When I was in fourth/fifth grade my parents sent me to a speech pathologist because I couldn't er, as in farmah, buttah, mothafuckah. I was cured, though I can't trill my Rs so from me a Spanish dog is a but. The speech pathologist asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said a play-by-play baseball announcer, so he played a videotape of a baseball game and had me do the play-by-play, stopping the tape, making me start over, when I said pitcha, catcha, battah. Very smart, I remember it like yestahday. I listened to Bob Prince broadcast the Pirates when visiting my grandparents. I switched allegiances to the Orioles first because of a girl but then because going to Memorial was a blast, Jon Miller was the voice, the best play-by-play man I've ever heard, if you've only heard him on ESPN you've no idea how good. Have I mentioned I once loved baseball? I've caught myself listening to Nats's games on the radio, the radio team was profiled in YFWP Sunday Magazine, and they're good. I remembered this story trying to not think about Sarah while falling asleep Sunday night.
Hey! if you'd looked at this shitty blog yesterday you'd have seen a clusterfuck-free front page (other than begging for a photo of the Fed's opulent dining room for Frances, no one has delivered), not a link, not a blurp, about the clustahfuck's actahs and enablahs, and nothing about United, who haven't played so long I'm going to rob a bank, not a word about DC United's ownership announcement today. Erick Thorir, an Indonesian business man, is buying a majority stake. The consensus is he wouldn't buy the club to move it to Baltimore, wouldn't buy the club without doing due diligence that a stadium deal with the District has proceeded beyond preliminary talks and some basic parameters have been agreed to even if brutal details need be hammered. My first thought was I hope Thorir doesn't order a Cardiff City on United and change the home kit to red for shirt sales in Asia. You heard it here first.
- Right, the clusterfuck, though bracketed by four old favorites.
- The lethal presidency of Barack Obama.
- On the above.
- HEY! It's Kill-List Tuesday! Who will Obama choose to kill today?
- Police state.
- Surveillance State Deal of the Day!
- Getting away with it.
- How Paris Hilton's dogs ended up better off than you.
- Motherfucking crackers.
- Motherfucking Democrats.
- On the above.
- Deriving power.
- Heretical thoughts on Marx.
- Metaphysics of paper.
- A li$t of our fucking demand$.
- I can't promise this is the last time I'll post this, but it IS the last time until the next time I post it badgering you to give. Give.
- A history of United ownership.
- Washington Grove! I went to Washington Grove Elementary School, which isn't actually in Washington Grove.
- Pileated woodpeckers.
- The literary response to atheism.
- Five works of criticism to consider reading.
- e-Book virginity broken.
- Things you can buy me for my birthday.
- Next to piano I love cello best.
- My friend Dr Z (who may or not read this blog off and on) is a huge Steely Dan fan, I'm reminded by this tweet, we talked last time about the sheer malevolent hate some have for Steely Dan, how we don't get it. We both hate The Mothafucking Doors, as should all intelligent people.
- The best there ever was.
- Obscure Sound's Best of June, w/sounds.
- Holyfuckedness!
- Woke up with this in my head. It's a good thing:
CAT, FAILING
Robin Robertson
A figment, a thumbed
maquette of a cat, some
ditched plaything, something
brought in from outside:
his white fur stiff and grey,
coming apart at the seams.
I study the muzzle
of perished rubber, one ear
eaten away, his sour body
lumped like a bean-bag
leaking thinly
into a grim towel. I sit
and watch the light
degrade in his eyes.
He tries and fails
to climb to his chair, shirks
in one corner of the kitchen,
cowed, denatured, ceasing to be
anything like a cat,
and there's a new look
in those eyes
that refuse to meet mine
and it's the shame of being
found out. Just that.
And with that
loss of face
his face, I see,
has turned human.
