We Came, We Saw, We Lost

Well, we had a good run, didn’t we?  I will miss waking up early, going into work late and using words like “pitch” “form” and “tackle” on a regular basis.  Sure I’m going to get up early tomorrow morning to watch England vs. Germany because it’s sports and I like sports so why wouldn’t I?

Today Josh and I decided it would be good form to watch the USA vs. Ghana matchup at the beautiful Arlington Theater in SB, a convenient 5 minute bike ride from our house.  Normally that would probably be a drive but since today was also the Solstice Parade we figured the ol’ Diamondback would be aces.  We arrived just before 10:30 to a healthy line of face painted Americans and ear shattering vuvuzelas.  And also tacos.  Lots of tacos being served right outside of the Arlington.  Good work, universe.  Doors opened at 11:00 to lots of chanting, shouting and general mayhem–I’m putting the crowd at about 1,292 USA fans and 8 Ghanaians who were awesome.  They had the best chants, the best noise makers (drums), the best dances…they were basically the best.  Sometimes some of the crowd would try to copy them because Americans are great at co-opting black culture.  Good work, America.

The picture at the theater was actually better than I thought it would be–it wasn’t HD but that’s not the end of the world and there are few better Fan Moments than when you are hugging/high fiving complete strangers.  The ability to bond over a comment moment and fall for something bigger than yourself adds to our sporting romance: the shared memories and experiences of Dodger fans on the night of the 4+1 (I was laying in bed disgusted until J came running up the stairs pounding on my door after the 2nd HR),  Kobe’s 81 point game, Gordon Hayward’s near dagger, some of these moments you want to spend alone but some are best shared in the company of your fellow fans.

The game, as you know, was basically crap for the USA.  Outside of Donovan’s kiss off the post (which led to probably the loudest eruption I have ever heard) we didn’t have any moments of true brilliance.  Plenty of wasted chances and almost-but-not-quite opportunities but we couldn’t close the deal.  That’s pretty much the story with the US Soccer program I feel like.  There are so few opportunities to actually score in soccer you have to be either incredibly gifted or lucky and we tend to rely on luck, an opposing goalie flubbing an easy stop, a PK chance, a miraculous stoppage-time score…these are all great moments but should not be confused with moments of greatness.  We’re good enough to get a boot on a sliding cross but not good enough to put it past the goalkeeper.  And you know what?  That’s ok.  I don’t root for America during one of their tired ass Dream Team basketball exhibitions.  I don’t root for the USA in the World Baseball Classic necessarily and I don’t care for anybody on our Olympic team for the most part either.  But give me a great underdog story like the Hockey team or these Soccer gentlemen and it suddenly means a lot more.  Losing isn’t fun but it makes these teams charming and keeps us coming back for more.

After the game we watched 10 minutes of the Parade and then ate more tacos.  Can you ever have enough tacos?  I vote no.  See you in 2014, Soccer.

I had promised good photos and only sort of came through with that. This one on the right is probably the best (click on it for a larger image), though it would have been nice had I been on the other side — or had Slim at least turnned and smile for the camera. “Hey, Slim — make love to the camera, Bra’h!” Didn’t you ever watch Zoolander?

This next one is of Moke, who is a sponger. We try not to hold that against him (too much) because he’s actually a pretty decent sponger, which is almost as good as being, oh, let’s say a mediocre stand-up surfer.  Here he is almost blocking my view of Morro Rock.

And since we’re all about brotherly love here at the Bias, here’s Slim and Moke together. I think they had a notion of going for this wave, then decided, “Nah. We only go for five foot and above!”

We were lucky to get anything, of course. When we first pulled up to the beach, Slim and I were like, “Ugh.” Because, honestly, it looked like crap. And gray. And cold. But we went out and got a little serrendipitous Stoke. Nice shape, decent size (for summer) and lots of opportunities.

