Well, with all this buzz of the 3-way tie the Western Conference it’s easy to lose sight of a 3-way race of, dare I say, even greater significance. McCain, Hillary and our man, Obama.
In a MTV Friday News exclusive (now picked up by the likes of CNN) it seems that 50 Cent may have grown some whiskers and is now “considering” backing Obama over Hillary. But still, 50 is confused.
Even with his new recognition, it still does not excuse that Bat Mitzvah gig. And, on mine, Kanye West’s album wins hands down.
Gd.
Um, perhaps I should have held this post for “Hater Tuesdays”.
Yep. Player intros in the background. My beard in the foreground. Gave out some paperbeards too. It’s not that hard. Bearding up is easy. And results are almost guaranteed.
Granted, Monta’s 30 helped. But I’d prefer to chalk it up the “playoff intensity” at the arena. And by “playoff intensity” I mean beards. But holy crap. Now there’s a three-way “fustercluck” at the bottom of the playoff race now. And by “fustercluck” I mean tie. As in, three teams, two slots. Get your beard ready. It will be needed.
In victory,
Turman
PS. And by using “air quotes” repeatedly, I’m signifying my repeated visitation to the Corona Cantina.
The next member of the honor roll is our main man Diego. He makes the grade for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he’s doing more than helping beard up the Bay Area. He hails from New Mexico and thus becomes our first operative in that great state. But better still, Diego ain’t letting the fact that there isn’t a pro team within a thousand miles keep him from his beloved Dubs. That’s right. For those of you who think not shaving for two days and driving to the Oracle in rush hour traffic makes you a martyr to the franchise, peep Diego. He’s on a mission.
Sometime in the next few hours Diego is leaving New Mexico for Denver. For Saturday’s game. Did I mention that he grew a beard for the occasion?
We don’t know if he’s flying or driving, or have the exact coordinates for his residence, but the minimum number of miles he could log on his journey is 400. If he’s living hard on the southeastern border of the state near Midland, Texas, he could be putting in 1,000 miles each way. Albuquerque? It’s either a Southwest fun fare and a couple of hours in transit, or a cool 10 hours at the wheel.
Now, lookit. Bearding up the Bay is easy by comparison. Diego’s ready to build a spaceship to see the Dubs play on Mars. Now quit saying that your boss won’t like a beard, or your girlfriend says it’s scratchy. Put some man moss on that chin, son. And get some tickets. It’s clutch right now. And if you can’t beard up, or perhaps you represent the less-hirsute gender, then Paperbeard it up already.
Recently, I was walking down the street in West Oakland and an Oldsmobile filled with high school kids pulls up to the stop sign next to me. This girl riding shotgun looks over, then stares down at my pants and shakes her head before the car drives off. At first, I thought maybe I had spilled something on my pants because her expression was a combination of pity and disgust, as if I was a bum who pissed himself in public. Then I realized it was merely my skinny Sta-Prest slacks that were so offensive to her. See, skinny pants still haven’t caught on in West Oakland.
For those of you who thought the retro-soul thing was going to disappear as quickly as a hubba rock in Amy Winehouse’s crackpipe, you’re not paying attention. This will be the summer where the soul revival really hits. With both the arrival of the new Gnarls Barkley album, “The Odd Couple” and the US release of Duffy (think 21st century female Tom Jones), I haven’t heard this much B3 Organ since Bob Dylan’s kid started that band whose name I can’t remember. The British offerings, Winehouse, Duffy, Lucky Soul are less original and more ersatz 60’s than what Gnarls Barkley and Mark Ronson are doing on this side of the pond, but shit, I’ll take a well-performed Motown-Stax knockoff any day over a Jack Johnson beach ditty.
Our man Baron Davis got the soulful beard thing going, we’ve got something of a civil rights-era atmosphere brewing with Barack’s presidential bid, and now we got the musical soundtrack to back up what should be a long hot summer. The times are a changin’ and it might not be long before me and the cat that owns The Funky Soul Stop record shop on Jefferson aren’t the only ones rockin’ some Sta-Prest pants and Beatle Boots around these parts.
Anyone who goes by the e-mail handle “spre43″ is pretty much cool with me. But if they write us asking for a shirt with a bigger logo and want to help beard the Bay Area up? Well then, hell yeah. You’re definitely good with FTB. But Brent, above at left, took it even further. Impatient with the glacial pace of FTB merch development, he took matters into his own (capable) hands. And here’s the proof. With his dad. At the Oracle. Bearded up. The photo is from a couple of weeks back, and arrived with the following missive.
At last week’s game I sported my own tee shirt with beard. On the back of my shirt I have the website address and promoted it whenever asked. My next game is Portland.
You can’t pay enough for placement like this. Brent, we salute you. We also credit you for the resilience shown by that other bearded guy, the Boom Diz, in playing through the flu. It’s inspiring efforts like yours that push us all to peak performance. Bearding up makes us all better people. Brent, if you’re reading, push the button to the right and join the contest over at IBY. You’ve got my vote.
I was looking for Brent and his dad at the game tonight on TNT, but I didn’t see them. Personally, I think Charles Barkley has threatened to punish anyone caught openly praising the Warriors on the air, cameramen included. But don’t let that stop you people. When we are a million-beard army, they will not be able to ignore us.
“We cut A’s, Warriors, Raiders, and homeless people. that’s the common denominator. Everyone’s got to get a haircut eventually.”
That’s a quote from one of the barbers down at Lucky’s barber shop in Oakland which is about a basketball’s throw away from Warriors HQ. Local filmmaker Joslyn Rose Lyons comes correct with this video profile of Lucky’s and their work. Peep the “Afro Beard” sported by Lucky’s owner, Tyranny K Allen, who also owns the new sneaker spot around the corner on 9th Street called Verse. Allen was a member of Digital Underground back in the day and has stayed on the cutting edge ever since (no pun intended).
