For the last few weeks, I’ve been chomping at the bit for something to get worked up about and post about. I mean it doesn’t take much, but I’ve found the current storylines swirling around here in Buffalo have been so meaningless, so trivial, that to try and put some 1,000 word diatribe about them would be so transparently fraudulent - not to mention really difficult for me to do - that it would frankly unbecoming of me. I don’t have many standards when it comes to what I’ll write about, but faux-outrage (copyright: national media, November 2011) - or blatant trolling if you will - is the lowest point of blogging you can reach (Ed. Note: We've all been there). I’d rather read hot takes on what the French Connection statue should look like, or an in-depth post on whoever the other punter in Bills camp is. Vince Young? Who cares? Tarvaris Jackson? Ditto. The NHL lockout? That’ll be worth discussion in a month, when the first slew of games have been cancelled but for now, the two sides are speaking so far past each other they can’t even bother being insulted, and neither should we. Shane Doan? My once raging doaner is now flaccid and sad.
The Outlander For the last few weeks, I’ve been chomping at the bit for something to get worked up about and post about. I mean it doesn’t take much, but I’ve found the current storylines swirling around here in Buffalo have been so meaningless, so trivial, that to try and put some 1,000 word diatribe about them would be so transparently fraudulent - not to mention really difficult for me to do - that it would frankly unbecoming of me. I don’t have many standards when it comes to what I’ll write about, but faux-outrage (copyright: national media, November 2011) - or blatant trolling if you will - is the lowest point of blogging you can reach (Ed. Note: We've all been there). I’d rather read hot takes on what the French Connection statue should look like, or an in-depth post on whoever the other punter in Bills camp is. Vince Young? Who cares? Tarvaris Jackson? Ditto. The NHL lockout? That’ll be worth discussion in a month, when the first slew of games have been cancelled but for now, the two sides are speaking so far past each other they can’t even bother being insulted, and neither should we. Shane Doan? My once raging doaner is now flaccid and sad. The one place I didn’t expect to provide inspiration was my baseball team, the pitiful (go ahead, drink that word in) Boston Red Sox. I wrote about them some thirty games into the season (respectful post on the Youk notwithstanding) and until a week or so ago, nothing had changed. They still sucked ass, their roster was still filled with a bunch of egomaniacal tools and, frankly, why subject you, our refined readers, to Red Sox garbage when this baseball season has been so captivating otherwise. God knows you’ve had enough shoved down your throat by ESPN about Pedroia v. Bobby V, and “can they turn it around” crap that attempted to take you away from the Pirates (!?!), the Nats (!!), the A’s (!!) and R.A. Dickey that I felt no need to pile on. You deserve a summer without Red Sox talk, and with the team wallowing in mediocrity, what better summer than this one?
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The Scizz Last season, in an effort to get myself excited about writing weekly previews for a Buffalo Bills team I knew would suck, I decided to name each week's post and theme after a corresponding quote from one of DGWU Sports favorite movies, The Big Lebowski. The Apologist helped me out in the venture, and although we missed a few weeks (especially late in the season when talking about the Bills hurt like a rectal examination), it overall proved to not only be successful for us, but also a whole lotta fun. So in the same manner as last year, I have decided to write this year's Bills previews based on quotes from another cinematic gem. However, for some God forsaken reason I have decided to let you, the reader, choose what film (or television show) I will use as my basis for writing these previews. Below is a nifty little survey, aka online poll (giggity), that you can take to help me out. Whatever the reader's choose will be what I stick with through all 17 weeks. Or at least week 13, which is when the Bills will inevitable crush our souls again and be eliminated from playoff contention. HOPE! I was also going to include Goodfellas, but I wasn't sure if I could get the Bills Mafia Don's blessing.
Feel free to drop other suggestions in the comment section. Go Bills? The Barrister
If you’re a sports fan, weekends can be a magical/utterly depressing time as you get to enjoy/loathe your teams without the burdens of work (presumably), only to have Monday come around with your outlook on the week unreasonably shaped by how things played out. When the Bills beat the Pats last September, work was great, if very hungover, on Monday morning. Anything seemed possible. On the other hand, when the Sabres drop a back-to-back against the Leafs over a weekend (I’m sure it’s happened at some point, probably several times), Monday feels like garbage. Everything is lost. Living in New York City helps with this a bit, since I can blend in with the plebeian masses and keep my more hideous sports allegiances hidden for a few days if need be. But, pathetic, emotionally-wrecked mess of a human that I am, I tend to wallow a little. This weekend was a mixed bag, with the Mets winning a pair, the Bills looking like a hot turd sandwich with a side of miscommunicated routes, and both Liverpool and the Red Bulls leaving two points on the pitch with depressing draws. All of which is to say that I’ve certainly felt worse on a Monday, but, as you'll see after the jump, I still don’t feel at all close to good. The Deeg In this episode of the CrapTastiCast the guys gathered in Brooklyn and actually talked a little about Buffalo sports! The first segment includes discussions about the Bills this pre-season and how our high hopes may not be as high as we originally thought. The Yachtsman also takes some not so subtle potshots at a certain fan organization. Later in the segment there is a very heated argument about the Shane Doan contract offer that eventually turns into front office and coach bashing. The second segment belongs solely to the Apologist, as he recounts step-by-step his encounter with some NYC youths recently in the streets at 3:30 AM. Yup, he got mugged. We took this opportunity to make him tell us the entire story. FUN! The final segment is mostly a recap of Watkins Glen, which you may have noticed we didn't have a roadcast CrapTastiCast from. We explain. Musical breaks are from Pantera, M.O.P., and close friend of the podcast, Dr. Ooo. As always, head over to Libsyn to check out our podcast page and make sure you download the cast from iTunes or stream from below. The Barrister, feat. Scizz, Outlander and the Apologist
Shawne Merriman. No longer a Buffalo Bill. Coming off a long and tiring weekend of prep for the birth of my child, I was considering penning a piece on fatherhood and sports and my anxiety level and my fear of becoming a shell of my former self once the sleep deprivation hits. I may still get into that at some point before or soon after Baby Barrister makes his way into the world, but not today. Ripping on a has-been/maybe-never-would-have-been-without-the-juice and the similarly has-been/maybe-never-would-have-been-without-the-Juice-or-Jimbo team that employed him is way more fun. See what I did there? It’s only Monday and I’m already bringing the awesome. Science made Merriman a great player. And science probably should have told One Bills Drive that Merriman couldn’t be a great player after being robbed of his special sauce and the behemoth abilities it brought him. Steroids help with recovery time, avoiding injuries, getting unreasonably huge. Without them, Merriman showed himself to be incapable of keeping up with the game. His “Lights Out” dances seem delightfully quaint now, like a high school player celebrating his dominance against a ten year old kid half his size. You didn’t earn it, Shawne, and you couldn’t hack it when the playing field was leveled. The Bills, for their part, look not just a little bit like they're wiping a $3 million egg off their face. Ugh. The Barrister
Lost in the haze of last night's epic USMNT win at the Azteca was the circus, clown shoes shenanigans of Dusty Baker, as the Reds manager chose gamesmanship over common sense, and gave Mets fans another reason to hate his stupid, fat face. Up 1-0 in the second inning against my lowly Mets, Baker successfully prodded the umpire to instruct RA Dickey to remove two bracelets from his wrist. Two bracelets that had been given to him by his daughters before he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro last winter, and which he has worn in every one of his magical starts this season - not to mention his All Star Game innings earlier this summer. Dickey complied - how couldn't he - later conceding that, well, rules are rules. Dickey would go on to give up three homers and the Mets lost 6-1. Advantage DB, I guess. The Yachtsman 7,200 feet above sea level. Six tiers of unmitigated, raucous hell. An All - Seater in name only, with barely raised benches in the style of old Football Fortresses/Deathtraps The Ibrox, Old Wembley, and Parc Des Princes. It is the only stadium to hold two World Cup Finals, professional home of Club America, and spiritual/actual home of our most hated rival, El Tri. Behold, Estadio Azteca. 0-23-1. That's the Yanks record in Mexico since we started to think seriously about having a footy squad Stateside in 1984. We haven't elected to do a friendly match there in almost 30 years. We've NEVER beaten them in the Azteca. IF YOU HAVEN'T FIGURED IT OUT YET WE ARE SCAREDY PANTS NANCY BOYS WHEN IT COMES TO PLAYING MEXICO IN THEIR BACKYARD. Jurgen Klinsmann, our fearless leader and participant in some of Europe's greatest Professional and National rivalries, has decided it's time to make our boys sack up and face the music at the Azteca, tournaments be damned (If the previous USMNT administration had their druthers, they would wait until the very last dying minute with a gun to their heads to play at The Azteca and ONLY if it was for a FIFA sanctioned tournament).
The Barrister
A simple point for today: Fuck Tim Tebow and a pox on ESPN for taking today's 25th anniversary of the only time he touched a vagina and making it into an insufferable blow fest. I don't watch ESPN's morning programming, mind you, so I can't pretend to claim that their coverage of this non-event ruined my day or that I am now hoarse from raging at my television over coffee and Cheerios. Even that distance from ESPN's influence, however, is not enough to keep my blood pressure in check as I learned about the Birthday Boy focus of both SportsCenter and First Take this morning. No, it's not surprising. And yes, I shouldn't get angry about it because there are certainly better things to do with my time. Ah well. Priorities. The Scizz
It's that time of the year again. The Deeg gather up a hefty quantity of beer, whiskey, and camping supplies, hide what little dignity we have left, and make the four and a half hour trek to the Finger Lakes for a NASCAR weekend at Watkins Glen. Last year, I previewed the event with some background on the international speedway event, which you can find right here. We also recorded a roadcast version of the CrapTastiCast that you can check out. So, instead of re-hashing the same intelligence from 2011, I decided I'd use this space to recap last year's events before giving you a brief preview of the actual race. To the bullet points! The Outlander
In my mind, there is no time that both brings ex-pat’s together and makes them long for home like the start of football season. If you’re away at a decent sized college really anywhere east of the Mississippi, that might mean befriending the only Buffalonian in your class, even if that person is someone kind of strange you’d never hang out with on a regular basis. As an adult, this means heading down to the Bills bar in your new home -- or if your town doesn’t have one -- heading to the bar in town in your Bills jersey to show off your true identity as a Western New Yorker. I feel like at the start of the season, these games (which, when it comes down to it, are meaningless to everyone except the front office) are more meaningful to those living outside the area because it gives them a chance to identify with their hometown in a way that they can’t sitting around at the office or with their friends. I can certainly say, as a former ex-pat, that those games have additional meaning when you’re back home to embrace them again. There are many reasons people leave the area, but the most common I believe, outside of going away to college, is for a career. This is when it comes down to black and white numbers and, as an adult, numbers really dictate everything. I was no different, although while my reasons were both logical in this way, they were completely misguided in others. I didn’t go to New York, or Boston, or DC, or Charlotte, or any of the outposts that gain a sizeable Buffalonian contingent with their own watering holes and other ex-pats to make friends with. No, I went to Montpelier, Vermont, and the first time I ever saw the town in person was when I showed up for the bar exam with everything I owned already packed away in my car (research!). You see, there are no Bills bars; there are only four bars. The only time people approached me was when they thought my Bills hat was a Giants hat. I realized only a couple weeks in, when these meaningless games started, that unlike most ex-pats, the Bills games (and later the Sabres games) would not provide an opportunity for me to feel immersed in the fandamonium back home, but would make me feel even more isolated. Of course, this was a reasonable observation any of my friends made leading up to my relocation, but what can I say: when The Outlander makes a decision, HE MAKES A DECISION, no matter how absurdly detrimental to the long term. I just noticed I could have described George W. Bush with that statement so I’m going to go throw up real quick. |
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