That's new Pere Ubu. >>Standard Pere Ubu/MSADI5G noise<< Rest of monologue on USMNT/Soccer, there are some very good links below the next song, if you don't want the soccer (and the majority of you don't want the soccer) please scroll down, the links are good.
Belgium is better, has better players, it's not even close. The USMNT had a chance to win, zero-zero in stoppage, a ball on Wondolowski's foot in front of an open goal, he gacked the sitter, he will be waking up screaming in the middle of the night the rest of his life. Let me be the zillionth person to note that but for Tim Howard's spectacular goal-keeping the scone would not have been zero-zero in stoppage. Once Belgium scored their second goal in extra-time I resorted to brazen Baal-taunting: I turned off the TV to go out to dinner in order to spark one of the most remarkable extra-time comebacks in World Cup history (people can vouch this is true), and from what Tommy Smith yelled through my car radio speakers it should have happened but Dempsey gacked a sitter. I tried my best.
2016 is the Centennial Copa America, hosted by USA, the first time CONMEBOL has invited CONCACAF to the tournament.* Klinsmann was widely criticized when he said the USMNT could not win this World Cup. I think he thinks - and correctly - that a deep run in Copa 2016 is possible, certainly more probable than a deep run in this World Cup, and I think he thinks - and correctly - that WC 2014 is the beginning of the build to Copa 2016 and World Cup 2018. He learned - I'm sure he knew - that midfield is the problem. I'm not going to make Michael Bradley the scapegoat (though his suck was stunning) - the midfield as a whole was the great USMNT weakness. I am shocked that Graham Zusi performed so miserably, he's one of the five best players in MLS. Jermaine Jones is old, may make the Copa team, won't make WC 2018. Bedoya is as good as he will ever be, is decent on defense, useless on offense. In a knockout game of the World Cup Klinsmann chose a central defender to be holding midfielder (I don't know why: Beckerman had been good, someone speculated on twitter that Klinsmann wanted Beckerman, sitting on a yellow, available for the next round, and, um, fuck that). It's true I don't pay attention to MLS as much as once, but I'm not aware the next generation of American midfielders (or strikers, for that matter) is particularly flush. This may be the USMNT's plateau, and that's fine.
As for what WC 2014 means for US soccer re: fan support, American culture, the Left/Right divide in American political discourse, fuck that, quick, join me, escape with me:
- The 18th Brumaire of Samuel Alito.
- Greenwald's Fireworks Finale postponed.
- Hegelian Aesthetics and the Bronzed Turd: on retrospectives.
- We are each either among the demoralized showing the way to a future of eternal nightmare, or we are losers celebrating our moment in hell.
- What if speech and silence aren't really opposites.
- Eternalization.
- Regeneration seeks amnesia.
- On the dishonest politics of a dust-up in Literary World.
- The Ethics of Being a Fan.
- * I have been yodeling for years that CONCACAF and CONMEBAL should merge into one giant federation, not only is there too much $$$$ to be made for the soccer mafia, it would improve the soccer of all nations involved.
- All the teams that banned sex have been eliminated.
- What you can buy me for my birthday.
THE FUTURE OF TERROR/5
Matthea Harvey
If there were gamebirds in our gables,
shouldn’t we shoot them ourselves?
Thus we went glass-faced into glory.
We had our hearts set on staying here,
so our steps seemed more hesitation
waltz than straight-ahead tango.
We danced the hokey pokey on holy days—
put your left arm in heaven, your right leg in hell
and in the hubbub of shake-it-all-about,
we didn’t hear the hoofbeats. The illuminati
spoke to us over the intercom via interpreters.
Meanwhile we had iodine dribbling from
our wounds and itch mites in our blankets.
Ours was not a job to joke about.
In the lantern-light, the lawn speckled
with lead looked lovely. We would live this
down by living it up. My pile of looseleaf
was getting smaller—I wrote in margins,
through marmalade stains, on the backs of maps.
I put a piece of mica in the microwave and before
the explosion it made the mirage I’d imagined.
I was hoping for a noticeable increase in nutmeats
or a one night stand in the oubliette. I outwept
everyone at the pageant, even the children
from the poorhouse playing possum.
We studied the protocol for astronaut removal
the minute we saw his spit hit planet earth
on the spaceship window. But though the scandal
reverberated round-the-clock, we had to let it
slide. He was up there turning somersaults
while we spun ever-so-slowly below.
