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| West Nashville owner/GM Mos' Ded (FILE PHOTO) |
By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya
FSN Sports
Following the London Bacchanal and the NFFA Championship game, West Nashville Beelzebubbas owner Mos Ded consented to a rare one-on-one interview with Al Jazeera America. Excerpted below are portions of a rambling, hour-long conversation in which Ded discussed his relationship with fellow owner Dave the Animal, the presence of Jesus; the so-called “curse of Tom Brady"; turning his team into a Zombie Opportunity Zone; how it feels to be the only dead owner in the league; and more.
AJA: First of all, congratulations on making it back to the championship game for the second straight year.
MD: Why congratulations? We lost. Did you think my feelings would be hurt if you didn’t congratulate me? Like some people I won’t mention by name but whose initials are D.T.A.?
AJA: No, it’s just that the Bubbas are the only team that has made it to the title game in each of the past two seasons.
MD: Well, I suppose that’s one way to look at it. But there are no moral victories in this league. In fact, there’s not supposed to be anything moral about this league at all. I fear that people may be starting to lose sight of that, and it has to stop.
AJA: It sounds like you’re referring to the formal complaint you and your team have filed with the league against the Animals. Isn’t that just sour grapes because you lost?
MD: Look, no team has lost more championship games than the Bubbas. We’ve dealt with it. To us, this wasn’t about losing. It was about Jesus.
AJA: Jesus?
MD: When DTA brought Jesus into the picture for his playoff run, it violated everything that was pure and sacred about this league. “No Jesus” was one of the NFFA’s founding principles, as DTA well knows. Yes, our founding principles may have been a little vague, and some of them we didn’t bother to write down, but that’s because everyone understood what they were. We didn’t need lawyers to interpret it all for us. We didn’t want lawyers.
So it just floored everybody when DTA suddenly incorporates Jesus into his franchise. It goes against everything we stand for, and really it puts the future of the league at risk. On top of everything else, DTA was extremely inconsiderate of the feelings of some of the giants in this league, like Satan, Shiva and Janet the goat goddess.
AJA: So why do you think DTA did it?
MD: It’s the question everyone has been wondering. Some say there’s a pharmacological explanation, but I don’t buy that. Only a few people outside the league know this, but DTA has developed an immunity to the effects of all known narcotics. That’s why he’s spending $1 billion a year on R&D at Methlon. It’s kind of a personal quest for him, but I don’t want to get into that.
Then there are those who say that with Donald Trump as an owner, it triggered this whole rivalry thing because he and DTA are the two franchises competing for mindshare in the Northeast. As you may have seen on the PBS News Hour, David Brooks has this whole elaborate theory that, because of Trump, DTA decided to position himself as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, and Jesus is part of the strategy.
And of course there are those who say that Wilder is the one who invited Jesus into the heart of their organization. But if that’s true, and I’m not saying it is, then that doesn’t really let DTA off the hook. It does certainly raise some questions about parenting.
You know, I don’t want to engage in idle speculation. But if I did, it would be that DTA became obsessed with winning a title after he got off to such a good start. Then the Bubbas ruined his perfect season, and then when we beat him a second time, he turned to Jesus in desperation. In my heart I’ve already forgiven DTA for that, although for the league’s sake we have to press ahead with our complaint. You know, I really see him as a victim here in many ways. I’m much less forgiving of Jesus’ for his role in this debacle. He needs to go back to baseball.
AJA: Sounds like you’re rather bitter.
MD: No, no, I apologize if it comes off that way. I’m really not bitter at all. Bitterness is for the living.
AJA: I want to come back to something you said about the NFFA not being for lawyers. The league has an owner who is a lawyer, and you employ a team of lawyers for the Beelzebubbas. Aren’t you being a little disingenuous and hypocritical, not to mention disrespectful of a fellow owner?
MD: It’s true that one of our owners is a lawyer. And I’ll admit that was a problem at first for a few. But his insanity at the time really outweighed the negatives that came with his being a lawyer. I mean, he tried to blow up an owners’ meeting by giving QCurl a pair of boots with a bomb in them. You gotta respect that. That’s how he proved he belonged here. He wasn’t thinking like a lawyer. He was thinking like a hater.
As to the attorneys who work for the Bubbas, they’re great guys and we need them. Dr. Linardo is godfather to Ellis D. Hayes’ children. All I’m saying is I wish we DIDN’T need them. In the old days the owners operated from a sense of mutual understanding and shared values. Now we have people flouting the 160-hour rule and stuff like that. I was proud to attend Sharif’s Integrity Dinner in London because it’s reminder of our ‘first principles.’ Maybe someday all the owners will get back to those principles. In the meantime, we need lawyers.
AJA: You’ve said that DTA’s curse against your team was “misguided.” What did you mean by that?
MD: Just that I think his frustrations and priorities were misplaced. I mean, all of this stemmed from his feeling that somehow he’d been cheated out of the opportunity to get Tom Brady back on his team this year. But look. He never made it to the championship game all those years when he had Brady. And this year he does it without him. Coincidence? Not when you consider that Brady really did nothing for the Bubbas during our stretch run last year, and then the Bakers had him and didn’t even make the playoffs. I know that Brady and DTA have a special relationship — some would say “extra special” — but I think Dave missed the forest for the trees.
AJA: Are you saying Brady is the real curse?
MD: Well, curse is probably too strong a word. What we came to realize is that Tom was unfulfilled as a person, and it was affecting his performance on the field. I wish we had known it before we traded for him (just like I wish we had known that he’d been illegally playing with deflated balls), but we realized that Tom’s heart really wasn’t in football anymore. He’s become much more fulfilled since he started dressing up and dancing at the Goodrow-a-Go-Go — I’m not telling any secrets out of school, am I?
AJA: Are you blaming the Animals for not allowing Brady to be fulfilled as a person?
MD: Blame is such a binary-thinking kind of word. Let’s acknowledge that the Animals are renowned for developing quarterbacks and pioneering the 2Q system that gave them a fleeting edge. I mean, DTA developed every great QB currently in this league except for the Manning brothers, Philip Rivers, Cam Newton, Carson Palmer, Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Matthew Stafford and a few others. I don’t know that Tom Brady was a case of improper development; I think it was more about Tom’s confused identity. He’s a great talent, but his heart is somewhere else. Maybe that’s why the teams he plays for don’t win championships.
AJA: DTA appeared sincerely wounded that you didn’t extend to him a congratulatory phone call after the championship game. Are you prepared now to apologize?
MD: Ha! If I thought the Animal was really wounded, obviously that would be a concern, because there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded Animal.
Look, DTA and I have been through the wars together. I manned the 50-caliber machine gun on the APC he drove when we invaded Panama. And by we, I mean him and me. Also — little known fact —DTA was the genius who came up with the idea of bombarding Noriega with Guns N Roses until he surrendered.
The no-call-no-apology thing is all part of the choreography here, like Monday Nite Nitro. DTA likes these Andy Kaufman-style pranks on you media people. In fact, where do you think Andy Kaufman got the idea for his act of provoking fights with the audience? I’ll tell you where. It was at one of DTA’s poetry “slams.” Pronouncing the Bubbas as his most hated enemy, putting a curse on us, and then acted wounded was a theatrical way to distract you journalistas from the real story — which is that he couldn’t win with Tom Brady. No one can.
AJA: So you’re saying the animosity between you was staged?
MD: I didn’t say that. You said that.
Besides, have you ever tried to reach DTA by phone? It can tell you from experience that it’s easier to get the Queen of England on the line. That’s why El Jefé made the congratulatory phone call to (Animals’ majority shareholder) J-Ree McCohen. DTA knows this. He’s just trolling you. Or maybe I am. You’re the news network here. You Arabs need to do some reporting.
AJA: So you’re not really the Animals’ most hated enemy?
MD: Oh, I’m sure we are. And, believe me, we feel validated as a franchise by that. To my knowledge, that’s a level we’ve never achieved before with any other team. It’s something we can build on for next year. And so can they. Like Saddam says, “You can’t be great without hate.”
AJA: Some people say you did your best job ever as a general manager this year.
MD: Oh, I don’t know. I’d agree that maybe this was the most CHALLENGING year. We didn’t have a 2nd or 3rd round pick; our No. 1 pick was a total bust; and we wound up trading Brady for a quarterback we didn’t know was a zombie. We gave ourselves a pretty hard row to hoe.
AJA: You didn’t know Peyton Manning was a zombie?
MD: No. Did you? He was fine when our team doctor Benny Scripps checked him out. So something must have happened between the physical and the day HCM arrived on our campus.
AJA: HCM?
MD: Oh, sorry. He Cut Me. That’s what Peyton goes by now… since I cut him.
AJA: Can you really claim you achieved some kind of milestone for zombie players when you turned around and cut him?
MD: Well, look, nothing is promised in this life — or the next one. We gave Zombie Peyton a chance. We didn’t discriminate against him just because he’s dead. We didn’t just engage in tokenism. It wasn’t just this PC bull---- that Sharif and Biden are pushing, some dumb rule where you have to interview at least one zombie when you have a coaching vacancy. We actually saw potential advantages in playing him. For example, whatever he lost from having a dead arm, he might have made up for with brains. He was already one of the brainiest QBs when he was alive, and he was eating brains like a maniac after he became a zombie, so…
Anyway, the history books will always show that the Bubbas were the first team to break the zombie barrier on the playing field, and we take pride that we now have a spot in the civil rights pantheon of pioneers. I’m sad that it didn’t work out for He Cut Me, but we gave him a real shot. Maybe a zombie Andrew Luck can build on what Peytie achieved here.
AJA: So you never tried to solve the mystery of how he became a zombie after you traded for him?
MD: Oh, we have our theories.
AJA: Is one of them that QCS was responsible?
MD: Obviously, QCurl had motive. He truly hated Peyton. QCurl is a feminist, you know, and he’s never forgiven Peyton for sexually harassing a female trainer in college. And of course he secretly hates the Bubbas, even though we don’t let that get in the way of our long partnership and personal friendship. I don’t just claim that I’d go to the gates of hell for Sharif; I’ve actually done it. And more than once.
Anyway, I’m not sure QCurl would have had the opportunity to zombify Peyton. Like he says, he shut down the production line at Hohenwald, and now it’s purely a tourist attraction. Of course, what he doesn’t acknowledge is that he outsourced all his zombie production to China to save money. But I don’t see how he could have gotten Peyton over there and back in the time window where all this happened. So we’re still investigating and will take the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
AJA: Sharif and DTA point to the fact that your team hasn’t won a championship since 2002 – that is, before the NFFA’s modern era — and say you’re living in the past. What’s your assessment? Has the game passed you by?
MD: It’s true that I was once alive in the past. But it’s also true that my deaths are in the past – both of them. So I guess you could say that the past is dead to me and I’m now living and dead for tomorrow. But our 2002 championship is a matter of historical record. QCurl and DTA obviously remember it. There aren't many things from 15 years ago that they remember. It must have made an impression.
AJA: What do you think people will remember about this year’s team?
MD: How we overcame severe adversity. And the bet I made with McMahon on the semifinal game. Now, every time he comes over to drink at Club Gitmo, he has to sing the Beelzebubbas fight song. Incidentally, we’re the only team in this league with a fight song written by the reanimated Johnny Mack Brown.
AJA: What’s it like being the only nonliving owner in the league?
MD: Being dead has its pros and cons. On the plus side, I’m awake 24/7 and never get tired, never need to take a break to eat. So I find I’m much more productive these days. Then again, I also have more responsibilities now. For example, just the other day Saddam Hussein asked me to deliver messages back and forth between him and his dead sons Uday and Qusay. I didn’t have to do that kind of thing when I was alive.
FSN Sports
Following the London Bacchanal and the NFFA Championship game, West Nashville Beelzebubbas owner Mos Ded consented to a rare one-on-one interview with Al Jazeera America. Excerpted below are portions of a rambling, hour-long conversation in which Ded discussed his relationship with fellow owner Dave the Animal, the presence of Jesus; the so-called “curse of Tom Brady"; turning his team into a Zombie Opportunity Zone; how it feels to be the only dead owner in the league; and more.
AJA: First of all, congratulations on making it back to the championship game for the second straight year.
MD: Why congratulations? We lost. Did you think my feelings would be hurt if you didn’t congratulate me? Like some people I won’t mention by name but whose initials are D.T.A.?
AJA: No, it’s just that the Bubbas are the only team that has made it to the title game in each of the past two seasons.
MD: Well, I suppose that’s one way to look at it. But there are no moral victories in this league. In fact, there’s not supposed to be anything moral about this league at all. I fear that people may be starting to lose sight of that, and it has to stop.
AJA: It sounds like you’re referring to the formal complaint you and your team have filed with the league against the Animals. Isn’t that just sour grapes because you lost?
MD: Look, no team has lost more championship games than the Bubbas. We’ve dealt with it. To us, this wasn’t about losing. It was about Jesus.
AJA: Jesus?
MD: When DTA brought Jesus into the picture for his playoff run, it violated everything that was pure and sacred about this league. “No Jesus” was one of the NFFA’s founding principles, as DTA well knows. Yes, our founding principles may have been a little vague, and some of them we didn’t bother to write down, but that’s because everyone understood what they were. We didn’t need lawyers to interpret it all for us. We didn’t want lawyers.
So it just floored everybody when DTA suddenly incorporates Jesus into his franchise. It goes against everything we stand for, and really it puts the future of the league at risk. On top of everything else, DTA was extremely inconsiderate of the feelings of some of the giants in this league, like Satan, Shiva and Janet the goat goddess.
AJA: So why do you think DTA did it?
MD: It’s the question everyone has been wondering. Some say there’s a pharmacological explanation, but I don’t buy that. Only a few people outside the league know this, but DTA has developed an immunity to the effects of all known narcotics. That’s why he’s spending $1 billion a year on R&D at Methlon. It’s kind of a personal quest for him, but I don’t want to get into that.
Then there are those who say that with Donald Trump as an owner, it triggered this whole rivalry thing because he and DTA are the two franchises competing for mindshare in the Northeast. As you may have seen on the PBS News Hour, David Brooks has this whole elaborate theory that, because of Trump, DTA decided to position himself as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, and Jesus is part of the strategy.
And of course there are those who say that Wilder is the one who invited Jesus into the heart of their organization. But if that’s true, and I’m not saying it is, then that doesn’t really let DTA off the hook. It does certainly raise some questions about parenting.
You know, I don’t want to engage in idle speculation. But if I did, it would be that DTA became obsessed with winning a title after he got off to such a good start. Then the Bubbas ruined his perfect season, and then when we beat him a second time, he turned to Jesus in desperation. In my heart I’ve already forgiven DTA for that, although for the league’s sake we have to press ahead with our complaint. You know, I really see him as a victim here in many ways. I’m much less forgiving of Jesus’ for his role in this debacle. He needs to go back to baseball.
AJA: Sounds like you’re rather bitter.
MD: No, no, I apologize if it comes off that way. I’m really not bitter at all. Bitterness is for the living.
AJA: I want to come back to something you said about the NFFA not being for lawyers. The league has an owner who is a lawyer, and you employ a team of lawyers for the Beelzebubbas. Aren’t you being a little disingenuous and hypocritical, not to mention disrespectful of a fellow owner?
MD: It’s true that one of our owners is a lawyer. And I’ll admit that was a problem at first for a few. But his insanity at the time really outweighed the negatives that came with his being a lawyer. I mean, he tried to blow up an owners’ meeting by giving QCurl a pair of boots with a bomb in them. You gotta respect that. That’s how he proved he belonged here. He wasn’t thinking like a lawyer. He was thinking like a hater.
As to the attorneys who work for the Bubbas, they’re great guys and we need them. Dr. Linardo is godfather to Ellis D. Hayes’ children. All I’m saying is I wish we DIDN’T need them. In the old days the owners operated from a sense of mutual understanding and shared values. Now we have people flouting the 160-hour rule and stuff like that. I was proud to attend Sharif’s Integrity Dinner in London because it’s reminder of our ‘first principles.’ Maybe someday all the owners will get back to those principles. In the meantime, we need lawyers.
AJA: You’ve said that DTA’s curse against your team was “misguided.” What did you mean by that?
MD: Just that I think his frustrations and priorities were misplaced. I mean, all of this stemmed from his feeling that somehow he’d been cheated out of the opportunity to get Tom Brady back on his team this year. But look. He never made it to the championship game all those years when he had Brady. And this year he does it without him. Coincidence? Not when you consider that Brady really did nothing for the Bubbas during our stretch run last year, and then the Bakers had him and didn’t even make the playoffs. I know that Brady and DTA have a special relationship — some would say “extra special” — but I think Dave missed the forest for the trees.
AJA: Are you saying Brady is the real curse?
MD: Well, curse is probably too strong a word. What we came to realize is that Tom was unfulfilled as a person, and it was affecting his performance on the field. I wish we had known it before we traded for him (just like I wish we had known that he’d been illegally playing with deflated balls), but we realized that Tom’s heart really wasn’t in football anymore. He’s become much more fulfilled since he started dressing up and dancing at the Goodrow-a-Go-Go — I’m not telling any secrets out of school, am I?
AJA: Are you blaming the Animals for not allowing Brady to be fulfilled as a person?
MD: Blame is such a binary-thinking kind of word. Let’s acknowledge that the Animals are renowned for developing quarterbacks and pioneering the 2Q system that gave them a fleeting edge. I mean, DTA developed every great QB currently in this league except for the Manning brothers, Philip Rivers, Cam Newton, Carson Palmer, Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Matthew Stafford and a few others. I don’t know that Tom Brady was a case of improper development; I think it was more about Tom’s confused identity. He’s a great talent, but his heart is somewhere else. Maybe that’s why the teams he plays for don’t win championships.
AJA: DTA appeared sincerely wounded that you didn’t extend to him a congratulatory phone call after the championship game. Are you prepared now to apologize?
MD: Ha! If I thought the Animal was really wounded, obviously that would be a concern, because there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded Animal.
Look, DTA and I have been through the wars together. I manned the 50-caliber machine gun on the APC he drove when we invaded Panama. And by we, I mean him and me. Also — little known fact —DTA was the genius who came up with the idea of bombarding Noriega with Guns N Roses until he surrendered.
The no-call-no-apology thing is all part of the choreography here, like Monday Nite Nitro. DTA likes these Andy Kaufman-style pranks on you media people. In fact, where do you think Andy Kaufman got the idea for his act of provoking fights with the audience? I’ll tell you where. It was at one of DTA’s poetry “slams.” Pronouncing the Bubbas as his most hated enemy, putting a curse on us, and then acted wounded was a theatrical way to distract you journalistas from the real story — which is that he couldn’t win with Tom Brady. No one can.
AJA: So you’re saying the animosity between you was staged?
MD: I didn’t say that. You said that.
Besides, have you ever tried to reach DTA by phone? It can tell you from experience that it’s easier to get the Queen of England on the line. That’s why El Jefé made the congratulatory phone call to (Animals’ majority shareholder) J-Ree McCohen. DTA knows this. He’s just trolling you. Or maybe I am. You’re the news network here. You Arabs need to do some reporting.
AJA: So you’re not really the Animals’ most hated enemy?
MD: Oh, I’m sure we are. And, believe me, we feel validated as a franchise by that. To my knowledge, that’s a level we’ve never achieved before with any other team. It’s something we can build on for next year. And so can they. Like Saddam says, “You can’t be great without hate.”
AJA: Some people say you did your best job ever as a general manager this year.
MD: Oh, I don’t know. I’d agree that maybe this was the most CHALLENGING year. We didn’t have a 2nd or 3rd round pick; our No. 1 pick was a total bust; and we wound up trading Brady for a quarterback we didn’t know was a zombie. We gave ourselves a pretty hard row to hoe.
AJA: You didn’t know Peyton Manning was a zombie?
MD: No. Did you? He was fine when our team doctor Benny Scripps checked him out. So something must have happened between the physical and the day HCM arrived on our campus.
AJA: HCM?
MD: Oh, sorry. He Cut Me. That’s what Peyton goes by now… since I cut him.
AJA: Can you really claim you achieved some kind of milestone for zombie players when you turned around and cut him?
MD: Well, look, nothing is promised in this life — or the next one. We gave Zombie Peyton a chance. We didn’t discriminate against him just because he’s dead. We didn’t just engage in tokenism. It wasn’t just this PC bull---- that Sharif and Biden are pushing, some dumb rule where you have to interview at least one zombie when you have a coaching vacancy. We actually saw potential advantages in playing him. For example, whatever he lost from having a dead arm, he might have made up for with brains. He was already one of the brainiest QBs when he was alive, and he was eating brains like a maniac after he became a zombie, so…
Anyway, the history books will always show that the Bubbas were the first team to break the zombie barrier on the playing field, and we take pride that we now have a spot in the civil rights pantheon of pioneers. I’m sad that it didn’t work out for He Cut Me, but we gave him a real shot. Maybe a zombie Andrew Luck can build on what Peytie achieved here.
AJA: So you never tried to solve the mystery of how he became a zombie after you traded for him?
MD: Oh, we have our theories.
AJA: Is one of them that QCS was responsible?
MD: Obviously, QCurl had motive. He truly hated Peyton. QCurl is a feminist, you know, and he’s never forgiven Peyton for sexually harassing a female trainer in college. And of course he secretly hates the Bubbas, even though we don’t let that get in the way of our long partnership and personal friendship. I don’t just claim that I’d go to the gates of hell for Sharif; I’ve actually done it. And more than once.
Anyway, I’m not sure QCurl would have had the opportunity to zombify Peyton. Like he says, he shut down the production line at Hohenwald, and now it’s purely a tourist attraction. Of course, what he doesn’t acknowledge is that he outsourced all his zombie production to China to save money. But I don’t see how he could have gotten Peyton over there and back in the time window where all this happened. So we’re still investigating and will take the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
AJA: Sharif and DTA point to the fact that your team hasn’t won a championship since 2002 – that is, before the NFFA’s modern era — and say you’re living in the past. What’s your assessment? Has the game passed you by?
MD: It’s true that I was once alive in the past. But it’s also true that my deaths are in the past – both of them. So I guess you could say that the past is dead to me and I’m now living and dead for tomorrow. But our 2002 championship is a matter of historical record. QCurl and DTA obviously remember it. There aren't many things from 15 years ago that they remember. It must have made an impression.
AJA: What do you think people will remember about this year’s team?
MD: How we overcame severe adversity. And the bet I made with McMahon on the semifinal game. Now, every time he comes over to drink at Club Gitmo, he has to sing the Beelzebubbas fight song. Incidentally, we’re the only team in this league with a fight song written by the reanimated Johnny Mack Brown.
AJA: What’s it like being the only nonliving owner in the league?
MD: Being dead has its pros and cons. On the plus side, I’m awake 24/7 and never get tired, never need to take a break to eat. So I find I’m much more productive these days. Then again, I also have more responsibilities now. For example, just the other day Saddam Hussein asked me to deliver messages back and forth between him and his dead sons Uday and Qusay. I didn’t have to do that kind of thing when I was alive.
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