On The Art of Losing

Not a loser, Freddy Garcia, the proof is in the numbers.

I am on the most incredible losing streak. I bet from time to time on professional sports, I think the last time I won was sometime last year. I collect the little tickets that display, not a winner. Tell me something I don't already know. My losing streak almost came to a dramatic end when I wrote down my picks for the day, intending on placing my wager later that evening at my local Seven Eleven. Fate, that bastard of a virtue, unwilling to be my friend, even though I treat it with such respect, saw to it that I did not make that bet. I would have won over $200.00. I am amazed. I am a loser.

I was busy, sidetracked if you will, playing another game, gambling all the same, and losing, although the stakes were much higher. The evening was a crushing blow, which of course is now getting the full treatment here for your reading pleasure, registering elsewhere as a comment on pizza. Nobody's fault but mine, don't feel bad.

Baseball. Its critics are right, a stupid game, I mean really, throwing a ball so another person can hit it with a stick. But the history! Each game, from pitch to pitch, minutely recorded, analyzed, scrutinized, compared. You can read box scores all the way back to the 1900's and find out which way the wind was blowing, how many people were at the game, the time it took to complete it, and of course, who won, and who lost. Its intoxicating. Probably one of the most underrated websites in cyberspace is mlb.com its a living, breathing, overload of content and information. Every pitch that is thrown, every swing of the bat, recorded in realtime, photographed, broadcast, written about, as it happens, an incredible marriage of representation and reality. The ballpark, for the 2 or 3 hours in which the game is in progress, becomes a magical space where every detail is recorded as it passes into history. Will it go on forever, baseball? I think so...

Success has always alluded me, I always thought that things would get better. With the passing of each bad year, I would declare, "this one will be mine!" I stopped saying that years ago. I know better now, and obviously other people do too. I had one thing that set me apart from total loserdome, now that's gone too. So here I wallow, please allow me this. I seriously wonder why I even continue. Oh that's why, suicide requires conviction.

Swinging a stick at a ball is stupid, but doing something, anything, and doing it well is not. When I see a batter step into the box, eyes on fire, confident even though he might be down in the count, able to think clearly under pressure and perform, this I am attracted to. All I have ever wanted in this life is to do something well, really well. I do many things, play music, write, art, graphics, and have tried just about everything, sports, drugs, petty crime, cycling, dirtbikes, kung-fu, even joined the reserves for awhile, it all winds up equally mediocre.

After the events of the past few days it appears that I have finally found my true skill. Everyone is put here for a reason, and mine seems to be crafting loss to perfection. This I am good at.