Not Especially Safe For Work (or anywhere else)
Posted: April 18th, 2008 | Filed under: Interviews, Media | 51 Comments »
I can only warn you once here … the following has LOTS of swearing. It’s rated R. Not PG-13. If you are offended by such things, I don’t blame you, and I promise we’ll have a lovely G-rated post soon on Brian Bannister. One last time SKIP THIS IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SWEARING. Thank you.
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People often ask why I do this blog. I’ve never really had a good answer for that. The original reason was, of course, to sell THIS BOOK, winner of the 2007 Casey Award, listed among Booklist’s Top 10 sports books of the year, called “very funny†by Dave Barry, called “a piece of baseball jazz†by USA Today and called “a good Christmas present†by a woman who was debating whether or not to buy it at a book signing once. Unfortunately the signing was in March, which meant that she did not buy it then and probably did not buy it later, much like (I imagine) many of the freeloaders who read this blog.
So, once I realized that I was not going to get to Da Vinci Code numbers on this book no matter how many blog posts I wrote about Chief Wahoo and Wynona Ryder, it might have made sense to stop. I even did stop. And then I came back, and people have continued to ask me why, and I have continued to fumble hopelessly for a reason.
Now, I can tell you, I have a reason.
I have been writing this blog so I could referee the official Scott Raab vs. Pat Jordan Swear-Off.
Now is the time when you can hide the kids. As you may have noticed on the last blog, I wrote that some people are good at swearing and some people, like myself, are not. In there, I wrote that Pat Jordan was the best swearer in journalism today. And I wrote that my good friend, Esquire’s Scott Raab, was second best. I will admit now that I did not really consider the ramifications of that statement — in other words, I badly, badly underestimated Scott’s singular pride for the expletive.
He wrote this comment, which I’m sure you have already seen:
“All due respect, but I’d kick Jordan’s ancient, bony, hairless ass in a curse-off any day of the fucking week (Except on Shabbat, when I go to synagogue and pray for Joe Borowski’s piece of shit right arm to fall off.“
At this point, as you have no doubt guessed, it was only a matter of time before Pat Jordan responded:
â€Polski, tell Raab i got more muscles in my fucking hair than he has in his fucking body. Also, i stopped shaving my body when i stopped competing in bodybuilding contests when I was 53. I’ll bury the fucking wimp in a curse-off. i got mine the old fashioned way, in the locker room. Where’d he get his, the fucking press box?“
So it goes. Here we are: It’s titantic. A Pat Jordan vs. Scott Raab curse-off. I finally have found my place in the blogosphere. I had started a Godfather I vs. Godfather II WB poll — and we’ll get back to that question in a bit — but we now have a new purpose. The question posed to you, dear readers, is simple: Who do you like, Jordan or Raab for the heavyweight fucking championship of the world. Or is it the fucking heavyweight championship of the world? Or the heavyweight championship of the fucking world? I told you … I’m terrible at this stuff.
You can vote on the side there. I suspect the combatants may weigh in over the next few days (and you never know what other big name writer will try to horn in), but for now I start with a representative two paragraphs from the works of the two great men.
Scott Raab endorsing rage in Esquire:
â€FUCK YOU. That’s right-fuck you. I’ve got your anger-management technique right here, dangling. Check it out-and while you’re down there, kiss my crack.
I’m sorry-did I say that out loud? Really loud? Tough shit, dickweed. I do a lot of screaming, mostly profane. First off, I live and drive in north Jersey. Number two, my wife’s a woman. Three, my idiot dog barks if a squirrel farts. Plus-I gotta tell ya-rage makes me feel so alive.â€
Pat Jordan on Jose Canseco in “Chasing Jose†on Deadspin.
At first, Jessica loved being Jose’s “road beef” and then his “import,” because he spent a lot of time buying her clothes she couldn’t afford on her Hooters salary. Then they set up housekeeping at Jose’s Coral Gables mansion with its rock waterfall pool and its cougars and giant Iguanas roaming the grounds and, sadly, Jessica discovering that living her life with Jose was “a total fucking bore.” Her daily calendar of their activities reads something like this: sleep, wake, fuck, eat, lay by the pool, find Iguana, eat, fuck, shop, watch TV, fuck, sleep (for Jose, anyway), and masturbate, all, of course, without Jose ever speaking. This last activity on Jessica’s daily to-do list, she was forced to resort to because Jose’s sexual performance left a lot to be desired, at least, by Jessica. The way it worked was, Jose had sex with Jessica in front of a mirror until he had an orgasm, then spilled off her and went to sleep. While her big Lug snoozed, Jessica slipped out of bed and repaired to the bathroom where she made love to herself. Jessica claimed she didn’t have an orgasm with Jose during their first two years of sex. She wrote, “If he noticed, he didn’t care.” So, she began faking orgasms, “but I can’t honestly say he noticed that either.”
Yes. Quite. May the best man win.
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Not even close, Raab wins.
Agreed. Based on that alone it’s Raab all the way.
If you get a quick hit laugh in the middle of a stream of profanity that’s a lot of bonus points. (see number two of Raab’s 3 points)
I give it Jordan. Raab’s swearing almost seems gratuitous. It’s born of some sort of contrived, “Of course I’m fucking hard, I live in Jersey” toughness. Jordan’s, however, is so deeply embedded in the language that I’m not sure if there’s another way to write that paragraph without the swearing.
To use pitchers as a metaphor, obviously, both of these guys are throwing 95mph. But Raab is Ambiorix Burgos, he’s a thrower, just tossing expletives out there to be left hanging.
Jordan is more like Roger Clemens. The heat is there, but he’s painting the corners with it. It’s a work of art in the end. Also, if Jordan was a bodybuilder with muscles on his hair, then the steroid parallel probably works, too.
For me there’s no question, it’s Pat Jordan hands down. I admire Mr. Raab as a writer and as a connoisseur of curse words but compared to Pat Jordan he is all sound and fury signifying nothing but sound and fury. Pat Jordan is an artiste of profanity. I’m honored to be swearing on the same planet as him.
I want to vote for Pat so badly because he reeks of that older musky man who puts a curse in a statement with purpose. But with these two examples, Scott runs away with it.
Creativity wins. I’ve heard Raabs rant out of every jerk that crosses the Mississippi. They all are the tough guy loud mouths from Jersey.
I’ll take the salty old bastard that would gouge your eyes out rather than lose.
I agree w/ TC in that Raab seems a bit gratuitous.
Oh, and I believe this would be considered the ‘heavyfuckingweight championship of the world’.
Based on what we’re given here, gotta go with Raab.
At this point I’m agreeing with TC (#3) and Will (#4). Jordan’s swearing is intricately woven into his story.
But I’m waiting to cast my vote, in case Jordan and Raab provide us with more samples in this comment section.
Jordan, for the artful subtlety. And that story is hilarious, as is the whole article.
I like contextual and intricate swearing better than lame-ass, meat-head, cock-size insecurity generated fuck-yous and suck-offs.
Jordan in a landslide.
Jordan hands down. I agree wtih the previous posters that Raab seems like the typical Jersey douche bag. He is just cursing to hear himself talk. Jordan nails it. He’s a story teller with cursing ingrained into his tales. He’s a cursing artist.
I dunno, Jordan effectively uses “fuck” as a descriptive synonym for sex, but there’s no other cursing going on there. I don’t think you can praise Jordan for being a more artful swearer given that his response to Pos above is more in tune with Raab’s style. I’d argue that this is a poor comparison and that some other Jordan sample should be used, but given the evidence, I have to give it to Raab, who sews it up for me with the reference to squirrel farts.
Both are artful, but Pat Jordan’s makes it appear like an effortless enhancement of discourse in the English language. It’s like Hamlet with F-bombs. He gets my vote.
For my money, no one does less with more than David Feherty.
As Cliff notes (Cliff Notes? heh), this excerpt by Jordan really doesn’t include any swearing at all. I mean, using “fuck” as a matter-of-fact verb describing two people having intercourse isn’t really that big a deal, and the only other swear word in the entire piece is part of a quote.
So, much as I love Jordan’s work, I have to give this one to Raab simply because he showed up.
I don’t get it Joe. (Sorry, no thoughts on the swearing, it is pretty dull.) I’m only going to give myself 5 minutes (at most) but, I’ll try.
You’re a sportswriter & an author. You’re a public figure. You have career goals…maybe you’d like to move to a national forum, maybe you want to make the sportswriters wing of the baseball Hall of Fame, maybe you want to teach journalism. Maybe you want to write a bestseller. I don’t know what they are but I’m sure you have them.
And the blog furthers those goals. You get cited and quoted and you develop stronger relationships with other people in your field & with people in other fields. You become a stronger presence in the profession & so you get thought of when somebody has a job. A freelance article, an opinion piece, even a talking head position.
