What Is Wenger Not Telling Arsenal Fans

In sunny Florida, few baseball teams are as anxious to get back to spring training as the Oakland A’s.  Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s, can't wait for his 2013 team to take the field on opening day.  Beane is better known as one of the more popular characters Brad Pitt has played in the movies, (Moneyball).

Across the pond in the chilly dark and damp soil of the English Premier League, Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal FC is leading a fifth place team into the last leg of the season, some 21 games behind the leader, Manchester United. The end of the season may not come soon enough for the beleaguered French-born Wenger.

Beane and Wenger share more than a job title and attitudes, they share a philosophy borne out of a need to make their small market clubs competitive in a highly unbalanced sports league. Both teams had once dominated their leagues and were perennially headed for the championships. Today, the Oakland A's and Arsenal need to do more with less -- again.

Both Arsenal and the Oakland A’s play in a league dominated by rival teams that can spend their way to a championship, buying the best players and giving the fans what they want: trophies. 

While Billy Beane has enjoyed his new celebrity, following the film Moneyball and a spectacular 2012 season in which the A's brought a prestigious trophy back to Oakland, Wegner has been all but tarred and feathered by Arsenal fans.  

Mid-way into the season, Wenger could not sign a prized striker and had to let him go to a money-rich Manchester United. Now Robin van Persie is tearing up the league.  Wenger has also failed to sign anyone who could replace Persie during the transfer window.  

All this occurred at the same time as Arsenal ticket prices have increased, annoying fans who were used to watching their team dominate the English Premier League. Nostalgic to a fault, the Arsenal fans have protested bitterly in countless blogs, calling for Wenger’s head because he’s failed to bring home the cherished vanity silverware to the posh North London club.

The taciturn Wenger has shown the strain under the pressure. At a press conference this past week the soft-spoken Wegner parried with querulous sports writers, refusing to answer questions because reporters were conducting it more like a mock trial than a press interview.

Outside the Emirates Stadium, fans were carrying placards calling for a mea culpa and booing Wenger after a home game loss to a lesser club in a lower league. The fan blogs convey a profound frustration over Wenger's refusal to spend money. 

Arsène Wenger has tried to allay their fears but the fans are not hearing what he’s not saying. Wenger refuses to discuss off-the-field business with sports writers or fans.

As club manager for Arsenal the past 16 years, he has been lauded as as a brilliant on-field manager as well as a crafty general manager who has built a career on knowing when to sell a player when his value was high. 

Wenger may be the only manager in English or European football with a degree in economics. He rarely lets on to anyone about the off-the-field role of the manager or how he works with the Board. Because he refrains from disclosing much information it is impossible to understand the constraints Wenger must face.

One of the constraints may be working with an absentee American billionaire owner who asks for a profit. Perhaps Wenger is limited to operating on thin margins and no rewards. Whatever the problems, Wenger is keeping them to himself, which gives rise to more speculation.

The best insights into that role comes from Billy Beane, who can relate to the job of turning one of the poorest teams in baseball into a profitable and competitive team --- at a fraction of the budget of the New York Yankees and other big money teams. 

“When I think of Arsene Wenger," Beane says. " I think of Warren Buffett. Wenger runs his football club like he is going to own the club for the next one hundred years.”

From time to time Wegner has reject the prevailing opinion of the fans, traditional English football pundits and reclusive owners when it comes to buying big name players. The transfer season is an open seller market of players with inflated prices and Wenger admits to looking at players but when the window closed, Arsenal didn't spend a Farthing simple because the data doesn't support it. 

Wenger is smart enough to know that with his budget he could never compete in an era of inflationary paychecks and rising costs. Instead, he may have turned to finding a way through numbers and data to help making the club more efficient. This sounds suspiciously like “soccernomics”, the European equivalent to Moneyball.

In a rare admission during one of the many nasty post-game interviews with sports writers, Wenger was asked about a loss to one of the lower-level clubs and whether it was time to bring in a highly skilled players to challenge the league leaders for the remainder of the season. Wenger shot back,” I don’t think anyone realizes that we are the only team in the Premier League that is making a profit.”

His comment went largely un-noticed and unchallenged by sports writers. Wenger must know that the two Manchester teams are not making enough revenues to service their rising debt, despite Manchester United’s Initial Public Offering (IPO). Manchester City, now in second place, revealed it is spending some $200M US alone on trades, transfer and the like, well beyond its means. Compare this figure to what was forecast in 2013 for all Premier League teams  spending: $300M US in player acquisition. 

Arsenal is not in the same league as Manchester City when it comes to spending money.

Recently, Beane, who is finally getting the attention he deserves at the winter baseball meetings, knows about fan revolts and attacks from sports writers. For the first time in his career Beane is a celebrity among men who had mistakenly discounted him during the past decade.

It seems unlikely Arsenal fans and the Board will give Wenger much more time to prove his methodology: to build a competitive level team without going into bankruptcy. 

After Arsenal's loss in the Champions League on Tuesday, British sports writers and pundits were back in their offices throwing dirt over Wegner’s career. This loss, on the heels of another loss last week, will mean Arsenal will have no trophies from the 2012-13 season. 

Wenger will have failed to bring back trophies to North London. Somewhere, someone will remember in the future that it was Wenger who last delivered a profitable and a winning season.

It is unlikely his critics or fans will ever comprehend Wenger’s lasting contribution at Arsenal. Being a man of few words, he may have to go somewhere else for a while and wait for the rest of European football to arrive at where he’s been all along..

Lucky Charms Needed for Irish Filmmaker

Irish filmmaker calling on the wee people for funding help

NOTE TO READERS: Lessons Learned. This funding project (Harmonica Blues, below) came up short, no pun about the wee people intended. I learned a lot from the experience, and I believe that with my other projects:

1- I will ask for a larger amount to fund the project. We asked for too little. People are more likely to be a part of something larger than their day-to-day lives. I don't mean raising super huge amounts of money, but a respectful amount.

2- I will have more marketing collaborators involved in marketing a film with posters, trailers and other promotional material at least one year before the funding drive begins. 

3- I will do more research along the way in terms of learning what people are looking for in a movie in which they can participate. Mostly, people who give money want to be a part of the FUN. This is their ticket to get into a fun project, where they might even get to name a character, suggest a story line or come up with a fabulous "movie line", even a tag line. And even get a film credit for it. 

4. Next, I think it's important to focus on the film's story, not just the script.  What is the vision for the film? Why make it?  A script is an evolving document, a blueprint on paper, while the story cuts through to the heart. The story is beyond the words of actors, it is the feeling people get when they hear a story.  Message: Serve the story not the script.

5. Lastly, too often in the film world there is the race to have a hot writer, a hot acting talent, or a hot script to raise money. Well, inflated hype does not serve the story. And besides, who knows what the f**k is  "hot" is anymore. Stick to the fundamental of making a story the best it can be. Focus on what is real, not crowd funding hype. (Sure, a measure of promotion is needed and it can be clever, but the craft of telling a story has to be there. ) 
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When I am not writing this blog, I am working on several screenplays and pitches scattered here and there across the known universe. Recently I got word from Alan Walsh, a gifted Irish director, who tells me that Harmonica Blues, the script we'd been working on as co-writers the past three years, is now ready for production.

With a polished script in hand, a veteran crew, and a superb cast we're now ready. All that's needed is funding and the clock is ticking. The funding cycle ends just six days before St. Patrick's Day.

Walsh intends to raise the money from "crowd funding", a venture now common among independent filmmakers who have watched traditional sources of film funding dry up in the wake of austerity measures. 

As of this writing, there are 20+ days to raise the money. 

As a co-writer on Harmonica Blues, I am keen to see these actors in roles I helped create. After working with them on paper, I crave to see them come alive on film. 

I invite you to take a look at the Fundit film project for Harmonica Blues.

You will see a brief description of the story along with a short promotional trailer.

This is not just a film, this is an entertaining collective work from people who have put it all on the line to make their dreams come true.

We appreciate your support.

A Touch of Brazilian Magic

The magic of Brazilian futebol was always calling me to play

Since returning to Canada and its arctic winters I've had plenty of time to read in the long dark nights, and I've found a wonderful book to provide solace to my saudades. 

The book explains to me in a palpable way what makes futebol so special, or more to the point, what makes Brazilian futebol players so good. The answer goes beyond the sport and soccer can't be divided from Brazil anymore than Brazil cannot be separated from the beautiful game it nurtured from birth. 

Alex Bellos, the author of Futebol,The Brazilian Way of Life, has produced a masterly work of literary journalism in telling that story in a succinct and moving way. It is a story that is bigger than the country where the sport is played in with the passion of a new religion.

I originally wrote this piece below as part of Temporary Carioca a travelogue I kept during my visit to Rio de Janeiro a few years ago. I can no longer play soccer as I did once, and during my stay it was difficult to keep any pace in 35 + Celcius temperatures with even the most minor effort. Yet, the soccer gods played with me, taunting me to forget the heat and play a free-spirited game on the beach, in the alley or at the schoolyard. 

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Throughout my stay in Rio I found that there was rarely a day I did not see or hear a futbol being kicked somewhere across my path. All too often at night I could hear players yelling from a nearby indoor club where balls bounced heavily on a concrete wall next to our bedroom.

Occasionally on the street I would run across a ball that had been kicked over a fence from a nearby sandlot. Wearing sandals I took my time kicking it back. At 40 Celsius I was content to retrieve balls only. Sometimes a ball found its way through a crowd at Ipanema beach, arriving at my feet, enticing the soccer player within to show off his stuff. “Come on, man.” Instead I put a foot to the ball and made a simple pass direct to a dozen or more young people who had a lifetime of show-stopping heroics ahead of them.

Wayward soccer balls have always had a way of finding me, then urging me to come back to the sport if only for a moment of reflected glory. I had kicked makeshift balls made of rubber and clothing strung together while playing on a makeshift field near a village on the way to Mt. Everest in Nepal. Once I found a game in Guatemala City when a team needed a player to even a side. In Mexico at high elevation I played a portion of a game before the altitude and heat got to me so they made me a referee for the rest of the game. In England I played games on a village road well into the night with two brothers keen to have someone to play against. As a youth in Colorado, decades before soccer became popular in North America, I kicked a ball against walls and fences at university as a way of seeking equanimity in a turbulent world of my own making.

One night while walking along a beach in Cabraglia in the state of Bahai, I came across a game being played on a worn tennis court. The players wore old tennis shoes and some played barefoot, yet their skills were well advanced at a tender age. Then extraordinarily an errant ball flew into the air and bounced well out of bounds and came to a stop on the sand, confronting me. Giant waves from the Atlantic crashed not a few meters away in the last light of day. This particular ball dared me to take it ---skillfully. The young men were watching. I knew that local custom demands that when a ball arrives it is imperative to control it with style. Wearing sandals I flipped the ball on my right foot. Then I put the ball to my left foot and guided the ball back along the pavement, bringing it back to the eager players anxious to get on with their game.

What is a carioca? 

I coveted the moments. This was no ordinary ball and I was no ordinary gringo. I was respectful with the ball, it was the sum of all those feet that had touched it over its time. I passed on my inside left foot to their coach standing on the sideline 20 meters away. He nodded as he guided the ball effortlessly from his foot, up his leg as if it were on a string, bounced it on his knee and in mid-air, shot it flying back to the young men. The show was as much for me as for the players. With a respectful glint in our eyes, we two old warriors shared a touch of Brazilian magic between us, and with the future, the present and the past.

Something Rare About Manchester United

Robin van Persie brings new life to MUFC

Last August, I wrote a post about Manchester United's IPO.  I found it odd at the time that a club that had some 660 million fans worldwide could not bump up the stock price from its initial $14 US per share on the NYSE. Today, the stock is 15.50, a jump of $1.50, which won't even buy you a cup of coffee on Wall Street. 

I thought that a team with a lead of seven points over its closest rival, Manchester City, last year's English Premier League's champion, would stir the market. Or the fact, that its best player was secured in a trade that has paid huge dividends and made Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager, look like a genius. 

Arguably the biggest brand in the English Premier League, Manchester United has also become something of a show stopper. Its defense has allowed teams even from bottom of the table to score with impunity, then with time running out the team charges back and has won a number of astonishing come-from-behind wins or ties.

And then with Wayne Rooney, the team's mainstay at striker, out with an injury for much of the season, Robin van Persie (RPV), shows up without missing a beat and gives the team a new face at striker. It must have been sugar on the pudding for United to watch RVP score against Liverpool last weekend.

For the most part, Manchester United has made everything look easy in spite competing in a highly inflated transfer market, which will probably reach more than $400 million leaving a lot of teams bleeding red ink.

With the kind of season MUFC is having, the club may even raise its stock price.

Is Canada Losing Its Democracy?

Idle No More defies Stephen Harper

Nearly two years have elapsed since the last Canadian federal election. I wrote about that election in a post about how Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper  could have a free rein since he'd won a convincing majority. What I could not have foreseen was how firmly in the grip he was of the oil and gas industry. Or to what lengths he would go to bypass governance in order to swindle the public.

I really didn't expect much from the man, given that he is a toady of the Christian right-wing evangelicals. He makes no excuses for being an acolyte for the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who have been frequent visitors to Alberta during Harper's reign.  

But in my wildest imagination I could not have foreseen how Canada could have fallen into the vile swamp that Harper envisions for this country. 

I mistakenly thought there would be some checks and balances to keep watch on Harper's doings. He had shown such disregard for Parliamentary procedures with a minority, what could he do with a majority? I wrote my concerns in a post two years ago in Conservatives Win A Majority: American Style.

Today, I see some Canadians realize they are awakening from their slumber and finding Stephen Harper is planning to sell Canada to the highest bidder. He and his party are so arrogant that they no longer disguise their plans, which include building a massive network of pipelines to service exports to China and the U.S.

Did I miss something?

Where were the public inquiries, the public input, the debates in the House of Commons? 

Where was the public outcry? After all, these pipelines will be built across pristine arctic wildlife refuges. Was the public involved or even informed?

For example, Harper has already initiated secretive legislation under the guise of a trade agreement with the innocuous sounding title of FIPA. But this treaty now gives Chinese energy conglomerates sovereign rights within Canada's borders. The Chinese can operate with impunity without environmental scrutiny. The Chinese companies can even sue Canadians for non-compliance measures under terms of the treaty, which will run for the next 31 years. 

Only the Green Party had read the fine print and objected to the measure. They had less than thirty days to comment and bring it before Parliament. Albeit many of the finer details remain obscured. The FIPA treaty with China was ratified on Halloween of this year with virtually no media involvement.

But this week, Harper is being called out by the First Natons leaders who are taking direct action under the banner of "Idle No More". 

Bands across Canada are coming together, because oil platforms, oil and gas pipelines are being planned without public participation. Moreover, new federal and provincial Conservative legislation is being targeted to subvert traditional First Nation land claim treaties, making it easier for oil and gas to exploit previously protected land from development.

This begs the question and no one in Parliament to my knowledge has asked it: 

Who does Harper truly represent? China? The oil and gas pipeline lobby?

Why are the citizens in Canada being left out of the equation?  

Will We End Up Like the Mayans?

Today, December 21, 2012, I bought a Moleskin daily pocket planner. I was feeling optimistic about the rest of the day and tomorrow even knowing we were at the end of the 13th Baktun, the last inscription in the Mayan calendar.

But I am not so sure our civilization will endure. Why? Because we are incapable of being in awe of anything, even our own existence on this planet.

Mayan temple at Tikal, Guatemala

For example in 2009, NASA scientists bombed the moon so they could find water or so they said. They could have destabilized this perfect sphere, failing to note that even a fraction of disturbance in the moon's trajectory would have wiped humanity off the planet.

The moon is our only close companion in our solar system. We are chemically connected to its gravitational pull. Our ancestors, including the Mayans, worshiped the moon.  Alchemists named the moon Luna after a goddess, and Monday is named in honor of the Moon. 

So to bomb our moon was a desecration of sorts. 

Just six years earlier, on Sept. 27, 2003 the asteroid designated SQ222 passed within 54,700 miles of earth. The asteroid was not even detected until after it hurtled by earth. Only then was it discovered that it was the closest known fly by of an asteroid -- ever.  

Some astronomers believe the moon’s gravitational pull may have deflected SQ222, thus saving the earth from a life-ending collision. Just as the moon has deflected countless other asteroids for millions of years. 

5,000 years of records ends 12- 21-2012

If we cannot be in awe of our existence, our planet and moon, how can we expect to endure as a civilization?

Here is my answer to the above question: 

Caught between trines & transits

I felt a planetary pull like

a pin ball bouncing between

karma and gravity.

I learned that life-ending debris

had sped by earth and we never saw

it coming – like a splitter cut fastball

thrown by Rivera to close out

the inning.

No wiser from our brush with

fate we continue on, gone badly wrong.

Our bakers don’t stay for long

after they visit the cookie dough
they left behind.

Why don’t they

take us back with them to the factory to

modify the recipe?

We’ve been trying to leave

this planet ever since we

could stand, and now we act

like we belonged here.

But this planet will survive us puny

interlopers, even when it becomes

barren rock, albeit less pristine 

than when we found it.

We failed as the planet’s steward

because we grew tired of it.

Such is the life of  organic

 space garbage.

Our prison is this planet if not

our skin. Inmates all of us

who suffer themselves then recycle

into compost, just so

much clay trying to trying to differentiate

ourselves other corrosive bits of cosmic

sludge. We only

fuck, eat or kill.

And like the Mayans,

who never came back from lunch break,

all we will leave behind

is a calendar.

How Not To Speed Date A Literary Agent

By chance I found myself sitting in front of a top literary agent ready to pitch a half-bake idea.

I was sleepy, under-prepared and had no idea what I was going to say after hello. 

It was the longest five minutes I've ever spent.

 Read here : Speed-dating a literary agent.