Hater Tuesday question of the week: can you love Obama too much?
Apparently, the above question has been answered. By Gilbert Arenas.
“Yes you can,” is his answer.
Gil is now showing off his new Obama-themed tats, which, as of this writing, I could not source images for. Nonetheless, Dan Steinberg at the almighty DC Sports Bog sums them up thusly.
Arenas has decided to show his permanent support of President-elect Barack Obama with a tattoo. Arenas had the words “Change We Believe In” (sic) tattooed onto the fingers of his left hand in cursive writing. Then, Gilbert showed the outside of his pinky finger, which had “44″ inked on it.
So. Gilbert Arenas. You are truly one crazy mofo. Talk about flip flopping. Here’s what dude said a couple of months ago. “I’d rather die than vote.” Then he went on to wish the president elect, whomever it should turn out to be, to, “Do a good job.” And “Change the world.” But this is where it got fun. Arenas bracketed his apolitical musings with complaints to the media about taxation. Great work Gil.
Enter The Beard.
Shortly thereafter Baron Davis clowned him publicly from his blog, suggesting that he should stop worrying about his loot and worry about things like schools. This was fascinatingly detailed in truthaboutit.net. Here’s Boom putting Agent Zero on blast.
“I know he said he’s gonna raise the taxes on the top income bracket, Gil, but if he uses that money to improve our schools then you won’t have to worry about some kids trying to sell pictures of your pool online cause they couldn’t get a better job. LOL.”
Thusly chastened, Arenas changed his tune. Apparently, he might have even voted. And now he has the ink to prove it. But, Gil being Gil, he’s not stopping there. No, no. He has commissioned some artwork for the house. Okay, a tasteful oil painting is a good memento, right? Oh yeah, right. But this is not your average house. The aforementioned pool. The shark tank. And so on. It’s the Hearst Mansion of baller excess. So, given all of this, and that this is a man who calls himself “Hibachi,” what do you suppose he has in mind? Well, let’s let Sports by Brooks throw down the tomahawk jam of this story in thier own words. Read More »
The dangerous side of charity work: Clipper rookie gets clowned by little kid.
If you’re Clipper rookie Mike Taylor, you should probably stick close to Baron and them if you’re headed to the ‘hood to hand out some turkeys. You know, if folks don’t know you then at least stay close to someone that they respect. He doesn’t really get clowned too bad, and Elie Seckbach kind of sets him up, but still.
Actually, more disturbing for all of the Clippers in attendance is all the Kobe Bryant chatter. I mean dang, kids. You got a whole hoop team out to South Central to give you some free ish, and you gotta go and be bringing up that dude all the time? Especially when his squad just bopped on the Clips twice in the first week and a half of the season? That’s messed up. Especially coming from “Lil’ T.”
Turman
Postcard from “post-racial” America, part II: on becoming the man.
Filed from: Napili, Maui, Hawaii
“…I threw the ball with two hands at first, then developed an awkward jump shot, a crossover dribble, absorbed in the same solitary moves hour after hour. By the time I reached high school, I was playing on Punahou’s teams, and could take my game to the university courts, where a handful of black men, mostly gym rats and has-beens, would teach me an attitude that didn’t just have to do with the sport. That respect came from what you did and not who your daddy was. That you could talk stuff to rattle an opponent, but that you should shut the hell up if you couldn’t back it up. That you didn’t let anyone sneak up behind you to see emotions—like hurt or fear—that you didn’t want them to see.”
-Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father
I’m staying in a lodging facility that places peace and quiet above all else. Thus, there is only one television here. After sneaking out for a couple of hours—to a nearby sports bar—to watch the Warriors/Hornets and Clippers/Lakers games, I returned just as the Barack Obama television event was reaching its conclusion on the community TV. He had just sounded the rallying cry of his campaign’s final week: “We must choose our better history.” And after the perfunctory God Bless America, the room had gone quiet. Until one woman in attendance uttered the phrase, “I hope he’s the real deal.”
This made me think about basketball. It made me think about the games I had just watched. But more specifically, it made me think about the psychology of the game and how this particular sport, more than just about any, cultivates an absolute desire to be the man. Basketball makes you want to be the guy who gets the ball in the last two minutes. The guy who even the most talented teammates defer to. The guy who gets announced last, when the scoreboard is flashing highlights and the game announcer summonses his best ring-announcer hyperbole.
That guy. Basketball makes us want to be him. Like no other sport I’ve ever played.
And yesterday I watched two games simultaneously, my head ping-ponging back and forth between flat screens watching four players vie for recognition as the man. On screen one, we had Stephen Jackson and Chris Paul. Screen two, Baron Davis and Kobe Bryant. Each screen, a showcase of contrasting styles in the man-ness. Each screen a collision of different measures of hubris and frailty. The absolutely critical swagger of self-assurance counterbalanced by the even more absolute weight of the odds against. Which, in the case of these four black men took me back to my beach reading from earlier in the day, to a particular observation made by Barack Obama.
“At least on the basketball court I could find a community of sorts, with an inner life all its own. It was there that I would make my closest white friends, on turf where blackness couldn’t be a disadvantage.”
Reading this quote and the one cited earlier a little differently—considering the “post-racial” Obama politic through the lens of basketball—I was struck by what it infers about the possibility of an Obama presidency. Read More »
FTB poised for breakout season, literally, Part II.
Breakout. Emerge. Expand. Reveal. Grow. Play bigger and play better.
To clarify. We are not renouncing our status as Dubfans. To the contrary, we are and will remain avid supporters of the Bay Area’s signature professional basketball franchise. Hell, I’d buy the team in an East 14th-minute if I had the bread and Cohan was selling. But what we have had to come to grips with over the course of these past few months is that the NBA is bigger than one team. And to be a fan of basketball played at the highest level is—to some extent—to divorce oneself from the exclusive fortunes of a single franchise.
Another source of inspiration: Meschery the elder. Tom Meschery grew up in the Bay Area, went to college locally and played for the Dubs for the better part of a decade. And then he was traded to Seattle. He also coached in the ABA and CBA. Watching him now, a basketball elder in repose, something interesting becomes clear. And at least to me, it appears to be a peaceful truth. He is still rooting for the team that he played so physically for, for so long, yes. But if you ask him who his favorite players are, he says “Allen Iverson.” “Rasheed Wallace.” First and foremost, he is a fan, a student and a teacher of the game. Of basketball. Of the Warriors and their laundry too. But mostly of basketball.
And if it so happens that the guys wearing your colors are doing the things that you like to see—on the court, as well as off of it as citizens of humanity—then you can root with unbridled abandon. When those factors collide with less regularity or on a shallower plane, then sometimes one has to break out a bit and begin looking for those things from a broader group of sources.
To wit, our namesake beard still plays his home games in California. A fantastically intriguing team is taking shape to the north in Portland. The Lakers have signed The Monkey King. Nasty Nash still has the keys to the gym in Phoenix in his pocket. And even the Sacramento Kings have myriad storylines that bear watching. All of this will now come into play. But this is only part of the equation. Read More »
FTB poised for breakout season, literally, Part I.
According to he who roams the sidelines and the blogosphere covering the Golden State Warriors—Matt Steinmetz—Fear the Beard is the third best blog covering the team. Perhaps even more shocking, he said that we would have been his number one pick had it not been for our tendency to be, well, all over the map with our coverage. Nonetheless, he went on to say that we were like a player that’s all upside, one that’s poised for a breakout season.
Rodney Stuckey of the Pistons was the player he compared us to. Not a bad comparo. And while I too am recovering from a hand injury that’s impacting my (blogging) career, the comparison got me to thinking. Thinking about where FTB is headed, how this relates to the Warriors and what it means vis-à-vis our choice of avatar and his departure.
When I was writing this, the airplane in which I was traveling was smashing across Nebraska at 500 miles an hour. The world is shrinking. And technology is closing the distance faster than wings and kerosene. That a roving sideline reporter and I can now be engaged in a swift and orderly online festivus of mutual admiration is exhibit “A.”
Exhibit “B” is perhaps best set up by paraphrasing an old bit from a long-ago episode of Seinfeld. There is a simple and cruel truth about professional athletics. One that is magnified by a factor of 10 for underfunded franchises with a history of losing. And it has to do with parity. And it has to do with television. And it has to do with free agency. And it has to do with—as Seinfeld famously noted—laundry.
See, the simple truth is that it gets hard to see your favorite players routinely leave as free agents. Where pre-free-agency pros—however compromised by servitude to a franchise they may have been—were agents of the public trust, now players are agents of themselves first and then of the league. So it is that now, after some considerable investment of time and energy, am I supposed to blindly root for whoever the next Warrior is with a beard or the jersey number 5? I am not this simple. Thankfully, neither is the game we love.
Is Steve Nash Baron’s Bubba?
I don’t know if this is exactly a fair fight. We here at FTB have hella-respect for BD’s game, but in this here comedy skit challenge, my money might have to be on Bosh. After all, we know Chris Bosh has a secret weapon. And that weapon goes by the name of Bubba. Bubba is the McLovin of Youtube Skit Scene Stealing. If you forgot Bubba’s unforgettable role in CB4’s All Star campaign video, then you most likely forgot about Blue in “Old School” or Saget in “Half Baked.” In other words, you’re comedy-illiterate.
I think Baron only stands a chance by fighting Canadian with Canadian. Meaning, Steve Nash might have to take the suspenders out the closet one more again. Per capita, The Canadians got us beat in the comedy department. Comedy for Canadians is like long-distance running for Kenyans. They’re naturals. I’m not even sure that Bubba is Canadian (some speculate he was played by Bosh’s younger brother), but based on his performance, I’m just going to say that he’s a Canuck. So, BD, if you’re listening, you might want to bring Nash in for the assist. Or, if you want to be bold, I got Bill Wennington’s number for you. Let’s offer him a few Molson’s and bring ol’ “Beef” Wennington out of retirement for one last run.
M. Meschery
PS - If this thing starts going bad for Baron, FTB might have to throw its hat in the ring - assuming we can channel our inner-Canadians of course.
Finally on the menu! Boom Dizzle with White Chocolate.
As speculated on by FTB nearly a year ago, the long awaited combo of Boom Dizzle and White Chocolate has finally made the menu. Of course, it will only be served in LA-area T.G.I. Fridays, but hey. If indeed there is such a thing as “too much flavor,” as speculated by Meschery in the original post, at least now we will finally get to sample this postmodern backcourt “S’more” for ourselves.
For whatever it’s worth, I couldn’t find any data on the salary Jason Williams (aka “White Chocolate”) is scheduled to receive, but he put up half decent numbers last year when he was healthy. And even though it seems like he’s been around forever, he’s still “only” 32. One could second guess the logic of signing two of the better players from a team that went 15-67 under Hall-of-Fame coach Pat Riley. In less than a week. But why bother? With the roster Elgin Baylor has assembled, complaining now would be like complaining when you’ve got a big-ass plate in front of you full of Cheddar Bacon BBQ Sliders, a Jack Daniel’s Sampler and some Chocolate Angel Swirl Cake. No matter how questionable it might sound on paper, you’re still gonna want to take a bite. Somebody better tell Chris Kaman to keep his hands up.
Turman
PS. No word yet on whether or not Austin Croshere (pictured at left, with excited food face) will be joining the Clippers or eating at T.G.I. Fridays anytime soon.
Beard + Clippers = proper grooming.
I guess it’s time for us at FTB to talk a little bit about the elephant in the room. Yeah, that thing. Baron Davis is a Los Angeles Clipper. But actually, since we’re still spilling adult beverages on the curb and pondering the fate of our newly capo-less Dubs, I’ll turn the mike over to our new BFFs down at ClipsNation. Here’s a highlight from what I found to be an insightful take, one that I think I would have made to Chris Mullin with a rather agitated vocalization, had I been given the chance. Read a bit if you please, and jump for more if you can feel the warm Santa Ana winds blowing the smog out to sea after just one paragraph. I felt like I was reading my own words.
PG is a cerebral position that combines skill with strength and athleticism. The effectiveness of Sam Cassell a couple years ago is one example, but we’ve seen how Nash and John Stockton were able to play at the highest level towards the end of their careers. Kidd is an example of a player whose game originally consisted of great athleticism, who has been able to remain effective even after significant injuries. One of the important factors in this advanced equation is the makeup of a “true PG,” as opposed to a combo guard or converted SG. The position is about running a team and creating opportunities for the entire unit, and a big part of success derives from the mental aspect of controlling tempo and going into crunchtime with confidence. The transformation of the Clippers under Cassell, from a team that routinely squandered 4th quarter leads and gave up road games much too easily, into a highly competitive and confident playoff squad, was a perfect example that we all know quite well. Davis is better, younger, stronger, more versatile, and just as fearless and clutch, and we should expect even better results.
Right? Maybe? Read more here.
Turman
PS. I know Elgin Baylor was a great player, but damn if he doesn’t look like a haunted tree in this picture.