Yes, It’s OK To Hate Russell Wilson

PublishedOctober 21, 2014

Before we get to the Funbag, I think the time has come for a treasury of GREAT MOMENTS IN BEING CAUGHT MASTURBATING. So if you have a tale of getting apprehended with your pants down, send it my way. On to your letters…

Who is the best point guard in the NBA?

Of course you can. Russell Wilson is either a complete phony or the boringest man on Earth, and both of those are perfectly hatable qualities. He's like a dream athlete for #BRAND marketers. He's attractive. It's fun to watch him play. And he has NOTHING interesting to say, ever. It's like someone took a bunch of Gatorade copy and fertilized a womb with it. I could ask Russell Wilson what he had for breakfast, and he'd either talk about Jesus or doing what it takes to be the best he can be.

I mean, look at his crew. That photo looks like it was staged for an Abercrombie catalog. You can hate that crew. It's all right. I mean, my friends don't look like that. I don't even have that many friends. And we're not all that effortlessly athletic or attractive. Look at them, just sitting there looking so happy and successful. FUCKING BURN THEM ALL.

Sports hate doesn't have to make sense. I have cheered for scumbags and booed perfectly decent people. The athletes are characters in a drama that only makes sense in my own head. It's like the movies. Sometimes you like the bad guy character more than some bland asshole nice-guy character. In real life, you gotta be nice to a lot of people: relatives, bosses, other people standing in line, etc. Sometimes it's fun to let all that go, breach etiquette, follow your basest impulses, and boo the people you aren't supposed to boo. So fuck Russell Wilson in the ear.

Dylan:

If you were home alone at night and heard a fart, would you laugh, or be scared?

So it's not my own? Oh, I would be scared as hell. That fart clearly came from a farting terrorist. Time to jump out of bed and grab a flashlight and a Louisville Slugger.

It's amazing how bad my perception is in the middle of the night. I've gotten freaked out hearing my own heartbeat with my ear on the pillow. WHAT IS THAT SCRATCHING?! One time, I was freaked out by a noise that I thought was coming from outside the bedroom door. So I got up and walked out, but there was nothing. And I could still hear the noise. Was it in the wall? Was it coming from outside? Was there a madman in the basement, tapping on the knife with a radiator, waiting for me to come down and check it out so he could slit my throat from ear to ear? Nope. It was my wife, back in bed, breathing. It wasn't even weird, fat-guy breathing, either. Just perfectly normal exhalation, occurring right next to me, as it has been for years. I'm a fucking idiot.

The dishwasher will also freak me out. What is going on inside that thing? Sounds like a fucking police riot.

Dylan (again):

Also, would you rather have muffin hands or corduroy skin? (The muffin hands grow back after a day if eaten.)

You can hide the muffin hands under gloves and whip them out any time you want to impress party guests, so I'm going with the muffin hands. The corduroy skin would just make you look like a circus freak. And I say that as someone who enjoys busting out the cords in the winter and feeling all warm and cozy. Just wrap me up in cords and a fleece and I am in preppy-white-boy heaven. LET'S ALL GO ON A SLEIGH RIDE. No need to pack a lunch. My crumb muffin hands will be all the food we need.

(By the way, muffins are garbage. Donuts are better and are somehow not as bad for you. You even need extra butter to make a muffin worthwhile, which is crazy. There's no reason to have a muffin over a donut or a Danish, ever. That is my strong muffin take.)

Brad:

What's your favorite part of being a sports fan outside of the sport itself? Mine is hating a total stranger solely because he doesn't play for my favorite team. Random hatred is always fun, right?

Like Russell Wilson! No, the best part of being a sports fan is the drinking. I didn't have an excuse to drink tonight until WHOA HEY FIRST GAME OF THE WORLD SERIES, GUYS! You can find a sports-related excuse to go drinking pretty much every day in October, which is why October is the king of all months. Oh, and sports is also about bonding with your fellow man and gathering together in the spirit of common … Christ, what a load. It's drinkin' and hatin' for me.

