The teams that haven't won...

Another Super Bowl... and between two teams that I don't have any feelings for. I don't hate the 49ers or the Ravens, nor do I particularly care for them, either.

When in doubt, my default position is to root for the team that has never won the title before. That didn't apply in this case- both the 49ers and Ravens have won the title game, and in the recent past (my definition of "in the recent past"= "I remember when it happened"). So again- no rooting preference.

But my question today- turn that around. Of all of the teams that have not a championship, who do you want to see win the championship next?

This isn't the same question as "who is your favorite team?" In baseball, I grew up a Cubs and Indians fan. Both franchises have won the championships before (before I was born, but that's besides the point). Of the franchises that have never won the title, which one would you prefer to see break their streak and be crowned champions?

Any criteria is acceptable- I'm more curious to see who people are rooting for.

NBA... on the move!

The story is that the Sacramento Kings are being sold to an owner who plans on moving them to Seattle.  It's a familiar story- a loyal fanbase being stabbed in the back by greedy and/or stupid owners who get bailed out by moving the team to a new city, just waiting to give them a brand-spanking new stadium and all of the money in the world.

(Side note:  I'm a full-fledged capitalist.  However, I make an exception for sports for three reasons:

1- Sports, unlike life, really is a zero-sum game.  For San Francisco to succeed, Atlanta must lose.  If that's the case, better to make things as equal as possible.

2- Sports teams have no problem blackmailing cities- and therefore, taxpayers- to finance their stadiums.  Therefore, they've lost the credibility to be only a business.

3- Having lost the Browns and experiencing this firsthand, I'm more than a little bitter)

So I think it's time to strike back.

My suggestion, which I offer free to the city of Sacramento for no charge, is to make the following announcement:

"Hi.  Because of the recent sale, the Sacramento Kings are going to be moved to Seattle.  This will replace the team the city of Seattle lost when they were sold to Oklahoma.  In both cases, fanbases were lied to and betrayed, and the NBA abetted and allowed this move.

Now, we could insist that the NBA cancel this move- but they claim they can't.  Or we could try to change from being the victim to the attacker and take someone else's city.  But that unfair to the other city.

So we're going to give the NBA two choices.  Option number 1- a new expansion team, right here in Sacramento.  Heck- we'll be so glad that the owners aren't the Maloofs that we'll take a brand-new franchise.

If you don't like that, we'll go to option number 2.  Now, we won't steal another city's NBA franchise.  That's because the Los Angeles Lakers will voluntarily come to us.

They'll come, because if they don't, the state of California- did we mention that Sacramento is the capital of California?- will pass a 10,000% tax on all NBA purchases involving California teams.  Those Lakers tickets really will be made of gold, for as much as they'll cost.  They can either move here on their own, or start charging seven-digit ticket prices.  

Oh- and that tax increase also applies for all NBA contracts.  There might be some legal issues, but since we don't have basketball here in Sacramento, we have plenty of time to go through the court system.

Now, some people might say that it's unfair to take the Lakers.  But Los Angeles already has two teams, so they aren't losing the NBA.  Besides, we're still pissed about the 2002 playoffs.

So, the choice is yours, David Stern.  Give us a new franchise, give us the Lakers, or give us a massive check."

And, Sacramento... you're welcome.
 

Holy Crap... I'm in a show!

Lately, I've started going to the Improv at Mahall's in Cleveland.  It's a fun show with a great group of people.  

I've tried both stand-up comedy and community theater in the past, and Improv takes the best of both worlds.  

Unlike stand-up, which is a solitary activity (it's just you on stage), Improv allows you to work with and play off others.  Also, my own experiences with stand-up has been that the comics have a very cut-throat mentality. 

In community theater you work with others, but it's extremely structured- you're limited to what the play is, or the director's interpretation of the play.  It becomes repetitive.  Plus, half the plays are very tragic in nature, and I continue a decade of being on a low-angst diet.

But with Improv, you work with a group of people, and come up with new things every time.  And we've been lucky to work with a great group of people at Mahall's.

From this group, we found out about a sketch comedy group starting up, and now we're part of The Public Squares.  I've always wanted to be on show like SNL or SCTV, so this is a dream come true.  Our shows are (pitch alert!)  Feb. 1 and 2nd.  The crew is great, and the skits are funny.  

Finally... the Mighty Bastard comes to the stage :)

 

Reviewing my 2012 Predictions

Let's do some navel-gazing as 2012 closes and see how well my predictions stacked up against reality:

Politics:

* Mitt Romney wins the GOP Nomination.  He finishes in the top 3 in Iowa, which neither Gingrich nor Perry can do.  After Super Tuesday, he has such a large lead (and his opponents split among too many candidates) that it will be impossible to stop him.

===>  Pretty much true.  Rick Santorum hung around a while, but Romney was never in serious danger of losing the nomination.

 

* He picks Tim Pawtenly as his VP nominee, though rumors abound that he considers Condaleeza Rice

 ===>  Wrong here- Paul Ryan was the VP nominee

 

* President Obama retains Joe Biden as his VP, despite rumors of a swap with Hilary Clinton

===>  Pretty much right- there was talk of a swap, but it never amount to much.

 

* In November, the Romney/Pawtenly ticket wins the Presidency.  The House flips to the Democrats, while the Senate flips to the GOP, continuing a gridlocked government.

===>  More than wrong here.  I still don't understand how anyone can look at the last four years and think Obama deserves re-election.  Then again, I may be the only person who became a bigger fan of Romney as the year went on, so my opinions probably aren't a good analogue for the rest of the country.

Sports:

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVI.

===>  Wrong.  The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots.

 

* The Miami Heat win the NBA title over the Memphis Grizzlies, and about 19,000,000 stories will be written about LeBron James 'overcoming his personal demons' to win.

===>   Wrong on the opponent, but Right about the deification of James. 

 

* The LA Angels, having spent enough money on Albert Pujols to buy the salaries for the Boston Red Sox AND the Texas Rangers for next year, still won't make the playoffs. 

===>  Right on the nose here.  Heck, the Angels finished third!

 

* The New York Yankees will beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series

===>  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  The San Francisco Giants swept the Detroit Tigers

Games and Entertainment:

* Despite having no good reason to continue, the United States ban on online poker will remain

===>  Sadly still true.

 

* At Wrestlemania 28, John Cena will defeat the Rock, while CM Punk will retain the WWE title against a heel Daniel Bryan

===>  Wrong on both.  Rock beat Cena, Punk fought a heel Jericho.

 

* 'Avengers' will be good but not great.  'The Dark Knight Rises' will be lacking compared to the first two movies.

===>  Wrong here.  The Avengers turned out to be a great movie.  'The Dark Knight Rises' was a fitting end to the trilogy.

Other:

* The world will not end on December 21st.  Mayan experts will be quoted as saying, "Oops."

===>  Well- we're still here.  

 

* I will go through a two month period without posting anything, then post six times within a two week period.  Both of the people who read this blog will appreciate it.

 ===>  Pretty much.  I skipped all of March, then went on a binge in August.  

===================================================
Overall, not that good.  And this is why you should not bet based on my prognostications.

A completely Justified Rant About Sports...

Hi- I just want to borrow a minute of your time to get something off my chest.

Now, I used to be a giant sports fans.  Baseball, Basketball, Football, you name it.  I can quote Berman, Patrick and Olbermann the way a music lover can quote Dylan, Lennon, and Page.  I have shelves full of books from the 1985 Chicago Bears to analyzing the baseball season of 1991 to the history of the ABA, which folded three years after I was born.  For all of the money I spent on clothes, tickets, books, and cheap tchotchkes that broke three days later, I should be driving a brand new Ferrari.

Before I moved to Cleveland I was a Cubs fan, and after I moved here became a fan of the Indians, Browns, and Cavs.  If you’re not a sports fan, consider yourself lucky.  If you are, then you know that my entire psyche is made up of emotional scar tissue from heart-breaking defeats, betrayals, and losses.  I have more emotional trauma from sports than anything my ex-girlfriends delivered, and there’s a long story why I don’t talk to people named ‘Beverly’.

I can handle losing.  I have 30 years of experience on that.  I can even tolerate a team run by a bunch of idiots who don’t know what they are doing.  Again, 30 years of experience.   But I finally realized was that I was investing time and money into an industry that goes out of my way to spit in my face, and I’ve gotten sick and tired of being their personal piss bucket.

If it’s not the player leaving his hometown to go check out the bikini-clad models on South Beach, it’s the coach gets upset that you point out that he’s really bad at his job.  And even once I stop buying the stuff myself, my money still goes to them because the owner cries poverty unless we spend our tax dollars buying them a state-of-the-art stadium with ticket prices far more than anyone I know can afford.

You know what I enjoy watching?  Pro Wrestling.  Now, people always cry that it’s fake.  My response used to be that so is the TV show ‘Homeland’, but people don’t seem to mind that.

But you know something?  Yes, Pro Wrestling is fake.

That’s.  The.  Damn.  Point.

You see in so-called ‘real’ sports, people can act like complete jackasses to the fans, because they have their contract.  They know that, because of fate or genetics or whatever, they can shoot or throw or run better than 99.99% of the world.  And that, apparently, gives them a license to make obscene amounts of money and lord it over the rest of us without suffering any consequences.

But in wrestling?  Sure, there are good guys and bad guys.  The bad guys want people to boo them, which is different that treating the fans like dirt.  The fans know wrestling is ‘fake’, and the wrestlers know the fans know.  So even when the heels are acting like bad guys, there’s always this wink that the wrestlers give than lets everyone’s in on the act.  But if you are a complete jerk, the fans will tune you out.  And there, it doesn’t matter if you’re the biggest, the strongest, the fastest, the greatest pro-wrestler ever- if the fans don’t like you, you won’t succeed.  

So Professional Wrestlers HAVE to treat the fans with respect.  They understand that, without the fans, they don't have a career.

Which is more than more sports stars know.

The Rebuilding Process

Romney lost. It wasn't an epic loss, and people are already coming up with 10,000 excuses why he lost and how he could have been a better candidate if he had just done A, B and C.

I liked Romney- still do, and still think he would have been a better President than a candidate. But he lost, and he won't be running in 2016, and I wish him a long, happy, and healthy life.

As for the GOP, we have some serious tactical problems. This isn't like 2008, when we knew we were toast. Given the economic conditions, the voters should have thrown out the incumbent. They didn't, in large part because the Democrats made assumptions about the voters that were correct, while the GOP were wrong.

I'll leave the tactical problems to the James Carvilles and the Karl Roves and the Lee Atwaters of the world. I'm seeing that the GOP has another, more fundamental problem: What does the GOP stand for?

In the 80's, there was the Reagan Coalition- the three legs of the Economic Conservatives, the Social Conservatives, and the Foreign

Policy Conservatives. The problem is, the issues facing us in 2012 are not the same issues facing us in 1978, and what it means to be a Conservative- on any of these legs- is different now than it was 35 years ago.

One at a time:

　

Economic Conservatives: The basic concept of economic conservatism in the Reagan years was a combination of low taxes, a military buildup (which was a Keynesian plan), and a strong dollar. In the late 70's, we were dealing with high inflation and a bad economy leading to high unemployment. Reaganomics worked in that it tamed the inflation and led to an economic boom.

Well, in 2012, we still have a bad unemployment and slow economy- but inflation (as of this moment) isn't an issue, and the interest rates are already so low that there is no place to cut them. The income taxes are much lower now than in the 70s. In addition, we have a high deficit and debt, ones that are increasing rapidly.

To most voters, they associate the GOP with low taxes for the rich. I believe high taxes hurt the economy, but in terms of both philosophy and messaging the GOP needs to be associated with other economic ideas other than standing on a tax Maginot Line.

My own wish list:  I'm willing to trade higher taxes for significant spending cuts, and adopting deficit reduction as the core of our economic program. It's easy to paint the Democrats are spending our children's inheritance- but not if the GOP is as bad as they are. The problem is, any deal typically has the taxes enacted now while the spending cuts happen sometime in the future- you need some way of guaranteeing the cuts (maybe agree that the tax increases occur one years after the spending cuts are enacted?)

We cannot afford to get into a battle with the Democrats over who can provide the most goodies- it's a battle we can't win. But we can be the party of the economic adults. To do that, we need to start acting like economic adults.

Social Conservatives: In the 70's, "Social Issues" were crime and gun control. Most voters are for tougher criminal sanctions and believe they should be allowed to be armed, so "Social Issues" were in the GOP's favor.

Today, if you asked most voters about "Social Issues", they would answer about Abortion, Gay Marriage, and Birth Control (Apparently, social issues are now all about sex). These issues tend to favor Democrats. And they have successfully painted the GOP as the party of the old white male trying to prevent women from having sex.

There is a place in the party for Social Conservatives- we have some serious moral problems in this country (the divorce rate and number of broken homes are issues that aren't solved with a check). But the GOP needs to decide what social issues they want to push- and how to avoid the issues that turn off voters.

My own wish list:  Embrace federalism. Abortion, Gay Marriage, Legalized Marijuana, Gambling? These are state issues, not federal issues. If North Dakota wants to be a Puritan Utopia while South Dakota is the State of All Vices, more power to them! We're the federal government- we have enough issues to deal with. Leave this to the states.

　

　

Foreign Policy Conservatives: In the 70s, we had the Cold War. The Soviet Union and the US were locked in a titanic struggle, and every other country was a pawn to the Cold War.

Well, we won... in 1989, the Soviet Union split up.

Now what?

In a way, the foreign policy issues were simpler in the Cold War Days. The basic issue was if it was better to be aggressive to stand up to the Soviet Union or not. Now, there is no other Superpower- but a score of nations and groups, all armed enough to hurt the US, but not an existential threat like the Soviet Union was.

Sometimes we've fought back, to the point that we have invaded other countries (Iraq, Libya). Other times, we've been hands off (Syria, Iran) or tried to negotiate a peace (North Korea).

The Democrats ran on a program in 2008 of being against the tactics of the Bush administration- then adopted those exact same tactics. At this point, I don't know what voters think about either party. And I don't know if there is a clear line where either party can say "We stand here, they stand over there, vote for us."

My own wish list:  Damned if I know. Sometimes I think we need to become Isolationist, and leave the rest of the countries to their fate. Then I imagine a dozen mini-genocides in third world countries, and wonder if we have become the world's policemen, the only nation capable of holding back the Barbarians. I don't have a good answer here- I wish I did.

Post-Election Recovery

Well... that was disappointing.

I'm not going to deny it- I thought Romney was going to win, I expected him to win, and he didn't. The popular vote was close, but Obama won every close state to dominate the electoral vote count- which is the one that matters. Congratulations to him.

Some thoughts as I recover:

1) The more I learned about Romney, the more I liked him. I really thought he'd do better at governing the country than winning the election- even be the GOP's version of Clinton, without the potential for scandal. Whereas last year Romney was choice because he was electable, by Nov. 6th I had become a fan of his, and I think the US will miss out on a possible great President.

2) We live in a strange place where a large percentage of the population doesn't think the President has much influence over the economy but is paramount on issues regarding issues about sex. Given how bad the economy has been (high unemployment... a $16 trillion debt... high gas prices), I thought no President could survive re-election. Maybe my priorities are different than most voters.

3) The issue that concerns me the most? The Supreme Court. Four Justices are over 74 years old. There is a chance for the next President to radically alter the direction of the Court for a generation.

4) The GOP is about to go to war with itself. There are several factions within the GOP, and each faction will claim their side that if people had just listened to them, they would have won. You have the Establishment/Bush wing of the GOP, the Tea Party wing of the GOP, the Libertarian wing of the GOP, the Social Conservative wing of the GOP- expect a lot of infighting over the next 2-4 years.

I can list my own items of what I think the GOP should do- embrace a "No bailouts, no subsidies" financial philosophy, stop fighting gay marriage (in fact, get in front of it; married couples vote GOP more than single people- we should want more happily married couples, regardless of gender), frame the abortion debate better (someone should have found a loophole to drop Akin from the ticket, and I say this as a firm pro-lifer)... but everyone who is a Republican will have their own wish list. We'll fight it out and determine the direction.

((For the record, I think the next time the Democrats lose, they'll also have interparty fighting; like the GOP under George W, they are sticking together under the President. Once they lose that, expect the factions to start fighting))

5) We went into this election with a Democratic President, a Democratic-controlled Senate, and a GOP-controlled House. We left this election with the exact same makeup. Is the message we really want to send to the politicians "You're doing a great job- keep it up!"???

6) In the end, I want the country to do well. I don't agree with the President philosophically, and I still retain that he does not have the experience or skillset of actually running the country. But he has the job until 2016, so here's hoping he makes the correct decisions.