Rock Star Dreams and Cal Football

Sunday morning I woke up in a funk. This brief malaise had few plausible explanations. The previous evening I imbibed sangria and cooked up a yummy eggplant sandwich for myself at a football viewing barbeque with some of my closest friends. This gathering was followed by the awesome experience of sitting in the 11th row at Shoreline for a Killers concert. Nicki scored us good seats thanks to her connections and we happily disregarded Modest Mouse (surprisingly boring live) for overly-priced garlic fries and t-shirt shopping. The Killers show rocked, and I don’t normally use language like that. The hour-plus it took to leave Shoreline did not rock, and sadly our post-concert slumber party was cancelled when we discovered our friends (depressed by Cal’s loss) had drank themselves into an early oblivion and passed out before our return.

With such an eventful night I couldn’t rationalize why on Sunday morning I woke up in a bad mood. Sure my mind was dealing with mild boy drama (he sure didn’t act like he had a girlfriend), but life has been unusually calm in that respect lately, so this was not the likely cause. A late afternoon five-mile run finally lifted my internal tension, and with it now being another day, I have narrowed down the cause of my pissy mood to two possibilities.

Losing the football game to UCLA:
Was I not in the Cal Band during the Holmoe years? I marched/cheered my way through a 1-10 season, where the game we won was away at Rutgers and one of the only games I did not attend! Who would have thought that we (Cal fans) would become accustomed to winning? But that is exactly what has happened. I expect to win. The only acceptable loss is versus USC, but I thought we would go into that game undefeated. This Saturday’s loss has thrown my whole football world-view into a tailspin and I am being forced to reassess everything. In a few weeks I am headed up to Oregon for the game at Autzen Stadium – guess what…we might not win. I don’t know if I am prepared to deal with that new reality. I know this sounds trivial, but it was a definite let down. My head is now a spin machine and I am trying to convince myself it is more exciting when the outcome of the game is not secured. I’ll let you know how this method of coping works out. Long talks with girlfriends and running with the Killers in my iPod are no longer simply methods for dealing with breakups, but now also the heartache from losing a football game.

Speaking of the Killers:
When Brandon Flowers announced they would be retiring "Hot Fuss" after their next three concerts Nicki and expressed a mutual sadness. Sure we have now seen them in concert twice, and we are definitely excited about what their next album will explore. But can their second album even come close to rivaling the power of their first? Most likely not. No one is more surprised than yours truly that I enjoying rocking out to the tunes of a Mormon Las Vegan, but the power present when Flowers sings “All These Things I’ve Done” live is undeniable. The energy he puts forth is intoxicating and makes me miss performing. Not only am I lamenting the fact that I will never again hear "Hot Fuss" again in its entirety, my melancholy state also reflected my own desire to perform/ create something so positive on a massive scale.

As of today I am not a rock star, and it doesn’t look like Cal will be off to a BCS game anytime soon… I am a proponent of lofty goals, but sometimes we have to be prepared to deal with the fallout of failure.