[sigh]

I’d have thought we’d have this polygraph nonsense well behind us by now. There is such an accumulation of hard, scientific evidence demonstrating the unreliability of the process that it’s always a bit of a shock to hear the words spoken aloud.* I know, I know – I’m not exactly talking about a show aimed at the Northeastern Liberal Intelligentsia here. That genre of syndicated afternoon entertainment targets society’s least adept thinkers by and large, so I should expect a medicine show to be a medicine show, complete with Amazing Displays of Alchemy, Phrenology, Astrology, Polygraphy, Parapsychology and Theoretical Economics.

Unfortunately, the polygraph isn’t restricted to the domain of tabloid television. It’s also regularly accorded a measure of credibility in official contexts. It is sometimes allowed in court cases, it is routinely employed by law enforcement and you can be denied employment if you are deemed to have “failed” a test. In other words, we still allow people’s lives to be jacked by charlatans with Ouija boards.

I think I’ve always taken this silliness personally because there was a period of a few days back in the mid-’80s when it was, in fact, personal. I was a bartender for a restaurant in the now-defunct Darryl’s chain, and the geniuses who ran the place concluded that there was some unacceptable behavior going on behind the bar. I was never sure where the suspicion came from, but I have always imagined that their liquor costs spiked a few pennies one week and they freaked out. Anyway, they decided to administer “lie detectors” to all of us so as to root out the perpetrator(s).

You have to understand: nothing illegal was going on. Sure, there was the usual stuff you find at a bar – somebody buys a regular a drink in a way that isn’t sanctioned by management, for instance. But there was no substantive bad behavior. If there had been the other bartenders would have known about it. We worked in exceedingly tight quarters and it would have been damned hard not to be noticed. We wouldn’t have ratted our guilty co-worker out, mind you, but we’d have known what was going on.

We all immediately realized we were the subjects of a witch hunt and I, for one, was terrified. I was innocent of any crime more serious than jaywalking, but all of a sudden they were going to use the scientific equivalent of biorhythm analysis to deprive me of my livelihood.

On the day of the test I was so nervous that it’s amazing the machine didn’t accuse me of lying about my name. But I soldiered through. During the exam I was asked a few “fire questions” – that is, have you ever _________, where that blank is a firing offense. Have you ever given away a free drink without a manager’s approval? Have you ever overpoured a drink? Etc. In three or four cases I had, in fact, committed the offense in question.

Of course I’ve overpoured a drink, dumbass. Every bartender has overpoured a drink. And sure, I’d given away a drink or two. That builds relationships and gets customers back to the bar, and the cost is nonexistent compared to the benefit. On a busy night there may be no time to track down a manager and make the case for approval, so yes, I had made a decision to act in a way that benefited me, the restaurant and the customer.

But if I answered truthfully, I was toast. So I lied. On three or four questions, I lied to the lie detector. Guess what? It couldn’t catch me. And a few days later I found myself being personally congratulated by the Regional Manager for my honesty and integrity.

One of my colleagues, who was a really good, really popular bartender, broke. He couldn’t bring himself to lie, so he admitted his transgressions. The management liked him a lot so they didn’t fire him, but they did kick him back to the wait staff. Could have been worse, I suppose.

In any case, this is why my disgust with the purveyors of polygraphy is so acute. It’s more than an intellectual disdain for people who aren’t smart enough to understand even the rudiments of scientific and statistical analyses. It’s a personal, firsthand understanding that transcends the research and it’s an empathetic response for the anxiety that innocent people suffer.

The polygraph is my bitch. And anytime I hear the term “lie detector,” I know I’m listening to a pseudoscience-pandering huckster’s dupe. I can’t help it. If you use the term, my mind intuitively slots you into the category of “people who watch afternoon TV and believe it.”

That may be unfair, but it’s an observation that has stronger supporting evidence than the polygraph does.

___________

* Forgive my laziness in citing Wikipedia here, but I’m on a time budget this morning. This section does a decent job of pulling together the data. Click the links for more from the original sources.

The first five REM records (Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Life’s Rich Pageant and Document) deserve at least 18 stars out of a possible 20 and 1992′s Automatic for the People earned five more. By any standard, they depart the stage as one of the greatest bands in rock history, and there’s probably a very good argument to be made that they’re the greatest American band ever. That would no doubt be a lively debate, of course (and one where the band wouldn’t be terribly well-served by the last 15 years or so of its history). Still, their music was groundbreaking and relentlessly original, and along with fellow mid-’80s college radio darlings U2 and INXS they forged the alt.rock landscape in ways that paved the way for thousands of artists who would follow.

A couple of quick memories. I first saw the band live on the Fables tour on December 21, 1985. Winter Solstice, as it turns out. I had recently started working at Z-93 in Winston-Salem and they were playing Reynolds Auditorium on the campus of RJ Reynolds High School. The aud seats just under 1,900, and is one of those venues that can seem quite large, open and spacious. But at that point in their careers REM could have made Wembley Stadium feel like a small club.

They opened with the album’s lead track, ”Feeling Gravity’s Pull,” and could hardly have done a better job establishing a tone. The stage and lighting, like the album they were touring behind, was dark and murky, providing a perfect context for the band’s sound, a soup of neo-Byrdsian jangle, monochromatic Southern gothic atmosphere and Michael Stipe’s trademark vocal obscurity. I still have no idea what the hell Stipe was saying, but at one point he wandered around behind the backdrop during a song, and I remember marveling that a performer could be so compelling, so commanding while mumbling incoherently from behind the damned stage. It was one of the best shows I have ever seen and I’m grateful to the people I worked with at Z-93 (most notably Program Director Gray Smith) for giving me the opportunity.

Side note: The opening band that night was The Minutemen, and they remain the worst concert experience of my life. I know they have their fans, but I found them godawful in every way. The following night, after the show in Charlotte, lead singer D. Boon was killed in a car wreck.

I saw the band again in the winter of 1989 when the Green tour stopped in Iowa City. I was in the final semester of my MA program at Iowa State and one of the profs, whose name I can’t recall, and I drove over for the show. I remember three things about that night.

First, REM knew they weren’t an arena band, but found themselves very famous and playing arenas nonetheless. So their whole approach to the show was a spoof of arena rock. Stipe greeted the audience as text was projected on the screen behind him. It read something like this:

Hello Your City Here. We’re REM and it’s great to be here in Your City Here.

Stipe played it to the hilt. He didn’t say “We’re glad to be in Iowa City,” he said “We’re glad to be in your city here.” Very funny, and very important in the way it reached out to the band’s established fans, saying yeah, we know most people are here because of “Orange Crush” and “Pop Song 89,” but we’re still your band. We’re all in on the joke here.

Second, Stipe’s voice was in trouble early on in the show and it got worse throughout. But he never pulled back. Instead, he attacked every song as though it was the last he’d ever get to sing. If there was a show the next night, he didn’t care. They closed the final encore with “So. Central Rain” (my favorite REM song, by the way) and I’ll always recall his voice, shredded and broken by then, screaming “I’m Sorry” over and over. On the whole, this show couldn’t hold a candle to the Reynolds Auditorium show, but at the end it was clear how ultimately committed the band remained to their music and their fans. I still get chills thinking about it.

