Good Grief

Northwestern treated America to another overtime thriller, cementing its status as the country's most consistently exciting bowl team with its roller-coaster theatrics. Of course, this being a bowl game involving Northwestern, the roller-coaster ride traditionally ends with the bar lifting off as stunned patrons are then pummeled with festive carnival implements such as giant plush gorillas or foam cowboy hats by disgruntled carnies. From now on, Northwestern will be required to have a cardboard Yosemite Sam on the sidelines to make sure that only the most calm and serene fans can watch the games in order to prevent nervous breakdowns, heart palpitations, and acts of violence fueled by Heston Scale-breaking incredulity.

The plucky Kafka led comeback after comeback in an astounding five-interception performance that at times resembled the mythical Shane Falco meltdown from late night basic cable staple The Replacements starring Keanu Reeves, whose fictional Sugar Bowl performance apparently ended up with him living in a houseboat, which in movies is a clear sign of hitting rock bottom since you never see a movie organized around the theme of successful, well-adjusted, clean-shaven people living and prospering in a happy neighborhood of houseboats.

Keanu Reeves in the first two parts of his planned
"Quarterback Trilogy" loosely organized around the themes
of being a former quarterback and Keanu Reeves. On a vaguely
related note, I strongly believe that while people are willing to
accept Keanu Reeves characters named Shane Falco and
Johnny Utah, if Keanu attempted to play a quarterback named
Colt McCoy from Texas back in 1997, Keanu would have entered
the Uncanny Valley of fake quarterback names that are too
ridiculous even for someone willing to pay money for a Keanu
Reeves performance meaning that we are now living in a world
where quarterbacks can legitimately have names that would have
been too over-the-top for Keanu Reeves only ten years ago

The Outback Bowl had everything-- gut-wrenching reversals of fortune, multiple lead changes, crazy offenses, writhing kickers, inexplicable costly penalties, and the fake field goal that everybody knew was coming. If Northwestern was ever going to win a bowl game, it would seem that the most appropriate way would involve some sort of ludicrous comeback. After all, every single NU bowl game this decade has been in the same mold (except for the 2000 Alamo Bowl) including the Debacle in Detroit, the UCLA Onside Fiasco, and the Missouri Why Are You Punting To Maclinstravaganza. And while watching the 'Cats lose in increasingly excruciating ways may put a bit of a damper on a New Year's hangover, it is far better than not making it to bowl games at all.

EXPLORING THE OPTIONS

I was recently thinking about the Age of Exploration and the extent to which explorers' lust for fame, fortune, spices from the orient, and just plain regular lust led them to set off on a death wish of a journey into parts unknown armed only with some swords, crude muskets, and Western disease. And, in the competitive, international, anti-Olympic spirit of conquest and intrigue, where could one go to meet a gloriously horrific end, what country was most likely to kill its explorers, and other such important information germane to an irregularly published college football blog.

The Portuguese were somehow the greatest explorers, expanding remarkably throughout the early modern world in a short-lived burst of relevance. Yet, their explorers did not fare particularly well, with Vasco da Gama dying of malaria in Goa and Magellan losing to the invincible forces of Lapu-Lapu in Cebu. Both explorers are memorialized by logos-- da Gama as part of a Brazilian soccer team entitled Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama and Magellan by the inclusion of a victorious Lapu-Lapu on the official seal of the Philippine National Police.

Lapu-Lapu provides a reminder that exploration and conquest
provides a rare attempt to list getting hacked to pieces by indigenous
groups in a failed attempt to extract armed tribute as a valid
occupational hazard

The Spanish-funded explorers fared better. Both Columbus and Cortes died in Spain-- the fact that Cortes survived despite making war upon the entire Aztec Empire and was able to return to Spain twice and even take a shot at the Ottomans for good measure is fairly remarkable. After his death, his remains were even more mobile, moved at the whims of Dukes who needed space, lackadaisical enforcement of his last wished in his will, and attempts to avoid desecration in the heady aftermath of Mexican independence.

Being an English explorer, however, seemed to invite the most trouble. Henry Hudson found himself on the business end of a mutiny-- although some suspect that the crew dispatched of their captain, they claim that they merely abandoned Hudson, his son, and his loyal lieutenants in a boat in uncharted and foreboding waters with every chance of not dying from hunger, thirst, scurvy, or attack by some sort of comical Bay Monster that seems like something that early modern sailors might believe in. Sir Walter Raleigh, the warrior/poet/explorer/ruffle enthusiast did not even get the pleasure of being hacked to pieces by a warrior in his search for El Dorado or killed by a crazed Roanoke survivor that had latched onto the back of his boat like a sort of Elizabethan Cape Feare (I'm adding the extra e for an authentic Shakespeare touch) but instead got beheaded by the order of James I for a complex web of reasons involving everybody hating Sir Walter Raleigh by the seventeenth century. And Drake had dysentery.

An official explorer death map indicating (from left to right)
1 Hernando de Soto: died of a fever, putting a minor wrinkle in his plan to convince
Native Americans that he was an immortal god
2 Hudson and the Mutiny
3 Cortes and a dysentery related death
4 Raleigh's beheading
5 Da Gama's malaria
6 Magellan's encounter with Lapu-Lapu

PULLING THE FOOTBALL

Northwestern's basketball team has also struggled in Big Ten play, losing in overtime (why not) to Illinois and struggling against a tough Michigan State Team at home. Hopefully, they can pull together against UT-Pan-American and gain some momentum for the rest of the Big Ten season and avoid mutineers, dysentery, and the N.I.T.

Shuffle Update

It is particularly generous of the NFL to give everyone a bye week before the Superbowl so that players can rest, coaches can hone their strategies, overzealous mayors can work out inane bets, and bookies' henchmen can order new bats. The weekend paves the way for the NFL hype juggernaut in an attempt to ruin football to the point where our desire to spike things or pour icy gatorade on each other seems pointless. Even if an opposing ballcarrier were to brazenly run through our homes or places of businesses, we become less inclined to stop them with a bone-crunching helmet-to-helmet hit.

Although they existed for centuries as part of the the Rath Yatra, juggernauts today form
only the second deadliest parade vehicle

NOT SHUFFLING

Needless to say, the Bears will not be in the Superbowl this year. The Bears did not even make the playoffs thanks to a truly horrific showing by the defense. I admit that I have no football coaching experience, and I have never played in a football game that did not end with a hapless participant limping off the field shouting "my valve!" or suffering compound nerd fracture, but from my layman's perspective, the something about the defensive scheme seemed off.

Bob Babich's "Cover 2" zone defense

Instead, it will of course be the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa Bay. The mayors are already at it, with the mayor of Glendale putting up a cactus, deftly finding a crappy gift that grows indigenously. My favorite part is that it's the mayor of Glendale stepping up. If the Bears had moved to Gary, I guess that the Gary mayor would have had to offer up an extraneous Jackson.

Even though the Bears have not won a Super Bowl since 1985, their legacy of terrible rap videos lives on. No doubt everyone has already seen the original, although I do want to call attention to Steve Fuller, who's inexplicable presence and terrible rapping often escape the attention and analysis he truly deserves. First of all, why does the backup quarterback get an entire verse? The Superbowl Shuffle already goes on far longer than humans should be able to endure, and includes an unnecessary saxophone solo. This would be like the 2008 Bears giving Rex Grossman his own verse, except that Steve Fuller was probably not at the time the funniest person in all of professional football.

Grossman lost his job in the preseason when a
pass attempt somehow ended with him throwing
a bucket full of glitter all over a confused Desmond
Clark

Fuller's verses from the Shuffle include the lyrics:

They say Jimmy is our man
If Jimmy can't do it, I sure can

and

We're not here to feathers ruffle

Mercifully, whatever twisted soul composed the Super Bowl Shuffle must have already passed up lyrics such as "we're not here to root for truffle" or "we're not here to cause kerfuffle."


The Shuffle lyrics were heavily inspired by an obscure
Sir Walter Raleigh poem where he compares settling
Roanoake to "making romance," boasts to "bring
on the Papists, bring on the Spanish, this one 'tis for the
Queen, tho' she doth look mannish," and declaring that
"I'm just here to sport this ruffle"

OTHER SHUFFLES

The Bears Super Bowl created a template in the NFL for winning which included a suffocating defense, a possession offense geared around a hall-of-fame caliber running back, and an abysmal rap video. Taking this to heart, both the L.A. Raiders and the L.A. Rams released rap videos in an unprecedented rap video arms race that ended with Al Davis pounding his shoes on the table in Paul Tagliabue's office, claiming that our grandchildren will wear spiked shoulder pades. The Raiders' video is most notable for the random Matt Millen appearance, while the Rams' questionably titled "Ram It" blows all the other videos away with solid Pointer Sisters dance moves. Unquestionably, the only way for the Rams to have improved on their choreography would have been to add elements of the boogaloo and camel walk as demonstrated by an expert:



My favorite part of the video is James Brown's semi-deranged grin as he randomly throws out dance moves off the top of his head while listening to James Brown. The video cuts off before we see him leaving the room, but I'd like to think that James Brown could not successfully leave a building without Bobby Byrd appearing out of nowhere to drape him in a cape as he finishes writing a check at the grocery store or returning some James Brown DVDs or leaving a drug-addled TV interview where he keeps shouting the names of his own songs.

The video craze seemed to have died in the early '90s when the Miami Dolphins' "Can't Touch Us" ended with half the roster out with strained zubaz. But the problem has extended beyond football. Recently, the Bradley basketball team came out with their shuffle for the 2008-9 season. More disturbingly, non-sports related enterprises unleashed horrifying shuffle attempts, such as this effort by the Southern Food Brokerage. Before we all laugh at these unluckily recorded people, let's remember that this is clearly the result of a hostage situation where a maniac forced the southern, mulleted, and elderly to rap for his amusement or else he would flood the market with generic Teddy Grahams and dunkaroos.



FEATHER STATUS: RUFFLED

On the basketball front, Northwestern notched perhaps the programs' greatest victory last Wednesday on the road in Sparta, thanks to a miraculous ability to hit 30-footers. The Mantis led the Wildcats with 31 points against #7 Michigan State, and the 1-3-1 zone defense forced 18 turnovers. Unfortunately, the 'Cats were unable to build on that momentum, dropping a tough one to the hated Wolverines in Ann Arbor, and falling to 2-5 in a surprisingly tough Big Ten. With home games against Indiana, a struggling Wisconsin, and Chicago State, the 'Cats still have a chance to make a push to the NIT.

Should the 'Cats make a postseason, I expect a proper NIT shuffle by the Bill Carmody Rhythm Galaxy.