The Bears are on the Clock

Oh, boy, the NFL Draft!

Living in Chicago, where the biggest, most compelling football happening since about early November was the free agent signing of Marty Booker, the draft is like a beautiful bacon oasis in a desert of puffed rice. It's hope renewed, and the first official cue that it's cool to start thinking about the next season.

Think about it: The Pro Bowl is a watered-down, two-hand-touch Nancy-game. Free agency is interesting for about a minute. Minicamps are full of worthless, non-story storylines that Sportscenter beats to death. Heck, even preseason games aren't that great; yeah, preseason is live action football, but just barely. No, in the months between the end of the Super Bowl and kickoff weekend—September 4; put it in your GCal now—the draft is the only part of the off-season that is even the tiniest bit exciting.

Last year at this time, with the Bears coming off a Super Bowl appearance and the team returning pretty much intact, I wasn't looking for much—some youth on the offensive line and maybe a safety to step in when Mike Brown invariably gets hurt. Not only didn't I get those in the draft, but the Bears basically gave away Thomas Jones, making candyass Cedric Benson (whose Madden ratings don't reflect his actual abilities, by the way) the featured back. Injuries and inconsistencies combined with a tough schedule to make for a throwaway 2007 season.

2008 could be even worse for the Bears. The schedule is easier, but with the defection of Bernard Berrian, they are without a single playmaker on offense. Rex still has the tiny hands of a chimp, Benson showed last year that he's got no heart, and the offensive line is another year older and more rickety. Both Tommie Harris and Brian Urlacher are disgruntled about their contracts and Urlacher's coming off a sub-par season and surgery on his motherfucking neck.

So where do the Bears go draft-wise? I don't watch enough college ball or Mel Kiper to know at all who's good and who's a washout waiting to happen. If I'm picking in the Bears war room, I go unsexy and take an offensive tackle in the first round, though it'll be hard to pass on Rashard Mendenhall or Jonathan Stewart if either are available at 14. They also need an explosive WR but rookie receivers are hit-and-miss and drafting one high is often a bust waiting to happen. Other holes in the roster included defensive linemen, maybe a younger corner, and, again, a safety or two for when Mike Brown shreds his knee buckling his chinstrap during the National Anthem.

So there you go. I don't have any better idea who to draft than do Jerry and Lovie. Whatever they do, I'll be watching on Saturday—seven hours, I'm sure, Sweetpea will think are the biggest, dumbest, most philistinian waste of time ever.

Crotchety Rant!

I always like it when music and visual design get married. Or if you're Crystal Castles and Trevor Brown, get married blackout-drunk in Reno, realize after the fact you never intended to get married and you now hate each other, kick each other's ass, and take the nasty divorce proceedings public to be chimed in on by me and the guy from the Mountain Goats.

I won't get into the money side of all this art-ahj, the alleged contracts and non-payment, the conflicting accounts from each camp (...there I was, on my way to drop off some blankets and fresh peaches to the local orphanage, when Crystal Castles, wild-eyed and drugged-out, ripped my livelihood and identity from my organically-grown bamboo tote and printed it on their record sleeve...), but as someone who's been on both sides of similar situations, I can only say this: Get over it, everyone.

At it's core, this purported Horrifying Example of Artistic Plagiarism isn't actually so societal-fabric-shredding as the players and commentors would have you believe. It's really just a painter nobody's heard of sniping with a band nobody cares about over some queasy pictures on a t-shirt.

Yeah, we, as artists, all gots to get paid, and stealing is bad, and once lawyers get involved forget it, but can we please please please stop taking ourselves so goddamn seriously all the goddamn time, please? Very rarely, especially in creative circles, is anyone even remotely as important as they think they are.* Crystal Castles aren't groundbreaking, Trevor Brown isn't Earth-shattering, I won't change your life, and there are maybe three people in the entire world who give two shits about you and your schedule/kid/headache/job/opinions. Jus' sayin'.

*Unless you're Minor Threat and Dischord. Then, by all mean, go apeshit.

A Welcome Break from the Recent Sports and Video Game Posts

I scored 31 of a possible 34 in this game. My Designer card should be revoked.

Play Goddamn Fucking Ball!

Now that the weather's caught up with the calendar, it finally feels like baseball season. And what better first pitch to throw out than this classic from Earl Weaver and his Manager's Corner on the Baltimore Orioles Baseball Fucking Network.

Girls Don't Talk to Me Now, Either

With the exception of the afternoon I learned to smoke Kools in Chris R's backyard and that weekend we all went up to the lake and nearly sunk Bryan and Michael's Blazer, I pretty much spent my entire eighth grade year in my basement with this game. Seriously, stockpiled with Tecmo, a bag of Doritos, a two-liter of Dew, my Primus CD, and a handful of Slim Jims, my family might not see me for days. There was the season I notched 100 sacks with Bruce Smith. Or the full-quarter scramble with Don Majkowksi. 5,000 yards with Andre Ware. I once manned every team on the S.F. schedule and dealt the mighty, hated 49ers a perfect 0-16 season.

Now that I've found The Greatest Football Video Game Ever online, I fire it up over my lunch break for a quick dose of eight-bit nostalgia. Playing on a keyboard can't hold a candle to those uncomfortable square NES controllers but all the old strategy is there: Kick it short to conserve time. Sterling Sharpe will always outjump the DB. Derrick Thomas is unstoppable.

Anybody have Travis Staab's phone number? I'm jonesing for a Chiefs/Raiders throwdown.

If This Ain't the Mess, It'll Do 'Til the Mess Gets Here

One week gone by and this was supposed to be a post about how we're all moved and settled in, but some furnishing snags and three or four bouts with a nasty flu has us a bit behind schedule. Things aren't so bad, really. The movers, three forch dudes from Starving Artist Movers, got all our boxes and tubs and baskets and bags and furniture and bikes and everything into the new house and with a little (lot) more schlepping on our parts, Sweetpea and I set to finding homes for all our combined stuff. We're getting there, as SP likes to say, little by little.

Saturday night, we took a break from our unpacking to cook up a little soup and salad dinner and watch No Country for Old Men. I rather liked the movie, despite being Die Hard-conditioned to want a big showdown at the end, rather than the way the Coens played this one. I'd easily put it in my Top Ten for this year, if for no other reason than I didn't see more than ten movies in the last 12 moths. Hopefully we'll get the house together, and my freelance will level off and quiet down, and we can enjoy a few more dinner and a movie dates in '08.