That’s Mansour Bahrami. THE Iranian tennis player.
That’s not much of an exaggeration. When the mullahs took over, they banned tennis outright. Said it was too capitalistic. Too western. Too rich folks-y. After a while, they relented and looked the other way. If I were a betting man, I’ll bet it’s because they saw Mansour play. He’s a great tennis player, don’t get me wrong. You can’t monkey around like that without a titanic game backing you up. But Mansour is so much more. He’s the cure for how stuffy tennis had become. He could amuse the most hidebound person you could name, like an ayatollah, or a tennis fan with a daughter named Muffie. He’s the tennis version of “Why so serious?”
I’ve played tennis up to the high school level. I was taller than the other kids, had arms like an orangutan, and learned to win points using a rocket serve. It was coming from higher up and faster than the opponents were accustomed to. Unfortunately, being about as athletic as a sloth, that was the entire extent of my game. And of course the bane of the attempted rocket serve is the double fault. In my mind’s eye, I can picture a spectator at one of my matches. I have to picture it in my mind’s eye, because it never happened, but still. Watching a guy lose a match by double faulting twice to every aced serve would be awful. Literally nothing interesting is ever happening. It’s either not in play, or not in play.
Every modern tennis player is playing that very same game, only not sucking at it like I did. The modern racquet made it almost mandatory. I started out with a wooden racquet with a small, oval face, and you had to put some serious mustard on the ball to serve an ace, and put it in exactly the right spot. Slower serves, and ball speed overall, meant the other guy could probably reach more volleys to hit back. The ball would travel over the net more than once or twice.
By the time I got to high school, we were all kitted with those big steel or composite frames with a plastic gutstring face as big as a trampoline, and tight enough to send balls into low earth orbit. That’s exactly where I put them most of the time instead of into the one-third of the court where they belonged. The guys who could hit it hard plus where they were aiming made the game even worse, if that’s possible. Scorching serve, the return into the net, or maybe lamely popped up for a return slam isn’t interesting to watch.
For a while, women’s tennis was more interesting than men’s because something happened. The ball traveled back and forth a little. Then the women got ugly and the found muscles in some jar somewhere and there wasn’t much point in watching that, either. The game was boring to play, and boring to watch. After a while, people only tuned in to see misbehavior by ill mannered participants. Complaining to the umpire got to be the only amusement left in it. It was the equivalent of watching NASCAR for the crashes.
The game might not have seemed so dreary if it didn’t take itself so seriously. Hushed crowds, anachronistic scoring and various other customs worthy of a cricket match suited Bill Tilden et. al., wearing long pants and sweaters and swinging tiny rackets, playing on grass. Even the bad boys of tennis were more like toddlers pitching a fit in church than a rebellion against the stuffiness of a game that had entirely retreated to the baseline to try to return a serve once in a while. It’s why pickleball has caught on down at The Villages, I guess. It’s faster and more convivial. Less stuck-up. But I’m sure Americans propensity to never leave well enough alone will wreck that eventually, too.
And then along comes Mansour. He could have fixed tennis all by himself, I think, but not many people ever see him play. He’s the Harlem Globetrotters and Victor Borge and a standup comedian rolled into one pair of Izod togs. He’s the Dad Jokes of tennis, a sport that desperately needed to hear a joke, no matter how lame, as long as it was funny. Just like the Globetrotters and Borge, his tomfoolery was backed up by prodigious talent, completely subsumed to serve the end result: Harmless, amusing fun.
I’ve done as you instructed. I’ve kept this coupon. For thirty years or so, I think. It was in that metal tin I keep pennies in. If you’re young, ask your parents what pennies are. Unlike this coupon, they’re not valuable, though.
It’s valuable. I’m not sure if the value is extrinsic, or intrinsic. Well, that’s mostly because I don’t know what those words mean, and I’m too lazy to look them up. But trying to discover its value is a fool’s errand, anyway. I’m generally overqualified for any given fool’s errand. My resume is full of Quixotic skirmishing, Columbia House subscriptions gone fallow after one Creedence album, and various other unsuccessful attempts to bring back a witch’s broomstick for a big payoff. But I know it’s a waste of time to wonder about its value. It says right on it: IT IS VALUABLE. It’s in ALL CAPITALS. As you know from reading the internet, typing in ALL CAPS is the cruise control for awesome. You’re not just right, you’re RIGHT. We’ve got to play it as it lays. Honestly, the only way it could be manifestly more valuable is if they’d put a period after each word in the tag line. Can you imagine? IT. IS. VALUABLE. That would really have been something. But it wasn’t.
Still, I yearn for answers. I search for clues. Wait! there’s a number on it. 0477863. Hmm. It’s got the right number of digits.
It doesn’t roll off the tongue like 867-5309, does it? And I don’t think you can have an exchange numbered 047. There is an area code 047 in County Monaghan in Ireland, but we’re short a bunch of numbers at the end if we use it for an area code. I thought about contacting one of the bog trotting layabouts that live over there and asking if the number meant anything. Well, they’re layabouts if they’re my relatives. Then again, Carrickmacross is north of Dublin, and my people were never allowed up there. We were instructed to stay down south and cook our rotting potatoes over a burning mud fire, and like it, while it lasted. They casually mentioned the mail boat to Halifax N.S. was free. No reason.
Bah! Let’s try Google. Google would never lead you astray. Let’s not tart it up, either. Let’s put 0477863 straight in to the Palo Alto Pandora, and see what comes out of the box. Here it is. The 0477863:
Now, this is intriguing. It has more than a hint of B. Kliban’s Genitals of the Universe series.
Somehow, I’m not convinced I have a ticket good for one alien abduction, with a free probing thrown in. Upon reflection, I realize that since I’ve never lived in a trailer park, or read von Däniken, books, I’m an unlikely candidate for alien abduction. I’m not even sure if the alien probe is free, come to think of it, or if there’s a co-pay, like the one my doctor keeps offering me every checkup. In any case, I think I’d pass.
I’ve tried consulting my Magic Eight Ball, but it said Reply hazy, try again, over and over. I quizzed my Ouija board, but the answer XQZTRMPLAAOOE wasn’t that informative, and the second reply was L M N O P Q R S T, which is just a roadside sobriety test, which I would have failed because who Ouijas sober? I gave up.
So I’ve done as the ticket instructed. I’ve kept this coupon for thirty years or so. Just because it hasn’t panned out yet, there’s no reason to give up. That’s also what I tell my wife about our marriage. I guess I’ll have to hang on to it for another thirty years to see how it turns out.
Reader and commenter Gringo is a national treasure. At least in Sippicanville, surely. He’s reminded us that Tom Lehrer, another national treasure, at least once composed a Christmas Song. There may be others, I dunno. I’m not sure that Spending Hannukah in Santa Monica would count, but I guess it’s jubilee-related.
Tom had a great 97-year run, but his bones, if not the funny ones, ran out of gas this year. God rest ye, merry gentleman.
I haven’t read the Divine Comedy since I was a kid. That’s why I felt I needed to brush up on it before I improved it some. Don’t laugh. Dante was always cheating off me in Math class, although he was a teacher’s pet in Latin. So I feel like if anyone’s going to fix it, I should.
I guess first we should go over the original circles of Hell, in case you’ve forgotten where your iPhone handbasket travel agent, Steve Jobs, is sending you eventually. Yeah, I’ve seen what you’re scrolling through over your shoulder at the airport. Tsk. Tsk.
But I don’t judge, lest I be judged. And hooboy, I’d rather face the Doges in Venice than any angels who’ve heard what I’ve been muttering to myself lately. So let’s visit the nether regions together, and see how we’re going to fare, if Dante, revised, is to be believed.
Limbo:
No, no. Harry Belafonte is not involved, and no funky dancing, although the bar will still be set pretty low, as they say. There are no umbrellas in the drinks. The first circle of Hell is like the airport lounge when you’re snowed in. You’re not punished exactly, but your flight’s delayed indefinitely, and you have to hang around with allegedly virtuous people who don’t have their Christian Airlines boarding pass. Believe me, though, no matter how confusing the similarity in names might be, Christian Airlines has nothing to do with Spirit Airlines:
That’s not limbo. That’s demonic possession. We’ll explore that another time.
Lust:
The second circle treats its denizens to an unrelenting wind that blows them to and fro. It’s a fitting punishment for anyone who is swept away by excessive sexual desire. I guess the modern version of this would be living in a trailer park with a girl you knocked up when you had your beer goggles on. You’re waiting for God to send a retributive tornado to settle your hash, which by the way came out of a can, and is burning on the little stove you got in your single-wide.
Gluttony:
This is where cable TV chefs end up, I guess. The original description of eternal life in the third circle is lying in filthy, freezing slush while being pelted with icy rain and hail. Occasionally, the neighbor’s vicious dog (Cerberus) tears at your flesh. Since this is an exact rundown of what it’s like to live in western Maine, except the part about getting enough to eat in the first place, there’s no need to update it. Let’s move on.
Greed:
If you’ve been hoarding wealth, or raiding your kid’s piggy bank to go to the racetrack, this will be your zip code, forevermore. Your punishment is rolling heavy weights against one another until the end of time, accompanied by lots of clashing noises and shouting. So basically you get a job in an Amazon warehouse without a timeclock. Don’t drink out of the golden pop bottles you find lying around.