Finally, I remember the conversation with the prof. I was in the final stages of my thesis, a book of poetry called The Rainwater Chronicles. He had read it, liked it, and began talking about how I had dedicated so much energy to a underlying theme of death. Where did my preoccupation with death come from, he wondered. I was baffled. The book had nothing at all to do with death, and I told him so. But, he said, and then he started rattling off examples. There were a lot of them, as it turned out. I was stunned. There was no arguing the fact – death permeated the book: my grandfather, several friends from childhood and high school, the imminent death of my grandmother, even preconceptions of my own death. How had I possibly not realized what I was doing.

That night I learned that sometimes an artist uses his writing to communicate with others, and sometimes his subconscious uses it in a desperate attempt to communicate with the conscious mind.

These are the things I will always remember about REM. Like their music when they were at their best, my  memories are personal, intimate, even obscure. But they endure, as will the band’s legacy.

Michael, Peter, Mike and Bill – thanks. And best of luck in whatever you do from here on out.

Anyway, most years the week leading up to this game is full of sports radio chatter about the big “rivalry.” Which has always struck me as a bit silly, frankly. I know a lot of marketing departments would like for us to think it’s a rivalry, but it really isn’t. Never has been. CU is a tier 1, BCS conference school (even when we suck, like we do this year) and the Rams are members of the second-tier Mountain West. No offense, but just because you’ve played a lot of times and are located fairly close to each other, that doesn’t make it a rivalry. CSU’s real rival is Wyoming (The Border War) and Colorado honestly doesn’t have a true rival. For years the big game was Nebraska, but we were never their big game. Now that they’ve departed for the Big 10 and we’re in the PAC-12 I imagine the marketers are hard at work on our new Big Game^®, which will presumably involve the other new member of the PAC, Utah. (Oh, wait – it’s already happening.)

The point is that for a lot of us purists, the word “rivalry” has a specific meaning, and that meaning explicitly excludes any game where we need to be told that it’s a rivalry. However, in the interests of helping sports fans everywhere speak more concisely, I’ve pulled together a little guide on all the different kinds of “rivalries,” and I have included what I hope will be useful illustrations. (Note – some rivalries fit into more than one category, as I think will be clear.) So here we go.

THE Rivalry. Rivalry with a capital R. The pure rivalry. The blood match. The end of the world for the loser. This is when the game is the game for both teams. It’s the biggest game on the schedule every year, no matter whether both teams are in the hunt for the title or both teams suck or one sucks and the other one is on top and you can throw out the records, etc. You’d rather win this game and lose all the others than win all the others and lose this one. Examples: Army/Navy. Ohio State/Michigan. Oregon/Oregon State (The Civil War). UCLA/USC. Stanford/Cal. Texas/Oklahoma. Harvard/Yale. Indiana/Purdue. West Virginia/Pitt. Clemson/South Carolina. Ledford/East Davidson (the Eagles can go to hell – Go Panthers!) And so on.

The One-Legged Rivalry. This is when it’s the big game for one team but the other team doesn’t really care. Or they care a little bit, but not as much as the other team. Usually it’s a case where one team is a big dog and the other one is a relatively poorer sister. The aforementioned Colorado/Nebraska game is a great case. Former Buff coach Bill McCartney decided that CU needed a big game and that the Huskers were going to be it, so he decreed that Nebraska was our rival. Everything was aimed toward that game and the intensity did, in fact, ramp up once CU beat NU a time or two. Mainly it was one-sided, though. Nebraska was far more concerned about their huge game with Oklahoma. (Of course, as the importance of the Red River Rivalry grew, Nebraska became less important to OU, making them participants in two One-Leggers.)

The King of the Hill Rivalry. Growing up on Tobacco Road I knew all about this one. Everybody else hated Carolina. So UNC was the big game for the other members of the Big 4 (State, Duke and Wake Forest), and it was also a pretty big deal for UVa. The Heels really didn’t care about Wake, though (where I went), so we were always sky-high for any game where there was Carolina Blue on the other bench. This was actually a nice advantage – when one team has rivalry emotion and the other is struggling to stay awake, the weak sister can have an edge. Once upon a time The UNC/State game was an alpha rivalry, but over time that has shifted and now UNC/Duke functions pretty much as a Pure Rivalry.

The Derby. Pronounced “darby,” and also known as the Proximity Rivalry or the In-State Rivalry. Derby is the English term for a game involving close neighbors, like Chelsea/Fulham (who sit a couple miles apart in West London). Sometimes these are the games and other times they’re sort of big games but not really (trust me, Chelsea and Arsenal care a lot more about Man U than they do Fulham and Spurs). Colorado/Colorado State is a good example. So is Michigan/Michigan State (which is also a one-legger).

The Really Big Game. We might also call this one the Gray Area Rivalry, since supporters of the sides involved may disagree. There are games out there that many assume are the game, but that perhaps really aren’t. For instance, Alabama/Auburn is huge, but when you talk to die-hard Bammers they’ll tell you that no, the game is Tennessee. The same goes for Southern Cal/Notre Dame, which is regarded by many as the big game for both (and it probably is for ND). But many Trojan fans see UCLA as the most important game (UCLA certainly does). There aren’t a lot of examples of this one that I can think of (I imagine that when you start looking at that cocktail of SEC East games there are some in there, like maybe South Carolina/Georgia and Georgia/Florida). Also, as a result of two teams getting really good and fighting it out for the title over a period of a few years you’ll sometimes hear people using the R word. This happens in the pros a lot (Indy/New England and Pittsburgh/Baltimore aren’t rivalries at all if the teams aren’t good for an extended period).

The Trophy Game. All across the country there are traditional match-ups where two schools play annually for a trophy. We don’t normally think of, say, Michigan State and Penn State as being a huge deal, but the winner gets the Land Grant Trophy. Iowa State and Missouri play for the Telephone Trophy. And, as if Michigan isn’t busy enough with OSU and Sparty, the Little Brown Jug is on the line when they play Minnesota. Lots more of these here.

The We-Don’t-Know-a-Real-Rivalry-Is. I recall a few years back being told what a huge rivalry the Duke/Maryland game had become in hoops. Bitch, please.

There may be more, but you get the idea. So please, use the R word judiciously, and let me know if there’s a category I have missed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to head over to the store and pick up some lamb chops….

CBS Sports game analyst Randy Cross believes Tebow haters are bashing him for his outspoken Christian opinions.

“People, especially the media, root against him because of what he stands for,” said Cross.

The 3-time Super Bowl champ added: “My personal belief is there are people in the media, people in the stands, who are predisposed to see a guy like that fail…Just because he’s so public about the way he feels.”

My gut response is to mock Cross for being a barking gongbat. I could say things like “yes, it’s true, America hates Christians. Especially the media. I mean, the mere 85% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian constitutes an almost invisible minority. I know, I know, the president is a Christian and so is the VP and well over 90% of our Congressional representatives are Christian and the Supreme Court features seven Christians and all of our major presidential candidates in both major parties for as far back as anybody can remember have been Christians. And almost all of our past presidents were Christians (you have to go all the way back to Lincoln to find one we can even debate over). Hell, even sports franchises are building their operations around the evangelical litmus test. Still, you can make statistics say anything.

