Table of Contents
Oh hi! I’m Jiggly. And it’s a Tuesday.
So, this week I definitely wanted to take the week off. My body was absolutely destroyed after the game Saturday night, where I learned that maybe I should start doing forearm workouts so I can keep going on drums longer. And I probably should’ve sat down at some point during the total five and a half hours I spent at Soldier Field. So, to give myself a break, I gave myself the most work possible by deciding to do a mailbag segment. I am someone who respects people who ask questions on Twitter when prompted, so I will be answering all questions. This was a bad idea, but still a very fun one. Always wanted to do one of these and I find audience engagement very important to building a community. And we are a community. So let’s pull out some of these questions.
Most of them came from Twitter, but a few came through the Chicago Fire discord run by our Editor-in-Chief Alex. Like this one that came from NorthwoodsDan: “What question(s) should I ask you?”
I remember in one of my acting classes we had an icebreaker of “ask everyone the one question that you always wish someone would ask you.” A lot of people may be normal, but this is art school. That’s not happening here. One person asked, “Have you come to terms with your own death?”, which is something that I did not expect to be answering at about 9:30 AM on a Monday. So, not that question. Unfortunately, my question from that exercise wouldn’t work in this case because it was about what the person’s connection to sports is: “What sports team does your family support?” Because even those who don’t care about sports usually have someone in their family who is a sports fan, and I’ve always thought it says a lot about who a person is and how they were raised. I make it a big part of character-building when I start working on a writing project. I wouldn’t really recommend it here, though, because it’d be pretty damn obvious. I mean, just look around.
So, I guess you’d want to ask me something that somebody hasn’t asked yet or I haven’t brought up before. And looking at this crop of questions coming up, there’s quite a lot that I like, which is the reason why I’ve taken the time to answer every one of them as thoroughly as possible. Some are solid deep-hitting questions about the Fire, which is mostly what I was expecting. Although, I’d have liked some mention of the Red Stars, but I guess that’s for next season. Then there’s some nonsense in there about the interests that I constantly talk about, some that connect those interests to soccer or the Fire, and even a late addition of a music question. If you didn’t know, I am a musician.
When you get down to it, the questions that I seem to want to be asked, outside of those that are actually relevant to the Fire and our coverage of the team here, are just anything that I’ve expressed interest in before. Even if it’s something small, because if it’s something I care enough to bring up, I usually have thoughts about it. I like slipping in my interests, even if they have very little to do with anything. So, here’s some questions that I think would’ve been really cool to work with:
- “How did you gain an interest in absurdist philosophy, and why do you quote so much from it?”
- “Outside of anime, what are your favorite films? Your favorite filmmaker?”
- “Who is your Oshii in HoloLive, and whose streams do you actually watch the most?”
- “What music do you listen to while writing your articles?”
Because I brought up those questions myself, I will not be answering any of them here; but you are free to use any of these next time around. I will answer one random question that no one asked, though, which is “How do you get blood out of carpeting?” My answer is Hydrogen Peroxide. I usually just dump some over it, let it bubble for a bit, then shove some kleenex in and try to soak up the moisture. Depending on how much there is, you might need to do it multiple times, but you just gotta be patient with it.
The next question comes from @Carbs93, who asks: “Chances of us making playoffs?”
Mathematically, the chances exist. They were actually explored by another one of those asking questions with specific amounts, and it’s not like it’s completely impossible. The Fire are only three points back from a playoff spot with a game in hand on one of the teams currently in a spot. Two of those games left are gonna be six-pointers against teams that are between us and the spot, the other two are against teams that are already below us. If we take this at face value, if we act like we don’t know the Fire very well, they would have every chance to be making the playoffs, and I might even give them pretty decent odds.
Unfortunately, this is not Math World and we do not live on a frictionless plane. Realistically, it’s over. It’s all Joever and it’s been Ryover. Up next, we’re about to see Cory Burke score his regularly scheduled goal against the Fire for the New York Red Bulls despite being out of the lineup this past weekend. Then it’ll be away to Messi at Soldier Field, where even if he doesn’t show up, the Fire will be playing a very different team mentally than they did at the beginning of the season. After that will be the final home game against Charlotte. But at that point, with maybe one point out of the two games prior, this will probably either be it or well past “it.” And if this is the do-or-die game, then the Fire have shown what they do in those sorts of games. The only thing “clutch” about this team is how much fans are clutching to any sense of hope in this club. Could the Fire beat Charlotte on a normal day? Maybe. But they couldn’t beat them on a normal day this season already, so this wouldn’t be any different. After that is finishing off the season against a New York team again and if hopes aren’t dashed by then, then it’ll happen in the same way it did in 2013 and 2020.
Either way, the season was over after the loss in the Open Cup. That was one place where I thought the Fire could actually do something. With a long-term interim coach, there was never anything that was going to happen in the league, and there’s no reason why we should even be asking about the playoffs. Why are we talking about playoffs when I don’t even think we’ll win another game the rest of the season? I still think that the Fire were robbed of advancement in the Open Cup, but then again, Houston has now done well enough to get that far. I guess that’s the way that the world goes round.
Our next question comes from inside the house as our graphics sorcerer and Creative Director here at MIR97 has activated the “I love this question” sound from TikTok with this one. @King_Jack99 asks: “Least favorite origin character in BG3?”
I need you all to understand that I now have over 114 and a half hours invested into this game and I’ve still barely even touched the actual city of Baldur’s Gate. I just keep restarting and trying to do different things in different ways with different characters. So I feel like I’ve got a good vibe for all of these characters (except one), so instead of naming one, I will now give a run-down of all of the characters because that’s the only way my brain works.
As for characters absolutely not in the running for this title, I think everyone knows my very public love for Karlach. She is an adorable cinnamon roll, I love her and I would do anything for her. Which, luckily just means be an incredibly nice and generally kind human being. So, a win for everyone. I usually make a barbarian, but I made a monk for my first real playthrough just so that my party balance would make more sense. I love my wife. Also on this level of “I would never betray you” is Shadowheart. I started off a bit cold with her, but I’ve developed a love for her and her character development. Also, her VA has provided some excellent memes (“I am also God’s favorite princess and the most interesting girl in the world.”) and there’s a lot about her story that’s just so interesting to dig into. Especially if you take the good route.
Then we get to the middle tier. First, I have to mention that I haven’t done a Dark Urge or “Durge” playthrough, so I have no opinion on that one. I’ve experienced these characters as companions so far, not as PCs. And one of the most boring companions is Wyll. He isn’t good, he isn’t bad, he’s not a meme, he doesn’t have any fun development, he simply exists. I do missions for him sometimes cause I feel bad, but I’ve heard some people suggest that they should’ve done a “Dread Pirate Roberts” thing for his “Blade of Frontiers” persona and I cannot stop thinking about how that would’ve made his character so much more fun. Next to him is Lae’zel. She’s got issues and a lot of them are deeply problematic. But I see a Fire fan in her. So desperately loyal to a cause that she ferociously tries to defend. She believes that the idea behind the cause is righteous, so she must attack the organizational structure because they are obviously heretics if they aren’t truly upholding the ideals they preached. It cannot be the whole system that is wrong, right? But she’s also just generally abrasive and not very fun to be around.
In the bottom tier, there’s Gale. I have Gale permanently in my party, but it is not because I want him to be there. With a monk DPS, a barbarian tank, and a cleric healer, I need someone who can pop off AOE attacks in combat and maybe roll high on arcana checks. Otherwise, I’d dump him at the first chance. He’s annoying, whiny, and way too thirsty. The moment I find someone who can upcast Fireball to a fifth level spell slot, I’m ditching him. But I guess that leaves me to who I believe is the worst and that’s Astarion. I do not care for this man. He does not want help, he does not offer help. You meet him when he shoves a knife to your throat and spends the rest of the game telling you how much more important his problems are than yours and attempting to Lady MacBeth you. I’m also just not a big fan of the whole vampire thing. I thought it was played out ever since the Shadowfell Arc of NaDD Pod. I know other people like it, but I made a rogue PC before I made a wizard PC because I’d rather relegate his ass to the bench than my weirdo wizard.
Anyway, for those who don’t understand how controversial what I just said was, I basically just said something similar to “I think Guti is overhyped.” You’d get it if you knew.
Moving on to even more riveting questions from MIR97 staff, my fellow writer Tim Hotze, sing.electric on Discord wrote in: “Who would win? 11 duck-sized Messis or a horse-sized Shaqiri?”
As a short king myself, you usually go through most of your life with the idea that your height is simply a debuff, placed upon you because you would be too powerful if you were any taller. I am allegedly about the same height as both Xherdan Shaqiri and Lionel Messi at 5’7”. This is allegedly, because I’ve stood next to Shaqiri and either I’m taller than I thought I was or he’s shorter than he’s listed as. I have yet to be near Messi, but it’s possible that there are similar things at work there. Anyway, that’s just a baseline for how important height is in this scenario. Because I needed to figure out how big a horse is. Horses are usually measured from the hooves to what is called the “withers”, which is where the neck connects to the back. Not only are they not measured in their full stretched-out length, but the unit of measurement is in “hands”, which does not sound scientific. But using that system, most horses are shorter than Messi or I. An average thoroughbred is about 5’4”, with a draft horse being closer to 5’10”. But when you take into account the additional height provided by the neck, I think you can add a healthy extra foot or so. Most horses aren’t keeping their neck up that high, but I feel like if we’re trying to judge what a “horse-sized” human would be, we need to take that neck into account.
This math would put Shaqiri at maybe a solid 6’0” or thereabouts, and he is definitely feeling great up there. As for Messi, there’s a lot of him for sure, but without weapons, he’s not gonna generate the same force as Shaqiri. Plus, Shaqiri is known for ripping massive shots from outside the box, while Messi is seen as more of a technique guy. And while Messi has shown that he has that sort of power with his freekicks, he is now a half a foot tall in this scenario, maybe a bit more if we allow for the same neck loophole Shaqiri got. He’s got nothing. Ducks can fly, Messi can’t. So a six-foot Shaqiri can easily punt these lil Messis. At this point it becomes a numbers question. Much like the classic question of “How many five-year-olds would it take to tackle Derrick Henry”, there is absolutely a point at which a number of small things can take down a larger thing. But with no specifications on weapons or even what the competition is, there is a higher likelihood that one horse-sized Shaqiri can beat eleven duck-sized Messis. Now, if we up it to a whole 20 Messis that would be named to an MLS gameday roster, then we might be getting closer to that limit. Then again, Shaqiri just seems meaner than Messi. It’s like asking if Sidney Crosby could take Marian Hossa in a fight. Neither are fighters, but Hossa just seems like the sorta guy who could handle himself in a scrap.
Moving along, we’ve got a very fun question from @proffbooty: “If you were the new sporting director (or whatever Heinz is), what 3 things would you do first. Let’s say you have some freedom with a checkbook.”
When I am GM of Team. When I am Points Mayor. When I am Lord Regent of Goals, things would change around here.
I think there’s obviously one big thing that I would have to do right away and that’s bring in a coach. While I may enjoy playing Football Manager, I am not much for anything other than tactics. There’s a lot more than that that goes into getting a team into shape and I’d rather have someone with experience. So, I’ve got a quick shortlist of coaches I’d go to first. First on my list would be Jesse Marsch. I’d be throwing money at him to get him here. There’s things that I would want control over, but as Sporting Director, it should also be a conversation. What he needs, I’ll go and find it. In fact, it’d be a very important part of the hiring process for any GM getting a coach to get on the same page as to what their ideal team is and then work towards building it for them. It’s something that Heitz seems to have struggled to do. Next up after him if he’s not interested is throwing a bag to either Emma Hayes or Laura Harvey. Hayes is a proven great coach and I’m sure she could be interested in trying to cross the gender barrier and prove herself on the men’s side. Not to mention, she might have a bit of a chip on her shoulder after how much her team failed her when she coached the Red Stars in those first couple seasons. Unfinished business in Chicago. On the other hand, Harvey is just an American legend and has her own experience in rebuilding squads. If she’s not near the top of the list for the national team job, then I’d want her. And I’m sure she’d be interested in another underdog job, right? After them… well, I guess then we’re back to the interview process and just making sure that I find someone I can trust to lead the team. The goal would be finding someone with a clear philosophy that has proven to work in MLS or an MLS-like league and has the charisma to get these players running through a wall for them.
Second, after putting together a list of what my new coach would need to make their system work, I’d look into shuffling up the scouting department. Not exactly the people there, but where they’re positioned. Yes, I’m going to try to get a better foothold in East Asia. Except it wouldn’t just be Japan and Korea, but I’d be interested in scouting maybe Thailand. That’s not even a joke, Thailand has been slowly developing decent players and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep an eye on their domestic league. It’s not even their domestic players, but a lot of the foreign players that end up there or in the J or K Leagues would be interesting targets. I know what you’re thinking, this is just Arshakyan all over again, but the reason this is in any way different from just signing Arshakyan is that this doesn’t immediately mean I’m just signing some random dude. It’s just to have someone there in case something comes up. I just wanna know more about Supachai Chaided, a guy who has been scoring goals for Buriram United for about five years and is still just 24. What’s his play-style, what are the things he’s doing well and can they translate to our system, can they translate to playing against these opposing systems? Plus, I’ve said it before, most of the time you end up paying a premium when you get guys from South America or Europe. Hell, let’s get some better scouting in Ghana or Senegal. Get players straight from there rather than waiting for them to go somewhere else first. MLS is being touted as a proving ground and we should be trying to get that edge rather than just sitting back and hoping that we’ll get better results if we keep going to the same places
Third should be finding the big name, but I think it’d be way too soon to be doing that. This might be more on the business side of things, which I don’t want to delve into, but I want to create an environment of former players. Maybe not as main coaches, but having them around in some capacity or another. The Fire already do that, with guys like Evan Whitfield in office roles and various scouts being former Fire players. I think a big part of rebuilding the team’s former glory in terms of their environment is finding where things are not healthy and trying to get healthy people in there. Much of the issue with this club comes from its culture. That’s the only explanation for how it’s been this bad for so long. The best way to really foster a culture of people who want to be here is making sure that there are enough people who really do love this club. Instead of trying to hire out, bring in guys who have spent a lot of time here, especially during those good years, and have them preach the gospel of Fires. Make this somewhere that people want to be, create an environment where someone looking at it says “I want to be a part of that and help rebuild this great club.” And I guess if this doesn’t work out, if the former players aren’t the right move, then we still need guys that just want to take on this project, that acknowledge that we’re a ways away from success, but the only way to get there is if we’re all pulling in the same direction. Just make this a place people want to be, that gets them excited for the future.
Up next is @Chief _oso, who asks: “What’s one thing you’d change in regards to how the fire operate? Also what’s your ultimate goal career wise!”
To answer the second question first, my biggest goal is that I want to write an anime. That’s sorta just where I’ve gotten in my personal goals. I’ve learned that I really prefer writing fiction rather than non-fiction. It gives me more freedom to have stories make sense and have clean endings. Writing about the Fire and Red Stars for the past five years or so, you see how real life actually works. It’s messy in the saddest ways possible, there’s this distinct lack of meaning when you’re not the main character that season, and that lack of meaning leads to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. While I do still enjoy writing about bad sports teams even in the fiction I write, I always do so with the intention to convey an emotion. There’s just a lack of clear emotion a lot of the time when watching the Fire. There is an emotion there, but the emotion is so blurred and warped that it’s hard to capture it, especially when the team is so consistently inconsistent. So yeah, I love anime. And the Fire have taught me to love a mess. But I want to be able to control that mess and give it purpose with what I write. I try to do that already when I write about the club, but I like that added freedom of actually telling a story and saying “They actually win at the end of the day.” Whether I can do that in anime or I write for stuff that’s actually made around here, my goal is to get people to feel something and maybe think a bit about how they view things.
As for the first part of the question, I’ll take this as something more for the business side as I covered the soccer side in the last question. And honestly, I think the soccer side’s been doing a pretty solid job. I have a lot of complaints about ticket prices, about food prices and options at the stadium, but I also understand that much of that may be out of the Fire’s control. Soldier Field likely runs concessions, so the Fire can’t really say anything about it. MLS probably doesn’t tell the teams what exactly to price tickets at, but they likely hand out guidelines and the Fire have to try to find where they fit within them. I would like more transparency in the way things are run, but again, that’s probably an MLS thing. There’s a reason why there’s an assumption that Peter Wilt isn’t really welcome around MLS stuff anymore. The guy was completely willing to talk to fans about whatever and still is, meanwhile they won’t even tell Revs players why their head coach had to resign.
So I guess I can maybe combine that last point with something else that I have thoughts on and actually relates to the other question. I want the Fire’s media team to do a better job at portraying the club as “human”. It’s a weird concept, but over the past couple of decades, athletes have more and more been placed on a pedestal. Sure, there were the Maradonas and the Peles who commanded large crowds, but I’m not talking about those on the top end. I’m talking about the barriers between someone like our own Alan from the MIR97 podcast being able to just hang out and talk to a guy like Wyatt Omsberg. The Fire fanbase used to have such an amazing and unique connection to the players. Guys like CJ Brown and Jim Curtin remember me, while I’m not sure if I even remember a lot of the guys that have passed through in the past five years. Much of sports media is based around the concept that because some guy is an athlete, they should now be treated as a god amongst men, that they have surpassed the proletariat masses. But in reality, a community is more easily built with the idea that these dudes are just guys. I’ve said many times that a bunch of them are really cool people that should be allowed to show a bit of personality. We make jokes about Chris Brady essentially being a hockey player, but why not let club media embrace it? Or, if he’s annoyed at the joke, let him talk about his fantasy football team (I need to hear his thoughts about Joe Burrow this season).
It’s something I tell young writers (I know I’m also one, I’m talking about even younger writers). No one really cares about a faceless organization. And no one really cares about some all-powerful dude who can do everything. People care about flawed human beings that they can relate to. It’s an old political campaign thing to say “This is someone you can have a beer with.” And if I were only judging based on the team’s media, I’m not sure if I could play 2k with any of these guys. I know from actually talking to them that Brady or Justin Reynolds would probably be up for it, but that’s cause I’ve had the chance to talk to them. So yeah, while the content/media team is doing great, I think that they can do even better and possibly make up for the deficit that the results on the pitch create. Get that cult following on YouTube, ya know? That Wrexham or Sunderland storyline.
So, with all this being said, I’m realizing that while I want to commit to answering all these questions, I cannot escape my curse to write way too much. So I’ll it here for now and actually take a break next week when I post the second half to my mailbag episode. Besides, there’s nothing important happening next week, right? Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion, where I talk way too much about anime.
Miscellaneous Notes
Big Dub. The WGA have announced a tentative agreement as of writing, they’re working on cleaning up the language, but hopefully we’ll be able to see what it is when this posts. Everyone sounds a whole lot more excited about this deal than they did the last time a writers’ strike ended.
How Ya Been? I don’t know. I’m very tired answering all these questions, so I might as well ask you a question. Respond to my tweet linking to this column or maybe even use the comments below. What’s been your favorite edition of Jiggly on a Tuesday and what do you think of the format?
I love you.
And I’ll see you next week.