Wrath:
Remember, it’s not just rage that can plop you in this circle. Silent sulking will punch your ticket as well. I’m a stone cold lock for this circle. I’m an anger polymath, as you well know, so I’m actually able to silently sulk with my left hemisphere while berating counter help at fast food joints with my right hemisphere. The punishment for wrath has two tiers, like airplane tickets. The first class wrathful fight on the surface of the river Styx. If you’re flying sullen coach, you gurgle just beneath the surface, stuck in the mud while the plain angry folks stomp on your heads. Since I qualify both ways, I’ll just wade around, I guess, and get trespassed from Spirit Airlines.
Heresy:
This ring is for denial of the soul’s immortality or other core Christian beliefs, or maybe putting Canadian quarters in the donation basket on Sunday. The punishment is being entombed in flaming graves for eternity. I’m currently in Merida, Mexico, and I’m getting used to the climate. At this point, if I was put in a flaming grave, I’d probably ask Beelzebub if I could go home to get a blanket.
Violence:
This one is way too complicated, Dante. He says there’s three rings inside the seventh ring, but there are only nine rings, total. I told you he was bad at math. We get it, violence is bad. And all kinds of violence is mentioned. According to Dante, if you’re a blaspheming, sodomizing, credit card company executive, you’re going to have a very bad time in the afterlife. It’s not specified exactly what APY qualifies you for eternal damnation, but I think only secured credit card rates qualify you for Limbo, instead.
Fraud:
Oh come on, Dante. There are ten different ditches in the eighth circle. Again with the bad math. The ditches have seducers, flatterers, false prophets, hypocrites, thieves, and several other kinds of politicians in them. I’m not sure if a voter could get in.
Treachery:
Dante was running out of parchment again, so there are four demi-hells in the final circle of Hell. You’ll be frozen in ice for your sins, so I guess you could wave to the gluttons from your ice cube tray. Right in the center is Satan himself, eternally chewing on Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. Wow, who knew stabbing Caesar was even worse than nailing the son of God to a tree?
OK, so there’s rings inside of circles with a flaming excavator for a bunch of unpleasant ditches. We get it. But honestly, with the passage of time, these punishments don’t scare anyone anymore. We need some new circles to keep the average person on the straight and narrow. I can thing of a few. How about a circle with really crummy wifi? Not a complete lack of wifi. That would be paradisaical. Just slow. Remember dial-up? Yeah, you’d be up half the night just downloading half a picture of a naked girl. Barely enough to get you into the Lust Circle.
I can think of some others. You know, maybe one circle could be a tattoo parlor in a leper colony. Stuff like that. But I’m often reminded of a quotation from Mark Twain:
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
In the words of Yogi Berra (maybe), Mark Twain never said half the things he said. But that sure sounds like him. It’s an understandable comment if you’re a bit of a rogue with an active mind. There certainly is plenty of bad weather in Dante’s circles, to go with the inelegant arithmetic. But on the flip side, Brutus and Cassius would probably be interesting company, even while being devoured. Judas Iscariot would have plenty of coins for the jukebox of the damned. It wouldn’t be that awful.
Maybe we should come up with a new circle of hell that’s an unbelievable torment, and a stone cold groove at the same time. I think I’ve found it. Ladies and germs, I give you a Mexican bowling alley, the Eleventeenth, Funnest Circle of Hell:
I don’t think I’ll insult my Mexican friends by observing that Mexicans are not known for being quiet. They all told me they weren’t, so I didn’t have to figure it out on my own. I’ll also observe that where I live, Augusta, Maine, it’s louder than Mexico. The difference is that in Augusta, everyone is trying to be loud in order to annoy other people. They drive absurd pickup trucks and riced-out Civics with tailpipes the size of Dinty Moore cans and race up and down the streets blattering and backfiring. The motorcycles are Harleys with straight pipes and boombox radios playing heavy metal they can’t hear, but I sure do. As one of my teachers used to observe when a loud car drove by, “That’s all the noise they’re likely to make in this world.” Bothering other people is the only true American art form.
A Mexican bowling alley isn’t like that. Don’t get me wrong, it was louder than ten Sherman tanks with bees and fender washers in their hubcaps. But it was a brand of Happy Loud that the United States no longer celebrates. We put ourselves outside of enough beers to get our decks awash, and everyone in our group got a strike that we observed but couldn’t hear over the Mexican disco torch songs, the clatter of the balls, and the delightful incomprehensible Spanish chatter from the other lanes.
So to quote Twain again, for sure, right out of Huckleberry Finn’s mouth:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.”
I’d settle for going to heaven for the dearth of snow to shovel. I’d be just as happy if I was damned to visit the Altabrisa Consolidated Cacophony and Gutterball Emporium forevermore.
Tag: humor
sippicancottage
A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.
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