It's time to blog again. Twitter is fun, but eventually makes you bad and stupid. Facebook is bad and stupid and makes you want to hurt people. Instagram is for people who need the picture menu at McDonalds. Web mags like Slate and Vox got everything so wrong over the last year that if they dare to mention the notion of the fourth estate, they should be blasted to the damn moon. Youtube is for poor narcissists. Cable networks are for rich narcissists. Netflix steals your time. Amazon steals your money. The rest of the internet is porn. And 99% bad porn, at that.
But blogs aren't bad. In fact, blogs are good again. I'm going to blog from now on. Even if nobody reads any of it, it's a million times better than being online in any other form or fashion. You should blog, too.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Friday, October 12, 2012
More and More Often
With Google+ and instant upload, posting pictures to the blog is much easier. And I am going to try to post a lot more of these pretty little goofballs.
CHEESE.
Passed out on the couch with Dad.
ChiMu Hot Wheels.
Luc is huge.
Luc's friend Ruth on our downtown adventure.
Face-painting at the Carmel Art Fair.
She cray.
She may look like the poppet, but she is the puppetmaster.
Wendy's fun.
DC/Richmond road trip.
DC Metro. First subway ride. He's already got cave blindness apparently.
Bunny ears. Never gets old when you're six.
State fair sheep.
Monday, August 06, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Take Your Shot
I think I posted several years ago, but may have taken it down. After my wife saw a citizen with a handgun on their person, this old piece of writing came to mind, for what it's worth.
Pop
Why is anyone surprised by how heavy a handgun is? No one is agog when a knife is sharp or a car fast. A gun should be heavy. A handgun, if used correctly, shoots a bullet so hard that it slams into a person, bores through layers of dermis, fat, muscle, veins, and bone and exits out of the other side of the body. Something that powerful ought to feel heavy, profoundly heavy. It should have the weight of the world bearing down on it.
There is a picture of an ersatz Yosemite Sam on the door, an old prospector with a grey beard and pistols admonishing me that loaded weapons aren’t allowed on the premises. The door is surprisingly flimsy, even with iron security bars, it swings as loosely as a door to a back porch. Throughout the store, the wild-west motif prevails in the roughly-hewn wood floors and cowboy boots of the staff. Bull’s horns and leather holsters hang from the walls.
Every gun shop has the word “gun” in its name. Vagueness and nuance don’t walk through the front doors of gun stores. PopGuns isn’t just called just Pop’s. They never leave a shadow of a doubt as to what is being sold. Protection, fear, violence and pacification. Like steakhouses are to family buffets, so is the gun shop to the department store or sporting goods chain that just happens to sell firearms. You don’t go into a steakhouse for fried chicken, and you don’t go to a gun store for toilet paper. I want to shoot a gun and PopGuns will rent me one and let me fire it at their indoor shooting range, so that’s where I go.
Hours after I’ve left PopGuns, I can still smell the firing range. My fingers still carry the industrial odor of metal polish that keeps the brass bullets shiny and gleaming. But the sulfurous notes of the gunpowder stay with me even more. I catch hints of it when I run my fingers through my hair and when I breathe deeply. A black stain on my index finger smells like a combination of fireworks and cooked meat.
Gasoline and gunpowder are the two most powerful olfactory senses I’ve ever experienced. The scent of a potential mate, the whiff of autumn approaching on the September wind, neither come close to the two fathers of infernos and firearms.
Cut grass comes in third. It’s smell is vegetal and insistent, the nose always knows when a yard has just been mowed. I spent the entire summer of 1989 filling lawn mowers with gasoline and cutting grass. My Walkman was my best friend; the selections were almost exclusively gangster rappers boasting about “spraying AKs” and filling the air with “flurries of buckshot.” I was a suburban white kid, and hardcore rap was an easy way, perhaps the easiest way, to rebel and convince myself that I wasn’t bound for the same anti-gun and violence philosophy that my parents held so deeply. Fifteen-years later, and I am just as turned-off by broad interpretations of the second amendment as my parents and just as unwilling to own one as they were when I was a teenager filling my ears with tales of drive-bys in South Central.
Kenny is the clerk who rents me the Glock. He is three-hundred pounds if he weighs an ounce and carries a stainless-steel Smith and Wesson in a hip holster on his right side. Initially, my intention was to rent a shotgun and see just what a flurry of buckshot felt like, but PopGuns doesn’t rent shotguns, only handguns and small caliber rifles. I ask for the feature player in numerous other seminal gangster rap songs, a nine millimeter. Kenny shows me two models, and according to him, “The Glock is more fun.”
A rectangular barrel approximately 7 inches long and a contoured hand grip comprise the body of the Glock. It uses an ammunition clip that holds seventeen bullets. There is no other way to describe the color: gunmetal black.
I don’t mention to Kenny that this is all part of an experiment, an immersion exercise, for an essay. At no point do I say, “And by the way, I’ve never in my life fired anything more powerful than a bb gun, one that couldn’t break the skin from an inch away.” I want the experience to be as unobserved as possible, no hand-holding except in matters of physical safety. Not to mention that the shaggy-haired white kid with earrings, a sarcastic thrift-store t-shirt, and a sudden interest in handguns doesn't inspire confidence in anyone anymore after Littleton and Paducah.
As I wait in line, a man in front of me finishes buying his new weapon and enters the firing range. While the man is signing his last of three receipts, Kenny plays his stereotype to a tee when he makes a rasping observation about how much information the store must collect before they can sell you a gun. They joke about DNA swabs, thumbprint scans, and barcode tattoos. I was just waiting for the words, “cold, dead hands.”
The amount of information required to simply rent a gun for the afternoon, rather than purchase it, is hardly cumbersome: a driver’s license. That’s it, and you’re shooting. I receive the Glock and my boxes of range ammo. The gun is stored in a plastic case that might be mistaken for a cordless drill or a set of hair-clippers. I explain that I’ve never loaded this type of weapon, and Kenny shows me how to slip the bullet into the magazine, under two little metal ridges.
“Don’t press the bullet into these, slide it under them.”
“Why? Are they sharp enough to cause it to fire?”
“It’s happened before,” Kenny tells me. “Not here, but I’ve heard tell.”
When you enter the shooting range, you must be wearing eye and ear protection. PopGuns provides large noise-dampening headsets for hearing protection. At any other time or place, I might spend a few minutes worrying about how frequently the establishment sanitizes the communal head gear, but the three-pound weight in my hand commands my attention. My vise-grip on the carrying case is almost comical. Almost.
Loading the magazine reminds me of the coin holsters that parking lot attendants and ball-park vendors wear. Slip the bullet into the spring-loaded slot then press down with the next bullet until the entire clip is full. The quick and rehearsed directions Kenny gave me run-through my head, tripping on each on other, falling in and out of sequential order, but I think I’ve got it.
“Line up the magazine in the handle of the weapon and apply pressure with the heel of your hand until it clicks. When you are in the shooting bay, point the weapon down-range at all times, holding it in your dominant hand. Keep your finger away from the trigger. Pull back on the top cover with your left, following through until the cover slips from your grasp and catapults forward to cover the barrel. No part of the barrel should be exposed if you’ve loaded it properly. Leave your finger off of the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”
I set my feet as if I’m about to run a race. Even though Kenny never mentioned the recoil, I know enough about physics not to stand flatfooted.
When you rent a gun, you also choose a target. Large pieces of printed paper, some with detailed pictures on them, they are relatively inexpensive. One dollar gets you the standard nebulous human shapes that cops use for target practice in every police procedural on TV. For two dollars you can buy a cartoon Mexican-Jewish guy holding a gun to a child’s head, or a ski-masked assailant with gloved hands holding a knife to a blonde woman’s throat. The mostly prominently displayed target is a Hamas gunman draped in a check-patterned keffiyah clutching an assault rifle. My delicate sensibilities would only allow me to buy the generic, fifty-cent circle. Apparently, when it comes to shooting, I’m the date who doesn’t eat shrimp because they still look too much like an animal.
I hold the large target up to clip it into its motorized carriage and I notice that the largest outside ring, where the point values are the lowest, is almost exactly as wide as my chest. The points get higher as you move inwards towards the center. The fifty point bulls-eye is the distance across the average human head. Platonic shapes, I suppose. I hit the switch and the paper wafts in the air, speeding backwards until it stops twenty-five yards from my gun.
The first shot is stunning in its lack of fanfare. No visible muzzle flash, no ringing ricochet and not even a flutter from the target. With my ears covered, the gunshot sounds like nothing more than a modest hand clap. It takes a moment to even register that anything has happened. The gun didn’t buck backwards into my cheek or send me flying backwards into the bulletproof glass partition that leads back into the storeroom. My hands were visibly trembling as I prepared to squeeze the trigger, but the shot is still within two inches of dead center.
As I shake off the relative banality of the first shot and prepare to take the second, I realize I hadn’t warned the other two men using the range that I would be breaking the silence. I invent some kind of courtesy in my head, as if I’m on a golf course and before I fire the next round I say, “Firing.”
I call out just loud enough that the men two bays down can hear me, but not so loud that I actually sound like I know what I’m doing.
I try not to come any conclusions as I burn through the rest of the ammo. Three and four shots at a time, I think about how easy it is to get a hold of a gun. My accuracy goes down the more rapidly I take the shots in succession, but if I take less than five shots I can place them all “center mass,” as shooting experts call it. If I were doing this for protection, each one of the first five bullets I fired would go thudding in to an attacker’s chest and upper body, as long as they were twenty-five yards away.
The absurd simplicity of the permit application process comes rushing to mind as I squeeze off more rounds. To keep a handgun in your home you need a permit. It takes three things to get that personal protection permit: A clean felony record, a thirty dollar money-order, and the strength of will to stand in line at the city-county offices in the middle of the day. You can imagine which of these three tasks is the most difficult.
I wanted the process to be more Byzantine, more confused, reminding me that my constitutional rights were being trampled upon, as the NRA tells me. But there was no such romance. Just a few inches of red tape and I can buy a gun.
It’s in the shooting where the drama is found, the sturm und drang, but it’s all in my head. Over the afternoon, I use up two boxes of target ammunition. One hundred bullets and I don’t miss the paper target even once. Not when my legs start aching from the shooter’s stance. Not even as my forearms begin to tremble with fatigue. The pieces of lead just keep finding their home.
I kick the spent cartiridges that have collected around me forward, into the range area. The black floor of the firing range is littered with thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of shell casings. Kenny tells me that they clean up the range once a week.
The Glock is back in its padded case, the warm cartridge nestled right next to it. I hand it back to Kenny and settle my bill. He doesn’t chit chat with me. Doesn’t joke about Chuck Heston, or any presidential candidates. I don’t get asked to join any range clubs, nor does he give me a frequent shooters card, buy ten boxes and the next box is free, and I am glad. This is not a fraternity I want to join.
As I walk out, I look at the hunting rifles on the wall, bearing names like Remington and Winchester. They don’t threaten me. Maybe Westerns have inured me to these guns, or maybe hunting just seems to make some kind of sense, somewhere in ancient recesses of my hunter/gatherer brain. No, it’s the one-hundred and ninety-nine dollar pistol in the case by the door that gets me, the least expensive gun in the place pops up just before you leave. If the Glocks and Rugers and Smith and Wessons were too steep for your wallet, then here’s the gun for you. Don’t leave empty handed.
I walk past the old prospector and his cartoon six-guns. He watches me as I slump into my car and lay my bullet-riddled target on the passenger seat, the smell of cordite still clinging to the air around me.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
What Every 30-Something In the World Wrote About This Week and I Don't Give A...
I wanted to write a short essay that encompassed the career and personal dynamic of Adam Yauch as I understood and experienced it. I got about halfway through, somewhere between Paul's Boutique and Check Your Head and then I read the iTunes blurb about MCA:
"As a co-founding member of Beastie Boys, Brooklynite Adam Yauch (a.k.a MCA) was responsible for th the first rap album to reach No. 1 on the pop charts (1986's Licensed to Ill) and helped propel the Beasties into household names--ultimately earning them a place in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. MCA embodied the band's evolution. He went from dangerous and debaucherous to a socially conscious beacon who was instrumental in organizing the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. The rapper was renowned for a smooth flow and a gravelly dleivery, yet his talents expanded to the bass guitar and beyond the stage. He also directed videos (as goofy alter-ego Nathaniel Hornblower) and full-length features as part of his film company, Oscilloscope Laboratories. It was Yauch's deft ability to translate his passion into music that resonated so deeply with his fans. "If you can feel what I'm feeling," he once rapped, "then it's a musical masterpiece."
Pretty tidy.
It was going to take me a few thousand words to do what Apple's editors did in about one hundred and fifty. The end quote was the title for my essay. But it strikes me that the line that follows is perhaps the more revealing line when it comes to MCA. At the opening of "Pass the Mic," Yauch opens with the "masterpiece" line, an invitation to all the Beastie Boys acolytes to be as hyperbolic as they wanna be. To me and many others, Check Your Head was a musical masterpiece. One could argue the first three Beastie Boys records influenced music and culture more than any other three consecutive recordings since Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper's. I might be one who would do so.
But the second line of "Pass the Mic" goes like this, "Hear what I'm dealing with, and that's cool at least."
And there's the essence of who Yauch became. Hip-Hop pioneer, filmmaker, Buddhist, political-activist, generally a person who was inclusive of everything he experienced, and in the end an extremely positive force on the world at large. And even if you didn't think what he was doing was a musical masterpiece, even if you were just listening to the Beastie Boys because they were fun, or because the rest of your friends were and you were relatively ambivalent, that was fine. That was cool.
"As a co-founding member of Beastie Boys, Brooklynite Adam Yauch (a.k.a MCA) was responsible for th the first rap album to reach No. 1 on the pop charts (1986's Licensed to Ill) and helped propel the Beasties into household names--ultimately earning them a place in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. MCA embodied the band's evolution. He went from dangerous and debaucherous to a socially conscious beacon who was instrumental in organizing the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. The rapper was renowned for a smooth flow and a gravelly dleivery, yet his talents expanded to the bass guitar and beyond the stage. He also directed videos (as goofy alter-ego Nathaniel Hornblower) and full-length features as part of his film company, Oscilloscope Laboratories. It was Yauch's deft ability to translate his passion into music that resonated so deeply with his fans. "If you can feel what I'm feeling," he once rapped, "then it's a musical masterpiece."
Pretty tidy.
It was going to take me a few thousand words to do what Apple's editors did in about one hundred and fifty. The end quote was the title for my essay. But it strikes me that the line that follows is perhaps the more revealing line when it comes to MCA. At the opening of "Pass the Mic," Yauch opens with the "masterpiece" line, an invitation to all the Beastie Boys acolytes to be as hyperbolic as they wanna be. To me and many others, Check Your Head was a musical masterpiece. One could argue the first three Beastie Boys records influenced music and culture more than any other three consecutive recordings since Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper's. I might be one who would do so.
But the second line of "Pass the Mic" goes like this, "Hear what I'm dealing with, and that's cool at least."
And there's the essence of who Yauch became. Hip-Hop pioneer, filmmaker, Buddhist, political-activist, generally a person who was inclusive of everything he experienced, and in the end an extremely positive force on the world at large. And even if you didn't think what he was doing was a musical masterpiece, even if you were just listening to the Beastie Boys because they were fun, or because the rest of your friends were and you were relatively ambivalent, that was fine. That was cool.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Golf
Tournament in South called 'The Masters'.
White guy wearing all white with a funny hat, named Bubba.
Sh!t just got real.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Greatest Rapper of All-Time Died on March 9th...
This ain't safe for work or for little pitchers with big ears, but it is the best example of the incipient street genius I've ever seen.
Nihilism in young black men remains a subject fraught with pitfalls, made heavy by centuries of oppression, degradation, and a back-breaking unwillingness on the part of society at-large to acknowledge that minorities encounter the same psychological stresses as the white majority.
But I'll be damned if it didn't lead to the five greatest hip-hop rap records of all-time.
Oh...you want a list? I guess that's fine
5. Ice Cube - Amerikkka's Most Wanted - Mr. Jackson clearly had goals he wanted to achieve that far super-ceded any self-destructive tendencies, but he capture the psychology behind urban hopelessness and racial rage better than anyone since...well...
4. Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded - I've addressed this before. "South Bronx," "The Bridge is Over," "9mm Goes Bang." Changed the whole game. The whole goddamned game.
3. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-tang (36 Chambers) - Nine guys who spent their formative years watching Kung-Fu flicks on TV, stuck in the absolutely shittiest of the 5 boroughs. Got caught up in the cliched pitfalls of drugs and gangs. Ripped a hole in the sky and sprayed a giant W spelled in bullet-holes into the atmosphere. Raekwon, Ghostface, Method Man, The RZA, The GZA, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killah, Old Dirty Bastard? With apologies to B. Sigel and Bleek but...Who the fuck want what?
2. Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die - Yeah, I faded ya'll a little bit. Calling Biggie the greatest, and then his best record isn't the best record? That's on me. But here's the deal. Ready to Die was spectacular. Black genius. Sick production and verses so perfectly crafted, Ezra Pound called Big, "Il miglior fabbro." (Not an actual fact.)
The record is almost perfect. The only problem is that a dude named Nasir Jones made...
1. Nas - Illmatic - Without spending 2000 words talking about it, Illmatic made poetry out of the worst elements of urban living. People describe rap as poetry all the time, and they are usually very wrong. Most rap is either a protracted Nantucket limerick, or it is little more than a sideline chant with a heavy downbeat.
Illmatic has maybe two words out of place, MAYBE two. Everything works thematically. Nas weaves in glorious braggadocio without devolving into simplistic boasts. Some might claim Nas is slumming, or glorifying the worst parts of his experience. And I say any writer who doesn't exploit where they've been and what they've seen is fool or a fraud. Our experience is all we have. And we can either keep it in a bushel basket, or, if we are smart enough, we can find a way to make money from it. But only the rare few can simultaneously scratch dollars out of their life story and make a genuine work of art.
Nihilism in young black men remains a subject fraught with pitfalls, made heavy by centuries of oppression, degradation, and a back-breaking unwillingness on the part of society at-large to acknowledge that minorities encounter the same psychological stresses as the white majority.
But I'll be damned if it didn't lead to the five greatest hip-hop rap records of all-time.
Oh...you want a list? I guess that's fine
5. Ice Cube - Amerikkka's Most Wanted - Mr. Jackson clearly had goals he wanted to achieve that far super-ceded any self-destructive tendencies, but he capture the psychology behind urban hopelessness and racial rage better than anyone since...well...
4. Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded - I've addressed this before. "South Bronx," "The Bridge is Over," "9mm Goes Bang." Changed the whole game. The whole goddamned game.
3. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-tang (36 Chambers) - Nine guys who spent their formative years watching Kung-Fu flicks on TV, stuck in the absolutely shittiest of the 5 boroughs. Got caught up in the cliched pitfalls of drugs and gangs. Ripped a hole in the sky and sprayed a giant W spelled in bullet-holes into the atmosphere. Raekwon, Ghostface, Method Man, The RZA, The GZA, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killah, Old Dirty Bastard? With apologies to B. Sigel and Bleek but...Who the fuck want what?
2. Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die - Yeah, I faded ya'll a little bit. Calling Biggie the greatest, and then his best record isn't the best record? That's on me. But here's the deal. Ready to Die was spectacular. Black genius. Sick production and verses so perfectly crafted, Ezra Pound called Big, "Il miglior fabbro." (Not an actual fact.)
The record is almost perfect. The only problem is that a dude named Nasir Jones made...
1. Nas - Illmatic - Without spending 2000 words talking about it, Illmatic made poetry out of the worst elements of urban living. People describe rap as poetry all the time, and they are usually very wrong. Most rap is either a protracted Nantucket limerick, or it is little more than a sideline chant with a heavy downbeat.
Illmatic has maybe two words out of place, MAYBE two. Everything works thematically. Nas weaves in glorious braggadocio without devolving into simplistic boasts. Some might claim Nas is slumming, or glorifying the worst parts of his experience. And I say any writer who doesn't exploit where they've been and what they've seen is fool or a fraud. Our experience is all we have. And we can either keep it in a bushel basket, or, if we are smart enough, we can find a way to make money from it. But only the rare few can simultaneously scratch dollars out of their life story and make a genuine work of art.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, September 19, 2011
TUYWPI: GOAT
Who is the Greatest of All Time?
Fed has 16 slams and has played all three surfaces as well as any single player ever. If it weren't for Rafa, Roger would have won three or four more French Opens. Ahhh yes, Rafa. Who owns a .66 win percentage over Roger. And only six fewer slams. Is he the best? He still has four or five years to get more major trophies. And now where do we place Djoker?
Borg quit when he was twenty-four. Could've won a handful more, and he almost never played Australia. Pete dominated grass like no one else, when the courts were faster. And on hardcourts, when he was on, was simply electric. He hit the ball with more sheer force than anyone (Though Rafa's buggy whip is a sight to behold).
Laver won all four in a year. TWICE. And he spent a good chunk of his prime playing professional events which, at the time, did not include the Slam events. How many more could he have won? Four? Six? TEN? A MILLION??????!!?!?!?
How about Andre? Had to play Pete all the time and walked onto the court with the weight of the damn world on his shoulders. Still won eight Slams. And is the last player to revolutionize the game with his approach to returning. Wilander won 7 slams, made 4 more finals, and played simultaneous with Lendl, Edberg, Becker, McEnroe and Connors. He's not number one but is he better than Rafa? Oh, did I say Lendl? He won eight slams and made the finals in NINETEEN! Runner-up eleven times!!! Never got a Wimby plate, but was like clockwork to make the semis for almost the entire 1980's. And Edberg. For God's sake the guy was spectacular for nearly a decade, won six slams, beat Becker on grass twice, and beat Sampras in a night final in New York. How does he rate? What about pre-Slam era? Ken Rosewall was ranked in the top-20 for twenty-five consecutive years!
All of these considerations and variables would take a great deal of time to formulate into some kind of coherent calculus. So I'll simply offer my relatively amateurish assessment of overall greatness in a boring list. At least it will mean something to me.
1. Roger Federer
2. Pete Sampras
3. Rafael Nadal
4. Bjorn Borg
5. Rod Laver
6. Ivan Lendl
7. John McEnroe
8. Andre Agassi
9. Mats Wilander
10. Jimmy Connors
We'll go further 11-20:
Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Djokovic, Ashe, Vilas, Newcombe, Nastase Pre-Slam: Emerson Budge, Tilden, Rosewall.
Fed has 16 slams and has played all three surfaces as well as any single player ever. If it weren't for Rafa, Roger would have won three or four more French Opens. Ahhh yes, Rafa. Who owns a .66 win percentage over Roger. And only six fewer slams. Is he the best? He still has four or five years to get more major trophies. And now where do we place Djoker?
Borg quit when he was twenty-four. Could've won a handful more, and he almost never played Australia. Pete dominated grass like no one else, when the courts were faster. And on hardcourts, when he was on, was simply electric. He hit the ball with more sheer force than anyone (Though Rafa's buggy whip is a sight to behold).
Laver won all four in a year. TWICE. And he spent a good chunk of his prime playing professional events which, at the time, did not include the Slam events. How many more could he have won? Four? Six? TEN? A MILLION??????!!?!?!?
How about Andre? Had to play Pete all the time and walked onto the court with the weight of the damn world on his shoulders. Still won eight Slams. And is the last player to revolutionize the game with his approach to returning. Wilander won 7 slams, made 4 more finals, and played simultaneous with Lendl, Edberg, Becker, McEnroe and Connors. He's not number one but is he better than Rafa? Oh, did I say Lendl? He won eight slams and made the finals in NINETEEN! Runner-up eleven times!!! Never got a Wimby plate, but was like clockwork to make the semis for almost the entire 1980's. And Edberg. For God's sake the guy was spectacular for nearly a decade, won six slams, beat Becker on grass twice, and beat Sampras in a night final in New York. How does he rate? What about pre-Slam era? Ken Rosewall was ranked in the top-20 for twenty-five consecutive years!
All of these considerations and variables would take a great deal of time to formulate into some kind of coherent calculus. So I'll simply offer my relatively amateurish assessment of overall greatness in a boring list. At least it will mean something to me.
1. Roger Federer
2. Pete Sampras
3. Rafael Nadal
4. Bjorn Borg
5. Rod Laver
6. Ivan Lendl
7. John McEnroe
8. Andre Agassi
9. Mats Wilander
10. Jimmy Connors
We'll go further 11-20:
Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Djokovic, Ashe, Vilas, Newcombe, Nastase Pre-Slam: Emerson Budge, Tilden, Rosewall.
TUYWPI: Joker is King
I didn't update after the Semis or Finals of the US Open. Probably because I was in shock after Fed lost. I was so sure he was going to roll to his seventeenth slam. And then Nole did this:
Uncanny. He won. Beat Federer in five. Went on to whoop Rafa. Even as his back was seizing up. He ate Nadal's serve alive. He put angles on the ball that I've never seen. He recorded arguably the best season since Laver won all four. Two consecutive years with players winning three of four.
Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, all playing at the same time. It makes me wonder what my top ten all-time would look like?
Uncanny. He won. Beat Federer in five. Went on to whoop Rafa. Even as his back was seizing up. He ate Nadal's serve alive. He put angles on the ball that I've never seen. He recorded arguably the best season since Laver won all four. Two consecutive years with players winning three of four.
Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, all playing at the same time. It makes me wonder what my top ten all-time would look like?
Friday, September 09, 2011
TUYWPI: Gotta get down on Friday
TUYWPI: Roddick out of the Open after Rafa absolutely dismantled him. Nadal has obviously spent the last 8 weeks working on returning serves with the ball machine set at 150 MPH. I think when everyone started calling Djoker the best returner in the game after Wimbledon, Rafa took it personally.
While I'm sad that Andy is out, I still smile whenever I watch that brash son of a gun. Even if he never makes another final, I will always cherish the 2009 Wimbledon. The finals between he and Federer was the greatest match I've ever seen. And I watched all of Nadal/Federer 2008. And Federer/Nadal 2007. And Becker/Edberg 1990, which had more brute strength on display than any tennis match before or after. I've seen McEnroe beat Borg on replays several times. I vividly recall staying up to watch Jimmy Connors at the US Open against Agassi, then seeing him against Krickstien. I watched Sampras beat Rafter and then climb into the stands and I cried a little bit. Maybe a lot.
But I don't care what Jon Wertheim says, Roddick v. Roger III was the greatest match ever. Watch Roddick afterwards, weeping, spent, and I defy you not to love the guy. Watch Roger walk through the gates of history. 15 Slams. Listen to Andy afterwards, ""Sorry Pete, I tried to hold him off." Roddick wanted to be great, he had the talent, and eventually found the drive. But he ran into two of the four greatest players of all-time. Sometimes luck trumps everything. Sometimes it's just about when you were born. Hats off to the kid who never took his hat off.
Ladies? Can't forget the ladies! Serena is still a gosh-darned runaway train. But Wozniacki looked TOUGH. Outlasted and out hit Schiavone and then proverbially punched Petkovic in the mouth. The match was over before Petkovic was warmed up. I was wrong, Wozzy, and I apologize. BIG Tennis day tomorrow.
(Some football teams will play on Sunday.)
While I'm sad that Andy is out, I still smile whenever I watch that brash son of a gun. Even if he never makes another final, I will always cherish the 2009 Wimbledon. The finals between he and Federer was the greatest match I've ever seen. And I watched all of Nadal/Federer 2008. And Federer/Nadal 2007. And Becker/Edberg 1990, which had more brute strength on display than any tennis match before or after. I've seen McEnroe beat Borg on replays several times. I vividly recall staying up to watch Jimmy Connors at the US Open against Agassi, then seeing him against Krickstien. I watched Sampras beat Rafter and then climb into the stands and I cried a little bit. Maybe a lot.
But I don't care what Jon Wertheim says, Roddick v. Roger III was the greatest match ever. Watch Roddick afterwards, weeping, spent, and I defy you not to love the guy. Watch Roger walk through the gates of history. 15 Slams. Listen to Andy afterwards, ""Sorry Pete, I tried to hold him off." Roddick wanted to be great, he had the talent, and eventually found the drive. But he ran into two of the four greatest players of all-time. Sometimes luck trumps everything. Sometimes it's just about when you were born. Hats off to the kid who never took his hat off.
Ladies? Can't forget the ladies! Serena is still a gosh-darned runaway train. But Wozniacki looked TOUGH. Outlasted and out hit Schiavone and then proverbially punched Petkovic in the mouth. The match was over before Petkovic was warmed up. I was wrong, Wozzy, and I apologize. BIG Tennis day tomorrow.
(Some football teams will play on Sunday.)
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
TUYWPI: Water, water everywhere...
I'll let Rafa tell you about how the players felt going out to play on a damp hardcourt for twenty minutes:
If you've ever gone out and tried to hit in the rain and the wet, it's umpleasant. The ball gets soggy. The court smells funny and your racquet feels like a greased doorknob. If you've ever actually tried to play when the court was not properly dry, it gets frightening fast. Taking off from a stop when the court is damp feels like you could faceplant at any moment. A split-step on wet skimcoat is so scary that it makes my groin hurt just thinking about it.
Now imagine you're one of the most gifted athletes on the planet; your body is a finely tuned machine. Your muscles coil and flex and stretch within an inch of breaking every time you play. You're used to playing on lots of different surfaces that make varying demands on your body, but once adjusted to the surface you can move confidently on clay, grass, carpet, empty Serbian swimming pools. Wherever there is a net.
But now, after playing the last eight weeks on dry hard courts, the USTA and U.S. Open organizers tell you to take the court, even though it is still raining and the courts were only dried with blowers and squeegees for forty-five minutes. Personally, I would freak the F out. But then, I'm a pretty big wuss. These guys, who are the most supremely confident tennis players in the world, did not feel safe. And they were still asked to play.
Imagine what if Rafa were to blow out his knee on wet concrete? What if Roddick were to tweak his, heretofore, iron-clad shoulder because on his serve, his left foot didn't plant correctly? WHAT IF SOMEBODY DIED? Okay, so maybe that couldn't happen. But still, adding extra physical jeopardy to a sport where careers are notoriously short? Not cool. Not cool at all.
Don't do this, USTA. Don't do this ever again.
Rafa down 0-3 to Gilles Muller.
Murray and Young on serve 1-2.
Roddick up a break on Ferrer 2-1, serving.
Fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow.
If you've ever gone out and tried to hit in the rain and the wet, it's umpleasant. The ball gets soggy. The court smells funny and your racquet feels like a greased doorknob. If you've ever actually tried to play when the court was not properly dry, it gets frightening fast. Taking off from a stop when the court is damp feels like you could faceplant at any moment. A split-step on wet skimcoat is so scary that it makes my groin hurt just thinking about it.
Now imagine you're one of the most gifted athletes on the planet; your body is a finely tuned machine. Your muscles coil and flex and stretch within an inch of breaking every time you play. You're used to playing on lots of different surfaces that make varying demands on your body, but once adjusted to the surface you can move confidently on clay, grass, carpet, empty Serbian swimming pools. Wherever there is a net.
But now, after playing the last eight weeks on dry hard courts, the USTA and U.S. Open organizers tell you to take the court, even though it is still raining and the courts were only dried with blowers and squeegees for forty-five minutes. Personally, I would freak the F out. But then, I'm a pretty big wuss. These guys, who are the most supremely confident tennis players in the world, did not feel safe. And they were still asked to play.
Imagine what if Rafa were to blow out his knee on wet concrete? What if Roddick were to tweak his, heretofore, iron-clad shoulder because on his serve, his left foot didn't plant correctly? WHAT IF SOMEBODY DIED? Okay, so maybe that couldn't happen. But still, adding extra physical jeopardy to a sport where careers are notoriously short? Not cool. Not cool at all.
Don't do this, USTA. Don't do this ever again.
Rafa down 0-3 to Gilles Muller.
Murray and Young on serve 1-2.
Roddick up a break on Ferrer 2-1, serving.
Fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
TUYWPI: Girls, Women, and Richard Williams
I had grand ideas for this post. To get to the essence of the argument, which is Serena and Venus could have been even greater, statistically if Richard Williams had been even more obstinate about holding them out of full-time professional schedules, I had to pour over the last four decades of women's results. The statistics and history threatened to overwhelm. So here is a very shoddy first draft, one which I won't revisit or revise any time soon. Even in tennis, life is a marathon, not a sprint.
Watching Flavia Penetta make a run to the Quarterfinals at the 2011 US Open, made me think of Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Stefi Graf, Chris Evert, Hana Mandlikova, Tracey Austin, Andrea Jaeger, Kim Clijsters, Lindsay Davenport, Martina Navratilova, and Venus and Serena. Which inevitably led to that sly fox, Richard Williams, who almost fathered the greatest women's tennis player of all-time.
Flavia is twenty-nine years-old, which, just ten years ago, was ancient in tennis years. But things have obviously changed, since the best player in the women's draw this year is about to turn thirty (Happy almost Birthday Serena!). Penetta was highly rated as a junior and was projected to be a likely Grand-Slam winner after she turned pro in 2000, at the age of 18. She has not cashed in on those projections, but she has defeated some entrenched tennis expectations. In the past four seasons, Penetta has stayed relevant, more so even, despite the fact that she's pushing thirty. She's more well-rounded, fitter, stronger and match tough that when she was young prospect. And she's not the only woman to flourish as she has gotten older. Her countrywoman Francesca Schiavone has done the same, becoming a Grand-Slam winner after the age of 28. Li Na won the French, her first, at 29.
But for a number of reasons, my generation grew up thinking that tennis players, women and men, but women in particular, became primed for the professional ranks at age 15 and were spent by the age of 22. I didn't include Agassi, Becker, and Sampras in the list above, but they too were huge influences on this perception that youth was the main thing served on the tennis court.
A quick look at tennis history, though a relatively small sample in terms of total years, shows that the earlier one tries to play with the big girls, the true "women" of the WTA, the greater the pitfalls and the greater the likelihood that your career will be shorter than Amanda Coezer (she's very small).
Hana Mandlikova, while not the first or only girl to enter the women's ranks was one of the first to win a grand slam after turning pro before she was able to drive. She retired at 28 and hadn't been a factor in majors since she was 25. Both Martina N. and Chrissy turned pro after their 18th birthday. And while they both played thousands of hours of competitive tennis before becoming officially "professional," neither of them put the "Pro" mantle on their shoulders before the age of majority. Martina and Chrissy won majors into their 30's. Martina won doubles Slams as a 40 year-old. Margaret Court was a pro at 18, Billie Jean waited until she was 24. Mandlikova, Austin, Jaeger, and Graf were the big names that began the trend towards younger and younger professional status. Jaeger went pro at 14 and was done with a shoulder injury at age 19. Graf went pro at age 13, though Steffi's dad had the benefit of Jaeger's example, and held Steffi back in terms of number of tournaments she played in before age 18. She went on to win more Slams than any woman, and perhaps could have won more, retiring the same year she won her final French Open. She was 30 at the time. Maybe a few more years just being an amateur lets Steffi have two or three more years winning Slams.
Jennifer Capriati serves as perhaps the final example that there is an invisible threshold between childhood and womenhood in professional tennis. A threshold that does not prevent girls from finding flashes of success in the ranks of women, but one that stops them cold from achieving a full and consistent career as a tennis playing woman. Capriati went pro at thirteen and won a Gold medal a year later. Not long after that, she was running away from home, snorting rails of speed in skeevy motels with guys who aren't welcome in most trailer parks. The fall comes quickly in tennis and Capriati, like Agassi, Jaeger and Hingis to follow, crashed hard. Amazingly, Jennifer was able to recover and mature and become a three time Slam winner. Jaeger never made a comeback, though Hingis did make a marginal return and Agassi found great success in his later years. He fought through back pain that would've crippled most of us. But the question is whether all of these players would've been better off if they'd been held back a little bit, if they'd been given room to be kids until they were chomping at the bit to play with the grown-ups? What if they didn't turn pro until they were unquestionably ready?
Richard Williams in what was, at the time, a very defiant stance held back Venus from Grand Slams until she was 17. Though she had turned pro as a 14 year-old, which was very much the trend at the time, he kept her tournament schedule severely limited. He wanted her to focus on school and training, and wanted to avoid some of the racial conflicts and controversy that were bound to arise until she was more mature.
Venus was immediately a force when she began competing in majors, making it to the finals of the US Open in her first time playing in the tournament. She lost to Hingis, but was clearly the rising star everyone had anticipated.
Serena began playing majors at an even younger age than Venus, even though Richard had held back Serena and limited her tournaments, also.
The USTA and numerous critics and analysts were sure that the girls needed to be competing at the highest level as soon as they could carry the big bags. Richard Williams was criticized for not have the girls play a full junior season of tournaments, of which there are nearly as many as there are Pro events. He wanted them to blossom into their careers.
In the end, he was both right and wrong. The girls did need time. Though they were physically and mentally prepared to compete at the age of 15, they were not yet ready for the career of tennis. Capriati was proof that physical capability does not mean that one should move faster than the psyche can process. But the statistics and the historical arcs of Venus and Serena's careers show us that Richard should have bucked the system for one more year and allowed the girls to become women before they took the court at Roland-Garros and the All-England Club. Both Serena and Venus, even with all their hardware, have still battled injury and apathy. They held the Doubles Grand Slam, all four trophys in one year. Serena won the Consecu-Slam. But Venus had nearly three years in her prime that were sapped by injury. Serena went on walkabout for a few seasons after 2003 and she's been injured often and has frequently showed evidence of suspect fitness training.
And yet, they are still playing. Venus has just been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that has affected her stamina and overall wellness, but she vows she'll try to return. Serena has been a pro for twelve seasons, but shows no signs that she can't play for five more years. If both of them had put off their professional status for another year, they might not have had those lulls, those nagging injuries that seem to happen to girls who have tried to beat women.
Serena, the most intimidating and all around talented player since Graf, number six on the all-time Grand Slam list, could have been even better. She might have won twenty majors, maybe more. One year more waiting to play with the big babes, as Mary Carillo calls them, and she might have been the greatest.
Watching Flavia Penetta make a run to the Quarterfinals at the 2011 US Open, made me think of Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Stefi Graf, Chris Evert, Hana Mandlikova, Tracey Austin, Andrea Jaeger, Kim Clijsters, Lindsay Davenport, Martina Navratilova, and Venus and Serena. Which inevitably led to that sly fox, Richard Williams, who almost fathered the greatest women's tennis player of all-time.
Flavia is twenty-nine years-old, which, just ten years ago, was ancient in tennis years. But things have obviously changed, since the best player in the women's draw this year is about to turn thirty (Happy almost Birthday Serena!). Penetta was highly rated as a junior and was projected to be a likely Grand-Slam winner after she turned pro in 2000, at the age of 18. She has not cashed in on those projections, but she has defeated some entrenched tennis expectations. In the past four seasons, Penetta has stayed relevant, more so even, despite the fact that she's pushing thirty. She's more well-rounded, fitter, stronger and match tough that when she was young prospect. And she's not the only woman to flourish as she has gotten older. Her countrywoman Francesca Schiavone has done the same, becoming a Grand-Slam winner after the age of 28. Li Na won the French, her first, at 29.
But for a number of reasons, my generation grew up thinking that tennis players, women and men, but women in particular, became primed for the professional ranks at age 15 and were spent by the age of 22. I didn't include Agassi, Becker, and Sampras in the list above, but they too were huge influences on this perception that youth was the main thing served on the tennis court.
A quick look at tennis history, though a relatively small sample in terms of total years, shows that the earlier one tries to play with the big girls, the true "women" of the WTA, the greater the pitfalls and the greater the likelihood that your career will be shorter than Amanda Coezer (she's very small).
Hana Mandlikova, while not the first or only girl to enter the women's ranks was one of the first to win a grand slam after turning pro before she was able to drive. She retired at 28 and hadn't been a factor in majors since she was 25. Both Martina N. and Chrissy turned pro after their 18th birthday. And while they both played thousands of hours of competitive tennis before becoming officially "professional," neither of them put the "Pro" mantle on their shoulders before the age of majority. Martina and Chrissy won majors into their 30's. Martina won doubles Slams as a 40 year-old. Margaret Court was a pro at 18, Billie Jean waited until she was 24. Mandlikova, Austin, Jaeger, and Graf were the big names that began the trend towards younger and younger professional status. Jaeger went pro at 14 and was done with a shoulder injury at age 19. Graf went pro at age 13, though Steffi's dad had the benefit of Jaeger's example, and held Steffi back in terms of number of tournaments she played in before age 18. She went on to win more Slams than any woman, and perhaps could have won more, retiring the same year she won her final French Open. She was 30 at the time. Maybe a few more years just being an amateur lets Steffi have two or three more years winning Slams.
Jennifer Capriati serves as perhaps the final example that there is an invisible threshold between childhood and womenhood in professional tennis. A threshold that does not prevent girls from finding flashes of success in the ranks of women, but one that stops them cold from achieving a full and consistent career as a tennis playing woman. Capriati went pro at thirteen and won a Gold medal a year later. Not long after that, she was running away from home, snorting rails of speed in skeevy motels with guys who aren't welcome in most trailer parks. The fall comes quickly in tennis and Capriati, like Agassi, Jaeger and Hingis to follow, crashed hard. Amazingly, Jennifer was able to recover and mature and become a three time Slam winner. Jaeger never made a comeback, though Hingis did make a marginal return and Agassi found great success in his later years. He fought through back pain that would've crippled most of us. But the question is whether all of these players would've been better off if they'd been held back a little bit, if they'd been given room to be kids until they were chomping at the bit to play with the grown-ups? What if they didn't turn pro until they were unquestionably ready?
