Ira Glass and D'Angelo Barksdale Cover 2008 Red Deer Curling Invitational

Mrs. Owl reminds me that some of my topics are pretty obscure. I find that I can rarely entertain all the people all the time, and at best, make some of the people some of the time chuckle lightly before clicking away , baffled. Chomsky covering L4D comes to mind.

So I'll be putting little preambles to these strange mashups to give you all a heads up. I hope it doesn't break the flow too much.

Ira Glass is the host of the show "This American Life" on NPR. It's a quiet mini-documentary covering some theme about American Life; say, Summer Camp, or Work That Takes Over Your Life. They are thoughtful, urbane, introspection, and high-brow with a patina of blue collar earnestness. The various reporters sound like they are sitting with you, in a small well lit corner of your restored colonial, sitting on opposing quaint antique chairs (restored, obviously) with floral upholstery, they are possibly touching forehead to forehead with you, explaining in quiet tones why Uncle Marty can never ever be invited to another Parchesi game, ever again.

D'Angelo Barksdale is a gangster from the I sure it's realistic because I sure love it HBO cop show, The Wire. I'm not sure if the street slang they use is actual street slang, but I like how it flows and bops along, cutting a sentence to it's bluntest, most machoest form. They are like the anti-Lovecraft.

Without further ado:

Ira : There's something old world about the relatively new sport of curling. I feel like I should have authentic New England memories of this. Fond bittersweet rememberances of curling lessons gone awry, a ice fishing session interrupted by an impromptu curling end.

D'Angelo : There's mad excitement in the air tonight Ira, there's my man Little K, he be ballin' hard up in here at the Red Deer Curling and Hockey Community Rink. He knows what's what. He's my boy, yo, he's a skip with game.

Ira : It's winter here in Red Deer and I can't believe it's already been a year. The too hot cider and the tens of rapt fans with their toques and other clothing so distinctly Canadian cut a tender picture of community. It's a small part of the national stage, to be sure, but I can't help feeling that even this small tournament, in Northern Alberta, is helping to shape the game that Canadians, and not a few Americans, love. I feel a part of history, writ small.

D'Angelo : Aight, aight, so my man Little K, he's got the hammer on this one. We got some straight up hard guards keeping his team from getting anything up on that board. I just know that's going to hurt his team. They got heart, for reals, but they can't keep it going if they can't see at least a little hope, y'know? A little chance that they're going to make their peoples proud.

Ira : To be shut out of 5 ends. There's a sort of classical tragedy to it all. A sisyphian earnestness to a team that trudges on in never-ending defeat. But still doing it for the love of the game. For the love of their community, and country. It's a quiet love. If you ask anyone here, they might not say it out loud, but you can feel it, in the banners and the riotous cheers, and the volunteers who put countless hours to make this happen: this is an act of patriotism.

D'Angelo : Awwww yeeaaah! That's my boy! He took out both guards with that throw. It came in hot, I didn't know what he was doing, he's so crazy, he had his sweepers on that rock, and I swears Ira, I swears I just know they gonna burn that rock, yo, they gonna burn that rock and then where they be? The game is the game, in full effect, but if they burned that rock doing something that look just crazy, you saw it. No sense to it. I thought my boy gone lost it. But it had just the right weight to take care of the two guards and score a point for my boy and his crew!

Ira : We have to take a break, this end brought to you by Larry's Plumbing Supplies, come by and see what we have in store, and by Renault Motors of Red Deer, serving the greater Red Deer Area since 1983.