Apparently what was once called Grateful Dead Ticket Sales still remembers my years of patronage as they gave me the first seat in the first row of Radio City Music Hall for Bobby and Phil’s Furthur show a few weeks back.  I didn’t snap this pic, but it shows the Wall of Sound backdrop they projected at the show.  I’m sure you recognize it from every installment of this wonderful project I have called JUSTICE IS COMING.  I was looking at some of my final comments before the playoff loss in my “Justice Files Redux Deluxe” column today.  The Chargers actually failed to realize anything I predicted during their four quarters of playoff football.  Everything they accomplished in 2009 was predicated on them learning from the mistakes of the past.  In the end, they proved they haven’t learned a fucking thing.  All year long, we marveled at the way this team was keeping its cool (including the kicker) during crunch time.  I wrote before that the game that the Jets might beat us, but that we weren’t going to lose.  In other words, we wouldn’t implode.  Boy, was I wrong.  What’s worse is that when I hear guys like Vincent Jackson and Merriman shrug off our latest defeat with comments like “we just didn’t make the plays we were used to making,” I don’t see them learning from this failure either.  VJ should have showed a little more regret towards the police as well, apparently.  Shawne Merriman is complaining about his “high tender” offer and thinking about donating his salary?  These guys just don’t get it.  When LT said that guys were talking about their contracts before games, I don’t think he’s lying.

Which brings us to “L’Affaire LT.”  Don’t get me wrong, FAITHFUL READER.  I don’t think that we should have paid LaDainian Tomlinson his scheduled 2010 salary.  But the fact that we were all forced watch LT’s career in San Diego, despite AJ Smith’s promise to the contrary, end in vain is yet another sickening chapter in recent Charger history.  When I saw twenty powder blue #21 jerseys in the bargain bin at a local sports store while Drew Brees’ jersey was proudly display in the window, it really hit home what a shitty spot we are in.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a day we knew was coming.  However, it’s another empty chapter in the world of the Bolts right now.  When I got an e-mail from the Chargers about Nick Hardwick doing a personal appearance for the “Farewell to 50″ campaign this morning, I was just happy that this wasted opportunity of a season was finally over.  I apologize, FAITHFUL READER, if my frustration is wearing down the Justice League.  For that reason, I’ll sum things up with an e-mail I received shortly after what I thought would be the biggest disappointment we’d ever face as Charger fans.  This came shortly after 1/14/07.  It pretty much sums up where I am at right now.  I am sure Whit will be able to whip us all into an inspired frenzy.  I wish Norv and AJ could do the same with our players.  I saw Shaun Phillips’ Tweet that he wished he could have gotten LT a ring.  No mention of the head-butt, Shaun?  Another guy thinking about his contract.

We’ll be there when we pull in the driveway,

Ross 

Long time, no talk. I just got done reading the latest JIC installment. As usual you said just about everything I was thinking and then some. It’s amazing how all us strangers who’ve watched this team over the years are on the same basic wavelength, the wavelength of impending disaster. I don’t mean to bring you down anymore than you already are, so I guess this little message is for me, my way of dealing with the misery I have been put through for the 38 years of watching this same shit played out over and over and over…It’s like watching a sad movie repeatedly, you know how it’s going to end yet you’re compelled to watch. The Chargers are a sick joke. Most of the time I wish I had never let them into my life all those years ago. But I was young and innocent. Now I’m older and cynical. And I can’t make anyone who doesn’t care like I do understand what this means to me. Can’t even begin to try, because they know it’s ridiculous, and so do I. Yet I go on with it. It’s sick.

Anyway, you are absolutely correct when you say that LT deserved better. The only thing I would change about your bumper sticker is to put it in present and future tense, i.e. “LT Deserves Better”. I know you know what I’m saying and I know you or any other Bolt fan does not want to even think of it, but the day LT stops being a San Diego Charger is the day he takes the first step towards getting what he wants and deserves - a Super Bowl ring. But you know as well as I do that that is NOT going to occur as long as he’s in San Diego. It’s sad and sucks but it’s the truth. If that game last Sunday didn’t convince everyone that this team is never going to win the big one than nothing will.

Next season is going to be different for me. I will still watch but I’m going in with the attitude that they will not win the Super Bowl. They fooled me AGAIN in 2006, made me think they really had a chance, but it was all just a mirage. LT wasn’t pissed at the Patriots after the game, he was pissed at those sorry-assed idiots on his team that blew the game. He is sick an tired of this shit, and if I were him I’d ask to go somewhere else, away from this INSANITY. But not LT, he’s got too much class, which is if course one of the reasons he is so well loved. But in the end that may cost him his ring.

Jeff Young

San Diego

This is just the perfect picture to sum up the Chargers’ season. 

Vincent Jackson is clearly elated for his great performance in a meaningless game where no one plays defense anyway.  No, I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t retain Jackson or that he isn’t a #1 receiver worthy of a big contact.  He clearly has

some off-field issues which will have to be considered before The Organization commits more money to a young player.  But Jacksons’ comments “I’ve learned so much about these guys in the league, how they handle themselves” are yet another reason I want to throw up right now.  You learned that from THE FUCKING PRO BOWL?  I wonder what Nick Manigold is thinking in that shot.  “Dude, you shat your season away 2 weeks ago against us.  What are you celebrating?”  Of course, that’s also a perfect statement on the Bolts’ season.  I am actually more disgusted now than I was immediately after the latest playoff disaster.  Although Nick Canepa and Tim Sullivan wrote some nice columns before and after the Super Bowl reminding us why we let Drew Brees go, it’s just more salt in an already painful wound.  It’s just another reminder that we were a team based on a lie.  The best comment I read about Sunday’s game was that the Chargers made more mistakes in their lone playoff game than both Super Bowl teams combined.  That says it all. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been almost 3 weeks since the Chargers blew their latest, and possibly best, opportunity to win a Super Bowl.  I can feel the frustration gradually dissipate and my the infuriating clarity I felt on that Sunday begin to blur.  However, I won’t allow myself to be deluded.  My posts from throughout the game reveal the anger I was feeling as it uunfolded.  Even though the last five seasons had allegedly left this team with enough lessons to last a lifetime, they made the same mistakes once again.  However, this time was the worst of all because of all that had preceded it.  Nate K.A.E.D.I.N.G (Kicks Accurately Except During Important NFL Games) was only part of the problem.  As I said during the week leading up to the game against the Jets, other teams can overcome self-inflicted errors like missed field goals.  The Bolts cannot.  We only get the luck we earn.  Sadly, as my friend Fred Rosenberg pointed out, the painful results we say may actually be the only JUSTICE we deserve. Read the rest of this entry »

I always stick up for you.

Whenever people say, “That Damone, he’s a loudmouth,” and they say that a lot,

I always say, “Hey, you just don’t know Damone.”

When they call you an idiot,

I say, “Damone’s not an idiot.  You just don’t know him.”

Well, you know something, man?

Maybe they do know you pretty good.

Maybe I’m just finding out now.