Capital punishment is the only issue on which I sometimes find myself not agreeing with others on the far, far left. My feeling is that some crimes are so monstrous as to render unthinkable their perpetrators ever enjoying another moment’s pleasure, of which there’s a small chance even in solitary confinement, even in the most unspeakable prison. But I’m aware that sometimes the innocent are convicted, and I would sooner live in a society that errs on the side of executing no innocents.
I’m also all for gun control.
Having said all that, I must confess that there is a situation in modern American life I believe warrants the presence of snipers licensed to kill. I speak, of course, of the athlete who, after doing something terrific — think of Clint Dempsey’s extremely dodgy (because of the England goalkeeper’s sudden spasm of incompetence) World Cup goal — points up at the heavens as though to say, “Thank you, God. Couldn’t have done it without you, big guy.”
I believe that athletes who think God has the slightest interest in whether or not they score a goal should be forbidden to operate motor vehicles or other heavy machinery, or even to reproduce.
I understand the gesture is supposed to be seen as one of humility, one of acknowledging A Higher Power. In my old age, I’ve come to think it imperative to make such an acknowledgment. I address God every night; offering thanks for my many blessings and asking forgiveness for my many failings keeps me aware of both. But I strongly believe that this should be done in private.
My objection to the athlete pointing heavenward isn’t the acknowledgment of God, then, but that it’s inconceivable arrogance masquerading as humility — Look what God and I achieved together! Moreover, in a great many cases, I think the gesture is intended in large part for prospective corporate tenderers of endorsement deals — for Nike, and Gatorade, and Ford. Look how humble and pious I am; my endorsement will boost your sales in the Bible Belt.
Fire when ready, snipers!
[Many of my books are now available for download from Amazon. They include The Total Babe & Other Wine Country Yarns, Lentils on the Moon (aka A Message From Jesus in Braille, aka A History of the Jews in the Hudson Valley), Self-Loathing: An Owner's Manual, Third World USA, The Mona Lisa's Brother, and, for baseball nuts, Foul Balls and Alpha Males. You need neither a Kindle nor an iPad to enjoy 'em; simply download (free) Kindle software for either Mac or Windows, and enjoy them on your laptop or other computer!]
Showing posts with label sanctimony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sanctimony. Show all posts
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Colt McCoy Confesses
A lot of people have been wondering about the mysterious injury that sidelined me in last week's Rose Bowl national college football championship game. After I was tackled by Alabama’s Marcelle Dareus on our fifth offensive play of the game, I was replaced by true freshman Garrett Gilbert, even though I hadn’t been carried off the field on a stretcher, and wasn’t even in apparent agony. It was later explained that I’d sustained a nerve injury that caused numbness and weakness in my throwing arm; You may have heard that in the locker room, I was unable to throw the ball seven yards to my dad (and high school coach), even though he was doing his utmost to encourage me, shouting, “Grow a pair of balls and toss me the fucking ball, you whimpering little mama’s-boy faggot.”
My inability to oblige him actually owed to no nerve injury, or resulting numbness. Rather, it was because I had, in the weeks leading up to the big game, seen my future with increasing clarity, and been terrified by it. I saw myself winning the Rose Bowl game in the closing seconds with a remarkable touchdown pass to Jordan Shipley, and then being carried off the field on my adoring teammates’ shoulders while our cheerleaders hurriedly changed into “something more comfortable” and arranged themselves in a semicircle around my locker. I saw myself going on to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League, not spectacularly, but well enough to make countless millions on endorsements because corporate America loves bland white Christian quarterbacks who are able to feign aw-shucks humility, and I had the numbers of a couple of highly rated acting coaches.
I would “write” an autobiography (that is, would allow a ghostwriter chosen by my agent to tape several conversations with me) in which I would attribute all my success to my faith in Jesus, and it would make the New York Times’ nonfiction bestseller list, peaking at No. 3, behind co-Presidents Palin’s and Limbaugh’s most recent memoirs. I would, in the meantime, have married my extremely blonde college girlfriend Rachel Glandorf, and sired three attractive blond children with alliterative first names, the male first-born of whom would be expected from infancy to become a quarterback in his own right.
