BLCKDGRD

Volitionless, from Different Heights, and in the One Direction

Well, here's yesterday's obamapostasy. Today's Columbus Day, so it might not be until tomorrow Obama scolds me for my shallow fealty and selfishness, my blindness at his obamawesomeness, my traitorously irresponsible threats to not vote this cycle.

Speaking of threats: It's happening (go on, look), but it's still in the very early exploratory stage. I haven't yet discovered all the ways blooger sucks, but tell me, old bloogers, is there a way to set links so they open in a new window? That's one thing typepad does that, as far as I can tell, blooger doesn't. That's not a deal-breaker, and I love the self-updating blogrolls (and if I move I'll be pinging some of you less - though reading new content, of course - because I've been using your self-updating blogrolls as a shortcut) (though the work and aargh of creating those blogrolls, both as a conscientious effort of Kind and as pain-in-the-ass time-wise is both mighty incentive and, subsequently, mighty disincentive). I like I can make photos and youtubes bigger and need break long lines in poems less often. I love that if I can find the poem I'm looking for online (so I don't have to type it) it formats in blooger with none of the grief formatting in typepad causes. I dig the url.

I haven't written about tablets here in a while which by no means means I've stopped writing about tablets. I'm a rube for a new tablet, as if it will make better what I scribble in it. I don't think I've ever gone as long between reformating BLCKDGRD's appearance since I switched to this template three years at least ago. Typepad doesn't allow archiving in an old formats when switching to a new format - if I widened the middle column every Fleabus photo fit for the old format will be too small, line breaks in poems will be fucked. I worry about shit like this. But mostly I'm bored and I have a new tablet.

I'll will cross-post both places for at least a couple of months, but if you're inclined to be Kind, those of you who've blogrolled me, bookmarked me, subscribed to me, I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you in advance for your taking the trouble to move with me.

• Radical pessimist's view of the next ten years.
• See, here's the thing: if Obama had been doing this a year ago instead of a month before an election it wouldn't look like a bullshit election pose.
• Whores, sluts, cunts, bitches.
• I knew this would produce this would produce this.
• Glossy Karl.
• The man with no name.
• Krugman's obamapostasy, stage one.
• Rahmoron.
• I am shocked to learn that Politico has a political agenda.
• What's the difference between Linda McMahon and Larry Flint?
• How to think about Lou Dobbs.
• ICC from the sky.
• Good spot for a soccer stadium.
• I have never been able to finish a Peter Carey novel, though I stopped trying long ago.
• On poetry anthologies. I love American Hybrid.
• Sad news. Good bookstore.
• Coetzee reviews latest Roth.
• What you can buy me for Giftmas.
• What's wrong with this picture?
• Nothing to get pissy about.
• Bad moon rising.

PORCELAIN

Carl Phillips

As when a long forgetfulness lifts suddenly, and what
we'd forgotten—as we look at it squarely, then again
refuse to look—is our own
                                            inconsequence, yes, it was
mostly like that, sex as both an act of defacement and—
as if the two were the same thing—votive offering,
insofar as the leaves
                                     also were a kind of offering, or could
at least be said to be, as they kept falling the way leaves
do: volitionless, from different heights, and in the one direction.

Elric moved his stuff out of our basement yesterday and I found three CD racks I hadn't seen the four years and remembered a bunch of bands I hadn't thought of in a while, like this one:

As Long as the Fish Are Female Saleswomen in Tropical Fish Stores Are Allowed to Go Topless

So I log onto motherfucking typepad this morning and there's a new editing platform and it sucks unto blow and blows unto suck. Compare the space between the above Fleabus photo and the text of this post with the space between the Fleabus photo and text in this post. An eighth of an inch of motherfucking aargh, and there's no fucking fixing it.

Motherfucking typepad has always sucked, dropping colors, dropping fonts, dropping links, dropping margins, dropping formatting, eating text, eating posts, and now it sucks more with a motherfucking upgraded editor? I'm paying $150 a year for this motherfucking suck? Fuckity, I can get all the motherfucking suck I want in this world for free (though if we want the 5% discount on next year's United season tickets we need to get it in by November, though I'm buying that motherfucking suck one way or the other).

Well, this is the last year I'm paying motherfucking typepad for the suck unless it's not. If I migrate I'll migrate slowly (I have eleven months of paid-for suck remaining), and once I figure out and format Blooger (which I'm told is still suckful though far less suckful than when it pissed me off in 2006, plus it has those cool self-updating blogrolls) or Wordpress, I'll cross-post both here and there for the first couple of months as I hassle you to update your bookmarks and blogrolls, though, knowing me, I'll probably spare you and me and just stay here and pay for and eat and spit my aargh for my daily aargh.

• Notice how the above is properly spaced from the text but is slightly off-center. Motherfucking typepad allows me one or the other. Oh, and they have no live-chat or phone help.
• Your country: operating procedures.
• Alternatives?
• World's Shittiest Human wetfarts, giggles.
• This guy is mighty shitty himself. (h/t)
• Spending priorities.
• On the Nobel in medicine.
• Shocking sensible.
• Duke winces! 
• Wordpress v Blooger? Thoughts?
• Purple Line, O'Malley, Ehrlich.
• Fuck Old Angler's Inn, which I've driven by literally hundreds, if not thousands of times, and never eaten once.
• Dredging Needwood.
• BLCKDGRD translated into Greek by someone in Athens googling images of eformeday eoplepay.
• You do know blogging is a metaphor for everything, yes?
• I never got the fuss over Ted Hughes' poetry.
• Pigs are pleased Vargas Llosa won Nobel.
• Albini v Sonic Youth, con't.
• Red Arc/Blue Veil.

LAWLESS PANTOUM

Denise Duhamel

Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals,
as long as the animals are female.
Having sexual relations with a male animal
is taboo and punishable by death.

As long as the fish are female
saleswomen in tropical fish stores are allowed to go topless.
Adultery is punishable by death
as long as the betrayed woman uses her bare hands to kill 
    her husband.

Saleswomen in tropical fish stores are allowed to go topless,
but the gynecologist must only look at a woman’s genitals 
    in a mirror.
The woman uses her bare hands to kill her husband,
then his dead genitals must be covered with a brick.   

The gynecologist must only look at a woman’s genitals 
    in a mirror
and never look at the genitals of a corpse—
these genitals must be covered with a brick.
The penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

A look at the genitals of a corpse
will confirm that not much happens in that region after death.
The penalty for masturbation is decapitation.
It is illegal to have sex with a mother and her daughter at 
    the same time.

To confirm what happens during sex,
a woman’s mother must be in the room to witness her daughter’s 
    deflowering,
though it is illegal to have sex with a mother and her daughter 
    at the same time.
It is legal to sell condoms from vending machines as long as

a woman’s mother is in the room to witness her daughter’s 
    deflowering.
Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals—
why it’s even legal to sell condoms from vending machines, 
    as long as
everyone’s having sexual relations with a male animal.

The number 41 greatest music act according to KEXP's silly-ass fund-drive gimmick list happens to have made another one of dozens of my five favorite songs ever:

Did You Know Washington DC Has a Professional Soccer Team?

I suspect United's regretful, naive, and blinkered owner Will Chang sees himself in a box: things won't get any better if he fires Kevin Payne and might get worse if he does. He's wrong, and the following implies directly that Kevin Payne, after a sixth consecutive season worse than the previous, has been rewarded with another year of unaccountability:

While United President Kevin Payne has stated that Olsen is likely to lead United someday, he has also suggested that Olsen lacks the experience to guide the club through these turbulent times. To Olsen's credit, the players have responded to his impassioned pleas to play for the badge and salvage something from this miserable year; unfortunately, their energy and commitment have failed to compensate for voids at several positions and terrible mistakes.

Heh, voids at several positions. LIKE EIGHT OF THEM!

Look, I'm not qualified to say whether Benny Olsen is ready to be a head coach, but you know who else isn't qualified to say?

It's a good thing the economy is as if not more fucked in every city United could move to than DC's. And that, fellow motherfuckers, is root and rube of our moral dice game....

It Would Seem Not Smart to Create a Color Scheme in a Motel Room That's Likely to Cause Impotence in Men and Open Sores in Women

Nick Cave is 53 today, which is serendipitously related to this post because all it takes is reading someone bleggalgaze to create a bleggalgazing cascade in my head that increases in intensity until I need release it and that Nick Cave song is this bleg's official Bleggalgazing Anthem.

I'm always wondering if I've stopped wondering about thinking about blegstopping because I clearly can't blegstop, but I can't stop wondering whether I could stop wondering if I'm thinking about wondering about thinking about blegstopping. Oddest days of my life; if everything's a metaphor for everything else... There's always this: Thanks for the Kind.

• Our overlords suck.
• UPDATE! Murderers, Cowards, Morons, and Thieves.
• Rich American fuckers fucking-up English football.
• UPDATE! Police and thieves.
• Should we kill and eat the rich?
• UPDATE! Even the kleptocracy has rules.
• The whining rich.
• UPDATE! Are catastrophes virtual?
• One and a half cheers for American decline!
• If Krugman's obamapostasy ever arrives it might be awesome, but he still thinks Obama's a fool, not a tool.
• Black Reagan Redux.
• UPDATE! Mutually-assured destruction.
• Obama and Palin in Archie.
• UPDATE! Kyrie Elision.
• *!hEh!* (h/t)
• Holy smokes.
• Same as it ever was.
• MattY.
• Look what I just got my hands on:

• Speaking of bleggalgazing, there is an odd vibe in Blegsylvania. September, January, June are always weird months as people's work/school/life cycles change and with it their viewing/posting routines, but I sense a weary withdrawal setting in, a withdrawing weariness.
• Speaking of bleggalg(r)azing, some new links over in New New Toys, and suggestions for new places are solicited.

• MOCOpolitics!
• Kiss and make nice.
• MPT pissed at O'Malley!
• Purple Line!
• Olde Towne!
• Wheaton!
• Virginia is for crackers.
• Yay!
• One could fit a soccer stadium into 39 acres.
• UPDATE! Eskandarian.
• What not to eat.
• Armed robber targeting shitty chain restaurants.
• Fight over present tense.
• Lots of Blanchot for those of you who Blanchot. I'll try again: where to start for best chance to stick?
• DJ El Toro's new book!
• UPDATE! Neocolonialism, Authenticity, and the Ethics of World Music.
• This week's new releases w/MP3.
• Cloudbusting.
• Pavement on Colbert.
• UPDATE! M emailed to say Joan Jett is 50 today and ask me to post this. Call me when you're in DC in October, please.
• Paco!
• UPDATE! Guilty pleasure.
• Mind you own business.
• UPDATE! Well well well.
• A&E.
• More Bill Nelson.
• Woke up with this in my head. Be in yours.

MOTEL SEEDY

Thomas Lux

The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem not smart to create
a color scheme in a motel room
that's likely to cause impotence in men
and open sores in women,
but that's what this puce bedspread
with its warty, ratty tufts could do. It complements
the towels, torn and holding awful secrets
like the sail on a life raft
loaded with blackened, half-eaten corpses . . .
I think I owned this desk once, I think
this chair is where I sat
with the Help Wanted ads spread and wobbling
before me as I looked for jobs
to lead me upward: to rooms
like this, in America, where I dreamed
I lived . . . Do I deprive tonight
the beautician and her lover,
a shower-head salesman, of this room?
He is so seldom in town.
I felt by their glance in the hallway
that my room, no. 17, means
something (don't ask me to explain this) special
to them. Maybe they fell fiercely
into each other here for the first time,
maybe there was a passion preternatural. I'm glad
this room, so ugly, has known some love
at $19.00 double occupancy--
though not tonight, for a dollar fifty less.

The Lack of Any Bed but One’s Music to Sleep In

I'm aarghful, and when I'm aarghful I want to write about Kind and unKind and I've promised myself to not write about Kind and unKind when aarghful, so here, a wrap-up of yesterday's MOCO primary results for those who've been playing along, plus a word of advice to DC United's Kevin Payne: make a congratulatory phone call to Vincent Gray today. I've no idea if Vincent Gray is any more interested in finding a site and a way to build a new stadium for United than Adrian Fenty was, but he certainly can't be less interested than Adrian Fenty.

UPDATE!

Well, Payne should call Gray, but probably a wasted gesture:

Challenger Vincent Gray isn’t offering any promises, either. The D.C. Council chairman was asked during a recent “social media” Q&A session what he was doing to keep D.C. United. Gray started out by claiming a “strong desire” to hold on to the team, but literally four seconds into his YouTubed answer, Fenty’s opponent in the upcoming primary appears to realize that he needn’t bother pandering to this bunch.

“Constructing a new stadium... is a very expensive proposition,” Gray said. “We’ve been in a recession. We just haven’t had the ability to pay for a stadium or contribute to a stadium because we’ve been investing our money in trying to keep the basic services in the city going.”

Rockville United? No. And Redgate would be impossible to get 20K people in and out of. You know what would work? That empty field across 355 from MoCollege; build a new (and needed) Metro stop that would serve MoCollege primarily and the stadium secondarily. Know what else? Fuck-Me Jig.

