So . . . What Happened?

He's yawning, not roaring. At least that's what it said when I went looking for a picture of a yawning lion, okay? Get off my ass!

After the Lions lost to the 49ers, I proceeded to whine and bitch and moan about my own sports pain and basically ignored the most important question out there: what the fuck happened? So, uh, yeah . . . what the fuck happened?

The team was flat. This was pretty obvious and what’s worse is that I knew this was going to be the case coming into the game. I predicted that the Lions would win 24-23 but I spent most of that preview post gibbering about hangovers and openly fretting because I was worried that what ended up happening would happen. I think this was the most obvious problem, the one that overshadowed everything else in this game. I kept waiting for the team – the offense especially – to shift into a higher gear, but they stayed in low gear right up to the end and then that was that.

It says something about how far the Lions have come in such a short time that they lost simply because they assumed that they would win. I’m not sure if I can put it better than that but let me explain: the urgency simply wasn’t there and I don’t think that was just because of some dumb hangover from Monday night. I think the Lions felt like they would eventually win because they had eventually won the last 9 times they had played a regular season game. The expectation of victory is a necessary component to success but so is a fear of losing and the Lions seemed like they lost that fear a bit against the 49ers.

That is an incredibly bizarre thing to say about the Lions and about us given the critical role The Fear has played in our lives but I think that it’s true. The human spirit is malleable and changeable to a degree that can be both inspirational and alarming. It never takes as much time for people to change as people think once their environment is changed. Call it the Trading Places theory. You know, that movie in which a couple of old rich assholes take a street urchin like Eddie Murphy and make him into a blue blood money mogul and a ridiculously upper-crust rich fucker like Dan Aykroyd and turn him into a homeless raving junkie lunatic? Yeah, that one. Basically, the Lions were plucked from the sewer by a couple of old ass billionaires and now they’re walking around town in shiny suits, riding limos and balling society bitches. (Excuse me, I mean ladies. “Bitches” is such an ugly term, like “Millen” or “Pereira”, but in this case it made me laugh and, well, my laughter will always supersede basic taste.)

The Lions were both hungover and overconfident and the result was, well . . . it was Jim Harbaugh flipping the fuck out like he just won the Super Bowl. And that’s the other shocking thing here – how weird is it to see an opposing coach react with such joy and celebratory glee because his team beat the Lions? It’s just further proof that the Lions have become For Real.

But that’s a quick digression from my basic point, which is that the Lions lost largely because they never thought that they would – or could – lose. That’s an exceptional amount of hubris for a franchise whose record for the last half century is noted in the record book with a picture of a sobbing baby.

Look, the 49ers probably did enough to win that game. They were able to run the ball, they pressured the hell out of Matthew Stafford and they took advantage of key momentum swings. But, the reality is that I think the Lions lost that game more than the 49ers won it. That may seem like sour grapes but I was sitting there watching that game, and like everyone else, from the players themselves to all the fans at Ford Field, I was just waiting for the Lions to put the 49ers away. And then Delanie Walker slid into the endzone by the span of a faerie’s dick and . . . you know what? Even then, I felt like the whole thing was just a weird aberration and that the Lions would pull it out. After all, there were almost two minutes left, the Lions had three timeouts and shit, here comes top gear. And then Nate Burleson was interfered with on 4^th down, no call was made, everything went silent and everyone just sort of stood around for a few weird moments, wondering what the fuck just happened. Oops.

And that’s how the Lions lost that game. Because they just assumed that somehow, when the clock ran out they’d have the lead because that’s just how it’d been for over half a season’s worth of games. When it dawned on everyone that the Lions were indeed going to lose, there was just a sort of eerie confusion which permeated everything and everyone. No one knew how to take it, because the game felt somehow incomplete, and the Lions never got a chance to do what they came to do. They farted around for a while, and then when it came time to pull the trigger they realized that their trigger finger had fallen asleep. It was a weird game. The 49ers realized that they were in a war and they played accordingly. The Lions just sat and laughed and drank tea, assuming that the battle would spill down the street and they could go back to bed when it was done.

Still, the Lions almost won the damn game. They should have won the damn game. Perhaps the worst thing that happened to them was jumping out to that 10-0 lead. Any sense of urgency was obliterated by that. Oh sure, the coaches probably nattered on incessantly all week about not falling prey to that hangover, and I’m sure that the players believed that shit, but once the Lions were up 10-0 human nature kicked in. And once human nature takes over, there’s really nothing you can do about it. In their minds, they’d already won and everything that came after just felt like a petty annoyance that would eventually be corrected by the universe. But then the clock ran out, it wasn’t corrected and, well, here we are.

I’m not worried about this loss. Not really. In fact, I have kind of talked myself into it being a good thing for this team, something that needed to happen in order to correct all of the bullshit I just got done talking about. The Lions needed to lose so that they would fear it again. Actually, fear is a bad word here. I take that back. They needed to respect losing again. Expect to win, respect the possibility that you might lose. That’s what you have to do and if that gets out of whack at all, then you’re probably in trouble. And that got completely out of whack in the game against the 49ers. Hopefully, the result of that game will restore that balance. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

As for the actual football issues, well . . . I’m just going to link to this piece by Ty, which pretty much says everything I wanted to say. I read that the other day and I thought damn right. Then my next thought was shit, there goes my idea for my next post. But I’m glad that he wrote it because I probably would have gotten all worked up and just started gibbering about werewolves or something. If you don’t mind me saying so, here’s the deal – if you want to know what went down against the 49ers, read this piece AND read Ty’s piece, combine them in your head in whatever form you like and, well, there you go. Hopefully, Ty doesn’t mind me conflating his excellent analysis with my uber-gibberish.

