Peanuts on Ice
The United States is off to a great start at the Olympics. As of this writing the good ol’ USA leads the medal count with 14 total including 5 gold medals.
This post is not about that. It is not about some hot chick skier with a bad leg taking better advantage of gravity than others. It is not the lovable, ragamuffin underdog story of some guy who had a multinational corporation build a secret practice facility so he could learn some new tricks away from the prying eyes of competitors.
Rather, this post is about something more akin to the real life that most Americans lead, although as a culture we are taught to only admire (and in fact, aspire to be or pretend we are) the hyper-successful winners and deny the fact that most of us are just average schmucks with a few too many bills and crummy jobs.
This post is dedicated to John Shuster and his curling rink. They are a group of guys who are living life as most of us live it on a daily basis. Just coming up a bit short, or long, or rolling too far away. Or to translate to the rest of us: traffic jams, idiot bosses, incompetent subordinates, cold coffee, broken shoelaces, software malfunctions, no-show repair people, flat tires, late buses or trains, water in the basement, screaming kids, and other people on the Internet who are just WRONG, dammit.
As Americans we’re not supposed to like them because so far they are losers. And yet, if you look in some corners of American culture you will in fact find the cult of the loser. I’m not just talking about Chicago Cubs fans or Cleveland Browns fans or Los Angeles Clippers fans. I’m talking about the most popular loser in the history of American culture. No, not George McGovern either you politico-types. I’m talking about a fictional character who even bears a passing physical resemblance to John Shuster.
Charlie Brown.
Who in American doesn’t love Peanuts? Or more accurately perhaps, who at one point in their life didn’t love Peanuts because I’m sure there are some embittered hipster alt-cartoony-types who think cartoons like Peanuts are some sort of Establishment Plot to Ensure Cartoon Art Mediocrity. Fortunately none of those folks will ever see this because well, nobody ever sees this but I keep adding content anyway because it keeps me sane while I’m dealing with traffic jams, idiot bosses, incompetent subordinates, cold coffee, broken shoelaces, software malfunctions, no-show repair people, flat tires, late buses or trains, water in the basement, screaming kids, and other people on the Internet who are just WRONG, dammit.
The loser-ness of Peanuts is so legendary that someone decided to do a study of every Peanuts strip ever written and compile the statistics of Charlie Brown’s baseball team It may surprise you to know that according to this analysis, ol’ Chuck actually occasionally won a game which actually makes the repeated losing more poignant because occasionally winning something shows that maybe you have a chance. Good old Charles Schultz must’ve known somewhere down deep in the core of his being that having a little hope and constantly having it crushed is far, far more devastating (and more representative of real life) than having no hope at all. That fact is also excellently illustrated in the ongoing attempts by Charlie Brown to kick the football. Lucy convinces ol’ Chuck every time that this time is the time she’s not going to pull it away, that this time he’s finally gonna kick it and every time she pulls the ball away and reveals that some small part of the hope she had built up in Charlie Brown’s heart was a lie.
John Shuster has learned that fact of life three times so far this Olympics eh friends?
Of course there was one time after Charlie Brown was admitted to the hospital that Lucy promised never to pull the ball away again. Charlie Brown took her on her word and you know what? Lucy didn’t pull the ball away.
Charlie Brown missed the ball and kicked her in the arm.
Whether you want to admit it to yourself or not friends, we’ve all done that in our lives. We have all had the golden opportunity, the fates align, the hope burns bright in our hearts and at the key crucial moment we….fail. Miserably. Think back on your failures and take solace in the fact that you’re not alone. You aren’t the only victim of luck and circumstance and yes, even your own lack of sufficient ability in certain situations. Everyone fails sooner or later.
So John Shuster, Jason Smith, Jeff Isaacson, John Benton and alternate Chris Plys I salute you. In the middle of all this aspirational crapola and nationalistic absurdity that we call the Olympics you are reminding us of what we all have to go back to once the tube is turned off. I know that’s not the role you guys wanted, but it appears that it is the hand that you have been dealt. I’m very familiar with that set of cards myself, and should you find yourself in our humble little New Jersey curling club again sometime the first round is on me.
This post is not about that. It is not about some hot chick skier with a bad leg taking better advantage of gravity than others. It is not the lovable, ragamuffin underdog story of some guy who had a multinational corporation build a secret practice facility so he could learn some new tricks away from the prying eyes of competitors.
Rather, this post is about something more akin to the real life that most Americans lead, although as a culture we are taught to only admire (and in fact, aspire to be or pretend we are) the hyper-successful winners and deny the fact that most of us are just average schmucks with a few too many bills and crummy jobs.
This post is dedicated to John Shuster and his curling rink. They are a group of guys who are living life as most of us live it on a daily basis. Just coming up a bit short, or long, or rolling too far away. Or to translate to the rest of us: traffic jams, idiot bosses, incompetent subordinates, cold coffee, broken shoelaces, software malfunctions, no-show repair people, flat tires, late buses or trains, water in the basement, screaming kids, and other people on the Internet who are just WRONG, dammit.
As Americans we’re not supposed to like them because so far they are losers. And yet, if you look in some corners of American culture you will in fact find the cult of the loser. I’m not just talking about Chicago Cubs fans or Cleveland Browns fans or Los Angeles Clippers fans. I’m talking about the most popular loser in the history of American culture. No, not George McGovern either you politico-types. I’m talking about a fictional character who even bears a passing physical resemblance to John Shuster.
Charlie Brown.
Who in American doesn’t love Peanuts? Or more accurately perhaps, who at one point in their life didn’t love Peanuts because I’m sure there are some embittered hipster alt-cartoony-types who think cartoons like Peanuts are some sort of Establishment Plot to Ensure Cartoon Art Mediocrity. Fortunately none of those folks will ever see this because well, nobody ever sees this but I keep adding content anyway because it keeps me sane while I’m dealing with traffic jams, idiot bosses, incompetent subordinates, cold coffee, broken shoelaces, software malfunctions, no-show repair people, flat tires, late buses or trains, water in the basement, screaming kids, and other people on the Internet who are just WRONG, dammit.
The loser-ness of Peanuts is so legendary that someone decided to do a study of every Peanuts strip ever written and compile the statistics of Charlie Brown’s baseball team It may surprise you to know that according to this analysis, ol’ Chuck actually occasionally won a game which actually makes the repeated losing more poignant because occasionally winning something shows that maybe you have a chance. Good old Charles Schultz must’ve known somewhere down deep in the core of his being that having a little hope and constantly having it crushed is far, far more devastating (and more representative of real life) than having no hope at all. That fact is also excellently illustrated in the ongoing attempts by Charlie Brown to kick the football. Lucy convinces ol’ Chuck every time that this time is the time she’s not going to pull it away, that this time he’s finally gonna kick it and every time she pulls the ball away and reveals that some small part of the hope she had built up in Charlie Brown’s heart was a lie.
John Shuster has learned that fact of life three times so far this Olympics eh friends?
Of course there was one time after Charlie Brown was admitted to the hospital that Lucy promised never to pull the ball away again. Charlie Brown took her on her word and you know what? Lucy didn’t pull the ball away.
Charlie Brown missed the ball and kicked her in the arm.
Whether you want to admit it to yourself or not friends, we’ve all done that in our lives. We have all had the golden opportunity, the fates align, the hope burns bright in our hearts and at the key crucial moment we….fail. Miserably. Think back on your failures and take solace in the fact that you’re not alone. You aren’t the only victim of luck and circumstance and yes, even your own lack of sufficient ability in certain situations. Everyone fails sooner or later.
So John Shuster, Jason Smith, Jeff Isaacson, John Benton and alternate Chris Plys I salute you. In the middle of all this aspirational crapola and nationalistic absurdity that we call the Olympics you are reminding us of what we all have to go back to once the tube is turned off. I know that’s not the role you guys wanted, but it appears that it is the hand that you have been dealt. I’m very familiar with that set of cards myself, and should you find yourself in our humble little New Jersey curling club again sometime the first round is on me.
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