The Real Group Of Death
The other night, I was walking down North 6th St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For the people reading this who live outside New York, I don’t even know where to begin describing Williamsburg. The easy way would be to say it’s where a lot of hipsters live. But there’s so much more to it than that. So much more horrible, rage-inducing, general assholed-ness to Williamsburg than that. Because it really contains every strata of New York asshole, with a few exceptions. Merely typing about Williamsburg is giving me a headache because I hate it so much, so I’ll make this brief.
The other night I’m walking towards Galapagos, a performance space and bar, for Becky Yamamoto’s Flag Day Show. It was a lot of fun, by the way. Anyhow, as I’m walking down the street, I see what appears to be a group of Eurotrash playing soccer in the street. One guy was standing on the sidewalk, in front of a garage with the gate down. I surmised that he was the goalie. The rest of the guys were out in the street, trying to score on him. I wanted to kill them.
Why? What’s wrong with playing soccer? Here’s what’s wrong: First of all, they were Americans. Maybe if they were Europeans I could understand the drive to play soccer whenever the spirit grabs you. But I doubt any Americans are so soccer mad that they just have to play no matter where they are, traffic laws and pedestrian safety be damned. Second, there was a park maybe 5 blocks away from where they were playing. I could understand if it were Rio de Janeiro and they had no choice but to play in the streets because there is no greenery to be found in their neighborhood slum. But they had a choice. And the choice they made was to play soccer in the street so everyone would see them and admire how continental they were.
Also, I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I’ve got a pretty good idea it went something like this:
ASSHOLE 1: Soccer is the best.
ASSHOLE 2: Yeah, I love football.
ASSHOLE 1: Right, football. That’s what I meant.
MUSTACHIOED ASSHOLE 1: When I was in Rome, we played football everyday in this piazza near our apartment.
ASSHOLE 2: I love Rome.
MUSTACHIOED ASSHOLE 2: I’ve been to Prague.
ASSHOLE 1: I can’t believe Americans don’t get football. It’s the best.
ASSHOLE 2: I know.
MUSTACHIOED ASSHOLE 2: You guys hear me? I said I’ve been to Prague.
MUSTACHIOED ASSHOLE 1: Let’s go do something whimsical.
ALL: Yeah!
MUSTACHIOED ASSHOLE 2: It’s pronounced “Pra-ha.”
So that was my day.
