Enigmatic U20s

The US Under-20 World Cup team looked solid today en route to their 4-1 victory over Cameroon.  Just a few days earlier, they looked extremely shaky losing to Germany 3-0.  With youth teams, you can always cover yourself with the cliche: they’re young and inconsistent, blah-blah-blah.  But Coach Thomas Rongen’s latest squad is even stranger than most.  In the last cycle we had a group of heralded players headlined by Jozy Altidore, Freddy Adu, and Michael Bradley.  This time we have Dilly Duka, Ike Opara, and Brek Shea – a group familiar to only the hardest of the hardcore US Soccer fans.  The team includes a fair amount of college players, some guys from Europe, and some guys playing in PDL and USL-1.  Not many guys from MLS (even fewer who actually play).  It’s a very random-looking team.  What does this say about the state of USA soccer development?  Not much, unfortunately.

It’s a Catch-22 with American players getting lost in the shuffle.  MLS teams would rather pay more for foreigners with pedigrees than develop the home talent, and since the Reserve-lead closed down last year, and with entry-level salaries so ridiculously low, staying in college has seemed reasonable for guys like Duka, and keeper Brian Perk.  The young guys find it difficult to head for Europe unless they can secure a European passport, which eliminates many.  That’s why you have guys like Tony Taylor and Gale Agbossoumonde who play in USL-1 (the USA second division).  It all adds up to us being behind the countries with more established leagues – this despite many promises by US Soccer, MLS, Nike, and now Adidas.  Take, for example, Germany.  Their U20s are mostly signed to Bundesliga clubs.  They train with the senior team and play reserve matches in the German Third Division, or go out on loans to Second Division teams, etc.  This means they’re playing in competitive games.   Unlike the guys warming the bench in MLS or playing NCAA soccer, with all it’s weird rules and questionable coaching.  No wonder we looked disjointed and inept in the opener.

Books: Moving Pictures

…by the indomitable Terry Pratchett

In Moving Pictures, the denizens of Pratchett’s Discworld inadvertently find themselves awash in movie madness.  Yes, those scatterbrained alchemists have figured out how to transfer captured pictures (painted very quickly by captive demons in small camera-like boxes) to film.  They quickly find it necessary to move from the city of Ankh-Morpork to an arid outpost without much going for it but the everpresent sunshine (to avoid the wrath of the wizards at Unseen University).  That outpost’s name: Holy Wood.

Very soon people (and trolls and dwarves and talking animals) find themselves drawn to Holy Wood for unexplainable reasons.  It seems right.  They know they can make it.  And they want to be in the moving pictures. Among them are perennial student-wizard, Victor Tugelbend, a dude who can’t sing, can’t dance, but can handle a sword OK and looks great in front of the camera, Ginger, former milkmaid from the-little-town-you-never-heard-of, who looks great in an evening gown, and Gaspode the talking wonder-dog.  Soon Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most celebrated salesman of sausages-0f-dubious-origin, arrives and proceeds to set himself up as the mogul.  A group of dwarves suddenly discover an overwhelming urge to sing the hi-ho-hi-ho song.  A troll changes his name to ‘Rock’ and whittles off bits of his nose to increase his appeal and versatility.  These folks literally find they have stars in their eyes.

The 300

Welcome to post #300 at Beemsville!  Seems like a good excuse to bust out the ol’ photoshop skills…

This Is BEEMSVILLE

That’s a fair amount of blogging.  And unlike some, we’re not content to merely link to a youtube clip or some article or picture and offer a few snarky comments.  No, we bring you quality content*.  By category (and bearing in mind a single entry can and does often hit multiple categories), the most popular has been the ubiquitous Life in IL, followed closely by Reviews, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Soccer.

Movies: The Informant!

…directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Scott Burns from Kurt Eichenwald’s book, starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, and Joel McHale.

The Informant! has been marketed as Matt Damon clowning in the cornfields – a shrewd move on the part of Warner Brothers.  But anyone who knows how Steven Soderbergh works will realize it’s a little more complicated and darker than that.  The movie provides an ironic examination of a landmark price-fixing case from right here in  central Illinois.  Yes, everyone form around Beemsville remembers those strange days 15 years past, when good ol’ ADM found themselves with the hand in the lyceine-cookie jar.  And we also remember how those articles in the Decatur Herald & Review kept rolling out, each one making the government’s star witness Mark Whitacre seem stranger and more crooked.

Damon plays Whitacre in this film.  A goofy, somewhat vulnerable, and yes, likable Mark Whitacre.  Give Soderbergh credit: it’s the only way the movie could possibly work.  If the audience doesn’t connect with Damon in the first fifteen minutes, if we don’t begin to wonder what’s really ticking in the brilliant but flawed head, this becomes more  a curiosity rather than a story.  But Soderbergh and Damon are in top form, and like Special Agents Brian Shepherd (Bakula) Bob Herndon (McHale), we want to believe him.  We want him to help bring down the greedy arrogant corporate giant.

Get Your Three Wolf Moon!

100% Badass

At this point, just about everyone has their own little anecdote about the transcendent awesomeness that is Three Wolf Moon t-shirt. ABC News ran a story, the New York Times, and now Beemsville.

