The San Diego Chargers are an ephemeral sports team.
A solid base ten ago I was a student way too into video games to care about journalism and my roommate was way too into sports to care about journalism. So instead of doing what we were drowning in student loans to accomplish we sat around an played video games and watched sports.
I was never a devout "sports-er." My dad placed a ball in front of me, my mom placed a book. I told them both I can't be bothered with either because Super Mario Brothers 3 is lit as fuck and they needed to stop whatever they were doing an play it. There weren't feeling that answer so I played sports and read books until my childhood concluded, then went back to my game.
My roommate was the same, but with sports. A fly on the wall would be convinced we hated the things we love based on the things we said about them. We spent our days swapping Dennis Miller style sermons on our respective disciplines.
For instance, I would inform him that Grand Theft Auto was more than a "Sociopath Simulator." It is also a misogynist power fantasy, and fun. And he would inform me that a sports draft was important in the moment because it wasn't easy to, as I stated, "Just buy a better slave later."
We would split the difference with sports video games. The battlefield was either baseball or football games. He would whip me relentlessly in both which deeply hurt my one feeling. Contrary to how much practice I get, I am not a fan of loosing, and I am even less a fan of losing at something I have done every single day of my life. It didn't click in my head until later that I was pressing buttons, whereas he was executing on techniques he had studied daily. It was bullshit.
Later on in life I found myself testing MLB the Show where I took out years of repressed anger on a test bay full of kids. Every head I took I would place on an imaginary hill, a hill of sculls I would one day climb in order to destroy my roommate. By this time he had married and moved out, so my plan was to call him up one day, somehow lead the conversation to a quick game of The Show "For old times sake," fumble around with the controls for a bit, then give him a crispy molly-whopping.
All of the above happened except the molly-whopping came from him. I put the controller down, made up an excuse about work the next day, and cried a little bit in the car on the way home. I refuse to play sports game with him anymore, because he is not worth my goddamn time, and that is the only reason.
Anyway, I speak of this because he is doing well, and I can't stand that either. Check him out on Mighty 1090, or Bolts From the Blue. It's always weird when I'm in a conversation pretending to care about sports and the person I'm talking to mentions something he made or said. I think, "psh, fuck that guy. I should give him a call."
I hope information figures out a way to live with the Raiders again. Don't worry, the bay area is terrified as well. Some Montague and Capulet shit right there. Also JERBZ.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Fumble
