I’ll be hosting a reading tonight in DC at the Dodge City Bar. The last time I had a reading at a bar, it was in Austin, TX, and some of the bar’s regulars were really pissed that some uppity Yankee blogger was in the back reading out loud. One of them yelled out THIS AIN’T NO DAMN LIBRARY while he was playing pool. It was AWESOME. So come on over, get drunk, ask me if my old lady reads KSK (everyone asks this, and the answer is “not if I can help it”), and stand around awkwardly with other people. AND IT’S LADIES’ NIGHT AT THE DODGE CITY BAR*

(* – no idea if this is true)

While I’m in a reminderin’ mood – Here’s another mention that I’m doing a reading tomorrow evening at Varsity Letters in Brooklyn. Meandering speeches, monotone delivery – my reading’s gonna have it all!

[Cutler story via Deadspin]

Today marks the release of my second greatest literary achievement after the fake Philip Rivers Twitter feed, the surpassingly awesome (don’t wanna oversell it) The Football Fan’s Manifesto. So now that you’ve already pre-ordered it off Amazon, you can go purchase a reserve copy in stores for the express purpose of throwing at others. It’s bound to be the most widely read manifesto since The Washington Post and The New York Times ran Ted Kaczynski’s in full (why can’t I get that kind of play?).

And let me tell you, it’s about goddamn time. Jeebus, do book deadlines suck. I finished editing this thing months ago and have had to spend the meantime sitting around praying specific jokes and references would hold up long enough not to be outdated by the time the book even hit stores. For example, there’s one part where I mock Cleveland for its 45-year title drought. Only so the Cavs could made me sweat it out for three whole rounds of the playoffs before failing miserably! Tension, I tells ya.

Invariably, whenever I tell people I have a book coming out, they ask if I’m going on a book tour. Which is silly. Because only Leitch gets book tour money (ON TOP OF RAISIN MONEY!). I do, however, have two non-alone-naked-in-front-of-the-mirror readings scheduled for next month:

After the jump is a section that, while funny, didn’t survive the second draft of the book because my editor said it was kinda sorta wholly out of place with the rest of the book. Like dick jokes need coherence! A shame, but now you can enjoy it on the site, print it out, shove it between pages, and have your own personal simian’s cut of the book.

A Message From Philip Rivers Regarding Your Autograph Request

Wellie, well, well, wellington, wee wascally fanboy, I can tell from the eager glint in your wall eyes that you want me to get a-scribblin’ on your tattered knock-off replica King Philip “the Laserfaced” Rivers jersey. Hmm. Where should I sign? The part with the months old chili cheese stain? The area where my name should be stitched on, but you crapped out and bought the chintzy fake decal version? Or would you prefer me put the ol’ John Handonmycock on the pieces of duct tape that are holding upright the dilapidated hovel you call home-sweet-hole-in-the-ground?

OR MAYBE I CAN JUST SIGN YOUR DEATH CERTIFICATE, YOU SAD EXCUSE FOR A COCKTHIRSTY CUTLERFUCKER! YOU KNOW WHAT? I BET YOU JUST LOOOOOOOOVE JAY CUTLER, THAT YOU WERE JUST ASKING HIM TO SIGN FOR YOU EARLIER TODAY. AND HE PROBABLY MADE THAT HANGDOG TEENAGE SULK FACE AND DID IT. WELL I’M NOT SO EASY PEEZY, SONNY JIM. THIS ISN’T EVEN A FUCKING SHARPIE YOU WANT ME TO SIGN WITH. HOW DARE YOU PLACE THIS GUTTER PEN IN THE THROWING HAND OF THE BEST QUARTERBACK ON THIS OR ANY PLANET!? GO HUG A CLAYMORE, YOU HEFTY BAG OF GIBBON SHIT!

Hey, hey, shh, shh, I get it. You’re not alone. The whole world wants a piece of me now. Philip Rivers, Marmalard, King Laserface; The name echoes throughout eternity, does it not? This was not always so. Everyone around the league wanted to write me off as another Ryan Leaf (he was misunderstood anyway). Time was, they said I was nothing but a trash talking punk, that my passes fluttered in the air like the omnipresent weightless debris that people say gives your neighborhood “character”. That I wasn’t good for anything but taunting the crowd on the road. Heck, I even had to hear about Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning being the best quarterbacks of my draft class. MY DRAFT CLASS! How they’ve gotten rings and I don’t. Can you believe that?

WELL I CAN PASS RINGS AROUND RETARDHURLER AND MOMMA MANNING’S FINAL CHROMOSOMAL DEFECT! THOSE TWO CLOWNS AREN’T FIT TO CARRY A TISSUE COVERED WITH MY CRUSTED EJACULATE! THEY ARE QUARTERBACKS OF LESSER GODS!

