The Buck starts here…

When a ticket to a sports match includes a free hotdog, you know you’re gonna have a good time.  When it also includes a calendar featuring the home teams’ dancers in their lingerie, you know it will be an experience to remember…

The Camphill Soltane Soccer team were celebrating the end of our season with a Saturday night outing to see  Philadelphia’s indoor soccer team, the “Kixx”, take on the mighty Chicago “Storm”

 The aforementioned dancers got the proceedings off to a flying start with some smooth moves in the centre circle.

Then it was time for the match itself, and for a Brit like me who grew up on a steady diet of regular soccer, this was a whole other sport to get to grips with.  Two or three points for a goal, six players to a side with rolling subs (this means continually on and off during play, rather than doing backflips onto the pitch), Two referee’s on the field, and the game divided into four 15 minute “quarters” which were split yet more by teams taking “time-outs”.   

My favourite player was the Kixx forward “Boney”, seen here at the bottom centre of the picture.  I couldn’t decide if he and “Fabinho”  were using pseudonyms or if their parents just had active imgainations, but they were entertaining to watch regradless.

The thing that got me about the whole event though, was the extent to which the football was almost subservient to the incessant marketing, advertising, and all-round corporate lovefest.  Before the game began, we were introduced over the loudspeaker to Mike, the “Man in the Stands”.  I guess I always assumed that watching live professional sports in America allowed you to be free of the commericial bullshit that interrupts every time someone drops a ball when you’re watching the T.V.  In fact, it’s actually worse – they dont even wait for the dude to drop the ball!  Mike was promoting spa’s, chicken fillets, and aquatic tours of the Kalahari Desert, over the loudspeaker, whilst the match was actually in progress!  And just in case you thought you could escape the irritating git’s voice by looking at the scoreboard, they scrolled the ads across there too simultaneously!

Here is our pal Mike, giving two lucky young boys the chance to sing a jingle for the local “friendly Nissan giant”. The crowd also got to partake in the “Kixx frisbee toss”, the “Wachovia t-shirt launch”, and hear soccer referred to as “The game, the lifestyle, the brand” repeatedly.  The t-shirt launch was the only time when the majority of the crowd actually got out of their seats and showed some excitement, apart from the rare times when the scoreboard encouraged them by flashing up messages of “Go Kixx” and “I can’t hear you!”  Us Soltaners managed to summon up a little more spirit though, as you can see below..

To be fair to the crowd though, they weren’t even given the opportunity to make much noise:  Various songs were played on the loudspeaker for most of the match.  Except some pillock from some inane focus group had determined that people only want to listen to 45 seconds of any one song.  So just as you started singing along, they’d stick something else on, or good old Mike would chip in with an ad for that penguin collision insurance you never knew you needed.

Having said all that, the game itself was a lot of fun to watch, as you can see from the engrossed look on Jeffrey’s face. 

It’s very fast paced, and there’s opportunity for some silky skills, including ones that involve bouncing the football against the wall.  I also managed to bring my total tally of hotdogs that day up to 4.  I contemplated a 5th, but decided that a slice of pizza would prevent them dogs in my stomach from feeling victimised.

So, all in all a really nice night out with the soccer crew. And i did get to meet Baba the (blurry) clown.

But I can’t believe that American sports spectators put up with all the utter shite that seems to be part and parcel of the whole event.  In my opinion you should not have to have your ears (and those of your children) subjected to adverts when you’ve paid your had earned money to watch a sports match.  Perhaps that’s why the place was 3/4 empty…

Chicago Storm 10 – Philadelphia Kixx 4.

I was sitting at this very computer preparing to begin my regular evening ritual of reading the following days British newspaper. Then some friends popped round to see if I fancied going out for a drink. How could I prioritise the battles of Blair over the pints of Pennsylvania?

The car almost full, we stopped outside aother house, called “Emerson” to pick up Benjmain, who had gone in there to borrow some mone from his brother. As our car came to a halt, the fire alarms started. I went into Emerson, and headed immediately for the basement, where the community’s pottery studio was located. Perhaps the kiln had overheated? One of Emerson’s coworkers, Mia, was standing by the control unit trying to shut off the alarm. Benjamin appeared from behind me, and showed me the source. He had come in to a darkened basement and reached for a light switch. Or what he thought was a light switch…we found a screwdriver and managed to reset the alarm manually. Anyway the really surreal (perhaps scary is a more apt word) part of this whole event was that despite nearly 5 minutes of loud noise and an occasional flashing blue light, only 2 of the students in the house had actually left their rooms…

…A couple of hours later and we were stopping at the “Wawa” gas station to grab a bite to eat on the way home. There was a large sandwich counter, and a young dude with an exceptionally fuzzy moustache manning it. I decided that it was a good time for my first Philly cheesesteak. I know, I know. I should have waited until I could sample the real deal from one of the joints in Italian south Philadelphia. But I was hungry. And my stomach is a persuasive organ.

I asked Fuzzy for my sandwich and he pointed me to a touch-screen computer in front of the counter. I started pushing buttons, making choices. Then out came a printout of my order and Fuzzy got to work. Now I have no problem with technology where it’s appropriate. But there was me and there was Fuzzy and there was not another soul within 30 feet of the sandwich counter. Could he not have just taken my order, as sandwich makers have taken orders from hungry consumers since first the Earl of Sandwich did create this culinary delight? Has society really got to the point where interacting with a computer in a gas station is preferable to actually talking to a human being? And is the Wawa computer a friendly machine to talk to? Fuck no! It’s mean. It asked me if I wanted sauteed onions on my cheesesteak and offered “no” as the only response. Now I’ve never eaten a cheesteak before. How would I know that they sometimes come with sauteed onions? Well that arse of a computer saw fit to let me know exactly what I was missing. No explanation. No little message saying: “There are no sauteed onions tonight because Fuzzy is a lazy git who never got round to making them.” Nothing.

As it goes, my cheesesteak was rather tasty. And Emerson didn’t burn down. So a good night all in all.