Wednesday, 12 December 2012

David Wilson: Listen to your Teammates

When I first read the story about Justin Tuck and several other members of the New York Giants suggested that David Wilson stop doing flips in the endzone after he scores, I had three thoughts in the span of as many seconds:


  1. Why the hell am I reading a story about the New York Giants and giving it even a second of thought?
  2. It sounds a little to me like they are overreacting.  The dude is excited and he just wants to celebrate.  If I could backflip on command, even without football pads, I would probably start backflipping to work.  Need a drink of water? Backflip to the water cooler. Need to use the bathroom? Backflip over stall door for my privacy. What sensible person wouldn't backflip if they could?
  3. On second thought, you, David Wilson, are a professional athlete. You have been gifted an opportunity that so many of us grew up dreaming about (for the record, I still haven't given up on my quest to make the NBA). You make millions of dollars. The most important aspect of your job is to take care of your body.  And doing backflips will certainly not help you accomplish that in the long term.
I turn your attention to Exhibit "A" where you will find some of the dangers of backflipping:

If you need a heavier does of Schadenfreude, I suggest just looking up in YouTube: backflip fail. 

Now, I understand that suggesting that the people in those videos possess the same level of athleticism as David Wilson is preposterous at best. But that is not what I am trying to do. The point is that accidents can happen. And the last thing that the guy who just set the record for all-purpose yards for the Giants needs to do is tear an ACL because he was celebrating like a hamster stuck in a wheel. 

There are plenty of other celebrations that athletes have coined and does not have the potential for a catastrophic injury: Gronk's spike, the Moss Moon, the Moss Autograph, Joe Horn's Phone Call, and even your teammate Victor Cruz's Salsa.  Celebration every football fan knows and associates with that individual.

He is just a rookie and on top of the world right now after that performance.  He's been one of the biggest surprises of the year and he just wants his time in the spotlight. But I suspect that his teammates will take him aside and tell him that that spotlight gets awfully dark and fast when you injure yourself acting like a jackass. 

And while I would love nothing more than watching a New York fan base suffer, not even I can hope that he hurts himself this way. He has to start using his head a little bit here. This Giants team needs a balanced attack to create opportunities for Eli Manning and Victor Cruz to find each other in the endzone.  Wilson certainly can't help in that endeavor if he is crutching up and down the sidelines. 

But, hey, a backflip on crutches: now THAT would be impressive. 

Bonus: I leave you with this video of a football player who got a tiny bit too excited...and this was over a field goal. I knew the Gramatica brothers were good for something: Bill Gramatica FAIL

Monday, 3 December 2012

Just Sheed Being Sheed?

Rasheed Wallace is probably my least favorite player currently in the NBA.  He is one of my least favorite of all time.  And he is my third least favorite player to ever don a Portland Trail Blazers jersey (with Bonzi Wells and Raymond Felton tying at 1A and 1B, but that is for another day).

When I think of Rasheed, a few notable moments come to mind: his (deservedly so) tirade of rogue NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, following an ejection in his infamous 41 technical season; throwing a towel in Arvydas Sabonis's face which pretty much encapsulates the Jail Blazers era; his infamous declaration that he doesn't care who he plays for as long as they "cut the check"; and finally, three words that are heard on blacktops around the world, "ball don't lie".

Ball don't lie is the perfect example of Sheed being Sheed, as many like to say.  As if the basketball gods were looking down at the game, forced the player who so unjustifiably received a call (likely against Rasheed) to miss his free throw and that suggests that Rasheed was the victim of a bad call.  When that free throw is missed, Rasheed is cleansed of his sins and confirms that he is a martyr.

So when Rasheed was ejected in just one minute and twenty-five seconds on Sunday for his slap to the face of Luis Scola and his "ball don't lie" comment on the subsequent miss, people laughed as expected.  But then something ridiculous happened.  Fans started asking whether Rasheed should have been ejected for his comment.  I mean, he has been saying it for years.  People don't really take him that seriously anymore when he says it.  Like I said, it is said on courts from kids who barely dribble with one hand to adult men's leagues.  It's just Sheed being Sheed.

No, it's not.  And frankly, I applaud the officials for calling the second technical so quickly and putting an end to the mockery.  Just because a player acts like a jackass for his entire career does not mean he gets a free pass for acting like a jackass at the end of it.

NBA TV had a question scroll across the bottom line tonight asking if fans thought that Rasheed's ejection was an overreaction because it was just "Sheed being Sheed."

Overreaction?  Seriously?  Rasheed has overstayed his welcome in the NBA, both with his play and his attitude.  And I will admit, I laughed the first couple of times I heard Sheed say it.  It's such a phenomenally stupid train of logic, one can't help it.  But there was a time and a place, and Sunday was neither.

You don't get a free pass for stupidity in perpetuity.  Now if only somebody could convince him of that.

Sunday, 2 December 2012

A Tale of Two Hurts

I would imagine that one of the most difficult tasks for a musical artist to accomplish is to produce a cover that is on par with the original song.  Songs that are generally covered are those that are thought or emotionally evoking, prompting the listener to express the emotion they feel when listening to the music through their interpretation of the song itself.  That is no small task.

By and large, I do not enjoy covers.  I often find that the cover frequently fails to recreate the evocations of the original.  I respect the artists that attempt to do it, but I do not hold high hopes when I see one of my favorite bands cover a song.  The original is a special experience.  The cover is a reminder of why that first experience is special.

Not all covers fall short, however.  The one cover that people almost universally agree is superior to the original is Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".  Bob Dylan himself agrees, saying: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

"All Along the Watchtower" is so closely associated with Jimi Hendrix now that most people probably do not realize that the original was by Bob Dylan.  And that is the ultimate goal of a cover: supersede the original in the minds of the listeners.

Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" undoubtedly falls under the category of on par or better than the original (depending on who you ask, of course).  But where Jimi Hendrix took the song and simply made it better, Johnny Cash took a different angle to the cover entirely.

In the original NIN song, the entire song is a dramatic production.  It is laden with emotion dripping from every word, seemingly a cry for help.  The final minute of statically ominous white noise is the moment of letting go, where the listener actually hears Trent Reznor give up. He so desperately needs anyone to hear his cries of pain, but he is just lost.  Reznor is at the end of his life, but because he chooses to be.  "Hurt" is his swan song: the moment right before he takes his life.

Coming from Johnny Cash, however, the song is filled with a completely different set of emotions.  Johnny Cash released his cover of "Hurt" in 2002, one year before his death.  The cover is a reflection of the life that he has lived, but not with the sense of desperation that Reznor conveys.  Cash's version isn't about giving up.  It is about an old man who is left to ponder the life experiences that shaped him.  He is coming to the acceptance as his life clock ticks one second closer to his death.  A bittersweet end approaches him as he knows he has done wrongs in his life that he will be unable to right.  The simplicity of Cash's version, the repetitiveness of the piano and the guitar chords, paints the picture of a humble man who has simply accepted that his time has come.

The songs are both "Hurt". The lyrics are unchanged.  But nobody can listen to each version and think that they communicate the same meaning.  That is the beauty of Cash's version as well as Reznor's.  In fact, it is almost difficult to say that one is better than the other because the two men were not trying to communicate similar messages.  This is a comparison to apples and oranges.  But it is a fantastic reminder of the depth and complexity that goes into the music that we hear every day, proving that even an unlikely cover can evoke wildly different emotions.