L00M1NG SH4D0WS 0F S33N GR1DS...

looming shadows of seen grids

nothing compared to unseen

metaphysical stifles

SOVTHERN GOTHIC FVTVRIST HAIKV SLAMS (the rebirth of sikk - fool like dat)

What was called Rojonekku Hand-to-Hand Haiku Tournaments is back, but now called Southern Gothic Futurist Haiku Slam. It is still a tournament where anybody on the whole wide Earth who wants to sign up is welcome to sign-up. We will have best-of-3 rounds of elimination until there are only four people left, who will go through semifinals and finals to crown a champion of ill literary styles in seventeen syllables or less. The more styles the better. This is like a literary cookout (not a pot luck) – bring your own side dish, and make sure it’s homemade, and get the fuck outta here with the whole foods pasta salads.

There also will still be a haiku death match where I take on a proven haiku competitor in a best-of-25 no-holds-barred super destructor bout of haiku supremacy. These bouts are meant to showcase how wild style the haiku format in battle mode can be. I take my role as facilitator/space holder of these events seriously, and look to defend my role as well as challenge myself. AND YET RARELY DO I LOSE.

I am excited to announce as well (which I should’ve already done) that we’ll be going monthly moving forward at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, Virginia. This is a business that I’ve loved to support over the years, held down the picnic table on the back deck in the hookah lounge playing dominos many a weekend night, been to mad shows there over the years, and love the spot. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to run my event at, because it makes sense. It fits.

When we set this up, I asked for second Wednesdays, just to have a set night of the month, which is easy for humans to remember in robot phone age. Oddly, without planning, it fell the week before the one-year anniversary of a bunch of shit happening in Charlottesville. Tea Bazaar is located just around the corner from where Heather Heyer was murdered. This weighs heavily locally, energetically. These haiku events have always been open to all, and I’ve encouraged them to be a sanctuary where people can express themselves – seriously, strangely, wildly, howeverly – and that has not changed. But it takes on added importance (in my mind) with the launch of this new venue at this particular time.

We get locked down by life and algorithms and activities into our separate and segregated little cliques, and build invisible walls around these little sub-sets, and as we get deeper into these segregated compounds, especially the ones with digital walls which we don’t see out of so easily, we become more distrustful, fearful, paranoid, judgmental, and ultimately outright hateful. I firmly believe in the natural fact that people are people (for the most part) and if you can strip away the propaganda and poison, we can enjoy shared space in a beneficial way for all. That’s the hope of these things. I hope for them not to be my event, but our event.

That being said, don’t bring your poison or toxicity to the cookout. Your ass will get asked to sit the fuck down or leave right quick. We go by sanctuary cookout rules – don’t fuck up nobody else’s good time.

Anyways, this is the long-should’ve-been-done post on my website saying the haiku slams I have held, now called Southern Gothic Futurist Haiku Slams, are back. Oh yeah, the name... Southern Gothic Futurist... what does that mean? Well, one of the most inspirational wild style artistic philosophers of the past half century for me was Rammellzee, and his Ionic Treatise Gothic Futurism document is hugely influential on my philosophies of recent years, as I’ve attempted to take my fucked up lower class bound for doom rural white southern ass, which I’d already healed (a bit) from white trash to dirtgod, and move it further to a more post-colonial way of thinking, due to a lot of personal realizations over the past few years, plus the influence of where I live and the river I sit by and the language all that speaks (which is not English). I love the south, but I realized I love it as a philosophical thing as much as geographical. The American South is where immigration has already had strong foothold for decades. I got a coconut water (agua de coco) at a tienda in sleepy ass Keysville which I used to ride my bike to as a kid. Cross-cultural pollination is a good thing. And the American south I grew up in, with the added influence of Latin immigration, combined with heavy African-American presence, plus ragged underclass white influences, has always felt like a special mix to me, that fits the ingredients to build a post-whatever the fuck we’re living in culture’s healing redone culture.

But also, the Global South, which is everywhere on Earth pretty much exploited and pillaged and siphoned off of by what it is often misidentified as “western culture”, has that same philosophical bent to it. In the spirit of being against the energies that killed Heather Heyer and stormed into Charlottesville last August, and in fact have been rearing themselves like poison ivy throughout the internet and into real life, I want to embrace and manifest that Southern Gothic Futurist vision fully. I don’t care about politics to be honest, at least not at organized level, don’t care about borders, about race or ethnicity, really don’t care about none of these structures put in place which help create those walls I spoke about above. I don’t give a fuck about none of that (which is not the same as saying they don’t exist... they definitely exist). Southern Gothic Futurism is about everybody, all us ragged and wretched and marginalized and forgotten and unheard and even some that aren’t ragged or wretched or marginalized but are respectful, all of us coming together and sharing our selves in short blasts, and having fun, and building community, and building love together, and being cousins in the human experience. We are all gonna be cousins. That’s the Southern Gothic Futurist vision.

1N3QV4L1TY C4M0...

inequality camo

is pastelized HardiPlank

blossoming from vacant lots

L34V1NG T1NY F1GVR1N3S...

leaving tiny figurines

scattered, as well as brush strokes,

as well as unseen feathers

W4LK1NG 0FF S0 M4NY M1L3S...

walking off so many miles

under cover of darkness,

with the raven's solitude

TH3 H34L1NG P0W3R 0F L0VNG3...

the healing power of lounge,

letting shit rise how it must,

and fall back again when done

TH3 D1SC0VRS3 C0NT1NV3S 1N...

the discourse continues in

closed circles few have access

to actually speak in

C0VNTY F41R D3M0L1T10N...

county fair demolition

derby primal bashing of

American traditions

TH3R3 4R3 TH0S3 WH0 M4K3 34SY...

there are those who make easy

sense of this madness we walk

each day - I'm not of that ilk

R4ND0M GR4FF1T1 W1SD0M...

random graffiti wisdom

appears like feral scripture

to help guide wandering souls

HVSTL1N' L1K3 R41NDR0PS T4TT00...

HUSTLIN' LIKE RAINDROPS tattoo,

then FREEBIRD GUITAR SOLO

tattoo, both in cursive script

PH0N3T1CS R3DVC3D T0 C0D3...

phonetics reduced to code

by monks bastardizing man's

place in natural order

SONG OF THE DAY: Space

Occupying physical space, but metaphysical space cluttered, everything seems to be closing in. No longer have access to the woods and advanced mushroom technologies (send microdosing capsules plz) and even walks becoming harder to find time for, immersion into city’s (large town?) ebb and flow. Not to mention the wireless unseen spiderwebs woven all over which are far thicker among the settled environs of Charlottesville – less woods, less lack of power lines and satellite transmission; thousands of cables and cords and satellite frequencies and wireless routers each one an invisible line through the air, weaving stick thicky space which is not there physically but head begins to feel gobbed and gobbed and gobbed, and they (the eternal “They”) will say “that’s not scientific” but science is not altruistic and I can feel the gobs and I can feel it all closing in and I can feel the frustration not just my own but other people too, the suicide and depression and angst and fear and loathing and worry the big stifling worry of it all is growing and choking people, whether science has caught up to reality or not is not my concern, just want some space for me for others to fucking breath. Doesn’t have to be physical, physical Earth is limited, we all know that, and they (the powerful “They”) have put claim stakes on most all of it, fences around much of that, and razor barbs along wide sections of the fence. Don’t care about physical space necessarily, clear the air, wipe the gobs from my head and stop gobbing it up more, which I need to tell myself, stop pushing all this misinformation and mundane nonsense into brain which floats out to internal sea and creates giant swirling islands of garbage floating in heart, the brain being the land we’ve charted scientifically in our internal Earth, and the heart being the vast unknown ocean which we sort of know but not really because we identify ourselves as brain creatures. But all that brain trash floating into heart, and internet poisoning humans into manufacturing more and more brain trash, in fact believing the best way to counter brain trash is to make better brain trash, and many hearts have become trashed, but if the internal Universe is as vast as the external – if each of us is that single drop in the ocean, then there’s unlimited space, right? Right? Unify and spread out, rather than divide and “but…” up against, right? Right?

