Category: Blog

What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve done in the last year?

I’m limiting this question to the last year because I believe everyone should do at least one spontaneous thing a year that spices up their life. Whether you’re stuck on the hamster wheel of a 9-to-5 job or living like an instagram model that got subpoenaed by the FBI for supporting Billy McFarland’s maniacal dream, you gotta do something that gives you a story tell your gambler’s anonymous group one day.

And when I say spontaneous, I mean doing something that feels like a reckless life decision or takes you out of your comfort zone. Deciding to cancel your date with a guy at a $75-a-plate restaurant at the last second to go over to your girlfriend’s apartment to binge countless hours of Gossip Girl while munching on your shitty homemade puppy chow does not count as spontaneous. Oh, by the way, FUCK YOU BRITTANY!!! I don’t need you anyway! Have fun being a lawyer and making hundreds of thousand dollars instead of riding my wagon as I strive to make $50,000 a year in my tenth year post-grad working in sports…………………bitch.

Side bar: Sort of on that same subject, I’ll tell you about a reckless decision that took me out of my comfort zone a couple of years ago. One night after the college basketball national championship, around 12:30 am, I decided to chug a bottle of NyQuil to help put me to sleep. After laying in bed for a half-hour and on the cusp of dozing off into REM sleep, I get a text from a very nice lady asking me to meet up with her at the bar.

Side note to the side bar: Not to brag or anything, but some of the ladies I interact with on a daily basis typically take a liking to me. And by some ladies I mean all ladies…All the ladies….Every of the ladies.

OMG YOU WATCH THE OFFICE TOO?!?! NO FUCKING WAY?!?! WANNA GET MARRIED?!?!

Back to the side bar: Being the introverted person I am (while also mulling over the potential effects of mixing NyQuil with shots of SoCo. and tequila (“not just any tequila, make it a Hornitos”)), I wasn’t fully into the idea of taking a 20-minute walk at 1:00 in the morning to the bar to meet up with a girl who was probably already drunk (Narrator: “she was”). But this opportunity doesn’t come by me very often so I said “fuck it” and decided to live my life to the fullest that night [insert smirking emoji].

THAT, in my opinion, is spontaneous. I could’ve passed out in bed whilst listening to Stan Verrett and Neil Everett screaming at the top of their lungs from 3,000 miles away, but instead I did something I wouldn’t normally do and now I have a story to make of it.

The topic of spontaneity is relevant with me. If you read my last blog, you’d know I quit my job on a whim to get back into working in sports. Well, two (2) days after writing that blog, I was offered a job in the Alliance of American Football working with the Orlando Apollos as a video assistant. I’ve never done anything like this before and I don’t intend to keep working in video after the season (it’s a seasonal job that ends in late April), but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

The hot thing in the sports world these days is for athletes to tell a camera about the moment they found out they got traded, so here’s my story for the Players’ Tribune:

It was the Sunday before the Super Bowl. The time? 1:55 pm. I was in my basement playing NBA 2K19 (I had been playing for about 1 hour 37 minutes). I was in My Player mode on the verge of sweeping the Golden State Warriors to get to the Conference Finals (yeah, you read that right). My guy Melvin Goldstein (90 overall) had 21 points, 5 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals, 1 block and 4 turnovers on 7-8 shooting (5-6 from 3) in the 3rd quarter when I get a call from my brother Matt. I paused the game to answer the phone when Matt told me he just got off the phone with my current boss and said he was looking for an assistant. Matt’s looking for full-time work so he couldn’t do it, but he said I need to call this guy right now if I’m interested. I hung up the phone, immediately called Dave (my boss) and less than an hour later I took the job.

I wasn’t looking for this job, but I let life (not Jesus) take the wheel of my existence and steer me in the direction of positivity. It was time for me to pick up my life (not my Xbox) and get back to work. Five days later I drove 13 hours down to Orlando to begin this wonderful adventure. I’ve been here for just over a week and I couldn’t be happier. We beat the ever-living shit out of the Atlanta Legends, 40-6, Saturday night. Walking around the stadium before the game, on the field, in the press box, standing next to Jeff Fisher, all that jazz made me realize how much I missed this shit.

