The Weekday Ramble is a daily dose of sports, music, culture, and more from Rambling On founder Erik Ritland. For more information check us out on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or at our website.
Monday February 23, 2015
The original intent of the Weekday Ramble was to briefly comment on three-ish topics relating to sports, music, culture, and whatever else came to my head. I feel like I’ve betrayed that original vision recently, relying instead on pictures, videos, themes, and longer pieces.
So this week is all about “old school” Weekday Rambles. Today’s topics: Adrian Peterson controversy, an iconic MTV show, and deserved accolades for my favorite wrestling tag team of all time.
Time to say goodbye
Adrian Peterson has not done well for his brand in the last week. First he complained in an interview with ESPN that the Vikings didn’t stand by his side enough during the fallout from his child abuse charges and today his agent got into an apparently physical altercation with a Vikings’ Vice President.
Uh, yeah, this guy’s gotta go. I don’t usually go all “white guy” on the bit, condemning anyone who thinks or acts outside of prescribed cultural norms, but he’s shown over and over again that he has a shit attitude. Randy Moss had a funny shit attitude; Peterson’s is whiney and obnoxious, more Harvin than Moss. That and there’s no way he’ll be worth how much he’ll want to be paid.
We watch TRL on MTV
MTV’s iconic Total Request Live was so cool back in the day that it made a guy like Carson Daly seem cool. Like, really cool. Whether you loved him or hated him, or thought TRL was a joke, its appeal and widespread popularity was undeniable. Back then I thought he was a tool. Now I realize I was just jealous.
For those of you who don’t remember the show, there was a live audience behind Daly, he’d have the biggest pop stars of the day as guests, and people would request music videos. A recently released article lists 11 surprising #1 videos from TRL. I agree with the author: that the iconic “Thong Song” only spent a single week at #1 is a shame.
My boys Luke and Butch
The WWE will announce tonight that classic tag team the Bushwackers will be inducted in their Hall of Fame at Wrestlemania this year. Scoffers gonna scoff, but their Hall is the biggest in the sport and it’s a pretty cool honor. They were my favorite wrestlers when I was huge into wrestling as a kid, mostly because they were so silly. They’d come out and lick each other on the head and do all sorts of other weird stuff. You don’t see weirdness like that enough in life, although it’s starting to appear again in wrestling. Or as I refer to it as, modern minstrelsy. And that’s a high compliment.
Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He is also a contributor for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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