Guest Blogging: Red Sox Monster, and video

I posted about the Indians and how hard it is to figure out their true talent at the Red Sox Monster. Yes, that's the site that brought you oodles and oodles of goofy baseball fan video this season. But Dan also posts these cool word-like things on the page too, ha, it's not just video. Check out his excellent article trying to figure out why a Red Sox fan was physically beaten, for example.

Oh, and let me flip a video onto the pile myself: it's Tobin Heath and Casey Nogueira (US U-20 soccer players) competing in a soccer ball trick battle. I've always wanted to get into one of these in basketball.


Eh, while I'm at it, a rant. I was watching Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman's scripted banter on Jimmy Kimmel Live the other night. And it made me think about how ideal stereotypes can go terribly wrong. Kimmel fits the stereotype of being a laid-back yet professional fraternity boy. Hypothetically, old people should think he looks like a nice normal boy, and young people should appreciate his edginess. However, to me he reminds me more of that guy at parties whose politeness and sincerity is a mile wide and an inch deep. This is more of the real Jimmy Kimmel personality to me:

Additionally, most skits on the show are based on an idea frat boys at 2AM think sounds really cool, but is actually quite lame in execution. Believe it or not, ethnic/elderly jokes done by ethnic/elderly people aren't funny to everyone.

And what about Sarah Silverman? (I'll get to sports momentarily, promise). Stereotype is she looks like the girl next door but says outrageous things like the guy next door. Man words with woman parts-great idea, right? But in actuality, that stereotype isn't that cool; think about it. You're shooting baskets or what not, a girl comes over to join you, and it's great to be playing sports with a girl. That is, until you realize that she drops an obscenity every time she misses a shot, and burps and farts on the court more than you do. That's not exactly what becoming "one of the guys" is about. (Per Man Law #4236, I'm not allowed to reveal the details, but it involves face paint, drums, fried rattlesnake, and merry-go-rounds). If said girl reacts that way when she misses a shot, how she would react if we would make a mistake on a date? So some guys tend not to go for that type of girl...then such girls wonder why "guys won't ask me out" when they try so hard to be one of the guys. Admittedly, it's a stereotype double standard of sorts. Guys say they want their girls to be more "down-to-earth", but they usually don't mean "earthy" per se. It's similar to when girls say they want to date a "nice guy". They don't mean a Boy Scout, they just mean "don't beat me and steal all my stuff while I'm sleeping like my last boyfriend did."

Anyway, bottom line is, the same "bait-and-switch" when it comes to stereotypes happens in sports, especially football. We say we want this feel-no-pain, throw darts, hard-living QB...and then we bash Brett Favre for using painkillers to keep up that image. We say we want super-intelligent coaches who only care about winning...and then we bash Bill Belichick for having no personality. We say we want these acrobatic wide receivers who celebrate in the end zone and want the ball really bad...and then we bash Terrell Owens or Chad Johnson for complaining too much when they don't get the ball, or over-celebrating. Frankly, what we think we want or say we want and what we actually want are two different things. The sooner fans and media realize that, the better.