You don't know my pain, Bill Simmons

AKA Fernetiquette Fisks The Sports Guy.

If you are a fan of sportswriting and under 40 years old, you probably are familiar on some level with ESPN's Bill Simmons. He is quite literally one of the fathers of modern sports bloggery. Pretty much everyone steals from him on some level, and with good reason. He's sharp, funny and immensely knowlegeable, even if he did lose his fastball about 5 years ago. (See? There I went and did it myself.) 

 

I like your outfit there, guy.

Recently, the Minnesota Vikings lost one of the most historically tragic games in NFL History. Not coincidentally, the Vikings are one of the most historically tragic teams in sport. This prompted Simmons to ruminate on the general topic of which teams in the four major American sports can be considered truly tortured, as opposed to teams that may kind of stink but we shouldn't really feel all that bad about in grand scheme of things.

As is typical of Simmons, he invented a bunch of arbitrary but systematic criteria to sift the purely pitiful from the merely moribund, then he ranked them in order of 1-15. These criteria were based on a column he wrote several years ago where he described the different "Levels of Losing" where level 15 is a sort of rough day and Level 1 is The Worst Moment In Your Sports Life, Ever. Now, I have no problem with the ranking concept. These types of columns are obviously subjective and meant to inspire debate, so it's a little pointless getting too worked up about where you end up on a list of teams you'd really rather not end up on at all.

But then he went and said this about my beloved Giants:

6. San Francisco Giants


Last Title: Never (unless you count 1954, when the team was in New York).


Last Truly Devastating Defeat: Game 6, 2002 World Series (sadly, no YouTube clip since MLB knocks any footage off YouTube in its never-ending quest to find ways to suck). Arguably a Level 1 loss. No moniker, though.


Rock Bottom: Game 6 again, though I forgot to mention the thundersticks.


Additional Thoughts: You'd think a 66-year title drought, the Bonds/BALCO fallout, a borderline Level 1 loss in 2002 and having its first World Series home game in 27 years postponed by a devastating earthquake during batting practice of the first-ever Bay Area World Series would get the message out that, "Hey, we need to start including these guys in all future Tortured Sports Cities discussions." Can you be underrated/tortured? Apparently so.

OH NO YOU DI'NT! According to Simmons, the worst moment in human history is "arguably" a "borderline" Level 1 loss, and the Giants are "underrated" as being a tortured team. I know I said earlier that it was a little pointless getting worked up about this, but what the fuck is he fucking talking about?!?!?

 

Charlie Brown was a Giants fan. Seriously.

Naturally, I could not let this aggression stand, man. You could say that I got worked up about it. You could say that. My (emailed) response to Mr. Simmons is below the jump.

WARNING: It is not for the faint of heart.

We'd all like to be Salinger in the end

He was my favorite writer.

Cheers to you, JD. You were Great.

At least Buddy and Seymour can catch up after all these years.

Places You Can Get Fernet: Atlanta, GA

A friendly tipster from the Ay Tee Ell just sent me this, um... tip.

There are actually a couple of places in glorious Atlanta where you can get Fernet, but I'm just going to tell you about one of them:

THE LOCAL

The Local is an easygoing smoke-filled institution on that most institutional of Atlanta hipster thoroughfares, Ponce de Leon.  Not only do they serve cheap-ass PBR tallboys, fried okra, tasty barbecue, boiled peanuts, and THE BEST WINGS I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE... but they also have Fernet!

Sometimes they even serve it in little medicine-dispenser Dixie cups, which adds panache to that wonderful Fernet flavor. 

I got mine. Let's get crunk. 

Many a night you can find my friends and me crowding a booth and downing Fernet Branca in between endless baskets of wings. It's just down the street from ridiculous hipster dance club MJQ, the incredibly-underrated gay dive bar Friends, and the historic Plaza Theatre, as well as the grocery store known as "Murder Kroger."

Apparently this is an actual thing.

The Local is the sort of place where pretty much nobody is drinking a Cosmopolitan and everybody knows the words to "Raining Blood" when it comes on.  

Other people who know the words to Raining Blood? That guy.

 The food is cheap and delicious.  Can you get better than that?  

Oh wait, you can!  You can serve Fernet.  Score.

Sounds divine. Tip passed along by Lindsay, the twisted and charming young lady appearing at the bottom of this here Page 'O Horrors.
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Filed Under: Places you can get Fernet, Atlanta, FUCK YEAH SLAYER, the yuppies here shop at Manslaughter Whole Foods, I'll bet that guy is a drummer

Fernetiquette Gets All Literary n' Stuff

Have you ever googled "Fernet Branca"? You probably haven't. Not surprisingly, I have. I am writing a blog here, people. It's necessary research. Should you ever decide to give it a try, you'll notice that this site is nowhere to be found. I'm sort of bitter about our exclusion, but that's cool. After all, Life is Bitter. So it goes.

On the other hand, one of the things that you will find are several links directing you to a book by James Hamilton-Paterson called Cooking with Fernet Branca. Disappointingly, it is not a cook book.

No, that's not it. This is it.

