considering nfl team helmet logos

in alphabetical and numerical order

1. buffalo bills
surely one can draw some ironic glee from the buffalo bills helmet logo. the team is named for one, buffalo bill, who received his nickname for being the preeminent buffalo killer of the wild wild west. yet, the team he is named for, contradictorily features a buffalo! this would be analogous to the new york jets having the twin towers on their helmet. to even further complicate matters, buffalo bill has nothing to do with buffalo, new york nor does buffalo, new york have anything to do with buffaloes. in fact, the city is thought to have not even been named for the animal but for the corrupted french phrase beau fleuve which means "beautiful river." also, is that a red spear going through the logo's head or just a design emblematic of movement?

2. cleveland browns
even though the cleveland browns are named for their onetime owner and head coach, paul brown, and not the colour (brown), their logo-less helmet may be better served with brown (the colour) as its primary feature. the franchise has obviously made the colour/name connection with their brown jerseys so why go with the orange helmets? this only draws attention to the unsavory fact that the browns remain the only nfl team sans logo. while i recognize that no two colours better represent a bleak and downtrodden rust belt city like orange and brown, i would humbly suggest that brown and brown double up as the team's primary and secondary colours with orange providing the tertiary hue.

3. green bay packers
not only is the green bay packers' helmet logo the only of the two-worded cities to be represented by just the one letter (for example: san francisco- sf, kansas city - kc, new york-ny, green bay - g), but is also the only design of which has been propagated by an extra-terrestrial based, apocalyptic suicide cult. yes, the infamous heaven's gate cult used the packers famous "g" aesthetic as their own when, in march 1997, their leader, marshall applewhite, and 39 of his acolytes committed mass suicide during the period when the hale-bopp comet was at its brightest. but perhaps the most interesting/spooktacular coincidence(?) is that the green bay packers appeared in and won their first super bowl in thirty years just a few months before the heaven's gate cult took their own lives... and they haven't won one since.

4. miami dolphins
surely, the most egregious helmet logo faux pas is occurring in miami with their dolphins. the dolphins logo features a seemingly innocuous helmet wearing dolphin majestically breaching through a brilliantly blazing ring of fire. however, upon closer inspection, one may realize that the miami dolphins logo is swimming for another team! look at its helmet; it's emblazoned with an orange "m." why isn't this dolphin adorning the same helmet that dan marino, larry csonka or reggie roby proudly wore? what team is this charlatan playing for??? upon our thorough detective work we have found that this dolphin masquerading as the miami dolphin plays for the marlow high mud thumpers of kentucky - a landlocked state, no less!!!

5. new england patriots
with its sideburn(s), powerful chin, pouty lips and kinetic design the new england patriots logo is affectionately known to boston sports fans as "the flying elvis." however, one may (as several have) muse that the long and strong profile may more closely resemble massachusetts' own, john kerry. perhaps kerry, a longtime senator and one time presidential candidate, would provide a more appropriate allusion to the pat's logo as a real life "new england patriot" than elvis, a pelvis shaking southern boy, would.

6. oakland raiders
interestingly enough, the eye-patched and smirking buccaneer of the raiders logo isn't merely a generic face but one that is said to be modeled after longtime hollywood leading man, randolph scott. while scott was mostly known for his work in westerns, it was assuredly his role as the quarrelsome, though cultured pirate, adam mercy, in the motion picture, "captain kidd," that led to his depiction as the raider of the oakland raiders. also worthy of note is the fact that scott was the subject of rumours that paired him in a longtime homosexual relationship with screen legend, cary grant. with that said, please refrain from making any "swabbing the poopdeck," "raising the misen mast" and/or "raiding the booty" bon mots. thank you.

7. pittsburgh steelers
the steelers own the distinction of being the only nfl team to have their logo appear on one side of their helmet. this was not an act of randomness but rather one of first pragmatism and later style where owner, art rooney, did this as a test to see how the logo appeared during games and its popularity led the team to leave it that way permanently. the logo's three "astroids" (red, yellow and blue hypocycloids of four cusps) were originally representative of the phrase "steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure, and widens your world" but were later known to symbolize the ingredients used in the steel-making process: yellow for coal, red for iron ore, and blue for scrap steel. and, contrary to rumours, we did not "steel" this information from the wikipedia. lolz, jk - we, like, totally did.

8. seattle seahawks
when one thinks of american indian inspired helmet logos they usually draw upon either that of the washington redskins or the kansas city chiefs. however, the first logo that comes to our mind is the totem inspired design of the seattle seahawks. sadly, no genre of american art has been more overlooked than that from our native friends of the pacific northwest. while the chiefs chose a logo inspired by death (an arrowhead) and the redskins with their decidedly racist moniker, the seahawks have literally soared above all else in featuring a tribute to their brilliantly painted carvings of story and tradition - bravo, cheers and how!

9. st. louis rams
the honours of the first ever and best ever helmet logo belong to the st. louis (by way of cleveland and by way of los angeles) rams. in an oxymoronic flurry of flamboyant machismo, commercial artist/rams halfback, fred gehrke, first painted horns on his leather helmet all the way back in 1948. thusly, if there is one quadrupedal animal who stands hooves and paws above all others in their football personification representation it is that of a ram and, incidentally enough, the horns on the helmet translate beautifully as well. sure, like most animals, rams can't carry, pass or kick a ball but their ramming, as it were, is beautifully symbolic of the action that occurs on the line of scrimmage during each and every single play. as die-hard 49er fans, we can only hope our dyed-in-the-wool (pun INTENDED) rams fans don't read into this too much and see this moment of blatant objectivity as an opportunity to toot their own horns (pun INTENDED again!!!).

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ba dum POD!!! season 3: episode 3

if i could stop it with this incessant, muttley like giggling after every little thing i say this might've been a half decent pod. seriously, i need to fix this... be that as it may, we welcomed the JUDD monster to our humble studio where we discussed such sundry topics as pubic hair, ghost stories, john wayne and pubic hair (let me link you to the much ballyhooed demi moore bush pics ). we also blew this motha' open with an all new "ba dum POD!!! top-5 list" where we discussed the greatest teen movies of all time - NEAT! we also please ask you, the listener, to weigh in on if my verbal bullying of poor nick JUDD was distatsteful or was my incredulous nature at his slow uptake and lack of podcast chemistry warranted? see, as the pod was being podded, i thought i was being funny and we were kinda doing a bit then, immediatelty after podding commenced, i felt like i was a massive jerk and, after just relistening to the pod, i felt myself getting frustrated with JUDD all over again. how say you? was i the "heavy?" oh, and stay tuned for "producer dave's corrections!!!!"

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ba dum POD!!! season 3: episode 2

the production quality of the pod has reached a new level. producer dave has really come into his own and absolutely shines in the ba dum POD!!! debut of his very own segment, "producer dave's corrections." meanwhile, back on the ranch, we are also proud to welcome back kelly #1 as we pod poetic on such topics as her hives and family vacation to yellowstone. also, we reveal our top-5 tv dramas of all-time and roast some awful facebookers in our very ugly, new segment, "ba dum POD's awful facebook statuses.

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ba dum pod!!! season 3: episode 1

and we're baaaaaaaack!!! wow, more than a month has passed since we podded last... sad face :0( but, the hiatus is over and it's the season three premiere where the official voice of the pod, leeroy mcdizzle, Is our guest for the third straight season premiere and the 37th time overall. in this week's episode, we espouse the values of not putting criminals in prison, suicide and extortion - NEAT! we also premiere two new clearly defined, produced segments where we list the "top 5 gays we wouldn't mind engaging in sexual activities with. and, we answer some lame hypothetical question about going to the moon in lieu of traveling to europe... or something like that. oh, and one correction: the son of sam's name is david berkowitz which i totally knew but just blanked on and he is a star in the prison system for his mentoring work with new inmates and such. and please, don't tune out before (or after) we discuss snagglepuss' salad days and/or we encounter a rare antonymical homophone (really, it's AMAZING!).

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ba dum POD!!! season 2: episode 6

where to begin?!?!? never has so little been said about so much than in our latest pod offering. we had our first female guest of the season - the very single amy martinez and you could cut the sexual tension with a knife... ooh, la and la!!! there are many things to be learned in this pod like why won't amy watch me eat a banana, what part of mexico is el salvador in, how hot is brody jenner, what ethnicity is mark paul gosselar, how did i do with the ladies at the wedding and what hollywood star did i write a love letter to in high school??? so, really... listen, laugh, repeat!

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ba dum POD!!! season 2: episode 5

what a banner pod we just podded with ba dum POD!!! newcomer gregory shull! ENOUGH WITH THE BLOG-UP... it's a good one, trust me - it pods for itself. just know that we all managed to reveal some secrets that neither of us even knew about each other. and, we even had a cameo from the ba dum POD!!! intern. really, peep this ruckus - it was HELLA good :0)

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ba dum POD!!! season 2: episode 4

finally, the long awaited geeeene singletary/houseboats pod is here! in the first half of this week's pod we get to know geeeene, do a little bit of houseboats prognostications. and then, in the second half, i do my best to articulate the craziness that was the hb2k10 weekend. as per usual, my storytelling is horrendous and i'm sure i've missed a few key details. i'm also certain i forgot to mention a few of my fellow houseboaters and i apologize for that. to keep the excuse train rolling forward, i was also dealing with a chest cold/asthma sort of thing in part one so my energy and alacrity was not where it should've been. so, there you have it. oh, and we also share some secrets which proved to be a very dangerous enterprise as loose lips sink houseboats.

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ba dum POD!!! season 2: episode 3

does anybody actually read these blog-ups or do you just go straight to the pod? either way, here it be!!! we had our first, first-time guest of the season - my pal and colleague, jon. we podded A LOT about "lost" and a little about the lakers and kobe bean bryant. however, there's also plenty of non-"lost" stuff to pique your interests and, even non-losties should be able to appreciate the nitty gritty of it all. so, please... sit back, relax and remember that ba dum POD!!! resides at the intersection of entertainment and boredom.

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ba dum POD!!! season 2: episode 2

wow, this pod was electric!!! we had a liquored up "don't call me young" jarrod as our guest, some in-depth basketball talk, the debut of america's new favourite pod segment: "ba dum POD!!! secrets" and i even got called a "racist"... NEAT!!! i'm actually blogging this blog-up before i've had a chance to re-listen to the pod so i don't really know if all this is true but you people don't read this crap anyway, right? this also might be our slickest podcast yet in terms of production with all the work producer dave did in post. at least i think so... again, i haven't listened yet. why don't you listen and tell me? alright, i just listened to the first 10 minutes and i already interrupted jarrod's drake jag.... what i think he was getting to was how drake doesn't even have an album but still has a sprite video. oh, and i was wrong about brandon and his dad on 90210... james eckhouse was 14-years-older than jason priestly as opposed to the "five or ten" year difference.

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ba dum POD!!! season 2: episode 1

malcolm gladwell's "outliers" taught us that the best of the best all got there by spending at least 10,000 hours doing that one thing they are now the best at. i don't need to be the best podcaster or even good but i'd like to at least be satisfactory, which i'm not. i've now podded twelve hours worth of pods and am still no better than i was during pod one. why can't i just be good from the get go? producer dave was a good producer from the get go (except for that one snafu during this week's pod). i bet i'd be a great guest... i really do. it's funny how that works because martin short was one of the best guests there ever was on the late night circuit but then they give him his own talk show thinking that woukd translate and he was terrible. however, richard dawson was a stand-out panelist on the "match game" so they gave him "the family feud" and he was gangbusters! so, i really don't know what i'm saying... just listen to the pod with friend of the pod, lee (last name witheld because we talk about naughty things).

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blog watch

for the most part, i believe wristwatches have become a bit superfluous. we all have cell phones, right? and, i can't rightly think of one thing a wristwatch can do that a cell phone can't. conversely, look at the many things a cell phone can do that wristwatches can't even dream of doing. there's no need to litanize but, if you did, wristwatches come out a pretty silly and antiquated trinket by comparison. tangentially, this is especially noteworthy considering how bass-ackwards prescient chester gould was when he created dick tracy's two-way wrist radio. anyway, the only thing i can figure is that wristwatches provide douchebags a vehicle at which to promote their status, wealth and/or fashion. in fact, i'd venture to say that wristwatch wearers have a 73% higher chance at being a jerk than non wristwatch wearers. just watch (pun INTENDED), next time (even STILL, intended) you're out and about check out the dudes wearing timepieces and ask yourself if they look like they're more interested in punctuality or using every square inch of their being to cover themselves with look-at-me accoutrements. come to think of it, the whole cell phone enlightenment might really benefit the male bracelet market. hey fellas, why not trade in your rolex for a no-nonsense, diamond embossed bracelet? actually, when i occasionally patronize la-cool-dude-bars, i've noticed that the wristwatch and bracelet have sort of merged into this gaudy amalgamation of a watch face that is matter-of-factly connected to either a thick, leather strap (watch-belt) or necktie fabric (watch-tie). LOOK, it's almost as if the belt/tie is trying to swallow the watch face! neat, huh?

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problogateur

when offered a provocative or loaded statement, most people choose to be offended because it's the easier row to hoe than actual comprehension. taking offense is crude, emotional and reactionary while comprehension requires thought and brainpower. however, in this perverted reality we inhabit, the provocateur who dares so much as to elicit thought is maligned and seen as the crude one or the heel while the delicate flower that is the offended party is pandered to and lauded as heroic for standing up to said evil, offending rabble-rouser. are there offensive statements/people? absolutely. yet, 87% of people who find themselves offended are just too dumb, lazy, uncomfortable and/or scared to expand their ever so myopic horizons. please, consider the tale of jimmy the greek. mr. the greek was a wildly popular television personality and gambler extraordinaire who was fired from his twelve-year position as contributor to "the nfl today" on cbs in 1988 for making racially charged statements when a television reporter asked for his thoughts on civil rights in pro sports while he was eating dinner (on dr.mlk.jr's bday no less). an unprepared and obviously overserved jimmy the greek mused that:

"whites were holding on to coaching jobs because, with blacks dominating the playing fields, management was the only role left for them."

then, he dared to hypothesize and delve further into why exactly the vast majority of the nfl is black:

"the black is a better athlete to begin with. he practices to be the better athlete and he's been bred to be that way - because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. this goes back all the way to the civil war when during the slave trading, the owner — the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid."

the greek would offer a full apology later that same day but it was already too late. multiple groups called for his ouster and cbs obliged. now, on the surface, what the greek said sounds awful and ludicrous but only because that's the way we've been conditioned to feel and not think. and, admittedly so, it wasn't the most articulate or eloquently put theory either (but, is it so awful see a group of people dominating a particular field and not ask "why?"). however, this is a prime example of why people choose the emotional response of offense in lieu of the thoughtful response of comprehension when offered a provocative statement - it's easier. neither blacks or whites want to be reminded of slavery nor do they want to acknowledge the parallels professional sports draws to slavery where white owners are profiting from the physical endeavors of blacks. even still, we have the harder-to-swallow (albeit, morbidly ironic) thought that african american's success in athletics may be a result of slavery. no one wants to think of that but shouldn't our first instinct be to have the intellectual curiosity to at least attempt to arrive at a biologically/sociologically endpoint to either prove or disprove this? as a lay blogger, it doesn't seem so far-fetched to me that the horrors and evils of slavery may have contributed to blacks' athletic success in america. is this the case? i dunno. and, we never will know if we all don't get past the emotional immaturity of taking offense when there is some actual knowledge and answers to be gained. in short, let us quench our thirst for knowledge, not our thirst for blood.

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blog movements

one would think that target's customer restrooms would utilize some of the high quality toilet paper product of which can be found on their very own store shelves for purchase. as i would find out, this assumption was WRONG!!! see, i must preface this with the fact that i suffer from self-diagnosed "bowel anxiety disorder" (bad). this is where my own anxiety at being away from home and a proper toilet wills my bowel movements (bms) into action - ie, i only need to bm when it is inconvenient to do so. for example, on my recent road trip from los angeles to san francisco, i had to make frequent stops at various fast food establishments and fill-up stations just to ease my bad when, in actuality, i probably didn't even really need to go - this included a very special secret bm where i had to squat behind a bush in a field juxtaposed to the 280 freeway. but, i digress... would you believe that target's customer restrooms are using that super thin, scratchy and papery toilet paper that they wouldn't even dare try to sell in a million years?!?! how can a store that peddles wares employ a lower grade ware than they are otherwise peddling? this would be analogous to a sherwin williams store painting their walls and exterior with crayola finger paints or chevron tanker trucks running on rotten robbie gasoline. on a positive note, let's hope i can be as courageous and influential for bowel anxiety disorder as rob reiner has been to groats.

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editor's note: we are experimenting with the idea of posting more blogs with less content in lieu of less blogs with more content.

things ba dum BLOGger can't/won't do part 1

as a youth, when faced with a difficult challenge that i saw as insurmountable, my dad would invariably say "can't means won't." and, i didn't... hence this blog i'm blogging. see, i'm incredibly stubborn, terribly lazy and a super fantastic, #1 quitter. so here's a list of all the things i can't/won't do for reasons and/or excuses ranging from too hard, not interested, too boring, too lame, too much work, not enough time, etc. oh, and for the sake of clarity: "can't" means unable to, while "won't" means the refusal to.


1. can't light a match/lighter: i've tried both to mixed/unsatisfactory results. as far as matches go, i just don't get how the unsturdiness of the flimsy wooden stick can withstand the strike against the phosphorous stuff. i've tried and i always break the match. as luck would have it, i have nary a use for a match anyway. i'm a straight dude, so i don't like candles. i don't share a bathroom, so i can let my stench linger. i'm a jehova's witness, so i don't celebrate birthdays. and, so on... then, there's lighters. during my ever so fleeting social pot usage phase, i could never light the pipe and/or bong and/or joint without practically burning my thumb off. i just couldn't work out the angles. i think this is one of the main reasons why i never really got into the marijuana; i just couldn't negotiate the paraphernalia.

2. won't play poker: i grew up playing card games like old maid, go fish, rummy, crazy eights, uno, solitaire and war. and now, as an adult, i can spend hours on end playing blackjack in casinos. so, why no poker? i think i was just such a late adapter i always saw the learning curve as too steep and i don't wanna be "that guy" who doesn't know what he's doing and holding up the game for everyone else. see, i'm just an inherently selfless dude. besides, those shade wearing, stoic poker guys on tv seem like the lamest, no-fun-party-guys EVER. there couldn't be less charismatic, less compelling ambassadors for their "sport." poker??? i just met her!!!

3. can't swim: this is maybe the one thing i can see myself learning sometime soon. i really want to be able to swim, i really do but i just never learned and have been relegated to laying out at pool parties and manning the chum bucket while on boats. however, i do occasionally jump in the wayer and treat everyone to my patented sidewinding, super splishy-splashy, doggie-paddle. i don't know what happened - i took swimming lessons as a kid but i guess it just never took. i think i had trouble figuring out how to dunk my head underwater without the water going up my nose. even as i blog this blog, i can't rightly wrap my head around how this is done. can a 27-year-old balding guys even take swimming lessons???

4. won't drive a stick shift: i bet i could learn how after a day of strenuous tutelage but why bother? i'm not a car dude AT ALL and hate driving as it is so i don't see why i'd want to extend any more superfluous attention towards driving than i need to. i remember when i was 15 and all the talk around the house was about me getting a car and my dad suggested the economic value of a stick shift and my mom said "no son of mine is driving a stick shift!" go, mom! just look at it this way: who would ever choose "manual" over "automatic" as an option for anything. it's just inefficient. besides, how would you text, hold hands with your gf/bf, eat and/or jo if you had to worry about shifting your stick all the time?

5 can't type: can you believe a blogger of my caliber only uses two fingers to type? crazy, huh? i somehow slipped through the cracks of 12 years of catholic school without ever learning to type. i don't even think it was ever really required of me. i remember at some point my parents bought me the "mavis beacon teaches typing" game for the computer but it was just too hard and i gave up. and i've logged TONS of hours typing too. i mean, i'm like a blogger! whenever people would ask me about it i'd usually just lie and tell them i broke my arm during typing class. then, i ended up taking a typing test for some city library job i applied to and found out i can type 45 words per minute while only using two fingers. now i don't have to lie because i'm like a typing champion and i have the certificate from the city of salinas to prove it.

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editor's note: ba dum BLOGger says this is "part one" of two because he has oodles more things he can't/won't do but, as it turns out, he now says he can't/won't do a part two.