Meanwhile, self-remedying:

ORFEO

Jack Spicer

Sharp as an arrow Orpheus
Points his music downward.
Hell is there
At the bottom of the seacliff.
Heal
Nothing by this music.
Eurydice
Is a frigate bird or a rock or some seaweed.
Hail nothing
The infernal
Is a slippering wetness out at the horizon.
Hell is this:
The lack of anything but the eternal to look at
The expansiveness of salt
The lack of any bed but one’s
Music to sleep in.

Toronto 0, United 1

I didn't watch, forgive me. There was work to get done and then a social near work and goddamn Comcast, when they're broadcasting the game, won't let me stream games on my computer in these zip codes, plus it's thoroughly unimportant whether United or Toronto is shittier: they could play each other a thousand games and each would end on a thousand points.

I emailed Landru, guessed it was the 65th and a 0-0 score, and I was right then but wrong about the outcome; Julius James scored in the 85th and United won. In the interest of United, I am considering not staying up to watch United play Gax in Beckham's LA return next Saturday night at 10:30.

No one has asked me how I separate my politics and my soccer in years, which is wise because I do catch prisms off micro-fracturing in the mirror and might tell you about them. I don't pretend to disinterest for United like I pretend to disinterest for Democrats. United will get my money next season (if we pay by November 1 we can same $50 per ticket, yo), presuming the team is still in town.*

I pretend to disinterest for Democrats too, off course, but they won't get my beer money for the few games left this season and they won't get my money or votes next season when they'll still be a shitty team, and I like to pretend they'll never get my money or votes even again (while daring them to suck less like I dare me to purify my disinterest). 

*I've had more hits on fuck-me-jig over the past two weeks than all other guugle searches combined (please, speculate why), so that line is a blog-whore's nod to the statcounter...

United 2, Phunion 0

Sweetness, I never forget what a rush a pretty goal and the crowd's BWARG! gives me until the next one surprises me again.

But this was a game between two shitty teams, one building for the future with young but inexperienced talent, the other trying to rescue a lost past with retreads and castaways. One has a brand new stadium and an excited and burgeoning fan base, the other will play next year in RFK to diminishing attendance in quite possibly United's last season in DC.

Vamos United sure and yadda, but which franchise, if you were neutral and picking a team to rube for, would you?

Few bullets:

• I like Pablo Hernandez. I'm curious why MLS referees let opponents beat the fuck out of him without sanction. He took a kidney punch in the 73rd that was straight red and the referee either ignored it or ignored it.
• UPDATE! One friend whose opinion I trust says Hernandez is a tall Frank O'Neill, another says referees hate him cause he dives and then expects fucking Americans to respect the integrity of an Argentine footballer. Heh - that would also explain why he's getting punched in his kidneys.
• He was offside on his not-goal.
• Jakovic's best game since the last game his partner in the middle wasn't Carey Talley.
• Which doesn't mean he wasn't next to Julius James, who, no.
• A photo of the top of my hat and some of Landru's head with the traveling Phunion fans in the background. Click, yo.

• Thanks, Bromark.
• The shot was taken before the downpours. I left my United rain-jacket in the car, bought myself a dry new t-shirt at halftime. Your host is a dumbfuck.
• Jaime in around the 81st to meek applause, he almost scored on a bender either just before or after the 90th.
• Dying franchise, yo.
• Benny did come 2/3rds over after his TV interview to thank us. Thank you, Benny.
• I want to say Hi! to whomever reads me at MacFarlane Partners! Please tell who you report to that United should let us bring a liter of water in on mid-summer midday games like they've let us for years until today, OK?
• UPDATE! Posted for no greater or lesser reason than it's in my head and needs to be in yours.

An excellent time as always. Next home game Wednesday August 31 September 1 against Columbus in USOC semifinal. I'm told I might have access to two tickets, which would then cost you nothing. Will know by this Tuesday. I'm hoping I don't, but I'm looking at the usual suspects if I do.

Updates, edits, links, later. Or not.

United 1, Dallas 3

Keven Fucking Payne said:

"These things are never easy. Before the season, we agreed to talk in the summer and decide on the future. We wanted this to come out now so other teams, if they so choose, can recognize him and so our fans can say goodbye. We didn't think it would be appropriate after the season. He's deserving of a longer thank you."

Well, fuck you, me, and Jaime Moreno, who not only didn't start and wasn't the captain, he didn't fucking play. St Benny of Olsen is either an asshole or a coward. Kevin Fucking Payne is a petulant asshole and petty coward. Will Fucking Chang has no intention of keeping this team in DC one second longer than he can sell it or move it. Whether he's ordered the suck and deliberate alienation of the fans is now an open question.

Game summary: Suck. Suck suck suck suck suck, suck suck, suck suck suck. Suck suck suck suck suck suck suck. Suck.

Yes, I owe everyone pints.

Here's Landru. Here's Fullback.

End of Onalfo Era

To the surprise of no one, Kevin Payne blamed the players for United's performance and then fired Curt Onalfo, hiring Saint Benny of Olsen as interim coach. 

Someone had to be sacrificed: if the Salt Lake game this past Saturday proved anything, it's that not doing anything would be equivalent to the franchise quitting. When Perkins gacked that first soft goal, and what modest promise had been gained by the addition of Hernandez and Bošković trickled off Perkin's gloves, something, or rather, someone had to change, and the only viable option - Payne wasn't going to fire himself, he wasn't going to fire Kasper, he can't fire all the players - was Onalfo. Consider the logic:

Landru dances on Onalfo's grave, offers some graveyard-whistling worry for Benny, then gives in to Benny Love.

D briefly surfaces from his cubicle at Exploit Douche and Tool to praise Saint Benny and wonder if Payne and Kasper will reboot their practices, to which I say no.

As does Fullback, who calls this the easiest, most predictable, most cynical move Kevin Payne could and would make, to which I say yes.

As someone who one post down calls himself a motherfucking atheist with an addiction for religiosity, of course I swoon when I hear:

He brings fire and pride. He understands what the uniform means. He understands what it means to our fans...

but when I finish reading the whole quote

He understands what it means to our front office. He understands what it should mean to the players in the locker room. I am hoping that he will be able to constantly remind the players of that. There are some players in the locker room who don't understand what that means. Part of Ben's job is to remind them...

I remember I'm not a motherfucking atheist playing at religiosity, I'm a motherfucking rube juggling my giggles and my guilt.

Bless Saint Benny of Olsen, who no one held a gun to his head when he accepted the job of being fucked over by Kevin Payne, just as no one will hold a gun to my head when I renew my season tickets for next season.

The Bruise Will Stop By Later

When Boyzzz Khumalo mishit his 37th consecutive wide-open cross so poorly it fooled the Harrisburg keeper for a goal, Khumalo was dead-walking, and I'm not surprised at this:

Boyzzz Khumalo, a South African attacker who brought speed, energy and unpredictability to D.C. United's attack but had yet to score in eight MLS appearances this season, was released today.

The immediate reason is United needs space to sign Fredsux's brother Juniorsux:

Khumalo's departure is another sign that the club plans to add Junior Carreiro, a crafty flank player who has been training with the club for several months. Carreiro, 18, is the younger brother of former DCU starter Fred, now with the Philadelphia Union.

Fellowrubes, I don't think United is failing because ownership and management want United to fail, I think United is failing because ownership and management suck because they see no alternatives than doubling down on their suck, and you can't possibly understand the intricacies and complexities of the suck, much less suck better than them:

I understand fans. They want to blame somebody, they want it to be somebody's fault, and sometimes it is. But when you are in this position, it is a little self-indulgent to just say, 'Okay, we are going to blame him and he's going to take the fall for it and then everything is going to be fine.' What we are more worried about is trying to fix things right now.

What's Obama gonna do, fire himself? He's management. What's ownership gonna do, forfeit their holdings? You don't think ownership knows how much they suck, how deeply they're fucked, how little control, much less understanding, of the unleashed clusterfuck they have, you think they're going to give up their Swiss bank accounts and private Micronesian islands that don't have extradition treaties with the U.S.?

• Breaking the Goddamned Rules (I).
• Catch a falling empire.
• Fog of War, Rediva.
• Fucking Democrats.
• Henochowicz.
• UPDATE! Absence and presence.
• I was going to spit at vanden Heuval, but Ioz did it for me.
• An empathic civilization.
• UPDATE! Skip your facts.
• Not crushed, merely ignored.
• Despised and rejected.
• Bad behavior.
• The main difference between Europe and the USA.
• My future hell.
• All he ever wanted to do. Fucking humans.
• Happy story for when I'm despairing over fucking humans.
• George "The Animal" Steele in Frederick tonight!
• Of course it's a scam.
• Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.
• Booker long list.
• Daffy Duck in Hollywood.
• News for my friends who dig Josipovici.
• Forget fiction.
• This week's new releases w/MP3.

ANTICIPATED STRANGER,

John Ashbery

the bruise will stop by later.

For now, the pain pauses in its round,

notes the time of day, the patient’s temperature,

leaves a memo for the surrogate: What the hell

did you think you were doing? I mean . . .

Oh well, less said the better, they all say.

I’ll post this at the desk.

God will find the pattern and break it.

As promised: