Esoterica

Back in the dark ages, or the 1990s as it was also known, my teal Chevy Beretta only had a tape deck. Most of my music was on CD, so you can see how this might have presented a problem for a college student looking to drive back and forth to work 45 minutes each way. I made a lot of mix tapes. We'll, that isn’t quite true. I made a lot of tapes that I recorded from a newly purchased CD (almost always from ear-X-tacy). Honestly, I considered myself more of an “album” guy back then. That is a fairly quaint notion today. The only a actual “mix tape” I remember making was a Prefab Sprout one. That previous sentence may require some googling, but let me stop you before you are tempted. You won’t be into them. I prefer it that way.

I have always preferred discover things on my own. Growing up in the absolute middle of nowhere in Kentucky, that meant discovering something English that was somewhat popular there, but none of my friends had the slightest idea existed. It isn’t lost on me that something needs a certain level of popularity to even be discovered. I am sure that there were undiscovered garage bands within 10 miles of where I grew up, but I am extremely confident that nobody was missing anything by them now being discovered. There was absolutely nowhere to even play in public other than the annual high school talent show. You could probably guess the kind of music I was into. It was definitively “not what anybody else was listening to”. By anybody, I meant anyone I would meet in a town of 2000 people. Of course, as I moved away to college, I did meet some people who had actually heard of the stuff I was listening to. I even learned to take recommendations from people. The Smiths and the Cure became beloved by proximity to hearing it. I did kind of get into Blur own my own before they had any kind of American audience.

However, Prefab Sprout belong to me and me alone. Well, at least their 1984-1990 catalog that comprised that mix tape does. I hadn't listened to them in a while, but the urge hit me and I basically downloaded and created that mix tape again (although the exact order is lost to time). If you have made it this far, you wouldn't be wrong in asking how any of this is relevant to Racing Louisville.

It isn't, but it will be.

“If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.”

Racing has had what I would consider a pretty boring offseason. Not once have I even felt the slightest urge to write something. The players that left needed to go, and the new ones are speculative signings. Ryan Dell left for a better opportunity, and I think Jeff Greer did too. I will miss Jeff. He cared about his job and did it well in my opinion. Honestly, there hasn't been much to write or talk about.

I go into the 2025 with the absolute lowest of expectations. I can’t envision how this team will be good. They may be competitive. If they do turn out to be decent, it will be counter to most of the previous evidence.

I don't get paid to write, so it has to be fun for me. I don't see Racing Louisville as a “serious enterprise” in this city for the long term. The owners can't afford to own a sports team that loses money. I feel like there is less enthusiasm than ever because the writing seems to be on the wall with this club.

However, I will forever be grateful for its existence because it has given me an excuse to write. Now, I am going to take the opportunity to take the owners’ and city's general lack of commitment to or interest in the club to change how I write about this club. This isn't a serious club. It's going to get unserious writing.

Not exclusively mind you. I still intend on doing player ratings, which I do with sober analysis. Everything else will be less serious. I am not a silly person by nature, so it won't be goofy. Think esoteric. I fully intend to pepper in Prefab Sprout lyrics that make sense to me (but surely not to you). I will use The Wire Epigraphs with abandon. I have a list of ideas of things to sprinkle into my pre and post match pieces like “Kayla Fischer card of the week” and “JOC unaccountable moment of the match”.

Anyway…consider this fair warning. If any of my frequent readers (which don't number many) aren't down with this I will point to the quote above and assure you that, “If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.”

“To shine like Joan of Arc you must be prepared to burn.”

It would be disingenuous to say that this blog hasn’t been mostly about “me” all along. It has always been my take and my opinion. However, what I get out of it is the process of writing it. After that is done, it doesn’t belong to me anymore, at least not completely. I know what I want to say, but that doesn’t mean that it makes it to the reader’s conscious unaltered. That’s impossible anyway and not something that has ever concerned me much but concerns me even less now. I have never felt the weight of Tom Benson’s description of this site of “the paper of record” for Racing Louisville. That is such an antiquated notion today that it is so hard to even fathom in today’s media climate. I want this to be fun, so I have made changes to make it fun…for me. I realize that these changes may not be “fun” for you. With all due respect, that isn’t my concern. My readership may drop to zero this season. I can live with it. There will be sometimes you may not have a clue what I am on about. I am okay with that too.

Back to my original thought. There is a beauty in the esoteric. Racing Louisville was never intended to appeal or even be understood by all. It does require specialized knowledge. That is part of the fun. As with all esoteric things, you hope it is just popular enough to be sustainable. There are sections of NWSL fandom that want to wallow in its esoterica. I completely understand that, but it puts a time limit on things. Prefab Sprout were just popular enough to be a working enterprise for 8-10 years, although their lifetime went beyond that. I feel like Racing’s time in Louisville my be limited, but I want to deeply enjoy whatever time is left. The football hasn’t been very interesting or much fun to write about recently, so I am going to marry some other bits of esoterica and unseriousness into this space and wrap it up in a Racing Louisville package. I hope you come along for the ride, but if not I understand completely.