I Used To Love H.E.R.

My favorite sport is basketball. Right now, it's about the only sport I like, or can follow. Hockey is OK, but they've just gotten over a lockout that lasted a full season, so my interest in the sport has waned considerably; and they never show any hockey games in Korea. Baseball is great come October, but I've never been able, since childhood, to get into it during the summer. Plus this season has been marred by the big steroid scandal, and these days has more in common with The Jerry Springer Show than what was once -- and hasn't been for a long, long time -- America's pastime.

That leads us to North America's remaining professional sport (though some would argue that hockey doesn't count anymore): football.

I used to love football with the same passion that I love basketball. Alas, no more. I've been away from home too long. AFN shows the games, but they're on early Monday mornings, before the sun has risen. I like football, but I like having a well-paying job more. No way could I stay up all night watching football and then go to work the next day. Kim Jong-Il has a better chance of making 11 holes-in-one in a round of golf.

To make matters worse, Monday Night Football, which I could sometimes watch, isn't shown live on the American Forces Network. They air it on Tuesday evening. When I'm working. There have been a couple of times that I've finished early and have been at home to watch it, but I never have the interest; who wants to watch a taped game? I usually, unintentionally, find out the final score while surfing the Internet at work, anyway.

I miss football, I really do. But I just don't think we were meant to be together. Sunday -- the entire day, from 10am to 12am, from early-September to late-January -- is an event, a ritual. Beer. Nachos. Chicken wings. Gambling. Beer. Pizza. Beer. Somehow, watching one crummy game, minus all the pre-game and post-game shows, and especially minus the beer, gambling and food, just doesn't cut it. I miss the whole experience. Watching football here is like getting to see only the opening scene of The Godfather, while back home it's like getting the entire trilogy (the pre/post-game shows and commercial breaks representing Part 3, any time Deion Sanders speaks representing Sofia Coppola's role).

It hurts even more this year because the Buffalo Bills, my favorite team since I was a kid, may actually have something going this year, with Willis Mcgahee at running back and JP Losman -- who is incidently not a tax attorney -- at QB. Of course, the Bills have been the league's proverbial whipping boy (is there a proverb about a whipping boy? I don't think so; I just wrote it to sound like a football announcer) since, well, forever; but that fits perfectly considering I'm the Job of sports fandom: I cheer for the Leafs in hockey, the Red Sox in baseball (though no longer applicable), used to cheer for the Knicks in basketball -- I stopped supporting them for a variety of reasons, all of which are best saved to expound upon at a later date -- and the Bills in football. Oh, and I'm patiently waiting for Martin Scorsese to win the Best Director Oscar. I'm a fucking masochist.

As soon as the football season begins, I'll probably find myself checking out scores, and maybe the occassional taped MNF game. But come November, my heart lies with basketball. They show b-ball games here, see.

Long distance relationships never work.