Come Time Travel with Me

I just received the following email. Please notice the date, circled in yellow, and click on the image to make it bigger if that helps:



Um...WHAT?!

Also, please pardon the red bars. I can't have all of my life out there for public consumption.

Maybe Not an Ideal Punter

(HT: KnockoutEd)

If this kid ends up playing for Michigan, we should look out on the horizon in anticipation of the Four Horsemen.

Dispatches from Suburban Missouri

Well, at least we didn't break Gus Johnson's heart and blow it against Michigan State

This report comes from the field. I am posted up in a Panera Bread somewhere out in the St. Louis suburbs. This is a funny city, because if you drive 25 minutes east and cross the Mississippi River into Illinois, you are surrounded by dilapidated farmland. If you drive 25 minutes west, you end up in these fairly tony suburbs with every chain restaurant possible, a number of golf courses, and some of the best movie theaters I've been in (large, clean, great popcorn). I like coming out west to do some writing assignments from time to time because I avoid the temptation of my television at home--can't turn down UConn and Tiger--and I don't get sucked into the group hysteria that festers in the law library on weekends that precede paper due dates.

Please enjoy some scenes observed over the last 90 minutes:

- There are two high-school girls sitting in a booth getting their Heathers on, talking about boys, complaining about not having lives, and playing quarters with coffee cups. Each has a Beyonce ringtone on her cell phone, yet they are distinct. One goes with "Diva," the other has "Single Ladies."

- A mother and her daughter just walked in wearing matching Juicy Couture jumpsuits and flip flops. The mom kept tugging at her bosom, making me think that her bra is ill-fitting. The daughter was smacking gum and said something that sounded like "...but he wants it without chili!" Not sure if that makes any sense, though.

- A Biggest Loser candidate just put down about 6 brownies in 5 minutes. That's, uh, indulgent?

- Two little boys just won the battle of attrition against their mom. After a solid 10 minutes of screeching, belching, and one flipped chair, we're getting a chocolate chip cookie and a soda. Yay!

- Best way to order a cup of coffee? While yelling on the phone at someone, "Don't fucking tell me! I am coming over in a minute. I am--what did I just say?! Don't fucking tell me!"

Suburban Missouri is bizarro awesome.

A Note about the Car Industry

Wanna know why the American auto industry is dying slowly?



That's why.

Any company that can make a little girl so thoroughly detestable isn't long for this world. At least, not much longer. I would never buy a Chevy Traverse having seen that. (I wouldn't buy a Chevy, period. Howie Long is so lame.)

Just Because I Already Miss Him ()

Kenny Powers: Greatest Hits from Danny McBride

Kenny Powers is the best. Ever.

...But He Is a Good Rapper. And He's a Better Lil' Wayne Than Lil' Wayne

While I am underwhelmed by MF Doom, the person, I remain a big fan of MF Doom, the rapper. And so does Mos Def. Peep this totally awesome video:



Doom was always known to keep the best girls' backs bent. (HT: Ivan)

- Passion of the Weiss has been killing it with the SXSW coverage. I generally hate SXSW. Or, maybe I hate the blogging and twittering about it. We all get it, people--you're at SXSW, and you think you're special because of it. Especially people who haven't been to Austin before and treat a SXSW visit like some hajj to a cooler-than-thou Mecca. But it all mostly comes off as annoying. Only, Jeff doesn't seem to be so taken with himself merely for having flown down to Texas, and instead, he's been filing these really smart, well-written reports, leading some robust and engaging hip-hop discussions. I recommend highly.

- Georgia Anne Muldrow is putting out an album, Ms. One, on May 19th. Let's hope it loaded with joints like this. Note that she produced it:

Black Milk and Big Pooh, "2 MC"

MF Doom: Good Rapper, Bad Person

Generally, a not-likable human. But the man makes beats, and he can rhyme.

You know, there is a long tradition of a certain difficult eccentricity being excused in the name of genius and celebrity. But MF Doom, whose catalogue already toiled to excuse his well-crafted mysteriousness (or perhaps the latter enhanced the former?), has tested the limits of our patience and is now failing. I am late on these links, but still: he voted for John McCain and is unapologetic about sending stand-ins to his concerts? And he adopts a certain nonchalance about serious subjects that is either only partially articulated or unfortunately indifferent. The dude just seems to not really care about his audience. But, I don't know him, so I will reserve some judgment, the title of the post notwithstanding. He just seems like a jerk. Doesn't he?

New Doom can be copped here. I like how he flips the Dilla "Dimethyltriptamine" beat on this track:

- MF Doom, "Gazzillion Ear"

Also:
- Everyone should be reading This Is a Cool Attitude, if they're not already.

- Jim Jones is officially a cartoon, I think.

Guess Which State Is the Only One That Wants More NFL Games

Two more weekends of smoking and boozing and forking over a mortgage payment. Jyeah!

You guessed it...Frank Stallone. And by that, I mean Nevada, haven of degenerate gamblers and the bookmakers who love them. What a surprise.

I suppose that with Tim Donaghy in prison, an NBA fan can't make fun of another sport for being driven by gambling. But, uh...

Societal Values FAIL

Dyslexic and already has bad knees.

Perhaps this makes me a curmudgeonly 27-year-old man, but I read this New York Times story about basketball wunderkind Allonzo Trier, and I couldn't escape one thought: these people are all so cynical.

It's a nuanced story, and there are many angles ripe for exploration, the NCAA's shameful amateurism charade and the ever deplorable street-agent culture among them. But put those aside for a moment and consider only the depressing state of our collective morality.

Allonzo Trier is an 11- or 12-year-old basketball prodigy who reads below his age group standard, who is dyslexic, and who lives with his single mother. She works as a social worker at a shelter for victims of domestic violence and brings home a "modest" salary. It's modest enough that Allonzo and his mother live in Section 8 housing. Only thanks to the largess of another does Allonzo have the tutoring and dental care that he needs.

Those of us without preternatural athletic ability would have an even rougher go of things. We'd be consigned to a life of limited choices and yearning, shut out from the consumer culture of America and left to the mercy of institutions over which we'd have little control. Hopefully, we'd get the health insurance we needed, though there would be no guarantees and we probably wouldn't see a doctor all that often. Hopefully we'd have access to a functional public school, no certainty in a major American city. Hopefully we'd live some place that was safe and had everyday services in close proximity. Hopefully mom wouldn't lose her job, leaving us without an income and, most likely, without any equity or meaningful savings. Think of how much hope this requires.

That's a hard way to live. There is so little comfort and so much uncertainty. Each day would be harder than even an average middle-class person could understand or experience. And to get out of it, to move up, we'd need a sufficient education and a lot of breaks. What else would be available? I suppose we could go the Biggie route, recognize that we were bereft of a wicked jump shot, and take our chances slangin' crack rock. That's not really an ideal alternative, though (no Avon). Lots of people live this way.

But Allonzo Trier doesn't. He isn't living this life because he's great at basketball. He's got the requisite J. And so, he gets the person who he met by accident to recognize his dyslexia and finance his dental care and supplemental education. He has personalized clothing given to him for free by a nascent sportswear company. He gets out, traveling across the country for tournament and camp appearances, all to protect his rep as the best of the next wave of basketball players. He is always on the mind of a cavalcade of adults who all seem willing to go an extra mile for him and his mom. Somehow, someway, Allonzo will never go hungry.

It's not a life scholarship, of course. He and his mother pay for it. Allonzo makes 450 jump shots a day; he stays out until late hours during the week playing basketball; he plays a longer AAU season than Tim Duncan plays NBA games in a given year; he already has to take special care of his pre-adolescent knees. He's 12. He's no taller than most people's mothers. He weighs no more than the smoking hot girl who you wish you'd spoken to at the bar that one night. He isn't in high school yet. Do you realize that? Does that really register with people? It didn't with me until I watched video of him:



Look how little he is! That person is already a de facto breadwinner, a de facto savior, up upon whom so much responsibility and so much expectation and so much attention has been piled. Forget that it's sick; how about the fact that it's so pathetic?

It's only because he's good at basketball. If he doesn't stay as good, if he doesn't grow in high school, if one day he slips on a court somewhere and destroys his knee--that will all go away. The clothes, the dental care, the concern. He'll just be another poor kid who doesn't read well.

