As one of only two licensed rantologists1 in the United States, we’d like to send a shout out to Kevin Durant, basketball god and delightful enigma, for putting the smackdown on Stephen A. Smith, professional shouter at ESPN, soon to be the only person employed there as the network continues to fire everyone in sight to pay the enormous rights fees to the sports ball leagues. The same leagues that will tell you they are all going broke and will now have to charge $415 for a watered down soda. Also, your city will have to pony up all their tax dollars for a new stadium because the one they built just 18 months ago no longer has that new arena smell.
Even worse, college football and basketball conferences negotiate billions in TV deals and then whine to Congress they can’t possibly pay athletes, America’s last indentured servants, or even bother to regulate the now booming NIL market to create some equity. But they’re getting an education! Right, and your angelic child isn’t coming to class hungover, if they’re showing up at all after fall break.2
To quote Willam Gass: Have we digressed? Excellent. Stephen A. recently questioned Durant’s leadership skills, despite the fact he has two NBA championships and is easily the greatest Olympic basketball player of all time for any country, with four gold medals and a relentless will in Olympic play. So, Durant had this to say about Mr. Shout:
“Yeah, Stephen A., I don’t understand how people even listen to Stephen A. I’ve been in the league for 18 years. I’ve never seen Stephen A. at a practice, or a film session, or a shoot-around. I’ve never seen him anywhere but on TV talking s— about players. … He’s a clown to me. He’s always been a clown.”
A little song/A little dance/A little seltzer down the pants.3 Rant U would like to confer an honorary degree to you Mr., or should we say Dr., Durant. Now please donate $80million to old RU. That’s the purpose of honorary degrees. You knew that right?
Let’s review the three phases of all current sports programming outside of the games. At least we think they still play games; the commercial breaks now last so long The Rant sometimes forgets why the television is on at all. Our most despised sequence: Touchdown. Commercial. Five-second kickoff play. Commercial. Three play drive with punt. Commercial.4 Followed closely by the 28 timeouts used for the last three seconds of an NBA game, regardless of the score.
Phase 1: Shouting Head I makes wild, nonsensical claim with complete confidence: “All Cleveland Browns players upon arrival to the team have their DNA altered so they can’t win the Super Bowl.” Shouting Head II makes a counter-claim to undermine veracity: “I think you had your DNA altered to always be wrong.” In between the Shouters is a woman, always a brunette to prove they’re a legit female sportsball expert, pretending to mediate but merely guffawing and shuffling papers.
Phase 2: The next day, no mention is made that everything shouted the day before has proven to be so wrong the viewer is left wondering if anyone has even seen a game or knows the rudiments of play. The brunette mediator asks a question that sets off a new round of shouting. If you watch this nonsense, please remember that as you are trying to scrape together enough money for a Thanksgiving meal, Stephen A. gets paid $12million a year to behave like your obnoxious uncle at said meal. Sigh.
Phase 3: After two segments of shouting, it’s time for some wagering! And you can bet on any obscure sports occurrence your heart desires. The Rant wishes we had bet Patrick Mahomes, right-handed QB of the Kansas City Chiefs, would throw a left-handed pass in the Monday Night game. Because he did. We could have left a post-it on the door informing our uncle we had decamped to Cabo for Thanksgiving. Leaving aside the problem of trying to convince people to behave like Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems, ESPN nows owns a betting service to drain your bank account without the middle man. But hey, all those betting tips and sure-fire parlays are completely objective.
This approach to the endless need for content has permeated all media. We are offered a ten-second sound bite of momentous news followed by panel after panel of shouting heads telling you absolutely, positively, what it means. The Rant offers the Warhol Corollary: in the future everyone will hold a legitimate job for 15 minutes so they can spew their opinions as an “expert” for eternity.
We see where this got us in the current election cycle. A politician uttering nonsense followed by pundits with furrowed brows declaring how this moment had altered the course of the election. Until tomorrow’s nonsense. Poor Rachel Maddow kept assuring us plenty more returns would be arriving soon to alter the tide like she was with Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
America has grown addicted to the Foregone Conclusion only to be disappointed with results ranging from the benign, like losing ten bucks when Stephen A. assured you to bet the under, to the harrowing, like all those shouting heads in their echo chambers making people believe the only reality is the one they are proclaiming. The Rant suggests a return to the Marvelous Uncertainty, where anything is possible but nothing known until the magical combination of your own volition, circumstance, and the help of others makes it occur. Now get out there and dance like no Pharma companies are trying to sell you something.
- The other being Lewis Black. Duh. His immortal “Ranto ergo sum”–I rant, therefore I am–changed the world of rantology forever
- The Rant used to be a college professor. That’s right: we got more degrees than Vegas in the summer. We know things. Your child has been lying to you since the moment you drove away teary-eyed from their dorm. They were high, drunk, and broke before you hit the on-ramp to the highway. Also, you may be a grandparent. Enjoy those student loans you signed on behalf of your little Einstein
- That quote is from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and the greatest sitcom episode you’ve never seen. Chuckles the Clown from the local TV station Moore works for is crushed by an elephant because he’s dressed as a giant peanut. The above was his catch phrase. Moore is horrified by everyone laughing about the death . . . until she tries to speak at the memorial service and suddenly can’t stop cracking up. The episode was written by David Lloyd, TV comedy genius
- While we’re on the topic of commercials, please Big Pharma, in the name of Martha Graham, stop with the people dancing in your drug ads. What’s worse, none of these people can even dance. The first time we watched such floundering, we thought an anti-seizure med was being peddled. And while you’re at it, enough with the singing as well. We understand that you want to project a sort of chemical Narnia for whoever takes your drugs, but The Rant’s health plan, and most people’s we know, won’t even let us see an empty box of Wegovy, let enough cover a prescription.
