¡Gooooooooooooooool! · 7 July 2018
Replica World Cup Trophy
by Bic
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Commentators can make all the difference when watching a sport. Especially, when watching the World Cup.
I have not watched tons of soccer on TV. (In fact, most of the soccer I have watched was of my kids playing the sport.) But I remember watching the World Cup as a kid on Grandma and Grandpa’s black and white TV. And I remember watching Soccer Made in Germany when I was a teenager. It was amazing to watch those World Cup games as a kid even though the commentators did not seem to know much about the game. They still impressed upon us that we were watching something incredible. And the commentators for Soccer Made in Germany helped us understand the game.
As I watch the current World Cup, I cannot help but think that I would rather have those commentators who knew little about soccer but brought passion to each game. I would even take the Soccer Made in Germany commentators who wanted to teach the game to the world over the ones today. Well, most of them.
There are some announcers who really bring passion to their comments. They know and love the game and give us feelings in their words. But it seems that the much of the announcing at the current World Cup is somewhat pedestrian. It is like listening to somebody comment on watching somebody else walking. (“Oh, he better watch out. There is a crack up ahead.”) Sure, they talk about the game and quote statistics about this player and that player. But when it comes down to it, it is not all that exciting to hear about this player passing to that player or about this statistic or that statistic. Especially when some commentators sound so very ho hum about it all.
I was not really thinking about how much commentators bring to a sport until I watched one particular match.
I was deciding whether to watch England vs. Belgium or Panama vs. Tunisia. Neither meant much in the whole scheme of things. England and Belgium were playing to see who won their group. Panama and Tunisia were just playing for pride. I started watching the England-Belgium game which was exciting at first, but then switched to Panama vs. Tunisia. I was going to switch back and forth but ended up only switching back once when I heard Belgium scored.
(I need to pause here for a moment to give a little perspective.)
Being a kid in the seventies meant that there was a lot of good sport on TV. And there were a lot of good commentators. I remember Howard Cosell calling boxing and football. Whether you loved him or hated him, he did his job well. He brought passion to any sport and you could always recognize his voice. I remember hearing Frank Gifford and Keith Jackson calling football and other sports. And I loved hearing John Madden as a football commentator in the eighties.
People like them seem to be missing from the soccer commentator seats. Mostly.
I remember watching a few matches of a previous World Cup on the Spanish-speaking channel. I was hooked on their commentary. They were animated. They were passionate. They were speaking a language I did not understand. But I still loved it. Even though I did not understand what they were saying all the time, it was like listening to those old-time broadcasters from when I was a kid. They loved to tell the story of the game as it was unfolding. And they brought passion to every minute of every game. Just like the commentators I remember as a kid.
Which brings me back to the Panama-Tunisia game. It was a game that meant nothing to anybody except those particular players and their fans. But that was not how the announcers called the game. They made it sound like it was the final.
Jorge Pérez-Navarro and Mariano Trujillo were calling the Panama vs. Tunisia game. And they were calling it in English. I loved their accents. But I loved their passion more. Like I said, they made it sound like the game was the final instead of a match that meant nothing to the tournament outcome. Pérez-Navarro said more than a few times that the teams were playing for pride, for their countries, and for the love of the game. It was plain to hear that the announcers were both calling the game for that same love. It is what has been missing from most of the other announcers I have heard so far this year.
One of the other things that I really enjoyed about listening to Pérez-Navarro and Trujillo was their banter. They seemed to enjoy talking to each other. About the game, about players, about everything. Trujillo talked a little about playing professionally. Pérez-Navarro chided Trujillo, who said the Panama keeper was the best in Central America. Their lighthearted banter was natural and enjoyable, not forced. They were animated about every pass, every shot, every ¡Gooooooooooooooooooooooooool!
It was the thirty-third minute of the game when I realized what that final missing piece from the other commentators was. Jorge Pérez-Navarro shouted, “¡Gooooooooooooooooooooooooool!” I could not believe my ears. It was what I did not realize I was missing from my 2018 World Cup watching experience. It had been what I had been missing most of my soccer watching life. And I got to hear it two more times during the game. I was ecstatic watching what many called a meaningless game. It was not meaningless to the players, their fans, and certainly not to the game’s commentators.
I know it sounds weird, but I wish there was a little more life in the commentators’ voices during the World Cup matches. I wish they would all have the passion of Jorge Pérez-Navarro, Mariano Trujillo, and a few others. But when it comes right down to it, I really just wish they would all have some signature call of a single word. A word Pérez-Navarro seemingly says until he runs out of breath. A word said after every score by every player. In even a so-called meaningless match.
¡Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!
Thank you Jorje Pérez-Navarro and Mariano Trujillo (and others). Your voices and your passion have made all the difference in my World Cup 2018 watching experience.
© 2018 Michael T. Miyoshi
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Vrooooom! · 30 June 2018
Apparently, we all talk with our own sound effects.
I never really noticed it until I laughed at my wife for doing it, but people talk with sound effects more than I would have guessed. Her reply to my laugh was, “Doesn’t everybody talk like that?” I did not have an answer. Instead, I just started listening to people.
What I noticed is that people really do make their own sound effects.
“Vrooooom.”
“Rat-a-tat-tat!”
“Kablooie!”
“Splooooosh.”
These simple onomatopoeia do not do the actual sound effects any justice. For how can you really make that sound of a person strafing the beach? “Rat-a-tat-tat!” does not show the person’s cheeks filled with air as he pushes that same air out of his mouth and stops it rhythmically by pressing his tongue to the top of his mouth. Or more accurately, presses his tongue to the top of his mouth and lets out quick bursts of air by pulling it away. You have certainly heard the sound during a conversation and it does not sound like “Rat-a-tat-tat!”
I guess that is why the written word sounds so much different than spoken conversations. You simply cannot create a word for every sound effect that people speak with. Regardless of the thought that the word onomatopoeia implies that we can make any sound into a word that sounds like the sound.
Thinking about onomatopoeia takes me back to my own childhood. We used to watch 1960s Batman TV show, and even though it is cheesy, I still love to see the visual effects they used when fighting the bad guys. “Kapow! Wham! Bang!” Again, the sound words (how many times can I use onomatopoeia) do not do the real sounds justice, but we still loved the show.
I know I have strayed from the topic a bit, but then again, maybe not. For I suppose we do the same thing the old Batman series used to do. We insert sounds into our conversations all the time. We know people are familiar with them so it is easier to mimic the sound of a jet flying overhead than it is to say, “the roar of the jet.” It is easier to just go “Vrooooom!” instead of saying “the sound of the car rushing by at 100 miles per hour.” It would be fun to have those Kapow! Wham! and Bang! graphics show up when we talked too, but we simply do not get to have talking or thinking bubbles above our heads like they do in the comics. At least not with current technology.
There are surely people out there who do not make their own sound effects during conversations. Just as there are people out there who do not make appropriate gestures or move their bodies or hands when they talk. Yes, conversation without sound effects does exist. But after observing for a while, most of the people I know talk with their own sound effects. “Vroooooom!”
© 2018 Michael T. Miyoshi
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Wordless · 23 June 2018
It is interesting. Today, I am speechless. So to speak.
As I am sitting here writing, I realize that I have nothing to say. Not one word. Which is odd, because here I am writing. So what am I writing? I have no idea. It is just that I know I must write. Period. It is like the proverbial shark who needs to keep moving in order to survive. I need to keep writing in order to survive. Writing is like oxygen to me. Without it, I will die.
Metaphorically, of course.
I am sure that if I stopped writing, my world would not come to an untimely end. I would still keep breathing and surviving. It is just that I would not be as fulfilled. Sure, there would be a little less drivel on the internet, but that does not matter to me. Littering the internet with my words is not really my concern. After all, it is not like I litter the ground or sea with garbage. (At least not consciously.) The internet has the capacity to take all my garbage and filter it out. Unlike the ground or sea.
But I am not here to preach about litter. I am just flabbergasted that I have no ideas. No thoughts. No words. (Ironic I suppose, since I have already written four paragraphs. If you can call them all paragraphs.)
Speaking (rather writing) of paragraphs. Is a paragraph a paragraph if there is only one sentence in it? Or only one fragment of a sentence? How many sentences does it really take to make a paragraph? One? Two? Three? The world may never know. All I know is that when I end a thought, I like to end the paragraph. Or so I was taught. Something like that anyway.
Well, I am not sure I am through writing about nothing, but it seems like I am about to stop. It is interesting. I never really know what is going to come out when I am speechless. Rather, wordless.
(For those counting, I wrote 339 words about being speechless. More when you count this parenthetical thought. I wonder if that is how those streams of consciousness writers write? All I know is that it is strange to be speechless and wordless, and yet still be able to write a few hundred words about nothing. I suppose some people think I do that every week.)
© 2018 Michael T. Miyoshi
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