remember back in the days? man, those days are over
First off, got some more reviews for your blogpiece: here and here.
Anyways, I've been slack on the blog front as of late, pumping out reviews and graduating and whatnot. There was a great Cohen family event when I had them try Sparks for the first time and dad thought it tasted like the stuff they give you before a colonoscopy. What a moment!
This weekend was pretty phenomenal for Virginia sports, since it happened in May, as opposed to the usually dire months in Hoo Nation (November, March). The baseball team swept Virginia Tech, and is currently ranked #6 in the country. The United States! They start off the ACC tourney as the #3 seed, up against #6 Florida State. That is a sentence I thought I would never write. Also, the lacrosse team turned in a performance that clearly inspired Vito's death scene and now heads to Philly (your boy will be there on the $35 three-day package) for Syracuse. As Orange 44 correctly points out, this rematch of 2006's best game (a 20-15 shootout win for the Hoos) is the de facto championship. Maryland? UMass? New jacks get smacked, boss. If it ain't 'Cuse, Hopkins or Princeton, you might as well be Nebraska.
In order to get back in CFB gear, I've taken the opportunity to answer the Pre-Spring BlogPoll Roundtable, courtesy of Peter "What Have I Done With The Next Three Years Of My Life?!?!?" Bean at the always-entertaining Burnt Orange Nation.
Which offseason story are you most tired of, and, on the flip side, interested in? (e.g. Reggie Bush's house, Jimmy Claussen, etc.)
Man, was 2002 that long ago? Back then, I used to grouse about how "Pardon The Interruption" made SportsCenter redundant at best and irrelevant at worst. Ever since I acquired a laptop, went to law school and found out about WIFI, I can honestly say that my internet-intensive lifestyle has now rendered "Pardon The Interruption" redundant at best and irrelevant at worst. By 3 PM of any given day, not only can I predict the exact topics that will be covered, but I can also guess pretty accurately what they're going to say.
Don't get me wrong: I still watch it, but I can tune it out. And I appreciate what it contributes even though it's responsible for Jay Mariotti and Woody Paige and Skip Bayless having TV time. Before DVDs of sitcoms became mass-produced, there was nothing worth watching at 5:30 PM in the history of television, unless you wanted to see "Rap City: The Bassment" play one video at a time. What it comes down to is that Wilbon and Kornheiser got too good at their jobs, and you can't really fiddle with their synergy too much. Especially not by having Dan LeBatard and Jason Whitlock on there as a replacement; did anyone else see that abonimation a few days ago? Tell me again how one of their topics devolved into making fun of homosexuals?
The way it is now, I rely on ESPN for my stats and hard news and the blogs fill everything else out. The thing is, if I read your blog, you probably have a keen awareness of when a story's going to be played out and how to avoid them. Thus, everything feels played out, but nothing actually is if I choose to ignore them.
This is particulalry true of college football. Sure, people are most likely to say they've wearied on Jimmy Claussen, but how much hype has he really gotten? It seems like more ink was spilled about Rasheed Wallace guaranteeing a victory in Game 4 than Claussen's signing with Notre Dame. Talk about a fucking non-story: what professional athlete isn't positive they're going to win every game they play? And besides, I think people have realized that Jimmy Claussen is not a guaranteed superstar and shouldn't be treated as such. Really, when you consider the Claussen lineage, this isn't all that different than a baseball team signing the latest Boone. Yeah, they've got a decent pedigree, but certainly not one of greatness.
But yes, the Notre Dame thing is getting tiresome, but what else is ESPN supposed to do? And by the way, after seeing "The Sopranos" last night, Michigan fans can rest assured one of their guys is a writer. If you paid attention, you know what I'm talking about. At least it's not Ohio State that the Worldwide Leader is going on about; ESPN spends countless hours on Saturday trying make us care about Big Ten teams nobody should give a shit about. This one might run the table.
There's plenty that can be said Charlie Weis and the resurrection of the program or even how much you can't stand Notre Dame, but let's face it: when it comes to their national championship possibilities, we're left with the question Phife Dawg gave us on "Beats, Rhymes & Life" (which wasn't up to typical Tribe snuff, but would easily be a top-three rap album of 2006)- "will Laura fuck Urkel?" The answer was an unequivocal "never," followed up by some shout out to his peeps in Oklahoma. And notice it's Urkel, not Stephon Urquelle, so don't be a wiseass.
As I'm A Realist pointed out, you could make the argument that Notre Dame's most impressive win of 2005 was against Navy and probably be right. Their most impressive game was against USC, but you know, UVA put up a pretty valiant effort against Miami. To get to 9-3, repeat 9-3, Notre Dame beat the worst Tennessee, Purdue, Syracuse, Washington and Michigan teams of recent memory. We're talking about winning a national championship here, and there's a chance that they might not make it out of their first week. Say what you will about Chan Gailey, but Tech has proven they can bring 'em out for the season's jumpoff. Then there's Penn State (they're not falling that far off), Michigan (possible preseason Top-Ten) and Michigan State (beat 'em last year). Did I mention that those games are consecutive? Add to that games against UCLA a dangerous UNC team and some other guys named the Trojans and you've got what amounts to a Big Ten schedule with an unconscionably tough OOC slate. And these days, nobody gets out of the Big Ten unscathed.
As for what I'm not tired of, really, the moment the last BCS bowl ends, there's only one thing worth discussing. I'm not just talking about college football; I'm saying only one thing is worthy of discussion, period. In any topic. And this year, it's got Reggie Bush on the cover.
NCAA Football is sorta like the Radiohead to Madden's U2; one's vastly more popular, but the other has a psychotically intense following. And I'd say that NCAA is more important, because its release always coincides with the patchiest stretch of sports of the year. The pre-release shipping date is July 18th, which is a week later than it was released last year and one week before the California Bar Exam which is a frightening thought. By then, the World Cup will have been over for a week and the NBA Draft will have come and gone. For over a month, all we have is fucking baseball. We need to create an alternate reality.
It's saying something when a video game can nearly give you the shakes in anticipation. And really, I can't even remember the last big innovation that NCAA Football included. The whole "Race for the Heisman" thing was kinda neat, but the fact that they let you walk on wherever you wanted was akin to not having the computer turn down trades in the NHL Series. It just means that much to me to have the new rankings and rosters, I guess. If you check out EDSBS, they've got the scoop on how EA Sports expanded the playbook with all sorts of mindblowing formations that will push any and every iota of law knowledge out of my skull. And go ahead and check this joint about the XBox 360 version. It almost makes buying the thing just to play NCAA 2007 seem plausible (keep in mind that I originally bought a PS2 and NCAA 200-the-one-with-Joey-Harrington-on-the-cover was the only game I had for a pretty long time). EA Sports has satellites? I'm assuming that UVA's one of the 70 schools they did the imaging for, and my first year dorm was most certainly within two miles of the stadium...will I be able to see some new kid's "OK Computer" poster?
Your head coach comes down with a mystery illness and has to step aside. You get to hand pick the replacement for the 2006 season. Who gets your vote?
As Joey posited, I'm not sure I couldn't do this job myself. I guess we'll find out when EA Sports releases "NFL Head Coach," which I am genuinely intrigued by. I'm an NFL fan for sure, but I never feel as if buying Madden would not be redundant. I gotta hand it to EA: this takes the most fun aspect of their games (the dynasty part) and turns it into a legitimately new paradigm in sports video gaming (I'm fairly certain the soccer versions of this are Euro-only).
Then again, it looks like a good deal of college coaching involves getting people to class and out of trouble, and I'm not sure I can handle that. If a Hoo's gonna beat up a frat boy, they're gonna beat up a frat boy, and I certainly don't want to raise the chances of it being me.
I'll digress from my prepared remarks and talk about graduation for a little bit (trust me, there's a reason). While graduating is joyous, the actual act of graduation is most certainly not. When you boil it down to its essence, it's two hours of sitting in the Georgia sun in the middle of May in a heavy black robe. There isn't much to do to pass the time; yeah, you could show up drunk, but that will inevitably lead to you passing out (once again, Georgia is hot in May). While I imagine that doing so will make you all kinds of legendary in some corners, it's probably not the best idea when you consider how incestuous the legal community really is. If it's undergrad graduation, by all means, get stinko. That's what I did. These days, I'm not so much up for binge drinking of horribly made screwdrivers at 8 AM...outside of football season.
