We the People, In Order to Form a More Perfect Sports League

Being a sports fan is what used to define me. Heck, to many people, my sports fandom is still what defines me¹. It's no coincidence; I love most sports, playing or watching. I used to memorize everything I could about the Indians. I've been known to disappear from society during Grand Slam events. I even cover basketball as a beat.
But in recent years, my enthusiasm has ebbed. There are a number of reasons for this. ESPN's dominance of everything sport has proven irksome, as has the obnoxiousness of fans in general. These are, however, minor annoyances I could probably deal with. What I find extremely off-putting is the antagonizing nature of the athletes and owners. Despite the facts these teams and leagues exist because of the fans, players, owners, and leagues treat fans like crap. Athletes regard fans with contempt, as wannabes that are jealous of their talent, fame, and fortune². Owners and leagues look at fans as cash cows to be milked for everything they're worth. We lose at every turn.

It's one thing to be subjected to MLB's ridiculous blackout rules or NFL season ticket holders being forced to but preseason tickets. Yeah, it's annoying and a little bit of a mugging, but most will gnash their teeth and deal with it. It's entirely another thing for leagues and owners to hold cities and taxpayers hostage in order to procure sweetheart deals that make the mega-rich even richer.

This is nothing new. New baseball stadia have been springing up all over America the last 15 years after every team rattled the pauper's cup. If a city hesitated, Bug Selig would swoop in and suggest a different city would be willing to foot the bill for a new palace the organization so clearly deserved. No matter if that team actually won, of course. They must have a new stadium, and when they get it, the wins will come with it. I need not cite anything that disproves that stupid argument; I need only to point in the general direction of Pittsburgh.

Then we come to the sad tale of the Seattle Sonics, and how the great fans there got totally abused by the ownership, David Stern, and eventually the city.

The straw that breaks the camel's back comes from Miami. I remember my trip there last year and seeing a number of people angry about the prospect of a new stadium for the Marlins. They didn't want what they characterized as a bailout for the team. I didn't know much about it, and most of the people that were against it were poor, so I thought that perhaps it was only the lower classes that were opposed to the idea.

Turns out they were on to something. Reports have come in detailing the way the Marlins management completely hoodwinked the city and county government, crying poor while pocketing deep profits and finagling a deal that will cost taxpayers $2.4 billion. Yeah. Billion. What makes this all the sadder is that this is only the latest episode in what has become a long-running series. Owners start to complain they're not making any money and that their venue is outdated. They threaten to leave the area, pitting local governments against fans that do not want to see their team leave³. They manage to procure a new building at little personal expense but get to keep the vast majority of the profits generated from it. This is the pattern. This is the playbook.

Do we see the problem with this? Because I do. We do not exist to pour money into the coffers of sports ownership. If they want to upgrade their facilities, they should do it themselves. If you want to make the argument that the city should chip in because it benefits from these teams, fine. But these men (not women) need to start paying their fair share, especially in these tough times.

Until they get a reality check, I'm done. These greedy people will get no more of my money. I will continue to support the ATP, as they have the crazy idea of financing themselves. But the NBA, MLB? Done. I'll go so far as to steal from them at every opportunity, just because they do it to us. We need to stand up and let them know they won't build a fortune off our tax money. I'll take a step forward. Consider coming with me.

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1 This is something I embraced in the past. Now it's something I'm trying to shed.

2 They are right at least some of the time. The cutthroat nature of fandom these days does nothing to endear a player to anyone.

3 Why is it that so many of the people that happily agree to pay more in taxes to build new arenas rail against school levies and social programs?

I Write the Words Good

Today marks the first day of play of the MAC Tournament at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. It also marks the beginning of my second year covering the tournament from media row for MAC Report Online. I love it. It's so much fun. I get to watch basketball, I get to communicate with fans in realtime, I'm actually something of an authority on MAC basketball, and I get to see what a lot of the public doesn't. It's a blast, and the people at MRO are great.

