Yeah, I know, the XFL stories are running fast and loose all over the mainstream media and they're really getting kind of boring. Everybody thinks the XFL is just haw-haw-haw hilarious, and it's not. But I still feel a warmness in my heart for the home team San Francisco Demons.

I dunno what it is about the XFL. It just doesn't seem that amusing to me -- just another sideways off-season football league, like the USFL and, uh, that other league that I forget the name of. So, they're affiliated with the WWF and shit. So what? What isn't these days? I ask you.

So I'm not really interested in talking about it. BUT, I -do- dig the San Francisco team, called the Demons. Only in San Francisco, man! If they were in Dallas, they'd be totally chased out of town by Biblethumpers and shit. It might be a nod to the legacy of the late Anton LeVey, or maybe to Ambrose Bierce, or Jordan Hubbard, or any of a million other Satan-associated famous San Franciscans. I dunno. But it's a cool name!

None of the other XFL team names are that good, neither. Like, the LA team is the "LA Xtreme." This is a suck name. It's like if they were called the "LA Groovesters" in 1972. It's just not going to age well at all, in my reckoning.

I was kind of impressed that there aren't any Native American-themed teams in the XFL, though. They may be the only professional sports league without some insulting name like the Omaha Big Dumb Injuns or the Minnesota Drunken Slut Squaws or something like that. I dunno if sports team owners just like to see Native Americans walk in picket lines or what, but they seem to be always putting a stick in that particular ant's nest and provoking them into a wild frenzy. Who knows? Crazy shit. Hell, any publicity is good publicity, even if it's Russell Means threatening to put a flint hatchet through your skull on "The Macneil-Lehrer News Hour."

Oh, but the San Francisco Demons, right? They're going to be using the new Pac Bell Park when the Giants aren't in there. Even though I voted against this gross Disneyland monstrosity, I have to admit a kind of fondness for the damn thing. But only because it's got a giant 2-DIMENSIONAL ANIMATRONIC BASEBALL PLAYER in the outfield that comes out and dances when the Giants win a game. The big thing's name is "Rusty" and the Pac Bell people are all mysterious about it and don't mention it on their Web site except in passing. Serious! It's like a computer game Easter egg, but it's the best part of the park.

I hope when the Demons score a field goal or something, Rusty comes out dressed in red and black underpants and eats the souls of the wicked and breathes fire on the opposing team's cheerleaders or some shit. Because that would be cool and I would totally root for the Demons just to see that. Demon Rusty, the amusing 2-D dancing animatron hellspawn! I would yell and yell.

So the Demons have this Web site that I'm linking to below. It's pretty damn good, even though they do use "smart quotes" all the way through. Hell, Pigdog Journal has smart quotes on it (Flesh!), so I can't complain that much. But besides smart quotes they've also got human interest stories about the players and news about the franchise office staff and things like that. Hell, they even have a little fluff piece about one player who wants to hit the field so he can get laid by some SF hottie he met ("Lineman looking to score with Demons"). No shit!

So go dig on the SF Demons Web site. Beaujolais! Ghost Site of the future, see it now!

Check it out yourself

burton@pigdog.org