uh-oh... Da Ven has taken umbrage...

That the hooligans in Canada got off with a slap on the wrist... or rump as he puts it. My bad.

He's getting authoritarian in his advancing years. Get on the subject of hockey and the US vs Canada..... well you get volatile feelings hey. Because Boston won... (yay???) ??????

My Dad grew up where sports were fair, and you have your issues with opposing teams, and all that, but fairness counts. Another era, another time. I think he gets very angry about people misbehaving at a sports event, and then nearly rioting or something.... haven't followed the story exactly, just browsed the headlines and shrugged because it isn't anything new to me.

But it seems to have offended his code of 'what you DO'. Sports, fairness, and yeah, you can rag on someone, tease them if your team is up and the other's is down, but you don't go breaking beer bottles over their heads, or go out setting fires and causing mayhem because your team lost.

And that is the correct attitude to take. I'm not sugar-coating the pill here.

But times changed... and some Canadians, who are portrayed in the 'media' as 'nice but sort of clueless', are anything but. I think they're sort of Wild West, and if a fist can solve an argument, they will use them.

I will tell y'all a story. (Gawwwd, I feel old this afternoon...) I was on shift at work at the Olympic Village cafeteria, mindnumbingly boring stuff. Would unpack stuff and put them on trays to be taken to one of the five kitchens on rolling trolleys. When I didn't have a ton of grapes washing in a machine, and the noise was hellish.

Well right at the beginning, I'd gotten caught 'stealing' a grapefruit. The list said four, there were five, so I put the fifth into a container to smuggle home for my breakfast after my night shift. We were only getting packaged crap to eat at that point and doing trial runs. And I had this hyper German tiny guy named Hobus for a boss, and he was a big-wig in one of the most prestigious hotels in Germany. It was right at the beginning of my work there, and he wanted to show us how to package something for the trolleys, and wouldn't you know, grabbed the container I'd hidden the grapefruit in.

He took one look, and said, 'This can ONLY have been the American! Explain yourself!' Embarassing? Died inside. I explained there had been one more than on the list and had wanted it for breakfast. BTW.... you say grapefruit in southern Germany and Austria.... but in the North? The word is Pampelmuse.

My colleagues gave me hell during the break. 'How the hell could you be so stupid? Only Amis eat Pampelmusen!' (Yeah, you learn something every day, hey. ) When the shift ended, 'der' Hobus threw me the grapefruit, and said, 'Next time, ASK', and I could see he was about to bust himself for laughing. Embarassed to the nth degree, hey.

Thus began a weird relationship with 'der Hobus'. I was always joking and laughing with everyone, and his stock phrase was 'B! Mach kein Blödsinn!' (Stop goofing around.) Well I was working, but my mouf wouldn't stop. And he would go off chuckling. 'Mach kein Blödsinn!'. I guess you could say he liked me.

So, you ask, what the hell does that have to do with Canadians, and violence, and so on? It's just background so you can appreciate it better.

I was washing grapes one night, which was so mindless, you could go nuts, when 'der Hobus', came running in out of breath. As I said, he was tiny, only came up to my shoulder, and I was only five foot nine back then... shrunk since.

He was out of breath and yelled 'B!!!!'

'Yes Sir?''

'Do you have nerves of steel?' (I thought 'Whaaaa?' and was cautious...)

'Errm, sometimes...'

'Come with me, hurry.'

Everyone watched fascinated. and we went outside to the entrance.

'Can you get rid of this?'

There was a mess of blood on the pavement. And I looked at him surprised and said, 'Is THAT all? You've never worked a childrens matinee in a movie theater and gotten rid of the puke on the carpets. Get me a mop and cleaning stuff, pronto.' He looked relieved. He did and I cleaned it up.

I later learned it had been a confrontation between two hot-blooded Canadians fighting over a girl. I had to keep mum about it, which I did. As far as I know, that was the only bloody confrontation among the 140o employees, and they got sent home. It was supposed to be the games of peace... till the terrorists ruined it all.

Lesson? You don't mess with young hot-blooded Canadians.

