Midnight Boxing

Back in 2001, that year when that asshole HAL went apeshit and apparently some monkeys threw some bones in the air while dramatic drums played in the background, I found myself piss drunk in the backyard of a friend deep into the night with a pair of boxing gloves strapped on my hands and one of my best friends standing across from me, pummeling me.

Now, this might strike you as vaguely odd, but if it does then you really haven’t been paying attention. Shit like this happened to me all the time in college, largely because I was an utter degenerate.

Anyway, earlier that night I had helped celebrate another close friend’s 21^st birthday by buying him a metric shitload (technical term) of shots. I, of course, felt it was my duty to match him shot for shot because I am a real friend. Cut to several hours later and I was standing in the living room of another friend with boxing gloves on. She seemed obviously ill at ease with the whole idea, but I assured her that everything was cool and I just wanted to wear them for a while. Then I punched out a window in her living room. She was remarkably patient with me, but still, it was time to take that shit outside.

One of my closest friends during that time was a dude who was an all-state football player in high school who had drifted, like me, into degeneracy. He joined me outside. He was soberish (I won’t say sober because nobody was, but in terms of relativity, he was sober. I mean, I was so drunk that Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas was sober by comparison. Anyway, for further discussion, see Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.) and he had also acquired boxing gloves. Meanwhile, I am a fairly athletic dude. I can throw a punch. But I was so drunk that I could barely stand which is, naturally, a fairly important thing when it comes to boxing.

I had another friend who sat outside and watched us because, hell, that shit was funny. He sort of took on the role of de facto ref because that’s the sort of thing you do when you’re all fucked up at three in the morning.

So, the stage was set for an epic battle. My friend was a sober beast and I was incoherent and even Iggy Pop probably would have told me that I needed to chill the fuck out. But fuck all that, it was time to brawl. Naturally, I got knocked the fuck out over and over and over again. But I kept getting back up, much to my friends’ amazement. They would just laugh – mostly because they were assholes – but I was out of my head and I would stagger back to my feet after a 40 count or so and start slurring a bunch of unintelligible bullshit and then I would get knocked out again. But I kept getting up because fuck them, that’s why. I kept getting up because there is something inside of me that is hardwired to not stay down. I am stubborn and the more I get beat on the more ridiculous I get. After probably the 912^th time I got put on my back, I crawled back to my feet and called my friend a coward and a cocksucker and a lot of other hideous shit. I was indignant and defiant, drunk and disorderly, completely out of hand, and he just laughed again and knocked me the fuck out one more time.

There was never a moment when I thought “You know, you might want to stay down you damn fool. You can’t win this. You’re too drunk and you can’t even stand up to throw a proper punch.” No, in my mind I was convinced that I would make it back to my feet and this time I would connect with a miracle punch and knock my friend out cold. (By the way, I know this makes no sense. Why would I want to knock my friend out cold? Just remember, I was shitfaced, and this is the sort of thing that happens when you are a man, young and filled with a combination of adrenaline and booze. There is no such thing as reason. He was there, we had boxing gloves on, and so damn it, I was gonna knock him the fuck out.) If anything, the only way I was winning that fight was if I vomited on him and he gave up.

It even got to the point where my friend who was doubling as the referee started to bellow the theme to Rocky every time I scrambled to my feet. Even in my addled haze I knew that he was mocking me but fuck it, sometimes you just have to fight for yourself even if no one else believes in you, or hell, even cares at all about the outcome. I am an intensely competitive person, to the point where it is not fun to even play a game of cards with me. I can make a game of darts miserable with my shit talk. I am relentless and blood thirsty and I recognize this about myself. I am not proud of it, but there are times when I shouldn’t win but I do because I won’t back down. You can name just about any sport or game and I can point out at least one time when I won just because I was a psychotic asshole who had to win.

That’s all great when you’re sober. But when you are completely shitfaced, and you can’t see right and everything feels like some giant psychedelic hillbilly circus, you’re just going to get your ass kicked over and over and over again. And that’s what happened. I had the will to keep fighting but I was too fucked up to really do anything about it. I was fatally flawed and that was that.

