Other continents.

Let that bitch breathe.

Eat a star.

So high.

Maybe you haven't noticed (the tiny picture over yonder right that graces this blog), but we're endlessly fascinated with this one. For those similarly taken, World Cup Blog has an entire documentary, called Comme dans un rêve (Like a Dream), broken up into ten YouTube clips of varying lengths (about 10 mins apiece, give or take, I think). Enjoy.

Best Rapper Alive.

Bye.

Totally, totally going to miss this guy.

Because he could be absolutely cutting.

And when he did want to answer a journalist's idiotic question, it was always with inimitable style.

And never more so when talking about himself -- here, foreshadowing:

So I know all about the ups and downs of football, I know that one day I will be sacked.

But you have to feel he was prepared for it, and of course he was:

I was nine or 10 years old and my father was sacked on Christmas Day. He was a manager, the results had not been good, he lost a game on December 22 or 23. On Christmas Day, the telephone rang and he was sacked in the middle of our lunch.

The man was a pre- and post-game genius (We can argue about his in-game tactics later). He turned what are without fail dour, idiotic, and desperately pedestrian interviews into an art form, and he knew it.

When I face the media, maybe I don't feel it now, here with you, because it's a different sort of interview, but when I face the media before or after the game, I feel it as part of the game.

When I go to the press conference before the game, in my mind the game has already started.

A veritable font of hilarity he was:

• We have top players and, sorry if I'm arrogant, we have a top manager.

• I'm not a defender of old or new football managers. I believe in good ones and bad ones, those that achieve success and those that don't. Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one.

• If I wanted to have an easy job...I would have stayed at Porto - beautiful blue chair, the Uefa Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me.

• [You really ought to just watch this one] This is nothing against Sir Alex whatsoever. After the game on Wednesday we were together in my office and we spoke and drank wine. Unfortunately it was a very bad bottle of wine and he was complaining, so when we go to Old Trafford for the second leg, on my birthday, I will take a beautiful bottle of Portuguese wine.

Of course there was the time he slapped Carlos Puyol. So sneaky. Look at Puyol's face: what could he do? Just fantastic.

But this is my all-time favorite interview. It's Mourinho, a day before Chelsea took on Barcelona in the Champions League (for the first time, I believe), naming his side, Barca's side, and even the referee, the now-retired Swede (largely because of that game) Anders Frisk.

A good finish indeed.

Saude, Jose!

I'm a winner, man.

When the last time you heard it like this?

How we keep Wu Tang money all up in the family.

My seeds grow with his seeds, marry his seeds.

Soak my soul.

Uhh!

"...no te deja, no te deja de alentar."

"We're totally ruined," Esteban Cambiasso said. "Losing like this penetrates your soul."

The livest one.

Representing BK to the fullest.

Hard to be more on point than dude here. [Props for the Marlo header shot too!] But to not attempt even a half-hearted post on this occasion would be failure of the highest order.

Image has always been everything with Becks, whether it's the endless permutations of follicular placement or his iconic, inimitable, impossibly-balanced shape upon striking the ball. Wow. Bet you though this was about to get real squishy. Let those with distinguished Scottish accents get away with the waxy poetics. I'd prefer to be as reductionist as possible.

Call it CHANGING FACES:

+ Inscrutable: Watching this will hopefully underscore how pointless, or at least unnatural, a highlight reel feels re: Beckham. He's most effective (most famously) from dead ball situations, with inch-perfect crosses and lofted balls, or without the ball completely, doing his decapitated chicken bit in the midfield. Watching him score goals in the run of play feels ridiculous; I wonder what it'll look like in the (weird!) MLS.

+ Cherubic: Still the young Essex boy, still apple of Sir Alex's eye.

+ Galactic: Generally a disaster in practice, the whole Galactico era at Madrid sometimes bore some really pretty, rather fascinating fruit.

+ Petulant: More so than that wonder goal @ Wimbledon, what first put Beckham's name atop the so-called red-tops in England, for all the wrong reasons.

+ Caught Offside: Most remarkable for SBC's comic agility & quickness and for a somewhat-respectable performance by Posh. And a common misconception (ha!) about Brooklyn dispelled.

+ Chagrined: Really tho?

+ Capitalist: Get ready for the deluge; as far as these go, this passes for classic. Shouts to Mean Joe Green.

+ Humbled: The worst of times.

+ Superlative: The best of times.

+ Triumphant: Out on top.

People are making monumentally stupid comparisons to other "transcendent" sports figures (NASL-era Pele, Gretzky etc.), but the easiest and truest equation to American celebrity -- if you absolutely need one -- is right in front of our fat expectant faces: Tom Cruise.

Much like my boy Unemployment I fucking love Tom Cruise. I love Mission Impossible Tom Cruise; I love Eyes Wide Shut Tom Cruise -- incidentally the most flawless portrayal of "Tom Cruise" in cinema history (His character's incessant ID-pulling -- "Bill Hartford, Doctor" -- might as well have read "Tom Cruise, Actor"). Tom Cruise does "Tom Cruise" and all its attendant "Tom Cruise Shit" better than anyone. He does one thing better than the rest of the world: the "Tom Cruise Ingratiating, Beaming, Beatific Tooth-Face™." As a producer you don't hire an actor for, say, Valkyrie; you hire "Fucking Tom Cruise." Same with Beckham (it's no wonder they're friends). On the right days, Beckham strikes the ball with his right foot truer than anyone on the planet; that's what he does well. That, and sell things. That's pretty much it, and generally while wearing expensive shit. So that's what MLS is getting: the Tom Cruise of world football. Which is not bad in my book.

UPDATE: He has a blog.

Quarter-mil should be enough to drop the charges.

Never mind that. Lemme oil up your arm.

Nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen. Merely warrants issued by a Brazilian judge for a few major shareholders of Corinthians football club. Move along, please. Just your normal exiled Russian billionaire and British-Iranian sports agent accused of money laundering and forming a criminal enterprise. All is well.

San Diego Charge

We can have a me-narge. (That's three!)

Props to proud S.D. resident J.M. for pointing the Don in this direction.

San Diego Soccers [website, aborted]
Sockers [Wiki]

Oh Finster, baby...

A babalu, ooh, a babalu, boogety-boo.

"Beef! Yes! Chest! Feet!, Tag! Bag! Blood! Sheets! Yikes! Yeeks! Great! Scott! Storch! Can I borrow your yacht?" - Weezy F. Baby

Please say the baby.

You may not be a model.

But I can front page ya.

Excuse my behavior, ladies and gentlemen, but a forced sabbatical from all things Copa America has kept me away from the keyboard as of late -- and don't fret, Sr. R. will be back with the quickness as well -- but in the meantime, this nugget: Carlos Tevez may soon suit up next to Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs...hmm...who else? Oh right: Owen Hargreaves, Michael Carrick, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, and..who was it again? Quite so, I believe it was two young, linguistically-linked fellows, the Portuguese Nani and the Brazilian Anderson.

This is patently absurd. Though, even absurd-er-er: the Premiership season renews itself once again in August. It's now July 5.

"My name is Ferdinand!"

"Pierrot!"

More Kobe Bryant of an artist.

Won rings with my performance.

Goals of The Tournament Numbers One, Two, and Three -- order depending on what skill-sets you prize -- happened in the first 20 minutes of Ecuador-Chile.

That statement was true for about 30 minutes last night, 21 minutes into Brazil-Mexico to be precise. Nery Castillo's (WHAT!) and Ramon Morales's efforts quickly shunted those 3 down the ladder of sublimity, though they deserve mention in what was a pretty all-around amazing day of futbol. Just later. Now, regarding the above clip...

