It’s this time of year that I begin to revert back to my normal schizophrenic self. It’s March. Fabulous, fabulous March. It’s in this month that I was born, Saint Patrick is celebrated all over the world, winter unwraps her chilly hands from around our necks, and spring training gets underway. Things really start to look up in March. Golf courses begin opening, the birds return to what once was a blistery, cold land, and Minnesota begins to more closely resemble the wonderful weather goldmine that is California. Of course I have yet to mention the greatest part of this beloved month. March Fucking Madness. Yeah, that’s right, the NCAA Tourney. There’s nothing on this planet that makes me happier than those two short weeks in March. They start with my birthday and end with the crowning of a national champion. Fuck the Superbowl. Fuck the NHL. Fuck the NBA – for now at least. This is the time when my attention to sports is at its peak. I’m tuned into and reading every little thing there is to read about each and every team as they get ready for their conference tournaments to begin. Selection Sunday can’t come soon enough. I’m checking and rechecking records and stats and RPI and everything there is to check to see who’s going to make it and who’s going to get left out. “Hey, are the Griz gonna repeat as Big Sky champs, or is Idaho gonna make a tourney run and wipe out their chances!?” Who fucking knows! That’s the beauty of it. At this point, yeah, there’s not really any reason for me to be trying to get my brackets together because they won’t be in place until March 12, but I don’t care, I NEED THIS SHIT! I’ve been down for a month because, in case you didn’t know, Minnesota sucks balls in February. But now the sun hangs in the sky a little longer – anybody see Nate Robinson in the dunk contest? Yeah, like that, except he played at the University of Washington and that’s the only reason I care what he does. Sure, we’ve got a few cold days here and there, but overall the jackets can be shed, and the shorts can be taken out of storage – yes Goldminers, some Minnesotans wear shorts when it’s 35 degrees out.
But really, who gives a fuck about the weather, Selection Sunday is two weeks away!!!
All I’m concerned with is what time what games are on so I can watch dreams get made and shattered, all while sitting at Runyon’s pouring Newcastle and Jameson down my neck hole. Nothing else matters. The conference tournaments are a warm up to the real shit, like getting some crack while you wait for payday so you can go out and get some China White. Hey, I fucking need something to get me through. It’s a great opportunity to see who’s playing well, who maybe has some magic, or which team’s head is too big, lending to a possible early upset that could win you the bucket of money at the end of the March rainbow. What? You don’t know what I’m talking about?
Okay, I’ll put it in terms you may understand. So you’re talking to Sol, a new drug dealer in town. What you really want is to get some top shelf Sneeze, but you’re not sure if Sol is the real deal, so you get a bag a Stankers to do some quality control before diving head first into $2000 a week contract. Got it? Good, lets move on.
That’s the funny thing about life. Totally meaningless shit to you, makes my whole life improve in a blink of an eye. Does that mean you’re better than I am? No, it just means you don’t know shit about shit and you’re idea of life success is my idea of complete and utter failure. But that’s fine, that’s why I don’t have your life.
March has always been an important month for me. At first, it was my birthday. I get presents and really, who doesn’t love getting presents? Fuckin’ A, I know I do. But as I got a little older, St Pat was my main excitement of the month. Back then, very little made me happier than get so drunk I couldn’t stand up for a week afterwards – and no, I’m not talking about gay sex with a leprechaun. I’m talking about ingesting so much green beer that your liver goes to Las Vegas for a week, just to get some time off. And that’s still one of my favorite past times, although I’m not in as good of shape as I was then, so really, the liver just turns hard and stops taking advice from Dr. Jameson and I’m left with the bill. Oh well. But, sometime in my late teens, early twenties, that all changed – sort of. In high school I had a hard time concentrating on the games because they were on during the day and well, I was in school – or rather in the vicinity of the school. But in college I discovered the lovely art of sitting around all day not going to school. Yeah, funny how that frees up a lot of time for other things, namely smoke and drink, but also for 12 hour stints in front of a television watching Americas top collegiate athletes play ball. Yeah, and I still do it. Of course I work the other stuff in too, mostly drinking more because I have three reasons to do it – or rather, three more reasons.
I was always told that as I got older my priorities would change. That’s true, but I don’t think this is what my Dad meant when he told me that.
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