Hot Takes Tuesday with {Jack O’Shea}: Tony Romo and John Oliver Walk into a Bar—the 40 oz Story

Hot Takes for Tuesday April 11, 2017

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1. Tony Romo is the definition of mediocrity.

For those of you who don’t follow the NFL, Tony Romo and his logoless blue hat have been one of the biggest stories of the past 8 months, when he lost his starting spot to rookie Dak Prescott.

I don’t think I hate anything as much as I hate this stupid hat.

Until a preseason injury brought Dak into the limelight, Romo had been the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys since 2006—the same year that Justin Timberlake brought sexyback.

Back in 2006, Romo leapfrogged the poorly performing Drew Bledsoe and held the starting QB spot for more than a decade, which I found a little suspicious. After all, the last person to replace Drew Bledsoe was the out-of-shape redass we now know as Tom Brady. And while Tom Brady certainly sucks off the field, he is undeniably an above average football player.

Am I implying that Jerry Jones specifically signed Drew Bledsoe with the intention of having him lose his starting spot to an unknown young player? Do I think he was, for lack of a better term, raising Bledsoe like a pig for slaughter? Yes. That’s exactly what I think.

Jerry Jones was essentially a guy who let a spider bite him, because he saw how well it worked for Peter Parker.

This is why it seriously baffles me when I listen to NFL analysts describe Romo as the potential missing piece for some of the league’s good-not-great teams. Since when has Romo ever been a game changer? At best, he’s a placeholder.

And not a very good placeholder for that matter….

Regardless, Tony Romo spent the last 10 years as the personification of mediocrity. In his entire career, he won just two playoff games, and the highlight of his career was dating Jessica Simpson. He’s basically the poor man’s Nick Lachey, with a much less interesting voice.

Which is actually kind of a compliment.

Unfortunately, Romo has signed on with CBS, so we’re going to have to listen to this human-sized scoop of vanilla ice cream give his two cents every fall for the next 30 years.

I’ve never been to Tony Romo’s house (although I’ve been invited dozens of times), but I can only imagine his trophy room is just plastered with 4th place ribbons and happy birthday cards. Romo’s career is, in essence, just one large participation trophy. He wasn’t very good, but he also wasn’t very bad.

Take Temperature:

7/10 – Toasty to the touch.

2. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is not aging very well.

I was a big fan of Last Week Tonight when it first premiered on HBO in 2014. It was basically just a spinoff of The Daily Show, except it was better because John Oliver was the host, and while I think Oliver is funny, the main reason I like him is because British accents make me giggle.

I bet he drinks sooooooo much tea.

Over the past couple of years, however, I’m finding it difficult to even put Last Week Tonight on in the background while I fold my laundry. Why? Because the whole show has become about as predictable as a cockfight in which one of the roosters is actually a rottweiler.

Like so many before him, John Oliver has become a late night host sucked into the hyperbolic world of clickbait. He doesn’t “criticize” Trump, he “destroys” Trump. He doesn’t “call out” Wall Street, he “annihilates” Wall Street. And whoever is running Oliver’s marketing has seemingly realized that they get more eyeballs by “obliterating” [insert topic here] than just “condemning” [insert topic here].

I find this annoying, but I can’t really blame Oliver or his marketing team for simply trying to do their jobs well. My problem with Last Week Tonight is that they don’t actually “obliterate” anything. They stick to the same exact format for EVERY SINGLE segment.

1. Introduce the topic, and then describe it with a witty analogy.

REAL EXAMPLE: “Marijuana… basically catnip for people.”

2. Summarize what the general public already knows about the topic, and then describe that summary with another quirky analogy.

REAL EXAMPLE: “Marijuana is something we’ve all just gradually decided is OK, like Mark Wahlberg as a serious actor.”

3. Discuss something about the topic that most people don’t actually know, and toss on another quirky analogy.

REAL EXAMPLE: “Those pro-marijuana laws were passed on the same night Trump was elected. It’s like celebrating your baseball team winning on the sinking deck of the Titanic.

4. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Again, I don’t hate this show. Compared to how much I hate Tony Romo’s stupid hat, you would think I’d want to marry this show. I just don’t like Last Week Tonight as much as I once did. It’s like rewatching the Air Bud sequels—Seventh Inning Fetch and World Pup are great the first four times, but then they just get stale.

And for those of you thinking, “Jack, you do literally the exact same quirky analogy thing as John Oliver,” well… you got me there.

Take Temperature:

5/10 — We may want to consider turning the AC on.

3. 40 ounces are the future of America.

In the wide world of alcohol, the only brands that get a worse rap than the “forty” are Smirnoff Ice and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Which I also don’t really understand, because both of those drinks are inarguably delicious. I mean, there’s a reason why they’re the unofficial soft drink of Little League coaches everywhere.

Most people consider the 40 ounce tacky and low quality, a popular opinion that likely stems from the fact that most people haven’t had a forty since either that party in high school when Taylor’s parents went to the Cayman Islands for the weekend, or that time in college when you and your friends duct taped the drinks to your hands because… why the fuck not.

On another note, did anyone else think it was spelled “duck tape?”

But the forty is extremely underrated, and the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

Pros:

1. They cost like 2 bucks.
2. They’re stronger than a beer.
3. You get like five times as much liquid as a beer.
4. You can play that one Sublime song while you drink it and feel chill af.
5. If you leave the brown bag over it, you feel like you’re in N.W.A.

Cons:

1. Literally none.

The thing is, I know I’m not the only person in the world who feels this way about the forty. I’m just one of the few who is both confident AND bored enough to come out of the closet as a 40 ounce lover. I hope you all will join me in bringing our passion for cheap malt liquor out of the shadows.

This one goes out to Toby Keith and his delightfully filling boneless chicken wings.

Take Temperature:

10/10 — Hot as Limp Bizkit’s inevitable comeback mixtape.

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