In the end, I don’t think this game meant anything other than the obvious – it was a loss and that sucked because losses always suck and it means that the Lions are now a game behind the Packers in the division. I guess if I’m taking anything away from this game on a larger level, though, it’s that this game could turn out to be a net positive, if only because it will force the Lions to once again respect the possibility that they can lose. Do other teams have a roadmap for how to beat the Lions? Yeah, maybe. But the thing is, is that if the Lions play like they can, none of that will matter. What this game ultimately showed me, and I guess this is the whole point of this post, is that the one team that is most capable of beating the Lions is, well, the Lions. That might seem a bit clichéd, but it’s true. I mean, the 49ers went to war while the Lions sat around like they just got done hanging out with Morrissey listening to old Mazzy Star albums and still, the Lions should have won that game. The 49ers stole that fucking thing and deep down, everybody knows it. In a weird way, it was just further confirmation that the Lions are a team that is, indeed, for real.

I know, I know, that sounds like senseless gibberish, the sort of thing a moony eyed optimist would blather about instead of dealing with reality but fuck you, I think that it’s true and honestly – and you’re goddamn right I’m playing this card now – I’ve been pretty damn right about this whole fucked up story since I started writing about this team in 2008. This was a game I saw coming and I said as much, and well, it happened and now we can move on. If we played the 49ers this week, I think the halftime show would be Jim Schwartz playing Jim Harbaugh’s ribcage like a xylophone and the postgame meal would see The Great Willie Young sucking the marrow out of one of Anthony Davis’ leg bones. This was a game won and lost thanks to timing, to a confluence of weird factors having little to do with actual football and more to do with the mental and metaphysical side of things. These are factors which are unlikely to repeat themselves and, well, there you have it. That’s what fucking happened.

Armchair Linebacker History Lesson: A Tale of The Great Willie Young

(I usually don't do this - in fact, this is the first time I've ever done this - but we have picked up a lot of new readers recently and I figure not everybody is up to date with some of the antics around here, so . . . yeah. I figured in the wake of the terrible loss to the 49ers that this would be a good time to repost this little gem, about the time that The Great Willie Young tangled with some hippies in San Francisco. I think this was only the second Tale of The Great Willie Young that I wrote and, well, enough rambling. Enjoy. Or . . . don't.)


Today's tale is sketched together using police reports and eyewitness accounts taken over a six week period in 1967. It would seem that The Great Willie Young had migrated to San Francisco (possibly as penance for destroying a whole Vietnamese village all by himself) where he apparently took up with a 19 year old street performer named Starflower. It is unclear what "street performer" actually means as there are conflicting accounts. Some seem to indicate that she was a wannabe actress, while others claim that she was a simple prostitute. Still others reveal that she may have been the Bay Area's foremost Kazoo player. In any event, she was young and idealistic and struggled for money.

Starflower's circle of friends at the time contained a variety of counter culture zealots, young writers and musicians and artists and dreamers. Most would end up drifting off to become bankers or lawyers, but a few were dedicated, hardened by years of struggle against a society that had no use for them. Among these was a young Bolshevik who called himself Mikail, although police records indicate that he was actually named Michael Jones, and originally hailed from Topeka, Kansas.

At 17, Mikail dropped out of school and moved to New York, where he settled in Greenwich Village and became involved in the beatnik culture. An ardent pamphleteer, Mikail was notorious for writing controversial missives that often times led to him getting beaten by figures ranging from a 76 year old veteran of the Spanish-American War to federal officers acting on orders from Senator Joseph McCarthy. Branded a communist, Mikail was blackballed from anything respectable and so he turned to manufacturing poor quality hashish and importing opium.

Mikail never rose above a low level dealer and was often only one step in front of the law. Constantly on the move, he became hardened and bitter, and would often get drunk and then begin ranting about the evils of Capitalism. It was during one of these benders, many years later, that he was found by the young Starflower. By now, Mikail was in his early 30's and had wandered the country, finally ending up in California. He knew deep in his heart that life had passed him by and he was looking for something, anything, to rescue him. When Starflower introduced herself to him, all wide eyed, young and innocent, Mikail, even through his drunken haze, could see his future.

The two became inseparable. Some accounts claim that Mikail served as Starflower's pimp while others maintained that he merely supplied her with the finest grade kazoos thanks to the connections he had made while in the opium trade. Whatever the case, it would seem that the duo were living together in a small apartment in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco when Willie Young appeared on the scene.

Immediately, Starflower was said to have been entranced by Big Willie (Once again, it would seem as though Willie had acquired the nickname Big Willie, although this time it was bestowed by Starflower and apparently had nothing to do with his physical size. Although whenever she would tell people that his name was Big Willie, her eyes would grow wide and she would blush whenever she said the word "Big." The meaning remains uncertain.) This, of course, was a problem for Mikail. Despite the cultural climate, in which it was not unusual for a young woman such as Starflower to have multiple lovers (In fact, it would have been unusual had she been monogamous), Mikail was said to be unusually possessive.

