1/10: kkk's Worst Poster Tournament
I am holding my own worst poster tournament. Read that description again. Worst. Poster. This is the poster I hate the most. Each will be judged on … well, whatever I say they will be judged on. That’s right, far too long I have held back letting the TSM community know what posters have irked me for years and have become the bane of my existence. Now it’s time to name names and nobody is safe. The eight seeds are listed below in their quarter-final match-ups.
Round Uno
Christian Okoye
I remember this growing up and I HATED looking at it every time I thumbed through a group of posters at a store. I had nothing against the Nigerian Nightmare, even though I called him a different nickname because I thought ethnic/name-changing insults were oh so clever. Good thing I’m through with that phase. I will give this poster credit for one thing: I like how the terrified players in the background have uniforms from Okoye’s divisional opponents.
Vs.
Alfalfa's He Man Woman Haters Club
I couldn’t find the actual poster that was in my room (it shows Alfalfa flexing his pseudo-muscles with the name of his club at the bottom of the page), but why I hate this poster is because it burned me – big time. You see, when I was a kid, I had a shitload of posters/pictures pinned up in my room. When I got this edition to add to my collection, there was no room to pin it up anywhere. As a kid who wasn’t yet hip to the whole sexual education thing, I pinned this image of Alfalfa on the only place in my room that still had available real estate.
Right above my bed.
Ah, childhood innocence. How was I to know other people could see this as somewhat queer? I sleep on my side, so it’s not like I would wake up looking into Alfie’s eyes. And I wasn’t even masturbating yet, so I wasn’t pulling a "Randy Marsh in the hot tub" at a Meteor Shower parties.
This poster was up for some time before a friend of mine asked why I had a picture of Alfalfa hanging above my bed. I responded because that was the only place for it in my room. He asked the same question again, and that was when something clicked in my head. After he left I quickly took this image down, never to be seen again. Strangely enough, my friend never told anyone about this and I wasn’t the object of ridicule among my youth compatriots (well, at least I was not the object of ridicule for this particular subject). I guess Jason didn’t find anything homo-erotic with it, either; he just found it … strange.
Winner: Okoye. Alfalfa was innocent of any wrongdoing; just guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Jerry Rice
I was never a fan of the San Francisco 49ers growing up. After all, I was in STEELER COUNTRY, and those queermos from the Bay were going to equal my black and gold in Super Bowl wins with FOUR~! After they clobbered Denver, my old man was PISSED. Why? Because he’s out of his mind. Anyway, after that blowout, the 49ers were zeroed in on another Super Bowl title in the early 1990s, and this poster of Jerry Rice was pretty much used as the object of my scorn. It’s hard to see the type at the top of this poster, but it says something like “Rice be nimble. Rice be quick.” The image is of him jumping over Candlestick Park. Get it? LOLOLOL. Now that I think about this, even though I hated this poster, I never had a problem with the Joe Montana Football video game franchise, which was also out at around this time. It wasn’t my favorite video game, but I played it from time to time. I wonder why, considering I hated Montana more than Rice. Nah, the “Joe’s white” excuse doesn’t feel right here. I think it was because at least in the video game you could defeat San Francisco – they had a team in the game, right?
Oh, and you may now be thinking, “kkk, but the 49ers won a fifth Super Bowl. How did the Steeler nation react to that?” Surprisingly, the Shittsburgh region took it better than I thought. Then again, everyone was still in shock about the Steelers losing to the Chargers in the Conference Championship. While many here won’t admit it, losing to the Chargers was the better option than getting blown out by the 49ers that year in the Super Bowl. And, yes, they would have lost.
Vs.
Whatever You Want To Call This
Why the hell did I put this on the list -- it's a great photo. Even though it’s not really a poster, I still had it pinned to my wall. I won this prize at some fair, and it was in a plastic 8x11 frame. I posted this in my room because of the naughty word. I guess it was to show my mom I wasn’t taking any more of her fascist rules like “study” and “get good grades.”
Winner: Rice be nimble. Rice be quick. Rice is going to the second round.
Fatheads (as a whole)
Do I have a fat head? Well, I have no problem fitting it through my shirts. Get it? “Fat head”? LOLOLOL. I don’t own these things, and I have no problem with people who do. (Well, I might have a problem with someone that has one, but it's not because they own a Fathead.) I guess what I don’t like about these things is that you don’t pin/tape them to a wall. In my day we used tape and tacks that ruined our room’s walls, thus deducting from our parent’s security deposit if the residence was a rental property. And if you lived in a house your parents were paying a mortgage on, those holes you making marked your territory, in a passive aggressive sort of way. Damn you technology.
Vs.
Pennants (as a whole)
Once again, I have nothing against pennants. In fact, I used to own a buttload of these things. That’s why pennants make the list. I used to own a buttload of these things. I have commented on my old man a few times here, and he does have his fair share of faults. Who the hell am I kidding, he has more than his fair share. But one “father/son” activity we used to partake in was to go to Steeler games during the early 1980s. Actually, I don’t think we went to that many regular season-games; I pretty sure these were pre-season games. Why? Probably because they were cheaper. Nothing wrong with that – I was a kid and had no idea what was going on anyway. Most of the time I just wandered around Three Rivers Stadium picking up discarded tickets and other litter. Anyway, whenever we would go to these games (or my old man went with some friends to those fancy smancy regular-season games), I would always get a pennant. After a while I had quite the collection on my wall. I can’t quite remember what I had – I know there were several Steeler ones, an old Bengals helmet, the Browns, the Houston Oilers, the N.Y. Giants, the Atlanta Falcons, the Minnesota Vikings, the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. Hmm, dad had a thing for the NFC Central. Oh well, there were probably about a dozen or so more in addition to those I named. And what happened to these pennants? When my folks got a divorce in the mid-1980s, the house that my old man worked on for almost 10 years was sold and my old lady threw away this cherished pennant collection. Nice going, bitch. Just because they remind you of the psycho you married doesn’t mean they had the same anti-sentimental value for me. Then again, I don’t really remember putting up that much of a fight back then for these pennants. I was probably still in shell-shock with the fact that my parents were splitting up and wondering if it had anything to do with me…
“kkk, your time on the couch is done for the day. Come back next week, and bring your $150. And NO CHECKS!”
Winner: Pennants. Fatheads were never in my old house’s trash can.
Team Photos (as a whole)
For some reason I was never a fan of these generic “team” photos. I mean, all the athletes are just sitting there, and their images are so tiny. Why did I have a few of these pinned up? No clue. I think I pinned a few up one afternoon and forgot they were there until moving day years later.
Vs.
Chicago Bulls Team Poster
Remember what I said about the San Francisco 49ers? Well, the Chicago Bulls were even worse. I didn’t start following basketball until the late 1980s/early 1990s, and because Shittsburgh did not have a NBA team I had to pick a team from another city to throw my support behind. Several of my friends were already NBA fans, and they were glad to see I finally caught onto the sensation that was the Association. They told me to watch a few games and let them know what teams I liked. Keep in mind this was when Air Jordans were the thing and Bulls Merchandise was right up there with the Los Angeles Raiders gear.
I was watching the early rounds of the NBA playoffs, and the Phoenix Suns with Kevin Johnson got my attention quick. I was about to pledge my eternal loyalty to Phoenix when another team caught my eye: the Detroit Pistons. The next day I was in fourth-period Home Economics. (No jokes -- we were REQUIRED to take a semester of this and a semester of Metal Shop.) I told my basketball-loving peers of my recent observations. I started out talking about the Suns. My one friend’s eyes lit up. He was a huge Suns fan because he grew up in Phoenix and attended a few summer camps featuring Suns players (little did I know it was around the time of that big drug scandal in the '80s; oh the Larry Nance after-party jokes I could have thrown at him).
I then told the group about my next team. The following conversation took place. You can figure out who is who.
“Yeah, I liked Phoenix, but there was another team I saw which I liked better.”
“Who?”
“They wore blue … I think they were the…”
“Oh no.”
“Detroit Pistons?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? They’re a bunch of assholes!”
“I liked the way they played defense.”
“You’re fucking kidding me! The PISTONS?”
“There was this big white guy who I liked.”
“Oh God… Laimbeer?”
“I don’t know. He had black hair.”
“Bill Laimbeer is a fucking asshole. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Now we all have had experience with peer pressure. And while the herd can oftentimes break a person’s will of self-expression, there are times when you just want to stand out from the crowd by being an asshole. This was one of the (many) times for me. So my friends are Bulls fans? Fuck that – go Pistons. The pinnacle of my Pistons scorn came a few years later when I got a Bill Laimbeer jersey, and the first time I wore it was to my friend’s house (the one from Phoenix) when he had a long-distance friend who was supposedly some big-shit on his school’s basketball team. My other friend and I played them in several games and we handedly won each contest. I also had one of the best outdoor games of my life playing against this “super friend” from another school. I’m not sure if my game was actually any good, or if this “super friend” actually played on his school’s team, but either way the power of Bill was with me that day – and I didn’t even take any cheap shots.
…
Wait, what the hell was I talking about?
Oh, yeah. The Bulls. Fuck them. Look, I know Jordan’s good. Hell, he’s great. Oh “H” “e” “double hockey sticks,” he’s the best player of my generation and may be the best of all time. I get that. I just routed against him. But you know who I genuinely hated? Scottie Pippen. Wahhhh, I have a headache in Game 7 of the 1990 NBA Conference Finals. Wahhhh. If I don’t get the ball in the final 1.8 seconds of a playoff game I’m going to sit down. You're a whiny fuckhead and I personally hate you. Well, not anymore because I’m indifferent. But back then I sure did.
Winner: Bulls. I can’t even remember who they were up against, much like their other first-round NBA opponents from back in the day.
Round Dos:
Christian Okoye v. Jerry Rice.
Winner: Rice. By a leap.
Pennants v. Bulls.
Winner: Bulls. Not even close.
Round Tres:
Jerry Rice v. Chicago Bulls
Winner:
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