Week two
The game: Seahawks at Patriots
The beer: Tributary Märzen Oktoberfest Lager
The result: Loss, 23–20
The record: 1–1

Week three
The game: Patriots at Jets
The beer: Riverwalk Me & My Dunkel Lager
The result: Loss, 24–3
The record: 1–2

The headline: “Oh love, you were a sickly child, and how the wind knocked you down.” – PJ Harvey, “The Desperate Kingdom of Love”

The commentary: Déjà vu is a bastard:

Undefeated season? I won’t rule it out! Meet the new boss, folks, because this is the team’s most impressive season-opening win-streak in years, as Cam Newton Jacoby Brissett distributes regret evenly across half the league. Nay, two-thirds! In Bill Mayo we trust!

I did feel OK about the—wait, loss? Right.

Seahawks again! I mad bro! No fanbase feels better about close losses than my idiotic peers—our limited offense got away with a low-scoring win to start the season and reached perhaps the summit of its abilities in scoring twenty (with extra time) as its defense came up short, exposing itself as something less than the ’85 Bears after all. And then the Jets game? And then the Jets game! Anyone who believes a resurgent Aaron “Douche” Rodgers and an improved overall Jets team couldn’t have dropped forty probably thinks Belichick would be doing any better. It’s still mostly his roster, after all.

This afternoon, as even their substandard backup offensive lineman are sitting out with injuries, they get a chance to turn things around against an underperforming 49ers team looking themselves to turn things around following consecutive NFC losses. Who’s more talented? Who’s angrier? Shudder. The silver lining? Once again I suspect the punter is our best player. Wind ain’t knocking Bryce Baringer down.

On that note, the three of us saw PJ Harvey at the (checks notes) MGM Music Hall at Fenway a week and a half ago. Indeed, what used to be the players’ parking lot is now a pretty great concert ballroom, maybe a little bigger than the Roxy Royale—who says Red Sox ownership isn’t spending money? Crisis was majorly averted as I learned literally the day before that Post Malone—about whom I know nothing other than that his white audience cosplays as J.Crew-level cattle rustlers—was to play Fenway Park proper the same night at the same time. Fuck! My plans of easy parking and a leisurely dinner at the Yardhouse went up in flames as a panicked redirection to the Christian Science Center garage—Unwound is all over this blog lately—and a triumphant return to the still thriving Woody’s Grill & Tap saved the evening. Sure, we hoofed it down Ipswich Street along with the cracker rabble, dodging bootleg tee-shirt merchants who decidedly were not hawking I Inside the Old Year Dying long-sleeves. But we were exactly on time for the show that mattered (no opening act) and G. was only slightly perplexed by the opening set’s performance art. Overall I think she liked it but I can’t say she had as much enthusiasm for Polly Jean as I did back in Oskar’s kitchen thirty-one years ago, even when “Man-Size” raised its head, but you can do worse for a first concert.

Up next: Definitely not an A’s game. Cheers!