Ode to Mbappe

Ode to Mbappe by Yago Cura The real question is Mbappe’s new new newer than Zizou’s hawkeye glidetelligence? Does Mbappe’s athletic effervescence cloud CR7’s piston-popping paladinbrand? Is Mbappe more dangerous than Platini’s murderous chip syndicate from just outside the penalty box? If the new new is where we don't look, just beyond where we predilect, is it a space we are capacitated to hold? Mbappe breaks my heart in 2018 by spanking Argentina, but gets his heart broken in 2022 by a stronger, more resolute and plucky Argentine? True, Mbappe’s not the first ingenue thrust onto the cold proscenium of presence–playing for Monaco at the tender age of fourteen–but let us not forget Pontiff Pele scored his first World Cup goal at 17 against Wales in 1958. So, not the first time we've been sold a manifest about the new new in front of the advertisers. Not the last time a safety mask will be worn by an Honorary Ninja Turtle, nor the last time a protective vizard will be employed by a big-speed demon nez. Mbappe is a pace abuser; he will let you set your best pace and demolish your best pace, like he did to Masche ten minutes into the final in 2018, and it was only until Rojo clotheslined him that he was thwarted but Les Blues got their penal with Griezmann, and three bangers more, and earned their second star. As a lifetime hinchas of the Albiceleste, do you know how difficult it is to sing your praises and still be welcome at camp? I would rather praise your prodigious speed and be done with the whole affair. Still, we must concede, Monsieur PSG, Mister 20 Miles per Hour Counter, Mister Monaco FC Kid, Mr Real Madrid Firestarter, Mister Devourer of Space, Monsieur Flying Scissorkick Against Nice. Just because Mbappe is new new doesn't preclude him from losing Mundiales and getting benched by Deschamps–pulled from the penalty squad–just because he’s the captain, but also might be the liability stopping his team from clinching that position. Do you think Maradona would have allowed himself to be benched? Could you imagine Zlatan the Hun saying the country’s victory is greater than his aggregate contributions? It was not pain that kept Mbappe out of the firing squad against Portugal in the Copa this year but knowledge of self, know- ledge of limitation, ego extirpation. I almost like Mbappe more after debacles and ridiculous injuries have seasoned his temperament, downshifted his mojo, but not engaged the brake pads of his mediocrity, not allowed personal hindrance to narrate the trajectory of his billboard-ness. I keep tripping, returning to Paul Simon's chanson, "The Boy in the Bubble," thinking what a curse to be any generation's pearl, a defacto savior spectators only know from the narrowest angle on telezoom lenses. But, maybe the only way up the pop charts is up the pop charts, maybe fielding cracks onto the cold, emerald tarmac and seeing how they taxi is the real Turing Test of the new new? The highest compliment I can concede is that Mbappe was such an existential threat to Argentina's victory in 2022 that giving five more minutes to this motherloving Donatello-looking, snail-eating, Usain Bolt exponent from the outskirts of Paris (Bondy to be exact) would have prevented Argentina from attaining their third star.

MIS HIJOS

I grew up in Miami a Latino, but not Cuban
Which is kind of like, what’s the point of this?


Then, I moved to Western Mass for grad school
and the pedigree of my Latinoness did not matter
because there were so few of us you could tag us
like coyotes or timberwolves, and track us as blips
on a cold, green Transponder.


Then, I moved to (back to) Brooklyn:
Gravesend, Ocean Parkway and Avenue O
but was not Russian, Syrian, Chinese, Ukrainian, or Israeli,
although the Guatemalan Super in my building was in a Police
cover band in the basement,Tuesday nights.


Then, I moved to Spanish Harlem, One Hundredth and Third,
but was not Puerto Rican nor Dominican with a twist of ‘Rican
nor even distant Puerto Rican adjacent, like Cuban.


Then, I moved to Harlem proper and because I was the only
Latino in my building I became Mexican by default because that’s
who was working in the kitchens and making Harlem sparkle.


I taught in the Bronx but was not Dominican, was not Black
but I could speak Cuban, and this meant I could rapport with parents,
and make home visits and dance a mean bachata and support the right
bodegas, and order bacon, egg, and cheese with local aplomb.


Then, I moved to Los Angeles because my wife grew up here and
I was not Mexican nor Salvi (El Salvadorean) nor even Korean, and


still my California babe of a wife gave me two beautiful California boys
that are ALL gringo but HALF Mexican and HALF Argentine so there are three
things they know despite orientation, intuition, or calculation.


My boys are carnivorous, swarthy, and fancy futbol over football
not just as a matter of aesthetic but as a statement on skill.


My boys feel good eating black noodle goo and seaweed crunch tablets
and pozole plum-puddinged with tripe or ceso or chocolate-covered grass-
hoppers and insect lollipops. They tear up tacos, demolish burritos, and
crave a good choripan every now and again.


My boys are dark morsels, raven-haired, discrete, olive-skinned geeks.
They carry the Levant, the U.S./Mexico Border, the California Deserts
in their maw, in their genetic Powerschool, in their take-home folders.


The older boy adores his grandfather’s futbol club.
The younger boy, at five, can already run with the ball.

IMMUTABLE LAW OF DISHES

This is dishes.,

Dishes, dishes, this is.

This is dishes, dishes. dishes.

This is–dishes, dishes, this is

Dishes, This is dishes so,

Dishes, dishes, dishes.

Dishes, this is dishes?

This is dishes, dishes,

dishes, this is, dishes.

Dishes this is, dishes,

say it with me, thes dishes

is this dishes is this thistle

a dish of this is or dishes,

this is the this dishes, is this

Dishes, this is, or is dishes

Dishes, dishes, dishes this

is it, this is dishes, dishes

This is dishing dishes, is it not

dissolution of this is, dishes,

dishes, dishes, and even if

this is dishes, there is this is

which says, thesis this is dishes.

ELBA AND PINI ON NOSTRAND AVE

Elba was a badass broad in every sense of the word. Despite having to rely on immigrant English, she succesfully petitioned Congressperson Kirkpatrick to demand her son, Jose Antonio, be released from the prison where he had been since turning 16. I was in the room when she passed and I can't tell you what it means to me yet, but her ascendancy is assured because she was the tia with the pad on Nostrand Ave. Elba was the reason I was born in a Jewish hospital named for a 13th century seer in Brooklyn. She's the catalyst for my parents forging ahead in parenthood by having my sister. Without her maybe my folks don't leave on a freight ship, they stay in Argentina and get caught up, disappeared, and I don't exist. In fact, the fact you are reading this on this side, and we can share this conscious sentence means Elba overstays her tourist visa with Pinino. Pinino is my Uncle, Elba's husband. He's part goat and part toothpick, and will not be easily surprised by any of the rhetoric you might want to fantabulate towards his earholes. Pinino grew up poor in Buenos Aires and spent a whole year in a cast because of scoliosis. Pinino was no stranger to adversity; he lived near Fort Apache, one of Buenos Aires most notorious slums, and all during high school had to carry a zip gun for protection. But this tale ain't about Pinino, it's about Elba, and what Elba saw in Pinino enough to convince her to immigrate to the blackest part of Brooklyn in 1973.

Because I am a Square, Old Fuck that Lives on the West Side (of Los Angeles)

It’s easy to get things mixed up. We are, however you paint it, a deciduous rabble of debutantes and derelicts in leather pants. We see parking spaces as barometers of whether businesses will actually have any business existing. We prune our echo chambers of signature interference, deny you the merge of conversation, the comeuppance of a dialogue; we rebuke your lane-change-chit-chat. If you’re on a bicycle in the bicycle lane, we’re aiming for your hind quarters. If you’re on an electric scooter we get to clip you between the hip and knee. If you’re a swarthy kid we reserve the right to never have seen you at all. We barrel down neighborhoods in all of our sedan-class tout suiteness. We Armor-All our sunglasses until they display pixelated avatar drivel. We tantalize our mufflers with ragamuffin megaphone elite gravity. We park like czars so as not to share the municipal parking loam. We block driveways, boulder causeways, break collarbone loading zones. We drive two blocks for milk, but not before lauding each other on the brand of dolphin-safe tuna, ignoring the dinosaur in the room. We pretend people bagging our food were born to bag our food. It’s easy to see sacrifice from the dashboard of my thrive. It’s easy to see how things get done when you’re a pilot ace. It’s easy to bury your feelings in a Frosty or thicker, chocolate shake food. It’s easy to believe the we we assume when you are are you. We assume no responsibility for your nuance, doodad, or eunich. We believe belief is the truest route to Wilshire. We believe bike lanes are fake news. We believe eons ago our ego took a really loud picture. We agree to send you via the route that takes you by the dying airport even though it will be sold slab by slab to scions of loft spaces and self-parking mavens.