walter ftw has moved.

The new site is There Are No Fours over at Tumblr, and it's basically the exact same thing except I keep up with it and it's easy to read.

i'm not lost, but i don't know where i am.

(I realize that, after a month-long absence, I should probably be bringing a little more heat than a college football recap.  That's not the case, but then again Welsh corgis.)

LSU's victory* over North Carolina was, shall we say, underwhelming.  As with last year, the most obviously frustrating issue was offensive coaching.  Gary Crowton, as Paul Crewe at ATVS noted, can design some very pretty plays.  Unfortunately, his implementation in-game is lacking both strategically and tactically, and I don't know how satisfied I am (to say nothing of the perpetually-scowling Jordan Jefferson) with the "Don't make the same mistakes as 2008" excuse. 

one day it'll take, and they'll start to make shirts that fit right.

BREAKING:  Chris Paul is tired of this shit.

--First, the pressing sports news of all our lifetimes:  Chris Paul possibly (but not really) getting traded from New Orleans.  I was going to address this in a separate post, but I had serious doubts that Paul was going to be moved before the start (or end) of next season -- he's simply too valuable, and of all the teams on his supposed wish list, only the Lakers could really send anything back worth the Hornet FO's while.  It could still happen, and I'd understand Paul's reasons for leaving; it is unlikely that he'll be in championship contention in NOLA, the team should have told him about trading Tyson Chandler and firing Byron Scott, and he does play for one of the worst owners in the NBA.

That said, these are problems with fairly clear remedies if Paul's willing to look long-term.  And it goes without saying that the front office can't trade Paul; he's one of the only draws for a team that's hemorrhaging money.  It's highly likely that a Paul-less Hornets organization folds within the next few years.  Again, I understand where Paul's coming from.  The only aspect of this that I really hate is LeBron's obvious influence, even if it's only the influence of the precedent the Heat set.  It's entirely possible that I'll write a Comic Sans-laced tirade if Paul does leave (and be mocked by Chili's accordingly), but for the moment, at least, I can feign objectivity.

let's call me a baptist, call this a drowning of the past.

In Frightened Rabbit's breakout second LP, The Midnight Organ Fight, frontman and songwriter Scott Hutchison confessed his struggles with depression and alcoholism in, to use his language, "brutal" and "oppressive" detail.  For all its glumness, though, The Midnight Organ Fight is still a remarkably honest, exciting album; its combination of earnest vocals, dire subject matter, and propulsive folk-pop reminded me of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, only without some of the consistency and nuances of design and theme that made that album so singularly great.  To invite the comparison at all is about as high a compliment as I can pay a record.

Having said that, I think that The Winter of Mixed Drinks, Frightened Rabbit's 2010 follow-up, is even better.  Give the record's first four tracks -- its best -- a listen; if you're not hooked, then I don't think I want to know you.  The band, centered around Scott Hutchison and his brother Grant on drums, expanded its sound considerably from The Midnight Organ Fight, which leaned a little more heavily on the folk part of the folk-pop equation.  The addition of Make Model's Gordon Skene, along with Scott Hutchison's changing sensibilities, help weigh Winter decidedly in the opposite direction; even with the added shoegaze elements and the percussive stomp from the band's roots in Scottish folk, each one of those first four songs is unabashed, anthemic pop.

Accompanying a somewhat more accessible musical style is a relatively more optimistic outlook on life.  The Midnight Organ Fight was a breakup album in the vein of Beck's Sea Change, a remarkably detailed look at Hutchison's misery from beginning to end.  The Winter of Mixed Drinks listens like a self-help record by comparison; the dominant theme of The Midnight Organ Fight was trying to understand or to even accept pain, and The Winter of Mixed Drinks, with its nautical imagery, is about fighting it.  "Swim Until You Can't See Land" is about an act of desperation as much as anything else; the narrator has to take to the sea lest his myriad worries back home overtake him.  Sure, he might drown (as the reprise "Man/Bag of Sand" implies) but at least he's given himself a fighting chance. 

meaningless? you mean it's all been meaningless?

My best friend in elementary school was Matt McAnnally, and our friendship was, like those of many children our age, rooted in a mutual appreciation of Tekken and Animorphs.  In spite of those time-tested foundations, however, our relationship flagged and sputtered once we went to middle school.  One day, sitting on the opposite side of the bus from Matt, an older kid sat down next to me and said, “So, you guys aren’t friends anymore?  He’s acting too cool for you now, I guess, hanging out with other kids.”

I was awestruck.  This person, a complete stranger, had diagnosed the unspoken seed of discontent nestled in the heart of my friendship with Matt.  I was impressed not only with his perspicacity but also with the fact that, upon reflection, maybe my experience wasn’t unique, wasn’t special.  Maybe our story was just like everyone else’s.

Listening to 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields—the concept album brainchild of songwriter Stephin Merritt—gave me that same feeling, making me wonder if there was an emotion that couldn’t be encapsulated in a three-minute pop song.  The titular love songs are really songs about love songs, about the craft and inherent dishonesty involved in trying to write a love song for mass digestion.  There are a few you can point to that might be sincere, but by and large they’re clever, irreverent, funny metafiction. 

all that i wanted was the freedom of a new life, so my burden i began to divest.

Diplomacy is a board game similar to Risk, but without that special "realize one hour into the game that no one's having any fun" quality.  The biggest difference is that there's really no element of chance; you can be tricked, certainly, but the little armies and navies on the board win or lose their battles because of math, not dice.  Winning the game requires both an ability to cut deals and a keen understanding, as in chess, of the possible moves your opponent can make.  You can backstab people, but you can only do it successfully if you understand the likely consequences of your actions.

Last night, during his interview with Michael Wilbon, LeBron James -- barely containing his excitement, eyes constantly darting offscreen -- looked like he'd made a power play for the ages.

you can't hear it on the radio, you can't hear it anywhere you go.

