clear eyes, full hearts, always lose

Friday Night Lights, source of the above quotation (although I modified it a little) is one of my all-time favorite TV shows, and I consider myself personally responsible for introducing it to some other people as well.  It's a sort of verite look at the life of a small town through the lens of its treatment of high school football.  The acting is fantastic, the stories are poignant, and the ratings are terrible.

FNL is based on a book written by one H. G. Bissinger.  A movie was made based on the book, and the TV show developed out of the movie.  If you like your sports stories all Disneyfied and inspirational, this is perhaps not the show for you.  But if you like a little grit with your soap (because there are the requisite teen romances--probably the only reason the show wasn't canceled after its first season) then I encourage you to check it out.

However, I'm not posting simply to praise FNL.  This does connect back to my larger subject matter of Philadelphia.  Because Buzz Bissinger is a local, a Philadelphian, and he has a piece in today's New York Times about how losing is a badge of pride for Philadelphians, particularly in their baseball team, the Phillies, who are the losingest team in all of pro sports history.  Check it out.