Contentiousness Galore

Greetings, gentle readers.
Once upon a time, in a university not so far away, I was a contributing reporter to a campus newspaper, and for a lark, I sent in a letter to the editor discussing why beautiful, intelligent, and attractive women always seem to end up dating brutish, insensitive clods, and complain to us sensitive guy-folk about why their dating lives are so miserable. I was in a situation where I had a number of really otherwise interesting women spend all of their time with me moaning about how their boyfriends were total jerks. Here I am years later, and the same problem keeps resurfacing. Women consciously or subconsciously choose the scummiest segment of the male population for romantic involvement, and although I confess that I'm by no means an example of male pulchritude, it seems to be fellows like me that not only get passed over, but are subsequently sought out as sources for consolation during the ensuing misery.
So why do women find arrogant bastards so attractive? And why do they walk into the same trap repeatedly without ever seeming to realize that their catastrophic love-lives are largely of their own making? And why have I been without a girlfriend since May, 2002? Is it my fragrance? A lack of pheromones? But back to the earlier questions...
According to current anthropological thought, women are driven by two considerations when seeking to find a mate: security and support. Desmond Morris postulates that the first thing a woman looks for is programmed into the historical psyche of femininity - the desire for an alpha male. In a hunter-gatherer society, it is logical in terms of survival and reproduction to want the biggest and the strongest male to donate his genetic material to a future child. After all, the big and the strong are most likely the best able to kill dinner and bring it home, as well as protect the family unit from things that see humans as dinner. The second consideration comes into play later. Who's going to help raise the child and give emotional support to the family unit?
This is where women get stuck. They want the same guy to do both things. The hulking brute who can bring down a woolly mammoth and fend off sabretoothed tigers is very rarely into Haagen-Dazs, Meg Ryan movies, and cuddling.
So when looking for a mate, the first thing that women find attractive, aside from physical appearance, is confidence. Confidence is usually closely linked to capability. It's also closely linked with abrasive arrogance. So the loud, strutting and obnoxious musclebound chowderhead with the wife-beater t-shirt and greasy trousers will have his pick of girlfriends, while Bill Gates at age 21 would be more likely to be struck by a meteor, a lightning bolt, and a freight train filled with wombats simultaneously than have a girl say any sentence longer than "You want fries with that?" to him.
The best way to express the situation, in terms of Jungian archetypes, is to say that women want to tame a wild stallion. If the rough, uncultured lout with the muscles can be changed into a polite and caring guy, he'd be the best kind and caring guy ever. Only problem is that no one I know has ever been successful at such a thing, and the American chat shows so prevalent on TV like Maury, Montel, and Oprah are filled with failed attempts. And in fact, most male pop-culture sex symbols tend to implode spectacularly, leaving behind widows and orphans. Jim Morrison was sexy. Jim Morrison is also dead. James Dean was sexy. He was also known as "the ashtray" because he liked to stub out cigarettes on his arms before he crashed his Porsche and died.
So what can I say? If people are preconditioned in terms of behaviour and preference, then most women are doomed to prefer guys like Kurt Cobain and Tommy Lee over lads like Peter Gabriel and Nicky Wire, and they'll keep falling into the same traps over and over again. I can only speculate on why, and I certainly don't have a recipe to fix things or people.
As for me, I'll just spew out a string of clichés. Romantically, I'm like 7-11. I may not be doing business, but I'm always open. And if love is a two-way street, right now all the traffic is on-coming. No one's going my way, and it's been like that for so long now that I've just relaxed and considered it normal. I'm so inured to the indifference of others that any woman that would actually want to spend time with me would have to smack me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper to convince me that someone cares.
But enough of that. Need to finish serving out my graveyard shift this morning and then rush home to play with Jim's PS/2 which he has so generously donated to my Vortex of Total Entertainment, a.k.a. My Basement. Fifa 2005 is the greatest thing since glueless spice racks.
So until next time, good night England and the colonies. Cheers,

-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^

Can I Repeat Myself? Can I?

Greetings, gentle readers.
Apparently I posted these poems back in June, and I'm trying to figure out how to insert tabs into these guys, so for now, just ignore the apostrophes. They're just place holders until I can work out a more permanent solution. But the thesis below won't make much sense without these poems around, so I'm posting them back up in close proximity to the analysis thereof.

song for a cracked earth

somewhere:
`in the icy nebulousness of altitude
``& that tremulous treble
` `of drifting clouds
` `weightless in the aether
` `aloft in a fugue of fleeting
` `images---forgetfulness is all.
`in sleep, near the darkness
` `distant mists of dreaming,
` `the substitute for substance
` `singing songs to empty evenings
` `crying endlessly for eternity.
`in dreams, ideas flying
` `amidst hazes of high-pitched
` `humming filling spaces
` `quiet spaces between
` `the waking memories.
`in remembrances cold & vague
` `motionless by moonlight
` `angles austere in the chill
` `isolation of that solitude.
`in that nowhere that is everywhere
` `there might be some of
` `you might find a piece of you
` `in me.
` ` `where we
` ` ` `can be
` ` ` ` `together.

-mARKUS



song from a cracked earth

alive and so
deep within me
in the darkened warmth
of our union
a joining of our
selves in the centre of our passion
we create the milky smooth
currents that melt
rough caresses into
the love of touching
breathing
wanting
to lie bare
naked below the earth
beneath the song for our
selves within a trembling embrace
holding hands
brushing thighs
you
kiss my eyelashes
and i
feel you through the shadows
smell the scent of you
in the heavy richness
of our stormy love
through the beatings of our hearts
of our heart
in the all too sweet
tender instant
of touch
when we can be together

-mARKUS

So there you have it. Read these, and then you can read the post-modern deconstruction of them in the post just below this one. Excelsior! Cheers, all.

-mARKUS
^+ Justice for the 96 +^

Guy-Wires and Dolly Grips.

Greetings, gentle readers.
I've been procrastinating about posting this thesis for far too long, and now that I'm on graveyard shifts, I actually have the time and opportunity to hammer the whole thing out. The paper actually starts out with the poems "song for a cracked earth" and "song from a cracked earth", and I think I've posted those already in this blog somewhere. I'll check later, and if they're not up, I'll retype them and post them up. Should probably do that anyway. Fifteen hour day at work today, so I've got loads of time.
The other reason I've finally gotten around to typing this thing out is because Liverpool turned in a truly dire performance today, and somehow I don't feel like talking about football when a team that Liverpool spanked in the Carling Cup with the junior 'B' squad humiliates the senior team in the Premiership. Barça whipped Réal Madrid, supporting my theory that they'll win La Liga, while being tanked out of the Copa del Rey. And Germany thrashed Cameroon, again confirming that my powers of prognostication are unprecedented. I love being right all the time.
Anyway, on with the thesis. It's a long one, so brace yourself, kids.

Cracked Earth Theory

Judeo-Christian mythology tells us that the first man and woman were derived from the same body. Once, there was human unity and harmony, but in the act of creating the two separate genders, something was lost. Even in this early literary tradition, male and female have not just been separated, they have been severed from one another. The course of history has been a journey of progressive alienation - a series of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and miscommunication between men and women. The lack of understanding which the sexes experience in dealing with one another has now become so great that even their languages have diverged. This paper is a look at two halves of humanity who have lost each other along the way, and the ways in which they plead to be together again.
First, it should probably be emphasized that not all people fit neatly into the essentialist categories of masculine and feminine. It should also be noted that it is not the categories or gender identities which speak, but people, whose psychological compositions are complex manifestations of identities. What is crucial to understanding the issues at stake is the understanding that language, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ, and that words have organized themselves into separate camps associated with gender. The consistency with which certain words or phrases are used in gender-specific circumstances is remarkable. It is this division of language, echoing the division of the human population, which is of interest.
What characterizes the feminine language? What words or groups of words carry an inherently feminine nature? In romance languages, words are inherently associated with gender, but to assume that English has shed this division is to misrepresent the vocabulary of the language. In poetry, one of the first and foremost uses of language is to evoke imagery, and to create sensory appeals for the reader. The first step in examining language of this sort is to form a perspective congruent with the female gender identity, and then to negotiate with the various images which are associated with that perspective.
Women carry babies in wombs filled with water containng exactly the same saline content as natural sea water. Women bleed once a month on a lunar cycle which mimics the ebbing and flowing of ocean tides. Because of the nature of childbirth, women have a higher physical pain threshold, though that does not detract from an acute sense of touch. Women experience painful cramps with which men cannot fully empathize. The female ovarian cycle circulates several more behaviour modifying hormones through women than the male hormonal system, leading to more unpredictable emotional responses to stimuli than men. These biological characteristics have helped to form a linguistic demesne with distinct demarcations.
The lexicon which is symptomatic of this demesne is generally somatic and chthonic in nature. The image patterns are full of appeals to the senses of touch and taste. Bodies and things that directly influence them become the focus of the textual attention. Metaphorical bodies such as earth, oceans and seas become vehicles for emotional appeal. Daphne Marlatt provides a prime example when she describes going

to the heart of
(Ayer Itam, black
water
"all
people know that
the sea is deep."

The sea is placed in direct opposition to later images in the poem, such as "inter- / national finance". Looking at the etymological derivations of the terms in opposition, we can see that the word "heart" is based on the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) word "heorte", "water" is from the Old English "wæter", and "sea" is from the Old English "sæ". The masculine and negative imagery which follows in the poem forms a motif of artificial imposition on nature, particularly from an etymological standpoint. "International is a compositional construct formed from the Latinate roots "inter", meaning "between", and "natio, nation", meaning a race or a people. If one interprets the Latinate preposition as one of separation rather than conjunction, it makes Marlatt's statement just that much more poignant.
The subtext is that the natural, the physical, the tactile are real. You can touch them and swim in them, but abstract concepts are as worth while as "shit." The other important feature of Marlatt's work is the notion of the interior. The insides of a woman are dark, mysterious and warm. Where does the child live before birth? Where does the blood come from each month? Each question, upon being answered, delves into a sea of more questions. And all people know that the sea is deep.
But what of male imagery? What do men experience in "this box you call a world," where "...we cannot touch except through bodies."? Men, unlike women, generally don't have to fret about iron deficiency, or premature osteoporosis. So what do they feel and think about? More importantly, how do they appear to themselves in contrast with feminine perceptions of men? Aristotle wrote that man is a political animal. From whence does this politicization derive? The male question is one of separation. Women belong to the Earth, and their biological cycles echo the tides of the oceans flowing across its surface. Men are adrift, confused and insecure. The cure for insecurity in many cases is simply to create the illusion of being better or above others. Where women tend to co-operate, men tend to compete. Where women seek to feel, men seek to gain advantage. It is speculated that as early human civilizations developed agriculture and depended less on hunter-gatherer skills, most civilizations developed along a matriarchal line, with the women responsible for staple foods and administration, with the males increasingly marginalized. The development of early religious and political administrations were a reflexive impulse to establish a hierarchical system with men at the top.
As the male question is one of separation, the male answer is one of power. With enough power or control, a situation may be remedied through force of will. And as Francis Bacon remarked "Knowledge itself is power." And so we arrive at the perception and presentation of males as figures interested in objectively increasing a quotient of control over scenarios and situations through whatever means are at hand over the course of history - physicality, seniority, and finally intellectual prowess, as Bacon suggests. A potent and tragic example of the assertion of the male ego comes from Beth Goobie, who describes her father as being

"...in that space on the other side of sound.
brahms, weighted with beard, crowds his shoulders
and voices of heavier angels, foreheads lined
with symphonies, introspective fugues,
whisper down the conch shell passage of his ears..."

The complex portrait of Goobie's father which occupies so much of the space in "Scars of Light" is filled with images of brutality and lofty authority. He is "hidden behind a rembrandt beard", distant in his studio, and yet present in his threats and violence. He is musician, rapist, brute, genius, monster, and artist. The only common factor of these facets is the depiction of an individual seeking to triumph over everyone, everything. The father seems to be thinking - I don't understand, so I must conquer it and make it into something that I can understand.
The masculine vocabulary is primarily technical and based in logical and rational traditions. Latinate and Hellenic-derived wordsappear complex and difficult and thus all the more attractive to those frightened to show weakness. Dionne Brand shows her contempt for the masculine predilection for domination not with direct attacks on men per se, but by appropriating their language when she writes, "[t]he malicious horizon made us the / essential thinkers of technology. How to fly gravity..." The horizon is not the oppressor in this scenario, men are. This becomes overtly obvious later, but the first clues are already in place. As in Marlatt's "Ghost Works", the etymology is indicative of the gender associations. The word "malicious" comes from the Latin "malus" meaning bad or cruel, "essential" comes from the Latin "essentia", which means being or existence and technology is derived from the Latin "technicus", which was in turn taken from the Greek "tekhne", meaning craft or skill. The rational and logical nature by which these terms were assimilated into the English language create an image of the gender they portray: man as demanding, as oppressor, as will incarnate. Man as thinker. Man as user of technology.
The image patterns for men generally have visual sensory appeals. Why is this? If one bears in mind the hypothesis that the male psyche is predominantly motivated by insecurity and fear, then it follows that the optimal sense of experience should be the one which allows the greatest distance and the fewest vulnerabilities. Touching something means being close enough that one might get touched in return, which poses problems of defence and escape. In a game where one does not know the rules or the opposition, everything and everyone is a potential danger. So it is that we get references to males as figures and sights. They are too far away to be hurt, but too close to be avoided. Goobie's father cannot be touched, even as he beats her brothers Vince and Mark.
Dionne Brand turns the male language on itself in an altogether hostile fashion. She forces technology to humiliate itself in a twist of bitter irony. She manipulates the Hellenic etymologies of the male lexicon and turns them into a vehicle for female liberation. She has appropriated the language of the oppressor for her own devices when she describes Mammy Prater as having

"... waited until she was one hundred and fifteen
years old to take a photograph
to take a photograph and put those eyes in it
she waited until the technique of photography was
suitably developed
to make sure the picture was clear
to make sure no crude daguerrotype would lose
her image
would lose her lines and most of all her eyes
and her hands
she knew the patience of one hundred and fifteen years"

Mammy Prater is two people: the image captured on film and the woman using the camera to show her patience and strength. The technology of the daguerrotype and the photograph came from the society which had oppressed her and taxed her spirit. The maleness of the nouns, their technical nature, and the artificiality of them echoes a falsity which is underlied by Mammy Prater's hands. Not much is said about the hands, but the implication is that they are worn by years of working with earth and plants. She is authentic and real; the technology that wants to encapsulate her is not. She takes control of the situation with her understated strength, and in doing so, appropriates the masculine device of looking and visual imagery for the very feminine purpose of making connections and forming bonds. not only this, but she does so at her pleasure. "She waited until it suited her."
A good, though again, as in Goobie's case, tragic example of angst pertaining to the distance and lack of contact between male and female is found in Sharon Thesen's "Aurora". She writes often of heartache and separation, very explicitly in this instance where she writes:

"... Big shot
control panel. So like
a satellite she tears around
the outer darkness of his planet
-centrism, translating
pathways of storms -- cloudy
spirals intentioned as a herd of bees
among a mass of blue
hollyhocks -- from a distance. She has
many books to read, one
on what gardens can't help meaning. Eventually
she will fall & all her data
with her. The EKG wire is still attached
to her heart or wherever it is
attached..."

And so despite an inversion of the usual convention which would dictate that the feminine identity is generally the centre, and the masculine identity will choose to orbit at a distance, the linguistic indicators of loss and isolation are still operative. There are words like "outer", "clouds", and most overt of all, "distance". What Thesen has done is discuss a woman who has constructed herself in accordance with a male visualization of her role. In a very artificial and unnatural manner, she circles a male "planet- / centrism". The escape from this false role is hidden in what seems to be a Georgia O'Keefe reference, "on what gardens can't help meaning." which gives an affirmation of feminine sexuality as authentic without external validation.
The imprisonment of the subject of the poem in a self-imposed lonely ostracism is created textually by having the technical terms and male language describe a woman. Of course, there is an immediate discrepancy between the language and the subject, and that disconnect creates the feeling of isolation. The subject of the poem has an EKG wire, but doesn't really know or care what part of her body it's attached to. Her heart has gone so numb that she can't feel it any more. The technological terms seem incongruous with the deep emotional anger and frustration in the poem. The very vocabulary of the verse speaks as strongly as the ways in which they are organized and presented to the reader.
Aside from the literal associations with words as entities, another important factor of poetry is phonetics; the sounds of the words as they are formed by the lips and released by the tongue. Feminine words often have a low resonant tone. Mother, love, womb, blood, touch -- all these words toll with the rhythms and echoes of nature and the earth, and they are all derived from the very sometic language of the Anglo-Saxons. Masculine words are often quick and high and forward of the palate, as is the case with intellect, science, attitude, desert and empty. Whereas the feminine lexicon comes from the Anglo-Saxons, a people very much concerned with the sea and survival, the masculine lexicon seems based in the languages most closely associated with abstract thought, mathematics and philosophy: the Latin of the Romans and the Hellenic of the Greeks.
The effect which is most often generated is for female language in poetry to be slow and dolorous; to resonate deeply and leave a lasting emotional impact. Marlatt uses this to great effect in one poem by repeating the word "broom" in conjunction with words like "kabun" and "noon". The lexicon which finds itself affiliated with the masculine is generally responsible for distraction and diversion. Rather than being candid, the male words play games and conceal meaning and emotion, much as the beard of Goobie's father did. Again, the disparate lexicons produce opposite effects: the feminine attempting to adjoin, the masculine to divide and isolate.
This thesis began with two original poems: "song from a cracked earth", and "song for a cracked earth." Both of them envision a union between the essentially divided groups of male and female, but they do so from two separate linguistic directions. After examination, perhaps these poems will yield further insights, or they may simply discredit this paper's hypothesis from the start. In any event, let us consider the component elements of the two poems and negotiate with the gender identities behind them.
The "song from a cracked earth" is laden with somatic images. There is a great deal of emphasis on the body and the sensations produced by the body. The words which are explicitly about the body travel further to the interior of the physionomy as the poem progresses. "Hands" are followed by "thighs", then "eyelashes" before concluding with references to the heart. The suggestion is one of ever increasing intimacy and closeness. The other image pattern is that of light and darkness, which tends to have some interplay with the weather imagery. The poem begins in "darkened warmth", goes into "shadows", and ends up being "stormy". The development here is one of action. More and more things are happening: the darkness becomes a desire, the desire becomes a consummation, and that consummation is perceived to be stormy.
The "song for a cracked earth" is markedly different in the respect of imagery. There are very few objects in the poem, at least in the literal sense of the word. The poem is rather like the first noun in the second line: "nebulousness". Most of the imagery is devoted to creating fogs, mists and hazes, through which meaning is obscured. The key to the images is the "somewhere", which acts as a conductor of a disjointed orchestra. It begins as the only real place, even if just a hidden or an undiscovered one. Then the images take us through possible places: the sky, sleep, dreams, memories, until they finally give up and say that all places are nowhere and hope is lost.
The vocabulary of the respective poems is interesting to observe as well. The "song from a cracked earth" is filled with euphonious words which connote closeness and love. We find "milky smooth / currents" and "the love of touching / breathing" which are evocative of intimacy and gentle contact. The verbs are very often soft and melodious to pronounce, as is the case with "trembling", "brushing", and "breathing". This pattern of euphony is symptomatic of inclusive language, which encourages contact between the poet and the reader. It is also typical of the somatic language which has already been discussed; the appeals are very specifically tactile.
In "song for a cracked earth", the lexicon is quite different. Out of context, many of the words actually describe the philosophy which directs them to their use in the poem. Words like "distant", "spaces", "isolation", and "solitude" speak of a hollow existence which is unsatisfying and inauthentic. There are also no references to the earth, a significant departure from the other poem of the pair. Most of the words describe the sky, as in "altitude", "clouds", "aloft", and "floating". The overall impression is one of separation and loneliness.
The structure of the two poems is also suggestive of the orientation of their narrative gender identities. The "song from a cracked earth" hugs the left hand margin as though rooted to it. The lines run together in a smooth and fluid fashion, the most notable technique for accomplishing this being the breaking of the word "our / selves" in order to implement a form of free verse enjambment. This occurs on two occasions, adn each time, it is because the sentential construction has begun to break down. In the first instance, the lines "...darkened warmth / of our union / a joining of our / selves", "union" does not seem to be terribly congruent with "A joining of our", which might cause a visual hiccup. Hence the device to speed the reader from one line to the next.
In the other poem, the structure is rigid and inflexible. Here there is a framework which dictates the poem almost as much as the reverse is true. Again, the "somewhere:" acts as a facilitator, turning the first line of every stanza into a continuation of its statement. in addition, one can observe a slow decline in the number of lines and indeed syllables in the stanzas as they proceed toward the conclusion of the poem. As the imagery and vocabularyhave already shown, the progression leads to a fatalistic and pessimistic conclusion. The "somewhere:" acts as a searchlight, illuminating different avenues of expression for the human psyche, and as the locations become smaller and less certain, the hope for finding a route toward unity becomes dimmer and dimmer until the answer lies "in that nowhere that is everywhere" and the "somewhere: / where we /can be / together." becomes a place that cannot be reached. This contrasts directly with the "when we can be together" of "song from a cracked earth". Somewhere creates a scenario that allows room for nebulousness, whereas "when" indicates that the resolution will come, but that it is simply a matter of time.
So we find two poems at the opening of this treatise. One is optimistic and warm, while the other is pessimistic and cold. They are reflections of one another in that they view a similar circumstance with completely different perspectives. One is open, honest and giving, while the other is reclusive and unreceptive. One speaks with assurance while the other hides behind terminology, concepts and ideas rather than exposing weaknesses.
The human condition is about learning how to live and love and last. One factor which affects the way that people do this is through the gender identity that they have acquired, either through biological factors or through social conditioning. Gender is more than just individual people - the notion of gender has filtered into the very words we use to communicate with one another. Physionomy, psychology, psychiatry; all of these are virtually meaningless terms when it comes to defining gender when one considers that the male and the female speak different languages, even though they may be of the same country, race or creed. They are two separated groups with different views of the world, and their means of expression verifies that fact.
Nowhere has the alienation of the two sexes manifested itself more firmly than in the poetic or literary arts. in this realm, language is used consciously and deliberately to achieve effects. When poets cry out for the lonely, the confused or the misplaced, they understand the means by which to express their sentiments. In recent times, recent books, recent poets have shown that something is absent or missing. Beth Goobie misses her brother, Daphne Marlatt travels restlessly without being certain of where she belongs, Dionne Brand anguishes for travesties past while trying to define herself in relation to others, and Claire Harris doesn't trust a future daughter in a projected hostile world.
Somewhere: there is a cry for something better. The world shouldn't need to be so full of isolation and hostility. There should be a closeness which permits friendship and love. In writing poetry, people are expressing a very deep-seated need - the need to communicate, express, and make themselves understood. When both halves of humanity are cut off from one another by the very words that they use, perhaps the only solution is to keep on talking, keep on writing, and keep on trying. Somewhere: perhaps we can all be together.

-mARKUS

So there it is. Hope that it was vaguely interesting enough for someone to peruse it and glean the slightest modicum of insight. I've now been at work for 14 hours straight, and I'm going to end this post here, so that I can try and focus on my job for the next two and a half hours rather than beating my fingers raw and pushing myself closer to exhaustion. So cheers everyone, and I'll check back later to see if I need to repost those two poems. Take care,

-mARKUS
^+ Justice for the 96+^

Teddy Roethke

Greetings, gentle readers.
I've combed the entire World Wide Web, and despite numerous sites dedicated to Theodore Roethke and his poetry, not a SINGLE site has a copy of his poem "Praise to the End". So I guess that I'll have to step up and redidact it here. Again, the left-side bias of this blog will make it look a bit more monotonous than it is, but at least the poem will exist in cyber space. Somewhere. Any road, here goes:

Praise to the End!

I
It's dark in this wood, soft mocker.
For whom have I swelled like a seed?
What a bone-ache I have.
Father of tensions, I'm down to my skin at last.

It's a great day for the mice.
Prickle-me, tickle-me, close stems.
Bumpkin, he can dance alone.
Ooh, ooh, I'm a duke of eels.

Arch my back, pretty bones, I'm dead at both ends.
Softly softly, you'll wake the clams.
I'll feed the ghost alone.
Father, forgive my hands.

The rings have gone from the pond.
The river's alone with its water.
All risings
Fall.

II
Where are you now, my bonny beating gristle,
My blue original dandy, numb with sugar?
Once I fished from the banks, leaf-light and happy:
On the rocks south of quiet, in the close regions of kissing,
I romped, lithe as a child, down the summery streets of my veins,
Strict as a seed, nippy and twiggy.
Now the water's low. The weeds exceed me.
It's necessary, among the flies and bananas, to keep a constant vigil,
For the attacks of false humility take sudden turns for the worse.
Lacking the candor of dogs, I kiss the departing air;
I'm untrue to my own excesses.

Rock me to sleep, the weather's wrong.
Speak to me, frosty beard.
Sing to me, sweet.

Mips and ma the mooly moo,
The likes of him is biting who,
A cow's a care, and who's a coo? ---
What footie does is final.

My dearest dear my fairest fair,
Your father tossed a cat in air,
Though neither you nor I was there, ---
What footie does is final.

Be large as an owl, be slick as a frog,
Be good as a goose, be big as a dog,
Be sleek as a heifer, be long as a hog, ---
What footie will do will be final.

I conclude! I conclude!
My dearest dust, I can't stay here.
I'm undone by the flip-flap of odious pillows.
An exact fall of waters has rendered me impotent.
I've been asleep in a bower of dead skin.
It's a piece of a prince I ate.
this salt can't warm a stone.
These lazy ashes.

III
The stones were sharp,
The wind came at my back;
Walked along the highway,
Mincing like a cat.

The sun came out;
The lake turned green;
Romped upon the goldy grass,
Aged thirteen.

The sky cracked open
The world i knew;
Lay like the cats do
Sniffing the dew.

I dreamt I was all bones;
The dead slept in my sleeve;
Sweet Jesus tossed me back:
I wore the sun with ease.

The several sounds were low;
The river ebbed and flowed;
Desire was winter-calm
A moon away.

Such owly pleasures! Fish come first, sweet bird.
Skin's the least of me. Kiss this.
Is the eternal near, fondling?
I hear the sound of hands.

Can the bones breathe? This grave has an ear.
It's still enough for the knock of a worm.
I feel more than a fish.
Ghost, come closer.

IV
Arch of air, my heart's original knock,
I'm awake all over:
I've crawled from the mire, alert as a saint or a dog;
I know the back-stream's joy, and the stone's eternal pulseless longing.
Felicity I cannot hoard.
My friend, the rat in the wall, brings me the clearest messages;
I bask in the bower of change;
The plants wave me in, and the summer apples;
My palm-sweat flashes gold;
Many astounds before, I lost my identity to a pebble;
The minnows love me, and the humped and spitting creatures.

I believe! I believe! ---
In the sparrow, happy on gravel;
In the winter-wasp, pulsing its wings in the sunlight;
I have been somewhere else; I remember the sea-faced uncles.
I hear, clearly, the heart of another singing,
Lighter than bells,
Softer than water.

Wherefore, O birds and small fish, surround me.
Lave me, ultimate waters.
The dark showed me a face.
My ghosts are all gay.
The light becomes me.

-Theodore Roethke (1951)


So there it is. Now I'm rather tired of typing, since I've been doing this at work in between taking calls, and it's stressed me out. I'll have to summarize this week's footy action, including Réal Madrid kicking the hell out of Albacete, Liverpool wresting a win from a tenacious Crystal Palace side, and Arsenal edging Tottenham in a defensively nightmarish match by five goals to four. But more on that later. For now, cheerio. Be kind and peaceful to each other.

-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^

Brummie Rubbish.

Greetings, gentle readers.
So Liverpool have lost at home. For the first time this season. But that's minor when considered in the light that Emlyn Hughes has finally succumbed to a brain tumour and died at the age of 57. An old friend of mine used to say that in his experience, happy people never died. People with positive attitudes, and upbeat philosophies never died at an early age, and it was only when someone became despondent or lost hope that they passed into the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns. Well, here's the proof that his ideas were total horseapples. Whatever made him draw those conclusions from his experiences should be poured back into a bottle and returned to the Tijuana bar it came from.
Emlyn Hughes was the brightest, happiest, fizziest legend to ever emerge from Anfield. Other legends like Kenny Dalglish, are renowned for being taciturn, moody, dour, uncommunicative or unsociable. Not Emlyn. Quite possibly the most positive and outgoing player of Liverpool's long and illustrious history, the man captained the team to TWO Champions' Cups, two UEFA Cups, four top flight championships, as well as an FA Cup, for good measure. Along the way, he played 657 games for the club, as well as captaining England. The man just loved to play football, and his enthusiasm shines through the statistics to tell you just how much this man wanted to play.
In my experience, it doesn't matter how many pets you've got, or how perky you feel - when your number is up, you go down. My grandfather was still earnestly dispensing advice when he died. My uncle fought cancer like a tiger, but he didn't really have a chance. My grandmother had the spirit of a Teutonic lion, but eventually died, surrounded by those of us who loved her for the matriarch that she was. Emlyn was at the top of his spirits, alongside his wife Barbara and his two beautiful children. He had every reason to live, and the story of his life illuminates a man who would not go gently into that good night. All the more reason to mourn a hero, a legend and a champion who has been untimely ripped from us. Is the universe fair? No. I sure wish it would at least give the illusion once in a while, though.
So anyone that wants to do me a favour can, rather softly, and under their breath, sing a snatch of "Come on without, come on within, you've not seen nothing like the mighty Emlyn" on Wednesday morning. Really. It doesn't hurt anyone, and it pays tribute to a human being who didn't deserve to die.
Of course, all of this emotional gushing over my heroes of days past has left me somewhat verklempt. And I'm supposed to be posting my thesis on the masculine and feminine dialects of the English language. I'll get to that eventually. Maybe I'll scan it and thus save myself the hassle of redidacting the whole lot. If I've got any character recognition software... In any event. I'm going to head off and go on about the business of cursing an uncaring cosmos, and idly complaining about an existence I can't change or affect. Particularly not from Canada. Here's looking forward to Liverpool and Germany in 2006. Cheers, everyone.

