The Best Gift. For Patriots Fans. Ever.

Seriously, I just want to buy like a hundred copies of this book and give it to all my Pats-fan friends for Xmas Eli Manning Day.

19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England's Unbeatable Patriots [Amazon]
Giants Rewrite History [ESPN]

Giant Super Bowl Moment

At some point this week I thought, wow, what if the Mets get Johan Santana AND the Giants win the Super Bowl. Well this week we welcomed the Santanas, and I'm getting to post perhaps the greatest singular play in Giants history:



This particular clip is awesome, and seemingly made for TAN, because Stuart Scott calls Jacobs a "big ol' country negro" on tv.

Feels good to have this one for the archives.

Matt Damon Is A Pimp

Sarah Silverman recently debuted a hot and hilarious video, "I'm F*cking Matt Damon," on the Jimmy Kimmel Show (JK's her boyfriend if you didn't know. I could see some black people not knowing that.). Jimmy also has a running "Our apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time" gag. So that explains the little end bit (after the hip hop breakdown!). Anyways, it's pretty funny, and Matt nails (ha) his parts:



But it just reminds me that Good-in-bed Will Hunting is a muh'fuhkin' pimp because one of my favorite movies, Eurotrip, has one of my favorite songs, Scotty Doesn't Know, with a similar theme. Matt's wife will soon have enough songs to make her own mixtape:

Ladies Guide to Faking It For Super Bowl XLII

On Fanhouse today, I do a little guide to Faking it For Super Bowl XLII. Here's the lead:

Problem: Your guy has been reading Fanhouse all week, filling his head up with all sorts of talking points and analysis that he will use to annoyingly pepper you with all throughout Super Bowl Sunday. He's busy pounding his chest and asserting himself as king of the Super Bowl castle, meanwhile all you wanna do is get pregnant. LADIES, MY MERCEDES!

Solution: Here's the guide with all the counter-intelligence you need to reverse the momentum and set him back on his heels. Plus, I'm going to give you a couple extra lines that will either leave him all hot, bothered and unable to high-five his boys cause he has a boner, or flaccid and depressed because he knows his post-game will consist of nothing but a cold shower and a night alone with his Super Bowl wisdom. Here's how it breaks down:

The Boast: Guys are just regurgitating the stuff they see on ESPN or read online. We give you 4 likely sound bytes of Football Intelligence you'll hear for the Pats/Giants game.

The Reverse: What they haven't considered, but you have. Now. The only football knowledge you'll need to turn the tables on Mr. Stupid.

Weird Look: Obviously the guy is going to be taken aback when you up the ante. Here's what to say to make him comfortable in his manhood again.

Following the initial kick-off and return you have two options: One leads to hot sex at halftime. The other leads to his public embarrassment. The choice is up to you:

The Whisper: Every woman's trump card. Here's the line to whisper in his ear if you want to derail his one-track football mind.

The Glare: The other trump card. Say this while giving him the glare-eyes and he'll know you're the Tom Brady to his Eli Manning.

So now you know the formation. We've got some plays after the jump. Ready, break!

Ladies Guide to Faking It For Super Bowl XLII [AOL Fanhouse]

50 and Paris Sitting In A Tree ... GET THE F*CK OUT MY TREE, B*TCH!!

Page Six provides an hilarious exchange stemming from 50 Cent's performance at a pre-Super Bowl party hosted by Paris Hilton. And as much as it saddens me that my model TAN couple are going through some apparent growing pains, I really wish I could have seen this:

When the princess decided to get onstage and dance, the hip-hopper quickly instructed her to "Get the f**k off the stage." She started to cry and tried to plead with the party's production staff to let her dance, whining, "But it's my party!"

Hahaha. Aww. I really hope they worked it out later that night.

50 Cent Makes Paris Cry [Page Six]

You Know Ecstasy Started Out As Not A Drug

You have ecstasy on you?

I have ecstasy.

Where?

Uhhhh ... everywhere?

I Want Richard Cheese To Rape Me

The best thing to come out of my New Years Eve experience was getting put on to Richard Cheese by Dodai (annoying name drop but Jezebel's hot right now, so whatevs). I just dloaded pretty much all of his songs, I can't get enough, but I think this cover of Nirvana's "Rape Me" is my favorite. The sync's not perfect on this but it's the best I could find.

Everybody! Rape Me! Put your hands together! Rape me again! R. A. P. ME. Rape rape rape, rape rape rape rape rape, rape rape rape me!



Here's Nirvana doing the real song. Soooo serious. Whatever:

Aesop Rock: Pigs

Artist: Aesop Rock. If there's a Mt. Rushmore for white alt-intellectual hip hop, he's on it. I like this video, though the time lapse conceit for a full 4:30 is kinda lazy. Can I get one cut-away to a booby or a slam dunk or something? But the final picture's cool! That said, I disagree with Jeff's perfunctory ejaculations(?), and will chalk the superlatives up to caucasian affirmative action. Which is cool. But this vid is certainly not for everyone. And it's not better than your favorite rapper's video if your favorite rapper is any good...

BUT: 5-10 years ago the "not for everyone" sentiment would have been cause for frustration for the artists. Now it's embraced in our "niche new media economy." It's funny that the different context doesn't really change the success level of these indie-alt artists -- Aesop Rock would sell the same in any era -- but it gives them less to complain about. Less whining about "The System," and more looking in the mirror figuring out if you're really connecting with people like that.

blah blah, me smarty-arty negro ...[grunt]... me post video cause I like:


via: the Passion

Seth Macfarlane: The Negotiating Table

Great funny bit on the strike here:

I like Kat Foster here, she's cute, and has the perfect "overworked" hair going. Just googled her, I didn't realize she was such a fan favorite.

Perfect puppet choices. Great timing throughout. Just well done video. This was written by Family Guy Seth Macfarlane, so the guest celebs keep on rolling at funny or die. They must be winning some sort of prize soon:



I think the "go on..." at the 0:57 mark makes the whole vid. Good stuff ...

Shirts & Skins: The Rooney Rule Is Dead, Long Live The Rooney Rule

TAN makes jokes and broad sweeping generalizations in Shirts & Skins, his weekly exploration of race and sports. His opinions, like this tagline, may change at any moment.

Is there a more beloved head coach in professional sports than Tony Dungy?

Belichick may be a genius, but falls short on the love meter. Ditto Phil Jackson. Joe Torre was beloved, but the bloom is surely off that rose as he heads to LA, Land of Apathetic fans.

But everyone loves Tony (except the gays). And the decision of The Greatest Black NFL Coach Ever to spend at least one more year steering the Colts, along with the recent MLK holiday, and the arrival of the first black GM in the Super Bowl, and, like, Obama, has that sweet smell of melanin in the air. We are living the dream. Holla!

The interesting sidebar to Dungy's Deal or No Deal drama was learning Jim Caldwell, black man, would assuredly be the next coach after him. That would make Caldwell, who's been with him since the TB days, the first "legacy hire" for black head coaches. The minority "old boys network" just put down their first NFL power move! We're moving Jimmy in, and that's that. The ROC is in the building!

It was only a few years ago (2003) that the NFL felt they had to exercise The Rooney Rule, the NFL's affirmative action coaching policy, and fine the Detroit Lions for not interviewing a minority candidate. Now we're up in Super Bowls, and two black assistant coaches you probably never heard of (Tomlin, Caldwell) have come out of nowhere to land high profile gigs. So what does this mean for The Rooney Rule? If black head coaches are starting to walk on their own, is it time to lose the crutches?

This week we're doing a Rooney Review to determine if we are in need of Rooney Reform. There will be other "R" words. We'll also figure out how to tie Tony Dungy back in since that's what I used to lead off this column. After the jump sexy words and exclamation points about NFL affirmative-action policy making. Aw yeah ...


Shirts & Skins: Long Live The Rooney Rule [AOL Fanhouse]

The Guardian: Marching on Washington

Esteemed UK newspaper The Guardian canvassed black America to take the pulse on what Obama means to us. Providing readers an interesting range of opinions, and myself the fortunate opportunity of being able to lump my name with people like Chris Rock, Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis. Mumia Abu-Jamal, Halle Berry, Barbara Heineback and ... TAN.

In search of an excerptible segment, this was the closest I could find. Best imagined with a British accent of course:

Yet I am aware, with all the rhetoric, that Obama's victory could easily become a curse. A beacon that everyone else points out to demonstrate that things are OK for black people, even though the problems in the community will surely outlast the term of the next president, no matter who it is. So while there is no question that Barack is currently a galvanising symbol of change, until he manifests and enacts that change I think black folks are advised to hedge their bets a little. We don't want him to be our black Band-Aid for wounds that require much more serious treatment.

For some reason the Band-Aid line makes me want to go into Eddie Murphy's banana in the tailpipe routine. "We ain't fallin' for no black president in the tailpipe!"

It's true. We're not.

Anyways, yay. UK in the hizzy. Gonna try and hit some fish-n-chips for lunch today. British chicks, holla at ya lad.

Marching on Washington [The Guardian]

Trombone Playing Is Dead

Both Gawker and Stereohyped amongst others have pointed out this revelatorily ludicrous video from the rosy-eyed folks at the New York City Tourism Office. I agree, it's amusing. The highlight is when they head uptown, around the 0:30 mark, via the transmogrifying of a Van Gogh painting. Then there's some sort of locomotive in Yankee Stadium, muppets on a bus, and they're all taking pictures of trombone-playing negroes outside of Lenox Lounge. Obviously what gets you in this vid is the realism. That's my city, folks.

From Norm! ... to Jimmy

Great find by Bill Simmons here, a medley of Norm from Cheers clips.


So via contractual obligation I was compelled to think of the black analogue for "Norm," and I thought maybe JJ from Good Times, a clip of him doing Dy-No-Mite! in all different episodes/scenarios would be appropriate. I couldn't find that, but I discovered this CLASSICALLY HORRIBLE interview between Jimmy Walker and David Letterman :



Wow. I found that to be fairly amazing (young Dave looks very Jimmy Kimmel-ish in that clip). It starts getting good around 2:13 where JJ thanks the crowd for no reason, and you see Dave deciding whether he's going to comment on it. He does, and then it's great from there with another highlight coming at the 3:00 mark, when JJ drops a "regular years-to-drug years" joke about Keith Richards. Another good spot comes at 3:50 when JJ starts the worst perfume joke ever.

This is bad enough that you'd want to give him a pass, just an off night, but here's a recent appearance and he's doing the same schtick:



So now I think I'm obsessed with Jimmy Walker.

To leave on a happier note, here's a Good Times episode with spanish subtitles. Dy-no-mite!



here's Part 2. Great episode dealing with porn and sexism! This makes me want the DVD box set.

The Myth of the 'Troubled NBA'

I explore the dissonance between media perception of the "troubled NBA" and its reality as a booming enterprise. Despite its flaws, and in light of the Mitchell Report and rampant PED use in baseball and football, the NBA might best represent the "pure" spirit of American sports/competition.

The Last Pure Sport [EbonyJet]

Telemarketing Is About The People; It's About Human Spirit

Very amusing video on Manoj, India's elite telemarketer.

My name is Bruce Hess. How have you been on this beautiful 19.52 degree day?