Football Counter-Programming 2026: Week 8--Andy Warhol

This week I'm going medium brow to distract you from college football.

Andy Warhol (in case you don't recognize him above) is . . . well, is he high brow art? Low brow art? Corporate artist? Late/mid-century proto Banksy?

Medium brow seems okay to me. But what do I know? I'm only an art enthusiast. (Though I have toured The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. And I once took a Warhol-ian photograph of a banana* one time as well. So maybe I know everything?)

ANDBUTSO, this week's counter-programming is rich with visuals, so let's get into it!

Why am I picking Mr. Warhol to be the center of this week's distraction?

Because I've just realized that two of my favorite authors publishing works orbiting Warhol at the same time. I then read them back-to-back.

First, I got John Green's newest book Hollywood, Ending. In this story, the two characters are actors working on a movie. And the movie just happens to be a biopic surrounding the last years of Andy Warhol's life. The main story is about the relationship between the two actors (Juniper and Kai). The Andy Warhol character is important as a plot motivator but not the central focus of the plot itself.

Then I started reading Chuck Klosterman's newest book Rock*. In this alternative history, the story presupposes that the debut album of the band The Velvet Underground--"The Velvet Underground & Nico"--was such a cultural force that it reshaped all of rock-n-roll/U.S. cultural history. The Warhol connection is similarly tangential. He was a co-producer of the album and provided the banana cover art image for the album.

Before I started reading these two books, I might have summarized the relationship between John Green and Chuck Klosterman as:

Now, however, I am always going to have to acknowledge that Andy Warhol lives in the shared space between them.

Anyway . . . I know it is October and this is prime college football time/weather. 

But I've just given you several things that you could take up instead!

• Read one or both of these books.
• Take a weekend trip to Pittsburgh and check out the Andy Warhol Museum!
• Listen to "The Velvet Underground & Nico".

There are many, MANY things that you can do that don't involve college football. If you don't like my suggestions, I am quite sure that you can find yourself something to take up instead. All you have to do is clear up that part of your brain that is normally considering the effectiveness of the Run/Pass Option or trying to remember what a Jet Sweep is. There are many other things to learn about.

And I promise that college football won't miss you.

(It doesn't even know you are watching!)

Until next week!

*Here is the banana photo I mentioned before:

 

Football Counter-Programming 2026: Week 7--R.E.M. x 2

If you are not familiar with R.E.M. (which . . . come on!) or the songs that I am focusing on below, I  encourage you to take a few moments from your football-free Saturday and watch the videos. You will notice similarities in the songs but definitely NOT in the video presentation.

The similarities in these two songs--which appear to be separated by almost two decades of band history are--I have learned--not accidental. 

An earlier version of "Bad Day" was written in the 1980s . . . when "It's The End of the World . . . " were also written and recorded. 

"Bad Day" also references 1980s President extraordinaire Ronald Reagan. (It's the blink-and-you'll-miss-it Teflon whitewashed presidency lyric in the first stanza.)

"It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"--single release November 16, 1987. On the album "Document," also released in 1987 under the I.R.S. record label.

The video of ITEotW is strikingly different than BD of course. The more modern song and video reflects the media of the early 2000s. The original '80s song much more closely reflects the sleepier, less chaotic (and less public lifestyle) of the band before it became nationally and globally famous.

Wait . . . did I type sleepier and less chaotic? That wasn't correct.

My memory of the video was tricking me because when I started watching it just now (in your past), I was immediately struck by the clear evidence of hectic chaos. This is reflected in the song of course by the staccato song delivery by Stipe, the word salad lyrics themselves, and the hand-held camcorder POV imagery in the video. The camera's field of view swings this way and that, consistently point at the floor full of junk and whatever else happens to be in the ramshackle hideout.

(Am I right to note that the black torso figurine that is held up . . . twice . . . at the 1:27 mark is a representation of the I.R.S. logo (the old record company of "Document"? I've always though so.)

So, I was wrong. Sleepy it ain't. 

And that forgotten quality of the video makes the connection between ITEotW and BD even more obvious.

"Bad Day"--released on September 15, 2003. Located on the Warner Brothers label compilation album "In Time: The Best of R.E.M., 1988-2003." 

This song was the inspiration for this post when I learned that this week in 2026 is the twenty-third debut day of the video (October 14, 2003).

I really like "Bad Day." To me it has that electronic quality that defines the second half or last third of R.E.M.'s discography. This sonic quality certainly separates it from ". . . End of the World . . ." But both songs have a propulsive and percussive quality that make them both very catchy.

