Saturday, October 6, 2012

MKMOT/50 Days of HATE- Day 24 (October 6-7, 2012)

Do you ever long for Hank Williams Jr.'s Monday Night Football musical masterpiece, and it's unquestionable musical credibility? Every Saturday morning, I do.

This one was recently mentioned in the comments. I said from the start that reader suggestions wouldn't influence my list, but that doesn't mean it's not good to know that we're on the same page. I've also long said that lyrics alone weren't enough to make the cut, but thank all that is holy that this one is also sonically offensive, because the lyrics... Holy shit. This is a rare example of a song that "wrote itself", in orange crayon on the back of a Cracker Barrel kids' menu. I'm still not convinced that it's not just some kind of elaborate, drawn out joke. The idea that ESPN maintains a multi-year contract to writes substantial checks for this babbling lunacy is just too much for me to bear, and ESPN pays for this.

Far be it from me to be overly negative. There are two silver linings to this one. One is the extra 2 minutes it gives me to do other things before settling in for my already too long college football Saturdays, and two is the inclusion of the lyrical stylings of the WORST "RAPPER" EVER! Wait, how is that a silver lining, you ask? Because it led me to this. THIS! Seriously, this made my morning. Absolutely dying. Click away if you could use a laugh as well. And in the two minutes I spent perusing the rest of his catalog, I learned that it's not much less funny. Wait, I'm losing the HATE...

Ahh, there it is. Whew! Now I can safely declare, it's open.


39 comments:

  1. Here’s a bit of tasteful demagoguery. Warning - pop an adderall first. With apologies to the politically averse.

    Verses: rapped to the beat of “Bust a Move”. Choruses: as played in frenetic punk style by a very bad 3-chord garage band, as fast as they can shout the words, with lots of crashing cymbals.

    Hopefully BH or BWJ or one of you white guys will record the audio, Polk Panther will provide the images, it will go viral on YouTube, swing the election to Obama (assuming that is a good thing), and historians will make sure our contribution will never be forgotten. Immortality, anyone?

    Or – Marv will fall asleep before he gets through the third verse, and hit “delete” when he wakes up again.

    "A Bain Capitalist’s Plan For America"

    America has fallen on hard times,
    we’re stuck in the ditch, and our leaders are snoring
    Despite big-government spending programs, jobs and growth are not restoring
    Getting back on track will require bold leadership and a radical change of course
    To become a model of efficiency, and root out our malaise at its source
    We should turn to the ultra successful and handsome ex-CEO with turnaround expertise
    And his young, earnest, and humble acolyte from the land of the cheese
    They know what and who is hurting our country, and they will make them stop
    And only they have a clear vision , to restore our America to her rightful place at the top
    So proudly we present to you the Path to Prosperity plan
    A warm and wonderful paradigm shift is about to hit the fan

    We’ll sell Maine to Canada: they’ll eagerly pay many times market value for more rocky coastline
    The two Dakotas will merge into one. North and South Carolina will be forced to combine
    That will remove any ambiguity next time you go to Carolina in your mind
    We’ll lay off underperforming California – don’t be blue –
    Think of it as the opportunity of a lifetime to do what you’ve always wanted to do
    Rhode Island is far too tiny to ever have been its own state
    Fold it into Connecticut and make it pull its own weight.
    Delaware is tiny too but they have that can-do attitude
    We’ll give them Maryland and wish them the best
    Consolidation must also come to Virginia and her neighbor to the west

    All other unnecessary duplication, will be targeted for elimination:
    So we’ll create New Vermontpshire, Nebraskansas, and Kentennetuckyssee,
    New Mexicarizona, Texasoklahoma, Alamississippibama, and Iowaillinoisaindiana
    America the Beautiful, America the Rightsized,
    America with thirty-five states, thirty percent more efficient than before,
    Leaner, meaner, cleaner, and greener: our greatness is beginning to restore

    The Path to Prosperity: workers, get used to the idea:
    Do more with less, do more with less and everything will be as it should
    We’re returning America to her roots. Trust us, it’ll all be good

    continued...



