The Victors

Hear now the first page of The Victors Board, that digital thoroughfare where the maize-and-blue hoopleheads gather of a morning to slander the world and praise their own.The camp wakes to DoctorD looking forward to Funky’s season preview like a man waiting on the next gold strike, while Paul wonders if Djokovic just played his last match and chiwalker sits watching Iran coverage, calling the whole spectacle pretty fucking depressing. jhamm dreams aloud of a 53-to-47 Democratic Senate come January, Harry Enten having whispered the possibility of a blue wave if the pollsters once again underestimate turnout; Bender answers that a man ought not get his hopes so high lest the cocksuckers in the counting houses disappoint him again.Then the board itself becomes the spectacle. 6p has found Easter Egg Number One and WolvBlue loves the find. Rose Bowl Champion declares the new look a banger, visually appealing as a well-cut suit on a corpse. jhamm wonders if this maize-and-blue default view might become permanent, whether there will be maize-out days and nights, and whether Rich will confirm the tints are the official fucking colors before the camp loses its collective head. el fuego thanks whoever pointed the way, kccambo finds it pretty damn cool, ajs simply says so cool, and Poster P announces that Nikos is a freaking genius for the hidden period-click tricks and highlight reels. crumbs likes it. ameriKa says ha, sweet. Brandt calls it pretty cool. The whole camp is stroking the new paint like it was a freshly panned nugget.Meanwhile Venus Williams, forty-six years old, may not take the court till past midnight; Brad growls she didn’t deserve the wild card. Daytripper notes she went on after midnight out in Flushing among the Mets, a crowd that hisses. Rich don’t care for the black trim on the Reds uniforms. cp reports the University of Michigan catching strays on Lioness and puts Taylor Sheridan on the list. Rich reminds the camp the Mets drafted PCA at eighteen and traded the boy a year later for Javy Baez and Trevor Williams, as if that particular piece of history needed another airing.Over it all hangs the announcement: Michigan versus Western Michigan of a Saturday, the pick ’em already open with two souls having cast their lots. The rules remain what they always were—no porno, don’t take it off the board, don’t be a Tom Izzo—and the camp proceeds to ignore half of them while pretending otherwise.That is the first page: a stew of football hope, political daydreams, tennis mortality, uniform grievances, television slights, and self-congratulation over hidden buttons, all shouted across the same muddy street in the same profane, hopeful, slightly addled voice.