One night, Mikail reportedly returned home and found Starflower naked, massaging Big Willie's, uh . . . let's say back or else this thing could get out of hand. Mikail was reportedly drunk and began shouting and cursing Big Willie. Big Willie just sat passively and let the poor fool rant but was forced to spring into action when Mikail grabbed a frying pan and began chasing Starflower around the apartment. With a meaty paw, Big Willie grabbed Mikail and told him simply "You don't wanna do that, partner."

Mikail became enraged and struggled to free himself from Big Willie's grasp. It would seem as if a young rattish fellow named Haywood, who also lived in the apartment, where he slept on a bean bag chair in the living room, leaped into the fray. Multiple accounts state that Haywood was in love with Mikail even though Mikail was a notorious homophobe. It was even suggested that on occasion Mikail would get piss drunk and allow Haywood to give him a handjob, but this cannot be confirmed.

Haywood had somehow produced a steak knife and attacked Big Willie. After suffering over 35 small cuts to his torso, Big Willie backhanded Haywood, who flew across the room and smashed his head against a table, reportedly killing him. It was at this point that Starflower emerged from a bedroom with an antique pistol that the gang used to smoke hash out of, and attempted to fire it at Mikail. The gun, of course, was not loaded and wouldn't have worked anyway, but she was out of her mind on a variety of drugs and couldn't process this. Mikail, adrenaline surging through him, just laughed and went after Starflower with the frying pan again. Big Willie once again intervened, although he was rapidly losing blood and he held Mikail while Starflower beat him to death with the butt of the antique pistol.

Big Willie then collapsed in a heap and Starflower began to cry. Big Willie reportedly told her not to worry, and that he would be alright, but it would seem that she was more concerned with the fate of her pimp/kazoo importer, Mikail. It had just dawned on her what she had done and she knelt over his corpse and began weeping. Big Willie just sighed and struggled to his knees. He then crawled over to Mikail, leaned over him and dripped a few drops of his immortal blood into Mikail's mouth. Starflower looked on, confused, until Mikail suddenly gasped and sprang back to life.

Big Willie sighed again and backed away while Starflower hugged Mikail's neck. Mikail just stared into space, though, a dreamy smile on his face. He remained in a state of bliss for hours and when he awoke the next morning, the only thing he wanted was to return to that state. He had done a lot of drugs but nothing had ever gotten him as high as Big Willie Young's blood.

It would also seem that at some point in the night, Haywood had been revived in the same manner. Big Willie's wounds, meanwhile, miraculously healed and the gang uneasily went back to living as a pseudo-family. However, Mikail and Haywood had both been to paradise thanks to Big Willie's blood and while Haywood was dim and content to just remember the experience, Mikail was desperate, both to get that feeling back and to find a way to capitalize on Big Willie's magical sera.

For several days, Mikail plotted, looking for a way to drain Big Willie dry. It would solve both of his problems. First, it would eliminate his competition for Starflower's affection and second, it would supply him with plenty of the magic blood. The only problem was that once Big Willie was dry, the stockpile of that holy liquid would then slowly dwindle. Mikail was a man who thought ahead, and he knew that while he could be sustained for a while, eventually he would need more. And if he wanted to strike it rich, then he needed a replenishable supply.

Mikail began researching day and night, digging through ancient texts he and Haywood had stolen from a local church, looking for answers. All the while, Big Willie and Starflower had locked themselves in the apartment where he taught her how to, uh, properly play the kazoo.

Finally, Mikail stumbled upon an answer. He found a text that indicated that Big Willie's blood, combined with that of an albino cheetah would create a new living being. Mikail's mind began to kick into overdrive as he imagined a whole farm of Willie Young like beings he could harvest. An avowed Communist, Mikail planned to use his fortune to buy an island and retire there with a gang of strung out whores, where he would establish a Socialist paradise. The exact details are a little muddy and seem to contradict the very principles of both Socialism and Communism, but let's face it, Mikail wasn't exactly one of the preeminent thinkers of his time.

Mikail then explained the details of his sordid plot to Haywood, who just nodded dumbly and then agreed to help. It was with this in mind that Mikail suggested the group take a day trip to the San Francisco Zoo. Big Willie was wary. Since when had Mikail ever shown an interest in animals? But Starflower was overjoyed and began rhapsodizing about riding goats and communing with llamas and petting orangutans and Big Willie just sighed and agreed to the trip.

What Big Willie didn't know was that Haywood was equipped with a working pistol bought off of a strung out Chinese junky in exchange for five dollars and some random kazoo parts. However, what Mikail and Haywood didn't know was that Big Willie had anticipated Mikail eventually making a move and had spiked his own blood with one drop of venom from a rare form of rattlesnake found only in the Congo. Big Willie had once killed one of the deadly beasts in an epic struggle memorialized in several African tribal legends that we won't get into here, and had drained it of its venom, which he kept in a small vial that he kept on his person at all times. Since Big Willie often found himself naked, this has created a bit of a mystery, one which some have claimed to solve by theorizing that Big Willie would store the vial in his own anus, but that is scandalous hearsay and we won't put much faith in such outrageous claims.

It is unknown how Big Willie knew what would happen if he laced his blood with that rattlesnake venom, but Big Willie has been around since before time and so we must assume that he had acquired the knowledge during one of his many adventures. Perhaps we will uncover it later, but for now, let's get back to today's story.

The group went to the zoo and spent a surprisingly relaxing day enjoying the various animals. Starflower even got to pet a goat, which then vomited on Mikail who had to be restrained by Haywood from punching the goat. Big Willie and Starflower just laughed and Mikail forced himself to calm down. As far as he was concerned, he would soon get his revenge.

Night began to fall and the zoo began to close its doors. Mikail, a mischievous smile on his face, suggested to the group that they hide in the lizard house and then have the run of the place after everyone else had left. By now Big Willie was sure that something was about to go down. Mikail seemed far too anxious to hang out at the zoo and Haywood suddenly seemed nervous and jumpy. But Starflower would have spent a whole month just wandering around the zoo if she could and besides, he had promised her that he would get her Zippy's autograph. Zippy was the zoo's star attraction, a gorilla who reportedly knew sign language and who was known to be friendly to visitors. Big Willie planned on forging the autograph himself - Starflower, for all her beauty, was an extremely dumb girl - but he felt like he had to at least make the effort of going through the motions of getting Zippy to sign the sheet of paper he had brought with him. He would make Starflower hang back after making up some bullshit story about safety and bananas and hidden gorilla rage and then walk up to Zippy's cage and pretend to slip the paper through. With some luck, by morning, Starflower would have her "autograph".

Finally, the lights in the lizard house went dark and the gang slowly rose to their feet. Mikail immediately suggested that the group go visit the cheetahs. It was then that Big Willie knew what Mikail had planned, but he agreed to go along with it. Starflower whined about seeing Zippy but everyone just ignored her. After all, shit was about to get out of hand.

As the gang approached the cheetahs, Haywood began to shiver and shake like a junky. Which wasn't unusual because, hell, Haywood was a junky. This made Mikail nervous, though, and he began to lightly jog towards the cheetahs, exhorting his so-called friends to keep up with him.

When they reached the cage, Mikail scanned the enclosure until he finally laid his eyes upon what he had come to find: the rare albino cheetah. Big Willie just smiled and telepathically greeted the cheetahs, who returned his greetings. Let's not forget that Big Willie's father was a cheetah god. He then told them telepathically what was up and they all began to whine and growl at Mikail who's face turned ashen and waxy with fear. It was then that Haywood pissed his pants.

Mikail turned to Haywood, who was utterly useless now, and began rummaging through the poor fool's pockets. Big Willie just stood and watched, well prepared for what was about to happen, while Starchild did a silly dance for the amusement of some monkeys who hooted and jacked off with pleasure. One threw a handful of poop at Starflower but it missed her and sailed over a fence into the lion cage. The lions began to roar indignantly but Starflower ignored it all and kept dancing.

It was then that Mikhail whirled around, the pistol in his hand and fired twice into Big Willie's abdomen. Big Willie just groaned theatrically and then rolled his eyes, annoyed, and forced himself to collapse to the ground. Mikail immediately swooped in and wiped his hand in Big Willie's spilled blood. He would have to find a way to get to the albino cheetah, but for now, he had accomplished the main part of his goal and he decided to celebrate. He began to lick the blood off of his fingers, trembling with excitement when he remembered how good it had felt the last time. Haywood also scrambled over and began to lick the blood off of Big Willie, who just lay there, annoyed and disgusted.

Starflower continued to dance and the lions continued to roar while the monkeys jacked off and hooted. The cheetahs just watched, amused by the whole charade and waited for chaos to reign.

Mikail finished licking his fingers and closed his eyes and waited. He began to feel a tingle and then . . . something strange. A madness took him, suddenly and with great fury and he began to gibber and scream in wild tongues. He clawed at his own skin and ran, faster than he had ever run before, until he was safely hidden away back in the lizard house.

Meanwhile, Haywood had also succumbed to Big Willie's spiked blood and began to scream. He stripped himself naked and began to climb the fence to the monkey house. He dropped over the other side and was promptly hit in the face by a handful of feces. The monkeys all began hooting and screaming while Haywood ignored the blast and charged ahead.

It was then that Starflower stopped dancing and stared, wide eyed, as Haywood began attempting to fornicate with one of the monkeys who grabbed Haywood by his exposed penis and began tugging and pulling. Suddenly there was a loud ripping noise and then a scream of great pain and Haywood bolted from the cage, ripping the door off of his hinges in his madness, and streaked through the zoo, dickless. The monkeys began chasing him in a horrible scene, and they were soon joined by the agitated lions who had managed to jump their fence after having been riled up by the errant monkey shit.

The last anyone saw of Haywood was him climbing a tree while a young monkey climbed up after him. It was reported that zookeeper's later recovered only a foot and the half eaten remains of Haywood's penis.

Meanwhile, Starflower had noticed Big Willie lying on the ground, bleeding out. With a gasp she went to check on him and finding him apparently dead she began to sob. It was then that Big Willie opened his eyes. He took Starflower gently by the hand and whispered to her "It ain't no thing, baby doll. It ain't no thing." He smiled and she wiped her tears away and smiled back. She had finally realized that she was in love with all of Big Willie and not just with his kazoo.

Meanwhile, back in the lizard house, Mikail had gone completely insane. He stumbled around in the dark, naked and muttering to himself about albino cheetahs and a whore named Candy he had left behind in New York. Suddenly the lights came on, and before him was standing a muscular young man.

Mikail didn't notice him at first since he was out of his head, but it slowly dawned on him that he was not alone. "Who . . . who are you?" he managed to ask and the man just smiled grimly and stepped forward.

"Some call me Ernie Sims. But most know me as . . . The Lizard King." The Lizard King then snapped his regal fingers and suddenly Mikail was set upon by a throng of angry lizards. It is believed that they devoured him whole, but zookeepers denied the story and claimed that the keeper of the lizard house was an old man named Ezekiel Wilson and he had been asleep during the whole ordeal. However, authorities did find a 2005 ACC Championship ring lying on the floor of the lizard house. Since it was 1967, this naturally caused quite a stir, but it was later buried when nameless government officials, all clad in black, marched into the station of the San Francisco Police Department and demanded that the ring be turned over to them. They took the ring and then left without a word. The ring was never seen again, but witnesses claim that it was indeed there and was inscribed with the words FLORIDA STATE 2005 ACC CHAMPIONS LB ERNIE SIMS.

As for Big Willie, he and Starflower returned to their apartment, where they spent the better part of two weeks making love until one day Big Willie rose with the morning sun, looked at Starflower, smiled and said "Baby, Big Willie's gotta be movin' on." Starflower began to cry, but she said that she understood. Big Willie pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, looked into her eyes and then vanished in a cloud of smoke. And with that, another tale of The Great Willie Young came to its conclusion.

Dark City

Maybe this image will make sense to you after you read the contents of this post. Then again, maybe not. Hell, I don't know.

It is my birthday on Monday, the 17^th of October in the year of The Great Willie Young 2011, and as a gift the universe decided to piss on my face and then shit on my soul. This isn’t just because the Lions lost – after all, I kind of saw this coming – but because it was the turd on top of the shit sundae that was my sports weekend. In order to truly understand where I’m coming from you have to . . . well, you’d have to be me, which I fear would be too terrifying a thing for most of you – hell, it’s too terrifying for me a lot of the time – but I think you can at least get the gist of it if you understand some basic concepts.

First of all, it is no secret that I am a huge fan of the Michigan Wolverines. Always have been. And for the most part that’s been great. But the last few years have, uh, been a little rough and nothing has been rougher than having to sit here and watch Mark Dantonio and his gang of heathen Spartans rise like some terrible Leviathan from a den of flaming couches. (I kid, my Spartan brothers and sisters, because I love. Well, not so much right now, but you know what I mean, right? At the end of the day we are all friends so just take whatever vile slings and arrows I hurl your way here with a grain of salt. Okay, you fucking degenerates? No, wait, where are you going? Come back. I . . . I didn’t mean it. Fuckers. Okay, I’m done now.) while my team shits its pants over and over and over again. But this season has been different. Or at least I thought. My Wolverines were 6-0 and while they had also been undefeated coming into the game against Michigan St. the last two seasons, those seasons were marred by the fact that my Wolverines had a defense so abominably bad that there was a real chance that Rich Rodriguez and Greg “Gerg” Robinson were going to be brought up on War Crimes for conspiring with the enemy to allow their own people to be mercilessly slaughtered. This season, though, Brady Hoke took over (instead of everyone’s Plan A, Jim Harbaugh, but we’ll get to that later.), he brought Baltimore Ravens Defensive Coordinator Greg Mattison with him and the defense seemed to be at least something resembling respectable. So . . . yeah, I foolishly got my hopes up and desperately wanted this year to be the one in which cosmic order was restored to the Big 10 and to my Michigan loving heart. Cut to about 3:30 yesterday afternoon and I was on my hands and knees like some broken fool ranting and raving to the football gods. It’s possible that I even compared myself to Prometheus. (Both our livers are constantly gnawed upon, although the only gods gnawing on mine are the ones who live at the bottom of a Southern Comfort bottle. Then again, maybe the bird who ate Prometheus’ liver wasn’t an eagle at all but a tiny demon that lived at the bottom of a bottle of Thunderbird. Think about it. Also, yes, I recognize that this is proof that my mind has been broken. Let’s just move on before things get really weird.)

Anyway, that was a bad way to start the weekend. At least for me. I understand that I probably just lost half of you and another quarter of you don’t give a fuck about college football either way, so to my reduced audience, I say thanks for hanging in there. We’ll get to the Lions game shortly.

It’s also no big secret from my ravings on Twitter or the blog Baseball Feelings (where I have generally taken a more minimalist approach to blogging which I know is almost impossible to believe given the absurd level of sheer gibberish on display here week after week.) and other assorted Internet hives of scum and general villainy that I am a pretty big fan of the Detroit Tigers, which is something that for years was kind of like being a fan of taking a blowtorch to the genitals while a beaver gnawed away at whatever was left over. But a few years ago the Tigers actually rose from the dead and have been chasing that elusive World Series triumph ever since. This year finally seemed like it might be the year. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe it for most of the year but starting in September those fuckers made me start to believe. And then when they put away those heathen Yankees, whatever resistance I had left – whatever was hanging around looking after my mental well-being – broke and I began to believe in the impossible, that my Detroit Tigers could win it all. And while that took some blows in the series against the Rangers, the Tigers managed to stay alive in Game 5 and then took a 2-0 lead in Game 6. Holy shit, they’re gonna do it! Yeah . . . about that.

A half inning later, I was gibbering like a fool, Jim Leyland was hanging naked from a cross, Nelson Cruz was burning that wrinkled old naked body with Jimmy’s own Winstons, and everyone on Twitter was consoling me. So much for that dream.

And it’s with that as the background – the destruction of multiple sports dreams which I had been fiercely clinging to for the last couple of months – that my 5-0 Detroit Lions took the field to face off against the 4-1 49ers and Jim Harbaugh, the man who had famously spurned my – and his – Michigan Wolverines back in January, leaving them to scramble for a replacement. In retrospect, this confluence of events was rather obvious, the symmetrical work of Fate and if I were a smarter man I would have seen something like this coming.

But I was moony eyed with pixie dust and dreams and so I went into this weekend full of hope, ready to claim all that which lived already in the most hidden parts of my heart. It was with that joyous pomp and with the memory of the Lions consuming Jay Cutler’s soul on Monday Night still fresh in my head that I decided that this week would be an okay one for the Lions to lose. No . . . okay isn’t the right word. I guess “tolerable” is closer. I really, really didn’t want them to lose but I guess I felt like if they were going to – and let’s face it, we all knew they were going to eventually – I would rather it come now, while my heart was glad and my soul was filled with the light of a billion stars. (Don’t get all worked up. I still really, really wanted them to win this week. It just didn’t feel as life and death as it did, say, last week. That’s all I’m saying.)

But then all of the above nonsense happened and suddenly this Lions game took on a new importance. At least for me. I’m not speaking for anyone else here. I’m not saying this had epic consequences or that we were collectively standing on some sort of brink staring into doom or any other hyperbolic horseshit like that. I’m just saying that I was sad and I wanted my favorite football team, the Detroit Lions, to make me happy.

And that’s what everyone told me on Twitter last night too. Unfathomably, the Detroit Lions had become my savior, my shining light that I looked to in dark times. In retrospect this is a hilarious concept. Hell, at the time it seemed ridiculous, but this is how far the Lions have come and honestly, just the fact that I could honestly say and believe something like that makes me happy. Maybe this actually is, as my twitter pal Nick (@iamfakenick) said to me last night, the future.

Then again, maybe not. For the weekend, I’m pretty sure my teams’ quarterbacks were sacked a combined 168 times. That actually may be a low estimate. I’m not sure. I heard the voice of that that lizard fiend Mike Pereira penetrate my wounded consciousness another 4 or 5 times like the voice of the devil taunting me while I burned. I watched the refs call a throw away a safety, make up some new rules in order to justify their own interpretations of whatever acid-induced reality they were living in and then my Lions gave up the lead and the game by a single inch on a 4^th down play, much like the fortunes of my Michigan Wolverines turned yesterday on a single inch on a 4^th down play late in the 4^th quarter of their game. And so it goes.

The universe decided it hated me again. At least for one weekend and while I will no doubt recover and remember that my Lions are 5-1, my Wolverines are 6-1 and my Tigers won 95 games and almost made the World Series this year, for now all I know is that on Friday my dreams seemed limitless and beautiful and by Sunday at about 4:30 PM my heart was filled with sorrow and my blurred vision was only capable of picking out Jim Harbaugh - the same man who famously walked away from the pleading wails of the Michigan faithful and broke my heart in the process - strutting off the field, victorious, his arms raised and the whole thing just felt like some cruel game, a jape played at my own idiot expense.

Rarely do I feel as much like just some pathetic zoo animal as I do today, like I’m just here to amuse the sports gods, my happiness and my despair mere playthings at their disposal. Shit, I even watched Dark City late last night. How much more evidence do you need that this whole damn weekend was cosmically engineered? Let’s not forget that it’s also my birthday so of course this all happened.

Naturally, when it was all over, the only thing that my spirit could do was rise up from my fractured shell of a body, drift screaming on the wind to Ford Field, temporarily possess the body of Jim Schwartz and then try to beat the shit out of Jim Harbaugh. I’m just assuming that was what happened. It makes sense. At least to me anyway. Then again, my perspective has been skewed by the fact that my brain just melted and by the fact that I just spent the last hour painting my face and wandering around in the woods like Colonel Kurtz. So who’s to say what’s sensible?

All I know is that I don’t want to be Whiouxsie’s slave (Read the preview piece from Friday if this doesn’t make any sense to you. Hell, there’s a good chance that it still won’t make sense after you read it but if you really expect me of all people to make sense, then perhaps you are the insane one, my friend.) and that I really, really wanted – needed – my Lions to win today. I know I haven’t talked that much about what actually happened in the game but that is because I can’t without drinking the blood of a small dog to satiate the wild rage that I know such descriptions would cause and I don’t want to drink the blood of a small dog. After all, I am a vegan.

