WORLD CUP FEVER! And A.M. Beers!

Sooooooo.... there are some things that are just wrong. Stealing money from people (especially clients), cheating on your spouse, murder (unless the person was a real ass hat), and having a beer at 8:00 in the morning. We know these things are wrong. We do not need religion or anything else to inform us of our sin. yet we still justify various behaviors. Many might look on having a beer (alone) at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday morning to just be pathetic and to not actually be placed in the category of "mortal" sins but these are shallow people who do not really understand what is happening.

It had formerly been my practice to go have a beer with breakfast on Kentucky Derby morning. It seemed harmless and properly celebratory as I would go to Skip and Beverly's Other Place on Lemay Road in South County. (It is remarkably hard to find a place to get a beer at 8:00 A.M. in Kirkwood, Webster, West County or any civilized place. Someone should look into that. Is that really how it is in a socialist country like Barrack Obama's America?... but I digress). Somehow I got out of the Kentucky Derby habit but this morning was special as it was the first Saturday and first 6:30 A.M. World Cup Game from South Africa.

Now a few things about this years World Cup:

1. I really do not give a shit about South Africa and this being the first World Cup on the African Continent and the first real world wide celebration of post apartheid South Africa...blah, blah, blah. South Africa was horrible, bigoted revisable place on a beautiful piece of real estate and how it is just a horrible, miserable and poorly governed place. Freedom is really not free.

2. I have no love for soccer but love the World Cup. A mainline speedball of soccer every 4 years is just about right for me. I am a Lutheran. We really (despite the protestations of certain German Lutherans) do not play soccer. Although we like things that roll and explode, the non collision nature of soccer, though sweet is somewhat circumspect and perhaps a little gay. But the World Cup is COOL.

3. It is nice to get a chance to cheer for Korea. Though any place which borders a country which has a "beloved leader" who routinely starves and or violently kills several hundred thousand of his loyal citizens each year deserves a little support from me.

4. I am cheering of course for the U.S. but believe the Netherlands will win it all this year.

5. How cool is it to start out with the English who we last played and beat 60 years ago in this contest? Settling old scores? Damn right. I hope the Tea Party People take an opportunity to remember what real oppression looked like.

So I got up and had some breakfast and drove around looking for a place to watch this morning and it was remarkably difficult. I finally settled at Hammerstones (Formerly 9th and Russell but still at 9th and Russell remarkably) and admired their very small TV (bars with large screen TV's tend to not really be bars and often call themselves "sports bars" which I find detestable), ordered a Busch (what else) and watched South Korea destroy the Greeks 2-Nil despite a plethora (look it up Larry) of bad calls clearly directed not against the team but against their neighbor the beloved leader who this very morning threatened to turn the capital of South Korea into a "sea of fire". What a guy! But anyway, lots of bad calls against. Korea and in favor of the Greeks. The Greeks! They are broke. They are lazy! They are shiftless and on the cutting edge of leading us into a world wide depression with their corporate welfare state. Where did they even get the money to travel to South Africa and shouldn't the IMF have intervened. If they win a trophy will international bankers seize it and melt it down? They should!

Now in my defense I watched the end of the game and only had one beer before I went into work. I was mildly distracted during the game by large groups of men and woman dressed in pink and grabbing some breakfast before the Susan Koman "Race for the Cure". Many of them had the names of breast cancer non-survivors pinned to the back of their pink shirts along with their race numbers. What was disconcerting was watching them get hammered and chain smoke (I swear every one of them was smoking) as they prepared to support finding a cure for cancer by taking part in the activity which other then genetics is probably the greatest predictor of cancer. Life is weird. Life is good.

"Ole', Ole' Ole"!" Lets enjoy the World Cup. The World comes together to compete and revel in a love of sports and competition and in my case an excuse to sneak a beer at 8:00 A.M. GO NETHERLANDS!