The Most Unwitting, Unfortunate MJ Tribute

One of my favorite websites, Hipster Runoff, found this great video:



30 seconds in, the video's creator and star, Tyler, says that making jokes about someone who has died is "ignorant." And he's right. Only, he also inadvertently called to mind one of the enduring sounds from Michael Jackson's interview with Martin Bashir:



It also invites remembering one of the great South Park episodes:



Sorry, Tyler. You did this to yourself.

Forever Young, Indeed

Draft Wrap '09

Stupid BlackBerry

I did some writing over the weekend which left me less time for today. Thus, I encourage you to read some thoughts about an absurd Tiger Woods article, and some thoughts about the changed meaning of geography in hip-hop music. (That's your Music for a Monday, just a day early.) Or just scroll down the page. But only after you watch the awesome videos posted above this paragraph.

While I am handing out encouragement, I should also plug Things I Don't Support. It's funny, and it's a nice repository for many everyday annoyances that deserve some shine. Full disclosure: written by a friend of mine. Get over it.

Finally, please check out what may be the greatest website ever.

Now, about the Draft...just a few general observations:

- Of the "big trades" that went down last week, Richard Jefferson joining the Spurs is my favorite, and not just because I quasi-worship Pop. As JR notes above, "people do not hate him defensively." With Duncan and Parker established in their roles, precluding an identity struggle, and Pop doing what he always does, RJ seems likely to submit himself to the San Antonio system. I bet he'll be lauded as an improved defender by next February. On offense, the Spurs' ball movement and spacing should get him the room he needs to slash effectively. If he can reliably hit the side three, the Spurs should be dangerous. And this probably lets them keep Manu on the bench, resting him, allowing the second unit to score more, and creating a crunch-time lineup with four scorers on the floor. Drafting DeJuan Blair was also a nice move, as he'll give that second group some rebounding. San Antonio is suddenly just one able big man away from being a legitimate contender again. At least for a couple of years, until Duncan is just fully not himself and Manu's legs fall off.

The other trades are bewildering. Vince Carter has always been a player who needs to hold the ball for long stretches to be most effective. I've read conjecture that he'll be so motivated to win a title that he will change his game and embrace his passing instincts, but such a sea change in his game is the sort of transformation I will only believe when I see it hold up under pressure. It's easy to be a passer in December against the Clippers; it's something else to do it in May. Just as it is much easier to profess fidelity to the system than it is to watch Howard, Lewis, and Nelson get more touches than you'd like. If he does relent and apply himself constructively, it could be a nice move, though the Magic seemed to have stumbled upon a unique weapon in the Turkoglu-Howard pick and roll. This is the trade that might have the greatest extreme potential, as Vince could perhaps put Orlando over the top (it needs another big man) or cause it to take a few steps back.

Shaq on Cleveland doesn't do much for me, though that could be Knick sentimentality overwhelming reason. I have long subscribed to the idea that far from distracting, a locker room with LeBron and Shaq would be the single most fun place in the world. But given how much the Cavaliers appeared to like each other last season, Shaq's arrival may not boost morale as much as I first thought, because I am not sure how much more they can enjoy each others' company before they cross some kind of uncomfortable line. More certain is my sense that a man who has logged so many minutes at that weight and couldn't stay healthy until last year's miracle rejuvenation is due for another injury. And tactically, how does Shaq's girth help Cleveland defend big men on the perimeter or thwart the pick and roll? How does Shaq beat someone like Howard, or Garnett, down the floor? This may turn out to be a funny memory which LeBron shares with Jordan Hill one day during training camp in 2010.

The Hawks acquired Jamal Crawford and drafted Jeff Teague. Congratulations on being the Hawks. We all look forward to your insane athleticism, missing point guard, and unrealized potential getting Mike Woodson fired really soon.

- Suddenly, I am a little obsessed with the Grizzlies. First, Hasheem Thabeet might be horrendous, but he might also be the defensive force he could be, and even better, the whole nation will now get to witness the most unlikely really good free-throw shooter in the world. Second, the roster is awesome, loaded with guys whom I actively wish were better. Third, similarly, this team demands that the Lig allow eight-man lineups. A group of Conley, Mayo, Gay, Sam Young, Arthur, DeMarre Carroll, Warrick, and Thabeet makes me yearn for November. And I hate cold weather. But seriously, isn't that kind of a rad team, even if it doesn't win many games? Memphis is only four hours from St. Louis....

- The only thing dumber than Mark Jackson was the tired meme that "it [wa]sn't an NBA Draft" without Portland furiously consummating trades. Why didn't it occur to anyone that the Trail Blazers came to this draft as a playoff team, not some lottery aspirant back for yet another rodeo? Perhaps they didn't make many moves because they no longer were motivated by necessity. The Portland roster is suddenly a case study in diminishing marginal gains. Aside from adding Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh, how much better can it get? The Blazers may have moved on for the time being. So should the media.

- New Jersey may be awful this year, but a nucleus of Harris, Lopez, Terrence Williams, and Courtney Lee is actually pretty good. You have rebounding, shot blocking, a scoring point guard who can push the ball and play defense, size on the wing, and some of Lee's everyman game. That could be an attractive destination for free agents, and probably one currently better than New York.

- Not sure if this idea has any merit, but I want to float it with the hope of getting some feedback: The Suns never won a title with the ideal Seven Seconds or Less lineup (Nash, Johnson, Marion, Diaw, Stoudemire, etc.). Then, they retooled, and they didn't win as a reinvented, more traditional team. With a healthy Shaq outplaying all but two or three centers and a supposed MVP-like point guard, they didn't even make the playoffs. The only constant across these two incarnations was Nash. Is it possible that he's part of the problem?

- Does the Pistons' draft haul indicate that Tayshaun might get traded?

- The Timberwolves are the worst. Thanks for ruining everything.

- At first, I hated the Jordan Hill pick for the Brickers. He is not fun or exciting, and I had my heart set on Tyreke Evans, perhaps foolishly. But as time has worn on, I am OK with it, especially if it means that the Knicks can use David Lee in a sign-and-trade to get back a point guard or another shooting guard. I like the Toney Douglas pick, and I hope it means that Nate Robinson is leaving. Nate is fun enough, but overpaying for a novelty player who will never make a difference on a championship team would be beyond unpleasant. Now go sign Gortat.

Post-Regional Rap

This is grown-man b-i

Rap's geography politics, such well-tread hip-hop ground for so long, now feel a little outre. And not just because the legacy of Big and Pac illustrates how foolish it can be to fight about lines on a map. For example, Slim Thug's sprawling "Welcome 2 Houston," a song about how great it is to be from a place so muggy, sounded like funeral music, fighting a battle that no longer rages on and definitively capping off an era that has already ended. (Thankfully.) There are dudes in Saudi Arabia who ride for the Wu-Tang and New Yorkers who can't get enough Hurricane Chris (this may be too much). To be the king of anywhere has an old-timey feel, like a vestigial distinction which used to mean something but now is largely ceremonial and antiquated. What does it mean to run New York, other than to anxiously grasp at credibility by claiming a tenuous connection to rap's past?

Musical styles seem likely to always swell in one region before migrating elsewhere, and radio remains regional, but celebrating these largely artificial boundaries neglects the massive terrain made available online. In turn, the internets continue to challenge orthodoxy, something made clear to me while I was in New York last month and couldn't escape Drake and Lil' Wayne. I can't say for certain, but I think that some of the angst Wayne engenders in his critics stems from our inability to easily dismiss him as "some down-south rapper." That might mean something stylistically, or serve as still-valid critical shorthand, but no longer can he be so easily ignored because old barriers don't really exist.

