This week in living color, times two, we're reminded that that guy next door, down the hall, one cubicle over or at the gym isn't some freakishly devolved missing link without an indoor voice. He's simply from the Northeast.
Is there anything on God's green Earth more nauseatingly and teeth-grindingly annoying than a New York or Boston fan transplant? (Okay, Philly. But that's another rant.) Truly a miracle of the evolutionary dichotomy of ignorance and arrogance. A race of knuckle-dragging nincompoops bursting with in-your-face pride of said nincompoopery. A nation of Snooki and Situation satires of humanity who obscenely and mercilessly butcher the English language with gems like fuhgeddaboutit and re-tah-ded but still justify ridiculing the Southern drawl.
"Youse guys shoah tahhk funny!"
A mass of migraine-inducing mental midgets who won't shut up about how aaaah-some it is in Bahh-ston or f***in great it is to be a New Yawkah but fail to explain or even acknowledge that they have fled their orgasmic utopias and moved to Florida. Not to mention the colossal and catastrophic car crash of stubbornness versus denial when they manage to endlessly criticize Tampa Bay residents for not supporting their local teams, but meanwhile stuff their spare tire into a Jeter jersey despite the fact that their driver's license says The Sunshine State at the top.
Stomping into the Trop, the Forum or RJS wearing enemy colors while you live and work here, pointing and laughing at your neighbors as you heave profanity-laced and unsolicited advice on how to be a real fan, doesn't make you superior, respected or even unique. It makes you an asshole. And not the fun kind of asshole in every group of friends who's got your back when something goes down. A truly worthless asshole who'd realize nobody's listening if he'd just shut up for a split second. You know what you don't see a lot of up North? Florida plates. You know why? Think about it, jag-aaahf.
That said, if you're visiting from the New York or Boston area to take in a Yankees or Bruins game, welcome to Florida. Please wipe the seat after you pee, don't be shocked to see people smoking outside (this is America) and don't forget it's national adopt-a-transplant week (they're like yip-yap dogs without all their shots).
GO RAYS! GO BOLTZ!
Someone once said, "If you could snap your fingers and all the money disappeared from the hands of rich people and into the hands of the poor, in two years everything would be back to where it was." On that note, former Buccaneer defender and current crackhead Keith McCants signed a $7.4 million contract in 1990 (back in those days, seven mil and change was a lot of cash). Today he's in jail, broke and "diagnosed" with clinical depression. Wait. Can I be a prison psychiatrist? I'm pretty sure I can look at a dossier of an ex-millionaire strung out on drugs serving time in the pokey who couldn't finance a pack of Kools with half the money down and "diagnose" him as depressed without even meeting the guy.
"I wish I never had any money," he said in an interview with the Tampa Tribune from behind a really thick slab of glass in a Pinellas County jail. Um, your wish is granted?
"Money destroyed everything around me and everything I cared for."
"Money" was unavailable for comment and no formal charges have been made.
That's right, Keith. It wasn't running from the cops with a crack-pipe and a coke whore in the passenger seat after leaving a strip club in December. It was that dirty bastard, money.
Quicker hits: Buccaneers have respectfully declined the opportunity to be on this year's HBO series Hard Knocks (no word on whether they'll consider their new series, Hard Time. Zing!); Tiger Woods' departure from the Players Championship due to leg injuries was in actuality because he mistakenly thought it was pronounced "play-ahs" (bam!); after six years in prison, birdbrain/jailbird/Larry Bird fan Eric Torpy regrets that he asked that three years be added to his 30-year prison sentence for armed robbery with intent to kill because 33 was the Celtic Legend's jersey number. A joke would just spoil this perfect story. Besides, I'm distracted by the money I found in my wallet! Get away from me, evil money!
