While last night's game was a lot closer and more tense than it needed to be, I came away feeling pretty good about it overall. Amare contributed more than it seemed like he did, Shawn played an efficient game, Steve was excellent in everything but his way-too-high turnover total, Barbosa and Diaw were solid, and we got more out of Marcus Banks in 14 minutes than we did all of last season (and at a critical point, too!). Obviously, Marcus won't be shooting 4/5 on threes in every game, but he doesn't need to in order to be useful.
The best sign was actually this: no one played more than 34 minutes in the game, even though it was close until the very end. My theory is that the reason the Spurs perform so much better in the second half of every season and the playoffs is that they limit all of their players to the low thirties in minutes per game. Thus, by the end of the season, they're much fresher than the competition each night, and in the playoffs they start to play everyone 35-40 minutes and become much better than their regular season performance would lead you to believe. Mike D'Antoni is a smart guy, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's noticed this tactic and is going to adopt it himself. The only problem, of course, is that we aren't all that deep, but I still think that it's worth the potential sacrifice of a few regular season wins.
As for the bad, well, Raja didn't play very well on offense, but I doubt that he's lost his shot completely. We missed more free throws and committed more turnovers than normal, but I expect those things to fix themselves as well. More worrisome was giving up so such a good game to Chris Wilcox in the post. I'm much more bothered by getting abused down low than by Kevin Durant, who was awesome but not that awesome; he didn't get many free throws with all those unblockable jumpers, and he committed 6 TOs. Still, he looks like a fantastic player.
By far the biggest worry, though, is Grant Hill going 1-7 on threes. They were wide open, too, with the Sonics clearly conceding that shot and not even running out to challenge most of the attempts. He still played a decent game because he made almost all of his twos, but that's not gonna happen every night. He needs to get up to at least 35% on threes to become maximally effective for the Suns, and that could be tough given his career 25.1% rate. On the other hand, he probably wasn't shooting wide open three pointers during the other parts of his career like Suns perimeter players get, so maybe there's hope, at least if he concentrates on the corners like Bruce Bowen.
If Hill can hit the threes and D'Antoni can keep the minutes down, I think we can be right back up at the top. Then there's my other dream: the Sonics buy out Kurt Thomas around mideseason because, really, they have no use for him whatsoever...and he comes back to play for the Suns on the cheap. He's not gonna get the chance to shoot as many wide open 15-footers anywhere else, and he'd be sure to get some playing time as our only other credible center. It's probably not going to happen at all, but hey, I can hope.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Arkansas roots finally showing?
I didn't watch the debates last night, so I don't know how representative this photo is, but man:
That's a fine mullet. Where's her Camaro?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Ah, My Libertarian Blood Doth Boil...
I'm writing an article on egg donation for my company, and in my research I came across this USA Today article on the subject. To me, the whole thing seems pretty slanted towards the "ZOMG TEH EGGZ IZ BEEING SOLED!!!!!!" angle, but this line really got me:
Reynolds says that as bounties for eggs rise, more students and other financially strapped women will be tempted by a procedure they'd otherwise reject.I hate to point this out -- no wait, I love to point this out -- but everyone who has ever held a job does things that she would otherwise reject but for the love of lucre (or, to put it more sympathetically, food and shelter). Would I get up at 7am and drive halfway across the city to sit at a desk and edit other people's writing if I weren't getting paid? Hell no. Would I be more inclined to do it if someone were willing to pay me even more? Hell yes. If this Reynolds is consistent, then I guess he must feel morally troubled about the fact that he receives paychecks for hours worked on days when he'd really rather have stayed home and played with the kids (or shagged the wife, for that matter). After all, only the compulsion to earn a living made him do it.
A-Rod's Contract
For the record: I think the announcement last night (essentially made by Boras via trusting media mouthpieces) that A-Rod will opt out is a negotiating tactic rather than a guarantee. Note that he has not actually done so yet. I think that Boras realized that, with the Yankees publicly announcing that they would not re-sign A-Rod if he terminated his contract, he was on poor negotiating ground. As perhaps the only team willing and able to break the bank for his client, the Yankees were forcing Boras to negotiate with them alone, potentially saving themselves a fair bit of money (remember how the Red Sox last season forced Daisuke and Boras to accept their offer by taking advantage of their sole negotiating rights). This announcement sounds like a classic Boras scare tactic designed to make the Yankees increase their offer in order to avoid losing A-Rod altogether. Given that the man is a master of public stunts and clever feints, I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear a new announcement in a few days saying, "Well, the Yankees recognized that they couldn't afford to lose such a great asset, so they made a great offer, and Alex decided that that was enough." This announcement will come even if A-Rod receives a deal no larger than the one already rumored to have been offered, as Boras is Bush-like in spinning every defeat as a victory.
P.S. - I am just shocked, SHOCKED that Boras would leak this news during the deciding game of the World Series, when it would receive maximum media exposure. Even more hilarious is the suggestion that poor A-Rod just can't stand to commit himself to the uncertain future of the Yankees because of his concern for his dear teammates, who probably can't stand him.
P.S. - I am just shocked, SHOCKED that Boras would leak this news during the deciding game of the World Series, when it would receive maximum media exposure. Even more hilarious is the suggestion that poor A-Rod just can't stand to commit himself to the uncertain future of the Yankees because of his concern for his dear teammates, who probably can't stand him.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Holy Crap!
I'm sure that everyone's seen this a million times, but it's worth watching yet one time more. Almost as great as the play itself (over a minute long!) is the play-by-play guy. After the touchdown, he yells a lot and does well enough with the moment for half a minute, and then he slows down for a second, and then the awesomeness of the play hits him again and he realizes that his call is going to get played a billion times on SportsCenter, so he starts yelling things again, over and over, hoping that something classic will accidentally fall from his lips, and soon he sounds like a robot stuck on Shout Mode. In a way, the call resembles the play itself: ugly, preposterously long, and amazing to experience nonetheless.
Unsportsmanlike Conduct
That must be one of the world's great misnomers. Since pretty much no one else on earth, other than perhaps videogamers, performs the actions so labelled (screaming and gesticulating wildly after accomplishing a routine work task), it really ought to be called "sportsmanlike conduct." In fact, if I were to stand up, shout, and perform a choreographed dance the next time that I, say, wrote a webpage at work, I'm quite sure that someone would say, "He's acting like he just scored a touchdown or something."
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Saddest Thing of the Year 2007
Go ahead and close the voting, because it just happened, and I don't foresee anything topping it.
World Series Game One
Obviously, I'm pleased with the result, but I couldn't really take that much joy from watching the Rockies get beaten senseless. In the fifth, with the three straight run-scoring walks, it just got painful, like watching an animal get tortured. I actually started rooting for someone, anyone on the Rockies to induce an out. The Rockies and their fans are good people who deserve better. At least when we swept the Cardinals three years ago, the Sox definitely had more good karma built up and had the satisfaction of shoving it in the face of that slimy prick Tony La Russa.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
On Being a Baseball Fan
I was listening to Bill Simmons' recent podcast with Seth Meyers recently, and I realized that his entire analysis of baseball players boils down to "I am [terrified/supremely confident] when this guy is [hitting/pitching]." While I think that this is a fairly terrible way to evaluate actual player performance, I can understand the temptation to think this way. A baseball game that you care about is essentially a sequence of encounters in which you feel varying levels of comfort and trepidation, and the interaction of these sensations defines the dramatic arc of the game. There are also bursts of euphoria and horror that accompany the outcomes of these events, but these are short-lived, and they quickly give way to the feelings that arise from events to come rather than events that were.
Of course, all sports (or at least the sports events that you are emotionally invested in) manipulate the viewer in this same fashion, but I think that this dynamic supercedes all else in baseball to a greater extent than in other sports for a number of reasons. First of all, there are relatively few events in a baseball game as compared to other sports, and the periods of time between these events are much longer. Thus, you have more dead space to fill with foreboding or expectation, and there is little else to distract you (other than the inane musings of Tim McCarver or, especially when watching an HD broadcast, the number of pimples on Jonathan Papelbon's neck).
Second, the element of spectacle is relatively unimportant in a baseball game. There are some things -- like a really good slider that a batter misses by about two feet -- that awe you, but not nearly as many as in football or in basketball, where ferocious hits and incredible feats of athleticism occur frequently. In baseball, it's mostly a little white ball getting thrown back and forth over the same 70 feet of grass.
Third and perhaps most important, the things that cause events to unfold as they do in a game are generally either random or arcane. As a result, rational analysis of these events is much more difficult. If you know something about the sport, you know approximately how good the pitchers and batters are in general, but you don't really know fundamentally why each specific encounter ends the way it does. After all, bad pitchers get good hitters out very often (indeed, most of the time), even after long at-bats in which the batter looks to be very much in control. The reason is usually something like "hit very hard, but right at fielder" or "swung half an inch too low, popped up" or "pitcher gripped ball slightly harder," all of which are difficult to observe and liable to occur at any time. A home-run swing and a deep-fly-to-right-fielder-swing look pretty much the same; things happen as they happen for reasons unknown. In football and basketball, it's much easier to see what occured and analyze what went wrong or right (wicked crossover, blown coverage, etc.), largely because the differences between the players' actions on successful and disastrous plays are much greater, and the game-long trends are also much stronger and more obvious (superior blocking, post-ups leading to open threes, etc.). The result of this impenetrability is that the viewer is left with little more than emotional responses to the events taking place.
This ability to create tension but render other reactions moot is probably why baseball lends itself so well to literary writing but so poorly to traditional sports commentary. High-minded writers have much drama and narrative to suss out, but day-to-day analysts are left to blather about things like team heart and ability to handle pressure that have little to do with things on a plate-appearance-to-plate-appearance level. This aspect of the game is also probably why fans like Simmons would rather have a dominating closer than a very good starter, even though the very good starter is almost always more useful in getting a team wins; in a sport full of uncertainties, it feels nice to have a relatively sure thing happen every now and then (assuming that it's in your favor). On the other hand, the unpredictability can be comforting when your team is in dire straits, like the Sox are tonight. Why did the Indians beat us for three straight games after we looked so good in the previous four? Luck, mostly. And that can turn at any time.
Of course, all sports (or at least the sports events that you are emotionally invested in) manipulate the viewer in this same fashion, but I think that this dynamic supercedes all else in baseball to a greater extent than in other sports for a number of reasons. First of all, there are relatively few events in a baseball game as compared to other sports, and the periods of time between these events are much longer. Thus, you have more dead space to fill with foreboding or expectation, and there is little else to distract you (other than the inane musings of Tim McCarver or, especially when watching an HD broadcast, the number of pimples on Jonathan Papelbon's neck).
Second, the element of spectacle is relatively unimportant in a baseball game. There are some things -- like a really good slider that a batter misses by about two feet -- that awe you, but not nearly as many as in football or in basketball, where ferocious hits and incredible feats of athleticism occur frequently. In baseball, it's mostly a little white ball getting thrown back and forth over the same 70 feet of grass.
Third and perhaps most important, the things that cause events to unfold as they do in a game are generally either random or arcane. As a result, rational analysis of these events is much more difficult. If you know something about the sport, you know approximately how good the pitchers and batters are in general, but you don't really know fundamentally why each specific encounter ends the way it does. After all, bad pitchers get good hitters out very often (indeed, most of the time), even after long at-bats in which the batter looks to be very much in control. The reason is usually something like "hit very hard, but right at fielder" or "swung half an inch too low, popped up" or "pitcher gripped ball slightly harder," all of which are difficult to observe and liable to occur at any time. A home-run swing and a deep-fly-to-right-fielder-swing look pretty much the same; things happen as they happen for reasons unknown. In football and basketball, it's much easier to see what occured and analyze what went wrong or right (wicked crossover, blown coverage, etc.), largely because the differences between the players' actions on successful and disastrous plays are much greater, and the game-long trends are also much stronger and more obvious (superior blocking, post-ups leading to open threes, etc.). The result of this impenetrability is that the viewer is left with little more than emotional responses to the events taking place.
This ability to create tension but render other reactions moot is probably why baseball lends itself so well to literary writing but so poorly to traditional sports commentary. High-minded writers have much drama and narrative to suss out, but day-to-day analysts are left to blather about things like team heart and ability to handle pressure that have little to do with things on a plate-appearance-to-plate-appearance level. This aspect of the game is also probably why fans like Simmons would rather have a dominating closer than a very good starter, even though the very good starter is almost always more useful in getting a team wins; in a sport full of uncertainties, it feels nice to have a relatively sure thing happen every now and then (assuming that it's in your favor). On the other hand, the unpredictability can be comforting when your team is in dire straits, like the Sox are tonight. Why did the Indians beat us for three straight games after we looked so good in the previous four? Luck, mostly. And that can turn at any time.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Also Disallowed: The Wave
How could the NCAA possibly fine Kentucky because the school's fans stormed the field after the victory over LSU? If your school beats the #1 team in the nation for the first time in 40 years, and if that team is a conference rival to boot, I say that the fans are obligated to rush the field and rip the goalposts down. Anything less would be inhuman. You may as well fine wildebeests for running from lions.
This story reminds me of another thing that, if not inhuman, is certainly unAmerican: collapsible goalposts. Who doesn't enjoy the spectacle of unfettered mass glee turned to mildly destructive ends? If anything is weakening our national manhood, collapsible goalposts are it.
Bonus:
While researching collapsible goalposts, I came across an evangelical minister who disagrees with me entirely on the topic of post-victory celebration. Needless to say, this phenomenon, like all others in modern America, can be attributed to the sinister influence of Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Other pearls of wisdom from Pastor Mike, whom I find endlessly entertaining: it is "axiomatically true" that porn turns people into child molesters. That's right: we don't need evidence to prove this connection, because the definitions of "porn" and "child molester" imply that it must exist by virtue of unassailable logic! The best part about this article is that Pastor Mike whines that porn has not been made illegal despite it's corrupting tendencies and that, sure enough, the child molester in question had child porn on his computer. Pastor Mike: child porn already is illegal! You've won! Have a celebratory beer! Actually, you probably don't do that.
Also, women driving while men ride shotgun is a sign of the coming apocalypse (and something that "the under class" especially enjoys). Here, Pastor Mike cogently argues that this practice is a sign that either a) lazy men are oppressing their women and making them do all the work, or b) feminist women are oppressing their men, pushing them into the "pass(ive)enger seat" and usurping rightful masculine roles. Note how the very straight Pastor Mike here and elsewhere decries the influence of homosexuals and then writes highly woman-loving things like this:
This story reminds me of another thing that, if not inhuman, is certainly unAmerican: collapsible goalposts. Who doesn't enjoy the spectacle of unfettered mass glee turned to mildly destructive ends? If anything is weakening our national manhood, collapsible goalposts are it.
Bonus:
While researching collapsible goalposts, I came across an evangelical minister who disagrees with me entirely on the topic of post-victory celebration. Needless to say, this phenomenon, like all others in modern America, can be attributed to the sinister influence of Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Other pearls of wisdom from Pastor Mike, whom I find endlessly entertaining: it is "axiomatically true" that porn turns people into child molesters. That's right: we don't need evidence to prove this connection, because the definitions of "porn" and "child molester" imply that it must exist by virtue of unassailable logic! The best part about this article is that Pastor Mike whines that porn has not been made illegal despite it's corrupting tendencies and that, sure enough, the child molester in question had child porn on his computer. Pastor Mike: child porn already is illegal! You've won! Have a celebratory beer! Actually, you probably don't do that.
Also, women driving while men ride shotgun is a sign of the coming apocalypse (and something that "the under class" especially enjoys). Here, Pastor Mike cogently argues that this practice is a sign that either a) lazy men are oppressing their women and making them do all the work, or b) feminist women are oppressing their men, pushing them into the "pass(ive)enger seat" and usurping rightful masculine roles. Note how the very straight Pastor Mike here and elsewhere decries the influence of homosexuals and then writes highly woman-loving things like this:
But every tournament [Tiger Woods] enters—by his mere presence—becomes many, many times more exciting. He is a phenomenon—he is masculine; he is passionate; he is driven.Keep on keeping it real, Pastor Mike.
But has the Pope canonized him yet?
If you really think about this story, you'll soon realize that it's one of the very stupidest things that we as a society could be worrying about (and apparently quite a lot of people are worried about it). I'll get worked up over the issue as soon as MLB becomes acknowledged as the final arbiter of human worth.
Tim McCarver Makes the Obvious His Bitch
Everyone knows that Tim McCarver is a dumbass, but the shit he said last night still blew my mind. Right after Youkilis hit his solo homer to lead off the 6th innning, McCarver pipes up with this enlightening nugget (paraphrased): "We did the research, and it turns out that there are more multirun innings begun with leadoff homers than with leadoff walks. You would think that leadoff walks would start more multirun innings." No, Tim, I would not think that. Nor would I need any research whatsoever to figure out the answer to this stupid, stupid question. You know why, Tim? Because before you can score a second run, you have to score one run. Odds of scoring one run after a leadoff walk: something like 40%. Odds of scoring one run after a leadoff homer: 100%. How does everyone involved with the Fox broadcast allow the idiot McCarver to propose this research, conduct this research, and then spout his wondrous findings on national TV without saying, at least once, "Um...duh?" Maybe next time, Tim, you could do some research to find out whether you're more likely to die a) if you sit down in a chair with a loaded gun sitting on the table next to your or b) after you aim the gun at your head and pull the trigger.
So yeah, I'm bitter about this fucking baseball series. Sorry, Tim.
So yeah, I'm bitter about this fucking baseball series. Sorry, Tim.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
My Twelve Most Hated San Antonio Spurs: Nos. 9 and 8
Ninth Most Hated Spur: Michael Finley
This one hurts, because Mike used to be my boy. When you're a fan of a sports team, you develop serious man crushes very easily on any young prospects who show early promise for your club, especially when those guys exceed expectations. In his first year after being drafted 21st by the Suns, Michael Finley was awesome. Finally, the Suns had an athletic wing player, which hadn't really been the case since I'd become a fan of basketball. He could dunk like crazy (he was the first guy whom I saw successfully dunk on Dikembe Mutombo - back when Mutombo was still an otherworldly shotblocking god who stuffed it right back in Shawn Kemp's face every time Kemp tried to dunk on him). Finley even hit a game-winning jumper in a crazy early-season game against the Lakers; the Suns were down 10 with a minute left, but they hit three quick 3s, forced a jump ball at midcourt with about three seconds left, tipped it to Finley, and let him run down the floor and hit a pull-up from elbow with no time left in like the eighth game of his career. I was fucking psyched (even though the Suns plummeted from the elite in the West that year).
The next year, we traded him to Dallas in the Jason Kidd deal, which hurt, but it still seemed worth it. He went on to be a minor star and the third wheel of Dallas's big three in the early Oughts. He signed a huge contract, got cut via the amnesty rule after the last collective bargaining agreement, and had a real chance to do something meaningful with his life. But instead of following his boy Steve and coming home to Phoenix, he did the unthinkable: signing for cheap with the one team that both of his former clubs detested above all. I realize that you gotta do what you gotta do, Mike, but so do I. And I gotta hate you, you son of a bitch.
Finley has developed into one more in a long, long succession of perimeter guys who nail open 3s to torment the Suns, including John Paxson, Mario Elie, Sam Cassell, Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell, Brent Barry, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (until later in this list). Strangely, a number of these guys later played for the Suns, but never at length or effectively. At any rate, I hate all of them, because there's really nothing worse in basketball than watching your team dash around and scrap like mad to get a key stop, only for one of these dicks to hit a three that just strangles your chances.
Eighth Most Hated Spur: Brent Barry
Nowadays, Brent Barry and Michael Finley are pretty much the same player, except that Brent Barry is white and ugly (see above). I also used to kind of like Barry when he played for the Sonics, but that all changed when he joined the Spurs. Now, his every 3 pains me like an eyefull of bees and his awkward gangliness turns my stomach like a mouthful of poop. Add to that his impenitent scruffiness, which is less Brett-Favre manly and more child-molester shady, and the fact that his insufferable brother always seems to be announcing his games and blathering about how funny it is that they have the same parents, and the man becomes equivalent to a massive federal subsidy for hatred.
Oh, he was also the first and only affirmative action dunk contest winner. "Oh, hey, you're white and you kind of did that dunk that Michael Jordan already did in this contest ten years ago. Take a charity trophy for your earthbound race." Watch this clip and tell me: Is it any wonder that the terrorists thought they could defeat us after we crowned a dunk champion this goofy looking? How are we to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies when we once concluded that this man, out of all our many peoples, could perfect something as awesome as the dunk? Blood is on your hands, Brent Barry.
"Well I am just SO put out."
This one hurts, because Mike used to be my boy. When you're a fan of a sports team, you develop serious man crushes very easily on any young prospects who show early promise for your club, especially when those guys exceed expectations. In his first year after being drafted 21st by the Suns, Michael Finley was awesome. Finally, the Suns had an athletic wing player, which hadn't really been the case since I'd become a fan of basketball. He could dunk like crazy (he was the first guy whom I saw successfully dunk on Dikembe Mutombo - back when Mutombo was still an otherworldly shotblocking god who stuffed it right back in Shawn Kemp's face every time Kemp tried to dunk on him). Finley even hit a game-winning jumper in a crazy early-season game against the Lakers; the Suns were down 10 with a minute left, but they hit three quick 3s, forced a jump ball at midcourt with about three seconds left, tipped it to Finley, and let him run down the floor and hit a pull-up from elbow with no time left in like the eighth game of his career. I was fucking psyched (even though the Suns plummeted from the elite in the West that year).
The next year, we traded him to Dallas in the Jason Kidd deal, which hurt, but it still seemed worth it. He went on to be a minor star and the third wheel of Dallas's big three in the early Oughts. He signed a huge contract, got cut via the amnesty rule after the last collective bargaining agreement, and had a real chance to do something meaningful with his life. But instead of following his boy Steve and coming home to Phoenix, he did the unthinkable: signing for cheap with the one team that both of his former clubs detested above all. I realize that you gotta do what you gotta do, Mike, but so do I. And I gotta hate you, you son of a bitch.
Finley has developed into one more in a long, long succession of perimeter guys who nail open 3s to torment the Suns, including John Paxson, Mario Elie, Sam Cassell, Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell, Brent Barry, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (until later in this list). Strangely, a number of these guys later played for the Suns, but never at length or effectively. At any rate, I hate all of them, because there's really nothing worse in basketball than watching your team dash around and scrap like mad to get a key stop, only for one of these dicks to hit a three that just strangles your chances.
Eighth Most Hated Spur: Brent Barry
Nowadays, Brent Barry and Michael Finley are pretty much the same player, except that Brent Barry is white and ugly (see above). I also used to kind of like Barry when he played for the Sonics, but that all changed when he joined the Spurs. Now, his every 3 pains me like an eyefull of bees and his awkward gangliness turns my stomach like a mouthful of poop. Add to that his impenitent scruffiness, which is less Brett-Favre manly and more child-molester shady, and the fact that his insufferable brother always seems to be announcing his games and blathering about how funny it is that they have the same parents, and the man becomes equivalent to a massive federal subsidy for hatred.Oh, he was also the first and only affirmative action dunk contest winner. "Oh, hey, you're white and you kind of did that dunk that Michael Jordan already did in this contest ten years ago. Take a charity trophy for your earthbound race." Watch this clip and tell me: Is it any wonder that the terrorists thought they could defeat us after we crowned a dunk champion this goofy looking? How are we to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies when we once concluded that this man, out of all our many peoples, could perfect something as awesome as the dunk? Blood is on your hands, Brent Barry.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Embarrassment!
Seriously...I mean, we all know the guy's incompetent and irresponsible, but seeing those qualities in action can still be jarring.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Insightful Athlete Quotation: Kevin Smith
No, not that Kevin Smith; the one who plays running back for UCF. This one isn't insightful so much as it is refreshing. I think we're all sick of athletes playing the no-respect card, as it's not only cliche but also relentlessly tiresome to hear highly successful people earning millions a year whine about how people don't love them enough. Here, a man who has not yet been allowed to earn money for his abilities (thanks to government-sanctioned collusion) offers this obvious but still gratifying observation concerning all the schools that didn't recruit him (despite the fact that he's now leading the nation in rushing yards):
"I don't think I run with a chip," Smith said. "I don't hold anything against those colleges. This is a business. Everybody recruits who they want. I run to represent my school."
Insightful Athlete Quotation: Brad Hawpe
Once again, it's just refreshing when someone connected to sports says something intelligent, even if obvious, that most writers and commentators steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, because I guess life just isn't as interesting that way. From Jayson Stark's article that makes a big deal about the Rockies' Brad Hawpe going 11 for 17 lifetime against Brandon Webb:
"Aw, he's tough," Hawpe deadpanned. "And it's just a small handful of at-bats. It's not like it's 500 ABs or something."Maybe I'll post quotes like these when I find them as some small counterweight to the vast amounts of (deserved) snark aimed at idiotic sports commentary out there.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
My Twelve Most Hated San Antonio Spurs: Nos. 11 and 10
Elventh Most Hated Spur: Beno Udrih
Oh, poor you.
"Hey there, cowboy."
This motherfucker wants me to pronounce the "h" in his name like a "k." Fuck no. I'll pronounce a "c" like a "ch" or a "j" like a "y," maybe even a "w" like a "v," but the h-to-k thing is just too preposterous. Retransliterate your bizarre language in some even slightly sensible fashion, asshole.
In addition to his curious disregard for the sonic values of letters, Beno suffers from being one of the league's more boring players. He's short and white, he used to have a really dumb bowl haircut, and he has moles on his face. His game consists almost entirely of shooting left-handed 18-foot jumpers, and that would probably be really annoying except that he stopped making them last year, thankfully. If he had continued to be as good as he was in his first two years, I'd probably hate him a lot more.
Since I don't really have much else to say about Beno, I'd like to shame the entire city of San Antonio with this:
Anyone remember that? That was the Spurs logo in the 90s, and I must say that time has not diminished the potent repulsiveness of its design one bit. As I recall, they had this lovely mixture of colors, particularly the manly pairing of pink and teal, all over their home floor at the time. I bet David Robinson would've grabbed at least two more rebounds per game over his career if he hadn't been exposed to such eye-rending graphic design so frequently. In researching this color scheme, I discovered that these colors are rich in disease-awareness symbolism: pink for breast cancer, teal for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and orange for leukemia, three diseases that, strangely enough, I've often wished that the Spurs would contract. May this logo turn out to be a portent of things to come!
Tenth Most Hated Spur: Eva Longoria
Already the most irritating of the housewives desperate, the-former-and-probably-soon-to-be-again Miss Longoria made a strong case for first-ballot induction into the Could You Possibly Hate Me Any More? Hall of Fame by dating and then marrying the NBA's girliest (at least, since Rick Fox retired) and nearly most annoying player. Shockingly, she appeared in the stands for virtually every singly nationally televised Spurs game, and ESPN/ABC made the even more shocking decision to aim at least seven cameras at her at all times.
Mr. and Mrs. Longoria really took things to another level of irritation with their wedding. Like countless other idiots, they got married on 7/7/07, apparently because primitive peoples once attributed divine powers of luckiness to the number 7 or something. I am forced to assume that, should they birth a child on a 2/3 some year, they will ritually sacrifice the poor wretch to the great demon N'Kothra -- Scourge of the Living, Progenitor of Self-infatuated Celebrities -- upon on altar constructed from the bones of kittens, lest the numerological horror of the event should bring ruin on their house. (Bonus prediction: couples married on July 7th, 2007 will actually prove to be more likely to get divorced, owing to the exceeding shallowness that their choice of wedding date reflects).
Of course, we should've known that Eva and Tony would do something like that and make sure that every celeb mag knew about it the instant they announced their engagment by calling in to Ryan Seacrest's show. I can't believe that David Stern didn't fine Tony for making the league look like a bunch of tools like that. You can bet that Roger Goodell would have.
Just in case you aren't sure whether you, too, should hate Eva Longoria, I submit to you this quote: "I've lost a lot of jobs because I was too pretty. And everybody's like, 'Oh, poor you.' But seriously, you don't get the good roles when you're beautiful." That makes so much sense, because big-time actresses like Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, and Reese Witherspoon are so ugly, and because this is what you look like without makeup:
Oh, poor you.
Concerning In Rainbows, by Radiohead
After one listen (with another to come shortly), my impulse is to say that it's their best album since Kid A and that it's on par with that album and OK Computer as one of their very best. I honestly did not anticipate saying that at all; after Hail to the Thief, I had concluded that it was unreasonable to expect more than two era-defining albums from a band and that I would just have to do with awesomeness from Radiohead instead of life-changing astonishment.
This album feels much more immediate and warm than anything they've ever done, including Pablo Honey and The Bends. These are all first impressions, but it seems like they've mellowed in terms of both content (less paralyzing angst) and the neurotic drive to reinvent pop music as we know it. They seem to have remembered that they're among the finest songwriters and musicians of all time and that these strengths should be played to, not obscured to the greatest extent possible. It's a crazy concept, but it works.
This album feels much more immediate and warm than anything they've ever done, including Pablo Honey and The Bends. These are all first impressions, but it seems like they've mellowed in terms of both content (less paralyzing angst) and the neurotic drive to reinvent pop music as we know it. They seem to have remembered that they're among the finest songwriters and musicians of all time and that these strengths should be played to, not obscured to the greatest extent possible. It's a crazy concept, but it works.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
My Twelve Most Hated San Antonio Spurs
John Hollinger is fond of saying that, despite the fact that they've been dominating the league for the better part of a decade, no one really hates the Spurs because they're so nice and professional. John Hollinger has clearly never spoken to a fan of the Phoenix Suns. Besides, I'd call them whiny, insufferably arrogant, and unscrupulously devious before I'd go for nice and professional; while none of the Spurs ever seem to get caught firing off guns in barfights or sexually assaulting groupies like their colleagues do, there are many other ways of being a dick.
Last night, as I read Hollinger's scouting report on Tim Duncan, my body was literally wracked with spasms of hatred. That's right: my animus towards that bastard actually manifested itself physically. It occured to me that this phenomenon needed to be recorded, carefully analyzed, and digested in all its particulars for the benefit of future vituperologists, not to mention for the sake of streamlining my Spur-hating process for maximum efficiency. The Spurs, after all, have reached that illustrious threshhold of detestability from which a team or athlete can never be removed. Some teams, such as the Lakers of the early part of this decade, earn the hatred of an hour; once they cease to dominate, one no longer gets all that worked up about them (though I certainly hated the Lakers fully in their day). For me, the Spurs have joined the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees, and the Texas Longhorns (places I won't be moving: Texas) as teams that I will despise forever, even if they finish dead last every season from now until the day I die.
So in preparation for the upcoming NBA season, I'm cataloguing the twelve Spurs whom I hate the most. You will note that this number is sufficient to cover the entire active roster. I think the experience will be illuminating. When Bruce Bowen sticks his leg in between an opponent's to cause a turnover that leads to one of those soul-dessicating Tony Parker teardrop shots, which player is most responsible for the bile rising in my throat? Now I will know.
First off, some dishonorable mentions. I hate these guys, but not in enough detail to warrant a finely wrought thesis on the subject.
Last night, as I read Hollinger's scouting report on Tim Duncan, my body was literally wracked with spasms of hatred. That's right: my animus towards that bastard actually manifested itself physically. It occured to me that this phenomenon needed to be recorded, carefully analyzed, and digested in all its particulars for the benefit of future vituperologists, not to mention for the sake of streamlining my Spur-hating process for maximum efficiency. The Spurs, after all, have reached that illustrious threshhold of detestability from which a team or athlete can never be removed. Some teams, such as the Lakers of the early part of this decade, earn the hatred of an hour; once they cease to dominate, one no longer gets all that worked up about them (though I certainly hated the Lakers fully in their day). For me, the Spurs have joined the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees, and the Texas Longhorns (places I won't be moving: Texas) as teams that I will despise forever, even if they finish dead last every season from now until the day I die.
So in preparation for the upcoming NBA season, I'm cataloguing the twelve Spurs whom I hate the most. You will note that this number is sufficient to cover the entire active roster. I think the experience will be illuminating. When Bruce Bowen sticks his leg in between an opponent's to cause a turnover that leads to one of those soul-dessicating Tony Parker teardrop shots, which player is most responsible for the bile rising in my throat? Now I will know.
First off, some dishonorable mentions. I hate these guys, but not in enough detail to warrant a finely wrought thesis on the subject.
- Ian Mahinmi: What an infuriating name. It seems like it almost rhymes, but that turns out to be a tease, and it asks us to end one syllable with an "n" before starting the next one with an "m", which is positively rude. I'd hate this guy a lot more if it weren't a near 100% certainty that he's going to suck completely.
- Sean Elliott: Sean Elliott is said to be a nice guy, and he was very brave to come back from a kidney transplant to play in the league once more...and that's precisely the problem. Thanks to him, people feel obligated to have pity for someone associated with the San Antonio Spurs, causing intense cognitive dissonance and probably a few nervous breakdowns. Also, he was a pretty lame announcer without anything particularly interesting to say.
- Ime Udoka: "Hey, looks like Bruce Bowen's finally getting old, inching closer and closer to the welcoming grave. He'll probably stop being good pretty soon, and then we won't have to watch his sickeningly ugly form of play in service of the world's most evil basketball team." Every NBA fan in America has been having these thoughts for a year or two. Now the Spurs go and sign Udoka, who's pretty much the exact same guy except five years younger. No, it's cool, go ahead and smash my other testicle, too; it's not like I wanted it.
- David Robinson: Truth be told, I have surprisingly little beef with Mr. Robinson. Maybe it's because, per the Hollinger theory, he actually is incredibly nice, and he lacks Sean Elliott's cloying human interest story value to boot. Still, he did us all a massive disservice by getting injured in '96-'97, causing the Spurs to suck for just one season and giving them the draft pick that became Tim Duncan, one of the ten or fifteen greatest players of all time. Why couldn't you have just soldiered on as usual that year, David, making the Spurs into fringe contenders who would never quite get over the hump for a few years more? That was pretty uncool, and definitely not what Jesus would've done.
Alright, finally: the Spur whom I hate twelfth most:
Has anyone ever liked the unathletic, tall white guy who shoots threes and gets beaten on defense like a rented mule with a "Please beat me!" sign on its back? No. I asked everyone who's ever bothered to think about the question, and we all agreed that the answer is no. Even if that guy is good, like Dirk Nowitzki, or kind of a little bit good, like Troy Murphy, no one likes him. If that guy also happens to be the palest New Hampshirean in captivity, it's that much worse; how could you not resent a guy that physically unappealing for going into one of the professions most likely to cause images of his grotesque whiteness to be broadcast all over the globe, with nary a sleeve or a pant leg to obscure the awfulness? Matt Bonner playing basketball professionally is like a lawyer going to work for the mafia: yeah, the money's good, and your actions aren't in and of themselves immoral, but what about all the innocent people out there suffering because of them anyway? Sometimes, you've got to let your own interests be superceded by the greater good. For Matt Bonner, that meant giving up his mediocre NBA career for, most likely, a job as the Walmart employee who restocks the really high shelves. Unfortunately, he wasn't man enough to do it. I hope he's learned how to cram some of his hundred-dollar bills into his ears to drown out the screams of all the misbegotten babies who happen to look at the TV screen at the wrong time. It'd be tough for him to live with himself otherwise.
More to come.Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Ideology amongst Professors
From a post on a study concerning ideology in academia:
As I thought (and the first commenter also noted), it could also mean that the characteristics that make one a conservative also to tend to make one unfit for success in academia. Liberals would likely suggest stupidity as one of these charactertistics, but ther could be many others.
Another possibility is that conservatives really are selfish money-grubbers, and the intelligent, capable ones go off doing selfish, money-grubbing things (if you define engaging in commerce as selfish and indulging one's intellectual narcissism as unselfish, to flip the rhetoric). Those who can't, teach, though, so the dumb conservatives enter academia, where their incompetence causes them to fail to thrive. I'd tend to favor this latter theory over the former, but of course it could be a mixture of the two effects. Also:
Found via Sullivan.
(1) There is a much higher percentage of conservatives teaching at (relatively low-paying, low prestige) community colleges than elsewhere. So much for the oft-heard theory that conservatives are so scarce at elite schools because they are selfish, ambitious, money-grubbers who lack the inclination to give up the "good life" to pursue the "life of the mind."
As I thought (and the first commenter also noted), it could also mean that the characteristics that make one a conservative also to tend to make one unfit for success in academia. Liberals would likely suggest stupidity as one of these charactertistics, but ther could be many others.
Another possibility is that conservatives really are selfish money-grubbers, and the intelligent, capable ones go off doing selfish, money-grubbing things (if you define engaging in commerce as selfish and indulging one's intellectual narcissism as unselfish, to flip the rhetoric). Those who can't, teach, though, so the dumb conservatives enter academia, where their incompetence causes them to fail to thrive. I'd tend to favor this latter theory over the former, but of course it could be a mixture of the two effects. Also:
(3) Among social science professors (which I assume includes economics, a relatively, but not absolutely, conservative field), Ralph Nader and "Other" combined received as high a percentage of the votes as George Bush in '04.I would actually not be surprised if the economists were more likely to vote third party, as in the course of earning economics and graduate business degrees I generally found them to be less pragmatic, more idealistic, and more iconoclastic than the typical professor, all characteristics I associate with those willing to "waste" a vote on a third party.
Found via Sullivan.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Concerning White Chalk, by PJ Harvey
The more I listen to it, the more I'm convinced that White Chalk is really a great album. I've always kind of liked Sarah McLachlan but felt like a queer about it. PJ Harvey on this record is the perfect solution: she's like Sarah McLachlan standing atop a wind-and-sea-buffeted cliff, staring into the frigid waves below and contemplating the miles upon miles separating her jilting, heedless lover from her.
Harvey's voice is incredibly expressive, ranging from an awesomely full-voiced alto to a husky, oscillating falsetto, and it always follows deceptive and deranged, yet beautiful, melodies. The piano-driven, reverbed-out songs, meanwhile, relate to each other like a series of monochromatic oil paintings: varied subjects and compositions, but all tied together by a minimized and unified pallette and a common mood.
This stylistic unity and the severe (though moving) bummer of a theme make a virtue of the album's brevity. As awesome as the music is, it's also tiringly painful, and if prolonged it might become tiresome. At under 34 minutes, the album has just enough time to breach your defenses but not enough to kill you.
Harvey's voice is incredibly expressive, ranging from an awesomely full-voiced alto to a husky, oscillating falsetto, and it always follows deceptive and deranged, yet beautiful, melodies. The piano-driven, reverbed-out songs, meanwhile, relate to each other like a series of monochromatic oil paintings: varied subjects and compositions, but all tied together by a minimized and unified pallette and a common mood.
This stylistic unity and the severe (though moving) bummer of a theme make a virtue of the album's brevity. As awesome as the music is, it's also tiringly painful, and if prolonged it might become tiresome. At under 34 minutes, the album has just enough time to breach your defenses but not enough to kill you.
LeBron's Yankee's Cap
Henry Abbott and Buster Olney come to LeBron's defense over his decision to wear a Yankees cap to an Indians playoff game on the grounds that everyone has a right to choose whom to root for. If it were any other baseball team, I'd be with them (as someone who's favorite teams are the Washington Redskins, the Boston Red Sox, the Phoenix Suns, and Oklahoma University football, I'd have to). One can certainly choose to root for a team other than the one that plays in one's current home town. But it's beyond craven to latch onto the dominant dynasty of the day unless you live in the team's area. No one with any character would hop on the bandwagon of the Yankees, the Cowboys, or the Lakers just to gain instant championships; a large part of the reward of having your team rise to the top comes from the fact that you were willing to suffer in the times of suffering. Rooting for any of those three teams, each of which has established all-time dominance in its sport, is the mark of a person of weak moral fiber. Note that the Yankees would've been in embarking on their run of four championships in five years during LeBron's formative years as a fan.
Other than Boston, I have lived in all of the area's where my favorite teams play, and I do not change my favorites to team's from my other homes when the going gets tough. My excuse for the Sox is that I am not one of the lowlifes who latched on during or after '04. I became a fan of baseball for the first time midway through the '01 season, when I was attending OU. I chose the Sox because I knew enough already to hate the Yankees, and their tortured past gave them an attractive air of tragedy.