I personally have a buddy/co-worker who was so ecstatic upon receiving his shirt he couldn’t stop talking about it.  His mother-in-law heard about his enthusiasm and created a custom Three Wolf Moon-inspired ornamental mirror which he now hides/displays proudly at the office.  Another co-worker claims that upon donning his Three Wolf Moon shirt certain male-specific dysfunctions were no longer an issue – much to his wife’s chagrin/relief.  (I don’t want to reveal this co-worker, but the initials are B.O….)

Highest Video Rec: The Wire

Last weekend we finished the final episode of the last season of HBO’s The Wire.  What a great show.  I know we’re not exactly breaking new ground here, and the series has been off the air for a while, but I thought I would go ahead and post it here:  highest video recommendation for grown-up drama.  And in the era of home-DVD video, it’s easy and well worth your while to check out the entire five-season run.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of crime/police drama or just someone interested in excellent storytelling, if you’re willing to deal with some sad truths, some depressing reflections of reality, you also get first-rate characterization, multifaceted narratives, and just plain compelling drama.

NFL… Yawn

I kind of forgot the NFL season kicked off yesterday – at least for awhile.  Was busy fixing/repairing a broken swingset for the kids, and between multiple trips to the hardware store and then mowing/cursing at the lawnmower, the bulk of my afternoon was spent outside.  It was a fine day.  As I worked, I listened and participated in the kids’ make-believe time, which included adventures for Bullfrog-boy, Porcupine-man, Lava-Girl, and the Swing Princess.  It’s a fortunate family that has siblings who can play together and don’t need external entertainment.

US Team Nearly There

The U.S. Men’s Soccer Team won in Trinidad Wednesday night, 1-0.  It wasn’t pretty.  T&T striker Cornell Glenn hit the post on a chip attempt and U.S. keeper Tim Howard provided several clutch saves to keep it scoreless in the first half.  Team America played better in the second half, but still needed an unlikely bomb from Rico Clark to carry the day.

An ugly win, a less than stellar performance, and yet the U.S. now sits atop the CONCACAF standings with two more to play.  We’ll only need a tie in the next two matches to seal the trip to South Africa – surely we can’t screw that up, can we?

Followers of the team have been tough on Coach Bradley and the boys (including yours truly), the quality of play, and we’re wondering whether this team has enough quality to make noise next summer.  Some are more negative than others, such as Kartik and crew at the MLS Talk Podcast.  I think some of their criticisms are valid, but many others are off-base or beside the point, so I decided to chime in.  Then I got carried away.  Read on for my reply to the podcast after the bump… 

Books: Shadow’s Edge

…by Brent Weeks

Shadow’s Edge is the second book in the Night Angel trilogy, which chronicles the struggles of Kylar Stern, assassin, Logan Gyre, aspirant-King, Vi, another assassin, and others against the sadistic Godking, Garoth.  The Godking’s forces successfully invaded Cenaria at the close of Book 1, Into the Shadows (see review), bringing a lot death (and presumed death), mayhem, and misunderstanding to the major characters.  Kylar’s mentor, master assassin (or ‘wetboy’ as Weeks has unfortunately designated killers with magical talents) Durzo Blint is gone, and Kylar soon swears off killing to pursue his childhood love, Elene.  This means leaving the city and fleeing in search of a more normal life.

Unbeknownst to Kylar, his best friend Logan is not dead but rather imprisoned in the Hole, which is the most brutal dungeon in the land, filled with the rapists and cannibals.  Logan has to survive down there without revealing his identity and completely losing his humanity.

When the Sa’kage (the city’s vast underworld crime syndicate) soon learn they can’t bargain with the brutal Godking, they begin to oppose him and help form the resistance.   For that they need Kylar, who has now absorbed an ancient magical forces called the ka’kari and has become nearly immortal, and they need an heir to the throne – Logan.  A fairly straightforward plot that still manages to get bogged down for nearly half the book.  Some of the subplots turn out to be far more interesting – at least until the book’s climax.

Pentagram: WCQ v. El Salvador

With a 3-1 (oops, I mean 2-1) victory over El Salvador in Utah, Saturday night, Team America remains in the mix to win the hex.  Here are the standings with three more to play – one game on Wednesday and two more in October:  Honduras – 13 pts, USA – 13 – pts, Mexico – 12 pts, Costa Rica – 12 pts.  Trinidad & Tobago and El Salvador are both virtually eliminated with 5 apiece.  The top three teams qualify automatically for South Africa, while 4th place is a play-in with the 5th place team from South America.  As that could be Argentina the way things are rolling, the USA would do well to avoid the drama.

It's a goal for Jozy!

Wednesday we travel to Trinidad in a game we should win and the chance for some breathing room.  As we have two of the more difficult matches next month – at Honduras and home against Costa Rica – you take your three points from the Soca Warrior if at all possible.

Against El Salvador, Coach Bradley trotted out the more attack-oriented lineup many of us we’re hoping to see.  Finally, we saw Altidore and Davies starting up top with Feilhaber, Donovan, and Dempsey in the midfield.  The result was some attractive soccer at points, as well as some defensive lapses.  Five points in the pentagram…