And One More Thing

Was it interpretive dance night at the open mic session? For his sake, I hope that's the explanation...

This is why I like 'Fest so much:

- Rhymefest, "42 Bars of Fury"

He fucking flows, maaaaang! And he rips that "Know the Ledge" beat.

"Four Days You Work...

Yes, he wants to go to your school, too.

...One whole day to play
Come on, everybody, wear your rollerskates today
It's Friday, Friday
Friday, it's Friday..."

Yeah, I don't have work today. Eat it.

- If you're a college-football dork like me, you know who Noel Devine is. And if you aren't, you don't. For this latter group: Devine is some high-school running back from Florida who has every football-power fan base salivating because of this video, rumored to be from his freshman year of football. No, that's not actually Barry Sanders's recycled high school tape. Devine is also rumored to have a "connection" (read: an aunt who was twisted out by a dude who played poker with a friend whose brother drove a truck that passed by Major Football U's football stadium every day) to every school in the country, so countless message-board posts have either ended with or consisted solely of statements like, "And best of all, because of that aunt, we'll probably be in his top five and, at least, get an official visit. I like our chances."

Well, the shit just never ends with this kid.

- Jeff McInnis with the Nets? 1-3-1 offense? End of the Bench, on and effing poppin'.

- Remember this bullyshit post from yesterday? Well, [stereotypical cartoon villain with designs on running the world] it's working. Ha ha ha ha! [/stereo...world] Your run-of-the-mill hip-hopper is oh so predictable. Thank you, 50, for making internets go.

- My man Dame got his mind right.

- Peep game: sports, rhymes, and life. Hip-hop is taking over these interwebs.

- Probably not any news here, but take a spin on this Nike site. It rules.

And now, it's time for the obligatory DangerDoom audio links:
- DangerDoom, "Sofa King"
Miri Ben-Ari should cover this track

- DangerDoom ft. Ghostface Killah, "The Mask"
"The day I took my mask off, my face was missing for two days"? Excuse me? Ian, use this at some point.

Danger Mouse and MF Doom: Your favorite blogger's favorite undergrounders.

Choices, Choices, Choices

And I ain't talkin' Three 6 Choices, either.

Better Than Yours:
- Ultramagnetic MC's, "Funky"
They just sound like they're having so much fun, and I love how Kool Keith comes on this track. Robbie has written about the UMCs extensively (read: he owns that shit), and rightfully so. They might be the most overlooked group in the history of hip-hop. The raw energy of this track is incredible.

- 2Pac ft. Dr. Dre, "California Love"
At some point, this joint became a favorite among white people, heard at frat parties and in cars across the suburbs. I suppose this was inevitable given that 2Pac is a rapper that you're supposed to like, especially if you want to seem insightful and thoughtful. Right? I mean, isn't there such profound power in his poetry, man? He was just so misunderstood and tormented, and his music was the cathartic outlet for his ambivalence and duality. Who else could compose such beautiful rhymes and go to arts academy while remaining street, forcibly sodomizing women and getting shot up all the time? Damn you, cruel world. Any "real" 2Pac fan probably hates this song at this point, but you can't disregard its place in the sociocultural history of hip-hop--it announced the dawn of the new Death Row, and it made 2Pac a dynamic star.

This Is a Real Dick Move

Nas, Nasir, Jones, 50 Cent, Fitty, Fiddy, Curtis, Jackson, beef, Queens, Queensbridge, download, listen, mp3, dis, diss, Game, track, song, MC Burial, New York, retaliate (with hate?), G-Unit, Kelis, Jadakiss, new, shot, Hot 97, free hot teens...

(Sorry, just trying to capture some of the predictable Google traffic.)

Blog Bickering #4

Those things with the antlers? They're called moose, right? Yeah, I'll take one of those, with fries.

Blue-Gray Sky has the BlogPoll Blog Roundtable IV: Return from Blog Mountain posted. Here are my answers:

Who are your rival(s)?
All Michigan partisans can tell you that Michigan’s primary rivals are (the) Ohio State (joke of a) University, Michigan State, and Notre Dame. No season is a full success unless it includes wins over these three teams, and for good reasons:

- (t) OS (joa) U is a school for ignorant yahoos who don’t read good, struggle to pass courses like Don’t Get AIDS, and haven’t met a law they can’t break. The average Buckeye fan is a belligerent drunk who would rather urinate on him- or herself and get into a fight in an Ann Arbor bar than allow even one ray of logic to penetrate his or her abnormally thick skull. There’s a reason that not a single Big Ten fan base has anything nice to say about those troglodytes from Columbus.

- Spartans seethe in their inferiority complex for 365 days each year, and their manic obsession with the Sisyphusean task of displacing Michigan as the dominant school in the state leads to all kids of cute and funny behavior: they burn couches; they flip over cars; they come to my apartment and vomit into an empty bag of Doritos; etc. Perpetuating that kind of desperate self-loathing is cruelly and somewhat shamefully pleasurable, the same way it’s fun to torment a little sibling.

- Notre Dame, as a school and fan base, is completely delusional. ND hasn’t won a bowl game in a decade, can’t even finish a season ranked, and can’t find anyone who wants to coach the team. It whines about complete bullshit like academic standards and morality, yet then does stuff like set a precedent by firing an academics- and morality-oriented coach before his contract even expired. The fans and the administration still preen as though the brand name means anything anymore, and that kind of out-of-touch behavior is so irksome. ND also forces all fans nationwide to endure the grating ramblings of Pat Hayden, one of the few national-level broadcast homers, an ignominious distinction shared only by other horrendous broadcasters like Dick Vitale and Billy Packer. Contributing to the demise of such an obnoxious program is wonderful fun. And South Bend is one of the worst college towns in America.

A rivalry that does not carry the same traditional mystique but is almost as important is Michigan-Penn State. When PSU came into the Big Ten, the league was supposed to be in trouble since the big, bad Nittany Lions were going to eradicate the Big Two and Little Eight era. Well, that was before senility set in. Since the PSU demise, the fans have become more and more obnoxious and paranoid as the win totals have dwindled and the recruiting losses have mounted. PSU fans now run their “mouths” on the internets as much as anyone, and you can’t help but laugh as wins over Akron become cause for celebration.

Size up your chances in your rival games this year.
Michigan is going to struggle in its rivalry games this year. While many have noted the losses sustained by the Notre Dame defense, the Notre Dame offense returns a number of critical players and will surely be bolstered by the arrival of Charlie Weis, last seen devising an offense that scored in all kinds of ways and won three NFL titles in four seasons. The task of matching wits with Weis falls to Michigan Defensive Coordinator Jim Herrmann, and that’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Herrmann has been exposed as a DC who struggles to develop talent and make crucial adjustments, in a game or in a month between blowouts. He’ll also be working with personnel long on recruiting rankings and short on production. The secondary must be rebuilt, the linebackers are starting from the scratch, and the defensive linemen were using “high school techniques” last season. (And please note: That quotation comes from fanzine The Wolverine’s season preview. It’s not good when the propaganda machine can’t even generate a positive spin.) The UM-ND game will be in Ann Arbor, a place where the Wolverines rarely lose, but something tells me that the setting will simply make an ND win all the more resounding.

Michigan will also be hosting The Minimum Security Prison and Home for the Mentally Challenged in the annual Big Ten Championship Game. Ohio State probably has the best linebackers in the country; a Heisman-worthy talent on the outside and in the kicking game (the superfluous-“d”- and 4.2-forty-possessing Tedd Ginn); a mobile quarterback (Troy Smith); and an experienced and deep secondary. Last season, neither the Buckeye offensive live nor defensive line were especially impressive, and the running game was almost non-existent at times. Those are three significant areas of concern for (t) OS (joa) U. However the trump card may be Crime Overlord and Warden Sweatervest Corleone. Jim Tressel is on the verge of complete Lloyd Carr ownership, and Warden Corleone has already won in Ann Arbor. Since his arrival, the Buckeye players have always approached The Game with a palpable sense of excitement and focused, if not quiet, confidence. Meanwhile, UM has usually seemed as though it were playing not to lose, save for 2003. If Troy Smith can be contained and UM kicks away from Ginn, the Wolverines should have a good chance. And playing at home likely means that Michigan won’t get blown out even if it does lose. But as stated before, UM has so many outstanding issues on defense that it might not be able to get enough stops.

The third of the major rivalry games takes place in East Lansing; or, as it may be called on October 1st, “Shock City, USA.” Last year, Michigan State had Michigan beaten in the Big House because Michigan could not stop Drew Stanton or DeAndra Cobb. Lucky for the Wolverines, LaMarr Woodley knocked Stanton out of the game and Braylon Edwards decided to win the Biletnikoff Award in the second half and overtime. This year, there will be no Braylon, there probably won’t be an injury, and if there again be no rush defense, there will be a Spartan victory.

If you could start up a new rivalry with another team, who would it be?
If UM could start a new rivalry with one team, I’d probably pick Tennessee. All the ingredients are there: The Vols have a villainous, sniveling, gluttonous coach; the Vols have a program steeped in tradition; the Vols would be an intersectional opponent against whom a game would command all kinds of attention and attract recruits from the Southeast; the Vols have a big stadium that they wish were as big as ours; the Vols have a good fight song that they wish were as good as ours; the Vols destroyed Michigan in the 2002 Citrus Bowl and initiated UM’s new-found focus on recruiting speed; the Vols are consistently good; the Vols have as many criminals as the Buckeyes, so UM would be used to that kind of an opponent; the Vols used to have Peyton Manning, and nothing was better than hearing him whine when Charles Woodson won “Manning’s” Heisman trophy; and the Vols have that pretty checkerboard thing going on in their end zones. Rocky Top, here I come.

Overall, what do you think the best rivalry in college football is?
The best rivalry in college football is Michigan-Ohio State, but since the subquestion (which I didn't reproduce) asks voters to pick a feud that doesn’t involve their respective teams, I’ll go with either Spurrier-Fulmer, (t) OS (joa) U-Law enforcement, or Alabama-Auburn. The first is just so much fun because you can tell that Spurrier loves ribbing Fulmer and usually, Phil’s mouth is too full and his head too empty to offer witty retorts. The second is self-explanatory. And the amount of journalism and quixotic literature inspired by the third makes me think that I am missing something.

Lastly, game trophies. What are the best and worst rivalry trophies out there?
These trophy-game rivalries all help make college football such a colorful and engaging sport, but to be honest, I don’t usually care who wins the Apple Cup, the Egg Bowl, Pappy’s Ol’ Axe, or any of those other relics. As a Michigan Man, I am contractually obligated to assert that the Little Brown Jug that we “play” Minnesota for (if you can call it that since Minnesota never wins it) is the best rivalry trophy. However, I really just like drinking at the Ann Arbor bar The Little Brown Jug, and I don’t have a particular emotional attachment to this old water bucket. Sorry for offering up such a bad answer.

Woody Hayes Would Hit a Player for That Kind of Slight

Bo, let me tell you, I am one of the few people who will ever be more loathsome than Bobby Knight.

StateFans Nation picked up on the .com's Bruce Feldman's conference-strength rankings:

Bruce Feldman writes a blog for ESPN.com’s Insider. If you have Insider access then you can check out his July 20th entry titled, “Weighing in on best conferences” where he uses a system to try to quantify the relative strength of college football conferences.

Feldman’s System
Feldman’s system (subjectively) places each school into one of five categories derived from boxing classifications. As Feldman describes it, “the heavier the team the more points the team (and therefore the conference) gets. It goes like this: Heavyweight – 5 points; Light heavy – 4; Middleweight – 3; Welterweight – 2; Flyweight – 1. The points for the schools in each conference are added up, and an average is arrived at.”

SFN then continued:

Let’s be honest…there are only three conference who really have a legitimate claim at participating in the debate around “who is the best conference in college football” – those conferences are ACC, SEC, and Big Twelve. I am going to provide the Big Ten the courtesy of being included in this conversation simply because I don’t like them that much and it is fun to include them since they came in a deserving 4th in Feldman’s system.

I am not going to argue that the current incarnation of an eleven-team league that counts Indiana and Illinois as members is definitively the best in the nation when there are other conferences that appear to host more teams of greater average quality. But to say that the Big Ten's inclusion in any consideration of the best conferences is merely an act of courtesy? That's silly. It's especially foolish to accept the fallacy that the Big XII is surely the Big Ten's superior.

This season, the Big Ten will be home to three teams that will begin the season in the consensus top ten (Michigan, Iowa, and the Ohio State joke of a University). Those three teams comprise the upper echelon, and each will contend for a BCS berth and the Rose Bowl. The next group, or as SFN might call it, the "middle" of the Big Ten, likely consists of Purdue, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Penn State. Members of that group all reside within the top thirty-seven of the aforelinked consensus preseason poll. (And MSU will probably go 7-5 or 6-6; consistent mediocrity has to count for something.) So that's seven of the best thirty-seven teams in the country, according to the media. For comparison, the Big XII places two teams in the top ten and seven in the top 37; the SEC places three in the top ten and six in the top thirty-seven; the ACC places one team in the top ten and six in the top thirty-seven; the PAC-10 places one team in the top ten and five in the top thirty-seven; and the Big East places no teams in the top ten and two in the top thirty-seven.

Preseason rankings are by no means authoritative proof of conference strength. Last season, Auburn was just the latest team to prove that the rankings can be horribly wrong. However, until the season starts, all metrics designed to prove conference superiority are subjective, and the collected "wisdom" of the media that cover college football is just as worthy of consideration as the specific index devised by one Hurricane-loving ESPN scribe. If you want to call the top ten (or so) teams in the nation true "heavyweights" then the Big Ten has three; the SEC has three; the Big XII has two; and the ACC has two (Miami is ranked eleventh and is probably underrated).

But SFN also (rightly and smartly) argues that the true strength of the ACC lies in the depth of its middle-division teams:

Subjectivity separates Feldman’s analysis from the Sagarin computer, but I think that Feldman’s subjectivity does a superb job of crystalizing the advantage the ACC has…an advantage with which the rest of the country has not yet come to grasp —– the depth, strength, and difficulty of the teams/programs that reside in the “middle of the ACC” make the difference in the analysis.

No argument here. After Virginia Tech, Miami, and Florida State, the next seven teams in the ACC could all have bowl-worthy seasons (every team needs some breaks), and they would all be threatening teams: N.C. State, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College. And that depth is better than that in the SEC (after Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and LSU, only Alabama and Auburn seem like real bowl-contending teams); the Big XII (Texas A&M, Iowa State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and?); and the Big Ten (Purdue, Penn State, Minnesota, MSU, and Wisconsin). So the ACC, on the strength of its depth, appears to be the best. But after that, I don't think that any conference is a clear-cut second. And, the Big Ten's claim to runner-up status seems as strong as any other conference's, no?

This is not a new debate, and there are many other measures of strength that I have neglected to mention, but my primary point is that the Big Ten should not be dismissed from the discussion so easily.

Caution: Ugly Men with Mustaches Below

The good people of Every Day Should Be Saturday are fine purveyors of the humorous and informative, and Wednesdays are no exception. Any college-football-blog reader worth his or her weight in, um, helmet stickers (?) knows that hump day is always mustache day for those Gator boys, and perusing today's hirsute entries reminded me that the University of Michigan has a mustached coaching staff to be envied. Observe:

WR Coach Erik "Soup" Campbell:


RB Coach/Not Happy to Be Photographed Fred Jackson:


Defensive Coordinator/Walking Punch Line Jim Herrmann:


Defensive Line Coach/Whitest Man in America Steve Stripling:


Strength and Conditioning Coach/Woodsman Mike Gittleson:


What is going on with Gittleson in this photo? He looks like Uncle Rico on a bender. This man interacts with people's kids?! Get it together, man. That's just embarrassing.

Also for your consideration:
- Karl Rove: Husband; father; adulterer? Nothing was more galling about the Washington Dick Hunt that grew out of Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky than the patent hypocrisy of those holier-than-thou Republicans who acted like infidelity was anathema to their party and an everyday occurence for Democrats. I don't know that these rumors have any veracity, but I won't be surprised if they do. Not because it's Rove, but because everyone famous--Democrat, Republican, Jude Law, whomever--seems incapable of keeping it in their pants.

- What's the latest news from Darfur? Exactly. Nicholas Kristof is right on.

- Mothers, if your illiterate children can't get into The Minimum Security Prison and Home for the Mentally Challenged in Columbus due to prison overcrowding, send them to the one in Knoxville.

- Is it unfair to question John Roberts's attitudes toward the role of government and the role of the Court because those protecting him are fearful that we skeptics won't like what we'll find? The White House seems to think so.

Open-Source Remediation

Yesterday my man Travel wondered who AZ is. Given the exceptionally high level of hip-hop erudition common among many Straight Bangin' readers, I thought that we, a community of hip-hop heads, could drop some knowledge. I even brought the science, er, music. Given the potential for overwhelming feedback (hint, hint) and the number or articulate posters who run around on these interwebs (like Dame of the derelict blog), I thought we could organize the information by using a meme. I'll provide the basic and bland; y'all can get creative.

AZ is: From Brooklyn
AZ's flow is: Like an explosion--sometimes it seems like he can't get the ideas out of his mouth fast enough and has to wait for the beat.
AZ's best song is: "Sugar Hill," because that seething East Coast beat is a perfect emissary from its era, and AZ's flow and gritty narrative on the track are both examples of his finer work.
AZ is _____rated: Under. Dude has a subtle energy about his rhyming that can sometimes make him seem less significant and diminish his microphone presence.
AZ's career has been a disappointment because of: Label troubles (what else? And why can't someone like Lloyd Banks ever have fucking label troubles?) AZ never seemed to get the best production or the best promotion. He should be greater than he is.

Take a listen:
- Nas ft. AZ, "Life's a Bitch" (Buy)
- AZ, "Sugar Hill" (Buy)
- AZ, "Pay Back" (Buy)
- AZ, "I'm Back" (Buy)
- AZ, "Live Wire" (Buy)

Since y'all are helping me out, here's the reward (I think):
- Common and Papoose, "Rebel Muzik" - This is from one of those multitudinous New York-area mixtapes, so sorry if you already found this on a different internet.

- The Game, "Around the Way" - You're never going to believe this, but on this track, Game rips off Eazy-E and talks about how he came up and how he got put on. Again, sorry if this track is old news. (And yes, he recycles some of his own rhymes on this joint. Shocking, too, right?)

Copping Out

Zarkon ain't got shit on Voltron.

I don't have much time today. Chew on these links:
- End of the Bench, updated, and it's all about Larry Brown and the Knicks.

- What's Really Good?, update, and it's all about the NBA (as usual).

- Raekwon talks about Cuban Linx 2.

- Best news ever: Voltron is coming to the big screen!

- Thanks to Stacey for sending along this link: Hot or Not U.S. map. Check this out; it's pretty cool.

Michigan-Preview Preview

I get chills every time

(Before I get going, here, check out what might be the greatest post in the history of blogging. Now then...)

All that separates me from horrific lunacy is forty days. Just forty days. A month and a third; a horrendous Josh Hartnett movie; the aggregate number of days that all the inmates at (the) Ohio State (joke of a) University have attended class in the past decade. Forty days and then it’s on: Motherfucking Michigan Football! When September 3rd gets here, and [NFL Films voice] those maize and blue-clad warriors stream forth from their tunnel, spilling out onto the hallowed Michigan Stadium turf in a burst of excitement and intended malice [/NFL Films voice], the 126th year of Michigan Football will be on and poppin’. I will be out of my fucking mind. God, I CANNOT wait!

Alright, now that that’s out of my system, allow me to mention that I have been intending to write a lengthy football-preview post, but I just have not had the time recently to sit down and flush out all of my thoughts. That preview will be coming next week, and it will be broken up into four parts: offense; defense; special teams; coaching and schedule. My thumbnail sketch:

Many anticipate that the Michigan offense will be a threatening outfit, capable of consistently moving the ball and scoring, both in myriad ways. Certainly, the personnel necessary for such an attack is present: The Michigan offensive line returns four starters, and this unit does not have any excuses, although many of the positions have yet to be settled because of injuries and departures from last year’s group (and so, count on Lloyd trotting that out a bunch of times during September and October); Sophomore Chad Henne was excellent as a true freshman, and if he improves as expected (to be generous: better command of the playbook, more touch on short throws, more accuracy on the longer ones), he could begin to play like an elite QB; Sophomore RB Michael Hart does not possess break-away speed, but he also does not go down upon initial contact, and last season he emerged as a workhorse weapon for an offense sometimes too content to grind away a game (or a redzone opportunity); Junior WR Steve Breaston is an explosive return man who’s dangerous in space and very shifty, but he’ll need to catch the ball on the run and with room in front of him; Senior WR Jason Avant is a steady possession-receiver type whose heralded athleticism should finally be maximized given the void left by All-Everything Braylon Edwards; the backup WRs are an emerging group of youngsters with speed, quickness, and moves. Can the offense adapt to those strengths?

After giving up more than 37 points per game for the final third of the season, the Michigan defense is the unit that will determine if the Wolverines contend for the Rose Bowl or make pre-New Year’s travel plans for San Antonio (no joke). Plagued by missed assignment, bad tackling, misjudged pursuit angles, and a coaching staff that could not find any answers, the defense probably has the players needed to improve, but nothing can be counted on until the players are tested in games. On the defensive line, DT Gabe Watson can be an All American if his conditioning improves, but it is also incumbent upon other DTs like Alan Branch to consistently apply pressure on the middle of the opposing offensive line. Like Watson, DE LaMarr Woodley could be an All-American-caliber player, as he showed himself to be the best DE against the run and the pass last season. The linebacker group will be reshuffled following the disastrous meltdown at the end of last season, a time that saw the Michigan LB corps usually running past, around, or after a ball carrier before either allowing a weak arm tackle to be broken sooner than Mike Tyson’s probation or glancing up at the scoreboard to see six more points added to the opponents’ tally. Early reviews from Spring practice and Summer conditioning are positive, but they mostly come from “journalists” at the fanzine sites, and most of those guys have pictures of Lloyd Carr taped up inside their lockers. The defensive backs are going to be young, fresh, and clean--or, in non-Notorious B.I.G. speak, inexperienced and probably not to be relied upon for anything more than breathing and wearing their gloves without fastening the Velcro (why does everyone do that?).

Michigan’s place kicking should be pretty good as junior Garrett Rivas returns. He does not have the strongest leg, but he seems to make the important kicks. I don’t have any real insight, or any jokes, for this dude. He’s been steady, and with Michigan in recent years, if the kicker isn’t memorable, that’s probably a good thing. The punting could be problematic, though, because the starter will likely be incoming freshman Zoltan Mesko, and I think it might take him some time before he really understands the pace and timing of the college game. Steve Breaston and a host of those speedy wideouts will handle kick returns, and a healthy Breaston can be absolutely dominant at times (especially against teams coached by Mack Brown in big games). In 2000, Marquise Walker seemed to block a FG or extra point almost every game, but that kick defense has not been that strong in a while. It would be nice to see Special Teams Coach Mike DeBord develop a unit that can change the momentum (and score) of a game; I’m not holding my breath.

Of all the mediocre coaches, Lloyd Carr is probably one of the two or three best. Let that land. (And yes, that’s no more of a complement than telling a girl she’s the prettiest of all the ugly ones.) Mediocrity is Lloyd’s calling card (check his impressive accumulation of three- and four-loss seasons) and he’s able to remain so consistently “meh” because he’s incredibly conservative and scared on the road; far too “noble” to ever do something like blow a team out; and far too timorous to take risks like, I don’t know, running the shotgun to change the pace of the game or get the ball to speedy receivers sooner. (And I must admit, Carr becomes a lot better and lot more creative once he’s losing. See the above compliment for my intended tone.) Don’t expect anything to change this season, and equipped with his loyal and motley crew of assistants, like Defensive Coordinator Fecal-Matter Head, the schedule will present Lloyd with the chances he’ll need to come up short with yet another team: there’s the home game against Notre Dame that will serve as the right time for Charlie Weis to let everyone know that he’s not fucking around; the road game at Iowa that will help raise the money needed to complete the solid-gold, life-sized statue of Kirk Ferentz; the away game in East Lansing that will allow the Spartans to get rid of all that furniture and all those cars that they weren’t using anyway; and the home game against The Minimum Security Prison and Home for the Mentally Challenged, after which the rights to Lloyd Carr will be permanently placed in Jim Tressel’s safe-deposit box.

New Week...

I'm back

...so new AZ. I wouldn't say that I'm bowled over by either of these joints, but I reserve my vitriol for the Fat Joes, Games, and $0.50s of this world; I ain't gonna rip my man AZ. Besides, the second joint will probably grow on me, and AZ gets unfairly ignored by too many hip-hop consumers. He is what he is: a good but unspectacular MC who can occasionaly summon moments of better-than-most.

- AZ, "Never Change"
- AZ, "AZ's Chillin'"

Ride Out

Just because I can. That's why. Only forty-three more days!

Enjoy the weekend:
- Daily Kos has the Republican talking points on John Roberts. I think a good question to ask would be, "Judge Roberts, what are the criteria you would use when assessing the appropriateness of overturning a Court precedent?" Or how about, "Judge Roberts, what is your understanding of the role that law suits play in our relatively unregulated capitalist environment?" Maybe this: "Judge Roberts, when various rights and practices have become embedded in the social and cultural fabric of the nation, how should government decide when to insinuate itself to affect potentially cataclysmic change?" And also this one: "Your children are adopted and you're a practicing Catholic. You ain't ever hittin' that?"

- Karl Rove, perjurer? It depends on what the definition of "is" is...

- Spotted on hip-hop-blogging avatar BC Dot C (who, of course, spotted it via someone else who probably spotted it...): Shitty Tipper Database. (Quick aside: In "Still Tippin'," wouldn't it have been better for Paul Wall to have said "I got the internets going nuts"--you know, because the plural "nets" and "nuts" would have matched? Do I need a "no homo" because I used the word "nuts"? When will this "no homo" thing die? It's tedious.)

- DMX says:

AllHipHop.com: It’s been a minute since you dropped your last joint.

DMX: Yeah, but I walk the streets and it’s like I just dropped one. N***as is like, “Ya s**t is hot, ya s**t is hot!"

...

AllHipHop.com: Tell me this, you’re at Def Jam...

DMX: Yup, Left Jam.

AllHipHop.com: “Left Jam”? Elaborate.

DMX: They carry n***as to the left. N***as let feelings get involved with s**t, you know what I’m sayin? It’s not business at the end of the f**kin’ day. It’s “I don’t like him,” and “He doesn’t cooperate,” and “He won’t have dinner with me.” and you’re like “Come on buddy, am I f**kin you? What the f**k is the f**kin’ problem? Why do I gotta be up in your muthaf**kin face every f**kin day?” But there’s a whole new system now and a whole new stuff.

AllHipHop.com: How does it feel having Jay now as a boss, when he was formerly your peer?

DMX: I don’t have a boss. I don’t have a boss. I honestly have to say, that whoever or whatever entity gave him that position, it’s putting a strain on our relationship. We have a good relationship. It’s a mutual respect. We came up together. We done had battles and got over it. We did songs together! We rocked together! And for them to put-it’s like they’re pitting us against each other. Typical f**king cracker s**t that they do. Typical s**t that they do to break a muthaf**ka down: “Here, I’ma put him against him, and we’ll see what happens. Either way, we win.” It’s hard man, but it’s nothing that I’ll let him do to influence my project. Nor do I think there’s anything that he would do, out of the respect that we have for each other to influence my project. We’re both artists. He’s cool as s**t. We have that respect for each other. And when we say “What’s up?” and “How you been?” it’s real. It’s not dick riding s**t. No industry n***a to another. It’s “What up, dog? How you been man!?” Namean? About 15 years ago, we was rockin’ together on the pool table - goin’ hard! So it’s like, it’s real s**t! But the fact that they set it up like that then make me the first major project- I don’t like the way they did that. But I’m not gonna change what I do. And I’m not gonna let anybody interfere with what I do.

Y'all done made him lost his mind.

- I thought that they only carried billy clubs.

And some music:
- Little Brother (ft. Kanye West), "I See Now"
I dedicate this request to Funkdigi. Enjoy.

- Rhymefest, "Still Singin'"
- Rhymefest, "Bullit"

Listen to these two tracks consecutively. The lyrics are kinda good. And I'm told that "Bullit" turns into a Citizen Cope song. If only I knew who that was.

- Public Enemy, "Can't Hold Us Back"

I don't like it unless it's...

"What Would Roberts's Confirmation Mean for Progressives in America?"

"...And then the President had the lights cut and Jack got out his glow stick."

Nice saddle shoes.

Straight Bangin' Exclusive: President Bush has nominated Judge John Roberts to serve as a Supreme Court justice! I figure that all the major media organizations will be calling me pretty soon to find out how I got this hot lead, so don't be surprised if you see me on television soon.

Alright, so I'm not the first kid to post about this topic. In fact, the news has been out there for a few days, now, and all kinds of responses are pouring in:

- His usual unctuous self, David Brooks trades in any remaining modicum of journalistic credibility for the nut of all nuts, and he jerks off so hard that he probably still can't walk.

- No longer capable of actually finding new information and holding people accountable, the (sadly) always disappointing New York Lap Dog Times hammers away at Roberts...by framing him as a man rooted in "Faith and Respect for the Law." Unrelated, tomorrow the Times will be publishing the photographs that show Elizabeth Bumiller and George Bush playing croquet in the Rose Garden and taking a leisurely lunch before Bumiller really grills the President. I mean, she sticks it to him, asking him questions like "How did you become so adorable?" her voice soaring into a shrill squeak of adoration. That's journalism, kids.

- Meanwhile, conservatives like Manuel Miranda can't help but gloat, noting that by selecting Robert, Bushie has found someone who he feels will be just like Scalia and Thomas; "one of us" is the conservative victory cry.

- Not every conservative is happy, though. The greatest source of shame for the University of Michigan, Ann Coulter (what, you were expecting Ed Martin? Hideki?), says that Bush has accomplished the seemingly impossible task of pissing everyone off, choosing an anti-choice candidate who is not nearly conservative enough. A member of the Federalist Society isn't conservative enough? Hello? As she rides off into the sunset of appalling misanthropic dementia on whatever planet she inhabits, Coulter also manages to remind everyone why she sets the standard for feminine hygiene products, taking swipes at the impoverished for being so, you know, needy, and trying to sound cool by name dropping Jay-Z.

- Once you've cleaned up your vomit, you might be wondering how Democrats are going to treat Roberts? Well, it seems like some have already capitulated, and a filibuster appears to be out of the question. (And of course, Joe Lieberman has already said he'll vote for Roberts. I'm shocked too. Riiiight.) It's never a good thing when culture warriors like James Dobson are falling over themselves trying to get in front of a microphone to extol the nominee's virtues.

I know that Roberts is being packaged as a "compromise" nominee (a colloquialism that Lindsay Beyerstein helps to flush out as a fallacy) whose supposed reverence for the law and experience in front of the bench theoretically confer upon him some morally fine-tuned jurisprudence that will make him a fair arbiter of constitutionality. We, the public, have also been told that Roberts's personal beliefs are recondite, concealed by his limited tenure as a judge and the distinction that his professional obligations (like arguing that the Roe decision was the wrong one) may not have represented his personal convictions. Well guess what? That's bullshit. That's just lazy journalism and conservative propaganda. George Bush, the most conservative President of all time, does not nominate moderates. In fact, Colin Powell is probably the only "moderate" Republican who has been appointed to a significant office since Bush ascended to the presidency, and Powell, as we have seen, was effectively powerless, a token appointment who served political and social purposes despite enjoying only synthetic privileges. John Roberts is not going to join the Court and abscond; he's a virulent conservative.

For more on the real John Roberts, check out this post from the funny and far less pedantic of the two Poplicks authors, Junichi. Also, check out what Adele Stan has to say. And here's even more "hard-hitting" journalism, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. LOL.

I’d also add that the poisonous partisan political atmosphere in this nation has functionally destroyed the true intent of the judicial-confirmation process. A Supreme Court justice is asked to apply the Constitution to our contemporary society, determining, when laws are challenged, if the statutes passed by the Congress and signed by the President violate the Constitution. There are a number of ways to carry out this duty, and a judge’s personal convictions cannot be discounted. From myopic originalism to loose activism, there are many different ideologies that inform jurisprudence, and all of them deserve attention, deliberation, and dissemination so that their principles are understood. This nation is suffering because we never actually have these debates about the legal system and legal doctrine, though. Instead, we distill everything into binary, issue-based fights: about abortion, taxes, property claims, whatever. Both sides want to “win” to appease constituencies and aggregate power, and they approach the process as though it’s a football game. I am not marginalizing any of these important issues like choice or property rights; to the contrary, I care passionately about them. But Supreme Court choices should not be motivated by partisan desires to legislate from the bench. The goal is not to get a judge who’s going to overturn x decision or author y doctrine. No. These choices should be about maintaining the integrity of our system and adhering to the principles of our nuanced and complicated legal system.

By the way, none of us have forgotten about what Karl Rove did to Valerie Plame.

Give Me the Keys to Shyne Po Handcuffs

Thursday's usual question: Who you wit, the more-obscure N.W.A. alumni edition...

- The D.O.C., "It's Funky Enough" (Buy)
- Shyne, "That's Gangsta" (Buy)

I can't imagine that anyone is going to choose the Shyne track. First, it's just not as good. D.O.C. gets grimy on this beat, with assonance and alliteration that betray the hardcore content and image, indicating that the MC is actually--gasp!--having fun while he spits. D.O.C also just owns the tempo and tone of the track--he completely kills it. But second, even if his track were not so superior, he'd have to be the popular choice since his career was cut short and that, coupled with his limited catalogue and N.W.A. heritage, leads fans to attach a tremendous amount of nostalgia to the man. Right? Who doesn't think of D.O.C. fondly (nh)?

And, just because readership is up...



- Boogie Down Productions, "The Bridge Is Over" (Buy)
- MC Ren, "Final Frontier" (Buy)

This probably won't be much of a match up, either, given BDP's status in the hip-hop annals. Much like you can't pick but a handful of albums as the greatest ever, you probably can't pick against "Bridge" and retain credibility. However, I think I might accept the label of blasphemer or inauthentic or fugazi or whatever and say that I prefer "Final Frontier." I have always thought that MC Ren's flow was underrated, and on this track, the dude just spits that raw, gutter, gangster shit that N.W.A. made so important in hip-hop. I'd also add that Ren's mic presence is totally underrated. He employs that sped-up delivery a little too often, but no one said Ren was perfect.

Also, look who's back from the honeymoon:

- Nas, "My Will"

Let's Get the Black Eyed Peas to Perform

Admit it: You thought he was black when you heard his voice on the radio.

As some may recall, Straight Bangin' hosted the most recent installment of the BlogPoll Roundtable. The answers are in, they’ve been read (and would have been eaten by Phil Fulmer had they been bathed in chocolate), and now that they’ve marinated for a while (oops, another Fulmer joke), it’s time to give out the Roundtable version of helmet stickers (and please pardon the consecutive N.W.A references. It was an accident):

Some Drop Science While I’m Droppin’ English Award…goes to Have You Met Tony and the DJL Zone for their impressive entries, both of which combined exhaustive Bowling Green knowledge, appreciated exposition, and keen hip-hop sensibilities. All of the poll voters demonstrated just why the media we will be taking ourselves poll so seriously this year, as cases were made for no less than forty different players who either should have merited or will merit consideration for the Heisman. I mean, if you’re the guy who carried the water for the trainer who attended to the back up who sent in the signals to the starter who won the national title, aren’t you, the waterboy, really the key cog in the operation of the machine? (Somewhere, Mario Savio vomited on himself reading his memorable invocation of the metaphor used for college-football purposes. No justice, no peace!)

Best Re-appropriation of Insensitive and/or Divisive Racial Stereotype and/or Epithet Since N.W.A. Award…goes to Every Day Should Be Saturday and We Are the Boys for conferring the title “the original black ‘white possession receiver’” upon now-departed O.J. Small. Rumored to run a 6.2 forty, Small now takes his place alongside racial-line-blurring luminaries like Jeremy Wariner and Rick Astley.

Michigan Stadium Fluid Official Capacity Award…goes to OU-Texas, Texas-OSU, and Army-Navy, as all three games are likely to see some extra visitors this season. In general, poll voters really enjoyed answering this question. As a bitter Michigan fan, I confess that the question afforded me an opportunity to explore romanticized fantasies of an earthquake arriving in Columbus just before kickoff of the Iowa-OSU tussle, and thus, I can understand the question’s appeal. And Heismanpundit is living the dream, going to see the game he most wants to see, Arizona State at LSU.

(And for the dual and linked sakes of posterity and consistency) The Chris Berman Antimatter Award for Best Nickname Not Coined by a Bloated Asshole Coated in Bronzer…goes to the greatest rap snitch knish on these interwebs, Ian of Sexy Results, who authored what may be the signature nickname of the not-yet-even-nascent college football season when he dubbed Marcus Vick “Ron New Mexico.” Update your NCAA 2006 rosters accordingly.

There were so many standout entries that I feel bad only mentioning a few…and now I’m over that. Well done, everyone. See y’all at Blue-Gray Sky next week

And P.S. ESPN’s resident curmudgeon and science experiment (just how far over his collar can his neck spill?), Beano Cook, has picked Michigan and Florida to meet in the Rose Bowl. Why even run out of the tunnel? Don’t even string up the banner; the season’s over.

P.P.S. Check this out.

Take That, Brian

This was lying on the ground by some yeshiva school on my block. "Never Again," son!

iBlog for Cookies is pumping out next-level college-football content at a pace that just shames the fanzines of the world. Do we really need to be reading endless articles about how all the players on all the teams have improved to the point that they're all going to "break out" this season? No, not when we have ny1995. My interweb colleague and "friend" (if that term applies to someone who I don't know and appreciate for his writing) Brian has proclaimed his site to be the de facto RSS feed for IBFC, but not on this day. No, today is the day that my pimp game is the strongest (nhjic). Peep game:

IBFC on the next Michigan head coach - I agree with almost everything written here. UM should NOT get some offensive-strategy flavor-of-the-month coach. UM has had consistent success by evolving into a balanced offensive outfit that prepares skill-position players and linemen for the NFL with few peers.

IBFC's football-statistics database - We impulsive, whimsical writers who rely on things like anecdotes and accepted wisdom are finding fewer and fewer excuses for not using numbers. Eff.

IBFC on the truths and fallacies about Lloyd Carr - I am a known Carr "basher." I think he's a wonderful pedestrian coach, but his shortcomings are myriad and some of his coaching inertia (why is Jim Herrmann still employed by the state of Michigan?) continues to cost Michigan games. He treats every road game as though it's an insurmountable task that the team must merely try to survive; he doesn't ever seem to recruit a speed back, making it very hard to run outside; he has no clue how to stop a spread offense with a mobile quarterback; he shows so little faith in his players that I wonder how they believe in themselves at times. I could go on, but that's a post I'll write a number of times this fall as Michigan inevitably loses to Iowa, Notre Dame, (t)OS(joa)U, and Michigan State (mark those down). IBFC approaches Carr a little more rationally.

Went straight to the Bentley/Skipped the S-Class:
- Your boy's NBA game is as strong as ever. Check out the latest at the End of the Bench and What's Really Good? Who runnin' this hoop game?

- Is there a better smart person than Juan Cole? I have to join him (and Schenninger) in asking, overall, when will diplomacy again be seen as both a worthwhile tactic and the informed goal? Is anything not accompanied by the threat or manifestation of force seen as weak? Is that the sort of nation we want America to be?

- No less poignant, Ian, as always, got his impressive politics grind on. Check out the insightful brevity and the awesome aggregation of engaging links here and here.

- Who comes on the tracks like "Duh-duh-da-da"? Wes Jackson breaks it down. Add your input; it makes for a good debate like the one over at Bol's.

- Wow, open-toed shoes are the worst and are always causing trouble. More proof. Eat it, Buckets. And ladies, keep your nasty-ass feet to yourselves.

Now Hear This

Pumpin' that brand new shit

Interweb music roundup:
- I know that some heads are only lukewarm on Rhymefest, but anyone who attended the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival saw a charismatic performer with a truly engaging presence. 'Fest is back with a new mixtape, and the Dork Set hooked it up for me (nhjic). I'ma say this right now: 'Fest could wind up putting out the sleeper album of the year, if he isn't already too big for that. After Common and Slim Thug, I don't know what's gonna be on a year-end top-ten list, and from what I've heard, 'Fest has as good a shot as anyone. His flow doesn't always meet the beat perfectly, but his voice inflections and lyrics give him a mic presence that keeps my attention.

Rhymefest, "More Seductive"
Rhymefest, "The Maddest Rapper Alive"

- On occassion, I'll get an email from an adoring Straight Bangin' fan. Sadly, those are mostly sent by my family members. Other times, though, a reader will shoot me a note (nhjic) and say things like "You're a hater"; or, "Free hot teens are waiting for you"; or, "Via8gr a...penis hotforyou $45.78." Recently, I got one such email from Cosmos of Raging Family, an underground hip-hop collaborative from the Northwest. Their latest album is called The Talk Sick Buffet. The entire record is available for listening and buying at this site. In the spirit of my MC Coelacanth pimping, I am putting up one of the better tracks, "Epistimology 2." I'd say that Family has a pretty standard "underground" sound, and you'll probably like their music if you agree with at least 50.1% of what I write about music. Check it out.

Raging Family, "Epistimology 2"

- One of the few times that Legacy sounds good on a beat someone else can actually use:

Little Brother (ft. Legacy), "Flash and Flare" (Buy)

Who Asked for This?

Epitome of redundancy?

I saw this magazine yesterday. Isn't Slam releasing a "Streetball" edition akin to XXL releasing a New York hip-hop edition? I know that Slam isn't only about the streets, but can any magazine that dedicates poorly written pages on top of poorly written pages to Skip to My Lou and is mostly about sneakers, unwarranted hype, rap advertisements, and embarrassing English really be seen as anything else?

The Worldwide Leader...in Obnoxious Personalities

The one on the right is a cheating idiot.

As more and more interwebs become must-reads for me, I am reminded that there are just so many good ideas being recorded on internets. I mention this now because Brian at MGoBlog initiated a weekend-long discussion about ESPN’s myriad shortcomings, and it reminded me just how much I loathe so many aspects of the ESPN sports empire. Whether it’s the fact that Stuart Scott continues to draw breath into his lungs; that the network afford a complete lunatic, one whose neck is falling off of his body and hasn’t dwelled in reality for thirty years, a pulpit for his absurd, guttural ramblings about Red Grange and Ron Pawlus’s multiple Heismans or that one time he and Andrew Carnegie went to the Army-Navy game; that we always have to watch crappy games like TCU-Rice and Northwestern-Minnesota instead of more interesting showdowns; that Chris Berman has a job; that the SportsCenter set looks like something George Lucas would cook up and that the show hasn’t been tolerable for three years; or that Stephen A. Smith and the NBA Fastbreak group have ruined--completely ruined--televised basketball, setting it back twenty years, ESPN is constantly pissing me off. Kudos to Brian for reminding me of this.

Much like cable news, ESPN suffers from the misapprehension that we, sports consumers, yearn solely for declarations and decisiveness. Television coverage of sports has systematically sought to eliminate the shades we call gray; everything has to be black or white, and you can’t like one if you say you like the other. NBA age requirement--for it or against it? Gays in sports--good or bad? Barry Bonds--hero or villain? ESPN has decided that opinions that lie in between the poles might as well fall outside of them, because they aren’t rendered significant given the skewed coverage. I don’t know if ESPN producers--like their cable-news counterparts--have seized upon the American obsession with celebrity and spectacle and extrapolated the (fallacious) thinking that all consumers only want superlatives, sensationalism, and absolutes. I don’t know, but that’s how it seems, sadly. The best, the most, the worst, the ugliest, the hottest, the greatest--the people in charge think that this is all we want to hear and see. Factual errors, absurd predictions, complete conjecture packaged as analysis--no mistake is too outrageous so long as it is presented with bombast and the confident zeal of someone being paid to, in effect, serve as a caricature. If Americans demanded more of the media we consume--not just in sports, but in news, entertainment, and everything else--and asked that we be presented with nuance, and depth, and thought, then maybe ESPN would reform. But until that happens--and in a nation where George Bush can win two terms, I am not holding my breath--I think it’s more of the overproduced and underwhelming.

(As a quick aside, I do want to mention that Pardon the Interruption, to me, is a rare exception. Yes, it was created to meet the supposed needs of we binary-thinking sports fans, but Kornheiser and Wilbon are smart, funny, compassionate people with great on-screen chemistry. They get some things wrong, but they do not presume to have the air of infallibility with which detestable so-called pundits like Dan LeBatard operate.)

I got five, but I'm working on my sixth ring:
- Karl Rove needs to lose his employment. Whether or not he broke a law, he can't remain at his current occupation. And for always dishonest and always asshole-ish Bush to claim otherwise, now--well, it's just fucking galling and disgusting. How can an administration be staffed by people who manipulate sensitive information for political purposes? And how can a President--THE PRESIDENT--always lie, backtrack, and cheat so that he and his friends win at all costs? How can anyone support such a cowardly, small, smug man?

- Mildly interesting '80s print ads (spotted by Reef).

- This is the break I was waiting for. Now Sienna can come running into my comforting arms. I'd never hurt you, baby girl. Jude Law needs to get his IQ tested.

- Yeah, this is a good idea. Keep running your mouth, buddy.

Aw, Hell Naw

Pimpin' ain't easy but it sure is fun

A Sunday-night, music-oriented brain dump:
- I was going through the iTunes library tonight and spent some time with Juelz's "Mic Check 1, 2" (no homo). What are we, the hip-hop consumers, to make of the line "If you catch me sexin' a chick/It's a bisexual chick or something foreign I'll never forget"? Is the implication that it's rare to find Juelz sexin', in general, and therefore you'd only catch him doing so were he with a bisexual or an unforgettable foreigner? Is the implication that he only sexes bisexuals and unforgettable foreigners, independent of any references to frequency? Is the implication that while he may sex many people, he only sexes chicks on rare occasions, thus the subjunctive "if"? (Or, put another way, can the line be taken as, "Were I to be sexin' a chick in the first place, it would only be a bisexual or unforgettable foreign chick"?) Any input? Doesn't this provide strong evidence that the Dip Set might be "more" than just a hip-hop collective? And how old is Jim Jones, anyway? Does anyone else find him creepy, like some old uncle who hasn't grown up and vicariously lives through Cam and all them other dudes?

- Did anyone else fall off his or her couch, consumed by a fit of violent laughter, when Whitney Houston showed up at the camp ground in her Porsche and then told Bobby to "take [her] behind a tree and work her over"? How about when she kept yelling "Aw, hell naw!" That show is the fucking best.

- Old News Dept.: You hip-hop heads on these interwebs must forgive me for not rushing out to get my hands on that Webbie album. I had other stuff to do, like, um, well, uh, whatever it is that I do. I'd rather punch my hand through glass than listen to Webbie. What's the record called, anyway? Like, "Straight Formula Rap"? "Misogyny for Dummies"? I can't stand that one single, "Give Me That," so it's not like I was expecting much from this record. And of course, it's horrible. But what is with Webbie and the trite hostility toward women? His first single is all about demanding sex, and other tracks include "Gutta Bitch," "Bad Bitch," "Come Here, Bitch," and, thankfully, the much sought after "Bad Bitch (Remix)." Yes! I don't know that I am a bra-burning feminist, but I couldn't believe how patently idiotic this record was. Is Webbie related to J-Kwon? Everything bad that I've ever said about mindless rappers? Well, think of worse things to say about Webbie. What a fucking moron. His mother must have put out cigarettes on his head or something.

- I done seen a pant load (nh) of movies lately, and I think there will be an omnibus movie-review post coming soon, but I thought I'd quickly mention that I saw Hustle & Flow this weekend. I don't know that the movie is as good as the hype would have you believe (especially that, of all people, from The New Yorker's David Denby), but it was enjoyable, and the ensemble cast was really strong. Terrence Howard was a very convincing pimp-turned-rapper, and my favorite part of the movie was the seemingly accurate depiction of the regional-rap workways: Does anything put out by Manny Fresh, or them Houston boys, or (insert southerners not named Andre, Big Boi, Pharrell, or Timbaland here) really sound like it couldn't have been made in some dude's basement or, in the case of the Flow, den of iniquity? It was actually pretty thrilling watching someone portray the production process. And the original music was pretty good. Luda was eh.

- DJay (Terrence Howard), "Whoop That Trick" (Buy)
- MF Doom, "Vinca Rosea" (Buy)
- Jus Allah, "Tomorrow" (Buy)

Still Tippin'

Porple City Dork Gang

At some point yesterday, this site received its 20,000th unique visit. On June 23rd, it received its 15,000th, and on May 23rd, it received its 10,000th. What does this mean? That in the past three weeks, I have received more site traffic than I did in the preceding four weeks. And that means that readership is growing. I am having a Sally Field moment. Thank you, readers, for visiting this site and for being supportive of Straight Bangin'. I hope you'll keep reading and leaving comments. I always enjoy hearing from others. (And now I would like to reclaim my pride and will stop shilling for comments.)

I checked out the Dork Magazine issue-three release party last night. It was, without question, the best hip-hop party or bar night I've been to in a looooong time. Dork Set, baby, Dork Set! Props to Taj, James, Ian, and funkdigi for the great spinning. You can't usually go out to a bar and hear MF Doom, "Push up Ya Lighter," new Rhymefest, and a plethora of other shit that isn't "suitable" for radio. Shouts, also, to Kim of Red Is All the Rage and Room Service, Inc.; she and her mom were in the house, and we had a good time chatting.

One of the best parts of the experience (aside from the music and seeing people who I'd now consider genuine friends) was that I felt really comfortable (no homo) in the company of relative real-world strangers, people I have only met a handful of times. As I remarked to Ian, one of the best things about these internets and interwebs is the paradox that a theoretically anonymous medium can foster real community and friendship despite the absence of in-the-flesh meetings--just check a BC dot C comments section, always overrun with inside jokes among "friends" who probably don't know each other. It's a tribute to the honesty fostered by anonymity and the thoughtfulness facilitated by the written environment. What a dope group of people, all of whom seem so smart, and engaging, and real. I was incapable of eluding the prevailing sense of wonderment that I was as happy as I was among such great folks even though I hadn't spent much time with any of them. It was a great moment in amateur sociology.

So yeah, thanks for the readership and the realness. Keep bangin'...

You've earned this:
- Phonte, "So Lovely"
- Slim Thug, "The Interview"
- Kanye West, "Wow"

'Bout to Have Me Some Fun

I ain't got nothin' but a little bit, today. Totally spent. Check out Ian's Roundtable answers; they're good. So are Heismanpundit's (located here) and our Tulane man, Frank's (located here). Enjoy the weekend. I'ma hit up that Dork piece (nhjic), and that should be a good look. In the meantime, stop over at the End of the Bench for some basketball grindin'. Payce...

My Grandpa Can Pay for More Private School Than Your Grandpa

Siena, stand up!

A little summer reading for all y'all:
- Can someone please explain to me why last week's New Yorker was also this week's New Yorker, and yet it was not a double issue? I don't get it, either. Regardless, I recommend Calvin Tomkins's excellent "The Missing Madonna," an examination of Duccio's "Madonna and Child" and its engaging travels from Siena to, now, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Madonna and Child" remains a remarkably compelling piece given the emotion--a solemn Mary looking through her child; the dramatic Christ reaching up toward his mother's veil--and artistic significance--the departure from the Byzantine style; the sustained brilliance of the colors. For anyone who has studied any art history, this story was nearly orgasmic (nh).

- You know how I'm always carrying on about Democrats failing to offer any of their own ideas and instead just whining about Republicans? Well, this Sherle Schwenninger piece (it's long) from The Nation fills that void nicely. I don't agree with all of the author's ideas, but I do think that she smartly distills myriad shortcomings in American foreign policy. I do not profess to be an authority on international relations, in general, or tyranny and terrorism, specifically, but it makes sense to me that were America to play a role as development enabler and not a more protectionist, imperial role as the unipolar power, fewer people from pockets of the globe with bleak prospects would feel so frustrated and angry. More interestingly, though, Schenninger examines the fallacious economic policies that this nation is pursuing. Shouldn't the U.S. engage India and China as soon-to-be equals while simultaneously creating new jobs domestically that can't be exported elsewhere so easily? I think I'll have to write about this again, because there's a lot to think about and it would deserve a more dedicated examination. Related: All the Oil in China.

- Shock G is gettin' out the game. As I asked elsewhere, now who's gonna put the satin on your panties?

- The brilliant Mike Davis gives you some insight into how oil money is getting spent in Dubai. Sounds a lot like Atlantis in the Bahamas.

- Peep game: Am I High??? And 510 to 514.

- Just in case you were getting worried since it's been a few days, the Times is back to glorifying rich people. Journalism rules!

Blog Bickering, #3

A wolverine

Were there doubt about their respective extents, the collective wit and intelligence of the college-football blogerati is on full display today, and the answers to this latest incarnation of roundtable questions are so good and so exhaustive that you’ll feel compelled to smash the glass and take something. I had intended to hold off on a summation post until next week, but I am overwhelmed (to say nothing of humbled) by the enthusiastic and authoritative answers, and I think it’s only right that I dap up my insightful and humorous “colleagues.” The comments and trackbacks sections from this post are chockablock with excellent blogging, but if you’re too lazy to wade through the morass of responses, check out these sites at your leisure:

Every Day Should Be Saturday remembers the best black "white" receiver; MGoBlog gets all pretentious indie rock on us; Pitt Sports Blather smartly notes that replacing a center is never easy; Blue-Gray Sky challenges the conventional notions of Irish, Catholic hip-hop fans with an impressive analog analysis; Section Six tabs NC State the LL Cool J of college football and shits on (t)OS(joa)U, opting instead to watch UM-Iowa; iBlog for Cookies hits you with a fantastic Jurassic 5/DJ Format hip-hop segment; Have You Met Tony puts down a strong BGSU game in a way that would make Jason Jackson proud; The Bowling Green love stays strong in the djl zone, replete with a Sage Francis shout; Catholic Packer Fan notes the rise of the TE; The Mississippi State Sports Blog says that the MSU kicker will be the Most Valuable No-Name; ATL Eagle beats the Irish to the punch and says that BC is House of Pain; You know your team is loaded when the player you'll miss most is a career backup (According to Your Boi from Troy); Paradigmatic Brent goes with the (right) stock answer, Dudley; Rob in Madtown allows you to witness the strength of street knowledge; MDG says that Pat Hill and Fresno are the SugarHill Gang; We Are the Boys concurs with EDSBS; The Realist weighs in with a smart analysis of the Dawgs--the talent's there, but what's gonna be done with it?; idoc hates the rap question and my layout but dispenses PSU knowledge nonetheless; and the Bruins Nation also notes that when you remove your center, bad things can happen to your line. I know that's a lot of links (holy shit), but trust me--every single one if worth your time.

Update: Bemusement Park has at it, opting to take Holloway of "that play" instead of a DL as the player hardest to replace. Meanwhile, WV Law Dog wisely chooses to look past a five-star recruit to find his impact player, in this case, home-grown Marc Magro.

I thought I could drop my own answers today, also:
Which unheralded player on your team will be the hardest to replace? Which seemingly inconsequential player could make the biggest impact?

As Brian and Vijay both forecasted, former fullback Kevin Dudley is the obvious and nearly unanimous choice. He’s my top pick, too, but because I’d like to both be different for whatever intrinsic value that distinction may carry and contribute new thinking to this online dialogue, I’ll say Adam Finley. Finley acquitted himself nicely as the Michigan punter last season, a year during which Michigan’s renewed commitment to special teams (after years spent allowing the kicking game to languish and serve as the go-to reason for gut-wrenching losses) was evident in fewer mistakes and fewer (maybe zero?) asinine formations. His replacement will likely be a true freshman--Zoltan Mesko (yes, that’s a real name)--and I don’t care if he’s the quarterback, the running back, or the nickel back: that’s cause for trepidation (though not in the cases of Chad Henne and Michael Hart). I won’t be surprised if early on, Michigan sees a punt or two blocked because its freshman punter is still learning the accelerated rhythm of the college kicking game, and during those moments--if anything I say is not a profane tirade directed at the best pedestrian coach in America--I’ll be pining for Adam Finley.

As for a seemingly inconsequential player making a major contribution, I could launch into some diatribe about scholarship limits and effort and every player on the team counting. Or I could be realistic and go with a greedy answer that befits my greedy two-questions-in-one style: back-up defensive tackles Alan Branch and Will Johnson/Terrence Taylor/Marques Walton (whoever wins this spot). As I have written before, the key to the Michigan season is an improved defensive line, and no player will be a bigger part of that improvement than potential All-American tackle Gabe Watson. Gabe is big fat, though, and he got worn down toward the end of last season, a deterioration that mirrored (and probably partially caused) the break down of the Michigan defense. If Gabe and the defensive line are to be the forces that UM needs them to be, Branch and a player to be named later must give the Wolverines a significant number of meaningful snaps each game.

Which regular-season game that won’t feature your team would you pay the most money to see this season? Why?

I’d pay the most money to see the game that I think possesses the most potential to alter the national scene: Florida-LSU. I’d love to see a game in Death Valley, replete with liquored-up bayou folk, over-the-line SEC tailgaters (if that’s not redundant), desperate UF fans converting to Catholicism just to help Urban Meyer’s chances, and Bob Stoops acolytes attempting to poison former Bedlam-rival Les Miles. Oh, and the football, itself, would be pretty good, too. The rivalry game I’d most like to attend would be (stock answer coming…now) Texas-Oklahoma. Corndogs at a state fair are not to be missed. Neither is a chance to wear my Sooner-red keepmackbrown.com shirt, something I bought not for partisan loyalty but to honor the ingenuity of its inventors. Watching Lloyd Brown get manhandled by Stoops again would also make me feel better about Mack Carr’s impending 1-4 record against Suge Knight (see below for explanation).

If your team were a rapper, who would it be and why?

Before I get to my answers, I’d like to take a moment to illustrate the eerie similarities between (the) Ohio State (joke of a) University warden Jim Tressel and Death Row impresario Marion “Suge” Knight. Both wear vests (see here and here). Both lord over organizations that were once preeminent but could not sustain the success and now can summon only occasional moments of greatness (hiring a mortician like John Cooper and feuding with Dr. Dre will do that to you). Both employ (get it?) rosters filled with people who can’t stay out of prison. Kind of scary how closely the Minimum Security Prison and Home for the Mentally Challenged mimics Tha Row, huh?

As for Michigan, the rapper whose career and abilities best resemble our program is god MC Rakim Allah. Aside from those who invented hip-hop (people like Kool Herc), Rakim may be the most influential figure in the history of the art. He’s an O.G. for sure. Similarly, Michigan didn’t actually invent football, but it might as well have done so; any school that teaches Notre Dame how to play and creates Script Ohio (one of the stupidest “sacred” things in the sport) is fucking influential. Rakim achieved great success with Eric B. in a bygone era; Michigan won ten national titles through 1948. Rakim, no less great but not as productive, dicked around for a while, occasionally producing a great track like “Guess Who’s Back”; Michigan has dicked around for a while (including the Schembechler revivification), still great but rarely producing the soaring results of its past; Rakim practically taunted his fans when he signed with Aftermath and recorded half of two different albums but failed to release either and never met his potential; Michigan’s inability to get over the hump but one time in the last fifty years is an ignominious distinction made even worse by the near misses and excruciating losses. How does Rakim fail to release a record with Dr. Dre on the boards? How does a team with Brady, Terrell, and Thomas play QB shuffle, losing a winnable game at MSU and blowing a seventeen-point fourth-quarter lead at home against Illinois? Why is Rakim making records with someone named “Truth Hurts”? Why is Michigan losing to Northwestern?

Finally, I think that this Rakim quotation is an apt embodiment of the Michigan ethos. The Leaders and Best, a college-football institution; and, like Rakim, a program always great:

"...I've been from state to state, followers tailgate
Keep comin’ but you came too late, but I'll wait
So back up, regroup, get a grip, come equipped
You're the next contestant - clap ya hands, you won a trip!
The price is right - don't make a deal too soon
How many notes could you name this tune?
Follow the Leader is the title, theme, task
Now ya know, you don't have to ask
Rap is Rhythm And Poetry, cuts create sound effects
You might catch up if you follow the records E. wrecks
Until then keep eatin’ and swallowin'
You better take a deep breath and keep followin'
The leader."

Better Than Yours

Freak of the week

(Do I need to pay royalties to Young Rome for using this title?)

Tough choice on this Thursday: The nostalgic appeal of the boy who made you say, "Bo!"--(no longer so) Little Vicious? Or that steady Jigga spit and unrelenting "Don Demarco!" drops? Take your pick...

- Jay-Z, "Ignorant Shit"

- Little Vicious, "Nika"

And help a brotha out if you're feeling his raggamuffin flow.

From the Gardens

Disappointed, but no less a fan.

If you’re like me, you really like Slum Village (nh). You think that Fantastic, Vol. II was aptly titled; you are bumpin’ the advance copy of Detroit Deli because that intro and “Hood Hoes” are just so dominant; and you routinely mourn the group’s failed ability to really seduce the mainstream or even develop a reliable niche following among the “underground” heads. You’re also pretty disappointed today because the new S-Villa mixtape, Prequel to a Classic, is a sloppy mess of unfulfilled promise and boring repetition. How many times can Slum make those mostly bland, enervating tracks? And what’s with habitually failing to harness the group’s best sounds? No one has ever realized that we need more “Raise It Up” and “Conant Gardens"? I have only given this record two spins, so maybe I will like it more as I get more familiar with the tracks, but upon first listen, there were too many tracks that failed to capture my attention. Maybe I’m just not a good enough SV fan. My homie and fellow Dork Taj has more (and a different take).

Listen below and buy if you like:
- Slum Village, "It'z Your World"
- Slum Village, "Time Travel"

Blog Roundtable #3

Five-letter word for "dismissed" beginning with "f." Think, Gary, think!

I’m assuming, with a certain sense of disappointment, that there are no women participating in the BlogPoll. That said, it is my hope that all these men can tear themselves away from NCAA 2006 long enough to answer the latest set of Blog Roundtable questions. (And guys, consider showering while the game is on pause. Also, I can’t wait until Michigan quarterback “Papi Chulo” wins the Heisman. Good times.) So put down the controllers, allow your eyes to re-adjust to sunlight, eat something that isn’t part of the Phil Fulmer Frito-Lay diet, and tell me what you think of all this:

So far, the Blog Roundtable discussions have focused exclusively on teams. I thought that for this installment, we could shift our focus a little and also examine individuals.

Which unheralded player on your team will be the hardest to replace? Which seemingly inconsequential player could make the biggest impact? We all know that Oklahoma needs to find a new quarterback and that Kobe Bryant’s little brother, Marcus, may be the key to VaTech success. But what about guys we don’t hear about? Who replaces that one white possession receiver who made those third-down catches in crunch time? Which player with a hype machine that has been stymied by injury, sloth, and/or a low Rivals ranking is finally ready to contribute?

Which regular-season game that won’t feature your team would you pay the most money to see this season? Why? Whether it’s a traditional rivalry like Auburn-Alabama or Gary Pinkel-Stupidity; an intersectional match-up like Texas-Ohio State or Anyteamfromthemainland-Hawaii; a personal showdown like Fulmer-Spurrier or Willingham-Catholicism; or just a great conference game like Florida-LSU or Oklahoma-Baylor, what’s the one game your team won’t be playing in that you’d most want to experience in person? Bonus: From Brent of the theoretically archetypical ParadigmBlog--Which rivalry game would you most like to attend?

And finally, because I want it, you want it, and the American people want it: If your team were a rapper, who would it be and why? (N.B.: I thought of this weeks ago but didn’t get to commit the idea to blog before EDSBS set me up for it. Don’t think I’m just some EDSBS shill. And, please visit EDSBS.) If you are hip-hop uninitiated and don’t know enough about real rappers (i.e., there are more of them than 50 Cent, Eminem, and the ones from Houston who all make the same slow music) to find an appropriate analog, feel free to throw in your favorite Euro techno group, country star, or another sufficiently metaphorical musical act.

As always, please leave your responses as comments or trackbacks (if you even know how that works, and I certainly don’t), and if you are blogless or just aren't a BlogPoll voter but want to participate (Jon? Stacey? John?), feel free. I’ll round up the answers next week, post my own, compose some evaluative remarks, and dole out awards. Also, please try to read everyone else’s answers so that we, as a community of hopelessly obsessive college-football fans, are all edified.

Gary Sheffield Is a God

CTC

Is there a more unintentionally funny baseball player than Gary Sheffield? God, I love him--and mostly for the wrong reasons. Baseball finally has its answer to the immortal "Cut the check" quotation that has forever made Roscoe one the best ballers in the Straight Bangin' universe. This has to rank up there with a young Barry Bonds defiantly asserting, "I'm not arrogant; I'm good."

Right. And Judith Miller Is in Prison.

Will this Plame situation serve as the self-inflicted wound that is a Samurai's death?

The glutton for punishment that I am, I chose to, you know, check out the news today. Big mistake. I say it all the time, but it’s no less true today than it was last week, last month, and last year: the news sucks. Reading has become as pleasant as sticking pins into my eyes. Really, this whole literacy thing has proven to be much worse than I thought it would be when I signed up as a youth. All it does is piss me off because the news is now nothing more than a compendium of moral and legal transgressions. And these contraventions are usually being committed by lying, manipulative operators like Karl Rove.

If you haven’t “heard” about Rove effectively disclosing the identity of a CIA operative, you either don’t know any people, aren’t tech savvy enough to use a television or an internet (read: an Ohio State fan or graduate), or can’t read (read: see preceding parenthetical aside). Maybe you’re all three, and in that case, you probably went to (the) Ohio State (joke of a) University and just didn’t drink. Anyway, lots of people are up in arms about this, and rightfully so. As my mother wrote to me:

“I am definitely not on the fence about Rove, who
deliberately outed her for a political purpose. That's the story here,
the story that should be written, that Rove and administration do
EVERYTHING for political purposes, including starting a war for other
people's kids to die in."

I think that my mother, the raging liberal that she is, applied the hammer of logic that is her considerable intellect to the galling nail that is this administration’s willingness to do anything and everything if it keeps it in power and accomplishes one of its many political goals. Is there anything more offensive than people who hate government using government as a tool to functionally destroy government? I’m no bureaucrat-loving liberal, but I find it hurtful (if that isn’t too quixotic) that people like Karl Rove erode the integrity of our system so willingly if it will accomplish narrow ends like empowering him and his cronies.

And one more thing: Jokes about Clinton’s idiotic “it depends what ‘is’ is” episode persist (and likely for good reason--it was so stupid.) Can we now add to that genre of humor wry little witticisms about the similarly disingenuous idea that saying “Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on (weapons of mass destruction) issues who authorized the trip” is not what we all know it is? That’s the same thing as saying “Valerie Plame,” right? Talk about a distinction without a difference.

‘Cuz I got more records to sell/More dollars to clock:
- Amar and I keep it thoro at What's Really Good? We're trying to get the readership up, so if you like what you see, please throw up a link on your own site. Like the Temptations and TLC, I ain't too proud to beg.

- I don't pretend to be a North Korea expert, but dis not good. I really like Nicholas Kristof's reporting. I don't always agree with him, but I can alway appreciate his curiosity and courage.

- Yes! More benefit-concert redux. Just what I was hoping for. This hurts so good. And it augurs well for an endeavor I hope to undertake in a few decades: Re-creating the Summer Jams that have helped define the contemporary hip-hop culture that is so constructive and engaging. Imagine the look on Prodigy's face in twenty-five years when we get Jay-Z--still basking in the reflected glory of LeBron's run of dominance with the Nets--to made Prod the next first contestant on that Summer Jam screen. HOT!

- What's funnier? That reporters with names like Kristie Rieken who write for syndicated organizations like the AP have to explain the origins of names like "Slim Thug" or that Slim has more fancy cars than you'll ever own but can't drive any of them because his license is suspended?

Three Things I Wonder

Step up to get your rep up

Now that basketball season has ended and the off-season, though eventful, is in full swing, I can spend more time thinking about (and pining for) college football. As you know, I participate in that BlogPoll and its associated activities, so I’ve kept my college football game moderately strong. However, I am looking to up the coverage a little bit as summer meanders toward fall and the binge-drinking, pass-out-on-the-toilet party that I call my Michigan football kick-off tailgate approaches. I am not gonna be touching (nh) EDSBS, iBfC, MGoBlog, or any of the other college-football-only/mainly sites, but I should hold my own. I thought I’d kick things off (get it?) with three questions that will probably determine Michigan’s fortunes this season:

1) Will Steve Stripling earn a building? In retrospect, the 2004 Michigan defense was doomed to fail. The line was without depth; plagued by underperformance (*cough* Pierre Woods *cough*); and coached by a man who understands linebackers, not linemen. The linebacking corps was slow to the ball; pursued the ball carrier at bad angles; and too easily exposed to blockers. The secondary was populated by one mediocre safety and one overrated safety; too often asked to cover receivers for too long; and rarely able to look back and find the ball carrier until he was well on his way. Now, as Vijay has mentioned, the Wolverine defense was not, in fact, always horrendous. In fact, through eight games last year, the Michigan run defense was allowing a respectable 71.6 yard per game (ypg), the pass defense was giving up just 204 ypg, and the team was surrendering 18.4 points each contest. Those numbers weren’t breaking records, but they were more than enough for a team that was getting 149 on the ground, 221 through the air, holding the ball for 33+ minutes, and putting up 28+ points each game (save for the Notre Dame abortion that stemmed from the usual--bad coaching on the road). Things fell apart at the end of the year, from the ninth game forward, when Michigan encountered teams with--all together now--mobile quarterbacks who could run offenses with spread elements.

Just look at the numbers. Michigan State got 368 yards rushing and 37 points; Northworstern got 190 and 20; (the) Ohio State (joke of a) University got 205 and 37 (!); and the One Man Gang from Austin got 264 and 38. That’s sucktastic porous defense with a capital “S” “P."

Most of the problems stemmed from horrible line play. The Michigan defense generated just 21 sacks in twelve games, an indication that it struggled to apply significant and consistent pressure on quarterbacks. Aided by more time, opposing QBs could scramble away broken plays, find receivers making their twelfth and thirteenth moves, and pick their own running lanes. This last luxury afforded by the defense was particularly galling in the games against the Minimum Security Prison and Home for the Mentally Challenged and Texas, when Troy Smith and Vince Young both carved up the defense without being forced to worry about a collapsing pocket or pressure from the edges.

The defensive line further contributed the team’s demise because after Gabe Watson, few Wolverines consistently disrupted running plays. The 3-4 scheme, absent tackle depth, and inconsistent end production allowed opponents to get their blockers up field and onto the linebackers who were supposed to be flying toward the lanes that the line, not the offense, had created. Michigan is notorious for using a “read-and-react” approach to defense that asks the linebackers to diagnose what play is developing and respond accordingly. Too often, these linebackers either made bad reads (and, subsequently, took bad pursuit angles) or were forced away from the point of attack by blockers who were not engaged by the defensive line. I am no football tactician, but this is my basic understanding of the problems and what was supposed to have happened.

Now, back to Stripling. Stripling was hired away from Michigan State and has spent his entire career coaching defensive lines. If he can teach the deeper and more talented linemen group to get to a QB, engage (or even push back) blockers, and maintain containment on the edges, the Michigan linebackers should improve, getting to the ball earlier as plays become easier to diagnose. So, too, should the defensive backs, an already shaky group that will benefit immensely from a defensive line that is helping to stuff or contain the run and taking away time from QBs seeking open receivers. Do all this, and Stripling, not Lloyd Carr or Jim Herrmann, will get his name affixed to a building somewhere near Schembechler Hall. And rightfully so.

2) Will Terry Malone actually go with what he’s got? With freshmen at quarterback and running back, Offensive Coordinator Terry Malone could be forgiven for some conservative play calling last season. However, only some. The Michigan offense has been a good unit during Malone’s tenure, and offensive production and NFL players both speak for Malone’s quality. He is not without his flaws, though (and some of them are perhaps a result of a roster that lacks, for instance, a speed back who can get outside quickly). Whether it’s predictability in certain situations (like always passing when Pierre Rembert was lined up at RB) or maddening lack of logic (why even draw up a five-yard route when eight are needed?), Malone (and, of course, Carr) has seen plenty offenses get bogged down. And much to the team’s detriment, it really struggled in short yardage situations last year. It also was routinely bailed out by the unique athleticism of Braylon Edwards. When all else failed, Chad Henne could usually just toss up a lob on Edwards’s side of the field, and Michigan could reasonably expect success.

Edwards isn’t around anymore, and this season will be Malone’s chance to prove that his offense can adapt to the personnel. Michigan will be without a proven deep threat (or a rangy guy like Edwards--not so fast, Adrian Arrington), but it does have a plethora of quick athletes with deadly moves. Steve Breaston, of course, is the most obvious of this group, but Doug Dutch and incoming freshmen Antonio Bass and Mario Manningham (the player I am most excited about because he has the attitude--and the game--needed to be a star) can all move and make defenders miss. Yet none will excel in the ways that Edwards, David Terrell, and Marquise Walker did. This group of receivers will need to get the ball once they’re already moving and in space. If the Michigan passing offense is going to be the weapon that it needs to be, Malone must incorporate slants, ins, and other, more creative patterns into his fairly standard offense. I’d even like to see UM run some shotgun—something that it never does—each game so that the ball gets to Henne and is ready to be delivered sooner than it usually is when the QB has to make a drop from under center.

There are so many questions on the UM defense that the Wolverines are going to have to know that they can score when needed. Michigan has the weapons for this, but they won’t mean much if not deployed in the ways that will maximize abilities.

3) Is Chad Henne that good? QB Henne came into Michigan amid fanfare that had previously been, to an even greater extent, reserved for a player like Drew Henson. Henne delivered on the promise, though, throwing for 2,743 yards with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of better than 2 to 1 (25:12). Even more impressive, Henne did not cost the team a single game, and had he been playing with a better defense, he likely would have only lost one game as a true freshman. Michigan enters 2005 with a lot of outstanding questions--Will Braylon Edwards’s absence be compensated for by a different by potent aerial attack? Can FB Kevin Dudley and his devastating blocking be replaced? Will any safety on the Michigan roster actually distinguish himself? Can the linebackers find a way to play without their heads up their asses? Will Steve Stripling have the desired effect? Is there enough health and depth on the offensive line? Can the offensive line improve its pass protection? Will Lloyd Carr do anything to prove that 1997 wasn’t just some fluke? Henne can’t answer all of them, but he can compensate for some of those that might go unanswered or answered inadequately.

While Chad had a good season, he also left a lot of room for improvement. If it’s even possible, he was less mobile than John Navarre, and it would behoove him if he could play QB as though he weren't knee deep in quicksand. He also had a difficult time with his touch, too often rifling he ball to a TE who was just three or four yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Additionally, Henne’s deep balls were not all that precise. If he can improve in these areas while mastering the offense, he should be a great weapon for a UM offense that, as I already wrote, is going to be needed to score a lot. Henne is likely the most important player on the roster.

Four links of note:
- Russ hits you with a good point about Stephon. Like him, I think that the Starchild should be traded.

- Motown Sports Revival helps explain why being a Michigan fan is just so hard (spotted by Brian).

- Bol's paper chase is strong with two new sites. Flame away in the comments sections...

Yeah, But What About the Ball Coach?

Below, I have posted newsmeat.com's list of political contributions made by prominent figures in the world of sports. You can check out the link here. I am most proud of David Stern, the Sunshine Scooter (Lee Corso), Jon Miller, Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim, Michael, Charles, and Pop. I am most disappointed by Muhammad Ali, Lute Olson, Bill Belichik, Jerome Bettis, the Buss family (although, they do employ a rapist), Clyde Drexler, and Chris Evert. Not surprisingly, shitheads like Phil Mickelson, all NASCAR yahoos, and all golfers skew Republican; league commissioners (Stern, Bettmann, Selig(man)), journalists (duh), and basketball players skew Democrat. I have never felt better about myself. Check out the site's search function, too. You can find almost anyone, famous or not. In "No Shit" news, Bill Romanowski and Marge Schott give/gave all their money to Republicans. Again, I have never felt better about myself.

NEWSMEAT Hall of Fame - Sports Federal Campaign Contributions Since 1978
Contributor (click for detailed report)	Total	Dem	GOP	Spec Int
Hank Aaron baseball hall-of-famer	$11,461	72%	0%	28%
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar basketball	$1,000	100%	0%	0%
Andre Agassi tennis	$83,000	94%	0%	6%
Troy Aikman Dallas Cowboys quarterback	$7,000	0%	86%	14%
Muhammad Ali greatest of all time	$3,000	33%	67%	0%
John Andretti race car driver	$250	0%	100%	0%
Mario Andretti race car driver	$40,215	0%	100%	0%
Arthur Ashe tennis	$9,800	87%	10%	3%
Charles Barkley basketball	$2,000	100%	0%	0%
Bill Belichick football coach	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Chris Berman sportscaster	$2,700	100%	0%	0%
Yogi Berra baseball coach, player	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Jerome Bettis football	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Gary Bettman NHL Commissioner 1993-present	$2,000	100%	0%	0%
Bert Blyleven baseball pitcher	$250	0%	100%	0%
Jim Boeheim basketball coach	$500	100%	0%	0%
Bobby Bowden FSU football coach	$12,500	0%	100%	0%
George Brett Kansas City Royals player	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Jeanie Buss LA Lakers executive	$5,000	5%	95%	0%
Jerry Buss LA Lakers owner	$23,550	12%	69%	19%
Jim Calhoun college basketball coach	$3,500	100%	0%	0%
John Chaney basketball coach	$450	100%	0%	0%
Cris Collinsworth sports commentator; fmr football player	$6,500	0%	100%	0%
Lee Corso sports commentator	$1,320	100%	0%	0%
Howard Cosell sports broadcaster	$3,250	38%	62%	0%
Ben Crenshaw golfer	$6,173	0%	100%	0%
Don Criqui sportscaster	$1,700	0%	100%	0%
Denny Crum basketball coach	$2,654	0%	100%	0%
Mark Cuban Dallas Mavericks owner	$7,000	14%	14%	72%
John Daly pro golfer	$1,000	100%	0%	0%
Oscar De La Hoya boxer	$1,000	100%	0%	0%
Bucky Dent pro baseball player 1973-84	$500	0%	100%	0%
Mike Ditka football coach/player	$18,288	0%	97%	3%
Clyde Drexler NBA all star 1983-98	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Dave Duerson football player, businessman	$2,500	100%	0%	0%
Dick Ebersol NBC sports executive	$67,500	84%	1%	15%
John Elway NFL quarterback (retired)	$8,500	0%	100%	0%
Julius 'Dr. J' Erving NBA hall-of-famer	$2,300	76%	13%	11%
Chris Evert tennis champion, commentator	$500	0%	100%	0%
Donald Fehr baseball players union president	$19,756	44%	46%	10%
Raymond Floyd pro golfer	$4,000	13%	75%	12%
George Foreman boxing champion, minister	$1,000	100%	0%	0%
Mike Francesa sports commentator	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Joe Gibbs NFL coach, NASCAR team owner	$6,200	0%	100%	0%
Frank Gifford NFL hall-of-famer; sportscaster	$7,000	29%	71%	0%
Malcolm Glazer Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner; Manchester United owner	$26,000	96%	4%	0%
Jeff Gordon race car driver	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Curt Gowdy sports broadcaster	$8,800	0%	83%	17%
Dennis Green NFL coach	$2,800	100%	0%	0%
Tom Hammond sportscaster	$2,000	100%	0%	0%
Franco Harris NFL star	$36,030	83%	17%	0%
Lou Holtz college football coach	$5,800	14%	86%	0%
Evander Holyfield champion boxer	$26,000	100%	0%	0%
Paul Hornung football hall-of famer; commentator	$2,000	50%	50%	0%
Hale Irwin pro golfer	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Phil Jackson NBA coach, player	$5,455	50%	0%	50%
Peter Jacobsen pro golfer	$2,500	0%	100%	0%
Dale Jarrett race car driver	$6,200	0%	100%	0%
Jimmie Johnson race car driver	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
William "Hootie" Johnson Augusta National Golf Club chairman	$14,949	33%	60%	7%
Jerry Jones Dallas Cowboys owner	$15,000	53%	47%	0%
Michael Jordan basketball star	$18,000	72%	0%	28%
George Karl NBA coach	$7,000	71%	29%	0%
Alex Karras NFL player 1958-71; actor	$12,450	99%	0%	1%
Armen Keteyian sportscaster	$250	100%	0%	0%
Billie Jean King tennis player/coach	$6,400	94%	0%	6%
Don King fight promotor	$179,500	26%	60%	14%
Tom Kite pro golfer	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Bobby Knight basketball coach	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Bernie Kosar NFL quarterback	$84,500	8%	92%	0%
Robert Kraft New England Patriots owner	$247,750	76%	8%	16%
Jim Lampley sportscaster	$2,525	91%	0%	9%
Tom Landry NFL coach	$35,980	0%	82%	18%
Mario Lemieux NHL hall-of-famer	$500	0%	100%	0%
Davis Love III pro golfer	$4,700	0%	100%	0%
Jeffrey Lurie Philadelphia Eagles owner	$36,300	60%	40%	0%
John MacLeod basketbal coach	$3,000	33%	67%	0%
Tommy Maddox pro football player	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Karl Malone NBA star	$10,000	0%	100%	0%
Peyton Manning NFL quarterback	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Dan Marino NFL quarterback	$9,500	0%	21%	79%
Frank McCourt LA Dodgers owner; real estate developer	$34,800	73%	10%	17%
John McEnroe tennis, commentator	$5,000	80%	0%	20%
Rick Mears race car driver	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Larry Merchant boxing commentator	$9,950	92%	0%	8%
Phil Mickelson pro golfer	$705	0%	100%	0%
Jon Miller sportscaster	$4,000	100%	0%	0%
Larry Mize pro golfer	$2,250	0%	89%	11%
Alonzo Mourning NBA star	$25,000	100%	0%	0%
Jim Nantz sports broadcaster	$3,000	0%	100%	0%
Martina Navratilova pro tennis player	$20,000	53%	0%	47%
Jack Nicklaus golf champion	$4,000	0%	38%	62%
Greg Norman pro golfer	$6,000	0%	100%	0%
Mark O'Meara pro golfer	$4,500	0%	100%	0%
Robert "Lute" Olson basketball coach	$54,000	0%	100%	0%
Arnold Palmer golf champion	$16,600	27%	65%	8%
Rafael Palmiero baseball player	$4,000	0%	100%	0%
Joe Paterno Penn State football coach	$7,300	14%	73%	13%
Walter Payton NFL hall-of-famer	$1,000	100%	0%	0%
Digger Phelps basketball coach, sports commentator	$1,250	100%	0%	0%
Rick Pitino basketball coach	$2,000	50%	50%	0%
Gregg Popovich NBA coach	$2,000	100%	0%	0%
Dan Reeves NFL coach	$10,000	0%	100%	0%
Pat Riley NBA coach	$4,754	42%	0%	58%
Alex 'A-Rod' Rodriguez baseball player	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Bill Romanowski football player	$250	0%	100%	0%
Nolan Ryan hall-of-fame pitcher	$13,000	8%	81%	11%
Marge Schott Cincinnati Reds owner 1985-99	$19,025	0%	100%	0%
Vin Scully sportscaster	$8,500	0%	100%	0%
Tom Seaver baseball hall-of-famer	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Jason Sehorn football player	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Bud Selig Baseball commissioner	$53,250	94%	4%	2%
Pam Shriver pro tennis player	$25,700	62%	38%	0%
Don Shula NFL coach	$17,434	45%	55%	0%
Dean Smith college basketball coach	$23,549	96%	0%	4%
Daniel Snyder Owner, Washington Redskins	$26,000	0%	100%	0%
Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder sports commentator, oddsmaker	$2,500	20%	80%	0%
Roger Staubach NFL hall-of-fame quarterback	$86,087	1%	85%	14%
George Steinbrenner owner, NY Yankees	$199,000	51%	26%	23%
David Stern NBA Commissioner	$742,280	97%	0%	3%
Pat Summerall sportscaster, football player	$3,500	0%	100%	0%
Lynn Swann NFL hall-of-famer	$10,800	19%	81%	0%
Barry Switzer football coach	$2,000	75%	25%	0%
Paul Tagliabue NFL Commissioner	$27,751	29%	44%	27%
Joe Theismann sports commentator; former quarterback	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Isiah Thomas NBA star, executive	$5,000	100%	0%	0%
David Toms pro golfer	$2,000	0%	100%	0%
Peter Ueberroth Commissioner of Baseball 1984-89; businessman	$29,200	5%	50%	45%
Al Unser, Jr race car driver	$1,000	0%	100%	0%
Bobby Valentine baseball manager, player	$4,000	0%	100%	0%
Ken Venturi sports commentator; pro golfer (retired)	$550	0%	100%	0%
Chris Zorich football player	$1,000	100%	0%	0%

And Since It's Thursday...

...Who you wit'?

- Athletic Mic League, "Vibin'"
- Slum Village, "Hood Hoes"

I'm out for the weekend (again). Payce.

And read End of the Bench, bitches.

This Crazy World of Ours

As a native New Yorker, I could reasonably be expected to suffer acute sensitivity or even fear when it comes to terrorism. After all, my home is the world's capital (perhaps) and is likely the best example of the West, love it or hate it. September 11th happened here. But instead, I have always experienced an almost shameful indifference toward terrorism. I think that terrorism is a horrific crime perpetrated against humanity, and I do not condone violence. I am saddened by today's events in London, and I have tremendous sympathy for all those affected. But those are objective conclusions to which I cling devoid of any real emotion; the notion that I should feel imperiled is foreign and does not resonate. Really, I might not cling to anything so much as I might simply know right and wrong. I feel as though I am a spectator, an alien de Tocqueville observing some foreign peoples.

I don't really know why I am so numb in the face of danger (some of it imagined) and suffering (all of it real). Perhaps it's because I watched September 11th on television from my remote dorm room in Ann Arbor, and the event could have been happening in China. Perhaps it's because, while I value the freedoms I enjoy as an American, I am far from the colloquial notion of a "patriot." Perhaps it's because the current political climate makes it impossible to refrain from attaching normative philosophical attitudes to everything, corroding events that should be non-partisan. Or maybe it's just because I have a persistent, skewed sense of urgency and motivation in my life that allows me to proceed without fear of terrorism or compunction to get new glasses when I need them but prevents me from going to sleep with the door to my closet open or my computer desktop cluttered by anything other than the recycle bin. I don't write any of this with pride; I find it troubling.

I have no insight right now (and I may never really happen upon any) into the London bombings (and I'm not presumptuous enough to think that you were expecting any), but there are others who do and will. Start with Juan Cole.

I had intended to write about Africa today given the ongoing G8 summit in Gleneagles. The Economist spent a lot of its pages last week previewing the event, and I found the most engaging angle to be the one that advanced the idea that more aid is not enough; better, smarter aid is needed. As Nicholas Kristof notes, more aid might not actually be the problem, at least for America. For me, and for many others in this nation, the real issue that emerges is that money is not being spent wisely. In a place where AIDS is still such a problem, and commonplace remedies like sex education and contraception could make significant impacts, it seems almost unconscionable that the U.S. would neglect to fund these endeavors. Friends like Eddie Beaver have noted that private philanthropy has often filled these funding and logic gaps, however if the prevailing message going into and (hopefully) coming out of this summit is that Africa needs more help, the U.S. should help in every way possible.

Just...Can't...Look...Away...

I know that I'm a few days week late with this story, but I just can't get over the size of this fish. It's staggering!

Re-up

End of the Bench is back in the fucking building.

Update: So is What's Really Good? Jyeah!

New Isht

Far from extinct

Two music-related notes (and some actual music):

1) While a freshman in college, I had the good fortune of living with a prodigy. Actually, I lived among a number of them. From chemistry to computer science to economics to psychology, my freshman-year dorm was filled with geniuses. One of these wunderkinds was my roommate, and dude was amazing. He was incredibly smart, blessed with the capacities to both understand complicated mathematics and also assimilate often amorphous ideas that dominate the humanities. He could also play instruments, fuss with technology, and tell funny jokes. He was even a good athlete. Kid could do it all.

Less gifted but in possession of far more hip-hop knowledge, I used to hang out with my roommate a lot and infuse our interactions with a certain “street” sensibility. Engaging discussions and the youthful exuberance of college led us to making music, and we would fuck around (nh) freestyling over the endless supply of rap instrumentals that I would “acquire.” I’ve long since abandoned music originality, however my roommate continues to churn out wonderfully intelligent and creative material. He’s moved on from his ill-fated dorm-room punk band, Hypervite, and seems to be on hiatus from the eclectic music that he writes with his home-town garage band, Least Weasel. Now, he’s putting out some kind of electronic hip-hop sound, carried by his witty lyrics and homemade beats. I know that the gully set isn’t gonna like this, but anyone who appreciates humor and intelligence in all of their forms should. Peep MC Coelacanth’s “Tom Delay (The Bible Thump)” (and right click the blue link to save the mp3).

And if you're too lazy for that, download it here.

2) So I am not the first person to mention that new Kanye track, "Gold Digger", but I haven’t seen anyone else call out Kanye for recycling even more rhymes. Again. Like on "Diamonds." Again, I ain’t mad at him, because everyone does this, but it at least deserves mention. One of these verses was a “freestyle” that Kanye was performing at every effing concert for a while. Either that, or I’m psychic, because I know what happens after eighteen years.

Back in the Streets, Workin', Stackin' My Bread

Here you see the focus that has carried me to consecutive mini-golf titles.

Y'all thought I fell off? Will Laura fuck Urkel? I had a great time out in the Chi. I didn't get to see Big Bank Kanye, but I was able to accomplish almost everything else on my list. There was/were: drinking; a successful defense of my mini-golf title; time spent soaking in the splendor of Lake Michigan; droves of tourists (like me) and encouraging multiculturalism at overpriced places like the Navy Pier; drinking; a reaffirmation that Chicago makes Boston look like the racist, Mickey Mouse city we all know it to be; wonder inspired by the fantastic permanent collection at the Art Institute of Chicago; great friends (nhjic); incredible (and copious amounts of) food at El Jardin, my new favorite restaurant; drinking; etc. I was even gonna hollerate, but that didn't work out since some rines got crossed. Oh well. I'll be back in the Chi in October when Michigan invades Ryan Field and attempts to win its second night game on the road of the season (yes, I'll be at the first in Madison, also); I can't wait, because Chicago rules.

Any attempt to comprehensively (or even adequately) address the myriad topics of discussion that arose over the weekend and have now, already, lost their cutting edge-ness would seem feeble and redundant, so for now, feast on some links while I make some other words written last evening suitable for publishing.

- I have become the subject of some hatred on a Justus League message board. Apparently, some people can't handle the fact that Joe Scudda is a disposable, boring MC. I stand by everything I previously wrote about dude (scroll down). He looked corny at the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, although maybe that's because he was trying to rap and carry weed at the same time. Also, I think it's funny that some of the posters were mad because I appeared to know so much about Scudda, a though my supposed hateration would have been more acceptable had it been less informed. Logic, thou shall not infect our thinking.

- Peep game: Souled On, a new site where the George Bush intolerance and hip-hop both flow like mighty streams.

- Have people seen that garbage MTV program Date My Mom? I think I'm addressing this late in the game, as it appears to be in its second season, but I saw it for the first time (I know, I'm slackin') over the weekend during some down time in between drinking and being assailed by Brandon for my non-hipsterness (I just can't compete with a dude in a brown corduroy jacket and some trendy throwback garb). Aside from the contrived filming and format, the worst part was this one dude who was taking out all those non-MILFs. I think his name was Aaron. Every ten seconds, Aaron was referring to these women's daughters as "donkeys," asking if they were donkeys, if they had donkeys, and if they'd consider wearing a harness so that he could ride a donkey (nh?). Do people with self-respect actually use that term? I know "donkey" can also be used as a pejorative for "dumbass" (because, you know, that's not pejorative), and that's ok but not great. But using donkey to talk about some girl's ass? That's just lame. And where did it come from? Is it some unfortunate derivative from "badonkadonk"? That's my guess, and if I'm right, I hope to be consumed by the fires of embarrassment. American colloquialism is diminished by the inclusion of "donkey" in the ranks of our slang idiolect (and yes, "our" and "idiolect" are mismatched. Deal with it; catch the nonce fever.) Fuck you, Aaron.

- As promised, Every Day Should Be Saturday has rounded up the second set of answers from the BlogPoll Roundtable.



- Um, President Bush knows that John McClane isn't real and, therefore, can't help Fred Thompson, right?