In This Hour of Totality

Manny still lingers, John Wall's debut is vague, if crackling, until the final exclamation point, Jennings with a positively fearsome second half and OT in a loss to the Mavs. They threw everything at him, including the war with Beaubois that was like watching photon particles at play, and the plays still happened. And looming over, under, or behind it all, this Iverson news that raises more questions than it settles.

Here's my magnum opus on Allen Iverson, right and now and forever, at least until his career's a decade in the ground. It sounds like this:

Allen Iverson was, and still is, heaven or the great below. He shakes basketball to its very foundations or, according to some, is foolish enough to think he can. He changed the game, though not necessarily for the better. We have been forced to take him at face value, and in the process awaken all sorts of even more inspirational, or degrading, feelings about race, culture, and the structure of American society. "Ambivalence" doesn't even fit. That was Kobe; Iverson is a player who exists in two different worlds.

Now go read the rest, so you won't be sore if this Manny/Jennings post waits another day. Oh, and speaking of Manny. . .



That's the trailer for his new film, and I like to think the crab represents Floyd. Via Sporting Blog, via Last Angry Fan and Film Drunk.

Final announcement, until I try and post late in the day: I've thrown caution, and looks, to the wind and just started throwing up out-of-print NBA classics in the Amazon widget. Profit motive aside, you people really need to read all of these.

A Significant Bullet

When we found out that Elton Brand produced Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, it seemed like an amazing convergence of basketball and one of the most influential figures for this site. Then it turned out the relationship was pretty basic -- at a Q&A I went to almost two years ago, Herzog said he knew little about Brand's athletic career, met him through a mutual business associate, and found him to be an all-together pleasant individual. (The major revelation of the story was that said associate is a 300-lb ex-truck driver/nightclub owner.) An interesting moment, to be sure, but not a mind-breaking collision of worlds.

But now there's this, from a recent interview with Herzog in Vice:

La Soufrière is a good example of one of your many films where athleticism, or at least enduring very harsh and inhospitable conditions, was essential to the making of it. Are you worried about aging to the point where taking these types of risks and putting your body through these intense experiences are no longer possible?
No, I don’t really care about that. The connection between athleticism and cinema is in part, of course, metaphoric. It’s about the understanding of movement in space. That’s why I admire NBA players so much—how they move and how they understand space is just phenomenal. Besides, it is a statistical fact that a good amount of filmmakers have been quite athletic people. You don’t see that among painters or among musicians. I have never met a composer who was an athlete.

Surely a film about Ron-Ron bringing Asian pop music to the the ends of the world cannot be far off.

BONUS QUOTATION! -- From the press kit for Herzog's new film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: "I call upon the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one. Go for it, losers."

One Good Thing Explains Another

For my money, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is the best rock movie ever. Maybe Cocksucker Blues burns it alive when it comes to just plain hangin' out, falling in love, and playing it cool (emphatically NSFW video). But nothing quite captures the crushing desperation, snarling idealism, and complex post-Situationist trappings of punk rock like Stains.

As a bonus, you get perhaps the most realistic depiction of the adolescent female experience this side of Thirteen. You also seen that Laura Dern was kind of hot before she grew up, and Diane Lane has pretty much been hot since the day she was born, which since both were probably underaged during the filming of this movie should make you feel really weird. Or remind you of a scene in Six Feet Under that would be hilarious if it plopped down in the middle of Entourage, where Nate's friend tells him that sometimes he looks at his daughter's friends and feels something he hasn't felt since he was a teen himself.

The really awesome part about this movie, which would be the defining film of the decade were it not for Superman III, is that it was produced by Lou Adler. You know the face, if not the name. He sits next to Jack! He's at every Lakers game! He is basketball incarnate! And thus, like the brilliant plot-fuck that would result if you put The Orphan's twist at the end of Know1ng, all is right and it's time to sum up the off-season with some of the most quotable moments from the early going of Stains. Not a wasted word in it—kind of the opposite of this summer.

You know, you think this town wouldn't die. That's how dumb you are. This town died years ago!

Is Steve Nash talking about himself or the Suns here? Or the Arizona housing market?

And she died of lung cancer?

That's what they call it.

What do you call it?

Breathing.

Yao and T-Mac were always playing on borrowed time. You could say that we should enjoy what they gave us, or get really angry at them, like me when I read about Bill Walton.

You father was never around?

Your father is dead. BEEP He was in the army BEEP Means you get more money BEEP Have a good day BEEP

Artest has reached that point where he can't shock or surprise himself or others. So everything's cool. Like Hawaii being build on a bunch of volcanoes.

What goals did your mother have in life?

I don't know, I wouldn't call her and ask.

This whole "Kevin Durant gaining on LeBron" thing is bad for everyone involved, including fans of both.

Here you are, just sitting around at home wasting time

I wouldn't call it wasting time



I hope GMs are showing off their cap space as a means to get female attention.

What about love?

I'm too far gone for love.

Whatever happened to Kirilenko?

So long as you're alive. .

I mean, we can sit here and waste our precious time philosophizing about love, and make it sound terrific, but what it boils down to is that we're just a bunch of horny dogs.

And this is why Don Nelson will always have a job, even if he has to pay himself.

Do you think your views may change as you grow older?

Grow older?

Let's quit cautiously pealing away the onion's layers and admit that Iverson's bind is all about issues of African-American masculinity.

What happened to the furniture?

I sold it.

George Shinn should've thought of that before dealing everyone's BFF and NBA sex symbol Tyson Chandler.

I like you and your sister. I think you're all nice kids. But I say to myself. .

You'd better watch yourself, because if they catch you talking to yourself like that, they're going to fire you for sure.

Strangely meta-moment, seeing as the viewer is constantly asking him/herself "can I find a very young Diane Lane attractive, since she looks so much like later Diane Lane, and carries herself like an adult?" You people are sick! This line tells you that!

Now Corrine Burns, what are you going to do?

My name isn't Corrine Burns. It's Third Degree Burns. I'm the lead singer and manager of the Stains.

There has to be some player I'm forgetting who is sitting around waiting for a huge deal to drop in his lap. The one holdover who doesn't get that things have changed. I mean shit, even Tim Thomas went quietly.

One time I heard Larry Hughes and Darius Miles talk for half an hour about how each of them was going to get their next big contract. This was two years ago.

In case you haven't heard, you're the laughingstock of this town.

Hey, did you hear the one about David Kahn?

Don't you have something to do? You know. Maybe your homework for once. Or you could take Jason for a walk, or how about cleaning your room. Huh? What do you think?

Nice multiple choice.

Kevin Pritchard and the Blazers may have had to settle for Andre Miller. Or they showed they have the strength and cunning to contain multitudes. This is a central debate among scholars of class and values.

I gave you your name.

That's why it's so lousy.

Actual exchange between Donald Sterling and Elgin Baylor.

We're the #1 rock 'n' roll group in the world and we're going to see that everything's going to be different. It's got to change. The first thing we're going to do, we're going to build a radio station tomorrow. And we're not going to play no commercials, or no news. Just rock 'n' roll and the truth. 1-2-3-4!!!!!!

You don't draft Brandon Jennings to come along slowly or get muzzled by Skiles. You grab a new era by the horns and hope you've got good insurance.

Now you're really going to have a freak.

Zach Randolph to Memphis only makes sense if that's where the Ghostbusters have built their new containment unit.

ELSEWHERE: On a more serious, less petty note, please read my column on the joys of restricted free agency.