Rapinoe who? A recap of USA vs. Vietnam, Women’s World Cup

This is my second post about the Women’s World Cup. First is here. Soccer isn’t real football but I’ll watch until the NFL starts. So there I am, sitting with family, watching the pre-game segments leading up to the U.S. Women’s game against Vietnam. Some guy is hopping next to a pademelon (some kind of kangaroo?) who won’t do what the host wants. Instead it poops. Interviews. Everyone predicting U.S. will shred Vietnam to pieces. Commercials. Every other clip is Megan Rapinoe. Ok, we get it, she’s retiring. Secretly everyone knows 38 is too old to be playing soccer.

The game starts.

U.S. scores. They score again. Halftime.

With about 30 minutes to go, Rapinoe enters the game. I tell my sister, “If the gay community wants to make any progress at all, Rapinoe needs to score a goal.” I’m only half joking. Did you know Dennis Rodman’s daughter is on the team? Crazy! Dennis is an all-time favorite NBA defender. Trinity Rodman.

The goalie for Vietnam is having an MVP performance.

The minutes are ticking by. Rapinoe with her blue hair (she looks better as a blonde) running around. The ball is passed to her. She proceeds to kick it in the air to no one in particular. Another pass. This one goes directly to a Vietnam player. Two corner kicks in a row from Rapinoe. One sails sky high over everyone. The other is on the ground, short. A third corner, nothing special. More kicks to Vietnam players.

Who decides which players play and which don’t? It’s the coach, right? Someone needs to tell Rapinoe that there are 22 players who will add benefits to the U.S. team (by not passing the ball to the opposing team, for instance), who should be in the game before her. But she’s an icon. Legacy. Gets in the game because of her history of talent.

Rapinoe will not help the American women win the Cup. I want a pademelon.

-Out of the Wilderness

Team Barbie or Team Oppenheimer?

It seems like there might be a gender divide on the blockbuster movies to see this weekend. The top two anticipated movies pit Universal and Warner Brothers against each other for who will make the most on opening weekend. Universal has Oppenheimer, a movie about a bomb. The atomic bomb, that is. Warner Bros has Barbie, a movie about a bomb. The bombshell revelation Barbie has about her very existence, that is. OK saying they’re both about bombs is a bit of a stretch but neither will bomb at the box office, that’s pretty clear.

The clash is catching on nationwide in what’s being called Barbenheimer.

The A-listers in both of these films include (Barbie) Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, and Issa Rae, John Cena, and more… and (Oppenheimer) Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, and more.

Guys vs. Girls. Barbie is obviously everything pink and girly. Oppenheimer is bombs and war, things usually associated with guys. I’ve already seen a few playful references from movie-goers (guys) joking about which film they’ll be watching this weekend. It’s almost as if it’s taboo for a guy to admit he’s going to see Barbie. Of course, why would a guy go see Barbie unless it’s a dad with his daughters, or a guy on a date? Cinematically, both films will be pretty extraordinary so that’s a valid reason to see either, whether you’re a dude or a dudette.

Always Tie Things Back to Taylor. This is very much aligned with my thoughts on Taylor Swift concerts, not to totally change the subject or anything. My nieces (7 in total) have all seen Taylor live on her Eras Tour, so I’ve wondered… besides dads and boyfriends, how many guys are going to a Taylor Swift concert for the singular reason of enjoying her music? There are definitely gay guys who’ll go to a show for their love of all things Taylor, but straight men with no daughter and no date? Those guys are not buying tickets to Taylor.

They’re also not buying tickets to see Barbie this weekend. They’ll suppress any inkling of a desire to see it until it’s streaming so they can watch it in the comfort of their own home… in private, as to not embarrass themselves in front of their rough and tough homies.

And if they do have tickets to Barbie and someone catches them in the theater, asking what they’re about to see… 99 times out of 100 they’ll say, “Oppenheimer.”

-Out of the Wilderness

Two Mirandas and a Jason, All in Hot Water

Hey there… I post every day at 1pm central so I’d be totally pumped if you subscribe (you’ll get an email with a link to each post) or just check back for new posts coming out often! Today marks yet another post about country music. I’ve loved the genre for a long time, although I prefer more traditional country like Jon Pardi, or if I’m being 100% transparent… Alan Jackson.

Hot Tub Time Machine. Oddly enough, there are two famous people with the name Miranda in the news simultaneously, and I bet they’d both like to hop in a time machine right about now. One has sort of faded and become old news… Miranda Sings, a character created by Colleen Ballinger. Colleen was/is in hot water because she apparently didn’t know when to draw the line between her professional career and her private life. Things involving minors and mistreating people who work for her has added up to a mountain she won’t be able to climb. It’s all a bit messy and I don’t really want to get into that stuff. My general sentiment is that her jig is up. You do stuff (questionable R-rated, intimate stuff) around or including minors, your career is as good as gone. She won’t be back in the entertainment business, at least on a national scale, with any popularity any time soon, if ever. But the cooler Miranda is in the news, too…

Country Music. At the same time Jason Aldean is being cancelled, removed from CMT, making headlines, having #1 songs for his latest “Try That In A Small Town” which I wrote about here, Miranda Lambert (the country singer I almost dated) is a lightning rod of discussion. In a nutshell, at a recent show she stopped performing mid-song to call out some women who were apparently obstructing fans views when the stood up to take an elaborate selfie pic. I’m siding with Miranda for two reasons:

  1. She’s offering us her most beloved thing, the craft she dedicates her life to, and so it comes across as disrespectful and/or rude to pick a tender moment in the show to worry about getting a picture. Surely there is a time and a place to get a good selfie but from what I can decipher, Miranda was singing a heartfelt ballad when the ladies decided to take the picture. Should she have just let it go and continued to perform for the rest of the fans at the show? Perhaps. But what if a painter was presenting her artwork in a gallery showing and in the middle of explaining the motive behind one of her most cherished pieces of art, a group of people got out their phones for selfies? It’s just bad timing, I think. Plus, disrupting other people’s experiences isn’t a blunder to be overlooked.
  2. Put your phones away. There is something pure and memorable about being “in the moment.” Enjoy the show because you paid money for the privilege. Take a picture or two but then, be all the way in… try to listen for each instrument, watching the drummer slam the sticks into the snare drum, the guitar tech rushing out to swap instruments, the concert lights spinning and twirling to the beat of the song, the entertainer (Miranda, in this case) putting on a showcase of their talents, skills, and personality. When I get my phone out to take a picture or record a short video, I’m snapped out of the moment so quickly because my focus turns to the image on my little screen. I’ve usually lost the magic created by being in the room with fellow fans in a place and time that can’t really be recreated ever again. And just to get a picture to show people that I was here? Who cares? Great, I have picture to remember that time I stopped enjoying the show to take a picture. Whoop-de-freakin-do!

Do either of the Mirandas tick you off? How about Jason Aldean? Something will come along soon that shuffles these stories to the back burner, which will be music to the ears of Jason, Miranda, and Colleen… I’m sure.

-Out of the Wilderness

Who Is Andrew Tate and Why Do We Care?

We don’t. That’s the short answer to the question in the title of this post. We shouldn’t care who Andrew Tate is but I’ve been seeing his name pop up and I guess you have, too. The Independent actually has a great timeline of his relevancy so I won’t try to post it all here. I’d follow the train of thought of what Betty White said about Facebook and apply that to Andrew Tate. She said Facebook was a huge waste of time. That’s about the extent of Andrew Tate, too.

Andrew Tate will fade into history as someone who did a thing once and was in the news for some reason, but no one can really pinpoint exactly what and no one cares. Nothing he says should matter (and if things go a certain way, all his comments will be coming from a jail cell anyway), so his relevancy will disappear faster than a bad act on America’s Got Talent. I guess there is a tiny reason to pay attention to guys like him, though. If he, or any copycats gain any traction, there would be a reason for concern. From what I can tell, he is just controversial for controversies sake, which does nothing good for society or culture.

I was going to include a YouTube video here, a compilation of his ludicrous views about relationships but I wasted 5 minutes watching it so you don’t have to. 🙂

Go out and enjoy your day and let’s forget about this dumb guy, mmk?

-Out of the Wilderness

I really want to cheer for the U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team

The Women’s World Cup is starting this week. Just like previous tournaments, the U.S. women’s team is expected to go far in the tournament, or even win it all. But I’ll just be totally honest here, instigator athletes like Megan Rapinoe really, REALLY turn me off. So much so that I’m finding it hard to even hope the team succeeds. Like in some way if the team wins it validates her irritating and divisive personality. Thankfully there are lots of other women on the team, extremely talented, and not so divisive. It will be easy to cheer those women on. I guess this is a good example of how imperfect I am.

I want to love everyone. I want to be someone who’s kind, compassionate, generous. Someone who overlooks offenses and prays for his enemy’s. I’m not there yet. In fact, if the entire team were full of Megan Rapinoes, I’d be quietly rooting for whoever the opponent is. Kind of like I do with college football. Shhhhhhhhh, don’t tell my family! I went to Florida State but what they did in the mid-2010s, I just can’t forgive them for it. I revoked my loyalty, rejected my alliance, and for what it’s worth I did the same with Nike, too, as they were involved with the FSU stuff that ticked me off. Actually, it might be Nike that bears the majority of the blame. But, I’ll admit the movie Air is pretty great. I loved my Air Jordans in the early 90s. I loved the Seminoles from birth to their 2013 championship. But bridges have been burned, ships have sailed, bonds broken that will never be repaired.

Megan Rapinoe’s appearances (sports, interviews, etc) always leave a bad taste in my mouth, so it’s hard to be excited about anything she’s associated with… but I’m going to try. Let’s go, girls!

-Out of the Wilderness