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Pro Football Hall of Names: First Team

October 19, 2011 | 2 comments

Whereas my Second Team Hall of Namers were football players whose names are merely amusing, these First Team designees are ones whose names seem to independently declare, “this guy is an effin’ football player, my friend!”

I must admit, this one was tough because there are so, so many great candidates. Especially from the mid-century era: randomly looking at the roster of the 1947 Chicago Cardinals reveals such minor gems as Plato Andros, Babe Dimancheff, Pop Ivy, Buster Ramsey, and Walt Szot. With the purely arbitrary nature of this little exercise in mind, here are my favorite favorites.

NOTE: an asterisk after a player’s name denotes a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

FIRST TEAM: NOW THAT’S A FOOTBALL PLAYER NAME

  • Bieniemy-thumb
    Eric Bieniemy
    pronounced “bee-EN-uh-mee”RB • San Diego Chargers (1991-94), Cincinnati Bengals (1995-98), Philadelphia Eagles (1999)

    We can all be grateful that Bieniemy chose not to attempt a post-football hip-hop career under the name B-Enemy. I can only imagine the various mockeries he must have heard on the playgrounds of his childhood: “Eric B. Enema,” “Eric B. Anthony” (from women’s suffrage history enthusiasts), etc. ESPN’s Chris Berman probably rendered any other nicknames moot when he famously dubbed him “Eric ‘Sleeping With‘ Bieniemy.”

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Pro Football Hall of Names: Second Team

October 14, 2011 | Comment

Confession time: I wrote the bulk of this post a year ago, at the beginning of the 2010 football season. It grew into a long enough opus to fall by the wayside because of my mercurial re-editing tendencies. Before I knew it, the divisional playoffs were upon us and I decided that the post and I needed some time apart.

But now football is back, baby, attended by two of my favorite ancillary activities: trash-talking my friends in our fantasy league and contemplating the funny names of players. The former I have mentioned in this blog before (although not lately), and the latter is the basis of this post — which is now a series of posts. That’s how many unusual, distinctive, or just plain funny names I have dug out of the annals of American football between the 1920′s and the present. So enough pre-game, let’s kick this thing off!

2ND TEAM (MILDLY SILLY)

  • atari-bigby

    Never played this Atari

    Atari Bigby
    DB • Green Bay Packers (2005-10), Seattle Seahawks (2011- )
    He claims that his first name is Japanese for “attack,” although that doesn’t account for the fact that Bigby is a defensive player. I think it would be cool for Bigby to celebrate his interceptions by forming himself into a triangle, rotating in place and ‘firing’ at larger players with a “pew-pew-pew!” sound. It would probably draw an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, of course. The refs might even tack on an additional five yards for copyright violation.

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My Ancestors: Naming Names

April 28, 2010 | 3 comments

Genealogy is a hobby similar to fantasy sports: the most interesting thing in the world is your own data/team, and the most boring thing in the world is hearing about someone else’s. With that in mind, I’m only bringing the subject up here on the blog because I found an angle that may be good for a few cheap laughs. That’s me, keeping it classy.

The silly aspect is that the 17th-18th century New England Puritans from whom I descend often gave their children first names that, suffice it to say, didn’t quite catch on. They’re strange or comical by present-day standards — but then again, we have been known to indulge in some creative nomenclature ourselves.

After the jump are a few of my favorites; let it never be said that my ancestors can’t take a joke (although I’ve found that dead people tend to be pretty good about that).

1736-map

Salmon Treat (1673 — 1746) of Preston, Connecticut; first cousin 9 times removed. The man for whom the tidbits you feed to your cat are named.

Cornelis Lambertsen Cool (c. 1585 — bef. Dec 30, 1643) of Gowanus, Long Island,1 New Netherland Colony; 10th great-grandfather. A misnomer if ever I heard one. I don’t claim to speak for the rest of my family, but I have never been one of the Cool People.

Experience Strong (born c. 1650) of Northampton, Massachusetts; 8th great-grandaunt. She married Zerubbabel Filer, who probably worked his whole life to take the edge off his own first name. Her married name of Experience Strong Filer only compounds the hilarity. These two take the Couples Award, hands down. Read the rest of this entry »


Top 10 Movies of the Decade

January 15, 2010 | Permalink

Jeff Chen recently asked, “Since everybody else is making lists of their top ten films of the decade, does that mean I have to, too?” I wouldn’t presume to speak for him, but my own answer to the same rhetorical question is a sheepish “yes.” Jeff ended up making his list, too, although I don’t know how sheepish he felt about it.

Anyway, here are my top ten…nah, screw it—twelve favorite movies of the decade just completed, i.e., 2000-2009.

  1. Dogville (2004)

    dogville_thumbTrailer
    Add to Netflix Queue
    Mike D’Angelo, The Man Who Viewed Too Much:

    Inevitably, von Trier’s spartan aesthetic has American critics citing Our Town, but in both method and spirit Dogville has much more in common with Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan (written in Denmark, ironically), another sorrowful disquisition on the mercenary aspects of human nature. Anything this ostentatiously artificial demands to be read as allegory, of course, and charges of anti-Americanism aren’t entirely groundless — certainly the film is very, very critical of the way that the U.S. treats its underclass, and to argue that Von Trier isn’t entitled to feel that disgust without having set foot in the continental 48 is patently absurd.

  2. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

    capturing the friedmansTrailer
    Netflix
    Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader:

    If Capturing the Friedmans were less shapely and less of a masterpiece, I’d find it less troubling. Both times I’ve seen it I’ve felt that by the end practically everyone associated with the film seems tarnished in one way or another: the ostensible subjects (the Friedmans, an upper-middle-class Jewish family in the Long Island town of Great Neck), the members of their community who helped destroy much of their lives, the filmmakers, and the audience. We’re all tainted by the graphic exposure of family wounds, diminished by what we think and feel–and by what we don’t think and don’t feel.

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Cameraphone Follies: My Favorite Storefront in the Valley

December 26, 2009 | Permalink

You know, just… pop it in the mail slot.

Dickens Box

Flickr TOS-mandated self-credit: my Flickr page


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