I Am the Best American Buzkashi Player Alive!
Afghan buzkashi players drag a headless goat during a game in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 6, 2009. Buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan, and is played between two teams of horsemen competing to throw a beheaded goat into a scoring circle. (AP Photo/Farzana Wahidy)
I'll lay it down right now, nice and simple: I am the greatest Buzkashi player in our great country today.
The best American Buzkashi player ever? For sure.
Now I do admit there is an off-chance that at some point in the distant future a young upstart will come along with mad Buzkashi game and attempt to usurp my position as the greatest American Buzkashi player--after all, every Michael Jordan has a LeBron James on his heels--but for now my greatness remains intact.
Buzkashi--
as you undoubtedly know--is the sport popular in Afghanistan and Central Asia in which players on horseback known as chapandaz violently fight over the carcass of a dead, headless goat.
Of course, it doesn't have to be a goat. Lately the Afghanis have taken to using decapitated calves because those carcasses tend to rot slower under a scorching midday sun--but whatever!
The point is that whatever the headless animal I'm attempting to carry while on horseback until I can manage to get to the other side of a poorly delineated field so I can wrap the fly-choked animal corpse with spinal fluid, blood and gristled chunks of innards still hanging from the neck around a flag before heading back to drop it in a circle drawn with chalk, I'm going to kick ass and chew bubblegum--and whoops! I just now ran out of bubblegum.
Banned during the reign of the Taliban because they consider it a sin to kill an animal and not use the meat, Buzkashi (which means "goat grabbing") has made a comeback in a major way. Now the Buzkashi Federation wants to make the game an Olympic sport.
I think this is a great idea--and I plan to lead the U.S. team to some goat-grabbing Gold in 2012.
Of course some critics have begun to harp that introducing Buzkashi to the world faces some major hurdles. For instance, there are no rules. Like at all. Even the number of players on the field is determined only by who shows up. The entire sport is an exercise in ungoverned chaos where players frequently break arms, suffer major injuries and are occasionally trampled to death.
In Buzkashi terminology, we call these people "p***ies."
After all, the whole point of the sport is that you're dragging around a dead goat carcass with no damn head--what possible rules could be put in place that could make such a game any better?
And then there's the PETA crowd, who always have a stick up their collective ass--or at least they would, except they want to protect the moss on the stick from evildoing, life-murdering humans. They'll probably get all in a huff just because we Buzkashi superstars are so good at snatching up animal corpses by their hind legs and galloping toward glory.
So I'll tell you what, critics, naysayers, PETA-poopers and anyone else who thinks Buzkashi shouldn't be an Olympic game and introduced widely here in the United States:
I'll play you for it. One game of Buzkashi--winner take all!
First one to 11 dead, decapitated goat carcasses wrapped around the flag and dropped back in the chalk circle will be declared the victor and decide the fate of Buzkashi around the world.
Oh, and win by 2.
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2 Comments
Jen said:
I know you're joking but...this is beyond mega gross!
Steven Bauer said:
Excuse me, but exactly what is the point of the satire here? That Afghans are soulless monsters? That Obama couldn't get the Olympic committee to kneel before Chicago? That there are no great ice rinks, football stadiums, and baseball fields in Kabul?
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