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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Week 4: Did NOT See That Coming

And I'm not talking about ND's uninspired play in the 1st half - I totally saw that comin'... No, I thought I was spending the weekend going to a football game when, in fact, a wedding broke out.  

But more on that later.


The beauty of having an attention span of a pre-schooler, it makes decision making and prioritization a snap - what did I hear / see / read most recently?  In this fortuitous case, it happened to be seeing Lucinda Williams a couple nights before this week's game.  


If we lived in a world without tears, 
How would bruises find the face to lie upon?
How would scars find skin to etch themselves into?
How would broken find the bone?

Lucinda, the very picture of 'exactly-how-early-did-you-start-drinking-today' trailer trash, would seem an unlikely candidate to lead off a recap of a 62-27 outcome... but after one reads any of ND's message boards (note to self:  stop doing that), her songs' tragic worldview are not such an unlikely companion.  Clearly, ND Nation would go catatonic if they didn't have something to bemoan. 

But it's a long season... miles to go before we sleep, as it were.  And carrying on the journey metaphor, I ran across this over the weekend.

"Waaaaaaaaaaarriors, come out to plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay-e-aaaaaaaaaay...."



Can you dig it?  CAN YOU DIG IT?!    

Old men, looking back on something iconic they unexpectedly created. 

A metaphor for the ND football program or The Men From 'A' Lot.  

I could also make another, perhaps unkind, comparison about other old men oddly dressed but that, too, is for later.


Quote of the Week




"The man who says his wife can't take a joke forgets that she took him..."

Unknown


Congratulations, Brian and welcome to the "You've Tremendously Out-Kicked Your Coverage" marriage club.  

We Are Legion. 



Game Observations 

This week's thoughts and they are few but pithy:

1.  Tailgate - Quality over Quantity.  Gorgeous day.

2.  Were people really that surprised by the 1st half letdown after last week's game?

3.  Okay, the DB's look very shaky.

4.  The O-line does not. 

5.  CJ continues to be a revelation at RB.  Please stay healthy.

6.  Beating the dead horse:  I'd have CJ Sanders or Dexter Williams returning kick-off's immediately

7.  Amir had a really good game.  Just not as a returner. 

8.  Awesome to see the 4th quarter being played by essentially our freshman team. 

9.  Brandon Wimbush - yikes.  Keep it up and they'll be talking about you in Haile Selassie-like terms.   (Don't act like you don't know the former Emperor of Ethiopia.  Took on Mussolini, lost.  Took him on again, regained his country and ultimately for 4 million Rastafarians, for reasons not entirely explained by Wikipedia, was looked upon as a god, The Messiah.)  Embrace your destiny, young man.  Prediction:  a year from now he'll be no lower than #2 on the depth chart.

10.  Oh yeah, then there was also this wedding...






 
Word of the Week 



Used In A Sentence:  Every year when Young Terrence ventures to Union Pier to commune with the Alumni Hall gang, he seems to suffer an intense bout of oneirataxia.  

The way they talk... the way they dress... the sheer amount of food they prepare..

These people... they cannot be real.    



Buddy's Buddy.
This game was a tough one to channel Buddy on... does one pick, yet again, Mr. Prosise who  looks more the stud each game?  A reasonable thought.  Too obvious. 

How about Special Teams?  One could argue that Newsome's punt to the 1 yard line was one of the more defining plays of the game?  Nah. 

Anyone for a freshman RB?  Or a freshman QB.  Too soon?

Certainly the Defense makes it difficult to choose, even has their 2nd half seemed to be almost a mirror (good) image of the disappointing 1st.  But shall we reward inconsistency?  I think not.

Therefore let us go with The Big Uglies on the O-Line who, by the week, seem to look like that dominant force that wears defenses down and takes a world of pressure off a still-figuring-it-out QB.  



You're the ones for me, the ones I really, really love.   Now, don't let us down this week.


The Schedule 

September
5       Texas                  W    
12     @ Virginia         W
19     Georgia Tech    W
26     UMass               W 
Have fun storming Clemson... Philly... Boston...

October
3      @ Clemson    Ungie hits South Carolina.  Parties with Colbert. Avoids jail time.
10     Navy
17     USC                Game of The Year?!
31     @ Temple     Corrigan Bros. Reunion 

November
7      @ Pitt
14     Wake Forest
21     @ BC (Fenway Park)  'A' Lot goes to Beantown*.   Oh boy. 
28     @ Stanford

*  3-7pm pre-game get together at Dillon's on Boylston.  Downstairs - private space. 

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner
The list dwindles down to...
  • B Ward, Ungie, R Raymond  
Checks may be sent to:

TP Corrigan
Former Greenskeeper, Scotchlandia
663 Old Suman Road
Valparaiso, IN  46383


Wins
 Which Dan Are You?
ND Implication
Wager
11-12
Daniel Day Lewis





Greatest actor of our generation.  And he’s Irish.  Does it get any better than that?

I think not. 

12: Kevin C, Brian M

11:  Bryan GBob R, JP McG, Jay FJerry WKevin MPeter BDave M, Rob W
9-10
Danny Noonan











In the sequel that never got made, he went on to become a wealthy hedge fund manager, avoids jail,  buys Bushwood, and maintains Lacy Underalls as his mistress.  

 Nice recovery from a fairly shaky start.

10: Terry C, Jerry P, John LJerry Ci, Matt L, Ted C, Tim SLini, Jim BRyan C, Tim C, Graham C

 9:  Daryl MJim SGarrett R*Dave G, Mark U, Tom F, Mike C, Jim R, Mike G
7-8
Lt. Dan


Heroic, absolutely.
  
