Has it truly only been two years?
Many will surely agree with me that it feels more like we’ve all been in Blursday purgatory for decade or more. So much has transpired in these last 24 months. Man, do we ever have a lot to catch up on. Wherever you’ve been and whatever you’re doing, your friendly bookie looks forward to hearing from you.
As our species prepares to crawl out of our respective hovels, all of us will surely find some muscles have atrophied. Things that once seemed natural will feel foreign. The purpose behind ordinary actions went into deep hibernation. In some cases, they lie forgotten.
Perhaps this applies to your friendly neighborhood betting syndicate as well. Accordingly, this year’s preliminary address seeks to revive some of the repressed spirit behind the project. We’ll go with an FAQ post to “wake up” with. There’s also some new readership out there with questions.
Long-term members can rest assured that all the irreverent satirical fun is just around the corner. If you know your beloved syndicate well, feel free to skip this one. The 27th chapter of “Friends & Football” arrives soon. First, the bookie has the most Frequently asked questions to get through.
What is a "Shadow Scholar"?
For those interested, there is further reading available. Many will recall Dave Tomar’s 2010 memoir. Before delving deeper into the topic, be advised that our personal stories often constitute the least interesting part of the discipline. Most of us are simply perfectionistic workhorses who found it more amenable to operate outside context of the system.
Faced with what we deemed a personal affront to the high standards we wished to hold ourselves to, we opted for an academic “rat-race” of one lone auto-didactic competitor. We didn’t fall through the cracks of academia so much as deliberately seek them out. It’s the classic story of those who prefer working to networking. Nothing terribly special about it.
Far more important matters concerning shadow-scholarship concern the ethical ramifications associated with the field and the extent to which it is practiced today. For the record, your friendly bookie can’t furnish an answer to the latter question. I stopped ghosting years ago and now engage in, what feels like at least, the more honorable pursuit of scholarly editing.
No clue how widespread it is now. If recent, albeit anecdotal, evidence is to be believed, the pandemic has led to a surge in the use of ghostwriters among both primary and secondary education students learning remotely from home. This is believable and maybe not so disturbing.
Kids today have to attain so many added layers of credentials just to get to a semi-comfortable middle-class life. Perhaps it’s the old, bitter Shadow-Scholar self in me talking, but I do feel a twinge of empathy for the hyper-pressurized, ultra-competitive environment young minds have to traverse.
The last year must have been pure hell for those who have barely had the chance to develop adequate coping mechanisms for it yet. Of course, their educators are the ones who should be answering the ethical questions. Teachers and professors are the real heroes here.
Shadow scholars aren’t exactly evil bloodsucking parasites. We like students too. All of us have sat down with students to discuss what they want to say with their work. We tutor and coach them in addition to writing for them. We’ll still have to own up to the opportunism that comes with these more altruistic aspects of our nature.
What is a “Syndicate”?
An easy enough question to answer for anyone who’s familiar with “La Cosa Nostra”. In this case, it should be obvious that the notion of there being some sort of crime-syndicate hidden within this blog’s pages remains a not-so-thinly-veiled inside joke. You’re more than welcome to scour 10,000 pages of text in search of some illegal activity….or you could just read introductory texts to previous chapters to figure it out.
As the years have gone by, fewer and fewer bets have taken place. My mates and I don’t truly trade in much currency anymore. Instead, we swap humorous “riffs” via our own preferred communication channels. They’re published in the daily recaps over the course of the tournament. After the competition, we send each-other “Schwag Packs”. Stickers, books, national team jerseys, and little knickknacks. Things of that nature.
Some friendly betting still transpires on occasion and is always welcome. The check (yes, check!) that comes in the mail later remains the least important part of the parcel. As we reconnect during the tournament via phone, text, or e-mail, the conversation mostly revolves around how the past year, or years, has treated my old friends. My personal favorite question to ask is how the kids are doing and what I can buy for them.
Yes, I like to keep a betting book. Know that I’m probably the least nefarious bookie you’ll ever meet. Large betting conglomerates pump millions into sponsoring football teams, stadiums, tricots, and podcasts. This is actually some fairly heinous stuff too. Gambling addicts find themselves the specific targets of such predatory companies.
Professional representatives of the firms even prey upon frequent bettors by setting them up with so-called “VIP packages” like luxury box-seats to live matches or exploitative lines of usury credit; anything to keep the money flowing. The indigent and impoverished suffer the most. So it has always been with our ruthlessly raptorial species. Sad stuff. Let’s move on.
How does membership work?
You’ll note that the referenced friends are referred to via an alphanumeric designation in the “riffs” section. Codenames were introduced as part of the tongue-in-cheek fun a decade or so ago. A number connotes the time in the bookie’s life when he met someone who’s company he enjoyed far too much to let slip away.
This is followed by a hyphen and the person’s gender. Pretty much anyone who wishes to join in can, though a bookie naturally reserves the right to ignore someone intent on being a bonafide asshole.
Coverage in the “riffs” section still has to be earned:
From WM 2018—Day Nine Recap:
Reader: Ronaldo can buy the bitch all the rings in the world, he’s still not engaged. Probably just got caught cheating again.
Vicey: (giggling)
And….Zing 11-M!!
Reader: Those Icelandic Girls know how to bring the thunder.
Vicey: I’ll bet. Just move there already, 82-M. Go forth and meet your destiny!
Reader: Need a new Super Eagles trikot.
Vicey: Heard, 115-M. Get me one of those flaming wallets and we’ll call it a fair trade.
Reader: Found your Kraut. Marc Behrenbeck.
Vicey: Oh good lord. Only the American viewing audience will get this gag. He’s the quintessential German on-site reporter currently having a “flirt-off” with Alexei Lalas. Stay tuned. These guys are going to get busy ; )
Are there female members?
Man, do I ever get this question a lot. The fact that I often use the blanket addressor “gentlemen”, combined with the prevalence of some prominent (see above) male humor, leads so many people to falsely assume that this is all one big “Boy’s Club”. Believe it or not, there are plenty of women out there who still appreciate a good laugh.
The female members are often even funnier than the male ones and, when it comes to poking fun at me, they’re a cut above the rest. Hopefully, no one lets the uptight nature of our current online culture fool them. The human race is not evolving “ultra-woke” militant women and horrendously scary “incel” males all whining about victimhood in cyberspace. That’s an illusion.
Male or female, coverage in the “riffs” section has to be earned.
From EM 2012—Semi-finals
Vicey: What the. Why would you….I mean…how could you…that’s totally…I mean……I’m human and…….OUCH! I won’t lie. That one stung a bit. I laughed it up, but it was mostly to keep from crying. Thanks, 8-F.
From FWM 2019—Day Three Recap
Reader: Is there some rule that all female players must be described as “livewires?
Vicey: I’m of the same mind, 14-F. Never heard a man described as a “livewire” in my life. Nothing in the etymology of that word suggests estrogen.
Reader: Ugliest uniforms? Australia or Jamaica?
Vicey: This isn’t a Paul Lukas column, but I’ll weigh in nonetheless. Australia by a fucking country mile. Is it 1994 down under?
Reader: What's with Alex Greenwood's eyelashes?
Vicey: Oh thank the fuck christ. I thought it was just me.
Why the Anonymity?
A decent segue as we continue to explore subject of humor. More specifically, why it remains perfectly appropriate for responsible and kindhearted adults to laugh at whatever the hell they damn well want. We deal with this subject in some shape or fashion every year. Call it a personal crusade.
Nothing bonds us suffering semi-evolved simians like laughter. In a world full of so much misery and anguish, the online discourse seems increasingly dominated by self-proclaimed warriors of self-righteous indignation. They shallowly seek to affirm themselves at the expense of making others miserable. Sigh. Sadly, we've got to talk kids.
In the first section, your friendly bookie/ghostwriter literally just got done saying that “the kids are alright”. They mostly are. Every generation has something to teach the one that came before it. Greta Thunberg has every right to light a fire under our posteriors and call us out for being a bunch of myopic self-serving jerks. For that matter (see below) my generation can use a few lessons on our previous linguistic boundaries.
All of that being said, the bookie spends time with his members and their kids. I much as I love my friends and their kids, the act of policing what adults enjoy isn’t the purview of under-developed human beings lacking a certain depth. Kids shriek at their parents for laughing, singing, playing the piano or indeed doing anything that gives them some small amount of pleasure.
The kiddos themselves, naturally, are allowed to have fun. No one else is. There’s the “call out culture” for you in a nutshell. No generation, including mine, has been immune to the phenomenon. It’s merely amplified through the instant gratification systems associated with social media. In Western culture, where young minds become masters of such tools before they gain perspective, the act of respecting experience and wisdom gets completely annihilated
Syndicate members, adults whom I deeply love and respect, get anonymity to laugh at what they damn well please. That’s why we’re still on this low-fi closed circuit site. Sorry, but as much as I enjoy working and spending time with kids, I laugh and love with adults. We don’t do hateful or spiteful “riffs” here. There’s a huge difference between that and something that breaches the constantly re-defined barriers of political correctness.
Having trouble distinguishing where the line should be drawn? Perhaps you should try living longer. It might also be helpful to listen more than you talk. I wasn’t born with that knowledge, by the way. That brings us to….
Are there words that you regret?
That much should be implied. All writer finds the task of reviewing previous work to be a most disillusioning exercise. It happens to be the absolute worst part of prepping for this blog. As much fun as it can be to re-visit the soaring nostalgia of past tournaments, one cannot avoid being confronted with demoralizing moments when digging up echoes of one’s past self.
The “how could I have written that?” heart-pangs drive one nuts. Few writers have the stomach for it. Some experience suicidal thoughts. Some even follow through with them. Think Ernest Hemmingway’s shotgun and Sylvia Plath’s oven. Though he’s not exactly my favorite writer, columnist Charles Krauthammer only escaped hanging himself with a terry cloth when working on his memoirs by virtue of the fact that he was in a wheelchair.
The temptation to scrub some of this stuff clean frequently pops up. In the final analysis, it seems worth standing by you past self because it’s perfectly acceptable that, at one time, you weren’t a fully formed individual. That’s not something you need to apologize for. You’re not a fully formed individual now. You’re still evolving. So long as you have a well-intentioned spirit, you’re on the right path.
The retreat into self-loathing, something your bookie still can’t necessarily avoid, helps no one. Neither does disowning your previous work. It’s yours; part of your practice and training to develop yourself. At least you tried. It remains impossible to improve and evolve without trying.
Some of the riffs from members in previous chapters are pretty crass. They remain there in part because they did make some individuals who are no longer with us laugh at some point. Yes, that’s a somewhat morbid note to hit as we draw to a close.
Perhaps the stalwart defense of a subjective sense-of-humor stems from watching some truly kind people die deaths of despair. Let your parents and friends laugh while they’re still here. Make them laugh if you can.
That was macabre as all hell!
Anything more positive to end on?
Yes. It’s finally time to enjoy international football again! We’ve waited long enough. After this horrifyingly abnormal year during which we watched so much god-awful television just to keep from going mad, then ended up driven to insanity anyway by the fact that all streaming services are 92 percent crap, there’s finally some real entertainment on offer.
In other good news, your friendly bookie’s annual introductory metaphysical rambling section is also behind us! It’s much smoother sailing from here on out. Trust me.
Let the flags, colors, and passion of the greatest global unifying tool humanity has ever conceived provide you with some much-needed escape and relief.
It’s a safe outlet for nationalism. It’s pulling together with an ethereal sense of camaraderie. It’s watching the best modern artists perform in the only cathedrals worth a damn in the age where we all know that the Abrahamic God is a load of primitive nonsense.
vs.
