I've never fit neatly into groups. The high school clique system eldued me, and I have even had a hard time relating to most other football fans. My wife, back when we were dating, even noticed it... "You're weird. You don't drink while you watch football, and you don't really get interested in the cheerleaders. You make it all nerdy and intellectual." Guilty as charged.
I'm a college professor, and... big shock... I don't really fit in with the other folks there either. This got shoved in my face yesterday when I happened to mention the Super Bowl in the computer lab. This other professor started in on how football was a meaningless spectacle, and how she couldn't fathom how people get so emotionally invested in it... blah blah blah.
As you readers obviously know, it means something to me. If you are here, it means something to you too. When I think about where I come closest to fitting in, it's with my fellow Twelves. I'm not an idiot. I know that it's just a game. I know that I don't have any control over the results. I know it's irrational as fuck.
I know this, and I don't care. WE give it meaning. Plenty of people don't care about football, but they care about something else (I hope). If I waved my hand in dismissal and deemed those passions meaningless, I'd be... hmm... how does one put this? A huge fucking dickbasket.
But that's what this supposedly enlightened, open-minded academic said about the NFL, about the Super Bowl, about our thing. I laid into her verbally and exposed her hypocrisy, finally getting her to admit that she simply hated the sport. She was reduced to making the kind of anecdotal arguments to explain larger social trends that we'd NEVER accept in a student's research paper.
I think in part she was surprised that someone who was another flaming lib-rul academic was interested in such a barbaric, non-PBS pursuit... I was certainly surprised by her smug arrogance, and it's obvious we parted both thinking far less of the other.
But I'm out there, hoisting the standard of our passion, fellow Twelves. She can go all Squidward this Sunday. We'll be enjoying our Bread and Circuses, and with gusto.
By the way, I'll say Saints 34, Colts 31.
3 comments:
DKCB-
I love your blog because I am just like you: another nerdy, intellectual, blue and green blooded football fan. I am glad to have found another out there.
Right on the money yet again, O Bearded One. One flaming 12 to another.
The great preacher John Wesley described his work thusly: "I just set myself on fire and people gather from miles around to witness the spectacle."
The hypocrisy of the lib-rul mind is as boundless in it's ways as the whack jobs on the other end.
Trust that you didn't hurt your chances at tenure by daring to differ from the PBS party line.
The American people are as rootless as they come, nowhere else on Earth is the entire nation populated by people forced by circumstance, whether voluntary or involuntary, to end up here. Even the indigenous peoples are here because they got fed up living in that shithole called Siberia and took a hike.
The ease with which we can remove ourselves geographically at a moment's notice has multiplied the rootlessness of the American soul, so God help you if you attempt to undermine the tribal affiliations that give me what roots I might have. And, if you just scratch the surface, you'll see those roots bleed Seahawk blue.
Likely that the lib-rul haters hate our culture because they are terrified of any kind of passion whatsoever and are determined to shrinkwrap the entire world for their protection. Makes me want to howl like a banshee on 3rd and long just to piss 'em off...
And furthermore:
Saints 42, Colts 40 (2 OT)
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