Wednesday Football Two-A-Days

Yeah, you need to be watching this show. It's that good.

Alternating Between Anger and Laughter

This labor mess the NFLPA and NFL have gotten themselves into can really make a sane person run through the gamut of emotions. Every day I find something new at which to be angry and at which to laugh. I think I am able to do this, as opposed to only feeling the righteous indignation of anger, because I blame both sides for their stubborn buffoonery and utter lack of acknowledgment of the real-world situations their fans must face every day that surrounds the shared supreme selfishness of the NFL and NFLPA.

When I feel anger, it’s generally towards the hardline owners that helped push both sides to this standoff; unlikable men like Jerry Richardson and Mike Brown, who seem to be running point for the owners right now. They are intractable men who do not want to negotiate; they want to dominate. These are the guys who led the league to basically blackmail their television partners to provide them with the “lockout insurance,” that Judge Doty recently declared illegal and contrary to the CBA.

I also feel anger towards NFLPA Chief DeMaurice Smith, who, through his prior words and actions in the last two years, has convinced me he spent the last two months negotiating in bad faith; always preferring the route of litigation. And of course, there are the players themselves, some of whom I now look upon as unfavorably as I did Tom Glavine from 1994 until, well, forever. Players such as Drew Brees, who in the middle of tweeting about the disaster in Japan had the cajones to interject more of his pro-union propaganda. Talk about your complete lack of priorities and situational awareness of the world around you. Shame on you, Drew Brees.

And of course, there are the guys, mostly players, who are so far up their own rear ends, who have been surrounded by yes-men and friends and family hanging on their financial teat, that they have no awareness of the world around them, regardless of the situation. These guys fill me with a burning anger that sometimes, I have to throw my hands up and laugh for their stupidity and ignorance. The latest example of this is Adrian Peterson having the gall to compare making ten million dollars a year to SLAVERY. Yep, Adrian Peterson, who makes more in two games than most people will make in a lifetime, is a slave. See, you read that, and you get so angry that you have to laugh. Otherwise, you would be tempted to hurt someone.

But folks, it is not all fire and brimstone, thanks to Twitter. Twitter has given many national, and even local, columnists an outlet for their own thoughts, frustrations, and outright comedic gold regarding the ridiculousness of this labor strife, which can help diffuse a lot of the anger football fans might be feeling right now. Guys like Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports (@MikeSilver), Bill Simmons of ESPN (@sportsguy33), or a local columnist for my hometown newspaper, Jeff Schultz (@JeffSchultzAJC), are passionate sports writers, yes, but they’re also wiseass extraordinaires, and if I find myself reading something idiotic or enraging that Jerry Richardson, De Smith, or Adrian Peterson has said, these guys will usually have something to say that’ll have me laughing instead of punching walls.

So please, if this NFLPA-NFL stupidity fills your body with anger to the point where you want to kick the dog, or punch your stupid neighbor at the thought of missing football games this fall, get on Twitter and find your favorite wiseass sports writers. They will help you find the funny.

Or, if you get angry enough, just do as I will: cancel your Sunday Ticket and buy ESPN’s College Football Gameplan instead, because especially in the South and on the West Coast, the NFLPA-NFL War benefits College Football the most, but we will get to that later.

College Football (College Basketball Bracket Edition)

There is no point to talk about College Football today. Spring Practices do not begin in earnest until next week, and today is all about finally filling out your brackets for the NCAA Tournament, the axiom that proves the stupidity and exclusivity of the BCS, but again, we will get to that at a later date.

As for any bracket advice I may have, look for upsets in the 7-10 games (Go Dawgs!) and the 5-12 games in the Round of 64. Most brackets this year may be top heavy, because so many sports writers are telling us this year’s tournament is going to be boring, but all it takes is one or two hot teams at the right moment to make a good run into the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight to make it seem that once again, anything is possible. Look for Clemson and Georgia both to win their opening games (well, for Clemson, after winning last night’s play-in game). Look for one (or more) top-4 seed to lose in the second round; perhaps Texas, Florida, Syracuse, or UConn, who all look susceptible to a round of 32 upset.

After that advice, y’all are on your own. Have fun.

Today in History

On 16 March 1935, Adolph Hitler, Chancellor of Germany, orders the rearmament of his country in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

And much like the UN and Hans Blix with Saddam Hussein in the early part of the 20th Century, the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations formally protested this development, but did absolutely nothing to stop it.

Of course, the world had nothing to worry about the rearming of Germany under Hitler, right?

TV Dinner

There is a television show on FOX that everyone needs to be watching, and no, it isn’t the horrible, grating mess that one-year-wonder Glee has become.

The show is called The Chicago Code, and along with Justified on FX, this show has become my go-to-show to get my cops & robbers fix on television.

Created by Shawn Ryan (@ShawnRyanTV), the brilliant creator of The Shield, The Chicago Code crackles with great action and even better dialogue, all shot on location in Chicago, not in L.A. pretending to be Chicago.

The show stars Jason Clarke from the gone-too-soon Brotherhood on Showtime, as hardened CPD Detective Jarek Wysocki, a devoted public servant and South Sider (which means he’s a true-blue White Sox fan for those not in the know) who has trouble trusting his partners since Theresa Colvin, played by the still smokin’ Jennifer Beals, who is tough as nails and was made the first woman Chicago Police Superintendent (analogous to Tom Selleck’s Police Commissioner on the good, but not great Blue Bloods).

Fans of Friday Night Lights will recognize Matt Lauria (the former Luke Caffrey) as Wysocki’s latest partner, Caleb Evers, but it is character actor Delroy Lindo who is this show’s break-out star as Ronin Gibbons. Gibbons is a menacing, corrupt Alderman unafraid to dirty his hands when wheels need greasing, or when people step out of line to his thinking.

From the locations, to the accents, to the wardrobe (all of the street cops and detectives wear their bulletproof vests on the outside of their clothes, adding a tenseness to the proceedings not seen in most police procedurals), The Chicago Code feels just as real to me as does Justified, and I’ve never spent a large amount of time in rural Kentucky or in Chicago, but these shows feel real to me, and that makes them all the better, particularly in The Chicago Code, which bring that city to life in a way I haven’t seen since the last time I watched The Blues Brothers. In this show, Chicago itself is an important character, and I love that Ryan and his writers understand that.

As most midseason shows are, it is looking like The Chicago Code is on that all-important renewal bubble for the Fall 2011 season and needs all the support it can get. I urge everyone to watch this show, to catch up with it on www.fox.com or at www.hulu.com, and make it a regular part of your weekly viewing habits. The Chicago Code is worthy of your time and attention, I promise you. Mondays at 9:00 pm. Be there.

Plus, Shawn Ryan got Billy Corgan to sing the theme song, which sounds so awesome I am praying for a full version to be released on iTunes as a single. How is that for awesome?

Trust me, you won’t be sorry.

Smart Quote

The last two blogs I wrote, I urged and pleaded with people to donate to help the disaster relief efforts underway in Japan, and I will continue to do so in this space, because there are so many people who still need help, need charity, that I cannot imagine not helping in some way.

In charity there is no excess.

Sir Francis Bacon, Essays, 13, “Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature.”

The quickest, easiest way to donate is still to text REDCROSS to 90999 for an instant $10 donation.

If you have not done so, please do donate. It is the right thing to do. It is the human thing to do.

Hey, Check This Out!

Here is the aforementioned awesome, original Billy Corgan-sung theme song for The Chicago Code.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter at @UGABugKiller. Thanks!

Monday Morning Falcons Hangover

"It's not the losses, Honey... it's the yardage." Wait... what?

Who Makes Football Fun?

That is more of a loaded question than “what” makes football fun, is it not? I mean, asking “who” makes us be very specific, and sometimes, specificity can lead to arguments, and arguments can lead to hurt feelings, and hurt feelings can lead to the kind of lunacy we find in, say, modern political discourse. While I try to avoid that scenario today, it’s actually kind of interesting to think about who makes football fun.

Of course, the players, coaches, and other fans make football fun; there would be no football without them. But ask yourself, after watching the game on Sunday afternoon, what do you wait for next? Whether your team had a day of thrilling victory or sobering defeat on the field, as a football fan, our enjoyment does not end there. We all want to get online as soon as the game as over to read the AP recap, or head to our local city’s major newspaper website to read the instant analysis of our favorite columnists or beat writers. Or, if we’re patient, we wait with bated breath for Monday morning to roll around, and go to SI.com, or Yahoo Sports to read the best two national football writers working today: Peter King and Michael Silver.

Dare I say it? The sports writers covering football, our local beat guys, our favorite hometown columnists, and the best of the best national football writers; they are who makes football fun. Without a D. Orlando Ledbetter, Jeff Schultz, Mark Bradley, Peter King, or Mike Silver, football would not be nearly as fun, nearly as obsessive, and nearly as great as it is. There is a reason why there are wings in all of the various sports Halls of Fame for the writers covering the sport being honored: sports writers are our most tangible link to the players, coaches, GMs, and owners of the sport we love. They provide us with an insider’s knowledge of our team; they break stories on injured players, they take us into the locker room after victory and defeat, and the very best of them use their job to speak for us.

For me, football does not just exist on the gridiron; the fun does not end when the game is over. Football exists in the ink stains I used to get on my fingers every day reading about the Falcons or the Bulldogs. I would routinely skip lunch in middle school and high school to go to the library to read the Atlanta-Journal Constitution; read what was happening with my teams (in the mid-90’s, nothing good for the Falcons or Dawgs, let me tell ya!). There was an Internet, but I was not yet plugged in. Papers and magazines were the tools the young boy I used to be used to keep up with the sports he loved, and though I love the instant information brought to me whenever I want it by the information super highway (haven’t heard that expression in awhile), I miss the ink stains. I miss turning the high gloss pages of Sports Illustrated to see what came next.

We have traded the tangible for the instant, and a part of me misses the smell of a newspaper, or the feel of those glossy pages of Sports Illustrated. Now we have Twitter and an even more instant form of instant: little 140-character bon mots of the most breaking of breaking news, or what micro-beer Peter King liked that he drank in San Francisco. Either way, this is an interesting time for those of us that devour every piece of information we can about the sport we love.

For me, my favorite part about Twitter is the ability to talk to the guys who help make football fun. Even if I disagree with them, or they me (I can be excitable at times), it has brought me a whole new level of respect for what Mike Silver, DOL, and Jeff Schultz do; the effort and the energy they expend covering the sport we all love, while being as accessible as they can, in a way they probably never expected to have to be, to all the nutjobs and passionate fans out here in cyberspace.

So if you can, take a moment to get on Twitter or send a response to you local beat writer and columnists, to Peter King or Mike Silver or a favorite national writer you enjoy reading, and thank them for making football fun. I am sure they will appreciate it.

Seven Things I Know

1. Adding another 7 days to the bargaining table between the NFL and NFLPA guarantees nothing. However, it does succeed in giving fans hope.

2. I would sincerely advise the NFL and NFLPA to not abuse that hope, and to get this deal done.

3. Try as some players and writers might to make the connection, this labor issue with the NFL and NFLPA is nothing like what is going on Wisconsin.

4. While the NFLPA allows the employees (players) of a private business entity (NFL) to collectively bargain, the people up in arms in Wisconsin are government employees. Their pay and benefits come not from revenue; it comes from TAXES.

5. Revenue comes from a business venture in which a product is sold. Those are private funds. The government takes your taxes, public funds, and is supposed to use that money to yes, pay teachers, but to also pay civil servants, build and maintain public infrastructure, and ensure the peace & tranquility of the region it governs. If the government spends taxes poorly and creates a deficit, teacher’s salaries & benefits should take a hit just like the salary of an employee in the private sector would if profits are down for the year prior. That is economic common sense. Yes, the teachers didn’t create the budget shortfall in Wisconsin, but maybe if they were better teachers, their students wouldn’t have grown up to be such poor public servants.

6. The idea of unionized government workers scares the bejesus out of me. Government workers with protected jobs who basically answer to no one? Does anyone else see a problem with that? It is one thing when a union offers the same protection to a lazy factory worker as they do the best worker on the line, but a union that protects dirty cops, or a union that protects bad teachers from ever being held accountable? Should that not scare everyone? This is not about ideology, please do not try and make it about that; it is about economics and common sense.

7. I am not anti-Union; neither am I anti-corporation. I am pro-common sense. Unions for autoworkers, electricians, and plumbers make sense. I have no problem with unions like that, providing their power is kept in balance with the power of the corporations with which they collectively bargain. Unions for government workers, who exist off of tax money? That does not make a lick of sense, nor does it exactly fit the ideals set forth in the US Constitution of a small, unobtrusive government. As we are seeing, their power is way out of balance, causing severe problems in a state needing economic relief. So, just to be clear, not the same as the NFL labor situation.

Today in History

On 06 March 1836, after an epic thirteen day siege by 3000 Mexican troops under the command of President General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the 187 men defending the Alamo Mission finally fall in battle. Amongst their number were Texan hero William Travis; Jim Bowie, who popularized the Bowie Knife; and of course, the great frontiersman and former Congressman, Davy Crockett.

On this final day of battle, Santa Anna had his men advance on the mission with orders to take no prisoners. The fighting was fierce, and even after the last man had fallen, the Mexican soldiers, frustrated by the long siege and caught up in bloodlust, continued to fire rounds into and bayoneted the dead bodies.

In part because of the brutal way in which the dead at the Alamo were treated, “Remember the Alamo” became the rallying cry at the short, yet ferocious Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April, in which the small force led by Sam Houston overwhelmed the Mexican Army, capturing Santa Anna, and ensuring Texas’ freedom from Mexico.

Film Real

On Sunday, I came to the realization that if I were about to die and could choose one film to see before I shuffled off my mortal coil, that movie would be Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Raiders is by no means my favorite film, though it is in my personal top-10 list. It is, however, a perfect film. What do I mean by perfect? Well, the film is perfect in that everything in it works. The writing, the acting, the outrageous stunts, the pacing (editing), the direction, the story, the musical score, the dialogue, the locations, and the set designs… everything works. It is a perfect film.

There are other perfect films in the world, other films with no flaws. Another Spielberg film, E.T. is one such film. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is another. The Godfather, Part II, Ben-Hur, Ghostbusters, and The Blues Brothers are yet more examples. Another one of my top-10 films, The Adventures of Robin Hood, is another example of a perfect film.

To understand how rare a perfect film is, my favorite film of all time, The Lord of the Rings (I consider all three extended versions of the films to be one film, to rule them all, if you will), while outstanding, is not a perfect film. I have issues with some of the licenses Jackson, Boyens, & Walsh took with characterizations of certain characters; how they translated them from page to screen. One particular, crucial moment from the first part failed to live up to my personal expectations, and that was how Jackson portrayed the elven kingdom of Lothlorien. I also believe the Council of Elrond could have been fleshed out a bit more.

But with Raiders, I have no squabbles, no notes, no, “I would have done this, or that.” It is a perfect film. I cannot think of one change I would make that they have not made already (removing the distracting mirrored glare from the glass separating the real Harrison Ford from the very real, very agitated king cobra in the Well of the Souls scene). Take a moment to think on Raiders of the Lost Ark a bit. Remember how you felt as a kid watching that film? Now think about how you feel now, thirty years (YES, thirty years!) later. For me, the experience is largely the same (as it also is with E.T. or Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood). I do not perceive the film in a different way, I do not think of it as nostalgic fluff, as I do many of the films I loved in my youth (Return of the Jedi, anyone?).

The film just works, on every level, at every age. If I am lucky enough to have a child, a son or daughter, I will make damn sure they are introduced to Indiana Jones and experience Raiders of the Lost Ark just as I did. Maybe they will also grab a jump rope, go outside, and pretend to swing over bottomless pits with their “whip,” or search the forests for buried artifacts (found a few arrowheads in my time), as I spent so much time doing as a five-year old kid. I can only hope.

Film is at its best when it inspires, amazes, thrills, scares, enlightens, or brings joy to us, in any combination. A perfect film, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, does all of that, and more. The flick is thirty years old this summer.

Damn, I am old. Speaking of which…

Smart Quote

It’s not the years, Honey… it’s the mileage.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), written by Lawrence Kasdan for Raiders of the Lost Ark

As someone who is 30 years old, who has lived a tramp’s life, including five years in the Marine Corps that gifted me with two knee injuries & accompanying surgeries and complications therein, I so empathize with the good Dr. Jones.

Hey, Check This Out!

Here is one of the best and most memorable scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I am sorry the quality isn’t quite so good, but it’s still funny as hell.

Do not forget to follow me on Twitter at @UGABugKiller. Thanks!