Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

I don’t even know who to be mad at. Not Sean Marshall, I guess, but no one else is in the clear.

Moratorium begins now. I won’t have anything nice to say until things turn around.  And yes, I’m overreacting, and yes, it’s early, and yes, April is finally in the books. But this team navigated bad stretches during the last two seasons. Never this bad, however. This is impossible to stomach.

Food for thought: I wondered early on if the losses of Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood – two guys who relished being Cubs, and who knew the pitfalls and highs of being Cubs – would affect the team. I know, I know, I don’t believe in chemistry, either, but … well … uh … I can’t figure out a way to end that sentence.

At what point, already enduring a week-plus of excruciating baseball — replete with injuries to key players, bonehead plays, inexplicable slumps, thousands of walks, ridiculously aggravating injuries — do you allow yourself, a fan, to contemplate that the lightning may no longer be in the bottle? The window may actually be slamming shut. The karma and luck finally reversing, age rearing its ugly head, and any means regressing to the, uh, mean.

Would these thoughts occur during a game in awful Chase Field, the bane of the Cubs’ existence? Would they occur during yet another abysmal offensive performance? After our heroes were unable to muster no more than two hits through seven innings against inimitable nemesis Doug Davis? Is that when?

It’s probably not, right? I mean, the team isn’t whole. They’re only .500, and it’s not as though they won’t go through poor streaks during the year. Soto and ReJo and Gamer and Lee are bound to hit a little better, right? And for some reason, Chase Field owns us, and for some reason, we always play poorly against Arizona. (That goes double for our next opponent, Florida.)

And finally, if I whined to the point of abandonment each time a soft-tossing lefty dominated the Cubs with ease, I’d have turned in my fan card years ago.

Still, am I the only one who thinks everything feels a bit off? Even from day one.

Like we have no momentum or continuity or any of the above. Even the fan experience feels more hollow. Only a year has passed; it’s already more annoying to follow – and enjoy – the Cubs: MLB Gameday is excruciating, Gameday audio is horrific, The Daily Herald is gone, WGN barely exists, the Trib is terrible and the Sun-Times is worse, all Cubs blogs jumped the shark eons ago (Seriously, Cub Reporter? There’s more fucking posts blathering about Jake Fox than anything major-league.).

Overall, it just seems like nothing is quite as fun as the last two seasons? Or even like 2003 or 2004? Even the early comeback victories remind me simply of smoke-and-mirrors, too many walk-offs and late breaks and lucky wins to feel good about anything. It jus doesn’t feel, I don’t know, right. Does it?

It’s just me, right? It’s still early, right?

That’s what I thought. (Gulps.)

All right, fine. Maybe I jumped the gun dismissing all this witchraft stuff.

Maybe, perhaps, cats do cast some inexplicable spell over our heroes. Maybe, perhaps, some twist in the space-time continuum permits negative karma to seep into the Cubs’ bats simply through actions of any number of colored felines. Maybe cats continually prompt Ryan Theriot to try and steal. (Seriously. Stop. Fucking. Running.)

Whatever the reason, the Cubs wasted two solid performances by Ted Lilly and Carlos Zambrano during the last two days. A feeble offensive attack that materialized only in Game 1 allowed the Reds two easy victories, Dusty Baker some sort of revenge, and Joey Votto to raise his average against the Cubs to a paltry .788.

In any case, fine. I’m scared to death of cats and their effect on the Cubs, and I just attached a sprig of garlic to Franklin’s collar. Hex over. I’ve done all I can do.

Apparently, it’s not enough that the Cubs’ 100-year countdown with no title passed last year with only a flicker in the playoffs.

Imagine, 100 years come and gone, the autotext story hopefully erased from most hapless writers’ laptops – and 2009 marks just another year in baseball for one of the league’s most beloved, hated, and visible franchises.

Maybe, even, with the lapse of 100 years, all this curse-schmurse nonsense that insults the lot of us Cubs fans and infuriates us real fans to no end – maybe it all could go away. After all, we’re no less tortured than Giants or Indians fans, and as bad as baseball gets – and as mad as we get – someday they’re winning it. Who knows when? And all that billy goat and hex and karma stuff could just expire and we could join the angst of every other baseball team on the planet.

Nope.

Grasping at straws, the nation’s media prefers instead to pounce on a hackneyed storyline, emanating from 1969, when a black cat ran on the field of Shea Stadium, and the Cubs honked the division.

Last night, hosting Cincinnati, an intrepid, spotted white and grey stray cat suddenly launched itself onto Wrigley Field, bursting over the rail and traipsing through the outfield, prompting hundreds of chortling sportswriters to cite their beloved imaginary curse. (And in Boston, Dan Schaugnessy wistfully remembered his gravy train.)

Ridiculous. First, the feline wasn’t even a black cat. Second, like I mentioned, this superstition stuff is getting real old. Third, who’s to say the cat isn’t just a huge Cubs fan? Most of them are (Above, right.). How is this a problem?

For crying out loud, across town the Sox deal with tatted-up meth addicts charging pitching coaches – yet on the North Side we’re supposed to believe a harmless kitty is the next sign of our own apocalypse?

Fine, whatever. You want to believe a stray cat foretells bad luck, go right the fuck ahead. Excuse me while I revel in my rationalism. (Dons Cubs do-rag and Angel Pagan jersey before Wednesday night’s game. Swigs Old Style. Knocks three times on Jerome Walton poster.)

Well, I’ve done it. It’s a melancholy day, but I’ve done it.

I have finally given up. I am finally admitting defeat.

As you may or may not know, for two years, after buying my first home – replete with enormous, green backyard, an iris garden, peony patch, and vegetable garden – I’ve toiled outside with various tools and hoes (hee) and rakes and clippers. In a futile pursuit, I’ve tried to keep the wilderness at bay, the hedges trimmed, the grass green and the dandelions minimal.

But I’m giving up. Calling in defeat. Calling in a professional. This is quite a setback.

You see, I come from a long line of green thumbs – my father and his father maintaining impeccable lawns; my maternal grandfather growing more vegetables than Del Monte. And though normally I would turn my nose up at home projects, including any backyard work (Until last year, I knew not what a sump-pump or Saws-all was; I know now.), I actually relished the chance for light maintenance, and keeping my own green patch, uh, trim.

That was probably one sign of getting older – the inevitable pride, desire, and work ethic that swell out of nowhere once man owns a piece of property. Another sign, however, occurs this week, as I stared out into the greenish-yellow-brown abyss; the wholly dead vegetable garden, and the sly weeds infiltrating my iris patch.

I realize – I don’t know what the hell I’m doing out there. So I’ve called in a professional. The yard beat me.

I’ve learned a lot as a homeowner, and one thing I realized as I attempted to figure out how to minimally remove my veggie garden and overseed my patchy lawn (To be fair, it was an enormously dry winter. To be more fair, my weird elm tree aged about 700 years drops these annoying thatch thingys all over the lawn, preventing good spring growth until I cleaned up out there), that I know when it’s time to throw in the towel, rather than soldier through some improvement project that winds up costing a boatload more than a lawn crew.

And another sign of aging might be the swallowing of pride – admitting that I may not be quite as garden-adept as my forefathers, consulting nearly everyone I knew, and finally asking for help.

But I think even more of a sign of aging is the relationship of time itself to me. That’s the sticking point.

I actually could do all this stupid yard stuff. The weeding, the seeding, the aerating, the watering, I can handle it all. (Indeed, I’m not giving up mowing or trimming or edging, etc.)

But I don’t have the freaking time to make it look good. My previous geriatric owners must have – no lie – spent days and nights and weekends on end maintaining my Amazonian jungle. And it’s not even that I’m inefficient – I work quickly.

It’s that at some point in my life, time encroached upon my consciousness, enacting its own bizarre daily schedule, right down to the four minutes in line at McDonalds, hoping to finish listening to a podcast.

Of course there’s work, there’s sleep, there’s the writing, there’s this blog, there’s my wife, there’s Franklin, there’s my family, there’s community stuff (Dear god, I should kick my own ass), there’s in-laws and driving and working late and TV and reruns of Scrubs and Ron Santo and Desipio and facebook and Friday happy hours and laundry and mopping and sweeping and dishes. There’s wiping the bathroom mirror, lubricating sprinkler heads, and taking broken car windshields in for quotes, and sifting through the dregs at Wal-Mart to find the freaking actual brand of Q-Tips.

At some point, life became not just a set of whimsical circumstances or wide-eyed foresight; but morphed into a constant to-do list. As Steve Martin said in Parenthood, “My whole life is have-to.” And I don’t even have kids! How do the mothers on facebook constantly updating with tales of whiny brats do it?

And the thing is, I’m not unhappy in the least. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Well, such as that is. But seriously, I am content, so far.

I’m just, now, an obsessive scheduler, fully out of necessity and priority. And the lawn has to be farmed out, to some help. And I have to be fine with that, I am fine with that, except my caring what it looks like and inability to devote hours on end to the projects, totally signify some sort of maturity.

(Another sign of adulthood: Whenever someone mentions a colleague or co-worker is sick for the day, and invariably an old person sighs and relents: It’s going around. What the hell? Is it always going around?  No one ever says, that fucking Dave is playing hooky, the bastard. Casual, polite asides are another sign of maturity. So is talking about the weather.)

I suppose, however, that’s adulthood in and of itself. The scheduling and spreading thin, and figuring out what and who to cut and when. We never knew it would be like this, even though it almost surely is to everyone. And it’s not even a bad thing. Coupled with the yard, I suppose acceptance signifies adulthood as well.

Still, does playing thunderous air guitar to White Zombie’s More Human Than Human after completing a round on the elliptical not reclaim some sort of youth?

Um…

You know what?

Don’t answer that. Some other guy did that. Loser.

Wow. If these Cubs-Cards game get any more intense, I’m not sure I can make it through the year. Oh, who am I kidding.

(Also – could the umpiring get any worse in this series?  Both teams have to be incensed.)

(cracks knuckles)

(begins snide letter)

Dear Cubs Fans:

Please raise your hand if any of you could possibly have foreseen Jason Marquis blowing back into the Windy City, surviving a catcall of boos, and routinely dominating his former team, on the bump and at the dish — even though they typically beat him like a drum when he was a Cardinal?

What?

Seriously? Everyone’s hand is raised!

(Phone rings, interrupting brilliant joke)

(John answers)

Hello?

Oh, yeah, this is he. That Mr. Faded Glory.

Oh, hi! Commissioner Goodell! How are you, great to hear from you.

I’m sorry?

Really? The whole day?

For 24 solid hours?

So let me get this straight. All sports talk, commentary, discussion, speculation, evaluation, interviews, reporting, graphics, rants, stand-ups, debates, posts, status updates, tweets, chatter, and calls – anything on the air or in print, it’s all gotta be about the NFL Schedule Release?

Wow, a law. New this year. Interesting, sir.

Everything? Even though they’re still playing MLB and NBA games today?

Yes, yes sir. Yes, they actually are playing those games.

No talk then, about anything but the NFL schedule for 24 solid hours. And that’s why all those flying graphics were on my TV? Last night, on ESPN’s NFL Tonight, for six straight hours?

Uh-huh. And that’s why Mark Schlereth kept yelling.

Uh-huh. And that’s why today, Colin Cowherd berated Merril Hoge for four whole minutes after a simple suggestion that the 49ers could possibly turn it around and eke out a division win over Arizona.

Got it. Juggernaut, I know.

Although, really, sir, we never know who is going to be good year to year, right? So what’s the point in evaluating a schedule and forecasting results?

Uh, huh. Well, I guess that could be true. I guess I could be an idiot.

Well, I mean, that’s fine. I’ll just wait, then, until the moratorium lifts. How will I know?

Oh, OK. ESPN or the NFL Network will let me know. When the coverage changes. Got it.

(Hangs up.)

(Waits.)

(Schlereth still shouting. Hey, the Patriots play the Colts this year! What news!)

