Get on the Pole, Mr. Vick

The NFL pre-season is about to begin. Normally at this time of year, we football fanatics are talking about rookies, off-season free agent pick-ups and our upcoming Fantasy drafts like a bunch of Trekkies geeking out over a Shatner sighting. Instead, what are the Top Three stories in football today? Plaxico Burress is heading to trial for shooting himself in the leg with a concealed weapon in a Manhattan nightclub, Ben Roethlisberger stands accused of rape by an ugly chick in Reno, and Michael Vick just got out of the slammer after serving two years for owning and operating a dog fighting compound. Plaxico is a thug and a loser, and I don't care what happens to him. Of course my opinion is not swayed by the painful memory of being at the Super Bowl and watching him catch the game-winning touchdown that killed the Patriots 19-0 season like a poison-dipped dagger through the heart of New England. [hanky, please] As for Big Ben, the fact that the allegation was issued in a civil court but no criminal charges are being filed makes it hard to take seriously. Now, the Michael Vick case...

As a dog owner, I personally think the most suitable penalty for the atrocities of Michael Vick and anyone who has participated in dog fighting would be to chain him to one of the poles they chained the dogs to, slap some peanut butter on his gender-defining parts and let the alpha dogs have their way with him for a while. Someone on a message board made an interesting point, challenging our society giving the green light to slaughter cows and other animals for food, while dogs are protected. Maybe it's that dog meat isn't as abundant a source of food for mass consumption (Chinese restaurant jokes are not being accepted at this time), maybe it's that they're trainable as domestic pets and companions, maybe a bit of both. But it remains that in our society, in a third world country with a more sophisticated set of social and behavioral standards and mores than most, dog fighting is a reprehensible and illegal, felonious activity.

Yes, Michael Vick served his time. Sure, he has the right to make a living, not necessarily in the NFL but somewhere. Certain crimes are simply deemed reprehensibly inhumane in our society. Child molesters also have a right to earn a living after they've served their time. Would you hire a child molester or child pornographer? How about a rapist? Would you patronize a business that does? Child molestation/pornography, rape, and dog fighting are not the same thing, but they have some things in common, chief among them the practice of preying on and inflicting viscous, long-term physical and psychological damage to defenseless beings, essentially murdering them and given that they must carry the abuse around for the remainder of their days, perhaps some victims would actually prefer death.

I try to support the notion that Vick should have the opportunity for a future in the NFL on the basis that he served his time and is now a free man. If he's still good enough to compete, I say let him play and let whichever team signs him deal with the imminent backlash from its community, PETA, and anyone else. I just don't want to see him playing for one of the teams I follow and support, those being the Patriots and Bears. I like to estimate that much of the quarterback-hungry defensive lineman and linebacker population are dog owners who love their four-legged companions like their children, like I love my dog. It stands to reason that should he find himself playing on Sunday afternoons, Mike Vick just might enjoy the business end of some street justice on the gridiron. I'm not advocating dirty play here - hit him clean, but hit him with everything you've got, hit him so hard his family feels it. Then help him up, pat him on the duff, and on the next play, do it again. Repeat until desired result.

I personally think the only thing Michael Vick regrets is having blown dozens of millions in potential earnings. He'll never understand what he and his scumbag friends did to those dogs until he endures the same treatment. Get that mother f***er on the rape pole and see how he likes it. Does that sound harsh? It's no more so than what they did to the dogs.

Come on over, Mike. I've got a pole, a chain, some pissed off canines who haven't eaten in days, and some Skippy. Come to Da Jesus! We gonna party, baby! Woooooo!

The Few. The Proud. The Norwegians.

Those words were on the license plate cover of the guy in front of me in traffic this morning. I was merging left into his lane with plenty of room and the blinker on, and he proceeded to speed up to not let me in. A block later, he quickly changed lanes (no blinker) to cut one guy off, sped up in front of the car that was previously in front of him, jerked his car back into the original lane (no blinker), cutting that guy off and then banged a left into a parking garage (no blinker). Maybe his blinker was broken, along with his brakes and his left arm which would have allowed for hand signals. Maybe he's a douchebag. As a guy chooses to display his heritage association like that and then chooses to drive like a jackass, I can only validate his efforts by playing into his hand and estimating that Norwegians are douchebags. Hey, don't look at me, pal. This is clearly what this morning's a**hole wants me to think. I don't even know where Norwegia is, man. Are the bars open late there? How's the public transit? Are the winters cold? When a guy there sees a nice looking girl, does he get Norwegian Wood?

In related news, I'm no economist or health care expert, but what's the beef with national health care? I hear two principle arguments from the right. [1] It doesn't work in Canada or in Europe. My answer: maybe it's not being done well in those places. To those nations I say, My president is smarter than yours, and I'd like to give it a shot. The other argument is the same old tired GOP snobbery, [2] "We (rich people) work hard for our money and we don't need the national health care. Why should people who make the most money be penalized by paying into a national health care program for the poor?" Well... 26.5 million people in the U.S. are without health care. That's about 8% of the population. 1.5% of Americans earn more than $100g per year. For the upper 1.5% to pay into the program, I can't imagine they'll suffer any noticeable lifestyle adjustments as a result, and it certainly doesn't outweigh the benefit of the 26.5 million people gaining access to doctors and medicine. I was in a light-hearted debate with a high school classmate who makes a living as a Republican and his contention was, "If you raise my taxes, I have to decrease my spend, and that's bad for the little guy because I may have to cut back on landscaping and gardening, or charitable contributions." Yeah, like anyone from the "my house (penis) is bigger than yours / he who dies with the most toys wins" school of thought will let the curb appeal of his yard go to hell, or exit the black tie charity ball circuit used by rich people as a tax write-off and shameless attempt at soul-scrubbing. Please. The upper 1.5% won't decrease their spend. They'll decrease their save. And they'll still have plenty of money to retire on while the rest of us are still working. In a land where 10% of the population owns 71% of the wealth, the top 1% controls 38% and the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth, the notion of the wealthiest people paying a few hundred more in taxes doesn't exactly yank on my heart strings. Besides, when we pay taxes we pay for all kinds of things we don't personally use, like public schools our kids (if we have them) don't attend, roads we don't drive on, streetlights/cleaning/maintenance for those roads, parks we don't use, etc. Cry me a river, you rich bastards.

Despite how this entry may read, I'm actually in a pretty good mood today.

Soccer? What'd She Do To Me?

Went to my first soccer game today. Jessica scored the tickets so Thanks Be To Her, For She Rocks. Hi, my name is Eric and I am now a soccer fan. ["Hi, Eric!"]

Historically, I'm not a soccer guy. I played football from ages 9-19 and I love The Game. I've always respected soccer and its players on conditioning alone, and while I don't have the same need for constant action and a lot of scoring as most Americans, still, soccer has passed me by. It seems like the U.S. flirts with the sport every few years. There was the pro league in the 70s, Pele played in it and most teenage girls in the NY-NJ area had photos of the New York Cosmos on their bedroom walls, but it didn't last. We hosted the World Cup in '93 or '94 at the Meadowlands, I was living in Jersey at the time and there was a somewhat calculated and harnessed attempt at a soccer craze here in the Lower 48, but that didn't last, either. A couple weeks ago, the U.S. beat Spain in a huge upset and that caused many of us to take notice. The MLS is currently in 16 major U.S. markets. I don't know how attendance fares in each city, but I do know the New England Revolution doesn't draw more than 10-12,000 to their games and I've heard that's representative of the crowds these events tend to attract. That is sad.

The Seattle Sounders FC is extremely popular in the Emerald City. It's not a huge market - at a half a million and change, Seattle ranks 23rd or 24th in population among U.S. cities. Every Sounders home game has sold out at 32,000. Next week, the 300-level will be open at Qwest Field when the Sounders host a friendly match vs. Chelsea FC. 65,000 seats. Sold Out.

Why is soccer so popular in Seattle? Perhaps, between the NBA franchise (Sonics) being relocated to Oklahoma City last year and the lack of an NHL franchise, the sports fans of this town will grab onto anything. This is also at least among the best-attended markets for women's flat track roller derby and the WNBA, not to mention the market with the most advance season tickets sold for its franchise of the Lingerie Football League (sorry, kids, I draw my line at linking to that shameless T&A circus).

Is Seattle simply THE market for alternative anything, including major league sports? It may stand to reason so, especially as we acknowledge the city's chosen preference for independent arts and culture. Indie record labels and bands, fringe theater, burlesque, cabaret, experimental music and performance art all thrive here. Chain restaurants don't have nearly the same presence here as in other cities. Although the MLS success could become another example of the rest of the nation getting hip to something Seattleites were onto months or years ago, I don't think the answer is even that complicated. The real reason?

Soccer is awesome. For many reasons. Admittedly, we had great seats today:

The crowd was fully engaged in the game. Unlike Mariners and Seahwaks games, where Seattle people try (a little too) hard to be sports fans, shouting things they've heard at sporting events while inserting the verbiage in ways that are just enough out of context that it just sounds and feels weird, these Sounders fans were IN the game all day long. The energy here is that of a big-time college football game, 100% of the fans on their feet 100% of the time, cheering like crazy, waving flags, each end of the stadium chanting call-and-response all afternoon, fans harassing the
opposing goalie precisely as well as the Wrigley Field Bleacher Bums heckle every visiting outfielder. Also, unlike Mariners and Seahwaks games, where the fans need to take their collective cue from the Jumbotron which leads the masses in such chants as "I-chi-ro!" and "De-Fense!" Sounders fans get no such directions. They don't need 'em. They're into the game, reacting to what's happening on the field and not looking to the big screen for instructions. Confetti, streamers and such are thrown all over the field. It's delightfully chaotic, it is.


Soccer is a bad-ass sport for a few reasons. Each team is only allowed three substitutions per match. Sure, this blows for the back-ups. But for a sport which calls on virtually every player to be on his feet and covering ground that's larger than a football field for 90 minutes without a break, this is purely bad-ass. Because of the 3-sub limit, you see guys getting their bell rung, tweaking their knees and ankles, and to avoid wasting the substitution they walk it off and eventually get back in the game. In related news, once a player leaves the game for a substitution, he can't re-enter the match. Unsportsmanlike Conduct sort of exists but is very rarely called. The match is played on running time, 45 minutes per half and the clock does not stop even when the action does. Any injury-related downtime is tallied by the officials and at the end of each half, the game clock stops and the remaining time is flashed once on the Jumbotron (for example, "4:00 left to play") and that's it - you don't get a live clock for the remaining time. The officials have it, and they blow the whistle to end the half or the match when the time comes. In a one-goal or tie match, this makes for some serious tension. This used to be my primary beef with soccer, but having attended a close match between two good teams, I find this extremely interesting and exciting, an attribute that skews closer to the artistic than to the scientific, which I think is good - maybe not in all sports, but in this one, Yes.

People, I am a believer. Soccer is a great sport, the athleticism is impressive and dynamic, the tension is bold and the excitement is lightning in a bottle. I will definitely attend another Sounders FC match or two this season, accessibility to tickets permitting, and I will absolutely get a 5-game package next season.


p.s. Drew Carey owns the team! You gotta problem with that?