Let me start by saying that I'm an enormous fan of puppy football, that great American pastime. But this most recent incarnation of the Puppy Bowl was a true sham, a disgrace to the sport—in just six years, the Puppy Bowl has gone from an innocent celebration of an historic game, to a commercialized mockery of epic proportions.

When the Puppy Bowl was first started, in the heady days of 2004, the idea was to crown a true Puppy Champion. Now? All you hear about are Bandit's DUI, and Chocolate's contract renegotiations. What happened to the love of the game, puppies?

If the behavior of the athletes wasn't bad enough, the sport itself has become so capitalist you can barely see the actual competition beneath the veneer of advertising dollars and sponsored segments. There's an ad or logo on every available inch of wall-space in the stadium, sponsored highlights, sponsored replays, sponsored halftime specials, sponsored blimps. They've opened the doors to so many different animals that it's barely the puppy-centric endeavor we all came to know and love. Kitties and rabbits as cheerleaders? Gerbils flying the blimp? Justin Long as the referee?

Long's officiating this year was so clearly biased it made the 2002 Lakers/Kings game look honest in contrast. And the enormous, greased logo on the center of the field—instituted to cause more "cute slipping" is nothing more than a giant injury hazard, worse than the Vet in Philly.

In short—I can keep watching, for the love of it. For the love of games of old, the athletes of old, with their trimmed hair and great work ethic, for the love of the spirit of the sport. But it will grow harder each year as more animals crowd the frame, as advertisements clutter the field of play, as Justin Long continues to throw dubious flags. It will grow harder as the sport I love grows more and more loveless.

JK y'all! Here's to the next six months of football-less life going smoothly and quickly, so we have something worthwhile to do with Sundays again.

Labels: Football, Generalness, puppy bowl

There's a cigarette being passed around on Long Beach's Eastside. A longshoreman from the Port bought it from the L&L Liquor on his way home from work—he'd been living on the Eastside for 30 years, and working at the Port for 30 and a half. He shook his head at the price of a pack, as he did once a week, then handed the clerk his money.

On his way out the door, he slid the crinkling cellophane off the pack and stuffed it in his pocket, then pulled out two cigarettes, lighting them both. One he put to his lips and drew on—the other he held towards the ground, without even looking to acknowledge Veteran Johnny, who lived outside the liquor store and who was the once-weekly beneficiary of the longshoreman's generosity, even in the wake of rising prices and falling pay-scales.

Veteran Johnny waved bye to him, and smoked half of the cigarette, then pinched it off and tucked it behind his ear, for the morning. He rolled himself up in his ratty Salvation Army blanket, and fell asleep. When he woke, his ear was naked, and he slapped the ground. In a rust-bucket heading towards the Westside, a young wannabe-gangster was smoking the last half of the cigarette, his lungs fogging from the clouds of his first smoke. He'd seen Veteran Johnny lying there and thought, "Hey, what the fuck? Gotta start sometime."

As he finished it, sucking on the butt too long because he didn't know when to stop, a cop car flying up Santa Fe plowed into him, breaking his legs and sending the butt flying out the window, where it landed on the asphalt and rolled to the curb. Yoger, the homeless who lived on the corner of Santa Fe and PCH, stepped over to the butt, picked it up, and tried to draw on it—nothing left. He flicked it back into the street, and went back to his ratty Goodwill blanket, cursing.

Labels: Stories

"He could live in 'Europe,' as he had been in the habit of living, on the product of these flourishing New York leases, and all the better since, that of the second structure, the mere number in its long row, having within a twelvemonth fallen in, renovation at a high advance had proved beautifully possible."

Still in the thick of that horror anthology from Library of America I mentioned last week—just wanted to include this random sentence from Henry James to say, "I'm really really glad I'm not writing at the turn of the century." I can barely wrap my brain around that sentence, just one glaring tangled mess in a 40-page forest of indecipherability. Yes, Hemingway may have been too far in the other direction, but…man. God bless the progression of the ages.

Labels: quote of the week

He was the kind of man who checked his watch again every time his wife plucked another outfit off the rack at Penny's—but who wouldn't let her go by herself. She was the kind of woman who couldn't stop plucking outfits, like they were wildflowers and she was a vase, and who thought, "I'm worth it" every time she bought something.

They spent four hours there on Sunday, plucking and checking and plucking and checking, and finally checking out. He stood there with his hands on his hips, like he could get in the way of anything with just a grimace, and his hand made a fist around their credit card, going up and swiping down, going up and swiping down. "I'm worth it, I'm worth it, I'm worth it," she whispered.

Labels: Stories

He wanted to tell her so many things—stupid, useless things about how she'd saved him, about how he wanted to save her. About what candlelight did to the naked shape of her, and the suggestions those shapes made to him. He wanted to tell her that he wanted to subscribe to her newsletter, read her blog, gape at her flickr, break the lock on her diary with his teeth and eat every page until he knew everything.

Nobody had ever told her she was beautiful and he could see that, those not-words burned onto her face like a scarlet alphabet. He wanted to tell her that she was, and he wanted to pin her hair behind her ear for her and tell her he didn't care if she never shaved or waxed or plucked or peeled. He wanted to tell her she'd still be his main course if she spoiled on the vine.

He wanted to tell her she wasn't just the answer to the question Why, but to the question How.

But he waited. And then it was too late.

Labels: Stories

"In her deep, dark eyes smouldered the light of fires that would never flame."

Yowie. The Chopin story is in a collection published by the Library of America that I bought myself for Christmas, called American Fantastic Tales. It's a two-volume, 1400-page anthology of horror stories by American writers, from pre-Poe all the way up to Joe Hill. It's incredible.

By far the most fascinating aspect of the book so far has been the evolution of subject—of what Americans are horrified by. This Chopin story, from more than 100 years ago, has touched closest to what keeps me awake at night. Madame Pelagie (I'm leaving out the accent because I'm lazy) and her sister live in the ruins of their father's brick mansion, and dream of pinching enough pennies to rebuild it—they are middle aged and estimate they will be very close to death before they can make that happen. Then, a young niece comes to live with them, and captures the heart of Pelagie's sister. When the sad isolation of their impoverished, meager existence drives the niece away, Pelagie's sister begs Pelagie to throw away their shared dream, and use their money to create a new, open life for they and their family.

Pelagie, for love of her sister, listens to her weep for hours, then goes that night to say goodbye to the ruins, and relents. She spends the rest of her life with her sister, their niece, and their family, living in the shadow of the ruins, until she dies, unfulfilled—the line above comes near the end of the story, after she's given up, and it's the only line in the anthology so far that's actually made my shiver.

I think most driven people—whether you're trying to be a writer, a rich person, or a professional athlete—have that vision of life as their nightmare. A time when you've given up, or realized that you've failed, but still have to live out the rest of your days. I know that feeling has, more than once, caused me to get out of bed at three in the morning to write, so that I can wake up and feel like I'm still moving. Like Pelagie, we all get a limited time—incredibly limited, if you're trying to make it as an athlete—to achieve what we feel we're meant to achieve. If you don't live with that feeling, I'd suggest you not go in search of it. There's nothing horrifying about living life for happiness, or peace—it's just not a state of mind I understand.

To me, a major message of the story is that you have to do what you can with the time you're given—if Pelagie and her sister had managed to save enough money to rebuild the mansion before their niece arrived (call her death, or a blown out knee, or whatever applies to you), they would have achieved their mission. Once that curtain drops though, there's no lifting it. It's a powerful motivation to me to keep working—the last thing any of us wants is to live our life by smoldering, faint fires. There is another quote from the anthology, from Harriet Prescott Spofford's "The Moonstone Mass" that you may want to turn to if you feel you've stalled in your mission:

"Death and stillness have no kingdom on this globe, and even in the extremest bitterness of cold and ice perpetual interchange and motion is taking place."

Even somewhere behind Pelagie's eyes, her dream still lives. Even when you feel you've failed at what you're trying to do—there's still something moving inside you. Whether it's to restart your goal, or find another one, it's up to all of us to harness that natural energy.

Unless you're fifty and your dream is to play pro football. Then you're pretty much screwed.

Labels: quote of the week

*Extracted from the "About" page of RonnieBricksHateForHire.com

My second-grade teacher—may she rot—told us on the first day of class that God gave everyone a gift, and that it was a teacher's job to help unearth it. Well she did her job with me, because I hated that fluffy bullshit and I've been hating ever since. My moms, my friends, rich people, poor people—I hate all that shit. Sports, movies, television—I hate the mother-hating Jesus Christing crap out of that stuff.

In college, my boy Beef Jersey—who I haven't spoken to since what he pulled at the beach—made me a suggestion that I didn't hate. He said: "Ronnie Brick, man. You hate so toughly, and so cleanly, you oughta get paid for that shit."

"You're retarded Jersey," is what I said at the time, but I remembered his words. In 2003, I made them a reality with the launch of this website, www.RonnieBricksHateForHire.com.

Since that time, I've been doing what you don't have either the time, the energy, or the conviction to do yourself, and hating your enemies for you. I will also hate your loved ones, if necessary. I offer customizable packages for every budget and situation. Whether your needs are conceptual—my general bad-will program—or tangible (such as my hate mail and angry phone message plan) I'm confident Ronnie Brick's Hate for Hire has something for you.

I invite you to navigate around the site and browse my options, then get in touch by clicking Contact, and we'll work something out. You're a douchebag if you don't.

Labels: Stories