Week 12: Descent Into Madness. Or Just Mad.

"What good is freedom?

God laughs at people at us…"

Has the Notre Dame football fan becomes God's Cosmic Joke?  And if so, what did we do to deserve this?  I wonder about this.

"I had not considered The Curse scenario in my analysis, Al…"

Where is Steven Levitt, Mr. Freakonomics, to help me with the less than obvious causal driver to our football team's Sisyphusian challenge to get, consistently, over The Mediocrity Hump.  Is this related to all the misbegotten merchandise in the front room of 801 St. Louis?  Is it because our lives have been too good, too blessed and we need a little more adversity?  (Well maybe not the Bears fans.)

Some of you have hypothesized a Curse.  But even curses have a catalyst.  Who did we cheese off that badly to cast such a diabolical - and enduring - pox upon us?

At any rate, it seems apropos that the final game's theme comes from Talking Heads whom I elected to frame this entire year, way back in August.  Ah the halcyon days when Optimism Ran Amuck for almost all except the 7-Win Clan.  But we'll get to them later.

Incidentally, the movie this comes from, True Stories, is an under-the-radar gem, guaranteed to make you smile.  Especially if one likes T-Heads music.

Word of the Week

Zoilist (n.)

• A nasty or rude critic; one who enjoys finding faults.

Antonym:  brown-noser.

Used in a sentence:  Just before nodding off to sweet delicious escapist sleep at halftime, Young Terry consider the State of the Program.  Rather than turning loyal Irish fans into proud advocates, the precipitous collapse of the ND football season has created a Legion of passionate Zoilists.

Quote of the Week

"Everyone has a plan until they're been hit."

Joe Louis

One wonders if that isn't the perfect analogy for ND's year… hit with some adversity - okay, probably more than they deserved - and folded like a house of cards.

Disappointing.

Game Observations

When does Muffet's team play next? 
 "

Who wants to re-hash the game?  Not me.  Not you.  And even from Beyond The Grave, not Buddy.   As many of you are aware, I napped through the second half, which seemed fitting given ND's sleep walking through the whole game.

Questions that'll be mildly interesting to follow after the fall out of the November collapse:

1. Who's the QB now?
2. How much does one get to use injuries as a justifiable explanation (excuse)?
3. Do we have another leadership void among the players?
4. Was Van Gorder a bad hire?
5. What is next for Kelly?  
6. Do any of the assistant coaches get thrown under the bus?



"Laces, schmaces.  Throw it any way you want…"

• given Golson's regression, would Guy LaFleur been a better LaFleur to hire?
7. Can the recruiting class hold together?
8. Do we have to play a bowl game? 
9. Do I have to watch it?
10. Will we ever have a controversy-free off season?
11. What hockey weekend can we tailgate for?

Cocktail of the Week

How can a book / drink that's screams 'doomed from the start' not be the call for this week's game recap?

Romeo and Julep

Romeo and Juliet (ca. 1599)

by William Shakespeare

With the play's original title sounding like surfer dude slang - The Most Excellent And Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet - this melancholy romance is for anyone who has fallen in love with the hot boy (or girl) from the other side of the tracks.  Who can't relate to the star-crossed lovers, doomed from the start by parents who, like, just don't understand?  

With a tragic, poisonous finale (Notre Dame-USC metaphor alert!), this historic work created the mold, inspiring not only adaptations (West Side Story is just R&J with Puerto Rican accents and jazz hands) but also an entire road map for young-love stories.  

Fall under the spell of a drink so peach-fuzzy, you might be forgiven for not realizing its full effects.

