Fun Fun Fun!!!

I am in a bad mood.

I lived through 0-16, and as terrible as that fiasco was, there was an air of unreality around the whole damn thing. Every week, I would write some freaked out gibberish about how the Lions were never going to win and there was no hope. The whole thing was like some sort of ghoulish circus, with fucked up clowns and freaks, dudes with hands for legs and asses for heads, bearded ladies and bearded clowns with asses for heads. It was awful, just a terrible thing, but it was also strangely surreal, and because of that it was at least interesting.

This season though feels very much like it does every time I look out the window. It's bleak, gray and cold, and some poor son of a bitch is going to freeze to death in a building again in downtown Detroit and a nation will shake its head and think what next? What next, indeed. I keep gibbering on about hope on the horizon and about how the pieces are starting to be put in place, but after a while all that noise just starts to sound like a parody of true belief. Every week that goes by, and with every new loss, it seems like I scream louder about hope and start banging some mythical drum of redemption in order to justify my fandom, but fuck all that, I am sick of doing it. The Lions are my team, and I will continue to hope for the best, and I truly believe that there is hope somewhere on the horizon, but it just feels like I am groping blindly for meaning in a season that really has none.

Oh sure, it's giving Matthew Stafford precious experience, but even that feels like something of a debacle. His injury threw everything off, and with everyone else taking a visit to the medical tent and having their broken limbs hacksawed off by weary and cynical doctors, no sense of rhythm or flow can be established and all we're left with are a series of games that cause us to throw up our hands and say shit like "Well that one didn't really mean anything because it wasn't a true representation of what this team can be or will be in the future." Well, that's just great. Hope is awesome. Hooray for hope. The thing is, is that in the end, all we're left with is a string of games that no one really gives a fuck about. They are just exercises in the macabre. Our dudes run out onto the field, half of them get hurt, they lose and then we all moan and tear our hair out and viciously turn on one another. It's a miserable cycle of stupid misery.

I want my team to win. That's it. Hope is awesome and good and I believe in the future and all that nonsense, but right now, I am just tired and I am sick of watching my favorite team lose every fucking week. I've watched it happen every week but one for the last two seasons, and really, I have watched it almost every week for the last decade. It's an awful thing, and maybe I have finally just hit my breaking point. We are all tired, we are all beaten and we are all sick of the utter misery which just never ends. Being a Lions fan can be tough, and some days are tougher than others. Today is one of those days.

But fuck all that. There is still football being played, and there is still something to root for each week. It's just getting harder and harder to find a point in any of it for this season, that's all. So, I think from now on, for the rest of the season, I am going to put the future on hold. It will play out however it plays out. I'm hopeful that it will play out in a good way. But this season is this season and like I said, I am sick of the losing. I may turn into an epic dick at times. Just know that beneath it all, I am hopeful and believe that something better lies on the horizon. I am just sick of talking about it is all.

Anyway, the Lions lost against the Vikings. Again. If this is surprising to you, then you are likely a great fool, and I apologize for your unfortunate condition. I'm not criticizing anyone or anything. I mean, I picked the Lions to win in my post before the game after all. It was stupid and utterly without reason or merit. It was, I suppose, my last gasp of hope for this season. It was a defiant fuck you to the realities of the situation, which are dreadful. I knew the Lions were going to lose, but I just shrugged my shoulders, said fuck it and laughed in the face of the failure demon while he ran me through with a sword made of cobras and razor blades. I said these are the things you must do from time to time to survive as a Lions fan and I meant it.

Unfortunately, sometimes you also must throw in the towel and turn savage. This is when my fandom turns feral and ugly and I start yammering on about escaped vampire apes and knuckle dragging werewolves on PCP. Do not judge me, for I have seen the belly of this beast and he is awful and utterly without mercy. Oh, the horror, the horror.

I'm not sure exactly when this season broke me. There was no real defining moment in the game against the Vikings that did it, or anything. I mean, there were ample opportunities - Adrian Peterson breaking yet another tackle, Brett Favre raining down fire to the waiting hands of Sidney Rice, any Lions receiver dropping a pass, etc. - but I think it was something that has been building with creeping dread for a while now. Maybe it started in the game against the Packers or maybe it wasn't until the Rams game. I don't know, but it has been coming on and I have been valiantly and stupidly trying to fight it. Hell, it might have never really gone away. This could still be carry over from last year, which was just a carry over from the rest of this ridiculous decade spent lost in the wilderness. Who knows? Trying to figure this shit out is a fool's game and will leave you delirious and staring down a terrifying rabbit hole filled with ghouls and flesh eating robots and clowns with asses for faces and oh Lord, it has been so long.

Even the strongest of us get broken sometimes, and it will lead to wild gibberish and idiot ranting. These things happen and we cannot look away for they are our terrible reality. This season is in flames, and although someone, somewhere probably has a fire extinguisher, he is a long way off, and for now, all we can do is dance in the flames and hope that we don't get burned too badly. We are all fools for staying, but our fandom is like a prison and it will not let us leave. This is the way of things and we must swallow that fire and spit it back out if we are to survive. We have suffered much, and now we must suffer some more. It's okay, we are tough, we are stupid, and we can take it.