--America's nightmare descent into socialism has been delayed -- for now.  The Ghana game was tough to watch in both an agonizing and boring sort of way, and served as an especially fine example of the truism that Bob Bradley's greatest gift as a manager is correcting Bob Bradley's abundant tactical errors.  Cherundolo (and Bradley, for that matter) was too tired to keep up his excellent form from the past few games, and Gooch Onyewu, rehabbing or not, was best equipped to deal with the size/speed combo Ghana offered.

--And may I note, for the record, that soccer is the last, best hope of "go harder, win better!" analysis?  Baseball and football certainly suffer from it too, but there's at least the pretense of strategic analysis in those sports to go along with determining who does and does not have swagger (a term generally reserved for people of the natural athlete persuasion) or scrappiness (more appropriate for players of a fan favorite complexion).  With soccer, it really is just, "[Player name]...GOAL!/Just wide."  Or, if the announcer is the insufferable John Harkes, "THESE GUYS JUST NEED SOME HEART TO GO AND WIN OUT THERE!"

--In conclusion, the reason why America isn't more competitive in Ninja Warrior is that the best athletes in America are playing sports other than Ninja Warrior.  Think about it, people!

--Speaking of athletic competitions that are superior to soccer, Spencer Hall had an excellent post recently detailing one of my very favorite things about college football:  superdickery.  It's an incredible list (bolstered by incredible writing), but my favorite has to be the Jack Pardee story, which is just Biblical in its douchiness.

--Dr. Saturday is in the midst of Mid-Major week, and he's been absolutely on fire.  Hinton's blog is required reading anyways, but posts like this one on Saban show that, in addition to his great statistical analysis, he's a really funny guy, too.

then it's the memories of our betters that are keeping us on our feet.

(That’s three-for-three on LCD Soundsystem-inspired titles, by the way.)

My biggest problem with LCD Soundsystem (the alter ego of James Murphy) before I heard Sound of Silver was that I thought it was generic. I’d heard “Losing My Edge” and a bevy of other singles at a party no one in particular enjoyed; the wave of beats might as well have been Lady Gaga, or, hell, even the Black Eyed Peas. Compounding the issue was that what lyrics I could make out seemed phony, forced, or copied. Oh, it’s so tough to be an aging hipster! Oh, it’s so wearisome to go to all these parties!

Sound of Silver is a lot of things, but it isn’t generic. The album illustrates the basic similarities of dance and post-punk music, which in retrospect are pretty obvious; post-punk is much darker, but it’s no great surprise that the quintessential post-punk band, Joy Division, was reborn as the highly-successful electronic outfit New Order. The bookends of an excellent three-song run in the middle of the album, “Someone Great” and “Us v Them,” manage to combine driving, funky dance beats with jangling post-punk guitar and foreboding piano. The major themes of those two songs? Grief, paranoia, and isolation, hearkening back to a variety of Joy Division's wrist-slitting modes. The album’s major accomplishment isn’t making electronic music sad, which plenty of people have done (or attempted to do).  Sound of Silver’s success lies in never sacrificing its constant, stunning movement for atmosphere; most albums in this vein veer toward one genre or the other, but even in its more forgettable tracks, Sound of Silver meets dance and post-punk exactly halfway.

Is it authentic? Well, part of what makes the album so unique is that it’s copying a lot of different influences, and copying them effectively. The most victimized source is David Bowie: Murphy apes his voice shamelessly (but effectively) across the album, especially on the title track; the end of “Watch the Tapes” steals the relentless piano of “Star”; “New York I Love You” has the same blues structure, climaxes, and, on occasion, even the same lyrics as “Rock ‘n Roll Suicide”; and the album’s tone as a whole hearkens back to the Berlin era. David Byrne, Ian Curtis, and even Lou Reed all have legitimate complaints, too. Does that make the album less authentic? I tend to think so–it’s easy, for instance, to mimic David Byrne if you want to sound paranoid—but the album’s best song, and undoubtedly the best one Murphy will ever write, is completely sincere. “All My Friends” is a perfect song about a simple theme: home, found either in family or friends. It’s something you don’t see much, unfortunately, in indie music: something sweet, pure, and hopeful.

The presence of that great three-song run—“Someone Great,” “All My Friends,” and “Us v Them”—makes the rest of the album pale a bit in comparison. It’s consistently good ("Get Innocuous" and “New York I Love You” would highlight a lesser album), but there are still some weak tracks, especially the back-to-back “Time to Get Away” and “North American Scum,” which reminded me of a lot of the problems I had with LCD Soundsystem to begin with.  Sound of Silver is still an excellent album, but those conventional flaws leave it, in my opinion, just short of the canonical status it’s already reached in the critical community.

Grade: A-

us v. them, over and over again.

(Every time I do one of these reviews, I feel like Jim Gaffigan in this bit.  That said, here's a review of District 9.)

Whether or not you like District 9 is almost entirely dependent on whether you feel the movie accomplished its central aspiration to be something more than a competent sci-fi thriller. The movie takes place in a perpendicular-universe version of South Africa, where an alien mothership essentially ran out of gas above downtown Johannesburg.  The ship's inhabitants, a very gooey bunch of insectoid aliens nicknamed the Prawns, are found within and given safe haven in the city below.  Due both to xenophobia and the Prawns’ repulsive nature, the Prawns are soon cordoned off in the eponymous District 9, a sprawling shantytown filled with impoverished, desperate Prawns and Nigerian warlords trying to exploit alien technology.

