Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

As some of you know, Manchester, England was one of the most important music scenes of the 80's and 90's. Well, they want to combine nostalgia for that "Madchester" era with an Easter Pageant. Um, I can't really explain it. Just click and read.


An enterprising reporter for the Guardian decided to track down all 46 members of The Fall. He managed to find nearly all of them, 'cept for Karl Burns. He did manage to find out about "Dave," the mysterious drummer for their first gigs. The legend is that he got fired for writing a song celebrating Margaret Thatcher's rise to power called "Landside Victory." Apparently, Dave's real name was Steve.

He even got a coment from Stuart Estell, an audience member who was handed a guitar and played with the band for one gig.

Oh yeah, still no explanation who Federica Federation was.

Also worthwhile: this PDF file of the original article. The captions are golden.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Heh heh.

I love the result here for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is that we defeated a European opponent, one that didn't qualify for the World Cup but is always a contender, by five goals, our largest margin against a UEFA opponent ever. In fact, the defense managed to hold Norway to two (two!) shots on goal for all ninety minutes. We so rock...we'll beat Brazil. Embarass them. Yeah, we will.

The other reason is it gives me one of those chances to put club over country. Three of those goals were scored by Taylor Twellman, the forward for the New England Revolution. For some reason, the media has never picked him out as "Da Man," they seem to be too busy blowing smoke up Landon Donovan's ass. He's a really remarkable player who is a joy to watch when he is "on." I don't think he was given a serious look by Bruce Arena for the World Cup Squad, but I think this performance will change that.


By the way, other Rev players on the squad included Clint Dempsey, who scored an assist and Pat Noonan, who also tallied an assist. I guess they could have scored goals if Twellman didn't score so many.


Oh yeah, Golden Boy Donovan? The savior of American soccer? A single assist in the 87th minute.

I know that's better than I've ever done, even in the podunk league I play in. But, I'm entitled to make fun of him anyway because he's a jerk.


By the way, the Norwegian squad included a guy named Alex Valencia and a guy named Tomasz Sokolowski. What is up with that?


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

There was a shooting in my neighborhood a couple of hours ago. The chopper woke me up.


I think I've told a couple of people how it may be a bit tasteless to keep using the song "Rock and Roll Pt. 2" at games, considering that any playing of a recording of that song in front of a crowd means that ASCAP pays Gary Glitter a couple of cents.

For those of you who think that you haven't heard the song, you have. It's the one that goes "Do do doo do hey!" You may also remember techno pioneers KLF doing a song based on it and the Dr. Who theme back in 1988, recording then as the Timelords (KLF also recorded as the Justified Ancients of Mu and The Jams, member Jimi Cauty later formed the Orb)

Well, sending an aging rocker a few bucks here and there might not not seem to be a bad idea, 'cept he's in currently awaiting trial for child rape charges in Viet Nam, where such crimes carry a death sentence.

So, one person, Gerald Cosloy of Matador Records, has a suggestion: replace "Rock and Roll, Pt. 2" with "Glam Racket" by the Fall. So, which is more disturbing: a crowd of Basketball fans singing along to a song by the Fall or one by a child molester?


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

You know, this game is a lot more fun when you win.


As a matter of fact, we were never behind the entire game. Lobos have been in the league for a while, and are used to winning, apparently. They don't like being behind. In the second half, they started playing a little bit rougher, and unfortunately, we usually got called when we responded. I learned a little bit here and there about how to get under one guy's skin. It worked well, he got a warning from the referee.


In this game, I saw a first: a father and daughter playing for the same team.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

So, the "new" MLS team will be known as Houston 1836. The "1836" is a commemoration of the Texas revolution. Wow, a team name that commemorates a revolution, how original!

Anyhow, given how MLS teams, especially in the Sun Belt, seem to go out of their way to court immigrant fans, is this really a good idea? Next up, a team in Window Rock named the Kit Carsons!

Cue the response from Tom (or, possibly a certain astronaut that reads my other blog) that says that the Texas Revolution was supported heavilly by tejanos and he'll probably tell us all about Juan Seguín. Let's face it though, I doubt that Mexican immigrants see much of an upside to the Texas Revolution, especially since the story in the last 150 years has only been told through the lens of anglos.


I picked up this bit of news from a new site that Prairie directed me to, Logan's Revenge. The guy who writes it claims not to be former MLS Commissioner Doug Logan, but I wonder...

He also seems to be a Revolution hater. Well, thats good...the Revs are now good enough that they are worth hating. Bad teams are never worth hating, unless they come from the greater New York area. Or, if they are the Dallas Cowboys.


My favorite revolutionary reference in a soccer team name is not the obvious one. For one season back in 1998, there was a USL team in Lincoln, Nebraska named the Lincoln Brigade. This is a reference that I'm sure nobody got.


The team's color scheme includes orange. The last top flight team I remember with orange was the Los Angeles Aztecs.

Of course, the Dutch national team wears orange. What else could they wear? They can bring in Thomas Rongen to coach a little "Total Football."


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

So, it hasn't really rained in months, and it is really windy. Lets have a party in the desert and throw our cigarettes on the ground.

When is the trial? I want to show up and taunt these bozos.


Do zobaczenia. Hasta la proxima.

Sunday's Arizona Daily Star carried an extensive article on David Tineo, one of Tucson's artistic treasures. Tineo, unfortunately, is losing his sight and will soon be no longer be able to paint murals like the ones he has up all over Tucson.

Nearly ten years ago, I met Tineo and one of his collaborators, Tomás Bandariés, at a street festival in South Tucson. They were selling prints of a mural that they surreptitiously painted on the wall of USWA local #616 in Clifton to commemorate the brutal 1983-1986 strike there. I consider the print, which both Tineo and Bandariés signed, one of my prize possessions.

Here is a small sample from that mural:



Do zobaczenia. Hasta la proxima.

It was Dillinger Days at Hotel Congress this weekend. In 1933, John Dillinger stayed at Hotel Congress and was captured by the Tucson Police without firing a shot. The hotel staged a re-enactment of the capture, which was then followed by a real shooting by the Tucson Police.

Toole Avenue had been shut down for a classic car show and there were people in the street. Some smokehead stole a car, ran the barricade and struck a police officer. The other police opened fire on the vehicle.

No word on whether an officer shouted "Reach for the moon, or I'll cut you in two..."

Luckily, no one was badly hurt, so Dave Slutes was able to note that the television stories all bore the name of the hotel. Box office, Oberon, think box office.


The real highlight of the evening was Tom Walbank, who is off to participate in the International Blues Challenge. The place was packed. The crowd also included members of a local blues society. Of course, they were mad about the opening acts (heaven forbid, Rock and/or Roll!), but that just meant they drank more.


One of the blues fans that was there accusatorilly asked me what I was doing there. People that know me through politics are always suprised to see me. Why should they be? Do I only exist when I'm ringing doorbells? The guy was in his mid-seventies, I should have asked what he was doing at a club that considers "'80's Night" the height of nostalgia.


The bill was rather ecclectic. The first band was local flamenco act Tesoro, they were followed by Loveblisters, an act from Tempe.

I have been apprehensive about acts from the Valley lately, many are talented but seem to spend more time with choreography than with putting together quality songs. Also, some of the bands have a real attitude problem when they come down here, they apparently feel that they are bigger and better than us colonials. Part of the problem stems from the fact that there are suprisingly few places for a non-cover band to play in Phoenix (especially given its size), and the places that do exist demand slickness. So, you end up with so-called "punk" bands who hit the "OD" buttons on their amps and do covers of "King of Wishful Thinking." I'm not making that up, that was a band I saw in Phoenix last week.

Not so with Loveblisters. They actually cared about the songs that they were playing, and were happy to be playing to so many people that had never heard them before. The audience contained half a dozen friends from Tempe, and the lead singer made a point of telling them to stay for Walbank. Classy. By the way, they have a sound reminiscent of Electric Light Orchestra or XTC.


Do zobaczenia. Hasta la proxima.

The producers of The West Wing have announced that the series will end this May, when the new president on the show gets sworn in.

This as we were just about to elect our second Latino president. I always count the one played by the elder Ramón Estevez as the first.


Do zobaczenia. Hasta la proxima.

I happened across a website called Video Code Zone. They provide code that you can put on your web page so you can put videos up. They don't seem to all be working, but I found this Calexico video:

ALONE AGAIN OR (Calexico)

Video Code provided by VideoCodeZone.Com

Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Wilson Pickett died on Thursday. Elizabeth Rogers gave me grief for not posting about it. Well, Lizzie, you do have your own blog...


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

We were owned the first half by a bunch of nineteen and twenty year olds. No suprise really. I felt totally worn out within about five minutes. At one point, we were down 8-0. This meant that Mary, sort of our Don Garber, had to remind us that the mercy rule would come into effect. Luckily, we scored two goals just before the half time buzzer.

The other guys got really cocky. This led to one of our guys putting a bit of, um, we'll call it pressure, on one of their forwards. He let his objections be known. Our man was English, so it sounded particularly threatening and apropos when he said, "If you are going to show off, you are going to have to learn to stand up..." This led to a rebuke from the referee.

Sine Mi Deeps continued to play cocky the second half, but our defense was better organized and our 'keeper was a friggin' brick wall. They started making weird shots from too far out that often would go wide. We also did a much better job of pressuring their defenders and goalkeeper when they had possession. They failed to score a single goal in the second half, and we almost came back. We just ran out of time.


The English guy that played the role of "hard man" for us was wearing a Leeds United jersey. We all wear different jerseys, I wear a New England jersey, one guy wears his old AYSO jersey. I offered to get T-shirts printed, but I think they like the motley assortment. They are all white jerseys though.


The referee may have been worried to hear an English guy wearing a Leeds United jersey making veiled threats. It reminds one too much of Vinnie Jones.

Which gives me an excuse to put up this picture of Jones with his rather, uh, creative way to put pressure on Paul Gascoigne. The skill on the part of Jones was that he managed to do this out of view of the referees. Those of you that don't know the game: don't feel sorry for Gascoigne, he was known for vicious slide tackles that would break arms.

Think about that...he would break a guy's arm by, theoretically anyway, going for the ball.

Jones, by the way, will be playing Juggernaut in the next X-Men movie.

Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.

Today is the day of the MLS Superdraft. I know that they call it the Superdraft because it is supposed to be a combination of the three previous drafts that they had set up for college players, foreign players and minor league players, but I have to wonder if the term "Superdraft" was chosen in some desperate cry for attention. "Hey, we are a major sport, we have a Superdraft!"

I've read some commentary from people that actually attended the MLS combine, in which coaches are supposed to evaluate the players. Observers were disappointed in the overall talent level at the combine, the only one that seemed to universally impress was Marvell Wynne. Observers think that Wynne will be drafted very early. Welcome to Chivas USA, Mr. Wynne.

Jason Garey and Sacha Kljestan were expected to wow everyone, but were injured. The talk is that this may have helped them since they were not lumped in with what people feel are inferior players.

Some first rounders that seem to be the sort of players that Steve Nicol likes are Mehdi Ballouchi, Dax McCarty and Justin Moore. These three are touted as small players that are thinkers on the ball. Talk is that Ballouchi may get drafted before the Revs have a chance to get to him.


Wynne's father by the way, played for the Pittburgh Pirates and the San Diego Padres back in the 1980's.

It's too bad the Revs won't be able to have a shot at him. At one time, they had a player named Richard Goulooze. Yes, "Go Lose." Having a player named "Wynne" can't hurt.

What if he isn't a "Marvell" though? Tough name to live up to. I mean, Felix Brillant really wasn't, was he?


In their first season, Chivas USA tried real hard to be the "Latino" team. Unfortunately, this didn't necessarily add up to being a good team. Mostly, this was because they thought over-the hill CD Guadalajara players could sweep the league. They have a new anglo coach, Bob Bradley, we'll see what direction he decides to go in with today's picks.

The people marketing Chivas USA thought that Mexican immigrants would just show up to any group of nitwits wearing the rayadas. They apparently didn't understand that the loyalty built up to the Mexican version of the club is because, as much as I hate them, they play good soccer. It isn't about whether the names end in the right vowells. The ones that root for the Mexican side because of that are not going to root for any MLS team, ever.


Speaking of race, Confederation of African Football President Issa Hayatou spoke out against racist European soccer fans. There have been notable incidents of fans shouting racist slogans at African players (and Europeans of African decent). Marc Zoro, a player for Messina who is from the Ivory Coast, actually left the field after verbal abuse from Inter Milan fans got to be too much. Some teams have fan organizations, notably S. S. Lazio in Italy, that are connected to hyper-nationalist and ultra-right forces in their countries.

Of course, what do they expect when the team name starts with the letters "S. S."

The strange part is that some of these fans wildly cheer for their own black players. Some of this comes from people who want to razz the other team. The trouble is separating the normal fan behavior, which can be tasteless for sure, from the most vile expressions.

Hayatou is also incensed at how difficult it is for African players to be released for national team games from their European club commitments. For some reason, European players, who tend to have much more busy national team schedules, don't have the same trouble. Hmm...


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.