(Does anyone else besides me really want Michael to pantomime the church/steeple finger motions when those words comes up in the lyrics at 1:47?)

And while none of the trio are great actors or anything, there is something very affecting by Michael's facial expressions throughout the video. It makes me think that he was actually singing while filming, judging by the way his mouth and eyebrows and face are presenting.

Both songs also have similar structures. Besides the obvious fast delivery of many different things that define both songs, they both end on a constant repeating of the main song theme/title:

". . . It's the end of the world as we know it

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine"

". . . It's been a bad day, please don't take a picture

It's been a bad day, please
It's been a bad day, please don't take a picture
It's been a bad day, please

Broadcast me a joyful noise unto the times, Lord

Count your blessings
We're sick of being jerked around
We all fall down
It's been a bad day, please don't take a picture
It's been a bad day, please
It's been a bad day, please don't take a picture
It's been a bad day, please

It's been a bad day, please don't take a picture
It's been a bad day, please
It's been a bad day, please don't take a picture
It's been a bad day, please"

Anyway . . . listen to music. Take a walk.

Don't watch college football. 

That is all . . . for this week.

Football Counter-Programming 2026: Week 6--Dotting the i

I have a few ideas written down that I could use as a starting point for this week's Football Counter-Programming, but I’m not super inspired to actually use them. I won’t say what they are because I hope that I will find the motivation to use them for a future week. 

I also noticed, while scrolling through my old posts on the Why Won’t You Grow?! blog that I have an unpublished draft of an idea from last year's FC-P that I hope will someday get fully written and posted. But I don’t think it is appropriate for this week either. I think that unpublished draft is also best served if it is posted on a certain date. And I’m not certain if that date even falls during the college football season. So that might be something of an issue.

All of that preamble aside however, I’m still left with a blank screen right now. And that can’t be . . . because it is my job to distract you from watching football. And if I can’t come up with a suitable distraction, then you’re going to quite naturally turn to football to fill your time. So that leaves me in a difficult spot.

I do have an idea, but it (counter-intuitively) sorta relies on college football's existence. And that is not the best look for a counter-programming effort that is explicitly TRYING to get you to think about things other than college football. But when cool things happen, well, you gotta do what you gotta do.

As you can tell from the title and the photo, today's subject is the Ohio State University Marching Band Script Ohio tradition of "Dotting the i." In which a fourth-year or fifth-year sousaphone student (or students if there are multiple Script Ohios being created) is singled out to break the formation and provide the final i dot maneuver, strutting alongside the drum major to the lower case vowel. 

Script Ohio is a 90 year tradition (as of 2026) and I'm happy to say that today, a Westerville North Marching Band alumni--Matthew Sliwinski--is the i dotter in question. (Also . . . and I just learned this yesterday . . . Brandon Reed--another WNMB alumni--I think gets to give Matthew the final fist bump before the sousa player is separated from the rest of the formation and joins the Drum Major. (See the full POV of this 2025 i dotter through the formation--starting at 9:40 but getting the final send off at 12:36.)

Anyway . . . it's certainly a big day for Matthew and for the Sliwinski family. And I'm also happy to say that many of Matthew's old High School friends are going to be there in attendance today to cheer on their friend. When they knew that Matthew was going to be attending OSU, they all promised that they would be there when (hopefully!) his moment came.

And it finally did. 

And they are there, as promised.

So . . . hurrah once again for Marching Band. The best thing to come out of college football since the creation of college football!

Football Counter-Programming 2026: Week 5--Wendy's Folly

Here is what I know.

I know for sure that I'm putting a time bomb on this post by focusing on something that is so very much of this moment. 

I know that embedding this Spotify playlist within this post instantly makes it obsolete and guarantees a broken link for future readers.

(Hi future WWYG?! readers!)

I know all this and I'm choosing to do it anyway because this is just too weird of an idea to let it pass by uncommented upon. This is what FC-P is made for! Oddities that might be able to pull you out of your slavish obsequience to college football!

Do you know what I'm talking about? 

Do the embedded media items in this post already tell you what I'm talking about?

Have you heard of THIS--per an official Wendy's corporate press release. (Maybe the one link in this post that will pass the test of time?) 

