Sunday, June 27, 2010

Against the anonymous fan


Imagine something you love and at the same time respect too much to see it ridiculed. Now imagine someone who is pretending to love that same thing but obviously understands nothing of its grace. One that instead of appreciating it, is using it as an opportunity to show off. Someone who, in summary, is nowhere near your perception of what is considered to be your "common" passion. He is only there to make a mock out of it and outrage you with his stupidity!
Now put this guy in the position of the anonymous clown of the photo and there you have my feelings about football on one hand and the random football fan on the other.

I 've been watching the games of the World Cup just like any other civilized person who appreciates football and I cannot but be disturbed with the frequency with which the cameras turn to the crowd in search of pathetic exhibitionists like the one in the photo. I cannot be precise about the origins of this sick habit of television broadcast but I am guessing it must have started at the same time football was for the first time treated as a massive commercial product. That would be sometime between the World Cups of USA and Korea-Japan. It was around then, that broadcasting a football game started to involve close-ups of Victoria Beckham (back then Mel-C or B, I can't quite remember). And it was around that time that the anonymous idiot, realized he could have his 5 seconds of fame simply by putting on the most ridiculous kind of garment, (or in the case of women, remove every trace of it) and getting admitted into a football stadium (if only someone would stop him...).

Be it wherever and whenever, I am not here to argue on the power of the medium (that is TV in HD or any other quality). The point I am trying to make is as simple as this:
Since when have we fans become a part of the spectacle so that we deserve to be ostentatiously treated side by side with the actual protagonists, the football players and their coaches?
Since when do people feel that going to a football stadium is more about showing off their worst taste in costumes than watching the actual game?
Since when have people become so self-centered that instead of watching the game they sit patiently staring at the big screen (nowadays all big stadia have at least one) waiting for their little, insignificant existences to appear so that they can wave mommy or daddy hello?
And since when has the feeling "I saw it. I was there!" been substituted by "You saw me. I was there!" ?

It may be a sign of the times, a simple manifestation of how, in a powerful media-driven society, the passive spectator becomes the spectacle or -for that matter- how easily he can be tricked into believing he is something more than just that. A passive spectator. In a society where our ability to have a real say about things that matter has been substituted by the illusion of deciding on the next "pop idol" it is becoming increasingly important to realize what order of things we HAVE to be involved in and what not. Football -other than a great game for those of us lucky to still practice it- is a spectacle and should remain one. The moment the fans get to have their own "Fan of the match" webpage, (check it out, it exists) something is definitely going wrong.

To all those that will arguably point out that football without TV would be something very different than what it really is, I can simply offer to lend them a couple of my DVDs of old World Cups where the TV was present only without the occasional morons staring at the camera, making the V-sign instead of watching the game they had paid for.

Please, keep this in mind, for the next time you see a clown like this popping up on your TV screen in the middle of the semis.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

So long and thanks for the fish...

(A guy walking down Carrer dels Flassanders in el Born, Barcelona. Photo by Julien Lagarde)

Some ten days ago, in a bar close to my old working place in the Barceloneta, I indulged into some serious dancing and partying for three main reasons. One, Greece had only won their first ever game in a World Cup on that same afternoon, two after having watched France losing to Mexico in the company of a predominantly French audience I felt we needed to be cheered up and three I was back in the company of good friends I haven't seen for quite a long time. Moreover, we found ourselves in our "natural" environment, the place where we all met, worked and have shared similar moments (that is both vivid disappointments and sudden impulses of joy) over the last years.

It was during that dancing that one of us (I was told later, it was Micha) told someone else (who was Julien): "We were a good group once"

Be it nostalgia, grief or simply "girly-talk" as my own girl put it, there is substantial truth in that. We "were" a group once, we are now individuals that used to be part of the same team, still very good friends, still in the position of meeting every now and then and have fun like we used to. As time goes by and we grow old, some things will necessarily change. And instead of thinking back in sorrow, I prefer to glance forward in joy. I am happy to realize that even though life has moved on, I can still meet my friends and have a great time with them, be it for ten days every few months. A lot of things change in between, but it is as natural, as well as desired.

As time goes by and the perception of time itself is adjusting to a more fragmentary way of "grown-up" life, I choose the most optimistic way of looking at things. Yes, we "were a group" once, but yes we also "are" still a group in a certain sort of way. And no we won't be able to celebrate all of the French defeats, (or any other kind of "defeat" for that manner) but it is quite astonishing that we manage to keep this rate of constancy of celebrating once every few months considering the distances we are all transversing in both space and time.

A few days later during a wonderful ceviche dinner at the place of a couple of friends we remembered the last time I was there. It was almost a year and a half ago, the dinner was lunch then, (but it was again fish), and my friends' precious daughter was sitting at the table with us. Seventeen months later, the precious daughter was sleeping in the room next door, with her -also precious- baby brother who was born on the same night of my last visit. As we wondered what the changes will be the next time we have dinner or lunch together, I thought that witnessing change may be as important as meeting again to share it.

As I once again rode the bus to the airport, on my way home, I promised myself I will be back soon. Not as soon though as not for some change to have taken place. It looks as if I have irreversibly connected Barcelona with the point of reference for my personal development plan ;)

So long, then, and thanks for all the fish...

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Barcabios - La vuelta

(Downtown Barcelona as seen from Montjuic. Photo by Julien Lagarde)

So, I am back in Barcelona, as promised. It took me more than fifteen months to fulfill this -seemingly- simple promise. But things are not always what they seem to be and what has been placed between me and Barcelona over these months ended up being as difficult to cope up with as it was to let go.

So it's been one year, three months and two weeks since I took my girl, my suitcases and two backpacks full of memories on a taxi to the El Prat airport. We had had a paella and then coffee in Absinta in the Barceloneta, had said "hasta la proxima" to those friends who stood there till the end and at the door, it looked as if as even "hard" Giuseppe, my flatmate for over three years was about to cry. Then we flew back to Athens on the first day of March and the story changed so suddenly that it would be hard for one to think it's not a different story altogether.

It sounds weird that I get to remember all these details so vividly. But memories are very much like the forgotten souvenirs one brings home from a trip. You only find them once you accidentally hit on the cupboard in which you have been keeping them. In my case the cupboard is a rectangle defined by Montjuic, Gracia, Gottico and Poble Nou. And as it appears I have carelessly left something in every little corner of it, I am delighted that not a single moment passes by without me remembering, names, places and faces. A terrace in the Barceloneta where four people had dinner yesterday was enough of a reason for my being here and my coming back once more.

A couple of days ago, my good friend Kostas, suggested I listened to "Boots of Spanish Leather". As I now realize my "souvenirs" from Barcelona are something more than a pair of boots, I feel like I am at peace. It's certainly more than a pair of boots I will be bringing back home to my beloved as it's more than certain that my cupboard, with its "loyal guardians" will always be here with for me to randomly go about digging for lost, but not forgotten "souvenirs de Barcelona".

Friday, June 18, 2010

today

Oh the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin’
Like the stillness in the wind
’Fore the hurricane begins
The hour when the ship comes in

Bob Dylan,
When the ship comes in