Okay, the Warriors are 17 games into the season and this might seem a little early, but it’s not. You all just went and lost six straight and now own a winning percentage of .294. And then there’s you: the guy on the team wearing a muscle suit who either cannot or will not use said muscle for the forces of victory, namely playing some damn defense. I’m talking to you Corey. Now I know, I know. Not since college have you really been asked for much on the less-glamorous end of the court. So there’s quite a bit of behavior modification that needs to take place. But just on the off chance that Don Nelson has been afraid of offending you, the $50M man, let me fire the first shot. Corey, play some defense. The muscles have to be worth more than this. You have worked too hard in the gym to be the softest, weakest, non-defending-est mofo in the arena.
While other people were happily watching college football over the long holiday, I was lost in the hopelessly depressing spectacle of the latter half of the Warriors road trip. And game after ever-more saddening game, the FTB’ers were playing a little game of our own. A little game we started calling Where’s Corey? You can do it before practice today. See, you play it like this: every time the Dubs broadcast team is forced to show a highlight of the opposing team because of it’s overwhelming awesomeness, ask yourself a little question, “Where was I?” Then run the clip back and look for yourself. The loss to the Knicks was the final straw, man. Watching David Lee sky to the rack over and over and over would be enough, but what made it unbearable was your general attitude with regard to hustle and defense. So. Here it is. Our little game. Make the jump, watch the highlights and play along with us in the Monday-morning edition of Where’s Corey? Read More »
During my round of weekend errands, I stopped at Chipotle Grill in North Berkeley for a bite and a (very) brief chat with the Warriors own Ronny Turiaf. After ordering my Tex-Mex meal, I took a seat at the bar by the window and I stared thoughtlessly at the passers by. A few moments later the Martinique-born Power Forward took a seat beside me.
FTB: Yo’ Ronny?! Welcome back.
Ronny:(Staring at his food) Yeah.
FTB: Man, that was a tough, and long, road trip for you guys.
Ronny:(Staring at his food) Yeah.
At this point, I decided to let the man eat his lunch. It was clear that he was not interested in conversing with a stranger about the 0-6 road trip. I resumed looking out the window and began eating my grilled chicken salad. Every now and then I looked at my iPhone, clicking buttons aimlessly. Meanwhile Ronny ate, intermittently checking his Blackberry. None of the patrons or passers by seemed to notice the 2005 WCC Player of the Year. But then again, this is Berkeley. And 90% of the self righteous liberals wouldn’t know Jerry Rice if he spiked a football in their backside. A few minutes later I finished my lunch and piled up my dirties for disposal. I stood and began to turn away. Then, I turned back, feeling uncomfortable with the silence.
FTB: Hey Ronny, I’m a big Warriors fan and we really love the energy and attitude you bring to the team. Thank you.
Ronny: Thanks man (with eye contact).
–
That’s all I got. But, that was one rough road trip, and he had probably been on the red-eye back from NYC, so, that’s what it was. For the record, I feel bad for the man. With Pau Gasol’s arrival to the Lakers, the once starting Power Forward became an odd man out. Now Mr. T is stuck on a going nowhere fast team. Coming off the bench.
Ronny does boast both a fearsome beard (and hair) along with some notable defensive prowess. I hope the crew at Fear the Beard have the opportunity for further, more protracted, discussions.
Last night at DT’s whilst feasting on left-over Turkey and drinking some high potency margaritas, we decided to take advantage of League Pass and do a little tour around the NBA. Mind you, we did this after watching The Warriors self-immolate in the third quarter against the Cavs (and after a few more margaritas). Our perception could have been a bit sideways, but nonetheless, I came to the quick conclusion mid-way through the tour that our Golden State Warriors, by comparison to the rest of The League, looked bad. I mean, really bad. Even The Thunder appeared to be playing higher quality basketball. For those of us who’ve been watching, this road trip has been utterly Dunleavian, or Foylish, or any other adjective we can use to describe futility in an NBA Jersey.
Which brings me to The NY Knicks. There are a handful of teams in the NBA that are more feckless than the Knicks, like The Clippers, The Wizards, the above mentioned Thunder, and if we’re going on current record, The Warriors and a few other teams, but none of these teams do fecklessness as well and on such a big stage. The Knicks are the NBA’s equivalent of Lindsay Lohan, a total trainwreck. I mean, whose week is not complete without learning some new lurid detail about Lohan whether you meant to or not? And so it is with the Knicks. I don’t follow the Knicks, but I couldn’t help but hear about Marbury’s suspension and his teammates’ distaste for his self-imposed strike. It made me think, why couldn’t Harrington’s sulking catch national headlines? We are usually very competitive in the drama category. This summer was a high-point with Baron’s exit and Monta’s Anklegate, the likes we haven’t seen around these parts since Sprewell failed to mustard up his passes (Doesn’t Cohan secretly yearn for those glory days?). But in the spirit of “any press is good press,” I’m not about to let the Knicks steal our shine, feel me? That’s why I think we need to come back from this road trip tonight, not with a win, but with a Marbury. We wisely chose to pass-up the opportunity to go after Artest, because, let’s face it, he most likely would have made The Warriors better and we don’t want that. We want all the drama with none of the success, and there’s one quick solution for that. Yes, all roads lead to Marbury-town.