“And sweet hell, on top of this he’s saddled with the crippling disadvantage of being a white male. He’s like a modern-day Job.”

That said, there’s no doubt that Timmy’s PDPs (that’s public displays of piety) get on some folks’ nerves, and it’s also no secret that I’m one of them. So there’s a grain of truth in that part of Cross’s formulation, at least. I mean, hypothetically, if three out of 309 million Americans “root against him because of what he stands for,” then that means Cross is technically correct. Stupid and irrelevant, perhaps, but correct.

My larger problem, though, is this: Cross is subtly propagating a sinister little meme that I’m hearing more and more of in the last week or two, as Tebow’s lack of talent as an NFL quarterback has migrated him further and further down the depth chart. Depending on who’s talking, this myth takes a couple of forms. First, everybody hates Tebow because of his religion. And second, this prejudice is why he isn’t being given a chance to show that he’s truly a fantastic QB on the field.

You don’t hear this last argument being worded exactly that way, for the most part, but listen to Denver sports talk as much as I do and you come to understand that 90% of the conversations about Tebow are being conducted in code. When people are talking about why they love Timmy, they don’t say outright that’s it’s teh Jesus, but the religiosity is the only way of explaining the things they do say. Despite how people talk, Tebow isn’t the only “good kid” in camp. He’s not the only one who’s strong in what he believes. He’s not the only one who works his ass off or who has had to overcome obstacles. He’s not the only one with “intangibles” and “character.” And I’ve already explained in detail what’s going on when they trot out the ultimate code word, “faith.” (It’s not about race, either, because a lot of the other hard-working Christians who have overcome obstacles and have great intangibles are white.) So when the chatter turns to why he isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet, it’s not surprising to hear even more code from a vast, paranoid religious majority that seems to believe the government is going to start rounding up Baptists and shipping them off to concentration camps next week.

There’s so much wrong with what Cross and his ilk believe that it’s hard to know where to start. But I’m going to try.

On point one, that people hate Tebow because he’s a Christian:

• As noted above, everybody’s Christian. I can’t speak to what’s in people’s hearts, but my best guess is that the percentage of NFL players and coaches who claim to be Christian is even higher than 85%. I may be wrong, but I have seen no evidence to suggest that it’s lower. Listen to players talk. Watch the prayer huddles after the game. And think about the culture of conformity that attends any activity involving intense male subcultures. If I were going to hate on Christian athletes because of their religion, I’d have to stop watching American sports entirely.
• I don’t know who all these millions of people hating Tebow are, because his jersey was the #1 seller for much of 2010 (he finished third for the year). That doesn’t mean nobody hates him, but it does suggest that he’s not exactly Public Enemy Number One.
• As for the idea that the media hates Tebow, well, that one made me laugh so hard I nearly swallowed my own nose. Randy, the media I’m familiar with worships Tim Tebow about as hard as Tim worships the Lord, and why not – he’s great for their business. I may not have a full list here, but best I can tell he’s been featured on the cover of ESPN, Men’s Fitness, Sports Illustrated, GQ, 5280, The Beckett Football Magazine and Sporting News. And if you’re keeping score at home, ask yourself this: how many times in the past three years has Tebow been the subject of some story or other on your television? Good, now how many of those, percentagewise, were negative stories? In my case, the answers are “millions” and “less than 2%.”
• Oh, and by the way, Randy, you’re ”the media.” Just saying.

On the second point, that he’s not getting a fair shot because of his religion:

• Let’s just say this straight away: if Tim Tebow had been your basic Catholic or mainline Protestant who pursued his beliefs without insisting on reminding us every time he opened his mouth (or every time he appeared on camera with the Bible verse glare patches under his eyes) he’d have been drafted in the fifth round. If he’d been a vocal atheist or agnostic or, the gods forbid, a Pagan or a Muslim or a Hindu, he’d have been lucky to talk himself into a tryout as an undrafted free agent. If you don’t think Skippy McDaniel was overly impressed by the player’s “character” you weren’t paying attention.
• Rick Reilly dismembered Tebow’s game in a much publicized column a couple of weeks ago. Which is what happens when you know a little about football and you watch closely. When Tebow drops back and the receiver runs a seven-yard out, there’s a chance that the ball will be underthrown. There’s a chance it will be behind the receiver. There’s a good chance he’ll hit someone on the sidelines in the numbers and if you’re in the front row or two of the stands you might get a souvenir. There’s also a chance that he’ll hit the receiver, although his statistics don’t recommend that you bet heavily on this outcome.
• More likely, he’s going to be unable to find an open man because he can’t read defenses (he was never really asked to do anything like this at the high school or college levels, and he has the same kinds of problems that other QBs coming from spread and running systems have had). No surprise there at all. In a recent interview with one of the sports stations here, one of the Broncos defensive players admitted that when Tebow is the QB, the defense plays differently – they crowd the running lanes and wait for him to break down and gallop into their waiting arms. He didn’t say it that negatively, but I’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting code lately.
• It’s also a pure joy to hear Tebow’s supporters talking about his ability to “make things happen with his feet.” Yeah, he raised hell at Florida, but there he was surrounded by talent that was usually superior to what was on the other side of the ball. However, his 40 time is in the 4.7 range, which isn’t special by NFL QB standards. Never mind trying to outrun some of the league’s many quick-footed linebackers – there are any number of defensive linemen who are faster than he is, and Head Coach John Fox can’t be terribly excited about handing the reins of the offense over to a guy who might get cheetahed by a nose tackle.
• If you think Tebow isn’t getting a fair chance you’re hallucinating. You don’t think everyone in the Doncs’ organization would kill to have a squeaky-clean Man of Faith^® as the face of the franchise? Think of the marketing potential. Think of the money. Denver is an exceptionally Christian market (and I say that as a guy who grew up in North Carolina, where some neighborhoods have more churches than convenience store). Lots of extremely white suburban megachurch types here, plus a huge Latino Catholic population that feckin’ loves Broncos football. These nuances are not lost on the likes of Pat Bowlen and his front office people. The only guy who might get more consideration than Tebow, despite having even less in the way of obvious experience and qualifications, would be Jesus Christ himself, should he return with an eye toward a football career. So if Tebow is the third-stringer, bet your ass it’s because he’s given the team nothing at all to hang its hat on. (And if you’ve watched him play, either in the pre-season or in three starts last year, you know that’s exactly what has happened.)
• In the end, you hear so much talk about Tim Tebow’s “intangibles.” The main reason is fairly simple: he has no tangibles to talk about. He can’t read defenses. He doesn’t understand how to run a pro passing offense because he’s never run a system remotely like it. And he cannot pass accurately. Period.

So, in summary, I guess I’d answer Randy Cross thusly:

1. Tim Tebow is hardly being oppressed. He’s gotten every chance in the world and then some, and there’s a great argument to be made that this is because of his relentless public religiosity. I can think of no other quarterback in history at this level who has been afforded more opportunities despite such glaring limitations.
2. Those who are sick of Tebow, either as a player or a person, have valid reasons.

