The 76-year-old Cherry worked the mostly French-Canadian troops at each stop with the Kandahar version of his long-running Coach’s Corner segment that airs during the first intermission of NHL games.
“Is this your favourite team,” he asked, holding up a Washington Capitals logo.
“No!” the troops shouted.
He held up a Calgary Flames logo. “Is that your favourite team?”
“No!” came the reply.
“What about that one?” he asked, a Montreal Canadiens logo in hand.
The troops erupted. But the biggest cheer came next.
“Les Nordiques!” someone cried as Cherry held up the logo of Quebec City’s former NHL franchise, which the city is trying to bring back.
...
Troops at Ma’sum Gar are still reeling from the death of one of their own last week. The blast from an improvised explosive device, or IED, killed Corporal Steve Martin last week.
MacKay had a special gift for the Ma’sum Gar troops: the game ball from this year’s Grey Cup, won by the Montreal Alouettes. That elicited a roar from the soldiers circled around him.
Reminds me why I think sports fanaticism is revolting. "I might not know how to afford my kids' health care bills in a few years, but lemme tell yah, I've been studying the new line-up and THEY'RE A YOUNG TEAM AND OH BOY! THIS YEAR THEY'LL DEFINITELY MAKE IT TO THE PLAY-OFFS BUT NEXT YEAR ... !"
Could you imagine this:
The 38-year old Stroumboulopoulos held up a book by P. J. O'Rourke to the assembled troops.
"Boo!" they shouted.
"Is this your favourite writer?" he asked, now holding a work by Christopher Hitchens.
"No!" they shouted.
"How about Naomi Klein??" he asked, raising a copy of The Shock Doctrine above his head.
"Yeah!"
Finally, Stroumboulopoulos held up a copy of Manufacturing Consent. "Or maybe you'd prefer Noam Chomsky??"
The crowd went absolutely wild.
Jeeziz.
However, I have some faith in humanity. Perhaps it didn't go like the way the newspapers are saying it did at all. Just for the purposes of SATIRE and PARODY I'm going to pretend that I, thwap, accompanied Cherry and Mackay on their jaunt.
And there you have it folks!The 76-year-old Cherry worked the mostly French-Canadian troops at each stop with the Kandahar version of his long-running Coach’s Corner segment that airs during the first intermission of NHL games.
“Is this your favourite team,” he asked, holding up a Washington Capitals logo.
"Fuck-off!” the troops shouted.
He held up a Calgary Flames logo. “Is that your favourite team?”
“No! Cut it out with this shit!” came the reply. "We want to go home!"
“What about that one?” he asked, a Montreal Canadiens logo in hand.
The troops erupted. "Put these fucking logos away!!! This war is bullshit! Christmas is bullshit! You're bullshit!"
But the biggest jeers came next.
“Les Nordiques!” Cried Cherry holding up the logo of Quebec City’s former NHL franchise, which the city is trying to bring back.
"Screw-off old man!" shouted one. "If you love this place so much you can stay here and let me take your plane-ride home!" shouted another.
...
Troops at Ma’sum Gar are still reeling from the death of one of their own last week. The blast from an improvised explosive device, or IED, killed Corporal Steve Martin last week.
MacKay had a special gift for the Ma’sum Gar troops: the game ball from this year’s Grey Cup, won by the Montreal Alouettes. That elicited a roar from the soldiers circled around him.
"How the hell do you think looking at that ball is going to bring back our friend you idiot?"
MacKay began to tear-up, his lower lip trembling, he put the ball back into the duffle-bag and then ran to his handlers' sides.
...
The visit took on a tragic turn when MacKay and Cherry (in violation of several international laws) jokingly took part in a live-fire artillery exercise. An artillery officer slowly read-out coordinates as a nervous MacKay painstakingly adjusted the cannon. When he was finished, the officer shouted "FIRE!" and a panicky MacKay jerkily did so. A deafening roar was followed by a sickening whining noise as the missile came crashing down on the camp's mess-hall, killing two and wounding three.
"We should have kept you to the torture sessions MacKay! There the only person you ever hurt was yourself!" screamed one of the accompanying officers.
"I was never good at math." whined MacKay. Cherry had more luck, entering the coordinates and firing a round towards he knew not where.
"Is that it?" he moaned. Cherry was then taken to a ridge from where a tiny cluster of huts could be seen about three miles away.
"We suspect that Taliban insurgents are hiding in that village. How would you like to call in an air-strike sir?"
Cherry did so and he and MacKay hollered as minutes later a fighter jet soared past them and seconds later the village disappeared in a cloud of brown dust and the plane veered majestically away.
"Congratulations sir. I think you killed about ten or twelve bad guys plus some assorted others." said the officer.
Next they visited a military hospital and Cherry repeated his teams' logo routine to similar acclaim and then began to comfort some of the wounded and traumatized soldiers. "Hey now! None of that!" he said to the moaning and the complaints. "You guys volunteered for this mission! Now I don't want to hear any of this belly-aching about it! Just think of Baby Jesus coming into the world about now, only to get killed in a couple of months at Easter time! He's not complaining and neither should you!"
Finally, Cherry and MacKay joined President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan political and military leaders at a bacha-bazi performance. The Afghan officials clapped and cheered as an 11-year old boy dressed in female attire came out and danced before them. Later, the boy would be offered up to one of the leading men in a practice that had been stamped out by the Taliban only to be revived by the Karzai/Warlord government.
Cherry watched in disgust and when asked if he was enjoying the show said no and began to talk agitatedly to the Afghan leaders. With the loud music it was difficult to hear but Cherry began to mince and prance while yelling at them, similar to his mockery of effeminate homosexuals in one of his more controversial "Coach's Corner" episodes. Before their handlers could intervene, the 76-year old Cherry and the eternally puerile MacKay received numerous punches and kicks from the enraged dignitaries.
When asked for his thoughts following his fact-finding trip, Cherry said: "You know, I still support what we're doing in Afghanistan. For nine years, despite all the corruption, electoral fraud, unending poverty, growing insurgency, and dead and wounded Canadian men and women, I've stuck stupidly to the same brain-dead, pro-mission stance I've always had. Why should I change that just because a couple of perverts took a swing at me?"
6 comments:
For some really good stuff on (American) sports and sports culture, see Dennis Perrin. He's got a book on it (called, oddly enough, "AMERICAN FAN: Sports Mania and the Culture That Feeds It").
Here're some tastes from his blog:
http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/search?q=sports
Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get links to individual posts in that list, but here are some titles to look for:
Fourth And Long
Fan Baste
For The Kids
I read his stuff on counterpunch.
I don't really mind sports as a diversion. But Cherry's shtick is simply too brain-dead for me to even be sympathetic.
That Chomsky fella has a few good lines, but P.J. O'Rourke is...intellectual dynamite. "Ship of Fools" has to be one of the most devastating pieces of satire I've read this side of Radical Chic, and people are still riffing off his "Alexander Haig's Map of the World" thirty years after it was published in the National Lampoon.
I know not of the particular works you speak of. I remember reading some of his Rolling Stone pieces and reviews of "Give War a Chance."
Obviously i found his politics repugnant, but the other thing was he didn't make me laugh. Nothing to feel guilty about.
Chacun son gout. Political humor - right, left, and blech, in the center is topical, and, ultimately, disposable. Give War a Chance was all right (not quite as good as Republican Party Reptile or Holidays in Hell) but probably won't be readily available in print 10 years after O'Rourke stops writing or dies.
O'Rourke does have a few more arrows in his quiver - his "general interest" stuff does put him in roughly the same class as Thurber, Parker, and Keillor, if not Waugh or Wodehouse. Modern Manners, The Bachelors Home Companion, and National Lampoon's High School Yearbook Parody will probably still be of interest as long as there are still manners, yearbooks, high schools, or bachelors. I've been to a few book signings and reading by the author, and quite a few people come with their copy of the Nat Lamp Yearbook rather than whatever book he is currently flogging, during the signing session.
Mark,
I read the magazine version of the high-school yearbook. (It centered around some drippy guy who would have been in the National Guard at Kent State but he was sick that day [?]) and I thought it was hilarious.
When it comes to his National Lampoon stuff, I never knew what was by which. (I was kinda young then.)
But he was young then. I didn't like what i did see of his later work.
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