And now for a friendly challenge — can you explain the game of football in a comment below? That is, explain it so that someone who has never played or followed a game can understand what the idea of the game is. Extra points for explaining what the different positions do. Also — if you have a photo you’ve taken that has some imagery of the New England Patriots and you’d like to see it posted, please send it to dreams@planetwaves.net.
Football = way too much time waiting between “plays” so that a game that should have been maybe an hour long ends up taking half the day.
A game with lots of men running around with an oddly shaped object that doesn’t resemble any ball (spherical object) and who tackle each other and spank one another on the ass as well as reaching between each other’s legs to take that “ball.”
A game which often has old, fat, former players talking rather loudly about the “plays,” the players, and all sorts of game-related trivia from a “box” or from the sidelines.
A game at which “fans” get crazy and paint their faces, wear weird hats, act like overgrown children and generate tons of waste while promoting tons of consumption.
A game where women often resent the focus of their male partners to the degree that they “go shopping” while their male partners congregate in front of a large box and scream and eat.
A game at which some women are dressed in skimpy clothes and made to dance provocatively in order to “cheer” the male players on.
A game which pre-empts national media for the day as though nothing else in the universe matters more than these males passing the oddly-shaped object.
A game which has a huge, live show at “half-time” but which you cannot see without watching the entire first half of the game because no one knows when half-time will actually happen due to the many stops and starts of the game.
In recent years, a game in which the half-time entertainment incites some sort of controversy over “wardrobe malfunctions” or “rude gestures.”
If I were an alien just landed on Earth, I would question the evolution of the human species based on the game of “football.”
Alas, human behavior is fascinating and often disappointing.
That’s my take on American football.
:::laughing::::
OK, back from the hike! Impressed by your sports acumen, Fe. Really good stuff. I guess I would add from a dharma talk I heard this eve that it’s all about what you know to look for and really anything can yield useful insight. I don’t know how to look at football and because of the hurt factor, just can’t be convinced to look any further. Yet, I’m sure there’s something there I’m missing. AND, my apathy remains. Who won? 🙂
Thanks, Brendan, your apt description of just what I have been observing— and not realizing the whole thing IS the game– far surpasses even my hopes for finally understanding “football” from bloggers here at PW LOL :>)
Re: The Mayan ball court. When I was in Chichen Itza a few years ago it was explained to me that the “captain” of the winning team was beheaded by the “captain” of the losing team.
Methinks football would not exist if this particular ritual had wound its way to modern-day America.
As for football… If you do well you get a spanking. 😉
Liminali,
No fear, they too are “rebuilding.” As if they haven’t been doing that for the last 10 years or so…. 🙁 I grew up with the Mariners, but let’s just say I’m not a die-hard, must-win-at-any-cost fan who lives and breathes pro sports. Cycling, on the other hand, is the sport of true athletes…
I live in rural AZ now, so any close exposure to professional sports is very limited and very distant. Without TV, the inoculation is taking hold very well.
My dad called football the “modern day gladiator sport”.
George Carlin has the best explanation of the differences between baseball and football.
http://youtu.be/qmXacL0Uny0
Brendan, it’s sad to say, but as long as the Mariners have Wedge as their manager the other teams don’t need to worry much about them. (My opinion is formed from being married to Cleveland Boy, lol) 🙂
Fe – I expected that, and if I was living in the Bay Area, I’d probably go for the Giants myself, reason being that the A’s are the arch-enemies of the Mariners, so anybody but the A’s wins in my book.
Next Saturday @3:30pm for the Solar return!
Football is a brawling yet somehow girly-man game for which I avoid the television but would be willing to sit in the stadium with friends who actually enjoy the game while I enjoy their energy and the festivities.
Baseball is when I avoid the (boring!) stadium at all costs and let someone else who cares tell me what happened after it is over – preferably at a social event wherein the story is told with extra enthusiasm.
Now Hurling, on the other hand? Now That’s a Game!
😉
Baseball is more like a game of anticipation – not much happening until one or the other makes the big error – then Checkmate.
billp I think it is the winning Maya team that gets sacrificed, as they are deemed most worthy. That is about like being a Seal team, I’m certain.
Brendan:
G- girl born and raised. The A’s are going to take awhile to develop. We’re stilll working on the moneyball thing here.
BTW — Isn’t it your Solar Return time?
And notice…Prince was performing in rain….
And sometimes…not always by any means, but sometimes….during the big event known as the Super Bowl, you get some SCORCHING musical performances during the halfway point of the game known as “halftime.”
Happily submitted for your guitar pleasure, PRINCE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnm1wBGkj7E
So, Fe, Giants or A’s? 😉
Eric: Think about hand to hand combat down through the ages….those poor troops locked in mortal combat…armed with only knifes, swords, spears. Down and dirty.
Methinks there is a dna memory of those times, and football in its composite of one on one violence timed in such a way, that the ball is moved down the field in 10 yard increments within the four ‘down’ time period; is a ‘rememberance’ of those past life experiences. And not to be forgotten are the ‘camp followers’ of those armies, the women, the cooks, metalsmiths etc., that perhaps were the ‘observers’ of that combat; yet had an intrinsic interest in the outcome. So even today’s ‘fan’ is retaining that ancient memory.
I think there is also a case for modern day warfare’s penchant on the martial arts, and the popularity of ‘cage fighting’ etc.
And then there is that ancient Maya game, where the ‘ball’ is put through a ‘hoop’ high on the wall, and played with the feet; not unlike the other “Futball”; modern day soccer. The only difference being that unlike today’s teams/players; that losing Maya team had their hearts cut out.
Primordal. Cain/Abel. Lilith/Eve. Etc.
I think it’s just great that the Superbowl always takes place while the Sun is in Aquarius. It’s all about the team — and then at the end they award the Most Valuable Player. You can’t be the MVP without being part of an awesome team. Very apropos of Aquarius.
Eric:
OK, my Venus is in Sag and Mars in Aries. I get what sports dharma is about.
Baseball is a game of shifting defense, mostly. The pitcher is primary defense, preventing runners from hitting the balls and getting on base, while the fielding positions prevent the hitter from getting on to base or reaching home plate to score.
The first line of defense is pitching, and you’ll see more fans standing in suspense when a “BIG pitch is about to happen (like a 3 ball, two strike count), where a hitter could get on base or strike out. In fact, the one player who gets the most “intention” from fans is the pitcher. It’s an amazing experience of mass will. During games, you can have 43,000 people working an extreme form of “intention” on the pitcher, which can make or break you on the mound. This is why pitchers are paid very high bucks — the pressure is unbelievably high.
I hope alpssmile joins up, because she’s another SF Giants fan, so she can elaborate. But suffice to say, live baseball is wide-ranging emotional theater, tense concentration, joyful release when we score, and raging fury when we’re cheated by a bad call. Yet its all a game. No one, unless someone is roughed up accidentally during a play, gets hurt.
In football, the game is a world of hurt. That’s why I love baseball, I mean really love it. There is something relaxing about the whole thing, especially when you’re in the sun and taking in the scene and the show. It’s not a game of inches but of nerve.
Football? Seriously (probably not). Never could relate to it, don’t want to — a complete waste of time except to calibrate a great(er) sense of distance from most of the American population on this day. I’m glad most of the madness is confined to indoors. It’s a great day to go hiking. 🙂
oh god — The Planet Waves School of Remedial Football for Astrologers?
hahahaha! oy. 🙂
More than I need to know……………….One night I was surrounded with several strapping, earnest (not too bright) Eagles, in a bar in Philly…….I chose to spend the evening with the young, resourceful Captain of a Private yacht, moored in the Delaware, that he had piloted up from Miami. It was my girlfriend’s birthday so he broke out some champagne. A lovely time was had by all.
( He noticed my boredom, came over & claimed his “wife”, 1/2 my age & he won the contest hands down.)
Ok Fe, that was a great expansion on the four tries to go 10 yards — and now I get punting on the 4th down.
Note, baseball would be harder to explain. Once I went to visit my old gf Maria Henzler in Germany a few years ago. After spending six months traveling with me she went to astrology school and got certified (that’s how you do it in Germany). And I just HAD to show her the chart of Babe Ruth.
But…who was Babe Ruth? He was a baseball player. He hit 714 home runs. Everyone loved him. You have no idea how much.
But…what is a home run?
So then I had to explain the whole game of baseball, starting with: no, the pitcher and the batter are not on the same team.
I think football is a bit weird — as a game. As a social event it makes more sense. But baseball is the weirder game, I think. Offense and defense are shuffled around in strange ways. Baseball seems more like an Asian game (like Backgammon). Football seems like a fairly typical offense-defense game.
What they have in common is that the action comes in spurts, as opposed to being constant (basketball, ice hockey, soccer).
Jeez, Eric, explain Amerikun football? Mortgage-backed securities derivatives might be easier…
Okay, here goes: the object is force the observer into drinking far too much alcohol, eating far too much food that is bad for them, and fantasizing over scantily clad women. Oh, and watch advertising that is intended to inspire the observer to continue to make bad choices in consumer goods and services.
Somewhere amongst all that carnage there are two teams of 12 men each that are attempting to move an oblong ‘ball’ from one end of a field to another, in order to score semi-mythical ‘points,’ the amassing of which determines a ‘winner.’ These ‘teams’ are organized in conjunction with long competing urban conglomerations, with possible origins dating back to pre-hominid eras, as chest-thumping and unarmed conflict is often seen during such events.
Seemingly incompetent, these men take turns moving the ball forwards and backwards, and in fact often accomplishing very little. What is supposed to take 60 minutes can take upwards of 4 hours instead, leading one to think that this is all nonsense, thus causing the observer to drink and eat even more in frustration. At the conclusion, only the populace of one conurbation is even remotely happy, with the remainder of the nation-state’s population stuck with hangovers and heartburn.
A good time was had by all. 🙂
Technically yes, each team gets four tries. However, if they fail by the fourth try to make the 10, they forfeit the ball to the other team at the last line of scrimmage (the place where they had the ball last).
The other team can then take the ball and move it to their side of the goalposts for a score. This is why most teams elect to punt, that is, kick the ball to the other side if they fail to make the 10 by the 3rd try, to push the opposing team back so that they have further to go to make a score.
The punter could, if they see it to be propitious, elect to do an offsides kick that makes the ball playable by either team to retrieve. It’s very risky, especially if the special teams unit on the opposing team is sharp.
Then we have the usual bloodsport of defensive players going after the ball.
BTW: The rate of women sent to the emergency room for treatment for beatings on Super Bowl Sunday is higher than any other day of the calendar year. It’s America’s high festival of testosterone.
Beth! Thank you for that link! LOL! Perfect!
I have tried for decades to understand the explanations of 4 intelligent men in my life of what was happening at any particular time or event on the field, and decided it was another language that I would never learn to master–such as Eric using the word “down”–which I believe means “ball stops far enough” .I think, sort of, with other connotations I haven’t mastered.
So I never could even get a hit from the drug, thanks Goddess.
Eric, your definition was a really good beginning for me, though.
Can’t wait to hear what Brendan’s definition is.
:>)
Here is pretty much all I have ever gotten from football, and mama I’ve tried…
http://movieclips.com/zLnBk-coming-to-america-movie-akeem-talks-football/
I’ll start. Each team gets four tries to go 10 yards, correct? Each one of those is called a ‘down’.
How do those work? And then what?