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PaperclipPerfector  16hr ago (text post)   502 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 4, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What is going on with sports team owners?

In the space of a few weeks:

-- The owner of the Los Angeles Lakers has been forced to sell (to a Kushner brother) the team because of an SEC investigation into financial irregularities at insurance companies he controlled. (((I'll leave the questions about the Trump admin investigating a businessman who then is forced to sell a prized asset to a Trump-family-affiliated entity to Pablo Torre to unwind)))

-- The owner of the San Francisco 49ers was arrested in an East Palestine, OH trailer park in a human trafficking sting, apparently trying to hire a $140 prostitute. He plead guilty to some minor misdemeanor charges and spent a night in jail.

-- The Los Angeles Clippers have effectively been neutered for the next 5-8 years by the NBA's decision in their salary-cap circumvention scheme, in which Kawhi Leonard was paid extra money outside his contract under the table through no-show endorsement deals from affiliated companies.

-- Investigations into the Los Angeles Dodgers are coming to the forefront, involving financial irregularities in their ownership group.

It could all be a coincidence, but it feels weird astrologically.

Hearing its the 49ers owner makes that story makes more sense. The Debartolo family hails from near Youngstown OH; with good Italian restaurants. I didnt realize how much money was in certain suburbs out there, until I had a friend who said he had two kids with Ferrari's in his graduating HS class

PSA: I just want everyone to know that "good Italian restaurants" is an American euphemism for area of high concentration of Italian-American organized crime aka the mafia.

It is also literally true. My aunt suspected her new favorite Italian restaurant, only open at lunchtime, was almost certainly a mob money laundering operation, after the 4th or 5th visit where she was the only customer at noon. She grabbed lunch there several times a month for years, empty restaurant but the food was sublime. Then one week the place was boarded up.

East Palestine, OH

Where absolutely NOTHING weird has ever happened before.

The clippers thing is interesting. The story was broken back in September 2025 by a guy named Pablo Torre.

The league and sports media closed ranks and alternated between mocking and ignoring Torre, until it was too obvious to keep up the charade.

I feel like there's a lesson in there.

It's probably the best example of a glow up I've seen from pure journalism in years.

The owner of the San Francisco 49ers was arrested in an East Palestine, OH trailer park in a human trafficking sting, apparently trying to hire a $140 prostitute. He plead guilty to some minor misdemeanor charges and spent a night in jail.

Shouldn't he be able to easily afford a $1400 D1 escort from UC Berkeley or OSU instead of trailer trash?

This was the exact question people asked when Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots (which is probably one of the most valuable NFL franchises, if not the top one) was arrested for soliciting at a massage parlor. I still haven't gotten a good answer to this, other than that the shame around being a John likely do crazy things to people's psychology, causing, in this case, him to become stupid. Shame around sex work seems to do this in general, I think, based on what I've heard/seen about how porn actresses, Onlyfans models, prostitutes handle their work.

Explanations that have been mooted in my home:

-- It's a fetish. He wants the dirtiest, cheapest trailer park whore he can find. He can't really let himself be free with a woman of his social class. He can be totally free with trailer trash. It turns him on. I've known men who liked their women a little on the trashy side, though this is another level.

-- He's cheap, and that's how you end up a billionaire.

-- He made the utterly stupid calculation (see: Coldplay couple) that no one would catch him in an East Palestine trailer park. The problem being that when you are caught in an East Palestine trailer park, there is no possible innocent explanation, even after the charges are reduced.

It's the power difference which is appealing, the money is unimportant. That D1 has a low chance of making it big in sports, or may otherwise use a college degree to earn a decent living in a non-athletic career even if she temporarily sells her body. The D1 is potentially upwardly mobile.

The woman in the trailer park is probably destitute, with little future prospects other than marrying well if she can avoid the drugs. The exploitation is what makes it erotic for him. There is likely no sexual degradation she will refuse, unlike the fit D1 who can be choosy with her wealthier clients.

Not to say that the D1 wouldn't do some degrading stuff for the right price. But it wouldn't be real degradation done in desperation, it would be play-acted at best.

Now that you said it that sounds like the best possible explanation. I was wondering about that too and I haven't even considered this aspect. For a guy who is freshly divorced (or filed for divorce) - with all the consequences to his ego, sex life and general mental wellbeing - I wouldn't find going to a sex worked something that paints him in a particularly bad light. But the manner of it certainly raises some questions.

Or a quick flight to the legal brothels of Melbourne.

I wouldn't imagine Japan is a quick flight but there is all the sex you can shake a stick at in this country, at all levels of depravity (I am guessing!), with any type of woman that interests you, from respectable college students (who whore themselves twice a week for tuition) to Office Ladies (OLs, yes, that is still a term), to trashy kogyaru street waifs, to thousands of dollar escorts, to pregnant and/or lactating women (I am not kidding, and I am sorry to be the source of this news). Of course paid sex is illegal, yes, but you're not actually paying for the sex, no; the sex is the woman's choice. <--typical legal maneuvering

Japan isn't quite the Sodom of Bangkok, but it has its moments.

Caveat: Not all Japanese women.

It's like one of my Japanese animes! Though I assume that a "niggers/pajeets need not apply" caveat must be inserted.

US has several places with legal brothels, and even more places where they are technically not legal but everybody knows. And countries surrounding the US on both sides have the similar kind of deals - catering in part for US tourists - too.

A) There's Nevada between Cali and Ohio and B) brothels are for proles.

Nevada (not Las Vegas, though) is much closer to LA.

It's my impression (from a glance at webpages a few years ago) that the supply of labor willing to work in the legal brothels of Nevada (in isolated towns) is very low, leading to quality beneath the dignity of a hundred-millionaire—while, in contrast, the supply of labor willing to work in the legal brothels of Melbourne (a major city) is through the roof, with jade-like beauties flying in from four thousand miles away.

@MollieTheMare @orthoxerox

leading to quality beneath the dignity of a hundred-millionaire

As opposed to the spectacular quality of Ohio trailer park, I presume?

When I looked at the websites of two or three of Nevada's legal brothels a while ago, all the women on display were fat (IIRC). In contrast, a stereotypical trailer-park meth addict is stylishly skinny.

I am slightly disturbed by how carefully you've thought this through, but I applaud your diligence.

I'm giving a 70% chance that the absurdity of picking a technically correct but ludicrously non-salient option was intentional.

Odom in Nevada. Dave, 54, recently divorced, sudden passion for Thai temples. Or an unusual fascination with the canals of Amsterdam. All seem like more obvious choices.

No such thing as a quick flight to Melbourne. That's a whole day of travel each way.

In order to create a list item, you need to use just one hyphen, not two.

I didn't want it to format as a list, which I find annoying, I wanted it come out the way it did.

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