I just recently got a Christmas card from Drew and his family and I have to say: Is there any bigger fucking waste of time, energy, and paper than a Christmas card? I understand why people used to do it before Facebook existed, but currently, if someone has a baby, not a day goes by that a photo of that thing isn't thrown up somewhere, and because of that, I don't really need a hard-copy reminder of what it looked like two weeks before Christmas when you forced it to wear some shit it hated. As soon as I got Drew's card, my wife and I looked at the photo for three seconds, then threw it in the trash, because what the fuck am I going to do with it? It's not one in a series I'm trying to collect. Anyway, Drew's kids are lovely. Your letters:
Anonymous:
Who is the most masturbated to woman in history? While someone older, like Meryl Streep, may get the occasional batch, I doubt that they have numbers to compete for most in the history of the world. Given the increased world population and internet, I suspect it's someone modern that applies to a broad spectrum of guys from different age groups. Taking all of these into consideration, I think it's a toss up between Kristin Stewart or Emma Watson with Britney Spears a dark horse. Thoughts?
See, I disagree, I think it's someone from a pre-internet generation. It's sort of like TV ratings: They've gone down every year because there's just so many more channels to watch, just as there's so many more things to masturbate to. The other day I had to Google image search "Top 10 songs of 1990" for work, and a picture of a stripper came up a few rows down and I was like, "Huh. Sorta feel like masturbating to this." I wasn't even LOOKING to jerk off and I did. We're in the golden age of masturbating. But back in the early 1990s, if I wanted to masturbate I had very few options. And if you go too much further back, nudity and porn were so taboo, dudes just used their imaginations to jerk off. So I would definitely say it was someone in the late '80s, early '90s, and someone who was in Playboy, since that was the spank rag most accesible to masturbators. So with that in mind, I did a little research and found that the most widely purchased issue of Playboy during that time period was the February 1991 issue featuring Pamela Anderson. There's my guess. FYI, it also featured a Q-and-A with Siskel and Ebert, which means jerking off was partially responsible for their careers.
[Editor's note: Drew fielded the same question in 2010. He went with Marilyn Monroe. Classy.]
Stephen Elliott:
If you got a free ticket to BCSNCG/Super Bowl/World Series Game 7/whatever sporting event would be your Mecca under the condition that you had to shit your pants before you walked in the game and sit in your own excrement for the next 4ish hours, would you do it?
Here's the problem; As soon as you shit your pants, that's it. That's your day. It's one of the only events that can befall you where you IMMEDIATELY have to deal with it. My wife is pregnant and even if she called and was like, "My water just broke," I might still finish the last bite of the candy bar I was eating and THEN go. If I shit my pants, EVERYTHING would stop. I'd immediately go into emergency "get these shitty underwear and pants away from my body as soon as possible" mode, and I wouldn't even remember that I had a candy bar. And if you think the memory of even the most epic game could trump shitting your pants, you're wrong. If you had shit your pants on the day of the 2008 presidential election, you'd refer to that as the day you shit your pants, and then if the conversation continued, you'd mention that also on that day we elected the first African-American president. So even if it meant I could see my horrendous San Diego Chargers in the Super Bowl, it wouldn't be worth it.
Brian Moore:
Is there any other "oh shit, I'm getting old" moment than having an athlete you saw play have a kid playing on ESPN? It was weird enough seeing Gordie Lockbaum's kid in the Little League World Series a few years ago, but I let out an audible eff bomb this week when I saw that Juwan Howard, Jr put up a good game against Syracuse.
It's definitely up there. I would also add "Flipping channels and stopping for more than 10 seconds when you hit a re-run of The Mentalist." I think seeing the offspring of an athlete you watched makes you feel especially old because you always just assume the players you're watching are around your age until you turn about 50. I'm 11 years older than Stephen Strasburg but in my head that motherfucker is basically my age. Just wait until you can't flip to a game without seeing a Cromartie miss a tackle.
Brad:
Imagine this scenario. You are an actor or a musician. You are watching Jeopardy.
A question for $800 appears that is clearly about yourself.
None of the three contestants get the right answer.
