Did the end justify the means?

I wanted to feel good about watching the World Cup, to follow the biggest tournament of the most popular sport in the world, the sport I have always loved and followed in some form or another. But I just couldn’t look past all the corruption, the horrible human rights abuses and the deaths it continues to cause, all the misery, all the… just wrong things about this edition of El Copa Mundial. Qatar was so unsuitable for such a massive competition people had to pay more than US$200 a night to sleep in tents! No privacy, no security, and no air conditioning! And a World Cup in November?!

What the actual fuck, man?!?

But I grit my teeth and made my peace with it, how could I not? Besides, this was Messi’s final shot at winning a WC and finally, once and for all, quiet his (unjust) critics who refused to even mention him in the discussion for the greatest player to ever play the game, the GOAT, to use the current vernacular. Greatest Of All Time. GOAT, get it?

Anyway, I pressed on, but then Argentina lost its first game to Saudi Arabia, and suddenly, I was second guessing everything. After all, if Argentina wasn’t going to go all the way, it they were going to sputter and stumble and count solely on Messi to carry them on his 5’7” shoulders as he had done the last two World Cups… what was the point?

But then the Albicelste got their shit together and started the locomotive. They were still lead by La Pulga Atomica, of course, because that’s a team captain’s job, but they showed they weren’t going to solely rely on his magic to advance through the rounds. The weirdo Martinez showed he is one of the best goal keepers in the world by pulling off save after save, often single-handedly keeping Argentina in the game, and Otamnedi and DiMaria once again proved their worth as reliable players in their positions. Most others were also instrumental in every game and shared the burden of duty, more or less equally.

Meanwhile, Christiano Ronaldo proved to be the whiny useless past-his-prime player he has been for a long time by only contributing one goal (from a penalty resulting from one of his trademark dives) and zero assists, and annoying his coach so badly he benched him! And I took great pleasure in all of it.

Then came the final. Argentina had made it convincingly, but the trouble was, so had the French team; a fast, young, and resilient team with the player everyone knows to be the future of the sport, the great magician, the magnificent, the doggedly focused Kylian Mbappe.

Shit.

And what a game it was. Argentina owned the first half and most of the second, leading 2-0 until around the 80th minute, until Mbappe woke up. Two quick goals and by the 83rd minute, 2-2.

Extra time.

Both teams attack relentlessly, and Messi strikes first. 3-2. but then, so does Mbappe! 3-3!!! Penalties will decide this World Cup.

FUUUUUUUCK!!!

France and Argentina both make their first tries, Messi with his usual cool ballsy confidence. Then, Martinez saves one! YES!!! Argentina, I forget who, makes the next penalty, and France… MISSES! A bit later, Argentina wins the shootout 4-2 and Messi finally, after trying and failing so many times, lifts the golden statue above his head and cements his legacy as the greatest to ever play the game, just edging his idol Maradona, El Pibe De Oro, as far as I’m concerned.

A game for the ages. One of the greatest World Cup finals ever. An instant classic.

So Messi and I got what we wanted. But did it all mean anything, knowing it all came at such great cost? To Messi, of course.

To me… hm.

Here I Am then!

In Milwaukee!

Woohoo! By which I mean I have most things sorted except for the transportation, and I hope to have that figured out soon. Ish. Thankfully Wisconsin is apparently one of those states that responds quickly to applications for assistance. I already have my food assistance sorted, as well as my health insurance, such as it is. So for now, I sit in my room in a very old house riddled with ants and asshole housemates and without air conditioning, ordering groceries from Amazon Fresh and not going anywhere because every trip costs me between bollocking $20 to $30.

Ah but it’ll all be fine soon enough. I’ll have my bus cripple bus pass and have all my prescriptions filled and will go out and see people and do things and maybe even move to a half way decent house in a half way decent neighborhood…

Goddamn I am tired of repeating the same shit to myself every few months then do it all fucking over again. This is it. I’m not moving anymore. Hell or high water, I’m staying in Milwaukee. I can’t do it anymore.

I won’t.

So much and yet…

So little has happened since my last post.
I moved to a new place in September, found an online tutoring job in October, and I’m planning a move to Milwaukee before this summer.

Oh and dad died couple of weeks ago.

It happened suddenly. He tested positive for Covid-19, and a few days later, those light symptoms in addition to the leftover effects from his COPD and his general frailty took their toll.
He passed away peacefully the night of February 20, 2022.

That’s about it.

Inconceivable!!!

I may not be using that correctly..

Regardless, the unthinkable has happened. No culé ever imagined it would end like this. Sure, we all knew it would at some point, but in the claret and blue, at Camp Nou, in one of the biggest celebrations the cavernous stadium has ever seen. Alas, it was not to be.

Messi has left FC Barçelona.

He was offered a new contract, but there was no way he could be paid without breaking some major La Liga financial rules. So now he’s a whatever they’re called over at Paris Saint Germain. Our beloved Pulga Atomico has become part of the decade-long trophy hunt the oil Barrons of Arabia owners of PSG are only happy to continue, despite their crowning achievement in Europe so far has been Champions League runners up.

As upsetting as that is, worse yet is the reasons why Barça couldn’t afford to pay Messi’s contract. The unbelievable incompetence with which the previous boards of directors ran the club has finally reared its ugly head in earnest; the club’s debts have reached into billions of euros, and the Laporta, the prodigal club president, has shown a surprising willingness to continue that disastrous trait this summer, by signing new expensive players without having money to pay them. Last week, just before the first game of the season, Gerard Pique took a pay cut so the new players could be registered and play, proving the club means more than a contract to quite a few players.

Ironically, the financial mismanagement reached its peak a few years ago when PSG forked over Neymar’s 223 million euro release clause to Barça and took his whiny, tantrum-throwing butt to Paris. At the time, Barça was in negotiations with Broussard Dortmund to buy Dembele, and Dortmund, seeing the large wad of cash in Barça’s lap, and aware of the board’s desperation to please the fans, raised its price for young Ousman and wouldn’t budge. And Barça, suddenly having lost all leverage, buckled. Liverpool did the same with Couthinho, and all other clubs reacted to interest from Barça for their players the same way.

And Barça paid. And paid. And Paid.

And here we are. I can’t even be sure if Sergio Aguero, Messi’s best friend, will stay now that Leo’s gone. He won’t be ready to play for a few weeks, so we will see. Maybe Kidman will manage a miracle and present a competitive team this season. Maybe Laporta wakes up, changes course, and saves our beloved Barça as he promised during his election campaign. Maybe…

Oh hell, who knows. The way the world has been turned upside down and inside out recently, anything is possible.

The Collateral Innocents

The Syrian Civil War has been going on for a decade now, and shows little sign of ending. Just like any other war, civil or otherwise, there are those dismissingly called “collateral damage” by the war hawks and military brass; the children and women caught in the middle, bearing the brunt of all the violence and the means used to inflict maximum damage while they try their best to just get on with life.

Here’s the story of two such victims, as told by the brilliant BBC journalists. Watch it and remember it the next time you talk to someone about wars and their necessity; how inevitable it often is, and how it must be fought to restore peace and bring evil men to justice.

Try and remember the children.

What’s In A Name?

“That which we call a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” That is one of the better known quotes from Romeo and Juliet, perhaps even all of Shakespeare’s works, in which Juliet tells Romeo that a name is significant of nothing; that a person’s family name does not dictate their true character…

So on and so forth.

I mention it because of the strange and awkward names given to medications. I can’t watch an hour of programming without some advert comes on extolling the virtues of some medicine or another with a nonsensical name.

Kisqali. Keytruda. Rexulti. Nuplazid. Tremfya. Mavyret. Shingrix. Caplyta. Descovy. Skyrizi. One sounds like an alien race on Star Trek, the other like a new military weapon, and that last one should be sponsored by Snoop Dogg (or whatever he’s calling himself these days). Basically, they sound like anything other than life saving medicines.

But why? Why do they have to have such bizarre non-sense cal names? Why can’t they simply be called what they are? Or a simplified version of it, if the full name is too complex. I’m asking, what’s with all the weird, hard to pronounce names? Is it marketing? Do the pharmas think scientific names would scare people? What is it? What is the reason?

Tell me! Pleeeaaasee?!

Okay, yes, I could google it, but I want to hear it from you. What do you think? How do you feel about the strange medicine names?

Let’s discuss, gentle readers.

This is the end…

Jim Morrison’s ghost might disagree, but this ‘end’ is a good one. Mostly.

The Covid-19 pandemic, the scourge that has so far killed millions worldwide, is slowing down in most areas, thanks mainly to widespread vaccinations, and most people’s willingness to be vaccinated. Alas, the deadly virus seems to have only caught a new headwind in new other parts of the world, and is decimating entire nations. A new variant of Covid-19 is infecting hundreds of thousands daily, with some estimates already putting the death toll there at more than a million. Vietnam has also just found an even more potent variant within its borders. And the Copa America football tournament was just moved to Brazil from Argentina, due to a sudden rise in Covid-19 cases there.

I am, however, going to be positive fo once and stick to the good news. Here in the US, state after state is limiting all restrictions and completely reopening, as a result of the fast-rising vaccination rates. Where I live in Pennsylvania, all restriction may be lifted as soon as this Monday.

And boy is that a good thing.

We will once again be able to mingle amongst each other, talk and interact without muffled voices, standing far apart, all the while worrying if we are precipitating our own demise. We won’t quite reach herd immunity, because there are still those among us who refuse to be vaccinated, citing the stupidest conspiracies as reasons against what global science has accepted as truth.

Well, at least they won’t be hurting the intelligent and reasonable among us.

All that is to say, go out and enjoy yourselves again my fellow Americans, and our British friends across the pond. Fear not the specter of death and disease, except for the usual stuff, you know, STDs, alcohol poisoning…

Go forth and make good decisions, gentle readers.

So...

No, not the Peter Gabriel album. Good album though.I’m just trying to find a good intro into this long-overdue update.

Here goes.

About A month before I moved to Pittsburgh, father started showing signs of… well, completely falling apart! He would squat down but then was unable to stand back up, to the point that I had to call 911 for a lift assist a couple of times. He would slur his words and completely forget how to do simple things; routines he had done thousands of times before. Things like writing a check, taking his meds, and even making tea!

Father improved a bit for a few days, and I dismissed it all to old age. I wish I hadn’t. After I left for Pittsburgh, his friends found him outside one night in his apartment’s parking lot, confused and in very bad shape. They called 911, and my father was about to be pronounced dead as he arrived in the hospital when he was revived. After two weeks in the hospital, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and is now in a long-term care facility, where he will live out the rest of his days… however long it may be.

Since I moved to Pittsburgh, I’ve had to coordinate father’s paperwork for his stay at the nursing home, and assist his friends and neighbors the best I can to empty his apartment and re-home Mozart, Julie, Pacca, and Mr. Birb to new homes, where they can be happy and live their lives. Those poor pets; I feel so guilty about taking their daddy away from them, and taking them out of their home where they had lived for so many years. Heck, Julie was born in that apartment!

Worse yet, I feel guilty about father. It’s true there was no live lost between us, but I still can’t help but feel like an asshole for leaving him on his own when I did. The last month I was there, I did my best to take care of him but I was pushed to my physical limit, and he hadn’t even hit his worst yet. The constant worry and the responsibility for everything also took an emotional toll on me, so I know full and well I wouldn’t have been useful if I had been there.

Still… I can’t help it. Father’s life has been turned upside down, and I feel horribly guilty about it. Had the situation been reversed, father probably wouldn’t have cared one whit, if his past performance as my father is anything to go by. But I’m not him. I feel bad about it all. It may be because I had to make all the arrangements for him; coordinate the removals and discharge of all his things. I don’t know why I feel guilty.

It’s just how I feel.

After "After Life"

Ever since I became disabled, my incapacity for suffering fools gladly has diminished to an almost negligible level. I just don’t care anymore, you know? There’s just no point to worrying about getting hurt in a fight, is there? Let the assholes do their worse; let them start a fight with a crippled man. If you park in a disabled parking spot and are able-bodied, if you cut in line in front of me, if you mistreat the waitstaff… I’m going to let you have, both barrels blazing. Schmucks don’t deserve to get away with it just because.

And it was this incapacity for douchy behavior that I share with Tony, Ricky Gervais’ character in the heartbreaking and funny Netflix series, “After Life.” But the similarities between me and Tony end there. His rage at the world of stupidity and inconsideration that surrounds us is brought on by the loss of his beloved wife to cancer; a tragedy that has left him angry and suicidal. In fact, that is indeed where we meet Tony in the first episode; overcome with grief and ready to slash his wrists in a tub, only to see his dog’s sweet face and wonder who would take care of her if he offs himself.

Now, if you know anything about Ricky Gervais’ work; from the original “The Office” to his hosting the Golden Globes and all other variously brilliant series and movies, you know he pulls no punches. And he carries on that tradition in “After Life”, especially in the first series, more especially because Gervais wrote and directed all episodes. The angry Tony is crass, in-your-face, and more often than not, cringe-inducing. He has nothing to lose, since he still plans to kill himself, and is sick and tired of people who haven’t suffered as he has but are still assholes and inconsiderate morons, and waste their lives being so.

I must admit, watching the first series, I cried more than I laughed. As she was dying, Tony’s wife Lisa recorded messages for him, trying her best to keep him the happy man-child he was. Tony watches these videos as often as he can, but instead of strengthening his soul they break his heart.

Things begin to change in the second series, as Tony meets new people, all played by brilliant comedians and actors well familiar to fans of British sitcoms and panel shows. Lest you forget, Tony remains his crass self (parts of the episodes are downright unbearable), but his willingness to live and keep on living takes a few turns. I’ll stop here; I’m not a trained critic and I’ll probably just spoil the whole thing for you. Suffice it to say, if you’re a fan of Gervais, as I am, you’ll love “After Life".

And if you’re not… you and I will probably never get along.

Oh The Places I Have Been!

Okay, okay, so I just went back to Buffalo. But this is about what happened the two weeks I was there, and how I wound up back in hell on earth.

I arrived Sunday night, exhausted after three flights and famished since I hadn’t eaten since saturday evening. I refuse to pay $9 for a small sandwich, no matter how good it looked, or how hungry I was. Thankfully, I found some very helpful youngsters at the hotel who helped me take my luggage upstairs to my room. I then went to sleep, thankful the trip was finally over.
the next morning, Monday, I called the rental office of a room I had qualified for but refused because it had no kitchen, not even a fridge. I figured I’ll make it work somehow, maybe I’d even be forced to change my eating habits and lose some weight! Hey! Wouldn’t that be something?
The lady on the other side of the phone remembered me, and looked up my file and… told me I hadn’t passed the credit check in the first place and whoever told me I had qualified was mistaken.
Dashed!
And just like that, I was right back where I had been back in February… no money for a security deposit and limited cash for the hostel. Yet, I soldiered on and kept calling listings and looking for a room to rent. Maybe this time, I hoped, I’d catch a break. Maybe someone will take pitta on a disabled guy and accept the state contract instead of cash for security deposit. Maybe this time will be different.
Just maybe.
Even when I was forced to sleep outside Starbucks the next Monday night, in the freezing rain, I kept hoping for a better outcome. Even Tuesday night, still outside Starbucks on the sidewalk, my backpack and small duffel bag next to me, sunk into my fleece lined jacket but cold and in pain, I hoped and hoped and didn’t give up hoping.
Then, with only half an hour to go before 5 am when I could go back inside Starbucks and warm up… I fell asleep for about 20 minutes and woke up to find my backpack and duffel bag had been stolen.
…

In one fell swoop, I lost my laptop, iPad, DSLR, headphones, ALL MY MEDS!! even my socks and underwear had fallen victim to someone who saw a disabled man in trouble and decided the thing to do was to rob him.

That sealed my fate and brought me back to the worst place someone down on their luck could go. As I had expected, the ridicule, the derision, and the belittling began the first night, and is yet to stop.

As I write this, my gastritis has once again after 14 years, flared up and I’m working on an ulcer. All that on top of my usual spine and nerve pain.

Let’s see what life has in store for yours truly next.
I’ll keep you posted.