startin' off sweet, endin' her sour

Even if you didn't necessarily need it, it's definitely nice to be reminded of why exactly you chose to devote unscrupulous time, love, thought, and effort towards something so supplementary and perhaps even pointless, depending on your worldview. I'm afforded these moments almost daily on a wide-scale level with sports (see above picture), but as my mania is dominated around the (traditionally) white ball with a dozen black pentagons (and the brown grooved ball with black trim - probably more so), Chelsea-Inter at the Rose Bowl a turn of the moon ago was about as good a reminder as could possibly be received stateside.

Pictures (and a recap, I'd presume) are forthcoming, though their quality can be aptly-titled "cell-phone", as my fully charged camera decided to, for lack of a better term, take a big ol' shit about 10 minutes in. But what I'd like to hit on now is this; if but one negative thought crept into my dome after the game, it was the echo of Max Breto's voice in my head, raping and pillaging a similarly-regal billing between two heavyweights during a Champions League game on FSC this next campaign. I don't know who'll see this, but if somebody, anybody can hear me, please, PLEASE do not let FSC roll out the same dog-and-pony shtick for, say, Liverpool-Chelsea (surest bet) that they do for a beach soccer game in July. And I swear, if I hear somebody "released the Kraken" during an important fixture, I'll drive over to headquarters on Sepulveda and use the one arson conviction one gets in life that I was gonna save for Al Davis' house (a once-proud Raiders fan who now can't even watch the NFL thanks to him speaking) and burn that mother to the ground. Just kidding. I think.



Also, nary an opinion from these fronts on The Beckham Experiment (cover-to-cover on Monday, a day well-spent as far as I'm concerned), other than I hope Becks ventured further into LA's vast fast (or relatively-abbreviated or not-exactly-what-you-would-call-a-sit-down-restaurant-even-though-you're-sitting-down) food establishment vortex than god damn In'n'Out. Or was he too busy picketing pharmacies with Tom Cruise to assimilate himself properly?

Oh, and if this is what it takes to get soccer a damn Hollywood Square on ESPN, I'd rather it stay a fucking niche sport.

And finally, just for good measure, fuck Brett Favre.

paulo nagamura, née nagasaki

This, at least in terms of the Galaxy, must be their Potsdam Declaration. The comparison is high-flown and a tad cliché, but I wonder if the next two weeks before Beckham Airlines touches down, for what'll probably be his last hurrah out Californee way (to play, mind you), there won't be just the slightest hint of equal parts dread and malaise sifting through LA's ashy streets, not unlike the assumed in Japan in early August, nineteen forty-and-five. If only because it'd be impossible not to catch some remnants of the contagion coming from the Home Depot Center and the Galaxy operation. Transitively, I probably shouldn't attend any Chivas games for a while, huh?

Should've seen this coming, too, now that I think about it. I didn't understand this celebration at the time, but now I think I at least marginally do; Landon is barking at - amongst countless, but perhaps most importantly - Becks, in terms he knows Daay-vid can understand, and almost with an upturned, I'm-Ron-Burgundy? inquisitive tone. As though he wasn't sure if he should say it but remembered that the book's coming out anyway, so fuck it, I am lion, and I am rarely lion, so hear my ass hereby roar. And so he with both hands pointed to the 10 on his chest and was brief: "Me? Me?!! ME!" - and you know what? He's right - if there's one thing everyone can agree on after the Confederations Cup (and it could well be the only thing), it's that Landon is indeed Wayne-and-Garth worthy - or, in his eloquent own terms, "Him? Him?! HIM!!".



I'm not feigning any predictions, because I honestly and simply don't know what's going to happen. I think "Kobe during the 2nd half of Game 7, first round against the Suns, 2006" would be my best guess, but that night is close to if not is the bane of my LA-based sporting existence; why the hell would I root for that to happen anywhere else, especially in such close proximity? Its only gonna hurt soccer's rep stateside more, too, that boulevard; it's just not worth it to be cynical here. I can safely predict there won't be a mushroom cloud over the HDC on the 16th, and I don't think anything catastrophic has the chance to happen, short of the chorus of elitist, inebrieated Beckham catcallers, who'll never be louder...but I mean, the US National Team did just end the longest unbeaten streak in the sport's antiquity. Stranger things did and can happen. But until then and for right now, I'll choose imagining Becks on the jet to LAX squinting out the window at the sea, thinking it profound and not knowing why, and humming a certain Wyclef tune to himself, slyly replacing the "till" in the song's title to "in". You dig?