The game: Bills at Patriots
The beer: Wachusett Larry Imperial India Pale Ale
The result: Win, 34–20
The commentary: During the Browns game a few weeks ago I got into a shouting match with color man Steve Tasker. He said something critical about the Pats or their play-calling (I was bitter because Jason Campbell was beating my team) and then I turned it around on him, “You’re off your case!” or something to that effect. Tasker is clinically retarded and the thing I said, whatever it was, was super clever and funny enough that I typed the exchange into Evernote to include in that week’s beer-and-football breakdown. Then, like the clinical retard that I am, I overwrote the whole thing by accident. Shit happens and genius flies away like so much… shit? Oh, internet.

So in this installment of beer and media criticism (seems like more of my writing falls into this category year over year) we’ll be dissecting the work of Ian (pronounced “Eye-Anne”) Eagle and Dan Fouts. In short, they were (are) an embarrassment. In detail…

Second quarter, Bills facing fourth and one at the Pats’ forty-five. Fouts quotes The Waterboy (more on that in a second) when explaining that the Bills should go for it and Eagle makes fun of him for it. “Shut up, Eye-Anne.” “Whoa!” Lots of laughing. These are professionals. Meanwhile, the Bills are in offensive formation with no punter on the field and only after they snap it and fall two yards short does Eagle realize “They do go for it, and they’re denied!” Repeat: the whistle blows and Eagle informs us “They do go for it!”

Clearly they’re not even watching this game. Later on, in the middle of regaling us with some Edelman anecdote (because they sat down with Edelman the night before the game and needed us to know), Brady and the offense rush to the line in hurry-up mode and Buffalo’s defense is clearly struggling to line up properly. Kyle Williams has enough and, frustrated, calls time out. Only then does Eagle announce, plainly, “Time out called.” You suck. And where’s the analysis? Isn’t this where Fouts, as a former quarterback, should be keen to understand and communicate the defensive miscue to viewers? I can’t believe I used to enjoy this guy on Monday Night Football. You suck. And Dennis Miller now thinks it’s OK to shoot a bunch of schoolkids? You suck too, Dennis. But we’ll always have The Bear.

At the end, with the Bills about to attempt an onside kick, Fouts seriously ponders “Why wouldn’t you practice your onside kick during pregame warm-ups?” Because you’re an idiot! Did the Pats practice it before the Browns game? Idiot!

As a big-picture summary, these clowns have had over a year to learn how to fucking pronounce Hoomanawanui. Why didn’t you interview him Saturday night and nail it down? “You remember, Dan, when we were talking to Hooman last night, and he was all ‘It sounds just the way it looks, Huh-oh-mah-nah-wah-noo-wee.’ You couldn’t believe it, kept saying ‘Hee-ho-mah-nee-ho’ in that stupid Adam Sandler voice.” “Shut up, Eye-Anne.” “You know I love you, big fella. Want to come over and watch The Mentalist tonight?” “Will your wife be there?” “She hasn’t been for three months. My balls are blue. Oh, it looks like Dareus chopped of Brady’s arm with a machete on that last play. Coach Saban, always preparing his kids for the pros. Back after this.” (Their pronunciation of Sealver Siliga’s last name is also fishy. It was “Silinga” for three hours, even though there is no N there. I can’t necessarily blame them for this one because everyone in the local media is saying it the same—maybe it’s a Samoan/Utah thing. So they get a pass… until it’s proven that everyone with a microphone is an idiot and the nonexistent N really is silent.)

I’m sure there was more but these examples seal it. Wouldn’t you rather hear the Waterboy story anyway?

The worst day of my life fell in March 1999 when I flew too close to the Kentucky sun on wings of vomit. I traveled to New Orleans for a conference and the entire affair was madness. Madness! The signs were present on that last night before returning home—two snapshots from dinner are the only portion of the evening captured for posterity. I call these events “The Prelude.”

Clearly I was toasted and very content with how my life was progressing to that point—I must have been several snub-nosed local beers into the ether. I also had a major crush on the older woman tugging on my heartstrings beads. It’s hard to tell in the scan but I think she’s wearing Judith Light’s blazer here.

Speaking of older women, this is a man. And that’s me with money in my hands looking like I finally understood true love. I can’t get over how strange I look without sideburns.

I don’t remember much about what followed (those chunky white beads went a long way), but what good could come out of either of those… grins… I had on my face? Naturally, I blacked out in my hotel room without having packed and woke up the next morning (after “sleeping” through several rounds of my colleague banging on the door, since we were to ride to the airport together) to discover that, in the wee hours, I sat up in bed and projectile vomited into my suitcase. I projectile vomited into my suitcase! How does that even happen? Following a cursory clean-up (I had to leave) I chucked all my clothes into trash bags before stuffing them into the barfy suitcase and flew downstairs for a cab. “I need to be at the airport, like, now.” The driver did an admirable job of getting me there like-now but it wasn’t like-now enough because I missed my direct flight home. (Recycled air at thirty thousand feet for three hours? Probably for the best.)

There was a standby flight to “Cincinnati” airport (actually in northern Kentucky) where I could be put on standby for a flight to Boston. What else could I do? I made the first leg just fine—hey, maybe this was going to work out. But the Reds must have been playing at Fenway because I was shut out of the next one. Drag. They properly booked me onto a later flight… hours later. Several hours later. Well, there must be something to do in Cincinnati, right? There just must be! Maybe the Reds are in town! (Oh fuck, they’re at Fenway!) Except Cincinnati the city is about fifteen miles from Cincinnati the airport. We’re so goddamn spoiled in Boston, with Logan a quick cab or subway ride from downtown, and I just assumed all cities were like that. Drag.

What to do in the meantime? I probably force-fed myself something before deciding a movie was the best way to kill time. Sound thinking, actually. I jumped in a cab and asked to be taken to the closest movie theater, which felt too far on the way there but who cares, I was going to expense this shit anyway. The only showtime that lined up with my return-flight window was, yes, The Waterboy. I sat in a mostly empty theater with a handful of people who also must have missed their connecting flights to Not-Kentucky. I have no memory of the story or the characters aside from the “Oh no, we suck again!” quote that PFW in Progress slips in from time to time. When the lights came on I called a cab from a lobby pay phone—a pay phone!—and stumbled out into northern Kentucky sun. Over time I started to worry that easy Southern living was keeping the cabbie from attending to my urgency—I waited in that parking lot a long time. Eventually I was back at the gate with time to spare and—hooray!—there’s a blizzard in Boston. Drag.

By this time I knew the layout of the terminal like it was the Lambda Complex. Naturally I was afraid to venture too far from the gate because I was not going to miss my flight again. I was not. So I browsed the same bookstores. I pissed in the same urinals. I wondered what my suitcase smelled like. After a spell (night time by now) and several flight status checks I bellied up to a bar for some dinner, a hockey game and, yes, a beer. Ah, the recovery of youth! I was a bit far from the gate but it was close enough for me to see, and I could probably hear the announcements. Right?

I was aware enough to pay my tab as soon as the food arrived because I was not going to miss my flight. Soon after, out of nowhere, people are running behind me. Why, and toward what could they be running? It was at this moment I realized the reason I could see my gate is that it was a straight line down the terminal from my stool. A long, straight line to the very end of the terminal. The terminal’s terminal. The people were running toward my gate. And then I was running too.

Just when you thought the story could get no worse! Actually, it doesn’t. I made the flight. The godforsaken airline might have lost my suitcase—my barfy suitcase—but I think I’m mixing that matter up with another trip (even that time, they eventually delivered it to my apartment). I can’t say for sure but I probably slept well that night, fat on Woody’s pizza (expensed), and late into the next day, which I’d already arranged to take off. Nice work by me. Better work by Dan Fouts, dredging up these memories with such detail that I could write a thousand words. I guess you’re good at one thing, Dan.

Up next: We’ll learn which AFC team is flying to Logan next weekend. If it’s the Bengals via Kentucky then god help them. Happy new year!