I'll Give You These Beads if You Show Me Your Pancakes

It is with incredible bemusement that I find myself every Fat Tuesday in one Church Hall or another, eating pancakes. It is probably the Church tradition I find the most bizarre. A virgin birth I can believe in, on a good day, for all things are possible with God. The belief that Christ was crucified and rose from the dead and that it means something important? I can buy that. But the idea that we would gather the night before one of the most somber Church services of the year to eat flapjacks? Come on.

For years I wondered why we did this. There, is after all, no commandment that "Thou shalt eat Pancakes". Jesus did not enjoy pancakes at the last supper (though I suppose he did have a passover meal of unleavened bread...but he certainly did not have syrup, or butter, or delicious, devilish bacon). I eventually settled on the idea that it was the Church's lame way to try to keep people from enjoying a more "traditional" Mardi Gras. But that didn't make much sense; in a battle between blueberry blintzes and beer, beads, and debauchery the later usually holds forth, and if you spend anytime with a Lutheran choir you will realize that keeping people from enjoying life is low on the list of mainline protestant priorities.

I eventually read online that historically people made pancakes and things like them on Fat Tuesday because they were trying to get rid of all the fatty rich foods they had before the fasting season of lent. But that doesn't make a lot of sense today, when right after Ash Wednesday services I can go down to the IHOP and eat a giant friggin plate of pancakes and no one will give me a second glance (provided I washed all that ash off of my forehead). It seems like its just another crazy thing we do because "it's what we've always done."

But is it really that crazy?

I am in a Lutheran Church, but our pastor is practically a Jesuit, and as a consequence a real effort is made to make Lent mean something. You get a sense of that if you come to the Ash Wednesday service, where the altar is draped in black and you are forced to contemplate the dust into which, one day, you will return. It's the one day in the liturgical year where all that stuff about everlasting life (whatever that means) is forgotten, and Christians are allowed to think about death without the safety net of Jesus in place. In that way, maybe Fat Tuesday is almost a metaphor for the last day of our lives.

So if you were given one night in which to live, if you knew that tomorrow a priest would sprinkle some ash on your forehead and you would be dead, how would you spend it? Some of us may choose to go out and party all night. But I'll bet a lot of us would also rather spend it quietly with family and friends, basking in love and fellowship as night turns to day and life waxes into death.

Historical explanations aside, I like to think that maybe that's why some of us gather in the Church Hall every year to eat pancakes served by whatever men's group has emerged the strongest after a brutal struggle for survival at our respective religious establishments. Yes, tonight we eat pancakes, but we will also see good friends and be surrounded by the Church family that so many of us rely upon to get by, week by week, as we grapple with the mysteries of faith and of life.

So Happy Mardi Gras! Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we (figuratively) die.

So They're Tearing my Old Middle School Down

So I saw that they are tearing good old Blacksburg Middle School (which was, once upon a time, good old Blacksburg High School) down at the end of this month, and I got tossed into a facebook group where everyone is reminiscing fondly about their four years at BMS, home of the braves.

Me, personally? I'd be more than happy to see it burn to the ground, and I'd dance on the ashes if they'd let me. Of course, they can't burn it, because the building is loaded with asbestos.

Why so caustic? Because middle school was not a very fun place. Sure, Mr. Ray was an awesome band teacher, who taught us all that the tune of the National Anthem is actually an old British drinking song (To Anacreon in Heaven, I believe...look it up for yourself, if ye be curious). And I remember those first few sweet sips of rebellion when one day I told my parents that I was going to library after school, but really I walked a couple of blocks out of my way to buy the latest Green Day album. I never thought they would let me buy it...turns out that maybe I need not have gone through the trouble...

At any rate, sure, there are faint whiffs of nostalgia when I think of those times. But those times were also times were I was made fun of when I got on the bus, and where kids kicked my books down the hall. Anytime I had to walk from one classroom to the other, some asshole would make fun of me, one way or another, and I dreaded the time between classes. But then of course I am not a saint: I gave as good as I got, part of a vast food chain of winners and losers, and I'm not proud of the things I said to others and some of the stuff I did, all in the name of trying to fit in.

Middle School was this awful time when were playing with pogs and Magic cards (for Christ's sake I was still trading baseball cards) and yet strange things were happening to our bodies and hormones were crashing over us in waves. It is, yes, that time where childhood ends and the long pimply road to adulthood begins. It's a necessary time when we begin to fashion our own identities and start awakening sexually and otherwise...and I suppose in that way it's almost beautiful. And yet, it was miserable, and honestly I doubt that it was easy for anyone, even for the most popular of us.

So, old Blacksburg Middle School, and meaning no offense to those with fonder memories and almost all of the dedicated staff who worked there : Fuck off. And I pray God protect the health of those poor workers who have to gut your shattered carcass and all the cancer that lies within. One day you may see ads about people who worked on the BMS demolition, and that they should call Borowitz, Blackhead and Bull LLC on the Ouchline. My advice to those people is to call that number and get the justice they deserve.

Books You May Not Like: The David Beckham Experiment

This book is notable because it is not only an excellent read but it is also the first book I have ever read on my Kindle. Before I launch into my response to the book, let me first respond to the Kindle.

It is totally friggin sweet.

There are only two things I don't like about it. First, if you are reading it on a plane (and the Kindle is PERFECT for planes because it's so small), you will have to turn it off during take-offs and landings. It's annoying, but maybe those 15 - 2 hour moments on the plane where we must be without technology will start to become the moments where we begin to reconnect with each other. Second, though my Kindle is equipped with a web browser, it is a web browser that sucks. It's too clunky (and too small) to actually navigate a web page. But what's cool about it is you can look up words in stored dictionaries and hop on Wikipedia if you want a more detailed (and possibly dubious) explanation of something.

And yes, the Kindle has no color, but the battery power is amazing. It's a trade off I am more than happy to make.

So, on to the book (or is it e-book? Fuck it. It's a book). In the book, Grant Wahl (a writer over at SI) follows David Beckham's first two seasons with the Los Angeles Galaxy. It is an incredibly well written book, and I absolutely loved it.

You get to drive with David to his first practices with the Galaxy in a tricked out Escalade. You read about the chip that develops on America's soccer wunderkind Landon Donovan. You get to rub elbows with LA Galaxy business manager Alexi Lalas and all of David Beckham's handlers. You even learn that the Beckham's are really good friends with Tom Cruise and his family (which isn't really that surprising).

But for me the most interesting thing about this book was learning about the MLS. I'll be honest, I don't really watch MLS games (I think I watched one championship game a couple years ago...), and I barely keep tabs on it. The center of my soccer universe is in Europe, where the competition is more fierce and the players are more technically gifted.

As I read this book, I was astounded to learn that when Beckham joined the team in 2007, about half of the Galaxy players (professional athletes all) were making less money then I was. The reason is that the team is subject to a 2.1 million dollar salary cap (with one player excepted for each team -- for the Galaxy that was David Beckham). This is necessary for the cash strapped league, and it makes for more parity between teams. But it was very interesting to read how David Beckham interacted with teammates making only $30,000 per year (spoiler: not very well).

I also learned that the MLS, like any other American Sport, is subject to a dizzying array of regulations and rules that just don't exist in the world of European Soccer, which ironically enough are extremely laizzez-faire. If Arsene Venger decides Arsenal needs a new goal keeper, well, he goes and looks for one in the summer transfer market. If he is willing to part with enough money, he can usually acquire one. Or, if he is lucky, he has a good prospect coming through a vast pool of reserves. Not so in the MLS. You have to squeeze him in under the salary cap, which, combined with rules that set team rosters to a limited number of reserves, makes new player acquisition a very difficult proposition. When the Galaxy brought in Dutchman Ruud Gullit for Beckham's second season, he was so overwhelmed with the different sets of rules (and so crappy as a manager) that he quit halfway through the year.

It was also interesting to read more about Alexi Lalas, who I came to not like so much as an announcer/anchor for ESPN during the last World Cup. He is very concerned with making soccer more popular in America, of making it a major sport with the same draw as baseball or (heaven forbid) American football. While I would love to see more people pay attention to soccer, because it would mean I could stop pretending to care about football at the office, I don't really care if its number 1, 2, or even 6 or 7. Soccer in America is vibrant enough not to fade away. The MLS is rooted and expanding, even if the ratings are low on TV. And as long as I can watch one or two games per week and kick a ball around on the rare occasion, well, I don't really care if its the most popular game in the land.

Well, a very good book. If you like soccer at all, its definitely worth your time.