Year's End

I dunno how they did it. The tension was killing me, how could the Patriots players maintain focus is unbelievable. They may say it doesn't stop here, and that's right, but its a bit more normal now. I say that now, but wha tha heck do I know. But guys? Next time you're thinking about an undefeated season warn me, okay? Right now I don't have health insurance and another undefeated run? Well, health insurance would be a necessity. The stress would about kill me off. Just one loss, early in the season would save me so much...

The record breaking pass to Moss was a beaute. Truely.

But I'm a mess. You know the idea of a voodoo doll you stick pins into and good things happen to you or whatever? I feel like a voodoo doll. Pity your fans guys... 16 and 0 isn't no regular deal for nobody. My hairs a mess my fingernails are ragged my body a bloated pastey beer flotsam and even my cat scratched me.

That Elliot poem about the world ended not with a bang but a whimper? He must've been a sports fan too. Its obviously not a statement from one in control... "I grow old I grow old I wear my trousers rolled..." Bellichick would cut them off. What cracks this pastey insignificant not even roadkill up is... Bellichick's hoodies are the most popular item in the Pats store. AND PEOPLE WANT THE SLEEVES ALREADY CUT OFF! geeze peoples.

Go Pats don't stop now! I'm flinching but ready with matted hair somewhat braided knobby fingers and toes crossed pretty much chapped elbows hooked on bar rail and braced for the squinted hope of.... more wins. This year. Next year. Do go on...

Waxing Philosophical

Here's my latest wax. Its a ring and not quite finished.... (yet again. There's something about the ability to post unfinished projects that is quite seductive. Like there is more potential somehow.... and also, you don't have to wait. And, well, eluberant hope might be lost in the casting.) The face of the ring is flattish, and almost 3/4" across. The model will be cast in silver, and if i LOVE it, it'll be recast in sterling silver. The salamander represents passionate love, and the daisies are innocence.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

"The NFL avoided a potential backlash by fans unable to watch the New England Patriots' attempt to complete a perfect regular season, announcing yesterday that the NFL Network's telecast of Saturday night's game between the Patriots and New York Giants also will be carried by NBC and CBS.

The nationwide simulcast will be the first of an NFL game since Super Bowl I, and it dissipates a controversy that had been building in recent weeks because the league-owned NFL Network had been scheduled to carry the game alone. It reaches only about 35 million U.S. households."


There is a happy feet video on youtube I really like. That's me. Right now. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Our Team

This just cracks me up. Really it does. The NFL and all sports franchises make money off of the concept of "our team," or "our players." And then they cry business and just leave us alone to make more money when the fans cry foul! Its not just a business, and they should know... 'CAUSE THAT'S HOW THEY MAKE MONEY! A fan wants to be able to watch THEIR team. When THEIR team is in a record setting season, a perfect so far season, a quarterback and receiver breaking records, they want to see the freakin' game. They are not viewing it as a business transaction.... If it were, they might not pay the bucks to go to Foxboro and watch a Patriots game. They might instead buy a sofa or get the car fixed or go to Disney land. I don't know how many people I've talked to that say oh I remember when the Pats were terrible... They've watched them over the years not out of "brand loyalty" but because its THEIR TEAM.

On top of this is the anti-trust exemption that the NFL (network? league?) has. I know when Bush built a new stadium for the Texas rangers, he did it with tax payers money. I do not know all the tax breaks and tax supported projects the NFL has enjoyed, but I do know they are choked with money. They are a billion dollar industry... that is a business... a hugely profitable business... that is acting like a spoilt child. I know I am not the most irritated fan over being denied access to the Pats Giants game this Saturday... Just look at the politicians getting involved! Their message boxes must be stuffed! But its like talking logic to a spoilt child... the child just does not get it. Just does not understand where you're coming from.... If the NFL wants to be treated like a "business" FINE! BUT LEMME SEE THE FREAKIN' GAME FIRST! Broadcast it? Like, in an accessible way?

Jeesh! and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU TOO!

Sketchbook scavanging

May Your Holidays be Charmed

&hearts
An exchange in the etsy forums reminded me of Christmases past. One Christmas in particular. It was when we lived in Bedford MA, and I was but a small blot. My brothers and myself (in I'm sure a squeaky supportive role as angst miester) had constructed a 3 story tree house. The 3rd story was a bit sketchy... in my sketchy memory... but what happened was painted like a Charles Dickens scene in my very small play dough mind...

SANTA KNOCKED THE TREE HOUSE DOWN! We woke up, Christmas morning, to find evidence of Santa's overdoing of the spiked milk and cookies in our back yard. There were sled tracks leading up to the shambles of our once proud and shakey edifice.... The tree house was pile on the ground, rather than a pile in the air. It was MAJIC!

I'm a middle aged lady, with a small though supportive beer belly (supportive of the Patriots, that is), and I've never really sought clarification on what happened that night, Christmas Eve, a million years ago. Not sure I want to. I don't know much about kids... but've heard different things like what you should tell them or not or whatever. But ya know? Sled marks to a smashed tree house rocked. Really. It was a fine silliness to believe in, for a while.

*oh. I forgot the clincher! Santa also left a note apologizing for knocking our tree house down. The stinker!

Games Played

Perhaps its been... overkill. (Perhaps????) Or my lack of previous exposure to following a sport that limits the landscape back drop to one seemingly like what was used in early western movies.... It's white hat black hat time. But. I REALLY DON'T THINK ITS MY PROBLEM. Its everyone elses' (*sigh*.) Watching the Pat's offense execute is GREAT! And when the defense pulls off a play its incredible. A possible undefeated season? It would be fantastic except I'm rather enamored of the idea of forcing NFL watchers to continue to listen to those '72 idiots.... (How can they continue to talk about their great season while the present day Dolphins tragedy unfolds? Have they no heart?)

But there is the "Hate-riots" thing. And. I dunno. I don't think the Patriots are handling it well. Energy is a tough thing. You can see it feel it but its a tough bug to nail. I actually think the response to the Patriots is similar to the political culture in the States right now and the living culture.... What I mean by living culture is disjointed consumerism, frantic belief clutching, and an undercurrent of fear that of course feeds into the belief and consumer noise. We, every freaking one of us, knows there are huge problems to be dealt with... Any animal, you threaten their territory and they freak. We, or at least I, may be a pulpy myopic poorly financed ineffectual out of shape listing mast of a wannabe human... but. (where was I?) In freakdom. These are the times of freakdom.

Which brings up a conversation I had with someone I don't know during the Pats Steelers game. As I've said before, I watch the Pats games at a bar... (that has its TVs waaaaay up! jeesh. good beer.) And. Drinking beer and you know how that goes... This fellow started going on about how the U.S. today is as fascist as the fascist governments of the 50's and 60's only now its the corporations dictating policy... (or something like that.) and I'm going on about how I think we are in the end stages of capitalism and a public that has been deluged with advertisements has difficulty discriminating between propaganda and information... (or something like that.) While both of us watch a game....

I think watching sports is a bit like pro-active nostalgia. GO PATS!

Lucky AND Good

Thankfully the Pats listened. (hehehehe.)

You know. I'm a bit new to this. The whole sports viewing/rooting kind of thing. It started a year or 2 before Brady was quarterback. I had a job in downtown Boston that I would get out of about 5:30-6 o'clock on Sunday. I'd head for the nearest bar and root for the loosing team of which ever football game was showing, and drink a couple of brews. I hated my job. Football and beer gave me a purge distance that helped... and then I got into watching the game itself. I really didn't root for the Pats until I moved to Rhode Island and Brady started quarterbacking. I have no knowledge to judge his quality of play.... he wins. But why I liked him at the first was that he made things happen. I think that is the core of what makes him great. The range of potential. He and others might look to stats, completions or whatever.... I think its still the potential that is what's important. Its what can be sensed in a player or a team... Its what gives a freak series of plays (SEE RAVEN'S GAME!!!) room to happen. They say you make your own luck. That could be open to debate. I do think you have something to say about potential....

This might be why people take sports so personally. When the team wins you are better... when the team looses... you loose. Whether you need the purge (wouldn't any teams' victory suit?), or the fulfilling of what you sense they might be able to do that, well, in some tangential universe, there is a potential you can don as easily as a purchased Brady jersey. Is living well a quality of limited viewing... well angled snapshots... or matching the player with the play.... And you the figure on the sidelines in a Hoodie. (An aside. This evening a lady that knew Bellichick's hoodie is the best selling item in the Pats store watched the game in the next barstool. (!))

And here I'll depart from psychological propping to real life flaillings. Flopping wildly about, as it were. The easiest way to piss me off is to suggest that artists (or myself) do not or do not want to work. Success is the one vindicator. But, in art... Okay. let me back up. With a job you have a paycheck. In any artistic fields you have... a show? a sale? a line of work that is marketable? an idea? Where does clocking in in the morning give you the paper to stuff up someone's nose? Honestly. Yet. It is assumed, that, as an artist you don't want to work. WELL FRAK THEM! A sentiment I will not apologize for. (Besides I love the word FRAK.) (frackety fracktey frak!)

eh. how to end this. Because you know it goes on and on. Its one of the compromises with life. Here I am, one round diagonal self, with nary a corner to blend into. There is the world with its ever flattening edges. Is sports gaining in popularity? I don't feel totally alone in this. Maybe others find other blending tools. More power to them. In the meantime... GO PATS!

Love the beer enjoy the game CHEERS people.

Fine Filaments

I must admit, the title besides being yet another tortuous alliteration, is an echo of reading Paradise Lost. I don't want to go there again, hence just the echo, but. School time trauma creates its own associated flashbacks. Milton's filaments is one.

Now. On to the topic at hand... is to discuss the ye olde sayings type stuff. "I'd rather be lucky than good." Probably a misquote... it makes no real sense to me. I'd rather be lucky than good. Seems to be just saying you want to win.

Which bring up the Pats Ravens game. (JEESH!) By the time the last couple of minutes flashed before my beer soaked eyes... well. The game in itself was a winner. A Ravens player punching a Pats player who was on the sidelines... during a kickoff? Like what was going through his sweet little skull? And. I will probably mess this up but... That last Pats drive? One forth down conversion failed EXCEPT for a timeout called by the Raven's defensive coordinator who didn't have the authority to call it! (only the head coach does.) Second fourth down conversion failed EXCEPT for a false start on Pat's Russ H... (only time possible to be congratulated on a false start.) Third fouth down conversion failed EXCEPT for a holding penalty on the Ravens... Then touchdown! and an unsportsmanlike penalty was called on the Ravens and a Ravens player picked up the flag and threw it into the stands...

Like. Who is paying those Ravens... right? But they come back with a Hail Mary caught... on the one yard line. Suggestion to Ravens.... ::::think end zone with Hail Marys:::: Just being so generous with advice because game is over. And boy is it. One of the unmentioned memorables was the kisses the Ravens Head Coach did to Harrison after Harrison mouthed off to him. (What did you say Harrison? Unmentioned memorables sounds like undergarments.... )

Looking like... backward at this weekend's Steelers game.... Oh boy. I can't even guess. I'd say its gonna be a finger crossing toe crossing hair braiding kind of a day. HEY PATS! Being lucky AND good is way okay and much easier on this flabby fanatic. Jeesh.