Look Becks, we already know you hate America -- this is not news, ok?
If it makes you feel better, this Canadian just winced reading the last line of your post.
That's appalling, but coming from a country where sporting attitudes to Germany are still largely based on the agenda of World War II, I can't say I'm as surprised as I wish I was.
The same "pariahness" was evident during the later stages of the Vietnam War. Utterly counterproductive, of course, as it makes resentful defenders out of us, the people who feel just as bad if not worse about our policies.
Alternatively, you could get some solidarity with these guys. (via)
Assuming America is being booed for its presence in Iraq, isn't it hypocritical of the British team to join in?
Oops, I re-read the post, and it doesn't actually say the Brits were booing Team USA.
The English are quite used to being booed. Not so sure about what happens in sports when all 4 of the home nations compete together.
Get little "Worst President Ever" patches for the kids uniforms.
Not so sure about what happens in sports when all 4 of the home nations compete together.
I think everybody gets behind the Lions. I don't think it happens in any other team sport (and quite right too).
I went to a Mets-Expos game where the Shea Stadium crowd actually booed the Canadian national anthem. I was quite shocked--until the crowd booed the Mets pitchers, the ref, the fan who dropped the pop-out, and every damned thing under the sun.
USA! USA! USA!
The real reason you feel uncomfortable cheering with the US is that, contrary to what you've said, our cheers suck, and pretty much everyone has better cheers than us.
You need to adopt novely tartan hats and orange wigs. I believe that works.
The real reason you feel uncomfortable cheering with the US is that, contrary to what you've said, our cheers suck, and pretty much everyone has better cheers than us.
Do countries have cheers? All I can think of is
A) the name of the country repeated over and over
B) "Opa!"
C) "Olay, Olay Olay Olay, Olay, Olay"
TUR-key! TUR-key! Gobblegobblegobblegobble.
TUR-key! TUR-key! Gobblegobblegobblegobble.
It's a matter of objective fact that Canada has the second best national anthem in the world. After France. We have a song that coulda been a contender, and yet when the opportunity last came around to make the switch, people from Baltimore were able to squelch it. The same people proud to have in our state song the line 'she spurns the northern scum.'
I've long wondered in the U-S-A, U-S-A chant is as annoying to people too young to remember life before the chant became popular (1980, in my memory).
"Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Vollig augeregt sind wir!
Deutschland! Deutschland!
Aaaaaach, Deutschland!"
(Note: I do not speak German nor make any claim as to the sense-making of the above)
I've long wondered in the U-S-A, U-S-A chant is as annoying to people too young to remember life before the chant became popular
Yes.
(Or English, partickerly well.)
I've long wondered in the U-S-A, U-S-A chant is as annoying to people too young to remember life before the chant became popular (1980, in my memory).
In my case, yes, absolutely. I don't think I heard it before around 1998 or so, but then, I had a very sheltered childhood.
I've long wondered in the U-S-A, U-S-A chant is as annoying to people too young to remember life before the chant became popular (1980, in my memory).
Yes, but I've never heard any other USA-supporting chant, so I can't blame anyone for doing it. I've done it myself before.
18:
Yeah, the main reason I hate the USA!USA! chant is that I remember the appalling outpouring of jingoism at the 1980 Olympics that popularized it.
Actually, the chant just reminds me of the year 1980, which I really hated.
"Der Fisch ist tot, der Fisch ist tot!
Der Fisch ist tot, der Fisch ist tot!
Er kann nicht mehr schwimm'n,
lalala lalalala
Er kann nicht mehr schwimm'n,
lalala lalalala"
I don't care for Canada's anthem. (O, Canada, it's really, really colllldd....)
Except when it's sung by hockey fans.
"We all like Vindaloo!" This was originally the chant from Goa, but when Goa was annexed by India it was picked up cheap at the clearance sale by England.
Becks, see if you can start the following chant when the USA does something good:
LOL! N00BS! PWN3D!
LOL! N00BS! PWN3D!
LOL! N00BS! PWN3D!
LOL! N00BS! PWN3D!
28: At least our chants aren't made up by avant-garde conceptual artists intended to create a mocking parody but being embraced by the very louts they were making fun of.
