world cup, paul mccartney

The last month has been crazy, and not in any way I have ever seen in the States before. Argentina came to a tragic end last week, and it literally left the city speechless and teary-eyed. It would be easy to say that the reaction was histrionic, but it was so genuine, and one of the most authentically real Argentine experiences. It was very hard for me to watch the last game and watch Argentina lose 0-4 to Germany and watch with five people from the States, three visitors and two who have lived here for six months or so. I didn't feel like I could share what I was feeling, it wasn't the same emotive demonstration that I felt was appropriate for the moment and I longed to move and sit with the old men behind me. It was too civilized, too uncaring...too States. The game was truly tragic, and like many dramas here, hilarious in how it serves as the apotheosis of the national character. Perhaps football is like that for so many of the top teams in the World Cup, that how they play seems to reflect how they are, or the parody-able stereotypes of how they are. I would say the Argentina-Germany game was quite the laughable example. The Germans were like a perfectly crafted war machine that attacked tightly and efficiently, whereas the Argentines were a dramatic and disorganized mess with really no strategy and an insane and superstitious coach. The German coach wore cashmere v-neck sweaters as shirts under blazers with perfectly coiffed-hair with eyes that darted across the field reflecting on every movement and making quick calculations, while Maradona looked like an oddly-shaped sausage stuffed into an expensive suit and clutched his rosary. As I watched the press conference after and realized that Diego would probably not do the expected admission of failure and step-down, I both laughed and felt an amazing tenderness towards him. The game was a travesty and a tragedy. I almost cried, in fact I stopped myself from doing so. It is so hard not to feel the passion and importance of the moment. It is a moment that comes once every four years, and is a victory that means much more than just winning a game. In one football match there can be all the possible emotions available on the human spectrum and it feels so very good to have that experience and to share it. It is some love of a country, a type of patriotism that is so arrogant and self-deprecating, and above all, so particular, that it forms micro-communities for two or so hours around a television and allows yells and laughter and the most masculine of sorrows.

Argentina can sometimes mean passions that you never felt you had, and ridiculousness you never even thought you had in you. You defend the Argentine claim to the Malvinas (I mean, I fucking call it the Malvinas for the love of god). And then, well ...


And then an aristocrat tells you to watch Paul McCartney on TNT, and you do it, even though PC solo is beyond your ethics. You do it because you're in Argentina and an upper-class Argentine recommends it, and the hilarity of that alone gets you to do it. You may even enjoy it, but that is really no excuse, but you do it out of some sort of obsessive love (not love as most think of it, a weird love that can't be described in conventional terms). But shit, you may actually think that Sir Paul's suspenders are kind of cool, or that you are with the person, even though they may be asleep in some much more expensive part of town, that you are mocking them, but also paying tribute to them. There is a love that can never be expressed in any other way, so you watch Paul fucking McCartney...even when he does "Live and Let Die"or "Band on the (ugh) Run". And you don't for a moment stop thinking what in god's name am I doing, I mean, it's Paul, solo. The last album did admittedly rock, but I can't believe I'm watching this fucking shit.