The New York Knicks are paying 62 million dollars this year to players no longer on the roster. I have no idea what they're paying their active roster, but $62m is more than enough to field a serviceable NBA team, and it's being paid to guys getting another paycheck from another NBA team or in Europe, or just sitting around playing Halo. In case anybody was wondering, this is why the league wants to reduce the number and scope of guaranteed contracts. There are a lot of under-performing guys stuck on NBA benches because their contracts can't be moved and tie their team's hands under the salary cap. They get paid, and I'm all for pro athletes facing risk of injury and with limited ability to choose their own employer getting some guaranteed money, but the fans suffer for watching a mediocre team with a poor personnel blend and no way to improve.
Like say the Timberwolves, who have made many unfortunate personnel choices, wasting years of a league MVP's career. Apparently the strange trade last year, Wally Szczerbiak and Michael Olowokandi for Mark Blount and Ricky Davis, where the Wolves didn't improve at all but gave up an expiring contract and a onetime all-star for a warm body with years of guaranteed money ahead of him came down to it being the only way of getting rid of a couple of locker room cancers. When the Vikings shipped out Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper they didn't get equal value in those trades and arguably lowered the talent level of the team, but they did get the freedom to pursue other opportunities and built a tough defense over the next two off-seasons. A poor personnel decision in the NFL is a missed opportunity, but a poor decision in the NBA means several years of missed opportunities, and any attempted remedy also has years of consequences. Case in point, the trade with Boston is arguably a delayed consequence of the Marbury trade back in 1999, and also of not resigning Nesterovic in 2003.
And on the subject of trades, could Bulls fans quit raving about what a good move trading Charles Oakley for Bill Cartwright was? Seriously, nobody's buying it.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
The Labors of Rufus
I just wanted to crack a joke about underlying appeal of Rocky, a point I could have made in one sentence. Then I expanded my argument into a 961 word essay. And I still think it's funny, but I think it may indicate I have entirely too much energy going to the wrong priorities. To that end, I thought I should devise an agenda for the coming year. I've chosen as inspiration to steal an idea from Agatha Christie, who had Hercule Poirot decide to retire except for 12 cases, which he would accept as analogues for the labors of Hercules. All of my labors will therefore refer to the 12 labors in a manner only I will find amusing.
To begin my task I need to bring myself closer to Hercules, to build the proper mindframe. Hercules found that only the claws of the Nemean Lion could pierce its skin, and similarly there is no way to approach the Labors of Hercules but through the footsteps of Hercules. Therefore like the legendary hero himself wrapping himself in the skin of the lion, I will immerse myself in Hercules. Premiere Pictures International have announced that they will hold an auction for the rights to Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film, Hercules in New York. After acquiring the rights, I plan to relaunch the film with a red carpet premiere (at Pavilion Place) on January 27th, followed by a worldwide relaunch, and see that this important modern myth stays vibrant in the public's imagination. I believe the legend of Hercules should be alive in the world today, because somewhere deep in the recesses of our imagination, taxis continue to speed by Mount Olympus, and making Arnold Schwarzenegger's first (and some say best) film popular will require a Herculean effort.
For the four weeks of February, I'll put the final polish on my plan to cure cancer, like Hercules in the lair of the Lernaean Hydra.
Once the snow starts to melt, I'll be able to lay the groundwork for another project. The Ceryneian Hind was a deer so fast that it could outrun arrows, that Hercules first sighted by the sun gleaming off its antlers, and the modern equivalent is the TGV with its electrical antlers. Minneapolis to other midwestern cities at TGV speeds should be competitive with getting a finger up your butt in security before flying into a suburb and taking a cab into the city. A Minneapolis-Rochester-Madison-Chicago route at 200mph could change traffic patterns between those cities, although I favor straight shots between major cities less than 500 miles apart myself. Within 500 miles of Chicago are Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and St. Louis, with other medium cities in between, and just over 500 miles are Kansas City and Memphis. Also 500 miles, San Diego to San Francisco, and Atlanta to Boston is dense enough for high speed to offer inter-urban coverage the whole way, even if the whole length is too far by itself. With high speed rail, there are a lot of competitive routes based on travel time offering less hassle (by plane from MPLS to CHI, you never get more than 45 minutes at a time before you have to change modes of transportation or stow all your stuff under your seat) and the luxury of modern telecommunications. And by April 1st, I should have the bugs worked out and start laying some track. If this seems like a pipe dream, that we could ever have the money to fund this, I can finance it by reforming the New York Stock Exchange, which should increase government revenues by 2 billion dollars a year and free up a billion dollars annually for private investment into rail projects, based on the estimated 10 billion dollars a year the inefficiency of the NYSE costs the United States economy. Between that and the tax revenues from taxing foreign currency earnings of MMORPG players (like World of Warcraft gold piece earnings) there's plenty of public money for infrastructure.
I always get excited about the prospect of the Independence Party creating a realistic, centrist alternative to entrenched special interests, to really challenge existing parties to redefine themselves and shake things up enough to energize voters. But exciting and strange as they are, in November when the snow starts flying, the Independence Party Buffalo always seems to get stuck in the deep snow, while the Outsourcing Elephant and the Reactionary Donkey race by him. So in April, I'm going to create a party platform and voter outreach strategy as well as recruit a full slate of Independence Party candidates for every partisan office I vote for (5th district, US Senate, President, State House and Senate, Beef Queen, Grand Moff, etc.) On April 30th, I will deliver my strategy guidebook to them, with an inspiring story about Hercules' pursuit of the Erymanthian Boar into deep snow just like the Buffalo with the loud tie gets mired every November, and then we'll all go out and kill that mother#@!$*& Hercules.
May showers in Minnesota highlight a fairly annoying problem, the fact that some of St. Paul and Minneapolis' storm drains are still connected to the sewage system. This means that after heavy rain, feces start coursing through the storm drains, and parts of the streets and the river smell like poo. I'm going to fix the sewer system, and clean up the city of Minneapolis' storm drains, because now that I know what's causing that smell on bright summer days after a storm I find it distractingly nauseating. Seriously, it's like the cruel inverse of Hercules using the river to clean the stables, instead we get a river of feces stinking up the city.
In June I will devise an application for the Airbus A380, and if I have some time at the end of the month I'll figure out how to build it properly in one place. This may involve routing all air traffic everywhere in the world through regional hubs, and then routing all hub-to-hub traffic through O'Hare. This will mean a trip from Zurich to Ft. Meyers will require taking a 787 from Zurich to Amsterdam, an A380 from Amsterdam to Chicago, another A380 from Chicago to Atlanta, and another 787 from Atlanta to Ft. Meyers. That's just one possibility, I'll be taking other suggestions until July 1st on how to handle my equivalent of the Stymphalian birds.
After that I figure I'll have spent enough time cooped up in front of a computer looking at flight schedules and in cramped airline seats, so I figure in July I'll want to get out and stretch my legs. With that in mind, I plan to train for and run the Chicago Marathon, which I will obviously also reschedule for the 31st of July. With only 30 days to train, and my customary rule of never moving more than 300 feet in a day, I'll need Paul to chase me all 26 miles with a meat fork to ensure I make it the whole way, my own personal Marathonian Bull.
To get home from Chicago, I'd need to secure some better transportation. Given how far up their own asses Amtrak are, and the lack of interest I have in either eight hours in a rolling prison or spending 30 hours at O'Hare for a 75 minute flight, and the inability to rent a boat on Lake Michigan (which I could take back to Minnesota via Lake Superior), I'm going to have to create my own alternative. There's no room to expand Midway, and expanding O'Hare farther out into the countryside just exacerbates the crowded airspace and means more time on the blue line watching the spraypaint dry. So the only solution is to start routing flights to Meigs Field which will terminate in Chicago. I know this seems impossible, given that the prohibitively small size of the peninsula against the gargantuan A380, but like Hercules corralling the horses of Diomedes, what's needed is not a peninsula, but an island. In order to expedite the evacuation of Tokyo following an attack by a giant web-footed monster, the Japanese have created a floating airport in the harbor, which will be the basis of an expanded Meigs field, with a water shuttle dropping off passengers in the hospitality center on Lower Wacker Drive. And if the airlines or the Chicago airport commission oppose my plan with whines about the lack of successful water landings, I will throw them into a jet engine like Hercules fed Diomedes to his own horses.
Hercules' 9th task was like the greatest panty raid of all time, stealing the Girdle of Hippolyta and escaping from furious amazons. In keeping with the myth, I've been mulling over what I could steal from angry lesbians that would make the world a better place, but I was really stumped because other than their apparent hostility towards bisexuality, I really don't have any real major disagreements to exploit, unless like Theseus I were to carry off their queen. Eventually I realized I was just really off on the wrong track, and I decided the thing to do was to focus on the other aspect of the myth, so over 30 days in September I plan to steal the 900 million bras in America. The suspected link between the restriction of lymph movement and breast cancer requires a significant compensating benefit to the bra, and frankly there isn't a great case for it other than specialized bras (like sports bras) and situations. I've just seen too many women who looked perfectly fine without them, especially women with small, beautiful breasts that didn't need to be immobilized for any reason other than to support a multi-billion dollar bra industry, money that could better be spent on say... breast cancer research. Seriously, I say let women be women, and don't be afraid of breasts. The breasts want to be free, in the winter under a heavy sweater nobody cares what the breasts are doing, and in the summer let them be topless and happy.
With Halloween looming, I'll want to get some use out of my monk costume, and stealing a flock of sheep from three-bodied monster Geryon calls to mind the Holy Trinity and the way unscrupulous preachers have stolen their flock. Since the latest craze in politics is churches selling the lists of their members to political organizations or just harassing them in church or over the phone to vote and volunteer for the minister's favorite candidate. I'm starting to miss a simpler time when Republicans just paid off black ministers to tell likely Democratic voters to stay home. So in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I'm going to hit the pulpit and insist that voters start demanding Christian values from candidates like not bearing false witness against their neighbors, making inappropriate use of the Lord's name, and not killing people. This means claiming God told you political bumper stickers cause kiddie porn and terrorism while being the mascot for a terrorist training camp for Christian kids is right the fuck out.
Come November, I will head to New York and sort out once and for all what to do with at Ground Zero. Hercules held up the sky while Atlas secured the Apples of the Hesperides, and so I will build the Big Apple another skyscraper, with mixed residential, commercial, and retail space and lush greenhouses, all climbing higher and higher in a ridiculously gaudy twisting spire that seems like a tent-pole over the greatest show on earth. It will all rise up out of a plaza that will have a polar projection map of the earth centered on the very spot the tower is resting on, with all the continents done in Manhattan granitic schist surrounded by a quartz ocean. And it will have only one elevator, because I'm an idiot who thinks that sort of thing is funny.
As I return home in December, to gather with friends and family for the holidays, I'll want to something light and not so ostentatious or dramatic as the spire in NYC, so I will descend into Hades and capture the three-headed dog Cerberus, and make him into a rug we can all sit on in front of a warm fire roasting marshmallows. Then I'll finally have time to start thinking about the Iowa caucuses, and interview potential vice presidential nominees for my 2008 presidential bid.
To begin my task I need to bring myself closer to Hercules, to build the proper mindframe. Hercules found that only the claws of the Nemean Lion could pierce its skin, and similarly there is no way to approach the Labors of Hercules but through the footsteps of Hercules. Therefore like the legendary hero himself wrapping himself in the skin of the lion, I will immerse myself in Hercules. Premiere Pictures International have announced that they will hold an auction for the rights to Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film, Hercules in New York. After acquiring the rights, I plan to relaunch the film with a red carpet premiere (at Pavilion Place) on January 27th, followed by a worldwide relaunch, and see that this important modern myth stays vibrant in the public's imagination. I believe the legend of Hercules should be alive in the world today, because somewhere deep in the recesses of our imagination, taxis continue to speed by Mount Olympus, and making Arnold Schwarzenegger's first (and some say best) film popular will require a Herculean effort.
For the four weeks of February, I'll put the final polish on my plan to cure cancer, like Hercules in the lair of the Lernaean Hydra.
Once the snow starts to melt, I'll be able to lay the groundwork for another project. The Ceryneian Hind was a deer so fast that it could outrun arrows, that Hercules first sighted by the sun gleaming off its antlers, and the modern equivalent is the TGV with its electrical antlers. Minneapolis to other midwestern cities at TGV speeds should be competitive with getting a finger up your butt in security before flying into a suburb and taking a cab into the city. A Minneapolis-Rochester-Madison-Chicago route at 200mph could change traffic patterns between those cities, although I favor straight shots between major cities less than 500 miles apart myself. Within 500 miles of Chicago are Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and St. Louis, with other medium cities in between, and just over 500 miles are Kansas City and Memphis. Also 500 miles, San Diego to San Francisco, and Atlanta to Boston is dense enough for high speed to offer inter-urban coverage the whole way, even if the whole length is too far by itself. With high speed rail, there are a lot of competitive routes based on travel time offering less hassle (by plane from MPLS to CHI, you never get more than 45 minutes at a time before you have to change modes of transportation or stow all your stuff under your seat) and the luxury of modern telecommunications. And by April 1st, I should have the bugs worked out and start laying some track. If this seems like a pipe dream, that we could ever have the money to fund this, I can finance it by reforming the New York Stock Exchange, which should increase government revenues by 2 billion dollars a year and free up a billion dollars annually for private investment into rail projects, based on the estimated 10 billion dollars a year the inefficiency of the NYSE costs the United States economy. Between that and the tax revenues from taxing foreign currency earnings of MMORPG players (like World of Warcraft gold piece earnings) there's plenty of public money for infrastructure.
I always get excited about the prospect of the Independence Party creating a realistic, centrist alternative to entrenched special interests, to really challenge existing parties to redefine themselves and shake things up enough to energize voters. But exciting and strange as they are, in November when the snow starts flying, the Independence Party Buffalo always seems to get stuck in the deep snow, while the Outsourcing Elephant and the Reactionary Donkey race by him. So in April, I'm going to create a party platform and voter outreach strategy as well as recruit a full slate of Independence Party candidates for every partisan office I vote for (5th district, US Senate, President, State House and Senate, Beef Queen, Grand Moff, etc.) On April 30th, I will deliver my strategy guidebook to them, with an inspiring story about Hercules' pursuit of the Erymanthian Boar into deep snow just like the Buffalo with the loud tie gets mired every November, and then we'll all go out and kill that mother#@!$*& Hercules.
May showers in Minnesota highlight a fairly annoying problem, the fact that some of St. Paul and Minneapolis' storm drains are still connected to the sewage system. This means that after heavy rain, feces start coursing through the storm drains, and parts of the streets and the river smell like poo. I'm going to fix the sewer system, and clean up the city of Minneapolis' storm drains, because now that I know what's causing that smell on bright summer days after a storm I find it distractingly nauseating. Seriously, it's like the cruel inverse of Hercules using the river to clean the stables, instead we get a river of feces stinking up the city.
In June I will devise an application for the Airbus A380, and if I have some time at the end of the month I'll figure out how to build it properly in one place. This may involve routing all air traffic everywhere in the world through regional hubs, and then routing all hub-to-hub traffic through O'Hare. This will mean a trip from Zurich to Ft. Meyers will require taking a 787 from Zurich to Amsterdam, an A380 from Amsterdam to Chicago, another A380 from Chicago to Atlanta, and another 787 from Atlanta to Ft. Meyers. That's just one possibility, I'll be taking other suggestions until July 1st on how to handle my equivalent of the Stymphalian birds.
After that I figure I'll have spent enough time cooped up in front of a computer looking at flight schedules and in cramped airline seats, so I figure in July I'll want to get out and stretch my legs. With that in mind, I plan to train for and run the Chicago Marathon, which I will obviously also reschedule for the 31st of July. With only 30 days to train, and my customary rule of never moving more than 300 feet in a day, I'll need Paul to chase me all 26 miles with a meat fork to ensure I make it the whole way, my own personal Marathonian Bull.
To get home from Chicago, I'd need to secure some better transportation. Given how far up their own asses Amtrak are, and the lack of interest I have in either eight hours in a rolling prison or spending 30 hours at O'Hare for a 75 minute flight, and the inability to rent a boat on Lake Michigan (which I could take back to Minnesota via Lake Superior), I'm going to have to create my own alternative. There's no room to expand Midway, and expanding O'Hare farther out into the countryside just exacerbates the crowded airspace and means more time on the blue line watching the spraypaint dry. So the only solution is to start routing flights to Meigs Field which will terminate in Chicago. I know this seems impossible, given that the prohibitively small size of the peninsula against the gargantuan A380, but like Hercules corralling the horses of Diomedes, what's needed is not a peninsula, but an island. In order to expedite the evacuation of Tokyo following an attack by a giant web-footed monster, the Japanese have created a floating airport in the harbor, which will be the basis of an expanded Meigs field, with a water shuttle dropping off passengers in the hospitality center on Lower Wacker Drive. And if the airlines or the Chicago airport commission oppose my plan with whines about the lack of successful water landings, I will throw them into a jet engine like Hercules fed Diomedes to his own horses.
Hercules' 9th task was like the greatest panty raid of all time, stealing the Girdle of Hippolyta and escaping from furious amazons. In keeping with the myth, I've been mulling over what I could steal from angry lesbians that would make the world a better place, but I was really stumped because other than their apparent hostility towards bisexuality, I really don't have any real major disagreements to exploit, unless like Theseus I were to carry off their queen. Eventually I realized I was just really off on the wrong track, and I decided the thing to do was to focus on the other aspect of the myth, so over 30 days in September I plan to steal the 900 million bras in America. The suspected link between the restriction of lymph movement and breast cancer requires a significant compensating benefit to the bra, and frankly there isn't a great case for it other than specialized bras (like sports bras) and situations. I've just seen too many women who looked perfectly fine without them, especially women with small, beautiful breasts that didn't need to be immobilized for any reason other than to support a multi-billion dollar bra industry, money that could better be spent on say... breast cancer research. Seriously, I say let women be women, and don't be afraid of breasts. The breasts want to be free, in the winter under a heavy sweater nobody cares what the breasts are doing, and in the summer let them be topless and happy.
With Halloween looming, I'll want to get some use out of my monk costume, and stealing a flock of sheep from three-bodied monster Geryon calls to mind the Holy Trinity and the way unscrupulous preachers have stolen their flock. Since the latest craze in politics is churches selling the lists of their members to political organizations or just harassing them in church or over the phone to vote and volunteer for the minister's favorite candidate. I'm starting to miss a simpler time when Republicans just paid off black ministers to tell likely Democratic voters to stay home. So in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I'm going to hit the pulpit and insist that voters start demanding Christian values from candidates like not bearing false witness against their neighbors, making inappropriate use of the Lord's name, and not killing people. This means claiming God told you political bumper stickers cause kiddie porn and terrorism while being the mascot for a terrorist training camp for Christian kids is right the fuck out.
Come November, I will head to New York and sort out once and for all what to do with at Ground Zero. Hercules held up the sky while Atlas secured the Apples of the Hesperides, and so I will build the Big Apple another skyscraper, with mixed residential, commercial, and retail space and lush greenhouses, all climbing higher and higher in a ridiculously gaudy twisting spire that seems like a tent-pole over the greatest show on earth. It will all rise up out of a plaza that will have a polar projection map of the earth centered on the very spot the tower is resting on, with all the continents done in Manhattan granitic schist surrounded by a quartz ocean. And it will have only one elevator, because I'm an idiot who thinks that sort of thing is funny.
As I return home in December, to gather with friends and family for the holidays, I'll want to something light and not so ostentatious or dramatic as the spire in NYC, so I will descend into Hades and capture the three-headed dog Cerberus, and make him into a rug we can all sit on in front of a warm fire roasting marshmallows. Then I'll finally have time to start thinking about the Iowa caucuses, and interview potential vice presidential nominees for my 2008 presidential bid.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Twinsville
A lot of stuff is finally coming together north of the warehouse district, and plans are out for the new stadium, the commuter rail, and a light rail extension. Everything seems to be proceeding in a sensible fashion, which is why I'm so suspicious. The stadium will be situated over the train tracks that the Northstar commuter rail line runs on, with some sort of heavy concrete sheath to keep a train derailment from collapsing the outfield bleachers. The light rail line will extend north up 5th street, with the station integrated into the stadium plaza, with the Northstar line coming in underneath. It's just north of the Target center parking ramps which integrate with I-394. So basically it's a major attraction at the nexus of two rail lines, makes use of existing parking infrastructure, and an extension to the Hiawatha line to hold additional cars to handle the postgame stampede.
This seems entirely too intelligently designed, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some flaw to emerge like the light rail line, which apparently has to run slower so they can use quieter horns, which is what screwed up the timing of the lights on 55. Seriously, I want to know who bought a condo on the light rail line and then complained about the train being too loud.
This seems entirely too intelligently designed, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some flaw to emerge like the light rail line, which apparently has to run slower so they can use quieter horns, which is what screwed up the timing of the lights on 55. Seriously, I want to know who bought a condo on the light rail line and then complained about the train being too loud.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Rocky VI, or how I figured out the secret formula of Rocky's appeal
I think I've finally figured out why Sylvester Stallone is making another Rocky movie when it's been over 15 years since the last one bombed. The last good film to come out of that franchise was a quarter century ago. And I've figured out why he's so confident that the ridiculousness of the premise won't daunt anyone, the idea that a guy who was told his brain would explode if he ever fought again would wait until he had arthritis too before stepping back into the ring.
In the first movie, Rocky fights Apollo Creed, and that got Sylvester Stallone the only Oscar and BAFTA nominations of his career (best actor and best original screenplay). Then he fights Apollo Creed again, and people liked that. Then he fights Clubber Lang, and that was okay too. Then he fought the Russian, and suddenly everybody felt a little embarrassed to be watching an over-the-top love poem to Ronald Reagan's America. Then he did the movie where Rocky isn't supposed to fight anymore so he beats up a corn-fed Nebraska farmboy in an alley, after the kid's already been pounded on by the heavyweight champion of the world, and this is important, that he's finishing the job started by Union Cane.
So why was everybody so excited to see Rocky fight Clubber Lang (played by Mr. T) and Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers), but not excited about Rocky fighting Tommy Gunn and Ivan Drago? It's simple, really... I think the reason so many people watched Rocky was to see an Italian beat the crap out of black guys. I mean the guy was breaking people's thumbs for a loan shark, if he's going to play to that stereotype, I just figure he's probably one of those guys who can't stand for black people in his neighborhood either. Apollo Creed as it turns out came from L.A. to Philly so a local boy from one of America's most racially divided cities could wrap himself up in the American flag and pummel Apollo's ass on the 4th of July and send him back to California with his tail between his legs. That movie must have killed in the northeast back in the 70s.
I wouldn't have noticed except that when Rocky started fighting white people, the whole franchise crashed and burned. It's even more subtle than that. In Rocky III, Rocky first has a charity match against wrestling star Thunderlips, portrayed by Hulk Hogan, the preeminent (fake) wrestler of the early 80s. Mick tells him not to do it, not to fight another white man, but Rocky ignores his advice, and suffers for it. He is injured, leading to his disgraceful loss to Clubber Lang, and suffers further when Mick dies during the fight. When Rocky starts to train with Apollo Creed in an all-black gym in LA, where he can only beat up black sparring partners, Rocky finds his will to fight and goes back to beat up Clubber Lang.
In Rocky IV He even went after Ivan Drago just to seek vengeance for Drago doing too good a job beating up Apollo Creed, and well, killing him. Nobody was too excited about seeing that, apparently, and I think it's because the audience felt Rocky was on the wrong side, like maybe he had his priorities out of order. And Rocky is again punished for fighting a white guy, because in the beginning of Rocky V, immediately following the events of Rocky IV, it turns out Rocky's lawyer stole all his money while he was in Russia, and he also can't fight anymore because his brain will squash like a grape if anybody hits him again. But the real misstep was when Tommy Gunn, bruised and bloodied from beating up Union Cane, shows up at Rocky's gym. Rocky comes out of retirement against medical advice to finish the job Cane started, and beats this kid unconscious. The opportunity to pile on an already battered white guy got him to risk his life for one more fight? Had Rocky just totally renounced fulfilling racist fantasies?
The only glimmer of hope for the franchise to return to its racist roots was the end of the film when Rocky punches out a black guy who was just standing there. Apparently, if a black guy shows up in Rocky's neighborhood wearing a nice suit and some bling, well the Italian Stallion doesn't put up with that sort of thing. He was talking a little trash, but still, in the first movie we see Rocky get in trouble with his loan shark boss for not breaking a white guy's thumb, so we know Rocky abhors violence. The only times Rocky throws any punches outside the ring it's to hit that guy, and to beat up sides of beef in a meat locker. Isn't it at least a little strange to see that when it comes to violence outside of boxing, Rocky puts black people on the same level as cattle?
The premise of Rocky VI is that a sports show is so desperate to find somebody who can beat up the black guy who's the reigning heavyweight champion that they run a computer simulation of Rocky Balboa vs Mason Dixon. The fact that the guy is named after the historical dividing line between two visions of race in America doesn't doesn't speak volumes, no. Anyways, just like every working-class Irish racist relative I have who thinks that at age 75 he's tougher than the black kids he tries to chase away from his house, even with arthritis Rocky Balboa figures he's tough enough to take on the world champion. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he just runs out for the big fight in a Klan robe.
In the first movie, Rocky fights Apollo Creed, and that got Sylvester Stallone the only Oscar and BAFTA nominations of his career (best actor and best original screenplay). Then he fights Apollo Creed again, and people liked that. Then he fights Clubber Lang, and that was okay too. Then he fought the Russian, and suddenly everybody felt a little embarrassed to be watching an over-the-top love poem to Ronald Reagan's America. Then he did the movie where Rocky isn't supposed to fight anymore so he beats up a corn-fed Nebraska farmboy in an alley, after the kid's already been pounded on by the heavyweight champion of the world, and this is important, that he's finishing the job started by Union Cane.
So why was everybody so excited to see Rocky fight Clubber Lang (played by Mr. T) and Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers), but not excited about Rocky fighting Tommy Gunn and Ivan Drago? It's simple, really... I think the reason so many people watched Rocky was to see an Italian beat the crap out of black guys. I mean the guy was breaking people's thumbs for a loan shark, if he's going to play to that stereotype, I just figure he's probably one of those guys who can't stand for black people in his neighborhood either. Apollo Creed as it turns out came from L.A. to Philly so a local boy from one of America's most racially divided cities could wrap himself up in the American flag and pummel Apollo's ass on the 4th of July and send him back to California with his tail between his legs. That movie must have killed in the northeast back in the 70s.
I wouldn't have noticed except that when Rocky started fighting white people, the whole franchise crashed and burned. It's even more subtle than that. In Rocky III, Rocky first has a charity match against wrestling star Thunderlips, portrayed by Hulk Hogan, the preeminent (fake) wrestler of the early 80s. Mick tells him not to do it, not to fight another white man, but Rocky ignores his advice, and suffers for it. He is injured, leading to his disgraceful loss to Clubber Lang, and suffers further when Mick dies during the fight. When Rocky starts to train with Apollo Creed in an all-black gym in LA, where he can only beat up black sparring partners, Rocky finds his will to fight and goes back to beat up Clubber Lang.
In Rocky IV He even went after Ivan Drago just to seek vengeance for Drago doing too good a job beating up Apollo Creed, and well, killing him. Nobody was too excited about seeing that, apparently, and I think it's because the audience felt Rocky was on the wrong side, like maybe he had his priorities out of order. And Rocky is again punished for fighting a white guy, because in the beginning of Rocky V, immediately following the events of Rocky IV, it turns out Rocky's lawyer stole all his money while he was in Russia, and he also can't fight anymore because his brain will squash like a grape if anybody hits him again. But the real misstep was when Tommy Gunn, bruised and bloodied from beating up Union Cane, shows up at Rocky's gym. Rocky comes out of retirement against medical advice to finish the job Cane started, and beats this kid unconscious. The opportunity to pile on an already battered white guy got him to risk his life for one more fight? Had Rocky just totally renounced fulfilling racist fantasies?
The only glimmer of hope for the franchise to return to its racist roots was the end of the film when Rocky punches out a black guy who was just standing there. Apparently, if a black guy shows up in Rocky's neighborhood wearing a nice suit and some bling, well the Italian Stallion doesn't put up with that sort of thing. He was talking a little trash, but still, in the first movie we see Rocky get in trouble with his loan shark boss for not breaking a white guy's thumb, so we know Rocky abhors violence. The only times Rocky throws any punches outside the ring it's to hit that guy, and to beat up sides of beef in a meat locker. Isn't it at least a little strange to see that when it comes to violence outside of boxing, Rocky puts black people on the same level as cattle?
The premise of Rocky VI is that a sports show is so desperate to find somebody who can beat up the black guy who's the reigning heavyweight champion that they run a computer simulation of Rocky Balboa vs Mason Dixon. The fact that the guy is named after the historical dividing line between two visions of race in America doesn't doesn't speak volumes, no. Anyways, just like every working-class Irish racist relative I have who thinks that at age 75 he's tougher than the black kids he tries to chase away from his house, even with arthritis Rocky Balboa figures he's tough enough to take on the world champion. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he just runs out for the big fight in a Klan robe.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
I'm shipping off... to find my wooden leg
What a fantastic movie, that delivers on all of its promises. Everybody in a great cast delivers, Martin Sheen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Marky Mark, Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Vera Farmiga, and even Anthony Anderson were all absolutely captivating. After this and The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio may finally be done being the guy from Titanic. This is one of those films where for me all the twists and turns of the story and any meaning to be derived from it all faded to the background, and all that was left was being hauled through a wild ride, just mesmerized by the actors going through each individual scene. I could completely forget who all these people were and every other acting job they've ever done watching them in this film.
Based on those performances, if this is the movie that finally gets Martin Scorsese an Oscar, it won't be politics and pity (like Randy Newman's Oscar for Monsters, Inc). The use of music was also particularly cool, both in some of the selection and in the choice to blast it and then cut it off abruptly when dialogue took its place. The Dropkick Murphys cover of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston", half Irish-half punk, really set the tone for the whole film.
I don't remember the last time I saw such a violent film, not because it was wall-to-wall violence or graphic, but because of the frankness of it. The whole thing is a bloody tale about an Irish gang in south Boston, and the only works I've ever seen with this much senseless, violent tragedy were all Irish plays, so of course this screenplay was adapted by a guy named Monahan. To be fair, I've never seen Infernal Affairs, so I don't know how much of this is straight from the Hong Kong film, and how much is from the same wellspring of violence and loss that fueled W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge. It also makes me wonder how William Monahan's script for Kingdom of Heaven would have come out with better casting (David Thewlis and Siddig El Fadil excepted) and was aimed in a smarter, less commercial direction.
Some people in the audience were definitely not up to it though, so don't bring your dumb friends. The people who audibly yawned during any tense scene because they didn't understand what was going on, or giggled during any display of emotion, and laughed whenever anyone got shot, basically the people with no capacity to appreciate anything but broad physical comedy and melodrama and just came to see Jack Nicholson be all crazy, were notably disappointed. Several people filed out early, and this is a long film without a lot of roadsigns, so if a brutal Irish-american crime thriller doesn't sound like something you can immerse yourself in, skip it.
Based on those performances, if this is the movie that finally gets Martin Scorsese an Oscar, it won't be politics and pity (like Randy Newman's Oscar for Monsters, Inc). The use of music was also particularly cool, both in some of the selection and in the choice to blast it and then cut it off abruptly when dialogue took its place. The Dropkick Murphys cover of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston", half Irish-half punk, really set the tone for the whole film.
I don't remember the last time I saw such a violent film, not because it was wall-to-wall violence or graphic, but because of the frankness of it. The whole thing is a bloody tale about an Irish gang in south Boston, and the only works I've ever seen with this much senseless, violent tragedy were all Irish plays, so of course this screenplay was adapted by a guy named Monahan. To be fair, I've never seen Infernal Affairs, so I don't know how much of this is straight from the Hong Kong film, and how much is from the same wellspring of violence and loss that fueled W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge. It also makes me wonder how William Monahan's script for Kingdom of Heaven would have come out with better casting (David Thewlis and Siddig El Fadil excepted) and was aimed in a smarter, less commercial direction.
Some people in the audience were definitely not up to it though, so don't bring your dumb friends. The people who audibly yawned during any tense scene because they didn't understand what was going on, or giggled during any display of emotion, and laughed whenever anyone got shot, basically the people with no capacity to appreciate anything but broad physical comedy and melodrama and just came to see Jack Nicholson be all crazy, were notably disappointed. Several people filed out early, and this is a long film without a lot of roadsigns, so if a brutal Irish-american crime thriller doesn't sound like something you can immerse yourself in, skip it.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Stephon Marbury's Series of Unfortunate Events, or The Prince's New Shoes
I know I've spent a lot of time in the last 7 years making fun of Stephon Marbury and enjoying his misfortunes, ever since he signed with David Falk. When he demanded that stupid trade to the Nets, who then imploded, I had a hard time dealing with the feelings of disappointment and betrayal. My disintegrating relationship with a girl who grew up right next to the Meadowlands didn't help. For six years I attributed my feelings of inadequacy and frustration from that time towards the New York Giants because they beat the Vikings 41-0 in a title game, but sometimes I wonder if that break-up might have had something to do with that too. Then I always stuff it all back in the Chest of Denial I keep at the foot of my bed and remind myself the Giants just suck.
But anyways, Marbury let then NBA super-agent David Falk convince him that if Marbury played in New York, Falk could make him a huge star, a major media figure, and land him scads of endorsement deals. There were reasons why this sounded like a good idea. Growing up in Coney Island, Marbury was a Brooklyn playground superstar, which is no small achievement playing on the courts that produced Earl the Goat and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Marbury even back in his rookie year was so unbelievably talented, and could pull off so many spectacular passes and had so much in his bag of tricks that he was an absolute treasure in a star-driven league. Point guards backed off at the start of games, respecting his ankle-breaking moves off the dribble, so he'd open every game with a three pointer like, "Fine, I'll beat you from back here." In the lane he had a whole collection of moves to get an unblockable shot over a 7 foot center, or he'd throw no look passes after breaking down the defense, or just curl mid-air passes around the guys who challenged him. It all came out of his Brooklyn playground style that made this Coney Island kid's nickname "Mr. Starbury". Actually the character of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's homage to basketball He Got Game is based on Stephon Marbury.
He was known for his incredible passing and the way he linked up with team-mates, especially the gentle, perfectly lofted alley-oops to Kevin Garnett, or when Tom Gugliotta started running back-door plays where Googs threw alley-oops for a cutting Marbury. His ad campaign with And 1 was fantastic, billboards of broken ankles set with pins blaming the challenge of defending Stephon Marbury, and a commercial of him dribbling through a crowded subway car when it stops at a station, until somebody flips him a quarter. It was totally street, and perfect for a kid from the projects who was all about the game, not a self-promoting egomaniac who gets out of a limo in a $1000 Italian suit.
Then Falk pushed through a trade to New Jersey, which screwed the Timberwolves forever, but that's another story. Marbury and the Nets never got it together, and then Marbury ended their center's career when he landed on him in a pile-up. Then their center shot his chauffeur, but that's another story. And in the middle of this turmoil the Nets discovered why Stephon Marbury's high school coach actually tried to talk him out of moving back to New York, and why his coach at Georgia Tech encouraged him to enter the draft after a year. His relatives all hover around him and they're all batshit crazy. His mother hanging around the locker room yelling at the other players that they play was letting her son down by playing like shit really didn't go over too well.
About this time, Marbury figured out he wasn't getting a lot of endorsement deals. This was supposed to be a big reason he wanted to play in the greater New York market, because in a big media market he'd be raking in the endorsement cash and be a big star. He specifically said nobody was beating down Kevin Garnett's door to play in a small market like Minnesota, but nobody was beating down his door in NYC either. Because unfortunately as it turned out Marbury had no charisma and was completely unintelligible when he spoke. Meanwhile Kevin Garnett's charisma and positive image got Nike to create the Fun Police ad campaign for him, which I still think was their best basketball ad besides the Spike Lee and Samuel L. Jackson ads during the lockout, and all were about putting love of the game over fame and money.
Then Marbury shipped out by the Nets, who were sick of his mother and his brothers, and of watching him score 35 points and lose in front of 4,000 fans. When he got to Phoenix, Stephon became the first to figure out David Falk's mystique was pretty much down to having Michael Jordan as a client, and once Jordan retired, his influence waned. Marbury canned him, played well with the ascendant Suns, but his bitchy personality and his attempts to start a feud in the media with his former best friend, Garnett, meant nobody liked him, and he wasn't the biggest star on his team, which was part of his stated reason for leaving Minnesota, specifically that Garnett made more money than him. He wasn't even getting into all-star games when he was the best point guard in the conference, his popularity was so unrepresentative of his talent.
So then got himself a trade back to New York with the Knicks. For a while, he was a superstar on a really horrid team. Then finally even he realized that the Knicks were hopeless, with huge amounts of money tied up against the salary cap in longterm contracts for mediocre players. They couldn't improve through free agency, had no trade-bait but him, and were drafting stiffs. Something finally seemed to click with him that after ten years, he'd gone from a 19-year old kid who looked like he and his best friend would be contending for championships and MVP trophies together (Garnett won the MVP award in 2004) to a 30-year old with a kid (raised by his ex-girlfriend he impregnated back in high school) about to hit her teenage years, looking at probably finishing out his career on a losing team. His attitude seems to have changed, and he identified himself as part of the cause of the Knicks' malaise.
So now he's done something I actually think is pretty interesting. He's promoting his own line of shoes (part of being an NBA superstar is to have your own shoe) but instead of $150 Nikes that people get shot over, the top model in his line sells for $15. He's putting his name on something that kids who grew up like him can actually wear without costing their parents a week's wages. This is the first sign since he left Minnesota of the Marbury who made me a rabid Timberwolves fan back in the fall of 1996, the guy who had some sense of the world around him, who cared more about the game than his image. It may be he's just carving out the last money-making niche he has left, but I'd rather believe there really was a decent guy underneath the head trip he went on when he signed with David Falk, even though it's sad to wonder what would have happened if he'd kept his head on straight back in '99 and the Wolves had kept a core of star players to build around, and Marbury had stayed away from the hangers-on he had back in New York.
And those are my brief thoughts on the case of Stephon Marbury. And seriously, He Got Game is a fantastic movie.
But anyways, Marbury let then NBA super-agent David Falk convince him that if Marbury played in New York, Falk could make him a huge star, a major media figure, and land him scads of endorsement deals. There were reasons why this sounded like a good idea. Growing up in Coney Island, Marbury was a Brooklyn playground superstar, which is no small achievement playing on the courts that produced Earl the Goat and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Marbury even back in his rookie year was so unbelievably talented, and could pull off so many spectacular passes and had so much in his bag of tricks that he was an absolute treasure in a star-driven league. Point guards backed off at the start of games, respecting his ankle-breaking moves off the dribble, so he'd open every game with a three pointer like, "Fine, I'll beat you from back here." In the lane he had a whole collection of moves to get an unblockable shot over a 7 foot center, or he'd throw no look passes after breaking down the defense, or just curl mid-air passes around the guys who challenged him. It all came out of his Brooklyn playground style that made this Coney Island kid's nickname "Mr. Starbury". Actually the character of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's homage to basketball He Got Game is based on Stephon Marbury.
He was known for his incredible passing and the way he linked up with team-mates, especially the gentle, perfectly lofted alley-oops to Kevin Garnett, or when Tom Gugliotta started running back-door plays where Googs threw alley-oops for a cutting Marbury. His ad campaign with And 1 was fantastic, billboards of broken ankles set with pins blaming the challenge of defending Stephon Marbury, and a commercial of him dribbling through a crowded subway car when it stops at a station, until somebody flips him a quarter. It was totally street, and perfect for a kid from the projects who was all about the game, not a self-promoting egomaniac who gets out of a limo in a $1000 Italian suit.
Then Falk pushed through a trade to New Jersey, which screwed the Timberwolves forever, but that's another story. Marbury and the Nets never got it together, and then Marbury ended their center's career when he landed on him in a pile-up. Then their center shot his chauffeur, but that's another story. And in the middle of this turmoil the Nets discovered why Stephon Marbury's high school coach actually tried to talk him out of moving back to New York, and why his coach at Georgia Tech encouraged him to enter the draft after a year. His relatives all hover around him and they're all batshit crazy. His mother hanging around the locker room yelling at the other players that they play was letting her son down by playing like shit really didn't go over too well.
About this time, Marbury figured out he wasn't getting a lot of endorsement deals. This was supposed to be a big reason he wanted to play in the greater New York market, because in a big media market he'd be raking in the endorsement cash and be a big star. He specifically said nobody was beating down Kevin Garnett's door to play in a small market like Minnesota, but nobody was beating down his door in NYC either. Because unfortunately as it turned out Marbury had no charisma and was completely unintelligible when he spoke. Meanwhile Kevin Garnett's charisma and positive image got Nike to create the Fun Police ad campaign for him, which I still think was their best basketball ad besides the Spike Lee and Samuel L. Jackson ads during the lockout, and all were about putting love of the game over fame and money.
Then Marbury shipped out by the Nets, who were sick of his mother and his brothers, and of watching him score 35 points and lose in front of 4,000 fans. When he got to Phoenix, Stephon became the first to figure out David Falk's mystique was pretty much down to having Michael Jordan as a client, and once Jordan retired, his influence waned. Marbury canned him, played well with the ascendant Suns, but his bitchy personality and his attempts to start a feud in the media with his former best friend, Garnett, meant nobody liked him, and he wasn't the biggest star on his team, which was part of his stated reason for leaving Minnesota, specifically that Garnett made more money than him. He wasn't even getting into all-star games when he was the best point guard in the conference, his popularity was so unrepresentative of his talent.
So then got himself a trade back to New York with the Knicks. For a while, he was a superstar on a really horrid team. Then finally even he realized that the Knicks were hopeless, with huge amounts of money tied up against the salary cap in longterm contracts for mediocre players. They couldn't improve through free agency, had no trade-bait but him, and were drafting stiffs. Something finally seemed to click with him that after ten years, he'd gone from a 19-year old kid who looked like he and his best friend would be contending for championships and MVP trophies together (Garnett won the MVP award in 2004) to a 30-year old with a kid (raised by his ex-girlfriend he impregnated back in high school) about to hit her teenage years, looking at probably finishing out his career on a losing team. His attitude seems to have changed, and he identified himself as part of the cause of the Knicks' malaise.
So now he's done something I actually think is pretty interesting. He's promoting his own line of shoes (part of being an NBA superstar is to have your own shoe) but instead of $150 Nikes that people get shot over, the top model in his line sells for $15. He's putting his name on something that kids who grew up like him can actually wear without costing their parents a week's wages. This is the first sign since he left Minnesota of the Marbury who made me a rabid Timberwolves fan back in the fall of 1996, the guy who had some sense of the world around him, who cared more about the game than his image. It may be he's just carving out the last money-making niche he has left, but I'd rather believe there really was a decent guy underneath the head trip he went on when he signed with David Falk, even though it's sad to wonder what would have happened if he'd kept his head on straight back in '99 and the Wolves had kept a core of star players to build around, and Marbury had stayed away from the hangers-on he had back in New York.
And those are my brief thoughts on the case of Stephon Marbury. And seriously, He Got Game is a fantastic movie.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Regarding Piracy
There's some sort of fad on the internet for jokes about pirates, and frankly it's just irritating. Pirate jokes get old really fast, because really they're all based on the same over-the-top stereotype, and they have no range, so as an internet meme where everybody suddenly thinks they're a comedian (including me) it got unbearable after the first day. The really annoying thing is the people taking this to a whole new level, the Pastafarians, have done so based on one of those strange, ignorant myths based on romanticizing history. Their mockery of unscientific religious arguments notes an inverse correlation between pirates and global warming, and assumes a causal relationship. The thing that's annoying, even as a joke, is this myth that there are no pirates. Maritime piracy is at its highest level ever, and while they didn't step right out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, you can't say there are no pirates in the same way that you can claim there are no Teutonic knights in plate mail armor, covered wagons, or leprechauns (I have it on good authority they've all been killed by the IRA). And you would think people would know this, we think there are terrorists hiding in every bowl of rice, but nobody associates the word pirate with the real thing anymore?
Also on the subject of piracy, there are pirate radio stations currently operating in the Quad Cities along the Mississippi who are claiming they have a legal right to operate without a license. Apparently, in time of war, restrictions on broadcasting are eased so as not to interfere with the need to disseminate information in emergencies when our normal broadcast infrastructure is vulnerable to our enemies. This does provoke some serious questions about what it means to say we're at war, and whether we can selectively invoke wartime regulations and traditions. God bless you, Quad Cities area, for bringing us politically active pirate radio and the most disgusting town on earth.
Also on the subject of piracy, there are pirate radio stations currently operating in the Quad Cities along the Mississippi who are claiming they have a legal right to operate without a license. Apparently, in time of war, restrictions on broadcasting are eased so as not to interfere with the need to disseminate information in emergencies when our normal broadcast infrastructure is vulnerable to our enemies. This does provoke some serious questions about what it means to say we're at war, and whether we can selectively invoke wartime regulations and traditions. God bless you, Quad Cities area, for bringing us politically active pirate radio and the most disgusting town on earth.
What happened to fall?
It's early October and it's already snowing. The whole summer was unbearable, so I was really looking forward to cool fall weather, but half of September was hot too, and now there's snow flying. Personally I blame Al Gore.
And a very special happy birthday to Bridget the Midget, who turned 26 today.
And a very special happy birthday to Bridget the Midget, who turned 26 today.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Mass Media, September 11th, and the War on Terror
Five years on, mainstream films are being made about 9/11, and Flight 93 and World Trade Center were touted by mainstream news media as films that were just so Important that everybody had to see them to keep America strong. I didn't see either one because I watched the towers burn on live TV before going to class, and all critical reviews of both films emphasized the fact that both films had nothing to add, and nothing to say. The point was just to relive the experience as vividly as possible, and immerse oneself in the emotional reaction we all had that day. Some call that post-traumatic stress disorder, Fox News calls it patriotism.
What really makes the idea of safe, saccharine, didactic reenactments irritating to me is that since 2003 There has been an entire television show about what happened to America in the five years since September 11th, and now it's turned more consciously to the occupation of Iraq. It deals with religious fanaticism, a war for the survival of an entire culture, civil liberties in the time of war, suicide bombers, torture, and generally the question of what it means to remain human in a confrontation with evil. Fortunately, most people haven't figured it out, otherwise they'd be freaking out. It's Battlestar Galactica, and it's about the smartest thing on television.
The other thing I've seen recently that was also thought-provoking and therefore anathema to propaganda-hungry audiences was Paradise Now. That was a Palestinian film about two childhood friends who are sent out together on a mission as suicide bombers, but become separated. Watching the two of them decide what to do in the face of this, and what is revealed about their motivations and the environment that produces this is incredible. It doesn't make nearly enough of a moral judgment in its treatment of its protagonists to qualify as appropriate viewing material in America, but man was that a good movie. I was surprised that it got beat out by Tsotsi for the Oscar, and I wonder how much of that was politics, although Tsotsi was pretty fucking fascinating as well. In case anybody's wondering, that's the story of a South African thug who shoots a woman during a carjacking and then finds her baby still in the backseat. Both fascinating, both better than Crash.
What really makes the idea of safe, saccharine, didactic reenactments irritating to me is that since 2003 There has been an entire television show about what happened to America in the five years since September 11th, and now it's turned more consciously to the occupation of Iraq. It deals with religious fanaticism, a war for the survival of an entire culture, civil liberties in the time of war, suicide bombers, torture, and generally the question of what it means to remain human in a confrontation with evil. Fortunately, most people haven't figured it out, otherwise they'd be freaking out. It's Battlestar Galactica, and it's about the smartest thing on television.
The other thing I've seen recently that was also thought-provoking and therefore anathema to propaganda-hungry audiences was Paradise Now. That was a Palestinian film about two childhood friends who are sent out together on a mission as suicide bombers, but become separated. Watching the two of them decide what to do in the face of this, and what is revealed about their motivations and the environment that produces this is incredible. It doesn't make nearly enough of a moral judgment in its treatment of its protagonists to qualify as appropriate viewing material in America, but man was that a good movie. I was surprised that it got beat out by Tsotsi for the Oscar, and I wonder how much of that was politics, although Tsotsi was pretty fucking fascinating as well. In case anybody's wondering, that's the story of a South African thug who shoots a woman during a carjacking and then finds her baby still in the backseat. Both fascinating, both better than Crash.
Vikings 26-17 Lions
Despite seeing it with my own eyes, I still haven't the foggiest idea how the Vikings won this game. I thought I'd try for a more refined version of my original thought, which was "No fucking clue what the fuck that fucking game was all about. Fuck."
Our inept offense was up to their usual tricks, scoring a field goal on their opening drive (after a red zone penalty killed their chances at a touchdown) and then contributing nothing but turnovers until the fourth quarter. The special teams were certainly very "special" today. The kicking team got a delay of game on a field goal, when you'd think they'd know where to line up by the fifth game, and also got an extra point kick blocked that would have tied the game in the 4th quarter. Mewelde Moore did the worst thing you can do as a punt returner, touch the ball without catching it, when he let a punt go through his hands then had to chase it when it bounced away from him, then lost it to the Lions. To be fair the punt coverage team did come up with two great plays, pinning the Lions against their own end zone.
One of those plays however, started off a series of events emblematic of the first three quarters. Chris Kluwe kicked a booming punt that bounced inside the 5-yard line, and the punt coverage team knocked the ball out on the 1-yard line, making the Lions line up in their own end zone. The defense stuffed them, even though the refs spotted them a yard on every down, and on second down the Vikings forced Jon Kitna out of bounds in his own end zone, which should have been a safety, but the refs gave him an extra couple yards and put the ball on the 1 again. After getting stuffed for 0 yards, the Lions punt was the one that went right through Mewelde Moore's hands, and when the Lions recovered it they had advanced 66 yards. The defense forced another punt, limiting the effect of the special teams error to losing field position, then the offense turned the ball over to give the Lions another short field, and they scored a touchdown.
Down 17-3 in the 4th quarter, the Vikings offense choked on their lasagna and woke up again for a few minutes, and scored a touchdown. Then the defense, who I thought would be fading by the 4th quarter, sacked Kitna and forced fumble which Ben Leber recovered in the end zone which should have tied the game if the special teams hadn't blown the PAT. I was really sure that would be decisive, but apparently the buffet table ran out of lasagna, because the Vikings put together another scoring drive to go up 19-17 with three minutes to go.
The game was still very much in doubt, and the Lions were challenging for the winning score, but the defense more than held. They forced a desperate 4th and 10 play from the Lions, and chased a harried Kitna ran around in the backfield, dodging three tackles, only to get slammed by the 4th and cough up the ball to Napoleon Dynamite, who ran it back 45 yards for the "GO HOME YOU'RE DONE" score to put the Vikings up by 9. Needing two scores, the Lions still looked like they were aiming for a score in the closing minutes, and anything could happen on an onside kick, but Darren Sharper iced it with an interception and the game ended on a Vikings kneel-down.
Crazy, crazy, crazy-ass frustrating game. I seriously thought our QB would get the hook at halftime, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Tardis get some playing time after the bye week. Up next is the bye, then a road game in Seattle, then back home against the Patriots on Monday Night Football. Bring in the horns!
Our inept offense was up to their usual tricks, scoring a field goal on their opening drive (after a red zone penalty killed their chances at a touchdown) and then contributing nothing but turnovers until the fourth quarter. The special teams were certainly very "special" today. The kicking team got a delay of game on a field goal, when you'd think they'd know where to line up by the fifth game, and also got an extra point kick blocked that would have tied the game in the 4th quarter. Mewelde Moore did the worst thing you can do as a punt returner, touch the ball without catching it, when he let a punt go through his hands then had to chase it when it bounced away from him, then lost it to the Lions. To be fair the punt coverage team did come up with two great plays, pinning the Lions against their own end zone.
One of those plays however, started off a series of events emblematic of the first three quarters. Chris Kluwe kicked a booming punt that bounced inside the 5-yard line, and the punt coverage team knocked the ball out on the 1-yard line, making the Lions line up in their own end zone. The defense stuffed them, even though the refs spotted them a yard on every down, and on second down the Vikings forced Jon Kitna out of bounds in his own end zone, which should have been a safety, but the refs gave him an extra couple yards and put the ball on the 1 again. After getting stuffed for 0 yards, the Lions punt was the one that went right through Mewelde Moore's hands, and when the Lions recovered it they had advanced 66 yards. The defense forced another punt, limiting the effect of the special teams error to losing field position, then the offense turned the ball over to give the Lions another short field, and they scored a touchdown.
Down 17-3 in the 4th quarter, the Vikings offense choked on their lasagna and woke up again for a few minutes, and scored a touchdown. Then the defense, who I thought would be fading by the 4th quarter, sacked Kitna and forced fumble which Ben Leber recovered in the end zone which should have tied the game if the special teams hadn't blown the PAT. I was really sure that would be decisive, but apparently the buffet table ran out of lasagna, because the Vikings put together another scoring drive to go up 19-17 with three minutes to go.
The game was still very much in doubt, and the Lions were challenging for the winning score, but the defense more than held. They forced a desperate 4th and 10 play from the Lions, and chased a harried Kitna ran around in the backfield, dodging three tackles, only to get slammed by the 4th and cough up the ball to Napoleon Dynamite, who ran it back 45 yards for the "GO HOME YOU'RE DONE" score to put the Vikings up by 9. Needing two scores, the Lions still looked like they were aiming for a score in the closing minutes, and anything could happen on an onside kick, but Darren Sharper iced it with an interception and the game ended on a Vikings kneel-down.
Crazy, crazy, crazy-ass frustrating game. I seriously thought our QB would get the hook at halftime, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Tardis get some playing time after the bye week. Up next is the bye, then a road game in Seattle, then back home against the Patriots on Monday Night Football. Bring in the horns!
Friday, October 06, 2006
What clown is editing the FT today?
In the piece about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi laying out an economic agenda as the Democrats' strategy in the midterm elections, I was informed that the Democrats would introduce "pay-go" (sic) rules, under which spending cuts would automatically be balanced by tax increases. And vice versa, so spending increases would require tax cuts. Personally I support "pay-as-you-go" legislation, which is about the only sensible reform proposed by Democrats in ten years, requires all tax cuts to be financed by spending cuts, and vice versa, so that all new fiscal activity is deficit neutral (or better), as opposed to the FT's "pay-go" legislation which puts a statutory burden on Congress to increase the deficit with every budget. Did nobody read this article before it went to print?
And by the way, referring to her as the leader of the opposition party sounds like an American student who just spent a semester at Oxford trying out their adopted British expressions. It would be one thing if the whole article was written from that perspective with a consistent style, but this wasn't. Nancy Pelosi in the lower house of a bicameral legislature, not the House of Commons, and isn't even the most powerful Democratic federal legislator. At least they didn't refer to San Francisco as her "riding" and tell everybody about their superior election methods without acknowledging having 90% fewer votes to count and only one question on the ballot, like certain people do whenever American elections come up on slashdot.
In the article about the House Ethics committee subpoenas, I came across the following quote from the White House Press Secretary, "I understand what the question is because, if I say yes, it's 'Ah-ha! they're going have Hastert'. If no, it's 'Ah-ha! they don't care about kids.' No, I'm not going to jump into that vat of boiling oil, as inviting as it may look." The first sentence seemed so garbled (they're going have Hastert?) that it implied the metaphorical vat of boiling oil Tony Snow was afraid of also contained the rules of English grammar. It seemed like it had to be a misprint, but then again it was Tony Snow.
But then there was the article about EU postal reform, specifically the case of La Poste, the French state-owned post office. The sub-header read "La Poste says Brussels' mail reform plans are unfair to incumbents and wants compensation, [...]". The article opens by explaining that if competition is introduced, the French government is planning to compensate incumbent postal operators for the loss of their monopoly. It's just so delightfully backwards and snarky and... French, the idea that they would stop an enterprise from fixing prices and stifling innovation, but just to be fair give them all the money they would have made doing so. So delightful that apparently the FT just thought they'd make it up to give their English readers a chortle. The rest of the article is actually about how the proposed compensation is for the obligation of universal service to all rural areas that incumbent operations are under, which their competitors would not be. This is actually perfectly reasonable, that the government finance the operations it forces incumbent postal carriers into, to allow them to compete fairly in an open postal market.
Usually this is a pretty good paper, with a high quality of writing and content to go with its delightful salmon hue. Today I didn't even get to the Comment & Analysis page the Europe and Americas sections were so strange. I guess sometimes you just get some bad salmon.
And by the way, referring to her as the leader of the opposition party sounds like an American student who just spent a semester at Oxford trying out their adopted British expressions. It would be one thing if the whole article was written from that perspective with a consistent style, but this wasn't. Nancy Pelosi in the lower house of a bicameral legislature, not the House of Commons, and isn't even the most powerful Democratic federal legislator. At least they didn't refer to San Francisco as her "riding" and tell everybody about their superior election methods without acknowledging having 90% fewer votes to count and only one question on the ballot, like certain people do whenever American elections come up on slashdot.
In the article about the House Ethics committee subpoenas, I came across the following quote from the White House Press Secretary, "I understand what the question is because, if I say yes, it's 'Ah-ha! they're going have Hastert'. If no, it's 'Ah-ha! they don't care about kids.' No, I'm not going to jump into that vat of boiling oil, as inviting as it may look." The first sentence seemed so garbled (they're going have Hastert?) that it implied the metaphorical vat of boiling oil Tony Snow was afraid of also contained the rules of English grammar. It seemed like it had to be a misprint, but then again it was Tony Snow.
But then there was the article about EU postal reform, specifically the case of La Poste, the French state-owned post office. The sub-header read "La Poste says Brussels' mail reform plans are unfair to incumbents and wants compensation, [...]". The article opens by explaining that if competition is introduced, the French government is planning to compensate incumbent postal operators for the loss of their monopoly. It's just so delightfully backwards and snarky and... French, the idea that they would stop an enterprise from fixing prices and stifling innovation, but just to be fair give them all the money they would have made doing so. So delightful that apparently the FT just thought they'd make it up to give their English readers a chortle. The rest of the article is actually about how the proposed compensation is for the obligation of universal service to all rural areas that incumbent operations are under, which their competitors would not be. This is actually perfectly reasonable, that the government finance the operations it forces incumbent postal carriers into, to allow them to compete fairly in an open postal market.
Usually this is a pretty good paper, with a high quality of writing and content to go with its delightful salmon hue. Today I didn't even get to the Comment & Analysis page the Europe and Americas sections were so strange. I guess sometimes you just get some bad salmon.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Who buried Oedipus at the Metrodome?
Well at least I know I felt like poking my eyes out at one point. I did thoroughly enjoy the game, and it was competitive all the way to the last out, but the go-ahead run certainly felt like the end of the whole series. The story the whole day for the Twins was 2-out rallies with no room for error that came up short, and trying to make every swing a home run and every defensive play the decisive momentum-changing moment that propelled them to the World Series. That and the Tardis-like strike zone that led our lead-off hitter to take three called third strikes before finally getting a walk in the 9th. (Don't get me started on the Tardis-like batter's box that had Frank Thomas and the A's practically standing behind the catcher every at-bat.)
The A's took a 2-0 lead in the 5th on a pair of doubles and a base hit that made it look like they might have figured out Boof Bonser, but he stopped the bleeding and made it through six complete innings and no decision. Then in the bottom of the 6th, after a couple horrendous swings like he was chopping down a tree, Michael Cuddyer came up with the right ball and hit a line drive so strong it didn't drop until it hit around row 20 in left field. Justin Morneau had been fouling off pitches far down the 1st base line and into the A's bullpen every at bat, and when he came up after Cuddyer, he finally got a hold of one as well and knocked it into the upper deck in right field. The Twins tied it up, and the whole crowd was chanting "Let's go, Tigers!" to heckle the A's (in anticipation of a Tigers-Yankees upset in the other division series giving the Twins an easier path to the World Series).
Of course, something really stupid had to happen, otherwise it wouldn't be Minnesota sports, and in the 7th inning, Torii Hunter charged what looked like a bloop single aiming to make an impossible highlight reel diving catch for an out and to hold Jason Kendall at first. Of course, it went under his glove and into center field, and since our other outfielders have no range anymore, nobody was behind him to cover it. Kendall scored from first to give the A's the lead, while if Hunter had gotten behind the ball and let Mark Kotsay get a single, Kendall wouldn't have challenged Hunter's arm and would have been safe at second, with Kotsay on first. Since the ball was rolling round the center field wall, Kendall went home, and Kotsay followed him, just beating the throw to Joe Mauer at home plate. Yes, it was a 2-RBI in the park home run, and I felt like a goddamned sphinx was jumping up and down on me asking me riddles like how you get two RBIs off a bloop single with a runner on first.
Not to worry though, our start closer Joe Nathan did manage to send an inherited runner home on a wild pitch to give the A's a 3-run lead in the top of the 9th, so the margin of victory wasn't solely the bizarre in the park home run. And Jason Bartlett started yet another 2-out rally in the bottom of the 9th that got Nick Punto to the plate representing the tying run. He may have popped out to short, but it wasn't over until it was over, and that's part of what's fun about baseball, until you get all 27 outs, anything can happen. And even in the aftermath of the home run, when Juan Rincon came in to start the 8th inning and struck out the side, I found myself thinking Phil would really have enjoyed that (even though nobody will get that joke).
A's 5-2 Twins
Oakland leads this best-of-5 series 2-0
Games three and four are out in Oaktown, but when the Twins turn it around, game five back in the Twin Cities is going to be epic. Shut up, pessimist turncoat Black Sox fans. It will be EPIC.
The A's took a 2-0 lead in the 5th on a pair of doubles and a base hit that made it look like they might have figured out Boof Bonser, but he stopped the bleeding and made it through six complete innings and no decision. Then in the bottom of the 6th, after a couple horrendous swings like he was chopping down a tree, Michael Cuddyer came up with the right ball and hit a line drive so strong it didn't drop until it hit around row 20 in left field. Justin Morneau had been fouling off pitches far down the 1st base line and into the A's bullpen every at bat, and when he came up after Cuddyer, he finally got a hold of one as well and knocked it into the upper deck in right field. The Twins tied it up, and the whole crowd was chanting "Let's go, Tigers!" to heckle the A's (in anticipation of a Tigers-Yankees upset in the other division series giving the Twins an easier path to the World Series).
Of course, something really stupid had to happen, otherwise it wouldn't be Minnesota sports, and in the 7th inning, Torii Hunter charged what looked like a bloop single aiming to make an impossible highlight reel diving catch for an out and to hold Jason Kendall at first. Of course, it went under his glove and into center field, and since our other outfielders have no range anymore, nobody was behind him to cover it. Kendall scored from first to give the A's the lead, while if Hunter had gotten behind the ball and let Mark Kotsay get a single, Kendall wouldn't have challenged Hunter's arm and would have been safe at second, with Kotsay on first. Since the ball was rolling round the center field wall, Kendall went home, and Kotsay followed him, just beating the throw to Joe Mauer at home plate. Yes, it was a 2-RBI in the park home run, and I felt like a goddamned sphinx was jumping up and down on me asking me riddles like how you get two RBIs off a bloop single with a runner on first.
Not to worry though, our start closer Joe Nathan did manage to send an inherited runner home on a wild pitch to give the A's a 3-run lead in the top of the 9th, so the margin of victory wasn't solely the bizarre in the park home run. And Jason Bartlett started yet another 2-out rally in the bottom of the 9th that got Nick Punto to the plate representing the tying run. He may have popped out to short, but it wasn't over until it was over, and that's part of what's fun about baseball, until you get all 27 outs, anything can happen. And even in the aftermath of the home run, when Juan Rincon came in to start the 8th inning and struck out the side, I found myself thinking Phil would really have enjoyed that (even though nobody will get that joke).
A's 5-2 Twins
Oakland leads this best-of-5 series 2-0
Games three and four are out in Oaktown, but when the Twins turn it around, game five back in the Twin Cities is going to be epic. Shut up, pessimist turncoat Black Sox fans. It will be EPIC.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Athletics 3-2 Twins, ALDS game one
Well this isn't too good. If the Twins lose at home with Santana pitching, they certainly don't deserve to go any farther in the play-offs. The big killer was the Frank Thomas home run in the top of the 9th to give the A's an insurance run, which meant when Cuddyer scored off his triple in the 9th, it wasn't enough. The other killer in this game was Jason Bartlett's lead-off double in the 8th, and the inability to get him home. Bartlett by rights should have been picked off when Gardenhire called for a bunt, Bartlett took off, and Castillo whiffed the bunt. After that gift, it still took two outs to get him to 3rd. Now they really have to win tomorrow and win Santana's start on Saturday in Oaktown, both of which will require scoring the occasional run.
Have I mentioned how much I hate Big Hurt? The guy was a big part of the Black Sox philosophy of beating everybody to death with power hitters that led to them winning nothing for most of the 20th century. So of course when the Black Sox decide he's past it and ship him out, he goes to Oaktown so he can hit two homers off the best pitcher in baseball to kick off a series with the Twins. I'll be at tomorrow's game keeping score, so if anybody needs to know if Boof Bonser is getting called third strikes, feel free to give me a call. That's right, Boof is taking the mound for the Twins, and I like saying his name. Boof.
Have I mentioned how much I hate Big Hurt? The guy was a big part of the Black Sox philosophy of beating everybody to death with power hitters that led to them winning nothing for most of the 20th century. So of course when the Black Sox decide he's past it and ship him out, he goes to Oaktown so he can hit two homers off the best pitcher in baseball to kick off a series with the Twins. I'll be at tomorrow's game keeping score, so if anybody needs to know if Boof Bonser is getting called third strikes, feel free to give me a call. That's right, Boof is taking the mound for the Twins, and I like saying his name. Boof.
Monday, October 02, 2006
The Twins won the division?
Seriously how did this happen? I didn't even watch the Twins game yesterday, since I figured they'd be resting everybody for the play-off series with the Yankees. They were tied with the Tigers going into their final series this weekend, and the Tigers had the tie-breaker and the Royals at home. The Twins only won one game out of three over the weekend against the Black Sox, so really, the only way for the Tigers to blow the division would be to get swept at home by the second worst team in baseball. And somehow they managed to do it, losing their last game in the 12th inning after loading the bases twice in extra innings and getting nothing. So now the Tigers get the Yankees, and the Twins get to hang another banner and home field advantage against Oaktown, after never leading the central division until yesterday. And Joe Mauer is officially the first catcher to win a batting title since the 40s. Take that, Black Sox.
Finally, a legitimate use for file-sharing
The two big drivers for technology seem to be space exploration and pornography, and they've done it again. One of the Gonzalez justice department's policies has been to start enforcing 2257 requirements, which say that anybody producing sexually explicit material has to keep records proving all the participants are over 18, and anybody showing other people's work is a "secondary producer". So if a commercial website puts the box-cover of a DVD they're selling on a website, they're a secondary producer and have to keep records too. It also applies to simulated sex, which means it applies to all mainstream films, but Gonzalez isn't dumb enough to try enforcing that. Anyways, tracking down some runaway who did a movie in 1995 to ask for some ID is supposed to be difficult enough to get some stuff off the market, and getting every company to send every store their records for every movie is a lot of paperwork.
Now, AVN is reporting that a new web-service company is creating a file-sharing application which will automatically distribute electronic records from the databases of primary producers to all the secondary producers. It's a multi-platform system which is supposed to work with any 2257 record-keeping system anybody uses, and automatically keep everyone up to date. Now there's actually a legitimate application of technology for facilitating the distribution of encrypted files over the internet besides copyright infringement. Could this be... an inconvenient truth?
Okay, there are actually other applications besides copyright infringement, like using torrents to distribute large files like new versions of GPL software, but this is one of the first things I've heard of that didn't have to lamely add "But mostly it's good for downloading episodes of Battlestar Galactica to play on my ipod." God only knows what a manned mission to Mars will make us come up with. (And you have to cut me some slack on the Al Gore reference, but it's too perfect that his invention is now thwarting Alberto Gonzalez and Tipper Gore.)
Now, AVN is reporting that a new web-service company is creating a file-sharing application which will automatically distribute electronic records from the databases of primary producers to all the secondary producers. It's a multi-platform system which is supposed to work with any 2257 record-keeping system anybody uses, and automatically keep everyone up to date. Now there's actually a legitimate application of technology for facilitating the distribution of encrypted files over the internet besides copyright infringement. Could this be... an inconvenient truth?
Okay, there are actually other applications besides copyright infringement, like using torrents to distribute large files like new versions of GPL software, but this is one of the first things I've heard of that didn't have to lamely add "But mostly it's good for downloading episodes of Battlestar Galactica to play on my ipod." God only knows what a manned mission to Mars will make us come up with. (And you have to cut me some slack on the Al Gore reference, but it's too perfect that his invention is now thwarting Alberto Gonzalez and Tipper Gore.)
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Bills 17 - 12 Vikings
This was certainly no exception in the sometimes aggravating, sometimes amusing history of bizarre Vikings games. The difference so far between low-scoring wins and low-scoring losses has been turnovers, and two picks today really didn't help. The offense continues to be anemic, and the reason is clearly the total lack of a running game. Chester Taylor leads the league in rushing attempts, so they're trying but not establishing much of a presence, and Taylor only came up with 23 yards today. Nobody can throw their way out of that hole. For our defense, giving up 17 points when turnovers and time of possession both go against you isn't too shabby. It would have been 20 had the wind off Lake Erie not carried away a Bills field goal, but then again, had Marcus Robinson not dropped a sure TD, we would have won.
Still the most bizarre play was not even the Bills second TD when Peerless Price fell down in the backfield, and still got up and evaded two tackles to score. It was definitely in the 2nd quarter when the Bills put up a high kick-off and got to it first... they kicked the ball away and still recovered an onside kick... er, that's a live ball, people. The only thing that kept that from being a total disaster for the Vikings was that a back-up offensive lineman, Jason Whittle, half-heartedly waved his arm as he ran towards it, and the officials ruled that he had signaled for a fair catch. Then when the Bills caught it, they were interfering with a fair catch, even though he'd already given up on it. The Bills got robbed, for which I am quite thankful. Up next is D-troit at home, so they better have a winning record by next week or start warming up the Tardis.
And having just watched the first half of the Bears demolition of the Seahawks, I'd say their road win in Minnesota last week pretty much makes the division theirs to lose, and it's only week 4. Of course, there's always the remote possibility that Rex Grossman will catastrophically collapse like he and every other Bears QB seems to do every year, or that they'll have another brainstorm like leaving Charles Tillman one-on-one with one of the league's top receivers again, so they could still blow it. And maybe the king's horse will learn to sing hymns.
Still the most bizarre play was not even the Bills second TD when Peerless Price fell down in the backfield, and still got up and evaded two tackles to score. It was definitely in the 2nd quarter when the Bills put up a high kick-off and got to it first... they kicked the ball away and still recovered an onside kick... er, that's a live ball, people. The only thing that kept that from being a total disaster for the Vikings was that a back-up offensive lineman, Jason Whittle, half-heartedly waved his arm as he ran towards it, and the officials ruled that he had signaled for a fair catch. Then when the Bills caught it, they were interfering with a fair catch, even though he'd already given up on it. The Bills got robbed, for which I am quite thankful. Up next is D-troit at home, so they better have a winning record by next week or start warming up the Tardis.
And having just watched the first half of the Bears demolition of the Seahawks, I'd say their road win in Minnesota last week pretty much makes the division theirs to lose, and it's only week 4. Of course, there's always the remote possibility that Rex Grossman will catastrophically collapse like he and every other Bears QB seems to do every year, or that they'll have another brainstorm like leaving Charles Tillman one-on-one with one of the league's top receivers again, so they could still blow it. And maybe the king's horse will learn to sing hymns.
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