Ed Edmo

(Photo by Anne Morin)

I ran into Ed Edmo at a MAX stop downtown last week.  He gave me his card.

I give you his web address.  Check it out.




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CD on the river

I'm loving CD's The Years: a writer's memory.

In this one he takes his inflatable raft out on the Willamette and enjoys life to the fullest.


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Eyes on Eugene

This would have been the year to write an insider's story following the Oregon Ducks throughout the season.

Maybe someone will.

I'm thinking of two of my favorite sports-related books from years past: David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game, a chronicle of the Portland Trailblazers following their 1977 NBA title, and George Plimpton's Paper Lion, the hilarious account of the author's brief, satirical attempt to play quarterback for the Detroit Lions in 1963.

Some things that would make this year's story about Oregon football interesting include the dynamic play and leadership of All-Americans Marcus Mariota, Hroniss Grasu and Ifo Ekpre-Olomu.  All three turned down surefire NFL money to return to Oregon for a final run at college ball.

In this day that is in itself remarkable.

Another angle is the tension inherent in the program as second-year coach Mark Helfrich, an Oregonian from Coos Bay, attempts to solidify his coaching career in the long shadow cast by Chip Kelly, who led the team to unprecedented success before moving on to the NFL.

Kelly has been deified in some circles, though people tend to forget that he lost a number of "big games."

Many critics find Helfrich lacking, inasmuch as this is his first head coaching position and he was perceived as shaky last year, leading the Ducks to an 11-2 record.

The second-year coach is on the hot seat, one heated by the imaginations of a rabid fan base.  So are offensive coordinator Scott Frost and first-year defensive coordinator Don Pellum.

Last year's record would please most fan bases around the country, but Oregon, behind the money of Nike and Phil Knight, is unique--or thinks it is in many cases.  Helfrich is in an unenviable situation.

Unfortunately, Oregon is either going to make it to the new College Football Playoff this season or people are going to demand the coach's ouster. Not fair, but such is the twisted nature of the college football beast now--at least in Oregon.

That's a weird story, telling in its primal "win-at-any-cost" mantra.  It should be documented closeup, along with the personalities that shape the team.  This is a big football story steeped in a morality play about the direction of college sports.

There are some interesting cats at Oregon right now.  Bright guys like Tyler Johnstone and Bralon Addison (who are both out for the season) and preternaturally gifted players like Mariota, Thomas Tyner and the new kid, Royce Freeman, who will soon be a household name.

There are some animals. Jake Fisher is a prime example, a big tackle who plays with nearly unhinged violence.

There is a boatload of emerging athletes, possibly stars, including the fastest high-hurdler in the U.S., Devon Allen.

Oregon has some monster players, a roster as gifted as any other in the league.  What does the future hold?

Can the center hold on what many believe is Oregon's last chance to win it all, carried to the promised land by the magnificent, generational QB Mariota?   Because UCLA, USC, virtually all the usual heavyweights, are bouncing back and Stanford has had Oregon's number the past two seasons.

There are so many "ifs" one cannot help but be caught up in them--legions of Oregon watchers, here and around the country, are curious.


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Finding Another Way

It seems so fundamental as to be like breathing.


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Quack, Quack

Dos quacks.

Last night it was DAT'S show in the NFL with an 80 yard punt return for a score.

Tonight Josh Huff did his thing, running a kickoff back 102 yards for a TD.

Both played at Oregon last year, and both had good overall careers.

Lots of Ducks in pro ball these days, reflecting the success of the team in recent years.

Can Oregon keep it up?  We'll see in about 20 days when the college football season opens.


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The Eighty-Yard Run

No, not this Eighty-Yard Run, as great as it is.

This one, the second time he touched the ball in his pro debut.

The once-disgruntled ex-Duck is an early hit maker in Kansas City. Let's hope things turn out better for him than they did for Christian Darling.


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A Review!

Well, there isn't anything in this review that I haven't commented on ahead of time at this blog.

I particularly like that the reviewer is in agreement with what I wrote here as I was putting the book together; I knew that the book I was writing was not definitive and in-depth, and I've stated as much many times.

I'm not using that as an excuse at all.  I knew what the book was, which is why I agree with the critic.

I agree that the subject deserves much more, but as I confessed I have neither the resources nor the energy (nor the interest) to write such a book.

One might ask, well, why bother to write a book at all if you know it's not going to be comprehensively pleasing to people? Fair question.  I wish I knew the answer.

Perhaps it's just because I felt compelled to write and publish something, which I guess is a base instinct in these times.  I should probably check myself before I try anything quite so stupid again.

