Saturday, December 08, 2007

HeisMANIA! (+ other stuff)

Clever, right? 'Cause everyone's going nutso trying to wait for the Tostitos Heisman Tophy presentation presented by Preparation H and underwritten by a grant from Prudential with a see-through dress by Victoria's Secret. That's what we're all here for. I'm a big supporter of Michael Crabtree (WR, Texas Tech) as has been previously noted. I really believe he'll make a fine NFL receiver in the far off, distant future when the redshirt freshman makes that leap. Others I'd like to see win are Chris Long (DE, UVa) or Glenn Dorsey (DT, LSU). I'd also love to see DJ Hall (WR, Alabama) as a finalist. I've never watched Chase Daniel (QB, Missouri) and thought, "Wow, this is the best player in the country." Which should now be a prerequisite. Because every player in the country makes their way to some channel you have access to at some point in every season. There won't be another Andre Ware anytime soon (lost in the pseudo-debate about system QB's on the WWL is the fact that Ware did something really cool that nobody had done before and he beat out Anthony Thompson, who went on to be a notably terrible NFL player his damn self. Also, Ware actually comes across as a decent guy and he did follow up a player whose eye-gouging staistical season, Barry Sanders, has stood up pretty well over time) winning the Trophy while not playing on TV. More side note: Jack Pardee might come back and coach Houston again? Why is that being discussed? At least Houston wouldn't have a problem scheduling their 12th game (an idea I hate, by the way) as long as he's there. Every old SWC team would line up for their chance to try and hang 100 on Pardee. In other words, long live the Run N' Shoot! That didn't make sense in context? Well, neither does your mom, dickhead! (Oh, dear...) But really, it's hard for a player to not be on TV. Once the SWC was broken up all we're left with is the SEC for massive recruiting violations. And they self-report pretty quickly (you can look it up. Believe me 'Bama hasn't done anything the Golden Dome hasn't done. Except for going 3-9, of course) thus ruining the chances for a true Death Penalty. But you know who has been on TV a lot? And most of the time has made me think at leas once every game, "Wow, I've never seen that before"? Or, more to the point, "Wow, he's the best player in the country... with a shot a Heisman. Easily the second-best player on Florida this year." Yep, Tim Tebow (QB, Florida). Percy Harvin (WR, Florida) can't win it because he misses too much time. But Tebow is almost as awesome to watch. Why do people hate him and not Colt Brennan (QB, Hawaii)? Because nobody hates Hawaii football. Why should they? It still seems quaint that there even is a Hawaii football team. Go Rainbow Warriors! From, Everybody. Really, Brennan is the definition of a Career Contender. His last game was great. But he's missed a high percentage of snaps and doesn't actually lead the country in anything this season. He's just broken some career records. And mostly kept his hands to himself. Good show, Colt. No, really, it was a good show. He's a good college player and I don't have a problem with his candidacy. But it is for show, not reality. Kevin Smith (RB, UCF) just makes me sad. He's going to break Barry Sanders season record for rushing. But with 3 extra games to do it. And with half the TDs. Why did the NCAA decide to allow bowl games to count for season totals but not go back and tack on bowl games to the season totals of the past? If they had Sanders would be pretty much safe as the king. I like that a player from UCF is somewhere near the dartboard (in my day we had a QB named Daunte Culpepper from UCF. He was pretty good. And he can throw one hell of a sex-boat party when he feels inclined to do it! ) but I also feel like, secretly, Kevin Smith is 32 years old. I can't explain that notion but it makes him less qualifyee to me. Mostly he just makes me miss the first time I actually followed the race to the Heisman. Shouldn't Smith's numbers put him over Darren McFadden (RB, Arkansas)? Anyone who has actually watched McFadden can tell you unequivocally that he looks pretty good. Depending on the game he looks really awesome. Sometimes he even looks better than Felix Jones (RB, Arkansas). I can't be the only one that thinks McFadden is Thurman Thomas to Jones' Barry Sanders. It will surprise 3 people in the country if Felix Jones goes over 2,000 yards and 30 TDs next season. So, as I blend that up let me remind you of my rigorous analysis and well-structured open essay on the subject, before I hit you with this: Just give the fucking thing to Tebow already. He's a legitimate superstar, not some crappy Gino Torretta-type (remember, this is a Miami fan here) player who wins it but leaves people wondering if they could just not give out the award at all if this is the best we can do. Tebow is better than McFadden. And I'm predicting that McFadden will not be anywhere near as good in the pros as Adrian Peterson. Or even his own younger backfield mate.

How has this blog turned into sports-sputterings? I'm lazy and write about things that are easy. Pick the low-lying fruit as it were. Trying to catch people's attention and get some page views. But that won't happen, so let me just say this anyway (????): Poor Sean Taylor. Why did he have to be put on trial for getting killed? Does it really matter at that point if he lead a reckless lifestyle as a 22-year old millionaire? Does it make it better for his family and friends if "He had it coming?" Does anybody else get the same sick feeling when ESPN writes another story about how the streets of Miami came back to bite hime? Jesus Christ, be human about the thing. He got killed for nothing. Or, more along the lines I'm trying to lay down here, he got killed. This is not a "Leave Britney alone!" type rant but I do feel that the coverage of Sean Taylor's murder has been abysmal and that ESPN should be even more ashamed than usual.

Quick thoughts that can't be supported, substantiated or elaborated: Dennis Kucinich is a dick but the LA Weekly is populated by horrible writers and even worse people. CineFamily (cinefmaily.org) is one of the awesomest things that has ever come up in L.A. and I love this city. This is BEOWULLLLLLFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! Cultural politics are a sham that is making all us sheep worker-bots let ourselves slip farther and farther into wage slavery until we are all replaced by robots and that day is not nearly as far off as you probably think it is. So get some intellectual property, learn to farm, and drop out now if you really hate your existence as much as I'm willing to bet you do. Obama-Edwards '08! Please God let their be a labor resurgence. I don't want to be in a studio apartment when I'm 63 unless I got there by way of some horrible personal tragedy rather than a long series of sheepish actions and a lifetime of having no money. Goodbye, good luck and be safe!

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Mid-Afternoon in the Garden of Good and Evil

Gregg Easterbrook is an imbecile. His article about Good vs. Evil in the guise of the Colts-Patriots game is one of the stupidest things he's written so far. Even taking into account that book The Progress Paradox. He takes interesting subjects and mangles them. The Patriots are evil because they tried to steal the Jets signals. The Colts are good because the Patriots tried to steal the Jets signals. Everybody loves Peyton Manning, right? Whatever, the good/evil only interests me so far as this: Tony Dungy and his Christian marauding actually could conveivably threaten my daily comfort levels. I have always been a fan of Dungy as a coach. I was thrilled when he turned the Bucs around, particularly because the center-pieces of that turnaround were some of my favorite football players of all time: Warren Sapp, Ronde Barber, Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn. But then he had to come out with the prayer at the Super Bowl. And the book about God. And I'm no longer such a huge Tony Dungy fan. But I didn't sit down to blog about football again so that I could discuss Gregg Easterbrook's and Tony Dungy's flawed personas. I came to actually make a prediction before the game starts. Colts will win because the Patriots will turn the ball over for the first time this year. The Colts have a much more versatile offense than the Patriots, they have a great running game and they can certainly keep up with the Pats in a high-scoring game. Patriots might be able to run but I haven't seen it. And if you are using last week's game as a measure of how good the defense is you might want to look at the Redskins a little closer. I am probably wrong, but my gut (the only organ that matters) tells me Colts 38-Patriots 26. And I will conceded that the Patriots are going to gain more yardage for the game. But they will also turn it over. Marlin Jackson will get 2 INT's and Bob Sanders will get all the press for a fumble recovery. That is all for my prognostication.

In other news, I'm going to go make some pancakes slathered in honey and wait for the Jaguars and Titans to playe each other in the AFC tital game. That's gonna be sweet.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

College Football and Salted Fish

This is not any kind of excuse to be literary. I really just wanted to write about college football and I'm reading Salt by Mark Kurlansky right now. So the title makes sense. Why college football? Because I like it. Why Salt? Because a friend gave it to me to read and it's fucking fascinating. Why am I writing right now instead of running or working (which would be writing too, I suppose) on something larger, like getting my book published or finishing a screenplay that has dragged on for two years of writing or working on a treatment that I set a deadline of today to write? Um, my ankle is broken or something. I haven't actually gone to the doctor but it's swollen and turned a bluish-purple color. Also it hurts to walk. Which makes writing something more profound or money-worthy damned near impossible. Doesn't matter. I'm also writing because after ten months of posting absolutley nothing on this site I've been getting traffic the last three weeks. I'm intrigued by the idea of people looking over and over again at the nothing that this site is. So I'm giving something to those 17 readers who have been here. Hope you read this.

College football: I will give you some totally biased un-expert and un-examined game picks at the end of this article. But my impetus for writing about college football is my new favorite player. As per usual with me I have never seen this guy play. For all I know he is rather unspectacular to watch. But I happened upon the leaders in receiving yards for the year and my jaw actually fell off of my face, but it was inside of my skin so it just slid down to my chest area. the skin was too tight down there for it to go any further so it stopped and got lodged in there. that's annoying so I knocked it out of that position but it was so tight that my chest just exploded and a torrent of blood went all over my keyboard. Anyone want to give me a new computer? I've had this PC since 2002. And it wasn't that great when I bought it. Now it is virus consumed and horrid. More of an albatross than an ally. In short, looking at the stats was a bloody fucking mess. Has anybody else noticed this guy Michael Crabtree? He's a freshman on pace for a 2,000 yard season with close to 30 touchdowns. I can't say it's entirely unprecedented becasue he's a redshirt freshman and I think Randy Moss had similar numbers his first year of college football (he was technically a sophomore but he wasn't allowed to play as a freshman because he smoked pot and punched some girl in the face. Yeah, I know, they were separate incidents.) But who the fuck is this guy? I've heard about his QB putting up nuts numbers but every QB at Texas Tech for the last ten years has done that. Why can't the receiver putting up sort of historical numbers (ah, sports history...) get his name in the Heisman ballots on ESPN? Other than the fact that everybody that makes a decision as to what gets on the air at ESPN is some bozo looking for a human interest angle on everything (note to all the networks that show sporting events, pay huge money to show sporting events, and make massive investments in the broadcast of said sporting events: You are not selling to your core audience. It has gotten to the point where I feel relief when I miss a sunday of NFL games. I am completely drawn in out of habit and then get angry listening to bad impressions of a horrible sportscaster who is more popular as the title of a video game, which is truly awesome, than he has been as an NFL announcer for the past 12 years. Nobody watches football for the half-time show, the pre-game show or the fucking lame-ass local highlight shows. Nobody watches ESPN because they like the personalities of the broadcasters. These things were hugely successful in the first place because of attention to things that sociologically tend to interest a large percentage of men: team sports, violence, speed, and statistics. If you want to throw in cheerleaders fine. Everything else is just uncomfortable and intrinsically unprofessional. Nobody on the planet will ever make me feel like I know less than the brainless ex-jocks on TV in their ugly but expensive suits and ugly but expensive haircuts about anything especially, ironically, the sports they played. They come across to me as walking billboards for why the NFL needs to seriously reform their concussion policies. No joke, ex-athletes who have suffered severe brain trauma are a threat to the communities they live in. Please, ESPN, Fox, CBS, ABC, whoever the fuck else shows sporting programs, please for the love of God stop trying to pander to a wider audience. You are killing your core audience and not, absolutely not, bringing in new viewers. Watch a soccer broadcast - they show you nothing but the game. They don't even break for commercials just build them into the flow of the game. Women watch sports mainly because men watch sports. Now back to the regularly scheduled blawgghe:) Michael Crabtree is putting up stupid numbers. Seven games into his college career he has: 78 catches for 1244 yards and 17 TD's. WTF? WTF? WTF? WTF? I mean, seriously, what the fuck yo? He has 400 more yards than any other receiver in the country. He's a freshman. If a WR at Ohio State University (goddamit why do they have to lose to Michigan? Michigan is even more unsufferable than The Ohio State University but I can not stomach the thought of another Big 10 team wasting our time pretending to be on the same level with any other conference in the country and so I comfort myself with the thought that Wolverines! will beat the school with no legitimate national titles in a looooooong time. Seriously, the fucking Hurricanes won that game.) he would have been elected Jesus by now. I know what you're thinking: Ohio State hasn't thrown for that many yards in the last sixteen seasons combined. In fact they didn't even gain that many yards as a team in six of those years. To you I say: That's why I have tape on my nose. Michael Crabtree should be elected Jesus. Until I actually watch him play. When I will probably surmise that he isn't that great. But that's the same feeling I have for Matt Ryan and his numbers aren't even all that great. He's getting Heisman hype. Until his team loses to Virginia Tech. Who really isn't a great team. Have I mentioned how much I hate every sports team from Boston? Go Indians. And you're weird red face-painted, wittingly or unwittingly, racist jerk fans. God bless Cleveland for being the low-life place that it is. Baltimore without the glamour. Tape on the fucking nose.

I'm sick of this. Here are some football picks. Sorry if the games already started. You weren't reading this site and going out to place bets based on anything I say anyway:

OCTOBER 20th (and 21st? Why is that shitty game being played tomorrow?)
Blue team wins. I picked half of them by random guess, one third of them by who I want to win and the rest I actually have any opinion on. Guess which ones are which!)

#23 Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Army at Georgia Tech
Penn State at Indiana
North Dakota State at Minnesota
Miami (OH) at Temple
Central Michigan at Clemson
Iowa at Purdue
Northern Illinois at Wisconsin
#5 Oklahoma at Iowa State
Vanderbilt at #6 South Carolina
#21 Tennessee at Alabama
#22 Texas at Baylor
Wake Forest at Navy
Arkansas at Mississippi
Western Kentucky at Indiana State
Wyoming at Air Force
Ball State at Western Michigan
Texas A&M at Nebraska
Memphis at Rice
Nevada at Utah State
Michigan State at #1 Ohio State
#15 Florida at #7 Kentucky
Mississippi State at #9 West Virginia
#12 California at UCLA
#14 USC at Notre Dame
#24 Texas Tech at #16 Missouri - Michael “Christ Reincarnated” Crabtree will catch 13 passes for 244 yds and 6 TDs
Miami (FL) at Florida State
Arkansas State at Middle Tennessee
North Texas at Troy
Buffalo at Syracuse
Tulsa at UCF
Bowling Green at Kent State
North Carolina State at East Carolina
San Jose State at Fresno State
Florida Atlantic at Louisiana-Lafayette - GAME OF THE WEEK
#13
Kansas at Colorado
Eastern Washington at Brigham Young
Houston at UAB
Boise State at Louisiana Tech
Florida International at Louisiana-Monroe
Ohio at Toledo
Kansas State at Oklahoma State
Stanford at Arizona
#10 Oregon at Washington
#19 Virginia at Maryland - OK, I'll give it up on this one. I actually think UMD will win, but I'm rooting for the Hoos so fuck off. I like both teams anyway.
#25 Michigan at Illinois
Idaho at New Mexico State
Tulane at Southern Methodist
New Mexico at San Diego State
#17 Auburn at #4 LSU
Colorado State at UNLV

Southern Miss at Marshall – but really, both teams lose. Why is this game being played on Sunday? These kids would all be better off if they got to have their normal leisurely Sunday morning gay orgies or whatever it is college football players are doing when they aren’t at practice or playing in a game.

So there it is. That LSU-Auburn game is really fucking tough. I know some of these games are probably already half-over and wrong. Oh, well. I had some difficulty getting the formats right. If I knew anything about HTML I could probably keep the highlighting plan I originally attempted. But I'm not that smart or motivated by such things. I like food. And I like to rub one off every now and again. That's most of it.