What is a man without a trade? Simple. That man is me.

O’er a decade’s time, I have quartered backt for 11 distinct footballing squadrons. A newsboy learnt in the ways of complex mathematical formulae told me that accounts for nearly one-third of all professional football squadrons. Yet this wealth of experience is naught in the eyes of the footballing barons, who are wont to discard their footballers as though they were pleurisied cattle.

Pugilistic opportunities are barren as well. The fighting crowd is too enamored with the negroid, I fear, what with his obscene disregard for gentlemanly comportment, not to mention obstreperous conduct in the nickelodeon. When I go to watch grainy five-second reels of horses in motion, I wish to do it in silence. The negroid takes pleasure in ruining this experience. I personally have also fallen out of favor among fight promoters for reasons that are unclear to me. Perhaps because I continue to issue haymakers at opponents long after they are defeated and the bell has sounded. I thought this added to the appeal for the crowd. What man would not want bonus fustigation for his money? This is a puzzlement.

I am not one to speak woe of his station in life. Mine has been more markt by fortune than many. Take for example my poor brother, Sean Patrick O’Sullivan, who developt gout when whilst a wee boy. Mother O’Sullivan sought to get him a position with Thompson’s Preposterous Prepossessing Display Of Otherwordly Oddities, but Thompson himself curtly dismissed S.P.’s affliction as too commonplace and not nearly gruesome enough to titillate morbidseekers. Upon hearing this, Mother O’Sullivan took a shovel to Sean-Patrick’s face, in hopes of creating sufficient disfiguration. Her strategy was sound, but her execution too extreme. Sean-Patrick indeed suffert further disfigurement, but has yet to awaken from the coma. I pray for him nightly.

This positive perspective deflects thoughts from veering toward the morose, but it provides not for my vast family, who depend on my burly shoulders, burly torso and twice-burlied arms for their daily bread. “Wastrel!” they do shout, as they pelt me with stones and unemptied bedpans. “Do not come back until you retain gainful employ!”

Ah, but the search has been of great length but not of great fruit.

What solution remains? Beseech the priest for alms? This I cannot do. Pride is a sin, but it is the one sin I do not wish to conquer. What example would it set for my 14 young ones to see their father beg? Condemned they would be to a life of guttersnipery.

The old saw goes that idle hands become the plaything of Lucifer. Long I thought this to a lie spread by captains of industry for the purpose of getting workers to stay at their post that additional 22nd hour each day. But with these haymaking hands idle for such time, the truth has been revealt. A week ago, as I exited the local tavern, I espied a toff, gladly tromping about with vulgar displays of opulence. He wore a gilt monocle and strode with a cane, but I knew for a fact that this man had perfect vision and posture. Fripperies, these were. My face became rubicund with rage. It was then a low voice hissed, “See the toff? Of course you do. Beat him about the face until his ears bleed paper money.”

This I did. And it was not until his ears issut forth vast streams of blood, not money, that I knew. That was not the usual drunkard spurring me toward violence, but the urging of Lucifer himself. This startled me to say the least, and I was almost not able to take the toff’s money and expensive fripperies. But Lucifer bade me to grab those, too. The family was joyous when I came home with riches and fresh coddle. Had I only the heart to tell them how it was acquired.

It is a sad fate when haymaking hands are not allowed to be deployed for their intended purpose.

In time of labor discord and generalized aimlessness, there was no better opportunity of occurrence for the week of St. Patrick. Indeed, I say that true. What is it to hallow St. Patrick for but a day? An affront, to be sure. For this reason, I commit bibulous acts of veneration toward the twin saints of Patrick and Jameson for a period not in the lesser of seven days.

The veneration has not reacht cessation, which is the reason for my arm propping myself erect against this brick wall. The brick does not offer a smooth writing surface and it suffers from extreme verticality, so I will ask for pardon if the quality of the writing is compromised and the parchment is mottled with drink.

Drinking to forget one’s ills is the Irish school of therapy. It is a sound school of thought, but I was reminded by a lingering head injury of the grave problems still extant with the footballers.

The men at the union speak of an impasse with the collective of footballing barons. Baset on previous experience, I groked that it is only a matter of time before the Pinkertons are dispensed to employ their manner of truncheon persuasion to force an understanding. Pinkertons possess a sort of economical savagery, like a learnt jungle cat or a bear who receivet extra training from the circus. My path has intersect with them at past juncture. Some did succumb to haymakers, but it is difficult to subdue an entire fleet.

It was my first position of employment. Mother O’Sullivan said she wisht that I wait until I reached year five before I was called to the working world, but it was lean times for my parents and twenty three siblings. McGlocklin’s Waistcoat Manufactury took me in and gave me a starting wage of four lengths of thread and a quarter bag of flour per month. I thought this adequate, especially considering the promised holiday bonus of ham-flavored cornt beef. In time, the morale of the workers was hurt by 28-hour workdays. Soon, a union was formed. The leadership approached the McGlocklin paterfamilias with the demand that a window be installed in the factory and that his sons resist their constant urge to ash their cigars in the machinery fuel intake.

Swiftly, the Pinkertons were summoned and 12 men were shot. To make up for the loss in production, workday hours were increased to 30. But the hail of artillery punched a hole in the wall of the factory, so it was as though the workers were allowt a window. We considert this a grand triumf.

Loins have been girt for the clash that is to come. To this end, I have been grinding the haymakers to the bone. I thought this sufficient. But a swarthy man – I presumed him a Jew – told me there were financial considerations as well. I should make monetary protections for my future. Usually it was the drink that serves as my bulwark against events to come, but he advised against this. Therefore, it has been that since the last footballing season came to a close, I have sought for ways by which I can augment my earnings. Strongmen competitions are a possibility, but many now discourage besting rivals through sheer pummeling, wishing only to highlight non-violent feats. Pusillanimous piffle, I say.

The more I searcht, the more I saw that a ruffian’s appeal should not be discount for moneymaking ventures. I gleant that many an institution were inclinet to compensate known pummelers for little else than granting their likeness to a placard endorsing their product.

It seems I may be able to pay many of my bar tabs this way.

Wisely, Andre Johnson beat Cortland Finnegan’s ass before he could get out his trusty shillelagh.

And courtesy friend of the site, twoeightnine, the beatdown in GIF form:

[ via ]

Having witnesst an exhibition slate markt by anemic haymakers and the stewardship qualities of a syphilite, the Bengali Tygers of Cincinnatus terminated my employment and cast your humble scribe, J.T. of the Fighting O’Sullivans, to the four winds. Fain I would say that I was not deserving of this fate.

Mine has been a peripatetic life. Mother O’Sullivan, may God preserve her ever-lasting soul, said such a quality was unbecoming of any Man not wishing to become a gypsy. Through it brings great shame, I have little choice but to be a Man of No Fixed Locus, roving from town to town in search of work to feed my ever-growing family. This is the plight the Good Lord has seen fit to assign me and I will carry out His wishes with esteem and pugnacity.

In several ways, this change is a mixed blessing. Life in Cincinnatus is best describt as an admixture of grief and more grief. Its citizens lack basic schooling or even rudimentary traits indicating exposure to civilization. Many are content to roam the street gnawing on refuse and rat leavings. And though I have bathed more times than I ever thought possible, I dread I will never remove this town’s odor from my personage. All this is to say nothing of the rampant criminality of the footballing squadron. Taken together, it forced me to excessive drink, which may help explain my disastrous play of late. In the end, however, I can bare a grudge along with my burden. I depart wishing well.

Faretheegood, Bengali Tygers of Cincinnatus. Long will I recall the scattershot and generally mentally incapacitated manner in which you conducted your footballings.

Fortune, it seems, would not allow me to stay downcast for long. Just as I arrivt at the shipping yards intent on getting a scrap ‘n’ a swig, a fellow waylaid me saying that he was a representative of a footballing squadron from the Western Territories: the Equine Lightning Bolts of Spanish Saint Didacus. Immediately, this struck me as glorious news. My greatest acts of footballing to date were done in the Western homosexual colony known as Spanish Saint Francis. I accepted his offer without delay and the next thing I knew, I was in the steerage car of a westbound train trading blows with vagrants whose expressions were not to my liking.

When I alight in Saint Didacus, I discovert the quarterbacking position I was offert was yet another subordinate one. A minor setback, but a Man does he must to earn his daily liquid bread. Just as I playt understudy to Good Sir Palmer in Cincinnatus, I am expected to do the same with the Horse Bolts. Only now I am honort to report that the top quartered back for this squadron comes from regal lineage. Never previously having the privilege to meet royalty, I togged myself in twice-washed pantaloons and my only shirt of complete integrity to report for duty.

Picturet with runner back Darren Sproles.

I must say, though, that royals are of a bizarre sort. Upon greeting, after a curious request to inquire an indeterminate question of an unspecified party, this Man loudly and emphatically demandt that I henceforth refer to him only as King Philip the Laserfacet. One expects a measure of vainglory when dealing with kings and queens, but this was on a level far beyond anything I was prepart for. It was almost as though he were the pagan god of vainglory itself.

He heaved grievous insults at me without provocation. He used profanity that would ruddy the cheeks of even the foulest lout of the shipping yard. He referred to Mother O’Sullivan as a dried out goat’s penis to be hung on the wall of the town’s most filthy tavern and used as target practice for darts.

Few men have spoken of Mother O’Sullivan in such a way and not been rendert unconscious by repeated haymakers. I was readying myself to give satisfaction when King Philip cocked back his arm and released a pass that scudded the heavens for what seemed like days. I could not turn my eyes away from it. I could not tell you exactly how long it stayed in the air, for I passed out from lack of sleep and nourishment before it descendt back to Earth. That is, if it ever did.

It is now that I understand the power from which the crown derives its rule. Heretofore, I thought royalty to be only the product of a corrupt social structure bent on oppressing the Irish. I have been disabused this notion. The king, obscene and full of vainglory he may be, is possesst of a power beyond the reckoning of any of us. I know better than to cross him.

This week, KSK is raising money for Livestrong and the Wounded Warrior Project through Captain Caveman’s participation in Fight Gone Bad. To learn more, click here. To donate, click here.

One can say a great many things about life in Cincinnatus, but surely one claim that cannot be issut is that it is unmarked by turbulence. ‘Twas only last week that word arrived that the Bengali Tygers (who still favor me with employ for who knows how much longer) contracted another brigand for the purposes of footballing. Have I joint a footballing squadron or a penal colony? This is only meant a clever jape, but sometimes I wonder.

The ruffian in question is said to have once been known by the appellation “Packman”. Bully, I thought, a fellow from the shipyards. A blue-collar laborer much like myself. However, when I approacht him and asked which vessels he had packt cargo, he responded with a lengthy list of women’s vaginae. Now, my sensibilities are as sensitive as the next Irishman’s, which is to say, as numb as an opponent’s face in the 8th round, but these statements scandalizet me.

More troubling is the legend told that he once made the sky rain paper currency. Heavens! Who knows what other sorcery this voodoo priest is capable of concocting. I think it best to keep my distance. Haymakers (for all their strength) achieve little effect against the dark arts.

By steering clear, I had hoped this would been the temporary end of the dolors. But no, as if by incantation by the voodoo priest Packman himself, more dolors arrived. Just last day, the strange Negroid Spaniard, using his mystical birdspeak device, made a communique that the Bengali Tygers were to acquire the quartered back JaMarcus Russell.

A number of things rankle me about this.

Firstly, the Tygers are sufficient at the quartered backing position. There is Good Sir Palmer. There is Palmer the Younger. There is myself. Perhaps it is only the vainglory speaking, but that strikes me as enough. Another quartered back will disrupt the balance. Yes, Good Sir Palmer travailed last season, but one must place faith in their appointed leader.

Penultimately, his name: JaMarcus Russell. It is the tradition of those of Afrikan extraction to favor odd twists when naming their brood. Were he a man of Irish extraction, he would have a honorable moniker, such as McMarcus O’Russell. If I should ever cross paths again with Packman, I will suggest he grant this name to his next unintended son.

Lastly, while little is scientifically known about the dark continent of Afrika, explorers have noted that in Akrikan tribes, those of great social stature are also those of large physique. And if this JaMarcus is anything, he is largely physiquet. I fear this means he is held is high esteem. But, ultimately, I care not. Mother O’Sullivan, saint that she is, did not raise her son to shrink from a challenge.

I have bested large men in the past. An advantage in size does not equal an advantage in will. Once, I fought a rotund cur who issut choice words about the quality of mother’s potato stew. He appeart imposing, yet I barely connected with one haymaker and the man could not be roused until the next day.

If the Bengali Tygers see it fitting to import malefactors and large Afrikan quartered backs, they will have to also deal with a cuss of an Irishmen, for he will not be dispatcht with ease. Ho!

Hope you have your pernicious racial stereotypes at the ready for the Irish and the Mexicans. In a game in which Cincy’s starters will see limited to very limited action, we’ll need something to keep us amused other than the prospect of Mark Sanchez’s four turnovers blowing the Jets’ giftwrapped playoff berth. Especially because a Jets victory means these two teams play again next week, only with both teams actually having something to play for. And that’s where J.T. O’Sullivan comes in. The prolix descriptions of his exploits will make for boisterous raillery!

This is obviously our last live blog of the regular season (it being the last game and all) but, as we did last year, we will have you covered for the postseason. Probably not to the extent that we can do all the games through the first two rounds, but we’ll have most of them for you. More info on that to come.

But enough programming notes. It was a much more mixed final day for the objective fan than last year’s finale that saw Favre, the Cowboys and the Pats eliminated all on the same day. On one hand, the Steelers were denied the postseason berth they didn’t deserve. Zulu Cop Speed also eclipsed 2,000-yard mark. However, the Eagles bed shitting, while nicely upsetting Philly turds, lets Brett Favre off the hook for choking away a two seed. Too much gray area for my tastes.

AND WHO COULD FAHGET THE DEVASTATION OF WELKAH! OW-AH HAAAHHHHTTTSSS RIPPED ALONG WITH HIS MANY GRITTY TENDONS! YOU CAN NEVAH UNDERSTAND PAIN LIKE WE HAVE! THIS WILL RUIN THE TRIP WE HAVE TO VEGAS! WE MIGHT NAWT EVEN BE ABLE TO STAY UP LATE! EVERYONE KNOWS BENAHD POLLAHD IS A CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE MADE TO SUFFAH! THAT DAAAHKIE IS REPONSIBLE WHETHER HE HIT WELKAH OR NAWT! JAWRIES OUTSIDE NEW ENGLAND WOULD NAWT CONVICT HIM BECAWSE THEY AHHH JEALOUS OF OW-AH SUCCESS!

Something struck me ill as I betook the Bengali Tygers lost endeavors against the Norse Boatsmen of Parts Northward and Uninhabitable.

At first, I didn’t give utterance to my thoughts as I feared that they were only brought on by the mind-melting mystic qualities possesst by the enclosed structure of modern Norse manufacture. How do they secure the tepid airs when all is frigid outdoors? With such technology, it is no wonder we Tygers were found to be the lessers that day.

Soon, however, these lingering ruminations overtook all resistance when I was marshaled into the contest late for scrubsman’s scutwork duties. Menial work often frees the mind of the barriers of wayward thought.

I entrust these words to you, computing box, because I know that you will keep them in confidence. Such disclosure could find me at odds with those whom I am aligned on the field of footballing.

By my lights, Good Sir Palmer is to no longer be thought among the good.

Whereas, at the risk of dispensing vainglory, I have developed worldwide acclaim for the issuance of haymakers (one company has gone so far as to produce bundles of hay with my name brandisht upon it, so they may retail at giftly prices) Good Sir Palmer has long been in reliance of his brand of Pulverizers. It is a sound maneuver, one supposes, by not one that makes fright renderable in the opponent. Men of thought have long turned over in their head what makes men so weak in constitution – either that they are too mollycoddled by their mothers or not mollycoddled enough. Still, he is a man of stature in Cincinnatus, whereas I, a Man of Irish Descent, am cast among the dogs and the Roy Williamses.

For many an annum, Good Sir Palmers faults were run over with gloss. He had yet to fully convalesce from an affliction of the leg, they claimt. His squadronmates were not of satisfactory skill, they brayt. Perhaps such arguments were true at the time, but now the team is in all respekts as stout as a haymaker, and there is no pepper in the Pulverizers.

There would be those Cincinnatans who would run down our Pollack offensive strategist before Good Sir Palmer. Indeed, he is a fool and is frequently unawares of how we mock him in his presence. One time, we replaced his favorite chapeau with a live skunk and he did not notice until he attended his daughter’s marriage four weeks hence. However, truth be told, not all can be laid at the fetid feet of the stupid Pollack. The errancy of the Pulverizers is not part of the design (as I am privy to the designs as well).

As any True Man of Irish Descent, turbulence of thought can be eased with drink. But only for so long. I fear insurrection.

How comforting is the embrace of Maiden Victory!

I wish I could describe the ardor of her bosom as I shake my face violently into it. Pillowy is an apt descriptor. And it is this pillowy sensation that tells me that the Bengali Tygers are a force with which to be reckont. Few considert the prospect of success against the Metallurgists of Pittsburgh or the Recidivist Murderers of Baltimore. But slain they both were by our efforts!

Oh, We did feast on pillows those nights.

Still: all is not sunshine and heaving Victory bosoms in Cincinnatus. The townsfolk do not fill the galleries to their capacity! I do not think it is the work of the vainglory to suppose that a team that has achieved as ours has would be a spectacle to behold. The traveling show of oddities and wonderments must be stationed nearby. Personally, such things do not capture my attention for long, but then I am not a native-born Cincinnatan.

What is more, the thriving play of Good Sir Palmer has compelled my haymakers to reside in mothballs. I need not tell you that is not the natural state for haymakers. They ache for satisfaction, but I cannot grant them indulgence. Each night at rest, dreams show me targets for the haymakers, but the mighty arms are manacled to the wall. For this, I sometimes fear sleep. Sensing my anxiety for activity, ownership bade me into the streets to gather the townsfolk into his makeshift “jungle” dwelling. Perhaps if they espied my keen sense of excitement and bulging musculature, the women would be brought to a point of hysterical arousal and would force their male associates to escort them to the “jungle”.

I askt the ownership whether I would be furnisht a mode of transport to move about the townsfolk. Dirty though it may be, Cincinnatus is a sizeable place. Yes, he exclaimed, you shall ride shank’s pony.

Such flippancy.

So my endeavor begins. Venture I must about Cincinnatus displaying the bulges that invite arousal in the muliebrities. First, there is the arm bulge. Observe its distinct slope and veiny articulation. This is usually enough to excite most maidens. When the arm bulges prove insufficient, the pectoral bounce. See the torso bulges bound and be astoundt. A snake charmer taught me this tactic in a foreign land and it has failt on only three occasions. It was on those three when I was forced to employ a special, secretive nether bulge.

Polite discourse does not allow me to speak of this one.

What news!

Ravagings were rendert to the throwing joint of the head quarterbacksman, leaving Good Sir Palmer rheumy about the oculars and with marked dryness about the vaginal lips. I spake to him as he lay upon to greensward, “Good Sir Palmer, do husband your strength. Your labors require potency in the throwing arm. Is it rubella? Your eyes have yet to roll behind their lids, there is still time. Maintain pressure on the joint until we can apply leaches and allow my haymakers to triumph in your wake.” His rejoinder to me came thusly: “Where are the trainers? Can someone get this incomprehensible mick off me?” Unappreciative lout, how I knit my brows at his person!

But where Crisis has befallen he, the divine mistress of Opportunity has belavisht me with her grace. Here, only when my mind was blackent and consumpt with ideas that the Lord had smote me through continuous potato famine and six wives all lost to complications of child birth, now I am tasked with leading the first team offense into the heat of preseasonal conflict.

Being a first team quartered back is a station of immense responsibility. Therefore, to saw that I am a Man of Distinction I bought my first comb and toothstring, so as to make my appearance less “gruesome” “grueful” and “marked by grue”. It seems some had taken note of mine efforts. Whilst cording my tattering pant string, I was approached by a toff representing a three-lettered entity he said was known to all and sundry as “HBO”. This “HBO”, he said, would make a projected story of our trainings by use of moving daguerrotype. I promised to make winner’s pose prior to each haymaker, for this the camera likes.

One practice was particularly eventful. I could feel the moving daguerrotype channel its attention on my visage. How the cigarette girls would swoon when next I came upon the boulevard! Feeling flush with vainglory, I removed my claddings in the locker quarters when I was approached by the Black of Assumed Spaniard Surname.

He spake things to me of indeterminate subject. So flummoxed was I that I feigned understanding rather than ask elucidation.

“Child Please,” he exclaimed.

“Begging your pardon. Do you address me in the manner of an unruly urchin?” I puzzled.

“Child Please,” he repeated, as if I had said nothing at all.

“Sir!” I thundered. “Though it is my sworn mission to deliver you footballs on the field of play, your manner in the dressing quarters strikes me as irksome! Cease this irksomeness!”

“Man, Child Please,” he said, defiantly.

As I reared back to deliver the mother of all haymakers to this senseless ruffian, I was restrained from behind by the steady arm of headmaster Lewis. With one look I knew I risked more than sourness in the haymaker hand if I followed through on my swing. The Fake Spaniard took advantage of the momentary stillness to chase after a thing emitting a shiny light, whereafter Headmaster Lewis drew me aside and assured me that if anyone would strike this man-child, it would be he.

It was the first time I’d seen him serious.

Swivet!

The turmoils of Cincinnatus are more numberous than The Cincinnatus Turmoils of Earlier Description. Indeed, these blights surpass the blights I was told to expect. Receivering men: tattered and bedeviled. Fellow quartered backs: possessing misshapen genitalia. Ownership: possibly voided entrails.

There are worse horrors still but I would fain not give utterance to them. Do not make me tell. Rest assured, the haymakers were barely enough to repel the hard-charging beasts. Look upon my face. Do you not see where it has been abrasied? Let that be story enough.

Fie!

Fine. Let me explain. Word was sent through postal dog to management that I did care for the unbecoming character of those with which I am aligned on this squad. Postal dog returnt a week later a limb lesser. This I tumbled as a presage of foul things in wait. Yes, there transpired several foul deeds enacted upon my person, often thrice in a row; five times if the perpetrators imbibet liquors of brownist tint, but the true terror never darkened my door. Quixotic was the word used by a man of proper book-learnting.

Instead, in the weeks since I have found the ownership most amenable to the demands of competition. Lofty words were spake. A grand initiative introducet. There, told to me through midway through a night of drink, is their solution.

First step is to for once have a draft class that does not elicit laughter from even the low-born blind syphilitic drunk gypsies. This they did.

And then:an elder safety is signt!

He is learned in the ways of the horse-led collar tackle. As I ambled in the direction of my bivouac, I asked him: in which ways would he apply this technique to yon ballcarrier, but by then I had already ventured past the expanse of his coverage area. This strikes me as a deficiency. But a friendly disposition nonetheless!

A Caucasiodal running back is acquiret through trade!

Finally a like-colored hand in the backfield that I know will take the ball with a hand that not recently ago held a shiv. This is no slight upon the Dark Man of Africa, but Gentleman Frank Gore once visited this very act on my non-throwing appendage and it predisposed me to distrust the race of Afromen. Perhaps one day this trust will be restoret, but doubt prevails.

The Scourge of Afromen aside, will these minor transactions suffice to build a great Bengal footballing empire? The vainglory swelling inside indicates yes. But it is wrong, in the main. I should endeavor to find out what the learnt man meant by quixotic. I feel this holds the key from turning vainglory into actual glory.