It’s simply enough to know right now that the whole thing happened about as cruelly as it could. Inches man. Inches. That’s the difference between me sitting here and writing this dirge and me sitting here and telling you about the redemption of my sports loving soul. And in those inches lie infinite screams and the shredded remains of my heart. This is all very ridiculous and I know that and like I said, tomorrow I will sit down and remember that my Lions are 5-1 and that I even predicted that something like this might happen and that I should just chill out. But today I just feel sad, okay?

The Lions losing is not that big a deal all on its own, but in the context of my entire weekend, of this weekend’s existence and promise as the culmination of everything that I dared to hope and believe in as a sports fan, it is something else entirely. I’m still not exactly sure what, but my sports world suddenly feels a little grayer, a little colder than it did a couple of days ago and the ridiculous part of me which writes these damn things can’t help but notice the confluence of events, the almost unbelievable symmetry and synchronicity of it all. The fact that it is my birthday weekend just seems somehow too, I don’t know . . . too . . . perfect. Like, really? Come on, man.

Happy birthday, Neil.

Love, the Universe (P.S. for your present we got you this box full of bees. Their stingers are all tipped with failure, horror and AIDS. Congrats!)

Yes, I know I have spun out of control here and no one reading this feels even a fraction of my sports pain but goddammit, sometimes these things just feel personal and this is one of those times, strange and terrible as it is. The totality of the terrible failure of this weekend is something which doesn’t exist to everyone reading this – or even to the majority of people reading this – but I suspect that it exists to a select few, those intrepid spirit warriors who dare to fire walk with me down the same dark paths I call my own. And it doesn’t exist to anyone as uniquely as it does to me, at least not in quite so bizarre a way. So, even though this has been horribly self-indulgent, I don’t apologize for any of it. I have made an ass out of myself, but I feel like an ass so it’s appropriate. Fate and the universe have made a colossal ass out of the sports fan in me this weekend and this is just what happens in its wake.

The Lions lost and they lost in a way that ate the last crumbs of my sports soul, but to hell with all that, they’ll be back. They’re okay and they’ll be okay going forward. They’re 5-1, they just had to suffer through the indignity of the hangover from Monday night, so they shit their pants and now it’s time to go to their room, heads hung low and in shame and change those fucking drawers. I don’t want to make more of this than it is. (A little late for that shit, dude.) I mean, at least as far as the Lions go. The rest of this has just been the bitter ravings of a broken man, a sports fan who had his ass kicked one too many times in one too many ways this weekend. Unfortunately, the Lions were a part of that and, well, here we are.

I just wish that my spirit wouldn’t have been forced out of Jim Schwartz’s body before it got a punch at Harbaugh off. That would have made me feel better, I think. But enough of this gibberish. It is unbecoming and I am shaming myself now. It’s time to move on, and it’s time to start remembering that this was just a blip, the shot we all knew was coming, even if we didn’t want to admit it to ourselves. And now we – you, me, the Lions themselves - can all move on. So that’s just what I am going to do. And that’s that.

And Now . . . The Hangover

I feel you, bro.

To be honest, I still haven’t really recovered from The Glory and every time I close my eyes and think of the Lions I still have visions of The Great Willie Young skinning Jay Cutler alive while Jay squeals and begs for mercy. That may or may not give you an uncomfortable level of insight into what goes on in this strange and savage brain of mine, but the point is that I am not ready for this game against the 49ers. I’m just not. And while I am not an official member of the Detroit Lions organization (At least not yet. I’m in the midst of trying to convince Old Man Ford to name me his Minister of Propoganda. Negotiations are going . . . slowly and have thus far included me being dumped naked in a corn field after I insulted Edsel Ford.) I’m worried that the same could be true for our mighty warriors.

Now I’m not saying that they’re definitely going to come out and lay a turd on Sunday, but it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me either. I trust that Jim Schwartz was drilling this very thing into their heads almost as soon as the crowd finished counting down the last 5 seconds of the game on Monday. But human nature is what it is and there has to be some hangover here, right? I mean, I am kind of an expert on hangovers. I understand these things. But no matter how well you understand a hangover, it doesn’t keep you from still getting one, you know? And therein lies the problem.

No matter what the Lions say – either publicly or to themselves – they are going to be hungover. Our only hope is that they are good enough to overcome the bloodshot eyes, the fucked up stomach, the sense that the world is preparing to shit right on your head and then eat your brain, and that they can escape with yet another victory. The good news is that they are playing at home, Ford Field, which has basically become a nuclear powered zoo this season, complete with mutant animals hooting and howling, slobbering all over themselves in search of the blood of the innocent and stupid. The bad news is that, just like everyone else involved in The Glory, the crowd will likely be a bit hungover too. Asking them to summon the same otherworldly passion that was on display on Monday is asking the impossible. Oh sure, they’ll still be loud, they’ll still be disruptive, but that kind of passion can’t be duplicated. Well, at least not without hearts exploding and warriors riding off to Valhalla on their spirit horses.

The other piece of bad news is that they’re playing a real, live football team this week. Oh Lord, what I wouldn’t give for this weekend’s game to be against some scrub team like the Dolphins or Colts (how weird is it to be able to say that?) or even the Eagles (insert schadenfreude induced laughter here.) Instead, the Lions have to play the 49ers on Sunday and amazingly, the 49ers actually look like a real team right now.

