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You're with me, leather
07/31/06
by Clay
Chris Berman is haunted by “You’re with me, leather” I’m absolutely certain of it. Since its debut on deadspin.com in April of 2006 , this phrase has slowly encircled his every thought, driven his mind mad with its simple five sonorous words, until ultimately Berman has become the haunted equivalent of Edgar Allan Poe’s narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart. Whereas Poe’s unnamed narrator heard the continuing beat of a dismembered heart from beneath the floor, everywhere Berman goes he hears the whispers of the pick-up line he left behind. Taunting him from the fringes of his hearing. Those two new cameramen at ESPN, what was that about leather? Nothing, they say, just the weather. Sure, sure guys. Those two girls sitting at the bar nursing their beers, years ago they would have been putty in my ample manly hands, now I’ve got nothing. Not even leather. What’d the bartender just say? Does he want a piece of me? No, that’s ok, I don’t need another.
And so on and so forth throughout all his days, Chris Berman is stalked by the
product of skinned cattle. Poe may have had the lovely Annabelle Lee, but Berman
forevermore has the lady clad entirely in leather.
Poe...working a look he liked to call morose steel.
A few months ago I became the owner of a YWML t-shirt. At that time I believed it might be possible for YWML to remain buried in the recesses of those not content to bow down before the cult of Berman. Since that time, I have been proven wrong. It is only a matter of time before soccer moms in Topeka, Kansas are giving each other YWML high-fives while receiving pedicures. The moment has arrived, the phrase is ascendant, and the Bermanator has entered a long dark winter of his pick-up line infused discontent.
Without further ado, here are twelve thoughts Chris Berman has about YWML as it advances across the cultural landscape while he sits alone late at night swilling straight bourbon. For some reason I’m also convinced he has wrapped himself in a small and tattered green afghan.
1. I went to Brown. That’s in the Ivy League. B-R-O-W-N. The world can’t even yet comprehend my social significance. I’m like Jackie Robinson.
You’re with me leather is born on April 11, 2006 on deadspin.com
Who Berman believes he is like.
2. Back-back-back-back-back, how many sportscasters would sell their souls to come up with a catch-phrase that cool. I’ll tell you…every goddamn one.
April 13, 2006: Tony Kornheiser suggests that his touchdown call for Monday Night Football should be, “You’re with me leather.”
3. Jake “Daylight come and you gotta” Delhomme. Do better, do it. You can’t, you simpleton puss.
April 26, 2006: Keith Olberman steps into the fray on MSNBC. I think you know the phrase by now.
Daylight may come for some, but for Berman all is darkness.
4. “Mar-shall, Mar-shall, Mar-shall!" Tell me a better Brady Bunch quip. You can’t, can you? Wait…you weren’t even born until the Brady Bunch was already off the air and Marshall Faulk isn’t going to play in 2006?
April 29, 2006: Ted Miller of the Seattle-Post Intelligencer inaugurates YWML on the west coast
“Marsha: Back in 1974 if only you had been in leather.” Berman.
5. Fred “the Crimedog” McGriff invited me to his wedding. Were you invited to Crimedog McGriff’s wedding? Didn’t think so, Putz.
Spring 2006: Berman comes face-to-face with the power of YWML. Responds, “Why would I go and do that? That is such a stupid question. What are you, stupid? That is so stupid.”
McGriff and McGruff, that shit was brilliant.
6. Taking the ice out of the bourbon was a good decision. The ice kills the flavor and Wade Boggs was right, it doesn’t even taste that strong.
Neil Everett brings YWML to SportsCenter.
7. Neil Everett is nothing. He’s a hack. Neil Everett was still sucking on his momma’s teat when I was kneading Joe Montana’s sore latissimus dorsi muscle….(Stifling tears) How could they let him? On the show I made famous? On the very network I brought from nothing to the worldwide leader? It’s ok, remember, after all, they put Galileo under house arrest.
Galileo: Argued the earth was not the center of the Solar System. Berman: Came
up with “C.C. "Splish Splash, I Was Taking" Sabathia.”
8. Maybe I should stop drinking straight bourbon late at night. Nah…
June 20, 2006: Damien Fahey of MTV’s TRL brings YWML to the preteen masses. And displays the famous shirt which carefully obscures the grizzled Berman visage.
9. Nobody circles the wagon like the Swami. Nobody.
June 29, 2006: Yahoo! Sports…yep Yahoo! Sports jumps into the YWML fray.
10. I’m friends with George Brett. Are you friends with George Brett? I didn’t think so you arrogant twats. Right now if I wanted to I could call George Brett on my rotary telephone and we could go play bocce ball. Yeah, eat that.
July 10, 2006: John Moore of CBS Sportsline’s SPIN inaugurates the Berman cartoon.
“You’re with me wooden border.” I’m sorry…
11. I’m hip. I’m down with the young cats lingo. YWML, ha ha. I dig it. I’m even friends with cool young people like Michael Irvin…and he’s a black guy.
July 23, 2006: YWML appears as a graphic during the telecast of an Astros game.
12. (Crying softly into the tattered corner of his green afghan.)
August 10, 2006: YWML night arrives in the Minor Leagues.
Quoth the Raven: Nevermore.
Quoth the Berman: Leather.
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