The Cure for the Post-Holiday Blues

It turns out that there is a cure for that nasty little depression that usually settles over your head right after the holidays.  You know how it goes.  You have all of that happiness, manufactured or not, and activity between the end of October and the end of December.  Those last three months of the year always seem to fly by so quickly.  You have parties to prepare for.  You have to make travel plans.  You have to buy gifts.  You get drunk.  You stagger home.  You take time off from work and work has actual time scheduled to be off.  It’s great and then January comes and there’s nothing. 

Seriously, the human race needs to come up with some kind of additional holiday between January and April.  Even when April comes, and with it Easter, it isn’t really the same as those other holidays.  In my family Easter was not a big deal.  We didn’t get gifts on Easter.  You generally don’t even get day off for Easter.  Getting worked up about a giant rabbit hiding hard-boiled eggs just wasn’t the same as anxiously awaiting presents and a fat man in a red suit. 

So, really, there isn’t much to look forward to until the next October.  I guess some people look forward to Memorial Day and Independence Day and maybe Labor Day but they aren’t real holidays.  At least you get a day off for Independence Day, though, which is nice.  Really, when it comes to holidays Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years really have the monopoly on things. 

So, there is that kind of funk that falls over people when January comes around.  It almost can’t be helped.  Then, I watched football this weekend and, suddenly, I discovered that there was a cure.  There is a way to beat that depression and funk and feel really good about the remainder of the winter.  So, without further ado, here is my cure. 

Step One:  Get yourself and NFL franchise.  Now, this will likely involve billions of dollars.  Technically step one would be the acquisition of billions upon billions of dollars.  It would also help to build some kind of facility for this team to play in.  I would suggest spending those billions on some sort of stadium.  If you have tremendous persuasive powers you might be able to convince the NFL that your team can play at a local college or high school field until the billions for the stadium can be built. 

I know what you are saying.  Sure, it may be very difficult for the NFL to consider putting an NFL franchise in ever town and city in the country.  I never said this was an easy plan.  Of course considering how difficult it will be to raise the billions of dollars by the time you have done that your particular town may be as big as a city and convincing the NFL might be much easier.  If need be, co-opt a much larger city in relative proximity to the town you happen to live in.  

Do whatever you need to do just get a franchise.  Bribe and borrow and steal and perhaps grant sexual favors you may not even like but all of it will be worth it in the end. 

Step Two:  Get yourself some players.  This too will take and accumulation of billions of dollars.  To get the truly good players you need to offer them multi-million dollar contracts.  I suggest you go the George Steinbrenner route and gather as much money as you can and use it to buy any and every player who is any good.  Before you know it the Bemidji Bobcats will have the best quarterback, running-backs, defensive players, coaches and kickers the world has ever seen. 

Step Three:  If you have not already sold tickets I would suggest selling some.  You need to recoup those losses from the billions of dollars you have spent on acquiring a team, building a stadium and getting all of the best players and coaches.  I suggest you build a stadium that has about eight hundred luxury boxes and about twelve regular seats.  A lot of teams make most of their money by renting out these luxury suites to the point that most stadiums really look like some kind of reversed aquariums or something.   

Step Four:  Now your team needs to play really well.  This may be the most difficult part and it may not always work out the way you think.  The Chicago Bears played a very up and down season.  At times they played brilliantly like the last team that won it all.  At other times Rex Grossman looked as lost as a child in a department store who has lost his mommy.  You half-expected to see him on the sidelines holding Lovie Smith’s hand with a thumb in his mouth hand snot running down his nose.  Still, they have managed to end up at this late point in the season still playing.  The key, then, is to keep winning enough key games to eventually get to Step Five. 

Step Five:  Win the divisions until you make it to the Super Bowl.  This should be done shortly after the first of the year, right around playoff time.  You will soon find yourself so overjoyed and happy that the depression of the upcoming Valentines Day won’t even bother you.  If you are lucky enough to have a spouse who enjoys football then you might even be lucky enough to have a spouse who forgets all about Valentines Day as well.   

That’s really all you need to do.  I have to tell you, from personal experience, it really does make all of the doldrums of work and gray skies and cold wind disappear.  The weatherman may be predicting eighteen feet of snow will fall in one giant lump and cover your entire city and you fill find you do not care.  Newscasters will start wearing your team’s jerseys and joking with each other on television. 

Of course, the only thing that could make this better would be to take weasely, annoying, shrimpy, make-up-wearing, smirking, know-it-all, talentless newspaper sports columnists who constantly predict doom and gloom and losses for your home town team and run them out of town nude but covered with tar and feathers.  If this particular sports columnist happens to work for the Chicago Sun-Times, well, all the better.  Of course, you should try not to let the fact that the smirking dwarf is now walking around acting like he predicted the team would win all along or using the term “we” as if the entire city agreed with his miserable doom and gloom predictions all along. 

Now, granted, you can’t have everything.  Those meteors never fall out of the sky and hit the people you want them to when you ask them to, do they?  No, you should really just be glad your team is in the Super Bowl.  Just having that, and only that, can really make a lot of other annoying things seem a whole lot more positive and easier to live with.   

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

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.

Let’s Hear it for the Kickers

So it all came down to that final moment in overtime for the Chicago Bears.  They had been battling the Seattle Seahawks up and down the field and, essentially, it had come to a stand-still.  The game was tied and that meant sudden-death overtime as is always the case in the NFL.  No matter how you score, you are the team that wins.  If you tackle the other team’s quarterback in the endzone and get a safety you win the damn thing.   

Rex Grossman had done all right.  He made several rather bone-headed plays.  It still seems like the young quarterback needs to have all of the time in the world to make a play.  If you rush sexy Rexy then you can probably get him scrambling and when he scrambles he is just as likely to throw it to the referee or Lovie Smith on the sidelines as he is to a receiver down field.  The man is no running threat at all.  I think the only way to maybe get Rex to run would be to release an actual bear on the field while outfitting him with raw meat underpants.   

Of course there were many in this city, including a certain blog writer that you may or may not be reading right now and you may or may not read regularly, who thought that this was the last game of the season.  People always tell me to have hope but this is
Chicago.  You develop a certain kind of hopelessness when it comes to sports teams in
Chicago.  The strange thing is that this hopelessness never leaves no matter how many teams win championships.  Somehow, no matter what, it always seems like a fluke.  As if the governing board of whichever sport the team has just won the championship of will suddenly realize a horrible mistake has been made and make us take the trophy back and pretend the parade never happened. 

I have lived through six Bulls NBA Championships.  Rather than bask in the glow of the fact that this team which had such a miserable record for so long won six championships I am like most people in this town and despairing over the fact the team has stunk since Michael Jordan left.  Of course they have made it to the playoffs for two years in a row but I really don’t think anyone seriously thought the Chicago Bulls would make it make to the finals. 

I have also seen the White Sox magically win the World Series.  It still seems like some kind of dream I had a few years ago and I have a hard time remembering that it actually happened.  I have all of the newspapers and memorabilia tucked away in a drawer to remind me but after their horrific fall in this past season it almost seems like 2005 never happened.  Once more they were back in mediocrity mode in 2006 and it made all of 2005 seem like some kind of bizarre mistake. 

So, it was with some trepidation that I watched the Bears playoff game this past weekend.  While there were many who were hopeful and convinced they could beat the Seahawks, I will admit that I am not one of them.  When it comes to
Chicago sports I am always the naysayer.  You can ask my fellow White Sox fans that I was predicting their doom every step of the way.  Of course the more I screamed they would be defeated the more they won.  As such, maybe the same will happen to the Bears. 

Of course it all came down to the kicker.  It’s funny how NFL teams treat kickers.  Most of them act like they are those annoying little brothers or kids from down the block who come and want to hang out with you even though you don’t actually want them around.  A lot of times kickers are foreigners who seem like they would be much more comfortable on a soccer field rather than kicking an oblong ball through uprights.   

The thing is it often comes down to the kickers.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have seen a game where if a field goal had just been made the game would have been won.  Or perhaps the number of times I saw a game where the key was staying ahead of the opponents because of a made field goal.  

Quarterbacks get all of the glory.  A lot of times they are handsome.  They have strong and muscular arms.  They are supposed to the leader of the team on the field.  They get much of the credit and the blame when the game goes well or not.  They are the ones on television the most. 

Still, it is the kicker who often comes up in the clutch.  They stand there, separated from everyone else, the stadium often silent, judging the wind and visualizing the kick.  Then the snap comes.  The kicker moves, oblivious to all of the on-rushing players and noise and focusing just on the ball.  Hopefully the holder has gotten the ball and put it down just right.  Then the kicker kicks and off that ball goes.  It’s like time is suspended as that ball tumbles end over end over end.  Hopefully it goes right through the uprights and everyone is happy.  If it doesn’t work then everyone talks about how the kicker isn’t really part of the team and isn’t really a football player. 

Ever team during the off-season spends buckets of money on quarterbacks and receivers and defensive people.  Yeah, sure, they are always important.  However, many only think of the kicker as an afterthought.  Strange considering the name of the game is “foot” ball and the only time a foot actually touches the ball is when someone kicks it.  They are treated like the red-headed step-children and patted on the head and told to go back to the sidelines and keep kicking balls into nets.  It’s rather unfair really. 

How many times does a quarterback just totally blow a run down the field and fail to get the ball into the endzone.  Who always then has to come through and at least try to make sure the entire effort wasn’t for naught?  That’s right, the kicker is the one.  He has to come on the field and try like mad to kick that ball and hopefully come away with three points to at least the drive down-field isn’t for nothing. 

In many ways they are the unsung heroes.  Maybe they have the build of a dancer instead of the muscles of a quarterback but they sure do things I couldn’t do.  How on earth does someone kick a pall over fifty yard down a very narrow-looking corridor and keep the whole wind thing in mind?  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t kick the damn ball ten yards.  To me that means they deserve respect.  They win games.  It was the kicker who extended the Bears season one more week at least.  It was the kicker who should get the credit if the Bears ultimately get to the Super Bowl.   

Then again, we’ll see how he does against the Saints next week.  He may turn from hero to goat just that quickly. 

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

Being a Sports Fan Instead of a Sports Idiot

I have never understood some of the insane things that go on in various sporting events.  The things fans do have never made much sense to me.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for having fun at a sporting event.  I am a huge fan when it comes to things like football and baseball.  I am a Chicago Bears fan and a huge Chicago White Sox fan.  I have a huge baseball cap collection featuring teams that aren’t even in my city.  However, there are limits to everything. 

I remember back in the 90s when the “Tomahawk Chop” was all the rage back when the Braves were routinely in the World Series.  There were some people who thought that this was offensive to American Indians.  Of course this ignored the fact that the thing started with college football and the Florida State Seminole’s football team.  I never thought it was offensive to anyone.  I mean, this was baseball.  If you are offended at something stupid at a baseball game then you have bigger problems than drunken fans chanting off key and waving their arms around.  I didn’t like the Chop because I just thought it was stupid. 

What purpose did it serve?  From what I understand a lot of athletes, especially those in sports that require concentration like baseball, learn to tune past the crowd noise around them.  This is how athletes can play anything in front of thousands and thousands of people.  Do they even hear all of that chanting?  Doesn’t it just become something that’s happening in the background?  It’s just stupid and not offensive.  Then again, I am not a Native American.  If there was some team that had a name that was a combination of German, Finnish, Irish and French Canadian and a chant that somehow combined that I might have found it offensive. 

See, I just don’t understand where fans come up with this stuff.  Who started “The Wave?”  Why?  What purpose does this serve?  If anything that would be incredibly distracting to the people on the field.  In baseball this would be hugely distracting if you were on the pitcher’s mound or in the batter’s box.  This is done to entertain the fans, I guess, since many find baseball boring.  If that’s the case then why have I seen it at football games and other sporting events?  Go home and then stand up and sit down a lot.  You can exercise and not bother anyone. 

Here in
Chicago we seem to have a large supply of idiotic fans.  Just the other day the Chicago Bears faced off against the Minnesota Vikings in very cold weather.  We got tons of snow here and then, as per usual, the temperature plummeted and it got really cold.  This is not pleasant weather to watch a sporting event in.  Unless you are in a skybox no one should have to sit outside when the temperature is under twenty degrees.  This is from someone who actually likes cold weather.  However, I also had my moments freezing at Bears games when I was younger and my dad shared season tickets with some friends at work.  Trust me, there is nothing fun just sitting there while the blood in your body slowly freezes.  The Bears don’t even have cheerleaders anymore to make things interesting and to get the blood flowing in at least one place. 

