Tag: David Henry Sterry Page 10 of 12
Weekend Edition was a gas as always, love talking soccer with Liane.
I’m an avid reader, but when trying to figure out something suitable for my favorite book entry, I had to think of something that I can read over and over again. My book shelf is overflowing with books that I love, and some of them I’ve read more than once. But most books, I read once, love, and then never read again. Other books I read, and then re-read some years later. But this book I’ve probably read a dozen times. This is the book I generally re-read when I run out of things to read.
It’s called (long title) Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent, by David Henry Sterry. I don’t even remember how I came across this book. I don’t know if I bought it or it was given to me, but I know that I’ve never loaned it to anyone or sold it, because I just can’t part with it. Around the time I came across it, I was probably 19 or 20, and I only wanted to read edgy things, whatever that means.
It’s about a guy that moves to Hollywood to go to college and gets caught up in the world of male escort services. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. It’s hilarious. The sarcasm written into the pages is unparalleled to anything I’ve ever read. Every single chapter makes me laugh out loud. The characters are unique, and each one of them has their own quirk.
The best part? It’s non-fiction. I highly recommend it for a good laugh, and just a good read.
Find Chicken at your local independent bookstore: Indiebound 
Amazon
http://www.luuux.com/entertainment/day-4-my-favorite-book
The sultry sensual wild thing animal Rosabelle Selavy dirty dances at Sex Worker Literati.
This story starts when I was 17, alone in Hollywood with $27 in the pocket of my nuthugging elephantbells. I had just arrived to begin my collegiate career at Immaculate Heart College, where I planned to study existential under a bunch of radical nuns. That night, while admiring Marilyn Monroe’s handprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, I was approached by a very charming man wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word: SEXY. He invited me back to his place for steak. Turned out to be the most expensive steak of my life. The steak was drugged . SEXY raped me. I escaped with my life. But the happy-go-lucky lad who breezed into that apartment died in that room. SEXY killed him. I sprinted out of there broken and bleeding. Within the week I was in the sex business. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. The part of my brain responsible for emotion was engorged, and the part responsible for communication shriveled. I was a living breathing fully-loaded semi-automatic weapon just looking for an excuse to go off. So given my economic situation, (making minimum-wage frying chicken), my alienation from my parents, and my newly acquired mental illness, it seemed absolutely like my best option. I was in the sex business for nine months. One human gestation period. But it changed me forever, and in ways I wasn’t even aware of for years to come. Certainly I had great times in that world, and made gigantic money for a person my age and with my work experience. But I also downloaded the sexual trauma I encountered in that world, and it infected me like a virus.
I became a sex addict and a cocaine addict. Which is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. In my mid 30s I realized that if I didn’t change I was going to die, or my penis was going to fall off. I’m not sure which scared me more. I knew I had to find a panic mechanic. Fast. Since I was living back in Los Angeles, naturally I found a hypnotherapist. She gave me some tools to stop my sick twisted behavior, and helped me unraveled the huge gnarly knots inside myself. I was a professional screenwriter at the time, so she suggested I write about my experiences. Thus was born my memoir Chicken. Writing down the most miserable things that ever happened to me helped me understand why I became a man child rent boy. It helped me embrace my inner ho. See myself as the survivor not the victim. Accept responsibility and not blame everyone else. Appreciate the good and not obsess about the bad. Do things that made me happy and healthy instead of miserable than sick.
When that book came out it changed my life and I was so grateful I was overwhelmed by a fierce desire to help somebody. Be of service. So I decided to start a writing program for people who’d been arrested for prostitution. For two years every Tuesday me and my ex-literary agent/current wife would go down into a basement of a nonprofit organization and run a writing group. The hos, hookers, call girls and rent boys we worked with wrote shocking, funny, smart, mind-blowing, jaw-dropping stories. And they always left the workshop in a better mood than they arrived. As did we. Part of my mission became to put a human face on these people who are glorified and stigmatized, worshiped and reviled, spat upon and paid outrageous sums of money. Thus was born the anthology, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Boys.
