Your Life Playlist (Or I’m Trying To Be Chuck Klosterman)

You are sitting on your couch late one evening, eating Cocoa Puffs and watching “I Love The 80’s,” when the Angel of Death knocks upon your door; he is there to collect your soul. 

Overcome by your impending departure (and because Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” video is about to come on next) you beg and implore the Angel to spare your life.  Surprisingly, the somber specter offers you a proposition: he will allow you to live to a good, healthy age, but in turn, you may only listen to five songs ever again.  When you’re having dinner at a restaurant, one of these songs will be playing; when you’re listening to the radio in your car, one of these songs will be on the air.  There is another catch: songs must be chosen for their utility as well as their greatness, meaning they must fit into one of five categories listed below.  Knowing that these songs will provide the soundtrack for the rest of your life . . .

Which songs do you choose?

 

The Roadtrip-In-The-Summer-With-Your-Buds Song:

“Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows

Adam Durtz has explained that this song is about his longing to make it big and being able to pick up chicks, which made it supremely relevant to me, as these were my only two real goals in high school.

 

The I’m-Getting-Ready-To-Break-Something Song:

“All My Life” by Foo Fighters

My friend Mike bought me tickets to see the Foos, which was unquestionably the loudest concert I have ever been to in my life.  My second choice was the song playing in “Office Space” while Peter, Michael and Samir beat the crap out of that printer.

 

The Hooking-Up Song:

“Crash” by Dave Matthew Band

I’m not saying you’re playing this while in the act of procreating . . . but it’s definitely the song you want on when you’re trying to get to be more than friends.

My best friend Cody had a theory in high school that if you played this song in the car with a girl, her body would produce a hormone causing her to instantly want to make out with you.  After years of careful study and research, science has proven this to be true… for him.

 

The Girlfriend/Wife/Girl-You’ve-Secretly-Loved-For-Years, Broke-Up-With-You/Divorced-You/Got-Engaged To-Another-Guy Song:

“Motorcycle Drive By” by Third Eye Blind

Since 92.6% of all modern music is written about chicks, it’s probably a good idea to have this category on here.  If you’re a melancholy guy like me, this is probably a sad song.  If you’re O.J. Simpson, this song is “99 Problems” by Jay-Z.

This song has been there for me through every heartbreak since middle school, which I guess makes it the male equivalent of “You’ve Got Mail” and a bowl of Haagen-Dazs.

 

The Random Song:

“Yellow” by Coldplay

When Ryan Rainey explained this to me, it became my favorite song.

The OU Simpson Case

1995 was the year the American public lost confidence in our judicial system.   The year before, Hall of Fame running back O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, were brutally murdered inside her California home.  Mr. Simpson stood trial in what became one of the most highly publicized cases in U.S. history.

Several incriminating pieces of evidence that seemed to point to Simpson as the killer were found, including: blood at the scene of the crime matching Simpson’s, blood on Simpson’s sock matching Brown’s, and blood on a left handed glove and Simpson’s Ford Bronco matching both Brown and Goldman’s.

Though DNA evidence is considered highly accurate and usually sufficient enough for a conviction, Simpson’s star-studded defense team was able to successfully call into question the legitimacy of the prosecution’s case, citing mishandling of the samples by Detective Mark Fuhrman and the lab assistant who took Simpson’s blood.  8 months later, Simpson was acquitted of the charges.

Yesterday, in one the most controversial outcomes in college football this season, Texas was denied a spot in the Big XII Championship.  Despite strong evidence, including a 45-35 victory on a neutral field, some coaches from the WAC and a couple Dell computers gave the nod to Oklahoma instead.

OU Simpson got away with murder again.

I’m trying to stay positive by celebrating another terrific 10+ win season by the ‘Horns, and holding on to the outside hope that a Missouri victory could potentially give Texas a chance to play for the National Championship, but I’ve lost all hope in the BCS.  If OU loses, I’ll likely get to sit back and watch as Texas is passed over by USC, Penn State, or Mary Hardin-Baylor.

In a court of law, each side is given the opportunity to make their closing remarks, so to Oklahoma football I would like to say:

Don’t choke.

Don’t go up to Missouri and blow it because you’re not at home any more.  Don’t go down to Miami on January 8^th and get Gatoraped.

I don’t want to see any repeats of the 2003 Championship against LSU, where you made Nick Saban a millionaire – or the 2004 Championship against USC, where you kept Auburn from going to the game, but forgot to show up.

Watch out for the “Hook and Ladder,” and the “Statue of Liberty.”  Be careful against Tim Tebow – he’ll remind you a lot of Pat White, Vince Young, and Ell Roberson.  

Whatever you do, don’t lose.

I want to see you standing on the field at the end, celebrating; with Brad Samford hoisting the trophy.  I want to take pleasure in knowing that, in a sport of arbitrary speculation and uncertainty, the only certain thing is that Texas beat Oklahoma.

Playoff Time

Okay, first things first:

I’m a University of Texas football fan.

Naturally, this means I dislike Oklahoma.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t respect OU.  I tend to view them in the same way America views Canada; they’re north of us, they’re tolerable as long as they stay quiet, and they play an inferior style of football.  I also enjoy watching them lay down in bowl games every year.  It’s one of my favorite holiday traditions, along with Christmas parties and drinking hot chocolate.

Yesterday, the AP poll and BCS standings were released, and while Oklahoma rose all the way to number two in the sportswriters’ poll, Texas maintained a slim margin for the number two spot in the BCS.  Many experts predict that, with a win over Oklahoma State next Saturday, OU will surpass Texas in the BCS standings as well, giving them the opportunity to play Missouri in the Big XII Championship, with an almost guaranteed spot in the National Championship on the line.

What is bothersome about this is that there is no set criteria a voter must use when casting their ballot; the method can vary from person to person.  For example, when the AP poll was released, many voters undoubtedly ranked Oklahoma ahead of Texas, reasoning that Oklahoma is playing the best football right now, and thus, the better football team.  At first, this logic seems sound.  Destroying a previously undefeated Texas Tech team by 44 points (even if it was at home) is undeniably impressive.  This line of reasoning seems even more suitable when the two teams being compared haven’t faced each other head to head.  Unfortunately, in OU’s case, they have . . .

AND TEXAS BEAT THEM!

FOR THE THIRD TIME IN FOUR YEARS!!!

Now, here is when Oklahoma fans undoubtedly turn to the argument, “it was the fifth week of the season,” citing their offensive statistics since their loss to Texas, and “Sam Bradford for Heisman,” and blah, blah, blah.  The problem with this argument is that it has now moved beyond the sidelines of football, into the realm of physics. The problem is a thing we call, time.

Football, like most competitive team sports, is won by scoring more points than your opponent.  This must be done within an agreed upon length of time.  I’m not sure who chose 60 minutes as the appropriate amount, or why they did so, but it has seemed to suffice (with the exception of overtime) for the past hundred years.  Imagine, however, if one team didn’t agree to play by these rules, and though they were still down by 10, claimed victory over the other team with two minutes left in the 4^th quarter, because they had scored the same amount of points in the second half, and had more total yards.

Sounds ridiculous, right?

Yet this is what voters who place Oklahoma over Texas are essentially saying.

In a game, what happens in the first half counts toward the final score.  Touchdowns scored in the 2^nd quarter don’t get erased, because the other team makes some halftime adjustments.  The same is true over the course of a season.  Determining which team is better than another requires examining how well they fared over the course of the whole season, in this case, all 12 games.  An early loss to an arch rival on a neutral site shouldn’t get wiped away because the other team is playing better now.

Of course, this year, the struggle is between two teams in the same division.  In other years, the differences between conferences and unequal scheduling make a fair comparison between two teams with the same record nearly impossible.  This leaves us with two options: a system where a group of sports writers to try to guess which team is better than the other, by casting a ballot that will play a significant part in a formula that determines the fate of hundreds of athletes, thousands of fans, and millions of dollars – or a playoff.

Yes, a playoff doesn’t determine the best team throughout the year; it determines the best team at the end of the year — just like in the NFL in 2007, where the Patriots were clearly the best team through the first 16 weeks of the season, but the Giants were left standing at the end of it.  In this situation, a team like Oklahoma would likely still be favored.  At the same time, it also makes the entire regular season count because head to head matchups affect playoff seeding and home field advantage.  (Ironically, the emphasis on the regular season is the same argument conference commissioners make FOR THE BCS, yet a team like Florida can lay a turd against a team like Ole Miss and still have the inside track to the National Championship.)  Texas would be rewarded by playing a lower ranked opponent in the first round, or have crucial home field advantage in a Red River Rematch, and the winner would be decided on the field.

There are some people who would argue, what with the state of the economy, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and global hunger, that arguing about the need for a playoff in college football is insignificant.  Thankfully, our incoming President is not one of these people.   If Barack Obama is able to institute a playoff like he says he intends, I will be one of the people contributing my entire IRA to his re-election campaign in 2012.

This year, we finally realized the dream of an African-American being elected President.  It’s about time we had a college football playoff too.