I remember when I first moved to the East Bay I lived next to a barber shop with a sign in the front window that read “Specializing in men, women, and children.” I used to wonder what would happen if I walked in there with a mannequin or a hamster. After watching this video I thought about how clean it would be to have a hamster with a a little Afro Beard and a Low Taper.
Anyway, next time you’re thinking about taking a trip to SF or Bayfair, don’t do it. Old Town Oakland is emerging into a little shopping oasis, and Allen is giving you a few more reasons to support Town Business. Smell me?
Regardless of his production (or lack of) on the hardwood for the Dubs, it sounds like the move to bring C-Webb back to Oakland has been productive and emotionally healing for he and Nelson.
Here’s a bit of what Nellie is saying: “I really enjoyed working with him. It was great to get to know him again as a man, and I really enjoyed our short time together. I wish it really would’ve worked out better, but it didn’t. And I think we’ll remain friends for the rest of our lives.”
But man, if Webber is really gone after only putting up 36 points in his 9 games, that’s um, like $34,000 per field goal. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that I think Rod Benson would give us a bigger bang for the buck.
Some of you surely knew this, but for those who don’t, the call made against Monta Ellis in overtime–for essentially being tackled by Derek Fisher–was made by Bob Delaney. Now, I’m not saying Bob Delaney has mob ties just because he once successfully infiltrated the mob. But I am saying that “Bobby Covert” (seriously, who could make this stuff up?) as he was known back in the 1970s has been known to successfully play both sides of the fence with some large degree of presumed credibility. Delaney’s Wikipedia entry sums it up rather handily.
Delaney and a group of undercover officers posed as businessmen in the trucking industry trying to get out from under the pressures of union interests. This would open an association with the crime families who would alleviate their business pressures from the unions for a price. Delaney would assume the identity of “Bobby Covert,” a deceased resident of New Jersey, for his protection. He had to talk like the mobsters, dress like them, drink and eat with them, and sometimes think like them. While doing all this, he had to maintain a profile as a reputable business owner and keep in mind his primary responsibility as a police officer.
Uh, okay. And while I do generally respect his integrity as a referee and he did call a fine game for 52 and a half minutes, couldn’t he at least have consulted with another referee before making that last call? Or after? You know, just talk it over and make sure you got it right, before you take a long, slow piss on such a well-played game? And in so doing reward a notorious flopper for flopping on the road, off the ball, on an in-bounds play with less than ten seconds left in overtime of a game that the home team is attempting to tie or win? I’m just askin’. I don’t suppose we really have to get into which team covered against the spread tonight now do we? Or that the over/under just happened to be exactly 242, the precise amount scored by both teams?
But Bob, I’m a funny man and these are just jokes, baby! Just jokes! It’s the Internets, where bloggers get to pop wise all they want. Right Bob? I know you’re not still in the mob, dude! Relax.
Turman
PS. For those of you who might want to “know when to fold ‘em” next time, his profile with regard to spreads and such can be found here. To know which games he’s gonna work though, I’m afraid you’ll still have to try to get a hold of Tim Donaghy.
If I had known how tonight’s game was going to turn out, I would have hooked up “Stack and Eggs,” instead of “Egg Dizzle” (above) for the annual Turman egg-dying showcase. Meschery seemed to anticipate Sunday’s game action more than just a little bit with the post just down the page, but in some ways tonight’s outcome might actually have a more profound psychological effect on both teams down the stretch than a 35-point victory would have. This could pay dividends as soon as tomorrow. Or not. We shall see. What we do know is that some emergent threads from tonight’s action make for tomorrow’s keys to victory.
“If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out.”
Notice how in the movies the good guy has to kill the bad guy at least, like, ten times before the bad guy finally dies? Well, that’s because the good guy, being a good guy, is compassionate, empathetic and is not a total psychopath like the bad guy, so he, or she, doesn’t really take pleasure in completely eviscerating his, or her, opponent. Let’s look at The Dallas Mavericks: you’d think Miami beating them in the finals would have been enough, but no, they had to come back the next year and have The Dubs humiliate them in historical fashion, and now, somehow inexplicably, they’re resurrected for another playoff contest - classic bad guy. They’re like the Terminator T-1000 of basketball. Could someone lower Dirk Nowitzki into a vat of molten steel please?
The Warriors, in particular, have a problem with following Law 15 of “The 48 Laws.” Maybe it’s because many of our guys have classic “good guy” personalities (even Stephen Jackson is sensibly re-casting himself away from his bad boy reputation). Maybe we don’t dominate teams because it’s not in our nature. You know that look that Kobe gets on his face, that smug half-smile? That’s the look that says “I don’t care if you’re the Sonics and Luke Walton could beat you by himself, I will take great pleasure in degrading your lowly franchise even further.” It’s a sadistic level of competitiveness that, frankly, the Warriors could use a bit of right now.
The win over the Clippers was a step in the right direction. It would have been easy to feel sorry for the Clips, with all their injuries this season, and let them back in the game, but we showed no mercy and handled them the way we should have handled some of the other sub-500 teams we previously lost to.
Tonight, going into the first of a back-to-back against the Lakers, Law 15 needs to be the mantra. If we get a lead at all, even a comfortable lead, we cannot let down our guard, we cannot feel a tinge of leniency, we cannot compromise our position in any way. Let’s out-Kobe Kobe and let the haters hate. Or as the 15th century samurai, Asakura Norikage, said, “The warrior doesn’t care if he’s called a beast or a dog; the main thing is winning.”
MTV
