Too many people walk around thinking they're going to be something they're not. I've known adult men that planned on becoming astronauts. They had no training or qualifications whatsoever, yet, something deep down told them they were going to be astronauts. No, you're not. Too many kids think they're great soccer players without the practice. We've all been around those teams where kids start thinking they're better than they actually are. 
   One of the worst players will say, “Um, coach, am I gonna play today?” Son, you run a 9.8 forty, you barely complete ten sit ups, you can’t even do half a pull up, and before I realized you can’t do half a pull up you didn’t even know what a pull up was – you’ve been to a third of the practices, and when you do practice you wear baseball shoes, I suspect you have a smoking habit, your mom pulls into the parking lot, honks, tosses a bottle of beer out the window, tells me I’m a worthless sunovabitch and, yet, we’ve never formally introduced ourselves so the answer is: no, you’re not gonna play today. There are seventeen other players and you’re the eighteenth on the list to go in. If it were up to me I’d pull in six other players ahead of you, making you the 24th on the list to go in; that’s two full teams of players to go in before you. Even then, you’re going to pay three hundred bucks for the season to shag balls in practice and build character sitting on the bench as far away from me as possible as the last conceivable player to sub in. You’re so bad I could put the fetus of Gary Coleman out there and he’d do a better job. You need to pick another sport, son. You just need to pick another sport. Or, better yet, concentrate on the woods and metals department at the high school. That’s probably your best bet.    

   In the past only a hand full of South American players went overseas to play in Europe. A couple players from Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. This trend began slowly but surely in the 1950s. They’d typically get recruited by clubs teams from Italy, Spain or England. Over the years things gradually changed and decade-by-decade more players are going from South America to Europe. Nowadays, from the 1980s onward it’s the norm for Brazilian players to go overseas; rather it’s their goal. They’re in such high demand, because of the multiple World Cup titles, and their style of play, which is admired and sought after around the world. They are the most popular players, and the globalization of club soccer has led to European teams fielding all-star teams. Everybody on the team, it seems, is from another country. I think there should be a “foreign player rule.” It goes, on every club team there are only three spots available on a roster for foreign-born players. This would keep the club teams full of home-based talent, which would reflect a style of that particular country. It is the reality today, that all the teams intermix with players and coaches, and the styles have become widely known and spread around like the blue prints to making a camera or a car. Everybody knows everybody’s secrets. As a result the World Cup teams look very similar in style, or at least in their approach (some are better than others, mind you). The African teams are reflecting that “half court possession” polish they have been drilled on in Europe – the German polish, the Dutch, Italian and French polish. There is a technique to team possession, which these nations have exuded and practiced and displayed to the world over the years; now other players from Africa, America and Asia have picked up on the methods and are implementing them into their own game, however rusty it may be.  Everybody’s “catching up” because everybody’s being exposed to the European game, which has been the trend setter in proper technique, ball possession, and organization. This says nothing against Brazil and Argentina, who have figured out the game on their own for over fifty years, setting trends, but they have limited club teams that set the trends for world soccer; the trend setters are in Europe. Then, the products of the trend setters, i.e. the players, get swept up by the money bags from Qatar or Japan or Malaysia to come play, which, by this time, is usually in their mid-to-late thirties, sometimes forties, and they flaunt around, showing everybody what it takes to be a good player, lounging in their mansion which has a built-in weather system that can create clouds overhead, on hot days. And it’s always hot. So once they break the remote control – which is inevitable, because soccer players aren’t too bright – and the special fake clouds can’t keep them cool anymore they decide not to wait forty-eight hours for the new remote to be installed, that’s just too much time, they’re reputation as a big shot who gets things done will be destroyed (people talk, their boyz over in Monaco will be laughing at them), so they reluctantly pack up their video games and head for the MLS, where a lifetime discount at TGI Fridays is waiting for them. 

Moving Forward With A World Cup Title
   
   Now that we’ve won a World Cup, about time, it is necessary to stay the course, and keep winning, right? Sure, that’s what Uruguay thought in the 1930’s but over time, and long past their championship of 1950 they remained a top team, but never really a team that would confidently win another World Cup title. Their expectations diminished a little bit. Some took to biting, others realized the best was behind them. We shouldn’t be too shocked to have won a World Cup. As Americans, we have taken a similar path to Brasil. They at first weren’t that good at soccer. The best teams around them were Argentina and Uruguay. From the 50s onward Brasil really took flight and became that team, the team. Everybody expects Brasil to win, all the time. But it wasn’t always that way for them, just as it wasn’t always that way for the U.S. We had to wait an extra long time compared to Brasil. But true to form, just like in our basketball capabilities, we became leaders in soccer. What has kept Brasil so prevalent all these years – despite going through droughts without a Cup title every so often – has been their approach to the game. They are expected to win, but more importantly, they are expected to entertain as well. You can’t just get on a field and win. You also have to entertain. That’s the fun part, that’s the best part. We, as Americans, have to keep our eye on the entertainment part of the game. In the long run, if you out entertain your opponent, you should likely beat them on the scoreboard. 

   

   Being in the moment is said a lot. To many people this makes no sense whatsoever. In our society everybody’s thinking about the future and the past. Everybody lives off of past memories and they yearn for the future to buy something materialistic, most likely. Americans constantly need things. This comes in the form of good memories. This comes in the form of future needs. Because of Manifest Destiny, according to a guy on the street named Rodney, we need fashion, and tech things more than anything else. So peoples’ memories are of clothing and phones and nights out on the town, Tweeting and texting and taking pics left and right. Yearning for the future is: wanting more clothes and the newest tech items and plans to socialize and take pictures all over again. Athletically this attitude transcends into the sport being played. Athletes sometimes have a difficult time finding the now moment, or being in the moment. Their head is wandering – much like society at large – and they cannot focus. Coaches try to drive this concept home all the time. Phil Jackson wanted athletes like Americans and heads like Tibetan monks – athletically, pure thinking beings that were wiser than their opponent. Coaches want their players in the moment, and concentrating on winning at the task at hand, i.e., winning right here, right now – enjoying whatever part of the field you find yourself, in whatever situation you’re involved in. I’m worried about one thing, right now: getting this pass passed this player in front of me, so I can win this moment. It doesn’t have to be a shot on goal; it has to be defeating this player right here with a pass (or in another situation it might be a dribble).

How To Cross

1.     Get a tape of British soccer.

2.     Keep your eyes open – it shouldn’t be too hard – for that thing called a “cross.” Wait a minute! It should’ve just happened. If you missed it, don’t worry, they occur at a rate of 7.2 gigabytes (or 3.6 yottabytes, depending whether it’s a weekend or holiday) of recurrence, per every atomic minute of duration, according to the labs of Keegan-Keegan-Lalas & Agoos.

3.     Whatever cross they’re attempting, it usually hits the other team first.

4.     Do not cross the ball.

5.     Never ever.

6.     Soccer players should know better than to randomly cross the ball.

7.     This is assuming soccer players have an IQ higher than the accumulated jersey numbers of a starting team.

8.     Many soccer players have insisted they are, “Not not smart.”

9.     Yes, there are teams that follow England’s patented trait to over-cross the ball, and walk around convinced that corner kicks are more important than common sense.

10. None of these teams have won a World Cup. 

Excerpt from Cigar Gambler
First Published in Smoke Magazine, 1999

   I was in Atlantic City at a casino, a place I haven’t pursued for a while. Recently I’ve kept with sharks, bookies, real under the table stuff. If it wasn’t for that strange cat with the unusually thick silver collar hanging around my yard I probably wouldn’t be here. My name’s Fred, Fred McDogul.
   Something was missing, everything seemed so lucid that a gas attendant could tend full-service to my car and I’d consider it an omen. At that moment I realized that there was a yearning in me for something new; basketball, football – the same old bets, who cares anymore, what happened to making a bet when you have no idea what you’re betting on? Maybe my longing was pervading elsewhere than my thoughts because a man approached me. He had local sagacity written all over him, not to mention despondent sluggishness.
   His head motioned hello and the fellow said, “How about cigar gambling?”
   “Cigar gambling?” I replied.
   “Yeah, you know, cigar’s, it’s a brown wrapped tobacco…”
   “I know that much. What does it have to do with gambling?”
   “It’s a sport like any other.”
   “Cigar smoking, a sport?”
   “Well of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
   “It just doesn’t seem like a sport.”
   “It is, but I suppose it doesn’t have to be.”
   “Okay then, tell me, in what instance would it not be a sport?”
   “I suppose when you’re smoking recreationally.”
   “Okay,” I began to think he was a shrewd hustler, then looked around, remembered what town I was in and thought, nah, it’s a respectable place, I’ll give em’ the benefit of the doubt. And after another look around it seemed as though everyone was either smoking or in a cloud of smoke. Could it be he’s just opening my eyes to new opportunities, maybe a worker for the new opportunity coalition?
   If there was a new opportunity coalition, he’d definitely head it, not-profit of course, and the uniform, just what he has on, a cool breezy day yellow shirt with green pants to match.
   “Listen, there’s an event coming up,” he said, “in about a half hour in fact. I got inside track on a real exhaust blower you know, whada-yah say?”
   “An exhaust blower eh?”
   “Yeah he’s a top smoker, they call em’ the New York horizon. Beat David Letterman ten years ago, and just got a new rubber lung.”
   “A rubber lung? Wow, that must be a grand stride for polysynthetic advancement.
   “...Yeah, and his is really clear you know.”
   “Tell me, are you a smoker yourself?”
   “Retired.” 
   “Oh.” It was at this point I began feeling a bit more suspicious. Who would mistake rubber for plastic, and retire from an activity that one can’t retire from; you just quit, or are instructed to. I thought a few probing questions into his field might shed more light.
   “Retired eh? Do you receive a pension?”
   “Oh sure, every month I receive pension money, or, gum for the withdrawal.”
   “Well I’m sure you can’t do with out that.”
   “Listen, times running a little short now. What’s your bet gonna be? We got a fellow that’s quick with the draw, a Cuban that can go half a day, and there’s this one guy, he doesn’t even need a lighter – big point scorer there. I’ll tell you something else…”
   During his persuasive descriptions I began to take a strong look at this fellow. How else would a cigar bookie look? Does it really matter if his appearance is uncannily similar to a cigar package from Elba? Then again, maybe this is in fact a growing betting pool, a rising sport with great opportunity for both the sportsman and gambler alike. There could be many cigar smokers training right now in high altitudes, or a locked room somewhere for the inevitable pressure of competition they’ll face. Come to think of it, you never know who the person you’re jogging next to is these days.
   “…Filters the smoke through his teeth, which sends the smoke up high, that’s his strategy you see he,” the man continued. This fellows high all right, high on the prospects of swindling my money and heading for the skirts down on 3rd Street. Forget it, this guy’s nothing but Don King dressed for a picnic. He has got off on the wrong track all right, forget about taking me down cigar lane, I oughta, “Who was that last guy?”
   “The Connecticut Bay?”
   “No-no, the one before that,” I said.
   “The Pittsburgh Kid?”
   “That’s right,” I replied. The Pittsburgh Kid. There’s something about that town, I remembered last winter, passing through, I’d gotten some good work done on my car there. This guy couldn’t be that bad.
   “I’ll put two hundred down on him.”
   “Okay sir, but what about the others, there are still more you might wish to consider.”
   “No, no that’s fine. My money’s on the Pittsburgh Kid. My grand parents wouldn’t want me associating with anybody named after a harbor, maybe arriving at one, but no sir, that’s the smoker I’m going with. The Pittsburgh Kid. Take it or leave it.”
   “Very well then, give me the money and I’ll go place the bet.”
   “All right…Hey, hold on a second there, Carl Lewis. What kind of sucker you takin’ me for anyway? Who’s to say you’re not gonna stash the cash and grab the first cab for the dog races?!”         
   “Nothing to worry, the bidding desk is right over there, see.” He pointed yonder to a desk some thirty paces away.
   “All right then, I’ll be right over here, by the cigarette machine, the one with the cigarettes, the square thing that…”

              

Before we hand out the World Cup MVP, let’s not forget Mike Tirico, the great mediator in his own right. His great ease in interviewing makes a World Cup turn into an encore worth watching. The 2014 World Cup MVP goes to, Bob Ley. That takes amazing skill to rule over a roundtable of heavy accents. Good for you! There were Germans, Argentines, Brazilians, three to four Englishmen and woman, a Venezuelan and Alexi Lalas – who knows what planet he’s from. All were coming at you from all directions, each with their own unique, but eerily similar, opinions. When everybody “piggy backed” the other, you made it seem as though great tension was in the air. You were able to pick out the next step, during every step of the Cup. It was a great World Cup, much thanks to you. 

   I’ve had a talk with quite a few people that don’t get what Spain is all about. Or, they don’t get what Brazil is all about. If you read my book, thoroughly, as thoroughly as Zuckerberg removed the practical project of Facebook from the Winklevoss brothers, then you’d know that I promote the style of soccer being played by Spain (ipso facto Barcelona), from approximately 2006-2013, and the perennial play of Brazil. Despite both teams having performances that weren’t to be expected from their fan base, these teams, these countries, and their style of soccer, are still to be used as a model when it comes to the highest standard of offensive play. People have said, “In this World Cup they were terrible.” If you think they were great then (with all due respect) you have problems. They weren’t great. Neither was Italy, England or Russia. It happens. They had a drought. Great teams like Spain will have to pass. It’s the nature of things. That particular grouping of players will have to fold in the towel eventually. It will be hard, in fact next to impossible, for a nation or a club team to match what they (Spain and Barcelona) did for that time period. Two European Cups and a World Cup are, for all intents and purposes, unheard of. You can’t sit there and say, “Welp, I guess it’s all over for Spain. Why didn’t they do better?” Their time’s up? Maybe it’s over for them? Brazil went from 1970 to 1994 – 24 years, the lifespan of a galaxy to Brazilians – without winning a World Cup, with a bunch of unlucky, and hard to swallow defeats in between, particularly the 1986 shootout with France and the moment of brilliance from Maradona in 1990. Spain for all these years, harking back to the 1950s, has been the best team to never win the big one (alongside Holland). So what do Spain and Brazil have in common? They have persevered with their consistent quality of play, their attention to quality, their recognition of quality, and a style that they confidently embrace as their own, for all these years, leading to long-term success, because of the belief in their system. They’ve seen that what they’re doing – overall – works and they haven’t wavered. America, on the other hand, has seen what it’s doing – which doesn’t get us into the Quarterfinals – yet we haven’t wavered. We keep doin’ what we’re doin’. If there’s a lesson, it’s that great teams will have slumps. But to be a great team you need to 1) recognize what you’re doing well (Spain and Brazil have done this), and 2) recognize what you’re not doing well (the United States has a hard time with this). But you can’t dismantle Spain, and their accomplishments from 2006-2013 based on 2014 Brazil. You can’t ridicule Brazil, and their legacy from 1958, based on one tournament that fielded the wrong players – a coaching error – and one game that was an anomaly. The flow they’ve had in the past (Spain and Brazil) is now in the possession of Germany. It’s essentially the same thing Spain had been doing: great possession, smart creative passing, precision, consistence and so on. Spain and Brazil should be back with a vengeance, but the teams out there on the edge, including America, Japan, Iraq, Algeria, Cameroon, and Ghana, to name a few, should take note, implementing what Spain and Brazil have done well, and what Germany is doing well at the moment. 

Excerpt from Dress Nice When Stealing
First Published in The Idiot Magazine, 2002

With the state of the economy as it is and gas prices at an all time high the majority of Americans stand a lot to gain from resorting to theft. Whether you are a gentlemen thief, out for a weekend thrill, or a regular back-alley-cigarette-smoking variety, is aside from the point. You need not know the virtues of Spinoza’s oneness, or Descartes’ mind-body dualism, just dress well.

Too many thieves are dressed like they toured every tavern in the county before noon; they’re unshaven, their hair’s raveled. These are typically state released, downtrodden men, who have given their lives over to one form of malfeasance or another. They are guaranteed to live out an ephemeral career. I once interviewed a guy like this out of curiosity. He came to realize he was approaching the theft business all wrong. From then on, he got his act together and dresses like Rich “Uncle” Pennybags from Monopoly when doing a job, and now lives in the suburbs with three cars and a George Foreman grill. I see him every once in a while. We lounge around his pool and talk shop. He stole the pool. It was his biggest job yet. He told me that if he hadn’t been dressed nicely, the owners never would’ve believed he was the FBI.

The general attitude of a theft should be thought of as Tim Gunn entering a Michael Kor’s workshop. I only wear nice black Oxford dress shoes, a matching belt, pressed slacks – usually navy or khaki – and a nice button-up shirt. Short sleeve, long sleeve? It doesn’t really matter – dress for the weather. You don’t want to be too hot, or too cold, it’ll throw off your timing. The more you look like Sinatra the more you’re likely to slide away with class. And, the ladies love it. Often times, they’ll be quite aware that you’re robbing them, but they’ll let it go based on your appearance.

At the Supermarket, don’t even take a cart. You’ve got the fruit and vegetable section, usually right together. When some meddlesome employee sees me eating from the open display I assure him I’ll be weighed in up front. Works every time.

If you need jewelry, no problem. Just go to the jewelry store, usually at a mall, and ask to try on as much as you can fit; rings, necklaces, watches. You’ll look like a Mr. T starter kit. Then tell them you need to see it in the day-light. They might yell a little, or push an alarm, but they won’t jump over the counter and chase you.

When I need a place to stay, I go to the finest hotels and follow new guests to their room, casually bump into them, and explain they have my room by mistake. They’ll politely argue back, but if you stay consistent (and keep in mind you’re wearing nice clothing) they’ll give in and get another room.

If you’re not staying at a hotel room, but you need some ice – what better place to go? No one ever questions you. I’ve thrown eighteen keg parties cooled by hotel ice; one was in a room I stole from another guest...