BBQ Y'All?

18may05

Delusions of Yard Sales

I've been on the road quite a bit lately, ever since my driver's license photo, accompanied by a rather nasty tribute, surfaced on America's Most Wanted and FoxNews. The disguises I've since employed are okay-- at least I get to stay up on costuming techniques, which is a marketable skill in film and politics, so if I slip the dragnet and make it to Brazil without getting whacked by banditos, feds, or a stray jaguar, you should all expect to see me reppin' in Lula da Silva's government. My gringo features will vanish, at least on the surface, but my heart and my unshakable doctrine of extreme moderation will live loudly in my advisory role to the Brazilian Presidente. Hopefully Lula will give me a swank apartment down by the 900ft Jesus in Rio. If he wants me to do my work in Brasilia, I may have to just keep going on to Argentina. Brasilia's too damn humid, 24/7...makes DC feel like Oslo. Y'all look for me. I'll be the funny-looking cleric wearing a hockey mask.

Indeed, I've come to like the disguises, but the cheap motels are a drag. One thing about being on the run with a limited budget, you either need to sleep in fleabag rental spots, in a tent, or in a ditch. Since I absolutely must have plumbing, it's been the motel way. Problem is, I've learned that 4th rate motel managers love watching America's Most Wanted, so pop into these places incognito-- as a modern caveman...Ziggy Stardust...Yoda. The inconvenience is already wearing on me, and I have yet to leave the country. Am I contrite for my crimes?

To a degree.

I may have overreacted when I set the lawn chairs on fire, and I was definitely wiggy by time I took out the display of framed paint-by-numbers abominations and ragged board games, even though my 4WD vehicle is tailor made for that kind of demolition. Thing is, I was in a rage and there are defenses for this kind of behavior, if only I could afford the right lawyer. If that yard sale host and his grizzled friend hadn't fired a volley of shots at me and my jeep, we'd all be cool. Far as I know, no one got killed. No harm no foul, right?

I went on with my planned trip to the East Coast, not thinking about repercussions at all regarding my multiple yard sale violations, that is, until I checked into a little motel outside of Gettysburg:

clerk: Hey, aren't you that lunatic who razed three yard sales?

me: No, no ma'am. I'm a goalie with the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3rd string. We haven't been practicing much lately. Besides, what kind of a depraved bastard would trash something as perfect and holy as a yard sale?

clerk: I'm telling you, I was just watching America's Most Wanted, and I was absolutely shocked at what this terrible person did. Property destruction! How low will we let these animals stoop before we put a stop to the madness?

me (backing away slowly towards the door...reaching for the keys to my Jeep): Exactly. Summary executions can't come fast enough. I hope that defiler of Yard Sales is brought to justice.

It's been furry faces and strange headgear ever since.

The yard sales themselves don't bother me. If people want to be free of their junk and have the time to hawk it from the comfort of their front yard, fine. What bothers me are some of the people who attend these yard sales, the people who park their monstrous vehicles all over the road, assuming that anyone waiting or hoping to pass through the rural congestion actually wants to stop and peruse mounds of clearance crap too. What bothers me is how supposedly functioning members of our society lose their ability to drive, walk, or think clearly when they see evidence that someone they don't know wants to unload velvet artwork and dented toaster ovens.

My zone of contention rests in having to play bumper pool with oversized Town Cars, Crown Victorias, and monster SUV's that invariably line both sides of busy two lane roads...where it seems all yard sales of consequence are held, and where I must navigate to get from my place to the expressway. There's nothing quite like the jolt of being simultaneously cut-off and nearly sideswiped by two conversion vans angling for the same stretch of shoulder after nearly taking out two drooling mulleted babes in short-shorts who are loping towards a rusted washing machine. I had to kiss the double yellow six or seven times before I reached the interstate-- which as I type this is being ground into powder and resurfaced along a 30 mile stretch...along where I live of course.

