“Someone had to do something for the guy” said Clay Bennet, the owner of the former Seattle team now relocated to Oklahoma City.
“I just kind of felt sorry for him. Seriously, George Shinn, Chris Cohan, David Sterling, if no one is going to build a team around this guy, I will…even if he’s not, like, physically here.”
Bennet said that by naming their team, “The Oklahoma Barons” after Baron Davis, he could pretty much ensure that one day Baron (or at least a Baron) will win an NBA Championship, instead of sailing away into NBA obscurity with the likes of The LA Clippers.
“I got the idea back in 2001 when The Grizzlies were moving to Memphis, and I thought that they should change their name to ‘The Memphis Mutombos.’ I didn’t have a great reason for it, but I just really liked how that guy played the game.”
When asked about having an NBA Team named after him, Baron Davis responded,
“I’m honored and humbled that OKC would name their team after me. I would have thought we’d see The Jordans, The Chamberlains, or The Kareems first, buy hey, The Barons sounds pretty good, and I dig those Jerseys. Does my lawyer know about this?”
Bennet will also make a team policy that the players and coaching staff will grow beards in honor of Davis. However Kevin Durant’s agent has sent a letter to the team saying that his client will be opting out of the policy for “obvious reasons.”
5. RZA, “Digi Snacks”: Alright, the RZA isn’t really rocking the full beard these days (though he has in the past), but, c’mon, it’s The RZA. The album drops on June 26th, NBA draft day. I take that as an omen that this draft will be good for the Warriors. If only the Warriors had the branding sensibilities of the Wu Tang Clan. Imagine instead of “Thunder” and those weak-ass pizza hurling dudes, we had some kind of elite fighting force of Shaolin monks? And our logo? Look no further than The Wu for a far superior use of the letter W in logo form. They have their own wu-shaped “Wucontroller” for the Playstation for Chrissakes!
4. The Black Keys, “Attack and Release”: Akron Ohio’s The Black Keys are a 1/2 bearded duo, however Danger Mouse produced their new record, and so I’m counting his beard to give them majority beard status. I recommend checking out their video for the song “Strange Times.” It involves Laser Tag. If I was a kid and I saw some freaky bearded man coming at me in one of those black-lit Laser Tag mazes, I’d piss myself. Game over.
3. Fleet Foxes, “Fleet Foxes”: I don’t know much about Fleet Foxes other than that they’re from Seattle and they have beards. I also know I like their name, Fleet Foxes. It makes me realize what a dumb-ass tradition English Fox Hunting is, and how one day I hope foxes everywhere get their revenge. As for the music, it reminds me of the summer I spent with Luke Walton playing bongos to old Joni Mitchell records, and just being free.
2. The Roots, “Rising Down”: I think Rick Rubin and Questlove need to have a “beard-off” for most iconic beard in hip hop. Rick’s beard was way more bad-ass when he was in NY producing hip hop and metal bands. When he moved to LA and became a tofu-eating, meditating, Neil Diamond-producing record executive, it kind of lost it’s power for me. So that’s why I’m voting for Questlove in said beard-off. Plus his afro is as equally iconic. The balding Rubin can’t play on both ends of the court, ya dig?
1. My Morning Jacket, “Evil Urges”: Don’t be deceived by the evolving sound of this band nor shifting hair length of lead singer Jim James. His beard has remained surprisingly consistent over the years. With a boyish face, James looks like a young Civil War soldier before his innocence has been slashed away by the scythe of war. For the full summer experience, go to Thrifty and rent a convertible PT Cruiser and drive to Ukiah listening to the song “I’m Amazed” on repeat. You’ll feel like Luke Walton the first time he took mushrooms with his dad in ‘78.
Late word trumps all, I guess. This just in off the wire: comedian George Denis Patrick Carlin passed away Sunday, at age 71, of heart failure.
No less an authority than Comedy Central named him the second-greatest stand-up comic in history, right behind Richard Pryor. He was the first fricking host of Saturday Night Live, fer Chrissakes. Moreover, his “seven dirty words” routine influenced a Supreme Court decision that ripples on to this day with regard to what constitues the nature of obscenity on the public airwaves. This may seem like a bit of a departure for FTB, but bear with me. There aren’t enough cynics in the world to keep the rest of us in line. Trust me on this. His acerbic wit and cultural currency will be hard to replace.
But in the spirit of the departed, enjoy a classic riff of his from a decade or so back. It’s a typically caustic take on environmentalism, the Earth and our self-aggrandizing proposition for saving it. I hope and believe that he’s wrong, but every so often, when the systems of life seem ready to spit me back into the ether like so many bad atoms, this routine comes back to me and I smile. So, Monday willing, sit back for about seven minutes and savor the cleansing power of comedic genius. Or, just put on some headphones, minimize the screen and rock it background style. Either way, when it’s done, spill some coffee out on the cubicle carpet for the evil genius of George Carlin.
Turman
PS. He got damn near ran off of late-night TV back in the day (when he was a regular on The Tonight Show) for rocking some serious bearditude.
What if NBA teams were like some Euro leagues? What if they had to stock the rosters with at least a few locals? Well, we might not have our avatar, but we might have three newly-minted NBA Champions next season. How many Lakers are from Oakland? Oh yeah, that’s right, none. So, with Paul Pierce, Eddie House, Leon Powe, and the legendary (and famously bearded) Bill Russell all having East Bay roots, we at FTB pretty much unanimously adopted the Celtics after a bit of consternation. Of course, this probably doesn’t jibe with the childhood rooting interest of our aforementioned LA-raised talisman, but at least we found something to cling to amongst all of the purple vs. green media froth.
What an odd game though. Wasn’t it crazy how in the first quarter it looked like The Lakers were gonna keep it close against Oakland, and then The Town started steadily pulling away in the second quarter. Sure, there were other “role players” like that Garnett guy, but make no mistake. If Bill Russell hadn’t been coaching him on the “way of the peaceful champion” all season, and if Leon Powe wasn’t there to help hold him up during Michelle Tafoya’s post-game interview, the wheels would have come smooth off. In the second half, when Kobe couldn’t get anything going, who was everywhere? That’s right, Rajon Rondo. Sure, he’s from Kentucky, but he writes a blog for Emeryville-based Yardbarker! Rotate on defense to cover Eddie House? Hell no! I’m sicking Posey, Sasha. All told, the East Bay intimidation was too much for Kobe. Luke Walton? He was as scared as a kid from Head Royce who just transferred to McClymonds. I especially liked the part when that guy from Oakland passed it to that other guy from Oakland and he totally smashed on some guy from somewhere else at the end. That was sweet. Thus, to recap, it was a great game and I’m so happy for all those guys from Oakland who really deserved this championship after so much hard work. It’s gonna be crazy in at least three houses in The O tonight. Maybe four.
The writing is totally on the wall. If the Dubs want to really make noise in the offseason, they need to aggressively pursue some more dudes from Oakland.
After the first game of the NBA Finals yesterday, I can already tell you that this is going to be Snoozapalooza. I mean, even Turman has defected his attention away to a sport that nobody in the United States gives two s@#ts about. He left the frickin’ country! What’s next Turman, Cricket?!
And that whole thing with Paul Pierce getting injured and then coming back in the third quarter to give the Celtics the lead - whatevs. That Cheerleader on Heroes got a tree branch through her head and came back to life after her superhuman body regenerated itself. Can “The Truth” do that? Doubt it. How ’bout this - before next game, we find out that while Paul Pierce was in the locker room getting his knee worked on, a future Paul Pierce traveled through time to come back in the game, risking a wrinkle in the space-time continuum to hit those three pointers? Now that would be dope. C’mon Stern, I’m givin’ you a freebie here. We’re bored. Help us.
At least the NBA Finals won’t last as long as those tiresome democratic primaries. See above.
Tonight in San Francisco, Baron Davis hosted a benefit for the TeamPlay arm of The Baron Davis Foundation. Us FTB’ers popped up on the scene, crispy and clean, to snap a few photos and cop the message. It’s unfair to try and distill it down into a short late-night post, but here goes.
The basic premise of TeamPlay (a public-private 501cthreezy partnership) is to create a mentorship program that bridges the gap in the space-time continuum between working professionals and inner-city youth through the use of technology. While in-person mentorship activities are still the primary goal, the connectivity that technology now provides is being considered as a very real mechanism for meaningful social change. With the MySpace generation now matriculating through a broken inner-city educational system, it is more important than ever for society’s card-carrying contributors to find a way to bridge the geo-political gap between the ‘hood and wherever it is that you’re doing your thang, and give something meaningful back. Primarily, the legitimate opportunities that come from sustained interaction. By targeting what the group calls “influential students” (and don’t take the quotes the wrong way), they hope to create a halo effect that can spotlight new avenues out of the neighborhood, avenues that don’t necessarily involve hoop dreams, dope beats or well-timed humor. This aspect of the public-facing mission is actually a construct that I suspect only a few in the audience could truly grasp. But the ultimate goal of the TeamPlay vision seems to be a particularly strident brand of integrationism that also happens to be the cornerstone of my personal politick.
Put people together. Share the experiences. Everyone benefits.
Turman
PS. We scored some face time with the beard too. Much more on this to come, but what is mid-major sports-blog marketing without a teaser or two? Off to the editing suite! Huzzah!
PPS. Somewhere, in another galaxy KG had a lot of points and Boston won to take a 3-2 lead in the East.
Two nights ago, Baron Davis and consigliere Cash Warren received the Youth Mentoring Connection (YMC) Humanitarian Award for their documentary “Made In America.” It examines the history of gang life in South Central LA. As far as the assembled paparazzi were concerned, this news was apparently secondary. Most of the cameras were focused elsewhere, since the aforementioned Cash Man was secretly married to his squeeze, starlet Jessica Alba, a day earlier. At least if you choose to beleive the celeblogsphere and/or Entertainment Tonight. Which I pretty much do.
But no matter what, it’s been a big couple of days for the “Beard Pack.” With C-Warren sporting newfound beardosity (as documented in the I Beat You dot com best-beard contest), it would appear that the two beards have now formed some sort of unstoppable Voltron-like, young-Hollywood alliance. Web sites, acclaimed documentaries, betrothed starlets, secret weddings and award-show speeches. It’s all in a long weekend. Full press release after the jump.
Last Sunday, I did a most unlikely thing. I went to see someone deliver a PowerPoint presentation. On a Sunday. And it wasn’t raining. Usually, a sunny Sunday in The Bay is not something to be trifled with, but at Matthew’s urging, I went to watch the keynote address for this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. The guest of honor was noted futurecaster and big-picture technology thinker of considerable esteem, Kevin Kelly.
Kelly has a beard, but that would be the least of his achievements. He is probably most well known as the founder of Wired magazine. But there are a lot of Internet-cred activities in his history. He said that he’s been online since way back in 1981. As such, he was instrumental in founding The WELL, one of the earliest online communities. Another large part of his mystique is related to the fact that Andy and Larry Wachowski made his book, Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, a required read for all of the actors in the original Matrix film. Apparently, Kevin is also quite a fan of documentary filmmaking and one of his many blogs is devoted to this topic alone. Presumably, this would be why he was invited to speak at a film festival. The other eight blogs (!) cover off on all of his primary fields of expertise and interest, as well as the assorted personal factoids.
Nonetheless, the real meat of this here post was supposed to be his “State of the Cinema” address. And in keeping true to form, he let loose a big, honking idea on the assembled. And this thesis was a thought-provoking one. Essentially, it is thus: humanity is at a profound moment, a moment that will be defined by the migration of our written tradition to a video-based record-keeping and knowledge-transfer system. With a future that is being built right now, we will have a searchable inventory of untold billions of still and moving images. These will catalogue in some considerable detail the singular enormity of human life on this planet and its myriad interests. Much as our computers—and ourselves—already function as honey bees in a hive, our new and emergent capabilities with video become will relate our experiences as a giant digital-video tapestry, one that we all add a few stitches to. As this happens, we will concurrently also be developing a more efficient method for sharing the aggregated knowledge of humanity.
I’m not even close to done here, so punch through if you want to debate the future of humanity.
