Week One

Early analysis:  Washington and UCLA are both much improved, will give Oregon more than it wants.

I watched USC play Hawaii Thur. night.  Wasn't impressed with the Trojans' QB situation.

Arizona has some potential as well.

Haven't seen ASU yet, so can't really say.

Stanford, Oregon, UCLA, Washington.  That's my quartet for now.

Oregon State fell out of it today.  WSU is improved but hasn't figured out how to win yet.  Utah and of course Colorado have a lot of ground to make up.

Cal?  Don't know.

My two cents.


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What It Is

My goodness...

The Beavers fall.  Thought they might handle EWU, but they simply didn't play defense. Tough to win that way.

Does OSU have enough to compete in the PAC?  Not yet, for sure.

I thought Oregon's pass defense was a little leaky, probably due to the inexperience at linebacker.  Terrence Mitchell was tossed for a "targeting" flagrant.

Dumb play.

He missed three quarters of the game.  Hope he learned his lesson.  The lesson is if you have any desire to hit a prone player on the ground, leading with your helmet, be advised: don't do it.

Good rule.  I feel bad for Beaux Hebert, Mitchell's victim.

Nicholls was better than anticipated.

Mariota's speed seems to have improved.  He's bigger now, too.  Bralon Addison is a terror.  Huff looks like he's ready.

Byron Marshall turned on the jets for a 50 yard TD run.

Dat took some hits and bounced up every time.

It's time for Washington/Boise, though the Clemson/Georgia game is fantastic.

And UCLA/Nevada.

What a day of football!  Better than I hoped for.


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Nice Dog, Mean Man

(Sketch is the subject of numerous poems in Charles Deemer's new book.)

CD, whose new book of poems for RBP will come out in late October, is a mean-spirited anti-Duck.

That means while he was brave and smart enough to earn his MFA from Oregon, he hates the institution in Eugene, which he maliciously and habitually refers to as Nike U.

You know, because of Phil Knight's billion-dollar influence on athletics there.

In fact CD is a boisterous and illogical fan of UCLA, where he earned his undergraduate degree before attending Oregon, and not long after retiring as a Cold War military spy.

(Hmm...Was he a double agent?)

But now CD has gone beyond the pale.  He is predicting that a major injury to one of Oregon's stars Saturday against Nicholls State University will change the lofty expectations for Oregon's season.

Call it Operation Crystal Ball, a psyops maneuver by the enemy.

To even mention such a scenario is indicative of CD's calculating heart. To accomplish what he believes will happen, he expects the football gods to take down one of only two players who are so enormously valuable to the Ducks that an injury to either one one would cause their dreams of glory to vanish.

In other words--and this is beyond dispute--our poet believes either Marcus Mariota or De'Anthony Thomas is going to suffer a season-ending injury in the first half of their game Saturday.

I don't know if Oregon will be unscathed after its first game, but I can tell you CD is playing dirty in this deadly game.


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Ready

So, I'm just another dependent consumer.

I hope to return to the world of reliable internet service again this morning after 10 a.m.

Just in time to stream football this evening.

I feel like shit, but at least I have that much going for me.

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Encore

A vast majority of Americans don't like the idea of bombing Syria, with something like just 6 to 9 percent giving this newest round of US hubris candid support.

Doesn't matter.

Will a mass protest break out as it did to no effect during the planned invasion of Iraq, when a larger percentage of American's were hoodwinked by the Bush administration's Middle East fantasies?

No.

Millions in the US and abroad joined the protest of the Iraq War to no avail.  Protesters learned their lesson, finally...

Shut up, you're inconsequential.

The disconnect between the American people and our rulers has reached its nadir.  The last peace movement is dead.

This is democracy?

Bombs away!


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Weekend

This weekend's college football schedule shapes up nicely.  Oregon plays at 1 p.m.  Oregon State starts at 3 p.m.  Both games are televised.

