I’m reading a book right now, Red or Dead, a fictionalized biography of Bill Shankly, the maniacal manager of the Liverpool football team who made it a dynasty in the English soccer league in the ’70s. I believe the Smiths were slamming him in the song “Frankly, Mr. Shankly.” Being from Manchester, which has had the dominant team, the Smiths had reason to resent Shankly’s team messing with their home-town hegemony.
The NFL is an interesting social topic these days too, of course. The hue and cry, the hullabaloo over the video seemed over the top to me. Domestic violence is bad, whether or not you actually see the punch. But everyone sees the punch and grabs their pitchforks and torches, gets all fucking sanctimonious, proposes laws to put all wife-beaters in prison for life, calls for a return to crucifixions, crucifies Roger Goodell, starts wearing pink for breast cancer awareness, stops eating red meat … and forgets that women often refuse to testify against their abusers.
I’m not blaming the victim here. Don’t get me wrong. Athletes are given a pass for too many things, including domestic violence. And football players and fans are in many cases … yawn … I’m getting bored. I could write a New Yorker article about this. This topic deserves either a sentence or 3,000 sentences, nothing in between. Anyone who writes middling, pedantic bullshit about it should be thrown in jail and crucified, then be forced to eat rice and beans. See you all later, the judge is coming my way.
– Knute Rimkus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9l_zAypP7Q
