Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

Don’t even think about reaching me … I won’t be home.

PJ, Footsteps. 

We’re taking this week off from the blog. Before you leap from your desk chair, hurl your Chee-tos, and claim we took last week off, well, let’s just say Las Vegas does not merit a weeklong stay. I’m sure it does if you’re suicidal or a gambler, but if you’re not into tossing your money away, well, consider – all the hotel-casinos do is funnel you into their lair. The TVs have about four channels, the room service menu consists of a bread sandwich, the internet connection is basically a dial-up, costing 700 dollars a minute, the PPV movies are forgettable, the remote barely works, the vending machine has seven Pepsis and one Aquafina, the window hasn’t been washed and the porn is scrambled. Even if you’re not a hermit like MFG, it’s pretty crappy.

And we don’t want to judge gamblers, it’s just not our thing. However, occasionally someone like us has to travel with an uber-gambler, usually the person who traverses to Vegas on any and all vacations, and claims themselves an expert at Blackjack, preferring to withdraw several hundred dollars in cash and toss chips at less frivolous friends, urging them to bet and play and play and bet. And this is annoying. We alcoholics don’t force teetotalers to do shots of Jager while debating the merits of Red Stripe and Tuborg. So, gamblers, if you’re traveling with someone who’s poor and who can’t part with hundreds of dollars at a time, please, shut the hell up.

Anyway, more traveling this week, back to the homeland and, as a bonus, what you won’t see here:

• Soliloquy, motivation, or petty bitching about the Colts’ hard times.
• Teeth-gnashing over The Border War – Kansas vs. Missouri in one of two yearly “Battle Between Undergrad U’s MFG should have considered.” (The other is Iowa vs. Northwestern.)
• Griping about Tom Brady or his hooded friend. You know, the prick.
• A step-by-step recap of Iowa’s failed football season.
• A movie review of Dustin Hoffman’s Magical Emporium and Fantastorium or whatever the fuck.
• A Christmas list practically begging for a guitar.
• Diary of a weekend filled with raking leaves. Riveting.
• The unabridged history of Franklin the Cat (official Cat of MFG.)
• A review and approval stamp of Kevin Nealon’s comedy (We saw, met, and enjoyed him in Vegas.)
• Anything about Thanksgiving. Like how it’s so blasted early this year, and back in May, when I scheduled a 7:30 a.m. dentist checkup on Monday, I assumed that was the three-day week before Thanksgiving. Instead, it comes on the heels of my trip to the blustery tundra and I’ll have to be painfully awake before getting drilled.
• Cheap sex jokes at Ms. Faded Glory’s expense. Like (see above), on Monday morning I won’t be the only one getting drilled. (This all sounded funnier in my head.)
• Praise of Syracuse’s new basketball uniforms. First the nickname changed. Then the horrid football hire. Now the Cuse looks like a D-League team.
• Links.
• More gloating about the Cleveland Browns’ success.
• Anything else. Hey, also, it’s Christmas soon. Off to stick my head in the oven. Back next week.

I’m always buyin’
With the local and the junkies
This city life is one big pain!
But you, you had to move to the city
Into the city where it all began…

Guns N’ Roses, Move to the City 

Yes, I’m in Sin City. Actually, why do they call it that? It’s actually fairly tame . I just navigated through throngs of tourists, businesspeople, and approximately five thousand rubes totally convinced the house doesn’t win on games ranging from Baccarat to penny slots, all under the umbrella of cartoonish casino design, smiling throngs of people, and a carnival atmosphere that resembles more DisneyWorld than Carnevale.

(If you’re asking, I broke even. Thirty dollars gambling lasted me an entire week of half-assed blackjack play.)

But I’m here, and I do have numerous ruminations on (1) corporate wastelands, (2) self-congratulatory conferences, (3) the loneliest city on the planet, (4) the throngs of Midwestern losers who vacation here repeatedly simply because they have no idea where else to try. (Congratulations! You’re a high roller! Nice jean jacket, dipshit. Are those sequins?)