(Future WWYG?! readers, let me know! I assume that we are communicating through some type of biomechanical brain wave telepathy that has been desperately cobbled together as the last ditch way to communicate anti-AI resistance planning among freedom fighters. So that the AI killer bots won't be able to continue hacking our guerilla attacks? Hopefully you can spare a few credit seconds of communication time to let me know how this blog fares in the grim future. And, wow . . . aren't you surprised that I even made it to a survival state in this future? Lacking obvious physical prowess or something like charismatic leadership qualities . . . I wonder why I'm still around? But I'm glad that I'm there in the future with you!)

ANDBUTSO . . . would you consider listening to this Wendy's playlist? 

Or is the very idea of it an insult to artistry and a capitulation to corporate stupidity? 

What if I made it easier for you? Would you listen now? 

Does it indeed . . . slap?

I confess that I have not spent time listening to these parking lot songs . . . because I've been carving out time to write about the need for YOU to listen to these parking lot songs.

Such is the responsibility of a Football Counter-Programming. Always counter-programming and never actually, um, programming?

I need you to tell me how the songs are? How do they compare to late 80s R.E.M.? Or early 2000s Death Cab for Cutie? Are they good enough to convince you to supersize those fries? Would you wear black eyeliner when you have a craving and go out to get that 8:30 pm Frosty?

Most importantly of all?

What would Dave say?!

Take time this Saturday to consider all of these questions and please, I beg you, devote your time to  this problem! Nobody in the NCAA is thinking about you like Wendy's is thinking about you!

Until next week . . . get some extra napkins because those french fries are gonna make your hands greasy. And you've gotta grip that wheel tight on the way home!

Football Counter-Programming 2026: Week 4--Androids, Aliens, and Wizards

If you don't recognize Sebastian Stan's MCU portrayal of Captain America's sidekick/childhood friend from the photo above, Bucky is . . . uh . . . Steve Roger's childhood friend and Captain America sidekick World War II pal. Bucky would be separated from Cap and the other Howling Commandoes in a World War II attack on the Red Skull and was thought to be dead.

But no on in comics stays dead long. So it was later revealed that Barnes did not die. He was found by the Soviets and kept alive (sometimes in suspended animation cold storage, which helps explain his long life) and given a Iron Curtain version of the super soldier serum that transformed Steve into Cap. Thus, a brainwashed Bucky Barnes was transformed into the Winter Soldier--a deadly assassin who helped destabilize global politics during the decades of the Cold War.

The Winter Soldier was captured by Captain America and, with the help of Wakandan allies, deprogrammed. Thus Cap and Bucky became allies and fighting comrades once again. In the MCU, at least, Bucky now helps lead the New Avengers (aka The Thunderbolts). And Steve is dead in a past timeline . . . or secretly living on the Moon according to some MCU in-world conspiracy theorists.

All of that is great. But what is really important for today's FC-P is the fact that James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes is just a big ole nerd.

This delightful exchange between Bucky and the new Captain America (aka Sam Wilson aka "Falcon") took place after Steve disappeared into a new time stream following the events of Avengers: Endgame. 

What is my point in all this?

Mostly it is to distract you from college football, as you already know.

But it is also a motivating reason to drop this video clip. Because I love the framing that the Avengers almost exclusively fight one of the Big Three. But more than that is the revelation that Bucky was enough of a nerd to get his hands on an original American publication of The Hobbit. My brief research does support his claim.

The book was published in Britain and the United States in 1937, as Bucky says. So he would have had the opportunity to read it when he was twenty years old in 1937. Though born in Indiana, Bucky's family moved to New York City during his childhood. It is there, presumably, when Bucky managed to read an early New York Post review of The Hobbit and was sufficiently intrigued to get his own copy.

We know little more about Bucky's reading habits. As portrayed in the MCU, Bucky's young adult life seems more focused on relationships with young women and keeping a careful eye on Skinny Steve Rogers. But maybe he was a fantasy fan his whole life.

Do you think Bucky got into D & D at some point? Being a brainwashed Commie assassin during the Cold War years of the 1970s and 1980s would made that unlikely. But post Winter Soldier, maybe he made up for lost time and caught up with his old habits before World War II? We know that Steve made an effort to watch Star Wars and Star Trek and do his own bit of pop culture reconnaissance.

I support the notion that Bucky spent time watching movies and reading The Lord of the Rings, watching Peter Jackson's movies, and maybe even getting into Raymond Feist's Magician series. Or Lev Grossman's The Magicians series. (Do you think he was a Ring of Time guy? What about A Song of Ice and Fire?) He had LOTS of deprogramming time on his hands while he was recuperating in Wakanda.

You also may have lots of time this weekend.

I implore you to NOT waste it with college football.

That is all. See you next Saturday!