brainsplotch

The Lions lost a heartbreaker yesterday and I'm pretty devastated...well, as devastated as one can get from the result of a sportsball game. Consider this a particular blog post a therapy session. My own private therapy session in which I vent to nobody in particular. Read at your own risk. I may need to resign myself to the real possibility that the Detroit Lions will never go to a Super Bowl in my lifetime. I need to make my peace with this. (And you may need to take everything I write with a grain of salt because I'm despondent and simply venting). I am honestly surprised and a little embarrassed that I'm taking this loss so hard. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with how great the team looked in the first half (24-7 lead) and how utterly abysmal they played in the second half (outscored 27-7; lost 34-31). The Lions dangled the Super Bowl carrot in front of us fans before quickly pulling it away. I don't have anything else to say about this game, so this will likel...

We are rapidly approaching the day (Sunday, January 28) when the Detroit Lions play against the San Francisco 49ers for a spot in that big game with the initials S.B. That special game that I am too jittery and superstitious to refer to by name. I'm old enough to remember when the Lions were in this same position but came up short, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up. If the Lions win on Sunday, it will be one of the top five sports moments of my life, maybe even top three. Hell, it might be number one. I honestly can't even measure it at this point because I can't even imagine how it will feel. Suffice to say it will be tremendous, and for that reason I feel compelled to temper my enthusiasm for now. Whatever happens on Sunday, it's been a great season for the Lions: a season in which the franchise has already exorcized a few demons. They won their first division title in 30 years and won their first playoff  game in 32 years. In fact, the Lions have, thus far, wo...

(Apologies for the font and font size. It's a bit "off" in this post). The Detroit Lions won their second consecutive playoff game yesterday, beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-23. Before the game started at 3:00 PM, I was compelled to go out and burn off a little steam with a two-mile run. I got back home just in time for the kickoff. The Lions' win was partially powered, on my end, by Metallica's Master of Puppets . When my anxiety and total annoyance with game color analyst Cris Collinsworth reached its breaking point, I turned the volume off on the TV and popped in Metallica's Master of Puppets album to "soundtrack" the game. It was partially in honor of Lions coach Dan "Dantallica" Campbell, noted enthusiast of the band. I figured he'd approve. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" was playing when the Lions scored the go-ahead touchdown in the 4th quarter to make the score 24-17. Somehow, the lyrics of that song somewhat matched...

(Erich Schlegel/The Dallas Morning News photo) On January 5, 1992, I was 23 years old and working as "Christmas Help" at Schuler Books in Okemos, Michigan. It was a part-time job that would eventually morph into a full-time job, but I digress. After my Sunday shift ended at 6:00 PM, I tagged along with co-workers to the venerable watering hole the Peanut Barrel to watch the last hour or so of the Detroit Lions' 38-6 walloping of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League playoffs. I should add that the Peanut Barrel was the unofficial bar of Schuler Books, as there was significant intermingling and crossover of Barrel and Schuler employees. There were Schuler people who had a long history with the Peanut Barrel. One of the little-known secrets of the book business is that they like to knock a few back afterhours, probably more than most other folks in the workforce (with the exception of the hard partying food industry folks). So we gathered at the Bar...

I saw this picture posted on Facebook and I had an instantaneous visceral reaction. It was the warm glow of immediate recognition and the loving embrace of childhood nostalgia. For the uninitiated, this is Speed Racer and his car, the Mach 5. Speed Racer (aka Mach GoGoGo ) was a late 1960s Japanese anime that made its way to the United States at about the same time. I, however, did not see it until at least 1973 or 1974. I remember WKBD Channel 50 in Detroit aired it. (To be quite honest, I might be wrong about it being on Channel 50. It could have also been WXON Channel 20, which also showed stuff like the old 1960s animated Spider-Man, Thor, and Incredible Hulk shows).  Like many loves and obsessions from childhood, I can't remember the precise circumstances of how they entered my life, and this is certainly true of Speed Racer. I assume it went a little like this: I had a kindergarten/1st grade friend named Claude, who went by the nickname "Scooter." After...