World Cup Final: Brazil 3, Germany 2

It's down to eight teams now in the tournament and, sadly, there are no real surprises in the quarterfinal line-ups. All the heavyweights are there: Germany, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, France, England. The only eyebrow raisers in the bunch are Portugal and Ukraine, but I don't expect either of them to advance.

I was saddened by the losses of Australia and Ghana, both of whom outplayed their opponents in the Round of 16. Ghana's 0-3 loss to Brazil was perhaps inevitable, but Ghana remained an entertaining and creative team until the end. Brazil played lazily, almost non-committedly, seeming content to literally walk around until the ball popped into view. Though it was the game that marked Ronaldo's record-breaking goal, it was Ghana that put in the more worthy performance. They will be a strong contender in 2010's South African games.

Australia played well against Italy, and really only lost because of what can only be called a brilliantly timed dive in the final seconds of stoppage time. I'm generally not a fan of players or teams who make the dive part of their gaming strategy (hello--or rather, goodbye--Paraguay), but Grosso's fall was the genius mark of a World Cup professional. Check out this defense of the dive by Austin Kelley for Slate, for an interesting argument (with which I strongly disagree).

I would have much rather seen Australia advance, if only to bring some fresh meat into the quarters, but it looks as if this will be another Cup dominated by European and South American teams. Ho-hum.

In other news, the backlash against the inane ESPN/ABC presentations is well underway. The NYT World Cup blog has posted a good article on the failure of North American broadcasters to field knowledgeable commentators and their annoying tendency to flash on-screen graphics that block the action. The comments on the post are pretty fun to read, too. In a recent letter to The Economist, my new favorite newsweekly magazine, Kenneth Enright of Greenwich, Connecticut writes:

SIR – Until the rules of soccer change to allow time-outs, which can cause the final five minutes of an NFL game to last half an hour, advertisers will not sponsor matches and they will not be broadcast.

Clearly, our national broadcasters (and pretty much every recliner jockey in the US) have a lot yet to learn about futbol. Maybe they're just not intellectually prepared for the Beautiful Game, as Bryan Curtis argues.

Meanwhile, I'm having my Brazilian national flag pressed and ready for July 9. I think Germany will score the final goal in the World Cup, but it will be a futile stab at the dominating Brazilians. Auf Wiedersehen, Germany!

"Nobody lingers like your hands on my heart." 

No More Rock & Roll Fun

Omigod, this sucks. I don't think I've been as upset about a band's demise since Kurt offed himself. Seriously, Sleater-Kinney is one of my favorite bands of the last 10 years, maybe second only to Radiohead. IMHO, they have never made a bum album and each one of their albums fucking rocks. This makes me want to cry.

If you're not familiar with the genius of this band, your education starts here. If you've never heard one of their albums, you've missed out on one of the premiere rock & roll bands of our age. Pick an album, any album, and hear what the radio has been holding back from you.

My favorite S-K album has always been whichever album came out most recently. They have consistently improved on their songwriting and delivery, becoming tighter and harder and more confident with each record. This is a sad day for rock & roll, and I am now totally depressed.

So long, girls. Thanks for 11 years of uncompromising independent music.

Road Trippin' with Mom

I recently spent the better part of four days (including the longest day of the year) in a car with my mother. Some observations:

• My mother knows exactly two words from every song played on the XM 70's channel. Unfortunately, she knows neither the exact placement of these words in the lyrics of the song, nor the key in which they should be sung. This does not prevent her, however, from belting out the two words repeatedly throughout the course of the entire song. I can only partially replicate the effect here, but imagine the pleasures of hearing these words over and over in a 3-4 minute interval: "Baby baby!" "Burn baby burn!" "Hot stuff!" "Money money money money!" [This last accompanied by what I can only presume are my mother's approximations of how Donald Trump dances when sitting in a car seat.] At one surreal moment, the two words my mother knew were "desolation row."

• My mother has mastered the dubious art of non-sequiter conversation non-starters. Some examples: "When I get home, I'm going to start stocking up on canned peas"and "Goodbye, trees!" and "There's not much to look at here" (stated while driving through Nevada) and "I like to eat a handful of nuts everyday" and etc.

• My mother seemed OK with the idea of me driving at speeds above and beyond the posted limit, but had a very difficult time with any lateral motion of the vehicle (i.e., passing). Whenever I changed lanes to get around a tractor trailer or (more often) a Utah driver, she would let out a gasp of clenched air while clutching for dear life to the nearest handle or seat or belt. At first, this behaviour was rather distracting and somewhat annoying, but it later became quite a source of amusement for me, much like spitting on an anthill or hiding candy from children. (What can I say? It was a long drive.)

• Items my mother felt were necessary to bring on the drive from Utah to California: 1 roll of paper towels, 1 can of mixed nuts, 6 oranges, 4 peaches, 1 bunch of grapes, 4 bananas, 2 coolers filled with ice, 4 Lunchable Snack Packs, 4 bottles of water, 3 cans of diet soda, 1 pack of gum, 1 can of Pringles (imprinted with trivia questions), and a leftover dinner salad in a styrofoam container. No chance of starvation or scurvy on this voyage, then.

• My mother should not be allowed to handle, dispense, or carry cash money. During brief stops at places with gambling machines, she could not walk past any row of them without "playing" at least $5. If the machine did not accept her bill, she would add bills of consecutively higher face value until one was accepted. As far as I was able to calculate, her total winnings during these gaming intermissions amounted to exactly $0.00. On my birthday, she felt absolutely certain that I needed to have a refrigerator magnet advertising the name of the casino we had stopped at in order to use the washroom facilities (cost of magnet: $2.95). Needless to say, I expect no inheritance whatsoever.

• My mother has a confused concept of interstate travel. While driving on California's I-5, I made the tactical error of telling her we would be passing through Medford, Oregon. When she started seeing exit signs for Medford, she kept looking at me expectantly. "Aren't we supposed to be going through Medford?" she would ask. "Why aren't we going to Medford?" I briefly toyed with the idea of leaving her in Medford forever, but my better nature prevailed.

• It's difficult to be an aggressive driver when one's mother is in the passenger seat. I found myself driving at uncharacterisitically safe speeds, waving hands instead of fingers at my fellow travellers, and scrambing to create less profane ways of expressing my frustration with the incompetent drivers surrouding me. Suprisingly, I eventually found this mode of travel rather relaxing. I felt free, like in that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer paints wider lanes on the road.

There are few better ways of getting to know a person than to spend a few days in a moving vehicle together. Though I can't say the journey was entirely relaxing, I at least had the comfort of knowing that, had I not gone with her, my mother would have attempted the journey alone, at the mercy of far less forgiving souls than mine. There was also the added advantage of knowing that the final stage of the journey, from her home to mine, would be made with only a loud stereo as my companion. Safe at last.

Dead Again

Take a good look at the men at the left and right in this photo. These are the two guys who were supposed to save US soccer and advance the USA national team into the Round of 16. Instead, after today's demoralizing result against Ghana--Ghana!--the USA is, once again, heading home without a single victory in World Cup competition.

It's clear from today's result that a lot has to change in the structure of US Soccer. For one thing, it's time for Bruce Arena to find a new line of work. His reliance on tired formations and fond memories of former star players against world-class heavyweights like Italy (not to mention berating his players by name at post-game press conferences) is an indication that this man is out of ideas. He should be fired.

Anyone remember Landon Donovan? The Great White Hope of US Soccer and Golden Boy of MLS? If anyone is still willing to speak the name of this overhyped starter after today's game, it will have to be accompanied by a sad head shake or (my choice) a well-placed gob spat in contempt. It's clear that Donovan is not, and perhaps never will be, prepared for international competition. He's clearly a fish out of water at the World Cup level, having never scored a goal. Send him back to L.A. where he can enjoy the fruits of being a big, smelly fish in a small, fetid pond.

It was a good day for Australia, however, and an even better one for Ronaldo, who is now tied for the World Cup scoring record. There are a lot of great games ahead; the next one I'm looking forward to is Ghana's match-up with what seems like an unbeatable Brazilian team. No one expected Ghana to make it this far, but they've been playing some very stylish futbol. They will go out with dignity and true national glory, unlike our boys.

