What a terrible week.
Philip Seymour Hoffman died. Dylan Farrow wrote that open letter. DMX is going to fight George Zimmerman. The oceans are going extinct.
Nothing like a week that says, “life is hard and will only get harder until you die.”
What can you do? Besides reach for the Fireball (and keep on trucking).
Nothing. You can’t really do anything. So enough with the resistance.
Let it happen. Let the pain and sadness wash over you, like a cascading Gatorade shower of pure sugar and limited sodium content that does nothing but dehydrate you anyway.
I think losing is cool. It’s the new sticking it to the man. Nobody says you have to succeed and be happy all the time. Be proud Peyton Manning. Way to go John Elway. Everyone wanted to win the Super Bowl and you actually had a say in the matter and you chose not to.
What’s wrong with embarrassment or not showing up? It’s hip. It’s what the other 50% is doing and 100% of them don’t want to do it anyway. There’s an opportunity to be trendsetters here. To take the road less traveled. Everybody wants to win; that’s boring.
Vegas set up all these expectations for you — that’s not your fault. It’s like when my parents told me to go to a liberal arts college and be a business major. How could I stick it to them in the worst possible way (in a 2.5 point spread, nonetheless)?
By going to art school, duh. There’s nothing more terrifying than your child throwing paint at walls and making films about scab picking and losing by 35 points.
Embrace it Peyton! If you fight it, you’re just another squad that got whooped because you were scared. But rolling over in protest of the massive, consumer packaged joke that’s known as the Super Bowl?
Legen… Wait for it… Never mind. That was too mainstream. David Bowie said it better.
It’s not like doing things differently is new to sports. Who are the real trailblazers nowadays? Look at Jason Collins. Forget winning or losing — he’s not even the league. That’s totally meta. The Vikings punter — what was his name? He’s not in the league either.
Those guys are so hip they’re affecting sports without even playing them. I think you can get there Peyton. Eventually. Just look at your brother, Eli. It’s something to aspire to.
Look, there are very few cool things nowadays. Being a hipster and going against the grain is definitely one of them.
Hipster is the new hip and athletes do whatever it takes to up the fresh factor on their “brand” (whatever that means). One of the hippest, most independent athletes in sports? Russell Westbrook. Dude’s wardrobe is like MC Hammer mixed with Urkel. So fresh.
But do hipsters win? Nah. Brandon Jennings? Heck of a haircut, bad team. James Harden? Killer beard, pitiful defense. None of them have won anything.
Kobe’s got five championships and he’s always referring to himself as an old man. The last time he was hip, they were serving pterodactyl eggs and raptor bacon for breakfast at Camp Firewood. Talk to me when you’ve got a bunch of bird tattoos and you need beard shampoo, Kobe. Until then? Hipster-unapproved.
Winners are dudes like Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Gregg Popovich. They’re like the Nickelback of sports. Even Shaq tried indie rapping and sounded very, very unlike Kendrick, who performed with Imagine Dragons, so… Can you imagine those dragons?
Winning can be boring sometimes, plain and simple. Variety is the spice of life.
Come on. It’s not like our society doesn’t reward people for completely failing in life. It’s everywhere, from movies to culture to politics — heck, it’s capitalism!
Death, criminal and sexual accusations, terrible art, greed? Losing in my book. But America loves this stuff — the results are PPV boxing fights, a lifetime achievement award, a Heisman, blockbusters, $20M bonuses (and a tax loophole!).
There’s this thing called rape culture, but I think we’re culture-raped. We’re rape-cultured too (see Allen, Woody or Football, College), but our whole way of life has been violated by a bunch of things someone decided needed to be the “norm” when in fact there’s nothing normal about them.
They’re as abnormal, cancerous, and shamelessly money-grubbing as a PPV fight of an ex-rapper and a man who shot a 17-year-old kid.
So now, we’re all a bunch of damaged goods, pickled in negativity, and we’re expected to get it all right? To not lose by 35 points in a Super Bowl when nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day?
Should we really have to plug in our basses during the Super Bowl halftime show? (Kurt Cobain would be proud, Flea)
What if we just stopped caring about all this messed up stuff? How cool would that be? People being passionate about things that don’t matter at all — No longer! Putting energy into things that do — Heck yeah!
Way to go Peyton. Way to go John Fox. Doing the hard thing. Getting it done in true counter-culture fashion.
People will look back at this Super Bowl – when the 6th Extinction of the 3rd Rock from the Sun is upon us – and they’ll hail you two as prophets.
When the times get tough, curl up in a ball and wait until it’s all over.
After all, the mammals survived and the dinosaurs didn’t.
