Bring Out the Lawyers… Pansies

Yet another sports controversy, this time in California high school football; a high school football team is under fire for running the dreaded A-11 offense. Players wearing jerseys with numbers typical of running backs and wide receivers are eligible to receive a forward pass, and Piedmont High School became one of the few in the nation to begin putting most of their players in those threads. All players on the field with the exception of the quarterback would be eligible to run downfield in hopes of catching history, just as in sand lot rules. Now, the California High School Association wants this nonsense stopped, as they have petitioned that it be barred from competitive competition. DI asks the question, where has all of the competitive spirit gone?
What does this teach our youth? In the case of Jericho the Great, his fastball was just too dangerous to allow others to face him (yet he had total control of his pitches, and up to that point never hurt an opposing player), so they banned him from the taking the mound. Now, California high school defenses are having a tough time defending this offensive monster scheme, so its time to ban it. It may be just a slice of America, little league baseball and high school football, but the defense of a tough competitor is becoming more and more the same. The best defense in America is just to find a way to stop the competition, no matter what has to be done. Legal systems aside, this is one of the biggest problems America faces today, the lack of competitive nature.
This is what we are teaching our children, that when your back is against the wall, its time to bring in the legal system. Stop the offense, and you have won the game. Problem is America; this is not typical in society, so when our youth get to that certain working age and land that dream job of working in a steel factory, the pressure is on them to produce.
They work it out for a few months, but begin to fall behind to the Paleolithic man next to them that works like a mule, never takes breaks, and swallows his spit to curb his hunger until the final whistle blows calling it a day. The boss comes around more frequently now, checking on the limited production that our youth is giving the company. Meanwhile, mule man over in the corner is now not only producing more, but balancing accounting sheets after school because he has no home life. Our youth have the answer; they will confront the boss and ask that an injunction be placed on mule man limiting his daily production so that no one looks bad. They have been taught this from an early age, that when the going gets tough, its time to bring in the legal system. The issues are that in real life, things are not that easy. The old adage of “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” is not what we are teaching the youngsters of today. Unfortunately real life brings different results, and mule man is now bringing home a little extra money because he can do his job as well as our now unemployed youth. I know that this must sound like I have just lost my mind, but trust me; it’s been lost for sometime now.
This is our fault, as America has lost her teaching ability. We teach our youth to find the easy way out, to take the road most traveled. We have done this to ourselves, as we have not instilled what is needed in the ones that will soon be our nation; pride, intestinal fortitude, strength, longevity, persistence, and fear. Working through problems, working to figure out how to defend that pesky offense, or how to figure out that tough tax problem for the company that pays our bills, that is what needs to be taught. The art of never giving up, never giving in, no matter what the odds, is exactly what our youth needs. Whether its cancer or a baseball game, learn to win with guts and determination, just as many before us have. Because without those characteristics in man, without the teachers that forced those qualities down the throats of so many, we would have never been able to enjoy a speech from Martin Luther King Jr., or had the privilege of watching Jim Thorpe and Jessie Owens run, or been able to enjoy movies such as Rudy and Rocky. Robert Frost said it best when he penned “I took the one (road) less traveled by”. What he meant, if only in my mind, was that tough times demand tough people, and that we should never give up when we are faced with obstacles. We should gut it out and find a way to win, whether it’s underneath the Friday night lights, or if its in a board room in San Francisco, or if its in a hospital in New Orleans. Never give up, never give in; it’s in all of us.

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You’ve had a Good Run

I was performing a little channel surfing last night and ran across a day old version of Saturday Night Live, a once great collaboration of skits sporting the likes of Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Ben Stiller, Kevin Nealon, Bill Murray, Dana Carvey, Damon Wayans, Jon Lovitz, Robert Downey Jr., Billy Crystal, Jim Belushi, Joe Piscopo, Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner (this list could go on indefinitely).
I was able to stomach the first four episodes, along with “I am going to have sex with your wife” game show skit. I learned, about two minutes into the skit, that I no longer cared about what was going on with the actors and actresses, but actually how many of the live audience members were showing their appreciation for the skit with laughter. I could hear clearly, as I personally made no sounds of enjoyment towards the show. There was, however, one or two in the background showing their gratitude, but one did sound like he was choking, possibly on a Polish sausage, and not at all laughing at the skit in front of him. No one was laughing any more; people just sat back, watched the skits, and clapped when they were over. I agreed, as most if not all of the skits did not seem funny anymore, some actually bordered on pissing me off for the simple fact that this show is making money hand over fist and putting out this kind of crap on a weekly basis. This leads me to my question, is there any originality left in this country?
I see skit after skit of the same crap, just giving me different faces and names. I see skits about a game show where the host sleeps with the contestants wife, and that’s the entire plot. Seriously, where is the originality in this? Where is the fire that the likes of Aykroyd and Belushi gave us, where is the coke coming out of my nose kind of laughter that Sandler and Farley gave us?
This industry finds something that works, and then pounds it into the ground as long as they can to squeeze every cent they can until they absolutely have to figure something else out to sell. If you don’t believe me, think of the following.
Friday the 13th, not just birthdays for several of my loved ones, but a horrifying movie in 1980, performing so well at the box office that Hollywood figured they could squeeze just a little more juice from its popularity. Then came Friday the 13th Part 2, Part 3, The Final Chapter, oh wait A New Beginning, low and behold Jason Lives, and he has The New Blood, then Jason Takes on Manhattan, then finally Jason goes to Hell, holy crap a Jason X, and if you weren’t tired of it by now he took on Freddy in Freddy vs. Jason, and now we have to endure yet another Friday the 13th, 2009 style. 12 movies, based off of the same crap, although Hollywood did have to sit down and figure out what town or village to pillage each time.
Yet another example of Hollywood’s creativity is the Rocky sextology, a six shooter starting from the streets of Philadelphia, traveling as far as Siberia to battle the Russian machine that was Ivan Drago, winding up back on the same streets swapping fists with Tommy Gunn, and finally dying out (hopefully) after a gut wrenching tear jerking split decision loss to Mason “The Line” Dixon in Rocky Balboa, the sixth such Rocky movie. Although I admit that I can name all of Rocky’s opponents off the top of my head and have seen all of his fight flicks, it still shows the complete lack of creativity when it comes to newness.
Creativity and originality is what made Hollywood, with the likes of movies such as Cast Away and The Blair Witch Project; the likes of shows such as The Family Guy and American Dad.
I know in my case that I have taken in so much of the influential people in my life, in order to create my own style. It’s all about a creative originality, go out and make your own.