25-Man Metaphysical Roster: Chelsea F.C.

(just a skinhead hooligan Chelsea supporter throwing

up a Sieg Heil while holding up a kid giving the middle finger)

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football dork methodology meant to establish a listing of players who have been most active for English Premier League teams in their past 100 non-friendly matches. Essentially, it is calculated by minutes played, but weighted towards most recent games. The end result is a listing of the 25 players in a team’s recent history who have had the largest hand on their metaphysical sporting trajectory. The English Premier League was chosen because it is the highest level of football played in an English speaking country, and I speak English. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the USA, where I fucking live. And yet still I should clarify I hate English, and also America. Thus maybe I hate myself. Should I not fail in maintaining my unpaid deadline, a new 25-Man Metaphysical Roster will appear on the 1st and 15th of every month.]

It is appropriate that Chelsea is owned by a Russian oligarch, because I think of the football club similarly to how I think of Russia, or the Soviet Union. They are obviously an imperial force (Chelsea in football, Soviet Union/Russia in history), and I am obviously against all imperial forces and hate all forms of imperialism with a contrarian’s blind passion (or as passionate as a jaded bearded fortysomething fucker can still be). But for whatever reason I don’t really directly care or feel effected by Chelsea (or Soviet Union), so I’m not an active hater of them, like I would be for Manchester United or United States of Amerikkka. Those forms of imperialism are obvious and in my face.

This means I don’t care to wish all forms of failure upon Chelsea, but much like the Soviet Union’s Afghani quagmire, when Chelsea fucks up and finishes outside the continental-qualifying top seven, like they did two seasons ago, I take great joy in that. It’s fun to see imperial forces fail, even if their relative failure still puts them four spots above your relative favorite’s normal. (Although we had great fun two seasons ago, didn’t we, imagining “what if Chelsea get relegated? what if???? But they did not, although failure to qualify for Champions or Europa league is the Big 6 version of relegation, at least for now.)

The Chelsea life cycle during these last 100 matches as is the basis for metaphysics here is pretty simple – Jose Mourinho was on the downward “let me burn out everybody” cycle of Jose management lifespan, and Chelsea finished 10th, which meant he got shit-canned early on during that season. Antonio Conte came in as the eventual replacement and took mostly the same batch of players with a couple of key upgrades, and combined that with lack of continental competition to keep a fresh and fit squad at the top of the table for an EPL title last season. But the alleged personnel changes that were going to definitely happen – both coming and going – didn’t necessarily happen, so for now (until December) Conte has what he has. Of course, they sit in 3rd right now, and powered through their first Champions League match to boot (albeit against a lowly Azerbaijani outfit), so it’s hard to bemoan Chelsea life right now. Of course, they are an imperial force in football, so all of this is expected of them, and even though I don’t actively hate them, I hope it all falls apart in horrible and comedic fashion. But here are the 25-men who played the heaviest metaphysical role for the club’s past 100 matches…

#1: Cesar Azpilicueta – Spaniard vice-captain and anchor of defense has survived multiple management regimes at Stamford Bridge, and it’s easy to see why, as Mourinho to Conte has been questioned (for some fucking reason) going into the early stages of this season, despite them being in 3rd and having crushed weak ass team in first Champions League match. It seems very much like EPL is determined to keep up pattern of having defending champion managers get sacked the following season. But in recent weeks, Azpilicueta has been the vocalist on the squad, offering words of support and encouragement for Conte, that the board room hasn’t necessarily seemed to echo in their own actions. Some people will classify such a player as natural born leader, but there’s something more to it than that… an ability to politically navigate all the fucked up situations football is bound to deliver inevitably, and come out not looking like an asshole. It’s hard to do in an industry overflowing with asshole (due to how they’re manufactured). But Azpilicueta has somehow done it, and seems attached to Conte right now, just as he did to Mourinho  before, and Guus Hiddink in the interim between the two. Some players are political cockroaches, and survive it all, and they usually end up vice-captain.

#2: Thibaut Courtois – Belgian GK and soulless android.

