The Place I Got Birthed (with Extra Fuck for Swami)

So as he tells you first, we slogged to Philadelphia (where I was birthed) yesterday, the point of the trip being to see United play Phunion (that's his intellectual property, there) at the Linc. After years of relative indifference occasioned by factors best summarized as relating to several degrees and forms of original sin, Philadelphia has become my favorite other city, at least my favorite other city that I visit with regularity (I am very, very fond of London, and need no encouragement to go to Paris or San Francisco).

My favorite place in Philadelphia is Reading Terminal Market (very spiffy Web site, fellow Web pros), which is, now that I mention it, almost certainly my very favorite place on the face of this planet. I am not hyperbolizing when I tell you that a short walk through the avenues and stalls of the Reading Terminal Market brings tears of joy to my eyes, the kind of tears that only one's deepest home of the heart can bring. It is the very essence of every food experience that formed me, a perfect storm of the scents and flavors and food sights of my childhood fused with elements I have come to appreciate as an adult. The place makes Landru cry tears of the joy of life, minions. Chomp on that.

We also walked; he chronicles that, a little, below the fold in his post, and does a fine job, though I must caveat that we covered a very small slice of Center City, basically walking about 10 blocks down Market, then back up Walnut. Good choices for a slice, to be sure, but small and coverable in the time we had at a Landru-like pace, punctuated as that is by Serge-like informational interruptions and fruitless searches for things that are gone. Oh, and a very entertaining break at a Walnut Street Starbucks where I put my feet up for a bit (they're getting oldish) and we watched a local psychotic wackaloon bounce around outside the locked mens room for nearly 10 minutes before finally deciphering the sign on the door that very clearly instructed him to get the fucking key from the fucking area around the fucking cash register. It would've been more entertaining if he had exploded, since I was sort of shielded from the potential spray pattern. On the other hand, it would've been unpleasant for my loved ones, who joined me in a different spray pattern later, but one not quite so noxious.

So we drove down to the Linc and prepared for the game by hanging in the designated, secured lot with our DCU kin for a time before we marched, approximately one thousand strong (seriously, and maybe a few hundred more), into the Linc, snarling, singing defiance, chanting. The local authorities kept us carefully corralled, apparently fearing that your Nation's capital is a place where we practice South American soccer riots, before escorting us on a lengthy death march to the uppermost reaches of the stadium, where little can be seen and nothing can be heard. And there we proceeded to take periodic beer showers and watch the game.

I will be brief about the game¹. United has a host of problems, and many relate to inadequate personnel, though the most glaring deficiencies can, in fact, be pinned on the current coach, and I'll be the first to say it: Fire Curt Onalfo. Oh, wait a minute. I already was the first to say it, pointing out in that process that he should never have been fucking hired, because he's a fucking loser undeserving of a place in the history of our Nation's greatest futbol team, except to the extent that his existing place in DCU history is having his fucking teams mostly fucking run over by the fucking DCU bus.

Curt Onalfo is fucking Tommy Soehn in disguise. He presided over a mediocre period in the history of a mediocre club, and did so with an excess of mediocrity, displaying no flair and a commitment to boring futbol. He's a fucking hoser, and he has no fucking business coaching my fucking soccer team. He has no flair, he has no tactical aptitude, he has no vision, and he has no idea how to lead what is, admittedly, a fairly sad collection of personnel with some salvageable bright spots (some of which spots are infinitely arguable, and believe me, they're argued infinitely, just not here).

I have one more thing to say about Curt Onalfo and Tommy Soehn. Tommy Soehn actually managed to get more out of this guy:

than Curt Onalfo ever could or ever will. That's how much I fucking hate fucking Curt Onalfo, campers; I just pwn3d him to compliment Tommy Fucking Soehn. Are we clued now? This fucking inept, unimaginative, third-rate clown got all the polite he was going to get out of me when his name first came up and I said, "No, thank you."

