All That and a Bag of Mail

It’s Friday and time for the mailbag. But we have been getting so many spectacular anonymous mailbag emails that I have to start including some of them in the Friday mailbag too. 

You’re welcome. 

I just finished watching both coaches bungle the ending of Titans-Jags and I’m so disgusted you’re all going to have to bail me out by getting your aloha, bitches tshirts here.

It’s time for the mailbag so here we go. 

Anonymous writes:

“Clay, I know you fly Southwest and have WIFI issues. But I’m pretty sure my Southwest story is worse than any of yours. 

It was an afternoon cross-country flight. I should have known something was up when the teenage boy chose the middle seat beside me (I’m window) while the aisle seat was still open. A 40ish black lady took the aisle seat.

About halfway through the flight he put his jacket over his lap and starting getting fidgety. I could see him glancing at me, but I thought surely not. He was watching an old Terminator movie on his laptop?! When he started moving very, um, aggressively, his laptop kept falling over and he was elbowing aisle seat lady. So she got up and told the flight attendant.

I was stuck in my window seat and just cowered a little and zipped up my jacket. I was later reprimanded by the flight attendant for not making him stop, but how could I do that? I’m still in my 20s, and I just don’t have that assertive mother thing yet. That has to be some form of victim shaming I think.

Anyway, the flight attendant came over and made him lift his jacket.. big mistake. She tells him to stop and that the police will be waiting when we land. She walked away, and aisle seat lady never came back! So then I was alone with him and pretty positive he didn’t finish, so not good. I got up under the pretense of using the restroom, which included crawling over him because he wouldn’t/couldn’t? stand, and went to the back and asked if I could be moved too. The flight attendant obliged, but that’s when I got the lecture.

I had to give a police statement when we landed. It was up to me to give the statement because the aisle seat lady refused because she said she was too traumatized and had too much happening in her life. Needless to say, it was the most awkward conversation I’ve had with a police officer, or anyone. We were standing in the middle of a busy terminal, and he asked me exactly what I saw, so I took off my jacket, draped it over my right arm, and I showed him. I assume nothing happened though since he was a minor. Southwest didn’t give me a damn thing either. You would think being unwillingly masturbated to deserves some drink vouchers at least.”

First, I’m glad you survived. Second, is there any doubt that this guy ends up in jail? I’m actually pretty sure that if you masturbate to the Terminator in the privacy of your own home you probably end up in jail, but doing it while sitting between two women on a Southwest flight? Lock him up and throw away the key. I’m not even kidding about this, would anyone object to immediate imprisonment for public Terminator masturbators? (Also, was it Terminator 1 or 2 or Revolution? And what scenes? I have to know. So of course I emailed and asked our anonymous emailer. She responded, “I’m not proficient in my Terminators, but it looked like one of the earlier ones, 1990’s era.” That means part two, probably the bad guy freezing scene that leads into him chasing the car with his golf club hands. Hard not to have your penis move during this scene, to be honest.)

And I can’t believe the flight attendant just left you there. Don’t you have a duty to at least move the guy to an aisle seat where he isn’t sharing an armrest with you? That seems like the absolute least you can do. And the attendant blamed you for not stopping him from masturbating? How was this conversation going to go?

You: “Excuse me, could you please stop jerking off to Terminator?”

Him: “My bad. Should I not be masturbating on an airplane flight to Terminator 2? Thanks for letting me know. I wasn’t sure what I was doing was socially unacceptable.”

No way. This dude is clearly insane. He might strangle you to death with the flotation device.

By the way, this is also another perfect example of the difference between the two sexes. Because if there was a guy in the window seat and another guy in the aisle seat and the hot chick sitting between them was masturbating to Terminator 2, it would be like the hottest story of their lives and every guy would think it was awesome. Which just goes to show that there is literally nothing that a hot chick can do that is considered creepy.

You turned this dude into the police and deservedly so. But if you did the same thing both guys would have given you their phone numbers and begged you to call them.   

Call me Ishmael writes:

“Oh great Imam of the gays,

As a 20 something post grad, I’ve used a few dating apps like Hinge or Tinder. I’m not ashamed of it, some of my best friends have met their girlfriends that way. But here’s the problem, o great gargler of the man juice. I met a girl on one of these apps. She seemed cool, we talked on the phone (had to make sure she wasn’t a dude) and set up a date but… when we met, she was a solid 50 pounds heavier than any of her pictures even hinted at.

Being born and raised in the homeland of Texas, I stayed and fulfilled my commitment of dinner. Afterwords I told my buddies, and every one of em said I shoulda bailed…. Because if any dude showed up 2 years and half a hundred pounds heavier than he had represented himself, most women would have turned around and walked out. Equality, bitch.

So here’s the question I’m certain most millennials who use dating apps need answered: at what point do we draw the line? Is misrepresentation a valid reason to bail? Or is there a point in post-grad life where we just accept it and deal?”

I think you just have to accept it. 

Every girl has the greatest picture ever taken of her as her social media profile picture. So you’re operating at a disadvantage from the get go here. How many times have you met a girl in person that you’d only seen on social media and she’s hotter in person than she was on the pictures online? It almost never happens. That’s because women know how to accentuate their attributes.

Most straight guys are pretty clueless about fashion and body flattering clothing and all of that. Honestly, you’re talking to a guy who went to work at Fox Sports for two years with an official photo that was my head photoshopped on to Petros’s body. It wasn’t even my own picture. They put my picture up on a damn billboard on the Fox lot and I looked like Frankenpetros. It was terrifying. There I was like two stories tall at the entrance to the Fox lot. I’m picturing Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergera from “Modern Family” turning onto the Fox lot and seeing my picture and driving into the median in sheer terror. I was trying to figure out when my photo had been taken and who okayed it when I noticed that I was wearing a watch in the photo and I didn’t own a watch. I am the only person in Fox history who was actually uglier in his promotional photoshopped photo than I was in real life. They photoshopped an uglier version of me without telling me they were doing it until it was already on a billboard. Welcome to my life.

Anyway, you’re obligated to finish dinner and then depart with a cordial goodbye. And I don’t buy that most women would bail if a guy was two years older or fifty pounds heavier. Women are much less superficial than men. They have to be, we’re generally not that attractive of a sex. 

Please keep me anonymous writes:

“I was born and raised in a small town in Tennessee the son of Pakistani immigrants. My father was a scientist, we lived in a nice house near the end of the road. We were the only non white family. I grew up like your typical white kid. I was a eagle scout, football team, debate team. Most of my friends were white, my parents were very well adjusted, we only spoke english at home. I said the lords prayer with the team before games.

White privilege is that nobody looks at you on 9/11 and calls you a terrorist, when you’re fourteen years old. Or a taliban, god forbid you grow a beard. BGID man, can you imaging the pain of having a great beard and you having to shave it off so the guy at tgi fridays doesnt call you a sand n***** . White privilege is when youre walking down the strip in knoxville drunk and nobody randomly says racist shit to you as you drive by. I havent seen any memes about killing all the christians on facebook, but I’ve seen a bunch about killing all the muslims on this racist guy i went to high school with’s facebook page.

It really exists, but honestly i think it’s going to take hundreds of years to correct itself so enjoy it. Even if you are a liberal gay muslim james franklin husband having racist, youre still white.”

Solid email and thanks for reading. 

My advice to you would be the same as my advice to anyone of any race, ethnicity or religion: the more money you have the less it matters what you look like or where you’re from. Get rich. 

The ultimate privileged color in America today isn’t white, black, brown, or yellow, it’s green. 

K. writes:

“Please help me sift through right, wrong, and possibly middle ground here. I cannot be the only one that’s been in this situation.

My oldest recently celebrated her 7th birthday. The party fell on the Saturday of Tennessee vs. South Carolina, at you guessed it, 3 PM sharp, same time as kickoff. I’m a pretty die hard Vols fan, and never want to miss a game, especially an SEC match up. But missing the game is not the issue here.

We were hosting the party at our house, so no big deal right? I’ll have the game on in the background, kids will play among themselves, we’ll do cake, open gifts, those interested can watch the game, everyone’s happy. I did everything a good dad is supposed to do in anticipation of the party: Helped clean, cooked burgers/hot dogs, made sure everything was set and ready to go.

Here’s the issue: My wife wanted absolutely no drinking of any kind taking place at this party. She made this clear to me weeks before the party, and told me to inform my family (the drinkers, along with myself) of this policy. Now, let me say that it’s no secret that my family (also huge Vol fans) drink at about 100% of our events. Most of the time it’s your typical social drinking atmosphere, but let’s face it, every now and then, some of us have too much. With 7 year old kids and parents in attendance, this is obviously my wife’s concern along with the perception of alcohol at a kids birthday party. I firmly stated I would not allow any over consumption, we would pour in cups, and everything would be fine. This fell on deaf ears. No alcohol, at all. Period.

Even though I disagreed with her request, I did what any husband who enjoys 3 times a week sexual frequency would do, I obliged and informed my family there would be no drinking at said party.. They honestly thought I was joking and laughed it off to the tune of, “We just won’t advertise it and all will be fine. After all, the game will be on too right?” Mistake I made was letting it go at this point. Knowing they were going to ignore my wife’s request.

Fast forward to the day of the party. My wife sternly reminds me of the no drinking policy. At this point I begin to somewhat panic, as I know what’s about to happen. Hell, I’m already in violation as there is a 12 pack on ice and solo cup on standby. Party starts, game starts, everything is going great. But I know it’s only a matter of time.. So who is the first to walk through the house with a cup of golden suds? My mother. Needless to say the rest of us follow suit, wife sees this and is furious. Please note, all beer was in a cooler in the garage and out of site. We also all had solo cups so the beers were not advertised to the parents/kids in attendance and I honestly didn’t see what the big deal was. I mean, there is an SEC football game on!!

My question: what should I have done differently?

1.) Pushed harder for middle ground with the wife prior to the party so we were on the same page.
2.) Made a firmer stance with everyone (me included), that there would be absolutely no drinking during the game/party, and followed suit.

Please let me know your thoughts. While my wife didn’t make a scene or say anything to them, she is still pretty pissed about this, and you can image the effect that’s having on me. She felt disrespected which I get, but I also thought the request was a little absurd to begin with.

What would a gay Muslim have done in this situation?”

Well, this is clearly a war between your wife and your mom. The alcohol is just a stand-in over which woman has more influence in your life, the woman who birthed you or th woman you sleep with? This is how women engage in passive-aggressive fights, over subtle rules that don’t matter very much, but are intended to assert social dominance. 

In general, I think you have to go with your wife here; after all, it’s her house and her kid and her party. But here’s the problem, it’s also your house and your kid and your party. So I think you and your wife needed to resolve this issue before the party even started.

Your mom’s open defiance of your wife led everyone else to follow suit. Did your wife create a stupid rule designed to provoke conflict? Perhaps. But it was your wife’s rule in her house. And you aided and abetted the flouting of that rule. Meaning, in the eyes of your wife, you picked your mom over her.

In the future have all birthday parties on Sundays at four central at Chuck E. Cheese’s. By then the early NFL games are already over and the place hosting the party makes the rules about alcohol. (They have beer there).  

When you scheduled a seven year old’s birthday party for a Saturday in the fall at your house, you were already flirting with disaster. 

E. writes:

“I am a huge Tennessee fan. Down the list on one of Bruce Feldman’s articles for the open VT job I saw Butch Jones’ name. I immediately chalked this up as ridiculous for multiple reasons: SEC>ACC, UT Tradition/Facilities>VT, and essentially where he has brought this program from where it was. But after some thought. I began to rationalize that this could be a perfect fit for ol Butch. Here are my basic thoughts.

After the complete and utter coaching malpractice (as you so eloquently stated), Butch Jones doesn’t respond well to pressure. Whether that pressure is figuring basic math in the early stages of a 4th quarter or answering questions about his analytics and charts in press conferences it is clear he does not like and does not handle pressure at all.

This year the Vols should realistically only have 1 loss. This essentially would put them atop the East. Since this team is so young (as he always wants to remind us), the pressure next year should essentially be Atlanta or bust.

There is no question that Butch has done a good job of rebuilding this program from where it was when he took over. At this point his coaching stock could be viewed as somewhat still high. Oh how that stock could take a turn for the worse if next year has any resemblance of the on field results of this year.

Butch leaves pressure filled Knoxville/SEC for Virginia Tech. A football tradition in their own right, that hasn’t been much recently. The ACC comparably has much less pressure than the burden of an SEC schedule. Add that with the crazy fan base around the University of Tennessee (myself included).

Geographically speaking, VT and Tennessee aren’t too far apart. Butch would hypothetically be able to keep the recruiting relationships that he has made.

Supposedly Butch has enjoyed working with Virginia Tech AD Whit Babcock in the past and we all know Dave Hart is a train wreck.

Ultimately I would think there is very little chance that Butch Jones leaves Tennessee for Virginia Tech, but I could see why he would. I also think I would be ok with it as a Tennessee fan. My pride would hurt for a little bit that someone would rather coach Virginia Tech over Tennessee but I think I could get over it. I don’t believe Butch will ever win a national championship at Tennessee and isn’t that the ultimate goal? After the meltdowns and coaching decisions on the field this year I just don’t think it will ever happen. With that being said, Tennessee just cannot fire another coach and keep paying buyouts. But If Butch were to leave, there would be no buyout and he has rebuilt this program to a point that it would be a top ten job again. A competent coach can see that the Vols have more than enough talent to compete on any given Saturday. Add that with what McElwain has done in his first year by walking in and wrapping up the East by the first week of November. This would be a job that most would be very appealing to a lot of coaches.

Hypothetically who would be the perfect fit at head coach for the University of Tennessee?”

Tennessee lost to two teams it has better talent than this year — Arkansas and Florida. I think Oklahoma and Alabama have better talent than Tennessee does, but the Vols are good enough to have had leads in the fourth quarter against both of these teams. With the exception of Georgia, who I also think is very talented, Tennessee has beaten the five other teams on its schedule with drastically inferior talent.

It’s fair to say Tennessee has talent that would make the Vols somewhere around the 10-15th best team in college football this year. 

This squares with ESPN’s FPI which has the Vols 12th. Here’s the top 12, by the way:

1. Oklahoma

2. Baylor

3. Alabama

4. Ohio State

5. Clemson

6. TCU

7. Notre Dame

8. USC

9. Ole Miss

10. LSU

11. Stanford

12. Tennessee

Realistically, Tennessee should be 10-2 or 9-3 this year and playing for the SEC title. Hell, if Tennessee had a great field goal kicker, the Vols might well be undefeated this year. They lost to Florida by one point on a missed field goal, Arkansas by four points, Alabama by five points on two missed field goals, and gave up a 17 point fourth quarter lead to Oklahoma to lose in double overtime after, you guessed it, missing a field goal.  

Butch isn’t going to leave for Virginia Tech because he’s got too many good players at Tennessee and because Virginia Tech is a substantially worse job in a substantially worse recruiting region. Tennessee is just over three hours from Charlotte, Nashville, and Atlanta. You can win a national championship just by recruiting those three cities.

But if Butch did leave I don’t think it would be a tremendous loss. Other than recruit, which is tremendously important but which Tennessee has always done well, what do we think Butch’s coaching strength is? He’s not really a specialist on either side of the ball. What game that he’s coached at Tennessee can you point to as a game that the Vols had no business women and that they won thanks to brilliant coaching? There isn’t a single one. 

I think the toughest thing about replacing Butch wouldn’t be replacing Butch, it would be the number of jobs open right now. There are seven high profile jobs open at the moment. I’d rank them thusly if Tennessee came open too:

1. USC

2. Tennessee

3. Miami

4. South Carolina

5. Virginia Tech

6. Missouri

7. Maryland

8. Illinois

I think that’s a pretty objective analysis of how the jobs would rate. The most important aspect of this — and why you’re seeing so many coaches fired so quickly now — is that the coach matters more than the job now. If you get the right coach it doesn’t matter whether your job is the 41st best or the tenth best. 

Finally, you may think I’m crazy, and I don’t know that he’d come after just two years at Penn State, but James Franklin would kill it at Tennessee. At some point I think Franklin will come back South. In the meantime, he’s recruiting like gangbusters at Penn State.   

Cody writes:

“I’m not sure how much you actually drive the interstate since you became a celebrity. Recently I was driving from Memphis to Knoxville. Every 30 miles or so I would notice these adult store signs. You know, the ones with the lady licking her finger. My question is fairly simple, who the hell goes to adult stores today? With the ease of online shopping who would rather walk into a store, throw a dildo on the counter and tell the cashier to bag that thing up. Explain the mindset of that person.

Also, please issue a verdict for a debate that has been ongoing for years. What is the plural form of dildo? You might be asking yourself why would anyone need the plural form. Let’s say ISIS attacked an adult store and the customers decided to fight them. Would the news say, “the attack was thwarted by 5 lesbians who bludgeoned the terrorist to death with dildoes or dildi?”

It’s dildoes. 

Truck drivers buy all the porn at the interstate stores. That and guys who are terrified to have porn in their houses and buy it for their hotel rooms. Everyone else orders porn online.  

I feel the same way about buying adult movies in a hotel room. Now that there’s wifi, who does that? Just real weirdos. 

By the way, how about the explosion of the porn business thanks to the Internet? Forty percent of all Internet traffic is porn. Forty percent!. There’s basically an insatiable demand for porn. I guarantee you all those terrorists blowing people up? Huge porn fiends. The guys you can’t trust in this world aren’t the guys who admit to liking porn, they’re the ones who never admit to watching it. 

Savages, every single one of them. 

That’s why there’s so many PC bros crying themselves to sleep at night over the amount of jerking off to patriarchal porn they do. “MY PENIS SHOULDN’T BE LIKING THIS. IT SHOULDN’T BE LIKING THIS AT ALL!”

Parker S. writes:

“Has a coach ever been more excited to get to 6-7 wins than Bret Bielema?

Every time his team has proved its dominance by becoming bowl eligible, Bielema acts like they were just named to the college football playoff.

What’s going to happen if they get to 8 wins this year? Will they have a parade? Will he claim a national championship?”

Bielema referred to a win over Texas that got his Razorback team to 7-6 as “borderline erotic.”

If he ever made the SEC championship game how would he describe that feeling? “This is just like the “Eyes Wide Shut” party Jen and I went to in Cozumel.”

Also, what size is the track suit that Bielema coaches in now? They have to be specially made, right? How many normal sized second graders could sleep under that track suit without getting wet in a rainstorm if it was staked out and made into a tent? I’m going with six. 

Could be seven. 

…

Have spectacular weekends. 

Unless you’re PC bros. 

In which case enjoy your tearful masturbations to pornhub.