One of my great laments is I don’t have so much as a pinch of a deeply held religious belief. They all fall apart for me in the same way. Every religion (that I’m familiar with) starts out great with a core of ideas about how humans should conduct themselves and treat others but then quickly moves on to some seriously crazy goo that I just can’t swallow. A few examples:
“We should be judged based on how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us…”
Awesome. I like that.
“…Because God stuck his kid in an unsuspecting lady’s womb so he could grow up and be punished to atone for human sin.”
¡Bah!, ¿what? That’s just weird.
“You should treat others as you’d like to be treated…”
I’m totally down with that.
“…Because this Dude led his oppressed people to a new land of freedom that God helped him find but then told him he couldn’t hang out in there once they found it so Dude sat on a mountain until he was, like, 120 and then God buried him in a secret grave.”
¿Huh?
“You should treat everyone with compassion…”
Yes, yes, now you’re talking my language.
“…Because a long time ago this rich kid freaked out, ran away from home, and sat under a tree until he faced down a kind of demon lord and in so doing gained the secrets of life and the universe.”
¿You mean like George Bush Jr.? No thanks.
“You should hold high the flame of peace, justice, and equality…”
That sounds great. I’ll do that.
“…Because ¡SOLUSTRON! created us all from a magic rainbow that ends in a pot of comprehensive sex education that overflows with coffee and stimulating but non-offensive conversation.”
Whatever.
Like you I’ve seen Batman Begins and The Dark Knight so I, like you, understand the significance of reinforcing core “thou shalt” lessons with grand illusions to set them in a realm beyond human fallibility but I have my limits. So absolutely I believe humans have become overly reliant on pharmacological solutions to their sorrows, but come on, ¿how am I supposed to get behind the idea of extraterrestrial dictators using neural implants from our previous lives to make us fell depressed? I’m sorry, but that’s just ridiculous, and the fact that a significant number of people believe it is nearly enough to drive me to Paxil.
Then, just as I’m about to write the whole religion thing off for good and stock up on my antidepressants something like game 5 happens. Regular ¡FUTURISMOS! blog readers may have detected a note of melancholy in my reports this season. It wasn’t that we’re off to bad start (two draws and two losses) or hadn’t played in any good games (they’ve all been good, even game 4 where we got our butts kicked). There was just something missing for me.
I hadn’t had a single moment where I thought I’d turn around in a game to see the apparition of Genghis Khan winking at me so I’d definitively know the game/my life/the world/the Universe/the Lionel Messi was a gift from The Eternal Blue Sky. ¿So what happened in game 5 that made me sure I was going to catch the great Kahn in the stands out of the corner of my eye?
Truly astute ¡FUTURISMOS! fans already know the answer.
Twin Faustian Moments
Just when I’d all but given up on Faustian Moments we were blessed with two gems in the same game that restored my faith in being alive.
¿If Touro falls flat on his face on the pitch in spectacular fashion and we’re all there to see it does the sound of our collective laughter give a legion of angels their wings?
In the first half Touro found himself with the ball at the edge of the FCV box and literally nothing between himself and the goal. All he had to do was kick the ball forward and we’d have doubled our lead.
But Touro being Touro is inclined to do things in his own confoundingly crazy fashion. I don’t know how he did it but instead of kicking the ball he ended up getting both of his feet caught in the turf (¿or each other?) and ended up falling tree style, that’s without breaking his fall, on his face.
So there was Touro facing a gilded, heaven sent opportunity to score his first ¡FUTURISMOS! goal. It was a wide-open chance with everyone watching and… he fell literally and spectacularly flat on his face. It was such an exposed, unassisted tumble that there was only one possible response—unfettered laughter. It… was… awesome.
It also illuminates part of what’s so brilliant about Touro. There was no way he was going to take this badly. He (like I have in the past) took a moment on the ground to fully absorb the totality of his moment and then bounced up and got back in the game with a smile on his face, shaking his head in disbelief at how astounding his own gaff had been. That’s… what… made… it… so… awesome.
Heartbreaker’s No Child Left Alive Policy
Late in the game Heartbreaker teed up a crazy shot from just inside midfield and blasted it toward the FCV goal. Beyond the goal were the bleachers in which a 5-year-old boy was three-quarters of the way up in his trek to climb to the top. Oh, yes, these two events are soon to be related.
Everyone on the pitch watched as Heartbreaker’s shot sailed high and wide over the goal and our collective thought was, “wow, that shot is nowhere near the goal.” Then as the ball sailed over the goal we all saw out of the corners of our eyes where the ball was headed. It was amazing, you could feel the collective mood shift instantaneously from completely relaxed to totally freaked out because that ball was going to hit that kid. To make matters worse it was going to hit the kid in the back so he couldn’t prepare himself for it making the potential outcomes we were all envisioning that much worse.
Someone bellowed “¡LOOK OUT KID!” and he turned around just in time to see the ball bang off the seat he was climbing over and safely bounce away.
Once the kid was clearly safe I turned to Heartbreaker and started yelling at him. “Good lord, Heartbreaker, ¿what’s wrong with you? I’m glad you’ve finally embraced my belief the human race should stop reproducing but for crying out loud ¡that doesn’t mean we pick them off one at a time after they’re born! I’m talking about a societal shift in which people choose to stop having babies.”
An FCV lady, number 17, was already laughing at this whole scene but at that point her laughter shifted into something that was equal parts mesmerizing and frightening. ¿You know the classic nerd laugh? It’s the laugh where the sound comes from the intake of air at the back of the throat. [If you're not familiar just ask me to reenact it.] So 17’s laughter shifted from “normal” sounding laughter into this super nerd laugh. But that’s not the transcendent part.
She couldn’t stop. Her laughter went on so long that the collective reaction to it oscillated between amusement and fear. It went on so long that I became afraid she was going to choke on her laughter. ¿How do you save someone from choking to death on laughter? ¿Tell her something terribly unfunny like “truth be told, as amazing as it seems, John McCain could win the Presidential election”?
Watching 17 try to run up the pitch while fighting back a nearly catastrophic nerd laugh attack or Touro fall spectacularly on his face and then trot back down the pitch smiling to himself I have no doubt Dr. Faust would have yelled “¡STOP!” (after he stopped laughing) to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for the experience right then and there.
And I would have been right there with the good Doctor looking high and low for The Eternal Blue Sky to say, “I yield, life is worth living because this is too good to miss. If that means I have believe some messed up fairytale about dreadlocked aliens and make fun of Brooke Shields then so be it. It’s totally worth it.”
Roll Call
Ladies: Zarate, Li’l Pete, Diosa, Run MC, and Juju.
Gents: Elliot, TB, Touro, Heartbreaker, El Duque, and Me.
Good turnout. Two subs each for both the ladies and the gents. The perfect number of players.
Fan Roll Call
Collette and Spectra kept up their Super Fan Feud. I think Spectra’s still ahead but I’d be the first one to admit I might be biased in this assessment.
Weather
Oh… my… goodness gracious me. It was amazing outside. 70-ish degrees. Low humidity. The Eternal Blue Sky was on hand with a smattering of wispy clouds to accent its resplendent glory. Sweat dripping into my eyes and pouring into my mouth has never felt so good.
KICK OFF
¡GOAL FUTURISMOS! Heartbreaker (12th min): ¡F! 1 — FCV 0
The game’s sole goal was courtesy a coolly tapped ball by Heartbreaker at pointblank range into a gapping net. As is typically the case in such instances, it was a team effort.
¡Bah!, ¿what? That’s just weird.
“You should treat others as you’d like to be treated…”
I’m totally down with that.
“…Because this Dude led his oppressed people to a new land of freedom that God helped him find but then told him he couldn’t hang out in there once they found it so Dude sat on a mountain until he was, like, 120 and then God buried him in a secret grave.”
¿Huh?
“You should treat everyone with compassion…”
Yes, yes, now you’re talking my language.
“…Because a long time ago this rich kid freaked out, ran away from home, and sat under a tree until he faced down a kind of demon lord and in so doing gained the secrets of life and the universe.”
¿You mean like George Bush Jr.? No thanks.
“You should hold high the flame of peace, justice, and equality…”
That sounds great. I’ll do that.
“…Because ¡SOLUSTRON! created us all from a magic rainbow that ends in a pot of comprehensive sex education that overflows with coffee and stimulating but non-offensive conversation.”
Whatever.
Like you I’ve seen Batman Begins and The Dark Knight so I, like you, understand the significance of reinforcing core “thou shalt” lessons with grand illusions to set them in a realm beyond human fallibility but I have my limits. So absolutely I believe humans have become overly reliant on pharmacological solutions to their sorrows, but come on, ¿how am I supposed to get behind the idea of extraterrestrial dictators using neural implants from our previous lives to make us fell depressed? I’m sorry, but that’s just ridiculous, and the fact that a significant number of people believe it is nearly enough to drive me to Paxil.
Then, just as I’m about to write the whole religion thing off for good and stock up on my antidepressants something like game 5 happens. Regular ¡FUTURISMOS! blog readers may have detected a note of melancholy in my reports this season. It wasn’t that we’re off to bad start (two draws and two losses) or hadn’t played in any good games (they’ve all been good, even game 4 where we got our butts kicked). There was just something missing for me.
I hadn’t had a single moment where I thought I’d turn around in a game to see the apparition of Genghis Khan winking at me so I’d definitively know the game/my life/the world/the Universe/the Lionel Messi was a gift from The Eternal Blue Sky. ¿So what happened in game 5 that made me sure I was going to catch the great Kahn in the stands out of the corner of my eye?
Truly astute ¡FUTURISMOS! fans already know the answer.
Twin Faustian Moments
Just when I’d all but given up on Faustian Moments we were blessed with two gems in the same game that restored my faith in being alive.
¿If Touro falls flat on his face on the pitch in spectacular fashion and we’re all there to see it does the sound of our collective laughter give a legion of angels their wings?
In the first half Touro found himself with the ball at the edge of the FCV box and literally nothing between himself and the goal. All he had to do was kick the ball forward and we’d have doubled our lead.
But Touro being Touro is inclined to do things in his own confoundingly crazy fashion. I don’t know how he did it but instead of kicking the ball he ended up getting both of his feet caught in the turf (¿or each other?) and ended up falling tree style, that’s without breaking his fall, on his face.
So there was Touro facing a gilded, heaven sent opportunity to score his first ¡FUTURISMOS! goal. It was a wide-open chance with everyone watching and… he fell literally and spectacularly flat on his face. It was such an exposed, unassisted tumble that there was only one possible response—unfettered laughter. It… was… awesome.
It also illuminates part of what’s so brilliant about Touro. There was no way he was going to take this badly. He (like I have in the past) took a moment on the ground to fully absorb the totality of his moment and then bounced up and got back in the game with a smile on his face, shaking his head in disbelief at how astounding his own gaff had been. That’s… what… made… it… so… awesome.
Heartbreaker’s No Child Left Alive Policy
Late in the game Heartbreaker teed up a crazy shot from just inside midfield and blasted it toward the FCV goal. Beyond the goal were the bleachers in which a 5-year-old boy was three-quarters of the way up in his trek to climb to the top. Oh, yes, these two events are soon to be related.
Everyone on the pitch watched as Heartbreaker’s shot sailed high and wide over the goal and our collective thought was, “wow, that shot is nowhere near the goal.” Then as the ball sailed over the goal we all saw out of the corners of our eyes where the ball was headed. It was amazing, you could feel the collective mood shift instantaneously from completely relaxed to totally freaked out because that ball was going to hit that kid. To make matters worse it was going to hit the kid in the back so he couldn’t prepare himself for it making the potential outcomes we were all envisioning that much worse.
Someone bellowed “¡LOOK OUT KID!” and he turned around just in time to see the ball bang off the seat he was climbing over and safely bounce away.
Once the kid was clearly safe I turned to Heartbreaker and started yelling at him. “Good lord, Heartbreaker, ¿what’s wrong with you? I’m glad you’ve finally embraced my belief the human race should stop reproducing but for crying out loud ¡that doesn’t mean we pick them off one at a time after they’re born! I’m talking about a societal shift in which people choose to stop having babies.”
An FCV lady, number 17, was already laughing at this whole scene but at that point her laughter shifted into something that was equal parts mesmerizing and frightening. ¿You know the classic nerd laugh? It’s the laugh where the sound comes from the intake of air at the back of the throat. [If you're not familiar just ask me to reenact it.] So 17’s laughter shifted from “normal” sounding laughter into this super nerd laugh. But that’s not the transcendent part.
She couldn’t stop. Her laughter went on so long that the collective reaction to it oscillated between amusement and fear. It went on so long that I became afraid she was going to choke on her laughter. ¿How do you save someone from choking to death on laughter? ¿Tell her something terribly unfunny like “truth be told, as amazing as it seems, John McCain could win the Presidential election”?
Watching 17 try to run up the pitch while fighting back a nearly catastrophic nerd laugh attack or Touro fall spectacularly on his face and then trot back down the pitch smiling to himself I have no doubt Dr. Faust would have yelled “¡STOP!” (after he stopped laughing) to the nearby Lucifer and traded his soul for the experience right then and there.
And I would have been right there with the good Doctor looking high and low for The Eternal Blue Sky to say, “I yield, life is worth living because this is too good to miss. If that means I have believe some messed up fairytale about dreadlocked aliens and make fun of Brooke Shields then so be it. It’s totally worth it.”
Roll Call
Ladies: Zarate, Li’l Pete, Diosa, Run MC, and Juju.
Gents: Elliot, TB, Touro, Heartbreaker, El Duque, and Me.
Good turnout. Two subs each for both the ladies and the gents. The perfect number of players.
Fan Roll Call
Collette and Spectra kept up their Super Fan Feud. I think Spectra’s still ahead but I’d be the first one to admit I might be biased in this assessment.
Weather
Oh… my… goodness gracious me. It was amazing outside. 70-ish degrees. Low humidity. The Eternal Blue Sky was on hand with a smattering of wispy clouds to accent its resplendent glory. Sweat dripping into my eyes and pouring into my mouth has never felt so good.
KICK OFF
¡GOAL FUTURISMOS! Heartbreaker (12th min): ¡F! 1 — FCV 0
The game’s sole goal was courtesy a coolly tapped ball by Heartbreaker at pointblank range into a gapping net. As is typically the case in such instances, it was a team effort.
Apparently my memory of this goal is a little off. After I posted the blog I got this response from El Duque:
Hey...Am I invisible? Ha ha
Hey...Am I invisible? Ha ha
Your goal recap is wayyyyyyyyy incorrect.
A defender sent the ball up field, I trapped it with the chest and passed it to a streaking Diosa who then went to the corner. We did a give and go and she passed it back to me and then I passed it to Heartbreaker for the goal.
The goal was a flawless quadruple bang play that started with nice defense and a quick set up.
I’m not saying, I’m just saying... :)
I stand corrected and this goal was still a throwback to last season when we routinely traced perfect, complicated geometric shapes with our player movement and crisp passing. It was a thing of beauty and I was proud to cheer it on from the sideline.
HALF TIME
We were a happy lot. The score was only 1-0 but the first half had been a pure joy. Elliot and Touro swapped keeping duties for the second straight game. It should be pointed out that Elliot handing the gloves over to Touro with a mere 1-goal cushion is a declaration of faith on par with a Christian Scientist turning down stitches after loosing a leg to an over-active revolving door.
SECOND HALF
The second half was essentially just like the first with the only difference being there were zero goals scored.
Not that anyone had forgotten, but Elliot repeatedly reminded us of his prodigious dead ball abilities. The best of which occurred after a foul at midfield on the sideline. We were awarded a free kick that Elliot used to force the FCV into a diving save that nudged the ball just high enough so it hit the crossbar. The ball bounced back into play and we nearly scored in the ensuing melee but once again an FCV lady standing in the goal cleared the ball. Elliot also forced the FCV keeper into legitimate saves on another long free kick and on a corner kick.
FULL TIME
Our Hyper-Dynamic Duo: Touro and Diosa
Ladies and Gentlemen of the ¡FUTURISMOS! Fiefdom. I realize I’ve implored you all to make the effort to see a game at some point for reasons ranging from mitigating your own shame to chanting down a rival agency. But I’m telling you no number of words will convey what a joy is to watch Touro and Diosa play. [I would know, I’ve tried a lot of words.]
Touro plays like a giant futbol version of Animal from The Muppet Show. Much like Animal makes no pretenses about playing a specific song, Touro seems oblivious to the idea that we have positions on the pitch. Again, like Animal, somehow this works out for the best because rather than crossing us up it means we play with an unpredictable and irrepressible wildcard.
I’ve belabored the majesty of Diosa on many an occasion so I won’t go on and on and on and on about it here but she was in particularly fine form in game 5. Just as there a different forms of dance there are different ways of dancing with the ball. Bobby—our Swedish import last summer—danced with the ball in a Hip Hop fashion. It was garish and big. Diosa’s dancing is more along the lines of Tango. The beauty is in it’s pauses and small flourishes of tightly controlled footwork.
Don’t get me wrong, all of your ¡FUTURISMOS! are fun to watch in the sense that we all play in fashions that are manifestations of our personalities (I’m a loudmouth with macabre undertones). But one need not know those two, Touro and Diosa, in order to appreciate the show they put on. Both are well worth the price of admission.
[Yes, the games are “free” in the sense that you don’t have to buy a ticket to watch them. But they aren’t “free” in the sense that you have carve out a little part of your day in order to watch them. I’m telling you, if you’re reading this I know for a fact that it worth carving a couple hours out of your week to catch them sometime.]
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