One of the great things about sex workers is that they are amazing networkers. They pretty much have to be. So I put out the word that I was looking for writing by people in the sex business. Me and my partner Richard Martin were flooded with submissions. I was already the author of a bunch of books by then so I started shopping the anthology. I showed it to my agents. Not interested. I showed it to other agents. Even less interested. I showed it to publishers I knew at HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Random House, and lots of the big boys of publishing. They laughed at me. Or ignored me. On to the small publishers. Nothing. University presses seemed like the next logical choice, since this is really a piece of American oral history. No pun intended.. I actually got the head guy at Duke University on the phone. He told me in a disdainful, dismissive, condescending, adenoidal and freezing cold tone that this was certainly not the kind of book published by Duke University. He told me they preferred material that was much less vulgar, rude, crude and illiterate. Finally I approached places like Joe’s Publishing Co., where you call the number listed on the website and a guy answers, “Hi I’m Joe, can I publish your book?” Even Joe turned me down.
After a year my partner Richard was ready to give up. I was furious. I knew I had something valuable. Even though “experts” from the top to the bottom of the food chain told me that I was a deluded, moronic ex-ho. Objectively, in the face of universal rejection, I should’ve quit. I did not. Me and Richard worked our asses off to make the proposal better, refining, buffing and polishing. Then I came up with the title. I did it with this game that we use to come up with titles. You get a bunch of your intelligent friends, if you have any, you get a bunch of drugs and alcohol, and you write down every single word you can think of related to your subject. Then you just start mixing and matching. That’s how I came up with Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Boys. And I kept asking every single person I knew, wherever I went. Finally I got connected to a guy named Richard Nash, who ran Soft Skull Press. A week later we had a book deal. They gave us such a tiny advance that by the time we ended up paying all the writers, me and Richard lost money on the deal. But we were ecstatic.
We were even more ecstatic when our Little Ho Book That Could, the redheaded step-child nobody wanted, ended up on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. I happened to be in Hollywood doing my Sex Worker Literati show to promote the book, when I got a call from my agent. Marta Kauffman, co-creator of Friends, wanted to talk to me about the anthology. I was excited yet slightly confused. Why was someone in the center of American culture interested in our book, which was so rooted in America’s dark, dank, filthy underbelly? I tried to imagine a show about a group of perky, attractive, funny, fresh-faced BFF-sex workers trying to deal with life, love and turning tricks. Sure, I thought, why not? As I drove up to our meeting, I was expecting much Hollywood slickness. But Marta was just like people I worked with in the theater for 20 years. After we had our getting-to-know-you chat she told me how taken she was by Hos, Hookers. How she had a vision of the characters and stories being brought to life as a modern dance piece, realized by some breathtaking choreographers. Would I be interested in something like?
My eyes popped while jaw dropped. I would’ve never imagined this scenario in million years. But I liked it. Sex is, after all, the ultimate primal dance. And when sex is exchanged for money, a window opens into the human soul. What a great way to let people to take a peek.
Yes, I said. Yes.
Writing down the worst thing that ever happened to me was the final piece of my odyssey from out-of-control self-destruction, working at Chippendales, acting on Fresh Prince of Bel Air, writing screenplay for Disney, living in a fancy house in the hills; to getting my head cracked open, almost dying from a massive coke overdose, having my house stolen, and going bankrupt; to making Ross, Rachel, Joey and Chandler end up in the same sentence as Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Boys.
David Henry Sterry is the author, with Richard Martin, of the anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys. He runs the monthly reading series Sex Worker Literati, giving voice to sex workers telling their stories about the exchange of sex for money, at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC. The next show is November 28, 2010. https://davidhenrysterry.pairsite.com/ http://www.facebook.com/sexworkerliterati
Bishop Eddie Long, the black minister accused of using his position of power to seduce at least four young men for his sexual pleasure, is being heavily recruited by the Catholic Church, according to sources high in the Vatican. Although he has long been well known for his vicious homophobia and scathing attacks on gay marriage, he now stands accused of engaging in sex with young men, seducing them with money, extravagant gifts, and the threat of eternal damnation if they turn down his defenses. But things might be looking out for the beleaguered and influential bishop.
“We’ve been trying for decades to attract more Negroes,” said a source deep within the Vatican, who asked to remain anonymous, “and Bishop Long appears to be exactly the kind of religious man the pope wants to be in bed with. He bashes fags relentlessly, and yet enjoys sexual relations with young studs who are easy pickings for a man of his power and deep religious convictions.”