Sure, I admit that I personally dislike being flogged by his religious arrogance and presumptuousness. But do you have any idea what a small minority I am, both in general and on this issue in particular?

Randy Cross might do a little math, too. Because we have the hard data on how many Christians there are in the US. If as many people are put off by the 24/7/4ever proselytizing as he seems to think, then it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to conclude that a lot of those who are fed up with Tebow are themselves Christians. That means something, and “they root against him for what he stands for” isn’t it.

I believe in Tim Tebow’s right to believe in whatever he chooses. I also believe in the free speech rights that allow me and everybody else to weigh in on the subject.

I don’t believe that your religion qualifies you to be a quarterback in the NFL, though, and if more people are coming around to my way of thinking then I’m glad to hear it.

I’ve been ecstatic to have some of my poetry accepted in recent months (after the usual stream of rejections that typify the life of the not-yet-famous poet). In this case, the publication in question is Pemmican, an outstanding online journal that’s been around since the early 1990s. They pride themselves on publishing work that is “outside the mainstream of its day.” In acknowledging their debt to the journals that helped shape their vision, the editors say this:

That poetry might be characterized as not only differing from the stylistic and structural conventions of its time but in its use of imagery and language, its sense of “place” (or lack of place in some cases), and, perhaps most important of all, its embrace of the political as a proper subject for poetry. Or, more precisely, because these magazines were willing to embrace the political as a proper subject for poetry, they were able to look beyond the limits of the conventional and see the poetry of the future even as it was being written. It is in the footsteps of such literary magazines that Pemmican has always aspired to walk.

As it turns out, the set that I submitted doesn’t include any of my political poems, although I couldn’t agree with them more about the appropriateness of the undertaking. Something to remember for the future. Past that, though, I have always respected those who worked to bust convention. And “differing from the stylistic and structural conventions of its time but in its use of imagery and language, its sense of “place” (or lack of place in some cases)” – yeah, there’s a lot the editors and I agree about philosophically.

I’m honored to be included and encourage everyone to have a look at the six poems they have published. Then check out the rest of the writers they’re featuring.

My poems are:

• Old Ethan, Halfway Home
• Eleven Fables
• William and Maud
• Sage
• To Be Continued (Ars Poetica)
• Nora and Torvald on the Mall of Dreams

I hope you enjoy them, and my thanks to the editors at Pemmican for providing a forum for my work.

The WWE, Hollywood, soap operas and the NBA front office have something in common: they all understand that a compelling narrative requires what the pro wrestling biz calls a “heel.” A bad guy. An anti-hero. A villain. A black hat. The only thing different about the NBA is that they won’t admit they’re in the compelling narrative business.

But trust me, they are. And ever since last summer you have been very good for them. You’ve been Godzilla, Hannibal Lecter, Stefano DiMera, Freddy Krueger, Snidely Whiplash and Andre the Giant all rolled into one, the looming über-evil thug who rigged the game, casting a long, dark shadow over any hope of prosperity and fair play for years to come. For a league that’s built on marketing individual storylines, The Decision was a gift from the gods. At the end of the season, there was going to be one more reason to flip on the TV. Some people love the Lakers. Some love the Celtics. Everybody loves the home team. But even if all those teams were at home on the couch, the Miami Hate Heat was something we could all agree on. And when it comes to ratings dollars, hate spends just the same as love.

I’m not sure it’s been so good for you, though. Yeah, you got out of a going-nowhere situation and became the center of the sports talk universe, but right now you look just as lost as you ever did in Cleveland and you still have zero rings to show for all your remarkable talent.

Part of the problem has to do with the makeup of the Heat, of course. It’s a team built around you and Dwyane Wade, two guys who need the ball in their hands a lot, and once they got through paying you and Wade and Chris Bosh there wasn’t a lot of money left for a top-tier supporting cast (although some of the role players did perform fairly well). ESPN hoop stats guru Dean Oliver points out that the team ranked next-to-last in the league in the points per assist metric – only Oklahoma City was worse about hogging the ball – and for a coach who gets defense as well as the Mavericks’ Rick Carlisle, it really helps knowing that you don’t have to worry about the other team doing a lot of insightful passing into scoring opportunities.

So you went from a team without a lot of talent to one with plenty of talent, but some flaws of nigh-Shakespearean magnitude. Still, this can be overcome. Once Miami turfs Erik Spoelstra and replaces him with a coach who has a track record and some street cred (Pat Riley, maybe, or even Phil Jackson, who says he’s done but I’m not sure I believe him) the on-court issues can be addressed. Besides, these days over-expansion, the AAU system and the one-and-done rule have conspired to assure that every team has flaws. Huge ones. This was never more evident than during these playoffs.

The more immediate problem has to do with LeBron the Human Being. See, some guys are good at being the heel. Some people are born to be bad and they thrive on being booed. Think about Bill Laimbeer, one of the biggest assholes in NBA history. Even Pistons fans had to feel conflicted cheering for him, and you got the sense that being loathed was his only reason for living.

You, though, you strike me as a very different guy emotionally. You have a quick, infectious smile. You seem like a fun-loving guy who enjoys people. Maybe I’m wrong – I don’t know you and maybe what you project through the media isn’t at all like the real you – but I’m betting that underneath it all, the real LeBron James is a more sensitive guy than he lets on. If so, there’s no fault in that at all. Truth be told, I’m the same way, albeit without all the fame and financial solvency. A guy like you might have good reason to want to keep parts of his personality to himself, because we live in a world where too many people treat sensitivity like it’s a disease, and yes, they will take advantage of it.

My guess is that, public bravado notwithstanding, the searing wave of raw hatred that has been aimed at you over the past year has hurt. It’s probably hurt a great deal. If so, that’s natural – I’d wonder about you if it didn’t, honestly.

There’s a lot of haters out there, LeBron, and I have been one of them. I thought you were right to leave Cleveland – as I wrote last year, I’d have criticized you for staying, because I think we all know that the Cavs aren’t going to win any titles, not unless the NBA implements some drastic changes to its free agency rules. You need to be in a situation where you can compete for titles.

But in that same article I inducted you into the Punk Hall of Fame – not for leaving, but for how you left. I’m not going to mince words, Bron: The Decision was one of the most gutless, classless things I have ever seen a public figure of your magnitude pull. If I had been your PR agent I’d have done all I could to talk you out of it, and if I had failed (which I suspect I would have) I’d have resigned.

So I have been a devoted LeBron hater for the past year, but here’s a confession: as I watched you in the Finals, it just felt wrong. I’m happy Dirk got his ring finally, but the look on your face, lost and bewildered and seemingly all alone in the world…I don’t know, I guess I’m sucker for prodigal narratives or something and I feel like we’re about halfway into a great one.

In sum, I don’t think you make a very good heel. I don’t think you’re emotionally cut out for being hated, and I think the basketball public – a lot of it, anyway – wants to like you. Finally, I think that getting positive with the world again will be a big boost for you as you tackle the challenges on the court. Happy people tend to be better at what they do, no matter what that is, and I think you feed on love better than you do hate.

