How I Make the Team Win

When people ask me if I’m superstitious, I answer assuredly, “Nope!”

I played NCAA Division I soccer, and a lot of competitive soccer to get there. (And no, I’m not going to get tired of bringing that up.) Throughout my career, if I didn’t have the right shirt, the right bra, stepped on the sideline or not, whatever, I was ok; I never thought about what order I put my gear on, which shoes I tied first.

And yet, as a fan? I get so idiotic following my temporary, impulsive, newly imagined superstitions. They’re not even legit, consistent game-to-game superstitions; they’re just what occurs to me during the course of a single game. I compulsively follow whatever idea suddenly pops into my had as good luck—and those impulses must be having an effect, otherwise I would’ve learned from logic and stopped trying right?

I think I’m going to call it Helpless Fan Syndrome: You can’t be on the field, so you invent ways to be proactive.

Is anyone else so…Mormon with their superstitions? Just top-of-the-head, “It came to mind, therefore it must be God’s law”? I make fun of it, and then my brain goes all, “For the Bolts to win, you have to wear the same underwear that you wore while eating that really great sandwich you had last Wednesday, and take out your left earring, ’cause it’s an away game,” and I’m like, “OH, SHIT, DUH.” […* dutifully changes underwear, removes earring.]

While it’s obvious that my techniques are still being developed (as of the Bolts/Rays results in the last 24 hours, and the Bucs…well, pretty much all the time), here are some things I did right to cause the Rays to win Wednesday: (And it’s not at all a coincidence, then, that I did none of these things today–hence the blowout.)

1. Drank out of the same glass I used during Monday’s win. (Unwashed. Duh.)
2. Refused to let that glass go empty.
3. Did not wear any of my Rays gear. (One of my longer-standing superstitions deems that wearing team gear—or even using team-branded items like cozies and whatnot—is bad luck.)
4. Nor did I wear anything blue or yellow or green.
5. Answered only “yes yes” and “woo” to any IMs I got in support of the Rays during the final two innings.
6. Kept my phone plugged in throughout the ninth inning, even though it was fully charged midway through.
7. Knocked twice on my head, wooden TV tray and wooden coffee table (in a random order) with my right hand, then on my head and coffee table (random order) with my left hand every time an announcer said something jinxy.
8. Made this list eight items long, ‘cause eight is a good number.

When in doubt and your team is down, you can always go to the time-tested and proven “rally shot.” In the best circumstances, this involves the cheapest tequila available at the bar (see: El Toro, Pepe Lopez)*. Among many success stories, this shot’s greatest achievement? The USWNT comeback win over Brazil, during which CCB, the Deelios and I, in an unparalleled moment of patriotism, took one (apiece) for the team. And then this happened:

 

 

In a pinch, you can use whatever somehow detestable shot you have on-hand that you can suffer through without ruining your experience for the rest of the game.

But lastly, a few words of warning for wielding the power of the rally shot:

1. Never take a rally shot when your team is up or tied. (That means it’s rallying for the other team.)
2. Be very, very careful taking a second rally shot—you never know if the first one is still working, and you may counteract it and/or die.
3. And speaking of: Never take a rally shot after midnight. I dunno if it’s bad luck, but I’m pretty sure it’s just straight-up a bad idea.

 

*Holy god with those websites. Now I see where they get their power…

Arguing with Assholes in My Head

Slightly more obscure source material for this “song”–here’s the original:

 

Aaaaaand my Monday-inspired madness:

 

Rage is here, rage is here.

Life is violence and life is beer.

I think the stuff that’s the hardest to cage

Is the rage—I do; don’t you? Bite me.

 

But there’s one thing that fuels my hostility,

That ruins my shaky civility…

 

All the world needs a punch—

Not just one, but a bunch—

When I’m arguing with assholes in my head.

 

Random moments you’ll see

Sudden outbursts from me

When I’m arguing with assholes in my head.

 

It starts with a moment to ponder my circumstance

And ends with Banana transformed to Ms. Grumpy Pants.

 

Oh you’ll soon find me in

Some secure loony bin

When I’m arguing with assholes in my head.

 

I’ve gained reputation

For threat’ning castration

Of each aberration

Whom I’ve met.

My imagination

Drifts toward mutilation

For every occasion

I dream I might get.

But it’s not based in any reality;

Just a spiritual abnormality.

 

So if one day you see

Something maddening me

I’m just arguing with assholes in my head.

 

And maybe I’ll dream

Of a nice peaceful stream—

Or I’ll argue with assholes in my head.

 

I’ll fight with them all amid building insanity.

It’s not just a few; it’s the whole of humanity.

 

My mind will be spinning

As phantoms are winning

The fights I’m creating—

It’s quite irritating—

When I’m arguing with assholes in my head.

Me and the Mexican Drug War

“The tacit but unwavering tolerance that Mexican authorities have shown for the drug trade over the years has muddled the boundaries between outlaws and officials. When Miguel Angel Martínez was working for Chapo, he says, “everyone” in the organization had military and police identification. Daylight killings are sometimes carried out by men dressed in police uniforms, and it is not always clear, after the fact, whether the perpetrators were thugs masquerading as policemen or actual policemen providing paid assistance to the thugs. On those occasions when the government scores a big arrest, meanwhile, police and military officials pose for photos at the valedictory news conference brandishing assault weapons, their faces shrouded in ski masks, to shield their identities. In the trippy semiotics of the drug war, the cops dress like bandits, and the bandits dress like cops.”—New York Times, “How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes its Billions”

My obsession with sociological wackiness continues: First (and still, really), it was Scientology with Inside Scientology. Then I was astounded at the revelations about Mormonism in Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. (Honestly, up until that point, I’d thought Mormonism akin to, say, Presbyterianism.) Now, having read all the feature-length articles I could find online, I find myself plowing through the life of a Mexican cartel hitman in El Sicario.

It must’ve been in the last year or so when the topic of Mexican drug cartels caught my attention. Rolling Stone did an article about a (relatively) small-time but incredibly violent American-born cartel boss called “El Barbie” (for his Ken-like looks, heh). Then there was a story in Time about narcorridos, the folk/pop songs dedicated to praising various drug lords—and often commissioned by the drug lords themselves. (And in some cases, costing the musicians their lives for being associated with one group or another.) Our plowing through five seasons of Breaking Bad probably helped fan the flames. And woven all throughout, the news stories of bodies, mutilated and displayed in horrifically creative ways. Complete and utter chaos. A nightmare, but on the wrong side of consciousness.

I think about that scene in Apocalypse Now where, in the middle of the night, they come across an isolated Army outpost on the river. There’s a protracted firefight going on, a sort of steady plod of explosions and bursts of gunfire, but in between, you can hear a Viet Minh guy somewhere in the darkness of the surrounding forest, shouting taunts at the Americans over a loudspeaker. In a foxhole, Martin Sheen comes across this soldier who’s manic with firing grenades back at the voice. Sheen finally manages to ask, “Excuse me, I’m looking for your commanding officer?” And the guy stops his whole whirlwind and looks dead at Sheen: “Ain’t it you?!”

A fascinating, horrifying madness. I dunno, I guess this is how I get my thrills instead of roller coasters.

It’s timely too, I guess: Felipe Calderon, whose presidential term ends this winter, is largely faulted for the incredible uptick in violence—more than 50,000 cartel-related deaths in six years. His military-led crackdown on the cartel leaders, which began shortly after he came to power in 2006, is said to have created violent power-struggles where before, at least, the various factions had come to a sort of grudging balance.

Now, the cartels-in-flux use conspicuously displayed mutilated corpses to show their power and fearlessness, to try to scare the other guys away. And thousands more people are killed and buried, or dissolved in acid. It’s easier to kill someone than to let them go, and anyone can be killed and proclaimed an enemy later. And everyone is fair game.

Anyway, it’s Friday afternoon, and my brain is swirling with information about Sinaloa and La Familia, Zetas and Mata Zetas, cops on the kidnapping task force who are the ones doing the kidnapping, and 12-year-olds who pose for pictures with M-16s and corpses; shootings and beheadings and some seriously, seriously fucked up approaches to torture. I’m trying to reconstruct a mindset that would allow people to live amid all of that stuff, never mind participate in it.

Um, so…yeah. That’s where I’m at. Uh…have a happy weekend! Watch out for psychopaths!