Frankly, photo courtesy of Deadspin
I mean, really?
“You Know You Done Fucked Up, Right?”
Leave a comment
Politics
…Or Sugar Is the Price of Sugar
Here is everything I know about frogs. Scientists have hard proof they date to the Triassic. They account for almost 90% of all known amphibian species. They’re basically everywhere but Siberia and the Sahara. Toads are the rectangle to a frog’s square. They are symbols of good fortune in Panama. Epibatidine is a chlorinated alkaloid 200 times more powerful than morphine secreted – as in, it comes right out of the pores, just like that, all you have to do is be around to lap it up – from the body of an Anthony’s poison arrow frog. Their legs are kind of salty to taste. A silhouette of Michigan J. Frog was The WB’s last image before it converted to The CW in 2005. They feature prominently in a recurring dream of mine.
There’s No Place Like Highland Park, Illinois
From Zillow
First of all: Hello. How are you doing? Are you safe and sound? Do you have what you need, or know how to get what you need in responsible fashion? Have you acclimated to the sounds of sirens happening all around you, or at least to the dull murmur of people performatively reacting to those and other things that will never affect them personally on television? Cool and good < A phrase you may or may not use when looking at anything happening in the United States of America in response to a literal plague befalling those of us lucky enough to inhabit the land of hope and dreams.
Keeping in mind how much all of that is relentlessly destroying us, particularly how much money people accumulate who don’t particularly seem to have any utility for it beyond “Hey I have more money than you do lol,” and also ahead of a particularly enticing documentary premier on behalf of Mickey and friends Sunday night – The Last Dance, an unprecedentedly in-depth look into the 1997-’98 Chicago Bulls season – let’s talk about Michael Jordan’s house in Chicago.
On rUSsell WEstbrook
Taking a concept to its ideological extreme can be a perilous exercise: first, one must fully concoct an actionable conviction, one that finds pros outweighing cons; then, after experimenting with the idea, one must attempt to put it into practice and – the hardest part – convince others that this pursuit is, in fact, worth investigating, in the hopes that an audience sees its potential, wildly glorious benefits and agrees that it is, at the very least, worth a shot.
Ideas like this tend to provoke the “hard sell” label, and they allow detractors to seize upon various nooks and crannies in order to mock the ideation and its true believers. To buy all the way in, one must steel themselves for the possibility of a very public humiliation, often in the mouths of bad actors and those who could never regress to the norm for lack of having ever deviated from it. Somehow especially content with the median, these people envy middle managers and the people who ride the coattails of people who actually possess half-decent beliefs, for they themselves believe only in what they see, not in what may be.
When they traded starting center Clint Capela to the Atlanta Hawks in a multi-team deal that netted them the coveted Robert Covington at this year’s trade deadline, the Houston Rockets bought all the way into an idea that head coach Mike D’Antoni pioneered over a decade ago yet was unable to fully realize before various factors ended his tenure with the Phoenix Suns. Now, with none other than Russell Westbrook as their nominal center on offense, Houston is making the bet that running teams into the ground can overcome any, uh, shortcomings they may otherwise have.
You Really Aught Not To Have Done That
Getty Images
Looking at where basketball, particularly NBA basketball, was in 2010 likely would not have given you much insight into what the sport would look like at the turn of the following decade. Sure, LeBron James was the reigning MVP, with three more to follow. Yes, the Spurs would go on to make the playoffs in every year of the 2010s, just as they had in the aughts. The Lakers are, of course, one of the best teams in the league. And, of course, the Kings, Knicks and Warriors are three of the worst teams in the NBA.
But as in life, basketball constantly shows its capacity for change, no matter the source of inspiration nor drive. What began with the Celtics shooing LeBron off the floor in the Eastern Conference Semifinals and into the Greenwich Boys & Girls Club for the kickoff of the player empowerment movement has resulted in, among innumerable other things, Ray Allen’s greatest betrayal, the assembly of perhaps the greatest team in NBA history and definitely the greatest mercenary season from a single player ever.
It would be impossible to remember everything, but here are a few notes from each year, both league-related and otherwise.
She Said, She Said
Franck Fife/AFP/Getty
Two years ago, my oldest, not older, brother brought up a point I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since[1]. He was thinking about patriotism, and how it presents a weird proposition when an American athlete does something extraordinary on a grand stage, and you aren’t especially proud of what your country has or is capable of accomplishing as you see it. Borders are troublesome in their very existence, and trying to adhere to them is a worry of people who can afford homes within their borders, or people who aspire to
In fairness, as someone who was born here and has no connection to my heritage other than the aspirational and that which is skin tone-related, I’ve been a lot more Republic of Ireland-forward than he has, but I think I get it, to some extent – the United States isn’t the greatest breeding ground for pride in anything you like unless a lot of people like yourself enjoy it, and even then, it can be a dogfight.
David Tepper’s $485 Million Punt
Courtesy of Forbes
Charlotte, North Carolina, my home and where the Carolina Panthers reside (for now), is currently undergoing massive upheaval as a result of a tax revaluation by the Mecklenburg County Tax Assessor’s Office. This is the first revaluation since 2011, and Charlotte has only continued to increase in its population to the tune of roughly 54 people a day. This population growth coupled with a lack of supply in housing stock (both affordable and otherwise) has led to the kind of real estate speculation that spells disaster for working class neighborhoods.
The Tax Assessor’s Office reported that commercial property jumped by an average of 77% while residential jumped by an average of 43%. As a result, people are making tough, kitchen table decisions like appealing their revaluation or moving before a property tax rate is set in July. The revaluation has turned an affordable housing crisis into a nightmare with horror stories of affected neighborhoods devastated and residents despondent with the choices ahead of them.
There was a story released this past Thursday that one major fixture of the region is also feeling the squeeze: David Tepper’s Carolina Panthers.
Pushing the Boundaries
In the pilot episode of Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy, the director of Borat and former Seinfeld writer timidly asks a reformed Liberian warlord known as General Butt Naked, “What does human flesh taste like?”
The General answers that it tastes like pork. This is the moment when a two-drink minimum seems like a great idea.
Grid Positions: A 2019 MotoGP Season Preview
You have options. Before the start of every new sporting season, dedicated fans take a step back to join casual onlookers just catching up in assessing offseason developments, visualizing the year ahead, prognosticating to pass the time. There are bland press releases to read, rehearsed transcripts to read into, social media posts to pick apart. Media sources both official and otherwise get paid to distill this pile of corporate-backed bollocks into coherent season previews with scripted narratives to follow for your benefit so you can regurgitate it to uninterested parties as the smartest, least likable person in the room when the topic of conversation finally comes around. I know what these previews will say. So do you. This is the ritual.
But there are alternatives. That’s why you’re here.
Everybody’s Got a Thing: The 2018/19 TwH Megathread
America, Auto Racing, Basketball, Movies, Music, NBA, NFL, Olympics, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, sexism, Soccer, Sports, Television
Graphic by Brian Kraker
Another year down. Another year older, but perhaps none the wiser? Maybe that decision doesn’t belong to you alone. It felt like nothing did, most of the time. From Tide Pods to the Philly Special to countless acts of cruelty and many more of plain senselessness to the continued existence of the Golden State Warriors to having 12 years left to stop the sun to inexplicable blue lights over Astoria, everything that happened felt like it was going to happen anyway, sooner or later, and we were all left to bear it as best we could. Same as it ever was, but different.
Still: we would be equally bereft of sense to assume that darkness would drive out darkness. You may have heard that only light can do that. For all the bad and rot everywhere, urban, suburban and rural, at home and abroad, there were the moments in between that made everything we experience every day that kept us together, however briefly. If we experienced them together? All the better.
As Bootsy Collins said in 1972, “Balance is my thing/The snow, wind and rain must come.” With that, we delve into the year that was, with an eye toward the twelvemonth ahead.
