UPDATE: Dave Portnoy & The Whole Internet Have Declared Professional War on Dan Bernstein (Do NOT Call Him Bernstein)
Full disclosure, I feel like I need a do-over on my previous Dan Bernstein blog. I saw Chuck post the clip this morning, I put together a quick, sarcastic "How disrespectful of Eddie to call him by his name, we have to be better than this at Barstool Sports" type of blog. About 5 minutes after the blog went up, I saw that Dave had declared war on the guy. Then it became an entirely different thing.
I threw Dave's post somewhere in the middle of the blog, but soon after that, Bern*****-gate had blown up into something far bigger than what I had originally given it credit for. There's so many hilarious angles to this. One being, how Eddie is one of the most genuinely nice guys in the world. If it were up to him I'm not sure this ever would have came out.
But as Eddie said, the man hates Barstool. I still can't find any real concrete examples, and I can't say I've ever listened to his shows, but by all accounts he's taken multiple shots at us over the past however many years. By all accounts, modern day Bernstein is a miserable person. But oddly enough, by all accounts, he used to be pretty great. I even heard today that at one point in time Big Cat said he saw Dan Bernstein's old drive time radio show Boers & Bernstein as something PMT could be like someday. So to see what Bernstein has turned into years later, it's a hell of a transformation. He took the Keith Olbermann-route. It's a sad tale really..
Unfortunately for ol' Bernsy, what he failed to realize (as a shockingly high number of people seem to always fail to realize nowadays) is that people on the internet know how to Twitter search, "@dan_bernstein + [any derogatory word you can think of]", and uncover everything you've ever said about anyone or anything ever on the internet. And by god are they going to hold you accountable for it over a decade later.
If Bernsy's (again DO NOT call him Bern) behavior towards Eddie wasn't already career suicide, then maybe he could have salvaged it today had he played his cards right. I really think he might have been able to do it too. He had the opportunity. Once Dave got a hold of the footage, he immediately instructed the internet + Rico Bosco to flood Bernstein & Holmes phone lines. To inundate their show with calls from people asking to speak to Bern.
If Bernsy had taken those calls, then MAYBE (and I'm not he has the charisma or ability to do this) just MAYBE, he could have come across as halfway ok? Like he would have said, "Yeah I don't love Barstool, I overreacted, I was looking to pick a fight, blah blah blah", or even had he taken the calls and went to war with Rico Bosco. Then at least he wouldn't be cowering from the situation. That would at least be a LITTLE bit admirable. Maybe he could salvaged a tiny sliver of dignity there. But instead, he shut down the phone lines to his call-in radio show entirely and tried to pretend he wasn't having a panic attack on the inside, checking his phone every 3 seconds while on air.
But nope. Instead he pretended it didn't happen. His strategy appears to be radio silence until this whole thing blows over.
And in reality, it all will eventually. Everything on the internet eventually does. But he can't hide from the calls forever. The minute Bernstein & Holmes open their phonelines back up (I think it's ok to use the B-word when referring to the name of his show, but I'm so sorry if that's a bridge too far Bernsy), it's going to be nothing but calls asking for Bern** for the foreseeable future.
What an idiot. He was close to getting away with it too. It took almost a full week for that clip to finally surface. I found some people talking about it in a Reddit thread, but it hadn't gone further than that.
You gotta think Bernsy was starting to believe he was in the clear. Shoutout Chuck Naso for not letting that happen. Now Bernsy (or Dan) has a real life problem on his hands.
If anybody in the Chicago office is reading this, maybe keep tabs on Fasoli tonight. Barstool doesn't need an actual murder on our hands.
And one out for this other poor Dan Bernstein as well, who's simply trying to go about his day. Bad day to be a Dan Bern** indeed.
Once again, in conclusion, if you see this man in the streets of Chicago…. Whatever you do….
DO NOT CALL HIM BERNSTEIN
(but do ruin his life, professionally speaking, nothing further - per Dave Portnoy)