Oh, just shut way the hell up...

So, I'm at the car dealership getting some work done on the car. No biggie. And I notice that they have a television in the lobby and - hey! - the Switzerland-Ukraine match should still be in the second half right now.

I look around, no one's even glancing at the TV. So I'm looking at the staffer, soon as they look up - I'm going to ask them if they could switch it to ESPN.

And there's this lady there. Middle-age type. Groomed. She's giving me the eye like she's afraid I'm going to ask to change the channel or something. She just sat down, but is clearly agitated in some way.

The staffer looks up, and I ask if she can switch the TV over to ESPN. I smile "it's the World Cup."

Middle age lady pipes up. "Ugh. Soccer! Bo-o-o-ring!"

I smile and say what I always say to people like this, "It's the only game the world plays."

Staffer is fiddling with the controls and making nothing but static.

Middle age pauses, like she's overstepped "I'm just kidding you." Then she finds her stride, "but if we're taking a vote, I'd like to watch 'Guiding Light.'"

Staffer can't figure out why the TV is displaying static or CNN. I realize that she's adjusting the TV and not the cable box, but at this point - it's really not worth it. Switzerland is typically pulseless, and Ukraine hasn't exactly been a wow-fest. And, truth be told, I really don't care who wins. This was just a way to pass the time.

I sit down and resign myself to the lobby magazines. Middle age now wants to be my friend. "I read an article about soccer just the other day."

I start to mutter some affirmation, but she continues.
"It was about Beckham. I guess he won the game. I saw his movie."

Inside, my self-control is holding my reflexive response at gunpoint.
"Bend it like Beckham?" is the only phrase it will allow to escape.

She's glad that we're friends now, "Yes, that was a great movie."

I dive into my magazine, and don't come up until the mechanic arrives to tell her she can leave.
---------
Ok, I'll spare you the the "Becks is a one-trick show-pony" rant and the "He's not even in the damn movie, you witless twonk," rant.

I'll even sidestep the classic "There are only two stories about soccer for you, right? 'Beckham/Posh did something' and 'US loses'"
We'll also skip the ever-popular "Boring? This country has a Golf Channel. We televise the pro-bowling tour. There are dozens upon dozens of fishing shows!!!!"

-But I do have to have one rant: the "Why don't you just shut the hell up, lady?" rant. I mean really, if she'd have beaten me to the punch and asked for Guiding Light - I would't have said, "Soap operas? Stu-pid!" I'd have looked for a magazine and kept my mouth shut.

I mean, what the hell? Who does that? Snarks a complete stranger's TV choice out loud in a roomful of people?

Some other day, she's telling her book club how the younger generation has no manners. Well, from my generation: Just shut way the hell up, lady.

Crash

Scoreline - June 22, 2006
Ghana: 2
Dramani 21'; Appiah 46' PK
United States: 1
Dempsey 42'

And so it ends. Another four-year campaign resulting in a single point, and another first round exit. The team crawled into a hole vs. the Czechs and never managed to claw their way out.

Italy tried to help us (Having trouble? We'll send one of our guys off. Need a goal? We'll put one in for you. Beat the Czechs? Ok.) but two players sent off and a a bogus PK vs. Ghana just wore us down.

The second round was laid out on a platter, and we just couldn't be bothered to attack with any numbers. Our midfielders service was terrible, our strikers were pulseless wonders (excepting Dempsey and Johnson), and any time we managed to get some momentum - something wouldn't go our way, and we'd lose all composure.

I'd love to blame the refs - but this was all on us. If you'd have told me before the tournament that we'd have tied Italy (playing a man down for a half) and then lose to Ghana, I'd have said you were nuts.

Well, it happened. I saw every minute of it. But that's soccer.

Abomination

Scoreline, Jun 17, 2006 -
Italy:1
United States: 1
Gilardino 22'; Zaccardo 27' o.g.

"We bled for our country," read the quotes. Yes, Brian McBride had his head split open, and yes we defended like lions. All true.

But lost in all the screaming about if Pope and Pablo deserved to be kicked out is the simple fact that we still haven't managed a goal in two games, and Claudio is playing like total crap.

