Category: Uncategorized (So Far)

It’s not that I can’t speak rationally about Tottenham Hotspur. It’s just that doing so is like trying to describe a vibrantly colored oil painting in terms of whites, blacks and grays.

For example I could describe Spurs’ inability to put Saturday’s match away in terms of accumulated fatigue, both long- and short-term. It’s a long season, and Spurs played in four different competitions this year (the Premier League, the League Cup, the FA Cup, and the Europa League), only recently got knocked out of the FA Cup, and still are participating in the Premier League (obviously) and the Europa League. Furthermore, before Saturday’s game, they played on Wednesday, the previous Sunday, and the Thursday before that. Having watched more high-level soccer than any normal human should, I can assure you that the outlier physical specimens that are professional soccer players still need 96 hours between games to (more or less) fully recover.

So a young team, facing a shocking level of pressure (Spurs haven’t won the top level of English football since the ’60s), after a ridiculous four matches in ten days, took a one goal lead while playing up a man and somehow let off the intensity a little. Speaking rationally, is that really a surprise?

It isn’t. In black and white, clearly that’s part of what happened.

But let’s bring some color back to the discussion. The other part is that Tottenham Hotspur are cursed.

I awoke Saturday feeling great excitement while trying to ignore an equally great trepidation. That morning, my beloved Tottenham Hotspur were playing their most heated match of the year, the North London derby against their arch-rivals Arsenal. This specific iteration of the derby was arguably the biggest league match between the two teams since the advent of the Premier League. Tottenham started the day in second place in the league, three points behind surprise league-leaders Leicester City. Arsenal sat in third place, three points further behind. No one seems to believe that tiny Leicester can possibly hold on to win the league, so pundits have started saying that this Tottenham team, playing the best football seen from a Spurs side since perhaps the ’60s, with the youngest squad in the Premier League, allowing the fewest goals, and holding the best goal differential–these are not the sort of descriptors normally given to Spurs, by the way–should be considered favorites to win the League.

Everyone picking Spurs as favorites to win the Prem clearly hasn’t really watched a whole lot of Spurs over the years, and so they’re failing to take into account a very important detail. I have, and I know better.

You see, Spurs are cursed.

Here’s one example: Spurs went into the final game of the 05-06 season up a point against Arsenal for the final Champions League spot, only to have literally half their squad get violently sick the night before with what was initially reported as food poisoning. They lost their match, Arsenal won theirs, and Spurs ended up in the UEFA Cup.

(The illness turned out to have been caused by a particularly nasty virus, but still, it’s fair to call that ridiculously bad luck.)

Here’s another: The 2011-2012 Spurs side was in third place for most of the season, but then took a dreadful six points from a possible twenty-seven from late February until late April to fall to fourth–still usually good enough for Champions League football–and then got booted from qualification because stupid Chelsea, outside the top-four in the Premier League that year, won the Champions League. Need I even mention that the third-place team, only one point ahead in the table, was Arsenal?

Here’s one more: When a player hasn’t scored in a long, long time, a match against Spurs frequently puts an end to that streak. I’ve lost count of the number of times that an opponent has scored, after which the commentator says something along the lines of, “That’s his first Premier League goal in 216 games!”

So when Saturday’s pre-match commentary mentioned that Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez hadn’t scored since October, a run of eleven straight games, his longest drought since he came to the Premier League, can you understand why my trepidation took on a hue of terror?

But let us not forget that I am a fan of Tottenham Hotspur in the purest sense of the word. Thus while I was desperately afraid, as experience would dictate, I was simultaneously stupidly optimistic, because love makes you stupid.

I watched the match through my fingers. Spurs had all the early possession, but you could clearly see their relative lack of experience. All they could do with their possession was take bad shots and made bad decisions. Everyone wanted to be the hero. Still, they were, for the first part of the game, clearly the better team. I prayed that they’d score and settle down a little.

Predictably, it was Arsenal who scored first. Aaron Ramsey took advantage of some poor defending and put Arsenal ahead in the 39th minute.

Arsenal carried their 1-0 lead into the second half. But then in the 55th minute, Francis Coquelin got a stupid yellow card–his second stupid yellow card–for a reckless, pointless foul on Harry Kane. Match referee Michael Oliver literally shrugged as he pulled the card out his pocket, like What choice do you leave me? And suddenly Spurs were up a man with 35 minutes left to play. And then Toby Alderweireld scored off a corner kick in the 60th minute, and Harry Kane scored a gorgeous goal in the 62nd, curling the ball in from the side of the box, and just like that, Spurs had a 2-1 lead.

And what happened next? Did Spurs, the better team, playing at home, up a goal and a man, with a style based on high pressure and ball possession, take over the game and calmly dispatch the weakened and demoralized Arsenal side? Did they quickly get another goal and put the game away?

Do I really need to answer that?

No, they did not. Instead, I had to watch the sad spectacle of Spurs trying to kill off the clock like there were four minutes left instead of thirty. I watched them waste time, cheaply give possession away, and defend desperately. Anyone who turned on the game during the last twenty-five or so minutes would have been hard pressed to believe that Arsenal were down a man–they had most of the possession and all of the thrust.

And of course–of course!–it was Alexis Sanchez who scored the equalizer in the 77th minute.

It had to be. This is Spurs, after all.

A rational person would tell you that there’s no such thing as a curse, that this is the kind of weird confirmation bias that sports fans so regularly participate in. But being a sports fan has nothing to do with rationality. Really. Ask any true fan. If he’s being honest, any true fan will tell you that rationality doesn’t hold sway because in sports you are dealing with a realm of magic. It is because of the power of this magic that we watch grown adults run around playing what should be children’s games, except in front of thousands of people for millions of dollars. We plan our days around watching. We sweat and we scream. Rational? Good god no. But once you have seen that there is magic in the world and it is on display on the sports field, its power can be too much to overcome.

So yes of course Alexis Sanchez scored the equalizer. Only a desperation tackle by Kevin Wimmer against Aaron Ramsey in the final minutes kept Spurs from losing the game outright. And thus Spurs squandered yet another chance. Of course they did. It had to be that way.

So now will I finally do the rational thing and pull my energy away from this fruitless endeavor? Will I watch only idly for the rest of the season instead of opening my heart and pouring myself into something over which I have no control? Of course not. This is not the realm of rationality. This is the realm of magic and of love, and in the face of such forces I am powerless.

A comment from Jerry yesterday has me asking: because of ski instructing and, more importantly, TTW, has writing stopped being my job and instead become complementary to it?

You were awake when he switched off his bedroom light and the curtains released their illuminated glow. All was dark. You went to sleep, slept fitfully, awakened to the digital clock at your bedside showing a paltry number. You are awake.

You look out the window and see his curtains glowing. Right now, in the quiet dark hours of the middle of the night, he too is awake. You are awake because you can’t sleep. And because your mind races to his window. You want to tap on it. You want to ask him, with concern you know isn’t proper: Why are you awake in these dark hours?

Today is Super Tuesday. Colorado is holding its Democratic Party caucuses tonight. And I am choosing not to participate.

Eight years ago, it felt very important to participate. I sat in a room at the local high school and listened to people, good solid citizens, make semi-coherent speeches in support of their favored candidate, and then all of us in the room voted not for a specific candidate but for someone who promised to support one candidate or the other, or something like that. (No one actually knows how the hell caucuses work. Democracy in action!) I threw my weight behind Barack Obama and his promise of change. Obama won Colorado and, a few months later, the nomination. In November, on election night, when he was declared the winner, I wept and whispered to myself, “We did it.”

After the election but well before his inauguration, Obama announced that he would nominate Timothy Geitner as Treasury Secretary, and I realized I’d been naive. He was promising change but was going to do nothing to challenge the power structures already in place.

Interestingly, I think Bernie Sanders really would try to bring change. And his politics align closely with mine. But I’m nevertheless staying home tonight.

I would participate if I believed a Sanders presidency would be good for the country, but I do not. Congress will continue to be controlled by the far-right wing of the Republican Party. A self-proclaimed socialist in the Oval Office would only increase the corrosiveness of their power.

But more fully, I believe that whatever the final outcome of the general election is, it will be bad for the country, because “bad for the country” is at this point built into the process. It will take much deeper reform than a new president to begin to make things better.

I’m choosing to not participate in the caucus tonight because I only have so much time. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter who wins; that’s just denying reality. I’m simply saying my time will be better spent elsewhere. If we’re going to make things better, we’re going to have to find some pan-partisan way of tackling the issues facing us. The ‘Bama-versus-Auburn-type hatred that characterizes the American political system right now needs to end, or we’re done.

If I’m going to put any time into the political process, it has to be toward that goal.

“My cup runneth over,” says the holy book. Meaning: I have more than enough.

Here is the part where this slightly silly (but not facetious) piece about a mug that grants you free refills begins to point to something deeper.

When I look out on the world I see more than enough for everyone. Some people have not just more than they need but more than they could ever possibly use. And some people have nothing.

No one’s cup should go empty. There is more than enough for everyone. Everyone’s cup (well, mug) should runneth over.

Go check it out.

In our culture, we’re uncomfortable with constraint. We’re taught that there’s no such thing as enough, that more is always better, that lack of constraint is freedom. But consider: the lines on the court and the net in the middle tell you, “Bring your tennis racquet but leave your squash racquet at home.” The lines–literal and otherwise–delineate the field of play. Without the constraint, there is no game.

Let’s play a game. There’s only one rule: the piece must be exactly five sentences long. Within that limitation, can you still communicate something interesting while maintaining a sense of aesthetic joy? (After all, there is more to a piece than just what it says–you seek a certain elegance in cadence and rhythm and the sonority of the words.) You play by attempting to play, and you win if, when you get to the end of the piece, you smile.

The doors open and he gets on the elevator. He glances your way and smiles, then turns and presses a button with a number on it. The number is lower than the number you pressed a minute or so before. The doors close and the elevator continues its ascent.

As is proper, you both face the doors, but you cast a few glances his way. You note approvingly the clean symmetry of his necktie’s full Windsor.

The elevator reaches his floor and the doors open with a small ding. He glances your way again and offers another pleasant smile. He steps out of the elevator. The doors close, leaving you alone. The elevator again accelerates upward.

Two seconds pass. Two more. A fifth. You scold the matte gray metal of the doors: “You didn’t even try to kiss me.”