Bookshops. Will it be Danielle Steele´s latest, The PoolBoy or John Grisham`s highly touted (by the literary magnets at the Houston Chronicle), The Secret Cult of Molesting Lawyers in Memphis? Maybe a 9 foot Toblerone bar to snack on before that dinner of yummy heat lamp pizza and a side of fat. Perhaps a few rounds of ¨How many potential terrorists can I spot?¨ Or, simply calculating how many calories you just burned walking 13 laps around Concourse B. Oh..don´t forget the initial walk through Concourse A...that´s at least one small bite of the alleged pizza. Welcome to the Airport Layover where proof of modern man´s ingenuity awaits you.
And when you´re too poor to fly, you can bathe in the purgatory of the proletariat´s airport, the bus terminal. Until you realize, ... there ain`t no high orange alert homeland insecurity, there ain´t no former Macy´s make-up counter girl closing yo entry door thirty minutes before departure, and the only ´check-in´ is figuring out how to avoid that gang of those little shit gypsy kids. The potential for bus crash catastophe is limited to a measly 100 deaths, maybe 102 if you count those two brothers from Skokie who were inspired by nine11 heroism and tried to save the burning corpses. Suckers. So, a city´s most elite barrio normally plays host to The Bus Station. The kind of upscale neighborhood where the residents are so advanced in their phase of evolution, that laws are not required. Nor are hubcaps or teeth.
My giant four wheeled rolling love machine landed in a town whose name translated to, Happy Port. I had six hours until the next nearly homeless caravan left its port of call. The town naming committee sold me. There would be no counting of the facial tumors on this layover. Johnny was going into town.
A typical half day sampler of a locale usually includes an abundance of walking, random conversations with street vendors, and a wrestling match against the bearded woman in the central plaza. Within an hour, I found the city´s famed market. After purchasing a tube of raw sausage that the butcher claimed didn´t need cooking, I brought my uncooked mystery meat to an outdoor table where I pondered the meaning of life.
Before I ever reached the light, my mind was stuck on the shoeshine boys. These creatures fascinated me. Their ability to bring a forgotten man back into society. Their desire to please. Those cute little wooden lunchboxes with the crusts cut off. And their complete lack of concentration. Like a guy at the beach. A woman at a 75% off sale. A priest at the playground. As soon as these ragamuffins landed a client, their eyes were scopin´ for more leather. No loafer passed ungazed. And sneakers were met with eyes of contempt. The dressier the shoe, the longer the stare. Quality time with their current shoe would decrease. And eventually they just abandoned it for something bigger, prettier, more lucrative. Were these tar faced youths indicative of a human´s struggle to forgoe lust & desire for fidelity & security? Were they a physical manifestation of man´s inability to be fully satisfied in a capitalist system? Or were they just fuckin´ shoeshine boys, you jackass?
I returned to guessing which breasts were natural and which were hand crafted while watching a Gaucho´s street perfomance rendition of the macarena. Do you tip a street perforemer even if he really sucks? And then I realized...the joys of the no tipping the waiter system. Nobody asks you how your food is every 8 mintues. Nobody asks you if there will be anything else. Nobody asks you anything. You can eat raw sausage and mentally undress shoeshiners for hours, and you own that table. Its a bit like a frontier society. Once you´ve found your table, you can homestead until you finally decide to depart. The waiter is merely killing time until his bus leaves. And the Donner family no longer needs that children´s seat. Thanks anyway.
There was still four hours until take-off. I kept seeing these armadas of red jersey wearing men crossing the Square. The commies were descending on Happy Port. Can the municipality please change the name to, “Vodka swilling Frown-Face Port?¨
I just HAD to talk to these chaps. I knew I may lose homesteading rights, but fuck it, right? The Gaucho had passed out from a lethal combination of hyperspeed macarena and moonshine. The boobs were consistently 80/20 in favor of the Lord. And the shoescrubbers were a bunch of elitist snobs. Time for new territory.
The RedMen were no Leninists. They were Fútbol fans. How could I not know? There club won the world championship last year. I’m American. I don`t follow the international results of a bunch of foot fairies. But I love live sporting events. It doesn´t matter what culture you find yourself in because the energy of a live match will surpass anything the Art Museum had to offer. Even though Ms. Mona is lookin´good these days.
I embarked on a Brazilian football pilgrimmage. My three new friends turned into around 40,000 once I arrived at the stadium. Everybody wanted a piece of the gringo. Its a universal trait of team patriots. They want you to know every fact about their loved one. How many goals she scored last year? Did you know that was a new record? And they hold the record for the most fires started in the stands during one game...they are only three fires short of the season record? People who can´t add up their grocery bill will give you statistics that a Gallup poll taker couldn´t calculate. How many votes did Bush win in Cuyahoga county?
And as the data rained down, I began to feel the love. These people were genuinely excited to introduce a new person to their cult. They practically fought over possession of the gringo. You guys familiar with homesteading? I found myself with three different groups of landholders before the game even started. Eventually, my owners planted me in the Fanatic section.
This is a specially reserved area of the stadium where certain people are actually denied admission because they appear too vulnerable. You have to pass through a barbed wire fence to gain entry, and once inside the terrordome, nobody sits. Firecrackers are thrown at the referees. Songs are sung about the various things the opponents can do with a goat and the ref´s wife. Jumping up & down as if you just won the Showcase Showdown is mandatory in five minute intervals. Excitement is everywhere. And your neighbors are your best friends. Homophobia is given a reprieve. Ass-slapping, bear hugging, cheek kissing, nut tickling.....it´s all part of the camaraderie.
Yeah, camaraderie. Fraternity. Brotherhood. Maybe Women aren´t the better race. When you are among your fellow sporting team fans, everbody is family. It doesn´t matter how fat you are, how many zits you have, what your wearing, why your toenails are painted.......you are one unit, with a common purpose. To annhilate. And that common goal keeps you bonded. Perhaps, the lack of women keeps men distraction free, and allows them to bond together. Ah-hah. Those Saudis really are wisemen. And no wonder the U.S. military won´t allow gays to serve.
What other situation does modern society offer where a criminal can sit next to a banker who is sitting next to a retarded dwarf and for two hours, those individuals love each other. Every missed goal is a shared sigh. Every bad call (aren´t they all?) is a shared moment of contempt. And Every score is a shared moment of unrivaled jubilation. This was God´s intention when it created humanity. Or the intention of those aliens L. Ron was talking about. No matter, cause the love Bob Marley was looking for can be found at Football stadiums around the world. Until the game is over. Then the thief robs the banker, and the dwarf gets stuck back in the institution cause the banker doesn´t want him living at home.
Women. 40,000 women in one place, without Oprah, means the shopping mall is having FREE DAY, or Brad Pitt is doing Boob Signings. A woman´s capacity to love another is unrivaled. But you put three or more women in a group setting and the word, ¨Bitch¨ proves its definition. Did you see what she was wearing? I can´t believe the fat one would actually say that? Well, your with me or with her, cause you can´t be friends with both of us. If she thinks he´s going to like her over me, she´s stupider then she looks. Who let those two cows off the farm? Listen Bitch, would you shut the fuck up so we can hear what Brad has to say.
C´mon, pay attention, there´s a game going on. Well..ok. There was one thing that really intrigued me. One of the chants was freakishly similar to the Nazi Hand Jive. The fans repeatedly did the Adolf salute while singing something about whores and kristalnacht. Earlier in the evening I had learned, via a trivia dispensing local, that the Happy Port had the highest concentration of German descendants in Brazil, with the majority arriving between the early 1940´s and the mid 1950`s. Utilizing a complex strain of deductive reasoning, I decided that I would refrain from any discussions of, So, what religion are you?¨....Hans, Dieter, Paulo, We have us a Jew boy here.....Ok, ok, we´ll wait until AFTER the game.
The advantage of attending a live sporting event when you are poorly versed in the local idiom is that you don`t need to talk for three hours. Just keep shouting. My shout was arrGGHHHHHImaManEater. Then follow your indecipherable shouts with smiles and the ´thumbs up´ sign, a Brazilian favorite. And your safe. But at one point during the Foot Fairy War of Happy Port, one of my co-shouters pointed to a fan of the opposite team and said something in Portuguese with the word ´GAY´ in it. He then repeated it, in case I wasn´t familiar with the Portuguse word, GAY. The poor Homosexual community has seen its happy lisping wrist limping (read that twice please) keyword hijacked by foreigners to signify ¨all things stupid or dorkish.¨ Are Miriam and Daniel Webster aware of this?
By the second half, the thrill of brotherly love had worn off, and I just wanted to see a FRIGGIN` goal, already. An hour of men running in circles around the field produced a symphony of sighs and yelps, but no actual scoring. Maybe this is why Americans frown on the ancient sport of footieball. We want action. And we want it now. Slam dunkin´ touchdown dancin´ grand slam touchés. Watching a soccer match is like being cockteased by that girl from highschool. What´s hername. You get a stroke. A little feel. Some nibbles. A lot of rubbin´and kissin´. But after an hour being locked in the closet in John O´ Callaghan´s basement, your ready to shoot. A minimum of three scores to please the fans. But no. Not even a shootout. Your granted a tie. But in your reality, your a LOSER. The best you can hope for is to return home, to your own bedroom, and pray you can find a televised performance of what you just experienced. But with a lot more scoring.
First of all, these guys were playing for Sports Club International. But what´s your name, your mascot, who are you guys? Sports Club International. What kind of unoriginal name is that? The marketing geniuses of America would have branded you something creative like the Hawks, or the Penguins. Or something more local, like the Gauchos or the Thongs.
Perhaps, the real problem lies in soccer´s near-diplomacy manner of playing. Here, you take it. Ok. Good. Now, I take it. Oh, you want it back now. You want it, you want it. Too bad. Ah. Ok, fine, you can have it. Repeat that on-field mantra for nearly two hours, and that`s soccer. Or, maybe it´s more analogous to a modern day RippedAloudOne Van Winkle. After twenty years of a peaceful coma nap, getting his back shaved by Mom every week, he wakes up. He wants to know the score of the Israel-Palestinian Game. His Mom informs him that it´s still tied up, but Palestine has got the ball.
We don`t like diplomacy in America. Not since Mexico stole back Cancùn in the ClubMed War of 1874. We take charge. And we don´t stop to take names. Witness the war-like strategy of a football game. The potential for explosion with every play. Bombs. Sacks. Blitzes. Rushes. The entourage of middle age white men scrutizing every maneuver. The modern day man warriors of the Colisseum. They score points by evading pillaging Man-Giants. In a matter of seconds, a player has leaped 10 feet into the air, caught a ball that he then harnessed for seventy yards while salivating beasts attempted to decapitate him. Upon scoring, he stops to thank the Lord, reminding the World, that we may play harsh. We may kill a few of your children to get our touchdown. But in the end, we are only doing the work of God. And of course, we have the cheerleaders. Cause every man needs a woman to show him her pompoms.
Or basketball. Sports on Crack. That`s why Wilt set the world record for assbanging. The living epitomé of basketball. He could not stop scoring. Jumpshots. Three-pointers. Driving the Lane. Breakaways. Dunks and more Dunks. Imagine waiting 30 minutes to see a ball go through the net. No diplomacy in basketball. You bombed me. Fine, I´m coming right back and droppin´ one on you. This continues until armageddon overcomes the weaker nation. Now, that`s fun.
Baseball gets complaints for being a bit boring. And, well, it can be pretty goddamn boring. But at least your patience pays off. Like George the First waiting for junior to resume the throne. Eventually, you too get to see the statue fall. Strikeout. Walk. Maybe a single. Another single. But then somebody hits a triple, and it´s friggin´ chaos, honey. Men roundin´bases. The fatman on the plate gets bulldozed. And you got a score. And then, yes, maybe, another guys gets up there and rams the ball 435 feet (137.498 meters) out of the stadium. A kicked ball into a net will never compare.
Hockey could be the least scoring game we have, professionally. But, to be honest, it belongs to that U.S. protectorate up North. What´s their name? And to those Viking socialists across the Atlantic. So what do we, the Land of the Home and the Bravado do when you give us a sport. We tell you we want more scoring. You say it ain´t so. Fine. We decide we´re going to start smashing teeth. Cause that´s how we do things around here. We managed to turn hockey into Boxing on Ice. The U.N. may fine us. It may try to place some kind of short lived embargo on us. Maybe give us a stern public warning about the way we play. But in three minutes, we´re out. And we´re hunting for blood. Maybe we can´t penetrate your closed circuit economy. But we`ll rough up your suppliers until you let us in. That´s how we play.
Bowling is an embarrassment to both me, and the entire nation. We will accept your sanctions.
Maybe American soccer can eliminate the goalie. Bring in some thugs. Give bonus points for longer goals. And have NativeAmerican dressed gymnasts immolate themselves during halftime. It will be great, Bill. We´ll get the boys at Viagara to sponsor our stadium. Luxury skyboxes in the whole place. Leather couches, karaoke machines, and big screen televisions. We´ll parachute in some zebras to kick-off the game. Maybe have a black man dressed in Zulu stuff hack one up. You know, just for fun. The fans will have remote controls so they can vote. Every 10 minutes the player with the most votes of disappointment will be craned off the field and put into a cage where kids can throw balls to sink him into a tub of piranha filled water. We´ll check with Deb over at Eco control if the Feds will be ok with that one. This is it. Franchises. Merchandise. Little kids using our patented exploding soccer balls. America is going soccer. Big Time.
But despite its sleep inducing appeal, maybe FootballSoccer serves a greater purpose. Like Christ. He wasn´t just some long haired skinny guy from two millenia ago. Soccer unites the world, outside of America, as usual. The poorest of kids can make a ball, and find a piece of land to run around in circles on. And when a nation plays, especially the revolting ones, the guns are put down. Stores and Offices close. The streets are empty. Families, Friends, and strangers gather in front of televisions and radios. For two hours, there is Unity. There is Hope. There is Peace. Maybe the principle behind humanism is to simply follow the example of solidarity shown by sports fans. A loving brotherhood that no other spectacle has been able to acheive without force or degradation. Us Yanks may need a little Vegas on YOUR football, but I think we get the idea. If not, we´ll ask those Cub fans. Anybody still happy after 85 years of losing must be turned on to some kind of global secret for happiness.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
