On Location Playoff Viewing
With a little help from an organic farmer from upstate New York I’m going to attempt and recount my steps from the 1-3pm hour on Saturday, sorry no time stamp:
Saturday morning begins with breakfast and two hour walk on the beach (not sure there’s an easier place to find your Chi than the Pacific Coast of Washington)…I’m optimistic about the Hawks, but really a little bit more worried about the Montlake 5 down in Pauley than the hometown 11 down on 1st…suddenly before the 1pm tip-off to the bball game it starts horizontally hailing at the beach, this will not be the last time….phenomenal site…not sure the meaning, but I know its either for good or bad…and then it starts:
“Oh, where have you been, my blue eyed son? Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?”
*just seeing the white and blue of the Bruins scares me…always has, especially on the home court at Pauley with THE COACH sitting in the stands…where’s Walton when I need him? This is his kind of post, sans-the Dylan and replace it with some Robert Hunter circa ’69 lyrics for the Dead…maybe a little Sugar Magnolia…anyway…off topic…
”right now the interior post presence of Mike Jensen is similar to the '88 tour when Jerry was in rehab and my lack of contract from the Celtics that year = TERRIBLE!!!”
“I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountain, I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways, I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests, I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans, I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard”
*Kick-off is almost here, not sure what I’m going to do…have to make sure the Dawgs still have a pulse, and I’m dealing with a TV remote that only has an up and down channel selector, there’s a 13 channel difference between the station that 26 channel jump between bball and football game…average that out over the course of 2 hours and 700 commercial breaks?....my god man…the mind is starting to spoil from too much sporting-adrenaline…this is why I could never do objective-sports journalism…too much on the line and I’m not even a gambler…
“I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it, I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it, I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin', I saw a room full of men with their hammers a bleedin'”
*So I think I’m going to have to divorce both my dad and wife after the game today…serious tension all around…nobody can come to grips that this is January and things are on the line…have to get our heads together and collectively will this thing to happen…Dad keeps pressing to flip back to the bball game which now has our boys down by 14 with about 5 to go in the half…good times…and oh yeah after a solid opening drive doing whatever they wanted (classic Holmgren script) we see the first jitter’s of the game and surprise, SURPRISE!!! they’re coming from the boys in blue…wife can barely handle it…this interchange takes place:
ME (to wife): “you need to get a hold of yourself there’s still 3 ½ quarters remaining and in playoff football that might very well put us into next week”
DAD: “Yeah….here let me pour you some wine”
WIFE: ”No…it’s 150 in the afternoon...I can get through this”
ME:” I’m surprised I’m not passed out already”
“I saw a white ladder all covered with water, I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children”
Nice…so the Hail just began and ended in 3 ½ minutes…fascinating to see precipitation land horizontally…anyway: current situation is 40-28 halftime score down in LA and 3-0 after the 1st quarter…with Jimy(no relation) Williams giving the 2nd handout of the afternoon and Moses has left the building, just mentally…probably couldn’t see from the crowd, but the man had the reverse-Aikman face going on, and similar to Dwight from the Office last week ( and if you didn’t get that reference, well there’s really no point in me explaining it)
“I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin', Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world, Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a blazin'Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'”
So its reached end of Empire proportions now….Hawks just go three and out…we’ve tipped off for the 2nd in LA and it doesn’t look like the 19 year streak is going to end for the Dawgs…the Hawks are lost and looking as if they’re going to go down possibly 6-3 today…I’m expecting to hear Dick Stockton say any moment…”Joe Gibbs looks like he’s altering the deal and asking Holmgren to take the Princess and the Wookie to the Redskin team bus”…followed by Moose proclaiming: “That doesn’t sound like part of the deal that Hasselback agreed to” capped by Goose on the sideline…”You know guys, it sounds like Gibbs is altering the deal, and before the 2nd quarter I could hear him mouthing the words to Holmgren: Pray I don’t alter it any further”
“Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin', Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter, Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley”
Oh…what’s this?...Dawgs cuttin’ into this lead…Jones hitting three’s…Jensen on the bench?...we might actually have a chance to make this thing look respectable and stay within the top 20…oh and what’s this? The two limbs south of the waste from the QB is the only offensive weapon that’s working right now?...oh well that’s still more than Washington has….this exchange:
WIFE: ”I JUST CAN’T HANDLE THIS ANYMORE…WHY HAS THOU FORESAKEN ME TO WATCH THIS TEAM”
ME: “this is nothing try 11 games of Husky football…you can hold down just about anything after that”
DAD: (pouring biggest glass of wine I’ve seen since the Beer Dash)
WIFE: “Thank you” time: 215
“And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin', But I'll know my song well before I start singin'”
WHAMOOOO…Dawgs within reach of getting back into this game…starting to play this thing called…wait for it…wait for it….team Defense….meanwhile…the Seahawks are playing…wait for it…wait for it….superb team Defense….and what’s this? A little drive before the end of half?...what’s this?...DJAX on a great grab…TD Seahawks…Stockton doesn’t do it nearly as good as Rabel, and yes those are words that I'm not sure make any sense whatsoever…meanwhile…Dad heads for the other room two doors down to watch the rest of the Dawg game…I’m what's known as in a quandary
ME: “yeah…so I’ll be back in second, just want to see how the bball game plays out.”
