It's Friday, time for y'all to pretend to work while reading the mailbag.
Yay.
Our beaver pelt trader of the week goes out to the Delta Gammas from Florida State. I know this video has been out there for two months, but y'all deluged me with it this week. Enjoy.
And I love all of you.
On to the mailbag.
James G. writes:
"I normally don't follow NASCAR, but I couldn't help myself and read the story about Kurt Busch calling his ex-girlfriend a trained assassin. I think this has to be one of the most bizarre comments by someone in the field of sports."
If you haven't read Kurt Busch's testimony in court, you need to read this article right now. He testified in court that she was a trained assassin. She says he took the trained assassin allegations from a movie script she was writing. So that's a pretty big difference. Either Busch's girlfriend was a trained killer responsible for multiple murders or she wrote about it in a movie script.
I think we only have three real options here: a. she's actually a trained assassin b. Kurt Busch is so dumb he doesn't understand the difference between a made up movie script and real life or c. Busch is crazy and unable to distinguish between real and fake.
If nothing else I appreciate the script being flipped. Busch's ex-girlfriend is accusing him of being batshit crazy instead of the guy accusing the girl of being batshit crazy. That's equality of the sexes.
I'm inclined to believe a combination of b. and c. here. I think Busch is really dumb and probably a bit crazy. If you believed your girlfriend was a trained assassin wouldn't testifying to that be the dumbest thing possible? What's more, if she knew it was coming, wouldn't she kill him to keep him from testifying that she was an assassin? Wouldn't fighting with her also be stupid? Busch denies they fought at all, but if she were a trained assassin and you fought her, wouldn't she probably be able to kill you? Has Busch never watched "The Americans?" Keri Russell would fuck you up if you stepped to her. I'm not fighting with a male or female assassin. Ever.
I have so many questions about this. How many assassins or hit men do you think there actually are in America? People who have killed multiple people for money and gotten away with it? And who is the most successful assassin in America today? How many victims would he or she have? If you made your decision based on the movies you'd think this was a common profession, but are there even fifty professional hit men in the country today?
I'm just stunned this entire case isn't getting more attention. For instance, imagine if this was football. Like, if Ray Rice was accused of punching his wife and instead of admitting it, he'd said, "I was just protecting myself, she's a trained assassin," this would be everywhere.
Instead I feel like Busch's actual court testimony that his wife is an assassin is just being overlooked. Remember, he said this in court. Under penalty of perjury. He really believes she kills people for a living. That's incredible.
Chris writes:
"My wife is 28 years old and we have been dating/now married for about 7 years or so. Of course in the beginning the sex was pretty good and we were doing it like rabbits. Well our son just turned 1 about a month ago and ever since he was born our sex life has plummeted. This is to be expected and it's not that big of a deal right now.
The problem I have and the question I have for you is about a comment she made a couple of months ago. So somehow we got to talking about underwear that she wears and I made a comment about how she never wears thongs or anything hot anymore and she surprisingly says that she feels weird wearing that stuff now because she is a mom and she feels like she is too old for those things and too mature for thongs (whatever the heck that means). So that got me thinking... how many other women are there like that? Like I'm sure just about every 18 year old out there right now is wearing some sort of thong or lace underwear or something crazy I have never even seen before but how many women in their late 20's early 30's still wears hot underwear? I'm hoping my wife is not the only boring mom out there who just wears normal underwear, I hope other guys are just as miserable as I am about their wives underwear selection. So Clay, if you were to be walking down the streets of Nashville and pulled aside 100 women all in their early 30's, how many of those women would be wearing thongs or something sexy.... And at what point do you think women stop wearing sexy undergarments. I know this is a weird question but I was just curious to see if other women thought like my wife did, that the older you get, the more "mature" you get for lacy sexy underwear."
I'm pretty sure that Victoria's Secret owes its entire existence to the fact that moms still want to dress sexy. I think your wife is conflicted because she's set up an artificial dichotomy in her mind -- women without kids are sexy, moms aren't. I find that a lot of people make these distinctions in their minds when they have major life events, marriage, birth of a child, things like that, their life is forever cut off from the life they had before these life events. That's dangerous because it just isn't true.
The thongs line is particularly weird because is she never going to wear tight pants or a dress that would show a panty line again? Has she put on a decent amount of weight after the baby and doesn't feel sexy? I'd suggest you go buy her what you want her to wear and make it a point to let her know you find her every bit as sexy now that she has a kid as you did beforehand. Maybe she needs to hear from you that you still find her sexy.
As for who wears what, I'm not an expert on women's underwear -- how creepy would it be if I was? -- but I believe every woman has two kinds of underwear -- the kind they expect for someone to see them wearing and the kind that's the most comfortable to wear that isn't sexy at all. You have your sexy underwear that you put on when you think a man might see it and your regular day-to-day underwear when you're doing regular life events. At least this is what I do with panties.