Anyway, please do me a favor and never speak the names Bruce Arena or Landon Donovan in my presence until the Cup is decided. And maybe not even after that. Those goats are dead to me now.

39 Is Beautiful

Thank you, Nicole, for reminding me that we share so much more than just a birthday.

The Fertile Crescent

Crescent City, California (my birthplace) is a hell of a place to contemplate mortality. Just outside of town resides a collection of some of the oldest living creatures on the planet; trees that, despite the best efforts of humanity to tear them all down, tower over their surroundings like narrow wooden skyscrapers. On the other edge of town lies the Pacific Ocean, steadily pounding the offshore rocks into dust.

It was one of Crescent City's beaches I went to alone on the day before my grandmother, my last living grandparent, died. It was the same beach I went to when my uncle died, some years ago, and it is the same beach where I want the ashes of my body to be scattered. The beach doesn't hold any particularly strong emotional memories for me, although it is the first place I remember encountering a corpse--the washed-up body of a sea lion that attracted my attention at first because it looked like it was still alive and moving, though this movement turned out to be the burrowing of what must have been thousands of maggots into the sea lion's remains. It is an image I have never forgotten, and remains one of my strongest associations with that particular beach.

The reason I want my ashes to be scattered there is because it is one of the few places I have ever been to where you can feel truly alone, as we all are at the moment of death. Alone, despite the beach's location near a major interstate, a hotel, a seafood restaurant, and innumerable tourists. Alone, despite the often dozens of people (surfers, walkers, campers, children, dogs, hitchhikers, junkies) that can be found wandering the beach at any given time. As anyone who has lived near the ocean knows, the incessant and hypnotic crash of the surf can drown out as much of the outside world as you might wish, in much the same way (though perhaps less voluntarily) that death does.

At some point during my walk, I sat on some errant piece of driftwood and stared at the surf, the gulls, and the setting sun for what seemed like hours. The wind was kicking up sand, driving it into the surf and into my face. I like the thought of my dust getting into someone's face, or some kid's castle, or some rotting sea-lion's corpse. It seems like a tolerable way to spend eternity, though the beach's very existence is testament to the sad fact that nothing is eternal, not even stone or land.

My grandmother left specific instructions after her death: no epitaph, no burial, no service, no memorial, no stone. She wished to be cremated and have her ashes placed beneath a blooming rose.

I will write more about her later, but let me say this now: she was one of the strongest women I have ever met. When I held her hand days before her death, it felt like a piece of bark from a redwood tree--soft, damp, easily torn. But the woman I knew in my childhood seemed as unyielding as the offshore rocks or the thick trunks of those redwoods.

Though I was born there, Crescent City is a town that has beaten many people. Though it has many charms, it is not a particularly forgiving locale. And this week, as I watched the sun bleed into the ocean and the sand being battered and whipped by surf and wind, for the first time, I felt like the town had beaten me. I don't think I'll be back for a while.

Billy Preston, 1946-2006

You Gotta Have Somethin'

If you're any kind of music fan, I'm guessing you have at least one of these albums in your collection:

The Beatles: Let It Be
The Beatles: Abbey Road
The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street
The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers
Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks
Sly & the Family Stone: There's a Riot Goin' On
George Harrison: All Things Must Pass
John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band

These are all classic albums and important milestones in the development of rock & roll. The common denominator among them? Billy Preston performed on all of them.

Aside from his musical talents, Preston was also the guy who managed to hold the Beatles together for their final two albums, and was also the only artist to ever share a label credit with the band. He's also the only musician to ever play with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Preston continued to show up on other important albums throughout his career, though you might be hard pressed to recall the title of any of his albums. He did have a number of hits of his own, but his most important contribution to music was perhaps as a sideman, one of the preeminent studio musicians in rock history. Preston continued to work until he fell into a coma late last year. Among his recent work, he appeared on the latest albums from Neil Diamond and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as on the final album from Ray Charles.

My favorite of Preston's performances are his keyboard solo on "Get Back," a break that brought McCartney's song back to life when he was close to abandoning it, and Preston's song from 1973, "Will It Go Round in Circles," which I used to hear on the school bus radio and was one of the first R&B numbers I was exposed to as a kid.

You can read more about Preston's accomplishments here and here and here. Preston deserves more widespread recognition. He was a truly joyous performer, inflecting the songs he played with a distinctive and vital touch. The variety of performers he has worked with is a testament to Preston's versatility and personality. Who else could manage to work with each of the Beatles in the wake of their acrimonious split? Who else has played on so many classic albums, yet remains largely unrecognized by the general public? Preston was an important and influential musician, and rock & roll will be poorer without him.

Mormons in the News

Couple of interesting items from last Sunday's papers:

Ever wonder if anyone still supports Bush in two-digit numbers? Look no further than the Beehive State, where Bush enjoys an approval rating at or above 50%. (Surely it's only a coincidence that a prominent religious leader in the state is rumoured to be operating a human incinerator.) One BYU student--a junior, no less--is quoted as saying, "I'm not sure of anything he's done, but I like that he's religious — that's really important."

So much for critical thinking. If Clinton had only had a Bible on hand while he was getting his wood smoked, maybe Utahns would have repealed the 22nd Amendment!

Seriously, this kind of shit is embarassing. The fact that the article appeared on the front page of the NYT doesn't help matters. On the other hand, maybe we get the government we deserve. And maybe Jesus will show up tomorrow, only to be immediately detained by Homeland Security and interrogated on his past activities in the Middle East. "Where was that goddamn hippie on 9/11?", I can hear a beleaguered Tony Snow grumble off-mike. "The President has been fighting terrorism here since Day One."

Closer to home, the SLTribune speculates on what Mormons will do if political gadfly Mitt Romney isn't given his due by the Republicans come primary time. Will Mormons abandon the Party and join the Democrats for a protest vote? Will Romney offer even more obsequious excuses to the LDS leadership for distancing himself from Utah so quickly? Is is possible that Utah voters might pause to think before they cast their next vote? Stay tuned for the Final Days, suckas.

Pretty on the Inside

Schrand, goddamn him, over at Chronicle West, wants to play tag. I'm game this time, but only because I feel guilty for not posting regularly of late. So, without further ado, here are my innards (Or, as Lynyrd Skynyrd would have it, "innyrds." Did you know that band made a Christmas album in 2000? I didn't, until I looked up their web page to find out how they spelled "innards." Isn't the internet great?):

Fridge:
At the moment (which I guess is the whole point of this thing), there's an awful lot of booze in there. Two cases of Cutthroat Pale Ale and a bunch of Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay malt coolers (I'm drinking one now. Fruity!). The coolers are left over from a bachelorette party Dina attended in Vegas two weekends ago, and the beer was a belated housewarming gift. Hey, it gets hot here in the summer. It's good to have lots of, er, rehydrating options.

Wallet:
All the usual stuff, plus a lot of credit cards that don't work any more because they are either maxed out or I haven't made a payment for a while. (The Mortgage. It kills dreams and credit in one fell swoop.) I also have a laminated 15% tip guide, a bookstore charge card for Bowling Green, a Best Buy Reward Zone card, a Graywhale CD membership card (for the discount), a VIP customer card from Sullivan's Cafe (only six stamps away from a $20 discount), a library copy card (also from BG), a bunch of video rental cards, two different university ID's (to get me into frat parties), and a laminated "certificate of training" authorizing me to operate "pallet trucks, tow tractors, and fork lifts" (which I "earned" by watching a 20-minute safety video at the IRS). I also have a yellow Post-It attached to one of the inner pockets with my mailing address and office phone number written on it. (The memory, she is not so good.) About the only thing you won't find in my wallet is cash.

Closet:
I have a lot of closets now. Today I was looking at the ungodly number of space shuttle mission t-shirts I have. I have a shirt for every mission since construction began on the ISS. They're all in a big box on the floor because they take up too much space on the shirt rack. On the top shelf of the bedroom closet is my videotape library of episodes of Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Please, make me an offer.

