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who really keeps up his end of things the best. He’s always got a good idea when things look stale; he makes the cockamamie marketing plans I have happen somehow; he’s got a good joke or two when things get tense, and he’s always looking for ways to make things run smoother, work better, and be as painless as possible.

Chris knows what time it is without looking at a clock, and if I were his boss, I’d give the guy a raise.

But the point of all that background isn’t to shine Schaff’s shoes, it’s to explain what I was doing on the phone with him after we’d done our pub lishing-related business. If you’ve been reading these columns so far, you’ve probably been able to figure out that I’m mostly a no-nonsense guy. As my father says, “I laugh, joke, take a little dope; but I don’t play.” No, I don’t really know what it means, either, but as near as I can figure, it’s along the lines of “Sure, I’ve got a sense of humor, but when it’s time to get down to business, I roll up my sleeves.”

Lotsa colorful metaphors and homespun witticisms around the Young homestead when I was a lad. ‘Splains a lot, I guess.

So, back to Schaff.

We’d finished up our business, and Chris lets slip that he’s coming to San Francisco for the Alternative Press Expo, and starts belly-aching that he’s going to be working and glad-handing the whole time, and he’s sorry he won’t be able to catch a Demons game even if they were playing at home that weekend, which they aren’t.

“The XFL team?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah,” Chris says. “I’ve been following the whole thing. Can’t wait. Looks like a good idea. They just need a team closer to Baltimore than New York/New Jersey.” So we talk about the XFL for a while, and the sheer brilliance of the mar keting of the league. By October of last year, well before any player had been “drafted” and five full months before the first kick-off of opening day, www.XFL.com had logged over 250,000 unique visitors. Before they had anything to talk about, people were interested . According to Business 2.0 , 40,000 season tickets had been sold by early November, with well over half of them coming from sales on the web. Now, say what you want about the XFL appealing to the lowest common denominator… you have to admit that’s just good marketing… and the tar-

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