#3: Gary Cahill – Okay, maybe Cahill at center back is the true anchor of the defense, as he’s also the captain (and also English as fuck, which means he “speaks the language” or “the fans relate to him” or whatever coded racialism talk is used to justify him as more the main man than Azpilicueta, whose name sounds a little too revolutionary, a little too anti-Brexity to truly be the anchor of a club supported by the notorious shitbags Chelsea is supported by.

#4: Diego Costa – Some guys just look like an asshole, and most folks understand this, though they’re delegation of assholery may be based on nationalistic biases and racial under currents. I’ve worked to try and rid myself of as much of these biases as possible, so very few men still cross that threshold of just naturally looking like an asshole at the pure and unexplainable universal sense. Diego Costa is one such man. Every atom spins with the energy of self-importance and conniving heart. It was no shock that Conte wanted nothing more to do with the man, as Conte comes from Italy – land of many spirited assholes, where the natural inclination of asshole somehow has transformed into almost lovable malcontent. Conte, I am sure, knows the difference between regular run-of-the-mill asshole and absolute universal asshole. But of course, in true asshole ways, Costa was unaffordable and/or unwanted by all potential suitors in the transfer window, so he has been resigned to sitting in the stands duty until his self-value decreases enough or some other club becomes more desperate to move away from London in January.

#5: Eden Hazard – Another Belgian, and Hazard is weird, because he can be an enjoyable player to watch, but there’s something that sterilizes the experience of him away for me. I don’t know what it is, but I just never transition from barely enjoyable to actual excitement.

#6: N’Golo Kante – (previously #14 for Leicester City on 15-Apr-2017) I’m a Kante mark, because I strongly believe that African defensive midfielder is one of the main metaphysical keys to successful football club. Granted, Kante grew up in France, but was born to Malian immigrant parents, and fuck if any nation on this Earth has been a colonizing force of fuckedness, it’s France. Frantz Fanon wrote The Wretched of the Earth specifically about them, for fuck’s sake. Nonetheless, full geographically based African or not, Kante had Malian national team eligibility until France finally called him up last year, and it supports my African defensive midfielder theory. Only a person with deeply ingrained survivalism but also flair can fully operate that fulcrum position of defensive midfielder, able to help stifle others, but quickly flip it into counter attack. N’Golo Kante has won the Premier League title the past two seasons, and that’s no accident. His style was the perfect trigger to unleash buckshot Jamie Vardy and .22 Magnum Riyad Mahrez at Leicester City. And last season, he brought stability in the middle to complement the entrenched back line and feed shithead Diego Costa (and others) up top.

#7: David Luiz – Luiz has done a couple stints with Chelsea, and I don’t love him (because it’s Chelsea, and also he’s Brazilian, whom I also boycott metaphysically at international level, for some odd reason… an odd reason called Neymar likely), but I don’t mind him. He makes me think of Ygnwie Malmsteen – I think it’s the hair. Malmsteen is playing locally near me later this year, and I can’t imagine any reason on Earth not to go see Yngwie Malmsteen play a shitty club in 2017.

#8: Pedro – Fun fact about Pedro: he played forward for the Barcelona C team the last season they existed, in Spain’s fourth division (unable to move higher because Barcelona B was in third division). He then moved up to Barcelona B and helped them get promoted to second level of Spanish footballing pyramid. Then he spent seven seasons with Barca itself before getting cashed outside to England, and Abrahamovich’s bulging pockets.

#9: Nemanja Matic – (previously #23 for Manchester United on 01-Sep-2017) Matic and Mourinho are hardcore homeboys from way way back, so Matic was the one Mourinho was intent on poaching over to Manchester United. In my humble metaphysical analysis of football, defensive midfielder types are the truest fulcrum upon the pitch, and the likeliest extension of manager’s mind in the grass. Thus Matic has already been assigned that role at Old Trafford. Mourinho recently told the story of once putting Matic in midway first half, then pulling him midway second half, and how that made Matic one his all-time favorites, because Mourinho knew it sucked to do but Matic came in the next day and was like, “Yo, that sucked, and made me sad, but whatever, because I was playing shitty.” AND THAT WAS WHEN JOSE MOURINHO KNEW NEMANJA MATIC HAD NO RESISTANCE LEFT TO HIS SOUL OR SPIRIT, AT LEAST TOWARDS JOSE, so that’s why he’s in Manchester now.

