We Need to Talk About Donald

We are less than a week into the “Reign of the Donald” and I fear the country has made a dire mistake. I won't get into the political side of the equation, as I see that argument as redundant. I see too many people favoring the ideals of tribal lines rather than actually considering their true feelings on subjects. It is only human to be drawn in by the rhetoric of “our team is better than their team” in fact had we not evolved to value the camaraderie of clans it's questionable we would have evolved at all.

Instead I’d like to focus on the fact that the 45th president of a country I've been told is no longer great is a petulant child. Clearly something traumatic happened to him in adolescence as his emotional maturity seems to be on par with an eight year old.

Those of us who are fans of literature should be ecstatic that people are buying a classic novel in droves. Unfortunately the surge to purchase 1984 has little to do with literary interest and more to do with the parallels between the newly coined “Alternative Facts” and the well known “Double Think”. Perhaps most troublingly this addition to the popular lexicon came about not from some important multi country political situation but instead due to crowd size.

From the Houstan Chronical 

It is a fact that compared to Barack Obama’s inauguration Trump's was sparsely attended. However you must consider that Obama taking the oath of office was a monumental event and Trump was just another white guy. The size of the crowd shouldn't even matter, it is supremely inconsequential especially to the leader of the free world. Yet Trump seems to be incapable of handling the facts (they are the facts) and told his press secretary to combat the misinformation that turned out simply to be information. When pressed about this clear deviation from the truth failed stand up comic Kellyanne Conway brushed it aside as “alternative facts”.

At this point if you are a “Yuge” Trump supporter you may be fuming. Rest assured I have no agenda so far as political parties go, instead I'm concerned with the behavior of this man child. Imagine if you will that your child wanted to invite another child with similar behavior traits to Trump to their birthday party. He would be the last person you'd want to attend, at best you'd invite him reluctantly because you're inviting the entire class. Well we’ve invite Donald Trump to the party, he's the life of it now. So cheers everyone, here’s to the next four years.

Are the New England Patriots Killing Football?

The question is “Are the New England Patriots killing football through their success” a perplexing and seemingly counter intuitive question. A diehard Patriots fan who has known nothing but continued dominance for the past decade and a half might argue the question is born of “sour grapes” or the more crude colloquialism “butt hurt”. Perhaps my grapes are sore from the bi yearly beat down my Miami Dolphins receive from the “evil duo” of Brady and Belichick.

The almost Sith like partnership has produced 4 Super Bowl titles in seven appearances, six straight AFC championship games, and put them atop of the mountain so far as American football success goes. These accomplishments can be described by many cliches; amazing, phenomenal, once in a lifetime. They can also be described in a word much less superb than those adjectives; boring.

Tom Brady has been to the Super Bowl in 7 of the 15 seasons in which he was the primary starter. He's had foils primarily consisting of the Manning brothers but a nearly 47% rate of making it to the title game is absurd. They have run the gambit from scrappy underdog to evil empire. To quote Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight “You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” For the NFL they are the villain we need.

The problem is real life is not so simple. There are no good people and bad people so far as the NFL is concerned. Just people, trying to win football games. In fiction the evil doers get their comeuppance. In 2008 we thought the dragon was vanquished when Eli Manning with the help of David Tyree and almost supernatural forces slayed the 18-0 Patriots team and claimed the Lombardy trophy for themselves. In 2012 they faced off again and again Eli was able to beat Brady. Real life isn't fiction though, the bad guy doesn't go away once defeated instead the Patriots regrouped and won the big game in 2015 and are poised to win again in 2017.

To paraphrase Niche time is a flat circle and everything that has happened will happen again forever, repeating. So too goes the NFL the Patriots will forever content until Tom Brady retires, which paradoxically seems less likely with each passing year. Human beings crave new experiences and the NFL is not offering anything new. The dominance displayed by one franchise is exhausting to watch if you're not a fan of them. I left the AFC championship game not excited to see if Tom Brady can pull out his record setting sixth title but questioning if there wasn't something better for me to do with my time on February 5th.

Perhaps my butt is sour or however it goes. I'm just a guy blogging about a multi billion dollar industry. It's no secret the rating have fallen this year. I contend that the predictability of at least one conference is a contributing factor. The playoffs in general save for the Packers and Cowboys game have consisted of blow outs. Our time is precious and I surely don't feel compelled to spend anymore of mine with that Franchise from New England. I wonder how many people feel the same way. The NFL has a problem and despite their best efforts there is nothing the can do about.

Post Script: In all seriousness good luck to the Patriots, I hope they win because all of my friends are fans. If any of you need me I'll be bitterly cursing the cruel God who would allow this run of success to continue on for so long.

Also I'll be on Twitter @thefakebmarr