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January 28, 2008
Temperature in hell continues to drop
Chris Webber prays for a reunion with his favorite coach.
The headline today read “Webber Returns to Warriors.” Some of you will know what that means and why it’s making my head spin. For the rest, here’s a little history to help you understand just how weird this is:
Back in the early 90s, I was captivated by a dynamic young basketball team called the Golden State Warriors. Coached by NBA legend Don Nelson and led by a trio of up-and-coming stars known by the acronym Run-TMC (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin), the Warriors played an uptempo style of ball that made them both entertaining and successful.
But there was a problem: The team lacked size, and so while they were good enough to make the playoffs, they couldn’t match up with a bigger team over the course of a series. This prompted Coach Nelson to trade Richmond for a rookie named Billy Owens, whose combination of size and skills made him look like a surefire superstar.
This turned out to be a huge mistake: Richmond was a perennial all-star for the Sacramento Kings, while Owens never translated his talents into success on the court. But then the Warriors caught a couple of breaks. First they drafted guard Latrell Sprewell from Alabama. Known primarily as a defensive player, Sprewell unexpectedly turned out to be a legitimate NBA scorer and all-around catalyst. Then, in 1993, the Warriors lucked into the first pick in the draft. There was never much question who they’d select: Chris Webber, a 6-9 forward from Michigan with great hands, superior passing skills, and apparently limitless potential.
In Webber’s rookie year, the W’s won 50 games and although they were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Phoenix Suns, they looked ready to mature into a real contender. In the offseason, they addressed their one glaring weakness—lack of an honest-to-God center—by trading Owens for Rony Seikaly.
Then disaster struck. Webber had been signed to an unusual contract that allowed him to opt out after his first year. This was considered to be merely a formality, but it turned out he and Nelson didn’t care for each other. So much so that Webber was prepared to walk away from a big pile of money rather than play another season for his nemesis.
So the Warriors started the season without Webber, and they didn’t seem to miss him, going 7-1 in their first 8 games. There was great optimism is Warriorland: once Webber came back or was traded for a quality player, we were going to dominate the league. I have a clip in my mental YouTube from this time of Tim Hardaway throwing a baseball pass the length of the court to Sprewell, who finished with a tomahawk dunk as announcer Greg Papa yelled “Hardaway…Sprewell…touchdown!”
But once Webber was indeed traded to Washington for forward Tom Gugliotta—a solid player who should have improved the team—nothing worked anymore. The team chemistry had turned poisonous, and before long, the Warriors were a dismal 26-56 and Nelson and Gugliotta were both gone. This was the beginning of 13 years of misery that had many, many low points, including Hardaway being traded for a guy named “Bimbo” and Sprewell trying to strangle coach P.J. Carlesimo.
Most of that time is a blur of players coming and going, coaches being hired and fired, with the only constant being failure. By 2006, the Warriors—now run by former player Chris Mullin—had apparently gone through every coach on the market, and so the only alternative was to give Nelson another try. It seemed like a crazy idea, but somehow it worked. Playing once again an uptempo style, led now by Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, and after a trade with Indiana, Stephen Jackson, the Warriors squeaked into the playoffs and knocked off the mighty Dallas Mavericks in a first-round upset.
I’ve written about this before, though I certainly never get tired of it. But lately things have taken some odd turns. One is that Jason Richardson, a franchise centerpiece, was traded for rookie Brandan Wright. This seemed so much like a replay of the Richmond/Owens debacle that it really worried me, but even though Wright has played very little the W’s have improved from last year, compiling a 27-18 record up to this point.
But the same problem as in the 90s has come up again: the Warriors lack size. And the team’s answer is again the same: Chris Webber.
Yes, after bouncing around the league for 13 seasons—Washington, Sacramento, Philly, Detroit—putting up good numbers but never winning much, getting loudly booed every time he comes to Oakland, Webber has decided to get back, get back to where he once belonged. Today he officially announced he’ll be signing to play the rest of the season for the Warriors at the veteran’s minimum salary.
So will Webb redeem himself in my and my fellow fans’ eyes by contributing to a Warriors march to the Finals? It’s unlikely, but don’t bet against it. Because if Chris Webber and Don Nelson can both come back to Oakland at the same time, anything is possible.
Posted by bill at 10:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 25, 2008
Guacamole and Chips
Speaking to an audience in Nevada this week, Hillary Clinton was heard to say:
“All of our problems are interconnected, but we treat them as though one is guacamole and one is chips.”
I find this fascinating, though not necessarily for political reasons. Some commentators wondered if this was her idea of a metaphor that would resonate with a Hispanic audience, but I have to think Hill is smarter than that. One thing no one has ever accused her of being is a dumbass.
No, what really gets me is the Zenlike, circular nature of the statement. It sounds like something Shunryu Suzuki might have said. In one sense it seems clear enough, but when you stop to think about it it’s a real head-scratcher. Are chips and guacamole not connected? What happens when you dip the chip in the guac and put it in your mouth? Are chip, dip, and mouth not then all one for that moment? One question leads to the next until you begin to feel pleasantly lightheaded.
Maybe rather than pandering clumsily to Latins, Hillary was really sending a coded message to America’s stoners: “With Kucinich gone, you have to support somebody, and why not me? Remember during Bill’s adminstration how you could channel-surf without getting bummed out by news about the war and stuff? Those were good times. It can be like that again. Vote for Hill—she’s real Chill.”
Or something like that.
Posted by bill at 2:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 15, 2008
Break on Through (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Like the Doors)
One of the solaces of getting older is that the passionate prejudices of your youth start to fade. As time passes you become less determined not to like certain things, and the appeal you previously refused to acknowledge is able to break through the clouds and make itself seen.
For instance: From the time I was a teenager, I was eager to tell anyone who would listen exactly why and how much I hated the Doors. Most of it had to do with Jim Morrison and the whole idea floating around that he was some kind of Great Poet. To me Jim Morrison was always the guy who wrote these lines:
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar
I mean, that has to be the most awkward, tin-eared couplet in the history of pop music. And then there was the whole Morrison mystique, the Lizard King business. Apparently he was considered some kind of sex symbol, but why should I care? And so what if he was arrested for waving his willie at a paying audience? Anyone with a penis could do that, but I’d really prefer that they not.
And while we’re at it, yes, I know that the Doors were named after The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley’s book about his mushroom experiments. That particular nugget of data is not quite as mind-blowing as you might think. Huxley, by the way, was a real writer, unlike….
Well, never mind. Old habits die hard. Anyway, my anti-Doors policy was severely tested during my senior year in college when my landlord and I discovered that my portable CD player and his towering studio monitors made a lethal combination. My tastes at the time ran to bands like Love and Rockets, That Petrol Emotion, and Camper Van Beethoven, but what he most wanted to hear at top volume was the first Doors album. I did not relish the thought but decided to politely keep my feelings to myself, and was somewhat alarmed to discover that while I still hated “Light My Fire,” songs like “Break on Through” and “The Crystal Ship” actually sounded pretty good blasting through the dining room floor into my basement abode.
Not long after that I saw Apocalypse Now for the first time and discovered that a) it was quite possibly the greatest movie ever made and b) it made prominent use of a Doors song, “The End.” I am so damn stubborn, though, that I still didn’t change my mind. Even when I found out that Hunter Thompson was a Doors fan, I refused to yield.
But as the years have passed, I’ve gradually softened my no-Doors-allowed doctrine. And when I saw last week that someone had posted a two-disc Best Of on the CD-swapping site I frequent, I was tempted. Fast forward to this morning, and there I am listening to “Riders on the Storm” on headphones. My younger self would have been appalled, but while I still think Morrison was kind of a clown, it doesn’t bother me much anymore. Once you forget all the blather and just think of the Doors as a rock band, they’re a pretty good one. Especially “Waiting for the Sun.”
The next major hurdle I need to get over is Led Zeppelin. As long as I can remember, there’s been the Zeppelin people on one side and me on the other side, and I’ve felt pretty secure about my position. That Robert Plant wail…I just can’t see why a person would choose to sing that way, except as a joke. And the lyrics: “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love”…is that supposed to clever somehow? It’s just the lyrical equivalent of Morrison swinging his johnson around. But then every once in a while I hear something like “When the Levee Breaks” and I say, hmm, maybe there is something. So that, um, levee may, er, break one day too, which will leave the Yes/ELP school of overblown prog-rock as the last segment of the R’n’R spectrum for which I have no use whatsoever. That’s one thing that’s not going to change…at least I hope not. You’ve got to have some standards in this life.
Posted by bill at 10:03 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 8, 2008
Rock'n'Roll Presidents' Day
As I have mentioned in years past, today is the shared birthday of David Bowie, Bill Graham, and The Elvis Presley (as Andy Kaufman used to call him). Sort of rock’n’roll Presidents’ Day. Quite frankly, I resent having to work today, and as a protest I will just go through the motions while quietly humming a mashup of “Mystery Train” and “The Bewlay Brothers.”
In other rock news, I was delighted to learn yesterday that the boys from Bauhaus will be releasing a new album, their first since 1983’s Burning from the Inside, on March 3, March 8, or March 10, depending on which source you believe. According to bauhausmusik.com,
Go Away White was recorded in 18 days at Zircon Skye in Ojai, with singer Peter Murphy, bassist David J, guitarist Daniel Ash, and drummer Kevin Haskins playing together as a band in one room, taking first takes as final cuts.
Which, if it were anyone else, would worry me. Playing live in the studio is fine, but why first takes? And if you’re using first takes, why would it take 18 days? But there’s always been something magical about Bauhaus, so I choose to believe that it will be great. After all, reunion tours usually suck, but theirs was awesome, including a scorching performance of their version of “Ziggy Stardust”—which brings us full circle back to David Bowie, and lets me get on with my day.
Posted by bill at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 5, 2008
Question
You hear people talk about posterity all the time. What they’re gonna leave behind for posterity, how posterity will see them, etc. etc. How come you never hear anyone talk about anteriority? What are they, chopped liver?
Posted by bill at 12:29 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 4, 2008
Page 2
The front page news today was all about the weather—which still, after all these years, no one does anything about—and Iowa, where Democrats voted (sorry, “caucused”) for an African-American and Republicans voted (sorry, “caucused”) for a theocracy. On days like this I am drawn to page 2, where the odd and interesting items congregate. Today was particularly juicy:
• At Gettysburg Hospital in Pennsylvania, the same couple, Kyle and Becky Armstong, had the first baby born in the new year for the second year in a row. I can’t help but picture them sitting in bed with a stopwatch on March 31st, waiting for midnight before going at it like wild animals.
• In New York, a window washer who fell 47 stories is recovering surprisingly well, considering that “Both legs and his right arm and wrist wrist were broken in several places,” “He had severe injuries to his chest, his abdomen and his spinal column,” and “His brain was bleeding.” Bystanders were amazed when, shortly after hitting the pavement, the man told paramedics it was “only a flesh wound.”
• In Houma, Louisiana, police were called to calm a dispute between two, um, big eaters and an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant. Apparently the two men became irate when they were charged extra for eating too much. The great quote from this story: “I was stunned, that somebody would say something like that. I ain’t that fat. I only weigh 277.”
• And the piece de resistance: In northern India, the government was criticized for proposing a program that would pay unemployed youths to sterilize monkeys. It seems that both unemployment and monkey overpopulation are big problems in that part of the world. According the the AP story, “In recent months, the deputy mayor of New Delhi was killed when he fell from his balcony during an attack by wild monkeys, and 25 others were hurt when a monkey rampaged in the city.”
I’ll say that again, in case you missed it: “The deputy mayor of New Delhi was killed when he fell from his balcony during an attack by wild monkeys.” There’s gotta be a story there, and maybe I’ll look that up later.
Anyway, it seems the state government of Himachal Pradesh came up with the idea of killing two birds with one stone by recruiting local youth into some kind of monkey-gelding army. This is to be done with “laser sterilization,” say officials, not with scissors. And doesn’t that sound marvelously entertaining, a bunch of kids with lasers chasing monkeys around the countryside? I mean, that’s got “animated movie” written all over it. What will it be called? Wll, duh: “Shock the Monkey.”
Posted by bill at 5:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 3, 2008
What Doug wants
I have accidentally discovered an amusing new time-waster that will probably now sweep cubicles across the nation. Over the holiday I was on Amazon looking for my youngest stepbrother's wish list. When I typed in his name I got 11 results which I then had to sift through to figure out which one was him. It turned out none of them were, but in the meantime I got some fascinating insight into the desires of 11 random guys named Doug. (The last name will not be given here.)
For instance, Doug #1 wanted:
• The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000
• Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
• Rutherford B. Hayes: Citizen, Soldier, President
• Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It
Clearly, a possible future despot.
Doug #5 wanted:
• No, Daddy, Don't!: A Father's Murderous Act of Revenge
• Murder So Cold: A Father's Deadly Rage, a Daughter's Tragic Legacy
• A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder And Its Aftermath
Something disturbing is going on here, something I maybe should be notifying the authorities about.
Doug #8 is into classic TV:
• The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete First Season
• Hogan's Heroes - The Complete First Season
• The Twilight Zone - Season 2 (The Definitive Edition)
• Green Acres - The Complete Second Season (1966-67)
• Magnum, P.I. - The Complete Second Season
• Have Gun Will Travel - The Complete Second Season
• Kojak - Season One
Meanwhile, Doug #9 wanted 24 books by Danielle Steel, including Passion's Promise, The Promise, Season of Passion, Loving, and To Love Again. Every single one of them can be had for one cent plus shipping. So if you have a few dollars of Christmas money left over, why not send them to me and I will make a random Doug very happy?
Posted by bill at 8:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 2, 2008
The Red and the Black
If you’re looking at the main page of this blog, at the top right you’ll see a calendar with numbers in black and red. A red number means there’s an entry for that date, a black number means there’s not. Ever since Crispy B. set this thing up for me almost three years ago, one of my great pleasures in life has been making the black numbers turn red. Some months I’ve done them all; some months only one or two. But so far in 2008, two for two! How long can I keep this up?
Posted by bill at 3:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 1, 2008
Auld Lang Sine Wave
So this was pretty much what I consider to be the perfect New Year’s Eve. Watched Shall We Dance with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (that is, Fred and Ginger were in the movie, not in my living room, though that would have been cool). Drank some wine. Watched the ball drop in Times Square, a spectacle marred only slightly by the inane babbling of Kathy Griffin (how Anderson Cooper refrained from strangling her, I’ll never know). Played with the cats a little. Ran an episode from the first season of SNL—not one of the best, but musical guest Jimmy Cliff ripped it up. Took an hour for [redacted]. Then spent the last hour of 2007 and the first of 2008 in pursuit of my personal goal of watching The Big Lebowski more times than any living person.
In between we took a few minutes to pop open a bottle of champagne and ring in the New Year, but here was where the only two major missteps of the evening occurred. One was that due to a lack of motor control I blew the cork about ten seconds too early (go ahead and take your cheap shot here—I’m asking for it). The other was reflexively tuning in to “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” for the countdown. As a result of this second bad decision my beloved and I were confronted with the twin horrors of Dick Clark—who (God love him) nowadays presents the aspect of a corpse freshly powdered and temporarily shocked back to life for the occasion—and Ryan Seacrest, who unsurprisingly was surrounded by good-looking young people with nothing interesting to say.
But then it was over and we were safely into the new year, watching John Turturro French kiss a purple bowling ball. I never cease to be amazed at what Turturro accomplishes in maybe three minutes of screen time as “The Jesus” Quintana. On a frame-per-frame basis, this may be this best performance in the history of cinema. It deserves some kind of special OscarRRR, as do the actors who play Jesus’s roly-poly bowling partner and D student Larry Sellers, both of whom make indelible impressions while speaking no lines whatsoever.
My New Year’s resolution? To abide, naturally.
Posted by bill at 11:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack