Monday, October 11, 2010

Take a Picture

It's important for any man to remember that when he sends a picture of his own sexual organ to, well, anyone, he's bound to be become a social pariah, but I think it's incumbent upon me to remind no one in particular that Braylon Edwards' DUI drew a mere quarter punishment. And that is wrong.

Was there ever a time when it was OK for man to send a woman a photo of his member? I'm beyond the age and station where it is even appropriate for me to ask a female friend this question (I'm as old as Brett Favre, of course). But I suspect that the answer would be no. A man receiving a comparable photograph from a woman might well be lead to think he's won the lottery, but even the most eager of men might be compelled to wonder whether or not the female in question (whom he knows about as well as Jenn Sterger personally knew Brett Favre in 2008) has been snorting cocaine. My own wife says that she would go to a friend and ask what was wrong with me if I took pictures of my dong and sent them to her. It sounds unfair, but as I'm writing this, I guess it would be bizarre, wouldn't it? "But honey, I'm love crazy?"

But if there was ever time when it was OK, it was only so because a Polaroid picture taken in 1979 could never have been shared among hundreds of millions of people at once, unless its existence went by way of urban legend. I choose 1979 because that was the last time the Jets played Minnesota at home on Monday Night. (I don't think Tommy Kramer sent any Polaroids of his alter ego that year.) I'd also like to take this moment to add something to the record of #37 Tim Moresco, who recovered a fumble in the Jets' 14-7 victory over the Vikings that year. He also set up a Kevin Long touchdown for the Jets against the Cleveland Browns in 1978 by stripping a fumble on a kickoff. I never mentioned that in Moresco's original entry.

How do I know this? I wish I could claim to remember what happened that late December when I was nine and heartbroken, but I can't. I remember watching that Browns game and hearing Spencer Ross and Sam DeLuca on WCBS radio saying how cold it was in Cleveland. But the proliferation of old games on YouTube has become absolutely indispensable for a football dork like me who enjoys, as my wife puts it, "used sports." I mean, look at Norm Snead. Just look at him. He looks like a man who has been pulled from the Franklin Field crowd to fill in for the Eagles at quarterback. For every unwanted dong on the Internet, there's a 1975 Monday Night Football matchup between the Steelers and the Rams. So there's progress.

Finally, it's October in Philadelphia, and for the fourth year in a row, the Phillies are in the playoffs, and everybody in this bipolar city wants to play the Yankees in the World Series. As much as this has been a special series with the Reds, the Phils must hit more than they have been in order to support their extraordinary pitching staff if they're going to beat the Giants. Secondly....no. Just no. What kind of hubris drives a host of fans who normally support a franchise that once let Norm Snead run around in the cold with just his football uniform think it's OK to invoke the Fates to weave something especially bad for them? Why wish for the Yankees? Everyone I speak to here seems to think they're Leonidas' Spartans. If the Jets managed to make it to the Super Bowl this year and were matched against residents of the Grace Presbyterian Village senior center in Dallas and won handily, I would still jump up and down with the same euphoria I would feel if they defeated the Saints. A championship is a championship.

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