Bears vs. Packers: 11-26-2015

Des: Welcome to another edition of the Chicago Bears football pre-game show. The Bears face off against the Green Bay Packers one year after their horrible beating from the Detroit Lions. Will the Bears seek Tur-duck-en Day redemption against a Green Bay team that is a shadow of its former self, but a shadow that still dominates the NFC North? Or will tonight’s 8:30 pm game fail to rouse anyone from a tryptophan coma?

To answer these and similar questions is our panel of experts: Concord Wainwright Peabody, Captain Silas Charles “Kilgore Trout” Red-beard, Modre- the trans-Western guru, the Prissy Minion, Doctor Sally McChesty, Elllie Mae MacGillicutty, and the man whose rum-besotted ancestors crashed the Mayflower into a God-forsaken hellhole called “New England,” Drunky McDumbAss.

Redbeard: ARRRH, mateys! Ye don’t want to know what happens when I “Billy Pilgrim” me way into me distant past, and especially into me distant future. And so it goes with me second annual Thanksgiving dinner taste treat: Captain Redbeard’s Chum Bucket of the NFL: ‘Tis the Cleveland Browns and San Diego Chargers with 2-8 records. The Browns have benched Johnny Football for hoisting champagne. Given the terrible state of Cleveland football, getting hammered be the only rational, nay the only functional, response one can expect. Meanwhile, the citizens of Los Angeles must be thinking, “Billions of taxpayer dollars for a football stadium, the second biggest television market, and the best we can hope for are the Chargers, Raiders, and Rams?

Des: Concord Peabody. Surely you have some obscure Thanksgiving trivia.

Concord: The Bears have never played the Packers on Thanksgiving before. Brett Favre is being honored at halftime for some reason. Outside of the Cowboys (29-17-1) and Lions (35-38-2), the Bears (16-15-2) have the most Thanksgiving Day victories followed by the Packers (14-19-2). What does that mean for today’s Thanksgiving game? Absolutely nothing! Go Bears!

Drunky: Here’s some Thanksgiving trivia you probably don’t want to hear: Thanksgiving Eve is the biggest “bar night” of the year. More people go to their favorite watering hole than any other time of the year, which I know all too well, because my local bar, Slumpy’s, won’t let me come in because they don’t want me to scare all of those punk college kids visiting mommy and daddy. No, Slumpy’s suddenly wants to give those kids the fake blue collar experience by only allowing their more sober, less racist regulars to come in so they can sell Pabst Blue Ribbon at 3 times the regular price. But I’ll be back the first weekday in December.

Ellie: I’ve got even more Thanksgiving Trivia the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know… or maybe they do, because I saw this on every Thanksgiving web site. Did you know that the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for plumbers? That’s why our “water closet” is outside, if by “water” you mean “hole”, and by “closet” you mean “shack.”

Des: So… a shack-hole, then. Doctor McChesty, would you encapsulate things with one magnificent sentence?

Sally: Now that I’m done brushing off Captain Redbeard’s clumsy, drunken advances…

Redbeard: Ah, me beauteous mermaid! Would ye like a waft of me cod cologne?

Sally: Ugh! Sit back and watch, sports fans, as the Bears face off in a game that probably won’t draw viewers away from the Alice’s Restaurant 50^th Anniversary Concert.

Bears vs. Broncos: 11-22-2015

Des: So… our Bears panel and I kind of forgot to show up for last Sunday’s game. My excuse is that I was drowning in paperwork and getting the house ready for Thanksgiving. What’s everyone else’s story?

Redbeard: ARRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH, mateys! I was busy seizing homes that me marauding crew and I assumed were abandoned because they still had Halloween decorations up 22 days after that accursed holiday ended! We most harshly ransacked the domiciles of those landlubbers that had a hung pirate upon their front lawn. That be a macroaggression against the Brotherhood of the Briny Damp we could not let stand! Meanwhile, what be behind the sudden surge of the Detroit Lions? Once I had forsaken Detroit, they suddenly win two games in a row!

Des: Drunky McDumbAss. What kept you from DesComm Worldwide?

Drunky: It’s better you don’t know.

Des: Ellie Mae McGillicutty. What were you up to last Sunday?

Ellie Mae: Hunting Thanksgiving.

Des: Modre. How did you while away the hours?

Modre: Somehow trying to find something funny with the inevitable presidency of Donald Trump, failing.

Des: Sally McChesty. Summarize your Sunday.

Sally: “Trying to think of ways to get Captain Redbeard to notice me.” Supposedly, to build my character, I should have a romantic relationship “with the best thing ever, which is why I love Captain Redbeard.” Who wrote this?

Redbeard: Look nae further!

Bears vs. Rams: 11-15-2015

Des: Welcome to another edition of the Chicago Bears football pre-game show. The Bears face off against the Saint Louis Rams after a tough win against the San Diego Chargers. Will the Bears recapture last week’s winning formula of an acceptable defense, a competent offense, and an opposing team that smothers itself with yellow flags? Or will they be trampled underfoot by a legendary running back whose last name of “Gurley” caused the Fox broadcasting team to giggle themselves silly last week?

To answer these and similar questions is our panel of experts: Concord Wainwright Peabody, Captain Silas Charles “20,000 Leagues Under the Weight of His Crimes Against Humanity” Red-beard, Modre- the trans-Western guru, the Prissy Minion, Doctor Sally McChesty, Ellie Mae MacGillicutty, and our tailgate party correspondent, Drunky McDumbAss.

Des: We’ll start the festivities with the segment I’d like to call, “Let’s Make Fun of the Captain’s Terrible Playoff Picks”, but since he has his cutlass pointed at one of my more important organs, it’s time now for “The NFL’s Biggest Disappointments That Were Way Better On Paper Than In Reality.”

Redbeard: ARRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH, mateys! Let’s take a long, pitiful glance at the teams that, like fabled aqua based comic book legends Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner, failed to live up to their potential: First, the NFC, and the Detroit Lions— hoo boy—who would’ve thought that the Lions were one Ndamukong Suh away from being the… Detroit Lions? As it turned out—EVERYONE EXCEPT ME! But that was me worst choice. Me other selections ‘tweren’t nearly as bad—they be merely mediocre, like a Carnival Cruise, but not catastrophically bad… like a Carnival Cruise. Ye have the Eagles, who are neck and neck for first with the Giants with a 4-4 record, while the Saints are in a distant third… with a 4-5 record. I challenge any land lubber to try to cipher that one out without your high tech computers and your complex Common Core math problems. Back in my day, we had naught but sextants and the constellations of the night sky and the entrails of various whales when we would set up our illegal betting pools. And we didn’t “log on” or use “bitcoin” to pay our gambling debt. No, we gave our money in a paper sack, trembling, to guys named “Lefty” and “Knuckles” and “the Shiv.”

Redbeard: But enough of me caterwaulin’ about a beautiful distant past submerged in the impenetrable haze of multi-decade alcoholism to torment meself—my question is, if you’re an AFC team, why even bother? Tom Brady’s terrible vengeance against the NFL, and then all mankind, will first lay waste to the entire AFC. The Texans and Chiefs, my choices to win their divisions that sadly each have 3-5 records, will be naught but collateral damage in the merciless maw of Brady’s hyper-focused rage. As I must needs find some silver lining in the black miasma in which I usually “pilot” me vessel, the Bengals, who I chose to win the AFC North, is still undefeated. Like drunken Odysseus, I also keep being drawn to the siren girth of Rex Ryan, whose managerial style resembles me own with similar results: Five out of nine boarding parties yield untold riches, while the remaining four end in mutiny and a self-destruct sequence.

Des: Drunky McDumbAss. What’s happening in tailgate land?

Drunky: As the first person to be banned from Uber for life in perpetuity throughout the universe, I make the party wherever I am—which sounds like a great slogan for some kind of beer, but it really means that I just barge my loud stench into the first neighborhood party or open house I find as I shamble down the street of whatever neighborhood I was dumped into by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Des: Uh, huh. Do you actually bring anything to a party, other than some previously unknown insect vector, and a stark reminder that not every drunk is Charles Bukowski?

Drunky:  Well, you know how Bud Light has cans with Chicago Bears stuff on it? I bought 53 cans and wrote the names of all 53 Bears players on those cans, and then I would drink a beer whenever that player was on the field. Then at the end of the first quarter, when all the cans are empty, I would re-enact every play with the beer cans. Then when the game’s over, I would make beer can angels on the floor.

Des: That’s an image that’s going to take a while to fade from my mind’s eye. Actually, I think the afterimage is going to be worse. Speaking of Norman Rockwell on black velvet, here’s Ellie Mae McGillicutty.

Ellie Mae: Alannah Myles’s “Black Velvet” is my personal anthem and I would thank you very much for not mocking it.

Des: Sally McChesty. Would’st thou conclude this episode?

Sally: What are you doing, Des, getting ready to introduce some new Renaissance Faire character? To piggyback on the success of “Galavant?” Sit back and watch, sports fans, as the Bears face off in a game that will have five minutes of football and three hours of pointless speculation about when the Rams will move back to Los Angeles.

Bears vs. Chargers: 11-9-2015

Des: Welcome to another edition of the Chicago Bears football pre-game show. The Bears face off against the San Diego Chargers, another team with a mere pair of victories under their belt in a game that is inexplicably still on Monday Night Football instead of being banished to a Sunday 6 a.m. game in eastern Ukraine that is broadcast solely on Pinterest. Will the Bears be able to tear themselves away from the deep, dark truthful mirror that is the Chargers? Or will Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico spend the entire game complaining that the NFL should allow Monday Night Football to participate in “flexible scheduling”?

To answer these and similar questions is our panel of experts: Concord Wainwright Peabody, Captain Silas Charles “Doctor Octopus” Red-beard, Modre- the trans-Western guru, the Prissy Minion, Doctor Sally McChesty, Ellie Mae MacGillicutty, and our correspondent whose favorite bar is nicknamed “The Stench Cauldron”, Drunky McDumbAss.

Sally: Today’s episode occurs in the fabled skyscraper headquarters of the Daily Bugle even though the Bears aren’t playing against a New York team, there’s no Spider-Man movie out as a cross-promotional tie-in, and no newspaper corporation owns buildings anymore. Enjoy.

J Jonah Jameson: Stop the presses! Stop the presses! Heh, heh… I’m just yanking your chains, everybody. We stopped using the printing press a long time ago. What should newspaper publishers say for dramatic effect now? Reboot your server? Update your apps? Activate your serious faced emoticon?

Sally: How about, “put on some clothes and do some investigative journalism away from your laptop at home?” Or how about, “Sorry, everybody, we’ve been bought out by Uber so that they actually have some tangible asset to justify being worth $7 billion dollars? Now all of your jobs have been replaced by some Robo-Reporter algorithm that spews the same five stories with slightly different names to every web site: ‘Republican X says something mean about poor people and immigrants. 30 to 50 people die in a mass shooting in Insert Name of Town. The Bears go through another 60 quarterbacks.’” These stories literally write themselves.

J Jonah Jameson: Parker! Where’s my picture of Spider-man?

Sally: Here’s a fun fact: The “Donald Trump” character on The Apprentice was based on J. Jonah Jameson.

Des: I’d like to see J. Jonah Jameson helm the next Republican debate. Every question would be, “What are you going to do about that masked menace, Spider-Man?”

Sally:  Here’s another fun fact: The printing press was originally invented to mass produce Bibles. Now the Bible is the only thing still printed on paper. And tax forms.

Redbeard: ARRRRRRRRRRRRH, mateys! In case ye’ve forgotten, this be still the “The Captain Redbeard Bears Blog” Me Spider Sense is tingling. That means that the Bears will defeat the Chargers 27-17. And Drunky McDumbAss is about to hit the back of my head with a lead pipe.

Des: In the library with Colonel Mustard.

Ellie Mae McGillicutty: Paper newspapers made for some good toilet paper in the squatting shack. Yesterday, when I was trying to shoplift some toilet paper at the Walmart I work at, it took me forever to find it because it’s now called “Bathroom Tissue.” What Yankee fool came up with that one?

Des: Sit back and watch, sports fans, as the Bears face off in a game that will still draw some viewers, because, really, what’s your alternative? To stare at a blank screen, waiting for Jon Stewart to come back and make sense of a world you wish you had never made?