Ramblings of the Mule, Volume 4

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 J.R. Bergey

It’s been forever since I last published a volume of Ramblings of the Mule. I’ve been working on Volume 4 ever since the Eagles won the Super Bowl a little over a month ago, and now I’ve finally gotten my thoughts together on that life-changing event, along with a few other topics. So while I apologize that some of these ramblings are no longer what you might call current, here they are nonetheless. The Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, Oscars, Laphroaig 18, and more—it’s Ramblings of the Mule, Volume 4!

It’s crazy to think that as recently as July of last year, there was talk about this being the worst period in the history of Philadelphia sports. Now just eight months later, you can make a very strong argument that this is the greatest period in Philly sports history. The Eagles are Super Bowl Champions, the Flyer and 76ers both will almost certainly be in the playoffs, boasting talented young rosters and bright futures, and the Phillies just acquired an All Star pitcher to add to their bevy of young talent. In 2017, there were no playoff games played by any of the four Philly teams. It’s very possible that in 2018, all four teams will play in the playoffs.
If you’re not from Philly, it’s hard to explain what the Eagles winning the Super Bowl means. The city lives and breathes with the Birds. The day after a game, you can tell if the Eagles won or lost simply by the mood of the city. We’ve all been waiting our entire lives to be able to say we are Super Bowl Champions. Now that we can, it’s like a huge burden has been removed from our souls and replaced by sheer ecstasy.
I’m not a person who often shows a lot of emotion. There are very few times in my life when I have cried, especially in public. But as the game ended and the Eagles were Super Bowl Champions, I couldn’t help but break down into massive tears. And it wasn’t the first time during the Birds Super Bowl run—during halftime of the NFC Championship Game against the Vikings, with the Eagles having built a huge lead in the first half, I went into the men’s room at the sports bar in Nashville where I was watching the game and it hit me—I knew at that moment that not only were the Eagles going to the Super Bowl, they were going to win it, and tears of joy started to well up. I hid in the men’s room stall and cried. I’ll never forget that moment.
I’ve said for a long time that the greatest moment I’ve ever experienced was when the Phillies won the World Series in 2008. So did the Eagles winning the Super Bowl beat that moment? Tough to say. They were similar, but different. When the Phillies won, it was pure, unbridled joy. When the Eagles won, it was a more diverse range of emotion. They are both moments that will remain with me for as long as I live.
It’s been well over a month now since the Super Bowl was played, yet I still am not sure that I believe the Eagles actually won. It’s hard to understand a reality where the Birds are Super Bowl Champions. It’s a whole new world. Please don’t wake me up.
Chris Collingsworth got a lot of heat for his terrible announcing during the Super Bowl, and deservedly so. He is truly awful at his job. But overlooked is the fact that Al Michaels was also really bad. I like Al Michaels. He’s had an amazing career and is responsible for perhaps the greatest call in sports history (“do you believe in miracles?”). But it’s time for him to retire. He just doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with an NFL game anymore. His call on the last play of the Super Bowl was just… awful. He didn’t even realize the game was over.
If you want to hear what good NFL announcing sounds like, listen to the Westwood One radio broadcast of the Super Bowl. Kevin Harlan is the best football play-by-play man in the business.
I regularly read all the different NFL team sites on SBNation, including the community commentary. One of the things I’ve seen regularly on the NFC East team pages recently has been dread over how Eagles fans will be “even more insufferable” now that we’ve finally won a Super Bowl. If you are a fan of the Cowboys, Giants, or the Washington Football Team, yeah, we are going to be insufferable, obnoxious, and annoying. In other words, the same way that you’ve acted towards us for the last three decades. You reap what you sow.
I was in Philly for the week of the Super Bowl and was able to attend the championship parade. What an unforgettable day. It was the day I’ve longed for all my life, the day the entire city has craved for decades. And it didn’t disappoint—it was truly the greatest day of my life. Jason Kelce’s speech to cap things off was the best sports speech in the history of sports speeches. If you haven’t already, go watch it (warning: explicit language).
When I manage to acquire a somewhat rare and/or expensive bottle of whiskey, I tend to wait to save opening it for a special occasion. For instance, I always open a nice bottle of scotch on opening day of Major League Baseball, and nurse the bottle for most of the season. Last year it was BenRiach 21 Authenticus. I don’t always do the same for the start of the NFL season, but I did in 2017 by opening my bottle of Four Roses Al Young 50th Anniversary (which I reviewed on YouTube). It was a good choice. I’m still undecided on what I will open for the start of baseball this year, which is only a few weeks away, but I’m leaning towards an independent bottle of Caol Ila.