The two hours separating the games fits an Oregonian's schedule perfectly.  Watch the first half of the Oregon game, which is about all any mortal will be able to tolerate, before switching to the OSU game.

The second game ought to be more interesting for a longer period of time, but both games could be over by halftime.

Scour the land and TV dial for another game.

The first game tomorrow (Thur.) features North Carolina vs. Jadeveon Clowney and South Carolina.  A nice start to the season.

I'm like a ten year-old with this stuff.  Love it.

I guess I've never grown up.  Doesn't mean I won't have my copy of Gulliver's Travels with its scholarly annotations beside me.  Means I probably won't crack it.


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Glimpse?

Wait for it...wait for it...

C. Deemer's new book of poetry for RBP is in the works.

Late October.






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Dregs

This day is too dreary and wet for my liking.

Just had a fire alarm/drill, set off accidentally by some kind of failure in the system. So I went outside with the other sheep who live here and stood in the drizzle.

Then I went across the street to the senior center and read the Sunday paper. Not doing as much reading online as I'd like with this low-rent WiFi trial that I have use of once every six hours.

That's a drag, too.

Maybe I'll go to a bar later and watch the 49ers.  With no ISP I can't stream it.

Ugh, let's get on with a new week, okay?


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Convinced?

Wow...

One week out, and this guy almost has me convinced.

But we shall see, which is why I watch the games.






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B.S.

Way to go Stephouse.  Over $600 in billings during the past two plus years, and this is the treatment you give out?

Thanks for notifying me of your changes.

This is about the worst, man.

Note:  If you're going to a system requiring techs in the field, hire the techs you need and put them in the field.  That means weekends, too.

If you can't do business with that much common sense, why try?  Why pretend you're creating a viable service?


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Stephouse

Stephouse Wireless just fucked me over.

Didn't bother telling me, a two-year subscriber, it was going direct.  Now I need a tech to wire me up and the company doesn't have one available until next week.

How do some of these idiots survive?

Won't be posting much until things are settled.


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Getting Primed

I'm excited the college football season is almost here.

A week from today a handful of college teams kick off, including Portland State, which opens at home against Division III Eastern Oregon Thursday night. Not much to see there, but I might catch a little of it.

Speaking of mismatches, Oregon opens at home against Nicholls State next Saturday, a team that likely couldn't beat PSU.  It would have been better for all concerned if PSU and Oregon had schemed to play each other in a friendly in-stater to start the season.  They've done that a couple of times in the past decade.

Oregon State also opens at home against a supposed lesser opponent in Eastern Washington, but EW plays at a higher level than either PSU or Nicholls State.  I'll catch some of that one as well.

A couple of years ago, PSU played both Oregon and Arizona State and got crushed both times.  They have Cal on Sept. 7; that is probably enough sacrifice for the big bucks in one year.

Saturday morning, I'll be ready to watch games from the Midwest and east coast.  I watch all I can the first Saturday of every season.

After that, I discriminate a little more and pick a couple of games each weekend that sound appealing, while never passing on the Ducks.

Here's a rundown of the TV broadcast schedule.

That's some serious couch potato stuff there.


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Wrong Again

The U.S. is imprisoning the wrong guy. (Edit: gal.)

Bush and Cheney started the Iraq War. They ought to be the ones going to jail.

We have truly achieved ignominy.


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Pure Singer

One of the best voices ever.


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The News

I like much of what Al Jazeera does.  I hope this works out.

We need a middle ground between the rabid right-wing fanaticism of Fox News and the corporate, right-wing glaze of the other networks.

If educating viewers is part of the package, I don't see why it shouldn't work.



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Organized

The Round Bend short-short story entries, when more arrive, can be seen at the page linked at the top of this blog. The first entry was from Ben, of Whitehouse, Ohio.  Thanks, Ben!

I think the stories should be posted in order, most recent to oldest, as they appear.  The rules for the contest are stated there as well.  I'll provide a link every time a story arrives.

I don't want this to become unruly or scattered.  Trying to streamline things and make it work for your maximum enjoyment.


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Aleppo

Scenes from Aleppo.


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Reading Tips

Charles Deemer has referenced Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading a couple of times at his blog recently.  I don't think he'll object too much if I go ahead and post this link to a pdf of the book.

For my part, I recommend this collection of essays if you're going to delve a little deeper into Pound.  Before selling my library to make rent one sad month years ago, I read from it often.  Not all of Pound is as accessible (to me) as this work, and I think his magnificent essay "How to Read" is in this collection.

Enjoy!


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Beer Garden

My buddy Terence turned me on to this aggregate website last night.  It looks very promising, with an Arts and Letters slant that strikes my fancy.

Too Tall and I were outside in the beer garden of a local pub when approached by a high-tech guy from Phoenix here on a working junket. Doing some business related to Intel, evidently.

Man, was he impressed by Oregon.  His business in town ended yesterday, and he was ruing having to return to hot Phoenix today.

I started thinking. Most of the people I know in town are from someplace else. Terence, for instance, is from Florida.  My pal Lucas was born and raised in Chicago.  I know few real Oregonians any more.

People tend to come here for a visit and end up staying.

Have to admit it.  Oregon this time of the year is indeed sensational. The only thing that left the Phoenix fellow with a negative perception of Portland is the homeless population here.  In all seriousness, he wondered if most of the young and seemingly healthy homeless panhandlers were perhaps druggies looking for a meth fix.

I turned it back on him.  Well, perhaps, I said.  But on the other hand even the homeless are attracted to Portland in this type of weather.

Plenty of places to sleep outdoors (unless you try to camp down town).  Food can be found if you know where to look, etc.

I don't understand why people rag on the homeless so much.  Hell, not everyone is able to get a job with a company that sends them to Portland to train in some facet of the high tech industry, like Mr. Phoenix.

Homelessness is just around the corner for a lot of folks.  I've been there, perhaps you have, too.

True, people are lazy, unmotivated, mentally ill, unfortunate, unskilled, uneducated, crazy, fucked up, stubborn, etc., etc. Not much cure for all of that under present conditions.

If you have a job you love, consider yourself lucky.  Most don't.  And a lot can go wrong under such conditions.  If you have nothing to begin with, the odds are against you.

Sometimes the bootstrap you're trying to pull yourself up by is too short or tattered.  Doom and failure are aspects of the realm, friends.

All of this is serious stuff, but who is addressing the issues?  America would rather have its bombs and give foreign military juntas fat paychecks to protect the interests of the industrial class than deal with the homeless.

Point--the poor enjoy the scenery here just as much as well-heeled tourists from Boston and beyond.

Besides, taking advantage of the weather, many of the homeless youths hit the road to winter in better climes. Probably not Phoenix, as it seems a bit hostile to poverty in general, from what I've read and heard.  Of course, poor people are there, but they're encouraged to stay out of sight.  Or perhaps encouraged isn't the right word...

Regarding panhandling, I told the high-tech guy it was his choice. Give or don't.  Nobody is telling you what to do when confronted with a panhandler.  If the beggar is too aggressive, tell him to fuck off.  Be prepared to fight if you have to; it's a tough world.

If you give, don't expect your beneficiary to spend the money the way you'd rather he spend it.  If you have doubts, hold back.

I rarely give panhandlers money myself.  There are so many of them that I'd have nothing left from my meager income if I did.

Last thing I have is guilt over it.

America is pretty much a basket case now, with more poor than since the Great Depression.  Infighting won't change anything.

Until something fundamental about capitalism changes, not much can be done.


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Chess Scene

From The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), directed by Norman Jewison.


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Hit and Miss

A few scenes from PSU fall camp.  Nothing special, just having fun with my Bloggie.


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True Colors

The damn "liberal media" are at it again.  Ha!

This is execrable in so many ways it is not even funny.

I'd give Time writer Michael Grunwald the coveted RBP Idiot of the Week Award, but clearly he is more deserving of the Asshole of the Year Award.

Too bad Helen Thomas isn't around any more to slap him across the face.


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Catch of the Day

With the price of halibut in the grocery, I'd say this record 515 pound fish is really valuable.  The German fisherman who caught it donated it to to a local (Norway) fish dealer.

Mighty generous of him.


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Education

Rolling Stone, the magazine that dared to put a picture of a cute Boston Marathon bomber on its cover, thereby upsetting folks who can't accept the idea that a terrorist can conceivably look like a normal young person, has a nice piece on America's college tuition crisis in its latest issue.

Those who should read it won't.  You know, because Rolling Stone is bad, a terrorist-loving magazine.


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About the Bear

I was browsing the Web for archived material about Paul "Bear" Bryant (hey, it's football season) and I came across this piece, published in 2011.

I think it is very well done, and thought you might find it interesting as well.

Then there is this, a story of real courage.


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44th Anniversary

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Additions

I've done a little work on the sidebar of this site.  Maybe you've noticed.

Probably not, heh?

Oh well...

I'd like to point out that Lee Santa's name is now on our list of authors. That is because he is up in Idaho working on a draft of his jazz memoir with photos to send to me.  I wanted to go up there and help him knock it out, but the trip didn't pan out.

So it happens when it happens if not before then.

I've also put three videos up, so there isn't any excuse for you to come here any more and whine because there's nothing to see at that stupid RBP site.

That old excuse has gone the way of the dinosaurs, my little pterodactyls.


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Exercise (Or the Lack Thereof)

I try to do a little walking every day for exercise.

I've been walking over to the university every morning recently to watch PSU football practice.  That is about the extent of my exercise each day of late, but it is a good thing I even do that much.

I should do more.  While I'm pretty dang tough for my age, I could be a lot stronger.  I watch the kids run around and feel sort of envious.

I'd sure like to be able to run around like that.  They should let me, in a Paper Lion-like moment, run a few plays with the defense.

Maybe I'll start training and join the senior athletic tour.  Basketball might be the answer.

Another option might be biking, though I'm not real fond of it.  I had a bike until it was stolen a few years ago.  I should get another one and start training for the senior racing circuit.  The Tour de Geriatric...

Just idly dreaming again.  All I really lack is ambition.  Story of my life.

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Good Idea!

What she says.








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Craft Notes

Charles Deemer, novelist, poet and professor of screenwriting at Portland State, has a couple of nice pieces in the inaugural/revived issue of Creative Screenwriting online.

Here he discusses the role of the "harried reader" in a film production company, the one likely to be the first person to read your submission.

That person is too busy to mess around with your verbosity, says Deemer.  The reader is looking for a solid story, not complex or wordy writing.

He is looking for a "blueprint" with a good story embedded.

In the second article, Deemer analyzes how Harold Pinter wrote for the big screen, making several cogent points budding screenwriters can take from Pinter's style.

Deemer's concern as a screenwriting instructor is with the "spec" screenplay, how you must please the gods to get through the front door of a busy production company. Of course, as with anything else, if you have the money and another notion nothing is stopping you from doing it your way.


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Early Morning Rain

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Mother Country

John Stewart (1939-2008)


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Off Course

This story from the Eugene Register Guard has the hyper-kinetic fanboys on the football message boards all riled up.

Though I too love Oregon football, I just don't understand the intractable feelings some of its hardcore fans express whenever the program is justifiably criticized.

Clearly, many of them do not understand the role of the press in society (as an aside I'll point out that the press often abdicates its own role in society, but that is not the issue here). They honestly seem to believe that the function of the Guard ought to be to lead the cheers for the home town team.  Rah, rah.

I believe the Football Psyops Center at Oregon is an embarrassment, as I've noted for the record.

Other than giving too much license to the one interviewee who couldn't express an idea without cloaking it in a deliberate cliche, and the reliance on a military man who attempts to smooth over the base nastiness of war (the mention of the sanctity of the Geneva Conventions in the context of America's recent wars, or modern warfare in general, is absurd), the article makes some good points.

Yeah sure, football would be better if it was run like the military. Given its sometimes mindlessness, I think they're already too close.

That is as offensive to me as the Psyops Center.


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Story Contest

The short-short story contest rules have been revised due to a lack of submissions under the old guidelines.

The new rule is that there are no rules, except the story should be around 200 words.  Write your story and submit it to: roundbendpress@yahoo.com

I'll publish the results as they come in, if any do, and announce a few winners 6 months from now.  All participants maintain the rights to their work.

So start scribbling.

Prizes?  What stinking prizes?


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Picture of the Day

What?  Paranoid?  Not me...

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Good Old Joe

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Succor

Man, I was trying to make a post by copying from a Word document to this site a few minutes ago, and I simply couldn't make it work properly.

Maybe I'll try again another day. Right now, I feel like eating a bowl of ice cream.

Sometimes that is the only answer to the trouble a man faces.


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Dog Gone It!

Here's what I think.

Titan computer chess at its highest levels lets you win once every twenty-five games you play. The rest of the time it just fucks with your mind.

And the experts say this isn't even a tough program!

I'll tell you this much. Titan messes with my algorithms.

Kidding, I'm a terrible player.  I didn't play as a kid, and I'm only just learning the game's nuances--strategy and tactics.  It is going slowly.  I don't really have the mind for it.

For instance, I love it when my opponent's en passant  shocks me.

I love blowing so many games when I think I'm winning; I'm humbled.

Titan keeps me occupied when I have the blues.  Only problem is it makes the blues worse!


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The Grind

I glanced at a couple of preseason pro football games this evening just for the hell of it, though I'm not a big pro football fan--I prefer the college game.

I'm not sure why this is to tell you the truth, though I think I simply prefer the college game's aesthetics. Despite making inroads recently, the NFL lacks the creativity of the college game. It is more brute strength and dominant speed.  The game's best players tend to equalize each other on the field.  The game becomes a grind.  Explosion plays are rarer than they are in college, where explosion plays are a great part of the game and fun to watch.

I watched a little of the 49ers/Broncos game this evening.  I liked the 49ers' LaMichael James when he starred at Oregon.  In the pro game, he's just another player.  He'll be fine and likely have a good, if short, career.  But the explosiveness I'd come to unrealistically expect from James wasn't there tonight. Everybody on the field was as strong and fast as LaMichael James.

Once his first-team line exited the game, Denver's defense stopped him cold.  That's the pro game.  It can be as brutally boring as soccer.

The pro game likely isn't as corrupt as the college game because it doesn't have the NCAA in a corrupt leadership role. Businessmen run the pro game, and all you can make of it is what it is--a very expensive business venture that very rich elites promote as entertainment. With television deals and sellout crowds, they make a lot of money after paying out initially for players and ownership rights. They take a share of everything, including hot dog and beer sales in some places, I'm sure.

If the pro game is corrupt it is corrupt in a way completely different than the college game.  Call it a more subtle form of corruption.

Pro players are well compensated, though their careers are short.  A certain honesty necessarily steers the game, I think.  Everybody wins--until they lose. That's the nature of real business.

Here is what happens to unfortunate former college players at the moment of truth--the moment they learn the future is uncertain and a big contract is unlikely.

One of the more fortunate ones, James signed a four-year deal for $10 million guaranteed.

Decent money, but it comes with risks people don't like to talk about. Like all players, professional or collegiate, he might lose his future good sense, as head injuries happen.  Football, particularly pro ball, has a huge PR problem and even greater financial risks for the future. The game is dangerous, like mining and fighting fires. The social costs of football are being weighed for the first time by critics.  People are striving to make the game safer.

The NCAA likes to pretend the game is more than a business. Sure, if select kids want to get an education while playing the game at one of the 120 big-time programs in the US they can honestly do that.  It's up to them, though. The scholarship is a good deal for a kid who can snag one. The education, the very degree, promises nothing--for a football player who earns one for free or for a scholar who pays to play the education game.

The NCAA reaps billions in profits off the labor and risks its college football athletes take, and if  the football idol the institution has created and used sells his autograph his career is potentially over.

Two equally abhorrent things are happening here. They are relative to one another only to the degree that capitalism allows them to be. The college player is being exploited like a low-wage earner at Wal-Mart. And regular college kids are getting ripped off by a system that forces them to pay too much for an education.

No,  I shouldn't like big-time college football as much as I do.


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All Along the Hightower

Why doesn't the US invest in college education the same way it invests in primary and secondary education and in its military and armaments? Or better, why not pour more money into college education and less into the military and armaments?  Why not accentuate education rather than killing?

Why not support teachers and young people rather than the bomb makers who get so many big contracts?  Why not invest in free education rather than the destructive nature of militarism...

Sorry, just dreaming...


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Pouting Prez

Ha, ha, ha...

Greenwald is plain good.

There is no question Snowden is being used in a political battle of wills, but I tend to believe even that beats life in a supermax in Colorado, which is where he'll be lodged if the US gets him.

I also believe Putin has done the right thing.

The celebrity rebel and Putin have won--for now.  That doesn't preclude a team of agents eventually snatching Snowden off the Moscow streets and returning him to the US, of course.

It is impossible to hide for long in a surveillance state, a status of which both Russia and the US qualify.

Run, Eddy, run.

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A Sad Story of Academia

(Purdue University President Mitch Daniels)

When former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' ugly, reactionary sentiments regarding the late historian Howard Zinn, voiced in numerous emails, became public under a Freedom of Information Act request, all hell broke loose at Purdue University and anywhere else teaching history is taken seriously in this country.

The current president of Purdue, Daniels had sought to have Zinn's A People's History of the United States banned from schools in Indiana back when he was governor.  He attacked Zinn as "anti-American" and seemed genuinely pleased to hear of the the old professor's passing in 2011.

With no more Zinn to disrupt his myopic vision of America's past, Daniels rallied his underlings to attempt once again to wipe Zinn out of Indiana's secondary school curricula.

Since hearing of the emails Purdue's History Department and the American Historical Association have battled back.

Daniels has absurdly denied culpability regarding the emails, but he has shut up, about the best possible things he could do given his role as a supposedly modern US educator and the stupidity of his quest.

Round Bend Press liked this story so much when it broke earlier this summer Dooley and I put our heads together and decided there could not possibly be a better candidate than Daniels for the coveted RBP Idiot of the Week Award for that week.

It bears repeating, for we believe that the fight against idiocy truly does take an idiotic reward to succeed.


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Kelly and Dan

I watched and listened to them often at Seafood Mama's in Northwest Portland, circa 1988-1993.  They come out to Portland from Ohio and moved into an apartment next door to mine.  They were just starting out in jazz.  Seafood Mama's was around the corner and had a baby grand piano that the loaded club owner stumbled over one time during a Dave Frishberg set, pissing the piano player off big time.  I don't think Frishberg, who digs baseball, ever played there again after that. I used to go into the club in quiet moments, or after gigs at closing when  Eric Booth was bartending. He let me play the baby grand. I improvised and occasionally made it sound good. Some of the best days and nights, and early mornings, of my life.  The candle was definitely burning at both ends, and I was happy.




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Cancelled

No ride, no trip to Idaho to work on the jazz memoir my friend has written.  I'll make a long story short and just tell you some things didn't work out.

This means nothing negative in terms of the planned book's final appearance; that'll happen, though likely slower than it could have. What it does mean is I don't get the proper working vacation I wanted.

But onward!

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Why?

My favorite time every evening is 11 p.m.  I usually turn in around then, and I tune into the BBC on OPB for the morning news from the UK, the ME and Africa.

