Last night I had an intense dream that was broken up when I had to get up and take a leak at 6 a.m. But the dream was so fascinating that when I got back into bed, I tried desperately to pick up where I left off, as if I were unpausing a movie. I was walking down the road and carrying two suitcases. Come on, brain. Tell me what happens next. I MUST KNOW. Dreams never let you pick up where you left off.


Your letters:

Geoff:

It's time to break down the Top 5 most racist U.S. cities in the 21st Century. Cincy has to be No. 1, as they had actual race riots in the early 2000s. Other top five candidates include Northeast Philadelphia (those Catholic whiteys wear their racism like a badge of honor), Boston (those fascinating Capital-Bruins tweets), New Orleans, Chicago (literally split the town in two between rich white and poor black) and Los Angeles. Time for the definitive list.


The fun thing about putting together this kind of list is that, in an ironic twist, I get to incorporate my own ignorance and prejudices, which brings everything full circle. You can't make a truly definitive list of racist towns, because that would require you to know every American city intimately. And even then, many racist people are far too polite to out themselves as being racist. Many of them keep that hate bottled up tight inside, revealing it only when they deliberately fail to include BET among their favorite channels in the DirecTV program guide. So any list like this is superficial at best. But of course, that's part of the fun. Please note that these rankings are based on the number of presumed racists per capita.

1. Birmingham. I have never been to Birmingham, but I knew I needed a Southern representative, and that the Southern representative would probably deserve to top this list. I verified Birmingham with Spencer Hall. He said, "We're talking about operant racism? So…Birmingham." Birmingham it is.

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2. Boston. Of course, Boston has to be near the top of this list. I actually knew a handful of people from Quincy, Mass. One of them referred to black people as "colored" people. And it wasn't an innocent thing. I think he genuinely liked how it sounded when he said it.

3. Phoenix. Lots of old people in Phoenix. Old people are crazy racist. And not only are old people racist, but old people have ACQUIRED RACISM. They may not start out life racist. They don't even have to have racist parents. But then, one day, they get rear-ended by an Asian lady in the parking lot and now they hate ALL Asians. Acquired racism is the most dangerous racism of all, because those are people who believe they have facts backing up their prejudices. Also, gun nuts and bikers are here.


I also wanted to include Los Angeles on this list because LA has the whole immigrant issue, along with dipshit skatepark kids who love to casually drop the N-bomb because they think it sounds cool. Those N-bombs that Quentin Tarantino personally drops in Pulp Fiction are the perfect example. There really are racist little shits like that in LA.

4. New York. This counts the entire metropolitan area, which means you have a healthy combination of Upper East Side socialites who fear minorities and the obvious goomba Sal's Famous Pizzeria worker faction. Two kinds of racism for your dollar.


5. Cincinnati. Like Geoff said, riots.

Honorable mention to Detroit, along with EVERY CITY IN THE SOUTH. I welcome you to challenge these rankings and add your own entries down in the bowels of the discussion section.


When I went to college in Michigan and Maine, I was flabbergasted by the number of kids who openly used the n-word. It was nothing to them. They had no fear of reprisal whatsoever. They'd just throw it out there as if to say, "We're free to use this, EH MY WHITE BROTHERS AND SISTERS?" And I know that I didn't go to the most racially diverse schools in the world, but I would have thought that any sane person would avoid using that word in public regardless. But no! They threw that shit around like Smurfs use "smurf."

I asked SBNation's Bomani Jones what he thought of these rankings, because I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just two white guys chiming in on this issue. He approved of the list, but added: "My daddy swears Shreveport is the winner, but that's not a city, per se. I'm told Jacksonville's a big one. Oh, and don't forget Richmond." Whoa hey, three Southern towns? I never would have guessed.


This also brings up the opposite question: What are the LEAST racist cities in America? I suggested San Francisco to Bomani:

"Ehhh, I find all of California to be passive-aggressively racist. Shit, this one's really hard. Seattle? The problem with Frisco is it seems so non-racist because there are so few black people not in Oakland."


Neither Bomani nor I have ever been to Seattle. Congratulations on being an imaginary haven for racial tolerance, Seattle!

Drew Magary writes for Deadspin and Gawker. He's also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter @drewmagary and email him at drew@deadspin.com.


