Meditations on the Rise of Bro-Country, the Death of Rock and Roll

No song better epitomizes current-era country music than Jason Aldean's “She's Country.” The song's in-earnest beginning is an extraordinarily simple riff which is more in the vain of AC/DC than of Conway Twitty. The lyrics are a mix of southern regionalisms (this girl is apparently from 7-8 different states, depending on which “Brunswick” you interpret as the location mentioned in the song) and the new country cliches (jacked-up trucks, mildly sexist tropes about how the titular daddy's girl couldn't afford to add her own pointless accessories to her truck, cowboy boots; you know, store-bought things to convey what kind of person you are). If “She's Country” had been released in 2014 or 2015 rather than in 2008, it would be assumed to be a parody of, say, Luke Bryan's “That's My Kind of Night” or Florida Georgia Line's entire catalog. It is the definitive modern country song. And you know the weirdest part? It's not even a country song.

At least not in the traditional sense it isn't. It's a rock song. This is the sort of thing that annoys rock fans to hear, so let me be perfectly clear—it's not a good rock song. Just like it's not a good country song, in a universe where it's labeled a country song at all (so, this one, I guess). But songs along the line of this have always existed. They just weren't performed by “country” artists. Last year, I heard a bar band perform “She's Country” within a song or two of performing “We're An American Band” by Grand Funk Railroad, from 1973 and categorized by both Wikipedia and everybody I've ever met as a hard rock song, and it felt right that this band was performing the two songs together. A band like Grand Funk Railroad would be the ones doing this song in 1973 if that's when it were written. Or maybe Nazareth. Or, in a moment of weakness, Thin Lizzy or Bad Company. But hard rock bands in this sense do not exist anymore.

When people speak of Nirvana's impact on music, it's often reduced to “it killed hair metal.” But it also killed the notion of a rock star being a desirable thing. Which is a shame, because while Bret Michaels might make being a rock star look boring, Freddie Mercury made it look utterly amazing. Ironically, it's less the actual actions of Kurt Cobain (while he may not have been a dynamic rock star in the mold of Mercury or even Bono, that's just who he was—it's not as though he actively campaigned against specific artists) and more the narrative. It's been 21 ½ years since Kurt Cobain died and there still aren't rock stars in the literal sense (well, not literally rocks, but you know). Liam Gallagher had the stage presence but also had an ambivalence to his fans, though at least it wasn't the contempt of Axl Rose. Billie Joe Armstrong never had the transcendence to go beyond his own guitar to truly reach a screaming crowd. The closest thing to a “rock star” post-Cobain, ironically, is his former bandmate, Dave Grohl. And the Foo Fighters are an rare example of a band that's allowed to just be a hard rock band without being tangibly “alternative”. I suppose they got grandfathered in. But when a hard rock band comes in without having apparently listened to a Talking Heads album in their lives, they're dismissed and mocked. Like Nickelback. Like Creed.

The yesteryear equivalents to Nickelback or Creed were arena rock bands like Journey, Styx, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, and Bon Jovi (the latter is often miscategorized as “hair metal”, which is arguably even more ridiculous than categorizing Guns N' Roses as such). And all of these bands had and still have their critics. But it wasn't universal. And you know what? Nickelback's the best selling band of the 21^st century other than The Beatles, who broke up in 1970 (if you hadn't heard). But they're the exception. Artists don't want to be stigmatized as much as Nickelback, but Chad Kroeger and company are smart enough to realize that if you can make as much money as they have making extremely average, party-line rock, it's worth it. I give them credit for that.

But perhaps the most staggering difference in rock now and rock before I was born is that rock music used to have solo artists. Even beyond the obvious pre-Beatles rock stars, almost all of whom were solo acts (Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, etc.), we had Bruce Springsteen. We had John Mellencamp. Hell, we had Bryan Adams. Who's the major rock star post-grunge to be a successful solo artist without having initially been part of a successful band? Keep in mind that Dave Matthews was part of an eponymous band and wasn't actually a solo artist until 2003. Who is it?

So what we have had was two former forces in rock music which barely exist today: simplistic balls-to-the-wall riff rock, and solo artists marketed by dynamic stage presences. Rock doesn't have those. But country has those. Boy, country has those. And the reason that “country music”, however it's defined, has never been bigger. Country music in 2015 is still closer to being country music in 1980 than rock music or hip hop music or top 40 in 2015, so it's not like the people who like old-school country defected. And if they're still hung up on listening to Hank Williams Jr. music constantly, they were probably unlikely to embrace new music no matter what it was. Meanwhile, people who were buying up Sammy Hagar records in the 1980s don't have an equivalent to Sammy Hagar in modern rock. That guy's not welcome. And even though I'm not personally a Hagar fan and I am a fan of alternative rock, I don't necessarily think this is a good thing. True weirdo bands like Talking Heads don't get enough play—the closest thing to that kind of band getting play even on rock radio would be somebody like Queens of the Stone Age or Arctic Monkeys (both of whom I love, for what it's worth), semi-oddball bands who nevertheless remain firmly entrenched in conventional-ish alternative rock. In 1983, rock fans got the silly mainstream rock of Def Leppard's Pyromania, it got the truly alternative Murmur from REM, and it got things like The Police's Synchronicity, which fall somewhere in between. And everybody was happier because if the Stipeheads didn't dig “Rock of Ages”, they could ignore it. But in 2015, it's a somewhat homogeneous group of a fairly small number of bands releasing rock music.

Anyway, while the weirdos can't get play, the dumb rockers (meant mostly with affection) can't either. So they play country. People who have musical tastes in the same vicinity as mine don't understand how Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton are as popular as they are, but I totally get it. The reason Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton are popular isn't because people had an awakening and would've bought Johnny Cash albums in droves back when he was doing concept albums about the plight of Native Americans (Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian). It's because people do have an appetite for simple songs they can sing along to, and as the moody post-grunge bands that had only a peripheral idea of what Nirvana represented with about a hundredth of the musical talent failed to understand, a lot of people also like their musical heroes to smile a little. Ozzy Osbourne on a good day is a mediocre vocalist and his career has been built on two things: his uncanny ability to hitch his wagon to three of the greatest metal guitarists ever, and the fact that people love him because he's always happy and smiling. And this is the so-called Prince of Darkness. And while it's corny as hell (and soooooo corporate) for Luke Bryan to open concerts while standing on a pickup truck, it gets people excited. I guarantee you none of his fans can rationalize it as a great artistic statement, and frankly it doesn't matter.

But perhaps the strangest thing about the modern country revolution isn't that it's essentially big dumb rock—it's when it isn't. As much distaste as I have for the Big Dumb Rock Charismatic Solo Artists, their music isn't stagnant. These artists are doing something that all good artists do—they incorporate new sounds. And this is a good thing. Even if their efforts fall short, which they often do in miserable fashion, they do deserve some credit for trying. Hell, even Blake Shelton's “Boys Round Here”, a tribute to country dudes not listening to the Beatles and not knowing how to dougie and chewing tobacco and spitting, is spoken-word pseudo-rapping. Jason Aldean had freaking Ludacris perform with him on his biggest hit. Florida Georgia Line had their biggest hit remixed by Nelly. Luke Bryan name-dropped T-Pain in a song. I recognize that country artists are stopping well short of working with Run the Jewels or even Kanye West (who would TOTALLY do it, by the way), but they also aren't just trying to sound like Buck Owens and Glen Campbell forever. The genre isn't just stagnating; the people who are at the forefront of what we call country music are listening to other music and trying to work those influences into their product. And this is the thing that annoys the establishment. Not the sexism, not the stupidity of the lyrics, none of that. The fact that, against all logic, the silly men who act as the musical caretakers are actually TRYING is what offends people.

It's entirely possible that modern country is in its hair metal stage. That awful minor stars like Cole Swindell will soon be forgotten; that artists who have half a foot in bro-country and half a foot in less objectionable territory (Sam Hunt, Dierks Bentley) will survive with a few adjustments; that Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan are in for a precipitous decline that will eventually gain some salvage value when a weird sense of retro pride sets in. But hopefully the end result isn't that country, one of the few non “pop” popular genres to have any sense of fun, doesn't lose theirs. It's bad enough that hip-hop is plagued with a self-serious sense of duty to pound and scream about REAL hip-hop and that the parameters for what is allowed in a rock band are so exclusive that nobody is allowed in the club anymore. Music is supposed to be fun and even when it's bad, I don't want that to be lost.

I Guess It's Happening Now--A Preview of the 2015 St. Louis Rams Season

The day that I have been dreading since early last January is finally here--the day during which the St. Louis Rams make their 2015 regular season debut at the Edward Jones Dome against the Seattle Seahawks. Fuck.

Fuck the 2015 season. Fuck absolutely everything about it.

Fuck Stan Kroenke. Fuck Stan Kroenke's parents for giving him the names of iconic St. Louis figures without giving him any sense of loyalty to anything but his big fat fucking bank account. Fuck Wal-Mart and fuck Wal-Mart's heirs for allowing this anthropomorphic mustache to hold the hearts and sleeves of metropolitan St. Louis in his probably tiny hands. Fuck Quin Snyder for succumbing to Walton family influence and regularly starting Josh Kroenke, who was barely qualified to be Mizzou basketball's mascot, on basketball teams that were one actual shooting guard away from making actual noise in the tournament. Fuck the Utah Jazz for not yet figuring out what a toady dipshit Quin Snyder is yet. Fuck Kevin Demoff. Fuck whoever failed to teach Kevin Demoff even the slightest sense of community as a child, whoever allowed an adult man to become such an incontrovertible kiss-ass that he would be perfectly willing to travel across the country and vouch for countless of his coworkers to lose their jobs, because it's not like Stan Kroenke has a propensity to spend money so large that he would pay for stadium vendors, security, et cetera to relocate. Fuck any company in St. Louis that gives Kevin Demoff anything better than an entry-level job once he's canned by the Rams.

Fuck the homer local football media that spent the last five seasons before this one ridiculing St. Louis fans who worried about the future of football in their town as a paranoid, fringe minority. Fuck the homer local football media who then seamlessly transitioned into trying to convince a predominantly working-class fan base that they are obliged to give money to an owner that we all know damn well has zero interest under any circumstances of spending that money on keeping the Rams in St. Louis instead of, I don't know, mustache combs I guess.

Fuck Jeff Fisher, who has made the last (presumably final) four seasons of St. Louis Rams an unwatchable mess. Fuck Steve Spagnuolo for being such a disaster in 2011 that the Fisher era looked good enough that it wasn't worth immediately canning him. Fuck a team having such gall, before a season in which the team desperately needs to get off to a fast start, to draft a running back that all reasonable people knew would miss the first month of the 2015 season. Fuck Janoris Jenkins; if the Rams are indeed moving to Los Angeles, I hope they fucking trade him to Buffalo. Fuck that in a season where on paper I should be optimistic--a new quarterback, a healthy Brian Quick, no Brian Schottenheimer--I find myself writing this.

Fuck anybody who tries to reassure me "At least you have the Cardinals." Fuck Cardinals fans who try to tell me this, especially. Fuck the Cardinals for giving a generation of spoiled St. Louis assholes an unrealistic sense of how good their sports teams should be. Fuck my dad for instilling in me a sense of community, which has kept me tethering to this awful, clusterfuck of a franchise that doesn't even want to be here. Fuck the people who don't have this sense of community and get to feel happy every fall because Their Packers, Their Cowboys, or Their Steelers are in playoff contention again.

Fuck that I still care. Fuck that I haven't found something else in my life, anything else, into which to funnel the passion I have for the Rams. Fuck people with wives and kids and shit that enables them to pay just a little bit less attention to their football team. Fuck that once noon rolls around, I'll be yelling and screaming and laughing and crying and probably watching the Rams get absolutely demolished by a team which, unlike them, actually bothers to prepare during the first month of the season. Fuck the 2015 NFL season and that I'll have a harder time getting through these 16 games than I had getting through the 162 games of mediocre Cardinals seasons or the 82 games of outright bad Blues seasons.

Fuck.

A Simple Exploration Into the Souls of Tinder Bots

After hearing a lot about the phone application for some time, I was eventually swayed into trying Tinder. For those unfamiliar with it, Tinder is a cell phone app in which users “like” or “dislike” (also known as “swiping right” or “swiping left”) on fellow users. The users are not informed that the other person has “liked” them until they “match”, at which point the two users may engage in a text messaging equivalency conversation. It's an exceptionally simple premise and that's largely why the app has been an overwhelming success—user bios are limited to 500 or fewer characters and thus the process of “liking” users is highly informal and casual; there is no fear of feeling embarrassed to “like” somebody who is well out of your league because they have to like you back before they would ever know; there are no parameters for what a Tinder interaction entails. Purportedly, the app is used for hookups—being 1. A gentleman and 2. Not the hottest guy on the app, I know nothing of this. The app is definitely used for dating. But the app can also be used for casual conversation and meeting new people. And I've met some pretty cool people in my relatively brief time on the app, people whose correspondence I will not share, because that's tacky and I consider my correspondence with other people to be private.

This post is about a marginalized group—the Tinder bot. While many Tinder users are people just like me—bored folks with smartphones who are approaching dating in quite easily the laziest way on the planet—others are not people at all, but rather automated computerized programs. But these people, who aren't people, are people too. And here are some treasured interactions I've had with these “people”.

Carrol

Carrol was an early interaction for me, and she typified most of the traits I learned to love in my Tinder bots--her pictures are fairly obvious glamour shot type pictures, she has a first name I associate mostly with old people, and for some reason she asks a question. "I want to have sex with strangers who are also skilled and very intimate in bed?" I'm Ron Burgundy?

Sharon

I'm really not that much of a grammatical stickler, but one should really be better at it than this.

Patricia

I have to give Patricia two things. One, she never unmatched me. This conversation is still technically ongoing. Most of the bots talk about how they want to sleep with you and then unmatch, which...maybe I don't understand women very well. But two, she sent this message several hours after we matched. Normally, the bots strike fairly quickly--within a few minutes often. But Patricia, who appeared to be a spambot from the beginning, lingered so long that I started to think "Wait, is she NOT a spambot? Since when do I talk to actual humans on here? How do I do this? What's my name? What do I like to do? How do I...oh wait, she's one of the superfluous question mark ones, never mind, we're good here. NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS!"

Delores

First of all, yes, I really wanted to go the Seinfeld route with the name Delores, but obviously she wasn't going to get the reference. Not because women don't know Seinfeld episodes, but because this is way too old person of a name to be real. I was very confident right away that she was a spambot, but even if she wasn't, this felt like a flattering thing to say to a woman. So I rolled with it. Sometimes, this experiment got boring. There aren't quite as many spambots as I would like. Sometimes, you have to sift through a bunch of actual people to find them. And yes, I was more likely to swipe right on people I suspected were fake.

Vina

I think this was a good question.

Francesca

I will go further in depth on this later, but I've noticed a lot of spambots are 9 miles away from me. Maybe the St. Louis center of operations gravitates around one specific location that happens to be nine miles away from me. So this made me more inclined to swipe right on Francesca. But, frankly, she looked like she was about 12 years old, so I wasn't actually interested. But, this had good spambot potential, so I decided to stalk the Instagram account she referenced in her bio.

I don't think this is Francesca. I think this is somebody named Naomi. Anyway, we matched but she unmatched before I ever got the chance to be redirected to a website that required my credit card information.

Allyson

This con seems much more plausible than the hookup-based ones. After all, who doesn't want a safe Tinder experience? The whole thing can seem overwhelming and scary and, like, you don't want to end up hitting it off with somebody and then you meet them and they aren't who you thought they were. And if you check out the website, which you totally should, they make some good points. Also, they ask for your credit card information. You know, to verify you are an adult. This seems like a reasonable thing.

This different person, from yesterday, actually presented this spam pretty well. But my response I think is integral here. What, was she going to meet me right away? Didn't want to talk a little bit first?

Ruth

So I didn't realize Ruth was a spambot at first. At "Whassup ?", I had a suspicion, but even then I wasn't sure so I played it semi-cool (by sounding like a dork, but that's just my nature anyway). Her dog did look cool though.

Margie

Margie was a nice looking girl but I just didn't KNOW if we were compatible in bed just yet! I think this is a fair thing to request.

Colleen

You notice something here? No, not the arm tattoos. No, not that her Instagram appears to be for a person named Emily Andersen. Nine miles. Colleen is nine miles away. What a wild coincidence. I better ask about this.

Judith

The first two lines read like Mad Libs. "Vuh-lay-dee-yuh." Valadia? Also, @titsablaze is a fantastic Instagram name, even though searches indicate that Judith as pictured above probably does not own said account. I worry about the "420 friendly" listers not because I have a strong ethical objection to people smoking pot but because I don't want to have to listen to a bunch of Phish, but hey, she says no hookups. Doesn't sound like a spambot to me.

Don't do drugs, you will lose all of your memory and inhibitions

Daniela

. 

Daniela has a nice smile. She's apparently religious and isn't looking for a hookup and has realistic Tinder goals--meet new people. And hey, she listed a (real) university which she attends. Oh, and we matched! Awesome. Hey, I just noticed something weird--doesn't it seem like a college athlete would be back at school by now? If she really attends a school in southeastern Tennessee, how is she, um, 9 miles away?

I felt weird with the "Hi!" But I wanted to match her enthusiasm. She seemed nice.

She unmatched me. If she doesn't like ice cream, it wasn't really meant to be anyway.

The All-American Team

My criteria: A functional 25 man roster of Americans to comprise the best team possible. I can pick injured players, working under the assumption I simply get them at the ability they'll be at when they come back (i.e. I could include a guy currently out with Tommy John surgery, but I run the inherent risks that come with it). This team is limited to America-raised American citizens who have not played for other countries in international competitions (so, for instance, the American-born Adrian Gonzalez is not eligible for the team since he played for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic). I don't feel great about my bullpen.

Starting Lineup
C--Buster Posey
1B--Paul Goldschmidt
2B--Jason Kipnis
SS--Troy Tulowitzki
3B--Josh Donaldson
LF--Bryce Harper
CF--Mike Trout
RF--Giancarlo Stanton

A few of these guys I think are indisputable--Posey, Goldschmidt (another guy is probably close, but trails Goldy by pretty much any measure, if not by an enormous amount), Donaldson, Trout, and Stanton (unless you're much more scared of his current injury than I am, I guess). Jason Kipnis was unexceptional in 2014 but he was good in 2013 and is actually the ZiPS projected best second baseman in baseball for the rest of the season, so I'll take the moderate risk. Tulowitzki has been mediocre in 2015 thusfar but I was so confident in his stature as baseball's best shortstop before this season that I'm standing by him. And as for Harper, I tend to be bullish on the notion that this is actually what Bryce Harper is now. Maybe not THIS, but something close enough to it to make him a slam-dunk candidate for this lineup.

The Bench
C--Jonathan Lucroy
1B--Anthony Rizzo
3B/SS--Manny Machado
3B/2B--Anthony Rendon
CF--Andrew McCutchen

Lucroy has had a disturbingly down 2015, but he is a year removed from being better than Buster Posey for a full season, and there isn't really another great option as far as American catchers go (since Puerto Rico is a separate nation from the United States for international sports purposes, their catchers are not included as eligible for Team USA, to my eternal annoyance). Rizzo is a slightly poorer man's version of Goldschmidt and would be an incredible lefty option off the bench as a pinch hitter. Machado might be the second best defensive shortstop in baseball behind Andrelton Simmons, although he is instead relegated to being the best defensive third baseman in baseball, and he has seemingly turned the corner from being a fine MLB hitter to being a really, really good one. Rendon and Matt Carpenter got some consideration for the same bench role since they have experience at both second and third base in the Majors but I went with Rendon for three reasons--he's a righty whereas Jason Kipnis (of whom I'm more skeptical than Josh Donaldson) is a lefty so there's a possible platoon there, he has balanced the positions more recently (Carpenter hasn't played second base since 2013), and I'm scared of Matt Carpenter's recent tailspin. I don't expect a lot of disputes of Cutch except for those who would like a fifth outfielder, but with the ones I have, I can't imagine ever wanting to actually start #5.

The Rotation
Clayton Kershaw
Max Scherzer
Chris Sale
David Price
Corey Kluber

Scherzer has been so dominant after his move to the NL that there's a case for him as #1, but it's hard to go against Kershaw's track record. Sale and Price are high-end pitchers among each of the three measures I examined by and large: 2014 production, 2015 production, and 2015 projections for the rest of the season. As for Kluber, the fact that he would never be included in discussion for this team a year ago does scare me a bit, but he's been so good for the last season and a half that I'm not THAT scared.

The Bullpen
Wade Davis
Dellin Betances
Jake McGee
Madison Bumgarner
Zack Greinke
Chris Archer
Jacob de Grom

I went with three true relievers and yet I didn't pick a true closer. But I feel all right about these guys. Wade Davis has been a dominant reliever since he moved from starting, Betances seems to be held back from closing mostly for silly Yankees ideas about what a "closer" is, and McGee has been the most dominant non-Chapman lefty reliever in baseball for the last year and a half. Bumgarner, annoying as his hype is, is a rock solid MLB ace or near-ace, depending on how picky you are. Greinke gets overshadowed by Kershaw but there isn't a better #2 in baseball going right now. Archer has been one of the three or four most impressive pitchers in baseball this year, and although he wasn't QUITE this guy last year, there's enough track record to make me believe this is at least mostly not a fluke. As for de Grom, I'm sure Matt Harvey would be a popular pick among the Mets young starters, but the one I'm most confident will be a really good starter (if not a Cy Young winner) for the next decade is Jacob de Grom. So I went with this. I still feel like my bullpen is missing somebody.

Audio Johnapedia 46--If the Beatles stayed together...

John is joined by Ben Province (@BenProvince on Twitter), host of STL TV's "Show Me the Music" and certifiable Beatles fanatic, to discuss a hypothetical world in which The Beatles did not break up in 1970, and how the ensuing years would have affected the world of music and the band's legacy.

The Unique Pop Perfection of Prince's "Kiss"

Prince is, in spite of famously being a perfectionist, not actually a musical artist whose appeal generally centers around his perfection. Most of his best songs--pretty much anything off of Purple Rain is a good example of this--center around Prince warping a relatively basic song around his own personal eccentricities and tastes. 

Take, for instance, "Let's Go Crazy"--it's a great song, but it's not perfect. No pop-rock song needs to have a spoken-word intro meditating on the meaning of life and the afterlife, and no song tailored towards Top 40 radio is supposed to conclude with a blistering, unapologetically pretentious guitar solo of sheer "I'm the best damn guitar player on the planet and if you disagree because I'm a 5'2" scrawny black guy wearing purple stilettos I'm going to prove you so damn wrong right now" audacity. Don't get me wrong--"Let's Go Crazy" is awesome, but it's not perfect. Arguably, it's its lack of perfection that makes me love it. Similarly, look at "When Doves Cry", a song which, if your only exposure to it is through the radio, you may not be aware is nearly six minutes long. It has really cool pop hooks, even if it's done in a minimalist way, but the second half of it gets weird. The album version of "When Doves Cry" is a fine song from the beginning but it takes so many twists and turns that it won't be until a dozen times or so that it really hits you just how dense it is.

"Kiss", however, may be the single most perfect pop song in the rock and roll era.

In 1987, Michael Jackson released Bad, in which Michael Jackson does, for all intents and purposes, an impersonation of Prince. As somebody who prefers Prince to MJ, I'm perfectly okay with this--as immense of a talent as Michael Jackson was, I tend to prefer the rougher edges of Prince, so to see Michael Jackson move a bit more in that direction is fine by me. But in 1986, Prince made a bit of a move towards Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, after years of being the dictator of his own, weird little musical municipality known as the Minneapolis Sound. That move was "Kiss".

"Kiss" opens with nine chiming guitar notes before any other instrumentation or vocals are to be heard. It sets the stage for the frequently overlooked guitar work on the song--it doesn't have a long guitar solo like "Purple Rain" or "Little Red Corvette" but it holds the entire song together. And it draws inspiration from some of the seminal guitar stylists of the era--Johnny Marr, Peter Buck, Bernard Sumner--men on the fringe of the musical mainstream whose chiming, eccentric guitar playing allowed them to be more influential than popular. Of course, Prince was already a megastar by 1986, so he was allowed to do this sort of thing while being massively popular.

Once the intro is over and the vocals kick in, two things are immediately noticeable--Prince's karaoke staple falsetto vocals, and to a somewhat lesser extent, the understated and sparse guitar riff buried low in the mix. The vocals, as an extension of Prince's voice in general, are often mimicked. It's so common to hear a 21st century singer go for the highest notes that it's easy to forget that this wasn't always a pop staple. Prince didn't invent this extreme nature of high-pitching singing--he certainly drew from Stevie Wonder, who drew from Little Richard, and so it goes to the beginning of music as an institution. But the next time you hear "Blurred Lines", listen to the first verse, and come back and try to convince me that Marvin Gaye was the vocal legend that Robin Thicke was mimicking. And as far as the guitar: it manages to somehow, inexplicably be both dense and minimal. The riff is so simple and there's so little else going on in the song and yet it still manages to find the background. It's less a part of pop music and more a staple of most experimental forms of rock--I'll take this moment to interject how Trent Reznor has cited Prince as one of his main inspirations when he was recording the first Nine Inch Nails album Pretty Hate Machine. 

Bet you didn't think I was going to simultaneously call a Prince song his attempt to write a true pop song as well as Prince inspiring one of the weirdest, darkest alternative rock icons of the 1990s, did you?

The chorus, sung in three unique styles by Prince--first, in a relatively straightforward manner; second, venturing into falsetto; and the third, with Prince going full-fledged James Brown and screaming his ass off. Lyrically, the song isn't poetry, but that doesn't mean the song is imperfect; the song isn't meant to be a poem. Critics tend to fall into the trap of construing complex, meaningful words as an asset when often times, they're a distraction. To use another Nine Inch Nails analogy, take the song "Hurt" (or the Johnny Cash version--both excel for the exact same reason). The musical is small and understated because the lyrics are dark and brooding and if "Hurt" had a three minute guitar solo, it wouldn't make any sense. At the same time, "Closer" lacks introspection but instead is built upon stark drum machine and keyboard sounds. Without the music to compliment its often vulgar and uncomfortable lyrics, "Closer" would have been inclined to scare off listeners. With the music, it works. And likewise, "Kiss" isn't a sonnet but it isn't supposed to be. And its music matches its lyrics. Even a clever quip like "Act your age, not your shoe size" isn't overbearing: It settles in so nicely with the music that you can probably hear the song and most of the time, not consider how dated its reference to the TV series Dynasty is.

"Kiss" is pop perfection because it is everything. Every style, every sentiment, everything that can be great about pop music is incorporated. It's a song that would've been worthy of any of the great rock and roll showmen in history but was best placed in the worthy hands of one Prince Rogers Nelson.

A Birthday Present: Age Differences in Twentysomething Dating

Note: Because today, May 20, is his birthday, I promised my friend Nick (@grobot05 on Twitter) that I would write a blog post about the topic of his choosing. This is the topic of his choosing.

My name is John and I am 26 years old. The inspiration for this post, Nick, is 25 years old. We both live in a society in which an enormous amount of attention is given to the age of women. It's weird, because nobody cares how old I am. Most people don't, at least. As far as most people are concerned, I might as well be 21 or I might as well be 38. That is, of course, unless my age has to be given consideration in relation to a woman.

Being in our mid-twenties, people such as myself and Nick are put in a unique scenario when it comes to dating. We're old enough that it is no longer considered scandalous to date somebody who is slightly younger (when I was a junior in high school, I had a friend of mine who dated a freshman, and you'd have thought this was worse than Watergate) but we're also young enough that it's considered somewhat strange, if not outright taboo, to date somebody more than a year older than we are. But the question I ask, to ironically borrow a phrase from one of the world's most famous asexuals, "What difference does it make?"

Now, don't get me wrong--there should be age boundaries on dating. Here is the boundary: I, as an adult man, should not date somebody who is under the age of consent. It is illegal and it is illegal for good reason. But that's it.

Aside from somebody who is underage, context is critical is determining whether or not a relationship with a great age disparity is legitimate. For instance, although I am 26, in many ways I feel that I am younger: I have far more friends who are younger than I am than who are older than I am; it took me a couple years and a few jobs after college to feel like I was truly past the 22 year-old phase of my life, even though I was in reality probably 24; I *feel* much closer to 24 or 25 than 26. This is a subtle difference, and it's neither an inherently good nor bad thing, but it does change the equation a little bit. In theory, a 24 or 25 year old would be the ideal age for me to date, but this works under the faulty assumption that all people other than me are created equal. Some 21 or 22 year olds are culturally closer to 24 or 25. Some 28 or 29 year olds are culturally closer to 24 or 25. Particularly for those in their twenties, there is a wide range of people with a wide range of lifestyles and attitudes.

But a stigma exists, and its basis is actually surprisingly sexist. Towards both genders, really, but more disturbingly towards women. The notion is that if I were to date, say, a 19 year old girl (I don't think I even know any 19 year old girls, but I assume they still exist), it's solely because of physical attraction and not for any sort of intellectual stimulation. It feeds into a "men are pigs" narrative I don't particularly like, but I guess I can live with it. Men can be pretty terrible, after all. But what does this imply for 19 year old women? It seems to imply a few things: One, that 19 year old women lack agency and are incapable of making educated decisions about whom to date; two, that 19 year old women are incapable of being particularly smart; three, that 19 year old women have some kind of obligation to only date 19 year old men. This final implication disturbs me the most. The world is full of stupid adolescent men who believe that women owe them--that because they're "nice guys", they deserve women as some kind of prize. Screw that. As a former 19 year old male, I can assure you that 19 year old males are, generally speaking, shitheads. Some are okay, and if 19 year old women decide to date 19 year old men, that's their choice. But the idea that they are beholden to dating 19 year old men, or 26 year old men, or men in general, or ANYBODY, is despicable.

In general, I think the "half your age plus seven" rule is a good baseline. This means that I can date anybody who is twenty or older. But while this is a good baseline, it's not a good rule. There's a lot of twenty-something year old women who are emotionally and intellectually vapid and there are also a lot of women who are under twenty who are smart, funny, and good people.

Bonus Blog: Nick has asked me to objectively rate the attractiveness of several famous people. I will then follow this with a comment on the exercise as a whole.

Ariana Grande: She has a very nice smile. I find her hair oddly distracting and 5'0" is probably a little bit too short for me (I don't really care about height in evaluating female attractiveness, but the idea of being a full foot taller than a woman is a bit much for me; if you're shorter than Prince, you're pushing it). She has a nice singing voice, too, even though her music isn't really my cup of tea. Overall, if I knew a girl who looked like Ariana Grande, I'd probably think she was a nice looking girl--maybe not jaw-dropping, but attractive.

Sarah Hyland: She's not bad looking, but I don't really see her as some kind of jaw-dropping celebrity. You could go to a department store on a Saturday afternoon and see a dozen women who are more attractive than Sarah Hyland.

Selena Gomez: Like Ariana Grande, she looks very young, though I think I find Gomez more attractive. She has pretty eyes and seems to be more attractive as time goes on.

Shailene Woodley: She was really good in The Descendents and she looks really good with short hair. And I, for one, prefer female celebrities who have something somewhat different to their look. I tend to find a lot of women attractive but don't find a lot of women that attractive, so something about a uniqueness like Shailene Woodley's short hair is a nice feature.

One of the stupidest things that we as people (and I'm absolutely every bit as guilty as ANYBODY on this) do is mock people (particularly men) for being attracted to young-looking girls. It doesn't make sense at all. For instance, Ariana Grande looks really young. Like, she looks like she's in high school. And people (me) make fun of guys who think she's hot. But the key thing is she ISN'T a high schooler--she's 21, almost 22, years old. She's an adult and it's perfectly healthy and normal to be attracted to somebody who is an adult. And the reason that an age of consent exists isn't so that people don't engage in sexual relations with people who look young--it's so that people don't engage in sexual relations with people who are young. Like, emotionally. Like, intellectually. It's illegal for a damn good reason for an adult to be with a 15 year old even if he or she looks 30--that person is deemed unable to make good enough decisions about that sort of thing. If the person looks 15 but is 30, it means they are deemed able to make good decisions. People are weird, man.

My Crumbling Marriage With the St. Louis Rams

For the last twenty years, I have been married to the St. Louis Rams. The Rams have been my heart and soul. To borrow a phrase I’ve used myself many times, possibly in something many of you have read before: The Cardinals are their team and the Rams are my team. In this marriage, I’ve had to put up with my share of annoyances—the first three Rams seasons of my adulthood garnering a combined record of 6 wins and 42 losses was not pleasant, for an obvious example. But they were still my team. A good marriage doesn’t end because one of its members doesn’t age gracefully because the other member shouldn’t care. That’s not what it’s about. Marriage is about undying loyalty; it’s about being there for somebody when things are rough for them and it’s about them being there for you when you need somebody by your side.

And the sad reality is that my marriage with the St. Louis Rams is crumbling.

That is not to say that the marriage is over, but it’s getting there. And now, I must come to terms with what this marriage is and what it will be going forward. This isn’t about what it was in the past—I will always love Super Bowl XXXIV and will try to at least be civil enough with the Rams to retain some kind of joint custody for the sake of Vince.

The truth of the matter is all that I can ask of the Rams is loyalty. I was amped from the get-go before 2010, coming off the single worst three year stretch in NFL history, because I was enamored enough with the very idea of my relationship with the Rams that I was willing to accept something that others won’t accept. And the Rams gave up on that. And you know what? They don’t deserve me. I’m better than that.

And now that the Rams are openly cavorting with somebody else, I need to do one of three things. The first thing is something that I will tell you right off the bat will not be happening—ignoring it. Plenty of people have ignored adultery in their marriages or, worse, have rationalized that it’s their fault. And you know what? It’s not my fault. The Rams are cheating on me because they think they can do better. They’re wrong, but what do I know about marriage? Less than the Rams owner, whose marriage is the greatest business move he ever made, that’s for sure.

The second thing I can do is leave the marriage. It’s unhappy; my partner seems unwilling to change; this makes sense. In a lot of ways, I wish I had the strength to do it. But I don’t. I keep coming back to the happy memories and stupidly telling myself that things can be as good as they were years ago, even as the rational part of me knows that this is an impossibility. I won’t discount the possibility of divorce, but for better or worse, I’m not quite ready emotionally to go there yet.

The third thing I can do is accept that I am in an open marriage. I can accept that the Rams only care about me to the extent that I benefit their bottom line. I can accept that the only reason the Rams haven’t left me is because they don’t yet know for absolute certain that they can do better than me. And I can react by cheating right back on them. Now, I don’t want to cheat on them for revenge, but rather as a way to quell my own general lack of fulfillment. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be told that I can’t.

I’m not investing another penny in the Rams until they show the loyalty they haven’t showed in me since the end of the Georgia Frontiere era. And while I fear the unchartered territory of NFL courtship, it may be the only realistic option for me to ever feel what I once felt (and sometimes, against my better judgment, still feel) with the Rams. And although my potential suitors aren’t perfect, they may indeed be a viable alternative to staying the course with the current state of heartache and misery.

Why I Hate Fredbird

I went to an elementary school that is across the street from a Veterans Administration hospital. And when I was in sixth grade, my class would often volunteer at the hospital.

One of the days we were volunteering, there was an assembly--I don't recall the exact reason why, but those at the hospital got a catered lunch and there were some patriotic bands that performed. It's essentially a smaller version of how I've always imaged a USO show goes. But one of the guests was Fredbird.

