Arizona Phoenix* Random Eleven

Jesusland - BEN FOLDS
N.M.A. - EEF BARZELAY
Carolina - BENJAMIN GIBBARD
Welcome Home - RADICAL FACE
Naked As We Came - IRON & WINE
The Last High - THE DANDY WARHOLS
Simple Love - ALISON KRAUSS
Right Side, Wrong Bed - SMASH MOUTH
Feeling Oblivion - TURIN BRAKES
Lies Behind The Sun - PIERCE & E.J. MAGGI
For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless in Ypsilanti - SUFJAN STEVENS




* A long long time ago a man who had only recently worked as a grocery checkout clerk - a bagger - got himself a job as a quarterback on an arena football league team, where he started making the relatively big bucks. In an unlikely twist, the man some time later was the starting quarterback on an actual NFL football team. There, he did his job in a satisfactory manner, a description that would have been just as apt at the little grocery store for which he had not too long before filled bags of sundries. One day this NFL quarterback found himself playing in the Super Bowl with his team. My, what a rise to stardom.

The man then did what all good quarterbacks do: he faded. He bounced around the league, started behind rookies and other quarterbacks who will never be known as greats. He was, in a way, back to bagging groceries.

But never count out a nice guy. After being a washed up back-up QB for most of four seasons, suddenly the man starts every game, for an entire season. Suddenly the man wins games, suddenly the man is on top, again. His team, his new team, is going to the Super Bowl. Only one other quarterback in history has brought two different teams to Super Bowls.

He is reborn. He is risen from the ashes. It's fitting that this man, this year, plays in Phoenix.

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