Anyway, whatever. Vegas is that it’s stupid like Coney Island, trashy like Atlantic City, over-the-top like Miami, safe like Leicester Square, but a far cry from any perceived emulation of Monte Carlo or Amsterdam. It’s fun, but, well, it’s tacky, overdone, and it’s best in small doses. Anyway, more on that later. And, yes, I totally noticed the ramifications of my trip to Las Vegas, apparently resulting in a cosmic shift:

1. God is punishing the Colts. Or he doesn’t exist. Or worse, the jerk roots for the Patriots.

2. How do we memorialize the Strap? Actually, Jacque was fine. He played a great center field for us this season. And, as OK as he was (seriously, he was replacement-level), he enjoyed playing, was enthusiastic, and wasn’t as horrible as we thought. In fact, whoever thought he was the same player as Corey Patterson (only for $15 million per year more) is correct (Points at self, column has long since disappeared). It’s not my place to point out The Strap’s only competing contract was from the Royals at 5 million per season – for two years. Now, we’re trading him in year three.

By the way, kudos to the Sun-Times for freaking out that the Cubs have no lefty hitters now that Jacque is gone. Seriously, are you kidding? Stop being ridiculous, you harangued Jacque for his entire tenure, just like all of us. Now, the Cubs have a huge hole because he’s gone? Come on. Typical Cubs logic: Yes! We traded Jones! What? Whaddaya mean we didn’t get Andrew Miller and Gary Sheffield?

Jacque’ s departure also means that Matt Murton will now play every day. Probably Felix Pie as well. You may be skeptical, but you could check Murton’s lefty splits. And if you’re still skeptical, I’m not going to ask which one can actually hurl a ball into the infield (hint: Not The Strap.).

3. A-Rod may return to the Yankees? (snort). Seriously, we should have seen this coming. It’s the best of times, and the worst (blurst!) of times. The two couldn’t afford to be apart – now they’re stuck together. By the way, kudos to the Yankees, for (1) calling his bluff, realizing he’s not in anyone’s price range, and (2) sticking it to a player as douchebaggy as he actually is. Yeah, he’s not as anti-clutch as the real media makes it sound; but he’ s not Ruthian or Aaronian either.

Anyway, I’m back later this weekend to enlighten you further. So, the five of you who have already emailed to complain, relax.

Good day, how do, and I send a smile to you. Don’t want to waste, waste your breath. Don’t want to waste my hate on you.
Metallica, Wasting My Hate

I usually try not to react so knee-jerk to columnists, particularly national writers who have lost zip on their fastball, no longer able to capture any loser’s angst of years past, which propelled him or her to a nationwide loyal following.

Granted, Bill Simmons is a homer. But he’s also intelligent, reasonable, and actually is still one of the few columnists I relish reading each week. Sure, he loves the Patriots, and sure, I love the rival Colts, but I still always liked Bill Simmons.

Until now. He’s morphed totally from sympathetic fan misery into insufferable, bombastic lunacy. He’s now the guy in a Yankee hat rooting for the Lakers. He’s the condescending clapper at a Nebraska home game. He’s the jagoff who worships Las Vegas (more later), talks shit on his wife, lines up for strip clubs, religiously watches MTV, offers a cocky wedding toast recounting the bride’s walks of shame, and the asshat who orders Jager bombs for the entire bar. He’s the guy you see at your high school reunion, but he can’t discuss anything beyond fantasy football or the latest Maxim. He’s the guy who whines for the ball in pickup, but calls offensive fouls when you drive around him. He’s the dad wearing a fucking Wes Welker jersey (No, really, he says this in the column). In short, he’s a total Masshole – we just never knew it fully till his teams started winning. For more on Massholes, check here.

And granted, as a self-professed rational Colts fan, I should know better – enough to let Bill’s rant wash over my back. Enough to treat Massholes with the same casual response as Michael Silver:

You Pats fans slay me. Really. You’re watching an incredible team compete for what likely will be its fourth Super Bowl championship in seven years, and all you want to do is lash out at people who don’t portray that greatness in precisely the way you deem acceptable. Take a deep breath. Smile. Your team is 9-0. .

