Notes from the weekend
I don't have an overarching theme today, just some disconnected thoughts about the past weekend. If you'll be so kind as to indulge me; if not, I'll just write this crap for myself.
- The game I attended on Saturday was, naturally, VA Tech vs. Northeastern. Have I mentioned how embarrassing our out of conference schedule is this year? On tap we have Northeastern, Cincinatti, Kent State and Southern Miss. Even if we were good enough to contend for the title, our schedule would leave us out of all but the most favorable BCS contingencies.
- Sean Glennon's numbers (15-18, 222 yards, 3 TD and 1 INT) looked fine but don't be fooled - Glennon looked much worse than that. He fits every stereotype of a white quarterback - when he runs for a 2-yard gain his effort level is about the same as when an average running quarterback gains about 10 yards. His throws miss the mark more often than not, but he gets bailed out by his receivers. Maybe he was just working out the jitters (this was his first extended game experience) but if he doesn't improve, things are going to be bad for the Hokie offense against real teams.
- I don't mean to constantly harp on how much ESPN Radio sucks, but a certain morning show host that I hate with the white-hot intensity of a million suns went into one of his comfort zones today that absolutely makes me want to stab a homeless man with a bread knife: The "pit football against baseball and see which is more popular" bit. First, I know a lot of sports fans and pretty much to a man they are capable of being fans of both sports. Second, one of the arguments used against baseball is that once football season (college and pro being lumped into one catch-all category, even though they have distinct fan-bases) starts, baseball gets dumped on the side of the road by most sports fans outside of (ESPN BIAS ALERT! ESPN BIAS ALERT!) New York and Boston. This ignores the fact that historically (and not just since Bud Selig's reign of terror) most teams are out of the running by the beginning of September, giving most fans little reason to hang on to the scrap of the regular season left. It should also be pointed out that football (college and pro) doesn't have to directly compete against any other major sport as they limp to the finish line in December - the NBA starts in October so that by the time football teams are slotted into postseason spots, the NBA is already in the midst of its painfully long regular season, and the excitement of the season's beginning is already a distant memory. If the schedule was reversed, and MLB started its season around the beginning of December, plenty of NFL fans following 3, 4 and 5-win teams would abandon the sport for baseball.
- Also on ESPN Radio, Michael Irvin did his usual shuck-and-jive on the Dan Patrick Show, and I bet you can guess the topic. Okay, got your answer? You were close - he wasn't specifically talking about TO, but he WAS talking about how every wide receiver ever is underpaid and should continue to hold out until they're given unlimited supplies of fur coats, tasteful jackets and crack vials as far as the eye can see. Or something like that. Anyway, he stopped boogalooing long enough to make one lucid point - Brett Favre has been hearing "can't" so long that he's incapable of distinguishing constructive criticism from meanspirited bashing, and that's why he's suiting up for the Packers in 2006. Brett's not a silver spoon guy like, say, Peyton Manning - he had to settle for playing at Southern Miss, got drafted in the 2nd round by a 2nd rate organization that unceremoniously dumped him on what was then another 2nd rate organization, and constantly had to prove himself with the Packers before they learned to trust him. So now, when people around him tell him that maybe he should think about quitting, he's too hardened to listen to them. I don't mean to make this into some sort of Horatio Alger story - Brett's got many more athletic gifts than most of us - but he has had to learn to fight for what he has, and when you and I and everyone else knows that the Packers are terrible and Brett is a big part of the problem, he is simply incapable of hearing it objectively. This year will probably be frustrating enough that he'll finally make the right decision after the season.
- I realize that pretty much everyone on the face of the earth has, by this point, agreed that Oasis were a huge piece of shit all along and we were fools to be suckered in by them in the first place, but I watched the video for "Live Forever" on The Alternative last night and they still fascinate me. That song has one of the most kick-ass drum openings of all time; if you were hearing it for the first time, you'd listen to that and think man, this is about to seriously fucking rock. And then Liam starts singing and it's that grating Mancunian accent singing sub-Stone Roses psychedelic crap and you're incredibly disappointed. But then the song clears the first verse and goes into the bridge and you think, again, here is their chance to really knock out a strong chorus and save this song but no, they fizzle out into the "You and I/Are gonna live forevahhhhhh" lyric and you take the CD outside and fill it with buckshot. That song describes them in a nutshell - they had all the trappings of a really good rock and roll band (hardscrabble upbringing in working-class English town, a dangerously antagonistic relationship both amongst the band and between band and audience, a songwriter with an ear for melody) and they seemed good at first but once you start to get into the meat of the song you realized that they were creepily obsessed with their influences to the point that it kept them from pitching their own tent, so that all of their music is filtered through the mealy-mouthed psychedelia of the death rattle of Madchester. Oasis didn't want to be The Beatles, since they were astute enough to realize that no one really wants a "New Beatles" to ever come along; who they really wanted to be was the Stone Roses, but they came along about 5 years too late and ended up sounding derivative. It goes without saying that derivative music ages particularly badly because it lacks the courage of its convictions, having borrowed them directly from others.
(Seriously, Liam? Enough with the scarves.)
Edit: Here's the video, if you're curious -
- The game I attended on Saturday was, naturally, VA Tech vs. Northeastern. Have I mentioned how embarrassing our out of conference schedule is this year? On tap we have Northeastern, Cincinatti, Kent State and Southern Miss. Even if we were good enough to contend for the title, our schedule would leave us out of all but the most favorable BCS contingencies.
- Sean Glennon's numbers (15-18, 222 yards, 3 TD and 1 INT) looked fine but don't be fooled - Glennon looked much worse than that. He fits every stereotype of a white quarterback - when he runs for a 2-yard gain his effort level is about the same as when an average running quarterback gains about 10 yards. His throws miss the mark more often than not, but he gets bailed out by his receivers. Maybe he was just working out the jitters (this was his first extended game experience) but if he doesn't improve, things are going to be bad for the Hokie offense against real teams.
- I don't mean to constantly harp on how much ESPN Radio sucks, but a certain morning show host that I hate with the white-hot intensity of a million suns went into one of his comfort zones today that absolutely makes me want to stab a homeless man with a bread knife: The "pit football against baseball and see which is more popular" bit. First, I know a lot of sports fans and pretty much to a man they are capable of being fans of both sports. Second, one of the arguments used against baseball is that once football season (college and pro being lumped into one catch-all category, even though they have distinct fan-bases) starts, baseball gets dumped on the side of the road by most sports fans outside of (ESPN BIAS ALERT! ESPN BIAS ALERT!) New York and Boston. This ignores the fact that historically (and not just since Bud Selig's reign of terror) most teams are out of the running by the beginning of September, giving most fans little reason to hang on to the scrap of the regular season left. It should also be pointed out that football (college and pro) doesn't have to directly compete against any other major sport as they limp to the finish line in December - the NBA starts in October so that by the time football teams are slotted into postseason spots, the NBA is already in the midst of its painfully long regular season, and the excitement of the season's beginning is already a distant memory. If the schedule was reversed, and MLB started its season around the beginning of December, plenty of NFL fans following 3, 4 and 5-win teams would abandon the sport for baseball.
- Also on ESPN Radio, Michael Irvin did his usual shuck-and-jive on the Dan Patrick Show, and I bet you can guess the topic. Okay, got your answer? You were close - he wasn't specifically talking about TO, but he WAS talking about how every wide receiver ever is underpaid and should continue to hold out until they're given unlimited supplies of fur coats, tasteful jackets and crack vials as far as the eye can see. Or something like that. Anyway, he stopped boogalooing long enough to make one lucid point - Brett Favre has been hearing "can't" so long that he's incapable of distinguishing constructive criticism from meanspirited bashing, and that's why he's suiting up for the Packers in 2006. Brett's not a silver spoon guy like, say, Peyton Manning - he had to settle for playing at Southern Miss, got drafted in the 2nd round by a 2nd rate organization that unceremoniously dumped him on what was then another 2nd rate organization, and constantly had to prove himself with the Packers before they learned to trust him. So now, when people around him tell him that maybe he should think about quitting, he's too hardened to listen to them. I don't mean to make this into some sort of Horatio Alger story - Brett's got many more athletic gifts than most of us - but he has had to learn to fight for what he has, and when you and I and everyone else knows that the Packers are terrible and Brett is a big part of the problem, he is simply incapable of hearing it objectively. This year will probably be frustrating enough that he'll finally make the right decision after the season.
- I realize that pretty much everyone on the face of the earth has, by this point, agreed that Oasis were a huge piece of shit all along and we were fools to be suckered in by them in the first place, but I watched the video for "Live Forever" on The Alternative last night and they still fascinate me. That song has one of the most kick-ass drum openings of all time; if you were hearing it for the first time, you'd listen to that and think man, this is about to seriously fucking rock. And then Liam starts singing and it's that grating Mancunian accent singing sub-Stone Roses psychedelic crap and you're incredibly disappointed. But then the song clears the first verse and goes into the bridge and you think, again, here is their chance to really knock out a strong chorus and save this song but no, they fizzle out into the "You and I/Are gonna live forevahhhhhh" lyric and you take the CD outside and fill it with buckshot. That song describes them in a nutshell - they had all the trappings of a really good rock and roll band (hardscrabble upbringing in working-class English town, a dangerously antagonistic relationship both amongst the band and between band and audience, a songwriter with an ear for melody) and they seemed good at first but once you start to get into the meat of the song you realized that they were creepily obsessed with their influences to the point that it kept them from pitching their own tent, so that all of their music is filtered through the mealy-mouthed psychedelia of the death rattle of Madchester. Oasis didn't want to be The Beatles, since they were astute enough to realize that no one really wants a "New Beatles" to ever come along; who they really wanted to be was the Stone Roses, but they came along about 5 years too late and ended up sounding derivative. It goes without saying that derivative music ages particularly badly because it lacks the courage of its convictions, having borrowed them directly from others.
(Seriously, Liam? Enough with the scarves.)
Edit: Here's the video, if you're curious -
posted by Craig at 12:02 PM
4 Comments:
Lyle wins Oasis: http://www.achewood.com/?date=07142003
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nice point about Brett Favre, but you missed one thing. I don't think there is a single person in the state of Wisconsin that wanted him to retire. Not only is the entire state obsessed with everything Favre, but their were many billboards put up begging him to come back for one more season. The people in Wisconsin actually believe their team has a chance at winning it all this year, as long as Brett Favre and not Aaron Brooks is running the team. I suspect that played a role in his decision.
That and making a run at the all time TDs record.
-turk
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