#10: Marcos Alonso – To be honest, I’d rather talk about Islam Feruz here, a Somali immigrant to Scotland who got all his youth footballing at anti-fascist Celtic, but didn’t sign a contract with them once at professional level, and ran off to Chelsea, where he is part of their vast army of young talents who never actually end up playing for the parent club. Feruz appears to be a bigger flame out than most Chelsea wonderkids, but I love him (and always use him at lower level Football Manager experiments, because I sign all guys named “Islam”, always) because he plays for the Scottish national team at U-21 levels, but also can still play for multiple African teams apparently. (I don’t think Somalia sports a team, but he apparently has legal enough ties to play for Tanzania or Zanzibar.) And while Marcos Alonso is a regular presence still for Chelsea, I do not enjoy regular presences at valuable top of the table clubs valuated at the billions. What I enjoy about football is fucked up Somalian kids ending up in Glasgow and scoring hat tricks against shitty loyalist assholes while being named Islam.

#11: Cesc Fabregas – Forgive my stupid American ignorance, but I always feel like part of his name is missing. He also always reminds me of somebody Furio would kill on the Sopranos as well. My brain is a horrible buffet of media-manufactured stereotypes.

#12: Willian – As much as I try to be indifferent to the point of dislike towards both Chelsea and Brazilian players, something about the hair makes me enjoy Willian dashing up and down the flank as winger. My apologies to anyone who would hold such a joy against me.

#13: Victor Moses – It should be noted that I have been jotting down pertinent metaphysical data for a metaphysics offering about the World Cup (self-published, like all quacks do), and it makes me happy to say, that despite an inconsistency due to corruption of governing bureaucracy, the Nigerian Super Eagles still look to be poised to qualify for Russia out of Group B in Africa, shockingly so considering they were drawn with Cameroon and Algeria in African qualifying’s Group of Death. Victor Moses and the gang have done well, losing only one qualifier, and already seeing Cameroon and Algeria eliminated. (Algeria’s elimination has been cause of great concern in African football; no way that team should have only 1 pt in qualifying, and Algerians are not known for their footballing patience.) Anyways, Victor Moses is key member of the national team, so I use his listing as an excuse to bring all this up. I’m reading an anthology of poetry for each nation that qualifies as well (because Eduardo Galeano taught me that poetry and football pair together perfectly, when done right, although both have been mangled horribly by dominant power systems), so I use google’s algorithm (on an incognito search, which we all know is not incognito, but it forces them to pretend and thus not use as much bullshit against you from your filter bubble) to search “Nation poetry anthology” and then I get whatever the top result book is that actually exists in local university library. Thus far I’ve only read Russia and Brazil anthologies, and let me tell you, poetry is fucking sick.

#14: Branislav Ivanovic – Yet another player technically born in Yugoslavia, which obviously came apart at the ethnic seams in the ‘90s, thus he is now classified as Serbian. The sheer number of world class players who come from what was traditionally Yugoslavia is insane when you start adding them all together (which they will never do themselves, because tensions remain hot, and UEFA actually is running out of different groups to slap former Yugoslav republics into now that Kosovo is recognized national team). Like his country mate Matic, Ivanovic was loved by Mourinho, and also like Matic, he became expendable to Antonio Conte. Ivanovic is aging though (33), and after nearly 400 club matches with Chelsea, he went back to Russia again to play for Zenit St. Petersburg this past February.

#15: John Terry – John Terry’s remarkable (you have to use that word as even a contrarian “sportswriter” with regards to his time) tenure at Chelsea was going to come to an end, and there was no better way than as Premier League Champion one more time. It seemed signal for him to do the “retirement” phase of a couple seasons in the United States being overpaid to perform in a shitty league where a bunch of middle class hooligan wannabes drink microbrews and beat on drums and pretend to be “supporters”. But obviously Terry has not given up on his ability to occupy a prominent(ish) Starting XI in Europe yet, as he instead opted for playing for freshly-relegated Aston Villa. This move suggest Terry will forego the U.S. money tour and instead make the transition to second-tier player-manager, then outright manager. That’s got to be a weird thing to have as a force on your team if you’re the manager though – an elder spirit of the sport, who you know can help out a ton, but also might slip the boardroom knife between your shoulder blades during any bad spell.

#16: Asmir Begovic – Around the time of World Cup 2010, I fell in love with the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team, and thus fell in love with Begovic, as he was big part of their run during that period. When it appeared obvious he was leaving Chelsea this past summer, and I was also concerned Lukasz Fabianski would leave Swansea City, I was wishing and hoping for Begovic to come to the Swans. Along with my African heritage defensive midfielder beliefs, I also feel strongly that your most metaphysically solid GK is going to come from Eastern Europe, where darkness has hung over existence for many decades. A GK requires the ability to navigate the darkness, and not become too emotional over successes or failures. A coldness of  heart and survival mode eyesight with wide peripheral vision is necessary at GK, and Eastern Europe has been benefit of an environment which would nurture such psychic genetics. But instead Begovic went to Bournemouth, and Fabianski stayed in Swansea. (An odd aside to Begovic – he played youth football during his teens in Canada, of all places.)

#17: Oscar – Oscar is about the smuggest looking dude ever, and also he (along with later listing John Obi Mikel) did what Diego Costa couldn’t do – get that Chinese Super League money. Fellow Brazilians Hulk and Elkeson also play for the same Chinese team, and they actually caused a giant brawl this past June, where Oscar booted the ball at opposing players creating the fracas. He got suspended 8 matches, but Shanghai SIPG is still sitting in second, and looking good to qualify for the Asian version of the Champions League. Sometimes I actually catch Asian Champions League matches on the computer, but I tend to go for eastern Asia brackets with clubs from Iran and Saudi Arabia, not the western Asian clubs. I can’t even say “Arab clubs” because then Persians would be mad. Oh, by the way, Oscar and his Shanghai SIPG club are in the final four of the Asian Champions League, with the first leg (against Urawa Red Diamonds) set for 12 days from now. DE-COLONIZE YOUR FOOTBALLING EXPERIENCE! THERE’S MORE TO THE WORLD THAN JUST UEFA.

#18: Kurt Zouma – On loan to Stoke City all season. It seems Chelsea loan out all their non-white players, to let them sort out who is best elsewhere, and not upset the Chelsea Headhunters with too many players at once that they have to whistle at like assholes every time they touch the ball.

#19: Michy Batshuayi – Belgian striker most famously known for authoring the dystopian classic 1Q84, and many felt was going to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 2014, but he was narrowly edged out by Luis Suarez.

#20: John Obi Mikel – I did all that talking about Nigeria already, and here was the fucking team captain sitting right here, waiting for me to gloss him as well. Mikel is no longer with Chelsea though, having been one of the lucky men to cash in on those ridiculous Chinese Super League contracts. Sadly, as of right now, his Chinese Super League team – Tianjin Teda – is sitting next to last on the table, and flirting with relegation. I can’t imagine his contract will still be feasible as second level of Chinese football.

#21: Baba Rahman – The young baby Baba Rahman is a Ghanaian who has been potential Chelsea star for a few seasons now (of which they have hyped many, but few have come to fruition). As a follower of African club football, I can tell you one of the most heated rivalries in all of black Africa (African football is still culturally somewhat segregated in style by Arab and black regions) is Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko in Ghana. Rahman’s first professional season of football was played for Asante Kotoko (having played youth football, and thus contractually owned by Dreams FC in Ghana). One season there, and clubs like Manchester City, Parma, and Arsenal came sniffing for the young man. He ended up at Chelsea by way of a German stint, and has since been about to breakthrough for a while. Last season he went back to Germany on loan, and one has to wonder if Rahman has much life at Chelsea left barring a miracle turn in his fortunes.