So what can you do to pass the time? Well, you can rue the fact that you didn't run to Chick Fil-A before you had to show up for graduation so you could sell breakfast sandwiches to your hungover classmates for $8 a pop. And you can rue the fact that your family isn't black; it's a scientific fact that every single black student got twenty times the cheers of the average white student, except for that one white guy whose family brought pots and pans. You can hope that one of the LLM students is from Kazakhstan (and one of them was! Nearly every person I'm friends with in law school probably made the same joke when the head of that program announced this fact. Easily the highlight of the ceremony). But mostly, you can wonder why they brought in Johnny Isakson and what he could possibly tell you about your life that would justify you sweating your ass off. Really, Ice Cube was in town the night before...would anyone be opposed to getting him up there? Isn't it supposed to be about the graduates?
Anyways, I gotta hand it to Isakson: he brought his speech A-game. One of the things he talked about was how proud of himself he felt when he got asked to be the guest speaker at law school graduation. But then, he thought back to his graduations and realized that he could remember every single detail about the affairs...except who spoke and what they said. This won me over, because while I remember the coked-out DKE behind me drinking a forty (possibly the worst idea in the history of ever), I can't remember who spoke (it might've been Mark Warner) or what he said. Behind me at graduation was someone who was a member of the UVA class of 2002 and I asked him who spoke. He didn't know either. In short, I can feel good knowing that my inability to recall this stuff wasn't so much because I was drunk so much as it was that these things are nearly interchangeable.
The same thing goes with UVA football seasons, which are possibly the most interchangeable in all of the NCAA (maybe except for Buffalo). Only at gunpoint can I remember the specifics about the 1999 and 2000 seasons. Sure, I was drunk most of college, but that doesn't change the fact that we've been in a 6-8 win/second or third tier bowl holding pattern for what seems like the better part of the past two decades. It certainly could be worse; we could be in a Wake Forest-style holding pattern where bowl bids always seem to be cruelly out of reach. But I'd say if Al Groh were given the axe, we should take the opportunity to shift gears a bit and I think I know exactly the guy.
You see, the way things are, UVA sends a couple of guys to the pros and they end up being solid contributors. Really, this isn't all that exciting, since it inevitably brings up the "how come they couldn't win with these guys" article about the Cavaliers. The problem is, the program never seems to develop the depth needed to push things to the next level. The strengths of the program seem to shift year after year; who would've thought that going into 2006, there'd be no concern whatsoever concerning the receiving corps and yet, the offensive line and linebacker position are huge question marks? Really, I could give a shit about whether or not Virginia graduates do well in the pros; just win on the level that matters.
And that's why I'm advocating bringing in Mike Leach, who was kind of my idol even before we found out how obsessive he is about pirates. Okay, so he's known for a different kind of holding pattern, but hey- it's different. Although his gunslinging style seems more of a geographic fit for the badlands of Lubbock than Charlottesville, you don't think Hoo fans would warm to 9-3 and a Cotton Bowl-equivalent year after year? Aaron Brooks and Matt Schaub couldn't get us to anything better than the Peach Bowl; who cares if we institute a new system where QB's are fungible goods, so long as we get more results? To be quite honest, in spite of how much they're paying Groh, no UVA fan has realistic expectations of a national championship. You don't win these things unless football's in your school's blood, and it's tough to say that this is the case for Virginia. Sure, we bring the pain on the Sears circuit, but there's just not the culture or financial commitment to get it done. Speaking of fan culture, that takes us to question three...
Lastly, we'll mix the football and the blogging together here. If you could have anyone switch allegiances and start covering your team, who you gonna pick?
