2pac, d. 9/13/96

Damn. 15 years goes by fast.

You're a good man, 2010

Hey, all. Not sure I was going to get a chance to put up a post before the end of the new year, so I'm seizing the opportunity right now while having some lunch. Anyway, a lot happened this year: offspring, Duke Championship, career stabilization, John Boehner being an absolute piece of shit cry baby son of a bitch who I will kick in the face if I ever see him in person....Banner year all around. My one regret is I only saw one movie in the theatres this year. And ZOMGZOMGZOMG, Inception...This means I missed SATC 2 and the line of dialogue above (classic Samantha, amirite, guys?). This is sad because that line obviously just bumped my daughter to second place in any objective list of most important and wonderful things to happen in 2010. Let's keep the lolz coming, 2011.

Duke Sucks! 2010-2011 Edition

Hey, errbody. Basketball is back (almost), which means the haters are too. So enjoy the video above. Btw, Duke scored 141 in an exhibition game yesterday. That is many points! They're totally gay.

Road to the Final Four, 2010

Is the blog dying? Is blogging totally 2006? Should we shift this whole enterprise to tumblr and just re-blog funny cat videos? I don't know. But I do know this. This blog has always been about art above commerce. I mean, I could really easily turn this into another Look at this Fucking Hipster or Stuff White People Like, but I have integrity. I write about what I want to write about: Here's Zach Galifianakis interviewing Ben Stiller. Here's OMG!! THAT GUY WHO CHEATED ON AMERICA'S SWEETHEART NOT NAMED JULIA ROBERTS!!. Here's Owen Wilson's video suicide note for when he tries to kill himself later this summer. (Too soon?) Art, people. Look it up on Wikipedia.

I thought about writing another post about the slow descent into corporate mediocrity encouraged by my dead end job (and the women who love them). I thought about writing about how Microsoft Outlook only displays six entries at a time, and how that's frustrating because the seventh entry is always about that court call I didn't schedule. I thought about writing about that plaintiff's lawyer who told you me my client is "despicable" and "inhumane," and how I responded, "Well, let's be forward-looking, shall we?"

But fuck it, motherfucking Duke is in the Final Four, and I am so happy right now, I am seriously considering kissing, on the mouth, every homeless person who asks me for change tomorrow morning. (Note, I will not give them change though. Teach a man to fish and all that. Tea parties!)

But here's the flip side of Duke success: Already today someone has called me "smug ass" and possessed of a "silver spoon." This week I expect a white guy to criticize Duke to me -- a person who is not a white guy -- for being too white. I expect to be called a "faggot." I expect to be told I never got laid in college by someone with no ties to Duke or North Carolina. And I expect to be told that my team's success is totally illegitimate, and that I should go fuck myself. I get it. Who wants to be responsible for America's other sweetheart having to accept that Kentucky is once again a big failure pile in a sadness bowl? Not I. But this is how it goes.

GO DUKE.

Contest!

This picture speaks for itself, I know. But because I believe in two part harmonies, let me speak for it also. This is the greatest photo portrait in the history of human existence. It is also a picture of me in my dorm room in the fall of 1996. Your task is to identify how many 90's elements there are in this record and comment accordingly. This photograph will soon be on display in the National Archives; the curator thanks you in advance.

90's4Life.

Music Video of the Day: Joey Potter's Douchey Worthington College Boyfriend Plays Cheap Trick

For some months now, I've been bemoaning my lack of musical talent to any and all who would listen. Any and all in this case is a list of one: blog devote Thumbu Sammy. I told him I should take up an instrument, perhaps the guitar, and last weekend whilst I was skulking about Brookline and Cambridge with Sugarpockets, E, occasional reader A. Frances, and others, Thumbu, who was house-sitting for us, procured a guitar and deposited it in our living room. Veritable gauntlet, dropped. I am so used to my empty threats going ignored, I am not sure what to do with wide-eyed idealist Thumbu's faith in me. Will I finally make amends for those tortured four years from 4th to 8th Grade in which my father forced me to play the violin? Will I follow through on my half-formed ideas about taking up new hobbies? The jury is still out.

But today, I made peace with the fact that my taking up acoustic guitar--in whatever lazy form or fashion--does not mean I share company with that douche nozzle half-assedly playing Cheap Trick songs on West Quad--you know the one, leaning super cazh against that garbage can that really drunk freshman girl threw up in after the Carolina game in '97, the one right in front of the Bryan Center Walkway, right below Joey Potter's dorm room. (See above). No, thanks to Thumbu I learned to play -- more or less -- four notes from "Wild Thing." And I felt like a fucking genius of rock and roll. I felt like these guys. Motherfucking Extreme! Motherfucking Nuno Bettencourt, in tube socks and shorts and combat boots. That's what I felt like. And it felt good.

Thanks, Thumbu. Safe travels back to Detroit Rock City. The Bay will miss you.

90's4Life.

Sadness, Baby!

UNC 101, Duke 87.

The Candidate, The Bodyman, and the Bull

Obama, Reggie Love, Chris Duhon.

