All That and a Bag of Mail

It’s the Friday before Memorial Day which means a ton of you slackers will be either taking today off or showing up at work, reading the mailbag, and leaving by lunch. 

So I figured I should get the mailbag up early. (Also, my wife is insisting we go look at a furniture store she likes down at 30A. We may hit Bed Bath and Beyond later. I don’t know if we’re going to have enough time.)

You guys have been inundating us with college football and basketball players being paid stories. Send them to clay.travis@gmail.com and I promise to take out your school and your name. These are fantastic. 

Here we go:

“I played football at (SEC school) in the early 2000’s. I redshirted and then was the starting punter and holder the next four years. I wasn’t offered too terribly much for my signature out of high school by the schools that offered me, but once I got to school it was pretty gravy. Usually it is not the actual business owner that is taking care of these kids. The boosters know certain business owners, and they steer you that direction.

In my case, once I met “my guy” I could call him and get anything I wanted. I could go get cash as much as I wanted. He was going to get me an SUV, but I was on my way to go pick it out and told my Dad about it. He shut that shit down real quick. It is so easy to get a vehicle, and that is usually the biggest benefit anyone would receive. I was told which dealership to go to, who to ask for, and what to do. I was supposed to fill out all the paperwork, apply for in-house financing, and they were going to approve me. My guy had told me I was good for a payment up to $400/month, and he had already talked to the guy at the dealership and had multiple SUV’s that fit that payment plan.

We always drank for free at the most popular bar in town, but the owner kind of just kept a running tab and the boosters would throw him cash for it later. That’s how it worked everywhere. I had friends at schools in different sports in the Big East, ACC, SEC, and Pac 10. Everyone got hooked up. My Dad played at (SEC school) in the early 70’s, and their stories made ours seem like child’s play.”

Again, if you’re an athlete or coach and you read Outkick and have pay for play stories, recruiting visit stories, you name it, email them to me and I will guarantee your anonymity and protect your school. All I need to be able to verify is that you are who you say you are. Then it’s all fair game. We aren’t trying to bust anyone, we just want the fun, true stories.   

Chris writes:

“What are your thoughts on bands canceling concerts in North Carolina over the new transgender bill?”

I think it’s incredibly stupid and, if you look a band’s other tour locations, almost always blatantly hypocritical. 

Here’s an example from Maroon 5:

“We have announced that we will be canceling our upcoming shows in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina because of the recent passage of the HB2 legislation. This was a difficult decision for us to make as a band. We don’t want to penalize our fans in North Carolina by not performing for them, but in the end it comes down to what we feel is morally right.”

So Maroon 5 canceled a concert in North Carolina over the transgender bill, but then continues to play concerts in Russia, Turkey, Romania and Georgia, four countries with infinitely worse discrimination and human rights abuses than the state of North Carolina.

Canceling the concert in North Carolina is the perfect PC bromani response because you get applauded by the PC bromanis who agree with you and 99.9% of people don’t actually click on a band’s concert schedule to see what hypocrites they are. It’s one of many reasons why social media pandering is so frustrating, a band gets praised for a PC bromani response and very few people point out what bullshit it is. 

If you’re a performer who really feels strongly about this bill, wouldn’t playing and denouncing the bill from the stage be more powerful than refusing to go at all?

Also, I don’t agree with the bill, but protests like this make me want the bill to stay in place. The only thing worse than a government making a bad decision is the government reversing a bad decision because Maroon 5 doesn’t agree with it.  

“Clay!

I’m 31, live in SEC country and love to gamble on sports, I have no kids, not married yet, date hot women, and a 6-figure salary to boot. I know I’m living the dream, although I’ll probably get engaged in 2017. Anyway, I absolutely H-A-T-E politics until I saw that you could bet on it! Anyway I’m browsing the Internet for interesting things to read and I see that Hillary Clinton is being investigated. At this point, any degenerate gamblers out there no where I’m going next.

I think to myself, well what happens if Clinton actually finds herself in trouble and can’t be the democratic nominee. I was delighted to find out that some websites were taking Biden at 100:1 odds!! Think about that. $1000 gets you $100,000 return! After finding out that I couldn’t take the bet in America I realize there are several sites out of the country that would give me close to 80:1 odds. But it seemed like the odds were dwindling as each day passed. So what did I do? I take off work and catch the next flight to London where I wager roughly $4000 on mostly 50:1 odds that Biden wins the election.

Dude, in London, you can literally walk 100 feet and run into betting parlor after parlor (catch up ‘Merica)! So here’s my question, am I crazy for thinking I might have just made a once-in-a-lifetime bet or did I just blow $7000 on a 3 day trip to London? (Odds have already dropped to 20:1 for Biden to be president).”

I’m not a math whiz, but I’m pretty good at general concepts. So let me try and break this down. (By the way, he attached his betting slips. This is why no man should ever get married before 30. Can you imagine how awesome your life gets if you’re still single when you start to make actual money at your job? You can do crazy ass stuff like spend $7k flying to London to bet on the presidential election.)

Right now Hillary Clinton is +215 to be indicted. That’s a 31.7% chance she gets indicted. But the bets that I see all have a finish date of December 31st, 2016. In ordre to give Biden the best chance to be the nominee you need Hillary to get indicted before the Democratic convention where she’ll be nominated on July 28th.

If the indictment happened after July 28th then I don’t know what would happen. Is there a system in place to replace her or would the Democrats be forced to run a candidate under federal prosecution? (You know Bill Clinton isn’t ever going to agree for Hillary to step down.) My guess is there would be a major battle over whether Hillary should still run and either her running mate would become the nominee or the Democrats would try and select a new candidate. I don’t know what the rules allow and I don’t know how the politics would apply here so I’m hamstrung here on whether Biden could still be the nominee after Hillary gets the nomination, but it’s fair to say if she’s indicted between July 28th and election day on November 8th that’s a told wild card for your bet. (There also has to be a deadline to get a new name on the ballot, which is probably your drop dead date here. If, for instance, Hillary got indicted a week before the election is there any way to get a new nominee.)

My guess here is that politics would factor in and the justice department would want charges out before the convention, but, again, who knows?

Okay, now here’s your other big question — what happens if Hillary’s indicted before the convention and Joe Biden is picked as the nominee over Bernie Sanders? Would Bernie’s people show up and vote? Remember when everyone thought Donald Trump was going to blow up the Republican party? What if it turns out to be Hillary Clinton’s indictment that blows up the Democratic party instead. Bernie’s supporters already believe the system is rigged. Can you imagine their reaction if Hillary gets indicted and Bernie gets skipped over for Biden, a guy who didn’t even run? It’s possible that Biden could take the nomination and then make Bernie his VP, but would that be enough to placate the Bernie people?

I honestly think if Hillary gets indicted that Donald Trump becomes the favorite to be elected. I know Bernie is running better than Hillary now, but I don’t think Bernie is electable. He’s too far left. So if he got the nomination, Trump wins. And if Biden got the nomination, he’s a better candidate than Hillary, but I think Trump beats Biden too. 

Anyway, at 50-1, the betting markets are saying there’s roughly a 2% chance Biden is the next president. Those odds have since dropped down to 20-1, which looks substantial on paper, but really only means his odds have moved to roughly 5%. If I were advising you on the bet, I would have told you to also put some money on Bernie. Because can you imagine how much it would suck to be right about Hillary getting indicted and then have Bernie end up president?

Right now according to OddsShark Bernie is at 18-1 to be the next president. 

Regardless, I’m pretty fascinated to see how this ends up and I love the balls of your wager.

The betting markets are telling us there’s a much higher percentage chance of Hillary getting indicted than most people are expecting.

Look out, could be an election bombshell coming.    

“When I was in college, I was at a local bar with some buddies doing trivia. I was talking to the guy asking questions when someone turned in a wallet that belonged to one of the basketball players at our school. We are a pretty big basketball school, but the player involved was no less than a garbage-time player they recruited from a foreign country. There were many times in which he would go games without playing.

Anyway, I was in a class with him the next semester and ended up asking him about losing his wallet that night after being assigned to work on a project for class. He said he was freaking out that night because when he came to campus, he was given a bank card with access to an account that had $55,000+ for the players to use. He didn’t say if the amount was being refilled when depleted, but still shocking to hear him say this without any prompt, but not surprising at all in today’s sports.”

Keep these stories coming. 

I’m clay.travis@gmail.com

Steve writes:

“A lot of the mailbag is spent discussing difficult types of co-workers (urinal crowders, handicapped toilet users, etc). I’d like to add another to the growing list: Special Pizza Person. I feel like most of us know to keep it simple at an office pizza party. You’re trying to feed a large group of people as cheaply as possible; hence you tend to stick to basics such as pepperoni or cheese pizza. However, there is inevitably that one person in the office who has to have a special pizza, and it’s never special in a good way. It’s always a Spinach-Ham-Iceburg lettuce-Tomato (SHIT for short) with white sauce pizza, and SHIT is the only way they will eat pizza. If you cave in and order SHIT, you end up with 3 empty boxes of regular pizza and a box with only 2 pieces of SHIT missing because no one else in the office wants to eat SHIT.

Am I asking too much here for my co-workers not to eat SHIT? Just this once? I don’t care if you eat SHIT on your own time, but can’t we keep it simple at the office? And please refrain from using my last name. If someone from my office sees this, do you know what I’ll be in? Deep SHIT.”

If you have special dietary restrictions you should not be an asshole and insist that everyone else be impacted by your special dietary restrictions. That seems like a simple rule, but people with special dietary restrictions are emboldened now and instead of just realizing that they are the ones making things difficult they are assholes and make terroristic dietary demands. 

They ask terroristic dietary questions like: “Does it have gluten? Is it vegan? Is it organic? Have peanuts come near it at any point in time?”

If you can’t eat a goddamn slice of cheese pizza, here’s an idea — DON’T EAT AT THE FUCKING PARTY!

John writes:

“My friends and I have been having this debate for longer than I would like to admit. Who is the greatest entertainer of this generation? I argue that it is Justin Timberlake. Some will vehemently argue for Beyonce though. There are other names that get mentioned, but the consensus seems to be that it is between those two. We thought that your credentials of handling other debates make you the best person to finally settle this for us.”

It’s Timberlake. 

Timberlake is an incredibly funny comedic host, he’s a good actor, incredible singer and dancer and also a top golfer. He’s seriously the most talented man of our generation.  

There are only two other men that can legitimately challenge his throne — Will Smith and Jamie Foxx. Yes, Jamie Foxx, really. Foxx has an Oscar for best actor and an Emmy. Will Smith is Will Smith. Aside from having crazy kids, he’s pretty much flawless. (The only other guy I’d mention here is Tim McGraw. I’m not a country music guy, but if you’re a country music fan, he’s been pretty outstanding at music and movies.)  

But Timberlake’s the choice for men. 

And Beyonce is definitely behind all three of these guys and I don’t think she’s even the most talented woman of her generation. She hasn’t demonstrated any real acting talent — Austin Powers doesn’t count — and she doesn’t write her own music. 

Taylor Swift, who writes every one of her songs and will eventually make a movie at some point, and Jennifer Lopez are probably both in front of her when it comes to talented women. Go watch Jennifer Lopez’s early movies, she’s a much, much better actress than Beyonce. Lopez was Beyonce before Beyonce.

Only better.   

So I’d rank the most talented entertainers of our generation thusly:

1. Timberlake

2. Jamie Foxx

3. Will Smith

4. Jennifer Lopez

5. Taylor Swift

6. Tim McGraw

7. Beyonce

(By the way, Timberlake recently bought a place near our place outside of Nashville and my wife ridiculed me when I said that within the next five years the two of us will play a round of golf together. Was this an absurd opinion to have or is it perfectly reasonable that I could end up golfing with Timberlake in the next five years? My argument was that he loves sports, lives near by, is also a Tennessee fan, and that there was a somewhat decent chance we’d overlap and meet at a sporting event. Whereupon I would introduce myself — odds are Timberlake hasn’t heard of me — if he knows Outkick then this is a no brainer — but I’d be meeting him in a “celebrity” area, Fox green room, VIP tent, somewhere that everyone is nice, not like I’m seeing him at Kroger — and I’d tell him I live nearby and if he ever wants to go golf to shoot me a text. Then I give him an Outkick business card because asking Timberlake for his cell number is too aggressive. I think there’s a decent chance that happens. Am I crazy for believing this?)  

Colin writes:

“Hey Clay,

Graduating college next year and need your advice on something. Should I move back in with my parents for a couple years and get a full time job to save money or should I pursue something where I’d live on my own?”

I get this question a ton. 

And my answer to this would be — why not find several buddies and move in with them? If you have roommates you aren’t wasting that much money on rent.

Adulthood comes soon enough, if I were graduating from college in 2016 and not going straight to grad school I’d want to live with guy friends for several years before I bought a place or saved money. I went straight to law school and unless my parents had some massive mansion near the law school — which they most assuredly didn’t — I think it would have been weird for me to live at home in grad school.

As much as you might think you’re independent at 22 when you live with your parents, you really aren’t.  

To be honest, saving money in your twenties is overrated. You should be having the time of your life in your twenties. What are you saving money for? When you’re married and boring. There’s plenty of time to save money when you’re married and boring, trust me.