View My Seats

At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

September, September

by

September, September how I long for you so. With your much cooler temperatures and your skies so blue.

September, September how I loathe you so. For ending our summers and postponing our dreams of new adventures and old friends.

September, September how I admire you so. Your classrooms bursting with optimism and your trees full of change.

September, September how I fear you so. The tic toc of the office clock never stops as an omnipresent indication of the indefatigable passing of time.

September, September how I enjoy you. Indoors or outdoors, on sofas or mountains, you account for vices both pure and idle.

September, September how I hate you so. For lost weekends of football, weddings and back to school events.

September, September how I love you so. With beauty and grace you offer fresh starts and moments of reflection and appreciation. For all that we want. All that we miss. And all that we have.

 

 

 

A Heart of Saturday Darkness

by

Saturdays in the fall are supposed to be spent outside under a canopy of colorful foliage not indoors on the sofa staring at hypnotically pixelated images of swamps and groves.

Look up at the screen long enough and soon the son of God will appear, arms held high above his golden dome, imploring you to join him on his quest for eternal Saturday salvation.

And remember this, there is not a house big enough on this temporal plain to contain all the lost souls traveling from rocky top to rose bowl searching for that ever elusive answer to weekend.

Incidentally, how many death valleys can one stomach stand before the belly overflows with enough BBQ tailgating goodness to feed an army of ancient warriors marching towards the colosseum?

It’s not too late however to embrace mother nature before father time takes its toll and you’re no longer able to tell the difference between blue sky and blue turf.

 

A Too Real Not To Be Real Conversation Between Ralph and a Football Coach

by

“Drop and give me ten!” yells the misanthropic football coach with tobacco juice dribbling down the side of his mouth like a rabid dog.

“No, no I don’t believe I will,” replies Ralph the team’s requisite conscientious objector.

“What do you mean?” asks the increasingly befuddled coach who on the surface appears about as comfortable wrestling with logic as he would a greased pig at the county fair.

“It’s too hot for unnecessary and purely punitive calisthenics,” begins the sturdy as ever school boy. “If I were to continue exerting myself in these conditions I simply do not believe that my body would be able to regulate its core temperature satisfactorily enough as to avoid such cataclysmic health events like heat stroke or a heart attack.” [Read more…]

Republicans Ride Rust Belt To Ruin

by

Cleveland calling. Time for these Republican wing nuts to lace up the wing tips and debate the issues that matter most. Unfortunately for the future of our country, and those of us who long for a reasonable choice come 2016, Thursday’s script has already been written as the 10 candidates will likely consume most of the airspace with jingoistic jargon and disengaging populist policies in the hopes of appealing to a wide swath of undecided primary voters when in reality their xenophobic musings will reach only the very narrow fringes of American society.

So then, why not address the audience in Cleveland about something that really matters to them? Like sports. And if it’s Rust Belt rage these politicians hope to channel then they would be wise to direct some of that vitriol across the Great Lakes at Canada and those fine, friendly folks from Ontario because, in case you haven’t noticed, Toronto has been stockpiling American athletic assets faster than Tehran can get their hands on weapons grade plutonium.

Years ago, the Buffalo Bills flirted with a permanent relocation to Toronto until realizing that their fan base was unwilling to take the plunge across Niagara Falls. Now this summer tensions have really ratcheted up with our neighbors to the north as Detroit especially has been purged of star players and coaches like David Price to the Blue Jays and Mike Babcock to the Maple Leafs leaving behind a massive void of talent and respectability. Who’s next, LeBron James? Forget about the Russians, maybe it’s the Raptors that the Rust Belt really needs to be worrying about because those jurassic era dinosaurs are coming on fiercer than a Drake diss track.

Winter is coming and unless Donald Trump has a plan to build more towers along the shores of Lake Erie it won’t be long before these white walkers can wrap their icy fingers around all of America’s most beloved all-stars.