I didn’t like the part when my board snapped off of my leash. But, hey, who doesn’t need a good swim every now and then? Better today than on a 7-foot day.

By the time 10 rolled around, conditions had already started to slop up. But that was ok — Slim had to get back to Paso and his 4-H chickens.

A Vacation from My Problems!!

Koman Coulibaly was tired of refereeing and felt that he needed to take a well deserved vacation.  Being a Ref was hard!  Sometimes people did not agree with his decisions and questioned his judgment which was insane.  His word was final and his rulings were beyond reproach.  Koman Coulibaly settled in at his local Starbucks because it was the only place in hundreds of kilometers that had internet access and began clicking away on Orbitz to book the holiday of his dreams.

There were so many places to visit!  His fingers flipped clumsily along his Accer laptop scrolling through the many options available to him.  In the back of the Starbucks a baby began to whimper softly.  Koman Coulibaly immediately jumped to his feet and blew his whistle (he never went anywhere without his whistle) at the startled baby and her mother and drew a yellow card from his pocket.  The baby cried louder and Koman Coulibaly returned to his table, oblivious to the stares of the other patrons.  Finally, after minutes of exhausted searching Koman Coulibaly found a locale that suited all of his prerequisites:someplace warm, nice beaches and friendly people.  And the price!  The price was rock bottom!  He would be able to stretch his FIFA dollars much further in:where was it again?  Oh right, Louisiana.  Louisiana was a beautiful destination and it was in America, a country where he was universally beloved–he couldn’t wait!  He purchased his tickets and went home to pack as quickly as possible.  On his way out the door he passed a small man carrying an attaché case and blew his whistle at him as well, shaking his head in warning.  He thought about carding the man but decided the stern admonition was enough.

On his way to the airport the next day Koman Coulibaly’s taxi took him past a mugger robbing an old lady of her necklace and bible.  Koman Coulibaly hung out the window and spread his arms wide—”Play on!” he shouted from the slowly moving cab.  Both the mugger and the woman stared at him in disbelief as the cab rounded a corner, billowing exhaust from the rusted tailpipe.  Koman Coulibaly’s flight to New Orleans was uneventful.  He’d twice been awoken from his slumber by the Stewardess who was assisting an elderly passenger to the lavatory and after the Stewardess had collected her second yellow card he had opened the emergency exit door and thrown her out of the airplane but other than that there had been minimal disturbances.  Upon touchdown in America, Koman Coulibaly went straight to the beach and was immediately pleased with the natural wonder and beauty of Louisiana’s pristine coastline.  Equally amazing were how few people were out enjoying the day.

"On Form!" Shouted Koman

Koman Coulibaly took a deep breath of the wonderful, gasoline scented air and filled his lungs with the caustic oil smell.  “Beautiful!” he thought to himself.  He ran through the oil encrusted sand, thinking that the thick tar balls that stuck to his feet were one of the most pleasant sensations he had ever felt.  Koman Coulibaly dove headfirst into the playful surf and swam 25:50:100 meters from the beach, reveling in the thick sludge, slapping his palms together with joy.  Several dead dolphins and manatees floated past and he booked them all summarily into his score sheet.  He tried to whistle them as well but his trusted piece had been gummed up with small bits of black goo.  “No worries,” he said to himself, a dead pelican washing past him, “I can always get another with the monies I’ve saved.”  He then swam back to shore.

After toweling off Koman Coulibaly made his way back to the Sandyland Hotel where he bumped into BP’s CEO Tony Hayward who was smoking cigars and getting ready to embark on his yacht race.  Tony Hayward loved cigars so much that he employed a small group of vagrant Cuban boys to follow him around and constantly roll him new cigars whenever the fancy took him.  As Koman walked past, Tony was berating one of the children for not packing the leaves tightly enough and threatened to have him deported unless his technique improved.  Koman Coulibaly nodded and raised his arms, palms up, “Play on!” he shouted.  Tony looked at him and gave a small nod of his bulbous head, the last rays of the beautiful sunset reflected splendidly in his monocle.

