PoohsDay Blues Hip-Hop: Straight Bangin'

Usually, (or, in recent weeks, unusually) this space is reserved for ruminations (and playlists, and poor puns) on the Blues artform. This week, we're going to, as the kids say, flip the script. Since WAP^tm is Straight Bangin today, we're going to put the 'pod on Hip Hop mini-spin and see what we get.

1. "Let Me Clear My Throat" - DJ Kool. With the Ed Lover Dance music. Who didn't love the Ed Lover Dance?

2. "I Wish" - Skee-Lo. One of the longtime ushers at T-Wolves games looks just like Skee-Lo. And then he throws out the little nerf ball and let's kids shoot at the adjustable hoop he's wearing on his back.

3. "White Lines" - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. . . . Oh sorry, just bobbing my head to the bassline. Carry on.

4. "Soul Flower" - Phracyde ft. Brand New Heavies. James Brown meets hippie-hop. Got to have it (Soul Flower). When you want it...

5. "Uptown Anthem" - Naughty By Nature. What happened to these guys? They were hot as hell and then like Keyser Soze, they were gone.

6. "This Is Radio Clash" - The Clash. Not Hip Hop you say? Perhaps, but it could be and it's good enough for me.

7. "What's Up Doc?" Fu-Schnikens ft. Shaq. Often times known as the PoohSchnikens in these parts, don't know why. I'm not ashamed to admit that I sometimes feel the flow of Shaq Fu. As the man himself says he's Not Christian Laetnner/ Not Alonzo Mourning. Nor, thankfully, is he Ed Nelson.

8. "Who's The Mack?" - Ice Cube. Back when he gave an ish. Though the acting thing is working out quite well for him, who am I to hate?

9. "The Choice is Yours" - Black Sheep. Another wha happened? Group. Say it with me. Engine Engine Number 9/ On the New York Transit Line/ If my train falls off the track/ Pick It Up, Pick it Up, Pick it Up. Parents, this is the kind of music that starts your kids down the road to bling. You would never have sent me to summer camp had you known I'd be exposed thusly.

10. "Money Ain't A Thang" - Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupree. Last, but not least. Ferraris, Jaguars, etc.

Upon reconsideration, and looking at the balance of the list, I don't think I qualify as bangin' any longer. It's a sad, sad day when the IPod makes a fool of you.

My Shining Moment

Go Gators! Ok, now that that's out of the way, I need to take a shower.

Amazing how the first time someone plays halfway decent, UCLA folds like a laundry service. But I'm not gloating. Actually, yes, yes I will gloat. Basketball has been saved from purgatory for a year. Hurrah.

But I still feel dirty having cheered strenously for Florida. Billy Donovan didn't even look happy. It's almost like he was interviewing for an NBA job...Sacto Hello? (Because that worked out well when they tried it with Pitino, and Calipari and Montgomery, and Tarkanian [SWEET PEA!])

For me, the highlight of the night was this Packerism: "Jim, I guarantee we'll see both of these coaches in the Final Four again in our lifetime." I just found that statement amusing. That's all. No other implication there. Nope, none. We'll see you next year, you braying ass.

Overall, disappointing end to a tourney that featured a great first weekend (got started right away with that BC-Pacific game), up and down second weekend, and a crap Final Four.

And Another Thing

As if the college hoop skeptics needed more ammo. Two absolute turkeys of semifinals, (though, in his intro to the George Mason game, the collassal prick even managed to sound magnanimous in congratulating the Patriots (who simply couldn't make the shots that they had made all tourney, and had no answer for Corey Brewer. Not a lot of 6'8" guards in the CAA, I'd imagine.), combined with the transcendant Wade-LBJ duel, and the Associationists cried, in unison, AHA! Proof of the superiority of said pro game.

Myself, I take a slightly different tack. The fact is that the crazed intensity of the best two young slashers in the L going head to head, or the deleriousness of Staples as Kobe goes for 22 in the 3rd quarter is noteworthy because it is so rare. One of the things we forget watching tourney games is that they are neutral court games. Just for the heck of it, I rewatched the first Villanova-UConn game from this year on the DVR (definite "save until I delete status"), and I was struck by the rabid intensity of the crowd, and the game wasn't even played on campus. Aesthetically, 5,000 drunken college students tends to add to the experience.

Plus, as much lip service as NBA players give to "every game mattering" anyone who watches often knows that this is BS. Each team has at least 10 games a year that they basically phone in (and given the schedule, it's almost inevitable.) This dynamic is even more clear in person, where you can often tell in the first 6 minutes that one team (usually the visitor) is just not with it tonight, and extensive gar-bage time could ensue, as Marvelous Marv might say. Over the course of a 35 game college schedule, finding a reason why each game is 'special' is not as much of a stretch: there are rivalries, hated players, must-win-to-get-into-the-tourney situations, the big bullies going into a hostile gym (my favorite games), and so on.

Finally, the college game just sounds different. Even in tournament games there is a particular moment, when one team is on a run, perhaps has just hit a 3 to cut a lead to 2. As the other team brings the ball up the floor, the point guard comes to half court to meet him, gets down in his stance and starts clapping. There's a particular roar at that moment, that you almost never hear in the NBA.

I'm not going to claim that the college game is better, or more skilled, or any nonsense like that. I am still going to claim that from an excitement standpoint, I'd rather watch a regular season D-I game over most NBA games (Phoenix games largely excluded at this point. Boris Diaw is in my current 5.*) Now the playoffs (Playoffs!?!?!?), that's another story.


* Just to keep track, I think I'm going to have to keep a tally of my "five on the floor". Right now

PG - Jason Kidd. 12 wins and counting, carry on.
SG - Kobe (I still hate him, but that 3rd quarter was pretty sick.
SF - Boris Diaw
PF - KG. Please stay in the Mini-Apple.
C - Joakim Noah. Go Gators (blech).

Pooh's Hateration

I am angry. Filled with rage. Sputtering, even.

I feel that strongly about having to root for Florida in tonight's national championship game. I think Billy Donovan is a prick, a hucksterish Rick Pitino wannabe, and another one of those college coaches who are far better in the recruiting living room than on the sidelines (looking at you, Jim Calhoun. And you, Roy Williams. And you, John Calipari. And especially you, Bobby freaking Huggins) And I have to root for him.

Because I hate this UCLA team more. In another sporting context, their style would be derided as "overly negative", "scientific" or perhaps just "cynical". One-Nil to the ArsenalBruins and all that. Yes, yes, they've played great defense, well coached, blahbittyblah. Because of course Ben Howland has coached them to be the best FT defense team of all time. Anytime you can hold your opponent to 46% from the line you're doing something right. Right?

And by right, I mean 'being lucky that the 4 worst games played this tourney have been played by our opponents' and being on the receiving end of a World-Class choke job by the 'Stache & Co. So now we get Bill Walton walking into NBA arenas singing stupid fight songs, off-key, wearing Greatful Dead tie-dye yelling out "U-C-LLLLLLLA" (I actually like that cheer, in general) about this being "the greatest teaaaaamm of allll tiiiiiiiime. Throw it down Mbah a Moute, throw it down!" The bile rises inside of me.

Much of my distaste in unabashedly aesthetic. 50-45 games suck. Scoring 20 points in the second half and still winning sucks. Your offense being dribble for 33 seconds, throw up a 25-footer and either hope it goes in or that you get a put back because your big guys have been continuously donkey-punching their man the entire game (O and D, 40 minutes of 5-on-5 state of constant foul. It's fan-tastic.) sucks. NASCAR is more entertaing than a UCLA game. So is cricket.

And let's not talk about every Los Angelino you know puffing their chest out and already crowing about the 12th banner, as if, A) they were alive for the first 10, B) could pick George Zidek, J.R. Henderson or Cam Dollar out of a lineup, C) could have named more than 2 of UCLA's players OR their coach two weeks ago or D) weren't crowing about USC being the greatest e-vah 3 short months ago.

Basically, to paraphrase a friend from a decade ago, I know a little something about basketball, so I know you can't root for UCLA tonight. (Unless you picked them to go all the way, in which case you're not wrong, you're just an asshole.)

Go Gators. You have no idea how much that hurt me.

Angry Madness

Thanks to a commenter in a previous thread, we are directed to read the Billy Packer Retirement Fund proposal. Naturally, I say here-here. (Even moreso after listening to this interview from a few years back). I'm actually getting slightly gleeful in anticipation of the jackassery which he spouts during the George Mason game though my subtle fear is that the Pats get blown out and he starts spouting some nonsense about them not being able to handle the big-time athletes of Florida. After they have beaten teams containing what I estimate to be 13 future NBA players over the course of the tourney.

(In case you're wondering, Shannon Brown, Mo Ager, Paul Davis, Tyler Hansbrough, Reyshawn Terry, David Noel, Danny Green, Hilton Armstrong, Josh Boone, Rudy Gay, Marcus Williams (felonies included), Craig Austrie and Jeff Adrien, though I wouldn't be surprised if Anderson and Denham Brown got a look as well.)

It's too bad that there is no "radio Tivo" readily available, else I would watch on TV and listen to the radio broadcasts. (For whatever reason, the radio always seems about 1.5 seconds ahead of the TV here) Then I could get my fill of the wonderous Bill Raftery. Sadly, I'm stuck with Bloviating Billy and his little dog toto the King of Cliche.

As a final note, as I was dropping my dad off at his office after taking him out to lunch the other day, we ran into our former next door neighbor. The guy who had a hoop in his driveway where I learned to play. Anyway, we naturally got to talking about the final four, and we got him wound up and he started into an extended rant on what a prick Jim Calhoun is. So, Pops, its not completely your fault that I'm a massively opinionated Hater. Just mostly.

As for the games, I'm a little gunshy given the decimation of all of my picks this year. GMU shouldn't be able to hang with Florida, right? But, as the (semi) pros put it:

What’s WRONG with these people? Have they not seen George Mason play in this tournament? Have they forgotten? This is the best team we’ve seen over the last two weeks (followed closely by, well, Florida, actually). Let’s take this all the way.

The dream has to end some time, right? As to the other game, I just hope LSU whomps up on UCLA early so the Bruins have to forego there 2002 era Pittsburgh Panthers identity and get up and down the floor a bit. Plus, I've decided that I hate Jordan Farmar's hair. Look, either go 90210 with the sideburns or Seth Cohen with the hair. Both at once, not ok. Though the Evil Spock goatee is pretty tough.

A-Mo Emo

Funny, but Not Right. Five stages of 'Stache grief, in pictorial form...

Adam, we hardly knew ye

And this concludes this season's transmission of the 'Stache Broadcasting Network. See you on draft night?

Blue Moon

First time since 1980 that no #1 seeds have made the final for. Relatedly, first time I can ever remeber getting zero Final Four picks right. I don't think I've ever done that on a single bracket, yet this year, I think I'm o-fer every bracket I filled out. Though to be fair, UCLA is the only one I could have conceivably picked, pre-tourney. And I hate their team, so I would never...

Speaking of 1980, it was also the first time in about that long that I found myself consitently nodding in a approval to Billy Packer's analysis. Nova did a poor job utilizing their advantages. Allen Ray did seem a little overcome by the moment, repeatedly taking bad shots and fully earning his first half technical. But his best point of all was the Nova looked like it had just a little less bounce, possibly as a result of the grinding, punishing style of BC. It reminded me of a boxer who's been taking body shots for 8 rounds and all of a sudden has no legs for the end of the game.

Still, Randy Foye is good, and will be a quality NBA 3rd guard, and my appreciation for Kyle Lowery is immense. Joakim Noah is making himself some cash this tourney as well. Not Tyrus Thomas cash, but some serious jing.

And for the record, Kevin Drum's plagaristically named immodest proposal is intriguing.

But I have a suggestion for the gods of college basketball: reduce the number of timeouts allowed and don't allow timeouts at all during the final two minutes of the game. The 20 lumbering minutes that it takes to finish the last few minutes of most games is nothing short of excruciating, but in games where both teams have used up their timeouts the final minutes are some of the most exciting in sports.

So: no timeouts in the final two minutes. Let 'em run. Who's with me?

Maybe not no timeouts but certainly fewer and shorter. I also think they should go back to the rule where if a team calls a full timeout, that counts as the next "TV Timeout" so we don't get the situation where 3 whistles in 15 seconds of game action causes my head to explode from multiple tales of tails of some tasty shrimP.

Ding Dong, the Bitch is Dead.

The "Bitch" being Jim Calhoun

Me suck at coaching? That's unpossible!

So, I'll ask, how the hell was George Mason an 11 seed to begin with?

Also, Coach Calhoun, nobody could guard Rudy Gay, so why not, you know, try to get him the ball sometime in OT? Or you could have the game decided by Josh Boone shooting free throws...This game single handedly justified the entire tournament.

Weekend NCAA thoughts.

The good thing about being eliminated by midday on Friday is that I was able to unrepentantly root for what I'd like to see happen, rather than for 'my' picks. Thus, I was able to bask in the glory of about 8,000 fans in Dayton chanting "Make Roy Cry! Make Roy Cry!" O.K. maybe it was just me chanting while watching, (though I think Dubs was probably with me) but after a year hiatus, the Roy Williams Tearful Press Conference regains its post as my favorite sports moment of the year. Speaking indirectly of George Mason, I love the way this team plays. Pressure man-to-man defense. Controlled but aggressive offense, and despite not really being an uptempo team, they get down the floor in a hurry and force you to transition to defense quickly.

And while speaking of Tobacco Road, Duke played their best game in two months to handle GW. This was the first time maybe since the Texas game that they showed some of the traditional "Duke" defense - lots of ball pressure, overplaying passes, making the opposition catch the ball moving away from the basket. Josh McRoberts is very swiftly becoming my favorite Dukie since Trajan.

Connecticut remains unconvincing, to say the least. A pretty wretched Kentucky team hung with them all the way, and this is after getting a huge scare from a #16 seed on Friday.

I'm not sure how the Villanova-Arizona game ended up being decided by only 4 points, it had the feel of a comfortable Nova lead the entire time, though Marcus Williams (felony free version) showed a knack for making big shots. He might turn out to be a player. This game also featured Jim Nantz giving *^*&^& Packer about 13 chances to admit error in going after te selection committee like he did. And while Nantz admitted he was wrong, all Billy could talk about was how the Big 10's abysmal performance proved that the RPI is meaningless, and he was therefore incorrect-yet-accurate. Whatever, ass.

Since I'm eliminated in every pool, I can wholeheartedly root UW to take down UCONN. Go Brandon Roy! Go Lorenzo Romar! Though I will say that UW's PG play can be...shaky, and considering the way that felony-added Marcus Williams is playing for Connecticut, this could present a problem.

Ludicrous game winner for LSU vs. Texas A&M. With that shot, the last glimmer of hope for my chances went out the window. LSU-Duke is a potentially fun game. Big Baby vs. Landlord, etc.

I'm pessimistic about the Zags chances vs. UCLA, except that I'm not sure the Bruins have anyone who can guard Morrison: Afflalo and Bozeman are too small, and the bigs are probably not quick enough and too inexperienced. That said, Afflalo and Farmar have a huge advantage over the intramural-quality Raivio and Pierre-hyphenated French-Name.

Finally, I agree 100% this, I now hate Applebee's, I hate shrimp, I can even make a plausible case for hating sensations...but because it's stuck in my head

Just sit right back and grab some tails
The tails of some tasty shrimp
Sensations now at Applebee's
Are really worth the trip

Sauteed, crisp fried or fire grilled
Served on a handy skewer
So many shrimp you'll want to plan
A three hour touuuuur
A three hour touuuuur

So join us here this week my friends
It's time for eating good
Shrimp Sensations now at Applebees
In your neighborhood

I may even hate the upright bass, which is really too bad since it is the second coolest instrument ever (behind the digiridoo, of course.)