F Starbucks

"But I'm growin' hungry (growin' hungry)
I'm growin' hungry (growin' hungry)
I'm growin' hungry (growin' hungry)
I'm growin' hungry (growin' hungry)"

Temple of the Dog, 199-It's-A-Shame-These-2 Made It

Thank you, yes, I know what goes here.  The part where I laud Seattle for their resounding success in their MLS "expansion" season, after over a decade in American soccer's minor leagues.  Followed by this part, hoping we can replicate it - which we will, but only as a jumping off point towards the path on which we will carry soccer's torch in this country.

BUT they invented soccer in America, dontchaknow? 

Nope, I call shenanigans.

But oh, their tears shed in their Space Needles, they will cry, "The attendance!"  Pessimism or no, that building is half empty.  XBOX PITCH AT QWEST FIELD is exactly like the same field the Seahawks play on, except with no one upstairs, evoking all the atmosphere of Grandpa Carey's four inch toilet cushion made of foam and sadness: lots of action, and lots of echoing.  I will casually brush past the giddy irony of a stadium a few months behind schedule built for a team called the Union, as Lincoln Financial Field will play host to two "sold out," yet somehow half-empty unofficial warm-up matches before the grand opening of Chester's PPL Park.  

Killer kit sponsor aside, so many things feel so wrong.

That shade of green was popular in windbreaker fashions, around the time when Seattle's mopey-mopeyness poisoned early 90s pop culture with an initial rush of anti-euphoria by hypnotizing a nation, while bearing little but an earnest passion for flannel shirts and distortion pedals.  Such promising beginnings: The Pixies, Nirvana, Ken Griffey, Jr., Shawn Kemp, Shawn Kemp's illegitimates, Shawn Kemp's designated joint roller.

And what now!  What do we have to show for our evolution from that point?  Starbucks and the Oklahoma City Thunder.  I thought of all the things I know about Seattle and Washington state, to some extent, and here are my findings:

Stephen Lucey's A Brief History of Seattle

1970 Hendrix, Jimi
1990 Wood, Andrew
1994 Cobain, Kurt

1996 Al Donelly succeeds despite wild election fraud, not to mention repeatedly damaging interventions from his ne'er-do-well quite-morbidly obese brother, during the 1996 race for governor.  (KILL WHITEY)

2002 Staley, Layne

That's not as much bashing as they deserve, but I must move on.

Prediction:  Philadelphia Union 2, Seattle Sounders 0
(A little birdie whispered that the Union are 5/1 tonight.  Flip that sh*t, Larry)