allblackhoodagain

[allblackhoodagain]

I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddlin’

There’s a point when you’re trying to get to sleep where your brain has to decide if it’s willing to shut reality off. You’re drifting, drifting, drifting, but then you suddenly realize, Of course I can’t get arrested for trying to do laundry in Georgia, and next thing you know you’re on the couch trying to find an episode of Chopped you’ve never watched before.

To get to sleep, your body, brain, and soul(?) somehow need to conspire together to shut everything down, but not so much that you’ll actually die – that’s why sometimes your leg spasms when you’re almost asleep – that’s your body making sure it’s still alive, according to some random Instagram post I once saw. It’s pretty damn complicated and absurd when you think about it, and it’s a bit of a miracle that most of us are able to accomplish this every day.

Similarly – and hear me out on this please – for pro sports to actually work, a huge number of people need to conspire with billionaire team owners, millionaire athletes, their friends and family, fellow fans, and the media/culture to pretend that these games actually matter, that the people of Denver are collectively happier when the Broncos win, that the team did it with the fans in mind, that this is glory that will last and be sung about for generations.  

Much like sleep, it’s a pretty damn complicated and absurd proposition and it’s a miracle to think that this conspiracy is still going strong as everything around us breaks down into water, smoke, dust, and trash.

To be fair, there is an uneven burden in this construct and that falls on the athlete. The athlete needs to put their body, brain, and soul(?) on the line every time they step on the field of play. They must live with their mistakes and their injuries for the rest of their lives. They can’t just turn the TV off and find something else to do, so to speak.

Of course, when you get to the level of the Denver Broncos or, say, the Brooklyn Nets, the athlete is compensated fairly handsomely for this burden. And that’s where it gets even more complex.

The athlete is paid to care about this team/city/fanbase that it probably had no connection to whatsoever. They have to learn to love this franchise or, at least, fake it reasonably well enough for the fans to not clearly see through the façade.

So . . .

Asking to be moved on from that team and/or have it’s entire management structure replaced for a reason that nobody is allowed to know, and then acting like a jackass on social media while that team is subjected to weeks and weeks of garbage fire takes and hot memes, and then, reaching a resolution with that team . . . I don’t know what that is. I don’t know how to care about whatever that may be.

To extend the metaphor – now I’m wide awake, eating Cheerios out of the box, and googling what a geoduck is. I’m not getting back to sleep for hours.

Sleep and sports fandom for adults are extremely delicate phenomena. Both involve shutting off reality in ways that we don’t really understand or appreciate – read Among the Thugs – to induce a manageable and socially acceptable mass psychosis.  

Big difference obviously – you don’t need to be a sports fan to survive. So then, as a sports fan, especially an adult one, you are always asking yourself: Is it worth it? Is it worth it to keep pretending?

And then, after the aforementioned jackassery, it gets to: Is it worth it to keep pretending when this is what I have to root for?

I mean, I already have enough trouble getting myself to sleep every night. Being a fan of this guy – and not to mention that guy and oh man that guy – it may be more than my body, brain, and soul(?) can handle.

But I was reminded earlier this week, that people make mistakes, pro athletes included. And when they then attempt to rectify that mistake, perhaps they shouldn’t be met with scorn, especially in the form of 800-word Tumblr posts.

The fact is, I have been able to get to sleep every night of my life (that I didn’t spend on an airplane) if only for an hour or two sometimes. I do genuinely think it’s a miracle. But it what’s we do as humans.

We can’t stop, won’t stop sleeping every night.

So with this in mind, I’ll probably be a sports fan again.

When it comes right down to it, what feels better than denying reality?

[allblackhoodagain]

I’m too busy acting like I’m not naive

I’ve been writing about the impending apocalypse for my whole damn life. And now that it’s here . . . 

I guess that’s the thing about horrible, life-changing crises. They completely sap your will to do anything, other than decide which vegetable you should eat tonight and then cook said vegetable. 

But we all knew we’d end up here. Not exactly here, of course, in this particular nightmare. Staying home for a month and being afraid to get a sandwich from the deli -- I’m still not sure that I’m awake right now. 

Before all this went down, I saw a few articles saying that instead of pushing us to modern, glossy heights, this era will instead turn out more the like the Middle Ages -- unimaginable inequality, a large portion of the population desperately believing in magic, strongmen and warlords ruling over us all. And now we’re here. 

