Monday nights are when we make Moot Points here at The Cleveland Fan, and per usual ... Hiko goes yard with a laugh out loud effort. This week, he hits on getting rid of his 1996 Chrysler Cirrus, corporitization, the Cavs playoff run, tonight's championship game, and the Gillette Fusion Power Phantom. Buckle up.

OR 

Le Cirrus d’Chrysler 

I got a new car on Saturday.  This means that it was time to take my old car, a 1996 Chrysler Cirrus with 200,000 miles, to Mr. Junkyard. 

As I drove away, leaving the car alone amongst all those unfriendly heaps of rusting metal, sadness staged a coup d’etat upon my heart.  These words came to me in the depths of my mourning. 

A tear drops from my eye

To the ground

Mixing with the dirt to create a tiny mudball. 

Only once did I have sex in thee

But ’tis not bad for a man of thirty-three. 

Car!  Fair Car!  You were the breath in my lungs, the stink in my shoe. 

O!  Even your blemishes were beautiful!  Your cracked windshield, your detached rear left panel, your radio that didn’t work, your heat that only worked on high, your hole in the exhaust which caused you to roar like a Harley, your corroded wiring in the rear right brake light, your six inch rust spot by the passenger door, your engine light that never went off, your trunk which decided to stop opening a month ago, your leaking of coolant and transmission and power steering fluids. 

Petty reasons to abandon you thus. Cruelty, I know thee now. 

Life is but an abyss of loss and pain.  Farewell, Fair Car.  The mudballs dance in thy honor. 

***Each week, after Moot Points is posted, I check it out, just to make sure that I didn’t have any egregious spelling errors or grammatical slip-ups.  Last week, I was reading, and I noticed the word “F*ck” in my article. 

“F*ck?” I asked Hiko (we are two different people, you know).  “Did you write ‘F*ck’?” 

“I didn’t write ‘F*ck’,” Hiko said.  “I don’t even know what that means.” 

“Ah.  You, of course, realize what this portends?” 

“Yes.  It was inevitable.” 

We knew it would happen eventually.  Corporatization means an obvious move towards the mainstream, and along with the move to the mainstream comes the mainstream societal niceties.  If you broaden your target group, then you have to kowtow to a larger and more restricting set of moral demands.  Can’t go upsetting Granny Johnson (who popped on to read about the Tribe while purchasing online candy for the homeless) or l’il Nancy Lee Buttercup (who logged on to do her first grade report on the mountain goats of the Himalayas and somehow found herself reading shocking accounts of the depraved).   

We always figured that the powers that be would someday be subjected to the “opinions” of new powers, and that these new powers wouldn’t be thrilled with the content of our mental diarrhea.  We are really powerless in this struggle. 

Truly, we don’t understand the difference between the F word and “F*ck”.  Even l’il Nancy Lee knows what one is referring to when one uses the word “F*ck”.  Is it somehow less offensive because of the asterisk?   

Ah, well, at least they didn’t use the F-word, just this word “F*ck”, which could be “Fick” or “Fack” or even “Fzck”. 

I’m not a fool and I’m not a martyr.  I understand why these concessions are made.  I understand Corporate America – I’ve been part of it for the last 9 years.  But if the use of the word used to describe human sexual intercourse is going to be neutered to “F*ck”, then I won’t use the term any longer.  I love the word too much to have its good name besmirched with a symbol. 

In the end, who gives a Fasteriskck anyway? 

***3/27 – Cavs vs. Pacers “Thoughts”:  Pacers suck.  Cavs won.  I have nothing else to say about this game. 

***3/28 – Cavs vs. Knicks “Thoughts”:  I watched this game at a bar, and the guy next to me had apoplectic fits when Starbury’s bullshit 3 pointer went down.  His eyes rolled back in his head and a kind of green foam spurted from his mouth.  Then he smashed his glass against his temple and ate the broken shards. 

I was really pissed off that the Cavs blew this game to the Knicks – especially when they needed it so badly – but I wasn’t as pissed as that guy. 

***3/31 – Cavs vs. Bulls “Thoughts”:  Thanks to their demoralizing loss to the Knicks, I was not exactly brimming with optimism for this contest. 

This was a really good game.  Some Cavs games I’m just going through the motions, sort of watching it, maybe doing some other things, origami and what-not.  Not this game.  I was standing pretty much the entire second half, nodding distractedly and saying “Uh huh” at my children and my girlfriend any time they entered the living room to say something to me.  I could’ve agreed to a trip to Jamaica for all I know – I have no idea what they were talking about. 

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY 

HIKO, 34, a tall and ruggedly handsome man, stands in front of the television, loudly urging on the players from the Cleveland Cavaliers, who appear on the verge of losing a vital game to the Chicago Bulls. 

The game enters overtime, and, with just over a minute left, the Cavaliers fall behind by 4 points. 

Hiko

(throwing his hands in the air)

That’s it.  It’s over. 

ELEKTRA, 31, Hiko’s devastatingly beautiful girlfriend, enters the room. 

Elektra

It’s not over. 

Hiko

It’s over. 

Elektra

(chastising)

You’re a very negative person. 

Hiko

Yeah?  I’ve had years of practice.  I can name on one hand the number of times Cleveland teams have won the big games. 

Elektra

Is this a big game? 

Hiko

It’s pretty big.  Not huge.  But big. 

PRINCESS THE ELDER, a 7 year old girl with an evil gleam in her eye, sticks her head into the room. 

Princess The Elder

Daddy? 

Hiko

(watching the TV)

Uh huh? 

Princess The Elder

Can I have a pony? 

Hiko

Uh huh. (reacts to the TV)  Yes! 

Princess The Elder makes a check on a piece of paper she holds in her hand – a kind of checklist of mischief. 

Hiko is oblivious to his promise.  He watches with glee as the Cavaliers actually come back and win the game. 

Hiko

(awed)

I don’t believe it. 

Elektra

See?  No reason to be negative.  They won the big game. 

Hiko

True.  This just means that they’ll lose a bigger game in painful fashion – probably in the playoffs. 

Elektra

(sighing)

You’re a hopeless pessimist.  Fortunately, you are the greatest lover this – or any – world has ever seen. 

Hiko

(not listening)

Uh huh. 

***4/01 – Cavs vs. Celtics “Thoughts”:  AH HA!  My rampant negativity is justified!  You win a big (not huge) game against the Bulls, you turn around and give it back by losing to the lowly Celts the next day. 

The foul called on Varejao at the end of the game was complete goat feces.  Hopefully, NBA refs get fined for suck calls like that one. 

***Speaking of being a hopeless pessimist – I am not even looking forward to tonight’s NCAA Championship Game.  I should be excited that OSU gets the opportunity to exact revenge on the Gators for the butt-fasteriskcking they took in the BCS Championship Game, but I feel Florida has the superior team, and that OSU will just get butt-fasteriskcked again. 

Perhaps the doctor can prescribe something for my condition.  One that doesn’t make me feel too bad – one that doesn’t make me feel too good. 

***There is a new razor blade (that probably costs $25 per cartridge) called Fusion Power Phantom. 

Fusion Power Phantom? 

What the farg? 

Advertisers really think we men are stupid, don’t me? 

***Anna Nicole Smith died of an accidental drug overdose.  I am shocked – SHOCKED! – I tell you.  She seemed far too intelligent a human being to fall into that trap. 

I wonder what it was exactly that she took.  And can it be prescribed?  There’s still a lot more Anna Nicole Smiths out there. 

***Quote of the Day:  “You can’t write if you can’t relate.” – Skip Bayless (who obviously can’t relate)