Johnny Manziel files for “Johnny Cleveland” trademark
September 4, 2014An 11th inning gut punch
September 5, 2014It’s a great week to be writing to you. We’ve got the Browns on Sunday to open with the Steelers. All this talk about Mike Pettine and whether or not this thing is a rivalry is overblown. I’m elated that these Browns aren’t trying to take ownership for the last 35 mostly miserable meetings between the Steelers and the Browns. Just look forward gentlemen. Take care of your business going forward and everyone will be fine. In fact, we’ll be better than fine.
Roger Goodell should revisit Josh Gordon’s suspension if new limits pass…
There are far worse things than Josh Gordon spending the year working at a car dealership. I don’t actually believe he’ll be processing paperwork for new car buyers or negotiating trade-ins. I figure it’s a marketing deal for a guy with some local notoriety, but I also know the only way for that gig to work, Gordon will actually have to show up somewhat regularly. I refuse to think that even if it’s a somewhat superficial “job” that it can’t be good for the would-be Browns receiver. That being said, if the NFL finally revisits its drug policy, they should revisit its most recent punishments as well.
Maybe the NFLPA builds that into their negotiation, but whatever it is, they need to do it. The NFL, by punishing Josh Gordon and Wes Welker are hurting their image. They can and should rectify that. Wes Welker is being suspended under the same PED argument that nailed Joe Haden a few years ago. Under the NFL’s PED policies, amphetamines are considered performance-enhancing. It’s a stretch. From the sounds of things, in both Welker’s case and Haden’s, the incidents in question were less about enhancing performance and more about enhancing the off-season party. That doesn’t make them any better in many people’s eyes, of course, but calling them PED’s is misleading.
In the end, the NFL should be aiming for fairness and they can do that if they lessen Josh Gordon’s suspension as a part of the final agreement on a new drug policy. I don’t expect this to happen, of course, but it should.
Joan Rivers goes out on top and unapologetic…
Love or hate Joan Rivers, it’s hard to say she didn’t go out on top as she passed away yesterday. At 81-years-old she was still sharp, funny and performing frequently for crowds all over the country before her health collapsed during a surgical procedure on her vocal cords last week.
Most recently here in Cleveland, some wanted an apology as she made a joke that living with her daughter was more cramped than “those women in the basement in Cleveland.” It was ludicrous, because that’s one of the devices of comedy. Take something real in your life, exaggerate it to a ridiculous level, and it becomes a self-mockery. As if a well-to-do millionaire living in guest quarters in Malibu could possibly compare her accommodations to a torture chamber. If you actually believed it and were actually comparing yourself to something so awful, it wouldn’t be funny.
In the end, I loved that she refused to apologize for her joke. She held strong to the fact that even if you didn’t like the joke, you had to be honest enough to admit that’s what it was. That’s what made Joan Rivers such a relevant comedienne even into her 80’s.
In an age of groveling, and a constant demand for meaningless apologies, it was refreshing to have Joan Rivers around. I just hope that brash, unapologetic nature isn’t something that died with her.
I recommend the documentary about Joan Rivers on Netflix. Piece of Work
Small-time Pro Wrestling Gets Real…
I think most kids go through a phase or two with pro wrestling. For me, I watched as a kid with Macho Man, Jake the Snake and Hulk Hogan and then a bit in college with The Rock and Stone Cold. It’s the right kind of immature drama for the male mind at different ages, I think. It was always a good time, and I was never in danger of thinking Vince McMahon was actually blown to bits in a limo explosion.
But there were plenty of real moments that happened in and around wrestling. Owen Hart fell to his death in the middle of a pay-per-view. Scott Hall’s struggles were captured on ESPN and made me sad. I can’t fathom even discussing what went down with Chris Benoit. Suffice to say that the lines between reality and the script were usually pretty obvious. Not in this story on a small wrestling company called Chikara that Vice recently wrote about.
It’s a long read and you should check out the whole thing, but it seems like they executed a nearly year-long stunt where they made believe the company was over, including ending a Pay-Per-View with security goons shutting the show down and kicking everyone – spectators included – out of the arena.
Vice: The True Story Behind the Craziest pro Wrestling Stunt Ever
Celebrating Ryan Adams…
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about what Ryan Adams is or isn’t that I don’t like. I’ve said he’s been too prolific. I’ve been one who has said Ryan Adams has been too inconsistent or unfocused in his musical career. I’ve been wrong and it’s time to just celebrate the reasons that I love Adams. Instead of picking apart an artist and demanding he conform to be the kind of artist that fits a more comfortable archetype, why can’t I just praise the guy for writing “Rock n Roll” (both the song and the album?) I can. I will.
As I get older, I get more and more eager to take my critic’s hat off. It’s not my job to judge an artist with the express purpose of trying to fit them into a box. It’s my job to enjoy what I can and leave the rest. It’s my job to appreciate the stuff I love and be thankful rather than unrealistic and greedy. I can still tell you why I like and dislike the things I do, but that’s more about me than it is about the artist more times than not.
All of this is a lot of words to say I’m listening to his latest album right now as it’s streaming on NPR, and it’s incredibly good.
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That’s it from me this week. Thanks for reading and bearing with us as we unveiled the new design. Enjoy the Browns game!
37 Comments
I don’t mean to politicize WFNY, but I can’t stand pat while you’re lionizing a horrific human being like Joan Rivers.
Her last high-profile rant was dedicated to arguing that Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli army “deserve to be dead”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIibX4Drzxs
That’s a complete misrepresentation even of what she said in the clip. She defended Israel’s right to defend itself and that civilian casualties occur in war. Here’s a better version of her ranting on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5Q7yuaXjM
You’re posting this as a defense of Joan Rivers?
I can already see where this is going and I don’t want to take it any further. I’ve stated my objection and will let people make up their own minds about Joan River’s morality/legacy.
amphetamines are considered performance-enhancing
as they should be because many athletes take amphetamines to enhance performance (off season workout energy boosts, some can improve focus during games, etc.). it is asking an awful lot of the NFL to determine what the athlete was actually using a particular drug to do rather than bucketizing drugs into PED and non-PED.
Haden & Welker may have been using them to party. Or, they may have been using that as an excuse (the public is much more forgiving of partying than PED-use). Regardless, the drugs can be used as PED, therefore they should be suspended as PED-users.
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As for Gordon, as a Brown’s fan, I want him to get his sentence lightened (and what of Justin Blackmon?). However, the only way I want that to happen is if the NFLPA fights for it as part of this negotiation. I don’t want the NFL to make unilateral decisions that bypass previously agreed upon parameters. That is when we get into trouble (if they can do it here, then it opens up cans and cans of worms).
Yes, absolutely.
Agreed. This is a sports site.
Mmmmmm, worms . . .
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120726031512/memoryalpha/en/images/3/3b/Eating_worms.jpg
Jeez, we’re such juvenile punks.
http://1.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/30/83/e5a907c14a74058ab41d89191a7dc61c.gif
You’ll have to excuse me if I refuse to allow someone who worked actively in the public spotlight – since I was about -29 years old doing all sorts of things – to be defined as a “horrific human being” for one 2-minute Youtube video on an admittedly controversial topic about two months before she passed away.
I don’t think amphetamines are PEDs for NFL players between the Super Bowl and Training Camp.
Craig, I’ll let you defend a woman who casually dismisses the deaths of 2,000 people, including hundreds of children, and whose moral defense is that it wasn’t as bad as “Hiroshima”.
Just so I understand you correctly: Do you feel 6 decades of being a celebrity absolves you of all moral accountability when you make an impassioned and ignorant public statement like that? Because it sounds like that’s what you’re arguing.
Could not agree more on Ryan Adams. What an amazing album that gets better with each listen. Still remember the first time i heard him with Whiskeytown back in my college years. What a great catalog of music!!
Well, they do help the body battle fatigue which some see as enhancing performance in the sense that you can train longer, beyond what non-users can do. Of course, you can say that about other supplements (or water).
Stand down, sir. Do not get in the way of America’s regularly scheduled public breast beating for an entertainer.
Hey…. look at the Indians terrible attendance!??! RABBLE!!!
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7119186432/h19701BB4/
C’mon grandpa!
Mike Florio reported last night that if a new agreement is reached between NFL and NFLPA that Josh Gordon’s suspension could be lowered or possibly rescinded all together.
So, what’s going on in here, guys…?
Oh.
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130519214230/adventuretimewithfinnandjake/images/2/2d/Back_away_slowly.gif
Or… it could not.
That’s some damn fine police work, Lou.
Don’t shoot the messenger I’m just reporting what Florio reported. But since he reported that either Gordon’s suspension could be lowered or rescinded and not nothing I would tend to believe there must be some fire where there’s smoke, no?
http://i.imgur.com/HZf449o.gif
Sorry. Didn’t mean to direct my snark at you.
I do not care for Florio. I think he’s a bad reporter who mostly manufactures stories (liberal use of “could”, “might”, “may”, “possibility”, etc.). He has been hoisted on the football consuming public by NBC and seems to be groomed to be their Chris Mortensen.
Even this story is basically a big nothing – everyone who follows football closely knows the NFL and NFLPA are redoing the drug policy. So he just throws some conjecture into his report, gets NBC to broadcast it like it is in some way substantiated fact, and the sports world eats it up.
