Beer and football X: Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve

Week one
The game: Steelers at Patriots
The beer: Four Quarters Blackboard Jungle Imperial Tropical Stout
The result: Win, 33–3; Cowboys win, 35–17

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Week two
The game: Patriots at Dolphins
The beer: Rapscallion Red Ale
The result: Win, 43–0; Ravens win, 23 –17

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Week three
The game: Jets at Patriots
The beer: Cisco 182.5 India Pale Ale
The result: Win, 30–14

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Week four
The game: Patriots at Bills
The beer: Mohan Meakin (Original) Lion Lager
The result: Win, 16–10; Rams/Jarrod lose, 55–40

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Week five
The game: Patriots at Redskins
The beer: Radiant Pig Save the Robots India Pale Ale
The result: Win, 33–7

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Week six
The game: Giants at Patriots
The beer: Night Shift Phone Home Peanut Butter Porter
The result: Win, 35–14

The commentary: I have my tricks. The other day I decided, in true busybody fashion, to split my engorged reading diary—thanks, Bridget!—into multiple parts: 2017, 2018, 2019, etc. Why? I don't know. To make updates easier for my reader (!) to follow? To invite others to join Michael Irvin and Tom Bombadil in that bar? To write anything, anything at all? That's it! Open the gates!

Why? Because my planned monthly assault on season X is now two weeks overdue. Motivation and artistry stand no chance against belabored quick sizzle and, therefore, we all lose. Paging Peter King! Rick Reilly! Bill Simmons!

Banner check: XXXVI/XXXVII/XXXIX/XLIX/LI/LIII. Right on.

Good god almighty, we have a defense. It only took fifteen years and countless busted first- and second-round picks. We're weeks into a historic performance so far but, you know, weeks into the season itself. Let's settle down with what kind of nickname we should apply to Hightower, Gilmore, Van Noy, Collins and friends until we play a worthy offense. There aren't any, you say? In that case I like "Red, White and Bruise" if it weren't already claimed by some roller-derby clan. Patriots Unfiltered's proposed/repeated "Boston D Party" and "The Fog" are alright but not nearly as good as the discussions around them. "Did you ever drive in the fog? It's scary!" D-Train Deuce "Sexual Dussault" and "Notorious MOB" are excellent additions—Andy Hart's tired act finally got him hired elsewhere—but anything would work with Fred and Paul in charge. I could do with less Pat from Agawam, Todd from Toronto and other callers who think listeners can't wait for their hot takes and score predictions but I take solace in Fred's itchy trigger finger lately. And "Nick Baby Love"? And "Nick Baby Love"! The caller I love to hate. "How long we goin' here?" Indeed. Under the radar, though, is Rob "Hardy" Poole's return to the pre- and postgame shows. He quickly supplanted Rich Keefe as my favorite host and even has a show on Lithium that I've never heard. It airs from twelve to six on Sunday afternoons. But… the pregame show… the postgame show… is Sirius XM not live radio?? Artist royalty fees well spent!

On Redskins Sunday, G. and I met Papa at Gillete Stadium to make up for missing training camp in the Summer. The plan was to grab a table at the CBS Sporting Scene, home of Crazy Eyes Burton, and settle in to watch a good chunk of the game. We weren't alone though, and the hostess's honesty about it being unlikely that a table would free up before the end of the game meant it was back to the reliable Red Robin across the way. It was dead quiet and G. got her ballon so we were all set, though a lack of a twenty-five-foot screen meant that watching the game wasn't much of an option. Hey, I have an idea. After eating, let's go into the lounge area so we can watch the game while G. doodles on one of those chalkboards for a bit. What's that you say, iron-willed Red Robin bartender? Children aren't allowed in the room, even at a high-top table twenty feet from the liquor? Fine! We'll take our money to the pro shop (new-Winter-hat photos to come in December) and the Hall at Patriot Place, Presented by Raytheon!

In other team (old) news, here are some leftover observations from the LIII editions of Mic'd Up, America's Team Game and Do Your Job (Part III):

Part of Josh McDaniels's deal to screw over the Colts organization was clearly to be more involved in post-championship retrospective programming. He's practically framed as a co-head coach, emboldening those who swear he is guaranteed to succeed Belichick upon the latter's retirement. Good luck cracking five hundred with Brady's successor, Josh.

I loved the 2005 sequence after McDaniels becomes de facto offensive coordinator, as Belichick shares wisdom with him, rookie Matt "Fourteen-Year Career, Suckers" Cassel and a (presumably) camp-body quarterback: "You're better off, in this situation where you're down by a touchdown, having less time and more timeouts than more time and fewer timeouts." Sure, the clock-management lesson is valuable, but give me correct "less"/"fewer" usage every time.

Hilarious America's Game screenshot alert! Amid assumptions that an inevitable Chargers victory will bring an end to the Pats dynasty, someone named Rob Parker sees controversy and raises humiliation: "Take a look at Tom Brady. He won't play as well as he has in the past. Everyone is living off the past and sometimes, you know what? The past strikes out." This—football?—hot take is brought to you by Cornball Brothers and the NFL Network. Look for Rob to graduate to polling analytics next November.

Belichick's postgame locker-room speech: "Don't believe all the other shit out there about how bad we are and how bad we suck and all that. Alright? How old we are. Just… keep doin' what we're doin'."

We're onto Kansas City. Radio color man Scott Zolak, following the Pats' opening scoring drive: "That is a big boy-drive." Not "big-boy drive"—the pause clearly comes between "big" and "boy" and, since the man is a model of coherence, his confessed arousal over this "boy-drive" should be applauded.

It's a shame that Pats–Chiefs wasn't the Super Bowl matchup. What a game. Both of them. Ahead of overtime, Slater (who scored his first-ever touchdown three weeks ago) ends it with a confident "We want the ball!" I've heard that before! So has McDaniels and—more importantly in this context—NFL Films editors, who cut to Do Your Job (Part II), which aired in LI's wake.

Sean McVay's cordial ass-kissing before the big game is difficult to watch. "You always do [a great job]… you're the best, man." Belichick cares more about the hole in the roof—that gets an excellent deep dive and Belichick obviously remains peeved about it months later.

McDaniels to Edelman and Hogan on the sideline before Michel's touchdown: "You guys be ready to go." Edelman, without affectation for the first time in his life: "Run it in."

"Intercept it! Right there! Yes!" Is this all greatness requires? Sign up any stiff in any bar.

Expanding upon my belated recap last month, here's the full exchange ahead of Gostkowski's game-sealing kick. Brady: "Why don't we just kick the field goal? It's a forty-yarder." Belichick [to someone off camera, probably Joe Judge]: "You good on the field goal?" Probably Joe Judge: "Yeah! We'll get the field goal!" Brady [exasperated]: "Forty-yarder, game's over." Belichick: "Yeah. Alright. Let's go. Field goal."

Devin McCourty, whose current edition of "Free Free Safety Advice" instructs viewers to "Just stand there and they'll throw it right to you," gave my man Brandin Cooks some postgame love as the confetti fell. Touching moment—it is just a game but despondency is despondency. And, unfortunately, Cooks's drop in a big spot—a sure touchdown even with Jason McCourty's heroics—is kind of what you get with him. It sucks to lose two in a row.

Belichick, first to Flowers and then (I think) Harmon: "Three points. Three points."

Slater, already one to measure his words ("Well…") at the age of six, was genuinely proud of Edelman's performance—"M-V-P!"—and tousled the man's hair the way you would to any scrappy, douchey, humorless underdog.

The best sequence of all might be Belichick and Gronk at the foot of the stairs, laughing it up and basically passing "You're the best," "No, you're the best!" back and forth. Gronk is the opposite of a scrappy, douchey, humorless underdog and I miss him like hell.

Edleman hoists Belichick's granddaughter onto the platform and looks to hand her off. "Grampa! Er, Coach!"

Brady during the trophy presentation, close to being one-upped by his daughter but making sure the (essentially) home crowd stays with him: "I think we might have a parade on Tuesday or something like that."

His daughter, full of joy and wonder: "Daddy, look!" "Jules, are you happy??" I don't think she blinked throughout the ceremony.

Radio play-by-play automaton Bob Socci: "Yes, it's still a dynasty." Snore. Zolak, still sounding virile in his refractory period: "They're still here, and I don't think they're done." The cover of the last-ever issue of Patriots Football Weekly, making the rounds on the field: "VIctory." Fred Kirsch for the win.

Beer-related ephemera:

Blackboard Jungle Imperial Tropical Stout: twelve percent alcohol by volume.

G., too easily swayed by NFL advertising partners and, therefore, upset about the Dale's I drank while watering the yard one September afternoon: "But Bud Light is the greatest beer ever!"

The "Original" Lion Lager, tolerated at an Indian restaurant in Newburyport, is not superior enough to be distinguished from a presumed glut of "Derivative" Lion Lagers.

October 19 text message to A. upon spotting the ET-themed "Phone Home" at Trader Joe's: "This checks SO many boxes." Greatest movie ever, greatest flavor ever, greatest beer style ever and a purple-and-orange palette? Gimme a break. I await Spielberg's direct-to-Netflix sequel in, say, nine years.

Oh, that's root beer pictured above. I'm not a monster.

Other:

'Twould be a shame—a shame—to put forth such an effort—such an effort—at rearranging my book post without providing capsule reviews of the two recent club selections. Georgia Hunter's We Were the Lucky Ones, to be discussed at work in a few weeks, was delayed from last December because no one could find a copy anywhere. Do you know what kinds of books you can't find copies of anywhere? Feel-good World War II books, that's what. We Were the Lucky Ones: it's right there in the title! Hunter seems to have based it so closely on her family's history that the non-nonfiction direction is confusing. I guess it excuses the shallow characters who all sort of blend into one another aside from Mila (plus Felicia), Halina and (later on) Genek without, you know, slagging off her ancestors. The titular luck is stranger and more preposterous than fiction as presented cliffhangers are resolved in asides—most of the drama is therefore sapped. Odd. At least it was a fast read, in that I tend to read meh books more quickly than anything else in order to be done with them.

Beautiful Boy, an actual nonfiction memoir, is a must-read for parents looking to feel superior. Would you let your grade-school son stumble upon you in bed with random women immediately following your divorce? David Sheff did. Would you smoke pot with your teenage son in order to, I don't know, demonstrate its non-gateway nature? David Sheff did. Would you publish a heavily padded three-hundred-page book while—within days—your adult son releases its companion piece, ensuring that consumers have to read (buy) both in order to fully understand the exploitable tragic story? Would your ex-wife be a non-character in your own book, meaning she'll probably cash in herself before long? And would Steve Carell play you in the movie? Etc. (Are you one cynical motherfucker? I am.)

Dare I rank the lot of them so far? I do dare! And I shall mark my contributions with an asterisk!

1. Rachel Joyce – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
2. David McCullough – The Wright Brothers
3. Jon Krakauer – Into Thin Air
4. Carl Bernstein/Bob Woodward – All the President's Men*
5. Angela Flournoy – The Turner House
6. Matthew Dicks – Something Missing*
7. Erik Larson – Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania*
8. Charlotte Gordon – Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley
9. Elizabeth Strout – Anything Is Possible
10. Katy Tur – Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History
11. Diane Ackerman – The Zookeeper's Wife
12. William Landay – Defending Jacob
13. Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird
14. Kirstin Downey – The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
15. Nathaniel Philbrick – In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
16. Graham Norton – Holding
17. Georgia Hunter – We Were the Lucky Ones
18. Andre Dubus III – Townie
19. David Sheff – Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
20. Jeffrey Eugenides – Middlesex
21. Sam Eastland (Paul Watkins) – Eye of the Red Tsar
22. Jeffrey Archer – Kane and Abel
23. Wes Moore – The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
24. Fiona Davis – The Address
25. Ben H. Winters – Underground Airlines
1×10⁹. Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things

G. entered a series of photo contests at the town library this Summer. Over the course of four weeks, she finished in second place in the "animals" category (nice close-up of a curious llama) and first place—first!—in the "portrait" category, with a truly stunning self-portrait (decidedly not a selfie). Her "natural world" entry didn't medal—in my opinion because they had to, you know, give other kids a chance—but her butterfly/flowery tree composition was as strong as any that we saw at the reception weeks later. Her grown-up camera—a.k.a., her parents' old camera—is out of the frame here but that butterfly had to be close by—she took hundreds of it and the cows and chickens out back at this rustic winery in Maine. Wait a minute… that's only three entries! What gives, baby? Um, those same parents might have dropped the ball there and mixed up the "portrait" vs. "close-up" deadlines, resulting in no submission for the latter. Drag. Earned gift cards to Dairy Queen and the local toy store helped to soften the blow.

Two Sundays ago we conquered the maize once more, themed this year about as USA! USA! as it comes. G. brought a friend to help us find our way and my stress level was zero, what with the Pats having already defeated the Giants on Thursday Night Football and the goddamn Buccaneers—the goddamn Buccaneers, the goddamn Buccaneers—knocked me out of six perfectly legal online knockout pools a couple of weeks earlier. We exited in half the time, allowing the girls to maximize the fifty-four-inch height limit of the giant Cars bouncy slide while I scowled at teenagers who joined actual children on some of the other attractions. I hope they enjoy living with their parents into their thirties.

Politics! How's Hindsight 2020 shaping up? We drove by a house yesterday that had signs for every remaining Democratic candidate in the front yard. Fuckin' A. So… are we OK with Warren cruising to the nomination? Are A. and I the only people who think she'll get blasted by Trump next November? I have to hand it to her in sticking close to the Trump playbook by saying (and avoiding) the same things over and over, figuring her base will be fine with it and blindly forgo the energy and enthusiasm that an all-in Buttigieg or Harris would deliver. But Democrats don't fall in line the way Republicans do, even with Four More Years staring them in the face. I'll vote for Warren, Biden or Sanders if one of them is the pick but I prefer an opportunity for excitement, if only because I know Warren would lose, I suspect Biden would and I fear Sanders won't survive another year.

Lastly, in the style section: "VSCO girl is a Gen Z clothing, accessories and lifestyle trend. Experts say it's representative of a larger shift in teen culture to strong brand associations. Brands like Vans, Pura Vida, Fjallraven and Crocs are all seeing a boost from the trend." Well ain't that a kick in the nuts. I'm not the first person to rock checkered slip-on Vans—I've certainly put up with my share of Spicoli jokes—but I have embraced them to the point where lace-ups bring about crisis. I'm unsympathetic to those who wear shoes around the house—it is a disgusting and degrading habit—but, shit, if you forget your keys it certainly is a pain in the ass to untie, loosen and remove a pair of high-tops. And then put them back on! So it's that hassle or, I don't know, being perceived as a creep looking to identify with teenage girls. "Checkered versions of the shoe are essential to being a VSCO girl." Shudder. With luck, adolescent fickleness will win out and a certain eight-year-old will shun their frumpy clique for years to come. Looking good so far.

Up next: "As Jets' hopes shrink, they hope the same for Sam Darnold's spleen." Cheers!