So I guess we wait? As I wrote above, I’m mostly concerned with how I’m gonna cook my asparagus tonight or if my broccoli will still be good by Sunday or whether slightly spongy squash will give me salmonella poisoning. 

There will be such an extraordinary amount written and tik-toked about this time, that I don’t think I should write anything more. Someone more sincere or thoughtful than me will say or has said all of this better than me. Really, what can I contribute? 

I could write about the 88-year-old man who collapsed right behind me in the supermarket a few weeks ago while I was looking for oat milk.

Everyone knows about the SIRENS. What more can I say about that?

There’s maybe a 2 to 5% chance I had it last month. But nobody should care about that. I don’t even care about that. 

Should I feel bad that I don’t miss restaurants? As has been the theme with this blog post, I’m learning a lot about vegetables and I’m getting really good at cooking chicken. 

I guess I just have this overriding desire to look at a beautiful meadow, with green grass and wild flowers. Every few minutes that’s where my mind goes. 

I’ve been dreaming about taking mildly stressful journeys through somewhat familiar, rustic landscapes. A lot of green and brown and hills. I’m mostly in control, but there’s always a point where things get a bit dicey. 

I hope video calls become illegal AFTER ALL THIS IS OVER. But, again, is that an original thought?

Mostly -- and I knew this all along -- the apocalypse is sad. Unless you’re a narcissistic sociopathic baby man, everyone is sad all the time. I can’t be sad for everyone, of course, so I’m mostly sad for this city. “The City,” as we say around here. I think this might be more than The City can take. It’s certainly more than I can take. 

I love you all!!!!

[allblackhoodagain]

You have my heart, so don’t hurt me

Fame is by far the most bizarre thing I’ve ever witnessed. The idea that you (supposedly) know someone so well, but they have no idea that you exist. The idea that dozens of people, months later, will write op-eds about what you do in your bedroom (or kitchen or on your couch) is absolutely insane.

And I’m not even talking about @AlsoMyself (I mostly am); there’s so much mystery and intrigue around “celebrity” when the whole world in actuality is just people milling around and looking at stuff. Life doesn’t get shinier or more glamorous when you get 1 million Instagram followers. It just gets amplified and distorted.

I mean, once you’ve been on a buffet line with Regis Philbin, the magic’s gone, am I right?

**

Six years ago on this platform (my god), I wrote: “Can’t we understand that we’re living in a time of wildly changing standards and technology and that a few stray penises may get caught in the crossfire?”

This is more true today than it was in 2012. And it’s great in the abstract, but in reality, are you ready? YOU? How far will you go? How far will I go?

The truth is, none of us knows how this will turn out. And that’s pretty scary if you think hard enough.

Is the patriarchy dead? Not at all. It’s just been wounded and it will continue to be wounded until . . . what? What’s the end game? Is there an end game?

I have no doubt which side is “right” and which side I will fight on, but we need to understand this is the dismantling of all of human history. I will stand by that statement and defend it with all the rhetoric that I have.

This is the dismantling of all of human history, one sloppily executed blog post at a time. Where will we be at the end?

Remember when the proletarians turned into pigs? Remember when the Jacobins started guillotining everyone who owned shoes? Remember when it cost 3 billion dollars to buy a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe? Remember when any peasant in Eurasia who could read was starved and/or humiliated to death?

I hate to sound reactionary (I HATE it), but this is what happens in revolutions. Anyone who denies the ugliness and darkness that is coming for us all is not  following the voices in their head to their logical conclusion.

**

In 40 years the Internet has evolved from a way for nerds at universities in California to exchange jokes about quantum theory to Russian bots basically dictating American domestic policy.

Seriously, people, let’s get our fucking heads in the game.

[allblackhoodagain]

Make sure you got together your similes

A deep, dark, cold lake. An abyss. That’s all that I could think of when I pictured the long-term future in November 2016. And all I could hear was a low-register, slow yet also somewhat rhythmic static, maybe a gargantuan machine on its last legs.

You could say it’s all hyperbolic, but it won’t be if that’s how it all ends up.

**

There must be a reason why this is all I can write about. When I logically know that I have it just about as good as any person who ever lived on this planet. 

I, we, are all being overloaded. It won’t end well. It can’t end well.

Whatever this is, however it shakes out -- this moment of knowing that there will be an impending darkness, darker than I’ve ever seen -- is paralyzing.

**

Again, I hate to get specific on this platform, but I really think the NSA might be the only who’s not batshit bonkers crazy. He’s like Kermit running around backstage about to break down at any moment.

I think the SecDef was sane at one point, but there was always a thin line with him; he’s crossed over to the dark side.

The CoS is naturally witty and has a Boston Accent so we just think like to think he’s the kind uncle who’ll pick up Casey Affleck when he gets too drunk. He would probably do that but then he’d talk about conspiracy theories about her and racist pseudo-science while Casey’s passed out on the drive home.

The SecState probably isn’t even allowed in the building.

[allblackhoodagain]

Trust me, I’m as live as it gets

Nihilism. That’s what we’re dealing with here, a nihilistic death cult. And they’ve brought us all down with them.

About a decade ago I saw a legendary hip-hop group in concert in New York and the MC just berated the audience. His partner was (literally) in jail, and I guess said MC wasn’t feeling it that night, so he just took it out on his paying fans, in his hometown, while probably wearing a Yankees hat. I did not have a good time.

Growing up, reading about punk rock bands, seeing footage of Johnny Rotten spitting at the audience, I thought nihilism was really cool.

WE BELIEVE IN NOTHING LEBOWSKI

But being on the other side of that, not having fun while seeing one of my favorite groups of all time? It was just kind of strange and actually quite boring. Being an asshole to people who don’t deserve it, purposefully performing below your abilities is always wrong.

Which brings me to EVERY ELECTED REPUBLICAN IN THE UNITED STATES.

I don’t like to get specific on this platform, but seriously, guys, come the fuck on.

I don’t know where that leads us, though, (HASHTAG-RESIST) because the nihilists will win, definitely in the short term. That’s the organizing principle of nihilism, at least in the late-2017-white-nationalist tint that’s currently in vogue. The nihilists will always win because THEY BELIEVE IN NOTHING.

Don’t you get it by now? It’s a circular logic thought pattern that contains no logic or thoughts or patterns. I shouldn’t have even used punctuation in that last sentence OR ANY SENTENCE IVE EVER WROTE WHY ARE YOU EVEN STILL READING THISLIBTARD SECOND AMENDEMENT UNBORN FETUS

***

We have to be living in a simulation because the goddamn Winter Olympics are taking place 50 miles from the DMZ. Are you fucking kidding me?

***

There’s no productive way to talk about what’s going on without it eventually getting to a point that . . .

***

[allblackhoodagain]

You need to stay up out them streets if you can't take the heat

In high school, I worked for a pharmacist who was probably suffering from dementia. One of my responsibilities in the job was to clean the bathroom. The bathroom just had a single toilet and was mainly for the store’s two or three employees so it never really got too dirty. Still, the pharmacist requested that I clean it every time I worked. 

So, he’d ask me to clean the bathroom whenever I got in, which I did. But then, maybe an hour later he’d ask me to clean the bathroom again. I’d remind him that I already did that and then maybe a couple hours later, he’d ask again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

This happened every single time I went in to work.

Eventually, I just stopped cleaning the bathroom entirely and lied to him whenever he asked me. It was easier, of course, and maybe even kinder than reminding him that his memory was fading. And, hey, less work for me and the bathroom didn’t really need to be cleaned, right?

Right? 

I guess what I’m trying to say, America has stopped cleaning its bathroom.

[allblackhoodagain]

Is sugar and spice the only thing that you made of?

As much as I hate to admit it, there’s a part of my 16-year-old anarchist, punk rock self that’s excited we have a Leninist in the White House. But that part of me is being brutally beaten by the other parts and turned into an Internet meme. Probably why I don’t feel so hot today. 

*******************************************************************************************

The story goes that Dadaism began as a reaction to the horrors of World War I. It was such a mind-boggingly traumatic event that artists in Europe could not even begin to process it through normal aesthetic means. So they spent the next 10 years making urinal sculptures or paintings of businessmen with apple-faces.  

in February 2017, I see the appeal.

It’s easy to argue that this IS NOT WHAT A CONCERNED CITIZENRY SHOULD BE DOING IN THE FACE OF TOTALITARIANISM.

But on the other hand, fuck it, knawmean?

[allblackhoodagain]

Girl you know you’ve gotta watch your health

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. George Orwell, 1946

IT can happen here. And I’m not sure if there is anything that I can do to stop it. 

That’s what it all comes back to. A feeling of helplessness. A feeling that the checks and balances are not on our side. (And when I say “our” I mean EVERYONE. He cares as little about rural Kentucky as he does about the center of Queens. Don’t fucking forget that.) The powers are not acting in good faith and they have free reign over a populace that has been brainwashed by disingenuous “conservative” journalists and entrepreneurial Eastern European teenagers.

We can donate to all the altruistic civil society organizations that we want, we can march and protest all we want, we can Tweet and Facebook all we want, but what will we do when he imposes martial law after something somewhere inevitably blows up?  

I sometimes wonder if I’m solely responsible for all of this. I really do. Did my dystopian nightmare somehow morph into reality? Did I take it a little too far?

But, no, of course not. A rich narcissist’s dystopian daydream has become our reality and there was nothing that even the world’s most powerful man -- the leader of the goddamn free world -- could do to stop it. Someone that thoughtful and influential and beloved by his own citizens was, just like me, watching those damn red hats bobbing around at midnight at the Hilton ballroom, was watching the New York Times model swing wildly, impossibly to 95% red. He woke up the next morning and if he didn’t shed a few tears, just like me, then I know nothing about this world.

I want to look away, but I can’t. I have the option of looking away, but millions don’t. I am acting in bad faith, just like those aforementioned powers, if I look away. It’s just so claustrophobic.

The one shred of hope is that he has awoken a monster -- tens of millions of law-abiding, patriotic Americans who understand history, who don’t want to get political, but now have no choice. What are we gonna do beyond donating and protesting and writing and crying? That’s a great question.

[allblackhoodagain]

Nobody would fall cuz everyone would be each other’s crutches

The story of Cris Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets is one of the saddest I’ve ever heard.

Nobody really knew who the Meat Puppets were until Kurt Cobain outed them as alt-rock gods on Unplugged. But, led by Cris and his younger brother Curt, they had already been around for more than a decade doing their thing, making records that inspired everyone in every indie rock band and touring endlessly. Still, they were barely famous. I’m sure they made a fairly comfortable living, but I don’t know if you could really call them rock stars.

That all changed after Unplugged. Shortly thereafter, they toured with Stone Temple Pilots and had a hit record.  

One might think that this was the end of the story of the Meat Puppets. They had navigated the craziness and the drugs, the disgusting dive bars and broken-down vans, tattooed biker gangs (probably) and the mentally disturbed fans that I’m sure they attracted through their rugged 1980s and now they could sit back end enjoy their well-earned success. After all, these dudes were in their mid-30s. They weren’t kids.

But, in a tragic twist, the story for Cris was just beginning. Years later, I stumbled across some Arizona newspaper feature about Cris and how his life just got mind-bogglingly dark after the fame kicked in. He became a total heroin addict and would spend months in isolation in his house with his wife shooting drugs and eating ice cream. Eventually his wife overdosed and died and I think one or two other people ended up dying in the house, as well.

Cris’s brother, Curt, who was known as the wild one back in the day, had retreated to a ranch in Austin and he did what he could. Amazingly, something clicked back into place, and Cris made it out alive.

According to Wikipedia, he now has a podcast.

But once you’ve stared that deeply into the abyss, I don’t know if you can ever really come back from it.

Fame is a scary, scary thing. It doesn’t matter what your past is, how old you are, where you came from, once it grabs you, you are pretty much powerless. You don’t know how your mind or your body will react. You just might turn to a life of isolation, heroin, and ice cream.

It’s naive to think that fame, even when it comes with money and previously unimaginable luxury and access, will ever be the end of the story.

**

To pass the time when we were young, my friends and I made our own ballers for NBA Live. Shady Cuban made Jesus Bones, a 7-6 behemoth with a ‘fro out of Cleveland State; Starco made Zach Clean, an impossibly athletic 7-3 behemoth with a bald head and a full repertoire of dunks; Hunt made Bug Bugsbugman, a 7-7 behemoth that he somehow manipulated to look like a bug.

I made Anfernee Winfield, a silky smooth 6-10 point guard on the Clippers, patterned after Lamar Odom.

Around that same time I saw LO chillin’ out on Broadway with his crew. He was injured at the time and on crutches. He was so thin and tall and with some early 2000s blinged-out walking aides, he looked like a superhero.

A bunch of years ago, my friends and I were talking about our favorite basketball players and I said Odom. They were fairly surprised. I was surprised that they were surprised. It seemed like the obvious choice.

[allblackhoodagain]

I learned from the OGs to save everything

Never underestimate the influence of a super-confident outsider (SCO).

