Before I do anything, I should apologize for having not posted anything here in the last two weeks. That is the longest I've gone without writing something Lions related in the two years I've been doing this, which is a sad and terrifying statement now that I see it in front of me. The truth is, is that I was feeling a bit burned out. I love writing about the Lions - when there is something to write about. But there is nothing going on right now. I mean it. There is jack and shit to write about right now. I think it seemed more interesting last year because everything was new, Matthew Stafford was a rookie, we were coming off of 0-16 and everyone was desperate to see how things would shake out. This year, it is just the usual pap about players being hungry and quotes about how people are going to be surprised and blah blah blah.
Frankly, I think twitter has started to get to me. The mind numbing repetition of boring ass quotes and anecdotes has caused a sort of resentful fuck this attitude in me. I don't want to write about this shit because I'm sick of hearing about it. That doesn't mean that I don't like writing about the Lions, because God help me, for some fucked up reason I do. It just means that I don't want to get dragged into writing a bunch of stupid empty bullshit because there's nothing else to write about. I could have probably written another "And that's why I'm a fan, folks" posts, but fuck, I can't just whip those out assembly line style or else they just end up fake and processed. The reason I enjoy writing those kind of posts from time to time is because I feel like the things said in them are worth being said, not because I have nothing else to write about. I also have a Tim Toone breakdown to do, but following that weird piece of business with Willie Young, I have no idea how to approach that shit. I mean, I think I need to play this one fairly straight. The Willie Young thing should stand on its own, you know? The only problem with that is I'm just not all that interested in doing a straight breakdown of Tim Toone.
That's the thing. I'm not interested in reporting/breaking the news. That's Sean at Pride of Detroit's thing. I'm not even that interested in doing analytical work. Ty at The Lions in Winter does that better than anyone else writing about the Lions.(Yeah, yeah, I know, get a room.) I'm still not sure exactly what it is that I do, but I don't want to become a slave to convention. I don't want to fall in line and start writing about the Lions the same way everyone else does. I mean, why bother? If I can't bring something original to the table, then I should just stay the fuck out of it all together. The good news, I think, is that I do bring something original and fun and compelling to the table. It might not be all that reputable and people might think of me as the drunken asshole of an uncle of the Lions family or the half-mad cousin who lives in the attic and nobody talks about, but to hell with all that. Basically, I don't want to do this just because I feel like I'm compelled to do it by anything other than my own desire to write and I don't want to write about certain things just because I'm supposed to write about them. I want to write about what interests me, and only when I think I have something worth saying.
Okay, that's a lot of bullshit, but I think the air needs to be cleared from time to time if we are to have a healthy relationship. The good news(or bad news depending on your point of view)is that soon, things will ramp up and I will start writing more and more about the Lions. During the actual season, I plan(probably somewhat ambitiously and insanely but what the hell) to have something up here every day of the week. I almost pulled that off last season, but I would usually fall a day or two short every week. But fuck it, if it's not there, it's not there. I think that, this season, I'll have enough to talk about and enough original and regular features that I can make it work. Hell, I'm hoping and praying that Willie Young makes the team so I can do a weekly serial following his adventures through time.
This has been meta as all hell, but like I said, sometimes these things need to be discussed. Just as an aside, even if I don't put up anything new for a couple of days(or weeks I suppose)here, I'm still around. I post on twitter. You can follow me there. My user name is armchairlb. Sometimes it's about football. Other times it's about weird nonsense, which shouldn't be all that surprising. I have noticed that I tend to go on weird runs that span anywhere from 5-10 tweets(Jesus . . . tweets. I feel like a fucking goon writing that word, but this is what society has come to.) Anyway, follow me and we will conquer that world together.
I also get paid real, legitimate currency to write regularly for heavy.com, so you can check me out there. I have several articles up each week there, about a variety of subjects. Seriously, I have written about everything from Brian Cushing getting nailed for being, well, Brian Cushing to shit about Betty White to stories about British Parliament to stuff about the Continental/United merger. They are all vaguely ridiculous, all pretty funny, and, well, basically everything you would expect an article written by me to be.
Okay, okay, okay. I didn't mean for this to turn into a public attempt at self fellatio and if you are annoyed, I don't blame you. I hate self promotion. I'm not comfortable with it and I'm not good at it. Unfortunately, for a blogger this is not a good thing. I much prefer to just put my shit out there and let it speak for itself. So when I do hype my shit, it often ends up coming out in a vomitous fountain of drivel rather than as anything smooth and/or relevant. I just close my eyes and start bellowing. It's unseemly and I apologize.
On to slightly more relevant shit. As I said before, the season is fast approaching. Keeping with the meta nature of this post, I though I would take this time to ask anyone reading to please feel free to e-mail me if you want to write for this here site. There is no reward, monetary or otherwise as we are a tiny little thing. We are a gang of heathens, a small pirate ship floating along, scaring the hell out of proper folk, raising hell and having a good time as we careen towards oblivion. If you would like to be a part of that, hit me up at neilabfree@gmail.com. I'm pretty much open to anything. I mean, obviously we don't want ten people all writing about the same team, but a duplicate here and there isn't going to hurt anything.
We're pretty laid back here, despite all appearances to the contrary. I mean, I'm not sure if we need another dude ranting and raving about the Lions, but what the hell, you know? I'm not territorial and if you can bring something different to the table that you think people might want to read, then shit, say something. Of course, if you are a fan of a team that is not covered by anyone here then fuck, send me an e-mail ASAP. I don't care if you just want to post the occasional paragraph bitching about or celebrating your team. It doesn't need to be some grandiose expression of your fandom or whatever. It just needs to be words about your favorite team. That's it. Say how you feel. Don't worry about what anyone else is doing and just do your thing.
Well shit. I originally set out to write about the Lions in this post and never quite got there, did I? But there were some things that needed to be said, some air to be cleared and some site business to attend to and I'm glad we got that out of the way. The Tim Toone breakdown, whatever I decide to do with it, should be coming soon, and then I'll probably come up with a couple of different things, some quick top five type posts that I kinda want to do(My 5 favorite Lions seasons, 5 favorite players, etc.), and then the season will be upon us and there will be a flurry of bullshit every day.
If you take away anything from this mess of a post, I suppose it is that I want this upcoming season to be a fucking blast, and part of that is getting more people to holler about shit. So, yeah, if you want to write about your favorite team, e-mail me at neilabfree@gmail.com. Hell, e-mail me if you just want to tell me that I suck. I don't care. This whole thing is about community and about getting each other through our own tortured relationships with our teams. E-mail me, comment on the posts, write your own damn posts. Armchair Linebacker is a pretty laid back place. We're just dudes who like football and like writing about that football from time to time. Join us.
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