Koman Coulibaly changed into his evening wear and made straight for the restaurant attached to the Sandyland Hotel.  On the way in he happened to run into fellow referee Frank De Bleeckere, who had refed the USA-Algeria match who was also on vacation as well.  While Koman Coulibaly was confident he was the greatest referee in the world he felt that De Bleeckere was easily the second best and had also never made a bad call in his life.  “What luck, seeing you here, Coulibaly!”  De Bleeckere shouted across the deserted restaurant.  Koman Coulibaly bleeted his whistle in salutation.  “Come on over and join me for these wonderful oysters de petrol, you’ll love them!”  De Bleeckere continued.

Coulibaly happily sauntered across the desolate interior to his compatriot.  As he approached, De Bleeckere jumped past him, a wily glint in his eye.  “Ha ha!  You’re offsides!  You’ve fallen for the oldest trick in the book!”  Koman Coulibaly reached into his pocket for his yellow card and held it aloft for the old woman working behind the bar to see.  De Bleeckere continued to mock him, producing a flag from his pocket and holding it up.  “Offsides, offsides!” he shouted again and again.  Enraged, Coulibaly fished around for his red card and again showed it to the woman behind the bar, who had fallen asleep, overcome by the noxious fumes rising from the ocean.

Eventually the two men settled their hostilities by sitting at adjoining tables, De Bleeckere careful to ensure that they stayed level at all times.  After wolfing down three helpings of the marvelous oysters de petrol Koman Coulibaly leaned back in his chair and heaved a contended sigh of happiness.  A holiday in the beautiful gulf coast was truly the best.  Once he was home to planned to write up a full review of his journey on Orbitz trip advisor but that was something to think about later.  Weary from his long flight and day in the sun he made it back to his hotel where he plopped into bed and slept a deep and satisfying slumber.  He was awakened once during the night when Sarah Palin checked into the room next door, he stuck his head out the door to card her but once he realized who it was he slapped her a high five and gave her a big grin and a thumbs up before going back to bed.

Being the unselfish person I am, I decided to conentrate on the other guys in the lineup.  So enjoy. Oh, an Slim? Catch ya next time. Meanwhile, happy anniversary!

#1 Fan

Rihanna was pacing around her Beverly Hills mansion one Thursday afternoon when she decided she was bored.  She was tired of riding on her pet unicorn and she couldn’t find her diamond encrusted, solid gold iPhone to call up her friends so instead she paced around her room and tried on different leopard and zebra printed outfits.  She looked stunning in all of them and couldn’t decide which one she should wear downstairs to see what was in the refrigerator so she opted to just stay in her room and update her facebook profile.  Facebook was sort of her guilty pleasure and she gave a quick glance through her friends file and laughed at Eve’s pictures she had posted from her night out with the girls at Novu last night.  Eve was so funny!

Next she clicked on Ashleigh Simpson’s profile and Ashleigh had posted new pictures of her baby.  Gross!  Rihanna didn’t like babies at all and she defriended Ashleigh.  ”Boo yah, how you like me now!”  She yelled at her macbook.  She looked at her status page and updated it to FEELING FIESTY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!1 and looked over at her Relationship Status (In a Relationship, it read) and heaved a lusty sigh.  As if on cue she got an IM from her boyfriend, Matt Kemp.  Their exchange went like this:

UmbrellaGirl: Just chillin around da house.  Can’t find phone, LOL

UmbrellaGirl: Yup.  Ca’nt find it!!1

The car arrived later than expected and took her into the stadium in the middle of the second inning.  She made her way down towards the box seats and waived at Larry King as she walked past.  ”Hi Larry!”  She shouted.  She continued on through the crowd and gave the stink-eye to Jon Lovitz and hissed, “Deadbeat!” Rihanna had to kick some kids out of her seats who had moved down into her section; “Shoo!  Shoo!”  She said, flicking them away while she stuffed a mustard covered pretzel into her mouth.  Matt Kemp stepped out of the dugout and walked to the ondeck circle.  ”Go Matty!”  Rihanna screamed at the top of her lungs, spraying the couple in front of her with bits of pretzel.  Matt Kemp looked over his shoulder and gave a sheepish grin of surprise.  The last game she had been to was at the end of last year and had been a bit of a disaster.  She had thrown a fit when she wasn’t allowed to sing the National Anthem and another fit when she was denied Take Me Out to the Ball Game and it wasn’t until Jonathan Silverman gave her a stern talking to near the All You Can Eat Right Field Pavilion that she calmed down.

Boston might consider a new logo for Game 7.

If you’re an avid follower of the Bias, or have had the unfortunate luck of knowing me for an extended period of time, you’ve no doubt heard me rant and rave about everything from HGH to the horrendous officiating in the NBA.

But if there’s one thing I bang on more than LeBron James and Joe Crawford, it’s ESPN and the bandwagon media, and how quick they are to judge and dismiss teams after one game, one quarter, even one play at times.

But when it comes down to it, momentum, and what happened yesterday, and this “what-you’ve-done-for-me-lately” take on sports is garbage more often than not.

Momentum is weak-sauce media speak when it comes to championship series, because much of the media has never played the game, isn’t clever enough to come up with something of substance, and has grown numb to the one-game-at-a-time cliché pitched by the players and coaches. But when it comes to sport being played at a championship level, particularly a shooting-percentage game like basketball, momentum only matters within that one particular game – basketball is a game of runs as they say.

But when we’re talking about a seven-game series, that’s being played every two, three, even four days, on opposite sides of the country, between two of the most storied franchises in NBA history, you might as well throw momentum out the door.

Think about it. Has momentum ever carried over from that Monday blacktop game to your Wednesday pick-up battle, with the same crew of players on the court? Has momentum ever played a part the following week in that Monday night co-ed softball league of yours? Probably not. Either you’re good, or you’re not. Either you’re on that night, or you’re off. That’s it.

And when you’re talking about a game being played between what could be four or five hall of famers, momentum is even less important. If I were wrong, the Cleveland Cavs would be holding a parade right now. But they’re not.

It’s why no team had won back to back games in this series prior to the Celtics’ Game 5 victory in Boston.

So what does matter you ask?

What matters, for lack of a better analogy, are the four Hs: and I’m not talking that 4H, our A-town and Indiana hick readers.

• Hall of fame experience/leadership
• Heads-up plays
• Health
• Home-court advantage.

I’ve been preaching it from the beginning of the playoffs, and that’s why the Lakers should wrap up their second straight NBA title on Thursday.

And it’s also why they won big, and I mean really big, on Tuesday.

Consider:

Hall of fame leadership/experience: Kobe Bryant learned from Game 5′s me-against-the-world approach and got his teammates involved early on. By the end of the first quarter, the Lakers were balanced in the scoring column and had a double-digit lead. And the team that wins the first quarter has won all six games of the series (which shows just how unimportant momentum is considering that team was coming off a loss in five of the six games).: Bryant and Derek Fisher have been in the NBA for 14 seasons. They’ve each been to the NBA Finals seven times. That is leadership even the Celtics’ Big Three has trouble competing against.

Heads-up plays: These are the game-changing plays, Jordan Farmar diving for loose balls, going around and then over KG to put home two big buckets, Kobe giving up an open layup to a soaring Shannon Brown to get the crowd into it, encouraging Ron-Ron to keep shooting and get out of his funk.: The stats speak for themselves: The Lakers had 13 steals to only eight by Boston, had a 52-39 edge in rebounds, and an 8-4 edge in blocked shots. Ballgame.

Health: When Kendrick Perkins went down, I think the Boston Celtics season went down as well. While I’m contradicting myself a bit here by even hinting at what’s going to happen in Game 7, the injury to Boston’s blue-collar center puts a serious dent in the C’s frontcourt attack. While Perkins hasn’t done much at the offensive end, his absence at the defensive end allowed Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom to get free that much more on Tuesday night, and Gasol and Odom are the key to the series in my eyes. In Game 6, they combined for 25 points, 23 rebounds, 10 assists and 5 blocks, a pretty good all-around night considering how balanced the scoring was and that L.A. finished with only 89 points.

Home-court advantage: Unlike in 2008, the Lakers have home court in these playoffs. And unlike in 2008, the fans are actually giving L.A. an advantage. Since moving to Staples, I’ve argued time and time again that Los Angeles doesn’t have a home-court advantage other than the familiarity of playing there because their fan base could care less about the game itself. I’ve been to Staples: for a Clippers game. Beers are 2 for $20. At a Clippers game! Guys like you and me can’t afford to be there when the Lakers are in town. So you get fans like, I don’t know, look at Tuesday’s lineup: Christina Aguilera, Puffy, Andy Garcia, Spike Lee, Dane Cook, Diane Lane, Josh Brolin. In other words, not Lakers fans. You have Jack, and then you don’t have Jack.

But over the past three home games, I actually witnessed a standing ovation. And tonight, the crowd was as vocal a crowd as I’ve seen (heard, whatever) at Staples. And that happened before the Lakers started running away with it, so it wasn’t a fair-weather thing for once.: For all those times I’ve heard people say Pau Gasol was soft, I wanted to say L.A. is soft. Gasol was no softer than L.A.’s home crowds in years past. But now both of them are scrapping, showing emotion and producing in the clutch. In fact, Gasol has been the best frontcourt player in these playoffs. And L.A., next to Oklahoma City, has had the best home-court advantage. 10-1. Hard to argue with that.: Heck, I even saw L.A. fans sporting “Boston Sucks” shirts in L.A. this weekend, and they weren’t WCBias’ shirts. I also saw a one-year-old girl and a puppy wearing Kobe jerseys. It’s clear times have changed in L.A., and if Laker Fan has anything to say there won’t be any repeats of 2008. Not in their house.

We find out Thursday, when the Lakers shoot for 11-1, back-to-back titles, and a chance to save Ryantific from having to stomach the World Cup, not to mention a case of Budweiser Select 55, if the Celtics win.

1. This will be the 17th Finals Game 7 in the NBA history. You can’t ask for more NBA excitement.

2. Lakers versus Celtics. ‘Nuf said!

3. Kobe’s chance to get another ring putting him within of Michael Jordan’s 6 rings. Also tying Magic’s number of rings. Is he the greatest Laker?

4 With a boston win, the Celtic Big 3 could cement their Boston Legendary Lore

5. Can the Lakers get revenge from the 2008 finals?

6. Can Phil Jackson get his 11th ring?

7. Can Fisher also get his 5th rings…. solidifying his Hall of Fame Status?

Braggers.

Here in California, there were no real surprises. A couple of women with heavy pockets bought their way to primary victory for the Republicans (Republicans with money? Really?). And hometown homie Abel Maldonado won his bid for Lt. Governor, which is really a bid for future governor because nobody really cares about the Lt. Governor. But the real important election dealt not with silly old politics but good ole fashioned football, as the city of Santa Clara voted to accept the 49ers into their hearts. Which, of course, means that San Francisco will technically lose its team, though the Niners will only be a BART ride away.

Still, that kind of sucks. It was bad enough that the Warriors decided to go by the name Golden State, which, frankly, still confuses me. Now we have another Bay Area team that doesn’t know where it is. Because, like the New York (Jersey) Jets and New York (Jersey) Giants and Los Angeles (Anaheim) Angels, the 49ers will still be San Francisco in name even if the city is an hour drive from its future home.

