We're with you, Deadspin
Big ups to Boomer for catching me up with the rest of the sports world on this phenomenon. How could such an avid watcher of sports as me be so far behind on this? Why don't I read
Deadspin more? What the hell is Adam talking about? That question I can answer. I refer to the
"You're with me, Leather" movement that has swept the Internet and the airwaves and left me behind. It has spawned SportsCenter references and t-shirts featured on TRL. And yet I remained in the dark until the benevolent light of the Booms shined on me. I'm with you, Boomer.
As an aside, it's strange and somewhat ironic that the buddy of mine who pointed this whole thing out to be goes by the same nickname as the phenomenon's (unwitting) creator, ESPN's Chris Berman. Just saying.
Hype, Chill, and everywhere in between
So I have a buddy named Chris. He's definitely the inspiration for this post. See Chris is what could be described as a chill kind of guy - laid back, plays Halo, grows a cactus, spurned Dupont because its engineers were too materialistic and hype, etc. Chris revels in his chillness. At times, it can be a site to behold. If there is one thing Chris abhors, it's probably
DKs, but that's only because they are his least favorite kind of hypes. Hypes can be difficult to define, but, to borrow a phrase from Justice Potter Stewart, we know them when we see them. Unlike the Supreme Court, which left the question up in the air on pornography, I decided to tackle the hype-chill issue head-on.
Thus was born the Hypometer. With the aid of some friends - including the aforementioned Chris, and most notably my buddy Boomer - I began to compile a list, really more of a ranking, of major and minor events and people, according to how hype or chill they were. The resulting scale is kind of a pH score - the lower the number, the more hype something is, and the higher the number, the more chill. Now, this is not a measure of "good" or "bad," no matter how much Chris might want to equate chill with the former. It's simply a measure of the coverage or the personality of whatever is being measured. I suppose another axis could be added, but it would take a better man to do that. Anyhow, the Hypometer has made the jump from its original home on my AIM profile, which it will continue to inhabit, to Culturegeist.
Of course, the Hypometer is always updating and changing. You will definitely notice watershed events being reflected (
e.g. Dwyane Wade). There will also be a pick of the week feature, which is something in the world that I think you should pay attention to. One last note: if you don't recognize some of the names and can't find them on Google, they're probably just friends of mine that made the list, so don't fret. And one more final note: the Hypometer is purely subjective, and it is open to suggestion. So feel free to leave comments on any post nominating something for the Hypometer or whatever. Enjoy.
Monster Ballads for the new generation!
Yes, that title is a
bit sarcastically happy. I never got into the hair bands thing - I wasn't born until the end of 1983 after all - so I guess I never fully appreciated the whole monster ballad thing. However, the time has come. My generation has finally grown up. The music we grew up with now has its own ballad CD. That's right, the era of the
Buzz Ballad has arrived. I don't know whether to be happy or scared. In my own mind, obviously, the music of Tonic and Third Eye Blind and Oasis (and Everlast, and Sublime, and Bush) is beyond comparison with Twisted Sister or Damn Yankees or Mr. Big. But I'll be the first to say that Lifehouse and Fuel and especially Hole lasted a little longer than they should have. Oh well. Every generation goes through this. After just glancing at the track list for a sec, there is one very obvious omission from the buzz ballad 2-CD set: Drive, by Incubus. How're you gonna forget Incubus like that?
The Sports Guy does Internet video
Short & quick: Bill Simmons over on Page2 has a list of his
33 best YouTube vids. Definitely something worth checking out. I would make the semi-obligatory two paragraph statement about how amazing the Internet is and how far it has come, but I think I'll let the Sports Guy handle that. Enjoy.a
Newspapers to world: "We're not dead, yet!"
I'm not going to lie. One reason I want to keep this blog is because I have an overinflated opinion of my...opinions. But I also want to hone my own writing skills, and to keep the ability to write like a person once I go to law school in the fall. My understanding is that legal writing doesn't resemble anything else of this world. I should also admit that should a career in the legal profession not pan out, I wouldn't mind looking for a job writing for somebody, somewhere (hence the skills honing). Hopefully it won't come to that, but it never hurts to have a backup plan.
The reason I write all this is the state of the newspaper industry today.
Slate's Jack Shafer, the same man who (convincingly)
argued for NYT readers to wholly migrate online, just put out a piece on the current stage of the long, drawn-out (but profitable)
death currently being suffered by newspapers around the country. He makes a lot of good points, especially at the end. The word "New" (especially with that capital N) causes a lot of trouble, what with the New Economy and the New Media, but I think the latter
is here to stay. I don't want to say that blogs and other "unprofessional" websites are going to replace the classic media. That's stupid. Even
Wonkette says she, and other bloggers, are supplements to and checks on the media, not replacements for them. In a culture where we are bombarded by information from all directions and simultaneously starved for entertainment, more options are a must. Besides, coupons out of the Sunday paper are much better than printing them from the Internet. Long live the daily.
Why I hate unbiased coverage of the World Cup
So we're out of the World Cup. There, I said it, even if ESPN won't - or at least will try not to.
We are out of the World Cup. That's right, all impartiality is out of the way. I am a fan of the United States Men's National Soccer team, dammit, and I'm going to write that way! I suppose ESPN's coverage was actually pretty high on the support, as well - several of their analysts only thinly veiled their support for the US side. Julie Foudy, in a remote from her soccer camp, even took a job at the concept of impartially covering the event. I was initially going to write this post about the reaction of the international press to this "bias," but instead of defending soccer heroes cum analysts like Foudy, Eric Wynalda, Alexi Lalas, and Marcelo Balboa from the international press, I think I'm going to take on the idiocy of trying to cover an international sporting event without bias.
I don't mean we should insert politics or racism into sports coverage - this is a time for friends, after all. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there should be nothing wrong with being a fan, especially when the vast majority of viewers are rooting for the same team. Why do we treat national/international coverage differently than local coverage? Have you ever listened to radio coverage of a basketball game or watched WGN's coverage of the Cubs? There is no feigning neutrality in local sports coverage. The commentators are unabashed partisans, and that's okay. More than that, it's great. It makes watching much more entertaining when the announcer has a point of view. I would much rather listen to WFBQ's audio feed of Colts games than listen to CBS's commentators. So why is it that "local" coverage of the World Cup by ESPN and ABC feels like they must put up a facade of impartiality?
From my limited understanding of foreign coverage of the World Cup, we might be an anomaly. I have heard that Spanish announcers make no bones about supporting their side, even wearing their team's jersey while announcing the game. Obviously ESPN understands who is watching their coverage, and they do aim to please, describing on SportsCenter exactly how the US can advance. But they simply go out of their way not to use the word
we to refer to the US side.
I do want to make one comment about Marcelo Balboa's complaints about the officiating. His comments about the Italy-USA match are obviously the most hyped of them, but they aren't the only ones. He's been vocally criticizing the referees in most games. Even the well-officiated matches he uses to criticize the poorly officiated games. Also, in case anybody is wondering, the man does have a point.
Why can't all commercials be beer commercials?
Overheard at a recent clandestine meeting:
Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to induct another campaign into the Beer Ad Hall of Fame. I suppose that by rule, we will have to wait another several years until it can properly be considered, but I think this one is in on the first ballot, just like recent inductees Bud, Weis, and Er the Frogs as well as Louie and Frankie the Lizards. Cedric the Entertainer is on the fringe of getting in, but more for his longevity than his brilliance. The candidate of which I speak is not of the famed Anheuser-Busch lineage, which of course includes the aforementioned Hall of Famers (and also George Clooney). No, this campaign springs from the loins of their bitter rivals from Wisconsin, the Miller Brewing Company. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Committee, I nominate for early consideration the Men of the Square Table, and their Man Laws!I love beer commercials. Even when I dislike the beer in question. These Miller Lite commercials are a great example - I hate, Hate, Miller Lite as a beer, though not as much as I despise Coors Light - which is brewed, shipped, and stored cold only because its taste needs all the help it can get (as do the commercials). Yet, despite my distaste for the product, I love the commercials. One thing must be noted when I refer to great advertisements. I'm not looking at effectiveness - obviously if a commercial does nothing to sway me toward a particular product, it is not a successful effort. I'm talking about entertainment value, although by creating an entertaining commercial, a company gets its product talked about by the water cooler and on two-bit pop culture blogs, which raises awareness, which is in itself one measure of a successful commercial, so I suppose there's that.
I particularly enjoy these particular beer commercials. The cast is great: everybody from Burt Reynolds to a pro wrestler to the guy who cut his own hand off after a boulder fell on it, plus the token black guy. Then there's the premise, which I would hope requires no explanation here. The idea of a sacred set of rules for men are nothing new to any group of guys. The Man's Code is well known in all parts, at least in theory. Of course, different geographical areas and different crews will abide by different variations of the Code, but every guy inherently believes that the variant practiced by his group is the one and only proper code, and all others are heretics and blasphemers. Part of the brilliance of the Square Table is its ambition in establishing a uniform set of Man Laws. Its genius also lies in its nod toward the discrepancies that exist among different groups in the form of legislative debate. I suppose the humor helps, too. All in all, I think this has the potential to be what Bill Simmons would call a Pantheon commercial, joining the other all-time great beer ads.
The Beautiful Fever
As you will all figure out by the many references I'm bound to make, I like to wake up to ESPN Radio & ESPN2's morning show
Mike & Mike in the Morning. For those uninitiated, it involves ex-Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman and ESPN NFL analyst Mike Golic arguing, joking, and otherwise just talking sports with the self-described metrosexual sportscaster, SportsCenter anchor Mike Greenberg. The combination is pure magic. Besides the joking that goes on, often involving recorded song, the show is thankfully heavy on that thing only sports fans can truly appreciate: overly technical analysis from ESPN's cadre of commentators. Anyway, you can learn more about Mike & Mike on your own time. This post is about soccer.
Now, I've been a fan of soccer since the first grade, which is approximately when I learned what soccer was. When my parents moved us out to the suburbs, the better parks meant more organized sports to keep me busy after baseball season ended midway through the summer. There were two options: American football, which my mother deplored - no chance of her child playing that (never mind that I had the physique of a potential OL) - and European football, soccer. The choice was simple, and my family joined the ranks of the other minivan-driving soccer families. When the World Cup came to the States later in my elementary school career, I was pretty well hooked on the beautiful game. The founding of
Major League Soccer cemented my love of the sport, and not even the last place finish of the US in the 1998 World Cup could diminish my enthusiasm.
Fast forward to 2006, just after the Americans' flat-footed
dismantling at the hands (well, feet) of the Czech Republic, and I'm still hooked. Only now, it seems that others might be, as well. More and more, I hear people saying, "I'm not a big fan of soccer, but I'll watch some of the World Cup," or even more poignantly, "I don't watch a lot of soccer, but that goal was amazing!"
It even permeated my favorite morning show today, as both Mikes admitted to being hooked on World Cup 2006. Neither of them, it seems, can stop watching, be it at the gym (as Greeny specified, on the eliptical machine) or in the newsroom. I'm loving it. Finally, men of some sway in the world of American sport are catching the soccer fever, if only for one month of every 48.
Excuse our clutter
It's been a while, huh? Nearly two years, you say? Oh, pish, as my buddy Pat would say. I'm sure those of you who actually remember the Culturegeist of two years ago have already noticed the new look of the place. For instance, there's the new color scheme, and we are now minus two guys, down to just me, at least for the time being. It will be just me and my sensibilities for the foreseeable future.
For those of you keeping track at home, here's a quick recap of my current standing - just for perspective's sake. I graduated from Purdue University last month with a degree in Political Science and History. I'm still in West Lafayette for the summer, working for the food service and recruiting impressionable freshmen-to-be to work for the man. Come August, I'll be off to the nation's capital to begin my legal education at Georgetown University Law Center, which is to say, there's a solid chance that this resurgance won't last more than a couple of months. Nevertheless, here goes.
