Def Jux

I was reading Taka's blog and the link to the Blockhead blog post on Lil' Wayne led me to this RJD2 video that really grabbed my attention:



If you're looking for an explanation check out this clip.

Morris Day

This song just gets it.

Don't Fuck With AI

Is AI the David Lee Roth of the NBA? Is that kind of cross-racial comparison possible?

I can't be the only one who sees an AI quip like this and thinks, "I belive you..."

"I told my teammates that once we got to Utah, they would probably have to board up my windows and take all sheets out of my room because I would have killed myself if we had lost the game seeing I gave J.R. those three shots like that," Iverson said.



This song has been ruined in many ways by the NBA by taking it out of context for jumpballs; with that above comment AI has found a way to reinsert the "Suicide Solution" vibe in to a song that I always thought was a lot creepier than most top 40song ought to be (look how happy Eddie is in the video to just be there it seems; I guess you can't blame the guy when he reinvented lead playing in a way that I will never forgive him for)



This handsome devil once played college ball at UNC.

Dolph Schayes

When I'm reading sports blogs on the web, lately, I've been coming across a lot of posts that forebode the inevitable decimation of the local newspaper. Princeton, NJ has two local papers; The Princeton Packet and Town Topics. One thing I have never considered is the possibility of either of them closing due to financial constraints; for lack of quality content (save Kam William's, local film critic who actually seems to believe in the concept of quality) perhaps. So what does this mean for the future if local papers start closing down like crazy across lower income areas? Well, I have no fucking clue, but I have a feeling that we are going to have a mcfranchise kind of development where the big boys try to regionalize their papers; the same way Burger King has a tapas menu in Spain, the disapora of local beat writers will try to approximate authenticity. For some sick fuck postmodern assclown advocate, most likely, we are imprisoned by the age of pastiche, wherein the spread of information's money (read: power) is gonna potentially approach some kind of dastardly oligarchic system.

Here in Spain, 'crisis' (pronounced 'Creases') is the buzzword of the late aughts; old people are going fucking crazy and young people are getting high, just like old times? There are two local newspapers here in Huelva, and, in typical spanish fashion, dedicate a single page of every newspaper to "international news" and about 30 pages to soccer/ham related ceremonies. I hope they both get sacked.

So, I breathe a sigh of relief when a friend enlightens me to a publication that actually writes about some real shit. In These Times is a worthy read for anyone who I consider a friend, and that goes double for mine enemies.

Resentment...Slight Resentment

Henry,

Greetings from Spain! I have a couple comments/somewhat absurd questions I thought I'd throw your way:

-I just watched the most recent Colbert Report online and Benicio Del Toro is wearing a Blazers T-shirt.
-Why can't the Celtics exhume the corpse of Latrell Sprewell and recreate some of the magic of that 2003-2004 Twolves team that everybody loved instead of openly lobbying for Starbury? I feel like this team is doing everything it can to seem desparate (I can't spell) right now; unless that is exactly what they are.
-What exactly is Sean Williams smoking?

Thought you also might find it humorous that former NBA rotation players Jiri Welsch, Mile Ilic and Curtis Borchardt were all playing one ACB game that I caught the other day where Borchardt (kind of a yutz in his brief, but tragic NBA career) was by far the best player on the floor.

Thanks for compilling the most thorough NBA blog out there.

-Alexander J Sugiura


The above is an email sent at approximately 5 in the morning EST from yours truly to Henry Abbott, ward of, to quote my fanboy e-mail, "The most thorough NBA blog out there". As any reader of Truehoop knows, Abbott is an unabashed Blazers fan and so I thought it would be cute if I e-mailed him and informed him of Benicio del Toro's appearance on the Colbert Report in which he had on a Blazers T underneath his suit jacket (and a fresh pair of Adidas Superstars on). I figured I'd at least get a little bit of credit for the find; I probably am not the only person to have pointed this out to him, he must get a butt ton of emails, but it kind of stung when I saw this posted at 4:05 PM EST.

At about the 15-minute mark of this Colbert Report, Benicio Del Toro shows up with his marvelous acting skill, his suave jacket, and his Portland Trail Blazers shirt.

So you just happen to be watching the Colbert Report online every night dude? Am I just being a brat here because I wanted to get a shout out from a writer I respect and admire in many ways? Oh well, I guess that's for you to decide, but the facts are clear in my biased, cold world.



It's amazing how easily a racist and the dude who birthed Ben Stiller can lift my spirits.

My Favorite Mogwai Song Ever

I actually just learned a couple days ago that Gruff Rhys (aka SFA's lead singer is responsible for the beautiful welsh-language vocals on this track)

SFA on repeat

The fucking harmonies blow my mind on this song.

SFA on repeat

Nope it's impossible.

Why Stop

I ought to just put all these fucking videos in the same place. So I'm gonna give that a shot nowish.

New Theory

I think Ian Eagle blogsearches his own name on the daily. Just a thought.

Career Counseling?

FUCK THAT

Whoa...

Sometimes you are trying to google image search Tyrone Hill photos while attempting to locate your prostate's pleasure zone with your offhand. Then, all at once, an orgasmic result is smeared all over the screen:

Everything I've ever wanted to randomly find in a sports blog and more.

If this is in fact the age of access, as I will overuse because the New Yorker taught me that's the right way to introduce a new term by using it repeatedly in slightly varying contexts, then how lovely that we can live in a world when people who are not from Philly can write about missing the Spectrum.

Remember the Asian groundskeepers from Major League? Of course you do.


I couldn't actually find a clip with them in it; I wasn't looking particularly hard either. What I really want to talk about is how over the top and wacky Major League is, and how it is rather hypocritical that we blow up at Spain's borderline criminal racist displays by its athletes; Dennis Haysbert, el presidente on 24, played Pedro Serrano, an intriguing stereotype of several different West Indies cultures; he worshipped an idol called 'Jobu' (Joba Chamberlin foreshadowin?) and smoked cigars that might make Michael Jordan blush. The groundskeepers are inexplicably Asian and occasionally scream utter nonsense or celebrate in incredibly homoerotic fashion (not unlike the plethora of locker room scenes). The one 'uhmerikan' black guy, in an incredible coup by not-so-subtly racist Hollywood, Willie Mays Hays, is portrayed by two different actors in Major League 1 and 2 (Wesley Snipes in the first and Takeshi Kitano fan Omar Epps in el segundo) and is predictably more athletic, more graceful and less intelligent than his teammates; any movie where Tom Behringer's screen presence carries things makes me pine for the days when I could happily masturbate to scrambled porn.

So you have to ask yourself, sport reporter, where do we really draw the line of what is cultural relativism (blissful ignorance?) and what is a perverse, deliberate and blatant denigration of another race?

Let's take a look at a recent example in the news:

via Deadpsin.com: Rick Chandler ponders aloud, "So Spain, what's wrong with you guys? Was it all the mid-20th Century fascism, or is it that your athletes are just nuts? Please get back to me." In this case, Real Madrid defender/Captain of the Portugese national selection Sergio Ramos was dressed up in blackface for a parade celebrating the 3 wise men. From an American's perspective, in the Obama era we are beginning to enter, this is another example of poor taste and judgment by an individual with a particularly high profile; the thought being that athletes ought to consider themselves role models for the youth. This clearly isn't the first time that a Spain has been linked to this type of activity; whenever I do show up to work at the Elementary school 4 blocks from my apartment, I pay somewhat close attention to what they are actually teaching these little spaniards, and the truth is that they spend a lot of time trying to emphasize diversity through the lens of homogeneity. What I mean is that Spain is essentially a tiny island that has developed a parallel existence to many other cultures through the successful expulsion of jews, moors and whoever else didn't qualify under royal laws back in the day. Why is it proper grammar in English to capitalize proper nouns; I don't consider 'jew', 'christian', 'muslim' to be proper nouns. In a way their 'racism' is actually just their way of trying to decode the myth that there are in fact other cultures out there; some parts of Andalucía are more blanche than Helen Mirrin getting antiqued in a snowstorm. Also, when the kiddies were coloring the three wise men, the vast majority elected to use black crayons to color the skin of whichever one of them is supposedly darker skinned; I don't know shit about the Christmas story, perhaps there are perks to learning the Hannukah prayer and waking up late on the 25th because I was at an all night bowling party with a Jewish fraternity called Sigma Alpha Roe, whereabouts Nick Koenig and I cemented our legend in the lore of tri-state area jews by taking over the Stu-Gotts occasionally intriguing, punk-tinged, half-covers performance to set the peyos of every good boy and girl in a 5 mile radius ablaze with our technical mayhem on guitar and bass; local and often referred to douchebag, Peter Abram said it was an impressive showing; good enough for me. Just goes to show, racism isn't funny, but it is real; and who better than a member of Real Madrid to remind us of the most important lesson of Christmas; the dark dude gets the pimp ring.

Am I

I haven't been to my "job" in a heinously long time; part of this is my own personal goal to take it easy in 2009, but, at times, my pathological laziness worries me to no end. Am I supposed to laugh it off and just move on when I realize I forget my keys in my apartment and I have to take a shit? Maybe my mind/body just misses athletic competition and needs an excuse to get the adrenaline going. I see how working with kids really helps you realize that you are not one, and I love that aspect of going to work (when was the last time I was in a position to teach someone something besides where Paul Millsap went to college? [Lousiana Tech]).

I guess I'm just holding out for the day when Rafael Capo Garcia Rodón thaws his icy façade and starts recording commentary of nba games with me. I would be the Mike Breen of sorts; I would talk about what is happening while occasionally engaging my colleagues in some kind of jovial pop culture reference that relates in some abstract way to the game we are watching. (Example: Lousiana Tech's all time rebounding leader Paul Millsap grabs another offensive rebound over Kevin Love. Speaking of which, it's been over 40 years since the landmark album Forever Changes was released by the band Love. Judging by the rookie from UCLA's family ties to the Beach Boys, his uncle was a founding member, he might actually know what we're talking about.) Ian Eagle, a cosmic second least favorite voice in the history of broadcast television behind Fran Drescher, was the YES network's dude for a while and it made me hate myself for obsessing over the ambiguous nature of Aaron Williams' existence.

In Spain, at least the Spain I know, there is no need to discuss sports in general. Nobody really cares about anything but their hometown squad and ex-pat/international players with high profiles. In fact, in a roundtable discussion of sorts with a couple of the male faculty at my school, I learned that Spaniards value winning over anything else; therefore all of Spain LOVES basketball because the national selection is the second best in the world. The same rule of thumb applies to Tennis (Nadal, and the Davis Cup Champs), Formula One Racing (Fernando Alonso) as well as more peripheral sports like handball and oh right, Soccer.

what a crazy asshole

Beautiful

Do some light reading when you get the chance.

Look out Boston!

I will not be the first, nor the last to post this piece of brilliance on the web. Let it just be known that the Starbury section of the freedarko tome was excellent and at times even enlightening.







Wow!

P.S.-Steven A. Smith went to FIT for a year to play basketball, maybe to get a BA in knitting, who knows...

Huff

Fair Warning: This is going to be a ramble, the likes of which I've never quite attempted. To keep things buoyant and let you breathe, there will be random video breaks that will have a specific order to them if you pay close attention; or maybe not.

Ok, it's over; the great high of the Aughts came to its heady conclusion in Amsterdam. After spending the better part of the decade smoking pot; it all boiled over in to this vacation on a houseboat in Amsterdam. Maybe the point of the blog is for me to post my pictures of pretty places, tell you about my FEELINGS, random youtube clips, inconsistent sports related opinions, random music, the occasional obtuse reference to Truan Savage, Darren Sproles, or, wait what was I talking about. So now, where to go from here?




I remember hearing an interview with Dave Chappelle where he referred (reefered?) to the writing, shooting, editing and releasing of Half-Baked as a result of the "Great High of 1998" as he dubbed it (great name btw); so don't think I'm trying to puff my chest up like a Robin in springtime to show off some stoner ingenuity. I recognize we live in a weird age, I'm not unlike any other. It got me to thinking; how much weed I smoked would leave merely capitalist/mathematical computations as to my query of the 'greatness' of a high; so, no, it is not necessarily the amount that was smoked/vaporized/vapoorized that put the experience in perspective. Rather it was, how much was consumed in each single session, the length of the sessions, the activities that came with it and the general loathsome qualities of Americans on holiday.



Comedic epiphanies are only as good as the people you can discuss such matters with; maybe what made Chappelle's great high so great was the organization of the ideas discussed in that period of time. What I mean is this; I hate that 70's show, but the clips of them getting high in the basement in a circle was a very good tool for demonstrating what most people do, just without the movie camera.


Then I thought about the Madvillain song "America's Most Blunted", one of my very favorite pothead opuses; it was the first song that revealed to me the seemingly unlimited depth of both MF and Madlib's minds. This is a song that intriguingly emphasizes 2 very important aspects of how I view pot smoking;
-Connectivity: The title itself might immediately elicit visions of Tupac and Snoop back in 1996; by tying in other works, which is the very nature of sample based music, before a single note has been played.
-America: We smoke pot differently than other places; that is to say, that I am looked at like some kind of junkie for smoking pot without tobacco. The Dutch Master cigar, for instance, has so much tobacco in its rolling leaf that adding any would be a silly waste of time. They even put cigarette tobacco in bongs here in the old continent; MADNESS! (madder than deleting all your Bob Dylan off your computer)

Then I got to thinking about "RMXs" vs. "Covers"; it has been bothering me ever since I sat down at my parent's Compaq desktop and downloaded a free, incomplete copy of fruity loops 3. One day in Geometry class, freshman year, Joel Backus, known in Princeton for being that dude who could do the Rahzel "If Your Mother Only Knew" beatbox and for having some of the longest limbs I've ever seen on another human being (marijuana and shot blocking have been the crux of Sean Williams' basketball career, why can't others see this as the path of least resistance?), asked me if I wanted to listen to some beats he had been working on. I was a straight A student up to that point; what came out of the headphones on full blast was digital white noise with a digital kick thumping in the background; it was LOUD and didn't seem to end nor begin at any particular point. So, he got me; I had to know how I could shape sounds in such a way, I had my own ideas obviously, and he told me that cursed name Fruity Loops. The cover song is a staple of all performers; the tasteful cover is a different story all together. It is utilized as a change of pace, most often times to surprise the listener by demonstrating the performer as a listener as well (empathy!). When you're jamming, it's inevitable that you will want to learn other people's songs to jam on (if not, you are a crazy asshole) and that you will do your best to incorporate the elements of the song that speak the most to you; this often times can result in outright failure (READ: Tribute bands/band specific cover bands[you've lost the point of the cover song!]) success (Radiohead covering The Smith's "Headmaster Ritual" sounded pretty fucking good)



The RMX (I'm speaking of course of the Al Gore/Sean Combs invention, "The Remix") is an attempt by studio musicians to take whatever aspects they see fit of any sample and frame the audience's perception of it by titling it as the original with any number of long winded parenthetical statements to establish just who it is that mixed it up. From what I can tell it was originally a technique for re-releasing tired singles that charted well, but for a generation that can mix on their laptop, every song is a new remix waiting to happen. The above track by Boys Noize is a "RMX" of Feist's "My Moon My Man", a song with a really heavy beat to it that received praise across the spectrum of fans that I met while at a small, liberal arts school in Ohio (I had to write that sentence after I thought about it more). So I don't know shit it seems, but I do know that remixing a song by adding a few theatrical tricks is outright lazy. I almost got expelled for giving away my answers on the geometry final, which I got a c+ on, which I only decided to do because I was getting paid and because I had stopped paying attention and instead chilled with Joel and Neil Strauss in the back of the room where I listened to them ramble about hip-hop, football and stealing snapples from the cafeteria.



It's not all dreary sadness in this big, big world of ours, is it? I had a talk with Avis recently, about gas, and if Spain was getting any in lieu of the crazy shit that has been going down with Russia bullying the Ukraine, other Eastern European neighbors and EU nations as well; read here. These motherfuckers have a resource advantage, now, but if it is any indication, the decline of Citgo's oil for poor people scheme leads me to believe that Russia will have some serious social and political questions to answer from both it's own citizenry (I guess we can include South Ossetia and other lovely tourist destinations)[can I just say that any time a train hits a landmine, something fucking crazy is going on?]. I sat next to a Ukranian girl on the bus back from Madrid; she had a potbelly, but was kind of cute, made me think that I should start some Eastern European boy bands up and plant my seed in the motherland; call me the Slavic Lou Pearlman, the Iranian Humbert Humbert, call me anything, but don't call me Shirley (or Chevy Chase for that matter you illiterate fucks).

Oh Nine

So the new year is officially here, if you're running a week late like I am. There were no y2k bugs to fix this year (except Microsoft; oh sweet angel of progress, wing me down a zune).

Things to be scared of in 2009:

-Your own shadow
-The Red Light District of Amsterdam (Fake Titties and taped back dicks flying around like Wilsons at the nfl combine)
-Shadowboxing in public
-Military action in the middle east
-Hank Paulson
-Super AIDS (Not to be confused with super-duper AIDS, my christian rock band)
-Gruff Rhys (in a good way?)
-The rise of some new drug that we must fight before it gets out and floods our streets (jenkum (sic?)) [gives me a headache just pondering the notion)
-Martin Raboteau (Is there a more threatening non-threat out there?)
-Filipino legend Manny Pacqua (In the ring and in our hearts)
-My poor timing, 3rd grade writing level and 5th grade comprehension. (I don't understand when, how or why one might utilize the parenthetical)
-Incubus (I am trembling in fear)
-Gary Numan (Movies!)
-Bronze Sculptures (You know...)
-Losing your kidneys in some freak accident (Booze is tearing away at the lining of my intestine)
-Italian women (you will be the death of me in some form)


The next step in music made by animals for animals has arrived (2 years late); Candylion candyflouge.

Floating Island

You got to take a look at the other side...

Old man-young man dynamic, love it.