For me the Browns' season begins today, the second week of the NFL season, partly because I had to work last Sunday and missed most of the game--the part where they were winning--but mostly because after 40 years of fandom, I've learned that it takes one real game to re-set all my default disappointment settings. Truly, even after 40 years of assiduously following this team, it takes the opener's usual slap in the face to remind me that the implausible, nay, the impossible, is not only possible but a sure thing, that surrealism is a realistic warhorse on the shores of Lake Erie, and that dreams are for rubes. Once these universal truths of "Browns nation" (which if it were truly a nation, would mix the worst of Lichtenstein, Chad, and the stateless Palestinians) are re-established, then one can progress to enjoying another season for what it's worth--basically masochistic diversion, not that there's anything wrong with such a thing.
Since their Phoenix-like rebirth in 1999 (they've got the burning up thing down pat; the rising thing is a perpetual work-in-progress), the Browns have been a rather capable substitute for reading the Book of Job. They once lost a game after winning it (on opening day, mind you--a Bunyanesque wake-up slap in the face) because a member of the team took his helmet off in celebration a few seconds early, and have won a game after losing it (a crazy scenario in Baltimore, no less, a few years ago which involved a ping-ponging field goal attempt and an "after further review" replay conducted while the teams were doffing their pads in the locker room; they then had to don them again to play some OT). So, in the spirit of this every-game-we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore spell that oppresses the Browns, and the fact that nobody has come up with the magical ruby red cleats yet, I offer some hard-won wisdom on how to endure, survive, and just maybe enjoy a minute or two of this season's Browns football.
- Listen, Don't Watch--The Browns stink. Ergo, the announcers assigned for the television broadcasts of their games are third-tier nobodies, which in itself stinks, but they're usually annoying nobodies to boot. Some lousy play-by-play announcer who can't pronounce half the names correctly spends half the game talking about the always inevitable revitalization of the City of Cleveland and some two-bit backup running back "the Browns brass is really high on." The color analyst you know only because you used to be really obsessed by the game and knew the rosters of every team, including the Atlanta Falcons' practice squad. But mainly you don't want to watch because some things just shouldn't be seen by the naked eye, namely, the Cleveland Browns attempting to play football. Believe me, anything that happens in the game that you might want to see will be replayed endlessly over the next few days, so you can always see it eventually. I mean, everyone will happily gawk at an accident seen after the fact, but no one wants to be involved in the accident, right? And my gosh, on radio you get to hear Jim Donovan, talk about endurers and survivors (welcome back, Jimmy). Donovan should get the gig for play-by-playing the coming Apocalypse; he's well-experienced and he can make it sound fascinating and humorous. Though one can't forget the late great Nev Chandler, the radio voice of the Browns in their last heyday 20+ years ago. Whenever the Browns ran a trick play you could always count on Nev saying, "The Browns are engaging in a bit of chicanery this afternoon." The word chicanery on an NFL broadcast--genius.
- Take To Bed--If Sartre is correct that Hell is other people, Ultra-Hell is having to experience a Browns game with other people. Let's face it, a Browns game is nothing more than a metaphor for delving deep into the nooks and crannies of one's dark psyche and encountering all the hypocrisies, oxymorons, dichotomies, and gunk that lie therein. You don't want to inflict these personal devils on anybody else, and you really don't want to expose yourself to those of others. We enter this world alone and leave it the same way--use a Browns game to remind you of this cold truth. Besides, if the game gets out of hand you can always get something useful done, like turning your mattress or drifting off to harmless sleep.
- Don't Drink--Save that 'til after, when you can either happily celebrate the anomaly of a Browns win or drown your sorrows properly. But good God, man, never imbibe in medias res. The Wallendas didn't chug a few before or during their tightrope ambles, heed their perspicacity. You don't drink while operating heavy machinery, right? Taking in a Browns game is the mental equivalent of maneuvering a half-dozen crates of fragile china with a fork-lift on a blizzardy rush hour I-480. Though, after some thought, drinking heavily well before the game might make some sense as really, nothing replicates a hangover like a Browns game.
- Eradicate Hope--You know why I ask for a new dictionary every Christmas? Because I've wisely ripped out the page containing the word hope from my dictionary every year on September 1st. Hope is a friend indeed when buying Lotto tickets, facing a ten-foot, ten-dollar putt on the 18th hole when you have five bucks (plus the standard three pennies for ballmarkers) in your pocket, and when walking into a singles bar, but it serves absolutely no purpose, in fact is way counter-productive when it comes to the Cleveland Browns (notice I don't say "rooting for the Browns" because, well, admitting I do that just might be the straw that breaks the back on the camel that is the forces keeping me away from institutional commitment). If there were an equivalent song in football for baseball's "Take Me Out To The Ball Game," Browns fans would sing not "so let's root root root for the Brownies..." but "so let's endure endure endure the Brownies, for if they don't win it's all the same..." Hope with the Browns is like a condom in the wallet of a eunuch--pointless and only a cruel reminder of what could be but won't.
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