(this also applies to that Chumbawamba song)
30: They didn't intend to create a mocking parody, they intended to make a shitload of money out of the record.
And they did.
The phrase "embraced by the very louts they were making fun of" still applies.
27: Isn't this actually Canada's national anthem?
"Our country reeks of trees" seems like a good description, especially when sung to the tune of "my country 'tis of thee."
The first time I was aware of the U-S-A chant was the 1996 Olympics. It's not a very creative chant, but we'd need to play more soccer to have better cheers.
"Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records"! Cliff Richard, we're going to nail you up to a cross tonight! (Actually I heard this album like once, the Cwmba album I have is Slap!)
I do not wish to claim that that song is any country's national anthem.
30/31: Just this weekend I showed up to a gathering and announced that I had discovered a masterwork: "Barbie Girl." I'm not sure in what portion the response I got was surprise I'd never heard it or horror that I had anything positive to say about it, but everyone seemed taken aback. It's trenchantly ironic, people! But I suppose the creators must have known everyone would celebrate it and their own plastic selves without taking it as an indictment, so it was perhaps a little joke, and their willingness to rake in the dough shows they're happy to be implicated in the thing they have the tools to critique. Nevertheless, the song: good. Although one person at the gathering sent me the video, which I concede is totally unwatchable.
I'm surprised you'd never heard it until recently; it was well-nigh unescapable at one point.
I vote that Americans should sing "Take me out to the ballpark" at whatever international sporting event they find themselves. Even ones without balls.
The thing about the USA! USA! chant is it's recited with the exact same syllabic emphases as "Ghandiji! Ghandiji!" chant from Ghandi, and how can you hate Ghandi?
Actually, I don't see what's wrong with the U-S-A! cheer. See 16. Also, Brasil cha-cha-cha! and other suchlike.
For God's sake, you're watching a fucking game, not the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield. Leave the Welsh to sing "Guide me, oh thou great Jehovah" if they want and get on with the business of badmouthing the other side.
The Barbie girl song is more fun in Danish.
I vote that Americans should sing "Take me out to the ballpark" at whatever international sporting event they find themselves. Even ones without balls.
Especially chess tournaments.
39 -- is that distinct from "Take me out to the ballgame"?
45: It's the cheapskate date option for when they're not playing.
39: Even Americans without balls? You mean women?
40: For some reason now I am humming to myself "Hey there, Gandhi-ji, my only ji, don't you know this Gandhi boy loves you?"
41: It's more that it's the only cheer there is, so it dulls after a while and it's very staccato.
Not that staccato cheers can't be fun. I was watching a fencing tournament -- junior worlds -- and one of the competitors was a charismatic Japanese girl who hadn't been expected to make it out of the preliminary pools did so (and screeched excitedly after every point) and ended up in the finals. Since everyone else's favorites had been eliminated at that point, most of the teams ended up supporting Japan, including the Italian team who were banging on an empty 5-gallon water bottle with a gatorade bottle full of pennies to keep time as everyone cheered 'Japan!' (thump thump)
44: Fuck yeah!
I also vote that instead of singing "God Bless America" and then "Take me out to the Ballparkgame" at the seventh-inning stretch, we take to singing "Take me out to the Ballparkgame" two or three times and then maybe in a canon.
They play "Take me out to the Ball Game" at baseball games here in Tokyo.
49: Thanks, now I am humming to myself "Hey there, Gandhi-ji / Why do all the boys just pass you by?"
The trouble with 52 is, strike-outs are the last thing you want at the old ballgame.
32: From watching the video of the vindaloo song, I sure thought it was a post-modern parody. The presence of Matt Lucas and David Walliams of Little Britain fame certainly adds to my impression.
Bonus tip: Never, EVER choose "Born in the USA" when you are out singing karaoke with Asian business clients.
Sure, it's a big, loud, ham-it-up kind of song, and it's got the name of your home country right there in the title. But then you get to the part about going and killing the yellow man.
/didn't actually happen to me
//just sayin'
55.--Unless you're cheering the pitcher, duh.
Here's the problem: Americans don't play enough soccer. I've been to a few Chicago Fire games (yes, I am a dork), and the supporters have some pretty damn good chants. Of course, that may be because a lot of the supporters are immigrants, so they know what soccer song-making is all about.
"He's here, he's there, he's every fucking where, Frank LeBoeuf, Frank LeBoeuf!"
(Interlude, in which LeBoeuf notes in an interview that he doesn't like that they swear in his own personal cheer)
"He's here, he's there, we're not allowed to swear, Frank LeBoeuf, Frank LeBoeuf!"
Here's a good Yankees cheer, easily adaptable to different situations.
I remember the appalling outpouring of jingoism at the 1980 Olympics that popularized it.
Isn't that the year we gave the Olympics a miss?
I always liked sitting in the card section at Cal football games. We did a beautiful script version -- in appropriate font -- of fucla. I couldn't make the Big Game, and so missed being part of the big red S turning into a big wood screw. "Kiss My Axe" is a good cheer, in moderation (and when we're winning).
You are correct. 1984 was the jingoist L.A. Olympics, made all the more pathetic by the fact that the CommuEvilNazis weren't even there to be beaten by our heroes.
64: You only sing when you're winning.
68: I highly doubt that Andrew Lampert, Steven Sachs, Bruce Levey and Stanley Kopman were the first people to chant "U! S! A!" to the typical three-beat chant rhythm that everyone chants everything to. (e.g. "Where's my burrito?", "Warm up the bus", "Let them go")
62: The proper bleachers cheer is, "Yankees baseball, Mets suck, [opposing team name] sucks, [opposing team's right fielder] sucks, box seats suck, everybody sucks." If someone in the box seats nearly overhanging the bleachers takes umbrage at being told they suck, it's repeated, along with instructions to jump.
Dunno if it's been pointed out yet, but we accidentally killed a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan a week or so ago. The Canadians are not happy with us right now.
71: One presumes that he hated our freedoms.
re: 71
Not sure if that'd be a factor. I thought every nation hated, in the sporting arena, their larger neighbour.
<factual snark>Everyone involved in military action alongside the USA understands that there's a fairly high likelihood that their troops will indeed end up killed by US forces.</factual snark>
72 -- On our Senate.
69 -- It seems implausible now, but at the time no one had ever thought of it before. At least not on national TV.
71: Pff. You'd think they'd be used to that happening by now.
Or our Senate. [screws up two car parade]
We boycotted the 1980 summer games, but the 1980 Lake Placid Games were held here. Miracle on Ice, etc.
I doubt the booing is due to the death of a soldier (most of the reaction I heard about Afghanistan was 'we shouldn't be there any more' not anti-U.S.), but just more that no one likes to cheer for a powerhouse or a big rich country.
Factual question: are you suggesting that U.S. troops are per capita more likely to be on the shooting end of friendly fire situations than other soldiers, or just that there are more U.S. soldiers?
Ah. People shouldn't refer to the Winter Olympics as "the Olympics"; "the Other Olympics" or "the So-Called-Olympics" both seem less ambigous and more correct.
78: They have that reputation and have had since WWII. Whether it's deserved I have no idea. Somebody has probably run the numbers, but who knows.
All I know is we've twice killed Canadian soldiers with friendly fire, and the Canadians do, in fact, bring it up. The only Canadians I know who are pretty unambiguously approving of the US are the conservative jerks.
Also, btw, they just had another college shooting in Montreal yesterday, so they're feeling v. upset.
There's also the Maher Arar case.
Right. And all that stuff gets a lot more coverage north of the border than it does in the States.
re: 78
I have no idea re: the per capita numbers. It's certainly true that one of the major sources of UK casualties in recent wars has been friendly fire by the US.
In Gulf War I, 50% or more of *all* British casualties were killed by Americans. That tends to lead to a certain perception of US forces.
Now it may well be that because the US mounts so many combat air sorties that they inevitably commit the most friendly-fire attacks and that this perception is unfair: that's certainly what defenders of the US have to say, however, they don't have any concrete figures to offer either.
"She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! She spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! She burns! She'll come! She'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!"
Most amazing anthem ever. I'd like to hear a metal version.
Preferably with a porn video attached.
Canadians often resent displays of American patriotism.
I myself was a pretty unpatriotic Canadian: in grade six, when we were forced to watch a Canada-USSR hockey game at school, I rooted for the USSR. I was put off by the whole school chanting "nyet! nyet! So-vi-et! Da! Da! Ca-na-da!"
During the 1998 World Cup I worked in a mostly English workplace, and one woman who had been raised in Argentina was rooting for Argentina. Everyone else was sincerely angry at her for this.
It's weird how otherwise rational people become irrational when football is involved.
88: I am unspeakably sad that you beat me to emphasizing that. So, so beautiful.
18: I doubt Canada's anthem is even in the top five. Ireland, Russia, South Africa, and that "our country reeks of trees" song all knock strips off it. (For that matter, Newfoundland had a most excellent national anthem at one point, basically all about what a godawful place the Rock is to live.)
I didn't think the Canadians liked cheering - my dad got told to be quiet at a Blue Jays game at the Skydome.
My husband's [soccer] team got promoted to the Premiership this summer (not a million miles away from McGrattan), and for about a month he pretty much only communicated in football songs.
Are there *any* good American football songs?
Are there *any* good American football songs?
No.
There are American football songs. There may or may not be American soccer songs, but nobody cares.
Skol Vikings!
Let's win this game
Skol Vikings!
Honor your name.
Go get that first down
Then get a touchdown
Rock 'em, sock 'em,
FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!
Go Vikings, run out the score,
you'll hear us yell for more!
V-I-K-I-N-G-S
Skol Vikings, let's go!
Ned, aren't you from Pittsburgh? How can you not have heard the Steelers Polka? Google is showing a result for "Corey O'Connor sings 'Steelers Polka' at funeral"; that would be the mayor's funeral, a week ago, 28 years after the song was written.
RE 96
"fight for old dixie"???
Redskins suck.
I'll shout "100!", but my heart's not really into it...
Reading the old threads made him sad.
It's: fight for old D.C.! Not Dixie.
We sang it during music class every fall in elementary school.
Ah. I did not follow Apo's link. I have self-pwned.
The original song was:
Hail to the Redskins
Hail Vic-tor-y
Braves on the Warpath
Fight for old Dixie
Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!
Scalp 'em, swamp 'em -- We will take 'em big score
Read 'em, weep 'em, touchdown - we want heap more
Fight on, Fight on -- 'Till you have won
Sons of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah
Hail to the Redskins
Hail Vic-tor-y
Braves on the Warpath
Fight for old Dixie
Did the original also have a line about godless savages? Something like "take their women and mutilate their corpses, you godless savages?"
I find having a racist Native American stereotype, fighting for the Confederacy in the song for the team for the Capital of the US quite puzzling. But I’ve always been told I’m out of touch with mainstream values.
Fans for the *Washington DC* Redskins were singing for "old Dixie"?!? Are you fucking kidding me?
[muttermutterShermanmuttermutter]
When I was a kid, NC was considered part of the Redskins media market, so they were the team on TV every Sunday.
I went to an Aussie Football game a few weeks ago in Sydney. The Swans's fans use a pair of really great tunes.
The first song was to the tune of the French National Anthem. The second was to the tune of the U. of Notre Dame's fight song (or maybe it was Michigan's, I confuse the two songs). I laughed the first time I heard each song at Olympic Park.
It is Fight for old DC, but I don't care. I'm a Bostonian. How could I ever cheer the Washington team after what they did to my hometown?
27: You are a thief if you take money (even if it's that ostentatiously chromatic canadian play money) for the anthem gig at an all-Canadian game. Sing half the song, hold the mic up, go get a Brador. Whew! I'm bushed, eh?
Hey, shpx: The flower you have linked through your name with a 'Wish I knew what this was" is a passion flower. Passion as in 'of Christ'; missionaries used its parts as mnemonic for the Cruxifiction story.
Thx LB. Some other flickrers have also clued me in to its identity.
Concerning the origin of the name, the wiki on these blossoms includes the following passage:
"[T]he 72 radial filaments (or corona) represent the Crown of Thorns. The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles. The top 3 stigma represent the 3 nails and the lower 5 anthers represent the 5 wounds. The flower has been given names related to this symbolism throughout Europe since that time. In Spain, it is known as Espina de Cristo (Christ's Thorn). In Germany it was once known as Muttergottes-Schuzchen (Mother-of-God's Star).
In Japan, they are known as clock-faced flowers, and recently have become a symbol for homosexual youths."
ostentatiously chromatic canadian play money
Their money is better-looking and more fun than ours, and between the Bush Administration and oil prices it's starting to be worth real money again. Soon we'll be applying to join the Loonie Zone.
Play money is almost by definition fun. Why would you play with something if it were not fun?
They're putting shit on Canadian money now? Exciting!
I dunno about the quality of the songs, necessarily, but college sports (particularly college football) is the best place to look for awesome chants like...
When the opposing team makes a mistake: "You fucked up!" [because they might otherwise not have noticed]
When the opposing side scores: "You still suck!" [because, in fact, they do]
When the officials make a bad call: "The ref beats his wife!" [because only a wifebeater could have failed to see that the ball hit the ground before possession was established]
When an opposing player is injured: "Shoot him like a horse!" [duh.]
And, of course, our salutory greeting to our fellow students in the stadium:
"Eat shit!" "Fuck you!" "Eat shit!" "Fuck you!"
There are myriad others, of course, but I figure that should get the ball rolling...
"Eat shit!" "Fuck you!" "Eat shit!" "Fuck you!"
Ohio State, I presume?
One of my favourites, which goes with the "you only sing when you're winning", is "more noise in a library", which always seems like a strange one for someone to have come up with.
119: Making change is a little messy, but I think it's worth it.
more nuanced than "In God We Trust", eh?
from Wikipedia:
"Beginning in 2001, the Bank of Canada introduced a new series of bills called "Canadian Journey", featuring images of Canadian heritage and excerpts from Canadian literature.
(...)
The "Canadian Journey" literary excerpts are printed in English and French, with the English versions being:
* $5: The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places—the school, the church, and the skating-rink—but our real life was on the skating-rink. (Roch Carrier (b. 1937) from his short story Le chandail de hockey (The Hockey Sweater))
* $10: In Flanders Fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row, / That mark our place, and in the sky / The larks, still bravely singing, fly / Scarce heard amid the guns below. (John McCrae (1872-1918), from his poem In Flanders Fields)
* $20: Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts? (Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) from her novel La Montagne secrète (The Hidden Mountain))
* $50: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948)
* $100: Do we ever remember that somewhere above the sky in some child's dream perhaps Jacques Cartier is still sailing, always his way always about to discover a new Canada? (Miriam Waddington (1917-2004) from her poem Jacques Cartier in Toronto)"
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a work of Canadian literature?
not literature per se, but at the core of Canadian multi-culti pomo sensibility for sure, eh?
beauty...
101/102- this is basically exactly right. It's weird, the promise, the artistry displayed even in those earliest of threads. And honestly the innocence. It's like looking at pictures from one's own youth--wide-eyed and full of energy, not a care in the world--while sitting in the filth and grime of the local crack house, dirty and in tattered clothing, itching for the chance at one's next hit. Staring into the innocent eyes of one's own childhood, you have to think -- what happened to me? What could I have become if I had taken a different road? But of course, you can't leave, you can't change now, so you just slump into a state of resignation, and keep on waiting for your fix.
That what it felt like to me, reading those threads. An irresponsible amount of each day is now consumed by these threads, and I don't know how to wean myself away. I realize that my time could be better spent in 1000 different places, from advancing my career to volunteering at a soup kitchen to reading great literature to just going home and spending some more damn time with my wife and newborn son. I've tried to stop, or at least slow the bleeding on several different occassions, but every time I come crawling back even hungrier than before. I nearly lost my job due to my habits here, and thought at the time that would be deterrent enough to finally keep me away for good, but after a short (but so long!) few weeks I found myself right back here, kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.
And why? What's it all about? I try and tell myself I'm here for enlightenment and civil discourse, and of course every now and again I'll run across exactly that. But come on, at the end of the day I'm in it for pretty much the same reason as everyone else: I'm here for Apostropher's cock. (No offense to everyone else, you're all amazing and I love each of you, but I think we can all agree Apo is the champion in this regard. The man is simply a magician.)
