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:

United 0, San Jose 2

The Moreno/McDonald incident that led to the red cards in the 8th minute was off-ball, so I didn't see it, and you know who else didn't see it? Alex Prus, the referee, who, after consulting with a side-line ref who was at least 40 yards from the incident, red-carded both players. Maybe the players deserved it - TV replays only show the elbow to Jaime's head - but the bigger question is why would MLS assign Alex Prus to a DCU game just two weeks after Alex Prus shit the bed at RFK?

The man in the middle was referee Alex Prus, who, just two weeks ago, tossed both coaches during the United-Houston Dynamo match at RFK Stadium. United officials were baffled as to why Prus was working another one of their games so soon. On a side note, after tonight's match, Prus hosted a previously scheduled seminar upstairs at RFK for, I believe, local fans and refs.

What a motherfucking rinkydink league.

Not that it mattered. United was never going to score, San Jose was going to score eventually  - the most interesting aspect of the TV replay is listening to the contempt The Bowtie, who usually is such a fucking homer, had for both United's offense and defense. (Maybe it was because Dave Johnson, who is a bigger homer than The Bowtie, wasn't on the call and The Bowtie felt liberated.) Listen to The Bowtie scold Graye for Wondolowski's first goal, scold the entire defense for Wondolowski's second goal, listen to Tony Linarzi and The Bowtie berate Pablo Hernandez for dancing in the box rather than take an open shot - I'm told to STFU about Hernandez until he's surrounded by better players and can be fairly accessed, and I like his motor, I like his first touch, but shoot the fucking ball.

And Troy Perkins, who had no chance on the first San Jose goal but was fully responsible for the second, thank you, you were the only United player who as much as clapped at LOUD SIDE! after the game, who actually walked over and into the crowd. United sucks - and I mean SUCKS! - and we're still there. Which makes them ingrates, which makes us rubes.

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:

Colorado 0, United 1

United never won in Denver when they were good, go figure they win in Denver when they suck (and thank you for sucking in front of an open net, Drew Moor).

I'm ambivalent whether Saint Benny of Olsen should be given the head coaching job in full, but these half-talents bust their ass for him. Colorado's to blame that they assumed all they need to is show up to win, but United won the majority of 50-50s, acted like the team that wanted to win more, and that's to Benny's credit. Whether Benny is ready to coach a team of superior talent to championships is an open question - whether Benny is ready to develop a young team into superior talent is an open question - but this team works harder for him than they ever did for Tom Soehn or Curt Onalfo.

Najar is special, and he seems to know how to avoid taking shots; the only concern I hear about Najar is his size vis a vis standard MLS brutality. He was clearly, demonstrably, the best player on the field. Another bump-up for Quaranta, better but still so-so for Bošković, but Pablo Hernandez, oy: gacks a sitter in the 78th minute then dives and fakes an injury. Get up, chunker.

And O! Who knew Colorado was so fun to hate? I mean sure, fuck Pablo Mastroeni (I'm still angry about the stupid red card v Italy in WC06), and fuck Conor Casey, but adding fucking Jeff Larentowicz and fucking Wells Thompson? Fuck Colorado.

Three games left, two at home, next Saturday v San Jose then Chicago on the road (remember when a late season game v Chicago was big?) then finale a week later at RFK v Toronto. There's a chance United could catch Ningland or Chivas and not be the shittiest. Yay! Ambition!

Soon Your Dear Ones Will Hide in a Closet When They Hear Your Heavy Step on the Porch and Then Your House Will Slide into Disrepair

Dear Cowardly Emailer clever enough to send an email without return address (not that I'd have emailed you; I remark only on your cowardice),

Why yes, this blog does suck, thank you. I've always said so. I don't know what I want this crappy blog to be, funny or serious, happy or angry, light or heavy, conciliatory or accusatory, open-minded or parochial, honest or disingenuous, coherent or incoherent, rude or ruder, loud or louder, self-aggrandizing or self-scourging, informative or white noise, etc.... but I do know that I don't want this blog to be either funny or serious, happy or angry, light or heavy, coherent or incoherent, conciliatory or accusatory, open-minded or parochial, honest or disingenuous, rude or ruder, loud or louder, self-aggrandizing or self-scourging, informative or white noise, etc... 

These are the funniest, most serious, happiest, angriest, lightest, heaviest, most in need of conciliation, most necessarily accusatory, most open-minded, most parochial, most honest, most disingenuous, most coherent, most incoherent, the rudest, loudest, most self-aggrandizing, most self-scourging, most informative, the most static-filled white-noised days of my life. I'm canary, I'm weathervane, I'm Cassandra, I'm Fool. That you took the trouble to tell me this crappy blog sucks is a sign this crappy blog is suc(K)ceeding at some level. My thanks are not either/or either.

• Mehgahfeh. That felt good. That felt shitty.
• UPDATE! Fuck, I'm bypassed again.
• Poll!
• Hated.
• Liars, every one of them.
• It's not Left v Right, it's You v Corporations.
• Welfare.
• More thoughts on the thought police.
• Education as indoctrination.
• Obama's hit squad.
• God's left hand.
• It's official!
• UPDATE! Bye, Rahm, and fuck you too.
• Stone walls and steel bars.
• Holyfuck.
• UPDATE! Holyfuck, part two.
• See you in hell.
• UPDATE! Marketing and capitalism. 
• White America has lost its mind?
• Company men.
• It's this simple.
• My job's best perk:

• What do we tip waiters for?
• Ambulance-fee back on ballot. If anyone blegs a passionate post detailing the reasons to vote against the fee, I'll link. Alternatively, if that person wants to find his passionate comment detailing the reasons to vote against the fee downblog, I'll link to that.
• Good luck w/that, Gaithersburg.
• Marylanders want gambling.
• Weirdest weather year of my life.
• Asshole endorses asshole.
• Size-driven rivalry.
• Allsopp 2011?

• Gahfehmeh.
• What are books good for? "My best answer is that books produce knowledge by encasing it. Books take ideas and set them down, transforming them through the limitations of space into thinking usable by others. In 1959, C.P. Snow threw down the challenge of "two cultures," the scientific and the humanistic, pursuing their separate, unconnected lives within developed societies. In the new-media ecology of the 21st century, we may not have closed that gap, but the two cultures of the contemporary world are the culture of data and the culture of narrative. Narrative is rarely collective. It isn't infinitely expandable. Narrative has a shape and a temporality, and it ends, just as our lives do. Books tell stories. Scholarly books tell scholarly stories."
• Against the Day. I've found myself thinking about it more than I thought I would when I finished my second read a couple of months ago, mostly about Cyprian Latewood, his entire story but especially his epiphany in Bulgaria. The more I think about it, for all the Vibes, Traverses, Rideouts, Chums, and Highcourts, Cyprian may be the key character.
• UPDATE! Heh! Damn, now Jim's pissed at the realities of the world. Those of you guitar players who read this shitty blog, can The Situation's CD release be far away?
• Lit links.
• New Carl Dennis!
• Buggles.
  
• That'll do for lunch.
• Beyond Fitz and the Tantrums, the youngsters are listening to Frankie Rose and the Outs. Again, it's perfectly fine listening, but new rock going retro, not forward.
• Guilty pleasure.
• I would have bet Feist would be famous by now.
• UPDATE! Ear-candy!
• Guilty pleasure.
• Woke up with this in my head, my favorite REM song.
• Which has since been replaced by this guilty pleasure.
• UPDATE! Yay! Now this is in my head.

A MAXIM

Carl Dennis

To live each day as if it might be the last
Is an injunction that Marcus Aurelius
Inscribes in his journal to remind himself
That he, too, however privileged, is mortal,
That whatever bounty is destined to reach him
Has reached him already, many times.
But if you take his maxim too literally
And devote your mornings to tinkering with your will,
Your afternoons and evenings to saying farewell
To friends and family, you’ll come to regret it.
Soon your lawyer won’t fit you into his schedule.
Soon your dear ones will hide in a closet
When they hear your heavy step on the porch.
And then your house will slide into disrepair.
If this is my last day, you’ll say to yourself,
Why waste time sealing drafts in the window frames
Or cleaning gutters or patching the driveway?
If you don’t want your heirs to curse the day
You first opened Marcus’s journals,
Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off,
Or, better yet, two tickets, as if you were hoping
To meet by then someone who’d love to join you,
Two seats near the front so you catch each note.
 

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....

United 1, Houston 3

Why was Branko Bošković signed? This isn't snark: was he bought thinking he'd help this team this year or was he bought with an eye to the team that will be rebuilt out of the ruins of this one? I have no faith it's the latter: I think Kasper Payne, in a sad effort to rescue a deeply shitty team, panicked and splashed money and a designated player tag on a player who may be perfectly useful on the left-wing but who isn't a ten no matter how much United wants him to be.

Najar is wonderful. He will be in Europe when United is good again. Maybe the next coach's system takes advantage of Bošković's skills. The Quaranta-meter is clocking upward; he's responded positively to wearing the Captain's band. Everyone else on the field last night will be elsewhere or on the bench or out of the league when United is good again. There's a new category that will be used until his shut-the-fuck-upness is off this team. And how's that Jaime Moreno farewell tour going?

And lost in the shuffle of MLS expansion and its consequent importation of ever more mediocre soccer players is the concurrently consequent importation of ever more mediocre referees. Alex Prus is one of the top three or four MLS referees and is a ridiculous assclown. He doesn't cost teams victories, he costs teams injuries. 

Update, links, edits, later. Or not.