You know, if it wasn’t for my worthless running back LaToeInjury UncleTomlinson pussying out on me in that AFC Championship Game in New England, you’d have a Super Bowl champion refusing to sign for you right now. Instead, I’m a regular old unfathomably awesome swinging dick Sojourner Truth for abstinence who’s got better thing to do than to ascribe his priceless name to your meager and probably stolen possessions. I can tell it shocks you that a man as immensely powerful as I has suffered disappointment in his life, but I assure you the slings and arrows reach even my unfathomable heights. Take that as minor solace as you leave here empty-handed.

Wait, wait. No, no, no, get back here. I’m not through berating you yet. What gall you have to ask favors of me! I bet you weren’t a fan of mine when I was at NC State. I bet you weren’t in the stands when I was playing high school ball in Alabama. You haven’t shown me true loyalty, now have you? Were you there for me when I had a grossly uncharacteristic bad game because Antonio Gates tipped my painfully perfect parabolic passes to nearby defenders?

Well? Were you? Huh? Were you? FUCK YOU NO YOU WEREN’T!

You show me those ticket stubs. Prove to me that you’ve been on the Riverswagon since day one and maybe, just maybe, if you catch me in a generous mood and with my guard down and my cock up, and I’ll mark an X on your sweatshop-produced imitation of football finery.

But you can’t show that, can you? Just wasting my precious time that could’ve been better spent yelling at important people. All this hassling me and still you think you deserve my autograph?

You probably don’t even want to keep this autographed jersey as the cherished keepsake to be passed down through generations of your single branched family tree until centuries from now when post-apocalyptic road warriors unearth it from the rubble of your home and use it to clothe their unquestioned and all-powerful leader. No, it won’t be like that at all. Chances are, it’ll be up on eBay before one of my trademark floats hits the ground. WELL I HOPE THE ADDED INCOME TAKES YOU OFF THE WELFARE ROLLS LEAVING YOU NOT TO DIE IN THE STREET LIKE A COMMON LOSER BUT IN THE SEWERS WHERE THE MORLOCKS WILL RIP OFF YOUR LIMBS TO USE AS SEX TOYS!

One more thing:

Ya betta ask somebodddddddaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!

Then eat me raw, cheesedick.

There, I did it. I torched a beloved Terrible Towel for your malicious delectation. After all, I’m a man of my word. Now go run out and buy The Football Fan’s Manifesto in exchange for my WRENCHING ULTIMATE SACRIFICE. Or just buy it because you think it might be a entertaining read. Either way, I’ll be doing a live chat on Deadspin starting around the noontime hour today (UPDATE: Here’s the link), as they’re running an excerpt from the book, along with a bunch of photos of me relapsing into alcohol and drugs after years of clean living through religion. After the jump, another member of the Ape clan brings shame to the family.

Rule of thumb: when you frequently mention to your son who writes for a profane sports blog that you’ve become a regular reader of said blog, don’t be shocked when he ambushes you for a video prediction about your favorite team. Papa Ape doesn’t come up short in the homerism department, giving an overly optimistic assessment of his Niners’ chances (BECAWSE HE’S NAWT AS SMAHT AS SIMMONS’ DAD) but also bothers to ask for clarification on one of the more colorful terms that often appears on our fair blog.

The Football Fan’s Manifesto tip contest turned bad publicity stunt that will only cause me pain and likely not lead to any additional sales has come to a head. I can’t close the poll for some reason but here are the results at midnight, when I said I would end the voting. And the piece of merch that’s going to be fried will be a Terrible Towel. You people are some suckers for symbolism, I guess.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t want to burn a towel. The ghost of Myron Cope will never forgive me. But compared to what I could have lost, this is a huge relief. Hell, I have three of them and can get more at about $5 a pop (which goes to public schools the Allegheny Valley School, so I can be smug about my meager outlay). A few canny dickbags in the comments mentioned that the Hines jersey, though a crappy replica, holds the most sentimental value for me. And they’re 100 percent right. It’s not even close. It’s by far the most valuable item to me of all the things I offered up for sacrifice. Broggel nerr smire foll week if he have buln that jelsey! Yet still you picked a towel. YOU FOOLS! I spent all afternoon panicking that I was gonna have to lose the Hines jersey. After all, I wore it in that picture that got me shitcanned from The Post. I wore the thing under another jersey during the Super Bowl because I was freaked out because I wore it during Super Bowl XL and my superstitions were running on overdrive. It’s a priceless piece of Apeiana! You could even have made me destroy one of the other jerseys or the Fathead, which set me back far more money than one of several Terrible Towels. Still, I’m gonna have to destroy a towel and probably will never hear the end of it from fellow Steelers fans this year. You’ll get your video next week, jackals.