For any NFL fan in College Park, the scene is all too familiar. You walk into a Route 1 bar on a Sunday afternoon. Inside lies a gaggle of hack sports fans preventing you, the die-hard fan, from enjoying a great game and a frosty beverage. It may be the girl in the pink Tom Brady jersey. It may be that dolt in the corner trying to watch baseball. These unfortunate folks just don’t get it.
Finally, there is someone who feels your pain. His name is Michael Tunison, and he just authored The Football Fan’s Manifesto, a must-read guide to fandom for the NFL zealot.
Once in a while, a one-time Terrapin goes into the world and makes something of himself. Tunison — a former Diamondback Diversions staffer — is just such a man.
After college, he worked as an editorial aide at The Washington Post and wrote for the Metro section. That is, until he revealed his identity as a contributor to Kissing Suzy Kolber, an award-winning NFL blog known for its not exactly family-friendly content and language. He was promptly fired. It may have been his best career move, as Tunison (who posts under the pseudonym Christmas Ape) is now a published author. Not to mention he no longer has to wear pants to work.
The Diamondback: It’s been more than three years now that you’ve been writing at Kissing Suzy Kolber. Now that you’ve added a book to your résumé, where do you rank yourself on the list of notable Terrapin alumni? What do you have to do to get some love on Wikipedia?
Michael Tunison: I’m probably still below the Google guy [Sergey Brin], but I might be beating Larry David, but only because Whatever Works was awful. KSK does in fact have a Wikipedia entry and I’m mentioned in it, but I do need my own for no other reason than to have people vandalize it.
DBK: As a former writer for the Diversions section, would you say The Diamondback is responsible for all or just most of your success as a writer?
Tunison: Everything I needed to learn about writing I picked up from reviewing Lost in Translation for The Diamondback in 2003. That barely audible thing Bill Murray says at the end? Changed my life. I also got to go the press junket for Signs in New York and Joaquin Phoenix was completely trashed during the interview. That probably shaped me in some way.
DBK: Ever think you’d be getting interviewed in the same space you used to interview?
Tunison: Of course. All part of my intricate plan to work for three years at national newspaper, get fired for blogging on the side, only to abruptly get a book deal a month after that. Can’t believe it was so easy.
DBK: Let’s talk about the book. You referred to The Football Fan Manifesto as your “football-themed compendium of lazy dick jokery,” then you dedicated the book to your mother. She must be beaming!
Tunison: Actually, she campaigned for that dedication for a good couple months, occasionally not so subtly asking who the book was going to be dedicated to, then even less subtly suggesting herself as the ideal recipient of said dedication, as if there were someone else it was going to. So with just a few strikes of the computer keys, I may have gotten myself back in the will, meaning I stand to inherit a decent sized pantry full of stale cereal and zesty-flavored Chex Mix.
DBK: For folks unfamiliar with you writing, what should be expected from this book? What makes this $10.87 better spent than happy hour on Route 1?
Tunison: Well, for starters, those bartenders at [Santa Fe Cafe] say horrible things about you behind your back. I feel you should know that. Also, it’s a book that advocates foul language, drug use, rampant sex and enjoying sports. Seems like a no-brainer for college kids. God, I miss college.
DBK: No fan base is spared your wrath, but it seems some local teams come under particular fire. You describe Ravens fans as “mentally deficient” and ridicule them for dressing in purple camouflage. You also mock the Redskins’ status as “perennial Offseason Champs.” How will the in-state contingent here take to the book?
Tunison: Most Redskins fans who have read the book have appreciated that most of the ridicule having to do with the team is aimed at Vinny Cerrato and Dan Snyder, as it should be. I don’t really care how Ravens fans take the book, because I hate them all. Of course, that might have something to do with me being a Steelers fan.
DBK: More annoying: Ravens fans or Redskins fans?
Tunison: Ravens fans, by far (Surprise!). They strike me as almost exactly like Eagles fans, only no one cares about their team so their reputation isn’t quite as widely propagated. They’re extremely loutish and incredibly spiteful, and they possess no sense of humor or deep knowledge of the game. As a distinguished scholar in the hating arts, I respect the depths of the rancor towards their enemies, even if they aren’t particularly clever about it (haha, “Worthlessberger,” get it?) but, man, do their fans whine a lot when they lose.
DBK: You discuss the importance of college in terms of the formative years of fandom and life. What were you like in college? Were the best four years of your life spent in College Park? Now that you’re an old fogey, impart some advice, dang it!
Tunison: I would have enjoyed College Park a lot more if I had lived in or around campus at some point, but I commuted the whole time, so that sucked some of the fun out of it. I actually worked fairly hard in college, mostly because I was so lazy in high school. I swear, though, those post college years fly by. Five years later, I come back and the Wawa is gone. It’s like I don’t know this place anymore.
DBK: Addressing the “duties of the aspiring hanger-on”: What can a student do to ensure a spot in Greivis Vasquez’s entourage?
Tunison: Help clear the red splotches off his face?
DBK: Finally, what would be a student’s best sales pitch to get their parents to buy the book for them? With words like “mollify,” “draconian” and “sisyphean,” won’t this book, at the least, improve vocabulary?
Tunison: Just mention to the parents that since they’re already dropping $600 on textbooks, what’s another $10? Who’s to say this isn’t a required text for a kinesiology class? And unlike your $100 biology book, this one doesn’t come with a stupid CD-ROM you’ll never use.
katz@umdbk.com
