myth
noun
a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
reprise
verb
repeat (a piece of music or a performance)."he reprises his role as the vigilante architect"
The sixth and final episode of Sugar Shots Podcast season one is here. We’ve come a long way together and I can’t quite believe season one is done already.
As Sugar Shots grew and took on its own shape I had a vision for it to become a podcast. I felt the structure of the newsletters lent themselves to further discussion. I would read shots I’d written and think about people I wanted to talk about them with.
Also The Sugar and Dread Podcast coming to an end left a podcasting shaped hole in my heart. I enjoy having recorded conversations with people. Too often I have conversations with friends, artists, or strangers and think I shouldn’t be the only person privileged to hear it.
Season one of the Sugar Shots Podcast is an archive of six conversations I’ll always be able to share. The final conversation in this set was my favourite to record and my favourite to listen back to. The sound design by Riwa Saab has been excellent throughout but she blows me away in this. There were points where listening to this episode felt like a movie for me.
As you may know by now I love sport, and in particular I love football. As a poet I occupy a space where football isn’t as popular or ubiquitous as it is elsewhere in society. Thus Gboyega Odubanjo is special kin to me as a fellow poet who also loves football.
When I wrote ‘myth’ it flowed because its themes were ideas I’d been marinating in for a long time. Maxine Scates poem served as a catalyst for thoughts and feelings I’d had for a while. The piece is bigger than loving football, it’s about legacy, heritage and inheritance.
There are few people, if any, who have the capacity to talk about poetry like Gboyega whilst also being a proper football geezer. Gbo is insightful in his expansion on the themes of Scates’ poem. Gbo is funny and anecdotal in the footballing memories he brings forth. Gbo is gracious in how much he shares about himself and his family.
Overall this was the most difficult episode for me to edit because I wanted to keep everything in! I was loose off the rum and apple juice, so we talked for longer than planned. Furthermore Gbo had a number of questions for me too, which meant we talked for even longer!
‘myth’ was the fourth Sugar Shot I ever released and quite possibly my favourite. Having the pleasure of turning it into a podcast only makes it more special. Having the opportunity to do that with Gbo in the manner we did means it’s the perfect way to top off a truly incredible season one.
The original post is below. I don’t know when season two will be coming. Season one was self funded and my money is only so long. One of the reasons I turned to paid subscription was because I realised self funding my podcast was going to be unsustainable.
To my paid subscribers, thank you. Without you I wouldn’t even be thinking about season two. I’ve got a lot to figure out with Sugar Shots but whatever it becomes it will always be ‘a likkle suttin suttin to make you think and feel.’
myth
noun
a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
I’ve never listened to Desert Island Disc but I know what it is; a radio show where people talk about what they’d take to a desert island. Upon research I’ve discovered that guests choose eight tracks, a book and a luxury. I don’t know what my answers would be but lockdown has had me thinking about what I can’t live without.
We’re in our third one now and I miss so much. I miss hugs, I miss the theatre, I miss going to the cinema, I miss going shisha (I don’t even like shisha but my boys do and I miss my boys), I miss open mic nights, I miss bantering with an audience, I miss coming home late, I miss hugs, I miss bare.
Because of all this missing I’m learning what I need to get by. At the time of writing I have 95 unread convos in WhatsApp, I’m not the best at being social. Even with that caveat I’ve learnt that I can’t live without my friends. I need to talk to people. I need the unprovoked phone calls, the voice notes so long they end in an apology, the messages that take a while to reply to because you want to be honest. I need the check ins, I need the banter, I need the love.
Amidst this reminder of my relational needs, swirls an epiphanic revelation. I can’t live without professional sport. It sounds chaldish, but lockdown has taught me I need football and basketball. My love of basketball is more burgeoning, more new, birthed in 2010/2011 with a sixth form common room discovery of Derrick Rose.
I merely adopted basketball, but football? I was born into it, moulded by it.
