And Station Signing Back On...With Ground Rules & Caveats

Why'd they spotlight his fucking feet?

I write this in the spirit of “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.”

Earlier this week, a handful of people who used to follow this site reached out to inquire as to my health. And, was doing anything worthwhile these days? Maybe sending cars beyond the stratosphere (as god intended, when he made us in His image), or maybe writing about soccer, or something…

They could not have known of my tender vulnerability to such suggestions. They might have picked up on (profound, raging) disenchantment in my personal politics, subtle hints that I’d rather eat my own fucking legs than try to explain/make peace with well and thorough fuckedness of the world at large (“fuckedness” is so a word; hold on, “fuck’dness”? No?). They could not, however, have known that I have, of late, quietly started to peak at soccer content again for the first time in months. I have kicked around the idea since then, consulting my schedule, seeing which projects I can set free (to die in the woods, obvs) and which I can’t…the latter category being full of surprisingly stubborn motherfuckers, not even one of them willing to go without a fight.

Finally, however, after serious and sober deliberation (not kidding on that second adjective) about reviving this project I landed on the only answer I could: I can’t. Not that I won’t, but that I can’t. Conifers & Citrus can never be what it was, because I’m not who I was. I am an older, much sleepier version of me.

And that’s the guy that will start posting to this space again. For as long as he can, anyway. Let me explain…

When I launched this site (shit…when did I launch this site? Ah…) back in January of 2015, the following was possible: I could go to Tony’s Tavern before a Portland Timbers game, knock back a couple bourbons and a small pitcher, then go to the Timbers game, where I’d down 2-3 beers, then I’d go home, throw down another shot, drink 2-3 more beers, smoke a bowl, and write a reasonably coherent post the same night, at which point I’d crash, and in my own bed 95% of the time. When (not if, when) I try to pull off the same thing last year, the best I can do is mash computer keys as if my hands are three sizes larger while forgetting how I started every sentence.

Then there’s the total coverage thing, the way I used to know enough about every team in Major League Soccer (MLS). Holy shit, is that all the way gone. I’m not even sure there’s still a franchise in Orlando at this point (kidding; I know there is, and that Sacha Kljestan resides in that sweaty gulag). I lost interest in 90% of written soccer content as far back as 2016, but, even then, I had patience to sit through a full slate of those 20-minute minis (e.g., the condensed games) that MLS Live kicks every weekend and still enjoy it. I’m not sure where my stamina stands these days; what I do know is that haven’t tested it since the middle of last season, when doing that felt like…well, a massive waste of my life. Timbers games aside, I basically stopped watching MLS for the second half of the 2017 season.

That final thought gets to the dirty little secret I’ve been carrying around in all my years following MLS. I have lost interest halfway through every MLS season for as long as I can remember, as in, my interest didn’t diminish, it went all the fucking way away. Every time I posted in the second half of any season - yes, even 2015 - it was the writing equivalent of maintenance sex. [NOTE: I just excised a bunch of long-held beefs with MLS and its competitive structure from this post; long story short, I’ve never seen a sports league do itself fewer favors.]

OK, who’s still here? Can I get a show of hands?

Now, back to that first sentence - i.e., the line from The Princess Bride – that, along with all the above (the stuff on MLS, above all), really captures the spirit of how I see this next attempt panning out. First, it’s unlikely I’ll post much till the regular season kicks off, and that’s all about pacing for the long regular season ahead (for what feels like a super-marathon run in high humidity (for torture) across the shittiest part of North Dakota (more torture; a lack of scenery of “Hell-scape” proportions; no offense to any North Dakotans)). For the first time since I can remember, I haven’t watched a single preseason game, not even a Timbers game. Now, here’s the real rub…

I have no idea how much I will write about. The Portland Timbers are the only given and, with them, the only thing I intend to write-up is the only thing that matters - e.g., the games. I am an emperor, these are my champions, their personal lives, nay, their very humanity is nothing to me. (I'm kidding! I just like the sound of that.) I have aspirations to keep tabs on the rest of MLS, as I have done in the past, but my psychic fragility should proceed me by now (and yet somehow it never does), so, my honest guess is that I will try to do this, I will fail, and that will give me the kind of sads that make me delete blogs, and stop trying to do anything ever again but cry, while I eat cereal and watch TV.

And, finally, there is a very real chance I will lose interest halfway through the season. This usually happens around late June, early July. And it’s entirely possible I’ll stop posting right then and there, and that I won’t pick it up again, even in the playoffs. I’ve found that the first half of every season really is the most interesting: just about every team has new players, or a new coach - just something - and seeing how that comes together really does write the story of any given team’s season. Once the teams become who they are, I just find it less interesting. Counter-intuitive as that sounds, I mean that sincerely: I see teams as good or bad based on their regular season, not whether or not they win MLS Cup, aka, Second Season, which, like hobbits’ Second Breakfast, is more or less the same thing, just at a different time.

Again, it’s about how often a team sends its fans home happy. And those 34 games matter more to me than whatever happens over MLS comically tortured swan-song, aka, the maddeningly gappy playoffs and don't you ever fucking tell me there's no better way to schedule these games because "X," I won't buy it, the MLS playoffs are terrible.

I have one last note, a specific statement on the Timbers. I’m glad Caleb Porter is gone. I’m even happier Darlington Nagbe is gone. I was bored to death with the former, and I have always, always wanted to know what the Timbers look like without the latter. I’m not sure anyone finds Nagbe more mystifying as a player than I do: as I see it, he got an insane amount of credit for doing one of the most pedestrian things in soccer - e.g., getting the ball from one end of the field to the other safely - without being genuinely good as either a defensive or an attacking player. I saw Marky Delgado and Jonathan Osorio do more or less what Nagbe does in last year’s MLS Cup, and no one loses their shit over either of those players, so…

In the end, those departures, and the related arrivals (Giovani Savarese, mostly, I’m still catching up on the new players) probably did as much as anything to re-kindle my loins. Anyway, see all y’all the next time something goes up. I expect I’ll post at least one thing before the season kicks off. Till then, kisses! (Crap. Why haven’t I ended every post like that?)