Jim:

A coworker and I got to talking and posed the questionm ... at some point in a batter's swing, assuming he makes solid contact, the ball must hit zero miles per hour, right? Has anyone ever thought about this in-depth? That's some crazy shit to think about how fast a ball goes from 90 mph to zero mph back to 90 mph within a couple seconds.

At first, I thought that maybe the ball doesn't stop. Maybe the bat is forcefully changing the trajectory of the ball, and not in the precise opposite direction. Maybe it re-directs the ball, so maybe the ball is "turning" sharply without ever technically slowing down to 0mph. Then I asked an actual smart person, Alan Nathan at the University of Illinois, and was proven to be completely wrong. He says:

"For sure it is correct that the ball must come to rest momentarily during the ball-bat collision. Here is a simple analogy: Drop a ball onto the floor and it bounces up. At some point when it is in contact with the floor, it has 0 velocity. The point is that the ball can't change directions from incoming to outgoing without first coming to rest. In fact, it slows down upon contact and starts to compress like a spring, comes to a momentary halt, then expands back out again as it changes directions. See this video:"

"The ball is hitting a steel plate. It approaches the plate at 120 mph and leaves at about 60 mph. You can see the ball compressing against the plate, slowing down, coming to a momentary halt, then changing directions as it uncompresses and starts to speed up. This video was shot at 30,000 frames/sec."

Damn, look at that ball hit that plate. Let's throw more things at steel plates and record it in slow motion. I'm mesmerized. By the way, if you're interested, there are many physics-based studies of hitting a baseball. Ironically, these studies are often used by fanboys to support the opinion that every little hit is a miracle and that baseball players are magic.

Adam:

What is your best/worst high idea? Mine involves baby sharks eating parasites inside of human stomachs.

But what if we shrink the sharks down even further, so that they can eat up the Ebola viruses and other nasty internal microbes? I could see micro-sharks being a workable solution to this crisis.

Anyway, virtually all of my stoned ideas revolve around food, specifically the smoking of meats. When I get stoned, my desire to own a private smokehouse and curing facility increases 20-fold. I had an idea for smoked chili, where you make the chili, and then wrap it in lots of cheesecloth, and hang it from the ceiling of the smokehouse so that the chili becomes infused with the smoke. Now, this is a bad idea. You would end up with a floor covered in chili juice and a sack full of dried meat. But it sounded really good in my head when I was stoned. I started jonesing for it. No other food except imaginary smoked chili would do. Really painted myself into a corner there.

Also: hot dog chili, which is chili but with hot dogs. You could even put pieces of bun in the chili and have it be chili dog chili. That could still work. It wouldn't look like diarrhea at all!

Derek:

What one summer activity would I choose to be able to do year-round? I came to what I believe is the obvious conclusion of grilling. And I mean grilling summer-style: shorts and t-shirt (obviously beer in hand). Not awful winter grilling where you're running in and out of the door trying to die of exposure. What's your jam? What all-the-time summer activity would you pick?

I'm okay with winter grilling. If it's raining ice shards, then it's no fun. But if it's clear and freezing, I'm okay to run out there and fire that bitch up. I'll even have a drink, because drinking when it's cold out makes me feel like a wild college man again. When I am old, I will just sit around drinking and staring at fire all day, so staring at a hot grill in the middle of winter is cool by me.

The one summer activity I would want to do year-round is running and/or walking long distances freely. By the time January rolls around and you've been cooped up inside the house for three straight months, you're ready to behead the rest of your family members. I gotta get out and, like, be free for a moment. It's disheartening to be like, "Guys, let's go to a park!" only to remember it's five degrees outside. It wears you down. I don't need golf. I don't need swimming (by the end of August, every parent on Earth is done with pools). I just wanna be able to roam about Earth's cabin freely.

Also, you people living in California who will comment, "I dunno what this question means LOL!" can go die in a wildfire.

Ricky:

In what sport are first-round draft picks more successful? I'm sure that basketball first-rounders tend to be more successful at a higher rate than, say, baseball first-rounders. Which sports are the most successful for a first-rounder, and which are the least?

No first-rounders are ever successful, because they are CURSED. That's a fact. You're in it for the money and fame and you'll never make it in this town, kiddo. Gregggg knows this.

Seriously though, the size of every draft makes this an uneven comparison. The baseball draft has 40 rounds (!!!), which allows for much more error at the top than, say, the NBA draft, which has just two measly rounds (and second-rounders in the NBA are treated like seventh-rounders in football—the dropoff is pretty remarkable). If you're a first-round NBA draft pick, your team has invested a good deal in you, AND you're one of only two new rookies (on average) on the roster. You are put in a favorable position to succeed and teams desperately want you to succeed. Teams need to make their first-rounders work now, or else they'll get crushed. It's not like the old days, when GM Connie McOldpeanuts could draft his brother-in-law's kid in the first round as a favor and then cut his ass and no one paid any attention.

Also, in both football and basketball, first-round picks have such high name recognition that they probably stick around longer. It's a big plus on your resume to have that draft position. It gives other teams a reason to pick you up after you fail. I would say the success rate goes like this:

1. Basketball

2. Football

3. Baseball

4. Hockey

5. Lazer Tag

HALFTIME!

Don:

So I saw a friend for the first time in a few months today, and immediately noticed that he was walking a bit gingerly. When I asked what was wrong, he told me he had recently had surgery. I asked if everything was OK, and he said yes, he had surgery for a rectal infection. Of course, from that point on, my mind alternated between images of a doctor digging into his bunghole with a scalpel, and wondering exactly how he got the infection in the first place. My question is, where is the line when discussing medical procedures? Did I open up Pandora's box by asking?

I think it's okay to feel around. If a friend looks like he's in discomfort, you can ask if he's OK. If he says he went to the hospital, you can ask if it was anything serious. If he says he got surgery, you can ask what kind. And if he says, "Oh, the doctors tore my asshole apart," you can buy him a box of chocolates. That's standard for any friendship. If people want to talk about something, they'll usually volunteer it. If you boy didn't want to talk about his shredded large intestine, he would probably downplay his problem and cut off the flow of conversation. It's pretty easy to follow people's cues like that. You're not gonna be like, "Are you okay? Any rectal problems to speak of?" You build up to the anal question. You don't just go for it right off the bat.

Personally speaking, I always wanna know what you went into surgery for, but I'll always make sure to ask in a way that makes it sound like I'm concerned for your life, instead of just being nosy. "You were in the hospital? OMG IS EVERYTHING OK?" I'm already halfway to buying flowers for your gravesite. Now tell me all about your sex change.

Eric:

So I'm a "put the toothpaste on the toothbrush first, then rinse it under the water" type of guy. What is the correct protocol when that perfect gob of toothpaste inevitably falls off the toothbrush and sticks to the base of the sink when you hold it under the water at the wrong angle? Do you attempt to scoop it back on your toothbrush (ignoring all of the disgusting things that have probably come into contact with your sink) or do you cut your losses and just scrape it down the drain and (annoyingly) reapply a new gob of toothpaste? Follow-up question... am I in the minority of doing the toothpaste, then rinse combo?

I use the brush to scoop the glob of toothpaste back up, which is probably a horrible idea that will lead to rectal surgery. But I paid for that toothpaste. That's half a penny going down the drain. I'll be damned if I let it get washed down. If I pick up a few bits of shaved stubble in the process, so be it.

To answer your second question, I rinse the toothbrush first, then apply the toothpaste (so that the first rinse doesn't knock the toothpaste down into the sink, causing your glob dilemma), then brush, and then do a second rinse, then suck the water out of the toothpaste so that I can rinse my mouth, and then a I rinse the brush a third time. That is probably not normal. That's a lot of rinsing. My toothbrush is drowning.

Layne:

So some friends and I were discussing that show Dating Naked. Would you rather walk in, meet the person, then undress, or just bust in showing what you got?

Oh, I'd rather walk in dressed. If you're dressed first, there's at least a small chance that you will hit it off with your blind date from the get-go and feel less awkward (and more excited!) about taking off your clothes and pulling out your dongbone. Maybe you're just delaying the inevitable, but it's worth a shot.