Given that I am CLEARLY way too busy authoring a dumb blog and deciding exactly how many Snuggies de Gigantes I'll be purchasing for friends and family this Spring to read this thing myself, I asked one of my besties to give the book a spin. Here's what Fernetiquette Senior Literary Correspondent Brigid J. Barry said about Cooking with Fernet Branca :

Okay so this is basically a comedic novel about a composer (from the made-up country of Voynovia) and a ghost writer (from the made-up country of England) who become neighbors on a remote Tuscan hillside.

 

Tuscany: Home of the best Olive Gardens in the world.

Language and cultural barriers cause many miscommunications with hilarious (and sexy...???) results.  The ghost writer is also a self-described gourmand who loves to come up with recipes that the reader will gradually realize are all a) disgusting and b) based on fernet-branca.  The composer's home country has its share of fairly nauseating cuisine.  The two find they have a secret affection for fernet in common, although they both insist out loud that it is vile. [This is how Fernet works, people. It's insidiously delicious and grows on you like a fungus.- Ed.] It is told in chapters that alternate between their perspectives, a technique which rarely works but which is quite effective here because both narrators are totally unreliable.

Like this minus the suck!

Overall I highly recommend it, especially if Fernet holds any place whatsoever in your heart. 

Which it does, obvs.

You can buy Cooking with Fernet Branca on Amazon (HINT HINT *FOR ME* HINT HINT) and enjoy some of the lovely Ms. Barry's own work here.
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Filed Under: Cooking with Fernet Branca, Life is Bitter, It's not really that bad ya know, almost assuredly the only book review this blog will ever publish

Places You Can Get Fernet: Brooklyn, NY

Head's up from the Capitol of the World. Or, well, Brooklyn.

Should you find yourself in the City of Rocks, head directly to Full Circle in Williamsburg on Grand. First, because according to my sources they serve Fernet Branca. Second, and most importantly, go there because IT'S A SKEE BALL BAR. Holy shit!

Personally, I can think of no better way to spend my time than sipping on Fernet while tossing balls at just the perfect angle to so it will rim out of the 50-point hole and fall meekly towards the gutter. EVERY. TIME. Or maybe that's just me?

Regardless, were I a Brooklander (Brooklynner? Brooklouse?), I'd be over there regularly. I mean they run a friggin' skee ball league!

 Looks like a blast. This is not helping my natural San Franciscan Inferiority Complex with regards to NYC.

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Filed Under: Places you can get Fernet, OMG OMG OMG, Nothing better in the world than invented amateur sports leagues, I guess this makes up for spawning the Dodgers

Branca Menta: Is it the Devil?

Today we look at one of many pictures of Fancy Fernet Adverts taken by our lovely traveling correspondent. But unlike the rest of her handiwork, this is not a picture of something delicious or art deco-y or exciting. Nay, my friends. This is a picture of something that Your Fernetiquette is here to warn you sternly to avoid. That thing is the Emerald Evil known as Branca Menta.

The ad is from Argentina. The Limon is apparently from Peru.

Many* of my American readers are probably thinking to themselves: "Branca Menta? What is this thing that I have never heard of or tried as it is neither hip nor offered in any bar or restaurant ever? I am SO CONFUSED." So for them, allow me to explain: Branca Menta is the Branca distillery's spin off of their wonderful Fernet-Branca.

It's not a good spinoff like A Different World. No, it's the Saved by the Bell: The College Years of Italian bitters. Except eeeevil.

Artist's rendering

I was first exposed to Branca Menta a few years ago when I noticed that the corner store on my block was selling bottles. Intrigued, I shelled out the $26.99 + tax and crv. It looked something like this.

Non-artist's rendering

Now, I (obviously) love me some Fernet. But I also looooove all things mint. Peppermint, spearmint, whatevermint... it doesn't matter, I am in and can't get enough. I take Altoids three at a time. Last year for Christmas, the ladyfriend got me a five pound brick of Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark. This year, my stocking consisted of nothing but mint candies and those adorable wee lil Fernet bottles. True story.

Point is I'm a fan of mint, see.

My favorite way to induce massive stomach cramps

Given my proclivities, I naturally assumed that the Fernet + Mint combo in Branca Menta would be like washing my tongue in pure, uncut awesome. Um... not so. Rather than finding a way to pleasantly accentuate the naturally minty-esque flavor of Fernet Branca, it tastes like they just melted in some cheap green mint chip ice cream and called it a day. Whereas Fernet-Branca is a stark herbacious punch to the palate, Branca Menta is a sickly, filmy, vaguely creamy thing with none of the verve or panache of the original. And I hated it.

I was so disgusted by the stuff that had to pawn the bottle off on a friend who mixed it with some PBR as we watched college football.

Friend not pictured

Still, this stuff is obviously quite popular in Argentina or they wouldn't bother advertising it. Maybe it would go better with cola or lemon-lime soda, but the experience was so hugely disappointing that I figured the only way I'd ever try Branca Menta again would be if I did something monumentally stupid like start a dumb blog about the Branca company's primary product.

So obviously, I've got some work to do. Sigh.

 

Adorable wee lil Branca Menta bottle! Evil can be cute too.

*This is a lie. I do not have many readers.

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Filed under: fernet adverts, Branca Menta is the devil, Those adorable wee lil fernet bottles, MSPaint Skillz, The Argentine Menace, no seriously it's the devil