Failure of the Day: Futbal? I Hardly Know Her!
Once upon a time I considered everyone who watched football a cretin. I was young and judgmental and as annoying as we all are at 23. And 33. Mostly I just didn’t know anything about it and hadn’t watched even a single game, so I had no idea how it was played, or what the rules are, or anything. That changed when Chris got sucked into fantasy football league during our last year in Seattle, and suddenly the living room TV was all booked up on Sundays with that strange white noise of crowd sounds and instantly orgasmic announcers.
I like sitting on the couch with Chris (he’s toasty!), so eventually, I picked up on the basics and could watch a game with something approaching appreciation, if not pleasure. It’s something to see 300-pound men hurl themselves at the ground with no regard for their own physical well-being. Bodily fearlessness is as anti-Nancy as it gets, and anti-Nancy is my favorite, of course, so the next thing you know, I have my own fantasy team and am having perfectly reasonable conversations about Peyton Manning.
Yesterday we watched in person as Chris’s beloved Seahawks eviscerated the poor, defenseless (no, really) 49ers. I was again impressed by how easy and convenient MUNI makes it to get to the ballpark. I was likewise impressed by how many Italian sausages and ice cream bars I can eat in a single afternoon. But what really struck me was how many of the fans were absolute cretins. Rude, sunflower seed–spitting, homophobic epithet–shouting, drunk morons.
But it’s not football’s fault. Any crowd will bring out the worst in those with a predisposition to assholery. There was no shortage of drunk morons at the various Litquake events we went to earlier this month, too. And really, I’ll take a drunk football fan over a drunk poet any day—the drunk football fan won’t get all sad at the end and make you read some godawful thing they wrote. So, you know, go Hawks.
I like sitting on the couch with Chris (he’s toasty!), so eventually, I picked up on the basics and could watch a game with something approaching appreciation, if not pleasure. It’s something to see 300-pound men hurl themselves at the ground with no regard for their own physical well-being. Bodily fearlessness is as anti-Nancy as it gets, and anti-Nancy is my favorite, of course, so the next thing you know, I have my own fantasy team and am having perfectly reasonable conversations about Peyton Manning.
Yesterday we watched in person as Chris’s beloved Seahawks eviscerated the poor, defenseless (no, really) 49ers. I was again impressed by how easy and convenient MUNI makes it to get to the ballpark. I was likewise impressed by how many Italian sausages and ice cream bars I can eat in a single afternoon. But what really struck me was how many of the fans were absolute cretins. Rude, sunflower seed–spitting, homophobic epithet–shouting, drunk morons.
But it’s not football’s fault. Any crowd will bring out the worst in those with a predisposition to assholery. There was no shortage of drunk morons at the various Litquake events we went to earlier this month, too. And really, I’ll take a drunk football fan over a drunk poet any day—the drunk football fan won’t get all sad at the end and make you read some godawful thing they wrote. So, you know, go Hawks.
posted by Nancy @ 1:50 PM
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