Before the show began, the Star Spangled Banner played. The 11 and 12 year olds volunteering stood and looked at the flag. The patients who could stand stood and looked at the flag while those confined to wheelchairs looked in hushed awe. The teachers and parents, including my mother, who were also at the hospital, stood and looked at the flag. The caterers and hospital employees stood and looked at the flag.

Fredbird, as seems to be his only basic move, jumped around like an imbecile. As the song played, he (I've heard that a majority of the people who portray Fredbird are female, but for simplicity's sake, I refer to Fredbird simply as "he") danced around and did that thing where he chewed on people's heads with his oversized peak, including veterans. 11 and 12 year old kids are among the dumbest people in the world and every single one of them, without having to be asked twice, knew to be quiet and respectful, and Fredbird did not.

Not long after his buffoonery began, my mother ran up to Fredbird and told him to knock it off. She told him the obvious--that he was being disrespectful to the anthem and that it was particularly insensitive to act in such a manner at a VETERANS HOSPITAL.

This took place in (estimating on month, not on year) April 2001. Certainly, after 9/11, people got more cautious. But Fredbird should have known better. And I recognize that perhaps a different actor may have acted more wisely but when it comes to it, being maniacal is Fredbird's only move. This isn't the Phoenix Suns Gorilla dunking on trampolines or something like that--all Fredbird can do is be obnoxious. I realized this quite clearly at twelve and have not backed down from my opinion since.

Three Things I Learned from Giving Up Meat for Lent

For the first time in my life, in 2015, I gave up something for Lent. Like, actually gave up something for Lent. Not like a facetious “I’m going to give up cocaine for Lent” kind of thing but an actual, conscious attempt to give up something that I was probably going to do during that period if I didn’t make a specific effort to not do it.

I gave up meat.

To be specific (and pretentious, if inadvertently), I adhered to a lacto-vegetarian diet. I did not eat fish, as is so common on Lent Fridays, nor did I eat eggs (I made an effort to avoid eating foods in which eggs were used as an ingredient, though admittedly this wasn’t a part I went super out of my way about), but I did consume dairy. Anyway, I’ve made some observations about it so, yeah, here they are.

1. Giving up meat is surprisingly easy to do: I guess before I go any further, I should explain why I gave up meat. As far as Lent goes, I’m not Catholic, nor even particularly religious, but I have plenty of family and friends who are, and I do respect the tradition. Even if you don’t believe a word of the Bible, I do think it’s a pretty solid humanist value to be moderate and to break free of your own vices. It’s something I’ve done a lot lately in my life.

As I’ve written about before, I reached a peak weight in late 2013 of what I approximate to be somewhere in the range of 260 to 270 pounds. As of Saturday morning, at my now-weekly weigh-in, I weighed 157 pounds. I did this essentially through cold-turkey dieting—I ate a huge amount of food on a Sunday, felt bad thinking about it throughout the day on Monday, stopped off at Schnucks for a bunch of Slim Fast and Lean Cuisine meals on the way home from work, and didn’t eat fast food for nearly six months, haven’t had a non-diet soda since, etc. After I got my weight under control, in September 2014, I recognized that I had become addicted to caffeine. Not “I like caffeinated drinks”, as I’d previously rationalized it, but that I needed it to function. I had a Diet Mountain Dew on a Thursday, suffered through a long weekend of headaches and rough sleep, didn’t have a drop of caffeine for a month, and have reached what I consider a respectable point of moderation (it’s currently been 22 days since I had caffeine and when I do have caffeine again, I’ll be sure to not have it the next day—simple things like that to avoid a relapse).

Anyway, I thought meat was going to be like my psychological addiction to junk food or my physical addiction to caffeine. Not that I’m particularly carnivorous by nature, but I’ve never been one to necessarily avoid meat. I even tried to wean myself off meat a little bit before Lent started, going a few days at a time without eating it. But I figured a week or so into it, I’d really be craving meat. But…nope. Not really.

I had more vegetables than I normally did but I also ate a bunch of other foods, too. The notion that you need meat for protein in the 21^st century is completely insane, and the notion that you need meat in order to eat enjoyable food is even crazier. I still ate fast food—somewhat less, but when the weather got nice, I enjoyed walking the mile-plus to Taco Bell for bean burritos or to Subway for a Veggie Delite sandwich. I enjoyed taking advantage of the Blues scoring three goals and winning and thus allowing for half-priced Papa John’s, and thus allowing me to spend four bucks on a small cheese pizza. I also drank as much beer as I damn well felt like. Throughout the process, in contrast to the majority of the preceding fifteen months, I wasn’t losing substantial amounts of weight. I ate a pretty fair amount. It wasn’t the healthiest vegetarian diet, sure, but it’s not like I was going to be super-healthy around the construct of omnivorism, either.

There was occasional “event food” that I missed. I went to a couple family gatherings with ample appetizers I could not eat. But really, that was about it. As a decidedly not picky eater, any meat I briefly desired was quite easy to replace in my diet.

2. People care if you eat meat and I’m not sure why: I told as few people as possible that I was giving up meat for Lent. This was largely because my least favorite part of vegetarianism is the smugness associated with it. Like I said, it’s not difficult to do. But it was also because people resent vegetarianism. Like, not resent people who brag about being vegetarians—these people are objectively annoying. People resent people for their diet.

I’ve read comparisons of the social norm of eating meat to the social norm of being religious and, really, how crazy is that? You shouldn’t discriminate against somebody for being nonreligious but I guess I get it—religious beliefs often form one’s worldview and sense of ethics, so a person fears somebody does not adhere to their sense of right and wrong because of their religion. But how shallow is a person who considers their eating meat to be a fundamental part of who they are? How is it not just a pretty minor attribute? To quote humorless vegetarians The Smiths, “What difference does it make?”

My mom was extremely worried about my brief flirtation with vegetarianism. Mind you, my mom was not worried when I was, as is categorized by the World Health Organization, “severely obese”, at least not vocally. I got more than a few blank stares if somebody heard about my diet. The idea of being “other” scared people, even though there are many, many, many people I saw multiple times during Lent that noticed nothing different about me because they didn’t know I wasn’t eating meat because, again, it doesn’t really matter.

3. I guess I’ll eat meat again…if I feel like it: I think the ethical arguments against eating meat are strong. But I don’t necessarily think they are irrefutable. Let’s put it this way: I find zoos far less ethical than eating meat. I place more of a premium on treating animals in an ethical way than on keeping them alive, though I can understand if the nuts and bolts of this philosophy raises a few eyebrows.

Anyway, after the last forty days, I’m willing to at least consider placing more stock in the ethical dilemma of eating meat if for no other reason than it’s kind of easy to do. The modern world has made a wide variety of food so easy, so convenient, and so cheap that I’m willing to actually consider the world at large because, frankly, it doesn’t inconvenience me too much to do so, as horribly selfish as that may sound. In the meantime, I’m in no rush to eat meat. I’m not going to spend my afternoon downing beef jerky. I didn’t spend last night giddy with excitement that once midnight struck, I could hit up McDonald’s and just go to town on it. I’m not going to do it for the sake of doing it. If I decide I really want to cook a nice chicken breast to go with broccoli for dinner, I suppose I will. If I decide I want the whole wheat penne with meat-free pasta sauce that I ate even more than usual (which was often) since Ash Wednesday, I’ll do that too.

I can’t imagine any of you care what I’ll eat for dinner tonight, but then again, I’m often amazed what people bother to care about.

2015 MLB Predictions

Nothing too fancy here.

AL East

1. Orioles--They won 96 games with a suspended/ineffective Chris Davis and a hurt Matt Wieters and their only major loss is Nelson Cruz. Pecota has them finishing in last and this division is a crapshoot but I don't get why.

2. Blue Jays--They added Russell Martin and Josh Donaldson and for some reason the friggin White Sox got more attention for their offseason.

3. Red Sox--Their lineup is really good, even though Hanley Ramirez could be a mess in left field, but their third starter is still Joe Kelly and he isn't even healthy.

4. Rays--They weren't great last year and they no longer have David Price and Ben Zobrist, who were replaced with very little of note.

5. Yankees--They could be pretty good if everybody stays healthy, but everybody is old and they have no depth. Brian Cashman is so terrible at his job.

AL Central

1. Tigers--In a few years they're going to REALLY suck but they still have enough. Yeah, they lost Scherzer, but we all picked them to win the Central last year when they didn't have David Price.

2. Indians--Jonah Keri picked them to win the World Series but he also thinks Montreal is a good baseball city so take it with a grain of salt. Could be pretty good if Bourn and/or Swisher figure something out.

3. Royals--James Shields isn't THAT big of a loss. They're taking a step back but not that far back.

4. White Sox--They won 73 games and they added Jeff Samardzija and Adam LaRoche. They also added a superfluous closer for way too much money. People are picking them to win the division and I don't get it.

5. Twins--Buxton and Sano are probably a year away.

AL West

1. Angels--People really quickly soured on a 98 win team that didn't lose anything major. Their rotation is shaky but it was shaky last year too.

2. Athletics--Never doubt Billy Beane Devil Magic. Aside from Donaldson they have most of the core from before they loaded up on rentals last year (and were in first place) and added Zobrist and Brett Lawrie and they're good baseball players.

3. Mariners--They have Robinson Cano, Felix Hernandez, and Kyle Seager. Who is their fourth best player? They're a vogue division pick.

4. Rangers--I picked them to win the division last year because I'm stupid and could've rationalized them as a Wild Card threat before Darvish got hurt. But he did and so now they're resigned to merely be better than Houston.

5. Astros--Jeff Luhnow passed on Kris Bryant for Mark Appel.

NL East

1. Nationals--Anybody who doesn't pick the Nationals to win this division is a hipster attention whore.

2. Mets--Young pitcher injuries but, like, they have several good young pitchers.

3. Marlins--They have an exciting young core with Stanton, Yelich, Jose Fernandez, Henderson Alvarez, etc., but I do think they're a few pieces away from being a true playoff contender.

4. Braves--I don't think they're going to be the disaster a lot of people think they're going to be, but they may have the lowest upside in the majors. We know their players and we know what they are--they aren't a 100 loss team but they aren't good either.

5. Phillies--I think the 2008 Phillies could beat the 2015 Phillies in a game, and several players on the 2008 Phillies have been retired for years.

NL Central

1. Cardinals--Their worst position last year was right field and now they have Jason Heyward playing there. No reason they shouldn't be favored to repeat as division champs.

2. Pirates--Cervelli is worse than Martin but the young core is a year more seasoned and as a whole, they're probably about as good as the team that pre-2012 would've been a Wild Card last year.

3. Reds--Billy Hamilton will mature, Jay Bruce can't be that bad again, Todd Frazier and Devin Mesoraco appear to be bona fide studs, a healthy Joey Votto is healthy, Aroldis Chapman is probably the best reliever in the game, and people need to start acknowledging how good Johnny Cueto is. With that said, Jason Marquis is in their rotation.

4. Cubs--I feel like a lot of people are going to want me to defend why I picked a team that won 73 games last year and added Jon Lester and an average catcher to finish in fourth this year.

5. Brewers--They fell apart down the stretch last year and they traded away their ace.

NL West

1. Dodgers--They are relying entirely too much on Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson to stay healthy (relying on the former is fine, relying on the latter is insane) but you're just trying to be cute if you don't pick them to win the division.

2. Giants--I don't think a team that lost Pablo Sandoval and nothing else of consequence goes from an 88 win team to mediocre overnight, especially when their rotation looks straight up good if either Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain regain their old form (I would never bet on both to do so, but one seems plausible enough).

3. Padres--Wil Myers is playing center field for them. Their infield is abysmal. They have a couple good starters and then nothing much beyond that. They have the talent that I could see them finishing 2nd but I could also see them disappointing a whole bunch of people.

4. Rockies--Their lineup is actually quite good and interesting when healthy, even if their rotation isn't great. I could see a scenario where they finish ahead of the Padres but this requires them to all be healthy, which means depending on Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez to remain healthy, which is not generally a good bet to make.

5. Diamondbacks--Not that anybody is saying they are good but I think you should look at their roster and digest just how unimpressive it is. The four worst teams in the NL by a mile are the bottom two in the East and West.

Awards

AL MVP--Mike Trout. He's really good and I think his team is going to win its division so yeah.

NL MVP--Yasiel Puig. He keeps getting better and will combine the exciting narrative elements with being a really good baseball player.

AL Cy Young--David Price. In picking awards, I always pick a good player on a good team and of my division winners, he's quite clearly the best pitcher among them so yeah, okay, sounds good to me.

NL Cy Young--Clayton Kershaw. Well, he won MVP last year, so I guess technically I'm predicting regression.

AL ROY--Daniel Norris. He lives in a van down by the river and people like stories.

NL ROY--Kris Bryant. Have you heard about him.

Playoffs

AL Wild Cards: Athletics, Blue Jays

NL Wild Cards: Pirates, Giants

AL Champion: Angels

NL Champion: Nationals

World Series Champion: Nationals

Audio Johnapedia 44--Top NHL Players to Build Around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SWQ-mpsBHQ&feature=youtu.be

Who You Should Root For in Today's Stupid Bowl

NOTE: For those of you who will not be watching Super Bowl XLIX, I just want to tell you how impressed I am. You are truly a hero and deserve to be congratulated endlessly for not watching this event, which will be unwatched by hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of non-Americans. You are, to quote former Seattle athlete Kevin Durant, “the real MVP.”

Super Bowl XLIX is stupid and I hate it and I want it to end already. But it’s the only Super Bowl we have, damn it, and as with pretty much every game ever, there is a correct team to root for. I can’t tell anybody which team that is (well, I probably will) but I can help you sort out which team to root for tonight. There are subtle differences between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots and if one team’s victory will be less destructive to society, that team deserves your allegiance, if only for one night. So I will break down every component of the big game and which team is less awful in it.

Quarterback

The New England Patriots have Tom Brady, widely considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. If the Patriots win tonight, Brady will have his fourth Super Bowl win as a quarterback, tying him with professional country music vocalist Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, namesake for a video game in which I never learned how to pass and thus Jim Everett led my playoff team in rushing in a season. He has cultivated a famously clean-cut image, even after leaving his pregnant actress girlfriend so that he could start dating a supermodel that a strangely larger number of people consider unattractive (yeah, okay).

The Seattle Seahawks have Russell Wilson, who has a chance to win his second Super Bowl tonight, which is a tremendous benchmark in that every eligible quarterback to have won multiple Super Bowls is currently in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the exception of the guy who was terrible. Like Brady early in his career, Wilson appears to be following the trajectory of coasting to a Super Bowl with the help of a great defense before emerging as a formidable talent himself. Russell Wilson has an even more immaculate public image than Brady, which is understandable given that his greatest “sin” appears to have been getting divorced and possibly stealing Joseph Fauria’s girlfriend, though this comes with the annoying consequence of Russell Wilson being unnecessarily praised for fulfilling such basic quarterback duties as watching game film and being a leader. Is this his fault? Mostly no, but we all suffer the whiny consequences.

ADVANTAGE: Seahawks. Eventually people are going to start claiming Russell Wilson is the best quarterback in the NFL, which is clearly insane, but in the hype machine if Brady ties Montana, and to a lesser extent Bradshaw, will never go away. As will the claims that Tom Brady, who has spent most of his career on a team with a capital-E Elite defense and also put up his biggest number throwing to Randy Moss, arguably the most talented wide receiver in NFL history, is now better than Peyton Manning, whose team with him once made the playoffs and then, while losing him with very little other roster attrition, went 2-14.

Running Back

The Seahawks have Marshawn Lynch, who famously is refusing to do interviews, much to the chagrin of old hot sports take providers nationwide. I bet he doesn’t even like Springsteen! Lynch has an exciting, decidedly old-school mix of power and speed and is an objectively exciting player to watch, though he is far from perfect himself—in 2008, he was involved in a hit-and-run accident and in 2012, he was found to be legally drunk after a traffic stop.

Meanwhile, the Patriots have LeGarrette Blount, who is shockingly the same age as Lynch but with far less extensive of a résumé. Perhaps his NFL career has been somewhat eschewed by his tendency to punch opponents after losing and get released after leaving games early and then immediately signing with the best team in the conference.

ADVANTAGE: Seahawks. Lynch’s infractions seem to be a matter of stupidity and Blount’s seem to be a matter of being a straight-up unlikable guy. Plus, Marshawn Lynch cajoling the media is always a good thing. I thought at first this was going to be like Richard Sherman last year, where there were twenty people defending Richard Sherman from his critics for every one person actually criticizing him, but a material portion of the media is serious about this. I guess they’re more inclined to defend newspaper reporters than sideline reporters, one of whom was the “target” of Sherman last year, because that’s where most columnists started.

The Rest of the Offense

The Patriots have Rob Gronkowski, a man who stands for fun and youthful exuberance and partying. I can see the argument for whether this is good or bad either way, but in the case of the dour, thoroughly anti-fun Patriots organization, I think it’s a positive, even though I can’t see Gronk without assuming he would probably break into my apartment and steal my beer. Aside from him, on either side, there’s not much to feel much passion about. His ex-teammate did kill a guy, but I guess at least the Patriots eventually cut him

ADVANTAGE: Patriots. They can’t really be  justly blamed if we have to hear five thousand times about what a great, natural possession receiver College Quarterback Julian Edelman is.

Defense

The Patriots have a mostly anonymous defense. You’re mostly looking at Rob Ninkovich, notable only because he has the most New England Patriots name possible (which is impressive because they have Rob Gronkowski and had Tedy Bruschi); Vince Wilfork, notable for being an exceptionally large player in the sport in which being fat is the least endearing relative to other sports; and Darrelle Revis, who isn’t as good as he used to be but because we’ve firmly placed “Revis Island” in our vernacular, we will pretend he is. Also, they don’t have Aqib Talib anymore, which is nice.

The Seahawks have a bunch of guys who have been popped for Adderall (though one of the more notable cases, Brandon Browner, is now on the Patriots), though the most famous by a mile is Richard Sherman. There isn’t a great cross-sport analogy for Sherman, though I guess one could reach and say he’s the equivalent of a decent starting pitcher who becomes a great closer, or a sixth man in basketball that doesn’t start and thus doesn’t face the best competition generally speaking. But word is Sherman may miss the Super Bowl (he won’t actually miss the Super Bowl) due to the impending birth of his child, and frankly, I’m not sure how Seattle can survive without a designated guy whose job will be to cover Brandon LaFell or something.

ADVANTAGE: Patriots. Again, close.

The Owners

Seahawks owner Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft. If not for Microsoft, the internet would still be a thing, but it would likely be much different and much worse than it is now. Patriots owner Bob Kraft is a close personal friend of Roger Goodell, a man who destroyed video evidence of the Patriots cheating to an extent we may never fully know because, without any video to consult, it’s all speculation. This one isn’t close.

ADVANTAGE: Seahawks.

The Coaches

Seattle has Pete Carroll, who became Seahawks coach after fleeing USC right as they were about to go on probation for allowing boosters to pay players. New England has Bill Belichick, a sourpuss who is arguably the best coach in NFL history, even giving consideration to his previously-alluded-to cheating. Both men are cheaters who have largely avoided consequences for their actions (Carroll by fleeing the scene of the crime; Belichick by having an owner who is unbelievably cozy with the insanely corrupt commissioner of the NFL), though Carroll probably deserves some credit for at least bothering to have a smile on his face. Also, amazing fun fact: Pete Carroll is older than Bill Belichick. Seriously.

ADVANTAGE: Seahawks. Also, the Patriots have Josh McDaniels, who when not roped in by Bill Belichick, contemptible but indisputably good at his job, drafted Tim Tebow in the first round and offensive coordinated the Rams to two wins. He was sandwiched between Pat Shurmur and Brian Schottenheimer as OC and was STILL the worst of the bunch. Screw him.

Fans

New England Patriots fans, and by proxy Boston fans, are the most insufferable in sports as a whole. In the 21^st century, Boston has an astonishing eight championships, including at least one in all of the major professional leagues. And yet they STILL complain. About how the Celtics are down. About the Yankees. About how you don’t “respect” the Patriots enough.

Seattle Seahawks fans are amazingly an even more self-celebratory bunch. What else can you call a group that has the number 12 retired by the franchise in their honor? And this is the same fan base that lost an NBA team within the last decade in no small part due to pedestrian fan support and which almost lost their NFL franchise in the late 1990s to Los Angeles. Amazingly, though, the Patriots had an even more pathetic near-relocation slightly earlier in the decade, when the team almost relocated to…St. Louis. Again, and I can’t stress this enough: Both of these teams, now acclaimed for having passionate fans that you can find EVERYWHERE, nearly skipped town. I’m old enough to remember a time when each of these franchises were mediocre and absolutely nobody thought much of their fans. Being “good” or “bad” fans is an artificial construct. Every “good” fan base is “good” because their team is generally successful with the exception of the Chicago Cubs, whose fan base is “good” because it’s mostly hipsters who don't know actual players. And yes, I’m very bitter about the Rams right now. I better stop.

ADVANTAGE: Patriots. At least when Patriots fans wear a #12 jersey, it’s commemorating a great player and not themselves.

This game is stupid and you shouldn’t watch it. But you will. And so will I. So in the meantime, root for whatever outcome will make fans the least happy in total. Personally, I want Seattle to win an ugly game in which Richard Sherman does not play but the Patriots passing offense remains totally ineffective. And for Roger Goodell to get upset about the poor quality of play and resign.