Mister Faded Glory | misterfadedglory.com

In high school I got in trouble for wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt shortly after the grunge singer’s untimely death.

Well, not in trouble, exactly. As paltry tribute, I happened to buy the Cobain shirt almost immediately after his suicide. I loved Nirvana, like thousands of millions of others. And Kurt was great – surreptitious and wise when not indulging in narcissistic, destructive behavior — actually hilariously funny when not languishing in the spotlight.

I wore the shirt – Kurt D. Cobain, 1967-1994 – one spring day to school during my sophomore year. I thought nothing of it. Not to brag, but I was an A-level, honor-roll student, possibly a future college athlete, and pretty much an All-American kid. I didn’t even drink at age 15 and 16, and I couldn’t get any girls to look at me.

But I wore the shirt, and a teacher, the high school baseball coach, stopped me in the hall. Without quoting verbatim, he said something like, “Really? You really like Kurt Cobain? You think he’s a good role model?” Something crappy like that; like a bonehead parent would say or something.

I defended myself, brushing him off a little too snidely, but sufficiently well-behaved. And I really thought nothing of it. I think I wore the shirt maybe two more times, before it was replaced by that Black Nirvana with stoned smiley face T-shirt. Took me months to find that back in 1994, now they sell the same thing at JC Freaking Penney.

Fast-forward to now. Michael Jackson has died. Maybe you’ve heard.

Though his death isn’t surprising – is it? – I actually was fascinated by the outpouring of people, even within my generation – who immediately sought to remember Jackson’s indelible stamp on pop, R&B, and culture as a whole – casually placing any or all of his music within certain seminal events of their lives.

(Note: I was six when Thriller was released. But I rolled my eyes every time MTV would count down its Top 100 of all time, and you knew Thriller was No. 1, because the network would leave forty full minutes between No. 2 and No. 1. They’d always shorten the full-length We’re Not Going to Take It, but never Thriller.)

Like Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons discussed on podcast, this surprised me. Jackson’s relevance, to me, had long past. And his freakish descent into oblivion just grew, well, more bizarre yet totally uninteresting. Even now, I still can’t really quantify Michael Jackson – but probably no celebrity has seen his demons swept under the rug at his death faster than the King of Pop.

But who am I to criticize? Just as I wore a Kurt Cobain T-shirt in 1994, I suppose it’s OK that a fortysomething colleague brought a sequined glove to work the other day. (Note: This actually did happen.) MTV is now playing videos again, a friend reports, even if they are The Way You Make Me Feel at 5:30 a.m. with cut-ins from B-level pop stars remembering the importance of Bad.

I think this phenomenon – our investment in the cultural elite, even the otherworldly famous, is altogether gripping. Not surprisingly, a legend dies. Not surprisingly, a legend’s greatness is remembered. However, this legend’s greatness was forever past. Still, it’s almost as though the death rocks society as much as a legend passing in his prime – Jackson is Elvis compared to Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, maybe Lennon. Neither has a more preferable epitaph, each one’s greatness still ushering the requisite amount of sad nostalgia.

To me, the seismic nature of Jackson’s death was actually best captured by Joe Posnanski. A whole legion of pre-Generation X inhabitants remembers Jackson and his music, as so overwhelming of their time – all-encompassing. Even though it may not have been their favorite, but, wow, it totally mattered.

… I don’t want to be the sort of 42-year-old man who looks back and reminisces about stuff that wasn’t all that great in the first place. … It isn’t that childhood is so great or so lousy. It’s all of that. To me the point is that there’s a certain feeling that goes with being young and full of hope/fear/grief/anger/loneliness. The sunny days of my childhood were bright yellow. It’s cool, I think, to get a whiff of that brightness again. …

If you grew up in the last 20 years, you would probably only know Michael Jackson for being famous. You might like the music, you might not, but either way you couldn’t hear it. There were only a few years there in the early-to-mid 1980s when you could have truly heard the music. I happened to grow up in those years. So, yeah, I was sad when I heard the news. He was a part of my life. It’s not like I want to hear Thriller again. But I wouldn’t mind hearing it again for the first time.

I totally get Joe’s logic, (And I love his final line) similar to my generation’s’ view of Cobain and his contemporaries. Nirvana was a great band, but there is no earthly way I consider them superior to Pearl Jam. Or even Alice In Chains. Dave Grohl, for that matter, has some superior stuff sprinkled through (way too many) Foo Fighters records. But Nirvana mattered during 1992 through 1994, much more than Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N’ Roses, or Metallica ever will or did.

Cobain ushered in a new era of realism, self-awareness, and nihilism within music. Almost by accident yet somehow by morose, myopic choice – he totally represented all of us who came of age in the 1990s. Though I’m much more likely to queue up Jar of Flies on my Ipod, I totally understand that Nevermind is a vastly more important record. As consumers of culture, we all repeatedly search to re-create the moment when we heard Come As You Are for the first time, and how perfect that moment has become in our minds.

If not Come As You Are, maybe I Want to Hold Your Hand. Or Jailhouse Rock. Or, now, Billy Jean. Subconsciously we all understand where the legends fit within our memories, and how best to celebrate them within our perspective.

So it’s OK to listen to Man In the Mirror; the last 20 years and weird sleepovers be damned. And it’s OK to join a legion of Michael Jackson Groups on facebook; just as it was OK to wear a Cobain T-shirt. You revisit Rock With Me, I’ll go back to Floyd the Barber. Just so we’re OK with one another.

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Yesterday I briefly mentioned the idiocy of Cubs fans and writers in passing. Now here it is, confirmed, incontrovertible.

Fifty-seven percent of Cubs fans (well, those reading the Tribune and voting in a mind-numbing poll, anyway) would agree with the Cubs placing Carlos Zambrano on waivers, presumably to say goodbye.

57 percent. The Tribune follows the Boston media-copyright blueprint of running talent out of town (e.g., Manny Ramirez), and 57 percent of Cubs fans concur.

Instead of shipping out a once-in-a-generation pitcher, however, could we ship this 57 percent of Cubs voters to a different allegiance? Say, the White Sox? Maybe the Brewers?

How is that for cutting-edge analysis? I can’t explain the 2009 Cubs. Quite honestly, I grow weary contemplating the problems.

Apparently every player who had banner 2007 and 2008 seasons regressed not only to some sort of mean, but a sinkhole. Apparently all those comeback wins the Cubs had during their two division title seasons are being repaid, painfully, day in and day out. And apparently the response to being dominated by Derek Lowe in last season’s playoffs should have been to, er, sign Derek Lowe.

It’s a rough time to be a fan. The Cubs look listless. They look like they don’t care. Whether or not they are, I can’t say. Probably not. But they now reap what their meager offense has sown – gut-reaction vitriol spewed from the core of fan, media, blogger, and city angst.

The media and ornery fan base have been enduring for a long time, seemingly ready to pounce since October: Waive Zambrano, wake up Lou, fire Hendry, deport Bradley, etc., etc. None of them is right, and all of them are correct, but they aren’t, really, and the whole thing is exhausting.

Sure, it’s easy now to look at the off-season and pillory Jim Hendry. He tweaked a solid contender that somehow fell apart against L.A. But we’d been pining for Bradley for years – his signing was an accurate response to Fukudome’s 2008 failures. As for trading DeRosa, sure, it wasn’t popular, but it was supposed to net Jake Peavy. Looking at Fontenot’s splits, the rationale even seemed somewhat justified. And it was – if the core of the lineup produced. Or if DeRosa’s intangibles really weren’t important.

As for Heilman and Miles and Marquis and Vizcaino; who knows? They all suck, in various forms here and there. But those are spare parts, anyway. Gaudin just pitched a 1-hitter last night – should they have kept him? But the starting rotation is the best in the majors – with any semblance of clutch hitting or on-base percentage, the Cubs would be just fine. How can we blame Hendry, or Lou, or Larry Rothschild, or even Gerald Perry for that? More importantly, it’s all in the recent past. And how long (and how vehemently) do we wait for the light to turn on? The luck to even out?

Baseball is a funny game. Funny kind of like the most squirm-inducing episodes of The Wonder Years or The Office. Funny like plummeting into an open sewer. This season, for whatever reason, injuries and repeated failure and blow-ups and mistakes have coalesced for the Cubs – and it just might be that they never get on track.

This is life for Cubs fans; for all baseball fans. During 2007 and 2008 we spent all season wondering when the bottom would drop out, despite nary a sign that it would. (It did; but the playoffs are crapshoots, always.) During 2009, we stupidly yearn for the bell to ding, and a team to flip the switch, absolutely certain at some point they’ll break out of their concurrent slumps – despite no sign it will happen. Not one.

Which is more dumb? And honestly, should we even care?

Seems like each year I lead off this snide exercise with a litany of complaints. Possibly, I offer a diatribe about the draft being a shell of its former, possibly whining about unpolished players, possibly cackling at ESPN’s woeful coverage. Basically, I sound like a curmudgeon, complaining about a bygone era supposedly vastly superior to the present. And I hate those guys.

Still, facing a weak draft crop, I’m tempted to wonder if the NBA’s flailing attempts to adhere to the NCAA as minor league aren’t finally catching up. Everyone was quick to trumpet greatness this spring when Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James ended up in the League’s Final Four.

But I can’t quite help feeling a bit empty. Think about how many basketball mistakes we saw. Lebron, the league’s best player, has barely a jump shot and no low-post game. Dwight Howard has even fewer post moves, and little basketball I.Q.

It’s easy to find a slew of complainers, whining that college basketball isn’t as good as it used to be – but as a result of its own lackluster age limit, the NBA has suffered, too. Is one-and-done really helping anyone? Had O.J. Mayo not gone to USC, he might have apprenticed for a time rather than become The Man. Would he be better off?

(I bet he says no. But what do you say?)

Regardless, it’s still way fun to snicker at inept teams evaluating 19-year-old kids. So let’s get started.

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Don’t worry, we’ll get to Ricky Rubio in a little while. For now, the 76ers rule the NBA world.

In case you missed it, Philly’s decided to revive its classic logo, beginning in 2009. Fantastic decision. And probably the best decision any team will make, including whatever happens on Thursday night.

As an NBA bigamist, we may have another fave contender into the fold. After all, these guys, with Dr. J, Mo Cheeks, and Charles Barkley, served as my first favorite NBA team.

More later.

Normally I refrain from poking fun at ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd because, really, what’s the point?

Like hundreds of other sports radio denizens, Cowherd is a master at cherry-picking the most banal of callers, then eviscerating the poor soul on air, to a chorus of cheers, I guess.

Many times, Cowherd uses these opportunities to deliver sanctimonious morality lectures, praising the best in corporate America. Growing agitated with anyone who dares to criticize a media conglomerate or big business behemoth, Cowherd’s whiny chipmunk voice delivers a sermon so predictable you’d swear he read directly from the ESPN Corporate Handbook.

Today, in fact, Cowherd again propped up ESPN – blatant debasement to his bosses; no wonder he has a show. In a usual dime-store free-market rant, he detailed the company’s mission and vision and what it does best. In fact, the mission statement is emblazoned on ESPN business cards and ESPN ID badges. Cowherd explained that ESPN is great, a fantastic product, because it is a sports network, focused on delivering sports, and a few flagship shows sprinkled within. They do it better than anyone else, he admonishes.

Where ESPN gets itself in trouble, Cowherd cautions, is in any deviation from the mission – ventures such as the ill-fated ESPN The Phone and ESPN Hollywood. When it comes to sports, however, ESPN is the best(!), and how dare you criticize.

This is all sort of fine, I suppose. Personally, though I can’t wait until July 6 – for the premiere of ESPN’s Sportsnation! A scintillating blend of sports, news and entertainment – ‘sportsfotainment’ – the Sportsnation TV show takes the pulse of you, the viewers, to blend what you’re talking (or tweeting) about. Best of all, it’s hosted by none other than …

You guessed it.

Colin Cowherd.

Maybe it’s just me.

We’re all sports fans, right? We watch largely for the drama. If we don’t have a vested, home-team interest.
(In that case, we watch in hopes we can take part in success irrespective of our own failed lives. Sorry for the upper!)

Sometimes that drama manifests itself as an underdog surviving a challenge; sometimes it’s a favorite pursuing excellence or greatness. Neither is mutually exclusive, nor mutually inclusive.

So why do stories like these puzzle me so much?

What, exactly, did NBC get that it did not want? Sure, Tiger could have contended a little bit later into the day – but those four hours he inched closer were fascinating.

Sure, the rain sucked. But quite honestly, the Peacock got to televise one of the most frenetic, dramatic final rounds in history. We all would have watched (had it not been a Monday).

So who cares who wins at the end? It’s irrelevant! They don’t measure ratings solely at the final punctuation of a tournament. Tiger and Phil contended till Lucas Glover closed out his last hole.

NBC got what it wanted. Right?

But to hear and read the knee-jerk analysis, you’d think that just because Tiger didn’t run out to a commanding lead, and allow Miller and Hicks to wax poetic and trot out cliches, that no one on earth watched. And that logic is just ridiculous. It’s wrong. I can understand lazy newspaper writers frustrated that their autotext “Tiger is Great” stories didn’t come to pass; but not the network reaping drama and eyeballs.

But it’s the same governing notion in the NFL. And in all sports, to a lesser extent. We’re force-fed NFL stories like baby food – Favre, Vick, Pats, Colts – so much so that the games become secondary to the story lines. Leagues live in such fear of being marginalized, like the NHL, that they deliver canned stories, tired graphics, and monotonous overtones to each and every telecast, hoping only to reflect the status quo; “The Lead” on the ESPN crawl.

And that’s wrong. It’s that type of thinking that leads toward including Tony Kornheiser on Monday Night Football, solely to bring up the dead horse each and every week. It’s that type of thinking that keeps Joe Theismann, Matt Millen, and countless others employed. It’s that type of thinking that promulgates our hatred of Mike Tirico, Mike Greenberg, Hicks, and other blatant storyline-pushers.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. None of us are novices anymore. This is 2009. We don’t need a double-bogey explained, nor do we need a fourth-and-20. If you’re going to explain something, it better be a new fucking stat; not how great it was when you played, or how gritty some white guy is.

No need to cater to casual fans – they are just that, casual. They tune in depending solely on personal circumstance, or allegiance to a die-hard spouse, or invitation to group party. The logic is quite simply backward.

Casual fans will still tune in if a telecast is highbrow, seamless, and precise – not simply hackneyed, predictable, and catering to the lowest common denominator. It’s the reason for any baseball renaissance – not the stupid homerfest of 1998, but the embrace of outsider thinking. It’s the reason Sports Illustrated now gravitates toward features and context and investigation – real sports fans are sick of hearing “Who’s Now,” and the casual fans don’t care.

Schedule up, aim high, and the masses will follow. Schedule down, and the core is compromised. I believe this.

I’m right about this, aren’t I? (Says the blogger with a readership of 20.) Well?

Hot … so very hot. In case you wondered, all thoughts occurred during the greatest version of the greatest song in recorded history. Now that we’ve got that out of the way…

• What’s worse, really? People who complain incessantly about the heat, or incessantly about the cold? Both are annoying, but I just want to know what line I may cross. I would vote for the cold whiners, because 100 degrees in June hints that the sun is expanding and 2012 is approaching and soon we’ll all fry.
• No doubt you’re wondering at what age the male ego finally relents and stops caring about his appearance? Well, it’s 31, because after the elliptical, I was out on my patio, shirtless, grilling burgers. On the plus side, I wore a backwards khaki hat.
• Are we really at that point in golf analysis, each time a relative up-and-comer wins a major tourney, we ask “Did he win the tournament or the favorites lose it?” Honestly? Can we not give him credit? Can we not just be happy with the drama within Lucas Glover’s win?
• Not NBC, which continues to occupy the nadir of golf coverage. I get it, Tiger is the story, at almost all times. That’s fine. But CBS and ESPN toggle away from him occasionally. CBS and ESPN would have at least let us know Hunter Mahan was playing, for example. Even continual context-seeker Jim Nantz pauses from his soliloquys to, you know, fairly describe the action. Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks, however, openly root for young players to fail and make excuses for Woods. News flash – he doesn’t need them. He’ll be OK.
• I should mention, however, during the stop-and-start US Open, Jason Sobel did yeoman’s work at the WWL. His running golf blog was excellent, and required viewing throughout the day, if you were unable to stream or watch. This fulfills the positive portion of our column.
• Are we an irresponsible adult or irresponsible college sports fan when we read this, and think: Hey, at least he has a sense of humor?
• The Cubs swept, and closed out a solid homestand. Now, they’re in Atlanta, where they’ve scattered 8 singles in a game against Javier Vazquez, who barely broke a sweat. I’m not sure what’s positive or negative. Which prompts the question – Javier Vazquez is good?
• You know you’re getting old when a starting pitcher in the college World Series is the son of one of your first Topps Star Rookies. Thank heavens I still have that card!
• Finally, a gut reaction to this is to think: what irresponsible prima donnas! They can’t even use the free car service to avoid trouble? (H/T, MJD.) But that’s besides the point. Imagine if the corporate behemoth you toiled for offered a free car service for late nights. You might think it was a great idea. But would you call it? Honestly? I would bet never, but then again, I’m operating an anonymous blog. You wouldn’t think they would use it against you, somehow? Because I tend to think NFL players have a point – services like this come with strings attached, just like they would for any of us. The bigger problem, to me, is multimillionaires failing to call their own cab, car service, or hire a driver. That, I grant you, is an issue.
• I mean, obviously they can’t take mopeds. (Uh, now.)

So we’re moving.

Nope, not a site change. Not a new header URL. Not over to Twitter. But physically moving. Fear not, nothing will change for you, the reader. (Although I might be a bit more testy.)

The impending move really isn’t even drastic – instead of lurking in K-State country, we’ll simply migrate east: to Lawrence, Kansas, USA.

That’s really it. Monumental, right? At some certain age, you realize the news and benchmarks of your life really don’t matter all that much to other people. I mean, I could barely care about Accounts Payable Rebecca’s new baby. I didn’t even ask what brand it was.

ANYWAY, as a full-fledged grown-up, a home sale predicates the move. I won’t bother to delve into the sham of realty, or the horrors of working with real estate agents. If you’ve been there, you’re nodding. If you haven’t, you’re lucky. Suffice it to say, however, today we launched our first reconnaissance mission – hoping to ensure our home viewing process is a success.

Not that I’m not trustworthy, but in the down real-estate market, I just wasn’t sure if I believed the agency when they called and scheduled a showing for this afternoon. I’ve sort of convinced myself they’ve been scheduling fake showings anyway, to keep Mr. Faded Glory’s temper (Read: Reasonable follow-through) in check. So today, I launched a counter-mission. You know, just in case.

After making sure the house was shipshape, and Franklin the Cat was prepped for any strangers snooping in his basement, I wolfed down a sandwich and left my house. I stopped in the shed, caressed a case of eye black, and quizzically regarded some foliage scraps. Instead, however, I decided only to stake the place out from my car. That’s right, I told myself. I’m now so narcissistic I’m stalking my own house.

About five minutes before the showing, I parked on a side street, just around the corner, the house barely visible through my Explorer’s back window.

I sucked in my last gasp of recirculated air, then shut off the car and the A/C. Making sure the coast was clear (it’s probably clear) I bolted around the Explorer, crouching behind the grill. I yanked the rear passenger door, folded down the backseat, and ducked inside, already breathing heavy.

It was hot. If you have ever been to Kansas in the summer, don’t go. I also failed to crack a window, so for those of you who have left your pet in a backseat without doing so – kindly jump off a cliff, you monsters. I dabbed my face with a golf towel, and waited for signs of life.

Time passed. My shirt became wrinkled, disheveled – my undershirt neck now hopelessly stretched, hairspray melted, slacks filthy. Undiscovered, I convinced myself the agency would pull a fast one – absolutely certain I’d discover the agency’s realtor darting into the house, dropping off a card, then bolting – a meowing Franklin yipping at his heels.

I imagined me firing my agent, leaping into the front seat, swerving my car in front of his and pointing, knowingly. I was ready. The humid air hung in front of me, the calm street quiet. Too quiet.

Then, people showed up. The realtor unlocked the house. They went in. Franklin meowed, audible through the windshield nearly 300 feet away. Relief! Happiness! Heat exhaustion!

Proud, I exhaled, my peace of mind sort of intact – at least for another day, anyway. And you might be amused. You might be disgusted. But in realty, you gotta do what you gotta do. You might also ask, wow, great. How long did the showing take?

Alas, I don’t know. Drenched in sweat, the group fully invisible inside, I contorted myself into the front seat. I started the engine, gulped the A/C, and I was a ghost. Now I knew.

And knowing is half the battle.

… please let me know.

All season long the Cubs haven’t had a signature win to hang their hat on, a stark difference from 2007 and 2008.

Maybe, just maybe, today’s comeback victory over a crosstown rival will light a fire.

I know, I’m not holding my breath, either. But it’s a start.