Happy Weekend

Inside/Outside

If I were you and you were me, here’s what we would do this weekend:

Steve James is one of the finest filmmakers working today. Hoop Dreams was a watershed moment in documentary filmmaking and remains one of my all-time favorite movies. His new film, The Interrupters, is in theaters Friday. It’s a somber look at gang violence in the inner city of Chicago and the efforts of a group of ex-gangbangers that have made it their mission to put an end to the bloodshed. With James behind the lens, it’s all but guaranteed to move you.

If you’re hungry for more silver screen, wander over to Cinema Village and catch the documentary Sleep Furiously. I have absolutely no idea what this film is about, but this weekend, I plan to do exactly what its title suggests. (Note: I just watched a short trailer and I’m really intrigued. Now I’m watching a longer trailer and I’m even more intrigued. The music is by Aphex Twin. I think I just talked myself into seeing this film in the amount of time it took for me to write this wack-ass paragraph.)

Go to the rooftop garden of the Met. Get a drink at the bar, gawk at the absolutely bananas panoramic view of Central Park and the city below. Get another drink and catch a buzz. Check out the sculptures by Anthony Caro that are currently on display. Pretended to appreciate the artwork for a few minutes, get back in line for the bar. Think about what else you have to do today. Realize you have nothing to do because it’s the weekend. Grin.

The Name Game

It’s quite clear that more than any profession, athletes have the most enviable names. Do you think they exit the womb with such power and finesse that their mothers have no choice but to bestow totally kickass names upon them like Cadillac and Tank? I think a study should be done about this. I mean, let’s be honest, I’ve never once been in an office setting where someone introduced themselves as LeGarrette, Shaquille or BenJarvus. I’d like you to meet my accountant, Takeo Spikes. Shit just doesn’t happen. Thus, in honor of fantastic athlete nomenclature, I’ve decided to highlight some of my favorite names in sports over the past few decades.

Honorable Mention – All Product Placement Team:

Milton Bradley and Coco Crisp. I hope that both of these baseball players get lifetime supplies of board games and cereal, respectively. It’s the least their namesakes can do for all of the free advertising they’re given every time these guys play on national television. Also funny that board games and cereal seem to go hand in hand. You know what else goes hand in hand with board games and cereal? Weed.

Honorable Mention – The NFL:

Peerless Price, Quentin Jammer, Takeo Spikes, D’Brickashaw Ferguson, Plaxico Burress, Ebenezer Ekuban, A.J. Hawk, Lawyer Malloy, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Madison Hedgecock…the list goes on.

10. Hope Solo: I know, this was an easy one since the Women’s World Cup was recently top of mind. But let’s be serious. Hope Solo could not have been anything besides a soccer goalie. C’mon. Our hope rests upon the goalie as she keeps solo watch over the net. Yea,  yea, I know. Shut the hell up. The main reason I put her at the top of this list is because she’s hot.

9. Slick Watts: Check out the dude at the top of this post. What a pimp. Slick Watts played for the  Sonics in the mid-seventies and apparently earned the name because he was the first player in the NBA to shave his head. I don’t care if the story is true or not. Anyone who rocks a headband at a 30 degree angle is slick as shit in my book.

8. Kaka: Sorry.

7. Fred: While we’re on the subject of one-name soccer players, there’s a Brazilian dude who goes simply by…Fred. Seriously. But, given the fact that he plays in the MLS for the DC United, I’m not sure he’s quite deserving of the one-name name. Cher is awesome.

6. Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje: The Georgetown Hoyas basketball squad has been home to a slew of players that could easily qualify for this list (Dikembe Mutombo, Boubacar Aw, Othella Harrington, to name a few). But Ruben takes the cake. I was lucky enough to be a ballboy for the Providence Friars when I was a little kid and at one point during a game, Mr. Boumtje-Boumtje asked me (aggressively) for a towel during a stop in the action. Apparently dude is crazy smart and speaks three languages. But at that moment, he was yelling at me, a scrawny ten-year-old, in a tongue that was not my own. I was terrified.

5. Fat Lever: Talk about motivation. If Fat Lever didn’t excel at hoops (he was a two-time NBA All-Star in the late-80s), he would have been…well he probably would have walked off a cliff.

