MLS Midseason Crash Course

...McBride in the 2006 World Cup


Real fast, I know most of y'all don't know (or care about) MLS, BUT:

-- Beckham and Landon Donovan's LA Galaxy were in first place most of the first half of the season, but they have allowed more goals than any team in the league -- it's not going to happen. They are losing grip and just go embarrassed by a fairly average FC Dallas team.

-- New England has been destroyed by injuries all season, yet they are unbelievably in first in the East. They are the Minnesota Twins, somehow they are winning when nobody thought they would be.

-- The New York Red Bulls are god flippin' awful. They are a disgrace.

-- Houston, the back-to-back champions started extremely slow...They are playing great soccer now and with LA slacking, Houston is going to fly up and win the West.

-- Columbus and Real Salt Lake are two huge surprises...They look like playoff teams in their respective conferences.

-- Brian McBride, one of the three best American players ever, is back in MLS once the Olympics are over. He'll play for Chicago and make them better, but it'll be too late.

First-half MVP: Landon Donovan...12 goals at the halfway point for a man we know as Landycakes for how soft he is.

What's going to happen: LA will fade, Houston will rise and Houston will see New England in the finals once again.

3 AM

This is kind of what it feels like. For all of you wondering what it's like to be me right now, what REAL depression is and not de-facto depression, or "fuck, I'm having a shit day today" depressed. I want to take this and maybe make this more understandable.

It's 2:32 AM as I type this. I am through a ton of my iPod because I have been trying to sleep for more than 3 hours now, unsuccessfully obviously. I read, I read 3,000 year old poetry for Christ's sake, and nothing has gotten me even to be sleepy. Do you know what happens in these situations? My head starts running, and running faster than anything I know I can do can help catch it.

I type this with tears dripping down my face and pausing to blow my nose, and my chest heaves in despair and agony. It's that deep crying that you'd be into if you found out someone you love just died, or you got the news that someone close to you or yourself got cancer. It's profound. It's deeper than I know how to explain, and it came from nowhere.

The most fucked up part is that it doesn't REALLY come from nowhere. There are triggers, red flags, whatever. I was trying, successfully for a while, to meditate in bed. Kristin then rolled over and said "I love you." How dare she!

That was all I needed. I felt the spark in my head like you would feel any physical sensation to a tangible part of your body. I felt a shift, rolled over and started crying. I don't deserve to be loved. I hate myself so much that nobody can love me...there's no way right?

College degree, intelligence, my first paid job writing about sports...People who love me, a great conversation on the phone today with my Dad, Joey L, Russell Edward and most importantly Brady (that was an awesome phone call, my little nephew is like a person now, you can have meaningful conversations with him...INDEED!)....All that means nothing now, here at 2:39 AM. I am worthless, and people telling me otherwise are full of shit.

I want to go to the bar and kill it all. I won't, that's never been me, but I WANT to. I need to maybe. I am too broken to move on like I have planned. Michigan? Chicago? DC? Baltimore? Florida? I can't even fucking handle somebody genuinely telling me they love me, someone I love, or think I do, because right now I don't think I am capable of love..whatever love is. L-O-V-E right? That's the most ambiguously false label in the English language. I love the Tigers. I love Joe Liberta. I love the new Adidas flip-flops I have. I love Kristin? That's all the same word? That seems incredibly wrong.

Amos Lee has a lyric "I'm in love with a girl whose in love with the world, and I can't help but follow," and every time, EVERY SOLITARY time I hear that lyric I get ripped up. Why is this not OK? Why can't I stay here because she loves her job and family? Why is there more? In my head, (I'm struggling to type this), there's more, but how can somebody who doesn't like themselves be selfish? I can't be...These are the thoughts that flash through my head.

I'll chill for 60 seconds...this is all free-writing and may not make sense and I won't apologize, but this is like "Being John Malkovich." Jump in my head for a second.

"Amos Lee is amazing...Fuck Todd Jones. Imagine living in Michigan right now, that little bed isn't a good haven for my crying. If I die there will anyone even come to my funeral. Dude, drugs maybe? Weed? Uncle John did it...I look up to him, my brother is living John's life and seems happy...but is ignorance bliss, is that all it was. Was John really happy? He was alone and smoked...He lived with so much physical pain and so many people loved the hell out of him, but did he love himself? There was a story about him at his funeral about how he'd run to Blockbuster and everyone there loved the hell out of him because of how fucking nice and funny he was. He'd act out scenes of some of the movies he rented. He'd turn on whatever that is he had and charm the shit out of anyone he came in contact with. That's amazing right? But he was alone. Is it possible to be alone and be happy? Is that judgmental? Does everyone live in pain and I just don't know it, do they just not know it? The world's a stage and everyone plays their part? How the hell does anyone know what their part is? But, it doesn't matter what the hell your PART is, right? Parts are surface. The surface is everything, and that's my problem. It makes me feel so uncomfortable in my skin. I don't know my part but at the same time I know it's OK not to know my part and it's OK, no, it's GREAT to never know your part so long as you're at peace with not knowing your part. I hate myself, and this won't ever end. I'm not going to kill myself, but I am looking at 40 years of this? The bridge, sitting on the beach, we have an amazing picture of the Golden Gate at sunset from the beach...I lived that. I lived seeing the sun set on London from the air, with an engagement ring in my pocket and champagne in my hand. I lived that...how can I be this?"

That was two or three minutes of shutting off the censor and just typing what was in my head. That's a small sample. Try to fall asleep with that flying around your head.

I think about my heroes: Uncle John...Hemingway, Kerouac and to some extent Ginsberg. They all had profound pain and let's tally up their endings...John - who knows, but he died before his time, smoked out and alone in an apartment in Bethesda. Hemingway killed himself, and I think of "A Farewell to Arms" how a beautiful story ended so horribly. Holy shit, they're going to end up together, this is absolutely the best book I ever read...ohhhh no...maybe not (read it if you haven't, it's absolute brilliance). I think of "The Sun Also Rises." Shit, just the title is encouraging right? No matter how dark the day is, remember that the sun also rises. OK, Jake, the main character lived a tortured life surrounded by what he could never be and what he could never have...lovely.

Kerouac - "On the Road," a quest, like what I think I am on, ending fruitlessly, especially if it was a biographical sketch of Kerouac. "Dharma Bums" is this awesome, and by awesome I mean the real definition of awesome, not the skateboarders thieved definition of awesome, I mean FULL OF AWE awesome, tale of the seeking of enlightenment and scrapping of materialism and resentment of what American life had become. By the end of the book he's defeated and retreated into the life he had before of debauchery and it's a disjointed ending to what WAS a beautifully noble quest...Well, Jack, he died miserable and unhappy and by some accounts drinking himself to his death.

Ginsberg lived it through though and died of liver cancer, but his last poem is everything I think of when I think of Ginsberg..."Things I'll Not Do." Beautiful right? He died with regret apparently, but it's beautifully nostalgic with that tinge of, "we're all going to die with things we'll not do." And it's all in my interpretation. Ginsberg was a super, super enlightened and spiritual man. His poem is nostalgia but I take it as a writ of regret.

How the fuck do I avoid that fate? WOW right? This is a sampling of the hill I am running up. I'm 28. There are SO many things I HAVE done that people at 70 haven't done. Doesn't matter. I want more, and who am I to want more? I'm nothing, I'm "just a bubble in a boiling pot" (stolen from Jack Johnson).

3:21 AM and I am jumping from thoughts that Landon Donovan should jump abroad and play for a team like Celtic or Rangers to thoughts of how I wish I was in a hotel room in Houston, or Mexico City, or somewhere. Anywhere but here, reading, journaling, and seeing the world and meeting people who are there (as long as they aren't like the guy I met in Cincinnati who mother f'd everything in the world).

I remember laying in bed even in high school and thinking "wow, there's this world someone in the Far East is living right now that doesn't resemble mine in the least." And that's still there. It's incredible to me to think like that, but it's insane. What good is that doing me to think like that?

I'll end and go journal, but here's some of my 3,000 year old poetry:

True words aren't eloquent;
eloquent words aren't true.
Wise men don't need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren't wise.

The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others,
the happier he is.
The more he gives to others,
the wealthier he is.

The Tao nourishes by not forcing.
By not dominating, the Master leads.


-- Lao Tzu

Obama in Berlin

200,000 people in Berlin. Even as an idiot, you have got to understand the profound historical significance. It's undeniable that in the place where Hitler once stood and espoused his hate, his Aryan rhetoric, stood this man, and the significance of his presence there.

In a city that once was a physical and metaphorical borderline between the Socialist world and the Democratic world, stood an African-American man who had the captive ear of 200,000 folks.

His words were incredibly profound and important; wanting to bring the United States back into better standing in the global community, and emphasizing just that...the global community. Our current "leader" thumbs his nose at the global community, acting unilaterally while demanding the help of other countries after the decision gets made.

To hear G.W speak is not nothing. Americans aren't the only ones who see this moron. Our president is a representation of US...you and me. He sits there and botches words, he's combative with reporters, his arrogance starts wars, and he disappeared for HOURS after the first planes struck on 9/11.

Europe was war-torn for a lot of the early twentieth century. Even today, people under the age of 40 have trouble understanding what Poland and Germany must have looked like during the World Wars. Yet, since then, a lot of the wars that have transpired since have been perpetuated by America. Europe is sick of it, the world is sick of it, and America, non gun-touting, bible-thumping America is sick of it.

It's time for things to change. Watching Obama speak in front of all of those people, in Berlin, as a physical representation of the transformation that is happening in America is as proud as I have been of this country since I've been old enough to vote.

Monday is Sunday

My mondays feel like most people's Sunday mornings. It's not unemployment, fully, because I am getting an income from my writing job (that is amazing to say) and Met tickets...but I gotta say, my Mondays are awesome, in the morning especially.

I usually journal, or do some writing and throw on Amos Lee, Miles Davis, Jack Johnson or whatever sets that mellow Sunday morning mood...err, Monday morning mood. I keep the TV off pretty much all day and just chill. It's like writing therapy, but this morning, it's hard.

Thank God I bought some cigars on our Indian Reservation run, because along with the writing therapy, and the Miles Davis therapy, I need some smoking therapy. Maybe it's a form of meditation, because smoking a stogey definitely regulates your breathing, but whatever it is, it is helping this morning.

I'm reading "Unstuck" by Dr. James Gordon, and it's been really awesome. It's a holistic approach to getting through this shit, and I like it, because the meds seem to, if anything, have as much of an adverse affect on me as they do a positive one. Take for instance my Sunday...Took the Seroquel at 11:30, laid in bed to read and write a little, fell asleep by 12:45...yeah, rolled out of the rack at 3:15 PM. I slept for close to 14 hours Saturday to Sunday.

While some people think this is amazing, it's a hindrance to living. I could have done a million things in the time I was laid out. Granted sometimes my dreams are amazing, like when Tin and I had some beers with Robbie Keane in a London Pub, or when I was a character on an episode of "The Hills" (these are seriously dreams I have had on the Seroquel). But is there anyone past the age of 22 that thinks it's cool to wake up at 3:15 in the afternoon on a Sunday? (That's right Dr. Harrington, I started a sentence with but!! BOOM!!).

By the way, on "The Hills" dream I was macking Lo hard, but in real life I'm an Audrina guy...it doesn't make me gay to know this, it makes you gay for not knowing it.

Anyhow, last night may be a last straw for the Seroquel. We halved my dose without doctor's permission, and it didn't work. I stayed up for three hours after taking it (normally my shelf life on a full does is 40 minutes, tops), and my dreams were horrendus. I debate whether I should even write them down or not.

In one way, shape or form, they were all centered on the suicidal thoughts I had that lead me to BryLin. Flashback to the book I am reading, and the whole chapter before bed was about managing suicidal and "dark" thoughts. Yeah, not a good idea post-Seroquel, pre-bedtime. In my dreams I wanted to end it all. I must have been in the dream stage of sleep for a while too, because I vividly remember my mother laying in bed while I yelled to her that I was going to kill myself in front of her. Yeah...this is why I debated writing these down, but I think it's good, cathartic, to get it out.

I had visions of my life in Michigan and how Dad and Joyce couldn't stop me from running out of the house in search for somewhere they sell guns. The last two days on Seroquel have been a whore, but you can't see anyone who can recommend a lower-dose. Psychiatrists, if they are taking new patients, have 2 to 3 month waiting lists for appointments, and my primary is a bag of strawberry douche.

I wake up scared shitless. Is my life in Michigan going to be more of the depressed, lonely, sameness that I have here, that has led me to the call to get out of Buffalo? I wake up feeling like the suicidal dream me is the real me, and for a while it stings.

Tonight I shall take the Seroquel and just watch YouTube videos of Jennifer Love Hewitt before bed I think. If I have 14 hours of Jennifer Love Hewitt dreams, then maybe this Seroquel isn't such a bad thing.



I feel bad leaving this without a video or photo, so here is the man you need to know going into the Olympic tournament...Mr. Jozy Altidore, 18 years old, striker, USA and Villareal:

Skim This

You guys need to at least skim over, and hopefully read thoroughly this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five