One of our most popular writers, Hiko is back in the groove, and back to weekly installments of "Moot Points", the hysterical stream of conciousness column that took northeast Ohio by storm a couple of years ago.  This week, Hiko hits on Cleveland's 44 year drought without a pro sports title, dreams he's been having, his daughters' latest school project, and what he's been watching on DVD.

~~~1964

No, it's not the prequel to George Orwell's 1984, but it's just as depressing.

That would be the last time a major Cleveland sports franchise won a championship.

In 1964, the Cleveland Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts 27-0 to win the NFL Championship. Since then, each of the three major franchises - the Browns, Cavaliers, and Indians - have gotten perilously close to the pinnacle, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

There is no reason to rehash these miseries. They have their lore. They have their own names, for Pete's sake.

Last weekend, I was in Chicago, talking to a Cubs fan, who told me that I had no idea what it was like to know the frustration he felt. To which I laughed in his face.

"I seem to remember the Bulls winning 6 championships recently, and the '85 Bears did pretty well for themselves. Do you remember the last time ANY Cleveland team won a championship?" I asked him.

"No," he replied.

"Neither do I, because the last time it happened was 8 years before I was born, and I'll be 36 soon. So don't ask me to have pity for your F-bomb Cubs."

Inspired by this conversation to update my City Champions List, which is a list that just amazes me more and more each time I do it. It's as if the Law of Averages skipped Northeast Ohio.

The City Champions List is a compilation of all the cities which have 3 or more teams in the 4 major sports: football, baseball, basketball, hockey. There are 21 cities that make the list, and, yes, you guessed it, Cleveland is dead last.

In fact, only 4 of the 21 cities haven't had a Championship as recently as the ‘90's: Oakland ('89), Philadelphia ('83), Seattle ('79), and You Know Who (You Know Which Year).

Here's the 21:

New York	2008 - Giants
Boston	2007 - Red Sox
Los Angeles	2007 - Ducks
St. Louis	2006 - Cardinals
Miami	2006 - Heat
Pittsburgh	2006 - Steelers
Chicago	2005 - White Sox
Detroit	2004 - Pistons
Tampa Bay	2004 - Lightning
Denver	2002 - Avalanche
Phoenix	2001 - Diamondbacks
Dallas	1999 - Stars
Atlanta	1995 - Braves
Houston	1995 - Rockets
Toronto	1993 - Blue Jays
Washington, DC	1992 - Redskins
Minneapolis	1991 - Twins
Oakland	1989 - A's
Philadelphia	1983 - 76ers
Seattle	1979 - Supersonics
Cleveland	1964 - Browns

In addition, here is a list of cities that have fewer than 3 major sporting franchises but have STILL won a Championship more recently than 1964:

San Antonio	2007 - Spurs
Indianapolis	2007 - Colts
Raleigh	2006 - Hurricanes
New Jersey	2003 - Devils
Baltimore	2001 - Ravens
Green Bay	1997 - Packers
San Francisco	1995 - 49'ers
Montreal	1993 - Canadiens
Cincinnati	1990 - Reds
Edmonton	1990 - Oilers
Calgary	1989 - Flames
Kansas City	1985 - Royals
Portland	1977 - Trailblazers
Milwaukee	1971 - Bucks

There're 14 on that list. Combined with the 20 ahead of Cleveland on the other list, that's 34 cities that you wouldn't have to have been born prior to 1960 in order to remember their last Title being won.

Just to twist the blade a little further, here's a list of the aforementioned cities and the number of Championships their teams have won since 1964:

New York	21
Boston	16
Los Angeles	15
Montreal	12
Pittsburgh	9
Chicago	8
Detroit	8
Oakland	8
Dallas	6
Miami	5
Philadelphia	5
Baltimore	5
San Francisco	5
Edmonton	5
St. Louis	4
Denver	4
Washington, DC	4
San Antonio	4
Indianapolis	4
Green Bay	4
Toronto	3
New Jersey	3
Cincinnati	3
Tampa Bay	2
Houston	2
Minneapolis	2
Kansas City	2
Phoenix	1
Atlanta	1
Seattle	1
Raleigh	1
Calgary	1
Portland	1
Milwaukee	1
Cleveland	0

But I was not done with my sadistic ways. I was curious to see how many of these teams that won Championships weren't even in existence in 1964. The painful answer was 27: Kansas City Royals, Toronto Blue Jays, Florida Marlins, Arizona Diamondbacks, New Jersey Nets (2 ABA Titles as the New York Nets), Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers (3 ABA Titles), Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat, Portland Trailblazers, Seattle Supersonics, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Carolina Hurricanes, Tampa Bay Lightning, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Ducks, Dallas Stars, Miami Dolphins, Baltimore Ravens, Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Normally, I'm not one to advocate feeling sorry for oneself. But, today, and just for today, I'm suspending that guideline.

Woe is us.

~~~Sweet dreams are not made of these.

In my last Moot, I wrote about a dream I had involving Geri Halliwell and a bloody helicopter crash and a punk rock song about beef jerky. From the reaction I got to that piece, most people seemed to feel that I was on some form of illegal drug.

Sadly, I am not. Unless one counts caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol, which are all technically drugs and which I ingest in one form or another at various times. However, the use of any of these three in excess severely reduces the amount of what I remember of my dreams - as well as rendering their content mundane. So I believe this theory is incorrect.

My dreams have always been thus. The first dream I ever remembered and told anyone about was when I was 5. I lived in underground caves, dank, sunless caves with strange rock formations and wind that whistled through. In the caves with me lived many ghosts, opaque and colorless representations of dead men, women, and children. And I was their King. The Caves were my palace. And I was happy.

The second dream I remembered came a few months later. I was buried in a grave, but there was no coffin. Just a little dirt chamber with some tunnels running off of it. If I crawled through the tunnels, they led to other graves. In the graves were skeletons, who were my friends. We hung out and talked and played cards. And I was happy.

After revealing the content of my dreams to my mother (which is why I remembered them), she threatened to send me to the psychiatrist if I had any more dreams like that. And since that seemed a poor way to spend my summer, I just stopped telling her about them. Thus the lesson was learned early: Hide as much as you can from your parents, and when it can't be hidden, lie.

My daughters occasionally will wake me up in the middle of the night due to nightmares. I had nightmares as a child as well - there were always Sleestaks under my bed. So I can appreciate the effect of a good terrifying subconscious vision.

My younger daughter, who is 5, told me one morning that she had had a nightmare. "What was it about?" I asked her. "A Tyrannosaurus Rex ate me, and I slid into his belly, and I had to live there, and there was a giant squid in there, and I had to squash him with a hammer."

"Good job!" I told her, impressed with her creativity.

"I had a nightmare too," my elder daughter, who is 8, piped in.

"What was yours about?"

"I lost my purse and my friends made fun of me."

I just stared at her for a moment. "Hmmmm... yes, that is scary," I said, trying my best to hide my sarcasm. Poor girl - I'm losing her to the Dark Side.

My girlfriend, Elektra, always tells me that Daughter the Elder will grow up to be a cheerleader, and that Daughter the Younger will grow up to be a tattooed, multiple-pierced Goth chick.

I will try not to hold it against my older daughter that she didn't turn out as well as her sister.

~~~Speaking of dreams.

Each Friday, my elder daughter brings home a poem book from school. Her assignment is to read two poems in it. Attached is a sheet where the parent signs the date and poem that she read, and makes a brief comment about the poem itself.

As my ex-wife and I have the girls every other weekend, we both get an opportunity to sign and write a comment. I try to keep mine short and altruistic, things such as "Society is self-defeating" and "It's not nice to mow over frogs". My ex, however, always seems to compose such ditties as "I like rainbows" and "Sunshine makes me happy". No wonder my poor daughter is doomed.

Last week, as I went to sign the ledger, I was looking back through the various comments my ex had made in the past. Around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the children were assigned to read poems about the man himself. And this poem about MLK inspired my ex to comment "Martin Luther King's Dream Came True!"

I almost spit up my beer. Oh, it did, did it?

Dear Ex: Good luck finding many African Americans to agree with you. Or Latin Americans. Or Asian Americans. Or Native Americans. Or Mutt Americans. Hell, you'd probably have a hard time convincing a majority of Caucasian Americans. But it must be nice to live in a world where you wake up and blue birds make you tea whilst fairies powder-puff your armpits.

I'm thinking that perhaps I should introduce my ex to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who might express a dissenting view to her proclamation (if he has any time to spare from his crusade to ensure that a black man does not get elected).

I'd pay a dollar to watch that debate. I don't give Rev. Wright much of a shot, though. It's nigh impossible to get through to a Middle-Class Suburban White Mother With An Inexplicably Gargantuan Sense Of Entitlement.

Believe me - I've tried.

~~~The Deadwood Drinking Game.

Recently, my girlfriend and I have been renting a lot of DVD's of TV shows that we heard were good but missed. I don't watch a lot of non-sports related TV, and even if I do attempt to watch a show, I inevitably miss an episode or two and lose interest. But, on DVD, life is much easier. There are so many advantages. No commercials. You can watch as many episodes as you want. You can pause them whilst you take a leak or retire to the bedroom for a quick how-do-you-do.

(Yes, I have heard of Tivo. I bought my first CD player in 1998. I'm always about 10 years behind the technology. I like to wait until it's practically obsolete - i.e. really cheap.)

So I've been watching a number of shows on DVD that I missed the first time around. Like Lost. And Heroes. And now I'm watching Deadwood.

I don't know if you've ever watched Deadwood before. It was an HBO show, a Western about the South Dakota town of (strangely enough) Deadwood and the lawless brigands that lived there. Thus, unlike the other shows I had been watching recently, this program was chock full of language, violence, and nudity, which can only be a good thing in my book.

Now, if you've watched the show, you might notice that there is an inordinate amount of whiskey drinking and use of two curse words: the word that begins with "F" that signifies copulation, and the word that begins with "C" that signifies someone that orally gratifies a male of the species.

Thus, I propose the Deadwood Drinking Game. Every time someone in the show either drinks or uses one of those two words (in any context), the participants must pound a shot of bourbon and scream "Copulating Oral Gratifier!", or the generic equivalent.

The winner gets a free stomach pump. Anyone able to make it through an entire episode and live gets a trophy and a complimentary week at the Betty Ford Clinic.

~~~Hiko's Song of the Week

Beer!!! by Psychostick

How can you not like a song with the following lyrics:

Beer is good

Beer is good

Beer is good

... and Stuff

Beer is good

Beer is good

Beer is good

Let's go drink some BEER

You can't. Genius cannot be denied.