4. Dick Trickle: I hate to put anyone whose name resembles a STD symptom on the list, but there he is. I’m sure Dick is a nice guy, and he had quite an illustrious racing career (including NASCAR Rookie of the Year in ’89), but…yikes.

3. World B. Free: Forget Ron Artest’s recent reincarnation as Metta World Peace. World B. Free was there first. Like Ron Ron, World is a Brooklynite, but unlike Ron, it didn’t take a stadium clearing brawl for him to embrace a name that inspires a similarly vague hope in humanity. World earned the name for the 360 degree dunks he used to throw down in the schoolyard…he could ball. He averaged over 20 points in 13 years in the NBA and from 1978-80, he was second in the league in scoring to George freaking Gervin.

2. Duany Duany: The parents of this former University of Wisonsin guard thought his name was so awesome, they gave it to him twice.

1. God Shammgod: Quite possibly my favorite name of all time. Sports or not. Plus Shammgod had one of the best crossovers that basketball has ever seen. If that’s not enough, his name is God. And God wins any contest he enters. Period.

Have/Has/Had/Am/Is/Was/Were

We were from the Midwest and out West and down South and up I-95. We lived in the East Village and the West Village and Tribeca and Williamsburg and Park Slope. Some of us even lived in Harlem and Bushwick and Crown Heights. We lived in two bedrooms and three bedrooms and in studios and on couches. We lived beyond our means. We had our parents. We had friends and friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. We worked in media and finance and philanthropy and film and education and bars and restaurants. We had ideas and ideals. We were selfish and selfless and self-conscious. We wanted to be authentic and original and understood. We had screenplays and startups and clothing lines and websites. We had to go to work. We had blogs and Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and subscriptions to the New York Times and memberships to MoMa. We went to concerts and film festivals and parks and galleries and clubs and dives. We had bikes and skateboards. We took the subway to save money. We bought seven-dollar beers and twelve-dollar cheeseburgers. We had no cash. We sent texts and ignored calls. We had brunch and drinks and dates. We had an awesome time last night. We had to take the night off. We had to focus. We had ambition. We had time. We had no patience. We don’t appreciate what we have.

Belly

The subterranean vessel that hurtles me to the place that pays my rent is bursting at its soldered seams. The air is dead; breathing is counterproductive. The drab colors that splatter the interior of the car are an odious reminder that you are, in fact, inside something…something that has been ingested, regurgitated then stepped in. The lights flicker, falter and ultimately fade. A relief. At each stop, a few dour individuals muster the gall to exit the train and make their plaintive climb to…to…to whatever it was they climbed towards yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

And for a moment, there is space. That is, until more bodies squeeze their way into the train’s already distended belly. The disembodied conductor issues an unintelligible command through bands of rust and static and we brace ourselves as the train lurches once again to resume its crash course with punctuality. Next stop could be oblivion for all we know. As long as we get there on time. Toes are stepped on, elbows knock. We sway like kelp as the train caroms around turns. Frustration is seething yet no one is breathing.

We screech to a halt. The doors groan and we are released, like fish from a net, into one of the city’s major chambers. Confusion and commotion abound on the platforms and in the tunnels. Anxious faces see other anxious faces jostling and they begin jostling too, but they are not quite sure for what or in which direction they should be jostling. This only makes them more anxious. Teeth clenched, I break through. I reach a set of steps that will lead to the surface: a jagged labyrinth of concrete and glass that unfolds in ferocious majesty as if dropped haphazardly from above. I begin climbing to…to…to whatever it is I climbed towards yesterday and the day before and the day before that…

Vibes and Stuff

The first rap tape I ever owned was G Funk Era by Warren G. I dubbed it from a friend and was hooked from the jump. The drums, the kicks, the loops, the samples, the funk, the rhythm, the bass. Not to mention the rhymes. And I had to listen to it discreetly because my parents had read in the paper that “Gangsta Rap” was poisoning the ears of our nation’s youth. Needless to say, that fueled my obsession even further. (To be honest, until I heard G Funk, the only curse word I had heard on an album was when Eddie Vedder said “fuck” on “Jeremy”). Soon I was spending almost every cent of my weekly allowance on rap records: Doggystyle, Me Against the World, Illmatic, Reasonable Doubt, 36 Chambers, Liquid Swords, ATLiens, Strictly Business, Stakes is High…. and Beats, Rhymes and Life.

Fast forward almost fifteen years to last Friday night. The adolescent in me was geeking the fuck out when I went to see Michael Rapaport’s new film about A Tribe Called Quest. It’s a loving tribute to one of the most influential groups in the genre’s history and a celebratory portrait of an era in music the likes of which we may never see again. Sure, Tribe had their troubles as a group, but that shouldn’t diminish the impact they had on everyone from Pharrell to the Roots. A lot of people bitch and moan about the state of hip hop today and don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to throw a parade for the next Waka Flocka record. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t enjoy all of the gems that hip hop has given us throughout the years. If nothing else, go see Beats, Rhymes and Life because it’s a poignant reminder of what hip hop is supposed to be: creative and fun. Then go listen to Low End Theory again and pretend it’s the first time. Boomin in ya, boomin in ya, boomin in ya jeep…

Coffee & Films

Ok. I’m shooting for honesty here, for better or worse. There are two things that I do that really irk my nerves. Ready? One is drinking coffee and the other is calling movies ‘films.’ And I don’t think I’m going to stop doing either anytime soon. Now, this might sound like self-conscious, hypocritical banality, and frankly, it is, but I’ll tell you why I piss myself off.

I can’t pinpoint the exact day I started drinking coffee, but I’m pretty sure it was a Saturday. More than likely I was hungover as a bum in summer heat and stuffing my face with eggs at a greasy diner. One of my friends probably encouraged me to get a cup of coffee to cure my hangover and I was probably so desperate that I did. And it probably fucking worked. Now coffee has become a part of my morning routine like forgetting to put on deodorant.

Every morning I get to work and my brain feels like chunky peanut butter so I slam one of those miracle packets of coffee juice into the Flavia machine, and BAM, I get a cup of watery brown liquid that looks like tobacco spit. But fuck if I can’t get some work done for the next few hours.  I used to pride myself on being the kind of person that didn’t need coffee to get through the day. In fact, I used to equate coffee drinkers with cigarette smokers, those stimulant-addicted jackasses. Well, if cigs work like coffee does, I might be copping a package of American Spirits or whatever the kids try to roll on their own these days. [By the way, I love watching people try to roll their own cigarettes. They always try to make it look like they’re cool and in control, but inevitably, it ends up looking like hay in a sleeping bag.]

Now, I can pinpoint more closely the period during which I started to call movies ‘films.’ It was around the time I got my first job out of college and began doing press for a number of independent movies. We’d often work closely with the director, producer, etc., who would never cease to refer to their work as ‘the film.’ I thought it odd, and somewhat pretentious, that they referred to the work by the name of the very substance on which it was printed. It was as if the art and the platform were one (that’s some real shit). But I winced whenever I said it because a) film is an almost condescending word to say (the corners of your mouth turn down and you tend to raise your chin…maybe that’s just me) and b) because it sounds like one of those rich, douchey words like yacht or cufflinks. But it’s impossible not to acknowledge the fact that Transformers: Dark Moon is a flaming turd, I mean movie, and that400 Blows is a film. And you know what? I want people to know that I know the difference. So fuck off.

All of this is to say that last Saturday night, when I sat and watched a midnight screening of Taxi Driver at IFC Center while drinking a black coffee, I poked myself in the eye. Then I took another sip and watched DeNiro act his ass off.

Peaking Lights

If you put a Super Soaker to my head, I’d have to say my album of the early summer is 936 by Peaking Lights. Eight tracks of murky, psychedelic, cooled-out dub pop that sound like they were recorded in between the wavy haze that rises from the asphalt. It’s uptempo enough if you want to move, but low key enough if you want to just spark one and drink lemonade. And made by a duo from Wisconsin of all places. Lake Michigan has beaches right?

Hank Mobley

I had a hell of a time trying to decide which song to post – this or Dexter Gordon’s “Cheese Cake” – but ultimately I went with “Split Feelin’s” because I get the impression it’s the lesser known of the two. As of late, I’ve become increasingly enamored with these two tenor saxophonists and progenitors of bebop and hard bop, respectively. I’m neither intelligent enough nor well versed in jazz to the point of breaking down the merits of musicianship involved here, but I can say that both Gordon’s album Go and Mobley’s record Soul Station – the two records on which these songs are featured, fucking rule. Tenor sax is just so damn cool. So if a breezy afternoon on the stoop or a mellowed-out early summer party is what you’re after, cue up either of these records and turn it up.

If Life Mirrored NBA Jam

Like many males currently in their mid-late twenties, NBA Jam was a staple of my media/entertainment intake from roughly 1993 – 1998. Let’s face it, there were few things that could so effectively nurture mutual respect and comeraderie amongt middle school males than a gentleman’s game of NBA Jam (admittedly, an illicitly gotten copy of Playboy was probably high on that list, if not the frontrunner). All smut aside, for the brief twelve minutes of cartoon basketball action crammed into each NBA Jam match up, you’d be willing to put aside all hatred of even the biggest weenie in your parochial school social circle. When it was time to Jam, you jammed. The feeling I had when I won a game by the skin of my 16-bit teeth is one that I cherish forever and fear that my future children will never get to experience, what with their iPads and Angry Birds and such. Palms sweating, heart racing, vision bleary, I often felt like I had just piloted a F-16. But when you lost, God-forbid if you lost, the lows were just as severe. You didn’t want to talk to anyone. You swore the game was fixed, all bullshit. Controllers were liable to be chucked across the room. But then you hit the reset button, cranked up the digitized funkiness of the soundtrack, entered your initials and off you went, shoving and blocking and dunking from the foul line.

My life has been pretty banal since those epic battles in my basement. Sure, college was fun and I live in New York City and yadda yadda, but I yearned for the days of Larry Johnson and Zo and hitting threes from the bottom corner (how this became universal knowledge still astounds me). So whereupon I returned home last Thanksgiving and dusted off my Sega to find, lo-and-behold, the system actually worked, I nearly lost my shit. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night. Now the system remains parked in my apartment living room. NBA Jam might as well be glued to the console, because we rarely play anything else (of course there’s the occasional trip down memory lane with Lion King, NHL 94/95/96/97, Mortal Kombat and the like, but let’s be honest, they’re like comparing Kristen Wiig to Gisele – one would be fun, but one would be really fun). So yea, you heard that right: me and my roommates, just a handful of 27 year-olds hunkering down with some Miller High Life’s, some Wheat Thins and some monster video game dunks.

All of this got me to thinking – now that we have some life experience under our belts wouldn’t it be fun to reappropriate the NBA Jam lingo that so furiously invaded our lexicon some fifteen years ago to describe situations that we, as supposed adults, now face? Of course it would. If you had to use phrases like “Tag Mode,” “Computer Assistance,” “On Fire” and “Turbo” to describe life as you now know it, to what situations would those phrases apply? For better or worse, these are my thoughts (most of them involve drinking because, as they say, you write what you know, right?):

Tag Mode: Tag Mode was a feature whereby you were able to control both players in your lineup, not just the one with possession of the basketball. Theoretically, the feature was put in place to make teams more well rounded. Rather than being forced to choose between the munchkin-sized Tim Hardaway and the hangtime-challenged Chris Mullin, Tag Mode allowed you to have the best of both worlds. It might ruffle the feathers of some purists out there, but in the end, I think it made the game more interesting. How would this apply to real life? I think the most obvious and natural application would be the “Wingman.” Sure, some Casanovas are able to roll into bars by themselves and charm the Uggs off of unsuspecting women, but in most situations, it helps to have a wingman. The wingman proves that a) you have friends and b) you’re not a one-dimensional player (by that I mean the fact that you came out with a buddy shows you have agendas other than getting laid…of course in reality this may very well not be the case, but you get my point). To put it simply, the wingman, like Tag Mode, makes you a well-rounded threat. Where you might lack in knowledge of Mad Men, your buddy can pick up the slack. What he lacks in effortless good looks, you can more than carry your weight. With the wingman, statistical categories like points, rebounds, assists, turnovers and time outs take on a whole new meaning.

Computer Assistance: With Computer Assistance turned on, every game came down to the wire. You’re up eight with 90 seconds to go? Doesn’t matter. You’ll brick a dunk or two and your opponent will start nailing threes. It’s inevitable. With Computer Assistance off, you find out who’s superior and who’s out of their league. Similarly, when you find yourself in a social situation talking, somehow, with a beautiful girl that makes you babble like an idiot, you better hope Computer Assistance is on. This means, of course, that she’s had one too many drinks. Enough to make her tipsy to the point where she’s more willing to put up with your inanity. With Computer Assistance on, you start to think you might have a shot. You build some confidence, and who knows, you might just pull off the upset. With Computer Assistance off, be careful. It could be a massacre.

On Fire: Everyone knows what it means to be “On Fire.” You hit three shots in a row and the golden basketball is bestowed upon you. Until the alotted time runs out, or the opposing team hits a bucket, you can’t miss. Hell, you’re even allowed to goaltend. It’s how you make runs that really put the game out of reach. When you’re twenty seven, being on fire means going out hard three or more nights during the workweek. It’s tough to do, but every so often, you pull a string of three epic nights in a row. The stories that result from such nights are better, because they’re unexpected. These are the nights that Christmas trees are stolen; that you bowl a 240 at 2am; that you run into Owen Wilson at Little Branch and tell him he’s got everything to live for. Of course, your streak can end in any number of ways. Time runs out (you spend your paycheck), the opposing team scores (your boss says you smell like a foot), etc.

Turbo: Turbo was the juice. By hitting Turbo, you put your player into another gear. The shoes lit up and man, could you scoot. But Turbo had to be used judiciously. If you rode the Turbo button, the juice would run out and your momentum would come to a screeching halt, leaving you susceptible to a violent shove, a turnover, a dunk at the other end and a barrage of obnoxious shit-talking from your opponent. In real life, or in our case, nightlife, Turbo is akin to pacing yourself. At the beginning of the night, you hit Turbo: you have a few drinks to get the mojo going. You’re ready to have some fun. But be careful. If you ride that Turbo and overdo it too early, you crash. You become the grumpy drunk on the couch that’s in no shape to go out. You become susceptible to violent shoves, spilled drinks, missed jokes and a barrage of obnoxious shit-talking from your friends. Should have used Turbo wisely.

The Nail in the Coffin: The Nail in the Coffin is the dagger that puts the game out of reach. Put a fork in you, you’re done. In social situations, the Nail in the Coffin is the shot that you clearly did not need. It ends your night and throws all hopes of frisky behavior with the opposite sex out the window. The Nail in the Coffin is the cab shot: the shot that makes you take a cab home, where under different circumstances you would be lucid enough to figure out cheaper, alternate modes of transportation. Is it the Shoes?: Is it the Shoes is the NBA Jam equivalent of Michael Jordan’s famed ‘shrug.’ MJ was in the zone to such a degree that even he couldn’t explain it. It’s as if he were saying, “Dude, I know I’m good, but I didn’t know I was that good.” For me, Is it the Shoes could mean one of two things in real life. The first is when you or one of your buddies pulls a girl that’s way out of his league, but he also makes the rest of your group better. He’s dressed slovenly: hooded sweatshirt and pants that haven’t been washed in weeks, or maybe ever. Hasn’t showered, hasn’t shaved. But for some reason, he can’t miss at the bar. He’s buying drinks, making girls laugh; he’s got that twinkle in his eye that comes maybe once or twice a year. He’s feeling it. I know what you’re thinking…this sounds an awful lot like being on fire. But being on fire is a purely offensive-minded phrase. But your buddy is buying rounds, he’s making assists, he’s boxing out guys that are trying to steal your thunder. He’s being a team player in every sense of the word. All you can ask is, “Dude, is it the shoes?” The other application of Is it the Shoes is strictly literal. You’re sitting around the living room with your friends when all of a sudden a noxious odor begins to circulate. As far as you can tell, no one farted and you just took out the trash. You look around, puzzled, and ask your grungiest buddy, “Is it the Shoes?”

Boomshakalaka: Boomshakalaka was perhaps the most ubiquitous phrase to emerge from NBA Jam. It meant, to put it bluntly, that you’re kicking ass. As such, it can apply to a whole host of real life scenarios. You get a raise? Boomshakalaka. You win at Blackjack? Boomshakalaka. You sign off a conference call? Boomshakalaka. There are however, a few situations where you definitely should not use the phrase. Vomit at the bar? Bad idea. Fall asleep on the subway and wind up in East New York? Bad idea. In bed with your girlfriend and about to make the “O” face? Bad idea.

So there you have it. Use these terms as you wish. And if you’ll excuse me, I have a game to play.