Playing With Balls: Suicide
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Elk’s Run Bumper Edition should have hit your comic shop yesterday which means you should have read it last night which means you should have kind words for it today. If you didn’t get it or your shop didn’t have it (mother fucking three run homer for the White Sox wholly fucking shit you Red Cox sucking assholes – PLAY LIKE CHAMPIONS!), go here and download an order form to hand off to your retailer. I really shouldn’t write these blurbs during the game.
I think my NaNoWriMo novel is going to be super fun to write – I can’t wait to start, I hope I can keep this excitement up. It’s turning more into satire than romance. My “hero” is a combination of every asshole you ever met and the book’s going to be first person stream-of-consciousness straight from this dude’s head. You’re going to hate him so much on the surface but your deep down you’re going to love him. I’m over three full weeks ahead on MITC stories. I got this week done, next week’s done (it’s all about my mom-a-dukes), four done for the following week (entitled “The New Tech”) and four done for the week after that (entitled “Taxed!”). I’ve been writing like an asshole in preparation for next month.
Oh, yeah, Price Is Right screen grabs of Robin and I:
__________________
I’ve never researched the history of Suicide but I imagine it’s older than human history. Invented by Australopithecus, played by the tribe of Judea, brought into fashion by the Ancient Greeks and bastardized by the Romans. It survived the Dark Ages, the Plague, the Disco Revolution and peaked in popularity in the late-80s and early-90s when on every wall in New York City at any given time there were a group of kids with a blue ball playing Suicide.
The rules were simple yet a metaphor of the times.
1) Whoever holds the ball cannot run with it, he must throw it from where he catches it is representative of the recession –forward progress is impossible, you play the ball where it lies or don’t play at all.
2) You can not block the ball as it flies towards the wall, it must reach the wall without bouncing is reminiscent of our views on capitalism at the time – the wall came down and Russia fell, Capitalism was this unstoppable force hurtling towards world domination and nobody can stop it.
3) If you attempt to field the ball and drop it, you must run to the wall, touch it, and yell “Suicide” before someone pegs you is a reminder of what life was like in the materialistic and shallow 80s; if you let your image falter (drop the ball, if you will) your option is suicide or being pegged by your peers – the sane man chose suicide.
4) If you get pegged three times you get booties – you stand against the wall with your ass facing your opponents. Everyone gets three throws from across the street. If you flinch they get to throw the ball again. This is the punishment for repeated social failings – public ridicule and embarrassment – ass exposed to society as they hurl projectiles at it.
Suicide was more than a game – it was poetry on the street corner. It was performance art, an expression. The Suicide movement in the 80s and 90s was the single most important movement in American history; every kid stood up and said, “We get it. We see what you are doing to the world and we protest by trivializing it.” It was our rallying cry - our soapbox.
Despite its celebrated significance, it was also a very violent game. The fact that you play by pegging people as they run towards the wall and punish the losers by forcing them to stand completely motionless while you take aim at their ass (although the lower back and back of the neck where the “sweet spots” to hit, everyone knew that) only skimmed the surface of the inherent violence in Suicide.
Let’s put it this way – you never want to fall while running to the wall. There is no time-out in suicide. If you fall and break your leg and are not able to run towards the wall you better suck up the pain and crawl your ass to that wall. Because we were ruthless. I’ve played in games when a kid is on the floor crying, leg cut up and pouring blood, while someone stands over him and repeatedly pegs him in the fucking face. The kid yells time-out repeatedly and the pegger just keeps telling him, “You gotta touch the wall.”
There were no prisoners in Suicide. No mercy for the weak.
Everyone played the “bitch rule” differently. A bitch was when someone drops the ball and “accidentally” knocks it out of the way while he runs to the wall so that he can’t get pegged. The way we played, a bitch was better off running home instead of to the wall because the punishment for such a cowardly move was simply not worth it.
In our neighborhood we used to do “super booties”. The bitch had to take his shirt off, stand against the wall, and everyone took one shot at him from as close as they want. Rifling a blue ball at around 50, 60 mph at the small of someone’s back was a just punishment for a bitch. I’ve heard horror stories from some neighborhoods – just straight punches to a phenomenon I’ve heard called “ballies” which was booties but with the bitch facing the front, taking it in the balls or the face and neck.
We’d play with as few as two people to super games with up to 20 people. There were advanced strategies – you can pretend to go for the ball and dive out of the way last minute, ensuring the ball hits whoever is directly behind you. It was a tough game, competition was stiff and people got fucked up playing.
Some of the more wussy kids insisted we play Suicide’s bastardization, Homicide. Homicide was the same as Suicide except when someone drops the ball he has to touch the wall and say “homicide” before someone picks up the ball and pegs the wall instead of the dropper. I hated homicide but sometimes I’m with a bunch of wusses and they all say, “Let’s just play homicide.” There was no excitement, no fear. There wasn’t that stand-off when someone faces the guy with the ball instead of running straight to the wall, realizing he has a better chance of dodging the throw than exposing his back.
The people who suggested Homicide always got it the worst when they found themselves in a game of Suicide. It was punishment for putting us through the humiliating experience of playing Homicide. For the laughs we’d get when a bunch of older kids walk by and hear us yell “Homicide” when we touched that wall instead of “Suicide”.
Homicide players where poseurs to the Suicide movement. Enemies to the cause. The Sonny and Cher of our message. But they got theirs.
In Suicide, everyone gets what’s coming to them eventually.
I think my NaNoWriMo novel is going to be super fun to write – I can’t wait to start, I hope I can keep this excitement up. It’s turning more into satire than romance. My “hero” is a combination of every asshole you ever met and the book’s going to be first person stream-of-consciousness straight from this dude’s head. You’re going to hate him so much on the surface but your deep down you’re going to love him. I’m over three full weeks ahead on MITC stories. I got this week done, next week’s done (it’s all about my mom-a-dukes), four done for the following week (entitled “The New Tech”) and four done for the week after that (entitled “Taxed!”). I’ve been writing like an asshole in preparation for next month.
Oh, yeah, Price Is Right screen grabs of Robin and I:
__________________
I’ve never researched the history of Suicide but I imagine it’s older than human history. Invented by Australopithecus, played by the tribe of Judea, brought into fashion by the Ancient Greeks and bastardized by the Romans. It survived the Dark Ages, the Plague, the Disco Revolution and peaked in popularity in the late-80s and early-90s when on every wall in New York City at any given time there were a group of kids with a blue ball playing Suicide.
The rules were simple yet a metaphor of the times.
1) Whoever holds the ball cannot run with it, he must throw it from where he catches it is representative of the recession –forward progress is impossible, you play the ball where it lies or don’t play at all.
2) You can not block the ball as it flies towards the wall, it must reach the wall without bouncing is reminiscent of our views on capitalism at the time – the wall came down and Russia fell, Capitalism was this unstoppable force hurtling towards world domination and nobody can stop it.
3) If you attempt to field the ball and drop it, you must run to the wall, touch it, and yell “Suicide” before someone pegs you is a reminder of what life was like in the materialistic and shallow 80s; if you let your image falter (drop the ball, if you will) your option is suicide or being pegged by your peers – the sane man chose suicide.
4) If you get pegged three times you get booties – you stand against the wall with your ass facing your opponents. Everyone gets three throws from across the street. If you flinch they get to throw the ball again. This is the punishment for repeated social failings – public ridicule and embarrassment – ass exposed to society as they hurl projectiles at it.
Suicide was more than a game – it was poetry on the street corner. It was performance art, an expression. The Suicide movement in the 80s and 90s was the single most important movement in American history; every kid stood up and said, “We get it. We see what you are doing to the world and we protest by trivializing it.” It was our rallying cry - our soapbox.
Despite its celebrated significance, it was also a very violent game. The fact that you play by pegging people as they run towards the wall and punish the losers by forcing them to stand completely motionless while you take aim at their ass (although the lower back and back of the neck where the “sweet spots” to hit, everyone knew that) only skimmed the surface of the inherent violence in Suicide.
Let’s put it this way – you never want to fall while running to the wall. There is no time-out in suicide. If you fall and break your leg and are not able to run towards the wall you better suck up the pain and crawl your ass to that wall. Because we were ruthless. I’ve played in games when a kid is on the floor crying, leg cut up and pouring blood, while someone stands over him and repeatedly pegs him in the fucking face. The kid yells time-out repeatedly and the pegger just keeps telling him, “You gotta touch the wall.”
There were no prisoners in Suicide. No mercy for the weak.
Everyone played the “bitch rule” differently. A bitch was when someone drops the ball and “accidentally” knocks it out of the way while he runs to the wall so that he can’t get pegged. The way we played, a bitch was better off running home instead of to the wall because the punishment for such a cowardly move was simply not worth it.
In our neighborhood we used to do “super booties”. The bitch had to take his shirt off, stand against the wall, and everyone took one shot at him from as close as they want. Rifling a blue ball at around 50, 60 mph at the small of someone’s back was a just punishment for a bitch. I’ve heard horror stories from some neighborhoods – just straight punches to a phenomenon I’ve heard called “ballies” which was booties but with the bitch facing the front, taking it in the balls or the face and neck.
We’d play with as few as two people to super games with up to 20 people. There were advanced strategies – you can pretend to go for the ball and dive out of the way last minute, ensuring the ball hits whoever is directly behind you. It was a tough game, competition was stiff and people got fucked up playing.
Some of the more wussy kids insisted we play Suicide’s bastardization, Homicide. Homicide was the same as Suicide except when someone drops the ball he has to touch the wall and say “homicide” before someone picks up the ball and pegs the wall instead of the dropper. I hated homicide but sometimes I’m with a bunch of wusses and they all say, “Let’s just play homicide.” There was no excitement, no fear. There wasn’t that stand-off when someone faces the guy with the ball instead of running straight to the wall, realizing he has a better chance of dodging the throw than exposing his back.
The people who suggested Homicide always got it the worst when they found themselves in a game of Suicide. It was punishment for putting us through the humiliating experience of playing Homicide. For the laughs we’d get when a bunch of older kids walk by and hear us yell “Homicide” when we touched that wall instead of “Suicide”.
Homicide players where poseurs to the Suicide movement. Enemies to the cause. The Sonny and Cher of our message. But they got theirs.
In Suicide, everyone gets what’s coming to them eventually.
Labels: mitc
posted by Jason at
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