Throwing A Flag

The lede from this recent John Kaltefleiter piece in the ABH just makes me sick (the "Mike" referred-to is Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo):

The middle-aged man wore glasses and emerged from behind a concrete pillar on the second-level of Sanford Stadium.

His tirade started harmlessly, then escalated into a crescendo of expletive-laced phrases.

"Mike, that was (bleeping) pathetic," he yelled. "What kind of (bleeping) playcalling was that? You suck."

And it's not just because this guy got to write a big-ass check for the privilege of gettting into Sanford Stadium to cuss out a Georgia hero while my brother and I, who sat through every game of the Goff and Donnan eras without emitting so much as a single boo, have been priced out of season tickets. No, this has been eating at me for a while. As thrilling as I still find the game between the lines, I'm starting to hate almost everything else associated with football.

If it's not Mike Bobo getting verbally abused by some stranger, it's a guy almost getting his testicles ripped off for wearing the wrong team's t-shirt. It's Mike Vick and dogfighting. It's the insistence of a huge plurality of fans that the games are unenjoyable, if not pointless, without being practically soaked in alcohol. Hell, it's those idiots who jangle their keys at Michigan games or anyone who still thinks waving a cardboard-cutout "D" and a section of fencing around is still funny or original. Or maybe it's just me. But the football culture in this country is starting to tear my nerves up.

Of all the Steven Spielberg-movie scenarios that could possibly come to pass in real life, I'm not sure how highly I would've rated "A.I." in terms of plausibility. Well, whaddaya know?

You know...as far as I'm concerned, they could build a strip-mall of churches in downtown Jefferson if it would keep the screaming street preachers and their giant, graphic photos of aborted fetuses out of the main square. I'm half convinced that those leather-lunged goobers are the main reason downtown Jefferson got bypassed a few years ago.

Finally...you can't talk about goobers without winding your way back to my former homeland, Gwinnett County, and their tightass attempts at legislating anything remoting resembling the pagan ritual known as "fun" out of existence in their Zod-forsaken, ultraconservative F.U.-topia. Makes a fella appreciate living here...where I can drink a beer, shoot pool, and watch strippers all at the same time. And that's just on campus.