Justice for the 96.

-mARKUS

A Prologue to History

Greetings, gentle readers.
First off, an apology to the Manic Street Preachers, whose song title I have appropriated for the title of this particular episode, but basically what I offer here is some poetry. Oh well. Small infractions of decorum make the world go round. Or they make baby Jesus cry. One of the two. Incidentally, those of you bored and just surfing the internet because you've got nothing better to do should try looking into the biographies of Kevin Carter and Paul Robeson. One was a Pulitzer-Prize winning and Time-Magazine cover photographer who committed suicide at the age of 33. The other was an African-American who graduated from Rutgers University as valedictorian in 1919 with 15 varsity athletic letters, including track, basketball, and baseball, as well as football - where he was twice an All-American, before graduating from Columbia Law School and thereafter becoming a published author, essayist, opera and broadway singer, renowned actor on stage and screen, civil rights activist, social commentator and thinker. I'll let people find out which is which on their own. But their stories are incredible, and well worth the time and effort of going to google and looking them up. Eventually, I'll post the big links which will tell people all the big secrets and heart-breaking turns of events in their lives, but not now. For now, you may peruse the following poems, which, while I don't think are class, might still pass muster at a high-school poetry competition (plagiarists take note), although the content is very difficult to pass off as high-school age. Anyhoo, here goes.

that necklace

it gilded her neck like a thread of the sun
and she wore it to dinner that night
drifting along the trace of her skin
at once both bemure and polite
a birthday gift from a year since
and this year she wore it on mine
silky thread of love-locked lacework
that paced ice-cold waves down my spine
my modestly made jests made it jerk
and dance with her lips as she smiled
the bow of her shoulders made it curtsey
as she blushed in her violent style
my evenings always seemed to end early
but this one seemed quicker than most
our unsteady thanks rang empty
when she flew in the night like a ghost

a shade in the night floating breathless
her countenance lit by that necklace

- mARKUS

Yes, I know, gentle readers, that's a bit maulin and nostalgic for some of you to stomach comfortably. So here's something to counterbalance such sickly-sweet sentimentality. It's in five parts plus a sub note, so take care.

cantos of a w.c.

1.
sticker
on light switch panel
once demanded
lights be turned off
when unoccupied
now
torn
it just says
unoccupied

2.
surely remote
rarely used
with dead fluourescent
over dull mirrors
as empty as
dostoyevsky's hell

3.
one might
leave the lights off
if blind
or afraid
of finding a way out
again

4.
stark
vacant
at times
i feel
like
that water closet

** "Fathers and teachers I ponder, "What is hell?" I maintain that hell is the inability to love"
- Feodor Dostoyevsky.

-mARKUS

At this point I must protest that the blogsite text-editor-thing won't let me separate anything from the margin when ostensibly left-aligned. I can't tab away from it, nor can I put spaces between anything and that infernal margin. My poetry is generally more spread out, and has more of a feeling across the (virtual) page. So if you ever catch me on the street, I'll print you out a page - the way it's supposed to look. Or you can ask me nicely, and I'll e-mail you an RTF of it. Not that I expect any requests. Few enough people visit this site, and those who do either reel away in waves of nausea, or realize that they've mis-typed the URL. And besides, the poetry is rather rubbish, so it would be better if you read up on Paul Robeson and Kevin Carter. Become more knowledgeable. Aquire more power in the cosmos. There is no knowledge that is not power. There is no negative that is not positive. And other such twaddle. What coke-addled advertising executive comes up with the phrase "there is no knowledge that is not power"? Probably the same intoxicated fiends that came up with "Speed matters. Now more than ever."
Yeah. Piece that one out. Someone didn't have all their neurons firing when they launched their campaign.
Right-o. Coming up soon - the not-long-awaited follow-up of my 3rd June posting. No one has ever requested the full meal deal. Until now. And I'm going to have to burst some bloodvessels in my fingers to get it all posted before the weekend. And then I might have an audience of one. Aside from the article I wrote about why women prefer the ideals of James Dean over Montgomery Clift, Jim Morrison over Peter Gabriel, and Dylan Thomas over Ted Hughes, this is the one piece of critical academism which has dynamized the whole female-male debate. It's also bloody huge. It's 13 pages, double-spaced, so I might have it typed in, say, six or seven hours, depending on the number of ICQ interruptions with which I have to cope.
So, to my entire audience, I say to thee: "Return hence soon, such that ye may receive such bounty as to ye was promised." So hurry back. Both of you. Cheers,

^+Justice for the 96+^

-mARKUS

Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice.

Greetings, gentle readers.
So what has happened recently? Oh, loads of interesting and exciting things. Let's begin with Liverpool. Why? Because that is where all the good things begin. Hope is for the hopeless, spring is for the flowers, love is for the lovely, and Liverpool belongs to me. My apologies to Dodgy.
A joyous day of celebration on Merseyside as Liverpool racked up their first Premiership away win of the season at Craven Cottage as they rallied valiantly against a competent Fulham. Dippy, minnow-sized opponents have been brutally victimized by the Reds this season, but when the opposition show the slightest modicum of tactical nous, the Red Machine has tended to throw a cog and grind to a halt. Both trends - crap away form and inability to comprehensively beat anyone with a win in the Premiership - crashed to the ground yesterday in West London.
The story from my perspective was a tad dramatic. I finished my shift at work at 0800h MST (1500h GMT), and by the time I'd finished walking through the snow to the car-car and gotten myself back into the warm confines of my home, and sheltered against the onslaught of the blizzard that was piling precipitation onto all horizontal surfaces with alarming alacrity, the first half was already over. And it wasn't even being televised. Instead, Arsenal was stumbling against Aston Villa in a sad and rather pathetic match-up reminiscent of a fox cub fighting against a disinterested and distracted dragon. Arsenal, erm... arsed about for a while until Thierry Henry suddenly decided that perhaps they should score a few goals, and then they ran away with the game. As they do.
So I ran up to my bedroom and fired up the GameCast of the Liverpool game. The half time news was not good. LFC had three attempts on goal in 45 minutes. None of them on target. They'd also shipped two goals to Fulham through crafty Portuguese striker Luis Boa Morte. So two-nil at the break, and no sign that things were going to improve. I went downstairs, ate some leftovers and waited for the Arsenal game to restart. I was depressed. My least favourite Liverpool midfielder, Salif Diao was starting alongside one of my perennial favourites, Didi Hamann. Problem - they both play the same way. Didi is just better at it. But having two central defensive midfielders, and pushing one out, either forward or to the wing bespeaks a lack of strategic foresight, and is a strong precursor to disaster. Diao, predictably, coughs up a goal with a disastrous giveaway, then body-blocks Carra out of the picture as the Cottagers build up in front of the box and surrenders another goal. The team get steamrollered, with American Brian McBride looking very bright and inventive in front of a tame and passive Liverpool defence. Dark fog clouded the periphery of my vision as I contemplated the possibility of Liverpool not qualifying for Europe next year and languishing in mid-table mediocrity. It would be like dying and waking up as an Everton fan.
So I ate my soup and assorted other comestibles and watched Villa gamely trying to match the pace of Henry, Reyes, Vieira, Pires, etc. and failing miserably. Finally, the game wrapped up as the ref decided to stop the humiliation. I went and scrubbed some dishes before heading back to the GameCast to confirm that the away-form blues had struck again, and tragedy had befallen the beloved club.
But it was not to be. The catastrophic Diao had been yanked at half-time to be replaced by Dr. X, also known as Xabi Alonso. And the team had awoken. They had then proceeded to exact vengeance upon the unrighteous with a fury which left the Cottagers gasping. Milan Baros suddenly rediscovered the form which garnered him the Golden Boot at Euro 2004, and coincidentally, right-back Josemi turned into a snarling psychopath who was promptly sent off for two yellow cards. Thus, with ten men against eleven and after a bit of a freak goal involving Baros banking a shot into the net past Edwin Van der Sar off the rump of hapless Fulham defender Zat Knight, the Reds stepped it up and showed what a world-class side can do.
First, Dr. X sailed a beautiful cross into the middle for Baros to blast the game-tying goal. Then the oddly-monikered conquistador hammered in a positively brilliant free-kick from 25 yards out. Finally, fellow substitute Igor Biscan crashed another stinging bullet past the distraught Van der Sar, who must have felt abandoned by his god, as well as by his shell-shocked defenders.
In the space of 45 minutes, the world had changed. Suddenly, Liverpool became a team that can play away games with inventive, creative, and predatory flair. Against quality opponents. A team that could... win championships? I wonder if the passion and dedication of players like the blood-and-thunder Jamie Carragher are wearing off on the new boys? Because if that's the case and they play every game as though it were that second half, and eventually with their return of their captain and leader, improve upon it, they would be nigh-unstoppable.
"My idea was to build Liverpool intae a bastion of invincibility, you know, like Napoleon and that idea. Conquer the bloody world. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up and up until eventually they would be untouchable. Everybody would have to submit. Give in."
-Bill Shankly
What else is going on? Well, apparently nothing of the magnitude of my footy team's accomplishments, but some interesting stuff regardless.
First, the predictions. Barçalona will win La Liga. They're a lock. If you've got a mortgage you can liquidate, you can put it all on the Catalans hoisting the trophy without a hint of worry or regret. Dropping the mercurial Patrick Kluivert and acquiring the ridiculously prolific Henrik Larsson was a masterstroke. Partnered with African Footballer of the Year Samuel Eto'o, and given excellent service from midfield by European Champions' League standouts Deco and Ludovic Giuly, as well as the World Cup revelation Ronaldinho, their offence has proven irresistible in Spain. No opponent this season has kept a clean sheet against them, and only one team has managed so much as a draw against them. Frank Rijkaard has very quickly matured from a superstar player to a decent manager to a tactical mastermind.
And betting on Germany in friendlies, a previously risky proposition, has now become safe as houses. Jürgen Klinsmann has experimented, dabbled, and blooded young talent with an air of equitable and just open-mindedness that was absent under the reign of Rudi Völler. Völler seemed paralyzed by a fear of public backlash, and thus stuck with a line-up that invariably included keeper Oliver Kahn and strikers Miroslav Klose and Kevin Kuranyi, and excluded Jens Lehmann and Oliver Neuville. Germany's success in getting to the finals of World Cup 2002 appears to have had the same effect on the national team that winning the World Cup in 1990, and Euro '96 did - a complete paranoia of any kind of change. The team gets older and starts losing its form, but no-one has the courage to effect any kind of evolution. Until someone like Klinsmann comes in. Now, and particularly following the draw with Brazil after Klinsmann's appointment, no player is guaranteed selection, and the competition for places has breathed new life into the team. Kuranyi and Klose are now justifiably threatened by young Lukas Podolski and Thomas Brdaric, and Kahn now has to fight for his position against the strong claims put forward by Lehmann and Timo Hildebrandt. Performance is now the basis for selection, not historical precedent. And the German team that slumped to 13th in the FIFA rankings following a winless Euro 2004 are once again a team to fear.

