On most days ANTIGRAVITY has a throaty “Man, fuck sports” attitude, unless it involves roller girls or drag wrestling. Those kinds of spectacles are more our speed than the megacorporate pageants you’ll see covered in every other publication ad nauseam. It’s unfortunate that most professional athletes are coerced to be as mild and obedient as possible when it comes to expressing their views and being individuals. That doesn’t bode well for this publication’s core mission, to broadcast original, inspiring, honest conversations. Also, it practically goes without saying that the NFL is a toxic organization that suppresses its players’ right to speech while blindly looking away from actual unacceptable behaviors (like domestic violence), all the while hoovering up billions of dollars via extorted tax money and shitty beer ad revenue.
Yet here we are, a city enraptured by our beloved team. And so it was this season that anarchists and libertarians, hippies, Democratic Socialists, and Trumpers alike gathered around the TV to scream “Who Dat?” at each other. As a lifelong child of New Orleans, I’ve learned to love the religion but hate the church of the New Orleans Saints. Most of that history, as many of my fellow long-toothers will attest, has been misery and heartbreak over which we’ve nonetheless bonded. So this last decade has truly been something special.
I also, contrary to our motto, do love the idea of sports. Like any other game or artistic adventure, it allows us expression of our primal bloodlust and tribal instincts without producing any actual consequences: that’s the beauty in it. We scream, we kick, we talk shit to other fans and bash their city. We “hate” Atlanta without actually wishing ill on her citizens (right? right???). Or like art, sports is all supposed to happen in a box, where once we step outside that box, it’s over. It doesn’t really matter what happened. The ball crossing whatever magical line doesn’t actually change anything in our reality. It’s why we’re pushed into T-ball and soccer as kids, to learn that very human accomplishment of what it means to be a good sport, to experience victory and defeat with equal measures grace and reconciliation at the end.
Like many of you, I felt pangs of disgust as this past Saints season came to a very unceremonious and messy ending a few weeks ago. And yes, “we were robbed” by the officiating no-call that effectively shut down the Saints would-be winning drive and gave the Rams all the chances they needed to snatch that victory from “us.” But you know what? At AG HQ we mourned, we deflated a little, and then we leashed up the dogs and took a nice brisk walk through the neighborhood afterwards. Then we suited up ourselves to start putting this issue into production. I do love the Saints, but I will always love Team AG more, because that’s the team I’m actually on!
Judging by the NOLA Twitterverse, a lot of you were quick to get over it as well. Our beloved running back Alvin Kamara, only hours after the game, tweeted out, “Love this team. Love this city. Thank y’all for a great season.” Drew Brees was playing with his kids on the very field he had just lost on. Many of us took solace in the imminent Carnival season. A lot of us, however, took it pretty personally. And some of us will never “get over it,” and… I feel you, I really do. I don’t want to stick a thumb in your wound. But at some point, we all have to walk away from this and move on.
Whatever your grief looks like, I hope you find an end to this road of misery regarding the Saints season. Just try to remember that all of this stuff—sports, music, and all art—happens in that box for a reason. When it’s over we’re supposed to count our limbs and count our blessings, because there are things out there that really do matter—our loved ones and our community and our environment and those feeling the boot of oppression and injustice—that’s who truly needs our passion and attention. Let’s please always remember to kick and scream for them first. —Dan Fox
February 2019 cover illustration by Kallie Tiffau
photo this page from the Undefeated Divas second line, January 20, by James Cullen
