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“I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life.” — Kanye West
(Kanye’s third book, Through The Wire, comes out next Tuesday.)
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Tagged: Kanye West
(From Tuesday night’s monologue: “Oh, I gotta tell you, Kev. I saw paranormal activity. Not the movie, the Phillies fighting their way back from the dead. Very exciting. Very exciting. In fact, coming in this morning, I heard the Phillies’ theme song on the radio: Stayin’ Alive! Stayin’ Alive! Well they’re hanging in. They go back to New York for game six tomorrow night. This is going to be the classic match-up: we’ll see if the Phillies’ Dominican and Korean players can beat the Yankees’ Japanese and Panamanian players. Because it is America’s pastime. And for the first time in 27 years, an American has won the New York City marathon. So now the Kenyans will just be satisfied with winning the White House. They’ll have to take that. God, can you believe it’s been a year since Barack Obama was elected president? Actually, there have been some changes: His new slogan is now ‘Yes We Can, But Don’t Hold Your Breath.’” Those were the first five jokes he told.)
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Tagged: Jay Leno
Daniel Craig, you have no good reason to avoid Cincinnati any longer.
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Ohio voters approved statewide casinos yesterday after previously voting them down four times in the past twenty years. What finally gave? Casino supporters successfully made the case that casinos would bring much-needed jobs and revenue. Or at least that’s what the MSM would have you believe.
Our hunch? Females in the twenty/thirtysomething bracket thought this might entice Daniel Craig to stop by more often.
(DANIEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Ohio: What Happens in Toledo Stays in Toledo!
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Tagged: politics, Things To Love About Ohio
Hat tip to Lee Fuoco for introducing us to Movie Line’s “Mad Men” Power Rankings. (Caution: If you haven’t been keeping up with Season Three, you’ll probably want to hold off.)
Speaking of “Mad Men,” a frank conversation about it last night revealed that one of us (guess) is seven episodes ahead of the other in Season Two. Picture this discussion over a post-voting dinner at Skyline:
ERIN: So what episode are we on again?
BEN: If by “we” you mean “me,” we’re on episode six.
ERIN: Huh.
BEN: I guess the real question is where “you” are.
ERIN: Well, just a little ahead of that.
BEN: By “little” do you mean, say, the last disc?
ERIN [turning red]: Well…
BEN: I thought so.
ERIN: It’s just that you’re so slow.
BEN: You didn’t finish the season already, did you?
ERIN: No!
BEN: OK.
[We continue eating in silence for several minutes.]
ERIN: I finished the season.
BEN: Yes, I figured.
ERIN: Honey, I can’t help it!
BEN: Don Draper is going to tear this marriage apart.
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Curse you, Don!
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Tagged: Mad Men
Should I (Ben) be concerned that the Jazz lost 113-96 to the Rockets tonight? At home?
These are the same Rockets no one picked to make the playoffs this year.
Jazz fans booed after Houston went on a 13-0 run in the fourth quarter. Seven Rockets scored in double figures, including someone named Chase Budinger. He had 17.
Carlos Boozer, meanwhile, had 7 points on 1-of-6 shooting. So, to recap:
Here’s another fun stat that will make Jazz fans want to light themselves on fire¹:
Shane Battier’s plus/minus was +36. Mehmet Okur’s, on the other hand, was -26.
Also, Paul Millsap — the guy Utah threw $32 million at this summer — had 2 points in 22 minutes. And he fouled out.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
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Tagged: NBA, Utah Jazz
Last year we ruminated on a few possible ways we might make good use of that extra hour from Daylight Savings. (Perhaps that list may inspire you too.) This year we’ve got a few additional items on the docket:
The world is our oyster! So is yours. Go get ‘em.
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Pete Campbell always gets to home base.
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Since Erin and I have been trying to have a baby for several months now, I agreed to get a semen analysis last week.¹ This is not something I imagined when I thought about the steps toward fatherhood. What man assumes he is fertilely defective?
The first embarrassing thing I did was walk into the wrong office. The lobby I entered had three sets of couples seated together: holding hands, talking quietly, smiling or staring at the floor. I walked past them to the front desk.
The woman behind the desk was drinking Diet Coke through a straw and reading People magazine.
“Hi, I’m Ben Vore and I have a 9:30 appointment for …” I didn’t finish the sentence.
She leaned in and finished it for me. “For a semen analysis?” she said in a whisper that was louder than normal talking. Behind me I imagined the men shaking their heads, thinking, Poor guy.
But am I really a poor guy? According to WebMD, “Up to half of all cases of infertility involve problems with the man.” What’s more, “Doctors arbitrarily diagnose infertility when a couple hasn’t conceived a child after 12 months of unprotected and frequent sex.” We’ve hardly been trying for 12 months. This was more of a preemptive test for peace of mind. (WebMD notes, “Male infertility testing can also spare women unnecessary discomfort and expense.” What husband doesn’t want to spare his wife unnecessary discomfort — lack of insurance coverage be damned?)
“You’re in the wrong place,” the woman informed me. “You’ll want to go back out those doors, turn right and go down the hall. The lab is the last door on your left.”
I exit gracefully.
The lab is tucked away at the end of the hall. I think of the mutant toys from Sid’s room in Toy Story, hidden away in the dark corners. I am not a mutant toy.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture what the room where I would ejaculate into a tiny cup at nine thirty in the morning would look like. It turns out to be like a mini-hotel room. There is a couch with, disconcertingly, a folded white bed sheet. A TV with built-in DVD player sits on a small cabinet. A radio is next to it, preset to white noise volume on an AM station. There is a lamp on an end table with a miniature wicker drawer where I am told to leave my cup. In the corner of the room is a nook with a sink and clothes hamper.
My doctor says, “When you’re done, just give me the thumbs up as you leave.” He gives me a thumbs up as if I need a visual reminder. Then he shuts the door.
I am left alone in a room with more pornography than I have ever seen in my life. Next to the TV is a DVD entitled Whispering Horses. There is a stack of Playboy magazines in a bin below the end table. It is 9:38 a.m.
I have never watched a porno. (Magazines were a different story.) I have friends for whom this is an astonishing fact, and I have friends for whom this is not an astonishing fact at all. My first experience not-watching a porno was in seventh grade at my friend Aaron’s house. When it was clear what was being put into the VHS player, my hairless twelve-year-old armpits began sweating. On one hand I was intensely curious about what was going to be on that tape. On the other, I already knew the shame and guilt that would come with watching it. I was a very conflicted twelve-year-old.
I ended up not watching. First I sat facing away from the TV, then I pretended to sleep. My friends thought it odd I wasn’t joining them, but they didn’t pressure me. They were my friends.
Even though I didn’t watch the porno, I still felt riddled with guilt. I ended up telling my parents that we had watched a porno at the sleepover, only I said it in a way that implied I had taken part. Why did I do this? I think because I wanted to feel “normal” (every guy wanted to watch this, right?), and because I felt like I needed to be scolded.
What was clear to me even then was that lust was not love. My conception of the two was mutually exclusive. I subscribed to a sort of sexual gnosticism: lust, fully bad, was also the route that offered pleasure; love, fully good, was the route that offered the endgame of chaste, sexless thrills (like side hugs or eternal cheek kissing). I, of course, would be doomed to love. At the age of twelve, I believed I would marry a nice, smart, kind, compassionate — and forever homely — girl. I firmly believed this.
“What are you going to do?” Erin asked me after I agreed to the semen analysis.
“I think I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“But, like … how? I mean, what will you think about?”
We had just finished a series with our junior high youth group about sex, and pornography and masturbation had been topics of much conversation among the men. The irony of my situation was not lost on me.
I had been advised to remain abstinent for two to five days prior to my appointment, a task I (we) failed. At around 9:44 a.m., I realized this might be a problem. I didn’t have much in the tank.
