I'm really feeling bad this morning. I guess I'm unpatriotic or something, but for the life of me I can't watch the Super Bowl and/or all the festivities (crap) that go along with it. I watched my favorite show "Shameless" on Showtime. It has William H. Macy playing the biggest sleazeball since Ratzo in the movie "Midnight Cowboy". He would sell out his mother, and has, for a cold beer. With a bunch of kids that he neglects to make them tougher, the Gallagher's are the funniest family since the Bundy's on Married..,With Children.
I found out in the last few years, you can watch most of the commercials during the week leading up to the game and then watch the game, every play that counted anyway, in thirty minutes on ESPN. Even that is over-blown. They could have cut 15 minutes out of it and still shown the highlights. Great game, I got to say. Last year, (I can't remember who played last year) I did the same thing. This is now the third year in a row that I didn't even bother to check the score. This from an ex-football addict.
I love the game, along with baseball and college basketball, but I no longer watch sports. Well, most sports. I watch the ACC March Madness play-offs, but once Duke is out, I'm out. I really can't pinpoint the exact moment in time when sports no longer interested me. Believe me, I was just as bad as anyone (not the idiot's that paint themselves and wear cheeseheads like someone I won't mention ChickenMan), but when the hoopla over-took the game, and I have to admit, I quit drinking, it no longer seemed to interest me.
My day yesterday was like most Sundays, except for some reason, I didn't turn on my computer until after ten o'clock. I usually grab my coffee and read the morning newspapers, first thing. But lately, it seems they are so caught up in this Mitt/Newt Nuts saga that it has taken over the entire news cycle. Along with the usual spin of blaming everything on Obama or Bush, take your pick, and the news is no longer news, it's a commentary.
I grabbed an old book I bought for a dollar Friday at the flea market. It's called "The Contented Mind", edited by Thomas Burke and was copyrighted in 1914. It's is in great shape and has great quotes like "Give me health and a day, and I will make ridiculous the pomp of emperors."-Emerson. Yeah, I can read, hah!
I then put on my Elvis persona and strapped on my 'git (guitar, hah, am I cool or what) and started my guitar lessons, mostly stolen off the Internet. So far, I've spent about $35.00 on lessons and swiped the rest. I've been playing for about four months and I can see why Eric Clapton said in an interview you never stop learning to play a guitar. It has a zillion and one little things that you would never think about. Just holding a pick, how hard, which way, what kind, is a major thing, depending on what kind of sound you want. Right now I'm working on strumming patterns which to me, is the toughest thing yet.You can know all the chords in the world, but if your right hand isn't picking or strumming the right way, it's nothing but noise. But, it's like anything, a process, ya know?
I'm stuck on my book. It's like I no longer have control of it. I can't for the life of me decide how to start it. It's written, it's done. But putting it together is killing me. It takes place over two decades and it has to be put in a certain order to make sense. I can use the "character remembers" approach, or the "live at 5" approach, where everything happens as it happens. Either way, you try and build it into a blow out ending, which is the easy part. Micheal Jordan once said that playing the regular basketball season was garbage, it was the play-offs that count. I disagree, but he has a point. You play all these games to get to a point, and it's the same with a book.
Like basketball, or any game or book, you have to make the whole thing entertaining, but like Jordan or Hemingway, you have to get there and getting there and keeping everyone entertained along the way is hard. But again, I'll get it. I thought of something before I fell asleep last night that I can't remember, but I'll figure it out. I know it will go down in the trash-bin of life anyway, but I'm going to finish it, I have another book I want to start that is about life and how to get through it alive. Part fiction, part real life. We'll see.
I was going to watch the kick-off of the game, but fell asleep and woke up and it was 2 to 0. I asked Terri what happened and I may as well have asked Sexy Sadie. She had dozed off too. I switched it to Showtime and watched last week's Shameless to catch up and then watched the new show. Really, if you haven't seen this, Macy puts on an acting clinic and the rest of the cast fits in great. If they're not ripping someone off, they're having sex, sometimes at the same time.
So I missed another Super Bowl, Shameless of me, right?. I hear Madonna either thrilled or killed or sucked, depending on what you read. The Material Girl has never been a fave of mine either, but I hope everybody who watched it all loved it. Me, I'm now just a boring ole' coot who is content and at a place and pace that I now like. It took many years to get here and I'm trying not to blow it, again. I may turn on ESPN and watch the game again, who knows.
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Alii
Steel Breeze
Eljekar
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Comments
I envy you,.
As for the book I have another two weeks and I would rather write new stories than edit. Who told me it was going to be this hard?
NO one..
HUGGGGGGGGGG
I'm stuck in the same problem - structure - with my book. I have most of the stories written. I have a feeling you'll figure yours out quicker than I do. Good luck with it you ole coot!
;-)
.
Lezlie
r.
of Utter Silliness! 1914 was a f-ing helluva time, historically.
Einsteinian uproar, alot of talented writers/thinkers/ philosophers
about ready to trade in a nascent Globalization Project
for devastating World war.
You play all these games to get to a point,
and it's the same with a book.
Just as you play all these historical epochs to the max,
hoping for the grand break out of repetition.
Iran, now.
yikes.
burke looks like an interesting new find from that fecund era.
"Burke’s writing also influenced contemporary popular forms of entertainment, such as the nascent film industry"
hmmmmm
I saw the Acura commercial last week. I really dug it. I've seen more Madonna than I need to for my entire life, though, and my grandmother was the spitting image of her in her younger years, so thinking of Madonna as a sex symbol, and especially now when she is approaching the age at which I knew my grandmother, is just a bit too creepy for me.
More important today than the end, is the beginning. You think about giving away the ending in the 1st chapter and then leading up to a second, ultra-climatic ending?
It's enough to piss you off because it means a lot of editing and changes, but if you don't get the publisher's attention (at all levels, if what you've submitted has been accepted at the lower levels already) fast, and keep it, that shit is sunk.
I'm not saying that's the only way to do it, but it is one way that you may not have considered.
Anyway, if you know "tha Man" can you stop the S/Bowl being broadcast on UK Sport radio ?
Men wearing armour just isn't Cricket, wot wot.
Play Rugger (pron:- Rugby) you wimps.
"Well that told them didn't it FRed(tm)? Ah, you think not Boy.Bugger."
You know what it is? Like everything else in life, when the skills set are equal of offsetting the difference is simply....luck.
Would you watch someone flipping a coin over and over again? That's what sports are....the elevation of luck to the status of destiny.
I thought Madonna put on the best Super Bowl halftime show in ages. Even the latest pop groups that shared the limelight with her were in awe to be in her presence. And I was never much of a fan of hers.
Rated for honesty.
You've obviously evolved beyond the lot of us. I would have watched
shameless ...my Sunday favorite right along with Californication but for blocking and interference with the tv remote.
Truth be told I miss my sons - now grown and off to super bowl chili parties on their own. Raucous, all-male households can be such fun.
Yes, yes, three square meals a day and you get Showtime for free!!
I know, good deal!! Now someone report me for not watching it either!! I missed M.I.A flipping off America!!! Damn her!! :D
Ratedk
I think it's exciting that you're learning to play guitar. It sounds like fun, I've tried more than once but never stuck with it.
Re your guitar playing, the 10,000 hours of practice applies here. I read that Hendrix even took his guitar to the bathroom.
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R
My husband predicted that I would have a slow night at work, but he was way wrong. it was very, very busy, only topped by last night, which was insane.I don't know what is in the air, water or ground, but people were just coming out of the woodwork yesterday.
I am happy for you and your book. I hope you share. Hugs
I can really sympathize with your trials putting the book together. Hesitate to offer advice....but sometimes it's good to put it in a drawer (virtual these days, I suppose) for a few weeks. Then come back fresh. Anyway, good luck with it!