Saturday, February 22, 2014

"In Sochi"; A (Terrible) Rap Debut About the 2014 United States Men's Olympic Hockey Team

            
          Counted my Sochi 2014 chickens before they hatched by writing a rap about the United States men’s hockey team winning gold. My plans -- obviously -- derailed yesterday, but I’m proud of how far the sport has come in our country, and I was proud enough of the lyrics I’d written to connect with a rapper dude I know to discuss recording it.

            He booked us some studio time, and when the United States lost to Canada yesterday, I hung out on the scrap-the-whole-thing fence for the entire afternoon and evening. Late last night I decided to go through with it and put my humility with my hockey team: on the line. I’ve been supporting them for so long that it wouldn’t be fair to leave them hanging after defeat.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

T.J. Oshie, Appetite for Destruction, and Tobacco

           I’ve been looking forward to today since yesterday. I’ve had it circled on my mental calendar for about two weeks. And for about four years. And also, for about 12 years. Eight years, too. And a number of other measurements of time as well. A couple of weeks ago, I was informed by a friend about a writing contest, and a regimented thing like that -- with a deadline -- is the sort of pants-seat kick I’m wired to need in order to get something done. So with the support of my wonderful wife, I worked pretty hard to put a few submissions together, and I sent them off yesterday. In mathematical terms, that means I was early, which never happens.

            But I was really only early with that deadline because of the four-, eight-, and 12-year marks. See, the United States of America men’s Olympic hockey team had a game today. It was super earls for us stateside, but in the evening over in Sochi (Editor’s Note: For the record, the “DawnsEarlyLight” hash tag will forever remain an all-time favorite for me.). And it wasn’t their first game; they beat Slovakia 7-1 Friday morning. Nor was it a medal game, a qualification game, a quarterfinal, or a semifinal. It was game two of three in the preliminary round. But Team U.S.A. faces Slovenia tomorrow, and then it’s on to round two. This -- a Saturday-morning tilt against a home-team Russia several have picked to win gold -- would be their true test of the round.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

A Twitter Exchange: A Right-Wing Stranger and I Discuss Mike Priefer, Chris Kluwe

     
          I was eating lunch at a neighborhood bar and grill today and I looked up at a television broadcasting SportsCenter. Along the bottom line was the news that the Minnesota Vikings had decided to retain Special Teams Coach Mike Priefer, and I literally dropped my jaw. Honestly, I thought I’d misread it, so I waited for it to scroll again, and when I saw it again, I did as nerds like myself do: I took to Twitter.

            In the tweet I wrote, I threw in a couple of hash tags. From time to time I find it easy to lose track of the intention of the hash tag, which is to shore up searches, but it’s probably used more often in a sarcastic fashion. Anyway, the presence of the hash tag got the attention of someone who was apparently trolling the topic of Priefer -- and if you don’t know the back story, get it here, here, and here  -- and he responded.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Calling Super Bowl XLVIII a "Disappointment" Yields Major Disagreeance

It’s hard work carrying around hatred. Loathing something that won’t go away causes stress and rapid aging, and if you struggle to acquire the skills necessary for health-appropriate coping, you’ll get eaten.

In today’s Kansas City Star, Sam Mellinger wrote a column that contained this sentence:

Elway had always tortured the Chiefs as a player, and now he’s doing more of it in a suit.

I saw his tweet with a link to the column and the headline of it carried me to the front sidewalk in search of that line. It’s a good one, and it appeared in the piece right where it needed to, and for Mellinger’s role as a professional writer, it’s good that the scope of the piece about John Elway and Peyton Manning was as broad as it was. But for me, that line should’ve been the lead; the piece should’ve expounded upon that notion, carried beyond the margins, and onto my kitchen table.