The obvious apartheid allegory is made much stronger by the choice to make protagonist Wikus van de Merwe – well played by Sharlto Copley in his first professional role – an incompetent bureaucrat rather than a traditional hero.  Sent into District 9 to evict the Prawns from their homes so that they can be moved to concentration camps well outside of Johannesburg, Wikus presents a complex and darkly funny illustration of the banality of evil argument.  Putting Michael Scott (or David Brent, really) into an Adolf Eichmann role is an inspired decision, and Wikus’ character arc -- from stupidity and casual xenophobia to humanity and heroism -- is a much more satisfactory examination of the nature of racism than the other observations in the movie's world. 

The movie’s greatest shortcomings lie in its lack of depth, as the slick documentary-style opening explaining the human-Prawn relationship sacrifices a lot of detail for breadth.  Once we get to know some of the Prawns, we understand their motivations, but not how they expect to accomplish their goals.  The movie attempts what all great sci-fi tries to do, which is immerse the audience in a new world.  What prevents District 9 from reaching the level of, say, an Aliens, is that it lacks the detail necessary to convince the audience of its fantastic conceit when they take a break from the movie's relentless pace.

But yowza is this movie exciting. As a piece of visceral filmmaking, it’s basically flawless. It reminded me a lot of the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, another flawed yet extremely entertaining genre movie. The gore is intense, but you get used to it pretty quickly; by the last fifteen minutes of the movie, I gave a little fist pump when a Bad Guys Inc. sniper’s head exploded.  Also like 3:10 to Yuma, there are some nagging questions that emerge upon reflection, and resentment at some of the sentimental gimmickry (in this case, our utterly guiltless, sympathetic good-guy Prawn) the movie employs.  That said, you don't think about any of those things while you're watching the movie; you're too busy staring at the screen, hoping our boys make it out of there alive.

Grade:  B+

and if i'm sewn into submission, i can still come home to this.

--A few weeks ago I wrote down a to-do list of albums I still needed to listen to, consisting of the dozens I picked up this year and a dozen or so that I needed to revisit.  I just counted them up, and I've got 140 total.  I've listened to 20.  Every road, single step, and so on.

--I should've said something about the Finals last week, but didn't.  Suffice it to say that I'm the kind of masochist who enjoys games like Game 7, with its epic tension and incredible defensive performances.  As great as the Celtics' D was (particularly Garnett, who played with a truly legendary, life-or-death intensity reminiscent of the 2008 Playoffs), the way the Lakers rotated and communicated in the 4th quarter was magnificent.  Once I got past the sad realization that Garnett and Ray Allen would probably never have another shot at the title, I couldn't resent the Lakers' victory.  That team was just so damned good when it counted.

--I mention Garnett and Allen in particular because they're the most likely to get moved in this offseason, in my opinion.  Allen especially has been linked to trade talks, and on a team that asks less of him on defense (like, say, I don't know, the Cleveland Cavaliers), Ray will still be a lights-out shooter.  Garnett, meanwhile, has a mondo contract, and the Celtics are very much at a crossroads regarding his contributions vs. the team's future.

--In other sports news, the World Cup went ham on the collective American imagination, and it's been awesome (occasionally).  I was rooting especially hard for Cote d'Ivoir in the interest of Africa having something to cheer for, but Brazil took a big ol' dump on that dream.  Luckily, the US Mutant Ninja Turtles have performed well beyond my expectations, lucking into a 1-1 draw with England, a 3-2 draw with Slovenia, and a 1-0 win over Algeria.  I still think Landon Donovan's an alien, but I have to like him now.

talk on the phone. finish your homework. watch tv. DIE!

So why horror? As a viewer, you could—and this is certainly true of most movies in the genre— take horror movies as only cheap thrills, and the Final Destinations of the world wouldn’t hold it against you. The opposite side of the same notion is watching horror for gore-by-numbers, the torture porn of a Hostel or a Saw that, for all their violence, end up being an oddly sterile chore. You might also call watching horror a cathartic experience, embracing and ultimately expunging fear.  The prevalence of the “last girl standing” trope, best represented by The Descent, shows that at its heart, great horror thrives on trying to tap into its audience’s basic survival instincts.

As a director, horror makes sense largely from a financial point of view; while creature effects (and, certainly, CGI) can get very expensive, the majority of the horror canon—Romero’s Dead movies, Alien, Psycho, et al.—was assembled on a shoestring budget. For very little input, a horror movie, even one of very limited quality, can enjoy a highly successful second life on DVD. Moreover, the deluge of utter shit that’s oversaturated the genre, combined with a general critical abstention from genre films, has rendered standards so low as to be nonexistent. With so little cost required and so little in the way of expectations, why wouldn’t the enterprising young hack dedicate himself to horror and a lifetime of Syfy Originals?

Ti West’s involvement in horror comes from a different, more genuine place. Last year’s The House of the Devil, which West directed, wrote, and edited, reveals an earnest affection for the tropes of the genre and the 80’s slasher films of his youth. The plot, set in the 80’s, centers on Sam (the awfully pretty Jocelin Donahue), a penniless college student who reluctantly takes on a babysitting job for obvious creep Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan, one of the movie’s many 80s throwbacks). The situation is weird from the get-go, and only gets weirder when Mr. Ulman reveals that Sam will be babysitting his invalid mother, not a child.

After bargaining with Ulman for four times the original amount of money, Sam is, reluctantly, left alone in the house. Though she tries to kill time by listening to her comically huge Walkman and meandering around, we know that it’s just a matter of time before she finds, as she wanders from room to room, the horrible secrets that the house has waiting for her. The tension, punctuated by a sudden (and thoroughly shocking) act of violence in the movie’s second act, is absolutely stifling, and might be my favorite example of the adage, “It’s what you don’t see that scares you.”

Along with the suspense, the movie’s most rewarding aspect is how fully it immerses itself in both horror movie standbys and in the 80s. Traditions like the false alarm, the “based on real events” disclaimer, the last girl standing, and the dark staircase are all embraced and riffed on with surprising affection. Moreover, holy shit is this movie 80s: there’s plenty of feathered hair, stonewashed jeans, and flannel to go around. There are countless signs in the direction (West is particularly enamored of slow zooms, a la Rosemary’s Baby), casting (Tom Noonan was a go-to sympathetic villain in the 80s, and plays a very similar role here), and editing choices that The House of the Devil is a labor of love for West.

And, in Hitchcockian fashion, West is more concerned with the slow boil of anticipation than he is with the movie’s big reveal, which is a little disappointing. The fun of the movie is following Sam as she discovers just how big a mistake she’s made, and watching the obvious joy West takes in filming it. While the end result is somewhat predictable (and prompted a lot of negative reactions to the movie), people looking for more than instant gratification or heaps of gore will have found something far better: a masterful and just plain fun homage to 80s horror, and a bona fide auteur working in genre film.

Grade: A

are you a man, or are you a bag of sand?

--After complaining about a slowing sports news cycle, yowza did we get some news.

--First off, it's been real, Big 12.  I kind of resent that the SEC looks like it's going to get stuck with Texas A & M out of the Big 12 South, but when Mike Slive said that he wouldn't let the SEC be anything less than it is, I believed him.  The conference cannibalism has just begun, I'm sure; my bet is that the SEC (along with its equal payment and ridiculously lucrative TV contracts) will be letting Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, and Florida St. what it's all about sooner rather than later.

--Also, tell me how it tastes, USC.  The NCAA absolutely kerploded any chance of a successful beginning to the Lane Kiffin era at Southern Cal; how long do you think Galippo, Kennard, et. al. will stick around with no chance of winning a championship, and no penalty for transferring?  What about Barkley?  Between this and his version of Scott's Tots, Bush is somehow even more of a douchebag than I'd begrudgingly accepted to be the case.  USC will still keep the 2004 onepeat, and hey, at least someone's keeping this all in perspective.

--Speaking of Reggie, I had said in the past that the NFL's thank you commercial was probably the best commercial I'd ever seen.  Well, the flavor done changed:  well played, NBA, you glorious bastards.

--The Finals haven't been incredible (thank the refs), but both teams have legitimate paths to victory (getting the ball to Pau for the Lakers, getting the bench involved for the C's) after the Celtics forced a best-of-three last night.  I'm loving Garnett's play (especially on D) and Glen Davis/Rasheed Wallace/Ray Allen's goofy faces.

--I've neglected what's probably the most important sports item of the summer, the World Cup, and sweet, sweet jingoism.  In all likelihood the U.S. is scooting towards another ignominious showing in the tournament, but thankfully Spencer Hall has a highly scientific guide to rooting for someone else pending USA's inevitable early exit.  Cote d'Ivoire (and lots of The Very Best, for atmosphere's sake) is my fallback, and, failing that, I always know who to hate.  (h/t SB Nation for that awesome Dodge commercial).

--The internet is basically just one convoluted episode of Cold Case:  Peeds Edition for pop culture, and the jig is up, Falkor. (h/t Videogum)

--I promised not to get political at the beginning of this blog, but BP is the new Jay Leno, so here's a tremendous Onion article on the OilCane.  It's stuff like the oil spill (and BP's hilariously callous reaction to it) that simultaneously make me feel vindicated for quitting politics while making me want to get involved again.

--I've been on a huge Neil Gaiman kick these last few weeks.  Between this story and his opinion of Alabama, you probably should be too, if you've got a taste for anything fantastical.

--Finally, if you aren't already, you need to be listening to Frightened Rabbit.  Just like in life, sincerity is the most important part of great music, and the Frightened Rabbit is on the same level as Arcade Fire and Neutral Milk Hotel as far as honesty goes.  Their sophomore album, The Midnight Organ Fight, is occasionally excellent, but it's their most recent album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, that's immediately great.  What an awesome year for music so far.

i'm just a great composer, and not a violent man.

--Sorry for the lack of postage, but I've been surprisingly busy (Starcraft won't play itself) and, to be honest, from a sports and pop culture oddities standpoint, things have been pretty slow.

--One in a long line of totally normal, sane things you see from the Westboro Baptist cult.  The little interview link from that page with Phelps' daughter just keeping it real about Heath Ledger is worth a watch, too.  (h/t AV Club).

--I'm honestly surprised that no one did this sooner, but these kids executed it very well.  (h/t Videogum)

--Kelly Bensimon (of Real Housewives fame and a more general sort of crazy people fame) made an anti-bullying PSA, and it makes me want to take her lunch money and give her a swirly.

--I expected so much more from the mind behind "Ahab the Arab."  A rare miss, Ray Stevens.

--Sports-wise, there's not a lot to talk about.  Even though I don't know much about soccer, I'm eagerly awaiting the US national team to continue its streak of disappointing World Cup showings.  On the NBA tip, Celtics-Lakers is a good, if not ideal, Finals matchup; I would've loved for Steve Nash to get a chance at the big one before the decline really sets in, but the Lakers were really just the better team in that series.  And yeah, watching this was really tough.

--Speaking of tearjerking/audible "awww" moments in sports, Chad Johnson remains the most lovable narcissist in the NFL, and this Kenechi Udeze story is just awesome.

--The Clash, Frightened Rabbit, and the Magnetic Fields have been in heavy rotation for me recently.  Hopefully I can cook up an album review (takes longer than you might think, yo) before I go on my trip to Chicago on Friday.

--In other great music news, how about this band Buckcherry?  I somehow managed to avoid hearing that song for my entire life, and now I feel I'm an irrevocably changed, damaged man.  I don't throw Canadian money at the homeless anymore, laughing and laughing as I drive away in my Porsche; now I gently clasp their hands around hundred-dollar bills and cry a single, manly tear for them.  Thanks to Buckcherry, I now know what it's like to live on the margins of society, in the mouth of madness, amongst the damned.  Also, how's that sweet band name treating you, Buckcherry?  Jesus.

--In conclusion, Lost ended.

he meant to shine, to the end of the line.

I make lists.  I love reading lists.  If someone’s being called the greatest player ever in their sport, I want to see where they fit in a list – why not number two, or number three?  Who else would fill those spots?  So naturally I was excited when I found a list of the greatest players in baseball via a stat called wins above replacement (WAR), i.e., how many more wins a player contributed to his team than the average player at his position.

If you average WAR out per season (roughly 700 plate appearances, although that’s on the high side), the only current players in the top 25 are Alex Rodriguez (no. 20), Joe Mauer (no. 14), and Albert Pujols (no. 6, I can dig it).  If we go by totals WAR, Pujols is only 40^th overall.  Coming in at number one in both lists is, unsurprisingly, Babe Ruth.  His total WAR of 172 is only six tenths of a win higher than Barry Bonds, but Ruth’s value averages out to more than two full wins a season better than Bonds.  Add in Ruth’s value as a pitcher—another 18 total wins—and his total of 190 WAR is effectively untouchable.

Ruth was a singularly dominant player, and he was a singularly beloved personality.  He was maybe the most famous American of his time (although Charles Lindbergh would certainly have a case) and has since been ensconced not only in the Hall of Fame but also in baseball lore.  Ruth is, along with Cy Young, a central deity, whose larger-than-life antics seem innocent after (and, in part, helped to facilitate) decades of mythologizing.  Ruth’s alcoholism and womanizing are venal offenses compared to, say, Ty Cobb’s violent racism, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox, or decades of greenies, steroid controversy, and centaur portraits.  Instead, they're proof of his humanity.  Ruth is the great American athlete, and rightfully so—no one has ever dominated a sport as thoroughly as he dominated baseball, nor combined talent with humanity like he did. 

Football, true to its roots as the most democratic of American sports, has many candidates for the position of greatest ever.  Quarterbacks are the most obvious:  Otto Graham and Bart Starr, the definitive winners; Johnny Unitas, the pioneer; Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning, all master practitioners of innovative strategies.  Running backs are also awash with possibilities:  Jim Brown and Barry Sanders, the best pure runners; Walter Payton and Emmitt Smith, well-rounded workhorses; Marshall Faulk and LaDainian Tomlinson, who redefined the position.  The competition runs deep at every position except wide receiver, and even with a well-established pantheon, there’s no Zeus here.

now they got the sun and they got the palm trees, they got the weed and they got the taxis.

--First off, for Firefox at least, if you want to open a link in a new window, hold CTRL and click on it.  Second, sorry for the hiatus - I've been ridiculously busy with the home stretch of schoolwork/out of the country (in Texas).

--This truly is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, and provides superfluous evidence that every Hollywood exec in existence is ten years old.  In other news, though I generally shy away from Sean O'Neal's reviews, the man can write a headline.

--Speaking of the AV Club, their weekly series of covers by visiting musicians, AV Club Undercover, has been consistently good thus far.  Ben Folds' cover of Elliott Smith's "Say Yes" last week was my favorite of the bunch, and I can't wait for the "Two-Headed Boy" cover.

--Here's what this blog will look like when Geocities makes its inevitable comeback.  The internet is the best sometimes.

--And yet, it is also the worst sometimes.  Though Betty White has acquitted herself pretty admirably in her recent TV spots, the people who are clamoring for an octogenarian to return to the forefront of TV comedy right now deserve to watch this happen.  Sorry, Betty - it's...evolving.

--Whoever thought to do this is a saint.  Although I haven't been able to keep up with Treme as much as I'd like (and yikes has it gotten preachy), I can still appreciate the music, and it helps me get through the tedium of my job.

i tell you, like before, you should say his name the way he said yours.

I was trying - futilely, as it turned out - to do some research on the Mensheviks with this awful ringtone rap/Beyonce + thick-ass beats = profit/churning unremarkable synth-pop anthem party going on outside.  Just boring, reprehensible music.  Here's what I decided to do instead, before holing up in the library:

--This video is a beautiful idea beautifully executed; it's the Platonic ideal of ironic, retrosexual youtube videos.  "Help," by the way, has to be in my top five Beatles songs.  (h/t Videogum).

--Grant Hill seems like a cool guy, and J.A. Adande has a nice piece on what really is an incredible - and tragic, in the traditional sense of the word - story.  Speaking of current Phoenix Suns, Love in the Time of LeBron has some compelling reasons to like Channing Frye, the team's enormous Stephen Curry, and Steve Nash, the most consciously anti-mainstream MVP in any sport.  My favorites:  the most ridiculous man in the world, and the futuristic, web 2.0 commercial for VitaminWater's facebook.  (h/t SB Nation).

some thoughts on the draft.

--The big winners, as far as I'm concerned:

• The Ravens.  And the rich get richer.  They got Sergio Kindle, a first-round talent, in the second; they got even deeper on the defensive line by snagging Terrence Cody (with him next to Haloti Ngata, who's going to run on the Ravens?); they upgraded their biggest weakness on offense, TE, with two promising projects; and got some solid depth (and, in Art Jones, talent) with later picks.
• The Eagles.  They went in with a ridiculous number of draft picks, and made good use of nearly all of them.  They needed a pass rusher to complement Trent Cole, and picked up his clone Brandon Graham; they needed depth at safety, and they picked up the most well-rounded FS not named Eric Berry in Nate Allen; Charles Scott, Jamar Chaney, and Jeff Owens were all great late-round pickups (mid-round projections for all of them).
• The Seahawks.  Great first draft for Pete Carroll.  He picked up Russell Okung, a premier pass-blocking left tackle; Earl Thomas, a great coverage safety (or possibly zone cornerback); Golden Tate, maybe the best wideout in the draft; Kam Chancellor, Taylor Mays-lite; Walter Thurmond, a top-tier corner when healthy; and Anthony McCoy, as talented a tight end as any in this class.  Just a great draft for a team on the ropes.
• The Jets.  Pound-for-pound the best draft of any team this year.  They might have gotten the draft's best corner in Kyle Wilson (clearly Rex Ryan is down with the capital CPT, and who's going to throw on the Jets now?), a ridiculously talented but raw interior lineman in Vladimir Ducasse, and great value picks for the backfield in HB Joe McKnight and Kentucky FB John Conner.
• The Titans.  Terrific draft for the Titans.  They got three of my favorite prospects in WR Damian Williams, OLB Rennie Curran, and CB Alterraun Verner, to say nothing of Derrick Morgan, who might be the best DE in the draft.  Plus, safety depth and talent in Myron Rolle and Utah's Robert Johnson.
• The Raiders.  Not completely out of left field, although I will admit that I thought they'd draft Bruce Campbell a lot sooner.  McClain was a great pick for their burgeoning 3-4 defense (the skills I thought he'd bring to Buffalo will apply in Oakland), and Lamarr Houston is a talented, penetrating 3-4 DE.  They addressed the biggest questions on the offensive line with some high-risk, high-reward OTs in Jared Veldheer and Bruce Campbell.  Jacoby Ford will improve their return game, and Walt McFadden is a good corner.
• Honorable mentions:  the Bucs, Lions, and Packers.

you say you stand by your man -- mock draft 2.0.

I was pleased, generally speaking, with my first go-round at mocking this.  I'm still a little torn on whether I want to draft for what I think will happen or what teams need, but I tend towards the latter.  While my approach to the draft isn't unique (I've seen my top five from 1.0 repeated all over the interwebs) I do like to think that my analysis of each player brings something new to the table.

That said, here are some thoughts on my player rankings and the draft in general, accounting for better scouting reports/film availability/general reasoning:

• Bruce Campbell:  The most egregiously bad ranking from the last draft, Campbell was severely overrated because I didn't do my due diligence researching him; he's a ridiculous physical specimen, but the film doesn't justify a high selection (or even one before round four).
• Rolando McClain:  While I'm still very high on McClain, he may be a little stiffer in coverage than I realized, to say nothing of the defensive line talent keeping him clean on the field and the advantages of his coaching.  I still think he's a very safe pick and a three-down player for a 3-4 team, but there's more potential to bust than I acknowledged.
• Jimmy Clausen:  Doug Farrar brought up a very good point when he noted that Clausen's had the best possible coaching at every level, and as a result has very limited upside.  Factor in a surprisingly weak arm and possible leadership issues, and he's even less desirable than when I made my last draft.
• Ndamukong Suh:  If anything I've underrated Suh; I didn't realize just how much upper-body strength he had until I saw this, and the revelation that he was told to read-and-react, rather than go full speed, at Nebraska was really astounding.
• Don't be surprised in the slightest if the Saints or the Jets trade up for a marquee player; Jacksonville and Kansas City are both dying to get out of their draft slots.
• On the whole, this is a particularly good draft for defensive tackles (maybe the best ever), safeties (in contention with 1981 for the best ever), and wide receivers (remarkably deep), while being a poor one for defensive ends (seemingly everyone has question marks), corners (solid, but not much home-run talent), and quarterbacks (underwhelming).

'ey yo spiced-out calvin coolidge, loungin' with seven duelers.

--NBA playoff reflections:

• KG got suspended for this, which some people think will bring out the emotion the Celtics have been lacking, and which others, Joakim Noah included, think is yet another example of KG's dirty play.  As a known KG fan (even though he's made it very hard on me since ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!), I tend to think that KG's anger came more from the fact that he airballed a shot he would've sunk in his sleep just two years ago than any concern for Pierce.  His body is betraying him, and this season has given him a laundry list of reminders.  What I hate, though, is that people forget that the year he joined the Celtics he decisively won a vote of his fellow All-Stars on who they most wanted to see win a championship; I guess he's burned through all the goodwill he earned toiling in Minnesota.
• The offenses in the Nuggets-Jazz game were just ridiculously efficient, and Melo had a night befitting a superstar.  Even though I don't have any great love for the Nuggets, I'll gladly watch the Jazz lose every night.
• It's looking like my prediction for ugly games is going to come true in the East, and that the Heat are going to keep their streak of unwatchable playoff series alive.
• Finally, most of the games were more lopsided than the scores would show, especially in the East.  I can only hope that the Thunder will show a little more ferocity than they did in Game 1.

but to take on the world at all angles requires a strength i can't use.

--After a week or so of lackluster home stretch, the NBA Playoffs are finally here (beginning tomorrow night, I believe).  There are some really great series coming up, especially in the West.  Literally every one of the West's matchups has a compelling subplot:

• LA vs. Oklahoma City has Kobe vs. Durant, the past versus the future; the Lakers have been on a real slide, and the Thunder always play up against them;
• Denver vs. Utah has a great point guard matchup in Chauncey and Deron, and potentially great coaching; 
• Phoenix vs. Portland would've been better with Brandon Roy healthy, but Nate McMillan is the legitimate Coach of the Year because of how he's handled injuries, so I wouldn't count the Blazers out;
• and Dallas vs. San Antonio has two of the most veteran squads in the NBA, each of whom finished strong, and who are in position to make one last run at the Finals.

The East is, as you might expect, way less intriguing, but Boston v. Miami, Atlanta v. Milwaukee (even sans Bogut, which was a really tragic injury), and Orlando v. Charlotte should all have some throwback ugliness in their defense, just nasty.  If Orlando were to run a gauntlet of Charlotte, Boston, and Cleveland, they'd have nothing to fear from the West's defenses.  Finally, SBNation had a series of reasons to adopt each team, some of which (especially for the Lakers, Spurs, and Mavs) were very compelling, at least to non-fans.  I, for one, will be pulling for the Thunder, because I like Durant, because they'll be playing the Lakers, and because they're just so damned fun to watch.

if you still had the bones of an idol, you'd be long long gone.

--I keep hearing about Mark Titus, Ohio State blogger extraordinaire, and any aOSU doubts I may have had about him were snuffed out by his promotional youtube video.  He's a really good writer, too (or at least his ghostwriter is) and his blog, Club Trillion, is a great read.  At the very least, it's the only way you'll find out Evan Turner's nickname or how Greivis Vasquez treats the ladies.

--Treme, David Simon's upcoming show about life in post-Katrina New Orleans, is a groingrabbingly exciting prospect.  It features a number of Wire veterans (including Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters, Bunk and Lester Freamon respectively) as well as NOLA native John Goodman, and the A.V. Club was extremely positive about the show in its latest podcast.  I really couldn't be more titillated to see TV's best journalistic voice cover a city that's direly in need of a realistic appraisal.  The show premieres on HBO Sunday night at 9 CST, if I'm not mistaken.

--I don't remember if I've posted this before or not, but it truly is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.

don't talk of dust and roses, or should we powder our noses.

--No kooky links today, just opinions.

--As a Redskins sympathizer (considering how much the team has changed since that brief run of likability after Sean Taylor's murder, when I first got hooked, it's tough to call me a fan) I guess I have to comment on the McNabb trade.  Jason Campbell got drafted into a terrible situation, with poor receivers and an aging (and soon to be obsolete) o-line.  He got approximately one half of a good season out of Clinton Portis, during which time Campbell was a fringe Pro Bowler.  While "regressing" this last season and a half, his receivers led the league in drops, the running game was nonexistent, and after Chris Samuels went down Campbell got sacked while taking three-step drops, to say nothing of the crippling schematic issues that came with Jim Zorn.

In short, Campbell was boned from the beginning.  Throughout it all, he handled himself with class (a nebulous concept at best, but he never called out his teammates or coaches), and got repaid with a characteristically short-sighted move from Skins management.  He deserved better than to find out from a reporter, and not his own team, that a trade had been made for his replacement.  He deserves better than to end up in Oakland, which, along with Carolina and Arizona, is looking like a likely suitor.

i will surprise you sometime, i'll come around.

I've got some excellent (predominantly sports-related) links today:

--John Morgan of Field Gulls (collaborator with one of the very best in the business, Football Outsiders' Doug Farrar) is doing an excellent, play-by-play breakdown of some of the top prospects in the 2009 Draft.  Included: my man Eric Berry ("a place where nothing ever happens," as Morgan says); CJ Spiller; Taylor Mays; Gerald McCoy.

--SB Nation's Clemson blog, Shakin' the Southland, put up some comprehensive overviews of defensive coaching points, strategy, and terminology.  Defensive backs are given special attention, which is obviously my jam.

first draft of the first chapter in (hopefully) my first novel.

Gene Lazenby has one primary goal in life: make it look easy.

listen, listen. most of us believe that this is wrong.

--First, I'll use my immense star power to plug Patrick's new blog and Sam's new (excellently-titled) blog.  Godspeed, fellow Blogfricans.

--Since you're dying to know, here's what's in circulation on my iTunes right now:

• "Gideon," by My Morning Jacket.  Powerful, with some excellent lyrics.
• "Obstacle 1," by Interpol.  Interpol was/is more consistently excellent than Joy Division ever was.
• "We Can Get Down," by A Tribe Called Quest.  So fresh.
• "Church," by Outkast.  I'm loving Speakerboxxx.
• "What It's All About," by Girl Talk.  Solely for the "C.R.E.A.M." section.
• "Grounds For Divorce," by Elbow.  Dig the lyrics, the Peter Gabriel vibe, and the lead singer's uncanny resemblance to Stephen Fry.
• "Can't Say No," by The Helio Sequence.  One of three excellent songs on a pretty bland album.
• "Famous Blue Raincoat," by Leonard Cohen.  Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
• "The Rake's Song," by The Decemberists.  I love how much fun Colin Meloy has with evil.

books which have influenced me most.

Stolen from Chris Brown, who stole it in turn from Marginal Revolution, here are the 10 books (in order, at least through the top 4) which have most influenced me:

1. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler.  

--A model for living decently in a patently indecent world.  In practical terms, it's a beautiful and endlessly readable book, and Chandler is probably the greatest influence on my writing.

2.  The Works of T.S. Eliot.  

--Eliot speaks to me as a writer because he shows me how to communicate in absolute terms.  He speaks to me as a thinker because he's as preoccupied with the Western tradition as I am.  He speaks to me as a reader because his poetry is as breathtaking today as it was when I first read him.

3.  The Roman Revolution, by Ronald Syme.

4.  Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, translated by Thomas Hobbes.  

--Historians like to talk about revelatory moments, times when something suddenly clicks or a particular historical question reveals itself.  Learning from these books in Oxford provided me the former, showing me that there's no such thing as nonfiction, and that there's no value in history if it's abstracted from the people who need it.

5.  Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.  

--There were a lot of things I thought I understood about the Western tradition after reading Plato, but none of them (especially the conflict between reason and passion) were really clear until I read Hamlet. 

6.  The Conservative Mind, by Russell Kirk.  

--Kirk introduced me to Edmund Burke, the political philosopher whose insights and values are most closely calibrated to mine.  When I try to define my political beliefs now, Kirk's discussions of Burke, Tocqueville, and others serve as invaluable guideposts.

7.  The Greek Way, by Edith Hamilton.

8.  Homer's Iliad, translated by Samuel Butler.

9.  Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, translated by Robert Graves. 

--These three books, more than any others, fostered my love of the classics and really got me enthusiastic about the sweeping heroism, complex characters, and occasional hilarity of the ancient world.

10.  As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner.

--Faulkner's ability to write transcendentally about the mundane aspirations of a white trash family, to elevate their quest from a spiteful demand to a grand tragedy, left an indelible impression on me; the notion that you can make something beautiful or meaningful out of ugliness is profound and profoundly interesting.

is it chemically derived?

--On my first day of spring break, I got about a gig of new music, specifically albums by Elbow, MGMT, Sigur Ros, Caribou, Interpol, Liars, Midlake, Jane's Addiction, The Strokes, The Black Keys, A Tribe Called Quest, Eric B. and Rakim, and Public Enemy.  More details will be forthcoming; Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights is an early winner.

mock draft 1.0

1. St. Louis Rams:  Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma

The consensus choice here is Suh, and it’s certainly true that St. Louis needs help on its d-line, especially if it wants to see some return on its previous d-line investments.  It’s also true that in a number of respects, not the least of which is experience in a pro-style offense, Jimmy Clausen is the better pick.  Bradford, however, has extraordinary accuracy and much better arm strength than his rival Colt McCoy; he’s also a huge improvement over Clausen in terms of not being an enormous prick.  The NFL’s bust rate is directly related to work ethic and leadership ability, and Bradford has both in spades.  Neither Bradford nor Clausen is going to have the immediate impact of a Matt Ryan, and the very height of their potential is Aaron Rodgers, not Peyton Manning.  Like Rodgers, Bradford would benefit immensely from sitting and learning a system (not to mention getting some offensive weapons and protection), a luxury he won’t have.

He’s the best option regardless, and while he’ll suffer through some rough early years, he has the potential to be the face of the franchise in a few years.

Other Possibilities:  Jimmy Clausen, QB, Notre Dame; Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska

2. Detroit Lions:  Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska

Suh and Gerald McCoy, like Glenn Dorsey and Sedrick Ellis two years before them, increasingly seem like a “1 vs. 1a” in terms of potential.  Unlike those two, Suh and McCoy don’t have a devastating injury (Dorsey’s chop block) and documented troubles handling the run (Ellis) between them.  Suh would provide much-needed help on the interior of Detroit’s line, which has to be one of the league’s worst.  They could also use Berry or Okung here, but safeties never get taken in the top three and Coach Schwartz has been vocal in his support of veteran left tackle Jeff Backus.

Other Possibilities:  Gerald McCoy, DT, Oklahoma; Eric Berry, S, Tennessee

and all my instincts, they return.

--I just finished my first mock draft, along with a list of the 20 best prospects in the draft.  I'll put it up in a little while, and update it after next week's Combine/big free agent moves.  Whether the workout warriors whose stocks rise become Mike Mamulas or Vernon Davises remains to be seen.

--For any fan of Roger Ebert (and as a used-to-be aspiring film critic, I'd certainly put myself in that category), this is a must-read.

--Stop while you can, Justin Vernon.  There's no reason for you to turn into the next Travis Morrison (gone from one of the best lyricists in indie music to complete outcast).

i guess we'll just have to adjust.

Going into the 4th quarter, the Super Bowl had given me absolutely everything I could have wanted.  Manning and Brees were both flawless, and the Saints were pulling ahead.  Fortunately, the tide continued to trend in the Saints' favor.  Unfortunately for the Colts, it meant an embarrassing meltdown in coaching and execution, including a pick that some blithering idiots (as far as football goes, anyway) have already decided defines Manning's career.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  As Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders pointed out, we don't remember Favre by his Super Bowl loss to the Broncos.  Manning is still the greatest quarterback to play the game, and there's no doubt in my mind that he'll get another ring--if not several--by the time he retires.  Schatz's comment also served as a cagey reference to the historic similarities between the two games, which were one Reggie Wayne drop in the waning minutes from sharing the same final score (31-24).

will you feel better, will you feel anything at all?

In the days before Facebook, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I made a livejournal account.  I can't remember exactly when and have long since deleted the thing, so I'm assuming sometime during freshman year of high school.  I don't remember what its name was, either (probably something along the lines of "Walter Explains it All" after my preteen idol, Melissa Joan Hart), but I definitely remember the picture I used for it, the cover to King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King.  I haven't changed much in that respect, and I think we're lucky that I never got into Mars Volta, because that could have just as easily been a Goldfinger'd Telly Savalas.

with no berlin wall, what the hell you gonna do?

--Gabe & co. are KILLING IT at Videogum right now. I cite as evidence:

• This terrific preview of Lost's sixth and final season (I'm pumped!!!!).
• Gabe found a textbook example of why the internet is bad for you.
• One of many great party games.
• And some great investigative work on Kirstie Alley's quest to wrest the title of "the worst" from Nancy Grace.
  

--Jeff Beck just won 2010, everyone. As if there was any doubt that he would.

--The very best idea in sports. Nnamdi is henpecked, Elvis is perturbed, Tashard is stirred up, Trent is the best, and Brian Dawkins is insane.

--Read some of my old writing earlier today. Yikes.

--Some nicknames:

everything is divided, nothing is complete.

--I’ve said in the past that it’s really pretty easy to root for both the Colts and the Saints. Not only are they in different conferences and accordingly don’t play each other much, but the prospect of the Saints getting to the Super Bowl at all (let alone playing the Colts in it) seemed inherently ridiculous. But there was a lurking anxiety throughout this season that the two teams—both franchises arguably having their most successful seasons ever—were on a collision course, and we’re now officially two weeks away.