The obvious route would be to look at the Georgia and Michigan blocs of blogs. While it seems like they crush the competition in sheer blogger numbers, none of them are superfluous. There's a system of checks and balances; on the BlogPoll, I'm the only voice that's straight-up UVA. DaveSez, while a great and informative blog, appears to be more of an ACC blog with a slight UVA lean. And even in Atlanta, I can't see all of the games; like I said last time, I don't care about the demand for UVA blogs. Just give me the supply.
What I'm looking for are free agents. And the best fit I can think of is Jerry's Wheelhouse. "Drinking and elitism"- that's what it takes to be a UVA blogger. Moreover, they're knowledgeable, snarky and have an excellent bullshit detector. The problem is, it looks like all they have to rep as of now is William & Mary and Rutgers. This would be like hiring Jim Larranaga.
- In other news, Bol points out how no hip-hop album was in the Top Ten of Billboard this past week. While we've gone on and on about how hip-hop is dying artistically, at least it always sold well. And I can't think of there being an end in sight; people are hyped up about Lupe Fiasco and Rhymefest, but I can't see these guys really pushing Usher numbers. I like the Rhymefest album (I have to listen to it more before I give the review); he's sort of doing the "Kanye when he was likeable" thing with more of a skill set. And let me just throw this out there: Kanye's rapping was not why "Late Registration" fell short of its enormous hype. It was the overbearing musicality of the thing. Just listen to "Bring Me Down" and you'll know what I mean.
When it comes down to it, Kanye's has more memorable lines than T.I., Lil' Wayne and Young Jeezy combined. Doesn't that count for something any more? You'd love to ride out on this guy, but the last paragraph is dead on. Of course, it doesn't help when this guy is (I think) an A&R at Atlantic. He's not a mountain climber, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't play an electric guitar, but this was the shit GZA was talking on some album that seemingly no one with any pull in the industry gives a shit about.
It doesn't matter that they don't have skills as people in the blog world know 'em. I used to be with it, and then they changed what it was. And what is it is weird and creepy to me. Memorable rap lyrics are not at a premium right now, and "The Big Bang" sure as shit ain't gon' change that.
And Lupe's a strong MC, but I think he's a little too dry for most palettes. Once again, I have to give "Food & Liquor" more of a listen, but this seems to be on some Gang Starr shit, where you can't fuck with the technique or the sentiments, but it doesn't feel all that exciting.
To me, it seems like the problem is that the whole world of hip-hop is being put on hold in a concerted effort to make Rick Ross famous. I mean, I understood the millions of dollars that were funneled into "The Documentary"; I'm not saying it should've happened, but I understand. While it certainly didn't create a good precedent, The Game's story was certainly marketable. But Rick Ross? Is there anyone whose opinions on hip-hop you care about that thinks he's something other than some asshole with a LeBron beard repping a city that even its own citizens couldn't give two shits about? At least when Trick Daddy stepped up for the 305, he had guys like Warren Sapp and Edgerrin James in his videos. Rick Ross gets Fat Joe to wipe off his T-shirt for what seems like a whole minute and is most certainly the most uncomfortable image in music videos in 2006.
Don't even get me started on "Hustlin'." Say what you will about "Still Tippin'," but that was a song that at least let you in on what a city's sound was like and it happened to have the best verses Slim Thug and Paul Wall will probably ever come up with. A rap song on the radio named "Hustlin'" by some guy you've never heard of is the equivalent of a pop song on the radio by some guy you've never heard of named "Beautiful"; you can assume it sucks and be correct 99.9% of the time.
- If George Bush had any responsibility whatsoever for this, his approval rating should be at 98%, the 2% being Honda employees, Gwen Stefani and bloggers with a brown girl fetish (just so long as she isn't black) and fundamentally awful taste in music. I like the whole "collaborating with Timbaland" thing. Not only does it prove that he's pretty much tapped out, but it goes with my original thoughts on M.I.A.: she's Nelly Furtado after two years of college (even though Nelly Furtado is like, what, 42?). Except M.I.A. never made a song as good as "On The Radio."
- Lastly, is there anything that's more of a foregone conclusion than overwhelming critical praise for the new Dixie Chicks CD? I'm not saying whether it will deserve it or not; but it'll certainly get it.
Anyways, I've been slack on the blog front as of late, pumping out reviews and graduating and whatnot. There was a great Cohen family event when I had them try Sparks for the first time and dad thought it tasted like the stuff they give you before a colonoscopy. What a moment!
This weekend was pretty phenomenal for Virginia sports, since it happened in May, as opposed to the usually dire months in Hoo Nation (November, March). The baseball team swept Virginia Tech, and is currently ranked #6 in the country. The United States! They start off the ACC tourney as the #3 seed, up against #6 Florida State. That is a sentence I thought I would never write. Also, the lacrosse team turned in a performance that clearly inspired Vito's death scene and now heads to Philly (your boy will be there on the $35 three-day package) for Syracuse. As Orange 44 correctly points out, this rematch of 2006's best game (a 20-15 shootout win for the Hoos) is the de facto championship. Maryland? UMass? New jacks get smacked, boss. If it ain't 'Cuse, Hopkins or Princeton, you might as well be Nebraska.
In order to get back in CFB gear, I've taken the opportunity to answer the Pre-Spring BlogPoll Roundtable, courtesy of Peter "What Have I Done With The Next Three Years Of My Life?!?!?" Bean at the always-entertaining Burnt Orange Nation.
Which offseason story are you most tired of, and, on the flip side, interested in? (e.g. Reggie Bush's house, Jimmy Claussen, etc.)
Man, was 2002 that long ago? Back then, I used to grouse about how "Pardon The Interruption" made SportsCenter redundant at best and irrelevant at worst. Ever since I acquired a laptop, went to law school and found out about WIFI, I can honestly say that my internet-intensive lifestyle has now rendered "Pardon The Interruption" redundant at best and irrelevant at worst. By 3 PM of any given day, not only can I predict the exact topics that will be covered, but I can also guess pretty accurately what they're going to say.
Don't get me wrong: I still watch it, but I can tune it out. And I appreciate what it contributes even though it's responsible for Jay Mariotti and Woody Paige and Skip Bayless having TV time. Before DVDs of sitcoms became mass-produced, there was nothing worth watching at 5:30 PM in the history of television, unless you wanted to see "Rap City: The Bassment" play one video at a time. What it comes down to is that Wilbon and Kornheiser got too good at their jobs, and you can't really fiddle with their synergy too much. Especially not by having Dan LeBatard and Jason Whitlock on there as a replacement; did anyone else see that abonimation a few days ago? Tell me again how one of their topics devolved into making fun of homosexuals?
The way it is now, I rely on ESPN for my stats and hard news and the blogs fill everything else out. The thing is, if I read your blog, you probably have a keen awareness of when a story's going to be played out and how to avoid them. Thus, everything feels played out, but nothing actually is if I choose to ignore them.
This is particulalry true of college football. Sure, people are most likely to say they've wearied on Jimmy Claussen, but how much hype has he really gotten? It seems like more ink was spilled about Rasheed Wallace guaranteeing a victory in Game 4 than Claussen's signing with Notre Dame. Talk about a fucking non-story: what professional athlete isn't positive they're going to win every game they play? And besides, I think people have realized that Jimmy Claussen is not a guaranteed superstar and shouldn't be treated as such. Really, when you consider the Claussen lineage, this isn't all that different than a baseball team signing the latest Boone. Yeah, they've got a decent pedigree, but certainly not one of greatness.
But yes, the Notre Dame thing is getting tiresome, but what else is ESPN supposed to do? And by the way, after seeing "The Sopranos" last night, Michigan fans can rest assured one of their guys is a writer. If you paid attention, you know what I'm talking about. At least it's not Ohio State that the Worldwide Leader is going on about; ESPN spends countless hours on Saturday trying make us care about Big Ten teams nobody should give a shit about. This one might run the table.
There's plenty that can be said Charlie Weis and the resurrection of the program or even how much you can't stand Notre Dame, but let's face it: when it comes to their national championship possibilities, we're left with the question Phife Dawg gave us on "Beats, Rhymes & Life" (which wasn't up to typical Tribe snuff, but would easily be a top-three rap album of 2006)- "will Laura fuck Urkel?" The answer was an unequivocal "never," followed up by some shout out to his peeps in Oklahoma. And notice it's Urkel, not Stephon Urquelle, so don't be a wiseass.
As I'm A Realist pointed out, you could make the argument that Notre Dame's most impressive win of 2005 was against Navy and probably be right. Their most impressive game was against USC, but you know, UVA put up a pretty valiant effort against Miami. To get to 9-3, repeat 9-3, Notre Dame beat the worst Tennessee, Purdue, Syracuse, Washington and Michigan teams of recent memory. We're talking about winning a national championship here, and there's a chance that they might not make it out of their first week. Say what you will about Chan Gailey, but Tech has proven they can bring 'em out for the season's jumpoff. Then there's Penn State (they're not falling that far off), Michigan (possible preseason Top-Ten) and Michigan State (beat 'em last year). Did I mention that those games are consecutive? Add to that games against UCLA a dangerous UNC team and some other guys named the Trojans and you've got what amounts to a Big Ten schedule with an unconscionably tough OOC slate. And these days, nobody gets out of the Big Ten unscathed.
As for what I'm not tired of, really, the moment the last BCS bowl ends, there's only one thing worth discussing. I'm not just talking about college football; I'm saying only one thing is worthy of discussion, period. In any topic. And this year, it's got Reggie Bush on the cover.
NCAA Football is sorta like the Radiohead to Madden's U2; one's vastly more popular, but the other has a psychotically intense following. And I'd say that NCAA is more important, because its release always coincides with the patchiest stretch of sports of the year. The pre-release shipping date is July 18th, which is a week later than it was released last year and one week before the California Bar Exam which is a frightening thought. By then, the World Cup will have been over for a week and the NBA Draft will have come and gone. For over a month, all we have is fucking baseball. We need to create an alternate reality.
It's saying something when a video game can nearly give you the shakes in anticipation. And really, I can't even remember the last big innovation that NCAA Football included. The whole "Race for the Heisman" thing was kinda neat, but the fact that they let you walk on wherever you wanted was akin to not having the computer turn down trades in the NHL Series. It just means that much to me to have the new rankings and rosters, I guess. If you check out EDSBS, they've got the scoop on how EA Sports expanded the playbook with all sorts of mindblowing formations that will push any and every iota of law knowledge out of my skull. And go ahead and check this joint about the XBox 360 version. It almost makes buying the thing just to play NCAA 2007 seem plausible (keep in mind that I originally bought a PS2 and NCAA 200-the-one-with-Joey-Harrington-on-the-cover was the only game I had for a pretty long time). EA Sports has satellites? I'm assuming that UVA's one of the 70 schools they did the imaging for, and my first year dorm was most certainly within two miles of the stadium...will I be able to see some new kid's "OK Computer" poster?
Your head coach comes down with a mystery illness and has to step aside. You get to hand pick the replacement for the 2006 season. Who gets your vote?
As Joey posited, I'm not sure I couldn't do this job myself. I guess we'll find out when EA Sports releases "NFL Head Coach," which I am genuinely intrigued by. I'm an NFL fan for sure, but I never feel as if buying Madden would not be redundant. I gotta hand it to EA: this takes the most fun aspect of their games (the dynasty part) and turns it into a legitimately new paradigm in sports video gaming (I'm fairly certain the soccer versions of this are Euro-only).
Then again, it looks like a good deal of college coaching involves getting people to class and out of trouble, and I'm not sure I can handle that. If a Hoo's gonna beat up a frat boy, they're gonna beat up a frat boy, and I certainly don't want to raise the chances of it being me.
I'll digress from my prepared remarks and talk about graduation for a little bit (trust me, there's a reason). While graduating is joyous, the actual act of graduation is most certainly not. When you boil it down to its essence, it's two hours of sitting in the Georgia sun in the middle of May in a heavy black robe. There isn't much to do to pass the time; yeah, you could show up drunk, but that will inevitably lead to you passing out (once again, Georgia is hot in May). While I imagine that doing so will make you all kinds of legendary in some corners, it's probably not the best idea when you consider how incestuous the legal community really is. If it's undergrad graduation, by all means, get stinko. That's what I did. These days, I'm not so much up for binge drinking of horribly made screwdrivers at 8 AM...outside of football season.
So what can you do to pass the time? Well, you can rue the fact that you didn't run to Chick Fil-A before you had to show up for graduation so you could sell breakfast sandwiches to your hungover classmates for $8 a pop. And you can rue the fact that your family isn't black; it's a scientific fact that every single black student got twenty times the cheers of the average white student, except for that one white guy whose family brought pots and pans. You can hope that one of the LLM students is from Kazakhstan (and one of them was! Nearly every person I'm friends with in law school probably made the same joke when the head of that program announced this fact. Easily the highlight of the ceremony). But mostly, you can wonder why they brought in Johnny Isakson and what he could possibly tell you about your life that would justify you sweating your ass off. Really, Ice Cube was in town the night before...would anyone be opposed to getting him up there? Isn't it supposed to be about the graduates?
Anyways, I gotta hand it to Isakson: he brought his speech A-game. One of the things he talked about was how proud of himself he felt when he got asked to be the guest speaker at law school graduation. But then, he thought back to his graduations and realized that he could remember every single detail about the affairs...except who spoke and what they said. This won me over, because while I remember the coked-out DKE behind me drinking a forty (possibly the worst idea in the history of ever), I can't remember who spoke (it might've been Mark Warner) or what he said. Behind me at graduation was someone who was a member of the UVA class of 2002 and I asked him who spoke. He didn't know either. In short, I can feel good knowing that my inability to recall this stuff wasn't so much because I was drunk so much as it was that these things are nearly interchangeable.
The same thing goes with UVA football seasons, which are possibly the most interchangeable in all of the NCAA (maybe except for Buffalo). Only at gunpoint can I remember the specifics about the 1999 and 2000 seasons. Sure, I was drunk most of college, but that doesn't change the fact that we've been in a 6-8 win/second or third tier bowl holding pattern for what seems like the better part of the past two decades. It certainly could be worse; we could be in a Wake Forest-style holding pattern where bowl bids always seem to be cruelly out of reach. But I'd say if Al Groh were given the axe, we should take the opportunity to shift gears a bit and I think I know exactly the guy.
You see, the way things are, UVA sends a couple of guys to the pros and they end up being solid contributors. Really, this isn't all that exciting, since it inevitably brings up the "how come they couldn't win with these guys" article about the Cavaliers. The problem is, the program never seems to develop the depth needed to push things to the next level. The strengths of the program seem to shift year after year; who would've thought that going into 2006, there'd be no concern whatsoever concerning the receiving corps and yet, the offensive line and linebacker position are huge question marks? Really, I could give a shit about whether or not Virginia graduates do well in the pros; just win on the level that matters.
And that's why I'm advocating bringing in Mike Leach, who was kind of my idol even before we found out how obsessive he is about pirates. Okay, so he's known for a different kind of holding pattern, but hey- it's different. Although his gunslinging style seems more of a geographic fit for the badlands of Lubbock than Charlottesville, you don't think Hoo fans would warm to 9-3 and a Cotton Bowl-equivalent year after year? Aaron Brooks and Matt Schaub couldn't get us to anything better than the Peach Bowl; who cares if we institute a new system where QB's are fungible goods, so long as we get more results? To be quite honest, in spite of how much they're paying Groh, no UVA fan has realistic expectations of a national championship. You don't win these things unless football's in your school's blood, and it's tough to say that this is the case for Virginia. Sure, we bring the pain on the Sears circuit, but there's just not the culture or financial commitment to get it done. Speaking of fan culture, that takes us to question three...
Lastly, we'll mix the football and the blogging together here. If you could have anyone switch allegiances and start covering your team, who you gonna pick?
The obvious route would be to look at the Georgia and Michigan blocs of blogs. While it seems like they crush the competition in sheer blogger numbers, none of them are superfluous. There's a system of checks and balances; on the BlogPoll, I'm the only voice that's straight-up UVA. DaveSez, while a great and informative blog, appears to be more of an ACC blog with a slight UVA lean. And even in Atlanta, I can't see all of the games; like I said last time, I don't care about the demand for UVA blogs. Just give me the supply.
What I'm looking for are free agents. And the best fit I can think of is Jerry's Wheelhouse. "Drinking and elitism"- that's what it takes to be a UVA blogger. Moreover, they're knowledgeable, snarky and have an excellent bullshit detector. The problem is, it looks like all they have to rep as of now is William & Mary and Rutgers. This would be like hiring Jim Larranaga.
- In other news, Bol points out how no hip-hop album was in the Top Ten of Billboard this past week. While we've gone on and on about how hip-hop is dying artistically, at least it always sold well. And I can't think of there being an end in sight; people are hyped up about Lupe Fiasco and Rhymefest, but I can't see these guys really pushing Usher numbers. I like the Rhymefest album (I have to listen to it more before I give the review); he's sort of doing the "Kanye when he was likeable" thing with more of a skill set. And let me just throw this out there: Kanye's rapping was not why "Late Registration" fell short of its enormous hype. It was the overbearing musicality of the thing. Just listen to "Bring Me Down" and you'll know what I mean.
When it comes down to it, Kanye's has more memorable lines than T.I., Lil' Wayne and Young Jeezy combined. Doesn't that count for something any more? You'd love to ride out on this guy, but the last paragraph is dead on. Of course, it doesn't help when this guy is (I think) an A&R at Atlantic. He's not a mountain climber, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't play an electric guitar, but this was the shit GZA was talking on some album that seemingly no one with any pull in the industry gives a shit about.
It doesn't matter that they don't have skills as people in the blog world know 'em. I used to be with it, and then they changed what it was. And what is it is weird and creepy to me. Memorable rap lyrics are not at a premium right now, and "The Big Bang" sure as shit ain't gon' change that.
And Lupe's a strong MC, but I think he's a little too dry for most palettes. Once again, I have to give "Food & Liquor" more of a listen, but this seems to be on some Gang Starr shit, where you can't fuck with the technique or the sentiments, but it doesn't feel all that exciting.
To me, it seems like the problem is that the whole world of hip-hop is being put on hold in a concerted effort to make Rick Ross famous. I mean, I understood the millions of dollars that were funneled into "The Documentary"; I'm not saying it should've happened, but I understand. While it certainly didn't create a good precedent, The Game's story was certainly marketable. But Rick Ross? Is there anyone whose opinions on hip-hop you care about that thinks he's something other than some asshole with a LeBron beard repping a city that even its own citizens couldn't give two shits about? At least when Trick Daddy stepped up for the 305, he had guys like Warren Sapp and Edgerrin James in his videos. Rick Ross gets Fat Joe to wipe off his T-shirt for what seems like a whole minute and is most certainly the most uncomfortable image in music videos in 2006.
Don't even get me started on "Hustlin'." Say what you will about "Still Tippin'," but that was a song that at least let you in on what a city's sound was like and it happened to have the best verses Slim Thug and Paul Wall will probably ever come up with. A rap song on the radio named "Hustlin'" by some guy you've never heard of is the equivalent of a pop song on the radio by some guy you've never heard of named "Beautiful"; you can assume it sucks and be correct 99.9% of the time.
- If George Bush had any responsibility whatsoever for this, his approval rating should be at 98%, the 2% being Honda employees, Gwen Stefani and bloggers with a brown girl fetish (just so long as she isn't black) and fundamentally awful taste in music. I like the whole "collaborating with Timbaland" thing. Not only does it prove that he's pretty much tapped out, but it goes with my original thoughts on M.I.A.: she's Nelly Furtado after two years of college (even though Nelly Furtado is like, what, 42?). Except M.I.A. never made a song as good as "On The Radio."
- Lastly, is there anything that's more of a foregone conclusion than overwhelming critical praise for the new Dixie Chicks CD? I'm not saying whether it will deserve it or not; but it'll certainly get it.
posted by Ian at 11:23 AM
<< Home