I went to San Siro last night to watch Real vs Juventus.
Sat next to two wonderful German young ladies, both nurses on vacation here in El Gouna.
Everyone was agog at the revelatory grandeur of Cristiano’s bicycle kick score, but I remember Pelé scoring many such goals, so Zizou was not giving full credit when he said it was one of the most beautiful.
People forget a lot of things.
It’s the tiresome little shits with the shot memories who like to google every assertion you make, as a sort of supplemental artificial intelligence Viagra. Looking for chinks in the armor, I suppose. Confused as to the difference between enunciate and annunciate, they punch their smartphones in renunciation, while talking emptily about how cobots will save the day.
Me, I’m going to be back in the US in 9 days. I will visit my Mum in New York, then go on to rejoin my wife in Florida. Unfortunately, right around the time the orange shithead returns to Mar-a-Bribo with the Japanese PM, Kow Tow Shinzo.
The time for being in Egypt’s El Bahr El Ahmar is almost over. I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw another dinosaur or two before leaving, but that is a’adee, as the melancholic bus drivers continue to complain in Upper Egypt dialect about their worn down faux leather shoes.
It’s difficult to describe exactly how toxic the US seems from afar.
A sea of red, when all I want is Mediterranean blue.
A vile piece of garbage ensconced in the White House, and everywhere the cabal of right-wing front door bangers refuse to loosen their death grip on the throats of the American body politic.
But they will lose in November, and they will lose again in 2020.
Before that, there will much damage, perhaps irreversible.
I have been reading Jeremiah Moss’s Vanishing New York this week. I’m enjoying the stories that Moss researched about the city I have lived in most of my life.
It is as if he is yearning to return to a version of The City that he never actually knew.
I don’t want to sound like some sort of Captain Obvious Father Time crank this morning, but the truth is often you cannot go back.
Usually there is no do over. They will say, be a champion both on and off the pitch; set an example to your children. Shopworn cliches are in abundance.
But despite all the daily sturm and drang around the world, I sense there is a gathering feeling in America to limit the harm that the cheap pimps and arm-chair generalissimos are inflicting.
There is a growing revulsion, a growing disgust, as so-called strong men strut about like drag queens on some sort of ugly fascist parade.
The real drag queens do it for camp.
These spanky boys actually take themselves seriously, perhaps not realizing or caring what absurd martinets they really are. This, as American suckers continue to be taken in by the grand manipulation, which they think resonates, that it is somehow authentic as to who they are, at some absurdly primitive level.
Once in a while, someone like Cristiano will rise high above all others and show the world how the beautiful game should be played.
G-O-A-L!
But for the rest of us, what is our goal in life?
Think about it for a minute, if you’re an expat, or soon to be ex expat. Or even if you go to sleep every night with a packed bag at the ready by your bedside suitcase eyes.
What is your real goal in life right now?
Why do you even exist?
Where is your elusive beautiful game?
Leaving Amerika 