No, really. Sure, the cover above is fake, but the rest is kinda true. We actually got mentioned in the May 12th edition of Fortune magazine. On newstands now. It wasn’t a feature, but still. Fortune? Really? Yessir.
I gots the e-mail tip from a couple of faithfuls. Disbelieving, I went down to the bookstore. Page 34. Boo blam! A full-page expose on the best beards of Scrillacon Valley. And, right there sharing page space with Jobs, Ellison and the rest of the titans of computering? FT to the frickin’B. With the URL even. Happy anniversary indeed.
Needless to say, one year from the first post to casual mention in the same story as the Woz was enough to straighten up my posture a bit. Actually, nobody could tell me shit for the rest of the day. I carried the damn magazine around from meeting to meeting talkin’ ’bout, “Did you see I’m in Fortune?” Walking tall and talking loud. I’m probably supposed to be more gracious in triumph, but to hell with that. We’re in Fortune.
But seriously. It’s only been a year. And I want to take a moment away from the snarky blogspeak to issue some genuine thanks. This has been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever been associated with and I want to say a heartfelt thanks on behalf of FTB to all of our new extended fam. Thank you for reading. Thank you for commenting. Thanks for sharing stories. And thanks for feeling what we’re about.
On a final note, Sunday, Matthew and I went to see Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine. He was speaking at the San Francisco International Film Festival about the future of film. Among the many things he mentioned in his hour was one particularly profound truth. That being: the Internet isn’t even 5,000 days old yet. Think about that for a second. All of this. The whole thing. Not even 5,000 days old. Ten years ago it seemed impossible to imagine the Yellow Pages on this mofo. Now it is completely indispensible in almost every aspect of modern life. We just logged a year up in this piece and I’m thankful for the experience. Who knows where we’re all headed together, but thanks for a fun first 365.
Apparently, the NBA Playoffs are now where dis records happen. This might be the most interesting subplot of the playoffs so far. And there’s even a Bay Area connection.
It all started when DeShawn Stevenson decided to call LeBron James “overrated” to some media types a few games ago. LeBron responded by comparing himself to his friend and mentor figure Jay-Z and DeShawn to Soulja Boy. That got Soulja Bizzle all riled up, and I half expected a musical response. But I never saw this coming. A pre-emptive strike from Jay-Z? Frankly, I figured that Hova was too busy for Jr. Beard. But no. And not only did he go ahead and record a quick dis track, he used a Too $hort beat for it. Blow the whistle indeed. And Hova even compares The Town to Brooklyn in the intro. Sweet. But the best part might be where he debuted the cut. I’ll let Mike Wise of the Washington Post handle the particulars.
Afterward, LeBron twice said, “There is no LeBron-DeShawn rivalry.” But he had reinforcements behind the scenes, big guns that came out Friday night at a club called Love.
That’s right, in the wee hours of Friday night at Love, the Northeast club which hosted Gilbert Arenas’ million-dollar 25th birthday party last year, the deejay played a new cut by Jay-Z. The hip-hop icon actually cut it Friday and had it downloaded for a party hosted by LeBron James at the club that night. Stevenson was told that the lyrics just eviscerated him — in his own town.
Then teammate Damon Jones, who last did something to collect an NBA paycheck two years ago, took the microphone and talked junk about Stevenson.
Caron Butler, the only Wizard present, left because “he felt I was being disrespected,” Stevenson said.
I’ll bet he did. And I’m pretty sure that Jr. Beard was more than ready for the final whistle to sound in game four too. Especially, after he looked up at the scoreboard after the three-point loss. BronBron went for 34 to his 13. The Cavs and their beard of superior grooming will now be looking to close out this little chapter in game five at home. And, oh by the way, a frustrated DeShawn got a flagrant for slapping the headband off of James on a drive and almost creating major ruckus. It’s in the clip above, and isolated for further viewing after the jump.
And to think I was out running to raise money for cancer research when all of this hit the hardwood. Make the jump for the unlikely segue into the FTB fun at the Multiple Myeloma Reaseach Foundation 5K this morning in the city and more on DeS vs. LeB.
