I am with Krugman, all but ready to write off this man. Sad.
From the Definition of Madness Department:
The [oil drilling] proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.
Here we go again. Barack Obama has decided that he will offer a preemptive concession to his likely opponents in the name of consensus-building and bipartisan cooperation. Offer some oil drilling, get back a comprehensive, forward-looking energy bill. I am sure that's the thinking. Just as I am sure that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again but nonetheless expecting a different result. THIS DOESN'T WORK.
An energy fight will look just like the health care fight: Obama will betray good facts and public sentiment to carve out what he feels is an opening compromise position far closer to the political middle. His opponents will readily accept his ceded territory, but will then turn around and obstruct progress until the bitter end. A drilling handout is not going to encourage the opponents of change to set aside their fears and cynicism. Offering a carrot does not prevent Obama from getting smacked with a stick. This is precisely what happened with the health bill--following Obama's lead, Democrats negotiated away a public option before the real debates even began, and they ultimately passed a flawed bill for which Republicans didn't even vote after all that kabuki theater of bipartisanship. Taking up the same broken strategy would be funny were it not also so maddening.
And, of course, we haven't even gotten to the substance of the matter. Here is what candidate Obama said about offshore drilling in July of 2008 (emphasis added):
If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks. But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years. Senator Obama believes Americans need real short-term relief, which is why he has proposed a second round of stimulus with energy rebates for working families. And over the long-term, Senator Obama understands that our national security and the survival of the planet demand a real strategy to break our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, new sources of energy and by vastly improving the energy efficiency of our cars, trucks and our economy. He is ready to lead such a transformation.
Similarly, I need to read more about drilling, but I have a hard time believing many material changes have occurred in the nineteen months since I wrote this:
Back in June on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney defended the oil industry's failure to drill for oil on roughly 80% of the land for which it already holds leases by whining that there aren't enough drills and that each additional drill would costs $1 million to produce. If Obama wants to "stand up to big oil" and boost short-term production, why doesn't he quit with the grandstanding and environmental degredation and instead demand that the oil industry exhaust the land to which it already has access. ExxonMobil, alone, made $50 billion in profit last year and spent 80% of that money buying back stock, so surely the industry could afford a few more drills.
If this information remains largely accurate, how infuriating is Obama's latest sellout? He has been a profound disappointment.
As you might recall, people literally took to the streets last year when the Justice Department decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would receive a civilian trial in New York City. Jane Mayer wrote a typically authoritative account of the controversy. In her story, Mayer recounted that people opposed to granting Mohammed the sort of trial which defines the American legal system believed that Mohammed instead should have been subjected to a military tribunal and the circumscribed rights it affords enemy combatants. At the Foley Square protest convened by these outraged political dissidents, the scene turned a little ugly:
Greg Manning, whose wife, Laura, was severely burned in the World Trade Center attacks, stood before the crowd and said, “Thousands are already dead because of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s choices. We do not want to see . . . hundreds of thousands dead because of the Attorney General’s choices.”
Andrew McCarthy, the former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, also gave a speech, declaring that Holder didn’t “understand what rule of law has always been in wartime.” He said, “It’s military commissions. It’s not to wrap our enemies in our Bill of Rights.”
“Traitor!” someone shouted.
Edith Lutnick, who works for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, told the crowd, “My brother, Gary, lost his life that day.” The 9/11 victims, she said, “were murdered by the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and we do not want him and his fellow-terrorists tried in that building. . . . We need to tell Eric Holder that we will be victims no more.”
“Lynch Holder!” an onlooker cried.
Over the last few days, we've again been reminded that terrorism comes in all forms. These Hutaree people from Michigan were planning to kill a police officer and then incite greater conflict by detonating improvised explosive devices at his memorial. Their goal was to encourage anti-government violence, tearing at the seams of U.S. society. So I am left to wonder how these Hutaree people are any different than terrorists of foreign origin. They don't seem to be.
Similarly, I can't help but wonder when the next Foley Square protest--or perhaps one at the Renaissance Center in Detroit--will be convened. After all, shouldn't the same people who grandstanded about Sheikh Mohammed be just as upset about similarly situated alleged criminals receiving American due process? Or were the Foley Square folks being disingenuous, opportunistic, and intellectually dishonest?
A tradition unlike any other--Tiger Woods's comeback from a sex scandal at The Masters, on CBS!
While you fools weren't looking, a quarter of the year went by. As March fades and the echoes at Augusta grow ever louder with each passing day, let's take a moment to appreciate the ten best songs to have come out so far this year. Thank god we've improved upon the sorry haul from last month.
Also, let me apologize: no audio links are posted below. In this era of Google and the RIAA waging war on so many blogs, it's just too risky. Blame them. I don't have the industry connections. I'm just a dude.
10) Jimi Hendrix, "Valleys of Neptune" The way that this track wakes up and gets going is just incredible. As is the way that it so easily drifts in and out of action. Such a smooth rock song. Jimi stays showing you how to do this, son.
9) Bun B, "Press Play" You want to know something that is going to piss some people off? Bun B thinks he's smarter and cooler than he is. Something else that that I don't mean in no nice way: he makes too much music. He's a little lame on occasion, he can be too available, and both show sometimes. His verse on this is nothing special, and yet it's delivered as if he's dropping science. But lucky for him, his voice is always his voice, and Statik Selektah laced him with a dope beat.
8) Beanie Sigel and Freeway ft. Young Chris, "The Last Two" I think this track technically came out last year, but it was on the Roc Boys mixtape that dropped within the last month. So if you want to be a hater about it, eff you. I defy you to generate a legitimate reason why this track's quiet street heat doesn't deserve the dap.
7) Jay Rock ft. Rick Ross, "Finest Hour" At this point, one thing's for sure, two things for certain: hustlers hustle; grinders grind; and bitches is bitches the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League is making the most consistently dope beats in rap music right now; Rick Ross would be the ideal artists to record a theme song for the next great American gangster movie; and Jay Rock is pretty good at updated, derivative tough talk.
6) Little Brother, "Curtain Call" I am ambivalent about their impending break up. I used to ride for these dudes like no one else. I felt like I discovered them, in fact, when I walked into my college newspaper office back in 2003 and serendipitously fell in love with The Listening. Phonte remains one of the illest MCs, and this song is evidence that they can still write good music. However, they haven't progressed much, Pooh still represents an obvious fall off in skills, and the whining about being outsiders has actually grown stale. I can't believe I just wrote that.
5) Murs, "3:16, Pt. 2" It's Murs, bitch! Big ups to 9th Wonder, baby!
Now, talk about someone who doesn't get old, despite flying his rebel flag. I could listen to Murs forever, even if he mostly says the same shit over and over. When his everyman schtick and knowing sense of humor are set to such lush soul music, it's hard to hate. But, one thing--shouldn't "3:16, Pt. 2" actually be called "3:17"? Or "4:16"?
4) Freeway, "My Time" Never hurts to sample source material used for "Vibes & Stuff." Ever.
3) Aloe Blacc, "I Need a Dollar" This remains the best thing about How to Make It in America. Although, I think the show is getting a little better. KiD CuDi and the dude from American Pie are surprisingly amusing. Luis Guzman is always great. And the theme song is just a wonderful frame for the show, oozing soul and feeling. Cop audio here.
2) Ruste Juxx ft. Sean Price, "Fuckin' wit' a Gangster" See here.
1) Ski Beatz ft. Jean Grae, Jay Electronica, Joell Ortiz, and Mos Def, "Prowler 2" Sorry, but this wins. Too much tight rhyming, and too much of that powerful, simple guitar riff. This song KNOCKS.
Perhaps this is a function of my environment, but I have a question: should musicians be allowed to sue YouTubers for slander when their music is used in embarrassing fashion, thereby creating a detrimental association with the song? Fast forward to 0:50 in this video before answering the question:
Who wants to tell me that Lil' Wayne and T-Pain wouldn't have a case?
Does it make sense for us to weep for a man who lost tens of millions of dollars? Probably not in light of true suffering and tragedy. But for anyone who ever rooted for Antoine, or who saw him as a sympathetic figure, this is quite sad. (As is Pitino's weathered, beaten look.)
What of AI? Does it make sense of us to weep for Allen Iverson? Probably a little more. The news that David Stern is calling Iverson seeking to help him is disconcerting. It is downright ominous, no?
In stark contrast to the Stern who punishes, and in particularly stark contrast to an NFL commissioner who seems like an indefatigable truancy officer, this David Stern cares about his players, not just the sales they generate. This Stern takes a timeout from the public morality plays staged across the sporting world to steal a moment in service of actual humanity. It's touching, but also devastating for the same reason. Who has heard of someone like the NBA commissioner seeking a back channel hearing with a former player? Iverson's situation seems foreboding, and the latest headline presages a messy, depressing ending. Were this a movie, we'd probably have to sit through a wrenching montage of Iverson in spiral as a nasally voice mail played out across the sequence: "Allen...it's David Stern. Your friend. I've known you for a long time, and I want to help you. If there is something I can do, anything, please let me know. I want to talk to you. Let me help you. Please call me back."
This is a troubling day for NBA fans and the post-Jordan generation that we both loved and loathed. These players, always thought to be adrift and malignant on the court, is now equally off its moorings beyond basketball. The whole thing feels like some sort of cruel karmic joke.
Among the immutable truths of this world is that the back of a public charter bus emits one of the foulest smells on the planet. You get on a Greyhound, a Peter Pan, a whatever, and you sit in the back and then try to tell me otherwise. Those public restrooms crammed into the back left corner of a charter bus fuel my nightmares. Literally--I recently woke up feeling nauseous after dreaming that I was seated next to one of those things while being held hostage by a girl from law school and her imagined step dad. (Yeah, it was weird.)
In the summer of 1998, I took one of those buses so that I could visit some friends in Massachusetts. It was August, Def Squad's El Nino album had dropped, and it kept a firm grasp on its position in my discman. Forces conspired against me that day--I had probably taken too long while seeking out Yoo-Hoo! or something--and I wound up in the back of the bus, stationed in the primary olfactory corridor along which the bathroom's odor traveled out into the world. I will fall asleep almost instantly when traveling on anything other than a skateboard or bike, so I sat down, drank my chemically enhanced chocolate milk, put El Nino on repeat, and drifted into uncomfortable bus slumber. You know how that goes--you sleep for 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there, you shift in the seat, you're intermittently too hot and too cold, you have a lot of moments that feel like death. Or at least what I've always imagined Purgatory must be like.
A sad byproduct of this trip up north was that I forever came to associate El Nino with those bathroom fumes. I'd wake up with stale urine cake in my nose and "For thinking it's OK to rhyme that way/You'll be P.O.W., M.I.A." in my ears. I hear an El Nino track, and I begin to gag. This causes me endless frustration because El Nino is quite good, and probably unfairly lost in the late 90s shuffle. I also forever associate that album with the first track, "Check N' Me Out." Like Grand Puba's 2000 and "I Like It," there are certain records that are respresented in my mind by one particular track on them, respectively. El Nino is in this group.
"Check N' Me Out" is four minutes of declarations, boasts, and punchlines. It's a posse cut for the sake of posse cutting, a somewhat lost niche in hip-hop. Rappers still brag and make jokes, still talk shit and bust on people, but it often comes in the context of drug dealing or seduction. Or it feels like a one-off project, standing without the cohesion of a true group effort. "Check N' Me Out," meanwhile, was the memorable entrance of Def Squad, and the chemistry among Erick Sermon, Redman, and Keith Murray remains unmistakable and unfuckwithable.
Even better, Sermon set the whole thing to that fantastic Undisputed Truth sample:
The Undisputed Truth, "Space Machine"
The baseline is perfect. It's measured, always present but not overpowering. It takes a walk without moving too slowly or speeding down the block. It just steadily makes its way, never stopping and never rushing. Combined with those soft drums, you can't help but nod along. The effect is almost hypnotic, and that cuts the abrasive tone of Redman and Murray's furious voices. The track is sort of like an everyday masterpiece--neither shiny and beautiful nor bland and unremarkable. It's not a classic, but it is certainly timeless.
Def Squad, Check n' Me Out"
Ruste Juxx and Sean Price have updated that joint, and it is pretty much as real as hip-hop gets. Rarely does a rap song capture the essence of its genre, but "Fucking wit' a Gangster" comes close. Combining the easy way of the "Space Machine" sample--restored to its original, smoother tempo--with a brash rapping method that recalls every New Yorker to ever get gully on the mic, "Gangster" is hip-hop in its purest form. Many songs expand the genre by mimicking or coopting its elements, but this shit just channels them.
And Sean Price. Cot'damn! Seriously.
What can bloggers write about P anymore that pays proper respect to his impact on a song? He's like a fistfight on wax--angry, rambunctious, pointed, furious, out of control, energetic, violent. It's thrilling: he and his malice elicit a visceral excitement like no one else rapping right now. "Gangster" also benefits from him coming on the track like dun-dun-dun-uh. You get that squeaky "P" exclamation, he shouts "Fuck you," and he's immediately off to the races, spitting disses and bodying everything. He's the best.
Ruste Juxx ft. Sean Price, "Fucking wit' a Gangster"
- You are 0-2 against the Pac 10 in the NCAA Tournament.
- Two of your likely Final Four "contenders" have lost to double-digit seeds. Overall, half of your tournament teams have lost to double-digit seeds. So far, you are 4-5 in the Tournament.
- Your conference had the #1 general strength of schedule, and was #2 in the RPI rankings.
- Your most likely shot at a championship rests on the uncomfortable shoulders of Bob Huggins.
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 that I usually pass along to my partner. Enjoy these next three weeks.
* I am using a loose, flexible definition of "winning."
Round 1 - East Region 1) Kentucky vs. 16) East Tennessee State - Kentucky starts four NBA players, including three lottery picks (Wall, Cousins, Patterson). End of discussion.
8) Texas vs. 9) Wake Forest - Wake has been sliding terribly coming into the Tournament. I don't trust Rick Barnes very much, and Texas has been up and down, but I like Texas's talent and depth for at least one victory. Not that this stat, alone, will influence the game, but I would wager that Texas will go on to be the the 8-Seed with the most future pros of all time. Rick Barnes has presided over a travesty this year.
5) Temple vs. 12) Cornell - Go Owls! Cornell is a trendy upset pick because it has been good all season, pushed Kansas in Lawrence, has ended up in a 5-12 game, and shoots the three very well. But Temple is a top-ten defensive team, kills teams that shoot the three, and I'd rather go with the defense and a pretty talented team over one that relies on jump shooting.
4) Wisconsin vs. 13) Wofford - Wisconsin is a wildly efficient team, as usual. With Michigan, UConn, and UNC all out of this Tournament, I might as well root for a team whose alumni and supporters I like well enough.
6) Marquette vs. 11) Washington - Washington likes to run, Marquette likes to plod along. Marquette played a better schedule, has won a lot of close games, and has some impressive wins, most notably beating Georgetown and Villanova. Washington got fat on a really weak Pac-10. I think Marquette is the pick.
3) New Mexico vs. 14) Montana - New Mexico. The Lobos have too much scoring for Montana.
7) Clemson vs. 10) Missouri - Let's go with the Missouri Tigers. The Clemson Tigers lost to nearly every good team they played this year, home and away. Plus, a Missouri win nets 3 upset points.
2) West Virginia vs. 15) Morgan State - West Virginia. Da'Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks are first-round picks, and West Virginia plays great defense. They will be too intense for Morgan State.
Round 1 - South Region 1) Duke vs. 16) Arkansas-Pine Bluff - Dook. 1-Seeds don't lose 1-16 match ups.
8) California vs. 9) Louisville - I like the 'Ville. They have a senior at PG who has performed in the Tournament before; that have some decent scoring and rebounding down low; they play pressure defense; and they faced much better competition to get to this point. They also beat Syracuse twice, which I think speaks to the ceiling they can reach when playing well.
5) Texas A&M vs. 12) Utah State - A trendy upset pick because people don't really know much about A&M and Utah State has been good in the past. But I think we should go against the grain and take the A&M Aggies, a team that plays better defense and gets good guard play from senior Donald Sloan.
4) Purdue vs. 13) Siena - Purdue has literally limped into this Tournament now that Robbie Hummel is out. The Boilers have looked atrocious without him and got their doors blown off against a middling Minnesota team last weekend. I say we go with the upset points and pick Siena, which has the guards and the scoring to pull an upset.
6) Notre Dame vs. 11) Old Dominion - Another upset. Notre Dame wasn't even going to be in the Tournament two weeks ago and now it's a 6-Seed? No. The Irish have been up and down all year. Old Dominion, meanwhile, plays vastly better defense, has beaten Georgetown, and comes in just as hot as Notre Dame.
3) Baylor vs. 14) Sam Houston State - Too much size from Baylor.
7) Richmond vs. 10) Saint Mary's - This is a tough match up. Richmond has strong guards and is a darling, but Saint Mary's also has a nice backcourt. My gut says Richmond.
2) Villanova vs. 15) Robert Morris - Scottie Reynolds is not going out in the first round.
Round 1 - Midwest Region 1) Kansas vs. 16) Lehigh - Rock Chalk Jayhawk.
8) UNLV vs. 9) Northern Iowa - Northern Iowa in a defensive game.
5) Michigan State vs. 12) New Mexico State - I don't like doing this, but we need to pick the Spartans. They have been shaky, but they are talented, experienced in the backcourt, and deep.
4) Maryland vs. 13) Houston - Maryland is sort of like Michigan State, so we take the Terps.
6) Tennessee vs. 11) San Diego State - Upset pick. Tennessee's guards are suspect; the team has no depth; and they always play worse than expected. San Diego State, meanwhile, has athletic guards who aren't going to be thrown off by SEC talent. And I never trust Bruce Pearl.
3) Georgetown vs. 14) Ohio - Georgetown, which is erratic but has a high ceiling.
7) Oklahoma State vs. 10) Georgia Tech - James Anderson can fill...it..up for the Cowboys. And he has a great, great, great NBA frame. I like him to carry Oklahoma State past a Georgia Tech team that is too uninspired at times, despite having its own NBA guys.
2) Ohio State vs. 15) UC Santa Barbara - Nothing like a region in which we have to pick both Michigan State AND Ohio State to win. I hate my life.
Round 1 - West Region 1) Syracuse vs. 16) Vermont - Even with only 6 guys, the Cuse is talented enough to win. In Buffalo, NY.
8) Gonzaga vs. 9) Florida State - Florida State, because it plays excellent defense. Gonzaga is a good team, but it has some really bad losses this year, and I don't see this as a vintage Bulldogs squad. Gonzaga will win if it gets hot from outside, but I would rather take the chance on good defense over the chance of a team getting hot. Plus, FSU nets us an upset point.
5) Butler vs. 12) UTEP - Upset City, population Butler. (I think that the team which gets upset has to live in Upset City, right?) UTEP has the size to bang with Butler's Matt Howard and get him in foul trouble. It also has the guards to hang with a steady Butler team, and UTEP has played a better schedule. Here's the 5-12 magic.
4) Vanderbilt vs. 13) Murray State - And some 13-4 magic. Vanderbilt is shaky: doesn't rebound so well, needs to win the free throw line to win games, and doesn't defend all that well. Murray State, meanwhile, causes turnovers and gets to the offensive glass. I saw one statistical model that had this game picked as 1/3 chance that Murray State wins. That's insanely high for a 13-Seed. Let's roll the dice.
6) Xavier vs. 11) Minnesota - I like Xavier because Minnesota doesn't seem all that good. They are all over the place, and Xavier's guards seem better to me.
3) Pittsburgh vs. 14) Oakland - Let's take Pittsburgh, which is much more tenacious and can play a low scoring game if it has to.
7) BYU vs. 10) Florida - Florida is another team that probably shouldn't be in this tournament, while Brigham Young is a good, guard-led team from a conference that was fairly competitive and respectable. BYU gets it done.
2) Kansas State vs. 15) North Texas - Wildcats. Love their backcourt, love how they rebound and defend, love how crazy their coach is.
Round 2 - East Region 1) Kentucky vs. 8) Texas - Whatever time this game is on, be in front of your television. This game will have anywhere between 8 and 11 pros in it. It will feature the three best freshman PGs in the country (John Wall, Avery Bradley, Eric Bledsoe). It will have two of the best truly big men (Demarcus Cousins and Dexter Pittman). It will have two coaches I love to hate (Barnes and Calipari). Kentucky is going to win because it has Wall, and Wall is already a superstar. The Cats also have Pat Patterson, who I think can neutralize the key guy for Texas, Damion James. I can't wait for this game, and back in December, it would have easily been considered a likely national title match up.
5) Temple vs. 4) Wisconsin - Maybe a little less athletic than Kentucky-Texas? The pick is the Badgers, I think. Temple's defense isn't going to bother Wisconsin the way that it would some other teams, and I think the Flex offense and Wisconsin's discipline will allow them to exploit a better overall level of ability.
6) Marquette vs. 3) New Mexico - How about an upset? New Mexico played weaker teams than Marquette and was nonetheless pretty sloppy on offense. I think the hard-nosed Eagles will be too aggressive for the Lobos.
10) Missouri vs. 2) West Virginia - West Virginia, thanks to its defense and rebounding.
Round 2 - South Region 1) Duke vs. 9) Louisville - Duke. It finally has some big men who can guard another team's best post player without getting destroyed or disqualified for fouling out. Plus, in Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith, the Blue Devils have a nice triumvirate that can get 60 a game when they're on.
5) Texas A&M vs. 13) Siena - Let's hope that Siena gets hot and pulls off an upset for us. Judging from what I've seen this year and in the past, the Saints will be looking to run and gun. It leaves them susceptible to bouts of cold shooting, but A&M hasn't faired well against teams like Siena. I like the matchup. And if this is instead Siena against Utah State, I like Siena then, too.
11) Old Dominion vs. 3) Baylor - Baylor is a really efficient team on offense with the kind of size that a mid major like ODU can't match. The Bears will win.
7) Richmond vs. 2) Villanova - 'Nova pulls it together and makes it to Weekend #2.
Round 2 - Midwest Region 1) Kansas vs. 9) Northern Iowa - Kansas. Since November, the Jayhawks have been startlingly adept at playing almost any style of basketball. Against a disciplined, defense-oriented Northern Iowa team, I think Sherron Collins penetrating and feeding Cole Aldrich or the Morris brothers will be more than adequate.
5) Michigan State vs. 4) Maryland - Michigan State can come at teams in waves thanks to its depth and its quality front court. I think the Spartans, who always are physically strong and mentally tough, will win the rebounding battle and punish Maryland inside. Minor upset.
11) San Diego State vs. 3) Georgetown - This could be a dicey game for Georgetown if Chris Wright doesn't play well. SDSU has strong guards, and that's the only part of the Georgetown game that seems to come and go. That said, I think the Hoyas look good right now, and I like how Wright has been playing lately. Let's go with Georgetown.
7) Oklahoma State vs. 2) Ohio State - It's tempting to take Oklahoma State, but Ohio State has the guards to spread out the Cowboys and either penetrate or hit from long range. The Buckeyes are another team that is playing well right now, but hasn't needed a hot streak to earn its seed. Buckeyes are the pick.
Round 2 - West Region 1) Syracuse vs. 9) Florida State - No matter how well Florida State plays defense, Syracuse is going to probably match them, and the Cuse scores so much more easily in so many other ways. I think even without Onuaku, Syracuse will win, especially if it can run a little.
12) UTEP vs. 13) Murray State - I like UTEP. Again, good guards, some size inside, and a quality season spent playing tougher opponents.
6) Xavier vs. 3) Pittsburgh - Upset pick. Let's go with Xavier. I think it can bang well enough inside to allow its advantage in the backcourt to carry the day. There is no one in the Panther guard rotation who can really control or take over a game.
7) BYU vs. 2) Kansas State - Kansas State is the pick, on the strength of its defense.
Sweet Sixteen - East Region 1) Kentucky vs. 4) Wisconsin - I would like to take Wisconsin, thinking this could be one of those classic games in which a disciplined team of reasonable talent punishes a wildly talented team that is error prone. But I think Kentucky's advantages in speed and athleticism will be too much for the Badgers. I also like that Kentucky has won a lot of close games, even with freshmen, and was 8-1 against Tournament teams.
6) Marquette vs. 2) West Virginia - Ooh, a Big East showdown. Marquette likes to play a gritty, tough, slow game. Only, West Virginia can do it better, and Butler and Devin Ebanks give the Mountaineers two potential game breakers. Marquette doesn't have any.
Sweet Sixteen - South Region 1) Duke vs. 13) Siena - Duke wins thanks to guards who can hang with Siena's, big men who are bigger than Siena's, and the all court game of Singler, which Siena can't match. This is not a great Duke team; this is a very good Duke team that got a great draw.
3) Baylor vs. 2) Villanova - Baylor is a team that doesn't have a bad loss this year, is the fifth most efficient team on offense, and basically just couldn't beat the better teams on the road--it lost at Kansas, at A&M, at Oklahoma State. It beat pretty much everyone else everywhere, home and away. Luckily for the Bears, the regional final is in Houston. Playing in Texas against a team that has struggled with its defense will help Baylor, I would imagine. Bears win.
Sweet Sixteen - Midwest Region 1) Kansas vs. 5) Michigan State - All of the nice things I've written about Michigan State can also be said about Kansas--tough, good defense, good size, good depth. However, Kansas has players with higher ceilings who are also faster and more agile. If the Spartans try to run, Kansas will run away. If the Spartans play slowly, as it there wont, then Kansas will happily match that, too. I think Kansas is one of the most complete teams I've seen in years.
3) Georgetown vs. 2) Ohio State - Georgetown has shown that it can regularly raise its game to beat the best teams. In Wright, Freeman, and Greg Monroe, it has a great guard-wing-big combination. It plays disciplined, efficient offense, and it has been playing defense well lately. Ohio State, at its best, has not been as good as Georgetown has been when it has played at its best. Also, Ohio State has looked somewhat beatable against weaker teams in a weaker league. Let's get the upset point and take the Hoyas.
Sweet Sixteen - West Region 1) Syracuse vs. 12) UTEP - Theoretically, Onuaku will be back and healthy for the second weekend. If he's even only 75%, that's good enough in this game. Syracuse is deadly in transition, it can score from everywhere, and it presents match up problems due to the length of its wing players. I think they'll have the right combination to beat UTEP.
6) Xavier vs. 2) Kansas State - Kansas State will beat Xavier up on the glass, and they may even intimidate the Musketeers. Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente are the K State guards, and they are fearless and gritty. That's gonna help the Wildcats advance.
Elite Eight - East Region 1) Kentucky vs. 2) West Virginia - Many, many people like West Virginia because the team plays so hard, it has been tested by the Big East, and Da'Sean Butler has hit an astounding 6 game-winning shots this year. The Mountaineers just have the profile of a tough out, the sort that can frustrate a young team like the Wildcats. Having said that, Kentucky has lost twice this year. It has outclassed nearly everyone. And both Cousins and Wall, especially, have an ability to raise their games as necessary when dictated by circumstance. I like Kentucky to march on.
Elite Eight - South Region 1) Duke vs. 3) Baylor - I want to take Baylor because I never like Duke, but I think the Blue Devils enjoy an advantage at the guard spots, in experience, and in gumption. Guys like Singler and Scheyer make so many plays at the key moments. I think Duke's uncharacteristic depth, with 8 or 9 contributors, will allow them to take advantage of a more limited team once it finds the right lineup.
Elite Eight - Midwest Region 1) Kansas vs. 3) Georgetown - Kansas, for reasons previously stated. Monroe against Aldrich will also be a good NBA barometer for both players, and that should be fun to watch. Monroe is much more agile and quicker, but Aldrich is deceptively athletic for a big galoot. A key in this game that propels Kansas forward will probably be the shooting-guard slot. With Tyshawn Taylor and Xavier Henry, Kansas has size, speed, and shooting at that position which few teams can match.
Elite Eight - West Region 1) Syracuse vs. 2) Kansas State - Down goes a 1-Seed. We can't pick them all, and something about Syracuse bothers me. Kansas State has won on the road a lot this year, it has guards who won't be blown away by the Orange zone or the fastbreak, and it will not back down from anyone, inside or elsewhere. Combine that with this ineffable sense that Syracuse is maybe fading a little, and I think K State wins.
Final Four 1) Kentucky vs. 1) Duke - This game may be easier for Kentucky than the Regional Final. Wall and Bledsoe are so much faster at both ends than Scheyer and Smith. Cousins is the kind of big man who will not be bothered by Duke's Brian Zoubek and his size. In fact, Cousins is such a surly jerk that he'll probably enjoy taking Zoubek inside and destroying him. I get the sense that Kentucky will recognize its physical superiority once the game starts, find comfort in it, and pull away as time wears on.
1) Kansas vs. 2) Kansas State - Kansas has already beaten Kansas State three times. I suppose that might mean K State is due, but I prefer to think that it means K State just knows it can't win.
National Championship 1) Kentucky vs. 1) Kansas - Well, John Wall is better than everyone, so I suppose that means Kentucky has an advantage at PG. But Sherron Collins is pretty good, pretty fast, pretty strong, and pretty clutch, so the gap isn't all that wide. Kansas is a much more consistent perimeter shooting team. Kansas has no fewer than 4 big men it can rotate in and out to deal with Cousins and Patterson on one end while also making them work on defense. Kansas has a four guard rotation that can make it's way up to five, so it can probably rotate guys onto Bledsoe and Wall to avoid fatigue. And, as noted, Kansas can play every style imaginable. Collins is a senior, Aldrich is a junior, and Kansas has experience elsewhere. The Jayhawks have a more compelling case. They are our pick to win it all for the second time in three years. I can't believe I just wrote that about a program run by Bill Self.
Just now, ESPN had Hubert Davis and Digger Phelps "breaking down" the Tennessee-San Diego State game. So sayeth the great Oracle Phelps, about the Volunteers:
"Tennessee's gotta start. Why? Well don't forget--they* the one team that beat Kansas back when. But, when I look at--when I look at Tennessee, Wayne Chism, J.P. Prince, they gotta control points in the paint and get things gun.** Bobby May is a good guard. I think Tennessee knows now, 'Alright, let's get it done. Yeah'. Maybe--it's not Kentucky, so you don't have to worry about them right now. Get it done, and get this job done."
"Get it done, and get this job done." Let it ring out from balconies across the land--the nebulous, redundant, and meaningless exhortation for which Tennessee was waiting.
America, you, too, should heed the words of an analyst who possesses so much insight and such a wonderful gift for clarity. To listen to him speak is to understand basketball in a way that would make Naismith weep with envy. Tennessee is going to win this game today. Why? Because Digger knows the names of at least three of the Volunteer players. And better yet, because he has penetrated their shared psyche, seen deep into their collective mind, and extracted this inspired inner dialogue:
"Alright, let's get it done."
"Yeah."
So, pick Tennessee. They don't even have to worry about Kentucky! If only they were on a mission.
* Yes, he said "They the one team."
** No, he didn't say "gun;" it just sounded that way. He used some nonce word that combines "done" with a "g" sound in lieu of the "d." I just wrote it phonetically. What does this gun-sounding word mean? I would assume it's a combination of "going" and "done," a kind of mystical term that combines the worthlessness of "get it done" with the worthless kinetic sense of "get it going." But I really seem foolish speculating about how Digger's mind works. No one could possibly know but him. No one.
Last weekend, I was away from the STL and on a brief interweb hiatus. (You know, to the extent that a person obsessed with his BlackBerry can be.) When I returned to these tubes, I found that Lady Gaga, not Paul Wall, had the internets going nuts. The "Telephone" video had debuted. The Awl hosted a nice, albeit lengthy, conversation about the video, its imagery, and its place in the pop culture landscape. I don't think I can add much.
What I can say, though, is that the most interesting part of the video are the copycat, reaction, and tribute projects that it inspires on YouTube. It's no real revelation, but Lady Gaga is a marketing genius, in no small part because she seems to understand how social media work and how quickly opinions now travel. She said she wanted to create a stir--a real pop event--and she did. At least, online. But that is probably her most important venue, and for recognizing that, she is pretty interesting to observe. She makes catchy pop songs, but her real appeal, for me, is how she manages her career and cultivates her image. I wouldn't say I am a fan, but I am certainly an intrigued observer.
Particularly notable about Gaga is that her mainstream appeal--fueled by her music, her race, her packaging, her choreographed risk taking--enables her stunts to resonate in ways that those of lesser-known artists cannot. That, too, is no discovery, but it is something to which I constantly return as I compare her cultural impact to that of someone like Lil' Wayne. Wayne is another artist who blends earnest musical curiosity with calculated career manipulation. Only, he doesn't reach the same audience, and people don't see him as a stylistic innovator. Some of that is a choice; he hasn't set out to be some avatar of style. Yet, Wayne rules the interwebs and general consensus like almost no other rapper, and still, he casts a far smaller shadow than Gaga.
How many functioning neurons do you have in your brain, Richard?
Yesterday, I received an email from someone asking how, exactly, I ever got anyone to pay attention to Straight Bangin' since I don't write very often. It was an honest question, so I incurred no true insult nor felt compelled to reach for the Kevlar, but it did force me to sit with the sad reality that I used to be a more frequent writer and a more enthusiastic blogger. In my defense, times have been tight. Literally. Since starting school and assuming a lifestyle in which the next assignment is always hanging like a sword of Damocles, time for good blogging is scarce. 5,000 words about the latest Consequence mixtape are hard to come by when you need to write a brief or prepare for the byzantine world of Securities Regulation. You know?
But I come not to find sympathy or to happen upon a sea of compliments. (No, fam, your site is still teh omg coolest.) Rather, I used my brief, sad journey into blog self-assessment to realize one startling truth: it has been far too long since I made fun of Digger Phelps.
When we last meaningfullyvisited with the man who has done more to ruin English than any other native speaker in recent memory, he was fouling up common expressions, dropping cliches, and indiscriminately vomiting up incoherent facts in a desperate attempt to appear credible. So, what's new? I watched the final 20 minutes of ESPN's Bracketology show on Monday to investigate. Here's Digger on potential 5-12 upsets in this year's NCAA Tournament field:
"And I agree with you, 'cuz we go back to when the Jimmy V was on--uh, you know, Butler struggled with Georgetown. Why? Greg Monroe. And Derrick Caracter, who played at Louisville, the transfer, he's that type of player. I agree with you--I think UTEP, who won the Conference USA outright, that's, the team there. Cornell, I may or may not, but I still love Temple, I really do. I don't think that's the one I'd go with. When I look at the other two match ups--um--I just don't see it happening. I don't know if Utah State, Texas A&M, Donald Sloan, I think he's just too good a player. I can't see A&M going down. So I just say maybe one of the 12-5 upsets this year."
Hmmm...Kudos...to...Digger? Did I really just have to write that? I feel nauseous, but it's deserved. That was pretty clean, no? He avoided the malapropisms, he wasn't too slowed down by a morass of hackneyed expressions, and he kept the discursive and useless facts to a minimum. His bit about Derrick Caracter playing at Louisville was probably unimportant. However, let's generously look upon Digger with benign understanding this time. He was (hopefully) trying to establish context for Caracter's ability by highlighting that he was a Big East-caliber player, not dissimilar from Monroe.
Anyone who watched the show live heard the wheels starting to come off toward the end, as he fell into his cherished habit of just saying names in a string and hoping for the best: "Utah State, Texas A&M, Donald Sloan." Word association! Nice job; someone earned a cookie. Were it not so galling that ESPN has anointed Phelps as an "expert," and not so insulting that it makes him a staple of the company's top-tier college hoops broadcast, seeing the gears in his head turning so transparently would almost be cute. He so obviously just rambles on hoping to find his footing and a way out of the mess his feeble mind creates.
But fine, I'll admit it--no major accidents in that segment. How about we close out the show with our Final Four picks? Digger, have you been saving any of your laughable platitudes? And feel free to let your obvious contempt for punctuation really shine through (emphasis and colors added):
"But I agree with you on the experience factor. I think Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich, when you look at Kansas, obviously that's a team, as we take a look at what they gotta go through. I love Evan Turner and Ohio State, but I really think Kansas takes care of business in that big match up. Syracuse-Kansas State--Syracuse is playing well, I don't think Kansas State can handle that zone, Syracuse will move on in that situation. Now with Kentucky and West Virginia--Kentucky is on a mission. I know Da'Sean Butler can make things happen, but Kentucky, to me, is the team that's gonna make the noise, with John Wall and Company. And when you look at Duke and Villanova--yes, as good as Duke is, Villanova's guards will get it done. I think Villanova gets that chance to get back to the Final Four, like they did last year, but more importantly, as we take a look at Kansas and Syracuse, Kansas is on this mission. Sherron Collins knows he wants to get to that title game. And Kentucky-Villanova? No match. I think John Wall and Company take care of business. John Calipari knows that, but in the national championship game, it's experience of the seniors goin' against the youth, the three freshman starters from Kentucky. I'm goin' with Kansas to win the National Title."
Yes! Where do we even begin?
First, "on a mission." Who isn't on one? Digger is constantly eschewing any kind of actual basketball insight for this simple but irrefutable assertion. "Team X is on a mission." Presumably, the mission is to win the national title, but it's hard to say since Digger uses "on a mission" to mean almost anything that relates to why the team he's picking is superior. A good game show idea might be getting Digger to talk about the NCAA Tournament and then to explain the Crusades. Contestants would listen to snippets of Digger talking and then have a fixed amount of time during which they had to decide if he was discussing basketball or holy war.
