Twenty-Five in My Own Mind

Getting Away From Bigsoccer

2005-06-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Back in my last relationship, we both got hooked on a TV show on one of the low-power stations called “The Phil-Am Show.” The program was targeted toward the local Philippine community here in Chicago. No, wait, it really targeted the upper class segment of that community. The show looked like it was shot with 1980’s era video equipment, was hosted by a guy who switched between English and Tagalog and ran stories about the small rich clique that ruled the social life.

Anyway, if you are wondering where this is going, there was an ad for a local newspaper every week, which had as its motto “The Paper That Builds, Not Destroys.” A very curious ode to live by considering you may have a circulation of several thousand, but still pretty admirable.

Why do I bring this up? Because I want to talk about how I decided to stop using the soccer discussion website Bigsoccer.com, who could use the motto “The website that destroys, not builds.”

I became a member of the site in the fall of 1999, about the time that I started to get the notion that I wanted to become a writer. As someone who needs info, I needed a place where links and other things were posted, along with discussions about those things. BigSoccer (or BS, which will seem appropriate in a minute) was the destination and I went for it.

Nearly six years later and a lot of grief later, I am so, so, so sorry that I did that. Today, I made a vow to get away from the website, the sooner the better.

The problem with BS is not that it doesn’t help the soccer community interact. In fact, it does a good job in doing so, helping to keep the info about the sport circulating when most of the MSM tends not to cover it, or does badly when it does. It’s a big reason why I think that Soccer and MLS may be the first big league to show growth through use of the internet.

But on the flipside, BS may have the most lopsided signal-to-noise ratio of any website out there. BS is, for the most part, a bitching and whining party, an arena that your average internet nerds can talk smack to each other. Sort of the equivalent of two little girls having a hissy fit fight.

I’ll be brutally honest that I am a sensitive sort of guy. I hate people who make fun of me or take rips on my just for the joy of doing so. At least at this age I am at, I am starting to recognize that I need to surround myself with more positive influences. Anyone who has tried to get themselves to some general level of happiness after being so down on themselves would agree with this.

However, as I have tried to grow up, I kept going back to BS, like a needy person in a co-dependent relationship, hoping he will finally get the love and respect he needs, only to get nothing but grief. It may sound a wee bit dramatic, but there were times where I got major shit from people on BS that I allowed it to negatively affect me.

Two things, though, made me realize that it was time to get away from BS.

First, oddly enough, was Kent McDill. He is the Fire beat writer for the Daily Herald. Now, I have my problems with him because he writes his stuff in such a way that he either a) hates the subject he is covering or b) he is using some sort of blackmail to keep his job at the Herald. His work is haphazard and full of mistakes. For someone who wants to join the print trade someday, seeing someone continue to get paid for sub-standard fare is pretty frustrating.

Anyway, on Sunday night at Soldier Field, McDill called me over. He asked me why only seven people had responded to a column he had written last week about asking for opinions about what the best lineup for the Fire is. He started ranting about how those on the net only complain about his work and that he was trying to get the sport some publicity for the Fire. Pretty much an egotistical rant, in my mind. He compounded matters on Tuesday, when he wrote those feelings into his column, which I am sure pissed off a lot of Fire fans.

This afternoon, thought, I started to feel a bit of sympathy for Kent.

I had posted a joke on a thread on BS about how the Fire are starting to exploit new marketing ideas, starting with Seven-11 sponsoring Wednesday’s match against DC United. The discussion started to move toward players getting individual sponsorships. I answered that maybe Zach Thornton, a pretty big guy, should be sponsored by Old Country Buffet.

I got some positive feedback from that remark, but a couple of guys made fun of me, including Chris “Coz” Costello. If you have been to Fire games, he is the one who is drumming along in Section 8. He also is the biggest asshole you ever want to meet. (He also has a blog himself where he sounds so self important.) He has really been mean and disdainful toward me through the years we have known each other and he tries to act all superior toward me, typical of a U of C grad. In reality, he is a failed rock drummer who plays in a couple of cover bands and he is a pretty bad writer to boot.

Anyway, he mocked me one too many times and I started to put myself in Kent’s shows. Yeah, I did rip Kent earlier in this post, but in a way he is trying to do what Coz isn’t – trying to build, not destroy. Its shit like that on BS that really, I think, pushes away a lot of fans and makes those in the soccer community look like a bunch of nerds who are trying to be cool and elite, when in reality they are, for the most part, just a bunch of geeks, just like this more proletarian nerd.

I have taken a couple of swipes at people in the past on my soccer site, The Fire Alarm. However, for the most part, I have tried to be as professional as possible, trying to act like a tall tree that withstands all the wind generated by critics. If I make a mistake and someone complains, they are justified to do so. But ripping for the sake of ripping, which seems to be the central core of BS, is not what I want to see on TFA. (In fact, we have decided that Matchnight will remove the forums off the sites on Friday for that reason).

Anyway, I decided not to post anymore on BS. I may still need to go there to get my news bits every day, but I am damned if I am about to put myself out for a bunch of snobs who have no right to be snobs in the first place. It may help my general disposition each and every day, while I try to focus on using my website to be a tiny worker in the building of the beautiful game in the US.

Karl Rove Crosses The Final Line

2005-06-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

Today was the end for me. For more than a decade, I have heard the people on the right say really outlandish stuff, but Karl Rove has crossed a line that should have never been crossed by either party.

To claim that we on the left did not care enough about how to deal with those on September 11th is an insult to not only every American, but also to the 3,000 lives that were lost on that tragic day. Yes, there were those on the extreme edge who did say some weird things, but those statements were not endorsed by those like myself who are in the mainstream left.

Karl Rove dropped the sheep clothing last night and showed what the White House has become – a group that is willing to do anything and everything to get their way. They came into office in 2001 with intention of implementing a radical right-wing program in this country and they know that they won’t be able to do that by selling the program as it is. They have to lie, accuse, cheat, misrepresent and outright slander people in order to get their way, which they have done through the right wing media setup that was in place when they took power in 2001.

9/11/2001 was the enabling moment for the Bush Administration. They have used this event in order to justify everything that they have done since that day, trying to wrap their program in the cloak of patriotism. It has only gotten worse as the years has gone by.

At this point, we know that Bush is on the way to becoming a failed President. His tax plan, skewed toward the ultra-rich, as damaged the economy beyond what anyone thought it could. His programs for education, the environment and other areas, plugged as reforms, were actually to destroy these programs instead. Instead of going after the true people who attacked us, he led us into an illegal and immoral war against a country that, we all now know, posed no threat to us. As a result of this war, the world is in a much more dangerous state than at any time since the dark days of the Cold War.

The worst thing is though, while we are in the middle of a war, the White House has failed to call for all of us to sacrifice, rather they make those who are poor and without power to shoulder the burdens, financial and physical, of those who don’t feel like they have to do so.

Karl Rove knows all this. He knows that the people are waking up to all the lies, distortions and bad policies of the last four years. So now, in an act of desperation, he has decided to exhume Joseph McCarthy and start a new war on the left, if only to stop the inevitable slide of his boss.

Anyone who stands with Karl Rove and agrees with him stands against America at this point. This means you believe that democracy needs to be destroyed to protect power for Republicans. This means you share a distorted vision of Christianity that most people don’t believe in. This means that you are willing to stay in Iraq and see our best and brightest get killed for a lie, but are not willing to sacrifice or serve for your country to help in that effort.

To paraphrase Bush, you know either have to be for Bush or against him. To be for him is to be for a government that is destroying this country. To be against him is to be the best thing once can be for his or her country – a patriot.

Stupid Fucking Trixies

2005-06-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

So I was cycling back to Frat House this afternoon from lunch, gliding down Sheffield approaching Armatage, feeling good with the nice weather and the night I had that night. As I approached the intersection, a door to an SUV opens up without warning. Fortunatly, I was paying attention and used a combo of brakes and a well-time swerve to just all but avoid hitting the car.

I see the person opening the door was, as you guessed from the title of this post, A Trixie, cell phone in one hand and an attitude of "I'm the queen" in her face.

Instead of asking if I was all right (after all, I came close to caupulting over her door and right on the pavement), she started to yell at me about not paying attention! This from a woman who didn't have the proper sense to, gee I don't know, look out her side mirror before exiting her Gas Hog.

I did yell at her a bit (but avoided calling her a cunt, which I really should have done) and cycled off. Fortunatly, the bike wasn't damaged, but my nerves are still a bit shot a half hour after the incident happened.

I am getting tired of being surrounded by Trixies and Chads nearly 24/7. I have to deal with them here at Frat House, have to share the road with them, have to hear their dumb conversations on cell phones and see them move into ugly condos that are replacing affordable housing stock in this city. They are the biggest fungus. I think maybe I need to move to Ukranian Village or Bridgeport next spring to get away from them, but I'm sure those neighborhoods are ripe for takeover, just like they did to Bucktown and Wicker Park back in the '90s.

When Do I Ever Sleep

2005-05-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

I have no idea when I will get a good night of sleep for the next week.

The run-up for the England-US match begins tonight, as I have to go to the US practice after work to pick up credential for the match. Then, have to rush over to Aimee's for the big 24 season finale. Tomorrow its drinks with Lee then Pub Quiz at The Globe. Wednesday is the press conference with Sven. Thursday is being a race steward for the Corporate Challenge race. Friday am off, but covering the US and England practices as well as going out to drink with US fans that night. The weekend, well, lets just say that I may need a new liver afterward.

Its so strange how life just will throw a lot on your plate when you don't need it and will leave you fallow when you crave for events or action. With me its either feast or famine, I guess. With the soccer season in full bloom, I doubt that I'll have many chances to be to bed before midnight between now and the fall. Not complaining, just the road I decided to take on.

Oh, right, this is my first post on this blog, so the stuff above mau have made no sense at all, so a bit of an introduction.

I am 38, but don't feel it, thus why the title of this blog. I'm a soccer journalist, meaning I'm not getting paid for my writing but do have some stree cred out there. I run the website The Fire Alarm, which covers the Chicago soccer scene. For the money, I work customer service for a transporation company, an office full of Trixies and Chads (I call it Frat House here).

I'm just here to blog my daily life, my frustrations and hopes and also rant about life in general. Maybe someone will read this, but its just a way for me to more journal out my life rather than be a huge blog sort of thing.