WIFE: “WHAT?...YOU’RE NOT LEAVING RIGHT NOW”
ME: “You’re right I’m not leaving right now…and these aren’t the droids I’m looking for”
“And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a gonna fall”
So really that was the pinnacle of the afternoon, I followed orders and sat it through luckily I did get to see the final 3 minutes of the bball game and …saw Joe throwing down for the 2pt exclamation point…(apparently Jensen can do two things really well…slam down meaningless dunks at the end of games and hit wide open three pointers…I guess he does bring something to the table, sort of like 2.0, I think I need to do a comparison chart at some point)
Congrats to the Hawks…who beat a team that had reached the end of the road… (this is that point that I congratulate the ‘Skins for making a good run to the end the season)….but it was obvious that the hometown 11 were going up against a far inferior team that allowed them to get there playoff groove back....and to Coach Romar and Holmgren the only guaranteed contracts in the Seattle sports-scene right now)
Saturday morning begins with breakfast and two hour walk on the beach (not sure there’s an easier place to find your Chi than the Pacific Coast of Washington)…I’m optimistic about the Hawks, but really a little bit more worried about the Montlake 5 down in Pauley than the hometown 11 down on 1st…suddenly before the 1pm tip-off to the bball game it starts horizontally hailing at the beach, this will not be the last time….phenomenal site…not sure the meaning, but I know its either for good or bad…and then it starts:“Oh, where have you been, my blue eyed son? Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?”
*just seeing the white and blue of the Bruins scares me…always has, especially on the home court at Pauley with THE COACH sitting in the stands…where’s Walton when I need him? This is his kind of post, sans-the Dylan and replace it with some Robert Hunter circa ’69 lyrics for the Dead…maybe a little Sugar Magnolia…anyway…off topic…”right now the interior post presence of Mike Jensen is similar to the '88 tour when Jerry was in rehab and my lack of contract from the Celtics that year = TERRIBLE!!!”
“I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountain, I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways, I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests, I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans, I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard”
*Kick-off is almost here, not sure what I’m going to do…have to make sure the Dawgs still have a pulse, and I’m dealing with a TV remote that only has an up and down channel selector, there’s a 13 channel difference between the station that 26 channel jump between bball and football game…average that out over the course of 2 hours and 700 commercial breaks?....my god man…the mind is starting to spoil from too much sporting-adrenaline…this is why I could never do objective-sports journalism…too much on the line and I’m not even a gambler…
“I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it, I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it, I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin', I saw a room full of men with their hammers a bleedin'”
*So I think I’m going to have to divorce both my dad and wife after the game today…serious tension all around…nobody can come to grips that this is January and things are on the line…have to get our heads together and collectively will this thing to happen…Dad keeps pressing to flip back to the bball game which now has our boys down by 14 with about 5 to go in the half…good times…and oh yeah after a solid opening drive doing whatever they wanted (classic Holmgren script) we see the first jitter’s of the game and surprise, SURPRISE!!! they’re coming from the boys in blue…wife can barely handle it…this interchange takes place:
ME (to wife): “you need to get a hold of yourself there’s still 3 ½ quarters remaining and in playoff football that might very well put us into next week”
DAD: “Yeah….here let me pour you some wine”
WIFE: ”No…it’s 150 in the afternoon...I can get through this”
ME:” I’m surprised I’m not passed out already”
“I saw a white ladder all covered with water, I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children”
Nice…so the Hail just began and ended in 3 ½ minutes…fascinating to see precipitation land horizontally…anyway: current situation is 40-28 halftime score down in LA and 3-0 after the 1st quarter…with Jimy(no relation) Williams giving the 2nd handout of the afternoon and Moses has left the building, just mentally…probably couldn’t see from the crowd, but the man had the reverse-Aikman face going on, and similar to Dwight from the Office last week ( and if you didn’t get that reference, well there’s really no point in me explaining it)“I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin', Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world, Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a blazin'Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'”
So its reached end of Empire proportions now….Hawks just go three and out…we’ve tipped off for the 2nd in LA and it doesn’t look like the 19 year streak is going to end for the Dawgs…the Hawks are lost and looking as if they’re going to go down possibly 6-3 today…I’m expecting to hear Dick Stockton say any moment…”Joe Gibbs looks like he’s altering the deal and asking Holmgren to take the Princess and the Wookie to the Redskin team bus”…followed by Moose proclaiming: “That doesn’t sound like part of the deal that Hasselback agreed to” capped by Goose on the sideline…”You know guys, it sounds like Gibbs is altering the deal, and before the 2nd quarter I could hear him mouthing the words to Holmgren: Pray I don’t alter it any further”
“Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin', Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter, Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley”
Oh…what’s this?...Dawgs cuttin’ into this lead…Jones hitting three’s…Jensen on the bench?...we might actually have a chance to make this thing look respectable and stay within the top 20…oh and what’s this? The two limbs south of the waste from the QB is the only offensive weapon that’s working right now?...oh well that’s still more than Washington has….this exchange:
WIFE: ”I JUST CAN’T HANDLE THIS ANYMORE…WHY HAS THOU FORESAKEN ME TO WATCH THIS TEAM”
ME: “this is nothing try 11 games of Husky football…you can hold down just about anything after that”
DAD: (pouring biggest glass of wine I’ve seen since the Beer Dash)
WIFE: “Thank you” time: 215
“And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin', But I'll know my song well before I start singin'”
WHAMOOOO…Dawgs within reach of getting back into this game…starting to play this thing called…wait for it…wait for it….team Defense….meanwhile…the Seahawks are playing…wait for it…wait for it….superb team Defense….and what’s this? A little drive before the end of half?...what’s this?...DJAX on a great grab…TD Seahawks…Stockton doesn’t do it nearly as good as Rabel, and yes those are words that I'm not sure make any sense whatsoever…meanwhile…Dad heads for the other room two doors down to watch the rest of the Dawg game…I’m what's known as in a quandary
ME: “yeah…so I’ll be back in second, just want to see how the bball game plays out.”
WIFE: “WHAT?...YOU’RE NOT LEAVING RIGHT NOW”
ME: “You’re right I’m not leaving right now…and these aren’t the droids I’m looking for”
“And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a gonna fall”
So really that was the pinnacle of the afternoon, I followed orders and sat it through luckily I did get to see the final 3 minutes of the bball game and …saw Joe throwing down for the 2pt exclamation point…(apparently Jensen can do two things really well…slam down meaningless dunks at the end of games and hit wide open three pointers…I guess he does bring something to the table, sort of like 2.0, I think I need to do a comparison chart at some point)Congrats to the Hawks…who beat a team that had reached the end of the road… (this is that point that I congratulate the ‘Skins for making a good run to the end the season)….but it was obvious that the hometown 11 were going up against a far inferior team that allowed them to get there playoff groove back....and to Coach Romar and Holmgren the only guaranteed contracts in the Seattle sports-scene right now)
posted by Jimbo at 10:37 AM
5 Comments:
Thanks for the shout-out in the post. I did play a pretty good game during "crunch" time. I love the Dwight reference (the U.S. version sucks overall to anyone that's had the pleasure of watching BBC's The Office). Plus, the Walton quote got me pumped up. I'm going to have to write a post about Walton someday, not today, but I'll happily include this Walton gem:
But you have to understand, my beard is so nasty. I mean, it's the only beard in the history of Western civilization that makes Bob Dylan's beard look good.
that is a great quote and I disagree with you about the US Office...while I admit they are founding on the same premise w/ similar characters...the US version has created its own nitche and for my dollar is every bit as enjoyable...depends on the mindset
Let’s all just admit that the BBC Office is the best the pinnacle. I would dare say the best comedy show to come out in the last 5 years. The NBC Office is funny and keeps getting better with every episode. Dwight is a brilliant character far better then his British counter part. This is a huge upgrade. The Character of Michael is so different from Ricky Gervias interpretation of the “boss” and that’s what keeps this new show fresh. While Gervais was smarmy and ego driven; the US counterpart is just mind numbingly dumb. The show is basically saying we know you have seen the original and we won’t top it this is our version and we pay homage to it and build from there.
You need to DVR the show and watch it. I have to say the last episode was a classic. I watched it two times and it just kept getting funnier.
Joe you are missing out.
PS. I picked up the Klosterman book this weekend and I can’t put it down. Talk about a great read.
Train...let me know when you get to the Empire chapter...probably some of the best 7-8 pages I've ever read...
Jim - That's the chapter that hooked me. I was reading it at B&N and I could not put it down. it was great. I bought it there on the spot.
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