CSotD: Accepting the Cup
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Drew Litton with a sports-cartoonist's confession on the eve of the World Cup.
There is more joy in Rio over one commentator who repents than over 99 who got it from the get-go.
American indifference to the World Cup I can sorta kinda understand, at least if you add "Over 50" as a qualifier. Most Americans under 50 have had a chance to play the sport, whether they took advantage of it or not.
While I snort at the pop-culture notion of "Baby Boomers" as a sociological group — what on earth does someone born in 1946 have in common with anyone born in 1964? — they do share the common American experience of soccer having been, in their childhood, a game played mainly in prep schools.
Which has certainly changed in the years since. This basically means that going off about how boring soccer is and how pointless it is and what a stupid sport it is has gradually become an excellent way to afix "I Am An Old Fart" to your forehead without the pain and expense of visiting a tattoo parlor.
I realize there are people well under 50 who also don't like soccer, but there is no real age requirement for being a tiresome old fart. I've known some farts who were old and completely tiresome before they reached 30.
The point not being whether they do or don't like soccer — because who cares? — but that they feel compelled to whine and complain about it — because the answer to "Who cares?" is "Nobody."
I don't care about golf or tennis or motor sports, but I don't flatter myself that it matters a whole lot. I'll grant that, if I still worked in an office setting, I'd find it vaguely annoying to have everyone chattering about the French Open or Tiger Woods or the Indy 500.
Or "Game of Thrones" or "Dancing With The Stars" or any number of things that aren't on my radar.
Here's a little known fact: You don't have to like everything.
I had some good friends on the basketball team in college. I went to see them play once, freshman year. A couple of them came down to the coffeehouse once when I was playing there. Our friendship did not require ticket stubs for verification.
Nor should anyone's self-worth be dependent on how they feel about soccer or "Orange is the New Black" or tiramisu.
It should depend on how they feel about comics, of course.
You knew that.
In today's "Understanding Chaos," Gustavo Roderiguez takes on the phenomenon of America's love affair with not getting it. You'll have to forgive Garrincha for being amused by it all: He only arrived from Cuba nine years ago.
Cuba may be somewhat isolated, but it's still on this planet and its inhabitants do grow up knowing about soccer.
For my part, I don't think I'm hypocritical for going ballistic over sports commentators going ballistic over how much they dislike soccer.
I have devoted a substantial number of years to trying to get kids to find newspapers interesting. It's one thing for the people who control the content of those papers to ignore what kids care about, but they don't need to openly diss it.
The only thing more tiresome than sports fans who feel compelled to go on about how much they hate soccer is non-sports fans who feel compelled to go on about how much they hate all sports.
Well, folks, like it or not, World Cup starts today.
And if you have to endure someone going on about how much they hate soccer, simply respond as if they were an eight-year-old adamantly complaining about how much they hate whatever member of the opposite sex upon whom they currently have a prepubescent crush.
"Oh, look who loooooves the World Cup! Johnny and Pele
sitting in a tree, K-I-C-K-I-N-G!"
This book is gonna knock you out!
This preview of "The Art of Richard Thompson" escaped into the intertubes this week.
The preview is only of some sketches and there will also be plenty of his extraordinary finished artwork, but this particularly puckish piece cracked me up.
The book won't publish until November, but if you go here you can pre-order a signed copy.
And now, your moment of zen. No, really!
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