GOAL! The Weird World of the World Cup, By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

June 30, 2010 Whitney Farmer 15 Comments

***BREAKING NEWS*** Wonder Woman #600 hits the shelves today with new work clothes designed by DC Comics co-publisher Jim Lee. My verdict? She looks good. The new boots could be better, maybe cutout hip boots with a Doc Marten-style heel and toe? But technically she wouldn’t need a steel toe.***BREAKING NEWS***

Last Sunday, the British punk band The Adicts played at the club. Known for their “Clockwork Orange” droog style – and loved by me for their “You’ll Never Walk Alone” cover of the Carousel classic – they began the night by uniting the room as a bunch of losers…

Everyone there was a cultural representative of an eliminated World Cup team: USA, England, Mexico. Additionally, all three teams had been ousted with the help of riotously bad calls. The officials responsible were sent packing, but the FIFA overseeing committee only went as far as saying that they would re-visit the topic of using instant replays to assist in making righteous calls. But they wanted to maintain the purity of the sport at all costs. Put a different way, bad calls contribute chaos, providing an additional challenge for the players and a surge of entertaining wrath into the spectators and they are okay with that. If there is no such thing as bad press, the World Cup is the Lindsey Lohan of sports.

Fans watched as spirits were broken when goals were taken back by officials, or not granted when the conclusion seemed idiot-proof but proved to be official-immune. What happens to the economies of these countries in terms of lost opportunities when they are eliminated would be interesting to analyze. However, the reaction from fans and players appears to be one simply of outrage and grief.

My beloved niece and her new husband Dan had the fortune/misfortune of moving to Stuttgart in Germany a month ago: Fortune because it is an adventure to step into a new life, and misfortune because Dan was admitted to the hospital with a medical emergency last weekend. Three days later, he was released full of pain medications but with no diagnose. He could have any one of a litany of life-jeopardizing conditions, some possibly even time sensitive. However, there was no help for him in the hospital, only minimal warehousing. This was due to the World Cup. There was one doctor and one surgeon on-call for the hospital because of the Cup. The best advice Dan got there was to see if he could access some care through the U.S. military, presumably because we haven’t yet been entirely infected by Cup Fever.

So, if countries of wrongly-eliminated teams lose their chotsky revenue contribution to their GNP/GDP, they might overcome that impact by NOT losing highly skilled workers through beer-addled negligence.

In saying that, I submit one voice in favor of the chaos that is contributed by the World Cup.  No one really knows what is going to happen during a game. It’s an analogy of life. No amount of natural talent or skill or strategies or good breaks will assure victory. Injustice is prevalent and the messy show extends beyond the field of battle. Even to the bench of the German team, to coach Joachim Löw,(pictured above and who is spoken of reverently as being a master strategist), who was filmed before the eyes of the world picking his nose, holding it, rolling it, switching it to the other hand, and eating it.

GOOOOOAAAALLLL!

Quote of the Blog, from Ed, Dude of Light and Fog, after being saved from choking to death during a show by Sound Guy Kelly who used the Heimlich Maneuver, “He thought I was laughing at the band.”