The appeal is understandable. What could be better than someone shiny and new coming in from a perceived (maybe just by you?) success and taking an interest in you (me?), looking at your problem and saying, “Oh, it’s not too bad. We can fix this quickly. Just give me the keys to the car and let me have a crack at it. And before you say anything, look, I realize that is a horrible mixed metaphor. But we’re not here to talk about grammar. I can fix this problem. Just trust me, close your eyes, I’ll tuck you into bed, and all your worries will soon be gone.”

Dream come true, right? Well, no. Actually, SCOs are responsible for a majority of the awfulness now occurring in the world, on both the micro and macro levels.

Of course, it’s not so easy to say “no” to an SCO. In fact, unless you are an SCO (and it’s only roughly four percent of the world population that would ever attempt to put him/herself into this category) you probably have fallen under the sway of an SCO.

Everyone close to you is telling you to work hard, there are no shortcuts to success, anything worth doing takes time, but the SCO doesn’t even take off his leather jacket when its 95 degrees outside. He lets the weather come to him.

Seriously, forget money and religion, the SCOs are the root of all evil. (You’re just waiting for me to bring him up, I know it.)  

Now, are SCOs sociopaths? Not always, hopefully. It would be scary to think that four out of every one hundred people you pass on the street is a sociopath. But I’d say that most sociopaths have presented themselves as SCOs at one point or another. It’s an easy route (the easiest?) to indulging in your sociopathic tendencies.

So what can we do about SCOs? It’s simple. Just don’t trust a living soul. Not even yourself. Live in fear. Endlessly question every decision you make. Don’t smile at strangers or friends. Only leave your house when absolutely necessary. Never take a compliment at face-value or at any other value for that matter.

Most importantly, remember that life’s biggest problems can’t be solved.

[allblackhoodagain]

I got scriptures in my brain I could spit at your dame

“Social media mostly just makes me sad.”

A co-worker of mine said this in a meeting a couple days ago. It might be the most sincere thing I’ve ever heard somebody say at work. Is it inappropriate for a meeting? Maybe. But she’s European, so I think she got away with it. I certainly think no less of her.

I was busy writing down the quote, so I didn’t really hear her explanation, but it had something to do with nostalgia. Which makes sense.

But, I’d go beyond just “social media.” These days, all media makes me sad. Well, a little sad. It’s just too much. Media is all about conflict, really. All about something happening that you didn’t expect to happen happening. A school gets shot up. A hospital gets mistakenly bombed. A football team loses and its manager has a breakdown.

There is nothing new here. We just know more about it. And the more you know about anything, the more likely you are to see that it is coming apart at its seams.

I’ll end with something that another European, Irish comedian Dylan Moran, said on WTF a couple years ago. Marc Maron was saying that Irish audiences couldn’t relate to his certain brand of complainy comedy. Moran said, basically, the premise was too obvious:

“You’re human? Of course you’re a hot mess.”

Just go make a joke about eating too many chips and get on with it, mate.

[allblackhoodagain]

Hardcore ‘til somebody put me under the ground

I used to play pickup (American) football with a gang of feral children during the lunch hour at my elementary school. I was known for my quarterbacking skills, staying calm under pressure, and just generally managing the chaos.

But that wasn’t enough for me. Maybe my favorite play in football is the interception. It’s just so influential. It changes the game, it’s usually unexpected, and there’s always a chance that you can score a touchdown. Defense turns to offense and the offense just runs around like maniacs.

So one day, I just said to myself, forget this Phil Simms garbage, today I’m going Myron Guyton on this muddy patch of grass. So I tried and tried and guess what? I got an interception. I didn’t score; I was immediately two-hand touched, but I did it. Maybe it was clear to everyone what I was trying to do, but I still did it.

This is how Santi Cazorla plays for Arsenal. He’s probably always played like this -- he’s about 5-3 and 115 pounds so if he didn’t try hard, he’d probably just be living at his mom’s house -- but I really started to notice around the middle of last season. Arsenal needed a lift and they needed goals and Santi put it all on his tiny, adorable shoulders. The way he cut with the ball, picked out passes, tried to guide the ball into the net, it was no secret what he was trying to do. But it usually worked. When it came time for a penalty kick, they called on Santi. When it came time for a corner kick, Santi again. Right or left foot, it doesn’t matter.

The point is, you can see Santi trying. That’s why 60,000 at the Emirates chant, “Oooh Santi Cazorla Oooh Santi Cazorla!” It’s why he’s the captain. It’s why he has to be on the pitch for the Gunners.

But the fact that you can see him trying (and usually with a smile on his face), the fact that you can see me going for an interception on that day on the playground, meant that there is a ceiling to our respective games. You know what we are going to do, so you can plan for us.

Contrast that with say, Mesut Ozil, you don’t know what the hell he is trying to do. Sometimes it looks like Ozil is playing a different match. He’s not always ready to score or play that perfect pass. And certainly not with his right foot. There’s something godly about Ozil, but Santi is a worker. They kind of converge on the same point of world class footballing, but take completely different journeys to get there.

You can look at Santi and take something away for your life. We all could try a little harder and maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world to telegraph where our efforts go. But look at Ozil (I don’t feel comfortable calling him Mesut) and he’s just on a different astral plane. If you don’t have a left foot that was designed by an ethereal life spirit from the mountains of Anatolia, you can’t be Ozil. No chance, bucko. But we can all strive to add a little Santi to our lives.

[allblackhoodagain]

I got more ziti to bake

I feel obliged to write about the Olympics. But this time it's different. It's way different.

Maybe it's really that I'll be away from all media during the most exciting part of it (track & field aka the Usainapalooza), but forget all that.

So far there's been actual doping, wild allegations of doping, a flag mix-up, a sucker punch, a fencer staging a sit-in, a badminton fixing scandal, a cyclist run over and killed outside the Olympic stadium, and that's not to mention the constant stream of  vitriol and frustration from every media outlet other than NBC over NBC's strategy of playing to the mentally challenged and elderly demographic*, and it's only the sixth day of this. 

There are two ways to look at this.

One is that these types of shenanigans happen at every single Olympics. Sometimes it gets downright deadly. That's just how the Olympic roll, dawg.

Or the other is that these Olympics are really, truly a little bonkers. Who knows the exact reason. It probably happens at every few Olympics. You throw a few more crazies in the mix, and London certainly isn't the sanest town in the world, and shit gets a little wacky.

But either way, the Internet, and by Internet I mean Twitter, has totally warped and blown up all the minutiae of the games and taken a lot of the mystique out of it. That much is obvious, whether these games are typical or an anomaly.

Coverage-wise, the situation right now is grim and it has to change. Luckily ESPN is taking over at some point in the future. Hopefully by the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Otherwise, it might be too late. Because right now, the Internet and NBC are seemingly locked in a battle to see who gets to finally give the death blow to the Olympics first. If it doesn't happen in these ones, then it will surely be in Sochi.

*And I mean elderly and mentally challenged together, as in an autistic 75-year-old, and I mean that as sincerely as possible. A mentally challenged person would have the sense that NBC is talking down to them, just because they're alive in this world, just as an out-of-touch, non-emailing elderly person would, as well. But add those two qualities together and that's where you get NBC's sweet spot. Basically, delusional and old and tired. Sorry to anyone who bothered to read this. 

[allblackhoodagain]

You can't rain dance on his picnic

Lionel Messi is a god. Greatness has been instilled in him, endlessly over the course of his professional club career. He can literally do no wrong. All he does is play with great players and win. Over and over and over.

Of course, Messi is one of the best athletes to ever play any sport. He's probably the greatest athlete of the young 21st century. But, the European club soccer structure has certainly helped him along the way.

In soccer, there's really no question about who the best players are. There's no superstar, top 10 talent, that is stuck in a losing situation in a historically bad club with no real prospect for ever winning a championship. There's no great player in the world that has not won a championship at the highest level. Robin van Persie could be the one exception, but even he plays on the fourth best team in one of the world's best leagues and plays in the Champions League every year. And he'll probably be on Barcelona next year. There's no Deron Williams or Dwight Howard or Barry Sanders of European club structure. Superstars don't lose over the course of their career. Ever.

It really makes things a lot easier. Here in American sports, we're forced to have a serious debate about whether Eli Manning is a better quarterback than Peyton. And we're left to obsessively dissect the psyche of Lebron James every June.

If the pressure were to suddenly get too much late in a game for Lionel Messi, for example, it wouldn't even matter. At this point, nobody would notice. He's on fucking Barcelona. He's playing with Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Pique, Villa, etc.

Right now, Lionel Messi can't fail. Hence, he is not human anymore. He's a god. 

[allblackhoodagain]

Wrap money in rubberbands just for the love of it

Three or four years ago, there was the "big four" in the Premier League---Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea---and I don't think anyone could envision a time when this wouldn't be the case. Of course, this thinking was very shortsighted. Manchester City was bought by a billionaire, Liverpool was mismanaged all the way to seventh place, and Harry Redknapp revitalized Tottenham Hotspurs.

