FOUL: Humor, Parody, Whining

Capello Impressed That Beckham Playing for a Team He Would Deign to Wipe His Ass With

By 季书恒

England manager Fabio Capello has nothing but praise for the on-loan David Beckham for finally playing for "a team that, even when they're down and hurting, don't stick their tongues out to gargle Scientologist spunk" and "have never fielded a Melrose Place star" (with all consolations to Alessandro Nesta, narrowly edged out by Courtney Thorne-Smith for the role of Alison Parker, and later by Jaye Davidson for his role in Stargate, one of the few feature films in existence potentially more damaging to one's reputation than having made regular appearances on a Fox-network night soap).

When confronted with the fact that Beckham has appeared in not one but BOTH Goal! films, Capello mumbled under his breath "Vita di una cagna e deve essere schiaffeggiato, come uno" then, coming to his senses, "Did I say Vita? I meant Beckh,ur, NO COMMENT!"

Capello's comments came shortly after Sir Bobby Robson offered (in a flash of unsolicited frankness for which Bruce Arena thanked the former England-legend by Fed Exing him a box of Cohiba Robustos) the advice that Becks "buy into the real world" (eschewing Mouseketeer League Soccer for past-the-expiry-date MTV mockudrama?) and the opinion that MLS is "second rate" (no longer sub-pub; guess they started serving something other than bladder-temperature Budweiser at HDC, or at least put in a dart board). Capello--after pointing out that even the most chaste of Wahabbist businessmen would pay more for a bottle of Newcastle than for the shit club named after it--agreed wholeheartedly. "The Los Angeles Galaxy will never even QUALIFY for the UEFA Champions League. Only the top European clubs are at a level where they can compete in the top European competitions. Well, them and the best clubs from Chomsky's "local cops on the beat", but still, not LA. My argument is a tautology and therefore unassailable!"

Both Carlo Ancelotti and Milan owner and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have publically expressed a desire to have Beckham stay in Milan. "I'm not saying he's making plans to stay," said Ancelotti, "I'm just saying I'm happy with his performance here. And God knows it'll be 3 or 4 years yet before we work up the bottle to bribe another ref, so we really fucking need him!"

Berlusconi, being Prime Minister of Italy and therefore slightly less important than Bruce Vilanch--Bruce Vilanch now, not at his height--offered only: "If Beckham doesn't stay and/or if Milano fails to win the Champions League and/or if the economic crisis deepens then we have only the gypsies to blame." When the Italian AP pointed out that not all of Italia's--nor Milano's--ills are the faults of ethnic Rroma, seeing as some social ills can fairly be attributed to other, non-gypsy immigrants from Romania, a perplexed Berlusconi asked "But they still drive around in caravans, yeah?"

While most of MLS is dismayed at the possibility of its only big-name player with a visible neck leaving the league, Red Bull New York fans are thrilled at the prospect of Beckham moving to Milano on a permanent basis--almost as thrilled as fans of teams that win things are when their teams win things. "If a footballing star of Beckham's caliber is willing to play for a team named after a cookie," said one RBNY fan, "then there's light at the end of the tunnel for a team named after a crappy liquid substitute for crank." Leave it to those in New Jersey to express any-and everything in terms of fluids, a tunnel and crank.

None of the other attendees at that particular 35-year-old Red Bull fan's birthday party were able to comment, as, with the excpetion of myself and two stuffed animals, they were all dolls. David Johansen doesn't fall under that particular umbrella, as these were New Jersey dolls, not New York Dolls.

Other Notes:

Milan has offered MLS 4.5% percent of what Manchester City offered Milan for Kak&aacute; (not counting the camels or Mike Joyce). Surely they don't feel he's worth 5% of Kakacute!?! Everybody knows Kakacute's worth way more than 20 Beckhams.

If the Cohiba line offends you, then you can suck Eric Wynalda's dick. If Jim Rome can do it, anyone can! Something else anyone can do is make a donation to CancerCare or one of their ilk. Really. If there's one thing the world needs more of, it's pipe dreams of a cure for cancer. And if there's another, it's people throwing money at pipe dreams.

One thing I learned from that sad, sad little man's 35th: Tickle-Me-Elmo doing a keg stand is a thing of rare, cosmic beauty, and pehaps just the marketing gimmick MLS is searching for for its all-but-quantumly-certain-to-be-Beckham-less 2009 season. Hey, it's less ridiculous an idea than signing Luis Hernández.