Black Mountain Rock and The Fall Of The Empire

I can see the future, and it’s not a bright future. It’s not the future I want to see. But unfortunately, it is the FUTURE. Time is headed in that direction and there is no way to stop it. I know there is a passage somewhere in the Bible that says, “If thine eyes be displeased by what they see, then pluck them out!”  But that will do no good, because with vision or without vision, the future will be the same….just because I saw it, and was displeased by it, plucking my eyes out will not change it. Anyway, that Biblical verse, is more awash in my memory as a line from the classic horror film, THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES.  So instead of plucking my eyes out, I will simply grab another beer and bravely attempt to explain what I’ve seen. In other words, I’ll make you want to pluck YOUR eyes out.

As I write this, Tuesday, October 12th 2010, is the future. And at 8PM in Wembley Stadium in London, the lads from the Three Lions and the lads from the Black Mountain will march onto the pitch and begin to play. It’s been a much anticipated match. There is all the turmoil that’s been swirling around England, from injuries (Jermain Defoe is out, replaced by Kevin Davies; Aaron Lennon is out, replaced by Stewart Downing; Phil Jagielka is out, replaced by Gary Cahill and so on and so on) to off the pitch turmoil (Wayne Rooney and his 10,000 whores), to all the bloody clamour and alacrity about Fabio Capello’s coaching style and/or the lack thereof. All that plus, the Three Lions’s rather shameful ((albeit less shameful that France and Italy))boosting from the World Cup coupled with their 1-1 loss to the United States. And yes, they beat Bulgaria (( a stern test if there ever was one)) 4-0, and survived what could have been the The Revenge Of The Young Boys by a score of 1-3. But, that was Bulgaria and Switzerland. On Tuesday, they face the lads from Montenegro, and those bad boys are naught to be focked with. They are defensive monsters. And they are the future. The dark bleak future. The Black Mountain that England must climb. And what I see does not look good.

What I see is Murko Vučinić and Elsad Zverotić. What I see is a mountain that will come to Wembley. Vučinić is a scoring monster, can be…and he saves the best stuff for English squads. Montegro hasn’t scored a lot in the Europe 2012 so far, but they have been stifling on defense.. Suffocating. And they are quick on the counter-attack. What I see is a Black Mountain that will rock Wembley on Tuesday. That is future….the terrible unavoidable future….the on-coming day.

Now I will concede that when (some of, most of) you finally read this, Tuesday, October 12th 201o might be a dim glow or glower in the receding past. And it might come to pass that my vision of the future was a dangerous one, but on that, a vision and naught reality. But as I sit here now, I wouldn’t count on it. As I sit here now, Fabio Capello is probably sitting on a loo somewhere in London shitting himself at the prospect of facing Montenegro.

As anyone who has read any Nero Wolfe mysteries knows that Montenegrans are NOT to be fucked with or taken lightly. “Archie, your notebook:

Dear Fabio Capello….”

Kyle Busch wins CampingWorld.com 300 at Auto Club Speedway, Fontana CA

It was Kyle’s 12th win on the season, but he still trails Brad Keselowski for the Nationwide Championship by 465 points. No one will catch Keselowski, not even his arch-nemesis Carl Edwards. The Carl is 340 points back. The Carl would have to KILL him to win. And, besides going to jail….The Carl would face a fate far WORSE than that. The Carl, despite being convicted of murder, would be found to be in violation of Section 12-4-A, Actions Detrimental To Stock Car Auto Racing, and also Section 12-4-F, Fighting With A Competitor In The Garage Area.  He would be fined, maybe $250,000 and be docked 250 points…which would, yes, put him $250, 000 lighter in the wallet which would mean LESS $$$ to buy Louvin Brothers Cigarets (sold only in Southern Prisons), but WORSE, would leave Kyle Busch solidly in 2nd place.

With 5 races to go. It’s pretty much all over. Even if Kyle added all 5 to his win total, he wont catch Keselowski. And despite The Carl being The Carl….The Carl is not going to prison and sleeping with his butt to the wall anytime soon ((oh snap!)). And no…I don’t want the Busch Series to ever go to a Chase format like the Winston Cup series has done. Keselowski having it pretty much locked up hasn’t made the racing worse. If anything, it’s added a spark to the proceedings and made the racing more compelling.

Slovenia 5    Faroe Islands 1

The world is shrinking, and thus it is easier to take things for granted….easier to assume or appropriate a sense of omnipotence. We have more powers. more knowledge, more access and it’s all instantaneous. It’s all there for our plucking. But….heh heh…that’s the problem, yes? There is too much of it…it’s too easy and too readily available…and there is so much of the world out there at our fingertips that despite the having shrunk, it has ironically grown larger. Too much to know. Too much to do. And greater access to all has not necessarily made us smarter or stronger, nor has it backed up our assumptions with solid truth. If it has or if it did, I would have had Tim Matavž in my Euro 2012 Fantasy Football starting lineup instead of his teammate Andraž Kirm. I didn’t, sad to say….Matavž got a hat trick against the hapless Faroe Islands on Friday while Kirm wasn’t even in the starting lineup. Kirm was subbed in at the 51 minute mark replacing Valter Birsa. Yes THAT Valter Birsa, the one who scored the opening goal for Slovenia at the 13 minute mark in our match with them in the World Cup. Matavž never saw the pitch in that World Cup match. Friday he gets a hat trick. With all the knowledge of the universe in our twitching little hands, we still don’t know anything.

For Tuesday’s matches, I might switch in Matavž for Kirm….Slovenia is playing Estonia on Tuesday. Then we’ll see how focking smart I am and omnipotent I have become.

As for the fall of the Empire, well….that can wait.

Let’s see now. Danica Patrick was running in 14th…running very well, and….James Buescher and/or Ricky Stenhouse Jr.  or vice versa got into Ricky Carmichael and  Danica is suddenly flying into the wall coming out of turn 2…and there goes a great run by Danica Patrick sent to hell but some fockstick’s stupidity or loss of talent. Grumble grumble grumble. Etc. It’s almost enough to make me wish they would do another season of Endless 8.

Well the news is that Danica is going to have Mark Martin as her mentor and tutor next season. That’s a good thing. Not only will he remind to her to say PLEASE when she wants the cornbread passed, he might just finally, at long last, get to come to grips with the driver’s responsibility for understanding the technical side of racing. If anyone can do that, I’m sure Mark Martin can. Look how nicely that worked with Kurt Busch, back in the day, when Mark Martin sat then team-mate Kurt Busch down with Kenny Schroeder and Sterling Marlin for a little chat about manners over some sweet tea and cornbread.

Wait…WHAT??

As for Dale Earnhardt Jr….well okay…I know I know…Kelley is his OLDER sister, but…play along here. Anyway…the brother and sister thing. Yes.   *attempts to slink away quietly*

It simple HAS to get better someday for Junior, yes?  I mean, yes, he finished 16th at California today. But really now, is that something to cheer about??  There has to be something more fundamentally wrong with things on his team than what the cynics, naysayers, and Junior Nation might think. It just doesn’t add up right. Something is wrong with the math here…it’s as if Junior and crew are operating in a base 8 number system…and since the real world is base 10, well….it makes it’s more problematic for Junior and crew chief Lance McGrew to prove geometry theorems.

Maybe when Mark Martin has finished tutoring Danica Patrick, he could take her boss’s brother under his wing and get Junior and His Nation back on track.

I can see the future, and it’s not a future of NASCAR that I am seeing. It is a future of a nation, an Empire, that I am seeing. As I write this now, it is the future that crushing me blind with it horrifying light. It’s Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 8:00PM London time. And the lads are marching onto the pitch hand in hand with school children. They line up and shake hands, welcoming their opponent to the pitch. The coin is tossed and who wins the toss elects to receive, and 90 minutes and stoppage time, they lads have a go at the future as if they could change their future, carve their mark upon their future. But my vision of their future is a grim one.

By all odds, England should win their match with Montenegro…the pundits and punters and fans think England should win their match with Montenegro. And in a alternate universe where Danica Patrick did NOT wreck yesterday; where Matt Kenseth won the Pepsi Max 400 today instead of Tony Stewart; and where the Green Bay Packers beat the Washington Redskins today 16-13 instead of the other way around; in THAT universe, England would be giving Montenegro a sound thrashing at 8PM Tuesday October 12th 2010 at Wembley Stadium.

But instead, the Black Mountain will rock and the Empire will fall,and it will be a quiet, a disturbingly quiet little match that will leave England and their lads, and their xxx coach all a bit dismayed and unsatisfied and full of doubt. And THAT is the vision of the future that I see, right now, here in my quiet little Wisconsin town…here, as Wayne Rooney and His 10,000 Whores, and the rest of the lads, Crouch, Bent, Hart, Davies and Downing attempt to sleep…here, as coach Fabio Capello, sleepless, attempts to stop shitting himself to no avail….here in this little town, I can see and feel the shadow of the Black Mountain creeping up upon boroughs of London…slowly shambling forward…the shadow of a monster…the shadow of country and a team that is NOT to be fucked with. You have, as I write this, less than 2 days London, wake up and rise up. Lose to Montenegro, draw to Montenegro, even win 2-1…and the empire will fall. I have seen the future. It is not the future I want to see. But, there is no stopping the future, unless you take that future in your hands.

I was going to end this little dispatch with David Bowie’s classic song “Black Country Rock” off his timeless THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD album. But instead, a great soul icon, Solomon Burke passed away yesterday at the age of 70. Solomon Burke was a man of great voice, and he will be missed here on Earth. In honour of his life, this….his first record on Apollo Records from 1956: