Did anyone else nearly explode into pure energy just watching that Bulls-Celtics game last night? It's times like that where I think I love basketball more than football. I at least think I love basketball at its best more than football at its best. Or maybe my love affairs just change as easily as the seasons...
Playoffs in every sport is where the action is. Often more so than the championships, though we've been pretty lucky in football the last few years. One can only hope that the inevitable Lakers-Cavaliers final will be half so good as the Celts and Bulls, neither of whom are going to be there at the end this year. It's the same with baseball, a more cerebral sport. Playoffs where every pitch has the game on the line are often better than the World Series.
Since you are a fan, Stacy, see if you can find out about Elgin Baylor, the first Doctor J, the first Michael Jordan--though he never won championships--those dang Celts! Jerry West is on the logo, but anyone who saw those Lakers play can testify ten times over that Jerry West was, understating it, just a sidekick, Baylor--Elgin, such an apt name, the fellow who led to Chick Hearn coining the phrase--he faked him right into the popcorn machine, a wonder to behold--6'5" perenially second in scoring to Chamberlain, third in rebounds to Russell and Chamberlain, a triple double machine, ferocious on defense, the fastest hands I've ever see--"hangs in the air" was how they all put it.
I think they also credit him with inventing the power forward position as well, right? Well, if not inventing it, at least being the prototype. I had no idea the guy was only 6'5".
God, that game was awesome, except for Doc Rivers running Tony Allen out for the last few minutes of regulation.
Tony Allen is an abomination, both on and off the court. Most Celtics fans hate him with the fire of a thousand suns, and I'm pissed that Danny Ainge gave him an extension.
I agree with you Stacy, as a Mavs fan playoff bball has meant more to me in the recent, oh say 9 years, than that of the local football team. These playoffs have grabbed my attention more, and this particular series is the best in recent memory.
One thing though, how do you not foul when your up three in the final seconds??? So many teams choose not to, when the obvious thing to do is to foul.
Are the supposedly new Tupac pictures too low-brow for this blog?
I don't think these are real or that Tupac is alive. But when I see things like this I can understand the impulse of people who believe that Elvis or JFK are alive. They're just grieving fans who really just want to see their hero or their president again. It's nice to get caught up, if just for a fleeting moment, in the fantasy that Tupac would unexpectedly rush the stage at the MTV awards and perform "I get around", giving everyone a heart attack. It's an escape from the reality of loss. We never get anything or anyone back.
I haven't seen the pictures yet, so I can't comment on that. I remember a couple years ago on April Fool's, CNN ran a story saying that Tupac had re-emerged; it actually had me fooled for a second, but I thought it was kind of a stupid/unprofessional thing to do. I'm sure people probably got really upset.
Similar story is Cobain. There are some hardcore fans out there who really think Courtney Love killed him; to me that's even worse though. Love is certainly no hero but no one deserves to be falsely accused of murder because a suicide victim's fans can't handle that he would do that to himself. Even after writing songs such as "I hate myself and want to die"
Jim Bunning is retiring. That puts the 2010 Senate elections at 6 open (R) seats and 2 open (D) seats (I'm counting Burress as open). Republicans could backslide even further next year.
Check out the President shooting baskets with the UConn women's team. Just watching this is enough to make me remove my surgical mask long enough to LOL.
Apropos of nothing -- I'm really starting to hate NPR. More specifically, their Washington Bureau, political and intelligence reporting, insistence on keeping the likes of Cokie Roberts, Juan Willimas, Mara Liasson, Scott Simon, etc., etc.
(Exceptions, of course: Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" and "Science Friday")
The death of Jack Kemp. Long before racism in sports was confronted by white athletes, Kemp spoke up and acted. My first thoughts when I heard he died were of 1965 and the AFL All-Star game that was supposed to be held in New Orleans. But black players were boycotting the game, because blacks had been barred from restaurants, bars, and cabs in New Orleans. And Kemp supported the boycott. A QB star long the domain of white guys, joined the black players and the game was not played in New Orleans. It was moved to Houston. Among white professional athletes he was anomaly. White jocks did not have an image of champions of civil rights on their resume.
When he left football and went into politics he didn't drop his opposition to discrimination. A republican like Jack Kemp would be a pariah to the party of today. My bet is that Kemp was ecstatic Obama won the presidency.
A good man.
Life keeps moving: the "Republican Listening Tour." I just heard about an hour of it. It's a "Republican Telling Tour;" telling people how their is a 'better way to a brighter future,' but, oddly enough, they never say what the better way is, besides lower taxes [they never say for whom], personal freedom [except for...] and small government, without defining what 'small' means.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Did anyone else nearly explode into pure energy just watching that Bulls-Celtics game last night? It's times like that where I think I love basketball more than football. I at least think I love basketball at its best more than football at its best. Or maybe my love affairs just change as easily as the seasons...
Playoffs in every sport is where the action is. Often more so than the championships, though we've been pretty lucky in football the last few years. One can only hope that the inevitable Lakers-Cavaliers final will be half so good as the Celts and Bulls, neither of whom are going to be there at the end this year. It's the same with baseball, a more cerebral sport. Playoffs where every pitch has the game on the line are often better than the World Series.
Since you are a fan, Stacy, see if you can find out about Elgin Baylor, the first Doctor J, the first Michael Jordan--though he never won championships--those dang Celts! Jerry West is on the logo, but anyone who saw those Lakers play can testify ten times over that Jerry West was, understating it, just a sidekick, Baylor--Elgin, such an apt name, the fellow who led to Chick Hearn coining the phrase--he faked him right into the popcorn machine, a wonder to behold--6'5" perenially second in scoring to Chamberlain, third in rebounds to Russell and Chamberlain, a triple double machine, ferocious on defense, the fastest hands I've ever see--"hangs in the air" was how they all put it.
I think they also credit him with inventing the power forward position as well, right? Well, if not inventing it, at least being the prototype. I had no idea the guy was only 6'5".
God, that game was awesome, except for Doc Rivers running Tony Allen out for the last few minutes of regulation.
Tony Allen is an abomination, both on and off the court. Most Celtics fans hate him with the fire of a thousand suns, and I'm pissed that Danny Ainge gave him an extension.
He took two shots in a row! He shouldn't have even had the ball in his hands...
I agree with you Stacy, as a Mavs fan playoff bball has meant more to me in the recent, oh say 9 years, than that of the local football team. These playoffs have grabbed my attention more, and this particular series is the best in recent memory.
One thing though, how do you not foul when your up three in the final seconds??? So many teams choose not to, when the obvious thing to do is to foul.
Are the supposedly new Tupac pictures too low-brow for this blog?
I don't think these are real or that Tupac is alive. But when I see things like this I can understand the impulse of people who believe that Elvis or JFK are alive. They're just grieving fans who really just want to see their hero or their president again. It's nice to get caught up, if just for a fleeting moment, in the fantasy that Tupac would unexpectedly rush the stage at the MTV awards and perform "I get around", giving everyone a heart attack. It's an escape from the reality of loss. We never get anything or anyone back.
...I wrote this song in 94.
I haven't seen the pictures yet, so I can't comment on that. I remember a couple years ago on April Fool's, CNN ran a story saying that Tupac had re-emerged; it actually had me fooled for a second, but I thought it was kind of a stupid/unprofessional thing to do. I'm sure people probably got really upset.
Similar story is Cobain. There are some hardcore fans out there who really think Courtney Love killed him; to me that's even worse though. Love is certainly no hero but no one deserves to be falsely accused of murder because a suicide victim's fans can't handle that he would do that to himself. Even after writing songs such as "I hate myself and want to die"
You mean the one of that guy in New Orleans? Pretty amusing.
Jim Bunning is retiring. That puts the 2010 Senate elections at 6 open (R) seats and 2 open (D) seats (I'm counting Burress as open). Republicans could backslide even further next year.
Check out the President shooting baskets with the UConn women's team. Just watching this is enough to make me remove my surgical mask long enough to LOL.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/05/01/Shooting-Around-With-the-Huskies/
That was funny! I think the ladies were actually going easy on him, didn't want to show him up on his home court.
This is why the embargo probably won't go away until Fidel is dead
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090501/wl_afp/maydaycubauspoliticscastro
Apropos of nothing -- I'm really starting to hate NPR. More specifically, their Washington Bureau, political and intelligence reporting, insistence on keeping the likes of Cokie Roberts, Juan Willimas, Mara Liasson, Scott Simon, etc., etc.
(Exceptions, of course: Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" and "Science Friday")
The death of Jack Kemp. Long before racism in sports was confronted by white athletes, Kemp spoke up and acted. My first thoughts when I heard he died were of 1965 and the AFL All-Star game that was supposed to be held in New Orleans. But black players were boycotting the game, because blacks had been barred from restaurants, bars, and cabs in New Orleans. And Kemp supported the boycott. A QB star long the domain of white guys, joined the black players and the game was not played in New Orleans. It was moved to Houston. Among white professional athletes he was anomaly. White jocks did not have an image of champions of civil rights on their resume.
When he left football and went into politics he didn't drop his opposition to discrimination. A republican like Jack Kemp would be a pariah to the party of today. My bet is that Kemp was ecstatic Obama won the presidency.
A good man.
Life keeps moving: the "Republican Listening Tour." I just heard about an hour of it. It's a "Republican Telling Tour;" telling people how their is a 'better way to a brighter future,' but, oddly enough, they never say what the better way is, besides lower taxes [they never say for whom], personal freedom [except for...] and small government, without defining what 'small' means.
My two cents for Sunday.