There is truly a new order in English football and this is most epitomized by the plight of Arsenal. I became an Arsenal fan a few years ago. I had always been a casual fan of the Premier League and as a teenager, I picked Liverpool to support because of my love for the Beatles. Once I started really following football after the 2006 World Cup, the whole Rafa Benitez cloud over Liverpool really made me disgusted, so that was done. Then I bought a Man U jersey mainly because of Wayne Rooney, but at least three or four times when I was wearing it, people would tell me, "You should be an Arsenal supporter." I did some research and I found that the whole Arsenal culture---buying young players, keeping everyone on a pay scale, playing the beautiful game---really appealed to me. Plus, they play in London, they always compete for the title (I'm not gonna decide to support a team that could fall into the Championship. That's not fun.) and a good friend of mine supports Chelsea, so I decided, "Hey, why the hell not?" I became a Gooner. I'm not a hardcore fan or anything. I don't have a face tattoo of a cannon or some such, but I do like to watch them play and see them win.

But the Arsenal of today is very different than the Arsenal of 2007. Fabregas is gone to Barcelona and Nasri will soon be sold to Man City. Arsene Wenger has taken to playing 19-year-olds at key positions in important matches and, inexplicably, he will not buy an experienced defender or midfielder. Arsenal fans have been waiting so long, that it feels like a sick joke. It's almost like that Seinfeld episode where they're waiting to sit at the Chinese restaurant. The wait just keeps going on and on and on for so long that it's not even waiting anymore. It's just a way of life now for Arsenal fans to have an inexperienced defense and a stubborn slightly insane manager who is sitting on about $50 million. This is what they've come to expect out of life, just as Jerry, Elaine, and George got used to being hungry and sitting in the lobby of some wack restaurant for 22 minutes.

Maybe this should just be a reminder to all of us that things change. Even the seemingly most permanent institutions will all one day completely fall apart and maybe this shouldn't even make us sad or surprised or anything.

The music industry does not exist like it did 15 years ago. Great albums are hardly being made and consumed anymore, at least not like they were from the period of about 1955 to 1999. But is this really a problem? Does this really deserve a eulogy? There will never be an album like "Rumors" or "Thriller" that sells 900 million copies. Those days are done. In 1990, this too was an institution: Music superstars putting out fully realized albums and having those albums sell millions upon millions of copies. But this started with Elvis and then died with Eminem. A few hundred years ago, only a few thousand people were lucky enough to hear Beethoven or Mozart. And this year, Kanye and Jay-Z will be lucky if they sell three million copies of "Watch the Throne." A few years from now nobody living today will be alive and all the platinum and gold plaques will have been melted down into bullets that were used in the 2nd American Civil War (more on this another day). How can we cry and be nostalgic about something like the music industry; something that won't even be a footnote in the great expanse of human history?

I guess it's because we're all humans. We're all going to live for, at the most, 100 years and we'd like to see some continuity and we'd like to think that the things we are most passionate about are permanent and not some construct of unstable and illogical human emotions. Until we are enslaved by a superior alien race, there is nobody else that will write our history. Aside from assholes like me, there is nobody out there to tell us that all the crap going down right now won't really matter. It's hard to write a history book that reads like "In 2011, a wave of democracy spread through the Middle East. But, really, whatever, man. Democracy is just a passing trend. Plus, before it was overfarmed, the Middle East was once the 'cradle of civilization' and it was doing just fine being ruled by dickhead tyrants. Democracy or not, it'll have another day in the sun before we all blow each other up."

So, I should probably get more into math, but looking at numbers gives me a headache.

[allblackhoodagain]

My duration's infinite, moneywise or physiology

I recently made a momentous decision: I will stop wearing shirts that have text on them. Any text. Except maybe "Adidias" or "Nike" or something like that. Maybe I'll break out a Giants or Nets shirt on occasion, but that's about it.

Frankly, I'm surprised that I didn't get to this point sooner. I have always loathed small talk with strangers and semi-strangers. And when I wear a t-shirt that says "F*ck Kobe," really, what should I expect?

This is not a split second decision. I've been building up to this point for a while now. First, I had to retire my Boca Juniors jersey because Argentine soccer fans are just too intense. Several times I had wild-eyed dudes running up to me and rambling in Spanish and then acting extremely disappointed when I confessed, "I just bought this on a trip to Buenos Aires and, yes, I am very sorry that your younger sister was robbed by River Plate fans." It did provide me with some interesting stories, though. On the train once, an Argentine dude told me that he didn't eat for two weeks after Argentina lost to Brazil in the 2007 Copa America finals. Still, I figured I was running at about a 300% greater chance of getting a beer bottle thrown at me every time I wore the jersey on the street of a major urban city, so I had to put it away.

My Real Madrid jersey also proved to be a bit problematic. I was wearing it a bar one night and a girl brought up Real's historical connection to Spain's formerly fascist government. Granted, Franco's been dead for longer that I've been alive, but I still felt the need to inform that her that I had a Barcelona jersey at home. But then I just kind of felt like a fraud. Sure, both of the jerseys were gifts and I wore them both for aesthetic purposes, but that just doesn't cut it in the land of soccer fans.

Beyond the socio-political realm, my other big problem with soccer jerseys are the sponsors. West Ham might have a pretty cool kit, but do I really want to go around endorsing a shady Isle of Man-registered online gambling site called Sbobet? No, no I don't.

It's especially bittersweet because from about 2001 to 2008, I wore a soccer jersey to just about every hip-hop event I attended. I really tried to kickstand a trend. It didn't catch on like I hoped it would, but Snoop did wear a Brazil jersey in the "Beautiful" video so maybe I was partially successful.

And then there are my t-shirts. I am a very non-threatening looking person, so I used to think it was cool to go around rocking shirts with a rotting skull on them or the word "die." But now, I'm not really sure I want to promote death and destruction through my wardrobe. I'd rather do that on this blog.

The final straw came a couple weeks ago. A little while back a friend bought me a bright orange shirt with the words "ONLY New York" emblazoned on it. It's a pretty cool shirt and it's really more about an inside joke that my friend and I have where we say "Only in New York!" after anything out-of-the-ordinary happens. But inside jokes don't work for shirts. So, I'm always a little self-conscious when I wear it.

Recently, I was waiting for my sandwich in a deli when these dude next to me says, "Yo, I want that shirt. That shirt's HOT! Yo, Johnny check this out! Only New York! Hell yeah! Where you from?" Then I had to explain that I was from New Jersey and that it was a gift. He seemed a little confused, but he persisted in his praise, "Yo let me trade shirts with you!" He was about fifty pounds heavier and wearing a sweat-stained black t-shirt. I declined and pretended to look for a soda until my sandwich came.

Of course, this exchange was only awkward because I'm an anti-social weirdo, but still, I have to accept it. I am an anti-social weirdo who doesn't like talking to strangers in delis. My shirt selection should reflect this.

[allblackhoodagain]

Come inside of my storm, put on your gear

Are riots in London, a mass murderer in Norway, a wildly fluctuating stock market, a AA+ credit rating for the U.S., 40 days of 100+ temperatures in Dallas, and a very possible NBApocalypse the scariest things ever? Maybe. But probably not.

You would think that someone that literally witnessed 9/11 would have a little more perspective than to think that it's the end of the world every time a few buses in Tottenham get burned and the stock market drops 600 points in one trading day. But here I am, every time shit goes down, refreshing the New York Times every five minutes and looking for any sign of the coming Armageddon or at least the End of Life As We Know It.

I like to say, "Unless I see Larry King interviewing an alien at 9 o'clock, there's nothing left to surprise me." But this just isn't true. First of all, Larry King has retired. I'm not sure which news show an alien would choose first, but it certainly wouldn't be Piers Morgan. Most likely it would be The View.

Second, I continue to be surprised.

I'm not really sure why. But I just can't turn this off. Logically, I know that, for example, the London riots do not signal the beginning of the Revolution. When everyone and their little brother wearing a bandana over their face were setting police cars on fire in France a few years ago, I really thought that this was the beginning of the end. But I was in France last month and had just a lovely time. I didn't see anything burning.

And as for the recession and the stock market craziness, I'll just go back to what I said in September 2008. We should really just look at this as a recalibration, or, three years after the initial economic apocalypse, the continuing of a recalibration. The U.S. is not gonna turn into Zimbabwe. A loaf of bread will not cost $5,000 and we're not gonna all come down with cholera.

But things have changed and will continue to change. Maybe people my age won't be able to retire at 65. Maybe I'll never have a house with a two-car garage in Franklin Lakes. But we'll be aight.