Well... 'der Hobus' saw me in a different light for the rest of the summer. If there was an extra grapefruit/pampelmuse, he'd throw it to me at the end of a shift, with a smile and say, 'Mach kein Blödsinn'.

Over the decades... much changed. The rich-poor gap became wider and wider. The 'hooligans' are in a place where their only heroes are soccer players, and teams. They usually have no way out of their circumstances, and their teams are their own triumphs, that is how they feel. It's a piss-poor lack of edumacation they have, but is all they have. And they get frustrated, and fuel themselves with booze, and get like the Canadian guys that night, and violent. And the worse the economy gets, and the more trapped they become, the more dangerous they are.

I'm not going all bleeding heart liberal here, but I 'think' I know what fuels it... disregard, poverty, anger at not having their own lives, not seeing a way out...

No, they don't deserve just a slap on the wrist, they need to know that actions have consequences. But it is the underlying reasons that cause this that make me want to punish the people who are responsible for making them that way.

Just various and sundry thoughts...

Da Ven sort of vented about the Canadians going hooligan after losing to Boston in some hockey game. He should never want to be a soccer fan in Europe.

I saw a game live.... once. In Berlin. In the stadium Hitler had built for the '33 Olympics. It was so impressive, architecturally. Intimidating and skeery. The home team lost, but there was camaderie, but that was 'back then'. And all I could think was, 'so this is where Jesse Owens humiliated Hitler.'

What later developed wasn't so interesting, and more annoying. Riots. Hooligans, who currently get a huge police presence when they arrive and accompany them to the stadium... which had an interim re-naming to the Arnold Scharzenegger Stadium and after he pissed off the city officials, got re-named to the original Liebenauer Stadium. Long story.

I took a trip to Rome in the late Seventies. It was the one city I disliked on sight. Athens fascinated me, and I fell in love. Rome? I hated it. So I jumped ship after having spent one morning in the Vatican museums, which were way too much to absorb, and fled to Salerno, only because I'd read it was on the sea, and knew that a very bloody WWII battle was fought there. It was a pure vacation place, steep mountains falling to the strip of the city, a long strip of promenade, with the most amazing acts on it... the local version of Punch and Judy, which originated there during the time of Comedia dell'arte, and it was full of vacationing Italians, so I got a brush up on my speaking skills. Took day trips to Pompeii, and Amalfi. Unforgettable, and just what I needed to relax and fill my head with knowledge.

The bus ride to Pompeii was hair-raising. People had chickens in coops on the baggage racks above the seats, and we swerved along mountainsides where everything was so steep, I thought I had made a bad decision, but everyone ELSE was calm, so I went with it. You do that when you're young and fearless.

I was down there for a week, it was inexpensive, and wonderful, and what I needed. Just some solitude. I knew I was falling in love, and wanted to sort it out and be clear in my mind about whether that was what I wanted.

Two days before I was supposed to be back to work, I returned to Rome taking an evening train there and was absolutely freaked when I got to Roma Termini, the station. It was crawling with humanity. What I hadn't known was that the World Cup Soccer Tournament had just ended, and everyone in the wuuurrrrrld was leaving. I was lucky to get on, it was packed.

And landed sitting on my suitcase near the WC door on one car, and it was wall to wall people, yelling, screaming, and I had to keep moving for all the people wanting to void in the toilet one way or another, and had a hysterical English kid drunk out of his gourd who gave me a play by play re-run of all the games in complete 'euphoria'. He brought back all the stress I had managed to lose. People were piled up sleeping in the corridors.

I'm claustrophobic at best, and it was my night in Hell. And I kept thinking, 'I've got to get OUT of here!' but I didn't 'know' any other cities on the route, so I held on to Venice in my head.

It takes twelve hours to travel by train from Rome to Venice. That far.

But I learned some things, although I was more than annoyed at the time.

Once in Venice, I put my suitcase in a locker, took a boat to the Lido, and a bus to the southernmost end, where there was a nude beach. High dunes, sort of magical, and I crashed out and finally slept. There was a train going back to Graz in the evening, you see, and I thought the horror would be over.

But before I got the boat, I'd run into Jimmy Carter for the second time on that trip. Early morning, he was out jogging with his secret service agents... I'd already seen him in Rome, going somewhere... he and Rosalynn waving, and the Romans sort of shrugging as if to say, WTF? It was weird, as in, 'Can't I have a minute here???'

When I got up to go back, there was this letch who followed me on the bus back to Santa Maria Elisabetta, where the ferries back to the city go, and he was fat, toothless, and kept running his tongue over his lips laciviously, and all I wanted to do was laugh, and thought 'Fellini makes documentaries'.

The train home was quiet, I got in at seven, began work a half-hour later, and life became normal again.

What was extraordinary about soccer fanatics then became magnified, but I sort of understand. I've met many since. They scrape everything they have together just to see their HE-roes. They live through them vicariously. They live and breathe the game. Because their lives aren't so exciting. And they are sort of a sad sort of group.

And the more poor they became, the more violent.

It's just a guess.

People can be very sad.

Tomorrow... as everyone in the US knows...

IS Superbowl. Let's clear up some facts regarding this, ok????

I would NEVER even mention shit if the Packers weren't in the finals this year. I wouldn't.

I HATE American football. My brother got hurt playing it on the street, and I hate it. Period.

However... my progenitor LURVS him some Packers, to the point of having gone to Wisconsin (where's dat?) to see them play.

I am sort of Churchill 'no sports', although I did like watching baseball and even went to Boston to see the Red Sox... Once... I loved playing basketball in grade school... as a sawed-off little shot-gun, and scared people by being ferocious. I wasn't big, but I knew how to score points.

I 'think' I know how cricket works, after closely listening to my cousins grill a young English airman in Munich's Hofbräuhaus. Gawwwd, was he cute. He 'might' have spent a bit more time with me... if one of his comrades wasn't totally wrecked and he had to see him home... understandable, oh, how regrettable... and the funny thing was, he wasn't lying. And was all 'Yup, Ok, understand' thinking, oh cripes, why me?' You don't get 'cute' that often. What a near miss, and he was in regret mode as well, said so, quietly. And had interesting tatoos.

Soooo... yeah, I play and played the game. Jock fan, right? Except most sports turned me off? Well, I did skate with fervour, but that won't get me any points.... I loved skating, and worked hard at it. It was using your entire body, and being expressive, and oh wow, you could knock yourself out playing that one as well. Literally. Knock yourself out. That's why I'm wonky today.

(Shakes self awake again....)

Ok, Ven.. Your Sunday is gonna be about five times what I see what Oscar nite means to me, ok? I Know dat... Yup... And I KNOW you are gonna be snuggled up to your tee-vee and have some brewskis, and may have my brother drop in, or a neighbor, and just go off the charts for guys goin' wild over testosterone-built up GUYS knocking the crap out of one another just to get a ball down the field.

Yes, that is cynical, and yes, probably not fair.... but I hope you have one hell of a time watching, and that your team wins that friggin' thing.

My only preparation was going shopping for the weekend. I got toilet paper. If you need any, give me a call, am well stocked. (smile)

And above all... have fun.

Facts I NEVER knew about the Green Bay Packers

This is for 'da Ven.... It is superbowl weekend, after all.... And Rachel knows an awful lot.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

oh... The World Cup in soccer....

This is like a month-long Superbowl. You will not believe how much passion goes into the fans. Have never paid all that much attention to it. However.....

Am just off the phone with Peter. This stuff is so nationalistic, you could barf. It is NOT like the Olympics.

Yesterday I was in Gamlitz, and went out for a snigarette, and Frau Lübbe was nearly hysterical, because the Germans didn't win their game in the first round. 'Oh, the poor Germans!' And I thought, WHAA????? And said I was GLAD they didn't win. She was shocked. Asked me why. And I said, 'Listen, they've always got a big mouf, they are arrogant, insulting, and I don't like them because they think they are better than everyone else.'

'I would only root for the Austrians.'

'WE DIDN'T make it in to the finals!' (sob, sob....)

And we got into the US team, and she wanted to know if they would beat Slovenia.

'You aren't rooting for the US?'

I shrugged, and said, I have no preference, the best should win, although I do like underdogs....

This fascinated the oldies in the lobby.

'I do not like arrogance.'

Well, the US did get a tie against Slovenia, and of course it was supposedly a bad call by a judge on the field that prevented the 'winning' goal......

So they are still in the game despite that.

What BOTHERS me is the nationalistic aspect.

Have never been 'into' soccer. It's like baseball. I have TRIED and tried to explain baseball to Europeans. Their eyes glaze over, I swear. Or try to have someone exactly explain what the rules of cricket are.... some of you have expereienced that one, but it was in the Hofbräuhaus in Munich, and I didn't really get it....

Whatever.... every four years, the World Cup happens, sort of like a Harry Potter sort of 'happening', and it gets sort of creepy.

(I have a brain fart on the sport he was into.)

But I had an interesting conversation with Peter just now about this. Since his nursing home is near the Slovenian border, there is one nurse from there whom I do not especially like. We got off on the wrong foot. She is one of those long tall blondes with dead brown eyes who turn me completely off immediately.

Bad chemistry between us.

And this is where it gets 'interesting'.....

Peter told me she was over the moon because the Serbians had won over the Germans, although I think it was a tie.

W'hich got us into a discussion about the nationalistic stuff.

And validated a lot of what I have said over the years.

She's Slovenian. She backed the Serbs. The Serbs 'ruled' Yugoslavia for decades. They had all the top positions. The nationals like her people and the Croats, and the Montenegrans and the others never had a say in what direction the nation should go. And there was war, and they separated into separate states, and on the surface, it looks ok....

Well, to quote my bio-Mom, 'LET MR TELL YOU ONE THING!'... This stuff is impossible.

People do not forgive, over generations.

And it is absolutely STUPID to expect that.

Case in point: had a tour group in the ho-tel, and liked the guide from the UK... and she liked me.... And one evening she asked me to meet a 'Lady'. And I thought, 'Kay, will meet someone nice...' The guide gave me a glowing review, and she was 'gracious' and asked me were I was from. When I told her, her eyes blazed with more anger than I have ever seen, and she spat out: 'Ya damned YANKEE!'

I excused myself, and said I was sorry, but it was an accident of birth... and got the hell out.

So 'maybe' you can understand my being uncomfortable with all this stuff. It isn't about the sport, and yeah, in 'Murka it gets into rivalry, and so on. I just do not like the nationalistic crap that comes out of it here...

To end on a 'fun' note: The Venerable confessed he tried to play that game once in Lowell, MA. He tried a head pass, and it hurt so bad, he relegated himself to other postitions. I suppose that he didn't KNOW that only cement blockheads can do that. And Rachel Maddow told Olberman she had got knocked out the first time at ten years old, doing a head-pass. Whereupon he asked, 'Ummm... the FIRST time?' She said she would save the rest so he would keep her on....

That was funny.

Oh dear.....

Last nite was the first half of the semi-finals in soccer. Germany vs. Turkey. Germany won, 3 to 2. What a tragedy. The Turks played brilliantly, the Germans not so much. But got lucky at the last minute.

That is the game, hey.....

But what was 'dangerous'.... There are over 2 million Turks who live in Germany. Really. And you would 'expect' that you would have riots in the streets if they lost. Not so. They just think they 'half-won' because Germany is their home too.

They can be the most generous, wonderful people you could ever run into.

And fair losers? There were never any better, and all I can say is 'respect'. and Bravo.

And sorry they lost.

Did I mention our local media sucks?

Well, it really does.

Last nite I was over at my neighbors, googling for missing and displaced persons, because his English is nearly nil. And around 11 pm there was such a cheering and hollering out on the square. The last game of the quarter finals in the soccer championships had ended. Whoever won has to go into the semi finals against the big-mouthed Germans, and it was Turkey vs. Croatia. So I asked Werner for a break so I could check the local paper on-line and see who won. (He detests soccer.) Opened a new tab, and there it was, zero-zero, they went over-time, 11 meter goal kicks. Knock out round. And the paper said Croatia won, 1:0.

I was sort of disappointed. And I said, 'Man, the Croats make the Turks sound like Orfins in comparison.' What a bunch of noise. And little car corsos with honking concerts and people ruining their vocal cords.

Whatever. This morning, got up to do my weekend chores, was concentrated for a change, didn't lose my keys, and all. Turned on the tee-vee, and whaddaya know. They got it wrong. TURKEY won. I was delighted. (Ever notice how I somehow always support the underdogs? Hmmm.....)

That semi-final game is gonna be very very tense. Germany has millions of Turks in the country. The team isn't as skilled, maybe, but always find their heart and win at the last possible minute. They have the pluck to do it. And I hope they do. The Germans won't recover for another 36 years. They are already shitting their collective pantses, yes, Preciousses....

Today I got a Befund, a diagnosis from a doctor I saw in March. Herrgottnochmal, fix! I'm supposed to present this to the pension people. If you were to see it you would be afraid of me, very afraid. Extremely depressive was just the beginning. Gawww, what did they DO to me, hey? This is all so perverse, I am absolutely SPEECHLESS.

Need to digest it.

So you win again, you win again, you LOSER....

That is what I woke up to. Couldn't get a channel to watch the game. So turned on the local radio, fell asleep and that is the first thing I woke up to.

Leave it to Austrians to give you some lip, hey.

It was an honourable defeat. They got one goal, we didn't, so they played very well, but we're knocked out of the games.

They kept saying they were going to 'kill us 5 to 1'. Uh-huh.....

Chuzpe.

For the rest of it, not interested. I saw my hair-cutter Enver on the square this morning. He is from Turkey, and I congratulated him on the Turkish's team winning the night before. 'Nice game,' I said. 'Well played.' He was taken aback. 'You mean football?' And I said 'yes, of course. Congratulations.'

He isn't used to people being fair and gentlemanly to him. Freaked him out.

The best win. And you respect that. Ours wasn't, but they at least showed them we aren't dish rags.

And the bloody Germans will continue to look down on us forever.

Eeeeewwwww.

What can you do, hey.

Today is the Hammer.....

For days, the German and Austria media have been off the charts for insults to one another on this World Cup game, which is why I hate them. And tonight we see who is the better team. It's a psycho war. Who can set the other team off balance. I just hope we can give Germany a couple of slaps in the face.

So yes, tonight is the night. If we cream the big-mouthed Germans, they won't forgive us. Vienna doesn't just have the stadium full. Forty thousand German fans fell into the city today. They have HUGE live screen transmitions all over the place, and there are gonna be 200 000 people out there, tanked up with beer and screaming. It is awful, believe me.

But I hope ours just kick their asses. They'll be traumatised for another thirty years.

But as the saying goes, 'if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' We will see.

And the best will win, and if we do, Germany goes home.

Oh, I so hope we do.

And I do not care about the rest. I saw my barber Enver this morning, and he greeted me heartilly out on the square, and I said, 'Oh, congratulations on the outcome of the games last night.' Turkey won over the Czechs. And the latter play dirty. And he said, you mean the soccer? ' And I said, 'oh yes, that second half was one fine game. How nice.' And he 'beamed' at me.

(I'd been translating some stuff for my neighbor, and his window faces the square. He had the window open, and all of a sudden there was this hullabaloo out there, people yelling out of cars, flags waving on them, they got into the fourth finals, and the Turks won over the Czechs. It was awesome. And honking like after weddings, when they are only going to be later divorces. With flags waving on the cars and the fans yelling out the windows.) But now it comes....

Austria as little brother with only 8 million people against big brother Germany with 80 million.

Oh how Í sincerely hope that we kick them out of them into oblivion. It is the only game that interests me, and the media has been despicable.

We will most likely lose... but I hope they fuck them over anyway with a goal or two.

Either way, they get humiliated....

And I WILL LIKE IT.

So bring it on, youse guys. Am sick of the insults.

Show us your Macho thing, and how you go into Mimosa mode.

And shit your pants, hey...

And to rinse and repeat, this is going to be the only game that interests me, because the press is so insulting and dirty, you could barf. And it is REALLy dirty....

Soon to begin... Oh my....

I wish my team does well.

I had to swallow enough When I was poor, and didn't know how to protect myself.

Oh oh, am gonna have to get out my boxing gloves, oh Yes

Concerning the World Cup soccer games, of course.....

Even Peter's 93 year old aunt watches, and mailed me about them yesterday. Uh-huh. I had to be very very polite, believe me. Because this is The Superbowl raised to the tenth power, and I am so not joking. I've never followed soccer much, but when it happens every two years, you simply can't avoid it, whether tee-vee news, or papers, or people you talk to on the street. And you must at least know what is going on.

This year, Austria is co-hosting the games with Switzerland. The Swiss already got knocked out of the games in the quarter finals, which aren't over yet. And CNN and the media in Germany were all, pooh-poohAustria is the weakest team in the league, but WTF, they're co-hosting it so wish them luck.

Not any more, hey....

Well, Germany really messed up with Croatia yesterday, and are FREAKED, I tell you, absoutely Freaked! Because they have this attitude, and a very bad superiortity complex. Or the press does, better said.... And they have to play against Austria in Vienna, of all places. On Monday. And they have to get at least one goal more than we do or they get eliminated from the games. What joy.

Peter was doing Snoopy dances in his wheelchair this morning. Schadenfreude? That is an understatement although he also never regularly follows soccer.

There is a historic context for all this. In the late Seventies we had the same situation. I hadn't paid much attention to it at the time, but walked into town one evening to go to work. It was a complete ghost town, no one on the street, but all the windows open and televisions blaring. And twice everybody started screaming, and yelling and waving out the windows, and dancing on balconies, and I thought, 'What in gawd's name is going ON here?' And there was this famous yell: 'GOAL!! GOAL!! GOAL!!! 'i werd narrisch' (I'm going crazy....) The Austrians eliminated the Germans from the quarter finals in Cordoba.

Peter had to give me a crash course in what was going on. Our place was full of Germans. It has been a never-healing wound on their soul ever since, believe me. And no, I don't think the Austrians won that year, but it's been a badge of honour for Austrian soccer players ever since.

The German news is ratcheting it up today. (Whine, whine.... Hansi Krankl said 'it's going to be like Cordoba.' They still have a phobia after so many years? ''How is it going to affect our boys, and putting on psychological pressure?' Hey, since when did the national German soccer team get Mimosa genes? Gimme a break.)

Get a backbone or something....

And just to be clear.... I don't understand soccer rules. And I hate the nationalistic thing that goes with it, all the flags and the drunken unruly mobs, and the flag waving and so on. But I so wish that our team just give them a little slap on the cheek, and put them in their place for a while.

Not to much to ask, I think. And then they can hate us for another thirty years. Snoopy dance. We'll see Monday.

Update: One of their best players got the red card yesterday, and can't play on Monday, he threw a player to the ground, purposely. Dyes his hair white-blonde, he does. I wouldn't want to have his name. Schweinberger. A Schwein is a pig. His fans call him 'Schweindi' 'piggy'. Now THAT is something to be proud of.... Or not?

I will never understand them., Nevah.

Na ja, back to bed. My head hurts, and I want to see the German journalists heads explode. That would be Sooooo nice...

Oh je, here we go again....

The world cup soccer games began yesterday. Austria and Switzerland are hosting them. The Germans are horrible, as per usual. In the sense that they think they are sooooo wonderful. They get on everyone's nerves.

So time to turn off the tee-vee, and go underground. People here go nuts over these games, and Somebody or other shot a couple of goals this evening, and all of a sudden there was a hell of a hullabaloo out on the streets.

The Germans won over Poland tonight. So here we go again.... Back to dvd's. I hate the whole nationalistic thing, and the drunken mobs who growl out their battle songs and can't carry a tune, and then and go wild in the streets after a game.

And they all run around waving their flags.

Gimme a break.