I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: a parrot-“Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” (2010).

I remember when this song came out and that it was a pretty big hit in metal circles.  I had pretty much forgotten about it (and Drowning Pool, whose name I had to look up) when this parrot version started circulating.

My friend had a parrot who could mimic her (and my) voice so uncannily that I actually thought she was in a room when she wasn’t.  The fact that this parrot can mimic the cookie monster style vocal of this song just makes it all the funnier.  I also enjoy when the parrot gets squeaky on a few of the notes.  Even though this video is two years old, it was one of my favorites of 2012.

There appears to be an “original” video of this, but it’s only 40 seconds long.  The one I have below is almost 80 seconds, so there’s twice as much fun.

[READ: January 3, 2012] “Opportunity Knocks”

The only reason I’m writing about this article is because I once went to an Arena Football game.  It was the year I graduated high school.  I now cant even find any history of the team existing–I’m sure they were based in New Jersey, but the only team I can find from that time in the area was a New York team which played in Madison Square Garden–and I can’t imagine we drove to MSG for a football game.

Anyhow, this article discusses the future of the AFL–Arena Football League.  The league was founded in 1986 and has expanded and contracted over the years with teams forming for a year and then moving elsewhere the next.  The league began was 4 teams and has had as many as 18.  It’s a crazy scenario with the league’s popularity rising and falling not in proportion to the number of teams, but to some seemingly arbitrary force.

The article’s main question concerns the AFL’s recent contract which will have the league airing games on CBS during prime time.  So, is this league–which shut down completely and filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2009 ready to be on network TV?  (After the bankruptcy, the worked out some kind of deal and reformed in 2010.)

Rich suggests that it may indeed be time.  As I mentioned the other day in the Grantland review, the NFL has been cracking down on violence (to whatever degree) over the last few years.  And so, as the NFL gets more delicate, it’s time for the AFL to step in.  The AFL has no such delicacies in place.  Indeed, it is almost designed for violence and injuries.  Why shouldn’t it succeed?

So, just what is Arena Football (since chances are most people have never heard of it)?  Arena Football is football played inside.  The field is 50 yards long (half the distance of an NFL field) and 85 feet wide (which means there’s very little room for running plays). Goal posts are 9 feet wide with a crossbar height of 15 feet (NFL goalposts are 18.5 feet wide with a crossbar at 10 feet).  So right off the bat you can see that the game emphasizes scoring touchdowns and really discourages field goals.

As Wikipedia explains: “The goalside rebound nets are 30 feet wide by 32 feet high.” Yes, rebound nets.  So on a kickoff, when the kick goes out of the endzone (which it inevitably does), the receiver has to catch it off the net (with his back to the other players).  Oh, and sideline barriers are 4 ft high and made of high density foam rubber.  Which sounds fine, except that there is no out of bounds–the barriers are the out of bounds.  If you touch a wall you are out, but as is more often the case, when you get slammed into a wall, you are out.  But if the ball bounces off the wall and back into play, it still counts.

What we get is a lot of passes, a lot of scoring, and a lot of big hits.  Indeed, the hits are pretty huge and injuries are rampant (which this article talks about).  So why do players play in this crazy league?  Well, it is pro football–the players are paid.  And there are NFL teams that scout the Arena leagues for players–there is the case of Kurt Warner who was brought up from the Arena Leagues to lay for the St. Louis Rams and not only won a Super Bowl but he was named the MVP.  Every Arena Player imagines he will be the next Warner.  And maybe with prime time coverage that might happen.

But in the meantime, there is no union, there is very little pay (about $800 a game), and no security–anyone, including coaches, can be fired at any time for any reason (as with the coach that Rich talks to, Pat O’Hara, who was let go from the Orlando team at the end of a season and then picked up by New Orleans soon after. O’Hara also acts in movie and teaches actors how to carry themselves like a football player.  (Huh).

Perhaps my favorite thing about the League is that teams are all over the place–not just major markets.  So, for instance before they were the New Orleans Voodoo (great name), the team was based out of Indiana and called the Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings (that’s a mouthful).  And, did you know that there is an Arena Football league on The Simpsons?  Yes, the Springfield Stun.

I honestly had no idea that Arena Football was still around.  It long outlived the much hyped (and more heavily advertised) XFL!