It's a fun hobby. I'm glad I do it. But it just reminds me that it's not what my life is meant to be, even if I thought something along those lines at one time. I might do it again next year. We'll see. But I won't make a career of this.

Why Hasn't This Caught on in America?

I've been watching the Australian Open this week on ESPN 360. On Monday, I opened the window and on the right it has a list of the events being broadcasted. It was all tennis... except for one. Cricket. India vs Bangladesh. No love lost there, right? I think, hey, let's check out some cricket. Maybe I'll see a wicked googly. So I click on it.

I'm greeted by the sight of an empty field with this graphic dominating the screen:

CHITTAGONG, 1ST TEST

TEA HAS BEEN TAKEN

LIGHT PERMITTING PLAY WILL RESUME AFTER TEA HAS BEEN TAKEN

Awesome. Can you imagine that? USA vs Spain, gold medal game in basketball. Halfway through the third quarter, they stop and all have a drink together. Kind of hard to take the game too seriously when that happens, right? Maybe we should try this in the SEC.

Point is, I have no idea what "Chittagong, 1st test" means.

I, Sportswriter

I've been a writer almost as long as I can remember. I wasn't producing anything profound by any stretch; some of my earliest work involved creating stories for the Hot Wheels cars that I spent many an hour racing¹ in my room. My love of sports does stretch back as far as I can remember².

I had also established that I wanted to be a journalist at a young age. One project in seventh grade involved picking a career and doing research for it, including shadowing a person of that particular occupation for a day. I followed a reporter at the Sun Newspapers and just thoroughly enjoyed it.

So when I told people I wanted to be a reporter, many of them connected this desire to my love of sports and asked if I wanted to be a sports writer. I scoffed and sneered that I wanted to be a real journalist³. I told those people I wanted to report on things that matter.

How, then, did I get here? I'm officially a semi-professional sports journalist and am currently in talks to run MAC Report Online, as well as an incredible opportunity I'm not going to fully discuss at this time.

What I really wanted to be was a political reporter. What better, to follow the movers and shakers around and tell the world what they were doing⁴? I would be contributing to the democratic process, ensuring an informed electorate. I actually believed this.

So I set out with that goal in mind. I was able to land the statehouse reporter position at The Post, and I did a lot of work that I was proud of. I produced copy that was compared favorably to similar work at major metro dailies. I was doing what I had dreamed of, and I was good at it⁵.

That pretty much ended when I left The Post. I couldn't go back, and when I finally could, I found that I didn't want to. I wrote my column for Speakeasy for a couple years, and it was fun, but it was more an exercise in self-indulgence than anything else.

I finally left Speakeasy when I got tired of its terrible management⁶, and my public outlet for writing, save my blog, went with it. I had my poetry- always have- but that has always been a largely private endeavor. I never really stopped writing, but I felt like I needed an outlet. However, I had become disillusioned with the journalism industry and felt my life going in another direction, so I wasn't sure what to do.

Allow me to rewind a bit. I signed up for the newly-revamped Bobcat Attack forum in early 2005, just as the Ohio basketball team was starting on the run that ended with a MAC tournament championship and a thrilling date with Florida in the NCAA tournament. While I had always been an insanely close follower of sports, my knowledge of them was quite superficial.

Through the forum, I became connected with other fans. I started signing up for other fora and connecting with more people. As I did, I acquired more knowledge. Through these connections, I happened upon The Mid-Majority and Fire Joe Morgan.

While it may seem crazy, I credit these sites with opening my eyes⁷. Through FJM, I learned of sabermetrics⁸, which has been invaluable in fantasy baseball⁹. More importantly, Mid-Majority, and its spin-off site, Basketball State, turned me on to tempo-free stats.

I won't bore you with the specifics, but it's an entirely new, different, and superior method of using statistics to evaluate player performance on the basketball court¹⁰. I saw the value in these stats early on and jumped on them.

One of the other fora I'm a member of is the Buffalo fan site, UBFan. One Buffalo fan, Tim, runs a blog, Hoops Junkie. In January 2007, he decided he was going to go on vacation and needed a couple people to man the ship while he was gone. I figured, hey, why not? So I asked if I could give it a go, and he agreed. And it was fun, so I asked him if I could make more contributions to the site every so often. Apparently, he liked what I wrote¹¹, and he said that was cool.

So I was doing that for a bit, and Dave Ruthenburg, who runs MAC Report Online¹², said Tim sometimes contributed to the site and saw I was writing for HJ as well and wanted to use a couple of my articles on his site. Would that be OK? Yeah, sure. Eventually, he said I was free to submit anything for the site that I felt would be appropriate.

So I was doing writing for Hoops Junkie and MAC Report Online, based solely off of my passion for MAC basketball and writing. I was employing my skills with tempo-free stats¹³, which had grown a considerable amount. I shot off an email this winter to Dave, who had recently moved to Oklahoma, a far cry from MAC land. I asked him if he needed any help covering the tournament. He said yes. I suddenly found myself with a media credential for the MAC tournament.

I ended up covering most of the tournament. I did two of the four games in the first and quarterfinal rounds, plus both semifinals and the finals. It was a blast, and I took in every minute. I even set up a Twitter account for MRO and gained a lot of followers. It was a big hit. The 12-hour days, while tiring, didn't faze me at all.

During the tournament, Dave flew in from OK and we spent most of the latter part of the week sitting next to each other. At some point, he asked me if I would be interested in running the site next year, as he felt like like I was doing good work and he needed someone closer to the ground.

So I went, essentially, from random idiot on a message board to what looks to be the editor of a respected site, as well as the undisclosed opportunity, which I'm actually more excited about, and will explain later. As I joked to Whelliston in Cleveland, I'm a lesser, regional version of him¹⁴.

That took a lot longer to write than I anticipated. Sorry. Still, it's kind of extraordinary journey. I kind of feel bad for people that want to be actual sports writers. I just consider this a hobby that has taken me on a great ride. Don't know where it's going to take me next, but I'm excited to see.

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1 I had tournaments with full brackets and seedings and everything. I even had a rankings system. This was serious business. Acquiring a new Hot Wheels (not a crappy Mattel) was a big deal; I had to see where it fit in in the ranking system, how good of a car it was. I was aware that races were probably influenced as much by the unequal strength of the arms I used to race the cars and that I favored some cars, especially Ferraris, over others, but I didn't care.

2 I remember my first baseball game at the old Municipal Stadium. The Indians were playing the Red Sox, and Mike Greenwell hit a foul ball off the roof of that gigantic stadium. I don't remember how old I was. Maybe four. I do not remember my first basketball game; apparently I saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar play. My first football game was a Monday Night Football affair in which Bernie Kosar beat Steve Young.

3 I felt that sports reporters weren't taken seriously in the journalism community. I have not been fully disabused of that notion.

4 I was certainly inspired by All the President's Men, but I had already established my intentions to become a journalist before reading it or seeing the movie.

5 If you really want to read my old work, Google "Jeffrey Fitzwater" or search for that in The Post's archives (if they work). You can also ask me and I'll do the searching for you. I'm just that nice.

6 And getting the "Most Improved" award from a first-quarter editor that clearly hadn't even read me before just felt like a slap in the face. I'm not bragging, but I was the site's biggest draw when I was there. At least pretend like you know what you're doing when you're my editor.

7 I should also say that they are/were run by terribly nice people. When FJM decided to hang it up, I sent them all emails to tell them my gratitude for the site, and they graciously wrote back. I have also had the pleasure to hang with Kyle Whelliston, the proprietor of Mid-Majority, on a number of occasions. Great guy.

8 I love, LOVE, the fact that Tufts University actually has a class on this.

9 Since employing these stats when drafting my team, I'm much more successful than I ever was before. It really works! I'm making $30,000 a month working from home! Call now!

10 As Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey said in Michael Lewis' fantastic piece in the New York Times: "Someone created the box score, and he should be shot."

11 I just went back and looked at my first entry on the site, and it's terrible. Boy howdy.

12 The #1 site for Mid-American Conference news! Really.

13 Established sports writers are notoriously slow to adapt to new ways of thinking, especially when it comes to statistics. So, in a way, I'm still kind of on the cutting edge and have even been recognized as such, which is pretty cool.

14 He started Mid-Majority out of love for mid-major basketball. He traveled to games, used the site to chronicle his travels, and ended up as a writer for ESPN and Basketball Times. Now he travels all around the country, is kind of a rock star, and has a lot going for him.

And That'll End That

Crap.

Well, that unofficially ends the Spurs dynasty. It was a great run; four titles in eight years is better than one would realistically hope for at the beginning, and there were a couple genuinely great teams in there as well. Still, it's going to be pretty depressing watching Timmeh fruitlessly try to carry this damaged, washed-up team through the playoffs.

Buford, things need to change. Starting this offseason. The team as it is built now is not good enough to win. You have enough left of Duncan to make another run, but he needs more than what he has now.

I suppose it's time to go into full-blown spite Cleveland mode now that I don't need LeBron for fantasy purposes. I also must root against the Lakers. The Rapist must not win.

It's Not Me, It's You...

...well, maybe it's me a little.

Here's the thing: I used to love football. I lived for Sunday¹ and spending the day watching guys in bright helmets run around the gridiron all day. I would bury myself in the draft every spring. I didn't miss a playoff game. Football. The pigskin. A man's² game. I didn't come to it as early as I came to hockey, basketball, or baseball, but darn it if I didn't fall in love with it. Monday Night Football! Brilliant! Heck, when the Browns left Cleveland, I didn't even miss a beat, adopting the Carolina Panthers in the meantime. When the Browns returned, I felt the excitement and decided I needed to be a part of that.

And it was fun, even watching the Brownies lose week after week. Baseball had become boring and the Penguins were so bad, it was painful³. But football was always there!

I'm not sure when things started to turn. I think it was when a player for the Eagles died and even though he was in his 40s, he took so much abuse he had the brain of a man twice his age. Maybe it was when Jerome Bettis said he felt like the game took years off his life. I started to think. Around that time, it seemed like every other player in the NFL was sustaining some horrible injury. What was I watching, exactly? These guys, insane athletes, were crashing into each other with violent force hundreds of times a game. They were quite literally killing themselves one play at a time. When you realize that, it's not a whole lot of fun to watch.

Plus, the NFL comes out with all these rules about celebrations. It's dumb. It's a game, guys. If Chad Johnson wants to do a riverdance, let him. I enjoy watching it. And lest we forget, we're supposed to be enjoying ourselves, right? Right? I suppose these rules stem from the general arrogance that comes from the game these days. Football demands you follow it. It is the “greatest sport in the galaxy,” and that should be enough for you, as one executive put it. Tell someone you don't like football⁴. See if they keep talking to you. It's crazy.

Eventually, I realized that these guys are killing each other for what amounts to a game that is actually pretty lame. Think about it: They huddle for 30 seconds, run a play for about four seconds, then huddle up again. It's so slow. Then there is timeout after timeout after timeout. What's so fun about it?

I think what kept me going was my devotion to the Browns I liked being a part of a fanbase so passionate, so devoted. These people filled the stadium even in terrible seasons. I never liked college football⁵. It's like pro football, only played incompetently. However, my general ambivalence toward the sport started to chip away at my fandom. When “fans” cheered Derek Anderson getting hurt, that was it for me. I turned my card in. The Browns got crushed by the Titans this week, and I didn't even care. That's it.

Even fantasy football, because of the prevalence of injuries, has become unfun to play. I love fantasy sports⁶, so this depresses me. I don't know how much longer I can stick that out.

So that's it. Me, not a football fan. We'll see how I do beyond the pale.

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1 Aside from going to church. I love going to church.

2 Incidentally, some of the toughest and scariest athletes I know are women. Don't mess with a rugby player.

3 Seriously, it was an insult to hockey and it makes this current run all the more enjoyable.

4 Also tell that person you think it's ironic that a country that values personal freedom so much also loves a game that exudes classic communist traits. That's fun.

