Why You Should Avoid Mills Properties AT ALL COSTS

No matter what you do on this planet, do not rent from Mills Properties, particularly its Park Val location. If you have any family or friends who are looking for places to live, advise them against renting from Mills Properties. If you have any enemies who are considering renting from Mills Properties, and you take a perverse joy in their mistake, please consider professional psychiatric help. No person in the world deserves the kind of bullshit that Mills Properties unrepentantly produces.

I recognize that virtually anybody who has ever rented an apartment anywhere has some kind of horror story associated with it. Perhaps a case of damaged apartment components, or overcharging deposits, or something of that nature. Hell, when I was in college, a house I was renting had a bathroom door unhinged that we just kind of worked around because our landlord was lazy and kept putting off having it fixed. This situation isn’t even in the same stratosphere of utter incompetence as what Mills Properties offered. I’m not going to argue that it’s the worst apartment lender in the world because I don’t know all of them. But here is my story, and here is why no person you have never met (provided you have never met an authoritarian dictator or an al-Qaeda terrorist) is lowly enough to deserve to settle for Mills Properties.

In my quest to move out of my childhood bedroom, I looked at a few different apartment complexes and one Saturday, I toured Park Val. I looked at the demonstration room and asked a few basic questions. You said that the apartments are all-hardwood floors—Don’t worry about the carpeting in this room, it’s just the demonstration room. What municipality is this in?—Webster Groves. I was surprised to hear that the apartment complex was in Webster Groves—Park Val is literally right behind Shrewsbury Lanes and the route to get there from my house indisputably involves entering the city of St. Louis yet I saw no sign saying that I had entered Webster Groves. But whatever. The apartment seemed relatively nice for the price.

I went to the apartment a few weeks later to go through with an application. I went on a Saturday because I wanted to avoid going during the week as much as I could—I get off work at 5 p.m. and the office closed at 5:30 p.m., and while my boss is extremely nice and would have no problem with me taking a short lunch and leaving at 4:30 p.m., I’ve only been worked at my current place of employment for a little over three months and I don’t really want to push it when I do not have an immediate need to do so. I went and applied and paid the application fee. The next day, I was called and told I had been approved, so I got my boss to approve of me leaving early the next day while I went to go sign the lease on that Monday.

Two interesting things happened on that Monday. First, when looking at the terms I had been given, the rent was higher than what had been promised. Like, fifty dollars higher. I immediately pointed out the difference and the facility manager immediately relented, saying that the price I had been promised when I first looked was a “sale” price. Regardless, he offered me a workaround deal—basically, I could have to pay $10 more per month but in exchange, he would cut an initial application charge by $50 and then take $70 off of my first month’s rent. Fine. I’d pay $120 extra over the course of a year and save $120 off the top. Makes no difference to me. The second interesting thing was that I would not be able to sign a “lease” per se that day; it turned out that the previous tenant was still living in the apartment after the lease had expired, paying beyond the initial monthly rent because that person needed some initial time to move out. Okay, fine, I figured. That person was said to be moving out on Wednesday. After that, I could sign a lease. The next week, the lease was signed.

Once the lease was signed, I started buying furnishings. A large TV for my living room; a kitchen table and chairs; a couch. I hate spending money en masse but now that the lease was signed, I had to get the ball rolling. The long process was finally over and on March 1^st, I would be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. On February 21^st, I got out of work early due to snow and I attempted to take care of the three main utility-ish things I needed to do before the lease started. Step one was easy—ordering internet and cable. Took about ten minutes with no issue. Step two was somewhat more difficult—renter’s insurance. I was told that I would be able to get a discount on it but I couldn’t get an answer at Park Val, so I put that off. Step three was getting utilities switched over to my name, but according to Ameren, the property manager had yet to verify that I was assuming the responsibility.

On Saturday the 23rd, I got a hold of Park Val. I was worked through the renter’s insurance process. Upon suggestion, I signed up for a one-time payment for the year on the insurance—the last thing I want is to have to remember to make a nominal payment every month if I don’t have to do so, right? The manager said they would call on Monday to Ameren to get things switched over. Sweet.

Tuesday comes around and I took a break at work to call Ameren. Same thing as before—the property manager hadn’t called in. So I called Park Val again. As was often the case, I had to leave a voicemail message. When I hadn’t been called by the end of the day, I sent an e-mail. On Wednesday, I got a voicemail around 9:30 in the morning from Park Val saying to call. Okay. The manager wasn’t there when I called back. I usually like to keep my cell phone in airplane mode early in the day to preserve the battery but I decided to keep a watchful eye and/or ear on the phone, hoping, since the lease began in two days, I could get the Ameren situation taken care of sooner rather than later. At 11:45 p.m., Park Val called back.

“Hey John, um, do you think you’d be able to move in next Wednesday?”

Um, no. Why would I be able to move in next Wednesday? My lease is arranged for this Friday. I lined up for my furniture to be ready for in-store pickup by Saturday. I arranged to have a friend help me with the heavy lifting for that Saturday. I had the people from Charter coming in on Saturday. This is a joke, right? It’s a joke—I’m going to stammer around a little bit in response and then be told I’d been had there. Well, it turns out I had been had long before yesterday.

The reason why I was being asked if I could move in next Wednesday was because the previous tenant, the person for whom I had ostensibly been waiting to leave the apartment, was still living in the apartment. I had signed a lease for an apartment that, for all intents and purposes, did not exist.

“I mean, no,” I said, “I can’t really move in next Wednesday. I mean, I have all my movers mobilized for Saturday and we have furniture and cable coming by and…”

“Look, John, there’s really nothing I can do.”

In some ways, this is true. In more ways it’s a heaping pile of bullshit, but in the sense of “I would have to give a notice of eviction”, it’s true. But the point remains that I had signed a lease, effective on the 1^st of March in 2013, to take possession of an apartment in the Park Val complex. I had even been told by this same person mind you that I would need to wait until the previous tenant had left to sign a lease. I then signed a lease.

“We can start eviction proceedings now but it could take up to 90 days.”

Okay then, so what you’re saying is this whole ‘You can move in on Wednesday’ thing is totally contingent on if this person decides to change his or her mind and abide by the rules and by normal sets up interpersonal decorum? 90 days sounds wrong too, but that’s really just a drop in the bucket compared to what you’re saying so far.

“Look, here’s what I can do for you. For your inconvenience, I can knock $100 off your first month’s rent. That’s all I’m authorized to do.”

Oh, so for my “inconvenience” you’re going to offer me what is essentially a prorated refund on the time I won’t be able to get in the apartment. Go fuck yourself. Holy shit I just want to rail into this dumbass right now. But I’m at work; even though I’m in the hallway I’m pretty sure if I hurl obscenities at you, I’ll at the best get stares and at the worst get reprimanded.

“John, are you still there?”

Yes, fuck face, I’m still here. It’s almost like being told that apparently a signed lease agreement doesn’t count as a binding legal contract in a professional leasing organization’s world would come as a bit of a surprise to somebody.

“Yeah, I’m still…look, let me call you back, I need to get some things together. Bye.”

I hung up and felt dizzy. I was angry, but I was also confused. Like, how is this not over? If I signed a lease, how was that not the end of the process? Not sure what to do, I called my mom. She was probably angrier than I was, or at least didn’t make any particular effort to hide it. Luckily for me, she was actually in the area at the time and went by Park Val to figure out what was going on. I didn’t have the capacity to investigate this entire matter by myself but luckily, she did.

When I got off the phone initially, I thought my landlord was an incompetent idiot. Turns out my mom got to experience a new low in customer service and general human decency. Now, anyone who knows both me and my mom knows that we have fairly different personalities—I’m a pretty relaxed person, in general (internet bluster aside), very much a go-with-the-flow type. My mom will, for better or worse (and in the upcoming story, much much better), talk back. And sometimes this leads to some, um, interesting moments. As much as I don’t really like the idea of my mom fighting my battles for me, the results were so indisputably great this time that I can’t argue against it.

My mom walked into the office and said “You just got off the phone with my son,” and the landlord immediately went into defense mode. When asked why a lease would be offered to an apartment that wasn’t available, the response was “Well, your son was really insistent on getting a lease signed as soon as possible.” Well, of course I was insistent on this—I wanted to make sure I didn’t get swindled. It hadn’t occurred to me that there were steps beyond signing the lease (but really though, I was pretty disappointed to hear that, apparently, my merely wanting something to happen would make it so. Shit, why did I settle for a mildly crappy apartment on the city/county line? I should have made a play for the White House. Or at least M.C. Hammer’s. I mean, that’s probably not that hard to get, right?).

The next question was “Have you done this before?” This is the part where some of you will probably think I’m just telling a fictional story but I swear to God on my mother’s life (and if it turns out this is a lie, it serves my mother’s right for lying) this is what happened. The response was yes. “Has this ever happened, where the person just doesn’t leave?” The response, which is up there with that time Ted Stevens referred to the internet as “a series of tubes” in terms of hilarity-amidst-horror incompetence, was “Yeah, it’s happened a few times. It’s just a risk I like to take.”

Oh, okay then. A risk you like to take. An interesting “risk”, I must say—since it’s really not a risk to you. The person for whom it is a risk, the person whose home is at stake, was not consulted. And I say this as a person who goes to casinos more often than would probably be considered socially acceptable—I wouldn’t risk money unless there was a chance of winning back more than I put in. There is no advantage to this “risk” other than for Park Val to get my money. But no problem—my mom took it a step further than I had wanted. She went to Mills Properties headquarters.

They were a bit better, though this is a fairly low bar. Basically, they won a 100-meter dash in which every other competitor had false started. But most importantly, they gave some more information. First of all, you know how I was told the apartment was in Webster Groves? Nope—St. Louis city. This isn’t even really a big factor for me, besides the obvious of “I don’t like when people lie to me.” And as for the 5:30 closing time which forced me to leave work early? Welp, turns out the office isn’t supposed to close until 6. This was news to Mills Properties. They tried to placate the anger by saying that, because of the lies I had faced and because of the fact that they obviously could not uphold their end of the lease, they could end the lease and refund the charges I had incurred. They were supposed to call today, Thursday, to get things resolved. And they did.

I got a voicemail from the corporate office: “Well, the apartment you had will be available on Wednesday, if you can take the day off or if you can just move in on that Saturday, and for your trouble we’ll be able to refund half the month’s rent.”

Same shit, different day.

So that’s where I am right now. I left a voicemail for them saying that I was sick of being lied to, that their end of the bargain had not been lived up to, and that I wanted to end my relationship with Mills Properties. Apparently, this wasn’t good enough. I’d compare Mills to used car salesmen, but no matter how much a used car salesman lied to you, I can pretty much guarantee that you got some kind of car out of the deal. But even when caught in the most unbelievable lie you could possibly fathom in a rental agreement, one in which property is not only not available but even though this was known already, it wasn’t brought up to the moving party until two days before the lease began. And the process starts again. Four figures spent on furniture and general household accessories that will now have to stay in my parents’ garage and my grandmother’s basement until I can find an apartment not run by “people” that are such lying sacks of shit. It can serve as a temporary symbol of a company I would never recommend to anyone, under any circumstances.

This is just the beginning: There won’t be a rental review website on the internet that doesn’t have a truncated version of my story on it soon. If you have any other rental horror stories, please leave them in the comments section. All companies who treat people like dirt should be exposed. I don’t expect that any business’s first and foremost goal will not be to make money—I do, however, expect a basic level of humanity and conscience. Rent through Mills Properties/Park Val as your own risk—you’ve been warned. This sort of thing happens there.

Don’t worry, people reading this who read my blog regularly—I’ll go back to sports lists and references to obscure Oasis b-sides soon!

Why I Hate Michael Jordan

This sounds like heresy, being a 24 year-old Chicago Bulls fan, but I cannot stand Michael Jordan.

It's partially his fault, and it's partially the fault of the media that made him the unfathomably huge star that he became. It's Michael Jordan's 50th birthday and ESPN will absolutely NOT SHUT UP about it. It's insanity. I get that he's generally accepted as the greatest of all-time in his sport, but do you know when Wayne Gretzky's birthday is? Do you know Pele's birthday? Any of the dozen or so living NFL alumni often regarded as the greatest ever? Because I don't. Nor do I feel like they've been slighted--who cares? But why does MJ get all of the attention?

Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players in NBA history; this I will not dispute. I will dispute that he is THE greatest player of all-time, and I will sure as Hell dispute that he's so clearly the greatest player of all-time that any suggestions to the contrary are blasphemy. Wilt Chamberlain, in 1961-62, averaged 50.4 PPG, 25.7 RPG, and averaged 48.5 MPG (seriously, he averaged more minutes than exist in a regular NBA game). Nobody else besides Wilt has averaged 40 in a season. Wilt did it twice. Wilt had four straight seasons in which he outscored MJ's best season. And don't give me the totally BS argument of how it was easier to do that in Wilt's era--if it was easier, how come nobody else did it? Sure, Jordan had more rings than Wilt Chamberlain (6 to 2). Bill Russell had eleven. Hell, Robert Horry had seven. Teammates matter in the equation. It's not an individual accomplishment.

But my problem really isn't that people think Jordan is the best NBA player ever because there is certainly a compelling case that he is. But that people refuse to even consider alternatives. Saying MJ isn't the best NBA player ever unreservedly is tantamount to saying the Beatles aren't the greatest band ever--siding with MJ or the Beatles is a safe and not terrible opinion, but it's not such a goddamned blowout that conversation isn't merited. People freak out and get upset if Lebron James is compared to Michael Jordan. And I don't even think James is in MJ's class yet but why can't we at least discuss it? Lebron is a better rebounder and arguably a better defender; MJ is a better scorer by a lot but IT'S A DISCUSSION PEOPLE.

But the real problem with MJ isn't that he's overrated as a player; it's that he's overrated as a person.

A lot of people like to cite Michael Jordan's importance as a marketer and as a corporate icon. Won't dispute it. I will dispute that this is something he should be proud of. I don't blame him for it: This is capitalism and he has every right to shill for every product under the sun if he wants to do so. And I also have the right to point out that he's a corporate whore. He was certainly more important to Madison Avenue than, say, Muhammad Ali, but that doesn't make him more admirable. Ali alienated large portions of the country through his actions and what he said. Jim Brown (who also has a birthday today) used his status as an elite athlete to promote civil rights causes. Let's not even get started on Jackie Robinson. Michael Jordan's contribution to society is selling overpriced shoes. 

To me, the definitive MJ moment isn't one of the championships or great highlights--it's his response when he was asked in 1990 why he wouldn't endorse Harvey Gantt against Jesse Helms in a North Carolina Senate election (Sidebar: This shouldn't be viewed historically as a battle between a Democrat and a Republican--it should be viewed as Anybody vs. Jesse Helms). His response was the legendarily weak-kneed line "Republicans buy sneakers, too." Yep, that's why he didn't make what had to be the least controversial partisan political endorsement ever. Not even necessarily that he DISAGREED that Harvey Gantt was the superior candidate. Just that he wanted to make a few more bucks. Again, his right, but this shows all that needs to be said about the fact that Michael Jordan aspired to be a corporation unto himself. All the things people have ripped Tiger Woods for--being a bland, boring superstar who whitewashed any negativity in his private life for the sake of expanding his bank account--applied to Michael Jordan a decade prior.

The last decade since MJ's retirement has proven something I always suspected--Jordan is really only good at basketball. He failed as an executive, helping the Wizards sink to new lows and now being behind the worst NBA franchise mess, the Charlotte Bobcats, of my lifetime. He failed as a gambler, losing millions. He failed as a husband, being divorced amidst adultery. His Hall of Fame speech was legendarily self-serving and vicious, excoriating his currently-homeless high school basketball coach. Hell, his Birmingham Barons career might have been his third-best facet (behind basketball and using his basketball skill to sell things).

With all of that said, I loved watching Michael Jordan play. He was terrific on the court. I wish the sports media would shut up about him for two seconds so perhaps we as a people could go back to enjoying him again.

The Five Greatest Super Bowl Halftime Shows

With American musical preferences as varied as they are, the Super Bowl Halftime Show is the one place where the entire world watches a concert. And everyone watches it. Even if you hate the performer (see: Eyed Peas, Black), you still watch. And believe me, most of the concerts have been TERRIBLE. But here are the five best.

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers--2008: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are really the perfect example of a band that gets what it is. They've never been cool but at the same time, they've never been uncool. They're a traditionalist, Rolling Stones-meets-Byrds band, that has spent most of the last three and a half decades making strong, untranscendent rock and roll. And in 2008, they performed a strong, solid set at the Super Bowl halftime show. I do have to deduct points based on their song selection (three of the four songs came from a Tom Petty solo album, and yes, there is a difference between Tom Petty solo and Tom Petty with the Heartbreakers and the latter is better), but "Runnin' Down a Dream" is a grand song to play at the Super Bowl, and when a band can play a song about a girl committing suicide ("American Girl") and nobody bats an eye, that is rock and roll at its finest.

4. Michael Jackson--1993: As I've said before, Michael Jackson was not a great musician, but he was a great performer. He was, especially at his peak (though this probably qualifies as slightly past his peak), the perfect person to do the halftime show. And this was a vital halftime show--once the biggest star in the world did the halftime show, Up With People was screwed. His performance provoked the ratings of the game to go UP, somehow. And his song selection was pretty strong too ("Jam", "Billie Jean"--his best song and nobody will ever convince me it's close, and "Black or White").

3. Paul McCartney--2005: The Super Bowl the year prior, with the wardrobe malfunction, sucked. I hated the music in it to such an extent that even being the fifteen year-old boy I was, the presence of boobies didn't make it much better. So in 2005, they brought in the living dean of popular music. It's that simple. If Paul McCartney is on the bill, he will never not be the final act. With all the great bands at the Olympics and at the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert, it centered around Sir Paul. There were several "safe" elements about this show--the songs, the selection in and of itself, and the decided lack of wardrobe malfunctions. But Sir Paul could have come out and taken a bow and it still would have been better than the awful Rolling Stones (who I like) performance the next year.

2. U2--2002: I didn't grasp the greatness of this performance at the time because I was too busy freaking out about the Rams, but upon further replays, this was pretty great. Could any band other than U2 have done what they did? Regardless of your opinion on their music, they are the ultimate stadium band. Their stadium shows are practically Billy Graham revivals. "Beautiful Day", still a fresh new song at the time was good enough on its own to make this list, but "Where the Streets Have No Name" being played with the names of 9/11 victims scrolling in the background...amazing.

1. Prince--2007: Prince is simply a genius. He will always be compared to Michael Jackson, because they were both super-popular solo African-American artists during the same time frame. But Prince was in a class of his own. He wasn't just a great vocalist and a great showman--he was a spectacular guitarist/multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, and in his halftime show of the pretty bad Super Bowl 41 allowed him to flaunt all of his many powers. He played bits of six songs and even though he's one of the best songwriters of his generation, three were covers. The three highlights were, in order--his performance of his best hard rock song ("Let's Go Crazy"), his scathing/soulful/fierce Foo Fighters cover ("Best of You", in a version that members of the band have admitted is better than their original), and his too-grand-for-words rendition of "Purple Rain", which had all the guitar heroics of his original but also included AN ACTUAL RAINSTORM STARTING DURING THE SONG. God Bless You, Prince.

The Grobitch Confessional

Hello, my name is John Fleming. I am twenty-four years old. And I am the founder of the Twitter account @grobitch20.

This seems like a silly coming-out really; I suspect that for most people who follow both me and Grobitch on Twitter (which is a lot of people, many of whom interestingly enough followed Grobitch before following me, including the man who eventually outed me), this comes as about as big of a surprise as when George Michael came out in 1998. It’s a formality; it isn’t Earth-shattering news. Like George Michael, I’m only confessing because I got caught, but I knew this day would come. Frankly, I’m surprised it took as long as it did. I never wanted to go out on top. That wouldn’t be in the spirit of Grobitch. I wanted it to go down in flames.

I hope that anyone who reads this who is amused by Grobitch is amused for the same reasons I had so much fun doing it. Grobitch is a parody of @grobot20, not an indictment. Is the account critical of its target? No question. But it is also, as its bio long said, “a loving tribute to @grobot20.” For anyone who doesn’t know, I am actually friends with Nick in real life. And we were friends before I got Twitter. In fact, I got Twitter largely because Nick said I would enjoy it. He was right. And if I weren’t at least somewhat amused by his shtick, I’d have no particular motivation to satirize him. And that is why I started Grobitch. This account has lasted ten months. It started when Nick was an undergraduate and he’s now closer to the end than the beginning of Masters degree studies. I’ve had three different jobs since it started. It’s been a fun ten months and here is the story.

Of all of my friends, Nick is the only one that I think could have a half-decent parody account made about him. First of all, he tweets a lot. Second of all, he tweets passionately—he doesn’t just say what’s going on his day, but rather he tweets excitedly about sports, TV, or whatever’s on his mind. Third, and most importantly, he has a great sense of humor. This isn’t necessarily the same thing as being funny, as most people seem to think. A sense of humor means he can, well, sense humor. He can appreciate humor, even when it is derisively directed to him. He would probably be reluctant to admit this, but I suspect the only person who enjoyed Grobitch more than I did was he himself. And fourth, and almost as importantly, he had a large Twitter base upon which to build a following. You can’t parody somebody that has twelve followers. Frankly, I suspected Grobitch would end up with about twelve followers anyway.

Grobitch was founded the night of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship between Kentucky and Kansas and it was the perfect night to do it. Nick hates Kansas basketball (as all good Americans do) and was destined to passionately live-tweet the game. However, I had actually gotten the idea for a parody account of Nick that weekend, when I went up to Kirksville for the initiation of the fraternity of which we are both members. While #LadiesLoveThemSomeGrobot, as Grobitch so often hashtagged, was actually invented by me (as myself, not as Grobitch) as a fairly sarcastic mocking, it’s kind of true. It was the second straight semester that I had come up for initiation and it was the second straight semester that, with Nick not even around, he came up in conversation and I realized that something I hadn’t foreseen was happening here. Nick was becoming something of an institution, as silly and absurd as that sounds. But anyway, the basketball game would be a tremendous opportunity for me to exhibit some of the memes that became Grobitch’s trademark. The memes were insane exaggerations of things the real Nick would use on Twitter, but they soon became the basis of the exaggeration. As with all satire, the solution isn’t to use non-sequitors; it is to become something of a caricature.

The first Grobitch tweet came at 9:00 p.m. on April 2, 2012. “Kansas is proving right now that they’re overrated. The SEC is the best conference in the universe. #MIZSEC #NotBiased.” In retrospect this was an okay tweet, as it does pick up on a secondary Grobitch meme of ridiculing homerism. Tweet 2 said “Doron Lamb is getting laid tonight. Just like me.” Thus beginning Grobitch’s infatuation with “the ladies” (or “teh ladies” if you prefer). Tweet 6 is, in my opinion, the tweet that really launched Grobitch: “Bill Self is an asshat. Thomas Robinson is an asshat. Everybody is an asshat.” It’s a totally insane comment that Nick on his worst day wouldn’t even make but at the same time, it works as satire. It calls people an asshat and it evolves from calling Bill Self an asshat (which I’d be surprised if Nick hasn’t done directly), to calling Thomas Robinson an asshat (less likely, but somewhat plausible), to calling everybody an asshat (the point at which the parody is acknowledged).

I won’t lie; I thought this might last about a week.

Even early on, I alternated between insanity (“When I’m wearing my Jayhawks shirt around campus tomorrow, it’s the only thing ever that could prevent me from getting laid”) and pseudo-social commentary (“Fuck having to work tonight at a job that I voluntarily hold not because I have pressing financial need but for beer money”). And that was the blueprint.

And then the others got involved.

As per the request of others involved, I will choose not to indicate who the others are. I will say that, to the best of my knowledge, the total number of people who have tweeted under the name @grobitch20 is four and that the total number of people who knew before today for an absolute, tangible fact who was behind the account is around ten. With that said, about ninety-five percent of Grobitch’s tweets, including almost all of the reply tweets (even most of the ones that are replying to my personal tweets) came from me.

And so it has continued. Grobitch now has 82 followers. Holy shit, a parody account of a non-celebrity who has only followed people based on whether or not @grobot20 has tweeted at them has EIGHTY-TWO FOLLOWERS. I’m amazed, personally. It’s been a hell of a ride. Will it continue now that the truth is known? I don’t see why not. To some extent, Grobitch had probably seen better days even without being outed. One thing I can promise is that Grobitch will be deleted before it ever resorts to insisting on prior review from, as he would put it, “Real Me”. Thanks to everybody who has made this the most fun ten months anyone could ever hope to have on Twitter.

Love,         

John (@johnjf125)

P.S.—If you have any further questions about Grobitch or the Grobitch process, leave them in the comments section or DM me (either under @johnjf125 or @grobitch20 will be fine) and I’d be happy to answer them under a separate post.

Johnapedia's Ten Greatest Sports Stories of 2012

Rather than dealing with stupid sentimental media stories like Tim Tebow or the Miami Heat or something like that, Johnapedia is going to address the REAL ten best sports stories of the calendar year of 2012.

10. LeSean McCoy, All He Does Is Win--Forget Tim Tebow, whose in the two seasons which occurred at least partially in 2012 will combine for a total of one playoff win.  The true clutch gene of 2012 goes to LeSean McCoy, who in spite of what so-called "experts" have called a disappointing season, he was the first round pick of the champions of two of my three fantasy football leagues.  HE SHATTERED THE MOLD!

9. Revenge of the Halak--For the first couple of months of 2012, all I heard about in St. Louis among my (predominantly white) friends was how Brian Elliott was so much better than Jaroslav Halak in spite of the fact that Halak had several seasons of solid goaltending play on his resume and Brian Elliott had basically been the hockey equivalent to Akili Smith up until a hot stretch during the season.  So then came hoards of clamoring for Halak, arguably the team's best player, to be benched in favor of a guy who was basically given away to the St. Louis Blues.  Halak continued to be critiqued in spite of his general excellence until the Blues faced off against the Los Angeles Kings in the Western Conference (I think it's called Western, right?  It's not like Wales or whatever the fuck it used to be back when people somehow cared less about hockey) Semis and Brian Elliott showed worse at goaltending than if a manican had been placed in goal.  I hated to see the Blues get swept because while I'm largely apathetic about hockey, I do still root for the Blues.  I did, however, love to see blatantly racist hockey fans (GASP!) get their comeuppance.

8. Golden Tate things--Theoretically, this is a negative story since it meant the wrong team won a game.  But the reason the Golden Tate TD fiasco with the replacement refs between the Seahawks and Packers was fucking awesome is because of the passions it brought out.  I was on Twitter that night as well as Election Night and the former was angrier.  T.J. Lang wrote a series of vulgar tweets about how his team got screwed.  Aaron Fucking Rodgers got into it as well.  And neither got fined!  It was a strange loophole in the general rules of professionalism.

7. Lionel Messi is the best athlete in the world--The best athlete in the world, which I define as the person who is mostly clearly the best in the world at their sport, plays the world's most popular sport.  Lionel Messi is the best soccer player I've ever seen--he's better than Ronaldo (either of the Brazilian or Cristiano variant), better than Ronaldinho, better than Zidane.  In fact, let me take it a step further--if Messi wins a World Cup with Argentina in 2014, he's better than Pele.  Yes, better than Pele.  Pele's argument for best ever is World Cups and Messi already kicks the ever-loving shit out of Pele in terms of professional success (seriously, Pele went to the U.S. and it wasn't even a considerable drop-off in terms of opponent quality from his club career).  And this was his best year.  He scores goals with unfuckingbelievable regularity.  It's like if Sammy Sosa had an entire season in which he was playing like he did in June 1998.  And Messi's doing it.

6. Raul Ibanez?--The question mark is how I best explain this.  Ibanez was such a huge WHATTHEFUCKISGOINGON that I found myself rooting for the Yankees (provided he was playing).  9/11 didn't make me root for the Yankees, but this guy did.  When his unbelievable coda, a pinch-hit home run to tie Game 1 of the ALCS in the 9th inning, occurred, I was in a casino, standing around tables, and my eye bulged and I just looked around, seeing a few other guys amazed that HE DID IT AGAIN.  Worth repeating--I live in St. Louis.  Nothing Raul Ibanez did made a damn bit of sense and that's why it was great.

5. Last Day of the EPL Season--I was rooting for Manchester United but I couldn't help but love what I saw.  It was basically the equivalent of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series but for the rest of the world.  Flipping between United and Manchester City, seeing City somehow equalize and take the lead in extra time, which was capped by Liam Gallagher pouring champagne on people in a private box because Liam Gallagher.  It's also why international soccer leagues get it right--rather than trying to expand playoffs or anything silly like that, all the drama comes out on Game 38 of the season.

4. Texas A&M beating Alabama--Let me be perfectly clear here, I fucking hate Alabama.  I always have.  But then when they hired Nick Saban, who is quite frankly fucking evil, I began to hate them to new and previously unthought of levels.  Mike Dubose blamed losses on God, Mike Price had an affinity for unattractive strippers, Dennis Franchione bolted for more money, and yet Nick Saban's eternal dickishness will always be the most unforgivable facet of Alabama football to me.  So to see the anointed assholes who some very dumb people claimed could give an NFL team a run for its money get run all over by a FRESHMAN quarterback who for all intents and purposes won the Heisman in one night (I honestly don't think he even gets an NYC invite if that game never happens) was just majestic.  The highlight of a crazy college football season.  This event is somewhat diminished by Alabama, for a second straight year, having to pay absolutely no consequences whatsoever for a home November loss, but the memories of that evening remain.

3. The New York Giants defeat Evil--There's never a reason to root for the Patriots.  Most teams I root against in sports I respect.  I respect the fact that Lebron James took less money to play for a contender, even if he left in a dickish way.  I respect Duke basketball playing the right way and actually giving a damn about academics.  I don't respect the Patriots--I think they're a group of egomaniacal, cheating bastards who essentially got away with being the crooks they are because a group of idiots claim that winning the Super Bowl in 2002 somehow was a triumph after 9/11 (just as I'm sure the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina totally had that offset by the Saints making the 2006 NFC Championship game).  But anyway, while this triumph of not-evil over evil wasn't as satisfying was the team that stopped the perfect season, it was still pretty damn great.

2. Game 5 of the 2012 NLDS--Much like Albert Pujols triumphing over Brad Lidge in the 2005 NLCS, this game will certainly be obscured over time because it didn't lead to a World Series win, and also perhaps because it was less exciting than Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, but the fact that it happened AGAIN almost made it better.  The batshit craziness of the Cardinals making a "Just. Won't. Go. Away." comeback AGAIN makes for a lame script but an awesome reality.

1. The 2012 Olympics--I don't give a shit about the Olympics, by and large.  USA basketball winning was nice but I don't consider gymnastics a sport (for the same reason I don't consider acting a sport--it's skillful and often requires great physicality, but in the end, it's a judge deciding the winner) and the swimming was a letdown from 2008.  Usain Bolt is still fast and all that.  The reason the 2012 Olympics was the best sports story of the year is because it led to this: http://metro.co.uk/2012/08/13/spice-girls-and-liam-gallagher-put-15-year-rift-behind-them-at-olympics-closing-ceremony-534926/

And that is why the 2012 Olympics are the best story of 1996.  Happy New Year, everybody!

Four Insane Post-Election Arguments

This is a no-particular-order list of facts-optional things I heard said on Twitter or on faux-news within the last few days after the re-election of Barack Obama

1. "This is still essentially a center-right nation.  Because of this, Republicans have an inherent advantage and just need to communicate their message better."

Famously, in 1972, film critic Pauline Kael was (largely mis-) quoted as saying "I don't know how Richard Nixon won.  I don't know anybody who voted for him."  This quote, even though wrong, is a perfect summation of liberal ignorance of the nation as a whole--they live in a bubble of like-minded people (this fact is actually in the vein of her actual quote) and don't seem to realize just how many people disagree with them.

Pauline Kael, meet Dick Morris.  Dick Morris, Pauline Kael.

If you aren't familiar with Dick Morris's pre-election pro-Romney bravado, Google it.  What happened, though, is that Morris predicted a Romney landslide, completely disregarding polls as liberally biased (which, if you think about it, makes no sense; if you're predicting Obama wins by a ton, wouldn't it dissuade people, most of whom listen to you are liberal, from bothering to vote?).  This shouldn't be a HUGE shocker--Dick Morris lives in his own little Fox News bubble in which everybody he knows is voting for Romney and hates Obama.  This doesn't reflect the nation as a whole; it reflects the fairly small sampling of people Dick Morris knows.  Post-election, I suppose he has to acknowledge that Obama got more votes, but there's no specific need for him to acknowledge that, if given perfect information not skewed by "the liberal media" (a phrase said on a nationally broadcast news network on a daily basis), people would vote Romney.