He likes to rail about Kasper and Payne and, implicitly, Chang, though it's not so implicit, actually, and it's invariably based in some navelgazing Marxist idealistic worldview that comes off sounding remarkably like people at whom I yell to get off of my lawn, though it's actually nothing like them at all (1. He came by it honestly; 2. He's paid his dues; 3. Seriously, are you fucking kidding me?) and I alone of his contemporaries understand the brilliance of his satire when he starts spewing that way. The proof certain of my position lies here, however. That man is the fucking bone that Curt Onalfo asked for to reassure himself that he was actually in fucking charge. That's right. Kurt Fucking Morsink. So spew all you want about Kasper and Payne, who did after all bring you this fucking assclown on the apparently errant theory that it doesn't matter that a guy has absolutely no natural or environmental talent if he plays for someone's--anyone's--loserass national team. And this guy on the theory that all South Americans with greasy long hair are good futbol players, even if you only get 115 minutes of soccer out of them before they break down irreparably. No, I don't fucking remember anyone named Gallardo. Why, do you?

So, sure. Kasper and Payne suck ass and should be fucking drowned in the Anacostia. That doesn't necessarily reflect on Will Chang--who isn't really a soccer guy, and we should in a way be grateful that he hangs in without Snydering up his team, and it doesn't necessitate labelling Chang as cheap. And while I'm fucking right about all of this, it's not the point, which is this: Curt Fucking Onalfo is the fucking source of Kurt Fucking Morsink. Both are symbols of mediocrity in American soccer, and it's absolutely fucking unacceptable that either is associated with DC United and its tradition.

That's right, our fucking tradition. What else have we got? We got bupkes is what we got, though I'm fond of Jaime Moreno, as is any right-thinking American, and Tino has some raw talent that no one's figured out how to harness and channel, and Jakovic, who at the bottom line cost the team the game yesterday, is an awesome monster of filth and rage with a wonderful defensive instinct and coltish manner, and Rodney Wallace is a'ight. And oh yeah, Perkins is back, and Pontius is okies, though far, far out of form. That's it. KasperPayne's fault? Yeah, sure. Kurt Morsink is Onalfo's. Have I fucking hammered those fucking nails into that fucking coffin yet? Good.

So let's address a couple of other things. There's really not a lot to be said about yesterday's game, in which our boys got pwn3d by Sebastien Fucking Le Toux. I mean, really, what else can you fucking say other than a few feeble parries? We got fucking pwn3d by fucking Sebastien Fucking Le Toux and...? We got fucking pwned by fucking Sebastien Fucking Le Toux but...? We got fucking pwn3d by fucking Sebastien Fucking Le Toux even though Saint Piotr Nowak was in the press box mourning a plane crash perpetrated by Vlad the Impaler Putin? Do we go W.C. Fields? We got fucking pwn3d by Sebastien Fucking Le Toux and all in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia? Oh. Here's how appalling it is that we got fucking pwn3d by Sebastien Fucking Le Toux: it's about as likely as getting fucking pwn3d, on a fucking futbol field, by fucking Landru. That's how fucking bad it fucking is to get fucking pwn3d, on any fucking futbol field in America by fucking Sebastien Fucking Le Toux, career hoser and all-around player of no particular fucking accomplishment whatsoever. Fucking Seattle left him fucking unprotected. Jeebus.

Two quick items. While Terry Fucking Vaughn is a dreadful fucking referee and a worse fucking human being, he was absofuckinglutely right to red-card Dejan Jakovic yesterday. There is no if or maybe here. It was a straight red, and that's what Vaughn dealt, and the ensuing DFK goal by (of course) Sebastien Fucking Le Toux was, as the man himself admitted, Troy Perkins' fault in its entirety, with no mitigators or comforts. Period. There is no argument to be brooked here, and frankly, bDr's implication of Vaughn by juxtaposition is unfair. Own up, bDr. The foul was straight red all the way.

The other item: you should never listen to me again, because it's true. I was 10 fucking feet from the unforgiven, but no longer discommodated, Santino Quaranta, and all I did was thank him for a nice goal and speak pleasantly, and briefly. No ranting. No attempt to disembowel him with my greasy Popeye's spork. Just politeness and smiles and thank yous. And that, beloved minions, is the only kind of self-complicity one should waste time whining about.

¹ This fucking turned out to be a fucking lie.