Mistress: I am your Goddess, You’re supreme reason for existence. Everything you do and say will be for the sake of my pleasure and amusement!
Me: Can’t talk……watching hockey
Hi Everybody! Welcome to another edition of Slayer’s Sports and Stuff! This week has been dominated by two acronyms: NBA and NHL. As you’ll see there are other things going on, but the next couple of weeks belong to these two. Over the past six months, most people spend their time talking about what’s wrong with these two entities, what we need to do to fix them, why they are not as popular as baseball or football, blah, blah, blah. We’ll be spending most of the summer talking about these subjects as they are important and do in fact effect the game itself. But for now, let’s just sit back and watch the best these sports have to offer do there thang.
BUT, FIRST!
I want to thank everybody here who has welcomed me to the world of 411. For most, I mean that honestly and with the utmost sincerity and humility. For some, I’m being sarcastic. I’ll use wrestling terms since at time that’s the only language spoken here: “the boys in the locker room are mad that all these new guys are going to steal their heat. They say they are not ready for the big time as they all perform the same four moves and end up boring the audiences. Yet management is behind this new ‘youth movement’ despite the objection by some of the veterans.†I’m being silly but that’s the vibe I’m getting. In truth, every time I’ve had a one on one conversation with someone here, they’ve been great and wished for nothing but the best. But it’s what Haley would call the ‘little things’ that got to me. For example, Godfather Widro (who probably has no idea I exist….for the better) asked all the new writers to introduce themselves in the private forum. Instead, it became a forum to for all the old writers to complain about the new writers. That just got me all oogily googily mad by dang it.
AND SECOND…MY CONFESSION
It’s human nature. No big deal. Look at me for example. When I first got the e-mail from Col. Daniels that I would be writing a sports column for Black, I was ecstatic! Then after I submitted my column, a week later something like NINE new sports columnists appeared along with my article. My first instinct was a selfish resentment and jealousy. I wanted to be the ONLY new sports guy. I know, I know, I’m a jerk, but you know what? I came to two conclusions. 1) The other new sportswriters are much more talented then me and write much more interesting articles then my ranting and raving about nothing in general. And in truth, I was probably in ninth place out of the nine new guys. So if they only did pick one or two new sportswriters, it wouldn’t be me. 2) All of us have different grooves, and just maybe as we all improve and get better each week we’ll have something really good going here.
Uh oh…I probably should delete all that. I wrote it, got it out of my system and there is no logical reason to share the above thoughts with anybody else. Just keep smiling and kissing babies…..Let’s do sports before I get myself fired.
HOCKEY
I’m in a quagmire here. There are several HUGE topics going on in hockey right now and I want nothing to do with them for the next few weeks in respect to Lord Stanley. Basically, people are not talking about the Lightning and Flames but instead how Bettman and the NHL are probably crying right now when they could have had Philly and San Jose. I’m not even speaking in hyperbole. This is what every NHL conversation I’ve had has turned into these past few days. Well, to HECK with Bettman and the NHL…for now.
As for the hockey…we asked for fast paced offensive hockey and we got it. These two teams are just fun to watch and for people in the States, it makes no difference who wins. Neither team has gotten in the way of anybody or has any spirited rivalries, so most hockey fans are saying ‘let the best team win.’ Also, this has been the BEST Stanley Cup playoffs; series for series that I can remember. No we all know this is Tampa’s first appearance in the finals. But is this Calgary’s third or fourth? They beat the Canadiens in 1989, lost to them in 1986, and lost to them previously in 1924 when they were the Calgary Tigers. Who the hell are the Calgary Tigers? And Montreal won it 2 games to nothing. 2 Games??? Pre-Original Six NHL is bizarre.
Imagine if you were a floor manager for a company. Then the District manager fires you. Seven months later, the chairman fired the District Manager and asked you to take his place. In real life…never. In the NHL….why not? Mike Keenan who got fired by Rick Dudley and the Florida Panthers has been asked to take over his position as General Manager. From a personal point of view, I always found brash and crazy general managers to be great comedy in sports. So I’m all for this. Speaking of crazy general managers. Poor, poor Philly. Another year, another bust. 29 years and counting….
I know there is that whole wacky Danton murder conspiracy going on. But I haven’t been paying attention to it, nor do I want to.
BASKETBALL
As of this writing, the Lakers and Pistons are up 2-1. When you’ll be reading this is beyond my control and comprehension so that number will be changing. The Pistons/Pacers series has been rockin’ and I gotta say, the opening ceremonies/starting lineup thingee in Detroit was the best opening ceremonies/starting lineup thingee I’ve ever seen. As for the Timberwolves and Lakers, most people want the Wolves to win only because it would make people feel all mushy inside for the league’s black sheep to stick it to the NBA’s elite. But when LA is good, they’re great. And what about Kobe? Is this guy focused or what? Being accused of rape hasn’t taken him off his game one bit. And in the world of sports a basketball game is more important then a woman’s right to the 14th amendment.
Michael Jordan wants to be the majority owner of an NBA team and is looking into buying a team on the East Coast. He states “Hopefully, in the near future, I can go out and fulfill that dream of owning a basketball team, and preferably I’d like to do it on the East Coast.” That was redundant. But he adds “Obviously, if a good opportunity happens in the West, I’ll have to evaluate it to see what place there is for Michael Jordan.” He’s talking in the first person….ugh. Mike also has a dream of laying down a million dollar bet on a team he owns therefore lop-siding the point spread and having him win all the big money.
The Orlando Magic have won the first pick of the draft. So now the question is who will be McGrady’s partner in crime. Emeka Okafor or Dwight Howard. Or maybe they’ll trade it. How am I supposed to know? This happened while I was typing this so I figured I would say something.
BOTH
Do you live in Kansas City and are clamoring for an NBA or NHL team? No? Well, you’ll probably get one anyway. An LA company plans to invest 50 million dollars to build a downtown arena in Kansas City and lure an NBA or NHL team. This seams to be the real thing as the guy in charge of all this is Philip Anschutz who is a Denver billionaire that owns the Los Angeles Kings and several teams in the MLS. Anschutz also owns a part of the Los Angeles Lakers. But don’t we all own a part of the Lakers?
TENNIS
The Americans Yuppies are just no good on the clay. The last American man in the French Open, Andy Roddick ranked #2 in the world lost to Frenchman Olivier Mutis who is #125. I’m not going to pretend to know who Olivier Mutis is, but I’m sure he wasn’t as good as Roddick. One one hand, one would think these guys would have a few more training sessions on the clay. But the days of trying to achieve a grand slam are over. For most Americans, the French Open is a pay check, nothing more.
FOOTBALL
Arena Football has officially made money for NBC (according to them). This is huge news! Sports do not make money for networks anymore. The upside is that they get to cross-promote programs and create patterns of viewership for one channel. I used to believe that was a myth but people in the business have proven to me otherwise that you can train a viewer to be loyal to one network. First off, that’s pathetic. Go outside or read a book. Second of all and more to the point, the fact that this sport made NBC some pocket cash almost guarantees it’ll be on television for quite a while AND people are watching it.
BASEBALL
This is such a regional sport, that many weeks will go by without much happening on the national scope. For each team, there is a new soap opera every day but no one outside the fan of that team cares. So not much this week, but I’ll make up for it next week by presenting the first ever Death List of MLB season: 2004. There are two parts. Teams that are dead and buried and will rise from the grave to haunt the teams in contention. And the ones that will just stay dead. I’ll also ‘kill’ a few teams that aren’t dead….just to keep things interesting.
RESERVOIR DOGS
I picked up the Reservoir Dogs DVD for 10 bucks for the prime reason that there was a Quentin Tarantino sale and I would never get that movie any cheaper. Like most people on this planet, I first watched the movie AFTER Pulp Fiction during the Year of Tarantino that almost killed his career while at the same time inflating it. During that year (1995), it was one of my favorite movies. I watched it just about every week to the point where I had memorized every line. But I hadn’t seen it in about five or six years and I was wondering if this movie would stand the test of time. The first thing I gotta say was while watching it, that I still had every line imbedded in my cortex, so it was a really weird experience. The second thing is that it was not the great heist film I remembered it, but instead a good tribute to the other great heist films in history (The Killing, Straw Dogs, etc). One thing that stood out was how advanced the film-making was for a first time director. People hate hearing it because they hate him but he’s an artistic genius. The DVD itself has a couple gems. The first one being a short documentary on Lawrence Tierney and just how much of a wacko the guy was; the other being a priceless interview with Eddie Bunker. I realize most of you don’t know who Eddie Bunker is (and the DVD never does explain who he is surprisingly), but it would be worth your while to find out. He’s actually one of America’s most prolific modern novelists and one of my personal American heroes. What I LOVE about the movie are the actors; not only are they all cult favorites but in most cases it’s one of their best performances. This is also another attribute of Tarantino; he gets the best out of anybody; he even made Robert Forester fall in love! But, let’s take a look at the actors.
Harvey Keitel-His comeback film (along with Bad Lieutenant) and best performance since Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar in 1978. Throughout the 1980s, he was wabbling in generic supportive roles and every time he got a big part, the film bombed i.e. Last Temptation, The Two Jakes etc. Harvey Keitel after this film became the top actor in the independent film scene and that was a good thing.
Michael Madson-For along time, he WAS Mr. Blonde and rarely known for much else. It was his best role, but he topped it as Bud in Kill Bill 2. Now he can be known for playing two sadistic creeps!
Chris Penn-This was his second best role ever. His first being Footloose.
Steve Buscemi-He’s such a phenomenal actor it’s difficult to rank Reservoir Dogs in his personal achievement list, but I’ll say ohhhhhh his fourth best role as it is undoubtedly the film that brought him to everybody’s attention. In my opinion his best performance (which says alot) was in Ghost World.
Lawrence Tierney-This 1940s/1950s B movie star was once the toughest guy in Hollywood and in Reservoir Dogs he was re-introduced to a younger generation that needed (and still needs) to understand what being a man used to be like. His third best film next to Dillinger and Born to Kill.
Tim Roth-I used to love the guy but I think I may have overrated him. This is his second best role. His best was the flamboyant villain in Rob Roy.
So that’s why I love this movie. It’s a chance to se some of the world’s most unique actors at their best!
PIZZA BOY
I beat the Pizza Boy mission in Grant Theft Auto: Vice City. I am now a quarter of a way to achieving 100% completion! There is no way I’m beating the Paramedic mission though. Alot of people ask why I don’t just use the cheats. If I have to explain why, you’ll never understand.
That’s it for this week. Check out last week’s column for a list of things to come in the next few months! Have a great Memorial weekend! And in terms of sex, alcohol, and drugs…please be safe!