Second, the "but." Ohhhhh, Digger. You and your "but" kill me. (Pause.) Before Digger was talking, Jay Bilas was picking Kansas to win the Tournament. He said that Kansas's experience was a critical asset. And Digger was agreeing. Only, Digger doesn't understand how to talk, and simple conjunctions confuse him, so he uses "but" as a catch-all word when he either means "and" or doesn't need to say anything of the sort. He gets them right sometimes, but usually it's a coin flip. In this case, "I agree with you" would have been sufficient. Only, Digger apparently doesn't know that because segment after segment and night after night, he's saying "but" to mean "yes," "and," "maybe," and almost anything else. He sort of does it again in his last sentence, shoehorning "but" into a place where it isn't necessary. "But" is like Digger's version of "shalom," a utility word.
Third, the text in blue. "Sherron Collins knows he wants to get to that title game." Is that analysis? Is that meaningful in any way? Is there a player in the Tournament who isn't certain that he wants to get to the title game? Maybe, like, a guy who is ambivalent about it? A guy only knows for sure that he wants to be well hydrated before he takes the floor, but can't yet commit to wanting to win at least five games? Same kind of questions regarding what Calipari knows: does Coach Cal know Kentucky will beat Villanova? Or, does he know that Digger thinks this will happen? Further, Digger followed up this statement with a "but." I think we're left to wonder, then, if the dichotomy of experience versus youth that Digger described is tacitly acknowledge to be a counterweight to Coach Cal's knowledge that Digger thinks Kentucky will beat Villanova. And also...WHAT?!
Fourth, and finally (because my head is hurting), the sentence in red. What is the idea being expressed there? Might it be conditional, as in: When looking at Kansas and considering what it will have to conquer, it's obvious to Digger that Collins and Aldrich are a team. That makes no sense, of course, and oddly, that makes sense. There are a lot of weird clauses and too few verbs, I think. Any help, folks?
It's nice to be back with Digger. I love March because it gives us some quality time together when I can give him the attention that he deserves.
A month ago, Matt Taibbi unleashed his latest polemic about Wall Street bankers. Taibbi says that within a year of the 2008 financial collapse, Goldman Sachs and other banks were sewing seeds of another collapse in the burnt field of economic destruction, motivated by unrepentant greed and never impeded by hard lessons learned.
The piece didn't make an impact among economic thinkers and writers commensurate with those leveled by earlier Taibbi stories about America's economic failing. Taibbi, so forceful and colorful and angry, can come across as hysterical, and I suspect that people--especially would-be antagonists and enemies--find it easier to quietly acknowledge his smart writing as more of the same rather than treating each missive as an event in enterprise reporting. Taibbi also can play "fast and loose" with facts, something that not only undermines his reporting, but allows for detractors to dismiss him more easily.
Fast and loose can be a horrible journalistic transgression. Liberals and conservatives, smart and stupid, those with and without agendas--everyone can be undone by telling a misleading story. Only, the thing with Taibbi is that the latitude he takes in his stories does not invalidate the big ideas which are probably his most important contributions to dialogue. Take these excerpts from the Taibbi piece as examples (emphasis added):
When Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley got their federal bank charters, they joined Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase and the other banking titans who could go to the Fed and borrow massive amounts of money at interest rates that, thanks to the aggressive rate-cutting policies of Fed chief Ben Bernanke during the crisis, soon sank to zero percent....
In fact, the Fed became not just a source of emergency borrowing that enabled Goldman and Morgan Stanley to stave off disaster — it became a source of long-term guaranteed income. Borrowing at zero percent interest, banks like Goldman now had virtually infinite ways to make money. In one of the most common maneuvers, they simply took the money they borrowed from the government at zero percent and lent it back to the government by buying Treasury bills that paid interest of three or four percent. It was basically a license to print money — no different than attaching an ATM to the side of the Federal Reserve. ... The ploy worked. In March of last year, the Fed sharply expanded a radical new program called quantitative easing, which effectively operated as a real-live Rumanian Box. The government put stacks of paper in one side, and out came $1.2 trillion "real" dollars.
The government used some of that freshly printed money to prop itself up by purchasing Treasury bonds — a desperation move, since Washington's demand for cash was so great post-Clusterfuck '08 that even the Chinese couldn't buy U.S. debt fast enough to keep America afloat. But the Fed used most of the new cash to buy mortgage-backed securities in an effort to spur home lending — instantly creating a massive market for major banks.
And what did the banks do with the proceeds? Among other things, they bought Treasury bonds, essentially lending the money back to the government, at interest. ... Say you're working for the commodities desk of a big investment bank, and a major client — a pension fund, perhaps — calls you up and asks you to buy a billion dollars of oil futures for them. Once you place that huge order, the price of those futures is almost guaranteed to go up. If the guy in charge of asset management a few desks down from you somehow finds out about that, he can make a fortune for the bank by betting ahead of that client of yours. The deal would be instantaneous and undetectable, and it would offer huge profits. Your own client would lose money, of course — he'd end up paying a higher price for the oil futures he ordered, because you would have driven up the price. But that doesn't keep banks from screwing their own customers in this very way.
The scam is so blatant that Goldman Sachs actually warns its clients that something along these lines might happen to them. In the disclosure section at the back of a research paper the bank issued on January 15th, Goldman advises clients to buy some dubious high-yield bonds while admitting that the bank itself may bet against those same shitty bonds. "Our salespeople, traders and other professionals may provide oral or written market commentary or trading strategies to our clients and our proprietary trading desks that reflect opinions that are contrary to the opinions expressed in this research," the disclosure reads. "Our asset-management area, our proprietary-trading desks and investing businesses may make investment decisions that are inconsistent with the recommendations or views expressed in this research."
Quibble with Taibbi as you will. His story does not purport to give every concerned party an equal voice, and I am sure Timothy Geithner would disagree with many of these characterizations. Further, I don't think Barack Obama, Geithner, and Lawrence Summers have purposely sought to enrich Wall Street while accepting everyone else's well-being as collateral. But none of those criticisms or qualifications outweigh the benefit delivered by Taibbi's reporting. Why do we want to print money for bankers to sell back at a profit if it is potentially destabilizing the U.S. and trammeling upon international economic policy? If it isn't generating job growth or a housing stabilization? Doesn't it behoove all of us to question the fiscal and monetary policies that have allowed banks to report soaring profits as everything else around us continues to smolder in ruin? This, alone, is a tremendous service performed by Taibbi.
I was reminded of the Taibbi story today as I read the Times piece about the specter of the U.S. suffering a credit-rating downgrade. The story presents a basic problem: the U.S. is now somewhat more likely to see its debt grow too great, something that the economic crisis has worsened and that appears to only be exacerbated by the sort of borrowed-time financial tricks that banks have exploited.
As you all go about your business wrapping up this work week and doing whatever the Straight Bangin' readership does on weekends (watch TV and listen to D-Block records), I thought I might impose upon you with two items stuck in my craw. (Is that still a term?)
First, the myth of physical brawn being the equivalent of basketball "toughness" needs to die. Strength and size are obvious sports commodities. In basketball, it's nice to have someone on the wing big enough to bother shots and strong enough to bump guys off the ball or out of their spots. Just as it's nice to have someone who will intimidate at the rim by knocking guys down and fighting for position. But being a physical brute isn't the same thing as being tough.
Take that from someone who grew up watching the Knicks spend season after season hoping otherwise. Charles Oakley, and Anthony Mason, and Patrick Ewing, and Larry Johnson, and whomever else you want to mention were all big dudes who played physical basketball. They took pride in being intimidating and in all but wrestling with their opponents. But those muscles and that violence never made them mentally stronger than Michael Jordan or Hakeem Olajuwon. And it never intimidated Reggie Miller or Alonzo Mourning to the point that they couldn't beat the Knicks. Moreover, it didn't prevent errors, put Charles Smith layups in the basket, or help Ewing ever deliver on any of his promises. Being strong can psych out another team, but it doesn't necessarily make you tough. And, it doesn't matter against players and teams that already know they're mentally prepared for winning.
This is relevant because the otherwise perceptive Chris Mannix revived the tired strength-equals-toughness meme in this story about the Mavs becoming a "tougher" team. His thesis is that Caron Butler, DeShawn Stevenson, and Brendan Haywood all possess the size necessary to play better defense and a more physical style of basketball. And, he concludes, that size and strength make the Mavericks tougher, finally capable of matching up with the Lakers.
I agree that the Mavs now have a lineup better equipped to challenge the Lakers, but I don't know if Dallas is suddenly "tougher." I don't know that fouling Pau Gasol harder than usual, or fighting Ron Artest on the wing more brutally, is going to prove anything. True toughness is the kind the Lakers have already demonstrated--the kind that keeps Kobe hitting game winners and the Lakers playing through problems steeled by the confidence that they can persevere for having already done so. That's toughness. Toughness is knowing you're going to get fouled and going the rim regardless, or hitting shots in the face of a defense designed to stop them. Toughness is finding ways to secure that loose ball or blocking out the pressure of the moment and just playing. Acquiring taller, wider players at center and shooting guard, alone, doesn't deliver those things.
"People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African American," Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter says. "They're not us. They're impostors.
"Even people I know come up and say, 'Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?' I say, 'Come on, he's Dominican. He's not black.' "
Baseball's African-American population is 8%, compared with 28% for foreign players on last year's opening-day rosters.
"As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us," Hunter says. "It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?'
"I'm telling you, it's sad."
Using the word "impostor" was probably not a good choice, as it might imply a conscious decision on the part of Latin players to usurp the positions of African-American players. And that's obviously not the case. There is not a race-based clandestine baseball conspiracy taking place.
Having said that--why are people so upset about what Hunter said? He was talking about the dearth of American-born black players in baseball, a much larger conversation. He was bemoaning that fact, and he candidly discussed how easy it might be to mistake foreign-born players as American blacks based solely on phenotype. Further, he's probably right. I don't follow baseball closely, so disabuse me as necessary, but assuming that MLB teams are opting to employ players with the requisite talent, isn't it probably cheaper and easier for owners to stock their rosters with foreign-born players who can make fewer demands? I don't think Hunter was equating Latin players with bags of chips. Nor do I think he was making some racist comment about diet. I read his observation as a criticism of baseball owners and the infrastructure upon which MLB teams rely to find and secure talent from overseas.
As Hunter noted, this is why players can be reticent with the press. And as I will note, this is why problems of race are so persistent and so volatile. Most of the time, people are punished for being honest.
Oh, and apropos of nothing... This quote is just great. Darko Milicic on Larry Brown:
"He is a guy who doesn't understand anything, a guy who can't understand what kind of player you are. Even if I made a shot, he'd tell me it was not a good shot."
Michael Steele is hilarious. That is a disarming truth because we don't commonly ascribe a keen sense of humor to most prominent political figures. We certainly don't conjure images of some jovial joke man when considering those who are fit to lead the staid, conservative, old-boy G.O.P. For example, picturing John McCain laughing is like envisioning an infant Benjamin Button smugly clearing his throat. But Steele is a riot, and that's part of why he's such a compelling presence.
Dude is hysterical. Since he ascended to RNC Chairman, almost all of his public appearances and statements have made me smile if not laugh out loud. He says stuff about global warming like, "We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long."
My favorite part of his comedic range, though, is his hip-hop vocabulary. He called Obama's stimulus plan "bling bling"; he said that he was planning an "off the hook" public-relations campaign; and, best of all, he said this:
Steele thinks that dropping hip-hop neologisms engages young voters, changes the tenor of political debate, and seizes some ineffable political energy away from the Democrats. At first, I thought he was joking, or pursuing some misguided strategy to prove his racial bonafides to his white friends, but I now just think that Michael Steele is a comically out-of-touch idiot. And I love him for that, because he might be the funniest comedian working today.
I couldn't recall anyone quite like Steele until I remembered the Diplomats' European Bureau Chiefs, S.A.S. I listened to their newest song, "Foreign Exchange," and it hit me: they are hip-hop's Michael Steele. Just as Steele's "dope" hip-hop "jive" sounds like he's reading a book that was meant to accompany his original copy of Wild Style, so, too, do S.A.S. always come off as these third-rate interlopers following an outdated manual and imitating what they've seen in rap videos. Listen to this mish-mosh of a song:
Did you catch all that? I understand if you didn't--the second half is in Russian and German (I think). Aside from the "Frank White," "Jay-Z, Nas, Jadakiss...and 50 Cent" name checks, that is. I guess those don't properly translate.
But seriously...did you hear this? Look past Cam's opening verse for a minute.
- "Hustling" for checks? Check
- White girls and white gold? Check
- Swagger jacking? Check
- Drug reference that plays on key-and-lock imagery? Check
- Not-so-witty punch lines ("From their chicks/Get interest/Federal Reserve") meant to seem smart? Check
- Tired reference to an American mafioso? Check
Sometimes, I hear these S.A.S. songs and I start to chuckle. They sound like victims of a scam. I always picture Cam'ron and Jim Jones sitting around someone's kitchen table up in Harlem back in 2004 making cold calls to random people in Europe trying to sell the Dipset Starter Kit. And of course, S.A.S. were the only two idiots dumb enough to wire the money in advance of shipment. For their troubles, and an easy, one-time payment of $449.99, S.A.S. received:
- Dipset Verse Madlibs to help any aspiring MC concoct those "def" and "fresh" "uptown verses" that are "back like cooked crack";
- A mini keyboard preprogrammed with knockoff Heatmakerz beats that included Beat One (Chipmunk Soul), Beat Two (Gothic Orchestral), and Beat Three (Tinny Electronic-ish);
- Diplomat trading cards, featuring all of your favorite members of the Set, like Hell Rell, Un Kasa, 40 Cal, and Jha Jha;
- A pink Range Rover paper weight for your desk;
- The Diplomat belt buckle and replica toy Ruger;
- An "iced out" "platinum" (really plastic) chain with the official Diplomats eagle crest;
- Official Diplomat badges housed in leather cases--the "bling" you could "floss" for your friends to show that you were legit, 100% Dipset.
And like that--poof!--their careers were born.
Am I wrong? That's so Steele, too. He probably bought one of the kits off of eBay when he became RNC chairman. Fuck, even this is Steele-like:
I went looking for "Foreign Exchange" on YouTube and found that message. Think how excited S.A.S. must have been when they got to be called "S.A.S. Eurogang" on something as official as a YouTube legal disclaimer. They really had arrived! Steele would accept no less as proof that he was "poppin' and breakin' with young folks on the YouTube" or some shit.
Anyway, were they not already hilariously goofy for being so derivative and such charlatans, S.A.S. also can't get past being oh so European. Or, at least, what a twelve-year-old American growing up on a steady diet of Bond movies and spy novels thinks a European should be. According to "Foreign Exchange," S.A.S. and friends are posted up in Poland and Russia when they're not raving in Sicily or chilling in Germany. It's that easy. Boom! International playboys. (Look past the fact that they think they're cool for doing all of this while listening to Fabolous's Loso's Way. That's like bragging about the time you partied in New York at a club that was spinning the worst album from England's 87th-best Oasis tribute band.) Even better, they construct this juvenile fantasy with an American audience in mind. So really, the life they describe is what actual Europeans think generic Americans raised on spy movies want to hear about how their exported hip-hop culture is assimilated, and the actual Europeans arrive at this conclusion by extrapolating what Americans expect of the Europeans based on an American's artificial understanding of Europe in the first place. (Catch your breath.) Here's the utimate proof: when S.A.S. isn't dropping their linguistic anachronisms, they're rhyming "alopecia" and calling people "foul creatures." You know, because that's how they would do it in America. What a mess of a song, of a group, of a career. I love it.
Finally, about Cam's verse: it sounded like a D-game effort to me, but then I saw some siteslauding him for "go[ing] in." How is this an example of Cam'ron going in? His simple rhyme construction and indifferent narration is suddenly the best we can hope for? If that's the case, the sad unraveling of Cam'ron continues.
Oh, and P.S. This is not a criticism, but isn't funny that there remains a site called Just Dipset? I guess someone needs to chronicle the careers of Vado and A-Mafia. I miss 2005.
I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story.
And I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen...
CANNONBALL!
And by "CANNONBALL," I mean that I need to take a moment to acknowledge a website that seemed like it would never arrive.
For years, I have cultivated a creepy and hilarious-for-me hobby: I troll through Yahoo! Answers looking for the funniest questions and responses. It's really no mystery that Y!A is a prolific exhibition of human stupidity, a not-so-carefully curated display of actual everyday ignorance that astounds for being stranger than fiction. And so, for years, I have looked on as people have asked the internets public to help solve problems ranging from how to tell if you've lost a tampon inside of yourself to whether it's a good idea to eat poison "just to see what happens." Amidst my uncontrolled laughter and sometimes even tears, I would email friends to share in the mirth and to rhetorically wonder when some intrepid blogger would create a website dedicated to capturing the best of the worst.
That site finally exists, and it is every bit as awesome as I'd always dreamed. This is my white whale; my life's passion manifest; my Jerusalem. For anyone not yet hip to it, I present Yahoo! Answer Fail:
Thank you, Person Who Created This Site. You have unquestionably improved my life, rewarded my faith, and delivered upon the promise of the internets. Were it among my powers, I would award you the Al Gore Memorial Award for Excellence in Internets Achievement.
My heart broke for the first time on the corner of 86th and Broadway back in the early fall of 1998. I was walking past a newsstand that had magazines adorning the lip of its awning, and there it was, the most tragic magazine cover I ever had seen:
These days, we already have begun to take for granted how much access the general public has to celebrities and the entertainment industry. Websites that carry daily updates about music, movies, and sports shine light in areas that used to exist far beyond common sight. For example, videos captured in recording studios and photos taken by artists as they do whatever it is that they do all day are commonplace. But in 1998, the world was still largely offline. A high-school rap fan had to read The Source, had to scour nascent message boards with information of dubious provenance, had to listen to the radio, and had to rely on record-store conversation to find whatever sustenance might satiate his appetite in between records and mixtapes.
Tribe broke up?!
That image was devastating because it was sudden, devoid of context, and almost menacing given how little else I could learn about what had happened. Before laying my eyes on that haunting headline, I was content to just listen to the music and hope for more of the good stuff, whenever Ali, Tip, and Phife got around to making it.
Tribe's breakup has remained resonant for two reasons: First, they were, and are, my favorite rap group of all time. Second, Tribe was a constant companion for me as I made my way through the world. I heard Low End Theory as a nine-year-old and was suddenly smitten with hip-hop. I earned props from older kids for knowing all the words to Midnight Marauders. I had the meta experience of recognizing that I was carving out a niche for myself when I spent one summer away at camp celebrating Beats, Rhymes, and Life with a friend as though we were members of a secret society. Tribe's music, Tribe's presence--those were anchors for me. That Source cover set me adrift for a little while, and in retrospect, it created a line of demarcation that separated one stage of my life from another.
HBO's excellent Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals highlighted more of the dividing lines in my life. 90 minutes of archive game footage and interviews celebrating Magic and Bird's talents and relationship felt like a sublime vacation spent in my childhood. Sort of. I was born in 1981, and I wasn't basketball conscious until I was 5 or 6. I know this because my father is still horrified that he heard his young son chanting "Barkley sucks" and "bullshit" at a Knicks game when Charles was only beginning to emerge as a star and, apparently, to get questionable calls on opposing teams' floors. Similarly, I remember being at the Garden on the night of November 7, 1991 and being stopped, along with my dad, by a relatively young New York Times reporter named William Rhoden. He wanted to ask two basketball fans what they thought about Magic's announcement earlier in the day that he had "attained" HIV.
My father and I had heard the news about Magic on the radio while heading to the Knicks game that night. I was 10, and I knew that HIV and AIDS could kill a person, but not much else. I recall thinking that I needed to be sad because everyone else seemed to be. I also remember feeling confused about what it meant to basketball that Magic Johnson was retiring. I had come into a basketball life understanding a few foundational principles: you had to have a good left hand; Pete Maravich is underrated; Wilt was like no one else; Russell always won; Michael was the best player in the NBA; and Magic and Larry Bird were two of the ten best players ever. I knew these things. There was no debate. So for me, to think about basketball without Magic Johnson created the uncomfortable ambiguity and confusion that children tend to hate. (I still hate ambiguity, for the record.) I liked it when things were settled.
Time wore on, and I grew up (a little). My adolesence was spent amid the current basketball events of Jordan's reign, Hakeem's ascendancy, Shaq's arrival, and so forth. But like Tribe's music, the accepted truism that Magic and Larry had saved the NBA was a guidepost. It was comforting because it was an established notion to which I could moor my personal basketball ideology. As I've become better educated, better challenged, and hopefully more thoughtful, I've learned to question authority and to probe decided matters of opinion. (For instance, after a bitter process of reflection, I no longer think Trent Tucker should be in the Hall of Fame.) However, the historical singularity of Magic and Bird has remained a cornerstone, and it has become a cherished token of nostalgia. I think about the way things were, and the way I was, and I can use Magic and Larry to help me navigate the terrain. Courtship of Rivals is a wonderful indulgence for someone like me.
Unintentionally, the movie also was forward looking in a sad way. I watched it after reading the discouraging news about Allen Iverson's suspected alcoholism and gambling addiction. I have no connection to Georgetown, I don't particularly like any team from Philadelphia, and my brand of basketball ideology never allowed me to wholly look beyond the selfish parts of Iverson's game while attempting to sanctify him. Nonetheless, from the time I saw Allen in those Jordan XI's and that high-fade haircut, I have quietly loved him. I would never cite AI as one of my favorite players, I would not openly celebrate my passion for the man, I wouldn't root for his teams. However, I cherished having him around. His basketball style, his unique place in the sociocultural milieu, his confidence occupying that niche--he was a boon to my general experience. During the lengthy process of my own self-realization, I could rely on a few things, and among them was that Allen Iverson was going to do Allen Iversion, and I would reap the benefits as his impact rippled out across basketball, hip-hop, politics, and American life.
Allen Iverson has been an agent of cultural and basketball change. Allen also has been an ambassador for a particular experience informed by his race, his job, his background, his fame, his wealth. And the whole time, he's been mine. Many other people probably share this feeling of fond ownership because Iverson has embodied a specific era for those of us who follow basketball with a particular perspective that emphasizes the culture that supplements the sport. Though not as accomplished or beloved as Magic and Bird, Iverson will still assume a distinct position in my personal history akin to the one from which Magic and Bird have anchored my individual basketball orthodoxy. As a result, the troubling news from the weekend was never far from my mind as I watched Courtship of Rivals because a new, sad line likely has been drawn.