The breaking point, and the resulting hassles, came and went as I squeezed my vehicle past two Suburbans parked poorly on opposite sides of Mt. Morris Rd., north of Flint. I had been house-sitting for Mom while she visited friends and coconspirators in Tennessee and Florida. I was darting to her place to mow her lawn, with a full gascan in my Jeep since there was no gas in the lawn mower nor in her shed. I was in a rush because there was a thunderstorm about an hour away according to the radio, a lawn to be mowed, and a wedding party I needed to be at some nine hours away. I'm juggling this in my head, and cursing the plethora of Friday morning yard sales on such an otherwise fine spring morning, when a husband-wife team darted out from between two vehicles to a place bout three feet from my front bumper, safely on the double-yellow, to lecture me loudly on my driving skills. I was soon mad at myself that I'd hit the brake to begin with.

old man: Sonofabitch, watch where you're going

old lady: (shaking head sadly, as though I was some defective who needed to be stashed in a group home or in a relative's basement

me: (really really tempted to stomp on the accelerator)

They just stood there and stared at me, in the middle of the road. Soon there were a couple cars coming from the opposite direction, and since I had a third of my vehicle leaning over the centerline, oncoming traffic couldn't pass until both me and the oldsters moved away from this bucolic bottleneck. Then a car came up behind me and soon the horn was beeping and the two oncoming cars went into reverse and found shoulder/road space, and I'm thinking that there is some kind of yard sale mafia, that there must be some level of organization behind such evil happenings.

That's when I retaliated. I found out something new about myself...that I have a taste for fires. Hopefully I'll be able to keep a hand around it. Like I said, no one go killed, and what I destroyed was already deemed junk by the original owner...yet John Walsh makes ME out to be the bad guy. Damn.

I've made this point before, and I make it again because I can't help it: Don't base your happiness on how much junk you can collect or how much buffet chow you can snarfle down your talking hole. If you are uncomfortable or disconnected to the point that useless objects are your lifeline to reality and sense of self-worth, for the love of God, man, get help. Absolutely no one should base their schedule on friggin' yard sales, it's not cool when there are so many more wondrous things to discover, like a.m. binge-drinking and snipe hunting. But what do I know?

Vive buenas!

I'm the same, as I was when I was six years old, and oh my God I feel so damn old...don't feel anything. - Issac Brock

- k

top

12may05

Pistons Flop and Bolton Comes Up For Air

The Pistons played like b-ball freakin' GODS for about 12 minutes last night at the Palace. Tayshaun and Sheed were draining outside shots and driving for buckets in the paint. The passing was crisp and the Pistons defense and team speed gave the Pacers a collective Gomer Pyle face. 33 - 18 after one quarter, Detroit. I figured the rout was on, and the series over. Unfortunately, between the 1st and 2nd quarter, someone or some thing deftly removed my hometown 12's souls and spines and the Pistons went on to turn in the ugliest and most inept 3 quarters of basketball this side of an Inuit summer league game on the outskirts of Yellowknife. I felt as though I needed a blood transfusion after just watching the atrocity, the poison was that pervasive. Suddenly Detroit couldn't shoot, couldn't pass, nor could they rebound off the offensive glass. Did they all sneak into the locker room and violate Rasheed's bong when we weren't looking? Isn't Larry Brown paid to keep an arm around that kind of foolishness? No disrespect to Indiana, scribes in the Hoosier State are no doubt prattling on about a great Indy comeback, and touting Reggie Miller's shooting acumen while drawing AARP benefits, but shit, Detroit blew it.

Like sports, so goes real life, really. Just when you think you got your situation by the shorts, obstacles real and imagined emerge to derail your best laid plans. In Washington, where the spunky Wizards are turning to shamans and the ghost of Lee Atwater to avoid being swept by the Heat, people get crushed under sudden changes of fortune every day. By time you finish reading my this dose of babbling wisdom, many careers will have been lifted and crushed...sometimes that of the same person. DC is a freaky city, people. I spent 5 years of my 20s trying to make sense of it all and came away with a cynicism like armor plating, and a wounded liver.

Three weeks ago, John Bolton's chance of being our next UN Ambassador was equal to Reggie Miller popping up next to Katie Holmes on People's Most Beautiful People List. In the real world, and certainly in the corporate world, after you feel the boots of your colleagues for a month or three, you curl up into the fetal position and wait for a Human Resources generalist to drag you past the security guard and pitch you onto the street. Hopefully the site of stumbling bums and the stench of body stank and urine gives you a second wind to get up and pursue another career. Looks like John Bolton won't have to do that, because after withstanding everything the Democrats could throw at him, moderate Republicans, after some initial waffling on Bolton's nomination, are falling back in line.

Tangent: I'm wondering how Nancy Pelosi manages to wield power despite a political record on national issues that in comparison brings glory to the efforts of the 2k3 Detroit Tigers.

Enlightenment doesn't mean much in a theocratic democracy where no one between the Smokies and the Rockies agrees with a damn word you say. No, I'm not bashing faith, since most folks can't deal rationally and productively with the alternative, but there are good ideas that never come to the fore because those who propose good ideas can not hide their contempt for the vast majority of our electorate. This seems to keep us at an impasse and Dubbya the Junior is what we reap. Still, I say Dubbya can nominate damn near anyone he wants for HIS branch of government. John Bolton is something of an ideologue, does not think highly of UN bureaucracy, nor do I for that matter, and Mr. Bolton also seems to have an abrasive management style, which places him squarely in the company of 2/3 of the senior executives across our fine tax-slashed land-- including Pelosi's (and my) San Francisco.

John Bolton is a policy wonk who has worked under Republicans and Democrats alike. He is known as a gifted administrator, but not a leader. Early reports that he was serial sexual harasser and abusive administrator have wilted under close scrutiny. He can be forceful and animated pushing the policy of his elected bosses...but that is HIS JOB, that is why he clashed with Colin Powell over at the State Department. Powell sought to undermine Bush policy and Bolton did not. Bolton is the kind of man who can read a policy paper and tailor the actions of his work to fit the positions on said paper. George Bush wants us to deal with the UN in a certain way, and it does not matter who the face man is, the UN will be dealt with as a body that debates policy and ameliorates the stings of hegemony and nationalist desires, but not erase them. The World is in no position to lend every nation an equal voice, there is just way too much disparity in both powers among nations and who and who doesn't abide by the rule of law. Maybe we get to world government in a 100 years or so, I would like to see it, but we ain't there yet by a damn sight.

Democrats obviously want to stick it to Bush any way they can. The institutional hatred for our 43rd President by the left is a few degrees past hysteria. Battling Bush on social security, while unproductive and wrongheaded, is okay on paper and part of the political game. Similarly, I've never thought highly of piddling nomination battles, even when they were warranted, just because folks can get away with being difficult...usually manifestations of being sore losers. For example, when I was a tyke, there was a big dust-up over Reagan's attempt to bring Robert Bork up to the Supreme Court. That's okay. Supreme Court Justices are lifetime appointments and I don't think that justices ought to be far from the mainstream of American opinion, though thanks to our wondrous public education system, is not a mass opinion I often hold dear. Today, Bork would be just another Conservative jurist, 23 years ago he was an unhinged radical...and ah Ted Kennedy represented the center. Democrats hated the fact that Reagan was in office and tried to screw him whenever they could, and the result was an asskicking of historic proportions in the 1984 election. Anyway, Ambassador to the UN is not a lifetime appointment. It's not even a cabinet appointment. It's a diplomatic post, and one subservient to the Secretary of State-- our nation's top diplomat. Whoever ends up as our UN Ambassador will answer to Miss Condolezza and of course to Dubbya the 43 and a third.

In that context, throwing so much time and energy battling a sub-cabinet nomination seems very petty. It's akin to the Republicans blowing the Schiavo affair out of proportion. Of course major news networks don't cover it as such since maybe someone pays these dimwit hacks not to state the obvious, and I quote Bill Hicks: The difference between Democrats and Republicans is the difference in swishing a mouthful of Listerine from one side to the other. John Bolton will be the next UN Ambassador, and he will carry out White House policy regarding the UN. Senate Democrat fools like Carl Levin will go on Hardball and whine about the Republican colossus failing everyone at every turn, while Bolton gets up to speed on his new job and people will forget he's even there...and move on to the next petty distraction.

Bottom line, if you don't want someone like John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN, do not elect someone like George W. Bush to be President of the United States.

- k

top

09may05

Sunshine and B-Ball

Had a great weekend. It's now 80 degrees outside, and I'd rather be frolicking in the sun and acquiring an el-negro-like tan. But because I have a lot of work, and I'm Irish, it'll have to wait till tomorrow. Then I'll throw on the speedo and the hiking boots, slather myself with some spf3000 sunblock and invade the Flint Public Pool with a bowie knife and bottle of Everclear...scarring every soul within 600 yards.

Okay, I'm not entirely serious about that last part.

Great weather be damned, I'll be spending a good portion of this evening in front of the tele. In about six hours, the Pistons and Pacers will square off in the first game of what could be the ugliest exhibition of basketball since the Knicks and Rockets put America to sleep in the 95 Finals.

On paper, the Pistons ought to win this series with ease. They are better at every position, given the fact that Indiana plays without defensive monster and reigning NBA psycho, Ron Artest, and with a wounded Jermaine O'Neal. Artest, as every sports fan knows, was relieved of his basketball duties for the season by NBA Fuehrer, Herr David Stern, for trying to return the cup-o-beer to the fan who had accidently dropped it forward and down five rows to the scorer's table, where Artest was composing himself after a little dance with Ben Wallace towards the end of a game Indiana was winning by a mile. I thought the suspension was a bit long, but then again Artest did punch THE WRONG FAN. Funny how that stuff tends to work out.

When Jermaine O'Neal is healthy he is a better baller than either of Detroit's Wallaces, by just a little, but O'Neal is essentially playing with one arm. His shoulder has been killing him for months, but he guts it through for the team. Similarly, Jamal Tinsley has been playing on a wrecked foot, and their biggest scoring threats are a 40-year-old jump shooter (Reggie Miller), and that crazy bastard who joined Artest up in the Palace stands (Stephen Jackson). Indiana should get swept in this series, but that won't happen.

It's the toughness and single-mindedness on Indiana's part that scares me, and the vengeance factor-- their season went to hell at the Palace, after all. The injured Pacer players are playing through their pain, and Stephen Jackson must be taking loads of lithium, since he's been damn near genial on the court when he's not manically defending the opposition's swingman or draining big shots. Seriously, electroshock has to figure into that somewhere...you don't go from crazy to cool-headed without a little help. The Pacers were given up for dead when all the post-brawl suspensions were handed out, yet Carlisle rallied his depleted troops and Indiana somehow leapfrogged the more talented Cavaliers, Nets, and 76ers into the 6th seed of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. Then these guys went ahead and beat the immensely more talented, and 3-seed, Boston Celtics.

I'm eagerly waiting for Bill Simmons post-mortem on his beloved Celtics. What a bunch of hacks. Indiana is a limping wounded bunch playing with heart and balls under the guidance of the 2nd best coach in the Association. Rick Carlisle should be Coach of the Year, and Doc Rivers ought to be run out of Boston...and I hate saying that because I like Doc as a person, but it's the coaches' job, by definition, to ensure that his more talented team beats teams with inferior talent, especially in the playoffs. Anyway, Simmons, dude, publish that piece because I want the laughter ...something to point at every time you ignorantly diss the Pistons. Not that I expect our Motown 12 to receive love from a Beantown scribe.

Pistons - Pacers will go six games. Detroit will win the series. No team will sniff 100 points. As for the underground fight pool...and the over / under on whether the shots will be fired inside the Palace this time, well, I have faith in mankind, generally. But Southeastern Michigan and Central Indiana are not the most cultured outposts of Western Civilization so I've got $50 down for three ejections and one maiming. My friends say I play it too conservative, but what can I say, I'm a slow healer.

Which leads me to this addendum / non sequitur:

Remember Bob Saget? America's Dumbest Home Videos? Full House? Level 12+ douchitude?

Perceptions are strange, and often wrong, but it's what we have to go on. Turns out that ol' Bob Saget is one of the sickest, most twisted degenerates roaming outside of prison walls. Check out this article, courtesy of the Observer. Like my friend Seth said, 'This means he @#$%ed the Olsen twins.' It's funnier than when I saw a wasted Bill Maher in a Hollywood nightclub hitting on an teenage Asian chicks. I love this country.

- k

top

05may05

Slap The Greasy Palms

American politics rarely attracts top-flight talent to its ranks. Between the scrutiny, invasion of privacy, and equal loads of slime and bullshit, anyone who seeks to rule the world looks to the corporate world rather than government. As Michael Corleone would say, 'It's the smart move.' It also explains the longstanding relationship between company barons and their government ho's.

From the jabbering lackeys manning Flint's City Council-- men and women who have drawn checks, kickbacks, and ego inflating perks while my hometown enters its third decade on life support, to the congressional leaders who foreswear lobbyists on the campaign trail while the fuel for their private jets is bankrolled in silence by those same lobbyists, so long as said congressman votes the right way, our system so reeks of corruption and incompetence that I'm amazed any decent person can come with 10 miles of Capitol Hill without a gas mask.

I understand these dynamics, and given the nature of political work in this day and age, I expect the political profession to be packed with amoral hacks and ward heelers. It beats the hell out of The Totalitarian System and it brings more order and cohesion than anarchy. The thing that keeps our political system from sending our country into the ditch is our culture of professional advisors: specialists and proven winners in various fields who advise our honcho politicians.

Ideally, when the President sets policy, he gathers the opinions of business executives, historians, and scholars of many stripes, listens to what they have to say, and makes the best decision from the information given. That decision is supposed to be in the best interest of the country, since, you know, our President has been put into place to represent the best interests of our country.

And yes, I'm winding up to bitch about our energy policies again. Sorry.

I thought it odd that Bush's energy advisors were culled from the ranks of companies on the dock for criminal actions-- Enron, Duke Energy etc. Thought it more odd that Bush Co. sees statistically negligible oil fields across the ANWR as the answer to our voracious oil consumption. And now I'm just thinking it's criminally insane that this Texas Oil Ass Clown refuses to use the bully pulpit to nudge us towards more diversity in our energy usage.

The latest issue of The Economist has some wonderful content, as usual, about avoiding the next oil shock. The quick solution is diversifying our energy sources and shedding our reliance on crackpot autocrats for our fuel. We have passed a point of no return regarding the supply and demand of oil, meaning, we shall never see $1 a gallon gas again. China and India have been busy buying drilling rights across Russia and Africa, and are actively bidding against us for futures in South American and Middle Eastern markets. Foreign oil will continue to trend upwards as South and East Asia seek to emulate our 1st world lifestyle.

Bush Co. must know this, they have to, and yet their policy response is to ratchet up exploration and drilling, domestically, and chiefly over some contested land in Alaska, while allowing market forces to determine when to get serious about fuel cells. Proven reserves up in the ANWR have been estimated between 500 million and 10 billion barrels. We can split the difference and say there are 5 billion barrels (though personally I've to think the total is much closer to 1 billion barrels) up along Alaska's North Slope. Oil explorers figure we can hit peak production of one million barrels a day, tops. We currently consume ~20 million barrels a day, and that figure will rise.

The scenario with this Administration at the helm is thus: We spend two years to insert the infrastructure needed for that extra one million barrels a day. Oil futures go down a bit as greedy speculators factor this in and thus anticipate we'll be buying ever more SUV's once our ADD nation sees gas prices ebb. Meanwhile, real supply across the Middle East remains mostly constant, with more and more real output from there and Russia and Africa being sent to China (our next Cold War adversary) and India. During this time, our pursuit of conservation and alternative energy still moves at a snail's pace without government stroking, and when the ANWR is pumping at full capacity, gasoline is running ~5 dollars a gallon, exurban soccer moms can't spend on nice things any more, consumer confidence plummets, and Incurious George is back on the ranch, washing his hands of the oil shitstorm he helped to facilitate. Our next President is going to inherit a mess that'll dwarf the terrorism issue.

The argument from Bush's crew always tails back to trusting the markets, even though today's market system is not free, nor are the market's actors reliable when the are perceptions or realities of serious scarcity. I guess Bush's Harvard MBA didn't cover this. Or maybe the coke blacked out that portion of his life. Or maybe he's just being dishonest. I want to think the best of our chief executive and the 60 million good souls who gave him a second term, but I have to wonder. Herbert Hoover told the masses to trust market forces after that dark October in 1929, and we know how that turned out.

How does this happen? For starters, Americans are busy breed. We don't have time to properly vet every politician who wants the keys to our country. Our political system, and the media, are supposed to vet for us. Sadly, the political system is all about backscratching and fingerpointing, and our media is so shrill and shallow that it's damn near impossible to believe anything anyone says. It's all noise noise noise, yet these real forces that are shaping our future for the worse are in play, and an Administration we've put in power to guide us through a thorny epoch have instead decided to enrich their friends and close their eyes to the peril of our tomorrows.

Sorry, but that's f*&ked up.

- k

top

03may05

Punk'd

Is it the recycled casino air? The booze, the chemicals, the food? Is it the lack of sleep? Could it be the overspending?

Why do I always get sick after a couple days in Vegas?

Better still, why do I always go back?

Today I feel like someone has injected me with a cocktail of toxic refuse and the blood of Keith Richards...wait, what would set those two ingredients apart?

All questions, no answers.

I had an absolute blast in Vegas, let me be clear about that. There was a time about 3am Saturday morning inside the Hard Rock when I felt 2,000 feet tall and ready to challenge heaven's current monarch for The Throne. Well, we learned in Dogma what happens when you try to pull off that nonsense, and since, I have been sent to my place.

I'm a shivering, shaking, chattering mess. Wait, that's because it's 32 degrees outside my fine fine Flint, MI bungalow. But it is May. Freakin May! Dammit.

Anyway, I made a vow some time ago never to write about actual Vegas experiences, only hypothetical Vegas experiences, just in case one of my friend's decides to make a serious run for a high office. Sure, the slogan says that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but bet your ass that what happens in Vegas gets shown on grainy video via CNN if you choose to run for the Senate. That's just how it is, and I'm too tired right now to change the rules, or even try...but since there's no way in hell Seth would ever degrade himself with a career in politics, lemme give a shoutout and a reminder that some antibiotics will clear that right up, Mr. Wolters. I'm kidding, Heather. Indeed, I'll skip the particulars of the weekend itself and focus for a moment on the interesting bookends to my weekend.

Dee-troit Basketball.

On Friday, with drink in hand, I talked a ton of poo inside our Flamingo suite while the Pistons and Sixers went hammer and tong at each other. They played fast and loose, and that's usually bad for the Pistons, because they are about defense, not playing the run and gun. 115 to 104, Philly. Allen Iverson poured 37 points and dished 15 assists. He did it from every angle, and he was knocked on his ass at least 15 times. I was pissed that the Pistons lost, yet I enjoy Iverson's game so much I couldn't really stay mad. He has the biggest stones in the Association.

Ben Wallace led Detroit with 29, and while it's nice to see Big Ben go off, when he's leading the offense, chances are that there's trouble on the horizon. Piston players even admitted later on that they were caught up in the high flying atmosphere, thinking more about acrobatics and no-look passes to the detriment of committed defense. It happens. I was already a mess by time Game 3 was finished on Friday, and so was everyone else, which is probably why I didn't catch too much abuse. It's hard to properly rag on someone when you've lost the ability to speak in complete sentences.

Then, ~40 hours later, there was Game 4 at 10am Vegas time Sunday morning. Eiiiiiiiiowwwww. Garbage time, baby, garbage time.

I dragged myself down to a Flamingo casino lounge to watch the game and drink away my hangover, cursing all the while that I was unable to snag an early flight out of Vegas, while all my friends were either en route or already home...sleeping it off or getting their emergency transfusion. My eyes were almost welded shut, and the slits of my whites that were visible matched the flaming red carpet around me. The area was bedlam with people running to flee Vegas and a whole different crowd coming through to vacation for the week. I'm very suspicious of folks who, of their own free will, choose to vacation for a week in Vegas...as in Monday through Friday. Sure, it's cheaper by the day, and you'll have more luck finding $5 blackjack tables, not mention discounts galore on lap-dances, cheaper bribes, etc., but still.

Game 4 was about what I wanted it to be except for about one minute in the 3rd quarter when Tayshaun Prince got tangled with Marc Jackson and went down hard, pounding the floor with his fist. I almost lost it right there...the combination of being stuck in Vegas for another 8 hours, my body on the verge of collapse, and now this? Larry Brown rushed over to Prince's side, patted him like a concerned parent, and suspect he said something to the effect of, "Tay, we're toast if you can't play." At least that's what I was thinking, because the 76ers were playing like they expected to steal the series. Had Willie Green not missed a free throw near the end of regulation, I write this piece with an even darker demeanor. As it is, Prince has a mild ankle sprain, which he'll undoubtedly play through.

Until the very end of the game, no one for Detroit was making shots when made shots were needed. Philly played outstanding defense, the crowd was insane, and then there is the Iverson factor. Have we not learned yet that close games are not what you want with AI on the other side? Look, I'm a Pistons fan, and all that entails, to the core, so I know what it means when I say this: AI is the best small man of all time. Better than Stockton, better than (saying this through clenched teeth) Isiah. AI was on fire all over the court, making shots with his body parallel to the floor, guarding like an insane pit bull, and coaxing all-star level play out of Chris Webber. That was the craziest part. C-Webb had a stellar playoff game, and having AI nearby was a big reason for that.

Heart means a lot to me, even though heart means little in athletic competition without talent. C-Webb and Iverson were blessed with similar amounts of talent if you think about it. AI of course was blessed with the heart of giants, an almost immeasurable amount of it. If Game 4 was any indication, AI's heart is having the same effect on C-Webb as Whoville had on the Grinch. If that's the case, Philly ought to be a blast to watch next year. Let me repeat, NEXT YEAR.

Somehow Sheed and Chauncey found their respective shots, and Detroit heads back to the Palace up 3 - 1. Tayshaun says he's gonna play on his sprained ankle, and the smart money says Detroit finishes this round of madness in about nine hours. It has to be that way, Philly's getting better, they're starting to figure it out, and when you get a maddog competitor like AI saying 'sure, I feel bad that we lost, but I like how we played,' Well, you wanna nip that kind of nonsense right in the bud. When Game 5 is over, I'd just as soon have Iverson quote Charlie Brown: "How can we lose when we're so sincere." Yes, that's the quote they should paste up at the entrance to McCarran Airport.

ungh

- k

top