So Dawson turns to Pink and asks him that at the edge of the football stadium. And in asking him that, it covers the night they just had. The school year they just had. And, most importantly, how the future (at least in the short term) will be.
In the land of Pacific Gold, what you do for a living is the second question when you meet someone. This is after "nice to meet you" or "oh, you bought the whisky" or "you were sleeping on the couch." When I said where I worked that's usually all it took. They knew of the companies, and that ended that. No one would ask any other questions, except girls at a bar because they figure you're buying from here on out.
For over eight years I was doing the same old shit. It was a job that many TV executives had at some point to get the experience to move on. Only, I noticed as time was moving that I wasn't moving on. I'd switch companies, but it was the same thing. One day earlier this year a bolt of knowledge hit my brain like a soft pillow: you're doing the same thing you were doing eight years ago, except you're paid a hell of a lot more. I stopped and realized that only one factor was going good - my wallet. My brain was the one starving.
Mind you, this was the WRONG place to be for a starving brain. And I can tell you this because I have been in the thick of it for this long - TV networks fear change. They fear it like being told they no longer are relevant (which is getting closer to being each day). They only know one way, and when that one way begins to fade, there's steep wallowing in failure. And even then, in those sour days, change does not come. Part of the reason why I went to this network (one that wanted you to stay at home for one week and watch all their shows but you were free to do whatever you wanted for the rest of the season) was that I was to be a part of the changing of late night programming. It never happened, and it wasn't ever close to happening. It was by no means a failure of anyone in my department. It was people who would have to accept that change and quite possibly become a victim of it.
Am I the victim now that I have left? I was inside, trying to change things for the better and found otherwise. New ideas were met with Disney-approved "performance plans" where you filled out countless surveys on your own work. Instead of testing new formats, I spent an afternoon letting a cartoon character tell me that checking mail on Yahoo is not approved Internet use. Oh, I think I made the right choice, don't you? Almost three years to the day (and documented here on the Gold) I walked out, happier than when I entered. That is sad. But it is also good, because I've, in the words of a wise man "had enough of the bullshit." It's time to live life.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Sports In The Heartland
The thing is, I'm not a masochist. Despite efforts to brand me as such, I enjoy giving pain as much as I enjoy taking it. I don't fit in with the pre-judged idea of a misery-seeking fan. I have priorities, and I have class. Used to be, I could look my teams square in the eye and level them up. A Wyse Old Owl once told me "He's an asshole, but he's a straight shooter, so I can't fault him". Goddamned right. I couldn't fault those teams of the past.
This ain't the past.
I see the future spinning away, lost in a vortex of pain and failed promises, the only hope being that management will Figure It Out, and that's not likely.
Let's just recap, shall we?
KG, Santana, Hunter and Favre. Gone within 14 months of each other. Nothing left to say, open sores, wounds that shouldn't heal.
To run it down, KG was the worst, followed by Santana, then Brett, then Big T. Excuses for each become heavier as you go on, but they never make sense. You can only replace Good Players with Good Players... you can't replace them with "cap relief". You'll win 20 games that way. Or 22, if you're the Timberwolves, and you catch Indiana on a day they don't care.
To begin, there ceases to exist a professional basketball team in this territory. They forfeited that on July 30, 2007. They gave up any claim they ever have to being a franchise, they traded away the only thing they had ever done right, they erased everything they had ever accomplished. They took a Good, and replaced it with a Walking Shit-heap. The destruction of the franchise was complete, and now all that's left is the contraction or the relocation. This one isn't going to last long. I just read in the Local Paper that Corey Brewer had "added some weight" this offseason. Gee, I sure hope he also added some "ability to play basketball without urine streaming down his leg".
The college football equivalent of the Vikings is just that, a failing bumbling franchise bound to play the opening of TCF Stadium to a stadium 3 quarters full of Hawkeye fans. Their coach is comically bad - I've heard him described as "intense" which sounds to me like "screaming at everyone as I call fullback dive once again". I sure wish this team could return to prominence again, but by hiring Brewster, they've given a message to the rest of the Big Ten that they can go ahead and send out the punt team for that week on their schedule for the next few years.
Speaking of pigskin, something ain't right with this Green and Gold, and I ain't talking quarterback. The cornerback has a broken spleen, and we're about due for WR injuries to start mounting. Johnny Jolly is definitely Jolly, and it's only going to take 9 wins to take the Central, but still. When Jon Gruden does you where it don't feel good, it, well, doesn't feel good. At least the coach is respectably overweight.
Gopher basketball is going to come around, mark my fucking words.
I don't acknowledge that a pro hockey team plays here, so we can skip that. Besides all the account managers from Eden Prairie who are more than willing to drop 150 per game to see the fucking Blackhawks, the main problem with the Wild are that they have no continuity between seasons besides Marion Gaborik, who has a perpetually broken dick. They traded their goalie in the middle of the season and he went on to the Cup with Edmonton. So, I guess management has a few things to think about.
Speaking of ice, the Gopher Hockey team is laughingly underachieving. Holy Cross, gotta have some. It hasn't been this bad since Wooger. What, is Bemidji State going to sweep the home and home? Can we get Iowa Tech up here for a game? Minnesota State has passed them in the rankings, and that's not even a real school. When UMD is putting the screws to you every year, well, it's time for Lucia to cut that mop.
That brings us to the Minnesota Motherfucking.