Now, are you excited that you have reached the level of celebrity to be a viable answer on Jeopardy or upset that none of the three contestants knew who you were?
First of all, if your question is worth $800, you're not THAT famous, because that's a fairly hard question which means the answer isn't going to be Tom Cruise or someone like that. Like, the Indian dude from Big Bang Theory is the answer to an $800 question and that dude is running around his fucking house calling everybody he knows if he sees that shit. And personally, I think it makes it BETTER if no one gets the answer, because then you get to hear Trebek say your name in a way that makes all the contestants feel like assholes, and that's basically as good as showbiz gets.
Brian:
Not too awfully long ago I made a comment while sitting in on a graduate psychology class that I believe every child needs to learn conflict resolution through, you know, actually resolving conflicts, and occasionally being on the losing end of things. Specifically, I believe I said "Every kid needs to have his ass kicked at least one time before they're an adolescent." This got me to thinking: would it be to society's benefit if groups of adults banded together and showed up randomly at elementary schools across the country in order to fight, say, fourth grade classes? I feel like as long as it's one fight, no parents are involved in the actual beatings, and fisticuffs were stopped as soon as the kids lost the will to continue, it can only be a springboard for understanding both conceptually and concretely the effects and consequences of violent confrontation, right?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say fourth graders are not going to learn any productive lessons by having the shit beat out of them by adults. Also, any adult who sees an ad that says, "Looking for men over the age of 25 to form a task force that will deliver a beating to fourth-grade children" is probably not gonna be the type of guy to stop during the fight and say, "Guys, I think these fourth graders have had enough."
But, speaking to your other point, I don't think it's as important to have had your ass kicked at least once as it is to have just been in a fight. This generation of kids will be the first to have lived entirely in a world where you can hurl insults anonymously from a computer. When you can say whatever you want without having to fear physical retaliation, it changes the way you deal with conflict. These kids are going to be the future leaders of the world, which means there's a significant chance we'll someday have a president who spent much of his adolescence logged on to YouTube, calling people "faggot" four times a week without repercussion. If you've ever been in a fight, even if you won, you understand consequences. I got the shit beat out of me when I was 12 for doing an impression of this chubby kid's butthole when he shit. I have never done that impression since.
Anonymous:
Extra points for haphazardly pulling halfway in to the handicapped spot.
Anonymous:
Every fan wants their team to have a franchise QB, and most are willing to overlook moral qualms - Roethlisberger and his history with women, Vick (when he was good) and the dog thing, etc. What's the absolute moral limit your average NFL fan would draw in terms of supporting their franchise QB? I'm a Jets fan, and if we had the next Tawmy Brady under center, I think I would have to know that he was actually a practising klansman to NOT support said hypothetical QB. Where do the non-Gregggggs of the world draw the line?
I took a little poll of my friends and the answers ranged from "stabbed an innocent" to "pedophile," which I think is the line no one would cross. I have one friend who's a Pats fan and of course he said, "I could never root for Roethlisberger or Vick, etc…" but that's because he lives a charmed fucking life rooting for Tommy Terrific. If he had to watch two quarters of Sanchez flapping around like he's covered in a cloud of bees and overthrowing a wide-open Rob Gronkowski, he'd change his tune. Which brings me to my conclusion that I think it mostly depends on how shitty the quarterback you root for is, and how long you've had to endure him. For instance, I root for the Chargers. Now, attempting to disregard the fact that Philip Rivers a.) endorsed Rick Santorum because they "share religious beliefs," and b.) has proven himself to be a dipshit almost every time he opens his mouth, he's only been shitty to watch these last two years. So currently I'm telling myself I wouldn't root for anyone who's been convicted of a sexual assault or worse. Aside from that, if you plopped the next Brady on the Chargers and he'd run over a drifter who lived, I'd be on board. Two more years of shitty Rivers? BRING ME KLANSMAN BRADY.
Justin Halpern is the author of the New York Times bestseller Shit My Dad Says and also partially responsible for the show of the same name, which you probably hated. His new book, I Suck At Girls is available now. And yes, his dad is in it. He's not stupid. You can follow him on Twitter @justin_halpern and check out his website, www.thesefriesaregood.com.