Hey, Why Not?

Right, so I’m back. In the very unbelievable event (so unbelievable) that you’ve never heard of me and are wondering “who the fuck is this guy?” or “who the fuck does this idiot think he is?” which, I’ll admit, are both perfectly cromulent questions to ask given that I’m either some dipshit whose post your friend somehow got you to read or you already know me in which case you’re shaking your head and going “oh, Neil” and so . . . wait, where were we? Oh yeah, so I’m, like, this guy and I used to write about the Lions, starting in that apocalyptic death march known as 2008 and ending in, let’s see, 2013ish? Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, that was the point where my soul got sucked out through my anus and I was left shivering and shaking, a junkie to The Fear which consumes us all as Lions fans. I spent the next several seasons embittered and hateful, consumed with savage despair and sneering contempt for rah-rah types, huffing ether and watching soccer.

So . . . what the hell am I doing back here? Well, I’ll keep that short because a. it’s not that interesting and b. you don’t really care. Anyway, I bailed in revulsion when the Lions hired Jim Caldwell because, come on. He had a 26-63 record at Wake Forest, which, yeah, okay it’s Wake Forest, but that’s also the worst record of any coach at Wake Forest in the last 40 years. You can check. I did. He had a couple of good seasons standing around while Peyton Manning coached the Colts, but once Peyton got hurt and he was left to actually, you know, do his job, the Colts went 2-14 and he was immediately fired. So . . . yeah, not a whole lot of respect for Jim Caldwell, and given that I was still beat up from 0-16, had just watched the Lions grand resurrection collapse in a heap of twisted dreams and Ndamukong Suh stomps, I just didn’t have it in me to keep going.

Of course, Jim Caldwell ended up doing fairly respectably as a coach of the Lions. In fact, he ended up with the best winning percentage for a Lions coach in my lifetime. There’s something depressingly telling about that fact, something awful and soul-rending that should leave us all quivering in disgust and despair because, let’s face it, none of us had any respect for Jim Caldwell and neither did the Lions since they fired him after a 9-7 season which, again, let’s face it, would have never happened to another Lions coach. This is because I would argue that Caldwell managed a bare minimum of success with the team he was presented with, including a quarterback who, when healthy, virtually guarantees at least a mediocre 8-8 or so. It’s a passing league now and the Lions have a guy who can pass it. Sometimes it’s that simple, and in the world where that is true, Jim Caldwell more or less was just a guy who was there. And the Lions fired him for it because they realized they needed – that we needed – and deserved more than that. And that, I think, is maybe the biggest reason I’ve crawled out of my own asshole to fling my stink at you once again. They actually seem to care and so I guess I should too.

My antipathy towards the NFL and its general Goodellness and soulless flag waving and monster truck shallowness and nu-country buttrock aesthetic was also a significant factor in my disappearance to a shack in the woods of the soul, and, I’ll admit it up front: all of those issues are still there. And yet, I found myself watching the playoffs this past season and actually getting into it, which shocked me and which I still can’t explain. I ended up watching old highlights on Youtube late at night during ether binges and went on a deep stat dive on football-reference (I’m too lazy for even a link, which is something you either already know about me or will come to quickly find out.) and even bought Madden. It was an older edition for like $9, but still. Anyway, for some reason, I’ve been sucked all the way back in, sort of like a dude who realizes he misses his ex even if the reasons he bailed in the first place were never really resolved. Will this lead to a hilarious disaster involving me dousing both myself and the NFL in gasoline and then lighting a match while the cops yell at me through a megaphone telling me its not worth it and she begs me to just let her go instead of, you know, killing both of us? Almost certainly. And with that (it turns out it wasn’t so brief because I’m a liar and a ridiculous fool) here I am and here we go.

Look, the only way to understand the present is to understand the past, and to understand the past as a Lions fan is to confront horrors of the sort even Auschwitz survivors would have a hard time facing. Yes, it’s my first holocaust reference! Welcome back! Welcome back! Welcome back! Anyway, yeah, we’ve had it bad in a way that’s incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t actually lived through it. You can think you know, but you can’t really know. Not unless you’ve felt it, hoped against hope year after year only to find The Fear waiting to suck you into its embrace once again while Failure Demons cackled and molested your very name in front of you.

Let’s start with this: the Lions have one playoff victory in the last 60 years. And that lone victory was 27 years ago. They’ve never even sniffed the Super Bowl. It’s an absurdity that’s almost impossible to truly fathom. Hope has only ever been a vague idea. That is no way to go through life, my dear friends. It is basically the sports fan equivalent of being a member of the lowest caste in India, shitting in the streets and begging for scraps of food while even poor people ick out at our leprous filth. (lol sorry to my Indian readers, you guys are the best *nervous collar tug*)

And then there’s this: we’ve somehow managed to have two of the most transcendent talents in football history play for our team and managed to win exactly jack shit with both of them. Hell, it’s three if you count Billy Sims, and what the hell, let’s count him too, if only because it makes this next part all the more poignant. You see, Billy Sims wrecked his knee after only five seasons and was forced to retire before he ever really got going. A few years later, Barry Sanders came along and my god, there has never been a player of such stunning grace and otherworldly talent in the history of the NFL. It was like watching a deity take human form once a week to shame us all for our flawed humanity. Of course, after a brilliant decade with the Lions, even a god couldn’t take the spirit crushing despair that comes with No Hope and Barry said fuck this and left us forever even though he was still pretty young and had the NFL record book in his sights. Lions Disease is some serious shit, kids. And then Calvin Johnson came along, and amazingly, virtually the exact same thing happened. He had enough, quit before his time and is currently embroiled in the sort of acrimonious post-relationship relationship with the Lions usually devoted to Henry VIII and one of his wives.

This is not a game for the soft or weak-willed, friends. This is Lions Football. The sheer absurdity of Jim Caldwell and Wayne Fucking Fontes (his full legal name) being the two most successful Lions coaches of the past 60 years is the sort of thing that causes the brain to collapse in on itself, create a black hole and suck all living matter into it as the universe disappears. This is Not How It’s Supposed To Be.

But it is. Ours is a history littered with failed promises, with names like Steve Mariucci, Bobby Ross, Jim Schwartz, names that were supposed to work out but were crushed in that black hole. And, of course, there are the utter clowns whose very presence has sustained that black hole for all this time, the Rod Marinellis, the dude who went through a Wendy’s Drive-Thru bare-ass naked, and yes, the Matt Millens. Naturally, the Lions current offensive coordinator is a hick named Jim Bob who once climbed through a woman’s window, took of his pants and got in bed with her. Naturally, she called the police and yet, somehow, no one ever talks about this. Fuck it, I guess. It’s a mere speck of darkness in the vast desolation of our collective black hole.

So, with all that said, any real sense of Hope is almost insultingly absurd. And yet here we are, ready to take our chances again. The Lions hired Matt Patricia, last seen standing around looking like a fucking Hungarian caveman while his Patriots defense was embarrassed in the Super Bowl, costing Tom Brady ring number six. Of course that’s the guy we would hire, but what the hell, he does have that Belichick pedigree. I mean, I guess. Of course, one look at past Belichick assistants who have gone on to become head coaches should make us all weep with despair. Romeo Crennel, Josh McDaniels, fucking Charlie Weis. This is Not Good. But maybe Matt Patricia will be different. Hey, why not? It’s sad that this is all we have – hey, why not? – but welcome to being a Lions fan.

The unknown is literally all we have going for us. We haven’t died yet even though we live in a dungeon pit where an ogre cornholes us and makes us toss his salad every day, but maybe tomorrow that ogre will turn into Alexandra Daddario and will feed us candy and blowjobs and fly us away on her titties into paradise. Hey, why not? This is all we have.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the Sleeping Bandit is still the OC and the new defensive coordinator is a 100 year old man who hasn’t had any success at any level of football in 20 years. But maybe Paul Pasqualoni will turn into Madame Daddario and fly us away on his titties. Hey, why not?

I am perhaps being far too negative already, but I just want to be honest with you guys. On the flipside, the Lions do have Matthew Stafford. Then again, Stafford is also a source of much disagreement within the fanbase. Some thing he is Daddario come to save us while others think that he’s a charlatan, little more than a debased common Lohan come to fool us with titty promises only to leave us in an alley sucking dick for coke money. Is that enough titty talk? Is there ever enough titty talk? Okay fine, I’ll stop. Maybe.

The reality is that Matthew Stafford isn’t an A+ quarterback. He just isn’t. He’s not Tom Brady or Aaron Rogers, someone who can put an entire team on his back and will them to the Super Bowl. He would have done it if he was. But he hasn’t and that’s that. But he is a solid A- which with a good enough team, is more than enough to win it all. I mean, come on, Nick Foles just won a Super Bowl. You can win with Stafford. You just can’t build your team in such a way that he has to do it all by himself, which is what we’ve seen him try to do throughout his career with varying degrees of success. I mean, after all, in the 4^th quarter he might actually be in Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers territory. But there’s just something missing there. I’m not entirely sure what it is. Maybe it’s his demeanor. He seems like a huge asshole sometimes, doesn’t he? Every incompletion is followed with him expressing sneering contempt for a teammate. Then again, under the right circumstances, that can get framed as a dude who’s just highly competitive. After all, the biggest winners are almost universally sociopathic assholes. You think Michael Jordan wouldn’t have killed a teammate’s baby in front of him if it didn’t mean winning a single quarter?

So . . . yeah, I don’t really know exactly what to make of Matthew Stafford. Which is kind of ridiculous because he’s been the Lions quarterback for nearly a decade. That’s crazy. And generally if you haven’t done it by now, well . . . yeah. On the other hand, it’s possible he has a late career Elway in him. Then again, Elway had gone to three Super Bowls by the time he was Stafford’s age. I don’t know. Maybe. Hey, Why not? And again, that’s the best we have going for us.

Elsewhere, there are pieces and parts that we can win with. The offensive line hasn’t been, you know, good or anything, but there’s enough there that I can at least see the outline of a quality unit. (lol he said unit.) We have a couple of really good wide receivers, but neither Golden Tate nor Marvin Jones feels like a true number one superstar type. Jones is a great number two receiver and Tate is a great one-a type, basically a B+ and an A-. You can win with that, but it would be great to have that 6’4” 4.3 guy who can jump out of the building. Is that too picky? Yeah, but fuck it, I don’t want to settle for 9-7/10-6 with a Wild Card loss anymore, and I don’t think the Lions do either.

We still need a running back, Eric Ebron was sent to a Siberian work camp and the offense is almost there but not quite if that makes sense. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but I don’t have to make sense. I’ll leave that to Jeremy Reisman. I’m just here to tell you how this shit feels.

The defense isn’t in quite as good a shape. There are still a couple of good parts. Darius Slay has emerged as an All-Pro cornerback, the first the Lions have had since the Eisenhower administration, Jarrad Davis might be a good linebacker and Ezekiel Ansah is a kickass pass rusher when healthy and motivated. But “might be” and “when healthy” and “motivated” are ominous terms when discussing the dudes who should be the standard bearers at their positions. And then there’s this: we still don’t really know what the defense is even going to look like. Will it be a 4-3 still? Or will Patricia dig into his Belichick roots and pull out a 3-4? What about Paul Pasqualoni? Does Grandpa have any tricks up his wrinkled sleeves? Fuck if I know. In the end, all I can say is this: hey, why not?

Why not indeed. And I guess that’s where we are. It’s where we always are. Hey, Why Not? Tomorrow may be horrible. If we know anything it’s that tomorrow probably will be horrible, and the only sweets we’ll be eating will be from that ogre’s asshole on the floor of our dirty cell in hell. But maybe Daddario titties await us. Maybe we’ll finally see the end of Bobby Layne’s infamous curse. Maybe Matthew Stafford will go Full Elway. Maybe Paul Pasqualoni will rip off his mask revealing 1985 Buddy Ryan. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Hey, Why Not?

But just in case it doesn’t, I will still be here because I’ve been rejuvenated somehow. I can’t explain it, and maybe that’s what this season is all about for me. I’m on a journey again, and I’d really like it if you came with me. It will be harsh at times, off-putting all the time, and you’ll wonder over and over again what the fuck is wrong with me, but maybe I’ll speak to something in your own heart every now and again. Maybe I’ll be a voice that Lions fans need to hear. Or maybe I’ll just give you something to laugh at. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m back, and hopefully, for reasons that I can’t really see in front of me right now, the Lions will be too. Hey, Why Not?

The Mystery of the Cave Bears

Recently, an odd scene was discovered in a cave in northern Illinois: an entire family of bears slaughtered. Nobody has been able to explain what happened, if the bears were the victims of some sort of super-predator new to the area, or if they had been involved in some sort of feud with a neighboring clan of bears, or even if they were the victims of some strange ritual. The bears appeared to have been killed via bite marks and one bear, a large black bear presumed to be the father bear, had simply been strangled to death, although some experts claim that he was not strangled at all but subdued by what’s known as a “blood choke.”

Naturally, this would indicate a sort of intelligence unknown to the animal world. Perhaps a dolphin could possess the intelligence, but not the manual dexterity to perform such a maneuver, and besides, what would a dolphin be doing in a cave in northern Illinois? Don’t be ridiculous, man. Still, this new evidence has just made the picture all the stranger for investigators and fans of the macabre alike. At some point, it would appear, a human being entered the cave and choked out a large black bear.

Naturally, this seemed absurd, but local legends tell of a supernatural being that has appeared occasionally through the years, a sort of mythic archetype dismissed by most reputable experts as little more than a deranged fantasy, or perhaps a collective yearning for a sort of superman capable of weathering the withering horrors of every day existence to say nothing of the surreal horrors of these strange and terrible times. The tales are whispered, never spoken of in anything louder than hushed tones, as much from fear of the fragility inherent in such an idea, the fear that it could be lost if introduced to the poisons of mainstream society, as it is the fear that the speaker will be roundly mocked by his fellows. But every once in a while, a single name, a name that is more an idea than anything else, can be heard in the whispers and sighs of the wind: The Great Willie Young.

And that brings us to the curious case of an abandoned shack found in the woods only a couple of miles from the cave where the slaughtered bears were found. The shack was decrepit, little more than walls and a tin roof. On the inside of these walls were shocking drawings, lurid depictions of sex acts too depraved to repeat here. There was also an old rag, which experts have discovered retained what they termed “near-lethal amounts of ether.” Underneath this rag was found a dusty and cracked book. It is impossible to tell who wrote it or how old it is because many of the pages are missing and those that remain are, frankly, disgusting, half burned and half covered in what might be semen. All that remains are a collection of wild ravings and rantings, fragments of a clearly diseased mind likened to “a sicker Unabomber”, but occasionally moments of lucidity peek through the chaos, and intriguingly, these are rife with references to what may be The Great Willie Young. And now, for the first time, some of these passages are published here. Reader discretion is advised.

“He said that he awoke, as if from a fever dream, and found himself trapped beneath the bulk of one of those beasts. He did not know what to do, and so for a period of several weeks he forced himself to live with the creatures. He lay with one, somewhat comelier than the rest, and he said that it “could suck start a jet engine.” I asked him how this was even possible given the sharp teeth involved, and he just said “Baby, when you been around as long as I have, you develop a thick skin and I don’t mind admitting it, after a while you need something with some teeth to it to even feel anything. You dig?” I’m not sure that I did, but this “fever dream” he described, this sort of isolation of the mind, its wretched madness, reminded me of my own self-imposed isolation, the desolation of my soul. I asked him how he escaped from it, and he just shrugged and said “Even the sharpest teeth get dull after a while.” I did not know what he meant, and I doubt that I ever will . . .”

A further passage seems to indicate that at some point, the hermit’s friend or guest or whoever he was, had explained further.

“He said “baby, it ain’t natural for a man to live with bears so long like that. You wake up one day and you realize you ain’t a man no more. You somethin’ else.” He shuddered when he said it, and I thought of the new scars his body held. It had clearly been a fierce fight, but all I know is that he had somehow escaped.”

Another passage seems to devolve into madness, but there may be moments that hint at a deeper truth. But maybe not. This dude was clearly pretty fucked up.

“Willie says he doesn’t know if he can go back. “Go back where?” I asked him, and he just shook his head and said “You know. You know, baby.” Something about this chilled my soul, or what’s left of it, and after some time spent passing the ether rag back and forth, I had the courage to ask him. “You mean living with the lions, don’t you?” I could barely do more than whisper it. Willie just shook his head again. “I can’t say,” he said. “That ain’t for me to tell. A man lives so long, he lives the same life over and over again. But sometimes, a man gotta break free of the cycle, has to find a new way.” I felt I understood and, frankly, I achieved a measure of validation in his words. I huffed the ether rag and asked Eugene what he thought and Eugene just said “What the fuck are you asking me for? I’m only a squirrel.” It seemed as if days passed and then Willie turned to me and he said something I’ll never forget: “But that don’t mean a man is finished if he ain’t finished. A wise man knows the difference. And if it’s time to go back, you gotta go, baby. Ain’t no good living inside your own head, making up gibberish and hiding from a world that ain’t done with you. ‘Cause that world’s still gonna be there when you come back, and baby, one way or another, everyone always come back. That’s what happens when you ain’t finished. You finish it or the world makes you finish it.” I wept and told him I understood. Eugene called me a pussy, but Willie scolded him and told him “Nothin’ more powerful than a pussy, Eugene.”

After that, what survives is little more than psychotic drivel, the ravings of a lunatic. But there have been reports, whispers really, that a being simply termed “TGWY” has been seen in the wilds of Michigan, near the Detroit area. Interestingly, and perhaps coincidentally, sales of ether have also spiked in the area and graffiti speaking of “The Fear,” and “Failure Demons” have begun appearing on overpasses and on the sides of buildings. One piece of graffiti appears to be a crudely drawn image of a large man fitting the description of The Great Willie Young in sexual congress with a bear. Next to it is the corpse of the bear, a squirrel that appears to be masturbating with a human penis, and finally, these words scrolled in an elaborate script next to the scene, what appears to be semen and blood dripping from each letter: I’M BACK.

May God help us all.