Magic Jewball

I rarely eat my blogwords, but I have to admit that I did get into the whole World Cup hoopla towards the end. It sucked me in slowly slowly. Here’s my problem. Even with a sporting event I care nothing about, I can’t help picking favorites. Then my favorites lose and I feel depressed about it even though I never watched a single game. I started with the US (I do live here, no matter how pathetic they are). That lasted for the two days they were actually in the tournament. I then moved onto Ghana which has some players who play in Israel normally. So I had to go for them. Yes, another crushing defeat. Then I had Argentina. That was for David Nalbandian. When he’s happy I’m happy. I don’t need to tell you how that ended. Finally, I had France. Enough said.

I never did get what’s so beautiful about the game. I will say that even though there are fewer goals than those “Macarena” guys had hits, there are more near misses than you’d think. Plus, I spent the last two games in downtown bars with my friend Lisa, who’d recently returned from a French vacation and would have taken home the whole country in her suitcase if she could have. So she was quite enthusiastic. And the bar experience was really cool. The first one we went to, versus Portugal, was more like a library than a bar. I have never heard such silence in a bar in my life. Everybody had the intensity of combat fighters in that place. But it was fun and the scene in the street was brilliant, unless you were Portuguese. But I’ve never seen a Portuguese person in NYC and I didn’t really see any here either.

The atmosphere at the final was a little different what with Italians outnumbering French people in the New York area 13 to 1. Lisa, her family, and I were in the distinct minority. I won’t give away the ending in case you haven’t gotten around to watching it on your Tivo, but suffice to say, we kind of felt like we’d been headbutted in the sternum. I did see those same guys from this picture, and the Italian girl who’d been sitting in front of us yelled “losers!” at them. Nice.

I should also say that I began that day by waking up at 9am to watch the Wimbledon final (my guy, Nadal, lost) and then later went home to watch the replay of the Yankee game (they lost too).

So, should you be an athlete and wish to buy me off so I won’t support you, please e-mail me with your bids. I am, as always, for sale.

Beck – Loser