07 April 2008

Darting away

It is difficult to talk critically about culture without poking a finger in someone’s eye. Since long before Hammurabi, we have been poking right back. From this we have no doubt come to understand the wisdom in keeping one’s singular eye on things such as the ball, the bottom line, the road, the prize, etc. With these trepidations in view, I venture into the world of darts.

As a cursory search of the internet and a modicum of casual observation will confirm that “darts began in the drinking halls of England”. The idea of drunken men slinging about shortened arrows at overturned wine barrels seems about right even now. Even the feaux cracks we see on modern dart boards are a remnant of medieval dudes throwing sharp points at an immovable object. I imagine that their spaces of sotted leisure were as given to banal expressions of masculine solidarity as ours, and that they drank the Miller Light and Budweiser (perhaps, Guinness) of their day.

I first played for Armed & Hammered in season 42 of the Bull City Dart League (hereafter, BCDL). Because it was my first season in the league and I had the highest average points per dart of the “rookies”, I was “BCDL Rookie of the Year”. I have a trophy to prove it. I also won a trophy for “high out”, meaning that my “136 out” in a singles game of 301 (where you have to count down and finish on zero by hitting a double) was the best in the league for the season. I was so excited about it that I took a picture of the darts, triple 20, triple 20, double 8. Overall, my numbers weren’t bad, but at around a 14 handicap I was in the middle of the statistical pack. There were guys throwing at 21 and 22, knocking down 180 once or twice a night, 5 marks on command, three bull outs to scare the pants off ya. I tell you, there were some serious players. And they keep some serious stats to prove it. It took me a full three weeks to figure out the scoring.

What seemed Byzantine in complexity turned out to be an interesting way of organizing an evening of arrows for between 10 and 16 people. As ESPN invariably flickered like a sad, decaying constellation in the background and Lynyrd Skynyrd hitched up his panties for another go at Freebird, with Joe Cocker limbering up in the box, some snuck outside for a “safety meeting”, everyone made sure their beers were full, the room filled with smoke and the game was on.

The BCDL kicked off at 8, finished by 11, and continually left me feeling either good about my darts and indifferent about the night, or badly about my darts and downright hostile for spending so much time and money thinking it was worth it. Nonetheless, I played another season (Season 43) of Tuesday nights in the BCDL (with two more trophies to boot), and then switched to the Triangle Dart League, now playing on a team called, Still Armed, More Hammered (see p. 2).

The geographic overlap between the BCDL and the TDL is minimal, only one bar, the West End Tavern (WET) hosts teams in each league. What these two leagues don’t cover in the Triangle the Raleigh Dart League with 8 divisions picks up in droves. All of these local teams and bars have an affiliation with the Piedmont Dart Association which has a fantastically complex and comprehensive geography of its own. But that organization is modest relative to the American Darts Organization (ADO) which is in turn humbled by the World Darts Federation. Successive levels of inanity each more befuddling than the next. However, if we look at the member countries, the ol’ British drinking game rears its head, with some EU company:


AUSTRALIA

AUSTRIA

BAHAMAS

BDO

BELGIUM

BRAZIL

CANADA

CZECH REP

DENMARK

ENGLAND

FRANCE

FINLAND

GERMANY

GIBRALTAR

HONG KONG

HUNGARY

IRAN

ITALY

LATVIA

LITHUANIA

NETHERLANDS

N. ZEALAND

N. IRELAND

NORWAY

PAKISTAN

PORTUGAL

SCOTLAND

SWEDEN

SWITZERLAND

USA



WALES




Wait a minute…Who is that between Hungary and Italy? Perhaps the next president could establish some kind of “darts diplomacy” with our Persian brothers.

It seems absurd to comment on the culture of darts without talking about the places and people in more detail. The places where darts are thrown with something more than sloppy attention tend to have pool tables, electronic bar-top gambling, drop ceilings, fluorescent lighting, perpetual sports programming, primitive toilets, NFL/Budweiser advertising, and rock and roll on the three song for a dollar jukebox. The bars either don’t serve food or don’t do it well enough to bother. Some serve decent beer on tap, all have something good in bottles. A majority of people smoke. Nearly everyone drinks, and if they don’t it is likely on doctor’s orders. Whiskey shots are unceremonious. Fist punching, ubiquitous; high fives, impromptu and frequent. Casual racism, homophobia, and misogyny pervasive. Following tough norms of masculinity are welcomed, but not required. Being able to protect one’s self physically seems unnecessary, though fights are a part of life’s great mystery. There are also women present. To call it a disproportional representation would be both cruel and accurate, yet as I have frequently heard, "no one wants to lose to a team of bitches".

In short, the world of the BCDL and the TDL is a common one, where petty antagonisms and historical trajectories of intolerance manifest in predictable and lame forms. It’s almost hard to muster righteous cries of indignance when people are so grossly ignorant as to continue half-hearted, yet pointed attempts at making intolerance clever. Yet, in darts, it is ever necessary and increasingly important to get one’s point across. A small world in a large universe leaves little room for distinction.

CTG

April 7, 2008

Durham, NC

free counters

Labels

2014 World Cup Rio de Janeiro Maracanã FIFA 2016 Olympics 2016 Summer Olympics Eduardo Paes CBF Copa do Mundo 2014 Rio de Janeiro Olympics Ricardo Texeira World Cup 2014 Vasco da Gama 2010 World Cup White Elephants mega-events APO UPP BRT Brazil football Flamengo Lula Orlando Silva violence ANT Aldeia Maracana Carlos Nuzman Dilma Eike Batista Rio 2016 Sergio Cabral 2007 Pan American Games Campeonato Carioca Corruption IOC Jerome Valcke Novo Maracanã stadiums BOPE BRASIL 2016 Brasil 2014 Engenhao Joao Havelange Maracana Policia Militar Vila Autódromo Aldo Rebelo Botafogo Henrique Meirelles Medida Provisoria Metro Revolta do Vinagre Sao Paulo Sepp Blatter World Cup 2010 forced removal Carnaval Elefantes Brancos Fechadao Marcia Lins Minerao Morumbi Odebrecht Porto Maravilha Rio+20 Romario Security Walls South Africa South Africa 2010 TCU Transoeste protests public money public transportation slavery transparency x-Maracana Andrew Jennings Argentina Audiencia Publica Barcelona Brazil Carvalho Hosken Comitê Popular Confederatons Cup Copa do Brasil 2010 Cost overruns Crisis of Capital Accumulation EMOP FERJ Favela do Metro Fluminense Fluminese Fonte Novo IMX Jose Marin Leonel Messi London 2012 Marcelo Freixo Maré Museu do Indio Olympic Delivery Authority Perimetral Rocinha Soccerex Transcarioca bicycles consumer society debt idiocy militarization transportation 1995 Rugby World Cup 2004 Olympics 2015 Copa America Banco Imobiliario Barcas SA Belo Horizonte Bom Senso F.C. Brasilerao CDURP CONMEBOL Champions League. Mourinho Complexo do Alemão Copa Libertadores Cupula dos Povos ESPN England FiFA Fan Fest Istanbul 2020 Jogos Militares John Carioca Kaka Manaus McDonald's Obama Olympic Village PPP Paralympics Providencia Recife Russia Salvador Soccer City Taksim Square Tatu-bola Urban Social Forum Vidigal Vila Olimpica War World Cup Xaracana attendance figures cities corrupcao drugs estadios football frangueiro futebol mafia planejamento urbano police repression porn privitization reforms shock doctrine taxes 201 2010 Elections 2010 Vancouver Olypmics 2013 2018 World Cup 2030 Argentina / Uruguay ABRAJI AGENCO ANPUR ANT-SP Amazonia Ancelmo Gois Andrade Gutierrez Anthony Garotinho Arena Amazonia Arena Pernambucana Athens Atlético Paranaense Avenida das Americas BID Barra de Tijuca Blatter Brasil x Cote d'Iviore Brasileirão 2013 Brasilia Brasilierao Bruno Souza Bus fares COB COI COMLURB CPI CPO Cabral Caixa Economica Canal do Anil Cantagalo Celio de Barros Cesar Maia Chapeu Mangueira Chile 2015 Choque do Ordem Cidade da Copa Class One Powerboat Racing Clint Dempsey Comite Companhia das Docas Copa do Brasil Corinthians Cuiabá Curitiba Dave Zrin David Harvey Der Spiegel Eastwood Edge of Sports Escola Friendenrich Expo Estadio Expo Urbano FGV Fonte Nova Gamboa Garotinho Geostadia Ghana Globo Greek Debt Crisis Greek Olympics HBO Hipoptopoma IMG IPHAN ISL Iniesta Internatinal Football Arena Invictus Istanbul Itaquerao Jacque Rogge Jefferson John Coates Jose Beltrame Julio Grondona Julio Lopes Julio de Lamare Knights Templar Korea Lei Geral da Copa MAR MEX Manchester United Mangabeira Unger Maracanã. Soccerex Marina da Gloria Mexico Milton Santos Molotov Cocktail Mr.Balls Neymar Nicholas Leoz Nilton Santos Olympic Flag Olympic Park Project Oscar Niemeyer Pacaembu Pan American Games Parque Olimpico Pernambuco Plano Popular Plano Popular do Maracana Plano Popular do Maracanã Play the Game Pope Porto Alegre Porto Olimpico Porto Seguro Portuguesa Praca Tiradentes Preview Projeto Morrinho Putin Qatar Quatar 2022 RSA Realengo Regis Fichtner Roberto Dinamite Russia 2018 SETRANS SMH Santa Teresa Santos Sao Raimundo Sargento Pepper Security Cameras Smart City Sochi 2014 South Korea Stormtroopers São Januário São Paulo Teargas Templars Tokyo 2020 Tropa do Elite II Turkey UFRJ/IPPUR URU USA USA! Unidos da Tijuca United States government Urban Age Conference VVIP Via Binário Victory Team Vila Autodromo Vila Cruzeiro Vila do Pan Vilvadao Vivaldao Volta Alice Wasteland Workers' Party World Cup 2018 Xavi Zurich apartments atrazos barrier beer bio-fuels bonde capacities civil society comite popular copa sudamericana crack crime dengue dictatorship estádios favelalógica feira livre fiador flooding freedom of information furos geral graffiti guarda municipal host city agreement identity infrastructure ipanema istoe labor rape riots schedule school shooting security segregation social movements stadium state of exception supervia tear gas ticket prices torcidas organizadas tourism traffic tragedy trash trem-bala velodromo wikileaks xingar