by TC
The three Irishmen and I were playing pool in a bar in downtown Detroit. I'd met them in college and I liked them. They told good, funny stories and that, from what I can tell, is pretty much the national sport of Ireland.
Shane and Tom were in particularly good raconteurial form that night so me and Patrick — the other, uncharacteristically quiet Irishmen — just played pool and listened to them spin their yarns.
Several people around us listened, too, as bringing the Irish together with beer pretty much guarantees a good time.
Just before closing time, a tasty Motor City morsel approached Patrick, who was by far the best looking Irishmen she, or likely anyone else, had ever seen. She backed him up against the wall and trapped him in-between her outstretched arms.
She leaned in very close, looking him straight in the eyes, and proclaimed, "I'm American and I like to fuck."
Patrick, despite his handsome looks, was terrifically shy. His eyelids fluttered and he pulled in his chin and looked at the ground in embarrassment while he fidgeted with his pool cue. Still he rose to the occasion, sort of, and responded, "As...as do I."
Suddenly it became apparent to onlookers why Patrick didn't talk much. He had a voice that's best described as a blend between a leprechaun and Jennifer Tilly. It was high. It was feminine. And the fact that it was also Oirish seemed to compound the problem.
The tasty morsel recoiled slightly, her lust apparently shillelaghlied by Patrick's pitchy pipes.
Her arms fell to her sides. She stood looking at him for a moment before walking back to her table. I never told Patrick this, but I'm pretty sure she mouthed/whispered something like, "I just propositioned a hamster," to her friends.
That was Patrick's curse. He'd been given the face of a god but the voice of a doggy squeak toy. He never overcame it and it's handicapped him socially and professionally to this day.
And this is exactly what I suspect will curtail David Beckham's success in the United States. Excuse me, but have you adoring females out there heard this guy talk? I hear his voice and I hear a little bit of Patrick.
But if only that were just the one yellow flag against Beckham, the only thing preventing him from making soccer as popular in America as it is in most of the rest of the world.
America has more than its share of metrosexuals, but they ain't seen nothing like what they're about to see. Next to the way he bends traditional and even not-so traditional concepts of maleness, his much-vaunted kick is ramrod straight.
Make no mistake about it, this is a genuine sissy we're talking about.
The crying jags after he fails to perform to expectations on the soccer pitch are one thing, but his flamboyance off the field would make a drag queen blush.
He has a different haircut or hairstyle nearly every week. The skinhead look gives way to cornrows that give way to a retro Billy Idol bad-boy 'do. He uses pink nail polish. He wears sarongs. He even wears his pop-star wife's panties.
Of course, that's what we're supposed to think, that they're her panties, which is kind of kinky and perverted in a way that I can sort of appreciate, but I suspect they're actually his panties because there's no way the prissy Beckham would put on someone else's stanky danky pretties.
It's much easier to imagine him crying out in his soft voice:
"Posh luv, where are my pink silkies? I hope that tart of a maid didn't bugger up with the bloody fabric softener!"
Then there's the photo spread in the gay British magazine just before English troops left to do battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. One British journalist questioned Beckham's decision this way:
"Handing our enemies such an embarrassing pink stick to hit us with when the nation is girding its manly loins?"
Then there's the one unfortunate tattoo. He's the first man I've seen that actually has a tramp stamp. There, just above his arse, is the word Brooklyn.
Sure, Becks loves New York! Pull down his pants and you might see the Lincoln Tunnel, too! Now don't go in there unless you want to end up in Jersey! Maybe you prefer instead to meander a bit south and catch a glimpse of Lady Liberty's erect torch.
But no, Brooklyn is actually the name of one of his sons. We can only guess where the names of his other two children are tattooed. I hope the children will never experience in real life the same rift, the same deep yawning chasm, that no doubt separates their names on Beck's behind.
It's a pretty safe bet that the Beckham children will have to undergo years of therapy to wash the butt ink off their psyches.
But despite all this, his new team, the LA Galaxy, thinks Beckham will take the country by storm. They've given him a 5-year contract that, with a percentage of merchandizing sales included, might amount to 250 million dollars. They hope that because of him, American soccer will soon rival American football in popularity.
Excuse me, but when average American Maxim-reading males learn all this stuff about Beckham the man, who among them is going to wear this pooftah's jersey on his back? What mid-American farm-raised hottie is going to lipstick the name "Becks" on a de-husked ear of corn and sneak it into bed with her and turn it into creamed corn while staring at this soy boy's poster?
Granted, he's a handsome bastard, but won't that physique put the kibosh on some of the female lust he's expected to attract from American females? Beckham is a male, soccer-playing version of sometime anorexic Lara Flynn Boyle. Nice face, but get thee to a gym.
Of course, if you put him in football shoulder pads, Becks almost looks normal. Well, on second thought, the pads don't help that much.
It boggles the bollocks to think of the female lust Beckham has generated in other countries. According to Japan Today, some Japanese women have even dumped their fiancés and become hookers so they can pay for trips to England (and now, presumably, America) to follow their idol.
One Japanese woman even checked into hotels where Beckham stayed during the last World Cup and licked toilets that he might have used.
Oh Lordy, Lordy, Lordy.
So it's quite possible he'll generate some female lust in this country. Our females haven't been too discriminating in the past. After all, Pam Anderson married Kid Rock.
But popularizing soccer might be a little tougher.
Back in 1947, Brooklyn Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey was determined to integrate baseball. He thought long and hard about what type of man the first black player should be. Granted, his candidate had to be extraordinarily talented, but he also needed to be courageous and able to withstand humiliation and abuse without retaliating. He had to win the hearts of racist America. He had to pave the way for others.
Jackie Robinson fit the bill perfectly and performed his role beyond expectations.
So Beckham isn't being brought to America to right any societal wrongs, but he's presumably being brought over to transform soccer. They hope he'll take it from a ho-hum sport that's mainly the domain of European and South American transplants and young American girls who don't have much else to choose from in the way of team sports and turn it into a National pastime.
In my mind, this is equivalent to Branch Rickey having picked Snoop Dog as the first black man to play Major League baseball, or Chris Tucker's character from The Fifth Element.
I'm well aware that Beckham has lots of adoring fans here already who think he's the perfect choice to popularize soccer in America. His defenders might argue that I'm just jealous of his success. Damn right I'm jealous. I'm jealous of the throngs of adoring women and all that money's a little irksome, but that's about where it stops.
I really don't like what I see of the guy. And it's not the way he dresses, his hair, the nail polish, his silly tattoos, or his unremarkable physique. All of that's irrelevant to me.
It's the sheer vanity of the guy that strikes me like a Zidane head butt to the stomach. And this comes from someone who makes his living off an activity that wallows in vanity. Beckham, though, makes a body shaving, tanning, flexing bodybuilder look like an Amish person in comparison.
I don't think David Beckham will popularize soccer in America, but I worry that he'll popularize American self-love; take it to a whole new scary level, one that we could well do without, thank you. Legions of young wanna-be fops will receive, through their new role model, tacit approval to express their inner sissy.
You know, one preening Beckham is quite tolerable. Millions of them are quite another matter.
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