Thursday 11/30/23
I have always thought it's said much about a person's character and strength--and their ability to live, because actually living is an ability--when they complain about what is called running up the score in sports, either as a player or a coach or a parent.
I saw this the other night with Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan who didn't like that the Celtics kept pouring it on late in a blowout game. The reason the Celtics were doing this, of course, was because of this in-season tournament the league is featuring this year, in which point differential matters. If the Celtics wanted a shot to advance, they had to win by a certain amount. They did, and they did. Good for them.
When you complain about getting your ass handed to you--at any age--fair and square, I know all I need to know about you. It's ridiculous at the level of men who are being paid millions and millions of dollars a year to play a game. If someone can beat you by whatever score they can beat you by, they're free to beat you by it. That's fair and square. Same playing surface, same ball or puck, same rules for each side. This isn't publishing, where you have cronyism, nepotism, payola, racism, sexism, and more, determining almost every last outcome. You think there's anyone out there thinking to themselves, "I write better than Fleming, yeah, in a fair competition, I'd crush him." "I can write a better story than that 'Dot' thing," or "I can write a better Beatles piece," or "I can write a better op-ed." We can keep going. And it's just no, no, no, no, no. There's no one. You think someone thinks, "Yeah, I'm smarter than that Fleming guy." Want to compete? Want to compete so everyone gets to see? Well, we do have these prose offs, and more are coming, so that's something for some people to look forward to.
Most publishing people never played sports, though. They hate sports. They lived in terror of having to play sports. In and of themselves, sports are not important. But they have value in that they help prepare you to deal with things that important, including the person you might become, the character you might have. It's good to play sports, even if you're going to be an an astrophysicist or a sculpture.
Publishing has to be rigged because what is going to happen for the likes of a Chris Beha if it's not rigged? He'll be put forward because of skill? The value of his work? Come on. No one believes that. Laura van den Berg? Where do you want to go next? Blake Butler? Paul Yoon? Tommy Orange? Jamel Brinkley? Mark Doten? These are all people without any talent.
Do you need a Mark Doten story right now as an indicator of the total absence of ability? Okay. Here we go. This is Mark Doten fiction from n+1, which is a haven for bigotry and shitty writing for these people. People talk about mental masturbation, but this is mental masturbation at the level of trying to cap off the exercise by blasting yourself in your own face. That's exciting, right? There has never been anything good published in it, because that's the last thing it's about. It's a clubhouse for bigots who try to mask their self-consuming insecurity with pretentiousness.
Trump’s head bumps the ceiling and he realizes what’s happened, or not then, then he’s like What!? but the chair tips and he falls forward and the music cuts out, SPLASH, andTrump’s there at the ceiling, choking and struggling for air, trying to keep all that piss out of his mouth and throat, barely any room left to breathe, pressing his lips up to that last inch or two of air, and the piss sloshing in his throat, a taste not just in his tongue, but a taste in the throat itself, the taste of all that piss, the piss still rising, Trump’s breathing panicked—Ahhhhh! blub blub blub!—and there’s only a millimeter left, now only one last suck of air—Hahhhhhrrrr! blub blub blub!
I know this gets said a bunch, but I don't think you think that's awesome. (By the way: Our friends over at Sigrid Rausing's Granta declared, on a list that comes out every ten years, that Doten is one of the best young American novelists. How much of a bad joke do you people need to be?) Did you think that was awesome? Obviously you didn't, because obviously no one ever would, because clearly it's awful.
Mark Doten is highly connected, he's like these other people, he's not a straight white male, and he sucks at writing. There you go. The recipe.
In sports, that would be like you starting the baseball game up 20-0, and the other side doesn't get to have any at-bats. Just your side. That's publishing. These people hate the very idea of a level playing field.
When we lived in Mansfield, the soccer team I was on came into the city for a game against these kids who spoke Spanish. They played like each of them was born with a soccer ball at his feet. They were so good. I don't think we touched the ball the entire game. I just remember running around in futility. The kids on the other team were laughing, toying with us, have a gay old time. But also for the joy of the game.
The score that day might have been 150-0. They didn't let up either. They played until the final whistle like it was deadlocked and the next goal won. You know who had a problem with this? Nobody. They played fair, and they crushed us. Did I like it? No. It was a bad time. It was humiliating. But it never entered my mind to think those kids did anything wrong or they should have let up after a while. If they could beat us 500-0, more power to them.
Publishing people wouldn't understand this. And, increasingly, sports people don't understand it either. It's not someone else's fault for being better at something than you. Much better. Exponentially better. Infinitely better. Whatever it may be. It's fair. It's not rigged. You can learn a lot about yourself by getting your ass kicked. My dad didn't say this outright, but I could tell that he thought it was a good lesson. I agreed. Plus, he enjoyed watching those kids. They were great.
Later on when I was in high school, my hockey team went from Connecticut up to Massachusetts to play some Boston-area teams. We played St. John's Prep, and my goodness, they croaked us. It was 11-0. And we weren't a bad team, but we had maybe only three kids who could have made that St. John's Prep team. The coach--who would probably be jailed in today's society--spoke of humble pie. We had been humbled. Embarrassed. Put in our places.
You don't need to stay in that place. You might just be in it for that day. You had a bad day. But you also might need to do some accounting regarding what you're not, what you might have thought you were which you aren't, what you need to do to get better. You have to look within. Or maybe something weird happened, stuff snowballed, and it doesn't really indicate anything--it was just fluky--so you let it go without another thought. Being able to understand when that's best--and relevant--is also a skill.
And it's not even running the score up. It's just playing. It's just doing your best on a level-playing field. What a concept, right?
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