• 6 sprigs fresh mint, washed
• 1 tspn. light brown sugar
• ½ oz. peach schnapps
• 1 ½ oz. bourbon
• 1 (12 oz.) can lemon-lime soda

In a highball glass, muddle the mint / sugar / schnapps until the sugar dissolves like a bad, injury-riddled football team.  Add ice and bourbon.  Fill to the top with the lemon-lime soda.  Prepare to fall in love again with that same inevitably underwhelming football team.  Talk about tragic…

The Wager:  

Congratulations to the glass-half-empty-7-win-wankers.  If ennui lives at the intersection where boredom meets despair, I'm parked down the street, where envy meets bitterness. That is what I feel for you all.  But what explains all of your Mediocrity-based success in prognostication?  Some theories:

• John - you're a Clevelander, 7 wins probably seems like Mt. Olympus.
• Ray - no doubt oxygen deprivation from all the Abu Dhabi elevator projects. 
• Blair - you're too young to be this cynical and smart.  Questionable parenting.
• Alvin - betting on ND Underperformance; such savvy, familiar, comfortable territory for you.
• Gutsch - it's not surprising you got this right, what's surprising is Matt & Ungie not copying you. 
• Ryan - your late grandfather would be proud of you sticking to the family code ('bet w your wallet, not your heart'). 
• Randy - too long out in sun.
• Dennis -  I watch Fargo, what else do you guys up there have to do but predict disappointment and feed limbs into wood chippers? 

Next step, determining a tie-breaker, no doubt involving a) number of TD passes thrown against ND in the first half of their bowl game, b) number of law suits filed against Jameis Winston before he can declare himself for the pros and c) number of interviews Kelly goes on before 2015.  

Watch this space.  Taking any suggestions in this regard. 

And by the way, I seem to be missing a lot of folks' $25 entry fees…  if I haven't recorded your payment (below, highlighted), do let me know. 

Wins	Song	Representative Lyric	ND Application	Contestant  prediction
12	Burning Down The House	“Here's your ticket, Pack your bag. Time for jumpin' overboard...”	Man Oh Man Oh Man... if we win this much, something's getting lit up!  Starting with me.	Bryan
11				Daryl, Dave M
10	Heaven	“Heaven...   is a place...  where nothing... nothing ever happens...”	Boy, attaining this level of consistent, calm excellence...  I could get used to.	Kevin C, Terry, Lini, Jerry W, Peter, Rob W
9				JP,, Ted, Mike C, Jerry C, Tim C, Bob R, Tim S, Jim S, Jay, Jim B
8	Once In A Lifetime	"And you may ask yourself, how did I get here? Same as it ever was..."	8-5... again?!  How did we get to this point of near constant mediocrity?	Brian W, Jim T, Jerry P, Tom, Kevin M, Garrett, Mark, Mike G
7				John, Ray, Blair, Alvin, Dave, Ryan, Randy, Dennis
6	The Big Country	“I wouldn't live there if you paid me.  I couldn't live that, no   siree..."	Both 'A' Lot and ND football - gone the way of the dinosaur. I need to make some profound changes in my life.	Matt
5
4	No Compassion	“They say compassion is a virtue...  But I don't have the time.”	Empathy for our pathetic football program is over-rated.   I am so done.   Hello, lacrosse.
3
2	Psycho Killer	“Run run run run  run run run away… Oh oh ohhhhhh...  ay yai yai  yai yai...”	Dad is just staring at the TV. He's not even paying attention to the game.  And he's drooling.
1

Schadenfreude Time

Baylor.  As Jim Thompson might say, "hasn't Waco suffered enough?!"  But to be on the outside looking in at the Final Four… and to be beaten out by a team you beat head-to-head… even by Texas standards, that's pretty cruel. Boo-freakin'-hoo.  

Ohio State.   "But they won, Ter!" you cry.  But thanks to their candy ass schedule and their (admittedly) stud QB getting hurt, they'll get to play Baylor in the Thanks For Participating Better Luck Next Year Bowl.  Actually that would be a really entertaining game, so I'm sure it won't happen. 

UCLA.  Here's a team that actually I used to like.  Now I don't. Thank you, Jim Mora, Jr. So your getting pounded by Stanford makes me happy.

Terry's Trolls

1.  Jameis.   Let's start w your 4 INT game and FSU still sleazes by.  Speaking of sleaze, you had your school disciplinary hearing this week - or as we up north call it, Le Grande Charade.  You chose not to testify, as was your right, but apparently you chose to leak - against the judge's direction - a self-serving statement about what an enthusiastic consensual partner your accuser was.  Nice. I can't wait for you to be gone. 

2. Jim Harbaugh.   Not a rhetorical question:  how big a douche do you have to be… to be as successful as Harbaugh and your team can't jettison you fast enough?  A Michigan Man indeed.

