Enemies Week: The Enemies of the Rights to Ricky Sanchez
What do Pat Sajak, Bruce Springsteen fans and food all have in common?
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We've already spent Hate Week recapping the biggest Enemies of the Process and ranking every NBA team by our general distaste for them -- now it's time to find out who makes The List for our staff when the Sixers aren't even involved. Here are the adversaries that plague our daily lives when Scott O'Neill and Jimmy Butler take the day off.
Adult Disney People
This does not apply to kids. Kids are fine loving Disney. In fact, that’s what Disney is made for. Any adult who has over-the-top brand loyalty to anything is a little odd, but Disney Adults are a special kind of psychopath. Oh, a Disney-themed wedding, and you and your mom go every year? Cool, let me know if you’d like my therapist’s number. No man, nobody is stopping you from having a good time or visiting a place you like annually, but there is nothing magic about Disney World. It’s a theme park for children. Cinderella isn’t real, the world isn’t really that small, and that pretzel shaped like Mickey Mouse is not worth $17. It’s just easier than actually trying to come up with a new vacation every year. -- SPIKE ESKIN
Bruce Springsteen Fans
I don’t have anything against Bruce Springsteen. He’s faking it, pretending to be a Middle America everyman for over 40 years, and it’s worked. Millions of people think he's a coal miner in his free time when he's actually counting their money. Even did it without more than five or six songs that are much above average. His fans though, boy they’re something else. It’s one thing to get rich pretending, it’s another one to be a fan of that guy. Nothing says “I’m a 48 year old sportswriter/accountant/upper management white guy that wants to pretend I've done even one day of physical labor in his life" like making pretend Bruce Springsteen has good songs. Nobody likes four-hour concerts unless they’re on tons of drugs, and I say this as someone who loves music more than anything. Nobody needs to see any band 64 times unless they’re bragging about it. I suppose standing up and pretending you’re not bored for a few hours is the only physical exercise most Springsteen fans have had since high school, so there’s a plus. — S.E.
Car Horn Honkers
In my mind, there are only two contexts where car horn usage is acceptable: If you're literally two seconds away from an accident otherwise being imminent, or if you're making a disco 12" record. Otherwise, you're just adding to noise pollution and making already stressful road situations more stressful for yourself and everyone around you. Were I ever to hold public office, my first act would be to pass a bill of writer/musician Andy Cush's proposed policy that car honks be kept to a finite pre-loaded amount per car, with additional honk refills coming at a cost and requiring a trip to the DMV. Or, a mandate that honks come in a variety of sound effects that can alternately suggest "Look out!" "Hey here I am," "It's your turn to go now" or "You shouldn't have done that just there," rather than just one loud nuance-free HOOOOOONNNNNNNNKKKK. As is, 95% of car horn honks accomplish nothing but adding to global disharmony. -- ANDREW UNTERBERGER
David Fincher
Used to trust this man with my life. Now he ain’t shit to me. -- ABBIE HUERTAS
Food
You all have to have known what I was going to talk about for this piece. Consider food an official enemy of the Ricky. Food is merely valuable in its providing of sustenance. Eating food is, generally speaking, a chore. Worst of all, it causes so much silly discourse. I’m not a fan — but you already knew that. -- SIXERS ADAM
The Kendrick Perkins police
For lack of a better term, I'm using "the Kendrick Perkins police" to describe the faction of Twitter that sits around all day waiting for a troll (like Kendrick Perkins) to say something completely ridiculous so that they can quote tweet it into oblivion. Every single time Kendrick Perkins says something totally absurd, Twitter gathers around to crush him and bemoan the fact that he gets to occupy such a major platform. Guess what, you dummies: Kendrick Perkins has a platform for the sole reason that people like you will view, react to, and amplify everything he says. That's all that the powers who employ Kendrick Perkins care about -- your attention. Views and shares are the only things that impact their bottom line. So, next time you wonder why the media landscape is filled with Kendrick Perkins-types, ask yourself what type of content you view, react to, and amplify on a daily basis, and you'll have your answer. And deep down, you know you don’t want actual analysis from those people. You’d rather have Perk up there spewing nonsense all day so that you can dunk on him. As a much wiser Kendrick once said, "Critics want to mention that they miss when hip-hop was rappin' / Motherfucker, if ya did, then Killer Mike'd be platinum." -- MIKE O'CONNOR
Limberg the Cranky Mouse from Animal Crossing
Look at this guy. Look at him. Let me tell you a story: I laid down a plot on my Animal Crossing island fully intending to go on a journey to find an adorable creature to fill the vacancy. Unbeknownst to me, upon my failure to fill the vacancy the same day that I laid down the plot, the vacancy would be filled on my behalf. And so this asshole Limberg walks into my life. He plagues me for months, calling me “squinky”, teasing my (cuter, superior) villagers by telling them that their catchphrases are “weird.” I sequester him in the mountains. I dig a moat around his house. I pray and pray and pray that he will one day walk up to me saying he wants to leave my island. Of course, he never leaves of his own volition - Leo and I have to force him out via Amiibo card. Looking at him incites rage. -- A.H.
Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti
I know most listeners of this podcast cartel live in the Philadelphia area, but do yourself a solid and hate Eric Garcetti for me, okay? The failson of former LA District Attorney Gil Garcetti (who famously bungled the OJ case), Eric is the most Scott O'Neil figure in U.S. politics today. An absolute spineless nothingman who wears his ambition on his square doof of a face, he's been telegraphing his burning desire to not do the job of the mayor anymore and just yell dibs across the country for a spot in a potential Biden cabinet.
Local LA politics is its own underrated Chicago-ish corruption racket -- although we are hopefully electing our own Helen Gym figure in the excellent Nithya Raman on City Council in a bit -- but Eric, semi-sweet, fully vapid Eric, stands out in taking standlessness to a magical level. He insisted the LAPD didn't use tear gas and rubber bullets to journalists and activists who were hit by LAPD tear gas and rubber bullets on camera, he opened up indoor dining way too soon with no plan, AND HE STILL HAS NOT OPENED UP BASKETBALL COURTS. There are literal metal bars through all the rims in the city. You can open-mouth kiss a party of 6 cops at an Urth Caffé if you claim you're all quarantining together, but you can't shoot around by yourself. Fuck Eric Garcetti, let us agree to never allow him to hold elected office ever again. -- MIKE LEVIN
Pat Sajak
This man thinks he’s an American icon and, like, I guess he is, maybe, to some people? Just hearing his voice when we neglect to change the channel after Jeopardy! is finished makes me want to smash plates on the ground. This man has absolutely nothing behind his eyes. No heart. No soul. -- A.H.
These Seven Types of Tweets
1. Self-Congratulation Over Not Engaging With a Particular Form of Media. Whoa, you mean you're not watching the Game of Thrones finale? Tell me more!
2. Boring List/Challenge Prompts. Of all the terrible things about the dumb Chris Pratt discourse of the last week, the worst by far was that it just further validated the cultural relevance of the insufferable "One gotta go" prompt.
3. Over-Celebration of Insignificant Anniversaries. Just because it's the 16th anniversary of the video for "The New Workout Plan" doesn't mean we need to spend all day ranking Kanye West's discography -- like we already did yesterday and the day before that.
4. Outrage About One Dude With 150 Followers’ Opinion About Whatever. Corollary to the Kendrick Perkins police: Enough people with actual platforms have terrible opinions about things, you don't have to get on your 1987 MJ throwback jersey just to dunk on some random person with zero social media influence for saying that Parasite sucked.
5. Outrage About an Article Nobody Read Past the Headline/Screenshot. Like we've said for seven years here on the Ricky: context matters.
6. Question Guy Question Prompts. "What's a cover that's better than the original?" "What's a song with happy lyrics but sad music?" "What's a movie you've seen more than five times?" "What's the name of literally any basketball player?"
7. Outrage in Response to a Controversy That Never Actually Existed. The only people who ever actually had a problem with "WAP" were either folks who think all rap is the devil's music or pundits who pretended to be offended because they knew they would get a ton of attention for it. They were right, and we should be ashamed. -- A.U.