Also see his coverage of Manzielmania which just reinforced my dislike for his reporting.
http://jimkanicki.com/2014/06/16/no-signs-point-to-manziel-starting-week-one/
[INSERT ESPN STORY ABOUT JOHNNY MANZIEL’S POOR CHARACTER]
I didn’t even realize u were being snarky lol. I just reported it when I heard it I had a brief moment of “could it be?” then realized it was probably just another fruitless rumor.
Baseball, the seventies, and ‘greenies’. Definitely performance-enhancing.
Have you tried lifting for months on end? I knew guys who would chug cold coffee before a workout for the jolt of energy, so I don’t see much difference.
PED is PED
I can’t believe that’s what it sounds like to you. We’ve all said thousands and thousands of things. At times, we’ve all been insensitive, brilliant, passionate, stupid, ignorant, forgetful, funny, angry, creative and any number of other things.
I hope I get defined by the best things I’ve done in my lifetime instead of the things that people have taken exception to.
This is more like the text of a Hallmark card than a substantive response to my question.
One can only assume that if Joan Rivers had such repugnant, racist views at age 81 that she harbored them throughout her life. You seem to want people to look past that because, well, she was an entertainer and may have had some other good qualities. Sorry, that’s fatuous, and I’m troubled that you could hold anyone who espoused such belligerent disregard for human life as any kind of role model.
While we mainly discuss sports here, the problem with this Joan Rivers rant is that it covers the topic of Monotheism. (i.e. the Muslim / Palestinian belief in their One True God vs. the Jewish/Christian belief in their One True God.) When you have a Bible that has stories like Joshua and the Battle of Jericho (Joshua chapters 6-7) where Yahweh (God) commands Israel to kill all women, men, and children in Jericho after they walk around the city 7 times and blow trumpets, and Exodus chapter 12 where Yahweh (God) kills the first born in the land of Egypt (and MANY other passages) we have bibles where God orders his people to kill others or God kills other people himself, you have insantiy. What is my point? The point is monotheisitic religions with hate filled monotheistic texts like the Koran and Bible are not BOTH seen as what they are in our post 9-11 world, that doesn’t like modern acts of terror, but is fine with ancient books that condone these acts of terror? Point on the Joan Rivers rant is that you have a lady who I do believe is Jewish and possibly a jewish background talking about a modern day clash between two people in one country who are far more religious than us secular Americans who for the most part have no idea what is actually in the Bible (cause they don’t read it.) POINT: Topics with politics and monotheistic hate filled religions get lots of emotional rants and opinions. They tend to be controversial. I think all of us believe in some controversial causes, i.e. we all have opinions on abortion or homosexual rights, and I don’t think any individual OPINIONS should be held against one’s character, especially on controversial subjects. We all have opinions on controversial subjects.
You know, I am trying to wrap my head around this PED thing. As a fan, I want the Black Sox scandal to never be repeated, especially in a real sport like Football. What I mean is, I don’t want one team to cheat and have an unfair advantage over another team who obeys the rules. I compare this to the black sox scandal because in my mind it alters the integrity of the game. I guess another baseball example is, I am having a hard time comparing Bonds to Aaron and Ruth, because two of those guys did it by talent alone, and one guy did it by cheating. I want football records to be legitimate, like Jim Brown’s records, he did it by talent and effort and hard work together.
So, about today’s PED issue, does adderall in the offseason which may help an athlete work out, affect the integrity of the game if the drug use doesn’t happen during the season?
Is a pot smoker like Josh Gordon affecting the integrity of the game and would I think less of Josh Gordon for smoking a joint than my coworker who smokes outside my office door, contributing to 41,000 deaths a year by non-smokers who die suppossedly of cancer by second hand smoke? (hard to prove that number I saw in the elevator today). My point is, I would not feel the NFL would have even a tarnished image if a pot smoker played the game when he doesn’t use PEDs. While I hate seeing Ray Rice beat a woman, it doesn’t harm the integrity of the game, and honestly, I think him beating his girl hurt the NFLs reputation more because Goddell did nothing harsh…
I don’t see passing records falling due to PEDs like HR records fell in baseball thanks to the Cansecos, McGwites, Bonds, and Sosas using HGH and PEDs.
I can’t figure out really what the NFLs point is outside of the fact they seem to want only “perfect people” in the league.
Yes, I agree Stallworth should not play when he drives drunk and kills someone, but a pot smoker or an amphetamines user, I can’t say I really feel is that big of a deal, and I am a virgin when it comes to drugs myself.
If the goal of some of the laws is fan opinion of the sport, how many americans really think pot smoking or recreational drug use is wrong? It is not murder, DUI death causing, or wife beating domestic violence danger to society type crimes.
