PLAYER FOCUS....on.... "Arniesto"

After a long break to get us through the intensive soccer season Player Focus is back.....and back with a bang, see..... And I don't mean any small bang, I mean one of those glorious huge big bangs that sound like the Universe has just rebooted and life is worth living again. Yeah, and this time we focus on that Sam Spade loving, Faulkner kissing son of a gun called Arnie,....yeah, that's right, Arniesto to his friends. And will it be funny? Who knows, and who cares, alls i know is that when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it!

First time you played soccer? In High School--
Galway Golden Eagles in upstate New York--went to states three years, twice to semi finals. ( Arggghh, so close to the final! "All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible" )

Favorite Team? Barcelona ( Whatevah.... )

Fav Player? Fabregas (hoping he'll make it to Barca). ( Keep dreaming... )

Fav Music? Like many many things--Dylan, Nick Cave, Classical guitar--especially Segovia, Bach... Richard and Linda Thompson, Susan McKewon, Van Morrison.... ( What?? No Lady Gaga? )

Fav Movie? Hard to say--love all Film Noir (taught a course in Noir for years)... Touch of Evil right up there. Gun Crazy. Out of the Past. Kiss Me, Deadly. ( .....are those films names or are you really trying to tell me something? ....like.....“I didn't recognize you. You should lay off those candy bars.”..... “How I detest the dawn. The grass always looks like it's been left out all night.”)

Best moment on a soccer field? Still waiting for it to happen... ( yes, we all are! Spring season will be here soon!)

Nickname at school? The Goog. (Long before Google--after comic book character Barney Google.) (any relation to our Goggs? )

Motto for life? Hmm. You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose... (Well technically you can.... not sure why you would want to, but you could! )

Something we don't know about you? Played lead guitar for a punk rock band of graduate English lit students called The Sound and the Fury (after Faulkner's novel).... ( lemme guess....I bet you were The Fury? Maybe should have called yourselves the Compson brothers?)

Most famous person I've met? Spent an afternoon with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's wife waiting for him to arrive. He got stuck in traffic, and I never managed to meet him, but had a lovely visit with Mercedes, and a tour of his studio, gardens, house, etc. (did he know you had spent the afternoon with his wife?? Is this something you want to admit on a global blog, did you both have cholera?? )

Thanks for the great interview! But.....Don't be so gloomy Arniesto. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock! So long, Arnie...... ;o)