When I post about the Bruins, there's usually some kind of apology attached. Not now. After living an entire lifetime ashamed of my cheap, uncaring hockey team, this is the first time I've ever been proud to be a fan of the Boston Bruins. This, this moment right now, is the greatest moment in the franchise since the '72 Cup finals.
No, not the B's having the top seed in the East... I'm talking about these commercials.
From the indispensable Puck Daddy comes this indispensable video. Ignore all the Dan Le Bastard crap, and wait for Randy Moller to start dropping the by-request pop culture references.
I think "WHAT'S IN THE BOX! THE PANTHERS HAVE A TWO-GOAL LEAD!" is my favorite.
Every now and again, a song comes along that grabs onto the nation's consciousness and never lets go. This is true not only in modern times, with addictive songs like "Umbrella" or "Crazy," but dating back to Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and even to the likes of Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. All it takes is one great line, and you've got America by the throat.
Nowadays, that one great line is "Tell Me How My Ass Tastes."
Shaq may have killed the high-flying Phoenix Suns, one of my favorite teams ever, but this nearly makes up for it.
That one simple line just kills me. Tell me how my ass tastes. It's got amazing staying power. Like Beetlejuice and "The Exorcist," it keeps getting funnier every single time I hear it.
Until recently, I wasn't particularly against Kobe Bryant winning another title. I wouldn't be happy for him, but I wouldn't be, like, Bruce-Bowen-wins-again angry about it. But now, with the prospect of this one song being Kobe's legacy, I will root against him for the rest of my life. When Kobe retires, I want to see Shaq's freestyle featured prominently in the SportsCenter montage.
France's elimination from Euro 2008, in part the result of a total lack of offense, gives the French more than enough reason to consider Rémi Gaillard for the national side in 2010...
Beating down a Masshole is not an appropriate response to a "Beat L.A." cheer, as the cheer is not to be taken as a literal threat. Please instead resort to the correct response: pig-blaps and mushroom tattoos. Thank you.
Sincerely,
The fans of the team that pig-blapped your jump-shooting rapist last night
The NBA... where getting stomped in the Timbits happens!
The tone of reaction from folks who linked this video, appropriately, has not been outrage. It's been acceptance. The world apparently accepts that this is okay, and holds Bowen's behavior up, weakly, for ridicule.
There's been talk of late that David Stern's biggest failure as commissioner is what's happening in Seattle. Hard to argue against that choice based on the gravity of the end result. But at least that makes SENSE. Stern is employed ownership, and the Sonics situation, awful as it is, is nevertheless understandable based on Stern's job responsibilities. Wrong? Of course. Out of bounds? Not at all.
The classically dictatorial Stern's failure to discipline Bowen and curb his behavior, however... that is beyond comprehension for me. Stern is the biggest star-fucker of any sports commissioner in American history. Why does he allow his precioussssss superstars to be put at risk like this?
Back in the playoffs last year, I advocated banning Bruce Bowen for the balance of the playoffs, based not on the Game 4 incident in isolation but rather on Game 4 in the context of his body of work. I stand by that. I honestly believe that Bruce Bowen has accrued, at this point in his career, at least 30-40 regular season games' worth of unallocated suspensions. I also believe it would be justifiable, in the eyes of an omniscient and omnipotent God, to suspend Bowen for half of a regular season without pay.
In fact, how about this. Bowen just kicked a New Orleans Hornet in the beanbag. Bowen also seems to like being the face and voice of that unintentionally hilarious NBA Cares commercial. (The commercial wherein, miraculously, he resists the urge to kick those kids in their Achilles tendons while they're distracted by the story he's reading.) So why not have Mr. Charitable Contributions spend half a season rebuilding the Ninth Ward? Suspend him without pay, but then take the suspended salary away from the Spurs and allocate it to Habitat for Humanity. (The Spurs created this monster, so why let them keep the spoils?) That way any accusations made towards the controversial punishment will be shielded by 9/11-esque Katrina allusions! Gee, you know it's not fair, but I'd hate to take away from the rebuilding effort in New Orleans... there's so much left to be done... etc. etc.
A guy can dream, can't he? I put it to you that if the NBA really cared, they'd do exactly what I say.
That makes two ridiculous 10-points-out-of-10 slams for Rajon Rondo in two weeks, the other being this nasty MFer right here:
If you think Sam Cassell is challenging THIS guy for the starting job, forget about it.
Rondo's not the de facto starter. Nor has he been at any time this season. He's the STARTER, and he's earned it. He's as much a reason for the team's success (and aesthetic pleasure) as anyone.
Dude's a menace. He's an excellent defender. He's as good as anyone on the team at creating his own offense. And watch the organization of this team when Rondo's on the court, versus when the otherwise-capable pair of Eddie House and Tony Allen run the show. Night and day.
The moment is coming when it won't be the Big Three anymore.
On a different topic, I love the Cassell move. It puts the C's over the top, making them the prohibitive favorite in the East as opposed to the favorite with contingencies. Celtic opponents can only put together runs when Rondo's off the court, just because the offense is so disorganized and amateurish in his absence. Cassell solves that problem the instant he steps into his uniform.
I sure hope this doesn't happen again in practice:
If you did anything worthwhile with yourself last night instead of watching the dunk contest, you lose. Thoughts:
Birthday Cake Dwight Howard beat him fair and square on the acts-of-derring-do front, but come on. I couldn't believe my friggin eyes when I saw that GG blew it out.
It's this year's Sticker Dunk. It's the dunk I'm going to remember from this year, just like everyone remembers the Sticker Dunk. Both dunks were (at the time) the sickest shit ever, but not enough to result in victory. Neither one was flashy in and of itself, but the creativity alone merited an unreceived 50.
When they showed the slow-motion replay of GG pursing his lips and blowing the candle out, I jumped up in the air, screamed, and flung my pita bread at the screen. Hard. And then when I'd picked up the pita and returned to the couch, they showed it again... and I threw it again.
Gerald Green Green was docked points because Howard was so off-the-charts amazing, not because his work was subpar.
Look at how successfully he aped Vince Carter and Jason Richardson.
Look at the shoe-less dunk. I'm with Dr. J: that dunk deserves a lot more credit than it was given.
It's amazing how much this year's contest mirrored last year's, even beyond the Birthday Cake/Sticker Dunk thing. Last year, Howard stole the show, but GG put on such a pitch-perfect performance that you couldn't take it away from him. This year, the exact opposite. They're not even, because Howard made out better this year than Green made out last year. But still, it's karmic retribution. (And a not-so-subtle message to Green that his high-wire act will only take him so far.)
Dwight Howard I may love GG, and I may wish he'd gotten more respect for having brought it at what, in any other year, would have been a championship-worthy level (doing the ONE thing he does well)... but this was the most mesmerizing dunk performance I can remember.
It all comes down to showmanship and enthusiasm. Howard was oozing with joy and love all night, whereas Green was doing his thing, taking it serious and being kinda surly about the whole thing. If Green were as charismatic as Howard, this would have gone down as a Nique-vs-MJ-caliber throwdown. (He also would have scored a 50 on the Birthday Cake.) But you couldn't hold Howard back last night.
I wouldn't be the wet blanket that I am without mentioning that the Superman dunk was botched on a couple levels. (He stopped himself before dunking!!!) And the Nerf dunk absolutely should have had the little hoop set at 12 feet, in protest of the league's refusal to jack the hoop up for him, and additionally should have had him dunking a little ball at 12 feet while also dunking the real thing lefty.
But look at the ridiculous lengths to which I have to go to nit-pick Howard. I mean, seriously, think about the ridiculous shit I just demanded of him. That's how high the bar has been raised.
Off the hook. Maybe not as uniformly sick as has been remembered... but definitely off the hook.
Rashad McCants I love that the TNT guys were ragging on the fact that McCants, a notorious me-first offensive black hole, was brought along to be GG's passer. It's so true. McCants might be his buddy, but why would he not bring Sebastian Telfair? Better passing makes each of the non-Cake dunks that much better. That GG chose to have his buddy do the passing, instead of someone who's good at passing, says all sorts of things about GG's basketball IQ.
It also increased the subtextual fuck-you message they received from Howard and the powers that be. The two sour, pouty, selfish losers did what they do best: they lost. Howard, the franchise player on a Finals contender, won without question. Nuff said.
One Quick Word About The 3-Point Contest And that word is... titty.
Thank you, Reggie Miller. Thank you to TNT for allowing them to draw the ensuing conversation out to its conclusion. And a HUGE thank you to Sir Charles for dragging "man-boobs" into the discussion.
Well, I sure got fooled by Leitch and company. Hey, I just assumed that if it was on Deadspin it'd be true! Brilliant. I'd like that hour of my life back, please.
Yep... the report itself was entirely pointless and free of revelation. Nothing of any real consequence came out. In fact, Mitchell seems to have omitted the parts that were, actually, you know, IMPORTANT.
Anyway, I should have left my thoughts on the outcome to the professionals. To make up for that, here's a professional.
This is a slight diversion, thematically, but I've gotta say it.
Frank Caliendo's impressions are really, really good.
You heard me, Coltrane. I speak the truth that everyone else is afraid to hear!!! I laugh at his impressions. I thought the bumpers that aired during the LDS and NLCS series could have been better, but the impressions are wild.
Watch his Barkley/Walton/Albert impressions and tell me that doesn't come from talent.
I will grant that where Caliendo really leaves himself open to criticism is the schticky, uncreative way he goes about his business. His impressions don't involve memorable, hilarious lines; there isn't anything in there to laugh at besides the uncanniness of the impression. And he falls back on juxtaposition jokes, letting one voice (say, Madden) set up another (Bush). It's like a mashup remix... how a DJ (say, Danger Mouse) will remix a Jay-Z song with a Beatles song, and that odd juxtaposition is the main selling point. Same thing.
So yeah, once you get into the question of whether he's a comedian who says things funny or a comedian who says funny things, Caliendo loses big-time. But you can't say his work isn't impressive, so to speak. It may be a lot like giving Gallagher credit for knowing how to smash a watermelon, but at least Caliendo's got a respectable act. Which is more than we can say for Dane "THERE IS ONLY ONE TESTICLE IN MY SACK-TOBER" Cook.
(I'll also point out that certain readers of this blog find the Coors Light press conference commercials funny. Come on. Oh, whoops, I mean COME ON!!!)
Prior to Eagles/Hokies and Red Sox/Rockies, I treated myself to a couple periods of Bruins/Blackhawks, featuring the leading candidates for the Calder trophy, Chicago's Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. I was actually very excited to see Toews and Kane, especially after watching Toews' jaw-dropping goal the other night:
HOLY SHIT. Goal of the year. No more entries accepted, thanks for playing. I hope you can understand why I'd consider Toews' arrival to be appointment TV.
Unsurprisingly, he scored Chicago's lone goal tonight, popping a nonchalant snapshot past Tim Thomas on the power play. I'd say he generally held up his end of the bargain. Kane looked impressive too, though he didn't make as much of an impression, and is thus far having the statistically superior season. The Wirtz is dead, long live the Blackhawks!
I'll tell you who didn't look impressive: David Koci. He wanted to take a bite out of Shawn Thornton... but ended up with a mouthful of Zdeno Chara. RUH-ROH!
I saw that live, in stunning high-definition. If it looked gruesome on YouTube, imagine how nasty it looked when you could see the details... when you could see the point at which Koci's nose became re-broken. Bleech.
Then again, that's what he gets for having a RACIST MASCOT!!!
You know, for a guy who doesn't fight, Chara sure knows how to connect. He connected with Koci's chops or his nose pretty much every swing he took. Nice to see the 6'9" stud finally getting physical.
Aaaanyway, Bruins win 3-1, earning #2 on tonight's What You Missed While Watching An Awesome Baseball Game Countdown. More to come...
