Musings on music, memories, and madness
My response to the first La Liga victory under Solari against Valladolid:
The Kids Are Alright: The Case for Trusting the Youngsters
My attempt to reckon with the unattainably high standards of Madridistas:
The Weight of Club Culture: The Blessings of Unlimited Capital and the Burden of Greatness
And my appearance on the Managing Madrid Podcast discussing the 5-0 win over Viktoria Plzen (patron only unfortunately).
Managing Madrid Podcast: Viktoria Plzen Post Game
LA has been blessed with some of the best home team announcers. Along with Vin Scully, the absolute best was Chick Hearn, who changed the commentating game and invented terms like “air ball,” “triple double,” and “slam dunk.” His partner behind the mic in his final years was Stu Lantz, who will forever hold a special place in my heart for the love but also the impartiality with which he provided (and still provides) color commentary. He has always been full of useful tidbits of information that provide insight into the game.
One of the things Stu has always stressed is starting and finishing quarters. During the Shaq/Kobe era, we were absolutely the best at that. The third quarter, in particular was ours. We OWNED the first five minutes of the second half, and it made the difference so many times. I don’t know what Phil told them in the locker room, but they would use those opening minutes of the third to either turn the momentum to their favor or put a team away for good. It was goddamn inspirational and I miss it. I know coming up short in close games is a virtual inevitability with such a young team, as these guys just don’t have the experience to know how to close out games yet. But I will be much relieved when we figure it out and start winning some of these games where we have earned a W but end up losing because we stumble at the finish line. Continue reading “Lakers: Random Thoughts On 2-5”
Thoughts on the Eve of El Clasico
My hopes and dreams for our boys ahead of this crucial game
On Rebuilding and Rose-Colored Glasses
I had two new articles come out today on Managing Madrid and Lake Show Life:
No Straight Line: Fandom In The Age Of #MeToo
This is undoubtedly a difficult subject, and putting it out there has been tough. A fellow woman writer on the site recently published another great piece on the matter, and she helped me through the process. I wish I could say the responses weren’t largely horrifying, to the point that comment sections had to be shut down and police reports filed. Despite all that nonsense, these are important conversations to have, and I am extremely grateful to the staff at Managing Madrid staff for supporting these types of stories. That is something exceedingly rare, especially in the world of sports writing, and I have honestly been blown away by it. I cannot thank them enough, but I would love it if anyone around these parts has any way to provide positive feedback through Tweets, Facebook shares, or just generally non-reprehensible reactions. I doubt the trolls could ever be outnumbered, but if we could busy them elsewhere it could gum up their whole process. In the meantime, I’m avoiding all that as much as possible. Please, though, do check it out and support it if you can.
Los Angeles Lakers: 5 reasons to look forward to 2018-19 season
This one is more your standard preseason prediction piece with a run-down of exciting narratives for the coming season. Not nearly as heavy, considerably more upbeat, and maybe a little bit of fluff, but hyping up your favorite team who has recently been pretty poor seems like an always useful endeavor. It’s finally basketball time, and I’m excited to see where LeBron takes this group. A nice little fluff piece to balance out the heaviness of that last one.
I know I haven’t been doing much in the way of blogging lately, but there are definitely reasons. I’ve been out of work for four weeks with shingles and trying to keep my sanity while cooped up at home for so long. The down side of this (one of many, I suppose) is that my psychological health has taken a hit, so I haven’t really been able to read or write much. The exception to this is sports, which I’ve watched a lot during my time “off,” and for whatever reason I have still been able to write about that subject.
In that vein, I am contributing some to an awesome website called Managing Madrid. It is a fan site and SB Nation blog dedicated to (surprise, surprise) Real Madrid, and it provides a lot of great content, from tactical analyses to news updates to transfer rumors and all the normal Madrid drama. Continue reading “Managing Madrid”
This is the randomness that was flowing through my brain during the match-up with Atletico Madrid. I watched the game on a tiny laptop screen, with my three year old curled up in bed with me at a hotel in Pismo. True love all around. Here we go:
Thank god for Thibaut Courtois’ big ass head. Continue reading “Scattered Derbi Madrileño Thoughts”
Sevilla 3-0 Real Madrid
Knee-jerk reactions to this debacle of a match: Continue reading “Midweek Madness”
Author’s note: I was undecided about whether or not to post this one, as it is definitely for a very specific crowd and probably not of interest to the average reader. But then I remembered – I don’t really HAVE readers, and besides, this is my fucking blog. So suck it, imaginary haters.
I have had quite a journey with Real Madrid. I started watching soccer during the 2006 World Cup, when I was pregnant and essentially bedridden with my first kiddo. My brother and sister came to visit me in LA for the summer, and we devoured every game, singing the stupid commercial jingles that aired on repeat all day. (I love Tito’s tacos – you love Tito’s too!)
After being sucked in by the World Cup, I vowed to watch more soccer (forgive me – I’m American) in the coming season, so I signed up for the DirecTV sports package and set my DVR to record every Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A game available. I was pretty good about watching the big games every week in the beginning, but this got kicked into high gear after my daughter was born in October. She was an insanely fussy baby, the kind other people call “colicky” and I call “assholes.” She barely slept at night, and she only napped in the arms of myself or her dad. I was a grad student with only one class left at the time, and he was a high school teacher, so I was home with her 90% of the time. Thus, multiple hours a day would pass with me unable to move while she slept in my arms. Continue reading “Stuff I Like: Real Madrid”