The reason for this, I guess, is because no one likes Candlestick Park. I’ve never been there, but it has always looked prety crappy on TV. And its blustery days are legendary. But when the Giants baseball team moved from Candlestick, they didn’t retreat to the ‘burbs — they built a great park right on the bay. So why couldn’t the 49ers do the same?

Heck, just have one of those billionaire poltical candidates front the money. They’re good for it. And it might just get them a few votes from that bastion of liberalism. If nothing else, they can name the stadium after themselves for PR purposes. I can hear the announcers now: “Welcome to The Lady Who Nearly Took Down Hewlett-Packard Park.”

Ramming Speed

My deepest and most sincere apologies to Bloc Party for bastardizing their lyrics for the sake of a ridiculously horrible blog post title.  I’ll show myself to the door.

Last week JC and I figured it would be a good idea to drive to Blythe to visit G Snide because any time you can make a trip to a 115 degree desert you have to lock that up.  I left SB around 7pm, met JC in Glendora about two hours after that and around midnight we pulled into Paradise, aka Blythe, CA.

There is not very much to do in Blythe because most of the year the temperature is seven billion degrees but luckily for us a 5 hour Deliverance style float down the river on inflatable rafts accompanied by a cooler of beer was most definitely in play.  I took these pics with my snorkel camera, which survived the trip pretty well, certainly better than Greg’s sunglasses, my sunglasses, a full bottle of Dos Equis and JC’s iPhone.  So while the total trip is basically free the mighty Colorado did claim $250 worth of our goods but that probably says more about the three of us than it does the actual river itself.  The river is basically a class zero rapids—a steady 5 mph current with nothing much else to speak of in the way of turbulence, unless you count the yokels who are always good for a JetSki drive-by splashing.  However, don’t let the lazy river fool you, rafting is a lot of work.  The river is a couple hundred yards wide and you easily ping-pong back and forth a few times so whenever you want to go somewhere else it’s a paddle sesh.  Luckily I am essentially the world’s strongest man so it’s no big thing but if you’re not in shape you will have some serious arm burn by the end of the day.

Rafting might seem like a fairly straightforward endeavor (blow up raft, jump in raft, float) but there’s a little bit of strategy that goes into it–first of all you have to make sure there are no major sporting events going on that day that might interfere with being away from a keyboard or a TV for hours.  Secondly, you need two cars, one that you leave at the bottom of the run and then another at the top where you launch.  You may be tempted at some point to leave the keys to car #1 inside car #2.  It’s best to resist this urge.  You’ll also want a waterproof case to keep your keys dry because wet car keys don’t work.  Ideally this waterproof case will also be large enough to hold JC’s iPhone but if it’s not you’re better off jamming the phone up your ass because (as we learned) stuffing it inside a sunglasses case that is placed inside the cooler of beer doesn’t work very well.  Good thought though, JC.  Well planned.  Other than that it’s pretty much just steady as she goes for somewhere between 2 and 10 miles, we really had no clue how far we went, rivers are weird man.

Make a run for the border

Any good river float should be ended with a trip to Quartzsite, Arizona for a meal at Grubstake (ignore the review from William H from El Segundo, he is obviously a jackass).  Grubstake is unreal and this was my second tripacross the border strictly for the amazing fish and chips (yah, in Arizona, I know I know) and freaking blue light special deals.  When we walked in the owner/chef and sometimes waiter told us as long as we all ordered the same thing he would give us a free pound of you-peel shrimp.  Yes, please.  The owner guy is from Scotland or England or something and he is sort of badass.

And that’s how you do it, ladies and gents.  Was able to catch the Laker game on the radio (they lost) and got updates from G Snide on the Dodger game (they won, extras) on the way back Sunday afternoon while we all had visions of Stephen Strasberg and the baseball draft dancing in our heads.  It was a long drive.  It was hot.  We had no iPhone.  Did I mention it was hot?  It was.

LOCAL

A River Runs Through It