The State Of Our National Pizza Conversation
by Jeff Johnson and David Roth
Jeff: I don’t need Rex Ryan to put the brakes on his cockiness at this point. It’s like he’s already had an orgasm and is now reaching for cigarettes or a remote.
David: Jesus, does it have to be like that?
Jeff: Sorry for the visual.
David: Can’t it be like he just ate a three-foot long veal parm hero and is daubing ranch dressing off his mouth with a napkin — because Ryan dips parm sandwiches in ranch, der — and being glad he’s wearing sweatpants? Actually that is also gross. There is no way for this not to be gross. Why did you bring this up?
Jeff: He actually has a “Sauce Wash” he sends his sandwiches through. The Jets gave it to him against Aetna’s wishes. After each bite he runs it through again. First, the sandwich gets hit with 8 liqui-jets of 98 degree garlic-infused au jus, is then glazed with a melted nacho cheese spray, then it’s overwhelmed by pressurized dollops of lite Ranch dressing. Then it is hit with with a small amount of chutney. Mario Batali had a mini-stroke when he first laid eyes on it. I bring this all up because Rex Ryan has seemingly turned soft.
Jeff: (Also gross, sorry)
David: I guess the confusing part for me is that we are having such a difficult time talking about Rex Ryan either doing sex or eating without the conversation becoming kind of disgusting.
Jeff: I applaud his appetites. I wish I had a sauce wash.
David: You and me both. At this point, they only go to elite eaters. The permitting process is onerous. Tony Siragusa has one in his car. Mike Golic has one at home, but he filled it with pepperoni and never uses it. Charlie Weis sleeps inside his.
Jeff: Tony Siragusa carries one in a fanny pack device. It is a mobile unit. With settings for mustard, marinara, wasabi mayo and melted butter. Don’t get me started on Precision Burrito — my after-market burrito chain idea. You can bring in a half-assed Spicy Crunch Wrap Gordita from Taco Bell, or some soggy Chipotle fun bag, and they will gut it, rewrap it, add special ingredients, you name it. It’s like Maaco for burritos. They can’t make the shit from scratch — they don’t have the vision, but they can essentially pimp any other vendor’s burrito. Make it more you.
Jeff: But anyway, at this moment, I feel like Rex Ryan’s foot is off the gas pedal. YOU ARE STILL IN THE SHIT, RYAN!!! IN FACT YOU ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SHIT!!! NFL FOOTBALL DOESN’T GET ANY MORE REAL THAN THIS!!!
David: These games are for all the individually wrapped flaplets of pepper jack cheese, and etc. Go on.
Jeff: Peyton Manning had no supporting cast. The Patriots were overvalued. Great team. Overachieving. Really only lasted as long as they should have. (A statement which worries me massively about the Jets, too, actually)
David: They were certainly overvalued by me, in retrospect. I didn’t think anyone could stop their offense, even though I knew their defense wasn’t much good. In that sense, I sort of agree with what Bart Scott screamed at Sal Paolantonio in his post-game interview, albeit without the bone-melting rage and cocaine eyes.
David: Gerard Cosloy called Scott a “blast furnace,” which I think actually understates both how terrifying Scott is in that interview — I would rather stand inside a blast furnace than near-ish to Bart Scott — and may also underestimate Scott’s body temperature. I imagine he walks around at 113 degrees, with periodic spikes whenever he remembers being cut off in traffic or a time when he thought “Monk” was going to be on and it got preempted for a baseball game or something.
Jeff: Scott was great. I approve of the way the Jets flew themselves around the field in victory. Even if Deion “Mumble Fingers” Branch didn’t. Remembering the unpleasant characters I sat next to at Gillette and the traffic jam, I’m glad the Patriots went down. It was because I put a hex on them…they had a choice to apologize.
Jeff: But you don’t just start acting benevolent and nice now if you’re the Jets. Mike Tomlin is a great coach, Rex? Mike Tomlin looks like a misunderstood junior high school kid from a 1970’s drama on ABC. I half expect Richard Kiley to pop up behind him with a couple of fishing rods and an invitation to talk. And Hines Ward is not nice. He would laugh if his mother got a flat tire on a busy interstate.
David: When the AAA guy showed up, Ward would blindside him with a vicious block, and then refuse to apologize afterwards for breaking the guy’s orbital bone because “it’s my job to protect that car.”
Jeff: I don’t think he’d be any closer than 500 miles away from the scene. “I can’t do everything for you, mom.”
