My Top Ten Albums of 2010

Good evening, my Puddlers. It’s a cold evening and I have been reading about Jonathan Franzen and getting inspired to be a better writer than him so I’m going to take my talents to the manuscript of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt this evening instead of providing you with one of my trademark lengthy posts.

Instead, in the spirit of the end of the year, I am going to give you a list of My Top Ten Albums of 2010.  Now, you can consult my list from last year in order to understand my criteria for the albums of the year.  They basically consist of any album from any year that helped to define 2010 for me in some way.  It may not be helpful in terms of helping a person decide what to buy or ask for for Christmas or to determine what the actual “best” album of 2010 was, but I liked these albums, damnit, and that deserves some credence in any person’s mind.

So, without further ado or explanation on how I came to this decision, here are My Top Ten Albums of 2010.  I hope you either buy or illegally download these albums somewhere and have some of the heart-stopping revelations about the soul, life, love, and death that I have had this year. Obviously, you can’t top my number, but you can try to come close – and the trying is what really matters.

10. Transference – Spoon (2010)

9. Keep Me Comin’ – Jesse Ed Davis (1973)

8. Hounds of Love – Kate Bush (1985)

7. Have One on Me – Joanna Newsom (2010)

6. Watertown – Frank Sinatra (1970)

5. Born in the USA – Bruce Springsteen (1984)

4. Destroyer of the Void – Blitzen Trapper (2010)

3. Teen Dream – Beach House (2010)

2. Veedon Fleece – Van Morrison (1973)

1. Lisbon – The Walkmen (2010)

There you have it – My Top Ten Albums of 2010. Let the arguing and slapping of my back begin.

Tomorrow, Mr. Alex Ramsdell graces the blog with his prose presence.

Stay warm, my Puddlers.

NBA ALL-STARTLING GAME 2010

Hahaha.  Ok, so I am already a little off my schedule, which I set up for myself on the last post.  What can I say? Things come up and I've got to take care of them, but I still care about and love all of you. So, I unload onto you, my breakdown of the 2010 NBA All-Star Team rosters.


After the All-Star lineups were released, I looked around and realized that before my very own cliched eyes, the league that I love is suddenly full of high level talent again.  I had the vague sensation that my wishful thinking was coming to reality, but this point was emphasized not just by the All-Star lineups, but also because in his column last week on ESPN.com, Bill Simmons praised Lebrown for his excellence in a "loaded league." And we all know that the man knows his basketball.


Now let's take a look at the lineups and each of their lines thus far this season:


East:
                              MIN     PPG     REB    AST     FG %

G Allen Iverson      31.5      14.6       2.7      4.2       45.2

G Dwyane Wade    36.5      27.2       4.8      6.2       46.9

SF Lebron James    38.5      29.4       7.2      8.0       50.2

PF Kevin Garnett   30.8      14.7       7.3      2.5       53.7

C Dwight Howard  34.9      17.5      13.2     1.5       60.1


PF Chris Bosh        35.9      24.0      11.3     2.1      52.0

SF Paul Pierce        36.0      19.1        4.7     3.5      47.7

G Rajon Rondo       36.8      13.9    4.3    9.6       52.7

G Joe Johnson        37.7       21.4    4.8    4.7       45.7

C Al Horford          34.5       13.5    9.7    2.2       57.2

SF Gerald Wallace 42.0        18.8      11.0   1.9       48.0

G Derrick Rose      36.5        19.7    3.7     5.9       47.4


West:

                                 MIN     PPG     REB    AST     FG %
G  Steve Nash          33.5        18.5    3.1       11.0      52.4

G  Kobe Bryant       38.4         28.2    5.4       4.7       46.2

SF Carmelo Anthony 37.9      29.7    6.5       3.3       46.4

PF Tim Duncan         32.5       19.8    10.7     3.3       52.6

PF Amar’e Stoudemire 34.5    20.6     8.2     1.0       55.3


SF  Kevin Durant    39.9          29.3     7.3     3.0       48.2

PF  Zach Randolph 37.4          20.9     11.6    2.0      50.4

G  Deron Williams  37.1          19.0      3.9      9.5      49.3

PF Dirk Nowitzki   37.9           25.1      7.8      2.5      47.6

G Brandon Roy      38.3           23.1      4.6      5.0      48.4

G  Chris Paul         38.7           20.4       4.6     11.2    50.4

PF Pau Gasol         36.4           17.6      11.0     3.3     53.4






I look up and down each of these rosters and I don't see a weak spot.  You may say Gerald Wallace is a bit of a fluke, but he is having a monster rebounding year and is always good for about 18 a game as you can see.  Plus, with Stephen Jackson now in Charlotte, the Bobcats have even become a somewhat interesting team who could make some noise in the second half of the season and are about a piece away from being a playoff team, which would a quite a coup for that franchise.

Now, this year you might call  Iverson a weak spot as well and as much as it pains me, you would be right.  He is having his worst season as a pro and you can see him deteriorating each time you watch a Sixers game.  To me, this has been one of the most painful aspects of this season.  There was nothing like watching a young Iverson.   He was the fastest player I will probably ever see and some of his off the dribble moves were just phenomenal.  Plus, Iverson is listed at 6'0" - and that is a generous 6'0" - and he used to finish off alley-oops and dunks like he was 6'5" or 6'6".  He was a freak of nature.  Too talented and provocative to be understood by a league that was still fascinated by Jordan.  Had he been embraced, they would have realized that he was made of the same stuff, except maybe he was a littler harder.  But maybe that's what made him so interesting, that he wasn't loved.  I'm not going to get into the psychology, but in any event, Iverson holds one of my two favorite bad ass moments in NBA history.  The first is in the 1992 Eastern Conference seminals. Knicks vs. Bulls.  Game 3.  The Foul Game.  Jordan and the Bulls are getting hammered by the Knicks in every direction.  Riley is instructing Starks, Ewing, Oakley, Mason and McDaniel to take the Jordan Rules to the next level.  Finally, in the third quarter, there is a loose ball at mid-court.  Jordan picks up the ball and drives to the paint.  Xavier McDaniel and Ewing jump to try knock him down, but Jordan evades, slides through them and lays the ball in as Ewing topples over into the photographers at courtside.  As Ewing tries to get up, Jordan stands over him pointing his finger in his face and saying something along the lines of, "Yeah mother fucker. Don't ever try that." No technical foul.

The second belongs to Iverson.  2001 NBA Finals. Sixers vs. Lakers.  Classic matchup, except the Lakers are juggarnaut defending champions and Iverson is the league MVP only because he dragged a bunch of marginal role players and Dikembe Mutumbo to the Finals on his hard work and prolific scoring.  Anyway, the game is right and the Sixers are looking to steal the first game at the Forum.  Tyronne Lue is guarding Iverson in the corner.  Iverson makes a move to the baseline, crosses him in the despicable way that he could from 1995-2002.  As he is crossing up, Iverson steps back, Lue moves to go with him, but can't keep up.  He loses his balance and falls towards the Lakers bench.  Iverson shoots as Lue falls, draining the shot.  Seeing Lue on the ground, Iverson takes two big, deliberate steps over Lue, eying him intensely as he does so with a look that says, "don't ever try to guard me or get close to me again.  You'll be out of this league in 4 or 5 years."  Check it out. If you don't get chills, maybe sports aren't for you.

Anyway, back to the rosters. Just take a look at the starting fives for each side.  Each is a Hall of Famer, save maybe, Amar'e Stoudemire.  You can't deny Lebron is having another MVP year and he did trump Wade in their showdown last week, but Wade is still better than Lebron.  You have Dwight Howard who is having a somewhat down year for him but who has been adding some significantly improved low-post moves to his game this year and of course, you have Garnett who is over the hill but still as smart a player as ever (if more hesistant than ever to go low post).  Bosh is having a career year and he is a reserve! Rondo is maybe having the top year for a point guard (alright, alright I know that Nash and Paul are out there in the West).  Have any of you been watching Rondo?  Sure he still makes some stupid plays, but his palm the ball layups have become one of my favorite moves to watch.  His hands are insane! Its like watching Jimi Hendrix hold the neck of a guitar.  He now makes at least 4 or 5 plays a game on average that make you say, "Whoa, he's really getting it." Derrick Rose has had an under the radar year mostly because of early injury, but he has started to turn it on as of late and may lead the Bulls to another second half surge  just like last year.  Joe Johnson and Horford have both been solid for a suddenly imposing Hawks team that could have also sent Mike Bibby (resurgence) and Josh Smith (slightly dipped numbers).  Pierce rounds it out and this year he's been the same as his whole career: tough, consistent, reliable, creative on the offensive end and a surprisingly tenacious defender.  He is another Hall of Famer on the roster.  The East could have also potentially sent the following: Ray Allen (Boston - always), Kendrick Perkins (Boston-underrated), David Lee (Knicks), Mo Williams (Cleveland), Stephen Jackson (Charlotte-switched conferences), and Danny Granger (Indiana - no room).  Maybe I am being too generous, but you get the picture.  We've got depth.

As I said earlier, the West is the same.  Four Hall of Famers are starting (sorry Amar'e) with one sure Hall of Famer (Dirk) coming off the bench and five possible Hall of Famers - fingers crossed - in Paul, Durant, Roy, Williams and Gasol (Roy, Williams and Gasol may be stretches, but they are damn good).  The weak spot here is Randolph who hasn't quite sold me with his inspired play this year - he's tricked us before - although, he has been a human double double and Memphis has been a terrific surprise and are continuing to surprise as we had into the All-Star break.  Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo (both Memphis) both had first half performances that could have been All-Star caliber in a more diluted year.  And Durant is bound to be battling Carmelo for years to come for the starting small forward spot, which could develop into an interesting rivalry over the years.  I'm actually surprised that no one has mentioned that possible storyline yet.  I'll pat myself on the back for that. Seriously, though, it is great to see a stand out college star like Durant developing into a stand out NBA star as expected.  It is talent and potential realizing itself that perpetuates greatness, that sustains a league and holds the imagination.

On a final note - Kobe.  He has really won me over this year.  Not because he is playing up the "getting it with my teammates" angle like last year, but because he is playing hurt and playing tough.  He has also really worked on his post-up moves and footwork and is playing like 1997 M.J.  It's really quite striking.

So that's it. The 2010 NBA All-Star game is going to be exciting and  I believe that it is going to be one that we remember and talk about for years to come as a great snapshot of where the league was and where it was going.







 

Until Next Episode

In order to start this post, you have to picture me in a restaurant. I’ve just gotten off work early at 6:15 PM from a job that I don’t particularly enjoy very much, but which I happen to find myself good at. The mild air of the day has begun to turn and the frigid breeze of the night has left my face red as I step into the tight, gold warmth of the Little Italy restaurant. I unfurl the worn purple, grey and brown scarf that I wear, which was inherited from a grandfather I never met. As I look up, I see my mother and my sister sitting upstairs at a table with my aunt, my uncle, and their three children: boy, boy, girl – none older than eleven. Neil Young is ringing in my ears as I sit down and I feel especially strong, ragged and young, but also vulnerable, because I have to pretend that I’m not invincible to this people, because I’m actually not – I just feel that way when I’m hungry and remember that I’m young in a world full of strangers and tall buildings.

So, I sit down. Hugs and kisses are exchanged. The kids are cute, funny and well behaved as always. I eat bread with sundries tomatoes and oil. I ask my sister if she liked “500 Days of Summer.” I ask my one little cousin what book he’s reading. I ask my other little cousin why he doesn’t like samurai. Then, because the adults at the table have seen me grow from book to book and from not liking certain action figures, and because they love me, they ask me questions.

“When are you leaving the job, Matt?”

“At the end of the month.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not really sure. I think it will work out.

“What do you like?”

“I like to write”

“But what do you like?”

“I like basketball and music.”

“Well there you go.”

“I like writing about my generation. What they are doing. The choices they make and don’t make.”

“That’s what’s interesting about your generation. There isn’t any kind of defining voice.”

That last line is what my uncle said to me. It wasn’t a revelation to me, but it articulated, very simply some of the ideas that have been swirling around in my head recently as I have begun to think of these end of the decade sentiments, columns and lists that are being distributed and waxed upon. Now it is very true that all generations don’t have a defining voice or a theme to bind them together. It is very true that the idea of a “generational voice” or a “united generation” is just an object that is produced and presented to us as a commodity to help understand time better. All of this may be true, but that doesn’t stop us from asking, “Yeah, but what about me? What about my generation?”

I am not going to try to sum up this generation, nor am I going to try to sum up this decade, I am simply going to write about what I have seen and how it appears to me. What I have seen of late, is the summation of this past decade as one of superficiality: the Paris Hilton decade, The American Idol decade, the Kardashian Decade. However, for as many people as I have seen welcome high-paying jobs, platinum jeans, revolving door cell phones, I have seen just as many people reject the same allures. And why is that superficiality wrong? What is wrong with accepting objects in order to make you happy? What is wrong with being able to buy things for people in your life to make them happy? This comment is not meant to be facetious. This life and this world are made up of objects. The image of an investment banker is the same object as the image of an artist – both can be crated and bartered like anything else.

To harp on a subject of great interest to me, Mad Men has certainly given us insight into this trait I am talking about. In the first season of Mad Men, Don Draper shacks up with his artsy mistress who is living in Greenwich Village. Draper smokes weed with his mistress and her bohemian friends who scoff at him because of his slick and polished appearance. At the end of the episode, when the bohemians are nervous about approaching cops outside of the apartment building, it is a stoned Don Draper who is able to walk out to continue on his life with a simple, “You can’t go out there.” What does this mean? This means identity. Both the artist identity and the ad man identity are one in the same – they are both goods, disguises we put on. Draper is constantly battling what disguise he is going to wear and which one works for him. His office identity is the one that fits him best, as he says to Peggy in season three:

“There are people out there who buy things. People like you and me. Then something happened. Something terrible. And the way that they saw themselves... is gone. And nobody understands that. But you do. And that's very valuable.”

Is this quote not essentially true for this generation, this decade? “Something terrible” always happens to us in varying degrees and we can’t see ourselves. That the something terrible can be as disparate as anything in this world, but it is usually tied to time. So we try disguises, we try objects to try to find that thing that is real to us, that thing that we can take with us.

The novel Netherlands by Joseph O’Neill covered the same issues. The narrator of the novel has a successful finance job and his wife is a high-powered attorney. His wife becomes extremely affected by the 9/11 attacks and can’t feel safe living in New York, while the narrator, always feeling distant from his actual life (much like a Nick Caraway), doesn’t completely understand her distress. It takes their separation and his subsequent friendship with a Trinidadian gambler to understand that he has always been looking for something real that is his. From his fragmented childhood on, he has only been left of vague images and memories of who he is and where he came from. The narrator begins to understand that this is something that is wife values and that it is actually something that he values as well. His wife is concerned with what is hers, which is their child and living in an “unsafe” city. Once the narrator begins to understand how to connect to his own life, he can begin to understand what belongs to him and what he can take with him.

Even little Wall-E, as he rolled along the brown debris on the earth and found the inherent joy in the smallest objects, couldn’t take it with him. Just like all the humans who left the garbage couldn’t take that with them. It is through objects that we may gain access to “the incorruptible eon of the gods,” but that isn’t where that realm lays - that soundless, floating, reach of space of the soul.

Perhaps this struggle has caused such great music to be created in this past decade. There have been phenomenal new albums that have come out in the last ten years; some of my all-time favorite artists have come of age since 2000 and some of my all-time favorite albums have been released in the same space. Maybe it is the inevitability and the immediacy of communication and information. Maybe it is the fact that we can Google the answer to any question, even the questions that the great art spent answering, like “what is love?” We can now Google, “clinically, when am I supposed to fall in love?” We can even Google ourselves and people we don’t even know.

Now, I know I’m supposed to be funny – and I AM. And believe me, I love every second of my computer and the abilities I have to Google “when do I fall in love?” “How fat should I be if I am 5’10?” or “Animal Collective new album leak MPP blog .rar.” However, we have been shown this new decade of “superficiality.” We have been shown jobs in finance, accounting, but have been left wanting more. The past ten years have offered a fluid glimpse into the lives of the privileged, of what money offers. However, in the end, with the economy already failed, we have been given an even greater look at the invincibility of the American Dream. Perhaps that term is even too narrow. What we are truly talking about is “promise.” This decade as it comes to its close, to a book-ended and encapsulated commodity to be sold like the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s or 90’s leaves us on the precipice looking at the promise of the next decade to come. It leaves us as someone who was once very dear to me said, “with infinite potential.” It leaves us with the ability to overtake the old institutions and I’d like to think that this has come and has been earned without the incessant marketing of our President as a good and the term change as a vegetable. I’d like to think the palpable opportunity of the next decade, and the indecision and searching of all the peers I look to, is because of the fact that institutions won’t satisfy us and will not dictate us. We will elect our presidents, we will respect and appreciate them, but they will not dictate our creativity or ambition – that is and should be left to us alone.

In the end, though, it’s back to the basketball, the music, and the beer. However, that doesn’t change the fact that I work hard at and am damn good at a job I don’t care about. That I love my family. That this world is strange and changeful and that I am going to have to fail in order to ever find something worth searching for, worth making real. That nothing feels like its mine and every evening I am left standing on the doorstep, hungry, invincible and with the wind whipping on my face. And maybe I’m not like a dog, maybe I’m just young and unappreciative, and maybe that’s all that it ever is. However, I’ve heard the chimes at midnight, just like the rest of you.

I’ll see you in 2010.


Editor's note: Ten Things I Hate About You really should have been number 9 on the Top 20 Movies to Watch on TV. It really is one of the top movies to watch on TV. The girl from Alex Mack plays the hot girl. A career defining performance by the late Heath Ledger. The only movie with both Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it - arguably two of the best young actors of the past decade- plus the one friend looks like my buddy Jeff (except my man Jeff is skinnier). You would watch this on TV. Come on.