Morning all. All is nice and well in South City on this pleasant Friday.

From my window I can see a few low clouds lingering over the northern end of the Santa Cruz mountains and hovering over San Francisco ten miles north, but the rest of the sky is bright blue and distinctly flawless.

I highly recommend everyone to read “Interview with History” by Oriana Fallaci. I’m not particularly well read, but from what I am familiar with, I can think of few writers who can beat the late Italian giornalista in sheer force of personality and intellectual intensity.

The book’s first page, the dedication, reads: To my mother Tosca Fallaci, and to all those who do not like power.

In this book, she tries to understand why certain people become leaders over others, why a select few who do not appear to be any more intelligent or divine become elevated over the rest of us, dictate our lives, restrict our freedoms, and why is it that, in the words of Bertrand Russell, “if they say ‘Die’, we shall die, and if they say ‘Live’, then we shall live.”

In the book, the legendary interviewer grills a bunch of world leaders with “a thousand feelings of rage.” She begins with Henry Kissinger, who is truly a complete cock, and goes through Indira Gandhi, Yassir Arafat, Nguyen Van Thieu, and more. Her really famous interview with Deng Xiaoping, which was one of the most revealing interview ever done by a Westerner about the churning, unstable Chinese party politics right after the Cultural Revolution, unfortunately is not in this book. Neither are some of her other big ones: the classic when she made Ayatollah Khomeini laugh for possibly the only time in his life, one with the last Shah of Iran, the Dalai Lama, etc, but it’s still a great book.

Fallaci was a revolutionary and joined the Nazi resistance as a teenager. She went through Vietnam, was shot three times by Mexican armed forces and left for dead during the 1968 Olympics, and basically led a really cold life. If you’re interested in 1945- history, and world politics, this is a really insightful book. She went off the deep end towards the end of her life by hating all things Muslim, but throughout her life, until her death in 2006 I think, she wrote with the voice of a pissed off and rebellious youth.

Highly recommended.

A few quick music notes.
I would also recommend copping Lloyd’s Streetlove album. The production on it is just perfect. I also got a bootleg version of Tha Carter 3, and it’s really bad, so I’m deeply hoping the commercial version is better. Timbaland’s Shock Value is decent, not mind blowing.
I do, however, highly recommend Rosa Passos and Ron Carter: Entre Amigos.

Alright. First post back…some association football-related business. 

First off, let me be the first on dc.com to welcome Becks to America. A lot of people from guys who last touched a soccer ball in primary school Bantam-league to Continentally-renowned columnists have written him off, saying that his buzz will fade off after a few weeks or even as early as after his first game. Lots of people will turn on the TV and watch his first game with the Galaxy, and when he doesn’t do flying volleys or samba steps while dribbling through entire teams like a drunk Bode Miller effortlessly slaloming, they’ll turn off the TV, and the Becks hype will die 90 minutes after he touches the first competitive ball in the US. 

I can understand people saying this. I think anyone in the world can appreciate the jawdropping athleticism and grace of Ronaldinho dribbling, but its harder to see what the big deal with Beckham is and what he can bring to the table. He doesn’t run that fast, doesn’t really dribble, he doesn’t even argue with refs because he just smiles at them, the wanker. 

What people don’t realize is that if Beckham and Ronaldinho came to the US together right now, Beckham will still be the bigger star. Here’s why: Ronaldinho is ugly (Do you think Potatohead Chauncey Billups could ever be the NBA’s most marketable? No American hates ugly). Beck’s going to be huge and transcend what he does on the field. Brand Beckham is more unstoppable than his free kicks from 25 yards. Even if he didn’t play soccer and just moved to LA to kick it and have pictures of him taken by Steven Klein till he dies, he’s still gonna be invited to every Hef party at the mansion, every MTV awards. Kim and Jay-Z already been dropping his name in songs. He’s gonna be the the guy caught on camera at every Lakers game, and America’s gonna love him simply because he’s fine and can play ball. We embrace plenty of otherwise worthless men who are *only* fine–I mean what has Matthew McConaughey, the worthless cunt, done in the past decade?  Plus, Mr. People’s Sexist Man Alive 2005 can’t bend a cross perfectly between a helpless centerback and an equally befuddled goalkeeper. 

 I’ve proved that he won’t fall off. Now onto the argument that he can’t improve MLS soccer. That’s bullshit. Plenty of dudes will follow Becks’ footsteps. Even legendary coaches like Fabio Capello and Jose Mourinho said they now want to come to improve America’s dearth of tactical nous. People compare this to the death of the NASL after the influx of stars in the 70’s and 80’s after Pele, but the circumstances are completely different. When Pele arrived at the Cosmos, they didn’t even have a stadium. They practiced on some island on the Hudson on some dirt and literally no one knew what soccer was. I’ve watched the ABC broadcasts–I think it was Howard Cosell or Marv Albert who had to explain to the viewers at kickoff that only the goalie can touch the ball with his hands, and that there are no timeouts or set plays. Soccer at that time wasn’t a sustainable business. It is now. 

Beckham probably could’ve played for two more years at the highest level in Spain. He never relied on speed anyway so his advancing age or dwindling pace doesn’t affect him. He’s absolutely going to tear up the MLS. If the Galaxy get a few forwards who can put the ball in the net after running onto his through or long balls, Becks easily will lead the league in assists.

And that, my friends, is because while form is temporary, class is permanent.

As one of my favorite characters in recent movies, Batman Begins’ Henri Ducard (a.k.a. Ra’s Al Ghul) (played by Liam Neeson) preaches to young Bruce Wayne that one of the greatest downfalls in human existence that allows evil to thrive is the indifference of good men. I ask of you , good men of the dC, WHY THE INDIFFERENCE? Why has it been more than a month since the last post on the Dirty Daily? Where are the threads to back up the topics that get brought up on the mailing list? The content has been there in the emails. Yuri. Putin. Weissman’s cats for god’s sake. Is everyone really too busy to put their thoughts into a blog post? 6 weeks ago we were all so excited about the Dirty Daily, and how we were going to open our thoughts to the masses. Where has the vision gone? More importantly, does anyone have the courage to do what is necessary to bring it back?