Anonymous Mailbag

It’s Tuesday which means it’s time for the anonymous mailbag. 

I’m writing this having just completed my first ever Outkick the Coverage national show for Fox Sports Radio. I’m still kind of in disbelief that I was awake at four in the morning and totally sober. I don’t think I’ve ever done this before. So if there are more typos than usual, I’m blaming it on adjusting to the new morning routine. 

As always, send your anonymous mailbag questions, anonymity assured, to clay.travis@gmail.com. 

And here we go. 

“Here’s the situation: my wife and I have been married for 2 years, together for 6. I’m 30 she’s 28. I totally outkicked my coverage. She is a total smokeshow and is very well endowed (34DDD). I am a total boob guy and her boobs are perhaps her best physical trail to me. She has gained about 10 lbs in the past 6 or so months (she’s still skinny) and most of it has gone to her boobs. Awesome, I know. The problem is she has started making comments about getting a breast reduction. We actually talked about this before we got married and she said she would never want to have a reduction. Apparently this latest growth spurt has changed things. She doesn’t have any back pain or anything she just thinks they are too big. No such thing, I know. I can’t stand the thought of her having them reduced. Maybe I’m shallow but when making the pro/con list when contemplating marriage her boobs were a major pro. If she’s not in pain how is this any different than her being upset if I gained 50 lbs or some other major physical change? And it’s not like she’s unaware how big of a deal this would be to me. I really want to put my foot down but I have no idea how to do so without seeming superficial and risking causing a problem. I need your advice.

“Maybe I’m shallow but when making the pro/con list when contemplating marriage her boobs were a major pro.”

Tell me this opening line isn’t up there with “They were the best of times, they were the worst of times,” in the annals of great literature.

Whatever you do don’t tell her that under the “pro” column on whether or not you should get married to her you wrote, “great boobs.” I’m sure most guys are not surprised by this at all, but if women knew what our thoughts really looked like they would never marry us. 

I think you have two plays here you can make here to try and protect her boobs without seeming like a total dick: 1. You can point out, rightfully, that she’s basically having boob lipo. If her weight gain went to her boobs — what a lucky woman — why not lose the weight instead of having surgery? Isn’t that much safer? After all, you’re only looking out for her best interests here and are troubled by the idea of her going under the knife. 2. You can argue that undergoing voluntary surgery for a non-health issue like this is expensive, wasteful, and an unnecessary health risk.

If you can make yourself tear up while talking about the health risk on either of these prongs, more power to you. Just pretend her boobs are disappearing for ever and the tears may very well be real. 

Good luck.    

“Working man in his early 20s saving for a down payment on a house and a huge fan of your takes (both college football and life). Saw you’d pay 8K for a guy to get a cam newton tattoo on his ass for Outkick. As a Michigan State grad and a despiser of Jim Harbaugh, I’ll get a tat of Jim on my ass for 5K on the show. Can we make this happen?”

So this pretty much has to happen now. 

I’m definitely paying you $5k to get a live on air tattoo of Jim Harbaugh on your ass. 

We need to do it the week of the Michigan-Michigan State game — which is on 10/29 — and ideally we’ll have the tattoo artist come to the Fox Sports Radio studio on Music Row in Nashville and do it there.

So can someone in Nashville do this tattoo? I want a good tattoo, not a crapy one, by the way, I wan his ass to look great. Is tattoo art mobile? I have no idea how tattoos work because I’m too much of a pussy to get one. (Also, I’m anti-tattoos on women, I just don’t find them attractive.)

But I’m totally pro coach tattoos on men’s asses. Who wouldn’t be?

Let’s make this happen. 

“Recently I was at the local super market with my wife. While I was waiting for her to run back and pick up something she forgot to pick up I saw a gorgeous woman. I couldn’t figure out why she looked familiar…..then it hit me. I have seen several of her videos on Pornhub. Hands down no doubt, same woman. My wife came back before I could snap a pic. But it got me thinking what’s the right play here? Ignore her? Tell her you loved the way she made eye contact the whole time in her last video? With more and more people shooting amateur porn I can’t be the first person to have this dilemma. What would you do?”

Well, you definitely can’t take a secret photo, that’s creepy as hell.

You said amateur porn? So you think this is just a wife or girlfriend posting videos on PornHub and not a “professional?” I think that impacts things a bit. If you’re a professional porn star you’re probably more comfortable with being recognized. What if some asshole boyfriend just posted the videos online and she has no clue about them? So I think you have to factor all of this into the equation. 

If you want to approach her and say hi I think you have to just say, “I’m a big fan. Love your work,” and then be prepared to keep moving. If she wants to engage you in conversation, that’s her choice then. You’ve met her in a non-threatening manner and acknowledged that you like her work. You haven’t been creepy or invaded her personal space, something that I would imagine is commonplace for women who do porn when they meet male fans out in public. (My guess here is that male porn fans who have favorite porn actresses and want to meet them are not typically socially adroit. Call it a hunch.)

The other angle here is, does your wife know her work too? If she does, then you’re a billion percent less creepy if your wife or girlfriend approaches her to say hi with you. (Women make everything men do less creepy. There’s no way, for instance, that America would ever elect a single man president. I don’t think we could ever elect a man or woman president if he or she didn’t have kids either. But I think we’d be more likely to elect a single woman without kids than we would a single man without kids. Single men are just too untrustworthy.) 

If your wife sees you talking to a woman she doesn’t know in the grocery store whatever you do, don’t reply, “I recognize her from porn.” In fact, you probably shouldn’t ever talk to an attractive woman in the grocery store because nothing you say about how you know her is going to be good for you.

So, circling back to your original question, just approach her and say you like her work.  

“My high school friend just announced his wedding date. It just so happens he and his fiancee chose October 15th, otherwise known as the 3rd Saturday in October, otherwise known as the Tennessee Alabama game. I am born and bred in Tennessee, went to high school in Tennessee, and the same can be said for all of my friends invited to this wedding (and the groom). My friends and I have been planning our trip to Knoxville for the game for the last three months.

Am I crazy or does the have to be the work of the fiancee? There has to be an unwritten rule somewhere against having a wedding in the fall, let alone on the day of what could be the biggest football game of the last decade in the state of Tennessee. Not only that, the wedding is scheduled in the afternoon, which if it’s a prime time game there’s no way I’d see any of it.

With all that being said. This friend and I are friends but not that close. We got to know each other at the end of high school and we talk maybe twice a year if that.

Is it completely off base of me to say me and my buddies should just buy him a nice gift and still go the game?”

You should 100% go to the game. If they just announced a fall wedding at the end of August there’s only one real reason that happens — she’s pregnant.

Seriously, there’s no other reason for a wedding to happen this fast.  

Chances are you won’t be seeing much of your buddy for the next couple of years anyway. 

Having said that, if Tennessee falls apart this season, it might be less painful for you to attend your friend’s shotgun wedding rather than watch Alabama disembowel Tennessee for the 10th straight year.  

“I have a dilemma here and I think you are the perfect judge to weigh in. I went to a big SEC school where football is more important than the school (so I didn’t go to Vandy.) Naturally everyone had a wild phase in college and if you didn’t then I’m sorry. 

The reason I mention the wild phase is because a close friend of mine is a perfect example of this. He had a wild phase and has landed the perfect girl now, or at least he thinks he has. Smokeshow of a girl, fantastic family, super smart, it seems like he has it made. That’s when her wild phase comes in.

So all of our friends know he is going to marry her probably, but only a few people know about her wild phase. She’s that girl who made the rounds freshman year and produced a homemade film with a superstar player on the football team. 

And our buddy has no idea.  

This is where you come in, what is the move here? Tell him and ruin his “perfect girl” or let him marry her without ever knowing about it?”

Okay, three opening questions that all need to be answered: Did you actually see it? Does the film still exist? Was it widely distributed? If the answer to all three of these questions is yes, then I think you have an obligation to tell him about it. Then he can decide whether or not he wants to watch it while tearfully masturbating.

If all three of these questions aren’t answered in the affirmative then I think it’s a much tougher call. That’s why I’d consider three more questions: first, if you didn’t see it, how do you know it’s her? This sounds like a rumor that someone, likely a female rival, could start to try and attack this girl because she’s jealous. Second, how did the film go public? Because if it went public and was widely distributed at the time then it probably still exists somewhere. Third, was it recorded with her knowledge or was she secretly taped? 

Finally, if he likes her enough to marry her, I don’t think this is something you break up over someone with. After all, it happened before they were together and just about every person in his or her twenties has naked photos or videos out there somewhere. Moreover, it’s relatively rare that a guy or girl who is getting married today is a virgin, so it’s not like he’s expecting her to be a virgin.

But if she slept with a famous football player on video then there’s a decent chance that video could go public — not because of her, by the way — at some point in time. 

That’s why it’s best to have that conversation now rather than when or if it becomes an issue in the future.   

“Let me start off by saying that I’m a high school senior and a huge fan of yours for about a year now. I’ve come to you today, Oh Great One, with something a lot of young men struggle with nowadays. It’s early September now and it’s time for me to fill out applications to colleges. I’m a TN native, son of UT grad mother, brother of three UT grad siblings. Which brings me to my point. I’ve worked hard in high school to score well on my ACT and accumulate a high GPA to have a chance at attending school somewhere out of state.

From what I know now, I’d have a good chance of getting into places like Texas, Michigan, and Georgia Tech just to name a few. I want to go into business or engineering or possibly both and have researched enough to know that these are great schools to come into those fields from. My question is this: College has become so expensive and taking out loans to go somewhere better is an option that I will have. Yet, a (virtually free) education from the University of Tennessee would leave me debt free out of college. Is it better to graduate from a better school covered in debt? Or debt-free from one that is less impressive to employers?”

This is a really, really tough call. 

Because I think what you’re primarily buying isn’t a “better” education at a more selective school, it’s a smarter collection of peers. That is, the better the school you attend the smarter the other students are at your school. Since the vast majority of your college education comes outside the classroom, this means you’re interacting with more intelligent students, which makes you smarter. And, arguably, better connected down the road. 

Sure, you can always make friends later in life, but the friends you make in high school, college and often “truer” friends because you met them before you had an established career. They’re more innocent, less complicated, since there’s no precept of a business or child relationship that hovers over your interaction. (This isn’t true if you’re Sasha or Malia Obama for instance, but most of us don’t have famous parents and aren’t famous in high school or college.)

Anyway, I think two things matter in this decision: 1. What major are you planning on? 2. Will you go to grad school?

First, your major. Do research and figure out what people with that degree make for a living. And then think about how difficult the loans would be to pay off with that job. If, for instance, you’re going to be a social worker, I’d counsel the cheaper school because paying off loans when your job doesn’t pay much is very stressful. If you’re going to be an engineer, you’ll make the money to pay off the loans, go to the best school possible.

Second, if you’re going to grad school and you only want to take out loans for undergrad or grad school, definitely take out the loans for grad school. Let’s say you went to Harvard for undergrad and then went to Georgia for law school. There’s nothing wrong with this — Georgia’s a fine law school — but I don’t think that looks as good as going to Georgia for undergrad and then Harvard for law school. If you can, make wherever you finish your schooling more impressive than where you began it.

I had a similar decision to make as you — I took the scholarship to college over the quality of the school. I went to George Washington and absolutely loved college in Washington, D.C., but GW was the worst school I was admitted to. (Now I was a part of the honors program at GW so that impacted things to, consider honors program status at many schools as well.) I only applied to five schools out of college: Wake Forest, University of Virginia, Davidson College, Georgetown and GW. GW was the worst of these schools, but it was the cheapest with my scholarship money. So I went there.

I had free rides to law school, but I went to Vanderbilt and absolutely loved it because I didn’t get into Stanford and otherwise Vandy was my top choice.

Good luck answering these questions for yourself and congrats on giving yourself college options.

…

Send your anonymous mailbag questions to clay.travis@gmail.com

And come hang out with us in the mornings on the new Outkick the Coverage radio show from 6-9 am eastern nationwide.   

I need a nap now. I’ve already put in a full workday and it’s like 11 in the morning.