On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

1. I understand the Nets are taking a risk by trading for Deron Williams without (as far as we know) any real knowledge of whether or not they can re-sign him, but two things seem relatively obvious: A.) If I had to choose between a pure scorer like Carmelo Anthony and a dynamic point guard like Deron Williams, I will choose the point guard every time, and B.) If anything, people are probably underestimating the lure of both Brooklyn and a team owned (at least in part) by Jay-Z. I've covered high-school basketball in Brooklyn, and even that realm is ridiculously intense. If this team is any good at all, it could be far bigger than most people imagine it to be.*

2. I have no idea if Steve Lavin is a good coach, but the fact that St. John's is a completely different team this year as compared to years past seems like proof that in college basketball, coaching can change things in radical ways. In fact, it almost seems unfair that St. John's has one of the greatest coaches in Division I history as an assistant. It will be difficult not to choose St. John's as an early-round sleeper in my yearly experiment in self-immolation, just as it will be difficult to pick against Wisconsin, which seems to do more with a gang of pale slow Aryan-looking youngsters than anyone since Aaron Sorkin.

3. This is the greatest piece of self-satire Deadspin has ever published. In fact, they should have splashed across their new "front page" and Tweeted about it endlessly, and Craggs should have written a brilliantly crafted 1,200-word screed about why Oddibe McDowell's water bill is proof that the conventional wisdom about the water bills of ex-Texas Rangers is completely misguided.

*This piece is a fun read today. Zoinks!

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Quickish edition)

1. Books

I'll be reading (briefly) with an all-star cast of sportswriting characters this evening in Manhattan, at Gelf's fifth annual Varsity Letters event. You can read the interview with me--and with all the others--here. And I highly recommend Dan Shanoff's new site, Quickish--it's like a hybrid of a sports blog and a well-curated Twitter feed, without all the peripheral nonsense. 

2. Bo

Somehow, Bo Jackson is only receiving one percent of the vote in this poll of GQ's Coolest Athletes. Also, a surfer is in first place. Please help remedy this injustice immediately.
 
3. Punks

Following up on yesterday's McMahon story, the folks at Bodog came up with this graphic. Though given McMahon's injury (and social) history, there are several other body parts they could have pinpointed as well, for various reasons.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

1. Driving

I spend my Christmases in Chicago, residing temporarily with the beings who created my future wife. Normally, it is no big deal--they have an airport in Chicago (in fact, I hear, they even have two airports), and so my trip generally involves stepping onto a flying machine, stepping off, shuttling to suburbia, consuming carbohydrates for three days, and returning home on a separate flying machine. However, this year, my home city was enveloped in chaos, thereby forcing the future wife and I to rent a vehicle via O.J. Motors and cover the eastern portion of America over the course of two days. To which I say, A.) Any rest stop with a Hardee's in it should either be named after a prominent antacid or targeted for immediate demolition,* B.) The vast expanse of northern Ohio is as utterly barren as I recall it to be, though C.) my home state's interminable width--it is the Vince Wilfork of I-80--is something I feel obligated to apologize for, and D.) if there is a way to sell off New Jersey while it still has some value remaining, I say we take the deal. Find some wealthy sheik with a Sopranos fetish, play him a copy of Greetings from Asbury Park, sell him on the notion of hired attendants pumping the fuel he sold us a premium, don't mention the endless array of nonsensical cloverleaf off-ramps, the drivers who treat lane markers as an optional exercise, and the very idea of Newark, and we might be able to raise enough money to purchase something Canadian.

2. Buckeyes

You don't need me to tell you that the NCAA is a bungling hypocritical cabal, and we can argue about the relative severity of several athletes selling items that seemingly belonged to them, but what skeeves me out most about Tattoogate is Ohio State's utterly patronizing attempts to act as if it had simply forgotten to mention a statute that Jim Tressel recalled prominently mentioning as recently as 2003. The fundamental problem here is that the adults never really get punished for anything, even though they're the ones making all the money.

3. Weirdos

This story is amazing. I've got to imagine there's a role for Vincent Gallo in the film adaptation.
 
*What makes it worse is that the Hardee's was paired with a third-rate fast-food Mexican chain. Which means, if your Thickburger did not immediately induce dysentery, you could layer it with something resembling a taco. The other rest-stop tandem in Indiana, by the way, was McDonald's with Dairy Queen, which makes me think the Indiana Turnpike must be heavily populated by successful Little League teams.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

1. The Value of Insults

Here's my question about the Kevin Garnett-Charlie Villanueva dust-up: Isn't it worse if Garnett was actually attempting to call Villanueva a cancer to his team and to the NBA? If Garnett did call Villanueva a "cancer patient," it is undeniably stupid and insulting, but it's a juvenile taunt born of anger and spontanaiety, as Tommy Craggs ably points out. But Garnett essentially calling Villanueva a mental and emotional cancer, a bad teammate, and a lazy person, seems far more premeditated and far more deeply felt. Either way, Garnett is an extremely talented jerk, but isn't it better if he's just a jerk who spouts off like a child rather than a jerk who judges the character of people he doesn't know at all?

