While she seems to like to party and goof off as much as any young jock, she has a great gig with the USWNT and bright prospects for earnings from that gig, providing that she is and remains popular with the ponytailed legions of women's soccer fans.
Her new husband?
In fact, if I had to sum up Jerramy Stevens the term I'd use would be "dirtbag". And the other term I'd use is "trouble."
NOT because of any one particular thing - although he sounds like he's a real pain in the ass human being - but because of a long history of stupidity and bad decisions and flat-out fucktardry that goes back to high school.
And at least in this case breathing-while-black doesn't seem to enter into it. This isn't some kid from the hood; this is a guy who was making NFL cash, fuck-you money, who could have kept all this partying, fighting, and doping and general please-come-arrest-me-becuse-I'm-a-too-big-a-stupid-douchenozzle-to-keep-this-on-the-downlow out of the public eye in the same way that other wealthy African-Americans (and wealthy Americans of all hues) who like a bit of outlaw fun have done since the flying wedge era.
Black, white, or brown, he's just an unemployed dirtbag with a talent for fucking up.
Why in little green apples would a woman who appears to be this driven, this smart, and this put-together want a walking "kick-me" sign like this for more than an evening's diversion?
Sigh. I don't expect people to make smart decisions about their crotches. We all have - I suspect most of us have, at any rate - made some dumb choices about people whose groinical bits we rub our own wedding tackle against. For all that Solo seems to be a bright gal who can keep goal more than a bit there's no reason she should be any smarter than the rest of us about putting Tab A into Slot B.
But...for God's sake, Hope - this guy is nothing more than a life support system for a penis. Consider him the go-to guy when you need a bit of lovin'. Fine. He may be a bit of a laugh, he may be good as a sort of meat-based sex toy, but...to let him become anything more than that?
To become legally incorporated with him? Formally associated with him in governmentally-sanctioned domestic partnership?
Are you fucking nuts? C'mon, Hope; show me that there's some sapiens there...
As they tell men, "don't put your dick in crazy".
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a similar phrase for women to the effect 'don't let douchebag abusers put their dick in you'.
Ain't that the truth.
ReplyDeleteAnd WORSE than getting dick from dirtbags is getting MARRIED to them, which, in effect, makes you legally and publicly semi-responsible for and connected to them and their sure-to-be-dickish antics.
I mean, if Hope wants to hook up with this guy, fine; for all I know he may be some sort of incredible lover (although generally I find that dickish guys are often dickish in the sack, as well...). But why the hell marry him? THAT's the part I don't get.
Add to that that he is unemployed and from what I can tell looks like he's unemployABLE; he wasn't picked up by an NFL team this season, and once you're out of the game and away from the training table and the team docs and their HGH, steroids, EPO and the other goodies that make you into an NFL monster getting back on the inside is freaking damn near impossible.
PLUS he's a dick, so nobody is going to want to hire him as some sort of ex-jock sports media guy.
WTF, Solo?
My take:
ReplyDelete[1] Just because one is good at (soccer/math/cooking) does not mean one will be skilled in other life traits. In fact, it could be argued that lacking the Renaissance drive for breadth most people today specialize in one trade. This narrowness is akin to being somewhere on the autism scale, and autism does not bode for well for interpersonal relationship.
[2] Pop culture today encourages teh crazy, from Bobby Brown and Whitney (our favorite) on down. We idolize our athletes, imagining them good if they get the ball into the net (or above it, in my sport), but skill does not equate with discretion, or any of the other finer traits of the latter hominids.
IMHO, entertainment is full of contradictory messages. Women strut their stuff, yet they still enter subjugating relationships. Celebrity imparts a sense of invincibility, and when we watch them (or the movie versions of our ostensible selves) failing, we can't imagine we would transcend them; they delimit our potential. People deceive themselves when they imagine we have come far.
So, it is a combo of low expectations (re-branded as "high"), old dynamics of male superiority and objectification (even when it is self-imposed) and the love of the spectacle.
Oh, there's much more, I'm sure, but these sort of things do show how near we are to the trees, right?
The thing about this that baffles me, Lisa, is that in every interview I've watched the woman appears to be very bright and have a reasonable sense of self-awareness. She's had a fairly "normal" life, outside of being an extreme jock, so the usual sort of narrowly-focused celebrity idiocy doesn't seem like it should apply.
ReplyDeleteGoalkeepers are usually (and from the times I've seen her speak she seems to fit the mold) considered "the smart ones" on any soccer team. And outside something of a temper Solo seems to meet that expectation. So if I could just write it off as "just a dumb choice made by a dummy..." that'd help me understand. But she isn't, so far as I can tell.
And she seems to have made a choice of partner that is the emotional and sexual equivalent of poking herself in the eye with a sharp stick...
It would be one thing if she were some regular gal working at Fred Meyer and hooked up with this guy; even an unemployed ex-NFL player might seem like a bright light, like a minor celebrity himself. But Solo is a better athlete at her game than he was at his. There's nothing there to be attractive.
And yet...there they are.
Freakish. And, as you say, very human. But kind of makes you despair for humans as a species...
Well, if she is as you say, then it would seem to be a damning condemnation of something horribly awry in our current society.
ReplyDeleteIn the not-so-distant past, sportsmen and other celebrities would tend to marry an approximate peer; often, the woman might be less outwardly accomplished, but that was simply due to the tenor of the times. Aside from those who made glaringly awful choices (like Rita Hayworth, but that was later in life, much as Liz Taylor made poor choices as life's baggage weighed down), usually, there was some logic and parity involved.
Now, we have apotheosized the gangsta ethic, and its commensurate bling, abuse and misogyny; this has been developed over the past generation. If these women's dads are transfixed by these scumbags on the gridiron, is it not reasonable to expect their daughters would assimilate the adoration?
Most parents do not teach ethics; they teach, if anything, the attainment of skills which will make one viable in society. (Ethics can probably only be imparted effectively via example.) Solo has earned her chops, now what? We have taught such women to be independent, but not necessarily how to couple felicitously. So what is the next challenge?
To take on a ruffian, break the rules, maybe some even have a hidden desire to batted about, as they do with the ball on the playing field. In a hard knocks life, things shouldn't be easy; that's the gangsta script.
So ... for a white girl brought up in an average family who has gained some celebrity in sports, who would be exposed to other "sportsmen", such a nasty guy would be "coup". Take a look at them posing with their stupid hand gestures.
Solo has all the bennies, and she thought this criminal would be something fine to bag. (Ditto Sandra Bullock with her scumbag.) For you and I, this seems like an impulse to masochism, but to these accomplished women, their values have been transvalued.
Since they do not choose for goodness in a mate, I wonder what is going on in their psyche.
I recall an incident in 7th grade. The school had a mixer of sorts for all the kids to welcome us to the pre-adult set, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, music, a table of food and punch, and a small group of staff to monitor.
A few boys and girls who knew each other did some dancing, the rest of us stayed on separate ends of the hall.
So much for the gov't run yenta service back then.
I dunno, maybe there's something worthwhile that she sees in him, something to make her heart sing. But looking at the going divorce rate and the survivability of celebrity hook-ups, it won't last.
Irreconcilable differences.
And, I've always thought, shouldn't it be "Tab A into Slot A"? It just seems odd trying to get one's Tab into a slot labelled differently.
bb
Chief,
ReplyDeleteAnd another odd thought that came to me:
For the White women bagging blacks, could it be a sort of racism-slvery redux? In the case of the media, the powerful white woman marrying (owning) the black buck.
And ... when he is punishing, she suffers a sort of racial atonement. Far out there, yes, but race matters figure largely in these parts, so anything goes, y'see?
Hmmm...
ReplyDeleteMight be; some people I've known have some very odd kinks about race. No idea whether Solo gets some sort of whack thrill from being the bottom in a relationship where a black guy is the top. Might be possible.
But, again, I keep coming back to the whole marriage thing. She wants to get her freak on with a brother? Fine. Sweet. Do it. My general philosophy is that I'm not the boss of you between the sheets; do what you gotta to make yourself happy, providing that everyone's an adult and consenting.
But why oh why make it legal? Why put yourself - as a person who gainful employment is in large part dependent on being seen as an admirable person - in the position of letting a troublesome dirtbag make you unemployed and broke?
HE wants to go there? Fine. But why chain yourself to him?
To use a nasty metaphor; the plantation ladies might have slipped a burly field hand into the boudoir for a bit of rough fun, but install him in the master suite?
Heaven forbid!
Oh, I'm totally with you: Why in the world make it legal? There is no rational answer. Therefore, from whence the impulse?
ReplyDeleteIf we went with my self-atonement metaphor, what a ball-and-chain. It would be taking the female impulse to "change a man" to the uttermost. Either that, or the said woman has a desire to be brought low (a self esteem issue.)
I will also stick with my contention that media is fostering this sort of thing. People Solo's age have grown up in a culture where a lot of any remaining innocence has been smashed. MTV-type vids went from cute to abjectly raunchy. Perhaps the nadir (has it even arrived?) would be rapper Nelly sliding a credit card down a woman's backside.
So we have nuevo (?), retro (?) full-on objectification of women, and batty women claiming the prostitute's position -- that her objectification is her power. All rather pathetic, IMHO, after all of the feminist efforts 50 years ago. Proudly tramping right back into the dungeon, these women are.
As men (= "good men") are displaced and de-centered, what man holds onto the archetypal label of his sex? Perhaps the most brute among them. Pity.
So you see, there is a social confluence here (along with the individual's particular kinks) -- sanctioned female degradation; reduction of the male; media-promoted racial agenda.
I clearly need to watch more music videos, Lisa. Or maybe not; that all sounds pretty nasty.
ReplyDeleteI mean, there are moments when we all want to get down and dirty. But it's one thing when it's a moment of passion and another when it's a potential for a lifetime of worry and sorrow.
I wish I thought you were exaggerating about this, but looking at this sorry tale I can't imagine any other explanation. After women fought for generations to convince men that women are not theirs to beat and rape at their pleasure this young woman has taken on a man to rape and beat herself.
That's just damn sad.
Also one more thing on the racial aspect:
ReplyDeleteI attended a black university and have known enough black men to know that a white woman is a coup (for men from age 85 down to the youngest.) They will spend disproportionately in order to win this prize; however, the flip side of the win is the knowledge that you have just paid, so it's not really a win.
Embedded in that transaction is a measure of self-hatred, and resentment of the other. There are are so many implicit messages -- "Why IS that white woman such a coup?" "What's wrong with me (and my sisters)?" So a lot of angst plays out in that ownership transaction.
A white male friend has sworn off trying to date black women, as he finds their dynamic to be very controlling; they have a need to dominate, to show supremacy, and of course this would be expected in a primarily female-dominated household culture.
Black boys often reap the ill-wind of this maternal strife. It would make sense they might want to escape it, but also having poor tools to transcend it, would also perpetuate the abuse. Many white women (perhaps Solo) have been cosseted from life in government projects; many times it is a return to the jungle, and quite fierce. Just because one now has money and may live in a gated community does not erase that violence.
What Solo sees is a balletic athlete on the playing field, and someone who probably gave her all the cool moves and smooth words. She did not believe the corrosive anger within the being.
The was a sociological study in the '50's, "The Negro Streetcorner Man", and too often, he is down on the b-ball court after siring young 'uns, left for the women to raise. This of course is the generational welfare state which the Republicans disingenuously finger. But that is a little off topic, for that is the angst of the black women ...
So back to black men and white women (and of course, we are not addressing any cases of actual love): Jim says in the Army, black men were known to spend every discretionary penny on white women in Germany, and it is for this reason that many German women preferred to date black men.
Just some further thoughts, and why I have always felt that the struggle to transcend racism is the misery of our nation. Because we can not deal with it either within ourselves or in our society, we are doomed to forever fail to understand or meet it elsewhere.
Interesting subject.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you are referring to the fact that the male you mentioned is not much of a provider and never will be.
The female is young and probably had a relatively safe and prosperous life so she apparently did not consider this angle.
In our times majority of what might be considered provider material are more or less emasculated. Wimps. Maybe they are good to play with the kids and bring the bacon home. But as males not so much.
Imagine the guy from the picture getting angry. Half of the white wimps from the city would wet their pants. The other half would run away screaming.
At least that is what can be seen at a rather superficial glance.
A real man versus a bunch of cowards weaklings.
As a husband the guy is probably a bad deal. But he is a real man, something which females normally desire. Majority of them usually do not marry this type of males. They are able to control the human natural impulses. And settle down with what amounts to weaklings.
Feminism managed to make a majority of the male population quite uninteresting for the majority of the female population. Some of them - the ones with self control and a capacity for planning - settle down temporary with unsatisfactory partners. ( the incidence of divorce points towards the temporary I mentioned). But I emphasis the word settle.
In conclusion if the family has some wealth a girl can have the best of both worlds. Temporary of course like O's mother discovered. Wealth remains, man usually leaves as it is normal for a dominant and deeply desired by the females guy.
Teo,
ReplyDeleteThis man is not a "real man", but he does appear to be a brute. (All men are biologically "real men".) He is a caricature Tarzan, content to let his wife bring home the bacon.
The key is, this woman has made a choice. We err when we admire the (athlete/scholar/soldier/minister) and attach a concept of exceptionality to his or her person by virtue of their mastery of their vocation. Money does not make for a good life and more than does poverty.
O's mother did not have a good life, nor was she left with money. It seems Obama's "Dreams of My Father" dad was an opportunist, and was off when the next good opportunity presented itself. We too often operate on the level of the juvenile pop tune lyrics, "She used me, I used her, neither one cared; we were getting our share." Except at some point -- sooner rather than later -- that is hardly enough to sustain a relationship.
Teo has it partly right: In the law of the jungle, the Silverback bags the most females for his troupe. However, those females are out getting "good loving" from the Beta males during the evening. Many of us strive to stay up from the primordial ooze, but I would argue Hollywood and the record producers are dragging us back down.
Their cover is, "We're just showing it like it is." They are showing the lowest example, and the stupid middle class kids (and adults) buy into the garbage as something to which to aspire.
People get what they want. We are deciding animals, though our discretion often goes wanting.
Per, the Silverback bags the most females for his troupe. ...
ReplyDeletesorry -- "troop". (The gorillas haven't started any song-and-dance clubs lately.)