AB-SURD! AIN'T EVEN TOUCH THE GROUND BEFORE IT WAS IN THE NET! DO WE EVEN KNOW WHO GOT CLOWNED?! (JUAN.) ARTISTRY WORTHY OF -- YEP -- A BRAZILIAN. And Morales' 30-yard STUNNA was no slouch either. All credit to Mexican keeper Guillermo Ochoa as well for some out-of-his-skin saves in keeping Brazil scoreless. Scoreless.

Reigning blueandcream (¡respeito a los arquitectos!) Young Playa of the 2006 World Cup Luis "Michael-Thriller-Era-Jackson" Valencia (a.k.a. "Best All-Around Boytoy", as voted on by House Arbiter of Male Pulchritude, Miss Emcee M.C.) scored the first of the match, a pearl of a chip that curled into the upper left corner of the Chilean net after an equally lovely lofted ball over the defense (after a goal kick, even!). This all took about 7 seconds.

Then, maybe 9 minutes later, Humberto Suazo (nicknamed "El Chupete," literally one of these) let loose with what some Englishmen would call a Ripsnorter, tearing venomously past the Ecuadorian 'keeper. Before I could even 'skine that bit of info, Ecuador had gone ahead again, taking advantage of some slack Chilean defending. Easily the most exciting 45 minutes so far. Suazo tied it yet again, and Hector Villanueva won it with a gorgeous free kick.

All props to Gosfais for 1) predicting a somewhat less-than-brilliant Brazilian effort and 2) eagle-eyeing the Chilean Valdivia many months ago. He looked a live wire, though Suazo took all the plaudits.

Two losers on the day, but both teams played well enough to win. It only gets better, one would hope.

My mind is older.

When things get for real.

Joyeux anniversaire to dude, dude, & other dudes with French surnames.

Run for the border.

Go get a taco.

Alright, The Don has kept you on the line long enough. Time for Part Two of Daniel Corry's post (Read Part One!). And, appropriately, for Brazil-Mexico. Nossa!

If you thought to yourself, “Why does he need taco shells mailed to him if he is in Brazil?” The answer to that question is: go to Taco Bell and ask Aaron or Jose to stick the sour cream gun in your least favorite orifice until you achieve enlightenment. No one eats tacos in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and probably a lot of other countries in the south of South America. Mexico is far away and is thought of as a totally foreign place to people way down here. In fact, the only way to find taco shells down here is to go the richest supermarket chain and buy OLD EL PASO taco shells for like R$16. Or you can go to a Mexican restaurant, mimicking the experience of a Chinese immigrant paying R$12 for a box of chop suey at the restaurant down my street -- expensive and bad to those who know better.

So when Mexico plays Brazil this Copa, don’t think of them as brother countries any more than you would when the US plays, say, Denmark. In fact, when I asked Silvio if he is going to watch the Copa he said ‘no’ for two reasons. 1: the team sucks right now (0-0 with Turkey; Kaka and Ronaldinho on vacation) and two (after I told him the groupings): “Brazil doesn’t have luck against Mexico. You know this? Brazil doesn’t have luck in South America tournament. Brazil have luck in world tournament.”

The same sentiment was mentioned in terms of the recently expired Copa Libertadores (Argentine Boca whooped Brazilian Gremio in the finals). In fact, the name of that last-mentioned cup, which harkens back to Simon Bolivar & Co., liberators of South America from Spain, doesn’t have anything to do with Brazilian history. So in both these cups Brazil never quite feels at home among the people they themselves call ‘latinos,’ and so don’t expect them to vanquish in that group of death.

I mean, jeez, when the pope draws a line, it means something.

Concrete Peruvian

So go and sue me then.

Peru-Venezuela should be interesting, and not merely because of the insight that Emily Parker's great WSJ interview with Peruvian author, and former presidential candidate, Mario Varga Llosa provides.

