Can We All Agree?: Mike Greenberg Might Be a Woman Edition
It is time once again for the sensation that's sweeping the nation . . . namely, "Can We All Agree?"
You know how this works; numerous issues cause rifts between conscientious sports fans, but some silly non-issues occasionally arise and I take it upon myself to identify these chimeras, canards, and red herrings in order to dispense with them and enable us to move on to sounder ground.
I think we've established that I believe E.S.P.N. Radio's new "zero tolerance" policy should make another attempt to shut down a weblog a fireable offense.
The next item on the blogosphere's agenda for E.S.P.N. Radio, though, needs to be getting preening pretty-boys off the air. (What follows is in response to something that originally occurred many months ago, so I apologize for the delay, but my rejoinder remains relevant. However, I would like to begin by offering a disclaimer: I do not mean to suggest that Mike Greenberg might be gay, which I do not believe to be the case; rather, I mean to suggest that Mike Greenberg might be a woman.)
Mike Greenberg, the testosterone-impaired co-host of "Mike & Mike in the Morning," took time out from his daily regimen of flossing, moussing, and waxing to offer a sissified retort to Stacey Pressman's admirable paean to the days when men were men and women were glad. Replying to Pressman's denunciation of the metrosexual as a man [sic.] who has "taken himself as his own love object," Greenberg wimpily whimpered:
Speak for yourself, Nancy.

Do I look like I'm obsessed with my appearance? For crying out loud, I get my picture taken with holes in my socks!
Greenberg went on to argue that "there is nothing wrong with women who like football and the smell of gasoline. But I don't know many of my friends who want to date one."
It's official: Mike Greenberg needs to take his Y chromosome to the customer service counter and return it for a full refund. Although that bit about liking the smell of gasoline was an ancillary point, the only person I've ever heard about who had a strong dislike for the smell of gasoline was Jason Compson in The Sound and the Fury and William Faulkner called him the nastiest villain in American literature's most nuanced canon.
I don't know where Mike Greenberg and his array of hair-care products call home, but I'm from the South, where we tailgate harder for the spring scrimmage than most fans do for actual games. Greenberg doesn't think any of his friends would want to date a woman who liked football?
Honestly, seriously, no kidding . . . I just ran down the list of my friends in my head and I can't think of one who's in a serious relationship whose wife or girlfriend doesn't like football. For that matter, I can't imagine any woman being willing to date a friend of mine if she wasn't at least willing to learn to like football.
Among the great achievements of my good friend Jason, being chosen as a law clerk for the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court ranks well behind his having married his wife, Kati Jo, who knows more about football than he does. (As a lawyer who has been admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court and a football fan who writes a sports weblog, I know which is the more impressive accomplishment.)
When Georgia played Virginia in the 1995 Peach Bowl, it created a division between my old friends, Pat and Laura. Both of them are University of Georgia graduates, but Pat received his baccalaureate degree from Mr. Jefferson's academical village, so he was rooting for the Wahoos. Pat won the game on the field but Laura won the smack-talking in the stands.
My friends choose their wedding dates based on the football schedule . . . which is good, because, if they didn't, I wouldn't go to their weddings. (When my friend Beth got married and her wedding party featured folks with feet in both the Georgia and Georgia Tech camps, she chose the one Saturday in the fall on which neither the Bulldogs nor the Yellow Jackets had a game.)

Mike Greenberg's wife doesn't think he's an idiot; she thinks he's Carrie Bradshaw.
For the benefit of those of you who are curious whether you're a prissy narcissist with highlights like Mike Greenberg and the estrogen-infected wusses he describes as his "metrosexual brethren," E.S.P.N. has offered the metrosexual quiz. (By the way, guys my age like to joke that we're old enough to remember when M.T.V. played music videos. Am I the only one who's starting to get the feeling that, a decade from now, guys my age will joke that we're old enough to remember when E.S.P.N. covered sports?)
Let me tell you about the quiz: I flunked it. These are the questions put to American men by the Worldwide Leader in Styling Gel; answer them if you dare:
Once . . . and I have a razor in my hand the entire time.
Can you leave the house without putting product in your hair?
I wouldn't leave the house with product in my hair. I'm not even entirely sure what the euphemism "product" is intended to describe.
Here's my hair-care regimen, in its entirety: I get out of bed. I get in the shower. I wash my hair with generic dandruff shampoo. I get out of the shower. I dry my hair with a towel. I run a comb through my hair. I go about my day without ever once giving another thought to my hair.
Do you moisturize daily?
Daily? I haven't moisturized ever! I wore a baseball cap to Bloggerpalooza '07 and, because it was sunny, the tops of my ears got sunburned so badly they peeled. I didn't moisturize them; I just sat there and put up with four days' worth of peeling ears as penance for being dumb enough to stand out in the sun for several hours wearing a baseball cap.
Not counting sneakers, how many pairs of shoes do you own?
First of all, I won't count sneakers, because I've never owned sneakers. However, I own one pair of tennis shoes, one pair of black dress shoes, and one pair of brown shoes. I wear the brown shoes about four times a year.
Have you ever tweezed, waxed or trimmed . . . ?
Don't even bother finishing the question; the answer's no.
Have you ever shaved/waxed your legs, chest or back?
No, no, and no . . . but wouldn't it have saved time if E.S.P.N. had just asked, "Are you a woman?"
How much do you spend on a haircut?
Dude, when I was living in Athens, I got my hair cut at Mr. Haircut No. 1 on Broad Street. It was a barber shop; there wasn't a stylist within 50 yards of the place. If they opened up a Mr. Haircut No. 2 within 30 miles of my house, I'd drive over bad road to get my hair cut there.
As it is, honestly, I don't know how much I pay for a haircut because my son, Thomas, and I always get our hair cut together. It's a father-son thing, like liking football. We go in, we sit down, and we say, "See this hair? Grab some scissors and make it look like it looks now, only shorter."
Your top drawer consists mostly of ...
Socks, cotton boxer shorts, and the sort of undershirts James Caan would wear while eating pasta with meat sauce in "The Godfather."
I once began writing a script for a "King of the Hill" episode in which Hank Hill went to the Mega-Lo-Mart and discovered that they no longer sold plain white 100 per cent cotton boxer shorts, forcing him to choose between a plain white cotton-poly blend and 100 per cent cotton boxer shorts with a pattern, but I never could arrive at a satisfactory resolution of our hero's dilemma.
What's the last book you picked up?
I'm re-reading Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which the main characters are classified as "Acutes" and "Chronics." Presumably, the metrosexuals in the book have been carted off to "Disturbed."
Going shopping is ...
. . . something done by women and/or people who haven't figured out that, if you order everything on the internet, you'll never have to leave the house again, except to go to work, church, and sporting events.
Best way to spend a Friday night?
Falling asleep on the couch while the game is on T.V.
How would you describe your sense of style?
I don't own an article of clothing that isn't either a grey suit or Georgia apparel.
E.S.P.N. accidentally omitted the question, "When you look at this picture, do you think to yourself, 'Kristin Davis is good-looking' or, 'I wonder what kind of conditioner Matthew Broderick uses'?"
Feel free to take the quiz yourself. However you fare in answering the questions, though, can we all agree . . .
. . . that E.S.P.N. Radio ought not to be broadcasting "Pansy Eye for the Sports Guy"?
Go 'Dawgs!
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Comments
Greenberg is tedious at best
the only decent host over there is Dan Patrick except when he has olberman on, who ceased being funny years ago.
by Paragon SC on Apr 13, 2007 7:46 AM EDT 0 recs
Great start to the day
And I'm thinking I can copy all of your responses to the quiz, change only the colors, and have my morning post ready to go. The only thing I'd add is that I recently went about a month just combing my hair with my fingers.
by Joel on Apr 13, 2007 9:53 AM EDT 0 recs
well...
Otherwise, I haven't used a comb or brush in my hair in years, and I've never used "products". I wear the same clothes I've worn since high school (oxford shirts or t-shirts, khakis or jeans, bucks or loafers), simply replacing them well after they've worn out. Oh, my funniest answer was that my buddy cuts my hair for free, but I'm pretty sure the arrangement is not evidence of traditional masculinity.
by NCT on Apr 13, 2007 5:03 PM EDT 0 recs
Beat ya'
This will come as no surprise, but I actually scored lower than you (or higher depending on your perspective). I don't pay for haircuts anymore. Since my barber quit showing up for work (he refused to ride the bus after 9/11 - I don't understand the connection but thats another story), I have gotten my hair cut by my daughter. A lawn chair, a pair of clippers and a warm spot in the driveway and we are ready to go... (my neighbors love it - you can actually hear the property values going down in the neighborhood). Even better, for my last hair cut (just before I left for ports of foriegn call), I cut my own hair. yeah yeah, I had to find to find it first.
By the way .... Vonnegut attended an Ivy League University - yet ANOTHER reason why any radical realignment of college football should include the Ancient 8.
by Blogger who came in from the cold on Apr 14, 2007 10:52 AM EDT 0 recs
I'm pretty sure Kurt Vonnegut . . .
In all seriousness, though, although Vonnegut didn't have as much of an effect on me as he did on many others (I seldom venture outside the South in search of favorite authors, having been influenced as heavily as I needed to be by Harry Crews, William Faulkner, Shelby Foote, Lewis Grizzard, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy, Thomas Wolfe, Tom Wolfe, and the like), his passing was sad and his impact was large, as attested to by this moving tribute.
by T Kyle King on Apr 14, 2007 12:55 PM EDT 0 recs
Speaking of Vonnegut . . .
Granted, it has been more than 20 years since I read Slaughterhouse-Five, but I got absolutely nothing out of that book and my impression of almost everything of Vonnegut's that I have read since has echoed the description one reviewer applied to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: "The Emperor's New Book." Quite frankly, I always responded to Kurt Vonnegut the way I respond to the Tennessee marching band: "Yes, 'Rocky Top' is a peppy tune [or the firebombing of Dresden was awful] . . . but do you have anything else?"
I offer that criticism not in a meanspirited manner, but as a request for assistance. I have never gotten anything out of Kurt Vonnegut's writing, but at least five people for whom I have a great deal of respect (Peter Bean, Brian Cook, Jonathan Tu, Sunday Morning Quarterback, and the Blogger Who Came In From the Cold) have shown at least some regard for the man's work.
Those two facts are difficult to reconcile, so I am asking to be enlightened. What am I missing?
by T Kyle King on Apr 14, 2007 4:37 PM EDT 0 recs
What you are "missing"
What you are missing is nothing. I am not a fan of Vonnegut. But I will use his fame to advance a cause. I will invoke his name to get what I want. Geez - I should be a staffer on a campaign committee.
Oh wait... been there, done that... have the T-shirt... have 15 of the T-shirts...
by Blogger who came in from the cold on
Apr 14, 2007 6:24 PM EDT
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Le Mayor
As for David Foster Wallace, I can't agree more. He ought to stick to non-fiction (where he's superb) and avoid anything like Infinite Jest.
by jonathantu on Apr 14, 2007 5:52 PM EDT 0 recs
Thanks, Jonathan
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that about Wallace. Ironically, Walker Percy, who is best known as a novelist, actually was a better essayist and Shelby Foote, who is best known for his non-fiction, actually was a better novelist. Love in a Dry Season and Lost in the Cosmos are among the "must-reads" on any thinking person's list.
by T Kyle King on
Apr 14, 2007 6:30 PM EDT
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Coincidence? I think not
There are times when the similiarities are amazing. http://www.dawgsports.com/comments/2007/3/21/22958/3149/4#4
Here's another:
http://www.jasonpye.com/blog/2007/04/never_was_a_fan_of_him.html
Again. Have we ever seen a picture of Jason and Kyle together?
by Blogger who came in from the cold on Apr 14, 2007 6:21 PM EDT 0 recs
Walker Percy
As for Vonnegut, I appreciate the quirkiness, but (and many would give me a hard time for this) in that genre, I really appreciate Tom Robbins more (esp. Jitterbug Perfume). Although without a Vonnegut, there may never have been a Robbins. I'm sure a lot has to with what's going on in one's life when one reads. I'd have to throw Gabriel García Márquez into that general vibe, too, based on Cien años de soledad.
by NCT on Apr 14, 2007 8:39 PM EDT 0 recs







