Gving Thanks, Post-Celebration

The thing about holidays is the "post" aspect of it.  As in the aftermath.  Cleaning up and coming down.  Like the song says "back to reality."  In these weird ass times, "reality" is a bitch. 

At least the moment of "holiday" can be, and often is, wonderful.  If you look at the word, it's basically "Holy Day."  A day of holiness.  Not in the religious sense but of being wholistic.  The state of "whole," i.e. you being you.  Notice how much embracing occurs during holidays.  That's you embracing various aspects of you.  Why don't we do it more often?

Doesn't music sound better during holidays? 

The best time to try some foul shit is during holidays.  People are so intoxicated by happiness, food, and alcohol that you could start a war - and they have - but they wouldn't care. Why?  Because most people are focused on themselves and things/people close to them.  Only the diabolical think of this shit (i.e. Nixon, Kissinger, Cheney, Thatcher).  You could raid a village or break into a house and start shooting at sunrise. 

Holidays were very often depressing for me because I was not with family.  Now, it's just a time to watch some football.   Everything else is a bonus.

Members of the wife's family came by and enjoyed what had to be one of the finer moments of cooking we created.  

Then there are my boys, the Oakland Raiders.   They stunk up the television against my mother's favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys.  Goddamn!  My mother became a "saved" Christian a while back.  So she didn't talk too crazy to me.

We missed our annual sojourns this year.  Weird times.  Usually make that drive to see Moms, grandmother, aunts, cousins, and best friends.  Gotta get back right side up.

The mind is not only a terrible thing to waste, it is an awful prison.  The mind is a hard place to break out of when you don't feel like you.  I advocate exercise and a walk in the open air to release yourself if you don't feel like you. 

Why are they fucking with people?  Jobs and shelter.  Fucking with people's self-esteem.  Are they that fucked up in their own head that you have to pass that along?

I am thankful for all the experiences - good, bad, and fucked up.  They make me me. 

I love you muthafuckas!

Raider Nation - Excitement Pt. 3

It's about goddamn time these cats started to play up to their potential.  Me and my homeboy, Barron, watched the sheeit with jaded eyes.  But our boys came from behind and played some offense.  Defense was there, too.  I think we lucked up that Cincy called some boneheaded plays but we gave some games away doing the same.  Especially with DuhMarcus, I mean, Jamarcus at qb.  We wasted a season trying to get him to play ball.  Should've seen the writing on the wall during his laziness off-season and the Denver game.  Dude has no accountability in him and that will cause you not to grow. 

I think we get in the Cowboys' azzes next.  They can't score and we have a qb who gets it now.  Hopefully, Jamarcus learns his lesson and stops wasting Al's money and the Nation's time.

Some Rare Excitement

The past month has been difficult emotionally for me.  We will elaborate in a hard hitting piece soon.  You know we will deliver.  But it's been difficult for me to write, really, for the past year.  I promise you will receive more DeAng, and not the subtle DeAng either.

My boys pulled one out today.  Watched the game on the Sunday Ticket with my son.  Got him some Martinelli Apple-Grape for his Raider glass with some Cheez-Its and Oreos.  My favorite moments are watching a Raider game with him with his drinks and snacks.  Damn the outcome - it's the Moment.  Only two seasons left before he's gone and those moments will be gone.  Crying on the inside.

What can I say?  The Bengals, like the Eagles, were sloppy and underestimated the Silver and Black.  Defense has always been good.  Just need those high draft picks to step up.

I really cannot express the love and joy I experience with my son during these moments.  Thanks Barron!  For being you.  I 'll keep trying to be a better me.

Stability

Stability.  Who doesn't crave it in some form?  Unless you're Miles Davis, you want that wall, that ground to understand yourself, that launching pad, that landing ground, that resting place where you are are you.  That place to hug your kids and your spouse.

That place of meditation.

Stability.

Then THEY mess with it.  Like a frat playing mind games.  I'm too old and polished for mind games.  I don't play mind games and never have.  I'm direct.  That's why we didn't pledge.  I don't care if you did and there's no judgment involved.  Some of my best friends pledged.

They want consumption but they keep interfering with your ability to consume.  You want to come home and enjoy a glass of wine while watching your favorite moment.  And they disrupt your moment of stability. 

Because they induced you into their crap-out?  They still have loads of money but want you to pay off their lost bets?

And so this is where we are as a society and economy?  Why am I burdened with your bad decisions?  We are all burdened by poor choices, why am I burdened by yours?

Being imperfectioned humans means we all have to choose.  Otherwise, we'd know the answers before they were questions.

We have habits and things we rely on to be in the place that we want or place them.  Then there's now.  Where folks mess with mess with your stability.  Where they play games with what you worked hard and sacrificed for.  Out of greed.  But all you want is stability.  To get your feet under you.


Stability. Every sane person craves it.  If we have to live together, what does it say about you to mess anyone's up?

The Reset

I've been wearing out Prince's 1999 lately.  Against that backdrop is the reset we are experiencing in society.  I had to cancel today's radio show due to being a victim of the reset.  It's a trip.  And very exasperating riddled with angst and anxiety.  And they wonder why people resort to mind-altering substances? Not that I have beyond watching a good television show and listening to some Prince, but the hell are they thinking?  Maybe that's what they want you to do.  If you've read Brave New World, you know about the drug soma that induces inactivity and apathy. 

So they kick a mug out of his job and now want his crib, too?  But they want you to consume at the same rate they induced you to do.   They don't want to pay you but want you to pay yesterday's prices to keep a crib over your head?  Gas prices have crept back up along with the cost of food.  Where do they think you're getting the money?

And so they get mad when folk engage strategic default.  I read somewhere that they shouldn't be concerned about terrorists but whether people will wake up and make astute economic decisions.  Is that why the banks claimed the sky was falling?  

Like Prince said, albeit in a different context, "Something In the Water Does Not Compute."  The way this society is going might lead to some kind of revolution.  Because greedy theft and deprivation of the consumer is inconsistent.  You can keep squeezing but there comes a breaking point, a point where there's a burst.  Not advocating a riot but keep pushing those buttons and you might get one.

I mean really.  You keep taking away a person's means to survive with no relief.  You keep pushing at a person's self-respect.  Most people can suck it up.  But when they have kids, now you are fucking with people in the wrong manner.   What do you think they are going to do?  And how do you think the kids are going to feel?  We are not living on the Gaza Strip, you know.  And you see what that's gotten greed, right?

I thought we lived in a society and economy of Change.  It looks like more of the same in yellow-face.  Did we sign up for this?

Raider Nation - The Bullshit of Tom Cable as a Physical Abuser

Okay, let's get one thing out of the way.  Violence against anyone is not condoned.  Domestic violence, where a dude uses his superior physical strength, is frowned on, shouldn't be done, is a display of mental weakness and insecurity, etc.  I'm liberal than a mug when it comes to women (uuuhhh don't take that the way I think you might, even though we confess to a continual fascination with feminine beauty and curves).

That said I'm smelling a rat when it comes to the latest allegations of domestic violence against Raiders head coach Tom Cable.  This is a story now?!  He's had the allegations of a physical assault against an assistant football coach hanging over his head since August.  I mean it's been in the news on a weekly, if not daily, basis since he allegedly broke this cat's jaw.

So approximately a week after those charges were dismissed, ESPN decides to air a report that he hit two of his former significant others, one his wife from 20 years ago?!  This information, if true, makes the timing suspicious.  These are not new allegations.  They were in the public domain in August and up until the assault charges were dropped.  So why bring them up now?

And while I sympathize with the alleged victims, their day in court has long passed with no conviction of Cable.  And in this country, we're supposed to have the concept of double jeopardy meaning you can't be tried for the same crime twice.  In the literal and legal sense, Cable has not been tried for these crimes.  But that's not to say there wasn't the opportunity.  And so why seize the opportunity now?  Because it was a hot topic and it was your time to grab that 15 minutes of fame on ESPN?

Again, if true, I'm not co-signing Cable's actions.  But even if true, why bring it up now?  And why is ESPN airing the shit AFTER charges were dropped?  Do you see where I'm going with this?

Now NOW is involved.  Female sports columnists and reporters, particularly from the Bay Area, are Jane-On-The-Spot with this topic.  Like vultures and/or sharks, they seized the moment to pounce on vulnerable prey.

So again, my point to you.  This was information in the public domain for years.  This was information in the public domain when Cable was named the Raiders O-Line coach.  In the public domain when Cable was named the Raiders interim head coach.  In the public domain after he was named the Raiders permanent head coach.  In the public domain when Randy Hanson claimed Cable beat his ass and broke his jaw.

Further, ESPN has an investigative arm to its news organization.  ESPN has deep Jacques Cousteau pockets.  ESPN is into 24/7 news.  And this only recently  became a news story?!  After assault charges were dropped?!  You see where I'm going with this?!

I don't know what happened between Cable and his former wife and ex-girlfriend.  I do know that there are two sides to every story and the Truth usually falls in the middle of those perspectives.  I do know that it takes a complete psycho obsessive-compulsive liar (and I've been the victim of one, who, coincidentally, works for ESPN) to completely make that kind of shit up.  But relationships are complicated.  And a physical reaction may have been precipitated by some rancor.  Does that condone a violent reaction?  Hell no!  But it points to communication problems and trust issues. Unless and until you get control of those issues along with your own insecurity, you may be prone that these kinds of episodes.

But what you don't do is publicly drag down a person who is trying their best to excel in a profession.  He may or may not need help with his temper.  But don't back-door the issue.  Especially on ESPN.  I'll tell you what.  If the allegations are true, I have no sympathy for the victims.  Why?  Because of the timing and public nature of it.  As a lawyer, I know this is a set-up for a hand out.

Tom, just coach a better game and let's get it on with some football excitement.

Raider Nation - It's Time To Man Up

My boys are 2 - 5.  I thought they'd be 3 -4 after last week with a good chance of being .500 going into their bye week the week after next.  Staring at a losing record a seventh season in a row.  This is horrific.  The Raiders may have been mediocre since their last Bowl win but they haven't losers.  Double-digit losers at that.  That's where they are headed this year.  Wow.

Like Bill Romo says, we need a team that flies around and makes plays.  He played with HOF Ronnie Lott.  He said Ronnie Lott would never allow that debacle.  He would make sure every one held themselves accountable.

Now one muthafucka who thinks his shit doesn't stink is Jamarcus Russell.  Everyone else is holding himself accountable.  The one muthafucka who needs to hold himself accountable is the quarterback.  He needs to recognize that he's fucking up just as much as the other folks he's accusing of fucking him up.

I think it would help the team for him to bang his chest and say it's on me.  For him to point fingers is a bitch move.  He's proving to be a bitch.  Not just in his play but in his post-game comments.

Like Romo, I want to see some excitement.

Raider Nation Is Getting Served - And Not In A Good Way, Pt. 5

The Giants' game.  Or as Antonio Pierce put it, "the scrimmage."  Where the Raiders played like some fat, wet, tight pussy, i.e. getting fucked with enthusiasm.  Or better yet, tackling dummies for a team playing like Super Bowl Champions.

It was the first time I turned off a Raider game prior to the ending.  I mean I have sat thru some ugly games.  Everytime they lost to the hated Broncos has been painful.  Real painful.  I've sat thru some lopsided losses, too.  The AFC Championship in Buffalo where the game started at 9a PST.  I was brewed up by then but quickly the high was blown so that by 10a I needed a nap.  But I stayed up until the bitter end.  Then crashed hard - real hard.

The most humiliating thing was sitting thru the Super Bowl where they lost to Tampa Bay.  I was at a Super Bowl party.  Surrounded by Bronco fans and they were in my ear the whole time.  There was a kid (he wasn't exactly a kid just younger than me) sitting behind right ear hollering every time the Bucs did some cool shit (which was like every other minute).  I wanted to whup his ass.  And it would've been very easy. But taking the Raiders' loss out on him and his exuberance in said loss, especially pursuant to several tequila shots, would've been unseemly.

Which brings me to now.  I really can't stand watching the Raiders.  I mean, I'm a lover of football.  And the Raiders rule my football watching universe.  But they are fucking that universe up right now.  It's like going to a tittie bar, and your favorite dancer showing up with shit in her thong all the time.  You gonna allow her to lap dance?

The Raiders under Art Shell and Tom "Bed & Breakfast" Walsh directed an unspeakably bad offense in 2006.  But you sort of knew what you were in store for at the time because the whole offseason was a comedy of errors.

This year was full of youthful promise.  But, goddamn!  This shit is really fucking bad.   Jamarcus needs to step up.  The line needs to block.  And the receivers need to hang onto the ball.  But offense-bashing is reserved for another post.  This post is reserved for the defense.

The linebackers suck asshole and have for quite sometime now.  I know people extol the speed of Thomas Howard and Kirk Morrison in the passing game.  Fuck the passing game.  How about stopping the run?  That's really supposed to be an lb's thing.  Knocking the snot outta a running back when he crosses the line of scrimmage.  Stopping the run is the essence of football.  Listening to pads crack and helmets explode at the line of scrimmage is what gets the dick hard.  A "whooo" hit at the line of scrimmage or behind it bespeaks the primitive nature of contact.  Observing the mano a mano competition is what ignites our salivation glands.

The Raiders are not competing on defense.  The safeties shouldn't be making tackles 12 yards down the field.  The linemen can stand up the o-line.  But the linebackers are supposed to crash the gaps and knock the shit outta the ball-carrier.

Instead, they miss the ball carrier.  That would be okay if they at least knocked the shit outta a blocker..  They're not even doing that.  They are receiving the contact.  You're a linebacker and you're receiving, as opposed to delivering, contact?!  Linebackers are supposed to be the most wild-eyed crazy muthafuckas on your team.  And they aren't knocking the shit outta people on the regular?  They are nice guys with speed?   Man, fuck that!  I need some excitement.  Knock the shit outta somebody even if you don't make the tackle.  I want to hear "Whoooommm!" at the line of scrimmage.  Betcha the guard or fullback won't be so bold next time.

Tackling is about attitude and shoulders on the correct side of the body.  You cannot grab.  You must collide.

When I played football, I was used as an example of the correct way to tackle. Because I attacked with head across the body. I drove through the ball-carrier.  And I finished off the tackle by grabbing the ball-carrier behind his kneecaps pulling his legs up and stopping his momentum.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I didn't make that textbook tackle everytime, but when I did, it was a thing of beauty.  My protege, David Tate, went to the pros following that technique.

The Raiders defense is the grabbingnest team right now.  Reminds me of that Vince Lombardi clip from NFL Films.  "Everybody's grabbing out there!  Grab! Grab! Grab!!!"  Fuck grabbing.  Hit some-goddamn-body!  Let's inject some excitement into the game!  Knock the shit outta somebody!

Al has his theories about defense.  Steve Young ridiculed those theories the first game of the season, rightfully so.  But if that's what you want Al, recognize you need some crazed maniac at linebacker because you don't have Rod Woodson, Ronnie Lott, or Jack Tatum to create fear anymore.  I know you don't value linebackers in the grand scheme of things - thinking four powerful d-lineman and cover corners will dominate.  It ain't like that anymore, dawg.  You need linebackers.  Even when you had Lester and Mike Haynes, you had Rod Martin, Ted Hendricks, and Matt Millen holding it down at linebacker.  Linebackers and the strong safety define the toughness of your defense - not your d-line and cornerbacks.

You need ass-kickers on defense.  Who's your ass-kicker on that side of the ball?   Nnamdi?  He's an artist.  You need a thug.  Who's your thug?

We don't have a thug on our roster.  Which explains the problem with Al.  He's used to having thugs on his roster so the X's and O's weren't a big deal.  No thugs.  We need some attention to detail.  Or some thugs.  A blend might bring us back to respectability.

Al, I know you used to be a football genius.  Re-read the phase "used to be."  I just told you what's missing.  Hire my ass.  I need a job anyway.  In the interim, the linebackers need to grab their nuts and let's go!!!

Raider Nation Service - It Sucks and Not in the Way You Think

So Jeff Garcia ain't coming back.  Boy, I such high hopes for him coming back.  Jamarcus ain't getting it done.  Maybe he will. 

Having DirectTv, I have the NFL Sunday Ticket specifically to catch all the Raider games.  Beats going to a sports bar.  With TiVo, I can really study what's going on with the Raiders.  Like Bill Romanowski says, these guys just don't excite you when they play ball.  They don't beat the shit outta people, which to me is the essence of football.  Jack Tatum?  Was handing your lunch to you every game.  I know he made people hate playing eh Raiders.  Nowadays?  M-fs can't wait to play the Raiders so they can pad their stats.  We need a Troy Polomalu, a  Ray Lewis, another Ronnie Lott, someone back there to intimidate the team's offensive personnel.

Most of all, we need a quarterback.  As nostalgic as we get about Jim Plunkett, he sucked most of the time.  Rich Gannon was the shit though.  And we need another Rich Gannon.  Someone who might be an asshole but who worked hard and made sure everyone else worked hard.  Jamarcus ain't getting it right now.  Not saying he can't be that guy or get there.  But time's a wasting.  And Al is 80 years old and counting.

Which brings me to Al and Rich Gannon.  That was some real cheap shots Al took at Rich when Rich made, what I think, are valid criticisms of Jamarcus.  "A journeyman who fucked up the Super Bowl?"  Al, Rich was a diamond in the rough everywhere he went .  He didn't get the chance to be what he could be until you gave him a chance under your famous last chance umbrella.  I'm sure he's thankful, but you can't give a guy a chance and then spit on him because you gave him that chance.  You look bitter when you do that.

I know you'd rather be right than consistent.  But that shit with Gannon is a gash on your soul.  And because you tie everything up in the team, that means the fans' collective karma has to overcome your bullshit. 

So Jeff Garcia comes in here hoping to restore the luster on the Silver and Black, but you shut off that opportunity because you want Jamarcus to shine.  Jamarcus ain't working hard enough to get it done.  Why haven't you shown him similar harshness?  Get that fat m-f to ball up and make our investments outta our pennies worth it.

We're really getting sick of your experiment.  You haven't been right in a while, Al.  We love you, but you have to develop a new game plan, okay?  Apologize to Jeff and Rich, and let's get this thing going back in the direction we love.