Did you read that?: April 2005

Movie titles cum headlines

My question is this: Would headline writers have been so quick to pull their material from an average flick with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere if had involved not just a bride with cold feet, but a pretty hooker bride gone straight?

By the way, if Jennifer Willbanks' story were really a movie her poor fiance John Mason would spurn the crazy-eyed westward-bound nut-job in favor of sympathetic and stable Albuquerque Police spokeswoman Trish Ahrensfield.

Return of The Hater's Ball

From Maureen Ryan's column in today's Chicago Tribune:

"Chappelle's Show" Season 3 premiere (9 p.m., May 31, Comedy Central). "Chappelle's Show" finally returns, and while we don't think Dave will be reprising his wickedly funny Rick James impersonation, we know we'll be repeating some catchphrase from the show minutes after the season premiere ends.

And these choice phrases, which are not from Maureen Ryan, but from The Hater's Ball sketch in Chapelle's season one.

"I hate you, I hate you, I don't even know you and I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you and nobody else but you."

"What can I say about that suit that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan. It looks bombed out and depleted."

Donald Rumsfeld, Spider Man and Captain America together at last

This shouldn't be a real newspaper article. It should be what you see in a newspaper that's portrayed in a comic book.

I really don't know what to think of this. I need the ghost of Orwell to visit and explain it to me.

See also:
America Suppports You (Official Pentagon-produced page)
Recruiting Superheros
Superheroes soldier on in the Middle East
Marvel Comic for Troops
Captain America - Superheros of the Military-Industrial Complex

Thomas Friedman's getting his ass kicked

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman has a new book called "The World is Flat." I like Tom. I've read many of his columns and two of his previous books. He makes sense to me, and I like his insights, but I probably won't put his newest effort on my nightstand. The New York Press eviserated not only the book, but the man as well. The Economist terms the work "a dreary failure." Slate is more complimentary, while Lawrence R. Jacobs, a professor I've never heard of, is rather lukewarm. I'll pass, at least until the paperback edition.

Motivation

Remember what Fred Carter said. Play with confidence. Live with confidence. Reading clips on other writers and artists, and placing their accomplishments out of your reach will prevent you from doing the work you can do. John Wooden said it too. Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. To thy own self be true. Come in and play your game, if you are an athlete. As an artist, specifically a writer, it means that I no longer should focus on the accomplishments of others who have come before me and found success. I should also not worry about finding my voice or my style. The only voice I can use is the one I have. No one ever learned how to speak by remaining silent; the same is true of become a writer. To write one must write. To play one must play. Paint to paint, sing to sing, sculpt to sculpt.

If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got.

Recurring nightmares

As I wrote yesterday, my wife and I are expecting our first child in late July. I asked, apparently in vain, that mishaps and accidents involving pregnant women no longer appear in the news. It didn't work. The Chicago Tribune, which ashtonishingly endorsed President Bush for re-election, ran a follow-up to the original nightmare. CNN taunts me thusly: "Pregnant woman, 10 others hurt in NYC cab crash." The New York Times lent its erudite voice to the taunting chorus, even adding a new stanza to inflame another vein of worrry - the pending purchase of our first house. Somehow the Times must have learned that we are awaiting the closing on May 18. Thanks, NYT, for this tale of real estate closing snafus. Nice of you. Appreciate it.

The Death of a Blog

I'm killing my other blog. It was meant to contain my brilliant sports commentary, my glittering insight, and things of this nature. As a name, "My Own Sports Page" was a tad grandiose, and the content never lived up to the tag - mostly because there wasn't very much of it. The blog header announced the Page's arrival - "Conceived, launched, written, edited and read by me – a former low-level sports journalist of no consequence and one-time sports information assistant of absolutely no regard." I hired myself,perhaps foolishly, as editor, reporter, columnist, and paperboy. Since I have not made a new entry there since February 18 I am now firing myself from all these jobs.

You know how when someone dies their body loses control and lets all their piss and shit pour out? A life passes before eyes and then a big smelly mess is made. That's what is happening with the blog that once existed at My Own Sports Page. The three entries below were all that I managed to blog out. "Thirtysomething," "Notable NBA Numbers," and "Token NHL Blurb."

http://myownsportspage.blogspot.com/ is dead.
Long live http://amateurthinker.blogspot.com/.

THIRTYSOMETHING?
ENTRY FROM 10:28 AM ON FEBRUARY 18, 2005
As the league's luminaries gather in Denver for this weekend's All-Star spectacle, there were only two games played last night. I even looked at the CBA and NBDL boxscores from last night, and found little of note. Scans of www.eurobasket.com, www.fiba.com, and www.euroleague.net also yielded nothing.

Thirtysomething?
Dallas' 119-113 win at Phoenix included a troika of thirty-point efforts: Michael Finley (33), Josh Howard (30), and Amare Stoudamire (31). Just another high-scoring affair for those two squads, you say? Perhaps. It also may have been related to the pending guest appearance of Mel Harris on next week's episode of the West Wing. She's the actress who played Hope on the ABC drama thirtysomething. Then again, maybe not.

NOTABLE NBA NUMBERS
ENTRY FROM 7:55 PM ON FEBRUARY 17, 2005
Chicago 121, Toronto 115

The Bulls hit season highs in points (121), field goal percentage (.579), and games over .500 (3) in their second win in as many nights. Despite a season's best 115 points the Raptors never held a lead. Both teams shot over .500 from the field and from three, and topped .800 on free throws. If only for the symmetry of the numbers, and the players behind them, this box deserves a second look. Each half of the box score included the following.

A starter drafted in last year's lottery score 28 points (Hinrich #7, Bosh #4)
A second starter score 25 points (Curry, Rose)
A third starter score 20 points (Deng 20, Alston 21)
Reserves who played collegiately at UConn score 17 points (Gordon, Marshall)
A starter who played only one college season in the ACC make 10 free throws (Deng [Duke 2004], Bosh [Georgia Tech 2003])
A starting second-round draftee with 8 assists (Duhon [#38 in 2004], Alston [#39 in 1998])

Also notable from last night:

Dueling Stiffs Produce Double Doubles
Portland's Joel Przybilla (18 pts, 17 rebs, 6 bs) and Indiana's Jeff Foster (14 pts, 17 rebs, 1 bs) post unlikely numbers in the Pacer's 95-87 triumph.

How Not To Defend The Paint
Golden State and Seattle combined for 104 points in the paint in the Warriors' 117-110 road victory.

Many Doubles
Jason Kidd notched a triple-double with 19 points, 11 boards, and 10 helpers, Chris Webber collected a double-double in the form of 12 points and 10 rebounds, and both teams held double-digit leads (13 each). The Nets held on 96-85 in a game that included 17 ties and 12 lead changes.

TOKEN NHL BLURB
ENTRY FROM 6:19 PM ON FEBRUARY 16, 2005
Having only seen one National Hockey League game in person, fewer still on television, I'm not really affected by today's declaration that the league will not have a season. Field hockey I have seen repeatedly, and even been paid to do so. Same with women's lacrosse, tennis, cross country and track and field. It is neither sexism nor ignorance that feeds my disdain for these sports. After keeping statistics, writing game programs, and contributing to recruiting guides, I lay claim to educated disdain for most of what the NCAA officially terms "non-revenue sports." I know more than enough about those sports to know I don't like them. Not so with ice hockey. That which I do not know about the sport of Gretzky could fill the Toronto Sky Dome. Cancel the season, play an abbreviated schedule, switch to full-contact curling - big deal. Too bad for hockey fans but not for me. Salary cap, player concessions, cost certainty - so what? Do what you will, NHL. Except for one thing - the timing.

I take issue with the league making its news public today, which is the first day of this weblog. My new blog dedicated to sports. Why not tomorrow? I could have written about pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, how strange Kevin McHale looks as a coach, or why the Illinois men's basketball team won't win it all. Instead, the NHL turned out the lights this very afternoon. By doing so, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has forced me to do something I am neither inclined to do nor skilled in - writing about hockey. Even though the one game I saw included Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, I just had to Google both of those names, plus Gretzky, to find their correct spellings. Further degrading my hockey knowledge is the fact that one of the teams in that game, the Hartford Whalers, no longer skates. I couldn't attend my second NHL game there if I wanted to. Attending that game was fun, and I'm not completely sure why I didn't take to hockey. The arena in Hartford was attached to a shopping mall, and the vendors sold great ice cream in the stands. Walking out into the arena to see the ice was something special. How clean, white and bright it was. The players gliding across the smoothness, my guides telling me to watch behind the puck so I could see the body-slams. It was my effort to branch out of basketball, baseball and football, but it just didn't stick. Couldn't get into it on teevee, and I reverted to not caring.

Whatever was missing must not have effected just me, since the team no longer exists. It moved somewhere in the southern United States, right? Was it Charlotte? Like I said, I know puck about hockey, but that seems like quite the bad move, eh? Doesn't hockey belong in cities with attributes one would associate with the sport itself? Chicago's broad shoulders; New York's swagger; Quebec's small-town feel; Vancouver's grandeur; Boston's grit. Hartford makes me think "Insurance Capital Of The World," mostly because the city's tourism marketing touts it thus, and Charlotte makes me think of tobacco smoke. Hartford, though, is cold and situated in the northeast, two things Nashville and Miami and Raleigh are not. Hockey in the south? Next thing you know the league will be losing millions of dollars, dropping market share, and cancelling entire seasons.

Starring in today's nightmare...

Our first child is due in July. Therefore, my wife and I should be protected from reading any news stories like this one from the Chicago Tribune.

Pregnant woman shot in Dolton store

Saturday Night LAME

New episodes of Saturday Night Live serve to annoy me more than they make me laugh. If I sat in Lorne Michaels' chair for one day, I would do the following.

1. Remove the incessantly smarmy Tina Fey in favor of any other writer or comedian who has more tricks in their bag than making fun of the less fortunate.
2. Bring back Jimmy Fallon, but just long enough to fire him.
3. Install a weekly Alec Baldwin segment, written by Andy Dick.
4. Replace Rob Riggle with Tracy Morgan.
5. Tell my writers to think of New York City less as the center of the universe, and more like a place that could use a dose of self-deprecating humor.
6. Be sure to make fun of Ben Stiller every week.
7. Analyze the differences between SNL and The Daily Show, Chapelle's Show, I Love the 70's/80's/90's, and everything else that is better than SNL, which is most everything else, including my last fart. Even MadTV is funnier, and has much better celebrity impersonations.
© 2005 by justin michael cresswell

Forgive Me

Forgive me father. Forgive me mother. Forgive me brother. Forgive me blogosphere.

It has been about six weeks since my last blog entry. Was I missed? I think not.