According to a lawsuit filed by a 21-year-old man, while on overnight trips, “Long shared a bedroom and engaged in intimate sexual contact with the plaintiff, including kissing, massaging, masturbating of plaintiff by defendant Long and oral sexual contact.” Since they is no visual evidence to corroborate or refute these charges, it is still at this point a “he said-he said” situation.
Although he has long been associated with the family of Dr. Martin Luther King, he has steadfastly stood for cruel and ruthless oppression of minority groups such as homosexuals, which would seem to be diametrically opposed to Dr. King’s message of peace and love for all men and women. Long is also famous for his extravagant and gaudy bling, his extremely aggressive accumulation of wealth, and relentless self-aggrandizement. Ironically, this makes him the perfect candidate for recruitment by the Catholic Church.
“We like what we see” said another source near the top of the Catholic Church, again with the promise of anonymity. “He’s charismatic, he wears lots of gold, he seems to absolutely hate the gays, even though apparently he loves seducing boys. Plus he’s in serious trouble. Just like us. Seems like a marriage made in heaven doesn’t it? And, if we play our cards right, we think we get millions and millions of Negroes to join us, and apparently they’ll do basically anything he says, including giving lots of money. And isn’t that what he and the Catholic Church are all about?”
In addition, Long and his organization host seminars designed to “cure” homosexuals. “We think this will be a fantastic way of not only improving ourselves PR wise,” said another source close to the Pope, “it also showed brain a lot of hot young guys into secluded areas where the Pontiff and his minions can really show these impressionable young men just how our rods and staffs can comfort them.”
When contacted, Bishop Eddie Long and the Vatican had no comment.
Here’s an interview I did on Fox yesterday about my friend Melissa Petro. She is a smart, responsible, talented, capable young woman who’s being shamed and vilified for writing about her time as a sex worker. Let’s stand by her and let the world know that sex workers are not monsters who can’t teach kids, or be anything they want to be. Listen how much hate is heaped upon her by the “psychologist” and the “mommy”. Shameful.
I can’t tell you how supremo-psyched I am that Toni will be gracing us with her bad ass. Toni Bentley was a dancer with George Ballanchine’s New York City Ballet. She is the author of many books, including The Surrender, which was name one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books 0f 2004. Her essay, “The Bad Lion” is appearing in “Best American Essays 2010” published this month edited by Christopher Hitchens. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, and speaks at Harvard. http://www.tonibentley.com
The Book Doctors, David Henry Sterry and Arielle Eckstut, are the authors of the upcoming The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, which is due out in November 2010. They have 25 years experience in the publishing industry. Arielle is a literary agent, author and entrepreneur. Sterry is a best-selling author, Huffington Post regular, and event producer. They have been on the front cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review, NPR’s Sunday Weekend Edition, and have taught everywhere from Stanford University to San Francisco State University, helping dozens and dozens of talented amateur writers get book contracts. And they want to help you. They’re looking for a list of continuing education writing programs, with contact information. In exchange, they will help you kickstart your writing career.
High-octane rant about my abusive relationship with Steve Jobs
David Henry Sterry on Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/world-cup-2010-what-we-le_b_642302.html
The Glorious World Cup makes the front page of the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/world-cup-hotties-notties_b_642244.html
The glorious Liane Hansen talks to David Henry Sterry & Alan Black about vuvuzela, #1 Hottie Diego Forlan, and the future of the world
USA. Ghana. South Africa. With ex-President Bill Clinton, rock star for the ages Mick Jagger, and newly crowned NBA champion Kobe Bryant among the approximately 1,000,000,000 watching, the dreams of a nation collided headfirst with those of a continent. America was hoping that the glass slipper slid on and fit perfectly, and that they would be belle of the ball, dancing from the Sweet 16 into the Elite 8. Ghana was the last hope of a continent that in hosting this event for the first time in history, hoped to show the world the new face of Africa, steeped in tradition, but evolving into the new millennium. USA brought massive momentum following their death-defying last-second escape from Losers to Winners against Algeria. The Black Stars of Ghana were most recently beaten by Germany. The last, and only, time these teams met, was in the World Cup four years ago. Obviously many of the players, and the venue, had changed. But for Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey and many of the stalwarts of Team USA, they wished to wash down the bitter taste of that tainted defeat, when many on the team felt they did not step up and grab the moment by the throat as they should have, and they were robbed by yet another diabolical and dastardly referee’s decision. But all that was ancient history, as America and Africa squared off. Winner lives to fight another day, loser crawls home with their tails between their legs to a depressed nation.