2. The Value of Insults, Part II

It always amuses me when the blogosphere holds a collective freak-out over something a talk-radio host says. The very notion of talk radio is built on drawing attention, on creating compelling narratives, even if those narratives are false.* That's true of both political talk radio and sports-talk radio. Either way, it is an entertainment, based entirely on perpetuating whatever news cycle happens to be capturing the public's attention, and in most cases, we do it a disservice if we take it too seriously.

On a semi-related note, there are few things more intriguing than watching pundits furiously attempt to break down the lessons learned from an election in the 24 hours following an election (watch an historian like Doris Kearns Goodwin address those same issues). I have to imagine the wild political swings in this country are not entirely isolated from cable news' nimble ability to massage the narrative in opposing directions, based on the outcome of an election.     

3. Shazzactor!

I have an idea for an IPhone app that serves as proof of how intellectually lazy I've become: I would like someone to conjure a program which would work like Shazam does for music, except it would apply to television and film actors. So I could hold my phone up to the television, shoot a photo of an actor, and in a matter of seconds, it would tell me who this person is, link to his/her IMDB profile, etc. This seems like something that should exist (I don't know, maybe it does)--so much so that I've occasionally found myself holding my phone up to the television set for no apparent reason. This is how the Internet has conditioned my brain: I now find it reflexively confounding that there is ever any mystery about anything at all.

*In other words, it's a lot like the blogosphere.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

1. Only a Game

I just recorded an interview for NPR's most excellent sports show Only a Game, which runs on more than 200 public radio stations (list here). It should be airing this weekend.

2. Louie Louie You're Gonna Die 

Are you watching Louie? Because let me tell you, if you're not watching Louie, you should be watching Louie. You may find it disconcerting; if so, I completely understand. I've never seen anything quite like it, a series of semi-comedic, moderately to highly uncomfortable set pieces that vary in tone from moderately horrifying to absurd. Last week's episode was like a stoner comedy in miniature*; this week's episode was like a Raymond Carver story. If nothing else, it is the most interesting television experiment I've seen in a long time.

3. Orchestrated Violence

I do understand why Antonio Cromartie's seeming inability to recollect his prodigious reproductive history was the big blogosphere takeaway from HBO's Hard Knocks last night, but my friend Chuck did raise an interesting quandary: Is it odd that Rex Ryan essentially orchestrated a fight in order to motivate one of his players? I do understand that there are far worse things that take place in professional football, but it does seem a little craven to orchestrate a throwdown in a sport that is just beginning to deal with the repercussions of excessive violence. Or maybe I'm just not swearing enough to understand the ethos.

4. I'm the Man Who Has the Ball

Really, at this point, with the obvious exception of talent, is there any profound difference between Kenny Powers and Roger Clemens?

*With the added attraction of Josh Hamilton**, star of the funniest post-college film ever made.
**The other Josh Hamilton. Not this one. Though I would pay at least $38 to read a 5,000 word essay by Posnanski about that Josh Hamilton.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

 1. 6/17/94

In researching my latest book,* I spent several days in the basement of the University of Maryland library, watching raw footage of Len Bias. I watched documentaries, I watched game tape, and--most fascinating of all--I watched several hours of spliced-together news footage depicting the aftermath of Len Bias' death. This was a revelatory moment; on those tapes, you can actually witness Bias' death slip from the realm of absolute mystery into the realm of self-inflicted tragedy, and then slowly became a societal signpost, a proxy for a larger War on Drugs.** I saw the whole story unfold before my eyes; it was all there on those tapes.

This is what's brilliant about Brett Morgen's 30 for 30 documentary, June 17, 1994. Sometimes the raw footage is all you need to depict a critical moment in history. Morgen eschewed narration; he didn't interview anyone, because he didn't have to. The story was right there, and even those of us who lived through it tend to forget the emotions it invoked, and none of us understood, at the time, what a watershed moment this was. Only in looking back do we see those threads. This is why that episode of Mad Men last season, in which the characters mostly sat around watching televised reports about the Kennedy assassination, worked for me, while I know it didn't work for so many others; because sometimes the best way of depicting reality is to capture its reflection.

2. The Strasburg Bubble

Seriously, who still pays this much for a baseball card? Is Bernie Madoff able to access EBay from prison? Are we about to enter another period of rampant and irresponsible speculative maneuvering, as witnessed in the 1980s?***If so, I have a ream of Dan Gladden cards that could use a good home.

3. America Number One!

Let me reiterate: I'm not anti-soccer; I've actually enjoyed this World Cup quite a bit, especially the parts where Alexi Lalas isn't permitted to say anything. I'm just anti- American soccer. And let me be clear, all you Fox News acolytes: This does not make me anti-American; it just seems that we, as a country, have no pressing need to be good at this, any more than we need to win a gold medal in hockey or a Nobel Peace Prize. If Ghana wins the World Cup, then it is the biggest thing that has happened to Ghana since...well, since Ghana. They would dance in the street for weeks. If America wins the World Cup, it is a three-day story, and some drunks in Detroit might overturn a few compact automobiles, and then we immediately start talking about Alabama's offensive line and Trevor Hoffman's struggles and Tiger's sex life. So this is my argument: Why should I root for temporality when I can root for immortality?

I expect my IRS audit shortly.


*Only a few more weeks to pre-order, while (yet to exist) supplies last.

**You can also witness an early television appearance by Tony Kornheiser, whose hair, even when he had more of it, was truly an unfortunate hereditary accident.

***And depicted in Dave Jamieson's excellent (and highly recommended) book, Mint Condition.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

 1. Killer Bees

So, let me make sure I've got this straight: Vuvuzelas are not even twenty years old (a weak case for preserving a "tradition," unless you consider steroid use a tradition), they may cause hearing loss, they are derived from bicycle horns, they are almost universally reviled by anyone who dislikes obnoxiousness, and they drown out the best and most interesting part of the World Cup, which is the weird and interminable chorus of song by thousands of inebriated and patriotic hooligans. Since when is the ability to annoy the world with an artificial noisemaker an inalienable right? I think most of us agree that if we could go back in time and murder Hitler, we would have to do it. Well, I wouldn't be so callous as to say the same about the inventor of this hellhorn--not to mention, the bozo who came up with the Thunderstix--but there are certain very narrow and limited things that the majority of the world agrees upon, and we've found one of them. Let's advance the cause of international diplomacy. Can't we at least have world peace on our television sets?

2. Don't Mess With...

I'm glad Texas is staying in the Big 12, mostly for selfish reasons. I'm glad Texas is staying in the Big 12 because the Pac-10 incorporating a bunch of teams from the middle of the country seemed so utterly unrealistic that it reminded me of a scenario generated in dynasty mode on XBox. It would have never seemed real, and more important, it would have taken me approximately 7.4 years before the facts of the Big 12's dissolution would have sunk in to my subconscious. Here's the thing: I still have trouble remembering that the Milwaukee Brewers are in the National League. I can never recall whether Boston College is in the Big East or the ACC.* When Boise State joined the Mountain West, I kind of presumed they were already in the Mountain West; yet it turned out they were in the WAC, and I have no idea who's in the WAC. I still presume BYU is in the WAC, but this may or may not be true.**Are the Cardinals still in the NFC East? Sometimes, it seems like they should be. My point is, change in sports doesn't register once a person advances beyond the age of 16. Therefore, the status quo is always, at some level, a victory. Which is why the new Big 12 should just rename itself the Southwest Conference. And then start giving away Cadillacs to recruits, just for old time's sake.

3. Paparazzi

It isn't easy to make a sympathetic documentary about an entirely unsympathetic person. But in case you're interested in such things, Smash His Camera is that kind of documentary.

*Honestly, right now, if I had to answer that question to save my life in front of a firing squad, I would place the odds of my survival at 53 percent. 
**38 percent.

P.S. I'm experimenting with new looks here, in anticipation of August 5. Further tinkering TK. Input is welcomed.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

 1. Wooden

I have long dug Charlie Pierce's work, and I get where he's coming from with this Sam Gilbert-John Wooden rant: There is something to be said for avoiding the canonization of the recently deceased, especially someone as revered as Wooden. I do kind of doubt that Wooden is entirely innocent in this matter, but in a way, it's all relative: In the late 1960s, when Lew Alcindor was towering over opponents, dabbling in Islam, and trading roundhouses with Bruce Lee, defying the inequities of the NCAA must have seemed like small potatoes when compared to the more pressing issues of the day. That Gilbert was allowed to operate for years is inexcusable--if it happened at Penn State, I'm sure I'd find a way to rationalize it, though I wouldn't feel good about it--but I don't think it diminishes Wooden's legacy. It just renders him into an undeniably human figure rather than a generational signpost. In a way, that might be the best possible signature of his legacy: Even the pyramids are not infallible.

2. Righteous Indignation

I blame the Internet for this ridiculousness; I find it perhaps the phoniest "controversy" of the Obama presidency, but apparently our brains are so colored by the tenor of our everyday online interactions that we presume nothing can actually be accomplished without a public flogging. I hate to sound like--well, like John Wooden--but did anyone attempt to watch those ridiculous MTV Movie Awards the other night?* The entire 120-minute joke appeared to hinge on the use of unnecessary swear words. This is where we are. And I guess this is what people want from their leadership--more oral flame wars, less rationality, more unhinged emotion. Because that's the world we immerse ourselves in every day.

3. Futbol

I have no idea what's going on with most of these, but they're kind of spectacular. It's like a more diversified series of MAD Magazine fold-ins.

*Apparently, the Twilight movies are surprisingly popular among American youth.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Extraterrestrial Edition)

1. Where Amazing (Finally) Happens

There is nothing in the world quite like the National Basketball Association, which is why most of us have a love/hate relationship with said entity. For six months, thirty teams travel from one major airline hub to the next, laboring through eighty-two glorified scrimmages, only to emerge from their cocoon of indifference one day in mid-April, acting as if they felt this way all along. The NBA playoffs are utterly transformative: Suddenly, elbows are being thrown, and the children of French pop stars are hurling insults at beleaguered cities.* The Nuggets stop pranking each other. Kobe becomes Frowning Kobe. LeBron becomes Hyperdrive LeBron. Everyone is suddenly serious, and combative, and the commissioner deals out unwarranted suspensions. There is no reason** the NBA regular season should not be cut back to 50 games, or even 35 games, the length of the college season.

2. Alien$

If you didn't watch this performance on Saturday Night Live--and there's absolutely no reason why you should have...well, I can't exactly recommend you watch it now. It's like a Weird Al video, if Weird Al had a sex change and donned spandex. But there is a moment at the 3:10 mark when this curious, financially obsessed Scrubs character pauses the action, steps into a shower of lime-colored lasers, and declares, "Did anyone ever stop to think maybe we are the aliens?" If Carl Sagan had grown up listening to Aqua and joined a sorority, this is what he might have become.

Also, brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels seems like it would not do a commendable job of preventing tooth decay.

3. The Red Sox Are Mediocre Again

Which means single-game tickets should be available in approximately 2016, once the final pink hat is disposed of in a trash can on Lansdowne Street.

*Speaking of which: I enjoy a manufactured controversy as much as the next rabid media mob, but this Joakim Noah thing is ridiculous. And it's not ridiculous because Noah insulted Cleveland--I lived outside of Cleveland for five years, and much of what he says is absolutely correct. It's ridiculous because, well, he's insulting Cleveland. This is the best he can do? There's got to be a cultural statute of limitations on insulting Cleveland, and I believe it expired with the April 1977 issue of MAD magazine. If a guy is going to mouth off, at least come up with some new verses. David Stern is missing an opportunity on this one: He should fine Noah $10K for Unoriginal Taunting. That will set a precedent. Even if won't help the city of Cleveland.

**Other than money, the only reason that matters.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Abbreviated Edition)

 1. Affirmation That All the Best Books of the Summer Will Be Re-examinations of '80's Icons


As if you needed more proof,* now there's this. If Cusack chooses to complete the Better Off Dead trilogy, I'd say Gen X's work is pretty much finished.

2. Big Ben

Unfortunately, despite the trend toward '80's redux, it would seem public apologies and mullets remain irreconcilable. Seriously, dude, have you been to Pittsburgh? I love it there, but the only thing a nice suit does in that town is get between you and your Prmanti brothers sandwich.

3. Note to Miley Cyrus

"Stilleto" does not rhyme with "memo." Also, when I nod my head, it generally indicates my affirmation of whatever proposition is being advanced. No need for repetition.

However, this tweet, from the incomparable Amy K. Nelson, taken entirely out of context and using the metaphorical rather than the literal definition of "coming out," allowed me to envision my favorite entirely mythical US Weekly cover of all time. If a member of the New York Yankees were to come out of the closet with the aid of a pop megastar, this would pretty much be the apex of tabloid America.

*Pre-orders welcome.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Midwest Edition)

1. Best Hypothetical Game Ever?

Astute commentor Panicstreak raised the question as to how the Alt-Universe in which Gordon Hayward sinks that 40-foot jumper would play out. Would it be bigger than Flutie's Hail Mary? (A: Yes, because the Flutie game occurred during the regular season.) Would it be bigger than Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard Round the World"? (A: Yes, because Thomson's home run was not widely televised and copiously replayed.) Hayward's shot would be mashed up on YouTube, incorporate into hip-hop lyrics, and used as a shorthand for good triumphing over evil. Hayward's shot, if it goes in, has the athletic signifiance of Star Wars. The only play with more potential long-term significance than Gordon Hayward's Hypothetical Game-Winner would be the David Tyree Catch, which will, over time, probably be regarded as one of the three most famous plays in NFL history. The only difference between the two is that Tyree held on to the ball. And Hayward missed by three f-ing inches.

2. Blago

I cannot explain why Rod Blagojevich chose to appear on The Celebrity Apprentice any more than I can explain why I continue to watch TCA, despite its eight-hour running time. With the possible exception a celebrity chef I've never heard of, everyone on that show is utterly loopy, but none more than Blago, who (spoiler alert!) was tossed from the Donald's boardroom this week for not knowing how to activate a computer. I used to give politicians who uttered banal idiocies the benefit of the doubt, but after watching Blagojevich bumble and gladhand his way through midtown Manhattan, after watching Blagojevich fail to make a single crucial decision about anything over the course of four weeks, those days are over. My baseline assumption is that at least 40 percent of politicians are essentially functional illiterates with good hair and a firm handshake. I used to believe that James Inhofe was a cynical power broker working in clever tandem with the energy establishment to debunk global warming; now I have to imagine he really believes the sun is plugged into a socket in the Gobi Desert.

3. David Remnick

No reason, except this book will most likely be excellent. And I'd like to work for him someday, so I'm going to mention him gratuitiously.

(Photo: John Biever/SI)

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

1. Greenberg

It is no doubt a sign of my inherent immaturity that I still consider Kicking and Screaming* to be my favorite comedy of all time.** That movie, of course, was a product of a youthful Noah Baumbach, who went on to write/direct Mr. Jealousy (OK), The Squid and the Whale (excellent), and Margot at the Wedding (horrifying). It was with some trepidation, then, that I went into Greenberg, because a movie about an unlikeable character played by Ben Stiller seemed like the plot synopsis of seven of the ten worst movies of the previous decade. But the brilliance of Greenberg is that its essentially a grown-up version of Kicking and Screaming, a story about a man who never really recovered from the mistakes of his youth. All the regrets that the characters in Kicking and Screaming anticipated about their future existences have come to pass in Greenberg. It is a beautiful Los Angeles tableau. It is subtle and nuanced; it is so good that it almost redeems everything Ben Stiller has done since Permanent Midnight.***(Well, except for Duplex.)

2. 96 Teams

Don't get me wrong--like everyone else, I find the notion of the NCAA tournament expanding to 96 teams to be a craven example of how nothing matters in modern sports besides the bottom line. But I have to be honest--the idea of more basketball being played is not going to somehow deter me from watching more basketball. Which is the very reason why the NCAA is doing this in the first place.

3. Horsehide

I am told baseball season commences shortly, so I will dispense with predictions:

A.) The teams with the largest payrolls will win their respective divisions, with the exception of one "small-market" sleeper, which will then permit Bud Selig to justify his entire tenure as commissioner.
B.) The Yankees will win another World Series, permitting their fans to utter idiotic statements like this.
C.) Whippets will become the new clubhouse drug of choice.
D.) Alex Rodriguez will briefly date Jennifer Aniston, then, upon their breakup, will tearfully confess to an addiction to Papaya King hot dogs.
E.) The Cubs will remain the Cubs.

*Not the inane Will Ferrell movie of the same name, for I refuse to acknowledge that movie's existence.
**That my girlfriend once approached Carlos Jacott at a Legal Seafood restaurant in Boston and whispered, "Go away, cookie man," in his ear is one of the primary reasons I'm marrying her.
***It also prominently features Galaxie 500's "Strange," which has to be the best song ever written about Twinkies.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Turtle Edition)

1. How To Make It In America

I have no cogent explanation as to why I am still watching this show; with the exception of Martha Plimpton, it is a manifestation of everything I despise about A.) New York, and B.) television itself. Victor Rasuk's performance is so inherently terrible, he makes Jerry Ferrara seem emotionally nuanced by comparison. (Here's an idea: Let's create a version of Entourage for metrosexual pseudo-artistic bozos!) And yet this is the best proof yet that I am a serial television watcher; I cannot watch shows starting in the middle of their run, and if I start from the beginning, I have trouble stopping. It's as if I'm afraid I might miss some crucial scene where New Yorkers I cannot stand engage in a series of quasi-hipster activities that make me want to ram a taxicab through a Barney's warehouse sale. Anyway, the theme song's kind of awesome.

2. Slow Play

Here's the thing about this New York Times story on end-of-game tedium: Nobody's ever going to stop fouling when trailing in the final minutes of a game, no matter what rules changes are applied. And in fact, I don't see why they should--if anything, the double bonus should be repealed, the shot clock shortened, the game extended as much as possible.* It should be a challenge to finish off a basketball game; why shouldn't a team have to make free throws to finish off a game? The thing that bores people about the final minute of the game is not that it goes too slow; the thing that bores people is that with the double bonus, and the 35-second shot clock, the deck is stacked against a comeback.

3. Biden!

I love that we've advanced from an imperialistic vice president who reeked of sulfur and fired shotguns at his friends' probosci and swore profane vengeance on senators, to a vice president who utilizes profanity like a great uncle at a family barbecue.

*Except the time-outs. Each team should be allowed zero full time-outs in the final two minutes, and two 30-second time-outs; the rest should be used only to stop the clock.

(Photo: Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Coreys Edition)

1. Hudson

Oh, even though I have never actually heard her croon anything before, I have no doubt that this Hudson woman will perform a perfectly acceptable version of "One Shining Moment," the paean to meteors that punctuates the NCAA tournament each year. And this is exactly my fear. I don't want Idol-esque performance art when it comes to "One Shining Moment";* I want to revel in the raw brilliance of the song itself. The reason "One Shining Moment" exists is the same reason sitcom theme songs existed in the 1980s; this is why I prefer the original Shining Moment, as sung by the irrepressibly demented man who dreamed big enough to actually write it.** Bring back David Barrett, I say! NO ONE KNOWS HOW HARD HE WORKED!***


2. Haim

Before I disappear from cyberspace for a few days, here is the definitive, indisputable, inarguable list of the top five Corey Haim films of all time, in order:

5. Dream a Little Dream 2****
4. License to Drive (mostly for the girl with the crimped hair who may or may not have been in Meet the Parents)
3. Goonies*****
2. Lucas (though that whole football storyline always makes me unbelievably sad.)
1. The Lost Boys (because I never regarded lo mein the same way again.)

 *By the way, I turned on American Idol for the first time in my recent existence last night, only to find an earnest teenage girl belting out a version of Carole King's "I Feel the Earth Move" while rocking a Cindy Brady wig. It was, for those three minutes, as if I were stranded amid the detritus of a Carnival Cruise show gone horribly wrong. Even that unstable female judge groping Simon's collarbone seemed perplexed.
**In twenty minutes.
***For twenty minutes.
****This is the one where Haim puts a bullet in Fredo, yes?
*****I realize he was not in Goonies, but I honestly thought he was. And at this point, he might as well have been.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Mash-Up Edition)

1. You Are Not a Gadget

"The cumulative result is that online culture is fixated on the world as it was before the web was born."

I'm going to keep on pimping this book, and pulling out-of-context quotations, because I think it's tapped into something essential about technology, and about the development of the Internet, and about how many of the "open-source" developments we think are broadening our culture are, in fact, stifling it. Think about it--how much time have you spent in the past year combing YouTube for mash-ups of Muppets lip-syching Hold Steady songs? Now, don't get me wrong--this is great, and it brought me a great deal of enjoyment the thirty-seven times I watched it, but there is nothing inherently original about it. In essence, modern technology encourages us to repeat ourselves, to embrace was essentially schlock. And you know, maybe this is why I still love basketball and football as much as I ever have--because even in the face of an increasingly recycled culture, both of these games continue to evolve.* Sports are one of the few things that continue to breed originality.

2. Bunning!

I love it when athletes-turned-politicans lose their minds, because it reminds me of one of the inherent absurdities of our political system, which is that we're all really trapped in the seventh grade. I mean, isn't the fact that an athletic career makes one more amenable to a large segment of the voting population proof enough that we never really evolve beyond junior high school? Why was the fact that Bunning retired twenty-seven batters in a row considered an advantage in forming complex social policy?**Sometimes I wonder if the Congressional cafeteria isn't like something out of Freaks and Geeks. In which case, I'll bet Waxman gets wedgied on a daily basis.

3. Lost

Yeah. At this point, I have no f-ing clue what's going on.

UPDATE: I should clarify--this is not a complaint. In fact, I find myself growing increasingly annoyed with the people who seem compelled to complain about Lost, but refuse to stop watching. I've just given up on trying to figure it out, which is actually something of a relief.


*Interestingly, baseball's recent evolution appears to have occurred almost entirely A.) On paper, and B.) In a test tube. Which may explain why some people love it more than they ever have, and some people have turned away from it completely.
**The only supremely influential professional athletes-turned-politicians I can recall in the past generation are A.) Jack Kemp, and B.) Bill Bradley. Though I expect the Sarah Palin-Jay Feely ticket will be a formidable one.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Chanukah edition)

1.Raging Against Rationality


O.K., so my health insurance rates just went up by sixty dollars a month, and I find Joe Lieberman to be as much of a mealy-mouthed slab of gefilte fish as the next guy, but why is it that the left seems so utterly hellbent on proving it can wallow in the same kind of petulant irrationality as the far right? I know we were all seduced by the skyrockets of hope and change, but in case you haven't noticed, the great virtue of the man we elected is that he believes, more than anything, in rationalism. And I'm sorry if I find this to be a good thing, if I actually feel proud that our president does not ponder life in absolutes, in the pointed landscape bordered by Daily Kos tantrums and Glenn Beck chalkboard screeds. I prefer a president who is firmly tethered to reality--how do we know that the public option is the best answer, or the only answer?--who will not abandon his self-control in a fit of pique over the tantrums of a man who represents a state best known for women's basketball and casinos. Get over yourselves, people. Have a latte. Watch Top Chef. Watch Jay Rockefeller bring the noise. Ram your Volvos into a wall, take a deep breath, remember that Howard Dean already blew it once, and then let it go.

2. Big Ten Expansion

Here's what the Big Ten should do about expansion: Trade Penn State to the Big East for Cincinnati. We all know our school never belonged; we all know that the only reason Penn State joined the Big Ten is because the Big East refused to form a football conference, and then once Penn State left the Big East, the dominoes fell, and everyone formed a football conference. So you deal Penn State back to where it belongs, and you put Cincinnati where it belongs; the Big Ten can then go chasing after Notre Dame, or spit out Northwestern and go back to living up to the literal reality of its name, splitting into a pair of five-team divisions and setting up a championship game. The Big East, meanwhile, could offer up Louisville to the highest bidder, and then go hard after Miami and Boston College and (perhaps) Maryland. If I've done the math correctly, that leaves the Big East with ten, the Big Ten with (!!!) ten, and Louisville...well, nobody cares about Louisville. And then we've essentially got the Eastern football conference that Joe Paterno was touting back in 1973.

3. Dove Bars

I always thought the chocolate bars and the soap bars were manufactured by the same company, which made me less likely to buy the chocolate and more likely to purchase the soap. Turns out I was wrong. However, I still believe the chocolate tastes suspiciously clean. And the soap makes me hungry.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Sour Grapes Edition)

1. Big Ten Football (Welcome to the Stone Age!)

From a seat somewhere in the exosphere, I watched Penn State lose a football game to Ohio State this weekend. It was a beautiful day and it was a terrible contest, a fitting nightcap to a weekend that again exposed the inherent weakness of the Big Ten within the rapidly shifting landscape of college football. A few months ago, I noted the critical consensus about the slow and inexorable death of Tresselball, and this was Tresselball at its worst, a slow and tedious unraveling dictated by field position and the running game and selective bomb-throwing to wide-open receivers who had outrun slow safeties into open space. Here were the conference's two best athletes at quarterback, Terrelle Pryor and Darryl Clark, each rendered entirely uninteresting, in part by the pace of the game itself. I'm not sure what the future of football might be, but I'm guessing this isn't it. But at least the view of the sunset from Row 79 of the upper deck was pastoral.

In fact, you could make a case that, at this juncture of the season, Northwestern, with its seventeen-receiver spread offense full of Ivy League-caliber geniuses with literary surnames, might be the most intimidating team in the conference. Maybe the question we should be asking ourselves isn't Why Iowa Lost; maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is how Iowa wound up undefeated in the first place.

2. Tweeting the Truth



From a column by Paul Carr of Tech Crunch, on the Tweeting of the Fort Hood tragedy:


Unsurprisingly, Moore’s coverage was quickly picked up by bloggers and mainstream media outlets alike, something that she actively encouraged by tweeting to friends that they should pass her phone number to the press so she could tell them the truth, rather than the speculative b---s--t that was hitting the wires.


There was just one problem: Moore’s information was b---s---t too.

This morning on my radio, Jeff Jarvis--unrelenting advocate of citizen journalism and all-around purveyor of futuristic journalistic brilliance--attempted to defend his cash cow in the wake of these glaring inaccuracies, while Carr proclaimed what we all know deep inside: That a great deal of "citizen journalism" is essentially the dissemination of unconfirmed rumors. And at one point, Jarvis actually said something like this: Life is messy. The Internet is life. Ergo, the Internet is messy. I may have misquoted him slightly, but given his standards, I suppose it doesn't matter. I suppose I could say that Jeff Jarvis strangled a standard poodle this morning, and as long as I corrected the record later in the day, it would be fine, because life is messy like that, and the Internet is messy, and I am merely a Luddite standing in the way of progress, and the future is based upon a world in which everything is free and lived in public and in real time and without filter and played to an online audience, and the truth itself is a secondary concern.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me (Zuvella edition)

1. Unsubstantiated Reports of Adultery and Bad Behavior Spread Via a Series of Tubes.

I generally try to disabuse myself of blogosphere kerfuffles, and so I am not going to delve into the latest spat between a prominent sports/gossip website and a worldwide leader in sporting activity (which also happens to be my sometime employer). I will allow you to Google the details for yourself. However, if anyone out there cares about such things, I did want to point you to a memo written by Gawker Media czar Nick Denton, which may, in fact, be the most egregious abuse of "new media ethos" I have ever read. My favorite line: We can always write a second post when we've established more of the facts. Speaking of which, I hear there are photos on a transvestite fetish website of Nick Denton torturing babies while wearing a burqa. I'll update when I hear more.

2. Terrelle Pryor

Perhaps it is true that Terrelle Pryor is not being utilized properly at Ohio State, and perhaps it is even true that he would be better off at Michigan*, and perhaps I am simply mired in my own Schadenfreude, but are we willing to consider the notion that Pryor, while a stunning talent, may never be a great passer? Or that sometimes, throwing a freshman quarterback into circumstances he is not ready for may in fact retard his emotional development? I watched some of that Purdue-Ohio State game last week; I thought Pryor might file his transfer papers at the end of the third quarter.

3. Phillies-Yankees.

When I was fourteen, this was my worst nightmare. I grew up a Phillies fan due to geography and a Yankee fan due to the hegemony of my father, and I presumed the twain would never meet, largely due to their collective ineptitude. My fandom happened to coincide with the worst era in the histories of both franchises: Has there ever been a worse-hitting (and longer-lasting) shortstop in the history of modern baseball than Steve Jeltz? And peep this '87 Yankee lineup--it's the Best Team Money Can Buy, if your currency is from Kazakhstan. In fact, if this is not a rule of SABRmetrics, it should be: Any team that ever employed Paul Zuvella cannot rightfully be considered a member of the major leagues.

*At Penn State, Joe Paterno would have molded Pryor into a world-class cornerback. Just as he would have made Jim Kelly a Hall of Fame linebacker, something Kelly secretly regrets every day of his existence.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter to Me (Lack of Subtlety Edition)

1. Eve Best
I will admit, I did not have particularly high expectations for Nurse Jackie, the Edie Falco series that just completed its first season on Showtime; I expected Falco would be surrounded by actors who could not challenge her the way Gandolfini had done all those years in Jersey. But there's something to Nurse Jackie's harshness, about its very black soul, that seems to capture all the ugliness and disarray of the modern American health-care system at this crucial and contentious moment in our nation's history. And no one is more indicative of that than the doctor Best plays, a callous and unsentimental soul named Eleanor O'Hara who finds children off-putting and generally views her occupation as a conduit to an excellent lunch table in Manhattan. She is the doctor we've all encountered, the doctor who seems entirely disinterested in our problems, the doctor who sweeps into the examining room after leaving us hanging for 45 minutes, the doctor who sweeps out thirty seconds later, having delivered an irrefutable diagnosis and an inscrutable presciption, and then defers all questions to the nurse in her wake. Dr. O'Hara is the embodiment of Hippocratic arrogance, and I love her for it, even as I find myself dreading her very real presence in my life.

2. The Beatles
And suddenly, it feels like 1969 all over again: Tonight, I watched a PBS documentary on the Kennedys while reading a story in Rolling Stone about the breakup of The Beatles. And now I'm listening to a newly remastered version of the White Album, which I will admit sounds pretty much the same to me, except louder and with extra blackbirds. If Namath starts making proclamations about the Miracle Mets, I'm tie-dying my office chair and mainlining lysergic acid.

3. Nuance As a Intellectual Drawback
I try not to delve too deeply into politics in this forum, but this is really not about politics. This is a matter of basic human intelligence. This is about the notion, forwarded far too often in public life, that complexity of thought is somehow a frightening proposition. And now someone has finally come forward and embodied this ideal, and that someone happens to be Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, who admits in this remarkable interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that nuance is, in fact, a pejorative term. I'm not kidding; Inskeep tries to tell Steele that he finds the nuances of Steele's articulated position on health care more intriguing and complex than the broad propaganda of the health-care debate, and Steele takes such offense to this claim that he seems to accuse Inskeep of having a liberal agenda, or at least of being overly "cute." So, there are two possibilities here: Either Steele doesn't know what nuance actually means (perhaps he thinks this is the name of a Fraggle Rock character?), or he finds nuance so utterly intolerable, so unbearably cute and cuddly, such a merlot-soaked tool of tree-hugging hippie socialists, that he will disavow any invocation of it on his behalf.
And with that, I'm going outside to walk the dinosaur.

(Photo: Ken Regan/Showtime)

On More Inconsequential Things...and a New Column

1. Duality.
Despite all our disagreements about Michael Jackson, there is one thing that we should be willing to agree on, which is that MJ leaves behind one of the most complex public existences in modern history; in the midst of his apparent attempts to render himself non-classifiable (at least by skin color), he left behind an utterly confounding legacy. And yet it is also apparent that as information and its methods of presentation move faster and faster and get shorter and shorter, we simply don't have room for such duality anymore. Therefore: Michael Jackson is either the greatest pop star/humanitarian in modern history or Michael Jackson is a crass and highly overrated pervert. Michael Jackson is deserving of all this attention or Michael Jackson is a prototypical example of media overkill. There can be no reconciliation of these ideas; there can be no acknowledging that, at various times in his life, he was all of these things, that he was overexposed and underexposed (sometimes for the wrong things), and that perhaps the ideas we are grasping at here cannot be encapsulated in 140-word blocks and three-word Facebook comments and dozens of CNN segments involving Toure.

I mean, people are freaking complicated (see: McNair, Steve). And I worry that as we grasp for the next new thing, as we advance into this new and very freaky age, that there will be fewer ways for people to acknowledge this, that everything will become a back and forth between entrenched points of view who are unwilling to acknowledge that, yeah, people are freaking complicated.

There is a man named Jeff Jarvis, whose views I find utterly repulsive; he is essentially a new media evangelist, and he writes things like this:

The press* has become journalism’s curse, not only because it now brings a crushing cost burden but also because it led to all these myths: that we journalists own the news, that we’re necessary to it, that we decide what’s reported and what’s important, that we can package the world for you every day in a box with a bow on it, that what we do is perfect (with rare, we think, exceptions), that the world should come to us to be informed, that we deserve to be paid for this service, that the world needs us.

It is, I believe, a simplistic and and cheaply populist viewpoint, and it has made Jarvis quite popular, because in truth it is quite easy to hate on the press, especially when the press is in a position of weakness. But I believe there is a reason this "media filter" exists: It exists not just to unify our culture, but to facilitate the exploration of the entire story, rather than that which happens to coincide with our own biases and singular points of view. I find it telling that one of the commenters on Jarvis's post says he does not want to hear news about health-care policy, because he himself has never had a problem with his health care. Therefore, why should it be on his front page? Why should he be bombarded with such things if they do not apply directly to his forehead?

I don't think the press is perfect; in fact, I think the press is populated by natural-born skeptics who tend to be reflexively critical of themselves. And no, the world doesn't need an organized and powerful press, but I happen to think the world is a better and more thoughtful place because of it--even when it comes to Michael Jackson.

2. LeBron.

As you may recall, we consider ourselves an entirely LeBron-friendly blog; we do not publish negative news about LeBron James on this site, thereby invalidating everything stated in No. 1 (above). Therefore, we refuse to believe that LeBron would confiscate a videotape merely because a college kid dunked on his head; we believe LeBron's people most likely confiscated said videotape merely to create buzz for a new advertising campaign in which LeBron will allow himself to be dunked on by strangers, in order to prove his largesse.
Also, Nike scares the crap out of me.

3. Vacation.

As you can probably deduce from No. 1 (above), I need one. Therefore, I am taking one. To tide you over, in lieu of an actual book about the 1980s (which is moving along, and will be released to the public eventually, I promise), here is a piece I wrote for a Remember the '80's package on ESPN.com, about the 1984 Olympics and the insanity of the decade.
See you in a few days.

(AP Photo: Pete Leabo)

*Jarvis appears to be speaking of the "printing press" here, but I think he is essentially using this metaphor to pillory the New York Times and other "elite media." (And I find that term idiotic, so I put it in quotes.)