Yannai:

What's the best way to show your kids off nowadays? Is it Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, still Christmas cards, etc.? I like YouTube because it has the most visibility, but then I always get pissed when my kids don't become internet stars.


YouTube is arguably the worst place to show off your kids because putting your kids on YouTube means subjecting them to YouTube's notoriously retarded commenter base. You think it's cute to take a video of your baby trying to eat soup, and then three minutes later some idiot on YouTube is like I'D RAPEZ THAT STOOPID BABY OBAMA IS HITLER. That tends to put a damper on the proceedings. You can make your YouTube account private, but then anyone who wants to view it has to register, which is the online equivalent of punching someone in the face.

You're best off just throwing them up on Facebook and then having other parents say nice things about the kid so that you return the favor whenever they post pictures of their own little fuckers. There's something rote about this experience. You feel as if you're going through the motions when you do this, but I don't know how to alleviate it. They're your kids. No one else is ever going to find them as interesting as you do. Unless your child has some kind of Elephant Man-style deformity. That would be kind of fascinating. I'd comment on an Elephant Baby photoset.


Zach:

My birthday's during fantasy football season. Is "accept this shitty trade that would only help me" an acceptable gift to ask for?


No one will ever get you that gift. You'll get a new car before a friend trades you RG3 for Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Jason:

Do you think former gold medalists sit at home and wear their medals while watching the Olympics?


I would. I would wear my medal to sleep. If I had lots of gold medals like Michael Phelps, I would melt all of them down to form one GIANT gold medal that I could wear until my dying day. A gold medallion. Now this is a total Ryan Lochte move, but winning that many gold medals will warp your inner douche in ways you can't possibly foresee.

Seriously though, I think a sensible former Olympian would marvel at his gold medal for a bit, and then put it away and move forward with his life. Taking it out and brandishing it twenty years after the fact would make you pathetic. It would mean that you had neither the ambition nor the ability to pursue other interests. Remember that old GQ article about the guy who had to work for Lenny Dykstra? Dykstra used to just watch the Real Sports segment about how smart he was over and over again, like a fucking drooling moron. You don't want to be that person. You don't want to be the guy who can't move forward.


Morgan:

A very close friend of mine (let's call him Adam) just got divorced from his wife (let's call her Jane). The primary reason for the divorce was that Jane was sleeping with a fairly famous actor who you know from many popular TV shows. The other reasons were that Jane is a horrible, malignant tumor of a person. While I was sad for Adam that his marriage had broken up, it was for the best because he needed to not be with this monster. It's also important to note that Jane is insanely hot. It's just come to my attention that I know someone, a writer, who has a series of naked pictures of Jane on his computer and is willing to share them. He has never met Adam and didn't even know that Jane had ever been married. On the one hand, I desperately want to see them. I have seen her in a bathing suit and would like to see her unbathingsuited. On the other hand, she was married to my friend for a long time (conceivably when the photos were sent, even, which makes it even grosser). What happens if they are super hot and I fap to them? Or maybe she will actually be horrible looking and that will provide some vindication to how horrible I think she is as a person? Does this just fall under blanket rules about staying away from friends' exes?


Yeah, you can't go near those. Even if you think she's a rotten person and deserves all kinds of terrible karma coming her way, you can't justify it. You'd be actively seeking out nude photos of someone who hurt your friend badly to use for your own sexual pleasure. That's a no-no. You know damn well she isn't going to be secretly un-hot in the buff. Don't kid yourself. She's gonna look faptastic.

It's just such a shame that you didn't stumble upon the photos BY ACCIDENT. If it had happened by accident, then all bets are off. You didn't ask to see the gal's bits. They just happened to be there. There was no premeditation to logging that spank bank entry. If only there were a way to deliberately see the photos without WANTING to see them. Like if you said to your writer friend, "Boy, I'm glad I never saw that girl naked! Yes, sirree! Wouldn't want those breasts flashed in front of my face!" And then your friend would troll you by showing you Jane's luscious naked figure and you could be like, "YOU SCOUNDREL! I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT TO SEE THAT! (bolts to toilet to fap)". I think THAT would be morally OK. Anything you did then would strictly be between you and your head. No one else ever need know! That shame is for you to hide. Congrats!


(NOTE: I vote for Rob Lowe as the cuckolder!)

Nick:

I wanted to weigh in on the cow punching debate. I am a veterinarian and have closed-fist punched a cow in the face/head a few times out of frustration, mostly because the cow was being an asshole. You just end up hurting your hand and the cow does nothing but stare at you. So, I say no matter how big you are or how hard you punch, that cow isn't going down.


Noted. Also, never take your pet to this man.

Bobby Big Wheel:

Do you think the kicker and punter get pissed that they don't get to say what school they went to on Sunday Night Football?


I put this question to Vikings punter and Official Active Athlete Of Deadspin, Chris Kluwe. Here is our ensuing conversation:

KLUWE: They never ask us for anything like that. One day the specialists will be introduced at a game and I'll have a heart attack from surprise.


ME: Yes, but do you get MAD that you aren't introduced on the SNF lineups?

KLUWE: We look like Jim Harbaugh after that punt return.

By the way, I spend most of my time during the SNF lineup announcements trying to figure out the ugliest player. Orlando Franklin's hairdo is doing him no favors.


David:

What do you think the thing that, if it showed up randomly in one of the Mars Curiosity pictures, would cause people to flip out the most? A nightmarish space monster? Some artifact proving a civilization once flourished there? Tebow?


A full-fledged, intelligent alien beast. For certain. I know that people would flip out over far more basic things, such as the presence of water. But you and I know better. You and I know that finding water or even living bacteria isn't what we REALLY want to find. What we want to find are 500-pound alien monsters who have laser cannons and ride around on SpaceCycles, monsters we must destroy in our first ever global instance of interplanetary warfare. Finding water on Mars would just be a huge cocktease by comparison.

The only bigger shock would be seeing Xenu.

HALFTIME!

Howie:

Hypothetical scenario for you here. Let's one day our legislature goes crazy and passes a constitutional amendment making murder legal in all its forms. Everyone in America can now kill whoever they want with complete and total impunity. Let's also say that you can't be prosecuted for any other crimes you committed to the end of committing murder. So for instance, if you burned down the DMV to kill everyone inside (totally understandable), you can't be charged with arson or disturbing the peace or some shit. So my question is: how do you think this great nation would change as a result of legalized murder? Here's what I've come up with: 1) Divorce rates plummet since you can now simply kill your spouse 2) Homelessness is completely eradicated by thrill-seeking teens 3) Everyone joins a gang

Well, first of all, if Congress ever took such a drastic measure, I'm pretty sure that people of higher ethical standing would appeal it immediately to the Supreme Court or even get Congress impeached somehow. (Is this possible? I do not know laws.) It's not as if our current murder laws our holding back the bloodthirsty urges of ALL Americans. The reason murder is illegal right now is because most of us like it that way. Most of us, including me, believe that killing another person in cold blood, even if that person deserves it (looking your way, Chris Johnson), is inherently wrong. I don't walk around letting folks live simply because I want to avoid jail time. It's because I don't have any interest in becoming a freewheeling instrument of death and dismemberment. If murder were legalized tomorrow, I wouldn't take it as a cue to go start stabbing people, and you probably wouldn't either. You'd probably join the effort to get murder control laws passed, and then the folks at Big Murder would thwart you at every turn with multi-billion dollar lobbying efforts and public service announcements designed to court the rural pro-murder bloc.


If murder remained legal, then society would quickly begin to collapse. The worst people among us would indeed treat the new law as an occasion to go around killing at will, and then the rest of us would live in fear of them, terrified of being gunned down at a moment's notice. That fear and sense of omnipresent paranoia would eventually cause us to all become mentally unstable. Vigilante squads would murder the murderers, but then go too far and develop a pleasure for killing of their own. Children growing up around such mindless violence would themselves become violent. Millions upon millions would flee for more civilized nations, leaving only the most depraved citizens left to fend for control of the American mainland. Eventually, the country would fall into complete ruin and most people would die by age 17. I would personally take my family and flee to Australia, where I would continue to make crass online jokes about killing fantasy players who have disappointed me.

Sam:

Is it perfectly acceptable for a male to trim his pits? I'm not talking full on shave just a slight trim. Because its getting crazy under there.


If you've got a tumbleweed growing under there, I don't see the harm in doing a bit of maintenance. The worst thing that could happen is some douche friend of yours finds out and is like OMG THIS VIOLATES BRO CODE! Stab that friend. The best thing that could happen is that you spy a good looking woman who sees you in your replica Bulls jersey and thinks to herself, "Hey, he takes good care of his pits. I'm going to fellate him." May as well focus on the latter.

Sometimes, if I put my arms down, a few stray pit hairs will shoot out from the space between my upper arm and my torso, like a sweater stuck in a car door. And that's unpleasant. I don't like knowing that my pit hair is trying to escape. I would like it all contained once I've put the hatchback down.


Greg:

Do you think that conjoined twins talk to each other while shitting? Would it be more awkward not to, or does all awkwardness go out the window when you share a body?


I have to think that the awkwardness goes out the window when you share a body. At some point, you simply have to accept that your body will never be your own, don't you? Maybe conjoined twins still try to establish certain boundaries between each other, just for the sake of morale. But I have to think those efforts are usually in vain. If I were a conjoined twin, I'd simply accept my fate and take it all with good humor. What else are you supposed to do when your brother is jacking it with YOUR penis?

Tim:

We tend to use one roster spot in any league for random guys, which gives the game a higher degree of difficulty but also just weirds a lot of people out. Like in our basketball league one year, I had Penny Hardaway, who was retired but available, and I tried to start him as often as possible. I lost in the Finals, which was impressive I thought. My little brother once took it to a whole other level. After Josh Hancock, RP for the Cardinals, died a few years ago, my brother put him on the active roster. My brother won the championship of our league with his roster like that. Does anyone else waste a roster spot like this? And if so, do they have the same level of success?


I don't do this, but I understand the idiotic genius of it. I always lose my fantasy game to the asshole who started two guys on a bye week. So it makes sense, in a way, to deliberately sabotage your own team by wasting a roster spot and then winning because the other owner got too overconfident. It's genius, really, If I tried it, I would lose every week by 70 points. God, I fucking hate fantasy football.

Matt:

Is there anything worse than when neighbors try to talk to you while you're moving? They always say some bullshit like, "Oh, that looks like a ton of work," or "Man I'm glad I don't have to do that." If you want to come over and lift shit, fine, be my guest. If not, kindly go fuck yourself and let me finish moving my stuff. Moving sucks.


Every time I see a moving van in my neighborhood, I lose my shit. OMG a van! Are the people in the house moving? Why are they moving? Divorce? It's probably divorce. I wonder who the husband cheated on the wife with. I bet she was kinda sleazy hot, like that Jane girl. Then I wonder who's moving in. Maybe it'll be a convicted sex offender. Maybe it'll be a swinger couple. Maybe SPIES. I have to choke myself to keep from going up to the neighbor and asking what the deal is.

Ken:

Imagine a world where it's impossible to read in your head, the only way to read any sort of writing is to verbally say it aloud. Would crime go up? Less funding for libraries? What would be the worst part of life?


Even text messages? OK, THEN I'm fine with the murder ban being overturned. I'm not gonna be able to walk down the street with 60 teenagers reading texts out loud and another dozen hipsters mouthing out articles from The Atlantic that they have up on their iPads. MURDER.

Mike:

Maybe you can investigate the gene that causes the jackass in seat 58C of the aircraft to immediately unbuckle and leap to their feet, once the plane has landed, in an attempt to get off the plane before everyone else. I'd love to know what makes these people tick.


I always stand up the second the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign goes off, no matter where I am in the plane. However, I have a legitimate reason for this, and that is that I have a bad back and desperately need to stand up after sitting for three hours straight and feeling my muscles withering as a result. Five seconds longer in my seat and a watermelon-sized abscess will grow on my hip. So I stand up, bonk my head on the underside of the overhead bin, and then face the back of the plane and kneel on my seat. Now, this is an immensely unsatisfying position. And I feel like a complete asshole standing up that early. But I swear I only do it because I can't sit one second longer without my spine crumbling to pieces.

You have no excuse getting up if the seat still offers you a modicum of comfort. I think many type-A people stand up immediately so that they can silently announce to the people in front of them that they should hurry the fuck up. I find this to be obnoxious. HOWEVER, there really are some people at the front of the plane who have seemingly little interest in deplaning. Even when the flight isn't continuing on to another city. Some people happily linger on the place for an extra five minutes. What are you doing? Why are you letting me by even though you have the right of way? You're not even crippled.


Email of the week time.

Matt: