How’s everyone’s weekend going?
Thanks for spending a portion of your Sunday with the Six.
Let’s get right to it.
THE ROAST OF THE CENTURY
We used to have shared viewing experiences in the country with regularity.
In the 1960s, the “Ed Sullivan Show.” The sitcom era of the 70s, when “All In The Family” and “Happy Days” were watched by tens of millions. And into the 80s and 90s shows like “Dallas”, “The Cosby Show” or “Seinfeld” regularly drew over 50 percent of households with televisions.
(In the fall of 1980, a full 76 percent of all televisions in the United States were tuned in to the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode on “Dallas.” Think about that for a second. 83 million people watched. Lots of Hungry Man TV dinners sold that week, no doubt.)
As more Americans got access to cable TV and more options, those crazy one show program numbers dipped at the turn of the century. Throw in high speed internet and streaming the next two decades and other than the Super Bowl, what television event do we all watch simultaneously?
Sunday night, something happened in the culture that reminded us of those nostalgic office water cooler days the morning after “Must See TV.”
Tom Brady got roasted. And it’s become a thing this week.
Held in Los Angeles and lived streamed by Netflix (sooo 2024), a who’s who of guests took their shots at the QB G.O.A.T.
Ben Affleck. Kim Kardashian. Peyton Manning. Kevin Hart. Gronk. Brady’s former coach, Bill Belichick (who was quite funny. We never knew).
The event was likely the first and last time these people will ever be in the same room together. To say it was unfiltered would be an understatement.
Since Brady left the Patriots in 2020 and Belichick’s “separation” from the team earlier this year, there’s been a requiem of sorts on the break up of the New England Patriots football dynasty. At the roast, jokes about Brady’s ex-wife, his post-divorce sex life, Gronk’s perceived brainlessness (can’t be all that true as he’s laughing all the way to the bank) and Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s fondness of massage parlors gave the roast a dysfunctional family Thanksgiving reunion vibe.
That tension entered the room and made the event that much more combustable.
But I think our nation’s fascination with Brady and unquenchable appetite for honesty is why the roast and its postmortem infected the cultural bloodstream this week.
Although he hasn’t thrown a pass in two years, our interest in Brady has never been higher. He’s become the 2020’s version of Michael Jordan post-final Bulls retirement, a rare athlete who becomes more famous after his playing days are over. He’s everywhere now, doing commercials, investing in professional sports teams, about to launch a broadcasting career. As a divorced dad, a label shared by thousands of men in this country, Brady has become a much more relatable human being than when he was winning Super Bowls.
(Other than the being obscenely rich and famous, one exception to the relatability point…his hair. Brady is 46 years old. Google photos of him when he was younger. Men with thinning hair don’t don’t thicken hairlines as they approach middle age. 17-year-old boys going to prom this spring aren’t that high and tight.)
Back to Brady being likable. His high Q-rating made the timing of the roast work.
We as a society hear nothing but orgasmic praise dolled out amongst elites in the entertainment and sports industry. We know a good portion of it is bullshit. Successful people in competitive industries don’t get along all the time. Of course there are feuds and rivalries. The sheer blunt candidness of the presenters—comedian Nikki Glaser was especially hilarious—took us back to the old Comedy Central roasts of the late 90s and before then, the Dean Martin-era drunken trainwrecks that used to run on late night TV.
Brady sat and listened to the almost three-hour joke fest with genuine affability. Indisputably one of the greatest athletes in professional sports history, that doesn’t come without some narcissistic qualities. I’m sure he enjoyed the attention.
But with the roast being live streamed and all, Brady is dealing with collateral damage from the unvarnished event.
According to various media reports, he’s on an apology tour, attempting to walk back various jokes directed towards certain mothers of Brady’s three children. Paid handsomely by Netflix for the special, Brady is learning an expensive lesson: crude bluntness comes at a cost.