I shouldn’t legitimize any of this complaining. The Patriots won. Everyone is talking about them. What the hell do these Massholes want? And normally I totally let it go.

But that was before Simmons took it upon himself to pander to every New England douchebag IM’ing him throughout Sunday’s game dying for a column mention to show off at Saturday’s date-rape, er, frat party. For him, the Patriots’ monster win wasn’t satisfying – it was insulting.

For us? It’s now pathetic.

You see, I don’t care if a columnist wants to be a prick. I don’t care if he wants to gloat. I don’t care if he wants to gnash his teeth a little after a monster win. Flush your readership down the toilet, Bill, totally whiff on your audience. I don’t care.

But I can’t fathom crafting a column so irrational, so mean-spirited, so horrendous in nature that it embarrasses your traditional (Read: Non-Masshole) readers. I mean, come on, Simmons - you’re 38. You have two kids. One just arrived last Friday. There is no way a millionaire blogging for a living should get so worked up about sports – especially after every single team of his owns a title! Again, click on the link. Posted below is my immediate response to Mr. Bill, already emailed to him:

As a longtime Colts fan, I just read your tirade against the officiating (among other things) in the Patriots and Colts game, and I’m not apoplectic or miffed.

After all, your team won, fair and square, no questions asked. The Colts could have won, certainly, but they did not.

I’m not even upset at your tirade against the entire NFL and sports landscape or your embrace of the “Us vs. Them” mantra with fellow Patriot fans.

But what’s enough for you as a fan? When is a win satisfying? When is a team satisfying? What, in the world, do you gain from your fan experience?

Suppose your Patriots do finish 19-0? Is that enough?

What if we all send emails admitting all Patriots fans belong in the Pantheon of “Greatest Sports Fans of All Time?” Is that enough?

What if the entire media sublimates every bit of its NFL commentary with an ode to Belichick and/or Brady? Is that enough?

Three titles in four years and an organization primed to reload each season after that? Is that enough?

A comeback win over a major rival, a delicious mirror image over last January’s title game loss? Is that enough?

I understand your columns are designed to spike readership on Page 2, and may be somewhat inflammatory. They may include complaining or gloating, that’s fine, I get it.

But they don’t usually include this one’s whiny hostility. After your “game analysis,” the column takes a shocking turn. You gleefully condone spite, hubris, and irrationality.

Seriously, someday your son may grow up and read this column. Someday he may be an athlete. Almost certainly, your son will be a fan. And to read an incendiary, teeth-gnashing, sour-grapes mantra fresh off the keyboard of someone who just watched his team win a monumental game, well, it’s petty. It’s disgusting. It’s tragic. These are the lessons in sports fandom he is destined to learn?

Bill, you have my sympathy. Yes, believe it or not, I offer it even as my team lost a big game to its rival. Wrap your head around that.

(For what it’s worth, I didn’t include a response to his cheering on Wes Welker, apparently after Welker told some Indy corner he “fucking sucked.” Well, it wouldn’t have been a corner. It would have been Bob M. F. Sanders. So, come January, uh, good luck, Wes. )

Anyway, that’s my open letter. I like to think my blog has a little perspective, that it’s caustic but all with tongue firmly in cheek. If that’s the way Simmons intended his column, then I certainly missed it. But you read it. It’s hostile, it’s whiny, it’s in short, pathetic.

I don’t have a good ending to this post. Kissing Suzy Kolber weighed in again against Bill today, just after my letter, and I heartily endorse their bounty. This was King Masshole’s worst column ever, and a spike in click-throughs can’t be worth the depths he plunged himself.

No worthy fan, of any team, demeans himself to this level. Under no circumstance is it okay to cry sour grapes, and excoriate all opposing views after a fucking win. Pathetic. He’s a dad. He’s a success. He’s not the prick at the corner O’Malley’s spitting peanut shells, quaffing Sam Adams, and bitching about the Bruins or the Fisk homer or the Whal-as leaving Hartford.

Before today, I assumed Simmons was better than that.

(Wasn’t he?)

Read the page, it’s cold and dead, and take me home.Alice In Chains, Don’t Follow

Well, Ms. Faded Glory has gotten to me. The former lit major was just a little unnerved by yesterday’s post which (not intentionally) appeared to castigate any and all works of fiction noted as classics throughout the years. Which wasn’t totally the intention, I merely intended to make fun of authors masquerading as elitists. I do the same thing with foodies – you know fucking Jeffrey Steingarten orders a bucket of extra crispy on his way home from denigrating the Iron Chefs.

However, to prove, conversely, I do have the intent of becoming well-read, I’m poring through old, worn Ms. Faded Glory paperbooks from years past. On an upcoming corporate sojourn to Sin City – which I’m dreading fully, by the way, and more on this later – I will actually begin my quest to stomach five classic works. I don’t know how long this will take, nor if I will actually complete any of these, but here they are:

• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. I claim ignorance on this work, I know only that it’s tangential to 1984 (which I have read, and liked, in case you needed to know) and also the band Rythm Syndicate considered calling themselves Brave New World in 1990 before recording P.A.S.S.I.O.N. That fucking blew your mind, didn’t it?
• The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner. This stream-of-consciousness novel is the Official Favorite Novel of Ms. Faded Glory, and the title reminds me of a cheesy headline that I wrote for the Kansas City Star once upon a time, after Jim Furyk won the U.S. Open. Let your imagination do the work, it was pure genius.
• The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck. Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men, so this might be the sequel. I know it’s not, I’m sorry, I can’t really keep up. My mind just flashed on Chris Farley during his SNL Of Mice and Men lampoon. I’m out on a limb here, but I don’t think this book is about grapes.
• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?! You stupid monkey!
• Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut. I should have read this already, considering Vonnegut’s ties to the greatest public university in the land. It’s tough to pick up Ms. Faded’s hardcover collector’s edition, however, because of the cover inscription scrawled by an ex-boyfriend. Yes, I’m totally petty. We knew this.

There you have it, America. Soon, I, too, will be a know-it-all elitist author, painstakingly combing my thesaurus like Ian McEwan searching for a perfect synonym to substitute into a perfectly-crafted passage of a plagiarized book. Soon I, too, will be profiled by Slate, asking to embarrassingly disclose any classics I’ve failed to read. Undaunted, I will reply with contempt “Some Harry Potter book,” like nearly every author they talked to.

For you see, I will have read all classics, front to back. And there will be no worthwhile texts anywhere I haven’t conquered. That’s why, you see, I’ve casually dropped Harry Potter and the Flying Dutchmen as my cocksure answer. I know it’s no classic. But we’re beyond that – I’m way, way too smart to NOT have read any classics, and so I can disclose a children’s book as the only popular, tangential-classic piece of fiction I failed to dive into. Ha! I’m too smart for your shit, Slate. Bring your fucking noise.

And though the news was rather sad, well, I just had to laugh.
The Beatles, A Day In the Life

My Newsweek subscription lapses in only a few short weeks, and it was an easy decision. (An official friend of Mr. Faded Glory calls Newsweek the No. 1 mag for suburban households feigning intelligence.) I never considered the Faded Glory household pretentious (or stupid); I’m simply fed up with Newsweek for several reasons, including a new redesign giving the editor-in-chief a full page to opine about nothing while reducing the number of editorial cartoons in Perspective from 3 to 2. Not good times.

The feature I’ll miss the least, however, is Periscope’s ultra-pretentious “A Life In Books,” featuring a weekly casual interview with a notable author, detailing his or her most important books ever read. The feature reaches a nadir this week as mystery author Walter Mosley deters severely outside his genre, prattling off prominent works by Einstein, Marx, Darwin, and Freud. Please. We’re apparently supposed to infer Mosley gleaned his ideas for a crime fiction series based on Wittgenstein. We get it, it’s tough to write fiction. You’re intelligent, I know. Yet no matter how cerebral or important the fiction – I find this eminently difficult to believe. This on the heels of Wes Anderson’s film list, which thankfully didn’t include any of his own pompous, annoying work. (Instead it was as pretentious as any author’s.)