And the way that the blog does that is because you have a large number of, in some way, verifiably high-quality readers. You don’t need to trash your readers & call them freeloaders. Perhaps you have readers who contribute nothing to your status but I doubt if you have very many. Your readers comment on your posts, they post links to your posts, they mention you to their friends…and your presence on the Internet grows & all that you get from it grows. So why not stop the “freeloaders” crap (I was going to say “nonsense” but I guess today is a day for vulgarity)?
Fran Rosen
Editor’s note: Let me rephrase that because it sounded sarcastic, and I am not trying to be sarcastic at all. I really appreciate you Fran and all the readers on this blog. I also think it’s funny to call people who don’t buy the book freeloaders. This whole crazy blog is just in fun. I was asked the other day on XM Radio about the extraordinary popularity of this blog, and I answered then what I feel now: I cannot believe how many thousands of people read this thing. I don’t really have any goals with this blog at all (although offers apparently are coming in — I might need to do a poll about whether or not I should sell out), and I think it’s that lack of direction which probably explains whatever success it has had. It really has been a lot of fun. And I really was joking about the freeloaders thing. I promise.
The jury’s still out for me here, because neither of the two has reached the holy grail of cursedom, at least in these examples — actually creating your own curse words, building from the foundations we all know and love.
I used to work with a guy who did that all the time. His response, for instance, to Ben Johnson testing positive for steroids after the 1988 Olympic 100 meters:
“Un-fucking-believable. Just fucking-un-fucking-believable.”
We shook our heads and said to ourselves, “The man’s a master.”
I would say that based on the challenges issued from each contestant, I would go with Jordan. His cursing seems more natural. “Piece of shit right arm” just sounded forced to me. But based on the writing samples, I like Raab better. Maybe we need a different piece of Jordan’s work, because as Cliff mentioned, he’s just cursing as a synonym for sex.
Oh and I stopped freeloading and bought your book Joe. I enjoyed it thoroughly and passed it on to my dad to read (the whole father-son-baseball thing really gets me). I got the opportunity to meet and take a picture with Buck in 2004 at the NLBM and I consider that one of the best baseball moments I’ve ever experienced.
I doubt any reasonable person is offended by Joe calling us “Freeloaders”. I don’t think he’s being malicious, the fact is many of the people who read this will not but his books. If there was a poll up that said “Have you bought Joe’s book” there would be no shortage of people saying no. I hope there would be more yes’ but I wouldn’t hold my breath. That’s just the way blogging works, people don’t want to pay for it.
I’ve blogged for years simply because I like to (although I’m currently working on other things), occasionally someone will see what I’ve done and will pay me a few bucks for it and in the case of my wife, sometimes a girl will read my blog and then marry me because of it’s so damn awesome but outside of the sex and cash I do it for fun, and I have some fun with my readers and vice versa. maybe I’ll finish a book and someone will but it but probably not, I might complain that people are cheap but it’s just because they are cheap not because I don’t like them and appreciate what they add to my life. I will stop speaking for Mr. Posnanski now.
I also clearly enjoy run on sentences.
Raab should win this, but Hunter S. Thompson destroys them both.
I’ve got to agree that based on what you’ve shown us, Jordan is a fucking wimp. An eloquent fucking wimp, but a fucking wimp just the same. Any asshole can call a fuck a fuck and a fucker a fucker. Give me the cocksucker who uses surprising imagery to make you shit yourself laughing, rather than beat you over the fucking head with the same fucking word every fucking time he puts his fucking fingers on the fucking keyboard.
I guess if we’re being fair, the atmosphere of the locker room – the fucking atmosphere of the fucking locker room – must be a far more constricted place to ‘get’ yours than the redolent ambience of North Jersey, where a bitch is a bitch and a boner is a handshake – and that’s just ‘Hello” hanging on the corner.
Or so I hear.
Raab
I think what we’re missing is a definition.
If this is a profanity contest then there is a clear winner.
If this is simply a schoolyard cursing contest we have a winner in the other direction.
Jordan is profane beyond profane without using any of the 7 words in any artful way. And Raab has nothing going for him outside the Yankee Stadium bleachers.
DUDE:
Hey, man, if my fucking ex-wife asked me to take care of her fucking dog while she and her boyfriend went to Honolulu, I’d tell her to go fuck herself. Why can’t she board it?
