This Week in Fandom: The Great New York-ification
The New York Giants’ new running back Cam Skattebo betrays almost zero regard for his personal well-being. And I think I love it.
Every (ahem) week, I write my nephew letters about sports that he mostly doesn’t read. They centre on my support for the New York Knicks, Mets, Giants, and Tottenham Hotspur – and his love of Chelsea, LeBron James, and prop bets.
I convinced myself I’d shut the world out for an entire weekend – maybe only once step out for lunch ingredients, some Old Spice, and ah fuck it some fried chicken – and really chip away at what’s left of this novel. Not the one I’ve been sort of writing for the last 2.5 years (and, lols, all writing is anyway “sort of” writing); I mean the big fat fairy tale for adults that I’m running through a second edit, that resembles this world socio-culturally much more than it did a decade ago, and that increasingly feels like my last real source of existential certainty.
When I emerged from the apartment around 3pm, with legs to stretch, a vibrating heart to negotiate with, and Zohran Mamdani and David Remnick negotiating in my earbuds, I had to somewhat achieved the feat of existing outside of time for the weekend. Fall weather called for a briskness to my step. I briefly engaged with a new neighbour and a new dog, both polite fellows I wish happiness and prosperity upon. Bright yellow leaves carpeted the sidewalks off Mehringdamm. With the right amount of focus, and/or some advance commitment to an editorial task, I’m able to convince myself I’ll do a thousand different things before bedtime at 1am: float around a small perimeter of the city ghost-like as usual, ensnare and correct the excess of multiple chapters in this final stretch of fiction, finish reading that excellent Colson Whitehead novel, maybe cook, watch episode six of HBO’s Task, watch 2 or 3 hours of nostalgic HBO, listen to a hip-hop podcast whilst finishing aforementioned Colson Whitehead novel, squeeze in a sports history documentary, and even finalise an Airbnb for my trip to London in November.
I’m trying to do some of this today. I learned I’d secured a British visa in my passport on Friday, a few hours after the Internet in general insisted I catch up with every glorified inch (pause) of Jaxson Dart (QB1, New York Giants) and Cam Skattebo (RB1 pretty much, New York Giants) ramming their heads into the Philadelphia Eagles.
As you know I spent all off-season or as I like to put it “mini-camp” with these scroll-dominating eccentrics, whose swagger and volume (and dare I say it, utter fearlessness) is custom-built for the city that only sometimes sleeps and for my football-loving heart as well. I thought I knew what I wanted after seeing New York in late summer – after Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens. Then football season kicked off, and I was forcefully reminded the New York Football Giants are an unserious sports organisation in both good ways and bad. I fell for that Niners resilience again: Brock Purdy starting every down anew like a determined copy editor himself, and all those ready and capable next men up, all the way down the depth chart. The 49ers are everything I love about good sports teams: they’re a meritocracy – they drink from the fountain of offense – and they’re another great excuse to visit San Francisco someday. But they’re not, gawddamnit, New York.
As much as I’m enjoying the season, as much I enjoy every season, I know where the pepper is. Every time I see heads collide I wince, flinch, look away. More than once this week – watching these motherfucker Giants shimmy in the endzone, watching playoff baseball vindicate our very particular love of America’s most abstract pastime, even sans Mets – I kept thinking to myself, Damn. Does anyone else wish everybody on earth, Palestinians in particular, could kick back once a week, part into fanbases, eat a bunch of dumb shit before work on Monday, and just worry about whether that last call was pass interference or not?
I’m sorry that took a bit of a turn. It just occurs to me what privilege I enjoy; to wonder what apparel I’m spending grocery money on next, where my favourite athletes stand on (well) humanity when they’re not standing on business, and for how long these Giants can overrun social media. But I’m in, I guess.
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The reason I brought up the visa, on the day the Giants bested the Eagles, is I can hear the juju again loud and clear. Despite two or three decent adventures, this is genuinely the first time I’ve planned and coordinated a trip all by myself. First time I’ve filled out a visa application without corporate or government prompting, with no one to ask what goes where and when. First time I’ve booked an Airbnb, and not just shopped around a bunch of listings before thinking, Ah, maybe this all is a little too much money. It’s also going to be the first time I travel ever with RyanAir, so let’s see who I am spiritually in a few weeks. The point is I’m finally adulting, lad.
I’m rather excited. I have become an entire person since the last time I got to see London, and so I sent Tai a regrettable voice-note about the juju – the alignment of very specific stars (Jaxson Dart, my Airbnb host, and the Tottenham cockerel atop Spurs’ stadium) to signify that I am finally self-actualising. I’m doing all the things I said I would, going all the places I dreamt of for years, and ready to leave behind the life of an unabashed sports whore! I have some hope, perhaps foolish, perhaps misplaced, that all of this hopping and bouncing around is representative of some unresolved stalemate within. It has coincided, after all, with emotional and psychological flux at times, and other times with epiphanies at breakfast. Maybe, just now, it’s coinciding with the prospect of Camden, and the refreshing aloe vera of listening to (Zohran) Mamdani maintain good cheer as he spurns at least some privilege for a mayoral run and hopefully mayoral tenure at a tense time in a difficult world.
This Giants core is going to be screaming soon for a coach, or at least an offensive coordinator (hint hint, Mike McDaniels) with big, innovative football ideas. It’s totally plausible the 21 Century New York Mets will simply become a high-maintenance version of the Charlie Brown operation they’ve always been; incubating this, at the back of my mind, must make me some kind of Mets fan. I wish, more than I wish for my own personal success and happiness, honestly, that there was a way to get Giannis Antetokounmpo on the Knicks, and that a Tottenham Hotspur manager (including Thomas Frank) would realise Brennan Johnson is in fact a centre-forward. None of it is perfect, and I anticipate there will always be pain and/or exquisite mediocrity on at least two of these fronts. But at least I’ll know exactly who I’m dying for, lad.
