Boy, 2012. What a year, huh? Especially if you like Jesus and football. Or (in the case of Tim Tebow) both, which is probably why he’s been a thing so far this year. We’re half way through January, so I thought I’d give my way-too-early Year in Review.
Politics
Friday night on Real Time with Bill Maher, they touched on the fact that front-runner, Mitt Romney, is hard to write jokes about. And it’s true. You’ve got 1) Mormon, 2) Flip-flopper and 3) Looks plastic. And that’s about it. I looked back on jokes I’d written about him for my current events roast show (Plug: Roast the Week with Mike Bridenstine - it’s free on iTunes) and they followed the same formula.
“Mitt Romney is a Mormon, which is a weirdo religion. Mormons didn’t allow black people until 1978. But, to its credit, it’s still 30 years before the Republican party did. “
And
“Mitt Romney won Iowa and New Hampshire. Which is weird, because I assume the only people who like Mitt Romney are Mormons and people who’s favorite Mad Men character is Duck Phillips.”
And I had something about Mormonism being a religion that bans caffeine, alcohol, consistency and charisma. So if Romney wins the nomination I’m fucked. But I still have faith in the political process. Here’s why - in hindsight, the 2008 Presidential election seemed so much more interesting than this one. It had Obama vs. Hillary and Hope and Change and Sarah Palin and all kinds of good stuff. But I needed to remind myself that we didn’t even meet Sarah Palin until August 29th of that year. If I remember correctly, John McCain wasn’t viewed as a ‘real conservative’ to the base so he had to pick a far right V.P. candidate to shut people up. If Romney wins the nomination, he’ll need to do the same thing. Who knows what type of MILFy backwoods dipshit he could find. Christine O’Donnell recently endorsed him. You never know.
Then there are the debates. This anti-Romney ad that Newt Gingrich’s PAC put Online has been pretty interesting to me. It’s hilarious, it’s got all of his best gaffes, and it brings up a great point - other than the Evangelicals, most Republicans just want to pick a guy who can beat Obama. They don’t necessarily care about the issues, but they know that whoever they’re stuck with as a nominee will have to go toe to toe with Barack Obama in a series of televised debates. And deep down they know Obama is good. Newt’s argument is that he’s the only candidate who can do it. My argument to Newt against that would be, “You know you have to like, stand next to him, right?” Sure, Obama will make assholes out of guys like Romney, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Ron Paul. But if the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debates taught us anything, it’s that it won’t do the GOP any good whatsoever to have President Cool Black Guy on stage against Slimer from Ghostbusters.
The V.P. choice and debates are still coming. Plus, there’s always the chance of a late entry (looking in your general direction, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin). This one could end up being fun after all.
Sports
I kinda like Tim Tebow. I’m not exactly sure why. I will say that the Broncos’ win against the Steelers was the only good game of Wild Card week. And who am I supposed to root for - a guy who loves Jesus more than me, or Ben Roethlisberger, a rapist? When Tebow connected with Demaryius Thomas for a ridiculous 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime to win the game (and Tebow was seen Tebowing on the other end of the field), Mike Burns turned to me and said ironically, “I really gotta start praying more.”
And that’s Tebowmania in a nutshell. I don’t even believe in any of the same religious shit Tebow does, but the guy still somehow feels magical. Weren’t the Broncos 1-5 before Tebow? Doesn’t he love John 3:16? And didn’t he pass for 316 yards in that game, with an average of 31.6 yards-per-completion? Holy shit. I didn’t even want to say, “Holy shit” there because it sounds like a bad pun, but HOLY fucking SHIT. The playoffs still had actual elite quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees and Tom Brady, but Tebow still got all the attention because of stuff like this. Sure, Tom Brady and the Patriots Austin 3:16’d his ass on Saturday, but it was fun while it lasted.
The National Championship game between LSU and Alabama was exactly what everyone thought it would be - a snoozefest. It paled in comparison to great games like the Outback Bowl between Michigan State and Georgia, the Fiesta Bowl with Oklahoma State and Stanford and the Sugar Bowl with Michigan and Virginia Tech. And we arrived at the National Championship match up partially because of the evildoing of Alabama coach, Nick Saban. Oklahoma State should have been in that game, plane and simple. Yeah, Oklahoma State shouldn’t have lost to Iowa State in double overtime back in November, but if Alabama couldn’t win its own conference, it shouldn’t be able to win the BCS Championship. But Saban was one of the coaches who ranked Oklahoma State 4th (behind Stanford) in the Coaches Poll. Stanford’s David Shaw was another. And three people in the Harris Poll voted them 6th. 6th! It’s ridiculous.
I love college football, but I’m having a harder and harder time defending it. Especially since the whole thing is decided by a computer system nobody can explain. The best thing that could have happened on January 9th was a squeaker win by Alabama, where the AP decided to vote for LSU anyway and the whole BCS bullshit was finally blown up. But that didn’t happen and we’ll see you next year with whatever two SEC teams the computers decide to place in the title game.
Music
Since I don’t care about LMFAO, I’m over Adele and I’m nearly done with Skrillex and what I’ve dubbed ‘Weight Room Techno’, the story of 2012 in music has to be the birth of Blue Ivy Carter. As soon as I heard Jay-Z had a daughter with Beyonce, my first thought (after “Hope she gets her mother’s face”) was “Great. He’s going to rap about his daughter all the time now.” And sure enough, Jay-Z put out “Glory” right away. Then he said he was going to stop saying the word ‘bitch’ because of her. Super! Can’t wait to hear the new terrible version of “99 Problems.”
There’re all kinds of theories about what the name Blue Ivy means. The best one I’ve heard is that she’s named after Jay-Z’s album, The Blueprint and Beyonce’s 4, which in Roman numerals would be IV. Get it? But the most simple answer would be that they’re celebrities. And celebrities name their kids stupid ass shit. Still, two things confuse me. 1) This was pointed out to me by Ricky Carmona, but in the song “Hello Brooklyn” Jay says, “if we had a daughter guess what I’m a call her Brooklyn Carter.” And 2) For a guy who constantly likes to remind everyone how rich he is, he sure did pick a trailer park name. Say “Blue Ivy Carter” in a Southern accent and it sounds like she should be on Toddlers & Tiaras. Brooklyn is a solid name for a girl. It would have been just fine. But now I give her until 2017 until she comes out with her own version of “Whip My Hair” or whatever billionaire kids in the future will be doing.
Movies
Say what you want about the Prometheus trailer or whatever movies have Oscar buzz, but as soon as I saw the football field get blown to pieces in the Dark Knight Rises trailer, I screamed like a maniac and called my nerd friends to discuss things like whether or not Joseph Gordon-Levitt was going to be Robin. And I’m going to join a gym and lift weights until I look like Bane. Or at least like Tom Hardy in Warrior. Or maybe just to not look like Danny DeVito in Batman Returns. Whatever. Everything else this year might as well be called Thing That Isn’t Dark Knight Rises. I can’t wait.
Okay. That’s been 2012. I’ll let you know if anything else happens between now and the end of December.
