WWII Part II
The outside door and the vestibule door were wide open so Bill Macy and I came in off the street straight into the building and down the hall and into the first apartment that offered no resistance. The bed wasn't made and there were dirty clothes on the floor. While Macy got the TV going I ransacked the kitchen and chanted USA, USA, USA. The kitchen pantry and fridge were crowded with stuff but yielded little of interest. We had just eaten at Another Name restaurant and so weren't that hungry anyway. The Restauranteur had said we could watch the game in her apartment and warned us about the unmade bed. I'm not sure why we were supposed to give a damn about that, but since she mentioned it I thought I would too. I contemplate the title Ballad of the Unmade Bed.
The French had a Portuguese secret weapon named Bompastor who was a brief challenge to my national loyalty but in the end I took Bill Macy's advice which had been to snap out of it man, you're an American, keep your mind on the game. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the prize and so forth. That's easy for you to say, Macy, I said, completely unaware of why it would be or if it ever was. It was a tie game at 1-1 but then Bompastor lost a shoe and couldn't untie the knot to get it back on and shortly after that is was 3-1 USA, game over.
The Restauranteur came in with a dog named Pickles, just walked in like she owned the place, fumbled around in the kitchen for awhile and served up some sliced watermelon. By this time Macy and I were bored out of our minds watching the Japan v. Sweden game. Thanks for the watermelon and the use of your TV Restauranteur but good God how much of this women's soccer are we required to tolerate? She had no answer for that. Womens soccer was not her idea. Bill Macy and I had conjured it out of thin air. Macy made small talk. He got the Restauranteur talking about the last televised sporting event she had hosted. She said with all the clever critical talk and analyzation going on she had felt a little like jimlouis. I knew just what she meant. Oh you were feeling a little jimlouisy, I sympathized. That's rough. Did your head explode? You were just going along fine and then all of a sudden out of the blue you asked yourself--could people really not shut the fuck up for one minute and quit being clever and just watch the game--and that's pretty much the end. There is no recovery after that. There is the exploding head or retreat, those are the only two choices.
Maybe it's not so much the cleverness per se but the concentration of cleverness, or the competitiveness of cleverness or maybe it is just the sheer volume of cleverness unbridled that lights the fuse on the way to your head exploding. Anyway, it's bad for everybody. Nobody likes the guy the with the exploding head at their party. People are always having to tiptoe around him (careful, they whisper to each other, his head has been known to explode). Kids nudge each other giggling and pointing at the exploder--he's gonna blow they squeal, spitting red kool-aid over each other.
There are drugs which effectively combat jimlouisy syndrome but all of them have side effects including dry mouth, diarrhea, six hour erections, slow painful death, itchy eyes, aching joints, heart palpitations, slurred speech, shakespearian recitation, and in severe cases--that irresistible yearning to weave baskets.
Macy and I tried to be clever while making fun of the women's soccer announcers. One of them was clearly trying to come up with the encapsulating catch phrase that would sum up for the world just how amazing was this USA women's soccer team. We imitated him. But we weren't at the top of our game. We weren't that clever. We came up with not a single memorable slogan/catch phrase. Its okay not to be clever every day. USA Women's Soccer--They Score. USA Women's Soccer--They Kick Balls. USA Women's Soccer--They Tend to Score More Goals Than Their Opponents...eh, you can't force it.
USA v. Japan on Sunday for championship of the world. Let's dust off those slogans people.
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