Someone Else’s Epic

Have you ever had the feeling you were just a bit character or had been cast in some way in someone else’s epic story?  Have you ever felt that you have been cast in a role that you would not normally want to have in this particular story?  For example, have you ever felt like maybe you are being cast as the villain in some kind of epic story?  Well, I am not entirely sure I have felt that way personally but I think the city of
Chicago and the Chicago Bears team may very much feel that way when it comes to this week’s game. 

Of course, the Bears are poised to make their second trip to the Super Bowl.  People in other cities may not realize just how spoiled they are.  If you live anywhere in the nebulous region commonly referred to as
New England you probably don’t think of yourself as spoiled.  Yet, every year, no matter how poorly the Patriots have played throughout the regular season that team manages to get into the playoffs.  The city of
Pittsburgh has numerous Super Bowl visits and victories under its belt. 
San Francisco sure looks terrible now but it wasn’t all that long ago that the 49ers were winning everything and anything all the time.  Sports fans have very short memories. 

In
Chicago we have the opposite thing happening, at least when it comes to the Bears.  In this town if you happen to have once been affiliated in any way with the Chicago Bears of 1985 you do not have to buy a drink in any bar in town provided you let everyone know you had some affiliation with the ’85 Bears.  This was the team that should have been the start of a dynasty before the team made a bunch of dunder-headed moves that broke up that team and prevented it from going on to win countless championships.  Instead we had one glorious, delirious season where the Bears managed to lose only one game and then soundly trounced those aforementioned Patriots in the Super Bowl.  This is a collective great memory for the city because we only have one football team so that means it is the one sports thing pretty much everyone in the city can agree on. 

See, for me the White Sox World Series Championship eclipses the Bears championship because I am more of a baseball fan than I am a football fan.  However, the city’s loyalty with baseball is notoriously divided between the Sox and the Cubs and that divide gets deeper every season.  So, while for me that win was greater and sweeter, for much of this city it only added more bitterness to the baseball season. 

So, right now the entire city is poised to play a game that might take them to the Super Bowl.  Even if we don’t win the Super Bowl the fact that we would be there again would be pretty sweet.  I have only seen the Bears play in one Super Bowl in my life and that was the year they won.  You see, we don’t make it into the playoffs every season and we definitely don’t make it into the championship game very often.  

In any other year this would be the huge story.  The Bears in ’85 were national celebrities for a while.  They were such a mish-mosh of talent.  We had the “Fridge” for crying out loud.  My family went on a vacation to Hawaii the year following the win and everyone, when they found out my family was from
Chicago, wanted to know if I knew the Fridge.  So, the Bears of ’85 had an endearing quality that kind of made them the darlings for just a little while.   

This year, however, the team they are facing is the New Orleans Saints.  Of course we all know what happened to New
Orleans a couple of years ago.  This has become a magical epic year for the Saints.  They came roaring back into
New Orleans and they have a superstar in Reggie Bush and they have managed to dazzle the NFL all season long.  They are explosive.  They are winning.  They are a powerful team.  Considering the heartbreak and death and destruction that has befallen
New Orleans in the recent past they are bringing a simple but amazing spark of hope to a city that needs it. 

You can see what I mean about being cast in someone else’s epic story, can’t you? 

Suddenly it seems wrong to want the Bears to win.  Sure, I am going to be rooting for Urlacher to smash into Reggie Bush and strip the ball from him.  I want the Bears’ defense to wake up from its recent stupor to smash the hell out of the Saints offense.  However, I feel bad wanting that.  It seems as if the Bears are the villains in this story. 

It’s all you hear about now.  How great it is that the Saints are winning, you hear the sportscasters say.  You hear them talk about how wonderful it would be for the city of
New Orleans if the Saints were to make it to the Super Bowl.  They have overcome such adversity and such a horrible season last year.  They have defied every expectation and climbed mountain after mountain to finally be one small step from the pinnacle.  They only have to get past evil
Chicago,  home of Al Capone, John Wayne Gacy and Richard Speck, to achieve what will be a glorious moment for a city in such pain. 

Only an ogre would not want that scenario to happen right?  You don’t sit through all fifty-three hours of the “Lord of the Rings” movies hoping that the hobbits all end up in the fiery pits of Mordor at the end, do you?  Well, maybe you do, and I could understand that, but most people don’t.  Generally you root for the underdog hero in the epic tale and hope he or she comes through the winner at the end.  Everyone likes the underdog.  I love the underdog.  I even loved the cartoon “Underdog.” 

It’s just that, most of the time, Chicago IS the underdog when it comes to sports.  In fact, in some ways, we still are.  People wonder why Chicagoans often have this chip on their shoulders, especially when it comes to their sports teams.  Well, you try living in a place known as the “

Second
City” all of your life and not have some issues with your ego.  We are a fly-over city.  People all over the world think of Chicago as being a frozen wasteland much in the same way people in Chicago think
Green Bay is all year around.  I have had people express shock at the fact that
Chicago has beaches and that temperatures here in July often reach triple digits.   

So,
Chicago is now the villain in this epic story of a city coming back from tragedy.  In the end, I guess it’s fantastic that the Bears have made it this far and have made it further this year than they did last year.  Still, as game time draws near I can’t help but want them to win and to watch them in the Super Bowl.  I guess that makes me a villain.  Oh well, the villains are generally more exciting and memorable than the heroes anyway. 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

Athletes Behaving Badly

Right now the city of
Chicago is caught up in Bears-fever.  People are somehow convinced that they will be playing in the Super Bowl in February.  Of course, given the most-recent performance they will be lucky to be in the lead at any point during their first playoff game.  Still, hope springs eternal, as they say.  The thing is that the team is just a tad distracted.  You see one of their key defensive players is a moron of galactic proportions. 

Tank Johnson is a very big man.  He is a big scary looking man and he is on the defense of the Bears.  The defensive side of the team is the strong part of the team, or so they say.  He is an intimidating man.  Much like the character of Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” he is also apparently as dumb as a stump and that is quite and insult to a few stumps I have met in my time.   

Mr. Johnson is already on probation for being caught outside a
Chicago nightclub with his Ruger 9mm.  Of course everyone knows that you cannot visit a
Chicago nightclub without your 9mm automatic pistol.  I mean, come on, if you don’t have one when you arrive at some of the more popular nightclubs around her they issue you one.  Anyway, apparently the police don’t take to kindly to the idea of large, potentially violent men who may have been drinking walking around the streets with loaded pistols.  So, Tank got himself arrested and he is currently on probation. 

Tank got himself into trouble again back in February of this year by being at another nightclub and disrupting traffic with a limo he had hired.  The genius then insulted police officers and got into a scuffle with them.  The police ended up macing him.   

This past Thursday morning the police in the northern suburb of Gurnee issues a warrant to search Tank’s home.  Once again Tank was found possessing firearms without a license.  In fact six misdemeanor counts of possession of a firearm without a license were issued against Tank.  Why exactly this man feels the need to carry so many firearms is unclear.  Like I said, he isn’t exactly a genius. 

What happened next has to qualify Tank for the Moron Hall of Fame.  Instead of staying home and learning from the fact that he and nightclubs do not mix he decided to go out to another nightclub.  The details of what happened are not really clear.  He got into some kind of trouble.  Shots were fired.  A man who is a close friend to Tank and his supposed bodyguard was killed in the shooting.  Needless to say Tank was not in the game this past Sunday and most of
Chicago is saying it’s time to cut their losses and let him go. 

As of the end of the

Tampa
Bay and Chicago Bears game Bears coach Lovie Smith was reported as saying Tank was still part of the team.  I predict this will last until sometime on Monday and then we shall see who is still on the Bears.  Regardless of how I think they will do in the post-season the Bears are in the playoff hunt and the very last thing they need is such a distraction. 