Mr. Vargas Llosa's bold ideas and expressive language may make him one of Latin America's finest writers--"Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," "The Time of the Hero" and "Conversation in the Cathedral" are just a few of his classic works--but those same traits didn't necessarily serve him well at the polls.

Parker explains:

During the 1990 presidential campaign Mr. Varga Llosa emphasized the need for a market economy, privatization, free trade, and above all, the dissemination of private property. He didn't exactly receive a welcome reception. "It was a very different era, because to speak of private property, private enterprise, the market--it was sacrilegious," he says. "I was fairly vulnerable in that campaign," he continues, "because I didn't lie. I said exactly what we were going to do. It was a question of principle and also . . . I thought it would be impossible to do liberal, radical reforms without having the mandate to do them."

And befitting MVL's characterization of himself, he is more than forthcoming about Latin America and one of the hemisphere's most polarizing figures:

He is relatively upbeat about Latin America today: "I'm not as pessimistic as others who believe that Latin America has returned to the time of populism, leftism." The region has its problems, to be sure, one major one coming from Caracas in the form of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But according to Mr. Vargas Llosa, perhaps what is most remarkable is what Mr. Chávez has not been able to do. "We have a big problem with Chávez," Mr. Vargas Llosa admits. "He's a demagogue and a 19th century socialist. He is a destabilizing force for democracy in Latin America, but what he thought would be so easy hasn't been so easy. There has been a lot of resistance."

One of Mr. Chávez's major errors was his refusal last month to renew the license of popular Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV. "International hostility was enormous," Mr. Vargas Llosa notes. "For me, most important was that the protests in Venezuela were very strong, in particular the sectors that were once very sympathetic to him, for example the students in the Central University of Venezuela, not only the students in the private universities."

It is such infringements of free speech that highlight why in places like Latin America, reading a good novel can be much more than just a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. "I think in countries where basic problems are still unresolved, where a society remains so traumatized by deep conflicts--as in Latin America or in Third World countries in general--the novel is not only a form of entertainment, but it substitutes for something that these societies are not accustomed to seeing--information, for example," Mr. Vargas Llosa says. "If you live in a country where there is nothing comparable to free information, often literature becomes the only way to be more or less informed about what's going on."

UPDATE: For those that want to focus their anti-imperialist fury inward, check out this NYTimes piece from Sunday's Magazine, where the stones @ Machu Picchu play a significant role.

By any means I'm a eat.

Cigarettes.

Don Rodriguez is always happy to welcome the words of his irmão de outro, Daniel Corry, who is currently at work on a novel about Brazil, the moon, and the evolution of man, necessarily in that order. I once dreamt it was titled "True Love Waits".It is not, as far as I know. This is Part One of a continuing series. Stay tuned for more, and for more guest contributors. Oh, and Brazil plays Mexico tonight; should be a cracker.

You may be surprised to hear that Murphy’s Law exists in the social universe of Brazil, but you simply need to say Lei de Murf to draw a wry smile out of anyone. But Murf here has a scarier, fully Brazilian counterpart -- Lei de Gérson. I found a wiki on Gerson’s Law in Portuguese, then its brutally translated English version. (I use brute as an adverb in honor of Brutalism, and in honor of the New York Times Book Reviews mailed to me in air envelopes (also often containing soft taco shells) by my mother in which, perhaps due to the semi-recent translation issue, all works reviewed that have been translated into English need to have the following clause- The book, ________ly translated by__________).


My friend Silvio, know by the Don, told me about the Law when he was explaining how the construction company which built his house had screwed everybody in the housing unit by installing water pipes with much less than the necessary diameter, causing water shortages and necessitating the smashing of all the sidewalks and reinstallation of said pipes. Besides that, I can’t say nothing that wiki can’t, so I’ll let it do its work. You just watch out for it.

Gérson's Law | Gérson

It feel hot at night and shit.

It's the wind.

WATCH: Peru's Second Goal (2-0, Mariño)
WATCH: Peru's Third Goal (3-0, Guerrero)

So Uruguay's slick forward men tried to get their swerve on tonight against the Peruvians. Surprisingly, and rather ironically, those who rep Machu Picchu 'til they die -- well, quite simply their G was just too futuristic for the boys in light blue.
Three goals and some listless defending on the Uruguayans part is what you were left with if you donated your time to this opener. Good sign for he rest of the games though.

In the night's featured matchup, the Sulfur King of Caracas, Hugo Chavez, faced off against Evo "So High I Can Eat A Star" Morales, or rather, the national teams of their respective nations did. The game finished 2-2, which may or may not help in the host nation's push to progess to the second round for the first time ever. We shall see...

Also, it's finally dead-ass summer in NYC. The Don's exact words.

Much, much more to come...

Whose World Is This?

It's mine, it's mine, it's mine.

Though he'd rather not say for which nation it beats hardest, the heart of Don Rodriguez is Latin, through and through. Which is why, for the next few weeks, we implore you, reader, to spend your free minutes and hours with us -- screaming, shouting, meditating, opining, and smiling -- as we spend our time glued to Telefutura, watching the 2007 Copa America. For those that don't know...

This is the 42nd edition of the South American football tournament (a.k.a., for all you pro-/proto-imperialist bastards, the "European Tournament of South America"). For the first time in its history, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will host the cup, which runs from June 26 - July 15. Fans of petroleum and Beelzebub will know that nation, and its president, Hugo Chávez Frias, quite well.

Don Rodriguez would love to tell you about its many wonders. Sadly, all he learned about Venezuela he learned over many whiskeys on an all-night flight to Europe from a balloon-breasted half-Italian, half-Venezuelan that wouldn't let him fall asleep. The information is not necessarily reliable, shall we say, though the Don maintains, "That one, she was a real sweetheart, that one."

But back to the tournament. Uruguay and Peru get us started tonight (as we speak, in fact!), as do the hosts against Bolivia. European soccer gets more than enough burn, more than enough ink. Support the New World. Show your mates that you know a little more about L'Amerique Sud than the conquering Frenchmen that drew the map above in 1514. Join the Don on his new mission to show as much love as possible to our Socialist brothers from the South, and to wish only the best for Juan Roman Riquelme.

And do yourself a favor. Please, please, please watch it in Spanish. [And don't be afraid to root for Diego Forlan. Mama Don "has a crush." We'll leave it at that.]

COPA AMERICA SCHEDULE (check local listings, ha)

Group A: Venezuela, Bolivia, Uruguay, Peru
6/26 Uruguay vs. Peru
6/26 Venezuela vs. Bolivia
6/30 Bolivia vs. Uruguay
6/30 Venezuela vs. Peru
7/3 Peru vs. Bolivia
7/3 Venezuela vs. Uruguay

Group B: Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador
6/27 Ecuador vs. Chile
6/27 Brazil vs. Mexico
7/1 Brazil vs. Chile
7/1 Mexico vs. Ecuador
7/4 Mexico vs. Chile
7/4 Brazil vs. Ecuador

Group C: Argentina, Paraguay, United States, Colombia
6/28 Paraguay vs. Colombia
6/28 Argentina vs. U.S.
7/2 U.S. vs. Paraguay
7/2 Argentina vs. Colombia
7/5 Colombia vs. U.S.
7/5 Argentina vs. Paraguay

7/7 Quarter final match: Teams TBA

7/7 Quarter final match: Teams TBA

7/8 Quarter final match: Teams TBA

7/8 Quarter final match: Teams TBA

7/10 Semi final match: Teams TBA

7/11 Semi final match: Teams TBA

7/14 3rd place match

7/15Final match: Teams TBA

The Boomin' System.

Cars ride by.

"C to the O to the O to the L to the I to the N
To the F to the R to the O to the N to the T to the I to the N
That means I'm chillin."

The only book on Thierry's summer reading list [etexts linked @ bottom of page].