CALLING BS ON IT: “NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS AFTER MIDNIGHT”‏

Baltimore Ravens wide receiver and part-time reality show dancing contestant Jacoby Jones got rained on this weekend

by Ryan Meehan

In this country, we seem to have a tendency to make rules to live by.  We very rarely place blame where it should go, and use silly little sayings to try and layout the blueprint for ethical success.

On Monday, a story came out that Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones who is rehabbing from a knee injury, was involved in a brawl on a party bus early Monday morning and was hurt when he was hit over the head by a stripper wielding a champagne bottle.  Within minutes, every single sports media twitwhistle that had a lapel mic was spewing one of the oldest sports clichés in the book when it comes to off the field behavior:

“Nothing good ever happens after midnight”

Personally, I think that statement is a crock of shit.  It’s completely false, and sets unreasonable expectations.  I’ll give you proof right now that this statement is garbage.  

Think of all of the great sex that you’ve had in your life.  Did a lot of it happen at 2 in the afternoon?  I would bet that it didn’t.  Look – I love Starland Vocal Band too, but if they really thought that there was that much midday fucking going on in the world there was more strychnine in their acid than I had originally estimated.  Same thing with every great drinking story – most of them aren’t dinner hour affairs.  By saying “Nothing good ever happens after midnight”, you’re telling me that the rest of the world that exists away from partying is also not doing the world favors?  There are a lot of third shift workers in this great country of ours who make the products that we need to survive at that hour, and I bet they would seriously beg to differ.

It’s also unrealistic to think that with athletic builds, endless supplies of money, and access to the world’s most beautiful women that these guys are going to spend every Friday night making cookies or volunteering at soup kitchens.  These guys are going to go out and get fucked up, and they are going to make all kinds of decisions regardless of stupid sayings like these.

This is precisely why these “Rookie Symposiums” things are so dumb and unnecessary.  They shouldn’t need to have lectures about how not to get into scenarios where strippers can beat you with champagne bottles – That’s something that should just sort of be inherent.  Herman Edwards shouldn’t have to put on a suit to tell you that shit.  (although as I’m sure you’re aware of, he’d be more than happy to do so…)

If I’ve learned one thing in all my time on this earth, it’s that any success and stability can be achieved by simply following one rule – “Don’t be a shithead”.  That’s it.  It doesn’t rhyme, it can’t be printed in motivational literature that is force-fed to at-risk youth, but it covers just about everything.  The legions of douchebaggery that we all have had to endure on this planet can be directly attributed to people not following this one simple rule.

This will not be the last time Jacoby Jones is around strippers or is around other people that are up to something they shouldn’t be doing.  If he was hanging out with them when he was hurt, you can bet your ass he’ll be doing it when he’s healthy.  The point here is – the time of day had nothing to do with this at all.  The world operates on many different schedules, and not everybody wakes up at 7AM, goes to work, comes home, eats fishsticks, and reads the newspaper before falling asleep.  Especially not NFL players.  They are a very different breed…they possess a lot of hypersexual tendencies and are oozing testosterone.  There are other ways to avoid this type of behavior, and I just want to clarify one thing before I leave you:  If you abide by a rule like this and never go anywhere after the clock strikes twelve I can tell you two things about yourself.  1) You need to buy a digital clock because it’s 2013, and 2) You’re going to miss out on a lot of the more interesting people in life if you cut off all contact after midnight.  It’s just like those assholes who won’t hang out with people who smoke.  Like some of these women who say “Oh, I just can’t be around people who smoke…it’s so icky”.  Really?  You’re going to deprive yourself of the opportunity of meeting someone who can possibly influence you and enlighten you with all sorts of information because they carry a box in their pocket?  So they could have recently returned from England where they studied human interaction at a respected institution for a decade, but then the second they light up they turn into a waterhead?  I don’t buy that.  Same thing goes for people who set the midnight rule for themselves.

You can go out after midnight.  You can go to strip clubs.  You can have all sorts of fun and experience many different kinds of debauchery, and never get in trouble.

Just don’t be a shithead.