After learning that Rowell put the kabosh on the very reasonable deal to keep Baron here, I’ve been trying very hard not to give The Warriors franchise any of my money. With Marbury on our team, it will become much more difficult for me to stay away from The Oracle. I will most likely want to slow down on the 880 and stare at the mess with all the other rubberneckers passing by, and if I can’t catch it live, I can hopefully cop the latest while standing in line at Safeway. It was just a season and a half ago that The Warriors were national media darlings, but as Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton and their like have proven, you don’t have to be good, talented or successful to maintain media darling status. Sure, you might not have respect or integrity, but those intangibles aren’t worth much these days on the open market. So, let’s raise our tequila-filled glasses tonight, and hope that we come back from this road trip with one less win, but one more Knickerbocker.
While we’re a day past Hater Tuesday, and not all of these cats have beards, I still had to share this… Um, stylistic train wreck (thanks to Yemii and Yuri).
If you haven’t met them already, I’d like to introduce you to the Zenits, Zandra, and our friends above, the Thor Erics. All members of the curious society of 70’s Swedish dance bands (or Svenska Dansband). Who, according to a few independent sources still, near 40 years later, have the ugly market pretty well cornered. But, it’s actually a delightful and even uplifting brand of ugly. A magnificent crescendo of faulty hair, unexplainable outfits and goofy smirks, all, I’d guess, followed by some god-forsaken music.
Frankly, I’m thankful for these turkeys. It just underscores what a wonderfully diverse world we live in.
Gd.
PS. I hope the Celtics don’t make the Dubs look like these Swedish turkeys. Needless to say, my expectations are set appropriately.
Last night’s indigestion-inducing festivus of turnovers is probably best left forgotten. However, FTB’s own Mike Meezy got a video featured during the post-game hour on Comcast’s “Warriors Weekly.” Having this pop up on the screen during the post-early-T-giving-dinner Cranium game with the in-laws was pretty sweet. Plus, Meezy didn’t turn the ball over one time and finished with 25 and seven assists.
In the battle of the NBA’s worst-branded teams, fans were treated to a pre-Thanksgiving meal of crap sandwich with extra weak sauce. And to add insult to injury, there’s this.
This video is so wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is the fact that it was an actual training video for hapless Wendy’s employees back in the 1980s. Dave Thomas and company, no doubt seeing the need to speak to his rapidly urbanizing workforce in language that would “resonate” with them, presumably commisioned this training video with good intentions. Personally, I can’t help but wonder how many young brothers and sisters immediately slammed their Wendy’s visors to the kitchen floor and stormed off the job immediately after Opie Taylor starts rapping about his learnings in the second half of the vid. And since when are burgers done when they turn gray?
Over the summer, I wrote a post about the Top 5 bearded albums of Summer ‘08 - a summer mixtape of sorts for the beard-friendly music lover. Now Paste Magazine has included in their “Best of 2008″ Issue, their own top 5 Beards list. Their list included Bon Iver, The Fleet Foxes, Devandra Banhart, Rick Ross, and LCD Soundsystem. All of whom have been covered on this blog. I’m not so sure about the LCD Soundsystem dude though. He has more of the “not shaved in a week” look than a fully-committed beard. I would have gone with Questlove or the guy from My Morning Jacket, but that’s just me. I do support the Bon Iver choice however. His album wasn’t out yet (or maybe I just wasn’t up on it) when I wrote my Top 5 Bearded Post. Otherwise, he would have made the squad. Just check out the picture of the dude above. He’s got a beard. He’s holding a basketball. He’s holding a basketball in the snow. He looks like an out of work Vermont maple syrup harvester shooting some hoops in his driveway. That’s worthy of a “Beardy Award” in my book.
BTW - The Warriors lost to The Sixers yesterday. I went to Turman’s house to watch it on NBA League Pass, but instead we got blocked by Comcast like we were driving the lane on Brandan Wright. Comcast was having “technical difficulties,” so we instead watched most of the game in the League Pass Overview Screen on a tiny Youtube-like box in the corner with some unholy lite-jazz/lite-rock ditty looping in the background. So, we muted the sound, squinted at the screen and tried to guess which Warrior just took another ill-advised shot - Good times!
Undoubtedly, the Warriors latest addition, Jamal Crawford, is a scorer. Demonstrated well by the above 52-point game against the Heat last January. He may be softer on defense then we’d like, but rain, he can make that.
We all liked TMNT (aka. Al Harrington), he was a good guy and a good player. But things went sideways and a trade demand was made. While it’s unclear how exactly Crawford fits into the Warriors rotation (or who won’t be fitting now), I think the overall net is a positive one for Oakland.
Don Nelson seems to be bullish about the acquisition of the “tweener” guard:
I guess we’ll know more when he suits up with the team – which I believe is set for next week’s contest against the Washington Wizards.
Gd.
PS. In other player movement today, B-Dizzle’s Clips just traded for Z-Bo. Um… I’m not feeling that move.
People always tell me, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” But frankly, all that substantive crap can be terribly overrated. I mean, how many times have you bought some random bottle of wine just because the label was kinda’ fresh? I’m guessing about as many times as you bought a bottle ‘cause it was $4.99. So, perhaps the real secret to success is looking good and being cheap as hell.
I’m not ashamed to say I like a good wrapper – I’ve even been known to make some unwarranted purchases because of them. Perhaps that’s why I troll the Lovely Package® blog. That’s where I found the gem pictured above. I mean, buccaneer supplies that look this smart? I gotta’ have ‘em. If you’re compelled as well, have no fear that Captain Black Beard will be taking your bounty. In fact, it’s all for a worthy cause, as the product sales benefit 826 Valencia’s youth writing programs.
Kudos to Dave Eggers, novelist of considerable repute, McSweeney’s editor, 826 Valencia owner, as well as proprietor of the local San Francisco design studio, Office, whose collective efforts have won them our Fine-Art Friday praises.