Richard Williams in what was, at the time, a very defiant stance held back Venus from Grand Slams until she was 17. Though she had turned pro as a 14 year-old, which was very much the trend at the time, he kept her tournament schedule severely limited. He wanted her to focus on school and training, and wanted to avoid some of the racial conflicts and controversy that were bound to arise until she was more mature.
Venus was immediately a force when she began competing in majors, making it to the finals of the US Open in her first time playing in the tournament. She lost to Hingis, but was clearly the rising star everyone had anticipated.
Serena began playing majors at an even younger age than Venus, even though Richard had held back Serena and limited her tournaments, also.
The USTA and numerous critics and analysts were sure that the girls needed to be competing at the highest level as soon as they could carry the big bags. Richard Williams was criticized for not have the girls play a full junior season of tournaments, of which there are nearly as many as there are Pro events. He wanted them to blossom into their careers.
In the end, he was both right and wrong. The girls did need time. Though they were physically and mentally prepared to compete at the age of 15, they were not yet ready for the career of tennis. Capriati was proof that physical capability does not mean that one should move faster than the psyche can process. But the statistics and the historical arcs of Venus and Serena's careers show us that Richard should have bucked the system for one more year and allowed the girls to become women before they took the court at Roland-Garros and the All-England Club. Both Serena and Venus, even with all their hardware, have still battled injury and apathy. They held the Doubles Grand Slam, all four trophys in one year. Serena won the Consecu-Slam. But Venus had nearly three years in her prime that were sapped by injury. Serena went on walkabout for a few seasons after 2003 and she's been injured often and has frequently showed evidence of suspect fitness training.
And yet, they are still playing. Venus has just been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that has affected her stamina and overall wellness, but she vows she'll try to return. Serena has been a pro for twelve seasons, but shows no signs that she can't play for five more years. If both of them had put off their professional status for another year, they might not have had those lulls, those nagging injuries that seem to happen to girls who have tried to beat women.
Serena, the most intimidating and all around talented player since Graf, number six on the all-time Grand Slam list, could have been even better. She might have won twenty majors, maybe more. One year more waiting to play with the big babes, as Mary Carillo calls them, and she might have been the greatest.
Monday, September 05, 2011
TUYWPI: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!
I've got another update I'll post later but I'll throw out the most salient points from today's action (Thanks to the lovely Carrie Reiberg for allowing me a couple hours of solo tennis watching):
Men's -
Rafa got hisself all twisted up in knots!
The Andys made quick work of their opponents on their way to the Fourth Round, and both looked impressive enough that they could make runs to the Quarters and Semis. Andy Murray came back after a few sloppy performances and put the hurt on Feliciano Lopez. Murray might have still been smarting from his mother's embarrassing tweets during Wimbledon. His game is well-rounded and he shouldn't have too much trouble with Donald Young, unless Donald can start uncorking his serve at something above 115-120 mph. The only way Murray loses is if his first serve gets away from him and he plays too deep on returns, allowing Young to get runs at the net, where Donald has been superb.
Roddick had a relatively easy go against Julien Benneteau. Three sets and his serve was the whooping stick he needed it to be. He'll be tested against David Ferrer, who despite a stress fracture in his left hand, already took out Gael Monfils. Roddick's head-to-head with Ferrer looks to be 2-3 on hardcourts, so he's the underdog for sure. But if he's feeling well, the serve is hot, and his slice backhand is staying deep and low, then Andy wins and gets to face a Nadal who's already cramping and blistered despite getting a walkover from Mahut and only needing three sets against Nalbandian. Could get interesting.
Roddick, Isner, Young, and Fish. Four American men left in the round of sixteen? Not bad fellas.
Women's -
Flavia Pennetta looked like a stunned fighter who just kept blocking and blocking until a little window opened up and she could throw the uppercut. She was retching on the sideline between points, late in the second set. Her face looked gaunt and splotchy from losing so much water. If her match against Peng had gone three sets, she would have lost. But she took the second set breaker and is headed to the Quarters with a very winnable match against Kerber in front of her.
Vera Zvonareva took out my sleeper pick Sabine Lisicki, in a technically superb match. Z-Von's serve is strong enough to test Serena and her groundstrokes are absolutely punishing if you don't hit deep enough on her. She can also stay on the court for days without getting tired. She barely looked like she was sweating on points that had Lisicki sucking wind. She is the only threat to Serena right now. Wozniacki is just a paper tiger. Z-Von's got claws.
I expect Serena to roll over Ivanovic, unless she gets injured or Ivanovic all of a sudden remembers that she's 6'1" and can hit the fuzz off the ball. But we all know that's not going to happen. And while Schiavone or Pavlyuchenkova could make Serena run around the court a bit, neither of them can hit with her on hardcourts. Andrea Petkovic should win her match and I predict she will upset Wozniacki on her way to meeting Serena in the Semis.
As I said, I've got another Editorial TUYWPI in the hopper. We'll see if I get it done.
Men's -
Rafa got hisself all twisted up in knots!
The Andys made quick work of their opponents on their way to the Fourth Round, and both looked impressive enough that they could make runs to the Quarters and Semis. Andy Murray came back after a few sloppy performances and put the hurt on Feliciano Lopez. Murray might have still been smarting from his mother's embarrassing tweets during Wimbledon. His game is well-rounded and he shouldn't have too much trouble with Donald Young, unless Donald can start uncorking his serve at something above 115-120 mph. The only way Murray loses is if his first serve gets away from him and he plays too deep on returns, allowing Young to get runs at the net, where Donald has been superb.
Roddick had a relatively easy go against Julien Benneteau. Three sets and his serve was the whooping stick he needed it to be. He'll be tested against David Ferrer, who despite a stress fracture in his left hand, already took out Gael Monfils. Roddick's head-to-head with Ferrer looks to be 2-3 on hardcourts, so he's the underdog for sure. But if he's feeling well, the serve is hot, and his slice backhand is staying deep and low, then Andy wins and gets to face a Nadal who's already cramping and blistered despite getting a walkover from Mahut and only needing three sets against Nalbandian. Could get interesting.
Roddick, Isner, Young, and Fish. Four American men left in the round of sixteen? Not bad fellas.
Women's -
Flavia Pennetta looked like a stunned fighter who just kept blocking and blocking until a little window opened up and she could throw the uppercut. She was retching on the sideline between points, late in the second set. Her face looked gaunt and splotchy from losing so much water. If her match against Peng had gone three sets, she would have lost. But she took the second set breaker and is headed to the Quarters with a very winnable match against Kerber in front of her.
Vera Zvonareva took out my sleeper pick Sabine Lisicki, in a technically superb match. Z-Von's serve is strong enough to test Serena and her groundstrokes are absolutely punishing if you don't hit deep enough on her. She can also stay on the court for days without getting tired. She barely looked like she was sweating on points that had Lisicki sucking wind. She is the only threat to Serena right now. Wozniacki is just a paper tiger. Z-Von's got claws.
I expect Serena to roll over Ivanovic, unless she gets injured or Ivanovic all of a sudden remembers that she's 6'1" and can hit the fuzz off the ball. But we all know that's not going to happen. And while Schiavone or Pavlyuchenkova could make Serena run around the court a bit, neither of them can hit with her on hardcourts. Andrea Petkovic should win her match and I predict she will upset Wozniacki on her way to meeting Serena in the Semis.
As I said, I've got another Editorial TUYWPI in the hopper. We'll see if I get it done.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
TUYWPIOMGWTFBBQ!!
So I'm moving the Tennis Updates You Will Probably Ignore (TUYWPI) over here to the blog, thus making them far easier to ignore. WAYYY too many people were actually reading them on Facebook, making the 'ignore' part invalid. I won't stand for that. So here is today's update:
TUYWPI: Serena looks only a shade off her 2002-3 form. And that is scary. back then, she was 22 and had every tested veteran in the world gunning for her and she still won four consecutive majors. Her serving in 2011 is consistent and unrelenting. Her movement is back and she will absolutely crush anything that isn't deep and hard. (TWSS) Everybody else is playing to be runner-up.
Men's -
Federer seemed to remember he was Federer after Cilic took a set off him. I would bet that he makes the Semis. And as always, if you truly want to have a transcendent analysis of Federer in his prime, I refer you to the one and only DFW, here.
Roddick beating Jack Sock was a fun moment in time. The next time they play, once Jack has had a year of hitting at ATP speed, the young man from Nebraska is going to beat Mr. Roddick. If I'm wrong I'll look foolish, but I predict Mr. Sock is going to win more major tournaments than Mr. Roddick. Luck for him, Jack will come of age as Roger, Novak, and Rafa are all in the autumn and winter of their careers. Andy? No such luck. That's okay, he's been lucky elsewhere in life.
Final note: If Brad Gilbert keeps calling her "Boom-Boom" Lisicki, I am going to blush. Sabine is pretty. And very, very good.
TUYWPI: Serena looks only a shade off her 2002-3 form. And that is scary. back then, she was 22 and had every tested veteran in the world gunning for her and she still won four consecutive majors. Her serving in 2011 is consistent and unrelenting. Her movement is back and she will absolutely crush anything that isn't deep and hard. (TWSS) Everybody else is playing to be runner-up.
Men's -
Federer seemed to remember he was Federer after Cilic took a set off him. I would bet that he makes the Semis. And as always, if you truly want to have a transcendent analysis of Federer in his prime, I refer you to the one and only DFW, here.
Roddick beating Jack Sock was a fun moment in time. The next time they play, once Jack has had a year of hitting at ATP speed, the young man from Nebraska is going to beat Mr. Roddick. If I'm wrong I'll look foolish, but I predict Mr. Sock is going to win more major tournaments than Mr. Roddick. Luck for him, Jack will come of age as Roger, Novak, and Rafa are all in the autumn and winter of their careers. Andy? No such luck. That's okay, he's been lucky elsewhere in life.
Final note: If Brad Gilbert keeps calling her "Boom-Boom" Lisicki, I am going to blush. Sabine is pretty. And very, very good.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Retreating Back to the Cave or Why Sports Moguls Must Actively Support the Performing Arts
Plato supposed that there were ideal, unchanging "forms" existing on a higher plane and that in our unpredictable, ever-changing world we only saw reflections of these forms. The allegory was of a man chained in a cave who only saw shadows on the wall of the cave, produced by light and fire outside the cave. When released from the cave, the man sees the fire and light and the shapes and does not recognize them, having only seen the shadows up until then. He therefore returns to the cave, because that is what he can perceive and understand.
For millenia, the performing arts were second only to communal worship in terms of their ability to gather large groups of people together, in order that they might participate in a shared experience. In fact, the conflict between organized religion and performing arts is ages old, as the former feared the influence and permissive tendencies of the latter.
I'll warn you now, I won't be able to fully unpack my argument here. And I KNOW you are just DYING for me to declaim and reveal all of the intricacies of the world for you. However, I need to go cut down some brush, and you could probably learn more from the AOL splash page than you could from my ramblings. But I will continue as far as I can.
Sports are clearly ascendant in terms of events that unite people across the socio-economic and ethno-cultural spectrums in the United States. Far more people share the experience of the Super Bowl and the World Series and the Olympics, than experience The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. Part of that owes to the fact that sports events are broadcast on national TV. But I suspect that the Opera, were it televised, might pull a Nielsen rating somewhere behind re-runs of Family Ties and in front of the Surgery Channel's "World's Largest Abcesses."
Of course, I haven't mentioned movies or the bulk of popular television shows here, many of which draw a huge audience on a weekly basis. Carlos Estevez and his high-brow sitcom get a weekly viewing audience of somewhere around Fifty-million viewers, give or take a few Goddesses.
And here is where the rabbit hole begins to open. If live performance--plays, musicals, opera, operetta, symphonies, vaudeville, kabuki, minstrels, choirs--were the standard entertainment media for, as we've said, millenia, then on what Platonic plane is the boob tube? Are movies and television the fire outside of the cave, a more perfect version of what we attempt to convey in our imperfect human artistic presentations? Or have we all retreated back to the cave? After five-thousand years of public performance did we finally decide that artistic events conducted in public sphere didn't really get us anywhere, so we want the simpler, more polished, less harsh reflection of our lives that is captured on the cave wall?
These are real questions. The answers probably aren't available right now, considering the relative newness of the cinematic and broadcast media, but the questions will not go away.
And now on the heels of Hollywood and Cable TV, comes the individual "pro-sumer" trend made possible by cheap digital video and the internet. We can all be the stars of our own youtube shows. We can be sketch comedians and confessional dramatists. Our entire lives can unfold in 780p and all of our friends can watch, provided they aren't busy making their own shows. Hell, I'm blogging, for Christ's sake, instead of reading the newspaper and writing a letter to the editor.
Sports are popular for the same reasons melodramas, morality plays, and Shakespeare were popular. They are inherently dynamic. Two teams begin at a moment of stasis, 0-0. They engage in conflict, attempting to achieve their goals on the field, in the same way the protagonist and antagonist attempt to do so on stage. There are slow movements that contrast with giant crescendos. There is conflict and resolution. Good triumphs over evil, or the hero fails tragically. We live vicariously through the performers, who are presumably better at the skills on display than we will ever be. They are the Platonic forms of us, but we can witness them, even if we cannot be them.
As new media develop, computer processing speeds increase geometrically, and gaming platforms become more and more advanced, the simulacra of life and especially sport will become less distinguishable from the real thing. Indeed, if I can BE Tiger Woods with my Wii controller, why should I watch him on TV, much less go out to the tournament to see his actual form.
I contend that the only reason for public sporting events in the not too far off future is the shared experience of the event itself. The communal act of watching live human beings perform transcendent acts of humanity. Victory and failure, right in front of your face. At home, in our "man-caves" (hate the term, love philosophical implications) we can see Peyton and Tawmmy B. far better than we can in the stadium. The cameras show us far more of the action than the view from the bleachers.The only thing that keeps people buying those $300 tickets is the roar of the crowd and the ability afterwards to say, "I was there. With 75,000 other people, I stood and watched it happen, while you were at home on a La-Z-Boy licking cheese dust off your fingers."
Likewise, my current obsession with the Butler Basketball team's run through the NCAA tournament is as much based on my desire to share something with my friends and family and neighbors as it is my desire to watch a thrilling basketball game. When my son and I went down to watch the Bulldogs' pre-Final Four practice at Lucas Oil Stadium, (yes, it is named after my child. He's THAT awesome.) I was struck by how many people were there, simply because they wanted to be in a building together with other people who loved basketball. The practice itself was pretty uneventful, the crowd was relatively quiet and the interview with Brad Stevens, broadcast on on the public address, was the highlight of the experience. But after the team left the court and everyone rose from their seats, a strange electricity developed. And I'm positive that it was because 35,000 people were in a building together waiting for something to happen. Nothing did, and that was both disconcerting and enlivening. We spilled out into the downtown even more eager for the drama of sport, craving something with a beginning, middle, and end. Something where, when it was over, the curtain would come down and the audience would either be crying or rejoicing.
Save for the experiences of witnessing birth, combat, and death, I think a live performance with an audience of people in the same room as the performers has the potential to be the most profound experience a human being can have. And I will lump church services into the "live performance" group. Martin Luther told us God was best experienced on a personal and private level. Then why do people still go to churches and mosques and synagogues and temples? Huh, Marty? Why do we like someone, be it a priest, rabbi, imam, Joel Osteen, whoever, to direct and stage manage our religious experiences? Because we want to have the experience together.
And so as we approach the penultimate weekend of college basketball, those who control the experience of sport for the masses should remember a few things: the NFL is locked-out; the NBA is sure to be in the grips of player/owner strife in a few months, and every teenager in the developed world has access to an X-Box or Play-Station or Wii. They could play a season of NFL football every week, if they so desired, and not give a damn if the gates to your publicly-funded palaces of bread and circus are opened one stinking inch. And these youngsters are your revenue streams of the future.
If they don't care about getting tickets to your spectacle, eventually they won't care about turning on the TV to watch it. If they don't care about being in a great-big stadium or an expansive concert hall with hundreds or thousands of their peers, taking part in a shared experience, eventually they won't care about being numbered among those who watched it simultaneously, though in separate spaces, on a TV screen. Those kids will have their controllers and headsets, and eventually their retinal scanners. They'll be entertaining themselves with shadow-puppets on their ninety-eight inch LED wall-sized display. They won't need to go outside and see the fire, when the cave is so much more cozy.
Monday, March 28, 2011
I Got 99 Problems But A Front-Runnin' B!#*% Ain't One.
As you know, since surely you've been following my last couple of posts with rapt attention, I've been doing my level best to divorce myself from animosity and moralistic interpretations when it comes to Butler's NCAA games. But then I clicked on a link to the Yahoo college basketball blog and see this -
Yep, that's Shawn Carter, stage name Jay-Z. hanging with the Wildcats after they punched their ticket to Houston. Emphasis on the AFTER.
Now, there are two possible explanations for this. Either Hova is visiting with Coach Cal's Little Urban Achievers because he, as a minority partner in an NBA team might be drafting one or more of them in the upcoming months. Or he is a sports fan similar to his pal LeBron, and simply runs with the squad that is most likely to win each year. Let's not forget that BronBron, native of Ohio, professes to be a Yankee and Cowboy fan.
So Jigga has either committed a flagrant NCAA violation in contacting college players regarding future professional employment in the NBA. Or he has chosen to throw his support behind a team with no geographic relationship to his Brooklyn origins, but who does have the most championships of the four teams left and has, arguably, the greatest wealth of talent.
Would I be as indignant if H-to-the-Izzo had chosen instead to visit the Bulldog's locker room after they defeated Flo-Rida? Probably not. However, Butler doesn't have a coach with a long history of questionable financial scruples. Nor is Butler the Vegas favorite to win the whole thing, as UK now is. Whether those two things smack of illegal contact and front-running, I'll let you decide.
But I do know this, teams from Indiana love it when other teams have New York celebrities sitting courtside, rooting against them.
Yep, that's Shawn Carter, stage name Jay-Z. hanging with the Wildcats after they punched their ticket to Houston. Emphasis on the AFTER.
Now, there are two possible explanations for this. Either Hova is visiting with Coach Cal's Little Urban Achievers because he, as a minority partner in an NBA team might be drafting one or more of them in the upcoming months. Or he is a sports fan similar to his pal LeBron, and simply runs with the squad that is most likely to win each year. Let's not forget that BronBron, native of Ohio, professes to be a Yankee and Cowboy fan.
So Jigga has either committed a flagrant NCAA violation in contacting college players regarding future professional employment in the NBA. Or he has chosen to throw his support behind a team with no geographic relationship to his Brooklyn origins, but who does have the most championships of the four teams left and has, arguably, the greatest wealth of talent.
Would I be as indignant if H-to-the-Izzo had chosen instead to visit the Bulldog's locker room after they defeated Flo-Rida? Probably not. However, Butler doesn't have a coach with a long history of questionable financial scruples. Nor is Butler the Vegas favorite to win the whole thing, as UK now is. Whether those two things smack of illegal contact and front-running, I'll let you decide.
But I do know this, teams from Indiana love it when other teams have New York celebrities sitting courtside, rooting against them.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Up the Beanstalk, Again
I don't think this imagery works though. Perhaps for the small cadre of actual VCU fans--students, faculty, alumni, etc.--Butler can play the role of old Golyat. But for the rest of the country, such a loaded template might be a little ponderous.
With King David's first act of heroism comes all of the historical and theological baggage that the story has carried throughout history. It has variously symbolized the triumph of the Jewish God, the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and at some point I'm sure, the triumph of tha glahrious Bahston Red Sawx ovah the harrible facking New Yark Yankees! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK!
But the most obvious allegorical implications of the nebbish over the mighty is that of the eventual triumph of Good over Evil. And I'm just not willing to make a basketball game matter that much.
Indeed, small, modest David with his leather strap and pebble felling the oncoming Giant is clearly meant to symbolize the idea that virtue will win in the end, that the meek shall inherit the Earth and that big dudes are mean-ass bullies. Goliath's height, by the way, was probably more like six foot-nine. Not even taller than Andrew Smith.
Next Saturday, as Butler begins to warm-up, I will instead be thinking of Jack and his beanstalk. Yes, I know, there is a Giant who lives up there in the clouds. And in the original telling, the Giant killed Jack's dad and took his money. So the Giant is the antagonist, yada yada yada. But the moral of the tale and the morality within, as it has come to be told today, is far more fraught.
It is a tale especially fitting for the post-modern, sports-loving, capitalist society we live in today.
Jack, lazy and a bit dumb, living with his widowed mother and a skinny, dried-up, milk cow, is told to sell the cow for money so he and his mother can buy something to eat. Jack can't even get that right and instead, gets conned into taking five "magic" beans in exchange for the cow. Business deal gone bad. The bean bubble burst. Today, he could just go file for bankruptcy, right Mr. Trump? Jack's mom throws the beans out of the window and tells him he's lucky she's malnourished or she would beat that ass.
But, lo! The next morning a giant beanstalk has grown where his mother threw the beans! Isn't it great being white in America? Organic urban farming is just the coolest. Jack decides to climb up the beanstalk and see if there are any new media ventures he can get in on. Or maybe a green initiative. And whaddya know, there is a castle with a golden harp and a hen that lays goddamned golden eggs! Plastics, Ben. PLASTICS.
So Jack avoids the giant, steals the hen and descends back down the beanstalk to show his mother how awesome he is.
"We can eat gold omelets now, mom!"
"Or we can sell the gold, you friggin' numbskull. Thank GOD your father is dead."
Eventually, Jack wants to go up the beanstalk again. Probably because he got involved in an illegal cockfighting ring and the hen got killed. So, he heads back up and while the giant is sleeping, he steals his silver and gold. He gives it to his mother, hoping she won't notice the missing hen.
"Here Ma, look at all this scrilla!"
"Great, go put it in the bank."
"Actually, I'm going to invest half in a contruction company that builds over-sized mini-mansions on acres of nutrient-rich farmland. The other half is going straight into Collateralized Debt Obligations. They are asset-backed, so they CAN'T LOSE!"
Well, a few years down the line, Jack's broke and he has to head back up the beanstalk and steal the giant's gold harp. He does and in the only truly intelligent move he makes, he chops down the beanstalk and the giant falls to his death. Jack can no longer plunder the castle of its riches, but now must live within the means that he has on the ground. And he promises his mother he won't be such a douche anymore.
The End.
Now this is by no means a straightforward analogy between Butler and Jack. Nothing about Butler Basketball suggests indolence, hubris, rashness or immaturity. But the notion that in order to finally get somewhere, the goal as it were, we might have to travel down a bumpy road full of potholes and mudpuddles, with funhouse mirrors lining the shoulder, is apt. In this case, the idea that past success can breed new and more difficult challenges is particularly useful.
Jack tastes great success, but also finds himself a victim of his own cravings for more success. He has to finally realize who he is and live within those parameters. He is continuously tempted by the beanstalk and the riches that await him above, but only when he becomes content with life below is the story allowed to end happily.
Matt Howard, who could've gone to IU or Purdue, chose the place he felt most comfortable and did just about as well as anyone could on the floor and in the classroom. THE Academic All-American of 2010-2011. How's things in B-Town, fellers?
Shelvin Mack went to a school where he would be featured and get to play a lot, even if it wasn't quite in the national spotlight. And if he gets a chance to murder the Wildcats, I'm selling every CD I own, plus a few Star Wars figures and putting all them clams on the Dogs.
I'll let you fill in the comparisons between Butler's coaches of the past and one Brad Stevens. Perhaps Brad will end up like Jack, Barry, Thad, and Todd and decide that magic beans are pretty cool and that Beanstalkland sounds pretty bitchin'. But I hope, mainly as a selfish fan, that he cuts down the beanstalk.
The NCAA tourney itself is a lumbering giant. One that seems to favor the big-money conferences in the face of damning evidence that the overall caliber of mid-level college programs has improved. Jay Bilas believes that the top-level college teams have actually gotten worse this year. He's a respected analyst (Dickie V. *eardrumsbleed* thinks Mr. Bilas should be the Tourney "Commissioner") and I'm sure one could juggle statistics to show that he's right. Hey, not a single number one seed advanced to the Final Four! Doesn't that mean that the #1's weren't all that good?
I think this might be an Ockham's moment, where we all say, "No, everybody else has just gotten better."
Kids are bigger, faster, stronger, better-trained and coached, across the board. The elite players, though amazingly talented, still have a ceiling. But the decent players, the top quartile, have gotten immensely better. And on days when the elites aren't pitch-perfect, the teams right below them will cut the beanstalk right out from under them. It's time for somebody to prove that point. I hope that those Bulldogs over on 49th Street are the tricky little sons of bitches who do it.
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