I had decided going into the NFL playoffs that if the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I would open one of my last two bottles of the now discontinued Laphroaig 18 year old. It was a good choice for a celebratory dram. Laphroaig 18 is a rather different Laphroaig, as much of the distillery’s famous medicinal peat smoke has fallen off with age, leaving a moderately peated, complex, wonderful sipping single malt. I’ll be posting a review of it at some point. If you stumble across a bottle at a reasonable price, I highly recommend it.
Even after they lost the Super Bowl, NBC couldn’t stop talking about Tom Brady and the Patriots. I can’t tell you how many times during the Olympics I heard numerous announcers reference them. News flash NBC: the Patriots lost the Super Bowl. Stop talking about them like they won.
When I’m king of the world, it will be illegal for figure skaters to use the song Hallelujah in their routines.
I’m certainly no figure skating expert, and it’s probably my least favorite Olympic event, but even I could see that Yuzuru Hanyu, the gold medalist from Japan, was far and away the best. His skating is both athletic and artistic—if they all skated that way, I’d enjoy watching it much more.
I strongly believe that there is an alternate universe in which I am a member of the USA Olympic Curling Team.
Between their blatantly biased coverage of the Super Bowl (in the Patriots’ favor) and their flubbed coverage of the Women’s Super-G during the Olympics, it’s obvious that NBC hates underdogs. As I was watching the Super-G, the broadcasters kept saying that only the first 19 skiers could win the gold medal. I wondered how they knew that unless there was some stupid rule that prevented the last dozen or so women from qualifying for gold (not the case). After the 19th skier, they announced the gold medal winner as the woman who was currently in the lead and then cut to figure skating (ugh). Well, what do you know, the 26th skier down the hill (the now famous Ester Ledecka from the Czech Republic) ended up taking the gold, and we missed seeing one of the biggest upsets of the Olympics. Thanks NBC.
There was a local commercial that aired during the Olympics that proved a point that I’ve long made—people who mute their TV during commercials actually bring more attention to the commercial, not less. In the commercial, the woman on screen begins by saying something like “we know you mute your commercials, let me help you with that”—and then the commercial is muted for about 10 seconds. The first time I saw the commercial, the sudden muting of sound immediately made me look up and pay attention. I would have never even noticed the commercial if it weren’t for the clever muting. When you mute a commercial, if forces you to pay attention to it.
The US vs. Canada gold medal women’s hockey game was easily the best event of the Olympics. It sucked not having NHL players in the men’s tournament this time, but even if they were there, the men would have had a hard time topping the women. What an amazing game. It had the same intensity as the Stanley Cup Finals.
I hate the idea of shootouts deciding gold medal hockey games. But holy cow, that was a great shootout. I still would have preferred more overtime hockey instead though.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in a political candidate that I voted for than Nashville Mayor (make that former Nashville Mayor) Megan Berry. Not only did she resign in disgrace after a long period of unethical behavior, she is also now an admitted criminal. This coming from someone who in her previous career worked in corporate ethics. The fact that it took her so long to finally resign—and only after she realized she was actually going to be convicted of a crime—is a joke. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that her administration was much more corrupt than we already know. The whole deal with the site of the old Sounds stadium always reeked of some sort of back alley bribery. She was a bad mayor even before we knew she was a criminal.
Wiseacre Brewery in Memphis is probably the best brewery in Tennessee. Everything they make is good for its style—I’m not sure why they don’t get more recognition. That said, I can think of four or five breweries in the Philadelphia region along that are better than any brewery in Tennessee. By a large amount. And there are many more highly regarded PA breweries that I’ve never tried. Tennessee breweries really need to step up their game.
Every year in the weeks leading up to the Oscars, my local independent theatre, the Belcourt, plays all of the Oscar-nominated short films in each of the three short film categories (animated, documentary, and live-action). It’s my favorite part of Oscar time. This year I saw both the animated and documentary shorts, and most of them were quite good. But I really don’t understand how the Kobe Bryant short won for best animated short. It was by far the worst of the nominees. And that’s not just my opinion, the entire theatre sighed in agony during the (very) short film—the audience reaction was one huge eye roll. It’s really a shame, because there was another film that truly deserved to win—Revolting Rhymes. I thought it was a shoo-in. The only fathomable reason that Kobe’s film won is because the voters are mostly Lakers fans.
The Oscars have become a joke in general. The best films don’t usually win. Sometimes they don’t even get nominated. It’s still shocking to me that Blade Runner 2049 wasn’t even a nominee for best picture. It’s probably the best movie I’ve seen all decade.
For some reason, art critics have always held a weird bias against science fiction. It’s not just the Oscars, but books too. When’s the last time a sci-fi novel won the National Book Award? Ever? Looking through the list of winners, I don’t see a single one.
I love Malcolm Jenkins.