The style point is an important caveat, however. Rappers may enjoy market access beyond their hometowns, tastes can spread quickly, and seeking provincial fame may be a little myopic, but the sounds people enjoy still do vary. And this may be the only way that geography still matters; regions are no longer commercial fiefdoms but remain stylistic traditions. Rather than repping a place, artists may seek to represent a sonic heritage with its own characteristics. In effect, the market for Compton's best rap may not be confined to Los Angeles, but it still is some kind of artistic territory.

Thinking about the change afoot in music is not so hard, and nothing I've written constitutes a revelation, but the examples of these differences can be confusing at first. The new Red Giants EP (download it), a mixture of styles that all sound a little washed out (which, sort of oddly, makes the album very easy to listen to), is a good example. Specifically "Nati Niggaz," a song whose soft vocals, up-and-down keyboards, and winding electric bassline sound most like a Warren G throwback. This is G-Funk rap, a 90s export from Long Beach, resurrected in Cincinnati. Pursuant to the way I grew up thinking about rap music, I didn't see that coming. It takes a moment to consider the song on its own merit.

Fluidity of style, from which the RG's benefit, is democratic. Easy movement of music from one place to another encourages anyone to pursue what he wants, not merely what might be played most readily on the radio. And yet, this does not obviate the appeal of O.G. masters doing what they've always done best. Thus, "Radiant Jewels," from the new Wu-Tang Chamber Music album (buy it), has the feel of something familiar and old and cool, even if a little anachronistic.

Raekwon, Cormega, and Sean Price all have voices, flows, histories, and personae that are impossible to disentangle from their New York home. Similarly, the track sounds like what would happen if three MCs were to assess this new rap landscape and decide to retrench, hoping that wherever its audience now lives, it will appreciate something that is traditional and unimaginative and purposely evocative of an earlier time. The Game could make this song, but it wouldn't be wholly the same. Plus, the track is NY cinema, with the orchestral-lite melody loop and staccato drum sequence needed to score images of a downtown skyline, or trains rumbling along elevated tracks in the outer boroughs. It even shouts out the Knicks and Yankees to disabuse anyone who might think this is a song that doesn't yearn to be on some mixtape sold out of a crowded Harlem music hut or off of a blanket draped over Canal Street. "Jewels" is very much not of the times, which only highlights how things have changed.

- The Red Giants ft. Ilyas and Donwill, "Nati Niggaz"

- Raekwon, Cormega, and Sean Price, "Radiant Jewels"

Even I Find This Absurd

Mr. Woods seemed a bit reluctant to discuss video games that he is not paid to endorse, but he clearly appears to prefer Sony’s PlayStation line to Microsoft’s Xbox series. He said he had played a fair bit of the Madden football franchise, as well as Sony’s two Resistance games, the Resident Evil series and Killzone 2. He revealed some gamer chops as he explained that while he enjoyed Killzone 2, he was slightly frustrated by the precision of that game’s controls. He also said that he was unaware of the minor controversy around supposed racism in Resident Evil 5. (Some critics have suggested that killing African zombies in that game, rather than white or Hispanic zombies, is racially insensitive. I happen to disagree.)

Do you ever read something and come away from it with that gnawing uncertainty as to whether it was incredibly stupid or so devastatingly sardonic that you should worship its dry brilliance? Well, to speak in stupid State Farm advertisement terms--because, really, that's how I like to communicate--I am so there, complete with apparently having just had my period.

Are you kidding me? An entire article devoted to how Tiger Woods plays video games? I love few things as much as I love Tiger Woods, but I am almost mortified by the notion that multiple editors thought this was a cool idea. What am I missing? Could it hopefully be that the Times chose to run this piece this weekend as a withering indictment of the perverse celebrity culture which has invited scrutiny as we collectively consider how to remember Michael Jackson?

If not, I can only hope that one day we'll be lucky enough to get 850 words (!) about Tiger's preference for Red Delicious, not Granny Smith, apples. Or maybe his tooth-brushing mechanics.

And P.S. "He also said that he was unaware of the minor controversy around supposed racism in Resident Evil 5." Shocking. From the man who was happy to shrug off when a woman joked that other players should lynch him? No way. To appropriate something which seems somewhat related: Republicans buy golf clubs, too.

Hurricane Chris + America Being Weird = There Are No Words

Live from the Louisiana State Legislature.

(HT: Gawker)

It Was a Rough One

The face my brain is making.

I am worn out. I spent my day in Hannibal, MO; my office in the STL received a bomb threat while I was away; Michael Jackson died; the Knicks chose the most boring pick possible, and then traded for Darko; Stuart Scott interviewed Ric Bucher and then referred to the information disclosed in that interview as coming from "sources" (!); and I had to watch the entire draft suffering through the unique inanity that is the Mark Jackson Experience.

As I head to bed, I thought I'd pay tribute to Mr. Jackson by posting some quotations which may or may not have actually been uttered. Really, it doesn't even matter, because they easily could find their way into our consciousness at some point soon. We're all worse off for that. And you thought I hated Mike Breen.

Enjoy. We will sort through the many NBA happenings tomorrow and this weekend. If nothing else, Cleveland fans deserve a little time to pretend as though Shaq will ultimately make a difference.

- Michael Jackson, "Dirty Diana"



"In the NBA, it's important to have NBA players who can be professionals in this league."

"It's important to use a draft pick to select a prospect who could play in the NBA, because it's all about being smart."

"The best way to build a team is by adding players who can do what you need, who believe in your system, and can be leaders for the future."

"I like this pick because it gives them a player who knows how to play and is just a basketball player, nothing more."

"Mama, there goes that man. Actually, there go ten men, running down the court. I like to see that, because it lets you know that they're playing some kind of game."

"Point guard is all about being a leader, and taking a team to the next level by playing the point like you know you're supposed to be the best guard you can be."

"If you have a chance to draft to someone who can play in this league, you'd better do it."

"There are no second chances to make a first impression, and that's why he needs to make a good one. He won't have that opportunity later on once his teammates have judged him."

"Just do what you do. I like this pick because it will enable them to be the team they want to be."

"Some players are just good to have, and you can tell because you've watched them play and know they are players who can get a job done."

"I like that he's big enough to take some contact and tough enough to absorb a hit; that's how you know he will be able to take a hit and still be a player who absorbs contact."

Michael Jackson: R.I.P.

This is seriously awful.

They Came from a Frozen Hinterland...

Hopefully saving the Brickers one righty drive at a time.

Draft day arrives with more intrigue than usual this year. At least, it feels that way to me. A dearth of prospects who combine at least an adequate combination of likely basketball success and obvious commercial viability seems to have instilled panic in general managers. Almost every team in the lottery appears so leery of making the wrong pick that each might prefer to not pick at all and be spared the potential ignominy.

Frankly, I'm with them, though my personal trepidation may be amplified by the torturous love of the Knicks which sweetly afflicts me as often as I breathe. Setting aside so many other qualms, my central problem with the Knicks for as long as I can recall has been the team's inability or unwillingness to play by the championship rules. Aside from the Lakers, overall, and the 2004 Pistons, seemingly every title-winning team from the past several decades has won with a locally grown nucleus. These teams have made shrewd draft decisions, benefited from the sort of luck which yields a Tim Duncan, and imported missing pieces only after understanding what they were. Not the Knicks, though. New York drafts terribly, tilts at overpriced and predictably disappointing windmills, and proceeds with a sort of froward vainglory that encourages the widespread disdain of New York sports.

