Artist of the Week: Count Boogie

I wanted to start a new series titled "Artist of the Week" to praise the many, many creative people on the Internet that few know about. This will have nothing to do with sports, for the most part. Oh, and if you stalk anyone who I bring to your attention via these posts, you will die. of Ebola. like, tomorrow.

Anyway, the first artist made a personal video about his eating disorder (bulimia) and his desire to be admired. I didn't really care for some of his other videos (http://youtube.com/profile?user=CountBoogie), but his raw honesty, special effects on this video, and creativity in writing those lyrics get my attention. We need people to be honest about their struggles, and he's definitely putting himself out there with this song. Here's what he says in the description:

It's about being bulimic while living in my van.
Eating dissorders have been a life long struggle for me so, of
coarse I have to write about it...and by doing so, let anyone else
who is suffering know...that you are not a bad person for it...and you are not alone.
Stay positive and keep fighting.

You know, I have to wonder, are eating disorders a problem for female athletes and male athletes? From the general blogs I read, there are a LOT of women out there with eating disorders. (I wish they could all watch this song, quite honestly...might help them think about it). It's almost to the point when a woman says "I have a problem, and I don't want to talk about it" my first guess is instantly "eating disorder." There are some male bulimics and anorexics, too, but not very many. I know wrestlers, figure skaters, and gymnasts have some issues in those areas. But what about those NFL offensive linemen who love to eat, but have weight clauses in their contracts? You have to wonder if they have any eating issues. Anyway, ignore my idle, uninformed speculation and enjoy the video.

Night of TV + Kelly Tilghman and "That Word"

Wow, what a night of TV on Sunday! I was yelling at the TV half the night--couldn't believe what I was seeing. Hey, it's not every day that you see that on TV! I couldn't stop cheering and yelling out "Talk British to me, baby" and "Say something I don't understand! Then say it again! And purse those perky lips while you're doing it, and adjust your petticoat!" I mean, a Jane Austen adaptation I've never seen before, with an attractive actress playing the part of Catherine Morland? Northanger Abbey was on PBS, and Felicity Jones did not make me angry one bit! Oh, the football games were all right too.

Ha-ha, I've always wanted to pull a dumb routine like that on this blog. Anyway, on to more relevant topics. Recently, bloggers such as D-Wil , Michael David Smith, Awful Announcing, and The Starting Five have been covering the Kelly Tilghman story and aftermath as a serious incident. However, other bloggers and writers are brushing off Kelly Tilghman's use of lynching to refer to how the other players could stop Tiger Woods. (For an amusing parody on such efforts, see here--highly recommended!). They are referring to it as a mere slip of the tongue, an understandable lapse given how long commentators must opine on live TV. However, what bothers me is that I think we may have gotten a glance at Kelly Tilghman's heart, what she really thinks. And no, this is not an effort to pile on a woman who already has received her punishment and criticism. The reason is I have a Kelly-esque story of my own about a slip of the tongue.

It was my sophomore year at a small, mostly white high school (35 kids in grades 9-12), and I was on the basketball team. That is, they let me wear a uniform because they had no other players; don't think I was any good. We were a suburban school, and we went into the inner city to play an all-black Christian school. They were taller and more athletic than us, but we had a secret weapon that we did not fully appreciate until that night. Our 5'7" senior shooting guard, Ricky, who had ridiculous hops (could 360 dunk a volleyball) and a quick first step, decided to try to save our season. He went head-to-head with their athletes, scoring 30+ despite being double-teamed often, and we only lost by 4. Moral victories do exist. We won our next 15? games in a row after that loss.

Anyway, in the locker room after the game, one of my fellow bench scrubs and I were conversing in awed tones about the athleticism of the black players and the boisterous nature of their fans. He said something like "Wow, those guys looked tough and mean--it was a good thing Ricky was on tonight!" I said back "Yeah, I was kind of scared they'd pull a gun on us on the way back to the locker room!" Suddenly, our only black player, a freshman, spoke up. He said "You mean you thought they'd pull a gun because they were black, don't you?" I tried to stammer out that since it was in the middle of the inner city, I thought there would be tough people there, but he gave me a look. He said something else to correct me (I can't recall what, it was a while ago), and let it go.

You know what? My heart's thoughts were revealed when I said that. Why didn't I just say "beat us up" instead of "pull a gun"? Why did I go the extra mile and say something that made no sense in context with the situation? I said it because in my heart, there was an equation that said tall muscular black people + inner city = gang members. And when the left side of the equation came up in conversation, I spoke up and revealed the right side of that heart equation.

The saddest part was, I was completely wrong in this case. That team was one of the classiest teams we played all year, and they made sure to praise our shooting guard after the game for his amazing performance. But I was too busy thinking about size and skin color and the inner city to see the truth. Ironically, later in the year, a scary, violent incident did happen after a game. We walked out of the locker room to see a fan putting one of our star players in a choke hold. Of course (you can't make this stuff up), the fan was a white country boy. So much for me being able to determine the real threats to our team...

My point in telling this lengthy story? It's not about slips of the tongue. It's about a person's heart being revealed. My concern is that what Kelly said revealed a little piece of her heart. It's not that she herself would ever consider lynching a black man, any more than teenage me would ever consider exchanging gun fire with black gangsters. It's that she has been in situations and environments where biased words were said about black people, and she let those concepts get into her heart without questioning the speakers or the ideas. The Golf Channel was right to suspend her for a little while.

I don't want her fired. Lord knows that there's plenty of hate and wrong thinking in all of our hearts, so why should she suffer because hers was on TV? But for the last time, this issue isn't about "sensitivity" or "Sharpton" or "slip of the tongue"; it's about our souls and the sadness and sin that resides within each of us. We don't just need greater racial sensitivity, although that would be a nice start. We need a true soul-cleansing, one and all. I'd say more, but I don't preach without taking an offering, ha, so I'll let it go for now.

For you brave souls who read this far, a treat; watch Mehmet Okur play the old "I'm tired and I need to wipe sweat off my face...AFTER I DUNK ON YOU!" trick. I love playing this trick myself in pick-up ball...only, it's more like a lay-up, and I trip over my own shoes while trying to convert. But other than that, exactly the same!

Bloggolalia: MCBias Site News

I realized I hadn't done any year-in-review posts, because I got bored with reading them elsewhere. I'll do a couple of those in the next few weeks. First, I wanted to thank all of you who have read this blog over the last few months. I really enjoy your comments, readers. I don't write for hits and I don't write for ad revenue. I write to start conversations with smart, interesting people who can broaden my narrower perspective. So please, do feel free to comment, and I'll reply back whenever I can. Blogger has now made it possible for you to receive an e-mail when I post a comment in reply, so you don't have to check back several times to see if I replied.

Also, for all you lurkers out there who don't comment, that's fine. But this day, I offer you amnesty to come out and comment even if the comment itself makes little sense. You can go back to your 364 days of not commenting, then, if you don't like the experience. Just give it a try.

I know I post on a very random schedule. You'll get your Mondays and Fridays most weeks, but anything inbetween is up in the air. If you wish, I can either send you e-mail updates of when I post, or you can use http://www.google.com/reader to track this blog and others to know when they have been updated.

Finally, this year I wanted to do a lot more posts covering live sports events. If you go to any interesting games and get video/audio/pictures from them, let me know what you have. If it looks good, I'll give you a free post to talk about it and put up your pictures.

Thanks for reading!

Bloggolalia: Covering Fire

When I first started the Bloggolalia series, no sports blogger I was aware of was writing about blogs. Yes, people were certainly making lists and ranking blogs, but no one was really talking about the business of blogging. I felt a little weird at first. Why wasn't anyone else talking about this, if it was really such an interesting topic? Sure, I knew many other people outside of sports blogging were writing about blogs (it was hardly an original idea from my end), and guys like The Starting Five, D-Wil, and Dave Zirin have been watching the big media watchers for a while, but why not any sports blog analysts?

Well, fast forward to 2008, and I'm pleased to report that other people think talking about sports blogs, on occasion, is ok. Worse, they're doing a better job of it than I am! Maybe I can still get people to call me the Founding Father or something, ha.
BOHChris fond a much better title than I did (Blogsbudsman) and wrote an insightful blog on how to become a well-known sports blogger.
DMT Shooter, at Epic Carnival (just as BOHChris is), wrote on the Top 12 elephants in the room in pro sports. It's not really about blogs, but there are topics here for days and days. Well-thought, too--I especially liked the age and financial issues he brought up. Maybe my favorite post of the month.
Stop Mike Lupica wrote on why we need minority sports writers. It's a topic that I too have opined upon on occasion, and a worthwhile one. It's not about quotas, people; it's about true diversity of opinion. Don't hire minorites just to make the office picture more colorful. Hire people with interesting backgrounds, people that will get you story angles that you never would have thought of.

EDIT: And how could I have forgotten MODI of cosellout.com on my list of media watchers? He does his homework on the issues, and does it well in producing magazine-article and book-length posts that are well-researched.

Bostocalypse Now and Forever

I have Boston fever. I want the Patriots to win this weekend. I want them to demolish the Chargers by a score of 42-10, and I want each Patriot to take a turn imitating Shawne Merriman's lightning dance at midfield. Then I want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl in dominating fashion. I want Harrison to break Brett Favre in two on a ferocious blitz and then pretend he doesn't know the meaning of "roid rage" after the game. I want ESPN.com to retire the "Who was the best team" polls for the NFL because the Patriots were so dominant. Then I want the Boston Celtics to make a championship coach out of Doc Rivers and a household name out of Rajon Rondo. To top it all off, I want Jon Lester's formerly cancerous body to throw a no-hitter in Game 4 of the 2008 World Series, and out-dance Papelbon as the Red Sox celebrate back-to-back World Series wins. But that's not enough for me.

I want all Boston teams to win the championship again in 2009.
And then once more in 2010.
I want people to see "Celtic music" in the bookstore and wonder when Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen released their duet.
I want people to hear "Patriot Act" and think that's a new NFL rule aimed at breaking up the Patriot dynasty.
I want to see branded player products like "Garnett Gum", "Ortiz's Oranges" and "Papelpon's Pens" sold all over the US.
I want to see Harvard trustees vote to change the school name to "BHarvard", where the B is silent, just so they can put "B's" on their school clothing. Then the professors protest and insist on a vote...and vote 419-0 "For", just so they can show their Boston support too.
I want Rutgers and Rawlings to decide that their little red "R" needs a little sideways parenthesis on its bottom so it looks like a "B".
I want to see "Bostonize" in the urban dictionary, meaning "1. to dominate to the point of embarrassment; 2. to be victorious." I want to hear Soulja Boy release a new version of the song where they replace "Superman that" with "Bostonize that."
I want to watch as the President invites prominent Boston athletes to sit in the front row, just to boost his sagging approval ratings.
I want to see bookshelves everywhere straining under the weight of Boston athlete autobiographies, to the point that the books aren't even about sports anymore. I want classics like Ryan O'Callaghan's "Adding the O' to your Relationship" and Glen Davis' "Care and Feeding for your New Big Baby: The First Six Months" to top the New York Times' best-seller lists.
I want Tom Brady to get his own show on TBN where the blind see after getting a Tom Brady spiral right between the eyes.

In short, I want Boston to reign supreme for the next three years, launching a Bostocalyptic dynasty on the sports world. Throw in Boston College and the Bruins while you're at it. Let confetti rain down like snow in January on Foxboro's turf! They deserve it--think of it, they went an ENTIRE DECADE without a championship! In the 80's, all they had was 3 NBA championships and 1, only one World Series appearance and Super Bowl visit. That's it! They deserve it, right Philadelphia, Cleveland, Seattle, and Buffalo fans? They've gone through a lot, right, Cubs fans?

Ah...but then I want to be there when Garnett blows out both knees after Rasheed Wallace undercuts him in the play-offs, when Randy Moss and Manny Ramirez get caught trying to sell kidnapped dwarves on eBay in a wacky scheme only they understand and spend a decade in prison, when the Patriots spy cam catches Rodney Harrison giving Tom Brady his weekly steroid injection under the stadium steps, when a desperate Hank Steinbrenner lures Theo Epstein to the Yankees by pointing out that NYC ladies are hotter, and when David Ortiz's bat stops hitting home runs.

Then, for the next twenty years, I want the universe restored to its rightful order, where Bill Belichick has as much chance of being named "the other man" in a divorce settlement as I have of being the father of Bridget Moynihan's next child, and Boston teams return to mediocrity after completely spoiling their fans.
I want to hear the cries of outraged adolescent Bill Simmons wanna-bes, because they can't publish "Now I can graduate high school in peace" without failing out of yet another year of school.
I want to watch any woman walk into a bar wearing "Patriots Super Bowl Champion" t-shirts and immediately know how old she is because she owns that shirt.
I want to smell no food in the tailgate lots, because all the fairweather fans are gone and even season ticket holders barely come for the game itself.
I want to see Fitzy Links on "townienews.com" shrinking to one entry where you can find Fitzy, titled "Fitzy on Friend's Couch", and the site itself going from townienews.com to townienews.whydoesntanyonewatchanymore.blogspot.com. I want to read that Bill Simmons' dad refuses to be interviewed for the column anymore, and considers sports a waste of time. I want the Red Sox Monster to change its name to "Red Sox Midgets." I want to watch the tears flow as the dad puts Boston gear on his newborn son, the kid starts crying, and the dad says mournfully "He already knows!."
I want to hear brash young talk radio hosts hanging up on elderly Bostonians whose voice quavers as they beg to be allowed to relive the glories of Brady and Belichick one last time.
I want to see Harvard literature professors attempting to be funny and saying "If The Scarlet Letter was written today, Hestor Prynne would be wearing a scarlet 'B'."...and the class laughs!
I want to know the magic phrases to make tough Bostonian construction workers cry in the bar--phrases like “Kevin Garnett knee injury” or “Tom Brady diminishing skills."
I want to watch the President openly plead with Bob Kraft to change the team name from Patriots, because they don't deserve to represent America.
I want people to see your "B" hat and ask you "What does the 'B' stand for?"

Enjoy the good times while they last, Boston fans, and brag in the comments about how your teams are so much better than ours. You earned this moment--or at least players wearing the name of your town did. And many of you are classy, fun fans. But please, give us other fans a break. This was written for fun and amusement today. Give me another six months of Boston overkill, and I'll mean every last word.
Signed,
Bitter Cleveland Fan

Sex in the NBA: Dwight Howard's Sex Dunk Nets 1 Baby

The news that Dwight Howard is having a baby with a woman he's not married to just came out. See it here. Based on some links Stopmikelupica sent me, there's much more to say about sex (and celibacy) in the NBA; it's time for a mini-series! Now, in Dwight's slight defense, apparently they were together for a few years (see the girlfriend's myspace for details), but are now broken up.

But for right now, I'm going to stick to the smallest of issues. This story allows me to finally feel comfortable about linking to one of my first blogs, on Myspace, about Dwight Howard. Deadspin.com did a story about how Dwight was hanging out with Mary, who is a famous actress in porn movies. It was played strictly for laughs, and Will was polite enough not to mention that Dwight made a lot of noise about his Christian faith when he first came into the league. However, there was much more to the story, as you'll see in the blog.

I do feel a little conflicted about linking to it, because it seems like kicking a man while he's down. I'm not saying that Dwight Howard is a hypocrite or not a Christian, but let's just say not everyone who says they are a Christian, is. And I'm definitely not saying I'm better than Dwight! What I am saying is, Dwight is losing his "benefit of the doubt" that he had with me. This is twice now that he's been involved in sexual chicanery (the myspace blog is about the first time). I don't ride the jock of every athlete who thanks God after a TD catch. I only want to support Christian athletes who are genuine Christians. The rest should get God's name out of their mouths if they don't really believe what they're saying. I certainly am not here to judge the status of Dwight Howard's relationship with God, and I'm not here to condemn him. I just want Dwight to make up his mind. Either he's on the Jesus train with the rest of us redeemed sinners, fighting to stay clean in a world gone wrong, or he's not. There's no halfway here.

Bloggolalia: Will Leitch's Book Tour

After years of missing out on every single sports blogger gathering available (because I didn't live in New York, DC, LA, or Chicago), I am pleased to report that I am close to one of Will Leitch's Book Tour locations. Even better, Mr. Leitch has invited us readers to participate, although I'm sure what he had in mind was buying him drinks. But that's so shortsighted! There's so many more ways for us readers to participate. It's a chance to confirm people's worst fears about Internet bloggers!