There's also the fact that Obama's platform would be considered center-right in most of the western world (strong military presence, continued presence of Gitmo, etc.), but that would require Dick Morris to look to other continents while he won't even look outside of his personal bubble.

2. If the GOP wants to expand its base, it needs to be more liberal on abortion.

With most issues, young voters tend to favor the Democrats over the Republicans.  Abortion isn't one of them.  It's not that young people are overwhelmingly more pro-life than older people; it's just that there are so many clearer issues on which the GOP could actually gain young voters.

People tend to lump abortion and gay marriage as issues which are one in the same but this is hilariously untrue.  Abortion is the issue on which young people tend to be more conservative than their elders.  Gay marriage is the issue in which young people tend to be FAR more liberal than their elders.  One is an issue of conservative Christians inflicting their will because of their own private morality; one is an issue of conservative Christians inflicting their will BECAUSE THE LIVES OF BABIES ARE AT STAKE.  Whether you're pro-choice or pro-life, it shouldn't be THAT hard to see that the issues are pretty damn different.  Unless "be more liberal on abortion" means "don't have guys like Todd Akin or Richard Mourdock on the ballot", abortion is not the problem.

Abortion is an interesting issue to me in that there are a large, large amount of people who vote exclusively based on it.  Pro-lifers for Republicans, pro-choicers for Democrats.  Say, hypothetically, that somebody's biggest issue is abortion because they're pro-choice.  If the Republicans all of a sudden say they don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade, is this person going to change their mind, or are they going to view them as political opportunists?  Republicans lost on abortion this year not because people are especially pro-choice; it's because they lost their collective minds.  Even something like a late-90s "no abortions except for rape or incest, appoint judges who will protect life, etc." Republican platform is perfectly viable as long as you combined it with other shit.

Side note: While the dumbest argument in politics is people saying that gay marriage bans are "to protect traditional marriage", as though gay marriage somehow bans heterosexual marriage, the second dumbest might be "protecting a woman's right to choose".  And I say this as somebody whose stance on abortion is closer to the Democrats than the Republicans--if the choice, in the eyes of people who oppose you, is generally that of murdering somebody, who the fuck wants available choices?

3. With Obama no longer seeking re-election, he will now impose his anti-business, anti-gun, anti-religion views on the United States.

Similar arguments to this were made in 1996.  In 2004, people argued that George W. Bush would now just appoint a bunch of pro-life judges and start new wars and whatnot.  Clinton didn't impose stricter gun restrictions and Bush didn't start new wars.  It's a bold assumption to assume they ever wanted to do this in the first place, just as it's bold to assume Obama wants to "take yer guns away" given the complete lack of evidence to back this up, but let's say, hypothetically, that Clinton and Bush both wanted, in a perfect world, to impose their political agendas.  So why didn't they?  They didn't have to worry about their re-election to the presidency.

Well, they didn't.  But their party did.  The people they agree with did.  Bush had a Republican congress and a right-leaning Supreme Court for two years after he was re-elected and they didn't make any drastic changes to foreign policy.  It's almost as though, *gasp*, democracy is self-regulating and unless your party is planning on folding soon, there's an incentive to stay pretty much in line with the beliefs of Americans, maybe to support slight minorities but not to go too nuts with it.

4. Barack Obama only won because people voted for him because he was black.  White liberal guilt and racial favoritism fueled his base.

Sort of like the abortion thing, this is just so hilariously the opposite of reality.

First of all, I want you to think about this logically--has being a racial minority (not just in terms of numbers but in terms of amount of people in positions of power, in case you were thinking South Africa) EVER been more beneficial than being in the majority group?

Obama lost white voters and it wasn't THAT close.  It wasn't as big of a blowout as every other racial minority voting for Obama, but Romney still won the white vote without really having to sweat it.  Now, Democrats generally lose the white vote, but as with Obama/Romney, it's the smallest gap along racial lines.  Any sort of liberal guilt feeling would have to be totally internal, first of all; someone can say they're voting for whomever they like and then change it and nobody but them would know it.  

If you want definitive proof that Obama didn't win the black vote because of his race, look at 2004.  John Kerry, with no particular credentials in terms of helping the African-American community (and hailing from a predominantly white state with a bit of a racist history), was going against George W. Bush, who appointed black people into positions of power previously unthought of and, in sharp contrast to Kanye's insane ramblings, did not hate black people (that agreed with him politically, at least).  So obviously it would at least be a close race, right?

In what was probably the most lopsided in favor of the Republican in terms of race relations presidential battle since the civil rights movement, George W. Bush lost by 77 percentage points. 

*Drops mic*

The David Freese Photo Controversy?

Note the question mark.  It's part homage to the GNR album "The Spaghetti Incident?", which I always found bizarrely titled, but also just a question.  There's a controversy?  There's a debate surrounding this?

Now, first, here is the article that started the shit-storm regarding David Freese.  http://elmaquino.com/2012/11/04/freese-looked-less-than-sober-at-st-louis-bar-last-night/ It comes from @elmaquino, somebody whom I have followed for some time, and vice versa on Twitter, somebody who is one of my favorite people to follow because he (an assumption, I know nothing about EM beyond the blog and the Twitter account) is always willing to discuss whatever the day's events are.  Obviously his following is relatively small so it's different from some of the big guns in sports journalism, but I always appreciate somebody willing to defend what he says and willing to answer to criticism.

I will say, right off the bat, there is one thing about this article that I find objectionable: The headline.  The headline offers a presumption of guilt without so much as an "allegedly" or "reports say" with what I must say is fairly flimsy evidence (the whole story is based on hearsay and pictures in which he is not holding drinks and in which his inebriated nature is debatable).  But other than that, I fail to see the problem here.  Besides the headline, it's just a smorgasbord of facts.  Now, it's not a strong set of facts, but what it does is say "Here is the evidence of what happened".  It's a few guys on Twitter saying he was drunk.  The evidence, however strong the evidence is, is there.  You can draw your own conclusions.  The conclusion I've drawn, personally, is "David Freese went to a bar and according to a few people reporting anonymously on Twitter, possibly just seeking attention, he got drunk there."  It's sort of like when people argue whether or not you should teach evolution in schools--I'm an adamant believer in evolution, but I totally support also teaching creationism because I have enough of a belief in my side of the argument that mine will win out if considered equally.  But the point is, it's a story to be reported.

Just as Josh Hamilton's relapses were news-worthy last off-season, so are Freese's this year.  The situation is extremely similar--both are talented, nice guys who have serious demons and who have had problems in the past.  This isn't slander--both of them would be among the first to acknowledge this.  And if you don't think the Josh Hamilton story is significant--people are laughing off his desire for a 7 year, $175 million contract right now.  He's a few years removed from an 8.4 WAR season and has been the best hitter on the best team in the AL over the last three seasons.  If it weren't for his past, it wouldn't be outrageous that someone would offer Josh Hamilton this contract (I would consider it an excessive amount regardless, but that's neither here nor there).  David Freese is a similar player.

It's a valid criticism to ask why the media, of any size, would care about the relatively minor personal details of professional athletes.  But why does the criticism only come when the attention is bad?  Is it innocuous to obsess over if David Freese went to a bar?  Maybe.  In fact, probably.  But if the story had been "David Freese volunteers at an animal shelter and plays with sick puppies", there would have been no firestorm.  It's not a major news story--it's essentially a private citizen doing something people do every day.  But because it's David Freese, it gains attention, for the positive.  Just as Freese at a bar draws attention for the negative.

While I expect there would be some backlash over this had it been any Cardinals player, it's a different situation when it's David Freese.  David Freese is an almost cartoonish caricature of what constitutes a home town hero.  Like, I remember occasionally fantasizing in grade school about hitting the winning home run in a World Series game for, like, the Padres or something just because it was so damn implausible that a kid who grew up rooting for the Cardinals could have the storybook thing happen to him...and then it did.  And unlike Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols, by far the two biggest "stars" of my lifetime in St. Louis baseball, Freese wasn't a quiet or hesitant star--he was quiet, but he also had an inherent charisma.  He wasn't McGwire, the larger than life hero--he's a normal guy.  Everybody growing up in St. Louis knows somebody like David Freese, or so it seems.

The fact that the local sports media protects Freese should go without saying.  It's really nothing special.  They've protected players forever (poor Barry Bonds had the Chronicle reporting on BALCO while he was playing and Big Mac had the P-D scoffing that this Androstindiwhateveritis couldn't possibly be the reason for his home run production so it might as well be ignored).  They do it because people want to hear what they want to hear, for lack of a better term.  A basic rule of the internet, and media in general, is that if you want to be noticed, be negative, but if you want to be liked, be positive.  The Post-Dispatch is already noticed, so it tries to be liked, and it generally succeeds.  Bernie Miklasz has written columns in the last month about 1. Why Matt Holliday is a good player, and 2. Why John Mozeliak is a good GM.  It doesn't even matter that a vast, vast majority of fans agree with both of these points, and that nobody within the baseball industry is questioning either.  It's feel-good.  The fans want to hear about how wonderful the home team is.  The same thing happened in New York in the 1950s--Mickey Mantle was living a hard-partying lifestyle that eventually led him to an early death, but people didn't want to hear this.  They wanted to believe the legend.  And it appears, if St. Louis is any indication, they still do, and they're willing to shoot the messenger along the way.

Frankly, I hope it turns out El Maquino totally whiffed on this story, not because I wish him ill will, but because as a Cardinals fan, I quite frankly want the David Freese story to be as damn good as it often appears.  But I also hope that if this is the case, he doesn't do as Kent Brockman did on The Simpsons in the episode "Homer Defined".  In this episode, he questions Mr. Burns on the safety of his nuclear power plant as a meltdown seem imminent.  After (by fluke) the meltdown is averted, Kent Brockman says on air, "This reporter promises to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future."  That's not what the media is for--that's what PR is for.  The St. Louis Cardinals have their public relations under control and they effectively control the Post-Dispatch and Fox Sports Midwest.  They don't need another arm of it.  To make what is probably a way over-the-top analogy, there's a lot of G. Gordon Liddys taking shots at Woodward and Bernstein here.

It's one thing to question the details of the story.  I do, and hopefully EM is self-critical and does the same and works to make sure the story is told as comprehensively as it possibly can be.  It's one thing to question why it's a story--I mean, there is a presidential election in two days and there was a pretty major natural disaster a week ago; you could pretty easily argue what the value of sports journalism as a whole is.  But when you question somebody's right to publish something you don't like, or when you say any publicity to the Cardinals which is anything besides glowing, adoring, giddy fanboy praise is slander or libel, I do have a problem with that.  My journalistic bona fides are, to be generous, borderline--I was an editor for my high school paper's Opinions section and was, for a couple of unpleasant months, a staff writer for my college newspaper before I quit and gave up on journalism to such a degree that I became an accounting major.  A major part of the reason was that, for as big of a troll as I am, I defaulted to cowardice when it came to actual reporting.  I respect the hell out of those who will say something that'll scare people if it's something that needs to be said.  

We all should.