Thanks to everyone in New York for making that so great. Thanks to Portland in advance for making it hot on Friday. Thanks to Hanukkah, even though I forgot it was coming.
And thanks to Tablet, who worked with FD to put together an illustrated computer-module doodad that allows you to select, and test the mettle of, your very-own all-Jewish basketball team. Related reading: Marc Tracy's interview with Dolph Schayes, the Greatest Jew of Them All. He'll give you his picks, if you want to cheat.
Here's the deal: I'm back from vacation, and telling you to go read The Works today. I weigh in on Casspi, anti-Semitism in America, and what it means that Nate Robinson likes the WNBA. Ziller explores the concept of defensive hangtime. It was a lot of fun and now I need to hit the gym.
I am left wondering, though, if the swastika somehow "belongs" to anti-Semitism above all other forms of bias. Minus Casspi, it certainly connotes all sorts of hatred. But it's very difficult for it to, ahem, transcend its historical significance and express, say, some asshole's dislike of blacks or Latinos.
This is understandable; it's pretty hard to dispense with the enormity of WW2 (note: I didn't say "the Holocaust", because deniers happen all the time). Yet it also shows just how potent (and striking) Nazi iconography was. I almost think that a lot of Jew-hating is just an excuse to sport swastikas and lightning bolts. Who wants to wear a stupid white robe and drag around burning wood? Flip, I know, but obviously Hitler was far better at "branding", which is why his evil racist movement has had more staying power, in terms of look and rhetoric -- even if this means getting caught up in a cloud of translation.
Fun fact: Tris Speaker was a member of the Klan, but later went on to be the most important mentor Larry Doby had as he adjusted to life in the (white) majors.
In the inverse spirit of the Black-comedy-as-penned-by-a-Jew (most recently typified in Neil Berman’s appearance on I Know Black People) and Jews-writing-about-Asians (um, Flower Drum Song?) we present Robert Levertis-Bell (not a Jew) and Jay Caspian Kang (not a Jew) and their feature film treatments of the Amar'e Stoudemire (not a Jew?) pilgrimage. Follow the not-Jews on twitter at @thatkidicarus (Robert) and @maxpower51 (Jay).
There is also a contest! Anyone who wishes to film a scene from either Robert or Jay’s screenplays can submit it to freedarko-at-gmail-dot-com. Don’t worry about racial or religious accuracy—we can all suspend our disbelief, at least that much. The winner will receive a free copy of both FreeDarko books: The Macrophenomal Pro Basketball Almanac and the upcoming Undisputed Guide to Basketball History. These best of the best will also have their work featured on this very site!!!
Furthermore, you should check out Shoals and Spencer Hall on FDPTDOCNBAPC, and consider getting in touch with FD about app development.
THE ALL STARS OF DAVID a romantic comedy by Jay Caspian Kang.
After missing a last-second lay-up that would have won the Knicks their first NBA championship in over forty years, twenty-nine year old DAVID PERCY (Chris Webber) drinks away his sorrows at Scores. When we first meet him, it is five in the morning. At a floura-lit table near the back, the strippers are stacking their singles. His teammates are nowhere to be seen. After being told by a bouncer that closing time has long since passed, Percy, a notorious carouser and serial womanizer, takes out his cell phone, punches in a long-forgotten number and leaves a weepy, drunken message.
The next afternoon, Percy wakes up and listens to his voice mail. Along with the expected consolations from his agent, his manager, and Knicks team-owner-and-former-President-Barack Obama, there is a message from a timid woman. She says she watched the game and wonders if he is doing okay. This woman is EVE KEDEM (Marissa Tomei), Percy's girlfriend from college who he dumped on draft night. Convinced that the material world was to blame for the cessation of their love, Eve rediscovered her Hasidic Jewish roots and moved out to Long Island.
The two meet in a diner under an ugly bridge. Eve listens to Percy talk about his growing disillusionment. He says, "It used to be about the love of the game, you know, back when we were a thing. But now, it's just about me, about my need to be great. What I realized last night in that strip club is that I don't love the game anymore. I only love what the game does for me." He confesses that he envies Eve and the peace her devotion to G-d has brought. She almost-touches his head and says, "men like you always seek out comfort from old girlfriends because you want to remember that even before you became you, that there was something worth loving."
Then she looks him straight in the eyes, does that Marissa Tomei squint-thing, and says, "There was something to love, Percy. But it's been too long for me to know if that something is still there."
What follows is a montage of Percy in famous New York spots: eating corn outside Cafe Habana, drinks w/ Jay-Z at 40/40, at various nightclubs w/ NBA stars KEVIN DURANT, RAY ALLEN, DWIGHT HOWARD and YAO MING. In each shot, Percy's mood is pensive, reflective. His hand is frequently in contact with his chin, which, as we know, is C-Webb’s go-to move when he wants to look pensive. When the montage spills out, Percy is sitting with JALEN ROSE at Katz's Deli. He is looking up at the sign that points out the exact spot where Meg Ryan faked her orgasm. After a hazy moment of reverie, he bolts upright and runs out of the deli, leaving behind a confused Jalen Rose and a very large non-Kosher reuben.
Outside, he pulls out his cell phone and demands Eve come meet him back at that diner under that ugly bridge. She says yes. At the diner, the two sloppily confess their love for one another and say some stuff about remembrance. Percy blurts out a marriage proposal. Eve goes cold. She says that she can only marry someone who is Jewish. Percy says he will convert. Eve shakes her head and says that the new young Rabbi at her synagogue has strictly forbidden marriage with outsiders. To be even considered, Percy must be able to prove that he can trace his bloodline back to Moses on Mount Sinai. Percy erupts at the news and the two have a long, serious discussion about racism and religion.
Crestfallen, Percy returns to his hedonistic ways. Chris Isaak’s "Wicked Game" plays in the background. The NBA season starts and he plays terribly. TV sports personalities (SKIP BAYLESS, JIM ROME, MICHAEL WILBON) all wonder if the great David Percy might still be shell-shocked from missing that lay-up. The team's leadership begins to shift over to TONY STAPLETON (Tristan Wilds). After a particularly bad game against the Celtics, Percy gets drunk at a nightclub and calls his mother. He explains what has happened with Eve.
The next morning, he wakes to the buzzing of his phone. It is his mother. She reminds him that it is important to be yourself, but that yourself is never exactly what we think it is. Sometimes, she says, yourself is what yourself was and its important to understand that that was has never left, but has simply been sitting patiently for us to notice its absence. She says she will always love Jesus, but that she has always known that Percy has only ever been able to love Eve. Devotion and faith, she says, means doing what it takes to properly love who you love.
Percy touches his chin and purses his lips, grimly.
The next morning, Percy drives out to Long Island and meets with the new young Rabbi (TAMIR GOODMAN). He demands a chance to convert. The rabbi is hesitant, but when Percy refuses to leave his office, the rabbi sees the good in him and asks, "Why do you want to do this, my son?" Percy sets his jaw and says, "Love." The Rabbi nods and sighs. He says, "I was in love once..." and tells a story about a girl he once knew. He agrees, but under one condition-- Percy must walk the straight-and-narrow. One slip-up and the education will end.
Percy moves into a humble one-room apartment above a pickle shop. Everything smells of brine. He lays down on the short couch and takes it in.
Montage 2: Percy getting fitted for a wool suit, Percy learning the Hebrew alphabet, Percy and Eve walking in Central Park hand-not-in-hand, a laughing Percy playing pick-up hoops with a group of Hasidic kids, Percy pulling down the hair around his temples, imagining the sidelocks of his future, a shot of Jim Rome saying that Percy David's shot selection has become more economical, clips of Jay Mariotti making military metaphors about Percy's refusal to play on Saturdays, Percy at the bar with his teammates with a glass of grape juice, Percy playing chess with the Rabbi, Percy at Second Avenue Deli with Eve-- this time he opens up a corned beef sandwich to reveal the absence of cheese, Percy appreciating half-sour pickles, Percy putting the “chhhhhhuuuh” in "chutzpah." Spliced in all these scenes are short clips of Percy scoring all over the league and bonding with his teammates. We see his play progress. We see the Knicks make the finals.
Game 7 of the NBA Finals is scheduled for a Saturday. His teammates who, strangely enough, have just kind of overlooked the montaged Saturdays of the season, plead with Percy to play. He does not know what to do. In the locker room, Tony Stapleton sidles up next to Percy and tells him that when he was growing up, Percy David was his hero because he played basketball like it was a religion. The respect he showed for the game, the heart he showed on the nightly—all of it was the closest thing the young Tony had to church.
Backed by the opening bars to Ghostface's "All that I Got Is You," Stapleton says, "It's hard sometimes, man, to see God in the neighborhoods where we grew up. You look and he isn't there. At least not always and so you look harder and then you see him, man, in what you've always loved. When I was coming up, man, I saw that in your game. Take us to that next level, man. Make up for the past. Write the resurrection for your career. This is Easter, man, this is our reckoning day."
Conflicted, Percy visits the Rabbi. The Rabbi says that he agrees with young Tony Stapelton—God exposes himself in all the things we love, but devotion to what we love is always honed through discipline. He reminds Percy of all the days he spent practicing free throws, all the parties he skipped, all the sweat and blood lost in the gym. If Percy is to love G-d, the Rabbi says, he must abide by his rules. But, he says, our only freedom in this world is our freedom to point our heart in whatever direction we choose. He tells Percy that because he, the Rabbi, has chosen to point his heart towards G-d, he will not be able to tolerate Percy's decision to work on a Saturday and that if he does indeed play, his Jewish education will end.
Percy returns to the apartment above the pickle shop and lies back down on the couch. He calls Eve. She tells him about the moment when she first fell in love with him—it was their sophomore year at Tech U. Her boyfriend-at-the-time had dragged her to see a game. In front of the adoring crowd, Percy dropped 45 points against Duke and even though ESPN was there and the cameras were on and the game was close throughout, he played the entire game with a C-Webb smile on his face. She had never seen a man so blessed-- who else, but basketball players, bring so much joy to people through a beautiful act? How could that ever be called work?
A look of great, epiphanic relief falls over Percy's face. He calls Tony Stapelton and tells him he'll be playing in Game 7. He then calls his COACH (Chad Coleman) and tells him that he will not be collecting a check for the game.
The Garden is packed for Game 7. Percy, smiling the entire time, drops 50 on the Lakers, but he is matched by an equally spry and thinly disguised Kobe Bryant-type named SEAN FLASH (Sean Combs). With time running out, the Knicks find themselves down by 2. The Coach draws up a play for Percy. In the huddle, Tony Stapleton says, "we got one shot, we got one chance here, let's go one time!" He turns to Percy and says, "One love, one love." Percy shakes his head, smiles, and holds up three fingers. He says, "Three loves."
The ball is inbounded, Percy, in super-slow motion, catches it, fakes twice, steps behind the three point line and drains a three. The Garden erupts.
His teammates mob him. He holds up three fingers as he is carried off the court.
EPILOGUE: As the credits roll, under the watchful eye of the Rabbi, Eve and Percy stomp on the glass and everyone yells Mazel Tov!
Then, the horah.
MESHUGGAH Feature Film Treatment Robert Levertis-Bell
ACT ONE:
The film opens on a basketball game in progress, the St. Louis Canucks at the New York Knights. MARK JACKSON, STAN VAN GUNDY, and MIKE BREEN are announcing. It's in the fourth quarter with only a minute to go. The Canucks are up 97-72. DON NELSON is standing the Canucks sideline, he's yelling at the court, hammering with roll of paper. One might think he was overdoing the pantomime as a manner of contradicting reports that this was, indeed, his final game as an NBF coach. MESHUGGAH SMITH (Mehcad Brooks) is playing for the Canucks, the camera follows him as the announcers wrap up the game:
BREEN: The clock is winding down in this final regular season game for these two middle-of-the-pack teams. Neither will make the playoffs and the game is completely meaningless…
VAN GUNDY (interrupting): But what about Meshugga Smith?! Nobody told him this game was meaningless.
JACKSON: 55 points?! Are you kidding me? Mama there goes that man!
BREEN: Yes, a phenomenal night, but still a disappointing season by Meshuggah Smith—whose off-court issues are very well-known. And, even despite this great performance here in New York, you have to wonder if Meshuggah will find a team this summer in free agency.
VAN GUNDY: Absolutely, a player of his calib...
Zap. We pull out from a television inside a luxury box in the same arena. Inside, the Russian oligarch SERGEI BAZAROV (Vladimir Cuk) and PAUL MCCARTNEY (Ricky Gervais) are sitting with the Knights' current majority owner DANIEL GREEN (Paul Lieberstein) and his financial advisor DIPESH CHATTERJEE (Aasif Mandvi). The foreigners have offered Green a staggering $2 Billion to purchase the New York Knights, one of the most storied franchises in professional basketball history, in order to relocate the team to London. They wish to create, in the British Knights, the Old Country’s sole representative in the National Basketball Federation, and a singular magnet for European talent from Ljubljana to Buenos Aires. Green and Chatterjee are very receptive to the offer as they have recently lost their shirts building an as yet unoccupied office park with money embezzled from the Knights.
They are especially skittish as Knights employee, MINDY ROSEN (Bar Refaeli), has started to ask questions about missing funds and Green and Chatterjee are eager to cover up their crime. However, they inform Bazarov and McCartney that, though they wish to sell, the team is far too beloved by the people of New York — especially the black and Jewish fans — and by the league’s commissioner to ever allow such an important team to leave the city. Bazarov replies that he has already witnessed, over the years, that Green has a knack for mismanagement and squandering the good will of Knights fans. He and McCartney can wait a year. McCartney asks Dipesh and Green: “Do you think you can turn the city and the commissioner against the team enough to allow the sale in a single year?” “Yes,” they reply in unison.
Meshuggah in street clothes visiting his MOTHER (Khandi Alexander, with a green wig) at the hospital. She is dying of breast cancer and is lying on the bed while Meshuggah and his fiancé ASHA (Kat Stacks) argue over the remote. She wants to watch the playoffs, he wants to watch Life is Beautiful. They switch back and forth between the NBF Finals and the film and they don’t notice at first that his mother is calling him to her side. They finally hear her summons just as the television switches for the last time to the NBA Finals. He rushes to her bed.
“I have to tell you something, Meshuggah…” “What is it mom?” “It’s about who you are, who we are, something I’ve never told you before and that you’ve never guessed…” “OK?” “Something that will change everything about the way you live from now on…” “Mama, what is it?” He leans in and listens. His eyes widen. “You’re Jewish!”
His mother flatlines… “Beeeeeeep.” His mom expires and when he looks up, he sees his arch nemesis PRINCE HALL (Carlos Boozer) score the championship winning shot over RON ARTEST in order to lead the San Diego Wolverines to the championship. Hall’s teammates mob him. Green and Chatterjee in their office brainstorming what they can do to alienate their fans and the commissioner so they can sell the team. They could field successively worse basketball teams. Tried it and the fans still show up. They could engineer an embarrassing sex scandal that affects both players and management. Tried it and the fans still show up. Something will come up, surely, Green announces and turns on his television, on which is Meshugga at a press conference on ESPN, wearing a yarmulke. He’s announcing that his mother told him that he’s a Jew on her deathbed and that he would from now on be living a Jewish life. “I think I got it,” Dipesh announces.
ACT TWO:
Green forces his GM, FRANK FRANCIS (Idris Elba, with an American accent) to sign Meshuggah Smith to a max one year contract. Posey is beside himself — Meshuggah is a notoriously bad teammate, won’t fit the offense, and is a known “headcase” — “remember that time he was arrested for using a Colt .45 on the Whack-a-Mole at Chuck E. Cheese?” — and is in the midst of a bunch of bad press for the bizarre claim that he’s Jewish. “Sign him or resign,” Green says. “Fine.”
Believing Meshuggah to be a member of one of the problematic Black Hebrew sects, who believe that blacks are "the real Jews," the plan is to encourage Meshuggah incite New York’s racial hostilities by making a public show of his “Jewish” identity while alienating the city’s “real” Jews. In the beginning, the whole thing works, Meshuggah makes a host of disastrous public comments, including one on the eve of his visit to the Western Wall. Asha is very skeptical of the whole enterprise and leaves him. The season starts and soon the team is attracting heat from the JDL and from an anti-Semitic black group headed by FAROUK SHAHAD (Wyatt Cenac) as Meshuggah very publicly “learns to be Jewish,” under Green’s tutorship.
On ESPN, with JIM ROME, Meshuggah announces that he’s been “learning Hebrew… making bagels…. doing standup comedy… and learning to balance his checkbook,” all things Green has told him to say. After this, the Post and Daily News let him have it. The Knights Arena has hordes of protesters outside but hardly anyone inside. Meshuggah, for his part is distraught over the whole thing but Green reminds him of the noble truths of Judaism: “life is suffering and that suffering comes from attachment — you have to let go, Meshuggah and walk your own path, who cares what the fans say, shake them Nazis off. Shalom!” Meshuggah gives another interview to ESPN, this time very stridently denouncing any and all critics as haters including the girl who he thought loved him, but left him because she was jealous of his faith.
After hearing this, Asha returns to confront Meshuggah. She tells him that she’s done some background checks and Green isn’t even himself Jewish — turns out that there are people with that name that aren’t Jewish — and he’s been getting a fake Jewish education all along. Meshuggah is distraught but it only makes his faith stronger, and he’s glad to have Asha back. He feels guilty for falling victim to the ruse but he can now focus on basketball.
ACT THREE:
The Knights begin to win games and the whole plan begins to backfire. Meshuggah’s conversion continues, in good faith now with Asha (a Catholic who clutches rosary beads during close ball games) and his new buddies JASON SCHWARTZMAN and OMRI CASSPI at his side. The Knights make the playoffs and Meshuggah-fever sweeps New York City. Fans leave the picket lines to enter the arena. When they return, the fans sport celebratory clip-on payos and hats and chant for the team in Yiddish. Black-Jewish relations (cf. Jeffrey Melnick) are at an all-time high in New York. Reconciliation montage: There’s a sign on the door of Sylvia’s that says “now 100% kosher!” The Post and Daily News are back on their side.
Meanwhile, the old and potential ownership groups get desperate and start trying, and failing, to astroturf a race war, even going so far as to anonymously funnel money and guns to Farouk Shahad, who stays in front of the arena with rifles and a megaphone denouncing Meshuggah as an affront to the black race. But when the Knights make the Finals, Shahad switches his tune “Meshuggah Smith should be at THE FRONT of the black race. Mazel Tov, my brother!” Frank, the GM, asks Mindy, the Knights employee, whether she’s sure she did the right thing; she says yes and they kiss. “I support you always,” Frank says to Mindy. “I support you always,” Asha says to Meshuggah.
The Finals come and Meshuggah ends up with a perfectly balanced stat sheet—“Just like his checkbook!” Jeff Van Gundy jokes. When he scores the series winning shot, over Prince Hall, the arena erupts into a round of “Hava Nagila.” As everyone is celebrating, the FBI show up to Green’s luxury box and haul off Dipesh and Green in cuffs. Paul McCartney looks at Bazarov, who’s looking down, and says “Oy Vey!”
Final scene: Meshuggah and Asha get married in a Jewish ceremony at Rucker Park. Those in attendance include Tamir Goodman, Larry Brown, and Jordan Farmar.
My eyebrows are in one time zone, my legs are in the last one, and my torso shut off. I also don't think I got much sleep. So apologies if I don't give these bullets points the lengthy treatment they deserve.
-Amar'e, Amar'e, and more Amar'e. At the Awl, I turn the looking glass back on myself. I somehow neglected to mention the issue of conversion, something Eric Freeman and my brother have raised previously. They point to the convert's over-enthusiasm for ritual and all else that belongs in Judaism for Dummies, much like what we see with Stoudemire (albeit less cryptically). As well they should; it's their job. Here's the thing: conversion is a process, a course by which one arrives at the right to call himself a Jew. Amar'e ignored that part—the whole humility, learning and growing part—and has gone right off the deep end. So no, not the same thing.
-Yesterday, Henry brought up his year abroad in Tibet, and suggested we view Amar'e's summer fun in the same developmental light. Since, after all, Amar'e never went to college and had a chance to grow. Now, I don't see any one-and-dones taking a semester abroad, or necessarily getting all they can from the college experience. But certainly, some guys—Kevin Durant, for instance—have shown enthusiasm for their courses, mixing with students, and just generally getting something out of a year on campus. Jay Caspian Kang would like to nominate John Henson for this honor.
Pacific Rims reading and book signing Tuesday, August 3, 6:30 pm Eastwind Books of Berkeley 2066 University Avenue, Berkeley, Calif.
Don't forget, Pacific Rims is the basketball book of the year, and Rafe seems like quite a hoot in his videos. I can also attest to his skills as an email correspondent. Show up or regret it forever!
It took me two days to come up with a viable Passover gimmick post, and as it turned out, it was totally unhinged and offensive on unexpected fronts. But I would like you to read it, because it is fun, and because I live to dispel the myth that everything I write for AOL is corporate crap.
Someone wrote an email into whatever WNYC show is on now saying you should send in your census form, but undercount your family members to STARVE THE BEAST. I could feel Dale Gribble tapping on my shoulder and yelling in my ear.
Has anyone seen Mother yet? I keep trying to see it but the showtimes are fucked. Your friend, Shoals.
Dan is joined by Bethlehem Shoals to talk about the NBA on Christmas. And about making lists. And answering letters. And New Year's wishes for the NBA.
And Carl Landry's teeth.
This all sounds kind of nice, doesn't it?
Trust us, though. People will be offended anyway.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
Songs from the episode:
"HandJobs for the Holidays" - Broken Social Scene "Lisztomania" - Phoenix "Eyes And Teeth" - High on Fire "December" - Unwound "Christmas in Hollis" -Run DMC
And, if you like the show, please do us two favors:
Religious converts are often the most zealous about being pious. I was going to write that they fervently "act as though they are the most pious," but that's not fair, really. It's not an act because there is no intended deception. Rather, their faith is merely new, and often, the ardor with which they embrace it suggests making up for lost time. They sort of have to live like this, though, if they want their newfound faith to stick. I hope that I am not casting aspersions on converts; for me, this is anecdotally true and fairly intuitive. If you haven't grown up with something like a religion--which is so often ritually subscribed to and followed without question due to childhood custom and some organic familiarity--you have to work to make it yours. Observing the sabbath, retelling the mythology, mastering the traditions requires concerted effort, not least of all because adopting the identity that comes with a new faith almost demands an outwardly perceptible comfort with the material. Oh, you're religious now? Really? Were you in jail?
Mike Breen is a basketball convert. At least, that's how it sounds. Listening to Breen call a basketball game is like hearing someone new to Judaism intersperse oddly pronounced Hebrew among his usual idiolect: you know what he's doing, but it doesn't sound right, and you question its authenticity, not least of all because it already seems borderline obnoxious when you hear it from rabbis. For example, normal Jewish people don't speak in vernacular riddled with appositional Hebrew asides; that stilted dialogue is for Talmudic scholars and the mid-life convert who needs to prove just how meticulously he internalized his lessons while preparing a D'var Torah. Really, it's like this: if you want to talk about Egypt, just do so, and stop always coupling that word with "mizraim." You know? Or else, show up as a 200-year-old with a long-ass beard and the kind of robe that would have been suitable for The Ten Commandments (one of the great movies). Then you can say whatever you want, because that's some biblical O.G. shit. Abraham died when he was 175.
Nothing about Mike Breen is biblical O.G. He'll die still reading about Isaac and rams, to say nothing of never having bound his own son in a demonstration of his devotion. Nothing about his style is intuitively felt, or handed down, or in any way connected to a source from which his purported interest in the game might have originated as something naturally occurring. Breen is, instead, the worst kind of convert, the one who wants to believe, but more so, wants you to see that he believes. So he recites rules and adages; he tells you things that you already know, only he can't place them in the nuanced context which you've naturally developed. A typical Breen broadcast is pedantic and formalistic, merely the latest opportunity to make sense of it all and refine the appearance of assimilation to which he apparently aspires.
Breen's uncomfortable exposition and awkward, bookish narration paint a portrait of a broadcaster preoccupied with foreign custom and a literalist's insistence that the actual game match the theoretical form which serves as the foundation for all of his (limited) framework. Players who summon the temerity to play in new ways, or who have the audacity to defy convention, are joylessly regarded with mild condescension as "unique" or "unorthodox." That he acknowledges a Mickael Pietrus as effective always sounds like a concession, particularly when those words are juxtaposed against one of his moralistic paeans to more traditional souls, like a Ray Allen. (And I am not knocking the Ray Rays.) Like a child, he seems to bristle at events which deviate from his expectations and mores. When he even recognizes what's going on to begin with, of course. Were I to lead a Catholic mass, it would be filled with ostentatious emphasis on Latin and old-world ritual so that I might impress upon my audience just how closely I could adhere to all that I had been taught. Forget about whether it made sense, accommodated reality, or accomplished the ultimate goal. It would be absurd, of course, a farce that betrayed my underlying lack of context and lived understanding. I would immediately emerge as an alien, a heathen. That's Breen.
How often does he roll along next to Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson as a third wheel? As the guy who opts for the safety of silence, or the cover of digression, rather than allowing the conversation to proceed along its rightful course and, in turn, expose just how little he gets it? A felled Kenyon Martin claws at someone's leg and Breen wants to quickly move away from Van Gundy's exploration of playoff emotions so that the audience isn't deprived of a meaningless "game reset" with the score and time? When that information is forever available on the screen? Jackson and Van Gundy want to impart lessons learned from their own battles, perhaps tacitly endorsing rougher play, and Breen wants to launch off in another direction concerned with rigid civility and naive consternation about losing control? He is so brazenly a company man as he slavishly insists that referees were dealt a rough hand? Maybe put down your books and go outside sometime, Michael; you're trying too hard, and it's ugly. Mike Breen sounds as though he'd prefer to file a book report about lacing sneakers and holding the ball high rather than to actually think about the fluid, emotional, athletic, personality-driven sport of basketball.
A "favorite" Breen moment for me came several years ago: Breen once looked on as Trevor Ariza, then a Knick, slammed home a put back that shifted the game's momentum and ultimately helped the Knicks win. It was a powerful, exciting moment, the sort which anyone who loves basketball feels viscerally and appreciates for its emotional resonance, to say nothing of its stylistic implications. A normal broadcaster may have experienced all of this and captured the moment with an exclamation and some admiring observation. Do you know what Breen said? He scolded that players aren't supposed to hang on the rim. It was classic, almost as though Breen suffers from a form of basketball Asperger syndrom which impedes his ethereal perceptions and leaves him grasping for a hold on the moment by relying upon textbook definitions, unrealistic ideas, and tangential tropes which he's memorized as an appropriate script.
Mike Breen's duality of not truly knowing but nonetheless seeking to impress with knowledge is an itch always just beyond my reach. More accurately, that this interloper--perhaps he's not truly a convert and more of a benign charlatan--has ascended to a position as basketball's lead broadcaster strikes me as a karmic crime of cosmic proportion. This is no terrestrial injustice; it is far greater. Breen's position in the basketball world feels like it inflicts injury upon my soul and the collective soul of the league and its constituency. In lieu of the stale, wooden, myopic nattering of a glorified mime allowed to speak, the NBA's game, people, and community all deserve narration and celebration that actually sees, let alone articulates, their full contours. The sad irony of Breen's ersatz authority truly arises when one reflects upon the bizarre fact that the NBA's confederacy of culture is wholly neglected by its own town crier.
Consider this: the Most Valuable Puppets ads have been striking because they have deftly given voice to certain truths without actually articulating them. We've enjoyed seeing the ebullient LeBron living with the removed Kobe--chalk all everywhere, rings in a display case--because the contrast efficiently, knowingly tells the story which has captivated NBA fans for a while: Kobe is the focused, relentless introvert whose professionalism extracts teammate adherence and whose refined style poses the only true challenge to Michael's legacy; LeBron is the effulgent, gregarious extrovert whose joy infects teammates and whose physical superiority challenges the conventional theories of possibility. Seeing the two as roommates acknowledges their friendship (to whatever extent it is genuine), while seeing the juvenile back-and-forth acknowledges the hefty tension which lies beneath the marketing veneer of collegial competition. The ads have animated our fascination by imagining these complicated relationship dynamics in the prosaic world of domestic partnership. Almost fan fiction, Nike has created a new chapter in the parallel narrative that helps to tell the true tale of the NBA. That the ads are so stylish only enhances their impact, because in no other league does style matter as much.
And then consider this: the most Mike Breen could ever say about Kobe and LeBron is that each is a "terrific player" who has "helped lift his team" and provided "so many of the things you want to see in a franchise player." Those aren't direct quotes, but they might as well be--conservative, judgmental, preachy, sufficient, and bland. That is Mike Breen, an unimaginative man who peers out at the basketball world through a colorless lens that precludes the sort of expansive, emotional, romantic vision that best and properly captures the NBA. The full puppet story, along with so many more of the league's attendant tales, cannot be accurately recorded in a manual and then taught to someone who seeks to "know" about them without possessing a latent affinity for his subjects. That just doesn't work, much as any old person can fly to Mecca, but that doesn't make him a Muslim. No matter how many times he recounts facts gleaned from a news story about the five pillars.
A Time for Moving Self-Parody and Intense Inward Glances
-So after a series of email conversations about applying my "Jewish question" to the realm of African-American folk, Claude Johnson actually did it. Go watch the action unfold over at Black Fives. I won't go much further than that hypothetical of a "black" black guy with a "white" game, and a "white" black guy with a "black" game.
-Since we're back on this, I wanted to post a link to the interview I did with Jeremy at Mixed Multitudes. I think we cleared the air, though I flubbed my most important statement:
The Woody Allen example was a bad, and obvious, one, but when I look at who I am, and my place in American society, I definitely believe in a sense of community based around–at the risk of sounding totally 19th century–a certain ethnic character. In our case, of course, a lot of it has to do with questioning our character, not knowing where we fit in, what’s ours and what isn’t, and why we care that much to begin with.
That was trying to say not only that identity is construed as such, but that it leads to critical, outsider-y perspective on things that revolves around questioning _________, not knowing where __________ fits in, wondering what belongs to who, really, and accepting that we might not care that much about these questions to begin with. Hence the combination or inquiry, fatalism, dissonance, and absurdity that a lot of us dig in the Spanish players.
-I got an email yesterday asking if those Star of David-shaped snowflakes on the breast of yesterday's holiday jersey weren't eerily reminiscent of you-know-what. What's funny is that I only noticed them on Boston's unis, and assumed it was some sly Red Auerbach joke about this time of year. But if Stern does succeed in pissing off some Holocaust survivors, wow, that would be bad for his standing in the cabal.
-I finally saw Milk last night, and proceeded to read the whole online debate over why he's not known, or promoted, as a Jew, whether the film does enough of that or has any obligation to, and what's going on with Jewish publications not picking up on the newfound interest in a great Jewish political leader. Whatever, the movie was very, very good.
SEE COMMENTS. I MEANT TO MUTE MY REACTION, BUT DIDN'T DO SO ENOUGH. NEXT WEEK, POST ON 40 GUNS and THE FURIES TO PROVE I KNOW FILM.
Consider this the preamble to the preamble, which is always an apology of sorts. I have been way out of touch with the NBA these last few weeks. Limited cable access, little time to sneak off and watch a game of my choosing, and time spent (thankfully) with people who don't want to spend a Thursday at home with Barkley and Kenny. I've also been talking non-stop about some of the more axiomatic features of the league, which sort of dries out your appetite for day-to-day trainspotting.
I also have this weird feeling that everything in the league has been destroyed except for the Thunder, though that's probably just some unconscious way of guilt-tripping myself for going slack.
But I feel fully armed and ready to do what I do best—take something I said once already and more forcefully, desperately, throw it in the face of those who would doubt me. Yesterday, I put up a post that inquired into exactly what "the Jewish athlete" meant today. Some commenters, and at least one blog with a bigger readership than mine, took me to task as either questioning Farmar's Judaism (different from Jewish-nes, I think), or being guilty of the worst kind of self-stereotyping.
First off, Farmar's Judaism is unimpeachable, insofar as he takes it seriously, attends services, and was raised by two Israelis. That's more than I can claim. The whole "he's half-black, and plays a blacker game" had some awkward elements of racialized biology that no one really called me on, but the point mainly was that, for whatever reason, when he steps on the floor he's able to embody the basketball mainstream. Apparently, there are still American Jews out there who believe strongly in the imperative of, or at least the right to, assimilation. My Greenberg allusion was meant to date this attitude as something that, in theory, we've moved past. Jews now can assert the ways in which they are different from "white people" without endangering themselves professionally or personally. We won.
But the funny thing about Jews as an ethnic group: Except for the construction of Israeli identity, or going all-out religious, it's hard to pin down exactly what Jewish "authenticity"—the idea I was trying to nail down in my plea for a "Jew-y" player—would be, other than a bunch of semi-embarrassing stereotypes. That's why I was ridiculed for suggesting that I'd like to see such a player; it's regarded as self-satire, as opposed to alive and kickin' identity politics. I'm not content with today's criteria-based, near-polarizing system of classification, which is why personally, the "he attends shul" proof doesn't do it for me. Nor do I want a repeat of the Jewish Jordan fiasco. I want an athlete whose game I can identify with.
Someone suggested that my seach for a "Jew-y" player would ultimately be detrimental to the league in the same way "blacker" players have been. Ummm, okay. Allen Iverson's not perfect, but he's changed the game forever. As someone who, however foolhardily, takes the idea of a "cultural Judaism" seriously, it would mean a lot to me if—at a time when I'm increasingly asked to either shut up and accept my whiteness or ante up and pay membership dues at my local synagogue—there were a player that did something to work toward a contemporary version of this term. I threw out Woody Allen as an example; he was dismissed as "of the past," but while he may need updating (as would, say, Serch), that's the kind of figure I'd like to see reflected in sports, just as Iverson was to hip-hop.
(Sidenote: If anyone super-influential is reading this, please send me that lost footage from Annie Hall where the Knicks—the real Knicks—take on a team of famous philosophers)
So while it may have been unfair of me to single out Farmar, or accidentally turn him into a figurehead, the fact remains that sports are fucking huge in America, and insofar as I have spent a lot of time in this life of mine looking at so-called secular variations on Jewish identity, I would like to see this borne out in basketball. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I know it's not just a guy who self-identifies as Jewish but otherwise bears no stylistic markers. Or a monolithic, and largely implausible, version of what it means to project "Jewish-ness" for all the world to see. The internal tensions and external negotiations of culture are never an easy thing to pin down, and there's over a century of art, music, and literature that attest to this within the Jewish experience. With sports as central to America as they now are, why can't I ask for an athlete who uses this medium to continue in the critical, often confusing, tradition?
Fine, shove this right back at me as "allusive," guilty of reductionism, keeping the people down, and getting in the way of a more transparent, or flexible, definition of "Jew." Maybe I am living in the past, or preoccupied with my own personality quirks. But I'm not done wrestling with the meaning of secular Jewish identity, nor am I entirely comfortable dismissing an inherently unstable history and canon just because we can't give an easy account of where they stand today. That's the sort of work culture does, and big surprise here, but I think sports, and the power of style, are clearly capable of doing some of that work. They have for everyone else, in every other sport.
Imagine a cross between Rudy Fernandez, Shane Battier, and early Joe Johnson. Also, Stephen Jackson sometimes strikes me as really Jewish. Is Doug Moe the one that got away?
If you want to keep going down this path, I'd suggest consulting our NBA Race War, and its sequel.
I'm fucking exhausted. Don't call me Sarah Silverman or ask for a syllabus.
--Now let's set it off with the most important news of the year in FD-land, which is that Amir Johnson will be the Pistons' starting power forward. We promise there is more to come on this breaking development as the week progresses. This news, combined with the word out of Detroit that Curry is going to expand Tayshaun Prince's game, not to mention the progression of Stuckey, makes me salivating (pause) to watch the Pistons this year.
--A bit of overlooked intrigue on Gwen Ifill's "role" in the debate last week.
--I miss the old days, when we would have been the first to bring you this story, but no doubt it's probably getting pub on like thirteen blogs already. Most notable about this piece is that I forgot Stephen Jackson got RUN OVER BY A CAR.
--Have to link to Zill for his insight on Carmelo and the Nugs. Back when the T-Wolves were competitive, Carmelo + Denver were public enemy No. 1 for me. Now all I can do is shake my head at them for getting in too deep with Karl-ball, tossing Camby into the ocean, and digging a baby blue grave for Iverson. Not that this is the ballsiest of claims, but mark my words right now, after the Nuggets stroll to the All-star break with a barely passable .490-.510 winning percentage, Iverson will be shipped out to a contender and may even win his first ring this year. Could be Detroit, Boston, Dallas, or even Phoenix...I just don't see Iverson going out of this league quietly.
--On to the topic du jour, what Gawker has dubbed the "Jewish Civil War." I'm sure many of you last week got a chance to see Sarah Silverman's plug for "The Big Schlep," shown below:
Amusing, sure. I admit I laughed. But after the novelty wore off, I started to recall that every election year, famous people from Michael Moore to Ralph Nader pull a whole bunch of stupid self-serving stunts that are supposedly "for the cause" but really do more harm than good and generally don't make people vote democrat, and the Silverman video falls into that dump of stunts. (I will say, however, that the whole cringe-inducing Will.I.Am. "Yes We Can" thing shockingly is an exception...shit definitely caught on). Further unsettling was Jackie Mason's response to this video, shown here:
Now, regardless of what YOU think of Silverman or Mason or their videos, picture that small-but-critical block of elderly Jewish voters in Florida. Assume they are "active" online. First, which video are they more likely to see? Second, which video is more likely to sway them? Silverman is speaking to young fanatics who are already voting Obama and are gonna have a tough time convincing their grandparents to do the same. Mason is speaking to his generation, and actually sounds like a rational human being. It pains me to say it because I was a huge Silverman fan circa Mr. Show, but I am siding with Mason here in terms of effectiveness, utility during a critical election in which old people have been shat on (how is it ok that McCain's death is being discussed as an absolute certitude?), and is just plain right.
As an aside, I've been following Silverman over the years and (HATE TO DO IT BUT I HAVE TO) have become increasingly uncomfortable with how comfortable she is being racist toward blacks. What pisses me off is that it's generally under the guise of "hey I'm making fun of Jews and I'm Jewish, so I can make fun of [black people] too," which is such a piddily defense given that self-loathing is virtually the first principle of Jewish comedy and is therefore a given. Second, she has exploited her hipster cred to where she has clearly become a White Act and rarely places herself in any context where a black person would call her out on it (by the way, did anybody catch her and Jenny Lewis at the Apollo? Wonder how that went over). Third, she's simply doing more racist-at-black-people humor than anybody else. Exhibits A and B (of Z) below.
And of course there's the episode of the Sarah Silverman Program where: "Sarah has been denied entry to a tennis club, supposedly because she is Jewish, and argues with a man that claims being black is harder than being Jewish, Sarah tries to prove him wrong by putting on blackface." Hyuk hyuk. Look, it's not like Jackie Mason is any sort of a mensch when it comes to race relations either, but I find Silverman's brand of "cool racism" particularly annoying. Apologies for my rant, especially to those of you who have given us shit over the past few weeks for not focusing enough on basketball. But when the term "Jewish Civil War" comes up, best believe FD is gonna be there to resolve things.
-Ready for Obama Jewish Semiotics #44757345? Turns out Michelle has a rabbi in the family, a cousin who trained in a sect, but was then vetted and accepted by the white Jew establishment. Here's the full story about RABBI CAPERS C. FUNNYE, JR. I'd been preparing a taxonomy of Black Jews, including some sort of authenticity index, but didn't feel like getting in a fight over the Lemba. So suffice it to say that, even if the Ethiopia thing is not quite literal, this guy's not hanging in Times Square or part of a certain hilarious Miami cult.
-More Barry: In a Times piece on Obama, the teacher, the following passage explains, well, everything about everyone:
Obama’s rootedness in the real world shaped every aspect of his teaching. He laced his lectures with basketball analogies. When a student observed the death of Jam Master Jay of the hip-hop group Run-DMC by wearing the group’s trademark tracksuit to the racism seminar, Obama acknowledged the gesture with a nod and a smile. (“I can assure you, that would not have been a common response among the faculty at the University of Chicago,” Joshua Pemstein told me.
-Although the first sentence of this New York Times article about football players wearing wristbands around their biceps actually mentions basketball, the author fails to mention the man who most likely started this trend--NBA strongman Ben Wallace. Ironically, Stern cited the NFL as a model when he outlawed wearing wristbands on the biceps a couple years ago.
Possibly the first footage of Dr. J as a pro (at all?), from one of those fabled NBA/ABA exhibitions, no less. Erving enters off the bench and while he's not exactly dominant, there's that sense that he—and a lot of the ABA players, in fact—have seen things that the likes of Oscar and Wilt just haven't. Not saying they're better, even though they go on a run in this clip. But this isn't sloppy street vs. button-down expertise, it's the great unknown pushing up on the powers that be.