Here’s how it starts. Call your friends at ESPN. Call Jim Gray, too, because after the way he sold his soul last summer he needs some redemption as bad as you do. Tell them you want to do another special. This one is going to be called The Apology. No excuses, no waffling. You’ll man up, face the camera, and say “Cleveland, I’m sorry.” You won’t apologize for leaving: you’ll say that you love Northern Ohio with all your heart. It’s home. But you wouldn’t be true to the gifts you have been given if you didn’t try to win a title, and you’ll say that the way the NBA’s rules are constructed that wasn’t going to happen in Cleveland. You tried to recruit other talent to join you there and nobody was biting.

But you are sorry for how you did it. The Decision was a mistake, it hurt people who had never done anything but believe in you, and if you had it to do over again you’d have gone about things in a more professional, adult manner.

Then you’ll announce a new foundation which will be devoted to helping Cleveland continue its transformation into one of America’s great cities. You may need a little help figuring out how to word this part, and I’ll be happy to chip in. Give me a call.

This is how it ought to go, LeBron. You and me and America, let’s get back together.

If you’re him, you’d probably think the ins and outs and ups and downs of plying one of the hardest positions on all of professional sports would be challenge enough. Every time you take a snap several members of the opposing defense are looking to rip your spleen out. Some of the smartest minds in the game are sitting in the press box scheming ways of lying to you – looks like your basic Cover 2, and all of a sudden you’ve audibled into precisely the worst play possible and by the way, you don’t see that corner coming off the blind side at all, do you? To make it worse, last year you had to deal with all of this while trying to learn a new offensive system and adjusting to life in the Daniel Snyder/Mike Shanahan DramaWorld theme park.

You’d think this would be enough, but you’d be wrong. Because in addition to everything else, McNabb is that most intolerable of creatures, the Negro Quarterback.

For years, whether anyone would say it out loud or not, blacks weren’t deemed smart enough to play such a complicated position, and doubts remained even after Doug Williams won the feckin’ Super Bowl. Then, in 2003, Rush Limbaugh, America’s alpha racist, scored a gig on ESPN’s pre-game show and decided to make McNabb the centerpiece of a Kloset Klan team-building exercise.

Well, that the US has fat drug-abusing racist blowhards is not news. No worries – at least your local NAACP has your back, right? Errr…

You may have heard by now that Philly NAACP president J. Whyatt Mondesire played the Rush card on Eagles QB Donovan McNabb in a November 27 “editorial” in the Philadelphia Sun. Here’s some of what Mondesire said:

• In fact this whole dismal season so far has really been a testament of fallen dreams and lost opportunities most of which belongs at your feet (or should I say hands) and that of your coach, Andy Reid who has allowed you to perpetuate a fraud on the field while hiding behind excuses dripping in make-believe racial stereotypes.
• In essence Donny, you are mediocre at best. And trying to disguise that fact behind some concocted reasoning that African American quarterbacks who can scramble and who can run the ball are somehow lesser field generals than one who can summon up dead-on passes at a whim is more insulting off the field than on.
• But then you played the race card and practically all of us fell for your hustle. You scammed us man and there’s no way any longer to refrain from “keepin’ it real.”
• So, for you to continue to deny we fans (as well as yourself) one of the strongest elements of your game by claiming that “everybody expects black quarterbacks to scramble” not only amounts to a breach of faith but also belittles the real struggles of black athletes who’ve had to overcome real racial stereotypcasting in addition to downright segregation.

So, in a nutshell, McNabb sold out his race by becoming a pocket passer instead of a “scrambler.” Check.

But that bit of barking gongbattery was nothing compared to the bombshell that boxer Bernard Hopkins dropped on D-Mac the other day. The headline of the story actually puts it mildly: Boxer Bernard Hopkins questions Donovan McNabb’s blackness.

“Why do you think McNabb felt he was betrayed? Because McNabb is the guy in the house, while everybody else is on the field. He’s the one who got the extra coat. The extra servings. ‘You’re our boy,”‘ Hopkins said, patting a reporter on the back in illustration. “He thought he was one of them.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Bernard Hopkins just called one of the NFL’s most successful quarterbacks, a likely Hall of Famer, a house nigger. Not that he means it in a bad way, of course. He goes on to say that he thinks McNabb is a “nice guy. I’d trust him around my kids.” Well, duh. Massa didn’t invite the cannibals up to the house, right?

If you’ll pardon my French, what the fuck did Donovan McNabb ever do to deserve all this gratuitous abuse? The man, who has never been anything but a professional on the field and a stand-up community guy off it, gets less respect than the convicted dog-killer who replaced him in the Eagles starting line-up.

Why? Well, there are probably three answers here.

• He’s black.
• He’s white.
• He’s a loser.

That large swaths of the American population, most of them big fans of the EIB Radio Network, are racist morons is too obvious a point to need discussing.

That some blacks are uneasy with “oreos” gets clearer every time a Bernard Hopkins or a Whyatt Mondesire or a Jalen Rose opens his mouth. Which is baffling, frankly. I mean, wasn’t this at the core of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream – African Americans sharing the fruits of color-blind opportunity? (Not that we have achieved perfect equality yet, but it’s better than it was during Dr. King’s lifetime.)

I don’t know – maybe these kinds of attacks simply prove that all Americans are alike regardless of race. I grew up in the working class South, and way too many of the people I knew along the way had an image of equality that mainly hinged on dragging them what thought they was better than everybody else down to their level. Some people simply can’t abide the idea that others are getting ahead while they stay put.

I can’t quantify the “loser” meme, but I know it exists. If you follow football at all, you know that a lot of Philadelphia fans were delirious when McNabb was finally chased out of town. I guess you can chalk some of this up to the, umm, unique character of the Philadelphia sports fan.

I mean, you’d think that McNabb’s objective record of success would count for something. You know, a career 62% winning percentage. Six Pro Bowls. Five NFC Championship games and a Super Bowl. And he did all that in an offense where Andy Reid asked him to throw the ball 150 times a game because he didn’t believe in running the ball, and also he didn’t believe in drafting top-flight receivers, which you’d think would be a priority in a scheme that was pass-happy even by West Coast standards.

I mean, come on: Charles Johnson, Torrance Small, James Thrash, Todd Pinkston, Na Brown and Freddie Mitchell? Really – FredEx? 90 catches. 1263 yards. Five TDs. And those are his career numbers. When Reid finally did go out and get McNabb an A-level receiver, it turned out to be legendary QB-killer Terrell “Me. O.” Owens, who proceeded to, you know, kill his quarterback.

Of course, DM only won one of those NFC title games and then they lost in the Super Bowl, which I guess makes him a terminal loser, right? Just for fun, let’s look at two quarterbacks side by side.

QB A is Hall of Famer Jim Kelly. QB B is McNabb. Hmmm.

Of course, a lot of people think Kelly is a loser, too, because in America, when you lose four straight Super Bowls, that makes you the epic king-hell loser of all losers. Oddly, it even seems to make you a bigger loser than all of those teams who were sitting at home watching you on TV.

As for D-Mac, well, let’s simply note that there were 14 starting quarterbacks who didn’t make it to the conference championship each of those years. Just saying.

If your definition of loser is anybody who didn’t win the Super Bowl, then yeah, McNabb is a loser. But then, nearly everyone is, and by the way, if I use that standard and take a good hard look at your life, how do you stack up? How many years are you the very best in the world at what you do?

I’ve never been an Eagles fan, and I hate Washington with a burning passion, so this isn’t about me protecting my guy. But at some point, if you have any integrity at all, you have to look at the racism that McNabb endures and say enough is enough. When Limbaugh accuses him of being a social engineering project, it’s racism. When Hopkins goes plantation politics on him, it’s certainly a horribly unfair form of racism, isn’t it? In both cases, McNabb is being targeted for being uppity.

Hating on his on-field performance? Well, the only meaningful difference between him and Jim Kelly is race, and the Kelly Book of Controversies would fit on Post-It with room left for your monthly grocery shopping list.

I’m not telling you to worship at the altar of Donovan McNabb, but I am suggesting that there are a lot of people out there who could do with a nice, tall glass of Shut the Fuck Up Juice.

Some people are better at dealing with the conflict than others, whether through denial or a well-developed, pragmatic knack for keeping things in perspective. Unfortunately, I don’t do denial at all and while I like to think of myself as having a strong pragmatic streak, in practice my principled side tends to dominate my decision-making in ways that occasionally deprive me of convenience and pleasure.

I know I have a problem here, and I know that I’m not the only one. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and maybe writing some of this down will help. Maybe a reader will have a comment that will foster a bit more perspective, even. I may be a slightly older dog, but I am more than willing to learn some new tricks.

Let’s start with baseball. Yesterday was Opening Day for my hometown Colorado Rockies as well as my favorite team, the Boston Red Sox. Denver was just crazy. I live a few blocks from Coors Field, which was sold out (and friends tell me there weren’t even scalpers – no tix for sale at no price, no way, period). In addition to the 47K inside the park, there were probably another 50-100,000 outside, in the streets, parking lots and bars of the Ballpark neighborhood. I’m not sure, but I assume that the 16th Street Mall and Larimer Square were also zoos, as well as any number of sports bars in the city’s outlying neighborhoods and suburbs. In other words, yesterday was a massive holiday.

And I couldn’t take part. Sorta. I did wander up into LoHi, where Highlands Tap & Burger makes a point of showing all the Sox games. Had a beer. Had a great burger. Had a nice time. But it wasn’t the same as being part of a shared cultural celebration that looked, from a distance, even bigger than the 4th of July.

Why? Well, my friends know that the Rockies are my least favorite team. So do some strangers, if they’ve ever made the mistake of asking why I hate the Rox. The short version is that it’s a matter of principle: in 2006 the club went public with the news that it was basing official decisions (including personnel) on religion. Specifically, they were looking for “character,” and “character” means evangelical Christianity. I wrote about my feelings on the subject at the time and I revisited the issue a year later when the Rockies made it to the World Series.

Like the Constitution, I don’t really care what religion someone is. And since it’s a privately owned business, I guess there aren’t any de jure legal problems with them running things this way (although I imagine they’re wide open to a civil suit should someone in the organization feel discriminated against). But that doesn’t mean that I don’t find the policy reprehensible to its core.

Further, since I’m no longer an evangelical Christian myself, I can’t help being a little put off by the fact that the team’s ownership just said that I lack character. Trust me, I’m a huge fan of character. I think more teams ought to make character a centerpiece of how they run things. If you’ve been paying attention, you probably realize that teams with persistent character issues always seem to find a way to underperform their talent. And, as a guy who loves competition and has been an athlete his whole life, I’m sick of the sports section reading like a police blotter. I doubt I’m the only one.

I’ve never seen any correlation between religion and character, though. Evangelical Christians, for instance, can and often are people of the highest moral fiber, and I’m proud to number several such people among my family and circle of closest friends. But growing up Southern Baptist also teaches you that it ain’t necessarily so. Some of the worst sub-humans I have ever encountered in my life were upstanding evangelicals, pillars of the community, etc., and their moral failings and hypocrisies were quite well known in their congregations.

By the same token, I know and have known lots of atheists and agnostics, and my best guess is that the saint-to-scoundrel ratio is probably comparable to what you find in any religious community.

As a result of the Rockies’ policy, which I find both socially and personally offensive, I vowed that I’d never set foot in Coors Field or in any way subsidize the team’s ignorance and prejudice with my dollars. And I have held the line, too – literally, not a penny has made its way from my wallet to theirs. I revel in their failures (and especially loved the 2007 World Series, when my Sox waxed them in four straight) and long for the day when everyone associated with this policy is long, long gone.

But. There’s always a but. I’m admittedly conflicted. I love my city and I know that a successful franchise is good for it economically. It spurs civic pride (although here in Denver it would be okay if our civic pride were a little less connected to the fortunes of pro sports teams). Yesterday, by any measure imaginable, was wonderful for the 5280, and if the Rockies remain in the pennant race throughout the season it will mean greater job security for those who make their livings from the sports industry and the restaurants and bars that serve it. I care about these issues, and passionately.

Not only that, my principled stand, while morally satisfying, represents one more high wall between myself and my community. This chasm is never more evident than when I find myself discussing (debating, arguing) the subject with friends, who often feel as though my position amounts to an attack on them. (Ironically, they frequently seem more affronted by my stance than they are by Rockies policy itself, which they always find an easy way to dismiss, even if they aren’t evangelicals.)

By now, I hope it’s clear that my real problem isn’t with friends who disagree. My problem lies in my struggle to behave ethically without further alienating myself from others.

I’m not too proud to acknowledge how much this troubles me.

It isn’t just the Colorado Rockies, either – here in the US nearly every phase of our lives is challenged by some ethical or political consideration or another. Where do you buy groceries? Really – they’re pretty anti-union, aren’t they? You like coffee? I assume it’s organic and fair trade, right? You drive a what? Not only is it not a terribly green model, one of the company board members donates a lot of money to a variety of anti-gay rights organizations. Your electricity is generated in coal-fired plants, by the way. Your shirt was made in a sweat shop. Your computer is indeed nice, but it’s also the product of one of the country’s harshest chemical production cycles. Your kids attend a charter school? Thanks for helping suck more funds out of the public school system that’s so critical to our shared national interest. Sweet hell – are you wearing a diamond? Yeah, that restaurant does do a great bowl of pasta. And the owner has supported every hatemongering politician to run for office here in the last 30 years.

Been there. Feel your pain. I mean, I’ve turned my back on Target. I won’t be going back in a Dillard’s anytime soon. I haven’t had a Domino’s pizza in decades. Even if it didn’t taste like horse piss you’d never catch me drinking a Coors. And don’t even get me started on Wal*Mart (although they are implementing some encouraging green practices across the enterprise).

Seriously – if I drew a hard line around all of my principles and then did all the research I’d need to know which companies were doing what, and then boycotted those I had problems with, what would be left of my life? I probably couldn’t eat anymore. I’d have to walk everywhere (assuming I could verify that the company making my shoes was pure). The behavior of our media conglomerates would assure that I never again came near a television, a theater, a radio, a newspaper, and for that matter, probably a book. I’d certainly not be able to watch the NFL at least until such time as Michael Vick is gone (and given the rap sheets attending most football teams, we can probably scratch the whole sport off forever).

And so on. And on and on and on.

These are ugly issues to contemplate for an ethical human trying to live in contemporary society, because frankly you’re lucky if you can get through a minute, let alone a day, without having to compromise some important value or another. If there’s a Hell, and if it is operated according to meaningful principles, we’ve all probably earned our way in by noon each and every day.

Still, it isn’t okay to just throw up your hands and accept the inevitability of compromise. If I stop insisting that principles matter, if we stop trying to live as ethically as possible, what then? For one thing, the corruption of the society gets even worse (if that’s possible), and for another we might as well sell our souls to whoever will give us a nickel.

There are lines. There are standards that have to be at least a bit flexible. And if people like me insist on the absolute when all around us are finding ways of making peace with reality, we quickly wind up like Ethan Brand, the doomed anti-hero of the famous Hawthorne short story, staring into the fire and contemplating our intimate knowledge of the perfect sin: the rejection of the fellowship of man.

In the end, we have to find our way into subcultures that are themselves defined by the principles we value, so that our lives are not defined by a choice between values and community. This isn’t easily accomplished in a nation that often seems dedicated to the eradication of principle, but it is necessary.

As long as we feel the tension associated with a need to choose between the two, we will know that the battle isn’t yet over.

For some time – a few years, to be honest – I’ve been trying to imagine how some artists get better with age (or at least retain the level of energy and creativity they exhibited when they were younger), while others go completely to hell. Peter Gabriel, Graham Parker, Van Morrison, Don Dixon, John Hiatt (and even Bowie, to a lesser extent) – these are people who you can still count on, even if you think that the old stuff was better. All of them have had high spots in recent years that at least nudge the 4-star mark, and you might justifiably nurture a sense that the next thing they release could turn out to be brilliant.

This column isn’t about those folks. No, this little list is dedicated to the First-to-Worst Club, a set of artists who once ruled, but somehow found a way to deteriorate as the years passed. In some cases – and these are the ones you’ll find at the top of the list – you have people or bands who went from legitimate greatness to breathtaking suckitude. In other cases you have people who simply lost their edge or were abandoned by their muse. They may not be forging new frontiers in suck, they’re just muddling along, mere shadows of their former selves.

So here it is – Lullaby Pit’s Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen list, with thanks to a few friends of the Pit who contributed suggestions and pointed out artists I had somehow overlooked (or repressed, as the case may be….) The criteria are subjective, as always, but fairly simple – who soared the highest, then fell the lowest?

1. Elton John
Up until about 1976 or so – I tend to draw the line right after Rock of the Westies, but some people think the slide started earlier – Elton John was simply god. He and Bernie Taupin were an incredible songwriting team, one whose best work occasionally rivaled even that of Lennon and McCartney, and his concerts were the stuff of legend.

Now he cries himself to sleep every night over Princess Di. Poor sensitive little man. To his credit, he has admitted in interviews that he knows he’s sucked since the Ford administration, but so far this newfound self-awareness hasn’t produced a Goodbye Yellow Brick Road for the 21^st Century.

2. Sting
The gods help me, because The Police were one of the most amazing bands in the world, and they were hands-down my favorite band. Their white reggae innovations helped fuel the New Wave, which remains one of the most interesting little revolutions in the recent history of popular music, and they forged a sound that nobody, nobody, has ever quite been able to emulate. Now he’s devolved into, well, Sting^®. His first three solo albums weren’t bad, but by the time Ten Summoner’s Tales rolled out you could smell the froot booty in the air. He teamed up with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams in an ultimate Best2Worst Trifecta Moment to do that damned song for the Three Musketeers soundtrack, and if you weren’t convinced by then that the train had jumped the tracks, all you had to do was pick up 1996′s Mercury Rising. Give that a listen, then get back to me.

3. Rod Stewart
At one time, Rod Stewart was rightly considered one of the best singers in all of rock, and he wasn’t a bad songwriter, either. He’d been in Long John Baldry’s band (something he has in common with Elton John, in fact, although Baldry now tells Rod Stewart jokes during his shows: what’s the difference between a bull and Rod Stewart? With the bull, the horns are up front and the asshole is in the back). Rod’s stint in the Jeff Beck Group was just unbelievably awesome. He was the singer for The Faces, a group that bands still imitate. And his early solo career was damned good, too, up until about 1977 or so.

Then something went horribly, tragically, epically wrong. In a nutshell, he seems to have grown more concerned with stardom and less concerned with creating music that was worth a fuck. Now he has legions of frustrated middle-aged housewives heaving their high-waisted XXL panties at him, and he seems to enjoy it.

More power to you, Rod. Not that we’d expect a lot more from a United fan…

4. Beach Boys
Pet Sounds to “Kokomo.” “Good Vibrations” to “Wipeout” with the Fat Boys. The top of the creative world to the county fair circuit. I could go on forever, really, but it all boils down to this: Brian Wilson to Mike Love is about as best-to-worst as it gets, and Wilson’s solo work in recent years proves it.

5. Aerosmith
Then: Get Your Wings. Toys in the Attic. Rocks. Now: Steven Tyler sits beside the star of Gigli and dispenses wisdom on how to be a pop star to kids whose names you won’t remember three days after they’re voted off the island.

Maybe we should have smelled this coming when they helped Run-DMC cover “Walk This Way.” I’m willing to let bygones by bygones if the four surviving members of the band evict Tyler and find another singer. In the meantime, they can suck on my big ten-inch…record of a band that plays the blues.

6. Jefferson Airplane/Starship
The Airplane was one of the most important and influential bands to emerge in the US during the ‘60s, and their legacy still endures despite the best efforts of goddamned Mickey Thomas and Craig Chaquico. I go to shows now and I hear echoes of Grace Slick in the oddest places, and sometimes I wonder if the artists working that vein are even aware of the debt they owe. But in the ‘70s the band started fragmenting, and Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship (an iteration that had some decent moments, notably 1975′s Red Octopus), but then in the early ‘80s Paul Kantner departed and, after some intense lawyering made sure that the “Jefferson” part of the name was “retired,” we were left with “Starship.” Kill me.

You might remember “We Built This City,” and if you saw them live on that tour you know that they both opened and closed the show with that masturbatory homage to what they were pretending to be. You also know that Chaquico had abandoned time-wasting activities like practicing in favor of posing, strutting, and prancing shirtless in front of his mirror (a strategy that drove the teenaged girls wild, by the way). And you know that Grace, who was back on board, had been reduced more or less to Mickey’s backup singer (they did let her do “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” but only after the crowd was forced to endure a five-minute synthesizer intro wank).

If there’s a hell, Mickey Thomas is not only going there, he’ll be the music director.

7. Metallica
Hands-down the most important metal band of the ‘80s, and probably the second or third most important metal band ever after Zeppelin and/or Sabbath. Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and the black album – hell, did even Zep do four in a row that were that good?

But then James Hetfield’s contract with the devil expired. The aptly titled Load, then Reload, then St. Anger – and somehow they made time to become spokestools for the RIAA.

Pay Lars, indeed, but not for this crap….

8. Van Halen
There’s some argument here, so I’ll give you a choice. My take is that when they replaced Diamond Dave with Sammy Hagar they went straight to hell. Dave seemed to get the joke, whereas Sammy didn’t realize there was a joke.

Others thought Hagar was fine, and some believe, against all reason, that he was even better than Roth. So for those folks, we have a second option: when Hagar left and they replaced him with Gary Cherone, the band went straight to hell.

See, bipartisan compromise!

9. The Eagles
From Desperado, One of These Nights, and the landmark Hotel California to Hell Freezes Over…. The band seemed to have a pretty good idea after The Long Run that the gig was up, and had they had the sense to leave it alone they wouldn’t be on this list.

10. Chicago
Chicago had significant commercial success throughout its career, with chart albums in five straight decades. The critical value of their music was less consistent, however. Their early success was built on an inventive blending of styles, with the whole emerging as something decidedly larger than the sum of the parts.

But after Terry Kath’s death, the band devolved into the ass-creature from power-ballad hell, and the head of the beast was Peter Cetera. Each effort was schmaltzier than the last (which took some doing) and after Cetera got too big for the band and moved on into solo suckdom, Chicago reacted by…finding a guy who sounded like Cetera so they could keep cranking on the formula.

Sad, sad….

11. Bryan Adams
I heard Adams’ Cuts Like a Knife and thought, damn, this boy has got something. Unfortunately, that something turned out to be a smoldering desire to be Michael Bolton.

12. The Bee Gees
This is less about the successes that the band once attained (which were noteworthy, if not the stuff of legend) than it is the unspeakable depths they plumbed as the house band for the disco era. Many bands have soared higher, but none have sunk lower.

13. The Rolling Stones
No questioning the “heights soared to” part of the equation, is there? The Stones are one of the greatest bands in rock & roll history. But when was the last time they were relevant? Tattoo You in 1981? Some Girls in 1978? Exile on Main Street in 1972?

Been a long, long time since they did anything that enhanced their legacy, hasn’t it?

14. Bruce Springsteen
I don’t think that Bruce has stopped trying, but like the Stones, it’s been a while since he added significantly to the case for his greatness. Up through Born in the USA he could do no wrong, but then he got married, got divorced, dismissed the E Street Band, got married again, and since then he hasn’t done anything much to get excited about except The Ghost of Tom Joad (you liked The Rising? Go back and give Born to Run a spin and be honest with yourself).

I remember the line from “Dancing in the Dark” – “I’m just about starving tonight.” Right, but he’s not starving anymore, and it shows. With his second marriage he found happiness, apparently, and for some artists, happiness kills their muse. I think Bruce might be one of those people.

15. REM
With every new REM release, I keep hoping for another lightning strike, while expecting it less and less. Through the ‘80s they released six studio albums (plus the Chronic Town EP), and the worst effort in the bunch was Green. Green was an okay enough record, even though it clearly didn’t measure up to their previous work on any standard except sales. This was followed by Out of Time, another likeable effort that nonetheless didn’t quite stand up to the earlier work.

But then out of nowhere we got Automatic for the People, an absolute masterpiece and easily one of the top CDs of the decade (it was #3 on the Lullaby Pit Best CDs of the ‘90s list, in fact). So based on that comeback, I’ve held out hope for the last 18 years that they have another great record in them. And they still may – a lot of people thought 2008′s Accelerate was their best since Automatic, and it may have been the best since.

There’s a new CD on the way next month, and the tracks I have heard from it so far give me hope that we can finally get one of America’s greatest bands ever off this infernal list.

16. Pearl Jam
Actually, it didn’t take the mighty very long to start falling in this case. Ten, the debut release, was #8 on the Pit’s Best CDs of the ‘90s list and the two follow-ups were defensible efforts. Then they just jumped off a cliff, quality-wise.

I respect that they’re doing what they want to do and they’ll never be on anybody’s top sell-outs list, but sadly, artistic integrity and suck are not mutually exclusive concepts.

17. Duran Duran
This entry may seem pointless, depending on how you feel about DD. For my part, I thought they stroking along pretty well up until they split to do the Power Station and Arcadia projects – basically, the first three records were pretty darned solid. Then they put it back together after their little hiatus and produced Notorious, and that was about that.

What’s eerie, though, is listening to the band talk about it. They said in an interview that they felt those first three records weren’t very good, that they were too consumed by the demands of style at the time (and by this, I assume they’re implicating the whole MTV thing), and that the newer stuff (speaking here of Notorious, as I recall) represented far better music on their part.

Hunh. So the failing with Duran Duran, then, we might chalk up to a complete loss of self-awareness.

18. Phil Collins
From Abacab to No Jacket Required to crooning loves songs for Disney. Sigh….

A Special Case

John Lennon and Paul McCartney
They were so unbelievably good that I might ought to just leave it alone, but I can’t. McCartney is trying, I think, and Lennon was certainly trying, but the primary achievement of their solo careers was/has been to prove how desperately they needed each other. Lennon by himself was a self-indulgent pseudo-intellectual whose more, umm, introspective moments would bore the tits off a brass hog. Yes, he had some fantastic high spots – “Imagine” springs to mind – but they were the exceptions, not the rule.

Macca, on the other hand, was substantively about an inch deep. All he really wanted was to hear the screams of little girls wetting their panties, and if he had to afflict us with “Coming Up” to do it, so be it. Like John, he had his moments – some of the Wings-era stuff, for instance, was just fantastic (I’ve always loved Band on the Run from start to finish), but after a while he just quit pretending. (Although, I have to admit that I really did like “Dance Tonight.”)

Together, they mitigated each other’s weaknesses. Paul injected some fun into Lennon’s navel-contemplation, and John kept Paul’s dingy butt from flapping mindlessly off into the ether. It was a classic case – the classic case – of one plus one equals a million, music’s ultimate collaboration.

But compare either of their solo careers to their Beatles output, and even the most rabid fan has to admit that there was something of a drop-off….

          I am haunted by numberless islands... - WB Yeats

Walking by the shore at dusk, air
leaden with a faith in words.

William looks up, says
Maud, the sky is full of dragonflies.

She stares beyond the sea. 

          That's nice, Bill. But I've a kingdom to burn.
          Your bugs will be dead by morning.

Words are a piper, he says. When we die,
our ghosts will haunt the waves and
young men will lift a pint to
wandering beauty.

          We're inside-out, says Maud.
          I want to drown Dublin in
          English blood and you,
          so much like a woman with
          your poetry and your mysteries.

I will summon ancient warriors to your heel.
Then you will love me.

Maud stares beyond the rim of the sea.

          Summon me powder and horses, Bill.

His study quiet as dust,
a candle's nub
races the dark to dawn.
William sits, vanquished by the
sacred rose and the guns of love.