Go Team!


Over the past few years, I've become a much bigger sports fan. I started to think about why that's so because only recently, I've realized how much more of a sports I am now than before. There are several obvious moments that come to mind. The more and more time I spend away from home (Boston), whatever feelings I have for homesickness may get sublimated in increasing excitement for anything that relates to Boston - clam chowdah, lobstah and of course, Boston sports teams. Also, the teams I've been routing for have been tremendously successful culminating in the 04-05 season when the Patriots won 2 Superbowls, the Red Sox ended the curse and Illinois almost won a national championship. Now, I've realized that there's a deeper reason: politics.

Up until recently, I was a news junkie - reading daily newspapers starting with the Times, then Boston Globe and then reading about whatever city I am currently living in. For commentary and analysis of current affairs, I kept up with what the New Yorker, the Economist, Esquire and Playboy had to say. Ever since Dubya took office and especially after the invasion of Iraq, I've become increasingly disillusioned with what's going on in the world let alone this country. It depresses me to read the news. I end up expending too much energy worrying and arguing about what's going on in the world.

It's not getting any better and I find myself reading the aforementioned publications less and less. Where has my attention been shifted to? Sports, the arts, fashion, food and wine. Out of all these, sports seems to be the one area most insulated from the political bullshit that pisses me off. There are exceptions like the Tillman scandal and the steroids bullshit.

So here's what I'm reading these days. I still read the Times by skimming the headlines and then moving immediately to the Food and Wine section and then the Arts section with rare forays into other sections. The Arts section of the Times has become embarassingly bad. For music, I rely on Alex Ross's blog, therestisnoise.com, for Classical music, postings on my friend's Livejournal at http://stufsocker.livejournal.com/ for popular music, and I've found that myspace does a surprisingly good job of filling in the blanks between the two genres. For the magazines listed above, I try to skip over all the political stuff unless I know I'm going into a situation where I will inevitably have to argue my position. In these instances, the New Yorker and the Economist are great for unique insights on matters at hand and Playboy is perfect for concise factoids that serve my argument. Esquire seems to be moving toward the right more, unfortunately so that magazine's only good for articles on fashion, electronics and celebrity interviews these days.

I also got satellite radio over a year ago. I was excited about all the talk radio possibilities but I find that I pretty much stick with NFL radio and Raw Dog comedy stations. NPR just gets me depressed unless they're doing an arts review or telling me which Chassagne-Montrachet is the best bang for the buck.

So instead of worrying about the Middle East, the Bush administration laying off half the IRS lawyers in order to help their rich friends and such, I can't wait until preseason football and the MLB playoffs to get rolling.

Go Patriots! Go Red Sox!