Columns

Sonics Death Watch

Vol. III

by Sherman Alexie

Whenever I listen to the supporters of Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama, I hear the dangerous music of utopianism. Christian fundamentalists and secular progressive Americans all lust for the next messiah king.

But in a democracy, each citizen should be profoundly unhappy with the person she's voting for. We should all feel compromised. Why? Because our government is representative and should be as wonderful, wicked, magical, inefficient, benevolent, and contradictory as any one American.

In a similar sense, I think too many sports fans only root for winners, and don't appreciate the gorgeous contradiction of loving a losing team.

On January 23, after Kevin Durant missed a last-second shot that would have beaten the Houston Rockets and ended an 11-game losing streak, I fought off tears. I didn't want to cry over the Sonics. It felt pathetic. But as I tried to sleep that night, tortured by the loss, I did cry and wondered how the Sonics players cope with this epic and public failure.

Seeking an escape from our flawed lives, we need our athletes (and presidents) to be perfect, even mythic. So when they fail, I think it makes us mortals feel even more mortal.