The Comedy Wine Cellar

Matt Domino borrows a page from "The Sports Guy" Bill Simmons and constructs his own "Wine Cellar Team." Only instead of basketball players, he chose comedians.

Free Agents and Mea Culpas

Matt Domino offers an apology as well as his Top 15 Free Agents for the 2011-2012 NBA season.

The NBA on June 17, 2010

As much as it pains me to put this picture up as the heading for the blog post today, I have to do it because I can't deny reality.  Last Thursday night, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the  2010 NBA Finals.  It was one of the ugliest, strangest, tensest and hardest played games of all time.  You had Kobe shooting terribly from the field.  You had Ron Artest coming alive to lead the Lakers.  You had Pau Gasol showing the world why he is perhaps the best low post player in the game today.  You had Rondo playing erratically.  Pierce playing well but not well enough.  Ray Allen playing well but not well enough. Big Baby defying his own weight and the principles of gravity on several lay-ups.  Rasheed Wallace shooting terribly but making a three in the fourth quarter that made you say that you always loved him as a player. Basically, Game 7 fell in line with how the rest of the series played out.  It was hard to decide who the better team was.  Kobe pressed too much.  The defenses were spectacular.  The offenses had trouble running.  There was ugliness, turnovers and it bascially came down to the last quarter and who wanted to seize the moment more.  On this night, it was the Lakers as the Celtics came up cold in the final quarter and could not figure out a way to run their offense and get points.

Now, you may also say that terrible officiating came into it and you can throw out free throw stats.  And that is always valid.  Sometimes (well, very often in the NBA) the referees can take away the game from a team.  However, despite my own proclivity to seek out referee conspiracy theories, in the end, a team will put itself in a position to win a game and if part of winning the game means putting yourself and your team in a position to sway the referees, then that is a part of the game of basketball.

So, what do we learn from the 2010 NBA Finals if we take the Lakers victory over the Celtics in 7 Games on face value.  Well, there isn't much to take.  Kobe may have helped to cement his legacy as the greatest Laker ever by tying Magic Johnson for championships.  However, it looked as though Kobe would wilt when the pressure was highest as he has done in the past.  Kobe idolizes Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan would have never allowed himself to play that poorly in the most important game of the season.  Rondo did not seize the moment as I hoped he would and we have to see how he will rebound next year knowing full well that he is and should be the leader of the Boston Celtics but will need to become a better shooter to fully wrap his mind around the psyche that is needed for that position.  The only thing that we can safely say about the 2010 NBA Finals was that it featured some of the best defense from two teams in recent years and that it featured a presence of effort and urgency that is often lacking from the NBA.

One of the reasons why people have grown away from the NBA is because of its high level of showmanship, the ease with which the players play the game, the perceived laziness of the players at times.  Obviously the proclivity of officials to call fouls and slow down the game is unattractive to an average fan, but I think the ease and the perceived laziness of the game is also a main factor.  To compound this trait, we also have an era where we have a bevy of larger than life SuperStars who tend to underachieve.  Lebron James obviously has immense talent, but he underachieves.  Carmelo Anthony can't get players around him who understand that he is the best player and that in order to win, they have to defer to him.  Dwyane Wade has won one championship but has recently been mired with terrible teams who have no desire to win.  Chris Bosh has been on terribly put-together teams and has played in obscurity in Toronto.  These players have all (with the exception of Wade in 2006) lacked the opportunity to seize the moment, to show that the game of basketball is all about effort.  That is not to say that each of these players and that most of the current SuperStars that are in the NBA do not play hard.  These are some of the hardest working stars the NBA has had since the late 80's and early 90's.  However, with the Lebron Sweepstakes and the Summer of 2010 monopolizing the headlines it is not hard to infer that sometimes these SuperStars do not fully grasp the effort that is needed to win an NBA Championship - the dedication and reliance on the team that is necessary.

Now, you may say that these players do care about the effort, because they are trying to position themselves, in a rather groundbreaking and organized way for professional athletes, in the best situation for them to win and to add to the level of competition in the league.  I absolutely understand that.  Yet, there is that lingering desire of Lebron James to be the next billionaire athlete that disturbs me whenever I hear it.  That same feeling is tied to watching Lebron laugh and joke in the middle of a playoff series where the Boston Celtics are stealing destiny right in front of him.  That feeling is tied to watching Dwight Howard get outworked by the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals and still be smiling in the fourth quarter of a game.

I am not a Boston homer by any means.  I have become invested in this Boston Celtics team over the past few years because I have always been a fan of Kevin Garnett and the effort that he has always dedicated to the game of basketball since he was only 17 years old.  I have become a fan of the Art of Ray Allen, the likes of which I may not see for a very long time.  I have also become a student of the nuanced range of skill that Paul Pierce possesses. And obviously, I am very much invested in the rise of Rajon Rondo as one of the premier players in the NBA and a genuine freak of nature.  But what this Boston Celtics team has showed us over the past three years and this past year especially is the vast difference between successful and enjoyable basketball and basketball that turns people away.  When the Celtics are at their peak, as they were in 2008 and through much of this 2010 Playoffs (and to a degree in the 2009 Playoffs with the grit they showed), they exhibit a brand of basketball that is completely team oriented without being bland.  They have an exciting shooter; a point guard that can control the game and have an impact by not putting up huge numbers but by making big plays at the right time and filling up the stat sheet; they have a pure scorer; they have a determined defender in the low post who refuses to give in to age and reality, which can be neccessary in life (although in not such large doses); and they have a bench with whacky personalities who chomp at the bit (sometimes too much so) to play basketball.  When these Celtics have been great, there has been a palpabale sense of effort, of energy, of excitement - which are the fundamental elements of good basketball.  When they have been bad, like when egos and age got in the way of the majority of the 2010 season, they show all the problems of basketball: complaining, laziness, coasting on talent to try to win games and not being successful.  We have seen much of the latter from the majority of the NBA in the past 15 years, but as of late we have been emerging from that medieval era.

In the end of this 2010 NBA season, we had a Lakers team that woke up as well and was game for the challenge of trying hard, of playing great defense and wanting to win an NBA title.  So, we had a Finals that was baffling, that was  ugly and that many times did not feature one stand out player.  It was a definite change from the NBA we have all seen recently, where many times the dominant player stands out and is very often not successful. And as simple as having two teams that are trying hard, that are leaving everything on the court in order to win the championship of their sport might sound, we don't often see it in a world where becoming a sports billionaire is a priorty; where being seen with Worldwide Wes and Jay-Z is what helps determine who your next head coach will be.

I'm not an old fashioned guy. I understand the world and I understand Lebron James.  I just really like basketball.


P.S.: If you want to know about the NBA Draft.  Just go to Bill Simmons.  He'll help you out here.

St. Allen Iverson

This is the second time in two months that I have watched a basketball documentary that has moved me.  Wheras the Magic vs. Bird documentary moved me in a strange manner that allowed me to realize how much I love basketball as a sport and how much it currently means to me as a guy in my twenties who is questioning what things in life remain pure and how we can find instances of purity or solace in the world, this second documentary actually brought my attention to the subject matter that was the focus of the movie – well somewhat.

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson is a riveting documentary by Steve James who is responsible for what some call the best basketball movie of all time, Hoop Dreams.  No Crossover covers the saga of Allen Iverson’s journey of success and struggle from the fall of 1992 through the fall of 1993.  James was a resident of Hampton, Virginia, where Iverson grew up, and he chronicles Iverson’s rise to legendary status as the hero of the Bethel High School football and basketball teams.  Iverson led Bethel to State Championships over the traditional powerhouse, Hampton High School in both football and basketball during his junior year.  We see a young Iverson who is immensely talented and gifted athletically in both football and basketball.  He is driven to win and will not accept losing.  I have followed Iverson’s entire college and NBA career and it is almost startling to see how insanely athletic he was in high school compared to how athletic he was in the NBA and he was a freak of nature in the NBA.  He single-handedly turns over 75 years of athletic history in the Virginia Peninsula only to find his comeuppance in a racial brawl that occurred in a bowling alley during the basketball season.  A trial over what really occurred at the bowling alley ensues and the whole town of Hampton is torn apart by years of racial tension.  Different community organizations both black and white try to exert their sphere of influence using Iverson as either their pillar of virtue or their guiding force of criticism.  There are misjudgments in legal council; the choice of a jury trial over a non-jury trial, witness accounts and eventually Iverson is sentenced to 15 years in prison.

As we all know, Iverson did not spend 15 years in prison.  With some coercing of the first-ever black Virginia governor, Iverson is pardoned after 4 months in prison, which in my opinion as an observer of the documentary was just.  The narrative that James is able to construct from the perspectives of various attorneys, judges, public defenders, journalists, community leaders, religious figures, and even his own mother is astonishing.  He set out to tell a story of the racial troubles of his hometown set against the backdrop of the Iverson story and he succeeded. I will not ruin the documentary or his hard work by going in depth into the work he does with the theme of race, I will merely say that you should just watch the documentary.

What I want to talk about, since he fits into the format of this blog as someone or something I am passionate about, is Allen Iverson.  Back in January, when the 2010 NBA All-Star Team Lineup was announced, I wrote this on the blog:

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.

These opinions are still true.  Since that was written, Iverson bowed out of the All-Star game due to the illness of his daughter and then announced that he would be on leave from the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers for the remainder of the season.  We have most likely seen the end of Allen Iverson in the NBA and I only realized it this evening.  I love Allen Iverson and I will admit that any day of the week.  I have absolutely nothing in common with Allen Iverson.  He was raised in such a harsh and drastic environment and was able to succeed in ways that I couldn’t imagine.  Did he come out of that situation with flaws? You are absolutely right.  Did I come out of a privileged upbringing on the north shore of Long Island with immense flaws?  You are absolutely right. So maybe I take that back, I share one thing in common with Allen Iverson and that one thing is that we are both flawed like all human beings are – and if he met me, A.I. would probably call me out on even comparing us in one way. 

I will forever admire his tenacity and his ability to take control of a game.  He played on some of the most underwhelming teams that I have ever followed and the fact that he even coaxed them to a modicum of success (2001 NBA Finals) was a miracle in itself.  He is one of the most charismatic and handsome players that I have ever followed.  The original Answer sneaker was one of the most influential sneakers on my formative years.  He was said to have had a dominating personality (the documentary shows this, his interviews show this, various accounts testify to this, like the time Bill Simmons references when he saw Iverson play live and get called for a foul, only to berate the referee into reversing the call. As Simmons says, “there was real violence was in the air.”) and sometimes that dominating personality resulted in compromised situations, decisions, and arrests.  Those are not necessarily attributes to strive for if you are a young man looking to make it into the NBA.

However, and maybe unfortunately and maybe not, what I will remember best is this latter day Iverson.  The Iverson who was too proud to come off the bench in Memphis and who threw a tantrum and was given a chance to come back to Philadelphia.  The Iverson who cried at his press conference at being welcomed back to the city that brought him into the NBA.  When I first saw Iverson cry, I was moved.  This was a player who was as tough as anyone I had met in real life or had seen in a movie.  I got goose bumps when I saw him cry.  I also got goose bumps tonight (and my eyes watered) when the documentary showed a clip of a student thanking Iverson for a scholarship that Iverson donated to him so that he could go to college.  When asked to comment, underneath a black hat with its brim pulled almost entirely over his eyes, Iverson, holding back tears, said that he did not want praise, that he just wanted to try to give back to his community and to someone else. There was nothing in his voice, his eyes, and his posture that suggested even the slightest bit of contrivance.  I also got goose bumps when the documentary showed archival footage of a high school Iverson, fresh out of jail, graduating from high school thanks to a local teacher/tutor (white) who helped him with private lessons while he was in prison and once he was released.  You saw a genuine love in Iverson’s eyes for this woman and I feel that that moment along with the moment in front of the high school boy and then the moment at the podium in Philadelphia are all tied together into the true Allen Iverson – the Allen Iverson that I will always remember.  I equate it in the best way that I can (being educated in the English canon from a liberal arts university) to a mystic.  Iverson has been privy to glances of troubled human action that I will never see, he’s had to overcome things I never had to and that no one in my family will ever have to, but at the heart he has tried to do what is best for himself and what is best for his family. Was he equipped to do all those things? Maybe not? Did he try? Like anything else, he did and sometimes he failed.  But when I see that teenage Iverson with his cap on, when I see him with his brim pulled down, when I see him on the podium, his eyes strange and puffed with tears, I see someone who has looked life straight in the eyes and wanted nothing more than to do the best he ever could.  Sometimes he interpreted that desire the wrong way and received the just punishments for his actions.

I wasn’t there at the bowling alley on February 14, 1993 and the actual events of that night are still uncertain, but what I do know is that criminal or not, what I know of Allen Iverson, I love. When I say that I see him in his latter day form as a “medieval mystic” what I mean is that I see someone who has stared down life and death, his loves, his profession and his mistakes and still feels that passion within himself, that unexplainable thing that brings him to tears.  And if Allen Iverson does that, then maybe we aren’t so far apart, and even if we are, I can live with that, because that is the kind of athlete I want to admire – that is the kind of athlete I would want my son to admire.

Waste of Time

On the day after the momentous passing of Barack Obama's Healthcare Bill, it is only fitting that I put up a post about the top ten syndicated television shows of all time, according to me.  Why put it up? Why not expound upon the ripples and effects of President Obama's Healthcare Bill? 

One, I do not have an extensive knowledge enough about the details of the bill in order to provide you with an informed opinion that can also verge on the humorous, which is the whole point of what I write. 

Two, you do not come here for that.  That is, unless I get any feedback that says you do, in which case, I will be glad to start doing more homework.

Third, I wanted to write up a funny/pointless list for you to look at.

Fourth, I spent much of my day last Thursday watching basketball (and sporadically on the subsequent days of the weekend as well) and I realized how many damn shows are in syndication and how in strange way, syndicated TV shows have formed a connect the dot timeline of my life and provided a communication touchstone between myself and other people - as strange as that is.

Five, the next phase of the Amazon Createspace Breakthrough Novel Award results are announced later today and of course I believe I am going to be in the next round. So, even against my better instincts, I am somewhat excited and can't focus on something heady.

Sixth, I am feeling sort of lazy and want to come up with some more substantive posts for you all.

In any event, here is the list of the Top Ten Syndicated TV Shows of All Time According to Me:

10. Amen - This was a little known show from the 80's that was somewhat of a Jeffersons spin-off only because it featured Sherman Helmsley aka George Jefferson.  This show used to be on at about 6 o'clock in the morning when I was in high school so I used to watch it as I groggily showered, got dressed, threw on a brown skull cap and got ready to go to school to crack jokes, write alter-ego names on my tests and quizzes, and brood over what literary fame was bound to come my way.  Boy, did I have no idea what college was going to be about.  But the show itself was great. Sherman Helmsley played a character called Deacon Earnest Frye who was part of a church community in Philadelphia.  He was always coming up with money making schemes (a favorite trait of any of my TV characters) and trying to get his daughter to marry a rich guy.  In the end his harebrained plans always fell through and he got his comeuppance.  Great concept for a show: corrupt church figure; great themes: trying to get money and marry your daughter to a rich man; great overall look: late 80's fuzzy greys, greens and browns.  This eased me pleasantly through many dull pink and blue grey sunrises during eleventh and twelveth grades (2001-2003).

9. Three's Company - These first three entries are all directly related to my waking up experience in high school so just stay buckled in.  Obviously this is a classic set-up with John Ritter and his two female roommates Suzanne Somers and Joyce Dewit.  I mean you have the all-time great TV, movie and life themes here: two guys and a girl (Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place); a guy pretending he is gay to get by on rent (see Williamsburg, Brooklyn); sexual innuendos galore and misunderstandings (Seinfeld); the classic landlord threatening you kick you out stick (see origins in Abott & Costello and again see Williamsburg, Brooklyn).  Needless to say, all of these sexual innuendos and landlords trying to kick fake gay guys who are culinary students had a great affect on my comedy sensibilities as a 14 and 15 year old.  Many people pay attention to Suzanne Somers as the original blonde, but you can't overlook the replacement blondes later on in the show.  Classic roles such as Chisty' (Suzanne Somers) cousin and a blonde nurse who is serious but unlucky in love.  This is a realist comedy through and through.  Very influential in my headphones on, Led Zeppelin cranked up, enjoying weed a little too much phase (2000-2002).

8. Coach - Craig T. Nelson was already a legend from his epic performances in the Poltergeist series.  Poltergeist alone cemented his legacy as top movie dad (protecting his family from ghosts and contronting his boss for building homes on an indian burial ground), football fan (St. Louis Rams), and calming onscreen presence (again, protecting his family from ghosts).  Coach mixed all of those things together: he was a decent dad but overprotective of his daughter (legitimately early 90's hot), he was a football coach (Hayden Fox of the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles) and calming onscreen presence (he lived in a wood cabin or something that was all kinds of early 90's light brown and purple).  This show really had an effect on me in my early teens.  This was on back to back at 6:30 and 7:00 AM before junior high school and I followed all the exploits of Dauber and the name of Jerry Van Dyke's character. Jerry Van Dyke taught me what an alcoholic probably acted like and talked like, which I can never forget.  This show was also great because it featured tons of cameos from football players, excellent stock football footage of real teams used as footage of the Minnesota State team and a picture perfect contrived later season twist on the show when Craig T. gets a job for an expansion NFL team called the Orlano Breakers.  Overall perfection with some of the best early 90's footage known to man - real send into outer space kind of stuff.  Can you believe it is only #8?

7. Scrubs - This may not be a fan favorite because of Zach Braff's unlikeability, but I can't deny the power Scrubs held over me in college.  During my senior year, when my ability to watch terrible movies on TV was at its peak (OK maybe some of my friends can prove otherwise), Scrubs reruns stole the mantle.  Hungover on a Sunday? Scrubs on Comedy Central. Nursing a hangover on Saturday evening? Scrubs on at 7:00 on Fox 5.  Dinner mixed in? Sure. Is Zach Braff annoying? Yes, he is.  Is the show technically still running? Yes, I think its corpse is propped up on some network. Did the Dr. Cox character become too popular for what it actually was? Yes. Was it sort of funny? Absolutely.  See, Scrubs is a tormented television show in syndication, constantly drawing complex emotions from viewers.  That is why it had to make my list. It is a risky pick at number 7, I know.  However, they did always have sexy women as guest stars and the character Elliot usually showed a decent amount of cleavage and caused many internal debates about whether or not she was actually hot.  (Ed. note: I'm already starting to feel terrible about this post.)

6. Wings - Sleeper pick, but you can't deny it.  You  have vintage Tony Shaloub before 13teen Ghosts, and Monk; you have that blonde southern woman Helen who was hot in a "1993 very white in a light pair of denim jeans" way; you have Tim Daly in a strange post Diner 80's heydey when he could have been someone (like that whole cast - man what a movie) and his latter day Soprano's punching bag role; you had Steven Weber as Tim Daly's idiot brother who got into trouble with women and schemes and who later went on to have a kind of offbeat sitcom called The Tim Daly Show which was strangely enjoyable; and you have Thomas Hayden Church in a classic role as the repairman, Lowell, who had a strange exit from the show: Eventually, Lowell is forced to leave Nantucket and enter the Witness Protection Program after witnessing a mob hit. Although it was hard for him to leave Nantucket and the people he knew all his life, Lowell decided he would prefer to go into hiding rather than let a guilty man go free and possibly murder again. These are the type of ideas that define genius.  Just think about the pitch: "OK its kind of like Cheers but actually in a small diner at an airport on Nantucket and two brothers run the airline." Why didn't you or I think of that and make money off of seven seasons on TV?

5. The Office - You may be thinking that its a little high for being so new to syndication, however the prevelance of The Office on TV now is insane.  The Office has rapidly risen up this mental list for the past four months. You can't click two channels without it being on.  Plus, watching it through syndication made me realize how genius it is. You have to appreciate it for the background character Creed alone.  Plus it is cozy in some strange way.  I know that Gervais' original is superior because Gervais himself is actually a comedic genius with a great insight to the human condition, but this one has Jim and Pam.

4. The Cosby Show - It may be too high on the list because it is not the best for overall quality.  However,  you have to love its duration as being a touchstone of mid-day television.  During the day in college, I used to chill to a little Cosby Show when I had break in class. I am thinking specifically of the spring of my junior year (2006).  You also have to love it as the quintessential vision of the 80's.  There is nothing that looks more 80's or feels more 80's than the Cosby Show. I will take no other arguments.  The range of the siblings on the show was great; you have Cos eating up scenes as well as his obsession with his kids giving him money and paying for things; you have Phylisha Rashad (gotta hand it to Ahmad Rashad - a long time NBA on NBC stalwart and former NFL pro) as the smoking hot mom; and you have classic 80's babe Lisa Bonet in her prime.  You get valuable family and cultural lessons as well as Cosby "baw bawing" and hamming it up? Is it a little heavy handed? Yes. So what, what else did you expect from the 80's?

3. Simpsons - We all know the woe that has come to the Simpsons in recent years and I don't need to expand on it.  It has lost me.  I don't blame any of the writers because it is damn hard to right in the same constraints and characters for 20 years.  However, everybody had the Simpsons as a touchstone not only in its normal Sunday night spot, but in the classic after school spot.  You come home from practice and Simpsons is on back to back on Fox from 7-8, every night. You come home from sneaking booze with your friends and its on again at 11:30 PM.  You go to school the next day and recite the jokes to your friends and try to get one up on your teachers during class. It was essential. We all know this and now we can still see faint glimpses of it when an "old" Simpsons episode comes on Fox at 7:30 or 12:30

2. Seinfeld - What? Seinfeld at number 2? Wait until #1 then.  We all know that Seinfeld has somewhat overtaken the Honeymooners for setting the bar for syndication. Honeymooners was too far before my time for me to give it consideration here.  Seinfeld at 11:00 o'clock on Fox is  like a ritual that will never be changed.  You can turn on any episode and find yourself laughing hysterically or muttering, "I forgot about that one." It is truly an strange phenomena of an art form or commodity. It has so sunken in with our social and cultural psyches (then again I am speaking from a totall white perspective here) that Seinfeld is almost merged with our own brains.  It touches on all of the classic comedy tropes - fringe characters, stupid bosses, landlords, girlfriends, neighborhood rivals, harebrained schemes - and takes them in clever and, in later seasons, bizarre directions.  It has the essential 90's look that will never be topped because it is so singular an iconic.  What else is there left to do with this show but to try and mock it at whatever chance we get? Why, because it was so good an because it is so entrenched in our strange culture.  And that's what you do with anything on a pedestal.

1. Saved by the Bell - The most instructive television show for anyone who grew up in the late 80's and 90's.  My pulse is not so much on that age group right now, but I still believe you get to Saved by the Bell before Seinfeld. The Zach Morris character is the epitome of who you want to be growing up: slick jokester with tons of harebrained schemes, preppy bad boy who has the hottest girlfriend - I mean come on. The show takes place in California and all the scenes are very school-centric, which is so relatable. You had great babes that straddled 80's and 90's hot.  In fact, the whole show successfully transitioned from the 80's to the 90's.  There are classic spin-offs like College Years and that one season that took place at the beach.  Each era of the show is easily identifiable and we all watched it before school and after school, because it was always on TBS or TNT or WPIX.  We all talked about it and used it as the essential reference point for navigating through school (whoa, Domino. I think you are going overboard) no matter how feverently we may deny it.  How many times did you or some other stupid person that you knew and loved turn around a chair, sit down with their body facing the chair back and go "Hey, guys, I'm A.C. Slater"?  Happened all the time.  And, finally, they had the best and most aptly named character of all time: a principal with the name Mr. Belding.  Bell Ding!  The name of the show was Saved by the Bell! How are we not living off the riches of syndication?  This show epitomizes what syndication is, what it is used for, and how it defines the communication of American youth.

So, hopefully, what this list does is show you how many cultural touchstones (er, maybe a stretch for some of these - but hey lots of people watched them!) were based off of stupid ideas.  This should give us all credit to go out there and make millions on our own stupid ideas.  We can do it! And, in the worst case scenario, maybe we can come up with a show like Arrested Development, which nobody watched.

Before I go, I want to point to two recent articles and one piece of literary news:

Article 1 is from the New York Times, which is Paul Westerberg's comments on Alex Chilton and his death.  It is a short article with no real substance aside from the fact that it is interesting to read Westerberg right about Chilton.

Article 2 is from Bill Simmons' own webpage.  It is a running log he did of two NBA games from last night.  His sentiment here reflects my own post-NBA All-Star game thoughts.

Finally, the writer Sherman Alexie won this year's PEN/Faulkner Award. I read some of his work in a relgion class in college when we were covering Native Americans.  He is a decent writer and they even made a movie about one of his stories - fairly entertaining as well.  I'm better than him so that award should be mine in just a few years anyway.

That's it for now.  I'll have more stuff up here this week.  Namely a piece I have in mind matching up Joanna Newsom's new album and the new She & Him album and comparing Zoe Deschanel and Joanna Newsom as vocalist.  Also working on the podcast stuff and hopefully the first one will be up this week and then go clockwork after that.

Always new content. Just stick with me.

Role Models

 

This post was supposed to air on Thursday night, was pre-empted due to other reasons. So you may all enjoy it now:

I just finished watching the new Magic and Bird documentary on HBO.  I had been looking forward to the premiere of Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks on Sunday evening and had forgotten that a new Bird and Magic documentary was floating around.

The Bird/Magic story is obviously one of the most well known and well documented stories (maybe even any story) in the history of sports.  It has always been so interesting because you have timeless stories and themes so readily at hand: black against white; workaday values against Hollywood fame; East vs. West; an intensely private figure against one who was admired and revered for his warmth.  The fact that these two players played for the two most iconic franchises in the NBA was only icing on the cake.  And, you also have the fact that they were doppelgangers – two guys who were about the same height, who traditionally (Magic played every position, but mainly point, and no one his size had ever done that) played the same position.  They were both excellent passers and they played with an appreciation for the game itself; a game that is based on the giving to others, the unselfishness that spurs on success in basketball – although TV and sneaker deals and the beauty of a drive and dunk through the lane always seem to tell us differently.

All of this was already known about Bird and Magic.  However, what struck me most about this documentary was how affected I was by watching it. This is a story that I had pored over for years.  I can’t count how many summers I went to basketball camp and sat in the dark after lunch with my fellow campers watching Magic Johnson and Larry Bird highlight videos.  We heard the stories of Magic working on his last minute shot on every morning before school; we knew about Larry’s uncanny knack for the game and his hailing from not only the heartland of America, but also the heartland of basketball. But tonight – at twenty-four – from watching this documentary, I realized how much basketball actually means to me.

I played basketball throughout my youth and up through high school.  I wasn’t gifted at the sport, but I was good enough.  I was even a captain on certain teams because I ran well and played defense and could deliver a well-placed bounce pass.  I never felt the game within me. I never felt its extension as an immediate and serious part of myself – the natural extension of the arm and hand for a one armed bounce pass; the immediate throw of the perfect outlet; the timing for a wrap around pass; or the grace and body control to absorb contact on a reverse lay-up for three points the old fashioned way.  That is to say, the game was not my solace.  I could play it.  I had flashes of youthful brilliance, when at eight years old, I would play three on one against three other nine and ten year olds in my neighborhood.  However, at the critical point in my relation to the game, there was no immediacy – the game did not give me sanctuary and it did not move my soul.

Now, as I was saying, it is different.  All of this writing I have done here about basketball only opened up the understanding that came tonight. This understanding came because I am twenty four with a wealth of optimism and enthusiasm for the world and, like most, I hate my job and I see the very obvious forces against my desire to create and make an art for others in this world.  So, for the first time I truly need basketball.  I need to go to the local court and play pickup ball with high school kids.  I need this because I see how they need the game and how they love the game.  On the court, when I am “the whitest (expletive) in the gym,” I can at least run and push that ball and try to draw contact and finish with a fingeroll. And then, afterwards, I can smell the asphalt and worn rubber on my hands and I can drink a beer.  It is my solace. I just read recently that the latter day MJ was different in his relation to the game because at that point in his life, the court was his sanctuary.  He was the best because he lived in basketball.  It was his extension, the place he was natural.

However, Larry and Magic were before Michael and I (had to put myself in a sentence with those three names).  They played the game with a certain perfection – instinctually – that Michael worked harder than anybody to attain.  Michael was natural in the way his body was made for the game and his mind was natural because it was made for being the best.  But Larry and Magic’s minds were made for basketball.  They know “The Secret” as Bill Simmons as recently expanded upon in The Book of Basketball.  “The Secret” is making others better. The secret is finding your role and fitting in it.  Finding your role makes for the success of others. You excel when you need to and you supplement when you need to.  It’s that simple.

Perhaps what I felt so strongly and so surprisingly was how much this single truth affected me.  I love basketball (obviously) and I have seen tapes of Magic and Bird playing so many times.  Yet, tonight, I saw the perfection in their passes and their movement, their understanding of the game. They were men and perhaps their success garnered more riches than I can know, but in the end, they were men and could find a place to hang their hat in this world. They found a way to bring success to themselves and to others by finding their roles, by helping others fit into their roles. And by doing both of these things, they found a sanctuary.

We are all like Bird and Magic.  We are all trying to find our sanctuaries no matter what risks we take or rewards we seek. As much as I finally can appreciate my love for basketball and the solace I can take in the bounce of the ball on the court; in the squeaking of my sneakers from end-line to end-line; in the rush of a steal at the top of the key and the ensuing breakaway lay-up to inspire your pickup team.  However, the court is not my place of sanctuary – it is not my role.  My role may very well be the words I write, or it could be something else entirely unknown to me.  All that is important is that we can recognize beauty, passion and perfection when we see it and that that recognition causes us to reach for the same deep feelings and ability in ourselves, no matter where it is or where we may find it.

Celtics vs. Lakers is the greatest basketball rivalry for a reason.

O, the Wind and Rain

I found myself thinking about the Garcia and Grisman song "Dreadful Wind and Rain" today.  It was definitely a crappy day, but as I trudged home from work burning the 8:00 PM oil, and let the snow pelt down onto my hair and into my eyes, I felt a certain refreshment in the walk.  My boots held strong and didn't slip in the slush at all.  And maybe it is the intensity of my days, but walking in the cold and the snow eases my soul. Perhaps it is just that vision of an object, something white and small and fragile, falling gently through the air, that moves me or causes a stillness in my soul - because you don't often just get to see that.  Maybe that's what Joyce was talking about in "The Dead."

Nah, couldn't be.

Anyway, after that devastating Walkmen post, its time to just mention a few points of interest for all ye faithful that follow mine blog.

First, I would like to share a bit of just absolute genius with you.  This comes from a news story about NBA Star, Caron Butler recently of the Dallas Mavericks - and recently of my NBA Trade Deadline Breakdown - and how the NBA has banned him from chewing straws during games, a hobby he has done for years.  Later in the story, it is revealed that another habit of Caron's was outlawed.  Just read:

In summer 2009, Butler blogged on NBA.com that he had lost 11 pounds just by giving up his daily "addiction" of drinking at least six 12-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew.

"I was going through withdrawals," Butler said on NBA.com. "... Honestly, those first two weeks without the Dew [were] the roughest two weeks of my life. I'm talking headaches, sweats and everything."

Butler said he used to drink the caffeinated soda before Wizards practice and would "knock back two" before games.

Genius.  Just absolute pure genius.

Continuing on the NBA path, if you haven't read the past two Bill Simmons columns, then you really should. He just has his finger on the NBA pulse and provides insights into the league and its players and innerworkings that can only be found on this blog otherwise.  No, you didn't buy that?  Ok, its true he is the best NBA writer out there.  You can read his Trade Value Column or his NBA Quick Fix Column.


In other links, my friend Janelle Sing reminded me of the website of a former classmate of ours in high school.   His name is Brett Jutkiewicz and he has plenty of terrific shorts and features on this website to keep you entertained for hours.  I hadn't seen him in years until this past summer when I ran into him during a pickup basketball game at the gym in that Catholic school on North 7th between Driggs and Bedford. Who knew?

Anyway, coming up we will have more about that theme of history and taking one's place in it yet remaning fluid and not static.  How sports fits in to all that is the challenge I will have to think up.  There is something that ties Joyce and Peyton Manning together, you better believe me.  We'll also have some good book talk.  I've been focusing on my Thomas Wolfe to provide a now honest opinion of a writer I once blindly admired.  I'll write something good.  Of course as basketball season moves closer and closer to the playoffs I will keep you on the edge of your seat especially when Wade comes to the Garden in April and I have less than front row seats, but the advantage of a notebook.

Now, though, the next installment of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt:



Liza stood up and flattened her skirt against her thighs, the fabric felt soft and cool.  She listened to her shoes as they pushed the carpet on the way to the kneeler.  She reached it and knelt.  When she looked up at the coffin, she first felt nothing.  Liza groped within herself to try and connect the finished wood and gold she saw in front of her, with the final resting place of her mother.  She closed her eyes and pressed her lips close to her pressed knuckles.  The touch made her smile reflexively.  It just looks like a big bed.  An uncomfortable bed, too.  I wouldn’t want to be put into one of those.  But would I want them to burn me?  This is my mother!  Her mind soon turned to thoughts of beds, of James’ big bed with the black blanket and white sheets, to Maggie’s bed that still had that blue and brown patchwork quilt, to her own bed with the white and fluffy douvet, and the pink striped sheets.  But then, her mind led her to Christmas morning.  She was only seven and with the shape of 6:57 from the clock beside her bed behind her she’d moved into the hallway.  Her small feet had padded on the carpet, down the hall to her parents’ room.  She reached up and pulled down the curved handle and the white door swung open to darkness.  At first she saw the red numbers in the darkness of her parents’ room. 6:56.  Then, she felt the first tinge of coldness in her little feet. “I used to carry you around in my pocket. Did you know that?”  That’s what he used to say to me and then mom would just nod at him and smile.  Nod and smile. I feel like much of a girl’s life is spent nodding and smiling.  And is that right or wrong? Even though her feet were cold, her cotton pajama leggings - with Disney figures embroidered in them - kept her warm.  There was The Little Mermaid on her thin thigh, Princess Jasmine on her undefined calf, and Minnie Mouse pointing toward her ankle.  She padded onward toward the dark, soft, square mass that stood outlined in the room. 6:57.  When she was close enough, she slowed her movement and lifted her right, leg onto the bed.  The quilt was soft and cool with air.  She shook this off and raised her other leg up.  She made sure that every move was light.  It made her almost giggle aloud when she heard her father’s snort from further ahead.  There was a tightness to the quilt right by where his feet were.  She could make out their shape; she even touched one, curious if there would be a reaction.  One foot flinched.  The valley between her mother’s form and her father’s form was open.  She lay down in it, listening to the sounds of her parents sleeping.  As she looked up, she saw the darkness turn to ceiling – the off-white color she knew when she’d run in and jump on the bed after school.  The light slowly showed its true color.  All the dark forms of objects she knew were becoming grey, if only in slow progressions of shade.  She couldn’t lay in the valley any longer.  She turned toward her father first and jumped on his shoulder.

“MARY CHRISTMAS!”

