Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

Meh. Moratorium, shmoratorium. Wake me up when September ends.

I may be crazy, a little frayed around the ends. One of these days I’ll phase you out…

No. 23, Foo Fighters, Breakout.

My neuroses are out in full force as August winds down. The book’s not quite done, it’s sort of good, or maybe it’s not. A certain team is supposedly in contention in baseball. Lots of volunteer events on the weekends (Yeah, I know, me.) Projects at work coming to a head, covering for other colleagues who are away. A September loaded with weekend commitments. And an October in which I turn 30. For whatever reason, I’m a little frazzled.

Happens occasionally, and I’ll never know if it’s because I’m totally narcicisstic and shallow, was weaned on too many neurotic TV shows, or listened to too much metal or grunge spine-tingling music. Anyway, something will come along to ease the stress, but until then, I’m furiously on pins and needles, tugging at my hair. Ridiculous, I know. You wonder if you grow out of these things, but then just relax in the confidence you can move past it. Because with age, kids, jobs, careers, money, and all that stuff – when does it actually get any less frazzling?

Don’t answer that. Just wait ’til I break out. Lemme break out.

Update: You know what? Maybe it was the Cubs. I am a little more relaxed, now, even though I’m also totally fried. September baseball, how quickly we forget.

You take what you can get, I guess.

“Dreaming of that face again. . .
It’s bright and blue and shimmering. . .
Grinning wide. . .
And comforting me with its withered and wild eyes. . .”

23. Tool, Third Eye

My deepest literary obsession is best digested with Tool tracks in the background. It hasn’t diminished, not since A Death In The Family nor The Dark Knight Returns, both classic fiction works, let alone graphic or comic tales. Anyway, its my obsession with one character -or actually two, the yin to each other’s yang – that has me positively giddy for summer 2008.

25. So let it be written, So let it be done
I’m sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written, So let it be done
To kill the first born pharaoh son
I’m creeping death…

Metallica, Creeping Death

Twelve years ago Thursday was the first godawful, agility-ridden, seven-hour, blistering-hot football practice of my last year of organized football (though, technically, today would have been the first in full pads). It was hot. It was miserable, and it lasted approximately 17 hours. To top it off, we were a highly touted team that foundered most of the year. Great times.

I often chastise myself – during high school I actually detested football, never realizing that if I actually would have focused on maximizing practice time or enjoying it even a little, I might have been somewhat good. Instead I just killed time, anxiously awaiting basketball season. Creeping Death, however, was a favorite motivational song of mine before most games, a rousing anthem from Metallica‘s heyday. It stuck with my athletic career for a while, even becoming the name of my champion 3-on-3 basketball team during freshman year of college. Yes, I’m so totally sure we were cool….

24. Tell your children not to walk my way. Tell your children not to hear my words…
What they mean, What they say …

Danzig, Mother

But not as cool as my 3-on-3 high school basketball team, who entered the Gus Macker tournament in Waterloo, Iowa, under the ferocious nom de plume Danzig. Even worse, we all paid for Danzig-emblazoned jerseys. (I still own mine.) Even worse, all of us wore, of course, No. 6.(Hee.) In case you’re wondering, we won two and lost one, and then skipped out of losers’ bracket play on the final day.

Maybe. Maybe we are. Go Cubs.

I’m in heaven, I’m in hell . . .
It’s not a habit, it’s cool, I feel alive
If you don’t have it, you’re on the other side . . .

K’s Choice, Not An Addict.

Only ten hours later and I’m once again fully behind our Cubs. One day, one 12-run outburst, coupled with one impending monster 4-game series against our suddenly-relevant rivals, is all it took for the perpetual optimist to bounce back.

Such is the nature of my harmful, suicidal, hopelessly futile love affair with the Chicago Cubs. Until Sept. 30 (at least), they always play again tomorrow. And the next year. And the next year. When they lose, I’m downright suicidal. When they win, the world couldn’t be better.

But guess what? As bad as they’ve played, they’re now virtually tied for first. This recent stretch? Just a swoon! Remember another late-season monster series against the demon birds, in 2003? Thought so. And, honestly, in 2003 the Cubs were as few as three games over .500 on Aug. 31. Hope!

For crying out loud, I’m just as schizoid as this infuriating hot-and-cold franchise. Call me a sadist, call me an optimist, call me a child. No matter what I try, I cannot evolve past this pained tragicomedy of Cubs fandom. I can’t help it, I can’t change.

I’m not an addict, maybe that’s a lie.

When the Cubs were terrible, we quit blogging about them, and the world went on spinning.  Seemed like whatever promise existed in 2003 and 2004 was totally gone, and the team was doomed for all time.

This season is worse. This schizoid team, over the last two weeks, has been the most frustrating sports experience of my lifetime. I know, I know, we didn’t expect much from Chicago, I know, I know, they had two hot months, I know, I know, even Mister Faded Glory called them a .500 team at best. I know, I know, Soriano got hurt. I know, I know, without Soriano, this team IS the 2006 Cubs. I know, I know, curses, schmurses, losers, C.U.B.S., everything.

But this is awful. Remember that 8-game skid in 2005 that doomed our .500 team then? This is worse. Remember the 2-30 stretch after Lee’s injury in 2006? This is worse. Remember the last week meltdown in 2004, against the Reds (of fucking course)? This is, well, equal. Worst of all, though, is that they’re still just a game back in the loss column, teasing us as the hapless Cardinals even make a charge. Ridiculous. Cripes, the Pirates might well win this division.

And I don’t know if it will ever change. I guess, with sports, if you follow it too close, you’re bound to experience more heartbreak and gut punches than the few, far between moments of glory. And the Cubs, to anyone who follows them, are a stark reminder of that.  And speaking of sports, I can’t watch the long, slow, death march. We’re breaking now, for a while. We may talk NFL in the coming weeks (honestly, now that my team’s won, I’m genuinely relaxed before the year), but for sports, we’re just going to give it a rest. More countdown soon.

You don’t have to remind me that the scorching summer of 2007 is about to come to an end. I know it all too well – I have a self-imposed book deadline staring me in the face, my favorite baseball team is wilting, impressionable young college newspaper ad reps are now calling me at work, and 95 percent of the midwest is salivates over their respective schools’ return of college football, and an excuse to become completely immature, crazed, and uncivil.

It also signifies the close of yet another bombastic summer movie campaign – no more popcorn flicks, third sequels, ill-fated team-ups, or three-hour toy commercials. During fall, the fare becomes a little more serious, a little more poignant, a little more intense. Such is life.

Still, this year’s summer crop actually wasn’t so terrible. (It pales next to 2005, elevated solely by the masterpiece Batman Begins, but surpasses a dreadful 2006 by leaps and tall buildings in single bounds.). In fact, we actually saw quite a few summer movies this year, and weren’t driven to suicide or homicide by any of them. With only one left to see – the supposedly-inimitable Superbad – here’s our quick capsule rankings of the best movies of Summer 2007, after the jump. Read more

MFG is currently flailing away, trying to finish These Monks, the first novel by his nom de plume, by August 31 . However, that doesn’t mean I don’t notice several nuggets too good to pass up – moreover, affirmations of gospel preached here regularly.

First (Yes, I know we’re on a moratorium), Bruce Miles painstakingly proves my thesis on culture change striking the Cubs. Notable is the story of Ryan Theriot, juxtaposed also as Exhibit A detailing the failure of Dusty Baker. Ryan says:

“I think that was a little bit different than how it had been in the past.. . .
“I really accepted it and enjoyed it because you were held accountable. Everybody was equal. There were no favorites.”

Good point, Ryan. (Emphasis mine.) Also a shade delicious. It’s why things are looking up for our boys in blue, if not in 2007, than at least next season. And why, even as this year slips away, we still bother to give a care.

A couple choice bits provided courtesy of The Big Lead (our current and all-time favorite sports blog). First is Yahoo!’s installment of former SI-scribe Michael Silver into a Peter King-like position at Yahoo!, writing virtually an identical Monday column format. Except, you know, with reporting, instead of salivating over Brett Favre or Starbucks.

Anyway, with his inaugural column, Silver launches into a probe of the Michael Vick question we posited here a few weeks ago. Silver, however, is much more diligent, prescient and profound than MFG, because he actually researched the Leonard Little saga and detailed it at length, paralleling it with Vick’s situation:

…Little was the player who in 1998 drove home after celebrating his birthday, ran a red light in downtown St. Louis and caused a collision that killed another motorist, 47-year-old Susan Gutweiler. A breath test measured his blood-alcohol level at 0.19 percent, nearly twice the legal limit, and he eventually pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and spent 90 days in jail. When he returned to the Rams after an eight-game NFL suspension, Mothers Against Drunk Driving protested outside a Rams game, but few people outside of St. Louis seemed to notice . . .

. . .Little drank and drove again. In 2004, Little was arrested for driving while intoxicated after being pulled over in Ladue, Mo., for speeding at 3:44 a.m.

. . . I’m not mad at MADD; I’m simply pointing out that Little – and, for that matter, plenty of other NFL players whose behavior has been unconscionable – is allowed to ply his trade without getting shouted down by the masses.

Killing dogs is wrong, sure. But Little negligently killed a woman, was convicted – and then committed the same cause of negligence again. Like us, Silver wonders – which is worse? Or, more appropriately, which is more damning, professionally? There’s no answer, and no end in sight.

Finally, I hesitate to link to JoeSportsFan, which is funny, but I think is run by Cardinals fans. (and you know how we feel about trailer trash) However, for four years I’ve been trying in commentary to adequately distill my scorn of commentators like Chris Mortensen, Sean Salisbury, and Phil Simms, in particular, calling the NFL the NATIONAL FOOT-BALL LEAGUE. JSF raises the stakes, perfectly digging the league here:

In the past many in the media have become lazy and voiced a simple “Welcome to the NFL” … let me tell you something, that phrase is bogus and will not, under any circumstances, be tolerated. The National Football League need not be desecrated with a silly acronym which fails to show off the intellectual prowess of us, the large-word-bearing journalists.

Zing! So there you have it, folks, a day of affirmation, agreement, and even improvement. If Slate decides to recant its entire Fletch dissertation, well, we just might buy a lottery ticket.

“I been walking the streets at night. Just trying to get it right. It’s hard to see with no many around, you know I don’t like bein’ stuck in the crowd. And the streets don’t change but baby, the names. I ain’t got time for the pain, ’cause I need you. Yeah, yeah, I need you.”

Guns N’ Roses, Patience.

Perhaps history’s most overwrought (but fantastic) band, with a passage crackling from a power ballad, and the lyrics celebrating the tendency of life itself to be hopelessly overwrought. To wallow in one’s own minute ineptitude, to pontificate amongst a crowd of souls, all completely and totally (for sure) much more happy than you. To sit amiably on a Saturday afternoon, alone, wondering if nothingness is your fault or in fact your choice of location. Maybe, however, it all washes away with the grin, handshake, hug or smile from another person.

Maybe. Patience is a classic Guns N’ Roses song, one that separated them from the pack of hair metal. The Gunners, and Axl in particular, were narcissistic and overdramatic before grunge rockers downscaled the whole exercise from excess to minimalist; from statuesque guitar solos to flannel-clad power chords. That’s life, and that’s Patience, however, veering haphazardly between two extremes, until with a burst in the midst of a slow song, you screech to a halt, confident you’ll turn everything around.