New Writing Techniques and Bourdieu

OK, so I listened to my husband, and I just wrote about what happened this week. It worked, ideas came much easier. I was sort of blocking myself out, trying to fit my writing with a predetermined theme and visual. Writing the page was easier because I just sat down and wrote, and I think the writing overall is better. It's offensive, but I'm using the language (the way we talk to each other) as a key component in the page. Yes, we say someone "took it deep" and that title "Who the fuck is James Jones?" is most likely exactly what Dina exclaimed at some point (in disgust)or some variation of that. Insulting each other, making sexual references (especially in regards to the women) and using profanity are practices we engage in. Is this what Bourdieu refers to as "habitus." The "structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures"..."as principles which generate and organize practices and representations tha can only be objectivey adapted to their outcomes withougt presupposing a concious aiming at ends." I think that means we engage in these practices and we have these unspoken set of rules, and it is almost not even a conciuos sort of thing. I could be wrong. This Bourdieu stuff is pretty heavy. So being offensive, and writing as we speak on the site seemms to be a part of our accepted structure. I do notice that people write on the message board that way. Another unspoken sort of idea is that anything goes on the site. In most cases, it's OK to go after anybody for anything. Now I've tried to toe the line in the past, but this year I am attacking people in a very honest way, making that choice (which is a little new to me)to bring up the stuff I know people are thinking but not saying. Because of the unspoken rule, I feel like I can do it, but it's possible I could cross the line. But it seems to me, my best writing comes from honest observation. In my first note I acknowledged openly that people were mad at Nuno and Billy for doing auto-draft. For the people who do the draft live, not having someone there live (letting the computer auto-pick) often takes 3x as long. People get made because their time is valuable to them, so of course they're like where the hell is this guy? I brought up how my husband posts these long, drawn out posts on the message board that nobody responds to. He's a little senstive about it so he might be pissed off. He doesn't seem to have an understanding of why people don't respond, but I can see that it's partially his arrogance (in persona) and really what can you say after someone says they're wonderful and everyone else sucks? There's no place to go, but he doesn't see that and I guess I can't tell him that, but I did write about it. In determining my tone, I never want to come across as arrogant, that's why I throw myself into the mix and make fun of myself as often as possible, but I feel like I am running the risk of being arrogant and/or narcisistic by writing about myself at all, and I also am afraid of alienating people in the league by being too honest. So, I gusess that's one of the unspoken rules, don't cross the line. Where is the line?

Writer's Block Based on Position in Last Place

OK, time to write the LM note again, which I usually love, but not feeling it. Mostly because I'm dead last in my division. 0-2 and just lost by 7 to my husband. Not feeling too great. This is a common experience in fantasy when you don't do well. You don't want to go on the message board, you don't want to look at the page and you certainly don't want to run into any of your neighbors. I'm in an interesting position having to write about the week, highlight other people's succeses, possibly examine my own failures and write about writing about it. Besides being in last place, and writing about writing about it, I need to look at how everyone did, find a theme and write about it. I've been starting with finding a theme, finding a funny picture or clip and writing from there. I've been doing this for the last year and I'm struggling with it. My husband says I'm a writer, so I should write first, and then find a theme, and then find a visual. Interesting. Didn't think about it that way. I'm going to try it that way this time. I will let you know how it goes. I was real happy with my first note, which was mostly my writing, not too happy with the second note, that centered around a movie clip I really liked. I feel like my perspective is off from my losing (and losing bad). We've talked about letting go of the 2 lowest teams in their division if we decide 14 teams is too many. I don't want to be let go in my own league. Ha. Commisioner of a league I am not a team owner in. That would suck. Also, baseball is over and I didn't make it to the finals. And the LM decided this would be his last season, so no more fantasy baseball. While I feel like I'm always trying to pull everyone together with the football league, I feel like he has the opposite goals in mind. It's not really my place to comment on it. Of course, unless I take over the baseball league too.

2nd LM Note: Trying to Build Community

This was my second LM note, week 1 of football. I've still been experiencing some writer's block and now feel increased pressure to write about that, which I did not do BEFORE I wrote the page. I slipped back into my formula, finding a funny youtube or movie clip that went with a theme I picked for the week. So, while I like the clip, which is from the movie Dodgeball, I'm frustrated with my inability to think outside the box. Often times I will focus on the high scorer of the week. This week it was the Jersey Shore Fist Pumpers, so there are some very obvious, offensive jokes and clips I could have picked to go with that, but I did a lot of that last year. Another thing I do is focus on the lower scorer (or low scorers). There were a couple this week, me included, but I didn't go in that direction either. Not because I don't like to make fun of myself, that actually can be kind of fun and I try to do it when I can, but just because I couldn't find an angle. So the new teams were defeated by 2 former champions so I went with that. Kind of predictable, or have I developed a style? Not sure. A friend of mine said to me, "OK, you've done the youtube thing, it's been done to death." Something to think about. But still whate I always see myself trying to do is build that community. Sounds real corny, but I'm a corny person anyway. In the left hand corner of the screen is a poll. I try to create one every week. In the LM note, I write that we should tailgate. Tailgating is what people do before a game, like at Giant's stadium, or maybe in a high school parking lot. We starting tailgating in our cul-de-sac when we couldn't go to the games maybe about 5 years ago (before the league). Since the league the desire to tailgate and interest has increased. People like to sit around with their laptops out and watch the scores change for fantasy and talk trash. All the kids are out and each person contributes food. People also drink. A tailgate can go on from the 1st game (Sunday) at 1, until the 8:00 game is over (sometimes past 10). That's a long time to spend with your neighbors. But I guess that's community. So I made my poll about our tailgating and I have to admit with every intention of generating interest, and letting everyone remember how much we all like each other (which isn't always true). We haven't tailgated this year yet. So the poll asks what's your favorite thing about the tailgates. You get 3 choices: 1. John Curti's fried food Our neighbor John Curti has this deep frier. He goes nuts with it. He gets drunk and everyone gets in on it, and they'll throw anything in there. Someone will go get oreos, and dough, and on and on.. It's a thing. John is one of our older neighbors and he started the tailgating thing. He had season tickets to the Giants games and when he gave his tickets away he would set up the tailgate. He is the cook, sets up the grill right in the street. He drinks all day and then "disappers" at some point. He'll say he's "going to stretch his back" but everyone knows he's going to nap. He might disappear for hours, but he always comes back out for the 8 o'clock game. So far there are 3 votes for John's fried food as the favorite thing. my next choice was 2. John Curti Nobody voted for him but he is loved by everyone. my next choice was 3. the drinking There is quite a bit of drinking that goes on at these things. If someone is REALLY drinking they usually disappear unannounced. This is a sign that they are really drunk and they usually go off to sleep if off in their houses. When it is discovered that they are missing, they are open to all kinds of teasing. We have gone into homes to wake people we know are passed out. All bets are off if you "disappear" with no explanatin. Since it's an all-day thing, drunk people sometimes return to the festivities after a long absence. my next choice was 4. the football which I actually voted for. This is something to sitting outside with your friends wearing your favorite jersey and watching your team. Even with all of the commotion and the kids it can be such a relaxing thing. I think that's the thing I'm trying to get to about community. Like you're part of something bigger. Even though you get aggravated with the people, and some of them get drunk and make jackasses out of themselves (me included) and your kids fight with each other, it is mostly just nice to be around all of those people and have so much that connects you. And I sincerely love football. and last was #5 watching Dina get pissed off when you try to talk to her during the game no votes for this one, obviously trying to be funny here, but this is true. Dina is part of the one couple on the block with no kids. Her house is the party house. She's go a pool, and she has all of the parties and sometimes the adults walk down to her house to do shots. She is a crazy Giants fan (along with her husband) and she loves a tailgate. But you seriously cannot talk to her while the Giants are playing. Sometimes she will sit in the house while the Giants are playing because she needs to "concentrate." hysterical.

Football Season is Finally Here! My First LM Note

OK, here's my 1st note. Really excited!!! Always a little bit of pressure doing the 1st one. I made fun of everyone! Had lots of fun! Here's the link.http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/leagueoffice?leagueId=761263

Basball Playoffs

OK, so I'm in the playoffs in baseball. My team has been on a roll. Have I mentioned how I love to win? Because I really do. I am first in my division and 2nd overall. I am playing the #3 team overall, 2nd place behind me in my division. I could win this whole thing. I would REALLY like to beat the LM, who says this is his last year for fantasy baseball and football. I'll miss fantasy baseball. Well, first I have to get past the Humber Games. This is Michael DeMarco's team, Michael won the SFFL championship last year. His team is for Philip Humber, who I guess he had, but doesn't anymore, and a play on the popular book/movie the Hunger Games. I mentioned in my last blog this a common pratice among fantasy players, naming their team after their best player and including some sort of pop culture reference. The DeMarco boys are the only ones to really do this in both football and baseball in our leagues. I really want to win. It's a close match, closer than I arrogantly thought. My superstition in regards to winning is when you do well you don't talk about it. You don't blog about it, or go on twitter and write arrogant/asshole things. I usually break my own rule and lose. Last night I tweeted and today I'm blogging. I might lose. I tried to delete the tweet, but once it's out in the universe, too late.Once you roll your thoughts into the social media world, god knows what can happen. Sound insane? It absolutely is. I also made two mistakes that could cost me the whole thing. I had a choice of two shitty pitchers (all I have are shitty pitchers) to choose from yesterday. I picked the wrong one. I put in what I considered to be the less shitty pitcher because the better pitcher on the team just had gotten hurt. So I thought (mistakenly) that this back-up pitcher would have to "step up" and he would step up, in a big way. He got me -3. The other shitty pitcher earned 14 points last night. If I had put him in, I would be winning today, instead of losing by 7 points. Today I didn't check my line-up the 37x that is required to see if there are any last minute changes to the line-up and I didn't realize my short stop was benched. I could have put in my back-up short stop, but I didn't act fast enough. I will keep you posted, but I've deposited some bad stuff into the social media universe, so my chances aren't good.

Updates, Writer's Block and Ideas for my First LM Note of the Season

I've had writer's block for the past 11 days (since our draft) about what to write for the first LM note. What are the writerly moves I made to overcome that? I jotted down some notes (picture above) and a couple nights this week I did a google image and youtube search for "funny fantasy football." I am looking to break out of the formual I created last year, although I am not straying too far. Instead of finding a youtube clip and forming a theme around that I instead found the image possted above. I came up with some funny lines for things that happened during the draft. I want to mock some of the team owners who had a less than perfect draft (myself included). I did talk to a couple of people about who they thought had a bad draft because I do like to get some feedback. I guess that's kind of a writerly move. I'm going to make fun of the person with the first draft pick for his predictability, make fun of myself for picking Geno Smith (as only a true Jets fan/loser would, and make fun of my husband for breaking a marker out of frustration when he had technical difficulties and broke a marker out of frustration). He takes this shit pretty seriously. Because I am involved with this project I had better access to what was going on during the draft because when it's online there's so much that goes on that I would not have seen. I got some good footage but have not downloaded it yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that footage. I will really have to think about it. Update on the league: People are still complaining about 14 being too many teams. The situation has been made worse because Billy (team HulseMann) messed some team owner's chances up for getting into the playoffs by not setting his line-up in baseball. So I've been entertaining solutions to the problem of Billy possibly not paying attention to his football line-up. As I've said before, I'm not the kind to kick someone out of my football league. But I can see others getting upset with him not setting his line-up because it does affect others. For now, I've decided to pay close attention to his line-up and then give him an ultimatum. I will give him one week from the ultimatum to start setting his line-up and if he doesn't I will dismantle his team and make that a bi-week for whoever plays. Not to good at being a hard-ass so we'll see where this takes us. Bon-Temp Hawks cahnged his team name to Oh Romo You Don't because he has Tony Romo. This is a common practice for team owners, naming their team after their best player (although not sure Romo could be considered anybody's best player) and it's not a practice our particular league usually engages in. His son Hi There Neighbor (former champion Michael) changed his name to the 40 year old Virgin after the movie and interestingly enough has a picture of our former LM, Anthony Campiglia (formerly Prestige Worldwide). Clearly he is mocking the former LM. And the other DeMarco, formerly Young Money (John Jr.) changed his name to the Schaubnado, which is interesting because he does not have Matt Schaub on his team. Did he mean to take Matt Schaub? No idea, but a clear reference to Sharknado.