Yes, thanks to that turncoat Jim Harbaugh, who pissed on my heart back in January, the 49ers have risen from the dead, escaping the tyranny of mediocrity and of Mike Singletary’s fallen pants, to emerge as a team that is clearly – clearly – the class of the NFC West. And while that may not be saying much, the fact that they broke the back of the Buccaneers and made them humble (I mean, 48-3 is 48-3 no matter how your frame it, you know?) is impressive enough to make all the BLAH BLAH HOW ‘BOUT THE NFC WEST WHAT A BUNCH OF CLOWNS AMIRITE? gibberish irrelevant. At least for a week.

I’m not saying I’m scared of the 49ers. I’m really not. It’s just that this week is really, really not a good week to catch a team that appears to be peaking. We’re hungover and all we want to do is sleep in, maybe watch some shitty TV, perhaps vomit if the need arises and then try to psyche ourselves up for another round of debauchery. Meanwhile, the 49ers are the overeager asshole showing up at our door after drinking 18 cups of coffee, wild eyed fervor in their eyes, ready to seize the day. Sure, in real life you can just slam the door on that asshole’s face or chase him off your front porch with a shotgun but we have to let the 49ers in the front door because Sheriff Goodell says so and goddammit, that’s just the way it is.

Okay . . . fine, it’s time to get it together. It’s time to get hyped. It’s time to remind everyone that there are Armchair Linebacker bragging right at stake here. If the 49ers win, I will be forced to become Whiouxsie’s slave. It’s true. This is serious. He has already told me that he has had a set of chains installed in his basement wall and that he sometimes gets angry and likes to beat his slaves. Horrible, horrible. So, as you can see, we cannot let this happen. I’m not saying the Lions should win for me, but if they don’t, then I’m going to have to live out my days wiping Wiouxsie’s ass and burying the bones of his enemies in what he assures me is a spacious backyard. I don’t want have to do this.

All kidding aside (Or am I???), the truth of the matter is that on Monday Night we scaled a peak that’s been on the horizon for a long, long time, and so it would be disingenuous to sit here and say that this game means as much as that one did. It just doesn’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to win – I do – it’s just that no one will be wailing and threatening suicide if the Lions don’t pull it out. At least I hope not anyway. I mean, I don’t think we’re that tightly wound as a fanbase, are we?

Still, I want to win if for no other reason than I don’t want this magic carpet ride to come to an end. I like it up here, floating in the heavens, communing with the stars. I’ve been to hell and I feel like we deserve to float along in this dreamworld for as long as we can. Plainly put, I like winning a hell of a lot more than I like losing. Who knew?

There’s not a ton to say here. This is a game refreshingly devoid of pathos, which is an intensely weird feeling for me as a Lions fan, and it would be completely dishonest of me to try to conjure up something epic. Instead, I’m just holding on to the simple desire to keep winning and to a desperate need to avoid becoming Whiouxsie’s plaything. (Note: we had a Buccaneers writer lined up but then Whiouxsie killed him with a hatchet. We had to sedate him but even then he bit one of Raven’s ears off when Raven showed up to feed him. I had to spend hours at the ER with Raven while he got that thing sewed back on and when we returned to the ACLB compound, Whiouxsie had gotten free and butchered Ernie Sims’ monkey, who had been staying with us during the Lizard King’s exile. If that last part didn’t make any sense to you (uh, Neil, just the last part?), don’t worry about it. Just smile and nod, we’ll be done shortly. Anyway, eventually we calmed Whiouxsie down with a gallon of Southern Comfort and a picture of Joe Montana. He spent the next several hours masturbating himself into oblivion and while we were uncomfortable with the mess that made, at least we didn’t have to clean up a bunch of blood and pick pieces of brain out of Whiouxsie’s hair yet again. Well, there was some blood, but that’s between Whiouxsie and his chafed junk.)

Ahem. Anyway, as for the game itself, if the Lions aren’t too hungover, they should have the advantage due to the simple fact that Alex Smith is still the 49ers quarterback. If the Lions play like they want to be there, then Ol’ Tiny Hands will probably be in for a long day. I’m actually going to say that I think that Frank Gore will be stopped cold by the Lions run defense. I’m not sure why – call it a hunch – but I just think that he’ll spend most of the day running into the Lions pressure rather than bouncing it out and escaping it like we’ve seen a few times this season.

Offensively, I can see Matthew Stafford and the boys having a few problems. I’ll give the 49ers credit. They’re tough defensively and their secondary seems to be playing well this season, but in the end the Lions have Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson and Jahvid Best while the 49ers have Alex Smith, Frank Gore and Vernon Davis. I’ll take my trio, hangover or not.

I think the Lions will win, but it will be close and hey, look, there’s a very real chance that they fall flat this week and lose. We know it’s going to happen at some point and this week just feels like the logical time for it to happen. Still, I can’t bring myself to psychically poison the Lions with such rank negativity and if I have any hope at all of snaring that Minister of Propaganda position I mentioned earlier, I have no choice but to predict that the Lions will win and also to declare that Ford makes the finest quality automobiles.

Lions win.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: LIONS 24, 49ERS 23