Tag: Relegation

  • ODDS and ENDS: Who Are These People?, I Have Hope Again, and NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament

    ODDS and ENDS: Who Are These People?, I Have Hope Again, and NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament

    (Of course you’re not shy…)

    I don’t spend much time on Facebook anymore, ever since my nieces and nephews told me that only old people go on that site. As I am clearly not an old person, I have stayed away from Facebook. Except for the daily check in I do, because I need to check in and see what the other old people are up to. There is a section on Facebook I generally skip over and it’s the “People You May Know” part. Today, I decided to flip though it to see if I might know any of them. And I get what the algorithm is trying to do, which is connect people to me that my other “friends” know, so inherently, most of these people I won’t know. But, going through the list, I started to play the game of “Do I know this person, because they look familiar?” I would see a face, then ask myself, did I take a class with this person in college? Or, did I do a show with this person? Or, did I work with this person? Honestly, I can’t remember anymore, which made me feel old. Which is fitting as only old people go on Facebook.

    Stupid Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday went on beat Atlético Madrid at Tottenham. Sure, they did lose the on aggregate and are out of the Champions League now, but they won a match at home. And the whole team looked like they gave a shit. Which now means that they went out and gave all of us supports the feeling that hope was alive. That on Sunday when they face off against Nottingham Forest, another team fighting not to be relegated, that we have a Spurs team to root for. A team that doesn’t want to be embarrassed. A team that is willing to dig deep and fight to the final whistle. And just when I had written the club off, now I have to go back to caring again.

    Oh, my bracket is shot to hell. Not awful, but I did make some really bad picks. My problem with making a bracket for the tournament is that I will always pick the underdog. Sometimes it works out really well, making it look like I knew something that everyone else didn’t. Like how I picked TCU, VCU, Texas A&M, Texas, and Saint Louis. Of the first 16 games, I had picked 7 upsets. Maybe not the most logical system for picking winners, but I can’t deny who I am. I like giant killers.

  • ODDS and ENDS: I’m a Failed Drummer, Failed Tottenham, and We Sell Frogurt!

    ODDS and ENDS: I’m a Failed Drummer, Failed Tottenham, and We Sell Frogurt!

    (I thought it was the real thing…)

    I have got drumming on the brain again. I posted about Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and I can’t get Clem Burke’s drums out of my head. I don’t like hyper-precision drumming, or supper fast and accurate drumming, which is what everyone sounds like now. It sounds lifeless and artificial to me. But Clem; Clem on that song is vital – adding another character to the song – driving, passionate, and accentuating theme of the song. And what I am most thankful for is to be a failed drummer. See, as one who sat behind a drum kit, and tried his hand at playing for a rock band, I learned two things; first is that drumming is a shit ton of fun, and second is that great drumming is exceptionally difficult. It has made me appreciate what great drumming on a song can do, how it can transform a song into something that isn’t just fun to listen to, but can ingrain itself into the core of what a song can make you feel. And just listening to Clem, man, I would kill to be able to play like that.

    Oh it’s bad. I mean, I didn’t think it could get much worse, but it did. Spurs melted like snow on warm ground against Crystal Palace yesterday – it was just awful to watch. Embarrassing is another word that I would use. I know the seasons isn’t over yet, and the odds are still on their side that they WON’T get relegated, but Sonny over at Sonny Talks Spurs has a rather different take than me, but not by much. I have been following the club for ten years now, and I had no idea that that 2016/17 was their high water mark. Ever since then, it has been a slow slide, or car wreck, or train wreck, or growing dumpster fire, what have you… I’m used to supporting a team that lives at the bottom of the barrel (I am a Cubs fan after all) so, seeing a team you love fail isn’t exactly new to me. But this is the first time that I have supported a sports team that gets kicked out of its league because its so bad. Chalk one up for a new experience, I guess.

    For no other reason than it makes me laugh.

  • ODDS and ENDS: The Cold That Won’t Die, Writing in a Blazer, and Tottenham Woes

    (Cryin’ never did nobody no good…)

    So, I’ve had this cold for almost a week now, but it’s not a normal cold. Stuffy nose, post-nasal drip, coughing, but I don’t feel run down like I normally do when I have a cold. Also, this cold only seems to come alive for the first two hours of my day, and then all night when I try to sleep. Other than that, I feel rather normal. But the damn thing won’t go away. It won’t get worse, and it won’t get better. It just exists in a perpetual state of being… Neither gaining nor losing energy.

    I am sitting and writing in a blazer today. No real reason to be this formal, other than I want to sit on the couch, my computer on my lap, trying to think up three jokes to write about, with a blazer on. It’s not cold in the house, and I have no one to impress, just felt like something I should do. Like, how I should put jazz on, get a glass of wine, and catch up on some reading. Hell, here’s a picture to prove that this is really happening.

    So, Thomas Frank got sacked as manager for Tottenham Hotspur this week. I think it was a mistake, yet I also freely admit that things can and will get worse for this team. They just can’t get out of their own way, and with the injuries piling up, there seems like little chance of hope. Relegation is a very real possibility. I won’t blame Frank for this, as it seems like he just has had the worst luck for a first-year manager. I put the blame for this situation on Daniel Levy and Peter Charrington. Levy created an untenable situation where the expectation is that managers are interchangeable. Honestly, the team hasn’t been the same since Mauricio Pochettino was at the helm, and he was fired for a stupid reason like not being successful enough. Sure, do wish we could go back to those days when we were in the Champions League Final and at the top of the table in the Premier League. Honestly, I don’t put it past West Ham to get enough of their act together and make a run to get out of the bottom three, and kick either Nottingham Forest or Spurs down the ladder. I don’t want to see Tottenham in the Championship, but if that’s what it will take for the owners to get their heads out of their respective asses, then so be it.