The Cosmos are Back in Town

For the last several weeks, New York City became World Cup Central (Park) in America.

All the watering holes were stuffed day and night, there was unprecedented media coverage not seen outside of USA'94, and record TV ratings. For the first time in history fans even gathered at a jumbotron in Times Square for the USA-Italy game -- and did so again a couple weeks later for the Final.

Plus you could get laid by simply telling a girl you were Cristiano Ronaldo's fourth cousin-in-law, no verification asked.

Apparently the appetite for soccer (and sex) in the Big Apple wasn't so different back in the crazy daze of the New York Cosmos. The fine-stein folks at Miramax have weisely released a new documentary this week about said club.....

(if the iFilm clip doesn't work, just click here)

ComMunich Manifesto

The overwhelming "gamesmanship" and "sophisticated defenses" that have wrought havoc on the knockout stages has Franz talkin' and Sepp blatterin' about a summit. Yeah, a summit. Nice move. Don't forget to invite Kim Gone-ill and Jorge Dubyah-Bushleaguer. Surely they've got some opinions, too.



One person who also has opinions on making the game more attractive to a stone-cold business-casual observer is the lead singer of the Sheffield UK-based band Arctic Monkeys. This distinguished youth, specifically as a Brit rocker, understands the nuances in how to break into the ellusive hearts-and-minds of the American "market". After all, why wouldn't someone want a fine slice of that microwaveable American Pie, or a sweet sip of that high fructose corn syrup Cool Ade?

The matches should be announced 5 minutes before kick off, in the middle of the night. The players are woken up by a high pressure jet of ice cold lager and have two minutes to put on their boots and pads before being dosed up to the eyeballs on crystal meth and PCP.

Strobe lighting and deafening white noise in the tunnel ensures that they're hopelessly disorientated by the time they line up to sing the national anthems. Any that fluff a line or sing without sufficient gusto fall through trap doors in the pitch and are eaten alive by starving rabid heyenas. These inevitable casualties are replaced by highly efficient but wildly unpredictable mechanoids who can score from 70 yards but are often red carded for brutal sliding tackles that spoil the turf and bisect their opposition. The ball is made from tungsten and the referee's whistle is so loud it can melt lead. The referee himself is a highly intelligent genetically engineered polar bear who can see round corners and doesn't take shit from anyone. Collina's soul is trapped eternally within his pituitary gland. He has 9 different colours of card, from yellow for a caution all the way up to black for disembowelment and banning from the next 5 games. The linesmen are omnipresent.

Each half lasts for 5 hours and the pitch is 7 miles long with terrain varying from greased astroturf to full canopied jungle, interspersed with sand pits, ball pools and active volcanoes. After each goal a hundred strong troupe of naked local teenage girls the action on the pitch, preferring to focus on closeups of the cervixes of the most attractive supporters from some latin american country, even if it's Scotland vs Canada.

If the scores are tied after 10 hours of play, mutagenic chemicals stored in the players' spines is automatically released and they quickly transmute into horrendous lamprey like creatures who rapidly reproduce 7 fold and form an enormous writhing mass of suckers, slime, shredded football atire and hooked teeth. The teams are disbanded, the pitch is flooded with a 50:50 mix of stout and KY jelly. A horrific 5 dimensional game of twister then ensues, with each hideous player trying to force his way around or through his former team mates in an attempt to get as close as possible to the ball, which has now armed the tactical thermonuclear warhead within. The player closest to the ball when it detonates is declared the winner, and his vapourised remains are trapped in a canister and rewarded with the dubious honour of being vaginally inhaled by geriatric Estonian pilgrims who believe (incorrectly) that it will cure them of rickets.

This new version of the beautiful game proves so popular that 95% of the planet's workforce downs tools to spend all of their time watching it on tiny little screens directly inserted into their retinas, and the global economy collapses. With food running short, the blinded population of the planet is soon crawling around on the ground searching for a morsel of edible organic matter as parasites and diseases become pandemic. Brother is soon killing brother for a flake of dried up sm*gma as the planet consumes itself, polluted by discarded plutonium studs and overheated by constant arguments over whether or not something that looks like a giant hagfish with a number 7 on its hairy back can be declared offside when the ball exists in 11 dimensional space he has just eaten the last defender whole.

Access of Evil

Iranians without thick beards and turbans revisited American TV airwaves for the first time in eight years on Sunday, with a matchup against Mexico live from Guadalajara. Okay, Nuremberg. Same damn thing.

The pre-game show on ABC was hosted by Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Match play-by-play presented by Henry Kissinger alongside color commentator Alan Dershowitz. On-field reporting from Pat Robertson.

Well something like that.

On Monday the U.S. team entered TV-equipped homes in Iran, as they opened up against the Czechs. No word on who the persian broadcast team was over there. But you know they mentioned this gem before Team USA ended up getting nailed in the nuts, 3-0.

That game was televised live in Iran in full terrestrial bliss. In fact all 64 games will be, which usually wouldn't be a big deal but this year it makes the feat an anomaly. Especially in that region.

Being the well-oiled rogue state that it is, Iranian officials are bucking yet another global trend by making the games all available to the public without paying serious cash for it. The only price paid for the state-run telecasts might be the time-delays to allow censors to clear out all images of attractive women and expressions of individual spontaneity.

In a world awash with media-access discrepancies, this is the first World Cup where relaxed FIFA rules on mandatory telecasts by TV rights-holders have come crashing down on the little man, allowing corporate media mo-ghouls space to run amok.

No region has felt the brunt effect of this more than the good people of the MiddlEast. From Israel to Palestine to Lebanon, Morocco to Egypt, Jordan to Iraq, finding a telecast has been as laborious as finding WMDs .

A saving grace could come from a Middleastern-based World Cup corporate sponsor. One just needs to travel a few miles to access the signal.

Ding-Dong Diplomacy

A couple of interesting events happened simultaneously this past Friday.

Two of God's foremost Chosen Ones, U.S. President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, each held ceremonies honoring their respective country's beloved football teams.

Lord, what a difference a century makes.

The last time both Iran and the USA qualified for the World Cup our planet seemed to be in a much more peaceful state. Of course, this was a long, long time ago -- 1998. France. Before all the demagoons took over.

Then, not only were the two teams grouped together (now that's real divine intervention), but prior to the match cool overtures were made. Iran, then headed by a (relatively) pragmatic head of state, splashed out with gifts, flowers and kisses for their counterparts. Meanwhile then-U.S. Prez Bill Clinton recorded a hyperbolic speech and even uttered a couple of words in Farsi prior to the match broadcast.

Ah, cross-cultural engagement. The good ol' days of geopolitics.

Here's a friendly reminder. When one sees headlines in the media like the ubiquitous 'U.S. Wants to Mess With Iran' and 'Iran Tells U.S. to F*ck Off' (paraphrasing, folks...) we're just hearing about feuding governments, not people.

Therefore its annoying to hear the talk about protesting Iran's presence at the World Cup. Especially when it's spearheaded by supporters of a peculiar government that calls itself "the Jewish State" yet avoids The Ten Commandments at every opportunity. Quite sketchy, no?

This 'Iran' we'll see on the field has a lot more to do with actual Iranian people than the 'Iran' we read about virtually all of the time. Time to start taking notes, 'America'.

World Cup Sucker

Recovered from the Trash Bin - A few slogans thrown out at the very last second by Corporate Media execs trying to get the attention of today's mainstream American TV viewer....

THE 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP ™ ON ESPN
Escape America Without Leaving Your Home.

WATCH THE 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP ™ ON ABC
President Bush Would Choose The Opposite.

EXPERIENCE THE 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP ™ ON ABC
Can Americans Find Glory On Foreign Soil Without Killing People?

GERMANY 2006 ™ - ONLY ON ABC & ESPN
Revisit The Last Country We Invaded And Left Victorious.

FOLLOW THE 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP™ ONLY ON ABC
A Great Way To Find Out That Other Countries Exist.

CATCH WORLD CUP FEVER ALL SUMMER LONG ON ABC
Its Like Catching Bird Flu - Except It Feels Really Good!

DON'T MISS A MINUTE OF THE 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP ™
Commercial-Free Broadcasting Comes Only Once Every Four Years.

LEARN THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF SOCCER ON ABC
A Fun Way To Spy On Those Illegal Alien Invaders!



'Carjackers Wanted'