Where I muse quietly about the past and betray my age

Submitted by wolverine1987 on

At times, such as when I discuss music, sports or film with people, or at the gym, where I can still push some weight around, I feel pretty much the same as when I was in Ann Arbor. In short, youthful, in touch and somewhat current. Other times, not so much. Those other times, which increasingly are outpacing the former, I feel all of my 44 years. Like when my daughter informed me that my hair was uncool because it had a part. Or the extra half-minute I need at every goddamn urinal. Or reading someone on this blog discuss the new defensive coordinator and then add "I have to go to class."

Part of feeling your age often results in being crotchety. Though I never meant to sound like my Dad, I find inevitably that I am slipping into dad-speak without realizing it. Often I find myself opining on topics and having no patience for providing rationale for the opinion, it simply is true and that's that. Why? Because I'm your father. If you don't like it there's the door.

Some current pieces of wisdom follow. The TV show "Two and a Half Men" is not funny, it's never once been funny, and people that watch it cannot possibly claim to have a sense of humor. On the other hand, "The Office" is brilliant, and if you can't get that--there's the door. On film, "American Beauty" is over-rated (though quite funny). It's another in the long line of films (the latest is "Revolutionary Road") that purport to show the dark underbelly that lies under the placid surface of suburbia. Where all everyone is either blind to their ennui or a soulless drone. As a former resident of Manhattan I can tell you that there is at least as much unhappiness in the city (although it's so "alive" right?) as in the suburbs. The suburbs are pretty cool actually. Don't agree? Can you see the door over there?

On to sports. While I don't have the solution to the BCS, I do know a couple of things. First, that no MAC team should ever be allowed to play against Tulsa on January 6. In fact, there should be no bowls period after January 1 not named Orange, Rose, Sugar or Fiesta. How do I know this? Because I do. Second, the Bowl season was better when every major bowl was played January 1. Not only did that day become an unprecedented orgy of fried food and beer consumption, January 1 was special because the majors all played that day. When did the Orange Bowl get the right to play January 2? Ugh. Third, the major bowls were better in the traditional, non-BCS era. When that was your chance to prove yourself nationally, but the real thing was to win your conference. When the Fiesta Bowl wasn't a consolation to a team that just missed the "real" championship game.

Lastly, in college football, as opposed to pro, I prefer the established order. If I could wave my hand and rule over the college landscape, the same ten teams would dominate every year, and simply fight over who won the title that year. Who are those teams? Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Miami, Florida, Notre Dame, and Nebraska. Upsets are fine, as long as the elite stay elite. Did I like Utah beating Alabama? Need I answer that?

So you don't agree? Have a better idea? Think I don't know what I'm talking about? Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Comments

tubauberalles

January 9th, 2009 at 12:18 PM ^

I'm 44, a dad and I have my own opinions.

Most of which agree with yours. I did, though, like Utah beating Alabama; I have no problem with Notre Dame never being considered "elite" again in my lifetime; and I actually liked it when the Fiesta Bowl was just a johnny-come-lately consolation prize for not making the Rose, Sugar or Orange bowls.

That said, I'd like to add to your sage screed that no bowl game should ever be broadcast on a station that isn't actually, you know, "broadcast." And Fox doesn't count. Cable's for posers - don't like it? There's the door.

jfs52

January 9th, 2009 at 12:20 PM ^

and i must be getting crotchety too because i kinda agree. at least back then it was just a few good games (for the sake of the game) and we really didn't know who was champion. but since we still don't im pretty unsympathetic to the bcs.

for nostalgia's sake i watched the 1986 fiesta bowl (jaime morris!) over the holidays and enjoyed it more than any game i watched this year.

one caveat: 1997 was kinda annoying. but since the bcs hasn't really helped at all going back to old system doesn't seem so bad.

mbrummer

January 9th, 2009 at 12:26 PM ^

I can't agree with that last paragraph about the elite staying elite..

This is "1984" thinking. Florida is good now they were always good, they will always forever be good. Texas had multiple losing seasons in the late 80's early 90's and were pretty average. Florida was not good for about 20 years, when Spurrier left has a player and until he came back.

So I guess I'm saying where's the door?

umjgheitma

January 9th, 2009 at 12:31 PM ^

There are wayyy too many bowl games now. From like Dec. 23rd all the way through Jan. 8th there are bowls. Why do we feel this need to celebrate mediocrity? It's like 10th place ribbons at a track meet, do you really feel good when you get them? This totally skews Michigan's 34 year bowl streak because that started when you had to have a good season to get into a bowl. I don't understand the joy of watching two teams I barely heard of, whom have no pro prospects, playing in a day game that means nothing (two unranked teams who will remain unranked no matter if they win or lose). It's just one big commercial for whatever company sponsers it.

P.S. my dad watches Two and a Half Men and its terrible, like Everybody Loves Raymond, but the Office is my fav TV show just in front of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (If you haven't seen it you have to, it's on FX)

1M1Ucla

January 9th, 2009 at 12:41 PM ^

on the college football matters -- also agree with 52 that the BCS hasn't solved a thing -- it has added a financial windfall by adding another bowl game, but having it after Jan 1 makes it suck. I just could not get worked up to care about the game last night -- it was on, but I kept wandering away. Fox sucks. Any college football broadcaster not named Keith Jackson, Bill Flemming, Frank Broyles, or Bob Griese sucks. Especially any broadcaster named Brent, Kirk, Pam, Hammond, anyone who works with Hammond, Pat, Gary -- those all suck. CBS sucks at college football. The SEC sucks (even tho it doesn't). ND -- goes without saying, but I enjoy saying it anyway, sucks.

On the pop culture matters, I guess there's just no accounting for taste. I always laugh at 2 1/2 Men, hate The Office (and anything with Steve Haircut), was disturbed by American Beauty, agree that it assigns a desperation to the burbs that is also present in the city so it's kind of meaningless. Love Manhattan, especially the movie version.

OK, that's my old fart crotchety rant for this half hour.

TorontoBlue

January 9th, 2009 at 12:45 PM ^

I'll be 58 next month - geezer. I remember the '73 season, the fall after I graduated, when we tied OSU - both undefeated - and the conference picked OSU for the Rose Bowl and we went to no bowl at all. So this new configuration might have some soft spots in it, but it beats the hell out of the old way. I love having the option of heading to the basement, turning on cable and catching the GMAC Bowl thus not having to endure 2.5 Men with the womenfolk. GO BLUE!

jmblue

January 9th, 2009 at 3:54 PM ^

Keep in mind, that was strictly a Big Ten thing. Other conferences allowed more than one school to go to bowls for a long time, which is why schools like Alabama have been to a lot more bowls than we have. The Big Ten inexplicably denied its schools the right to go to any bowl other than the Rose until 1975. (And on top of that, there was the no-repeat rule, so the absolute most you could have was two bowl trips in four years.)

Elno Lewis

January 9th, 2009 at 1:08 PM ^

Hey yous kids! Get the fuck off my lawn!

You don't want to know how old I am. But, I retain a fresh attitude and an open mind. I am tolerant. I do childish things like ride mountain bikes and lift weights and play musical instruments. I am patient with people.

Get the fuck off my lawn! Oh yeah! I'm calling the fucking cops!

You see, you have to age gracefully and understand that not everyone shares your accumulated wisdom.

Fucking kids. Where in the hell is my shotgun! I worked all summer on that fucking lawn.

So, take a deep breath and just enjoy those golden years. Treat your children well. Be a shining example for them.

Damn. I think I just shit my pants. Fucking kids. Little bastards. Screwing with my Lawrence Welk now!

pretty much agree with the poster.

1M1Ucla

January 9th, 2009 at 1:32 PM ^

snowball season. Yeah, when those kids hit the car windshield with the snowballs, I damn near crash. Gotta slide to a stop, jump out, take three futile steps to chase, then shake my fist and threaten to call the cops and find their parents.

Damn kids, laughing at me that way. I'll learn 'em.

Seth

January 9th, 2009 at 4:30 PM ^

Well, so long as the kids are still in class I'll let you know that there are still those of us in our 20s who agree wholeheartedly.

But in another year, that may not be the case.

Not because I'm predicting the end of the BCS. But those who have a chance of remembering bowls are, year by year, leaving our 20s, when you feel your job is to convince everyone else what you think, and entering the 30s and beyond.

After 30, chances are, you've now changed a diaper, at which point, I'm told, you have an epiphany: "There is no way anybody is really listening to me. I can't convince this thing in front of me to shit in a toilet, and I have even less chance of convincing anyone else in the world to believe what I'm saying."*

The last bowls to be held before the BCS were in 1997. Before that was the bowl alliance. Before that the Bowl Coalition. Before that, men were men and played in fucking bowl games.

That was 1991. I was eleven. I'd seen all of one game in Michigan Stadium, and thought Desmond Howard must have been there at least as long as, say Stevie Y had been with the Red Wings, and Alan Trammell had been with the Tigers, which was, like, forever. I watched our walloping in the Rose Bowl at the hands of one of two eventual split champions. I never felt like someone else deserved to play the Huskies. We belonged there; they belonged there; and if they played college football outside of the Big Ten or Pac Ten, it was about as far from me caring about it as whatever the girls were talking about at the other end of the playground.

So my knowledge of bowl games in the Pre-Coalition days is quite limited, though I had at least enough saturation in the bowl years to have that same sense of tradition.

The bowls, to me, then, were mystic places. Pasadena was this place where you could wear a t-shirt in January, and they had parades every day. It was a hallowed venue; each season, Bo would say our goal this year is to reach the Rose Bowl, as it had been for 50 years. It might as well have been a thousand.

What about today's college students? A senior might have been as old as 3 when they played the last real Sugar Bowl. Most of this year's freshmen were 6 when they played the last real Rose Bowl.

So if you're wondering where all the Patriots of Brittania have gone, well, our men on the ground were all brought up under the Romans. When college students call the BCS retarded, they do so because we've programmed them to; they have no recollection of the old bowls; no point of reference for what was different.

What was different was the bowls had yet to be demystified. Going to Rose Bowl is something you get to do if you march undeterred through your season, then play the game of your life and BEAT OHIO STATE. Then you put a rose in your teeth and you get to go to Pasadena. It is not the end of an equation. It is not decided by sportswriters, or Big Twelve coaches, or, heaven forbid, computer programs.

What sucked about the bowls was they kept inviting teams earlier and earlier. Notre Dame would get a big ticket invite just for putting their golden helmets on. That, and we had a string of unfortunate split championships.

The BCS and its predecessors have always been entirely reactionary. They don't try to create a better system. Rather, their basic job is still trying to fix 1990 and 1991, and then throw a band-aid on every leak it created. I'd go for a well-imagined playoff system. But I still think a pro-active re-imagining of the old bowl system would be ultimately better in every way except in declaring an official national champion.

In the process, they demystified the bowls. And for those of us who remember it, that hurts, because inside all of us there's still that kid who will never really understand why Desmond Howard doesn't still play for Michigan, and the adult who sees 119 teams start the season with their eyes on a singular, derived goal they have little control over reaching, and remembers there was once something better.

Keep that rose in your teeth, old man. I'm with ya.

