this little light of mine

Talent breeds contempt I have discovered, not through utilizing my own, they're too meager to invoke the kind of vitriolic hatred that only ever accompanies true greatness. Whenever any mortal pries him/herself away from the herd and ascends to the pinnacle of their given vocation, somewhere in the distance you will find a vociferous minority casting stones and aspersions in the general direction of that brave individual.

LeBron James is a basketball player. Possibly and even closer to probably the best basketball player on earth. Today he decided to change teams. He played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, his home town team. He now plays for the Miami Heat, and Cleveland are none too happy about it. There's incredible public outrage (in Ohio at least, and also generally amongst most NBA fans): women sobbing in the streets, the burning of LeBron's jersey in the streets, missed days at work. Utter mayhem. It's a sad commentary on society, these tribal affiliations we develop around our sports teams, this success or failure by proxy, when we hitch the wagons of our self esteem to whether or not they win or loose (but that's a story for another day).

"The King", as he's been dubbed, gets to join his buddies Chris Bosh and Dwayne Waid, two other uber exceptional bball talents in a move that will all but guarantee several championships during the next decade. People criticized LeBron for not being able to win a title in Cleveland --his team mates there sucked--and now they'll criticize him for going to some place where he'll win many.

Some people accuse me of being Marxist. Yeah, I'm part of the proletariat, but I don't just want to overthrow the bourgeoisie, I want to be the bourgeoisie. For some reason to sports fans, sportsmen are working class heroes. Sure they get paid millions to ply their trade, but on a certain level there just like us, the common man, slaving away for The Man. Well, today I think something significant happened. The players seized power from the owners for a brief shining moment. They worked the system and found a way to stack one team with 3 of the top 10 ballers in the NBA.

I love it. My favorite part is that these are three young black men who have taken over a game run by rich middle aged white guys (when I was younger I kind of wished I was black, something I've never quite grown out of). If you look at it that way it's easy to cheer for them. This is a new and possibly the greatest victory by proxy for the working man I can think of, but let's be honest these guys are going to be the most hated team in basketball. They're just too talented, people wont stand for it.

What happens when the rebel alliance overthrows the evil empire? Do they become the empire?I don't know. Ask apple. Everyone seems to hate them these days, but hey, they still move a ton of product. Wilt Chamberlain, a former NBA star and 7'1 monster of a man, said it best "nobody roots for Goliath." I suppose we all see ourselves as underdogs and we want other underdogs to succeed because they represent us struggling through this unjust existence, if they can win out once in a while maybe we can to. Problem is if they make a habit of being too successful too often, our cheers can turn to jealousy and resentment. How dare they stand out. Hey it's not their fault they've got talent and know how to use it.

Haters are gonna hate and players gonna play. I know I'll be watching and cheering. Stick it to The Man boys, stick it to The Man.

a little light reading with Mr Baum 1

I recently finished reading The Wizard of Oz (tWoO), but the text isn't finished with me yet. Like that turn of phrase? It only gets better or worse from here. Good to have all the bases covered, that way I can maintain an impenetrable fortress of you don't really know what I'm talking about, that's the fog of conversation. Unlike my intentionally obtuse style tWoO is perhaps the most straight forwardly written book in all of existence. I can't say either way for sure, but I certainly got that impression. It strangely reminded me of the mega super corporate icon (Lebrons and Tigers and Jordans, oh my) approach to public relations: They present such a vanilla image that you can read absolutely anything you want into their personalities (because it seems like they don't have any), thus broadening their appeal.

With that in mind, I found tWoO wonderfully profound in its simplicity (I probably projected my own prejudices onto the work, but hey everybody else is doing it right?). The Wizard of Oz -- the character not the book -- turned out to be a merchant of skulduggery, an air-balloonist, a native of Omaha and not a wizard at all. No surprise to anyone who's seen the movie, and who hasn't?

Sometimes I like to go all Rene Descartes on my beliefs, just to see how they hold up. Strip away, strip away, strip away and see what's left. Imagine your whole life you feel inherently flawed, there's a vital part of yourself missing, you're discontented, incomplete...TBC

work out

BP 90kgs*5,5,4,3

seated row 95/4*5

zen mind crazy mind

This is madness. This is not Sparta. This is me perpetrating a pale imitation. That's OK though, the Spartans were gay. That's OK too. I'm not gay which is also OK. You get the idea. Doesn't political correctness make you sick? We've taken a wonderful ideal and through the sophistry of social engineering we've wrought a twisted bastardized version of what we always wanted. Isn't life grand?

I feel compelled to qualify every sentence I utter, which in many instances require their own qualification. Where's my luckdragon, it's the Neverending Story all over again. That's OK, it's all OK. During my infinite regress or recursive reflection depending on what way I feel like defining the quandary of my daydreaming, I reach maybe the third level down and I start loitering. There's far too much to take in here. I can almost hear Elton John singing.

Language is too beautiful not to use, I complain about having to explain everything, but deep down I want it to go on forever (The Elements of Style be damned! but only when I'm not using them). This blog can acurately be described as an incredibly prolonged argument with myself. I'm also in love with the passive voice and I am not ashamed. Writing this is a lot cheaper than seeing a therapist.

At present on the third level down when I start with Australia as a catalyst, things move quickly to rugby league. Which then morph roughly into how ridiculous this all is. Sure I just told you where my true love lies, but I also have a real fetish for absurdity, so I just can't help but feel immensely impressed with myself right now. I'm doing something that makes no sense and is about as likely to end in success as an atom exploding into a full blown universe. Hey, Pinocchio walked on water (or at least he could have being made of wood) and Jesus became a real boy (you know like he was like a God and then he magically became a fully fledged fetus, oh I'm qualifying again. Forget it). 

Sometimes strange things happen.  

P.S. This has nothing to do with anything except the most ridiculous buzzer beating 3 pointer since Robert Horry killed the Kings in 2002. LeBron's literal last second 3 yesterday will surely become the newest iconic shot in the NBAs pantheon of greats. I have a man crush on LeBron James. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

Kobe vs. LeBron, the final word

Is this even a contest? (check out this ESPN roundtable to see what all the fuss is about) Here's how you can make it more interesting. If we're to look back rather than forward and ignore now, then we can build a semi-solid case for the most polarizing athlete in the NBA (Bryant). By any metric, right now: statistically, athletically, as a locker room presence LeBron owns Kobe; the only exception where the self proclaimed Black Mamba beats out The Chosen One is with his three championships . That is by no means an unremarkable accomplishment, but in a sport where Michael Jordan redefined greatness and transformed the way we assess excellence using individual brilliance as a measuring stick rather than team play (basketball is the most individually focused team sport possibly ever, but that is probably due more to marketing than what actually takes place on the court ), then with Shaq aka The Diesel aka Big Aristotle aka The Emperor of the Bling Dynasty (circa 2000-2002), aka Kazaam spearheading the acquisition of said championships, well this knocks Kobe down a peg or two because he wasn't The Man on the team, he was a co-star. Ever since he got top billing the Lakers have won as many titles (and made as many finals appearances) as the Cavaliers have (they're both 0 for 1).

When Jordan was a scoring machine and championshipless all the naysayers said he'd never be Magic Johnson or Larry Bird, turns out they were right but not in the way they meant. Jordan wasn't any of those guys he was Jordan and he was better than everyone else. The wrap on Jordan was that he was an amazing athlete but he'd never won any championships so he would never be in the same league figuratively as the aforementioned players (sound familiar?). Then he went and won six. This is what happens when athleticism meets talent and determination: championships. This year LeBron will win his first (this is hardly a bold prediction, it's something like saying the sun will rise tomorrow) and certain experts will start to acknowledge greatness after the fact. Why wait though?