Car:
On the back seat, two big garbage bags full of plastic recyclables. (You know, just doin' my part.) In the back window, a large plush Hulk (to scare away hipsters). An XM radio station guide. Remote control for the stereo (I only use it for the mute button). There's a small action figure of Data somewhere in there. Also bubble gum and a phone recharger.

Night stand:
On the night stand itself, there is only a clock radio, a florescent light, and a water glass. Beneath the night stand, however, are several large stacks of books and magazines. The stack closest to the night stand (the "active" stack) contains Bleak House by Charles Dickens, a book on iPods, Eric Foner's history of the Reconstruction, and Light in August by William Faulkner. Also current issues of Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The Big Takeover, and The Economist, which I've just started liking.

Here's hoping this tedious list of minutiae will discourage Schrand from tagging me for a while. Ah, who am I kidding? I love shit like this.

 

About a Cat

"Bisco," supposedly, is a Spanish term meaning "cross-eyed," which the kitten my brother brought home one day certainly was. His early life was one of daily torment administered by our older cat, who saw Bisco as an intruder. Bisco found a hiding place in the torn upholstery beneath our family sofa, and we would often have to fish him out of the couch's interior.

Though this was perhaps not an ideal beginning in a new home, Bisco eventually came to outlive the older cat. In fact, he outlived a great many things and preceeded many more components of my life, including college and marriage. Other than family members, there are few people I have stayed close to for as long as Bisco has been around. We certainly came to know him as well, or better than, any human: his yowls, the curious way his eyes would transform before he went on one of his manic attacks--biting feet and running across furniture, his insistence on being escorted to his food dish before eating.

In later years, he was shuffled around a bit as our family scattered apart. For a time, he was under my "care" at the same time I was going to school and working full-time. It was during this period that he lost most of his remaining teeth. But he survived this indignity, as well as the stress of changing living conditions every six months or so with my mother as she struggled to find a home. In the end, he belonged to her more than anyone, but my brother and I freely claimed him as our own whenever we saw him. His personality, his attitude, his expressions were as recognizable to us as any human's.

Though often surly, he was well-loved. I often compared his personality traits to my own. In an e-mail to some friends, I once wrote:

". . .my cat is so deranged that I'm sure he would bite me (albeit with a toothless mouth) if I ever tried to put anything on him. My cat is old and crazy and doesn't have any time for anyone who doesn't have an open can of food in hand. My cat doesn't even bother to chase birds or mice anymore. He just immobilizes them with a look of complete contempt and disdain, as if to say, 'It's not worth my time to deal with you, you douchebag bird.' My cat is a thankless self-absorbed bastard, and I think I would put him in a home if we weren't so much alike."

Bisco was a constant source of amusement and an occasional source of unconditional, mutual love. He was more reliable company than most people I know, and shared my uneasiness with strangers.

He was put down yesterday after 22 years. 22 years! Human/animal age comparisons are usually spotty, but even this credible-looking chart only plots cat age up to 19 years (86 years to you). I've known that cat longer than pretty much anyone I hang with now.

I feel about pets (dogs and cats) the way some people feel about children (usually their own): it seems inexplicable to me that one would want to live without them. In a way, it also seems selfish. I've had pets since I was a child, and Bisco was my last. Life without them, him, seems needlessly empty and sad, like an unplayed instrument.

I once read a great story by Connie Willis titled "The Last of the Winnebagos." It's been a while since I read it, so the plot details are spotty in my memory, but I vividly remember one of the background details of the story. In the near-future world in which the story takes place, dogs have become extinct due to a virus. Most of the characters in the story carry around photos of dogs and cats they had as children, before the virus struck. Near the end of the story, two of the characters exchange a few lines that go without explanation, but the context of the conversation is immediately clear. The first line of the conversation is, "I miss them."

I miss all of my pets: the dog that jumped from the back of a camper onto a busy highway, the dog who was taken to the shelter because we couldn't take him where we were going, the cat that vanished one day and never returned, the cat that left white fur all over my records, the dog that was killed in front of my house, the cat that bit my foot and yowled outside the door and who survived any number of transitions that would have destroyed a lesser animal. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you miss them, too.

Go 'side, Bisco. Go play.