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[To the tune of the Scottish folk song “Ye Jacobites By Name“.]

Ye Patriots by name, lend an ear, lend an ear,

 Ye Patriots by name, lend an ear,

 Ye Patriots by name,

 Your faults I will proclaim,

 Your gameplan I must blame, you shall hear.

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

When to Run, and When to Pass, by the chart, by the chart?

 When to Run, and When to Pass, by the chart?

 When to Run, and When to Pass?

Two throws for each run, alas,

 Against the league’s top class falls apart.

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

What makes defensive ends slow their pace, slow their pace?

 What makes defensive ends slow their pace?

 What makes defensive ends

 Unsure which threat to defend,

 And let your speedy friends out in space?

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

Then leave some plays un-thrown, and shift gears, and shift gears

 Then leave some plays un-thrown, and shift gears.

 So leave some plays un-thrown,

 Don’t give up on the run,

 And titles you’d have won last two years.

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

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“Apocalypse ‘12”,

So the Mayans had said.

“Mark on your calendars

That you’ll all be dead.”

And ev’ryone came

To the center of town,

To look at the clock

As the minutes ticked down.

We all knew it would end

But we didn’t know how.

“Be ready” we said,

“For anything now”.

They primed all the missiles,

The oceans did rise,

The sun started growing

To no one’s surprise.

Bob Frost, he took bets

On “fire” or “ice”.

I said “10-to-1 water”

And he said “no dice”.

A relieved Harold Camping

Lit a vict’ry cigar;

And even  Cthulhu

Drove up in his car.

Behind him by barely

So much as a step

Came old Yog-Sothoth

And Nyarlathotep.

As twilight approached

We only could stare

And wait for the horsemen

We knew would be there.

The sky opened up

And there they appeared,

Looking as awful

As everyone feared.

There came a grim hush

To all of our chatter’n’

As those four moved into

Their last landing pattern.

Then one of the riders

Lost hold of his steed,

And the blasphemous bronco

Was off at full speed.

The Unearthly rider

Into space he was thrown;

‘Twas like the “Ghost Riders”

Meet “The Strawberry Roan”.

The next day the feeling,

As the headline explains:

Was “Apocalypse Called

On Account of the Reins.”

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Moralists rail against most forms of gambling,

Their fingers they wag, and implore us and beg us

To see to it we never decide to go rambling

In places like Monte Carlo, or, Lord help us, Las Vegas.

But the most sinister game of chance that I’ve seen

I was able to play in my home by myself.

It’s referred to as “Fantasy Football”, and I mean

To say it’s as bad as some dice or cards on a shelf.

Well, I picked out my players in the pre-season draft

After poring o’er pages of prognostic palavers;

But by the third week, all my choices looked daft,

My runners were hurt, and all my receivers on waivers.

All the “experts” whose advice I naively did seek

Told me that I’d win based on the stats they projected

Which were based on what happened last week—

But things never, oh never, went as they expected!

Oh, you should rather pull slot machine levers

Or hit on 19 in a game of Blackjack,

Than go out and start  “hot” wide receivers

Or pick up the alleg’d “workhorse running back”.

I tried to get clever in order to trick ‘em

And my strategy became downright contrarian,

When I heard a name and was told “never pick ‘em!”

I’d snap him right up, dropping the stars I was carryin’!

But my efforts all were completely for naught;

My “sleepers” got stuffed by opposing noseguards

While the star I had dropped then went out and caught

17 passes for well over 200 yards.

I’ve had quite enough of this mad game of chance,

I don’t think knowing the sport helped me out in the least;

I could go and play baccarat or roulette in France

And I think my odds of success would be greatly increased!

(more…)

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Okay, I wanted to try to avoid blogging about politics this weekend, but analysis of Clint Eastwood’s Absurdist one-man play is everywhere.  I guess it’s not even that political except that it happened at the Republican convention.  As eurobrat points out, the performance, unlike everything else at the convention, was not carefully stage and crafted.  It was spontaneous.

That definitely was why it was more memorable than anything  else at the convention, but I am not sure that “memorable” means “good”.  “All publicity is good publicity”, they say, but they are wrong.  Just ask Richard Nixon.  Still, I like Eastwood, and I can sort of see what he was trying to so, but it just fell flat.  That’s okay; plays often do need adjustments after opening night.

I think he should hire Roger Guenveur Smith to perform in the next version of it.  Number one because he is very good at one-man performances, and number two because there would be something delightfully ironic about a man named Roger Smith interviewing an empty chair.

Talking of which, Michael Moore has his own take on it, in which he erroneously says “a crazy old man hijacked a national party’s most important gathering so he could literally tell the president to go do something to himself”.  But Eastwood had the imaginary President–President Harvey, if you will–telling him, Eastwood, that.  The implied swearing didn’t bother me that much, although I suppose it will horrify the religious wing of the Republican party.

But, in the end, it was my favorite part of the convention.  I have to give Eastwood credit for that much.

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I touched on this with my last post about the movie Rudy: it can be fun to come up with alternative interpretations of movies that the directors and writers didn’t think of.  With Rudy, I was saying that I found the hero character’s fixation on football to be an unhealthy obsession, rather than the inspirational determination it is presented as being.

Some movies have much more elaborate alternative interpretations.  Take the Star Wars movies for example: most people assumed that the Empire is evil just because the opening crawl said so.  But, in Phantom Menace, it’s pretty clear that what Palpatine says about the Old Republic being “mired” by “bureaucrats” is true.  They can’t even get it together to go do something when one of their planets gets invaded and occupied.  If nothing else, the Empire runs a more efficient operation.

If I know politics, a few years after ROTJ, there would be a massive campaign to rehabilitate Palpatine’s image.

This does not even take into account the Jedi, who claim to be good–although the only people who really seem to feel this way are the Jedi themselves–but who are shown to brainwash people from a young age to indoctrinate them into their cult.  They say the Sith are evil, but in the movies, at least, the Sith wait until you’re an adult before asking you to join.  Count Dooku was a former Jedi and an aristocrat of some sort before he opted to try his hand at Sith Lording in his retirement.

Also, of course, there’s the fact that everything the Jedi do turns out to be an abysmal failure.  The Sith are clearly the only ones capable of creating a plan and seeing it through to the end in that galaxy.  Even at the end, in Return of the Jedi, all the Jedi stuff Luke had been taught goes by the boards, and the Emperor is overthrown not by him, but by the actions of a renegade Sith.

George Lucas probably didn’t intend any of these interpretations (and the “Expanded Universe” contradicts a lot of them), but I think the movies can definitely be viewed that way.  Personally, I think it makes more sense in some ways.

Or take Oliver Stone’s movie JFK.  It was controversial for its promotion of conspiracy theories.  I have a different take on it: I think Kevin Costner’s character is an unreliable narrator (he’s not really the narrator, but the film is very much from his perspective) who has this weird obsession with conspiracies.  Donald Sutherland’s character “X” is a figment of his imagination, whom he created to fulfill his dreams of uncovering a massive plot.  Try watching JFK and then A Beautiful Mind and see if you don’t agree.

I know there’s also a famous alternate interpretation of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off–although Freddie DeBoer doesn’t buy it–but I have never seen that movie, so I wouldn’t know.

What movies do you interpret differently than may have been originally intended?

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I think he is trying to say that people won’t read anything that’s not about Lady Gaga.  This comment was on my Max Weber and football post.  Which gives me an idea: what would Weber think of Lady Gaga?

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Football season is upon us!  It’s only pre-season, but still!  Therefore I have prepared some poetry for the occasion.  I wanted to do more haiku since my political ones were pretty popular, and I got the idea to do a football-themed set from Gregg Easterbrook.  Some of them contain an actual prediction, some just make a lousy pun, but all of them contain 5-7-5 syllable goodness!

Atlanta

This will be the year

They win a postseason game.

But only the one.

Arizona

Two great receivers

Never get hands on the ball

If QB’s on ground.

Baltimore

Most boring good team

Will make playoffs, win, then lose.

Wash, rinse and repeat.

Buffalo

Upgraded defense.

But inconsistent passing

Will give the fans “Fitz”.

Carolina

“Cam will change the game”

Maybe so, but then again

We’ve heard that before.

Chicago

Will win division.

And if they can stay healthy

Will reach New Orleans.

Cincinnati
They ought to be good.

Yet, whenever we think that,

They always collapse.

Cleveland

They seem to have been

Re-rebuilding ever since

1999.

Dallas

Poor Dallas Cowboys:

With the biggest screen ever,

And a small window.

Denver

Broadway Joe the Ram

Unitas as a Charger

Condemned to repeat.

Detroit

Don’t blame Megatron;

‘Cover curse’, and their defense,

Put them in cellar.

Green Bay

Defense gets better

But offensive regression

Makes them a fifth seed.

Houston

Just who are these guys?

They lost Mario, but they’ll

Win the Lombardi.

Indianapolis

Well, with any Luck

They will be back into form

Come twenty-fourteen

Jacksonville

They’re gonna be bad.

Like, really, really awful.

As in, not too good.

Kansas City

They might be healthy

This year, and have a good chance

To win Division.

Miami

Major rebuilding.

The last time that they did that

They made the playoffs.

Minnesota

Is it just me who

Believes that “Christian Ponder”

Should be Tebow’s name?

New England

Impressive offense

Figures to run up the score.

Without the “running”.

New Orleans

Team’s united; there’s

No mutiny on bounty.

But still, no Captain.

 New York Jets

Should have signed Owens

And Moss and Ochocinco.

Would be great TV.

New York Giants

They look weak compared

To the Eagles and Cowboys.

Like they did last year.

Oakland

How’ll the West be won?

I don’t know, but it will not

Be by the Raiders.

Philadelphia

Unpredictable

They always surprise people.

Not this year–sixth seed.

Pittsburgh

They tried to Ward off

The ravages of time, but

It’s caught up to them.

San Diego

I think that Turner

Could lose all sixteen games and

Still not get fired.

San Francisco

Will regress a lot

And still win their division

But not NFC.

Seattle

Weird new uniforms

Make them the NFL’s Ducks:

Good, but not elite.

St. Louis

Could surprise some teams,

But Braford’s injury prone.

Can’t beat the Niners.

Tampa Bay

Like the G-Man says:

“Rise and Shine, Mr. Freeman”.

Wrong man in right place.

Tennessee

They appear destined

For second in division

And missing playoffs.

Washington

Griffin next Newton.

Puts up good numbers, but fails

To win seven games.

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In Hollywood, they can’t just *suspend* disbelief, they have to have it leaping out of a helicopter while being shot at.

Via J.E. Sawyer, another good example of how real life is NOT like action movies.  I remember that Cracked did a great article about this sort of thing once.  No wonder we have a “gun culture” in this country; our movies depict them as having magical powers!

It reminds me of the movie Last Action Hero.  A lot of people hated it, but personally I thought it was brilliant.  If you haven’t seen it, what happens is: Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a generic action movie hero in a movie-within-the-movie.  Then he gets magically transported into the “real” world, and is confused when all the stuff he did in the movie world doesn’t work.  Like, there’s a scene where he shoots at a car the bad guys are in, and is shocked when it doesn’t explode.

Still, that’s why people watch movies: to see stuff that doesn’t happen.

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I was driving the other day and I passed a big semi-truck that had giant spikes on the wheels.  I can’t quite understand what the point of such things is.  Is the idea to provide an incentive for people not to crash into the giant truck?  If so, I think it’s redundant.  Maybe it’s in case they get into a race with Ben-Hur?

Are there any truckers out there who can explain what these things are to me?

UPDATE: Did some searching.  Here is a post with a picture of a similarly-outfitted truck.  The author of the post seems to share my sentiments.  According to some of the comments, the spikes are plastic.  Well, I’m sure that’s what Messala said to Ben-Hur, too.

UPDATE II: Nearly three years later, this is inexplicably the most popular post I’ve ever done, by far.  Apparently, lots of other people had this question too.  Well, hope you enjoy the blog and while you’re here, check out my book. There’s nothing about semi-truck wheel spikes in it though, I’m afraid.

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Over at the Buffalo Bills fanblog “Buffalo Rumblings“, Aaron Lowinger wrote a counter-factual season preview/review of past Bills seasons; that is, a kind of historical fiction or “alternate reality” type of post.  I thought it was a cool idea, but the reaction from most of the site’s readers was pretty negative.  I can sort of see why, too, because even in Lowinger’s fantastic universe, the Bills are still seeking their first championship.  Enhanced misery is not what people want in their daydreams.

I really like the idea, though. I’d like to try it myself in fact.  Allow me, if I may, to borrow Lowinger’s (and Buffalo Rumblings editor Brian Galliford’s) idea, and try to make it into a happier one.  What follows is purely fictional–although it may be factual somewhere in the multiverse…

****

When the ball slipped through the fingers of their most reliable receiver this past January, it shattered many Bills fans’ hopes of doing something done only twice before: three championships in four years.  The Bills, coming off a franchise-best 14-2 regular-season record, had marched down the field for a touchdown to cut the upstart Jaguars’ lead to 31-29, but the two-point conversion fell short with only seconds remaining.

It was a rare miscue for a team accustomed to winning.  After their thrilling 31-28 O.T. win over Arizona in SB 43, the Bills had established a reputation as clutch winners.  Their improbable run to a 34-15 shellacking of that same Arizona team in SB 45 only cemented that reputation, with a thrilling 17-point rally to beat Indy in the divisional round, followed by Trent Edwards’ clutch drive to down favored Baltimore 27-24 in the conference final being the most notable examples.

January’s disappointment aside, the Bills remain a young team with all the major pieces in place for another championship run.  Although they lost star running back Steven Jackson in free-agency, they are confident that Spiller can fill his shoes.  The receiving corps remains intact, as does the offensive line. The addition of Asante Samuel to a strong secondary makes them arguably even more powerful than the #2 defensive unit that led them to their first championship.

****

Well, that was fun, right?  Or maybe not.  Is it just a sad reminder of how bad things are, or an uplifting diversion?  For, after all, sports themselves are meant to be an uplifting diversion.  They really aren’t much good if you let them make you sad.

P.S. Lowinger and Galliford–should you happen to read this, I hope you don’t mind me reworking your idea.  If you do, I’ll gladly take it down.  It’s not exactly Goethe reworking Marlowe’s stuff, but sometimes it pays to take more than one crack at an idea.