Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving! We all need to treasure Mark Mariota while we have him for just another week.
Marcus Mariota doesn’t drink. Mark Mariota prefers a smooth scotch.
Marcus Mariota drives a smart car. Mark Mariota drives a truck.
Marcus Mariota holds the door open for the ladies. Mark Mariota not only holds the door, but he personally cut down the tree and made the door itself.
Marcus Mariota enjoys a good surfing session in the waves. Mark Mariota believes the only thing that belongs in water are the fish that he catches for dinner.
Marcus Mariota always carries proper ignition tools to start a campfire. Mark Mariota knows how to make a campfire with just a leaf and a rock.
Marcus Mariota plays for the Titans. Mark Mariota plays for the Oilers.
Marcus Mariota goes back to Hawaii and enjoys the beach on holiday. Mark Mariota prefers his cabin in the Montana wilderness.
Marcus Mariota loves Leslie Knoppe. Mark Mariota likes Ron Swanson.
Marcus Mariota owns up to his mistakes and takes responsibility. Mark Mariota doesn’t make mistakes and the world simply conforms to his actions.
Marcus Mariota doesn’t love country music, but he gets into it. Mark Mariota can’t stand the way popular country music has become large stadium anthem pandering to a tractor life none of the artists truly live, and prefers to play his own guitar.
Marcus Mariota only cuts the turkey if no one else wants to do it. Mark Mariota always cuts the turkey, and nobody ever even tries to suggest someone else do it.
Holiday Travel will keep me from finishing a comic for Saturday, sorry dudes. Enjoy the leftovers!
But in all seriousness, he’s a really wholesome guy. Almost will never be waving a ref down for a missed roughing the passer and never talks trash about other guys
The all-time dumbest criticism I have ever heard of a draft prospect was some scout who thought Mariota was “too nice” to play in the NFL.
Marcus is an absolute treat of a person, a great athlete, and I think a good quarterback(I’m convinced there’s some undisclosed injury that’s responsible for him going from 26TD/9INT to 8TD/10INT). We could use more people like him and Watson in a league that seems to have more character issues by the day.
That’s another thing too. I don’t think a player can necessarily be too nice for the NFL. Etiquette should be a part of the NFL even if it’s just helping someone on the other team get up or saying thanks in response
Agreed, though I think there are some positions where there’s a certain amount of nastiness necessary. Like I imagine most elite linebackers probably have an edge about them and can get really nasty, given their entire job is flattening people. Same for most elite linemen on both sides of the ball. Having an edge doesn’t mean being a dick though, and being a good person doesn’t mean not having that nastiness.
One of my best friends from high school was our football team’s starting center. Absolute sweetheart of a man. Loved bubbly gushy pop music, treated everyone like family, loved drama club, he works for a rescue shelter now and melts into a little kid around the dogs, albeit a 6’4″ little kid. He’s a giant teddy bear. In spite of all that, I always felt sorry for the DLinemen across from him, because he was the nastiest SOB on the team between the whistle. It was like he had a switch he could flip, where the second the ball was snapped, he was a totally different guy.
You can be a good, nice person, and still be an edgy, nasty, violent football player.
This aged like milk….
Marcus Mariota drives sensibly. Mark Mariota is The Stig.
hey guys I heard marcus marioto was a pretty good college quarterback. is this true?
Yes, at San Diego State. Then he became Erik Kramers 5th back up in the 98 Bears, embarrassing Warren Sapp, but still losing by 17 to Tampa before Kramer got back from his 80th or so concussion to lead Chicago to 4-12.
Was this before or after we thought Moses Moreno was the bears savior? I get my years of bears QB ineptitude mixed up.
Too continue self deprecating I got interested to see how many seasons since 1978 (39 years and start of 16 game season) have the bears had the same starting QB for an entire season…… total number 4 seasons 1 Cutler/1Grossman/1 Kramer/1 Evans…patriots have 21 (14 Brady would be 15 without deflategate) the goddamn browns have 9 seasons (and they missed 3 seasons in ray Lewis purgatory) you have the browns QB graveyard. Maybe you should make the bears QB genocide
woaj
He is…the most interesting quarterback in the league.