Spirituous liquor?  

Final Thought

John Goodman sings Talking Heads.  My favorite part of the whole movie… 

Final Thought - II

Let's find a weekend. Even if its just the midwesterners. 

Week 11: Crisis of Confidence

"Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking

When I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head.

Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking

When I said by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed.

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt as the flames rose to her Roman nose

And her Walkman started to melt. 

Bigmouth, Bigmouth, Bigmouth strikes again

And I've got no right to take my place with the human race…"

They say you have to take the good with the bad.  Like when you're in a taxi in Shanghai and you're thinking to yourself, "My, this cabbie's sense of urgency certainly appeals to my complete lack of patience - so driving on the sidewalk, sure, go for it!  Juxtaposed against the prospect of eating one's meals through a straw for the rest of your life.

So processing the Louisville game was not such a straightforward exercise.  We looked… better, yes?  And boy, the team is getting a lot of experience for next year.  We didn't miss every kick - just the important one.  And for stretches, the defense looked competent.  But just not quite good enough against a team you knew wasn't as good as we were making them look. 

But can it mellow the frustrated Domer?

But I could've guessed the day would end in disappointment since it started that way - having forgot to bring my little scotch cask to the tailgater.  As you may recall, le petite keg has, unlike its owner, been maturing over the last several weeks and was ready for public distribution.  Scotchlandia's first export!  GNP growth off the charts!

Relatively few people know that many whiskeys are actually purer than their Scottish malt counterparts.  But it's those impurities that give them the latter their flavor.  In my case, perhaps too much flavor:

• Sweet top notes of premium Captain Crunch
• Undercurrents of buttery English muffin
• A rich PB (extra chunky) &J finish.

And possibly anything else I may have been eating during the distillation process - my work space wasn't exactly a clean room.  Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I had some Pringles accounting for the salty hint as well.  When tried first neat, then cut with a splash of water to help release the volatile compounds, all the subtleties of this unique malt are brought out for a sensory experience that screams northern Indiana!

Well, more for me.  And depending on how things fare on Saturday, I may need it.

Game Observations

Thanksgiving break start early?

-  Too many Louisville fans.  Too few students.  If that isn't a barometer on the state of the program...

-  Golson's shoulder is definitely not 100%.  But he wasn't why we lost.

-  To call our safeties average is disrespectful to all of the proud mediocrity out there.

-  Whatever sins Redfield and Shumate committed, it can't only be football-related.

-  Nyles Morgan.  Your hit just became the textbook definition of targeting. They'll be teaching in pre-season classrooms for years.

-  Did we really have nine freshmen on defense at one time?

-  Possibly related to the prior observation (though I have my doubts), we just might be the worst tackling team in America.

-  And outside of Cole Luke, we don't cover particularly well either.

-  Which is a problem.

-  Tough to watch Brindza's career flame out like this.

-  Thought it was pretty cool seeing Jaylon wear Joe Schmidt'd jersey.

-  Still a Kelly supporter but his habit of throwing his players under the bus in the post-game PC is getting old.

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough…

Go indoors, like sensible people.  (And on behalf of myself, Mark and Claire, thank you, Raz for the 'shelter from the storm', so to speak.)

Terry:  "Mary, isn't that your husband and son, down there?  In the second row.  In the pouring rain."

Mary:  "It sure is..."

Terry:  "That looks miserable.  Say, would you like some hot chocolate - I'm going for a top up..."

Word of the Week

man·qué adjective \mäⁿ-ˈkā\

- used to describe what a person could or should have been but never was

-  short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one's aspirations or talents —used postpositively <a poet manqué>

Origin

French, from past participle of manquer to lack, fail, from Italian mancare, from manco lacking, left-handed, from Latin, having a crippled hand, probably from manus

First Known Use: 1773

Used in a sentence:  As the referee signaled the final 'no good', Young Terry considered the latest manqué performance by the Irish and felt only a brief numbness.  Although that might've been the lingering effects of Peter's Bloody Mary's… 

Buddy's buddy

Tarean, you deserve better. 

Unfortunately, this is all I've got for ya - a Buddy award.

Quote of the Week

"At one point, I thought life was about acquiring things.  Life is totally about losing everything..."

Mike Tyson

Substitute 'life' with 'Notre Dame football' and you've got a much more coherent 'state of the nation. To wit, 'I thought ND football was about acquiring things, like championships.  ND football is totally about losing everything, like faith, hope and self respect…" 

But not wagers, if you're Team 7. 

2014 Schedule

August

28      Rice                                  W

September

6       Michigan  -                       W

13     Purdue (Indianapolis)     W

27     @Syracuse (MetLife)      W

October 

4      Stanford                           W

11    North Carolina                 W

18    @FSU                          W  L

November

  1   @Navy                                W

  8   @Arizona State                 L

15    Northwestern                    L

22    Louisville                          L

29   @USC

The Wager: 

Team 7, looking even better every week.  

Boy that loss sure wiped out a ton of candidates...

Wins	Song	Representative Lyric	ND Application	Contestant  prediction
12	Burning Down The House	“Here's your ticket, Pack your bag. Time for jumpin' overboard...”	Man Oh Man Oh Man... if we win this much, something's getting lit up! Starting with me.	Bryan
11				Daryl, Dave M
10	Heaven	“Heaven...   is a place...  where nothing... nothing ever happens...”	Boy, attaining this level of consistent, calm excellence...  I could get used to.	Kevin C, Terry, Lini, Jerry W, Peter, Rob W
9				JP,, Ted, Mike C, Jerry C, Tim C, Bob R, Tim S, Jim S, Jay, Jim B
8	Once In A Lifetime	"And you may ask yourself, how did I get here? Same as it ever was..."	8-5... again?!  How did we get to this point of near constant mediocrity?	Brian W, Jim T, Jerry P, Tom, Kevin M, Garrett, Mark, Mike G
7				John, Ray, Blair, Alvin, Dave, Ryan, Randy, Dennis
6	The Big Country	“I wouldn't live there if you paid me.  I couldn't live that, no siree..."	Both 'A' Lot and ND football - gone the way of the dinosaur. I need to make some profound changes in my life.	Matt
5
4	No Compassion	“They say compassion is a virtue...  But I don't have the time.”	Empathy for our pathetic football program is over-rated.   I am so done.   Hello, lacrosse.
3
2	Psycho Killer	“Run run run run  run run run away… Oh oh ohhhhhh...  ay yai yai  yai yai...”	Dad is just staring at the TV. He's not even paying attention to the game. And he's drooling.
1

Schadenfreude Time

Once again, a somewhat half-hearted call out.

1.  USC  Anytime they lose is a good week.  And anything that can undermine their confidence, I'm for!

Terry's Trolls.

Jameis.  Pushing a ref? Twice?  Without any repercussions.  This is getting so predictable.

ACC.  You get closer to SEC standards every day. 

Frank Clark.  In this day and age, I consider getting kicked off any college team an achievement.  Another Michigan Man with apparent anger management issues involving women…  

An English Major Walks Into A Bar…

    

Anyone notice that all my recent cocktails are based on books none of which are within a century of present day?  Connection, or lack thereof, seemed like an apropos theme for this week's offering, given ND's distressing inability to consistently do it in any part of their game: offense, defense and especially special teams.

Howard's Blend

(Howard's End (1910))

by E. M. Forster

   

   

Sad that the writer of "Only connect" - Howard's End's epigraph - had such a tortured time doing so himself.  Edward Morgan (E.M.) Forster, the long-closeted novelist of literary masterpieces A Room With A View and A Passage To India (the last book he'd write for 50 years, until his death), imagined three distinct families in Howard's End, an English estate at the center of class tensions, inheritance resentments and the rare death-by-falling-bookcase.

      Here we blend the three distinct flavors of the vintage "Janet Howard" cocktail, for a posh but pronto drink.  This'll have you connecting in no time - with other people, God willing, not toppled furniture.

• 2 oz. brandy
• ½ oz. orgeat syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

A perfect drink for the day you receive word your wealthiest relative shuffled off this mortal coil… shake the ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Then  gather the bravery to ask, um, anything in the will for, you know, um, me?

Final Thought - I

Final Thought -II

Excellent to the last pour…