Thanks to the work of FTB, a few years back the first “Beard Night” was held at Oracle Arena (albeit an unofficial event). Paper beards were distributed to fans. Fun was had by all. Dare I say, it was a great time out.
Last year, The Powers That Be saw the influence that stylish hair, facial and otherwise, can have on a crowd and held their own CJ Watson “Mohawk Night.” For a quiet, unassuming, back-up point guard, that’s not bad public recognition. But then again, most of our starters were injured, so it was either that or “Wear a Suit Like Your Favorite Warrior Night,” or “Guess Which Warrior is Raja Bell Night.” Seriously, CJ Watson was a Fan Favorite, so he will be missed along with other Favs, Turiaf, Randolph and, of course, our own “Chocolate Rain,” aka Anthony Morrow.
So, this leaves us with some questions about the swagger level of the current Warriors roster. And when I say swagger, I mean take a look at the picture below. I never thought I’d say it, but yes, I lightweight miss Stephen Jackson. Okay, well, maybe not enough to poison a fragile locker room ecosystem with BP-levels of toxicity, but you get the point. I guess as long as we’re winning games, it doesn’t matter how much flavor our squad has, but I don’t know if David Lee’s goatee or Steph Curry’s mouthpiece is going to get it done. Monta can’t get any more tattoos to carry this thing. So, listen Lacob, trade for some swag, smell me? James Harden’s got a nice little Baron 2.0 beard thang going on. Any other possibilities? Feel free to post ‘em in the comments peoples.
In the last couple of days, it has become clear. The Golden State Warriors are for sale. Also clear is the fact that you, Larry Ellison—of Oracle Corporation, as well as the recent America’s Cup victory—appear to be the leading candidate to purchase the team. Mr. Ellison, I would like to propose a partnership of sorts.
Let me explain. If you don’t mind, I would like to posit a radical alternative to traditional ownership models. Actually, it’s not really that radical when you think about it. It’s an ownership model that your company—Oracle—already employs, that of a publicly traded corporation. It’s nothing new to you. In fact, your history of running this particular corporation shows me that you are uniquely qualified to balance the needs of shareholders against the opportunities and decisive action that running a large-scale enterprise requires. Let’s just do this in a different arena, so to speak.
Essentially, the ask is this: buy the Warriors and take them public. Be the guy who gives the team back to the fans who still believe.
Think about it. First, you would instantly become one of the most revered figures in Bay Area sports history. You would have liberated some of the most loyal fans in sports from the tyranny of incompetence. Just buying the team would be liberating, but I say take it a step further. Of course, you’d still get to be “the man” and exercise a controlling interest—just like at Oracle. But there would also be a board of directors voted in by shareholding fans. Instantly, the team becomes a model franchise and a cause célèbre, a rarefied story of We Believe becoming something more like We Are All Warriors. Read More »
The good folks at IBeatYou dot com are again sponsoring a best-beard contest. No, you can’t win by putting up a picture of Katie Holmes. Actually, maybe you could win by putting up a picture of Katie Holmes. And, now I’m gonna get sued by a crazy pint-sized Scientologist. All because Baron’s having another contest. Okay, let’s try this again. Enter, win some kicks. Try not to get sued.
Be careful out there,
Daniel Turman
PS. Looks like Anthony Morrow’s knee might be on the mend. The Warriors can’t get his shooting back in the lineup soon enough. As for his Twitter game, he’s starting to become a must read.
I suppose it’s appropriate that this decade began with George W. Bush as Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” and ends with, the architect of W’s economic policy, Ben Bernanke getting The POY. Yes, in between we had some Barack Obama, Giuliani, Putin, and, the worst POY ever, “You” (as Peter Sagal from NPR said , “if ‘we’ truly controlled the media, we would have picked a much better choice for the Person of the Year issue”), but this decade came in with the bang of 9/11 and The Enron Scandal and out with the whimper of a “slow and jobless” recovery from the worst recession since The Depression, so Bush and Bernanke are the fitting faces for those craptastic bookends. I think it’s also fitting that Bernanke has a beard. Afterall, Beards haven’t been as popular in a given decade since The Beatles went all Beardy in the early 70’s. Yes, Bernanke has one of those academic-style beards, giving him a less Geithner/Paulson-slimy look and more of a professorial pretentious look. But like Jeff Daniels’ character in The Squid and The Whale, just because you are smart and have an affable-looking beard, it doesn’t excuse you from being a total asshat. Thanks for helping nearly ruin beards along with the economy, Ben! If only Bernanke would grow his beard according to interest rates. Then right now his beard should be at “near zero.” I’d be much more comfortable with that.
As for Bay Area Sports, the 00’s have been an overall bust. Sure, we had a Superbowl appearance by The Raiders in ‘03, and The Giants got to the World Series in ‘02 (both L’s), but the decade was overshadowed by Bondsball, Moneyball, Smallball, Al Davisball, Jed York-Santa Clara Stadiumball - all of it shitty. Why is it that the only consistent winning in The Bay involves a sport with a puck? Holy Mother of God, how could we have such a fustercluck of sports dysfunction in one geographic area!!!??? It must be some kind of World Record. At least we can claim that, right?
Fortunately, a few of the decade’s bright spots were also the drivers of success for this little blog - The We Believe Team led by a bearded Baron Davis, an East Bay Rennaisance of sorts, a Beard Rennaissance of sorts (many contributors to FTB bearded up and down along the way) , and The Obama Election. All of those things kept us inspired enough to keep writing our musings and some folks inspired enough to keep reading. So, we’ll see what The 2010’s bring us and, hopefully, we here at FTB will continue at least a little while longer. Afterall, if Baron becoming a Clipper didn’t shut us down, a new decade surely won’t.
For all of you expecting another Hater Tuesday post, we’re sorry to disappoint, but the truth is that The Golden State Warriors have soured our taste for hating. Hating on The Dubs is like hating on a drunken frat boy who pisses on himself at a party. Yes, it’s his own fault, but is it even worth your time hating, and what are you doing at a frat party anyway? You’re better off just refraining from comment and getting as far away as possible.
So instead, we are interrupting your regularly scheduled program with a neat little info-graphic charting how some of the top bearded NBA players are performing so far this season (see, this is one example of how to be productive while watching your team lose by thirty). What can you learn from this chart? Three things, Baron Davis is getting back into full beard mode and it’s serving him well, Lebron’s beard is a little lighter this season with little negative effect on his performance, and Shaquille O’Neal who has been bearding up lately and looking like a gigantor Rick Ross might be better off trimming down the whiskers a bit. Oh, and that slice of green there, that’s supposed to be DeShawn Stevenson. My magic data visualization machine didn’t even recognize DeShawn Stevenson. Man, you know you suck when some open source web software called “many eyes” can’t even see you.
When it comes to clowns and Santas, there’s a fine line between sweet and sketchy. It probably has to do with the fact that A) they’re impostors and B) they often have unfettered access to children. It’s clear from these pictures at SketchySantas.com that there’s some seriously lax parenting going on when it comes to Santa. By the looks of some of these characters, parents would be better off letting their kids get their picture taken with Warren Jeffs.
I learned at an early age that I didn’t want my presents delivered by Mr. Claus. I wanted my presents delivered by The UPS Guy. There may be some sketchy UPS dudes out there, but I haven’t seen any, and at least they’re not trying to coerce children to sit on their laps with candy canes. I don’t want a damn candy cane. I want a tracking number. Santa can’t provide that kind of service, and besides, I don’t want my presents made by the tiny hands of slave-elves at some outsourced arctic sweatshop anyway. In fact, Santa is giving beards a bad name. That’s right. I said it. Santas be sketchy.
And speaking of sketchy, Goldman Sachs, the investment bank you love to hate, will be giving the gift of bonuses to their highest paid employees this holiday season. That’s great news for the rest of America who will be getting a $.79 Crispy Potato Soft Taco - just thankful that we can be fat and malnourished at the same time. So, if there’s one thing we’d like from our friends at Goldman Sachs, it’s that they be, not just sketchy, but Sketchy Santas. Make the jump to find out how… Read More »
What could have stopped Tiger Woods from allegedly getting all sexty with his possible mistress(es)? What’s that you say - common sense? No, only James Lipton’s beard could have been powerful enough to get Tiger to check himself first. In these latest ads/psa’s from LG, Lipton uses his beard to stop teens from putting their junk on front street by sexting. We here at FTB have known the power of the beard for many moons now, including the undisputed fact that those with beards ponder at a higher level. This video proves that. So, for anyone who would like a brain boost, or at least some damn common sense, feel free to click on the “Get Paper Beard” link to the above right and download one of our handy dandy portable beards. It could come in handy the next time you’re about to text something like this out to the universe:
I will wear you out…when was the last time you got (bleeped)?
You know, I’m just sayin’. Anyway, with the Tiger Beat Scandal and this video from College Humor, I guess we do really want to talk about sext these days, instead of, say, health care reform.
In the age of Survivor and Fear Factor we’ve established that plenty of people will do stupid shit for money or 15 seconds of fame. So, it’s nice to know that someone out there will do something stupid for a good cause. Like this guy who’s running across the country BAREFOOT to raise 100 Million Dollars for homeless youth. His name is Tellman Knudson and he’s got a pretty fresh Viking beard goin’ on. I’m guessing his barefoot black tie dinner for homeless youth just didn’t get it done, so now he’s had to take it to the next level. I can totally respect that, but have you checked out the side of the freeway lately? There’s a reason that prison inmates and celebrities who get DUI’s have to pick up trash on the side of the freeway. It’s covered in crap. The side of the freeway is like The Dump for lazy assholes. I once found a vivarium on the side of the freeway with live toads in it. No joke. So, unless Tellman has some kind of Doctor Scholl’s titanium implant, I hope he’s got broken bottle, plastic shard, hot tar, cigarette butt, chicken wing-resistant calluses, or my man’s feets are gonna be toast. I mean, I guess worst case scenario is he could beat up some homeless kid living underneath the freeway and take his shoes.
Seriously though, as fellow FTB’er DTurman told me “I worked with homeless youth before and there is almost no group that could use selfless acts like this one more.” Agreed. So give this Knudson a donation or feel really guilty tomorrow morning when you wake up with a roof over your head and you look in your closet at the 19 pairs of Nike Dunks you have.
Over at our favorite public radio station, KCRW, they have a nice thing going with their “5ive Things” lists. Recently, they posted this: 5ive best beards in music. Honestly, I would have picked a different starting five. For one, leaving both ?uestlove and Rick Rubin on the bench shows a strong bias against hip hop which is almost inexcusable. However, one thing I will say is that this beard lineup could not only do pretty well in a beard challenge, but they could also beat the current Golden State Warriors starting lineup in a game of basketball (and the beard team includes a dead heroin addict)
If there’s anything that will make you want to go off the grid and join a cult of bearded troubadour forest creatures, it’s watching the Warriors play basketball, followed by some post-game color commentary by Gary St. Jean (BTW - is it me, or does St. Jean look like Santa Claus with no beard?) At the end of tonight’s debacle against the Sacramento Kings, the only thing that could calm me down was listening to Iron and Wine. I think of Sam Beam walking by a stream in some uninhabited woodland catching butterflies on his finger and everything’s right in the world again. So, now that we’ve established that writing about Warriors basketball is about as worthwhile as drinking a bottle of Simple Green just to see what will happen, you, good readers, can expect more beard-related posts. Beard up and enjoy. Happy Monday!
Welcome back everyone to another year of Warriors basketball. First, we here at FTB must thank Matt Steinmetz over at NBA Fanhouse for being the first to cover the return to form of Baron’s beard and the big things that it may, or may not, signify for The Clips this year. Naturally, we’re very relieved here at FTB to see that a leaner, meaner Baron Davis is back embracing the power of the beard. There was a really scary goatee moment last year that had us worried (listen Boom, goatees in the NBA are like ponytails in soccer. Just because a lot of dudes got ‘em, doesn’t mean it’s always a good look). Of course, we couldn’t actually watch the game and see The Beard in action (thanks Comcast), but instead we were prompted to tune in to the game via electromagnetic waves being transmitted to something called a radio. So, we streamed the radio coverage online and then followed along with the stats on Yahoo Sports, which is pretty much like being a drunk trying to get faded on a case of Sharp’s and a bottle of sparkling apple juice.
Good thing we got these pictures of Boom in Full Beard-Mode, driving the lane looking like it’s 1971 (which was also the last year that Mike Dunleavy Sr. bought a suit). Since I didn’t watch the game and was bored out of my skull listening to it, I’m just going to comment on this picture above and the box score. First, this picture says two things to me: The Beard is back to where it needs to be if The Clippers are going to do anything this year, and The Warriors still need new uniforms. It’s pretty damn sad when you’re getting out-styled by The Clippers. As for the box score, I don’t have a whole lot of analysis for ya other than (as one fan commented on Golden State of Mind) Anthony Morrow, aka Chocolate Rain, IS a 3-Point shooting robot from the future, and Azubuike is a beast, plain and simple. AR had three blocks and nine boards. I’ll take that. Probably the most interesting stat line for me is that Steph Curry had nine assists and five (yes FIVE) steals, while Monta only had one assist and zero picks. If we get a few more comparisons like that, can we finally put the Monta point guard experiment to rest? Please?
So, that’s it for me. Based on what you saw, or most likely heard, of the Warriors game last night, leave us your predictions for the upcoming season in the comments below.