Right doesn’t matter. Many are left behind. Many were never asked to go, or to be involved. Many are left on the outside, in fact there’s more outside than in most places, far more, and I guess (I tell myself) it’s not that we need space so much as the claims are false, and the fences are false, and the razor barbs put up to delineate the fences reality in sharp contrast to nature are definitely false, so fuck it. Can’t escape the psychic gobs unseen overhead and all around, and can’t escape the brain trash constantly fed me because it is the basis for which people are tricked into enabling this false “make a living” mythology. But I can try to remember to baptize myself in small moments – yard rabbit, or kid spinning in rain, or laughing with crazy dude on bus, or eye contact with beautiful gaze at the DMV waiting for two hours for very little so might as well love that two second gaze – baptize myself in those moments, and try to do so five times a day, at least, inshallah.

TRY T0 K33P C4SH 1N P0CK3T...

try to keep cash in pocket

but ain't had real hustle in

years, so pockets mostly flat

M4K1NG FR13NDS 4L0NG S1D3 STR33TS...

making friends along side streets,

recognizing "what's up mane"

not appropriate for birds

TH3S3 L1TTL3 M0TH3R M0SQV3S 0F...

these little mother mosques of

cleansing spirit keep popping

up deep in woods after rain

RVN '3M 1NT0 TH3 GR0VND - L3T...

run 'em into the ground - let

the dents become rust become

vine-covered become new Earth

4L13N-L00K1NG 4LL3YS...

alien-looking alleys

piecemealed over the decades,

never requiring facades

R3S1N BVDDH4 4BVND4NVC3...

resin buddha abundance

showing the plastic-course way -

reshape fake real forever

W0ND3R1NG 1F TH3R3'S M4TH 1...

wondering if there's math I

never learned that calculates

success easier than this

41N'T N0 STR33TS P4V3D W1TH G0LD, JVST...

ain't no streets paved with gold, just

old sheet metal buildings which

warehouse dreams collecting dust

BL4CK C4NDL3 M3M0R14L...

black candle memorial

where Dodge Charger drunk on "right"

lost control of common sense

T34CH1NG TH3 CH1LDR3N T0 S1NG...

teaching the children to sing

"all cops are bastards" sweetly

while playing in uncut grass

D1ST0RT10N 0F M1RR0RS V13W3D...

distortion of mirrors viewed

with severe inner-critic

providing commentary

TH3 1NF0RM4T10N G1V3N...

the information given

free screened through algorithmic

process to filter out raw

W0RDS C0MPR3SS3D 1NT0 D4T4...

words compressed into data,

rarely if ever fully

re-stretched to capacity

SONG OF THE DAY: Nowhere Fast

Bored and lonely last night so I did what any idiot looking to feel as solitary as possible would do – I rode the bus around for no reason. Mid-going nowhere fast trip though I decided to go look at magazines at the still a book store in the fancy normal people who have money shopping district, thinking “oh hey I’ll buy a Juxtapoz or maybe a train magazine, and then scribble haiku on pages or some dumb shit so I can justify the purchase aka waste of money” but I didn’t feel like riding the bus and walked instead, sitting on park benches whenever one appeared to test the lounge factor and blend into the questionable scenes adding my own question marks of “how do we read this guy?” for others passing by. Eventually, after much goofing off and taking pictures of an abandoned drug store in a dying strip mall, and also lamenting the bulldozed remnants and giant hole where previous old buildings I’d taken pictures of were now lost to progress, including a copy shop where I printed a bunch of zines over the years, I made my way across the street to the fancy normal people who have money shopping district and the book store, to piss in their bathroom, and also think about buying magazines.

Magazines are expensive, so I did not buy any magazines. I am so used to things trickling into my life second-hand or in bulk purchases of old shit either in real life junk markets or the internet junk markets that I forgot new shit, even dumb shit like magazines which is entirely geared towards you spending money in order to “discover” new ways to spend other money, well I forgot that new shit costs more than my broke ass comprehends.

After being bored by new magazines, and Parcheesi blocked walking down multiple aisles by well-tended white men and their princely heirs to their privilege, I made my way back to the bus stop, by the McDonalds, where we sat on the bus for a while while old men smoked cigarettes and the driver ran over to Mickey D’s. Eventually back unto Main Street, it was quarter to nine, so I got off to hit up the Afghani market for a delicious ayran for the rest of the walk home, having successfully eaten up most of the evening, alone, wandering, could disappear and nobody would notice for at least two days. But they didn’t even have mint ayran, only regular. “Fuck it,” I thought, and went ahead and got it, and it was the not main dude at the register but the second-to-main dude, and the main dude charges me flat chill price of regular but this dude hadn’t before, but tonight he did, so though they didn’t have mint ayran I at least wasn’t white-charged at the Afghani market.

I walked the rest of the way home, and this city is boring and maybe not even a city to be honest, and I passed all the places of people living, both the projects rebranded as “friendship court” and the pastel or earth tone hearty plank sided homes of gentrification within rock throwing distance of the projects, and thought about all the lives inside those places, and the comfort and lack of comfort, and how some of us have an upward trajectory or downward spiral and many of us simply have neither, just fluctuations slightly above or below whatever the fuck we were born into in the first place. The lack of support I have from family or even solid friends who are there other than when they need my support feels like a thousand pound kettlebell tied to my ankles, both of them at once, tightly, trying to swim out of deep murk. Seeing people, just random ass pairs of people – my age black couple pushing a stroller, affluent white folks headed to the downtown mall, old Indian couple – all walking together got me thinking on that fact how loneliness is unhealthy, but also how you can’t fix it on your own because duh you are alone, and when not wanting to be alone you always find the worst possible fucking humans who vampirize your life and energies. But then while I was thinking that I had already made the steps home, so I went inside and cut on two or three dollar store Chinese lanterns and sat there, thinking “well, that was a day” without even the motivation to write a poem, even a dumb simple poem as means of maintaining practice.

B4R3LY ST1LL TH3R3 SM4LL T0WN P0ST...

barely still there small town post

offices occupy space

leftover, not yet condemned

SONG OF THE DAY: Mestizo

Mongrelized nature confusing, especially with broken connections galore from dysfunction leaving one floating alone in this Earth space. I tend to sit at night and write words to nobody because that’s what I’ve always done – it’s always been me by myself it feels like, even though I share blood in direct sense with small group of people but in larger sense with everybody. So many divisions wedged into every fissure of the brain, denying simple fucking heart truth that people is people.

Without human connection to really offer solid support, the one thing that grounds me is the ground – the area I’ve known all my life, because it feels more familiar (as in family) than anything else, and I was unsettled to leave the land I’d known the past 20 years, but at the same time all these little slivers and parcels ain’t really ever owned in any sense, and I can find that same feeling with land of similar make-up throughout this area.

Mestizo, mongrel, mulatto, mutt – a small army of M-words to cover the natural fact that any ideas of purity of human origins is more than likely not true, and we are all the sum product of each other. None of us is pure in racial sense, and yet there’s purity in that. I’ve been feeling very disconnected from my classification, but also understand the system works through classification so it saves me hassle in many steps along my days. There is a grid of thinking that’s been applied to the natural world that doesn’t match the natural world’s ways, so likely that’s why I find walking the land grounding. It doesn’t have to be woods land or along the river – railroad tracks through town or rippling city sidewalks with weed resistance in every crack make just as much sense. Saying “hey man” to familiar faces with unknown lives on the bus does that. Lot of times it feels like we’re disconnected by design, but the grid and classification applied over top of everything is less about serving the needs of all the people, and more about squeezing productivity out of us, or casting aside when there’s nothing productive to be squeezed out of us in a way that allows our feralization from abandonment to not poison the herd.

Me personally? Polish immigrants I know, Swedish/Norwegian orphan-ish and homeless grandmother I know, Scot surname I carry filtered through Appalachian mountains and then a few generations of rural southside Virginia I know, Pennsylvania Germans of some sort I know; and yet I don’t know none of this completely. Grew up my whole life in in the same rough area, know the trees and the rivers and the main roads and the people who live here. Half-cousins and step-nephews and before it all fell apart, family gatherings with more last names than side dishes. In the sense of that applied order, we are all dysfunctional, because the order wants us to function in a way that’s not naturally easy.

Fuck it. It’s that shit that makes me feel alone – that I’m lost from where I’m supposed to be. But I’m not supposed to be anywhere, except right here. Existential crisis depends on existential purpose, which is likely a myth anyways. I’m gonna walk ten miles today, and every face I see is gonna be my brother or sister. So easy to get lost in the hatred manufactured by the classifications and purity tests and ill logic masquerading as intelligence. Just gonna walk this shit off, like humans have done since the beginning of humans.

RVS W1TH M0NTHLY P4YM3NTS...

RVs with monthly payments,

debit card transactions tracked

when renting spots, vagrants cleansed

TH3 PL4C3S L1V1NGS 4R3 M4D3...

the places livings are made,

in slow hourly increments,

as if life was forever

25-Man Metaphysical Roster: Southampton F.C.

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football dork methodology meant to establish a listing of players who have been most active for English Premier League teams in their past 100 non-friendly matches. Essentially, it is calculated by minutes played, but weighted towards most recent games. The end result is a listing of the 25 players in a team’s recent history who have had the largest hand on their metaphysical sporting trajectory. The English Premier League was chosen because it is the highest level of football played in an English speaking country, and I speak English. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the USA, where I fucking live. And yet still I should clarify I hate English, and also America. Thus maybe I hate myself. Should I not fail in maintaining my unpaid deadline, a new 25-Man Metaphysical Roster will appear on the 1st and 15th of every month.]

OH LOOK THIS IS AN UNFINISHED ONE I’M SNEAKING IN ON THE LATE YEAR POST BEFORE RE-LAUNCHING THIS FEATURE NEXT WEEK! Oh hey, I am still behind schedule because I was distracted by World Cup, and then now I am deep into post-colonial studies at amateur homefront level (though is it amateur just because not paid? or is that colonial conditioning?) and enthusiastically watching African Champions League matches in Spanish, with Copa Libertadores about to start back up too, and not even sure if I’m not gonna abandon imperial football from the Global North and only watch football from the Global South. It was weird because I had no idea why I disliked Japan in World Cup and associated them with Europe and America instead of the rest of Asia, and the same with Australia, and it turns out post-colonial theory completely aligned with my innate World Cup footballing allegiances. But anyways, next up on this Premier League schedule would’ve been Southampton, and this would’ve occurred according to schedule on July 15, so I am working to catch up before kick-off of regular season of Imperial Football. Southampton’s time since the last time we metaphysically deduced them was rough. They flirted heavily with relegation, cashed out players without bringing in much quality to replace them, but luckily there were enough crap clubs below them, including my beloved Swansea City, whom they beat in essentially a relegation showdown in the next-to-last match of last season, securing their survival. Nonetheless, here is your metaphysical 25 from the last 100 non-friendly matches for them ol’ Saints marching in from Southampton…

#1: RYAN BERTRAND (up from #3 last time Southampton was metaphysically listed, 15-Jul-2018) – Not sure why I never thought to use “top boy” in reference to whoever sits at the top of these club lists, probably because usually it’s just the GK. Southampton, due to instability at the GK position, sees a non-GK as their top boy, in Ryan Bertrand, former Chelsea property/wonderkid/constant loanee, who was loaned to Southampton four years ago, had the move made permanent, and thus far it has literally meant permanency. A left-side defender who also has the capability to help on forward thrusts, which will always make one a fan favorite.

#2: ORIOL ROMEU (same as last time) – Former Barcelona youth product about to begin his fourth season in along the English South Coast, a theme for the man with the Catalan name which means “golden”, as he was born along the southern coast of Catalonia before going off to Barca youth academy at age 13. Made two appearances for Barcelona’s top team, an 8-minute appearance in May of 2011, and a full-match stint in the Spanish Super Cup in August of 2010. Often times with the vagabond transient nature of footballers, I wonder what’s the match that sticks out in their mind as their arrival moment? I’d imagine that first appearance at professional level for Barcelona still has to be top moment for Oriol, considering his youth background in that region. There is no culture like that in place in America, for those arrival moments like that, which would fill a young American with soccer pride. Like, you might get signed to an actual club in Europe, but you’d come out your first big moment, on the other side of the Earth, and nobody in attendance really would give a fuck. That’s the difference in depth of football culture, and why here in America, football is still called soccer and it sucks.

#3: CEDRIC SOARES (up from #7 last time) – Right side back who saw time with Portugal in World Cup this summer, thus a late arrival back to the club this past week. A steady presence who will hit his 100th cap with the club upon his fourth match this season.

#4: DUSAN TADIC (up from #5 last time) – A four-season constant presence for Southampton starting XI, only missing appearing in 10 Premier League matches for the club over that span, including none last season. But ahead of this season, the Serb has transferred to Ajax, in a perfect blend of scum nationality and scum club. That is no personal judgment against Tadic himself; I am simply using my personal prejudices to say it makes sense, that move.

#5: MAYA YOSHIDA (up from #6 last time) – The anchor of Saints defensive line now that van Dijk was (finally) sold to Liverpool, and also active this summer with the Japanese national team at World Cup, playing in all four matches, including that shockingly exciting round of 16 showdown with Belgium. But also, despite his prominence of placement on this list, has never really held down a lock on the Starting XI for Saints, only really playing in about half their PL matches the past half dozen years, which yeah that’s great – six years in the PL, for one of the top non-Big 6 clubs, but also only about half the time, which is that weird “well, we love you but also we’re gonna see how this other guy works out too” type status.

#6: JACK STEPHENS (up from #13 last time) –

#7: NATHAN REDMOND (up from #8 last time) –

#8: FRASER FORSTER (down from #1 last time) – Two seasons ago, was the absolute man between the posts that helped Southampton to an 8th place finish, but last year got dropped behind Alex McCarthy after a disastrous 5-2 whooping away to Spurs on Boxing Day. And now that Southampton has signed notable young star Angus Gunn (lol what a name), looks Forster is even further down the pecking order, but also still good enough he’s looking at a loan rather than full transfer.

#9: JAMES WARD-PROWSE (up from #10 last time) – Ward-Prowse is a homegrown talent, having joined Saints’ youth academy at age 8. Now 23, and never having played a match for any other club, Ward-Prowse finds himself scrapping for a spot in a crowded midfield, and saw his playing time diminished towards the end of last season. He’s even been shifted to other positions in that strange way of trying to play a young player but not where they’re accustomed to playing, which is supposed to expand their skills in essence, but also can work to jade their spirit. But he’s also one of the last holdovers from before their promotion to the PL. Additionally, after many months of doing these and seeing a lot of hyphenated surnames, this guy here was the one that triggered a search of the issue, and falling down a rabbithole of double-barreled surname knowledge, specifically to Britain, but also other traditions around the world. Spoiler alert: patriarchal thinking is dominant in surname conventions, especially those regions considered part of “western civilization”.

#10: WESLEY HOEDT –

#11: PIERRE-EMILE HOJBJERG (up from #15 last time) – Honestly didn’t realize this goofy looking fucker is only 22 years old because in my mind he was a mainstay in Football Manager alternate realities where he was a long-time star for Manchester United (who he’s never played for in real life?) as well as part of me managing some low level Danish club to continental glory. By the way, those Denmark crests for national team are one of the best national team badges going in my opinion. As for Hojbjerg, I guess he’s great, but hard to fathom how going from Bayern Munich wonderkid to Southampton can be seen as positive career trajectory; then again, he is only 22, and also to be one of the top imperial football leagues on Earth is no laughing matter when it comes to bank account.

#12: STEVEN DAVIS (down from #4 last time) –

#13: SHANE LONG (down from #11 last time) – Ahh yes, the problematic footballing character of the Irish striker. The psychological enigma of a man born to score from a marginalized segment of regional culture which has political biases against things English, yet association football has overtaken the Gaelic version. Existence is problematic, and troubled individuals often make the greatest striking threats due to their embrace of that internal jihad. However, Long has not been that dude quite as well the past two seasons, never coming close to that 13 goals in 34 appearances run of 2015-16 for the Saints.

#14: ALEX MCCARTHY – After Fraser Forster’s soul was vanquished last Boxing Day against Tottenham Hotspur, McCarthy became the go-to man at GK for Mauricio Pellegrino, who himself got shit-canned last March, but McCarthy’s retained his spot under Mark Hughes as well.

#15: MARIO LEMINA –

#16: SOFIANE BOUFAL (up from #18 last time) –

#17: MANOLO GABBIADINI (up from #22 last time) – I consider myself a fairly progressive-minded person, so much so I refused to use the word “individual” just then because I prefer collective thinking rather than the toxic individualism which has poisoned the U.S. influence on the Earth. And yet, even so, it is literally impossible for me to say “Manolo Gabbiadini” without using some horribly stereotypical accent like an ignoramus rural American Southerner who watched the entirety of The Sopranos while high on truck stop speed the second half of this past May.

#18: VIRGIL VAN DIJK (down from #9 last time) – After a long courtship, and becoming somewhat complacent in the process, van Dijk finally transferred to Liverpool last December. His last few months in Southampton was textbook “mailing it in”, and it in fact took him a while to get back to speed once he did get to Liverpool. He’s one of my faves, to be honest, so having him and Salah on the same squad will allow me a PL club to halfway pull for without feeling like a total hypocrite while Swansea is banished to second-tier internet streams and me following along through live tweets.

#19: CHARLIE AUSTIN (up from #20 last time) – Was only three seasons back that Austin was lighting up the PL when still with Queens Park Rangers, and was the hot commodity of transfer talk. He ended up at Southampton, and a combination of hamstring injuries as well as suspension for “violent conduct” which is always a solid sign for an English striker, has kept your boy Charlie Austin from maintaining his spot as the man, deserving of that #10 jersey he rocks.

#20: JAN BEDNAREK –

#21: GUIDO CARRILLO – The American stereotype of guys named Guido is of loutish stubborn mules of men, generally Italian. But Carrillo is that anomaly of the Italian diaspora, being an Argentine with the name Guido, which makes him a geographical American and an American stereotype at the same time. Being Argentine though gave Carrillo some allegiance when the club was managed by Mauricio Pellegrino. Pellegrino was sacked last March though, as Southampton fought to avoid relegation, but landed a new gig at Leganes in Spain this past June. Carrillo has followed, signing on to a season-long loan deal there as well last month.

#22: SAM MCQUEEN (down from #19 last time) – At one point I lived in a trailer that sat in a trailer park on the edge of a tobacco farm, and there was an old farmhand who lived in the middle trailer everybody called Pops. He had horseshoe pits, and I would sometimes play there drinking liquor talking shit, as I was wont to do back then. I got dialed in one Sunday afternoon on Jim Beam and was hitting ringers left and right, even gambling $5 a ringer against one dude, and winning $40, which made us holmes forever, except I couldn’t honestly even remember what the dude looked like. That is why whenever somebody I have no idea who they are is like “what’s up Raven?” I just play along because I’m sure there’s good reason they know me, and I have a good heart so my enemies are few, and even those few there are rarely lifelong ones, except maybe two or three. Anyways, while living in this trailer, the fabric that was curtain for our giant living room window was a fuzzy tapestry blanket from the county fair of Steve McQueen riding a dirt bike. I do not know if Sam McQueen has anything to do with Steve McQueen, nor do I really care, but there’s only so much I can write about obscure English footballers I don’t give a fuck about.

#23: JORDY CLASIE (down from #14 last time) –

#24: JAY RODRIGUEZ (down from #17 last time; also previously ranked #10 for West Brom Albion on 15-May-2018) –

#25: JOSH SIMS –