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Next, we’ll be moving on to harvest the low hanging fruit
      Offshoring work wherever possible and cutting costs by a square root
      There are millions and millions of public payroll paper pusher crews
      We’ll offer them a deal that they probably will refuse:
      Accept a two-thirds cut in pay or we’ll slip them all the pink
      Those generous benefits and that cushy retirement package will also have to shrink
      The poor fools will think that we will be the first to blink
      But then we’ll sack them all as fast as you can curse the name John Maynard Keynes
      And pass the savings along to the nation as an elimination of the tax on capital gains
      Huddling behind toothless unions and hapless lawyers, waiting for the court battle to transpire
      They’ll learn that the sympathetic judges all long ago retired

      We’ll be selling off all public assets to giant corporations
      One will buy your local water utility and brand it.
      Advertising will convince you that you’re getting a better deal.
      You’ll be paying more and more every year, and you will demand it
      Visit the Grand Google Canyon, the Coors Rocky Mountain Park,
      The Procter and Gamble Mammoth Cave, Yosemite Sam’s by Wal-mart
      The Mt. Rushmore National Memorial brought to you by Sears
      As a tribute to those whose golden touch our nation most reveres
      The four highest bidders will be resculpted every 5 or 10 years

      Delete
    2. We’ll put an end to government schools. We’ll sell off every public university
      Because corporations can most efficiently shape the graduates that they need.
      They will be free to abolish tenure, to dry up the cesspools , where the liberals breed
      We’ll auction off the interstates number by number. No toll booths required – as you speed
      On by, just like in Chicago, your plate will be read and your credit card billed
      A technological wonder of efficiency: yet another campaign promise fulfilled

      Starve the beast. Shrink the size. Repeat after me: Privatize.
      Who needs PBS when there’s fair-and-balanced Fox? Way past time for PBS’s demise.
      We have the Weather Channel and its commercial bouquet, so its curtain time for the NOAA.
      With Fedex, UPS, DHL and email, the Postal Service can finally go away.
      Since they proved they had the right stuff in Iraq back when the water was black
      We’ll privatize the military to the company currently known as Xe
      As they keep the world safe, every country but America will have to pay them a security fee
      (As every savvy businessman knows, nothing should ever be given away for free.)
      EPA, HUD, Education, Commerce, and most other departments will all get the ax
      Private industry will add multiple jobs for every one the government subtracts
      We’ll remove every bit of the crushing uncertainty which has kept businesses from hiring
      By taking the government off their backs. Pessimism will be expiring.
      In tandem, watch both the public sector and unemployment decline
      As the private sector grows and soars to recovery in record time

      The Path to Prosperity: get on the bus: workers, get used to the idea:
      Do more with less, do more with less and everything will be as it should
      We’re returning America to her roots. Trust is, it’ll all be good

      Delete
  2. Perhaps for some our plan may cause a slight amount of pain
    Please do not concern yourself with will happen to them.
    Just briskly walk on by and don’t look them in the eye.
    Focus solely on what will for America be an overwhelming net gain
    We and our grandparents worked a little harder; we’ve created our own good luck
    We’ve already lived in the basement apartment, and climbed the stairs by our own pluck
    With crystal clear consciences, we can coast, isn’t it nice
    It’s someone else’s turn to bear all of the sacrifice.

    We should welcome austerity, for those undeserving of prosperity.
    The medically uninsured, the hungry, the homeless, the disabled, the mentally ill,
    The sick, the jobless, the soon-to-be-foreclosed, the poor who can’t afford to shop even at the goodwill
    They frankly all deserve their fate. You’d best believe –
    Any tries to alleviate their condition will serve only to unmotivate. To think otherwise is criminally naiive.
    Because whenever the state giveth, it commits three-strikes-and-youre-out theft
    First it steals tax money from those who have worked hard and earned
    Second, it steals from the very people for whom it claims to be most concerned
    By giving to them the state steals their motivation to lift themselves up any higher
    Third, and most felonious, is the theft of their freedom, their competitive fire
    By removing their own responsibility for themselves. We must change course!
    For freedom is our most beautiful, our most precious natural resource
    Freedom – do you understand? Not food, not medicine, or medical care,
    It’s freedom! Not safety or security (or certainty?)– no one promised anyone that.
    Freedom, you idiots! Don’t you see? Not a roof over your head, not a job,
    Free-dom! “Only by taking responsibility for oneself, to the greatest extent possible, can one ever be free, and only a free person can make responsible choices—between right and wrong, saving and spending, giving or taking.”

    Workers, get used to the idea: do more with less, do more with less
    And everything will be as it should
    We’re returning America to her roots. Trust is, it’ll all be good!
    Were the drivers on the bus to prosperity and we invite everyone to get on board!

    continued...

    ReplyDelete
  3. The earnest fellow from the land of cheese
    Decrees that bringing the budget into balance must be our main priority
    We can no longer afford to fully fund medicare, medicaid or social security
    Many people dependent on these, we’ll leave twisting in the breeze
    But it’s their own fault - they had been told – to never ever become poor or sick or old
    We’ll protect you as an unborn, we’ll protect you in a coma,
    But everywhere in between buddy, you are completely ona your owna
    Two decades ago, Clinton surplussed the budget by raising taxes on those best able to pay
    George W came along and fixed all that with his tax cuts and wars that continue even today
    The Clinton tax increase was a jealous and tyrannical act as popular as a homicidal loner
    Anyone who proposes new taxes to enact, you’ll find yourself in trouble with your owners -
    Dissed, blacklisted, whacked and dismissed in the primaries by Generalissimos Rove and Norquist
    And their wealthy Armeys of angry donors.
    Our precious freedom is under a statist (satanist) attack. But have no fear -
    We’re well funded and we’ll rout the evil foes as we fiercely and justly fight back. Victory is near.

    Jesus is on our side. He approves. Yes, Jesus approves. That might seem contradictory.
    After all, Jesus travelled all around healing the sick for free.
    "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."
    "Sell everything you have and give to the poor." “As ye do to the least, ye do to unto me.”
    Now all these doings and teachings might seem somewhat socialist in view
    But don’t forget - Jesus died very young, before he had time to think it through
    Since then, seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty up there for all those days
    He’s surely matured to see the light and the error of His previous teachings and ways

    Regulation is stinking, stanking, and stifling all businesses and sports
    Truth in advertising, capped bank fees and interest rates, overtime laws, and torts
    Preexisting conditions, prevention of recissions, family and medical leave,
    Minimum wages, pollution laws. The list goes on but we’ll stop there before we make you heave
    They’re all job killers and opportunities for abuse, in blacks and whites with no shades of gray
    America is the land of individual rights and freedom to pray, and freedom to prey
    Freedom is the closest thing we have to heaven on earth, let’s remove it from all control
    Any rule, any regulation (asterisk) is a metastasizing cancer of the soul
    (* its only economic regulation that we smite: regulation of morality is quite alright)

    We’ll immediately act on the urgent need to dismantle and eliminate the regulatory state
    Both corporations and players are perfectly able to self regulate
    Low income people stiffing their mortgages caused the crash of 2008
    All those Wall Streeters were just innocent bystanders royally screwed by ill fate

    While we’re at it, we’ll be abolishing all referees and umpires today
    In all sports including baseball, basketball, football, and MMA
    We are the courageous ushers for a new golden age of competition
    Behold the liberation of the beauty, art, and poetry of that unfettered desire to win
    In politics too – what’s at stake justifies any amount of Navy Sealing, Swift Boating, and lying
    Like our NASCAR buddies tell us, if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying
    Once upon a time kids were actually taught – please remember this with shame -
    It’s not whether you win or lose – it’s how you play the game