#22: Ruben Loftus-Cheek – Young 21-year-old “about to breakthrough” Chelsea-owned midfielder on season-long loan to Crystal Palace, who have had their worst start to Premier League season ever. Chelsea’s “out on loan” Wikipedia section is bigger than most clubs actual rosters. That shit is wack and goes against the integrity of football and antifa are the only true supporters of real football in Europe, and it’s sad that American antifa think antifa is only about macing Nazis. Then again, MLS sucks.

#23: Nathaniel Chalobah – Another “about to breakthrough” Chelsea wonderkid, which meant he was loaned to the following clubs: Watford (42 matches), Nottingham Forest (12 matches), Middlesbrough (19 matches), Burnley (4 matches), Reading (20 matches), and Napoli (10 matches). In that same period he only accumulated 15 appearances for Chelsea proper (10 of which were last season, which is how he cracked the list). Finally, the kid from Sierra Leone, now 22, and seven years into English football property, he transferred to Watford where he can actually appear for the club that owns his rights. (I wanted to make some sort of blood diamond reference, but it seemed heavy-handed, and it’s not like he’s free – he’s still in England, and earning lots of money that a poor kid from Freetown probably finds mind-boggling, as does everybody back home, which has made him an alien in his own homeland. Corporate colonization is real.)

#24: Antonio Rudiger – If Action Bronson is so fuckin’ Albanian, how come he doesn’t drop more soccer references?

#25: Kenedy – Look, I got Ibn al-Arabi’s Meccan Revelations Volume 1 in the mail today, and I’m trying to wrap this thing up to go lay in the bed naked and read some more of that. So I’m out.

TH3 W34KN3SS 0F D1G1T4L...

the weakness of digital

library is no archive

by ash, as necessary

Aki Basho 2017 Honour Tanka Day 3: AMINISHIKI (3-0)

(Harumafuji is like "wait, is this an actual bout?")

shouldn’t yung sumo 

be flexing this strange basho 

of mass injury? 

how does old juryo bastard 

become a sudden story? 

Aminishiki - 

makuuchi sixteen years 

before demotion 

he withdrew from Nagoya 

a year ago, and got dropped 

six bashos he has 

battled his old ass way back 

through the juryo ranks 

(he turns 39 next month, 

oldest ever if top rank) 

fighting up day three 

due to mass fusen, he 

remained undefeated 

old ass Aminishiki, 

Aki basho’s hidden gift? 

(of note as well was 

final bout’s abnormal end - 

sketchy non-matta) 

(Harumafuji assumed 

matta, but bout continued) 

(Harumafuji 

the only yokozuna 

in Aki basho) 

(Harumafuji stopped, but 

Kotoshogiku did not) 

(Harumafuji 

looked confused at ref, who waved 

his official fan) 

(Kotoshogiku remains 

undefeated, and unhurt) 

[this strange basho will 

continue, with or without 

well-known rikishi]

[an unforgiving first week; 
sumo remains raw as fuck] 

Aki Basho 2017 Honour Tanka Day 2: TAKAYASU (1-1)

(Takayasu going for a ride... WHEEE!)

with hurt rikishi 

galore, I thought it might be 

Takayasu’s time 

but day two Tamawashi 

bout was double injury 

earlier in day, 

my man Ura got fucked up, 

hobbled his way back 

but Takayasu against 

Tamawashi fucked both dudes 

Takayasu slid 

back like sled push training drill, 

but tried to hold edge 

Tamawashi pushed further, 

ankle going the wrong way 

contemplate the low 

center of gravity plus 

all that weight carried 

human ankles not designed 

to handle that level strain 

and yet still, Tamawashi 

was able to finish bout 

adrenaline surge 

with final push, and down 

went Takayasu 

down on floor, Takayasu 

showed lack of mobility 

proper post-bout bows, 

but Takayasu could not 

carry his own weight 

down the hanamichi 

came wheelchair/shopping cart thing 

up hanamichi 

they rolled Takayasu, not 

likely to return 

afterwards, Tamawashi 

also hobbled horribly 

he won the extra 

pay envelopes, but also 

looks done for basho 

who the fuck’s gonna be left 

in battle royal basho? 

did yokozuna 

withdrawing establish bad 

energies with gods? 

will the sumo gods reward 

us before two weeks are done? 

Aki Basho 2017 Honour Tanka Day 1: URA (1-0)

(Ura walks the line better than Johnson P. Cash)

the squad is mad thin - 

three yokozuna (plus more) 

already withdrawn 

event lacking star power 

necessitates young buck flex 

who shall step the fuck 

up, seize opportunity,

win aki basho? 

enough build-up - Day One was weird; 

one of four yokozunas 

ozekis losing, 

and shit felt like it wasn’t 

entirely complete 

perhaps this will be Ura’s 

chance to shine in lighter field 

his first bout against 

Shodai, young Ura tip-toed 

the edge of failure 

but he did yokozuna 

ballerina gravitas 

dumb American 

me anxiously awaits what 

shall rise to the top 

I, the dumb American, 
who watches youtube sumo 

C0NF3D3R4T3 FL4G SP0T-L1T...

confederate flag spot-lit

sits across the street; "it's about

states rights" the kid once told me

CH40T1C 1NFR4STRVCTVR3...

chaotic infrastructure

an industrial art which

layers itself over time

TH3 3ND 0F 4 L1N3 WH1CH G0T...

the end of a line which got

rendered irrelevant by

ten mile bridge over water

WH4T L00KS L1K3 F4LL1NG 4P4RT...

what looks like falling apart

is perfectly curated,

easily overlooked lives

MYST3RY B4RR3LS SC4TT3R3D...

mystery barrels scattered

throughout the bottom acres -

targets for soccer ball drills

Nagoya Basho 2017 Honour Tanka Day 15: DAIAMAMI (11-4)

(juryo yusho from 2 months back... fuck it)

never did finish 

final day honour tanka 

nagoya basho 

oh well… Hakuho had won, 

so not much was left to watch 

however, juryo 

basho had playoff final - 

sumo’s three-way dance 

no promotion on the line 

necessarily; just pride 

Daiamami beat 

two others to be the best 

of second best class 

his effort to finish much 

better than mine - DISHONOUR 

The Unexpected Power of Lounge - Part I

(artist's rendering of what COULD'VE happened with our car;
also there may never be a Part II to this tbh)

Before I get into this essay upon the discreet and underground Power of Lounge, let me say Fuck Wal-Mart in general, and Fuck the Zion’s Crossroads Wal-Mart Super Center tire center in particular, for being bold and profound powers of unlounge working against us all in general, but recently my family in particular. My eldest daughter was about to head off to college, but got involved in a traffic accident where some dude passed out and ploughed his Nissan truck into oncoming traffic. He died, and a work van got crushed in the middle, and my daughter was involved in the third part, which destroyed her Volvo (late model, a 2001 S80), but sold me on Volvos because likely if she had been driving a Tercel or shitty old Citation (like teenage me), she would’ve been dead too. So we found another Volvo (even later model, a 1998 V70 station wagon, so conceivably she can live it once this U.S. Empire finishes failing). It needed a pair of tires and an oil change leading up to her going to college, so the ol’ lady and eldest daughter took it to the Wal-Mart there in Zion’s Crossroads, because how can you fuck up tires and an oil change?

I’ll tell you how. First, you put different size tires on than the ones you took off, although that didn’t cause an immediate problem. But secondly you can mangle the oil cap to where it no longer functions as a cap, but send the car on its way. We were heading a two-hour drive the next morning to move our daughter off to college, all her shit in the van up front, and her driving behind us (with her sisters, enjoying donuts and a last moment as siblings under the same roof). Not even half an hour into it, her car starts smoking like mad, so we get off the interstate (another force of unlounge on this Earth), and I pop the hood, and there’s oil everywhere, all over the bottom of the engine and catalytic converter and the shit’s actually on fire. So we call 911 because I ain’t got no fire hose, and I’m like “okay, yall shift everything around in the van so she can ride sitting on a milk crate, and I’ll stay here with the burning vehicle while you get her to college on time.” But the fire went out before the fire truck got there, and I left it with a lime green dust cloth in the window to tow to the shop later, wondering what the fuck was wrong with it now that it’d been on fire.

The shop I took it too is chill – Volvo specialists, but not on the high-and-mighty end of Volvo-dom (which is common for European vehicles, yet another force of unlounge… there’s so many). Daughter was at college without a car (which is fine, fuck it, you’re in college, go join the socialist club or something – which she literally did), and me and the ol’ lady are wondering if this previously perfectly fine late model Volvo station wagon was now toast due to incompetent ass Wal-Mart oil changers. The answer was no, not yet, as the shop called and said they replaced the oil cap that got fucked up, and cleaned off the engine, and we should be okay, though it would smell like de-greaser for a while until all that burned off too. So I paid the bill, and caught a ride into work bright and early the next morning with a dude down the road to pick-up the Volvo and park it to drive home after work. It did smell like de-greaser, which has that citrus-y smell of where mechanics wash their hands (think Orange Gojo, my preferred brand, which I think is what my dad used to use at the family shop he worked at for forever), and it was actually kinda pleasant on the way to parking, though the car still sounded rough.

Made my way through another day of pretending to be productive within the overly-complicated labyrinth of the immense bureaucracy, took my one mile walk back to where I park (by the railroad tracks, naturally), and attempted to drive the Volvo home. It still sounded rough, something not quite right, but I didn’t know what, so like anybody with a lifelong history of only driving shitty vehicles in various states of near death, I opened it up on the interstate, staying to the right lane as much possible (easier to escape sharing your natural-born carnage with others that way – the real danger of living a carnage-based lifestyle is being found legally and thus financially liable for committing carnage upon others; nobody gives a fuck if you mangle your own un-excel spreadsheets), and then when I got on the back roads headed home, opened it up the rest of the way. There was a knocking sound at regular intervals, and being this was originally an all-wheel-drive vehicle, upon which the dumbasses at Wal-Mart had put different size pair of tires on one end, I assumed those were related issues, of which I hoped to have an intense and as personal as possible in-person discussion with them as soon as I could. But I had to get home first. There is no right lane for easy escape on curvy rural Virginia back roads, so I just had to take my chances. There’s one spot in particular that’s extra chaotic for outsiders, because like one road twists through two curves while three other roads flow into it, with a country store opposite one side that has a sign out front that says things like “Happy Birthday Ol’ Fart Fuzzy” or “Now Have Bologna Burgers For Breakfast”, and it gives the impression of being like three forks in the road, each fork pointed a different way, all in about an eighth of mile of asphalt, with a country store thrown in for good measure. After clearing this chaos zone though, there’s a mostly straight stretch where you can gun it to test things out (and also where I once wrecked a Toyota Tercel and concussed myself with one of the best concussions I ever had, to where I couldn’t think clearly for a few weeks, and didn’t remember directions… that was a good one), so I tested things out.

Almost immediately there was a loud blowing out sound like a tire had popped, but I didn’t hear any rim scraping asphalt (an easily recognizable sound once you’ve experienced it a couple times). I pulled off into a logging trail entrance, and checked all the tires – good – and decided that even though it felt like I had power still, I might wanna park the Volvo up in the gravel lot by the country store to get towed back to the shop in case I’d blown something serious out. This is life of shitty vehicles thinking here, because when I wrecked my Tercel and had two crooked wheels and concussed myself, it sounded okay enough for me to drive it the remaining 10 miles home. But today’s Volvo did not sound 10-mile ready, so I parked it, texted the same dude from down the road to come pick me up, or else I was gonna start walking home. (Unfortunately I had stopped and gotten groceries, so I was prepared to hitchhike home with a backpack, carrying a watermelon, and a bag of organic chicken thighs plus some kale. Fuck it.)

Got home, and called a tow truck, then drove back in my normal shitty vehicle to wait for the tow truck. Here’s the other interesting thing about the chaos triple fork country store back road segment – GPS doesn’t map well through there, and cell service is spotty at best, so unless you know where you’re going, you likely won’t get it right.

So I went back, about 7:00 or so, and sat in my shitty minivan waiting for the tow truck. Texts could come in but not calls, so the time of arrival got updated and pushed back (and back). The country store closed at 8, and the sun made a beautiful sunset down behind the barn on the other side of the one of the forks in the road. I listened to NPR for a while, but all the after work commuter traffic from C-ville died down, and the country store shut off its lights, and it was getting dark, and I wasn’t doing shit but sitting there in the middle of nowhere – my middle of nowhere, a middle of nowhere I know deeply, so that the abandoned house with the busted windows… I knew a big sprawling family used to live there and wild ass country daughters who seemed to be too early sexualized would do backflips on the trampoline in the side yard before it became abandoned; that the house just past with the Tercel with one flat permanently flat tire used to be a functional vehicle that a crazy-eyed older woman would sometimes be pulling out in the middle of all these forks and curves in the morning around the same area this old guy would always be walking with a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the country store, so it’d be danger zone time if you’re brakes weren’t working well, which also was common but fuck it… this was all of our nowhere, and the worrisome NPR news about this impending tragedy or that overlooked injustice just didn’t resonate with me in this moment. I had a formerly okay late model car that now appeared to be a piece of shit due to corporate incompetence, but I had to get the piece of shit towed to find out for sure, so I wasn’t gonna sit here and worry myself any further. Worrying doesn’t solve nothing, as I always tell my children when anxious.

So it got dark, and I sat there. The cicadas were freestyling a late summer freestyle about “fuck it all, I’m gonna sit here not giving a shit until the day I die, the day I die, the day I die” and I was digging it. Now and then someone else’s raggedy late model this or that would rumble through, silencing the cicadas briefly, and I would dissect the missing engines or mangled mufflers or ’93 pick-ups that obviously could not be cut off after started up unless you were already where you planned on going. The chaos of the forks and curves created a nice pattern for these mechanical messes to navigate, broken and dilapidated roars coughing to a downward crescendo until the necessary turn had been made, then a wild and wonderful resistant working person’s ROAR of making it another mile, fuck you corporate overlords and culture of big bossmans and lizard brained politicians. (Too much NPR, perhaps.) And then the cicadas would slowly start to pipe back up their feral symphonic refrain as well, “until the day I die, day I die, day I die.” It was all a very beautiful and perfect moment, and I’d had to walk through these curves due to breaking down, and wrecked in these curves before as well, and driven many a beaten and battered car of my own, commuting to various jobs at different stages of my life. GPS would get you lost, but I knew each fork, each curve, could get quickly to Palmyra, Charlottesville, Scottsville, and any point otherwise easily, fuck your robot maps. Fuck your robot world.

These were the thoughts that danced through my head, backed by the cicada refrain and shitty vehicle soliloquies going on, until the tow truck driver finally did show up, driving right past. No cell service, so I cut the lights on the minivan, and stood outside for ten minutes waiting for him to finally circle back, to pick up another vehicle which may or may not be a piece of shit, owned by a man who may or may not be the same, in an unseen rural wasteland that makes up a large chunk of the United States, as well as the Earth.

The rear drive shaft got blown out by the mismatched tires, I found out from the shop, which was what I expected, but luckily they are loungers too, and explained all we had to do was take it off the vehicle, our all-wheel drive was now just front-wheel drive (like most cars), and the exposed gear bevel box made a loud clacking sound but it was sort of like the grown person’s car version of when you stuck a jack of diamonds in your bicycle spokes. Now we can keep squeezing life out of this vehicles which has been maimed by those assholes at the Zion’s Crossroads Wal-Mart Super Center, and it might drive another 2000 or 20,000 or 200,000 miles – one can never tell, because the Power of Lounge works in unexplainable ways. But if you slow down enough, and stop sometimes – either by design or disaster – it’s easy to see. And though I could probably “apply” myself and be a more proactive success in this world in the commonly accepted sense of that word “success”, I’m pretty good with not giving a fuck, and sitting here not giving a shit about all that stress and shine, like the cicadas were singing, until the day I die, day I die, day I die.

F4M1L14L G3N3T1CS...

familial genetics

always fallible - both good

and bad combined in yourself