Friday, June 13, 2014

My Lungs, Duplicitous Twins, Expand with the Utter Validity of My Hate, Which Can Never Have Enough of You, Breathlessly, Like Two Idealists in a Broken Submarine

I may not love any soccer team, club or country, any longer, but I sure can still hate them, the Brazilian national soccer team most of all: the biggest divers, cheaters, whiners, cheap-shot artists (in a sport of divers, cheaters, whiners, cheap-shot artists) who are rewarded for diving, cheating, whining and cheap-shotting with unearned penalty kicks and oppositions' wrongfully disallowed goals. Do I think Sepp Blattner whispered into the Japanese referee's earbud to get Brazil a second goal and disallow on a ghost foul any second Croation goal? No, but to imagine referees aren't aware of who FIFA wants in the quarters and semis and know their future tournament assignments depend on the decisions made in the current game and consequently if unconsciously skeeve for Brazil (or any bigger shark playing a minnow, or any bigger shark playing a smaller shark, and Brazil is the biggest) is silly. Fine metaphors abound.

In any case, if viscerally despising the Brazilian national men's soccer team yesterday (and it was delicious) was the strongest soccer emotion I've experienced in recent memory at least I know soccer is still alive for me if for the wrong reasons. There's a reason I've always compared my soccer fandom with my fandom for motherfucking politics. I'm curious to watch my reaction to the USMNT: I hope they make a deep, surprising run for a myriad of reasons, the first to gauge my professed damnlessness (I don't think they're getting out of group so I don't think I'll have the chance to gauge said damnlessness), the second to watch Americans who are indifferent to soccer at best, badmouth soccer at worse, get sloppily and jingoistically bandwagon patriotic and then watch my damnlessness turn to visceral hate, to name two.

As for the club team I loved, I'm grateful they are competitive, enjoying a dramatic run of good play after last year's disaster. It makes my abrupt disinterest more compelling to think about.

  • Paul Lynne was born 88 years ago today.
  • The Iraqi Blitzkrieg and the Cult of Violence.
  • Right and Left: threats to the nation.
  • The new anti-anti-imperialism.
  • A Jacobinghazi recap.
  • Let's talk discipline.
  • Let's listen to Discipline.
  • Massive science-fiction blog post, for those of you who scifi.
  • Now here's a wacky World Cup conspiracy theory: Brazil triskelions said to FIFA triskelions, civil disturbances will be difficult enough to control if Brazil wins, imagine what the disturbances will be like - after taking billions of dollars and spending them on enriching Brazilian and FIFA triskelions instead of feeding the starving in the favelas - if Brazil crashes out in the group stage (the Round of Sixteen, the quarters, the semis....).
  • On boycotting the World Cup.
  • Polaroid vacation.
  • On Berryman's sonnets.
  • Dear Friends urging me to give Deep Space Nine a second chance: in last night's episode, Sisko and his son flew a ship (that looked like a Yes album cover) Sisko made in a storage room into Cardassian space. Along the way, Sisko, when it was time for rest, actually said, "Hammock Time." Once in Cardassian space, the Cardassian set off celebratory fireworks. I shit you not. 
  • Lordy, I love the Delgados, here for the kazillionth time, one of dozens of my five favorite pop songs:


Julie Sheehan

I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The little blue-green speck of sock lint I'm trying to dig from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you pick out the cashews hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant "good morning": hate.
You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate.

The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.


  1. sh' does not hate , but the window is closed to his albanian spitting ways , closed not to air , but by 'er on foot away from for hours now blisters , and 'er pleasant good after morning to others not albanian is a carry on ..not hate , / a different foot balling .. .

  2. Viches are spinning in their graves, that you would root for Croats, however indirectly.

    And could you please just once for fucks sake sit back and fucking enjoy the spectacle of something without fucking spinning fucking black helicopter stories?

    Sorry. I was supposed to control that, and I couldn't. Entirely my bad.

    And finally, and more comprehensively: Paul Lynde was born 88 years ago today in Mount fucking Vernon, Ohio, and grew up to become the most awesome gay person ever to issue from what is otherwise the Klan capital of that state.

    1. R of Oakton, who reads this blog daily if not the comments, claims his father, though Serb, was born and lived in what is now Hrvatska. And it needs pointing out that I would root for Real Fucking Madrid again Brazil.

      I think I knew that about Uncle Arthur and Mt Vernon but had forgot. And the Klan isn't it's only claim to fame - Planet says it's now simultaneously a main hub for sex trade traffic AND the meth capital of Ohio, but you know how those Gambier students like to brag.

  3. Well, that's a switch from nigh unto 50 years of Serbian nationalism, there. But having spent so many of my first 18 years arguing with the man over things now trivial, it's best to accept the Croat assertion graciously.

    We will have words the day I catch you pulling for Real, despite Franco's continuing deceasedness. More evil than Chelski, they be. Y'know, speaking of black helicopters and all.

    I'm just relieved that I'll have some alternatives for how I spend my spare time on next year's trip to Knox County.

  4. Man I was just going to try and cover the cup like a "normal" person but now I can't. Who to root for? Any team not tainted by lying, cheating, kowtowing to FIFA's inherent evil, moneyed interests, etc.?

    Some year I may give in to team USA, but I can't yet for all the reasons you mentioned above. I hated watching their games at bars in 2010. Everyone would ooh and aah when a shot was hit 30ft wide of net as if it was close. As if they were watching their kids or something. As if most scores were not 1-0 or 2-0 or 2-1. You don't have to get excited every time your team has the ball. If they have possession for 50% of the game, that's like 45 minutes, and it still may end in a nil-nil draw anyways, cause like, football have you seen it before?

  5. Aw, I think "Explorers" is a sweet episode of DS9. I thought the relationship between Captain Sisko and Jake was well done. However, you might get a kick out of this: