I Don't Get It

Mark and I went out Saturday night to my favorite bar. As usual we took seats at the end of the bar with the best view of things and the best bartender to serve us. From my perch looking out at all the young men and women, I noticed something. At one point or another every one of them had their cell phones out and were completely immersed in whatever it is they do on those things. They weren't talking to anybody, they were poking at the screen and tap, tap, tapping it while life went on all around them. When I was their age we didn't have these devices and were forced to actually interact with each other or just sit there all alone and get drunk, like I used to do.

            I also don't get soccer. World Cup Soccer to be more precise. Nothing happens other than a lot of running back and forth while fans go nuts in the stands. Up on every video screen in that bar they were showing the World Cup. Ivory Coast was playing Japan at the time and it was terminally boring, yet there were some people in that bar who were cheering madly. For which team I don't know since none of them looked African or Japanese, but it seemed really important to them at the time. At one point the cameras focused on the Ivory Coast fans in the stands. They were dancing and moving, all in unison. It was the most interesting thing they showed all evening.

            One more thing I don't get, rap music. While sitting in that bar Saturday night, rap 'music' was blasting away. In addition to the boring World Cup on the video, the jukebox was playing some of the most godawful crap you could imagine. Heavy bass with nothing else but an inarticulate voice rhyming nonsense verses. I don't just not get rap music, I hate rap music, and I hate being subjected to it in my favorite bar while watching kids look at their iphones while boring soccer is being shown on the video screens. But then again, I am a sixty four year old white man. I'm sure they don't get me either. 

The only reason to watch soccer