ACC – Father Mark White Blog

Spare Me the Hype. Just Give me the Opener.

November 9, 2012November 9, 2012 frmarkdwhite2 Comments

Georgetown Hoyas open the season tonight. (Proof #gazillion of God’s love: Basketball season comes every year.)

Game will be played on an amphibious-assault helicopter ship. Yawn.

Players will wear camies. Big woop. Spare me.

Can’t watch the game on t.v., even if I had a t.v., because college hoops is nothing but a cable-network racket now, and if you don’t pay for premium channels, you can kiss it, no matter how loyal a fan you have been for four decades.

So I would actually be pretty much over this game; I would not give it any nevermind at all. The one thing I hate more than ESPNews is the NBC Sports Network.

But Chvotkin is on the ship, and he’s got his streaming radio info on his Facebook. And this is the Hoyas season opener. I’m in.

…And to the Gators fans, and SEC peeps in general, I wish you well. Let us unite in friendship and amity against a common enemy, a loathed, dispicable, can-barely-utter-the-name enemy. The ACC.

May the best team win tonight. Games on boats don’t really count.

I Have Always Hated…

September 24, 2011September 24, 2011 frmarkdwhite1 Comment

DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER

I root for the Va. Tech Hokies, just like all God-fearing people.

John Swofford — The bad man announces the bad news.

…college football. Hated it. But now? Rage. Rage, wrath, fury. And more rage.

I have two good things in my little life.

God.

And Big East basketball.

Who could be surprised that Syracuse University would cast aside everything that is holy and good? Who could be amazed at such cretinous mutiny and faithlessness?

But to throw your lot in with such unspeakable villains? A conference made up mainly of teams from North Carolina, many of which simply cannot be named in decent company?

And for football? Who cares about Syracuse football?

Thanks for ruining college basketball. Thanks for ruining the one good thing left in the middle of the inanity of “March Madness.” (Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden). An ACC tournament at Madison Square Garden? What’s next, a gay ‘marriage’ between James Worthy and Fred Brown?

Listen: I will root for the Hoyas. I will root for the Hoyas if they just play St. John’s and Providence over and over again every season. I will root for the Hoyas if they join the Big 12 or the “Catholic League” or Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations. I will root for the Georgetown Hoyas!!!

But, gosh, talk about a buzzkill: The ruination of one of the few truly excellent things on earth, Big East basketball. And for football. Football should be ashamed.

Another thing…

March 7, 2011 frmarkdwhite2 Comments

…to keep in mind is:

In order to win the ACC tournament, the Virginia Tech Hokies will have to beat:

1. Georgia Tech on Thursday, which is eminently doable.

2. Florida State on Friday. (Tough.)

3. Duke on Saturday. (Been done!)

4. UNC on Sunday.

If Tech makes it to the final, I will root with the Blacksburghers. Otherwise, go Tar Heels!

…May I make one other observation?

If you are like me, you have watched “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy more times than you care to remember. The movies are now a decade old.*

When the movies were first released, I was livid because they departed so shamelessly from the books. But I soon persuaded myself to go easy. After all, film is a different genre, and some concessions must be made.

Does it make sense for Aragorn to be felled in a skirmish with Uruk scouts, only to be revived by a kissy-kissy from Liv Tyler? No, it makes no sense. But this is a movie.

Does Viggo Mortensen ‘own’ the role of Aragorn, as Peter Jackson put it? Um…Does Pierce Brosnan ‘own’ James Bond? Does Vivien Leigh ‘own’ Anna Karenina? Does Jim Caviezel ‘own’ our Lord Jesus Christ? NOT. No. Not at all. Good yeoman efforts, yes. But ‘own?’ Please. (By the by, in my opinion, George C. Scott does in fact own Rochester, so you can forget about this new Jane Eyre movie.)

However: I can live with Viggo Mortensen.

Should poor John Rhys-Davies, an accomplished Shakespearean, and poor Gimli son of Gloin, who could kick any of our butts before you can say the word ‘midget’–should the Dwarf warrior be reduced to silly comic relief? No. But…We will let it go.

So I have had a decade of peaceful coexistence with these movies. But two particular things still rankle. They both concern the final film, and they have helped me to realize exactly what these movies are.

1. How is it possible that the script-writers thought it was plausible for Elrond to demand that Aragorn “forget the Ranger,” and become the man he was meant to be? Makes NO sense. The Rangers are the Dunedain, the remnants of the most excellent men, the Numenoreans. Even if we leave that aside, Aragorn’s majesty derives precisely from his humble, hardscrabble Ranger resourcefulness. If he were no Ranger, he would be no king.

2. In the greatest betrayal of all time, how could Peter Jackson possibly have thought that it was alright to remove the most important part of the whole plot? The climax of the book is NOT the destruction of the Ring or victory over Sauron’s armies. The climax of the book is when the Hobbits return to the Shire and clear Saruman’s petty dictators out of it.

Oh–you didn’t know that Saruman went north into the Shire after Isengard was reduced to ruins by the Ents? You didn’t know that the evil wizard engineered a sinister take-over of the the Hobbits’ homeland by wastrels he found wandering the roads around Bree? You didn’t know that Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin had to show the punks who was boss when the heroes returned home from Gondor?

Well, that’s because you wouldn’t know it, based on the dagblame movie. Since the movie pretends that such things never even happened!

So, what are Peter Jackson’s movies? They are an extremely good comic-book version of the “The Lord of the Rings.” It is hard to imagine a better comic-book version.

___________
*This is the beginning of a LONG series of ‘Reflections on the Oughts Decade.’