Chuckles and Me

"They're just a whiny bunch and I can't root for them"

Chuck's been talking about the Miami Heat. He is sitting across from me in a first-rate French café. We're on the Rive Gauche and it's a sunny day so we're outdoors. He's in town to advocate multicultural awareness in the European sporting world. I'm in town because this is all a dream. He peruses the menu, drawing my attention to a full complement of absurd sausage-like fingers. Up comes the waiter, whom Chuck abruptly high fives. He breaks into a hilarious giggle, his massive frame wobbles and he is now leaning perilously to one side. The waiter frowns bitterly and then mutters something unrepeatable in French.

I order something called Crêpe Suzette. Chuck orders the same – with about eleven croissants on the side. We also order two enormous bottles of Stella Artois. Not a lot of people know this about him, but Chuck is a big drinker. Bizarrely, he's also something of a connoisseur. We've been talking about the NBA Finals.

Chuck takes a big swig of beer and wipes his mouth with a napkin that's about the size of a table cloth.

"That LeBron James, he don't know what he wants from the game."

A pretty young woman walks by, her carriage eminently aristocratic. Chuck raises an eyebrow and his head swivels, impossibly, as if it were an owl's. He whistles and turns back to me.

"You know what I love about Europe?"

"What?"

"The women."

We high five. Chuck takes another big swig of beer.

"Yeah, but you see, with LeBron, his big problem is that he don't know what he wants from the game."

"So what about all those Jordan comparisons?"

"Jordan comparisons are ridiculous. The guy don't even have one championship ring."

There's an awkward silence. We each reach for our beers, absurdly. Rings, after all, are a sore point for Chuck.

"But more than that, it's because he doesn't have a killer instinct. You know, with Jordan you just get the sense that he wants to kill people out there, but it's not the same with LeBron. He wants to go out there, play some point guard, play some power forward, play some shooting guard. He don't know what he wants from the game."

...

Some moments later Chuck is signaling to the waiter for our cheque and almost instantaneously it materializes. Chuck pays the cheque, we get into his waiting lambo, which now contains Malcolm Lowry (soused), Cindy Crawford, and Edward Said.

The lambo shrieks down the boulevard and miraculously we are transported to Ernest Hemingway's new bar, Fiesta! The wait staff are anthropomorphic polydactyl cats. I'm not allergic to them in my dream. Game 5 is about to start. We order a round of Anis del Toro, except Malcolm has a flask of mescal. Mark Jackson says something about a clinic. Jeff Van Gundy is hitting on Doris Burke. Outside in the street it's rapidly alternating between night and day. The street goes orange. The street is white. The street is purple. The street goes dark. Brobdingnagian croissants go rolling down the boulevard.

On a small stage Norah Jones sings "The Corpus Christi Carol," while Said looks on with rapt attention. Lowry jealously nurses his mescal. Jeff and Doris slide into first base. Mark Jackson says something about a clinic. Chuck has ordered an appletini and is flirting with the pretty woman from outside the café. Cindy Crawford and I discuss Foucault's History of Sexuality. We are engaged in a discourse. Norah takes a breather, and Said replaces her on the piano bench. "The Moonlight Sonata." My mind travels to infinity and back. I look up, momentarily, and I see LeBron James' face flickering on the screen. Lowry has a gulp of mescal. Now or Never! Mark Jackson says something about a clinic. The sun also rises.

Mailbag: Films that Diminish Us

(Above: a film that diminished me - Horatio)


The following comes from the electronic correspondence of Kobe and Lord Horatio:

This is nice, but funnily enough says very little about the film [The Tree of Life]. I assume it’s just about a family going through life in the ‘50s. I like what Ebert had to say about prayer, his interest in spirituality caught me by surprise. He’s a very good writer, with a deep concern for ethics. This is what I like about Leonard Pitts, a columnist for the Miami Herald, even though he has a bad habit of going off the deep end at times. His brand of liberalism is intensely romantic, and therefore, entirely impractical. Actually, you might hate his writing. Abandoning this tangent, I enjoyed the way Ebert discusses films that “Diminish us.”

I also like that Ebert uses the phrase “masturbate our senses.” Is it masturbation if someone or something else does it for you? I think this is more correctly described as “collaboration,” which is kind of a nice way to think about films that diminish us. It makes me think of some ancient unspoken arrangement. Almost a form of prostitution, and there is something deeply sexual about film. Voyeuristic scopophila, psychoanalysts will call it (“....I like to watch, etc.”) But yes, an unspoken deal. The French call orgasm le petite mort, or “the little death,” which I think goes along well with the idea of exchanging entertainment for spiritual diminution.

This is because you sometimes get the feeling, walking into a film, that it will tell you almost nothing about your life, reality, philosophy, whatever. Those minutes and hours you spend inside the cinema merely evaporate, you never get them back. That’s entertainment. We brought the money, they gave us a show. 90-120 minute mental vacation. Collaboration.

In a sense, then, when Ebert says that Malick, the director, “shows that he feels what I feel, that it was all most real when we were first setting out, and that it will never be real in that way again,” he is not only saying that The Tree of Life is one of the those rare films that gives us a transcendent experience, but he’s also saying that every moment of our lives is inexorably a part of our piecemeal diminution, our inevitable dissolution. “It was all most real when we were first setting out,” and with each passing moment that reality loses something of its original luster.

Or something like that. I’m going to post this on the blog, where it belongs.

ST

P.S. I am not interested in seeing this film.


On 6/1/11 1:00 PM, "kobe" wrote:

I read a lot of Ebert's reviews and most of the time never see the actual movies. Thought you might enjoy reading this, very short but great.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/05/a_prayer_beneath_the_tree_of_l.html

-kobe

LeBron vs. MJ

Recently I've been reading, albeit at a snail's pace, FreeDarko's intriguing retrospective of NBA history, The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History.

What this particular guide offers, to reference Shomik's gentlemanly assessment, is a "postmodern" discussion of various NBA players (please see my insufferable thread on facebook for more on the "postmodern"). More specifically, it approaches the history of professional basketball in much the same way that Peter Gay approaches the history of modernism in his excellent new book. Such an approach downplays linearity (without ignoring it altogether, mind, since there are a series of helpful timelines) in order to forefront certain phenomena pertinent to league dynamics, i.e. how was American cultural anxiety of the '70s reflected in the NBA during that particular epoch? It also contains some fantastic illustrations, including one of Charles Barkley that I would someday like to have matted and framed for my office. All in all, the Guide provides a highly refreshing analysis of sport as something beyond box scores, axiomatic philistinisms ("defense wins championships," "they need to get the running game going") and annoying twitter posts.

Two of the book's finest features are its incorporation of sidebars and attention to marginal figures such as Connie Hawkins, Fat Lever, and other fast-fading specters from yesteryear. It also seeks to downplay the mystique of disproportionately lauded demigods like Pete Maravich, highlighting instead Paul Westphal as a great forgotten hero (at least to my generation) of the 1970s. It is therefore through the dissection of misunderstood moments in league history, framed by an insightful cultural climatology, that the Guide offers its most fascinating commentary.

What I'd like to discuss here, though, now that the Heat are in the NBA Finals, is FD's analysis of Michael Jordan's transformation, in the late '80s / early '90s, from a prodigious and irreverent stat-machine into what I'd like to call the NBA's other logo. Since this decade's great superstar is LeBron James, I'd like to ponder the likelihood of our witnessing a similar transformation in the coming weeks.

We have all heard the argument that LeBron lacks that special "something" – the Jordan factor, as it were. I myself have made this argument. My question is whether such an argument will prove, sometime very soon, rather shortsighted. In the '86-'87 season, Jordan averaged 37.1 points per game. This is an astounding total, when one considers that Wilt Chamberlain's ludicrous average of 50 points per game (1961-1962) must be tempered with the knowledge that many teams only started to organize modern-style defenses towards the end of the '60s (Guide 65). Jordan averaged 35 ppg the following season ('87-'88), representing the only proximate competition. Yet, as the writers of FreeDarko are keen to point out, it was only when Jordan stopped scoring by the bushel and learned to embrace Scottie Pippen and those other guys that he emerged as the megalith we know and, possibly, love today (122).

Since LBJ took his talents to South Beach he has been all too eager to emphasize the teamwork angle, and no one can blame him on this account. The Heat have a very solid core of players, and this is probably enough to win numerous championships (barring injuries). As someone who wasn't a huge sports fan during the Jordan years, I leave it to others to draw comparisons between the Bulls of the '90s and the Heat of today. What I would like to call attention to, however briefly, are the comparable stylistic aspects of MJ and LeBron's games.

Bethlehem Shoals, who penned the section on Jordan in FreeDarko's Guide, emphasizes MJ's move towards jump shooting as the signature shift - the major stylistic change that underscored his transition to greatness. That fade-away, which, like Kareem's sky hook, has become something of a metonym for Michael Jordan, helped to re-craft not only his game, but his entire cultural persona as well.

In Shoals' words,

"The greatest dunker the world had ever seen, the man whose logo was himself midflight, competed in (and won) his last dunk contest in 1988. Then Jordan claimed he didn't want to be known as a dunker anymore and went so far as to compete in the three-point contest in 1990 to officially signal a shift in his game. No longer the madman who could level any arena with his dynamism, he was now a shooter" (122).

LeBron James' pull-up jumper is certainly formidable, but can we call him a shooter? I don't think we can just yet. He doesn't excel with the three-ball, doesn't like to play with his back to the basket, and obviously prefers to drive to the hoop or draw the foul over anything else. What I'm getting at here is that until LeBron starts becoming a shooter, he will continue to draw criticism as an athletic freak of nature. Elitism bears heavily on such an assessment. In this view, athleticism amounts to brutish, unenlightened play. A dunk is somewhat salacious, relatively obscene. It's onomatopoeic. Dunk. A jump shot, on the other hand, is the calling card of a great technician, an artist of the game. Its effect is sibilant. Swish. Regardless of their awesome spectacle, dunks seldom beat buzzers. Alternatively, jump shots implement geometry, dexterity, and a superior sense of timing. The body becomes a catapult. In late game situations, fans, at least, put their faith in great shooters. Because a shot is also a prayer.

When Jordan became a shooter, he invited mythos. The ball went to him whenever it could. The frozen image of a Jordan jump shot: you could call it high art. When LeBron starts playing with his back to the basket, draining midrange shots when his team most needs it, then we can begin to compare him with Jordan. The problem is, given his election to play with Wade, and to a lesser extent, Bosh, he may never get the chance to showcase such an ability. The subsequent question is, whether or not he actually cares to showcase such an ability. LeBron seems to like buddies, even as he constantly craves attention for himself. Camaraderie is his deal. He hugs Wade on the court, he choreographs mock photo shoots with teammates on the Cavs. You think Michael or Kobe would do that? No, because they're a particular kind of superstar - shooters. Their style is laconic, meticulous. They are technicians.

Perhaps the most confusing thing about LeBron is that he might be a point guard in a power forward's body. Maybe we shouldn't expect him to become a great shooter. Maybe when he chose the number 23 jersey in his early years he was succumbing to all the Jordan comparisons thrust upon him. Maybe it would be more accurate to compare him to, say, Magic Johnson, also a point guard in a power forward's body. But here, too, LeBron falls short. His creativity as a passer is simply not on that level.

What can be asked is whether or not he is reaching a turning point, now that the "Heatles" have reached the NBA Finals in their very first year playing together. Is LeBron poised for his own metamorphosis? Will the prophecy be fulfilled? Personally, I think it will have to wait at least another year, if only because the Dallas Mavericks will likely come out on top with their rare blend of defense (Chandler), shooting (Terry/Dirk), quickness (Barea), and experience (Kidd/Dirk/Marion). In any case, this should be a fine series for fans.

More Muck from the Mudhole: Part 1 - I’m Gonna Get Raped

I saw the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie over the weekend on basic cable and its total bullshit. Back in the day if a pirate ship pulls up alongside your ship your thought shouldn’t be “o no here comes those eccentric pirates with their misogynistic wit” but rather “o fuck we’re gonna get raped.” Because really an all male crew who has probably been at sea for over a month without any women is almost certainly going to rape the shit out of any ship they board. If you’re a man they’ll probably rape you anyway after dressing you up as a woman. Then they're probably going to kill everyone.

I’d like to see this movie, not the rape bit but the utter bat-shit crazy freak-outs of people when a pirate ship pulls up next to them. I think this could be a really entertaining horror movie. Instead we were given a lie... fucking Hollywood.

-kobe

Why Pro Baseball Needs Tim Lincecum

I don't know anything about baseball. For years now I've been trying to get into it. I played CYL (Catholic Youth League) ball when I was in elementary / middle school, but this was at a time when my interest levels in sports and doing lots of math homework were roughly equal (late bloomer!). Funny thing, though, how my native arrogance compels me to wax profound on just about every subject under the sun.

–But to the point! Major League Baseball needs Tim Lincecum. Right now I am watching Timmy give up run after run to the Dodgers. It's the top of the fourth. A good start, but he's currently fucking it. Yet I'll maintain my point. The league needs this floppy-haired, toothy-grinned assassin out of Bellevue, Washington. It's like watching fucking Ichabod Crane out there.