He didn’t budge and the room’s grey became a dull orange of the morning.  She heard her mother stir and mumble.  But, then, it was her father who she wanted to wake.  So she redoubled her efforts, propelling and sprawling herself gently across her father’s shoulder like children often do.  His shoulder gave slightly and she could feel its softness.  It seemed, to her, that with each shove she gave her father, each press of the matress, a sort of smell was released out into the room.  The first description would have been stinky, then perhaps stale, but that morning, as she lay and smelt her father’s arm while he woke, she realized that that smell was what she smelled like.  Liza was dismayed, slightly, because a little girl didn’t smell like what her father smelled like: sweat, sleep, laundry, whiskers, his nose.  Little girls were supposed to smell like soap and small touches of their mother’s hug and perfume.  However she was proud of it, because if she smelled like her father, then James smelled like him too, Tom, Maggie, and even her mother – maybe that was the smell of them all, the smell of their home.

Liza opened her eyes.  She had been pulled so far away from the moment.  However, the coffin was sitting exactly where it had been.  That wasn’t even praying, what I was doing.  Those were just memories coming back to me.  Its amazing how I can put memories onto that coffin, onto what is and is not my mother and make them part of me in a way.  Liza readjusted herself on the kneeler and closed her eyes.  She set herself to pray in the way she’d been taught in religion class.  Dear Lord, please take care of my mother as you bring her into this new world she is about to enter.  Please let my father get over this loss easily and also Maggie, James and Tom.  Eve too.  I don’t know how we are going to do it, but we need to try.  I know I can say it better than this, Lord, but I’m sure you understand how tired my brain is.  Liza couldn’t help but open her eyes.  She looked at the coffin again.  Her mind was wandering. Kneeling and praying were not going to help her, she couldn’t formulate a prayer.  I’m sorry, Lord.  I just want to lay between the valley of my mother and father.  She felt stale and she made the sign of the cross.  As she rose, she flattened her skirt against her legs once more.  She hoped that the touch, the smoothness of the fabric would bring her goosebumps, that it would make her feel something important – or at least make her feel alright.  However, she felt nothing.  She bowed her head and clasped her hands as she sat.

Maggie wasn’t sure what to make of her sister.  Watching her rise and sit, it had immediately struck her that Liza was depressed and taking their mother’s death harder than she’d let on.  Maggie’s vision lingered on Liza’s meek and uncomfortable form.  It didn’t surprise her that Liza might take their mother’s death the hardest. She had been the youngest and the last one in the house – the only one of the children who had not been given the chance to see themselves in a relative distance from their parents and also their home.  She couldn’t be sure, and that also upset Maggie, because it had occurred to her the night before that she didn’t know her sister at all and that she had no way of being able to read her.  Maggie had always taken pride in her perception of people’s demeanors and moods – she felt it enhanced her ability to take a good photo.  However, looking at Liza smooth her skirt once more, she felt that she may have neglected her sister – and perhaps her whole family – for too long.  There was a nervous flutter in her stomach and an image of her quiet apartment appeared before her.  One of her sandals rested under the coffee table, her boots lay on their sides by the door.  A sundress of hers was draped on the couch.  Three stainless steel pans were stacked next to the sink, only the top one was clean.  There was no one there to help her clean.  She could not smell Irish Spring soap.

Link Track

The title of this post refers to the old track-listing of the Beatles' White Album where between "Long Long Long" and "Revolution 9" there was a slight segue that received credit as a track.  Its still in there as background talking, but no longer listed.

Irrelevant? Oh, you've got it.

I just want to use this space today to reference two sites that I go to quite frequently to read things and I actually don't browse the internet that often and, because I am super smart and was World's Coolest Dude 2007, that should be some HIGH praise.

The first is Bill Simmons "The Sports Guys'" page off the ESPN website.  I reference Bill Simmons a lot on this blog and for good reason.  He is one of the definitive, if not the definitive voice for professional basketball at the moment.  His mailbags often produce great lines connected to sports and his podcasts feature a wide variety of guests from David Stern (NBA Commissioner) to Chuck Klosterman (overrated writer) to Adam Corolla. I value and admire his passion for basketball and hang onto his every word regarding it.  You should buy his book (pictured above).

The second is What's Alan Watching. Obviously, I love Mad Men - its really the only TV show I have ever been invested in and truly paid attention to.  Alan Sepinwall's website breaks down Mad Men (and plenty of other shows) and provides terrific insight into the very tight thematic nature that each episode of the show has.  He also gets good interviews with the cast and writers that are valuable to read as well.  So, check that out too if you are ever bored.

Coming up on this space, though:

I will be posting some of my ruminations on this whole Gilbert Arenas gun situation that is going on, as well as a general NBA storyline update for those sideline fans out there.

I will be posting a breakdown of the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" movie starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. In doing so, I will tie in the all-time movie feat: how do you make a stupid movie legendary.  Watch how Bill and Ted fit in.

And, ah just because I am listening to it right now and loving it, I may have to write a review of the Van Morrison album Veedon Fleece, which a friend of mine just turned me on to.

So there is plenty coming up.  Keeping checking here, because I'm going to be famous and its my promise to take you with me.

Just remember, "I'd be better off dead, than to live without you." Immortal words.

Now, the next installment of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt:

Liza

    “So is it true?” Lindsey aks.

    “Is what true?”  She can only mean about mom.  At least that is what I think she can mean.

    “That you’re coming home because of…well…”

    Yes and no.

    “No, where did you hear that?”

    “Mikayla sent me a message on Facebook.”

    “She did?”

    “So is it true?”

    Lindsey is leaning in close to me like she always had a bad habit of doing. I can smell her Chanel.  And Mikayla made up a lie to tell her, all the way from College Park, Maryland.  This is exactly what I was dreading.

    “Yes and no.”

    “Oh.”

    “Only for the funeral.”

    “Oh,” she says. “Yeah, because it really would suck to be stuck back around here.  I mean there is nothing to do.  Where can you go from here?”

    I have no answers for her.  There isn’t anywhere you can go from here.  The only place you can go is somewhere else and it is extremely important that you do that.

    “How is your brother by the way?”

    “James?”

    “No. Tom.  I saw him outside before with that girl, Natalie, you remember her.  She was in his grade.  Real pretty, real nice.  She played clarinet.  Karen wanted to be like her. Karen’s home too by the way.”

    That’s who it was! I knew I recognized her face.  She’s striking in the same way Eve is.  Statuesque, glowing, a girl that should be on a magazine cover but would never let herself get photographed for it.  That’s how I see Eve at least.  I never knew Natalie. How does Tom?  What’s gotten into him tonight?  Gotten into us all?  We should be going home shouldn’t we?  I see James still by the bar.  He looks drunk.

    “Maggie.” I look over Lindsey’s shoulder to my sister who is talking to Eve. “Shouldn’t we go?”

    “Are you alright?” Lindsey asks. She fondles her cell phone in one hand and pushes her hair behind her ear with the other.  I don’t know what to say to her.  She is my friend, I guess.  I haven’t talked to her and Mikayla since I left, which wasn’t so long ago, and now that I’m back and everything is the way it is I don’t feel like talking anyway.

    “My mom’s dead.”

    “I know, honey.  I’m so sorry.” The cradling of her cell phone from hand to hand.

    Maggie is next to me now  and she throws her hair over her head and ruffles it with her hands like she’s trying to add volume to it.  My father is a dying movie star and my sister is just in her prime.

    “What did you say, Liza?”  She’s sizing Lindsey up.  I know she’s been doing it since Lindsey came up to me.

    “Shouldn’t we go?”

    “No more darts or Led Zeppelin?” She acts surprised.  Lindsey peeks at her phone for a second.  And over her shoulder  James comes up to Eve.  Eve looks a little coy and James seems big and is trying to nuzzle her. “I’ll get my coat”

    “Everyone seems to be taking this well,” Lindsey says now that Maggie is gone. “I mean you’re all out drinking together.”

    This hits me and pisses me off.  I know it is strange and is probably wrong that we’re out doing this together.  But Maggie didn’t make a joke about it and Eve didn’t question James about it on the walk down so Lindsey doesn’t have a right to say it like that to me.

    “What are you doing home, Lindsey?  I didn’t ask.”

    She peeks down at the phone. “Just some things I forgot.”

    “Oh.”

    “I’ve got to go meet someone outside.”  She leans in close with her sticky sweet smelling Chanel and gives me a hug that feels like I’m in seventh grade and Billy is trying feel my nonexistant boobs by his blue locker right before we go to the buses. “I’m so sorry,” she says.

    “Thank you.”

    She moves past me and out the front door.  Maggie comes back over.

    “Where’d Chanel go?”

    I laugh.

    “C’mon,” Maggie says. “Those two are staying.  James said he’d bring Tom back.” She stops, looks towards the window. “I think Tom will bring himself back.”

    We walk together and quickly wave to Eve and James.  James doesn’t see, he’s leaning into Eve’s neck.  But Eve gives us a small wave and sips her fizzing drink.  Maggie and I move past the bar.  She pulls up the collar on her coat.  And as we pass the flapping wood door of the flushing bathroom,  “Good Times, Bad Times” comes on.

    “Right on cue,” Maggie turns back as she opens the door into the moist night.  But stepping out she bumps into a guy.  He’s wearing a thin grey sweater that fits him tightly.  He looks down at her.

    “Is this the elusive Maggie O’Donnell?”

    “Big word for you, Mike,” Maggie growls.  My skin tingles.  My sister is a growling movie star.

    “That’s a drink I’ll buy.”  The guy smiles and touches Maggie’s shoulder.  She looks disgusted.

    We’re not safe home yet.  Dad’ll have to wait.
 

All I Want for the NBA

I'm going to spend most of this space talking about my "Christmas" wishes for the NBA and for basketball in general. I don't know as much about the NBA as I'd like to think, but I certainly love it enough, so maybe that will be conveyed in some manner.

First, however, I'd like to post a little follow up to my Self Portrait review from last week. This comes from the Wikipedia entry on Self Portrait, it is a comment that Bob Dylan made about the lead up to his making of the album and to the actual theory behind the album itself:

"At the time, I was in Woodstock, and I was getting a great degree of
notoriety for doing nothing. Then I had that motorcycle accident [in
1966], which put me out of commission. Then, when I woke up and caught my senses, I realized that I was workin' for all these leeches. And I didn't wanna do that. Plus, I had a family, and I just wanted to see my kids.

I'd also seen that I was representing all these things that I didn't know anything about. Like I was supposed to be on acid. It was all storm-the-embassy kind of stuff — Abbie Hoffman in the streets — and they sorta figured me as the kingpin of all that. I said, 'Wait a minute, I'm just a musician. So my songs are about this and that. So what?' But people need a leader. People need a leader more than a leader needs people, really. I mean, anybody can step up and be a
leader, if he's got the people there that want one. I didn't want that, though.

But then came the big news about Woodstock, about musicians goin' up there, and it was like a wave of insanity breakin' loose around the house day and night. You'd come in the house and find people there, people comin' through the woods, at all hours of the day and night, knockin' on your door. It was really dark and depressing. And there was no way to respond to all this, you know? It was as if they were suckin' your very blood out. I said, 'Now wait, these people can't be my fans. They just can't be.' And they kept comin'. We had to get out of there.

This was just about the time of that Woodstock festival, which was the sum total of all this bullshit. And it seemed to have something to do with me, this Woodstock Nation, and everything it represented. So we couldn't breathe. I couldn't get any space for myself and my family, and there was no help, nowhere. I got very resentful about the whole thing, and we got outta there.

We moved to New York. Lookin' back, it really was a stupid thing to do. But there was a house available on MacDougal Street, and I always remembered that as a nice place. So I just bought this house, sight unseen. But it wasn't the same when we got back. The Woodstock Nation
had overtaken MacDougal Street also. There'd be crowds outside my house. And I said, 'Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can't possibly like, they can't relate to. They'll see it, and they'll listen, and they'll say,
'Well, let's get on to the next person. He ain't sayin' it no more. He ain't given' us what we want,' you know? They'll go on to somebody else. But the whole idea backfired. Because the album went out there, and the people said, 'This ain't what we want,' and they got more resentful. And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, 'Well, I'm gonna call this album Self Portrait.'"

Hmmm. He reminds me of a young me. In any event, I thought that would be interesting to put up here in light of my sermonizing and postulating at the possible meaning that could be gained from the album. I had actually read this some time ago, before I rambled that post out last week - maybe I should have consulted my own memory a little better.

Now, I will use the rest of this week's allotted time (unlimited) to post some wishes I have for the NBA. These are things that I would like to see happen in the league this year, things regarding the NBA I would like to have in my possession and things that I wish to happen for the league in general. I have to say that these items haven't been thought out at all and they may not make much sense. However, I have written a good deal about music in the past few weeks so I figured I should shower my praise and lovelight back onto the NBA, before I get into another list for next post, which will be my "Top 20 Movies to Watch on TV." See, sounds like I put more thought into that one, right? I even have a limit on the list. Salivating for that one, right? Sounds stupid, right? Oh, wait, I've got a list to do now.

Without further ado, my "Christmas Wishes" for the NBA:

1. Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball to replace the Gideon's Bible in hotels across the country until Game 7 of June's NBA finals when a scrappy Celtics team derails a potentially legendary Lakers team and Ron Artest shows up to the game in his underwear, scoring the first basket before being prompted to put on a shirt.

2. After scorching first quarters of the season, Carmelo, Durant and Nowitzki cool off scoring, the greatness of the Lakers overshadows Kobe's all around game, and Dwyane Wade galvanizes the Heat in an amazing second half stretch of the season, submits a better season than last year and wins your 2009-2010 NBA MVP award.

3. Tracy McGrady retires so we can forget about him and never speak of him again.

4. Chris Paul is traded to the Heat midseason for half of their roster, while in the off season, the Heat sign Chris Bosh and spend the remainingg $500,000.00 paying undrafted college players to be unselfish and not mess up. 2010-2011 NBA Champions, anyone?

5. Greg Oden is actually the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and is really 120 years old. And once again we find out that Hollywood is racist.

6. The two movies I get for Christmas are the 1993 Finals and "All I Want for Christmas" starring a young Ethan Embry and Thora Birch and the "Mysterious Girl of 1991." If you've seen this movie, you know what I'm talking about.

7. TNT, ESPN and ABC get wise and put the best young NBA on TV as frequently as possible - The Oklahoma City Thunder - so that American can get a good look at Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Russell Westbrook and the immortal Nick Collison (ah, Kansas 2003!).

8. Basketball loving president, Barack Obama, recruits NBA commissioner David Stern as part of his cabinet and in a precident setting move on Christmas Day of 2010, makes Stern VP midterm. Leading to Stern turning on Obama, hitting him in the head with a chair at Game 6 of the OKC v. Miami (what?!) Finals in 2011 and then running against Obama in the most thrilling and wrestling themed election of all time in 2012.

9. Shaq and Lebron's chemistry fades or never takes off, leading the 2009-2010 Cavaliers to tumble, while Mo Williams becomes fascinated with moustaches and running floaters. In the offseason, Shaq declares his own retirement to take away from the excitement of Lebron's free agency decision. Only, no one cares, and Lebron decides to play on Mars where the market never takes off, however, causing the ire of U.S. VP David Stern he is banished from the league until 2012, when the world may very well end!

10. Lakers v. Celtics in the Finals. It's just good basketball.

11. Kevin Garnett's return to glory and a second title.

12. Rajon Rondo is finally in people's everyday catalogue as one of the premier players in the game and not an appetizer at an Indian restaurant.

13. Tyler Hansborough becoming a better pro than people thought.

14. People remembering Allen Iverson for who he was when he revolutionized the league in 1996 like no one else had except maybe Michael Jordan and not for the overly proud, sentimental aging Allen Iverson he is now. (But God do I still love him and God does he have one of the most riveting and compelling personalities and professional storylines of any athlete. Just YouTube young Iverson. Please!)

15. I travel back in time and shadow Michael Jordan on all of the teams he played on. From UNC to the first-run Bulls to the Dream Team and then to the second-run Bulls. Much like the dreams I have every night when I get layups off of feeds from Jordan and then play "commendable and inspiring defense," as M.J. tells me.

16. MTV becomes NBA and completely non-related to music or the Jersey Shore.

Welp, that's about all I have for now. Christmas is upon us and so are these very possible NBA fantasies. I'll be back next week for my "Top 20 Movies To Watch on TV."

Now, the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt":

Tom

“Tom! Hey look its my little brother. Where’ve you been? And who is this?”

James is talking and he’s excited. He must be drunk. It’s good for him take his sober serious sombre leadership edge off. I guess I’m more of the sombre one. Well we all are now.

“This is Natalie. We went to school together.”

“Hi,” Natalie says. She holds out one of her lean athletic arms. They were always like that. Even in English class back in tenth grade I’d look at her exposed shoulder and notice the gentle tone of the muscle. That was something extremely feminine.

“I don’t remember you coming over to the house at all,” James says.

“I was at one of your parties.”

Is this song Bruce Springsteen? The pretty girl next to James is talking.

“Hey you knew my sister didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Anne Gregors.”

“Oh, you’re Arielle.” I pause. I pretend to reflect. “I see the resemblance.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Where did you go to school?”

“I didn’t.” I can see her eyes sort of glaze. “I was a year behind Anne anyway. She and I just had a few classes together.”

“Oh.”

Thankfully, Natalie is touching my elbow. “Let’s go get a table in front or outside.”

“Alright.”

We start to move past them. James grabs my shoulder.

“What is this?”

I shrug and keep following Natalie. We get through the crowd who are hovering around the bar with shots and necks tilted up at the games on TV. Natalie leads along the main passage past the old Pac-Man machine and the hunting game. She walks balancing her drink up high in her left hand. She carries it like it were a grail. Maybe not that holy but something delicate and precious. Does she treat all meaningless things that way? Maggie and Liza are still playing darts with Eve standing there looking a bit forlorn. Why has James left her standing there?

“Tom. What have you got there?” Maggie says. Everyone is in pretty good spirits. I’m surprised they all wanted to come down too. Our mother is dead and we are all out drinking together. Is dad secretly mad at us? No, he wouldn’t hold this against us. He understands our grief – we all feel it. This is a release.

“Just an old friend.”

Natalie waves like a passing sports icon through the stadium’s tunnel. I see Liza and she smiles at me.

“Let’s just go out front,” I say to Natalie.

She continues to the door.

“Are you leaving, Tom?” Liza asks me.

“No. Going out front?”

“Oh. Weren’t you just outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Liza sips her beer and turns back to Maggie and the darts. I pass by a big guy in a black sweater that is too tight for him standing by the door and move back outside into the night. There are torches burning along the porch. Across the way is one of the historic colonial homes with its wood fence. It has a nice open field or lawn that I used to go and lay in some nights when I’d take walks. There’s an empty table in the front corner of the deck by the bushes. Natalie keeps going and we sit down.

“Perfect spot,” she says upbeat.

“Better out here. More space.” I feel shy.

“You know,” she smiles. “It makes sense that I’d catch you peeing out back.”

I bow down into my beer a little bit.

“It’s a good thing.” She says.

“Thanks.” I pause look down look up at Natalie. “You know. You’re one person I didn’t think I’d ever see again.”

“What? Me?”

I laugh. “Who else.”

“C’mon, Tom,” she says. “We were buds.”

“Were we?”

“I thought we were. Maybe not.”

We both take a drink. I think we’re respecting the awkwardness or maybe the tension. Is this sexual tension? It must be close to it.

“I’m going to be bold,” I say.

“I’ll be myself.”

“Your choice.”

“Well, then, bold.”

“I still think you are absolutely beautiful. You have a terrific nose. I’ve always thought so.”

She rubs both of her hands along the sides of her glass. The ice makes a perfect tinkling sound as it sloshes and becomes water with her alcohol.

“Quite a compliment.”

And I mean it more than I’ve meant something in awhile.

Your 2009-2010 NBA Season

(Listening to "Isis" by Bob Dylan on repeat. Which logo doesn't belong?)

Now, since I've taken a little while to step back into the room, there have been quite a few things that I missed speaking out about. I missed a chance to analyze an agonizing World Series between the two best teams in baseball this year. A series that could have swung in a number of different ways, but really ended up finishing the way we could have predicted it: the team with the better pitching one. I could go on for paragraphs and sentences about sitting on the edge of my couch, cursing at the Phillies' inept middle relief and shouting "Fuck the Yankees!" at a Yankee team that I actually kind of liked all year. In any event, it was an entertaining series and a week of baseball (maybe the whole month?) that may very well be repeated next year when we come to the fall.

But, in the end, October is memorable for really only one thing: (no, not the Alien marathon on AMC; no, not the Mad Men season finale - that was November) the beginning of the NBA season. Each year, in the week leading up to Halloween, the NBA kicks off its season on TNT with the best in-studio analysts in any sport: Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and the immortal Ernie Johnson. Plus, now we have Chris Webber to add to the mix as well. And if anyone has read any Bill Simmons, they will know that his take on Chris Webber as an in-studio personality is quite true - there is something about Webber as a personality that strikes similar to him as a player, he is polished, well rounded, gifted and full of potential, will this end like his NBA career (i.e. mildly fulfilling but not the satisfaction you were hoping for)? We'll see. In the last year, he has been a welcome addition to the studio.

This NBA season had some intriguing storylines going in:

- Lebron free agency (read "to New York") hype. As well as the rest of the 2010 Class (Bosh, Boozer, Wade, Amar'e Stoudemire, Tracey McGrady, Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard, etc.)

- Dwyane Wade pushing himself even harder to become MVP.

- The Lakers vying for a repeat.

- Ron Artest living in L.A., playing with Kobe, with even greater odds to out-crazy himself, starting with picking his number 37 after the amount of weeks Thriller was the #1 record. (Artest is my all-time crazy person and I have a proclivity for enjoying crazy people.)

- The Celtics looking for a bounce-back (read "winning the NBA Title") year, especially Kevin Garnett.

- Shaq & Lebron (terrible combination?)

- The Orlando Magic quietly improving after a run to the Finals.

- The Spurs having perhaps the best offseason of any NBA team

- Blake Griffin hype and the fact that if you look at the Clippers, they actually have a good team.

- Can the Thunder become everyone's new favorite team because of their young talent?

Anyway, with that last one, we are becoming a little bit more minute, but needless to say there were a lot of storylines heading in. I, for one, was particularly excited about this season. Although, this summer's draft was not the deepest in years, the league is slowing regaining control of itself and building a core of talent that is entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Good teams like the Spurs are getting deeper so that can obtain that "look-back" factor, when you think back about a good team and remember, "Damn, they even had (insert player you can't believe played for the team)." After one month of the season, here are my top storylines:

- The Atlanta Hawks. Who knew? After years of bumbling draft picks and ineptly constructed teams, the Hawks are legitimate at least in the early going. They had a breakthrough year last year (maybe even in the 7-gamer against the Celtics in 2008?) and have gotten even better. Their roster is freakishly athletic and long with Al Horford, Josh Smith, Marvin Williams and quick with Jamal Crawford and Jeff Teague, experienced with Mike Bibby, and all-around talented with Joe Johnson. The question becomes, in crunch time, who is the star? Joe Johnson is a fine player, but we won't be looking back at the "Joe Johnson Atlanta Hawks." He lacks a star power, and although he is a terrific shooter, I don't know how clutch he is. The Hawks have a lot of likeable players and they do play tough, but they are missing a killer. They strike me as a slightly more experienced and gelled 2006-2007 Chicago "Baby" Bulls. Lots of nice pieces, some of which should be moved to get a killer in the summer of 2010. Or another veteran?

- An Improved Heat? Miami started off the year (much to my pleasure) playing as if they wanted to keep Dwyane Wade in South Beach. They have cooled off some (they were never as good as 7-2, but it was nice to see at least), but you still have to be pleased at the progress of Chalmers and Beasley in their second years as well as Jermaine O'Neal's knees holding up. If they can hold up all year, the Heat may have a chance to make a run in the playoffs, if only because they have Dwyane Wade (see his game-winner against the Nets). The most interesting aspect of the Heat this year does have to be the legitimate theories that Wade and Lebron want to play together next year. This strikes me as a terrible idea. I think they could both co-exist on a team, but you want the two best players in the league (yes, the two best) to be playing against each other in their primes, not with each other. Bird and Magic on the same team? Jordan in the backcourt with Isiah? Doesn't work.

- Blake Griffin's injury: Of course.

- The Lakers may be the best team in the NBA. They are deep at all positions. They are talented. Bynum is coming to play this year and Gasol has been on the bench with injuries for most of the early games. Kobe is playing to regain the league MVP and the Lakers do look dangerous. I don't know who stops them in the West. The Suns will run out of steam and they don't have the toughness to outlast the Lakers. Once again, it comes down to Duncan and that deep Spurs team. If they can all gel (too many nice guys to not gel) then they are the only ones to stop the Lakers from getting to the Finals out of the West.

- The Dysfunctional Cavaliers and Celitcs. The Cavaliers started out abyssmally while the Celtics started out on fire. The Cavs have turned it around and are developing chemistry with Shaq. I still think Shaq handicaps them when the playoffs come. I think Mike Brown mishandles their lineup and doesn't play J.J. Hickson enough in crunch time (playing real well so far). The Celtics are missing Big Baby (don't even get started on that) even though Sheldon Williams has been a nice surprise for them off the bench. Rondo has been playing remarkably besides setting historic lows for free-throw shooting and this team's season is going to come down to Garnett's health and whether or not Rasheed can last for the whole season. A player I have enjoyed for many years (UNC ties, but he did underachieve) could very well be past his prime and mix that with an aging Paul Pierce and Ray Allen and this could be a disaster come May. However, I think Rondo has fireworks coming this year and he may carry this team to a Finals run and we could remember this Celtics team as Rondo's.

- The Orlando Magic: Best in the East? The certainly look like it again at this point. However, it is still early in the year and we are getting middling performances from many of the Eastern conference teams. The Atlantic Division is atrocious, while the Central (the Bucks?) and Southeast Divisons remain competitive. Meanwhile, the West is just as competitive as always, and the Mavs are definitely a team to watch this year - they are playing well together, even if they are extremely bland. Dirk seems rested and is putting up great early season numbers.

Other quick points:

- Brandon Jennings: is he really this good?

- 2009 Rookies: underrated?

- The Bulls: some nights so entertaining, other nights, perplexing

- Stephen Jackson: will Captain Jack get moved again? I think so.

- Carmelo: Where does he finish in MVP voting this year? Third? He's going to have a huge year.

- The Thunder are going to get attention for a lot of televised games next year. They are definitely fun to watch if you get the chance.

Alright, that is all I have for NBA rambling for the moment. My writing on this doesn't feel inspired, even though I love it so much. Just watch the games. You can't go wrong with the NBA on TNT on a Thursday with a few beers. And read Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball, it really says it all. Remarkable, remarkable basketball book.

