Thursday, July 2, 2020

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 298

Aries, along with Ki, have made some dangerous arguments on Twitter this week
Photo Credit: WWE.com
It's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 280 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, and wait for the call on Wednesday to ask your questions. Hash-tag your questions #TweetBag, and look for the bag to drop Thursday afternoon (most of the time). Without further ado, here are your questions and my answers:

They're tied for last place. You might think this is a glib answer, but I don't like to give partial credit to someone for an argument they didn't make. Ki and Aries basically are saying the same things, that they shouldn't have to wear a mask because they have freedom or some shit. Aries giving the angle of his militant dipshit veganism doesn't make his argument worse, just funnier probably. He also didn't think to post a snippet from the Americans with Disabilities Act and interpret it out of context. When the dust clears, judging which one of these dangerous idiots is less dangerous feels like a waste of time. Both Ki and Aries should be laughed out of polite society for their virus denialism, but honestly, I bet if they end up getting COVID-19 after lick-cleaning their weights at the gym, they'll sing a different tune.

I've had a lot of different kinds of food, but there are still some blind spots. The hugest, wide-ranging cultural one is African cuisine, which I know isn't a monolithic cuisine. There's West African, Ethiopian, Moroccan, a whole variety, but I've never ventured onto that continent's culinary board outside of whatever influence it has had on Caribbean, Cajun, or Southern cooking. I should probably get crackin' on those individual cuisines now that they're becoming more worldly. As for individual dishes, my answer would be a good bibimbap. I like Korean food quite a bit, but I'm still generally uninitiated. A mix of stir-fried meat and vegetables, rice, and a fried egg all sound really good to me.

Actually, Bonilla probably cost himself a good bit of money by deferring out just given how money depreciates over time. I'm not entirely sure $1.1 million is going to be a paltry sum anytime soon, and having that income coming in well into retirement has to be welcomed. That being said, even looking at it from the Mets' point of view, it wasn't a bad move. Now, granted, what I'm about to say could be thrown in the trash given the immense value of franchises and the people who own them, but for argument's sake, allow me to posit that money isn't fake, especially a sports team owner's money. The Mets set a budget that Bonilla's salary deferral allowed them to add more salary in other areas. They signed Mike Hampton, who was the 2000 National League Championship Series MVP. When he left in free agency, he bore the Mets the fruit of a compensatory pick that allowed them to select franchise cornerstone third baseman David Wright. Again, they probably could've had all that if fans at large didn't give sports owners the benefit of the doubt of crying poor. Still, I don't think the Mets, an otherwise laughable franchise in other decisions they've made, made out too badly here, no matter how much one wants to laugh at them.

Juggalos are a cautionary tale at generalizing a group of people. Sure, "juggalo" isn't a race, but when you choose to associate with other people over a benign thing like music, no matter how bad the consensus thinks it is, you tend to have a melting pot of different integrities of character. Yes, there are scumbag juggalos, but there are a lot of good people who just want to do drugs, watch wrestling, and get really into a niche-level specific kind of rap. It helps that the Insane Clown Posse themselves have proven to be willing to listen and fight for marginalized people at least. I don't know how much growing they have yet to do; detractors will tell you they are somewhat misogynist and also don't have the right to use the word "ninja" when they want to say that other n-word. THAT BEING SAID, it feels like any time they make headlines lately, it's for saying the right thing. That goes a long way, I suppose.

The only people you should judge by association are Nazis and other associated fascists and racists. They are scum of the earth. Juggalos? They're just down with the clown. Judge them on an individual basis.

A short season, which I STILL doubt will come to completion, opens up the field substantially. The small sample size leaves determining the playoff order to greater variance, and to me that means only the most moribund teams like the Tigers, Marlins, and Orioles are eliminated before the first pitch, instead of half the league. The favorites to win a full 162 games - your Yankees, Twins, Astros, Nationals, and Dodgers - are all threats to win again, but a chunk of the season that comprises even less than a half-a-normal season can make some weird shit happen. There are quite a few candidates, but the Chicago White Sox to me feel like a team that could take advantage chaos. They have some hot prospects, spent money, and have some guys around who are coming into their own. Would Tim Anderson be a 162-game MVP candidate? I mean, stranger things have happened. Could he win a MVP over 60 games? That sounds a lot more likely. They're not my pick to win the 2020 World Series (if you want my official prediction, it's "no one"), but if somehow this season plays to completion, well, I'm saying don't be shocked if they win the whole damn thing even if they don't even make the playoffs over the next five full seasons.

Now, if this season doesn't happen and the next one is a 162-game frame in 2022 after the virus wipes this one out and a strike wipes the next one out? Maybe the Angels will get career best seasons out of Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Shohei Ohtani all in the same year. However, that's too far in the future for me to predict at this point.

I was 16 years-old in 1997/98 so if I came into a Benjamin, I would have bought either two N64 games or one N64 game and like three or four CDs. I dunno, I was basic like that. If I were 16 today, then I would probably see how much a mid-pair of Bluetooth earbuds were. Maybe I would ask my parents to go in halfsies on a really good pair as part of an early birthday gift or whatever. Or who knows, maybe I'd just buy three Switch games or something with it. I dunno. My point is, I'm basic as hell.

Given the width and breadth of what I advertise to listen to on Twitter, I'm not sure anything outside hip-hop might surprise people, and it's not because I don't like rap. I do, but the thing is that I have yet to really get into albums rather than singles here and there. That's on me. That being said, I guess the closest that can be surprising, and it's really not how much I like artists such as Mitski, is Janelle Monae. I've only listened to two of their albums so far, The ArchAndroid and Dirty Computer, but they're an incredibly gifted songwriter with a knockout voice. I dunno, are you really surprised by that? Maybe you are. Either way, I love those two albums.
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