I love the skepticism of the BBC hosts.  When they report on other regions of the world the edge that I identified in my youth with real journalism magically reappears. After a day of listening to the post-Cold War US menu of propagandized radio, the BBC offers something better.

The terms of the debate are always stretched by the UK reporters, who habitually ask better questions than their American counterparts about policy initiatives and the overall direction of leadership.  And they really go after the reps of African dictators.  Very nice.

One of the five Ws that has fallen out of favor with the American press in a major way is: "Why?"  Unless they're trying to discover why a celebrity was arrested the night before.

(If you don't know what the other four Ws are you don't belong here.)

The US corporate media is rarely capable of asking "Why?" about important issues these days, unfortunately.

When I lay my head on the pillow every evening at 11 p.m., a great sense of calm and satisfaction washes over me.

From across the big pond, a stranger with an important question is speaking to me.  It's like having a lover who really gets it and coos into your ear--"Why are you such an ass?"

A sense of something else punches you out of your dull acceptance of what you are being told, and you are awakened to an otherness.


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Congestion

Strange occurrence this weekend tracked on my Feedjit traffic gadget. Someone in Elkin, N.C. hit my blog about 20 times in a very short time period.

Was that person lost and confused, or simply enamored with this site's luster?

Probably the former.

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Today?

Outside chance of finally getting a ride to Sandpoint today. So I'm up early preparing just in case it's a last second go. Should know before noon.

Live fly-by-night, travel that way, too.  My life.  Ha!

Quiet weekend wherein I ignored this blog.  That's a good thing to do now and again.  If I get to Idaho perhaps the juices will begin to flow.

Well, I know they will, for the project I have in mind should be a winner.  RBP has had a few of those since I started this.  Time for another.

We'll see.


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Shoot the Muralist!

Because you're dying to know, I'll tell you my thoughts on the new Football Psyops Center at the University of Oregon.

(This isn't a statement about what football is or isn't relative to academia. That is another issue, and frankly I am tired of it. If  people gave a fuck about education in this country it would be less expensive than it is now. In any case, I believe you get out of education the effort you put into it; if that means being an autodidact or coming up empty, so be it.)

The building is a $70 million abomination, albeit a beautiful abomination, at least on the outside, where its lines are superb.  In that regard it is a magnificent work of art.

But that is where its beauty ends and, unfortunately, poor taste takes over.  Because I don't believe football was ever designed to be a frilly thing, the frills inside this building are comical.

On the inside the building is a garish travesty that highlights the bad taste often associated with ostentatious displays of wealth and fashion.  Think of all the assembly-line paintings you'll find inside the corporate offices of a multinational insurance company, where the receptionist wears a beehive coif and the CEO looks like Donald Trump in a bad tie.

It's like that.

Its interior has the quality of  a badly curated museum.  Its tawdry affectations betray an empty-headed consumerism, kitsch, and paint-by-numbers design.

Striving for edginess, it came out mundane.

Even the rugs are ugly.

If I were the architect I'd be pissed because a team of idiotic interior designers ruined my perfectly beautiful masterpiece.  At least he didn't acquiesce to placing a big yellow O on the facade, though I'm sure somebody would have thought that a good idea.

The building is overkill, but it is overkill in ways that you may not appreciate. College football as a corporate endeavor entered the pantheon of excess long ago.  With that comes the misbegotten hubris associated with this building, the equivalent of a Napoleon Complex.

It's silly.

"Over-the-top" isn't a good enough phrase for this stinker.

If I didn't like football, i.e., care for the game rather than its accouterments, I'd pooh-pah the whole deal, like many critics indeed have.

In fact I am likely not alone thinking this--the chances are Oregon's football team, coddled as it is, will forget to come to play a few times this season.

The first time a team comes into Eugene and dresses on the bus before slipping out of Autzen with an upset because a few Oregon players couldn't pull themselves out of the players' lounge in time for kickoff--that'll be the day we acknowledge the truth:

The Oregon Football Psyops Center is a joke, and the over-marketing of the Oregon brand is embarrassing.


TS