This Is How Hollywood Happens

Last Friday morning, I was dicking around on grantland.com, one of the many websites I like to dick around on when I don’t feel like working. The editor is Bill Simmons, one of my favorite writers for ESPN. You may recall that I once aspired to be featured on one of his mailbags, so far unsuccessfully.

But I got on there today!

Sort of. One of Bill Simmons underlings does this feature every day where he glosses over yesterdays sports news and adds a pretty consistently funny commentary to it. Every Friday he asks readers a question and then on Monday he posts the best answers. Last Friday he asked readers for their best heckling stories and I answered the call.


Here is the link to my response. My answer is at the bottom. Just win, baby.

In case you doubt the authenticity that I was the author, you will notice the paragraph was written in haste and missing key random words, a hallmark Brain Litter trait.

I have to come clean though, the story is not totally true. I spiced it up because I wanted Bill Simmons and America to think I was really cool. I’m only partially really cool.

I did go to San Francisco and I did see the Brewers get swept by the Giants. I snuck a flask of brandy into the game so my memory is slightly fuzzy. I’m positive I yelled out Global Warming is Just a Myth and something about Ronald Reagan. But nobody threw a plastic wine glass at us. People were drinking wine in plastic glasses, I remember thinking how weird that was, but nobody threw one at us.

There, I said it. What you read is the Hollywoodized version of a brewer game I went to four years ago. But I totally get Hollywood now. Most true stories are boring. They need a little zip. It’s like a turkey sandwich. You can add honey mustard to enhance the taste, but it’s still a turkey sandwich in essence, and it’s not hurting anybody. So why not?

Right now, I suspect Bill Simmons and the editorial staff are drawing up some sort of lucrative contract for me to become a freelance writer for them. So long spreadsheets, you’re outta here. I just hope I don’t get James Freyed over the plastic wine glass debacle. That would be a total nightmare.

Best Football Play Of The Year

With the playoffs looming, I started reminiscing about this years football season and how we got to where we are today. I remember the spectacle of hosting the Saints for the home opener, going to the monday night Vikings game with my bro and getting free scarves, watching Rodgers carve up the Giants D in the last two minutes to keep their undefeated streak alive, and of course, missing the fantasy football playoffs by one point on a Tuesday because of a"scoring adjustment". What a season!

Looking back at my favorite play though, it curiously wasn't a Packer play. No, my favorite play was a certain orange-clad player who performed one of the most acrobatic touchdowns I have ever seen. Here is the clip.


Craziest Touchdown Of The Year.

Yep, my favorite football play of the year was by Tigers football star, Johnny Rico in 1997.

If you were thinking of this bullshit play, you would be mistaken.

Biggest Bullshit Touchdown Ever.

Jerome Simpson ain't got nothin' on Rico. Rico clears Zander by at least 2 feet whereas Jerome grazes his defender during his touchdown flip like a chump. Plus, for all his moxy, Simpson was a fantasy bust so I guess this blog post is my way of venting my frustration. The ball's in your court, Simpson.

Thanks, Pinterest!

Attention dudes: Do you have a significant other? Do you like it when she cooks for you? She doesn’t? Sick of me asking rhetorical questions in this blog?

OK, duly noted. But back to the cooking thing. No worries. Here’s a great link to forward to your old lady.

Pinterest is the greatest thing that ever happened to me in the last three months. Three months ago, if I would have said, Hey babes, how about you cook me dinner tonight, I would have been laughed out of the kitchen. Jess would say something along the lines of, You wish, go take a hike, you big bologna!

But then, on her own accord, she discovered this website and now I’m eating stuff like Salsa Chicken Casserole with Southwestern-style rice for dinner.

I think the genius of Pinterest is that the website combines tasty, colorful food recipes alongside pictures of the two things women love most: kittens in boxes with funny captions and cute boots. The combination creates a warm fuzzy feeling in the center of their brains which creates a halo effect for the food recipes which translates into awesome meals for me.

The ramifications of this Pinterest Discovery are staggering. I have a hypothesis that I plan on testing tonight.

This week, I’m going to suggest to Jess that she takes out the garbage. When she says no, I’m going to ask again, this time holding up a picture of two little cute kids dressed up in light blue/orange tuxedos like Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber in a wagon that looks like the Mutt Cutts van. I’ll let you know the results.

Sometimes I wish there was a Pinterest website for men but then I remembered we have about 50,000,000 of them. Except our Pinterest websites come with annoying pop ups and we aren't allowed to look at them at work. Also, we can't login and "pin" our favorite items on a community bulletin board. Thank God. Gross.