In this deviant Knick universe, the 2010 offseason is perhaps New York's Halley's Comet: a grand, shining anomaly streaking across the heavens, only possible to capture but every so often given the narrow margin for opportunity afforded by such perverse organizational hubris. LeBron James, nor a transcendant player of his ilk, is rarely on the market. Like some irresponsible, self-defeating astronomer planning to set up his telescope just minutes before the commet, the Knicks are, of course, ill-prepared. And it's a drafting thing. Convinced that it needed Eddy Curry, the Brickers gave away recent lottery picks, as it did in many other aborted plans. And last season, when blessed with a premium pick in a fertile draft, the Knicks chose a brittle European project who is currently racing toward whatever place now houses Frederic Weis, Michael Sweetney, and Channing Frye. The Knicks have a team of mercinaries, has-beens, and never-weres, all a collective reminder of just how poorly the Brickers have selected players. That two rotation guys--David Lee and Nate Robinson--loom as potential free-agency losses only reinforces this ugly truth.


Yes, the Knicks drafted this man in 1990's first round.

So tonight has to work. The Knicks must find a player who in just one season will simultaneously prove his worth and reveal a promising future. How else will someone like LeBron James assess the Knicks and be at all enticed? It's not as though media don't know how to get to Cleveland.

Should New York blow it, failing to secure one of the more promising players (Tyreke Evans, please!) in this draft of young men who would seem so much better 10 or 15 picks later, I may turn my attention to Minnesota. In possession of four first-round picks as of this post, the Timberwolves have a rare chance to become my favorite team.

It would start in the backcourt with Evans at Pick #5. In a draft of point guards, both true and aspirational, Evans stands out as my favorite. Not only does he have the sort of personal narrative that drips pathos and demands fan fealty, but he has the frame and the game. At Memphis, Evans showed out as a willing passer and a player unafraid to penetrate, something he can do at will (albeit with his right hand 99% of the time). He's also the sort of tall, long-armed backcourt defender who pokes at balls, bodies up on dribblers, and can be taught to be disruptive in the pick-and-roll. Evans carries himself with a stoicism which one might read as disinterest or maybe attribute to sadness, but that strikes me as off the mark. A player who has been universally praised for his work ethic and interest in the sport may remain so calm and steady so as not to disrupt his observation and calculation. Evans, in this regard, may be very much of this current NBA, a place where the superstars have elevated nerd status. Tyreke is one of those bookish types.

Next, give me DeMar DeRozan, for his athleticism, his size, and his appreciation of the mid-range game. His skills don't fully match Carmelo Anthony's, but Melo is a salient comparison because he's among the few players who seeks to score in between the paint and the arc, as DeRozan does. On a team anchored by Al Jefferson, and one likely to see all kinds of mid-range gaps created behind Tyreke as defenders converge upon him, DeMar would be a wonderful fit. A slashing, catch-and-shoot, pull-up game gets the Wolves scoring from the wing spot out of the gate, and DeRozan can learn to shoot better from three, something countless players have done. Like Evans, DeRozan may also be a willing defender, and he is another rangy dude who would provide the sort of perimeter pressure L.A. got from Kobe and Ariza on its way to a championship. Best of all, DeRozan can fly. Pardon the awful audio composition and watch this video:



I'll take that flying down the court after Kevin Love throws an outlet pass with his sack.

Picks 18 and 27 are about versatility and keeping it real.

In this fever dream of hope, the Wolves use 18 to draft Ty Lawson. Full disclosure: I come from a household where basketball is religion, and North Carolina is a sacrosanct institution. Unlike any other basketball power, Carolina has always commanded a certain cool that my father and I wholly embrace. As such, I've loved Lawson from the jump.



The basketball aphorism that a player should make his teammates better is tired, but it warrants special examination in Lawson's case. Unlike LeBron, whose sublime game creates opportunities for players which they would otherwise not enjoy, Lawson is not such a looming, monolithic presence. Unlike Dwyane Wade, whose furious intensity imbues a team with confidence, Lawson is not such an assertive, inescapable force. However, he makes players better in a different way, and perhaps an ideal way for the team I'm assembling. Lawson helps others reach their respective potentials. Don't overlook this. And perhaps we all would were we nimble, quick, dexterous, and coming to the NBA after spending a prep career on de facto all-star teams. First at Oak Hill and then at UNC, Lawson was always on teams loaded with talent. His gift is unique: he understands how these many sorts of special players can thrive, and then he facilitates manifestation of promise. Think of Steve Nash on Dallas, years when he would dribble away possessions and keep the ball out of the hands belonging to players who needed it to work best. Lawson is the antithesis, one who is a fail safe when efforts to help others have been fruitless.

On this new-look Wolves team, Lawson would either be the captain of the second unit, the change-of-pace at the point to aid Evans, or the leader of a speed team that asked big men to rebound and run while giving Lawson license to do what he does best: orchestrate the fast and secondary breaks. More than any other player in the draft, Lawson is a stylistic tabula rasa, one who can run almost peerlessly or collapse a halfcourt defense. Who gives a shit if he's only six-feet tall?

The last of Minnesota's first-round picks should be spent on Sam Young. As with Lawson, considering Young a "spare part" is unfairly denigrating, yet these Wolves draft Sam knowing that he'll have a shifting role. Young is a smaller DeRozan with less of a mid-range game, but a more reliable three-point shot and probably more constructive recklessness. On a perhaps muted Pitt team that grinded down opponents on defense and pounded the ball inside on offense, Young was a brilliant pastel, always leaping or seizing a moment or both. Corey Brewer's failed NBA existence becomes that much more apparent when juxtaposed against the newbie whose arms are shorter and height lesser, but who nonetheless produces more in every way.



With Evans on point, Young could be scoring off the bench, an athletic slasher alongside Tyreke in the backcourt, or an able sub for DeRozan. Most exciting, when Minnesota went to the speed lineup, Young would play small forward, and he, Evans, and DeRozan would run around while Lawson pushed it and Love boarded and pulled up for three. A lineup with those five on the floor at once would be a terror. What team would have the defenders needed to track three wings of that caliber and size? Or the speed and stamina to play against a squad that one minute could look like the Lakers and the next minute resemble the Suns?

My Minnesota only lacks reliable three-point shooting, but that's why god made the second round and free agency. And did I mention that we still have Bassy? Who wouldn't love this team? Who wouldn't relish a squad that won 24 games, dominated fan imagination, and fucked shit up on the reg?

Please, Wolves, make this happen. I will undoubtedly need it.

Somewhere in the Suburbs, Crime Is Going Down

Probably refers to Curtis Jackson as "Fiddy." Kill me.

Sometimes, middle-aged white people seem as though they worry that cringing is going out of style and feel the need to do something to avert such a disaster. I hadn't seen this article until yesterday (HT: HR), but it's the latest proof that white people are out to get us all. After breaking the news--brace yourselves--that it can be fun and addictive to watch a television series on DVD instead of on a weekly basis (!), Michelle Slatalla unleashed this upon us:

The problem, when you watch too much TV — especially when it’s very powerful TV — is that you can start to live in the program. Stephanie was the first of us to admit she was dreaming about “The Wire” at night, but my husband was the first to turn into a branded zombie. He started talking like one of the show’s drug dealers (or was it a cop?).

“Yo, B.,” he yelled across the street one day as Bruce pulled up to the curb. “Wassup?”

“It’s all in the game,” Bruce called back.
...
But where do you draw the line? If watching two episodes in a row feels reasonable, three is luxurious, four’s a pigout. And five?

Five was when we knew we had a problem around here. There was nothing to eat in the refrigerator. The mail was on the counter, unopened. The voice mail light had been blinking for days.

The phone rang.

“Yo,” my husband answered.

It was Bruce.

“I need Season 5,” Bruce said.

“I feel you,” my husband said.

But our friend Greg had Season 5. My husband texted him a “yo,” but Bruce couldn’t wait. He rushed over to the video store to rent Season 5. He and Stephanie watched the whole thing in 24 hours, and we saw them the next day, wandering the streets. Their hair was matted and they acted jittery.

“Now what are we going to do?” Stephanie asked.

“Yo, shorty,” I said. “Two words: ‘Mad Men.’ ”

"Yo, Shorty?" She sounds like the mother from Mean Girls. And I don't mean that in no nice way.

The Wire was many awesome things to many people, and a testament to the show's power was the wide, diverse audience that comprised its many supplicants. But when people fetishize the show, especially when white people fetishize the hood elements of the show, it kind of ruins everything a little. Ugh.

Nas Recycles

Who says hip-hop isn't socially conscious?

Heard that "new" Nas track with Swizzle, "Be Worried"? Yeah, me too.

And when you heard it, were you like, "Hey, this is that dope-ass beat Swizz used for 'Top Down'"? Yeah, me too. I love that beat.

And did you then say, "Cool, I like Nas on this beat"? Yeah, me too.

And did you then listen to the track again and wonder, "Have I heard these rhymes before?" Yeah, me too.

We were both right. These are recycled words from "The N," a bonus track from Hip-Hop Is Dead.

Not sayin', just sayin'....

- Nas ft. Swizz Beatz, "Be Worried"

- Nas, "The N"

More of Me, Just Less of It Here

Looks like a fun, sexy time.

Been a busy week, what with doing some real work for a real job and some serious writing for the FD (so many words). Latest work product can again be found on FD, where some of the team put together a mock draft. Please do check it out.

This site gets some fresh content over the weekend. Bet. In the meantime, a peace offering.

- The Red Giant ft. Ilyas and Donwill, "Nati Niggaz"
I never knew that Cincinnati hip-hop was so thoroughly influenced by Warren G.

FD'ing It

Hello, friendsters. I've posted a lengthy essay over at FreeDarko about the Knicks, the Knicks' exceptionalism, and LeBron James. Check it.

Wanted: Lil' Wayne Impersonator for a Bar Mitzvah

Title says it all. No, wait, it doesn't: the bar mitzvah boy is blind, so you only need to sound like Lil' Wayne. And, of course, it's not really a bar mitzvah. But that just sounds funnier. It is a birthday, though.

To Craigslist we go:

My son is turning 16 and really wanted Lil Wayne to perform for his birthday gala. Unfortunately his schedule will not permit him to make it. I need a Lil Wayne impersonator desperately.

Here is the kicker my son is blind so you do not need to look like the rapper just sound like him. I understand he grunts and mumbles a lot. I don’t care if you are 67 and Jewish if you can sing the songs you’re hired. Money is not an issue. Name your price. Interested individuals please let me know your rap experience, video of you performing as Lil Wayne would be better. If that is not feasible we can arrange for a live audition.

Serious inquiries only, this is very important to my family. Young Money Baby!

Young Moolah, indeed.

Music for a Monday: The Return

A happy rap future

That's right. Still here. Still working that Music for a Monday.

Post Black Album and retirement, every time Jay-Z drops anything, it becomes a spectacle merely because Jay's done it. Doesn't matter if the music is good (American Gangster at times) or bad (Kingdom Come, most collaborations with Beyonce). He goes on the radio with annoying-ass Angie Martinez, he pops up on stage with one of his famous friends, and the internets go nuts. Sometimes it's fun. Most of the time it's annoying in its contrivance and complete disregard for the quality of the substance.

Such is the case with the "Death of Autotune" joint. Beat is nice (and Klezmatic), flow is solid, and rhymes are pretty lame, honestly. Sure, it's fun that Jay is gunning for people. And yes, it's appreciated that he, too, is tired of rappers singing into their computers. Thing is, though, he kind of rhymes in circles after advancing an "argument" that requires a soundbyte, not a song. And he makes exceptions for his friends because, well, who knows? Not that Jay's Autotune takedown required a scientific approach, but his criteria are vague to the extent that they even exist. The song is not much of a diss track, not a sturdy defense of rapping, and mostly just one man's discursive opinion. Maybe Jay should have started a blog?

Irregardlesst ("That's not a word!" they cry), the best thing about the song is that it introduced the world to the fact that No ID listens to Janko Nilovic and Dave Sucky's Psyc Impressions album. It's a really good one, loaded with instrumental riffs that scream out for sampling. In fact, No ID had been to this well before: last year, he put together a beat--actually, he just appropriated a song--for a dude named Q da Kid using source material from the same record. And I am fairly certain there is a horn riff in the second song listed below that appears on the intro to someone's album, though the name is escaping me. (If you can help me, use the comments section.)

Enabled by tastemaking internets that seem to post anything anyone with an email address and an MP3 sends along, the rap world is now, more than ever, a copycat place where one man's song is ten other dudes' freestyle fodder. So, in this spirit of immitation, let us hope that even if nothing else comes out of the fleeting "D.O.A." moment, more producers get their hands on Psyc Impressions and do what they do in service of liberating so much fertile material.

- Janko Nilovic and Dave Sucky, "Duty Free"
- Janko Nilovic and Dave Sucky, "Shadow of Our Life"
- Q da Kid, "On a Mission"

You can buy Psyc Impressions here. You can check Q da Kid here.

Also: Help with this, please.

The Uraveling of a Good Idea

NBA players need to stop flashing gang signs.

Had the Wachowski brothers left The Matrix as a purposely ambiguous snapshot, as a mystery delightfully solicitous of active appreciation among its fans, the movie would be much better than what it is today. At least, it would be held in higher esteem. But they didn't, and it isn't, because the two Matrix sequels ruined the original a little bit: Reloaded was exciting when considered as a prelude to an ultimate payoff, but like the original, it was diminished by a thoroughly disappointing Revolutions.

The Matrix steadily built buzz, and then cult worship, attracting fans with its disarming visuals and intriguing possibilities. Just what was that movie? How cool would it be were the Matrix real? How scary would that be? And how amazing would the explanation be, if it could even be explained? Those sorts of questions were almost sweet to consider, or to dwell upon while in the company of friends. Not knowing, and the fantasy for which it allowed, was gripping. As recently as last year, my buddy and I sat around for an hour meticulously picking our way through lingering questions from the franchise, however deflating it was to realize that the second movie never saw its promise delivered upon by the legitimately bad third installment.

Only a few hours removed from the NBA Finals, the Orlando Magic playoff run immediately feels like The Matrix: an intriguing, confounding beginning which appeared headed toward a spectacular conclusion if only the third act would sufficiently hold together its many components and make sense in the void hollowed out by our ever expanding confusion. The NBA Finals were sort of like Reloaded.

A purported title contender, the Magic began the postseason inauspiciously, taking longer than expected to quell the Illadelph insurrection, and then looking almost as feeble as a wounded Celtics team whose head and shoulders were uncomfortably huddled up against a ceiling which had quickly descended upon it. The alleged superstar Dwight Howard looked pedestrian and awkward too often against the Celtics, inviting warranted criticism. And yet, the Magic won, coming back from a 3-2 deficit to take the series, closing it out on the road. The relatively untested team which felled the grizzled defending champions had a still-forming star, a beseiged coach, a castoff point guard, and two wing scorerers best known for being good enough to disappoint. The Magic's profile at the time was a mysterious one, as the team had cobbled together its own success using a formula that defied expectation and easy comprehension. The Magic didn't look like what was expected and presented something new. Sort of like The Matrix.

Orlando's defeat of Cleveland was Reloaded: picking up in dramatic fashion where they'd left off, the Magic offered this exciting, flawed performance against the Cavaliers that simultaneously advanced the unique Orlando value and demanded a thrilling conclusion that would satiate our curiosity. Who was the real Dwight, the one stifled by Kendrick Perkins or the one who functionally retired Zydrunas Ilgauskus? Was Stan Van Gundy an overwhelmed anxiety monger or a zany tactical genius? Could Hedo Turkoglu keep running the pick-and-roll as though he were Chris Paul with an inexplicably reliable step-back three? Was Rashard Lewis as dependably dramatic as Kobe Bryant? Skip to My Lou? Really? Combining these parts into a distinct, new kind of whole was a cool concept, but it needed to be fully validated. The Finals couldn't be Revolutions.

Only, sadly, they were. While it may be true that Orlando was ohsoclose to taking a 3-1 advantage, it didn't. It failed, just as Revolutions had presented so many ideas which were ultimately misleading, worthless, or revealed as poorly considered bullshit. Howard's known limitations undermined his attempts to sustain the promise of the Cleveland series; Van Gundy, still tactically impressive, was nonetheless swallowed by the moment as he lost his way amidst a burgeoning point-guard problem; Turkoglu and Lewis could not reliably affect games as the stars which the storyline needed them to be. The 2009 Orlando Magic playoff trilogy yielded far too much uncertainty for its opening installment, and all which it implied, to hold up as stunning.

As The Matrix, itself, retains value, so, too, does the Magic's run. And none of this means that it's folly to pick our way through the outcome, probing with questions and stopping to appreciate what went right. But a Finals series which I excitedly anticipated for its potential stories was ultimately weighed down by Orlando's own inability to fully execute its central idea. And, the Lakers were just the better team.

Quickies
- Andrew Bynum may still not have decided if he's going to matter. I look in his eyes and I don't see it, though.

- Phil Jackson should retire. He's beaten Red Auerbach (which has to be great for a man who played for Red Holzman), he looks tired, and this entire run felt compulsory, not something willingly undertaken.

- Read this as nothing more nor nothing less: Good for Mr. Bean. Now put away that face.

New Isht: Rae Rae, M.O.P., and Kool G

This Wu-Tang Chamber Music record is shaping up to be dope, now isn't it? When history accounts for the Wu-Tang Clan, it ain't going to be pretty for everyone else.

- Raekwon ft. M.O.P. and Kool G Rap, "Ill Figures" (Clean)

All That Glitters Ain't Shit

N.B: Another guest post today, and one about which I've been quite excited for some time. When not contributing realness to FreeDarko, the Dr. Lawyer Indian Chief is likely found listening to rap music. In an effort to help close out the decade, I asked him for his favorite records since 2000. In response, I got this stunning repudiation of so many things which comprise the contemporary hip-hop landscape. Please enjoy. This is ill.

A while back Joey asked me for my top ten albums of the century, and I could only come up with 5/6:

1. Ghostface – Supreme Clientele

2. Prodigy – Return of the Mac

3. MF Doom – Operation Doomsday

4. Dr. Dre – 2001*

5. Sacred Hoop – Sleep Over

Honorable mention: El-P Fantastic Damage

*Note, I almost forgot about this album until my friend, Andy, reminded me.

Given the difficulty I had in coming up with even five, I thought it would be fun to write an article about the wackness of current hip-hop that makes a bunch of overgeneralizations and fails to name names in certain cases where it wouldn’t be politically beneficial to do so. I could give a million disclaimers, but instead I’ll give just one: You will not meet a bigger rap fan than me, and that is why I feel so strongly about this shit. Without further adieu...

Why Hip-Hop Sucks in 2009. Six Reasons:

1) White girls are the new black males
To the extent that rap has certain qualities of a religion, the standard vision of what God looks like is probably something along the lines of Daryl “DMC” McDaniels circa coke: Some idealized big guy in the clouds wearing Cazals, gold chains, Kangols, Adidas...you know, whatever your parents think of “rappers” being. For years this meant that for up-and-coming rappers, validation was sought from black guys, the physical manifestation of “cred.” This is especially pertinent in the case of white rappers, who required some sort of “I have black friends too” posse to garner any respect (think: back-up dancers in Vanilla Ice/Marky Mark videos all the way up to Dre putting the stamp of approval on Eminem). But black rappers themselves have been no different. Accruing props from some major black figurehead (be it Russell Simmons, Sway and Tech, or Grandmaster X Y Z--fill in the blank with your favorite ‘old school’ prove-you-were-there personage) was pretty much the endgame for pretty much all beginning rappers. And good rap, at least through the later part of the 1990s, was typically geared toward, at bare minimum, gaining the respect of that hyper-masculinized, cartoonishly aggressive, Zulu-endorsed black “figure” in the sky. Regardless of whether that method of attaining cred is disgusting or not, it was essentially standard practice, until the past few years.

That black male figurehead has been replaced by a white woman. Jim Jones would rather have Cory Kennedy on his jock than Chuck D at this point. Not exactly sure why this is (is it simple economics that white girls drive the market-->get white dudes to buy stuff/white people = 80% of America = buying public?), but it is. This whole steez has led to pointless Feist-sampling/MIA-jocking/Lady GaGa-collab’ing/KANYE STATING THAT HE KNOWS WHO PETER BJORN AND JOHN AND ANIMAL COLLECTIVE IS SO THAT HIPSTERS ARE LIKE WOW THAT IS SO SURPRISING and other nonsense that has generally resulted in music that sounds like the opposite of The Infamous or Livin’ Proof. Aside from the Lykke Li/Drake collab, which I really dug, rappers’ pursuit of validation of white women has created this super-faux “Pitchfork Media got Pharoahe Monch to play so it’s like the Roxy with Talking Heads and Afrika Bambattaa and Debbie Harry” in one room. Except it isn’t. It fucking sucks.

2) Soulquarianism
I’m gonna say something sacrilegious here. Jay Dee contributed to the erosion of good rap. Let me say up front: I really like Jay Dee...just not as much as Skeff Anslem, Large Pro, Premier, Pete Rock, Erick Sermon, Havoc, QDIII, etc. Now, I’d like you to do me a favor and take out your CD collection and start playing the classics. Can you hear the difference between Buhloone Mind State and Stakes Is High? Between Midnight Marauders and Beats, Rhymes, and Life? Between Resurrection/One Day It Will All Make Sense and Like Water for Chocolate? Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde and Labcabincalifornia? The difference in sonics you hear in each of these cases can be summed up in a word, “rawness.” Note, these are all good albums, but those in the former group are all time classics, and those in the latter group simply don’t rate in that category. The stank flute from “Pack the Pipe,” the Chicago despair of “Hungry,” the downright spookiness of “8 Million Stories.” By 1996, those type of songs were gone, replaced with Jay Dee’s brand of boom-bap neo-soul.

I can’t put this all on Jay Dee, though. “F*ck the Police” is one of my favorite beats ever. Jay Dee is simply an illustrative example of how rap began to soften up. Nothing better encapsulates the de-raw-ification of rap than what happened to the Roots following Illadelph Halflife. First of all, ?uestlove turned into some cult-leaderish untrustworthy tastemaker converting his weird trustafarian/Nuyorican army to worship the Sweet-and-lo/Native Tonguian stylings of Little Brother and crap neo-soul like Floetry. Then, his band started sucking, too. Less Malik B and less Hub meant more stringy-soft backgrounds, more hot-air braggadocio from Black Thought, a slew of indistinguishable songs about rap, Philly, Philly rap, hip-hop, love-lyfe, etc. I seriously feel like the Roots let us down. Because of the live-band gimmick, they were our best opportunity to solidify 1994-caliber rap into the mainstream forever. Instead, they became hip-hop Phish, and ?uestlove whined a lot (comprising, in many ways, the predecessor to Kanye). I remember a few years ago talking to the editor-in-chief of a very popular music magazine, and he told me how ?uestlove was hating on their rag for only covering super-mainstream artists or super-underground artists. Ironically, that perfectly exemplifies the route that the Roots dug themselves into: middle. of. the. road.

3) Stupidity is rewarded
I made this list in a rather arbitrary fashion, but this is probably reason #1. To sum it up in a sentence: White music is generally rewarded the smarter it is, black music is generally rewarded the dumber it is. The hipster media loves to tout black artists like OJ Da Juiceman, Max B, Young Jeezy, and (gulp) Soulja Boy* while simultaneously engaging in ancestor worship toward Animal Collective, Radiohead, and Arcade Fire. This phenomenon is well-documented, though it is commonly misattributed to hipster obsession with irony (and liking dumb hawdcore crunktastic music = irony in this case). I think it goes beyond irony though, because if you ask any of these cheerleaders to say why they like that type of music, they will give you a very clear response that will commonly include something about swag, presence, charisma, or braggadocio. These are codewords; I’ll let you fill in the rest....

To use a movie metaphor, you can think about OJ Da Juiceman et al. as Old School and Wedding Crashers, while AnCo and the like are Brokeback Mountain, Atonement, and The Queen. Both get love from the critics, but at the end of the day, which camp is getting invited to the Oscars?

*Yes, these rappers are stupid. Stupid compared to people like Willie the Kid, La the Darkman, Labtekwon, Smitty, and Foul Mouth Cringe, folks who I think are a tad too smart or subtle to get the type of blog-love that OJ gets.

4) The Michael Moore-ification of political rap
Here’s an interesting experiment: Pull out your Ice Cube and Paris albums from the Bush I presidency and listen to their anti-prez raps. Shit makes waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more sense and is oddly far more topical than any political rap produced in the past ten years. Putting the strange new Obama-era aside for a moment, let’s focus on Bush II era political rap, one of the greatest creative letdowns of our time. I remember reading some article in URB magazine right after 9/11 about how the fuckedupedness of the time would spur a renaissance in political rap. Never happened. Instead groups like dead prez et al. made the hip-hop equivalent of Farenheit 9-11, conspiratorial, jumbled oversimplification with an easily digestible “Fuck Bush” tagline.

Seriously, the W presidency served this shit up for you guys on a platter and you couldn’t even bunt (killing these mixed metaphors). Jay-Z and Mos Def both put together some lazy Hurricane Katrina joints. Nas’s Fox News blowup was cool. The Coup did their thing with “Baby let’s have a Baby....” (Boots, we need you!). Jadakiss’s “Why” had some lines. But did we get a definitive take on Iraq or, better yet, a narrative of the young lower-to-middle-class members of hip-hop’s core audience fighting over there? If KRS-One wasn’t in space right now, he would be killing shit.

5) Jay-Z and Nas’s snoozing lowered everyone’s GOAT standards
Jay and Nas. Great guys. But it still stuns me how anyone who got started listening to Reasonable Doubt and Illmatic can still proclaim these guys co-GOATs or anything near that caliber. These guys are in the same phase of their careers as Iverson, Garnett, Duncan. The impact they had when they first came into the league just puts their present work to shame.

That’s not really the point though. The point is that Jay and Nas became de facto kingz after Biggie died for no real reason other than there was a throne to fill. This was also during the point in their careers that they both started snoozing hard. And now (because Andre 3000 is stingy and strange and likes to sing too much) we’ve lowered our standards for what the GOAT is really all about. As someone who admittedly got into rap in 1991 and *just* missed out on “88” (i.e. the period that “88” symbolized), it shocks me to think of a time when Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Kool G Rap, Chuck D, LL Cool J, and KRS-One were all at the top of their game simultaneously. Now those are names worth arguing over. These days we can’t accept an empty throne, so we have been stepping over each for the past few years trying to give the “crown” to people like Cam’ron, the Game, and Weezy. And seriously, I love Lil’ Wayne, but I once tried to tally the number of instances on The Carter III where dude makes an “I’m the shit”/actual pooping pun, and I lost track. The guy is great, Top 30 all time, sure. But, like I said, let’s have some standards.

6) Lack of samples
I guess it’s because I stopped listening to West Coast underground stuff that I only noticed this last week while listening to the new Jay-Z “D.O.A.” and the new Mos Def album, but where the hell have the samples gone? Swizz Beats really destroyed that whole era, didn’t he? Did the shit just become too expensive? I suppose Kanye has done his part to bring it back, but he went too hard with the chipmunk stuff, and now it’s kind of back to glossy shit on the radio.

HDNet is Underrated

A friend of mine goes to medical school in Pittsburgh, Mark Cuban's hometown. When you're the dopest owner in the NBA, you do this kind of shit. I mean, I ain't never seen one of these with Micky Arison.

Life as a Social Liability, Otherwise Known as Life as a Lost Enthusiast

N.B: Guess who's back on the site today? No, not just Kareem. We also have my sister, The Buckets, our sometime co-author, and a general expert in all things popular culture. She has returned to both drop knowledge about her most refined specializations, television and reading, and provide yet another glimpse into the awesome, deranged life which she leads. If you like this, please comment so that we can convince her to write more often. Church!

Hello, Straight Bangin’ community. Last time I spoke with you, I was on the verge of plunging into the great depths of utter self-loathing as a result of my three-week, comprehensive Lost marathon. I just went back and read what I had to say. Have you ever been forced into one of those horrible exercises in which you write a letter to yourself, seal it, and then open it presumably after some transformative event? I ask because reading my Season 5-premier post has unexpectedly and delightfully functioned as such a letter. SB readers, meet The Buckets post-Season 5 of Lost. The Buckets from the former post does no longer exists. I am embarrassed to have ever posed the illogical and invalid so-called objections of that post, and, moreover, embarrassed that my utter initial misreading of Lost is committed to the public internets domain.



Instead of taking that dive into a lagoon of autophobia (see: Jack’s dive into the lagoon upon his return to the island in episode 506, “316”), I went in the exact opposite direction. (Side note: that truly is the lagoon of self-loathing. Remember when Kate had to dive down deeply to recover the briefcase full of guns before Sawyer?) I used my Lost marathon to my advantage, easily recalling minute and fun details to better untangle the web of time travel of Season 5. I’ve become so crazed that I seek and embrace communities of Lost fans, both real and virtual. My roommate and I recently discussed how if someone else is a Lost fan, it is as if you implicitly understand each other. My Wednesdays were organized around reading Doc Jensen’s teaser column on EW.com. On Thursdays, minimal work was completed, and I spent most of the day engaged in endless discussion of the previous night’s episode with many correspondents around the country. One week, I made Dharma beer. I then drank a Dharma beer that I had fashioned at a bar, and I was extremely popular. An emphatic “WWWWWAAALLLTTTTT,” à la Michael Dawson from the Season 1 finale, has become a generic phrase to express extreme emotion--usually extreme excitement in anticipation of a new episode. My former self would hardly recognize this Lost-ified self.



But here is where things get truly alarming: I’ve always been a television watcher of noteworthy tenacity. Of the times I’ve cried the hardest in my life, two of the top three came at moments of extreme television adversity and loss--Mark Green’s untimely death on ER and Ben surprising Felicity at Stanford in episode 417, “The Graduate.” And while I can hardly say that my love for Lost trumps my love for Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls, Felicity, or ER: The Clooney Years, the fervor inspired by Lost has certainly left me disconcerted. I think about the show often, and it throws my mind in loops (time loops!) in ways that other cultural artifacts simply have not before. Even when I was overjoyed with happiness that Ben had made the right move and finally followed Felicity somewhere (“You were right. It was my turn.”), that elation and subsequent misery (the show was then over) was so purely emotional, and adolescent. Lost occupies an entirely different area of my mind and life.

I’ve been trying to untangle why and how Lost has left such an indelible mark on my life. I’ve settled on a few reasons. Of course there are the obvious ones: you could watch, and rewatch, and still unearth references and Easter eggs you didn’t quite catch the first time, regardless of one’s mental acuity or how many times you’ve read every entry on Lostpedia. And then the narrative techniques are laid out such that you just can’t turn away. For every question answered, three more can be asked. (Yeah, I am pretty nervous about how things are going to be wrapped up on this mystery-inclined show….) But still there is something more complex happening. I think my Lost obsession lies in my nature as a reader, which Lost exploits and complicates.

For however much I adore Ben Covington or Jackattack Shephard, I can’t think of any fictional character I’d like to meet more than T.S. Garp from John Irving’s The World According to Garp. (I very strongly reject Robin Williams as Garp. Worst. Casting. Ever. Ever.) I read that novel--my second favorite of the Irving collection--over six years ago, yet the picture of Garp in my mind remains clear, and he is a character to whom I often come back. There are a few scenes that stand out and have molded my lasting impression of my beloved hero. For you Irving fans, I’ll just say that the two most vivid and poignant are when Garp encounters Ralph’s mom in the middle of the night at Ralph’s house; and, of course, the tragic scene in the car, Walt’s final moments. There is something intrinsic to the written narrative that allows readers to form delineated and delimited character profiles which can easily contort to the reader’s agenda and thesis, even if this reader does not consciously construct an agenda or thesis. After all, reading is an activity of extreme solitude, and extreme leisure. And because of the inherent solitude, even if you debate a book or read it with a group, the characters become yours.



Lost is a show that understands the importance of pliant, compelling, resonant characters, and in this way it is really a program for readers. The show’s most popular characters--Desmond, Sawyer, Jack--are all figures that we can easily locate within our own lives and relate to. In some ways, I think Jack is the most complicated and realistic TV hero currently on the air. Yet, the intimate relationships we can form with characters from novels can’t be replicated with television characters. The reasons for this would take up an entirely separate blog post. In my mind, two of the most affecting factors are: 1) the actor portraying a character affects your personal figuration in devastating ways; and, 2) television is far more communal, especially with the recent prevalence of the internets postmortem on sites like EW.com, TV.com, and Television Without Pity. Yet, Lost really draws us readers in by acknowledging this limitation of its medium and compensating with a bevy of literary references. The show (and Doc Jensen) encourages its audience to draw in external sources--books, comics, visual predecessors--to enhance the show and truly understand the intricate plot and the deeply flawed characters. While I’d argue that it’s pacing, tone, and aesthetic render Mad Men a more literary show unto itself, Lost may be more rewarding for genre fiction fans.

All literary concerns aside, the Lost universe is singular, intricate, and quite specified. The show attracts and rewards viewers with a predilection for all things epic and recognizes that epicity extends beyond this unique show. In fact if there is one value that Lost seems to hold above everything else, I’d suggest it is epicity--a word now official coined. Things, universes, individuals, stories, lore, ideas of certain epic quality. (Fine, maybe you could argue that free will is right up there as well. But that is thinking locally, and, after all, Lost is all about the globalized, multinational, multi-ethnic Twenty-First Century!) That is why this is the summer of the Epic Lost Rewatch. (Or if you are the proprietor of this blog, just the Epic Rewatch, a powerhouse summer of revisiting with Lost and Sopranos!!!) (Ed. Note: Sopranos Season 3 is the most enjoyable thirteen hours of television ever made.) That is why there is so much to tackle, so much material to which we must return. And this also is why my three-week marathon has rendered me a social liability. The connections are ubiquitous, the discussions endless. Ah yes, it shall be a long summer (and fall and partial winter) of contemplation and discussing and social marginalization.

The Kareem Jacket: An Origin Story

We now know the provenance of Big Chief Skyhook's favorite event jacket.

I would wager that few otherwise innocuous moments in my sports-viewing oeuvre ever were as enthralling and mind-blowing as the time when I saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wearing what has since come to be known as the Kareem Jacket while seated in the crowd watching the Lakers play the Suns on April 23, 2006. It was just an amazing moment--a totally awesome, totally goofy NBA legend unassuming amidst a sea of people while wearing a totally awesome, totally goofy jacket. And not just any old jacket; that jacket. A jacket which somehow simultaneously calls to mind American Indians, lesbian bikers, poorly dressed children at the mercy of their parents, and Lucky Charms.

I never knew more about the jacket and filed away this fond memory among other quirks from a rich sporting life.

But then Twitter happened. Suddenly, wildest dreams are possible. And so, I present both the origin story behind the Kareem Jacket, and a most satisfying conclusion to a long-dormant personal odyssey of comedic bemusement:

Better Than Yours Is Back!

"Old-timey" is an adjective that should be used more often.

I have, periodically, dedicated this site to chronicling when rappers use the same beats. And today is the latest installment. Who do you think used this joint better, Skyzoo or the Black Star homies?

- Skyzoo, "History"

- Mos Def ft. Talib Kweli, "History"

One thing I'll say: for as much as I appreciate the easy flow which Skyzoo rocks at all times, his penchant for falling into the same cadence and rhyme structure time after time gets repetitive and, in turn, a little boring. Which is not to dismiss him or be overly critical; I think dude is pretty good, and slept on, in fact. But still, who's perfect? Instead, though, I like the subtle changes in Mos's tempo, rhyme scheme, and voice inflections within his first verse. It all takes a fairly static soundscape and gives it more life than Sky imparts. And Mos's second "verse," more like a bridge into "Casa Bey," is some Black on Both Sides-style inventiveness.

The beat itself is aight. Kind of too chirpy, but at the same time, it has a dusty quality to it that sets a nice mood.

As We Proceed to Give You What You Need

"New Yorkers." The one on the right makes self-serving shit too often.

If you can reach deep into the recesses of your memory, you might recall that last week, I did an early dance on the Cavaliers' grave, called them underdogs--still not sure if it was a complement or an insult, I just know I am glad they lost--and then went off on a few Magic tangents. One of them was about my fondness for Mickael Pietrus, a player whose appeal has always been twofold: First, he's usually appeared like a man out of place, without a defined role, and even a true cultural niche. Second, and because of the first, he's seemed like a sad figure.

Originally, I knew little about Pietrus, but that sparse collection of information made some weird, lasting impression. Before he was drafted, I had read an article about Pietrus's expected stardom in the NBA because he was a great athlete and possessed an assertive, cocksure demeanor. Obviously, things haven't worked out that way. Despite--or maybe because of--his notable contributions to that cataclysmic Warriors team, his career has been the sort that mostly invites questions about why he isn't better if he can be so sporadically effective. He seemed to get cast as fungible and helpful but not vital amidst the Warriors' parade of swingmen, and that hasn't changed as his game has become a cartoonish combination of willing defense, unapologetic threes, opportunistic dunks, and chronic bewilderment following any blown whistle. Pietrus's profile settled somewhere in between appreciable contributor and important role player. (At least, that's where things stood before these playoffs.)

That professional arc summoned sadness as I looked on. Plenty of players enter the NBA with dreams of enduring relevance, if not true greatness, only to relinquish them when confronted by the unforeseen reality they they're just not as good as they'd hope to be. Pietrus could easily be just another among this ever swelling group. But that initial confidence resonated with me. Taken in concert with his large, inviting eyes and the complete fiction I created wherein he was unhappily adrift in a foreign country and without any cultural mooring or validating professional meaning, Mickael's career path turned him into a charity case. (Again, I am the first to recognize how insane I sound.)

Pietrus's international status is particularly significant to me. I wouldn't say I am a basketball xenophobe, or even a basketball patriot, but I nonetheless approach foreign-born players with a latent condescension and curiosity. For years, I liked Dirk Nowitzki because I thought his early attempts at cultural assimilation were hilariously awkward; I loved that he was not naturally of the NBA's American social culture. And while I tend to afford players from Latin America and the Balkans greater deference and respect, I am almost incapable of believing in or accepting any player with German, Italian, or French roots until he sons Americans on a regular basis. (People like Danilo Gallinari make this sort of bigotry hard to abandon.) Pietrus is from Guadalupe, a Francophone nation, and he played in France, so he easily invited my skeptical, unkind amusement. But, for the reasons just noted, instead of maintaining a cruel interest in Mickael's tribulations, I quickly came to pity him, projecting the sense that he had come here, the plan wasn't materializing as expected, and he was suddenly stranded, unappreciated, and alone. I was suddenly rooting for an American Dream.

Pietrus, thanks to the Magic's success and his leading contributions to it, no longer seems like this unfortunate immigrant in need of my irrational compassion. But his foreign roots remain critical to our relationship. The ultimate validation of my inexhaustible capacity for absurd humor is that precisely because Pietrus has succeeded and quelled my concern for his well-being, I am now free to celebrate, if not mock, his international status. And so it was that I read the news yesterday with glee. The story about Mickael abandoning his Kobe kicks was notable not for the decision itself, but for what he said about it. Look:

"I have Kobe shoes at my house, but I am going to play with Michael Jordan shoes."

"The only thing I can do is try to minimize his touches in the fourth quarter...He's a tremendous player and those guys you cannot stop them. So maybe I can say, 'Hey, stop, Kobe! Yo! Stop!' Maybe that's the only way I can stop him. 'Stop for a minute!'"

Are you kidding me? Alo, Kobe. Please stop, s'il vous plait. That is just all kinds of awesome: so Euro, so goofy, so obviously an attempt to sound like everyone else but carried out with a limited toolkit, so to speak. Those quotations are everything that's great about Pietrus as the sad story and hilariously weird about him as one of these cultural emissaries to the Lig who sometimes seem like they are clandestinely filming a bit for a German or French Tonight Show.

It's even better--just look at Pietrus's blog! I like that it says "MOBLOG" in the top menu bar. Is that because "O" and "P" are next to each other on the keyboard? That's the sort of website that someone has when he's been told about the internets but is not yet sure they're not just an old wives' tale. European basketballers are the funniest.



Some other things:
- Howard Beck pursued an uncommon story angle in writing about Kobe Bryant yesterday: he acknowledged that the man really is rival-less. It was a good story on its own merits, rightly highlighting Bryant's development, sustained excellence, and transitional place in the game's history. Beyond those topics, though, it reinforced this growing sense that Kobe has entered the twilight of his greatness and is perhaps positioning himself for a second act.

We've always known Kobe as the singularly driven competitor consumed by his aspirations for timeless accomplishment and the recognition that comes with it. That dedication has been enabled by his basketball-nerd persona, something which, for me, always mitigates the negative implications of statements about his focus. Of course, Kobe is hated on, perhaps more than any other great player, but at a basic level, he is not malicious, just introverted and obsessive. He can be ruthless on the floor, his cunning and competitiveness sparing no one, but learning about Kobe, peeling away the layers, always exposes someone who is not bent on inflicting damage but, rather, devoted to a certain intellectual conclusion about how to play the game. He's a perfectionist, and someone else's loss is an operating cost incurred in pursuit of this ideal. The expense is not an end unto itself.

Given that I do some writing for FreeDarko, I am especially conscious of not falling into an insular world of self-reflexive reference. Please know that because I need to discuss FD for a moment: the Macrophenomenal print of Mr. Bryant sitting at a table, working on his model ship, wonderfully captures this notion of Kobe. He is studious and wholly committed, but also calmly rational about what he wants to achieve. That's a sort of thoughtful disposition which might naturally allow for the transition possibly underway.

No less committed to the game, and giving no less effort on the floor or when training, Kobe nonetheless now appears changed, willing to forgo some of the celebrity intrigue and cultural attention which can be such an important part of the NBA. He's always been this quiet, smart man, but for a while, he also tried going through the motions of stardom. And, perhaps more to the point, most of his career has been spent in storylines that are not at all like those which can be drawn from what he is now making available to the public. Beginning with the viral Nike ad in which Kobe jumped over a car, continuing with his amiable disposition at the Olympics, and recently showcased in the otherwise amazingly boring Kobe Doin' Work, Bryant has seemed apart in a slight but perceptible way. It's almost as though he is dwelling in a realm which overlaps with ours but is distinct. Perhaps some of it is a concession to age dressed up as wisdom, perhaps it is all a ruse meant to rehabilitate an image about which he's always been hypersensitive. Kobe may be the dastard, megalomaniacal villain so many like to say he is. But a mellowed Bryant more reflective than ever seems to be emerging away from the court, and it's disarming for all the reasons just stated. It's really not whom we've known. Kobe might not be who we've said he is any longer.

It invites the question of whether winning a title this year would, even if only subconsciously, serve as a sort of capstone to the first era (or second, if teenage Kobe was the real opening stanza) of Kobe's career, and hasten his retreat into the second (or third).

- This Lamar Odom candy thing is stupid. The story is amusing, and it's a great quirk. But the seriousness with which it's been treated by some people--and the defensiveness it's elicited in Odom--sort of ruins the fun. Just let it go and make jokes about Reese cups or whatever.

- No matter how unlikely it is that Hasheem Thabeet will develop an even middling NBA offensive skill set, I would like for the Thunder to take him third. Couldn't he be a taller version of Kendrick Perkins, in impact if not true proportion and style? And shouldn't every team want one of those? Thabeet has a large frame and can add strength and weight. Were he tasked with just providing shot blocking, good help inside, and rebounding, he'd have a long, meaningful career. That he can already shoot free throws pretty well is a bonus, because he could be on the floor in crunch time. On the Thunder, a player like that could initiate the fast break and help anchor the sort of halfcourt defense needed in the playoffs. It's not as though OKC needs scorers, so why not take a reasonably athletic big man who takes pride in defense and can start for a decade? Teams should usually be searching for all-stars with a pick so high, but this appears to be the one circumstance in which an exception could be made: young nucleus already in possession of a franchise player and two other key guys seeks defensive stalwart to help finalize foundation for future. Am I wrong? DeJuan Blair scares me a little. If he can go through Thabeet, maybe other guys can, too, to say nothing of Dwight Howard. But still, Thabeet is imposing back there.

Mike Breen Ruins Life Just a Little Bit

I wrote about why over at FD today. Peep game.

Find Sports Genius at The Norman Einsteins

Genius

There is a new online magazine called The Norman Einsteins which publishes on the first weekday of each month and endeavors to provide you, the reader, with fine contributions about sports and culture written by people across the internets. For the inaugural issue, I was asked to put together a 48-minute hip-hop mixtape to serve as the ideal score for an NBA playoff game. You can bear witness to the greatness here.

I think this is a cool project, and not just because I wrote something. I don't know, personally, anyone else involved, but I like where this could be headed. Check it out, please.