I like Marc Mariota better
I, too, prefer a Montana cabin to Hawaii.
Also, mang. Hovertext uncool. There are plenty of times to talk divisive politics that sometimes need talked about (and if you want it on a holiday, let’s do it on Columbus Day, where it’s far more appropriate). Let Thanksgiving be one we don’t: let it be a coming together, a point of gratitude, and a look at the good that we all– even the meanest, poorest, and least fortunate among us– have. Let it be a reminder of what’s possible when the better angels of our nature meet with the better angels of others.
I’m thankful for this comic. I have some pretty longstanding, never-really-gone-just-kind-of-managed depression issues. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, right ’round midnight, are some of the times I look forward to most. I regularly guffaw outloud, and appropriately groan at most of the puns. I appreciate the smartness that goes into them, and even when I disagree with the more serious messages that come across in the comic or the comment following them, appreciate their sincerity, and that Dave can be seen to be grappling with the issues, rather than just blindly standing for something simply to be heard. It is a welcome, needed distraction. Thanks, Dave.
i’m grateful for people who realize that politics are not “merely” a rhetorical tool to piss people off, but are in fact how we get shit done in this country; therefore, there is [almost] nothing more patriotic or worthy of gratitude than the wherewithal to discuss said politics and over a variety of media. like, say, web comics
While not dismissing the importance of political discourse… politics isn’t how we get things done. Politics follows in the wake of things already getting done. It’s an indication of things already getting done, not a cause of their enactment.
Would depend on your definition of “politics”. If you see it as “president/parliament/senate making new laws or similar to address an issue”, I’d agree. However I’d argue that people speaking up about things they think they need to be changed, and discussions happening, as already being politics. And in that regard I consider it thoroughly appropriate to remind people on thanksgiving about the ironic history connected to it. Because while it is traditionally a family gathering these days (unless you’re just waiting for Black Friday), which is a good thing, it is, dare I say, quite ignorant of things happening inbetween, which is precisely what I think the hovertext is all about.
If you can find me anyone who isn’t either unaware of what happened on that score, or who has a plan that can correct the wrongs done, then by all means, bring it up. If you aren’t talking to people who are unaware, though, and if you don’t have a solution to the problem that has even the remotest snowball’s chance in hell of working, then you aren’t doing anything but being a white-guilting asshole (whether you’re white or not), standing on the graves of every dead American Indian for the sake of your own feelings. It’s and old, and tired comment to make that does nothing to advance any solutions to that very real lingering pain.
There’s no ironic history connected to it: people want there to be, because for some reason we’ve devolved to this self-destructive, bizarre notion that we’re uniquely awful, or that we must dwell on every wrong ever done. The “Everyone did it” argument isn’t about saying, “Therefore we aren’t guilty”. It’s about, “This is an aspect of human nature that we can learn from.” But we don’t only– and shouldn’t only– learn from the negatives. And when you’re “That guy” who won’t just freaking give it a break for a day that’s supposed to be about looking at the best, striving to learn from and repeat the best, and just “OH BY THE WAY DID YOU KNOW BAD STUFF HAPPENED TOO?!? AND YOU’RE GUILTY OF IT!” in those moments… it’s not courageous, it’s not helpful, it’s not useful, and it erodes any possibility of being listened to meaningfully when the time *is* right, because, “Just ignore him. He’s always like that” becomes the state of mind.
whoa
all we’re sayin is it’s dumb to argue “ignore politics” when everything is political and it’s not your web comic
might want to look into that land mine you tripped over
A) I never said to ignore politics. I asked for a small break from negative politics to focus on the good instead.
B) Not everything is political, and the vast bulk of what has been made political shouldn’t be. There are lots of positive things to focus on at a time of Thanksgiving, to both better put in light and measure the negative (most of ) the rest of the year
C) I like to think Dave’s confident enough in himself that someone criticizing a decision won’t cripple his self-worth and ruin the comic. But a lazy, cliche one-liner dig is considerably beneath his talents for both biting humor and social insight that he’s repeatedly presented. It was at very stark odds with the balance of his light-hearted, generally uplifting post. I didn’t demand he remove it; I didn’t suggest it should be illegal; I didn’t suggest I’d never come back– I even went on to praise his usual contributions.
I’m generally up for a good, spirited debate. But it’s hard to engage in that if you’re just going to tilt against strawmen instead of what I’ve actually said.
B) Almost everything is indeed political, and it doesn’t need to be made into it. Talking about the issue of thanksgiving of course is. But NOT talking also is political, especially when you explicitely want “no talk” about it. The idea of politics not interfering with whatever you care about at the moment is in itself political.
That is not to say I don’t understand where you are coming from. We all struggle daily, not only with work and family, but also with political issues, which tend to annoy us sooner or later whatever side we stand on. And sometimes we want a rest. And I can easily see it being thanksgiving for you, if you want to focus on the positive of that day and apart from that just have a nice time. And I am not blaming you, because I have similar issues (more around christmas but that’s the same thing for this discussion).
However, I see again a big difference between your idea of peace for yourself and your suggesting that others don’t bring up topics you don’t like. This may be appropriate for your close ones – and vice versa you know how not to ruin their day – but not for a public forum or for a random comic artist on the interwebs. Of course you are right that you didn’t demand him to take it down or similar, you just voiced your displeasure. Which is totally okay. But it should also be okay to voice our dissenting opinion. Which in turn gives you the right to dissent again with the dissention. In the end it boils down to “you don’t like it, I think it’s appropriate if somebody want to do it.” (And for the record: I wouldn’t have done it if I were Dave.)
And reminding people about atrocities commited by others (which isn’t uniquely an American issue) still is important in my opinion. Yes, there is a time and place for it, and others are less ideal, but should not be off limits. This has nothing to do with Americans (or others) being uniquely awful people. None of us probably had anything to do with injustice against Native Americans. But it is not only a historic issue, but one that has consequences to this day. And these consequences are something the current generation has to deal with. And “I have no solution myself so I won’t address the problem” isn’t a solution, because that’s what gets topics swept under the mat and all forgotten. Although I see how too often raising an issue gets “allergic” reactions.
And about “everybody knows about it”: I sincerely doubt it. First, knowing isn’t knowing. Being able to recite some information isn’t the same as being aware what it means. Which means when it is time to make a decision, the information you have at hand plays no role in it. Second, in the days of crying “fake news”, people will just decide that information they have may not be what it seems. Letting the discussion sleep will let them settle with said opinion, not a good thing. And finally third, not every textbook, every curriculum seems to agree, just quite recently a textbook came into attention (admittedly in Canada) which told the whole story of taking over land as voluntary by the Native Americans, happy to cede their land. If you learned from such a textbook, you wouldn’t know.
As for the irony: according to the lore, thanksgiving originated in European settlers and Native Americans coming together to celebrate. Now celebrating this, when the very same settlers (well, their descendants) later mistreated said hosts, making them people of lower value, while continuing the tradition, and not having solved this issue many, many a year after, does carry a certain amount of irony.
I’m not saying don’t talk about it.
I’m saying don’t talk about it on Thanksgiving, unless you actually have a solution to the problem everyone is aware of. And if you absolutely must, don’t say it in that smug-white-person-standing-on-the-graves-of-American-Indians-to-virtue-signal kind of way.
We need political discourse that is uncomfortable… but not every day. We need respite. We need to look for, and occasionally find, the GOOD in our history (especially our shared histories). To find the good in other people.
Again, because I’ve said it repeatedly and it’s not sticking: I’m not saying, “DON’T EVER TALK ABOUT IT!” I’m not even saying, “Don’t frequently talk about it.” I’m saying “Don’t use Thanksgiving as the platform to talk about it.”
Mark don’t drink no pussy smooth scotch. He drinks America’s whisky – corn whisky.
pre-prohibition, America’s whiskey was Rye. Spicy!
“Marcus Mariota doesn’t love country music, but he gets into it. Mark Mariota can’t stand the way popular country music has become large stadium anthem pandering to a tractor life none of the artists truly live, and prefers to play his own guitar.”
Mark Mariota knows what’s up
You know you’ve cursed him now. We have to curse him now. Your approval brings with it a powerful dark curse with it.
Still not urinating tree
If Mark plays for the Oilers why does his sweater have a flaming thumbtack on it?