I was sitting on the toilet reading Sports Illustrated, my buttocks still smarting from last Sunday’s flogging by the Phallus Houseboys, when I came across a Chargers’ scouting report. The writer was going on and on about how fast, how smart, how strong the Chargers are, and what great role models they make being that all the players volunteer at the children’s hospitals and are collectively working on a cure for poverty—and all I kept thinking was, Man, wouldn’t it be great to have a team like the Chargers to root for? Doesn’t it just totally add to your quality of life when your team is on top? Isn’t there an extra zip in your step? Indeed, all of San Diego is reverberating with enthusiasm and has become a full-blown howboutem town.

What is that you ask? A howboutem town is a town whose home team is playing so well that everyone walks around saying “How ’bout ’em” to each other.

“How ’bout them Chargers,” you say to the cashier at the 7-11 when you’re buying a Big Gulp.

“Howboutem!” he chirps back.

It’s that way all across the city. Even people who normally regard each other with contempt are suddenly chatting it up with Chargers’ optimism: Liberals and conservatives, tweakers and stoners, the righteous and the godless are suddenly all talking to each other in the streets and stores of San Diego. I wouldn’t be surprised if out there somewhere right now a criminal is hogtied in the backseat of a police cruiser having a howboutem conversation with the cop who’s driving him to booking:

Criminal: How ’bout them Chargers, officer?
Cop: Howboutem!
Criminal: By the way, it was really impressive way you tackled me out there, almost as good as a Merriman sack.
Cop: Thanks! And you were really fast and elusive, very L.T.-like.

Yes indeed, it is good to be a Chargers’ fan in San Diego right now. And sitting there on the can, waxing pessimistic about the future of the Giants, I thought, Hey wait a minute now. Why can’t I just be a Chargers’ fan, too?

It was a revelation. I’ve lived here for more than 20 years and never even thought of becoming a Chargers’ fan. I’ve always been a one-team-per-sport kind of a guy, viewing anyone who rooted for multiple teams with contempt, especially those so-called fans who boast a dozen or so favorite teams, some in the same division even, from cities they’ve never been to. This is an offense against NFL fan bylaws and should be prosecuted to the fullest. But two favorite teams, in different conferences, in my respective hometowns? I should be able to do that.

Oh sure, there will be resistance. My Giants-fan friends back in New York will accuse me of going “California” on them. They’ll tell me to lay off the local tap water, and will rage against how I could even consider rooting for anyone named L.T. who isn’t Lawrence Taylor, the Giants’ former crackhead linebacker of death.

And many diehard Chargers’ fans will certainly accuse me of being a bandwagoner. Not that I blame them. I am coming aboard at a convenient time. But I don’t consider myself to be a true bandwagoner. A true bandwagon fan not only jumps on the bandwagon when a team is doing well, but then jumps off when they plummet, which is something I would never, could never, do (and why I will never abandon my beloved Giants).

Of course, Bolts’ fans have no reason to believe this. I haven’t earned any fan equity yet. From where you’re sitting, it just looks like I’m trying to—excuse the pun—steal your thunder. Fair enough. All I ask is that you reserve judgment until after you see how I comport myself as a fan and whether or not I keep my promises.

For instance, as a newly christened Chargers’ fan, I promise to defend my team’s honor against all shit-talkers foreign and domestic.

I promise to buy no less than two items of Chargers’ schwag (probably a baseball cap and a Charger Girls calendar—you know, to show support).

I promise to loathe, to the very core of my being, the football team whose name shall not be mentioned but sounds like the Loakland Faiders.

I promise to try—really try—to love the Chargers’ fight song, even though it’s quite fem and more likely to inspire the Charger Girls than the warriors on the grid.

Finally, I promise to never jump off the Chargers’ bandwagon, no matter how crappy they become, or weak, or slow, or indifferent toward the sick kids.

So, there you have it—my credo as new fan. I hope you find it acceptable. And I hope you dieharders won’t take offense when I say out loud and in public for everyone to hear, “How ’bout them Chargers, people! Howboutem!”

EJD
09/19/07