If something doesn’t hurt the outcome of games, or doesn’t harm human life, why on earth does it matter? I think the vast majority of NFL fans would rather see Welker and Gordon on the field and losing start athletes for non integrity of the game crimes seems totally stupid, and accomplishes nothing to help the image of the NFL…
Nonsense. Our opinions give insight into the values, attitudes, and beliefs that compose our character. When Mel Gibson goes on a drunken tirade about jewish people, it tells us something about his bigoted character. When Mitt Romney privately inveighs against the 45% of the country that are too feckless and lazy to work much less vote for him, it tells us something about how he views other people who aren’t in his elite class. And when Joan Rivers fulminates against the Palestinians and says they deserve to be dead, it tells us something about how she values some human life over others.
You cannot magically decouple stated opinions from one’s character.
It sounds like we agree. Anyone who reads the Bible (Jewish or Christian) and believes in the acts of genocide therein, are in the end no different from suicide bombers and the Koran…. So when can we outlaw the most hateful book (the Bible) in America? When will the cross be seen as an equal to the swastika, which both are symbols of hate, religious wars, and religious genocides… ???
I do hear where you are coming from, but I find most american christians who believe in the Bible and find God killing all the first born egyptians, they do not have the where-with-all to see the difference between the mythical genocides in the Bible and the actual genocides such teaching and madness have caused in all the genocides, witch hunts, crusades, and acts of terror done in the last 1900 years since the christian myth was invented. My point is that most people in america who believe the myth of christ and the bible do not think about it or read the bible enough to become crazy, they may share an opinion like Joan rivers, but most don’t shoot rockets at civilians.
War is war. While I am proud to be an american, I see how evil our country is. We had slavery and I used to be allowed to beat my “n-word” to death, for he was just my property. Most anthropologists believe there were between 15-18 million Native Americans living here when the pilgrims arrived. By the gold rush of 1849, there were only 255,000 “injuns” left in america. This country has just as evil a past as Israel or any other nation on the planet, we just think we are better, and the reality of the matter is quite different.
Sure, I can agree that there are aspects of monotheistic religions that have been pernicious for thousands of years. With regard to the Israeli/Palestinian issue, however, I think the most damaging ideology is a secular one, modern Zionism, which has been used by rightwing Israelis to progressively grab land and ethnically cleanse it for decades (http://www.ifamericansknew.org/images/FourMaps.jpg). It’s also an ideology that convinces people they are divinely “chosen” over other human beings, which produces the type of virulent racism espoused by people like Joan Rivers that diminishes the value of certain human lives, in this case Arabs.
That the United States supports the increasingly right-wing majority in Israel in continuing its illegal land grab in the West Bank and Gaza, and that we provide an annual $3 billion of our tax dollars to support the brutal military occupation of the Palestinians is difficult for me to reconcile. When I see people like Joan Rivers spouting off outright racism and reinforcing the ignorance that enables this violation of human rights/dignity to continue (and people defending her as some kind of hero) it makes me sad, even though she has not “fired any rockets at civilians” herself. It is this simplistic worldview that uncritically accepts the continued unconditional support of Israeli that is destroying a two-state solution and any hope at a lasting peace in the region.
In moments of despair about this issue, I often return to the famous speech by Bobby Kennedy, who announced Martin Luther King’s assassination to a crowd in Indianapolis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKzCff8Zbs). The most stirring moment is when he paraphrased the ancient Greek poet Aeschylus by saying “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.” I suppose that is why I posted in this thread – I still have some small hope that people can learn to see this issue through a more compassionate prism of human rights.
Joan Rivers was a comedienne. She never apologized for any joke. I have cringed at some of her jokes, but I have never been offended, because, they are jokes. If she was still alive and doing a show here in Atlanta, I would want to go see her. Alas, she is not. RIP Joan.
Mitt Romney was inelegant during one of his many speeches on the campaign trail. The “47% campaign gaffe” along with the “Bain Capital Money Picture” allowed him to be portrayed as a heartless elitist. He did not get the job he aspired to in part because of his statement.
Mel Gibson’s drunken anti-Semite rant to an arresting officer has impacted the number and quality of the roles he is offered in the entertainment industry.
I agree with your assessment of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
I disagree that one joke told by Joan Rivers has any bearing on the conflict.
Joan blazed a trail in comedy for women to follow. I will choose to remember her for her work ethic and accomplishments.
She may have been a fine comedienne – I never watched any of her standup. Her comments (note: not jokes) about the Palestinians reveal a deeply racist, almost sociopathic disregard for human life. My argument isn’t that these comments had any bearing on the conflict in the middle east – of course they didn’t – rather that they reflect a prevailing worldview in our country that enables and encourages the brutal occupation of the Palestinians. This is why the uncritical hero-worshipping that followed her death bothered me so much. There is something disturbing about a culture so celebrity-crazed that we can simply blot out hateful views.