So where does that leave me? Where does that leave any of us?
"The Hockey Sweater" by Roch Carrier is soooo great.
Canadian money is prettier but it's a real pain in the ass to buy a coffee with a $5 bill and get all coins back.
I can't get used to the fact that a pocketful of change could be $20.
from advancing my career to volunteering at a soup kitchen to reading great literature to just going home and spending some more damn time with my wife and newborn son
Also: drinking.
130, 132.--See, that's exactly what I like about higher denomination coins. You go to a coffee shop or a bar, you order your drink, and you throw a coin or two on the table. It's just so much cooler than passing along a crumpled and mouldy old paper contract between the bearer and the US Treasury.
but it's a real pain in the ass to buy a coffee with a $5 bill and get all coins back.
This happened to me in Chicago, at the Post Office stamp dispensing machine, with a $20 bill. Susies and (What ever the nickname is for Sacajewaya)s.
Oh, I like it, JM. It just boggles my mind when we decide to hit a drive-through for ice cream cones and pay with the three coins in the ashtray and get LOTS of ice cream.
And considering how I treat change now, I'd be really broke if all those dimes that my cat bats around the apartment were toonies.
So where does that leave me? Where does that leave any of us?
Well, I don't know about you, but some of us are moving to a new state in 10 days, whereupon we will immediately take up a new life of diligence and thrift and artistic ambition and doing yoga every morning at 6 am. And we shall cure polio. Oh wait, that's already be cured. And we shall cure something else, dammit! And dine on slices of quince. &c. &c.
Apostropher's cock *jokes*! Not Apostropher's cock.
Whew. I can't believe no one gave me shit for that...
Yeah, right, Brock. We all knew the truth; we just don't discriminate against your kind round here.
Whyever would you be moving to a new state, ac? What state? Where in that state?
Actually, as I have confessed elsewhere, I'm joining the French Foreign Legion.
And dine on slices of quince
Shouldn't you have a vine and fig tree? I think it must be an all-right climate for those. With sufficient irrigation.
141: The loonie is the $1 coin. I'm pretty sure Cala's right that the $2s are commonly referred to as toonies (twonies?). And if not, w-lfs-n will set us straight shortly.
And we shall cure something else, dammit!
Ham.
Bean poles
What have you got against Poles, B-Wo?
Nothing that a good beaning won't fix, Clown.
is "ham" in 154 being used as a verb or as the object of "cure"? Or is the ambiguity intentional?
The $2 coin is a toonie. The $1 coin is a loonie ('cause of the loon on the back), and the toonie took its name from that ('cause it's two loonies.) I may have the spelling wrong. My fiancé wants a $5 coin so they can call it a 'phony.'
The 5-DM coin made me happy when I was in Germany. Is there a 5-€ coin?
I hold 154 to be self-evident. With, perhaps, an omitted "green."
No. There are 1 and 2 euro coins, and 1, 2, 5, ten, twenty, and fifty cent coins.
I do not like thee, Sam I Am.
148 gets it exactly right; the two-dollar Canadian coin is humorously--but widely!--refered to as a "toonie" (sometimes spelled "twonie").
Though I am a pescavegetarian.
I have a friend who's a pescobacovegetarian.
And: Do any cultures include dairy products from pig milk in their cuisines?
Ok, but it doesn't hang on the wall.
My fiancé
Did I miss this being officially announced? (I had heard hints, but nothing specific.) Either way, congratulations!
No one said it does. It's not herring, you know.
163: It should be added that this caught on specifically because Canadians at the time thought "loonie-toonie" was an apt description if the whole dollar and two-dollar coins business. We've since come around.
so standpipe finally threw in the towel. well, I could see it coming.
And: Do any cultures include dairy products from pig milk in their cuisines?
No. I can't exactly remember why, but non-ruminants don't make good milk animals.
It is common practice in a lot of places to feed whey left over from cheesemaking to pigs though. If I recall correctly, Prosciutto di Parma is made from pigs who have been fed the whey that is a waste product from producing Parmigiano Reggiano.
(The Clownæ is havin some trouble with the HTML today.)
I just put that in to make it harder. ATM