Next: review of Beach House's upcoming third album Teen Dream and some musings on Jerry Seinfeld's improv genius this past season on Curb Your Enthusiasm

Now: an excerpt from From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt. I am currently revising my first draft and hopefully during this winter I can make something happen with an agent or a publisher. If you read this blog, tell someone how good I am.


Ben

They’re all gone now. I feel bloated sitting in this damn comfortable chair. I’m passing my hand over my round food belly. I’m sticking it out a little, I never really grew a gut. That has to be one of my greatest achievements, staving off the onset of middle age old age fat. It’s bound to happen to so many people. You lose metabolism, you work longer hours, harder hours for the wife the kids, you don’t eat meals when you’re supposed to – I even did it sometimes too. Sometimes when I’d be stuck in our office looking over patient files or doing the god damn books when we had some fuck-up of a bookkeeper the greatest thing was to think about coming home and devouring whatever roast or dinner that Rose would’ve had still waiting for me. So it’d be cold but you just warm it and it didn’t matter because she’dve been waiting for me there anyway. I can feel the acid in my stomach eating away at all that steak in there. That girl can cook cant’t she, Jimmy? I toast his little league lacrosse picture that sits on the shelf. I bet that steak pizzaola would taste great late at night.

I listen to the drum sound of my stomach. I try to play it like bongos. There is no resonance. Only a good fleshy smack. Thock. Connor and I both never grew bellies. Our father never had one either. We weren’t a lanky family, all just sort of lean, gaunt maybe. My father’s hands and arms sinewy strong. His palm disproportionately large looking and feeling to the rest of his body. It wasn’t fleshy or soft and you wouldn’t call it a bear paw either with an encompassing vice-grip. No, it was slightly rough, it was weathered, it had lived and touched. I think Connor and I both aspired to something like that in our whole appearance, genetic or otherwise. I don’t know what he eats or how Erin feeds him, but when we worked together we both tried to keep a diet, stick to the words and promises that came out of our mouths during the day to those people sitting on blue paper waiting for us.

I didn’t want to go to the Checkmate with them all. It’s not my place anymore and it hasn’t been in such a long time. Checkmate, oh checkmate, my home away from home! Just the sound of my own singing voice coming back to me in this room. It’s funny to think of all the songs and all the times wasted in that ramshackle house of a bar. Were they really wasted times? Well in the one hand they look wasted and they absolutely were. Aye stood meself quite a few droonks standing aside the barnacle. However, on the other hand they weren’t wasted at all, there was a remarkable clarity that usually comes with the passing of time, or the strange once in a blue moon occurance of recognizing the significance of a moment as it occurs. But our president hires the poets, writers and playwrights to do that and they still haven’t taught me so I guess that government laureate spending is going to waste. Who started that? Clinton?

I can’t help but laugh out loud, though. The nights Connor and I would have there when we were young. He was so much more reluctant to take a drink than I ever was, but when he did it was a different side you’d see to him nothing like the quiet and thoughtful appearance he’d always give though I suppose the reason he took that on was probably due to me and the way I acted when I was younger, in middle age and I guess even now with me entering old age or already well into it.

That one night when he and I were playing darts – cricket – and we met those girls. The sassy ones who’d just moved here from Minnesota. It must’ve been some time before my accident. Yes, it was because I had been hanging out with Billy and his whole gang or I guess entourage is what it was really. The practice was doing alright but I still felt I could get somewhere going to the City all the time or out east, doing my best to rub my elbows and make people laugh – to know me as a character because its always been my belief that the secret to life lies in how you can read someone’s character. And the trick to success was to know that about other people and then to do your best to emit a sense of character a sense of wholeness within yourself that another person could make out amid all the other bullshit and clutter of life and truly grab onto and lose themselves in whether over a few drinks or if you were really good at it, over two hours on a movie screen.

That night, though, we’d been going at pints of Budweiser. I can’t remember who was winning the game – I never really cared for darts.

“It’s not like how we’d imagined it, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

One of them was blonde with long hair. She was tall but I couldn’t tell how tall she was when I saw her in the corner of my eye as she sat.

“People make such a big deal about the glamour. All this Hamptons bull and the Great Gatsby.”
“I know.” The other laughed. “The Great Gatsby.”

I couldn’t help myself. I was drunk and feeling funny. So I staggered over to their table by the long front window that looks out to the street. I placed the darts between their glasses. At first they were startled, but I smiled. They seemed amused then.

“And what is wrong with The Great Gatsby?”

“Excuse me,” the blonde said.

“Gatsby. What’s wrong with him?”

She paused and the other sized me up. They weren’t sure what to make of me? Was I oppressive or playful. The blonde touched the tip of the dart.

“Well I just think he’s not all that he’s cracked up to be.”

“Sure he is. I think he’s a great guy and a great character too. That is one beautiful book.”

The other laughed, short and halting.

The blonde held her finger to her lips, then she looked up at me blinking.

“I don’t know. I’ve been living here for almost a year and I haven’t seen anything like him or the world he was supposed to live in. Seems kind of seedy around here. Things have fallen off haven’t they?”

“Scathing reviews!”

“I just don’t see what the big deal in romantizing him is. He’s just a guy from Long Island. Billy Joel is too and I hate that “Piano Man” song.”

I turned around to check on Connor, but he’d left the dart area. I saw him hovering by the jukebox and the bar. I went back to the blonde.

“Well, Billy happens to be a friend of mine but I think you are getting a bit off the topic and missing the point of the book.”

“This guy sure thinks a lot of himself,” the other said.

“Where are you girls from?”

“Minnesota.”

“Ah, give it some time. You’ve both got cold charms and you need to have them warmed by a few glorious Long Island summers.”

“Cold charms?” The blonde pushed the darts toward my waist. “What does that mean?”

I shrugged. I was about to speak, but from the speakers I heard the beginning of “Piano Man.” I pointed up in the air as if it were some divine coincidence. Then I felt Connor’s hand on my back. He stood beside me cradling his pint glass.

“ ‘Piano Man’,” he said. “Great song.” He winked at me and I broke up. The girls groaned but they warmed up to us. He could’ve made the blonde one when the night was all said and done but he didn’t. He and Erin were off and on and not so serious at that point, but I think he saw a future in her and didn’t want to mess that up. She ended up picking us up that night anyway. A sweet brunette who was originally from New Hampshire but ended up at the university and she stuck around.

“What are you doing going out like this, Ben? You’ve got a baby daughter at home. You should be helping out your wife. Why she stays with you I have no idea.”

“She’s got a good sense of humor.”

“You’ve got to control your big brother, Connor.”

“He’s not such a bad sense of humor.”

I started giggling in the back of the car.

“What? I don’t get you two.”

No one did and we were terrific together.

There’s that picture of the two of us at my bachelor party. It’s on the shelf above James’ lacrosse picture. We’ve both got our ties loosened and dishevelled around our necks, our hair still thick and brown, arms hooked. You can’t put a price on a good sibling. I hope all of the kids know that. I think they do otherwise they wouldn’t all be going out together tonight. I’m surprised it was Tom that had the idea. He is my strange son and I don’t think I’ll ever know everything about him and I’m not supposed to. But it was good to have a drink with him watching the rain today. What’s he going to do with himself? I don’t know the what but I know that he is going to because he will. He’ll solve his mysteries without my help. Without James’ help and certainly now without Rose’s help.

He reminds me of Connor a lot. They both were reserved and Connor was quirky though not as introspective or strange. I reach next to me and take a drink from the bottle. It’s almost done, so I ride the burn and the bloat and take another glug to finish it off. It’s time to start on the next one. I stand myself up and drag myself over to the desk. I slide my hands along the top listening to the squeak of my palm on wood. That’s all I’ll have for now on – it’s what I’ve been used to for many years now. But what is wrong with me to be thinking like that. I’m drunk and I slouch in the rolling chair. It’s leather too. My eyes are closed. My arm drops to the bottom drawer and my fingers pull at the handle which is cooler – metal.

She’s there against the blackness. It’s all auburn now – auburnette more accurately. It’s her white sundress that makes her shine more than the hair. But where is this? No its not heaven. This isn’t the afterlife – it couldn’t be because even though I’m Catholic I never thought about it: she thought about it. But she must be thinking about me because of that dress, she knew I loved that dress more than anything more than her naked.

It has to mean more than that. She walks along the black. It gives way to the rocks down at the jetties. I took her there on our second date - an afternoon walk. The sun is shining just the same. Is this it? Is this eternity? An endless day remembered in my eyelids? She’s pointing out to the sound. I see a sailboat, someone is actually sailing the way they used to by the beach.
And its gone its all gone and I can see Connor. It’s nothing but Connor his hair like mine blowing in the breeze. We’re down by the docks. He stands behind me sitting on the planks looking into the water. I’m holding an O’Doul’s between my thighs. It’s his reflection I see. That’s what brothers are for.

“You let her die,” he says.

“Which one.”

“Maybe it’s both. You’d have to decide about Rose.”

“You’re right, Connor. Are you tired?”

Then it’s my desk. It’s the wood everywhere – the brown shades, the shines. Me and the bottle in between my thighs at the desk. I look to the shelves.

They’re all gone or going.