2001 was the year when Pedro first got hurt, Manny checked his mind out for the first time, and Jimy Williams performed badly enough to get himself replaced as manager by pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who sucked even worse and pissed off all the Latino players. Then there was '02, when they performed decently but came up short, and '03, pretty much the most incredibly awful thing that's ever happened to me as a sports fan (and that includes the city of San Antonio). The night that Grady Little threw a molotov cocktail on the franchise, I was watching the game and studying for an exam the next morning with a friend. Needless to say, I could barely concentrate on the history of Japanese culture after the eighth inning. The next day, I took the exam and then drove 45 minutes into Oklahoma City to take the GMAT for entrance into business school. By the time I was done with that, I felt more mentally wiped out than I ever have in my life. I'm surprised I didn't lose my concentration and drive into an overpass column on the way home. I spent the subsequent winter glued to internet updates on the A-Rod trade drama, and I only barely survived the '04 ALCS. So though I never lived in a region teeming with neurotic baseball obsessors, I feel like I paid some dues.
Other than Boston, I have lived in all of the area's where my favorite teams play, and I do not change my favorites to team's from my other homes when the going gets tough. My excuse for the Sox is that I am not one of the lowlifes who latched on during or after '04. I became a fan of baseball for the first time midway through the '01 season, when I was attending OU. I chose the Sox because I knew enough already to hate the Yankees, and their tortured past gave them an attractive air of tragedy.
2001 was the year when Pedro first got hurt, Manny checked his mind out for the first time, and Jimy Williams performed badly enough to get himself replaced as manager by pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who sucked even worse and pissed off all the Latino players. Then there was '02, when they performed decently but came up short, and '03, pretty much the most incredibly awful thing that's ever happened to me as a sports fan (and that includes the city of San Antonio). The night that Grady Little threw a molotov cocktail on the franchise, I was watching the game and studying for an exam the next morning with a friend. Needless to say, I could barely concentrate on the history of Japanese culture after the eighth inning. The next day, I took the exam and then drove 45 minutes into Oklahoma City to take the GMAT for entrance into business school. By the time I was done with that, I felt more mentally wiped out than I ever have in my life. I'm surprised I didn't lose my concentration and drive into an overpass column on the way home. I spent the subsequent winter glued to internet updates on the A-Rod trade drama, and I only barely survived the '04 ALCS. So though I never lived in a region teeming with neurotic baseball obsessors, I feel like I paid some dues.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Definitely the Greatest Video Ever
Featuring the Fonz, some fine songwriting, and an anonymous bellowing black woman. Found it via Rob Neyer.
As demonstrated by the degree to which this video now appears utterly bizarre, the amount that a culture and an art form can change within 20 years is truly amazing (at least, from the perspective of those within the culture; from an outsider's point of view, things probably don't seem all that radically different).
It's also mind-bending to imagine showing this to one's own children. Assuming for a moment that it is, in fact, an effective tool for preventing a child's molestation, would the warping effect of watching this clip be offset fully by the lowered chance that some stranger would get away with groping the kid? I guess you could view it like purchasing an insurance policy against molestation: sure, the kid is likely to get a little fucked up from watching this slice of well-meaning lunacy, but he/she'll be really fucked up should the worst happen, and eliminating the risk of the latter is worth accepting the certainty of the former.
As demonstrated by the degree to which this video now appears utterly bizarre, the amount that a culture and an art form can change within 20 years is truly amazing (at least, from the perspective of those within the culture; from an outsider's point of view, things probably don't seem all that radically different).
It's also mind-bending to imagine showing this to one's own children. Assuming for a moment that it is, in fact, an effective tool for preventing a child's molestation, would the warping effect of watching this clip be offset fully by the lowered chance that some stranger would get away with groping the kid? I guess you could view it like purchasing an insurance policy against molestation: sure, the kid is likely to get a little fucked up from watching this slice of well-meaning lunacy, but he/she'll be really fucked up should the worst happen, and eliminating the risk of the latter is worth accepting the certainty of the former.
Friday, October 5, 2007
The Boss? Really?
I feel a little bit these days like history has been rewritten and no one bothered to adjust my memories of it. Passing through adolescence and growing a musical identity in the 90s, I of course heard of tons of great musical acts from the past, from culturally omnipresent icons like Zep, Floyd, and Hendrix to underground innovators like the Velvet Underground and Joy Division. Nowhere to be found were paeans to the greatness of Bruce Springsteen, whom I thought of vaguely as a lame, just-before-my-time guy who had a lot of commercial success writing blues rock for dads. Now, with not one but two encomia* on the Boss having been produced by my favorite indie-crit sites this week, the man is apparently a cultural touchstone, an ever-flowing font of populist inspiration.
I realize that every indie band and its blog-writing brother, from the Arcade Fire to the Killers to the Hold Steady, is now aping Springsteen to such an extent that even I who have listened to very little of the man's work can easily detect the influence. I even like one of those bands (the Arcade Fire) a lot, though their first album, which lacks the Springsteen flavor, is much better and their second album's best track was written long before they moved into his neighborhood. But everyone's acting like revering the Boss is nothing new or surprising at all, whereas I don't remember anything being mentioned about him in indie circles before last year. Normally, when an act gets critically rehabilitated, you expect to see every article on the subject include some sentence to the effect of "Long neglected by trendy hipster snobs, Band X's [innovative/masterful] brand of [raw energy/melodic genius/epic songwriting] is finally getting its due and inspiring a new generation of acolytes."
So am I just missing something? Has everyone but me always been loving the Boss ? I admit that I'm reluctant to spend the effort to steal his music and become acquainted with it, largely because the one song of his that I know well enough to kind of sing, "Born in the USA," is absolutely god awful. Something about the track's lovely mixture of a chintzy/cloying synth riff, a super-dated snare pounding unimaginatively on every offbeat, and a middle-aged guy shouting tunelessly at the top of his lungs just doesn't suck me in. I guess the lyrics are all ironic and stuff, and that's cool, but man...I don't think that even words composed by the quilled pen of Shakespeare himself could save that music. Does Springsteen's other stuff not suck?
*Yes, I found that word in a thesaurus. It's just like a eulogy, but without the implication that the person being praised is now dead! Thanks, Roget.
I realize that every indie band and its blog-writing brother, from the Arcade Fire to the Killers to the Hold Steady, is now aping Springsteen to such an extent that even I who have listened to very little of the man's work can easily detect the influence. I even like one of those bands (the Arcade Fire) a lot, though their first album, which lacks the Springsteen flavor, is much better and their second album's best track was written long before they moved into his neighborhood. But everyone's acting like revering the Boss is nothing new or surprising at all, whereas I don't remember anything being mentioned about him in indie circles before last year. Normally, when an act gets critically rehabilitated, you expect to see every article on the subject include some sentence to the effect of "Long neglected by trendy hipster snobs, Band X's [innovative/masterful] brand of [raw energy/melodic genius/epic songwriting] is finally getting its due and inspiring a new generation of acolytes."
So am I just missing something? Has everyone but me always been loving the Boss ? I admit that I'm reluctant to spend the effort to steal his music and become acquainted with it, largely because the one song of his that I know well enough to kind of sing, "Born in the USA," is absolutely god awful. Something about the track's lovely mixture of a chintzy/cloying synth riff, a super-dated snare pounding unimaginatively on every offbeat, and a middle-aged guy shouting tunelessly at the top of his lungs just doesn't suck me in. I guess the lyrics are all ironic and stuff, and that's cool, but man...I don't think that even words composed by the quilled pen of Shakespeare himself could save that music. Does Springsteen's other stuff not suck?
*Yes, I found that word in a thesaurus. It's just like a eulogy, but without the implication that the person being praised is now dead! Thanks, Roget.
Kenny Lofton
Thank you, thank you, Kenny Lofton, for being one of the few basbeall players or managers willing to state the obvious:
Announcers and writers, take note: in postseason baseball, the bases are still 90 feet apart, the foul lines are still at a right angle, three strikes and you're still out, and a ball hit over the wall 'twixt the foul the poles is still worth one run plus another for each guy on base. It's still baseball, and good baseball players remain good while bad ones remain bad.
"They just went out there and played the game," said Lofton, a postseason veteran. "You don't have to have a whole lot of experience to understand that the game hasn't changed. That's what I've been talking to the guys about: Go out there and play baseball."
Announcers and writers, take note: in postseason baseball, the bases are still 90 feet apart, the foul lines are still at a right angle, three strikes and you're still out, and a ball hit over the wall 'twixt the foul the poles is still worth one run plus another for each guy on base. It's still baseball, and good baseball players remain good while bad ones remain bad.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Killing the Kiss of Death
I love John Hollinger, and he's as fine a basketball writer as there is, but in this article, he's sadly become the latest to abuse one of our culture's better metaphors. Namely, he uses the phrase "kiss of death" to refer to a set of characteristics that look bad and turn out, in fact, to be quite bad, just like everyone else does.
That is not the kiss of death. It's only kind of halfway there, maybe. So far as I know, the idea of the kiss of death derives originally from Judas kissing Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane to indicate to his Roman accomplices which dude needed crucifying. So yeah, the part about turning out to signify bad things to come is definitely a component of the kiss of death metaphor. But the key, the very thing that makes it a rich metaphor, is that, on the surface, it appears to be quite a good thing. Back when dudes kissed other dudes without being accused of also wanting to have sex with each other, a kiss from your friend was generally a welcome gesture. Not so much in Jesus' case, it turned out. It was about the coldest thing Judas could've done, if you think about it, much crueller than just shouting "Grab the hippie guy!" And every time someone robs the image of its tragic/ironic power by using it to describe a run-of-the-mill bummer, I get angry enough to...to write a fucking blog post. It's nice that we're all so culturally semi-literate, but it'd be even better if we could stop using "kiss of death" to the point that we give the metaphor it's very own kiss of death.
That is not the kiss of death. It's only kind of halfway there, maybe. So far as I know, the idea of the kiss of death derives originally from Judas kissing Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane to indicate to his Roman accomplices which dude needed crucifying. So yeah, the part about turning out to signify bad things to come is definitely a component of the kiss of death metaphor. But the key, the very thing that makes it a rich metaphor, is that, on the surface, it appears to be quite a good thing. Back when dudes kissed other dudes without being accused of also wanting to have sex with each other, a kiss from your friend was generally a welcome gesture. Not so much in Jesus' case, it turned out. It was about the coldest thing Judas could've done, if you think about it, much crueller than just shouting "Grab the hippie guy!" And every time someone robs the image of its tragic/ironic power by using it to describe a run-of-the-mill bummer, I get angry enough to...to write a fucking blog post. It's nice that we're all so culturally semi-literate, but it'd be even better if we could stop using "kiss of death" to the point that we give the metaphor it's very own kiss of death.
Atheism vs. Agnosticism
I think I'll start out on a light note. I've been considering starting a blog for a while, and this post from Andrew Sullivan's blog has at last driven me to do it. A reader writes him:
In fact, I used to call myself an agnostic because of this very argument. But then I realized that I do not label myself agnostic on the existence of dragons or Superman, among many other things. I believe that they do not exist and never have. I believe this in spite of the fact that much has been written about them and large numbers of people have actually believed them to be real (at least in the case of dragons). Why should the hypothetical deity receive any kinder treatment? There is not enough reasonably reliable and suggestive evidence to make me consider the case for the existence of these things to be in some doubt. So I'm an adragonist, an asupermanist, and an atheist.
Meanwhile, I am definitely a burmist: I believe firmly in the existence of Burma despite never having seen any more of the place than of God or Superman (check that: I've seen movies about both of them, and none about Burma) because there is an awful lot of evidence for it being over there next to Thailand. I presume that Mr. Sullivan's reader is unsure about all of these things.
Update: The trackback URL for the post linked above appears to be broken, so here it is direct-like.
What the atheists are avoiding is that their position, no less than that of theists, rests squarely on faith. There is no way to reach by reason the proposition that there is or is not a god. The only position compatible with reason is that we do not know.Very true...and also trivially so. There is, in fact, no way to reach by reason the proposition that anything either exists or does not exist. There must always be some unprovable supposition - such as, "My memories of all past experiences were derived from an external reality in some reliable fashion" - as Kierkegaard and others have long said. This fact, though, does not reduce us all to equivocating daubs of jelly. We make some basic assumptions, hopefully the smallest ones possible, and move along.
In fact, I used to call myself an agnostic because of this very argument. But then I realized that I do not label myself agnostic on the existence of dragons or Superman, among many other things. I believe that they do not exist and never have. I believe this in spite of the fact that much has been written about them and large numbers of people have actually believed them to be real (at least in the case of dragons). Why should the hypothetical deity receive any kinder treatment? There is not enough reasonably reliable and suggestive evidence to make me consider the case for the existence of these things to be in some doubt. So I'm an adragonist, an asupermanist, and an atheist.
Meanwhile, I am definitely a burmist: I believe firmly in the existence of Burma despite never having seen any more of the place than of God or Superman (check that: I've seen movies about both of them, and none about Burma) because there is an awful lot of evidence for it being over there next to Thailand. I presume that Mr. Sullivan's reader is unsure about all of these things.
Update: The trackback URL for the post linked above appears to be broken, so here it is direct-like.
The First Post
This is the first post. I thought I'd get it out of the way.
Oh yeah, I guess I'll be bitching about whatever shit I come across while wasting time at work. Among these things will likely be music, the Phoenix Suns, other sports, and so on. "Maybe someone will read it?" he thought, recognizing a moment too late that he'd ripped off the trademark uncertain-statement-punctuated-as-a-question device of Dinosaur Comics.
Oh yeah, I guess I'll be bitching about whatever shit I come across while wasting time at work. Among these things will likely be music, the Phoenix Suns, other sports, and so on. "Maybe someone will read it?" he thought, recognizing a moment too late that he'd ripped off the trademark uncertain-statement-punctuated-as-a-question device of Dinosaur Comics.
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