A Hitch in My Giddiyap
"The trouble with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished."
— Benjamin Franklin
Up at the lake on a Monday, rather unexpectedly.
You see, we were supposed to be in Harrisburg last night to see Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit in concert. I've written about him before, a favorite during this season of life for lyrics filled with introspection and slapping back demons. But the one thing he couldn't slap back was the Nor' Easter, and the outdoor concert at the downtown riverfront venue was cancelled in anticipation of high winds and pelting rains.
But this isn't so bad, sitting on the patio with P and a cup of coffee. I'd carved out this day for travel and bringing the plane back from Binghamton after they fixed an oxygen leak last week, so now I'm in this odd posture of having nothing on the books to occupy my work day.
We started this lie-about day at 8:30, after a bad round of reflux kept me up for a chunk of last night. This happens, and usually it's just an uncomfortable interlude, but last night it caught me deep asleep and flat on my back, and the acid trickled down the wrong pipe. That in turn led to gasping, coughing, trouble drawing a deep breath that went on for a couple hours. Given that I went to bed basically dead sober, it felt like an ambush.
Lying there on the couch in the dark (I had to get up and move, because I couldn't stop coughing and needed to sleep sitting upright, both of which would've interfered with P's blissful slumber) gave me time to watch Trump's last unhinged ad, which we encountered during the Bills game (twice!) yesterday, which defiantly proclaimed it was paid for by the U.S. government.
And this after an equally nutty "Love Me" ad, also purchased by you and me, which played a couple days earlier.
On the one hand, this is completely illegal--they're doing this mostly to let you know they can, that the guardrails are gone and neither our supine Congress nor the Bootlick 6 on the Supreme Court will raise a finger to suggest this should stop or, along with the dozens of other brazen attacks on the constitutional order, provide grounds for impeachment and removal. It should enrage you. If you voted for this, REPENT!
On the other hand, the Orange One is perhaps the most reviled president in American history, and the R candidates at the state and local level have been distancing themselves from him in an effort to save their phony-baloney jobs in November. This ad makes that impossible, and makes it clear that a vote for, say, Austin Rogers in the Florida 2nd District, is a vote for that fascist a**hole.
Not that Austin's seen any need to distance himself--in fact, he's running on a platform of going to D.C. to enable more of this. Ah, the politics of the panhandle.
In other news, a Texas Longhorns defensive end on Saturday mimed urinating on a quarterback he'd just flattened, leading to a fifteen yard penalty but no other obvious consequences for him because, no doubt, he also set the school record for sacks in a game. Meanwhile, my beloved Trojans saw a low ebb of sportsmanship when one of their paid thugs took out Oregon's starting quarterback in a move that would've made Jack Tatum ("They Call Me 'Assassin', of Oakland Raiders fame) wince.
The worst of it was him dancing around after the hit, while Dante Moore laid motionless except for a twitching leg that suggested a serious neurological injury. Thank God Moore could feel his toes when he got to the hospital, and it sounds like he'll be ready to play next week after suffering a pretty big concussion.
SC suspended Desman Stephens for a game, but that seems like a slap on the wrist after what he did. I mean, if he was sorry for it, joined everyone by taking a knee in concern for the fallen player instead of grinning and waiving for applause, he like anyone else should get a shot at redemption. But without repentance . . .
A couple observations here. First, football was a lot more brutal in this way back when I played. Helmet-to-helmet contact was just a part of the game, and I suffered a couple concussions and a broken nose as a a result. In Texas (of course), they taught us how to injure a player (knees were particularly vulnerable) who was vexing us by having a really good game. It was just a brutal sport, and still is.
Second, you don't see this sort of play on Sundays. The pros are the pros, and you're apt to see players from opposing teams patting each other on the shoulder pads and making small talk during breaks in the action (I saw that very thing during the Bills-Chargers game on Sunday). Just a bunch of guys who are members of the same union, and trying to make a living during a necessarily brief career due to the toll the game takes on a body. For all the tattoos and dreadlocks, it's just a classier and more professional cohort out there, and much more so than you saw until about 20 years ago when the CTE thing became too big to ignore. Play like we saw on Saturday would be a public relations disaster for the N.F.L., so it's simply not tolerated.
I'll still watch football, still feel a guilty love for the game, but have soured a bit on the Saturday version, where the major teams carry $40-50 million player payrolls and immature thugs are overrepresented.
I guess I ought to go find something remunerative to do.
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