Re: the "inaccuracies" of how the end of baseball came in Portland, I wrote from an observer's standpoint.  It looked to me like the powers-that-be couldn't get a deal done for a baseball stadium in Portland.  Since there is no stadium in Portland I guess I got that part correct, at least.

Now if there is somebody else I should have blamed other than those the public might deem responsible, so be it.

Hey, this is the book's first review at Amazon.  Keep 'em coming, folks.


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P.S.  I think I've finally fixed all the typos, but there may be a straggler here and there.

Celebration

The good ol' USA has changed too damn much for me in a lot of ways, some good, a lot of bad, and some just plain puzzling.

Things like this didn't happen when I was young.

The Major League Soccer All-Star game is in Portland this evening, with a 6:30 start.  This end of town, not far from Providence Park where the game will be played, is in an uproar right now.

I can hear groups singing, others chanting, and even a group singing choral music, something purely religious that must amount to a statement regarding the holiness of futbol.

Helicopters are flying back and forth in the area to document the event.

The sirens are heavy, too, as if mayhem has already broken out in the soccer bars around the neighborhood, of which there are plenty.

The all-stars are playing Bayern Munich.  A good number of the German club's players repped Germany in the recent World Cup.

Definitely a party out there right now.

I wonder if anybody will go to work tomorrow...


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Control

I watched this again recently.

I never get tired of it because it's just so damn articulate and clear and lays everything on the line.

By the same token, it's like Chomsky says in his interview.  There is no mystery about any of it, and 80 percent of Americans know they are being fooled all the time.

Whether or not we should or must acquiesce is the most recent question.

We're still trying to figure that part out as a society; but watch, while we're thinking about it something else will come along and ensnare us.

Or you will be asked to believe it has.

And if you choose to ignore the powers that be you might find your ass in a sling.

Round and round we go.


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On Being Mean

Here is a fascinating look at the mind of a neo-liberal apologist of the fashion that rules the Democratic Party these days, a regular Clintonite.

I am speaking of the reviewer himself, and not his subject.

Berman's piece is so much horseshit, and an unfiltered bashing of a great radical/humorist and free-thinker who is no longer around to defend himself.

A piece like this would be better placed in the Wall Street Journal, another source of spiteful incandescence whenever it attempts a cultural or literary analysis--in short, something appealing to the snob in all of us.  You know, WSJ, stick with the stock quotations and business analyses and leave the important stuff to people who do the heavy thinking. 

Be forewarned; things did not go well for the author during his lunch with Alexander Cockburn at the Odeon, which is the real genesis of this outlandish smear piece.

That the author explained his dust-up with his subject so late in his piece is telling. I suppose it took courage to even mention it--like finally admitting that you once told a fib. 

With no mention of CounterPunch, the newsletter and publishing house Cockburn founded with Jeffery St. Clair, the author blithely attempts a coup de grace, and fails miserably.

I wonder if Walter Lippmann would have approved?

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Made for TV

They always accomplished the mission, but it was fiction, made for television.

Here then is the reality:

If it is Hamas that you hate, let me tell you that the people you are killing have nothing to do with Hamas. They are women, children, men and senior citizens whose only concern was for the war to end, so they can return to their lives and daily routines. But let me assure you that you have now created thousands -- no, millions -- of Hamas loyalists, for we all become Hamas if Hamas, to you, is women, children and innocent families. If Hamas, in your eyes, is ordinary civilians and families, then I am Hamas, they are Hamas and we are all Hamas.--Asmaa Al-Ghoul, Rafah*

*Source: Beyond the Pale

Or as Patrick Cockburn puts it.


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I Protest

I protest
these obscene wars
I did not volunteer to fight
for Empire
or patriotism

I protest
poverty and the
subjugation of mankind to
the tired
will of capitalism

I protest
all of the isms
particularly pragmatism
and its idiocy
day in/day out

I protest
East vs. West and
the simple-mindedness of
unworldly knowledge and
the end of science

I protest
the gods and their
unreliable fortitude and will
to divide and conquer
their bland foes

I protest
this day and the next
the heart blown to pieces
by the bombs of
the masters

I protest
the inevitable power and
the crazy demigods and
the fearless warriors and
the empty speeches

I protest
the righteousness of
those whom I'm incapable
of talking to about
the grace of Man

I protest
the hollowness and the
emptiness that has us
caged like prisoners
unable to walk away

I protest
I protest
I protest


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Chess Player

Beating the algorithm is tough.


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Advanced Study

A snake handler at OMSI lets young Dylan pet the creature.


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Priorities

A must see Portland attraction for the family during its visit?

Voodoo Doughnuts, of course. Who thought a doughnut shop would have such world renown?

Just another mystery to me...


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