At the very least, I can play that scenario out in my head before the initial greeting, and feel okay about walking into the room. If I'm naked from the get-go, I'm fucked. What if I have a boner and she thinks I'm a creep? What if I DON'T have a boner and she thinks I'm impotent? MY DICK CAN'T WIN. Maybe if I were some gym asshole with oiled abs, I would feel good about my prospects, but I have pasty skin and visible stretch marks and odd blotches of hair. I look like a bunch of spare body parts from a bomb scene that have been stitched together. Nudity does not work in my favor. My only shot is to walk in clothed and charm my way into the lady tolerating my nudity, because no one's gonna be overly excited about that shit. There's no way people on that show go on those dates sober. None. I'd take a bag of ecstasy before the taping.

Mike:

The Yankees were in Baltimore for a good ol ass-whooping by my beloved Orioles a while back. We just happened to eat at the same steakhouse as Jeter and Beltran at one table, then Joe Girardi and coaches at another. They were all drinking mixed drinks and wine for a solid two hours, yet no one got up to go take a piss (except Jeter did one time). Do you think star athletes/coaches train themselves to hold their pisses longer than your average Joe, to make sure they don't have weirdos/stalkers or diehard O's fans like me following them to the bathroom? I took like three pisses over those two hours!

Well, they naturally have stronger core muscles than you, which means they probably can hold in their piss for a little longer due to their immense pelvic-floor power. But yeah, I'm sure using a public shitter isn't the most enticing prospect for Derek Jeter. He knows exactly the kind of person that would want to shake hands with him at a urinal, and he probably takes preventive steps to make sure that encounter never happens. Would YOU want to get into with Vinny from the Bronx while your dick is out of your pants? No. You would not.

Hell, they made a whole Gatorade ad this fall about the ONE TIME Jeter actually ventured out to meet the public. Like, he spent the past 20 years steadfastly avoiding the peasantry, and hanging out with them for 10 full minutes (and getting paid by Gatorade for it) was supposed to represent some incredibly noble gesture. Does he spend the rest of his time sleeping in a fucking bank vault? Celebrities are weird, man.

Phil:

I have an almost-two-year-old, and at times need to dispense the liquid form of Tylenol to her. I'm not positive, but this might be one of the best parts of being a parent so far. As I hold the bottle upside-down and draw the medicine out with the plastic syringe, I always imagine that I am about to administer a lethal injection to a Death Row prisoner or that I'm like Will Smith's character in I Am Legend and that I have the cure that will save the human race.

They should give out prizes for getting all of that medicine in a child's mouth without missing and/or regurgitation. Feeding medicine to a baby is like a carnival game. I rarely hit the target, but when I do, I want a stuffed giraffe.

By the way, they came out against children's cold medicines awhile back, and it sucks to not have that in my parenting arsenal anymore. In virtually any situation, my first response to dealing with a child is, "Well, did we try giving her Motrin?" My second response USED to be, "Well, did we try giving her the Motrin cold stuff?" That's out now. It's regular Motrin, or Benadryl, or nothing. I gotta resort to spending quality time with the child instead of drugging them, which is complete bullshit. I just want BIG DRUG to come up with a harmless sleeping potion for children. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Ryan:

How might your coworkers react if you downed a six-pack of O'Douls at the office? Yes, there is technically alcohol in it, but if a child can drink it, would it not be technically acceptable for a grown person to drink at work? A lot of people would probably just think you're an idiot, but would there likely be someone that takes it too seriously?

I think you'd get a terse email from management telling you to cut it out. The fact that O'Douls has SOME alcohol in it (0.5 ABV) basically ruins your best-laid plans. You're not drinking a lot on the job, but you're drinking something. You're also making everyone in the office thirsty for actual beer. They need to finish these call reports, but instead, all they can think about is busting out of that joint, heading down to the bar, and wrapping their lips around the rim of a tall, cold glass of frothy beer goodness. God, that glass feels so good in your hand! Like it was born there. Beer is the best. What were we talking about?

One other thing: Beer is a leisure drink. Even if you're kicking ass on those spreadsheets with an O'Doul's in your hand, you will LOOK like you're slacking off. Your boss will think you're a no-good boozer living it up on the company's dime. And you know what? I can't blame him. It's hard to get things done with beer. That's not a productive drink. You can close a deal with Jerry Jones when you're full of beer, and that's about it.

Steve:

Is there a worse run-of-the-mill self-inflicted injury than biting the inside of your mouth while eating? You have the immediate, intense pain that makes you want to shout obscenities and throw your plate across the room, and then you get a sore that doesn't heal for at least a week and reminds you of your own stupidity every time you put something in your mouth.

It's even worse when you do it with family around, because you need to swear and throw things, and you can't. It sucks. When I bite my lip or tongue or cheek, I would like five minutes to scream out profanities and throw shit against the wall in anger. I NNED those five minutes. But nooooo, I gave to keep cool for the kids. What a load. Let me vent my anger by kicking in a car door and then I can go about my day.

Kyle:

I was playing golf with my mom a couple days ago and made a birdie on the first hole (good start, probably won't last). She whips out a flask from her golf bag and takes a swig of vodka and then hands it to me. "It's birdie juice," she says. "If either of us makes a birdie or a par from a bunker, we both take a pull." So I continue to get drunk with my mom on the golf course (weird, right?) and actually played a lot better than normal with the extra booze in me.
So my question is this: What if the PGA made the Birdie Juice Rule a mandatory thing on tour?

Before we get to your question, let's all salute Kyle's mom for being the coolest mom on the planet. A flask of vodka? Kyle's mom isn't here to fuck around. I wanna play Xbox at Kyle's house.

Anyway, PGA Tour players are uptight pricks, so all of them would probably intentionally par every hole to avoid making birdie and having to imbibe on the course. Then every tournament would feature a nine-man logjam at the top of the leaderboard at even par, followed by an eight-day playoff. And Tiger still wouldn't win it.

Kyle:

If the T-1000 had successfully killed John Connor, what would it have done with itself while waiting for Judgment Day?

Wouldn't it have ceased to exist? Without a grown John Connor, the machines never have to develop the T-1000 to go back in time, so the T-1000 is no more. The OTHER machines still get to hang out in the future, playing robot volleyball and drinking nonalcoholic robot beer. But T-1000 misses out. It's a suicide mission. Gotta applaud that T-1000's selflessness.

By the way, if the machines figured out time travel, why are they sending just ONE guy back? And why wouldn't that one guy just nuke the city? And did they really think the humans wouldn't notice a cyborg walking around killing everyone? Those robots did a shit job.

Email of the week!

Anon:

I recently moved to Madison, which is a great city in an otherwise shitty state. However, in my four-unit apartment building, I have neighbors whose door is literally right next to both the entrance and the staircase that leads to my apartment.
The apartments are rather spacious, being tw0-bedroom and 1,000 square feet, with a large coat closet inside. Well, my neighbors don't give a shit.
They leave multiple pairs of shoes, as well as a bulky stroller, in the hallway at all times. Like, right there at the bottom of the public staircase and right beside the public entrance. In the month-plus I have now been here, I haven't even ever seen them use the stroller. Not to mention it makes this nice apartment complex in a quiet Madison neighborhood look like shit, as their crap is in plain view of the window next to the entrance door.
Also, the stroller rests against the wall next to the door, so when walking in or out, if the door shuts slightly hard, the stroller falls over. It's inconvenient.
The family is just two parents and one child, and from the two times I have ever seen them, they seem to have the patented Jay Cutler "DOOOON'T CAAARE" attitude.
How do I go about getting a point across that doing this is pretty crappy without sounding like a whiny selfish brat?
The only solution I have thought of is just throwing all of it away. But that's just temporary and I plan on living here for another couple years before moving again.

Call the fire marshall, baby.

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 Sam Woolley.

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Yes, It’s OK To Hate Russell Wilson

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