Completely Random Thoughts 15: "Heights of Great Men"

So I was so looking forward to draping this blog with one of the most beautiful, but soon to be defunct flags in the entire world, that of the Netherlands Antilles (Google it, it is gorgeous), but I can’t do that (well I guess I could) because as I expected the Spaniards took the World Cup with yet another grindingly methodical 1-0 victory over the Dutchies. Usually Spain is absolutely a joy to watch as they seem to slowly but surely advance the play of the game up the field on their way to (almost inevitably) scoring at the later or more developed portions of the match. They ALWAYS have the ball and when they do score, it’s terribly difficult to come back on them, which is - again - very nice to watch usually, the command of the game. This game was that, but . . . Well it just took too damn long and it wasn’t flowing as nicely as it usually does for Spain and I think that definitely has something to with the Dutch who play far more ‘normally’. They’re also some of the best finishers in the tournament (THE best on a team who actually plays defense) (biggup Argentina), so they tend to play more IMMEDIATE with chances seemingly developing in the most lackadaisical of moments. Still big them up for how far they’ve gotten it’s apparently their third time playing bridesmaid to the winners, so hopefully in 2014, in Brazil, they’re back in contention for the crown, I’m sure they will be and hopefully you and I are still on the planet to see it.

Biggup Diego Forlán (Uruguay) for getting the Golden Ball of the World Cup 2010, which makes him the MVP essentially. The man scored/scores some really RIDICULOUS goals, some of them are from so far away or from such a strange angle that you almost think that he’d get two points, or at least a point and a half, for some of them. Some dude named Thomas Mueller from Germany won the Golden Boot (most goals) with five in the competition, despite being tied with two or three other people (one of whom was Diego Forlán) via some strange ass tiebreaking system that I don’t feel like looking up (I think it’s shots on goal or something like that).

My own personal surprise of the competition was Ghana, I was very happy to see them go through (the flag is nice yeah), while the disappointment can go to a whole heap of different teams like France, Italy or maybe even England, but I’d give it to Italy who won four years ago and didn’t win a single game this time around, although it was mighty interesting to watch the train wreck that was France’s World Cup 2010. And I just REALLY enjoyed the competition altogether. Like I said, I don’t follow Football very well, but it’s such an exciting sport, that if it catches my attention for any reason, I’ll watch anyone against anyone and this was the best in the world and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the games and even just the highlights at times. So biggup the World Cup.

And the other bit of greatness (or scalding hot Luke warmness) (the choice is yours) went down in Castries, St. Lucia at Mindoo Philip in the St. Lucia Soca Monarch 2010. I most certainly and thankfully was not there, but I sat my ass in this very seat and watched the entire thing - 30 performances - in about 6 and a half hours (at least 4 of which was spent watching Platinum George hee-hawing his ass across the stage).

It was TERRIBLE. Out of thirty performances maybe FIVE got consistent crowd participation and maybe just 3-4 besides that got random crowd participation, but there were at least twenty different performances that reach the stage and it was almost as if the crowd didn’t even notice. Not that I’m blaming them, of course, there were some VERY bad performances . . . I shouldn’t even say that - there were many which weren’t HORRIBLE, but they just had nothing special and Soca Monarch, at least in theory, is the best of the best and that wasn’t it (or maybe it is and Skinny just spoiled the hell out of me).

In the end, we had one expected winner as Alpha repeated his 2009 Groovy Monarch victory by taking the crown again with arguably the single best performance on the night of ‘Freedom’ (I think that was the song he sang). Very cool song (not nearly as cool as his 2009 song, however, ‘Cyah Wait‘). The Groovy competition was petty down (not that I expected something amazing) and Alpha was the clear winner, but the single biggest highlight came from Ms. Nicole David who performed the controversial ‘Mr. Dean Dough’ accompanied on stage by a very large . . . Yeah, you’ll have to get that from somewhere else, I’m not even going to say it (and I’m most certainly not going to mention what she was doing with her hand while referencing “Mrs. Palmer”). David took third and a very deserving Pringles took 2nd with his tune ‘Gros Pwell’, which was the very first even remotely decent performance of the competition.

As for the power, it started pretty good - Qpid (who ended the Groovy and got to start the Power) (apparently someone doesn’t like her too much) had a video presentation which preceded her performance of ‘Palé Palé’. The video was AWESOME, the performance was not (and neither was her Groovy performance). There was Esteban, who didn’t do very well in either competition, but whose Power tune, the clever cricket inspired ‘Big Hit’, I actually like pretty much. But this one came down to two performers, defending whoknowshowmanytimes Soca Monarch, Ricky T and newcomer DJ HP. Ricky T closed the show with ‘Cyah Stop It’ while riding on a damn war plane (and not just riding it on stage, but riding it AROUND the stage) and you figured there was no way he could lose, but about 3 performances earlier, HP had SMASHED Soca Monarch with his tune ‘Pa Mele’ and when it came down to it, HP had 380 points to Ricky T’s 365, thus dethroning the Pressure Boom in a big upset. HP didn’t do anything too special at all, he just had crazy energy and it won out for him. Taking third was Pringles, again, with ‘Ready 4 Dem’, he did well, but got hung up with his high wire act over the crowd, which took a day and a half to get going. THE surprise in Power came from a newbie, Ambi (who is reportedly Ricky T’s younger brother), who drew ’Push Dem’ and mashed up the crowd. Wouldn’t at all be surprised to see Ambi taking that crown one day and doing so in the not too distant future. Achis Reggae favourite, Isla Man, performed ‘Mad People Segment’ second to last, right before Ricky T and while he got a sparse bit of reaction, it wasn’t anything to be remembered (although the man is STILL WICKED). I’ll also say that after having witness the AWFUL MC’s at Vincy Monarch (and in Lucia last year), the hosts did very well in my opinion to keep the show moving and if you were watching on TV or on a stream, you also saw three seemingly very educated ‘commentators’ who messed up by talking over the announcements of the artists’ names sometimes by the MC’s, but generally did a very good job as well. All three seemed to have quite a bit of knowledge and experience and even if I disagreed with their opinions on some things, I liked and appreciated how they were thinking so, whoever they were, big them up. And biggup DJ HP for taking springing the upset and taking the crown, he now has to be considered a favourite on the road as well for this week.

{p.s. That fucking 'Push Dem' song currently has my brain in some type of choke hold and I LOVE it!}