Song: “Bleed the Dream” — Broken Wings
Mood: Somewhere between reverie and incubus

Everyone is saying that the Eagles, through free agent machinations and general wheelings and dealings, have assembled a “dream team“.

Mull on that term for a second.

The suggestion is that, were one to drift into slumber, that the roster, as currently composed, would be the stuff of most delirious, unchecked fantasy. An assemblage of players untrammeled by even the most basic limitations of reality. Taken together, they would offer a blissful escape to any who would so much as regard them with plain eyes.

But whose dreams ever truly conform to their deepest desires? None that I’ve had, to be sure. Yet that’s what always represented to us in Hollywood depictions. More often than not, however, dreams comprise a window looking onto our sharpest anxieties, our greatest fears. If anything, a dream team would be frustrating as any other that Eagles fans have suffered through. Maybe even more so.

So I cringe when I hear that the Eagles refer to themselves as a dream team. I gather myself in a fetal position on my bed and I listen to The Smiths. I wrap my arms in wrist bands from wrist to elbow to prevent the wrath of a wayward blade. I quake for my mother’s touch.

In the end, I will force myself to be brave. Adding Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Ronnie Brown and Nnamdi Asomugha to the roster of what was already a playoff team is a good thing. A very good happy thing. A joyous thing that I should not question, as much as I would like to. A thing that I should embrace as a sign of fortune’s overdue swing in my favor.

Much as I hesitate to admit it, this could be a signpost that the days of the following are behind us:

And that this is giving way to what’s to come:

If this is indeed a brave new world, I am hoping that it is more than a dream. More than an Inception onion to be peeled. I am dreaming that it is the beginning of a new reality. One where a person need not escape into dreams for pleasure. Or shrink from dreams for fear that dreams speak too much of the self. Basically, to dream of a dream that grants simple pleasure without a reminder of the struggle.

In other words, the championship shall be drugs. With more potency than the ones I’ve already used to escape the world.

The Eagles blowing their shot at a first-round bye by losing at home to Joe Webb? Sumptuous failure or DELIBERATE SABOTAGE AGAINST THE GIANTS, WHO NEED THE BEARS TO TRY TO BEAT THE PACKERS! I’ll take a glorious screwing over of two obnoxious NFC East teams in one night, thanks.

What I couldn’t truck, however, was this overwrought Springsteen overlaid montage for Favre’s lost season of bullshit. Yes, Favre’s 2010 pickkake had all the pathos of The Wrestler, a movie about a guy who kept pursuing a violent trade because he’s a wreck and has no money left and not a total drama queen hellbent on holding the entire sports world hostage to his need for attention for months at a time.

DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE

Though PK says it could use another pinch of nutmeg and maybe a drizzling of his lofty load.

Included for sheer Photoshop potential.

Song: “Knives and Pens” — Black Veil Brides
Mood: Most Morose

When you’ve lived long enough to experience the kind of grief that I have (24 in October!!), few tragedies catch you off guard. Having to settle for the third college on your list. Being saddled with semester after semester of jerk roommates. Not being blessed with the kind of pointless overrated lead singer in a shitty band voice that makes Samantha fall in love with you in clear deviance of her better interests. I’ve dealt with some of the worst that life has to offer.

Every so often, however, there sneaks a devastating cruelty past the safeguards of even your most cynical expectations. Those are the ones that really get you. The ones you can’t shake off, that make the full malevolence in the world so self-evident that it could be referenced in Satan’s founding document of Hell. I could never begin to know the full complexity of Kevin Kolb, but I bet that’s what he has to be feeling at this moment.

You see, Kolb was selected in the second round of the 2007 NFL draft. High enough to be regarded as a viable starter, but low enough to he could be allowed to whither on the bench’s vines for several years. He did so with dignity, but also with hope that eventually his day would come. He never spoke out of line and did what was expected of him. And though it took the departure of an underappreciated legend happening before its time, Kolb’s day did come. Only that day ended in disaster. He suffered a concussion, the type of injury that will be one day render him homeless and incompetent. Someone to be hauled in front of Congress as a cautionary tale of the sport.

That will come later, of course. For now, Kolb is still a football player. The concussion should have only been a minor setback. He had earned this job, after all. Only no. Fairness would make too much sense. That would be the script if we operated according to our better angels. But how often do they have a a part in how things play out?

Instead, a total jerkwheat comes forward to usurp the job with a few flashy plays. Here is a man capable of unspeakable evil, nevertheless able to dazzle all around him with athleticism. And now he is proclaimed leader. How can people be so blind as to the inner workings of the soul? I want to say they will pay for lack of perspective, but I know from experience that they will probably not.

I want to say the lesson of Kevin Kolb is that one must disregard the virtues of patience and simply, maybe callously, take our most heartfelt desires. To do otherwise is only to foster deception. Deception most inimical.

“Hey everybody. So, I have this dilemma. I’m super busy with work all the time, so I hired a hooker to help me relax because I don’t have time to deal with meeting women and developing a real relationship. But then the craziest thing happened: not only did she give professional-grade head, she was also a really nice person. I wanted to see her again. So of course I bought her some new clothes, took her to a polo match, introduced her to my friends — the usual. It was all going really well until my A-hole lawyer found out about her being a hooker and put the moves on her. Anyway, I paid her for the full week, but she left without taking the money and I think it’s because we’ve fallen in love. Should I go after her?”

That sounds pretty retarded, right? Read on, there’s a submission this week that’s longer-winded and just as ridiculous.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mood: Hounded :/
Song: “Love Dog” – TV on the Radio

I was absolutely rocked, positively blindsided by the news of yesterday evening. I had few words then, and I don’t know if I can muster more now.

Of course, I speak of Samantha’s Tweet on her private feed that she’s on of the outs with Mathias and actually (yes!) regretting jilting me the way she did. Obviously, our mutual friend had to show it to me since she still hasn’t approved my request to view the feed, but I felt incredibly close to her nonetheless.

But what does this mean? It’s an ethical quandary is what. How do you welcome back someone who’s done such obvious wrong? The pain from the time I made my advance at Dave’s pool party and she stood there and laughed belly laughs for an entire minute, to the point that she had to prop herself against a deck chair to keep from doubling over. Is that forgivable sin? I guess a handy analog would be how the Eagles just signed Michael Vick. That was a bit of a shock as well. Here’s someone who was capable of malevolence – bringing death where life had thrived, upon beings of innocence! Still, he has suffered duly for his transgression and he actually managed to lose to the Eagles in an NFC Title Game, so in a way I have fond associations of him!

I am a believer in second chances, be it for heart stompers or dog killers. How could I not be? Certainly no being of perfect rectitude am I. If I am able to behold myself in the mirror, in full knowledge of the deceit that I am capable of and the deceit that I have in fact perpetrated, it would be low of me to judge another.

So who knows? Perhaps one day not far off in the future, we will be welcomed into Samantha’s private feed as a friend (and maybe more) and a troubled quarterback and a beleaguered franchise can find peace and success. But that’s only if we’re willing to give them a chance to earn forgiveness.

Emotions run high in the postseason. Emotions also cascade down the cheeks of the losers in the form of warm, salty failure. These are felt no more keenly than by these sensitive souls. Sure, they try to tell themselves their teams have exceeded expectations and that they are therefore immune to crestfalling after a title game defeat. Because they’ll need your emotional support, WHO YA GOT?

Mood: Delirious!
Song: “White Riot,” The Clash

I’m so…so… — fuck it I’ve got three Smirnoff Ices in me — happy!

We did it! This town finally won a title. No more wallowing in dejection and overwhelming rancor. We’re a people who are ready to love again.

Hark! It sounds as though some folks have already started with the raillery outside my door. Perhaps I will join them in the spreading of cheer.

Felicitations friends! We’re champions of the–

OH GOD WHAT ARE DOING WITH ME! NO, NOT THE PANTS! DON’T SET MY PUBES ON FIRE! OOOOWWWW FUCK!

LEAVE ME IN PEACE. I ONLY WISH TO CELEBRATE OUR – NNNNOOOO! MY ANUS IS NOT THE APPROPRIATE PLACE FOR THE PARKING METER!

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Please. Please.

Just leave me here to die.

Uuuuuunnnnnnhhhhhhh. The torrents of batteries… They were too much…

Mood: Buoyant??????
Song: “Bad Days,” The Flaming Lips

The Phillies are on the verge of ending the 25-year Philly title drought. It’s gonna happen! I’m so deliriously not sad that I could venture -get this! – outside the house. Look at all the cool stuff out here. Sunshine! Birds! People not conspiring to make my life miserable! Where’s all this been?

I’m almost…wait, hold the phone. The sides of my mouth, extending in at upwards angle? Can it do that? Are the legends true?

As much as I know the Rays are a tough team, recent history is on the Phillies’ side. This decade has repeatedly awarded long-suffering franchises. The Red Sox and the White Sox got theirs. Sure, the Indians the Cubs got turned back in the post-season, but there’s precedent! Sweet, sweet precedent.

C’mon Hamels! You gotta do this one for me, Chutley! I can’t go back to putting all my hopes on the Iggles. Andy Reid is trying to kill me. I have better luck with girls than he does with goal line offense. I hammer it in more often. Oh God, how sweet it will be. A title will give the lease on life I need to be such an abject pussy. It’s true! I know! But things are changing!

Goddamit Fightins’ You have to do this. DeSean Jackson is the kind of tard who would drop a gun at a crime scene. The Flyers will find a way to fuck it up. Oh no, darkness is descending again. Back in the house! Back in the house!

Song: Taking Back Sunday, “There’s No ‘I’ In Team”
Mood : Wary :/

Hey, the Eagles are doing all right. A few more performances like the one against the Rams and there might be serious cause for excitement. I know that’s something that’s hard to come by around here. With early season triumphs comes a return to crisp autumn air, perfect for donning hoodies and concealing the tan I didn’t get over the summer. Dare I say that things for the first time in a while are starting to look up.

Or at least they were. Until Jessica Simpson had to unleash her litany of searing taunts.

Women. Their cold, calculating cruelties never fail to cut me to the core. Well, fine, Romo beau, you with your lotus life. I know your new country album is freighted with heartbreak, but I know it not to be authentic. Nothing earns my disdain like the cries of apocryphal suffering. Besides, the ladies of Philadelphia are no less assured of victory. Just the other day, Samantha totally told me she thinks Philly is going to own on Monday night.

Okay, she didn’t tell me that. That’s been her Gchat away message and Facebook status for two days now. Even though she doesn’t speak to me much, posting such things is a clear sign that she wants to me to stay abreast of her thoughts and affairs. I mean, we would talk more but she’s always showing the red icon in chat, so I’m never quite sure how to proceed with initiating conversation. I just assume she has better things to do.

This team is really all I have going right now.

Song: “Needle In The Hay” Elliott Smith
Mood: Weltsmertz :(

Down some dark defile of the mind, terra incognito to the blithe and bourgeois notions of normalcy, lies a swath of consciousness shrouded in a substance as dark as Kevin Curtis is light. Shawn Andrews has seen this place. So, too, have I. Indeed, I’ve felt its wintry contours and been contained within its clammy manacles.

There is no 4th and 26 in this place. There is no (some other accomplishment in Eagles history).

It is very essence of inner tumult. It is the disease of depression.

When I first read that Shawn Andrews had not just looked, but plunged, into this abyss, I reacted much as William Styron did when he first read Camus: I received the stab of recognition that only proceeds from a writer who weds moral passion and a quiet strength.

“Football is important” he said. “A means to an end, but my mental health, I feel like, is a lot more important. That’s a helluva lot of money … Money’s good, money’s a necessity, but it’s not everything. I can’t put a price tag on my mental state.”

Richly emotive.

Unstinting in its power.

Only a bit gay.

Even more than the ineffable and unrelatable darkness of melancholia, he has weathered the slings and arrows of five years in Philly. They say Ricky Watters blacks out anytime he sees a green shirt. And he was only here three years.

I can only hope that Andrews will find actual help and not some doctor who will try to narcotize him to a stupor. I had sworn off my pills, well, until I saw that’s what Zack Braff’s character did in Garden State. Even I’m not ready to emulate that guy. I took a month’s worth of Lexapro as soon as I turned it off. I’m almost regretting that. Since sales of my latest collection of sestinas, “Oleaginous Hypocrisy” are less than brisk, I might try to conserve some of that Lexapro to barter for Eagles preseason tickets. You’d be surprised how far those go with Iggles faithful.