So, the professional football season begins in ernest on Thursday and Indianapolis is abuzz. I guess the first official real game will be Thursday night between *announcer voice* the Weeeeeeeerllllld Champeeeeeen IndianaPOLIS Colts..... and the New AAAAAAAHHHHHH-lin's Saints! (enough of that). Will I be able to go the game? No. I don't particularly want to go. I'd rather watch it on tv, my subtle agoraphobia doesn't really allow me to do the big crowd thing. That does not, however, preclude me from going to downtown to check it all out. There is a free concert going on the Circle (where the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument is located), there are some fairly big names that will be performing: Faith Hill being one of them. There other two performers I can't remember. And of course it wouldn't be an important event if John (don't call him Cougar any more) Mellencamp wasn't somehow involved. (An aside, he certainly lost something when he lost the Cougar, don'tcha think?) Ol John'll be rockin the Dome for the opening pre-game whatever.
I was reading an article the other day in the newest Indianapolis Monthly. Of course they were crowing about the Colts and they were trying to figure out why "we believe in the Colts" (another aside, no, never mind, I'm not going to rant about the over use of "You Just Gotta Believe" that has been stolen from the '69 Mets... really I'm not. I don't believe in sports teams, they invariably let me down). So, that Indianapolis Monthly was doing what the Indianapolis Monthly does, which is to say have nice glossy pictures and just barely readable prose about inane topics that really don't do much for the intellectual advancement of the reader, fluff, is what it is fluff. Lately, everytime the Indianapolis Monthly has an article about the Colts they trot out Cathy Day, an author, ex-Hoosier, who wrote a book about the Circus wintering in Indiana, its a good book (Circus in Winter) check it out, well any way, they had her pithy comments about being a born-again Colts fan (dig the religious metaphor) and how it all kind of happened watching the Steelers/Colts AFC Championship a few years back (actually it was nothing more than a two colum rehash of an article Cathy Day wrote for the Indianapolis Monthly magazine last year right around the time the Colts beat the Bears in that little game called Super Bowl. In short she became a fan as Pittsburgh cheered for the Steelers win. It was actually an interesting article, and if I could, I would link it, but alas it doesn't seem to be available online. Needless to say it was a nicely written article, subtle in tone and just the right amount of pithiness to make it worth the fifteen minutes it took me to read it.
I like football. Its fun to watch, I don't get froth at the mouth over it, though. Case in point: last Saturday after a rather long day at work I got home and I wanted to watch some tv. I didn't want to watch anything that would require any thought, thought I would of enjoyed a good good baseball game. What did I get? College football. It wouldn't of been too bad there had been one game on one channel, oh no, it was like six games of seven channels, yeah, you read that right. Now, I'm not saying that football is something you have to think about, though, maybe it is if you really want to keep track of downs and such, but what is football other than large men made larger still by big pads throwing themselves at each other in an effort to get at a brown oblong-shaped ball... so, no, it doesn't require thought, but it does require paying attention to, meaning: I had to be at least somewhat engaged and my brain just wasn't having it. I don't remember what I ended up watching, I think it might of been my Netflixed copy of A Night in the Museum which I liked by the way, it was a good fun movie... Needless to say, I was bummed that only thing on tv was college football. I didn't watch a single snap of any of the games, which was kind of bad thing because the next day my store manager wanted to talk about football at 0600... sorry, i'm not having that either.
This not a rant against football, really, its not. Granted, I'm sure, if you've gotten this far, that's what it sounds like, but its not. I do enjoy football. I can stomach a game or two, three at the most on a Sunday. I don't particularly care for college football, at all. I guess, to, as Kinky Friedman would say, "bumper sticker it" Football: I Like it, but I don't Love it."
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