TIME (OUT) FOR SOME FOOTBALL

Took some time OFF.  After a 19-hours stretch working on my next book, OBAMALAND, I watched the Tivo'd Monday Night Football game, Dallas-Philadelphia.

The book is the most intense project I've ever attempted. Only the NFL can pull me away. I am absorbed in the final stretch. Putting the book to bed. Ah, the Church of the NFL teaches that there is always hope, and prayer, and flickering. a light, to keep the faith.

Veteran hard core pro football fans put loyalties aside when a masterpiece breaks out. Particularly when one's favorite team's finishes Week One as the only of 32 teams to go without a touchdown. They finally score one in Week Two. Two next week? Three the week after that! By Week Five the Rams might score 28 points in a game. Two games went beyond our wildest fantasies. 

The Denver-San Diego game turned on as bad a Zebra Fuckup as I've ever seen. Not called by a really good referee, it saw the home team turn an inexcusable penalty call into one of the great ballsy play calls of all time. Only twice before in league history (which began in 1920) has a team won a NFL game on a two-point conversion. Mike Shanahan did. And after reading the fine book, SIX SECONDS OF PANIC, in which little Stefan Fatsis attempts to learn the game as no journalist has. He tries for two seasons, looking for a team that will allow him to try out as a place kicker. He was one in high school. The Broncos casually give him a shot.

Our image of their head coach, Mike Shannan deepens and changes. He took a chance on Fatsis. The outcome could have blown up in his face. It didn't. SIX SECONDS OF PANIC became a best-selling, future classic sports book.

Can you believe that it was just 18 days ago when Barack Obama rocked the same Mile High stadium, with his sell out crowd of fanatics and believers screaming over the hard fought victory. The Bronco-Charger game could be a metaphor for the Democratic Convention, which basked in the alohaglow of Hawaii's Favorite Son on August 28.  What happend on that same Invesco Field outshone all the NFL games that followed a fortnight later. And Obama is the VIP of America's biggest political game. Bigger than Brett Favre. Or any rock, or move, or any sports star. He has replaced Muhammed Ali as the most famous person on the planet.

It was of the best Monday Night Football games I've ever seen. And I've been watching them since Season One.  Last night's sphincter-shredding Eagle loss to the Cowbays (in spite of action comic hero play by its heroes Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook) made Dallas owner Jerry Jones as happy as if he'd ben elected Emperor of Football.

I'd almost ride in a plane to have seen the Divisional Rematch, in Philly. It is the last game of the season, in the Final Week. And what of the world champs, the New York Giants? Yesterday's game resulted in their top passer, runner and receiver leading the NFL stats for the day. How often does that happen? When a team plays against something as bad as the 2008 St. Louis Rams they always look great. And ESPN's pronouncement that the NFC East, "is the toughest conference in any sport" is impossible to deny at this early part of the season.

Except for watching three pro football games, I'm full time into our man from Oahu, which is OBAMALAND, Barack Obama, to win his race after the Cowboys and Eagles go at it again. His ends on November 4th, date of the 2009 US Presidential Election. I am in full Colonel Parker-Vince Lombardi mode. We're putting everything into our book about Obama's first 18 years. He was born here in Honolulu and, except for a short time in Africa, he grew up here. A member of the Punahou class of 1979, he left later that year for college. 

But do you know the rest of the story? Of his roots here in the 'aina, the 50th State? Win or lose, you will learn an audacious story from our little island in the middle of the

Pacific, OBAMALAND.  We're aiming to release the book two weeks before the election. So bye bye blog. Hello manuscript.

What a 12 months its been. And the next Super Bowl winner and our new President are still unknown. Everyone has some sort of opinion about everything. But, with my crashing deadline, I have only one thing on my mind.  Focus. Finish. On time.  We've been getting ready since the start of summer. Let's kick off with a winning effort. OBAMALAND will illuminate the many things proven when Obama closes strong -- and wins it all.