The other day I took my dog for a walk.
Like always, I took him back behind my house, and we walked along the railroad tracks. Charlie, my lab retriever-husky, likes walking back there because there are a million weeds growing for him to smell and piss on. I like walking there because it greatly limits the chances that I run into, you know, people.
We'd only been walking for a few hundred feet when I noticed Charlie drifting toward something. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like a fat, headless duck. But when I looked closer I saw that it was in fact a fish, and one of considerable size.
You'll excuse my mistake: I see a lot of dead birds on our walk, not a whole lot of dead fish. While walking the tracks, I do see the odd person -- some of them very odd -- but very few of them are carrying fishing poles. Even if you've killed off a liter of rum, I just don't think they're biting.
I pulled Charlie away before he put got near the fish, and we pressed on. After a while I decided we'd come far enough, and we turned back for home. Again we passed the fish. Strange indeed, but once I got home it was out of my mind.
. . .
By the time the first whispers came out that Michael Vick was tied to a dogfighting ring, they were no longer whispers. There are no small stories today, because everything echoes off a thousand outlets big and small. We'll wring the news out of anything that's damp, but this story had legs and would be made to walk.
From late April to early July, the story was like stones in a river: pieces hit and rippled, hit and rippled.
If those were stones in the water, then Tuesday, via the smoking gun, came the landslide -- an 18-page, 84-point indictment of Vick and three others -- and the resulting wave has buried the entire sports landscape. The only thing that compares in this year is the fallout from Lebron's 48-point masterpiece against Detroit. The year 2007 in sports may historically belong to a 48-point rise and an 84-point fall.
As soon as all of this started, I basically got the hell away from Vick, having been burned by Jason Kidd. I was not going to defend an athlete out loud or in my own mind simply because I like what he does on the field. I don't know Michael Vick. I never did.
And he's not just a benefactor in this document. He's one of the stars. He's there on the ground floor -- "and MICHEAL VICK, also known as Ookie, decided to start a venture" -- he buys the house at 1915 Moonlight Road, he got his "Bad Newz Kennels" headband, he's at fights, and most damning, he's there at the very end.
"In or about April 2007. . .and VICK executed approximately 8 dogs that did not perform well. . ."
I finished reading and leaned back in my chair. My mouth was suddenly dry. I tried to think of something to think or feel. I just felt numb.
I got up. I called my dog. We went out the back door for a walk.
I didn't even see it first. We had gone only about a hundred feet and I could smell it. That fish. Soon we were next to it, and then past it. But even when I was upwind, I couldn't get the smell out of my nose. It stunk. It would, from that point forward, be harder to ignore.
. . .
Roger Goodell made it clear early in his term as NFL comissioner that he would have no patience for wrongdoing from his players. And this came as no surprise. But much more revealing to me was that player leadership had requested harsh penalties. No more "protect your own," no more "no snitchin'." The players themselves said, "This is too much."
That all came out in February, and over the next couple of months, we saw Goodell's rough justice. And the league was served notice: no more messing around. If you're doing something, get out now, because anyone caught on the wrong side of anything is getting suspended and is losing money, or worse.
I don't think Mike Vick is a stupid guy. I think he understood the implications. And the things written in that indictment carry right through the Pacman saga. The only thing I can take away from his continued involvement with "Bad Newz Kennels" is that he didn't think he was doing anything wrong.
Do I think that some of the allegations about 1915 Moonlight Road may be embellished or remembered incorrectly or just wrong? Yes. I'm willing to listen for Vick's version. But this investigation cites at least four sources. And the number of other people listed -- construction workers, dogfight enthusiasts, friends -- who would have acquired knowledge of the operation over the six years in question makes me believe the investigators are pretty sure of what they've got.
Do I think that pitbulls are predisposed to some level of violence? Yes, in the same way that poor young men might be more predisposed to crime. But they're not gang members until somebody trains them.
Do I think that this kind of thing happens often in some parts of the South? Yes. But there was another thing that was pretty popular in the South about 40 or 50 years ago. And that thing was called widespread and violent racism. Some people let it happen, others embraced it. History has not remembered them well.
And I'm sorry I have to make this point. But earlier this year, Vick teamed up with the United Way to donate $10,000 to Virginia Tech, which had been Vick's college. (Although I'm tempted to call it his "college team.") I probably shouldn't doubt anyone giving to charity.
But just so we're clear here, this was $10,000 from a guy who signed a contract in 2005 that came with more than $30 million in bonuses. Bonuses means it's upfront. As in thanks for signing, here's your check with EIGHT zeros. This of course excludes his endorsements. And he's "teaming up" with the United Way for 10 grand? (Ten thousand dollars, by the way, is slightly less than the amount that was allegedly wagered on a single dogfight in March of 2003.)
At the moment I also can't find any evidence that Vick ever actually visited the campus of Virginia Tech after the shootings.
Perhaps he had other things on his mind. Because a short time before or after Vick made this pledge and the run-of-the-mill statement that came with it, he is alleged to have participated in killing eight pitbulls.
. . .
I was brought out of my haze by the sound of a train engine. It was coming up behind us. "C'mon, Charlie," I said, and we turned back.
He doesn't do a lot of tricks, but Charlie's a great walk. He listens to me, and he would only be interested going somewhere if I was going there too. In the year I've known him, Charlie has become completely devoted to me. And if he's devoted to me, he is consumed by his love for my girlfriend. He follows her room to room, lying outside the bathroom when she showers. He sleeps when she sleeps, and he whines to me when she's gone too long.