I want to say that there was some grand moment where I stood up and my friends all respected me as a fighter but the truth is, is that they just laughed at me until finally the night just got old and everyone went back inside. And then, I sat in the passenger seat of my friend’s car – the same friend who had just spent who knows how long pummeling me – and I wept like a stupid baby. I wasn’t sad or angry or upset or anything like that. I was just overloaded with adrenaline and booze and the combination makes for some weird side effects. One of those is crying. It just happens. You don’t even know why you’re doing it, but there you are, blubbering like a damn fool while your friend tells you that he understands and hey, it’s cool because it’s happened to him before too and then the next thing you know, the sun is coming up and you feel like a zombie and you have already wrecked the toilet with your vomitous thunder and so now you’re on your hands and knees on the back patio dry heaving and wondering if you accidentally slipped through a secret portal into hell.

I woke up the next day on my friend’s couch like some vagrant and my entire face was killing me. I looked in the mirror and my gums were all caked with dried blood and there was a mat of what I hoped was blood right underneath my nose, my poor, poor nose which would hurt for a month afterward. Everything was swollen and Goddamn, if there was ever a point in my life where I could have been thrown into some sort of shelter or rehab facility without anyone questioning it, it was then.

One thing about me is that even if I get stupendously drunk, I never black out. I always (okay, almost always. I am allegedly only human, after all.) remember what I did the night before, which can, uh, lead to some embarrassment. So, there I was, staring into a mirror in my friend’s bathroom (By the way, I just crashed at his place because my place was further away and, well, let’s just say that distance may have been a factor when it came to his deciding whether to drive home or not that night.), staring at my wrecked face, dried blood everywhere, and I felt both embarrassed and proud. I was embarrassed because, well, obviously . . . but I was also strangely proud because I remembered that I kept on getting up. Even though my friends were laughing at me and even though no one was taking that shit seriously at all, in my heart, my drunken foolish heart, it meant something to me. I kept making myself get up to prove something to myself. I had to get up because no matter how much I got knocked down, if I did that, then I couldn’t lose. There was no way I could win the fight because I was drunk and had been rendered retarded. But if I just managed to stand up after I got knocked down, then hell, I’d still be there and really, wasn’t that the point?

I finished looking into the mirror and I walked back out into the living room, looking and feeling like I had just walked off the set of a Romero flick and I saw my friend standing there. He saw me and just started laughing. I laughed too because really, what else can you do? But in my heart I was proud because I looked at his face and on his forehead was one big raw mark where a bunch of skin had been ripped off. It would seem that at some point, I had managed to land one shot. I was drunk and I couldn’t win, but I always got up and I never quit coming. Time eventually ran out and everyone went home, but I never lost, never looked at him and said I quit. Instead, I gave him a nasty looking cut in the middle of his forehead. I was behind on points, but if we fought forever, I still think that eventually, I would have won.

That is a convoluted metaphor for what just went down against the Giants on Sunday, on the anniversary of my birth. I meant for it to only be a paragraph but, well, much like that night, shit got out of hand in a hurry. But as that game was finishing up, that night went through my mind and for good reason. The Lions fought and they fought and they fought and they never stayed down, even though they kept getting knocked on their asses. But they were also drunk and fatally flawed. They were never going to win that fight. They couldn’t. But they kept fighting anyway until finally, time just ran out and everybody walked off the field.

It seemed like a game where everything from the ref to Dick Stockton to fate itself conspired to keep the Lions from winning. Hell, God even tried to kill poor Zack Follett. But still, the Lions wouldn’t go away. Dick Stockton spent half the game blathering about how the Giants could do anything they wanted against the Lions defense – which, no, damn it, just . . . no – and then spent the rest of the game gibbering like a fool and openly wondering how the Lions were still in the game. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the cameras cut to the booth and a shot of ol’ Dick wearing a Giants jersey. Really, shut the fuck up, old man.

But what made Dick’s dickery even more obnoxious was that it was a narrative that just didn’t mesh with what was actually happening. The story he was telling and the story that a lot of fans will come away with is of one team dominating the hapless Lions yet again while the Lions shit themselves, roll over and then die. But that is all a bunch of hideous horseshit. The Lions kept stopping the Giants. On a down by down basis, they were punching with them, hanging in there, and damn it, in a position to win that fight. But they were also drunk and fucked up, and they couldn’t recover from that.

Really, you can point to a handful of moments that decided this game. It wasn’t outright dominance by the Giants – the Lions actually outgained the Giants over the course of the game – and anyone who thinks that’s what it was either didn’t watch the game or is just being lazy. On the Giants second touchdown drive of the game, the Lions had them stopped on a 3^rd and 20 but Ndamukong Suh’s hands wandered up a little too high onto the face of the center, Shaun O’Hara, and what was a dead drive, killed by the Lions defense, was given new life that ended with a touchdown. It was a penalty that really had nothing to do with the effectiveness – or ineffectiveness in that particular case – of the play. It was just a stupid, quirky little thing. His hands got a little too high and that was that. It seems like such a fractionally stupid thing, such an unimportant little incident that it’s absurd that it should have had such an impact on the result of the game, but it did and here we are.

On the Giants third touchdown drive, the Lions stopped the Giants on 3^rd down and had forced them to kick a field goal. But, wait! Hey, isn’t that Cliff Avril swinging away like a drunken degenerate at some fool? It is! Well, hey, that had nothing to do with the play but let’s just give the Giants a first down inside the five yard line. Touchdown, thanks for trying.

That’s 14 points that should have been 3. By my count that takes the Giants to 17 points, and well, that’s a slippery slope, the whole if this then that game, but well . . . yeah. It’s not like those were pass interference penalties or things that actually had an effect on the damn game. They were away from the play incidents, things that had nothing to do with football and they lost the Lions the game.

There are those who will tell you that is the point entirely, that those moments are relevant and are what separate the good teams from the bad, and honestly, those people aren’t wrong. But when it comes to football, to snapping the ball and stopping the other guy, well, the Lions did that. They were just too drunk to win.

I will talk later about Drew Stanton gritting his way down the field and about how that game was the perfect summation of the entire being of Ol’ Plucky, but all that is just background noise for what really mattered, and that is that the Lions actually showed that they could play with anyone right now. It’s just that, well, they need to sober up.

Every time they would stagger back to their feet, they would just fall back down again. Drew Stanton would fumble or Nate Burleson would lose the ball in a fumble that was so barely a fumble that it felt like the refs should let the Lions keep the ball just out of principle or Ahmad Bradshaw would finally break loose and Goddammit, you’re so close, just take a swing and you can win this fight!

But . . . no. The truth is that no, no they couldn’t. Because they were drunk and fatally flawed. Did the Lions deserve to win this game? No. Did the Lions deserve to lose this game? No. That’s the best way that I think I can put this. They couldn’t win because they were too fucked up. But they wouldn’t lose either. Time just ran out and everybody went home. But even though the Lions are caked in their own blood, the Giants also woke up today, looked in the mirror and saw a big, nasty gash on their forehead.

I don’t believe in moral victories. I believe in winning or losing. And so, naturally, I’m pissed that the Lions lost. I’m pissed that there are people who will take this game and look at all the penalties and all the mistakes and think “Same old Lions.” But, Goddamn, this was a team that was down to its third string quarterback, on the road against a team that has a pretty decent shot at the playoffs, with a star receiver who spent the whole week unable to even lift his arm high enough to put a shirt on without difficulty, and they were drunk off their ass. And somehow, still, if one or two things happen differently, they would have won the damn game. That is almost miraculous. I’m not happy, but I’m not mad either. I’m just sort of sore and upset because we got knocked the fuck out, but I’m also proud because we always got back up and if that fight would have lasted forever, eventually, we would have won.

The Odyssey of Tom Lewand

The big news this past week(well, other than the dreaded Willie Young signing his first contract) was Tom Lewand's drunken drive to oblivion. Yes, as soon as the story broke, I knew that I had to say something about it. You see, it's my responsibility as a Lions blogger to show you these things. It's not like I want to do it. I have to. It's in the Constitution. You can check. John Adams didn't think we needed it, but Thomas Jefferson was all "Oh no, motherfucker. That shit is the bedrock of freedom." Then they went whoring. Ben wrecked some plain old French lady, but old Tommy went buck wild on a Burundian whore named Sha'Quilla. But that is all a story for another time. Anyway, back to Tom Lewand.

Today, the dashboard video from the cop car was released and man, to be honest with you, it's pretty great. When I first heard about the arrest, I figured the dude was barely over the limit. You know, the whole "Well, officer, I had a couple of beers, but I feel fine . . . oh shit, I blew a .09? That's like four beers, officer. Come on, now, this is bullshit," kind of thing. Then I heard the dude blew a .21 and I knew this shit was wild. I mean, .21 is college drunk, you know? That's "Fuck it, just give me the whole bottle," kind of drunk, the kind of drunk that leads you to do stupid things like flicking on a lighter, taking a swig of Everclear and then accidentally burning your house down with a giant fireball Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat style. That kind of drunk.

So when I watched the video today, I think I was expecting some hilarious shit, like poor Tom Lewand stumbling all over himself, falling down, maybe puking on a cop. There are those who will tell you that that shit isn't hilarious at all, but tragic and sad, and well . . . sure, yeah. But those people need to lighten the fuck up. For our purposes, they are hilarious, and like I said, I have a responsibility as a blogger to dissect and point and laugh at this shit. It is my duty as an Ambassador of Truth and as a Defender of Freedom. I do not take it lightly. I mean, I could join the parade of sad sacks shaking their heads and scolding poor Tom for his unfortunate life choices, but that is the way of the average man, the way of the square. It is boring as hell and my chief responsibility as a blogger, even more than my responsibility to truth and freedom, is to be interesting.

Anyway, that is all spinning in a different direction than I meant to go and I apologize. Back to the Tom Lewand America's Funniest Home Video entry. Like I said, I was expecting some crazy hijinks with that level of drunk, but instead I was surprised by what I saw.

I mean, the tape starts up as you would expect, with Tommy Boy swerving all over the damn place and in my mind, I was thinking "Well shit, here we go." I admit, it was ghoulish, but I felt a sort of gleeful anticipation. It's wrong and shameful as all hell, but fuck it, there's no time for self reflection here, there's a drunk exec on the loose. Anyway, things continue in a hilarious direction when the cop comes to his door and is all WHOA. I mean, it probably smells like a brewery in there, you know? And things perhaps reach their peak when Tommy reasons that the officer must be smelling A BREATH MINT because he hasn't had anything to drink in a year and a half. Well, Goddamn. I mean, a breath mint, Tom? A FUCKING BREATH MINT?

Indeed. Apparently, Tom Lewand enjoys sucking on Jack Daniels flavored breath mints and hey, why not, you know? But really, come on now. The cop then asks him what he's been up to and Tom stammers some incoherent bullshit, some gibberish about picking some other chump up from a bar or hotel or restaurant or from the zoo or from who the fuck knows where. The cop of course then asks him to get out of the car and Tommy complies like the good citizen he is, and then things take a bit of a turn.

You see, Tom Lewand was drunk off his ass. You don't blow a .21 without being legitimately hammered. I mean, there's no mistake there. There's no "Gee, officer, I guess I must have had one too many." At that point, you are fucked up and you know it. But good ol' Tom gets out of the car anyway, knowing he's doomed and gets ready for all the dreaded field tests that half the population would fail stone cold sober. He takes them and it's still pretty obvious that the dude has been drinking, but damn it all, I was impressed by Tom's ability to maintain. He held his shit together the best that he could and didn't really do anything all that embarrassing. There were a few fuck ups but nothing so egregious as to suggest that this dude's piss could probably be set on fire.

That's where the story turned for me. I felt a strange sort of admiration for Tom Lewand. Look, I know that's wrong and irresponsible of me to say and a bad example for all of the kids who read this blog.(I'm sure you all sit around and read this blog as a family, don't you? Like back in the '30's, how they used to sit around and listen to the radio as a family. Sure, why not? I mean, you've got Dad sitting in front of the computer, reading this out loud to the wife and kids, trying his damnedest to approximate my voice, or whatever he imagines it to sound like - maybe Frank Booth after huffing a bunch of ether, I don't know - and the kids all laugh and clap and get excited whenever I bring up monkeys or werewolves and shit. It happens. I'm sure of it.) But even though it's irresponsible and wrong according to the accepted standards of this Great Society to admit something like that, I can't help it. It's the wild rebel in me. He doesn't come out all the time, and I can even reasonably pass for human most days, but he's in there and he can't help it.

By the time the field tests were all wrapped up, I was actively rooting for Tom. Fuck yeah, man, you're gonna do it! I knew it was ridiculous and wrong, but to hell with all that, I couldn't help myself. And then the cops had to go and haul the breathalyzer out. Game over, Tommy Boy. Shit.

Of course, this then leads into a comical "Oh shit, if I take it, I'm fucked," bit of legendary stalling from Tom, who even invokes the old "But what if I get a false positive?" That last desperate gamble of the doomed drunkard is brought into play, along with shit like "I'm just trying to figure out my options. I'm a lawyer." It just keeps going and going and going and the cops just keep getting more and more pissed off until Tom is finally all "Okay, shit, let's do it," and the cops are all "Man, you better. If you even hesitate, we're hauling your ass to jail and getting a warrant to test your blood." The moment of truth arrives and they get out the breathalyzer, stick it in his mouth and then Tom, my hero, is all "Well, I don't know guys." I laugh, and the cops say fuck it and arrest him. And that's it.

That was the twenty minute scene. But what led to that? I mean, it's pretty obvious that Tom Lewand probably has a drinking problem. First of all, there was the whole "I haven't had a drink in a year and a half." That sounds like the proud ravings of the recovering alcoholic. Then there is the fact that he decided to drive with a .21 hanging over his head. I mean, shit, you don't do that unless you've probably done it before, you know? You just don't get that level of drunk and think that you can pull it out without some experience. That was no rookie drunk on that tape. His ability to semi-maintain was near Jedi like. Only a dude who has spent great portions of time as a functioning drunkard can pull that off. I mean, again, .21. That's seriously fucked up. Dude is lucky he could even speak English by that point.

So, what we seem to have here is the case of a recovering alcoholic who slipped up and went for a joy ride. It happens. But as it so often happens, this wasn't a case of a dude having a drink or two and thinking "What the hell am I doing?" before heading out into the night. No, when a drunk falls off the wagon, he fucking falls forever. The wagon rolls over his besotted ass and then backs up and rolls over him again. The horses even kick him a few times for good measure. By the time he's finished, he's broken into a million pieces, dirty, wrecked, and in no condition to do anything other than lay there and hope someone scrapes his ass off the road and tosses him back onto the wagon.

But still, how does a dude who's managed to stay clear of the demon juice for a year and a half find himself blowing a .21 on the side of the road while cops search his car? Well, here, for the first time, I present to you a possible scenario:

[Open on a suburban bar. A neatly dressed middle aged man peaks his head into the door. He seems nervous.]

Bartender: Can I help you?

Nervous man: Uh, well, I'm supposed to meet some people here. I think I'm supposed to give them a ride home.

Bartender: Playing designated driver tonight?

[The nervous man chuckles uneasily.]

Nervous man: Uh, I guess so. I don't see them anywhere, though.

Bartender: What do they look like? Maybe I can tell you if they were here.

Nervous Man: Uh, well, they look like . . . ah, um . . . maybe I should just come inside and check around.

[The bartender shrugs.]

Bartender: Okay, sure, whatever you want.

[The nervous man enters the bar. He runs a hand through his hair. He's starting to sweat. He shouldn't be in here. He needs to leave. He doesn't, though. For some reason, he finds himself moving closer to the bar. He rationalizes that his friends might still be there, that he just needs to wait it out. He's tired though. He needs to sit down. He's had a long day and it shouldn't be a big deal just to sit at the bar for a while and wait. I mean, it's not like he's going to be drinking or anything. He nods to himself and then resolutely sits down at the bar.]

Bartender: Can I get you something?

[Oh shit, the nervous man thinks. He wasn't expecting this.]

Nervous Man: Uh, I'll . . . uh . . . [Get a grip, he thinks to himself. Shit. Just order something. It will be a test. Yeah. That's it. A test. If he can sit here and stare at a full glass without touching it, he'll prove, once and for all that he's beaten this thing.]

Bartender: Sir?

Nervous Man: I'll have a vodka tonic. Go easy on the tonic. [Shit. Why did you say that? Relax. It's just force of habit. It doesn't mean that you'll actually be drinking it.]

Bartender: Alright man, here you go.

Nervous Man: Thanks. [Jesus. This was a mistake. God, my heart is pounding. I'm so nervous. My finger tips are tingling. I just need to calm down. Relax. You're fine. Shit. It's not working. I just need to get it together. What if . . . no. That would be a huge mistake. But . . . no. I can't do it. That would just defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? Then again, I'm not doing anyone any good this nervous. I'm a wreck. Isn't that why you stopped drinking in the first place? Maybe just a sip. Maybe just something to calm the nerves. Okay, here goes . . . damn. I missed you, baby.]

Bartender: You got a name?

Nervous Man: Tom . . . Tom Lewand.

Bartender: Huh. That name sounds kind of familiar.

Tom: Yeah, I work for the Lions . . . you know, the Detroit Lions. Team President.

Bartender: The Lions?

[A flash of disgust crosses his face. He tries to hide it, but can't help himself. Both men realize it and each looks away. Tom looks down and takes another drink. His life is tough. I mean, he should be able to feel proud of himself, but he gets that same damn reaction every time he tells people he works for the Lions.]

Bartender: Can I get you another one?

[Tom looks down and is shocked when he realizes that he's finished the drink. Wow. He needs to leave. Now. This isn't good. But without even thinking about it he motions for another one. The bartender is already pouring it and . . . shit, just drink it man. Just finish it and get the fuck out. You've already crossed the line. Don't be weird. Just maintain and then get home. You can deal with this in the morning.]

Tom: Thanks.

[Tom takes a drink. He just wants to finish this one and leave. He pounds it. Goddamn. Feel that burn. It's so familiar, like an old friend. I remember you. Feels good too. Oh, this is nice. Fuck it, what's the difference between two and three . . .]

[Several drinks later, Tom staggers off of his stool. He's finally willed himself to leave. It's too late and he knows it. He's fucked up. He shouldn't drive but he can't call a taxi. That would be admitting, both to himself and to the rest of the world, that he made a mistake. He's a public figure, a prominent executive, an important man. He's famous. He can't admit something like that. Shit. He's only a couple of miles from home. He can do this. He's done it before. It's been a while, but what the hell, it's like riding a bike.]

[Tom takes a deep breath as he starts his car. Shit, he thinks. Maintain. You can do this. He pops a breath mint. He belches and then exhales, slow and long. He turns the radio off. It's a distraction. You have got to focus, Tom. Maintain.]

[You're doing it, Tom! You're gonna make it. Shit, this isn't so hard. Tom starts to relax. He laughs. He just remembered the time Ernie Sims brought his monkey to the team Christmas party and it went wild and attacked Old Man Ford's wife. That shit was hilarious. The little guy shit on the floor and everyone got worried when Jason Hanson slipped in it because it looked like he pulled his groin but he came up laughing and so everyone else started laughing and the monkey started hooting and then tried to fuck Matthew Stafford's date. She looked horrified and Matt just laughed and said it wasn't like she hadn't done worse and she got all offended and stormed out and Dominic laughed at Matt and said it looked like it was "a night of self reflection" and then made a jacking off motion with his hand. Everyone laughed and Matt pretended to scold the monkey and . . . oh shit, oh fuck. Sirens. Maintain, motherfucker. Maintain.]

Okay. Maybe it didn't happen exactly like that, but then again, maybe it did. Who's to say? The only one who knows for sure is Tom Lewand. All I know is that it's June and thank God something happened. I know it's cruel and ghoulish of me to think like that, but these are strange and terrible times and we must find salvation wherever we can. If that is at the bottom of a bottle or in the story of a Lions exec run amok then oh well. I'm not proud of it, and I'm sure many of you think that I have behaved irresponsibly in this post, but this is the cross that I must bear as a Warrior of Light, an Ambassador of Truth and as a Defender of Freedom. I am a blogger, damn it, and as such I have a responsibility to provide both news and analysis. Some dude on Twitter said so. It may be ugly, but this is just the way of things. Vaya con dios, Tom Lewand. Vaya con dios.