Be-tween a Rock and a Rap Place

I skipped out from buying the CD soundtrack to the last World Cup in boring ol' Germany, but I didn't want to miss a beat with the first World Cup in black Africa.

The official album released via Sony/Columbia was a letdown, as they usually are since they're restricted to only artists on their label. Instead, what I did was scour the internet for all the awesome music I've heard during the World Cup and leading up to it, from commercials to radio to music video outlets. All the songs officially written and produced for the event.

The hard drive from here to there, music accompaniment to the sounds of a pulsating planet. Here's what the CD I compiled and burned earlier today sounds like...

Track 1: K'naan feat. Nancy Arjam - 'Waving Flag' (Arabic)
Track 2: Weezer/Rivers Cuomo - 'Reprezent'
Track 3: Richard Ashcroft feat. the U.N.O.S. - 'Are You Ready'
Track 4: Akon feat. Keri Hilson - 'Oh Africa'
Track 5: Safri Duo feat. Velile - 'Helele'
Track 6: Ziggy Marley feat. Angelique Kidjo - 'Africa Land'
Track 7: South African Pop All-Stars - 'Shosholoza 2010'
Track 8: Daddy Yankee - 'Grito Mundial'
Track 9: Shakira - 'Waka Waka (Esto Es Africa)'
Track 10: DJ Sharam - 'Waka Waka Arena Mix'
Track 11: R.Kelly feat Soweto Gospel Choir - 'Sign of a Victory'

West Wink

Let's play a game, shall we?

Which one of these two pics was photoshopped?

In Awegrated

I've never come across a South African bar or restaurant in the States, but a Brooklynite did and lived it up to tell about it.

Even better, someone else got a cellphone capture of the first goal of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. After the final whistle, a crowd gathered outside the Paley Center in Manhattan for a singalong of 'Shosholoza' that we hope to hear more of the next month. Thanks to the MLS Insider for recording the clip below, btw.

I was asked to briefly share some of my thoughts on Bafana Bafana's run over at the World Cup blog for Drew Carey's Seattle Sounders, who also included me in a Puget Sound Business Journal article on bloggers during the extra-time extravaganza. Ayoba!

Polkaface

Out of the woodwork every four years come bandwagon fans and minivan suckers.

I can tolerate them. But with them comes the condescending contrarians ready to prove that they're above the fray with their uber-whiteness.

Are these three twats the same person? If you know anything about these semi-popular writers, it's glaring how they sure seem to look the same, write the same, and like the same things.

Click on each image to find out the same thing they don't like.

El Entrenador has no clothes

The morning after a shirtless streaker ran across the field at the USA - Czech Republic game, captain quotable Diego Maradona pledged to run naked in the streets of Buenos Aires if his team wins the World Cup.

Last month in Charlotte, a drunken fan ran onto the field during the Mexico - Iceland exhibition and got levelled by security. But my favorite, a bikini-clad beauty in a bandanna pledged allegiance during a Concacaf qualifier.

With that trend in mind, British telecom provider Freeview has special ad campaign that lets it all hang out.

Postscript Production

These days, seems everyone's talking about what they want to accomplish before they die.

At the top of my list I would include 'to direct World Cup commercial for Nike...'

The swoosh released its much-anticipated TV campaign for the 2010 South Africa, and notably it became a viral sensation before officially debuting on the airwaves during the Champions League final. It's as epic as we've come to expect from the good folks in Oregon, both Nike and its frequent agency partner Wieden+Kennedy.

The commercial trumped their last three-minute masterpiece, the Guy Ritchie-directed 'Take it to the Next Level' spot for EURO2008. As I mentioned back then, Ritchie is a director at Anonymous Content -- the same production company as Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, the Oscar-winning helmer (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros) who went behind the lens for this new commercial. Hence appearances by thespians like Gael Garcia Bernal.

Iñarritu on Saturday wasn't too far from Madrid, where the Champions League final was taking place. He was at the Cannes Film Festival, receiving an award for his latest feature. Last year at Cannes, one Eric Cantona was there for his own cinematic creation. The Frenchman is notably absent from this 2010 Nike campaign, which might be a good idea after the rocky spots he did as their narrator in 2006.

And before that for 2002, the phootball philosophe was the antagonist in Nike's Mad Max-inspired 2002 campaign, directed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. I can't remember if Cantona popped up in any of the Samba in 1998, but he literally burst onto the mise-en-scene during USA '94 for what is Nike's first int'l soccer commercial.

The rest, as they say, is history written in the future.

Completely Cloudy

C'mon, it's not all a big geoGRAPHIC fail. At least they got the hemisphere right.

Bono Rue

Recently, U2 announced the abrupt cancellation of their summer 2010 world tour, after Bono had a bit of a tumble in rehearsals.

No worries, though. The band will get plenty of play and opportunities to again promote 'No Line on the Horizon' in conjunction with ESPN's World Cup coverage. They've produced nice remixes with the Soweto Gospel Choir aka 'Spiritual Singers', which will add to the other set of original studio music composed by Nonstop as the theme to the network's coverage. Not to mention Bono lending his Vox to narrate the promos like in the clip below.

South Africa has played a part in a U2 world tour before. Johannesburg was the final stop of their infamous 'POPmart' tour, which turned out to be their last concert in the twentieth century.

Card Blanche

I logged into my bank statement online and saw a promo link for a special offer from Visa. The fine print says odds of winning the grand prize is 1 in 94 million -- or in other words, the same chance Bafana Bafana has in advancing beyond the opening round.

This is Visa's first time as the official card of the World Cup. They've done a great job with their Olympic commercials featuring Morgan Freeman, especially for the Winter Games in Vancouver, and recently they rolled out their first World Cup advert with the aptly-named Freeman, who played Nelson Mandela in Invictus. Mandela imprisoned at Robben Island is also the theme of the latest ESPN promo.

DISCLOSURE: The above 60-second spot was directed by Jake Scott (son of Ridley) whose production company (which produced this clip) offered me an (unpaid) internship a few years ago.

Dear One-and-Doners:

Good riddance to ya.

Sincerely,
Viewers of the Duke-Butler title game

(My stub from an April 2008 flight; 

and the guy 21 corn-rows in front of me.)

Over the Topps

On Monday's edition of 'Marketplace' hosted by Kai Ryssdal, they had an interesting segment about the "baseball card bubble" of the early Nineties. Risdall interviewed a 31-year-old who wrote the story of how the boom of sports cards in that era gave some kids (and their parents) from his generation the idea that such collectibles would have serious monetary value in future.

The reporter gave a couple of weak socioeconomic reasons for the failure of baseball cards, but failed to mention a huge one.  In 1994 there was a little thing called the pro baseball strike, which cancelled the season and World Series. It tainted the image of "America's pastime" and the league -- and really, professional sports in America -- has yet to fully recover to this day.

That same summer happened to see the World Cup arrive on this shores for the first time. Kids like me started reading 'Soccer International' on the magazine shelf instead of Beckett Baseball Card Monthly.  I recall getting back in touch with one old classmate of mine from middle school, named Mike Barnes. This kid was all about the card trading, and an upcoming Little League player to boot. (He was a jackass too -- one time he stole a few of my cards.) By 1994 he had stopped trading cards and playing baseball, and was committed to soccer, playing varsity and so on. He told me the World Cup was the game-changer for him.

Barnes and I were those kids in the late-80s and early-90s robustly buying and selling baseball cards like stocks. Not for the money, of course, but there was real joy and love in the game of baseball. That's how they raised us in America. That if we build it, they will come. Fifth grade field trip to Wrigley Field, bleacher tickets to Comiskey Park for good attendance.

Baseball card shows were everywhere. Hotel ballrooms and exhibition halls filled with vendors and appearances by overpaid pro players who got huge fees to show up and autograph fans' stuff for a hefty fee. As children we didn't care, and didn't realize at the time how foolish we really were being.

Darryl Hall Over Again

The array of North American pop singers they're importing into South Africa for the opening night concert has me feelin' rather nostalgic.

Well, in a cannot-believe-they-could-not-find-artists-who-really-like-soccer kind of a way. Even the natives are restless about the lack of artists from the host country. Or continent.

UPDATE: Organizers add more South Africans to WC concert

Tea-Mobile

Red White and Bull

I was mopping my kitchen floor with some Neutered Public Radio (NPR) on in the background and, suddenly, a sports story broke out.

What had broke was supposedly Lindsey Vonn's leg. In an impromptu afternoon press conference in Park City, the bombshell dropped the bombshell that she has a "severe injury" that will impact her races at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which begins tomorrow.

It's so bad that Lindsey stated she had to wrap cheese over her bruised leg. I sure hope it's slices of American cheese made by Kraft, who's headquartered in the Winter Olympic hotbed of Illinois. Yes, the Land o' Lakes and Lincoln. That's where speedskating Chicagoan Shani Davis, figure skater Evan Lysacek of suburban Naperville, and the toasts of Champaign Katherine Reutter and Jonathan Kuck - same hometown as Bonnie Blair (and Roger Ebert!) - are expected to medal on the ice.


I sliced and diced my way to Mrs. Vonn's Facebook page, and boy, she loves her Red Bull. It's her official sponsor, and seemingly half her photos has her showcasing her gear with the Austrian energy drink giant. On her official Twitter page, her bio reads: world cup ski racer, big tennis fan and loves RedBull."  The former Ms. Lidlow made a whopping $3million from endorsements alone in 2009 -- a pretty hefty sum in a non-Olympic year. Red Bull also happens to be the wind beneath the aerials of hash-piper Shaun White.

So I'm calling bullshoot. It's a clever marketing move by Team Vonn (TV), though. The storylines are in packaged nicely. If she medals, then it's a story of overcoming the odds. If she doesn't, then it's okay, nice effort. Either way, we're glued to the tube.

TV ratings should do well. The X-gamification of the games continues, with thrills and spills on the frozen obstacle courses. Yes, like an adult version of Double Dare. Although this being Canada there are some things You Can't Do That on Television.

What you can't say on American TV is that not all Americans are rah-rah, going for the gold. Some are in it to do their best, but not take it so damn seriously. So in way, the X-Games needed a dash of professionalism while the Olympics needed an infusion of chill stoke-iness.  Kind of like Bode Miller, EH?

Miller tore up the slope at his first Olympics in 2002 in Salt Lake City, the place where Orrin Hatch represents. This time around, Sen. Hatch doesn't want AmBush marketers coming to egg us on.  Another watchdog barking at the evil marketing apparati is AdBusters, whose Vancouver headquarters make cents.

Money talks and Red Bull walks. Well, it limps. For now anyway.

Smash Mouths

It's no Scottish Soccer Hooligans, but it's pretty (in)decent.