See, usually when these gatherings occur, bloggers feel pressure to act normal, to convince each other that they aren't serial killers and do get out of their basements and meet people. How boring! Instead, why not take advantage of the anonymity and entertain yourself? A top 11 (for the Big Ten's sake) list of entertaining choices for the book tour stop follows.

1. Show up in full fan regalia of the Chicago Cubs (a Cardinals rival) and gush on and on about how you're so happy someone is FINALLY sticking up for the fan, that you spend $100 for each game you attend and it's TOO MUCH, that SOMEONE should have thought of this years ago, until someone finally gets up the nerve to say "Shut up, it's only a book!"
2. Show up pretending you thought the book tour was really for Jonathan Safran Foer and complain to people next to you that "He's not mentioning Everything is Illuminated!" and "He doesn't look Jewish enough!". When told that the tour is for Will Leitch, intentionally mis-pronounce the name as Will Litch and mutter incessantly to oneself "Will Litch. Weird name. Who is Will Litch? Not a great writer like Jonathan. Nope."
3. Show up in a black T-shirt reading "Will's #1 fan" and fake Will wig. Act like an over-the-top fanboy. Be way too excited and randomly reference "Black Table" and "Deadspin" columns to everyone--"You mean you don't remember #35 from Life as a Loser? How could you forget! That was awesome! What about #68? Nothing?" For extra creepiness credit (guys) make things more awkward by gushing about how pleased you are at Deadspin's coverage of gays in sports and (girls) tell everyone that you're going to have Will's baby someday, only "he doesn't know, don't tell him, it's a secret". Also demand to take your picture with Will on 23 separate occasions.
4. Show up in your high school sports team shirt. Tell people that you used to be quite an athlete "back in the day" and that some big school was looking at you before you blew out your knee. The ex-jock routine, where people can't make up their minds whether (1) You ever were a good athlete and (2) If they can risk threatening you with bodily harm to shut up if the answer to (1) is no, is a favorite.
5. Show up with a pillow under your shirt and claim to be Big Daddy Drew. Ruse is discovered when you have poor taste in beer, don't remember any obscure 80's bands, and fail to profess Adrian Peterson as your football lord and savior when given the opportunity.
6. Show up in full Florida regalia and claim to be Dan Shanoff. Ruse is discovered when you run out of Tim Tebow facts after only 15 minutes of conversation.
7. Show up wearing a shirt that says "+1 Champion, Deadspin.com, 2007 season" and claim to be Camp Tiger Claw. Ruse is discovered when your first few jokes are unamusing.
8. Show up in full Patriots regalia and claim to be SuperMike. Ruse is discovered after you fail to offend a single audience member.
9. Show up with a T-shirt reading "Too Soon, Will?" on the front and a picture of a plane hitting a building on the back. Claim to be Pot Roast and Gravy, lobbying to be allowed back on Deadspin.com. Ruse is discovered after people realize that no one gets banned from Deadspin for life unless they WANT to stay away.
10. Show up in a full suit and claim to be the Combudsmen, Rob Iracene. Ruse is discovered after you fail to complain about the unfunniness of someone's joke.
11. Show up in dark clothes and full-length jacket, hold notebook in hand with several pictures taped in there, keep up a bug-eyed stare, and pretend to be there to stalk one of the commenters on Deadspin (we'll say MCBias just because we don't want to give the real Internet weirdos ideas). Keep up a steady stream of deep breathing and asking people "Do you know if MCBias is here? I really want to MEET him, and go out for drinks with him. (looks down and then looks up with creepy look) I have a BIG basement. Did you know I have a big basement? I wonder if MCBias would like to see my basement. (Creepy pause, then acceleration of words) I have a lot of games there. And a bed. Did I mention I had a bed in my basement? Yeah, a bed, bed in my basement, yup, got a bed in my basement, ha-ha! Parents let me keep a bed in my basement, yup! (Stares at you again) Let me know if you've seen MCBias."

Ok, I'm probably too classy to actually do any of those, but you, slimy Internet weasel, should feel free to gain inspiration. Send me pictures if you do any of those! I'll post any book tour pictures if you send them, and may post my own as well.