As a wise man once said: “What is this World Twisted?” Leicester City in second. Chelsea and Spurs hover around the relegation zone. Arsenal, simultaneously 3 points off the top, and 3 off the bottom, depending whether your glass is half full, or, like mine, empty and cracked.
Welcome to the early weeks of the Premier League season when narrative imagination swamps reality.
When we were growing up, in the more innocent 1980’s pre-social media, 24-hour news-cycle hysteria-propelled era, the newspapers did not even bother printing a league table until the teams had played five games. There was no point. No one cared. The early season table placings meant nothing when one win could send a team soaring from the bottom to the top.
They still mean nothing. They just feel like they do. Chelsea’s early stumbles have not yet decimated their title defence (Pedro is a Blue!). Nor have Liverpool’s pair of unemphatic wins made them bona fide title challengers (Let’s reserve judgement ‘till Monday afternoon’s Arsenal rumble.). And while we are at it, Memphis’s double strike against patsy, Club Brugge, does not make him the “Premier League’s newest striking sensation.”
Now that we have that straight, let’s all return to our hyperbolic selves and say, Holy Crap, we cannot wait for this weekend’s Premier League slate, even though we all run the risk of being accused by Louis Van Gaal of being “a little bit deaf.”
The MEN IN BLAZERS SHOW returns Monday, Aug. 24 with special guest David Simon. We’ll discuss his new HBO miniseries
“Show Me A Hero,” “
The Wire,” and everyone’s favorite philosophical question: if
Bubbles was a Premier League footballer, who would he be.
Thanks to Guy Ritchie for stopping by last week and schooling us on the “dangerous game” that is sockless-ness. Guy also hung around to film an After the Pies digital extra in which he talks a big Tweed game.
He also speaks Hebrew.
Aug. 17 Full Episode (also available on Apple TV and Roku): HERE
Guy Ritchie Interview: HERE
Guy Ritchie After the Pies: HERE
Slide Into Seersucker,
Rog @rogbennett
On behalf of
MiB: @meninblazers
“Positive” Davo: @embassydavies
Producer JW: @JonoWilly
Producer Lexi: @lexitan
IX. Avoiding the Cuff Bus, With Help From Our Tailors at Freemans
Our history with cuffs is tumultuous, at best. Last week, one GFOP noticed
we may’ve been caught under the cuff bus yet again in our After the Pies with Laura Linney. You can decide for yourself by watching
HERE. In this edition of The Raven, we ask Kent Kilroe, managing director at
Freemans Sporting Club, to get us sorted.
Kent Writes: First off, I’ll preface this comment by reiterating that you are a man wearing a suit, not an actor wearing a costume. Therefore, pay attention but don’t take these so-called rules of dressing too seriously. The length of the jacket sleeve is the key to looking well dressed. With the arm at rest, the jacket sleeve should end where your hand meets your wrist. Make sure your tailor measures from the thumb on each hand because your arms are asymmetrical. If you have the right sleeve length on the jacket, your shirt cuff should fall between 1/4” and 1/2” below your jacket sleeve. Now go off young
Padawan learner and knock ‘em dead.
X. Passing Time in the CPOS
What we’re watching, listening to online.
A tieless Kyle Martino’s new Travel Channel show “36 Hours”:
WATCH HERE
Charlie is a Red interviews Jesse Lingard for MUTV:
WATCH HERE
“Google’s Terrifying Humanoid Robot” from the Daily Mail: WATCH HERE
GFOPs Mumford & Sons' and Jimmy Kimmel’s Boy Band:
WATCH HERE
XI. Bournemouth Forever
As we’ve discussed several times since the Cherries earned promotion to the Premier League, their home ground, the Vitality Stadium, has a capacity of just 11,700. That’s smaller than some Texas high school football stadiums. We recently received a Raven about the cathedrals of
Friday Night Lights from Forrest McMillan, a Dallas GFOP and self-proclaimed lover of the Premier League. It helped put the comparison into perspective. Forrest crunched the numbers with
THIS Texas football resource as his guide. Here’s what he came up with: 62 Texas High School football stadiums are larger than the Vitality Stadium; 78 Texas high school football stadiums have a capacity over 10,000; and 173 have jumbotrons. But how many of those stadiums have adverts from
Bournemouth’s Pre-Owned Watch Specialist?
XII. Three Questions With Adrian Healey
This weekend. It’s West Coast vs East Coast. LA vs NYC. Stevie G vs Lamps. A MLS game so big, it will be shown live in primetime in the UK. Calling the game for ESPN [3 p.m. ET Sunday] here in the U.S. is Mr. Adrian Healey. In this edition of
Three Questions we ask the man who cut his teeth at
Swindon Town to preview this weekend’s game and give us some predictions for the remainder of MLS’s season.
MiB: If you are an American MLS player on the Galaxy or NYCFC ... are you loving the pre-game buzz or a tiny bit resentful?
Healey: If I'm Tommy McNamara from NY or Alan Gordon from LA I'm loving it. A ton of buzz around our game, and a chance to wrestle the spotlight from the superstars. It’s like being offered a chance to open up for the Rolling Stones, and then blowing them off stage...and pinching all the food and drink from their dressing room.
MiB: We've seen some juggernaut signings in MLS this season. Who, in your opinion, will have the biggest impact, and who will be the most sizable bust?
Healey: Giovinco has been a massive success story, and at 28, it’s set to continue. Can do things that have never been seen before in this league, things that commissioner Don Garber didn't even know were legal in soccer.
Other side of the coin: Pretty much anyone Chicago signs as a DP. They have flamed out on about 14 in a row, which really takes some doing. Also, he's not quite there yet, but Jozy Altidore is veering uncomfortably towards bust territory. Six million dollars is a lot of money. Seven goals is not a lot of goals.
MiB: We've talked a lot about the marquee names. But the team with the most points in MLS, as of this writing, is DC United, a team that hasn't made any massive global signing. What does that say about United and the league as a whole?
Healey: DC United remind me a lot of Atletico Madrid 2 seasons ago in Spain when they won the title. No massive stars, but a lot of really hardened professionals who know how to win in the league. They play in the same "With a knife held between clenched teeth" assassins style that Atleti used to usurp Barca and Real. Plus coach Ben Olsen may be our version of Diego Simeone on the sidelines. A smoldering volcano of emotion and kicks every ball for the team he used to play for...and a few opposing players too
MiB: What's the best MLS team no one is talking about. A sleeper that could make a run for MLS Cup?
Healey: New York Red Bulls. The noisy neighbors are attracting all the attention, but almost stealthily, the Red Bulls have completely remade themselves post Thierry Henry and are actually a much more complete team. The only thing that might derail them is the search for the third Wright-Phillips brother.
MiB: Predictions for Sunday's Galaxy-NYCFC game. How's it all going to go down?
Healey: Galaxy 4 NYCFC 2. New York to score first. LA seem contractually obliged to concede first with Steven Gerrard on board. Keane & Dos Santos will be too much for a shaky NYC back line. Poku will outshine Pirlo (except in the glossy mane dept). There will be lots of shots of Lampard’s knee or ankle while he is sat on the bench. Landon Donovan will tweet something about how he wishes he was out there. David Beckham will be sat next to Donald Trump, and wearing one of Trump's "Make America Great" hats.
XIII. Support a GFOP Restauranter
Those of you visiting the Crap Part of Soho this summer. A. You are bonkers. The “Crap” adjective is there for a reason. B. Drop into Union Bar and Kitchen, a restaurant run by GFOP
Jonathan Renert who is working hard to grow a business in an area that needs his Fish Tacos very badly.
XIV. A Book for Your Library, If You Still Read
Or even if you don’t read. Jason Polan set out to draw every person in NYC, from celebrities to cab drivers to …
Rog. The results can be found in
“Every Person in New York.”
XV. A Poem To Gird Your Loins
To mark a weekend that gave us Bizarro Men in Blazers.
That It Will Never Come Again
by Emily Dickinson
That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Believing what we don't believe
Does not exhilarate.
That if it be, it be at best
An ablative estate --
This instigates an appetite
Precisely opposite.
XVI. "Plumb our Annals”
Our entire pod archive is available HERE. If you prefer the Cliffs Notes version, check out "Men in Blazers. Unbuttoned: Now That's What I Call Sub-Optimal,” Vol. I (
iTunes,
Amazon,
Google Play) and Vol. II - The Best of 2014 (
iTunes,
Amazon,
Google Play). The albums are the least objectionable of our football "analysis," Ravens and interviews.
You can access all MiB-related content (videos, pods and articles) by visiting meninblazers.com.
