The Call-Outs: Extended Edition Part I
By Peter Christian
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WOW! This past week has been filled with some truly stupid and asinine actions and behaviors in the real world. Maybe word got out that this was going to be the last week of the regular “Call-Out” format before shifting into a Best of 2009 mode for the next three weeks and everyone wanted to make sure they put forth their best effort to make the year end list (not a good thing, btw)? Or maybe the onset of the holiday season has made people go bat shit crazy? I like that explanation much better. Let’s get to crackin’.
This week I enjoyed: Wisconsin beating Duke, Badger players rocking the Kid N’ Play dance, Kimbo Slice vs. Houston Alexander, Saturday Night Live (Woman’s Bowling Sketch), Jersey Shore
Jersey Shore
Yes, you are reading that correctly… I am calling out the new MTV show “Jersey Shore” mere moments after declaring I enjoyed it. Although, simply saying I enjoyed it is a nominee for grandest understatement of the decade. It is an amazingly entertaining show. As I stated to David Kay after we had both been mesmerized by the two hour premiere, “It’s the greatest collection of truly awful human beings on the same television show ever… It’s like they injected “The Real World” with steroids and stupidity and then lifted the no fighting rule. It’s like crack for my eyeballs.”
*(For a full episode recap with some of the best/worst quotes read here or here.)
The first episode was wrought full of at least two dozen of the most ridiculous quotes and some of the worst butchering of the English language ever to be caught on camera. Each house guest, at any moment, has the potential to drop a sentence that will make you vomit, do a spit take, make your ears bleed and laugh so hard that pee comes out all at the same time. I didn’t think it was humanly possible to do all of those actions simultaneously but I accomplished the feat a mere 3 minutes in to the show and by the time the two hour premiere had reached its completion (ending with a two minute montage of what is to be expected during the rest of the season) I had suffered the 4 way reaction 29 times (has to be a record).
I recognize that I only look forward to watching for the rest of the season so that I can be entertained by people who, by nature, suck at life and will forever be considered the diarrhea stain of the American society (sorry Gator fans, it’s true, they’ve got you beat) but I can’t look away. I need to watch every single moment so that I don’t miss Vinny, Ronnie, Pauly D, The Situation, Snooki, Sammi Sweetheart, J-Woww or Angelina raise the bar of stupidity to a brand new level. Maybe I deserve to be called out just for watching, but I’ll bear that cross if need be.
Minnesota Wild/NHL
This call-out has less to do with the Wild’s play as of late (which has been much better than how they started the season) and more to do with their archaic/moronic policy of issuing media credentials. I’m bringing in a co-pilot to help me out with this one as our Editor-in-Chief has weighed in on the topic of the Wild (and other NHL franchises) denying all credential requests to people who represent blogs, websites or online media. Paul M Banks’ thoughts echo mine:
“This is BEYOND STUPID for the league. They already have the worst tv contract in sports history, and their lack of a legitimate presence in television is KILLING their league. Now an emerging, and soon to be one day dominant form of media comes along. So what do they do? Piss on the people providing content and coverage within that medium. Just when you think (NHL Commissioner Gary) Bettman can’t be anymore of a retard, his league makes another bonehead move with the media, which will again be publicity suicide!
I would also like to include the fact that NHL, which I admit (albeit painfully) is the least viable of the 4 major sports in North America and will likely be taken over completely by soccer, is not only ignoring the groundwork laid by the forward thinking Mark Cuban on how to revitalize an organization and fan base in a city that in large part had given up completely on the league (i.e. Dallas residents with the NBA in the early to mid 90′s) but they are doing the exact opposite.
New Jersey Nets
The Nets record breakingly bad start to the 2009-10 season is baffling. I understand that their best player missed time due to injury, but there is no excuse as to why the Nets are as awful as they are. They have two legitimate young stars in Brook Lopez and Devin Harris. They have two players who could be more than serviceable 6th men on a contender in Chris Douglas Roberts and Courtney Lee but still they have the 2nd worst per game point differential in the league, lost 18 games in a row and 19 out of 20 to start the season and simply aren’t playing anything that resembles good basketball. The Nets’ bad start cost Lawrence Frank his job (the same guy that was once considered the savior of the franchise) and is shadowing the fact that another dreadfully bad NBA team could/should be one of the worst teams to ever play in the NBA (more on them in a minute).
At least with the Nets, they have potential to be labeled just below mediocre, or at least basketball pundits think so. The team is just underwhelming in nearly every category as they struggle to get consistent production from the same sources on a regular basis and that irregularity has caused the Nets to score the least amount of points through the first 1/4 of the season and earned them a first time nod here on The Call-Outs. However, if they don’t start to pick it up in January, they might find themselves to be a regular.
Minnesota Timberwolves
Oh dear God! This IS the worst NBA team I have ever witnessed. How they have more than just one win is completely beyond me. The only reason they should have one win is because of complete luck and that came in the first game of the season against the Nets when Damien Wilkins banked in a buzzer beater (No, he didn’t call it. If they were playing H-O-R-S-E, it would have been waved off) to win a game between two teams that absolutely did not want to win that game. It is fair to say that their current starting lineup yields only one player who would definitively be a starter on the majority of the other NBA teams (Al Jefferson). That same lineup has posted one of the worst per game point differentials of all time and is in no position to make things any better. All Timberwolves fans knew that the anti-genius David Kahn wanted to blow the team up to start from scratch but none of us knew he was going to face plant to rock bottom then jackhammer his way down below the crust of the earth to reach a brand new all time low… Oh wait, I did, and I warned all of you. David Kahn sucks.
Rick Reilly
Pop quiz: You used to be a good writer, you have an amazingly sweet job and you get paid more than handsomely for it; should you a) work really hard and strive to be even better, b) be complacent and make sure you keep the bar high, but not too high or c) mail it in completely and simply re-publish old essays because you are a lazy piece of shit that only writes to see his name in bold typeface at the top of highly circulated magazines and very high profile websites?
If your name is Rick Reilly, you choose answer c). Every time. One thousand times out of a thousand.
As you may or may not have noticed, Reilly recently wrote an essay for ESPN.com that he actually wrote 2 years ago for Sports Illustrated and simply worded a few things differently and rambled on about how much he loves his job. You know what Rick, if you loved your job as much as you claim (both now and back in ’07) you’d put in the effort. You’d try to update your writing style to that which people actually enjoy reading instead of sticking with the same old tricks that got you by back in the early 1900′s when you were last relevant. I know I’m not alone when I say that I will never read a single word you type/write/think/dictate/copy ever again for fear that my own brain will jump out of my skull to stab my eyeballs with two rusty paper clips so that it doesn’t have to process your shitty, half-assed attempts at humor and insight. I hope you enjoy that paycheck from ESPN you douchebag because there isn’t a penny you deserve. Meanwhile thousands of people just like me bust their ass between their full time jobs, their family lives and their free time to pour their heart and souls out into their blogs in an effort to maybe, someday get a nice cushy job like yours or at least get recognized for having an interesting take on a situation. All the while, what do you do? You cut us down, saying that your writing style and background is better than ours because you learned to write for two medium that are dying… what does that say about your writing style and background jackass? I can guarantee you that you a) still have a job because your name is recognizable and b) you will be among the year’s biggest offenders in the Call Out of the Year.
Check back this afternoon for Part II of this week’s Call-Outs: Extended Edition
Possibly Related Posts:
- The Call Outs: MLB Umpires and Beyond
- The Call-Outs
- The Call-Outs 5-12-10
- The Call Outs
- The Call-Outs 2-12
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I guess the Chicago Bulls are a legitimate candidate for the next edition. after lsoing at home to the NETS!! In their next game after the embarassing shoe tying incident…I guess we can go on Vinny Del Negro watch now.
If we’re not, than that’s even more frightening for the franchise.
I still can’t get over the NHL thing..I know of at least 4 teams doing that, so it’a al league wide thing…and yes within the next 5 years soccer will be overtaking hockey as the fourth major team sport. The Fire draw huge crowds, even when it’s crappy and cold out.
Nice on Reilly- he indeed is a human piece of shit
I used to respect Rick Reilly, especially since he wrote that column on Bo Ryan. I’ve completely tuned him out since he switched to ESPN.
And F the NHL. They remind me of the Republican groups I dealt with in college. You can’t complain about a lack of coverage and publicity if you have no organized PR and don’t know how to market yourselves.
Pete, this was excellent. Mr. Banks, great NHL Callout Cameo.
Rick Reilly single-handedly prompted me to cancel my subscription to ESPN the Mag. I made a conscious choice not to renew, thinking subscriptions would stop. Nope, they kept coming for a while, complete with renewal enticements. When I refused for 5 months, they sent another Mag with a postcard to send back “Tell Us Why You’re No Longer With Us.” I wrote Rick Reilly is boring, I hate his column and your Mag needs a complete overhaul. Sent it in on the “No postage needed in the US” free postcard and slammed it in the mail. They stopped sending me renewal offers until this week, because they want me to buy it for Christmas. No, I will not make you part of my Christmas!?!