You're not helping me stay focused.

You're not helping me stay focused.

Last night channel nine televised an exhibition football game between the San Francisco '49ers and the, shit, who was it...DENVER. Denver Broncos. Who won? I do not know and do not want to know. It was boring to watch. The announcing trio of Jaworski, Kornheiser, and Tirico seemed as bored as I was. They spent most of the time talking about a dead man named Bill Walsh who used to work for the San Francisco '49ers in various capacities. When they tired of jerking each other off to the memory of Bill Walsh, they would bring on a guest to reinvigorate themselves. Meanwhile, football was being played on the field, sometimes by players I had heard of. Quarterback Trent Dilfer was one such player.
Jaws: "Trent Dilfer doesn't have any ego. He's only about team."
If something worthy of a Pontiac Game Changing Performance transpired, the talking people would stop talking about Bill Walsh momentarily.
Tirico: "And the pass is INTERCEPTED!".
Then the focus would return to Walsh.
John Lynch: "If it wasn't for Bill Walsh, I'd be just another black man floating in and out of jail, doing whatever it takes to survive. I reckon I'd be sucking someone's cock this very moment."
Kornheiser: "Is it fair to say that Bill Walsh is more than the father of modern American football and that he is in fact the biological father of every American male who, at some point, witnessed the West Coast Offense?"

I really don't have anything against Bill Walsh -- he's clearly the best NFL coach of my lifetime -- I'd just rather read about his accomplishments and impact on the game and its players than listen to the announcers blather about him and occasionally mention something about the game going on. It's mid-August. We are a football-starved people. When we tune in to preseason football, we know it's largely meaningless, but we watch nonetheless because we miss it. If the announcers for the most part are ignoring the game in favor of some other discussion, what makes them think that they are holding the viewers' attention?

When I was in college, there was a liquor store right across the street where I spent at least half of my disposable income at the time. Along with beer, liquor, and snacks, they sold pornography. One night I walked in there drunk, walked by the pornography, stopped, walked back to the pornography, and grabbed a video with shiny packaging that had a neon pink sticker with "8 FULL HOURS OF HARDCORE ACTION" written on it. I liked the sound of that. The price was $11.99. Oh, baby, did I like that price. I walked up and purchased the video cassette with the shiny packaging and some beer, went home and watched some of it and realized why it was so inexpensive. The people fucking each other were only marginally attractive. The men and women looked like they had fucked a lot in their lives, and went about it in a professional manner, but rarely in the eight hours was there a girl that made you think "Bless that beautiful creature for choosing porn." One of those girls was in a scene with Ron Jeremy. I had heard of him before, but that was the first time I had seen him. Man, was he ugly. His erection was large, sure, but he was old, bald, fat, and hairy. And he had a mullet. He just laid on his back on the floor like a beached whale while the beautiful female went to work on him. I couldn't take it. I had to fast forward to the next scene with a new set of fuckers. Although the porn wasn't the best, the people fucking seemed to be trying to do it the best they could and there was some nice cheesy porn music to keep you focused on the job at hand. If for some reason the director decided to have audio commentary during the mediocre-at-best porn by a retired porn star and maybe a strip club dj, with occasional guest appearances by celebrity masturbaters and other known pornographers, where they discussed John Homes or Peter North scenes or hall-of-fame starlets, the whole thing would be too confusing. If commentary is really necessary, the subject mattter should be centered around what the cameras are showing. Instead of talking about Debbie Does Dallas, which is clearly not what the viewer is watching, they should be talking about the aging professional fornicators: "You see what he's doing there? Yeah, right there. He's jamming it in and out of her--that repeated motion is what we in the business call fucking."

I kind of hate myself for complaining about the coverage of a preseason NFL game between two teams I couldn't care less about. I'm pretty pathetic, I know. Just...I, um...I guess it felt too much like listening to baseball announcers drifting further and further away from the game going on, and baseball is really chapping my ass these days with the Tigers season looking more and more like your average Michigan State football season.