American fans were praying to the soccer gods that their team would not dig themselves another premature grave from which they would be forced to claw their way out. Many were dismayed to see that Ricardo Clark, who looked so slow at the beginning of the England game, had been inserted into the lineup by coach Bob Bradley. And sure enough, Clark tried to dribbled past a physical, feisty Ghanaian. That may work back in the States, but not at the World Cup. Ricardo got stripped bare, left naked clutching at then air. Prince Boateng attacked the American goal like a hungry lion smelling blood. Again looking like they’ve been heavily sedated, the American defense did not react quickly enough. As the shot rolled in slow-motion toward a suddenly statuesque Tim Howard, the hearts of American soccer fans plummeted, plunging perilously as a sick sense of déjà vu froze their souls. It seemed almost impossible, but America had somehow done it again. Fallen behind practically before the game had even started. But there it was. The ball in the back of the American net. The scoreboard read: Ghana 1 – USA 0. There’s a certain kind of person who cannot function until they are under extreme threat. At first you think it’s an accident. But when you see Team USA cut their own fingers off over and over again, it begins to seem pathological. You want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them. Like that would help. You want to send him to therapy. Like that would help. Then you realize there’s really nothing you can do. It’s their problem, and they have to figure it out, all by themselves. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
Like a kid who gets unexpectedly bitch-slapped, America looked stunned. Passes weren’t connecting, tackles were clumsy, heads not quite on straight. Ricardo Clark, trying to make amends, rushed in with a rash, hacking tackle. Yellow card. The defense looked too easy to pry open. And when Altidore finally did get a chance, he snatched at it crudely, instead of taking it smoothly. At the half-hour, Coach Bradley proved what a big man he is, and admitted he was wrong. He brought in Maurice Edu and took out Ricardo Clark.
At finally, in the 35th minute, Ghana’s defense revealed its own weakness. Dempsey found himself cruising in at the top of the area. He threaded a gorgeous pass right into the path of new boy Finley. And there it was, staring him right in the face, the beautiful open goal. All he had with slide t into the opening. The only things stopping him were: 1) Ghana’s large and most excellent goalkeeper, Kinston; 2) His own ability to seize the day and write his name in the history books. Sadly, from America’s perspective, he was able to overcome neither of these obstacles. The golden rule in soccer, as pundit Alan Black reminded us recently is, “You have to take your chances.” Ghana did. America didn’t. It was that simple.
Then, as happens so often in soccer, and indeed in life, in the flash of a blink of the wink of an eye, Ghana had gone from the attacked to the attacker. Jay DeMerit, as he is want to occasionally do, swung mightily at a ball and completely whiffed. And there was Ghana, barreling in on Howard. This time T-Ho represented, pulling off yet another world-class save.
Suddenly it was halftime, and if you were an American fan, you were wondering if you had already used up your last Get out of Jail Free card. You can only cut your nose off so many times before you spite your face. Alcohol was consumed in mass quantities by Americans everywhere. For in their hearts they believed that this team was a new incarnation of the Cardiac Kids. Never give in, never give up never say die.
Sure enough, after another great substitution by Bob Bradley, and barely a minute in, Feilhaber has a wide open look at goal. But his heavy first touch prevented him from going down in American history. And again, Kinston was huge in the Ghana goal, and once again he saved the day. But this seemed to spur team USA on, and they started pelting Ghana with everything they had. Chance after chance they created, but Africa is last Hope proved how big, skillful fit, fierce and physical they really are. Still, they did look ripe for the plucking. Of course the more you put out up front, the more exposed you are in the back. And this is what makes single elimination World Cup soccer so exciting. Because every time Ghana came streaming up the field, it looked like they would score.
And then finally it happened. Clint Dempsey made good. With a beautiful little flick of the tip of his boot, he skated by the center of the Ghana defense, only to be scythed down with cruel brutality. Up stepped Landon The Man Donovan, looking for all world like a gunslinger in an old-fashioned Western. As a nation held its breath, Donovan did what he does. Scores big goals. Admittedly, with perhaps an inch and a half to spare, but in the record book, it won’t show that this penalty bounced off the inside of the post before going in. History will record that Landon Donovan became the leading goalscorer in America’s World Cup history. USA 1 – Ghana 1.
USA seemed transformed, and if you watched carefully, you could actually see their balls growing by the moment. They started winning 50/50 balls. Defending with sharp hardness instead of tentative anxiety. Ghana’s cage looked rattled. And suddenly, Altidore was fed the kind of pass that had been largely absent in this game. But again, he did not seize the moment, and his heavy touch betrayed him. He put the ball too close to the massive Kinston, who came out and extinguished the fire. Then he stroked through a very nice pass to Michael Bradley, who was having yet another splendiferous game, clogging up the arteries defensively, and moving forward with dangerous alacrity. Bradley couldn’t quite score, but you sensed that it was coming. In the 80th minute, Altidore went off on another of us crashing runs, held off the clutches of the Ghanaian defender, and had a clear-cut look at goal. Problem was, he was tumbling at the same time, and it just wouldn’t fall right for him. In some ways, this is the story of the game.
By about the 85th minute, most American fan stopped breathing. An eerie silence settled over the entire country. They were hoping that the ball would be rifled into the Ghana net. And praying the sanctity of their own goal would not be violated.
As the overtime started, USA looked confident, as well they should have, considering they were much the better team in the second half. But of course, this is Team USA. Just when their fans feel good about their team, and about themselves, they stick their heads in the toilet and flush. A simple looking ball up the middle of the defense, two American defenders against one Ghanaian attacker. Sluggish, lumbering, uncertain, DeMerit and Bocanegra were undone, and the next thing anyone knew, the ball was whizzing over Tim Howard’s head, nearly ripping a hole in the back of the net.
Heads fell into the hands, eyes rolled up in heads, and disgusted sighs flew out of American mouths. They’d done it again. It’s as he if they were Pavlov dogs, and hearing the referees whistle to begin play, had been conditioned to fall sleep. Ghana 2 – USA 1. If you were an American fan who saw the glass as half empty, you were thinking: America had finally gone too far, betrayed themselves once too often, all was lost, failure inevitable. If you saw the glass as half-full, you were thinking: Well, now we’ve got them right where we want them.
They ran, legs weary, they hustled, hearts exhausted, but Team USA had put themselves under the gun once too often. Suddenly there were but 15 minutes remaining in America’s World Cup. Unless, of course, there was one last rabbit to be pulled out of one last hat.
Sadly, there was not. Try as they might, and they did try mightily, USA could not overcome their own inability to start games, and to take chances when they created them. And in the end, they could not overcome Africa and Ghana. Yes, America can certainly hold their heads high. They showed they can play. But they were also, in the words of Landon Donovan, “a bit naïve.” At this level, in the galaxy’s hottest spotlight, you cannot test the soccer gods too often. Eventually, if you lean hard and long enough on your own sword, you will fall upon it, and you will perish. American fans will thank this plucky underdog of a team for all the amazing heart-palpitating thrills. Just as next time around, in 2014 in Brazil, they will demand more.
Colin Powers, our man in South Africa, tells it like it is about the English.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/live-from-south-africa-ho_b_620453.html
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I interview Missoula’s own Gary Stein in South Africa.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/an-american-in-south-afri_b_618870.html
The Cup has debuted with some tentative, tetsing first steps for the most part. A win in game one is nice for a nation’s prospects; a loss can be completely damning, however. And so, the war of attrition format of the tourney encourages conservatism in the early stages, keeping your head above water, hoping for a stumble from one’s group mates, and then capitalizing when the math presents an opportunity. Unfortunately, this system has produced its fair share of duds across South Africa (with nerves, the ball, vuvuzellas, etc also serving as excuses), but expect round two to witness more aggressive tactics as sides have a clearer picture of what they need for advancement. Playing not to lose won’t cut it this time.
Livest scene I’ve seen so far of the tournament was for Australia v. Germany. White, southern hemisphere, former British colonial objects kinsmen that Oz and South Africa are, there was a massive and typically boisterous Aussie turnout in Durban. With rugby and cricket rivalries so prevalent in each countries sporting culture, there has long been an extensive exchange of ex-pats and traveling fans orienting a holiday trip around a variety of sporting contexts. The WC proved no different, and Oz did not disappoint as they hoped to build on the recent momentum of the Socceroos in challenging Aussie Rules Football, Rugby, and the Thorpedo for the mantel at Outback Steakhouse. The vuvuzellas have added decibels to every atmosphere, including the fan zones, but there was a different buzz in the early goings because of the partisan nature of the scene.
Unfortunately for Paul Hogan’s people, they were blitzkrieged from the jump by the typically efficient and calibrated German attack (although I should try to come up with better adjectives than the truisms listed above which have described German people since Bismarck’s Prussia). Ze Germans moved the ball with precision, quick and efficient in exploiting the gaping spaces left in the midfield by the deer-in-the-headlights Austrlians. Schweinsteiger’s maturity in the central midfield role particularly stook out to me as it was his direction, timing, and rhythm that keyed their cohesion going forward. In 2006, the Bayern Munich man seemed to be another talented player trapped within the mindset of style before substance, cheeky touches before subtlety and focus. He was a far different player last night, an essential development for the Ballack-less German team.
Within a few minutes, it was clear the Aussies lacked the athleticism and pace to successfully play the scrappy underdog role (a la the USA against superior talent), and the raucous crowd was soon silenced by a thunderous strike from Lukas Podolski. The Polish turncoat (like front-man partner Miroslav Klose) continues to shine for his ‘nation’, though he has yet to really establish himself at the club level. Sports are all about situation and opportunity. The World Cup is no different. When outgunned in the skill department, you need to win the physically, fitness, and work-rate contests. No such luck.
The Aussies had very limited options going forward, and though the dynamic Tim Cahill has always been a favorite of mine, the imposing German defense seemed to bother him throughout. When he was eventually sent off on a dubious decision by the referee, the Australians’ fate was sealed.
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Solid result for America the other night. I watched the match over at the incredible Durban Fan Zone on South Beach. The only properly warm weather city in the ongoing South African winter, this Indian Ocean terminal has that laid back vibe of all temperate coastal spots. The racial composition is probably the most diverse I’ve seen in South Africa with a very large Indian population mixing along side the more central players in South Africa’s ethnography. Fan zone was jumping, and the early poke by freshly minted Captain Steven Gerrard provided the exact inauspicious beginning I was hoping to avoid.
That said, there is something about the English football mindset that simply does not project the same authority and dominance as the other fixtures amongst football’s top dogs. Arrogance and entitlement is expressed in calling their football governing body the Football Assocation (as opposed to every other country which calls their’s in one wording or another the German Football Assocation, the Brasilian Football Association, etc) are some of the guiding forces in their founding mythology. Originators of the sport, they still feel a superiority and ownership of football despite the nature of the game allowing for an indigenous and cultural redefinition of it in every place it gets established. With the Premiership the top club league in the world top to bottom (although that may change with financial problems at Liverpool and Manchester Utd as well as increasing income tax rate in the UK possibly driving big name players to Espana, Italy, etc), they can puff out their chest a little further.
However, competing with the smug self-absorption that their sensationalist media so propagates is also an underlying and inescapable feeling of fatalism. As Dempsey’s relatively innocuous try from the top of the box trickled past yet another English goalkeeper unprepared for the world stage, there was a pre-2004 Red Soxian grown of inevitability. The deepest stream of consciousness of every English supporter runs something like this: ‘Of course they would fuck up. They always do. Why the fuck did this have to happen against those loud, brutish Americans? Those new money charlatans? Bloody hell. Not on Maggie Thatcher’s watch. Tea, crumpets, rain. Tea, crumpets, rain’
The moment something ominous appears on the horizon, the narrative in their media, fandom, and perhaps within their team (though I think Capello is well-suited to reverse this confidence issue), becomes not a considersation of how to surmount the trouble, but how and in what painful manner they will be sunk this time around. Can there be any doubt of the result if England is to find themselves in another penalty shoot-out come the elimination stages?
Amurrica had its moments, controlling the first half in my humble and somewhat unnuanced opinion. They had it taken to them after the break but the defense and Timmy Howard held strong through the particularly forceful efforts of the man affectionately referred to as a synonym for the ass-balls connector in the male anatomy. However, while we are a squad more than capable of punching above our weight and capitalizing on counter-attacks against more gifted sides, we are not yet of the ability to really dominate the action and create from our own ingenuity against teams below our level. We negate and are opportunistic. Can we be positive? Thus, we must be very weary of both the Slovenians and Algerians.
All that said, I like our swag right now.
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Definite chill in the air in Cape Town for Italy and Paraguay, the type that gets my nose running and shining in beautiful pinkish-red. Rain soaked the city in the morning and again broke through the heavens during match-time with temperatures somewhere in the 40s.
The Azzuri actually played a bit more aggressively than I anticipated. Nonetheless, their spacing and link-up play in the final third missed the beat all night, with the ultra-quick rain soaked pitch perhaps playing a role. They’re a ‘professional outfit’ in the fullest sense, a squad that always puts themselves in position to catch breaks when it matters. They gave the Cape Town crowd something of a better show than the Vichy did on opening night, but there does seem to be a void in the ‘talismanic’ playmaker role (favored word of British soccer announcers). Chances are they won’t beat themselves, but can they beat their opponents? Paraguay gave it an honest go and certainly had their fair share of chances, the 1-1 draw probably being the deserved result despite holding a lead into the 2nd half. The group is for the taking.
Interestingly, even after his stellar performance in the Confederation’s Cup last summer and his rising profile in La Liga, the American born Giuseppe Rossi was not included in Marcello Lippi’s Italian 25, the unfortunate reality of competing for a spot for one of the world’s elite. Shit, we’d welcome him back warmly if FIFA would allow. Anyway, he has displayed that rare goal-front machismo in the past so necessary for a nation’s hopes, and those finishing instincts may be missed for a team that is the very lifeblood of The Situation, the Jersey Shore, and everywhere hair-gel and graphic t’s reign supreme.
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North Korea located their World Cup base camp in the most impoverished township I have seen to date in all of South Africa: Timbesa, a densely populated spot on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It’s a fairly incredible place, a shanty-town of corrugated tin shacks and port-a-potty bathroom facilities balanced by a network of food stalls, barber shops (by far more barber shops per capita than I’ve seen anywhere in the world, by the way), open-air tent set up banking centers, and cell-phone services (some of which probably of the black market variety). A huge tent on the periphery of town serves as church hall, and the streets teem with life every time I’ve passed through. Perhaps the most striking feature of the neighborhood is the immaculate, uniformed dress of the school children (a universal truth across South Africa), and though it might be an overstatement to identify that propriety with the larger sense of community pride the people feel in their dwellings, that thought recurred to me on a number of my journeys there.
Nevertheless, at its core the place is still devastingly poor. Many of the folks that have accompanied me out treat it somewhat like a zoo, locking the doors the moment the threshold of the hood is crossed and then gaping in patronizing wonderment at this slum-dog society, trying to store as many images as they can to immediately regurgitate it in a somewhat heroic narrative of adventure over a few beers at dinner later that night. A few comments will be passed on the unfortunate sadness of this reality, scape-goats will be discussed, whether the Afrikaaners of the past or the corrupt leadership of the present day, and with these words spoken, hands and consciences are wiped clean to enjoy another evening in the wonderful affluence of Sandton, Joburg’s gem of a suburb. I don’t know that I’m that much different; I just don’t talk as much, and I’m cool with walking around in those kind of neighborhoods…but I digress.
Anyway, it is somewhat funny and fitting that North Korea would select such a place to provide one of the few windows their nationals are afforded to the outside world. ‘Well, this is capitalism, boys. This is what happens without the prudence of the Great Leader. Without him, who has just finishing shooting a score of 25 for a round of 18 in golf, such a fate would befall us all.’ They won’t be television any matches live back in the land above the 38th parallel, only deciding after the fact if the team’s efforts are worthy of broadcast. Who knows, maybe they will just pick fifteen random people out of a crowd, give them yellow t-shirts, and announce the match-up as if it is Brasil v. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
P.S. anytime you need to emphasize the democratic nature of your country in your naming of it, you’re probably compensating for something.
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Twice this past week I have flown from Durban in very early hours of the morning. Twice I have stopped into a convenience store on my way to grab a Vitamin Water (yes, Vitamin Water is now internationally ballin’). Twice I have been greeted by the soothing melody of R. Kelly’s hip-hopera ‘Trapped in the Closet’ on the store’s sound system. I can only hope they are playing the entire breathtaking saga and an interminable loop.
It’s humid but pleasantly warm in Durban, the heat a welcome embrace in the wake of Cape Town’s night time chill. The stands of the beautifully designed and architecturally exquisite Moses Mabhida Stadium are empty beyond the eclectic collection prepping for tomorrow’s clash between Germany and Australia. Some volunteers are busy labeling seat numbers, others doing their best to look menacing in security capacities, a task betrayed by their kind smiles and readiness to pound it out when I’ve walked by. Elsewhere, FIFA personnel are swarming about configuring their cameras and all that jazz, while some Australian media are in tow to snap a couple photos and hope for something mildly interesting to transpire and give their match day preview stories something beyond the generic and recycled.
I am here because I stumbled upon what can only be the residue of divine favor. In the early hours of a May, New York morning, I received a phone call from a cousin I hadn’t had much interaction with in recent years. Now, these random confluences of circumstance do pop up from time, inevitable when you have over fifty first cousins. Indeed, my mother’s family, where she is one of eleven children, embodies the stereotypical ethos of an era in Ireland well before the crass modernity and narcissism of the Celtic Tiger, an era when the Catholic Church reigned with ultimate authority, Priests didn’t touch little children (or at least didn’t get caught), and birth control was a heathen’s luxury. Anyway, without drifting too far into historical polemics and the reasons why England could be blamed for all Ireland’s woes up until this recent economic disaster (maybe that too), I have a very big family. Furthermore, this over-achieving family of impoverished, agrarian heritage has begotten a generation of children spread across the economic landscape, one of whom has ascended to become a big man in turf studies and preparation. It was this cousin who phoned me, inquiring if I would like to come out to South Africa on his company’s dime to lend a hand in testing out the pitches, provide fodder for humor because of my Americanness (yes, most Europeans do still seem to think we’re all stupid and Bushian and gun-toting and God fearing and ‘lacking in subtlety’), and help out in an assortment of ways as young people without any established craft or skill-set are known to do. Nepotism is pretty cool when it’s in your favor, I must say.
As is such, this job has provided incredible access to the country of South Africa as well as World Cup operations and politicking from an angle that may or may not be somewhat interesting depending of course on the reader. If the social and racial dynamics of this vibrantly evolving nation is not your bag of tea, well, shit, good thing there are 10,000 media people covering the event who can probably provide something more to your liking. If the size of Thierry Henry’s ass (sorta big, he looked a little out of shape but he’s a big dude in general up close), the inner fat kid that Yohan Gourcuff’s style of running reveals when within shouting distance, or the unanimous distaste of the boisterous Cape Town crowd for French Manager Raymond Domenech also bores, you needn’t waste any more time with me. That being said, because of this j-o-b, I have been afforded a somewhat clandestine vantage point through which to observe the comings and goings and inner-workings of the Cup and all its surroundings (including a standing sideline position at a number of matches). Self-involved and self-important as is the fundamental and underlying nature of my generation, I figure I should write about this and share my perspective, wonderful observations and the other elements of egoism that come along with it. At least I am also self-aware.
With that as my introduction, I’ll jot down a few points purely from the football side of things before later getting on into the remarkable and pulsing energy of Soweto, the destitution/communal pride dichotomy of the Tembisa township, the breathtaking fortress style gentrification of South African society, the fear and fear-mongering of many visitors and the white establishment, respectively, and the different thoughts I have collected from a number of people on where this country is going and where it has been.
the NCAA exposes itself as colleges and universities frantically realigned conferences to try to grab a bigger piece of the pie
