Three Probable Impacts of the NFL Lockout

1. Rookies will not contribute worth a flying damn this year.

The Packers drafted Randall Cobb, their second-round wide receiver of the future, to use him in all sorts of crazy ways like Percy Harvin 2.0. The expectation among fans immediately after he was drafted was that he could line up in the backfield, in the slot, outside, run reverses, return kicks and generally make the Green Bay offense that much more awesome.

The problem is, wide receiver is one of the hardest positions to learn even in the best of times. Meaning, when you've had a full offseason to absorb the playbook. But in the lockout, teams can't get playbooks to their rookies, so the two months of study (or more) that rookies would have had up until now hasn't happened. When they get to training camp (assuming a deal happens before then), they're going to have to learn the entire offense in a month, which is akin to becoming fluent in a foreign language in six months. It just doesn't work unless you are heroically talented.

There's a school of thought that running backs will be a little less affected than other positions, running back being the position where rookie runners tend to have more success (Adrian Peterson or Steve Slaton or Chris Johnson, anyone?) but don't hold out hope for Alex Green to contribute in his rookie year, either. The plan was for him to be the third-down back, but the intricacies of blitz pickups and screen passes are probably best left to Brandon Jackson for another year. You don't want Jared Allen to take Rodgers' head off because the rookie RB missed a chip.

2. Veteran free agents won't fix your team this year.

NFL.com keeps posting articles guaranteed to tantalize fans of struggling teams, hypothesizing where big-name free agents will land and what holes on which teams need to be filled by which player. That's fine, but I wouldn't expect Sidney Rice or Nnamdi Asomugha to come in and be a world-beater on the Bears or Texans. The lack of time to learn the playbook and practice with new teammates also hurts these players, and the longer the lockout lasts, the more pronounced this effect will be. Scheme is so important in the NFL that veteran free agents will likely have little impact, early in the season.

3. But on the whole, veteran players who stay with their teams will be better than usual.
Players in their early to mid-thirties who would normally be going through minicamps and "optional" team workouts all spring and early summer now will have missed all of that. They'll be working out on their own, of course, but one would expect that veterans' bodies will be less tired come the summer. I would expect older players to benefit from the time off, and have a better season in 2011 than they might otherwise have had.

Top 10 Most Commonly Uttered Lines In The Afterlife

After an exhaustive* survey of souls in the Recently Arrived (+/- 5 years) portion of the Afterlife, Tisdel's Tirades' staff have compiled this list of the top 10 most commonly uttered sentiments. We hope you, the living, will take some consolation from the feelings of the dear departed; however, we also hope that you may take some lessons from their last thoughts.

Without further ado:

The Top 10 Quotes From Beyond the Grave

1. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

2. "So I said 'You and what army?'"

3. "I could’ve sworn that was going to work!"

4. "And then they made me their chief."

5. "So I said 'I wonder what this button does—'"

6. "That’s when s/he said 'Oh shit! My spouse is home!'"

7. "Join the Army, they said. See the world, they said…"

8. "The last thing I remember was someone yelling 'Isn’t this incredible!?!'"

9. "…and then there was a shark."

10. "I got shot by James Bond."

(Bonus line, which we observed mostly emanating from souls that had occupied an upper-middle class position in life: "Jesus Christ but I was overweight!")

*Data based on a survey conducted between June 18th and June 22nd, Earth time, of total 56,021 souls. Souls represent an accurate percentage of all souls in the area, meaning all souls dispatched to the Afterlife within (+/- 5 years), and thus are not necessarily a cross-section of the Earth population. We strongly advise against any attempts to verify our work; please to god take our word for it, don't go check yourself. Lazarus treatments should only be attempted by professionals. If you found something like that in an old H.P. Lovecraft, well, we advise against trying that too but you probably won't listen to us. 

Transcripts of our interviews with several shinigami are available upon request.

"You are perfect, just as you are!!" (hat tip, Comet, Yield and Something Else establishments)

There is a pivotal scene in Battlestar Galactica, season and episode 4,  where a bloodied and beaten Gaius Baltar declares to his conclave of women “God only loves that which is perfect, and He loves You. Because You are all perfect. Just as you are! You are perfect, just as you are!” and the crowd erupts in tears and joy.

Tonight, I had the great privilege to witness two gorgeous women tell each other that they were pretty, and then reply in turn “You’re pretty. No, no. you are.”

Beauty, obviously, is subjective—across cultures, across friend groups, across personal goddamn preferences. But to me, what is more attractive than any other quality is the ability to say “I am pretty. I am gorgeous, and goddamn it, you can deal with it or you can go home.”

That self-consciousness, that refusal to abide by any cultural sensibility (and believe me, the two women in question would’ve been deemed beautiful by any sane, straight panel of heterosexual males or homosexual females, from any culture) is insanely awesome. The self-confidence to say “Yeah. You know what? I’m pretty. I’m fucking gorgeous. And far more importantly, I am me. You can laugh with me or go to hell”, that is fantastic. Drunk, sober, these things are of scant importance. You are perfect, just as you are, and you have the moxie to say so. That is absolutely fantastic.

(Disclaimer: this post was written under the influence of intoxicating beverages. That does not invalidate any declaration that the poster makes; rather, it makes it more true, because it gives the poster the bravado to post whatever the hell he feels like and say whatever he decides is correct. This is. He is about to. May you enjoy this and all time-continuum-logical posts in the past or future.)

Lost Opportunities in Game of Thrones

If.

If Joffery hadn’t cut off Ned Stark’s shaggy head… if Lady Stark hadn’t snatched up Tyrion and inadvertently started a war with the Lannisters… if Ned had sent his daughters away from King’s Landing while he had his many, many chances… if Robert Baratheon’s great love hadn’t been killed before the series even began.

Those are just some of the many, many fateful (and fatal) choices made in the first season of Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin’s brainchild has a wonderful habit of subverting traditional fantasy tropes, and chief among the casualties has been the idea of destiny. You look at a series like The Wheel of Time or The Sword of Truth and it’s got prophecy written all over it. Everything is preordained and we basically know where we’re going, even if we don’t quite know how we’re going to get there.

Game of Thrones, at least the TV version, turns all of that inside out. Take the Targaryn saga. The “Stallion who will Mount the World” saga came to an abrupt end before Rhaego was even born. The Doth’Raki invasion of Westeros that the show absolutely looked like it was leading up to went down in flames. And it was all because of Daenerys’ one lousy choice. If she hadn’t chosen to save the woman who later killed her son and husband (basically), and allow that woman to work magic on them both, it’s probable that story arc would still be going strong. Not in this series. As with so many lines, all that potential goes away because of one bad decision. Sure, it was a Right Thing to Do, but the unintended consequences of things in this show are just amazing.

Lockout, Day CXI: Deal Close?

A few months ago, a decision like that of the Eighth Circuit upholding the legality of the NFL lockout would've produced acrimony and strife. The NFL would've scoffed at the NFLPA and the NFLPA would've railed at the NFL, each crying unfairness and each pandering to the media. But instead of that, we got an actual joint statement from both parties.

Regardless of what the text says, (we're committed to negotiating, etc.), can you imagine the parties making a joint statement like this in February? I view this as a sign that the two sides have really stopped trying to make themselves look good to the fans and gotten down to what's actually important, that is, working out a deal.

Stay tuned.

"Camelot!" "Camelot!" "Camelot!" "It's only a model." "Shh!"

A plot summary of Camelot, the musical King Arthur light-opera endeavor.

King Arthur of Britain and Princess Guinevere of Wherever are due to be wed as part of a political agreement. Gwen (I can’t spell her real name offhand) arrives at Camelot and, while agonizing over her soon-to-be-ended maidenhood, accidentally runs into King Arthur, who has been lurking in the forest trying to get a glimpse of his new bride. Arthur conceals his identity, calling himself Wart (a boyhood name), and convinces a hesitant Gwen to stay in Camelot. Gwen proceeds to kiss Arthur-Wart without knowing that he is to be her husband, introducing the audience to two of her biggest character traits: she enjoys the idea of men fighting over her, and she will cheat.

Arthur is unmasked and, while explaining his identity, manages to make the story of pulling Excalibur out of the stone sound downright boring. He also lets on that he has no idea how to rule or what he is doing. Meanwhile, Merlin (Arthur’s teacher, mentor and rememberer-of-the-future) is trapped in an enchanted glade, never to be seen in the play again.

While throwing around ideas with Gwen, Arthur comes up with the idea for the Round Table, yelling “Proposition!” every time he comes up with a new idea. He also laments incessantly about 1. the necessity of being civilized, 2. Merlin’s long-ago pastime of changing him into animals, 3. everything.

The Round Table begins to attract knights and damsels, most of whom are utter featherheads. One day, Lancelot du Lac rolls up, proclaims himself to be the most pure-hearted, pure-minded, physically gifted man on Earth and offers his services to the King. Arthur takes a liking to him; everyone else finds him an insufferable prick, since he is basically a seventh-century born-again. Gwen, in particular, conspires to have his arse kicked in an upcoming tournament.

The tournament arrives, and Lancelot is pitted against three successive knights in a jousting match. The action takes place with the cast looking out at the audience, and the sound of thundering hooves played from loudspeakers behind the audience, so you get the uncomfortable impression that the joust is somehow taking place right above your head. Lancelot beats the first two random knights, then accidentally kills the third before bringing him back to life by concentrating really hard. The Court is astonished, and Gwen instantaneously swings from “I hate that sonofabitch” to “Jesus Christ but you’re attractive!” Cue the affair. Arthur emotes wildly, agonizes about the affair and then grabs Excalibur, declaring that he’s going to do something about this right the fuck now. Curtain.

(It was here that I was thinking, you all like each other... can’t you sit down at a table and work something out? At least put it on the table that you know, Arthur, and give some permission for them to do it. You can’t stop it, so you might as well find a way to live with it. This does not happen.)

Two years later, Arthur still hasn’t done anything about anything right the fuck now, and Lance and Gwen are still fooling around. Enter Mordred, Arthur’s bastard son by way of some random chick. Another play might have played this for justice on Arthur’s side, but apparently he was roofied and this was long ago, so it isn’t cheating. Mordred gives a perfunctory here-I-am-this-is-my-motivation song, then sets off to destroy Arthur because… well, because fuck you, that’s why.

Mordred traps Arthur in the woods for a night, then catches Lance and Gwen agonizing over their relationship and how it’s hurting Arthur. After a long discussion, they bravely decide to do nothing and make out. They probably would still be there if Mordred hadn’t declared “Dammit, I’m moving the plot forward on my OWN if no one else is!” and ambushed them. Gwen is captured by Round Tablers, while Lancelot escapes. (One of the Tablers is the knight Lance resuscitated, and I was hoping he would to say to Mordred “Fuck you, motherfucker! This guy brought me back from the dead! No way I’m arresting him!” and let him go. Sadly, this also doesn’t happen.)

Fast-forward again. Gwen has been tried, found guilty and sentenced to burn at the stake. Arthur agonizes about it at center stage, while Mordred screeches about how he’s won and Arthur is doomed and blabbity blah blah. You want Arthur to just rear back and punch the sneering little shit in the teeth, but he’s too busy emoting and bawling about Gwen. Lancelot appears, cuts a path through the knights (unseen by the audience) and rescues Gwen.

Fast-forward again, to France. The Round Table is broken; Arthur’s half is lined up ready to fight Lancelot’s half. Lance and Arthur and Gwen meet before the battle, and the conversation goes something like this:

“I love you both!”

“I love you too!”

“I don’t want to fight you!”

“I don’t want to fight you either. Should we call the whole thing off?”

“Hm….. NAHHHHHH”

Seriously, it’s a personal feud between the commanders, but in this version Lance and Arthur are best friends even after Gwen cheated on the latter with the former! There is literally no reason for them to be fighting outside of the grudge, and since it doesn’t apply, there IS no reason! But they fight anyway, and it’s at this point where you really start wanting the writers to just flip the familiar Arthurian script and do something massively unexpected, but they don’t. Arthur grabs a random boy, knights him and tells him to go spread tales of the Round Table, then runs off to fight his best friend. Oh fucking joy. Curtain.

Götterdämmerung!!!

“This will stick with you. This will mark you. You will judge everything else by it.” –overheard conversation in the audience, after the finish of Götterdämmerung

Götterdämmerung, as performed by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, was unlike anything I have ever seen before. Movies, popular music, the other Ring operas, all other media… nothing comes close.

The music was fantastic, but since I am a musical/opera dullard compared to most of the theatergoers, the things I noticed most tended to be set design. Here are some notes I jotted down in the back of the program during the intermissions.

The production wasn’t set in a classical Valhalla world, but in a sort of updated American version of that world that reminded me of 1905 Chicago. The story is multigenerational over the four operas, so by the start of Götterdämmerung, we’ve made it to the Internet. The Norn, the daughers of earth goddess Erda who weave the rope of fate, were instead connecting cables inside the Internet. A cable breaks and they descend, in terror, to Erda.

I thought the design of the Gibichungs’ penthouse was inspired. Containing a sleek, modern bar and an expensive white couch, with pillows and barstools made of faux-leopard skin (and with a huge steel framework of windows and doors), the room did a great job of telling us about these people. They are the kind of rich people who have everything material, but nothing else.

There was not a single dull moment in Act II. I think that was my single favorite act of the entire Ring Cycle.

When Hagen calls together the vassals, about 70 black-clad men came onstage, the first chorus in the entire Ring. The scale of it was just incredible. They brought out all these vassals and another 30 or so maidens. The vassals were dressed in sort of standard goon fare—police armor, black clothing and so forth—which put an interesting spin on their vocal parts. It’s nice to see people dressed like that getting a voice for a change, and they also get a little characterization. They’re totally loyal to Gunther and zealous about it; they want nothing more than to protect him.

The fact that the double wedding/betrayal/counter-betrayal scene takes place in front of all the vassals also raises the stakes considerably. It’s not just Gunther’s personal sense of honor that’s at stake here, it’s his honor as witnessed by his entire kingdom. That gives enormous force to the accusations. There’s a lot to be lost or won here.

Hagen’s music is so damn evil! It’s just so black and brooding and dreadful, and Hagen himself is a complete villain!

And Brünnhilde… WHOA. This was Nina Stemme’s debut performance as Brünnhilde, and she absolutely nailed it. She has an incredible voice and the range to sing everything, but just as importantly, she can act as well. Brünnhilde is supposed to think that Siegfried is betraying her in the double-marriage scene, and she is pissed. And I’ve never seen a character in any medium sell anger this well. I was genuinely scared all the way back in the seats. You could see it in her face and body language and hear it in her voice. She absolutely sold the anger.

And the bitch of it is, they’re both right (in a way). Siegfried and Brünnhilde are arguing over two different topics,

Siegfried’s scene at the end of the first act, where he pretends to be Gunther to win Brünnhilde for Siegfried, was masterfully creepy. In this production, the Tarnhelm was a piece of chain mail instead of a helmet that Siegfried covered his face with, and it was incredibly creepy. He even changed his voice, sounding deeper and more menacing. 

The one other thing in the production that really worked were the anachronisms. The court of the Gibichungs was a more militaristic one than the original, and the guards mostly sported automatic rifles... but some had crossbows. When Siegfried goes hunting, he takes his sword Nothung and a M-16. There were a lot of wonderful anachronisms like that in the operas that made me smile (notably in Siegfried, where Mime and Sigfried live in a trailer park and forge Nothung in a jumped-up barbecue).