Ned Bitters

This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … the NFL’s drug policy.

Six to 10 NFL players this past week tested positive for a diuretic that can help lower the amount of banned substances that show up in urine tests. Each of these players faces a four-game suspension, as per the saintly league’s drug policy. Steeler wide receiver Santonio Holmes, maintaining his annual arrest record, this week got nabbed with three blunts in his car. The saintly Steelers promptly suspended him for this week’s big match-up against the New York Giants.

The league congratulates itself for this bizarre moral double standard, and many fans follow suit, applauding the league for their hardline crackdown on those evil, insidious bad! bad! bad! players who like to smoke a little weed or shoot up some steroids. Come Sunday, this football-mad country will then foam at the mouth while watching the three-hour paean to violence that is every NFL game.

How dare any of us come down on NFL players who get high or shoot up. This nation has such a wacky obsession with drugs that we’re willing to watch men dish out concussions, tear up joints and even paralyze other players, yet we are aghast when one of these modern gladiators wants to take a steroid that will make him bigger, stronger, faster and more durable. I say shoot up, smoke up and do whatever else helps you recover faster so that you can get out there again next Sunday and crack heads for our entertainment while we sit on our fat, lazy asses drinking beer, eating Doritos, smoking Camels and swearing at the TV because the cornerback we think we “own” just got schooled by a guy with better speed; speed perhaps gained with the help of a syringe.

Here’s the message being sent by the inconsistent drug policies for NFL players. Sure, go ahead and compromise your core body structure by lifting weights until you’re so big that you can’t wipe your own ass. Work out in full pads in 90 degree summer heat twice a day, risking heat stroke and heart failure. Amass a collection of concussions that might leave you a jelly-brained 50-year-old who wears diapers and watches cartoons. Go out every Sunday and risk that one devastating injury that ends your career, voids your no-guarantee contract and leads to a never-ending battle with a despicable, obscenely rich NFL that throws its former players under the benefits bus. But for god’s sake, don’t toke up during the week, and don’t take the steroids that might lengthen your career and speed your aching body’s recovery.

Of course, we don’t care if you take other drugs, like the liver-destroying pain pills that some powerful pharmaceutical lobby has hammered into legality. We certainly don’t care if you drink so much beer or Crown Royal that you play yourself out of the league years before your time, because there’s always another hungry young gun coming up who can take your place for half the salary. Besides, beer companies are some of our biggest sponsors. Just don’t let us catch you taking a few hits of herb on a Tuesday night, even if that herb does far less damage to your body than the countless pain pills you all pop all season and the Jack and Cokes you pound on the plane rides home.

It’s yet another example of America’s puzzling double standard on drugs. We are a country that loves violence, hence the popularity of the NFL, which sells violence to a populace that lusts for it. We love wars, we love fights and we love football. You know what else we love? Drugs. Pain pills, anti-depressants, boner pills, weight loss pills, cock growing pills (fuckers never do work, damnit) and even pills for restless leg syndrome. And the two drugs we love the most? Alcohol and marijuana. Yet if you’re an NFLer, you can take all of the above. Except weed.

The league’s inane drug policy is in place just to appease the self-righteous yahoos who delude themselves into thinking that NFL football embodies good ol’ American fun. The league doesn’t give two shits about the players’ overall health. Just ask any retired player who has to fight for his benefits. Like any good business, all they care about is the bottom line, and if that bottom line is enhanced by making Roy and Freda from Terre Haute believe that the NFL has some sort of moral compass, then hey, let’s arbitrarily deem a few substances off-limits and those heartland yahoos will continue to spend money on tickets, jerseys and a slew of other tacky products adorned with their team’s NFL licensed insignia.

So poor Santonio Holmes, who was still allowed to catch touchdown passes after assaulting his woman and being disorderly with the cops in Miami Beach club, had to sit out this week’s game because of a few blunts. This decision came from revered owner Dan Rooney, the same Dan Rooney that defended Steeler James Harrison when he was accused of domestic violence earlier this year, claiming that Harrison was “trying to do something good,” which was taking his child to get baptized. He just had to knock down a locked door and slap the kid’s mother in the face on the way to church. James Harrison is headed to another Pro Bowl this year. He has missed no games. Santonio Holmes had to miss Sunday’s game for a three blunts. This is the same Dan Rooney whose family made its true fortune in horse racing. In other words, gambling, which has ruined more lives and families than all the joints smoked by NFLers combined.

But that’s the NFL for you. Three blunts in the car gets you suspended for the biggest game of the year so far. A hard slap to your baby mama’s face gets you a slap on the wrist.

Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.

Similar Posts:

• Outside of the In-Crowd – Kicking the habit (no this is not an inappropriate nun joke)
• Overrated – Dan Rooney
• Overrated – Throwback uniforms
• Overrated – NFL draft acumen
• Overrated – Post-game comments

Ned Bitters was detained at the Mexican border this morning while trying to return to America after making his weekly prescription drug run. He is currently in the process of bribing the proper officials and promises to send in this week’s Overrated column as soon as he is released from police custody. So fear not, he will go Ned Bitters all over your face later this afternoon.

In the meantime, please enjoy Courtney Enlow’s humorous take on Mama Mia, which she wrote for The Editing Room:
http://www.the-editing-room.com/mammamia.html

Last year in honor of Halloween, our site girl Tara took a trip to the Forest Hills cemetery in Boston, one of the country’s most historic burial grounds. While she was fascinated by the beautiful architecture, she couldn’t help but wonder why we as a society insist on burying the remains of our loved ones in giant parks.

If you missed it then, you can view the entire set here:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2007/10/25/taras-photos-bring-out-your-dead/

Courtney Enlow

Ah Halloween. Strolling around the city, surrounded by happy smiling children of all ages, filled with candy and eyeliner and … What? Oh what’s this shit?

My buzzkill every Halloween since I was old enough to see adults celebrating this magical holiday: the slutty costume.

Not to go Ned Bitters all over your face, but what the hell is the matter with you? It’s fall, it’s cold, it’s a child’s favorite night of the year, and I have to look at your labia. You bitch.

I don’t think I ever really noticed the phenomenon until college when every October 31st, the streets of Chicago became inundated with slutty nurses, slutty pirate wenches, slutty cops, slutty bees, slutty referees, slutty Tom Cruise in Risky Business-es, slutty Alex DeLarges, et-fucking-cetera. All with cleavage up to their chins and more navel than a Florida orange grove.

I know what you’re thinking right now. Something along the lines of “killjoy” and “Amish” and if you’re one of the girls to whom I’m referring, probably the words “fat” and “jealous.” Well, no, asshole, and you’re the bitch for judging fat people. The words I’d go for are maybe “creative” or “dignified.” Or “not dumb.” We’ll go with that last one.

Seriously, I’m not fat. Don’t start with your emails again, Leia.

Look, I know that as women, we’re supposed to build each other up and be respectful, and not talk to each other using those horrible words that have kept us under the thumbs of a patriarchal society for generations. But you know what else helps us to remove ourselves from that position? Not showing your vagina to the whole world.

You can call it fun, you can call it having a good time, call it whatever you want. I have no problem with people posing nude for magazines or even doing porn, honestly. Because at the end of the day, they’re getting money to shake their berries. You might get a guy to take you home so you can drunkenly blow him. Dream big, slutty Alice in Wonderland, dream big.

And here is where we get to a fundamental reason why I am outside of this particular in-crowd as well. I do not understand the need to dress a certain way to get a guy to notice you.

(The in-crowd I’m referring to is obviously “anyone attracted to males.”)

I’m not naive. I know that looks matter to most people. I know that it’s just common understanding that everyone notices the outside before noticing the inside. That’s just how it goes. But while that may well be the case, I see no reason as to why a man needs to see your “inside” in that manner (that’s THREE vagina references so far, I am on a damn roll).

Of course when it comes down to it, my biggest problem with this tradition isn’t even the human flesh display that you become when you dress like that. It’s the lack of creativity. And here’s where we get to a fundamental problem with some female ladypeople. You don’t believe that you are interesting enough, so you try to display anything that makes you seem remotely intriguing to others, and more often than not, it’s the same thing everyone else is showing off.

This could be boobs, legs, a Coach bag, or whatever terribly uncomfortable and ugly new shoes are suddenly “in.” If you don’t have a personality to speak of, hell, just throw on your sunglasses with the giant DIORs on the side and grab your uglyass Louis Vuitton bag that you spent three grand on (when you could have bought an identical one on Mich Ave for nineteen bucks, but then you’d be sad AND a poser) and show that you’re RICH! and FABULOUS! and CARE ABOUT IMAGE! YAY VOGUE OMG REMEMBER WHEN CARRIE WORKED AT VOGUE OMG!

I guess you’re seeing the reason I’ve never had a huge number of female friends. Mainly just the select heinous bitches such as myself. In fairness, of course not all girls that dress provocatively at Halloween are slutty and sad. Of course not. Just the ones that wear the same old nurse and referee ones, I mean really, can’t you come up with ANYTHING else at all, really? See, I can’t even stop myself. It’s amazing I have friends, period.

I suppose I’ll have to just calm down and accept the fate of being forced to see all the skin coming my way in the next week. I will calm myself in the knowledge that while they are stumbling down the street in 40 degree weather dressed as slutty Palin, I am at least warmer.

Seriously, I’m not fat.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

Similar Posts:

• Outside of the In-Crowd – Halloween: A guide to proper slutting
• Hobo Radio 155 – Put down the Snooki costume
• Positive Cynicism – Deck the patch with orange and black
• Outside of the In-Crowd – 11 horror movie posters way better than the movie
• Hobo Radio 205 – It’s Halloween candy for your ears

Hobo Stu

Hello everyone,

I need your help. I’m having trouble coming up with a good Halloween costume this year and I only have one more week to plan.

I thought about dressing as Sarah Palin, but Ned Bitters is already planning on going as her – at least, I think he is. Otherwise, I’m not really sure why he was trying on that dress and those glasses in his office the other day.

But, I digress …

I need a good costume idea. The last three years I’ve gone as a hobo, so I really need to change things up.

Here’s what’s new on HoboTrashcan.com this week:

Murphy’s Law – One Shot: Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling
If Joel Murphy was still 10 years old and this was still the height of Hulkamania, there is no doubt that he would tune in every week to Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling. Unfortunately, these days the Hulkster is best known for the gossip stories constantly surrounding his family. Still, a lingering sense of nostalgia convinced Murphy to give this show “One Shot.”

Outside of the In-Crowd – Kicking the habit (no this is not an inappropriate nun joke)
This week, on a very special Outside of the In-Crowd, Courtney Enlow admits that she has a painful addiction to a dangerous drug – over the counter nasal spray. Enlow, like many Americans, got hooked on the stuff to treat her allergy symptoms, but soon found that she couldn’t control her craving.

Overrated – Throwback uniforms
Many sports fans see throwback uniforms as a symbol of the good ol’ days and a way to remember the glory years of their favorite team. Ned Bitters sees throwback uniforms as an excuse for teams to make money. He also has some suggestions to make the whole “throwback” concept more authentic.

Guest Blog – Memoirs of a science class survivor
Movies and television usually depict high school science classes as a safe place where frogs are dissected and periodic tables are memorized. But one thing Hollywood fails to capture is the underlying danger awaiting the average high school student at every turn. This week, Tim Kelly sets the record straight.

Also make sure to check out our Hobo Radio Podcast, as well as an all-new From the Vault and Recyclables.

- Hobo Stu

Hobo Stu’s Weekly Recap is also available as an email newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter to ensure you never miss an update, send an email to newsletter-subscribe@hobotrashcan.com.