Football daze

Though I have my "weekend" described two posts ago, my weekend proper is actually just as eventful. After all, it’s football time and when the games come on at 8 a.m., it makes watching the games a new experience.

Fridays, I leave work at 9 in the evening and most of the bars or music venues don’t close until 3:30 a.m. I’ll go check out a show at The Marlin, The Pub or some similar place. There’s cool grass-roots music around here, especially near the college where native Fairbanksans who’ve grown up playing the banjo or plucking the guitar and then melding that skill with punk/jazz/hip-hop. I usually stay until closing time and end up flopping on my futon without unfolding it to catch a few winks.

Just a few. After all, college football starts at 7 a.m. Luckily, it’s mostly Big Ten games, so I sleep in until 9 at the latest. I spend most of the day inside in my undies following whatever games I get up here, listening to the Gators on Yahoo Radio if need be, and getting remedial stuff like laundry and cleaning done. (That’s one big advantage of living in the Box; you can clean the kitchen and still be within 10 feet of the TV.) It’s a relaxed day, but I’m going on 4-5 hours of sleep and pumping coffee down like a stockbroker.

Work at 4:30 in the afternoon. Sunday is, of course, the biggest paper of the week. We lighten our workload by doing the opinion section in advance – why I work early on Friday – but it’s still a lot to do. Basically, we earn our paychecks and then some on Saturday nights. So afterward, we deserve a round or two at The Big I. It’s generally packed with military, local floozies and the usual crowd. There’s a table in the front by the window, they’ve dubbed "the News-Miner table," but it’s taken half the time.

One week, I was feeling frivolous and bought the first round for the crew (sports editor Bob, sportswriters Adam and Matias, copy editor Rich and myself). The next week, Matias covered the tab and suddenly we had a standard rotation.

Because we’re brushing off a tough day, we usually leave at closing time, getting the same overly aggressive "get the hell out" treatment from the barmaid as everyone else – even though we’ve had two drinks apiece, tops, and are usually quietly discussing literature or sports.

At 8 the next morning, I somehow pull myself off the still-folded futon to give Rich a wake-up call. Depending on how peppy we’re feeling, he, Adam and I will either meet at Bob’s (where Rich lives) or the Gold Rush Saloon to watch NFL games. The Gold Rush is a hit-or-miss venture. It boasts a bevy of TVs showing every possible NFL game and relatively cheap drinks but ... the servers are unattractive hussies at best and there’s nothing that resembles actual food in sight. Oh sure, they’ve got a breakfast buffet, but most of that stuff is still crawling.

At Bob’s, we’re usually more relaxed, but Adam gets to see his Bengals and I my Buccaneers at the Gold Rush. As any football fan can tell you, squinting through a smoky haze at wall of TV screens while barely maintaining consciousness by slurping down expensive cheap coffee served by a waitress who’s pissed at you because you’re not ordering a beer every five minutes – and who could use a few more sit-ups and a few less cigarettes – is worth being able to watch your team out of market. Plus, they charge you $8 at the door and give you two chips worth a beer, including 16-ounce Coors’ Lights, which is a pretty good deal on drinks around here.

The NFL games end at 3-ish, giving me the weekly conundrum: Do I take a quick nap or slug it out and go to work on (at most) eight hours of sleep in the past two nights. I usually grab a Rockstar on the way home and opt for the latter. Tired copy editing is easier than drowsy copy editing.

Sunday night is, thankfully, the second-slowest night of the week. This is due to three things: most news doesn’t happen over the weekend (except sports), Monday is an unappealing day for advertisers and Gary is usually running the copy desk while coping with an extreme hangover (he’s the lucky one with Friday and Saturday off).

Once the papers off to the presses, I hit the treadmill in the office gym and head home to catch up on my sleep. I need the rest, after all, because my weekend is just about to begin.