Most of y’all know I’m from L.A. A handful of y’all could probably drive to my house from yours in under 30 minutes. 2 of you have probably seen me once at the Fox Hills mall or McDonald’s or something, & didn’t even know it because I only wear my “I’m Tony Grands!” shirt to sleep in. Point is, I’m a thorough Los Angeles nigga, or an Angeleno as they say on the news. I’ve seen the pre-Staples Center Lakers, I met Fernando Valenzula (or a little Mexican guy who looked exactly like him), my pops used to even buy his Zig-Zags at the same liquor store Michael Cooper bought his. In fact, my grandfather was good friends with Tom Bradley when I was little.

As a kid, we not only had one football team, we had 2. Rams & Raiders. I never understood why one city would need 2 football teams back then, but I see now. It was a barrier, to hold all the sexually-confused douchebags at bay. Don’t get me wrong, L.A. has always been a hotbed for the gays, but it was confined to West Hollywood & the beaches. If you saw a gay dude trolling east of La Brea avenue in the 80′s, he was either a cop or a schoolteacher. Or turned way up on Coke & made a wrong turn exiting the 10 freeway. It was more oddity than normalcy. But during the last 20 or so years, the city’s masculinity has been slowly drying up, like a prostitute’s lip gloss on a slow winter’s eve.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, I’m just not & rather my children not be either. I feel that, if we get another football team, that grizzled man-fest will return back to the city. It’s not that I even like football any more than your average dude, but there’s something about a bunch of guys getting dressed up just to slam sweaty bodies at breakneck speed that exudes manliness (double sentence pause). Like chest-bumps & unfiltered cigarettes. & a football player is always a better role model than no role model at all, if you smell my cologne.

On a more serious note, both teams brought a lot of revenue to the city, or more specifically, South Los Angeles. & it’s not like anybody’s doing anything with the Coliseum these days, except the homeless that can’t break into the Sports Arena. A little patch-up work & there’s absolute money to be made. We could even give Oakland the Clippers as a peace offering, so to speak. 2 basketball teams is like having 2 ball sacks: cumbersome. I’ve always thought that the powers that be should bring Rugby to the United States, but since I doubt that would ever happen, Football’s the next best thing. & I miss it in L.A.

Maybe it’s the amount of boys I see dressing & acting like girls in a city that was once known for mass amounts of gang activity. Or maybe it was the SuperBowl. Either way, my city needs a football team.