Welcome to The Jerky Loudspeaker - an independent sports and culture newsletter, I’m super excited to have you here! Before you dive right in, let me quickly break down how the newsletter is structured. Think of it like a mini newspaper, with three sections:
Balls, Bats & Baskets - Sports obviously comes first, and in this section I’ll geek out about the happenings in this world of balls, bats and baskets.
Consumption Corner - A weekly review ( see, rant) of what I’m watching, reading and listening to.
The third section will be a rotating one, and could be anything from a fiction piece to musings to a poll.
Balls, Bats & Baskets
Goodbye to all that
In many ways, it's fitting that it happened in 2020. In a year that's already seen Kobe's death, the Olympics postponed and a historic NBA player strike in the playoffs, our grasp of reality was further tested last Tuesday.
It was one of those moments that you'll remember exactly where and when you first got the news. I was in my room that evening, when my phone buzzed with a text from a friend - 'Messi leaving Barca, I'm heartbroken right now'. In the last couple of years, there's been at least one story about Messi's departure in every transfer window, so my initial reaction was one of wary skepticism. After corroborating the news ( from the ever reliable news source that is Twitter), the skepticism made way for quiet disbelief as it slowly started to sink in. When you think of Messi, the image that's conjured is of him with his arms spread out and a mischievous grin on his face.... in a Barcelona jersey. Just the thought of him playing for another club felt blasphemous.
The most pressing question, in the aftermath of the 8-2 demolition at the hands of Bayern Munich, was Messi's future. Should he stay or should he go? It's a highly contentious topic, and it's provided a unique glimpse into the different types of Messi fans that exist.
The stay brigade is dominated by those who've watched Messi on only the biggest of stages - the Champions League, the World Cups and the Clasicos. The ones who've experienced the magic largely through Youtube compilations set to horrific techno beats. I'll have to admit I fall into this category and wanted him to stay and save the sinking ship á la Del Piero at Juventus.
But, what surprised me was how many Barca fans weren't just okay with him leaving, but actually wanted him to move on. The ones who see his feints, dribbles and passes on a weekly basis in the La Liga, and have seen the extent to which Messi has carried team. . In the last three years, Messi has scored 35% of Barcelona's goals, that's 44 goals more than Luis Suarez, the second highest scorer in that time. We are undeserving, their sentiments scream. The ignominious Champions League exits weren't one-off events, they were just the tip of the iceberg. Messi's been papering over the cracks for a while now - the three La Liga titles and three Copa Del Ray titles in the past five years are a testament to that.
There's a special duality that come with being a Barca fan - for the ten players on the field there is a passion, but for the 11th there is a devotion. And currently, a divorce seems the best option for both. It gives players like De Jong and Griezmann the chance to step out of the shadows, and also allows Messi to shine his light on a team that will reflect it back.
When I take the emotion out of it, it's a decision I understand and have even come to support. It's not easy to accept, especially because logic is the exact antithesis to Messi. There's a romance Messi elicits when you watch him play. It's in that tingling you feel when you see him steely eyed in the tunnel. It's in the searching eyes that look for him on the pitch. It's in the way you lean forward when he receives the ball on his left. It's in the low whistle when he sets off towards the goal. It's in the way you puff your cheeks out when he skips past a defender. It's in that shake of disbelief when he caresses a shot past the keeper.
Lionel Messi made you feel something each time he played.
If there's one man in the world who recognizes this beauty and knows how to make it something tangible, it's Pep Guardiola. As an Arsenal fan, I'd hate to see him in the Premier League, but as an appreciator of beauty and all the good things in life, I'd love to see Messi re-united with Pep.
After 20 years, a billion goals and a million assists the show will come to end in Barcelona. There's something poetic about the fact that his last goal for the club came in an empty stadium. It was just the Camp Nou, the ball and that majestic left foot of his that summer night. There's always been an inherent simplicity to him.
Barca's club motto is 'More than a club'. Lionel Messi was more than a player. It was the perfect marriage. It's a bond that will last forever, because after all they never got a chance to say goodbye to each other.
Need some Messi magic to start off your week? I’ve got you covered!
Consumption Corner
What I am listening to: I’ve had Indie India, a Spotify curated playlist that includes the best of India’s independent artists, on repeat this entire week. It’s a playlist I return to it every few months to discover new music and refresh my tastes. Some of my favorite artists that I’ve discovered on Indie India are aswekeepsearching, Mali and Taba Chake. The Indian music scene has really exploded in the past few years and has finally grown out of the shadow of Bollywood. When I asked Prateek Kuhad about this phenomenon, he said the talent has always been there, it’s just that platforms like Spotify and Youtube have made their music easily accessible. Playlists like this one, certainly help.
What I am watching: I watched the coming-of-age comedy, Booksmart on Monday. I liked it. It’s a movie about two academically over-achieving high school best friends who on the eve of their graduation, realize they’ve missed out on all the fun of their teenage years, and decide to reclaim four years of squandered fun in one night. It’s got all the usual tropes of a coming of age movie - the high school misfits, the unrequited love angle, the ‘party that doesn’t go according to plan’ sequence and the drama of graduation. So while it is an entertaining watch, it’s also very predictable. Booksmart is the type of movie I put into the Subway Sandwich category - you crave it every once in a while, it’s easy to consume and is wholly satisfying, but you’re not going to think twice about it after you’re done.
What I am reading: I’ve been making steady progress on The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli. The book is essentially a collection of essays about the errors and fallacies in our thinking, behaviors and systems. Dobelli explains complex cognitive and behavioral patterns in a manner so concise and engaging, that it feels like you’re reading fiction. For example, the essay titled ‘Why You Should Visit Cemeteries’ is about survivorship bias and our tendency to overestimate the chances of our success. Fittingly, the clarity of writing is The Art of Thinking’s strongest feature.
My favorite essay in the book
Time Capsules
The way we document our lives has always fascinated me. Some of us take photos, some journal, some collect and there are some who just don't bother. We're all so hyper focused on creating and documenting these moments in our life, that we don't realize that there are certain memories we unknowingly collect our entire lives. A secret pensieve, that we can dive into anytime. These memories are stowed away in the art we consume - in the music we listen to, in the movies we watch, in the shows we binge and the books we devour.
We don't create such memories, they happen to us. And, because they are intangible, they take a more pure and permanent form. In fact, they aren't really memories, they are time capsules. Time capsules, when uncorked, have the power to consume you. In the next few weeks, I'll be uncorking some of mine with you.
Fire
Computer Science was always a weird class in middle school. It was a weekly affair that none of us really took seriously. It was usually towards the end of the day, and our attention levels would be so low that even the teachers had stopped trying. We weren't considered responsible enough for Internet access, so we had to get creative with our distractions - Tux Paint and Counterstrike were constantly kept open to switch to when the teacher wasn't looking.
It wasn't uncommon for people to get songs on their pen drives and load it onto the school laptops. It was a noble cause, but the song choice was deplorable. For an entire year, I was stuck with the laptop that had only Mike Posner's 'Cooler than me' on it. Tough times.
It was during one of these farcical computer science periods in 8th grade, when two of my friends called me over to one corner, where they sat huddled around one of the work stations. “Tell me if you recognize this song," one of them said and hit play on the laptop in front of us.
Do you feel this weird pressure when someone plays a song and asks you to identify it? The type of pressure that increases with each passing second of the song? Is it just me?
For the first 40 seconds of the song, I met my friends' expectant looks with a blank expression. When I shrugged my shoulders at them, they just smiled and told me wait for the chorus. “I'm sure I've never heard this song befo..", I began to remonstrate, when the chorus hit.
I instantly recognized the song; it was such an exhilarating eureka moment. "Premier League!", I exclaimed at my friends as they nodded excitedly. The song in question was Fire by the band Kasabian, the chorus of which was used as the intro song for Premier League match days. Before the match day show, Fire would be played to an animation video that displayed each of the team logos. Watch it here!
I'd been classically conditioned to such an extent, that just listening to the first few beats of the chorus instantly sparked this raw excitement I'd feel every Saturday evening, when I'd settle in front of the television for the football. It was the intro song for the best 90 minutes of the week, and perfectly captured football's euphoria.
It was a song I'd heard every weekend for the past couple of years, but until that afternoon in the computer period, I didn't even know its name. There are so many songs, ad jingles and tunes that are so special to us, but we go through most of our lives without ever knowing their names. It's why I think Shazam is as important an app to the music industry as Spotify. The latter made music more accessible, but the former made it so easily identifiable. In the pre-Shazam days, you had to have a good enough memory to remember the lyrics to put onto Google, or like me, you needed to be lucky enough to have friends who'd pull you into a corner of a Computer lab, and help you identify a song that was such a big part of your childhood.
That Eureka moment that afternoon has always stayed with me. Each time I listen to Fire, I think of those Premier League Saturdays, but it’s accompanied by the image of the three of us huddled over a laptop, listening excitedly.
I’d love to hear what you thought of this week’s edition, send me an email with your feedback. And, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram
Read last week’s edition here:
https://thejerkyloudspeaker.substack.com/p/the-first-edition