Whose Shake Is This!!?

Germany 4    England 1

They played like dopey wankers. They were old, they were fat, they were slow, they were a bit too full of themselves as individual stars to play together as a team, and in the end, they were sent packing back to England by a younger, quicker German squad. Sure, Lampard got cheated out of a goal that would have equalized the match in the first half. But nothing in England’s play throughout this match and most of the World Cup gave any indication of team that could win, when necessary, at any cost. They had talent, but not the right talent. They had stars, but as well as Rooney, Terry, Lampard, Garrard and the rest play for their Premier League clubs, putting them together on the same team was not going to get the job done. They were star-crossed from the get go….from the John Terry/Wayne Bridge drama ahead of the World Cup to Wayne Rooney’s petulance on the pitch. And even though they showed some heart on occasion, they really honestly played like a bunch of dopey wankers.

England might have been served just as well or better if they’d sent an NPower League 1 team out there….the Milton Keynes Dons, or Dagenham & Redbridge. Heh. They might as well have…at least there would have been more team spirit.

But….it takes more than just team spirit to win…

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7601 W. Hampton Ave.   Milwaukee WI

I just flew in from Pocono and boy are my arms tired. It was a hell of a week I’m here to tell you. If I ever had to live my life over again, I’d do it overseas I swear to God. And speaking of God, he sneezed the other day and I didn’t know what to say. But I guess it wasn’t all bad this week though….enroute from Pocono I stopped off in Milwaukee and did a good deed. I helped this Polish gentleman from Cudahy who locked his keys in his Buick…it took us about an hour, but we got his wife out just fine, no worse for wear. So a good deed done. Scout’s honour.

Alright alright…Pocono…the Gilette Fusion Pro-Glide 500 at the famed, triangle shaped superspeedway at Long Pond. And Mr. Pocono himself, Denny Hamlin won. He pretty much owns the joint and if my mother-in-law wasn’t so mad at me over squandering her money on the last race, I DEFINITELY would have put ALL of her money on Mr. Hamlin to win. And he did. And my mother-in-law would have been so proud. But…alas, I have no more of her money to invest in the sporting life.

But the beauty of the race was in it’s aftermath. And no, not the burnouts and the victory lane celebration. Nope. The beauty was on pit row after the race when young Joey Logano came steaming up in #20 Home Depot Toyota to That Lout Kevin Harvick’s #29  Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet to have a few words with the lout. Words like: “Que le fait de baiser est votre problème baisant, l’imbécile ?!! Words like: “Mi a fasz van a kibaszott probléma, seggfej?!” Words like: “Bu da ne lanet sorun olduğunu, pislik?!” Words like:  “Was das Bumsen Ihr Scheißproblem, Arschloch ist?!!” Words like: “Kas fuck ir jūsu jāšanās problēma, asshole?!”   Words like……okay, you get the idea. Joey was completely justified in his attempt to have spirited chat with Harvick….although said chat was thwarted by older, larger and more brutal men. After a few words like: “Beth oedd y meddwl fucking asshole dwp?!” and: “Apa itu berfikir bodoh sialan brengsek?!” and a little faux bitch-slapping, Logano was led away to his hauler by a few cooler heads in his crew.

What made Logano so pig-biting mad was this. Harvick bumped Logano out of the way on lap 200….sending Logano in the wall and screwing up a potential top 5 finish. It was unnecessary on Harvick’s part since Pocono is a wide track with lots of room. But Harvick chose to do some thing stupid and unnecessary. Logano was able to recover somewhat, to finish 13th, but the damage was done. And Logano was more than justified in going after Harvick. I really hoped they would have been allowed to actually fight, even though Harvick would probably have kicked Logano’s ass. But that was not to be be.

Logano, however, won the war of words. With THIS gem:  “It’s probably not Kevin’s fault. He does what he’s told. His wife wears the firesuit in the family.” *ba-ding!!*  That was a wonderful remark.  Very clever considering the heat of the moment. Props to the kid for that one.

But somehow, that bewildered DeLana Harvick at first. The firesuit remark. Yes, she wears a firesuit at the track, unlike most of the NASCAR WAGs. But Joey was not commenting on her firesuit. He was saying that DeLana wears the pants in the Harvick family. And he said it in a clever and funny way.

But eventually, the lighbulb finally clicked on. And DeLana had some t-shirts printed up with I WEAR THE FIRESUIT IN THIS FAMILY. And now all is well, sort of, but….Kevin Harvick still wants to get in the last word.

Kevin Harvick: “Take my wife….please!

DeLana Harvick: “Oh Kevin, don’t be such a silly! You KNOW I wear the firesuit in THIS family.

Michigan tomorrow. England vs. USA in few minutes. In golf,  The St. Jude Classic has teed off with Lee Westwood at the top of the leaderboard. Someone will break 70 today. That’s a lot of clubs!

I was, quite possibly thinking of calling this post Confessions Of A Man Insane Enough To Live With Beasts, but that title was already taken. I suppose most titles are already taken, or have been, at some point in time. Grand Prince of Monaco. Taken.  He handed the trophy to Mark Webber this morning. The Shallow Men? Taken. Clowntime Is Over? Taken, both by me AND Elvis Costello. So, in the end, I called this whatever I called it.  Most likely stolen from somewhere or something in the poetic universe. And most likely I won’t live up to it’s semiotic potential that always rides with me as I careen from here to there to somewhere.

I should be writing a poem about writing this. That would make fascinating sports journalism. Also, I should be writing this in some obscure and secret place, a little known state or county park by a river, at an intersection where the secret make-believe world overlaps with the anthropology and archaeology of the past. There, sitting on a boulder,  while the quiet suns ripples like knifeblades on the water below, I begin to write. And if not poetry, then a essay somewhat like this. There I am, but as invisible to you as the elves are invisible to you.

What gives me the most pause is that I’m leaving myself out on a limb. The soul of man, the soul of the poet, the soul of a sportsman or athlete…well that seems to carry more portent than I might be willing to live up to to. Able, I have no doubt about that…willing, well…that depends I guess on my soul. I suppose, however, since I called the shot, I’m duty bound to go through with it. I’m quite sure that when we finally reach the checkered flag, we’ll all be rather disappointed. But in sport, someone is ALWAYS left disappointed at the end. Might as well be us.

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“In the 1st running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29th 2010…”

Once again, since the race was postponed because of rain, I had to hire an Observer to watch the Sprint Cup race for me. The Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 was postponed to Monday, and since I’m paid to sell advertising, and not paid  to be a sports writer, my Observer watched the race for me and filed this report:

“In the 1st running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 in 2010 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29th 2010, Denny Hamlin overcame questionable mathematical odds to win a race at a track where he’s won xxx times before. His victory was secured by a 4  tyre pit stop that a sizable majority noted with alacrity. Denny Hamlin’s victory was also secured when Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth staged a repeat performance of their turmoil at Bristol in the 1st running of the xxxx at Bristol Motor Speedway on xxxx. It should be noted that unlike at xxxx, at the 1st running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 in 2010 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29th 2010, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth did not engage in any fighting after the race.”

The spoilers didn’t come into play too much at Martinsville. But that was to be expected. I liked how the cars looked though ((since, on my Observer’s suggestion, I watched a partial replay on the race)). It’s breath of fresh air to see cars that don’t look like glorified IROC cars. Gordon got the better of his bitch-slapping feud with Kenseth, dropping Matt to 3rd in the standings. Jeff Burton almost jumped off his own bandwagon, especially since he finished behind David Gillillilliland. But I’m still hangin’ on for dear life.

Next up is the night race at Phoenix. More on that later. And by the way, the xxxx‘s in my Observer’s report are deliberate, since she thinks this is secret information….

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The countdown clocks are ticking, ticking, inexorably ticking. Countdown to Daytona 500. Countdown to Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. Countdown to F1 Practice in Bahrain. Countdown to the F2 Race at Silverstone. Time is running out and there is no hope left of stopping it. No hope of turning it back to the beauty and wonder that once filled its days and hours to the brim. No time to catch a breath of innocence and wonder, no time to hold it’s contemplative silence gently in one’s hands or heart. The clocks are ticking and they will not stop. There is no hope left.

A year ago, the ticking of the clocks was music to my ears. This time of the year was a-swirl with excitement and anticipation. Each tick of the countdown clock was bringing me closer to the excitement and exhilaration of a new season of racing. I couldn’t wait for the clocks to tick down to the respective zeroes and bask in the hallucenogenic roar of the engines as my favourite drivers and teams raced off into the on-rushing year with hope and determination with an almost  psychedelic furor not to end until the final checkered flag is dropped at Homestead or Bahrain.

Now, in this terrible year of 2010, I’d like to stop all the clocks and chronometers. Not forever mind you. But for the moment. I’m not looking forward to anything or any of this and I’d like to stop the ticking ticking ticking for long enough to salvage some hope from what seems to be a hopeless world.

“And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried

Ground swell, a time

Older than the time of chronometers, older

Than time counted by anxious worried women

Lying awake, calculating the future,

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

And piece together the past and the future,

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending;”

from “The Dry Salvages” by T.S. Eliot

Now don’t get me wrong. I want to feel this excitement again. I want to be looking forward to the new season of racing. But somehow, somewhy, I’m not. And I don’t know if it’s the racing and what it’s become, or me and what I’ve become, or both. But right now I want it all to stop so I can unweave, unwind, and unravel the mess that this has become.

Well, it’s hopeless I guess.  The clocks are ticking. Daytona 500 is 21 days and change as I write this. Rolex 24 hours is 6 days and  change. Bahrain is 46 days and change. Sao Paulo tees off on March 14th but IRL thankfully has no countdown clock. So you might as well join me. I have no choice in the matter. The clocks are ticking. So come along for the ride.

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It’s Talladega, Baby!!

Heh heh…sorry about that. That was last weekend. Hrrrrr!!  Anyway, NASCAR’s last ditch effort to quell the boredom that has been seething out of the race’s lately has taken a twist they had not anticipated. Kyle Busch, it seems, was NOT turned in to a terrifying true vampire after all.

After an impressive Camping World Truck Series win on Friday night and an equally impressive Nationwide win yesterday, Kyle Busch’s trues colours and true nature are finally being revealed. And today, as the Dickie’s 500 is set to tee at Texas Motor Speedway in an hour or so from now as I type this, Kyle is poised to complete the weekend hat trick. He is the best driver not in the Chase and I hope he tears up Texas and cordially takes a bow.

See NASCAR fans?? Kyle Busch is NOT all scary.  Why can’t you embrace him? He’s nothing but a stuffed animal!!

Oh yes. I almost forgot to mention Ryan Newman’s little Cirque du Soleil meet Robbie Knieval routine last Sunday.

Newman had a little chat with Ryan Pemberton and JohnDarby about that.  I wonder what NASCAR is going do about airborne race cars, ne?

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In about an hour or so as I first type this, the Carfax 400 will tee off in the Irish Hills at the Michigan International Speedway. Local lad Brad Kesolowski won the Nationwide Race there yesterday, and I give him odds of a rook to get a top ten finish in today’s race. It has been a rain-shortened week.

Perhaps it is only deja vu, but I keep getting this feeling  that a sinister plot is brewing secretly behind the scenes….this sinister plot is being put into play by certain Cup teams who are in jeopardy of not making the Chase. I am not going to name names at this point, but the astute among you will know who the two lads are. What they intend to do continuing with the green flag today at Brooklyn Michigan, and ending with the Victory Lane celebrations at Bristol on Saturday night August 22nd, is reset time back to last Sunday morning, August 9th, and re-race at Watkins Glen, Michigan, and Bristol over and over again.

“If I can’t make the Chase, neither will anyone else, dammit!!”

And while I infer a certain sinister intent, it is very likely that none of drivers in this plot are even aware of what a strange brew their subconscious minds and desires are fermenting for us.

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We can pretend for a moment that I have just addressed you as Evil Ones.…and then proceed to careen onward through the chaos of the English Language to deliver you the oftimes poigant and bewildering revelations of the NASCAR and Anime and sometimes, the music and political world, DIRECTLY into your e-mail box. Yes, YOU may already be a winner! Instead, I will race this semioticly disguised schematic that the English language has become around this little track and if I take the checkered flag at the end, you know I will turn right around and race the opposite direction around the track….a Polish Victory Lap if you will….in homage of the Late Great Alan Kulwicki and the recently retired Rusty Wallace.

The original Polish Victory Lap at Phoenix Int. Raceway, Nov. 6, 1988

Rusty Wallace carried on the tradition, as does his successor in the #2 Miller Lite car, Kurt Busch.

So does old man Mark Martin who did a Polish Victory lap after winning the German Gran Prix.  He thrilled and bewildered the Germans when he grabbed the flag and wheeled his car around and made a complete circuit of the  Nürburgring in the opposite direction. Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne then joined Mark Martin on the podium for a celebratory toast of Budweiser, Pepsi, and all the Cheez-It they could eat.

It’s a pity though that Mark Webber…. Read the rest of this entry »