Uday Think Gonna Beat Them Bengals?

I watched yesterday's games with a handful of Bengals fans (including my friend Chris Knight of This Charming Fan), which means that there was a lot of shared empathy going around at 4 p.m. Thankfully, by seven o'clock, Roethlisberger had thrown four picks on the way to a Steelers loss against the Raiders, which buoyed our spirits nicely.

If I had to pick a silver lining to the cloud of shittiness that is Comcast's Sunday Ticket-less stranglehold on NYC, I'd say that it's watching the games in bars. Spending my Sundays sharing my grief or joy in a social environment -- as opposed to the cocoon of misery when I watch the Seahawks by myself -- is about the only worthwhile aspect to this shitty, shitty monopoly comprised of shitty shit shittiness.

Yesterday's venue was The Turkey's Nest, a humble but relatively clean dive across the street from McCarran Park, which straddles the hipster Mecca of Williamsburg and the quiet, Polish neighborhood of Greenpoint. One o'clock was a little bit early after last night's Halloween festivities----but we managed to get to the Nest having missed only half of the first quarter. Even though I was hung over and starving, I took advantage of the drink special: 32-ounce Coors Light (official beer of the NFL!), served in a styrofoam cup.

The crowd:

- The Turkey's Nest softball team. This was a bunch of guys who were all about five-eight, 210 pounds. They carried a lot of gristle on their frames, spoke at least 30 decibels louder than necessary, and addressed each other as "ya fahckin' BASTID." I kind of liked them.

- Hipster Eagles fans. Understand one thing: caring about anything, especially something as masculine as sports, is terrible for hipster cred, but I give these guys props. They were wearing not jerseys, but threadbare vintage Eagles T-shirts that were a solid 15-20 years old. When you can stay true to both your team AND your urban fashion sensibilities, I salute you.

- Assorted drunks/barflies. There were some old guys nursing glasses of whiskey at the bar. If they had seats at the bar, that means they arrived before 1 p.m. in order to drink hard liquor, straight up. Yikes. I may be a drunk, but those guys have a problem.

- One (1) Hasidic Jew. I'd joke that he was cheering for Sage Rosenfels, but c'mon: Sage Rosenfels doesn't cheer for Sage Rosenfels.


- Hipster Chiefs fans. These anorexic, unshaven excuses for men showed up halfway through the third quarter in their 28-inch-waist skinny jeans and would do this aspirate "Chiefs!" cheer that sounded like a sneeze. They were even too cowardly to taunt me after the Seahawks lost. Bitches.

- Three (3) women: a Bengals fan whose boyfriend looked like Fred Savage with a white trash-'stache, a hipster Eagles fan (old-school Eagles sweatshirt) with a femme-mullet, and a blonde Bears fan with hypnotic sandbags. She made me want to go bubbadibubbadibubbaduh.

In conclusion, I will give $5000 to the first person to go back in time and murder John Mellencamp before he can record that Chevy song. Also, Larry Johnson is a son of a bitch.