The NFL has always been completely embarrassing and loathsome, but it’s now also lost almost all of its capacity to entertain; in the quest to make sure that every adult male between 21 and 45 knows exactly what he needs to buy, the NFL has colluded with advertisers to make sure that nothing but aggressive marketing and boring, overly complicated simulated ass-kicking goes on during the average NFL game. Apparently, this has led even people who are foolish enough to be into the NFL to dub it the “No Fun League.” I don’t know shit about sports, but I’ll tell you what: you won’t see anything as awesome as this coming out of today’s NFL:
Nah, we don’t want to do anything cool or funny like that; let’s get another interview with Tom Brady about his boring-ass baby or his haircut or something. Plthhhh.
When I was a kid, the ONLY thing that made the many NFL games I had to sit through even remotely endurable was the touchdown celebrations, and apparently even those aren’t allowed now. I mean, who the fuck wants to sit through a football game without the chance of seeing someone try to moonwalk in cleats? The only moment I remember out of the countless hours of NFL I suffered through as a child is the Ickey Shuffle. Without that, it’s nothing but crunching sounds and commercials aimed at guys who get excited about sampling seasonal varieties of Samuel Adams. SNORE.
But enough about that. Let’s get to the point here: I hate sports, but the absurd social trends that sports begat in the 80s might be one of my favorite sources of entertainment. Chief among those trends was the wave of sport-themed polo-shirt-and-sunglass-rope rock singles released in the mid-80s. In case you need a refresher, here are two killer examples (sorry, but I couldn’t find the original video for the first one because whoever owns the rights is a weenie):
And let us not forget that Huey Lewis and the News put out an entire album in 1983 that was called Sports (by far their best work, my son).
But without a doubt, the best jock-rock song of the era was Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life,” because the video not only featured the band wearing sporty terry-cloth headband/wristband sets and sneakers with their Sinbad-approved sports coats and permed thinning hair, but it also celebrated the greatest sports-related social trend of the 80s: sports bloopers! Check it out:
Ack!!! I can’t even handle how awesome that video is. There are seriously about 75 people on stage, and they’re all doing something incredibly cool. The drummer looks like he’s in a drum-kit contest with Neil Peart, they have a dude who’s there to do nothing but play the tambo and do the Molly Ringwald, the guy with the acoustic guitar is wearing one of Stephen Tyler’s microphone scarves on his head and is barefoot, and there are two keyboard players, one playing it cool in a Johnny Cash shirt and the other making sure everyone knows from his stage moves and his bolo tie that he drives a convertible and wears red underwear. And check out how stoked the band is to be playing the song! They even get together several times in the center of the stage and look at each other as if to say, “Goddamn, man, touchdown! Rock and fuckin’ roll!”
In addition to the absolutely stellar dancing exhibited by the band, I love this video because sports bloopers are just so funny! Seriously, what’s more hilarious than watching a guy drop a football? Fucking nothing, dude. Expect a post dedicated the 80s sports blooper craze real soon.
