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Have been doing a lot of reminiscing lately about the Buddy Ryan years, what with Rex in the playoffs with the other green team.  It’s funny how fondly we all look back on those days now, even though at the time there were a lot of things to gripe about.  Makes me think how much everybody’s going to miss Reid, McNabb and going to the playoffs every year when we eventually hit a serious downturn.   Ah yes but it’s so much easier to remember Reggie and Jerome and Seth and to forget about things like…

• Never winning a playoff game  (fog bowl still boils my blood)

• The complete lack of a running game (it being a big deal when Keith Byars managed a 4 yard run)

• The complete lack of an offensive line (Antone Davis anyone?  Ooo and Mike Schad!)

• Ditto pretty much every aspect of our team except for the defense and the QB

Ahh yes, that defense.  I still believe firmly it’s the best defense in the history of the league, but what the hell do I know.

Anyway, the point of this post was to tell a little story that I think I may have already told, but it’s awesome so here it is again.

Buddy's Watchin' You!

So I was at training camp, on that shitty practice field they used to have next to the Vet, with my Pop Pop.  This must have been 1990, a year or two before Jerome died.   It was the golden era of Gang Green, everybody was there: Erik Allen, Seth, Clyde, Wes, Andre, Reggie, Jerome.   The coolest thing is that you could just literally wander around among the guys as they were practicing.  It was such a loose atmosphere– Keith Byars would be catching passes from Matt Cavanaugh and you’d have to jump out of the way.

So we’re standing there at one point, and Buddy goes walking past us towards the porta-potties.  He goes inside, and I look over and see Jerome and Reggie standing there watching him and whispering to each other.  When Buddy closes the door, the two of them sneak over to the porta-potty, each one gets on one of the sides, and they start shaking the unholy shit out of the thing, with Buddy inside.  This is like 700 pounds of awesome Eagles defensive muscle literally rocking the shit out of Buddy while he’s stuck inside this stinky plastic box.  And at this point EVERYBODY is watching and giggling: players, coaches and fans, because they all know who’s inside.

After a good 15 second shake-up, Reggie and Jerome run off and hide in a big pack of green jerseys, and suddenly the door to the porta-potty busts open and Buddy comes stumbling out.  He looks around, wild-eyed, for the culprit, and suddenly you hear Jerome just completely crack up.  The whole place loses it, Buddy included.  It was fuckin’ awesome.  Those dudes all really loved each other, it was such a nice atmosphere.

I think we need to make a BRING IT HOME FOR JEROME shirt.

1) I’m a big Vikings fan this morning.  But only this morning.  Then I’m going Saints.  Those guys down there deserve one.

2) One positive of the way our season ended (I know it’s a stretch calling this a positive, but it is kindof true):  At least we’ve got some new (and very real) fuel for the Boys-Birds rivalry.  Things were getting a bit boring and one-sided for the last 10 years if you think about it.  We need to get back to the days when there was a real chance our head coaches would get into an actual fist fight.

3) For all the McNabb/Reid/Lurie haters and Birds conspiracy theorists: “Sometimes, people, an insufficient pass rush and a fractured O-line are exactly and only what they appear to be.” This is a very, very smart quote from Ahab on philly.com in response to a very, very shitty article by John Gonzalez.  Wonderful point, Ahab.  Why people feel the need to shift blame away from the real reasons why our season fell apart and toward the typical McNabb/Reid/Lurie blame-game totally escapes me.  Maybe because it takes a small amount of focus and concentration to actually think about why our team was having trouble (see #4), while it’s a lot easier and less time-consuming to just follow the “I hate McNabb because he smiles” gut reaction.

4) It’s a lot easier to stomach these losses when you take a second to understand why they happen.  A lot of it is just luck, ladies and gentlemen: as in, injuries to your starting MLB and center.  Find me a super bowl winning team who lost their starting MLB and center.  It’s just that simple.  But I guess it’s McNabb’s fault that Stew Bradley tore his ACL.

5) Thick and thin guys, thick and thin.  And try to keep in mind, there’s been quite a lot of thick in the past ten years.  And no, not this Thicke:

Just found these two items today for Ye Olde Philavania Vintage Shoppe… they came from different places but they’re basically the same design and they’re both from the Birds’ first Super Bowl year.  Maybe I’m just grasping for positive signs, but I’m filing this one in the “POSITIVE OMEN” category.

Birds in the Super Bowl?  It’s happened before folks, it could happen again…

NFC Champs?

PS: This shirt is off the hook awesome.  We paid and arm and a leg for it, but whoever ends up with it is gonna be a real proud bird.

And all the rest of you. We get a lot of really nice emails from happy customers, and they make us… well, really happy. Thank you so much for the support everybody, it’s been a fun ride!
Here’s the awesome email we got today that put us in such a good mood:

Subject: I LOVE YOU

LOVE YOU GUYS!

I’m tempted to listen to 610 later today, just to hear the haters manage to find something to whine about on a day when the Eagles win 34-7. Because you know they will.

So, in the spirit of mindless hating, let’s ignore that awesome win and cover the bases for all the haters out there:

“Lurie doesn’t care about winning, just looking good & making money, Banner is the worst front office guy in the league & is secretly the Incredible Hulk, McNabb is a barfing front office puppet, and Fat Andy is the worst game managing coach in the history of pro football.”

Hold on wait, there should be more spelling mistakes… “We nver shudda let Dawk go, were the worst drafting team in all uf sports, and I totally don care about how manny times we made it to the playoffs cuz winning any game other than the Super Bowl doesn’t matter because I dont watch the reglar seeson or playofs only the Super Bowl. I only accep tha BEST, and any a yous who likes winnin games and goin to da playoffs pretty much every year since andy reid has ben are coach are just brainwashed front office drones.”

Oh yeah one more thing: “Obama’s a muslim!!”

Thanks to our new imaginary alter ego, Kensington Kev the Moronic Super Hater, for these wonderful insights.

(A little background on Kensington Kev: he drinks Piels, he might have a crystal meth habit, and his favorite Eagle is either Andre Waters (pronounced “durty wutters”) or John Runyan. And he owns a Mike Mamula jersey.)

One of these is a picture of Kensington Kev, maybe you can help us decide which:

The Answer.

The Answer

Celebrate 1 more season with Bubba Chuck by listening to THE BEST SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

Let’s also take this opportunity to recount a mildly funny Iverson-related story:

Not sure if you’re aware of the bizarre-but-true connection between A.I. and Bruce Hornsby (that’s right, Hornsby of the Mandolin Rain), but here’s a little primer in case you need to get up to speed. (Long story short, Hornsby is a big time VA hoops fan and helped get Allen out of jail when he was a kid.)

So here goes: one night I’m at a concert at the Hollywood Bowl with a bunch of friends. It was some kind of jazz show, remember it being pretty righteous. So Hornsby was there, playing keys with the band. At one point somebody near the front was heckling about something, and Hornsby literally stopped the show, took a mic and got up and yelled at the dude. Totally tore him to shreds, in a really funny but very aggressive way. It was pretty hilarious– we were all joking around the rest of the night about how Hornsby is the kind of bad ass mofo that you don’t fuck with (which obviously came as quite a surprise to pretty much everyone in the audience, ourselves included.)

Anyway, after the show, Hornsby is sitting outside at a table signing autographs. He looks like total wussy Bruce Hornsby, but we’re still going on about how you don’t fuck with Bruce Hornsby unless you want to get a mouthful of whoop-ass. So one of my friends yells out “Yo Hornsby, you ain’t as tough as Bubba Chuck!” and Hornsby suddenly leaps out of his seat and comes toward us. We all freeze, thinking we might be about to get our assess kicked by Bruce Hornsby, and the Range isn’t anywhere to be seen.

So Hornsby goes “I dunked on that little fucker.” And we’re like WHAAAAT?? So he goes on to tell us this story of how, after getting Allen out of jail, he challenged him to a game of one-on-one. And not only dunked on him– he beat him. I would have called bullshit, but if I learned one thing that night it’s this: don’t EVER fuck with Bruce Hornsby.

Hornsby!

Something about this image just really struck me. It’s a screen shot from the end of the Yanks-Angels series, when their fans were beating their hands on the wall like a bunch of moneys waiting for a can of Alpo. What I realized was: every Yankees fan in the world looks exactly like one of these meatballs.

Which one of these idiots doesn’t look like he spent some time in either a mental or juvenile institution? Remember when they used to measure people’s intelligence or propensity for criminal behavior by measuring the shapes of their skulls? Wonder how these clowns would do in a phrenology test.

#1) Fatty Arbuckle here is actually only 5 years old. He weighs 452 pounds, and his balls haven’t dropped yet.

#2) Here is your prototypical baboon-with-a-five-o’clock-shadow New York fan. Any time I see someone in a Yankees cap, I see this face. (See how we put him chopping his own head in half? Awesome huh.)

#3) Ever seen or read “Of Mice & Men?” This is the guy who’s not Gary Sinese. That’s right Lennie, put the mice down. You’re hurting them.

#4a & 4b) These dudes might actually be siamese twins– they appear to have the same face. At least they’re taking up less space in the universe than 2 regular Yankees fans.

#5) This idiot would get thrown out of a cro-magnon frat party. He must have gotten a free ticket to the game from Father “Slippery Hands” O’Connelly.

#6) Jesus. (This dude’s name is actually Jesus. How could his mother do that to the real Jesus.)

#7) And rounding things off is Vito from “Do the Right Thing.” Remember the idiotic brother who sweeps up the floor and gets beat up by John Turturro? That’s the one.

Do the right thing Phils. Put these clowns to bed early.

Idiots.

Kindof a messy win, but we’ll take it. We should have beat this team and we did, so that’s a good thing.

- Offensive line looks a little shaky, but they’re (relatively) healthy so hopefully they can get it going a little tighter. Plus the skins ends are pretty sweet. I miss Reggie.

- That said, our defensive pressure was pretty awesome. Forcing the Redskins to punt after giving them the ball on our own 35 yard line was pretty badass!

- Loved the shot of the sad Pig Pen at the end. I have to admit, I love that those guys dress up like that. I love it even more when they’re sad piggies.

- Final thought: we have some sick wide receivers. I can’t wait to watch those guys play for years to come.

- Oh wait one more thing– love that I’d take any of our 3 quarterbacks over Jason Campbell. Please Washington, keep him around forever? (same goes for Romo btw. Keep Romo forever. Please.)

Hey Yanks fans– If you guys can’t even take down a Disney team, how are you going to take down the League Of Red October? That must have been a real heartbreaker. I bet you and your dough-faced, five o’clock shadowed Nieuw Amsterdam faithful were in full cocky-smug mode when you took the lead. Basking in your sense of entitlement, pumping your grubby little fists and telling yourselves how much you deserve it. But oh no! Bambi and Dumbo live to play another day! The Yanks aren’t impenetrable- they’re just a bunch of douchevags like we keep trying to tell you! Good luck on Saturday. Or maybe it’ll be Sunday with the rain… either way use them pitchers up!

Meanwhile, back at the PSFS Hall of Liberty… Captain Howard and Señor Octobre await, slumbering softly and gathering strength as they dream of dingers and tasteycakes and Broad Street Parades…

Hey Yanks fans– If you guys can’t even take down a Disney team, how are you going to take down the League Of Red October? That must have been a real heartbreaker. I bet you and your dough-faced, five o’clock shadowed Nieuw Amsterdam faithful were in full cocky-smug mode when you took the lead. Basking in your sense of entitlement, pumping your grubby little fists and telling yourselves how much you deserve it. But oh no! Bambi and Dumbo live to play another day! The Yanks aren’t impenetrable- they’re just a bunch of douchevags like we keep trying to tell you! Good luck on Saturday. Or maybe it’ll be Sunday with the rain… either way use them pitchers up! Meanwhile, back at the PSFS Hall of Liberty… Captain Howard and Señor Octobre await, slumbering softly and gathering strength as they dream of dingers and tasteycakes and Broad Street Parades… -Uncle Cholly