Hell Hath No Fury Like a Kopite Scorned

Sports fans are an unruly lot. Poke your head into a sports bar during pretty well any sporting event and you’re likely to witness all sorts of rowdy behavior. From yelling at the plethora of TV screens and constant “high fiving” (a predominantly North American trait), to swilling and spilling beer, the sports bar crowd is a unique, primarily male microcosm of our society. And, it is just such a mob that I found myself firmly planted amongst for hockey viewing yesterday evening.

It all started harmlessly enough. A couple of buddies and I met up after work at a downtown Vancouver sports bar to down a few pints and take in a Vancouver Canucks telecast. There were several hockey games on the various screens, and plenty of people on hand to cheer on all the different teams. In typical Canadian fashion, there was some polite competitive jawing going on between fans sporting an assortment of jerseys, but it was all in good fun.

However, as the evening progressed I couldn’t help but notice an increasing number of another sort of jersey. Unlike the pullover style hockey sweater, these jerseys had collars, and all of them were red. That’s when it dawned on me: red means The Reds, as in the Liverpool Football Club. It’s mid-February, and the second round of the UEFA Champions League is just getting underway. The bar was most certainly filling up for an international football match, which on a world scale far outweighs the significance of a hockey game.

Still, I was puzzled because the matches are played at night in Europe, which means the live broadcast in Vancouver should be at mid day. One member of our table turned out to be a fellow from Liverpool (I suppose I should have known by his flipped-up collar and, well, accent…), and he explained that he had been in the same bar earlier that day to watch Liverpool take on arch rival AC Milan. He was now back in the bar to watch the rebroadcast of the same game. He also pointed out a few “blokes” who had watched it with him, but had remained in the bar since that time. They also planned to watch it all over again, provided that they could keep their heads up off the bar. Such is the dedication of the average football fan.

As such, football fans, especially the English, are a whole breed apart from hockey fans. You’ve probably heard the term “English football hooligan”. It is more or less interchangeable with the term “English football fan”, and refers to an unbridled passion for a specific club (and the English national team) as well as a general state of drunken disorderliness. English fans are notorious for violence at matches both home and abroad, and as a result have actually been barred en masse from attending World Cup games involving their beloved English squad. Liverpool fans, who refer to themselves as “Kopites”, are some of the least reputable, as displayed in the 1985 European Cup final against Juventus F.C. where they essentially killed 39 Italian supporters.

Which brings me back to the sports bar last night, and the growing presence of red clad Kopites. Our pal from Liverpool felt quite at home, especially since he already had 5 pints or so under his belt and posses the prerequisite accent. Meanwhile, my buddy Gary and I were starting to feel strangely outnumbered by Liverpool football “fans” in our hometown establishment. So when we looked up from yet another deep hockey oriented discussion to see our pal chatting with a rather large, crooked nosed skinhead in a red jersey, we wanted to do our best to fit in. Since he was sitting right next to the guy, Gary put on his best face, stuck out his hand for a shake and exclaimed “Hey buddy, nice win today!”

Just like that, our lives were in grave danger. Well, not necessarily mine, but most certainly Gary’s. I had some lesser sort of guilt by association, but Gary had committed a mortal sin.

Almost immediately, this massive Kopite dropped Gary’s hand and slowly backed away. His face grew redder and the veins in his skull began pulsating to the extent that I was sure they would soon explode. He glared unflinchingly at Gary as his mouth began to froth a little around the corners.

“Why you f*ckin’…!” he began before his voice trailed off.
Finally, after much hyper-ventilating, he thrust his chin forward and shrieked, “I’m going to kill you!”
He then turned on his heels and charged off to a nearby table where he started gesticulating wildly to a group of red jerseys, occasionally turning back towards our table and pointing at Gary while nodding menacingly.

Unbeknownst to us, the fellow had just been telling our pal from Liverpool that he had gone to great lengths to get through the entire day without learning who had won the match. He was just about to sit down and watch it with his mates who had all accomplished the same feat.

But fate was not on his side. Gary was. And his perfectly orchestrated plans had been dashed right before his now glazed eyes.

An idle death threat, you ask? Something not to be taken seriously, perhaps? Well, maybe you should pose that question to certain Italian families? I for one wasn’t sticking around to find out. A woman scorned has nothing on a Kopite burned, and I was headed for home before this one unleashed his fury.

