I hate what happened to Gruden, even though I have never liked him much. I hate that he took the team that Tony Dungy built and went to the Super Bowl. No justice in that. But there seems to be no justice in his destruction either. I don’t know what racist or mysoginistic remarks he made, but I think it is creepy that little trolls are searching history to dredge up stuff from years ago to use against somebody. We all have said regrettable things in the past and maybe we have become smarter or wiser in the present. I hope the history trolls choke on their own creepiness.
I feel like what is being missed here is that Gruden insulted the CEO of the league and some of the other power brokers. In the midst of an unrelated investigation, the league office found all these emails, it apparently pissed them off severely, and they released these emails specifically to ruin him and force the team's hand. I don't think any of this would have gone differently before cancel culture reared its head.
Most men would be, I'm sure. And not many people of any persuasion would hold up under that kind of scrutiny. They read like 650,000 emails -- was that the number? They really must have been out to get him to do that. I'm surprised in all that they didn't come up with a lot more. Had to dig pretty hard.
I haven’t followed this much but he evidently was disparaging in an ugly way toward people on a number of fronts, not just the rubber lips quote. Actually, there he had support from Tony Dungy and Tim Brown and others, who said Gruden often used rubber lips as a metaphor for liars. Immaturity isn’t always racist.
Looks like a lot of someones were out to get him & this was just the last straw.
Unlike many commenters here, I would prefer not to see content like this on TK News. It adds nothing and says nothing beyond the empty cleverness of kicking somebody while they’re (perhaps deservedly) down. Gruden is not a sympathetic figure, but even so, let it alone or take on a larger cultural analysis.
And yes, probably 90% of the population would not survive a dredging operation like this one.
Well, the satire was a bit hard to even decipher here. He was definitely poking fun at him as if this was no big deal at first and someone to make sport of, but then the ending with him disappearing left the reader a bit unsure of the author's intentions. As if he wanted you to realize as you laughed that maybe it wasn't all that funny by the end?. Like some of his other work (and in a way, it had that "A Modest Proposal" -- Jonathan Swift quality, without the clarity. But I agree with you. Matt has been the victim of just this kind of attack and you'd think he'd be a bit more nuanced about it all or a bit more clear in his nuance I should say. Matt is known for this kind of satire but perhaps this was a bit cavalier to do since he is mostly against cancel culture. So I've still been thinking about his intentions here. But if they fired every football player and coach who had ever assaulted people, associated with horrible people, broke the law and/or said something unacceptable in emails, you'd probably have two people on the field. Gruden was stupid but I still find him a bit sympathetic or rather I object to the hypocrisy of it and I think we should be capable of offering people grace. These witch hunts are starting to feel fascist and a convenient way to take out anyone you dislike in any field. Anyone could be next. Matt might be commenting on just that without being clear enough to be criticized. I'm not sure.
Not everything we write here is brilliant either. LOL. Probably even Shakespeare had his share of stuff that missed. Every writer does. I remember trying to read Faulkner’s A Fable. I’m not sure if it was brilliant but I didn’t last 70 pages and Faulkner was a giant genius. I know he deprecated his short stories but they were almost always artistic bulls-eyes.
Sure. But then he writes this on a blog with comments, so he is going to get reactions. I wish he'd been ever so slightly clearer. When I was an adjunct professor (and as I went through the grad program), they were "re-intepreting" Heart of Darkness, Conrad and they claimed it was a racist work. Drove me crazy. I wrote a huge paper on this and at the time they raved about me, said I was a truly critical thinker, made me student of the year. Later after Trump took office I supported the president of the university who wanted to take NO political position--I was cancelled immediately from the English Dept. But I digress. Conrad put a frame around this story -- one person was telling it to another in a boat -- and it was ground breaking shedding a light on racism -- showing it exactly as it was -- and making the reader feel bad. It was incredible how stupid these "scholars" seemed to me. Fine. The point for them is the guy is white and no matter what, it was automatically racist -- white people cannot write from their experience. Yet they competely dismissed all fiction technique. Actually, they knew little about it even--most of them were not very smart and were not fiction writers, barely understood technique. The intention of the author didn't matter -- the author is dead, they say. Once written, it becomes the property of the reader. I'm still of the old school and I consider Matt's intent here. Their point in these classes is that the individual doesn't matter--he or she can be put into whatever box the collective thinkers and analyzers want to put him (this also is the harbinger of the death of novel because that is written from the perspective of an individual), and that is about identity politics. No universalism. Their point: no way could Conrad understand racism or write about it--he was inherently racist. They wanted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Why can't we have universalism (basic humanity in common) AND appreciate unique experience? That is the only hope for humanity moving forward. Of course, these politicians and Marxist ideologues know it's divisive -- their goal is to divide society, destabilize it, and fundamentally change it.
I read somewhere when Bertolt Brecht was hauled before the House Unamerican Affairs Committee (I think) in the 50s red scare he was accused of saying something un-American. He told them "I didn't say it, my character said it!" He was a playwright after all.
Evidently the subtlety was lost on them.
Very sad story about today's HUAC in the ivory tower. If Conrad can't interpret racism, then on what basis do today's wokesters interpret Conrad? They did not share his lived experience. On what basis therefore can they criticize him?
I suspect he probably was "racist" by modern standards. Just about everybody was in those days. And most of the same people preening in their virtue mirrors today, they would have been racists too back then -- just like most people. Ecce Homo.
The people who wouldn't have been, they're not out screaming and shouting about racism. They just live by example -- then and now.
Like you , I have not been able to figure out what Matt made of this. Generally I think Matt was a bit of an asshole in this piece - betrayal, kick him while he is down.
I wasn't totally sure. I'm a fiction writer. So I had this weird feeling that he was showing everyone what everyone was doing, piling on this guy somewhat justified or not, he makes the guy look pretty bad, and then at the end making people feel bad that he was totally disappearing. You know Matt, he is known for satire, and he's really smart (maybe fancies himself a bit smarter than he is like people are wont to do) but we fiction writers are famous for not explaining our work. But in A Modest Proposal it's clear from the beginning nearly how absurd it was. Jonathon Swift. So I hope he isn't just making sport of this guy. Especially since Matt was the brunt of such behavior before and is writing on substack partly I suspect because of it. I felt sad at the end but not sure if it was because Matt wanted us to or because Matt writing it upset me. Oh well.
Matt’s a hero of mine but he was a jerk on this one : Goodell weaponized woke pc to get revenge on Gruden for criticizing him as commissioner. Maybe Matt was trying to be ironic but it did not work.
I always thought Gruden was an asshole and a grown man shouldn’t write/say/think such atrocious things but there MUST be room for Mercy and Grace in our culture
Yes. Otherwise, Biden should be fired and probably most men. Biden's comments about Obama being "well spoken and clean" are just as insulting as talking about the guy's big lips. Even worse since Biden doesn't even understand why it's insulting! And he's done worse than that. So it always depends upon what these people need to accomplish how big a deal all this is--and conservatives' transgressions are always unforgiveable. But he shouldn't make fun of people at all. But as Dan said, it was an unrelated issue to get this guy. Maybe we should go through 650,000 of everyone's emails and see how survives. Not many, I suspect. But he did wrong he's apologized. They could have just fired him, but this is some kind of nasty retribution of some kind. It's a sad state of affairs overall.
“Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.”
Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill pled guilty to punching and chocking his pregnant girlfriend.
Kareem Hunt is on video pushing and kicking a woman.
Jon Gruden, who used locker room talk in private emails when he was employed by ESPN, not the NFL, was excommunicated. He's being erased. EA Sports said they're taking him out of the Madden video game. The Tampa Bay Bucs immediately removed him from their ring of honor.
This year, the super bowl halftime show features Eminem, Snoop Dog, and Dr. Dre. Have you ever listened to a single song by any of them? Because I guarantee they say shit that makes Gruden's alleged "racism" and "homophobia" look utterly benign.
This has nothing to do with football; this has to do with exclusion from society, from loss of income and status; a right in your face showing you that you better buy into the narrative or you will be ostracized. The Amish call it shunning and the JWs call it defriending and others have different names. The toughest criminals in jail are punished with social exclusion, it's called solitary confinement and it's feared by people tougher than you and I. It goes back Millenia when being excluded from the group/herd meant certain death and it's hard wired into our DNA. They don't need a police state or Soldiers in the streets, social exclusion works as religion used to work. High school never ends, fear of exclusion never ends. Social control never ends, free will is a lie like rule of law and so many other things. Millions of people are angry and millions more are terrified of saying or doing something "wrong, not sanctioned by the narrative du jour". This guy apparently said things outside the narrative and for that, Even with apologies his life is ruined, just like that, an administrative action and you're gone... WOW! Are any of us so clean we can throw the first stone? You know what the answer is; now keep your head down and hope they don't find some dirt in your past and hope no woman who doesn't like you for whatever reason decides to accuse you, anonymously of course of harassment; you're out..no innocent until proven guilty, no right to confront your accusers.. gone, just like that. Welcome to brave new world, hope you like it, you could be next.
I HAVE seen many of Biden’s. Hunter Biden, that is. Courtesy of the Laptop From Hell. And many of the emails (those that are not incredibly stupid) are quite damning of him and “the Big Guy (aka Joe Biden).”
I have never had any expectation that a football coach would be an enlightened or decent human being. They get paid to coach Neanderthals playing a violent kids’ game. Why does anyone expect these guys to exhibit good behavior in their private lives?
Many of us here would direct our criticism to the ways in which the rich billionaire owners exploit the athletes (many of whom are black and come from poor backgrounds) who have dedicated their lives since early youth to the sport and end up sacrificing their minds and bodies over the course of short careers while getting slight compensation relative to the profits their labor produces, rather than dismissing them in this way. Also, there's no reason to assume that many athletes aren't smart, articulate and decent human beings.
Please direct your criticism at whomever you wish. The owners are greedy bastards without a doubt, but the players choose their vocation of their own free will.
Worth my entire TK sub. I believed this up until the part where Gruden's body starts dissolving into the ether. Figured after all you are the Meet the Censored guy, and Gruden really is that nuts. You should profile him for real
I don't really watch football, but I unfortunately grew up dealing with meathead coaches in the south who didn't like freaks and weirdos like me.
From what I've read— and I can't bring myself to read an entire article about this, although Taibbi's piece was fun — this guy sounds indicative of most football dudes and when I heard it, I thought "they're going after football now; that's been a big get for bloodless aliens like the staff of MSNBC for a long time."
Sure enough, the next day hundreds of "articles" — in unison — dogmatically stated that "this is all of football" or "all of football is this" (similar to the thousands of current stories that start with the definitive "fact" that Dave Chappelle is a transphobe) and I thought "I'd rather have football than these asshole media people, even if it means recognizing that it's still mainly run and populated by dumb meatheads." (And I want to keep Dave Chappelle too.)
There appears to be an overall attack on the existing American culture. Now, I have my own issues about the good and bad parts of living in America, but definitely an effort to make everything of the past "wrong" and putting in a new SJW vision of what should be. See Marvel Comics, Star Wars, football, heck even eating meat. Everything torn down, with the "New Culture" put in its place, even if it is crass, unworkable and lies. Live and let live is gone, trying to be replaced with an iron diktat that will brook no opposition. Exile is the only option. Slightly ironic, since the first place I read Matt T. was from The Exiled Online a loooong time ago.
I also grew up playing football in the south. The coaches were 99 percent ignorant meatheads. I can’t be bothered to get offended by their stupid antics. It’s like the people who were shocked to discover that Paula Deen had used the n-word. I would be shocked if she hadn’t, considering that she’s a 70 year old white woman from South Georgia.
I never played football but I had to deal with those dudes in mandatory PE class and they were on the whole annoying - some were nice and some were borderline sociopaths.
As I’ve grown older and worked in both NYC media and lived in football country, I’ve found that football lovers in the south are often more pleasant, gregarious company, and more open-minded, even when I don’t share their politics.
As and aside - I’ve worked with Paula Deen. She’s was definitely brash and unfiltered (like a drunken aunt), but I never heard her say anything resembling something offensive.
There has been an acting out on an old animosity towards middle American values, especially in the south. I hate to tell these mini-gestapo snitches, but they can find the same exact values and ideas all the way over in New Jersey and in upstate New York. A lot of lifelong liberals, democrat voters, union members are disgusted by the actions of the dominant media corridor branch of the Democratic Party, and its getting worse. What the hell do they think they’re accomplishing by being so divisive and so nasty?
A great way to mess with people’s minds is to both coach football AND be into punk rock, books, not being ignorant,etc. It worked for me-and no, the twain ’ do not cross much. Mike Leach-Pirate Coach-wrote a book about Geronimo-Texas Tech, Wash St, Mississippi State is about the only exception I have seen-dude is a national treasure.
If you grew up hanging around southern punk rockers and/or literary types, the cross-section of football fan (mostly college) and weirdo is much higher than most people would realize. It's usually as the weirdos settle with age, and if they stay in the south, they start to find football pleasurable. I've been at a southern BBQ with lit teacher/punk rockers who were also alums from one of the universities you just mentioned watching said team on TV.
There's a quote that goes roughly "you'll never meet a person who went to a southern university that doesn't have a favorite college football team" which I think is mainly true. (I've often heard it attributed to Faulkner, although I'm not sure Faulkner actually cared for college football. He described football as carrying "a trivial contemptible obloid across fleeing and meaningless white lines.” From what I understand, the people of Oxford, Mississippi and the University of Mississippi didn't start using Faulkner as a mascot until his death. Read the great Terry Southern's wonderful piece of new journalism "Twirling at Ole Miss" for a likely more accurate representation of Oxford's view of Faulkner at the time of his death.)
Punk rockers and weirdos softening on sports is likely more of a generational thing. Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth said "sports and music don't mix," but Youth heirs and quality lit junkies Pavement both mixed genuine classic rock back into the Sonic pop deconstruction, and they were sports obsessives, going to college football games while on tour, and even collectively owning a Kentucky racehorse. (It's rumored Pavement's 2010 reunion shows were partially undertaken to help group hype-man Bob Nastanovich get out of horse-race gambling debt.) It should be noted that Pavement features three southern university alums.
At Ohio State we had the iconic local Buckeye punk band The Dead Schembechlers-Bo Biafra, Bo Scabies, Bo Ramone-they held it down for old school punk and proper Buckeye fandom/scUM hate!
I thought this was a lot of fun… a very strange world we inhabit. The Animal Farm people are going to turn us in… like the children of Mao spying on their parents and reporting them to the local party bosses. Perhaps some wrongs must be righted in this fashion? But I think this is the greater evil. We shall see. Thanks Matt, always thought provoking.
Chapelle: DaBaby kills a n**** in a North Carolina , but he gets cancelled for saying h**** slurs ... that's what's up with the NFL players beating up people, even suspected manslaughter ... but Gruden gets cancelled for being an asshole ...
I took a look on Wikipedia. Indeed the hockey Gruden comes up first on the list, but football Gruden's article is still there. Here's what they said about the controversy (which I completely missed out about since I decided to stop watching sports a couple of years ago):
"Email controversy and resignation
In October 2021, a league investigation into the Washington Football Team for workplace misconduct uncovered emails Gruden sent to then Washington general manager Bruce Allen where Gruden used racist, misogynistic, and homophobic slurs. The emails were written between 2011 and 2018.[33] The emails referred to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as a "faggot", and a "clueless anti football pussy". He also said Goddell shouldn't have pressured the Rams to draft "queers", referring to Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted in NFL history. Jeff Fisher, who was the coach of the Rams at the time, denied he was pressured and stated he drafted Sam entirely based on his football skills.[34]. Gruden stated that players who protest the National Anthem should be "fired", specifically referring to former 49ers safety Eric Reid. Gruden used a racist stereotype to describe DeMaurice Smith, saying “Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of Michelin tires”.[35] Gruden also called then United States Vice President Joe Biden a "nervous clueless pussy".[36] Gruden received emails from Allen that contained topless photos, including a photo of two Washington Football Team cheerleaders. Gruden resigned on October 11, 2021 after details of the emails were released by The New York Times.[37]
Gruden was removed from the Buccaneers Ring of Honor, where he had been inducted in 2017, as a result of the content of the emails."
Please note: "Gruden received emails from [then Washington general manager Bruce] Allen that contained topless photos, including a photo of two Washington Football Team cheerleaders." Hmm, haven't heard anything about Allen having to mea culpa for anything.
Some things Gruden said were stupid, but calling "then United States Vice President Joe Biden a "nervous clueless pussy" was a sign of someone who really can analyze stuff accurately. This reminds me more and more of the 1930s-Soviet Edition, where you can be denounced and stripped of everything at the drop of a tweet.
Yeah Matt, that was kinda cute but Gruden is low hanging fruit. There is a lot more to this and it might unravel Roger Goodell’s bullshit reign as NFL commissioner.
The emails came from an investigation into the Washington Redskins team and the effort to force owner Dan Snyder to sell the franchise.
What the fuck do Gruden’s emails from twelve years ago have to do with it and why were they the only ones leaked to the New York Times?
There were thousands of other emails discovered and the NFL Players Association wants to see them. If that happens what ever Gruden said suddenly won’t mean shit.
I’d fucking LOVE it if the NFLPA got a hold of those emails, but you know that’s never, ever, ever gonna happen. I do think it’s amusing (in the way that the arrogance of Goodell/the NFL is always “amusing”) that nobody considered that anybody might ask,”Wait, so what’d Bruce Allen’s responses say?” or wonder,”What do the other 649,997 emails say?” They never thought we’d wonder what the owners’ emails say.
Btw, some of Gruden’s emails were from 2016, not twelve years ago.
Was in Tampa during Super Bowl XXXVII. Same town whose DEC brought Michael Avenatti as possible president in 2018. Both JG and MA were heroes in their day to many people in Tampa. (Tampa also had Hulk Hogan and Bubba the Love Sponge and end of Gawker).
I hate what happened to Gruden, even though I have never liked him much. I hate that he took the team that Tony Dungy built and went to the Super Bowl. No justice in that. But there seems to be no justice in his destruction either. I don’t know what racist or mysoginistic remarks he made, but I think it is creepy that little trolls are searching history to dredge up stuff from years ago to use against somebody. We all have said regrettable things in the past and maybe we have become smarter or wiser in the present. I hope the history trolls choke on their own creepiness.
I feel like what is being missed here is that Gruden insulted the CEO of the league and some of the other power brokers. In the midst of an unrelated investigation, the league office found all these emails, it apparently pissed them off severely, and they released these emails specifically to ruin him and force the team's hand. I don't think any of this would have gone differently before cancel culture reared its head.
Goodell was woke before it was mandatory in corporate circles.
Yes, I am not sure too many people would survive this kind of deep dive into their pasts--people made mistakes and times are different. It's very sad.
indeed, many of us would be absolutely crucified
Most men would be, I'm sure. And not many people of any persuasion would hold up under that kind of scrutiny. They read like 650,000 emails -- was that the number? They really must have been out to get him to do that. I'm surprised in all that they didn't come up with a lot more. Had to dig pretty hard.
I haven’t followed this much but he evidently was disparaging in an ugly way toward people on a number of fronts, not just the rubber lips quote. Actually, there he had support from Tony Dungy and Tim Brown and others, who said Gruden often used rubber lips as a metaphor for liars. Immaturity isn’t always racist.
Looks like a lot of someones were out to get him & this was just the last straw.
Unlike many commenters here, I would prefer not to see content like this on TK News. It adds nothing and says nothing beyond the empty cleverness of kicking somebody while they’re (perhaps deservedly) down. Gruden is not a sympathetic figure, but even so, let it alone or take on a larger cultural analysis.
And yes, probably 90% of the population would not survive a dredging operation like this one.
Well, the satire was a bit hard to even decipher here. He was definitely poking fun at him as if this was no big deal at first and someone to make sport of, but then the ending with him disappearing left the reader a bit unsure of the author's intentions. As if he wanted you to realize as you laughed that maybe it wasn't all that funny by the end?. Like some of his other work (and in a way, it had that "A Modest Proposal" -- Jonathan Swift quality, without the clarity. But I agree with you. Matt has been the victim of just this kind of attack and you'd think he'd be a bit more nuanced about it all or a bit more clear in his nuance I should say. Matt is known for this kind of satire but perhaps this was a bit cavalier to do since he is mostly against cancel culture. So I've still been thinking about his intentions here. But if they fired every football player and coach who had ever assaulted people, associated with horrible people, broke the law and/or said something unacceptable in emails, you'd probably have two people on the field. Gruden was stupid but I still find him a bit sympathetic or rather I object to the hypocrisy of it and I think we should be capable of offering people grace. These witch hunts are starting to feel fascist and a convenient way to take out anyone you dislike in any field. Anyone could be next. Matt might be commenting on just that without being clear enough to be criticized. I'm not sure.
Not everything we write here is brilliant either. LOL. Probably even Shakespeare had his share of stuff that missed. Every writer does. I remember trying to read Faulkner’s A Fable. I’m not sure if it was brilliant but I didn’t last 70 pages and Faulkner was a giant genius. I know he deprecated his short stories but they were almost always artistic bulls-eyes.
Sure. But then he writes this on a blog with comments, so he is going to get reactions. I wish he'd been ever so slightly clearer. When I was an adjunct professor (and as I went through the grad program), they were "re-intepreting" Heart of Darkness, Conrad and they claimed it was a racist work. Drove me crazy. I wrote a huge paper on this and at the time they raved about me, said I was a truly critical thinker, made me student of the year. Later after Trump took office I supported the president of the university who wanted to take NO political position--I was cancelled immediately from the English Dept. But I digress. Conrad put a frame around this story -- one person was telling it to another in a boat -- and it was ground breaking shedding a light on racism -- showing it exactly as it was -- and making the reader feel bad. It was incredible how stupid these "scholars" seemed to me. Fine. The point for them is the guy is white and no matter what, it was automatically racist -- white people cannot write from their experience. Yet they competely dismissed all fiction technique. Actually, they knew little about it even--most of them were not very smart and were not fiction writers, barely understood technique. The intention of the author didn't matter -- the author is dead, they say. Once written, it becomes the property of the reader. I'm still of the old school and I consider Matt's intent here. Their point in these classes is that the individual doesn't matter--he or she can be put into whatever box the collective thinkers and analyzers want to put him (this also is the harbinger of the death of novel because that is written from the perspective of an individual), and that is about identity politics. No universalism. Their point: no way could Conrad understand racism or write about it--he was inherently racist. They wanted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Why can't we have universalism (basic humanity in common) AND appreciate unique experience? That is the only hope for humanity moving forward. Of course, these politicians and Marxist ideologues know it's divisive -- their goal is to divide society, destabilize it, and fundamentally change it.
I read somewhere when Bertolt Brecht was hauled before the House Unamerican Affairs Committee (I think) in the 50s red scare he was accused of saying something un-American. He told them "I didn't say it, my character said it!" He was a playwright after all.
Evidently the subtlety was lost on them.
Very sad story about today's HUAC in the ivory tower. If Conrad can't interpret racism, then on what basis do today's wokesters interpret Conrad? They did not share his lived experience. On what basis therefore can they criticize him?
I suspect he probably was "racist" by modern standards. Just about everybody was in those days. And most of the same people preening in their virtue mirrors today, they would have been racists too back then -- just like most people. Ecce Homo.
The people who wouldn't have been, they're not out screaming and shouting about racism. They just live by example -- then and now.
Like you , I have not been able to figure out what Matt made of this. Generally I think Matt was a bit of an asshole in this piece - betrayal, kick him while he is down.
I wasn't totally sure. I'm a fiction writer. So I had this weird feeling that he was showing everyone what everyone was doing, piling on this guy somewhat justified or not, he makes the guy look pretty bad, and then at the end making people feel bad that he was totally disappearing. You know Matt, he is known for satire, and he's really smart (maybe fancies himself a bit smarter than he is like people are wont to do) but we fiction writers are famous for not explaining our work. But in A Modest Proposal it's clear from the beginning nearly how absurd it was. Jonathon Swift. So I hope he isn't just making sport of this guy. Especially since Matt was the brunt of such behavior before and is writing on substack partly I suspect because of it. I felt sad at the end but not sure if it was because Matt wanted us to or because Matt writing it upset me. Oh well.
