Thoughts only the unemployed would have February 10, 2009

So a few Sundays ago it was the Super Bowl. Woo! Right? I didn’t really pay attention to anything this past season so I had no idea who was in it. So it was surprising to me that there was a team called the Cardinals there. Isn’t that baseball?

I apparently was not alone in this sentiment so I didn’t feel too out of touch. Being a New Yorker, you hear about the Giants and Jets all the time; and then there’s the other wildly popular teams like the Cowboys and Packers that have hefty fan bases all over the place. But when I was sitting at the annual Super Bowl party hosted by one of my dad’s BFF from high school, I realized that Cuba Gooding Jr. played on the Cardinals in Jerry Maguire. So, they’ve been around. On TV? No. But, around.

I knew the first thing that I was going to do when I got home. Well, after turning the interior lights off in my car that’s been sitting there for nine-plus hours. I’m looking up when this team came into existence. Holy. Camoley. 1920. Are you serious? This team has been around for 90 years, and all I can remember about them is from the movie that sprung the line, “show me the money”?!

That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m sick of kinda knowing the game and being flippant about who I want to win.

See, from a tender age I’ve understood football. My brother played youth football and my dad coached him and continued to coach for almost 20 years. I would watch Sunday, Monday and Thursday with my dad; asking little questions when I didn’t understand calls or plays. Then when I went to college this continued with my friends. They all loved their own teams and whenever a game was on, it was on. I was even awoken at 8am one year to watch the draft. Poor Brady Quinn. Jokes.

So I understand the game, I don’t fight it when its on TV, and find it enjoyable enough to watch on a Sunday instead of Rock Of Love repeats. But what I never had was a favorite team. My dad is a Jets fan, presumably my brother too. They suck though, so fuck that. I couldn’t really even tell you many players names. If they aren’t gorgeous, a quarterback, or known for antics on or off the field, I don’t know them. With my reality mapped out in front of me I made a pledge to myself: have a team and a full knowledge of them (and opponents!) by next season.

This is so happening.

Most people choose a team due to an emotional attachment or just plain location. Neither New York team (fuck the Bills) do it for me so I decided to look at games played on my birthday. The Colts, Falcons and Chiefs have all won three games on that day. Something about the Chiefs just doesn’t sit well with me and the Falcons somehow remind me of the male nudity in Any Given Sunday. Maybe its the black helmets. I don’t know. So, Colts it is? Not so fast.

Before getting ahead of myself and choosing a team that after further investigation might rub me the wrong way, just like the teams I have eliminated, I need to get to know them better. And what better way than to start from the beginning. Not origins-of-football-in-Colonial-Jamestown-beginning, but NFL beginning. Year one, 1920.

I decided for the sake of becoming that asshole that’s all “well technically the club started in ____, but I guess you’re right *laugh*snort*laugh*”, I wouldn’t document anything before that year. And I would neglect any information about teams before they joined a professional league, NFL or otherwise.

I would document the progression of the game and league as well as the teams. Rule changes, game-altering games, presidents, commissioners, etc. I run through every year, documenting rule changes, milestones in broadcasting, final standings. Nothing really about specific teams; except the franchise establishment year, if they took a year off, combining teams, anything that effects the standings/roster of league basically, is written. Get to know the league before you get to know your team, right?

Upon doing this I watched a sad, sad truth unfold. And this truth is called the Lions. A great team, with a few iffy standings, up until 1957 I believe. Sure, they’ve been seen in the playoffs here and there, but aw. Last season. There’s something so endearing about something so terrible. When/If they win a game next season, it’ll be momentous. I love an underdog, but do I love this much of an underdog? Tough call. I’ll have to wait until I begin my thorough Lions research.

So that’s where I’m at basically. I’m just about to begin on individual teams, but my fire is fading a bit. Might take a bit longer than anticipated, but finding a job is holding just as true, so I got the time. Just so I don’t sound insane and obsessed, I do job search during the day and do other things. This kind of stuff mainly gets done between the time good TV ends and when I go to sleep. A sizable amount of time, mind you, so I can get a lot done.

When I find that special team, it’ll all be worth it. I was laughing as I typed that. I bet all this isn’t worth shit. Ha.

postsecret for the soul October 4, 2008

I think in this whole big world of new technology and the dwindling feeling of a private life has taken its toll on everyone, including me. I talk to myself constantly, due to boredom and the dog is one hell of a listener but I always feel like I’m being watched. Like everyone around me always knows everything without me even telling them. I guess that’s my own brand of paranoia but everyone has it. One thing that I find to be super anonymous and private and that I love is post secret. I have contemplated sending in bounds and bounds of postcards but never do, thinking my secrets aren’t life threatening or even life-changing. In the big picture, they probably are but I always put myself on the back burner. I’m no martyr but I’m not all about throwing myself out there either. I guess my paranoia also leads me to believe someone would follow me to the mailbox and figure it out, or it will get posted and immediately I’ll get a message saying “I know it was you”. So I’m fascinated by these people that are so brave.

I normally read through every Sunday, maybe two or three times to see what comments were great enough to be posted between the secrets. For some reason last Sunday I was struck to read the comments at the end of the entry. I mean there’s always hundreds, maybe I’m missing something. I started reading and was so shocked at what I saw. I always figured the people reading post secret were open people, mostly adults with worldly views of things. It was to my dismay I saw comments that insulted the artists of these postcards. Telling them their secrets were bad and wrong. That what they believe and cannot help is disgusting. That they’re sick and twisted for enjoying things. I was angry for all the people that sent in postcards and was heartbroken as well.

What if that was mine? What if it was my secret that these hundreds of people are saying wrong and bad and I should take a good look at myself because I’m a disgusting individual? I don’t know what I would do. People send in these postcards to get their secrets off their chests and if all goes well, find sympathy is the people that see it when posted. They know that these things they’re writing are wrong and maybe even shameful, but that’s why they are secrets and are sent in anonymously. As sort of therapy to move on, and maybe even to see that their secret doesn’t even have to be a secret at all, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. To see people bashing them, to get on their high horse behind a computer screen to judge someone that was courageous enough to let the world know what he or she thinks is outrageous.

If you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all. This old saying is supremely lost on the internet. And it is turning our world into a very cruel one. It is easy to judge when no one can see your flaws. It is easy to hate when no one has any evidence to hate you. There is definitely some love, but it is few and far in between the haters. This place can make anything intensely personal, wide-spread and well known in hours. And for these people to do that means something. They want sympathy and empathizers (I know, not a word). They want to feel validated that they are not alone! Just one person saying, “ME TOO!” could turn their life around. And instead of telling that person that it’s okay we all have our faults, people choose to belittle the people that are giving them entertainment. It’s weird to say that postsecret is entertaining but also much more. And everyone posted doesn’t care about the entertainment value they want to feel that much more.

I guess seeing this is an eye opening experience for me. Silly me, assuming people that have the world at their fingertips would have progressive minds. Maybe seeing everything the world has to offer has pigeon-holes some people. Seeing all these things they don’t like has just set them in their ways. Modern day Strom Thurman’s perhaps? Too little information makes you ignorant, too much information makes you..feign ignorance. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just always been one of those people that rolls with the punches. If it floats your boat, go for it. Maybe I’m just too open and non-existant standards for a human being are too progressive for the rest of the world.

I’m probably guilty of a crude comment toward people I don’t know in my youth. I’m actually quite sure of it. But I grew out of it. Maybe all those people on the postsecret comments just have to grow out of it. Maybe a few more Sundays and they’ll see how unwarranted their mean and hurtful comments were and they’ll take it back. Maybe, it’s those comments that made me grow up and see what I was doing. Maybe I’ll chalk what I read up to internet growing pains. Maybe.