Because I’m working odd hours, I don’t have time to write as much as I was hoping I would, but I’ll try to do this when I can. Honestly, I started this blog with the intentions of writing a piece about why Jason Derulo simultaneously deserves all the Grammys and is the worst artist of all time, so I have no fucking clue how we got here. But that will probably be the next thing I write.

‘Til next time.

When’s the last time you made a change to your life?

This could be a big change, like, say, quitting your job or moving to another country or another part of the country or anything you may consider a big change. This could also be an incremental change, like trying a new diet or reading more books or watching a new genre of porn. Don’t shy away from that last one. You watch porn. I sure as hell do. We all do (except you mom please don’t think of me any differently I still love you do you still love me? No? OK moving on).

I think it’s very easy to get caught in a routine and get comfortable with doing the same thing over and over, like Wile E. Coyote continually getting his ass handed in by a cartoon bird on speed (*covering my mouth with my hand doing my best Trevor Wallace impression* “I’m talking about that OTHER speed bro”).

This question came to mind over the past few days as I decided to re-watch the greatest movie franchise in history, The Fast & the Furious. This set of eight documentaries (try to convince me cars can’t parachute out of an airplane from 50,000 feet and land safely on the ground – I dare you) is the definition of jumping from 0-100. But, for the most part, they don’t completely lose sight of what they really are about: family, loyalty, and living your life a quarter mile at a time. The first piece of cinematic art was about an undercover cop attempting to infiltrate a gang of street racers who steal TVs and DVD players. Fast-forward ten (!) years, the fifth (and best) installment involved “the team” stealing $100 million from Brazil’s richest man. By the time Fate (F8te?) of the Furious came out, “the team” were international agents of espionage blowing up submarines with their cars.

Change can be a good thing. But even though these films have blown up to heights no one could have ever imagined (the last two grossed over $1 billion), they have still managed to stay true to their roots. Dom Toretto is the straw that holds this cinematic universe together (no offense, Paul Walker) and is always the same Dom Toretto who only cares about his “familia.”

(Quote from Fast 5)

I understand that isn’t always the case, though. When most people think of The Fast and the Furious, they think of cool cars, giant explosions, Toretto crashing his car into the side of the highway on a bridge propelling him into the median to catch his brought-back-from-the-dead girlfriend from falling into the water and landing safely on the other side of the highway by using a car windshield as a cushion. (Skip to 2:24)

(That was all practical. No CGI.)

Though this franchise wasn’t always about going above and beyond, the producers/writers knew early on they had something big in their grasp. The first instance of testing the audience’s limits happened in the opening race of 2 Fast 2 Furious. Brian O’Conner (RIP in peace) is in a race with Sucre from Prison Break, the stunning Michael Ealy, and Steve Aoki’s half-sister. There is a bridge jump at the end of the race and O’Conner hits the NOS at just the right time and proceeds to pass Ealy mid-air. (Skip to the 2:00 mark)

This doesn’t seem all that crazy, but if you tried this in real life you’d probably crash and burn (don’t try to jump your car off a bridge…you’re not Brian O’Conner). There is another scene at the end of the movie when Roman Pierce (Tyrese) and Brian jump a ’70 Mustang off a ramp and onto a moving yacht to take down the villain: Carter “I want my cutter back” Verone.

The movie is only teasing the audience here, just fondling our nads a little bit, and seeing if we’re accepting of things that are otherworldly (Narrator: they were cool with it). But besides those two stunts, 2 Fast 2 Furious is pretty on brand. There’s dope cars, bikini-clad ladies dancing by their (or their sugar daddy’s) dope cars, and some mutual respect between friends and family.

After the initial sequel came the most questionable film in the franchise, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. At the time, this movie had nothing to do with the first two, save a pre-MCU end-credits scene with the reveal that Dom Toretto knew Han (sweet, beautiful Han) and wanted to learn more about his death (which plays right into the plot of Furious 7). Tokyo Drift has no deep-rooted family connection, essentially no Toretto and no O’Conner at all, and had Calvin Cambridge of the Los Angeles Knights telling us the key to drifting is to “rip the E-brake and power over.”

Also, Mike Winchell playing a rebellious high schooler and not once yelling the words “21 Razor! 21 Razor!”? Eh. This one was an outlier.

The fourth movie brought the franchise back to life. Sean Parker/Justin Timberlake told producers Vin Diesel and Neil Moritz to “drop the ‘The'” from the title because “it’s cooler,” and out came Fast & Furious (for the record, I think The Fast and the Furious is cooler; a little more fast and a little less furious). The core characters were back and some of the core themes as well: lots of racing, pretty ladies, and O’Conner again, this time as an FBI agent, getting succumbed to the criminal life and his loyalty to Toretto.

Side note: this was also the on-screen debut of known Jew/current Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, and she will forever be known as “Gisele” in my mind.

Fast & Furious is a great example of making subtle changes but not going too overboard. There was definitely more “furious” in this one, but at the time, I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted the action-packed leap this series would take (by the time Fast and Furious 6 came out, instead of worrying about the familia and cool race sequences, my main focus going into these movies is what cool one-liner will The Rock say this time?). (My favorite is probably when his partner in Fast Five says to him “Good news, bad news,” and The Rock responds “You know I like my dessert first,” and “Gimme the damn veggies,” respectively).

I’ve made many references to Fast Five in this blog and that’s because it’s not only the best of these films, but it’s one of the greatest movies of all-time. Toretto and O’Conner are on the run in Brazil and plan to do one final heist before leaving their life of crime (an amazing plot for any movie). We get the return of Roman Pierce and Tej (Ludacris) from 2 Fast 2 Furious along with Han and Gisele from Fast & Furious, Vince from The Fast and the Furious, among others. Bill Simmons and Shea Serrano dropped an episode of “The Rewatchables” podcast the other night discussing why it is one of the best movies of all time. I have yet to listen to it but I’m sure I’ll agree with every word they say.

Fast Five is about much more than an all-time great movie fight between Vin Diesel and The Rock and two cars dragging a safe containing $100 million through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. This is as deeply rooted as The Fast and the Furious. There’s family: O’Conner learns he’s having a kid with Mia Toretto. Loyalty: Dom still considering Vince familia even though he went behind Dom’s back on a job-gone-wrong. And living you’re life a quarter mile at a time: saying “fuck it” and deciding to steal from the wealthiest man in Brazil before disappearing forever. Fast Five has it all and will not let you down.

Because it was such a big hit, Fast and Furious 6 pretty much said “fuck it” and just went bananas. The budget jump between the two movies went from $125 million to $160 million and it showed. There were more explosions, crazy fight sequences, and a battle on an unrealistically huge airplane on an 18-mile runway. And, honestly, the last three movies were like that: saying “fuck it” and doing the most outrageous stunts possible.

I could go into detail about the last three movies, but that would take a lot of time, as if I haven’t taken enough of it already. They’re very good pieces of art in my eyes, but they really lost sense of what this franchise is truly about, save for Dom Toretto and his undying loyalty to his familia.

I feel like I lost control of this blog, so let us go back to my initial question: When’s the last time you made a change to your life?

As stated many times here, Dom Toretto is the driving force in this franchise. He has the same morals and principles in all the movies, which is why they’re great, but he’s shown a lot of growth as well. Through all of the feats of unreasonable strength, flying headbutts…

…and killer smiles, this scene from The Fast and the Furious defines this character and what these movies stand for. (It’s only three minutes so just freaking watch it)

“I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I’m free.”

Change can be a good thing. Change can be progressive for your life. It’s important to learn and adapt to your surroundings. But, also, never lose sight of where you’re from or what you stand for.

I’m gonna be interning at 10tv in Columbus this summer with the intentions of parlaying that into a reporter/anchor job somewhere after. This isn’t something I always wanted do, but I need to do it, and I’m gonna make some changes in order for that to happen. I plan to do this by living my life a quarter mile at a time. Just instead of ten seconds, it’ll be more like a few minutes while I’m on-air. But the principles will stay the same.

And that quote can work for anyone. EVEN YOU. If you’re wanting to make a big or small change in your life, just think to yourself: “What would Dom Toretto do?”

I watched five (5) movies this past Sunday.

It was just one of those days when you wake up don’t wanna do shit. However, I did go for a hike after the third movie to get my daily dose of Vitamin D (sidebar: I think nature is cool except for everything that nature has to offer i.e. spider webs, the sound of something moving through the woods then you look over and it’s just a squirrel running, the thought of a bear/snake/vulture/sex offender appearing out of nowhere to challenge you, walking into a spider web, etc.). Here are my thoughts on those movies:

S#!%house, or, Shithouse (2020): I first heard about this when Cooper Raiff went on the Bill Simmons podcast. Can’t believe it took me this long to see it. Raiff is the star/director/writer/producer/editor of the small-budget film with this description: “A lonely college freshman forges a strong connection with his resident assistant during a fraternity party.” It’s simple but there’s a lot to take away from it. His next movie may be better than this one.

Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022): This is Cooper Raiff’s next movie. Here’s the synopsis: “A young man who works as a Bar Mitzvah party host strikes up a friendship with a mother and her autistic daughter.” Dakota Johnson is the mother and she is a perfect partner for Raiff. Just a really good movie.

Army of Thieves (2021): It’s a prequel to Army of the Dead, the Zack Snyder zombie-heist movie starring Dave Bautista, and was actually pretty good. The storytelling is good, it’s kind of funny, but most importantly, actor/director Matthias Schweighöfer made me appreciate his character in Dead a lot more. (You can enjoy this movie without watching Army of the Dead)

Not Okay (2022): A legit good movie. It’s not like Denis Villeneuve-good or Oscar worthy but it’s good. Zoey Deutch is the ideal actress for this generation. Dylan O’Brien is hilarious and plays his cringe-worthy character to a ‘T’ (shoutout to American Assassin, btw).

Deep Water (2022): Eh. It’s a mystery-thriller-romance thing that’s not bad but I didn’t like it like I thought I would. I think it was adapted from a book or a play and it’s easy to see that (sidebar: I hate movies that were originally written as plays despite really wanting to like them, see Killer Joe). Stay for Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas.

“The Rehearsal” on HBO is the new funniest show on TV.

I’m on the record saying “Nathan For You” is the funniest TV show ever made and I stand by it. Nathan Fielder just gets comedy. I heard this on a podcast but can’t remember who said it but this person had an analogy that went: “The Rehearsal” is to “Nathan For You” what “Better Call Saul” is to “Breaking Bad” and that is correct. I don’t know if “The Rehearsal” will be better than Nathan Fielder’s first act but it is good because of what came before it.

I was recently awarded the #1 pick in my fantasy football draft.

I’m nervous. I’m looked at as inferior in my league because of my ineptitude to win. I know: you don’t care. Moving on.

I’m looking at NFL regular season win totals.

I love Seattle u5.5 and I got it at +115. I think that is the lock of the season. No Russell Wilson, Chris Carson retiring, stacked NFC West…just take it and don’t look back. I kinda like the Lions u6.5 and I feel like the Vikings could be a playoff team this year but I’m not as confident about taking them to win 10 games. Also, I hate it, but Steelers o7.5 is a good bet. Mike Tomlin just knows how to win.

The Reds blew it up again.

I’m not happy about it but at least they did it the right way. You get some top prospects from the Mariners and Twins and some other guys from some other teams for some other players you weren’t going to keep for long. Great. I hate betting on prospects to turn into actual major league talent but the Reds have all the best shortstops in the game in their farm system so someone has to pan out. Now they won’t try to compete for the playoffs for another 2-4 years and when they don’t make it they’ll trade Jonathan India and Tyler Stephenson and probably Hunter Greene and I’m already getting prepared for that. Thankfully the Bengals got their shit together and are actually trying to win. (Sidebar: I’ll be rooting for the Mariners the rest of the way after their trade for Curt Casali.)

Dude Perfect will provide and alternate stream for “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon.

I don’t see how this works. Apparently, “the plan is for them to perform dunks, stunts and tricks from their headquarters studio in Frisco, Texas.” I just don’t get it. I will say that I like how Amazon is thinking outside the box and trying to do something completely different and I’ll check it out when it’s on. But there’s just no way this has long-lasting success like the Nickelodeon game on CBS.