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Bereft of a home during these holiday hours, The Cooler rolls through the American sports landscape, looking for shelter.
|  | | The 49ers' trip to Texas was a lot less fun than they expected. |
Nobody's under the fluorescents working during these holidays, leaving The Cooler without its "Office Space"-worshipping readership.
Which is why I found myself pushing the Sparkletts jug through the rainy streets of an Unnamed West Coast City yesterday, looking for an Irish Coffee
-- preferably heavy on the Irish, light on the Coffee and a place to prop her up.
I knew I had found the right joint when I popped my head into one darkened tavern and took a look at a cast of characters who would be deemed "too over the top" by Fox producers editing a "Cops" episode. The name of the tavern shall go unnamed, for fear of felonious retribution, but let's call it "The Cave of Regret" ... or "The Den of Misfits."
I knew it was going to be perfect when I saw just three TVs -- one on top of the cigarette machine, taking its reception through bunny ears. Two showed the Niners-Cowboys, one the Jets-Bills. It was pouring and gloomy outside -- and hey, Seattle, you can have your weather back anytime you freaking want -- when I heard the Best Overheard Line in Bar History:
Man in Sweatsuit, to Woman who looks like she Once Knew Better, But Now Drinks Before Noon: "Have you seen my wife? I haven't seen her in a few days. Do you know where she is?"
Woman who Now Drinks Before Noon: ""I've got a few guesses."
I'll let that soak in, Cooler readers.
So I settled in. The 49ers proceeded to gag all over themselves, causing a sour mood to darken the room.
From the end of the bar, an uneasy silence was pierced with this call of a woman gazing at a shot of Emmitt Smith: "Emmitt, I hope you get hit by a truck!"
More uneasy silence.
|  | | Emmitt Smith was the truck that hit the 49ers on Sunday. |
The Niners made a run with a late TD, cutting the score to 27-21 with less than a minute to play. A guy who looked like his primary mode of transportation is
Greyhound buses shouted out: "Get an offsides kick! Get an offsides kick, and we can win!"
Let that soak in, too.
Finally, the 49ers lost. The pallor that hung over the bar seemed immovable, until the crew at the bar slowly, inevitably, moved to its next topic: Why People Ask "How are you doing?":
"Where I grew up," said the Man in Sweatsuit, "you answered: Don't Ask."
Chimed in the bartender, as he poured another round: "Me? I don't give a (expletive) how people are doing."
As the rain continued to pound, as the Gothic gloom enveloped the final days of 2001, I could only inhale and take a deep, long pull off the scene.
Misanthropes? Substance abusers? Irrational sports fans? The Cooler had found its perfect resting place before launching back into your office come 2002;
the Cooler had found its target readership, baby.
With that, the final List of Five from 2001, including -- yes, you have to read all the way through! -- a special No. 5:
1. College basketball is totally boss.
Got a chance to check out Stanford-Michigan State over the weekend in Oakland. Big Ten power, Pac-10 power, big crowd, dueling bands, packs of alums in school colors.
|  | | Even in December, you can get fired up over watching Stanford clash with Michigan State on the hardwood. |
(Michigan State, believe it or not, had tons of Spartan nuts in town for the Silicon Valley Classic, played today vs. Fresno State. Wait. Traveling to the Silicon Valley Classic? I went to a school so apathetic, we Bruins dissed the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, preferring to draw the curtain on our season rather than play on. In contrast, Michigan State fans throw two pair of kelly green Jockey underwear in a duffel bag and head West for a six-day binge of sports and New Year's Eve parties surrounding the Silicon Valley Classic. God bless those East Lansing Lunatics.)
Anyway, point is, it was fine theatre. Earlier in the day, TV showed Rick Pitino getting the living bejesus heckled out of him at Rupp Arena, including personal heckles of Joanne Pitino. Classic stuff. Then, the MSU-Stanford game. Sporting the press pass, I happened upon the Spartans in the tunnel just before they took the court and soaked in their
gang-together/arms-raised/rhythmic chants before they hit the hardwood. Good atmosphere.
Then, once the teams hit the hardwood, I found myself further intrigued by the College Cheerleading crew. Oh yeah, baby. When I was a student, we had no interest in those Stepford chicks with school logos on their cheeks, each sporting that high-school-gymnast-turned-Mary-Lou-Retton body type. Now, as a man hurtling into his mid-30s and feeling more Lester Burnham-ish by the day, I cast a hungry eye at the co-eds innocently cheering on their fellow students. All of a sudden, the Olga Korbut-type who gets vaulted 25 feet in the air during TV timeouts had gone from average- to below-average fare into a bird who looked more like Mena Suvari with each increasing cheerleader
pyramid.
I better stop this riff before the authorities intervene.
Anyway ... can't deny. Was fired up, kids. And this is for nonconference December hoops! It all reminded me: Outside of baseball's Opening Day,
American sports produces nothing better than March Madness.
2. Calling ESPN Classic: Cue up the Jerome Brown footage!
|  | | Ken Dorsey's 'Canes are good ... but they don't talk trash like their predecessors at Miami. |
So it's time for the big college bowls, and that's cool and all. I'm not going to continue to mourn for the loss of the Big Ten-Pac 10 Rose Bowl, 'cause most of you don't give a rat's derriere and probably, in your most truthful moments, don't really believe that we play some ball on the West Coast!
That painful admission out of the way, I will say this: Bring back the old Miami 'Canes, man. Who are these insurance salesman posing as Miami football players? No trash talk? No camouflage? No Jerome Brown?
We must, for posterity's sake, remind all ye youngsters out there that once Miami represented all that was morally repugnant about college football. God bless those days. When Miami and Penn State met in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, the trash talk reached such hilarious levels, the late, great Jerome Brown dropped college football's greatest sound bite when Miami got up and walked out, en masse, from a scheduled dinner with Penn State days before the game: "Did the Japanese sit down and have dinner with Pearl Harbor before they bombed it?"
Had Jerome Brown's NFL career not been ended by a premature death, his stack of quotes would make Warren Sapp's act look like Tom Coughlin's.
3. No more word problems, please!
I awoke in a hot sweat last night, only partially because I fell asleep reading "Tom Coughlin's Bon Mots" with the electric blanket on "high." The other reason was those damn playoff scenarios coursing through the NFL: If New England beats Carolina, the Raiders must beat the Jets to secure a first-round bye; however, if Carolina beats New England, the Dolphins could secure the first-round bye because of a head-to-head edge with Oakland, leaving New England to travel on a train to Pittsburgh going 60 mph, with the Rams leaving St. Louis on a train that is traveling at 80 mph, leaving us with the question: Which train gets to Cleveland first, and which train features the more stocked bar in the caboose lounge?
Aaargh! High school math! Aaaaaaahhhh.
When it comes to these word problems, I'm going Val Kilmer in "Top Secret!" Surely, you remember the scene where Kilmer's character Nick Rivers is
tortured by Nazis, only to drift into a hallucination where he is running through his old high school's empty hallways, only to stop one student and
ask: "When's the chemistry final?" The student answers, eerily: "The chemistry final started an hour ago," at which point Kilmer sprints through
the hallway screaming ... only to come out of his hallucination and find himself being tortured. At that point, he sighs, smiles and says with relief:
"Phew!"
Long story. Sorry. But you get the point.
Let's just play it out, boys. We'll all be watching Sunday.
|  | | Note to aspiring NBA prospects: You don't need tattoos to hang in the air. |
4. MJ Scores 51.
Why? Because he can.
And he's doing it, I believe, without tattoos. Fascinating sociological observations, posted here weekly.
5. 2001 at The Cooler: The Year that Was.
Dear reader, if you made it this far, you generally answer to the words "Brian Murphy's Mom." If not, well, then, I thank and pity you at the same time.
We all know the sure sign of any sitcom's demise is the "Highlight Episode," when characters wrung dry of any original lines from burnt-out writers sit
around and reminisce about the time Alex P. Keaton, like, stuck up for Mallory and really showed he loved his sister; or the time Fonzi saved
Arnold's from that bad gang; or the time George Jefferson carried on that torrid, no-holds-barred sexual affair with Florence, complete with trapezes
and handcuffs.
(No, wait. That last one was something I once dreamt.)
That said, a trip down Cooler Memory Lane in 2001 can produce similarly pathetic images: Who could forget Johnny, the old shoeshine guy from the old
"Police Squad!" episodes moving to Dubai? Who could forget David Duval and Phil Mickelson visiting the day after Tiger's fourth straight major? Who
could forget the lifetime pass for Jason Giambi? Or Bill Walton spitting out the Sparkletts, proclaiming it atrocious?
Or John Rocker running through cubicle walls? Or the still-vibrant and haunting image of Dyan Cannon, chilling with Mike Tyson at the NBA Finals? Or
Steven Tyler's Quote of the Year from the Indy 500, after singing with Jim Nabors and Florence Henderson: "I watched Gomer for most of my teenage years. And
Florence, well, you know, it's all good."
Wait. You can forget all those?
Good for you, Cooler-dweller. Memory loss is a sure sign of a soaked and fried brain.
Dammit, you guys make me proud.
Brian Murphy of the San Francisco Chronicle writes the "Weekend Water Cooler" every week for Page 2.
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