The Hottest

 (static is heard, a monotone voice drones through the ether)

"The lever is long, and time is short"

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I knew we were Bound For Greatness when I got a text that jarred me out of bed at 2:45am about how it was safe to bet the KHL in Kazhakstan again.  Traktor was giving 1.5 goals, and you'd be a damn fool to let that pass.  I knew then, like I know now, like I always knew, that things were Turning Around.  Summer was around the corner, and spring had sprung.

Of course, it always gets hot before it boils.

Now we sit in the wash and pretend that "distractions" are any different from the waking somnambulance which constitutes our "lives".  Reanimated corpses come to life, indeed.  A 40 game season where they have to play a tripleheader just to make up for time lost to myocardial infarctions, and at the end you hoist a trophy in front of?  Your dad?  Who got the flu-mist?

I may have arrived too late to comment on these things, and lord knows I've heard much more music through the needle in the last 6 months than I have through the wireless.  I haven't had a drink in a year and this last 3 months felt like skiing uphill.  I worked, I quit, then I got hired, you know how it goes.  Strikes and gutters, and the gauze that covers my vision is comforting at long last.

But that's not what you are here for.  That's not what any of us are here for.

I suppose if you pull anything out of What It Means this year, it's got to be that the truth fucking CUTS, man.  I once mused that they might well just play these games on a sound stage in Burbank, and NOW THEY DO EXACTLY THAT.  Baseball became wrestling, football a game of sandlot two-hand touch, basketball reduced to a play in the round.  So what do we do?  You watch it, you sort of cheer, and you, what?  Eat?

If you're laying out hot sauce, like we all should, it's got to be offense forever.  If Stern were alive, he'd have these games ending in the 300s.  Why would a defender throw himself in front of a chugging running back and risk any type of injury or even discomfort?  What the hell does any of it matter anyway?  Keep the score up, keep the eyeballs, keep the money.  It's happening without witnesses, so, fine.  It's easier to control the dull roar of the fake fans inside the Viking Stadium than the real ones.  Shit, were there real ones?

They didn't blow the horn because 4 cops killed a guy.

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The meaning is gone, and there was never any meaning.  We told ourselves stories of rectitude and order.  In reality, it was always the spinning stars and the rising sun.  It was always the golden waves, and the green and blue drifts.  It was always only a stack of moments, nothing more.  So we still charge into that surf - and we still See What Happens when we step off the curb.

The Gold stays.  Happy 15.