In The End There Can Be Only One

Displaced Aggression -- Final League Report

A hush fell over the northwest suburbs on Sunday, as Dingobros and the Turduckens faced eachother in our Championship matchup.  The ensuing action was less-than-pretty, but the outcome was not unexpected; It seems that, at least this time, the ESPN geeks got it right.  The Dingos, after an oedipal elimination of their own father’s team in round 2, ended up posting their fourth-lowest score of the entire season – which was sad, but still enough to derail the hapless Turduckens, whose own dreams of glory were pinned on the unlikely prospect of Steven Jackson cranking out 34 points in Sunday night’s game.  In the end he came up with 11, and the Dingobros held on to Our Beloved League’s virtual trophy for a second straight year.  Anyone smell a dynasty?

Surprisingly, hot and heavy action continued outside of the Championship bracket, with six of our teams continuing to add and drop players through all three rounds of post-season consolation-play.  N.O. Brass upped the number of Saints on its starting lineup to 6 in hopes of rekindling some mid-season mojo, but were nonetheless trounced by the Salukis in round 3.  The Duestakers and HellFire Club appeared to have lapsed into auto-pilot, losing to Gonk’s Revenge and Dayment respectively, and Mental Garbage beat the tar out of the Pulled Hammies, who led the auto-pilot/zombie pack all season.

Token Female and the Lakeviewers continued the pointless slugfest that we all hope is not a reflection of their real-life marriage, and the 4-10 Blue Devils unexpectedly and ironically rode up the consolation ladder on a three-game winning streak, leaving the Wackers to finish the season the same way they started it; as our League’s Fredo Corleone.

We’ll have to leave it to historians to tease out whatever greater meaning might be found in our 2010 season.  In the face of the Dingobros’ iron grip on the throat of victory, we band of merry losers are now left to lick our wounds and reflect on the sobering fact that a middle-schooler has now kicked our butts for two years in a row.  For our part, we laughed, we cried, experienced fleeting triumph and burning humiliation, and no matter what else they say about us, they’ll have to admit that we all took hard shots and came back for more – like Brett Favre, but without the sexting.

Thanks to all of you for another bang-up season, and congratulations to Dingobros, two-time holder of our League’s pimp-goblet of a virtual trophy. Until next season – Ojo Del Tigre!

Respectfully Submitted,
Commissioner Tom

And Then There Were Four

Displaced Aggression League Report -- Playoff Week 1

Round 1 saw our little corner of the world turned topsy-turvy, as the three top-seeded teams and a former champion/perennial spoiler were pitilessly eradicated by an assortment of malicious Cinderellas.  In the end, grief counselors had to be bused in, and our League’s brightest and best were reduced to pointing out exactly where on the doll their opponents had touched them.  
Sunday’s violence had the sudden and unexpected feel of a penitentiary-shanking: The Dingobros literally clawed their way into the playoff bracket and ate the baby of a stunned first place Hellfire Club, and the Salukis squeaked out a 4-point win that put a brutal and definitive end to Gonk’s Revenge.
In the two playoff matchups that remained unsettled until Monday, both the Duestakers and the Turduckens hoped to make up 9-point deficits in the Bears-Vikings game. The Duestakers bet their paycheck on Adrian Peterson‘s knee and lost, granting a reprieve to a thankful N.O. Brass, while the Turduckens, high on 26 points courtesy of the Bears Defense, stepped deftly around the battered remains of Team Dayment and breathed their own sigh of relief.
Several other matchups took place in the unfortunately–named Consolation Ladder – across the tracks on the seedy side of the League – where, in terms of raw enjoyment, the proceedings are typically on par with a time-share seminar or a gathering of Greek Orthodox widows.  The dismal reality of life in this reverse-image of the playoff bracket was summed up on these very pages back in 2008 (note this year’s coincidental Round 1 re-matching of the four teams mentioned):

It’s not as easy to muster excitement about what passes for Round 1 action in our League’s hobo-camp of a consolation ladder; a virtual Island of Misfit Toys where the losers are left behind to scrounge up whatever comfort they can from cheap liquor and the flaming debris of their tragic seasons.  Here we find the accursed Wackers lining up to pummel Mental Garbage for a second week in a row, while Dayment and the Turduckens square off against each other like winos armed with broken bottles.  What is the point, you may ask?  It has something to do with the Loser’s Code, something that’s not easily understood on the sunny side of the street.  It boils down to simply not wanting to be the worst of the worst.  These ragged clubs may stink like Satan’s butt-rag, but they’ve still got enough heart to go down fighting like Chupacabras.

Respectfully Submitted,
Commissioner Tom

Skundered!

Displaced Aggression League Report -- Week 10

An Irish friend once shared the story of a neighbor who went to a pub to see a girl he was seriously smitten with.  He downed pint after pint to steady his nerves as he waited for her to arrive, and when she finally did, he barfed all over himself while trying to ask her out.  As my friend sadly put it, the young man was skundered. 

It’s hard to think of a better term for what happened to the Turduckens in Week 10, as they were viciously deposed from their newly-assumed 1^st place-perch by the Dingobros, a lower-middle tier sleeper with a taste for blood and the derailed aspirations of haughty opponents. This wasn’t the only dramatic upset to rain down on Our Beloved League in Week 10: Dark horse HellFire Club stomped the Duestakers like a female protester at a Rand Paul campaign appearance, but the Duestakers somehow managed to cling to 2^nd place.  And, perhaps most astonishingly, the last-place Lakeviewers FUBAR’d the once-mighty Salukis, who tumbled to 6^th place in near-complete disgrace.  

Some insiders refuse to buy into the drama surrounding these upsets, pointing out that it all boils down to a bit of shuffling around; Week 9’s top six teams are still Week 10’s top six teams, they say.  There is no question, however, that the week’s biggest winners were the aforementioned HFC, who jumped from 5th to 3^rd place in the blink of an eye, and Gonk’s Revenge, who, with the relentlessness of a Terminator, completed their seemingly-inevitable climb to 1^st place by beating the tar out of the N.O. Brass—an outfit fatally compromised by bye-week holes and impaired-judgment, reportedly due to mixing box-wine with over-the-counter cold medicine.

In other action, Token Female was eighty-sixed by a roid-raging Mental Garbage, while the Wackers scored a freebie-win by virtue of their matchup with the Pulled Hammies, our League’s answer to passing GO in Monopoly. And finally, facing off against the ascendant Dayment, the Blue Devils pulled yet another colossally-flawed offensive scheme out of their toxic catbox of a strategic repertoire, with predictably-tragic results.

We all have to remain on guard against losing focus, with the playoffs a mere four weeks away.  A lot can happen in that amount of time, given our current 5-team 7-3 cluster tailed closely by another 3 who are only a game or two behind them.  The only thing we can be sure of is that dreams will be shattered and lamentations sung by the unlucky six whose seasons end short of the playoffs.  That bracket’s gilded gates will surely slam shut, locking them in the mausoleum-like gloom of our consolation ladder, where their eyes may eventually adjust to the darkness, but their hearts never will.

More Fun Than Rectal Bleeding

Displaced Aggression League Report -- Week 8

There’s not much to say about what happened in Our Beloved League in week 8.    Overall, it was the kind of scene that just leaves everyone feeling uncomfortable, like interpretive prayer-dance, or watching Glen Beck go on an extended crying jag.  

Most of us chalk it up to what old-timers call the Bye-Week Blues.  For the unlucky among us this translated into low scoring of the sinkhole-variety, as we watched our second- and third-string starters stumble around on the field like they’d been smoking ditchweed.  But one or two matchups were still worth a look-see.

All eyes were on the newly-crowned Duestakers as their fall from 1^st place-grace came at the hands of a bitter Gonk’s Revenge, who back-daggered the Duestakers as if they were a bastard-pretender to the League’s throne.  Proverbs teaches us that pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, or something along those lines. The point is, a mere taste of hubris proved devastating to the 6-1 Duestakers, who now have one more bell that they’d like to unring.  And while you have to give credit where it’s due, ESPN’s projection of the Duestakers as the underdog in this matchup looks a little less impressive when you consider the fact that Revenge scored 185 more points than the Duestakers in the first seven weeks of the season.

Among the other scores that were settled on Monday night, the Blue Devils managed to expand and nail down their slight-lead over DingoBros, while Token Female dragged the Wackers back into the pit from whence they crawled, and 10^th place Mental Garbage managed to eke out a breathtakingly-humiliating 1-point win over 4^th place N.O. Brass, whose owner was reportedly so despondent that he holed-up in his attic with a laptop and a 12-pack of Meister Brau.

Elsewhere, in an act of sudden, arbitrary brutality rarely seen outside of correctional institutions, 7^th place HellFire Club gave 5^th place Dayment the kind of horrendous whooping that makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a Mormon picnic.  The 2^nd place Salukis inflicted similar damage on the 13^th place Hammies, in a win that called to mind playground bullying and left most observers shaking their heads.  The 3^rd place Turduckens provoked the same reaction when they callously phoned in a cheap victory over last-place Lakeviewers.

In the end, Week 8 brings us past our regular season’s halfway point, and is as suitable a vantage point as any from which to reflect on what, if anything, all of this means.  For most of us it’s simple: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being something cool like Shark Week or a winning PowerBall ticket, and 1 being, let’s say, rectal bleeding, the 2010 fantasy football season would fall somewhere right in the middle, along with oatmeal and folk dancing. 

Respectfully Submitted,
Commissioner Tom

Lamentations of a Halloween Nerd

I know I’m at risk of reading too much into something that matters disproportionately to me, but I’ve been troubled by what appeared to be a significant drop in house and yard decorating in my community this Halloween.   In terms of outdoor decor, my town has always been more Christmas-oriented, but in past years you could always find at least a few houses on every block that put up orange lights, or a scarecrow, or a jack-o-lantern, or something.  But this year was different; you could drive from neighborhood to neighborhood on the big weekend and see nothing but darkness.