You have to wonder about football players.  I wonder if maybe something akin to post-traumatic stress syndrome happens to them.  They play a violent game and for three hours or more every week they are expected to pound the hell out of other men using their bare hands.  It takes a certain type of person to do that and they are the type of persons who might be a little prone to violence.  We just throw them back into civilization on Monday and expect them to be model citizens.  Maybe that’s a tad unrealistic. 

There is no excuse, however, for basketball players.  The NBA is rapidly becoming about as safe to watch as a gangland shootout.  A recent game between the New York Nicks and Denver Nuggets descended into chaos and fighting.  Exactly why this happened isn’t clear.  The New York Nicks pretty much suck like a
Hoover vacuum cleaner.  One of the players on the
New York team grabbed one of the Nuggets around the neck and threw him to the ground.  In hockey this would be acceptable.  In basketball this is frowned upon.  

However, before you knew it one of the Nuggets players came over and cold-cocked one of the
New York players and then bravely backed up rapidly and ran away.  You have to admire the sportsmanship in the NBA.  What exactly happened to this particular sport?  Michael Jordan may have had an issue with gambling and Scottie Pippen may have been a big baby at least more than once but they never ran around punching other people.  Dennis Rodman may have, but the big guys didn’t.  Now you never know when a fight is going to break out when you are watching and NBA game. 

What is amazing is that the NFL players don’t get into fights on the field nearly as much.  You see some pushing and shoving but rarely is there a fight that breaks out and clears both benches.  I don’t know if this is because the refs are better in that particular sport and get them to stop faster than others or what.  Maybe it’s the fact that about two minutes after the supposed violation or insult you get another chance to try and pound that other person into hamburger meat.   

Then again you look at a sport like hockey where fighting is almost encouraged.  People gleefully smash other player’s faces into the boards and glass.  Blood can easily be found on most ice rinks.  Yet they hardly ever seem to get into trouble outside of the rink.  There have been exceptions, of course, you have to admit that that as a whole the hockey players are very well-behaved.  They also tend not to get involved in shooting each other in the behinds with steroids.  Of course, the trade-off is that they play in a sport that no one cares about except for a bunch of Canadians and my friend Scott.   

There’s something wrong in sports.  I don’t know if it’s the money and the fact that athletes seem to be getting younger or younger.  I don’t know if it’s the type of people who get offered huge contracts.  I don’t know if it’s the fact that these people get surrounded by sickening sycophants who cater to their every whim no matter how ridiculous.  I just know that too many athletes seem to think it’s all right to treat everyone else like garbage, that it’s ok to resort to violence, and that you really need to be walking around carrying weapons. 

I just know that Tank Johnson needs to get off of the Bears.  He is a distraction they don’t need.  He is also apparently unnecessary.  Finally, apparently he is an idiot and really football has enough of those to go around.  Yes, I am talking about you Terrell Owens. 

 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is now available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.  Once again, it would make a great Christmas present.

An Anthem

Back in 1985 the Chicago Bears unleashed the song “The Super Bowl Shuffle” upon the world.  There was even a video in which most of the players danced awkwardly and badly and a few even pretended to play instruments.  It was a rap tune, just to make things even more embarrassing.  If there is anything more embarrassing than Jim McMahon rapping it might be Steve Fuller rapping.  The thing is that they went on to win the Super Bowl and I think that was a good thing otherwise that video would have been REALLY embarrassing.  However, on behalf of Chicago I would like to apologize for unleashing the “Super Bowl Shuffle” upon the rest of you. The Bears are having another good season.  They won seven games in a row.  Then they lost to Miami.  They lost to Miami the year they won the whole thing too.  However, the Bears now have to go on this bizarre extended east coast run to play both New York teams and the New England Patriots.  Of course the Bears beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl that year and I only bring that up just to rub salt into the wounds of New Englanders.  It’s a small wound considering they have gone on to win something like twelve Super Bowls and they have Tom Brady.  We have Rex Grossman who may or may not be the best quarterback the Bears have ever had since some guy with the first name Syd back in the 40s. 

So, I think maybe it’s time for a new Bears theme.  Mostly because it’s time to put away the Chicago Bears of 1985 and move on to something else.  Yes, they were a great team.  There has rarely been anything as scary in the game of football as that defense.  Mike Singeltary staring with those crazy wide eyes had to have been enough to make some offensive linemen and quarterbacks wet themselves.  However, it is now 2006.  That means it is now past twenty years since that team took the field.  You would be hard-pressed to even find where William “Refrigerator” Perry is right now.  It’s time to start a new era. There is a radio show here in Chicago run by a guy named Jonathon Brandmeier.  It’s a morning show and the guy is kind of a radio legend.  He has a contest going now where listeners can submit songs that will eventually be voted as the best and the winner gets five grand.  Of course because the station hasn’t gotten official NFL approval for the thing when he talks about the contest he can’t even mention the fact that the song is for the Chicago Bears.  He has been playing clips from those who have submitted things already.  There seems to be a consistent problem with them, however, and I think that people have forgotten what a sports anthem should be. 

It wasn’t always this way.  Back when the group Queen wrote the song “We Will Rock You” they made a conscious effort to construct the song so it would be stomped and chanted during soccer matches.  I have no idea if Gary “Vietnam Pedophile” Glitter actually knew his song would become an anthem or not, but it did. People are very confused by “American Idol” I think.  This would be another reason why I think that show is evil.  The songs I have heard from this contest so far are not anthems.  These are not songs inebriated football fans would want to sing along and dance along with in unreasonably cold weather with their shirts off.  For all of the general badness of “The Super Bowl Shuffle” the damn thing was a song you could dance to in a stadium and chant along with during a game.  I think that may be the key to sports anthems and that would be that the song should be kind of crappy. 

The songs submitted so far have people belting out these ridiculous heart-felt songs about the Bears.  Who in the hell is going to sit there with their pot-belly hanging out from their worn out Bears jersey while holding a beer and sing out some sort of ballad about Brian Urlacher?  No one, would be the answer to that particular question. Just look at some of the anthems.  While “We Will Rock You” is also a great rock song it is ridiculously simple.  It is a bunch of people stomping and clapping while the singer chants trash-talk.  The chorus is easy to chant and is, in fact, the title of the song.  Then there’s a great guitar solo that soused sports fans can air-guitar to.   

“Who Let the Dogs Out” has to be the most inane song ever created.  It sits right along side with such classic bad-song gems like “The Macarena” and that song where the guy sings about all of the women he has slept with.  Still the fact is that “Who Let the Dogs Out” is easy to remember.  You can chant along with it and make those barking noises.  Nothing says “anthem” like making animal noises. There have been accidental anthems.  The key to the anthem is the simplicity.  Some guy wrote this song about a guy singing to this woman who was cheating on him.  He wanted her to go ahead and kiss him good-bye.  When it became obvious this was a potential hit he created this group called Steam and released “Na-Na-Hey-Hey” for everyone else to chant as pitchers leave the field during White Sox home games.  Why does it work?  Because the song lyrics are simple and stupid and even juvenile and easy to chant and remember and not some long loving dissertation about the wonders of Rex Grossman’s throwing arm.   

Previous anthems have always been simple.  “Bear Down Chicago Bears” is a rather simple song and has to be one of the earlier sports anthem songs to achieve some sort of popularity.  I don’t know the exact history and origins of the sports anthem because I am just not ambitious enough to look it up but I am betting it started as something for cheerleaders to do on the sidelines.  Chanting cheers and easy-to-follow anthems are very close cousins. So, we need a new anthem here in Chicago.  It should be simple.  It should be something you can sing along with.  It should not be something that some young wannabe Carrie Underwood will sing and look like she might be straining a muscle while singing it.  It should be something a working stiff wearing an out-of-fashion winter coat while wearing a stupid foam bear’s head on his own head instead of something warm.   

So, come on Chicago.  Let’s put something together.  I want to see a video with Peanut Tillman dancing before the end of the year. Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is now available for sale at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.