Okay, I've finally come around. I accept Obama as my Lord and Saviour. Btw, a convergence this blog-worthy comes around only every so often.

Psycho T Smells What Barack's Got Cooking

So much can be gleaned from the picture above--most important, the press corps does seem to harbor an indefatigable love of America's Sweetheart and secret Muslim-in-Chief, Barack Obama. According to the New York Times, during Obama's pick-up game against the Tar Heels this morning he didn't manage to score, and in the picture above we see him, having driven through the lane (past what looks like a lazing Danny Green, who's got to be worried about his draft stock now, I'm thinking), jump just a few feet from the basket to shoot, as National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough's outstretched arms greet him. Now, we can assume that Hansbrough--although he is not known for his blocking skills--probably rejected the shit out of Obama in the moment immediately after this shot was taken. I mean we know for a fact that he didn't score. And in the subsequent moment, after the likely vicious block, surely Obama's crumpled frame fell to the floor as he gasped for air through his charred lungs, and Psycho T probably huffed and puffed over him--white middle class voter that he is. Where are these photographs that I have described? Why were they not taken? Why do we see Obama only in a state of beatific, lane-slashing glory, his eyes a-gleam with hope. Why do we not see the aftermath? Why does the media go to such lengths to preserve this man's image? Also, sidenote: how much does Psycho T hate Obama? Apparently, they were supposed to be playing on the same team.

None of this would have happened, had Obama's bodyman (think Charlie from The West Wing) and member of Duke's 2001 national championship team, Reggie Love, taken Obama and his pick-up game to Cameron, home of the elitist Duke Blue Devils--although Krzyzewski might have yelled at him about capital gains taxes or something.

Duke Fan Stan

So, my boy Nick's brother, Peter, has put out his newest anti-Duke screed (above), and true to his nature, it's clever, it's catchy, and it's homophobic. Although there's some self-awareness here--really, why are hordes of Carolina and Maryland fans so consumed with Duke rage that they boost the ratings for games in which Duke plays unrelated opponents, thus ensuring that Duke's absurd broadcast dominance continues and little old me, out in the godless Bay Area can watch 15 to 20 games a year, no problem? Anyway, I know I'm just a "douchebag faggot who never got laid in college" as one Carolina fan put it to me at a sports bar a couple of years ago, but I support my team, and I support all ACC teams when they're not playing my team, and I think gays are people too, and I like a lot of mainstream hip hop, but I give none of its homophobic luminaries a free pass. On the eve of the tournament, can I say this: Go Carolina, go Miami, and go Duke.

Duke 89, Carolina 78

So, John Edwards is back on the scene (a little Where's Waldo?, but see above). But since he got his ass handed to him again, he'll probably go back underground. Unlike last time though, I'm not exactly torn up about his most recent loss because the team I support is vastly superior to the team he supports! Also, check out Gerald Henderson's sick block on Hansbrough. This time it was all ball and no nose. Go team! Sports are very good! Indeed!

The March of Madness...

I have always always argued that there's a really disturbing connection between blind jingoism and irrational sports allegiances. It's not an original notion. I believe it was Noam Chomsky who said that we, as Americans, learn chauvenism at an early age--screaming at the TV when an 18-year-old kid misses a three-pointer, painting our faces with our team's colors, spewing invectively when talking about a rival team. Because our dad maybe grew up in Riverdale liking Joe DiMaggio, we come to accept as truth that the Red Sox are the devil's minions--literally, an evil wrought upon this earth. Considering we get totally worked up about something as trivial as professional or college sports, it's easy to see how presumably professional people in our government can say to the Pakistani head of state: "We are going to bomb you back into the stone age," unless you cooperate with us. Our team is better; your team is made up of an indistinguishable mass of terrorists. There is no gray area.

Now, that said, to know me is to know how much I love watching college basketball, and how much I adore my team--the vilified Duke Blue Devils. And as unsettled as I am by this fact of my character, I too experience an unnatural joy when they win--which they haven't been doing a lot of this year. It's how I'm conditioned. But one thing I've never felt when thinking of Duke's rivals--Maryland, North Carolina--is disdain. That's something I just don't get. I mean irrational love is one thing, but irrational hate, well, that should give us pause; no matter what the form. Now, my Duke friends might say that to love Duke is to hate Carolina. But I don't see it. I want Duke to beat Carolina when they play, but when Carolina plays other teams I wish them well. They're Michael Jordan's Tar Heels. What's to hate?

Okay, okay. Maybe it's all in good fun. Those of us who have a connection to Duke or Carolina can talk smack about one another, but here's a real headscratcher: What is up with the random-ass people who detest Duke and love Carolina, but have absolutely no connection to either? What is that about? Homey, you went to Tufts or Santa Clara or wherever. You ain't gotta horse in this race. You couldn't find Franklin Street on a map of Chapel Hill. But yet, you do things like this: send vituperative emails to the Michigan Law School listserv denouncing Duke, address me with homophobic slurs at sports bars when I cheer for Duke, and post videos on YouTube, like this one--from my friend Nick's brother, which, my lecture aside, is actually pretty funny--though the "you even suck at rape" line is stunningly uncool: