males can eventually have normal adult sexual function.

I guess this is a relief, until I found the name of the surgery used to correct Bong Dick. According to a headline on MedScape.com, "Long-Term Correction of Epispadias Good With Penile Disassembly Technique." This is horrifying. I did not know a penis could be disassembled, like a table from Ikea. I assumed it came as a single welded piece.

The worst thing about Bong Dick is that, and Kristof flubs his science on this, it varies from penis to penis. Your dickhole (or, to use the medical term, "meatus") doesn't always end up at the base of your junk. And the shape of your penis can be altered as a result, including severe and painful curving, and more. According to MedScape…

Hypospadias is an abnormality of anterior urethral and penile development in which the urethral opening is ectopically located on the ventrum of the penis proximal to the tip of the glans penis, which, in this condition, is splayed open.

So not only has the greenskeeper moved your pin, but your dick is now butterflied, like a rack of lamb.

The urethral opening may be as proximal as the scrotum or perineum.

So you could end up pissing out of your balls, which would be a neat party trick. Or you could end up pissing out of your taint, just like the ladies do. YOU MIGHT FLOOD YOUR MERKIN. It certainly makes the oral sex interesting, though. "Girl, I have good news. You need neither spit nor swallow. But I'd wear a bib if I were you."

The earliest medical text describing hypospadias dates back to the second century AD and was the work of Galen, the first to use the term. During the first millennium, the primary treatment for hypospadias was amputation of the penis distal to the meatus.

/dies

Since that time, many have contributed to development of modern hypospadias repair.

"Fuck polio! We need to fix THIS right now! Get everyone on it!"

The incidence of hypospadias is greater in whites than in blacks, and it is more common in those of Jewish and Italian descent.

So not only do blacks get the bigger dongs, but they also get the normal ones. WHY ARE WHITES TREATED SO UNFAIRLY?

Don't think, by the way, that all babies born with Bong Dick are immediately corrected and go on to live happy, carefree lives. There are cases of Adult Hypospadias out there, and a Google Image Search will show you exactly what the consequences of that look like. I have seen this. I will never be the same. Further, adult Bong Dick has any number of psychological side effects. According to this study in Andrology Journal…

A comparative study of psychosocial and sexual adjustment (Berg et al, 1981) showed that 34 adult men operated on for hypospadias had less satisfactory psychosocial adjustment than 36 age-matched patients operated on as children at the same age for appendicitis. The hypospadiac patients were more timid and embarrassed as children and were shyer and more socially isolated as adults. They had lower self-esteem, decreased capacity for social or emotional relationships, and less qualified occupations.

And some of these tortured souls end up going to online forums to share their pain. Here's one:

I was born with hypospadias. Between 1965 (when I was at the age of five) and 1975, I had a series of operations at Children's Hospital in Boston to correct this birth defect.

Five operations on his penis between the ages of 5 and 15. Jesus. This man should never have to buy a drink in his life. Ever. Especially if that drink contains tap water from the DC area. I demand the government stop paying attention to the economy and begin paying more attention to our meatuses. Because this is awful. It's worse than the Great Funnel Pussy Scare Of '02. No man should have to go through life with a blowhole on his sack. If you have a friend who suffers from this condition, please, give him a hug. Give his penis a hug. Tell him it's going to be all right. And ask him what he does at the stadium trough.

I keed our former Overlord, of course. The fact of the matter is that you will probably find this the most entertaining of all Deadcasts, because talking to Leitch means we get to do plenty of what we do best: yammer on and on about pointless bullshit, stutter, and yell at each other about who cut off who. On the docket in today's episode:

• We discuss dipping tobacco for the first time at summer camp, and I offer my theory that the worldwide dipping community thinks dip in pouches is gay
• We talk about my talent for projectile vomiting. Leitch, it turns out, has only barfed twice IN HIS ENTIRE ADULTHOOD. No doubt both times were the result of a bad black and white cookie
• We talk about why it's always best to be the second most drunk person at a party, and not the most drunk
• We talk about the stunning lack of Elton John at the Jackson funeral, and the overall oddness of holding a funeral live on television.
• We talk about the insane length of the "Deer Hunter" wedding sequence
• We have a very annoying five minute discussion of whether or not Madonna's song catalog holds up as well as Jackson's does (The correct answer is that no one gives a shit)
• We talk about Simmons and whether or not we intend on reading his book, why he brings out the worst in Chuck Klosterman, and his penchant for always thinking he's the smartest asshole in sports
• We talk about Slate's new podcast. (Sample topic: "Michael Jackson: All That Well Known?")
• We talk about the McNair shooting and TheBigLead's insanely douchey coverage of it (He's got this case cracked, people! It was the chauffeur!)

Finally, we talk about the commenter upheaval and the seeming indestructibility of fucking SuperMike. Fun for all.

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Got a question/comment you need read over the air next week? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and make fun of my fleecy vest.

But you will find, as I have, that the older you get, the more fucking gifts you have to buy for people. I am thirty-two years old. I have two kids. They go to birthday parties for all the kids in their school class, which is a lot of kids. I have two siblings who also have two kids each. I have friends with spouses and kids and all that shit. All of them have birthdays and anniversaries and all kinds of other shit I'm supposed to account for. Not to mention the standard holidays like Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Polynesian History Hour, and such and such. I could fill out a calendar with all of these "important" events and not have an empty week. Which means I'm buying gifts all over the fucking place.

THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT. I get having to buy gifts for kids' birthday parties. Very young kids are stupid and are easily impressed by any gift that is made of 100% high fructose corn syrup. Happy Birthday, Johnny! Here's a box of Sugar in the Raw. Now go play, you little shit. That's cheap gift giving. I like it.

But gifts for adults? No, no. Fuck that. If you're over the age of 22, you don't deserve gifts for your birthday. Ever. Maybe you get one of those annoying group dinners where everyone splits the fucking bill except for you. And then one rich asshole at the table fucks up the cost average for everyone else by ordering the 15 lb. lobster. But a gift? That I have to wrap? Fuck you in the pants. I knew chicks in New York who always threw themselves birthday parties, expecting everyone to bring them a present. Eat shit, honey. You'll get nothing and like it.

You shouldn't need gifts as you get older. There comes a point in life when gifts stop being useful. I have enough shit laying around. I don't fucking need more of it. The only gift I could ever possibly want is money. Unfortunately, I don't know enough Italians, so I never get it as a present. I get shirts. Oooh, loogit! Something I have to dry clean!

The older you get, the more expensive life becomes. You have to pay for housing, and food, and diapers, and life insurance, and all kinds of other god awful shit. There's NEVER enough money to cover it all, yet there remains this societal burden where we have to get people cards and gifts for shit that is irrelevant TO ME. Oh, your kid just got confirmed? Bully for him. I'm glad he's officially a righteous Christian fuckwit now. But I'm not going to bestow a gift on the kid for it. You know what his gift is? Jesus' love. Suck on that.

It's reached the point now where Mrs. Drew and I are forced to buy so many gifts for other people that we never bother to get shit for each other. Oh look. It's your birthday, honey. Here's an US magazine I stole from the gym. And I'm putting out tonight. You're welcome.

It's time to end this madness. Here now is a revised list of acceptable gift-giving occasions and card-giving occasions. Keep in mind that buying a card is nearly as bad as having to get a gift, if not worse. Because it means I have to haul ass to CVS, spend five minutes making sure I pick out the least gay card on the rack, and then I have to fill it out and mail it. AND STAMP IT. WHERE ARE THE FUCKING STAMPS?! It's an exhausting, debilitating process.

GIFT-WORTHY
-Spouse's birthday
-Your kid's birthday
-Your kid's graduation
-Other kid's birthday party (Under $15 only, only until kid turns 10)
-Niece/nephew birthday (Under $15 only, only until kid turns 10)
-Friend's Wedding
-Your parents' anniversary (only on anniversaries that are multiples of ten)
-Your own anniversary (only on anniversaries that are multiples of ten)
-Sibling's anniversary (only on anniversaries that are multiples of ten)
-Your kid for Xmas
-Best friend turns some horrible age like 40
-Baby shower of best friend/sister

CARD-WORTHY
-Someone dies
-Your mother on Mother's Day
-Your mother's birthday
-Your dad's birthday
-Your mother's cancer diagnosis
-Thank you for rescuing me from that burning oil rig

WORTHY OF JACK SHIT
-Bridal shower (We're already getting you a gift, lady. What, my wife has to stand around for three hours and watch you open shit?)
-Retirement
-Some fucking dog's birthday
-Your Dad on Father's Day (he doesn't care)
-Valentine's Day
-Promotion
-Anniversary of co-worker starting a job
-Friend's birthday
-Co-worker's birthday
-Acquaintance's birthday
-Sibling's birthday (if not a multiple of ten)
-Mom or dad's birthday (if not a multiple of ten)
-Friend's anniversary
-Any family anniversary that isn't a multiple of ten
-Christmas for anyone who is not your kid
-Housewarmings (Hey, here's some shit to clutter up your new pad!)
-Baptisms
-Confirmations
-Graduations
-Cancer remission
-Your favorite team wins something

That's the list. I'm certain there is shit I have forgotten. And if I have, that means it goes in the JACK SHIT pile.

Starting today, yours truly will be posting here at Deadspin on a daily basis. But that's not all. You fucking sunts always come to Deadspin for sports-related dick jokes. Well now, your fair editor has asked me to help create a special Balls Deep section of the site that is exclusively dick jokey, without all the pesky sports getting in the way. Something along the lines of the first blog I ever published, FKS.

It's a chance for Deadspin to branch out a bit, to explore all new ways to use the word "cockpunch." And my hope is to begin a bunch of weekly series designed exclusively to help you waste time in the most enjoyable way possible: Weekend Playlists, Throwgasm Breakdowns, Snack Time Taste Tests, Television Event Gamebooks, and more.

As such, I am taking on the unofficial title of Editor of Culture. I like this job title because it means absolutely nothing, and it allows me the kind of artistic freedom I've always wanted despite the fact that I secretly have no idea what the fuck to do with it. We're making it up as we go along here, but I promise you I'll make sure the ride is always entertaining, and peppered with any number of unnecessary f-bombs.

The Deadcast will still be around each week for you to avoid, and I'll also be handling your team-by-team NFL previews in the coming weeks. I assure you they will be 100% devoid of gay childhood nostalgia. You have my word. In the meantime, if you have any questions or ideas, by all means email me here. Until then, sit back, relax, and welcome to Page Douche.

I didn't wear a diaper while conducting this interview, and that was a mistake. Listen to me bring up the time he was accused of throwing his girlfriend off a balcony in 1968. You can practically hear my bowels releasing as I try and phrase the question. Anyway, here's Jim Brown on a number of topics:

Did he bite a guy's finger off when he stuck it in his facemask? "No, but I did bite the hand that was trying to gouge out my eyes… the eyes are very vulnerable." I agree.

On Donte' Stallworth: "I think that he got off beautifully. I think that he's a very fortunate young man."

On Eric Mangini: "For the first time, we have a coach who will dominate the scene." Especially at local bakeries.

Did the flamethrower he used in The Running Man actually shoot flames? "Yes."

Did he keep it? "My personal desire was not to have a flamethrower."

Does he wish more black people played lacrosse? "No."

Can you ever be too old to wear a kufi? "Yep."

Does he still rollerskate like he did on CHiPs? "No."

On in-line skating: "I think the rollerblading is out now. I think it's going back to traditional skates."

Does he regret naming his childhood gang the Gaylords? "I can laugh at it with you because it's a strange name for young men to choose who are straight." That it is.

How does he respond to criticism about his personal history? "I chose to physically go to jail rather than take an assignment that was undignified to me. And so, when I voluntarily become incarcerated… then I've paid my dues."

Can I have just one rib? "Chris Rock, man."

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here (should be up shortly).

Also, Mr. Brown's PR company asked that we plug his appearance at the Sports Legends Challenge event at the Atlantis in the Bahamas on September 14th to 17th, also featuring Joe Namath (kissing booth!), Mike Ditka, Troy Aikman, Dr. J, Jerry West, Reggie Jackson, and more. Visit this site to find out more.

Got a question/comment you need read over the air next week? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as I curl into the fetal position.

Buzz and I spend an hour covering a wide range of topics, including CostasNOW, the bankruptcy of the Philly Inquirer (where he won the Pulitzer), and more. You'll have to excuse my stammering at the beginning of the broadcast. I was thrown off by the fact that, if you listen closely, Buzz kinda sounds like David Stern without the light Jersey accent. It's uncanny, frankly. Here are some highlights:

On Artie Lange: "I think I'm off the hook."

On Peter King: "He's really good." I DISAGREE, BUZZ.

On Peter Gammons: "(He) was a wonderful reporter for Sports Illustrated, but increasingly all he does is trade in rumors that turn out to be false."

On steroid users: "They saved the game of baseball."

On Manny: "One of the stupidest blithering fucking idiots that ever existed…. I hope when he comes back, the Dodgers realize they don't need him."

On the intro to Three Nights In August: "Part of it was written, yeah, to piss (statheads) off, because they're fun to piss off, because they sort of flap their wings like the little geeky birds they are and, you know, get all indignant, and I sort of got my rocks off on that. I have to admit." YOU CAN'T PURPOSELY PISS PEOPLE OFF FOR FUN, BUZZ. ONLY I GET TO DO THAT.

To Peter Berg before he directed Friday Night Lights: "Look Pete, if you change the fucking ending of the book, and you have them win… then don't do the fucking book."

On Berg: "He did admit that in the final game against Dallas Carter, he looked for the biggest, hugest, meanest, you know, black guys he could find. And he knew they were all in their 30's and 40's. But he did that on purpose just to heighten the difference." Spike Lee's spider senses are tingling.

Was he pissed when Varsity Blues came out? "Yes."

On Leitch: "He could do a bit more reporting in his columns, he could actually TALK to someone… What really pissed me off about him the most was when he fucking knew who WC Heinz was… I'm the best thing that ever happened to him."

Buzz also pulls the David Eckstein card when talking about clutch hitting (Ken Tremendous will get you for that, Buzz), and he talks about financially supporting Boobie Miles long after Friday Night Lights was published, sometimes against his better judgment. Buzz never raises his voice to me during our conversation. Shit. Next time, I'll steal his lithium prior to recording.

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Also, Buzz has written a new book with LeBron James that you can pre-order here. Got a question/comment you need read over the air next week? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as Buzz explains why Moneyball pissed the shit out of him.

UPDATE: Dan Levy pointed just now that, in the course of talking about the Ibanez story, Bissinger thought the Hugging Harold Reynolds blog was Harold Reynolds' actual site. Oh, Buzz.

UPDATED UPDATE: Buzz's comment: "As it turns out I may not be a horse—-— but I am a horse's ass. I did confuse Harold Reynolds with the website/blog/etc. HuggingHaroldReynolds. When I read the original article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I glanced over Reynold's name and wrongly assumed it was him. I am not sloppy in my writing, or at least I don't think I am, but I was sloppy here. I apologize for the error and I also apologize to Mr. Reynolds."

I talk with Le Batard about where he ranks in terms of annoying substitute PTI hosts. I argue that Michelle Tafoya was the worst, but he then trumps me with the time Dan Shaughnessy did the show with him. Oh, that's not an attractive pair. Here's how I rank the subs thru history, from acceptable to awful:

1. Whitlock
2. David Aldridge
3. Le Batard
4. JA Adande
5. Norman Chad
6. Bob Ryan
7. Rick Reilly
8. Jackie MacMullan
9. Max Kellerman
10. Stephen A. Smith
11. Jay Mariotti
12. Michele Tafoya
13. Dan Shaughnessy
14. Skip Bayless

Whatever your opinion of Simmons and his broadcasting capabilities, I don't think he'll have much trouble rocketing into the top five of that list.

I also bitch to Le Batard about his Ray Lewis testimonial in ESPN Magazine from a while back - an article that, to me, epitomized ESPN's (and ESPN Magazine's) tendency to cover athletes favorably in exchange for access. Le Batard argues, "It wasn't for me to say one way or the other whether or not I believed him," and that he was only there to present Lewis' side of the story because the other side had already been so well covered. I don't really buy that. But whatever.

More from Le Batard:

On pure journalistic integrity: "It's a utopian thing to aspire to, but it's not terribly human… I don't know where some of these lines are."

On Berman inducting Ralph Wilson into the Hall of Fame: "I don't think Chris Berman has the same ethical responsibilities that a newspaper reporter or a newspaper columnist has." (I strongly disagree with this.)

On Kornheiser in the MNF booth: "I think the idea of having a comedian up there works… but (he and Dennis Miller) both started meeting Bob Kraft, and it just changes things… Like, did you see Kimmel when he was in the booth? It was great because he didn't give a FUCK!"

On broadcasters: "I think all of it is pretty silly and masturbatory, the idea that we put broadcasters on games in general… I don't think there's one broadcaster you could put in the booth who would bring one more viewer in."

On going on PTI: "There are probably 800,000 people that shut the TV off the moment they see the utilityman is in there."

On Barkley: "Tell me if you can come up with anyone else in sports who is that opinionated and that beloved." (Barbaro? Barbaro hated Jews, you know.)

On Shaq: "(He) stabbed Stan Van Gundy in the back… He wanted Stan Van Gundy to stop making him work harder."

Was it a douche move for Michael Phelps to hang up on him? "Uh… yeah?"

He also talks about getting smacked down by Jay Bilas, and he answers delightfully obnoxious questions from you, the readers. And does he talk race? Of course he does. He's Le Batard. All in all, Le Batard is quite the good-natured fellow and makes for an excellent guest.

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here.

Next week's Deadcast guest is Buzz Bissinger. Got a question/comment you need read for Buzz over the air? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as we argue about the slimming qualities of the goatee.

We have two Deadcasts this week. First up: a short (or should I say, FUN SIZE!) Deadcast with the great Joe Posnanski, who would like to apologize to Cleveland fans for penning this SI cover story that sealed the Cavs' eventual doom. Actually, I don't really know if Joe is sorry. But I made him read a scripted apology under threat of urineboarding, which seemed to work wonders.

Joe warned me prior to this podcast that's he very boring to talk to in person, so we spend a lot of time talking just what makes him so terribly, painfully dull. Ironically, this topic proved almost kinda not quite that interesting, which was nice. I also read Joe a selection of lesbian-themed haikus. I think it was an important topic to cover. We also talk about Joe's upcoming book on the Big Red Machine, a book Joe Morgan will almost certainly fail to read. And we talk about all the athletes that have threatened to kill Joe. Perhaps because he was boring them.

This first podcast of the week is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. And check out Posnanski's new SI.com column with Bill James here. I'm told it's very baseballey.

Friday's Deadcast guest is actress Justine Bateman. Why? Hey, why the fuck not? Got a question/love letter/restraining order you need read for Justine over the air? Send it to me here.

Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as I waste away twenty perfectly good minutes with the best sportswriter in America.

I was going to ask Marty B about trying to get playing time behind Jason Witten. I was going to ask him about the Cowboys incredible collapse against Philly in Week 17. I was going to ask him if Tony Romo will always be a choker. But I didn't. Mainly I asked him about chicken and fat women. We even played a game of "Healthy Fat or Unhealthy Fat" with famous buxom women. And frankly, that sort of analysis is far more in line with my expertise.

But there's more. Oh, so much more. Some choice quotes from Marty B…

On history: "It all started with the hobos."

On working as a lifeguard: "I don't do CPR. Once I get you out of the water, you're on your own after that."

On his taste in women: "Black men… we like ASS."

On Reggie Bush's woman, Kim Kardashian: "The butt is fake… they inserted throw pillows."

On salmon: "Most black people don't even know what salmon looks like."

On his physique: "I won the azz contest… I deserve a Bowflex commercial."

On eating dog: "I had dog at a Chinese restaurant one time." (Marty B also tells the story of Filipino neighbors who once stole all the neighborhood dogs and barbecued them. THAT'S NOT VERY NEIGHBORLY.)

On Oprah: "(Oprah) got enough money where she could buy real hair… she got enough like Magic Johnson getting over AIDS. She got enough money where she could find the cure for hair growth."

On TO's lame Twitter: "TO has the lamest Twitter."

On dating: "I would go Dutch. Or French."

On dinosaurs: "WHO THE HELL KNOW WHAT DINOSAURS SOUND LIKE? NO ONE WAS AROUND! THEY MIGHTA SOUNDED LIKE DOGS."

Goddamn right, they might have. We also talk about why black people can't swim, ugly groupies, having a shark in your bedroom, Marty B's psychic abilities, and the size of the Jack in the Box drive thru menu, which really is fucking huge…

AND THAT'S JUST A SINGLE QUADRANT OF IT!

This week's podcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Marty B's manager also wanted me to plug their series of social events called The Socialite, which I almost certainly would never be allowed into. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Got an email you want read over the air? Send it to me here. Now sit back, relax, and listen as Marty B puts me on hold four times to talk to Marcus Spears. SPEARS!!!!!!!

/shakes fist

Okay, not quite. Her parents were hippie drifters who occasionally did some light hoboing. But that's good enough for me. Selena and I also talk about the criticism her book has received, particularly from Murray Chass and Jason Whitlock. Roberts believes that Whitlock's criticism of her as a "hardcore feminist" could be a not-so-subtle dig at her homosexuality.

As for Chass, Roberts defends her use of anonymous sources. She also defends what she called "the omniscient voice" she uses in the book, which states facts about A-Rod without attribution (Example from page 145: "Alex was believed to have moved from Deca to Primo (two types of steroids) during the spring"), though she says she probably could have been more specific and mentioned that various sources corroborated the information. And, as a paragon of journalistic virtue myself, I agree. FIX YO SOURCES.

She also recounts the time, during her tenure at the NYT, when Chass sent her a long-winded email castigating her for sitting in his chair. Because he's a cranky old sack of shit, you see.

I also ask Roberts about the voluminous criticism she continues to get from Duke lacrosse supporters. She argues it's her job as a columnist to take hard stances, and she accepts any criticism she gets in return. She also says she wasn't the only one to criticize the Duke program right from the outset (she's right), but that people have made her the face of the enemy.

Finally, we get into her "ban" from ESPN, and then I subject Selena to a round of stupid questions. All in all, a decent way to spend 45 minutes in your car. In the meantime, since I read the whole damn book for this interview, here are some choice quotes and factoids from "A-Rod":

Page 87 – Former Mariner teammate: "He'd put one of those self-help books in front of his locker. He wanted us to see it: Look, I'm improving myself."

Page 95 – "Alex can't stand fat people," one friend says, "he really can't be around them." (Better not introduce him to KOGOD, then.)

Page 127 – "A clubhouse attendant was required to place toothpaste on Alex's toothbrush after every game." (See, this is the last thing I'd make a lackey do. There's no easier way for your toothbrush to end up inside someone's asshole than by making them paste it for you.)

Page 142 – "He came to me after the wedding and asked, ‘What do married people do?" a former teammate recalls." (Alex, I have no fucking idea.)

Page 165 – A-Rod's pickup line to women out clubbing: "Who's hotter: me or Derek Jeter?" (Jeter! Definitely!)

Page 172 – "Alex was known to venture into Iniquity – a swinger's club in Dallas."

Page 173 - "He would use corny pickup lines on a (teammate's) wife."

Page 185 – "Some (Yankee) teammates began to privately call him Bitch Tits"

Page 196 – "He is so infatuated with (Tom) Brady that buddies would joke about their bromance" (GAH!)

Finally, A-Rod was known to recite self-help haikus to himself. I found some online. Here's one:

Analyzing my
want, I found it was wanting.
But not wanting me.

Well, that's just fucking retarded.

This week's podcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Got an email you want read over the air? Send it to me here. Now sit back, relax, and listen as I try and get Selena to make fun of Mitch Albom's ears.

PHOTO: NYMag.com

It's graduation time again. Last year, I penned a message to the outgoing class of 2008, a message you almost certainly forgot because there was a picture of Cassandra Lynn sitting at the top of the page. And seeing a photo of Cassandra Lynn is like getting a defibrillator to your penis. So we'd best make this a yearly ritual for you new seniors out there, just to keep things fresh in your little ADD-addled brains.

This is the time of year when every university out there spends a great deal of energy flying in celebrities to give grad speeches. And do you know WHY colleges do this? It isn't because these people they get are actually all that inspiring. No, the reason that Oprah Winfey, for example, was hired to speak at this year's Duke graduation was specifically so that the school's student body could brag to other non-Duke people that they had some famous asshole talk at their graduation. "Who spoke at your Brandeis graduation, Tiffany? Oh, congressman Edolphus Towns? That's nice. (stifles chuckle) BUT WE HAD A WOMAN SPEAK TO US BY THE NAME OF OPRAH. PERHAPS YOU'VE HEARD OF HER. SHE IS MY CLOSEST BLACK FRIEND."

That's the reason there are celebrity graduation speakers: to boost the already healthy egos of the graduating class. It's strictly for name-dropping value. Oooh, you guys are so special, Fed Chairman Ben Barnanke wanted to give you a pep talk! This is bullshit. College grads don't deserve to be feted by celebrities, or honored, or lifted up with inspiring words. They deserve to be BROUGHT THE FUCK DOWN BY THE CRUSHING WEIGHT OF REAL LIFE'S BITTER DISAPPOINTMENTS. They deserve a stern lecture from someone like me, who is NOT famous, NOT inspiring, and NOT attractive to look at.

I bet you grads had one hell of a spring, didn't you? Oh, I bet you spent your whole spring taking a miniscule courseload, lounging on blankets outside on the quad, fucking each other, drinking your gay little Twisted Teas... I bet you even smoked pot on Wednesday morning, just for the hell of it. I bet you just had the time of your fucking lives the past four years, didn't you?

YOU MAKE ME SICK.

Guess what, fuckos? Party's over. You're out of college now, and your parents are now too poor to nurse you through grad school. No more fantasy life for you. No more ice luges. No more intellectual discourse. No more ripe teenage pussy. That's all over now. YOU ARE FUCKED. Your days will now consist of searching for a job in a marketplace where no available job of any sort fucking exists. Your commencement speaker will probably tell you your class "faces enormous challenges," or some bullshit euphemism like that. This is a lie. A challenge is something you can overcome. You, on the other hand, are completely, unavoidably fucked. You're not going to cure cancer. You're not going to stop wars. You're not going to save the planet. If you're lucky, you may stumble upon a $2 coupon for Honey Nut Cheerios one day. That will be about it.

Otherwise, you are entering a world that is running out of money, a world that will slowly choke itself to death unless it somehow stumbles upon a miraculously clean, cheap energy source that has yet to be invented and almost certainly never will be. Ten years from now, your degree will be 1/100th as useful as a fucking life vest. So wipe that nauseating smile off your faces and heed now this glimpse into your very near future…

95% of your future happiness will come from finding a good parking spot. You know that annoying Joni Mitchell song where she bitches and moans, "They paved paradise, put up a parking lot. OOOOOH BOP BOP BOP!" Suck it, you hairy-bushed twat. If it were up to me, there would be a 17-level parking garage on every other block in this fucking country. I swear to fucking God, I spend the majority of my time every weekend stalking outgoing Trader Joe's customers in my Honda, watching them walk to their cars, then having them wave me off because they weren't actually getting out. HEY COCKTEASE, GIVE ME A FUCKING HEADS UP.

I promise you, when you reach my age, not only will you exult at finding a great parking spot, but you'll immediately tell the first person you see about having secured it. "Yeah, I got a GREAT spot! I didn't even have to wait! Usually, that lot is a NIGHTMARE. God, I feel fucking good!"

The greatest indicator of your future success in the business world will be your ability to lie. Your degree is worthless. The only thing that will determine your chances of getting ahead is a surefire way to convince your boss you weren't cc'ed on some email that told you to do something you never bothered to fucking do.

At some point, you will not be able to sleep in past 8 or 9AM, and this will piss you off. I used to be cool. I used to be able to sleep until noon no problem. I SPAT RIGHT IN MORNING'S FUCKING EYE. No waking up at dawn for me. Waking up early is crazy gay. Am I right?

Except then I got a job, so I had to wake up early every day. Then, my body got used to waking up early every day, so it just woke the fuck right up at the same time on weekends, too. "But Body," I said to my big fat body, "There's nothing to fucking do, and I wanna sleep more." But my body wouldn't have it. Then I got married. Then I had kids. And holy shit, do kids wake up early. Not only does my kid come storming into the room at 6AM, but she screams WAKE UP at the top of her lungs every damn time. Having a kid is just like having a really mean spinning instructor. They give no fucking quarter. They're like tiny little Hitlers.

Now, even if there are no kids around, I wake up at 7AM at the latest. This should be good for me, I suppose. I get to run out and experience the full day, or something. But I don't feel that way. I feel like a complete asshat for getting up that early. I feel lamer than shit. Which is completely irrational. Then again, most anything I think or do now is beyond explanation. So rest up, kids. Because soon you'll be chewing Ambien like they're fucking Bubbalicious.

The day you become old is the day you find yourself looking at a paint swatch book. Holy shit, that shade of blue is only .000001 degrees away from that shade of blue! You practically have to view them at the atomic level to know the fucking difference! How the fuck am I supposed to choose? Fun fact: any paint color you choose will end up looking like a radically different color once applied to your walls. Why? Because the people at Sherwin-Williams are pricks, that's why.

You will begin caring about stupid shit in the front section of the newspaper. I used to read USA Today in college. I would read only two sections: Red and Purple. The green section was for boring assholes, and the front section was about a bunch of stupid political bullshit. I never cared about politics or world affairs when I was younger. College kids who care about politics are fucking douches. But suddenly, annoyingly serious shit like health care actually started to matter to me. And I don't like it one bit. I read an article in The Atlantic a while back. Voluntarily. I can't begin to tell you how annoyed I was at myself for this.

Don't get married just because there's a run on weddings. Happens to every group of friends, particularly women friends. Someone gets married off in your little group, then a bunch of your friends do likewise. It's like a run on wide receivers in the late second round of your fantasy draft. Do not get swept up in this. I had the good fortune of marrying someone I like, and it's what keeps me sane every day. But Lord knows I've seen a fuckload of people out there get married just because it everyone else was doing it and they got all swept up in the idea of being married. There isn't a surer way to fuck yourself for life than by doing this.

The reason so many people get divorced now is because they don't take the time to figure out if they actually enjoy the company of the person they're fucking. Marriage can make life infinitely better, provided the person you choose to marry is as dedicated to your happiness as you are to theirs. But if it's anything less than that, NEVER GET MARRIED. EVER. Or else your life will be a giant fucking rut. Guaranteed.

Weekends will stop being fun. During weekdays, you get to sit at a desk and look at Keyboard Cat videos.

During the weekend, you get to pull weeds, install smoke detectors, and feed screaming children. Guess which part of the week is more enjoyable? HAPPY MONDAY, FUCKO.

Rent. If you rent, you can call someone to fix shit if it breaks. FOR FREE. Is that worth not ending your life owning some old house your kid is just going to sell for pot money anyway? Fuck and yes.

You will get dumber every day from now on. You're done learning. Time to start forgetting shit! The other weekend I was sitting in the parking lot shuttle bus at the Baltimore airport, on my way to get my car after a flight, only to realize I had left my car keys at my parents' house, which was now 300 miles away. I then bit down on my own finger until I had broken the skin. I am retarded, and I am only getting worse. IT'LL HAPPEN TO YOU.

Going out will stop being appealing to you. What? I have to put on pants? And pay $5 for a drink when I have 30 beers in the fridge? And talk to people? FUCK. THAT.

There is no point in raising your kids well, because other people's retard kids will end up ruining them anyway. You can teach your kid good manners. You can feed them nothing but organic dairy products milked from an angel's tit. You can read your kid 500 Sandra Boynton books every night. I promise you, none of it will matter. Because once your kid goes to school, some spoiled sack of shit kid with horrible parents will teach your kid the word "pussyfart," get them hooked on straight Whoppers, and immediately undo every good thing you did. Trust me. Other people can't parent for JACK SHIT.

If you have more than three kids, you are an asshole. What the fuck are you trying to prove with more than three kids? Kids siphon up precious food and water, produce oceans of shit-ridden waste, and give American parents large tax breaks most of them really don't deserve. If you have more than three kids, and really even two, you deserve to have your have your uterus filled with sand.

You will find yourself, at times, tired of drinking. But you will continue drinking anyway. Beats the alternative, which is NOT drinking.

You will begin mailing in EVERYTHING. At some point, you will become so inundated with shit to do, that you will do ALL of it half-assed, because that's really the only way it'll all get done. Look at this column. It's nothing but a bunch of fucking bullet points. Really, I'd like to put more effort into everything I do. But I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Gilder to frame for it. I'm swamped!

Never put sauce on top of pasta. You're a grownup now. Make (or heat) the sauce in a separate pan, add a bit of the pasta water to it, drain the pasta a minute early, and then finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. That's how they make it taste good in restaurants. Do it and your date will put out.

The key to a decent existence is owning a good bed. Most of your future life will be consumed with addressing reams and reams of tedious bullshit. You'll have to work. You'll have to run errands. You'll have to clean shit and pick shit up. Your only salvation is that fucking bed at the end of the day. So make sure it kicks ass in every conceivable way. Get it all: the pillowtop mattress, the egg crate, the featherbed underneath, the nice comforter on top… ALL THAT SHIT. No day is ever that horrible if you have a sultan's rest awaiting you. You'll still wake up at 6AM involuntarily. But at least you'll still be nice and cozy when you do.

Got all that, graduates? Feel ready to go out and change the world now? No? Good. Because the world changes on its own terms, without your fucking input, thank you very much. The only thing you can do is adjust. Remember: the world has been around a whole lot longer than you have, and it has a limitless arsenal of ways to DESTROY YOUR FUCKING SHIT. So don't go out there thinking your going to impact it in any kind of meaningful way. You'll be here a little longer, then you'll die, then shit'll move on without you. Don't like it, Pollyanna? Tough fucking shit.

Look on the bright side. At least when you die, you'll finally be able to sleep in again. Until then, here's the boob scene from "Porky's Revenge" to numb your soul.

The NFL Draft is this weekend, so time for a special offseason edition of Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo. Enjoy.

I once worked at a large company that forced me to attend a company-wide meeting that was called to pay tribute to a company director who was retiring. If you've ever worked at a large company, you at some point have been forced to attend a company-wide meeting or two, which is the business world's equivalent of assembly. I fucking hated company-wide meetings, especially if it was done in conjunction with the company holiday party. "Hey guys, we want you to eat and drink all you like. But first, sit there for two hours while we bore the fuck out of you."

Anyway, this particular party consisted of speaker after speaker coming up to the podium to talk about how awesome this retiring guy was. Then they played a video tribute to him. Then I think they gave him a parting gift of, like, a Hawaiian vacation for his whole family and shit. It's always fun to sit there while someone you don't know, who makes oceans more money than you (this guy was retiring before fucking 50), is heaped with additional prizes and adulation they don't really need. It's never you on that podium getting the love at work. It's always some other asshole.

And what I find interesting about the NFL Draft is that each draft pick (particularly those who are invited to attend the event in New York) gets the same kind of treatment before they've ever done anything. It's a premature Hall of Fame ceremony of sorts. It's the exact inverse of how the real world works, which never stops blowing my mind.

People who hate the draft always bitch that it's idiotic to focus on the draft when you never know which players will pan out and which won't. But I'd argue that's exactly what makes it so interesting. Because, for roughly half the guys who walk onto that dais come Saturday, the draft will soon come to represent the absolute apex of their professional careers. The draft is either the beginning, or it's the beginning of the end. There's something fascinating whenever ESPN cuts to the draft footage of an old bust like Ryan Leaf holding up his new jersey at the Draft, smiling, totally unaware of the shit blizzard that's about to rain down upon him.

True, every draftee in attendance on Saturday will become rich beyond measure. But many of them will have dreams and ambitions that go beyond money. Many of them likely envision themselves as future football immortals, men who earn not only huge sums of money, but also the never-ending adoration from fans all over for their dominating play on the field. But that won't become a reality for all of them. For some draftees, the NFL will become a joyless vocation (as Stefan Fatsis has ably pointed out), full of unfulfilled expectations, jackoff coaches, and merciless fan criticism. It will fucking suck, just like any other job.

This comforts me. I like knowing Mr. Hot Shit Football Player up on that stage, unlike the retiree I had to see feted, still has the potential to fail miserably, his draft day serving as a bittersweet high point not only in his career, but in his entire goddamn life. That's good stuff.

There's a parallel experience for fans watching the draft as well. Your favorite team drafts a player. You watch Mel Kiper go through the tape and tell you all the awesome shit your new player can do. And then you start to daydream about all the ways Draftee X is going to fuck shit up and help your piece of shit team finally win a Super Bowl. Does it work out that way? Usually not. But that's what makes the NFL so interesting. Because the league only plays 16 games a year (and I hope they don't go beyond that), the NFL, more than any other sport, allows time for fans, players, and coaches to sit and ponder what will be. It allows you to build up a grandiose vision of how things will play out. More than any other sport, the NFL is a league that thrives on the joys of anticipation.

I can't vouch for every fan on this, but I know I personally spend more time THINKING about football than I do watching it (and I watch a great deal of it). That's part of the fun of being a fan. It's why I play fantasy football, why I read books about football, and all that other shit. Because not only is it fun to watch football, but it's fun to see how the real game ends up confounding all the expectations you had in your head for it. And it's fun to see how Draftee X really plays versus how you imagined he would play on the day he was drafted. Unless that draftee's name is Tarvaris Jackson. Fucking T-Jack.

So when people tell you they don't like the NFL Draft because they'd like to watch ACTUAL sports, you can kindly tell them to suck the latte off of Peter King's nutsack. Because the NFL Draft is ACTUAL sports. The idea that a sporting event is irrelevant without game competition fails to account for all the contextual factors that can make a game more interesting to begin with. If you watch a Lions game next year, and you aren't aware of all the time, money, and personal stakes that went into the process of drafting Matt Stafford (if that is who they end up taking), then chances are that game won't be as interesting for you as someone who IS aware of it.

Every game is an answer to a series of questions about a team and its players. The Draft is an event that helps provide a lot of those questions. And if you don't like it, you can still suck it. This is your 2009 NFL Draft Jamboroo.

The Offseason

All offseason events in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer interest on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.

Five Throwgasms

Jay Cutler To The Bears: The thing that still blows my mind about the whole Cutler incident is that Cutler, while always known to be a boastful douche, was never a real problem for the Broncos until Josh McDaniels came aboard. For three years, Cutler steadily improved under Mike Shanahan. The idea of trading him would have been idiotic. Then McDaniels comes aboard, and all of a sudden the Broncos are like, "This guy is a CANCER!" Really? Because he didn't seem to be one five months ago.

Keep in mind, nothing about Cutler as a football player had inherently changed in that time. Only the circumstances around him had shifted. And now Broncos fans are supposed to buy that somehow Kyle Orton is a better fit for the team than Cutler was? I hate taking the Simmons attitude of "Every GM is every league is a retard and I'm the only person who has any common sense," but that trade will always strike me as one of the most fucking bizarre moves in NFL history.

Michael Vick Getting His Own Reality Show: I think Vick's reality show should consist of him having to live with one of the families that adopted a Bad Newz dog and saved it from being destroyed by the government. "Hey dog, sorry I tried to, like, have you raped and killed for sport and shit. Friends?"

Gruden Getting Shitcanned: Nothing beats an unexpected coach firing. It makes me feel like a big man.

Four Throwgasms

The Story About Travis Henry Going Broke: I loved this quote best of all:

My counselor asks me, ‘How can you do the same thing over and over?'" he said, unable to provide an answer.

You know damn well that if a girl walked up to Travis Henry right now and said, "Hey, wanna go have unprotected sex?" he'd be balls deep in that chick within five seconds. Available pussy makes you forget things quite easily.

Matt Cassel Traded: The real shame of this trade is that it pushes Brodie Croyle even further down the Chiefs' depth chart. And the less there is of Brodie, the less there is of his wife's breasts.

Oof. Not to mention the striking brunette hair that helps frame said breasts. It's like seeing a majestic stage curtain opening.

Three Throwgasms

Madden Retiring: One thing that used to annoy me about Madden was back when he had his All-Madden team, and he'd have 83 players on it every year. I swear there was one year when he had the entire Cowboy and 49er rosters on the All-Madden team. Or he'd pick a guy for the team just because he did something particularly footballish. "Look! Dat guy rubbed mud on his pants! BOOM! ALL MADDEN!"

Fuck, he even put Tony Mandarich on the All-Madden team once, and Mandarich wasn't even in the NFL yet. That was the real problem with Madden: he'd always get enamored of certain guys and stay enamored of them forever. There wasn't much rhyme or reason to it. I also hated the fact that he refused to address Brett Favre by anything other than his full name.

Collinsworth Replacing Madden: I don't mind Collinsworth. But he begins nearly every sentence with this phrase, "I tell you what, this ____ team…" Like so: "I tell you what, this Indianapolis Colts team… They're gonna miss Marvin Harrison!" Once you notice him doing it, it's impossible to stop noticing it.

Adam Schefter Going To ESPN: Schefter, together with Jay Glazer, breaks roughly 95% of the league's important news. I can't tell if he'll make ESPN better, or if ESPN will make him worse. I can see some ESPN guy walking up to Schefter and going, "Hey, nice scoop on Matt Stafford there. You mind if we give that one to Michael Smith? Thanks, champ!"

Two Throwgasms

Gay Rule Changes: I understand not wanting players to get hurt. But this is getting fucking out of hand. You can't sack a quarterback from the ground anymore? You know what? Just put a red jersey on him and be done with it. And let's also soak the red jersey in jellyfish venom, so any defender that touches the quarterback goes into toxic shock for doing so.

So fucking dumb. Yeah, you don't want every player to be injured. But injuries are part of what make the storyline of a season interesting. I don't remember the Super Bowl suffering from Tom Brady's absence last season.

The other rule change that sucks is the elimination of wedge blocking on kickoffs. Not only will this reduce the number of long kickoff returns (and long kickoff returns fucking rule), but other outlets have already noted that it will also make recovering onside kicks more difficult. That's retarded. I want recovering onside kicks to be MORE likely, not less. Shit, I'd like all punts to also be considered live balls after 10 yards. Why the fuck would you go out of your way to make the game less interesting? All to protect a few special teamers? Fuck that. Those guys play special teams specifically because WE DON'T NEED THEM. Meanwhile, the PAT still exists for no good reason.

That One Mel Kiper Draft Promo: Reader Burt Destruction (not his real name, I would gather) writes in: "I was watching a commercial for the NFL draft this weekend and in the spot Mel Kiper is moving stats and pictures of draftees around with his hands like he was Tom Cruise in Minority Report. I don't know why I found it so funny but I think it has to do with how awkward he looks doing it and that someone thought this was a good idea. Please check it out if you get a chance." I too saw this ad. It's like they want you to believe Kiper creates these players in a fucking lab. Not that he hasn't tried.

One Throwgasm

Donte' Stallworth Killing A Guy: I think Stallworth's problem was compounded by the fact that, not only was he drunk, but he hit the dude while driving a damn Bentley. Even if he had been stone sober during the collision, and obeyed every traffic law, no one ever takes the side of a Bentley driver in an accident. If you drive a Bentley, you are an asshole.

ESPN Hiring Matt Millen: Gee, I wonder who might have pushed for that to happen:

Matt Millen is great on TV. Not good, he's great. The booth that he walks into will become the best booth. Even if he walks over my body and sits in my seat, it's going to become the best. He's just great at it, and in six months or less people will forget.

Oh, you really think we're going to forget how badly Millen sucked as a GM, Tony? Really? You think he's that fucking dazzling of a commentator that our memories of that spewing volcano explosion of retardery will be wiped clean from the collective consciousness? FUCK YOU. "Hey Jaws, how about having Matt Millen in the studio? IS THAT NOT A HUGE COUP FOR OUR NETWORK? Would you have ever guessed, IN A MILLION YEARS, that we would have such an incredible talent in our midst?"

This is so fucking annoying. Don't tell me he's so awesome, Tony. I remember Millen as a commentator, and I've never fucking liked that prick. This is why people get so fucking pissed at the media. Someone goes and hires a gasbag like Millen just because he's buddy-buddy with a bunch of other assholes in the room. I'm glad this site would never stoop to bringing in poorly informed contributors strictly out of cronyism.

Favre Retiring: Whatever. Fuck that old shit. I hope your land turns fallow, Favre. FALLOW!

Predraft Song That Makes Me Want To Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall

"Oblivion," by Mastodon. And holy living fuck does that band's new album BLOW UP MY SHIT. Even the concept behind it fucking rocks:

The album follows a quadriplegic who learned to astrally project and on his journey he flew too close to the sun, burning his umbilical cord which connected him to his body and he flew into oblivion. At the same time in Czarist Russia Rasputin and his cult were channeling spirits and brought the quadriplegic to their time. He explains his situation and foretells the assassination of Rasputin. Inevitably Rasputin is assassinated and Rasputin guides him back to his body.

Why does the quadriplegic have an umbilical cord attaching his spectral body to his physical body? BECAUSE THAT'S FUCKING METAL, THAT'S WHY.

These guys aren't fucking around. This isn't like some typical boring metal shit where the band changes time signatures seven times mid-song without giving the song any kind of real foundation. Like old Metallica, Mastodon creates songs that echo classical music in terms of scope and structure. You could listen to "Crack the Skye" dozens of times and still find new things on each successive listen. That's what great albums do. They invite you to come live inside the music. They have songs you want to learn in your mind inside and out. To this day, I can still replay in my head the entirety of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" from start to finish. Every lyric. Every riff. And that's what I want to do with this incredibly badass piece of work.

Say, how exactly does Mastodon pull off a concept album like this? Acid. Lots of acid.

The Mastodon brain trust of Hinds and Dailor get their weird lyrical ideas the old-fashioned way: "It comes from us doing too much acid," Hinds says. "Acid is the best drug in the world. It did the most amazing things for my creative psyche, and it still is doing it for me."

Seeking refuge from an operatically awful childhood, drummer-lyricist Dailor tripped almost nonstop from the age of 14 until his early 20s. "I went to high school on acid," he recalls. "Droppers filled with liquid acid on my tongue and just going for it, fully exiting what I consider to be an earthly plane. And when the acid wore off, I had a connection with that kind of music, with Frank Zappa and Yes and King Crimson."

I want to do acid now. I really do.

Embarassing Mixtape Track I Once Owned That Will Not Fire You Up
"Candy," by Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson. Fun fact: if you shaved Madonna's head and Iggy Pop's head, they'd look exactly alike. Oh, Kate Pierson. I have no doubt you were a stone cold tigress in the bedroom back in the day.

Ten Quick Ways To Improve The Draft Telecast
1. Increase the number of prospects invited to New York to 30. Make them all sit on stage until their name is called to step up.
2. Wiretap all draftees' cell phones.
3. Fire everyone on ESPN set but Tirico and Kiper.
4. All draft picks announced by drunken fans of respective teams and/or Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef.
5. Force the Top 10 prospects to live in a house together between the combine and the draft and film it. Right before the draft, have them each vote on who they think should be the top pick (they can't vote for themselves). Winner with the most votes gets $500,000.
6. Tits (preferably Kelli Croyle's).
7. Announce combine drug test results right before draft begins.
8. Force teams to show their draft boards once the draft has ended.
9. All seventh round picks decided by fan poll.
10. Ritual Pussycat Doll sacrifice to hooded cobra.

Nazi Shark's Vegas Futures Lock Of The Week
Lots of sports sites, to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of gambling, like to have animals like monkeys pick games to see if they can outwit their human counterparts. There's no reason we at Deadspin can't also get in on the fun. So we've asked National Socialist German Workers' Party member Rolf, who also happens to be a shark, to pick one game a week. Take it away, Nazi shark.

"This week, I like the Saints at 10:1 to win the NFC title next year. Kudos to Bernie Madoff for Jewing so many rich Jews out of their hard-swindled Jew money. I wholly support this new epidemic of Jew-on-Jew wallet violence."

Great Moments In Sports Poop History
Reader cowbell204 sends in this poop story. Take it away, fair reader.

"A couple of years ago when I was a junior in college, I drove down to Bloomington to see and Iowa-Indiana football game. On my way back, I'm driving on a pretty empty stretch of Interstate when I realize i have a poop coming. I figure, "no big deal, I'll stop at the next exit". 15 minutes pass with no gas stations/rest stops. I'm trying to drive and not die while clenching my ass. Realizing that shitting my pants is favorable over death, I shit myself going 75 mph on I-35.

"After driving 10 more miles while trying not to sit on what felt like warm ice cream, I pulled over at a gas station to find shit leaked out of my pants and onto the seat. Waddling into the bathroom, I duck into a stall to find my underwear and shorts are encased in poop, after using half a roll of tp to clean myself off, I threw my underwear away and got back on the road. Having to work when I got home, I pulled off at the next rest stop to change out of my shitty shorts into clean pants."

The question there is: Why didn't you pull over and poop on the side of the road? You could have pulled over, opened the right two side doors to create and makeshift stall partition, and dropped trou between them. Alas, you stuck yourself with a poopy car seat. To counteract car poop, I strongly recommend the "New Car Smell" tree car freshener. As car fresheners go, "New Car Smell" is the winner. Never get Cherry Vanilla. You'll regret it, I assure you.

Draft-time Snack Of The Week

Blister peanuts! You can get those fuckers at Trader Joe's. It almost is worth the douche stigma of going to Trader Joe's. According to the nut literature:

"Generations ago folks soaked peanuts in water to removed the red skins prior to roasting. This caused the peanuts to 'blister' during roasting, resulting in an incomparable crunch."

It's true. Those things are none more crunchy. I had no idea you could make peanuts even better simply by giving them third degree burns. We should do that with all foods, like almonds. And baby calves.

Draft-time Beer Of The Week

Genesee! This old Genesee ad from 1958 combines two things I've always adored: shitty beer and horrible Asian stereotypes. Genesee with fortune cookie? YOU CLAZY, STERRPID AMELLICAN!

Robert Evans' Top Pick Watch!
Who's gonna go in top slot? Legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans joins us to give us his assessment. Take it away, Mr. Evans.

"Baby, your top pick in Saturday's draft is Matthew Stafford! I like the cut of his jib. Young? You bet! Impulsive? You know it, baby. Reminds me of my early days on the Paramount lot. I remember meeting this one tour guide from Georgia. Had an ass made of helium. Tits like two fresh sourdough rolls. I took her to an alley between two of the sound stages and gave her a taste of the Kid. Fucked her until she was red on the ass. Upon seeing her rosy backside, I shouted out, 'TORO!', as I am often prone to doing.

"Little did I know a producer was watching us from a nearby window. Surprised? You bet! Embarassed? Not a chance. And that's how Evans ended up getting the role of Pedro in The Sun Also Rises, gang!"