At that point I put in Whispering Horses. It had the opposite effect: I am — and I thank God for this, though I wanted to curse him at that moment — someone who is not turned on by pornography. The magazines did not work either. I couldn’t not picture those women as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers.
I kept thinking, “You cannot fail at this. You cannot fail at this.”
At 9:53 a.m., I acknowledged that I was going to fail at this.
When I passed my doctor’s office on the way out, he looked at me expectantly. I gave him the thumbs down.
“Oh,” he said.
We rescheduled the appointment. I was told I could not be refunded my money but that I wouldn’t be charged for a second visit. This seemed fair to me.
I left Erin a voice mail informing her of my failure.
“Honey, it’s ok,” she said when she called back. “You don’t have to go back again.”
I gave this some thought. “No, I can do it,” I told her.
A little later in the conversation she said, “This would be kind of a funny blog post. Too bad we can’t write about it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Too bad.”
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Tagged: babies, fertility, pornography
And a collective groan from the overwhelming majority of Voreblog readers!
Deadspin reports that it obtained excerpts from disgraced ref Tim Donaghy’s book Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA, which Random House recently cancelled because of “concerns over potential liability.” Two fairly obvious points: 1) Donaghy is a scumbag. 2) Scumbags, like broken clocks, are right twice a day.
Which isn’t to say much (most? 90%? more?) of what was in Donaghy’s book is the gospel truth. But does even a casual NBA fan doubt the veracity of this excerpt (on star treatment) from Deadspin?
If Kobe Bryant had two fouls in the first or second quarter and went to the bench, one referee would tell the other two, “Kobe’s got two fouls. Let’s make sure that if we call a foul on him, it’s an obvious foul, because otherwise he’s gonna go back to the bench. If he is involved in a play where a foul is called, give the foul to another player.”
Similarly, when games got physically rough, we would huddle up and agree to tighten the game up. So we started calling fouls on guys who didn’t really matter — “ticky-tack” or “touch” fouls where one player just touched another but didn’t really impede his progress. Under regular circumstances these wouldn’t be fouls, but after a skirmish we wanted to regain control. We would never call these types of fouls on superstars, just on the average players who didn’t have star status. It was important to keep the stars on the floor.
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This NBA truth is so obvious as to be banal. Of course the stars get star treatment. That’s not exactly controversial. But it also serves as a reminder that just because Jack Donaghy says it doesn’t mean it can be disregarded. Or that it’s not a perception problem for casual fans who hate how subjective NBA reffing can be.
In other NBA — and Things To Love About Ohio — news, Shaq has applied to become a state deputy. Which means if you’re used to speeding on Ohio’s highways, this photo should make you want to pee your pants.
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Tagged: NBA, Things To Love About Ohio
If only Williams and the Jazz could stand up to the Lakers…
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It took me (Ben) five hours to write last year’s NBA preview post. I remember being wide awake at five thirty in the morning, and — realizing I wouldn’t fall back to sleep — I showered, dressed, and drove to Caribou Coffee with a stack of Sports Illustrated NBA Preview Issues dating back to 1999. I flipped through their yellowed pages and divined their timeless wisdom (or, in the case of any prognostication involving Jamaal Tinsley, their absurd, cockamamie bullpucky). I poured my finite NBA wisdom — long on Utah Jazz history and short on most everything else — into what turned out to be 3005 words. When I finished the obscenely long post it was just before noon.
This will not be quite so ambitious.