It’s not as if Mosley is alone, however – nearly all of these Newsweek-featured authors publish similar, pretentious, condescending lists. Ninety percent of all published authors in the world, apparently, count Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as influence No. 1. James Joyce is fantabulous – oh, but not Ulysses. Though it’s the best-known Joyce work, it’s horribly overrated, say legions of authors preferring  Portrait of the Artist as Young Man. Catcher in the Rye is wrongfully rebuked, yet even the dregs of Hawthorne and Foster catalogs are lauded.

I’m sorry, I find it completely unbelieveable that most contemporary authors read Emma and then decided to churn out The Lake House or what the fuck ever. Most authors interviewed – a little insecure and introspective, all of us – consistently attempt to prove relevance. But seriously, writing a coherent, appealing novel is difficult enough – there’s no need to tout the classics, forever proving relevant analysis and social commentary bouncing around your brain.

For example, when MFG’s own These Monks is published, I don’t expect people to assume I based the plight of any characters around Virgil’s Aeneid. Nor do I need to reassure the public that just because These Monks features phrases like “trolling for trim” and a repugnant use of “fuck” in almost every paragraph, I actually prefer to spend my free time poring through passages of Hawking’s Brief History of Time or Locke’s Treatise of Government. I don’t. (But, yes, I have read some or all of both.)

So the subscription is going away. One, I’ll no longer be forced to read authors consistently hoping to assert intellectual superiority. Two, I don’t have to assume my own insignificance because I never curled up with Don Quixote or The Brothers Karamazov. In fact, I’ve taken great pains to list my own Newsweek list of five most important books here. Don’t stop reading, asshole, you knew this was coming. After the jump. Read more

“When you can’t decide…what’s on your mind, it’s clear…”

The Smashing Pumpkins, Starla.

Well, it’s not the easiest game to stomach, particularly when it looked like the Colts were in control in the fourth quarter. The Colts fell to a virtual mirror image of themselves, and left much too many points on the field to really be upset at anyone but themselves. At the end of today, however, New England leaves Indy with probable home-field advantage, and the two squads seem destined to meet up again in the playoffs. I assume the Steelers may have something to say about that. To take away, because it was a slugfest, and there are some positives:

1. Indianapolis’ offense really struggles without Marvin Harrison. Dallas Clark never could get any separation, and Aaron Moorhead and Anthony Gonzalez, both adequate third wideouts, dropped a few key passes (Gonzalez an early touchdown that really stung) and the offense bogged down at several points.

2. Still, Joseph Addai and the offense marched Indy up and down the field. Too many points on the board in the early going. The Colts drove all the way to the 15 before scattershot play calling (Stop with the freaking fade on first down!) resulted in a missed Vinateri FG. After the defense quickly held the Pats, the Colts drove to the 5, where Gonzalez dropped a TD and Indy settled for three. Can’t miss opportunities like that against the Patriots. Red zone failure was symptomatic of the Colts three years ago, with Addai, however, it seemed like it was totally in the past. Not today, with predictable playcalling, headscratching maneuvers, and outthinking attempts. Line it up and run it.

3. The defense is good enough to shut down the league’s other best offense. Sure, b didn’t have his best game, and Tim Jennings was stuck on Randy Moss most of the game, but overall, the unit was solid, and the lineplay was easily the best New England had seen. For the most part, they called a good game, and the Colts miss much, much less tackles than they ever did with Cato June around. If you asked me before this week if I’d take New England with 24 points? I’d have snatched that up. This one’s on the offense.

4. Our offensive line wasn’t as good as last year. Very good run-blockers, with rookie Tony Ugoh on the bench, they seemed a little out-of-sync against the pass rush. Once they’re whole, I think the failures of the offense on the last two drives may just go away.