I've never really valued dogs as tools. It's not in my nature to train my dog to hunt or roll over. And I don't need to "show them who's boss." Charlie had a rough life before he ended up at the humane society, and that came through when he was scared of me for weeks after we brought him home. And every time he met a new adult man, Charlie winced and clung to the girlfriend.
Charlie had been beaten, undoubtedly by a man. And when we first got him, he had several marks on his nose and a ring of stitches on his elbow where his dominant brother had bitten into him. He shakes uncontrollably at the sound of thunder or fireworks, and he can't stand to be left alone for too long. At least once a night I have to wake him from his nightmares.
Needless to say, his life has left him with a meek personality. There are very few things he'd qualify to be as a dog, other than a loyal friend. He just doesn't have it in him.
". . .executed the pit bull that did not perform well. . .executed at least one dog that did not perform well. . .executed at least one. . .executed at least two. . ."
. . .
We passed the fish, one last time. I could see that it's rotted and been picked down to the bone. Soon it will be completely gone. In 10 minutes I would forget about it. But for a moment, I was downwind. And my God, the smell.
. . .
It's been hot here in Minneapolis, and if it's hot for me it's worse for Charlie.
I got him some water, and I poured him way, way too much food.
Showing posts with label NFL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NFL. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Notes, or The 2008 NFL Draft is on the clock
Hello.
Seems like "Notes" is all I do lately, and I really ought to get one of my big project entries out soon. I'm sure you're all waiting for a 2,000-word monster, and the sad thing is it's probably coming.
For now, just notes.
We'll get the non-sports one out of the way first, and this is another iTunes tip. The New York Times does a "Front Page" podcast, which is free to download from the iTunes store. It's a brief (4-5 minutes) description of the stories one would find on the front page of that day's paper. You can set your subscription to automatically update the newest podcast, and could, ideally, use this preview every morning to decide whether or not you want to buy that day's Times. It's a good idea in theory.
One thing I like about this is that one late night I was looking through iTunes and found out that it becomes available in the middle of the night, at what time I can only assume the paper has only recently gone to press. Given the sometimes lazy habits of other news outlets (Washington Post, ESPN) in updating their podcasts, this punctuality is a great achievement.
Here's what I don't like. The guy doing the description sounds like the NPR weather guy on a couple painkillers and six shots of Nyquil. I fear that sometime I'll listen to this guy, and one or both of us will be rendered indefinitely comatose.
My other problem is that what this fellow does is summarize the stories, and in a rather bland, bare-bones way. This might be what some people want, but those people could get the same kind of coverage from nearly every radio or TV station, website, or newspaper. The reason why anyone would buy the NY Times is because they have the best reporters, who get the best details, and most of them are brilliant writers. And none of that comes across here.
My boy, Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, always says his radio show is not about the front page. But when something big happens, or when a certain story in the Post catches him, he simply reads the story, on the air. And it's great. It's great writing, read by someone interested in the story.
This is what the Times should be doing. Hire someone, or bring in the authors themselves, and have them read the first three or four graphs of a couple stories, verbatim. Then you do headlines on the other stories, and say, "If you want more, buy today's Times." First of all, the podcast popularity (which is already good) would multiply, and you could sell a very expensive ad. Second, it would give people a reason to go to the Times and not somewhere else: because the words are so, so much better.
Now, to sports. Quite a few things to cover here, so I'll try to be as brief and dull as possible.
- Instead of doing a big entry on Kevin Garnett, I'll offer two things. One is an inside fact, the other is an opinion, and they come in that order.
Fact: A friend of my sister's recently got a job waitressing at an ultra-swanky Minneapolis restaurant. She told me that Garnett and a couple of other players ate there recently.
"But actually one of them said he was a rapper," she said, at which point I described Ricky Davis, and she said, "Yeah, that was him."
This comes as no surprise. I'm still doing facts here: I saw Garnett settle for more long jumpers early in the shot clock this season than I ever have before. Also true is that on a couple of occasions I saw Ricky Davis call the five players on the floor into a seperate, post-timeout meeting. And it didn't seem to work well.
Another true story: when the Wolves went to an overtime once this season, the sideline reporter contributed that in the huddle before OT started, coach Randy Wittman told his players that they were going to "move the ball like never before." While she was giving this report, KG passed to Ricky, who IMMEDIATELY shot. Then Ricky got the ball and went right to the hole, got fouled. Also in the overtime, he shot a short jumper and two threes. The fact that Ricky took these shots, and even the fact that his second three went down for a game-winner, aren't much of a surprise...
But for Garnett to miss three shots in the same OT, two of them from 19-plus feet?
Now, the opinion: when I watched Garnett a couple years ago playing with Cassell and Sprewell, and I watched a lot... he was, for that year tied with one person (guess who) as the best player I've ever seen. If Cassell's back didn't go out and Sprewell wasn't, I guess, insane, they might have won the championship that year or another.
Now, Ricky Davis has been involved in a couple of desperation trades in his day. And I think we can all imagine what Kevin McHale's phone bill might look like over the summer.
- Now, to the curious case of Dwyane Wade, a player whose name is spelled incorrectly, but seemed to have everything else going for him until a couple weeks ago.
In my last blog I said that Shaq was "fat," and I want to retract that here, but I can't. I saw a picture of Shaq on ESPN.com where the skin folded-up on the back of his neck looks like a couple Bud Light bottles. He was way out of shape.
But in last year's championship run, Shaq was never the most important player on the Heat. Wade was the beginnging and the end of that team. And in this season's playoffs, Wade showed flashes of that same dynamic ability. I would think that should go the other way: flashes one year, then you put it all together for a title run.
In Wade's defense, he's really, really young. And we shouldn't expect him to repeat that performance.
But they got SWEPT out of the playoffs, soundly beaten. They got outscored in the second half of every game against Chicago. They joined Orlando and Washington by getting swept, and Orlando and Washington are playoff teams in the same way North and South Dakota are states: by definition only.
I understand Wade sat out a bunch of games with a dislocated shoulder. But it was his non-shooting shoulder. And, it was his shoulder. What was holding him back most were his legs, which looked like they aged ten years, and his head. He couldn't get past something, or, as some say he couldn't get "outside his own head."
Full disclosure: in most sports, I myself am a complete headcase. But no one pays me to play.
Wade is also going to have an MRI taken on his knee. And let me say this: they have to find something. There must be something wrong with his knee. Either that, or he's not the player I thought he was.
I would be much, much easier on Wade if he hadn't taken a shot at Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk made a self-effacing comment about how badly Dallas played last year, and it was true. But Wade turned the screw, and put it all on Dirk's shoulders.
And, when I check the papers, it says both players brought back their entire rosters, and only one of them is still playing.
As far as Dallas, it seems like Nellie and Golden State know exactly how to play them. And yet, Dallas won a game last night they shouldn't have. Not only did they take it away, but Golden State gave it up willingly.
And Dirk hasn't exactly been sterling for this entire series. But let me mention this: in Game 4, Dirk tossed-in 3s with 14 and then three seconds left to at least give Dallas a chance. In Game 5, as we all saw, he again hit back-to-back 3s, then he hit the free throws to tie, take the lead, and then seal the result. Throw in a soul-crushing block against Matt Barnes, and Dirk won that game by himself. And again, he's still playing.
And I've still got Dallas winning, obviously in seven games. Also, my San Antonio pick still looks good, so no need to mention that.
- Now, to football.
The NFL draft was last weekend, and in case you missed it, it's probably still going on. Check the NFL Network for coverage.
Honestly, the first round of the draft was six hours long. It's as bloated as, well, as any number of my blog entries.
Six hours? This is an OUTRAGE. Every team got 15 minutes to make its pick, and (32 x 15 = 480), they all used ALL FIFTEEN GODDAMN MINUTES. What the hell are these teams doing? Are they taking Calvin Johnson to the parking lot to run one more 40? Do they want to ensure that their pick doesn't get arrested in those 15 minutes? Is there any team that looks up at the clock with 10 seconds left and goes, "Oh, Christ, we're on the clock. Quick, just take somebody. Anybody!"
Are there any GMs thinking, "I can't decide. Call both of them, see who answers first."
Here's how the draft should go. The night before, the No. 1 team submits its pick in writing. This pick is immediately announced. The next team is then given two minutes, during which they will decide whether they want to pick, or want an extended period (10 minutes, say) to option the pick as a trade. Teams that are not intersted in trading are encouraged to hand in a written list of players, ranked in the order of their desire. This guy, if he's not available this guy, etc. Let's get this thing over with.
By the way, 15 hours in two days is an incredibly long time for anyone to do TV. I'm amazed when newsmen do all-night election coverage. And on those nights, we're electing the national government. And this is the NFL Draft.
I only watched one or two of those hours. Kornheiser was good, but he's obviously holding back. If he ever did what he does on his radio show for ESPN, he would shred for a couple minutes, then be escorted out of the booth and have his contract bought-out.
Steve Young was good on the main stage, and provided the sole highlight of the day. When Brady Quinn was sitting forever from picks 9-21, they eventually started talking about character, and what this might be doing to him personally.
At this point, Mel Kiper - who could do the entire draft by himself, without blinking - chimes in, "If the Green Bay Packers didn't draft Aaron Rogers a couple of years ago, Brady Quinn would be headed to Green Bay to back-up Brett Favre."
Then Berman kicks it to the studio, but it takes a while to cut away. And we see Steve Young turn to Kiper and say, "Where did that come from?" Funny stuff.
Kiper has kids, and let's say he has a boy and a girl. I think if you asked him how his kids are, he would say, "They're good kids. The boy, he's tall, he's strong, big hands, he's gonna' be a good son for 10 or 15 years. Now, my daughter, she's a bit riskier. She's got five pounds to lose, she has no upper-body strength - there are a lot of issues there. I don't see anyone taking her anytime soon."
That's my time for today. You've been great.
If you do get or have iTunes, subscribe to This American Life. Otherwise, just go to the website (thisamericanlife.com) and listen to "Habeas Schmabeus." When it's done, realize that these people have been doing this, a top of the line, one-hour audio documentary, every week for 12 years. And if you can listen to streaming audio (and you can), they're all free on the website. (By the way, this was Charles Barkley last night: "I been thinkin' about gettin' a computer. I really am.")
I love it when critics or other people try to pinpoint why the show is so good, and why the intro by host Ira Glass is so good. These people are wasting their time coining phrases, or comparing formats.
It's just the reporting. And for the intro, it's the writing. That's it, that's all that matters.
I suppose at this point we've come full circle, which seems like a good way to end.
Good day then. I'll be back soon with something real.
Thanks.
Seems like "Notes" is all I do lately, and I really ought to get one of my big project entries out soon. I'm sure you're all waiting for a 2,000-word monster, and the sad thing is it's probably coming.
For now, just notes.
We'll get the non-sports one out of the way first, and this is another iTunes tip. The New York Times does a "Front Page" podcast, which is free to download from the iTunes store. It's a brief (4-5 minutes) description of the stories one would find on the front page of that day's paper. You can set your subscription to automatically update the newest podcast, and could, ideally, use this preview every morning to decide whether or not you want to buy that day's Times. It's a good idea in theory.
One thing I like about this is that one late night I was looking through iTunes and found out that it becomes available in the middle of the night, at what time I can only assume the paper has only recently gone to press. Given the sometimes lazy habits of other news outlets (Washington Post, ESPN) in updating their podcasts, this punctuality is a great achievement.
Here's what I don't like. The guy doing the description sounds like the NPR weather guy on a couple painkillers and six shots of Nyquil. I fear that sometime I'll listen to this guy, and one or both of us will be rendered indefinitely comatose.
My other problem is that what this fellow does is summarize the stories, and in a rather bland, bare-bones way. This might be what some people want, but those people could get the same kind of coverage from nearly every radio or TV station, website, or newspaper. The reason why anyone would buy the NY Times is because they have the best reporters, who get the best details, and most of them are brilliant writers. And none of that comes across here.
My boy, Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, always says his radio show is not about the front page. But when something big happens, or when a certain story in the Post catches him, he simply reads the story, on the air. And it's great. It's great writing, read by someone interested in the story.
This is what the Times should be doing. Hire someone, or bring in the authors themselves, and have them read the first three or four graphs of a couple stories, verbatim. Then you do headlines on the other stories, and say, "If you want more, buy today's Times." First of all, the podcast popularity (which is already good) would multiply, and you could sell a very expensive ad. Second, it would give people a reason to go to the Times and not somewhere else: because the words are so, so much better.
Now, to sports. Quite a few things to cover here, so I'll try to be as brief and dull as possible.
- Instead of doing a big entry on Kevin Garnett, I'll offer two things. One is an inside fact, the other is an opinion, and they come in that order.
Fact: A friend of my sister's recently got a job waitressing at an ultra-swanky Minneapolis restaurant. She told me that Garnett and a couple of other players ate there recently.
"But actually one of them said he was a rapper," she said, at which point I described Ricky Davis, and she said, "Yeah, that was him."
This comes as no surprise. I'm still doing facts here: I saw Garnett settle for more long jumpers early in the shot clock this season than I ever have before. Also true is that on a couple of occasions I saw Ricky Davis call the five players on the floor into a seperate, post-timeout meeting. And it didn't seem to work well.
Another true story: when the Wolves went to an overtime once this season, the sideline reporter contributed that in the huddle before OT started, coach Randy Wittman told his players that they were going to "move the ball like never before." While she was giving this report, KG passed to Ricky, who IMMEDIATELY shot. Then Ricky got the ball and went right to the hole, got fouled. Also in the overtime, he shot a short jumper and two threes. The fact that Ricky took these shots, and even the fact that his second three went down for a game-winner, aren't much of a surprise...
But for Garnett to miss three shots in the same OT, two of them from 19-plus feet?
Now, the opinion: when I watched Garnett a couple years ago playing with Cassell and Sprewell, and I watched a lot... he was, for that year tied with one person (guess who) as the best player I've ever seen. If Cassell's back didn't go out and Sprewell wasn't, I guess, insane, they might have won the championship that year or another.
Now, Ricky Davis has been involved in a couple of desperation trades in his day. And I think we can all imagine what Kevin McHale's phone bill might look like over the summer.
- Now, to the curious case of Dwyane Wade, a player whose name is spelled incorrectly, but seemed to have everything else going for him until a couple weeks ago.
In my last blog I said that Shaq was "fat," and I want to retract that here, but I can't. I saw a picture of Shaq on ESPN.com where the skin folded-up on the back of his neck looks like a couple Bud Light bottles. He was way out of shape.
But in last year's championship run, Shaq was never the most important player on the Heat. Wade was the beginnging and the end of that team. And in this season's playoffs, Wade showed flashes of that same dynamic ability. I would think that should go the other way: flashes one year, then you put it all together for a title run.
In Wade's defense, he's really, really young. And we shouldn't expect him to repeat that performance.
But they got SWEPT out of the playoffs, soundly beaten. They got outscored in the second half of every game against Chicago. They joined Orlando and Washington by getting swept, and Orlando and Washington are playoff teams in the same way North and South Dakota are states: by definition only.
I understand Wade sat out a bunch of games with a dislocated shoulder. But it was his non-shooting shoulder. And, it was his shoulder. What was holding him back most were his legs, which looked like they aged ten years, and his head. He couldn't get past something, or, as some say he couldn't get "outside his own head."
Full disclosure: in most sports, I myself am a complete headcase. But no one pays me to play.
Wade is also going to have an MRI taken on his knee. And let me say this: they have to find something. There must be something wrong with his knee. Either that, or he's not the player I thought he was.
I would be much, much easier on Wade if he hadn't taken a shot at Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk made a self-effacing comment about how badly Dallas played last year, and it was true. But Wade turned the screw, and put it all on Dirk's shoulders.
And, when I check the papers, it says both players brought back their entire rosters, and only one of them is still playing.
As far as Dallas, it seems like Nellie and Golden State know exactly how to play them. And yet, Dallas won a game last night they shouldn't have. Not only did they take it away, but Golden State gave it up willingly.
And Dirk hasn't exactly been sterling for this entire series. But let me mention this: in Game 4, Dirk tossed-in 3s with 14 and then three seconds left to at least give Dallas a chance. In Game 5, as we all saw, he again hit back-to-back 3s, then he hit the free throws to tie, take the lead, and then seal the result. Throw in a soul-crushing block against Matt Barnes, and Dirk won that game by himself. And again, he's still playing.
And I've still got Dallas winning, obviously in seven games. Also, my San Antonio pick still looks good, so no need to mention that.
- Now, to football.
The NFL draft was last weekend, and in case you missed it, it's probably still going on. Check the NFL Network for coverage.
Honestly, the first round of the draft was six hours long. It's as bloated as, well, as any number of my blog entries.
Six hours? This is an OUTRAGE. Every team got 15 minutes to make its pick, and (32 x 15 = 480), they all used ALL FIFTEEN GODDAMN MINUTES. What the hell are these teams doing? Are they taking Calvin Johnson to the parking lot to run one more 40? Do they want to ensure that their pick doesn't get arrested in those 15 minutes? Is there any team that looks up at the clock with 10 seconds left and goes, "Oh, Christ, we're on the clock. Quick, just take somebody. Anybody!"
Are there any GMs thinking, "I can't decide. Call both of them, see who answers first."
Here's how the draft should go. The night before, the No. 1 team submits its pick in writing. This pick is immediately announced. The next team is then given two minutes, during which they will decide whether they want to pick, or want an extended period (10 minutes, say) to option the pick as a trade. Teams that are not intersted in trading are encouraged to hand in a written list of players, ranked in the order of their desire. This guy, if he's not available this guy, etc. Let's get this thing over with.
By the way, 15 hours in two days is an incredibly long time for anyone to do TV. I'm amazed when newsmen do all-night election coverage. And on those nights, we're electing the national government. And this is the NFL Draft.
I only watched one or two of those hours. Kornheiser was good, but he's obviously holding back. If he ever did what he does on his radio show for ESPN, he would shred for a couple minutes, then be escorted out of the booth and have his contract bought-out.
Steve Young was good on the main stage, and provided the sole highlight of the day. When Brady Quinn was sitting forever from picks 9-21, they eventually started talking about character, and what this might be doing to him personally.
At this point, Mel Kiper - who could do the entire draft by himself, without blinking - chimes in, "If the Green Bay Packers didn't draft Aaron Rogers a couple of years ago, Brady Quinn would be headed to Green Bay to back-up Brett Favre."
Then Berman kicks it to the studio, but it takes a while to cut away. And we see Steve Young turn to Kiper and say, "Where did that come from?" Funny stuff.
Kiper has kids, and let's say he has a boy and a girl. I think if you asked him how his kids are, he would say, "They're good kids. The boy, he's tall, he's strong, big hands, he's gonna' be a good son for 10 or 15 years. Now, my daughter, she's a bit riskier. She's got five pounds to lose, she has no upper-body strength - there are a lot of issues there. I don't see anyone taking her anytime soon."
That's my time for today. You've been great.
If you do get or have iTunes, subscribe to This American Life. Otherwise, just go to the website (thisamericanlife.com) and listen to "Habeas Schmabeus." When it's done, realize that these people have been doing this, a top of the line, one-hour audio documentary, every week for 12 years. And if you can listen to streaming audio (and you can), they're all free on the website. (By the way, this was Charles Barkley last night: "I been thinkin' about gettin' a computer. I really am.")
I love it when critics or other people try to pinpoint why the show is so good, and why the intro by host Ira Glass is so good. These people are wasting their time coining phrases, or comparing formats.
It's just the reporting. And for the intro, it's the writing. That's it, that's all that matters.
I suppose at this point we've come full circle, which seems like a good way to end.
Good day then. I'll be back soon with something real.
Thanks.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Notes, or Death, taxes and rain
Hello.
Been a rough week.
Suddenly my big Imus blog or my big NBA preview didn't seem so big. I don't have a whole lot to say about what happened in Virginia, and I wouldn't expect you to want to hear it. I'm twenty, and this doesn't make much sense to me, and I don't think it will when I'm sixty. You can listen to FBI profilers or cops or whoever, and no one is going to explain what happened there.
I looked at this thing for a while, and it hurt me, and now I'm not looking. If you want information, it's out there, at every major news outlet in print, and some of it's very poignant. And now for my own good I'll turn back to Imus and the NBA and other stupid little things, if for no other reason than because they're not this.
So I'll go on with some notes, and then jump into the playoffs, maybe after everybody plays once. So, today, the incredible stories of Pacman Jones and Steve Kerr.
- I just paid my taxes online the other day, at which point I was charged $65 dollars for a $150 tax refund. I spent two or three hours doing it, and a handful of people at the IRS will have to do at least an hour or so of filing and paperwork, and you begin to see why we can't crunch the numbers on a national healthcare plan.
- I can't believe how smoothly this went over, but I can think back today, to the first time I heard about a gifted college defensive back named Chad Jones. The FIRST information I ever got about Chad Jones was that he would now be referred to full-time by his nickname, Pacman. And everyone seemed to be okay with this. Look, that kind of name-changing doesn't fly in Brazil.
Two years, four interceptions, four punt return touchdowns, and five, count 'em five arrests later, everyone knows Mr. Chad Jones. Once again, I'm working from paperwork that has not yet been ajudicated in the courts, so imagine that almost every sentence in the next few graphs starts with "Allegedly".
On February 22nd of this year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published its report of the events that took place in a Vegas strip club during NBA All Star Weekend. The story says that Pacman Jones dropped hundreds of $1 bills on the stage at a club called Minxx. Then 40 strippers took to the stage and started picking up the money, which Jones had only wanted to be for "visual effect." Jones became very upset at what was going on, and somewhere in the confusion, a club promoter made off with a bag containing eighty one thousand dollars (81,000) dollars.
On a side note, I'm not sure what kind of calculators they have at the Review-Journal, but I believe in order to leave this amount of money on the stage, Jones would have dropped 81,000 $1 bills. So, perhaps someone is lying, and these were hundreds. Even if it was hundreds, that's 810 of them. Can you imagine? If you threw out the top and bottom five percent, that's probably three or four years of work for the average person.
Now, if you the reader have never "made it rain" at a strip club, let me tell you, the night usually gets pretty interesting.
For example on this night, a woman who came with Mr. Jones proceeded to fight a stripper, bite a bouncer, and then hit him in the head with a champagne bottle. Finally Jones and everyone he came with was cleared from the building. A few minutes later, a man pulled out a handgun and shot the same bouncer, another security guard, and a female bystander. The bystander and bouncer were injured, but they were incredibly lucky, and will be fine.
The security guard, Tom Urbanski, had one bullet damage his spine. He is, as of today, paralyzed from the waist down.
This case is going to go to trial, and Pacman does not look good here. If he's involved to the level that is alleged by the club owner, which of course I have no idea about, but if he is... Well, needless to say, it would be a shocking turn of events if something like this happened, and then an unrelated shooting took place with the same bouncer as a random target. Again, I'm not convicting anyone, but it's looking really, really bad for anyone sitting in that entire section of the club.
Mr. Jones has now been suspended one entire season for conduct detrimental to the National Football League. His case is up for review after 10 games, and he's already said he thinks his appeal will work and he'll be back as soon as possible. I've heard from someone - perhaps more well-informed than Mr. Pacman - that new NFL comissioner Roger Goodell hasn't even considered the Vegas thing in his current suspension.
But here's who I think should also look into suspending Jones: a jury of his peers.
He's been accused of three big-time bad things by this club owner. And again, I know nothing about what went on that night, but I fail to see what this man would stand to gain by lying, and I think the natural inclination of an owner is to side with the celebrity whenever possible, whenever they could stomach it, because it's good for business to be friends with celebs and have them coming to your club.
But the owner claims that 1) the shooter was sitting with Pacman, that 2)Pacman grabbed one of the strippers by the hair and slammed her head against the stage, and 3) that Mr. Jones, and this is the big one, that he allegedly threatened the bouncer's life.
If No. 1 is true, Jones should be called to give a deposition and testify under oath in a criminal trial, and I'm sure he will. If No. 2 is true, Pacman himself should stand trial for assault.
But No. 3? And if we find out that he said anything, at all, to the shooter? I would think, without looking it up, that those charges should look something like 10-to-life.
I'll wait and see how this is resolved before I pass really harsh judgment on this. But if Pacman, or anyone, likes to smoke a little dope on Sunday night, or hang out late, or run with his boys, or even get onstage and "make it rain" with a garbage-bag full of hundreds, I personally think that stuff is hardly my business.
But if he's out with honest-to-God gangster types, and inciting a large incident, and people are getting shot... well when do you stop caring about Mr. Jones' recovery speed?
- I think I remember maybe hearing something about this a while ago, but I would've been very young. But I came across it again recently while I was wasting time at wikipedia.
Steve Kerr can now be found as the funniest color commentator, oh, maybe ever, when he works NBA games on TNT. He's insightful, he knows the game, and he doesn't let Marv Albert get away with anything. Should Barkley ever join Kerr in a broadcast booth, any third person you put on the air with them would soon be laughing so hard that he would take off his microphone and walk away from the scorer's table.
Steve retired as the NBA's best 3-point shooter of all-time, and that record could stand for a pretty long time, so that's something in his pocket. He also won five (5!) NBA championships, three in Chicago, and two in San Antonio. For all five of them Steve was a bit player, but a vital one. He hustled, he kept his stars happy, and he hit almost ALL of his open shots. Players like Steve are usually the difference between winning and not winning. And that seems to be the case, because Steve also reached a Final Four with Arizona. Steve also played 20-plus minutes per game on the 95-96 Chicago team that won 72 out of 82 games in the regular season and then went sweep, 4-1, sweep, then 4-2 in the Finals to win a championsip. Now that's winning.
In 1997, in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, Phil Jackson drew up a play for Michael Jordan with seconds remaining and Chicago down one in Salt Lake City, which was at the time the loudest building in the NBA. MJ, the greatest clutch shooter of all time, looked at Kerr, like he had John Paxson a few years earlier against Phoenix, and said something along the lines of, "Be ready."
Indeed, MJ passed to Kerr, who hit an NBA Finals-winning shot. Paxson did the same thing in '93, and MJ did it again in '98, but other than that, the group of people who can honestly say they hit the one shot that won an NBA championship is pretty exclusive.
A couple nights later, I was watching Leno (forgive me, I was 11 and I didn't know better) and Steve Kerr delivered the following line, unprompted: "We were in the huddle, and Mike turned to me and said, 'You know Steve, I'm not really comfortable taking these kind of shots. ' "
I'm sure there was a second half to this line, but it was killed when this immediately drew an outburst of surprised laughter from everyone, me included. This was an athlete delivering a line and getting a real laugh on Leno. Pretty cool.
Now, the information that I just rediscovered, and that I would like to share with you now, lies in the following stunner of a paragraph, which I have lifted and edited from wikipedia.
Steve is the son of Malcolm Kerr, an American academic who specialized in the Middle East. Kerr was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and spent much of his childhood in Lebanon and other Arab states, such as Egpy where he attended Cairo American College. He attended Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, California. On January 18, 1984, Kerr saw his life drastically change when his father, who was then serving as president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by suspected militant nationalists in Lebanon.
Can you imagine the number of people, of all kinds, who have recognized Steve Kerr somewhere, approached him, and wanted to talk about something very different from basketball? I'm sure it's much smaller than the number who've said something about the shot in Utah, but to know that these two incredibly different lives belong to the same man is just incredible. To think that this is the same guy blogging - and pretty accurately - on Yahoo! Sports beneath a headshot that could be on the side of a bus in a real estate ad?
I'm pretty sure Steve's got a great book in him, and given the incredibly personal nature of the story, I'll be patient. And if he never decides to write it, that's okay, too. But if I ever meet Steve, we'll make fun of athletes for the first two drinks, and then I'll want to ask Steve about everything but basketball.
Been a rough week.
Suddenly my big Imus blog or my big NBA preview didn't seem so big. I don't have a whole lot to say about what happened in Virginia, and I wouldn't expect you to want to hear it. I'm twenty, and this doesn't make much sense to me, and I don't think it will when I'm sixty. You can listen to FBI profilers or cops or whoever, and no one is going to explain what happened there.
I looked at this thing for a while, and it hurt me, and now I'm not looking. If you want information, it's out there, at every major news outlet in print, and some of it's very poignant. And now for my own good I'll turn back to Imus and the NBA and other stupid little things, if for no other reason than because they're not this.
So I'll go on with some notes, and then jump into the playoffs, maybe after everybody plays once. So, today, the incredible stories of Pacman Jones and Steve Kerr.
- I just paid my taxes online the other day, at which point I was charged $65 dollars for a $150 tax refund. I spent two or three hours doing it, and a handful of people at the IRS will have to do at least an hour or so of filing and paperwork, and you begin to see why we can't crunch the numbers on a national healthcare plan.
- I can't believe how smoothly this went over, but I can think back today, to the first time I heard about a gifted college defensive back named Chad Jones. The FIRST information I ever got about Chad Jones was that he would now be referred to full-time by his nickname, Pacman. And everyone seemed to be okay with this. Look, that kind of name-changing doesn't fly in Brazil.
Two years, four interceptions, four punt return touchdowns, and five, count 'em five arrests later, everyone knows Mr. Chad Jones. Once again, I'm working from paperwork that has not yet been ajudicated in the courts, so imagine that almost every sentence in the next few graphs starts with "Allegedly".
On February 22nd of this year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published its report of the events that took place in a Vegas strip club during NBA All Star Weekend. The story says that Pacman Jones dropped hundreds of $1 bills on the stage at a club called Minxx. Then 40 strippers took to the stage and started picking up the money, which Jones had only wanted to be for "visual effect." Jones became very upset at what was going on, and somewhere in the confusion, a club promoter made off with a bag containing eighty one thousand dollars (81,000) dollars.
On a side note, I'm not sure what kind of calculators they have at the Review-Journal, but I believe in order to leave this amount of money on the stage, Jones would have dropped 81,000 $1 bills. So, perhaps someone is lying, and these were hundreds. Even if it was hundreds, that's 810 of them. Can you imagine? If you threw out the top and bottom five percent, that's probably three or four years of work for the average person.
Now, if you the reader have never "made it rain" at a strip club, let me tell you, the night usually gets pretty interesting.
For example on this night, a woman who came with Mr. Jones proceeded to fight a stripper, bite a bouncer, and then hit him in the head with a champagne bottle. Finally Jones and everyone he came with was cleared from the building. A few minutes later, a man pulled out a handgun and shot the same bouncer, another security guard, and a female bystander. The bystander and bouncer were injured, but they were incredibly lucky, and will be fine.
The security guard, Tom Urbanski, had one bullet damage his spine. He is, as of today, paralyzed from the waist down.
This case is going to go to trial, and Pacman does not look good here. If he's involved to the level that is alleged by the club owner, which of course I have no idea about, but if he is... Well, needless to say, it would be a shocking turn of events if something like this happened, and then an unrelated shooting took place with the same bouncer as a random target. Again, I'm not convicting anyone, but it's looking really, really bad for anyone sitting in that entire section of the club.
Mr. Jones has now been suspended one entire season for conduct detrimental to the National Football League. His case is up for review after 10 games, and he's already said he thinks his appeal will work and he'll be back as soon as possible. I've heard from someone - perhaps more well-informed than Mr. Pacman - that new NFL comissioner Roger Goodell hasn't even considered the Vegas thing in his current suspension.
But here's who I think should also look into suspending Jones: a jury of his peers.
He's been accused of three big-time bad things by this club owner. And again, I know nothing about what went on that night, but I fail to see what this man would stand to gain by lying, and I think the natural inclination of an owner is to side with the celebrity whenever possible, whenever they could stomach it, because it's good for business to be friends with celebs and have them coming to your club.
But the owner claims that 1) the shooter was sitting with Pacman, that 2)Pacman grabbed one of the strippers by the hair and slammed her head against the stage, and 3) that Mr. Jones, and this is the big one, that he allegedly threatened the bouncer's life.
If No. 1 is true, Jones should be called to give a deposition and testify under oath in a criminal trial, and I'm sure he will. If No. 2 is true, Pacman himself should stand trial for assault.
But No. 3? And if we find out that he said anything, at all, to the shooter? I would think, without looking it up, that those charges should look something like 10-to-life.
I'll wait and see how this is resolved before I pass really harsh judgment on this. But if Pacman, or anyone, likes to smoke a little dope on Sunday night, or hang out late, or run with his boys, or even get onstage and "make it rain" with a garbage-bag full of hundreds, I personally think that stuff is hardly my business.
But if he's out with honest-to-God gangster types, and inciting a large incident, and people are getting shot... well when do you stop caring about Mr. Jones' recovery speed?
- I think I remember maybe hearing something about this a while ago, but I would've been very young. But I came across it again recently while I was wasting time at wikipedia.
Steve Kerr can now be found as the funniest color commentator, oh, maybe ever, when he works NBA games on TNT. He's insightful, he knows the game, and he doesn't let Marv Albert get away with anything. Should Barkley ever join Kerr in a broadcast booth, any third person you put on the air with them would soon be laughing so hard that he would take off his microphone and walk away from the scorer's table.
Steve retired as the NBA's best 3-point shooter of all-time, and that record could stand for a pretty long time, so that's something in his pocket. He also won five (5!) NBA championships, three in Chicago, and two in San Antonio. For all five of them Steve was a bit player, but a vital one. He hustled, he kept his stars happy, and he hit almost ALL of his open shots. Players like Steve are usually the difference between winning and not winning. And that seems to be the case, because Steve also reached a Final Four with Arizona. Steve also played 20-plus minutes per game on the 95-96 Chicago team that won 72 out of 82 games in the regular season and then went sweep, 4-1, sweep, then 4-2 in the Finals to win a championsip. Now that's winning.
In 1997, in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, Phil Jackson drew up a play for Michael Jordan with seconds remaining and Chicago down one in Salt Lake City, which was at the time the loudest building in the NBA. MJ, the greatest clutch shooter of all time, looked at Kerr, like he had John Paxson a few years earlier against Phoenix, and said something along the lines of, "Be ready."
Indeed, MJ passed to Kerr, who hit an NBA Finals-winning shot. Paxson did the same thing in '93, and MJ did it again in '98, but other than that, the group of people who can honestly say they hit the one shot that won an NBA championship is pretty exclusive.
A couple nights later, I was watching Leno (forgive me, I was 11 and I didn't know better) and Steve Kerr delivered the following line, unprompted: "We were in the huddle, and Mike turned to me and said, 'You know Steve, I'm not really comfortable taking these kind of shots. ' "
I'm sure there was a second half to this line, but it was killed when this immediately drew an outburst of surprised laughter from everyone, me included. This was an athlete delivering a line and getting a real laugh on Leno. Pretty cool.
Now, the information that I just rediscovered, and that I would like to share with you now, lies in the following stunner of a paragraph, which I have lifted and edited from wikipedia.
Steve is the son of Malcolm Kerr, an American academic who specialized in the Middle East. Kerr was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and spent much of his childhood in Lebanon and other Arab states, such as Egpy where he attended Cairo American College. He attended Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, California. On January 18, 1984, Kerr saw his life drastically change when his father, who was then serving as president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by suspected militant nationalists in Lebanon.
Can you imagine the number of people, of all kinds, who have recognized Steve Kerr somewhere, approached him, and wanted to talk about something very different from basketball? I'm sure it's much smaller than the number who've said something about the shot in Utah, but to know that these two incredibly different lives belong to the same man is just incredible. To think that this is the same guy blogging - and pretty accurately - on Yahoo! Sports beneath a headshot that could be on the side of a bus in a real estate ad?
I'm pretty sure Steve's got a great book in him, and given the incredibly personal nature of the story, I'll be patient. And if he never decides to write it, that's okay, too. But if I ever meet Steve, we'll make fun of athletes for the first two drinks, and then I'll want to ask Steve about everything but basketball.
- I realize now that I wanted to write something that might take my own, and maybe your mind, off a tragic event, and I then proceeded to write about assassination, attempted murder, and taxes. I could hardly have screwed this up worse. Let me try and make up for it.
If you go to itunes.com, you can download iTunes, where you can then enter the iTunes store, where you can download all kinds of things (TV and radio shows, songs, movies). Almost all of the TV and radio shows are totally free and available for download at all times. They typically air with a single commercial before the show, and no other commercials throughout the program.
And so I will endorse the Tony Kornheiser radio show, which airs on Washington Post radio. Tony seems to have mastered balancing his massive ego with his neuroses, which is the battle that most sportswriters, bloggers, and, I suppose, adults are waging. The difference is Tony is funny like hardly no one else is. But more importantly, when something big actually happens, like happened a few days ago just hours from Tony's home, I find him to be one of the most reasoned and thoughtful people across almost all forms of media. He's a blowhard when it doesn't matter, and when it really matters, he's at his absolute best. It even seems that, when he's talking or interviewing someone, he sometimes stops and thinks, sometimes to the extent that there's silence on the air.
When bad things happen, most people turn to someone for insight or logic or even just a cheap laugh. And for those of you dumb enough to have read me, I feel I owe it to you to refer you to Tony. Enjoy.
Be back soon, I promise.
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