Jeff: The Jets are going to be flat as hell on Sunday. I can already feel it. This is why they say “Same Old Jets.”
David: Understand that I can’t do anything to help you if Bart Scott reads any of that, Jeff. I will disavow your statement and I will move my entire family someplace very far away. We will learn to speak Flemish and live humbly in Belgium, and we will be right to do it.
Jeff: Scott needs to hear this! The New York Jets desperately need to string together a few days of crude and idiotic statements. Get the world hating them again.
David: “I absolutely wouldn’t eat one of them Pittsburgh sandwiches with the french fries in it.” the Jets coach told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “That’s a bullshit sandwich, and I think everyone in Pittsburgh knows it… Oh, I’m just kidding, I’d eat the fuck out of one right now. I’d eat one in the bathtub every day before practice.”
Jeff: “Troy Polamalu would be Donna Summer if he had a penis.” I need those words to come out of Antonio Cromartie’s mouth.
David: That seems kind of complicated for Cromartie, no? Let Bart Scott broadcast the trash talk directly into print using the powers of his rage. It will appear in red ink and smell terrible.
Jeff: I would hope that someone would give him access to a printing press for the week. I’d read his ‘zine. “Scott & Soda.” He’s got an RC Cola sponsorship lined up.
David: “I’m Bart Scott, and I drink Pepsi Seethe because I like the way it tastes! It tastes good! No apologies, no compromises, no calories! Pepsi Seethe: FUCK YOUR FACE!” Scott comes off like the Copper Cab kid on YouTube, that little nutty redheaded monster with the aggro videos about how redheads do so have souls.
Jeff: The Steelers are a brutal and efficient machine. The Jets would be lucky to play the Ravens. At least there would be some emotion. A storyline to build around. Some bile to release. The Jets already recently won in Pittsburgh. It is going to be impossible to pull that off twice in one season.
David: It might’ve been a better storyline with the Ravens, from a Rex Ryan angle or whatever. But I think, for those of us who love meat-based metaphors, or at least are super-reliant on them in basically everything we write, Roethlisberger and Ryan facing off is kind of exciting. It’s like a taste test for different brands of boiled ham.
David: Do I even need to make a pork-related segue into talking about the Bears? I don’t, right, people will just follow it?
David: I got some static last week from people for actually kind of liking Rick Reilly’s take-down of Jay Cutler at ESPN. Which I get, because liking anything Rick Reilly does now is embarrassing — he operates at a dad’s-trying-to-rap level of wince-inducement at all times — and because the guy has just been phoning in random puns and jokes about crusty Scottish golf caddies for years now, and because a lot of the piece did seem to spring from Reilly’s wounded entitlement. But even though I’m always and everywhere for players being more human, I’m willing to make an exception for Cutler. I want not to sense his personality at all because holy shit is that ever a terrible personality.
Jeff: Rick Reilly reminds me of David Gest. But I’d be with you all the way… until I read that Cutler has no endorsements. Doesn’t want any. To me that is awesome. Good for him.
David: Oh, agreed on that. Maybe SuperCuts, though? “It’s where I go to get a haircut that always makes it look like I just took my helmet off.”
Jeff: If the Bears win the Super Bowl I want him to agree to do a Papa John’s commercial and confront Papa John about the state of our national pizza conversation and why he’s framing it so shittily. He walks into these “ad” stadiums like he’s bringing in the vaccine for polio. “Yeah. The fans just were not fired up at all until I bestowed lukewarm breadsticks upon their section.” You know who needs pizza? The guys in that South American prison Joran Van der Sloot is killing time in. If he can bring a smile to their faces and also never return to the U.S. I’d consider it a job well done.
David: I am on the record with Papa Fucking John, but at the risk of repeating myself I will mention here that I have some serious problems with that dude and his face and his opinion of his own appeal. Even before his pizza — which tastes like something you’d get at a convenience store in Indiana — enters the equation. He looks like a mean congressman from a safe district. Like he’d always be sponsoring trivial, trolling legislation about allowing ATV’s in public libraries or making it illegal for single parents to shop at certain grocery stores.
Jeff: He’s the too-old guy at the college kegger who has been drinking ginger ale for HOURS waiting for the dudes to pass out and the ladies to become prey. I know why you’re at all these games, Papa John, and I don’t like it. Neither does the Pinellas County District Attorney. Speaking of which, Mark Chmura goes to court about his divorce this week. Bittersweet, and all, with the Packers biggest game in years on the line.
Jeff: Sorry, Mark. You’re still a public figure. And a bitter one at that.
David: Ugh, Chmura. Hot tub to Hades. I don’t feel a lot of regret at not buying a Chmura jersey for $10 when Canal Jeans was going out of business. Not nearly as much as I do about passing on all those Testaverde Browns jerseys.
David: Anyway, I think and hope that the Packers are going to win, but the fact that a team quarterbacked by Jay Cutler and with latter-day post-psychotic-break Mike Martz as offensive coordinator is a win away from the Super Bowl is a huge challenge to everything I think about both football and the universe. This isn’t supposed to happen. If they win the Super Bowl, I full expect a herd of unicorns to fly out of Martz’s mouth during the post-game interview.
Jeff: To me, this game is the Super Bowl. Weirdly enough, I am happy with either team winning. I know that integrity-wise, that positions me as a strawberry-filled, long-ignored, dark chocolate Whitman’s sampler monstrosity that sits thumb-squished in the corner of the box.
David: So disgusted right now.
Jeff: I am basically this guy:
Jeff: I’m really that giddy. I liked the Packers until about age 6, saw Walter Payton gain 275 yards one day against them, fell in love with him, suffered with the Bears through the Bob Avellini years, they won the Super Bowl, I cheered for them until I realized if I had a pulse, there was no reason I should be rooting for Cade McNown (also: I was happy for Wisconsin and Favre after Pack Super Bowl win), and have since vacillated between the Bears and Packers for most of the last decade. On the Bears side, 2001 was an awesome season, so was that comeback win against Arizona a couple years back, I love Devin Hester, but not as a receiver, and the Packers should have made it past the Giants in NFC Championship. Then (stick with me) I rooted for the Vikings the past two seasons because I think Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy are d-bags for telling Favre he wasn’t welcome.
David: History has been kind to that judgment, but I get that.
Jeff: Okay. It worked out well for the Packers for 2-ish years and for Favre for 1.27 years. (.27 some of his work with the Jets) I actually despise Mike McCarthy because he looks like he is trying to O.D. on peanuts in the shell. He actually asks for shelled peanuts instead of a communion wafer at church, and the pastor obliges. But I don’t hate Rodgers, though. He’s played exactly like Todd Marinovich was supposed to have. 31-for-36 against Atlanta? That’s almost robotic. I wrote a longer explanation here, last winter, chastising Packer fans who hate “Brent” Favre, and it went something like this: for 16-plus years of my youth, the Packers made the playoffs once. When Favre started for them, they went 11 times. Until you can comprehend a 16-year playoff drought, you need to go do something quiet in Lithuania. (Not you, per se, since you will already be in Belgium.) So much yard work was done in Wisconsin in the 1970s and 1980s on Sundays it was like a mini-WPA program. Wisconsin led the country in raking for years. And I also admired the Detroit Lions in the early 1980s. Never liked Tampa Bay, but I did like their uniforms. I’ll hang up and listen.
David: I’m such a ridiculous left-wing sad-sack that I like the Packers because they’re publicly held and collectively owned. I know that Green Bay is like the most conservative city in the US — even Rep. James Sensenbrenner won’t stop for gas there — and the team isn’t exactly a kibbutz. But I want good things for that franchise anyway. If they come at Jay Cutler’s expense, all the better, I guess.
Jeff: Cutler has gotten better in my eyes. I don’t love him but, WAIT DIDN’T HE FEUD WITH JOSH MCDANIELS?
David: That was almost my favorite duel with pistols. Good point, there.
Jeff: Yeah, Cutler you are awesome. Even though Julia Allison thought you were her boyfriend once. I see Pittsburgh and Green Bay making it to the Super Bowl, and sadly enough, I see Pittsburgh winning. Prove me wrong. By the way, we’re still waiting to do Jager shots and wheatgrass with Ryan Fitzpatrick. Anyone?
David: He’ll be at the official Yakkin’ About Football Super Bowl Party, I’m pretty sure. Fitzy’s bringing the Jager shot-chiller. Pete Carroll is bringing motivational cupcakes with locally sourced ingredients. Tom Coughlin is bringing ice-cold vinegar and nettles.
Jeff: Tom Coughlin is waiting around to film a Greatest Generation-type season wrap-up DVD about the Giants. The AWESOMEST TEAM not to make the playoffs. When Father Time looks back on this team, he will smile. They achieved what only every other team in the league could: they played a full schedule of regular season games and then went on break.
David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. And he tweets!
Jeff Johnson tweets here. He is also responsible for doing weird things with old sportscards here and here.