Matt’s a hero of mine but he was a jerk on this one : Goodell weaponized woke pc to get revenge on Gruden for criticizing him as commissioner. Maybe Matt was trying to be ironic but it did not work.
Matt should have left out the tea is for fags quote - piling on.
> little trolls are searching history
Isn't that's what The Intercept has tasked itself with doing?
Yes. Ugh. They’ve become maybe the most insidious organization out there.
I always thought Gruden was an asshole and a grown man shouldn’t write/say/think such atrocious things but there MUST be room for Mercy and Grace in our culture
Yes. Otherwise, Biden should be fired and probably most men. Biden's comments about Obama being "well spoken and clean" are just as insulting as talking about the guy's big lips. Even worse since Biden doesn't even understand why it's insulting! And he's done worse than that. So it always depends upon what these people need to accomplish how big a deal all this is--and conservatives' transgressions are always unforgiveable. But he shouldn't make fun of people at all. But as Dan said, it was an unrelated issue to get this guy. Maybe we should go through 650,000 of everyone's emails and see how survives. Not many, I suspect. But he did wrong he's apologized. They could have just fired him, but this is some kind of nasty retribution of some kind. It's a sad state of affairs overall.
What about mercy killing?
Speaking of mercy killings…know who would probably welcome a mercy killing right now?
The folks tasked with reviewing 650,000 emails, that’s who.
Lol! 😁
Wait, so… You don’t know what happened, but you hate what happened anyway? Okay.
I guess you missed the point.
I think Matt is channeling Hunter Thompson
HA! All I could think of while reading it was “We were somewhere around Barstow...”
HST would have added speed at least, at most cocaine, some pharmaceuticals and Mai Tais.
“Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.”
And doing a great job of it!
Perfect channel of Hunter Thompson
Needs more Ether.
He always has.
Hunter was a huge football fan-not sure whom he rooted for.
Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill pled guilty to punching and chocking his pregnant girlfriend.
Kareem Hunt is on video pushing and kicking a woman.
Jon Gruden, who used locker room talk in private emails when he was employed by ESPN, not the NFL, was excommunicated. He's being erased. EA Sports said they're taking him out of the Madden video game. The Tampa Bay Bucs immediately removed him from their ring of honor.
This year, the super bowl halftime show features Eminem, Snoop Dog, and Dr. Dre. Have you ever listened to a single song by any of them? Because I guarantee they say shit that makes Gruden's alleged "racism" and "homophobia" look utterly benign.
Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks.
Someone said that once... also they kept talking about trick-ass marks, mark-ass tricks, bitch-ass hoes...
The Ben Folds version of that song is one of the funniest things ever.
Within that genre, I love Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine.
Indeed. You might like The Gourds version of another of the same pedigree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hGSR5njZE
Matt you were a dick to Gruden
Gasp! You mean the NFL doesn’t actually care about the things they purport to care about??? Holy shit, my entire world-view needs realigning…
Revenge by Roger Goodell for Gruden’s criticism. How lovely and Machiavellian and dressed up in the moral outrage of our wokeness.
“Stan” makes Ray Rice look like Stuart Smalley……..
This has nothing to do with football; this has to do with exclusion from society, from loss of income and status; a right in your face showing you that you better buy into the narrative or you will be ostracized. The Amish call it shunning and the JWs call it defriending and others have different names. The toughest criminals in jail are punished with social exclusion, it's called solitary confinement and it's feared by people tougher than you and I. It goes back Millenia when being excluded from the group/herd meant certain death and it's hard wired into our DNA. They don't need a police state or Soldiers in the streets, social exclusion works as religion used to work. High school never ends, fear of exclusion never ends. Social control never ends, free will is a lie like rule of law and so many other things. Millions of people are angry and millions more are terrified of saying or doing something "wrong, not sanctioned by the narrative du jour". This guy apparently said things outside the narrative and for that, Even with apologies his life is ruined, just like that, an administrative action and you're gone... WOW! Are any of us so clean we can throw the first stone? You know what the answer is; now keep your head down and hope they don't find some dirt in your past and hope no woman who doesn't like you for whatever reason decides to accuse you, anonymously of course of harassment; you're out..no innocent until proven guilty, no right to confront your accusers.. gone, just like that. Welcome to brave new world, hope you like it, you could be next.
The people who received the emails and said nothing for TEN YEARS --- are any of them owners? Will they also now be penalized? Yeah, right.
Well said.
Personally I’d love to see every public persons emails and texts published going back 15 years or so… let’s start with all “journalists “
I'd like to see Biden's.
No, I don't think you would like what you see.
Ha!
