futbol

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make an observation. I have a feeling this observation may anger some of you, but I must state it for the record. Soccer does not rock. Call it Football, Futbol, or Fukudome, but I’m here to say, that not only does it lack rock, it’s on the boring side. I watched the US vs. England match and it was pretty good. Some drama in there, but the average match just is not doing it for me. Show me a home run. A squeeze play. A strike out. Show me a long bomb. A bone crunching tackle. A deft catch and slick move for a TD. A long run from the line of scrimmage. Show me a breakaway goal. Somebody getting slammed into the boards. Some guys dropping the gloves and pounding the poop out of each other. These things rock. Soccer imho does not rock. It’s like the ball goes out of bounds all the time. The team can’t control the ball and when the ball is in the air, a bunch of people are jumping at it. Corner kicks are just not that exciting. It seems like nothing ever comes of them and when the team scores from a corner, it’s kinda flukey. It’s sorta like the US goal against England, nobody scores unless it’s some kind of mistake. That’s boring. I see skill out there, guys make stupid moves and leave a guy with his jock on the field. Ok. Then a second later that guy loses the ball and it gets kicked clear to the other side. Boring. I just don’t get why this is the world’s sport. Is it because it’s so simple? That must be it. All you really need is a ball. The dudes are in good shape, that’s for sure. I can see why women would watch. To me it’s like the human equivalent of gnip gnop. A bunch of guys kick a ball for 90 minutes and once in a while it goes in. Whoever gets luckiest in the game wins. I was way geeked up for the world cup, mostly cuz I can watch it at work. I’m still fired up for the US. Maybe that’s the deal, you need to have your team who you just totally pull for. It helps. I gave a crap about the US v England match. I wanted to beat those smug bastards at their own game. Well actually Soccer isn’t their game, what is? Torture? What game did Britain ever invent? Croquet? Whatever. I hope I didn’t offend my Soccer loving readers. I know I have at least 1. I need some 5 to 1 games. There’s just not enough scoring. I mean you watch something for 2 hours and the final score is 0-0? 1-1? Oh well.


I felt like crap all weekend. I started this Barry’s bootcamp workout. You’re supposed to do it for 30 days, it’s like p90x for old people or something. It’s actually pretty hard though. I dunno what my deal is, I got food poisoning last week and I thought I had it kicked. Then I did this workout on Sat, it was heavy legs. Then I felt like poo the rest of the day. I did my Sunday workout even though I woke up feeling like crap. I felt ok most of the day Sunday, but not 100%. There was no way I was gonna get up this morning and do it. Eff that. I took the day off. My legs were too sore. They still are. I hate that. The soreness when you just get back to working your legs is the worst, it’s the incentive to keep working them to avoid having the soreness again.


Yeah, so my weekend was pretty messed. I was having an ok day Friday, well not really. I was bummed and I don’t know why. I guess I just had a crappy day or maybe it was because I have this mystery illness. Anyway, I was looking for something to cheer me up. I went on emusic and was doing crappy busywork to redownload some stuff into itunes. Annoying crap that should be easy. I get to the Methadones, and I was like “Eureka.” I had a feeling that maybe the Methadones were gonna do a show before they go to Baltimore. Sort of a tune up. I go on the myspace page and I see the blog entry, “RIP Methadones 2000-2010.” They’re breaking up. Total bullshit. I should have known better, I was having a bad day; I should’ve waited and checked out the website another time. If you are asking yourself if I cosmically caused the Methadones to break up, the answer is yes. I’m joking. It still sucks though. I guess they are gonna do a last show sometime in Chicago and that should be pretty nuts and maybe they’ll play for like 3 hours, so I have that to look forward to.


I don’t want to take it personally, but my last crazy favorite new band also broke up. The Long Blondes. When I heard them, I was like, “OMG these guys are the next big thing.” I told everyone I knew that The Long Blondes were gonna be huge, and that they would be playing stadiums in the states someday. I loved them. Their first (basically) album, “Someone to drive you home.” Was on crazy heavy rotation for me. I was geeked when they released their second album. It was sort of a departure for them and they went with some quirky producer on it. Well it kinda sucked. No worries. They had many records to come. Plus, now they would tour. And tour they did. They came to the US. They were booked at Logan Square Auditorium. I got my tix in the presale. This thing was for sure gonna sell out. I don’t care if Rilo Kiley was playing that night, it doesn’t matter, The Long Blondes were coming to Chicago! I got to the show early, so I didn’t have to fight through the crowd. We walked right in. Not many people milling about. That’s cool. It was early. We went upstairs. Went straight to the bar, got a beer. Good call, get a buzz on before the line is too long to bother getting a beer. The opener came out. The place was basically empty. Just like 50-60 people when the place fit like 800. No worries, it’s smart to wait til after the opener to show up. It’s not so smart to wait til after the headliner is done though. Nobody showed up. Maybe like 100 people. I was shocked. The show was awesome, and I wasn’t really bummed that no one was there, so much as surprised. Well, two or three months later, the guitarist had a stroke or something and the band broke up. I don’t feel responsible for that one either.


The good news. Oh yeah, the good news. I knew there was good news. So when a band leaves you and goes to rock and roll Valhalla, a new band always comes to take its place. Last night I was going through the acts scheduled to play at Lollapalooza. Bands that I’ve heard of, but never heard. I went through a couple that kinda sucked. Then I stumbled upon…Hockey. I’m a fan. They’re sort of a strokes meets MGMT kind of thing. I don’t know if that is a fair assessment, but I’m a fan. The only problem, not on emusic. That’s a bummer. I guess I gotta breakdown and go to itunes, or…, dare I say it?...go to a music store and buy the cd. What an ancient concept, go to a music store, to buy a cd. What a lameass idea.