"I feel the pain of everyone..."
It seems but days ago that I was in a soccer bar, just north of Times Square in New York City, watching Brazil take on, and falter against, the polite nation of Japan. The place was full of rabid Brazilian fans leaping to their feet at every perceived foul, gesticulating wildly. The Japanese fans, in turn, sat quietly on stools, attentive. At the end, Brazil won, the Brazilians fans tipped tables and chairs whilst bar staff implored them to be more Japanese.
All in all, the experience further degraded Brazil, in my esteem, a process that began a few years back thanks to House Toledo and its super woosie ways, becoming further cemented by the green and gold mob House Toledo patriarch Li’l Ricky sent my way and really firming up with a trip there.
In any case, I looked forward to Brazil’s next foe, hoping I could see the nation become undone, and became thrilled when that foe turned out to be Norway and its Earling Haaland. The viking nation seems to have that magical element, “destiny” or somesuch, and so, last afternoon, I went to a different establishment just south of Central Park to, hopefully, watch Brazilian tears flow.
And flow they did.
Tension bubbled, early, when Brazil missed a gimme penalty kick, continued to build as Brazil grazed the goal many times, reached near crescendo in the 79th minute when Haaland headed one in for Norway and exploded into mournful spasms when he booted another in minutes later.
It was the earliest World Cup exit for Brazil since 1990 and I could almost hear the Portuguese wails coming across the Hudson River from New Jersey, where the team had just collapsed.
It was the moment I was waiting for and I thought I would feel such joy, such profound happiness knowing that all of Brazil would be sad for four whole years but I did not. I felt almost bad for them instead, sad-adjacent, myself, even for the Toledos. And, thus, I realized that reveling in others’ misfortune takes a sort fortitude I do not possess.
At the end, I am the Bill Clinton of sport fandom.
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Nice wordsmithing, rhythm
“Tension bubbled, early, when Brazil missed a gimme penalty kick, continued to build as Brazil grazed the goal many times, reached near crescendo in the 79th minute when Haaland headed one in for Norway and exploded into mournful spasms when he booted another in minutes later.”
Norwegian blood will flow at sacarema
With full heart I encourage erry damn body here to get to Btasil. It is the sleeping giant of the world. Incredibly adjacent, tho not outwardly culturally, to the US&A
Why hasn’t anyone focused on this profound offering and how does it relate to Monica Lewinsky?
“At the end, I am the Bill Clinton of sport fandom”
Youre a racist chaz. Shocker.
What a dumb thing to say. Chas is clearly not a racist.
Luckily for us, he’s definitely a provocateur.
Chaz: “I feel the pain of everyone…”
If only his empathy extended to those with no love for kickball.
Right caaaaarn Belgium, lets get up these cheating sep…… fuck sorry I mean American wankers
Say it like you want to.
Zero fucks given anymore.
Fucking one trick pony.
Still better than some of these other false fucks.
Looking at you Hippy.
I think the bitch would be pretty classic if he could just venture away from the same old shit every fucking time.
Crazy how Aussies don’t think of their seppo call as derogatory, yet use it in derogatory ways on the regular.
Like thinking using the N word with an A instead would be all good in the hood.
You think calling New Zealanders Kiwis is derogatory?
Did you miss the sheep part? 🤣
You as a wordsmith should know about context.
How dare you sir, I am even composing pieces of poetry for for down here now. I mean I could come on here and do nothing but moan and carry on about everything and everyone down here. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me I am off to flogged for ten hours on site xx
Go get em tiger.
Just remember the golden rule, if you want to chop off a finger just put your hand in front of the blade.
Or you could continue repeating things others said while you were creeping behind the scenes. But you do you buddy.
While I was doing what hahahaha
I don’t want to know. You back in the water yet? Haven’t seen many posts from you about the waves lately.
Your seppo jokes rank right up there with Kiwi sheep jokes and Aussies convict jokes. Might be time to start some new tired schtick.
Dear Soccer Fanatic Chas Smith
Why don’t you dig your teeth into something so juicy you will have to wear a bib to type?
Prezident Chump’s obsession with “Birthright” seems at odds with his decision to get involved with the match today featuring the USA’s brightest star, Nairobi English citizen who just happened to be born in NY while his parents were on vacation?
Signed confused Hippy
Genuine quezzy, how come Donny never goes to the games? His fat, shit head is usually eveywhere?
Too many foreigners, plus he admitted he don’t know shit about the game of pussies pretending to be hurt.
he’s going to be personally handing the world cup trophy to the winning team in New Jersey at the conclusion of the final game (I am not making this up).
Think he’ll expect that the winner will give it back to him as a gift? 🤪
FIFA prez will gift him the cup to put in Qatar’s plane
Pretty sure Nigerian roots. You missed by about 3000 miles but I get your point
Its excellent that you’ve been watching all the matches Chas. Did you stay in the bar to watch the Norwegian Viking row, led by Haaland?
yeah
Bottom line Brazil are far better at surfing than football at this moment in time. However 100 million Brazilians have no awareness of this as a thing. Medina might have some credibility due to his past friendship with Neymar. Toledo and Italo have no profile is this incredible football mad land.
Surely Pip has some major marketing pull in some urban circles?
In not even remotely surf adjacent news, a tree fell on my parked car yesterday.
Seeing the Jen has abandoned us, and rightfully so as she’s currently writing the next great Californian novel, and that you seem like such an articulate person, it would be great if you could write a semifictional account of the loss of your dearly beloved automobile. Please include details of overhead, perfectly offshore waves on the heavily localised beaches of Lake Michigan.
I was once passed out in an alleyway and a hobo told me that BG paid $100 if the article tickled Derek’s fancy .
BG doesn’t pay
Haha! I am a writer but not of the creative variety. I’ve done mainly instructional design – very, very dry technical writing for training manuals used by Ford Motor’s development division. Derek might make me pay him to publish that.
Well, I love cars as much as the next person so please let us know what type of car you get to replace ol’ faithful. Hoping that it’s a nice, Detroit muscle car. I hear that they’re going for as little as $100,000 these days, whereas they used to cost as much as $60,000 prior to the great Covid reset
What does Jen have to do with this?
Nor is she Californian
Only in my dreams.
Has SS ever claimed to be female or is everyone just assuming because of the disqus photo?
Who cares?
Most sane person in here by far.
I was just wondering as I never saw any confirmation from her until a few minutes ago. And, well, she has the most insane person on here creeping on her on the regular.
I am indeed a woman. That is a veeeerrrrry old photo of me picking up trash on the beach in Galveston.
Great now I have the Glen Campbell song stuck in my head and the barely in my range crazy bridge section.
Xox
Perhaps not the kindest way to describe Galveston surfers but I’m led to believe it’s an accurate description.
Also doesn’t appear to be a complete and utter VAL either.
I feel like I shouldn’t be up voting. Sorry to hear that.
Thanks! Nobody was injured, so that’s what matters.
Thank fuck for that!! May I ask what size tree it was?
One of our smaller trees. It’s 18 inches in diameter, and I’d guess 30 feet tall. We have some monstrous 80 footers.
Was it during a storm or was it loosened from a previous one?
Been a rough month up there.
We had a “downburst event” storm blow through a couple of days ago followed by drenching rain on Saturday. My tree guy is coming out later this week to take a couple others down. Wind+rain+gravity=$$$
Those guys charge like a wounded bull ay. Almost as bad as plumbers
Shit ton of liability=big bucks.
Not for the ones climbing the trees.
I had a few years of working ground crew, little bit of climbing. Climbers have lots of inherent danger and can easily cause alot of damage, especially near houses.
Around here the guys in the trees are glorified laborers. Ain’t like being an aerial lineman. Now those fuckers are nuts.
Yeh its a hectic gig I’ll give the cunts that
You couldn’t pay me enough to do that job. They can’t always get a cherry picker where they need one and end up climbing with a chain saw. There are hornet nests and sometimes power lines nearby.
There’s some crazy vids on YouTube of those downburst storms. One particular example from Australia shows the storm from afar and it’s clear how the destructive winds operate. The rain comes down with such force that it displaces the air below and the leading edge winds are stupidity powerful. Epic to watch it unfold from the comfort and safety of your living room. We experienced one here not so long ago so I can attest it’s not so happy to live through.
3:30 minutes
I’ll look for the videos. I’ve experienced downbursts, but I’ve never seen a good video of one.
Thanks for updating with the link. That’s a great video.
In other news, Slater is the wildcard for chopoo.
Yeah well, his company is the marquee sponsor. Still ridiculous though.
His cred in those conditions is stronger than strong, though I would generally agree with your take
I want to see baldy at Chopes and Pipe, Cloudy too. Nowhere else
How about just not seeing him anywhere on tour since he’s not part of the tour?
I do agree
But if youre going to have wildcards ( which i don’t agree with)
I’d much rather see guys like Eimeo, Matahi, Chumbo, Hiquily, Teave or some other local charger than watch Ke11y yet again. It’s one of those-you retired now fuck off kinda things although I was never a big Ke11y fan to begin with.
I’m left to wonder why no one is focused on the last sentence of this article?
Great news. No one wants to see Matahi taking everyone down with perfect style and grace under pressure.
Leo gets Berry/ Ramzi instead of Eimeo. WSL protection program.
As he should be
They weren’t beating France or Spain anyway. Best to just get it over with. Now LFG – USA USA USA!!!
Test
I stand with our Brazilian brothers, mainly because the rest of you hate them.
Fuck all y’all.
No sheep detected.
Do you have a Lion tattoo too? Cause that’s courageous
no tats, only scars.
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Remember when Germany crushed Brazil, 7-1 (!), IN Brazil? God that was funny.
Insanity. All i remember was a fat brazilian kid crying into his giant plastic soda cup
I remember that too
Don’t worry Neymar, you can start your retirement by taking solace in the warm embrace of Gabriel Medina, because unlike you, he’s actually won stuff.
Neymar retired from the international team too, presumably to spend more time with Medina
dammit. beat me to it
At least they have a world title to look forward to.
Italy trying hard rain on that parade and I’m cheering for him all the way as long as the rest of the contenders are Brazzo’s.
So we got sharks, sharks, lesbians, sharks, soccer, more sharks and more fucking soccer? Oh my!
Let’s get some real estate up in this…
BG, always aiming for the bottom.
Real estate prices down in aus since the gov passed some progressive laws. Sad days for people who love seeing all sorts of numbers go up and up.
Incidentally, they’ve just done the same thing around my parts. Taking the investment property class down a notch. Increased taxation.