Exploring the Intriguing
Category: Just me
No, it's not thunder but I do feel stirrings and rumblings. I'm convinced that the next few weeks will see a torrent of blogging from me. (I know, I know…) I have multiple pieces that are almost finished and lots of other fragments that I'll try to piece together soon. Summer break is almost here and my brain is already relaxing out of HyperTeach mode. Good stuff is brewing!
FDO
The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame needs to consistently expand and develop an NBA focus or be augmented by a separate NBA sponsored Professional Basketball Hall of Fame.
I have generally felt this way for several years but the elections this year cement that position for me. 2005, 2007 and now 2011 have all been awful. (Mercifully, 2009 was so obvious it couldn’t be screwed up with Jordan, Robinson and Stockton all getting in.) Part of the problem seems to be the attempt to use HoF voting as a method for separating the immortals of the game from the merely worthy. Baseball thinks having an ultra-exclusive Hall translates to more majesty for it. For that sports HoF to be a staid, limiting, judgmental institution is somewhat appropriate for a game that illustrates those same qualities to an unhelpful degree.
But basketball is dramatically different. Basketball is about art, passion, creativity, expanding, redefining and breaking limits while erasing barriers. Lots of people do basketball in incredibly different ways; that’s part of why basketball has become the American sport that clearly translates best to the rest of the world. Steve Nash and Dwyane Wade can dominate a game just as surely as Yao Ming and Dwight Howard do. The variety of skills and talents that can lead to success in basketball should be mirrored in its HoF.
There is a clear hierarchy in the world of basketball and the NBA is unquestionably at the top. The best players, coaches and executives in the world aim for the League. Consider that Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski is consistently asked if he will leave his top level college job for an NBA job. I have never heard anyone suggest that Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson might leave his top level NBA job for a college job. Never. Former NBA All-Stars Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson have recently played outside the US and everyone feels sorry for them because they have fallen so far. Meanwhile, players like Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol and Manu Ginobili continue to leave their countries to play in the NBA because they want the chance to play with the best in the world. I don’t believe the HoF should eliminate the number of contributors, coaches, women and international players. What it should do is recognize the hierarchy everyone else does and give more credit to the players at the highest level. That seems natural and fair.
Lots of individuals would benefit from this expansion but current and future fans will benefit more. There will be more people to celebrate, more accomplishments to note and more exceptions to the rules. Isn’t that what we want from sports? And what we often get from basketball?
This year’s elections of Artis Gilmore and Dennis Rodman fix two glaring oversights but there are probably a dozen other players that should be in the Hall but aren’t. Every time I start making a list it saddens me. Maybe I’ll do that later.
FDO
In my kitchen there is a Wizard of Oz promotional calendar. The month of April describes the film as ‘The Happiest Movie Ever Made!’
WTF?!? Are you kidding me? The Wizard of Oz is a great movie to be sure. I love almost everything about it from the singing to the dancing to the innovative visuals to the intelligence of the movie to its important cultural impacts. But The Happiest Movie Ever Made? What a rotten, mean joke! The movie features a false god, political corruption, malevolent witches, terrorist attacks, family dysfunction, murder, kidnapping, natural disaster, drug use and abuse of power. And topping it all off, at the end of the movie, Dorothy decides she wants to stay in Kansas!
I realize childhood didn’t mean the same thing in 1939 as it does today but can you imagine seeing billboards saying ‘The Happiest Movie Ever Made!’ and walking into the theatre to see The Wizard of Oz? As Flavor Flav would say, “Don’t believe the hype!”
FDO
Wow. I feel good and bad about sharing this publicly. I wrote this post Monday and Tuesday then read the Hollinger article here Thursday evening at halftime of the Spurs-Celtics game. (It’s ESPN Insider only, sorry.) I’ve been trying to write more frequently so I will have enough to post between 3 and 5 times a week. That often means writing something then holding it for a few days. Unfortunately, what I wrote now pales in comparison to what the professional ESPN writer shared AND covers some of the same ground. Such is life. Enjoy anyway! And hey, mine is shorter!
Derrick Rose is being anointed the MVP of the NBA and it’s a bit amusing because it’s clear Rose is not the best player in the league. There’s a very good chance he won’t even make first team All-NBA this year. With around ten games left, I’d have Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade at guard.
There seems to be a widespread media narrative indicating the D Rose should be the MVP and nothing has changed that narrative since the All-Star Break. Particularly considering how much statistical analysis is impacting the NBA, I have a strong feeling that in a couple years, the D Rose MVP will feel like the Steve Nash back to back MVPs of the last decade. Everyone will wonder what mass psychosis led to that decision making. We’re seeing lots of parallels between the two situations I think. Unexpected team success, a player’s rapid jump from the fringe All-Star to All-NBA levels and no signature performance from a competitor. (The Iverson MVP and Kidd runner-up seasons follow similar patterns.)
Rose has been a superb player for the Bulls this year and, seemingly, everything has worked out well for the Bulls. They are clearly ahead of schedule and have their own Big 3 with Rose, Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer, all of whom complement each other well and for whom there is a defined pecking order. The Bulls are the anti-Heat in some important respects. This all helps Rose’s candidacy, as does the substantial failings of the post-Jordan Bulls franchise. Everyone wants Chicago to be a title contender again.
Overall, Rose has clearly been the best story in the NBA this year. Does that mean he’s been the best player or the most important? Well, if I were Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki or Kobe Bryant, I might not feel that way.
My guess is that in 2014, most folks won’t feel that way either.
FDO
In the past few months I’ve spent a little time listening to Foo Fighters. They have a great number of songs I like and several I love. I’d basically missed them until recently, largely because I was never a fan of Nirvana and just presumed FF to be a spin-off band. I am so stupid.
Dave Grohl has had a virtually unique career. He’s the only person I can think of who has gone from being a Mitch Mitchell (well-known but clearly a background member of a popular group) to being a Sting (the frontman and primary songwriter of a popular group) in different groups. Typically, musicians are cast in specific roles early on and are unable to shift positions later. That’s just not part of the pattern.
Actors often expect to move from supporting to leading roles but for musicians being a backup guy almost always means you’re going to stay a backup guy. Fans don’t typically accept that change any more than record companies do. Dave Grohl was part of the biggest band in the world but when that ended, he ultimately created a fabulous new entity that reflects his voice. Pretty impressive.
Also, are there any suggestions for folks who’ve had parallel career trajectories? Michael McDonald doesn’t count because nobody knew who he was in Steely Dan. Phil Collins stayed in the same band so I don’t think he works either. Maybe Eric Clapton? I dunno how popular the Yardbirds actually were then. They remind me of Buffalo Springfield in that they seem more important in hindsight. Any thoughts?
FDO
A friend and I have been thinking and talking about our status as vegetarians. We’re part of a friendship group that eats together frequently and we sometimes plan around our eating choices. Of course, I've also thought about this subject before but don't remember the marvelous way I'd formulated it. Dang.
I think a big difference between me and most vegetarians is that I don't personalize what I’m eating. Maybe personify is the word to describe what I don’t do. It’s kinda boring and maybe weird but I just don't have a relationship with the animal I’m not eating. Helpfully, I don’t personify the food as having a relationship with me either. If I were to bite into a veggie spring roll and discover that I’d been tricked, hoodwinked, bamboozled and led astray (or just grabbed from the wrong plate) into eating a chicken spring roll instead, I’d spit out the bite, rinse my mouth and never think about it again. I guess that for me, 'being a vegetarian' doesn't mean much about who I am. Instead, I'm just somebody who chooses not to eat meat.
In fact, I still cook meat for my family on occasion even though I don't have any desire to eat it myself. (Every few months, lamb korma sounds great but that’s about it) I know they enjoy meat and I believe my son needs meat in his diet so I just cook it and then I'm kinda done thinking about it. I don't know that there's any deeper meaning for me.
Because it’s not normative, my guess is that if you asked most vegetarians to list 20 things about themselves to give a stranger an idea who they are, being a vegetarian would be high on the list. There’s a chance that it would show up on my list, but probably only if I knew there would be meal at the end of the exercise.
FDO
Much has been made about the super large moon we've seen lately. While Megamoon is beautiful to look at, I am also struck that our perception changes so much, so quickly. Spending a night watching the Moon race across the sky feels wonderful in part because we can see some of the fundamental processes of our universe at work in just a few hours. Really, at moonrise or moonset, we can notice those processes in a matter of minutes.
In astronomical terms, it's stunning that an object so close in size as our Moon is to Earth is also so close to us. The Moon is a quarter of the size of the Earth. However, the Moon and Earth are incredibly far from each other in our terms. The distance between the two objects is something like 250 000 miles. Going a quarter million miles in a car means you talk to your friends about how great your car is and how many years it took you to go that far. In the late 60s it took 3 days for Apollo 8 to travel that distance. 3 day! Is that incredibly fast or incredibly slow?
I recently had a conversation prompted by something I read on Wikipedia about Sedna, the most distant sizable member of our solar system. I acknowledged that I was overwhelmed by how far away Sedna is from the Sun. Sedna is now about 3 times as far from the Sun as Neptune, but at times, it is 32 times as far! At that distance, how could the Earth and Moon be viewed as anything but a singularity?
Close. Near. Fast. Slow. These two celestial relationships (Moon-Earth, Sedna-Sun) make me think concretely about how much our view depends upon the lens we choose to use at any given moment. My guess is that changing lenses impacts our view of our own universes in similar ways. That's maybe even harder to understand.
FDO
…the words here deployed are equivalent to blanks in a loaded gun: they make the same sound but do not pierce us in any way.
I have begun feeling this way about my poetry. The only folks who seem pierced by my poems are the ones who hear them from my lips or, lacking proximity, in the voice their minds’ ears have labeled as mine. Either way, it’s about connection. Connection with me, not the words themselves. Knowing me and believing they understand the genesis of those poems allows the words to matter.
Maybe this just means my words are not the right ones. Perhaps it means that most of us only allow people to pierce us; we don’t allow ideas to do the same.
FDO
It seems interesting and sad that President Obama has so few ardent supporters left. The reality of his eroding support does not seem congruent with his level of accomplishment in the White House. Things have been tough for him during the first couple years of his Presidency, but he has made some pretty remarkable things happen. I suggested six weeks ago that the principal problem may be that his administration fails to tell its story well. There are not enough efforts to get his message out. I also believe the country has developed a sense of collective amnesia as we have run away from remembering that George W. Bush was our President for 8 years. Even the Republican Party has thoroughly distanced itself from him. Obama suffers from the lack of comparison now, as he benefitted from the constant comparisons in 2007 and 2008.
One thing I’ve begun to recognize about the prospect of creating new kinds of messages about the President is that there is no single message to trumpet. This is Barack Obama does not exist on a fixed point. There’s nothing immutable about him. He moves as he needs to move. Always.
I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day with this interpretation. Just consider the rough outline of Obama’s story. Half White, half Black. Born in the part of America that feels least like the rest of America. Living as an outsider in virtually every moment of his childhood. Being broke while in the Ivy League. And now, being young, inexperienced and Black in the Oval Office. He moves as he needs to move because he has always needed to do so.
That strength may be part of the reason President Obama seems such a natural mediator. In most contexts, that’s a tremendously valuable skill! I believe that he always wants to manage situations so that everyone feels a sense of victory. Just consider who his Secretary of State is!
Unfortunately, all those compromises and efforts at conciliation make it hard for him to lead. And, personally, Obama’s approach makes it hard for me to understand what matters most to the President. I don’t remember the last time he resolved to do (or not do) something because he cared about it enough NOT to compromise about it. Even though I think he’s made some fantastic successes, I imagine there’s not much he has done in office to inspire continuing faith in many people. There’s nothing to be counted on just because it exists at his core. There doesn’t seem to be a core.
FDO
Where are the articles comparing Karl Rove’s book to George W. Bush’s book?
Since Rove seems to have fictionalized some of his account, does Bush correct the story? Are the trouble spots, uh, I mean, decision points, critical ones? Have we already decided that we just don’t care anymore? Never mind. I shouldn’t ask the question if I can’t accept the answer…
FDO
The WhoDeannyPod 