Sympathetic, without any doubt. 
  
Successful small business owner, impressive.
Still a paraplegic. 

Who wants to trade 

places with him?


8:  Blair R*, Ray V, Jim T, Brian W, Randy R



 7:  Al B
5-6
Danny Torrance



Redrum!  Redrum!

Sure he survived but still sees Scatman Crothers in his dreams, even after graduating from Mother Theresa’s School For The Irretrievably Unbalanced.  


Not exactly a success story.
 6:






 5:
0-4
Dante Alighieri



He didn’t write 'Paradiso', he wrote Inferno.  

As in Hell. 


Which is where ND football would be if this occurs. 


"Repent and be saved, boys!" - the odds of winning this pool is getting... well, you know.

Schadenfreude Candidate of The Week

"Yes, but by Indiana terms, the vertical is totally gnarly..."
Slim pickings this week... 

1.  Oregon.   62-20, ouch.  You used to be the "It" team, the Mount McKinley Denali of PAC-12 football teams, with your look-at-me uniforms and a high profile corporate sponsor.  

Now, you just seem to be the Mt. Baldy of the Northwest.

2.  Dallas Cowboys.   America's Team.  South America, perhaps. No Romo, no win-o. 


Terry's Trolls

Is it not the mark of a civilized, ever evolving society but when we can look at ourselves and assign appropriate criticism?  

Bueller? 

Special ND-oriented addition...

1.  Don Criqui.  I know you're an ND Man.  Huzzah!  I also know you're 75 years old ('cause I looked it up on Wikipedia and that's never wrong).  But I'm dashing back to the house after the tailgate, in order to catch Quarters 2-4 on TV, listening to the IMG radio broadcast and you keep telling me our opponent is Temple!   Not once, mind you.  Repeatedly.  Shared college allegiance aside, Don, I don't think it's too much to ask to get the opposition's name correct. There's only two team names you have to remember - and one of them is always your alma mater.


2.  Jay Hayes.   You're not playing.  I get it, you're frustrated.  But reaching out to the Twitter-sphere is never a good idea, especially when your coaches can monitor your social media .  Besides, if you didn't galumph around so much during practice, perhaps you'd play. 

3.  Keivarae Russell.   What is it with college athletes and social media?!  Tweeting that Clemson's DeShawn Watson isn't a Top 5 QB ("though he's good...") before we've played them, not clever.  I that's called poking the bear.  And since you, K-Rus, haven't been playing like a Top 5 CB, one would really wish you'd just shut up. 

4.  Will Fuller.  Then there's this.  I don't even know what it means.  Probably nothing.  

But I do know Clemson will spin it for motivation, especially since they're not likely to Team Critical Thinking.  Dumb. And Unnecessary. 
"Slash 'n burn, return, listen to yourself churn..."

5.  Isaiah McKenzie.  Sophomore WR for Georgia, who qualifies this week as I think he might've been an ND commit at one point.  Oh yeah, he's alleged to have threatened to kill a woman!  No biggie.  In Athens, it's probably a term of endearment. REM made a song about it, after all - It's The End of Your World (And I Feel Fine.)

6.  Larry Brown.  I'm sorry, I can't resist.  No connection to ND (that I know of) but when one goes 3-for-3 in getting their schools placed on probation, that has to merit you some recognition in the Ethics-challenged Hall of Fame.


An English Major Walks Into A Bar…

Hey!  Finally a book all most some of you will have read.  Probably.

Huckleberry Sin

(Huckleberry Finn, 1884)
by Mark Twain

Conceived to exploit the success of the author's earlier, blatantly comic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn emerged as a standalone classic. In folksy first person, Huck recounts riverboat escapades, narrow escapes and occasional cross-dressing (hey, that sounds like my first semester of sophomore year) set against a Mississippi River raging with racial strife.

Mark Twain - a pen name riff on safety measurements used for steamboats - intended the book as an excoriating critique of slavery but to this day it remains banned in some libraries across the country, with teachers and parents crying (irony alert!) racism. 

Drink the tension away with a bittersweet tribute to Huck's pap, a daylight drunk who could've used a good education. 
  •      5 fresh blueberries, washed
  •      2 oz. berry-flavored vodka (e.g. 
  •      1  (12 oz.) can club soda
Muddle the blueberries in the bottom of a mason jar.  Add ice and pour in the vodka, filling to the top with the club soda.  Enjoy the sunset - and drink until full blown anomia sets in. 

Turning To This Week's Game

Tip: on Celebrity Jeopardy, take any of these before Dabo...
Best article on ND's decision to stay independent that I've seen in while (here) that proves:


  • Swarbrick is smart.
  • Dabo is not.






Also, a fast primer for those going to this week's game... some familiar shibboleths of the garden variety Clemson fan that one should be prepared for:

"Welcome, Ungie..."
1.  "Well butter my butt and call me a  biscuit..."
2.  "You don't watch out, I'm gonna cream yo' corn..."
3.  "You got a purty mouth, did you know that..."
4.  "When I say 'squeal like a pig'..."
5.  "Could you repeat the question..."

You're on your own to determine their meaning. 

Final Thought - I

If you only saw one minute of football all weekend, with all due respect to Brandon Wimbush's debutante, it should've been the final minute literally of the TCU - Texas Tech game.  And if you think our defense is bad, these guys neither understand (or apparently care about) the concept of defense.

And while the notion that one of those teams is the 3rd best in the country is laughable, boy, is it fun to watch!  Wild, wild ending:


Final Thought - II







A Fashion Trajectory One Could've Probably Predicted...