WALTER:
First of all, Dude, you don’t have an ex, secondly, it’s a fucking show dog with fucking papers. You can’t board it. It gets upset, its hair falls out.
Jordan. And it’s not even close. I heard rants better than Raab’s from drunken Jersey she-beasts in college.
Road Beef for the win. That line alone made me laugh so hard I nearly had a cheeto flying out my nose.
As for the blog, yours is the best, Pos. And I did buy the book!
I wish you’d have found a better sample for Jordan, since it’s clear Raab was writing about swearing and enjoyed quite a bit more latitude because of that. Too bad he pissed away his advantage so artlessly. My vote goes to Jordan because he was writing with a little swearing rather than swearing with a little writing.
I heard a cursing prodigy in a playground. Kid was no more than ten years old, and he reacted to a situation with an outburst of “Fucking pussy shit!” Three words, three swears. 1:1, and it conveyed a coherent message. Awesome. If Raab and Jordan are smelling singed ass hair, it’s because the next generation is taking them DOWN.
I respect Raab working a squirrel fart reference into that rant, but at the end of the day you have to go with the guy that uses his cursing to tell a story.
Bill Simmons turned us on to your site,and, I have never been disapointed.You Sir make me realize the K.C. Royals even exist as any other than let the red sox pad thier stats.Personaly I think you are one of the best sports writers around.Having you write a blog where you can be yourself and still offer more is A-OK in my limited edition book.Speaking of books,I, am getting off the cheapskate boat and really buying every thing you have in print.Now why I am suddenly going to buy every thing you have in print? I have naver heard of Pat Jordan or Scott Rabb untill you mention them in your circle of friends must be great to be you.On top of the fact Bill James and yourself are on 1st name basis…What can I say.but,until him and the wholle front office got there they fallible. imagine 8or9 years ago we had Pedro. greatest pitcher last 40 years,provided he did’nt cheat.My beloved Red Sox low ball the guy and I was in complete agreement with them.I thought we got the best His Highness had to offer and I am greatful for seeing it.I’m just wondering if Mr. James didnt beg Theo not to give in and pray the Yankkes sign him to a 7 year deal to be a “sawx killer”?
Raab’s just another fucking needle dick. You can hear that fucking bullshit on any fucking playground any fucking day of the week. Except for the squirrel fart part, which is great.
Jordan has fucking content.
I think the dividing line here as to who you prefer is whether you have hair near your cock. Not including your father’s or your priest’s pubic hair being near your ass while they sodomize you.
I’m not sure that can be moderated.
I have to admit to being disappointed by both. Raab’s cursing is (as has been noted) the North Jersey tough guy trope, while Jordan’s cursing isn’t really cursing at all- it’s a verb to describe sex introduced in a quote. All the ‘fucks’ in Jordan’s paragraph seem to come courtesy of the bimbo.
I prefer Jordan’s story, but for cursing (forced to choose) I choose Raab.
I still think the master of cursing is George Carlen, he really summed it all up… But anyway I have to go with Raab purely because of praying for Borowski’s arm to fall off.
I also give kudos to the Lebowski reference.
I meant more with less… David Feherty does more with less.
i like the literary context within jordan’s cursing. he gets my vote.
New Joisey is weak. So is Raab.
Jordan… in an absolute beatdown. He wouldn’t have had to even throw the word fuck in. Just writing about Jose is top of the line gutter journalism at it’s best.
I haven’t read material by either of the candidates to comment on anything other than the weak-ass excerpts you gave, Joe, and if this shit is all there is, I gotta say, Joe, you need to get some more fucking candidates. I agree with much of the shit that’s been spewed above — Raab, other than the squirrel farts comment, is so fucking cliche we might as well put him in some piece of shit Sopranos knockoff. And while I think Jordan’s writing is solid here, I’ve known teenage girls that could outcurse that crap. Any number of stand-up comics, including Carlin, Chris Rock, Pryor (RIP), Murphy in his heyday could curse giant fucking circles around these two pussies.
watch this for an illustration of an artistic use of that most illustrative of all 4 letter words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQbsnSVM1zM
Joe,
No need to apologize to the Frans of the world. Clearly, she doesn’t get this whole blogging thing (let alone the subtleties of the English language), so I’m not quite sure why she is reading this anyway…
Signed,
One of your loyal freeloaders.
Let me begin by clearing up an apparent misunderstanding: I’m not from New Jersey. I was born and raised in Posnanski country — Cleveland, Ohio.
Not that it makes any fucking difference — because you asslicking buffoons wouldn’t last ten minutes in either place.
(Oh, and Chuck D: Spelling ‘douchebag’ as two words is a sure sign you need to yank the strap-on out of your crack and go fix yourself another estrogen smoothie.)
As for Jordan, I’m a fan. Pat Jordan can write, and Pat Jordan can swear — and he also gets full credit for the seven decades he has spent milking his stunted minor-league career. The pride he takes in having learned to swear before, during, and after showering with other men is well-earned, and I have no doubt that, despite the homoerotic yearning at the heart of his oeuvre, his own sphincter, like the rest of his muscles, is still as supple as his prose.
Raab, there may not have been a single curs-word in it (what the fuck?!? Pussy.), but your “his own sphincter, like the rest of his muscles, is still as supple as his prose” is the work of a man who can cuss with the greats. Nonetheless, it’s evidence that you’ve got a serious hunkerin’ fer the man-meat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Rod-slurper.
Both Raab and Jordan are undeniably brilliant wordsmiths as well as acomplished profanists (fuck me, is that a word???), and certainly Brett’s mention of the late Hunter Thompson was warranted. And Belth, you greasy rat basturt, yer awright fer a Yankee fan, and perhaps not the pickle-chugging nancy-boy I’d always assumed you to be. But yer all mostly a bunch of baboon-felching dwarf-fuckers. When it comes to profanity, you all can gently cup my wrinkly plum-taters in yer loving hands, place them in yer collective ball-sucking mouths, and do what comes natch’l.
And while yer down there, ya’ll mind liftin’ up the nutsack? I gots somethin’ lumpy growing down there that occasionally excretes sumthin’ that smells like German cheese. You mind tellin’ me if it looks infected, right before you mouth-fuck me?
Atta girl. You’ll make a fine wife.
Well now I have to say Raab.
For the record, I don’t think you can call it the Heavyweight Fucking Championship, because that kind of implies the championship would be won in fucking.
I’d was leaning towards Raab, but it appears from his post that he was sufficiently liquored and on his way to nightie night by midnight on a Saturday.
And that’s giving him EDT credit. Even so, you’d think he could at least make it through to the late Baseball Tonight. It’s Saturday for fuck’s sake. Guess he probably likes to get up extra early so he can check some blogs before he settles in for A&E Sunday with the Arts.
Spotted the felching reference and had to comment.
The absolute all-time funniest fuckin thing I ever heard was on a drive to work listening to Tom Bernhard on KQ-94 in the Twin Cities tell the David Felcher story from whence the term originated. I went spasmodic and had to pull over on the freeway because I was changing lanes uncontrollably and couln’t see through the tears in my eyes.
This was maybe 20 years ago, but I know they have it in an archive. They replay it almost every year with their other classic pranks and such.
Second funniest was a prank on a dude I worked with at the stockyards that was appropriately nicknamed “Moose”. Now, Moose could give both these fellas a run for their money and doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Moose was a hog drover and once picked a fella up by the ankles and rammed the guys head in a steamy pile of hog shit because he played a prank on him, which was usually once a week.
Anyway, they impersonated a game warden and accused Moose of giving his deer tag to his buddy and they were going to arrest him. Moose was contrite at first, but then blew his lid and started cursing and finally hung up. They must have called him a half dozen times with the rants just building in flavor as he heated up. He finally caught on and sputtered, “BENNY, is that you fuckin with me”. Best part was when he found out it was broadcast to the entire Cities and was now part of the classics.
I enjoy Raab’s take better because he actually used curse words as they were intended, to express one’s self. Yes he seems like a typical tough guy, jerk off, that will actually respect you more once you return his rage with a volley of your own. Mostly likely he would buy you a beer if you had not pummeled him like Clubber Lang clobbered Rocky for the first 4-5 rounds in Rocky III.
Jordan’s use of cursing seemed more clinical, like he was reporting, and he can get away with using curse words as it was part of the story. I found the story compeling and I wonder how old Jessica is today? I am hoping she can still fill out her Hooter’s t-shirt and needs to find the comfort of a real man.
In short, Raab wins this motherfucker hands down.
Minda: “For the record, I don’t think you can call it the Heavyweight Fucking Championship, because that kind of implies the championship would be won in fucking.”
Not only in fucking, but in heavyweight fucking at that. Which, I must say, is a fairly disturbing image. I mean, competitive heavyweight fucking sounds angry, aggressive, and for lack of a better term, fat.