(Waits.)

Each time I write something, it’s just as safe to assume I’ll detest my own passage as it is to assume I’m thrilled with the copy.

It’s true. No one loves my writing quite like me, and no one hates my writing quite like me. The inner paradox of any writer, I suppose – probably not the least bit evident of the actual quality.

You may ask, then, how will I ever know when I’ve truly written something great? For that matter, however, how does anyone?

And I think I know. Bret Easton Ellis is exhibit A. Prompting some celebration and some consternation, Ellis not only has written a sequel to his 1985 novel Less Than Zero – entitled Imperial Bedrooms - he’s hoping for Robert Downey Jr. to reprise his role in the next film.

Now, it’s easy to dismiss a sequel to the classic novel as self-congratulatory at best, and zealous narcissism at worst. After all, Ellis delighted in connecting the dots between inhabitants of his three most famous novels – Zero, The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho. He smugly blurred the lines between character and author in the clever Lunar Park, a mea culpa disguised as a novel. (Incidentally, all four of these books are fantastic. Read them. Now.)

But any dismissal of Imperial Bedrooms as ridiculous excess misses the point. That’s how you know – and how Ellis knows – Less Than Zero is simply  great. Bret can’t quite shake the three major characters. However personal this first work was – very, probably – has stuck with Ellis for the duration of his writing career, which, admittedly has had numerous rises and falls. Ellis returns to these characters not as a pathetic security blanket, but because each of the three is so rich, so imperfectly true, so compelling – he can’t leave them alone.

And that’s not a bad thing. Any and all of us who attempt to write, who navigate through an arduous endeavor reeking of narcissism, self-critism, and introspection – we all search for that. We search for the words that land on paper and suddenly become blisteringly real, not only to one, two, dozens, or millions of readers – but mainly to us. Once an author finds that story, those characters, and that narrative – how could he or she leave it alone? Ever?

And for that, I’ll anxiously await Imperial Bedrooms; the book and the film.

For those who decry his effort? Well, those people are no doubt afraid to merge.

About a week ago I loudly trumpeted my home state of Iowa, hailing it as easily the most progressive in the Midwest – a fact virtually unappreciated by me until I moved south, into Kansas. I tried to describe the difference by briefly (OK, snidely) pointing to certain mid-size cities’ inability to agree on a smoking ban as evidence of a lack of general intelligence.

However, now we have timely indisputable evidence of morons in the southern Heartland.

Yes, the protest scarcely matters. Sure, it’s hypocritical and grandstanding and all the usual stuff. And we won’t bother pointing out conservatives’ ridiculous inconsistencies. (Taxes and gun laws? More government = BAD. Preventing equal social rights? More government = GOOD. Makes perfect sense, right?)

Still, our problem is with the dolts who come up with this type of waste of time, and who then blithely request, refer, or solicit tea bags without knowledge of an alternate juvenile meaning. And don’t bother telling me they’re above the millions of people who snicker maniacally at the use of the phrase ‘teabag?’ It’s just like when retail consultants drone on about “touching the customer.” Seriously! And kudos to the copy desk at the Wichita Eagle for the tongue-in-cheek hed, however.

Still, we Midwesterners wonder why everyone thinks we’re hayseeds. (Well, except for those of us from Iowa. But you knew that.)

That’s right, I’m already back in. As if you couldn’t tell. But quite honestly, a couple things pushed me over the edge on a night I would have preferred to calmly enjoy an Opening Day win.

First, even after claiming the Smurf Jerseys were going away, the Cubs trotted them out for Game 1 tonight. Which is all fine, because it makes my petty tributes appropriate.

Secondly, Soriano and Zambrano deserved a shout-out not because of their respective Monday heroics – Sori leading off the game with a jack and Z pitching well in a workmanlike, effective win – but because of their new handshake/headshake/whatever gesture in the dugout that includes about ten fist pounds, four headsmacks, a concurrent shout and a finishing finger-point. Haven’t seen it on the web yet, but trust my DVR, still smoking from countless replays – it’s totally high comedy.