Fair Play

This is not about soccer. This is about a tough article by Ginger Thompson in the NYT today.
Let's take a look at south of the MEXICAN border, which makes crossing the US border illegally seem like a trip to Disneyland. The Mexican government's chutzpah is boundless, because corruption reigns in Mexico, but before they start crying about the fence and mistreatment of immigrants they would do well to put a stop to the criminal abuses in their own southern border. In the end it's all about admitting that people need more opportunity, better living conditions, so that the Chipanec indians who pick mangoes don't all run over here, to be replaced by even poorer Guatemalan slave labor. As long as Mexico continues to exploit its own, this is never going to stop.

And speaking of fair play (this is about soccer):
Coach Arena, I take back everything I said. You can continue chewing your nails forever. The US team were huge yesterday, playing, not so much against a filthy Italian team, but against a referree that seemed hell bent in giving the game to the Italians. It crossed my mind that the 2 red cards he gave the US team could have been part of a bribe. One of them was blatantly unfair.
The Italians were disgusting. One of them gave a malicious zetz with his elbow to one of the Americans in the face, that I would not allow that man on a soccer field again in a year, let alone a game. Then, they self-goaled themselves, which serves them right for playing like that. The Americans regained their honor with massive amounts of balls and spirit. And I wish them the best.

wikiphobia

The most amusing read of the day today courtesy of the NY times. Wikipedia has finally restricted access to the millions of morons (some of them evilminded morons) who think they can contribute in the editing of an encyclopedia. I'm a firm believer in democracy and a free internet, but you're bound to let loose too many maniacs with axes to grind and endless nits to pick.
I am a closet enlightened despot (not so closeted, if you ask my dearest friends) and I think consensus is highly overrated, so I believe that indeed some people know more than others and their opinions should be valued more than others. I am usually always right, by the way.
I've consulted wikipedia and the information seemes quite legit, so as the article points out, the idea works for the most part. What I found amusing is the list of protected and semi-protected entries:
The copy in red is mine.

Protected Articles

Cannot be edited.

2004 United States election voting controversies, Ohio:
But of course. How about Florida the election before?
No contentiousness there?
Cuba
Florida crops up again, somehow. My suggestion is to separate Florida from the map and make it be an island next to Cuba. All our troubles would be over then, I guarantee you.
Islamophobia
Written, I assume, by professional islamophobics (I am just an amateur)
Elitism
You barbarians don't like it?
Kosovo
I thought we'd been through that already.
Human rights in the People's Republic of China
or lack thereof?
Military budget of the People's Republic of China
or should we all be scared shitless?
Messianic Judaism
Oy. Vavoy.
George Bernard Shaw
This one is funny. The man was a hoot.
Islam and anti-Semitism
This one is not funny.
Freedom fighter
As in suicide bomber? As in mini-mass murderer?
Mail-order bride
Moscow Metro

The last two I imagine are among the most controversial topics in human history.

Now, the next list almost sounds like a beat poem.

Semi-Protected Articles
Users can edit only if they have been registered with the site for at least four days.

Four days will make you an expert on:

Palestinian refugee
Michael Jackson
Falkland Islands
Gay
Republic of Moldova
George Washington
Jew
Romania
God
Emo
Christianity
French Revolution
William Shakespeare
John Wayne
Ku Klux Klan
Blog
September 11, 2001 attacks
Anarchism
Afghanistan
Michael Jordan
Hamas
Sex
Food
Comfort women
Mahatma Gandhi
Sony
Transcendental Meditation
PlayStation 3
Boston, Massachusetts

Boston, Massachusetts?

Painful

Mexican team: wake up! You are showing a dangerous lack of balls, at halftime v. Angola.
Please, please, please don't go there.
Meanwhile, Argentina creams Serbia Montenegro: 6-0. Wow.
WTF is Serbia-Montenegro? When I was growing up, this is what there was, and it was easy: Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Two countries. Those were the days.

There have been reports in the news that people are overdosing on pain time-release medicinal patches. People are taking the patches, breaking them and sniffing, or cooking the very powerful drug inside, which is much stronger than heroin. That is utterly stupid.

Distractions

My darlings:

Soccer is distracting me. I've become kind of a junkie, like when you smoke too many cigarettes and your throat is killing you and they taste like wet ash with cement but you want more. At least I know that once this thing is over, I won't give a damn about soccer until the next cup. And I'm not sure I'll make it to the end. I may have a backlash for so much useless soccer.
Right now, I'm watching the game between Trinidad and U.K and the Trinidadians are playing so fiercely and amazingly I'm really aching for them to win. Wouldn't it be cool for the tiny island to win against the Brits? It would be very cool.
Germany did not play that well against Poland either, and managed to score one goal at the very last minute. The Polish goalie was the hero of the game. I have no love for either one, but the Poles were fierce, and it would also be cool for the Germans not to win on their own turf. This is what I wish.

Another new distraction is I got a new toy called Final Draft, because now I'm going to attempt to write screenplays. I'm having lots of fun with my little toy and getting a headache by listening to Syd Field tell me how to structure a script. I'm sure it's very useful, but somehow it seems counterintuitive to me. Then, the movies he uses as examples are three movies that I can't care less for: Titanic, The Shawshank Redemption, a film I really hated, and Thelma and Louise, a film I did not believe for a second.
But I'm having lots of fun learning. And already thinking what to wear to the Oscars.
As if.

Soccer madness

Your Enchilada, having nothing better to do with her life, has become a devoted World Cup commentator, despite the fact that she still does not understand the concept of the "off side", and at this rate, never will. Here are some of her musings on the beautiful game.

Mexico 3 Iran 1. Goody!
Czechs 3 USA 0. Very Baddy.

• WTF with coach Arena? He was biting his nails like a schoolboy and completely absent from the proceedings. He looked distracted and listless. I haven't heard the breast beating from anyone, and I'm not interested, but I prefer the Mexican coach, who is actually from Argentina, brazenly smoking a cigarette while the team runs their asses ragged on the very big soccer field.

• The ABC commentators SUUUUUUUCK. You wouldn't know if somebody scored because they barely fail to register the fact when it happens, they are too busy talking politics (in the Mexico-Iran game).
I hate Ahmadinejad as much as anybody, but freaking focus on the game! They spent most of the time talking about nuclear war and when not talking about that, they were going on and on and on and on about the two players in the Mexican team who are naturalized citizens, one from Argentina and one from Brazil. Meanwhile, let me tell you that the American obsession with stats does not translate to soccer. We don't give a shit how many times somebody kicked the ball with his left shin, ok?

• Maybe when you listen to Univision it's as if your deaf uncle is screaming in your ear all the time, but it does make it more exciting. The Univision guys have this thing they ask each other how they rate the referree and they give him a number from 0 to 10. Charming. They talk about the game and only the game, and today in a bit of a macho display, about the beauty of the Croatian women (which somehow much surprised them. I guess they imagined old babushkas with hairy moles on their noses). Then one guy says, and the Brazilian women too, and the other guy says, yes, but we knew that already.
Right.

• Meanwhile it is downright miraculous that there are no uplifting stories about players who were raised in the mud by their blind grandma or horrid travelogues about what's to like in Germany, besides the beer and the sausage. It's just about the game, which is how it should be.

• Brazil 1 Croatia 0
There were a few moments of beauty with Ronaldinho doing fancy footwork with the ball, but the Croats did not let the Brazilians breathe, they really crowded them and it was a closed and frustrating game. Good for the Croats, whose fans were so happy at how well they played that they were cheering like maniacs even though they lost. Brazil, they are my favorites, but I'm afraid there are too many stars in that team. They need to not show off so much and play like the soccer genii they are.

• This has nothing to do with soccer, but I don't understand why the hullaballoo about the circumstances in which that subhuman murderer, lowest of the low, Zarqawi died. He deserved that someone kick the living daylights out of him. If they did it, good for them and if they didn't it's fine too. He was a monster.

There is no escape

Just one look at the headlines today is enough to barf:

Just what we need: Product placement in books. Brought to you by Procter and Gamble. Disgusting.

Army of Shadows

A gorgeous film about a group of French resistance fighters by Jean-Pierre Melville.
A film where you have Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura (Giants!) and Jean-Pierre Cassel is magnificent soul candy already. And then Melville displays such understated panache, such melancholy, such wisdom that the movie, even though it felt a bit long to me, is both extremely thrilling and moving. They just don't make 'em like that anymore. Gorgeous.

Countries I won't go to

I love to dream about travelling, but as soon as I start thinking of possible destinations I have as much fun thinking of where not to go. Here's a list:

Almost any ex-communist country that ends with the diphtong IA:
Albania
Rumania
Bulgaria
Bosnia
Bad food, gray people and gypsy music. Not for me.
Plan B: Greenpoint.

However, I'd like to see Mother Russia, because they are such major tacky fuckups, they intrigue me.
Plan B: Brighton Beach.

Seriously, no Arab countries. They hate Jews and they treat women like shit.
Plan B: The Falafel guy near Union Sq.

No countries that end with AN:
Iran
Pakistan
Afghanistan
Turkmenistan, etc.
Don't feel like wearing a burka.
Plan B: Texas?

The New Bulgarian Bar

The old one was bad enough, but the new one really sucks, if you ask me.
The novelty of being doused with buckets of beer and multiculti sweat, or singed with cigarettes while dancing (or rather jumping like people trying to get out of a straitjacket) to extreme Bar Mitzvah music wore off pretty quickly after a number of fun times at the old Bulgarian bar on the corner of Broadway and Canal. Now it has risen from the ashes as a multilevel dump on Ludlow street, but it still offers the dancing schvitz bath. I liked going to the old one, late at night, when they would play more of a mix of "world" and disco music.
I must confess I truly loathe gypsy music. So sue me. I loathe renovated, extremely loud, punkish gypsy music a la Gogol Bordello even more, so perhaps this is not the place for me.
I went to check out the new digs with my adventurous friends on Thursday night.
Out on the street, cooling their profuse sweat off, were hordes of young smelly men. Inside, is an appropriately underdecorated room, which tries too damn hard to look like a dump, as opposed to the more genuine and much more insouciant diveyness of the old one. So that already pissed me off. We went down a flight of stairs to find the dancing shvitz bath, and if you ask me, potential mass cremation facility, in full swing, and the music so aggresively loud that I assume everyone who was there for more than five seconds is irredeemably deaf by now and will never recover their hearing.
I may be turning into an old fart, but noise like that should be criminalized. So we paid the ten dollar entrance fee (didn't it use to be five?) and fled ten minutes later. You can send me a postcard.

Soccer fever

1.
I am starting to succumb. Saw part of the two opening games today. Must confess, I cried when I saw El Rey Pele. I was seven years old in Mexico 70 and he was king and still is and always will be, forever. I liked the contrast of the former German soccer heroes parading like blocks of wood, and the Brazilians, who were full of emotion and joy, which is how they play. 5 time World Champions, I always root for them and their beautiful game.
2.
It is now the time to see a lot of mostly stupid soccer ads, with just a couple of good ones. (I have one on the air, and it acquits itself quite decently among the competition, but what can I tell you, it's my baby). I like the Nike ads, with the tagline in Portuguese. That's about it. The one about the Mexicans traveling with what looks like a long schlong is nicely done, but I can't remember the brand it's for. I wish somebody should have limited the amount of ads where you see employees of a company pretending to play soccer. Those make me vomit.
3.
The Univision sportcasters must have pledged to make us all deaf by the end of the Cup, but they are certainly much more fun, more human, and more excited and exciting than watching ESPN, who has some dudes who sound like they're drinking hot toddys in Manchester, England. Today, at Ecuador v. Poland, the Univision guys were unapologetically rooting for Ecuador, without the slightest pretense of objectivity. Good for them. Germany vs. Costa Rica was harder because everybody expected Costa Rica to get creamed.
4.
Next time have a more fun country host the games: something like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Italy, a Latin place where people really know how to party, not only to get drunk like cossacks. The opening ceremonies were excrutiatingly boring, a great contrast with those electrifying public rallies the Germans used to stage you know when. I guess they tried to keep that so low key, it was a snoozer.