December 2022: The Messi Edition
post originally published december 23, 2022
Wishing you a beautiful year end.
Love, JF Band
I've always fancied this part of the newsletter as my shot at a short and mediocrely written New Yorker column regarding general human interests. AND it would be dishonest to say that my humanly interests have strayed very far from Messi, Argentina, and the World Cup this month. So....
*Caveat – this World Cup was shrouded in the corrupt practices of Fifa and Qatar – a "can't look away" type story, told brilliantly here.
But – we still watched. And watched. And watched.
And there was that moment, maybe you had it too, when you found yourself at the local bar (or wherever) at 8:25am. And you had just been chanting "Messi, Messi" with the 11 twelve-year-olds at the other table (or your friend Steve). And you had somehow found it socially acceptable to be on your knees on the sticky floor or carpet performing some vaguely prayer-like thing as Messi stepped up to take his third penalty of the final match. And it happened. Real life imitating Hollywood imitating real life. And all of a sudden you found yourself weeping with your arms around the stocky oddly hairy stranger, wearing a ripe Seattle Sounders jersey, head nestled in his beard.
The collective, the outpouring, the glory, the hug. I felt so darn happy. So much bigger than my own stuff. So over-caffeinated from the bottomless coffee and the triple overtime. That moment was everything, standing in beautiful opposition to all the ways we seem to isolate and other. Hats off to Argentina and all the incredible nations who gave it their all. And good god, hats off to you Messi: Thank you for the years and years of joy, and some healthy agony. You are miraculous.
This winter I am sad not to wake up in a sleeping bag beside the Futaleufú river with all my hamster garden friends down there. But I am beside the Puget Sound. Listening to rain. Writing. Cooking. Being a friend. Playing pickup soccer. Teaching. Giving real time to the touring and studio projects in the oven for 2023. And learning again and again that in choosing to do anything we are inherently missing out on everything else.
Wishing you strength as we adapt to a post World Cup world :)
Feliz Messi-dad,
J
We travelled many miles on "Good Luck Road" this year. Thanks to all you who came out to the shows, thanks to Xtracycle for taking us there, and thanks to Waldo for this particularly wonderful poster greeting in Santa Rosa, CA.