Hamm On Wry

Like many people in Montana, I find that EPSN’s current attempt to stifle viewership to be misguided and wrong. I’m not a huge fan of the Cats or the Griz, honestly, because being a part of the BCS means they’ll never have a championship that means anything. This is America, you fuckwads, we don’t “vote” for winners, we vote for politicians. Champions earn their fare, and in a real league, like that of the NAIA, we know who the champions are. (GO SAINTS!!)

(Aside: You can and should watch the Saints face the Cougars of Azusa Pacific on Saturday on the CW statewide in Montana, and online at gotw.tv as well. It’s going to be a helluva game!)

Anyway, I had to speak my mind, so I found the comment page on ESPN and sent them this little gem:

Why would you block the Montana games from the Montana populace? No one else is going to watch them. You know how HBO and your parent company Disney got really big back in the day? Free weekends. Perhaps you should open up to Montana IP addresses for these games and run a bunch of ads saying “have Optimum add us so you can see the games next week” and see what happens.

And they, at 1:43 pm MST, replied with:

Hello,

I’m sorry to hear you are not able to access ESPN3.

I researched your IP address and determined your internet service provider is not a ESPN3 affiliate. Unfortunately, you will not be able to access ESPN3 with your current internet service provider.

To request access from your current provider, search for an affiliated provider in your area, or view a list of all affiliated U.S. providers, please visit our FAQs and review “How can I get access to all ESPN networks available on WatchESPN?”

http://espn.go.com/watchespn/affList

For live assistance with this or any other issue, please call Customer Care at 1-888-549-3776 (ESPN) between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. EST.

Regards,


Drew
ESPN.com Customer Care

Yeah, so I checked out there list, and nothing of note was on it, so I was left kinda going “meh, whatever” because again, not really my area of interest, but I still think it’s dumb, and I fucking hate when Montana gets screwed because it’s not considered a big enough market to care about. Fucking hate it.

But then, mysteriously, at 2:54 pm MST, I got this:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting ESPN.

The following ESPN3 providers carry ESPN3 in Montana: 3 Rivers Communications, Range Telephone Cooperative and Triangle Communications System. A full list of current affiliated providers nationwide for ESPN3 can be found by visiting http://espn.go.com/espn3/affList?device=null.

ESPN is working diligently with other providers to offer the network to as many fans as possible. Fans who do not receive their service from any of the above can call their provider and request that they offer ESPN3 to their subscribers. For CenturyLink subscribers, please call 877-348-9005. For Optimum, contact Customer Service at 866-575-8000.

This year, ESPN3 is delivering the most number of FCS Championship games ever distributed live nationally. The network is also showing games that may otherwise not have been televised, and with a nationwide audience, allows for displaced fans to now have access to their teams. For more information about ESPN3, please see below.

–

About ESPN3

ESPN3 is ESPN’s live multi-screen sports network, a 24/7 destination that delivers thousands of global sports events annually and accessible online via WatchESPN.com. It is currently available to approximately 70 million homes at no additional cost to fans who receive their high-speed Internet connection or video subscription from an affiliated service provider. The network is also available at no cost to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers connected to on-campus educational networks and on-base military networks. It is also accessible through ESPN on Xbox LIVE to Gold members and on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app through an affiliated provider.

Sincerely,

John
ESPN Viewer Response

I don’t know how I got into the queue at their customer service email twice, I didn’t submit it twice, so this was now interesting. If they are trying to get more people to use the internet for entertainment, they should know at least how to use fucking email and CRM packages, which have been around for decades longer than web video. Holy fuck.

So naturally, I replied, with:

Hi John,

Do you have a map? Have you seen the size of Montana? It’s rather large. In fact, it’s the 4th largest state in the union, behind only Alaska, Texas & California.

Have you see the maps from 3 Rivers, Range and Triangle? No? Not surprising, as the areas that they cover are so small that you don’t need a map, you can ask at the post office/bar/church for directions to any place you want to go.

In fact, let me quickly show you the map of Montana with pins showing where these companies are:

Notice that there are no pins in Bozeman, home of the Cats, or Missoula, home of the Griz, nor in any of the other areas that could, really conceivably hold the title of ‘city’ in our rather rural state. Nothing in Kalispell, Billings, Great Falls, Butte, Helena, or any of the other places where rabid fans would be to watch these games.

But, gods be praised, you’ve covered Havre.

Can I be the first to give you a slow, slow clap?

This bit of creative writing slays me: “This year, ESPN3 is delivering the most number of FCS Championship games ever distributed live nationally. The network is also showing games that may otherwise not have been televised, and with a nationwide audience, allows for displaced fans to now have access to their teams. For more information about ESPN3, please see below.“

Montanans have had their football on TV locally since production trucks first existed. In fact, some of those same trucks, with the 55 phone lines coming out of them to connect into the local stations, yes, PHONE LINES WERE USED TO GET TV SIGNALS TO STATIONS FROM THESE TRUCKS, are still in use in the wilds of Montana.

But you’d already know that if you had any care for the fans of Montana Football.

It’s apparent that you don’t. And that’s bad for the fans, bad for the game, and worst of all, bad for the schools.

You need to fix this.

kev~!

This apparently never actually went anywhere, because instead I got a third response, at 5:02 pm MST that read:

Hello,

Thank you for your e-mail.

We appreciate you taking the time to write and share your thoughts with us. We have shared your comments with the appropriate personnel for their review and consideration.

Sincerely,

Candice

ESPN Viewer Response

But you know what I never got? An actual response that made any sense whatsoever. ESPN doesn’t give a shit about Montana, and they are only taking these games because they have to take the whole of the series or have none of it. It’s a fucking mess, and it won’t ever get better until someone with a brain steps in and fixes it.

One would think that it wouldn’t be that hard, seeing as how it’s collegiate football.

Reading about Penn State’s football program sex-abuse scandal, you have to wonder what these men were thinking. Yes, he was a hero, but he’s still just a man, and when they saw him, actually, totally saw him fucking a 10 year old boy, and did NOTHING?

We now have proof that shame is far more powerful than we believed. Shame at seeing something so horrible. At maybe reliving something that happened to them. At not stepping in and saving that child. At letting it go not just because “he’s a hero, a legend,” but because he was their hero.

The human condition is fascinating. Unfortunately, our misunderstanding has led to a culture where it’s better to cover this up than to let it out in the sunshine where the evil can’t spread.

If you really want to save the kids, you have to start by letting everyone be who they really are, in the full light of the sun, so you can separate the heroes from the hateful.

It’s 2011, and for fuck’s sake, we all know that smoking cigarettes, and chewing tobacco, are at the very least unhealthy. Given what the Big Tobacco Co.’s stuff in to make it more addicting, it’s downright toxic. And deadly. And the deaths are ugly. And that ugly looks like this:

Lung cancer: (which I typooed as “lunch cancer” while writing this, but that’s another story)

Mouth cancer:

Birth defects:

Whoops, that’s not a birth defect, that’s a congenital heart-can’t-fucking-be-found defect. Here’s the birth defect:

Yeah, I totally could have warned you that the pictures were graphic, but let’s face it: until you fucking see what it does, you don’t know, can’t imagine, and not one of you could have drawn what these pictures show even if I described it to you in gory detail. The pictures are, especially of that child, horrible.

So in 2009 the FDA started up a new plan to make the Big Tobacco companies show their customers what could happen to them if they keep smoking. This is the equivalent of the “Blood on the Highway” movies we all had to watch before getting our drivers licenses. In some ways, it’s also the equivalent of the “Duck and Cover” movies about nuclear war in the 1950s.

Apparently, tho, forcing the evil cunts at Big Tobacco to put these pics on the side of pack of cigs is somehow “forced speech” and now violates their rights? According to U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon.

The Court concludes that plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial likelihood that they will prevail on the merits of their position that these mandatory graphic images unconstitutionally compel speech, and that they will suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief pending a judicial review of the constitutionality of the FDA’s rule…

It’s not like we require the cigarette companies to include a little voice player like the Hallmark cards with Alec Mapa saying “Yep, you can still have this, but it could fuck up your baby. Go for it, girl!” it’s just a fucking picture of actual results, and your results may vary.

I’ve worked with the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program for years, and I personally HATE cigarettes, and thinking chewing tobacco is one step off shooting meth. To say I’m not a fan is understatement.

I have friends who think that cigarettes and other tobacco products should be banned outright, but I don’t think that’s the way to go either. If you want to smoke, fine, that’s your choice. Don’t do it by me, thank you, and know what you’re getting into. These pictures would help in that education. The idea is to stop people before they start, because once hooked, you’re fucked for a good long time.

Ask anyone who has managed to quit smoking how hard it was.

And since we can’t force people to see these images when they buy cigarettes, because it would hurt the tobacco companies (who deserve to be hurt, but that’s another rant as well) I suggest you bookmark this post and tweet it to your friends who smoke. They’ll see that baby. And they’ll see Dick Cheney. Both should be more than enough to scare them into calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW immediately.

Ok, so we’ve all heard the complaints about the double-standard that’s been in evidence in recent years regarding how the football players can get away with murder while the regular students get sacked for basic pranking. If you want a primer on this, I recommend my good friend’s at 4 & 20 Blackbirds post “More Griz Thuggery“ on this exact subject.

In fact, I had been chatting with the masterful writers over at the birds’ nest, and we both agree that this situation appears to be out of hand.

I, however, took what I’d heard from them to my sources, and heard something very different, and it’s not something that seems out of sorts at all, so now I’m torn.

The current two stories are thus;

1) The students were at a party, far too loud, and when the police arrived, they pulled the “do you know who I am” crap that all d-list stars try at some point, which got them no where, then they resisted arrest, pushed a cop, and had to be tased. This story falls under the “football players are coddled twats who spend more time making trouble than actually proving their worth on the field” which is a popular story, and one that’s actually based on some truth.

2) The students were at a party, far too loud, and when the police arrived, instead of asking that the noise be kept down, one of the cops, who apparently is right about 5-foot-nothing and has a staggering case of “small man syndrome” started in about “you niggers need to go back where you came from” yelling at the players that they were useless and had been taking scholarships from the locals who were deployed to Iraq to protect our freedoms. This falls under the “Missoula police have been out of hand and have some bad apples who are reflecting poorly on the overall force with their inability to actually police without being bullies or instigating situations that then require some sort of weaponry, usually a taser.” This is also a popular story, one that, again, is based on some truth.

So what actually happened? If this were any time before 2010 we’d have to answer “We may never know.” but it’s not, and apparently there are videos on cell phones, multiple videos, that show this cop losing his shit and doing the wrong thing, inciting and attacking instead of protecting and serving.

This is also why one of the most expensive lawyers in the state, one with whom no one really likes to tangle, has agreed to handle this case. The cops are in a world of trouble if this plays out with these videos.

Mind you, I’ve seen nothing, and my information is second-hand, but it’s from people I trust and who would actually know. If I were a betting man, I’d not put money down because it’d be like insider-trading at this point, but you should totally put money on the cop getting busted down to cross-walk guard in the very near future.

This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem with the football players being treated as the Favored Sons of Powerful Lords, it, in fact, re-enforces the idea that this is a problem. If a cop, admittedly an unbalanced one in this case, but not so unbalanced he could be removed from the force before this, obviously, realized he was dealing with the players, and that they’d probably get off scot-free regardless of what they did, that could easily be enough to push him over whatever edge he was walking when it comes to dealing with law breakers.

Missoula PD might also want to do some more rigorous personality/stress testing to see what’s going on with their officers and perhaps mitigate events like this in the future.

Regardless, there does need to more upstanding, ethical behavior on all sides. The student athletes need to remember that they are privileged to be in the roles they have, and nothing is owed them, while quite a bit is given, willingly. Show some respect, and be adults. If you need help figuring out how to do that, find Miss Manners and or just ask a drama student to help you. The cops need to remember that kids do stupid things, and dealing with drunks takes patience and skill, and that training cannot be skipped or avoided, because tasers are deadly far more often than they should be, and it’s usually because someone lost their temper instead of using their head.

I’m sure there will be more to come on this whole story, but for right now, both sides are in the wrong and nothing good has come of it.