Soccer Prep Guide

Welcome, soccer fans and "abby wambach girlfriend" and "abby wambach boyfriend" googlers. The World Cup starts on Saturday, and you still have a few things you need to do in preparation.

1. The absolute number one requirement is to zip over to The Equalizer and buy the WWC preview they put together with All White Kit. At 82 lovely searchable PDF pages, it's a bargain at 5.95. Both sites are daily must-reads even when the Cup isn't just around the corner, particularly if a big portion of your regular entertainment intake comes from following the trainwreck that is magicJack.

2. Next, march down to your local purveyor of fermented beverages and plead for some Four Peaks Hop Knot IPA. This might be easier if you live in Arizona. Yes, Arizona. Hop Knot is one of the things that makes life in the state of John "Illegals are Pyros" McCain not only tolerable, but downright magical at times. Lay in a stock; it only comes in 12-packs of cans.

3. Got a spare couple of minutes? Go read about brilliant England manager Hope Powell.

4. Lay in the bacon, eggs, and potatoes. Live games in Germany mean breakfast start times here in the Pacific Time Zone. Suggested opening game breakfast bakey thing:

Rinse three or four leeks and thinly slice the white and pale green parts. Caramelize these in a pan with a healthy pinch of salt, deglazing the pan from time to time with broth. While the leeks are cooking, simmer a cup of broth with a bit of garlic and rosemary. Thinly slice some potatoes into rounds. Layer the potatoes in a baking pan with the leeks and some sliced cheese (gruyere is lovely), topping each layer with a sprinkle of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Add sliced ham to each layer if you're a meat person. Strain the broth and pour enough over to make it a bit soupy on the bottom. Beat a couple of eggs with a touch of milk, salt, and pepper, and pour over. Top with one more layer of potatoes and cheese. Cover and bake at 375 for 45 minutes or so, then uncover and bake long enough to brown up the cheese. Remove from oven and let rest a bit, then shovel it out onto plates and NOM.

5. Ali Krieger. 'Nuff said.

World Cup Action: a Snapshot

Trident was packed, again, for the US match yesterday morning, with a raucous and nervous and finally triumphant crowd. Pity the poor Bud Light girl who was trying her damnedest to get people to own up to drinking Bud Light so she could hand them beads and official Budweiser vuvuzelas.

People weren't having it.

Bud Light girl: Who's drinking Bud Light?!?
Assembled patrons: *crickets*
Bud Light girl: Who wants beads?
Patron: Do I have to drink Bud Light to get them?
Bud Light girl: Yeah.
Patron: Oh. Never mind, then.
Bud Light girl: ...

Bud Light girl, trying again: Who wants a vuvuzela?
Assembled patrons: *crickets*
Bud Light girl: Do you guys want one for your man cave?
Guys at table: Sorry, what?
Bud Light girl: Do you have a man cave?
Guys at table: Uh, no.
Bud Light girl: ...

The US got shut out and shot down almost as badly for the entire match, until Landon Donovan finally put away a rebound in the 91st minute, and the crowd erupted and dissolved simultaneously in roars and tears. What a fucking heart attack of a match.

Note to Clint Dempsey: yes, you got royally robbed when your 21st-minute goal was disallowed on a phantom offside call. That does not, however, mean that you should spend the rest of the match carefully nurturing your hangdog pouty face and staying down on the ground a little bit longer each time you get bumped (yes, I saw that on the next-to-last one you took a forearm that split your lip; cool, but you're really going to be okay). Get the fuck up and play already.

On to Saturday!

Stop the Presses

Frank Antenori and I fully agree on one thing. I may need to lie down for a while.

Under current law, residents and visitors in Arizona can buy beer, wine and liquor every day beginning at 6 a.m. through 2 the following morning.

At one time there were no sales before noon [on Sundays]. That was changed to 10 a.m. more than a decade ago to accommodate demands by Bill Bidwill who had brought his Cardinals football team to Arizona and wanted to be able to sell beer in the stands when games had to start early because of TV schedules.

Antenori said he doesn't buy the argument that the rules should be different on what some people believe is the Lord's Day.

"For a certain specific religion you can't carve out a special exemption,'' he said. "I don't think that's right.''

Knock me over with a feather, and then hand me an IPA if you'd be so kind. It'll be after 6 a.m.--we do not get up that early on Sundays for anything--so we're golden. I'd even think about buying Frank a beer, except that his pesky state-funded insurance plan prevents me from buying him alcohol just on principle. But hey, it was close for a second there.

Another Unsolicited Note to Tucson's City Planners

On Saturday, the Daily Star reported that Congress Street--the main artery through Downtown, and home to business anchors Hotel Congress, the Rialto Theater, Grill, Chicago Store, Hydra, and the Fox Theater--will close for six months for sidewalk improvements and the installation of tracks for the hoped-to-be-iconic streetcar. Fine, the business owners said, we get that it's gotta be done, but could it please be done over the summer when business is slow anyway? Sure, said the City of Tucson, and then, without explanation, announced that the project's been put on hold. Indefinitely.

City Manager Mike Hein and others were vague about why they put the brakes on and said there is no timetable for getting the project restarted.

Hein said funding, other street work in progress and the timeline for recruiting new businesses Downtown ... are why it's impossible to predict when the project will go forward.

Let me see if I got this. The city was poised to get cranking on the final piece of the Downtown/4th Avenue underpass renovations that were supposed to bring people Downtown and make the place more appealing to established winners like Janos Wilder, Tucson's certified rock star of a chef, and then suddenly decided it isn't quite ready after all and can't really say when it might be ready? Meanwhile, Janos is planning on opening by the end of the year, which may or may not put his ribbon-cutting ceremony smack dab in the middle of a closed street populated mainly by backhoes.

*headdesk*

On Wednesday I took my visiting family members to Barrio Brewing Co. for drinks. Barrio is a local brewery/bar situated in an old warehouse next to the train tracks southwest of Downtown proper, and by all appearances it's hanging on pretty well even in this crappy economy. We sat on the shady porch, sucked down a few quality beers, hoped a train would go by, and decided it's too bad for Downtown that this awesome little place is stuck in the middle of an industrial zone next to 17th Street Market instead of in some funky space closer to Congress Street. It would be a perfect nugget to build a public space around. People like historic buildings connected to their city's past, as long as the plumbing works and the ceiling's not likely to fall in. They like comfortable, shaded outdoor places to sit with drinks and food. And they like it when those drinks and food are very very tasty, and are probably put in the mood to stick around a while and shop once their bellies are full and their livers start to fall asleep. Why haven't you brought us here before? they asked. We want to come back next time we're in town.

That should be music to any city planner's ears. Jim Counts (of Nimbus Brewery) tried to play that angle up, but probably went too far in trying to tie a condo development to his proposed downtown brewpub, both of which fizzled back in '06 when the city said go for it but you gotta show us the cash in 90 days.

Can everybody listen up now? The city and Counts are locked in another pissing contest, with the city holding up the liquor license Counts wants for the Sam Hughes neighborhoodcorner taproom he opened a couple months ago that is currently nearing its death throes due to being limited to subs and soft drinks, neither of which are putting a significant dent in the traffic heading to Bob Dobbs' across the street. Everybody just stop already and give Counts his license for a place downtown somewhere on Congress--lord knows there are plenty of empty storefronts with adjacent vacant lots left by the demolition of one historic structure after another that would be perfect for a brewpub and roomy outdoor beer garden--and let the beer start flowing and the food start marching out of the kitchen and people might start coming. My out-of-town relatives are willing to give it a shot. Just imagine what might have been if the spring training stadium had been built down there too rather than next to juvie on Ajo Way.

If It's Friday, It Must Be a Hodgepodge

Uno. Hey, the men's U23 soccer team acquitted themselves very nicely against Japan yesterday, coming away 1-0 winners in a match they really dominated more than the score indicates. Maurice Edu, Marvell Wynne, and Robbie Rogers particularly impressed me--Edu and Wynne with their solid defensive play and Rogers with his elegant footwork and ball distribution. The team as a whole looked pretty sharp, although Michael Bradley didn't have his best match and Freddie Adu needs to look up for open teammates now and again rather than consistently dribbling into pressure until he loses the ball. Oh, and Sacha Kljestan, this is not Argentina. Please cut your hair. Or at least wash it.

Dos. See, it's not just me.

Love is too weak a word to describe how some people feel about Rachel Maddow. They lurve her, loave her, luff her. New York magazine’s online Intelligencer column recently ran an item headlined Why We’re Gay for Rachel Maddow, and the blogosphere is dotted with posts like “I’m totally gay for Rachel Maddow.” The “gay for Rachel” meme appears to transcend gender and sexuality. Women, men, straight and not straight: they’re all gay for her. In a year in which we have decided to become postracial and postgender, Maddow may embody a media in which adoring fandom is postgay.

Tres. I try to support locally owned businesses over chains when I can, but sometimes a corporate entity comes along that is simply so delicious that my slender principles are no match. Grimaldi's Pizza (work warning: musical website) is owned by somebody in the Evil Northern Empire of Scottsdale, or possibly Brooklyn--who can tell? not me--but damn. Damn, damn, damn. One of my New Yorker co-workers fussed that it's "not real New York pizza," which probably explains why it tastes so good. It is a thin crust, but its crisp body refuses to be folded, and the rich tomato sauce sings with marjoram and possibly the slightest hint of rosemary, just enough to perk up your tastebuds with a delighted oh, what is this? Even the really unforgivable move of the waitress bringing me an already-opened Stella because they were out of the Sierra Nevada IPA I'd ordered (after being told they were out of the draft Nimbus IPA and had never had Sam Adams, despite its being on the beer list) wasn't enough to make me want to firebomb the place. The pizza was that good. Oh, and it's baked in a coal-powered oven, so the carbon footprint of your meal covers vast swaths of southwestern Pennsylvania. But it is so. freaking. tasty. Chalk it up to a guilty pleasure.

Cuatro. No, I'm really not a fan of Stella Artois. Meh, Belgian Budweiser. But now I guess all Budweiser is Belgian anyway. Maybe they can consolidate their brewing and save some money.

Cinco. Cake Wrecks. Just because.