about town

San Francisco Holiday


City Tour 7/22/06

My cousin Jesse strode into town last month, an entrance timed to coincide with my Flag Day birthday dinner, here for a family visit on her meandering way on down to Los Angeles...which for some farfetched reason she's decided is a desirable destination. With the arrival of out-of-state relatives, naturally, comes the attending set of hosting/entertaining obligations. Chief among them, in these parts, being the quintessential San Francisco Presentation, and the execution of this duty and privilege was charged to me. Not that one ever really needs exceptional excuse or occasion to spend a day across the bridge in the World's Most Beautiful City, of course (fuck off, Paris; look around, see all that? They're called views, you wouldn't understand).

Like any thoughtful native-born, I have my own specific ideas about the strengths and highlights of my home town, and what order in which to connect them. And so, on a fateful Saturday, my cousin Jesse, my mother Sharon, my girlfriend Natalie, & myself set out on a day's worth of Grand Touring. Here then, Gentle Reader, is my favored route, my primary-school beginner's introduction to the city of San Francisco!

Thrill! to our unexpected twists and daring escapades!
Laugh! at our heartwarming shenanigans!
Cry! as we're overcharged for everything!


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The Presidio & Fort Point

I like to begin my tours of the city at Fort Point, an old military outpost defending the mouth of the bay, directly underneath Golden Gate Bridge at the city's northern most point. If you get there early enough, before the morning fog has burned off, you're treated to the incomparable sight of the bridge dramatically emerging out of the mists. But even if you're arriving at late morning, as we were, there's no better place to get those requisite can't-leave-town-without images of you at San Francisco's defining icon. Ollie, our old German friend who crashed on our couch at the Grant Street Berkeley house for a few months while awaiting deportation, told us seeing the bridge was on a par with the Eiffel Tower. To much of the world, the Golden Gate is San Francisco.


Golden Gate Bridge emerges out of the top of a beautiful piece of parkland known as The Presidio, a long- time military base occupying a huge chunk of San Francisco's most desirable real estate. With the military in a "downsizing" mode, a monumental fight is underway over control of its property development direction. The first blow for commerce over commons was struck by local Golden Boy director George Lucas, who successfully campaigned to have the defunct Letterman Hospital torn down and the Lucas Campus put in its place. Undoubtedly a great business vision, the scuplted manicured campus locates all wings of his media empire together, putting LucasFilm under the same roof with the people making the games derived from their movies and with the ILM special effects guys, creating something of a film/effects geek mecca on heavenly parkland.

Having been granted a pristine slice of the Public Way upon which to create his own little paradise, perhaps George felt a feeling he had never known before, perhaps he felt an unpayable debt weighing on his soul. Because in a profound gesture of benevolance and gratitude toward the masses, Lucas has given the world the sublime, the fantastic, the impossible, the outright sacred Yoda Fountain. Reader, Behold!


Instantly enshrined as an irrefutable more-than-mandatory stop on any tour, San Francisco has been given a trans-dimensional romantic rendez-vous to rival any. Be sure to throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, because if you do, and the locals swear it's true, Yoda will grant you balance, harmony, and a peaceful life. And the ability to move things with your mind.





Did you know Following the foundation of the United Nations in San Francisco, 1946, many Asian nations wanted it located on the Pacific, meaning San Francisco...meaning The Presidio. European interests ultimately won out, of course, and the UN was placed in an unnamed Atlantic city. Still, our fair military park came close to being the seat of international congress.



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Golden Gate Park

After driving west along the northern edge of the city to its northwestern tip, turn south at The Cliff House to get an extended view of Ocean Beach and the Pacific Ocean. Come on a weekend night and you'll see the beach lit up for miles with, on a good night, better than twenty bon fires. Driving down from the cliffs, you'll come naturally to the western end of Golden Gate Park. One of the great urban parks anywhere, it commands a long rectangle of 1017 acres, 174 more than New York's Central Park. Beginning with its initial conception in the 1860s, it took long decades to stabilize what was mostly "unpromising sand and shore dunes known as the Outside Lands." Now the park is the vibrant centerpiece of the city's extra-curricular activities, hosting myriad events and institutions beyond the usual park fare.

Coming up quickly on the west side, an entertaining first stop to make is at the Bison Paddock. Always surprising and ever the crowd-pleaser, suddenly presenting your guests with live "tatonka" is a fun way in which to draw together the country's rich natural history and its proud tradition of genocides.


Did you know Bison are quite filthy looking animals, with unkempt patches along their shoulders and manes. Fairly repulsive, really.


There are many attractive activities in the park, and one could easily burn an entire weekend pursuing them all; the spectacular newly restored DeYoung Museum, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Acadamy of Sciences, Flasher's Garden, etc. Given the time frame we were working within, as well as Natalie's consuming floral preoccupation as a professional arranger, we opted for a visit to The Conservatory of Flowers.

Purportedly the oldest public conservatory in the Western hemisphere, it claims to feature some of the best floral and horticultural exhibits in the world. A spectacular living museum of rare and beautiful tropical plants amid the greenery of the park, strolling through the Victorian-era greenhouse offers a visual display of palms, orchids, tropical flowers and carnivorous plants.

Fun Game grab your computer with both hands and spin the monitor, clockwise. Begin with your eyes firm on the center of the flower, then, as you violently accelerate spinning your computer, slowly let them slide out to the edge of the flower's petals. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with what happens!

You are looking at a trellis there are a number of assorted vines and flowering plants growing in and around the trellis. At the base of the left of the entrance is a turtle shaped stump, named accordingly. Live butterflies are loose in the next room. Butterflies aren't as obvious as you imagine. They actually mostly keep to the plants and flowers. There never really was a "butterfly cloud" like one might expect. I thought I'd be fighting to breath, fighting to keep them out of my mouth and throat. It's not like that.

As we approached the conservatory before we entered, a suddenly surging sound of jazz became audible. After realizing that it must be live, we found a full six-piece band of drums, electric guitar and bass, and three horns. They were nestled into a sheltered spot on a flight of stairs at the end of pedestrian tunnel running under the street, connecting the conservatory's lawn displays to the park's central pathways.
Their placement was perfect; as you walked into the tunnel the sound took on immense depth, the bass reverberating through your body. They were no amateurs, either. They were sharp throughout the three or so songs we heard, obviously a professional gigging band.

An enjoyable surprise, even if San Francisco is generally pretty generous with its randomly dispersed public musicians. Still, we gave them a dollar. Hey; you show up with six-pieces, two of them plugged-in, and you go off, that'll typically get some of my money. Now you know.


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North Beach/Chinatown/Union Square

The centerpiece of the day's tour would be a pleasure stroll through three of the city's most lively and high-profile districts, demonstrating graphically the most compelling characteristics of the city: vibrant, highly differentiated neighborhoods tightly compacted against each other. Park your car near Columbus @ Lombard, and you'll set up the cherry-on-top cable car ride back, which no tour can truly be complete without.

After meandering by Washington Square Park, the heart of North Beach (and listed as a "Great Public Space" by the Project for Public Spaces), we took the opportunity to have an Italian lunch before fixing on Grant Street. Straight and true, Grant Street will take you from the pulsing center of North Beach on a straight tack through the entirety of Chinatown until you reach the Grant Street Gate. Serving as something of a formal neighborhood entrance, the dramatic if overblown gate marks the border between Chinatown and the glitzy high-end shopping district surrounding Union Square.

Two years before the Gold Rush, in 1847, Jasper O'Farrell created a design for San Francisco, with Union Square as a public plaza. By the 1880s, it was a fashionable residential district, and in 1903, the towering monument was added, topped by the bronze goddess Victory, modeled after Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, known for her enormous influence in the San Francisco art community. Its name comes from a history no less obvious than local support of The Union during the US Civil War. These days, the rallies for Lincoln are few and far between, and what's left has become an upscale shopping extravaganza, second on the west coast only to Beverly Hills.

After a refreshing Italian soda break in the Square among the trophy wives and other sundry conspicuous consumers succumb'd to Niketown, Nordstrom, and Saks, you're just a couple blocks away from the Cable Car Turnaround at Powell and Market.


The lines for the cable cars at the Turnaround are imposing, weaving up and around the street. But they move quickly, the cars come frequently, and the entertainments at hand are formidable what with the homeless, the street performers doing "the robot" or human beat-box, and the menagerie of foreign visitors sharing your line. And of course there are the cars themselves.


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Cable Car Ron
So affecting, so personally meaningful. O, Wanton Memory! See that steely emotion, there, right there on the face, kind of running up my sideburn, over up off my nose? That's the Real Deal, folks. That's the kind of emotion that only comes from deep down, from a deep, deep place, straight outta childhood. I wish there were someone among you, my "friends", anyone, whom I could turn to, but whom among you can hope to grasp the profound meaning of a life so intertwined with the hills and cars, who else can imagine the sweet taste of commuting to elementary school by cable? Yes, it's in moments just like this one that I wish there were someone, anyone, who could appreciate a cable car ride on nearly the vast intellectual, emotional, even chemical levels I can, but there just isn't...maybe someday I'll meet that person...if they exist...which they don't.

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Two of the three running cable car lines start from Powell, and while both end up at Fisherman's Wharf, the Powell-Hyde line boasts the better views of the two as it skates its way up Russian Hill. The other great advantage of the Powell-Hyde route, for our purposes, is that it stops at the top of the famous curvy stretch of Lombard Street, so yielding the soo-overdone-it's-perfect Alcatraz shot. There goes the car we rode, over the hill, into Alcatraz...shaaaaZAMMM!

Once you're through with the tears of joy and congratulatory handshakes, it's time to turn to the right and descend San Francisco's signature hill street. As well as its celebrated northern perspective toward Alcatraz and the bay, Lombard offers compelling eastern views of Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. The hills, though steep, aren't nearly as far apart as they seem, and a great day can be had enjoying North Beach while alternately climbing Russian and Telegraph Hills. The latter hill, in addition to Coit Tower, offers up the Filbert Street Stairs, probably the city's most charming staircase, home to the sublimely ludicrous Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

Originally just a few birds set loose by their owners in the 1970s (though unsubstantiated sightings go back to the 50s and 30s, all the way to 1911), over the years a healthy flock of bright green and red parrots has managed to establish itself. Natalie and I, one day while walking up to Coit Tower, suddenly heard a screeching unidentifiable animal sound. Then ten to fifteen skwaking parrots soared in overhead, landing in the trees and bushes around us. The birds have nesting and roosting spots in various parts of the city, but are most associated with Telegraph Hill. It's worth a walk up the hill just on the fleeting hope they'll be around that day, as it's one of the more uniquely San Francsico side-trips one can make.





Did you know
Also on Lombard, on the south side of the street one block below the curvy section, sits The Real World house from the MTV show's third season. If you close your eyes and are very quiet, and the locals swear it's true, you can still hear Puck's sweet voice on the wind.


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Alamo Square

As Full House rose to take its place among the pantheon of pathbreaking avant-garde television series set in San Francisco, and we're talking about classics such as Dharma & Greg, Sliders, Charmed, and That's so Raven to name just a few, its opening credits cemented in the mind of Touring America the image of Alamo Square, the off-Haight park with the downtown view framed by a row of beautiful Victorians known as The Painted Ladies. On the way from North Beach to Twin Peaks, it's a natural stop. Make no mistake: this is a dog park. Be prepared; it's frisky. On the left side of the lawn you see me and Natalie; I'm leaning on my elbows. Further off to the left you can just make out the white of the towel, upon which the soft-erotic neo-egyptian half-clothed photo shoot was taking place.


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Twin Peaks Digestive

For a little something called contemplative perspective, what more fitting end to the day than a drive up to Twin Peaks, the highest of San Francisco's hills, located squarely in the city's middle. Coming to the absurdly named Christmas Tree Point, there are soaring, unobstructed views of practically the entire city...or the part that matters, anyway. If you put your ear to the air, as the locals swear is true, you can still hear Huey Lewis' murdered voice on the wind...

comment

re: An Urgent "Star Wars" Political Problem

to: Office of Sen. Joseph Lieberman

cc: Office of Sen. Dianne Fienstein; Office of Sen. Barbara Boxer; Democratic National Committee, Nationwide Policy Division; Business Administration Office, LucasFilm Ltd.; Association of Image Consultants International; First Trans-Dimensional Church of Yoda (Methodist)


Coalition For Star Wars Values
The Salacious B. Crumb Memorial Center
2819 London Road
Oakland CA 94602


To the Office of Senator Joseph Lieberman,

The Coalition For Star Wars Values is an interstellar-faith based group centered in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to the expression and promulgation of community values as represented through the use of The Force. Our organization has long appreciated Senator Lieberman’s principled leadership on issues of particular importance to the Star Wars Fan Community, such as Substance Abuse, Mental Health (including the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act), and of course Teen Pregnancy; we consider his long-term national career an important asset to American Jedi everywhere. As such, our analysts periodically monitor a continuing Star Wars-related problem we’re sure your office is aware of that has potentially far-reaching national ramifications for the Senator: his unsettling likeness to the Emperor Palpatine.

Our regional polling across the 6th , 8th, and 9th California Congressional Districts shows the Senator’s numbers at a three-year low and continuing to trend downward since the May 19th 2005 release of ‘Revenge of the Sith’. We show the Senator’s favorable/unfavorable rating at 41%, with positive “shares our values” responses dropping from 52% to 40% over the 12 month release period. When asked if he “has the moral characteristics to be President”, support for the Senator opens strong at 57%; however, that number drops to an alarming 38% when grouped with Palpatine-associative questions such as “Does Senator Lieberman’s Sith appearance affect your opinion of him?” and “Would you vote for a Sith Lord for President?”. We also show the Senator underperforming across the board when matched head-to-head against Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Grand Moff Tarkin, or ‘any Wookie’. Though we lack the resources to fund a broader polling action, we fear these numbers may be indicative of a national trend and urge the Senator to conduct his own research.

The Coalition For Star Wars Values has recognized the Senator in our ‘Friends of The Force’ Ring of Honor since 1997 and intend to name him to our first Contributions List, to be drawn up as soon as a majority of our contributing membership have found employment. In the meantime, in lieu of financial assistance, our organization would like to offer strategic guidance on the Senator’s image management in what can be a sensitive demographic. Though we recognize that elective plastic surgery may be perceived as drastic or overreactive, we strongly urge the Senator to sever all ties, personal and financial, with any and all corporations or other organizations which may have at any time contributed financial or material support to ‘the Dark Side’, and ask that he publically denounce the Sith on the floor of the US Senate in the strongest possible terms.

We’re confident that with these simple gestures, Senator Lieberman will be able to reassure his national Star Wars base and reverse these troubling polling trends. We continue to applaud the Senator’s support of issues important to the Jedi community and to all Americans, and look forward to hearing from the Senator in the near future. May Yoda Bless the United States of America.


Bearing the Love and Concern of all Jedi,
Lord Master Tai-Jan Marzipan

(for informal communications please use my Padawan name)
Ron R Rossi

on the road

Redding, California

I drove to Redding on Friday. It was hot, much hotter than the central Bay Area. The air-conditioning I had was good, too good, and I'd get shivering cold after awhile and have to turn it off. After a few minutes without it, the oppressive heat from outside would slowly collapse in. This would lead to five minutes of open window, before back to AC. This routine was how I structured my day. This is one way of imagining Redding:



This is more the reality:



This is why I'm an asshole:



This is the Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay. It crosses the Sacramento River. It is, by a wide margin, the most interesting thing about Redding. So, given the mercifully rare circumstance of being nearby, did I go take a look at California's preeminent exemplar of structural engineering north of San Francisco? No. No, I didn't. I drove three hours, took a twenty five minute appointment, and drove back.

An abruptly sophisticated piece of urban architecture, the bridge was designed by international hot shot Santiago Calatrava. Putting an original Calatrava in Redding is like putting a Matisse in your garage. (No offense, Redding. But hey, come on; don't pretend you don't know what's up.) Because there probably isn't another bridge designer in the world with his pedigree and renown. When he goes on Charlie Rose, he gets the whole hour.


This is how you will know Calatrava:

This is his design for the World Trade Center redesign Transit Hub. Years from now, when you take the NYC subway from WTC plaza, it will be from this station.



This is what I listened to, in order:

the cars greatest hits
sufjan stevens the avalanche
U2 the unforgettable fire
charlie parker yardbird suite disc 1
radiohead amnesiac
the smiths strangeways, here we come
django reinhardt djangology 49
the verve urban hymns


As voted on by the fans, here's the lineup for the All-Star Road Mix:

U2 a sort of homecoming
sufjan stevens adlai stevenson
charlie parker chasin' the bird
the cars let's go
the smiths stop me if you think you've heard this one before
NPR 5pm evening news
django reinhardt djangology
sufjan stevens no man's land
the cars since you're gone
radiohead life in a glass house

No, nothing from Verve, what a terrible album that is! Was it worth it, Richard Ashcroft, deconstructing your seminal band's genuis guitar sound and building it back up into a tedious singer/songwriter format that highlights yourself more? Yes, "bittersweet", indeed.

content provision

Film Roundup: Upcoming Movies

Previews are the best part of going to the movies. Any good theater experience will start with at least three; two's disappointing, four's thrilling. I get antsy about an hour before showtime, start worrying about traffic and parking. Because I hate getting to the theater late. Some people treat the trailers as a grace period made for buying popcorn, going to the restroom, or plain lollygagging. Me, I'd rather miss the finish than the start. To hell with the credits! And plot resolutions are sooo dreary, it's the rare movie that deserves my efforts to suffer through to the finale kiss. Ah, but trailers, on the other hand, the most genuinely unpredictable moment of the evening, packed with anticipation! What titilating new project will reveal itself tonight! Followed inescapably by that moment or two it takes to recall what silly flic you're actually there to see, and there's always a little disappointment in the remembering, innit? Most movies fall short of what they might be. Previews are pure imagination.

So in keeping with the spirit of pleasure in forecast, a particular batch of looming releases are right begging to be pre-game gossiped, prodded, bandied about. My four favorite active directors are all at once again working on crazy ideas that have the potential to turn out horribly, or worse, bland and mediocre, but will in any event provide broad spectacle in the attempt.

Reader, behold!:


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Sofia Coppola / Marie Antoinette

Asked to rise a second time in judgment of their most conspicuous of queens, the French have rendered much the same verdict. Derided by Screen International as "More Paris Hilton than Paris" and booed in the festival theater, Cannes apparently didn't "get" Coppola's teen-queen post-punk interpretation of the life and circumstance of that greatest of Imelda Marcos' idols.

The French, however, are not infallible. The abrasive Bjork vehicle Dancer in the Dark was famoulsy hissed and booed at its screening before promptly winning the Palm D'Or. Nevertheless, Marie will come to the states needing to convince it's more than just insubstantial bauble. Bring it On's Kirsten Dunst, just maybe, may not be ideally suited to this task. Still, inspiring wackiness surely to ensue.

Because I've yet to be disappointed by this director. If I was born a Coppola, I'm not sure filmmaking would be my pursuit of choice, but Sofia immediately set out for herself a distinct agenda and a lush, languid style. Lost in Translation (2003) may meander aimlessly at times, but always in service of the atmosphere it aspires to. And a featured soundtrack cut from My Bloody Valentine's Loveless? What more can one ask! Let me eat cake.


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Spike Jonze / Where the Wild Things Are

Are you kidding, can this be real? Spike Jonze, the freak who brought us Being John Malkovich and Adaptation after beginning public life with a string of legendary MTV videos like The Beastie Boys' Sabotage and Bjork's It's Oh So Quiet, is to direct a live action version of cherished children's storybook Where the Wild Things Are? With his own script co-writen with Bay Area lit uber-darling David Eggers? Heartbreaking & Staggering, indeed!

post script oh sorry, is that not enough? After these childish things are put away, Jonze is scheduled for another collaboration with Charlie Kaufman, the irrefutably insane author of Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's supposedly vaguely "scary". But not a horror movie. uh huh.


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Wes Anderson / The Fantastic Mr. Fox

1996's Bottle Rocket was one of those middling little works that attracts that wearisome sort of insider buzz, the kind of movie that's constantly coming and going. Wearisome, because it's only the fortunate few that, rather than becoming someone's modest career pinnacle, turn out to be the genuine inchoate beginnings of an accomplished creative arc. And it's fewer still followed-up by something the quality of Rushmore.

Such was Rushmore's seismic impact that it quickly had all Hollywood beating a path to Mr. Anderson, leaving him to hand-pick star-studded casts for later movies The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic.

It was in that last movie that Anderson began tinkering with stop-motion animation to add a sort of bizarre whimsy, recruiting the animators who created Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas for help imagining Bill Murray's "white whale", the jaguar shark, along with numerous other small sea creatures, including a moment's peek at Sanchez the Seahorse. Graduating now to a full-length animation project, this same team will bring to the screen The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl, the author best known for James and the Giant Peach.

Anderson co-writes the script with Noah Baumbach, his Life Aquatic bedfellow and writer/director of last year's the Squid and the Whale. The story looks at the life of a fox who finds himself and his family targeted for death by the three idiotic, plug-ugly farmers who tire of sharing their chickens with the critter.


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Jean-Pierre Jeunet / Life of Pi



I hold a special place in my film-hardened heart for monsieur Jeunet. Five trips to the theater were not enough to sate my fascination with 1995's mesmerizing The City of Lost Children, for which I will forever extend him the benefit of any doubt. Even his brief and misguided foray into Hollywood with (shudder) Alien Ressurection, his "reward" for his successes, did not diminish my expectations when I saw the trailer for Le Fableux Destin d'Amelie Poulin; in English, the much less lyrical Amelie. By any other name, it remains the best film of 2001 and who knows how many years before and after, wonderfully marrying heart and intelligence to virtuoso visuals. If this unreserved admiration was enough to let me enjoy 2004's A Very Long Engagement despite it being a sappier, paler, duller Amelie, unabashedly covering the same ground (and starring the same actress), then surely I have nothing to fear from Life of Pi.

internet summary for your consideration: "Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, it's a magical adventure story centering on Pi Patel, the precocious son of a zookeeper. Dwellers in Pondicherry, India, the family decides to move to Canada, hitching a ride on a huge freighter. After a shipwreck, Pi is found adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a 26-foot lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, all fighting for survival."

mitigating factors: As, shall we say, "problematic" as the plot sounds (on many levels), the book did win the 2002 Booker Prize, a British literary prize as prestigious as any in the world; past winners include V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Arundhati Roy. And there's an interesting local angle: Jeunet married a San Mateo film editer and rented a house on Stinson Beach to write the adaptation of Pi. On the California setting: "It's the perfect place to work."

A "parable" shipwreck movie set on, essentially, a raft - with a sole teenage survivor spending the bulk of the movie dealing with jungle animals? Um....by Jean-Pierre Jeunet? How about thank you sir may I have another!




Bonus Track: Steven Soderberg's making a Che Guevara bio-pic...with Benicio Del Toro as Che...

the sporting life

World Cup Wrap Up: Addendum


A World Cup mvp for Zidane?

In an unexpected twist, Zinedine Zidane was today awarded the "Golden Ball" as the World Cup's most valuable player. Italy's captain Fabio Cannavaro can be said to have been unlucky in the voting. He was the central defending leader of a typically impregnable Italian defense that didn't allow their opponents a single goal in the run of play their entire duration of the tournament, which of course speaks to the quality of goal keeper Gianluigi Buffon. And in light of Sunday's red card, both men seemed to be running ahead of Zidane. Passed over for the award in 1998 for Brazilian striker Ronaldo despite France's victory, what must be going through the Frenchman's mind on this day?

(...strangely, the Golden Ball has a history of avoiding the champions. Of the seven times the award has been given, only three have gone to players on the winning team, none in the last three Cups. This is unheard of in American sports...)

Today's announcement is sweet vindication, indeed. The voters squarely and correctly put the events of Sunday in keen perspective. With this salute, they ensured that Zidane's momentary lapse of reason, rash and shockingly violent as it was, shall be remembered as failing to overshadow his play even in this tournament, let alone that of his career. Let's all settle down, put to rest any notions of lasting stains to legacies, and put the booking in the past, an attitude toward the whole affair that now must be seen as substantially sanctioned. Some retirement gift, eh Zinedine?

the sporting life

World Cup Wrap Up


Why Not Italy?

So the Italians to win, a fitting and logical end. Because much was lined up favorably for the azzurri: a supremely hot goalkeeper, a balanced roster relatively injury/suspension free, and an easy bracket presenting only Australia and Ukraine in their path to the semifinal. Which isn't to say they didn't deserve this final, as say, the Germans certainly didn't in 2002. Italy proved their mettle. Before the games even began, some of the hugest Italian League clubs, employers of 13 of 23 national team members, became roiled in a gargantuan scandal of unimaginable scale. Once underway, they handled a difficult group stage with surprising ease, they stared down the hosts in a pressure filled extra time match, and they did lose Alessandro Nesta, (a defender so revered that Pele named him as all Brazil needed to be assured of winning) in the middle of the tournament, the sort of injury that would have shaken many teams. Italy, though, never lacking for quality defenders, didn't miss a beat and kept rolling, despite FIFA's ludicrous rules forbidding any injury replacement to the roster once the Cup has begun. The Italians didn't back meekly into this championship, as other more defense-fetishized Italian teams might have.

Ah, but the Italians and their diving, the horrible, soul-wretching, ignoble fairy-fluffing that sends shocks of revulsion through every American viewer! Especially this time, with the refereeing already poised teetering on razor's edge, real advantage was gained through questionable penalty calls. And no team took hold of that advantage like Italy. But guess what:

It's not Italy's fault. It's FIFA's. It's soccer's. THOSE ARE THE RULES. As long as teams win games, countries win Cups with flopping, then of course it's how the game will be played, who's gonna tell them to stop? What glory, what honor in losing to prove some self-righteous point that the sport doesn't recognize as important? The card system encourages cheating, REWARDS cheating, and as long as that's the reality, then who's to blame the teams that play it the best? Until there're multiple refs to kill the need for calls made 40 yards from a play, until there's a sensible penalty box suspension-only-for-fighting policy, and bite my toungue, until there's (gasp) instant replay, I don't want to hear another word. Because until then, flopping IS soccer, and that's just how it is.

The Italian style may have its aesthetic critics, but there is a brutal beauty to it. And though the final was anything but decisive, their tournament-long play merited reward, and what's more, 2006 was just Their Turn.

Because sports flow to a cogent current, with discernible patterns and eddys. Balance is only achieved when rings and trophies are distributed in a logical order. I don't care who's playing best right this second, I'm usually dissapointed when the "hot" (read: "fluke") team wins. And who had Fair Claim to 2006?

Definitely not the Germans, for reasons I've laid out in a previous entry, but beyond the hosts many could make a case. Brazilian dominance has locked many countries out for long years, and I was initially hoping a new country would enter the circle of winners, like Portugal, the Czechs, or long overdue Holland. But previous winners Argentina and especially England would have both stirred the air with a fresh scent. Though this turned out to be a reaffirmation of Classical Football Order after the jarring upsets and chaos of 2002's "tournament of surprises", there is nothing stale about this result. Italy is one of soccer's great traditonal powers, but this is not a wearisome win. They have three Cups on the shelf already, yes, but two date from the Great Depression, and the last was more than 20 years ago. And hey; it doesn't say "Rossi" on the back of my shirt for nothing. Why not the Italians?


Players of the Tournament

Italy of course had many notable story lines. Gianluigi Buffon, alongside the Czech Republic's Petr Cech already considered the best keeper in the word, did nothing to alter that impression. In seven games he allowed only an unstoppable own-goal (I quite intentioanlly omit Zidane's score in the final; Look: penalty kicks do not count as goals, understood?) and leaves several unbelievable lights-out images, such as his extra time divine-intervention saves on Podolski against Germany and Zidane's laser-guided header in the final.

The strong play of midfielders Gattuso and Pirlo, teammates at Milan, drew deserved applause, and demonstrated the value of keeping together on the international stage players already familiar, with skills already honed to compliment each other. Pirlo, the fluid playmaker, and Gattuso, his strong tackling blue collar bodyguard, always seemed in the middle of Italy's crucial plays.

Francesco Totti, another creative instigator in the middle, aging and at the end of a fine career, brought to Germany the unique pressures of his jersey #10. There is no more prestigious number in soccer, Pele's number, Maradona's number, Ronaldinho's; it's the symbol of the leader of the attack, the distributer of the ball, the conducter of his team's symphony, and carries a grave weight. Totti, much like David Beckham, faced an uncertain legacy to a career sometimes great, sometimes just good, and the analysis of his Cup performance will go a far way toward settling his place in history. Totti cannot be said to have played that great a part in Italy's run, and was substituted out of the final after a quiet and ineffective game.

Ronaldinho's fall will be even more precipitous. Coming off a brilliant Champions League win for his domestic club Barcelona and two consecutive FIFA "World Player of the Year" awards, a sort of mvp for planet earth, the media had announced the arrival of a new legend, universally anointing him the world's best player, the Brazilian press wondering aloud if it was time to begin speaking of him in the same breath as Pele and Maradona, considered the two greatest to ever play the game. With Brazil an overwhelming favorite, a World Cup mvp seemed an entirely realistic possibility, even a liklihood. But amid the hype, their Stunning Loss to France was really not so stunning. Even Ghana had outplayed them consistently, for long stretches. Brazil's hyper-talented individuals never found a group rhythm, responsibilty for which must inescapably fall within the purview of your Number 10, to some degree at least. Ronaldinho has a Cup already, from 2002, but this was the first that was totally his, Brazil's undisputed core. It was a disaster. His performance and Brazil's in South Africa in 2010 will be either redemption or compounded failure, much as it was for Totti and Beckham this time round.

...How can a player be all but unknown internationally yet have ten World Cup goals? Germany's Miroslav Klose has found a way to do it. Add that to a breakout 25 goals in 26 games for Werder Bremen and one imagines it might be time for him to join the rest of us in the outside world, maybe with a big English or Spanish side. Ah, but those Germans, soo hard to pry out of Germany...............what a mess you've made, Cristiano Ronaldo. It's been no secret in England that he's a petulant, emasculate whiner, flipping and flopping about, unsatisfied just to rely on his considerable skills; now the world knows. Placed upon the greatest, most visible of global stages, Ronaldo's play was electrifying and his conduct was contemptible. By the time the tournament had reached the Third Place game, the usually convivial German crowd was booing him every time he touched the ball. In a typically whiny, fingerpointing statement, he accused his Manchester United employers of failing to stand by him during l'affaire Rooney and declared his desire to immediately move to Real Madrid. Given his behavior during the red carding of Rooney, his Man U teammate, and the unpredictable reception he'd get upon returning to Manchester, everyone'd be better off if the deal goes through..........count Ukraine's Andriy Shevchenko among the tarnished stars, failing to live up to his $60 million pound transfer fee bringing him to Chelsea this fall..........and count Argentina's 19 year old Lionel Messi among the stars enhanced. The failure to bring him on as a late substitute against Germany stands as the Argentine regret with the greatest staying power..........

..........About that Italian Scandal: Match-fixing, front office and league officials conspiring to place referees to team preference, Board of Trustees resigning en masse in shame, imagine all that. Imagine the Yankees being in on it. Now imagine the Yankees (and maybe the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Blue Jays) being sent down to the minor leagues as punishment. Imagine all their players, huge stars and role journeymen alike, suddenly released from their contracts and set loose in a flood on the free-agent market, while their historic teams face a who-knows-how-long struggle back to the majors with rosters filled with unknowns. Players the caliber of goal keeper Buffon and Italy's captain, defender Fabio Cannavaro, are suddenly up for grabs. The Yankees need only imagine; for Juventus it's very real..............

..........With the German threat safely removed, I've had a change of heart and reconsidered my attitude toward them. They have a wonderful team, full of energy, they played as a team as well as any, and they were entertaining as hell to watch. And as catalysts of an upswell in constructive, communal German pride, they played a wonderful role in presenting a model of Teutonic nationalism beyond racism. Hey; I love and respect Germany...it just wasn't their "TURN", capiche?..........


Oh, Zidane, Zidane, Zidane....

What to say of Zidane? What an invigorating, star crossed, bizarre final appearance for one of soccer's immortals. He was dexterous and present during the game, if not determinant, his weaving signature maneuvers worthy of the moment. But as in the 1998 final against Brazil, our lasting impressions of Zidane were not to come from his feet, but his head. His scathing header late in extra time, on an exquisitely conceived path toward the top of Buffon's goal, was of such quality and ferocity it seemed a destined Cup winner; only an instantly immortal flailing save from the Italian keeper at his very best pushed it just over the bar, and Zidane's emotional yell in reaction is one of his great on-field portraits. Then, soon after, came the shocking head butt.

Not seeing him on the podium to receive his medal was surreal and heartbreaking, a shame. I don't know who's decision it was to keep him in the locker room, but even if it was his, it was the wrong one. These were the closing moments of a World Cup Final, the very end of Zidane's illustrious career, momentous and historic. Players get carded all the time, especially this tournament, and though his was a foul more shameful than most, his absence served to amplify the import of the card and to press it deeper into the lore of the game than it deserves to be. What, one must ask, was the plan had France won? Would we have been presented with the catastrophically tragic image of the victorious French gathered to hoist the Cup without a captain? Without their captain?

Zidane cannot be said to have cost France this match. True, he did quell the momentum of a team at the time much the more aggressive side, taking it to the exhausted Italians. But with ten minutes left in extra time and both teams running on fumes, penalties seemed to be unavoidable even before he was sent off. Much more damaging were the cramps to both Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira, two players France could hardly do without during the run of play, let alone penalty kicks. I don't care if Henry is limping around like he just came back from quail hunting with Dick Cheney, he stays. Going into penalties without Henry, Vieira, and Zidane is unthinkable.

Yet it wasn't some out-of-his-element defender to blink for France in the shootout; it was a stone-cold deadly striker, David Trezeguet. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which Zidane's presence changes anything. For France's superstitious coach Raymond Domenech, who left all Scorpios off his roster, it just wasn't in the cards.

Zidane's 2006 Cup is hard to fathom. His resurgence was key to France's sudden and thoroughly unexpected revival. He had only one transcendent game, but against Brazil when it was needed most. He contributed goals, but through penalties. He had magnificent moments against Italy, and his infraction hardly sunk France. His card was only of manageable emotional and psychological detriment to France and without genuine consequence, yet it will irresistably leave a lasting scar on his memory...though I suspect that as time passes it will increasingly seem a strange footnote, and little more.

This wasn't the first time Zidane's brash physicality got the best of him. Before becoming the hero of the 1998 final in Paris and Ascending to Greatness, he had been suspended during the same Cup for stomping on a prostrate Saudi. And his career includes 14 ejections, a fairly robust total. Maybe then this was the perfect exit for him, the perfect little encapsulation of all the delicate skill, the inspiring command, all the bullish affront. We saw all of Zidane in Berlin on Sunday, and we are left to take of it what we choose.

~~~~~~~~~~~~@~~~@~~~@~~~@



...Enough with the fawning descriptions of young talent in soccer and tennis, of 20 year old "wonders" winning tournaments and scoring breathtaking goals. Look: When you enter a sport at 16 and are through by 30, 20 isn't "precocious"; it's right on schedule......


...Yes, the World Cup rightly celebrates itself as the only "true" world's championship, in that everyone, everywhere competes and takes it seriously. But, competitively speaking, the reality is that international soccer means only (Western) Europe, plus Brazil and Argentina, and no one else matters. Each tournament seems to produce one or two Asian/African honorary "global" representatives making the Round of 16 or, given an easy bracket, maybe the quarterfinals, but then they're quickly dispatched, thanked for coming, and the European grown-ups begin the "real" World Cup. I love soccer for it being one of the few things the whole planet truly has in common. But the Cup, still in its first century after all, remains in an adolescent state. Only when there're real Asian and African superpower teams balancing out the Old World, regularly challenging for the title, with the opportunity to share in the joy and ecstasy Italy is feeling now will this be a fully-realized mature event, only then will it really be a "world" cup...

about town

Restaurant Review: Tu Lan

There are many "new" things that come with a change in employment (bedtime, transit route, topical rashes, rationalizations for weeknight drunkenness) but none with as much the delighted anticipation of a virgin slate of neighborhood restaurants to be ferreted out and devoured. Finding myself these days at Civic Center at lunch, it's been a regular noontime Tenderloin Wonderland for me, flush with every bit the splendor that image suggests. Within a given radius from UN Plaza, though, there are a number of interesting eating options; thriving tacquerias north of Market in that tenderest part of the loin, diners and tourist hofbraus toward Union Square, and the occasional upscale haut-fusion joint with $9 lunch specials. There is also an abundance of intriguing hole-in-the-wall "spoons", and when exploring this niche it will not take you long to discover the off-Market vietnamese Tu Lan, such does its reputation precede it.

Julia Child ate there, as documented by Herb Caen, a fact made virtually inescapable by their online presence and by the reprint of his Chronicle column on the cover of their menu. A bit of eye-rolling advert, maybe, but effective; Julia's imprimatur was reason enough for me to seek them out.

Don't go to Tu Lan expecting comfort or ceremony, it embraces every imaginable stereotype. The space is beyond small, and "lunch counter" rather than "restaurant" is not an unfair description. Immediately behind the counter, balding, middle-aged Asian men cook dramatic stir-frys, flames shooting up along the back wall, as sweat visibly drips down their cheeks to the wet towels wrapped around their necks. The rice noodles come in dried cubes and are stacked along the wall like bails of hay, with the same golden brown color. The rhythm of the place caters to regulars, tersely tolerating the unfamiliar without seeming unfriendly. Brisk waiters seat you abruptly, without fanfare, at a table of strangers if that's where the open seat is. Before the tendons in your legs lowering your body into your seat have relaxed, the waiters are upon you for your order, a palpable pressure hanging while you look over the menu.

Then the food arrives, suddenly and unexpectedly soon. My first choice was Julia's, the Lemon Beef Salad ($4.95). Sliced cabbage and carrots mix with ginger, lemon zest, and wok-fried beef strips, capped with a pile of chopped peanuts and a cilantro garnish for a light, consistent, and flavorful combination. With water to drink, the bill totaled $5.37.

Today, my second visit, inspired to directly test exactly how great my culinary discovery, I decided to challenge the menu. I'm quite particular about restaurant chicken, intolerant of (and vaguely revolted by) any noticeable tendon or sinew, usually choosing to steer-clear of it altogether in Asian spoons. So today it was to be the Ginger Chicken ($5.95). Served in a dark brown sauce, the chicken slices met expectations. The ginger's presence was formidable, with stalk strips as well as root chunks, paired well with chopped white and green onion.

It's difficult to gauge which is more arresting about Tu Lan's entrees, the level of quality or the heroic portions. Heaping, in towering piles, and served with a bowl of rice approaching meal-sized in its own right, it's really two meals for the price of one; one does well to finish half and take the rest to-go.

I specifically take late lunches on my Tu Lan days, but the discouraging lines spilling out onto 6th Street move quickly, and are worth it at any rate. The food's cheaper than it should be, the ingredients are fresh and lively, and so is the mixed crowd of viet ipod kids, Nordstrom-chic shoppers too hip for Panda Express, and scraggly street people all packed in for some of the best dollar-for-dollar vietnamese food in the city.


Tu Lan
8 6th Street @ Market
11am - 9:30pm
monday to saturday