Sunday Afternoon Movie Of The Week For Cowboys And Panthers Fans (No First Round Picks)

Shoot To Kill. I forgot how shitty this movie was. Tom Berenger looks like the lead singer of Loverboy here. And you really haven't lived until you've seen the great Sidney Poitier make goofy faces to scare off a grizzly bear. You can actually see him losing his precious dignity around the 90-second mark. Speaking of Sidney…

BONUS Sunday Afternoon Movie Of The Week For Cowboys And Panthers Fans (Hey, It's A Long Draft)
Sneakers. "Hello. My name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me." Restaurant drive-thru speakerbox cashiers are not amused when you repeat this line over and over to them.

I find Sneakers to be an exceedingly pleasant and watchable movie. The only thing that bothered me about it was when everyone on Redford's team at the end starts demanding shit from James Earl Jones. Whistler only wants peace on earth? Bullshit. If I'm a blind guy, I'm demanding some of the government's secret robot eye implants. And all River Phoenix wants is some broad's phone number? Like someone who looks like River Phoenix would need top secret government intervention to help score hot Fed pussy. Not a chance, my friend.

Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
"Oh, Mr. Burns, we'll thaw you out the second they discover the cure for seventeen stab wounds in the back."

Draft-time Masturbation Kit
-For the guys: Egotastic brings you nude stills of Jessica Biel's strip scenes from the movie Powder Blue. (NSFW) I find it immensely gratifying when an actress not only gets naked in a film, but gets naked the way you'd like them to get naked. Look at Biel here. Back arched? Ass out? That's good nudity. No lying on a bed with her nipple grazing the corner of the screen bullshit for her. We salute you, Jessica.
-For the gals: Some ripped dude in a blue swimsuit. It's like Dr. Manhattan come to life!

Your Motivational Pre-draft Quote For The Weekend
"Don't be lost when the time comes, for the day of the Lord cometh like a thief in the night!"
-Rev. Cleophus James

Enjoy the draft, everyone. See you back here in September.

Yes, it's Pro Football Talk editor and the original inspiration behind the Great Moments In Sports Poop History series, Mike Florio.

I talk with Florio about the genesis of his site and the Internet contributions of bored lawyers the world over, why working at home turns everyone into Jack Torrance at some point, Florio's self-published football sci-fi novel (He never told me the title of it. I bet "OUR QUARTERBACK IS A CYBORG!" is a close guess), and why the NFL needs to institute corporal punishment.

From there, we move onto the Cutler deal and how Bus Cook ended up stealing the "NFL's #1 douchebag agent" title from Drew Rosenhaus, the Seahawks' sudden urge to draft a QB, how the draftee evaluation process is designed to make prospects eventually fuck up, the intimidating nature of letterhead, and why the bloated rookie salary scale is hurting the entertainment value of the Draft.

And of course, we discuss Terry Bradshaw's unfortunate nondeath. It's 50 minutes that might actually end up entertaining you. I even learn halfway through to NOT step on every goddamn word the guest says. Miraculous.

This week's podcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Got an email you want read over the air? Send it to me here. Now sit back, relax, and allow me to penetrate your ears with my girthy vibrato.

This week, Jeff Pearlman joins me to talk about his new book (buy it here.) We talk about the steroid allegations Pearlman levies against Mike Piazza. We talk about Charles Haley's massive penis. We talk about Pearlman's last book, Boys Will Be Boys, and whether or not Michael Irvin deserved the kind of redemptive treatment Pearlman gave him at the end of the book. My argument was, there are only so many times you can stab a teammate in the fucking neck with scissors and give your wife HPV before you are beyond redemption. Pearlman doesn't quite agree. BECAUSE HE'S A CODDLER!

And in our second podcast, Leitch and I get into the games from last weekend and why they were such a big cocktease. We also talk about Jason Whitlock's intense dislike of Leitch, hipster wife beaters, why director's chairs are so horrible to sit in, and Daulerio's uncle, who is a toupee cobbler. True story. Be sure to drink every time Leitch stutters or I say the phrase "sort of". Your blood will turn into floor cleaner in no time!

I'm happy to report that we have improved sound for this week's Deadcast. You can hear us talk! Nice! It's better on the Pearlman segment than the Leitch segment, but we'll have Leitch loud and clear by next week's show, if it's the last fucking thing I ever do. AND we have a theme song, courtesy of the Spencer Hall Blues Explosion. Because dammit, that's what the 44th most popular podcast IN THE GODDAMN WORLD deserves.

Both podcasts are available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us, and to Jim Cooke for the bitchin' logo. Got an email you want read over the air? Send it to me here. Now sit back, relax, and listen to me bitch about people with walkie talkies.

Yes, it's the first ever Deadcast. Featuring me, your editor at large, and that raisin-eating, emo-banged motherfucker Will Leitch. In our maiden voyage, we talk about the brackets, mustache rides, Sebastian Bach, and much, much more.

And later on, Spencer Hall of EDSBS joins me for a civilized discussion on why post-workout poops are often gargantuan in size. Also, I say the word "like" 459 times. Nice. It's everything you wanted in a podcast, except for good sound levels and enlightened discussion.

Parts 1 and 2 of the podcast can be heard here. You can also find us at the iTunes music store later in the day. Just search "deadspin" and we should come up (I'll update this post with a link when it's ready). (UPDATE: Here it is.)

Since this is our first podcast, it has the usual kinks to be worked out. My goal next week is for Leitch to sound like he isn't trapped in a broom closet. And the first part of the podcast cuts off abruptly because I didn't know Garageband stops recording after 30 minutes or so. Fucking Garageband. HOW DARE MY FREE SOFTWARE NOT BE OPTIMALLY SUITED FOR MY NEEDS.

In the future, we'll try and have on some guests and polish this thing into something approaching a professional broadcast. We'll try and record this fucker once a week. If you have any questions you'd like addressed on the air, feel free to email me here. For now, enjoy the first ever DEADCAST… THE PODCAST FROM DEADSPIN! DEADCAST! RAHHHH!

Many of you have read it. It's about Matt Steven, the blind kid from Upper Darby, Pa with a 50% free throw percentage who played in a CYO game. Yes, it's a nice story, but unfortunately, it also has all the writerly flourishes that make a Rick Reilly story a Rick Rielly story: Stilted melodrama. Small towns. Handicapped kids. Stale jokes. Bad puns.

Observe the Rielly-iest sections:

• "The packed gym goes silent, save for the tapping of a white cane on the back of the rim. That's right. The shooter's brother is under the hoop, rapping a cane on the rim. That's because the shooter, Matt Steven, is blind."

• "A blind kid was going to be his team's designated shooter. Hey, it's still better than Shaq."

• "He was escorted back to the bench, where he grinned as if he had just kissed the head cheerleader."

• "But Matt already knows what it's like to be hurting. Hurting is being born with two permanently detached retinas. Hurting is having your left eye removed in the fifth grade and the right in the sixth. Hurting is when they send you to a high school for the blind even though the last thing you want is to be around only other blind kids. Matt wants to be around other kids. He aches to be treated normal. Not "He does so great for a blind kid!" Just normal."

• "Nine guys are running around Matt, who's trying to find a way to the bench. Make that 10, since Ryan's already off the bench and pressing. Make that 11, since Joe — tears in his eyes — is trying to get to Matt. Chaos. Joy. Wonder."

• "His teammates call him Shooter. A girl says she heard all about him. He's even thinking about asking somebody to prom...I hope she says yes. Best blind date of her life."

And now we have our own little heartwarming tale of two young upstarts overcoming adversity. Behold the new Fake Rick Reilly Twitter feed. Enjoy it while you can.

Matt Steven Is Blind, But He'll Take The Last Shot [ESPN The Mag]