So, of course, the newspaper the following day had to show the one idiot who took off his shirt during the game.  This happens every time the Bears play in the cold.  Why this is supposed to show support for the team, I have no idea.  The players don’t play without shirts.  They may play without sleeves, but I have never watched a football game where the guys played without shirts.  The one guy I saw on television didn’t even have anything written on his chest.  How sad is that?  He couldn’t even find like-minded idiots to spell out the team’s name. 

Of course these king of people show up in a bunch of places.  You see them a lot in
Green Bay.  Of course, Green Bay Packers fans may have more than a few screws loose to begin with.  When you live in the state of
Wisconsin and you live and die by a football team you have to wonder about their sanity.  These are fans who will their season tickets to their ancestors.  When people move out of town there is a scramble to get their tickets.   

The worst fans in the world are from
Philadelphia.  They are notorious for being, quite honestly, jerks of the first order.  I have heard these people on sports radio programs and they seem to think that if you show up at a Flyers, Eagles, Phillies or 76ers game wearing anything but a hometown Philadelphia team jersey this is a license to beat the hell out of you.  Keep this in mind of you ever plant to visit
Philadelphia.  Yes, it may be billed as the City of
Brotherly love but they only love you if you wear a hometown team’s sportswear.  If you don’t then the City of
Brotherly love will beat the snot out of you and then go off for a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich.  These are the same fans who booed and then threw snowballs at Santa Claus when he made an appearance during an Eagles game. 

I have also never been one for tailgating.  Given all of the fantastic restaurants and the great friends I have with great backyards and great grills I don’t understand the desire to add the flavor of car exhaust to whatever meat may be searing on the grills.  Are rickety lawn chairs really more comfortable than an easy chair or a booth in a restaurant?  Again, how does this help the team?  Do they play better knowing you sat out there freezing and attempting to eat frozen bratwurst?  Is Rex Grossman going to actually throw a pass forward just because more fans show up to drink earlier out in the parking lot? 

I like to get to the game early, but I like to do that so I can walk around the stadium.  Usually it’s fun to see all of the souvenirs and the food stands, especially when you visit U.S. Cellular Field where the Sox play.  I like two watch the pre-game stuff.  I like to yell when the team does well.  What I don’t do is scream at the top of my lungs when I am sitting just beneath the surface of the sun trying to convince the manager or coach I have a better idea of what he should do than he does.  I also hate the people who feel a sporting event is a great place to take a cell phone call and then wave at the freaking television cameras for nine innings or four quarters or three periods.  All right, we all see you.  You’re famous now.  Please put the phone down.  A pitcher should be allowed to legally bean anyone seen doing that behind home plate with a fastball to the head. 

It’s OK to be a fan.  Being a fan is fun.  Being a fan can be fun without painting your face.  Being a fan can be fun while still keeping warm and avoiding frostbite.  Being a fan can be fun without being obnoxious.  Being a fan can even be fun when you are sitting in a section full of people rooting for the opposite team.  Doing all of the rest of that stuff doesn’t help the team, it just make you look stupid. 

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

The Cubs Try it Again

The Chicago Cubs have suddenly shown that they may have an actual desire to hold onto the World Series Trophy like the team on the South Side of the city with the signing of Alfonso Soriano.  Normally it seems like the Cubs are content with putting, at best, a mediocre team on the field mostly because the legions of blinded Cubs fans still sell out every home game no matter how far in the basement the team is.  When you can put a bunch of trained weasels on the field doing back-flips and sell out ever ticket why on earth would you want to spend the money to get some decent players? 

A few things seem to have converged to push the Cubs into this decision.  The Tribune Company, which owns the team, has been having a lot of financial trouble as of late.  They have been selling things off left and right.  Many people have been guessing that the Cubs would be on the auction block.  This may not be a bad thing.  Getting the team out of the hands of a soulless corporation that just looks at numbers in maybe into one or two or a group of people who are actual baseball fans could make the team much better.   

Getting a high-powered and big-name player like Soriano probably greatly increases the asking-price for a Chicago Cubs baseball team.  If you were a company looking to make an even bigger score by selling off your hottest property why not get at least one really big name on the list, right?  One thing’s for sure, only the Cubs could do anything that would knock the Chicago Bears off of the front-page of the local
Chicago newspapers. 

There are legions of Cubs fans here.  I don’t think it’s something anyone else in any other city can really understand.  Sure, Boston Red Sox fans like to think they had a hard time with a team that couldn’t win a World Series.  The thing about the Cub is that they haven’t even BEEN to a World Series since 1945.  At least the Red Sox got the invitation and got into the dance a few times.   

The problem now is whether or not Soriano can avoid the curse of the talented player that seems to befall every single good player that ends up in a Chicago Cubs uniform.  We have a knack in this neck of the woods of bringing hugely talented players to the sports teams and then sitting there in slack-jawed amazement as they completely suck and can’t do a damn thing correctly.  Remember Nomar Garciaparra?  He was doing great things in
Boston when he came to the Cubs.  Before long he was on the bench with a leg injury and there was talk that his entire career might be over.  Then he ends up on the West Coast and has a great year. 

Chicago is a sports city where that kind of thing happens a lot.  It used to happen on the other side of town as well.  Of course, the White Sox have this tendency to get the baseball players already in the decline of their career.  This is the team that got Bo Jackson after he had hip-replacement surgery, remember.   

Of course, Soriano isn’t exactly a young hot prospect just out of the minors.  He’s 31 years old, according to information supplied by him.  Given that he is from the South American baseball leagues where people often lie about their age to get big baseball contracts at young ages he may be closer to forty years old.  He had a great year with the Washington Nationals last year despite the team not being very good.  To me that means the Cubs should be pretty familiar to him once he gets here. 

The Cubs got rid of their manager Dusty Baker not long ago.  Then they got Lou Pinella to step into his shoes.  As a sign that maybe things might actually be changing over there they then signed Soriano to one of the richest deals in baseball.  In fact it is the package for Soriano is the fifth-largest in baseball history.  Not bad for a team that not long ago just seemed resigned to being a loser. 

The problem with the Cubs is that they are a team with a general feeling of being losers.  They have been losing for so many years there seems to be an aura of being a loser hanging over everything including that cramped, crumbling relic known as Wrigley Field.  Exactly what can shake that kind of malaise?  It’s hard to say but a manager change and signing a big name has to help.  Now maybe if they can change the owners maybe things will finally fall into place. 

I am a White Sox fan.  There is a certain easing of everything that goes with winning a World Series.  Yes, they may have stumbled and fallen horribly during this last season but they still won the entire thing in 2005.  No matter how many people try to tell me it doesn’t count because the ratings were low or how easy they somehow had it during the playoffs and series the fact remains they still won the whole thing in 2005 and nothing can change that. 

I have to say there is a part of me that feels it would be nice for Cubs fans to feel that as well.  Of course, the best script that could have been written would be for the Cubs to have won this year.  That way it would have been the Red Sox ending their curse and then the White Sox ending their losing streak.  The trifecta there would have been for the Cubs to make it and then win.  Sadly, they never really had a chance. 

Most of my family is Cubs fans.  They are all decent, hard-working people.  I find them to be truly misguided when it comes to their choice in baseball teams, but this doesn’t mean I love them any less.  As such, it would be very nice for them to experience the unbridled excitement and joy I have been surfing on since the end of 2005.   

Now, they still need to work on the fact that their two star starting pitchers are walking disasters and barely able to walk let alone pitch.  They also need to put a team on the field who can field the ball and make plays.  They need to fill the rest of the line-up with people who can hit and make plays.  One guy isn’t likely to turn an entire team around in the game of baseball.  Still, Pinella and Soriano are a very good start. 

I don’t believe in curses.  I didn’t with the White Sox and I really don’t think that’s the problem with the Cubs.  They just need to change their attitude.  I can’t say this is the solution but it does seem to be a step in the right direction. 

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

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.