Not a real post

This is not so much a real post as it is me bringing attention to a great wiki page of a silly rap DJ.



And five minutes after it Sep and I noticed it, it was gone.

Props to Aziz's blog for Khaled McDonalds spot.

Sundays with Luther

Last Sunday I had nothing going on and nothing to blog about so I decided to go on an adventure to church because I felt it might provide an interesting story.

I also felt church might be a good place to try out newish pair of dress shoes my roommate had given me because they no longer fit him. Aside from the need for a good story and my desire to wear some fresh hand-me-down shoes, I wanted to go to church to try out a new handshake I have been working on where I put my left hand on top of closed handshake. It's pretty powerful.

My mother is Catholic. My father is Jewish. But I chose a Lutheran church on Sunday. I lived most my life treating Lutheranism like the OKC Thunder, I don't really accept it or acknowledge its presence, but I understand it exists.

Every time I do laundry I sit on the Lutheran church's steps and read a book. Within five minute of being in the church I realized I liked better from the outside reading a book rather than sitting on the inside listening to a dull sermon. My shoes were comfortable though.

I took a pamphlet from the table in the church's entry way. I noticed the pastor's last name was "Priest," which caused the the following thoughts:

1. Why is a pastor named Priest?

2. I really hope he marries Priest Lauderdale and Lauderdale takes the pastor Priest's surname.

3. Does the Lutheran church allow their pastors to engage in gay marriages to 7'4'' NBA busts?

I spent the rest of the mass thinking about those deep thoughts and wondering when the pastor was going to acknowledge Brandon's 26 points in the previous nights win over the Grizzlies. The game was a back-to-back after Brandon dropped 29 in a Friday night win over the Bobcats.

Somehow pastor Priest ignored all that even though Brandon has a rosary tattooed around his neck.

As the mass ended I gave a lot of really good handshakes to a lot of Puerto Rican people and then promptly dipped out.

I don't bust this out often, but Lutheranism only gets 1/5 Paul McPhersons on the WPM how-cool-is-you-religion scale.

Wallpapers & links

I like pretty wallpapers. I like (liked, well still kinda do, but it gets tougher every day) Allen Iverson. I stole pictures from interfacelift and SlamOnline to create the pic above (1280x800).

Then I was shown up by the Bucks official website which offered my current wallpaper.

Links:

- Miley Cyrus trying to ether Jay-Z.

- A new Lil' Wayne documentary.

- It's no FRR, but nothing ever will be.

People who work harder than me

I was too busy last week and did not get around to posting this, but here is a Q&A with Jeff Leen, for Gelf Magazine that I wrote about his new book, "The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend."

Women's wrestling is not quite my cup of tea, but the book was well written and I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around the amount of research Leen did in writing the book. The book is about Mildred Burke, who as Leen describes is the "Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth of women's wrestling." She also aligned herself with her husband/manager Billy Wolfe, who beat the shit out of her, cheated on her with tens of women and in the end stole all her money. It's a pretty entertaining story if you're into that sort of thing.

Leen, a managing editor at The Washington Post, spent five years researching Burke, who reigned as the women's wrestling professional champion from the 1930s through the 1950s. Almost every hour that Leen was not working for the Post, he was dedicating to the book. He even spent his vacation driving with his wife through the route that Burke's wrestling circuit followed.

His notes on sources for the book stretch 57 pages. As a lazy blogger, this is all incredibly mind-blowing to me. I hope one day to have half the work ethic Leen has.

Here's my article with an excerpt as usual:

Jeff Leen describes the subject of his book The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend as the "Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth of women's wrestling." Yet few self-described sports fanatics could tell you whoMildred Burke is. Through extensive research into the history of women's wrestling, Leen aims to rectify that oversight, shedding light on a woman who rose from a small, Depression-stricken Midwestern town to become one of the most important wrestlers of all time—only to sink into obscurity upon her death.

Over a five-year span, Leen, a managing editor at the Washington Post, spent almost every spare minute of his time examining any form of literature that related to Burke and retracing the path of her career. The resulting biography recounts not only Burke's tale, but life during the golden age of American wrestling. It also describes the incredible amounts of physical and psychological drama that Burke brought upon herself to get the top.

Gelf spoke with Leen by phone to learn what it's like researching an obscure sports figure who passed away decades ago, and how his own Midwestern roots and 30 years as an investigative reporter helped him write The Queen of the Ring.

Continue reading...

LeBron at the Garden

Since NBA schedules were released months ago, February 5th has been an important day on my calendar. It's the first time the Brandon Jennings Experience a.k.a. the Milwaukee Bucks will play in the Garden this season. Somehow the Knickerbockers' November 6th game was not on my radar, even though many would argue that a LeBron James only regular season Garden visit is more important than an unproven 20-year-old's.

Throughout all of last week I was excited for the Cavs to play the Knicks, mainly do the extremely silly hype surrounding Bron's impending free agency. Then at about 4 pm on last Thursday I had a revelation, I should really go to the game. Plus what's the point of a first paycheck if you have not already blown half of it before receiving it. I immediately texted the only one of my friends who would be able and willing to shell out the necessary funds to get decent tickets to the Knicks game. Within 12 hours I had a solid pair of tickets in my hands.

A worthless bet I made pregame: Over/under on seeing customized LeBron Knicks Jerseys at the game: 5. I bet the over. That bet really had nothing riding on it. I would end up being wrong. I only saw 3.

A loser-buys-Monday's-lunch pregame bet: If LeBron scores 55 or over, I owed my co-worker lunch. If Jordan Hill scored 10 or more points, I was owed a lunch.

This was really a stupid fucking bet on my part, seeing as how Jordan Hill was riding a 4-game DNP-CD streak after playing all of 1:45 in the Knicks' season opener. I should also note that Bron has scored over 50 in two out of three of his last trips to the Garden, against Knicks squads that were arguably better than this year's joke of a team.

Bron started the first quarter murdering everyone in site, hitting fade-away 18-footers like they were open lay-ups. He hit his first four shots, including a fading-out of bounds-as the shot clock expired-with Larry Hughes on top of him-holy fuck-three pointer. Even though the entire Cavs squad outside of Bron is terrible, the Knicks are just that much worse and were down 19 at the end of the first quarter.

After the first quarter, half the Yankees World Champion roster walked out to half-court to receive more praise. A-Rod was there, as were many other big names I don't really care about. Jeter was not. Which, as my friend asked, makes you wonder what the hell Jeter had going on that he was too cool to sit courtside at a LeBron James/Knicks game.

Bron could have easily sat the rest of the game, but somebody gave him the memo that I paid $75 to watch him and not Jamario fucking Moon, so he came back in and toyed with the Knicks for a while.

In the second quarter Mike D'Antoni lost his mind and accidentally played his #8 draft pick, Jordan Hill.

Going back to my sophomore year of college I remember sitting on my couch, in a hazy mind state where I was deciding between Frosted Flakes or a milkshake, or Frosted Flakes and a milkshake. I was also freaking out about Hassan Adams playing for the Nets after I had watched him play in the McKale Center a dozen times. It just seemed so weird to see Hassan in a uniform that did not read "Arizona" on the chest. Note: Somewhere Hassan is on his couch, stoned out of his mind probably reminiscing about the same thing.

Seeing Jordan Hill's goofy ass play for a "real NBA team" was even more bizarre than watching Hassan. It just did not look right. It barely made sense that Hill played college ball, the fact that he somehow made his way into the NBA is just too much for me. Another note: both the Nets and the Knicks do terribly poor jobs of trying to imitate a "real NBA team."

By some miracle of God, Jordan Hill was taking 15-footers and knocking them down. He hit one. Then another. Then another. Six fucking points! It was like he knew how bad I wanted that free Cosi's pesto chicken melt on Monday.

Then there was a time-out. Jordan Hill was hot, but I figured somehow Mikey D would come to his senses and realize Jordan Hill is not a real human being. But another miracle happened and Jordan Hill was able to sneak back on the floor. He missed his fourth attempt, was soon after pulled from the action and never returned to the hardwood, which sucks for him, but more importantly means I'll be eating a dry turkey sandwich from home on Monday. Fuck the Knicks.

Bron never returned to his first-quarter like-Jesus-Christ-only-better state, not that there was a need, he could have played with both hands tied behind his back and still scored on which ever Knick tried to guard him. He finished with a modest 33 in a 100-91 Cavs win.

Since this is WPM, I have to mention that Brandon Jennings and the Bucks also beat the Knicks the following night by 15. The Knicks at one point were down 36 to the Bucks, who despite everything I claim, are a terrible, terrible team. The Knicks are now 1-6 including losses to the Pacers, Bobcats, Hornets and Bucks.

Sad Gil & More

Harping back to this blog's old days when I would just post anything Gilbert Arenas, mainly because it was easier to blog rather than CC-ing the same article to all of my friends. Here is this silly video of Gil.

Other things that I perhaps should've blogged about:

1. I went to a Maury Show live taping. It was incredible. One of the most incredible experiences of my life actually. I got to see two paternity test, three lie detector test and one lie detector/paternity test-double whammy.

The best part was watching Maury play to his audience. He came out and asked the crowd, "Where my boos at?" Then later on he made small talk with the crowd, "It's Friday, I can't wait to go home and drink a 40 (waits the perfect amount of time for crowd applause). I just switched from Olde English." Then he seamlessly transitioned to talking to a pregnant woman who was crying and believed her husband was banging other women on their kids' bed.

Good times all around.

2. I got a cool job.

3. I went on some fun bike rides.

4. I learned some valuable origami skills.

5. I made the pretty Fall-themed J.R. Smith banner you see above.

6. This picture:

Which is a remix of this picture: