Category: All the stuff what I like.

The 2026 NFL Season is upon us. You know what that means?

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me
We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me

FIRE THEM CANNONS!

It also means I am one happy curmudgeon!

LET’S GO BUCS! 

Long ago, when I was a young curmudgeon (back when blogging was a thing and I still had a full head of hair), I was the official NFL and Tampa Bay Buccaneers blogger for a very large Tampa Bay publication. The Pigskin Preacher, they called me. 

My blog posts were wisdom-laden homilies; my weekly prognostications were prophetic declarations; my congregation grew wildly expansive … and then the literary world went dark. 

A little thing they called “micro-blogging,” (social media) and the advent of the “podcast” (social media meets reality tv) spelled death to literary journalism. 

In the blink of an eye (or the span of a New York Jets win streak), words in paragraph form with punctuation gave way to acronyms (SMH) and emojis (💩).

I say, RAISE THE FLAGS!

We extort and pilfer, we filch and sack
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
Maraud and embezzle and even hijack
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me

Alas, here at DarinMichaelShaw.com, we believe in words! Real words. Paragraphs and punctuation. Blog posts. Essays. Poems. Stories. Books. The great lost arts of prose, dialogue, and conversation have risen from Davy Jones Locker! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Drink up me hearties, Yo Ho!

The kickoff of a new season has compelled me, your Reluctant Island Curmudgeon (the blogger formerly known as the Pigskin Preacher) to pick up the mantle, sharpen my blade, and pull the cork once more.

It’s a pirate’s life for me. No promise of a weekly column. We’ll sail when the winds favor, and our victims least expect us! your And today, on the eve of the Buccaneers’ season opener, it’s time we Drink up me hearties!

We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho

We’re sailing into Cincy this week. There are riches to plunder—kids named Burrow, Chase, and Higgins. 

I’m predicting … a dozen wings, mango habanero, and RUM! 

Oh, and a Buccaneer win in Cincy. Sorry, not sorry, Bengals fans. FIRE THEM CANNONS!

We kindle and char and in flame and ignite
Drink up me hearties, yo ho
We burn up the city, we’re really a fright
Drink up me hearties, yo ho

My “Take it to the Bank”Prop Bets for Week One

Prop Bet #1: Whomever they interview after the game, the player will mention Jesus. Growing numbers of NFL players (and pro athletes in general) are speaking out about their faith these days. Take it to the bank: Bet on Jesus for the win … no matter who wins the game you’re watching.

Prop Bet #2: Take the Over. Over/Under on Buccaneer wins for the season is 8.5. We’re going double digit wins this year, my friends. Mark my words. Keep your powder dry. And buy more RUM!

Prop Bet #3: The Miami Dolphins are on the clock. Although I bleed pewter, red, and creamsicle orange, being a Floridian, I naturally wish good fortune for my ‘original’ state team. Kills me to say it but, the Dolphins are a dumpster fire this season. I was a 5-year-old Dolphin fanatic in ’72 when they had their perfect season. Could this year’s achievement be their becoming the only franchise in sports history to have both a perfect winning and a perfectly winless season to their name? The odds are … ever in their favor. I’ll go this far: bank on them winning the race for next year’s first draft pick hands down.

The Picks Are In

Injuries, of course, can derail the best of prognostications. Barring any devastating losses to the IR, look for these teams to rise to the top in their respective divisions by season’s end: Bills, Ravens, Colts, Broncos, Cowboys (no, I’m not kidding), Bears, Buccaneers, Seahawks.

If I were forced to make a way-too-early-to-tell Super Bowl pick, of course from the NFC, it’ll be my Tampa Bay Buccaneers sailing into SoFi Stadium for the trophy.

Hey Hey Tampa Bay! The Bucs Know How to Shine! 
Give a cheer for the Buccaneers, GO BUCS!

On that day, from the AFC, the Denver Broncos walk the plank! 

In semi-pro games this Saturday (the sport formerly known as college football), Ohio State over Texas, and an upset special, Michigan over Oklahoma. Our Florida teams, bet on both the Gators and Knights winning. (The ‘Canes won a close one, 77-7, on Thursday night and the Seminoles are off for the weekend to lick their wounds.)

Enjoy the games. FOOTBALL IS BACK!

And of course … drink up me hearties, yo ho!

Concluding the series recalling the top ten life and literary influencing albums in my collection (in no particular order), I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey with me. More than that, I hope maybe you’ve looked up some of the albums and artists I’ve included in my list, streamed some of the tunes … and maybe you’ve been inspired to think of your own top ten.

All good things come to an end. My list of ten ends here, with—

Post Ten of Ten

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd 

G D Em F C Dsus D Dsus D Dsus D

Chances are, if you play guitar that’s enough to tell you what this post is all about.

It was 1979 for me, two years after the fateful crash in Mississippi that took Ronnie van Zant, Steve and Cassie Gaines of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd from the world. I was twelve. My next-door neighbor was thirteen. And we were going to start a band.

Now, I’d never played any instrument, really. I did try trombone in beginning band in 5^thgrade. I had long arms, and that’s all it takes to excite an elementary school music teacher into believing he’d found the next great … who is a world-famous trombonist? I don’t even know.

But me and my friend were going to start a rock band. And this kid’s parents had money, so he possessed a really nice drum set and a really nice electric guitar and amp. He couldn’t play either of them. But that didn’t matter. Together, we could make one hell of a racket.

He put on Skynyrd’s first album and played track eight, the very last song on the album, Freebird. He asked, “Guitar or drums?” Guitar came with a chord chart—the aforementioned progression. In no time, I was strumming away while my friend attempted to lay down a beat. We were headed for the big time. Not really. My guitar ability came to an abrupt end after that Dsus chord. Those solos? Forget it. His drumming was more headache than heartbeat. We parked that thing in the garage.

But at twelve, there’s a lot going on in a young man’s head. Dreams. Fantasies. Fears. Awakening to some of life’s harsher realities. And this song, this album, and this band became a pretty big part of ushering adolescence and beyond into my young life.

I asked my dad to take me to the record store to buy the album. I listened to it over and over. I just about wore that album out.

I felt the irony of a man writing and singing about going away because he was ‘free as a bird’ … and then departing via an airplane crash. I wondered about life and death—you know, as a kid, one of the first times that concept really crosses your mind. I pondered what it would be like for those members of the band that survived to have lived while their friends died. And I was struck by the music—southern rock, they called it. Different than the other music I’d heard. It was down-to-earth. That’s the only way I could describe it then. Still fits when I hear those tunes today.

I spent the most time listening to Freebird—it’s like ten minutes long, for crying out loud. But I also toured the rest of the album, and enjoyed almost every song. Simple Man grabbed me. I loved the down-home feel, a boy and his mama. See—there’s the southern charm. Who up north called their mother Mama? The song’s story spoke of what matters most in this world. Practical advice. And in real-time, advice worth following.

Gimme Three Steps, too. Life advice! Be careful who you look at, young man! You never know if she may be the object of someone else’s affection … and the next thing you know, “you could hear me screaming a mile-a-way as I was headed out towards to door!” Tuesday’s Gone spoke of love’s breakdown. I was just at the age where that stuff started to compute for me, the hurt when you liked someone and they didn’t return your affection, or worse, when I met the kid whose parents were divorced. That was so strange to me … Parents divorce? Oh my!

This album became a thought-provoker for me in that most formative season of my life. It was the story that captured me—the story in each song … and the story of this band that met its end in a horrifying way, leaving their fans to wonder what might have been. Left me wondering how often all of us, every human being, encounters a ‘what might have been?’ longing.

And how life itself is fuel for a writer’s writing. Ronnie van Zant said it best, as only a good old southern boy can: “If prisons, freight trains, swamps, and gators don’t get ya to write songs, man, y’ain’t got no business writin’ songs.”