Ghosts of Joe Slovo

Folks, here's the link to my latest effort over at Soccer By Ives. (That's pronounced "Eye-ves" - it's Peruvian.)

The Galaxy lost at home to last year's worst team. Enough said.

Except I said this, to start things off:

Ugh.

Last week I said, "[A]ny team that can string together any sequence of passes in the midfield and has even half a striker will be big trouble."

I rest my case.

The fan trivia question at halftime (correct answer gets you a gift certificate for $25 in auto parts!) was, "When Cobi Jones scored the Galaxy's first ever goal exactly 12 years ago, what other current Galaxy player was also on the field?" The answer? Greg Vanney. Here's my trivia question for this past Sunday's game. "Which Galaxy player was beaten on every one of Toronto's goals?" You get one chance.

There were some bright spots on Sunday. The Landon Donovan – David Beckham connection is just coming into its own. If they both stay healthy and can deal with the disruption of international duty, they are going to give opposing defenses fits. Ely Allen was loads better this game than he was last week. Sean Franklin gave me no reason to wish for Abel Xavier or Troy Roberts to come off the bench.

Kick ass and put it in the net.

I get riled up about sports reporting about once every millenia or so.

So as far as this thousand years is concerned I'm done.

Yesterday LA Times Sports section columnist TJ Simers had a Page 2 commentary that took on David Beckham, the Los Angeles Galaxy, and their parent company Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). While I'm not necessarily a defender of mega corporations (okay I'm NEVER a defender of mega corporations) this piece did get my goat.

Mostly because Simers usually writes on the NFL, NBA, and MLB and has never, to my knowledge, written a word about soccer in the US. Not. One. Word. So when he does take it on, he starts with Beckham and his injuries. Okay, fair game, but then instead of talking about how the internal dynamics of the team is affected or how idiotic the management of the season has been or the schedule or the personalities or ANYTHING that might be even a little bit relevant to ANYONE who does know and care about soccer (which is what he does when he covers other sports), he prattles on about how he'd have advice about how to wear underwear. (Read the article, its' too tiring to explain here.)

So I wrote him a little letter. Here it is.

Mr. Simers,

Here's what I don't understand. People who don't understand soccer writing about soccer. Although in your defense you didn't actually talk about soccer so much as you talked about celebrity, which is, I suppose, the point of a columnist such as yourself writing here in LA LA Land.

I can't say I religiously read your columns because mostly I don't care about Kobe Bryant's hissy fits about his GM and owner's commitment to winning or about how frustrating the Dodgers' recent play is. But the difference between what you write there and what you write when your editor holds a gun to your head and says "Write about Beckham, dammit!" is that those previous columns actually took on those teams places within the sport and those teams chances during their season. They were what you might call "analysis".

But your soccer "coverage" (and believe me I'm using the term about as loosely as I can and still be writing in English) is about (1) How you can't talk to Beckham and (2) if you did talk to him you'd ask about his underwear. Oh. My. God. It is unbelievable how blessed we are to have someone who can really get to the, umm, root, of the problem, as it were, with the Galaxy this season. Honestly I don't know how my own understanding and analysis of this MLS season would have been complete without your ground-breaking, insightful, and completely respectful column. You sir, are a genuine Los Angeles Angel of Anaheim.

Far be it from me to ride to the defense of AEG since they let Alexi Lalas destroy not one, not two, but three MLS teams, but I'm not sure someone who has faced the insanity of the press in the UK and Spain is really going to have all that much trouble with a sports columnist for the LA Times who doesn't even know what position he plays.

Notwithstanding all your outstanding analysis and prognostication on the LA Galaxy and MLS, of course. I mean, that nugget on the connection between Beckham, Simon Fuller, and Ryan Seacrest was pure gold, not just for piecing together the insidious web of connections, but for noting that big time stars in have agents who help promote and shepherd their careers. Breathtaking investigative journalism. And from a columnist! I can see there is a reason why you are on Page 2!

Please, Mr. Simers. I'm actually begging you here. Stop writing about soccer. You don't know the game, you don't know the league, you don't know the Galaxy. Giving us twaddle about Beckham's underwear is what I expect from, say, The Sun or TMZ.com. Go to Chavez Canyon and make it impossible for me to park in my own neighborhood. It'll keep you out of trouble and you'll actually write about something you care about and have some decent insight into.

But seriously, please stop writing about soccer. Just stop.



Regards,

Nathan

Kick balls and put them in the net.

It's kinda like this.

The whole World does This Thing. And pretty much everywhere This Thing is pretty much The Thing. Except Here. Here This Thing is just A Thing. But you are in charge of doing This Thing Here, where it is only A Thing.

