My Month of Soccer

The World Cup is the greatest thing that mankind has ever created. And if you disagree with that statement then you are wrong. And you probably lead a sad grey passionless existence in which you pray every day for the sweet release of death.

Or maybe you just have an actual life.
Whatever.

Point is that over the past month I have experienced every possible human emotion at least ten times over. I lost sleep, hair, and my voice. I drank copious amounts of beer, hugged and slapped hands with complete strangers and got so filled with tension that I seriously worried that my heart might explode. And my level of soccer knowledge went from “I hope that one guy can kick the ball into the net soon” to “it’s the 85th minute and if they don’t fucking switch to a goddamn 4-3-3 soon then no amount of stoppage time is going to get them the equalizer”. But just enough knowledge of soccer to be completely obnoxious is not all I picked up over the past month. Theres more...

Things I Learned During The World Cup:

*US sports teams names are lame. The Falcons? The Eagles? The Reds? Try The Super Eagles, The Indomitable Lions, and La Furija Roja (The Furious Red). And it's not just the addition of adjectives either. The Greek team is called The Pirate Ship. That’s the greatest name for anything ever. Come on America, step your game up.

(Second place for best name for anything ever? Nigeria has a President named Goodluck Jonathan. No, I'm not making that up)

*Cardiologists must love The World Cup.

*Despite the success of this World Cup I feel certain that South Africa is never, ever, EVER going to be allowed to host a worldwide sports competition again. (Thanks a lot vuvuzelas)
Speaking of which…

*The amount of World Cup you have watched can be best defined by which of these quotes sums up your feelings on hearing a chorus of vuvuzelas:
1.) “What is vuvuzela?”
2.) “Vuvuzelas are the worst, most obnoxious thing in the history of the world!”
3.) “Oh, are thousands of people blowing on vuvuzelas at the moment? I didn’t even notice.”
4.) “I’ve started sleeping under a bees’ nest because I’m no longer able to be at peace in the world without the sweet dulcet tones of vuvuzela wafting through the air.”

*When you’re watching a sporting event that is not the World Cup if you yell out “come on, that’s a clear yellow card!” people will look at you funny.

*Apparently the players for Paraguay have no problem looking like escaped convicts from a jail for clowns.

*It's good to know that no matter what our differences might be, all nations in the world are united in our hatred of the French.

*Soccer is now officially the indie rock of American sports.

*Musically speaking all national anthems pretty much sound they same. And they all kind of suck.

*Both the best and the worst thing about soccer is watching a guy writhing in pain get carried off the pitch on a stretcher only to hop off and be perfectly fine the second he gets to the sideline.

*Whoever thought of the idea to give the New Zealand All-Whites an almost all black uniform is my new hero.

*Spain's David Villa is the first person in history to successfully pull off the soul patch.

*USA is without a doubt the most easily chant-able of all the country names in existence. Unless of course there is a BeatL.A.istan or a Republic of YankeesSuck somewhere I don’t know about.

*There are black people in Switzerland.

*There really need to be more occasions wherein it’s culturally acceptable to drink in a bar at 10am on a weekday.

*It's hard to take a man seriously when his name is Kaka.

*The World Cup can teach you a lot about your neighbors. For instance I had no idea so many people of Serbian descent live in my neighborhood.

*If you ever visit Portugal don’t ever accidentally graze past anyone on the street or they will fall into a heap on the ground and writhe around in agony like they have been shot. They are a fragile people. Also, they suck.

*Ian Darke is the Gus Johnson of soccer. But neither of them have anything on this guy.

*Soccer terminology is so much more sophisticated and classy than the language we use in American sports. Teams aren’t "playing well" they are "displaying good quality". The ball doesn’t get "stolen" it gets "dispossessed". And I'm not even taking into account the time an announcer called the Paraguayan defense "obdurate".

*Diego Forlan is very good at soccer. He is also very good at looking like the love child of Bradley Cooper and Sean Penn.

*Like the wannabe pseudo-hipster I am I have really fallen in love with soccer jerseys. (Or kits I believe they're called?)

My five favorites of the World Cup:
5.) Spain - Away
4.) Brazil - Home
3.) Mexico - Away
2.) Portugal - Home (which I would have bought if I didn’t hate Portugal so much)
1.) Australia - Home (which I might or might not have made a special trip to Niketown to buy)

*And finally, with all due respect to Paul the Octopus, Diego Maradona, the French team refusing to practice, and the heroic run of Ghana, the thing that will always be the highlight of this World Cup, this past month, this whole summer is of course Donovan's goal vs. Algeria. I will remember it for the rest of my life and it made every hour I spent watching these games totally worth it. So thanks for everything soccer. I'll see you again in four years.

Why A 59-Year-Old Man Losing A Golf Tournament Is What Sports Are All About

As someone surrounded by artistic types, I frequently have to defend my love and passion for sports. And in defending my love for sports I often find myself trying to explain why they are important and why they matters. And sure there are plenty of reasons, both big and small why I’m a sports fan and why I think following sports is a legitimately good and worthwhile way to spend ones time, but one of the best arguments I can make was illustrated today by Tom Watson’s loss at the British Open.

For those who don’t know, The British Open is one of golf’s four major championships – like the Super Bowl, only there happened to be four each year. The legacy of a golfer is defined by how he plays in the majors. And major championships are events that are watched by the whole world. Well heading into the final hole of the British Open today an American named Tom Watson was in the lead. This might not seem significant until I mention the fact that Tom Watson is 59 years old. Yes, that’s right, 59. Many of his competitors hadn’t even been born yet when he won his first British Open. He had been a great player in his day, but he had been forgotten about, written off, and basically left for dead. And in a sports world where 40 is considered ancient, 59 is practically corpse-like. If he were to win this tournament he would become the oldest champion in any sport in American sports history by over 12 years. It would be almost beyond historic. Words really can’t do it justice.

So as Tom Watson strolled up the fairway of his final hole to thunderous applause it was one of the most beautiful and moving moments Id ever seen on a TV screen. I saw all the old men in the crowd, who seemed so hopeful and full of life and suddenly not so old after all. I thought of my Dad at home with his bad knees and bad back and chronically sore feet watching this man only a few months younger than himself about to win one of the toughest and most fiercely competitive sporting events in the world. I watched in awe as Tom Watson made his way to his ball, and as the power and beauty of the moment began to engulf me, my eyes started to well up with tears. All he had to do was make this simple 8-foot putt and the championship would be his. History would be made. It would be a moment I would one day tell my kids about.

And then he missed the putt. And he missed it badly.

And that’s why I love sports.

We spend so much of our free time consuming scripted entertainments of all types- movies, TV shows, plays, etc. – and yet no one ever really questions the validity of these “arts”. Their value seems clear – they provide entertainment and hopefully say something about life and the human condition. But when I was waiting for Tom Watson to make his putt today I was pacing around the room, palms sweaty, heart beating out of my chest and I couldn’t remember the last thing I watched that entertained and engaged me on such a strongly visceral level – well besides other sporting events. And more crucially, in almost any movie he makes that putt. But he didn’t. Because that’s how sports work. Sometimes the good guys lose. Sometimes the bad guys win. Sometimes beautiful moments fall apart in an instant and in other moments the mundane becomes sublime. Sports are often boring and almost always disappointing in the end. But then sometimes things happen that are so wonderful and incredible that they would be impossible to make up no matter how hard you tried. And there’s often no rhyme or reason for any it. All this sound like anything you know? It should, because its life. Life as it actually is, and not life as scripted “art” would have it be. It’s the reality that reality TV can only hope to be. But it never can because anything that is in any way scripted or controlled will always have a level of remove from real life. Whenever you’re watching a movie you know in the back of your mind that no matter how bad things get the hero won’t die, the boy won’t lose the girl, the world won’t end. And even if those things do happen, it’s okay - it’s not real. You have the safety of artificiality to guard you.

But if you want to experience entertainment without that safety net, entertainment where there is real heartbreak and real disappointment, real joy and real ecstasy, well I've got something for you.

Its called sports.

And it’s awesome.