    Workers, get used to the idea: do more with less, do more with less
    and everything will be as it should
    We’re returning America to her roots. Trust is, it’ll all be good!
    Were the drivers on the bus to prosperity; get on or we’ll run you over.
    Isn’t that right Mr. Kasich….

    continued...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Help wanted: we’ll be hiring those with skills for our new administration:
    Regulators philosophically opposed to regulation,
    Those who will answer subpoenas from hostile governmental branches with defiance
    Those who will pledge allegiance to ideological purity over science
    Those who create their own reality and filibuster all attempts to determine the truth
    Those with more creative ways to keep the other side out of the voting booth
    People able to put full trust in their managers and their gut and stifle their urge to think.
    We need Attorneys General and judges who know when to enforce, and when to wink.
    People who believe in America as the divinely blessed global force for good
    Infallibly destined to again dominate commerce, space, land, and seas
    To flush out any other Benedict John Roberts,
    We promise to waterboard all supreme court nominees.

    For those who wish to forfeit your opportunity to ever be our good neighbor
    We’ll be building more prisons – with well-paid right-to-work construction labor!
    You’ll be surprised at how little protest will get you thrown in there once they’re built,
    There’ll be even harsher punishment if you still won’t admit your guilt
    If you won’t get on the bus, and refuse to be run over, you’ll be in trouble deep
    We’ll revoke your citizenship and we’ll give it to immigrants who will be thankful to work cheap
    We’ll deport you and all your fellow inmates to Antarctica, let’s see how you play that hand you’re dealt
    There you ingrates can form your own new America while waiting for the ice to melt

    Joseph Smith and Aine Rand of course will become our country’s most adored
    Great men will be free to marry and divorce as many wives as they can afford
    Reeducation colonies will be created for all leperous liberal dorks
    America will become Galt’s Gulch, full of Dagny Taggerts and Howard Roarks
    All wafts of collectivism are to be eliminated, at a pace that is plenty brisk
    Like Mumbai, cities will be overflowing with Entreprenewers, people unafraid of risk
    “Everyone out for himself” will be our glorious national refrain
    Great men will be able to rape with impunity again
    Selfishness is the virtue that will create the rising tide
    A rising tide will lift all boats and lift all swimmers and nonswimmers with floats
    For all others, a rising tide will do no harm – as long as the levees hold
    But if they don’t - Katrina comes to mind - some gentle cleansing may unfold

    Owners: behold the Path to Prosperity, yo!
    Do less, get more. Do less, get more. Yes, everything will be as it should
    We’re returning America to her roots. Trust is, it’ll all be good

    ReplyDelete
  5. For delivering America from malaise and dispair we will humbly accept your applause
    The Path to Prosperity will be flowered like the road to Oz
    Full of obvious self-evident truths constitutionally ironclad and duly circumspect
    With genius in its simplicity. Weep not as the nanny state is wrecked
    The dividends and gains are only just beginning. There’s plenty more in store.
    America’s balance sheet will be back in black. Like an Indy car, the stock market will roar.
    Labor Day will become Capital Day. You’ll celebrate it by going to work for no pay
    We’ll chant as a nation in unison every July 4:
    Were No. 1 Were No. 1 All countries in the world will again cower and genuflect

    Flush with cash and ambition to match it will be acquisition and payback time
    We’ll annex Canada and liberate them from the tyranny of socialized medicine
    Clearing the way for manifest destiny and migration to the great white north
    We’ll set forth when the global warming that we deny is here
    Turns the entire midwest into the Sahara of the western hemisphere
    Total ‘em up Mr. Cratchit! Ain’t it mighty nice. We’re
    35 states + 10 provinces + 3 territories + Maine
    We’ll reacquire California at a distressed asset price. That adds up to a total of 50 states again
    America’s riches to rags to riches story; its return to glory will be complete……

