Every genius has their Achilles heel. Socrates? Pederast. Benjamin Franklin? Womanizer. And John Hodgman, in all his hilarious writing, suffers from the most tragic of flaws: he doesn't like sports.
(My flaw? If anything, I'm too perfect. Also, whistling.)
He made it quite evident in his first book, The Areas Of My Expertise, that only a couple sports references would be seen, strongly hinting that he wasn't all that into the genre of entertainment. His interview with the Onion AV Club cemented that fact.
Summing it up quite nicely was this: "I don’t even mind people’s passion for it, but I do tend to get ultimately frustrated by the presumption that I should care deeply." He points to high school, a place where, perhaps unlike any other locale, is a jungle where SPORTS ARE IMPORTANT.
I vividly recall a conversation I had with some schoolmates during my freshman year of high school. Actually, it wasn't so much a conversation as it was a verbal ass-whupping. The following week was the "big game" against the school's arch rival, and during lunch a fellow cafeteria chum asked if I was going to the game. Loathing football at the time, it wasn't part of my uproarious Friday night plans. Incredulous, but powerless to stop me, he requisitioned the assistance of some persuasive advocates, known in high school terminology as seniors:
"SO! You goin' to the game?"
"Um... probably not."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE NOT GOIN' TO THE GAME?"
"I really don't feel like going."
"WHY THE HELL NOT?"
"I'm not really into football."
"THAT DOESN'T MATTER. DUDE. EVERYBODY IS GOING TO THE GAME. EVERYBODY WILL BE THERE. YOU'RE GOING TO THE GAME."
It was quite a convincing argument, him being three years older than me, loud, adamant about this football event, and three years older than me. Impressionable 14-year-olds aren't going to turn down an offer like that.
(Aside: Y'know, the more I think about it, that was the night in which I started to grow accustomed to football. Looking back, how the hell was that possible? Our school lost. My ride home ditched me, and in a pre-cell phone era, this required walking across the stadium to locate a pay phone. By all accounts it should have scarred me from the entire concept of the sport. I guess those seniors WERE, in fact, rather knowledgeable.)
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