Clint Dempsey is combining and charging forward like a maniac in the first half. Every time he gives it to Claudio, all momentum ceases while Reyna takes a moment for himself, and then passes the ball to no one. Claudio's service is crap, balls sent into the teeth of the defense, or miles away from their supposed targets.

Compare Reyna's performace with Piro's and you'll see why the US couldn't bash in a goal when we were a man up for over twenty minutes.

We can defend. But defense alone is just sitting around daring your opponent to beat you.

Oh, and the Ref was way outta line on Pope. No way that's a yellow, right off the bat. Pope was getting beat all day, if the ref wanted to be a pro - all he had to do was give Pope a warning, and wait for the inevitable screw up. Then he could throw him out with his head high.

Go Italy.

The only game the world plays

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
-Bill Shankly, celebrated coach of Liverpool FC

When life falls apart, you go to your comfort zone. For me, at least - the World Cup has arrived at a good time. MLS is merely fast food, but the World Cup is a month-long feast at the French Laundry.
Two weeks of three games a day, where the best in the world going get medieval on each other.

This year’s tourney has been a minor goal-fest (2.5 goals per game, - thank you, Argentina), with many of them last minute game-breakers, and there have been some sparkling performances:

• Dutch striker Arjen Robben was a holy terror in both of his countries victories – hopefully he’ll break out in the round of sixteen against the likes of Mexico or Portugal.


• Paraguay’s Nelson Valdez, the only ray of light on an otherwise outclassed (and homeward-bound) squad. He was all attack, all the time. Something a lot of clubs would love to have.
  
• Sweden’s just-in-time winger, Freddie Ljungberg, saving the day in the closing minutes vs. Paraguay. (Tell ‘em who he plays for! Arsenal!! Damn right.)
  
• Ecuador! What the hell got into these guys? Demolishing Poland and Costa Rica Like it ain’t no thang… Germany’s set for the next round, so Ecuador might pick up the group if the Deutchlanders take it too easy.
  
• Match of the tourney so far? Croatia vs. Brasil. Great game, and even after Croatia lost, Croatia’s fans were rocking the stadium with pride at how their team gave Brasil all they could handle. Brasil played well, but seemed a bit hampered by the fact that Ronaldinho is perhaps the ugliest man on the planet.

*sigh* and then there was that other match… you know, the one where the US team was supposed to give a message to the world.

Yeah, well if the message was “Hey, you unwashed European-types, can one of you teach us how to play soccer?” I think you can safely say the Czechs heard us loud and clear.

Three nothing, and it should have been worse. Two goals for Tomas Rosicki (Tell ‘em who he plays for! Arsenal!! Damn right.) and he’d nearly bagged a third.

Our defense was crap. Our midfield and offense would have been crap if they had bothered showing up at all.

Here’s the problem with the US: We have no stone-killers in our lineup. Not one. Eddie Johnson has some game, but only because he’s too young and foolish to be intimidated. All damn game, our guys are waiting for the ball, backs to the goal. “Not my job.” Losers, every damn one of them.

We need a Romario, “I am a striker. Give me the ball.” We need a guy who’s only decision point is “After I put this in, how long should I celebrate?”

The Czech’s top striker goes out with a hamstring around halftime and they don’t even notice. Us, we’re lucky to have one guy who remembers where the other net is.
“Excuse me, Pavel, could you direct me to your net…?”

So now it’s all on Saturday’s match vs. Italy. Win or go home. Mathematically, we could stay alive with a tie – but that’s like saying Trinidad and Tobago are still in it. Oh sure, hope springs eternal – and Italy could still feeb – but I’ve been down that road before (France 1998 i.e. LAST FREAKING PLACE), not doing that again.

No, I’m reserving my hope for teams like Ecuador and the Netherlands. Somebody’s got to stop Brasil from getting six.

Housekeeping

Of the numerous minor projects that have soaked up the hours recently, DSL is the by far the most distracting.

Yes, I’ve finally broadbanded and while I’m happy with the speed, there are a number of side effects that are turning into larger complications.

Case in point: My email address of six plus years is going away.

Anyone looking to reach me where you’ve been finding me all this time – sorry, but I’m gone. I’m at my gmail address, E’s at hers, and if I ever get all our subscriptions and logins consolidated into the new address, I’ll start telling people what it is.

On hold

E's with her dad now. I'm at work. Mom's been here with the boy for the week.

She's overhauled the entire house, and now we're headed north to join up with E. E's dad's showing all kinds of mixed signs, so there's no way to know what's next.

No weekend plans, E's back home next week, but not sure for how long. Her sister has taken family leave for the duration.

There is no elegant way for any of this to happen, so we do what we must - and the rest gets bumped.

All fall down

Five a.m., we get a phone call. It's E's sister, and so we brace. E's dad's in the hospital, and we're not expecting good news.

E's folks both have cancer. Her dad for a long time, her mom was diagnosed only late last year. Both are unable to drive, but manage to stay relatively independent.

Yesterday, E's dad felt so ill, that they called 911. Her dad began treatments while her mom waited. One of the nurses noticed that E's mom didn't look terribly well herself. She was examined, taken to the ER. and treated for pneumonia.

That was sixteen hours ago. Now E's sister is calling to tell us that the hospital doesn't believe E's mom will last the day.

We pack in a rush and are out the door before seven.

Eight thirty, we're still over an hour away, we get VM from her sister "Call me, now."
E's mother passed away at 8:12 a.m. We drive for ten minutes in stunned silence. E's sister was just up for the weekend to visit. Last week we'd been up - E's mom was fine. Hungry, active, upbeat.

Not the plan.

The one immutable law of hardware stores

So, over the course of doing a few small jobs around the house (that should have been done months ago), I've gained some wisdom on hardware stores that I felt like passing on. It is the following:

-Look for the old guy.

You know who I'm talking about. The world-weary senior citizen wearing a red vest, looks disgusted with their surroundings? Yeah. Him. He's the guy you want.

Forget the teen idiot on the register, that twenty-nothing with the vapid smile. No, they're not for you. When it comes to advice on hardware, these people can perform one of two useful things:

1) Tell you "aisle 10."
2) Tell you where to find the old guy.

That's all. Nothing else.

Oh, they'll try. They'll march you to the right aisle for the topic you mention, they might even grab a part off the wall and studiously read the label - "It says here, '3Z-3C,' which means, uh..."

Now if the old guy were here, he'd take your misshapen lump of metal (formerly a valve), squint at it for about a minute, then walk off with it. He will not explain. He doesn't have to, he's the old guy - you came to him, remember?

You and the twenty-nothing tag along behind, the nothing holds up a handful of parts they were about to recommend. "I thought that-"

The old guy looks up, just for a second. The nothing goes quiet and walks away like a beaten dog.

Old guy's got your valve apart, and is staring at a deformed lump of black slag that, in a former life, was a washer of some kind. Old guy is unphased. All of a sudden, he's Grissom, Columbo, Dirty-Frickin' Harry rolled into one.

"Ehrm," he says, holding up a single tapered washer. You stare. "The large rise on the old one tipped me off, its was tapered."

Comprehension sets in. "How much?"

Old guy looks down. "Thirty six cents."

You stop reaching for the ten spot and thank him. Old guy smiles for a second, briefly validated, then lapses back into full blown contempt for the universe.

And then he's gone - no, actually, he's still there having a conversation with himself. But he could be gone - is mentally - he's just waiting for the next petititioner.

"Uh, sir? Do you know anything about plastic garage-door-opener chains?"

Your cue to leave.

Up front, idiot teen takes your money and waits for the register to dispense the correct change. He complains loudly to no one that he hasn't been able to get something to drink for over an hour.
You smile. Despite him and his tag team partner, you found the old guy.

Say it ain't so, Joe

We all love to believe in things, things we set apart from what we see around us everyday.
Like most people, I have many - Stuff I hold up to be admired. Things that, on good days are truly inpiring.

Today I have to cross one off my list.

Soccer. Specifically Italian soccer, and to get to the real point: Juventus.

Soccer is a big money sport and has always had its share of corruption and controversy.

Match fixing, threatening or bribing officials, meddling with player transfers, etc

Well, the Italians have decided to top everyone.

A small group of owners has done all of the above. Not with an eye to winning a big match here and there, but controlling all aspects of the game to pre-determine who will be in contention for the championship, year after year.
If you played against these teams, the officials ruled against you when it mattered, the player's organization didn't allow you access to the best players.
Players and teams outside of this cabal were pressured or marginalized.

And it's full, blown, systemic corruption. The top league officials, the big owners - all the stuff the tinfoil hat people are saying about baseball and football in this country is true in Italy.

My team, Juventus, just won the Scudetto, and I just don't care. Juve is more than up to their neck in it. They're the capos. They're due for having their titles taken from them, and are possibly facing relegation.

• Read the disgrace at the Guardian.
• The BBC's take: Italian football's tangled web

Doubling down

E went public the other night, so I can post this here to catch the rest of the crowd who hasn't heard yet:

E and I are expecting a new baby as of November - so the boy won't be the only little one in the house.

Cool and scary all at the same time.

Signs

Originally, I'd intended to recount my return trip south with Jen and my mom.

Obviously, I haven't found the time - and my memory keeps getting away from me. I do want to get it all down, just don't know how coherent it will be when I finally do.

To prove that point, I'm going to post a recollection from the second trip down south that's been rattling around my head for the past few days.

Mom, Jen and I had driven from upstate New York down through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Tennessee (all of it gorgeous, by the way - Vermont was incredible, no wonder New Englanders are like that). For most of the trip, it had been like a vacation, snapping photos, admiring the scenery (Eastern Pennsylvania is freaking amazing). We were in Mom's new Lexus, which she'd bought with the money she got when the other vehicles were totaled), and a lot of the trip was spent checking out the new ride.

When we got to Alabama, the mood changed almost instantly. People will laugh, but I was really thinking of Heart of Darkness as we drove south. We all knew something awful awaited us at the end of this trip, and we all were looking around each corner expecting to see proof that we'd finally arrived in the disaster zone.

That downed tree... was it from the storm? or was it just a downed tree? That ruined building, did it collapse? or was it just abandoned?

About an hour of false alarms in an otherwise normal landscape lowered our guard. Stop gawking - it's been over a month and damage has been cleaned up- at least this far north.
Two hours from the coast, I realized that the sun was about to set, and we'd be in darkness before we crossed into Mississippi. Nothing to see here, folks.

disappointment turned into more practical concerns almost immediately. Gas had been scarce, we'd top off the tank before we left Alabama, Mom was getting her proof of residence together because we'd arrive after curfew. If we were stopped without it, we would not be allowed into her neighborhood.

We're in the middle of sorting this out, when out of the corner of my eye I see a billboard, gutted and wind-blown going by on our left.

Is that...?

And then another, and another.
We're easily 100 miles from the coast and virtually every billboard has been reduced to a skeleton and tattered scraps.

Fast food signs are bent like pretzels, gas station gantries slant at improbable angles, and then come the trees. Whole swaths of trees blown flat on both sides of the highway. Acre after acre of split timber, and this is over sixty miles from the coastline.

By the time we got to Mobile, any doubt that the damage wasn't anywhere near cleaned up was long gone. Highway signs were randomly destroyed or oddly unaffected - enough remained so navigating was not a problem. Night fell hard and it was difficult to determine if the darkness was normal, or amplified by power outages.

When we crossed into Mississippi, any curiosity was long gone, replaced by raw disbelief. My parent's neighborhood was a shambles, and the month since the storm had only intensified this fact - since the owners of flooded houses were tearing out ruined walls and possessions and flinging them to the curb.

On my parent's street, we drove slowly - flanked by six-foot piles of debris the entire length of the road.

And then we were home.

Blue Sky Mining (comes to my rescue)

Okay, so yesterday afternoon, I happen to run across one of the managers where I work, and she's asking me to do a few things for her, and I'm good with it. Near the end of the conversation, she casually says "See you tomorrow at 9:30."I'm like, huh?

"The presentation?"

I'm Presenting?

"Yes, to the [whatever] people, it's not on your calendar?"

Err...

"I'll send it to you."

Out the door, a little flat-footed, but I know the material, and I've presented it before. Null perspiration.

So this a.m., I'm checking the appointment, and find I don't know the room. In a complex that spans three massive buildings, this is problematic. In the system, it's listed as "Auditorium." Not a good sign. So I ask around and people direct me to the only one they know of, the one that seats 150 people.

Err...

I peek my head in and verify this is the right place, and it is.

I'm not just presenting to the [whatever] people, I'm presenting to ALL of them. Oh, and we're being taped. So it can be made into a streaming video for the masses.

Err...

So, I'm outside getting my collective Sugar, Honey, Ice Tea together, and remember My iPod arrived yesterday, and Ms. no-H has thoughtfully provided me with some tunes to get me rolling.

Quick flip of the menu and I find Midnight Oil>Blue Sky Mine. A great intro with harmonica.

Buds in, push play.

Hey, Hey, Hey, Heeeeeyyyyyy....

Much better.
Nerves gone. Buds out. Game time.

Veni, Vidi, Vici baby.

The Goverment turned me into a Pod person...

Okay, I got my state tax refund today, and the sudden influx of cash made me do a foolish thing.

I've ordered an iPod.

So, I'm riding the post-buy buzz and waiting for the remorse to set in...

Any iPodders out there with ramping-up advice for a new Pod-ling? (I'm looking at you, Ms. no-H)

You think you've got it bad...

"We receive a billion emails a month;
900 million of them are spam."

-William Vass, Sun Microsystems CIO,
speaking at Forrester's IT Forum 2006: GigaWorld.

Star Witness

Ok, I'll grant that right now I'm pretty susceptible, it being 7:44 on a Friday night and I’m here at work, up to my neck in it – but I’m getting seriously messed up by Neko Case’s ‘Star Witness’ right now…

Give it a listen (.ra file on NPR.org). The lady can bring it.

Mental note

I complain about my memory. Forgetting where I put stuff, forgetting to do things...

picture this: not being able to forget anything.

-----------------------------------

Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine writer of the 20th century, wrote of the Uruguayan Funes the Memorious, whose perception and memory became infallible after falling from a horse in the mid 1880s:

We, in a glance, perceive three wine glasses on the table; Funes saw all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebracho. These recollections were not simple; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his fancies. Two or three times he had reconstructed an entire day.

And thus Ireneo Funes lived like no other before or since, remembering all that had happened to him. And remembering that he remembered. This vicious cycle led not to the incalculable awakening of genius that one might expect. Instead, it led to the opposite: a painful sagacity of everything he wished to forget.

(From bokardo.com)

Little help

Saw this in today's Sun Herald:

Mississippi's Invisible Coast

"Our plea to newspapers and television and radio and Web sites across the land is no less important today: Please, tell our story. Hear the voice of our people and tell it far and wide.

We are here. Do not forsake us.

We are no footnote."

Somebody oughta know. Read the rest here.

Live now, write later

As most would have guessed, this blog has been written retroactively.

The recollections are as good as I can make them - and I have every intention of completing the events of that week.

This post is realtime, and my sister and I are about to get in the car to take mom home. Mom has no phones and no internet, and while I've explored posting via cell. I've come to the conclusion that writing is best done in quiet reflection, and this is not likely to happen in the coming week.

The full story will be posted - it has to get out of my head - but it will be the 17th of October before I'm back from Mississippi.

Non sequiturs

It's getting away from me - and some gaps are simply too large to ignore.
Some of the things I don't want to lose:

• C's wife watching our boy so that E and I can go into the service together. She's the absolute model of decorum and charm the entire weekend.
  
  
• C's showing up in jeans and a blazer, because they'd packed in such a rush. They'd bought a shirt en route or he'd have been Sonny Crocket in jeans, Tee-shirt and a blazer. He's a champ, that one.
  
  
• Jen's in-laws watching her boys in the nursery. It is the only time I see any of them, it was as if they were there and gone between blinks.
  
  
• G's wife T giving me a hug before they go. G promising to give Notre Dame "my regards" as they drive by South Bend (in about seven hours).
  
  
• My little guy. Dressed up and happy to see everyone, oblivious to it all.
  
  
• BJ complaining to my mother that the coffee she was serving was "too strong yesterday, and too weak today." Well, thanks so much, BJ. Next time one of our immediate family dies, we'll be sure to double-check the coffee.
  
  
• One of my cousins telling me that dad often bragged on me to family. Something I could scarcely imagine, much less believe.
  
  
• Someone telling me at the internment. "Well, you're the man of the family, now." Biting back my first impulse, I opt for "Don't you say that."
  
  
• Talking with dad's cousin, DB at the internment. We have a nice talk and I float part of the eulogy I will never give- that dad was spared the one thing that I'm sure he could never stand: losing the ability to do things for himself. I shouldn't have said this to DB. Fortune has not been kind to his family, and that's a little too close to where he lives right now.
      He says that it would be terrible to just exist, and not be able to contribute anything. I can tell he's upset - We change the subject.
  
  
• And Grandma. Such an undeserved hardship after such a charitable life. If there is a God, he's got a lot to answer for.
  

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Souvenir

The internment is at one, and it is to be family only. Mom told me that this of course includes my friends and I pass this along.

I'm unsure how I would react to such an offer, but G & C and the gang take it in stride. Of course they'll come along. I'm glad - having them around has really helped.

I pass my cousin in the parking lot, and he begins telling me a story about him and my dad. It means a lot to him, and it clearly takes a lot to tell it. I'm just a million miles away while he does it, though.

I'm remembering my dad teaching my cousin to ride a bike. Dad's brother had said that my cousin wasn't ready yet - and my dad went outside to prove him wrong. By the end of the day, my cousin was riding a bike - and I always thought that was a lousy thing for my father to do, rob his brother of that moment. Sensitivity be damned, dad got it done.

My cousin finishes up and I drift back into the conversation. We collect mom and head to the internment.

---

I have a fairly active imagination and along the way to the cemetery I'm remembering the thousands of times I have imagined a moment like this one. Any time my mind is idle, it begins conjuring up horrors and dramas to throw at me until I make it stop. I've envisioned almost every conceivable family tragedy over and over.

Mini-dramas from beginning to end, the phone call, the funeral, every anguished moment.

I've no idea why this happens, or - more accurately - why I do this to myself. But I have, and I do - and never, in any of these scenarios did I imagine my father.

The nightmares and imagined tragedies now seem like grade-school fiction. Incomplete, inadequate, and born of no real experience.

---

Dad's casket is out in the sun - it's a lovely day and we join the crowd gathering around it.

I think the pastor was expecting an small affair with immediate family - when the full multitude of extended family arrives, he's clearly overwhelmed. He has nothing prepared, and quickly launches into prayer.

Mom's been concerned for days that this service would degenerate into an endless stream of remembrances, and - lacking direction - we are clearly headed that way. As soon as the pastor stops talking, I'm afraid we'll be listening to everyone's favorite Dad story, each in turn.

And then something great happens: The cousins begin to sing.

They're a musical group by nature - and lots of times I wished they're weren't. But today, now, I close my eyes and just soak it up.

A sunny day, a slight breeze, and a hymn sung a Capella. This was how everything should have been. No church, no fool of a pastor, just a family singing a lament for one of their own.

---

After a few hymns, mom steps forward and takes the flag off dad's casket. I tell her she'd best keep moving or people will begin to fill the silence with whatever comes to mind.

At that moment, to prove my point, mom's brother (who was a Marine for about five minutes) steps forward and salutes the coffin.

With that, everyone seems to know it's over.

I'm turning to thank G & C and everyone for coming all this way, and Mom's brother stops me.

"The crosses, they come off."

I look at him uncomprehendingly.

"You get one, so does M and your mom and your sister."

He's pointing at the casket. The funeral director is grappling with one of the Gaelic crosses affixed to each corner. He gives a mighty heave and it snaps free. Triumphant, he hands me the cross.

Not having any idea how to react, I take it and walk over to the gang, while other family members - having seen this, descend on the casket to remove the other three crosses.

I thank everyone for coming and say my goodbyes.

A&C ask me about the cross I'm holding - and the words just fall out of my mouth.

"Apparently, modern coffins come with souvenirs."

I don't let it bother me. It it so good to see everyone.

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