Lines I enjoy

B. Jennings G 34:16 7-16 2-5 1-2 -9 1 9 9 5 0 0 1 5 17

from MIL @ PHI 10.30.09

J. Hill 1:45 0-1 0-0 0-0 +2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

from NYK @ MIA 10.28.09

J. Hill DNP - COACH'S DECISION

from NYK @ CHA 10.30.09

"For a year or so"

from Andre Agassi

So Jennings is the proud new owner of a . . .  Ford Edge. Starting MSRP: $26,900.

from JS Online... Does this mean that one day I will probably buy a Ford Edge to go along with my Under Armor sneakers and Bucks jerseys? Yes it does.

Boston and Cool Jobs

Note: I wrote this post two weeks ago and just got around to publishing it. Some of the information is now dated, some is not.

Most mornings Sep and I wake up early, eat breakfast and talk about how cool it would be if we had cool jobs (for full effect drag out the o's in 'cool' and say it with a cool face). Then Sep will normally lock himself in his room and study for the LSATs, while I polish off my Frosted Flakes and spend an inordinate amount of time thumbing through a Cabela's hunting magazine that inexplicably arrives in our mailbox monthly.

Sep seems certain that a high LSAT score and subsequent fancy law degree will land him a cool job. I'm much less pro-active about my pursuit of a cool job. After breakfast I will return to my bedroom, skim through a couple of cool blogs and talk out loud to myself, "Whoa. That person has a cool job."

Recently I decided to journey to Maine to see some of my favorite people in the world not named Brandon Jennings. I decided to break up the trip to Maine with a stop in Boston, even though I had no idea where I would spend the night in Boston.

Long story short by where-am-I-going-to-rest-my-head troubles were saved by some friends I met at Vibes and because I met them at Vibes we were automatically best friends because everyone at Vibes was my best friend except the scary nitrous people, they were not my best friends.

My friend Mal met me, showed me some pretty things, took me to a cool bar where I had a hamburger with peanut butter. Then she took me to her office.

Mal has a cool job. She works at a visual effects studio in the coolest office. Even with the lights on, the office was very dimly lit and every corner was full of chotchkies; either odd chotchkies or a massive plasma TV. Most importantly her office has a milkshake making device in addition to a bar full of snacks and beer.


As I sat there destroying a Rice Krispie Treat, she put on her work's demo reel. Her company made the NBA "Where will amazing happen?" commercials. At that point I lost my mind.

After the tour and video reel, she offered me a shot of Jack Daniels from her boss's office. Normally I never drink hard liquor, but I am not retarded so I took that shot of Jack and tried to act like it was no big deal. At the end of the day Mal is just a receptionist, who has to do silly receptionist work, but it's possibly the dopest work atmosphere I have ever seen.

I asked her how she got her job. "Well I was working across the street at the Starbucks. I became friends with everyone on the block." Mal said. "The girl who was the receptionist before me asked me what I do and what I want to do in life. I told her I ballroom dance. Then she offered me an interview and I got the job."

Mal's "desk:"


This is a picture of the light's reflection in a picture of the light hanging. I liked it.


This is Jesus Christ and the United Nations building. It hangs in the bathroom.

I continued to bounce around Boston with Mal and my other Vibes friend Amber. Eventually we got back to their place and tried to watch Pineapple Express without smoking, which is like playing golf with no clubs. Either way I passed out on their couch at 10:30 at night, because that is how I roll.

Buzz Bissinger Interview

This is an interview I did with Buzz Bissinger for Gelf Magazine regarding his (and Bron's) new book "Shooting Stars."

In the real world Buzz is famous for his book "Friday Night Lights," which sold over 2 million copies and spawned a movie and TV show. In the sports blogosphere Buzz is famous for screaming at Will Leitch.

Personally I did not love "Shooting Stars" and I agreed with many of the points Henry Abbott raised on TrueHoop. When I was speaking to Buzz I slightly alluded to Abbott's article and then Buzz kinda went off.

"If Henry Abbott wants to go do it, let him go do it. Instead of suggesting all sorts of rhetorical questions for which he has no answer, he can go investigate it. All he does is raise rhetorical questions, which to me is not reporting or writing, but the very antithesis of both," Buzz said. Then he proceeded to talk to compare LeBron's biography to Ted Kennedy's. He falsely assumed I had some worldly knowledge outside of basketball and began talking about Chappaquiddick. I pretended like I knew what he was talking about, then after the interview I wiki-ed the shit out of Teddy Kennedy.

In all I was very happy with the interview and the way the article came out.

Enjoy...

Like many basketball fans, I've followed LeBron James since he was a sophomore in high school. I remember the Sports Illustrated cover. I remember the SLAM cover. I remember watching his St. Vincent-St. Mary squad take on Oak Hill on ESPN. I remember listening to Dick Vitale broadcast the game and bash everyone who was profiting off LeBron and knowing damn well that Vitale was not offering his services pro bono.

As a basketball junkie, I can tell you exactly where I was when LeBron was chosen with the first pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. Having never looked at LeBron's Wikipedia entry, I could probably recite 95 percent of its content off the top of my head. So I was curious what new information I would learn from reading LeBron and Buzz Bissinger's new book, Shooting Stars. Because the book tells LeBron's life story up to the point he graduated from high school, I expected to read about him being offered shady deals worth millions and cavorting around college campuses like Jesus Shuttlesworth. But there wasn't much in the way of new or revelatory information. As Bissinger—who knows how to write a story about high school sports—explains, Shooting Stars is not meant to be an all-inclusive LeBron James autobiography. At its core, it is a simple book about five kids, with the odds stacked against them, overcoming their fair share of adversity to win a state championship or three.

I spoke with Bissinger over the phone to talk about writing a book with King James, why it's not a work of investigative journalism, and how the sports culture in Akron compares to the one in Odessa, Texas. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Continue reading...

There was one bit of idiotic Justin Adler writing that my editor wisely cut from the article to make me look more mature and respectable than I am. But since this is my blog, I'll run the goofy paragraph:

I cannot say I disliked the book; it was entertaining. It was a literary version of methadone for my heroine-like addiction to the game. And what the fuck else am I going to do in the offseason. But I am a sucker for dirty, corrupt basketball scandals and one good World-Wide Wes story would have made the book exponentially better for me.

*Stupid photo of Bron at the top of the page is courtesy of BOP VI.

Movie Ideas

This morning I found myself alone standing outside the Boston sports pro shop in the TD Garden. It was 7:45 in the morning so the shop was closed and dark inside, but I stood there staring intensely through the glass at a green Eddie House jersey while Third Eye Blind's "How's it going to be" played over the radio.

I don't have any idea what that particular 3EB song is about. I could not tell you any of the lyrics aside from the chorus. But if my life is ever turned into a movie, I don't have any idea why the fuck it ever would be, me thinking about Eddie House while listening to 3EB needs to be climatic scene of the film. I think it would earn me an Oscar or at least an NAACP Image Award.

On the subject of silly films... A lot of people in New York claim they are writing screenplays or creating something along the lines of dreams that will never be fulfilled. The following is my rendition of that.

A while ago my friend Tom and I wondered if there is any medical condition which would only allow you to hear sounds in the tone of rapper/convicted sex offender Mystikal's voice. This is the inspiration for a screenplay I have been writing entirely in my head while riding the subway over the past week. It's about a slightly less retarded version of Helen Keller who grows up in a wealthy, white suburb but is unable to communicate in any form with anyone. All of the world's top researchers of "people who are slightly less retarded than Helen Keller" have zero success in helping the knock-off Helen Keller.

Then one day she hears a Keak da Sneak song, and the girl realizes Keak's voice is the only audible level she is able to understand. Everything clicks for the girl. Note: I made the executive decision to replace Mystikal with Keak da Sneak for many reasons. First Keak is not a rapist, therefore it will be more family friendly. Secondly Keak's Wikipedia entry states. "He is also notable for popularizing the style of wearing clothing from 2nd hand clothing stores with a mix of expensive 59Fifty hats and Bling." That is pretty fucking cool.

Eventually Keak and the girl who is slightly less retarded than Helen Keller formulate a strategy to solve the global energy crisis and ease all tensions in the Mideast. Additionally the duo create a time warping device that allows Justin Adler to sit courtside at the 2001 NBA Finals when Allen Iverson crosses Tyronn Lue, buries the 3, then steps over Lue.

The movie ends with Jewelz becoming the greatest rapper ever.

* If anyone wants to steal any of these ideas for anything please feel free. Just please put WPM somewhere in the credits and perhaps weave the restaurant where Tom works into the plot somehow. I'm sure there is a hole somewhere in the story it can be squeezed into.

** Half this post is what happens when I get on the subway sans music or a book to read.

Maine Rocks

Today I arrived in Maine. Within an hour of being here I sent the boss from my restaurant an e-mail of resignation.

Liberated, I headed out on a bike ride to see some Fall leaves and pretty coves. On my journey I saw this kid, Robert, throwing rocks at a buoy. I decided to join the fun, but I also kept my helmet on because throwing rocks can be dangerous.

Robert and I each hit the buoy (which was a good 25 feet away) once out of hundreds of throws. It was more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.

The top two photos were shot by Robert's mother. The bottom photo was all me.

Hooligans and sneakers

Again sorry for the lack of recent blogging. I have not had that many interesting stories and the ones I do are really not appropriate to publish on the internet. For better or worse, I am not in Argentina where I can run around writing recklessly about everyone I meet knowing that I will most likely never see them again in my life.

And unfortunately I have became numb to many of the interesting weirdos of NYC, that or I am just too lazy to blog about them. Most likely the latter.

There is a crazy-ass school outside my window that produces gangs of hooligans which loiter around the campus five days a week. The school is a high school, but it is not called a high school. It's called Grand Street Campus, or GSC, which I really enjoy because it reminds me of T.I.'s rap posse, P$C (Pimp $quad Click), and I enjoy anything in life I can remotely relate to hip-hop.

One day while standing on the subway platform on my way to work some of the GSC hooligans were doing hooligan-like activities on the other side of the platform. One knocked the others fitted hat into the tracks. Without hesitation the hatless hooligan jumped into the tracks. A feat I had never seen before. Everyone started freaking out. The hooligans on his side were wildin'. The hooligans on my side began screaming, "You gon' die! You gon' die!" the kid grabbed his hat, put it back on his head, then jumped out of the tracks and calmly brushed his shoulder off.

I hopped on my train and then went to work. I should also note that I am far too infatuated with GSC's logo and school colors and I am 22-year-old male hopelessly chasing after a jersey. It's kinda gay.

I thought that was a good story, but my roommate beat me in the game of "Best story of seeing someone jump in the subway tracks." His tale involved a guy wearing a Patriots jersey, who realized he was on the wrong side of the tracks (literally, not figuratively). He then hopped over both third rails made it to the other side and yelled "That's how much I fucking love the Patriots!"

Going back to GSC... Every day I walk by the school I fantasize about going in the school and volunteering to help their basketball team. I figure I might be able to help a hooligan or two, or at the very least set up an elaborate point-shaving scheme.

My roommate Sep had the same vision, sans sports betting operation, except he has actually done something and is now tutoring some under-privileged middle school kids or something of that sort. Me, I'm still in the fantasizing stage.

Going back to people in Argentina I once wrote recklessly about. My Swiss friend who I know from Buenos Aires Yakub was in NYC recently. After missing the chance to meet up with Yakub for the first few days he was in the city, we finally arranged to meet at NikeTown, per his request. Yakub is a 5'5'' Vin Diesel look-a-like, who always tells me stories about appreciating life. The kind of stories that if my friends told me, I would call them gay, but because they are coming from a Swiss Vin Diesel look-a-like, I value his stories.

He also only spoke to me in Spanish in Argentina and then while he was in the States revealed that he spoke fluent English, in addition to about 20 other languages.

I journeyed to the 5-story NikeTown, met Yakub and his friend Beth, who introduced herself like this: "Hey, I'm Beth. I work for Converse. I can get you 40% off any thing you want in here."

"Wow." I thought to myself. "That's the best introduction I have ever heard in my life."

Even though I live along or actually under the poverty line I knew I had to buy a pair of Lunaracers (see above picture). Plus in NYC it's completely acceptable to live in public housing, be on welfare and still own expensive Nikes. The fact that I was not going to buy the Nikes with government-assisted money probably does hurt my street cred a bit.

Later on in life (a whole three days later to be exact) Beth gave me a tour of Converse's design studios. It was nice. I shook the hand of the NY Times frugal traveler's wife, who works for Converse. It was memorable.

I'll have better, more coherent, possibly more cohesive stories to come...