Sisu

So close, but so very far away, the Lions wheeze their way to 3-4-1 and we all pray for rain in this desert of the doomed. We have been here before, and we know how this story ends. It doesn’t matter if it’s Fat Matt and Bob Quinn and their Patriot Way or Matt Millen and his How Did I Get This Job Way or Wayne Fontes and his I Like My Spaghetti This Way or Jim Caldwell and his I Don’t Understand How The Sun Works Way or Marty Mornhinweg and his Take The Wind Way, we are damned to repeat this nonsense, wandering in the desert of the doomed, where there is no water anywhere, and the end is just a shallow grave.

It’s apropos that the Raiders are headed to that desert to make it their home, and we’ll welcome them because we’re already here. Matthew Stafford is a damn fine quarterback, and he has toys to play with here in the desert and he makes beautiful sand castles with them, but it’s too goddamn dry here in the desert of the doomed, and it will all just collapse after being withered away by hell winds that never stop, that have been blowing for 60 plus years now, that are eternal and are the heart of the Detroit Lions story.

So, that sucked. Losing to the Raiders as they pack their bags and shit on their fans is classic Failure Demon shit. You can check out anytime you want but you can never leave, baby. This is all that we know as Lions fans, this stupid bullshit that has a thousand different names and a thousand different faces but is all one thing: death. Death and defeat. This week it was dying at the 1 yard line because we don’t get to have nice things. Next week, it will probably be somebody running out of the back of the endzone or a Hail Mary or just a good old fashioned buttfucking by the refs. It doesn’t matter how it happens, it only matters that it happens and it always happens to us, and my god, how long, lord, how long?

There are people who will never flee this sinking ship and I suppose I am one of them. There is that Finnish dude who marches around, his name is Joe Pauqette and he tries to infuse the team with Sisu, which means perseverance, and yeah dude, I get it and we are sworn Finnish brothers baby to the end, but my god, man, just my god.

Sisu is all we have as Lions fans. It is what keeps us together. It is what keeps us from falling madly off the face of the earth, cackling and huffing ether at 3AM, which is the time I am writing this right now. Sisu is the stubborn old man inside all of us that won’t let us let go of this godforsaken team.

Sisu is the heart of the Detroit Lion fan experience. It is all we know, all we have ever known, all that we have tried to warm each other up with as a Barry Sanders gets broken and a Calvin Johnson gets mutilated for our sins. Sisu is the word that we whisper to each other to let us all know that we are in this dumb fucking thing together, and I have your back and you have mine, and it doesn’t matter how this collapses like it always does because we have each other and even in the desert, people need people, and we need Sisu.

Moses once led a people through the desert, but this one is longer than that one was and there is no salvation to be found at the end of this journey together, only pain and regret and rotten memories. Moses knew about Sisu. He had to or else his people would have crumbled on him, strung him up and sent his ass back to Pharaoh. But he knew Sisu and he used it to guide his people out of that damn desert and into their holy land where they have proceeded to fight with everyone else there because we are all just idiot fuckups who can’t get along with each other.

Moses and Joe Paquette both understand Sisu, and so do all of us who have wandered this desert of the doomed for far too long. I am thirsty as hell and a few days back one of the camels spit on me, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? I can’t escape this desert. I have tried and it wouldn’t let me. All I see is sand and sadness, bitterness and regret, but I have you and you have me and we have Sisu, so maybe that’s what it’s all supposed to be about, I don’t know.

The Oakland Raiders are a gang of vagabonds, idiot hustlers who will attempt to tame this desert, but they will fail and their bones will lie next to ours, in shallow desert graves, while people gamble away their children’s future in a neon sunset that we’ll never get to see. I am 40 years old now, 40 ridiculous years old, and that is nothing compared to the epoch of sadness that is Detroit Lions football. When my grandfather was 40 the Lions were a good decade and a half into this desert of the doomed. When my kid is 40 (I’m sure there is one out there) he will look back and he will see me decrepit in this same damn desert and behind me he will see my grandfather and we are all here and the scenery never changes.

There are a lot of people responsible for this shit heap of a team. It starts with the Ford family, those Nazi loving fucks who have cousin fucked their way down the incest tree to produce a litter of ever stupider Fords, all suckling from the teat of Big Daddy Henry who started this godforsaken thing, this team, this family, this city and its cars. They are still here and they will never let go because this belongs to them and so do we all in our shame and failure. It is goddamn hard being a Lions fan, being owned by the Fords like this. It doesn’t matter which idiot of the week they put in charge here because in the end it all comes down to that old lady and her kids and their kids and it goes on and on and on and it will never end as we march through this desert of the doomed, with Sisu the only thing keeping us sane.

It was another football game, another inevitable defeat, and even the goddamn Raiders fans feel bad for us as they watch their dudes pack their bags to flee town yet again. I don’t know who is next up to try to lead us out of this desert, but I do know that it doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter to these Raiders fans, who have been abused for far too long by an idiot family. Al Davis isn’t a Ford, but he might as well be. Both sold visions of an America that wasn’t real, all while supporting fascists on the side. The Raiders are dead and gone, and we were beaten by their ghosts. Can’t even beat a goddamn ghost these days. That is life as a fan of the Detroit Lions.

But we still have Sisu, and even if that is all we have at least it is something. Our Lions are not leaving us any time soon. We are stuck with them, and they are stuck with us in the desert of the doomed, but we have Sisu. We have Sisu. My boy Harpo gets to cleanse himself of his Raiders and I get to sit here and eat shit yet again. That is just the way it goes here, baby. We are all in this together, and we will all need Sisu if we’re gonna make it out of here alive. In the meantime, I invite you all to get high as fuck and howl at the moon and I will see you all in Valhalla.