5 Why do I attend so many OU games? You tell me. It must be a sense of obligation... and the 110. They weren't there for the Akron game, and I wasn't either.

6 I'm one of those guys that would rather have my fantasy team win than my pro team win. Why? Because it's my team! I'm actually involved!

Busy Week

It's been a while since I have had a more eventful period of time. Let's break it down into sections.

Work: I started at CVS, and it's what you can expect from retail, easy and completely mentally unstimulating. I do like the people there, and the managers seem like good people. In Athens, one could do a lot worse. Tim is there as well, which is always a nice thing. What sucks is that I have to do a lot of truck. Truck comes in, by the way, at 4 a.m. on Thursday. I usually work until 7 p.m. on Wednesdays. With practice three hours later, that leaves little time for sleep. Perhaps I should buy stock in Red Bull, as I'm certainly helping their business.

School: Not enjoying myself. Of course, I had two exams Thursday, and I wasn't ready for either. It didn't help I was going on 36 hours or so without sleep. I got my oral exam back for Spanish. The professor wrote, "I expect better next time." That's funny, because I don't. This year is going to be furiously clawing to keep from falling off the cliff, I can feel it.

Sports: Yikes. Football looked bad in losses to Wyoming and Kent. I guess it's back to form for them. But volleyball lost to Miami. Holy crap, that was terrible. I never saw them play so poorly before. They rebounded and pasted BG the next night, but it's still sad to see the home and conference winning streaks ended. The girls were real upset. I guess they'll just be that much more focused now for the rest of the season.

Girl: OK, a bit of a different story. She came down Saturday (though later than intended). Took her to the game- apparently she hadn't really been to a sporting event before, so I think that overwhelmed her a bit. She liked the 110, though. From there, we went to Sonic. She loved the drink selections. We had a lot of fun there, blowing straw wrappers and just talking about a whole lot of stuff. The conversation turned a bit serious, to the subject of "we." We talked about how we met, what we thought about each other at first. I confessed that I was afraid to talk to her at first because I thought she was beautiful. Later, I was afraid to talk to her because I felt myself developing feelings for her. I told her I was surprised how much we have in common, and that as we were talking, I liked her more. We also expressed hesitations and reservations. In the end, we agreed to go for it. Literally, she said, "I think it's worth a shot." Then she blew a straw wrapper at me.
(Full disclosure: She's in high school. And I realize how bad this looks, and we talked about it. She's mature, and the age gap isn't really that big. I know friends dating someone further away from them in age. She is a senior, though. I'm not a pedo or anything.)
After Sonic, we came back to my place. What did we do? Super Mario Kart, of course! That was followed by some Monty Python. After that, she had to go. I took her to Donkey because she wanted coffee (she loved it). Then we were sitting in her car at the end. Because I like quaint romantic gestures, I took her hand and kissed it. She said, "Is that all?" Of course, I said no.

So there we go. I could throw out more "aww" moments out there, but I won't.

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Now playing: Santa Esmerelda - Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
via FoxyTunes

I Haven't Written Since June? Whoops.

Facebook must not have a lot of faith in me. I keep seeing this flyer for "How to Meet Chicks." Apparently it wants to teach me how to meet and talk to girls. Maybe tomorrow it can give me dietary advice.

So, the summer came and went. I worked on third shift a lot. I made a lot of money. I made friends. I didn't play much tennis. I didn't see Tim much. I did, of course, attend his wedding, being a groomsman and all. I have to say... drunken bridesmaids are not my friend. This random girl pulled me out on the dance floor suddenly, then said, "you failed" and walked off, leaving me wondering what in the world just happened. To affirm me, the maid of honor assured me that I did indeed fail. Thanks. The same drunk girl later grabbed me again, yelling "Let's take a picture!" So we did, and then she started spinning. Now, we were able of equal weight, so there was no way I was going to be able to stop her. I thought I did well just to keep her head from bouncing off the ground. Not everyone agreed.

So, once again, I am in Athens for the school year. Mercifully, I'm not living in the dorms. I've bunkered down with TR in an apartment a mile or so from campus. It's so much better than dorm life that I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to make this move. However, I have no furniture. I'm sitting on the floor as I write this. Saturday is the first home game of the year for the football team, with volleyball debuting next week. I'm excited.

I'm getting close to filling up another poetry notebook. I'll have to buy a new one. Do they still make the Five-Star notebooks? I like those. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll become famous posthumously, like Dickinson. That would be kind of cool, wouldn't it? Following in the footsteps of my favorite wordsmith? No? OK.

It's about time I admit this: I have a crush on a girl. It's the first one since Hurricane Carolyn, so it's kind of weird. I worked with her over the summer. The first time I saw her, I thought, "Wow, she's beautiful." What's that? That's hackneyed? Well, that's literally what I thought, so shut up. I can't control what goes on up here. And she is. Anyway, I didn't really work with her a whole lot at first. But we did a bit, so we got to talking. I found her to be pretty funny and smart. And, you know, I liked looking at her. As the summer went on, I started thinking that maybe I might like her. And honestly, I really fought those thoughts. I didn't want to like her. I didn't want to like anyone. I wanted to be alone, shut up in my little castle, protected and aloof. By the end of August, though, I couldn't kid myself anymore. I really did like her.

Naturally, the next course of action was to avoid these feelings as much as possible. With the summer ending, our paths were going to part soon. So I thought that I would just go the last couple days of work, come back here, and that would be the end of it. Sort of a flirt-and-run? But I think I subconsciously sabotaged my attempts to consciously sabotage myself (did your brain just explode?), because I told her that she should come visit me down here. I didn't even think about it, I just said it. Then she asked what we would do, so I rattled off a few things. At one point, she said it sounds romantic. Yeah, I said, it can be.

And then: Do you want romance? Well, I said, who doesn't? No, she said, with me. Cue panic. Go with sarcastic, evasive answer. She's having none of it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, I tell her. I tell her that I think she's smart, funny, fun to talk to, and very attractive. Ditto, she says.

Well, crap. My plans just went up in smoke. I just went and said what I told myself I wasn't going to say. Now I have to do something about this, don't I? Yes, you moron, you do. Why don't you ever listen to me? She was off not long after that conversation. But- and I didn't think about this at the time, but I guess it's important- we were totally giving each other the eyes for like a minute.

Because I am nothing if not dedicated to failure, I went back to the drawing board. OK, she mentioned she's still sort of trying to patch things up with her old boyfriend. As long as she's sticking to that, we're in the clear. Naturally, a few days later, I get a message from her: It's over with them. Now what? I got nothing. Might as well see where this goes. So we've had a couple of those all-night conversations where you just talk about all manner of things. And the more I've talked to her and gotten to know her, the more I like her.

By the way, she's planning on driving down here to visit me Saturday. I mention this- and the entire story that preceded it- because this probably constitutes a significant step in the process of... whatever it is we're doing.

I don't know for sure where this is going (though I have a pretty good idea of where we're headed at this point), but... I don't know. There's still that part of me screaming get out, get out now!, the part is terrified I'll just get hurt again. The difference this time, I think, is that I harbor no illusions here. Previous girls seemed... almost perfect. She isn't. I see her flaws, her problems. I almost take comfort in that. I don't have to feel like I need to live up to some standard so I can keep up, like I did with Kat. Maybe it will make me more willing to be vulnerable with her. There are other problems which are, well, problems. But those bridges will be crossed when we get to them. At the same time, it's nice to actually go through this again, to care about someone and seem to have them return that. I had forgotten that simple joy, absentmindedly thinking of sharing a moment with that person, being excited to talk to her again, see her again.

Like I said, the waters are far from calm, for both of us. Right now, though, I'm still trying to get my bearings and figure out what's going on. I've sort of stayed mum about this. Previously, I've just yapped about girls to anyone and everyone. I thought a different approach couldn't hurt. I also don't feel like I'm rushing into anything, which is a huge relief to me. If something is to happen, it should happen in its proper time.

That said, I have no idea what is going to happen Saturday. Of course, this scares the daylights out of me. And if you noticed, gentle friend, I have really not told you anything about her. See? I'm not yapping this time.

I guess Blogger has integrated FoxyTunes now, so I can plug my current song in. Wee.

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Now playing: Daft Punk - Too Long
via FoxyTunes

Crusade of Cynicism

As I've discovered, I'm not too old for 12-hour Dungeons & Dragons sessions. I started running a game on Thursdays. Last week, we started at 8 p.m. and ended at 8 p.m. It was fun, to be sure, but it was also quite exhausting. And of course, it threw my sleep schedule completely out of whack. So I'm working on about four hours of sleep because that whole class thing forced me to get up at a decent hour.

I was watching SportsCenter yesterday, and they had a feature of sorts on Bob Knight, the former coach of Indiana and the current coach about Texas Tech (this isn't really about sports, I promise). The report was filed by Jeremy Schaap, one of ESPN's top "issue" reporters and the son of sports journalism icon Dick Schaap. Part of the way through the story, Jeremy mentions the interview he had with Knight after he was fired from Indiana University. It shows Knight getting surly with Schaap and refusing to shake his hand after the interview concluded. Makes Bobby K look pretty bad, right?
Well, the voiceover immediately says something along the line of the thing that stuck out to him (Schaap) the most was Knight's "personal attack" on him (Knight was getting mad for Schaap interrupting him and said, "You've got a long way to go to be like your father"). And this is the problem I have. First of all, it wasn't really an insult. But Schaap is a whiny sissy, and he frequently injects himself into the story. Schaap has developed a history of interviewees getting hostile with him. Is it asking the tough questions, or is it provocation? It's a fine line, to be sure, but I don't believe he comes down on the correct side of it.
He's also one of those people who feel the need to tell the viewers what they should think, why something is so terrible and that you should be outraged, offended, or saddened by it. And I hate that. Schaap is emblematic of the generation of journalists that make the story about themselves as much as the angle. You get their opinions on things. You see them "confronting" their interviews.
If you've seen "Shattered Glass," you know what I'm talking about (and if you haven't, do yourself a favor and watch it). There's this class of reporters out there that are trying to make themselves more important than the story. They think they're the vanguards of what they cover. The importance isn't what they cover, but the fact that they're covering it.
That is wrong.
Journalism hasn't really changed in theory. The landscape of the profession has- as much as any has in the last 10 to 15 years- but the idea has not. Report the story, present the facts. The problem is that people have come along who have twisted the game and have stuck themselves between the truth and the consumer. And in the process, that truth gets distorted. The idea is that the story speaks for itself. Now, the reporters are speaking for themselves. That ideal of objectivity (which I think is crap, but that's another rant) gets destroyed in the process.
That's why I love how the BBC does things. British journalism, sadly, is far superior to American journalism in some respects. In the US, journalism is all about the story. What's the angle? What's the hook? In England, it's about the facts. Here's what's going on, here's what a couple people said... draw your own conclusions. And you know what? It works. It's more reliable. It's more trustworthy.
This is the system we used to have. Why don't we go back to it? Our journalists shouldn't be the guardians of morality or culture. I don't care what Neil Cavuto thinks about the Anna Nicole Smith saga- or, for that matter, why she's dominating the headlines. But once again, the media's obsession with stupid celebrity stories is another rant.

Only 10 and a Half Hours...

...until the month of Madness. Are you excited? I'm excited.

(And yes, I know, I haven't posted in forever. But I will soon. Really. I'm just working on very little sleep right now and I ramble on incoherently enough as it is.)

Chest Crusher

I think it's safe to say I am not a person on an even keel. When I'm up, I'm up. And when I'm down, I'm down. Especially when I'm left alone when I'm done, I can fold in on myself and make things much worse than they need to be. This is what I did this weekend.

I did a lot of writing on Friday; I wrote here, I wrote on Newsvine (go look if you haven't already, thewhirlingdervish.newsvine.com), and I wrote a few poems. The guy who messed with Carolyn got kicked out of the building, which made me happy. She and I were talking late Friday night and she asked me what I had done with the evening. I told her about the writing. She asked to see the poems I wrote, and I gave them to her. Now, this is where I made the tactical error. I write my poems about a variety of things, but she doesn't like to read the ones about her because of our situation. It's a long story. But because my brain completely left me for a moment, I didn't tell her which ones she should and should not read, so she read them all. Whoops.

Upon realizing this, I go into mini-panic mode. I had told myself that because of what she was going through, I wasn't going to complicate things. I wasn't going to be in the way. The last thing she needed was me doing something, So then I go and do that... I wasn't happy with myself. I don't like when people I care about are mad at me. I don't deal with it well.

So Saturday, I was watching the OU-Kent football game. The Bobs won and took control of the MAC East with the victory. I should've been thrilled, I should've been celebrating it, but I couldn't. I saw Carolyn walk by my door a few times without saying a word to me or even acknowledging me. Each time, my mood worsened. As the day went on, people went out and had fun. I stayed in my room and stewed at myself. Nobody dropped by the room or talked to me, which didn't help matters. Everyone had a great time but me, he who allows himself to spin out of control too easily.

Sunday was easier, as I left Athens for Oxford and the OU-Miami volleyball match. We swept them; I nearly got kicked out. One of the Miami coaches really doesn't like me.

But today didn't go well at all. My roommate turned my alarm off, so I slept through my classes. The great part of bipolar is that it can overtake you without any warning or control, which is pretty much what happened today. I ceased to function. I couldn't do anything. I spent the whole day sitting around, my chest feeling like someone was trying to squeeze it to dust. Finally, I was able to speak to Carolyn. I laid it all out, my mistake, my guilt, the depression part of it... I told her how I feel like sometimes I'm unwanted, like I'm a poison to those around me (I even told her about the worst thing I ever did, the thing that nearly blew up my friendship with Tim), the depression, all that. It turns out she wasn't as mad as I thought she was, and she said nobody wanted to talk to me because I looked angry the entire weekend. Go figure.

She told me I needed to engage myself. She told me nobody feels the way I do when I said I feel like the guy that always hangs around but nobody wants. But it's hard to do that when all of myself wants to just sit and stare at the walls, when I feel like I'm nothing more than a burden to others. It's things like this that cause me to say I hate myself, cause me to not eat for a week, cause me to withdraw from the world completely. I don't like it. But I exist on a permanent slippery slope.

And I know it's completely silly, but I feel like I'm losing Carolyn, that she's going to decide that in the end, she doesn't want to be with me. I just don't have any confidence right now. And frankly, I don't think I'm equipped to deal with it if it happens. The thing about it all is, what I've had with her is completely unlike anything else. I write the stupid, sappy poems about love and I talk about relationships, but I never had a real one before. Kat wasn't real. Before Kat was just high school. But with Carolyn... I saw it for the first time. I felt it for the first time. I understood the limitless potential for what could be, for what it already was. Everything with us just fit together. We instinctively acted together, made each other laugh, leaned on each other for support.
One time before we went somewhere (I don't remember where), Tim and I were getting ready. Girls were going to be involved, so we were talking about it. I asked him for advice. He said, "Don't think. You get into trouble when you think." I laughed at the time, but I realize now he knew me better than I knew myself. Before with Carolyn, I never had to think. I just acted, and it all worked. Now, I'm thinking all the time and tripping over myself and freaking out about it all. I need to learn not to think again. More than anything else, I need her. And now, I'm terrified she's going to look at me and the mistakes I've made recently and determine I'm not good for her.

Right now, I just feel like I have a reverse Midas touch, that everything I lay a finger on turns to dust. So, really, I'm most likely exaggerating these things like I always do. But it's impossible for me not to. I feel like I'm buried 20 feet underground. I need someone to tell me this has just been a weird, rough stretch of time. I need someone to tell me things are OK. Most importantly, I need to believe it myself.