He doesn't use email. He never could find the "any" key to restart.
I suppose so. He probably is still wondering why General failure reading his disk.
I HAVE seen many of Biden’s. Hunter Biden, that is. Courtesy of the Laptop From Hell. And many of the emails (those that are not incredibly stupid) are quite damning of him and “the Big Guy (aka Joe Biden).”
Finally! It was such an easy set up 🤣
Yeah, let's see how well they all survive that.
I have never had any expectation that a football coach would be an enlightened or decent human being. They get paid to coach Neanderthals playing a violent kids’ game. Why does anyone expect these guys to exhibit good behavior in their private lives?
Many of us here would direct our criticism to the ways in which the rich billionaire owners exploit the athletes (many of whom are black and come from poor backgrounds) who have dedicated their lives since early youth to the sport and end up sacrificing their minds and bodies over the course of short careers while getting slight compensation relative to the profits their labor produces, rather than dismissing them in this way. Also, there's no reason to assume that many athletes aren't smart, articulate and decent human beings.
Just look at the professional athletes that are Saying NO to the vaccines..standing up for Individual Rights. What a difference from last season
So well said.
Please direct your criticism at whomever you wish. The owners are greedy bastards without a doubt, but the players choose their vocation of their own free will.
Worth my entire TK sub. I believed this up until the part where Gruden's body starts dissolving into the ether. Figured after all you are the Meet the Censored guy, and Gruden really is that nuts. You should profile him for real
I don't really watch football, but I unfortunately grew up dealing with meathead coaches in the south who didn't like freaks and weirdos like me.
From what I've read— and I can't bring myself to read an entire article about this, although Taibbi's piece was fun — this guy sounds indicative of most football dudes and when I heard it, I thought "they're going after football now; that's been a big get for bloodless aliens like the staff of MSNBC for a long time."
Sure enough, the next day hundreds of "articles" — in unison — dogmatically stated that "this is all of football" or "all of football is this" (similar to the thousands of current stories that start with the definitive "fact" that Dave Chappelle is a transphobe) and I thought "I'd rather have football than these asshole media people, even if it means recognizing that it's still mainly run and populated by dumb meatheads." (And I want to keep Dave Chappelle too.)
Chappelle is a national treasure.
There appears to be an overall attack on the existing American culture. Now, I have my own issues about the good and bad parts of living in America, but definitely an effort to make everything of the past "wrong" and putting in a new SJW vision of what should be. See Marvel Comics, Star Wars, football, heck even eating meat. Everything torn down, with the "New Culture" put in its place, even if it is crass, unworkable and lies. Live and let live is gone, trying to be replaced with an iron diktat that will brook no opposition. Exile is the only option. Slightly ironic, since the first place I read Matt T. was from The Exiled Online a loooong time ago.
I also grew up playing football in the south. The coaches were 99 percent ignorant meatheads. I can’t be bothered to get offended by their stupid antics. It’s like the people who were shocked to discover that Paula Deen had used the n-word. I would be shocked if she hadn’t, considering that she’s a 70 year old white woman from South Georgia.
I never played football but I had to deal with those dudes in mandatory PE class and they were on the whole annoying - some were nice and some were borderline sociopaths.
As I’ve grown older and worked in both NYC media and lived in football country, I’ve found that football lovers in the south are often more pleasant, gregarious company, and more open-minded, even when I don’t share their politics.
As and aside - I’ve worked with Paula Deen. She’s was definitely brash and unfiltered (like a drunken aunt), but I never heard her say anything resembling something offensive.
There has been an acting out on an old animosity towards middle American values, especially in the south. I hate to tell these mini-gestapo snitches, but they can find the same exact values and ideas all the way over in New Jersey and in upstate New York. A lot of lifelong liberals, democrat voters, union members are disgusted by the actions of the dominant media corridor branch of the Democratic Party, and its getting worse. What the hell do they think they’re accomplishing by being so divisive and so nasty?
Amen brother.
A great way to mess with people’s minds is to both coach football AND be into punk rock, books, not being ignorant,etc. It worked for me-and no, the twain ’ do not cross much. Mike Leach-Pirate Coach-wrote a book about Geronimo-Texas Tech, Wash St, Mississippi State is about the only exception I have seen-dude is a national treasure.
If you grew up hanging around southern punk rockers and/or literary types, the cross-section of football fan (mostly college) and weirdo is much higher than most people would realize. It's usually as the weirdos settle with age, and if they stay in the south, they start to find football pleasurable. I've been at a southern BBQ with lit teacher/punk rockers who were also alums from one of the universities you just mentioned watching said team on TV.
There's a quote that goes roughly "you'll never meet a person who went to a southern university that doesn't have a favorite college football team" which I think is mainly true. (I've often heard it attributed to Faulkner, although I'm not sure Faulkner actually cared for college football. He described football as carrying "a trivial contemptible obloid across fleeing and meaningless white lines.” From what I understand, the people of Oxford, Mississippi and the University of Mississippi didn't start using Faulkner as a mascot until his death. Read the great Terry Southern's wonderful piece of new journalism "Twirling at Ole Miss" for a likely more accurate representation of Oxford's view of Faulkner at the time of his death.)
