Keep it current

During the football playoff season, we saw this commercial several dozen times, promoting some betting operation and using a parody of a famous tirade by former Indianapolis NFL Coach Jim Mora. Mora has been a punchline since November 25, 2001, after the Indianapolis NFL Team blew a game against the San Francisco 49ers, leaving them with a record of 4-6.  In the postgame press conference, a reporter asked the volatile Mora about the chances his team would make the playoffs.

The sputtered answer: "Playoffs? Don't talk about—playoffs?! You kidding me? Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

So it was an great idea to have Mora do that spot, now that the NFL has come to embrace gambling on their games, an activity they previously banned. BUT the success of the commercial rode on the likelihood that people of 2024 were aware of the 2001 fulminations of Jim Mora, and I'm not sure that was a sure shot.

AND I see that Saturday Night Live recently brought on Jimmy Fallon to do his "Barry Gibb Talk Show" with Justin Timberlake playing Robin Gibb, trying to keep up with his older brother as he descends into madness. Ten, twenty years ago, they brought the house down with that sketch, but when they tried it this year, I didn't hear the audience gasping for air between guffaws (I was!) Maybe people don't even know who Barry Gibb even is, as the sole remaining living Bee Gee. 

AND while I'm on this podium, what's with this urge to call the District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia "The DMV"? Here's the problem with that: there is a state agency that used to be called The DMV - The Department of Motor Vehicles. It changed its name years ago to the MVA - the Motor Vehicle Administration - but the old name is so ingrained in Marylanders that if you google DMV, you are taken directly to the MVA website.

Add to that the fact that Washington, D.C, just a forty-five minute ride from here down highways nicely maintained by the good folks at the DMV MVA, might as well be a suburb of Hong Kong for all most Baltimoreans care. If we have to have an acronym to name our little segment of the American East Coast, I suggest calling it the "MVD," as in Maryland, Virginia, and the District.

I will wait to hear from state and DC officials about my idea to call our area "The Muvved."