Zack Follett, China Dolls, The Devil, Me And You

Can he play linebacker?

So the big news this week is that Zack Follett is catching a shitload of heat for calling Matthew Stafford a “China Doll”, which, uh, okay. Basically, this a bunch of dumb bullshit masquerading as a story, much like most sports news, but there’s nothing else going on so, hey, fuck it, guess what we’re gonna talk about? Indeed.

Let’s start with Follett. Zack Follett is beloved by Lions fans, mostly because he has mastered the art of playing Wild And Crazy Guy in front of a camera. Everyone loves the pro athlete who appears to be half insane. I’m no exception. It’s a nice antidote to the antiseptic, scrubbed vanilla bullshit we get from most athletes. Hey, the dude plays with real life lions and shops for tampons for his opponents while wearing his helmet and an outfit that makes him look like he’s going to pass out on the beach after spending the day drinking Nightrain, ogling girls in bikinis and picking through the trash bins for empty cans that he can sell for more Nightrain money. I’m not going to begrudge that dude the right to speak his mind. I mean, we should be encouraging that shit, you know? So, he might say something dumb every once in a while. Big deal. That’s part of the package. I can handle that.

However, dumb is dumb and when you say something dumb you have to be prepared for people to say “Hey yo, bro, that was pretty fuckin’ dumb.” And then that should be the end of it, we can all move on with our lives and drink Nightrain on the beach like gentlemen and lady gentlemen. But of course, because the world is ridiculous and dumb and we are all ravenous and degenerate vampire cannibals, that isn’t the end. No. Instead, everyone has to overreact and condemn Zack Follett to hell for jokingly poking at the beat down shape his quarterback is in and then, naturally, Zack Follett has to get the crazy eyes and start shouting about the devil because this is just the way things are. After all, we do live in strange and terrible times.

It’s one thing to tell Zack Follett that he’s dumb. It’s another to get all hysterical and to start braying about how this is an affront to team unity and that Matthew Stafford is probably laying in a hospital bed weeping right now because of this vile betrayal. This is the sports equivalent to the shrieking banshee wail of OH GOD WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN??? It is brain dead and dumb, worthless noise which is just farted into the atmosphere because people can’t deal with the quiet. There always has to be something going on and if there isn’t then they will just make some shit up or seize upon a tiny ember and fan that fucker until the world is ablaze. This is a textbook example of that.

I won’t name names because, frankly, who gives a shit? Everyone is guilty of this to some degree. Even me. When I heard about this story on twitter, I retweeted the hell out of it. Hey everybody, did you hear what Zack Follett just said??? Yeah. And now here I am writing about it, wringing the neck of this decaying corpse and riding it straight to hell along with everybody else. There is no dignity or decency in this. It is shameful as all hell and yet, here we are.

The immediate aftermath was predictable. I basically pointed and laughed at Follett and did the online version of saying “Hey yo, bro, that was pretty fuckin’ dumb”, but a lot of people were OUTRAGED(!!!) and broke out their pitchforks, which, honestly, tends to vacillate from moment to moment between being incredibly annoying and funny as fuck. Really, it all depends on my mood. Individually, these hyper-overreactions are incredibly dumb. Collectively, they create a theater of the absurd that can be hilarious if you’re in the right frame of mind. I mean, there was one dude who flipped out and tweeted Follett directly, telling him something like “Even if it’s true that your mother slept with hundreds of dudes, you don’t call her a whore.” This was hilarious because it was so fucking dumb. The thing is, is that it makes perfect sense. I understand what the dude was getting at. Just because Stafford actually is a China Doll doesn’t mean that Follett should be saying that shit publicly. But it was just such an over the top reaction, essentially said right to the dude’s face, that it was impossible to take seriously. Which, now that I think about it, doesn’t make it that different from anything that I write.

But to hell with all that. It encapsulated this whole tragically dumb story. It was hilarious and it was absurd and it was over the top and it was unnecessary and there was an element of truth to it and it was spectacularly dumb. One minute, Zack Follett is making an off the cuff remark about his quarterback while talking about Jay Cutler – and by the way, the China Doll remark came in the midst of Follett praising Stafford – and the next minute, he’s being lectured about when it’s appropriate to call your mother a whore.

Of course, because Zack Follett is, let’s face it, kind of an idiot, albeit a loveable idiot, he then flipped out and grabbed his own flamethrower. I mean, why not? Let’s all just tumble down into hell while the devil laughs until he cries and stomps his feet and watches us burn each other to death with our own dumb stupidity. And hey, speaking of the devil , Zack Follett has a few words about that shit too:

“Last night, he’s been attacking me through lust,” Follett said. “Trying to bring girls, he knows that that is every guy’s weakness. And I prayed to God and with the power of Jesus Christ, I do no longer have that temptation through a trial God put me through. I went to bed last night not even tripping, you know what I mean, off a lust thought. Praise Jesus. Well now, Satan is like, ‘How else can I get this dude, Z? OK, work through the media.’”

Oh my Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddddddddddddddddddddd.

I feel like standing up and applauding because that is so batshit crazy. For starters, I am very – very – interested to know what prompted the first part of that story. What the fuck happened? I am having a hard time not letting my brain run wild envisioning Zack Follett fighting off hordes of painted harlots coming at him in waves while the devil marches behind them, whipping them into a frenzy of lust. And what the hell kind of trial did God put Follett through so that he is not troubled by the mere thought of a lady? Did he come to him Burning Bush style and convince Zack to turn himself into a Eunuch? I mean, what the hell happened? This is driving me insane and I am almost overloaded by the possibilities here. You damn well know that I could keep going with this and turn this into a thing, but that’s not the point of this post and so, regrettably, I have to pull myself away and get to the point of that pile of gibberish doubling as a quote, and that is that, yes, Zack Follett went nuclear and compared the media to Satan.

Now, I know I run the risk of being compared to the devil just by virtue of writing about this topic. Zack Follett has made that perfectly clear. But, hey, that’s cool. It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody called me the devil. But still, it makes me both laugh and shake my head in exasperation to stand here at the top of Idiot Mountain and to look down where I can make out the teeny tiny shape that is the China Doll comment and realize that somehow, someway, we have climbed this mountain of shit from that humble beginning and now we’re standing here gibbering about Satan and people’s mothers being whores and all manner of crazy shit. I mean, I have even seen people break down the China Doll comment and point out that “China Doll” also means an Asian prostitute. So, now we have Satan, motherly whores and Asian call-girls, and hey, maybe that was the trial that Zack Follett was talking about. Who knows? Maybe God sent him a parade of China Doll hookers from Bangkok, and after working his way through dozens and dozens of them, poor Zack was left literally drained and was able to drift off into a sexless sleep. I don’t know. I guess that’s some kind of trial. Poor Zack. The poor dude just wanted a good night’s sleep, but how can a man sleep when God and Satan are sword fighting at the foot of your bed while a gaggle of Asian whores frolic like rabid mutant spider monkeys in your bedroom? The man has bigger things to worry about than the state of Matthew Stafford’s shoulder.

This has gotten completely out of control, but fuck it, that makes it the perfect exclamation point to this whole stupid, out of control story. The point was lost long ago and now we are all just spouting dumb noise that isn’t related to anything other than our own feral desire to yell and scream and bang our idiot heads against the wall. The only thing that needed to be said here was that Zack Follett said something dumb and hey, that’s it. Instead, here we are talking about Asian hookers and whether or not I’m Satan and Zack Follett’s ability to get a good night’s sleep free of rivers of semen and God’s role in all of this nonsense and if God is reading this, then He’s probably shaking his head and moaning “For the love of Me, leave me out of this bullshit. Please, I beg you.” I hear you, dude. I hear you.

So, Zack Follett, dropping the name “China Doll” into your thoughts on Matthew Stafford was kind of dumb. That’s it. Now, can we please all shut the fuck up and talk about things that matter, like The Great Willie Young and his adventures with the China Dolls or Ernie Sims’ monkey? Thank you, and I’ll see you all next week.