March 5, 2001 – If there is one definable characteristic of modern America as a whole, it is this: We will buy anything.

From the traveling medical quackery of the 1800s to the movie career of Jim Varney ("Ernest Goes to College," "Ernest Lances a Boil," etc.); from pet rocks to Grateful Dead music; from the tacky flare bell-bottom pants of the 1970s to the tacky flare bell-bottom pants of 2001, our nation's inability to distinguish trash from treasure has somehow not yet bottomed out.

But through these murky waters, it appears we are at least beginning to scrape our toes along the squishy bottom. This is thanks to the XFL, the illegitimate child of the World Wrestling Federation and NBC. Most of you are by now aware that this spring football league was formed to reach the WWF's desired demographic (known to most demographers as "unemployed sub-humans") with real-life mayhem and cleavage.

The first obstacle faced by NBC and the WWF in starting a professional football league from scratch was that lots of people had beaten them to it. The NFL is about to add a 32nd team. There are six teams in NFL Europe, eight in the Canadian Football League, 19 in the Arena Football League and 28 in af2 – yes, a minor league to the minor league. In addition, there are countless players remaining in college football good enough right now to play on one of these 93 teams.

Found a new league in this environment, with the scratch-and-dent talent still remaining, and what you get approximates the straight-to-video classic, "Ernest Overthrows a Wide Open Receiver." Scoring has been low, numerous games have been played in downpours and there is not a single compelling talent in the entire league.

But when you're dealing with hard-driving minds like those steering the WWF and NBC, don't think little details like a complete talent vacuum were going to stand in the way. An NBC executive referred to the XFL as a "production-driven league." To understand exactly what this means, suppose that the usual snarky one-liners and pithy observations of this column were replaced with copy such as:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs! IT RAINS IN SPAIN MAINLY ON THE PLAIN! My dog has fleas!

Now imagine that this is how the column read for two, three, eight weeks in a row, and you have some idea of the anesthetizing emptiness of this XFL season. Some of the camera angles are enjoyable, especially the ones presented from on the field by brave men clad in black protective gear. But whatever positive marks those cameras add to the broadcast, the infantile broadcasters stomp away. Among the "analysts" employed by the XFL for this season is Brian Bosworth, a former linebacker and action star of B-movies ("Brian Bosworth Lances a Boil"). His sole contribution to the festivities has been:

"Woohoo! Big hit, baby! That was an XFL hit, baby! My dog has fleas!"

Sometimes, he says this when there actually is a big hit, demonstrating that even a blind man can lance a boil every now and then.

Despite the tremendous lack of substance working against the XFL, American history says that shouldn't matter. Vanilla Ice made an album, and enough people bought it that he made another one. The Chia Pet was such a hit, Chia Head followed, along with a little Chia menagerie. And Howie Mandel continues to find work in Hollywood.

But finally, gratefully, the American public is saying, enough. The XFL's overnight ratings opened at a whopping 10.3, then fell like Jim Varney off the side of a five-story building – to 5.1, 3.8, 2.9 and 2.7 in succeeding weeks. The league is nearing the lowest rating ever for a prime-time sports program, and it hasn't even tried to battle the NCAA basketball tournament yet.

Perhaps the league will survive in one form or another, though it's more likely that NBC is already working on some made-for-TV movies to fill the programming void ("Brian Bosworth Wears Tacky Flare Bell-Bottom Pants"). Until then, however, there is one thing for sure we can say about the XFL – IT RAINS IN SPAIN MAINLY ON THE PLAIN!