Seattle Sports Win A Title: But I’m IRATE

For the second year in row Seattle has earned Forbes’ “America’s Most Miserable Sports City”. Atlanta came in second and Phoenix in third, but hey at least ATL and PHX have basketball teams.

Here is an excerpt of the Forbes article:

The Seattle sports scene isn’t exactly hopping these days. Baseball’s Mariners haven’t been in the playoffs since 2001, while the NFL Seahawks are 9-23 over the past two seasons, a distressing slide for the football club following a five-year run of postseason appearances that failed to bring a championship.

Both franchises, born a year apart in the mid-1970s, are still searching for their first titles despite qualifying for the playoffs a combined 14 times. In 109 cumulative sports seasons for all Seattle pro teams, the city has only won one title. The franchise responsible for that lone championship a distant 31 years ago, the NBA Supersonics, left for Oklahoma City two years ago, lured by a better arena deal. It’s left local fans to watch ESPN highlights of prized 2007-08 Sonic rookie Kevin Durant light up opponents in an Oklahoma City Thunder uniform. Add it all up, and Seattle is America’s most miserable sports city for a second straight year.

Committed, yet disappointed Seahawk fans

All of this on the heels of an alleged story that one of our beloved sports icons, Ken Griffey, Jr., was asleep in the clubhouse when he was supposed to be called on to pinch-hit.  Meanwhile an article on ESPN is “Scripting Griffey’s Final Chapter.” Do I need to mention that the Mariners lost today by giving up a grand slam in the 8^th inning to the lowly Baltimore Orioles?

A few days ago I gave the rundown of some questionable moments in Seattle sports ownership/management history. A good friend of mine responded to the post by saying:

“…I just wish Seattle as a whole (fans & writers) would be a little more critical about how we really feel instead of being so soft and lenient. I really think that if we weren’t so nonchalant about things, we might have a championship by now. It’s not like we don’t have the money to spend and the intelligence to make dumb decisions in the office. Take Boston or NY and the love to their team. They (fans & writers) are critical and demand more from the teams and because they are, they get it! Just sayin!”

At first I was a little upset that my friend would even bring up Boston or NY. Of course my friend is not as diehard as I am, he’s been known to rep teams from other states and cities (such as the Angels, seriously dude? Division rivals?). But I can sense the frustration. ESPN ran an article about the 2008 sporting year in Seattle. Outside the Lines titled the article “The Worst Year Ever: Think the last 12 months were rough? It could be worse. You could be a sports fan in Seattle.” Maybe that will help some of you understand why I become unnaturally quiet during some sporting seasons or after games… Life is ROUGH as a Seattle sports fan.

But will I settle for any more mediocrity? No. In fact some of my friends have called me out for my critical opinions of our sports teams as of late. Such as the Hawks hiring of Pete Carroll (may work out) and the lack of bats the M’s picked up in the off-season (hasn’t worked out). They look at it like I am no longer am excited about Seattle sports.

To the contrary. I LOVE Seattle sports, but I’m just upset that we’re looked upon as such deadbeats. My friend is right, we have the resources. Nintendo owns the Mariners and Paul Allen owns the Seahawks. Now the season is young for the Mariners, but let me be a realist, we have a lot of work to do (thankfully we’re in the lowly AL West). There are a lot of question marks for the Seahawks heading into the upcoming season, and though it’s a new regime and we’re “rebuilding” I’ll be quite upset if we don’t make a run in the lowly NFC West. Man seriously; thank goodness we play in the weakest divisions… Yet we still can’t win them, I’m getting slightly sad here.

But, fo real. Something needs to happen with our professional sports teams. Our teams may be indicative of the city, in that we’re just happy to be a part of the dance. But that’s more of the older ilk. My generation of fans is hungry. We’re hungry for a National Championship and another run into the Super Bowl. We were teased in 2005. If there’s one thing I’m sure if, is that Seattleites don’t take shit and don’t like to be teased. So to the Sounders, the Mariners, and the Seahawks… I’m begging you to help us stop getting teased. I’m not quite ready to call you out, but I am. I won’t give up on my teams, but at least let me be interested past the halfway point of any season.

More so I want the management and the owners to be as passionate as the fans are. They should not wait until there is a hole in the team to fix it. They should be proactive. They should not wait until we hit rock bottom. They should constantly be rebuilding, improving their farm system. Seattle is a city that is built on innovation, thinking outside of the box, being dynamic and creative… our owners and management should embrace that and use our ideals in the team foundations. To steal the line from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” Seattle fans have been coming for decades and are notorious for having one of the loudest fan base in the NFL. Let’s break this losing mold and let’s cheer for victories instead of final farewells for old icons.

More often then not you’ll see me, a proud alum rockin a University of Washington hat or one from any sports team in Seattle. You know why, because I’m not from NY, Boston or LA. I’m from Washington and I’m damn proud of it. And though I’ve suffered mild lapses of depression such as after Super Bowl XL (I think I may have suffered permanent depression because of that), I will always rep the home teams. Even when I was living in California, even during 2008 I wore my purple and gold or blue and green.

Memories of my family yelling at the TV screen as Steve Largent perfected the tiptoe sideline catch, paving the way for Madden video game grabs. Barkin with the Dawg Pack when the Huskies won the 1992 Rose Bowl and split the National Championship with Miami. Joining a collective “Ohhhhhhhhh!” as Shawn Kemp delivered a monster dunk only thought imaginable on NBA Jam Tournament Edition. Skipping classes and jumping with exuberance as the M’s beat the Yankees in 1995 to get to the ALCS. All hallmarks of my sporting youth, but none of which I will ever forget. Sure we may be lacking in a major championship in my lifetime, but Washington sports run deep in my blood.

But I’m no longer going to live on a hope that something may happen in any given sports season. I want action, I want change, I WANT to be disappointed when we don’t get to a conference championship or lose a bowl game. That’s how it was for me growing up… and now that I’m a bit older (still not grown up) and I’m a bit more invested, with memorabilia and various bets (I mean tickets) I don’t want to rep the title of “America’s Most Miserable Sports City” I want to smash Pennsylvania’s feat of having the Stanley Cup, Super Bowl trophy and winning the World Series. Oh wait; we don’t have an NHL or NBA team… Go Sounders?

Oh the life of Seattle sports fan. Hey, if anything we’ve built character and are true fans that don’t jump on the bandwagon just because our teams are winning… because quite frankly, it’s been a long time and we’re still fans.

Music From 2010 That I’m Grooving To

So I have slight aspirations to be a DJ (I even have my DJ name: Punchy Panda). Not so much making my own music, yet. Rather more along the lines of Gregg Gillis (the maestro of Girl Talk). If one were to look at my iPod and the rest of my music library that has yet to make it onto my iPod, they’d probably see an eclectic range of music. It stems from my friends cluing me into different genres of music and my Pops influence on me. Generally my favorite genres of music are classic rock, 90’s rap (that was really the only era of real rap), 90’s rock (grunge and alternative) and punk music from the 90’s and early 2000’s (slightly verging on pop punk, but not quite). I’m also constantly look for new music through various websites and 90.3 KEXP “Where music matters.”  So here is some new music that I’ve stumbled upon this year…

Mumford & Sons, album: “Sigh No More”. This band hails from the U.K. an infusion of wicked banjo and acoustic guitars. It definitely is a folk-rock act. But don’t be fooled. Guided by the acoustic strings, these guys can definitely rock. Interestingly, Mumford & Sons runs an online book club. Folky and well-read… my type of dudes. I just picked up this album, and am currently listening to it as I type this blog… Songs of note are “White Blank Page” (could be my favorite song on the album) and “Little Lion Man” which was performed on Letterman. But I’d have to say my favorite song so far lyrically and jam wise is “Roll Away Your Stone”. Actually I’m gonna post “White Blank Page” also, the song definitely fits my mood from the past year. It’s a tough call, between Broken Bells and Sigh No More as my favorite album of 2010 so far. Beginning to end it’s an authoritative album.

Broken Bells, album: “Broken Bells”. James Mercer (lead singer of The Shins) + Danger Mouse (Brian Joseph Burton) = goodness. This album is laced with awesome production from Danger Mouse, who rose to fame with his Jay-Z and The Beatles White Album mash-up titled “The Grey Album”. James Mercer all but disbanded The Shins last year, though he says he’s still going to make music under the band name. Danger Mouse has been looking for a steady companion to make music with and hoped that Gnarls Barkley (teamed with Cee-Lo Green) would be that. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the sake of Broken Bells, it was not the case. After bumpin this album with my windows down and sunroof open on a crisp February day in Washington, I hope Mercer and Danger Mouse stick it out and make more music. Apparently Mercer has his own kickin it room at Burton’s pad. This entire album is dope based on the onomatopoeia of an album title Broken Bells alone. The first single was “The High Road” followed by “Vaporize”. I’m also a big fan of “The Ghost Inside”, a beat that I can see sliding into top 20 charts eventually (not to mention the lyrics are straight silk). My current favorite track is “October”, definitely Shins inspired but made awesome with Danger Mouse’s influence. It’s a live version… but you can get the gist.

Dan Black, album: “Un”. This album gets me jammin. It’s along the lines of MGMT, but I seriously groove every time I listen to it. There are a number of songs on that album that I enjoy. One of which is “Symphonies”. My boy KiD CuDi was also on a remix version of Symphonies, which in my opinion is a better version. “U + Me =” and “Pump My Pumps” also gets me groovin, if not nostalgic for last summer. But the lyrics in “Cigarette Pack” are my favorite.

Free Energy, album: “Stuck on Nothing”. I just got this album, and have only listened to it once through. But it rocks… seriously it rocks. Stuck on Nothing is a combination of AC/DC jams with a dosage of Thin Lizzy and Cheap Trick. I’m a fan of bands that play their instruments well. It’s not a strange concept, but surprisingly a hard thing to ask for in new music. A group that does that well is Monsters of Folk, more aligned with the folk genre of Mumford & Sons discussed above. Free Energy definitely plays their instruments well, and it comes out melodically in the track “Hope Child” (below, and another live version). Another noteworthy track is “Wild Winds”.

Bonus song! I know the album was from last year. But since I mentioned Monsters of Folk, a powerhouse band consisting of Jim James (aka Yim Yames) from My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes and M. Ward who jams with many artists one of which She and Him (with Zooey Deschanel), I felt that I should drop my favorite song from their self-titled album, “Ahead of the Curve”. The lyrics on “Ahead of the Curve” pretty much exemplifies my time in LA, definitely resonates in the Panda’s soul. These guys fucking JAM. I had the privilege of seeing them live in the outdoor ampitheater setting of The Greek Theater in LA. This album as well as Phoenix’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” and KiD CuDi’s “Man on the Moon: The End of Day” were my three favorite albums of 2009. Looking forward to the next jams from all three groups. KiD CuDi is set to release an album this year. No rumblings from Phoenix yet. Monsters of Folk claim they won’t release another album, it would be a damn shame if they didn’t.

Daniel Merriweather, album: “Love & War”. Hailing from Australia, Merriweather’s debut is a good one. He carries his raspy voice well. A mix of funk, rock, and soul sort of in the ilk of Maroon 5. Definitely an album to groove to. Some sites compare him to Stevie Wonder. It’s a stretch, but you can certainly hear the hints of the influence. He’s not Stevie Wonder, so I’m just going to put that out there. But not to take away from Merriweather, like I said I definitely can get my groove on to some of the tracks. He’s got a good tone in his voice. Of note are “Change” and “You Don’t Know What Love Is”. I definitely can gig to “Could You”, and would even sing it on American Idol if I were to venture that route. You should note the play on the lyrics of The Temptations’ “My Girl”. And how can you not get down with “My Girl”?

Local Natives, album: “Gorilla Manor”. This is the debut album from the LA group Local Natives. The album title actually comes from the studio where they recorded the album. Pitchfork actually describes this album pretty well it, “features rustic and yearning vocals, three-party harmonies, clattering percussion, wiggly guitar leads, euphoric chanting and a Talking Heads cover.” That’s why people at Pitchfork get paid for their reviews, while I’m merely a fan with an opinion. The album has a Beach Boys feel to it, and I mean that in a good way (but don’t compare them to the Beach Boys by any means). Songs of note are “Camera Talk”, “World News”, and “Airplanes.” My favorite song lyrically and vibe wise on the album is “Sun Hands” I can’t help but to sing along loudly after the buildup “And when I can’t feel with my sun hands, I promise not to lose her again!”

The Smashing Pumpkins (really Billy Corgan is the only original member of the Pumpkins on this album), album: “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope”. In Corgan’s newest attempt to reach the levels of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, he’s releasing songs in bunches of 3-4 over the Internet. Once he’s done with the album which will end up being a 44 song collection, he’ll release it in CD/record form. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was one of those epic albums, that I listened to endlessly. Will Corgan ever reach that level? I don’t really think so, but he’s definitely going for it. Corgan is also penning a book that should be released this summer based on his outlook on spirituality and everything he’s faced since being in the industry. I’m 50/50 on the songs so far released, but do like this jam… “A Stitch in Time”.