Once having retired, ostensibly To Spend More Time With My Family even though me and Rachel haven’t had anything to say to each other since maybe our third date, the various companies for which I’d shilled over the years would continue to pay me megabucks to occasionally play golf with this senator or that foreign tycoon.
None of that sounded very fun to me. What I wanted, and want, is to embody an entirely different constellation of clichés. I am learning the guitar, shaving irregularly and inattentively, and trying to learn to enjoy the taste of Jack Daniels, all with the intention of parlaying my football fame into a recording contract. As a country music superstar. I will write songs harshly condemning those who disdain the time-honored American values that I myself will mock by becoming addicted to amphetamines, drinking too much, and regularly being found unconscious in gutters with pockmarked crack addict African-American prostitutes, many of them transvestites. I will set a really horrible example for American youth, but what fun I’ll have.
Or maybe I’ll marry Jordan. My favorite receiver (no pun intended!) and I have been lovers since sophomore year; Rachel is a beard. We have spoken of moving together to Iowa, where we can legally wed, and where Jordan can work the fields manfully while I bake cornbread and keep the farmhouse tidy. We will coach a local Pop Warner team together, and maybe even be Scoutmasters.
In closing, I would like to reveal that I am not the sanctimonious Christian the University of Texas asked me to pretend to be, but a member of the Church of the Beast. I am called Colt, but my real given name is Occult.
Get over it.
[Hear my life-changing new album Sorry We're Open here! Facebookers: Read more All In Tents and Porpoises essays and subscribe here.]
My inability to oblige him actually owed to no nerve injury, or resulting numbness. Rather, it was because I had, in the weeks leading up to the big game, seen my future with increasing clarity, and been terrified by it. I saw myself winning the Rose Bowl game in the closing seconds with a remarkable touchdown pass to Jordan Shipley, and then being carried off the field on my adoring teammates’ shoulders while our cheerleaders hurriedly changed into “something more comfortable” and arranged themselves in a semicircle around my locker. I saw myself going on to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League, not spectacularly, but well enough to make countless millions on endorsements because corporate America loves bland white Christian quarterbacks who are able to feign aw-shucks humility, and I had the numbers of a couple of highly rated acting coaches.
I would “write” an autobiography (that is, would allow a ghostwriter chosen by my agent to tape several conversations with me) in which I would attribute all my success to my faith in Jesus, and it would make the New York Times’ nonfiction bestseller list, peaking at No. 3, behind co-Presidents Palin’s and Limbaugh’s most recent memoirs. I would, in the meantime, have married my extremely blonde college girlfriend Rachel Glandorf, and sired three attractive blond children with alliterative first names, the male first-born of whom would be expected from infancy to become a quarterback in his own right.
Once having retired, ostensibly To Spend More Time With My Family even though me and Rachel haven’t had anything to say to each other since maybe our third date, the various companies for which I’d shilled over the years would continue to pay me megabucks to occasionally play golf with this senator or that foreign tycoon.
None of that sounded very fun to me. What I wanted, and want, is to embody an entirely different constellation of clichés. I am learning the guitar, shaving irregularly and inattentively, and trying to learn to enjoy the taste of Jack Daniels, all with the intention of parlaying my football fame into a recording contract. As a country music superstar. I will write songs harshly condemning those who disdain the time-honored American values that I myself will mock by becoming addicted to amphetamines, drinking too much, and regularly being found unconscious in gutters with pockmarked crack addict African-American prostitutes, many of them transvestites. I will set a really horrible example for American youth, but what fun I’ll have.
Or maybe I’ll marry Jordan. My favorite receiver (no pun intended!) and I have been lovers since sophomore year; Rachel is a beard. We have spoken of moving together to Iowa, where we can legally wed, and where Jordan can work the fields manfully while I bake cornbread and keep the farmhouse tidy. We will coach a local Pop Warner team together, and maybe even be Scoutmasters.
In closing, I would like to reveal that I am not the sanctimonious Christian the University of Texas asked me to pretend to be, but a member of the Church of the Beast. I am called Colt, but my real given name is Occult.
Get over it.
[Hear my life-changing new album Sorry We're Open here! Facebookers: Read more All In Tents and Porpoises essays and subscribe here.]
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