Tag: Cowboys

  • ODDS and ENDS: Christmas Has to Go, Can You Believe It, Must Win, and Serious

    (It’s a trip… it’s got a FUNKY beat. And I can bug out to it!)

    This is the weekend that we are taking the Christmas decorations down. Normally, we do this on January 1st, as a sort of cleaning the house for the New Year. And I think you can read between the lines there and see that the wife and I have passed the days of staying up late and waking with a hangover. But this year, we didn’t get around to it. We put it off. Not that we had a good reason to do that, other than we wanted to lay around and not doing anything on New Year’s Day. The end result was that we got an extra week of Christmas, which has left me feeling like the holiday has over stayed its welcome. I like Christmas, but I really like it when it lives tightly between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

     Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we live in a world where the movies Cocktail and Road House exist.

    And I need the Cowboys and Tottenham to win this weekend. Simple as that. If it doesn’t happen I will be heartbroken and disconnected from the universe.

    Some evenings, late at night, when I am alone on the couch while my family sleeps, I start to believe that the core of me is a very serious person. Alone and in the dark, I am confident in this pronouncement. And I say these things to myself when I am normally watching a terrible ninja movie, or something awful by Bert I. Gordon. That is when I know that I am a contradiction at all times. A silly one at that. I like walking funny and talking in goofy voices. I make up songs about doing mundane tasks. And I’d rather laugh than cry. I’d rather make you laugh; Try to make you happy through humor. I still attempt to rob an honest melancholy tear from people… but… I have never felt sure that’s what I’m best at. Yet, honestly, I have never felt sure about anything. And if I think too hard about that, I might start to wonder, worry, and then cry. Which is why I’d rather laugh. Hold it off, at bay, for a little while longer.

  • Short Story Review: “Take Half, Leave Half” by Thomas McGuane

    (The short story “Take Half, Leave Half” by Thomas McGuane appeared in the October 10th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Kurt Markus

    (I might SPOIL IT. Just be aware.)

    I like a western. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Texas, or maybe it’s because a good western is like good sci-fi; it is a vehicle of metaphor. In the right hands, these genres can give sharp insights into human nature. We could go down an English lit route, bust out our I.A. Richards and discuss metaphor and symbolism, but I honestly think that would miss the point of “Take Half, Leave Half” by Thomas McGuane; The story is short, compact, and visceral.

    The story is about two childhood friends from Montana who, after graduating high school, work odd jobs every summer all over the west. This summer they landed in Oklahoma on an old ranch run by an even older man. That’s the plot anyway, but the story goes into these two friends’ lives and what has brought them to where they are in life. And it paints the world they live in with the smells of leather, and of horses, and the dust from the arid, hot summer. You can feel this story when you read it, which is an admirable feat by the writer. I was lulled into the world that these two characters lived in.

    And when the climax occurred, I was honestly disappointed that it had happened. Not that the climax was disappointing, but because I don’t get to be in the world of these two characters anymore, which sounds very cliché to say. What I enjoyed reading was about the friendship between these two very different guys, and also what was and wasn’t said between them. (The short is sparse on dialogue and heavy on narration.) Then, when the final paragraph rolls out, I saw it as identifying that this story contain two worlds; one was the world that these two friends occupied, and the other was everybody else looking in. But we, the reader, got to be on the inside, to see who they really were. That was a well-placed button for the story, that I admire McGuane for doing, because he let us be in on the secret.

    (Hey there. Just so you know, it’d be cool if you could help me out. What I’m looking for is to get the algorithm working on my side. You can do that by giving a like, share, or a comment on this blog, and following me would also be a huge help. Thanks for taking the time.)

  • The NFL and Cowboy Fans

    There were no Premiere League matches this weekend out of respect for the passing of the Queen, which I expected and feels like the right thing to do. That left me with that other football league: The NFL.

    Just like the last twelve or so years, I’m in a Fantasy Football league with friends. I have posted many times before that I’m not the most current fan of the league, and as such, I let the computer draft a team for me. In my defense, I have won our league twice, and one of the teams had a losing record. So, I’m clueless, or my teams peek at the right time. As we are coming to the conclusion of the first weekend of NFL action, I just might eek out a win. A couple of things need to break my way, but it is possible.

    The other thing that happens during this time of year is that I have a group of friends from college, who are all Dallas Cowboy fans, and we have a group chat that continues during their games. We’ve been doing this chat for sixteen years, and we still have yet to win a Super Bowl…

    And last night on Sunday Night Football, we were all ready to go. Positive that this WILL BE THE YEAR, that the COWBOYS will WIN THE SUPER BOWL!!!

    But it would appear that the Cowboys don’t have a deep threat, which ends up making the Offense pretty vulnerable. Now, the Defense still looked solid. They did hold Tampa Bay to 19 points, which I think included shutting down Brady in the Red Zone three times.

    Oh, and Dak broke his hand and will be out for weeks…

    Super Bowl?

    Ever heard of Cooper Rush? Most people haven’t, and he’s the Cowboys back up QB. Last year he had the game of his life in his one start against the Vikings, in a must win game, and he found a way for them to win. I admit that I made jokes about the guy, and how hopeless the team would be in that game. I was thoroughly shamed by Mr. Rush, and will hold my tongue as he takes over for the rest of the foreseeable season.

    Now, we should get back to the real issue of this team, which is Jerry Jones letting Amari Cooper leave, and not getting a deep threat receiver replacement for him. Yes, I will blame Jerry Jones for any failure on this team, that’s just how I was raised as a Cowboys fan. I do have a feeling that some “dealing” will happen in the next few weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jimmy G shows up, along with some veteran receivers as well. Better late than never, right?

    Man, this could be a long Cowboys season.