Punk rockers and weirdos softening on sports is likely more of a generational thing. Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth said "sports and music don't mix," but Youth heirs and quality lit junkies Pavement both mixed genuine classic rock back into the Sonic pop deconstruction, and they were sports obsessives, going to college football games while on tour, and even collectively owning a Kentucky racehorse. (It's rumored Pavement's 2010 reunion shows were partially undertaken to help group hype-man Bob Nastanovich get out of horse-race gambling debt.) It should be noted that Pavement features three southern university alums.
At Ohio State we had the iconic local Buckeye punk band The Dead Schembechlers-Bo Biafra, Bo Scabies, Bo Ramone-they held it down for old school punk and proper Buckeye fandom/scUM hate!
I thought this was a lot of fun… a very strange world we inhabit. The Animal Farm people are going to turn us in… like the children of Mao spying on their parents and reporting them to the local party bosses. Perhaps some wrongs must be righted in this fashion? But I think this is the greater evil. We shall see. Thanks Matt, always thought provoking.
Chapelle: DaBaby kills a n**** in a North Carolina , but he gets cancelled for saying h**** slurs ... that's what's up with the NFL players beating up people, even suspected manslaughter ... but Gruden gets cancelled for being an asshole ...
I took a look on Wikipedia. Indeed the hockey Gruden comes up first on the list, but football Gruden's article is still there. Here's what they said about the controversy (which I completely missed out about since I decided to stop watching sports a couple of years ago):
"Email controversy and resignation
In October 2021, a league investigation into the Washington Football Team for workplace misconduct uncovered emails Gruden sent to then Washington general manager Bruce Allen where Gruden used racist, misogynistic, and homophobic slurs. The emails were written between 2011 and 2018.[33] The emails referred to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as a "faggot", and a "clueless anti football pussy". He also said Goddell shouldn't have pressured the Rams to draft "queers", referring to Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted in NFL history. Jeff Fisher, who was the coach of the Rams at the time, denied he was pressured and stated he drafted Sam entirely based on his football skills.[34]. Gruden stated that players who protest the National Anthem should be "fired", specifically referring to former 49ers safety Eric Reid. Gruden used a racist stereotype to describe DeMaurice Smith, saying “Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of Michelin tires”.[35] Gruden also called then United States Vice President Joe Biden a "nervous clueless pussy".[36] Gruden received emails from Allen that contained topless photos, including a photo of two Washington Football Team cheerleaders. Gruden resigned on October 11, 2021 after details of the emails were released by The New York Times.[37]
Gruden was removed from the Buccaneers Ring of Honor, where he had been inducted in 2017, as a result of the content of the emails."
Please note: "Gruden received emails from [then Washington general manager Bruce] Allen that contained topless photos, including a photo of two Washington Football Team cheerleaders." Hmm, haven't heard anything about Allen having to mea culpa for anything.
Some things Gruden said were stupid, but calling "then United States Vice President Joe Biden a "nervous clueless pussy" was a sign of someone who really can analyze stuff accurately. This reminds me more and more of the 1930s-Soviet Edition, where you can be denounced and stripped of everything at the drop of a tweet.
Ah, so Brandon was mentioned as well?
What can I say….Pure fucking genius. Thanks for sharing Matt.
Yeah Matt, that was kinda cute but Gruden is low hanging fruit. There is a lot more to this and it might unravel Roger Goodell’s bullshit reign as NFL commissioner.
The emails came from an investigation into the Washington Redskins team and the effort to force owner Dan Snyder to sell the franchise.
What the fuck do Gruden’s emails from twelve years ago have to do with it and why were they the only ones leaked to the New York Times?
There were thousands of other emails discovered and the NFL Players Association wants to see them. If that happens what ever Gruden said suddenly won’t mean shit.
I’d fucking LOVE it if the NFLPA got a hold of those emails, but you know that’s never, ever, ever gonna happen. I do think it’s amusing (in the way that the arrogance of Goodell/the NFL is always “amusing”) that nobody considered that anybody might ask,”Wait, so what’d Bruce Allen’s responses say?” or wonder,”What do the other 649,997 emails say?” They never thought we’d wonder what the owners’ emails say.
Btw, some of Gruden’s emails were from 2016, not twelve years ago.
Was in Tampa during Super Bowl XXXVII. Same town whose DEC brought Michael Avenatti as possible president in 2018. Both JG and MA were heroes in their day to many people in Tampa. (Tampa also had Hulk Hogan and Bubba the Love Sponge and end of Gawker).
Tampa!
Next, can you invite Roger Stone over for some bong rips?
What a great break from everything. I’ve never read this side of you.
Well, that was a pleasure to read. More of this, please.