See? I'm a Good Sport

6/21/06

I wrote the following while in the Cancun Airport waiting for my return flight to the states, and happened to be near a television broadcasting what I discovered to be a "sporting event." Enjoy dear readers.

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6/10/06



I've never been a big fan of sports (though I do like to listen to women's tennis) due, in part, I'm sure to the fact that I have zero athletic ability and engaging in anything more strenuous than bocce, shuffleboard or crochet is public humiliation on the scale of paying strangers to urinate on me. It was especially bad in school, when it was goddamn mandatory in P.E. and my male peers took the shit way, way too seriously. Any minor error was treated as if I'd just shown them a picture of their mother being violated by a walrus. I mean, who the shit cares if I got missed a catch in kick-ball simply because I was more interested in the topography of my navel? I thought this was a game, right? Well, no, not really, I quickly discovered.

Perhaps it makes me a poor male, but I even loathe televised sports. Cant stand 'em; I can think of few things more pointless and boring than spending hours (sometimes four or five at a time!) staring at grown men (most of them juiced so full of hormones they can only be considered "human" in the loosest sense of the word) who are doing things which seem to me to be ultimately pointless and sort of crazy. Why does an adult male wish to watch another male hit a sphere with a cudgel? What's the point? I find it odd and somewhat comical that so many humans attach their egos to these events, and, should their team lose, actually become upset over it. Clearly I'm missing something.

I've just returned from one of the many bars in the departure area; one of the smoking ports in the calm storm after going through security. (Stick with me, I'm tying it together!) But you can't merely stand there smoking, no, no. You have to buy something. They're like disgruntled 7-11 owners. So, sure, 9:15 is a little early in the morning for a rum and coke, but technically I'm still on vacation. And an alcoholic, so...

At any rate I found myself engrossed in the football (soccer for us Americans) game on TV; it's the World Cup outta Germany, don't you know. I've never actually watched a game, mostly due to the reasons listed above, but this was kinda neat. It's never really caught on here, but I don't know why: It's simple, (I don't have to memorize an instruction book or know bizarre numerical stats about the players to understand the game) and I don't know why anyone would say it's boring; it's low-scoring, but at least the players are constantly doing something.

You know whats boring? Football and baseball. I'll wait while the country finishes loading its collective shotguns and looking up my address. Ready? Okay.

Essentially these American sports are seconds of frenzied excitement punctuated by looooong stretches of time where nothing really happens. Either dudes are lining up for something called a "Double-Loop Nickel-back Fiery Douche" play, or a man with a large ass is rubbing a small spheroid and shaking his head "no," at another man who just wants him to play catch. That, my friends, is fucking boring. But soccer/football? That was pretty cool. And it has a time limit! Dig that? We all know when its going to end! Because, maybe, you know, we don't have indefinite chunks of our lives to devote to sitting on our asses watching steroid-addled lunatics. Maybe some of us want to go home and, oh I dunno, fuck or something.

Boring? Not this. They're constantly running up and down the field, pulling off moves so astounding and graceful they seem to be playing in significantly lowered gravity, and exhibiting an endurance of which hurricanes would be envious. Yeah, big deal, sometimes games end in a 0-0 score, which I suppose has many American sports fans struggling to keep their intestines from exploding with indignation, but for me, I found the score to be incidental. If you're watching a game for the score and not the athleticism and excitement of it why not just skip a step and check the scores tomorrow to find out how much you owe the bookie?

I have to say I was intrigued and impressed by the simple, enjoyable nature of the event. I doubt I'll find myself settling in to watch an entire game anytime soon, but I have found myself watching for five or ten minutes whenever it's on in the lunchroom at work. I like it; it's neat...except that the American team sucks out loud. To date our only scoring goal was made by the other team accidentally. Wow.

As for the game I watched while sipping island liquors, I dont remember who won.


P.S.- I do find some of the things they televise on ESPN and its hoard of spin-offs interesting, but none of them can even loosely be considered sports: Poker, Blackjack, Dominoes, and imagine my delight when I ran across an honest-to-God "Paper, Rock, Scissors" (also known as Ro-Sham-Bo) tournament on ESPN 2 one night around 2 a.m.! Now that is fucking entertainment!