The Brady Roast may not have matched “M.A.S.H.” “Friends” or even “Baywatch” for final episode ratings, and in the streaming era, that metric is as dated as ads starring Mikey for Life Cereal. We don’t really know how many people watched the roast live. Because our cultural conversation is driven so much by internet/social media content, even if we didn’t stream the event, we feel like we experienced it in some form, whether it be in a tweet, an IG post or in one of our social feeds.
It felt like a shared experience.
Something we just don’t get anymore.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
1. DNC Preparing For The Worst In Chicago.
A terrific piece via Politico on the brewing tensions in the three month lead up to August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Worries are over the cooperation of Mayor Brandon Johnson, whom the article says “has yet to fully make the jump from activist to mayor of one of America’s largest cities.” Some juicy details in here about the icy relationship between Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. I don’t think we’ll see the violence of 1968 but there likely will be some chaos in the streets outside the United Center come summer.
2. There’s No Stopping The Summer Cicada Invasion.
While the emergence of cicada broods XIX and XIII will be somewhat brief this summer, we’ll be feeling the reverberations of it ecologically for years to come. We are talking a lot of bugs here: during the swarms, a single acre of land can have over 1 million cicadas on it, which, based on a loose analytical calculation, comes out to about 2,700 pounds of cicada in the aggregate. Other than some temporary annoyance (Ravinia should be a more full-throated auditory experience this summer) us humans will be fine. The insects are doomed, in one way or another, and, according to this piece from Vox, that biomass will almost certainly lead to a substantial increase in the populations of birds that eat them, causing a population bump that will manifest across ecological generations. From the “You Don’t Say” category: it’ll be a great year for caterpillars, as all the birds will be so gorged on cicada that they can’t eat all the caterpillars they ordinarily would.
One of the more popular shows on Netflix is the pirate show “Black Sails.” The almost decade-old show (it originally ran on the STARZ channel) is a pirate adventure that centers on the character of Captain Flint, a feared swashbuckling pirate who fights for possession of West Indies islands in the face of threats from Spanish and British forces. Three centuries later, the blood shed may be diminished and ROV’s have replaced swords, but the hunt for treasure still exists. A really entertaining read from SeattleMet magazine.
Pew Research conducted a survey of 1,423 U.S. teens aged 13 to 17 found that 41 percent said they play video games at least once per day, with most teens who play them (72 percent) saying that a reason they play them is to spend time with others. There are some issues—41 percent said it’s hurt their sleep, and 80 percent of them think harassment is a problem for people their age—but on balance a majority of the teenagers reported spending the right amount of time playing games. Overall, 40 percent of all teens said they had made a friend online because of a video game. As an 80s teen, lining ball fields in 90 degree temperatures was our way of palling around. If we’d known we could socialize sitting in air conditioned basements, DoorDashing Taco Bell and playing Apex Legend past midnight while our parents slept, we’d have chosen the latter.
5. Prince Harry And Meghan’s Heart Of Darkness.
The Royal Family is so much more interesting when feuding, and they are dysfunctional again in the year 2024. Prince Harry, ousted by the Royals after fleeing for the U.S. a few years ago, is in the home country this month. Harry’s dad, King Charles, has been ill of late. Will father and son meet for tea? Apparently not, as “negotiations” broke down over a proposed sit down. There are geopolitical repercussions to Harry’s wife Meghan choosing to stay in California and shun her father-in-law, as the “Hollywood power games may play to one’s advantage in Tinseltown. But in the real world of foreign policy and national security, Harry and Meghan are only naively strengthening the hands of Moscow and Beijing.” Fascinating stuff from The Hill.
This video may make parents think twice before taking the little kiddos to the zoo. Or, it just may be a good live educational experience in how bears are pretty much undefeated in all nature fights. This was a knife-to-gun-fight no contest, with comedy relief provided by the moms and their “not nice” heckles. Bear hungry, bear eat.
Thanks for reading everybody and Happy Mother’s Day to all moms of the Six!
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.