You've been doing This Thing for about a dozen years and in that time This Thing has gone from Almost Totally Crap to Not Completely Crap to Half Crap/Half Decent to Mostly Decent with Occassional Crap to Decent with Momentary Flashes of Crap. Maybe even to Good with Periods of Bad But Not Crap.

In other words constant improvement with occasional forays into Laugable, Frustrating, Inexplicable, and Ill-Considered Tinkering. In the process, your work on This Thing has helped Here develop its ability to do This Thing, using the creme de la creme of the Here prdoucts of This Thing, in such a way that Here doesn't completely embarrass itself when it does This Thing with everyone else.

In the dozen years of doing this thing, most of the World, knowing Here just sees it as A Thing, has either ignored you or actively slagged you. But over the last two years the quality of This Thing has improved enough that People In The Know, have started to pay more attention to what's going on with your version of This Thing. And then just before the beginning of this year, the biggest, most famous Person In The Know, decided they wanted to be a part of This Thing Here.

All of a sudden the World decides that This Thing Here has to be paid attention to, which is mostly bad because the World is mostly made up of people who would rather slag than analyze (kind of like the people who pay attention Here who mostly don't understand and therefore slag because it is easier than conjuring up the brain power to understand). But the result is actually good.

Because remember you are now Good with Periods of Bad But Not Crap, which is an accomplishment for anywhere in a dozen years, especially in a place where This Thing is just A Thing. The best part is that for people who have been fans of your work on This Thing, now feel like they are increasingly connected to The World and, even better, feel like they are getting, in ways they really didn't imagine would happen after only a dozen years, respect.

And when the most important Person In The Know officially became a part of This Thing Here, it felt magical.

All of which is to say that I was there, live, at the first appearance of David Backham as a member of a Major League Soccer team (the Los Angeles Galaxy).

Normally, I'm not that taken with celebrity. What counts for me is what you do. But sometimes the fact of someone's celebrity can help shape the meaning of an event. Take meeting The President. Back when Clinton got caught lying about where his dipstick had been, there was debate about whether or not he should give the Commenement Address at my brother's college graduation. One side was all about barring morally unfit people from addressing the Future of America. The other was like this: It's the freakin' President of the US, come to speak at our great, but underpublicized College. Of course he should give the address. If you don't like it, do some protest or something. I was on this second side. It's the freakin' President!

So let me say how I felt when David Beckham jogged onto the field for the first time:

IT'S DAVID FREAKIN' BECKHAM!

And it's not that he's the best player and it's not that he did anything amazing on Saturday night. It's that (1) he's playing Here of all places and (2) the atmosphere in the stadium was electric. It made me feel like I was part of something AND that I wasn't wasting my time being a fan of This Thing (called, Here in the United States, Major League Soccer) because the most famous futboler of all time has decided to make the next stage of his career Here. Right  here Here, actually. Los Angeles. And he did it for the first time in front of me and 27,000 of my closest friends. Friends like TomKat and the Governator.

It felt strange. Unusual. Unfamiliar.

And then I realized what it was.

A small, nourshing helping of Respect.

It feels good.


Kick ass and Do Your Thing.

WORK, VOTER FRAUD, VOTER SUPPRESSION AND THE GOP'S ACORN JONES
Man, work has been kicking my ass while I'm there, but luckily I've been able to escape bringing it home for a while.

My group, the Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD) has been doing a lot of support work for ACORN and Project Vote's Elections Adminstration program, chiefly around the information coming out about the firing of the 8 US Attorneys. Turns out that at least two were fired for not pursuing "voter fraud" vigorously enough. In other words, they didn't bring indictments against groups engaged in massive ballot stuffing and voter registration drive irregularities.

You know why? Because it doesn't it exist, that's why. Interestingly enough, though, the Department of Justice had their eyes out for both Project Vote and ACORN and even Karl Rove was pushing the NM Attorney to root out "fraud" at the insistence of the local GOP leadership that wanted the US Attorney there to investigate .... wait for it ... ACORN!

See, in 2004, ACORN submitted over 35,000 voter registration applications in New Mexico, well above the margin of victory in the state. Some of those applications were forged by people trying to defraud the organization and get paid for work they didn't do, so all of a sudden the GOP is all "oh my god they are trying to subvert the system and they must be stopped!", which is really an attempt to intimidate voters from ACORN's constituency of low-income folks and folks of color. But they claim "voter fraud".

Well, back in March, Project Vote released a study by Professor Lorraine Minnite from Barnard who concluded that there simply isn't any organized voter fraud occuring in the US and that the bulk of cases of people voting illegally comes from absentee ballots (which are more likely to be cast by older, whiter, wealthier people - people who are more likely to be Republicans). The number of people who have been convicted in the past 5 years for some kind of voting irregularity? 86. The number of votes cast since 2002 in Federal elections? Over 250 million. So there were 86 cases out of a possible 250 million. Which, I guess if you are the GOP, is a clear indication of rampant voter fraud.

Or maybe you are just using that hysteria to pass a series of laws that suppress the turnout from constituencies that you don't want to show up at the polls. Like, say, voter ID requirements, which the Eagleton Center for Politics at Rutgers has just shown depresses turnout among African-Americans by 6% and Asian-Americans by 9%. But we need to protect the system's integrity! From what? So fucking transparent.

Anyway, we've been helping PV and ACORN to make this case for the past 2 months through a series of press releasese, op-eds, and blog posting on the major liberal blogs.

WEIRD PHONE SURVEYS
Two days ago as I was winding down work, I took a call from a phone suveyer and decided to go with it, not knowing it was going to be a 20 minute call! It was all about sports. Professional sports leagues. What was my favorite (MLS), which did I think was the "most professional", whose athletes did I "most respect"? Who were the most overpaid (MLB)? (As much as possible I tried to pick Major League Soccer, but it just wasn't one of my choices. And neither was Major League Lacrosse or the W-League (womens' soccer) or even the Arena Football League - if I was them I'd be pissed.)

Anyway, at a couple of points the questions got really funny: "What percent of your head hair would you say is gray?" Umm, what? (I said 10%.) And then they started asking me about hair care products and which I was most likely to use. They also asked my how much alcohol I drink in a typical week and what my favorite beer is. Favorite beer? I LOVE beer. I'm supposed to choose? But I did. I picked Newcastle because you just can't go wrong with Newcastle. It is never the wrong choice.

They also asked my how much sports I watch on TV per week, but not which sports they are. They did NOT ask me how much sports I watch on the internet, which is where I actually do most of my sports watching since you have to have cable to watch soccer in America.

I couldn't beleive how long this damn survey took and I was particularly amused by their decision to try to find out which league's players are the most respected (or not). At a certain point I just don't give a shit about millionaire athletes and their petty battles and I don't know how to differentiate between the "respect" I have for a millionaire baskeball player vs a millionaire baseball player. Now, the young kids on the Development Contracts with Major League Soccer, who make $12,000-$18,000 a year and live 5 people to a house, like they do over at DC United, all so they can pursue their dream of making it in Major League Soccer - a league no one in this country actually cares about - THOSE kids have my respect. Hell, even a journeyman D-League player in Bakersfield or Grand Rapids or someplace like that gets some respect from me. But A-Rod? Or Barry Zito? Umm, no.

THE BECKHAM EFFECT
One last thing about sports. I recently acquired season tickets to the LA Galaxy, which plays in the league no one cares about (see above) on the theory that if I have a chance to see one of the best players in the world and the best-know player in the world, and soccer is my favorite sport, and I have the means to make it happen, then I should go ahead and do it. Even though I think the other LA team, Chivas USA, is a lot more fun to watch and has better fans.

Now the thing is about MLS - you have to really like this league and this game to follow it and you have to go way out of your way to do it. You can't just turn on ABC and see the Game of the Week. YOu must dig and scramble and dig some more and then you have to deal with other soccer fans who won't give MLS the time of day because they like only "the best" soccer - so they watch English or Spanish or German futbol exclusively. I call them Eurosnobs. Anyway, that gives you an idea of the typical MLS fan.

Until now, I guess. And you can thank David Beckham for this. World-class talent and celebrity brought to a minor league league. As if Shaquille O'Neal decided to finish his career in Italy or something. Anyway, you get a lot of new MLS fans buying season tickets and attending games, but not having a lot of knowledge.

So the guy next to me at the Galaxy season opener is one of these guys (oh lucky me for an entire season). His favorite team in Chelski (Chelsea in the EPL - owned by a Russian billionaire and the winner of the past two league championships, but sitting second this year) and his soccer intelligence is pretty good. He understands what's going on on the field.

But. But he leans over to me at one point and asks me how many substitutions they have in an MLS game. Umm. That's like asking how many strikes you get in baseball. It's the same everywhere the game is played professionally or in a FIFA-sanctioned league. It's 3. It's one of the 17 rules of the game.

Then later he expresses admiration for this tall powerful forward for FC Dallas who scores a goal against the Gals. "Is he a rookie?"

Umm, no. It's Kenny Cooper and he's been in the league for 2 years and before that he was in the Manchester United youth program AND HE JUST MADE HIS INTERNATIONAL DEBUT FOR THE US MENS NATIONAL TEAM 3 MONTHS AGO, SCORING A GOAL, EVEN! What kind of US soccer fan who knows enough about soccer to follow Chelsea DOESN'T KNOW JACK SHIT ABOUT HIS OWN NATIONAL TEAM?

Aaargh! Fuck you David Beckham for surrounding me with imbeciles while I watch live professional soccer, one of my very favorite things to do.

That is all.

Kick balls and learn about the damn sport in your own country, already!