Bud Adams Stars in a Remake of “The Birds”

So last week, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fined Tennessee Titans owner Kenneth Stanley Adams Jr. – or as Rudy Huxtable would call him, “Buuuuuuuud” – $25,000 for giving the Buffalo Bills and some of their fans the finger during the Titans’ curb-stomping of said Bills. Seriously? In a less than enthralling NFL season in which multiple sub-.500 teams could make the playoffs, this has currently taken pole position as my favorite absurdist comedy story of the fall. Bud Adams knows that the bird is the word. Fuck Chris Andersen; Bud Adams is the real Birdman! Fuck Papa Bear Halas; Bud Adams is Papa Oom Mow Mow!

First of all, who can really channel much animosity towards the Bills these days? I mean sure, I wasn’t too happy about their lying down for the Dallas Cowboys in consecutive Super Bowls, but for the past 15 years, they’ve been the very model of modern major mediocrity. (And as a Skins fan, we’ve had them equally matched for the last 15, so I know from which I speak). I mean, I actually forgot that noted donkey-rapist Terrell Owens was on their team; that’s

Monchichi can't wait to meld this guy's face with that of an exalted goddess. Is he wearing lipstick?

how far off everyone’s radar they are. It takes quite the Don Quixote to dole out absurdist “obscene” gestures after your 3-6 team has filleted their 3-6 squad. The only city’s fans Bud Adams should really be flipping off is Houston’s, since he absconded with their team and moved them to a state so entrenched in SEC corruption that the team’s fans thought paying off the commissioner would get them a higher seed in the playoffs and the team’s payroll staff wore ski masks for the first five years.

Now I sort of hear that Goodell levied an exorbitant fine because he’s trying to send a message that he’s holding owners to a higher standard of behavior. Really? The owners that elected him, pay his salary, and are in league with him during labor disputes? I don’t see him fining Dan Snyder for banning free speech at Redskins games. Unlike Bud Adams, people aren’t laughing with him. The only reason he’s doing this is because Bud Adams is 86 years old and Goodell thinks he can trick him into giving him some beer and stripper money. I mean, for Christsakes, the Bears’ Tommie Harris got $7,000 for punching a cog in the Buzzsaw, and Bud Adams got more than three times that for the finger? Bud Adams is an American hero. He should be awarded $25,000 for making the entire country laugh.

The finger. Socio-cultural icon of resistance and rebellion? Fuck that! Socio-cultural icon of comedy!

A brief segue here, how did the finger ever get nicknamed “the bird?” I mean, if I see the finger and I immediately think, ‘Man, that looks just like a bird,” I’m going straight to the optometrist for a new prescription. While we’re at it, how exactly did the gesture obtain its alleged meaning? If I give you the finger, am I trying to send you the mental telepathy that you should first mimic my gesture, and then stick it up your own ass? That’s a pretty big leap. Given his comedy touchstones, I think Nacho is currently trying to dial up Dane Cook’s musing on the subject. (I kid because I love, pig).

Seriously. It’s just such a hilariously futile empty gesture. The exasperation and desperation awkwardly displaced. How in the hell can anyone possibly be offended by that? What else can you do but laugh?

Who are these people who give people the finger and actually mean it? Have they seen themselves? I get the finger every 6 months or so when I’m driving

Yes, Mary Kate. The paparazzi is now quaking in fear after being flipped off by a hobo.

and honest to God, I probably drive worse afterwards because I’m laughing so fucking hard at whoever it is. Seriously, I just want to take a picture of anyone giving me the finger and show it to him or her. You just look like a complete idiot. And it’s totally better if you get the finger-giving face involved. All scrunched-up, eyes ready to pop out. What does giving the finger actually accomplish besides looking like an idiot? Does it really release built-up tension? I’d have to think not.

I think I first learned about the finger as a second-grader when a kid told me a joke in which the punchline involved the finger and I didn’t get it. But my first memorable finger experience as a kid was with my dad. I think I was about 10 or 11 and my dad was driving one of his continued line of replacement wangmobiles. Frustrated by a fellow driver’s slow driving on a 2-lane road, he crossed the dotted yellow and attempted to pass. The other driver, kind of offended, sped up, and my dad ran out of room as oncoming traffic approached. As he swerved back behind the offending driver, he gave him the finger. And it was surreal and later hilarious. First of all, because I kinda thought he was in the wrong in the driving maneuver, and I still get annoyed by people who make a big production out of passing either on short distance roads or in traffic. Secondly, the entire picture of it was just so pathetic.

My dad used to weigh around 300 pounds before losing a ton of weight in the past few years. However, the size disproportion occasionally involved in giving the finger can make things just that much more ridiculous. If some tiny person gives you the finger, it’s like, yeah, OK. I’m trembling in the wake of your tiny rage. If a 300-pound guy gives you the finger, it’s even better. That finger is just so small compared to the rest of him. It’s the absolute perfect snapshot of how futile the gesture really is. (By the way, I’ll tell you that huge guys smoking cigarettes is hilarious for the exact same reason).

Kerry Wood teleported into the future to deliver a message to Milton Bradley.

This stood up for about 20 years until it was passed a year ago by an even more fantastically charismatically impotent scenario. Despite being a Cubs fan, I was at a White Sox-Rays game (the one where AJ Pierzynski won the game by flopping like a Duke basketball player between 2^nd and 3^rd) in the summer of 2008. When the Rays decided to intentionally walk JI …. JIM THOME to load the bases in the bottom of the 10th, this dude stood up and starting giving said decision the finger in pretty much every way he knew how. First just the finger. Then he did the thing where you put one arm sideways with the other arm under it with forearm extended and punctuated that gesture, which already means the same thing as the finger, by giving the finger with the top hand. But then for the coup de gras, he employed a move I’ve only seen used by Stone Cold Steve Austin, dojo master of giving the finger. Alternating arms giving the finger. I’ve looked for video of this because it’s really hard to explain. But it was hilarious when Stone Cold did it and mega-hilarious when this guy did it. I asked my friend who was there with me why exactly this was so funny, and he said, “I think it’s the disconnect between the message being sent and the grandiosity of this gesture,” and he then started wildly waving his arms like a monkey and I just lost it. I’m sorry that the hilariousness isn’t quite coming across, but it was just that funny.

Gold standard. Comedy icon.

It is absolutely impossible to take the finger seriously. And that’s why the only real way to give the finger is with the intention of making others laugh. This obviously isn’t my own theory. Why else do you think that kids (and college students) have that game where they come up with creative ways of giving the other person the finger? You know. It starts with scratching your nose. Tying your shoe. Then you reach inside your pocket. Or open up your wallet. It becomes a contest on who can come up with the most hilariously awesome way to do it. My own personal favorite is to say, “Don’t say I never gave you anything,” before delivering it. Makes me bust out laughing every time.

As I learned in an awesome theology class my senior year of college, symbols gain and lose meaning throughout history depending on changes in society. Our professor asked us what the symbol built into the side of the math-science building was, and no one knew. She said it was a Catholic symbol that was now obsolete. How long until the finger becomes obsolete? While it’s debatable how it originated (different people have given me different theories, hence “debatable”), it obviously didn’t exist at one point, and maybe someday it won’t have any more meaning. Then again, does it really now? Some, like Roger Goodell, obviously still think so, but what they really need to do is look at themselves or look at the photographic evidence and do the only thing possible – laugh their asses off. If they have any sense of humanity, I bet that’s what the Bills’ fans did in response to Bud Adams.

And since we’re talking hilariously meaningless “obscene” gestures, let’s get out there and show those adult sorority girl Twilight fans the new moon!

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Tags: Bud Adams, buffalo bills, Dan Snyder, impotent futility, nfl, old king clancy, perpetual hypocrisy, Roger Goodell, Tennessee Titans, the finger, things that are inherently funny
Categories: Domestics

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 am and is filed under Domestics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.