It's Easy to Hate...

and all the best ideas are stolen, anyhow.

40 Things I Hate More Than Paris Hilton.

(thanks, Rob Sheffield. I'll watch my slang and punctuation on the internets from here. on. out.)

I know this is hardly unchartered territory for me. I'm beginning to feel a little like Ouiser in Steel Magnolias: I'm not crazy, I've just been in a very bad mood for 40 years.

40. Litter. I saw a condom discarded on the road while walking my dog this morning. Sure, it's kind of a rural area, but not so sleepy that people park at stop signs. Truly, I am puzzled at the placement. Did this man just happen to notice while taking a left on Neal Drive that the condom was still on?
39. Don't go there. The descent from catchphrase to cliche is a slippery slope.
38. Spitting in public. Would it bother you if I bled on your shoes? Then don't hock loogies on my sidewalk.
37. Hummers. Not the little birds. The big, bo-honking, gas-guzzling, environment-wrecking vehicles of Satan and his evil minions.
36. Because, besides the aforementioned, when they want to turn left and I want to turn right, they always creep out in front of me and obstruct my view so I can't see if I'm about to be annihilated by another one of them driving hellbent on destruction and mayhem.
35. Anybody who interrupts me when I'm eating. I bite. Really!
34. Social climbers, particularly out here in the boondocks. I have a clever name for them: SC2, which would be even more clever if I could figure out how to raise that "2" so it would be "squared". Sevier County Social Climber. S.C.S.C. Get it?
33. The relentless telemarketers who work for Rolling Stone. A new standard in harassment.
32. Whineybutts. Shut up, already.
31. This whole global obsession with reality tv. I invite every one of you sad obsessed bastards to spend a few minutes out in fresh air doing some actual people watching.
30. Eurosnobs. You can't enjoy domestic soccer because it doesn't have the EPL atmosphere? NOT going's gonna help that a lot. Even sadder bastards than the reality addicts.
29. Americans who refer to the guys on the SOCCER team as 'the lads.'
28. Lapdogs. And I have Paris to blame for this. Chihuahuas, Malteses, tea cup poodles, and things of that ilk: eminently bootable.
27. The phrase 'in reality.' I'm quite positive MY reality is radically different than yours, thank you very much.
26. The location of my cubicle. Inevitably, I will be sitting between my boss and a coworker
25. "touching base" over my head as I desperately try to keep up with all things Costello on the internet.
24. The coworker who drums her fingers on my filing cabinet
23. while waiting for her faxes to go through. Go back to your desk already, heinous bitch!
22. Americans who exclaim "spot on!" in response to a righteous point. The soccer geeks somehow think they sound more *authentic* spouting such Anglicisms. Can we build our own soccer vocabulary already? They tried and failed to colonize us a couple hundred years ago. Get over it.
21. The people who think this country is for Americans only. I mean, forget about that big statue with the 'bring us your tired, your huddled masses, etc'. The only native Americans are the Native Americans. So, go home already.
20. Crowds, and the herd mentality.
19. Always being The Responsible One. When my kids leave home, get out of my way.
18. Answering the phone and hearing a recording. It's bad enough that all my mail is junk mail, must all my phone calls be junk as well?
17. That strange brown slime that's growing on Dan Marino's upper lip in the Nutrisystem commercials.
16. Working on major holidays, when the rest of the world has a day off. Hell, it seems like I'm always working when the rest of the world is loafing.
15. People who throw their gum down on the ground. Punishable by death, I say.
14. The person or persons in my office who leave four squares of the world's cheapest toilet paper on the roll. We all know it takes a good yard of this cheap tp to do the job proper. What am I supposed to do with four measly squares?
13. Improper parkers. Honestly, the rest of the world just needs to go back for remedial driver's ed with an emphasis on parking. What is so darn hard about pulling in straight when you've got two white lines to guide you? I say it over and over and the world refuses to listen: if you can't park it, don't drive it.
12. Other people's loud radios. I might accidentally hear Paris "singing" and then I'd have to pour Mr. Clean in my ears.
11. Those freaking Maxoderm commercials. The one dude is a dead ringer for Dan Rather, I must say. Not sexy.
10. Remakes. Songs, movies, etc. Has Hollywood run out of ideas?
9. People whose musical curiousity died the day they graduated from high school.
8. George W. Bush - why did it take me until the last ten to get to him?
7. Cole slaw.
6. Loud restaurants.
5. Fart mufflers and
4. Bullet bikes
3. The power of the 18-34 year old male demographic. We are doomed to be plagued by Adam Sandler movies for the next 10 years.
2. Larry the Cable Guy and the phrase
1. Get R Done.

Soccerlogged.

You know that feeling, where you've been at the beach or the lake or the river all day, swimming and floating and swimming and sunning and swimming some more, and it's about to get dark so you go inside, dry off and sit down to relax, only you can't because you feel all weird and soggy and sore? Well, I had the soccer equivalent of that last night.

180 miles, 48 hours, 5 games, 4 points, 3 goals (one called back) and one chatty nine year old companion later, somebody give me a gold medal for Being a Good Sport. I did not abuse the referees, even when they deserved it (that goal was IN!!). I cheered supportively, not negatively (and honestly, how many times can you say Go, Purple! with feeling ???). I sat through Shrek 3 (and that franchise has lost its charm, let me tell you). We are now done for the season.

And I miss it already.


pictures to follow!

Those Who Do Not Learn From History

are, of course, condemned to repeat it. This is particularly true in high school, but perhaps more applicable to algebra. Anyway, the gods have got it in for me this week. First I was wrong about the signing of the year. Now I am at least partially wrong about emergency rooms. Partially.

It was the Austinator, naturally. An old friend told me when my first child was about a year old that I would be lucky if I only took him to the ER once in his formative years. This was Austin's second trip in 13 years. Ergo, he's pushing me to the edge of my maternal sanity. The first was the infamous bicycle incident when he was 7, in which he drove his bike into a mail box, sailed over the handle bars, landing in a blackberry bush and coming out with a knot the size of a super bouncy ball on his forehead. Somehow I managed to get him (wailing and bleeding and slobbering), the bike and the dog back home and then to the ER to check that knot. Which was NOT a concussion. Everything else was bandaid-able.

But not last Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, May the 15th, in the year of our lord 2007, our family suffered its first fracture. OK, so that's technically not quite true, since Katie mysteriously broke her collar bone when she was a toddler - I still don't know how that happened. I suspect it had something to do with her love of climbing up things and jumping off them. I still have a hard time keeping her grounded. But this was our first major sports injury which, in 15 or so years of soccering, is a pretty good record, considering.

But I digress.

They were big, but they weren't that skilled, these hell children from Carpenter. So that meant they relied on their physical abilities to win balls. With slide tackles, which Austin deftly jumped over; elbows to the neck, face and torso, which he fended off; and hip checks. Hip checks, as in hockey. And one particularly demonic psycho-player hip checked my baby boy. Really hard. Austin didn't bounce right up this time. I yelled at the referee with a complete lack of abandon to do something about the fouls, and my baby was still lying there. The whistle blew for the end of the half and he was still down, but now his coach was with him. Eventually he got up so I thought, he's going to be ok, but I went to check on him anyway. And he's walking toward me holding his little hand up with his face all scrunched up, almost crying but trying to be tough and he says 'I can't close my fingers.'

So, of course, I calmly and collectedly escorted him to the car and calmly and collectively drove to the ER. No, not really, I think I yelled at some people to get out of our way and I drove past a policeman doing 60 in a 35 mph zone (but he looked the other way, thank you traffic gods). And I know my hands hurt the next day because I was hanging on to the steering wheel so hard. But I'm digressing again. We got there and for the first time ever the lobby was completely empty. All we had to do was fill out paperwork (which gets on my tits - what do they do if you're unconscious? dying? have a mangled limb hanging off your body? do you STILL have to fill out the paperwork before you can be seen?). And we got sent back to the non-emergency care section, which also angered me. Just what constitutes an emergency??? We sat there for a while, Austin grimacing and looking pale and me saying 'just breathe. just breathe in and out' like he was in labor or something, and Josie needing to go to the bathroom and Heely around the halls. We wheeled down for some X-rays. Josie went to the bathroom again. A fellow soccer parent who is also a doctor stuck his head in to say he looked at the x-ray and it looked ok to him. A very nice physician's assistant examined Austin and the x-ray, pronounced it a soft tissue injury that needed a splint and left to get said splint. She returned a few minutes later to say oops, it is indeed broken and showed us on the x-ray exactly where. We will need to see an orthopod in the next 5-7 days (!! and I took that at face value, thinking they will be angry when I call them tomorrow!) and we will get that splint on now. Again, she goes to get the splint or play solitaire on her computer or something. A very nice nurse comes in and asks Austin how long it's been since he ate. She's got some pain medication for him so she suggests a soft drink to go with, in case it makes him nauseous. I ask her what she's giving him and she says Tylenol-3. She then turns to Josie with the pill wrapper in her hand and asks if she wants something as well. As God is my witness, I thought she was offering my daughter a hit of Tylenol-3. Austin and Josie both think this is hilarious, and the nurse is looking at me like I'm not quite sane and DHS ought to be called.

And then the rest of the team showed up.

Well, ok, not the whole team, but his four best buds Brandon, Marcus, Caleb and Cody. And their parents. And both coaches. And I have never been so glad to see these people in my life. It was just such a nice thing to do. I try to downplay hospital/doctor visits as much as possible, trying to give my kids the impression that whatever it is, it's no big deal because kids (and moms) take tiny pieces of information and imagine the worst possible scenario, and that Austin, he just gets ideas in his head sometimes. I've always tried to keep our medical party small, usually just me and whoever needs to be seen. Tuesday, we're having a pep rally in Curtain One.

It was nice to know they cared. Thanks, guys. And big ups/thanks to the ER staff who put up with our little pep rally.

News Flash: I was wrong.

The MLS signing of the year is not Luciano Emilio. It is not even the Geico gecko. I have seen the future of soccer in America and his name is Guillermo Barros Schelotto. The Columbus Crew #7. That's right, Columbus, a/k/a Cowtown, C-bus, BFE, Middle of Nowhere, insert-a-derogatory-nickname-here. In Ohio. Middle America. Land of the Average Joe. The Non-Coast.

And that's just as it should be, because Guille (an icon to Boca fans the world over) seems like a laid-back, hard-working family man. A workhorse like his former teammate Carlos Tevez. Dependable. Steadfast. Skilled. Prepared. A soccer-playing Boy Scout, if you will.

If you happened to watch the Crew NOT lose to Chivas Saturday evening, then you know why I'm excited. Schelotto brought creativity, brilliant vision and, given the language barrier, excellent direction. All that skill and talent and leadership and intelligence is the Crew's for the next two years, and the Crew have a herd of young players who can learn a lot. There's so much potential there, it's scary.

I smell ... a dynasty.

Welcome to Columbus, Guille.

Inner City Violence

my latest obsession.

I thought oh, brother when I heard the sirens at the start. Another street fighting poser song. And then the horns came in.

It's a minimalist masterpiece. Not one extra note, not one gratuitous sound. Restrained and evocative guitar, almost gentle vocals and sweet, sweet horns. Which is not to say it's quiet. There's a LOT of sound there.


Download it here and turn that mother up.

Saturday Night's Alright for ...

concerts!

Outdoor, summertime, beer & lawn chair concerts.

And to start the season out right, Jim and I headed down to Maryville (pronounced MUHRvull) to The Shed at the Harley-Davidson dealership. Yes, I said Harley. It's a cool little venue: basically a covered pavillion there to the side of the store with enough room to put a couple hundred folks under the roof. They sell beer and BBQ, but you have to bring your own lawn chair - but that's not a problem for this intrepid soccer mom. It's right on 321, but there's not a lot of traffic noise. There's not all that much traffic in Maryville, especially when you venture out to the outskirts. Saturday night's headliner was James McMurtry and I assume the guys with him were the Heartless Bastards. I took one picture with my phone, but it was garbage, so I stole this one. Just put him in a faded black baggy T shirt and black jeans and that's my picture.

We were joined by our good buddy and pal whom I have previously referred to as The John Prine Ticket Master. I am officially changing his name now to Hayseed Wannabe, and I'm gonna buy him his first pair of overhauls. Maybe a John Deere cap, too. I like him *that* much. We met Hayseed at a Mexican restaurant pre-show. Did I mention it was Cinco de Mayo? Not one of my better ideas, but damn did they feed us fine. Great food and a whole lot of it. Hayseed recently celebrated a big birthday, so I'm going to give him an Alzheimer's pass for not knowing the show started at 7. Not 8. 7. 7, Hayseed. We only missed a little of the opener, whose name escapes me (but I bet Hay will remember!) and whose voice I found vaguely irritating.

James McMurtry has a bunch of guitars. Like, eight. And this guy came out and tuned them all. Diligently, lovingly and excruciatingly slowly. Then these random guys came out and picked up instruments. No, they are not vagrants, they are the band. JM is the kind of guy you would probably avoid eye contact with on the street. He looks a little dangerous in a redneck survivalist kind of way. So, it's a good thing he can write a good song and pick a good tune, because you wouldn't buy a car (new or used) from him. He's not a chatty kind of guy either. He looks like he could just as easily tell you to go to hell as tell you to come back and see us again real soon. And he's most definitely NOT a republican. Probably not a democrat, either, but I wouldn't count him amongst the John Birchers. He has a voice and a point of view, and he's not afraid to use either. So I was thinking he would get a fairly hostile reception, here in ardently republican east Tennessee. The audience was part bikers, part overall-wearing country boys, part LL Bean type couples. And us. Fisticuffs seemed inevitable.

Alas, it was not to be. Everybody seemed to be having a great time. I'm not sure they all understood all the words, because I'd give JM a C+ in subtlety. Some good tunes all around, my favorite being Choctaw Bingo, which is just an absolute verbal locomotive, a barrage of character sketches and X-acto knife insights, with some incestuous fantasies thrown in for good measure. Maybe it's not incest if you're second cousins - I'm really not sure of the legalities. He played all those guitars. They did a one song encore. And then we all went home.

And that's a fine way to spend a summer evening.

Like Elton John said

Saturday night's alright for fightin'

relegation!

Clint Dempsey, a/k/a The Mostest from Nacogdoches, scored what could be a $50 million dollar goal for Fulham. Sure, it was against a Liverpool reserve team, but like the man says, three points is three points.

see it here - it is rather pretty.


I expected a stylin' & profilin' celebration, but I guess he was caught off guard. Good for him, good for Fulham. I say he gets the start on Sunday.

Columbus Crew 1, D. C. United 0

Big smiles all around.

Austin and I were hopeful. They've been playing rather well (with the exception of the Open Cup defeat which, thanks to the powers that be, I did not - in fact, could not - watch) but D. C. is D. C., and D. C. on paper is a formidable force.

A paper lion, as it turns out.

Ezra Hendrickson, I love you, you giant black flamingo.

LUUUUUUU-cinda! April 21, Knoxville TN

Can there be a better way to spend a Saturday evening than a date of sorts with Lucinda Williams?

Even the straight girls say hell, no.

It was a most excellent show. Here's the setlist courtesy of paul_from_losangeles (and who almost certainly won the Who Traveled the Farthest? Award). The real highlight for me was hearing Greenville, the song my shouts (well, just slightly above conversational level vocalizations) could not persuade her to sing last go around. Jailhouse Tears gets better every time I hear it. Please put it on a record soon, Lucinda. And a new one might not be that far away: she said she demo'd 25 songs for West and had written more since, being in a prolific period right now. She put her guitar down for several songs, and it was that Elvis Costello awkward hand gesture thing and the drunk-chick-Free Bird dance. Is this how performers keep themselves entertained? Is it a way to test themselves? Is it just stylish right now? All I know is it just ain't right.

Walking out to our car, we saw her getting on the bus. The redneck in me showed: I hollered out LU-cinda loud enough to make her look our way. I couldn't help it. It was just impossible to reconcile in my head that the lovely lady on stage was now trying to step on a bus. Drinking will do that to you.


Thanks, Lucinda. A most excellent evening.

Into Action

About freaking time, Tim.


This is Carson Daly's Pick of the Week, so you *know* it's cool. Seriously, I'm not part of their target demographic, but I do know that if you're toes ain't tappin', you be dead.

Skye Sweetnam (yeah, I'd never heard of her either) and The Aggrolites help out.

The complete CD and a DVD of the videos is promised on May 22. But I've been lied to before.


UPDATE! the scavenger hunt is on.

Five of the new ones available for download here.

I'm in Wonderland, Part Deux

And there's angels, angels everywhere. Ok, so it's just one, but it's a goodie: Juan Pablo Angel signs with RBNY.

Work-dodger me listened to the some of the transatlantic bilingual conference call wherein El Bruce made the announcement, Juan Pablo spoke briefly and answered questions. JPA impressed me as articulate, intelligent and ready to play.

Better hair, better shirt - I think Red Bull's gonna look good on you, JPA.

I almost OD'd on soccer this weekend

but damn, it was fun.

First up, Josie's game Saturday morning. There is a 100% chance of rain and we have not won a game or even scored this season. Fortunately, Jos has eaten her Wheaties and she scores 6 goals. 6! That's *two* hat tricks! From my little dilettante!

This is the part where I say I taught her everything she knows.

Next up: Mostest (a/k/a Clint Dempsey) and Fulham fighting a relegation battle against Reading, who annoy me with their striped shirts. Fulham lost but Mostest looked pretty good. And he played well, too. Ba-dump-bump.

Call me crazy, but Columbus Crew at Real Salt Lake was my evening's marquee match. The Crew just look sharp this year. Joe Jackson sharp. Two random observations: Jeff Cunningham has the worst excuse for a mohawk EVER and the Crew need somebody to score goals. Hopefully, this dude will be that dude. A 0-0 tie on astroturf is ... a pretty good result, considering.

Next, the weather hit Washington. Kansas City just whooped up on D.C. in a deluge (a theme for east coast soccer this weekend), 4-2. Is D.C. the new Crew? Eddie Johnson, in his first game of the season, has half of his 2006 goals. Not that that's anything to brag about, being 1 in '07 and 2 in '06. Edster's been in a little bit of a slump. Took a peek at the Revs/Toronto game (a 4-0 beatdown), and tried to get through the first half of Dynamo/Chivas (1-0), but my mental game had hit the wall by then. And this was just Saturday. !

It's a good thing it rained/snowed/sleeted. I had an excuse to stay in and watch more on Sunday.

So, first it was this Chelsea/Blackburn semifinal thing for one of the gazillion competitions those pissy Englishters have. This was the F.A. Cup, which is similar to the U.S. Open Cup in that it's open to any team in the respective country. No, not really - that was just to make the Englishsters groan. We (Austin and I) were rooting for Blackburn. We like underdogs and we hate Chelsea, at least as much as we can hate without really being interested at all. Blackburn gave 'em hell, but pulled up short in overtime. We were hoping there would be fisticuffs, like after the Carling Cup (they have an overabundance of cups in the U.K. apparently). No such luck, all huggy-kissy at the end.

Next, it was the Argentine SuperClasico between Boca Juniors and River Plate, which I always want to call River Plah-tay, because that sounds more Argentine to me. Unfortunately, it's River Plate just like dinner plate. Somebody should say something to them. My interest in this game was to take a look at the dude who might be That Dude for Columbus, Guillermo Barros Schelotto. These people take their soccer seriously. There's a fence, like chicken wire but not, surrounding the field to keep most of the shit the fans throw out. I don't think anybody sits down. Ever. The whole stadium was shaking. Boca came out strong, scoring in the 45st second (yes, second), but a second half comeback of sorts by River Plate brought things level and that's the way the cookie crumbled. Guillermo got to play 3 or 4 minutes. My only observation: he's very clean. Are his bags packed yet? The Crew need him. Like, um ... , yesterday.

The New York Red Bulls played at 3pm as well, but on effing Telefutura, which I do not get. We tune in Rapids/Fire at 8 just to keep our momentum going, but we're not really into it. Some Colorado player got redcarded early in the first half but big ups to them. They played like they had 12 guys out there. Channel surfing, I find that MSG is replaying the RBNY game! Hallelujah! What a game! The deluge/nor'easter/7th sign of the apocalypse hit hard on East Rutherford, N.J., but the Red Bulls came out to play. Mathis is back. And Altidore - that kid's going places. Loved his diving goal celebration. Double-loved Mathis joining him in it.

Church has changed...

but then again, so have I.

We went to all kinds of churches when I was growning up. We were Presbyterian in California, Methodist in Virginia and Baptist in Missouri. Our move to Tennessee coincided with my apparent graduation from Sunday school and church in general, although I attended some youth things from time to time (especially if they involved travel) and the occasional foray into the unknown realms of Catholicism and Unitarian Universalism. Except for a short time in the middle 90's when I felt enough shame to take the kids to church on a semi-regular basis, we have largely remained unchurched. I am very selfish with my free time.

Except for Easter Sunday.

I guess it's a guilt thing. Maybe you've heard of Catholic guilt? I guess it's impossible to compare, but Protestant guilt is pretty intense. Particularly in the Bible Belt. I always feel compelled to go to on Easter. Usually we are on vacation and visit a church, which is the way to go to church. Completely attachment free! This year, no vacation due to scheduling conflicts. I hadn't given much thought to Easter at all - I even forgot the Easter Bunny. But my kids haven't forgotten. Austin and Josie want to know if we're going to church. If you want to, I say, thinking of course they won't want to go. They'd rather be stuffing themselves with chocolate and hunting Easter eggs. However, they want to go. Kids! Go figure. So, the Easter Bunny comes Sunday morning and after that excitement we get ourselves ready and go to church. I am not doing Sunday school. I have principles, and they are mostly about maximizing the number of hours of sleep I can get in a given situation.

The first change I notice: I'm wearing pants. For years, I could not step in to a church in pants. It just felt wrong to me. Up until I became too fat to wear either of the two dresses I own, I stuck to my guns. Then I had to sit through a funeral in a too-tight dress, in hose with a waistband of sandpaper and with a zipper poking me in the neck at every prayer. And we said a lot of prayers that day. I am now a confirmed pants-wearer, and I was recently vindicated in this decision when I attended a funeral where not only I, but the majority of the women present (including the bereaved widow), wore pants.

The second change wasn't obvious at first glance. They looked normal enough. But, as God is my witness, I have never heard anybody shout 'Wooooo hooooo!!' during a church service before. I have never heard that stalwart Baptist favorite "Power in the Blood" infused with electric guitars (karaoke style) and hand claps. To be fair, the congregation were ending a six week series on "Discovering Joy" that particular Sunday. And, also to be fair, it seems a perfectly logical conclusion to the Christian ethos. Christians should be joyful - I get that. They just didn't seem very practiced at it, so it seemed forced and strange. Well, it was going to seem strange to me anyway. All those churches I went to as a child were somber and reverent in their worship, full of gentle altar calls and contemplation of sin. You said 'amen' after the preacher did and you sang when he said so, but otherwise your job was to sit still and be quiet. Once a month or so, he'd tell a joke and you were allowed a polite chuckle. Woo-hooing is not something I'd anticipate. Not even at Easter.

But you know what? Everybody's got their own way. They weren't sacrificing animals or handling snakes. At least, not that I saw.

Happy Easter, peeps. Just a few days late. Remember: the message is tolerance.

God damn it, you've got to be kind

And somehow, this is the unkindest cut of all.


Kurt Vonnegut dead at the age of 84.

Sure, he's been wanting off this planet for some time, and sure, he even tried to check out early once.

But, goddammit, I ain't ready for this.


A writer. An artist. A thinker. A 21st century Renaissance man. World's first Bokonist. That rarest of things: a decent human being.

God bless you, Mr. Rosewater. Hi ho. So it goes.

Here's a couple things to remember him by: this essay on fossil fuel addiction and other inconvenient truths, and this little portrait on inspiration.

So, today, in his honor, go out and goof around in Indiana or South Dakota or Tierra del Fuego or wherever the hell you find yourself. Be kind to somebody. Do something decent for your planet. Remember: company's coming! clean up the mess!

April 7, 2007: It's Soccer Time in Tennessee!

It was absolutely delicious. Like cold clear water after 300 miles of desert. Like waking up at 6 a.m. and realizing it's Saturday and you can sleep in. Like manna from Heaven. Like pizza from Pizza Hut...Yes, it was *that* good.

We got our weekly grocery foray over ASAP, or as ASAP as we could due to the large number of turistas landing on Wal-Mart Saturday morning. Life in a tourist town: a picnic, it ain't.

Anyway, first kick was 3:30 Saturday afternoon with an actual pre-game show. On ABC. Like a real sport! Colorado Rapids hosting 2006 Supporter's Shield winners D. C. United. Dick's Sporting Goods Stadium is gorgeous, but unfortunately named. Given that the Rapids frequently get flamed as the "Crapids" (about average on the MLS dis-o-meter) and that they partnered up with Arsenal, who frequently get flamed as...well, you get the picture. And if you don't, you are obviously a better person than I. I had picked D. C. to win, forgetting that they were coming off a defeat in Mexico on Tuesday. I hate being wrong but it's nice for the Rapids to get a win for their home opener in their lovely, lovely soccer-specific stadium, complete with an actual boot room and real grass. Nice human interest piece on Pablo Mastroeni during the half time show. Yes, half time show. Julie Foudy assumed Eric Wynalda's duties temporarily while he pays penance for wanting to kick ass. She said The MLS too many times for me to count and it chafed. I have a thing about proper usage of determiners. It looked cold as hell, but they appeared to have the best turnout of the weekend.

Note to Rapids fans: if you want us to read it, hold it the right way!

We caught some of the Real Salt Lake/FC Dallas game afterwards, in between dinner and that endless mountain of laundry casting a shadow over my entire adult life. Nothing notable for me in that one, but I'm curious about Freddy Adu. I can't help it. It's interesting that it's Josmer Altidore of the New York Red Bulls doing the Impossible is Nothing spot and not little Freddy. Which 17 year old phenom will capture the hearts and minds of the American soccer public next?

And the high point of the evening, the piece de resistance, the complete and total realization of this American fan's soccer experience: Crew v. NYRB.

Yes, I'm saying that with a straight face.

Sure, neither team has an iota of LA's glamour. Sure, neither one did very well last year and sure, that's the understatement of the year. But these are *my* teams. And look!

There's Eddie Gaven with a smile on his face! There's Claudio Reyna ON his feet, apparently uninjured! And that's what I've been waiting for.

It's like a pimple that must be popped...

Quentin Tarantino, originally from Knoxville and therefore almost a neighbor, has a new movie out, Grindhouse. Which made me remember: he was almost Nick Lowe's son-in-law. NL's adopted daughter, Tiffany Anastasia Lowe, dated him for a while. June Carter Cash wrote a song about it.

Just had to get that out of my system.

No Rain, Plenty o' Pain

Houston loses to Pachuca 5-4 on
aggregate.

Where's that away goals rule when you need it?

Big ups to Houston for fighting a good fight (except for giving away two - two!! - penalties). Bigger ups to Dominic Kinnear for whatever he said to this team at the half. I predict they will be beating down the Gals on Sunday.


More predictions: today will be Mostest's breakout day in EPL; DC will pound the Arsenal right out of the Rapids; RSL will take it down to Funky Town; the Fire will blister the Revs; Toronto will beat Chivas, but just barely. I'm completely conflicted about the Crew/Red Bulls game. It will be a glorious agony.


One more day!

I still want an explanation...

But I don't think I'm gonna get one.

Tim Armstrong's solo album will be coming out 5/21, it seems. Not just the two internet tracks, but a cd/dvd package.

The streak is over, dude. I call shenanagins.


But I can't wait to hear it.

Down In Mexico

It rained on de feet and it rained defeat on D.C. United. There's a highlight (yes, that's "a" highlight) here, but you might have to hunt it. MLS is keeping the world safe from cyber-terrorism by refusing to play well with others. It was a sweet goal, a nice little bicycle by Jaime Moreno. I admit, I slept thru a lot of it, but I did see that goal and the pissy little equalizer from that boy with the panties on his head. The 9:30 kickoff (which actually had to be 9:45ish, because I watched all of House and then tuned in to the game in the 20th minute) was a little late for this old soccer mom. My soccer drought is at an end, so my motivation just wasn't there last night. Besides which, it's D.C. United. My conscience is clear and I can go back to hoping they lose often and miserably where ever they may play now.

Houston, the hopes of the American soccer nation go with you. Orange and white, fight fight fight. T for Texas, T for Tennessee. I'm trying to feel enthusiastic, anyway. Another 9:30 game. And my own little Austinator also has a game that day. Like I said, the drought is over. MLS kicks off Saturday at 3:30 on A-freakin'BC. Games all day long and more on Sunday because Direct Kick is free for the opening weekend.

Must-See Match? for me, RBNY taking on the Crew in Columbus. Chance of snow, 10 %. Chance of my heart being twisted, torn and trashed by divided loyalties, 100%.

I'm in Wonderland

because I've got to believe an impossible thing before breakfast. Clint Mathis back to New York? When donkeys fly.

But...

Red Bull gives you wings!


Good news: dirt cheap. fan favorite or man you love to hate (either of which tends to pique interest, and RBNY need somebody somewhere - even middleaged fanmoms - to show some interest). has not punched a heckler in a coon's age.

Bad news: since his 2005 return to MLS has tallied twice as many cards as goals (but hey, he's not punching hecklers!).

Things that make you go hmmm: 30 years old and not a big fitness freak. Prefers coke to gatorade. He did score the Goal of the Decade, but that was 2001. Nice rocket in the playoffs last year. Incited a riot after.

One more week until the madness begins.

Here's that goal of the decade, just to keep us hopeful.