I tried to take comfort in the fact that the Midwest was buffeted by several consecutive days of near-record high winds last week; it’s possible that many people either took their decorations down, or decided not to decorate at all, because of the wind.  But the lady who cut my hair today offered a simpler and darker explanation.  She was talking about how the economy was affecting people; that more than one man cried in her chair while describing this impact on their families and lives. Her theory is that people are just depressed; they’re having a hard time getting in the holiday spirit at a time like this.  That’s a sad explanation, but it makes more sense than the wind. And it makes me wonder what Christmas is going to look like in my community this year.

As for me, Halloween is an obsessive calling.  I’ll keep lighting up my little corner of the world until the kids stop coming or until, in some bleak future, religious extremists are finally able to outlaw Halloween along with homosexuality and immigration. I can’t help thinking that—especially in times like these—the world needs haunting.

2010 Haunt-inventory (outside items):

Giant Spiderweb for garage

Giant Spider (the right eye needs to be re-wired)

Jack-o-lantern covers for the garage lights

Light up Happy Halloween sign for garage

Light up witch sign for garage (shorted out)

Wooden Zombie Danger Level sign

Zombie torso and head to go with sign

Light-up skull and hands (2 sets)

6 ft. cardboard coffin

Orange LED lights for bushes on side of house

Purple LED lights for bushes in front of house

Pumpkin lights for bush by driveway

Cornstalks wrapped in orange LED lights by driveway

7 pumpkins (only had time to carve four)

Baby-skeleton hung in wire fish-trap cage

Small ghost on a wire in front of house

Ring of five ghosts dancing around front tree

Large 2D skull lights for front tree (2)

Assorted disposable spider webs in bushes (6 or 7)

Zombie groundbreaker with moving head (broken by middle-schoolers)

Skeleton groundbreakers (2)

Foam tombstones (7)

Small seasonal signs on stakes (5)

Small zombie warning signs (4)

Witch figure with lighted, smoking cauldron

Fog machine for cauldron

Large werewolf figure with moving head

Large dog-cage for werewolf

Large witch-queen figure with lighted eyes

Throne for witch-queen

Large strobe-lit monster cage for living room window

Monster figure for cage

Skull lights and skull mini-border fence

40 foot wooden cemetery fence

Skull-topped gate-posts with lighted eyes (2)

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

Displaced Aggression League Report -- Week 7
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Take off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was: The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low. A ruin! A ruin! I will make it a ruin! -- Ezekiel 21:26

Like a slow-orbiting comet or the McRib sandwich, truly epic upsets don’t come around very often; and when they do, it’s an occasion worth noting with appropriate solemnity.  Such was the case in Week 7 when the 12th-place Wackers’ put a DavidVs.Goliath-style Kybosh on 2nd-place Gonk’s Revenge.  It was an outcome that no one expected, and was all the more dramatic because the scales weren’t tipped until the last 60 seconds of the game. A loss like that is like diarrhea on prom night, and an ominous indication that, should such trends continue, Revenge may be on their way to ending the season sleeping under a bridge and using muscatel as hand sanitizer.

This stunning development alarmed the genteel and privileged elite, comprised of a handful of top teams who, up until now, have contentedly-jockeyed for advantage from week to week without facing any real danger of dropping into Our Beloved League’s vulgar middle-tier.  Gonk’s Revenge plummeted from 2nd- to 6th-place in the blink of an eye, while the Duestakers snatched the coveted 1st-place-crown from the bruised and scarred forehead of N.O. Brass, whose Week 7 fortunes plummeted along with those of their beloved Saints.

Elsewhere, the Gridiron Goddess had a particularly cruel laugh at the expense of the Blue Devils, who lost out on an unlikely 39-point explosion by a benched receiver over the weekend, but nevertheless marched gamely into Monday night facing a 75 point deficit against the Turduckens. However, it became clear in the first quarter, after Eli Manning posted negative-four points, that the Devils would be unable to seal the deal. 

On the poor side of our League’s tracks, Mental Garbage posted the week’s high score of 158 -- fully 28 points over their projected total -- allowing them to defeat the unfortunate Lakeviewers and shamble from last- to second-to-last place.  Many of us have puzzled over how, with overall strategic competence on par with Carl from that movie Slingblade, Mental Garbage still manages to outscore most of the League on a recurrent basis.  While some suggest they may be retarded like a fox, Vegas oddsmakers are treating this as a genuine case of fantasy sports Savantism.  Whatever you choose to call it, several of our teams might benefit from a dose of that kind of high-octane Gump-mojo at this point in the season.

Respectfully Submitted,
Commissioner Tom
Ojo Del Tigre!

EMERGENCY BULLETIN

--Alert Level ORANGE--
Displaced Aggression Team Owners,
Please be advised: In response to heavy and extreme negativity caused by the results of last week’s matchups, ESPN has placed the entire Displaced Aggression league on Orange Alert status until further notice.  Your Commissioner has been safely removed to an undisclosed location – possibly for the remainder of the season – where, hunkered down like a Jihadist in Tora Bora, he will continue to issue periodic League Updates and answer vital communications.
Direct contact is not recommended, but care packages containing antacids and Irish Whiskey may be forwarded via the League Office. 
---End of transmission---