5. Colts’ special teams? Still terrible. Today I’m talking about a monumental win in the race for homefield if Indy’s punt team manages to tackle Wes Welker on two huge punt returns, both of which set up New England racing downhill to imminent touchdowns. The defense immediately was put in a precarious position – had the Pats begun between their own 20 and 30 on those drives, the story would be vastly different.

6. Manning is good. One bad INT resulting in a field goal, but otherwise, he made the right calls most of the times. If you would have said a “Manning fumble” would seal this one, I would have laughed. Credit the Patsies on that play.

7. We’ll play again. And when the Colts are whole, the results will be different. Nothing I saw today made me think the Colts couldn’t go up and win in Foxborough. So we’ll hope that happens. A frustrating nine-point meltdown is never easy to take – but it’s better than dropping a playoff game in similar fashion. On to San Diego.

Oh, please, let it rain today…

Pearl Jam, Wash 

You know what I think. The Colts are going to beat the Patriots in the much-hyped Game of the Millennia. Despite the Patriots’ impressive record, three victories were against their division (godawful), one against a pretender (I hate listening to people tout Jason Campbell as a great quarterback), another against a team in disarray (San Diego), another against a team wholly susceptible to the pass, who got screwed by the referees (Dallas), and I could go on.

But I won’t. It’s not like the Colts have blistered through the competition; but this is the way it’s always been, Indy takes care of business.  They survive. Even in 2004, when the offense was a machine, the defense was a sieve, and each win was survival.  Now, the defense is sound, but life’s the same. The Colts play each game to their opponent, never overextending themselves.

How often, exactly, has margin of victory fooled us? It does in college all the time, whether Florida State is facing Oklahoma in the title game, Nebraska is supposed to roll Colorado, or we suppose that Miami (FL) will trounce a stout Ohio State team. Margin of wins means nothing; and that, again, is the case here.

Look, we hate the Patriots, though we grudgingly respect Scott Pioli. However, this is the way it is. Sunday, the Colts will win their fifth in a row. Manning with two TD throws, Addai with a TD run, Reggie Wayne with a big day, and Dwight Freeney and Raheem Brock with more pressure than Brady’s seen all season. The Colts will take away Wes Welker and Daunte Stallworth; Moss will have a big day, and Maroney/Faulk’s numbers will look good.

But in the end, the Colts’ efficient offense and elastic defense will rule the day; sealed by a Bob Sanders INT at the end.

To paraphrase another homer, don’t hate me, I’m just the messenger.

Go Colts.

Understand, I’m not falling down
I said, ‘look around, the room’s taller now,’
I can’t close my eyes, ’cause I see the sound
in waves… In waves …Pearl Jam, Severed Hand

I know you’re all breathlessly awaiting my evaluation of the game of the century, millennium, or whatever (this just in: The Colts will win), but I’m trying to lay low, read almost as little as possible in order to keep my blood pressure at normal levels.

However, today I point you to a story about one of the best players in football, one of the best players in Iowa history, by another UI alum. Check it out, if only because I get giddy reading stuff like this:

“If you hit somebody hard enough, they will give up. You can feel their body go limp and they’ll just surrender. So every time I hit somebody, the goal is to knock myself out. I know that if I hit somebody hard enough that I can feel it, it’s hurting them 10 times worse.”

Bob Sanders, safety, Indianapolis Colts, safety, Iowa Hawkeyes.

Our man-love for Bob Sanders knows no bounds. We’re giddier by the moment for Sunday. Check this out:

Imagine if they knew that, after falling off the top of a slide and landing on a concrete slab at age 3, Sanders walked away with just a bump on his head. Or that later that same year, after falling off a bar stool and landing face-first on a concrete patio, he suffered only a bruise.

That’s right, motherfuckers, not only was Sanders a kamikaze at age 3, he also was already sitting on bar stools, drinking gasoline.

And you wonder why we’re sky-high for this weekend. More later.