Oh, and if you’re curious, I did receive a text from Gary this morning, so I’m assuming he survived the ordeal. In the end, if I know Gary, he probably had them all charmed in no time, and has been invited to join in with them for the airing of the next match. Just like a Liverpool fan, Gary never seems to walk alone.

Potting Harry Potter

Warning: Do not read this entry if you are a Harry Potter fan and have not yet read the latest book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

Unfortunately, Harper's Weekly did not provide such a warning before they gave away one of the book's big surprises. Apparently, reader response has been overwhelming. Here's a sampling of what some of them had to say.

FROM JOSH RICHARDS: Shame on you for giving away even a
small detail of the new Harry Potter book, buried mid-paragraph, with no warning. Shame.
FROM KEN KOONTZ: It's the totally gratuitous nature of the Harry Potter spoiler that bugs me. How lame.
FROM KATIE BOMBICO: Thanks for ruining the book for me.
FROM D.H. PRESCOTT: I found your action to be indicative of a flippant and condescending attitude.
FROM REBECCA EWING: How mean-spirited of you.
FROM PAUL LARSON: Bad form.
FROM JOE WINTER: That's just rude.
FROM PATRICK DEVITT: I would think that a magazine published since June of 1850, as you advertise, WOULD UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF A "SPOILER"!!!
FROM BARBARA CORNETT: Paul Ford is an asshole for telling that Hedwig dies in the Harry Potter book. Nobody does that sort of thing. Who does he think he is. What makes him above everyone else so that he does not have to abide by the rules and at least warn people if he is going to spoil a book or movie by telling things about it that the writers intended for readers and movie goers to experience and not some asshole like Ford to spoil for them. I hope a wizard puts a hex on him and his dick falls off.
FROM LEVI FULLER: Fuck you very much, assholes.
FROM: CYNTHIA PATRICIA: I am writing because I am extremely upset by Paul Ford's Harper's Weekly, in which he blatantly gives away a spoiler in the final Harry Potter book. I'm not sure how dorky I sound here, but it's the kind of thing that you just don't do. It had no relevance to the sentence whatsoever, and I find it in poor taste to send it out to all the subscribers who generally enjoy reading the review but who haven't gotten around to getting a copy of the book yet, even if it's been over 48 hours and 8.3 million people know what happened already. Let's hope Harper's wont make it a habit to follow the poor judgement and standard of the Times.
FROM HENRY ROLLINS: Good on ya, Harper's!

(OK - I admit, I made the last one up. Sorry. Couldn't resist. If you have ever listened to any of Henry's spoken word, you probably know that he has thrown dates out of his car when he learns that they're reading Harry Potter. He likens it to listening to Nickleback. Now, I'm not much of a HP fan myself, but I wouldn't necessarily go THAT far. Still, a word of advice: put down the damn book and go outside. It's summer for crying out loud!)

They Should Call It CRACKBOOK

So, are you on Facebook yet? Everybody's doing it. In fact, they say there are over 2 million Canadians with profiles on Facebook. Considering that Canada only has about 30 million people, that's a significant percentage of the total population.

What is Facebook? According to their website Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you. It is made up of many networks, each based around a workplace, region, high school or college.
You can use Facebook to:
- Share information with people you know.
- See what's going on with your friends.
- Look up people around you.

However, according to me, Facebook would more appropriately be called "Crackbook". It's that addictive.

Start setting up your personal profile, and you're hooked. You forget about eating or sleeping you're so fixated on describing yourself. It's a clever approach. What better way to get people interested than to get them obsessing over their favorite topic - themselves? And, for those who get really hooked, a profile is never stagnant. Ignore that business deadline, you're too busy revising the section where you listed your favorite quotes. How could you have overlooked that brilliant Kurt Vonnegut quip in the first place?

You see, Facebook draws you in by getting you to best describe yourself so you'll appear clever and hip to others on the network. It's a social thing, after all. Almost more time consuming is deciding what picture to use for your profile. That picture accompanies anything you send to another person, be it a message, a poke or whatever. It better be good!

Once you graduate from the narcissistic world of "me", you suddenly become aware of the even bigger world of "everyone else". At this point, you may as well forget about any real social life. Your world is now online. Your world has become Facebook.

Before you know it, your inbox is flooded with requests from people claiming to be your friend. Want lots of friends? It's that easy. Just keep saying yes. But be careful. Addicts can be very unpredictable, and that's what all your fellow Facebookers are - addicts.

I recommend ignoring "friends" that you've never heard of, or who suddenly reappear in your life after many years of separation. Chances are you weren't communicating with that "old friend" for good reason. Like with a jilted ex-lover, best to keep your distance. An acquaintance of mine is now being "stalked" by an old boyfriend - Facebook style. She accepted his friend request thinking it would be harmless. She is now being inundated with pleas for her to take him back. It didn't work then, it won't work now. Not even in the social world of Facebook.

But it's not just about finding and making friends. There's a whole voyeuristic side to Facebook, as well. You're free to lurk about, sneaking peaks at other people's private lives; their conversations, photos and social networks. It's not only possible, it's downright encouraged. Everything's there - who's dated who, how people met, who's hot, who's not... And, you can do it completely anonymously. Or, if you'd rather, you can march right on in and brazenly announce to the world, the Facebook world that is, that you have arrived!

Now, having read all this you'd think that I've resisted the Facebook urge and remain a distant observer. Ha! Nothing could be further from the truth. Recently I was late for Friday afternoon cocktails with real in-the-flesh people because I was busy chatting with some online pals. Even worse, my blog entries have suffered because I'm spending all my free time snooping around in the dirty laundry of people I don't even know. Pathetically, I haven't even posted a blog entry about my trip to Venezuela!

But all hope is not lost. I'm sure the addiction will soon subside and in no time I'll be writing about the chicas and the beaches. Not yet, however. In the meantime, I do have some photos I'd like to share with you. Wanna see them? No problem. Just check out the photo album I posted on Facebook. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=618406717

The Suns Also Rise

Had a great time last night in Phoenix. The hi lite was getting a chance to attend a Phoenix Suns game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Still, one small drawback - I was looking so forward to seeing Kevin Garnett take on the Suns, but it turns out he had been ejected from a game the night before for throwing a punch, and suspended for one game. MY GAME! The Timberwolves point guard was suspended too, so they had a very short bench and a weak team. The result? The Suns crushed them without even blinking. They were up by 35 at the beginning of the 4th!
We bailed early to watch the end of the football game. Saw New England go up by a field goal, then watched in horror as Indy marched back down the field...

...and speaking of horror:
While in Phoenix yesterday - it snowed.
Arrived in San Antonio this AM - it was 42F.
Am planning to stay in my room tonight, cranking up the heat, and watching Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". Seems kinda ironic that I'm here for a conference related to global warming!

Don't look now, you've been "Plutoed"!

It was only a matter of time, right? Read on:
In its 17th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “plutoed” as the word of the year, in a run-off against climate canary. To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

There were actually a lot of great entries in this year's contest. Read the whole rundown here, including winners from past years: http://www.americandialect.org/Word-of-the-Year_2006.pdf

WOLF-MU-THER

Went to see Wolfmother last night at the Commodore. The show was as expected - spectacular. They're a little more polished and perhaps a tad road weary since their show in Vancouver last year, but man those boys can play. The keyboards were mounted on a sort of giant slinky, so the bass/keyboard player could bend them all over the place, twirl them around and generally rock out while blasting out riffs that would make Deep Purple proud. Guitar, drums - it was all good. The crowd knew every word and sang along in excruciatingly bad falsettos. I haven't seen that many crowd surfers over a swirling mosh pit in quite some time. (New rule - only women are allowed to crowd surf.) And, as the show let out, you knew there would be traffic jams at all the bridges and tunnels heading out of town. Who knew there were that many ball caps and flannel shirts still in circulation?
The buddy I went with was a little "off" last night, as his wife had ordered a dog on-line and they picked it up yesterday. It's some tiny "Piramima" or something (I know I got that wrong, as Piramima is a wine from Australia, but it's something similar). It's your basic yappy lap dog, the sort of thing Paris Hilton used to carry around, but she's over it now. I guess the world's Paris wannabees are just catching up, and my buddy is suffering the consequences. Mind you, apparently all the ladies in Cafe Calabash were swooning as they walked by with it, so maybe there are some fringe benefits?

Killer Clap?

Bono is at a U2 concert in Ireland when he asks the audience for some quiet.
Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands.
Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone..."Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."
A voice from near the front of the audience pierces the silence..."Fookin stop doing it then!"

Job Satisfaction?

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so?
There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."
--Drew Carey

Italy vs Germany

During today’s World Cup match people were asking me whom I was voting for.  Since I really didn't have a favorite, my response was "Let's see now, the Renaissance vs. centuries of repeated attempts at world domination.  Hmmm...  I'll have an Espresso!"

However, my favorite line of the day was from a friend Kathy who, when one of the Italian players had been hit in the head and was rolling about the pitch in apparent agony, suggested that the doctor "Just pour some water on it and make him take his shirt off!”  Spoken like a true fan of the game.

Love Thy Neighbor

I was rather surprised to hear that a Scottish buddy of mine wasn’t going to be cheering for England in this weekend’s World Cup match against Portugal.  So, in an effort to change his mind, I tried to convince him that the friction between the Scotts and the Brits is nothing more than a friendly rivalry between neighbors, much like Calgary and Edmonton.  My argument follows.  He has yet to reply, which I interpret to mean complete agreement.

Yeah, but I was cheering for Edmonton in the Stanley Cup finals, and I'm from Calgary!!!  That was in complete deference to the historical "Battle of Alberta"!
 
At some point one must put aside petty differences that have festered for years (ten's of years in Alberta, thousands in the UK), and have involved pain and suffering (bar brawls in Alberta, thousands tortured and slaughtered in the UK).  Yes, it's time to band together with your neighbors for a cause that rises above these trivial (hey, it happened to someone else) concerns.  It's the World Cup dammit!  Join with your English brethren.  Stand arm in arm, swilling warm ale, and cheer on your fellow islanders.  You can get back to hating each other in mid-July!

Rapture Wrap?

As a follow-up to my recent post on those who feel the impending apocalypse is sufficient reason to ignore the environment, I offer the following bumper sticker, recently spotted in California:

Today's Moments of Zen

It was reported that lobbyists had once provided former (now imprisoned) Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham with free limousine service, free access to hotel suites, and the services of prostitutes; it was also reported that the limousine service that was used to ferry the prostitutes had received a contract worth $21 million from the Department of Homeland Security.

The Louisiana state senate approved a bill that bans abortion except when the procedure can save a woman's life; an amendment to allow exceptions in the cases of women who have been raped or are victims of incest was defeated.

A Liverpool, England, man was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for getting drunk and singing "YMCA" on a flight from Florida to Manchester while his wife wept and comforted their three children. "He makes no excuses," said the man's lawyer, "for his loutish, idiotic behavior."

**************************************************************

Good heavens people! What in the world is going on here? Those have to be some of the odder stories from the past week, or the past year for that matter. Indeed very odd, yet when you think about it, strangely related...

So, you may be wondering, how exactly are philandering federal bureaucrats related to tragically misguided abortion laws or drunken British louts? Well, bear with me here. It's actually quite simple.

It seems ironic that our mostly male law makers will go out of their way to write up and support legislation that restricts a woman's right to make decisions about her sexuality and her own body, while at the same time they cruise around in limos with prostitutes and charge it all to the tax payer!! No, that's not ironic, it's shameful. In fact, it's downright inexcusable. It's enough to drive a sane man to excessive drinking and acts of idiotic behavior in public, like singing YMCA at full volume on a transatlantic flight, maybe...

See? I told you they were related.

God Loves the BBC

In Manchester, England, the BBC was planning an Easter tribute in which Jesus Christ will sing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division before joining Judas in a duet of "Blue Monday" by New Order. Later, as Roman soldiers flay him, Jesus will sing "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths.

Today's Moment of Zen

In Utah a 13-year-old girl who became pregnant by her 12-year-old boyfriend was ruled a sex offender. The 12-year-old boy was also ruled a sex offender. "It's a paradox," said the girl's attorney.

Today's Moment of Zen

Researchers studying the drug content of the River Po in Italy concluded that the 5 million people living in the river’s vicinity must consume about 200,000 lines of cocaine per day.

Today's Moment of Zen

Cree Indian Chief: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Cree Indian Chief: "Then why did you tell me?"