My first Bills post. I'm undertaking a new Buffalo-adventure involving my beloved Bills. But first, a personal history:
My first introduction to football was Superbowl XXVI: Redskins vs. Bills. Back in that day, I flipped a coin and decided to root for the Redskins! Heresy you say?! Why yes. Yes it was.
(In fact, heresy on an even greater level, as I have decidedly come out against the use of Indians/Redskins/Chiefs/Braves mascots as the great American dick move toward our ancestors. Even my hometown Candor Indians should be the Candor Cows, reason being the town's largest industry is dairy! Our tournament champion indoor soccer team, Las Vacas del Fuego, had its roots in that idea... but more on those obscurities and American Indian issues another time.)
During the following season, I decided to do a take-back. It was the Third Grade for me, so after watching a lot of football and learning the rules and strategies for real: I decided that the charging Buffalo swoosh was by far the coolest graphic design in the NFL.
No, it wasn't the risque use of the hurry-up offense, or the solid defense that piled up sack after sack, or the fantastic special teams; my love for the Bills started on a purely visual level with that cute little leaping Buffalo. And never mind that if a real buffalo tried to charge, with its front legs parallel and bent, that the poor buffalo would land flat on its buffalo-face! (Or maybe that's the point, after all.) In any case I began cheering for talents like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, Steve Tasker, and yes: Steve Christy!
After seasons of constantly injured, traded, and retiring veteran greats; the Bills sunk hard into losing seasons with bad coaches, bad quarterbacks, tired defenses, the dreaded music city miracle (search YouTube if you don't know), followed by no playoffs for a decade (even when all-you-need-to-make-the-playoffs-is-a-win-against-the Stealer's-mediocre-bench-in the-last-game-of-the-year, fail).
Yet I'm still horribly horribly hooked!
I grew up mostly alone in my rela-fan-ship with the Bills. Yes, hometown friends Brad and then a little later Dan were and still are avid Bills fans; but most Sundays were spent watching football on the living room couch at home. Fast forward to now: as destiny would have it, I live in Buffalo! And yet, in the irony of it, very few if not any of my Buffalo friends care about sports or even the Bills. For example, doesn't my fellow photo-art friend Eric look thrilled about the Bills in this photo?
Exactly. And let's face it, most of my friends are also of the strong-independent-woman variety. Oh well.
So of course I'll just tune into CBS every week and watch from the living room couch like those cozy childhood days, right? Nope.
That would be too easy. We don't have an actual television here at my new place. My roommates and I steal the internet from some poor uneducated Wifi-ian, which is great for loading up and watching all the Firefly's, MST3Ks, L Words, Project Runways, and old school Batmans that we love and adore. But unfortunately the interwebs are too slow for those frustrating justin.tv live feeds.
So the plan: venture out into Buffalo!
Each week I have started and continue to plan on watching the game from a different location. Bars, coffee shops, donut shops, storefronts, random Buffalonians' homes, even hospital waiting rooms! To me, it's a win win: there's plenty of sad Buffalo to discover and plenty of sad Bills games to watch! And for your entertainment I'll report back here each week. Suggest a location in the comments and I'll check it out next game! Sound good? Great!
Stay tuned as I catch you up with the first two weeks of Bills vs Patriots and Buccaneers from Caffe Aroma...
