Greetings syndicate brethren,
Your friendly bookie sends his most heartfelt regards from well across the pond. As a rather crudely drawn Graphic may have led one or two of you to surmise, this summer’s European Football Championship constitutes something of a milestone for many of us. For a decade now, it’s been my great privilege to trade barbs, bets, and general irreverence with the sharpest wits I’ve met from all across the globe.
Nearly every summer, an international football tournament
gives us a convenient excuse to reconnect from wherever our rapacious
Wanderlust has taken us. We manage it all under the auspices of “The
Syndicate”, a satirical Sportsbook I’ve been happily churning out pages for
since the 2002 World Cup.
The project manages to move closer to my heart with each
passing year. In commemoration of the ten-year-anniversary, I’ve re-released
the entire collection. You’ll find all 1400 (!!) pages available for your
perusal in 85 separate posts at the following blog address:
Meh. Only so much one can do with a surfeit of dated
material. I’ve added a plethora of retroactive notes for a sometimes
reflective, but mostly combative dialogue with my past self that occasionally
reads like a highly dysfunctional intervention episode of “Inside the Actors
Studio”. Perhaps more worthwhile, I’ve written synopses for all 286 matches
that we’ve watched together. A straightforward index should allow you to easily
look up what was written about your country over the years in addition to
re-living the result. Straightforward, that is, if you’d care to learn just a
little bit of German. It won’t hurt, I promise:
1) WM = “Weltmeisterschaft” = “World Cup”
2) EM = “Europameisterschaft” = “European Championship”
3) WMQ = “Weltmeisterschaft-Qualifikation” = “World Cup
Qualifying”
4) FWM = “Frauenweltmeisterschaft” = “Women’s World Cup”
For the time being, we’ll host this summer’s festivities on
the blog. Mercifully, this means that no one will have to muck around with
e-mail attachments, mess with their spam settings, or tolerate the plastering
of their Facebook wall. If you happen to be a syndicate member who misses the
old e-mail format, rest assured that you have not been forgotten. Your e-mail
address remains scrawled in my black book, just as it was the day I shared a
stimulating conversation with you and vowed to be diligent about keeping in
touch. I can still send you e-mails if that happens to be your preference.
For those of you wondering, work continues on the new
hobby-writing website I promised.
We will complete work on it before the year is out. It’s coming: A new
McSweeney’s for the more internationally oriented, a cozy home for all those talented
worldly individuals who love working the keys. Features extend far beyond the
realm of international football. One can expect reviews of obscenely bad
scholarship, travelogues, irreverent counter-essays, and…..that’s merely what
one can expect from me. Other writers are on board. It’s unforeseeable that the
door shall close to more. You may think I’ve better things to do than sift
through the pages random characters send me. You may even be right, but it
hasn’t stopped me yet. Your Shadow Scholar remains committed to making time to
work with other writers, irrespective of whatever other infuriatingly petty
obligations stand before him.
In the meantime, I express the sincere hope that every last
one of you will find time to drop by this summer. Whether you plan to play,
read, watch, or have no interest whatsoever, please consider stopping by and
hanging with us during the month-long football holiday, even if you can only
stay for a drink. Coverage begins on June 1st. To hell with the
awkwardness, I love you all.
Alles Gute,
Vicey
(P.S. On the occasion of this momentous jubilee, all of your
friendly bookie’s winnings will go to his favorite global charity:
Please consider donating your winnings to an international
cause as well. I know I haven’t done 1/500th of what most of you
have done for the world, but one has to start somewhere)
