All The Wold's Stage Part 1

As promised, I would be unveiling a new blog post concept this week.  Without further ado, I would like to welcome my good friend MJ Gunner to First and Den.  I regularly get texts, emails, Facebook messages, smoke signals, telegrams, telegraphs, etc. from MJ praising and bemoaning the performance of his beloved Arsenal.  So I figured who better to talk World Cup with?  MJ and I have been exchanging emails for about a week now, a la Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell.  Here are a few of them, with more to come.  Pay attention ESPN, this could be your midnight to 3am team on ESPN Radio, you can have us for really cheap.

Me: So I would think we would start with the US Squad then move to the big picture.

Right now I think Uncle Sam's Army is in a very precarious place.  Injuries have wreaked havoc, especially on the back line, which is usually our strength. Oguchi Onweyu is coming back from a big knee injury and looked slow and as earth-bound as a fat man in a rascal scooter in the two friendlies here in the US.  Carlos Bocanegra just had hernia surgery.  Jay Demerit is recovering from a nearly career ending eye infection and is having depth perception problems, kind of an important thing in sports.  This can't be good because these guys haven't been playing a lot lately.  That being said, with Tim Howard back there organizing, and they have played a lot of minutes together in the past gives me hope.

Without Charlie Davies, and now that Jozy Altidore sprained his ankle, I worry a little about the front line.  Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey are our two best offensive players, but they come from the midfield, and if no one up front can occupy the opponent's defenders it could be hard for those two to find space.  I am very interested to see how Herculez Gomez plays.  He not only led the Mexican league in scoring, but he has two Zs in his name!

How do you think these injuries will play out?  Have any other concerns?

MJ Gunner:  First I just want to say I am a full service member of Sam's Army and rightfully so am drinking 2-3 glasses of the team Kool-Aid daily. Ever since the Confederation's Cup when we beat Spain and went up on Brazil in the final I realized we have finally made it on the international scene. In 2006 there were high expectations (and a generous power ranking from ESPN, thanks for the jinx) and Bruce Arena and the boys came up short but I believe what Bruce started has been aptly transitioned and progressed with Bob Bradley. No, we are not a top 6 or 7 team internationally. But we have proved that we can beat top teams, any given Sunday (Saturday) right?  No, our team's starting 11 club payroll is not $1 Million a week like Spain, Brazil, Italy, England, but we have the international experience up and down enough of our roster which is a large factor in player growth at the international level.

That puffy intro aside, as a full service member of the Army I also am a full serviced pessimist and fear the worst for our boys. Of course, the worst is failure to progress through the group stage. This starts with injuries you noted. Altidore is practicing again and his participation in our opener against those limey Brits is all but guaranteed. This is crucial to fielding our strongest team against our hardest group opponent. That said, England, our hardest group opponent, will also be the team that hammers our backline the most. Bocanegra and Onweyu recovering and not in top form could bury us. Names like Cherundolo and Jonathan Spector come to mind of people that have the club or international experience and can step up to help cover England's inevitable onslaught of offense. We will miss Davies, and our thoughts have been with him, but our attack minded midfielders and forwards is where I have the most confidence (outside of Timmy in goal of course) in our squad, especially for taking care of Algeria and Slovenia. Altidore is all but guaranteed to be involved for the opener against England. Herc Gomez has a little [Carlos] Tevez in him and now Edson Buddle is our super sub and after Saturday could get the nod for a start. Midfield, with Dempsey pushing forward, and Bradley and Donovan playing more traditional roles, is going to be our nucleus of the team. We will not beat England and maybe the other teams if this nucleus is not on script. When you think great teams yes they have the playboy strikers but their midfield and wingers are just as impressive and arguably more important from a team's perspective. So yeah, we have a world class keeper, fingers crossed for a healthy enough backline, and 5-6 attacking midfield and striking options that have proven they can beat and hang with the best.

Yes, I just finished another glass of the Kool-Aid there. I really do love our team, but what of our group opponents?  We've caught three breaks with England, albeit little breaks we still need to draw positives from their negatives. (1) Everyone hates John Terry, (2) Rio Ferdinand their captain and best defender suffered a WC ending injury, and (3), their GK David James, relegated Portsmouth…? Well sure he is dubbed great and a team's atrocity can't be blamed on one player but I wonder how many Brits share confidence for their man in glove. With these breaks there is one name that keeps me up at night, Rooney. He is an amazing player with foot and head and can single handedly put us to the sword. England comfortably won their last three friendlies scoring 8 goals with a +5 Goal differential; they are ready, hungry and want this for their country not just themselves. Their last win in 1966 might as well be 1866. Algeria qualified in last ditch fashion and have proven their hunger but a little run in with Ireland and losing 3-0 in that friendly has exposed their frailty at the back and inability to produce. Slovenia, hmm what do we know about them? I know little. What have we learned from their friendlies recently? Nothing, they played Qatar and New Zealand a pair of pushovers if you ask me. So Matt I turn it to you, what do you see happening in these group stages? How do we matchup? Are you praying for a tie against England like I am or have you put a little extra coin on the offering plate in hopes for an epic upset and victory a la Spain in the Confed Cup? Dare we lose to England can we overcome and still progress?

Me: I'm not quite sure what to make of our group.  I feel a lot better about facing England than I did when the groups were first announced.  Losing Rio Ferdinand is a big, big hole for them.  I'm not sure the John Terry debacle hurts as far as his performance.  I think that story has lost its legs a little bit.  Where it does hurt them is not having Wayne Bridge, who wouldn't have started but would have been a great man to have coming off the bench.  I also love the fact they are now relying on Ledley King, who can't practice because chronic knee problems.  They will have their keeper problem sorted out.  James, Joe Hart and Robert Green are all three Premiere League quality starters (even the best keeper in the world wouldn't have kept Pompey up this year).  Luckily for us they probably won't have it figured out by the first game.

All that being said, they have too much talent and pace in the midfield and too much Rooney for us to pull the complete upset.  I think it would take our best game and their worst to get a draw.  Look I know we're the only team to beat Spain in the last 45 games, but that was in the Confed Cup, this is the World Cup.  It's like comparing the NIT to the Big Dance.

As for the rest of our group, I really don't know.  You can't take Slovenia's thrashing of New Zealand lightly.  The All-Whites are a WC side (even if they qualified from the equivalent of the Big Sky Conference), and they put in 4 against Qatar, that's got to give them some confidence, and in this tournament that matters.  They will play a very rough game with a strong defense.  As we saw last time around that can take you places, it got them through European qualifying, which is not a cake walk by any means, just ask Euro 2008 darlings Russia (who the Slovenes beat in a play-off) and Turkey, who won’t be joining us in South Africa.  Those are really the only things they have going for them.  There isn't a star we know of yet, and not many players play in any of the major European leagues; this team might suffer from a little stage fright and a little bit of a just-glad-to-be-here syndrome.

What to say about Algeria?  Well they beat the most consistent African side, and hated rivals Egypt in a one game play-off.  It was ugly.  Check it out on YouTube sometime.  Algeria should have been down to 6 men by half-time (same with their final in the African Cup of Nations.)  They are going to foul to try to slow the game down.  I'm pretty sure their coach Rabah Saadane studied under Jose Mourinho at some point.  They like to flood the midfield and have defenders who can get forward.  Overall though, it's a young team that just had a very disappointing loss in the African Cup of Nations that shook things up a bit.  I don't know if they can get organized enough and play with the chemistry needed to do some damage.

Getting out of the group is certainly doable, even if we lose to England.  It would be best not to lose to the Three Lions by more than 2 because it may come down to goal difference.  We looked really good on Saturday against an Australian side that isn't as strong as it has been in the past, but certainly has a history of frustrating us.  We looked well organized at the back, and our counter attack looked ready to score every time we go the ball; we played much of the last 30 minutes on the back foot and still managed a goal in that time.  We will need to play 3 great games in a row if we want a chance, because no one in our group is soft.  I think we will progress, but not as easily as some think.  If we don't, that might be the end of soccer in America.

MJ, what are your thoughts on the rest of the field?  Who do you like?  Who do you think is destined for an embarrassing early exit?  Who could surprise us?  What will Maradona do next?

Sorry

No post this week.  I will have a special post next week for the World Cup.  It will be something never before seen on this blog.

The End

"This is The End, my only friend, The End" - Jim Morrison

We have just seen one of the greatest shows in TV history end this past weekend.  Sure there are better shows (I hear The Wire is phenomenal).  But few can claim the depth and breadth of Lost.  How many shows do you know can reference the Bible, Star Wars, Lockean philosophy and Quantum mechanics...in one episode...and it works?  I personally can't think of any, but if you can please tell me, because that is right in my wheelhouse (and probably most anyone who watched Lost).  And yes this will contain spoilers, so you are warned.

abc.com

From my preliminary analysis of fan response, there seems to be two camps on the finale: it was great and not surprisingly, it was terrible.  Those fans are pretty simply people who watched it for two reasons.  The people who loved it, like me, were there for the characters.  The people who hated it, were there for the mysteries.  Those were the two things the show was about, and each viewer got to decide which meant more.  I saw the mysteries as more of a device to allow the audience to explore who these characters really are.  When the unfathomable is testing their very survival physically and mentally, the Lostaways couldn't help but show their true selves.  And that is just what Jacob wanted; that is the true purpose of the Island.  We got that from the beginning of last year's finale.  We saw Jack as a man who tries to fix everything because his father never believed in him.  We see that once you get through Sawyer's hard defensive shell, he is a kind-hearted and loving man.  We see that without the rigid social constructs of South Korea that Jin and Sun are truly perfect for each other and couldn't be more in love.

  abc.com

So this episode, like all the ones this year, were split between on on Island events in 2007, and a sideways universe based on what happened if the plane didn't crash in 2004 (more on this later).  I really like what the Cuse and Lindelof did here.  There were a few stings that played nicely with each other.  First was defeating Smokey.  This was Desmond and Jack's primary objective.  Desmond was needed because he was the only person who could "kill" the Island without dying (and Jacob did not want unnecessary deaths).  "Killing" the Island had to be done to kill Smokey.  As soon as Des removed the cork, Smokey and Jack (serving as Jacob's replacement), became mortal.  Unfortunately, that meant the Island itself would sink to the bottom of the sea.  Jack then engaged Locke in a fight to the death, great full circle moment.  Locke (really Smokey), mortally wounds Jack, but the actual combat left him vulnerable so Kate could shoot him.  While this is all going on Lapidus, Richard and Miles were getting the Arija flight ready for an escape for the survivors.  This lead to some great, tense moments, a sense of "c'mon, hurry up!"  Finally the on-Island plot concluded with Jack trying to save it (showing how dynamic the character has been).  In doing so he finally showed he believed in Hurley by asking him to be his successor as guardian; this was a perfect choice because of all the characters, Hurley has been good to a fault.  As Jack said: Hugo is just good at taking care of people.  And I loved how the series ended right where it began: Jack in the bamboo thicket, with Vincent.

abc.com

The revelation of the sideways universe was what I really loved.  By telling us that this was some kind of purgatory that the Islanders made to reconnect before all going to heaven really got me.  These characters have meant so much to each other.  I mean they went through hell and back together.  As Christian Shephard said, whether they realized it or not, they really found out who they were on that Island, and as a result those people were the most important people to them.  Some people saw this as a cop-out.  I didn't think so at all.  This gave these long-suffering people the happy ending they deserved.  I think Ben knew this, and that is why he stayed in the churchyard.  He had not earned his happy ending yet, despite helping Hurley run, what we can assume, a much less mysterious, deadly island.  And the best part about this segment of the story is we got to see not only the revelation to many characters, but the revelation through love.  Jack and Kate, Sawyer and Juliet, Hugo and Libby, Sun, Jin, and their daughter, Sayid and Shannon (great pump fake by the writers having Shannon be his true love, not Nadya), Claire, Charlie, and Aaron, Ben and Alex.  Even Locke, who seemed to have it all: father, fiance, needed his legs back because he loved his freedom, being his own man, not these fantasy beings from his real life.

 abc.com

Now some people claim that there were not enough answers.  I don't think that's the case.  This year they explained a lot of things, but a lot of them seemed too simple for our previous understanding of Lost.  The Island really was a cork in the wine bottle of evil, but we were waiting for there to be some twist, like Jacob was the evil one or something.  But there wasn't really time this year for twists;  the writers needed to give answers fast so that the real focus could come to the front.  I am willing to guess that on second viewing of this season we will take a lot more explanations on face value, because we know that the mythology and mystery were not the ends, but the means.  We will focus more on the interpersonal relationships, not why was there a polar bear (which I always assumed was part of the Dharma experiments and just got out, but I guess some people just wouldn't accept that simple explanation).  In the end, to me, Lost was about how the characters relate to each other and to the audience. 

The Pacific

 Basilone on Iwo Jima; courtesy of pacificfans.com

WOW.  That had to be the most powerful ten hours of television I have ever watched.  I now know why the European theater is the one everyone glorifies; The Pacific was just downright nasty, and Spielberg, Hanks, and company did an excellent job portraying that nightmare.  I knew I was going to love this show when during the second episode the director played on our culture's endless familiarity with Saving Private Ryan and Vietnam movies.  We saw soldiers in their landing craft, waiting for the doors to open and hell to break loose;  when they opened there was already a wave of troops resting on the beach.  They had the Marines humping through the jungle on Guadalcanal;  Every muscle in my body was tense just waiting for a platoon of Japanese guerrillas to ambush the troops.  It never came.  There were countless other times like this throughout the entire miniseries: I was completely on edge waiting for the next shoe to drop, giving me just a small taste, for just an hour, of what these men lived through for 3 years.

Eugene Sledge; courtesy of pacificfans.com

The acting in the miniseries was also outstanding.  Jon Seda, who played John Basilone, did an excellent job of portraying the reluctant hero.  Throughout most of the war he was Stateside campaigning for war bonds.  He did not sign up for that, he signed up to fight; he wasn't a hero in his mind, he just did his job.  Joseph Mazzello (Timmy from Jurassic Park) was amazing as the gun ho teen Eugene Sledge who was completely transformed by the horrors he witnessed on Peleliu and Okinawa.  His line to the young woman trying to help him enroll in classes at Alabama Tech summed up his metamorphosis, so coolly, yet so full of intensity and disgust about what he learned in the Marine Corps: "I learned how to kill Japs.  And I got pretty damn good at it."  Then there was James Badge Dale, who played the skeptic Robert Leckie.  He did not go to war to be a hero.  He knew, probably from his vast literary background, that war was not pretty, glorious, fun.  This skepticism is probably what made him the least damaged of the three main characters.

Performance of the Series: Rami Malek as Snafu; courtesy hbo.com

But there was one character that stole the show.  Rami Malek was phenomenal as Merriell "Snafu" Shelton, a borderline sociopath and ends up being Sledge's best friend, simply because they live the longest of their mortar squad.  Malek did an excellent job of portraying a cold blooded killer completely suited for the war in the Pacific theater.  Yet he was also able to give him a slight touch of humanity, as if Sledge were rubbing off on him.  This performance hopefully will be a launching pad for Malek, because he showed he is supremely talented.  Very rarely did Snafu say something or do something that didn't touch a nerve, trigger an emotion, or just send a chill down your spine.  Very few actors can do this on demand, and this character needed to have that effect because he was the yin to Sledge's yang.  When Sledge was optimistic and idealist, Snafu was completely heartless and cynical.  As Sledge became more line Snafu, Snafu became more like Sledge.  This ebb and flow between these two characters really made the show, and without such a powerful and difficult performance by Malek, it doesn't come off as convincing and falls flat.

The Pacific was a powerful miniseries.  There wasn't an episode that passed (except maybe the Melbourne one) where I didn't get off the couch and say to myself "I could never do that."  It made me truly appreciative of the heroic sacrifice these men made and the men and women of our armed forces continue to make.  Thank you.

Quick Hits

There's nothing that I could really write a full blog post on, so I'm going to give a few brief paragraphs on current events on the television.

Lost is coming together nicely.  Sure the ending will be somewhat disappointing because there will be questions that won't be answered.  But I've accepted that and really just want to see what the final product is.  If this series works best watching very rapidly straight through, it will be a great success to me.  It's already sealed it's place in history because of the depth and complexity; that will never be matched, it just doesn't make financial sense for networks to green light (see Flash Forward).

One of a kind; courtesy abc.com

We don't need a Triple Crown winner.  Think about it.  I watch the three races every year in hopes that one horse will win.  The best thing for horse racing is if the winner of the Kentucky Derby wins Preakness and is right there at Belmont.  I think if a horse wins it, people ignore the sport until there's another drought.  It's that anticipation and disappointment that keeps us coming back.  Of course I'm rooting for a Triple Crown, but I think it's probably best to not have a horse win one.

Go 2-1 in the big ones; courtesy of espn.com

I watched my first major boxing event this past weekend.  It was interesting.  This sport definitely needs Pacquiao vs. Mayweather.  But I understand why Mayweather wants strict testing.  It should raise a lot more eyebrows that Pacquiao won't submit.  Every one is saying how great he is, but he won't let them test close to the fight.  Didn't we do this with Bonds?  He looks like a rat, acts like a rat, and probably smells like a rat, so I'm guessing he's a rat.

A lot has been said about the NBA playoffs by those who know much more than I.  I have really enjoyed watching it as always.  I really have no idea who will make it to the finals.  Probably the Lakers, but the East could be anyone.  Will the Cavs choke again?  They looked horrible last night against a Celtics team applying for Social Security next year.  I don't like the Magic because Vince Carter is Vince Carter, and Dwight Howard is playing like an idiot.  If you're getting a lot of fouls called on you, don't whine about it, it only makes it worse.  Grow up Dwight, just because you're the defensive player of the year doesn't give you the right to tackle everyone.  You can't block every shot.

Don't act so surpised; courtesy of espn.com

The Pacific has gotten really good.  Last week's episode had a great vague sense of impending doom hanging over the whole thing.  I'll summarize my thoughts when the whole thing wraps up in 2 weeks.

Finally, the World Cup is almost here; ESPN radio plays a lot of commercials for it and it gets me jazzed every time.  More on this later.

NFL Brainwash

Owns your brain; courtesy nfl.com

We have been brainwashed by the NFL.  You know how I know this?  A friend's Facebook status states he gets more excited for the draft than Christmas.  That's plain crazy talk if you think about it.

The draft has to be the second most useless thing the NFL does after the combine, but only narrowly ahead of the preseason games.  Watching the draft means  you watch hours and hours of some jackass (Mel Kiper Jr.) blow hot air out of his ass about how great college player X is or how dumb front office person Y is.  You know what Mel?  Most of the time you have no idea what you are talking about.  The NFL and the college games are just plain different.  The elite level of talent in the NFL blows away what most of these players played against in college.  In a college game there are two, three NFL caliber players, six tops.  Guess what?  In the NFL they are all NFL caliber.

Blow-hard with bad hair; courtesy espn.com

The draft is kind of like Christmas.  For months beforehand we get bombarded with a media blitz celebrating one event.  Except its like a terrible Christmas.  Instead of Santa, who shows up a couple months before Christmas, talks about Christmas, is seen everywhere, makes children happy, etc., we get the aforementioned Kiper.  He also shows up months beforehand, but like I said blathers on with ridiculous predictions.  He also doesn't make children happy, he might even make them cry with that hair helmet.  Also, Christmas is great because there are parties in the proceeding weeks. No one throws a draft party on the day of the draft much less two weeks before.  Finally, Christmas day arrives, things move quickly.  You get the presents knocked out in thirty minutes, maybe you do it in the morning, the evening, or both, but it's efficient.  The draft you sit for hours, and hours, and hours.  You listen to these so-called experts who make wild speculation for mere entertainment purposes, then the Commissioner steps to the microphone, says a name, and for the next 15 minutes the draft-niks go back to wild speculation of why that was a good pick, bad pick, how many Super Bowls the team will win now.

There are two reasons why this lacks any excitement in my opinion.  First, we have been bombarded with so many opinions on who will pick whom, that no scenario is really a surprise.  Everyone and their mom does a mock draft.  ESPN has been talking about who should go where since the last draft.  It is entirely over-analyzed.  The best mock draft I read was this one because it mocks the over-coverage of this non-event.  The second reason this is a non-event is that this is not the NBA.  This is football.  The most influential player on the field is the QB, but he can't be effective if he doesn't have a line (see Campbell, Jason) or someone to throw to or hand off to, or a defense that can keep the other team off the field.  In other words, one player cannot make a mediocre team a great one like Lebron did for the Cavs, or Durant does for the team in OKC.  Football is such a team game that 90% of the names called on draft day are irreplaceable, that's why there are no stats like VORP or plus/minus for football; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

You don't get players like this in the NFL; courtesy zimbio.com

So to sum things up: just tell me who picked where, I don't need to watch.  In fact the reason the draft is even on TV is all marketing.  It puts the NFL name out there in the middle of the offseason, just in case we've forgotten about it.  This is a throwback to a bygone era.  When baseball ruled the NFL needed to stay relevant, especially as the excitement of the start of baseball was still going.  Then there was the NBA and NHL playoffs.  It made sense at the time to have a big televised event for the NFL.  But the NFL's place is pretty secure since all of these things get pushed to the side for this event that in the long run rarely means anything (Tom Brady was a 6th round pick, for example).  It is now simply a chance for the NFL to flex it's muscles and say "look how much everyone loves us."  That and sell some more hats and jerseys.

Treme-ndous Start

 found at http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/

Wow.  It must be New Orleans' year.  And about time too.  First a Super Bowl, now an HBO show about one of the hardest times in the city's history.

I am in on this show.  Even after it's hour and a half premiere where almost nothing happened.  It was a stark contrast to the previous hour's Pacific, where we got to see a hell-on- earth amphibious landing on the tiny island of Peleliu.  After spending a majority of that hour with all my muscles clenched, waiting for the next thing to explode, blood to splatter, marine to fall, an hour and a half dedicated almost entirely to characters was actually refreshing; even if it did seem a lot longer.

The one common theme to the episode, and I'm hoping the series is music.  The series opened with the first second line parade after Katrina, three months after the storm.  This seemingly meaningless celebration of music, dance, culture, set the tone for the entire episode.  Things are dramatically different in Treme after the storm forced almost everyone out and destroyed most homes.  Yet things are still the same.  Music is what allows the citizens of the neighborhood to reconnect with the time before, the happier times.  It is a constant.  From the second line parade, to the chiefs, to the record store, to gigs in dive bars, to funerals, the citizens embrace the music of their culture.  It keeps them sane, it reminds them there is still good in the world and life in their city.

found at baltimoresun.com

I hope the series keeps up where it left off.  I am fascinated to how all the seemingly different characters are drawn together and tied together not just by the music, but the food, the city itself.  This series is definitely a character driven show, and rightly so; recovering from such a disaster is almost entirely psychological (or at least the interesting part is).  David Simon wowed us with The Wire and I'm sure Treme will not disappoint either.  I can't wait for next Sunday.