Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Those Who Knew What Was Going On Here Must Make Way for Those Who Know Little

Did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team?




It's true! and bless Lord Etcheverry, they bought me another day of bleggal vacation before I need reengage The Clusterfuck:

D.C. United has acquired Dwayne De Rosario from the New York Red Bulls for midfielder Dax McCarty, a blockbuster trade that drastically alters United’s attack heading into the second half of the MLS season.

Thoughts, in no particular order:

  • This.
  • I will not call him DeRo, in any combination of letters and caps.
  • Remember that Boskovic was rounding into form when fucking Stevie Pus Nicol ordered Boskovic crippled. McCarty may or not have been traded if Boskovic was running the offense, but if Boskovic was running the offense, McCarty wouldn't have been traded for De Rossario.
  • McCarty is 23 and makes $300K less than a washed-up but for - maybe - one more run De Rossario, and with Wolff and Rent-A-D(iver)avies and a league full of proof of the shitty mediocrity of parity, De Rossario might propel United where McCarty couldn't, but this is a one-off season now.
  • I understand why McCarty was acquired and I confess that on this shitty blog I not only approved of the trade of Wallace for McCarty, I said I though McCarty would succeed for the lame reason that McCarty's game is modeled on Saint Benny's game. This is why my lowest scores on SATs and GREs were in the logic section: I don't care who eats peanuts on Wednesday.
  • United also traded away allocation money for San Jose centerback/holding mid Brandon McDonald, a decent move in the short-term - move Kitchen forward into holding? - but United, with the money they take on for De Rossario and give away for McDonald, it's probable (and not necessarily a bad thing) that United's buying power in the summer transfer window has been reduced.

If De Rossario - who is not a ten but is more of a ten than McCarty - can play balls onto feet FORWARD OF THE MOTHERFUCKING PERPENDICULAR then MOTHERFUCKING YAY!

United wasn't good enough with Dax McCarty as a key cog. They probably aren't good enough with Dwayne De Rossario as a key cog. I'll take the probably aren't over the definitely ain't.





  • I got respectful nods and three nice comments in England and Scotland and Wales from football fans about my excellent United raincoat, bought for $75 three seasons or so ago in desperation in a monsoon during a Houston game, best $75 I ever spent. I went into a Liverpool store in Chester while others were shopping, the store clerks noticed, pretended they'd never heard of DC United. "What's DC United?" Fucking scousers.
  • Disemployment.
  • The psychosis of exceptionalism.
  • Witness witless Fred Hiatt, for example.
  • America's uniqueness.
  • Economic fetishism.
  • Kill your heroes.
  • Why you should be afraid of economists.
  • Jeebus, blog days of summer in our stringtown of Blegsylvania.
  • Her marriage is less valuable.
  • Blech and blah.
  • Nothing about women or lawns.
  • It's still OK to hate crackers and christers. 
  • Crime in Gaithersburg
  • Fire Bob Bradley.
  • O! That's my favorite photo from the trip, Edinburgh, at Camera Obscura, in one of their outside mirrors, we didn't have time to go inside, dammit.
  • Gaddis. One thing I love about vacations is I read well. Next vacation.
  • Coover. Been a while. Found myself thinking about the Brunists a month ago or so.
  • Suggest a novel for me please. I have a Handke coming from a warehouse in Upper Marlboro, I tried Perdido Street Station and that's not going to work. Anyone like Gormenghast?
  • Stream the new Gillian Welch?
  • Woke up with this in my head. Be in yours.
  • Here's the betting slip on Fulham:




THE END AND THE BEGINNING

Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.


13 comments:

  1. Re: Hiatt - I can only click through to The War Criminal Post every so often.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMFG, happiest day in living DCU memory, happier even than the day Onalfo went away, and you're taking a loud dump? Jeebus.

    Also: you're mixing allocation money and salary money. No. The acquisition window is most definitely not closed.

    DeRosario scored twice in Canada's less-than-ideal GC run. There is no evidence that he's done after this year, though he is, of course, eldering.

    Stop pissing on my joy, Buzz Killington. It's not even 24 freaking hours yet. WTF are you, Luke Russert? Just stop. Go. Gaze at your blog's navel. Bitch about Obama. Advocate violent revolution without the violence, or without the revolution, or whatever the fuck it is you hipsters are rabbling about. Jeebus, make me read annoying pometry, even. But leave my buzz the fuck alone, at least until Saturday.

    And thank you again for the identical raincoat, which has, as you know, served me very well lo these past few years. Yes, fuck Scousers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What? I'm happy with the trade. Not hallelujahing happy, but happy. No nodax is good nodax.

    And yes, I've always been an intentional dope when it comes to MLS' sillyass and rinkydink money rules. As for transfers, unless they can get a Ryan Nelsen in his prime centerback, I'd just as soon they sit on their $$$ and DP until winter.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "New Killer Star," huh? I love that song but for some reason I always thought I was the only one.

    Suggest-a-novel...I got nothin'.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Advocate violent revolution without the violence, or without the revolution, or whatever the fuck it is you hipsters are rabbling about.

    I'm chanting for aneurysms and myocardial infarction. (And burning incense, of course.)
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was running down the hallway screaming "JESUS LOVES ME JESUS LOVES ME JESUS LOVES ME!"; Bam-Bam was quite entertained. I'm willing to concede the possibility that my overjoy was mean-spirited.

    Your Ryan Nelsen point is well-taken. I don't agree with it under the circumstances (I'll especially take an upgrade at left back, which is very plausible and can be done without sacrificing too much money--which doesn't necessary carry over into the winter--or the DP slot, which does), but it's well-taken philosophically.

    ReplyDelete
  7. But do you care on who eats peanuts on Wednesday on a train going at 45 kph going to meet a train going at 50 kph that left 12 minutes later 250 miles away?

    Even if it's a one-off season, given the everyone-get-a-trophy MLS MO, at least your chance at playoff footie just went up a smidgen.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I hate soccer..is that a bad thing? I do love most other sports especially professional baseball.

    Hopefully I don't get banned from here for being a soccer-hater..as I really like this blog. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks! Kindness back at you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Welcome Back! Love the Fulham slip. Great pic of you and the camera, too.

    Are you going to blog the Women's World Cup? USMT managed to put together 25 pretty good minutes in the GC finals—except for back line defense.

    ReplyDelete
  11. How about Frank Norris' McTeague? I've seen the truncated version of Stroheim's Greed, and I hate to say it looks silly to me. Maybe the 9 hour version that once existed really was as awesome as contemporary critics said it was, but I have a hard time caring about what is today a hypothetical question, as we'll never see it. (I suspect many people are put off reading Norris because of the film, even though they'll also make obligatory nice noises about how they respect it, not wanting to seem like rubes because they find silents tedious. Whatever.)

    Anyway, welcome back.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sorry, Jim, his commitment to womens' soccer has waned since Planet gave it up for 40 Lents. I thought about liveblogging the game, but didn't, and frankly it's good that I didn't, because I found myself in a nasty, jingoistic mood, coupled with explosive anger at Rachel Buehler until she slammed home her goal. Followed by explosive anger at the German (!) ref who disallowed Megan Rapinoe's excellent goal for a nonfoul on a Commie. Yay FIFA. Make sure the men get Mexican referees, and the women get Germans. I hope that disallowed goal doesn't become important.

    ReplyDelete
  13. McTeague - FREE! on kindle. Just downloaded. Thanks! (Adding, for all the free classics, kindle is pissing me off for what it doesn't have - Gaddis, for instance. Most Coover.)

    True re: women's soccer. Nothing against it at all: life be busy; I just haven't the time or aargh to invest since Planet doesn't the time of aargh to invest.

    ReplyDelete