    …..Then we’ll sell you all to China and retire comfortably to Crete

    continued...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Any cynical sarcastic idiot can write a song and stuff it full of whines
    “Almost” is good enough in horseshoes, hand grenades, and hip-hop rhymes
    Tackling a tough problem and mustering the political will to solve it requires a bit more reach
    Easier to show false concern, by giving it one token sentence in a 40-minute speech
    It’s easy to extol the half-full glass and ignore the half empty part
    Or better yet, just play it smart, scoff and snicker at those with a bleeding heart

    The earnest cheese fellow – he gets fudgey with his facts, but worse than that, he’s wrong
    He fails to acknowledge those working very hard, but still just barely scraping along
    The middle class is shrinking and he says trust us, prosperity will trickle down
    But where’s the beef? He offers no particulars, only a “trust us, it will come around”
    The middle class is shrinking, and their policies are one big reason why
    They’re all geared so the wealthy and the powerful can take a bigger and bigger share of the pie


    Decreasing the corporate tax rate, and targeting the estate tax for elimination
    Taxing wages at a higher rate than income from speculation
    Turning a blind eye to anticompetitive practices, allowing an unlevel playing field to transpire
    Allowing patents to linger longer and longer before they expire
    Transforming unions and collective bargaining into a memory from a previous dark age
    Manufacturing an urgent necessity to lower or abolish the minimum wage

    Creating wealth from nothing is very tough, It is far easier to just take it from elsewhere
    To the private sector, there’s no such thing as enough
    Its always more more more, whatever the market will bear
    It’s rife with collusion, they merge and acquire, sue and conspire, threaten and entice
    Until competition is just an illusion and they’re now free to jack up the price
    If our capitalism is working as it should, then how could it possibly be
    That fuel prices rise by the same amount at every gas station simultaneously?

    continued...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Everything is good or evil, black or white, all or nothing, the right insists
    If you’re not on board with us, you’re with the terrorists
    You’re part of the problem if you don’t agree with our solution,
    You’re un-American, unpatriotic, and you hate freedom and the Constitiution

    The truth is that freedom is pretty meaningless to those truly in need
    There are multiple threats to a nation’s soul – not only laziness, but also predatory greed
    Socialism fails because it kills people’s motivation but unfettered capitalism does that too
    When seats on the bus of prosperity are only available for a priveleged few

    Somewhere in between those two extremes is where we all should aim
    We can’t dismiss the umpires – they need to take control of the game.
    Severely punish the social safety net scammers and the white collar whammer jammers
    And the inside jobbers like the common criminals and robbers that they are
    Returning to our roots, we should bring back public shaming and the pillory, stocks, feathers and tar
    Sacrifice should at the very least be shared by all. And its not too much to ask for -
    That those of us who can most afford it should be willing to shoulder more.
    To recover as a nation, not just some - all of us must be willing to do our part
    And it would certainly help to make tax avoidance somewhat less of a patriotic art

    Let’s guarantee that everyone has their basic human needs met, for someday our own good fortune may turn
    A job, safety, shelter, medical care, and education: anything more will have to be earned
    Jesus would approve - it’s more than just compassionate, it is prudent and it is wise
    And we should rediscover the reality and integrity of truth and justice unpoliticized

    So tune out the 30 second propaganda packets –you’ll see the choice is clear this fall
    One team is playing a deep right field beside the foul pole at the wall
    Consider carefully before you vote for them or decide to not vote at all
    Should we return to the policies of the last decade that drove us in to the rough?
    Was the problem with President George W really that he wasn’t conservative enough?
    Don’t fall for that - its utterly absurd. It’s time to kick the blossom right off of the turd
    Show up to vote and be sure to bring a picture ID along
    Please vote to banish them all to the wilderness where they rightfully belong
    Grover and Rush can join them as pariahs, after a defeat that can’t be spun
    Then moderates of both parties can meet in the center and really start to get things done


    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm a pretty solid Democrat, and while I appreciate the work that went into it, whatever is above me is giving me the chills that I feel when someone gives a really bad speech at a wedding.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that if you distilled the pure ideology out of that, I would probably agree with most of it, but I would be interested to hear why he decided to write something so long/post it on MKMUB.

      Delete
    2. Guy Who Creates Great Works Of Art That Bore PeopleOctober 7, 2012 at 6:51 PM

      ...refers BH back to long post's introduction

      ...sniffles

      Delete
  9. I have no idea what has happened here.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thought I'd check out Deadspin, read the story about the DIII football player who was murdered. Looked in the comments and this is the kind of shit that's in there. That's worse than Yahoo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Would have thought they'd have deleted that by now. That's fucking embarrassing.

      Delete
    2. I've seen inside baseball stuff get deleted in minutes, but something like that stays up for days? Great quality control. We wouldn't anyone to think that some of the commenters can reference each other, but hey, if you want to celebrate the murder of someone, come on in!

      Delete
    3. I know this makes me sound like a whiny turd, but it's why I always cringe when I read the glib responses to the Dead Letters. Sure, those guys are mostly insane, but it seems pretty tone deaf to roll your eyes at readers who say "Your site is decreasing in quality" when, as much as I love Deadspin, it is (with respect to the comments).

      Delete
    4. OK, but what are the Deadspin people supposed to do about it? I feel like this is a circle the conversation has been going around since Kinja debuted: what would you have the Deadspin people do? What would you expect them to do? Tuck their tails between their legs and go, "Yes, you're right, our site sucks"? Or stick their chins out and say, "Fuck you, we don't do this for the comments"? Personally, I both expect and prefer the latter, much as I love the comments and always have.

      Please understand that I'm not saying anything about whether or not people have a right to hate Kinja and complain about it, or even to say that the site isn't as much fun now that the comments aren't as good, if that's what they believe. But I don't see how it's fair to expect the staff to self-flagellate over something that's out of their control. I think if any of us were in a similar situation in our professional lives, our attitude would (should) be, "Fuck that, I still have control over the work I do, and I'm still going to defend that work because I believe in it."

      I'm not a spokesman for Deadspin. I just write my little column, and I occasionally give shit back to people who shit on it. I'm not sure how that's different from the behavior you yourself were defending a while back, when you were defending commenters who occasionally engage the trolls for their own amusement.

      Delete
    5. PS: that was a reply to Bronze, not to the question of whether whatever bad comment is linked above should be allowed to stay.

      Delete
    6. Moderate the comments. That's all I would expect them to do about it. If you don't want to have an approval process that's fine, but at least try to not let that kind of stuff sit there.

      Delete
    7. Yeah, I meant to say that I was addressing Bronze's issue with the snarky replies to Dead Letters. I totally agree that moderation is a good thing. I'm not sure how different that is in the Kinja era - if it is, that's another thing that's not in their control.

      Delete
    8. The Real Phin, For RealOctober 7, 2012 at 4:10 PM

      Oh, I don't know anything about those.

      Delete
    9. Legitimate question relating to this: Does the current editorial policy require writers/editors to leave the comments alone, regardless of what's being said?

      I know that since Kinja's inception, I have emailed a writer regarding a particularly offensive comment, and it was deleted shortly thereafter. I only ask because I am not sure whether that is a permissible action, or if they just went ahead and did it because they know none of the higher-ups would care. If it is permissible, while it doesn't need to be even remotely as strict as the Ninja used to be, implementing some type of moderation would seemingly go a long way.

      Delete
    10. Well, first, I think your column is just about the best thing going at Deadspin these days, and that's not just me fluffing you. It's relevant because I think it's also great for the totally absurd (but not bigoted or violent) comments it generates and, on top of those, your responses to them. The e-mail chain in Dead Letters is no exception -- I thought that was hilarious.