At the beginning of her poem, Return, Maxine Scates references a mythology book she was given by her mother as a kid. Later on in the poem, whilst she waits with her mother for the doctor to return, she thanks her mother for the book. She reveals to the reader that she likes the Greeks ‘because they never die, but live unknown among us.’ The revelation is profound as they are waiting for the doctor to return to talk about hospice.
Return is a beautiful poem that makes me think about what you receive from your parents as a child. It makes me think about our relationships to those things. A book on greek mythology received as a kid frames future thoughts about death.
What we receive from our parents can have a profound impact, whether that be by their presence, absence, gifting or lack of gifting.
When I think of mythology I think of the way my dad recounts footballing history. The manner in which he talks about the Liverpool teams of the 70’s and 80’s. The success of Bob Paisley’s Liverpool, that only feels real because there’s evidence on Wikipedia. The pain of having to watch your rivals become deified.
I think about the way his whole body comes alive when telling stories about Ronaldo (Brazilian Ronaldo, R9, El Fenomeno.) How a man can become a legend, causing us to adopt a different nationality every four years in anticipation of indescribable awe.
This is what I understand as mythology. These were my first lessons in storytelling. Stories told so well that I can’t tell the difference between what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard. R9 is one of my favourite footballers ever. Is this because of what I saw of him, or because the myth settled into my spirit? I don’t know.
It starts with those that tell you the stories, then you start experiencing them for yourself. How can I describe my recollections of Paul Scholes as anything but magic? This little man who’d shoot with such power, with hair as fiery as his temperament on the pitch. He seemed to strike the football so hard, that as a child I believed one day he would shoot and the ball would burst. Maybe there’d be fire inside, maybe the net would burn.
Mythology is complete when you partake in its continuation. I will tell stories of magical creatures. I have seen Wayne Rooney contort his body in the air, suspend himself upside down like an owl to score, then storm off in celebration to stand spreadeagled with 75,000 people screaming in delirium. I have seen magical creatures.
I have watched Lionel Messi. I have suffered at the hand of his magic. I have wanted to cry after experiencing his curse.
I’m aware that I’m probably doing too much right now. But in a time where people’s lives are literally on the line by going outside, what other explanation is there for the continuation of Premier League football?
I’m not here to condone or condemn this decision. I think there’s something that feels wrong about football continuing during a pandemic. At the same time it feels like a national necessity, an essential part of our collective wellbeing during these times.
When everything stopped. When it seemed like Netflix wouldn’t be able to fill this chasm of emptiness, the Premier League’s project restart stepped into the breach. I was submerged back into that world of myth and magic. I began partaking again in that ritual by which legends are made. I felt, even if just for 90 minutes at a time, like everything wasn’t so bad. Is this the legacy of what my dad has given me?
If you haven’t guessed by now the team I support is Manchester United. They’ve been a source of pain for me since the great Sir Alex Ferguson retired. We’ve been stinking out the joint for years… except for recently. At the time of writing we’re top of the league to everybody else’s dismay. (Unless you support Man Utd you don’t like Man Utd, in fact you probably hate us.)
I don’t follow Harry Pinero but he tweeted something that resonated with me. “Jokes aside Manchester United winning games has improved my mental health.” It scared me somewhat because when I read it I thought “same”.
There was an impulse to judge myself. How can I, a whole adult, be so affected by a football team? I can’t come and die because of Manchester United. This is sad.
Then I started to think of what football meant to me. I’m a United fan because my dad is a United fan, he’s a United fan because his eldest brother was a United fan. My uncle is no longer alive, and so United is, in some ways, a lineage.
The football stories my dad tells were some of my earliest lessons in the art of oratory. Now oration is how I make my living. My geographical knowledge owes nothing to my school education and everything to football. Much of my friendships thrive on conversations about football.
This game is so much more than merely a game. It is myth, and magic, and relationship, and lineage. For me, like many others, football is a thing I have been given by my dad. When the pandemic started and it was gone, football was what I was on my knees for.
One woman receives a book on Greek mythology and it calls to her as her mother is about to die. One man receives another type of mythology and it calls to him as the world writhes in pain. I don’t know what magic you received, I only hope that it calls to you when you need it.
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