That's where the haunting cynicism comes in. Read that article and think about how many adults and how many of their resources get directed toward the minute number of Allonzo Triers in this country. All those supposedly well-intentioned adults who congratulate themselves for, in effect, being obsessed with destroying the childhood of children; who spin a story about facilitating a connection for aspiring ballers to realize the ultimate hood dream of getting to the NBA but ultimately just perpetuate a perniciously narrow conception of paths toward success; who pay lip service to amateurism and school but revel in their constructed importance as kingmakers and deal pushers. These are grown men and women who think societal problems are so intractable, and are so content with the status quo, that it's better to exploit our failures rather than challenge them.

These are people who have devoted their lives to pushing basketball instead of reading, to promoting a multi-tiered society rather than asking why we accept one. They mobilize for tournaments and showcases, but there is no mention of their PTA activism, or their effort to add more teachers to schools. They spend lavishly on private jets and fancy hotels in the name of AAU glory, but there is no mention of raising teacher salaries, or creating learning centers to supplement overburdened schools. They punish kids for missing two shots in a row but don't mind if those same children opt for another game instead of another tutoring session. How profoundly cynical is it of these adults to invest so much in a system that is so obviously flawed and so brazenly accepted? To invest so much in so few potential beneficiaries--not only turning their backs on the kids who can't play, but also demanding so much of kids who will not, ultimately, make it to the NBA but will nonetheless be set back by the sacrifices demanded just to be considered?

If you are Allonzo's mother, of course, it's hard to say "no." The Times story notes this: in a life when even necessities aren't fully available, the handouts are welcomed. And if you're the parent of any child who might have the jumper necessary for the NBA, and a better life, it's hard to avoid this system, because grass-roots basketball is the gateway into the big time. (Compare Marcie Trier to Stan Love, a parent of a prodigy who didn't need to make those kinds of tradeoffs.) But still, parents need to be accountable; parents need to prioritize education. And worse, adults who know better--who are only in their positions because of education--really shouldn't be lauded for doing their part to institutionalize the destructive farm system extending into elementary-school basketball. For example, I don't think it's especially noble for some grown-ass man to pride himself on ranking school children and, in effect, holding their dreams hostage while complicitly diverting them from the bedrock of an education. That's just rank cynicism, and it's sad.

I love basketball as much as the next blogger. I love the thrill of seeing something new and different. I love the thrill of following a prodigy, be it LeBron or Kevin Durant or whomever. As a sports fan, there is a unique pleasure in that process. But never is the excitement worth this kind of price. And it's wrong that we've allowed for this cost to become acceptable.

P.S. Let's not even get into Sonny Vaccaro sitting in front of Bryant Gumbel on Real Sports and auditioning for mayrtydom as he railed against the NBA's age requirement and purported to be some patron saint of poor basketball players. That's for another day.

Music Please

That's so altbro.

- Black Milk, "Dreams"
At this point, I am checking for any and all things from Black Milk. His flow is so easy; it sounds like he falls into his verses. And I don't meant that he's not writing or that he's somehow lesser. I mean that his delivery is smooth and natural. Plus, he hasn't made a bad beat in years. Dude is one of those must-listen-to artists right now. Denigrate me as some purist, or some Detroit stan, or as some internets underground loser if you must, but Milk is just that good. And people who don't know need to wake up.

- Hell Rell, "Get in Line"
This song is awesomely generic, and awesomely dated. Like, really, this is a perfect encapsulation of the Dip Set album-track sound--the looped strings noise; the rapid-fire hi-hat; those tumbling drum interludes capping off couplets. Of course, the Set has closed up its consulate office, and yet Rell persists in making these early-decade Heatmakerz-style songs. So I listen to this track, and I chuckle. It's like someone rushing out to the store in order to cop last week's milk. Or something.

Also, the writing? Whoa:

"I walk through the garden of eatin'/Smack Eve on the apple bottom/Tell Adam, don't eat from the apple bottom"

"The ultimate rule, thou shall not sleep with man (no homo)"

"I got daughters already, bitch/Come drink my son"

P.S. All jokes aside, this new Rell tape has some beats. They're way better than those on Capo's album. Cop that new Hell Rell tape here.

- Slim Thug ft. Mannie Fresh, "Show Me Love"
Another new album with solid, solid production. That makes Slim Thug two-for-two. I am sure this will make some folks crazy since I ride out on the south so much, but I think Boss of All Bosses is a pretty good record after two listens. Not sure how to fully articulate why it stands in distinction, though. Part of it is that Slim is sort of all boasts and style, but has this almost laconic air about him. He doesn't take himself oh-so-seriously; he doesn't try so hard to convince you of something. He isn't working on an image as much as everyone else. He just sort of does his thing, spits with this nonchalant, lazy drawl, and then goes on to the next beat and does it again. None of this time spent perpetuating self-involved mythology with skits and transparently calculated musical decisions that come off as insincere. I don't feel like I'm being marketed to as I listen.

And he's a bowss.

Cop that joint here.
 

El Grifo de Blake Quemó Nuestros Buques

Sorry if this ugliness breaks your computer screen or your eyes.

In 1987, David Robinson went for 50 and 13 against a Michigan team featuring future NBA players Glen Rice, Loy Vaught, and Gary Grant. Vaught only played 16 minutes and only scored 6 points that day, but Rice hit for 21, Grant put in 26 off the bench, and Garde Thompson shot 11-14, including 9 threes, while scoring 33 and leading Michigan to a 97-82 victory.

The Michigan basketball season is likely going to end today unless Rice, Grant, and Thompson come walking through that door. (And if they do, they'll be gray and old.) Blake Griffin, your impending top pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, may not be David Robinson (a #1 pick in 1987), but he'll probably play a lot like him against a team that only has two players taller than 6'5". Griffin has dominated all season while playing against teams with adequate size. Plus, Griffin will have more help than Robinson had. That means Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims must play well for Michigan to have a chance against Oklahoma. Manny was great on Thursday, while DeShawn got outplayed by Rutgers reject and future actuary Zach Gibson. And even then, the Wolverines will have to limit turnovers and make something like 40% of its threes. (UM had 13 TOs and made 38.5% from behind the arc against Clemson.)

Oh, and the rebounding disparity will be really ugly. Michigan doesn't even rebound well against teams that don't have skilled strong men from the hinterlands who lay siege to an opposing team's paint and walk away leaving a trail of destruction.

So...Go Blue! But, uh...yeah. The nice consolation is that the Wolverines only have house money to lose.

Maybe some NCAA Tournament bullets?
- Really. Michigan. Those are the kicks we're rocking in this Tournament? Nike, where have you gone? Those things are disgusting. Once the Beilein quemar los barcos conflagration has fully consumed the Big Ten, and college basketball on the whole--meaning that UM returns to being a perennial top 25 team and a program that can recruit real players--can we get back with a real sneaker company? Maybe one that could outfit the squad with limited edition Michigan colorway Jordan XIs?

- Despite the celestial glory that came with the Buckeyes losing last night, let it be said: Siena is a quasi-dumb team. It had a lot of chances to blow that game last night due to rushed shots and spotty free throw shooting.

- Western Kentucky has a player whose first name is "Steffphon." That's some "Anfernee"-level anti-literacy.

- Bruce Pearl the personality > Bruce Pearl the coach

- Arizona is going to make the Sweet 16? After not deserving to be in the Tournament?

- Sometimes I think that Taj Gibson should be wearing a kufi while he plays.

- From USC to Villanova, and across the country, college basketball is fueled by New York talent. Love it.

- It's almost impossible to take a player who wears his hair in dreadlocks seriously. Because the hair stays bouncing, those dudes always look out of control, even when they're not. Sorry.

8:11 CDT UPDATE: Yup, so that happened. Shout out to Anthony Wright, who was major in the first half and kept Michigan in the game with his hot shooting. UM ultimately didn't have the horses, especially not when DeShawn played like shit, Manny was in foul trouble, and the referees were seemingly invested in Blake Griffin's double-double. The officials effectively disqualified UM from boxing Griffin out, regardless of whether he was jumping on people's backs or whether defenders were entitled to keep him off the glass because of their position. And at no time was he ever going to get called for an offensive foul. To be fair, the refs did let a lot of jostling go, and they didn't wholly decide the game. Michigan's cold shooting in the second half's first ten minutes was the primary reason why Michigan lost. I just wish the officials had been more consistent and better understood the mechanics of boxing out and going over the back.

Great season for Michigan. The Wolverines will be late-March regulars from here on out if this roster returns intact and larger roles are played by some of the legitimate D1 players arriving in the fall. John Beilein should be national coach of the year, and he is, unquestionably, one of the five best in his sport. Thank god we have him.

It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine.
 

NCAA Tournament FAIL

For their next trick, the Buckeyes will fail class and drunk drive.

Congratulations, Ohio State. Not many teams manage to lose home games against MAAC schools.

How About Going to the Bathroom? Also Bad for America?

Good idea--measure his head and see how much idiocy fits in there.

Every time a professional sports team wins a championship, it goes to the White House to meet the President. I think college teams go, as well. After all, remember when those women from Northwestern wore flip-flops to a meeting with President Bush?

When not conducting the serious business of meeting with sports champions, the President does things like:

- Host an annual Easter Egg party;

- Dance to traditional African rhythms in the Rose Garden:



- Hand out awards to old women and people who make comic books;

- Take five-week vacations;

- "Ignore" financial meltdown to meet Youth of the Year finalists.

Put another way: anyone stupid enough to criticize Barack Obama for filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket should shut up. That goes double for anyone making the even stupider claim that something so trivial is directly connected to some supposed faulty economic leadership. Seriously. Shut up.

I am a liberal, and I voted for Barry, but I am not an unconditional Obama supporter. I am fine with criticizing him. I don't even think he's the best Democrat for this job (that would be Al Gore). But let's be realistic: one hour, or two hours, or even three (!) spent picking 63 games, filming a segment for ESPN, and talking to Andy Katz has absolutely nothing to do with the economy. To suggest otherwise is either political hokum or a demonstration of profound ignorance. Should the dude stop eating, too? Will that saved time turn things around?

People know that the President doesn't have a bunch of levers in his office that just fix or break the economy. Right? They know that the President didn't issue some executive order creating an intricate, insidious network of over-leveraged securities that unscrupulous financial pseudo-wizards peddled with practical impunity. Right? They know that the American economic system is something with multiple inputs, many of which the President doesn't directly control. Right? They don't think that the Columbia- and Harvard-educated constitutional law scholar who gets up at 5 AM every day and kept two BlackBerries isn't working as hard as he reasonably can. Right?

If I am wrong, if people actually do think these things, please let me know. And please explain why.

On top of all that, I'd caution that it's fairly myopic to assume the economy will just turn around tomorrow. Or next week. This is a years-long process, just as sliding into a recession took time while mortgage impropriety, lax regulation, and fiscal irresponsibility among everyday people and Wall Streeters fomented.

If you want to criticize the Obama Administration's economic vision, go for it. Be smart about it. Explain why it's wrong. (Though hopefully you won't say we need to cut taxes and let the market work itself out, because, uh, we tried that for a while and now we're where we are.) I don't have an economics degree (and even people who do aren't really sure about how to proceed), but I'll say this: the theory that motivated the stimulus bill seems sufficiently sensible. You can subscribe to a different school of thought, but the stimulus plan does come from one, and it's been well-informed by people who, to extend the metaphor, graduated from this school toward the top of the class. I am fairly skeptical about the TARP plan, though, primarily because I don't think it's being administered with the requisite circumspection or vigilance. I am not really certain what Tim Geithner does or values, because he hasn't seemed particularly confident and he hasn't seemed to address the real problems directly. He even pushed for bonus loopholes. I'd say that Geithner, and Obama's trust in him, are the kinds of things about which people should be worrying.

Or they can continue to sound like morons. Whatevs, yo.
 

We Break Bread, Ribs, Hundred-Dollar Bills...

...and Clemson.

MICHIGAN BASKETBALL: WE RUN IT.

Now Is the Part Where We Dance

Check the resume...

Every year, I participate in an NCAA Tournament pool with a scoring system that awards 1 point for correct first-round picks; 2 points for correct second-round picks; 4 points for correct third-round picks; 6 points for the fourth-round; and so forth. It also gives upset bonus points, awarding you the difference in seeds when a lower-seeded team wins. So, for example, if a 13 beats a 4, you get 1 point for the win and 9 points for the upset.

With that in mind, here are your winning picks, with some commentary. Enjoy these next three weeks.

First Round, East Region
1) Pittsburgh v. 16) East Tennessee State - No 16 seed has ever beaten a Number 1. (Rinse and Repeat)

2) Duke vs. 15) Binghamton - Do you realize how many jappy Long Islanders will be pulling for the upset? Luckily, Duke counters with the strength of all those aspiring investment bankers from New Jersey. Duke will win because it is just much more talented. I really like Gerald Henderson this year. He goes to the basket with an aggression rarely seen.

3) Villanova vs. 14) American - Nova has the guards to win.

4) Xavier vs. 13) Portland State - Xavier turns the ball over too much, and Portland State can shoot, so I'll roll the dice and ride with PSU.

5) Florida State vs. 12) Wisconsin - The winner of the game will play Portland State, and I think it will win. Florida State has been consistently OK all season: it was 10-6 in the ACC; it is 7-6 away from home; it swept Clemson; it beat UNC; it beat other tournament teams Cal and Maryland. Plus, FSU has Toney Douglas and plays good defense. Wisconsin, meanwhile, has been mediocre, and it isn't as strong defensively as some other Wisconsin teams. So I am inclined to go with FSU. However, I think Wisconsin has a chance, and I don't trust Leonard Hamilton.

6) UCLA vs. 11) VCU - Oh man. Everyone is picking VCU because of Eric Maynor. They mention Larry Sanders and his wingspan, too, but this is a vote of confidence for Maynor if you take VCU. This is a good squad, and one that most people had pegged as a likely first-round winner before the brackets came out. But I think that predisposition is hurting more sound logic: UCLA is not the team that's gone to three straight Final Fours, but it has a great point guard (Darren Collison), it is the third most efficient offensive team in the country, and it has way more talent. Plus, Ben Howland is kind of the man when it comes to tournament coaching. I'll pick UCLA and laugh with glee as everyone else gets this wrong.

7) Texas vs. 10) Minnesota - Texas has better scoring than Minnesota, and the Golden Gophers are not good on the road. Hook 'em, Horns!

8) Oklahoma State vs. 9) Tennessee - I like Tennessee and the +1 upset point.



First Round, South Region
1) North Carolina vs. 16) Radford - No 16 seed has ever beaten a Number 1. (Rinse and Repeat)

2) Oklahoma vs. 15) Morgan State - Blake Griffin.

3) Syracuse vs. 14) Stephen F. Austin - Orange have too much firepower.

4) Gonzaga vs. 13) Akron - Too much balanced scoring from the Zags for the Zips to handle.

5) Illinois vs. 12) Western Kentucky - Illinois's starting point guard probably isn't playing in this game. Add that to the facts that the Illini aren't great on the road, WKU has experience, WKU can shoot the ball, and I like this as a 12-5 upset for seven bonus points.

6) Arizona State vs. 11) Temple - Let's go with Temple. Dionte Christmas can likely keep up with James Harden, Temple handles the ball alright, and ASU gives up too many open perimeter shots. I like this upset potential, even though there are some folks who really like ASU.

7) Clemson vs. 10) Michigan - Oh the agony--Michigan finally makes it back to the Tournament and I don't pick it to win! At least I am staying true to my eponymous award over in BlogPoll land. I just don't love this match up for the Wolverines. Just as easily as we might say that the Michigan 1-3-1 zone will confound Clemson, we could also point out that Clemson's pressure defense will make it hard on the UM guards, none of whom are great ball handlers. In fact, of the guys who primarily bring the ball up, two are walkons, one is a freshman, and one is a sophomore who plays sporadically. On top of that, Clemson has Trevor Booker, and Michigan doesn't defend the post well. It also doesn't do well on the road. Clemson may have peaked already, but I am less confident in Michigan overcoming its flaws than in UM exploiting Clemson's. This sucks.

8) LSU vs. 9) Butler - Digger Phelps says that he loves LSU. Nothing could be more foreboding, more ominous, more inauspicious than being the object of a historical moron's affection. Digger knows nothing. Butler nets a +1 upset point.



First Round, Midwest Region
1) Louisville vs. 16) Play-in Game Winner - No 16 seed has ever beaten a Number 1. (Rinse and Repeat)

2) Michigan State vs. 15) Robert Morris - One of the worst things about the NCAA Tournament is that this is one of the few times, in any part of life, when Michigan State is recognize as being good at something. And it sucks because all of these jerkoff Michigan State kids pretend as though their school isn't the lowest-ranked in the Big Ten, doesn't usually lay an egg during football season, and isn't afflicted by this endless, sick inferiority complex. You're just not Michigan. Deal with it. (And dance on because you have a better basketball program. For now.)

3) Kansas vs. 14) North Dakota State - North Dakota State is fifth in the nation in three-point shooting, sixth in field-goal percentage. It has three guys 6-6 or taller. It's playing in Minneapolis, a three-hour drive from campus. Kansas hasn't beaten a quality opponent on the road or at a neutral site all season (it won at Oklahoma when Blake Griffin was injured). Kansas is relatively young. North Dakota State and the 11 bonus points, please.

4) Wake Forest vs. 13) Cleveland State - Wake Forest has three future NBA players on its roster. It's kind of a feast-or-famine team, as it's young and inconsistent, but it will feast here.

5) Utah vs. 12) Arizona - Another 5-12 upset pick. Arizona has underachieved all year, and while it has some quality wins against good teams (Kansas, Gonzaga, UCLA, USC), they came in Arizona. But those wins make me think it's worth taking a chance for the upset potential. And I don't think either of these teams is beating Wake Forest, anyway. Plus, after last week's Big Love, I can't have anything to do with Utah.

6) West Virginia vs. 11) Dayton - I like the Mountaineers. They're in the top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, they have beaten Villanova and Pitt, and they have enough guys who can score if one of them isn't at his total best.

7) Boston College vs. 10) USC - Boston College has beaten some great teams and lost to some horrible ones. USC has been up and down, but it has much more talent, including three guys who will be in the NBA at some point. Let's take the upset points and pick USC.

8) Ohio State vs. 9) Siena - Siena is like VCU--a small school everyone wanted to pick well ahead of the Tournament. Well, I was among this group, except the game is being played in Dayton, making it a de facto home game for the Buckeyes. I am rolling with the home team, as much as that disgusts me.



First Round, West Region
1) Connecticut vs. 16) Chattanooga - No 16 seed has ever beaten a Number 1. (Rinse and Repeat)

2) Memphis vs. 15) Cal State Northridge - Did you know that CSN is among the five most experienced teams in the Tournament? Too bad Memphis has three guys who have already won more games in four years than anyone else ever has.

3) Missouri vs. 14) Cornell - Missouri's pressure defense and fast pace will be too much for the Big Red.

4) Washington vs. 13) Mississippi State - Mississippi State is only in the tournament because it got hot and won the SEC tournament. I don't always love teams like that because they probably can't play above their heads for such a sustained period of time. Washington is the pick.

5) Purdue vs. 12) Northern Iowa - I have seen a lot of people picking Northern Iowa, but I don't buy into that notion. First, Purdue plays the ninth most efficient defense in the country, while Northern Iowa is somewhere around 125. Second, Purdue has decent size, which is bad for a Northern Iowa teams whose best players are big and foul prone. I think it's a bad combination, and I like Purdue to advance.

6) Marquette vs. 11) Utah State - Upset time! Utah State has a great offense, it doesn't turn the ball over, and it has a higher RPI than Marquette. And, the Golden Eagles haven't been the same since Dominic James went down: they're 1-5 in the last 6 games. Utah State is the pick.

7) California vs. 10) Maryland - Simple for me: both are mediocre, but Maryland has been playing better lately. And I trust the seasoning of the ACC over the Pac-10. Another upset.

8) BYU vs. 9) Texas A&M - Texas A&M is a so-so, middle-of-the-road team, while BYU is among the top 25 in offensive and defensive efficiency. It has Tournament experience and is much more consistent. I retract every negative thing I ever said about Utah and/or Mormonism.



Second Round, East Region
1) Pittsburgh vs. 9) Tennessee - Pittsburgh is really balanced and really steady. Tennessee, meanwhile, is erratic. It's hard to pressure Pitt, which has a senior point guard and experience across the roster, and Tennessee cannot possibly rebound or bang inside with the Panthers. Pitt wins.

2) Duke vs. 7) Texas - Another game where the balance of one team (Duke) will be too much for the more limited opponent (Texas). Can't say I want either team to win, though. Perhaps an earthquake will strike. I just can't stand either coach. And it's fun to make Rick Barnes out as a loser.

3) Villanova vs. 6) UCLA - This will be a good game. I like Nova for three reasons: 1) It has a greater number of steady guards with experience; 2) it is a tough team that will match UCLA's tenacity on defense, and this isn't vintage Howland defense; 3) the game is being played in Philadelphia, so Nova is, in effect, playing a home game. That's enough for me.

13) Portland State vs. 5) Florida State - Florida State will have too much scoring from Douglas and will not be nearly as reckless as Xavier. The overall talent level will carry the day for the Seminoles. But putting FSU in the Sweet 16 makes me nervous. I can't stand this pod.



Second Round, South Region
1) North Carolina vs. 9) Butler - Hi, we're Butler. We don't have all that much functional size. Oh, your name is North Carolina? And you say that you have not just Tyler Hansbrough, but also the three-headed monster of Ed Davis, Deon Thompson, and Tyler Zeller? That doesn't sound great. And your point guard will be making his return? Um, pass? Can we do that?

2) Oklahoma vs. 7) Clemson - Another pod I hate. Michigan could win. Clemson could. Oklahoma could become the Oklahoma everyone liked in January. That said, I pick Clemson. It has some bodies to bang inside with Griffin, and it plays a pressure defense that can give the weaker Oklahoma guards some problems. OU hasn't looked right for a while, and I think it's primed to bow out early. If Michigan somehow makes this game and wins it, I will likely stop going to school the following week out of respect for John Beilein.

3) Syracuse vs. 11) Temple - Syracuse has a good blend of size and experienced guard play this year. I think that's too much for Temple.

4) Gonzaga vs. 12) Western Kentucky - Gonzaga rolled through its season beating teams with WKU's talent level.



Second Round, Midwest Region
1) Louisville vs. 8) Ohio State - Dangerous game for the Ville, a team that I love, because it will be another home-style crowd for the Ohio State joke of a University. However, Louisville plays great defense, and forces so many turnovers, that I think its style will neutralize the crowd. And, this is a team that's gone on the road and won in the Big East. Further, Ohio State will not be able to defend Terence Williams and Earl Clark, the kinds of athletic forwards which the Big Ten hasn't seen much of this season. Cardinals march on.

2) Michigan State vs. 10) USC - Another Big Ten team goes down? I am not sure, and am inclined to say no. But, I wonder. Michigan State has been beaten up all year and still isn't fully healthy. Despite its more pedestrian regular season, USC plays top-twenty defense and has the horses to pull an upset if they're clicking. But that last caveat is a problem, because if they're not clicking, the efficient Spartans will win easily. I am tempted to shake things up and pick USC, but MSU is a safer play. Spartans. Ugh.

14) North Dakota State vs. 6) West Virginia - West Virginia has the steady offense and strong defense needed to beat a good-shooting team like NDSU.

4) Wake Forest vs. 12) Arizona - There will be five NBA players on the floor. The differences: 1) three of them play for Wake; 2) one of those on Wake, Jeff Teague, is a really good, really athletic point guard; 3) the ones on Wake play much better defense. An athletic team like Arizona is dangerous in this sort of game, but not nearly as so when the other team is just as athletic. Wake is the pick.



Second Round, West Region
1) Connecticut vs. 8) BYU - Connecticut will win, but it will be closer than expected because UConn's halfcourt offense is much more suspect now that Jerome Dyson is out.

2) Memphis vs. 10) Maryland - I like Memphis a lot. The Tigers are deep, they play great pressure defense, and they can score in a variety of ways. Some combination will be enough to beat Maryland.

3) Missouri vs. 11) Utah State - Missouri is another team whose pressure defense can control a game, as it will here.

4) Washington vs. 5) Purdue - Washington is similar to Purdue--balanced lineup, fairly athletic, decent shooting. Only, Purdue doesn't do that as well as Washington, and it can struggle to score too often. Huskies win.

NOTE: I have many fewer upsets in the Second Round. First, this season, while no team was dominant, the best teams were the best teams throughout, and I think that form will hold. Second, the kinds of teams that make upset runs past the first round are usually from power conferences and senior-laden. No teams really match that profile. From beyond the top-four seeds, I have Florida State, Clemson and West Virginia advancing, although I have nothing higher than a 7. I could see rolling the dice with USC, but that team is far from reliable.



Sweet Sixteen, East Region
1) Pittsburgh vs. 5) Florida State - DeJuan Blair and Sam Young will win this game for Pitt. The Panthers' strength inside will be too much. They just decimate people in the paint, through Blair's post-ups, Young's slashing, and the team's rebounding. They are ferocious, and it will be too much for Florida State.

2) Duke vs. 3) Villanova - One of the best games of the Tournament? Maybe. The blueprint for beating Duke is to slash away with a great point guard and/or beat them up inside while hoping that the Blue Devils aren't shooting well. If Duke goes cold in any game against a bruising team, it will lose. Nova certainly has the guard play, and Dante Cunningham is a good forward, but I don't think it perfectly fits the criteria. Instead, I think Duke's pressure defense will give Nova some problems, and I like Duke's toughness. I was tempted to pick the Wildcats, but this Duke team seems to have come together, and it suddenly has a nice rotation.

Sweet Sixteen, South Region
1) North Carolina vs. 4) Gonzaga - If Lawson is healthy, he and Carolina's inside game are going to make the difference. Carolina can lose to a good team with a slasher from the wing when the Tar Heels aren't defending well, but Gonzaga doesn't match that profile. And Carolina really has so many horses.

7) Clemson vs. 3) Syracuse - Syracuse is my pick. Clemson, for its strengths, is not a great team and it has a poor history. It's gotten this far thanks to match ups, yet the Tigers will not enjoy those advantages against Syracuse. Not sure I really like the Orange, though. Am concerned about their legs and their consistency.

Sweet Sixteen, Midwest Region
1) Louisville vs. 4) Wake Forest - Another game that has potential to be fantastic. There will be six NBA players in this one. Wake is young, and it has been erratic at times. Louisville plays the kind of defense that could frustrate a young team and throw it off its rhythm. Further, Louisville has the athletes to defend and run with Wake. I like the more experienced Cardinals.

2) Michigan State vs. 6) West Virginia - Upset. For the weaknesses previously cited, Michigan State makes me leery. And West Virginia is the sort of squad that can play a great game against a wounded favorite.

Sweet Sixteen, West Region
1) Connecticut vs. 4) Washington - Connecticut is going to start looking shaky against Washington, unless that begins in the second round. It has the inside presence to neutralize John Brockman, and UW has a freshman at the point, but nonetheless, UConn will be partially exposed because it now has trouble scoring in a halfcourt set. Connecticut will win, but it won't be so easy.

2) Memphis vs. 3) Missouri - Missouri likes a frenetic pace, but so does Memphis. And of the two, I think Missouri is less versatile; it will have a harder time if the game slows down and Memphis tries to force Missouri to play a little halfcourt offense. Memphis, meanwhile, is no stranger to the Sweet 16, and I like it's experience to be a difference. Memphis goes on to face Connecticut.

Elite Eight, East Region
1) Pittsburgh vs. 2) Duke - This is the troublesome match up Duke can't deal with. Blair will kill Duke so long as he isn't in foul trouble, and Pitt plays the tough defense needed to clamp down. Pitt wins in a styles-make-fights kind of game for which Duke isn't ready.

Elite Eight, South Region
1) North Carolina vs. 3) Syracuse - It was kind of a fluke that Syracuse beat a deep, talented, big UConn team in the Big East Tournament, and that required 6 overtimes. That sort of lightning won't strike twice, as UNC will be too big and have the guards needed to neutralize the Orange's perimeter game.

Elite Eight, Midwest Region
1) Louisville vs. 6) West Virginia - These teams have played two very competitive games already, with Louisville winning both. West Virginia has the perimeter size and defense to give the Cardinals problems, but I think Louisville will again win because it has more, better athletes, and this means it can find ways to score and play defense in various ways.

Elite Eight, West Region
1) Connecticut vs. 2) Memphis - Whoa. Heavyweight status. This game will be amazing; the blocks, steals, and dunks will likely require curation on YouTube. Memphis is going to win it. They can outrun UConn; Robert Dozier and Sean Taggart can give Thabeet trouble inside; the swooping Tigers will neutralize the undersized Jeff Adrien (long a favorite player of mine); and UConn will finally miss Jerome Dyson's fearless shooting and halfcourt offensive production. I can't tell you how exciting it was just writing all of that.

Final Four
1) Pittsburgh vs. 1) North Carolina - Something about UNC has bothered me all year. As good as it is--no team has a higher ceiling--it seems a half-degree off a lot. The defense isn't as good as it should be, for starters. That is an issue. And for some reason, it can just kind of not play well for stretches. In this game, I think Hansbrough will catch a glimpse of his future in the NBA, as Pitt makes life hard for him inside. And the UNC defensive issues will allow an open three here, a layup there enough times for Pitt, which seems tougher, to win the game.

1) Louisville vs. 2) Memphis - Another game for which you'll need popcorn. Unlike UConn, Louisville has big swing players (Clark and Williams are infinitely more skilled than the sick athlete we call Stanley Robinson) and clutch backcourt shooting. It also can score better in the halfcourt, and it can bang. I look for another great game that Louisville wins by getting more stops.

Championship Game
1) Pittsburgh vs. 1) Louisville - I go back and forth on this, but I think I'll ride with the Cardinals. Samardo Samuels and a few other Cardinals are big enough to challenge DeJuan Blair, and potentially get him in foul trouble. Clark and Williams are long and rangy enough to guard Sam Young. And Pitt's Levance Fields is not the same offensive threat away from home that he is in Pittsburgh. I think that Louisville matches up well enough and will score more easily. Louisville wins the national championship, and Rick Pitino ascends to the sacrosanct level that my father and I have previously reserved for only John Wooden. Pitino is just so dope ().

Staten Island Boneyard Boys

June or July, huh? Well, if Wikipedia says it...

A new freestyle from Raekwon is below. I got it from the dude Alex, who keeps the Wu-Tang promotions coming. And really, it's such a novel concept: an artist sends you music, you post it, people hear it, they grow more inclined to buy an album or buy a concert ticket. Artists win this way.

I can attest to it because there are plenty of rappers who have made more direct money from me through ticket sales than they ever will through album sales. I might be mistaken, but I think artists get that gwop by touring. I don't buy tickets to see a Wale, or a Kidz in the Hall, or even a Ludacris, unless I learn more about their music before being forced to buy an album. Especially since so many rappers neglect to put anything official out. And I don't buy that album if I only hear one or two songs on the radio. Sadly, this threatens the ever dying record-company business model, so posts get zapped and bloggers like me are forced to dick around with streams, ever unsatisfying.

Well, this is a win, however modest.

As for Rae, well...perhaps we can agree that he has one of the all-time great unpublished, unofficial rap catalogues. Is there a rapper who stays busier and who puts out more product without actually releasing an album? Damn. I got love for Rae Rae (), so let's hope Wikipedia is right.

- Raekwon, "Want In (Freestyle)"

Does Anyone Remember Foul Trouble?

Ain't a stain on him.

Worrying about foul trouble feels archaic. I've written about this before: disqualifying another team's big man has become an erstwhile strategic priority. Whereas so many basketball telecasts once began with announcers highlighting how each team might either attack a big man or protect one, and other coaches spoke openly about said endeavors, today's focus and rhetoric have changed. Now, coaches speak much more about controlling tempo, about individuals, about getting to specific places on the floor. There are no absolutes, of course, but there is a perceptible trend away from worrying so much about foul-outs. It may owe to the reality that there are now fewer centers and power forwards around whom teams are built. As such, resources are demanded elsewhere, and all roads toward victory need not run through the paint (and the opposing center's chest). This, in turn, may owe to the reality that there are fewer post-bound big men these days. Everyone wants to be Andrea Bargnani. Or something.

One holdout has been Connecticut. Kyle Singler's all-around game may be a key for Duke. Villanova may win with guards. Carolina may work that secondary break. But UConn? The Huskies keep it simple: feed the paint and protect the paint. Find some bad-ass big men who will learn the jump hook and swat shots. That's how UConn rolls.

The New York Times highlights this today. The focus of the story is how Connecticut excels by exploiting foul disparity, but more interesting was the strategic discussion that accompanied the foul explanation. By adhering to the old-world basketball orthodoxy of foundational big men, UConn boasts a defense that allows for perimeter pressure but fewer fouls because players on the wing or out by the arc know that a big man is anchoring the entire scheme. Fewer hacks are committed, fewer perimeter fouls are picked up, and Connecticut stays winning. Unless, of course, you can get the big men in foul trouble.

Obviously, it's not merely that simple, but in some ways, the almost anachronistic reliance on a foreboding back line (Okafor, Boone, Thabeet, Villanueva, Adrien, etc.) invites a few questions: why don't more teams try this? So many seem content to adapt away from the dominant big man rather than creating demand for more to be developed. How do coaches balance a desire to cause foul trouble with an imperative to not stray too far from the strategy that a team might normally follow? Is it burdensome or expedient to focus so much on getting the other team to commit fouls?

Something else to consider is whether basketball, for consumers, is now better without so many teams relying on centers or some other big men as catalysts for success. It is axiomatic in the NBA that great big men beget championships. However, as Michael Jordan demonstrated, and LeBron now tries to emulate, it need not be the only way. (Though undeniably the most convenient). Is that better? Is it more interesting when the strategies of each team need not reduce smaller players to guided missiles aimed at the other team's imposing focal point? Is there more, or are there more kinds of, drama when the fourth quarter isn't so restrictively framed by competing foul trouble?

In college, teams have won without dominant big men for a while, though the five-foul limit and innate advantage of taller players has in some ways amplified the role that big men can play. One good center is a precious commodity given less margin for error but also greeted by fewer impositions. Ask Duke, a team that has repeatedly failed in attempts to conquer UConn and its old-world methodology while moving away from relying on a dominating post presence. Basketball players may not be made as they once were, and basketball may no longer be played as it once was, but these shifts provoke scrutiny of the diminishing post reliance and the shift away from attacking it at all costs.

Just some things to think about while reading that story. If nothing else, it made me feel old, as I reflected upon the aging narratives of foul trouble looming over the Patrick Ewings of the world. Or the Chris Webbers, Mark Randalls, et al.
 

Fun with Referrals

Welcome to whomever was searching for "straight grinding and humping on ass" and wound up here. Pause.

Stray Shots

This is extra ill. Knowing the words to this shit should be a hip-hop head litmus test. (HT: Ian, Ivan)

Extra busy today this week, so let's get brief, opaque, and go for breadth, not depth. On some classic omnibus-post Straight Bangin' isht:

MUSIC
- This Cam'ron joint was just as mediocre back when it was called "My Aura" and appeared on the Dip Set's Paid in Full mixtape.

Cam'ron, "Got It for Cheap"


Cam'ron, "My Aura"


- KiD CuDi's pity party is a prime example of the internets gone awry. I think. Maybe. Just can't help but wonder if perhaps he and the internets sensations of his ilk wouldn't be as self-involved, and apparently as self-satisfied, if there weren't such a vast echo chamber now promoting, distributing, and validating everything put out all the time. I am not arguing for less music, or less information, but it seems easy to confuse acknowledgment with acceptance. Just because people blog about your music doesn't mean they can't wait to buy it.

I blame Lil' Wayne. His model was flood the intertubes with free music, build buzz, bludgeon people into submission, become a star. Doesn't work for everyone, but it's a schematic.

- It took MF Doom four years to make this new album? I'll play it on loop because it sounds interesting, and it's Doom, but come on. I could have made this with enough leaked material. And where's Fantastik? As years go by, MM...Food emerges more and more as one of the twenty best albums of the decade. Which rap records are as easily put back on?

- Speaking of, we only have nine months left. What are the twenty best rap albums of the decade? In some order, I've got these off the top of the dome:

Kanye West, College Dropout
MF Doom, MM...Food
Slum Village, Fantastic, Vol. 2
Little Brother, The Listening
Jay-Z, The Blueprint
De La Soul, Grind Date
Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele
The Roots, Game Theory
Nas, Lost Tapes
Blackalicious, Blazing Arrow
Jurassic 5, Quality Control
Reflection Eternal, Train of Thought
Common, Like Water for Chocolate
Cam'ron, Purple Haze
Scarface, The Fix
Madvillain, Madvillainy

That's seventeen right there. What else? I know people will ride for Eminem, Outkast, 50, more Jay. And? And? And? Too bad we can't combine Stillmatic and God's Son to make an uber Nas album. Those Bravehearts tracks are painful.

SPORTS
- I don't ever really understand MVP debates, not least of all because I don't ever have my own fixed criteria. To be honest, I usually figure out which player I want to win the award and then craft an argument in support of him. As everyone likely knows, I am a Kobe dude (). Love LeBron, admire LeBron, marvel at LeBron, but root for Kobe. Something about his polish and his outwardly apparent viciousness. This year, this month, really, I am with Dwyane. Only LeBron has likely accounted for as many wins by himself, and Cleveland has a better team than Miami (though not that much better. The whole "Mo Williams is an all star by birthright" movement completely eluded my comprehension.) However, there's no player I want to see more than Wade right now. There is a violence to his athleticism that is amplified by his narrower frame which makes all of his explosive movements seem all the more dramatic. LeBron is violent in an unstoppable-force kind of way; he's a tank. Dwyane is this sinewy fellow who seems to push his body beyond its limits; he's asymmetrical warfare.

- UConn is suspect. They miss Dyson, they can be bullied by Pitt, and there is something about them that undermines a fan's trust. Am I wrong?

MISCELLANEOUS
- The latest Sopranos YouTube montage that I can watch on an endless loop: Oh!



- Olivia Palermo is evil

- I like: the stem cell funding, the Iraq draw down, the ethics reform, the child health care, the signing statement review, the Guantanamo closing. I can live with: the stimulus bill. I don't like: the TARP administration, anything having to do with A.I.G., the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. So far, B.
  

We Can Finally Hear the Music, Again

I enrolled at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1999. About eighteen months earlier, Michigan had lost in the second round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament as a three-seed. That was functionally the end of Michigan's basketball relevance.

By the time I arrived on campus, the "second" Fab Five--Jerrod Ward, Maurice Taylor, Maceo Baston, Willie Mitchell, Travis Conlan--was gone. So, too, were the three standouts from the next class--Robert Traylor, Albert White, and Louis Bullock. There was no Steve Fisher, either. He had left, leaving behind an NCAA investigation. The coach was Brian Ellerbe, a guy whom no one other than his family, Michigan fans, and college basketball zealots will ever again care about. (90% of you are saying, "Who?") For all intents and purposes, the Michigan basketball that anyone cared about existed solely amidst the rafters at Crisler Arena, where banners from the ghosts of Final Fours past hung. There weren't even jerseys up there.

That's how it was, and no one really cared at such a big-time football school. I mean, that fall, Michigan won the Orange Bowl thanks to a dude named Tom Brady, and the team was a fourth-quarter collapse against Illinois and a Plaxico Burress career day from the national championship. Forever a basketball fan, I bought season tickets, nonetheless. And I would trudge off to Crisler on any night possible to watch people with names like Peter Vignier attempt to imitate competent college basketball players. It was fun; it was college. We'd chant funny slogans, we'd make ironic jokes for our friends, we'd commiserate about the snow and the looming homework, we'd eat candy-roasted almonds. But the basketball sucked.

Game after game, better teams with much better players would come to Ann Arbor and demonstrate just how far away the team was from being any good. There were a few highlights that year, like when Jamal Crawford went off against Duke. Or when LaVell Blanchard was still theoretically a big-time recruit and not yet a mediocre D1 player with no handle or speed. But mostly, it was a season when Michigan State fans could come to our gym and chant "We Own Crisler" without the home crowd able to summon any kind of a credible basketball response. You can always get a reasonable, warranted "Can't Read! Can't Write" cheer going, but there weren't many basketball arguments Michigan fans could make.

Nothing meaningful changed over the next three seasons, sadly. Sure, the players changed. Guys like Leland Anderson (him?) transferred. Guys like Kevin Gaines (him?) got sent away in disgrace. Guys like Maurice Seawright (him?) caused much ado about nothing. The coach changed, too: Michigan opted against Rick Pitino (!) to hire Tommy Amaker, the young guy who went to Duke, presided over a sinking ship at Seton Hall, and ultimately left Michigan having accomplished little before somehow perpetrating a recruiting scandal at Harvard. (He, of course, beat Michigan while at Harvard last season. F my life.) But in his defense, he did go to Duke.

All changes ultimately meant nothing, though, because the program was in a rut. How bad? The most notable basketball moment of those four years came when Michigan visited Duke in 2000 and went down 34-2 to start the game. Read that again: 34-2. By my count, the team was 53-63 over the four regular seasons when I was a student, and that record doesn't seem to properly capture just how miserably those teams played.

Amaker, to his credit, kept Michigan out of trouble, something that was, in essence, a priority 1a after he inherited a program that the NCAA went on to embarrass and decimate following the kind of recruiting scandal that earns its own Wikipedia entry. I remember this well because I had to write the editorial about it for The Michigan Daily. However, Amaker was terrible at working toward priority 1: winning games. Michigan never looked organized and never seemed to improve. He won the NIT one year, but that prompted nothing. In six years under Amaker, Michigan didn't go to the NCAA Tournament. (Again, Michigan chose that guy over Rick Pitino, who led Kentucky back from sanctions to a national title and, hello, just secured the top seed for this year's tournament. Unbelievable.)

Any Michigan fan, particularly any Michigan alumnus/a who has endured a rooting fate like mine, deserves to dwell upon this ignominy with a certain bemusement. As of today, Michigan basketball matters again: it's back in the NCAA Tournament. The players on this team deserve tremendous dap. They have worked hard, they have learned a new system, and they have refused to focus on their shortcomings. Even more credit should be directed toward John Beilein, a coach who has this program's restoration ahead of schedule while relying on a roster with only two guys (Manny Harris, DeShawn Sims) who could even make the team at a school like UConn or UNC; with a 6'4" freshman asked to defend starting power forwards; with two walkons handling the ball most of the time. That's god-body coaching. But that's the thing about college basketball: you need talent to win it all, but the sport is a coach's game. Coaching means so much in the NCAAs. Michigan finally has a great one.

Savor this moment. Love these players. Salute this coach. Hail these leaders and best.

Go Blue!

New Music: Kill the Vultures

New isht! Drops April 10.

To some extent, all music is storytelling. It's kind of the premise, really. We listen to our favorite music--even that without lyrics--because it tells us something. Maybe we import our own ideas, but we do so with prompting as the notes come at us.

Rap music, of course, has an extensive storytelling tradition. When the genre is lauded not just as an expression of emotion but as a tool, the ability to share truth and communicate directly is often among the first attributes cited. Similarly, so many of the canonical rappers have been celebrated for their ability to impart a story in a specific fashion that makes smart use of common hip-hop mechanics. There are multiple templates an MC can rely upon, but everything from personal revelations to fictitious crime narratives have found memorable places among the great hip-hop stories told. The challenge of further populating this collection seems to motivate rappers, still. Kanye West has been such a success partially because he's used his music to tell his tale, and he has embraced the challenge of conveying resonant narratives.

To use another timely example, think of how many great stories the Notorious B.I.G. put together for his audience. After all these years and all of these spins, Biggie's ability to capture your attention and walk you through a scene or a memory remains a sweet pleasure (). Big's stories came in various forms, but a hallmark of a great episode from Biggie was the plodding-tempo track: the kind on which the beat was commodious, almost, and he could stretch out, explore that space, not have to rush, and take his time, getting the most out of each couplet. "Warning," "Suicidal Thoughts," "N***as Bleed," "Story to Tell"--Biggie works those tracks relying on the ambling pace to heighten the emotion and sharpen your focus on what he's saying.

I've always liked the severe rap track which, in some part, draws form, meaning, and appeal from the slowed tempo. Rappers don't usually tell nice stories, and the deliberate way in which they work as they recount the usually titillating, if not uncomfortable, details can make a song enticingly menacing. The meter at which they disclose the descriptions, the steady, purposeful delivery--it's great. Listeners get drawn in. Just as an MC can exploit the pace to lend his words greater meaning, the listener, too, is afforded more of a chance to contemplate what's said, what it looks like, what it really means. It's a great way to put someone in a circumstance which they might not otherwise properly picture. Letting people stew in a story is a rap tradition. Think MC Ren's "Same Old Shit," one of those slowly unwinding stories that is murky and almost oppressive given the mood engendered by the tempo.

There is a junk-hop group from Minneapolis called Kill the Vultures that is dropping an album, Ecce Beast, next month. One of it's members is a man of considerable internets and real-world renown, Dr. Lawyer IndianChief of FreeDarko. Dude sent along a lead track, "14th St. Ritual," which immediately calls to mind the rap story slow burn. It's a song that takes its own time, with the notes finding space for themselves and the lyrical vignettes enjoying the space afforded by the tempo. The almost discordant instrumental interludes and minor-key sounds create an air of melancholy which invokes the bleakness common to many hip-hop tales. The MC's voice is very underground, and this creates a kind of authenticity that is simultaneously honest but amateurish. And I don't mean that he's inadequate; I mean that most of the rappers you hear don't sound this way, not least of all because they work in fancy studios.

Peep the track. It's an enjoyable emotional experience, and another example of a certain kind of rap song that doesn't get old.

- Kill the Vultures, "14th St. Ritual"

New York Times on The Roots

This is a well-done piece. Captures a lot of ideas about the Roots without digressing from the point of the story.

The notion of the Roots as keepers of hip-hop authenticity is one I like a lot; fans at their concerts imbue those shows with this shared agreement. It's not only that they make great music, and it's not only that they are such accomplished musicians. The act of performing as they do serves to stand up against the tide, to hold out for something perceptibly different, and better. They've decided who they are, what they do, and they just keep keeping on. As the story notes, that's sort of why it was so weird that they agreed to the Fallon gig. (How was the start of week two? I can't handle it.)

Anyway...

P.S. While we're reading The New York Times together, I liked this story, too. Only thing is, it neglects some history. Conspicuous consumption may be gauche for the moment, but in a lot of ways, this is a time of reckoning that should be forcing America to confront the consumerism that was elevated as a central value after World War II. The government, itself--to say nothing of marketers--was extolling and exporting consumption as an American value. It's how the suburbs were built! Get a house, get a car, get some more durables, and get the American dream. In fact, if you didn't own your home, if your husband couldn't provide the latest car, if you weren't using the products that made life better, you weren't participating in the real America. Maybe all of that will be undone by this recession (though I doubt it--I am sure it will be romanticized as a halcyon ideal toward which we should again strive), but the roots of consumption run deep. America isn't America without conspicuous consumption.

Rap Stays Losing: Musings for a Monday

Tell 'em why you mad, son!

The Commission, Uncle Paulie, et al....

Do you know what beef is?

What's beef?
Beef is when the fans decide to go to sleep
Beef is when your label says your profile's too discreet
Beef is when rap hits YouTube
Guaranteed to just be much ado...

One more time

What's beef?
Beef is when dumb rappers realize that they need to eat
Beef is when fake thugs be claimin' that they rep the streets
Beef is when rap hits YouTube
Guaranteed to just be much ado...

Check it...

Rap beef is played out. At least, as rap beef is currently waged. It has been for a while. Battling isn't, of course. Neither is earnest microphone conflict, the mutual animus that might give rise to a track like "Real Muthaphukkkin' G's" and worthy successors. Further, let's be honest: it's titillating when someone actually gets his kufi slapped off. I ride for all of that. In a genre so driven by hypermasculinity and historically enhanced by the playfulness and audacity that arises from it, a genre whose heritage of well-intentioned demonstrations of rapping superiority occupies a unique place in the culture, it would be generally detrimental to neglect this strain of music. But as with anything cheapened and distorted by weak derivatives, rap beef should be protected from the manipulations that obfuscate genuine articles.

And that, of course, means that we all stop indulging 50, and Ricky, and all the other rappers who like pretending that they're in the WWE. Pimpin' Curly is a nice bit, but it's undermined by the unembarrassed, patent manipulation which it conceals with a wink: 50 needs to be making those videos. He's got nothing else to do except bide his time, pick fights, and hope it all helps to sell the poorly crafted, boring records he periodically drops in between media stunts. Same for Ricky Rowss, only he wasn't ever as skilled or as relevant.

If rappers are going to beef, they should beef for real. I prefer this kind of shit:





(HT: Bol)

Go at someone for real (), not insincerely as you try to get the hip-hop-blogosphere echo chamber to write about it.

The unintentional self-parody that results from the mindless, tired rap beef is endemic of a mainstream rap culture that is lazy. I don't know if my disaffection has been amplified since moving to a part of the country where almost every popular song sounds like any number of artists could have made it or already have made five others like it, but now more than ever, rap seems self-satisfied and brazenly contemptuous toward its audience. What, you thought we wouldn't notice as everything started to sound the same?

To be sure, there is still creative, skilled hip-hop being made. Kidz in the Hall, Black Milk, the Roots, and Q-Tip all put out albums last year that sounded as though they took a lot of time and effort to produce. Ludacris made a great record that was stylistically a departure from the company in which I've placed it, but was no less obviously a product yielded by deliberate craftsmanship. Same goes for those mixapes from Elzhi, Jake One, Royce, and Wale. But then there is Soulja Boy. And Plies. And anyone unfortunate enough to be friends with DJ Khaled. There's Wayne and David Banner and Jeezy, all of whom, though somewhat distinct, are largely predictable. There is Illa J, whose mellow mood rap is as egregiously compulsory as a fleeting trap hit might be for some posturing southern dope boy. And, uh, Papoose, Saigon, Maino--fairly forgettable East Coast records that hit the internets, get the jail-cell intro from Kay Slay, and then get dumped into the waste bin of history. I am not trying to ride out on the South; I am riding out on rappers being boring, on feeling sated.

Just as beef is hackneyed, certain sounds have become regenerating, and this stale culture gives rise to knowing parody, which, in turn, has allowed The Lonely Island to make what, through almost an entire quarter of 2009, is the best rap album of the year. (Maybe second-best behind Cappadonna's.) Incredibad is not "good" rapping, but it strikingly recreates so many hip-hop modalities. The record is one which reflects an appreciation for and appropriation of rap's no-longer-idiosyncratic idiosyncrasies. That it is amusing is as much a sad referendum on hip-hop as it is a validation of the trio's active rap ears. Really, a lot of people could have made Incredibad; certainly a lot of rap bloggers. But that's not such a good thing. Hip-hop should be more interesting.

Christ, the Roots have been relegated to debasing themselves!

So, on this day of reflection--R.I.P. B.I.G.--let us remember a real MC and perhaps, for one day, reject the soft bigotry of low expectation which applauds so many people for doing so few things. Rap music used to be a lot more interesting.

Watching Who Watches the Watchmen

Don't get it twisted, baby girl.

Defamer Gawker has a nice roundup of reviews written in response to Watchmen. I saw the movie this weekend after reading A.O. Scott's writeup, which was mostly disapproving and perplexed. (It takes place in 1985?!) I read Watchmen in pieces a long time ago, but it never became a sacrosanct part of my childhood, and it never haunted the development of my adult consciousness as it has for some other people. Also, I saw, and was really unimpressed by, 300 (a silly, racist, puerile movie), so I approached Watchmen with guarded curiosity. Really, Zack Snyder excels at making awesome trailers for disappointing movies.

And Watchmen was disappointing. Objectively, it's a solid movie. The action is creative, the exposition didn't strike me as tedious (I only realized how long I'd been sitting there during the final ten minutes), and there is some good acting turned in, notably by Steve Nash playing Jackie Earl Haley playing Rorschach. It's a violent movie--there is blood, people being vaporized, and the cringe-inducing sounds of bones breaking--but it isn't that violent. The Coen Brothers make movies like this, albeit less stylized and usually better, on a regular basis. Plus, imagine if Quentin Tarantino had directed it; it would have gone straight to DVD. If you're a twenty-something male, you've been sufficiently desensitized at this point.

Watchmen is not good, though. And most of the reviews hit on a key point: unless you worship the source material (something upon which I am not passing judgment, as I own the DVD for the animated version of The Hobbit), it comes off as a largely irrelevant, fairly simple movie. The Cold War remained a cold war before it ended, and the visceral post-World War II nuclear angst has been dulled by time and geopolitical realities that no longer lend themselves to such obvious narratives. (No one in America has rehearsed a get-under-the-desk response to the doomsday scenario of North Korea buying plutonium even as we get new refrigerators and vacuum cleaners.) What's left is this shallow nihilism and a cartoonish dystopia. I know that in some way, that was the point, as comics can easily devolve into easily lampooned farce, but take it from an avowed cynic--there has to be some "there" there at some point, or else it's just masturbatory.

That is how the movie felt: a fan of the graphic novel finally got to see what would happen if something he read twenty years ago was filmed. Only, the natural tendency toward romanticizing youth obscured that a long movie with a central plot summarized in five sentences isn't that much fun for all the people who didn't buy tickets already insistent that it would be good. The secondary and ancillary dimensions of Watchmen are given pretty short shrift. The pleasure of the novel's inventive perspective--what, for instance, do "superheroes" do when they retire--doesn't translate well to screen when adapted by a self-important "visionary" whose grandiose justifications for his movies ring hollow. (The sex scene in the space ship was the kind of thing for which people troll through late-night Cinemax. It meant nothing, and didn't reinforce any comic chops.) Similarly, the supposed sadness and ambivalence about being retired, or no longer fighting crime, is never fully developed. Neither are features of the book like the relationship among the Comedian, Silk Spectre, Silk Spectre II and why any of it really matters.

Then, of course, there's Dr. Manhattan (the iridescent blue guy). It's cool that he looks and sounds like Russell Hammond, the lead guitarist from Stillwater. And it's cool that he's blue and can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. But his supposedly crushing indifference, his imprisoning ennui, is not persuasively portrayed. The moral dilemmas that arise for a character in his position are banally depicted, and that is a pretty horrible indictment of Zack Snyder, because it's not so common to have a character who is blue and commands a seemingly endless reservoir of information, including a perfect grasp of quantum mechanics. Put another way, my buddy walked out of the movie and could mostly just speak about the fact that he was terrified that at some point, Dr. Manhattan would get an erection (). I am not sure if you've done a great job with the material if that's the audience's key takeaway.

Ultimately, Watchmen feels prosaic. That may have been a point of the novel, but it wasn't the only point. However, it's inescapable as one sits there for almost three hours. It might be meta-cool for a superhero movie based on a novel about superheroes that sends up superhero culture to become just like every other superhero movie. It might be. And Watchmen might succeed in that regard (though Dark Knight and Iron Man, alone, showed just how dope superhero movies can be in very different ways). However, Watchmen is such a self-serious, joyless endeavor that you walk out think The Incredibles made the same point in smarter, more entertaining fashion.

FAIL

What a boring show. And why hire someone who is so self-conscious that he can't help bu look down and nervously chuckle to himself every third joke? What a waste of the Roots. Whatever.

As Though the Nation of Islam Didn't Already Cause Cognitive Dissonance

A very religious man. Like Matoosh, who sold drugs at the Crazy Horse.

Snoop Dogg is attending the annual convention, and--this is more bizarre--T.I. appeared on video stressing the need for education.

I don't even know where to start with that last part.

(HT: HR, via email, where he still functions.)

Nothing Says Sunday Like...

Could play this joint forever and not get tired of it.

  

Hey, Weren't You Michigan's Quarterback of the Future?

Oops.

Somewhere, Tom Beaver* is weeping...and waiting for Ryan to return his text message with something equally affectionate.

* Tom Beaver is the man who runs this site. During Mallett's recruitment, it wasn't uncommon for Beaver to post message-board updates speculating that Mallett would be the top pick in the NFL Draft one day. Or to post multiple things about him for many days in a row--where he was at a given moment, what he was doing, who he was talking to. And really, there just isn't that much to say about a 17-year-old high-school kid. Unless you cross the line and start reporting on, like, what you and said kid were cooing at each other on the phone that night. Which is kind of what Beaver would do. He usually would stop just short of telling everyone what Ryan was wearing to bed on a given night. He did the same thing with Sam McGuffie. It was creepy.)