A Complete Waste Of Time

June really is dumb time in the college football blogosphere. The old season is a fading memory; the new season is still horrifically far in the future. Certain parts of the country melt, and everyone gets ornery. Thus: this. Completely useless, but fun!

It was bound to happen eventually: someone in East Lansing would wake up in a pool of their own vomit with only the hot flush of shame, hazy memories of livestock, and an insatiable desire to start a blog. Then, in typical Spartan fashion, he would spend most of his time talking about Michigan. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Spartan Bob, and when he says "Spartan," he means it with extra inferiority complex:

He also writes for the most spoiled and ignorant fans in all the land -- a Soviet Union of NCAA Football less than 100 miles down the street, in a town where burning leaves is illegal and burning flags is encouraged. A twisted, un-American place, where freedom is in chains, and they go to court to defend an Orwellian speech code and a racially-based admissions department. Consider this blog to be their message of hope and liberation. Their "Radio: Free Ann Arbor."

His latest salvo is deliriously entertaining evidence that since Michigan State has been spurned by this universe, Spartan fans happily create their own worlds where junior could get into Michigan and daddy could afford it. Bob takes two bits of news -- no night games at Michigan Stadium and the whole renovations brouhaha -- and spins them into a fantasy fairyland where the Motor City Bowl is an attainable dream for MSU. I excerpt only the most entertainingly detached-from-reality bit:

Yes, this tailgating beast needs to be strictly controlled. The inmates might come to the misunderstanding that hanging out with their friends, for hours on end, soaking up the tradition and atmosphere of their favorite team could become... a tradition. Next thing you know, they'll start showing up the night before, with their gauche RV's, camping out, singing the fight song, playing cards...

...and attempting to impregnate anything with the proper number of legs: four to eight.

The irony is palpable. Which city is busy shutting down every outdoor space that could possibly contain a student with a can of beer again? That would be East Lansing and its never ending crusade against the very idea that people under 35 should be allowed to grab a beer outside. Of course, given that State fans get to feudin' and a fussin' like they're on Rocky Top after a couple of beasts, maybe East Lansing has the right idea. Ann Arbor, on the other hand, has to convert every bit of available land and the golf course into parking.

Finally, Bob attempts to bring it:

No night games. No advertising. No tailgating. No standing and yelling. No modernization. No fun of any kind. We're a whole bunch of cranky people crammed into a small space with a bunch of rules, and we can't wait to get to our cars and drive home.

Sounds like jail. No wonder they call it the Big House.

These accusations are clearly unfounded, as anyone who's been to the stadium could tell you, but that's not the disappointing part. (Maize 'n' Brew tackled the night games thing already.) This, in the parlance of our times, is "smack." Bob is talking smack at us, no doubt in an attempt to front. He's bringing it, or at least attempting to. Other charmingly outdated urban slang goes here.

The problem is that the smack is weak: a recitation of some fictional facts -- one of which, "no advertising," is a net positive for the game day experience -- followed by the OMG Prison(!) zinger that Michigan fans get from uncreative Spartans... in third grade. Injected into our veins, this smack would cause no more than a slight tremble and briefly elevated mood -- no dead ceiling babies here. In short, there is no "stank" on it. The lesson, as always: never trust a Spartan to do... well... anything right.

Meanwhile, at Spartan Stadium a man-doll in a leather skirt comes out of the tunnel on a Lego chariot while the video boards show state-of-the-art-in-1982 computer animations sponsored by Meijer, Doritos, and the Michigan State Soybean Federation featuring Sparty and his frickin' eye lasers blowing up the logo of the school they're going to get spanked by as Def Leppard or Starship or that goddamned "Hey" song play on the PA. While I can't decide whether or not it's admirable, pathetic, or just plain retarded that 70,000 people show up every year to witness each epic loss against Central Michigan or Rutgers or Louisiana Tech, I do know that Spartan Stadium has all the atmosphere of your local Walmart and the class of the woman selling herself outside of it.

That, as they say, has some stank on it.