According to this Harris Interactive Poll, professional baseball has seen a 6% drop in national interest since 1985. That might not seem like much, but let's notice that in 2003 only 13% of American's wanted to tell Harris Interactive that their favorite sport was that one game with the fat guys and the steroids. The most recent survey is based on data from about 2,300 participants. The data also suggests that different demographics prefer different sports. African Americans, for instance, don't seem to prefer baseball (only 6% listed it as their "favorite"), while Hispanics do (20%). We could postulate that this particular statistic is reflective of a mass of Hispanic / Hispanic-American stars (A-Rod, Hanley Ramirez, Mariano Rivera, Felix Hernandez). But I'm not a scientist so I try to stay away from that "postulating" shit as much as possible.

Baseball used to be America's national pastime, not so today. For all its soapy, money-grubbing melodrama, the NFL is now, quite simply, our jam (24% of Americans called it #1 in 1985, compared with 35% in 2009).

So, the MLB needs Tim Lincecum. Here's why: the nickname "Freak" is something of a misnomer. Lincecum is an athlete for the times. Humbled in the wake of periodic juicin' scandals, the MLB needs a regular-looking dude to carry it back to glory in this young century. He's like Detroit after the automotive industry went all Supermassive Black Hole. I'm not saying I particularly care if this happens (the redemption, etc.) – since I'm really only taking an interest in baseball because my two favorite sports are looking at lock-outs in the fall – but I do believe that the MLB needs to get right with sports fans nationwide. Lincecum is the key. He's not a freak. He's just talented. He's got flaws - he seems inconsistent, aloof. Yet the empty-headed, inarticulate braggadocio of your Barry Bonds's, Sammy Sosa's, and Mark Maguire's have tainted major league baseball. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The MLB needs Tim Lincecum to bring it back to earth, to make it matter once more. Manny talking on his cell phone up in the Big Green Monster just won't cut it (what am I talking about, that was hilarious!). The national pastime is still reeling from colossal embarrassment. America's in a tailspin. They're sending manufacturing jobs overseas; we're paying too much for gas; our politicians are, to quote Elbow, "just little boys throwing stones." If we want to bestow the mantle "national pastime" we're going to have to get back to some sense of national pride. This, I shall finally admit, is far too big an issue for some dude with a blog to really address properly.

So, this is me, a non-fan looking to become a mild-to-moderate fan, asking all the people not paying attention and all the people who are out of their minds in love with baseball to watch a Giants game when Timmy pitches. He just hit a sacrifice bunt - bottom of the fifth, 1 out, game tied 3-3. "The Freak" set up Frisco's last run. Watch Timmy. He looks like Tommy from 3rd Rock From The Sun. I feel like I could have a beer with this guy, and – shit – people vote in presidents based on this criteria.

"I got my family to feed:" The Idiocy of Athletic Super Stardom

Let me tell you something about Lebron James: he's not a very smart dude. Last night, the Cavs beat the Heatles 102-90 at the Quicken Loans Arena. This was catharsis. This was what my friend's dad would call "high art." Vengeance is a dish best served cold.

I would like to suggest that Lebron James is the modern equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain: hypertalent, hyperathletic, he's got a nose for the basket and he's ridiculously strong. Yet there's an element to his personality that just screams immaturity. The guy's so talented that he literally cannot appreciate the value of competitiveness. As far as I can tell, he doesn't even know the meaning of the word. Kobe's competitive. Jordan was competitive. Bird was competitive. Russell was competitive. James is just obnoxious. Sure he creates baskets out of nothing. Sure he can blow your mind with his crazy moves. He's impressive. That's all. There's no art to Lebron James. If Kobe Bryant is Ernest Hemingway, Lebron James is, like, Stephen King. He's a great storyteller. Yet he "says nothing to me about my life." "Hang LBJ."

"Panic" - The Smiths


Basketball is a game, not just a sport. It's about strategic movements through space in time. Athleticism is one component, however integral to sports, yet there's no greatness in athleticism alone. Bird was a cocky shit. Reggie was a cocky shit. Not particularly athletic guys. Yet these were artists. They maneuvered space in superb ways. They lived for "winning time." Their will to win puts them on a higher plain. What about John Stockton or Steve Nash? These guys are incredible players. They theorize the win and then they find a way to make it reality. They didn't win any championships, but you know who has a championship ring? D.J. Mbenga, Sasha Vujacic, Kenny Smith, blah, blah, blah.

Man:



Boy:



This is one of my biggest frustrations with Vince Carter. Here's a guy who has unbelievable talent. Him and T-Mac. Those are some outrageous basketball genes. He's got the hands of a giant gecko, the strength of a golem, quickness, too. Yet this guy literally cannot take the game seriously. He simply got by on the wow factor until his knees said sayonara. He owns a restaurant out in Daytona that looks like a gentleman's club. He acts like the owner of a gentleman's club. Guarantee he becomes a commentator. What a wasted talent.

Which brings me to the supreme idiocy of one Latrell Sprewell. I don't know much about this guy. Except that he choked a dude and then quit the NBA when he plenty of time yet to compete. He quit out of arrogance. The guy had a temper problem and he let it define him. It's just like that one dude who was QB for the Chargers and would just go berserk. What a waster. At least Phil Rivers is a legitimate competitor. There's fire underneath the smoke. Not always the case.


"I got my family to feed!"

No More Mister Nice Guy

It has come to my attention that the sports world has lost all sense of entertainment, and is instead focused on a single product. Winning. Before it is asked, this will not be a commentary on the recent ramblings of a potentially insane star, despite the fact that he is winning. It's not as though I am above the idea of memes or the phenomenon of viral media, but there's a point where I draw the line at what is a humorous deviation from the norm and what is a planned attempt at attention grabbing.

Follow this link for the video, as it has no longer become available on YouTube.

When something like this is created, I want you to look me in the eye and tell me it isn't staged.


Regardless of all of that, I said this wouldn't be a commentary on Charlie Sheen. It is instead a discussion on the idea that sports in general have siphoned the entertainment from the game, to the point of win or get out. Professional sports aren't the only culprits to this claim, as many collegiate level teams are imbued with the idea of "what have you done for me lately?"

Recent names to be fired or "resign" are:
Steve Roberts - Arkansas State (34-47)
Stan Parrish - Ball State (6-19)
Dan Hawkins - Colorado (19-39)
Bill Lynch - Indiana (6-26)
Doug Martin - Kent State (28-53)
Rickey Bustle - Louisiana-Lafayette (41-65)
Ralph Friedgen - Maryland (75-50)*
Randy Shannon - Miami (28-22)*
Rich Rodriguez - Michigan (15-22)
Tim Brewster - Minnesota (15-30)
Todd Dodge - North Texas (6-37)
Dave Wannstedt - Pittsburgh (42-31)*

* - Indicates expectation versus performance

There's a trend here, even in collegiate sports. The NFL saw to oust five head coaches, and the NBA has already cut ties with Jim O'Brien of the Indiana Pacers. What's the point to all of this? After all, it's not exactly a new mentality. The point is that these behaviors are easier to focus on when there's a lack of entertainment.

It's an era of control for all major sports. Rule changes and regulations prohibit celebration almost entirely in the NFL. No more will we have this wondrous sack celebration. Without a yellow handkerchief that is.

It isn't just the officials and the bigwigs that determine the level of fun to be had in sports. Fault lies with avid and casual fans as well. If I were to say to you, "There's this dude on your team that's bad-ass! He isn't really intense enough though. He needs to play with more of a cutthroat attitude." Isn't that a little contradictory? This exact conversation has been tossed around about a particular player. A player that those contributing to this blog all find amazing.

In fact, the article in this SI is indicative of this argument.

"But to spend a day with Howard -- hell, to spend 10 minutes with him -- is to realize that despite his imposing stature and freakish athleticism, he may be among the least badass big men in NBA history. For starters, he has this unfortunate habit of smiling all the time, even when he's dunking on someone. Clearly, this violates one of the cardinal rules of intimidating big men, namely Thou Shalt Posture and Grimace Upon Vanquishing Thy Foes. This means you have three choices: flexing concrete biceps (like Alonzo Mourning), grasping your crotch with authority (à la Shawn Kemp) or letting loose a banshee scream (see Kevin Garnett). Smiling, however, is not an option."

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/chris_ballard/04/16/dwight.howard/index.html#ixzz1GbBGEQ00

Why can't one of the more entertaining, fun-loving, and dominating players in the game remain as such? Why must he change his mentality to fit that of the intense player? Characters aren't welcome in sports anymore. Every moment of Chad Ochocinco's career is scrutinized to determine whether it is worth a fine. Dwight Howard can't smile while he runs up the court, it doesn't show toughness or leadership. The first entry under Game is, "1. an amusement or pastime." We don't play games anymore. We work in sports. Again, it's not necessarily a new idea, but it's something that is more common than ever.

Basketball is bringing in young players with the penchant for theatrics. It will be upsetting if Blake Griffin begins dunking purely to instill fear. What if John Wall never does the Dougie, and instead pisses and moans if anyone showboats? What a league it would be.

Besides, one of the more entertaining films on sports is Major League. A story about a bunch of fun characters who band together and do something promising. It's only until Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn becomes businesslike in Major League 2 that the team and film start suffering. Suddenly this became about Charlie Sheen again...Son of a bitch, Charlie Sheen.

-La Maison "Mateo"