This entire question reminds me of the marriage counseling scene in "Old School." This is one of the most painfully funny/awkwardly funny men discussing marriage scenes ever. Because while it's played for comedic effect I guarantee you this is exactly how most married men feel. Will Ferrell climbs in the trust tree and takes us directly into a married man's mind. And as much as women say they want to know what we're really thinking and for us to be totally honest, that's not a place they actually want us to go. Women are laughing along because they think this is an exagerrated comedic scene, men are laughing because it's how we actually feel.
Watch it again.
Everything is just pitch perfect. Having to pretend that you really want to go out to dinner together at some random restaurant, having to pretend that you enjoyed it, wondering what underwear the server might be wearing as she serves you, the fear of missing out on sex you could have been having if you weren't married. All of it is perfectly summed up for comedic effect.
Anyway, go buy your wife a bunch of underwear that you like at Victoria's Secret. Don't tell her that you wondered what underwear the women working in the store were wearing and also contemplated what the three hottest women shopping in Victoria's Secret while you were shopping there were also wearing.
"Emily writes:
Dear Clay,
I think you're hilarious. I've admired your work for years. I really love gay muslims. Y'all need all the extra support you can get.
Anywho...
My question is about work. What do you think the appropriate work to fucking off at work ratio is? I feel conflicted lately because I find myself never actually working, although I tend to look pretty busy. How acceptable is this? And are there certain days of the week/year when it's perfectly fine to refuse to work, ignore deadlines, phone calls, emails, etc? I work in a law office and as a lawyer, I feel like you might have some insight on this."
I think you should aspire to a 50/50 work to fucking off at work ratio. If you can manage this then you're in the top half of workers.
I graduated from law school in 2004, which meant I started work in a law office at an interesting time -- when everything moved from books to online. Before every legal case in the history of mankind was searchable online, you could spend a ton of time researching cases, pulling actual books off the shelves, researching legal cases was really time consuming. Think about how much time it took to draft documents before computer drafting was common, when you had to have everything typed up and if you found something wrong, you either redid the whole thing or broke out the whiteout for the typewriter. I mean, this was mind-numbing stuff. (This doesn't even get into when lawyers actually wrote briefs by hand with quill and ink. Can you imagine Andrew Jackson writing an appeal when it was 95 degrees in Nashville and he kept smuding the ink with his sweat?)
The billable hour made a lot of sense before the Internet. But once you could do all that research online, the actual mechanics of law became fairly easy. Suddenly you could get much more work done rapidly. Only you didn't need to get work done in a hurry, you needed to make work last the right amount of time. That's why every single lawyer reading this right now has taken longer on a project than he or she needs to because of the billable hour. So I would say just about every lawyer works about half the time in their office. The rest of the time is spent screwing around, reading online, debating about sports on email, Outkick owes most of its existence to the fact that most of you don't work very hard at your jobs.
If you're fortunate enough to work in an office setting it's almost impossible to tell what you're actually doing. For instance, I always used this as an example, the vast majority of you would never unfold a newspaper on your desk and sit there reading it in the office. But none of us even think a bit about reading the same newspaper article online. Now if you work in a job where you aren't in an office, then it's much harder to not work. People can see what you're doing. As I write this there are several guys building houses across the street from me. These guys are busting their asses all day. They actually work. If they don't, their supervisors can tell.
If you work outside of an office you could also have a job where you drive around in your car all day too. These guys and girls really cheat on their jobs. They'll go to movies in the middle of the day and claim they were out working all day.
Anyway, I said lawyers work about half the time they're in the office, but that's so much more than most people who work at other places. The crazy thing about corporations is how many people they employ who don't do much of anything. And these are for profit businesses. Every for profit business has tons of employees who are worthless. And these businesses are still infinitely more efficient and necessary than government workers. The vast majority of government workers don't do anything. It isn't that for profit businesses are efficient, it's just that not-for-profit businesses are totally inefficient.
Here's an easy test for you, can you take a week off work and everything continue to function fine without you? Most people can. It means you aren't working that hard and what you do isn't that big of a deal. If you won't even take off a week off work because you dread coming back to work and trying to clean up the messes left behind, you're working pretty hard.
D. writes:
"The other night Nancy Grace and rapper 2 Chainz debated the legalization of marijuana. Last night national treasure Bill Walton praised Colorado for legalizing marijuana during an ESPN broadcast. My question is when are professional and collegiate associations going to stop penalizing athletes for smoking weed? It's basically decriminalized in most states and has a minimal health effect on people. Are educated people really against the legalization of weed?"
Here's the deal, I want to legalize and tax everything. Drugs, gambling, sex, legalize it all. (I would limit certain drugs that are so addictive you can't even try them once without getting addicted. Like heroin and meth. But weed, cocaine, and the like? Decriminalize it.) Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars criminalizing drugs, gambling, and sex, how about we spend our money treating the effects and saving trillions in the process.
I'm a member of a new political party -- the radical moderates. I'm sick of all the fucking idiots on the far left and the far right ruining everything for those of us with brains.
Paige writes:
"I am a female that works in the construction industry. I feel like that alone speaks for itself, but I'll continue. The role I am in is Business Development so I allocate costs, manage billing and invoicing, etc. My position is considered upper management. However, we are a small firm so I talk a good bit with the guys out in the field on our crews.
Here is my question: do you think it is weird/demeaning/creepy when a man calls a woman (that he doesn't know or have a relationship with) "sweetie" or "sugar" or "sweetheart"? Personally, it creeps me out when the men I work with say that to me, and it makes me feel like they're my dad, which is extremely absurd. I want them to stop, but how do I get them to stop without sounding like a total feminist witch? Is it just a part of living in the South so I have to deal with it? Why do you think men think this behavior is acceptable?"
I think it depends on two things: a. how old is he? and b. is it deployed when he disagrees with you about something?
If the guy is over sixty and doing it to be kind, I think you just have to attribute that to old school Southern habits. You'll seem like a total bitch if you tell the 64 year old church deacon in your office that you don't like when he calls you sweetheart in the office. Odds are it will make him feel bad, but it will also make you look bad to everyone else. If the guy is not that old, I'd just cut his legs out from underneath him in a funny way when there's an audience around. "Sweetheart? What is it, 1964? Can you teach me the Twist later?"
If it's deployed when he disagrees with you about something, then I'd combat it. Because then it's a clear attempt to marginalize your opinion by diminishing your opinion based on your sex. I think the way to combat it is with humor rather than through direct confrontation. I'd suggest a subtle shift in the conversation when he uses the terms, "The only sweetheart here is this deal that we're losing money on..." "Sugar? Your wife is going to be drinking her coffee black if we don't figure out why this is costing us..." Turn the words against him in a smart way and use them to make your arguments. I find you can get away with anything if you can add a dose of humor.
Good luck, cutie pie. (That even feels creepy to type. I'm sorry).
Do y'all enjoy angry Facebook comments as much as I do? I hope so. I've linked the Facebook pages of the following three people who sent me Facebook messages this week. As always, I encourage you to click on their profiles. Here we go:
"Your a fucking idiot, you and Mark May must be gay buddies. Stop being so butthurt that Ohio state won the national championship! Saying Alabama would beat us if we played them next weekend is being delusional. There's a reason your on Fox cause your knowledge on reality is garbage stfu loser and GO BUCKEYES!!"
Why is the first thing that comes to your mind if you disagree with my sports pinion that I must be gay? I'm just totally fascinated by this thought process. Does it happen in other fields too?
Do Presidents get called gay all the time? Throughout history? Like when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation did everyone in Alabama immediately call him gay? Does it happen overseas too? When we started our invasion of Europe were dumb Nazi soldiers all sitting around saying, "Eisenhower is soooo gay."
Anyway, this is why I'm a gay Muslim, so I don't have to worry about things like this.
"Dude your an idiot I just read your worst fans write up on WV shame on you and your mother for raising such a disrespectful jerk you better pray for forgiveness cause you reap what u sow you are from Tennessee rite you are aweful close to WV to be making comments like that hope one of these rednecks don't get a notion to find your little Yuppie disrespectful overeducated hindend"
The most remarkable thing about this message -- aside from the clear threat of violence -- is that there isn't a single period or comma included here.
Not one!
Also, if you were going to call someone an idiot, wouldn't you want to ensure that you used the correct grammar in your insult? In my experience over half the time I'm called an idiot it's by someone using the wrong your.
"Too bad your mom got lost on the way to the abortion clinic, Clay"
Rich, my mom didn't get lost on the way to the abortion clinic. Like most Kentucky fans today way back in 1979 she just couldn't afford an abortion.
Paul Smith (smythe69w@gmail.com) writes:
"I would like to let you know that I'm not really happy that consider the entire state of Kentucky to be stupid. The article that you wrote depicting us all as inbred rednecks was slanderous and libel. Hiding behind the screen your typing on is weak. I believe you should write an apology to the great state of Kentucky for what you wrote, if not the whole state I at least want one. The point I'm trying make is you can be prosecuted for such statements."
The number of times dumb people accuse of me of hiding behind the "screen I'm typing on," is legion. I don't understand this insult. How else do you get words on the Internet? HELLO, YOU HAVE TO TYPE ON A SCREEN. I'm also on TV and radio, is that also hiding behind a screen and a mic? What's more, in writing a comment back to me aren't you also hiding behind a screen your (sic) typing on?
It's been nice knowing y'all, this might be the last mailbag ever since I'm probably going to jail in Kentucky for saying UK fans are stupid. That's against the law, evidently.
