No Pain, No Bain

Greetings, Hater Nation! I am Conrad Bain and I haven't really been invited to blog for you today. But I'm going to do so anyway, as there's something that has me in a bit of a lather.

I've never rooted for a Texas team in my life. I have more respect for people who pimp their children for Robitussin than for fans in the land of belt buckle fetishists and 16-ounce beer cans. The closest I've ever come to cheering for anyone in a Texas sports uniform was last year at the Lake Tahoe ski resort, where I watched from the chairlift as some arm-flapping fool in a Cowboys Starter jacket skied face-first into a lodgepole pine. I applauded, as did every tasteful person on the lift.

That being said, if I have to pick a team to cheer for in the Rose Bowl -- and let me state clearly that I couldn't care any less about anything, ever, in the world, than I do about the Rose Bowl -- I'm going to cheer for Texas. I know they don't have a chance in hell of beating USC, but if they do it, if they somehow pull it off, I'll raise my glass and drink just as soon as the laughter subsides.

I'm in Aspen now, enjoying the holidays at my mansion with the lovely Rula Lenska. I'll probably be skiing or otherwise occupied while the Rose Bowl is on. But if my assistant informs me that Texas is winning at halftime, I may very well rack my boards for the day so as not to miss the possibility of seeing USC and their clown fans take one in the face.

I hate USC, and it has nothing to do with them being good or even anything to do with the team. Matt Leonard, Ritchie Bush... I couldn't name three USC players if you put a gun to my head. I couldn't find the campus if I was a block away. I couldn't care less about any group of football players than I do about the Trojans.

No, what I hate is the f-ing bandwagon fans. The USC bandwagon is absolutely, utterly obnoxious. I've been across the country during the past two weeks -- from the coast of Maine to Catalina Island -- and every Fair Weather Freddy sports loudmouth in every airport bar from one coast to the other is suddenly a "die-hard USC fan".

Player hater, you say? No. Fan hater. And there is no group of fans more hateable than the extended family of smug and sickening gravytrainers currently bouncing down the NCAA highway in their red and yellow bus. About one tenth of one percent of these homers even lives in California; an even more minuscule percentage actually went to USC. The rest have climbed aboard for reasons only Freud could explain, doing things with their mouths that would embarrass a Bangkok pimp. One thing is clear: not a single f-ing one of them deserves to drag his soggy bread through another drop of Trojan gravy.

I hope USC loses just so I can laugh like a fool when their red and yellow clown wagon rips through the guardrail with screaming, burning bodies of Trojan-Come-Latelys falling out the back, plummeting to their exquisite, flaming doom.

And if USC wins? Who the hell cares? No skin off my behind when a Texas team gets hosed.

That is my assessment. If you disagree with it (and I can't imagine anyone could), you may join the millions of hourly visitors that log into The Conrad Bain Fan Club and see if you have what it takes to face The Bain.