      That is definitely exactly what I was talking about a while back. Someone's crapping on you personally and, rather than shut your eyes and pray that the algorithm takes it away, or just dismissing it hoping that curbs the bullshit, you're making it funny again by jumping right in. I think that's great.

      But that's because you, as either a once-weekly feature writer or commenter, are only given those two options. I don't think Deadspin has to either bend over and take it from, admittedly, some of the internet's absolute craziest assholes OR adopt the mindset that critics should fuck off (which is not what I personally think is happening, but is definitely not an outrageous assumption for readers to make based on Dead Letters, in my opinion).

      So, while I think it's pretty clear that Craggs can't flip a switch that makes the comments good again, I also think that a weekly "Ha! Criticism!" column, even when the criticism is as totally off the wall as "I'm a culinary anthropologist, and your chili recipe is flawed for the following reasons..", is, as I said, maybe a little tone deaf, given what is the obvious state of the site/comments in general. I guess I would rather, quite selfishly, labor under the delusion that the criticism is getting passed up the chain and maybe something good is gonna happen soon. Obviously the reply to that is that these guys are professionals and do not do it for the comments, which is true and good, but: I also don't do Deadspin just for the writers, so that's just my point of view.

      I think they should all be defending the shit out of their work, because it's the half of the site that is worth a damn anymore. I don't begrudge them that in the least.

      Delete
    11. And also, obviously, the offending comment has since been removed. The people who have the ability to get in touch with the people who can remove comments obviously read this site and stay involved. To that end, I think a COTF/Ninja column would be a great replacement for Dead Letters.

      Delete
    12. Well, I don't think the articulate criticism getting passed up the chain and the insane trolling being publicly made fun of are mutually exclusive. Personally, I love the Dead Letters feature (and the Deleted Scenes that preceded it); it doesn't inform my understanding of the site's attitude toward criticism in the least. Maybe that's naive, but I don't think so. Literally years ago, when I was newly-starred and had no particular claim to anybody's ear, I emailed then-head-writer Craggs to give him some (articulate, I hope) criticism about a throwaway point he'd made in a post, and got a very thoughtful reply soon after. And I didn't get made fun of in Dead Letters! Which is kind of sad, now that I think about it.

      In any case, what I guess I'm getting at is that I don't think Dead Letters = not being receptive to real criticism. I like Dead Letters. It makes me laugh.

      Delete
    13. I'm just bein' a jerkoff. Dead Letters makes me laugh, too. It's like a guilty Catholic-type laugh, though.

      I do think that it would make more sense to aim the snark-cannon at the people crapping in the comment section than at the people crapping in Deadspin's inbox, though.

      Delete
    14. Just here to +1 Sharting. And to remind people that there was a time not so long ago when Phintastic, inter alia, commented a lot (and fairly well, on occasion), and I'm sad those days are gone.

      Delete
    15. @ Ray

      Thanks, but for me the insane amount of crap littering the comments when I do skim through turns my stomach. I appreciate that you and some others have trudged along, but I just lost whatever desire there was to comment. Even when I read a post, nothing ever really comes to me to add to the joke making. Not that it's some big loss anyway, but the fun got sucked out by the design and the proliferation of terrible comments thanks to the loss of the audition process. Oh well. I don't care if people thought it was a big circle jerk or clique or whatever, at least when you got a +1 from some people you respected as truly funny, it meant something. I've seen people comment and get multiple +1s and didn't know who any of them were.

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    16. @ Phin

      I completely understand. There have been moments when I wonder why I'm still doing this. Under Kinja, I've made a few comments that I'm really proud of that get a bunch of +1s, and then when I go back and see that they're all burners who are just making follow-on jokes, it really gets me depressed. I'd rather get six +1s from Bevraj, Steve U, EMS, Sharting, RMJ=H and you than 20 +1s from "ILoveRetards" and his idiot friends. But at the end of the day, I like making jokes, and hopefully this thing works itself out.

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