The first thing I will say about the upcoming NBA season and my meager attempts to do it blogging justice is that I intend to write about more than just the Utah Jazz. Certainly most NBA posts will result from an initial Jazz thought or comment. If you imagine this blog’s NBA commentary as a giant house, then the vestibule which leads to the main hall which leads to the major rooms both downstairs (the spacious living room, the renovated kitchen, the dining room and the small sitting area just off it) and upstairs (master bed, guest bed, full bath, study, walk-in closets, etc.) will all have walls adorned with Jazz photos, pennants, cardboard cutouts, and other paraphernalia. (You will be struck by how much this house resembles a Salt Lake City TGIFriday’s.) But if you (once you’ve strolled through the entire house) happen to then go through the mud room to see the garage, you’ll find that there are additional, non-Jazz specific photos, pennants, cardboard cutouts, etc. on the walls of this small, poorly lit, somewhat confined, cluttered and odd-smelling little room that serves as, let’s be honest, a pretty crappy garage next to an otherwise stately mansion.
So you’ve got that to look forward to.
Why am I pledging to temper my full-on Jazz obsession this year? Well, let’s be honest — Utah is not going to win the title. The truth hurts. Last year I genuinely believed that Utah was a dark horse contender for the NBA Finals. (I picked Cleveland to beat Los Angeles in the Finals.) This year I don’t genuinely believe that. I believe Utah could be a dark horse in the West. I even believe they will could win the Northwest. (Chauncey’s honeymoon in Denver is over, while Portland — the sexy dark horse pick — will may have growing pains.) But there’s no way Utah beats the Lakers. Or, if it came down to it in a playoff series, San Antonio. Utah hasn’t won a game in San Antonio this decade.
So instead of dwelling here on my Jazz-related questions (Will Carlos Boozer help or hurt the team? Either way, does Utah trade him? And when? How will Boozer and Paul Millsap coexist? How much has Ronnie Brewer progressed? Will Andrei Kirilenko even show up this year? Or will he be too busy blogging? What’s the ceiling for a healthy Deron Williams? Can Kyle Korver wear his socks any higher? Is this the year Kosta Koufos becomes a household name?), I want to step back for a moment and recommend a book that every NBA fan should have in his possession (if not now, then within the next 15-20 minutes):
Bill Simmons writes likes he’s talking with you over a couple beers. The conversation is mainly about sports, but to talk sports he also has to reference pop culture and pull in The Godfather, Ric Flair, Karate Kid III, strip clubs, the Doobie Brothers, Hoosiers, “The Wire,” blackjack, Animal Instincts II, Tiffani Amber-Thiessen, Cliff Huxtable, Dirk Diggler, Matt Damon, “Sanford & Son,” Lionel Richie, and Conan the Destroyer … and those examples are just from the book’s footnotes.¹ He obsesses over the little things (the idiocy of NBA sideline reporting; the awfulness of ex-players become play-by-play commentators) that are worth being obsessed over. He’s sharp, smart, funny and opinionated. The two biggest NBA fans I know are Scott Guldin and Denys Lai, and when we talk about the NBA, our conversations sound like a Bill Simmons column.²
Simmons, like any true fan, has his beefs with the NBA. He cites the truly atrocious ‘06 Finals (Miami vs. Dallas) as “the biggest travesty in the history of NBA officiating” and laments how slick and corporatized the league has become as a product (while acknowledging that the man who has overseen its explosion, commissioner David Stern, is “the first- or second-best sports commissioner ever (depending on how you feel about Pete Rozelle)”). He bitches and complains but it’s out of love. And he’s entitled: He’s still grieving Len Bias and trying to console himself with Clippers season tickets.
There are whole sections of Simmons’ book worth skipping (unless you think it takes twenty-six pages to make the case that Bill Russell was better than Wilt Chamberlain, or care about why he classifies the 1962-63 season as “The Void”), and fully 338 of the book’s 715 pages are devoted to the ninety-six players he would assign to his five-tiered NBA Hall of Fame Pyramid. But this is like complaining that you’re not getting your money’s worth from Mark Cuban’s Twitter feed. The Book of Basketball is such a splendor of excess that I’ll be referencing it for the next five to twelve season-beginning NBA/Utah Jazz blog posts.³
Reading it has also somewhat soured my annual tradition of meditating on SI’s NBA Preview issue. After adjusting to Simmons’ witty and opinionated commentary, the SI preview felt a little, well, stale. Would Simmons be caught dead saying (as “a rival scout” does — presumably with a straight face — in one of the “Enemy Lines” sidebars), “I think Rudy Gay can be an All-Star if he gets on an established team”? Or, “Ramon Sessions doesn’t have a major weakness”? Or, “You can tell how much [Luis Scola] enjoys the game because he plays with a smile on his face”? Or, “Another young player who’s coming on is C.J. Miles?” (You can stop me anytime.) Or, “Tyrus Thomas [can get] selfish at times, as if he was stepping up to be the Man.” (Really, anytime.) Or, “Jamaal Tinsley could carry this team on his back even if both of his legs were chewed off by bears.” (I made that one up.)
Predictions, then, for the upcoming season?
1. Ron Artest, whether he helps the Lakers or not, is still crazy. Last year I bemoaned the endless Artest-Is-The-Missing-Piece storyline, which — surprise! — didn’t exactly work out in Houston. The problem this year is that he doesn’t need to be the missing piece. He just needs to not melt down and charge into the stands while Kobe and Pau Gasol carry him to an NBA crown. That’s a pretty low threshold. Here’s hoping he fails. (And if he doesn’t, winning an NBA title won’t suddenly reform him into an admirable guy who persevered through endless self-inflicted hardship, a k a, Lamar Odom).
2. Shaq will not make much of a difference. If LeBron’s Cavs win the title this year (and that’s a big if), it won’t be because Shaq pulled a Shazam; it will be because he’s not Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
3. I will continue to have an infatuation/borderline affair with Brandon Roy and the Portland Trailblazers. Scott Guldin will continue to wonder how this is possible. I will do some soul-searching.
4. I will see the Utah Jazz play the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday, November 14. Assuming Sweeneyblog lets me sleep on the couch.
5. The Golden State Warriors have a rough year ahead of them. Anytime your team captain relinquishes his captainship by saying, “I don’t want to be a role model. … Being captain was overrated to me, anyway. You don’t do anything but go out before the game and talk to the refs. I don’t want to do that, anyway” — you probably have a leadership void on your team.
6. Of all the major offseason moves — O’Neal to Cleveland, Artest to L.A., Rasheed Wallace to Boston and Vince Carter to Orlando — the one that will matter the most is Richard Jefferson to San Antonio. Which leads me, [siiiigh], to number seven.
7. The Spurs will beat the Celtics in the Finals. And you have no idea how much it pains me to type that.
Let’s go Jazz.
UPDATE!: Utah drops the season opener in Denver, 114-105, despite 28 and 13 (assists) from Williams. Boozer shot just 3-for-14 for 12 points. In his NBA debut, Eric Maynor had a -8 plus/minus in three minutes of playing time. Kosta Koufus was scoreless. I’m doing it already, aren’t I? I am, right? That’s what I was afraid of.
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Tagged: Bill Simmons, NBA, The Book of Basketball, Utah Jazz
We aren’t usually in the habit of quoting from flyers left under our wiper blades in parking lots, but the one somebody put on our car at the Showcase Cinemas in Milford — the one which begins with the quote above (two question marks and all) — presented us with a question we honestly had never once given a lick of thought: What if the swine flu vaccine is the Mark of the Beast?(?) Have biblical scholars misread The Book of Revelation for the past two millennia? Were the Left Behind books actually … fiction? And maybe most troubling of all, why was our car the only one in the entire parking lot with this flyer left on it? (????????????) If the H1N1 vaccine is The Mark of the Beast, shouldn’t everyone be forewarned?
As the flyer says, “Forget Pre-tribulation scenarios.” We, for one, were hazy on our Pre-tribulation scenarios to begin with. If you want your own answers regarding the alleged diabolicalness of the swine flu vaccine, you won’t find them at your doctor’s office (also known as “The Innermost Circle of Hell”). There’s only one place you can find them: our trash can.
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Tagged: swine flu