Also great to see my heroes Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler getting a run out for Manchester City in their 1-0 win over Chelski. Good for the universe that the Russian moneybags finally clocked up a defeat, and thus restored balance to the force.

Oh, and Canada have failed to qualify for the fifth straight World Cup. Not entirely a surprise when considering the corrupt nature of the Latin American officials in the CONCACAF group. But with Ipswich Town's Jason DeVos, Fulham's Tomas Radzinski, and other notable Canadian talent playing abroad on the squad, expectations were considerably higher than at any time since 1986. But as a result of the outright unfair referees, the only things that have actually increased is the number of expectorations.

And the Champions' League is back on telly this week, although Liverpool aren't being shown in Canada. But as sad as that may be for me personally, I can still look forward to some very fun games, like Bayern v. Juve and AC Milan v. Barça. Who will win the whole shebang this season? I like my boys, but if I had to put my money where my mouth is, I would go with Barça to do the double, but not the triple, as I think they'll lose out in the Copa del Rey as the fixtures start to pile up. It now appears that the Spanish Primera Liga has become the most powerful league on the continent, as Italian Serie A sides start to falter. When Réal Madrid are being hammered on a weekly basis with their team of galacticos, and Barça looking to do an Arsenal and go on a monster undefeated streak, Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna are looking like world-beaters on a weekly basis - all in all, the whole thing makes the appointment of Rafael Benitez as Liverpool manager look like a wonder-move.
Geez, I've been working on this post for the past two days, and I really want to wrap it up and get on with my life for a while. So the final item on the agenda is Adrian Mutu, who's been busted for dipping his hooter into the Devil's dandruff. The 16.7 million pound man, who apparently already has a bit of a rep as a power-party animal, appears to have thrown away a career worth £60,000 a week. I'll repeat that in North American. This lad pulls down roughly seven and a half million Canadian dollars a year. The last guy to be caught hoovering the pixie dust at Chelsea was Mark Bosnich. And he was canned outright. Contract torn up. Player filling out his UB40 and standing in the queue with the rest of the have-nots. Apparently young Adrian wasn't getting picked in the first team ahead of the other multi-million dollar superstars on the Chelsea side, and missed a training session because he was out on the town. Jose Mourinho angrily ordered a drugs test and bang. Career ruined. We'll see how things go for the precocious superstar, but my prognosis will be a club suspension without pay, and an FA ban of a year. And now, those of you who keep track of such things can add Adrian Mutu of Romania to the list of naughty substance-abusing athletes, along with Chris "Toker" Armstrong (wacky weed) , Tony "Donkey" Adams (drink-driving, assault, cocaine, gambling, nun-slapping... OK I made the last one up), Mark "Heil Hitler" Bosnich (space dust), and Diego "Hand of God" Maradona (cocaine, cheating, amphetamines, cheating, steroids, cheating, tax evasion, cheating, paternity liability, oh, and did I mention his egregious cheating?).
But that's it. I've got to get ready to watch the Динамо Київ - Réal Madrid game. Cheers to you all, and may the force be with you. Back soon with a much more abbreviated, but equally less-football related and hopefully more insightful article.

Justice for the 96

-mARKUS

*TWEET* Everybody into the 'Pool!!!

Greetings, gentle readers.
And so it's October, and that means time for naughtiness with pumpkins, the beginning of the onslaught of the Canadian winter, my impending 31st birthday, and the first report of the season for the greatest club side ever in football. The greatest assembled TEAM ever would obviously be Brazil 1970, and that's not even a question. No, we speak of Liverpool - who have won the most top-division honours, the most league cups, and the most European Champions' Cups of any English side. And England created the beautiful game, so it stands to reason that is the club with the most unassailable pedigree. Set the Wayback Machine to 1892, Sherman.
I'll quit preening now.
St. Michael is gone. And in his absence, Djibril and Milan are asked to perform similar things - win games by scoring hatfuls of goals. Somehow, at Anfield, both feel comfortable with assuming responsibility for this, as the fans on the Kop lose their bottle and start naming first-born children after blokes who are scoring braces against West Brom.
The worst imaginable has happened, as talismanic (I'm going to use that word until it becomes completely cliché) Skipper and leader Stevie G is out for another six weeks with a broken foot. Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia, two of the Spanish Armada to make it past the scrutiny of immigration officials and stupid training-ground injuries, have suddenly made a defensive 4-4-1-1 formation able to switch into a 2-6-2 that swamps teams when they have the ball.
But at this point of the game, here's how things look. Team Captain: injured. Debilitating, but not fatal. Lead Scorer: Owen: Transferred, but he's gone to Réal Madrid where they use him as a water boy. Might do an Ian Rush and return because he has to fight past Raul, Morientes and Ronaldo for a spot on the team. Réal are obviously total swine for cup-tying Morientes for the Owen deal. Liverpool did not play Owen in Europe, because they wanted to deal. Réal, dishonorable monkeys that they are, promptly played Morientes in their next game to ensure that he could not play for another team in the same competition. Bastardos.
In short, the managerial staff of Réal have revealed themselves to be contemptible faggots because they deliberately scuppered a striker-for-striker-plus money deal for a deal that Liverpool would be forced to accept, like a makeweight player - i.e. Nunez, who immediately showed his mettle by getting injured in his first training session.
Chelski and Arsenal both have unbeaten starts to the season, although Liverpool has a perfect record in all competitions thus far this year at home, which is something. The away record is a bit dodgy, but we'll see how the team does with that.
So the news, as we approach the eve of the conflict at Stamford Bridge, is as follows:
Alonso and Garcia have so far proven to be the real deal versus crap opponents, but have been invisible against strong teams. They're potential Kop heroes, but only when they, and the team around them, begin to play with more consistency. Kewell and Finnan haven't proved that they're the real deal on the flanks yet, and Cisse and Baros have got to get their offside trap-springing sorted. The defence is not a crisis, with the Hyppie and Carra covered by Semi on the right and Riise on the left. Except during set plays. The Rafael Benitez "zonal marking system" on corners has thus far proven disastrous. Both goals scored on the Dude at Old Trafford came from corners. And they were scored by Mikael Silvestre. That says something right there. When a rubbish full-back puts two corners past an international keeper with two headers, the team is not dealing appropriately with the situation. The most reliable, consistent performer in the team thus far, exempting the always superb Stevie G, is Didi Hamann. Playing almost as a sweeper just in front of the back four, Didi tackles, blocks, takes possession, creates link play, and distributes the ball with precision. I'll be looking for him to be the defensive key to stopping Arsenal when we play them, and to stopping the high midfield players at Chelski like Robben and Cole from getting the ball up to Kezman and Drogba.
The team is coming together, and the potential for some fantastic results in the not-too distant future is definitely there. But we'll need to see how we fare in London on Sunday before we can start to draw some significant conclusions about the development of the Rafa-lution.
Back soon,

-mARKUS

Justice for the 96.

Donde esta la fiesta? Aqui!

Greetings, gentle readers.
First, the news from the 'Pool. St. Michael is gone, off to sample the wonders of La Liga with Réal Madrid. Coming to Liverpool are a quartet of Spaniards in what looks like some sort of strange exchange program. With Beckham, Owen, Woodgate and Harte now plying their trade in sunny Spain, Xabi Alonso, Antonio Nuňez, Luis Garcia and Josemi have come to Liverpool in manager Rafael Benitez' attempt to replicate his astonishing triumphs at Valencia in the past two years. Odd that the Madrileňos would go for Owen and Woodgate, who have never won a title between them, while Liverpool grabbed the manager of the team that beat Madrid in La Liga last year. Danny Murphy also made his departure amidst sneering remarks and hostile contempt. Spud viciously denounced the Rafa Revolution as "cosmopolitan", his attitude connoting that he would spell it "t-o-o-m-a-n-y-w-o-g-s". And El-Hadji Diouf is out in the cold, without even a squad number. In short, the team is in a major state of flux, and it may be some time before the comfortable victories begin to pile up. Captain Stevie G has been inspirational as always, and hopes are high that he and Alonso will command the centre of midfield while Didi tidies up in front of the back four, where Jamie Carragher has apparently supplanted Stephane Henchoz as Sami Hyypiä's partner in central defence. With Kewell practicing his precociousness on the left, and John Arne Riise rampaging up the right, there should be no shortage of supply for Milan Baros and Djibril Cissé up front. The present looks a bit dour, but the future seems to hold the potential for much jubilation. Despite the fact that Réal Madrid have declared that they will buy Gerrard next season if Liverpool don't do something extraordinary, like win the Premiership for the first time or win the Champions' League for the first time ever. Liverpool has 18 top flight trophies, but none since the old Division One Became The Premiership. We've also won the old Champions' Cup four times, but that was before they shuffled the format into the Champions' League. In any event, history must be made this season, or Stevie G may just vanish into the annals of Liverpudlian history. And that would be catastrophic.
In other parts of the footie world, Canada was robbed of a victory in their World Cup Qualifying match at home against Honduras when the Mexican ref blatantly cheated the hard-grafting Canadians. After awarding a farcical penalty to a Honduran striker who fell over his own feet in the 18 yard-box with no-one around him, the ref turned about two minutes later to disallow a perfectly good Canadian goal because a Honduran had apparently gone down in a phantom collision with no one in particular. The normally polite and sedate Canadian supporters were filled with an unquenchable boiling rage built of righteous indignancy and appalled disbelief. Frank Yallop, the stunned Canadian manager said that while he won't use the word "cheat", he is thinking it. So I'll use it. The ref cheated. And for justice to be done, he should be put to the sword.
Meanwhile, now that I've got my new web-mailbox, I'll need to post the URL so that I can use this page as a springboard to get there, rather than having to sift through several pages about Welsh geography. So here it is:
http://city-of-liverpool.mail.everyone.net/email/scripts/loginuser.pl?EV1=10945921277169344
And since I'm just winding down my shift here at work, I'll draw this missal to a close early so I can start closing down some of my tools and expedite my escape. And if anyone named Emond is reading this - send me a frickin' e-mail, man! The rest of you can carry on as usual. Cheers,

Justice for the 96
-mARKUS

Adult undergarments filled with sour cream...

Hey there.
Just discovered some of my old school poetry from my ill-fated university degree program years ago. If Linda Woodbridge had stayed at the University of Alberta for just a couple more years, my whole life would be different, but alas, all I have now is old photocopies of poems written in classes that didn't matter in the pursuit of a degree that means little, if anything to anyone in the real world. In any event, here's a snapshot of myself ten years ago, trying to be a smartass...

Burning Desire

O my love is like a ripe, ripe orange
I can't wait to freshly squeeze her
She opens herself like a rusty door hinge
Each time I try and tease her

Her face is like a new-fallen acorn
Surmounted by squirrel-brown hair
Around her shoulders are sweaters worn
To keep her from chills in the air

Tall she's not, but she's not barred
From sporting as she's quick and thin
O my love is like a new graveyard
And I'm dying to get in.


Okay. Send all raspberries and abuse to jdsilentio@city-of-liverpool.com. I apologize for the weasel that I once was. I hope I've outgrown it. And as the paramecium said, "Adios Amoebas."

Justice for the 96

-mARKUS

More epoxy for your sea-monkeys?

Hey there.
In an effort to try and break the monotony of my intellectual maunderings, I thought I would throw in some quick poetry to keep potential readers interested. Who wants to read about aesthetic abstractions all day, every day? I don't, and I write the bloody stuff. So Part Two of the treatise is done, but I won't publish it yet. Instead, here's one of my poems. Haven't set it to music yet, and haven't really found the heart to do so yet.

when i can't ring you on a winter night i wonder

where on this endlessly frigid
snowscape of ice floes
and impassable drifts
riven with wind
in an unfamiliar silence
could i find you
when by day stabbing
snows penetrate
violate
the domain of sight
and by night stars
smile darkling in their shine
illumined ice still freezes
and my voice
carries as far
as the mist of my breath
(if loneliness was a place
i would see it all my nights
your features woven through it
beneath the northern lights)

- mARKUS


Right. I'll be back tomorrow to bore the socks off the people tenacious enough to try and read through more of my dissertation. Cheerio.

Justice for the 96.
-mARKUS

Art and Science, Chapter One

The Inherent Diametric Nature of Aesthetic and Scientific Disciplines
(Warning - may cause drowsiness. Do not read before operating heavy machinery.)

1. Posit

The hypothesis is this: all branches of artistic, spiritual and intellectual endeavour deal with or address absence when contrasted with presence --- being and nothingness, to use Jean-Paul Sartre's translated Gallic phrase. This dynamism which activates art is powered by a tension which must prove itself to be more than merely a commonality which transcends all media. Rather, it must be an inherent and essential component which encompasses all aesthetics and academics. In other words, diametric relationships between people and concepts do not merely enhance a piece of artistic work, they are a direct reflection of the very nature of the process used by the artist to produce his or her creations. The soul, if such it may be called, is revealed through the completed work of the artist to be a universally appealing identity struggling against the essence of existence, generally defined herein as Newton's second law of thermodynamics.
Essentially, Newton said that in a closed system, entropy always increases. What is whole will disintegrate, what is ripe will wither, what is bright will dim, and what is rapid will slow and stop. Energy flows like a river down a valley, always seeking a lower state. Life spirals inevitably toward death, and the feature that makes Art authentic is the ability to create something that we recognize as being a part of ourselves fighting against that inevitability. Jacques Derrida said that existence is a hall of mirrors. We only adore and respect things that echo characteristics of ourselves, and every artist tries to use the one thing that all people have in common - the struggle against the inevitable - to make their works accessible. Hence aesthetics. The crude remark of "I don't know art, but I know what I like." - merely illustrates the extent of which one work of art has exemplified that ideal. What do we all have in common? Birth and Death. Universality of the human experience springs from that elemental touchstone, defined as what we know as existence, and it's diametrically opposed concept.
The concept of binary dynamic struggle proves not to be limited by what the human mind or social constructions perceive to be divisions between intellectual disciplines. Biology, for example, is composed entirely of examinations and experimentations which serve to illuminate a series of systematic methods of attempting to circumvent, or even contradict the second law of thermodynamics. If entropy is a universally true and applicable concept, and all things ought to be moving invariably toward a lower state of chemical and physical organization, then the Krebs Cycle is an anomaly. Nitrogen, Carbon and Oxygen ought not to be configuring themselves into the complicated affair that is organic matter, but rather working on decomposing from whatever compounds they happen to find themselves arranged and releasing heat, which is the derivative by-product of all thermodynamic processes. Hence the "thermo-" in the "thermodynamic".
How can biology exist, even as a concept, or a discipline, if the very foundation is denied by one of the key principles by which the universe operates? The key is in the exact wording of Newton's law. Entropy always occurs in a black-box, or closed system. Looking at life on Earth is not looking at a closed system. Why not? Because we receive loads of energy from the sun. Our little system is being fed by an external source. The entropic forces are operating, but on a much larger scale - life only exists here because our sun is a big fusion reactor which is slowly decaying and will quit supplying us with energy in a few billion years. Right now, it's mushing hydrogen atoms together to form helium, and when it runs out of hydrogen, the lights go out.
In essence, the nature of the definition of the quantity of entropy within a given scenario is dependent upon whether that scenario is closed to the admission of more energy, in which case, entropic decay is not cancelled, merely deferred to the originating energy source. That being said, there is some consternation created when attempting to derive general principles from circumstances and examples which have varying conditions of existence. Even though the Earth receives energy from the Sun, that doesn't mean that an individual life form lives as long as that energy remains constant. Every living thing on Earth still ages, gets sick, and dies. Every living thing is an entropic system, or as Hamlet puts it "A king may go a-progress through the innards of a worm", which is to say that Robin Williams' character in "Dead Poets' Society" is correct in saying that every person you meet or see will eventually be no more than fertilizer, their organic composite elements being used by little engines like the Krebs Cycle to form other living tissue using the energy of the sun.
How does animal life exist then, if only plants can use the photosynthetic effect of the Krebs Cycle to assemble the building blocks of life? And why are plants still subject to the scourge of disease and death? Shouldn't they just grow until the sun stops shining?
The answer is an entropic cascade. That is to say that all individual entropic systems can only slow that entropy by using the entropic force of another system. How does an animal prevent dying? It has to eat something. What does it eat? Something composed of compounds which are then broken down into component parts and absorbed into the animal's system. If you eat a carrot, you accelerate the entropy of that carrot as it turns from an orange veggie into a sludge of constituent minerals, vitamins, beta-carotene, water, and fibre. The carrot must be reduced in order for you to be enhanced. And plants are unfortunately victim to three other principles which limit their lifespan - structural mechanics, population theory, and evolution. In short - your lawn won't live until the end of time because grass grows at the leaf level disproportionate to the root level, and at a certain point, will be unable to feed itself, and there are too many individual plants competing for the resources available, and they will choke themselves to death unless another entropic system contributes (read: fertilizer), and third, grass that grows really, really high and is terribly efficient at doing so would have several properties - it would have been consumed by herbivorous dinosaurs that required acres of the stuff to get through the week, it would suck the nitrogen out of any soil base in which it was planted to get the nutrients necessary for the Krebs Cycle, and third, it would quickly be supplanted (sorry) by plants that could germinate, mature and release seeds to consume any available resources. In short, plants have to eat like we do, and they die in the same way. The Methuselah Bristlecone Pine from the Californian Cascade Mountains that has been dated at 4600 years old is terribly lucky to have the soil and water conditions it does, as well as the lack of competition and its genetically programmed lack of growth.
Parallel to the scientific and physical principles outlined by the principles of entropy are the intrinsic properties which comprise and define aesthetics. Let us examine what can be described as a soul, which is to say the sum identity of an individual, comprising all intellectual and emotional faculties therein. Is such a thing a closed system? The answer must be in the negative, since (Platonic theories of a priori knowledge notwithstanding) it may be comfortably asserted that human beings are able to grow and expand; that statement qualified through centuries of observation and development. Since growth is essentially a linear process, and assuming that either entropy is not operating, or has at least been deferred, the question becomes: from what state do we grow? In terms of the soul, I hypothesize that the ground or original level of the human soul is that of a state of isolation, ignorance, absence, loss, despair and darkness. Freud's postulate that birth is the first formative experience of a human personality reinforces this assertion. The removal from the womb, the separation from the mother, the first breath of dry air all contribute to the incipient intelligence perceiving existence to be nothing more than a series of negative stimuli which compound until an eventual demise and consequent return to the identity-less void from whence it came. Such a traumatic and universal transformative experience must influence the dynamics of society and humanity as a whole. By extension, this means that all achievement and struggles against despair are significant though ultimately futile attempts to return to a womb which cannot exist, even as a metaphorical emotional projection. Heaven, Nirvana, and other such after-life concepts are reflections of this desire to return to the warmth, safety, comfort and painlessness of pre-natal existence. In short, being born breaks us, and we spend the rest of our lives in a vain attempt to put the pieces back together again.
Authenticity, then, finds its deepest roots in emotional and intellectual appeals to states of despair and abandonment, and the quest to restore unity and banish dystopia. Distance, as caused by isolation is therefore ironically the greatest common factor which unites humanity. This serves to delineate the postulate that aesthetic expression predominantly consists of manifestations which address the diametric tension between the appeals to the emotions of emptiness and loneliness, and the emotions of satisfaction and fulfillment. This can be shown by presenting another corollary discipline: economics. Emotional appeal is the fundamental principle which governs strategic advertising and marketing (when applied to demographics), and the objective of marketing is to sell in order to succeed and survive as a corporate entity. The Darwinist nature of market economies dictates that companies which are unsuccessful at convincing people to consume their product or service will soon no longer have the revenue necessary to continue advertising, and shortly thereafter will they cease to exist, but they will not procreate in the sense that their attitudes and philosophies will not be emulated by companies in the future. Thus, the majority of corporations currently advertising in and on various media must, after generations of marketing evolution, be making some significant emotional appeals in order to induce people to follow a pattern of consumer behaviour condusive to the success of those companies. If the extrapolation of personal preferences and affectations into the general or universal are in fact rooted to a universally negative emotion-set, then a great deal is revealed.
Why would people buy deodorant unless they considered themselves malodourous? Why buy diet products unless one considers one's self overweight? And thus are impossibly thin and impeccably coiffured celebrities used to market products in a way that is intended to make people feel inadequate and unloved. Those emotions are latent in every human being, and each bronzed adonis and lithe lilith only serves to create a sensation of discontent, and offer a commercial product as a means of remedying the situation. The nagging sensation of inadequacy is the largest lever in the human machine which is the human identity, and hence the one most vulnerable to commercial exploitation as well as aestethis appreciation.
But if the fundamental basis of aesthetics is dependent upon negative or deprecatory emotional appeals, then it seems odd that such a system can continue to exist. Surely if all the Van Goghs go mad and the Hemmingways commit suicide because they are prostituting their own feelings of loss and pain, then there would surely be a profound dearth of artists. Surely that depth of self-examination, coupled with the honesty required to try and link that individual case with the universal would lead only to the annihilation of the self. The only out to the scenario is found in Nietzsche or Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin asserted that a destructive urge is also a creative one. More to the point, Nietzsche saw the abyss as the source of stimulation to the imagination as well as being poisonous to the soul. Once the nature of existence is fully realized, the individual becomes at once authentic, self-actualized, and possessed of the mindset of the exiled, ostracized, and excommunicated. These artists thereafter can conceive of society from an external point of view, and can comprehend the futility of human endeavour and the naïveté of logical positivism. This understanding allows the individual to act in such a way as to cause disruption of the status quo, and explains why in one of the first precepts in a repressive political régime, it is the poets and the artists who are the first to be silenced and placed into camps. Expansion of cognitive and perceptive ability permits the individual to preclude manipulation or repression. In other words, we may all be marionettes, but those among us able to see the strings are more likely to have greater control over individuality and identity, often to the detriment of would-be puppeteers.
In the next exciting installment - Literature and how it uses a binary dynamic as its source of appeal. Stay tuned, gentle readers. Until then, cheerio.

Justice for the 96.

-mARKUS

The 2004 Season Break

Greetings, programs.
I was just about to do my post-season recap of Liverpool FC, tie that in to my commentary on the astonishing results at Euro 2004, and finally end off with a season preview for the '04-'05 season when an amazing thing happened. The Official Liverpool Web Site has made an appeal for amateur writers to submit copies of their works for possible publication on-line. That means that this site will, for the foreseeable future, become my draughting pad for my submissions to the lads and lasses actually responsible for maintaining the LFC site. Could it be? Could it be? I may have a possibility of recognition at long last. Any comments which can give me any kind of idea for making my punctuation more punchy or my syntax silkier are not only welcomed, but now enthusiatically endorsed. I want to play in the big leagues with the pundits, and I need your help!
So with that status update stated, here are my thoughts on the state of footy in general and Liverpool specifically following a tumultuous series of events nationally and internationally.
The club finished the season having qualified for the Champions' Cup by virtue of finishing fourth in the league. That's good, since Liverpool FC without European football is like a feast without wine, as Roy Evans once said. But it is also a huge cause for concern, since the enormous difference in points which forms the gulf separating us from Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea would seem to reflect a corresponding contrast in team quality and consistency in terms of results.
And so, after the final balls of the season were kicked, the club nicely asked Gérard Houllier to step aside and make room for new management. Being the dedicated Liverpool fan that he is, and knowing that despite his accomplishments to date and projections for the future, he recognized that his continued presence would detract from the team's performance and place undue pressure on all members of the club. He had been second-guessed and scrutinized at every turn, and it was a stirring moment near the end of February when Steve Gerrard scored a critical goal against Levski Sofia in the UEFA Cup, than ran across the pitch to hug Houllier in an unmistakable statement of support for his boss. Despite the faith of his players, punters and publicists throughout the country would have continued to spend more column inches analysing his managerial style and techniques than on actual team performances or overall quality of play. As a younger man in the 60's and 70's, Houllier worked as a teacher on Merseyside, and has been a Liverpool fan and football professional ever since, helping France win the World Cup in 1998 as Technical Director. And so, tears in his eyes, he tendered his resignation and walked away from the only job he's ever wanted. He took a bullet for an under-achieving team and sacrificed his career, assuming all the responsibility for any perceived shortcomings in the team's season.
The team was hamstrung (almost literally) from the opening of the season, with hideous injuries decimating the squad and restricting options in terms of personnel and tactical structure. With Milan Baros, Dietmar Hamann, Chris Kirkland, Jamie Carragher, Michael Owen and other ostensible first-teamers wracked with injury, the rest of the team grew increasingly dependent on Captain Steven Gerrard to dictate the flow of play during each game. The young lad emerged as Liverpool's heart and soul, and earned praise and admiration from all corners.
The biggest development to occur as a result of Gerrard's heroics was the bid submitted by the outrageously wealthy staff at Chelski, who offered extraordinary amounts of money to bring the lad to London. After a Euro 2004 performance that underlined his skills and potential game-breaking genius, it looked as though the club and player would be helpless before the temptation of mountains of lucre from Chelsea owner Roman Abramowich - somewhere between 37 and 40 million pounds to the club, and an extravagant weekly wage increase to the player.
After several days of soul-searching and meditation, Stevie G did something rarely seen in professional sports - he walked away from the big money and stayed with his hometown team. He met the new manager, Rafael Benitez, and was sufficiently impressed with the gaffer's plans and ideas that he is convinced of the club's abilities to win trophies. His loyalty and convictions sent ripples throughout the Premiership. His team-mates praised him, other managers were awe-struck, and the new manager at Chelsea was left giving a news conference fervently hoping that Gerrard does well - but not against his team.
The man put under pressure by Gerrard's decision was none other than fellow hometown hero Michael Owen. St. Michael has only a year left on his contract, but the fans are now in the thrall of an expectation that he will follow his friend, teammate and captain's decision to re-sign with the club. And in a Euro 2004 tournament where England captain David Beckham was so bitterly disappointing, it was St. Michael that played with a selflessness uncommon among strikers, setting young Wayne Rooney free time and again through other team's defences, and sparking the Rooney-mania craze. Every beautiful Rooney strike was presaged by a brilliant move by Owen to squeak balls from inside the man-marking prisons in which defences trapped him, and hit the wide-open and unmarked Rooney with a pass into his stride.
And while St. Michael dazzled with his generosity, it was another Liverpool player who claimed the golden boot for his repeated bulging of the backs of nets: Milan Baros. Baros displayed a hungry predatory instinct which was fed perfectly by the often sublime creativity of Pavel Nedved, Vladimir Smicer, and to a lesser extent, Karel Poborsky. The Czech Republic was simply a juggernaut, scoring goals at will, including a thriller over Holland. Until their irresistible force ran into the immovable object that was Greece, where the Greeks poached a goal against the run of play virtually as the ref inhaled to blow the whistle on the first half of extra-time. According to UEFA, it will be the last "Silver Goal" scored in this tournament - the rules having already been changed, but that will be of scant consolation to the mortified Czechs.
In a season where FC Porto triumphed in the Champions' League, and giants were being killed in cup competitions on an almost weekly basis, this year seemed to be destined to elevate the less fortunate, less glamourous, and less storied teams to the detriment of the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and Bayern Munich. And with the possible exception of Latvia, no-one was less-favoured than Greece. Even after their shock upset of the hosts on the first day of competition, no one really fancied the Cinderellas to go all the way to the final and win. But somehow, through the virtually incomprehensible babblings of Otto Rehhagel, they formed a team that will go into history as legends. As quite possibly the greatest example of a team winning against astronomical odds through the application of discipline and teamwork in European football history, the Greek team have given their country the biggest posible lift it could have received prior to hosting the Summer Olympics in Athens.
So what can we expect from the upcoming season? More stunning upsets and long-shot David vs. Goliath showdowns? Canvey Island for the FA Cup, anyone?
UEFA, distraught at the comparative ease with which England, Italy, France, Spain and Germany were dispatched from the tournament are looking at ways of shortening the league seaons in those countries, ostensibly because of claims that after a full season, players from those countries are too knackered to participate meaningfully in a summer tournament. Which leads me to a final recap item. Markus Babbel, after three years at Liverpool has returned to Germany to play for Vfb Stuttgart. This is the man who played 60 games out of 63 during the 2000-2001 season, where he helped claim the UEFA Cup, The FA Cup, The League Cup, The Charity Shield and the European Super Cup. The following season, he was struck down by Guillian-Barre Syndrome, which sidelined him for over a year. After months of rehab, he was finally cleared to play, and he was loaned out to Blackburn Rovers for a season, where he slowly regained his match fitness.
His departure is certainly one of the most amicably conducted events of recent memory. He gushed out a glowing tribute to the club, the city and the supporters and cannot comfotably envisage playing for a different Premiership team. A classy full back who helped stock the trophy cabinet in his only full season of fitness, Markus will be fondly remembered. He was part of a back four defensive line which was one of the crucial components of a team which became the only club in history to play every possible fixture in a single season. Thankfully, there was no summer tournament following that magical season, since players like Babbel and Stephane Henchoz were completely out of energy. It took Babbel two years to get any of it back, due to the debilitating neurological disorder.
So this season is likely to prove the last one with a full 20-team Premiership. I expect that the conclusion of the 2005 season will involve four teams being relegated, and only two receiving promotion from Division 1. And the Scottish Premiership is going to have to do some reorganizing north of Hadrian's Wall. The financial situation in Scotland is dire, and the revenues are falling far short of club expectations to meet expenditures. Television contracts, sponsorships and wage bills are going to need a huge restructuring across the board to create financial stability. Unless Scottish clubs can make a dent in Europe, there just aren't enough revenue streams to sustain a healthy league. Glasgow Rangers are tightening their belts, and Celtic are following suit. I suspect that unless the SFA negotiate some form of Home Countries competition with proceeds benefitting the league members, Scotland will turn into a Conference-level of competition compared to England, and their performances in Europe will be on a par with Belorus and the Faeroe Islands.
So there's the structural analysis. As for the actual performances of teams on the pitch - all eyes are looking to Middlesbrough and Chelsea, who have been the most active in the transfer market. Speculation about Alan Shearer's future at Newcastle will continue to active - he's still banging in the goals, but how long before age or injury force the Toon Army to buy a long-term replacement? The departure of Lomanu Lua Lua has already thinned the ranks, and with a rising wage bill featuring Kieron Dyer and Jonathan Woodgate, how much can Sir Bobby Robson afford to spend, and when?
Meanwhile, on Merseyside the theme is one of continuity rather than expansion. Everton are working tirelessly to ensure that Wayne Rooney commits his future to the club, while Liverpool, having secured Steven Gerrard are looking to maintain the presence of St. Michael in the fold. The new faces include Djibril Cisse with the Reds, who has been a goal-scoring machine in the French League - the lowest scoring league in terms of goals-per-game average. Faces on the Kop at Anfield are salivating at the prospect of an in-form St. Michael combining with Baros and Cisse up front.
And many young and new faces that never had a proper introduction to the Kop are on their way out. Young masters Richie Partidge and Michael Foley-Sheridan have been released. Apparently the Benitez revolution does not believe the youth academy will be able to trump the successes of Fowler and Owen, Gerrard and Carragher, and have evicted some of the lads with big potential in order to make room for new imports and the articles that have proven themselves to be genuine already, such as Neil Mellor.
Bruno Cheyrou will not run out on the pitch at Anfield this season, having gone on a year-long loan to Marseilles. Oh, and for a whopping £6.25 million, Emile Heskey has been sold to Birmingham City. A good, solid lad, but he always seemed to flatter to deceive and never lived up to the hype surrounding his arrival from Leicester City. And with Cisse, Owen and Baros in the strike force, it was always going to be Heskey who would either lose first-team playing time or move to another top-flight club. And with Birmingham also scooping up the numerous Chelsea castoffs, they could be a surprisingly powerful team with a number of swift attacking options in Mikael Forssell, Muzzy Izzet, Jesper Gronkjaer and now Heskey joining the lightning-fast Stan Lazaridis and the talismanic and eerily erudite Robbie Savage at St. Andrew's.
But let's leave the midlands for a moment and think of the tragedy in Yorkshire, where Leeds dismantled their team in the wake of their relegation. And strangely enough, that team seems more and more impressive in retrospect as the former White United players are snapped up hungrily by teams with the expectations that most, if not all of them will be stars for their new clubs. Former Liverpool midfielders Domenic Matteo and Nicky Barmby are off to Blackburn and Hull City respectively. Ian Harte is off to Spain to play with newly promoted Levante. Young prospect Stephen McPhail is at Barnsley, England internationals Paul Robinson, Danny Mills and Alan Smith are off to Tottenham Hotspurs, Manchester City and Manchester United, in that order, for a grand total of £7.5 million. Australian star Mark Viduka went to Middlesbrough for £4.5 million, and rising star James Milner was sold to Newcastle for a fee that may eventually reach £5 million, depending on appearances. That's nine players - all highly rated and desirable. Why were Leeds so poor on the pitch last year with such a wealth of talent? And rumours still swirl that Eirik Bakke may be next on the auction block. Alas, Leeds will need to rebuild with some inspired youth and some cut-rate experience quickly if they hope to rejoin the other big clubs in the Premiership. A chilling warning to other clubs of the dangers of mismanagement and the need to keep the wage bills within the bounds of reason.
On the other side of the coin, Manchester United have been splashing out money quite freely to buy the heroes of tomorrow. Now that the first generation of Fergie's Fledglings has begun to fly the nest, Sir Alex has decided to begin rebuilding now with young and impressionable teenage talent that he can shape to his philosophies and tactics - Giuseppe Rossi from Parma, Gerard Pique from Barcelona, and Gabriel Heinze from Paris Saint-Germain. Apparently the success of teenaged Cristiano Ronaldo has filled the Old Trafford staff with the belief that not only can David Beckham be replaced, but so can Nicky Butt and several other members of the youth team that came up through the academy. And it seems that the expensive flops of Juan Sebastian Veron, Karel Poborsky (remember him?), Jordi Cruyff, and even Diego Forlan have burned the fingers and pocketbooks of the directors perhaps once too often. So they're buying for the future, and hoping that some of the old guard can help the youth along, laying a heavy responsibility on Roy Keane in midfield, Rio Ferdinand in defence, and Saha and Van Nistlerooy up front to win matches while the new signings are blooded and try and stay in the championship races of the next two or three seasons.
Chelsea, meanwhile, not content with profligately casting over £100 million of transfer fees around last season, have already spent £39.2 million this off-season. Gone are Emmanuel Petit, Winston Bogarde, Marcel Desailly, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Mario Melchiot, and Joel Kitamirike. All released from their contracts and set free to the four winds. Unwanted, and apparently unneeded. Gone temporarily are Hernan Crespo, Carlton Cole, Mikael Forssell, and Juan Sebastian Veron - all given season-long loans to other clubs. José Mourinho must obviously have liked the performance of PSV Eindhoven last year, since he splashed out £26 million to buy three of them: keeper Petr Cech, attacking midfielder Arjen Robben, and striker Mateja Kezman. What can we expect of Chelsea this year? A half-decent run in Europe, but no silverware, as everyone spends the season sorting through the jerseys trying to determine who's actually on the team.
The Gunners have been doing a bit of house-cleaning as well, though not flexing their purchasing power as indelicately as their blue London rivals. Arséne Wenger has released the contracts of Nwankwo Kanu, Igor Stepanovs, Craig Holloway, Rami Shaaban, long-time servant Martin Keown, and Sylvain Wiltord, and given Stathis Tavlaridis and Giovanni van Bronckhorst free transfers. What can we expect to see from them? They'll probably win the league again this year, though not quite in such dominating style as in the last season. They've lost some depth on their bench, and some leadership in the dressing room, and it'll show during the Christmas Break crunch, when injuries and fixture congestion start to drain them. They'll drop a couple of cup matches and have to turn on the Henry afterburners at the close of the season to take the Premiership.
And as for the 'Pool? Well, I would very much have liked them to have beaten Roma to Philippe Mexes' signature, since a 22 year-old defender who can also play sweeper is a rare commodity in today's game, but the knowledge that he spurned Manchester United's £9.9 million pound offer to sign for the Italian club is victory enough for now.
Benitez made his reputation as a man who can turn fortunes around very quickly, as he did at Valencia. But La Liga is one thing, and England another thing again. It will take some time to adjust to the faster pace, more aggressive play, and focus on fitness that is prevalent in the Premiership. Squad rotation can be almost as critical as a first-team tactical formation, and stamina training can be as important as set-play practice.
The first season will be good. A success even. But the elusive championship of the Premiership will elude the Merseyside Reds for one more year. The FA Cup is a good bet, though. And a very solid run in the Champions' Cup. Semi-finalists, perhaps. Then again, after all of these years of expectation and disappointment, perhaps I'm just a jaded kopite afraid to commit to hoping too much or too hard for something that has never come to fruition. On the other hand, I think that time is on Liverpool's side. The players are young, hungry and willing to shed tears of blood to win. And with Stevie G's commitment to the team, I believe the trophies will come. Loosely assembled squads of mercenaries cannot compete with an elite team of focused and attuned colleagues fighting for each other. Shankly demanded that kind of cameraderie from his teams, and now that Stevie G has made the first critical step in establishing passion, loyalty and dedication, his leadership can forge the great man's Red Army anew.

"The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life" - Bill Shankly


Justice for the 96.

-mARKUS