This is how a team should be built, a quality franchise jettisoning players at the right time and constantly thinking two or three moves ahead of the rest of the league. While Baltimore and Cincinnati flail about in a desperate attempt to put together a team that can win more than 80 games, the Twins fall ass backwards into a starting rotation with an average age of 25 years old, and a centerfielder who doesn't know that when he's playing indoors there is no wind. Their manager chews more seeds than he chews his players' asses, and he chews more snoose than that. Big Red, and he takes it by the pouch. The Right Fielder slides into the base head first like a little dickhead, so they call up Pipe Hittin Gangster from AAA, and he becomes Rickey Fuck Henderson for 3 months, and just when Cuddles is ready to come back, he fouls a ball off his foot, which causes him to miss another two months, to which Pipe Hittin Gangster says "I'm going to sport this Ice Cube beard and hit triples to the opposite field because obviously I don't care anymore". The Twins, quite simply, won games because they tried harder than the other teams, which is actually a rarity in these parts. It's one of those things that makes me happy to watch... this season. Next year, it ain't going to be so easy. Who wants to make a bet on Span trying that hard next year? Kubel? Fuck that, it's time to get paid.
I wish I had more to say about this, but I'm fading into the volcano, and there's a whole lot of black between me and the core. I wish I had it figured out, but I'm just a stupid fan. I'm tied to these teams, and one run playoff losses cannot break the binds.
This ain't the past.
I see the future spinning away, lost in a vortex of pain and failed promises, the only hope being that management will Figure It Out, and that's not likely.
Let's just recap, shall we?
KG, Santana, Hunter and Favre. Gone within 14 months of each other. Nothing left to say, open sores, wounds that shouldn't heal.
To run it down, KG was the worst, followed by Santana, then Brett, then Big T. Excuses for each become heavier as you go on, but they never make sense. You can only replace Good Players with Good Players... you can't replace them with "cap relief". You'll win 20 games that way. Or 22, if you're the Timberwolves, and you catch Indiana on a day they don't care.
To begin, there ceases to exist a professional basketball team in this territory. They forfeited that on July 30, 2007. They gave up any claim they ever have to being a franchise, they traded away the only thing they had ever done right, they erased everything they had ever accomplished. They took a Good, and replaced it with a Walking Shit-heap. The destruction of the franchise was complete, and now all that's left is the contraction or the relocation. This one isn't going to last long. I just read in the Local Paper that Corey Brewer had "added some weight" this offseason. Gee, I sure hope he also added some "ability to play basketball without urine streaming down his leg".
The college football equivalent of the Vikings is just that, a failing bumbling franchise bound to play the opening of TCF Stadium to a stadium 3 quarters full of Hawkeye fans. Their coach is comically bad - I've heard him described as "intense" which sounds to me like "screaming at everyone as I call fullback dive once again". I sure wish this team could return to prominence again, but by hiring Brewster, they've given a message to the rest of the Big Ten that they can go ahead and send out the punt team for that week on their schedule for the next few years.
Speaking of pigskin, something ain't right with this Green and Gold, and I ain't talking quarterback. The cornerback has a broken spleen, and we're about due for WR injuries to start mounting. Johnny Jolly is definitely Jolly, and it's only going to take 9 wins to take the Central, but still. When Jon Gruden does you where it don't feel good, it, well, doesn't feel good. At least the coach is respectably overweight.
Gopher basketball is going to come around, mark my fucking words.
I don't acknowledge that a pro hockey team plays here, so we can skip that. Besides all the account managers from Eden Prairie who are more than willing to drop 150 per game to see the fucking Blackhawks, the main problem with the Wild are that they have no continuity between seasons besides Marion Gaborik, who has a perpetually broken dick. They traded their goalie in the middle of the season and he went on to the Cup with Edmonton. So, I guess management has a few things to think about.
Speaking of ice, the Gopher Hockey team is laughingly underachieving. Holy Cross, gotta have some. It hasn't been this bad since Wooger. What, is Bemidji State going to sweep the home and home? Can we get Iowa Tech up here for a game? Minnesota State has passed them in the rankings, and that's not even a real school. When UMD is putting the screws to you every year, well, it's time for Lucia to cut that mop.
That brings us to the Minnesota Motherfucking.
This is how a team should be built, a quality franchise jettisoning players at the right time and constantly thinking two or three moves ahead of the rest of the league. While Baltimore and Cincinnati flail about in a desperate attempt to put together a team that can win more than 80 games, the Twins fall ass backwards into a starting rotation with an average age of 25 years old, and a centerfielder who doesn't know that when he's playing indoors there is no wind. Their manager chews more seeds than he chews his players' asses, and he chews more snoose than that. Big Red, and he takes it by the pouch. The Right Fielder slides into the base head first like a little dickhead, so they call up Pipe Hittin Gangster from AAA, and he becomes Rickey Fuck Henderson for 3 months, and just when Cuddles is ready to come back, he fouls a ball off his foot, which causes him to miss another two months, to which Pipe Hittin Gangster says "I'm going to sport this Ice Cube beard and hit triples to the opposite field because obviously I don't care anymore". The Twins, quite simply, won games because they tried harder than the other teams, which is actually a rarity in these parts. It's one of those things that makes me happy to watch... this season. Next year, it ain't going to be so easy. Who wants to make a bet on Span trying that hard next year? Kubel? Fuck that, it's time to get paid.
I wish I had more to say about this, but I'm fading into the volcano, and there's a whole lot of black between me and the core. I wish I had it figured out, but I'm just a stupid fan. I'm tied to these teams, and one run playoff losses cannot break the binds.
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