I'm More or Less Back...

I've come to accept the Super Bowl loss of my beloved New England Patriots. Yes, I'm aware I take this shit too personally. But as one who suffered through the lean years, not to mention the aluminum benches of Schaefer Stadium (Anyone else remember "Shaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one!" or or the much later "Pop! Pop! Sitting pretty. All together in Schaefer City!"?), and personally attended the Patriots' second Super Bowl loss, I reserve and retain the right to take my team's losses to heart. After all, football is one of my few true concessions to American popular culture. (I spend the rest of my life snug and smug with the knowledge that my counterculture/underground/indie-cred coffers are overflowing).

Truth is that any other year I'd be excited that my adopted hometown's team, The New York Football Giants, won. I'd be excited if any team finally shut up Bob Kuechenberg and the rest of the '72 Dolphins once and for all. C'est la guerre.

Three things fortify me in the face of such a disastrous end to an historic football season:

1. Former All-World Pats OLB Andre Tippett was finally and deservedly elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tippett was an extraordinary player overshadowed by the play of NYG's Lawrence Taylor. In the 1984 & 1985 seasons he totaled a whopping 35 sacks -- the highest two season tally by a linebacker ever.
2. Pitchers and catchers have reported. Go Sox!
3. Come July, football will return giving meaning to our otherwise empty lives.

I'll refrain from complaining too much about how the weather here in the NE has largely blotted out the sun and exacerbated the worst symptoms of my chronic disease. Instead I'll re-concentrate my efforts on witty, acerbic, pithy and off-the-wall observations of the world at large. Or something like that.

-AF