November 30, 2007
Considering all of the potential exposés that it could have chosen to break – like once and for all bringing those blasted all-nude RV and boat shows into the open – it seems strange that the New York Times would instead choose to shake the earth by revealing that men who attend NFL games like to get drunk and hoot at women. That same conclusion, no doubt drawn before the reporter strapped on his visor and went to work, could have been borne out with far less effort by just popping over to the house of any Sunday football loving Joe Lunchbox with a case of beer and a copy of Lusty Luanne’s Lunar Calendar 2007/2008 in tow.
A Times reporter did go to a New York Jets game a little over a week ago and when it came to half-time and most of the crowd had gathered on the pedestrian ramps of Giants Stadium’s Gate D, cruelly ignoring the lifetime achievement award or some-such being given to one “Curtis Martin”, he went to see what all the fuss was about. He found hundreds of men gathered on the ramps, whooping it up and looking not unlike rows of lifers out of a prison movie lustily welcoming the weak-looking thin guy who has just sauntered into their lives.
The Times reporter catalogued the jeering bunch’s requests that each passing woman oblige the crowd by giving them a gander at her Mardi Gras finest, which, to the hooting delight of the hordes, some did. One such obliging lassie managed to take the starch out of this “exposé” somewhat when she told the Times reporter, “I don’t care… I love my body and I like what I have, so let everybody share it.”
The President of the New Jersey Senate, Richard J. Codey, showing that he keeps in touch with the needs of his people, in that he reads the New York Times and circles anything apropos, was quick to promise action and heap condemnation on the unruly goings-on at Jets games, even throwing out a witticism that media outlets could repeat until their audiences vomited in unison: “It seems like for some Jet fans, that Gate D stands for drunk and disgusting.”
Well, according to this more recent column, the party over at “Gate Drunk and Disgusting” has quieted down of late, with more than 50 security guards in yellow jackets and 25 state troopers assigned there and no arrests made during the Jets last home game.
And while we would never condone the use of verbal pressure and liquor to convince a woman to bear her breasts outside of the state of Louisiana and/or a Girls Gone Wild video, we are saddened to think that these new security precautions may also mean the end of another Jets half-time tradition “Da Money”. In this far funnier ritual, those on the upper level of Gate D throw dollar bills down to ground level. Sooner or later someone passes by, spots the cash and goes to pick it up – but before the little money grubber can thank his stars for this unexpected good fortune, a shower of beer and garbage, as well as taunts and verbal abuse, reigns down on him from above. Now that is the kind of sport we could enjoy.
