Video Days

I am typically averse to top-whatever lists. I find them to be cheap and subjective, with many set up just to stir the pot and create fake controversy. I'm going to do one anyhow, but to stay to my principles there won't be any numbering or ranking. Instead I prefer just to state what it is I like about each.

Before hitting the streets in my younger days it became sacred to pop in a video, or part of a video to get ourselves up for what we were about to go do. It was our motivational speech, our Rudy.

A-Kick-A-Flip

Skateboarding and its associated cultures have always held my attention. One of the primary aspects that's captivated me is how the growth in the sport mirrors the growth an individual. It is at base a man vs. himself conflict being acted out. It is raw, and it is emotional.

Growing up skateboarding I had always been drawn to surfing. At the core they are essentially the same, but surfing always seemed more pure and less violent. Being stuck in southeast Michigan was a tease. We had as much water and cast as anywhere, but surfing was hardly on the menu. Because of that surfing slowly took on mystical qualities, and it remains on- I can't believe I'm using this term- bucket list. (blech)

While out with friends skating we often talked about what skate trick would be coolest on a surfboard. The hands down favorite was always the same. Kickflip. Surfing was starting to really progress at the time and ariels were becoming common. Still a kickflip was a whole new game. I seemed impossible. The water provided no leverage, and the board- while smaller than ever- was still clumsy for this time of trick. It was so out of the realm that Volcom posted a $10,000 bounty for the first one filmed.

Spring Equals Baseball: 2011 Predictions

Living in Detroit, April means two things: the dawn of summer and Tigers baseball.

I'm usually a very pessimistic Detroit Tigers fan. It's difficult to get to excited for a team that really hasn't had anything outstanding happen in 20 years. I won't ignore what they did in 2006, but it's becoming increasingly more difficult to call that team a great team as the years pass. Some of pieces that were here that year are still here, but many of those are either aging or haven't been able to replicate what they did since then (cough, cough, Inge, Zumaya).

At any rate, I have a bit of a different opinion this year. It's not necessarily that I think the Tigers are far and away the best team in the AL Central, but I honestly believe they are the best of the pack.

Without further ado, here's my predictions for the 2011 baseball season:

FAIL Dunk

What the hell were they thinking here?!?!

Wrastlin' Ain't Fake!

I midget in a monkey suit getting their shit told. That pretty much sums this one up.

I don't think monkey jr was expecting such a violent explosion.

Mother Russia

Russians are great at drinking vodka and swinging on bars. Now, I don't have any sweet videos of Russians drinking (ok, I don't want to post videos of Russians drinking - today anyways). So, in lieu of that, here's both ends of the spectrum when it comes to Russians and their ability to swing like chimps.

Olga brings the noise...and the the funk. Incredible.



Nut shot. Not incredible:

An Esteemed Brand of Socialism

What makes the NFL so great? According to Bill Maher it's the same thing that is threatening the core values of America, socialism. How is this possible? How did this happen? Socialism in my NFL? No way.

Build Ramps not Bombs

Waking up isn't always fun. Most mornings bring about a multitude pains: It's too early, where are my socks?, I should've drank less last night, maybe maybe staying up until 3am playing XBox wasn't the best idea. Regardless of how much the deck can sometimes seems stacked against, there has yet to be a morning that I woke up without hope. Without knowing if I'll be able to eat. Without knowing of whether I will make to bed time (regardless how late it is). Without any sense of future. Total chaos. Little in life is more tragic than a life that has just begun to already exist without hope.

Hearing about foreign lands, with their struggles so far removed, makes it easy to look at the problems holistically. People are killed. Lives are ruined. Women are raped. Suicide bombers explode. It all happens as a single set of data, and as a single problem- a message on the bottom scroll of Fox News. It isn't how things are. Society is an organized collection of individuals, and individuals really aren't that different form one another. Despite this, we've collectively done very little to address the struggles of these individuals, however, where there are individual problems there are individual solutions.

The NBA: It isn't all Doom and Gloom

As years between the Bad Boy era of Pistons basketball and the current day have passed I've found my interest in the sport fading further and further. It's not that the sport itself that's fallen out of favor- I love shooting hoops over many other outdoor activities- but rather the way the game is presented. The league, since the second part of the Jordan era, shifted from one that valued competition and team play (the product) to one that one that placed preeminence in NBA brand maintenance. Where this failed is that the league became so obsessed with image (and that of its superstars) that they lost sight of the product.

The culmination of the sad fall of the NBA for me was in the cry-for-attention circus that was LeBoner's South Beach presser. It was sad. Even in the age of me, and the "social" media that has enabled it- Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, et al- it was a crass display of narcissism. Making it all that much more reflective of our current society was the lengths that the cable media, who enabled the stunt in the first place, went to promote and ride the story for cycles. Days were spent analyzing subtlety and nuance that didn't exist. Like so much of our "news" it was light on content, and heavy on repetition, opinion, and PR. Barf.

Through it all there is a light. As the All-Star break nears I'm finding myself being drawn back into the association.

Mediocre Bowl

As a 30-something guy I feel like I have outgrown the idea of lumping myself into groups, finding that the application of labels does more to restrict personal growth than they do to define. I am who I am, but who I am today may be different than who I am tomorrow. That said, the one constant in my life has been my appreciation of professional sports. Yes, I am one of "those guys" who has more than one fantasy team, and isn't afraid to discuss it (assuming appropriateness). So, in all fairness I guess I am a sports geek, stat head, fantasy freak, or whatever... the label fits, and I'll wear it.

Having followed and revered pro sports as I have, and having watched this NFL season this year I have to ask, "What's so super about this championship game?" Week-in-week-out I sat on the couch watching game after game after game, and now that the season is all but wrapped up I can declare that this NFL season bored me. No team was good enough to become king of the hill, and every team played mistake ridden football. All-in-all it was an ugly year, and this game coming up in two weeks does little to convince me it will end any better.