DR. KING AND THE BUCCANEERS
I don't often back winners.

It seems the people I'm most interested in are not the eternal invincibles, the capos de tutti cappi of society. Not that they're terribly compelling, I mean, what's the story in win-win-win-win, of starting life with a head start and pulling away from there? No one can follow that, except for EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER CONTROLLED THE WORLD. But you know, aside from that.

So the losers I'm most interested in don't always transcend their inherent losertude. Or rather, sometimes transcendence is not their bag. (I did vote for Nader, for ex, and I would again.) No one with a sane molecule in their craniums would debate the importance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his influence on how Americans treat each other, and look what happened to him. And there was no way he was going to become the President or CEO of Time Warner or Head of the IOC or Johnny Carson's replacement if he'd lived. He had a job to do, and his job was the struggle, not the summit. There is no summit in his battle. La lucha sigue.

Which brings me, and I've done this all backward I know (sorry), to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If you care about the NFL (and I know, billions don't), the Bucs have been a laughingstock, a punchline, for basically my entire life. When they went 0-26 to start their existence, I was fresh out of pullups and had just learned enough about the world (like, how to read, how to get beer from the fridge for the grownups, how to sit still and not run in front of the TV, you know, vital steps in the growth process) to start watching the games on Sundays with my Dad or whoever.

So remembering that, it was great to fade in & out of consciousness yesterday (also I was doing a lot of reading, so I had the game on mute, but still) and watch those same Bucs absolutely dismantle the Eagles on their crappy shag-rug-on-concrete field in front of their asshole fans who piss on cripples and drink like Scottish soccer hooligans. I feel for Donovan McNabb -- he seems like a decent chap, and he's too good to not return to the Championship -- but the Bucs were simply due.

I spent a bad week in Tampa once. The Cuban breakfasts were sublime, but I got the impression that the city is a dank creepy place where even the happy people don't smile, and the humidity just hangs in the air like nervous armpit funk. Even on the party-strips of Ybor City and St. Pete, the perfectly tanned and toned coeds and meat-jocks looked somehow anxious, ready to shrivel up before their time. Those people need something to cheer about.

I'm glad the Raiders are back too -- it should be a real killer game next weekend -- but I'm looking for Mike Alstott to run A-Train-sized lines through those behemoths in black, and I suspect the Super Bowl will be won Vinatieri-style on the foot of my favorite little munchkin, Martin Gramatica.

Anyway. Happy Dr. King Day, y'all. Do something good for someone else today in his honor.