*Plato -- roughly translated.

tomhagan

January 9th, 2009 at 5:22 PM ^

Late 30s here... The bowl system stinks. The other day a friend of mine tells me "these bowls are all boring now, none of them mean much of anything, i used to get up and watch games all New Years day, and now the games are all over the place, with teams that I dont care about."

and he is right. other than maybe 3 bowl games this year, the rest of them were meaningless and sucked for the most part on and off the field.

as for 'aging'... personally i dont care, i still look and feel 20 something and i think that has something to do with the fact that i refuse to allow peoples perceptions of 'getting old', 'geezer' etc. seep in to my conciousness. i look and feel young and should always be that way even whem i am 80. my age doesnt affect my opinions of anything... including the bowl system which currently sucks and works against the success of college football imo.

TorontoBlue

January 9th, 2009 at 6:01 PM ^

1st time UM played in a bowl other than the Rose. UM/Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl in Miami. We were all fascinated - what's this strange new world other than Pasadena? Tix were impossible to get, but somehow my old man landed two thru a connection. Pre-SouthBeach Miami. The original stadium, which was not much more than scaffolding with seats in it. Plopped in the middle of a low-rent Miami neighborhood next to the freeway. It was new & different, it was exciting to be playing OU - but it WASN'T THE ROSE BOWL.

Change kept coming - even the Big Ten became the Big Eleven. How strange was it the first time PSU played in the Rose Bowl instead of a "real" Big Ten team? No more "big 2/little 8".

Today's system isn't perfect - but with the passing of old traditions, new ones emerge. Won't be too long until the bowl system is morphed into a true playoff, which I welcome. I like the talk about filling the Big House for the Spring Game. Etc, Etc. New stuff is allright. And you f_cking kids, my front steps aren't a skateboard park dammit! Go smoke up and raise hell somewhere else. . .

MMB 82

January 9th, 2009 at 8:07 PM ^

was when it became possible for teams other than Big Ten/Pac-10 to play in the Rose Bowl, just too weird after decades of tradition. I have been to every Michigan Rose Bowl since '78, and now it seems like a consolation prize instead of the promised land (my favorite RB? 1989: UM 22 USC 14; there was just something about THAT GAME and coming from behind to beat USC and getting the Rose Bowl jinx off our backs (at least temporarily) and a lot of pent up angst that was cathartically released. The 98 MNC game was a close second, though...).

49 next month and still a kid at heart. One of the wonderful things about Teh Internets is that it brings all of us together in ways that previously weren't possible.

The FannMan

January 9th, 2009 at 9:28 PM ^

Wow, I mean, WOW! I am 38 next month and I totally agree. The BCS sucks, the playoffs are a pipedream or will be worse. Bo was right (big surprise) the "National Title" is myth. Reporters and computers get to vote???? Coaches lobbying for votes???? What is this country comming to?

You kids need to turn down your music. . . I can't hear myself think!

Michigan's goals should be the following 1)win the Big Ten 2) Beat OSU 3) go to the Rose Bowl 4) win the Rose Bowl. If someone gives us a trophy that says National Title, we'll . . . gee . . . thanks. If not, well . . . who fucking cares? All that matters is winning the Rose Bowl. Period.

Hey, get off my lawn you little bastard!!! Pull up your damn pants . . . you look stupid. Don't make me come out there!!!!

While I'm on this topic - what the hell happened to the damn Cotton Bowl? That used to count right? I mean it was one of the Bowls that mattered. The Rose, Sugar, Orange and Cotton were the big dogs. The Fiesta, the Gator (what happened to the Gator Bowl?), and and the Citrus were second tier bowls in case you came in second in your conference. Then there were a few games for fun. Why does the Fiesta suddenly get put on a par with the Rose Bowl and the Cotton Bowl gets jobbed. What crap!

By the way, I think the NCAA should prohibit any bowl from having a corporate name. The Mienikie Car Care Bowl??? The Outback Bowl - didn't that used to be the Gator Bowl? Seriously, I want to puke! If a corporation wants to sponsor a bowl, then run a commerical while I go get another beer and take a piss.

Thank you for the brillant post. Old farts, unite. If you don't like it, the door is that way. Don't you give me that look . . .

The FannMan

January 10th, 2009 at 10:29 AM ^

The Gator Bowl does live. Course it is now the Konika Monilta Gator Bowl, so I'm not sure if it counts or not. (Note corporate name probably mispelled b/c I don't care enough to look it up). I guess I missed it since there are like 40 bowls games this year. Or maybe I just forgot it, I am getting older. What were we talking about again?

Seth

January 10th, 2009 at 2:39 PM ^

1. Rose

2. Capital One = Florida Citrus Bowl = Tangerine

3. Outback = Hall of Fame Bowl

4. Alamo

5. Champs Sports = Tangerine (after old Tangerine became Citrus) = Blockbuster Bowl (when it was played in Miami)

6. Insight.com = Copper Bowl

7. Motor City

Other:
Chick-fil-a = Peach Bowl

wolverienstra

January 10th, 2009 at 9:42 AM ^

(also class of 1987) wholeheartedly! I despise the BCS -- one letter too many in the acronym (the C). And while I dislike what the bowls have morphed into, what I hate more is how the NCAA (ab)uses what they have become -- all the while crying that the "tradition" of the bowls is sacrosanct, and that this is why there can be no Div 1-A playoff. *Urp* -- I might just puke up my Metamucil.

While we were growing up in the 70s and 80s, the bowls -- the scant 25 or so of them there were -- did not have corporate-appended or corporate-only names. There was no Outback Bowl, no PapaJohns.com Bowl, no Insight.com Bowl, no Capital One Bowl (it was the Tangerine Bowl originally, even before it was called the Citrus); they were simply the Rose, Orange, Cotton, Sugar, Gator, Peach, Fiesta, Liberty, Independence, Holiday, etc. Not only could you depend on the Rose, Orange, Cotton, and Sugar Bowls being played on New Year's Day, you could also rely on who was playing in them -- the conference ties were pretty solid. I liked that arrangement -- a lot.

My problem with the Bastardized Corporate Shilling system is that most of what were the "traditions" of the bowls is now largely gone -- the original conference bowl tie-ins; the dates that some games are played (the Rose NOT on New Year's Day? *wretch*) -- and "new" ones are now in place, including meaningless bowl games being played after New Year's, including gems like that International Bowl in CFB-happy Toronto (whu?), and the fact that a .500 team now gets rewarded with "post-season" play. That's all fine -- it is what it is -- but then I don't want to hear BCS proponents talk about how this system is maintaining the tradition of the bowls. That's gone. So shut up about it. Go ahead and play your 38 bowls, like the Chick-Fil-A Bowl with its two 7-5 teams, but if you want to tell me this is CFB tradition, there's the door.

My druthers would be this: either institute a real playoff system with 8 or 12 or 16 teams -- I don't really care how many, just figure it out; it's not rocket science -- and stop this hypocrisy that the NCAA is really just looking out for the student-athlete's best interests (a 12th game? Hello?), OR go back to a non-BCS bowl system with stable, consistent conference bowl tie-ins and NO fake-title game. If I can't have my Rose Bowl on New Year's Day between the Big 10 and Pac 10 champs, I don't want it at all. I'd rather see the stadium in Pasadena host a playoff game instead.

And if you damned kids TP my house again, I get my gun.

readyourguard

January 10th, 2009 at 10:01 PM ^

you look like a dork.

43 last week.

The NCAA is as hypocritical as Senator Shelby from Alabama.
They can keep their precious BCS bowl game, but for the love of all things sacred in college football, kill the GMAC bowl or any other dirt-ass bowl game played AFTER January 1 that doesn't have the Number 1 team playing the Number 2 team.

Now, get up and get me a glass of water. I have to take my medicine.

Jill

January 11th, 2009 at 8:52 PM ^

I thought I was the only one here older than dirt! I see I'm in some good company! 54 minus 35. Yes, a mental 19 but my driver's license says otherwise.