Untimely Reviews: Go Tell It on the Mountain

I have a problem in that when I add something to my mental to-do checklist I can’t let it go until I get around to it. Maybe it's not a problem, but sometimes it feels problematic, as in: I should be able to let some things go. Add reading to the mix and the problem compounds. In a sense, I’m a bit of a book hoarder. I collect the ones I have loved to read, feel I should read, want my children to own. I’ve only read a portion of them, though, and I continue to put other books on my Christmas lists, and I’ll even buy an occasional book on a whim. This, I foolishly do with plenty to read at home. I almost never read books from the library, and I certainly don’t give any books away, or trade any in to the used store. Instead, I buy more shelves.

It’d make me look good if I said I don’t have much time to read, but the truth is that I don’t make the time. If I cut out a few hours of televised-sports viewing a week, or eliminated a few evenings of pounding cheap cans of beer, I’d probably have time to read everything in my basement in three months. But let’s stick with the realistic angle.

Some seven years ago, I sat through my first grad.-school workshop. If you’re unfamiliar with this process, here’s how ours worked: Everyone in class picks three sessions from the semester calendar. When one of your sessions approaches, your responsibility is to e-mail the professor a story the week before. The professor then e-mails the class your story. The class comes to the session with three things: an edited hard copy, a one-page response to your piece, and a readiness to discuss. You, the author, are required to sit in silence while everyone hashes out the positives and negatives of your story.

Like many things, having your writing workshopped gets easier once you've done it, but man -– that first one is brutal.

My first story wound up being, according to this professor, the strongest I submitted over two years in the program, but it was then, and still is now, full of flaws. The consensus regarding the largest of said flaws for that first story was my decision to include a large amount of dialect. The piece takes place in the south, and the main character is this redneck guy. It just seemed to make sense at the time to phonetically spell out syllables and hyphenate words for emphasis. This, I did, in addition to dropping lots of ‘g’s off of i-n-g words and replacing them with apostrophes.

During the workshop, and for some time after, I was baffled by the fact –- and I do realize now that it’s a fact –- that the use of this dialect was a major distraction. When I finally understood this, I felt foolish having spent so much energy crafting it. One specific statement about that workshop stuck with me, and it came from the lips of my professor:

“I mean, if you wanna learn how to write dialect, go read ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’ or something.”

Some people, when their pieces are being workshopped, sit there and soak it in. Others take feverish notes. I am part of others, and therefore, I scribbled that title down. Had I not, it might have been gone forever.

I didn’t read anything that wasn’t school required until I finished the program, and I haven’t read a ton since, either. I did, however, get invited –- two years ago -- to participate in this little event hosted by Prospero’s book shop (link). What they wanted to do was break the world record for longest continuous poetry reading, which they did. Sort of.

Now, I love Ireland, and their fabulous product we all know as Guinness, but apparently, if you want Guinness to acknowledge your feat, you have to fly them to your event, put them up, and probably feed them and liquor them up before you fly them home. This book shop keeps a tiered shelf of dollar books outside of the shop all day and all night, so this wasn’t exactly in their budget. They did record the entire event and send it to Guinness in hopes that they would bend the rules, but no dice there.

We did, however, break the record, and I made several appearances in that stretch reading some of my very own, very terrible poetry.

The point is this: I popped in to the store to sign up for my reading slots, and while I was there I purchased a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, because, well, the wife and I were expecting. I don’t know what percentage of husbands successfully execute spouse-ordered errands, but I know this: I am outside of that percentage, and this task was no exception. See, I got the book, and seeing as how it was at a used book store, it was a real bargain. Problem was, I bought the one that was published in like 1991, or something, and as you might imagine, a lot in the world of birthing has changed in the past 20 years, and so yes –- they have put out an updated version of this book since then. More than once, I think.

So there I was, at Prospero’s again, explaining why I needed to return this book and select something else -- we got the newest version of What to Expect off of Amazon -- to replace it. I really dig Prospero’s, but there’s not a lot on their shelves that I either don’t want or don’t already own. I checked the pregnancy section first to see if there might be something of interest and when there was not, I perused the rest of the upstairs. When I couldn’t find anything, I went down to the basement, and after browsing the various sections, I moved to the paperback fiction shelves and started at author-name ‘Z’.

I was literally, seconds away from giving up (in the ‘Ba’ section) when I saw Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin. There were actually two or three copies there, which seemed like a bad sign, but my mind was made up, and I was on my way home.

I didn’t get around to reading it for a year and-a-half, but it was there, in my basement, at my disposal for whenever the time seemed right. I’m not sure why, but after I finished Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City, something told me that it was time to tackle Baldwin. It was time for me to learn what I was supposed to learn about writing dialect.

Allow me to be frank: When J.D. Salinger died, I imagine some folks felt compelled to revisit (or maybe take in for the first time) The Catcher in the Rye. I’d read that book about seven times, and given my tendency to not make time to read, I couldn’t justify doing so again. Instead, I decided I’d reread Franny and Zooey. It didn’t take me too long to realize why I didn’t comprehend much of it the first time around: That book, for all of the great writing moments in it, is a terrible read. I mean, we’re talking borderline torture. At one point, the wife mildly pleaded with me to quit.

That is, she didn’t really care, but I think a portion of her is embarrassed by how little I read, and how ugly it is to have that be a truth for a person that wants to write for a living. It’s some sort of quiet, Andy Dufresne-y mental battle I have wherein I know that it’s “time to get busy living or get busy dying,” but I’m like a child at the edge of the high dive for the first time. The thought of jumping is petrifying; the thought of going back might just be worse.

Anyway, I’m glad that I revisited that book, that I can now actively recall what it’s about, that I have no problem encouraging readers to avoid a book written by the first author that ever inspired me. I mean, really moved me. For that, I give thanks to a junior named Moon Dog in my freshman science class. Chad Meise was his name, I think. I don’t remember how the conversation started, but I remember he said to me, “You know what I do when I’m feeling a little depressed? I read this book.”

As he finished that sentence, he produced a copy of Catcher from his backpack, or his desk, or his pocket. I dunno. But I remember feeling astonished by the statement, even more so by the fact that he had a copy of the book on him.

But I’m also glad that I finished it. I can’t ever recall choosing to read a book and struggling through it. I think for the most part, I’ve always opted to read books I knew I’d like. I’ve definitely been assigned plenty of books that were bears to finish, and I don’t ever recall feeling glad. Thankful, maybe, that it was over, but not glad.

I haven’t decided for certain, but Go Tell It on the Mountain might have been worse.

I don’t say that because I want to convey the notion that it’s a bad book. It’s not, or at least I don’t think it is. I’m sure that there was a lot of importance to it when it came out in 1953, and Wikipedia tells us that it’s been included on a couple of big-time lists, and I know now, having read it, that it was important for a suburban-raised white guy like myself to have read it.

But it was hard.

Like, brain-hurt hard.

A couple of years ago, Greg Schaum was working for KCSP 610 AM, and he tweeted that he had a pair of free tickets to the KU vs. Cornell game for the first responder. I got them, and it should have been obvious that the massive snow storm that had already started was why he was not going to make the trek to Lawrence. The wife and I should have stayed home as well. But I couldn’t resist; I hadn’t been to Allen Field House since middle school, maybe high school, back when my boy Doug Hays used to take me all the time. The wife had never been. We had good seats, the game was super-high energy, and the Jayhawks stole an ugly victory at the last minute. It was so wonderful to be back in the Phog, and I’ve been itching to get back in it again. On the flip side, we almost didn’t make it home.

My ticket to that game was my book mark for Go Tell It, and I’ll bet I looked at that ticket a dozen times throughout the first 20 pages of the book. Lemme tell you -– those pages were torturous. I mean, I knew I was in for it when the opening line was, “Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father.” What I didn’t know was that 19 pages later, we would still be talking about the church and going to church and the lord and God and Jesus and Sunday-morning service.

I probably had to backtrack 10 times in the opening 20 pages to try and keep the characters straight because the religious stuff was so heavy on the eye glaze. Not that Baldwin is pushing it on you like some born-again, rather, he’s pouring the concrete scenery of how huge the church was in this family’s life. I mean, I’ve met some holy folk in my day, but this stuff was beat so heavily into my brain that I frequently felt like looking around for the tree root that I might could've used to get me out of that literary quicksand.

So I developed quite a relationship with that ticket stub. It was the window of my Geometry classroom, if you will, the sanctuary in which I was free, and willing, to zone out in when the stuff coming at me just was not resonating at all. Bill Self looks poised and handsome on the front of the ticket, and I’d look at him and look at the look on his face and trail off thinking about how angry I’d been when Roy Williams left, how certain I’d felt that we’d never find someone as good, how confused I remember being when the Self hiring was announced.

And mostly, I remember how good it felt, and still feels, to have been wrong. I felt the same way when Larry Brown left and Williams proved me wrong then, but it was just different. Brown had won us a championship and announced that he was leaving Lawrence for the N.B.A. Williams came in and wasted little time generating approval; teams were so stacked and so good for 15 years, yet that big one always remained out of reach. And then, when he basically lied to the press to save face, it felt like what I imagine it feels like to get stabbed. Not in a fatal spot, but maybe in the love handle, where it probably messes you up for a little while and hurts pretty good, too.

Anyway, I’d look at Self, and I’d think about what he’s accomplished since leaving Illinois, the plethora of incredible articles that have been written about him. I’d think about that game, and that drive, and how I vowed to get Bosch windshield wipers the next day –- which I did and haven’t regretted once –- and how the Fieldhouse felt and looked so different after all these years (Editor’s Note: I’m bigger and older than I was last time I was there. I also sat in different seats and have killed quite a few brain cells since those days. Oh, and they’ve remodeled.

Every once in a while, when I was really bored, I’d flip to the back of the ticket and think about how I never took advantage of the 20-percent-off coupon to Perkin’s on the back. And that’d make me think about how I always chose Perkin’s as my reward-for-a-good-report-card meal out. I can’t remember what sandwiches, particularly, that I loved, there, but I know I was really into their sandwiches. My mom always thought it was so weird that I’d choose Perkin’s. Thinking back, I think it’s pretty weird that I’d order sandwiches for dinner. It’s possible that the food wasn’t even that good, but eating hot sandwiches that were buttered and griddled was such a step in the opposite direction of what my sack-lunch sandwiches always consisted of: Carl Buddig lunch meat on grocery-store egg buns.

Seriously. Every day. I’ll bet that, between the years 1987-1993, I ate over 2,200 of those sandwiches. I was a pretty picky eater as a kid, and I think it was just a crapshoot one day that my mom put some Carl Buddig meat with a piece of cheese and some mustard inside an egg bun (and I liked it), and since it worked, she stuck with it. Every once in a while, she’d say, “I can’t believe how much you like these eggroll sandwiches.”

I never had the heart to tell her that I got irreparably tired of them –- turkey, pastrami, ham, you name it –- about 75 sandwiches in, but when someone’s making lunch and dinner for you every day, you just kind of keep your mouth shut and eat. Well, not at the same time. You know what I mean. So, yeah. Hot, buttered sandwiches. And pie. They had pie. Actually, they had a ton of desserts in this glass case up front by the register, which always struck me as odd. Not as odd as the fact that I always investigated the case’s contents and seldom selected anything from it, but odd, nonetheless.

But the sandwiches and the dessert case and the flag out front. I don’t know if every Perkin’s is like this, but the one we used to go to –- off of Shawnee Mission Parkway –- had this gargantuan American flag out front. It was so huge that it enchanted me. Literally, you could see this thing from like, Arkansas and the whole time you’re approaching it, it just keeps growing and growing, until you’re finally driving past it and are, in fact, underneath it.

It was the craziest thing to watch this thing flap in the wind. And “flap” is a joke of a word to use there. This thing would ripple back and forth in an illusion of slow motion, almost as if someone were inside with a joystick, manning the thing. Speaking of jokes, no way you operate this thing with, say, the joystick from an Atari 2600. Too small and fragile. You’d need some kind of mechanism like the crew of the Flying Dutchman uses –- to what I imagine is to lower and raise the anchor –- in those Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The flag, though, is massive. If that Perkin’s were a ship, you could sail to frickin’ Rio with that flag as the cloth on your main mast.

Speaking of sandwiches and Pirates of the Caribbean, I don’t know why those movies take so much heat. I like them. I will say this, though: The fact that Davy Jones can just turn into an octopus and smash ships in half with his tentacles is bologna.

Anyway, I zoned out a bunch trying to get going with this book, as you may have gathered.

When I struggled through Franny and Zooey, there would occasionally be some drinking and debauchery, which will pull you in if you’re into that sort of thing (Note: I am.), and the same is true when a character lights up a cigarette. The opposite, regarding the latter, is the case in Franny, as someone is smoking for the entire book. I mean, if both characters on the page aren’t smoking, then one of them is chain smoking. It is nothing shy of disgusting, and it made me think I was licking an ashtray the entire time I was reading it. The problem with that book is that it is so freaking drab.

The only time one person isn’t bitching and moaning and whining is when someone either interrupts them with some whining of their own, or someone is worried and complaining.

In Go Tell It, there’s also drinking and debauchery and smoking, but holy cow is it dark. No, that’s not some snide bit of bigotry because nearly every character in the book is black. I mean, the motif, the theme, the everything in this book is dark. As a matter of fact, the only time it might not be actually dark outside is when they’re in church or traveling to and from it. If that’s accurate, nicely played, Mr. Baldwin. Nicely played. The contrast, though, involves the characters in Franny drinking and smoking out of leisure; in Go Tell It, they're doing it to curb depression and anxiety. At least that's how it seemed.

But, for the most part, these are the things that happen in this book: beatings, weeping, death, theft, rape, infidelity, lying, and sorrow, all of which are blanketed by poverty. The only time these concepts are not in the immediate foreground is when conversation is happening, and when conversation is happening, it’s almost always about Jesus or the Lord or what’s going to happen to those that follow in God’s path.

So, while the dialogue gives the illusion that the story is uplifting, it’s actually not. At all.

Here’s the other thing, and I’m not going to tiptoe around it at all: the word “nigger.”

If I remember correctly, I don’t think any white people speak in this book, and that word appears in it quite a bit. We all have our own issues with this word, whether you like it or not. I am of the camp that does not, and I can’t really recall many occasions in which I see it in print, let alone often within the same passage(s).

My issue is this: That right there, is an ugly, ugly word. It’s ugly to hear. It might be even uglier to read due to its permanence, and I can now say that it is ugly to type, too. It, like curse words, stands out on the page. You can see it coming paragraphs and paragraphs away, on the other page, even. Even in a book with old, pictureless pages that are crammed with small-fonted sentences buried in paragraph-riddled pages that can’t even remember the days in which they weren’t a faded yellow, that word stands out.

I haven’t really given it a ton of thought, but the word might be the ugliest I’ve ever seen it in this book, because it’s a hateful word created by one group of people about another group of people but, in this case, it's being used by the group of people it’s about, and they’re using it in reference to one another. I’m no black historian, so maybe there’s something about using it to refer to others, but the way in which it’s used in Go Tell It sure seems derogatory and condescending.

It really made me uncomfortable, like the first time I saw Boyz in the Hood. I tried to find this scene on YouTube, but to no avail. Regardless, it’s the first run-in Tre has with the lovely Officer Coffey, the one where Furious’ house gets broken into early in the film, right after Tre moves in with his dad. When the cops come, the conversation goes like this:

Furious: “Well, somebody broke into the house. I fired at him with my piece, and he ran away.”

Officer Coffey: “So you didn’t get ‘im?”

Furious: “Well, if I got ‘im he’d be laid out here in front o’ you, right?”

A few moments later:

Officer Coffey: “You know it’s too bad you didn’t get ‘im? Be one less nigga out here on the streets we’d have to worry about.”

I suppose it’s important to note the difference in spelling between the two, but in that scene –- and the one later on in which he puts a gun to Tre’s throat, Coffey uses the g-a ending with anger and gritted teeth, so regardless of pronunciation, he meant the ugly version.

And although it doesn’t come off as nasty in 60-year-old print, the same meaning is implied with the use of this word in Go Tell It.

So, distracted and uncomfortable are two ways to describe what reading this book felt like. Another, I’d say, would be depressed. Here’s where, perhaps, some of the value for a white guy reading this book comes in: By no means do I want to generalize or draw absolutes of any variety, but my own vague knowledge of American history tells me the following:

The country, as a whole, would have –- at least by the book’s publication date –- made some strides in recovering from the Great Depression. It’s possible that Baldwin, who was not quite 30 when it came out, had been working on the book for some time, but it doesn't really matter either way. What does is that the country, as a whole, meant “white Americans” in 1953. When Go Tell It came out, Brown v. Board of Education hadn’t happened yet. Neither had Rosa Parks. The March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act itself were a decade away still.

The thought, then, is that if white America is perhaps still reeling a tad from the Depression aftermath and perhaps from the conclusion of World War II as well, then black America, who hadn’t even had their rights recognized yet, must have been as dismal as Baldwin’s Harlem portrayal. Again, not wanting to generalize, I don’t imagine that all blacks were as down on their luck as the characters in Go Tell It, and I don’t presume that Harlem is like anywhere or everywhere else in the country, but if your federal government hasn’t recognized your rights, and the country is still getting back on its feet –- or on its feet already if you consider the explosions in science, technology, and pop culture from that decade -- then there wouldn’t appear to be a whole lot that you could control, which is why, in a sense, putting absolutely everything you have into your faith, your God, and your church would be logical.

The problem, as Baldwin illustrates, is that if religion and spirituality are your only hope(s), how are we supposed to control our human desires, curb our tendencies to err and to sin? Or, rather: If God will deliver, and we’re certain that God hears us, why is life so full of despair? And why do we continue to make poor choices? God is our light. God is our direction. Yet all around us is dark, and we therefore wind down the wrong path more often than we prefer. That seems to be the conflict in the book, and it's hard to tell if the characters carry forth in blind faith or if said faith is a satire, a notion with rapidly decreasing social value.

That’s about as philosophical and theoretical as I can get or want to get, be it about this book or most anything else. It was, at best, a difficult read. It was a challenge to stay motivated to finish it, and in the end it would’ve been so much simpler to just thumb through it and find some examples of quote/unquote how to write dialect.

But I’m glad I read it and I’m glad I discovered -– via writing this quote/unquote review –- what the value in reading it was for someone raised in a time, an area, and a family entirely different from the Grimes family of Baldwin’s first book. My only remaining curiosity is what my African-American contemporaries (read: black people my age) think of the book, and maybe one day I’ll know.

Meanwhile, I've never been so excited to move on to something more uplifting.
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Tuesday Tidbits: KU's Bill Self Channels His Inner Vanilla Ice

Love me some Self.

(clip courtesy of Deadspin)
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Sunday Sermon: That Loser Mentality

How many times have we read, said, or heard a great saying that accurately summarizes the massive effect that the wide world of sports has on many people’s lives? Today I write with a heavy heart, still reeling from the pain of K.U.’s loss to the University of Northern Iowa, a game that was in fact, nothing less than a stunner. It is not a matter of opinion: Kansas Men’s Basketball is a great program. You may choose not to root for them. You may choose to select a different adjective in describing the team. You may even hate them, but it is literally impossible, barring your ability to largely disillusion yourself, to say with an honest tongue that the achievements of Kansas basketball have been anything shy of tremendous.

Heading into yesterday’s game was perhaps an insurmountable pressure for the nation’s number-one team. The game started off similar to the one the Jayhawks had just won, in that they trailed early to LeHigh, and again to U.N.I. Only their deficit to Northern Iowa was one in which they could not overcome. I don’t mean to chalk the loss up to pressure, and I stoutly refuse to lend an ear to any complaints regarding officiating. The simple truth is that this Jayhawks team was outplayed. Anyone who doesn’t want to give it up to that Cedar Falls club is in outright denial. It was a high-energy game, one in which the Panthers led for all but a handful of seconds. Kansas made a respectable run with less than three minutes to play, but it was, as the saying goes, too little too late. Northern Iowa was destined to advance, leaving the Jayhawks maimed and teary-eyed in their locker room.

My point in writing today, though, is not to carry us through the sufferings of Kansas players, coaches, and fans, but rather to talk about what the loss means to those who are not fans.

It is difficult, in words, to express exactly how frustrating it has been, even before the game was over, to witness the sheer joy and celebration that friends, fans of other Big XII programs shared when it became all but certain that the crimson and blue would be going home. I’ve used this term on numerous occasions in recent weeks, and I hate to overdo it, but I’ll take that risk and say that the rooting against Kansas, the admitted hatred of the school/hoops program, cannot be classified by any other words than these: loser mentality.
That’s correct and intended, and for purposes of clarity, I’ll say it again: loser mentality.

Before I elaborate, and before offense and insult sets in, there is one thing to understand, and that is this: I am an expert in loser mentality. No. I don’t have a license for it in my wallet, and there is no framed degree stating such on my office wall. My word will just have to be taken on this matter. I have been a loser, and in some regard, I still am. More on that in a minute, but first some background to illustrate that to which I refer.

Be it via conversation, text messages, Tweets, or Facebook status updates, here are a few of the gems – mostly from Missouri fans, but the K-Staters have chimed in as well -- I’ve heard in recent weeks:

“I could never, under any circumstance, bring myself to root for K.U.”

“Even if K.U. was playing the team that beat M.U. in the national championship in the previous season, I’d still pull for the team that beat M.U.”

“Learning to hate K.U. is my second sports memory ever. The first was celebrating the Royals World Series win; the second was my dad telling me, after reading the paper the day after the Jayhawks won the ’88 title game, 'No, son: It is not great that they won. We hate K.U.'”

As the final minutes ticked away in yesterday’s game, here were a few:

“Don’t blow this, Northern Iowa.”

“THIS IS EPIC!”

“Can’t wait to buy my Northern Iowa shirt; it’ll go great with my Bucknell and Bradley tees.”

And of course there are the token folks that think they’ve invented something clever when they say “Gayhawk” or “Rock Choke.”

And it’d be silly of me to leave out the shiny new Facebook group entitled “Remember KU choked in the 2010 NCAA Tournament? That was AWESOME.” For the record, we’re not 24 hours removed from yesterday’s tipoff and that group almost has 13,000 members.

Anyway, back to how I’m a loser.

I’ve been watching professional football for 30 years now, and I’ve been watching it legitimately, consistently for 24. For most of that first decade, my Kansas City Chiefs were terrible. And trust me when I say that “terrible” is an understatement. It wasn’t until the beginning of the Carl Peterson/Marty Schottenheimer regime in 1989 that the Chiefs were even worth mentioning on a national level. And as many are aware, the Chiefs had a quote/unquote deal with NFL Films to not tape/broadcast any deep passes thrown at Arrowhead, so as not to reveal the tens of thousands of empty seats. But this general manager/coach duo turned things around for the franchise, restored things to the winning ways that had long evaded Chiefs teams since the early ‘70s.

In case you don’t want to do the math, that’s a long damn time to be a horrid sports club.

Somewhere in the middle of that stretch of putridity, a couple of Kansas City’s rivals were having success. The Denver Broncos went to a Super Bowl in the late ‘70s, the Oakland/L.A. Raiders won one or two, and hell, even the Seattle Seahawks and San Diego Chargers had their moments. For a spell, the Raiders owned the Chiefs, and for most of the ‘80s, and chunks of the ‘90s, the Broncos did, too. Football fans all know that in the last 10 years, the Raiders have been a pretty terrible team. They did go to a Super Bowl in 2002, but they’ve been terrible ever since.

Denver, on the other hand has, as one of my colleagues puts it, has “sustained excellence” over time. Very seldom do they finish below .500, and they’ve been to six championships now and even won a pair.

I’ll pause for a minute to say this: There is a massive generational aspect to consider in sports fandom. That is, if your folks are fans of the Kansas State Wildcats, then you probably are, too. Unless you hate your parents, I guess. The point, though, is that people have children, and ties to teams tend to be passed on almost as if they were their own unique sector of the gene pool. I have an uncle who’s an M.U. fan. He hates K.U. None of his three kids went to M.U., and neither of them is really into sports at all, but I can guarantee you that if asked, they’d confess their hatred of the Jayhawks as well.

Where my loser status comes in is here: The Denver Broncos have been, are, and probably always will be my football nemesis. They were good in the ‘80s when my team was terrible. They were great in the ‘90s when my team was good, and they’ve always been a proverbial force to be reckoned with in the 2000s. En route to their first Super Bowl win, they came in to Kansas City as a wildcard and knocked off the Chiefs, who’d gone 13-3 with a first-round playoff bye. Since then, they are either in the playoffs almost every year or at least on the season-ending bubble of post-season contention. They’ve been to a conference championship game in the last five years, and their fan base, by way of some good San Diego teams and some awful Chiefs teams have begun to collectively overlook my Kansas City team.

Suffice it to say, I hate the Denver Broncos. While they’ve toyed with post-season hopes in each of the last three campaigns, my Chiefs have won a total of 10 games. Ten. Games. Here’s one spin on that: That’s a 21 percent winning percentage. The real spin, however, is this: That’s a 79 percent losing percentage. When your losing percentage is flirting with an 80 percent, you are nothing shy of a massive loser. I top that by tuning in to every Broncos game and rooting for whoever they’re playing. If the Chiefs lose, by sullenness is somewhat balanced by a Denver loss. If the Denver game isn’t on television, I’m pissed. And believe me when I say that there have been many Sundays where I question which team is getting more of my energy. That makes me a mega-loser.

But you know what? I’m okay with that. The National Football League is highly respected for having a balance among teams and across all 32 franchises. It’s the league in which anyone can make a quick turnaround. It has a salary cap. It offers the opportunity to be competitive, do your job well, and have success. If you don’t, you won’t.

This is not the case in Major League Baseball. The league has tried via luxury sharing, and some teams have had success even though their payrolls are remarkably small in comparison to some of the baseball giants. This is not the case in NCAA basketball, either. I’ve tried to illustrate this contrast with friends whom are fans of Kansas State and Missouri, and since I’ve been riding the cliché train this entire post, I’m sad to say that the comparison has done absolutely nothing but fall on deaf ears. In an area like Kansas City, most of us as sports fans band together in our passions for the Chiefs and the Royals. When it comes to college sports, however, we fragment faster than a firework in the July fourth sky.

In baseball, we have no allegiance to the Clevelands, the Chicagos, the Minnesotas, and the Detroits, although some of us might jump on the bandwagon come October. In football, we have no need to pull for the Denvers, the Oaklands, the San Diegos, and I doubt any of us change our tunes in January. In the college basketball regular season, we don’t like each other, and that’s how it should be. If K.U.’s playing M.U., you’d better believe I hate me some Tigers. Same goes for K-State. Do I wish global misery upon their programs? No. I want them all to be successful. I want the competition to be tight, and most of all, I want the Big XII to get its due respect.

In college football, the folks in Bristol laud the SEC, and the Big XII is an afterthought. In hoops season, the Big East gets a lot of attention, and the Big XII gets an occasional nod. But us Big XIIers need to band together once the conference tournaments are over. We need Selection Sunday to be a bridge point. If we face one another in March, it’s on like Donkey Kong. Until that moment, however, we should be pulling for one another. That doesn’t mean bellied up at the bar wearing your gold if you’re a K-Stater. It doesn’t mean actively cheering for K.U., M.U. fans. It just means not rooting against them, not erupting in glory when a foe falls and fails.

If you don’t get it now, you probably never will. I’ve been stoked for all seven of the Big XII teams since tournament play started five days ago. Some have fallen, and since I started typing this, the Tigers have been toppled by the West Virginia Mountaineers. You think I was pulling for W.V.? Absolutely not. I wanted M.U. to advance. I was stoked for them last year when they made it deeper into the tournament than they ever had. I have mad respect for Frank Martin and the Kansas State program. I was pulling for them against North Texas, and B.Y.U., and I hope they’re successful against their next foe, too.

And let’s not forget Texas A&M and Baylor, who are also still alive and very much in this thing.

In the end, the point is two-tiered: I’ve never been an M.U. fan, or a K-State fan, so I’ve not experienced the frustrations that the Kansas Jayhawks have existed as over the years, but I pull for my fellow Big XII teams when it comes to March Madness matchups that don’t pit the teams against one another. And I can say that, having experienced (and still experiencing) the loser mentality that I aim to counter. The other factor is the representation that our conference needs. I see folks posting polls and studies and stories all of the time about this region of the country. What percentage of rednecks lives here? Where do we stack up in the quote/unquote best/worst cities in which to live? Are we the fattest city? And there’s the argument on how Kansas City will always be a two-sport town, that we could never support an NBA or NHL franchise.

The take on all of those angles is negative. What we need is a positive spin and we can gain that in the tiny world of our college basketball brackets. We should stand together. Will I be genuinely happy if K-State or M.U. wins a national title? For the simple fact that that means Kansas won’t have won one, no, I won’t. But will I pull for the Tigers or the ‘Cats, or any other Big XII team when they face non-conference opponents? You won’t hear my hollers at the bar, or see my fist pumps on the couch, but I’m rooting for them. You bet I am. I’m always looking to shed a few layers of loser. So let’s go, Baylor. Let’s go, State. Get out there and win.
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Saturday Studmuffins: Kansas Jayhawk Brady Morningstar

KU's up by 16 at the start of the second half, and Morningstar has almost no stats, but you gotta love the fiery white boy.

Yeah. That's right. It's White Boy Day. Right here in the middle of Black History Month. Rock Chalk!


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Monday Miscellany: Double-you Tee Eff

I'm not even gonna get into this. Just watch:




(courtesy of The Big Lead)
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Tuesday Tidbits: It Has Now Officially, Gotten Stankiest Out There

It's a gloomy day in Kansas City. That is, it's raining. Either snow or rain has been falling consistently for three straight days now, and sporting news hitting the CyberStands doesn't look much better. In case you've not heard, Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Dwayne Bowe has been suspended by the NFL for four games for violating the league's performance-enhancing substance policy. Word is that he'll not appeal the suspension, that it'll start immediately. Speculations are that, as Bowe came into training camp 30 pounds overweight, he used a diuretic to help shed some pounds, which, if correcty, translates to off-season laziness. This means no Steelers at home this weekend, no Chargers on the road in two weeks, no Broncos and no Bills for the first part of a three-game home stand. Thank God for the Chris Chambers signing, as our playoff chances were looking threatened there for a minute.

In NCAA news, Kansas Jayhawks Head Football Coach Mark Mangino is going under the scope. I don't mean surgery, and I don't mean they're going to try and place the big fella on a slide for examination. I mean that the school is investigating allegations of questionable conduct in the form of "yelling at and making contact with a player earlier this season." But that's just a few clouds on a figuratively bright day for KC sports...

...because Kansas City Royal Zack Greinke has won the American League Cy Young Award, by count of 25 of 28 votes. When the chatterings began, I had little faith that Greinke would actually win it. The case for Zack tried to make itself inevitable, though, as the regular season drew to a close, and the playoffs began. But today, a certain someone's prediction rang true.

On the evening of April the 8th, of 2009, I texted Old No. 7 that KC's number two starter had looked real sharp in a 2-0 shutout of the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field.

His response was something to the tune of, "Part of a little Cy Young campaign I like to call Gettin' Stanky with Zack Greinke," which made me chuckle. Of course I liked the notion of it, but never did I think it would come true, some seven months later. Well played, sir, and well deserved, Mr. Greinke. Three cheers for good news. Hell, three cheers for great news.
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Monday Miscellany: A Rock-Chalk Triple-Double the Hard Way

This will be a brief look at the defending-champion Kansas Jayhawks' tournament victory yesterday, as a larger foe in Michigan State awaits them, but there are a few nuggets worth loading, you know where.

The Kansas City Star has a brief synopsis of the game here, but if you're not feeling like reading that much, here're a few bullet points:

* The two teams combined for 52 points in the first half, which, for KU, isn't good.

* How the Flyers, who put up some 70+ shots, and scored only 43 points -- you do the math -- managed to eliminate sixth-seed West Virginia in the first round is beyond me.

* KU guard Sherron Collins had a magnificent afternoon with 25 points and an impressive all-around performance.

* The story of the day, however, was Cole Aldrich, who had one assist, 13 points, 20 rebounds, and 10 blocked shots.

* Aldrich's afternoon yielded the first triple-double in Kansas history since the 1986 re-birth of NCAA tournament recordings (the association began noting steals and blocks in '86) of such stats. Former Jayhawk Wilt Chamberlain would've had numerous had the stat been noted back when he played.

* The last tourney triple-double happened in 2003 when Dwayne Wade posted one (points, rebounds, and assists) for Marquette.

* The last tourney triple-double with blocks goes back to 1992 when a guy by the name of Shaquille O'Neal slammed one home for LSU.

* The last time the Jayhawks and the (Michigan State) Spartans squared off was in January, when the Spartans earned the W in East Lansing, 75-62. Kansas, however, won 13 of their next 14 after the game, notching (at least a share of) their fifth consecutive Big XXII title.

Some highlights of yesterday's game:

(video courtesy of Rivals)

The Spartans and Jayhawks will meet Friday night in Indianapolis for the Midwest Regional Semi-Final. The tip will be at 8:37, and the good guys will be wearing the Crimson and Blue.
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Wednesday WhatYouWill: Young 'Hawks Win Convincingly

Last night, at Allen Field House, the championship banner was unveiled, and Kansas took Florida Gulf Coast University out behind the wood shed.

I'll be honest: elover joined me for last night's game, and, our focus was more on adult beverage consumption than watching this game. Early in the first it was semi close, but never again after.

J. Brady McCollough of The Kansas City Star has the beat in today's paper, and Upon Further Review breaks it down as well. As far as I can tell, though, there were two highlights:

1) The unveiling of the 2008 championship banner was apparently quite a spectacle. I guess they turned out the lights and shone some lone beams on the thing, causing Sherron Collins to say, "I almost dropped a tear."

2) The other highlight also involved Collins. The Young No. 4 not known as Tyler Thigpen "had a career-high 25 points on nine-of-14 shooting -- including four of six from three."

In the end, the 85-45 beatdown of the Eagles meant that this young squad can handle undermatched ballers. The banner display meant a little more, hanging beside the ones from 1922, '23, '52, and '88, especially considering that it was officially displayed on the birthday of one Phog Allen.



Rock Chalk, and Happy Belated, Mr. Allen.
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Monday Miscellany: My Defending Champion Kansas Jayhawks Unsoundly Edge My Alma Mater UMKC Roos

I knew the Jayhawks were going to enter the season as a young, green basketball team. Never did I imagine though, that they would open the season at home, against the University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos, and toy with the idea of losing.

A look at the schedule by non-KU fans would see this game and call it a bogus match, a way to get an easy win. And one would struggle to mount an argument against that theory. One might not've noticed however, who was slated to start for this Jayhawks squad. Have a look here, here, here, here, and here. That's three sophomores, one junior, one senior, and, uh, four of the whitest guys on the planet.

Even still, I was surprised when the Roos hit the floor and drained a couple of early threes for their first lead of the game, one they would hold until late in the first half. The clubs entered the break at a tie, but I was practically convinced that this would be the first upset of the season for KU. Twas not to be, though, as the Jayhawks came out strong in the second, and finished with a 71-56 victory. No surprise that Sherron "Keep it in Your Pants" Collins led all scorers with 16. Aldrich and Reed weren't far behind with 13, 12 respectively. Markieff Morris threw in some surprises of his own as he pulled down 15 boards. One win down; 30 to go.
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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Same Old Song and Dance"

I'll admit: I've been a huge Aerosmith fan for most of my life. Call me whatever, but they're one of the first bands I really started rocking out to back in the day. I haven't actually made an attempt to listen to them for many years, until just now. And, just as I remembered, "Same Old Song and Dance," though it comes from Get Your Wings -- one of the best albums they ever put out -- is a terribly awful, monotonous and uninventive song. Today, however, it serves a purpose. It is not a purpose full of stone cold rhymin', but it is one that must be addressed. Often times, my colleague -- the one that writes here from time to time -- frustrates the living hell out of me, so much that I want to board the nearest jet, fly to his home town, and work his noggin like a speed bag. The majority of said times, my irritation is likely to have stemmed from him being accurate in some obnoxious fashion or other. Not following? I'll clarify. Right after the jump.

As I was saying, Old No. 7, in his infinite wisdom, offered this tidbit earlier in the week:

Every time I get a little bummed about the current state of my favorite football team, I simply glance toward our divisional rivals in KC and suddenly I’m walkin’ on sunshine.

Believe me when I say it burned every fiber in my soul to honor him with a block quote in one of my posts. The sad truth in doing so, though (sigh), is that he's right. If you haven't noticed (see Arrowhead Addict or Arrowhead Pride for extensive coverage), the Chiefs, in all likelihood are going to trade Jared Allen. What will probably happen after such a trade, is that the Chiefs will continue hoarding draft picks -- they already have 10 slated for this month's selection process -- and continue "building" Herm's dream team. Notice the lack of capitals, there; those words are utterly undeserving. Yes. The Chiefs will construct this club through the draft and enter still another season with six (Editor's Note: That number was selected at random.) of a 500-piece puzzle, and, in all likelihood, have another 4-12ish type of campaign. Good. Times. The times are so good, in fact, that I have three issues to address here.

One

Believe me when I say that I'm stoked about this



being the result of this



Trouble is, I was around, and very much a fan for this



Similarly, I'm stoked about these guys



but I experienced this



The point, though, is that the Chiefs, at least in my lifetime, simply haven't pulled it off. In fact, they've only really come close once. And I'm sick of it. I want this



I want it now. No more excuses. No more waiting. No more stupid-ass moves, like trading Jared Allen.

Two

There. Now that that tantrum is out of my system, I'll say this: I'm not going to put Carl Peterson in the hot seat for this. That's every other member of Chiefs Nation's job. I've said it before; I'll say it again: the guy puts together a competitive squad every year. It's on the coaches to coach the players, and the players to win the games. Now, hiring Herman to coach the players is a different morsel to chew on, one I won't unwrap today. In fact, I probably won't ever. Seven does a pretty decent semi-periodic job of it. I do have this to say about Peterson's reign: It's the same old story, same old song and dance. Pulling out stops, turning tricks, plugging holes, and finding any other sub-excellent theory on how to bring home the trophy. It hasn't worked, and it won't work. Not in this lifetime.

Three

After reading a number of articles and comments, I'm left with this one (and it burns):

“It’s a situation that works out best for both sides,” Allen told FOXSports.com. “I can go to a team that is competing for a championship right now. The Chiefs can get valuable draft picks to rebuild with.”

(quote courtesy of the Addict)

My take on Allen's perspective looks something like this:

Dear Jared Allen:

Fuck off. And die. Championship right now? You've been in the league for four years? Try waiting 28. Please help yourself to the biggest bowl of taint sweat you can get your jackass hands on. That is all.

Sincerely,

bankmeister

What will follow? The inevitable, "Hey man, if you had a chance, you'd take it, blah, blah, blow me. The bottom line is that I'm not interested in waiting around to see if a John Buck, Mark Wood, and Mark Teahen are out there to be obtained in exchange for Allen's services. With the Royals, being patient was easy. They won a title. They fell into the murky depths of baseball, and appear to be finally climbing their way out. It doesn't take that long -- see things like salary cap, even playing fields, and equal chances to compete for clarification -- to get it turned around in football, and if Herm's way is going to work, Allen is a huge part of the complete package. Allen feels betrayed because he wasn't given a fat contract? There's no 'i' in team, bud. You're making, even with the franchise tag, ridiculous money. Ever heard of a guy named Tony Gonzalez? He handled these situations -- note use of plural -- with patience, class, and understanding. So, please, feel free to cram a handful of rusty razors in your bottle of O'Doul's, and fucking choke. Unless the deal works out and you stay and play at a high level. Then we're cool. Until then, may you never even sniff the Grey Cup, ass face, let alone my Lombardi.

If it all shakes down the way it appears it will, Allen will be gone, and I'll be watching my children waiting for a Super Bowl. Fucking. Awesome. I guess this is where I try to remain thankful for the good tracks -- "Lord of the Thighs" and "Train Kept A Rollin'" on Get Your Wings, certain that the operations at One Arrowhead Drive will always be the same.
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Rock. Chalk (Note the lack of choke). Baby.

Damn. There is a God after all. The last time I was this amped up for a sequence of sporting events was, well, 20 years ago. Four rounds ago, I told my sister I didn't see a KU/UNC matchup happening this year, or anytime soon for that matter. In a flash, it was here, and the Jayhawks were destined -- I was sure -- to be eliminated by none other than Roy Williams' Tar Heels. When that insane spectacle of a game came and went, leaving 'Hawk Nation thrilled, floored, and hungover, I thought that that must've been our championship. Our moment in the sun was to go down in the books as sending Roy home. Never in a million years did I imagine the championship game would be so intense, so draining, so sweet.

I'm the first to admit -- Lord knows I took a lot of flack for it -- that just under seven minutes to go, I gave up. In my eyes, all hope was lost. John Calipari and his Memphis Tigers had the proverbial stranglehold on the game, and were prepared to send the 'Hawks home, again without the crown.

Fate had something else in mind.

I thought my friend Bean was insane when, at the seven-minute mark, he predicted overtime. In. Flipping. Sane. I was convinced that Kansas would be denied the title, Coach Self would be history, and Roy would secretly be please. Obviously, neither was true. Then, however, when the lost hope behind the lost hope began to fade, the inevitable, the absotively im-freaking-possible occurred.



I know there've been tons of last-minute/desperation attempts in the history of sports, but that three, for my money, was the ace of spades. That's right. A little Motorhead with your championship Tuesday never hurt. And then, the 'Hawks, knowing the historical significance of that Mario Chalmers tres, came out and dominated the overtime period. It was, and I don't think I'm alone, one of, if not, the best NCAA championship game I've seen this side of two decades. Yes. I'm biased. Sue me.



Lastly, before worrying about whether or not Self leaves for Oklahoma State, or Brandon Rush goes pro, or what have you, please click here, scroll to the comments, and note the one with the time stamp of March 17, 2008 @ 2:51 p.m. It has, for several weeks now, been my indisputable passion to type this closing statement.

Update: The naysayers must be the naysayers. It's inevitable. Here, however, is your non-Wikipedia, not-in-a-Microsoft-Excel-spreadsheet evidence that Chalmers' foot is behind the line. It's at the 2:17 mark. All apologies for the Linkin Park.



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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Get on the Good Foot"

"Said the long-hair hippies and the afro blacks, they all get together across the tracks, and they party. On the good foot."

That's right. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to installment number two of "My Sports Life is a Rock Song." And like I said last week, in this feature's debut, it doesn't have to necessarily be rock, boys and girls. In fact, this week, in case it wasn't obvious already, the theme is soul. And soul -- also in the vein of plainly apparent -- is a good thing. And like my professional-sports-blogging colleage pointed out this morning, these are indeed heady times in KC. The Jayhawks look to knock off ol' GW tomorrow night in San Antonio, and the Royals...well, just see for yourself. (Editor's Note: Remind me to change that link, should they fall from their first-place stronghold.) There's lots to cover though, so let's get to it. Right after the "Read More" link, of course.

There we are. Much better. So, when everyone and their uncle is done circle jerking about some dumb calendar, I's ready to talk some sports. Like, say tonight, when we get into the bottom part of the rotation, with John Bale facing Scott Baker. This is when things should get interesting. The trio of Gil Meche, Brian Bannister, and Zach Greinke was able to mow through a powerful Detroit Tiger lineup. And that fucking ruled. Baker notched nine Ws for the Twinkies last year, while Bale hasn't started a game since 2003. Then, on Saturday, Trey Hillman's hijinks have tweeked what we anticipated to be the five-man gig. That is, Meche will take the mound (against Livan Hernandez) again, and fifth-spot man Brett Tomko, who came in for some middle relief on Monday, will get his first start on Sunday (against none other than the Boofmeister himself). After that of course, Rustoleum's Yankees come to town for opening day at The K. Until then, however, there is much left to prove for this quintet of hurlers.

In hoops news, Bill "I like toupees on my" Self ventures into the Final Four for the first time tomorrow night. And he faces none other than former KU Head Coach Roy Williams. And that game should be a barnburner.

I'll admit: I'm nervous as hell for this contest to get here, and get over with, KU victorious, of course. The Lone Reader, along with new commenter Vintage Pancho, tried to convince me over beers the other evening that the championship game on Monday is a bigger match than tomorrow's tilt. I disagree. Yes. It's been 20 years since the championship found its way through the Phog, and yes, many years later, Roy outright lied to the world, saying he'd never leave Lawrence, and of course he left and quickly won a championship with Matt Dougherty's recruits. But the championship game isn't here yet. Round one of the Final Four is.

And it's like this: In 1988, the 'Hawks started off the tourney in Nebraska, then went to Detroit, just before coming to the center of gay-calendar production to claim their thrown. This year, they went through Omaha and the Motor City as well. In 2003, Roy reached the championship game, and on April 2, he was faced with a swarm of media, demanding to know whether or not he'd leave to fill Dougherty's vacancy, in his home state, at his alma matter of the University of North Carolina. Two days ago (Note: Also April 2, for those of you who've yet to purchase your gay calendar), Sean Sutton, allegedly under tremendous pressure, resigned from Oklahoma State, which, surprise, is Self's home state, and alma matter. Self is handling the press well, the intelligence gained from Williams' blundering, and the behavior of dumbfucks like this guy, examples of what not to do. He claims, in his true-to-form clammering style, that his focus is on the title.

So Roy's had his cake and eaten it, too. It's only fitting, and kharmically correct, that he get eliminated from contention -- this time with his own recruits -- by the bleeding Jayhawks. It wasn't until today, either, that I truly felt solid about this game. Well, I mean, this helped.



A lot. So, uh, thanks to Cecil's favoritest magazine.

But, I've got to throw this in there, too, regardless of how calendar gay, or impossible, it might sound to some. In '88, I watched that "Danny and the Miracles" championship with my mom. And it was amazing. A few years prior, however, I watched some post-season KU basketball at the Lone Reader household. With us then, was the lady written about here. As mentioned in that post, she was a special lady. And she loved the crimson and blue like no other. She'll be with us on Saturday, as we whisper sweet rock chalks into Roy's ears.

And it will be then, and only then, that we may discuss the championship game.

