This is a version of the newsletter Weeding with Chris Black, In which the columnist throws light on the burning topics of culture. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Thursday.
New York City has always been the center of the world, but over the past few weeks, the magnifying glass has been on us like never before. Lines for frozen yogurt and banana cream matcha lattes stretch across city blocks, TikTokers are booing people on the street to talk about trust or rent prices, and our polarizing mayor is wearing aggressively short shorts for photo ops. The weather is nice, the sun is setting at 9 pm, people are drunk and sunburnt.
Last week, the debate was about being Knicks bandwagon fans, and it was really a question of who is allowed to root for which sports team. Some people think you need documentation proving you were born and raised in this wonderful shithole to go into a packed bar and cheer on a team. This rule clearly discriminates against Midwestern transplants – people who want to live in ugly new apartment buildings, work innocuous high-paying jobs, and walk their Goldendoodle down Blank Street on Saturday mornings. These people are obviously idiots, but they contribute to the city’s economy, and the silver lining is knowing that they will soon return to their birthplace and regal their former middle school classmates with stories of their crazy years spent in the city. If you’re not trying to eat at The Corner Store, it’s easy to live in peace with them.
Sporting events tend to bring out a certain type of person that I try to avoid. One of the biggest World Cups of all time has landed in North America, and it’s making Knicks bandwagoners cool and cute. The roads are again filled with slow-moving people from around the world paying $115 to park at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium (temporarily named New York New Jersey Stadium) to watch a soccer match. This game dominates globally but will never really work here. We played it as kids because it doesn’t require much to do except get up and run, it’s a shepherd-cat-style operation where everyone is given a participation trophy at the end of the season along with a juice box. Then, once we get a little older, we choose some more indoor sports like football, baseball or basketball. Football requires amazing conditioning, hand-eye coordination and, for the spectator, a stomach for boredom. The matches are long, the grounds are large and the scoring is minimal. What’s more un-American than a match ending in a tie? That said, soccer’s governing body, FIFA, is constantly embroiled in corruption allegations, the most notorious being the decades-old fraud, money laundering and racketeering scandal uncovered by a US Justice Department investigation, which may be the most American thing about sports.
UFC seems like something that only exists on my computer. I’m not watching it, and I’m certainly not getting paid to watch it. Last week, to celebrate America’s 250th birthday and his 80th birthday, President Donald Trump staged a fighting-game spectacle on the White House lawn that cost $60 million despite having a lower production value than an amateur stock car race in rural Alabama. Joe Rogan described the action as a tie so short it barely touched his navel. One of the “winners”, Josh Hockitt, defeated Derrick Lewis, and his victory speech caused massive controversy when he shouted, “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” Which, even in a low-IQ gathering of that size, shocked most people who heard it. It was shameful and absolutely stupid. Other than years of being kicked and punched in the head, what on earth would make someone yell that phrase in celebration?
Why do sports make people crazy? I’m not sure we’ll ever find out, but I’m ready for a quiet summer. Meatheads have left our nation’s capital to return to Austin and Orange County; The Knicks parade is behind us, but we still have about a month of World Cup action left. Hopefully we can stay relatively civil until this is all over.
