There are many things to care about, but Tina Brown is not one of them

Oh the fucking humanity of it all. Tina Brown is going to start blogging and, to paraphrase some shit article linked from CNN.com, save the blogosphere from its own banality and amateur hack status.

Hey Tina, fuck off. You’re a corporate stooge and the absence of corporate stooges is what has made the world of blog reading worthwhile. You want to come and crash the party? Good luck. You’ll be eaten alive.

Just like what’s going to happen to the University of North Carolina on Saturday. Michigan State is hot, determined and confident, and they have plenty of tape from last weekend that shows how to beat the Tar Heels. The more interesting game is Illinois-Louisville. But this isnt Rick Pitino’s year. Not yet. This is Bruce Weber’s year. Make no mistake. It’s going to be a close game, and Louisville probably won’t be completely out of it until the last two minutes, but it’s Illinois’ game, and they’ll be cutting down the nets Monday night.

There are two people in my office pool who are even still alive. One wins if Illinois wins and the other wins in all other scenarios. It took a lot of begging and I was still only able to get about a half dozen people to play the brackets. No one is a fan here. I live in a void of normal behavior. You’d think this would suit me, but there are many times when I need to be surrounded by something that grounds me and the madness I see wherever I go. Here, the madness is countered by nothing. The newspapers are mad. The radio stations are mad. The television channels and grocery stores are mad. People drive their cars, fueled by ignorant insanity. They converse in restaurants and pray at churches energized by their insanity.

If I were to go to a bar on Monday evening, it would be tuned to cable reruns or a NASCAR news show. Hell, even Indianapolis will be fixed to CBS come Monday night, rooting for their own state pastime and cheering on their Big 10 heroes. And Indianapolis is also the heart of fast cars. But it’s normal to watch the NCAA tournament for a reason, and not because it’s an average thing to do. Lots of people watch it because it’s exciting, emotional and heart-wrenching fun.

And I know heart-wrenching. I’m a Buffalo Bills fan. I have a vague optimism about this upcoming season for the Bills only because I have a precise fear and pessimism about it, and I am rarely right about these things. For instance, last year I knew they were going to go to the playoffs and make an honest run at the Super Bowl. They had a new coach, a decent quarterback, and two of the best running backs in the game. They still failed miserably. Now Bledsoe is gone, they have a QB who’s barely played a down of regular season ball, and the fans are another year closer to Ralph Wilson leaving the team to his heartless daughter, who will move it to the midwest or sell it to an evil cable company, who will run the team into the ground. They don’t have much time left, and this is not the time to go on a rebuilding effort. They need to start winning and do it fast, or else the local professional football team for the good citizens of Buffalo will be the Toronto Argonauts.

And football in Canada is definitely not normal. They should be playing hockey, but it looks like that’s never going to happen again. Sport in America is in bad shape. We need to do something fast. Before we know it, we’ll be in another war and we’ll need something to lift our spirits again. The signs are all around. Poor Terri Shiavo finally died. The Pope is going (as of Thursday afternoon). Robert Creeley died yesterday. Another edgy comic bit the dust in a hotel room in New Jersey last night, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the Improv in Baltimore. And He’s taking the bad ones, too. Jerry Falwell is on death’s door and the guy who freed O.J. Simpson from certain hell kicked the bucket earlier this week. We cant pin our hopes for redemption on childish cheaters like Barry Bonds. There has to be something more than that. And the only thing that can try to hold me over until men start pounding one another for a victory on the dirty grass of NFL stadiums all over the country is watching the Final Four this weekend. There’s more riding on these games than the fickle bets of stupid college kids. Our very national livelihood depends on them.

So pick a team, find a friend, drive far from central Pennsylvania, and enjoy it, my friends. I’ll be with you in spirit.

- posted by seanmh @ 9:09 AM