Your letters:
Andy:
What if it came out that all these bananas deals that Chip Kelly has been completing were the result of rabies, or some other confirmed psychosis? Do you think there would be an outcry for the moves he made to be rescinded? I'm talking a clearly diagnosed mental explanation, not the run-of-the-mill billionaire craziness that Al Davis or Jerry Jones has.
Well, let's start by noting that Chip Kelly is NOT rabid, and has not shown any physical symptoms of having been bitten by a feral squirrel that was foaming at the mouth and determined to keep Kelly away from its horde of delicious, delicious chestnuts. None of that has been proven. We don't KNOW that Kelly has become a power-mad monarch driven to insanity by a raging case of syphilis contracted from one of the ladies of the night who prowl for lonesome carriagemen down by the wharf at twilight. Now, sure, trading away Nick Foles for Sam Bradford and tossing in a pick for good measure could certainly be construed as the act of a man in throes of a rainbow brain seizure. But for now, Kelly appears to be perfectly sane and in possession of all his mental faculties.
But if it DID come out that he was stockpiling backs because a mad scientist had transfused him with radioactive blood from the body of Matt Millen, turning him into some kind of deranged green man-goblin, I think the NFL would just let it slide. You can't take back those moves, even though the Eagles will be DYING to when Bradford tears six different bones (yes, bones—he has moved on to tearing bones now) in week two.
I mean, let's face it: The entire NFL is mentally ill. All the owners are senile narcassists. All the coaches are on the Asperger's spectrum. All the players are having their brains mushed. The commissioner is clearly delusional and sees his dad's ghost every time he has to fine someone for spitting. And the fans, above all else, are somehow even nuttier. The NFL has no right to point at one guy and be like, "Now THAT guy is crazy," even if that would make for a fantastic diversion from the rest of football's lunacy. Kelly's moves would stand; the Eagles and league officials would just delicately shove him out the door to get him the care he needed. And then void his contract.
Greg:
An ex-girlfriend of mine told me a few months ago that a single, mutual friend of ours tried to do a couple rounds of in vitro and it didn't work out. This friend tried it by herself. She is also a lawyer, except she is successful and shit. So successful she was willing to pay money to be a single mother.
Should I propose to this woman that I be her natural (meaning we just bang it out) sperm donor, and that I raise the kid to the full extent that she will allow me to? I can't afford a kid, but I want one. She, apparently, can afford a kid, but can't afford the crapshoot of a third or fifth round of in vitro. Also, we had sex a few times about five years ago. We're still cool. I don't want a romantic relationship with the woman, but I think she and I could be great parents. Should I propose this, or am I fucking crazy?
I wouldn't do it. What if you agree to sire a child for your old fuck-buddy and then you stumble upon an actual wife of your own? And you have kids with that wife? Then you've got a nuclear family to take care of, but then you also have an obligation to care for the child that you conceived with your friend, and then it would be WEIRD. You'd have to have some clear parameters with the mother before doing something like that. Are you fully involved? Do you see the kid once a month? What's that gonna do to a kid? If she wants to be a single mom, then more power to her. But if you're gonna be the dad, you have to go FULL DAD. You can't go 10-percent dad, unless you have a really fast car and good tickets to all the best sporting events.
Kids learn to love from their parents. They learn what love is and what it means and what it takes. Having parents who love each other is preferable, even if it's not always realistic in today's day and age, with divorces and surrogates and all kinds of other family dynamics going on. So wait it out if you can. Besides, there's nothing I enjoy more than making kissy-faces with my wife while my oldest kid is like EWWWWWW THAT'S SO GROSS! I was so embarrassed by my parents growing up, but now I get the angle. It's the ultimate troll move on a kid.
Sam:
If the every NFL player suddenly became a free agent, and every team had to negotiate new deals with players with no rules other than the existing salary cap, which team would be the most successful? Which team would fuck it up the most?
I assume that the teams that have proven successful at managing free agency and the cap lately—New England, Seattle, Pittsburgh, etc.—would figure out a way to assemble the best team possible. I mean, at some point, every good NFL player has his contract come up, and the team is faced with keeping him or turning him loose in favor of cheaper talent. Mass free agency would simply replicate that process on a huge scale. The only thing that might fuck it up would be the quarterback class. Every good quarterback would get overpaid in a scrambled free-agency market, and the teams that end up securing Tom Brady and Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson might not have as much space left over for talent as some other team that misses out on all the ELITE passers.
But who am I kidding? All quarterbacks are overpaid now, anyway. Jay Cutler is due $16.5 million next season. If anything, a scrambled free-agent market would help push his insane salary DOWN. I'm not paying $16.5 million for the Jay Cutler I just saw.
By the way, the team that would fuck it up the most would be the Skins, obviously. I know they've been "quiet" in free agency (hey, who would have guessed that the unofficial team of conservative free-speech rights would bring in Chris Culliver?), but trust me: They would fuck it up anyway. They could sign the entire Seahawks roster … as it is right now … and go 5-11 with it. Do you know how quickly Russell Wilson would turn into RG3 here? It would blow your mind. These people are really good at fucking things up.
LaDanian:
Why don't running backs and receivers ever throw the ball away like quarterbacks when they're behind the line of scrimmage?
Because they can't be trusted to do it correctly. Throwing the ball away is much harder than it looks, especially if you're in the center of the field and a defender has you in a compromising position. How many times have you seen some terrible QB like Mark Sanchez attempt to throw the ball away, only to have it not go far enough, and then get intercepted? And that's a professional (kinda) quarterback making that mistake. The sideline is much farther away than it looks.
Also, no running back (except for Trent Richardson) wants to give up on a play until he's down. Every running back thinks he can break every tackle, until he's on the turf and covered by six other bodies. They aren't giving up if they're still upright. Again, unless it's Trent Richardson doing the running.
Michael:
I have a waist that fluctuates between 32 and 33 inches—almost daily, it seems. I fall right on the borderland between wearing a small belt (28-32) and the medium belt (33-38). My question for you is, is it better to use the last slot in the small belt and risk a little mild discomfort after lunch, or should I use the first slot on the medium belt and deal with the annoying four inches of extra belt that doesn't tuck nicely under the pant-loop?
First off all, go to hell for having a tiny European man-waist. You are one of five men who can shop at a Banana Republic and find pants that actually fit. God damn you. "Welcome to Banana Republic. If you're not size 34 or lower, suck it."
Anyway, if you can't find some belt that represents a happy medium for your Julian Casablancas-like figure, I would go with the larger option, because it gives you room to grow. There's not the constant fear of waking up one morning and discovering your nascent FUPA has broken containment. It's a terrible feeling. To get a bit of room after some meals, I have hiked the front of my pants up and OVER my stomach to prevent the belt buckle from digging in underneath. Do you know how awful that feels? That's Charlie Weis territory. Anyway, go with the larger belt.
Nick:
If you had the power (and choice), which finger would you piss out of? I feel like the ring finger would be a bad idea for numerous reasons, but the other four appendages present intriguing options.
The index finger is the obvious No. 1 choice: It would provide me with the accuracy needed to hit the toilet AND aim a stream of piss at my enemies if need be. That's crucial. You're not getting good aim with the ring finger. You'd end up pissing all over your other fingers, and that would be bad.
Second choice is the pinky, because you could flick it to the side and let out a piss in the bushes with some measure of discretion. That would be nice, honestly. It would be nice to piss in public without unbuckling my pants, taking my dick out, and feeling like a sex offender. I'm just trying to piss here. It's not my fault it comes out of the most threatening part of the male anatomy.
Ian:
Out of everyone alive, who loves football the most? It has to be between Jaws and Gruden right? I get that they play it up for television, but even Chris Collinsworth seems detached at times. Even the most die-hard fan on the planet presumably has a job and/or a kid and/or something else that occupies some of his attention, thought, and concern. I think if those two (Jaws and Gruden) were given a choice of doing anything with their lives, it would be talking about football, and that makes me uncomfortable.
It's not Jaws or Gruden. It's some high school coach somewhere. As deranged as NFL people are, they're nothing compared to crazy-ass Texas high school football coaches and parents and boosters and shit. Public guys like Gruden are passionate about both football AND going on television. But for some sad old divorced middle-aged high school scout, there's NOTHING else. They'll just break down shitty tape or re-watch old Section AAAAA playoff games all day long. High school sports fanatics scare me to death.
Also, certain fantasy football players probably love fantasy football so much that they think of literally nothing else. I've been to the forums, man. There are guys asking for roster grades in May and shit. Those guys love football more than anyone you see on TV. They got nothing going on outside of that.
HALFTIME!
Rory:
Let's say there was an alien invasion of aggressors. As in, these aliens do not want to make peace with our fat, lazy carcasses. Under the circumstances, the UN and each nation in the world bands together to form a human-race coalition, which slowly but definitively defeats the invading species. We lose hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of people in the fight, but we win.
My question: How long does the feel-good atmosphere surrounding the human race's victory last before we return to arguing over our partisan, petty differences and the state of North Korea with relation to big-budget Hollywood films starring James Franco?
A day? It wouldn't even take that long. We would have cable-news anchors dishing scorching takes on our counter-invasion strategy WHILE we were trying to win the Alien War. And what if we take alien POWs? Imagine the arguments and thinkpieces that would come from that issue alone. Should we kill them? Dissect them? Torture them to get their spaceship designs (this one gets my vote)? Put them in a zoo? Give them work permits and try to integrate them into the human population to show them we are kind and forgiving?
And while we were fighting the war, we'd also be distracted by people still arguing about Kanye's new single and all that. I am bored easily. Once I've seen a week of Alien War footage, I've seen it all. All I need are periodic Alien War updates after that. In the meantime, I have a St. Louis Cardinals rant to spew out.
Even in the face of some grand calamity or mass world triumph, human nature is such that we'll always have differences and always bitch to each other about them. If we didn't, we'd just be a race of emotionless drones. Like Norwegians. The whole world would be like Norway.
Josh:
Do you think time travel would be okay if you could only go into the future and not the past? That way you'd never alter history.
But you would! If you go into the future and find out that Future Hitler (also known as Hitler II) has killed millions of people, and then you come back to the present and kill Baby Future Hitler (which would be difficult but necessary), then you HAVE altered history, and who knows if that causes a black rift in the space-time continuum or not. It's not like you CAN'T kill Future Hitler. You gotta do it. Just close your eyes and pretend you're stabbing a loaf of bread instead of a poor baby.
Robbie:
I recently traveled to Spain, where it is unacceptable to tip for anything. If we didn't tip for anything in the U.S., how much do you think you would save a year? It would be at least in the thousands, right?
No, because restaurants would raise prices in order to accommodate lost tip wages. That's the current argument going on in the restaurant industry right now, with certain restaurants ditching tipping and paying waiters a straight salary (with health benefits) instead. Not all servers like that, apparently, because on a good tipping night you can make a shitload, with most of that money coming in straight, untraceable cash. That's waiters for you: always looking to hit the big jackpot. THE ACTION IS THE JUICE.
Anyway, we should get rid of tipping and just give busboys a dental plan already.
Kelly:
I have been with the boyfriend going on six years, and there's something he does that I just don't understand: Every time he goes to the bathroom, he takes his phone. He spends more time in the bathroom than any other part of house. What the hell can he really be doing in the bathroom all that time? I go in the bathroom, I do my thing, and I get out. Why can't he do the same, and why does he always need his phone? My other question has to do with jerking off. What the hell is the need for it if I am around? I can see if I was out of the house, but I am right here where he can get it. Does that mean he likes his hand more than me?
I take my phone into the bathroom because I like the idea of staring at it without anyone staring at me for staring at it. In the shitter, no one can judge me for playing five rounds of Flow and not talking at all. The bathroom is where people go when they want to be antisocial. And to poop.
As for the other thing, no sane man prefers hand action to real sex. But listen, sometimes you get a big ol' boner, and you'd rather just take care of it quickly then go through the whole PROCESS of seeing if sex is an option for the evening. Maybe the girlfriend had a bad day. Maybe she just had sex with you the night before, and you kinda already know she'll say no if you ask. Sometimes it's better to just go and spend two minutes doing your business and not bother anyone with it. It is a GIFT to you, by God. You should thank him! Buy him chocolates every time he does it.
Andrew:
Without fail, between two and three times a week, I will go into the men's room at my place of employment to discover that someone has left the toilet unflushed. It varies in the level of nastiness, but it's never not unpleasant to come across when I have to use the john.
Now, even though all the toilets at my work are of the automatic-flushing variety, in these instances, it's clear the toilet's sensor didn't register. And yet, EVERY toilet also has the little button you can push to MANUALLY flush the toilets. Clearly, when I stumble across these unflushed toilets, it means the guys who left them that way are just assholes, right?
I assume they just clogged the toilet, no? That's why I would flee a work bathroom with a floater still in there. I can't imagine getting up from a shit and just walking away, like Steph Curry walking away from a three-pointer without watching it go in. Anyone who willfully does that is either a sick prankster who WANTS you to discover his handiwork, or some bigwig manager with a Bluetooth headset who's just like DURRRRRR I'M TOO BUSY CLOSING THE BRADLEY ACCOUNT TO FLUSH DURRRR. The only reason to leave the turd there is because you flushed the toilet and discovered that the auto-flush is woefully inadequate in terms of water pressure (this is always the case), and then you fled the scene so that the FBI wouldn't come and haul you off to Poundtown for clogging the pipes.
This is probably some deeply embedded leftover childhood fetish, but I still love flushing the toilet and watch the poop swirl down. It brings me closure. It's like a tiny funeral.
Marc:
My office gets donuts once a week. Each week, it's a different employee's responsibility to pick them up. Today was my turn.
Most people just buy the normal two dozen, bring them to the office, and enjoy them with their colleagues. I, on the other hand, got extras, ate them on the way back to work, and then brought the untouched two-dozen into the office with me as if I hadn't had any. I dug in with my co-workers without them knowing I already had donuts in my system. This seems like something you would do. Also, what is the best community office food?
It's hard to beat donuts, man. Especially when they're fresh and are clearly marked for communal enjoyment. Also, even if you get the worst donut, you still got a donut. My list would go:
1. Donuts
2. Pizza
3. Hotel pan filled with wrapped, warm breakfast burritos
4. Chips
5. Bagels. One day, office workers will learn to open and use a container of cream cheese without it looking like a painting accident afterward.
6. Fancy chocolates
7. Sandwiches. It's terrible to get stuck with a bad one after all the turkey sandwiches and Italian subs have been claimed. There are way too many eggplant sandwiches on this platter, bossman.
8. Stale Danishes
9. Old-ass pasta that's always overcooked
Phil:
If you were forced to go a round with either Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson—each in his prime—who would you choose? I'd go with Ali. I want no part of Iron Mike in the late '80s.
Ali would probably be more inclined to take mercy on me. He'd clown me and dance around and scare me with jabs, but he wouldn't kill me. Old Tyson would kill me instantly. No hesitation. Then he would eat my children.
Cole:
Would the 76ers win the NCAA tournament, assuming they're a 1-seed?
Yes. They would kick the shit out of everyone, and I'm not just saying that as a reactionary thing. How many times have you seen a big dog college player like Marcus Fizer go to the NBA and end up being just average? Okay, well now imagine a team of 12 Marcus Fizers going back to college for a couple weeks to play against the kids. They may be the Sixers, but they're still wildly talented compared to their college counterparts. Also, I bet they'd get a big kick out of winning stuff for a change.
Chris:
A number of drug commercials include "strange dreams" in the list of possible side effects. What does that mean, exactly? I've dreamed some pretty bonkers shit in my time without ever being on any serious medication.
Yeah, but try sleeping with Vicodin sometime. It's like walking onto the set of an Ozzy Osbourne video. You experience some disturbingly real things. It's not a good feeling to wake up feeling like the goat's head is still ramming into you.
Andrew:
What if one day, LeBron suddenly became a huge proponent of the Men's Rights movement? Like, he embraced being the face of it? Would all his sponsors drop him? What would the NBA do?
A few sponsors might drop him, but otherwise, I assume the NBA would just ignore it unless he said something REALLY ugly. I mean, plenty of pro athletes—especially baseball players—are already philandering chauvinists who aren't exactly wild about social progress.
Email of the week!
Sean:
In 1990, my family moved to an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood in Houston, Texas. One of our new next-door neighbors, a plastic surgeon with a thriving practice, had a wife and four kids. The surgeon's youngest son was my age, so we hung out together and our families got more acquainted.
Eventually, my family learned about this surgeon's history. In the late '70s, he worked as a DJ and spent time with a lot of ladies who were getting breast implants. When he heard how much these women were paying for elective surgery, he looked into the profession and discovered something interesting: In Texas, you didn't actually need an MD to practice certain types of surgery. He earned his DO (almost identical education/residency as an MD today, but not 30 years ago), passed the state exams, and started doing breast augmentations, liposuction, and penis enlargements by the dozens. The local classic rock radio station gave away his boob jobs as prizes, and he even had a TV commercial with his own jingle ("Come see Dr. Ringer / He'll put a Ringer in your Dinger!") Though most plastic surgeons don't take insurance because they are performing elective surgeries, this guy's practice had the distinction of accepting cash payment only.
Fortunes turned south quickly for the surgeon, figuratively and literally. He had a crook's touch with the scalpel, judging from the number of malpractice cases and horror stories. Read all about needles left inside patients and gaping wounds (not the good kind) at the links below. Unmarked black-market implants were used, and he stole a metric fuckton of demerol, which he was in and out of rehab for. After the shit hit the fan, they moved out of the neighborhood just before 2000. I heard he had to stay in Brazil for a while to avoid extradition for fraud charges, which stemmed from his refusal to pay malpractice settlements.
After a short suspension of his medical license, he practiced "family medicine" in Houston until his death in 2011.
As an adult, it's creepy knowing that when I was over at the neighbors' house and the dad came home from work, he had sent all day butchering people who were paying him large stacks of cash for the privilege.
Welp, there goes my penis-implant appointment. No, thank you.
Drew Magary writes for Deadspin. He's also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter @drewmagary and email him at drew@deadspin.com. You can also order Drew's book, Someone Could Get Hurt, through his homepage.
Image by Jim Cooke, source photo by Getty.
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