random thoughts - Friday September 17

I've been trying to write more at this blog, but it always seems like it's forgotten about when I have lots of things to do and not enough time to get everything done. As I've heard from many writers, the process of determining when writing happens is often outside the author's control. You write when the inspiration hits, but sometimes you have to help things by scheduling some time.

So my goal is to now write each Friday for as long or as short as possible, talking about whatever strikes me in sports. While this might put some of the creative juices on overdrive, I am finding that if I wait for the inspiration it's often lost before I get the time to put something down. Granted, I can still write whenever I want when the mood strikes, but putting it on the schedule might just help things out. So without further delay, here we go.

..Portland is most certainly a football town even though we don't have a major team in town. High school football rules the roost on Friday nights, as every news station in town devotes lots of time covering the game, while Saturdays the college game rules all throughout town. If we simply wanted to pick a city that should have NFL based upon fans, Portland would be right up there. I have to admit my love of the game has been rekindled a bit lately as I can now watch a game or two on Sundays after spending many years of my single life watching lots of football all the time. Sometimes you have to step back from something to gain appreciation for it...

...The biggest news in the NFL is the conduct of the New York Jets in relation to a female reporter that came to interview a player. Apparently, the old boys network struck when the reporter showed up in what looked like club ware, and men behaved like men in trying to protect their clubhouse from the icky girls. The discussion after the fact has been centered upon which person or group was more at fault, and really that part is straight forward. While NFL players need to treat the media respectfully no matter who they are, its important that the media act, dress and behave professionally as well. What bothers me most about this situation is that it reminds me of how celebrity is gained in our day. People used to be famous for something they did, but now celebrity is such an important accomplishment for some, many don't care what they have to do to gain it. It just reinforces the idea that attention in any form is worth the cost, and I don't like to admit that's where we are heading. But then again, just spend some time watching reality television, and that just tells you what people will do for their fifteen minutes of fame…

I finally watched Idiocracy a few weekends ago, the forgotten Mike Judge movie that much like Office Space went into theatres and didn't stay very long. However, the movie has gained some traction in viewing on basic cable, and the premise of the film is something that really stuck with me. The premise of the movie is an exceptionally average guy ends up being cryogenically frozen and wakes up 500 years in the future, and ends up being the smartest man on the planet as our society has fallen upon hard times. The world 500 years from now has become a cultural wasteland, as intelligence has been replaced by the opposite. I wished I could say that we aren't moving closer to this reality, but maybe this movie is prophetic…

I'm already tired of Trail Blazers talk as the season hasn't even started. I'm sure the expectations are huge as we have a wonderful collection of players, but until this team can learn to play together and stay healthy, I can't see them doing anything more than just being a competitive team. And if that was the only thing this group accomplished by just making sure that the core of that bunch stayed healthy and could play games, I think you could call the upcoming season a huge success regardless of the result…

Will West Ham score a point this season? I don't know, but it certainly seems like the soccer gods are upset with this bunch for some reason. But being a West Ham fan is like following the Trail Blazers or the old Denver Broncos team before they won Super Bowls. They could be the best team around, but there would always be something to cause them to crash to the earth, and whatever it was, it would be spectacularly awesome….

We'll see you all next Friday.