Kiss My Blackout Ass

A lot of people are getting crazypants about the fact that, if the Cowboys do not (or did not) sell a couple hundred more seats for Sunday night’s game, there could be the first Cowboys blackout since 1990. They are, in fact, retarded to do so. First off, I’m pretty sure any given office or combination of offices in the metroplex would have a whip round to ensure that those seats get bought if for no other reason than facing the terrifying possiblity of having to talk to their families on Sunday night instead of watching the game. Also, could it not be a brilliant streak of marketing from Team Jones to make sure that every seat is filled and he gets his attendance record for the home opener at the new stadium? Granted, this is the same guy who bought a metaphorical bridge and/or swampland in Florida (I’m feeling incredibly pro-choice today) in the form of a video board that no other team would buy for fear that it could actually be hit with a punted football. But in an economic climate as not-awesome as the one we are in now, how better to sell the last few stupid expensive seats by telling the Cowboy fan that they might have to miss the game or, even worse, listen to 105.3 The Fan?

The part that amuses me about the whole thing is that this marketing scheme would be a secondary one for me. You want to really make sure those seats sell out every game? Why not capitalize on the time-honored tradition of rich people big timing the poor little people? You see, most people (well, Deadspin) assume that those seats aren’t selling because people are going to buy the $29 Party Passes then do the old Confuse-The-Usher sneak into the empty seats. In fact, it’s not the first time that Deadspin has become kind of like the guy who prints his own newspaper about a CIA gunman in the bushes on the Grassy Knoll and sells them in Dealy Plaza with this conspiracy theory of theirs. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s true.

Well there’s your answer of how to get people with some coin to plunk down for $200 seats. You can finally feel the warm flush of imperialism as you rightly claim your Section 201, Row F, Seats 3 and 4 thrones from the impoverished, malnourished and unwashed shivering, bundled masses. With the help of an usher, of course. Seriously, in a city where people lease German luxury automobiles that cost more than twice what they make in a year, how better to flaunt your supposed wealth than evicting poor people? Even if it’s only from a stadium seat and it’s only for one day, imagine the power you could feel from watching a father and daughter from Garland go pale as they are asked to show their tickets. Hell, you could really impress a date by buying an extra seat for her purse just to show her that you are a better human than the pitiable creatures who would have otherwise enjoyed the game from that spot.

Let’s even take it a step further. Like how some people enjoy period-costumed murder mystery steamboat trips or how others enjoy paying people to make them wear rubber underwear and be belittled and spanked, let’s go all out with this. Have the Party Pass (or Plebeians Pass, as it will know be known) people dress up as Ellis Island immigrants replete with tattered suitcases and water-damaged birth documents. Or maybe the week that they play the Redskins, have the plebs dress as Native Americans and rename the aisles leading back to the plazas the “Trail of Beers” or something. Income-based water fountains? Or make anyone who has scraped together enough money to purchase something from the Fan Shop carry their purchase out not in a shopping bag but in a hobo bundle tied to the end of a broken broomstick? The possibilities really are endless.

I know this sounds insensitive and snarky but if there is one thing that I have learned in my years of living in Dallas (other than the fact that everyone with money will tell you that they are either in “real estate” or “marketing” despite how shadowy both of those terms are) is that people really like to feel richer/thinner/hotter/more powerful than everyone else in their vicinity, since that is what determines your Win/Loss record in life. So why not, pulling out my own vague knowledge from a few years in marketing here, monetize this and capitalize on the growth trend? Why not win-win on the visibility front with a little bit of brandstorming in the form of opportunistic Dollarization of the downtrending human spirit?*

* I hope your soul died a little like mine did after reading that list. Also, as a side note, I am clearly too immature to ever really dive head-first into marketing and I base this solely on my initial response to the phrases “Employee Surfboarding”, “Long-tail”, “Waste Identification” and “Re-skilling” which I mis-read as “Re-skulling.”

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Grudgingly Kinda Respect the Romo

I fully intended on writing, at length, about the first regular season Cowboys game. I was going to write about how, on a refreshments run at halftime, my friend and I acted as if the Cowboys were down by 40. They were, in fact, up 13-7 over the Bucs. You really wouldn’t have been able to tell though from our maudlin predictions of doom and gloom. The phrase, “we look horrible out there” was uttered more than a half dozen times. And remember, we Cowboys fans haven’t seen so much as a little bit of Conference championship action, much less anything ending in the word “Bowl”, in well over a decade. So it’s not like we were being spoilt Victorian children about it. No matter how many reminders I was given that Tony Romo was maybe a little rusty and that this is Martellus Bennett’s first go at the whole two tight ends deal, I was never comfortable. Until the margin of our lead was in the 20’s, I was convinced that the Cowboys were going to lose and the whole season was a pointless waste of football time.

Then they pointed out that Sunday’s game set a new personal record for Tony Romo. Throwing for 353 yards. Really? When they said that, everyone in the room chimed in with an astonished “Wha? When?” Tony Romo’s shakiness was the root of all my distrust. How could he have just set a new career record in a game that never fully convinced me that we weren’t destined to be the Detroit Lions of ’09-10? I still don’t get it. I mean, I can mentally wrap my neurons around the concept that Tony Romo threw for more than 350 yards and 3 touchdowns. I get that part. I guess my question is…when? When did he cut the risky gunslinger crap and gain enough stability to accomplish this? Was there some secret Freemason’s-only broadcast of the previously unknown 5th quarter that I was not privy to?

I don’t want to focus all my “WTF” just on Tony Romo. In fact, let’s do this by process of elimination. If your name doesn’t start with “Jason” and end in “Witten”, you made me nervous on Sunday. Again, I will chalk it up to rustiness. The one area that, going into the Bucs game, I didn’t seem to be sweating as much as others was the state of our receivers. I think Roy Williams, despite Aikman/Emmitt/Irvin all taking turns in an elaborate game of “Yo Mama” at his expense, is really good. Maybe some have built their expectations of Roy Williams up to Hadrian’s Wall levels that he can never match. But between him, Austin and Cray-Cray (™Chad), I think we have plenty of able hands into which Tony Romo can lob the pigskin. As a little aside, that might be the grossest sentence I have ever typed.

But it’s cool to be a hater, as the kids would say. It’s cool to be a Cowboys fan who almost roots against the Cowboys. It’s fun to go into the season with a doom and gloom outlook on the rest of the season. In fact, all my Cowboys friends seem to be basking in the glory of suck-dom. They’re convinced that Romo is going to injure himself and leave us with a season full of Kitna fumbles and that the possibility of the simultaneous spontaneous combustion of three running backs is not so improbable. My friend Josh chastised us for celebrating the Cowboys victory by cracking open an $80 bottle of champagne because the victory on Sunday was against, after all, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My friend Danny refers to this Sunday’s game as an opportunity to “watch the Cowboys get killed by the Giants.” Everyone wants to see Wade Philips fail once again, if only to ensure that this is his last season as head coach. I’m sort of surprised that no one had charged onto the field of JerryDome in a Jeff Gillooly fashion and crowbar-ed Marion Barber’s shins yet.

Then came the ray of sunshine that was my friend Manny. No Cowboys apologist, he simply forwarded this link to some of us today. And that was all I needed. I started to remember what I heard one sports talk show guy say yesterday about Romo and his missing sense of humor this season. You see, the one thing I could always give Tony Romo credit for was his sense of humor and his ability to poke fun at the whole thing. The whole circus that surrounds the Cowboys or pro-athletes in general. So when I heard interviews with him this preseason, I was disappointed by his “by the book” standard issue athlete answers he was giving. Could he really have lost the one thing that endeared me to him? No. As Sports Talk Guy pointed out, it’s his way of subtlety showing everyone that the whole ill-advised, “If never winning a championship is the worst thing that happens to me, I’ve lived a pretty good life” statement was a mistake. He does, at least if you’re going by his drier-than-Betty White’s-lady-area quotes, care. He’s not just laughing off the potential that he could go down in the books as a quarterback fail and take the Cowboys with him.

So just let me bask in this Week One victory. Sure, Danny could be right and the Cowboys could become prison shower rape dolls for the Giants come Sunday night. Maybe an easy victory over an abysmal team which fired their offensive coordinator only a few weeks before the game against the Cowboys is not anything on which one should hang their hat. But let me have it. Let me savor it. I still don’t have the supremely blissful optimism that I had last season. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I have gotten over my spoilt child ways and come back down to earth. Maybe I just like the fact that a win is, in fact, a win.

There isn't much that I can say about Obama's speech tonight that hasn't been said already or wasn't said better by my mom's text after the speech tonight. It just said, "I love our President!" No, not some Commie Pinko Blind Allegiance to the Great Leader thing. It's just so nice to have a president who sticks up for the things you believe in. No need for further praise.

Because everyone, Democrat and Republican, seemed to actually listen and respect both the President's authority to speak to the country and their right to disagree with some or all of what he said. Well, everyone except South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson. Check out him screaming, "YOU LIE!" Classy, dude. Classy.

My three favorite things about the immediate reaction to Wilson's outburst: 1. Obama calmly but firmly telling him that he is incorrect 2. Nancy Pelosi's look which is the same look that kids at the front of the bus make when the dumbass kid on the back of the bus who keeps playing with the emergency door accidentally opens it and falls out of the bus at low speeds and 3. Joe Biden's Disappointed Dad look. The head shake, the hang of the head. You might as well go to bed without dinner, Joe Wilson. If you remember childhood at all, just remember this: Dad's not mad, he's just....disappointed in you.