So, it's time to get on the good foot. It's time to bring this Royals fever to a boil. It's time to Beak 'Em, Hawks. It's time to let those funky horns blow, dig deep into that funky bass, skank with that popcorn guitar riff, and "take care of business, sister, I'm your fella." On the good foot.
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Baseball In The Gay Time, Fabulously Casual Royals Style

I understand that these are heady times out there in Kansas City. You long-suffering fans have a team in the Final Four (with a chance to eliminate your two-timing ex-coach to boot). The Royals are 3-0 after drilling the Tigers in all three games to start the season. And the Chiefs, well, heck they have yet to lose a game in 2008. You're hot, you're excited, you're all lathered up with sweat and Gates' sauce and manly energy, what do you do until the next game?

Well, I'll tell you what you do! You get your ass down to Price Chopper and pick up the 2008 Royals Calendar, filled with all your sexy baseball men dressed casually, like they would be if you were to hit on them at Sharp's over an omelet.

Check out all the spontaneous outtakes here, here and especially, with extra same-sex tension, HERE.

Man, if I liked either the Royals or butt-fuckin' dudes (or both), I'd be really excited right now.
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My Sports Life is a Rock Song: "Foreplay/Long Time"

Greetings, and welcome to the newest House of Georges feature entitled "My Sports Life is a Rock Song." The deal is this: every Friday (Editor's Note: Fat Chance.), we're gonna break down our tiny little world of sports, and, with the help of the selected song/our unmatchable journalistic prowess, compare the two.

The rules are simple; we'll make them up as we go, and, before Cecil feels his sac shrivel and crawl up into his manly core, rule #1 is that it doesn't have to be a rock song. It just gave the feature's title a little more proverbial punch. So, Cecil, if you ever choose to take part in this, or any other feature, (Note: See above note.), feel free to do a Screeching Weasel or a Chris Gaines song. Or whatever the hell it is you listen to.

Anyhoo. Find the goods after the jump.

I'm not gonna pull any punches, especially with tipoff under three hours away. Thus, I'm going to assume that, with the YouSpaces and eSeeds, and even the old-fangled radio frequencies out there, that everyone knows the jam. And, midwestern/redneck/fat-chick lover/drunken/sophomoric as it sounds, it is in fact a rockin' good song. Well, at least it was the first 6000 times I heard it. Now, what with the ridiculous number of pharmaceuticals I've consumed, and radio stations from which I've been banned, I couldn't distinguish between it and something from the new Jay-Z album.

My sports world, nevertheless, looks a bit like this in the summer:



this in the fall:



this in the winter:



and this in the spring:



Pretty rough. Or, as Old No. 7 would say, "That's uh, that's a lot of third place teams, dude." I, of course, am left with nothing to do but kick him in the shins out of sheer agreement.

The Blues, in case you don't know, dear reader, are a tiny handful of seasons removed from the longest playoff-appearance streak in all of professional sports. They of course reached the Conference Finals in the last year of said streak, not to even sniff the playoffs since. I like Andy Kitchen. I remain confident he's got the club headed in the right direction. But, Christ. Only a team I root for would make the cup finals the first three years of their existence (Note: Prior to mine own.), and never make it again.

And the Crimson and Blue, while on the verge of an Elite Eight appearance, have won a championship in my life -- 20 years ago, but nonetheless, they won -- have managed to get knocked off in ultra-disappointing fashion year after year since I entered high school. Seven, of course, has made a game out of tabbing their annual March Madness elimination, and he, of course, can duct tape himself to any ship's anchor.

Back to the song, though. The Foreplay portion of "Foreplay/Long Time" may as well be an audio advertisement for the Kansas City Royals. Last year the theme was "True. Blue. Tradition.", and I liked it. This year, it's "New. Blue. Tradition.", and I like that even better. Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman have this club headed in the right direction. Problem is, once you're on the path, it's the potholes ahead that keep the championship so far out of reach. Like, you know, the fact that there's a ton of good clubs in the American League, or the fact that the Royals have so little cash flow, or the fact that, according to my new favorite sports blogger, who happens to be right, they have no power at the plate. But the pipe-organ wizardry of Tom Scholz, man genius, begins as a delicate trickle, and builds into, surprise, a rocketesque explosion of tickled ivories plastics. It embodies the potential of the Kansas City Royals. They could explode from barely below-mediocre pitching to pretty okay, and they could -- could, I tell ya', could -- continue to show offensive improvement. If they could grasp these two things, they'll be on par to fulfill my prediction of .500 ball this year and an AL Central title the next.

This sentiment, of course, whirs us right in to the Long Time of the song. And that, if you haven't already figured it out, is the Kansas City Chiefs. It's not as if those two words don't speak a thousand verses, because they do. Brad Delp belts out a lot of lyrics that could summarize my life as a Chiefs fan, but we'll allow it to summarize the last 14 years of it. Which takes us back to the 1994 AFC Conference Championship Game, the only time in my life that the Chiefs were a tomahawk chop away from a Super Bowl berth. They of course, haven't won a post-season contest since, but us fools keep coming back for more, regardless of Delp's repeated phrase "Guess I should be goin', yeah."

No. Time didn't wait for him, and it doesn't wait for Chiefs fans either. It keeps on rollin'. (Note: If at any point you tire of the depressing theme of non-winning sports franchises, feel free to e-mail Old No. 7. He can tell you a bible's worth about championships. And soap on a rope, too, I hear.) So just when Scholz, Delp, Goodreau, and company have you convinced to bolt, and leave your headdress afire, they rock out. Which, to make a contemporary comparison, is kind of like the Chiefs defense under Herm Edwards and Gunther Cunningham, and you're tempted to stick around. Then Delp comes back with some less profound lyrics, and the taste of the Chiefs offense sets up camp on your tongue. (Note: This guy, who is by far the best editor I've ever worked with and/or for, would kill me for using the word "you" so often in this ramblage, but damn it, YOU know what I be sayin', precious readers.)

Like all songs, "Foreplay/Long Time" fades out, and the album ends, or the DJ follows it up with some Steely Dan, or a 2Pac track comes up next on your eSeeds in shuffle mode. And that blasted, confounded time, keeps on rollin', leaving us uneducated, drunken, fat-toofless-girlfriend-havin' hicks with the same old tired hardware on the shelf. And this hillbilly is tired of it, emotionally spent, and running on the fumes of the ideal. Never you fear, though, I'll be there, dumb as ever, for the next season. And the one after that. And the one after that. And one day, my son, will tell the same story that I shared with you today about some teams, and a song that came from an MIT grad that formed a band named after a city. A good Irish-Catholic city, no less.

Oh, and in the random thoughts department, words cannot describe how disappointed I am that the MyTubers removed the embed option from this (lyrics NSFW), although I'd probably get a whiny phone call from Seven about the kids, etc. being exposed to blah, blah, blah. But honestly, what hard-working American man doesn't have his car washed just like this. With this soundtrack, of course. Read more