Studying The Games, or: The Bittersweet Reality of Not Being A Fan

In search of smartdumb: Superbowl XLIX; Shake It Off; Notes from Underground; Wal-Mart soul; Loidis in my kitchen.

Photo by vale on Unsplash

(1)

I remember the exact moment my wife, a professional NFL analyst, stopped watching football. In the final minutes of Super Bowl XLIX, Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson’s pass in the endzone, certifying a Patriots victory over the Seahawks. I walked her home from the bar back to our apartment as she mumbled sports words I didn’t quite understand between what appeared to be actual sobbing. A few months earlier, I had been on one knee asking her to marry me when news broke that the Seahawks had just traded Percy Harvin to the Jets. The news was so catastrophic for her that my proposal and our expensive dinner reservation would have to wait. My wife remains an ardent supporter of her teams. But after that game, I noticed she no longer said she “watched football.” She “studied the games.”

(2)

A woman at a holiday party tells me about her Taylor Swift podcast. Each week she reports on Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift’s relationships, Taylor Swift fans, and her own relationship with Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift’s relationships, and Taylor Swift fans. She has a few thousand listeners per episode; additional content is available for Patreon subscribers. When I’m asked, which is not often, “Shake It Off” is the only favorite Swift song I can name. But it is not considered a serious pick among the cognoscenti, she explained. There is nothing to decode in “Shake It Off”, no refraction of the celebrity’s personal life to pore over. Listening is fun. But solving the crossword puzzle where person meets persona – that’s where the action is.

(3)

As a paid critic, I spent eleven months every year studying the games. I believed criticism should be in dialogue with the music, not subservient to it. To be a fan – fanatum, to appear before the temple – was the definition of subservience. I felt no obligations. I didn’t root for hometown acts. Like a budget Dostoyevsky narrator, I somehow found virtue in turning my back on the ones I had loved. Kill yr idols, etc. I was not listening to musics but to Music: connecting the dots between supposedly unrelated acts, celebrating the anomalies, looking for things that surprised me. If you knew about it, I already didn’t care. Beginnings entranced me. I was fearful of everything after. If I had my way back then, every band would release one 7” then break up immediately.

(4)

December was a month for resting my ears. After I turned in my lists, I could stop studying the games and try listening to music, not to what it signifies. To music I wanted to listen to, not music I thought might be important. In my twenties that meant Basic Channel, or Broadcast, or Miles Davis – these were happy places for me. But it became harder with every passing year to know, when left alone, what music I even enjoyed listening to, or what I should even feel when listening to music I supposedly enjoy listening to. My pleasure had slowly become my plasticity. I delight not in the sound, but in my ability to hear it. It’s a blessing and a curse. From the wax and wane of traffic to the Wal-Mart soul of Teddy Swims – I’m almost always able to hear something I love if I get out of the way and let myself listen.

(5)

On Christmas Eve, I watched my 15-month-old bobble around to Loidis in my kitchen. I cooked dinner for eight while listening to Jessica Pratt’s beautiful new album, and renewed my commitment to exercise listening to Kim Gordon. Patrick Holland’s best of list might have been my favorite – thank you for Fine. I love December because my mindchatter hushes almost naturally. I am not distracted by the broader contexts, the anxieties of influence: Is this not just a budget version of Vocalcity? Why make music that sounds like the 60s in 2024? Would this music hold up without the celebrity factor? I saved “Big Muzzy” because it sounded like Cocteau Twins, not despite the fact. In December the context is simply: my friends liked this or, my friends made that or, somebody I admire said they liked this or that. This is what the mixtapes we used to make for one another felt like. We listen to get closer to the people we love. We listen because our child is dancing.