I’m Back (but Probably Not Any Better)

I missed blogging. Hard. But let me cut straight to the point: I just didn’t want to write about sports anymore. Or at least not with such cynical regularity. I went through the apathy-turning-the-corner-to-outright-hatred cycle with sports that I had previously gone through with music. When I started writing about music, I thought there couldn’t be a better gig than writing about something that you listen to, read about, obsess over (and sometimes even try to play with alarmingly poor results) and get paid for it. And much like I would later end up doing here with the Mavs and the Cowboys, I always got the most positive feedback when I was the nastiest.

But I think that being the round-the-clock asshole eventually ruins whatever you’re writing about for you. It certainly did with music. I didn’t care who the new “it” band was and immediately assumed they sounded like a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs. I listened to NPR or sports talk radio or the sound of Tejano blaring out of the truck in the next lane gladly over putting on anything new or even an album I knew I liked. In fact, the only time I even cared to listen to music was when I was running and then you start getting into some dicey credibility territory. One glance at my workout playlists would convince you that you have somehow procured the iPod of a very emotionally unstable teen girl. There’s a lot of Beyonce and Ministry on there. A lot.

Once I got far enough away from music journalism, the blood started to run to my ears again. I started trying to find old, long out-of print albums that I loved when I was so angsty and sad and carb-oblivious. And slowly, I’m into music again. I scour You Tube for lost performances of deep album cuts. I stayed up until 2am on a work night a month ago just to try to track down old Southern Death Cult live TV performances. It’s back! I like music again.

But then there’s sports. It’s weird when you watch a game and all you take away from it is things you can bitch about. Why didn’t they go for it on 4th and 2 in the fourth quarter? Fire them all! They’re all idiots! I knew they should have gone for it! I hate this team! That stadium should just be turned into a flea market! I became the biggest sports cynic and that, mixed with the fact that I am inherently pretty damn lazy and not known for timely posting, combined to make the perfect storm of tired sports blogging. I felt like by the time I took to the keyboard to tear down those good for nothing players and coaches, I had already heard 5 sports talk hosts make those points and 10 callers rephrase that point slightly.

So let me get all of this my system: “Wade should be a defensive coordinator not a head coach!” “Jerry will never let his ego take the blow that hiring a GM would be and therefore the Cowboys are hamstrung and will eventually be the Oakland Raiders with a much nicer stadium!” “Dirk will never win a ring with this team. Let him go so he can at least retire with a ring!” “Mark Cuban is more interested in being the star of the show than building a young team and therefore the Mavs will look like a pickup game at a Medicare office!” “The Ranger and Stars….ugh……”

There. Now that I’ve made it clear that, like all sports fans, I know how to run a team better than anyone who actually runs a team and that I also have a touch of the Nostradamus, I feel like I can get back to writing about whatever the fuck tickles my fancy. Probably won’t be a lot of sports. The Cowboys made the playoffs then crumpled. The Mavs have hit a skid and now we have to rely on this trade and Caron Butler to re-invigorate the team. But not having the self-imposed assignment of ripping into my favorite teams feels like taking a load off. Besides, worry not, there are plenty of things that annoy me about which I can bitch incessantly. Hugs! It’s nice to be back.