Akon Ain'T No Criminal: The Devalued Face of Street Cred

Man/Dude/Any String Of Platitudes, 

I'm tired to the death and loving it.  I've been dabbling with the tactic that being tired makes me happier. It does. Kind of. I've been reading about 300 pages a day and most conversations have been fueled by great sincerity. For the first time in my life, I've given haircuts an honest moment's consideration. 

Being tired has it's downsides though. A) I'm always tired B) My life has been boiled down to me just staring at shit. In class today I looked around the room and studied each person's mouth. C) I don't remember anything

Did you know? Every person's mouth sort of pops out of their face like some last minute addition. It is as if evolution gave us a jaw and digestive system, but forgot the orifice of entry that would crank the gears of the entire operation. I've concluded that I have more in common with a fish than I could have ever expected. 

Fatal Familial Insomnia is a disease that begins with a plaque growing on the brain. It deprives one of their ability to sleep. They begin to get restless and sleep deprived for a few weeks before moving on to hallucinations before finally falling into a catatonic state. I think this would be the very best most wonderful way to die. The moment one finally fell asleep would be the best feeling in the annals of human feeling. No orgasm or triumph could possibly compete with the euphoria of falling asleep when the previous years had been dedicated to falling asleep. 

You'd probably have a lot of pent up dreams as well. 

This was supposed to be a sports post and I'm gathering that I should get the machine back on track. In the pursuit of a better basketball experience my cohort and I are trying to analyze and pin the league down to a T. This begins with trying to understand each and every team so we might uncover their meaning in the great narrative of basketball and thus recognize the patterns and parallels of the careers of individual players. Using these players, games, and outcomes as a "code hero" we hope to unravel something of ourselves on this myriad journey we are taking. 

Rasheed Wallace and I are born of the same star. 

Today's Team: The Charlotte Bobcats

As young Brock Alter is finding out, there are a great many reasons to follow professional sports. There are games to watch. There is a vague sense of camaraderie with the sort of people you would never really want to talk to given their natural ability of playing a game. Also, if you see someone wearing your team's gear you get to high five them. 

There is the joy of professing love for your geographic region. The study of trends from year to year, and the neighborly quality taken on by those who have stayed a part of your team for a long while. Joe Dumars has been a part of the Pistons organization since 1983, that makes us almost neighbors. 

There are a great many reasons to hate professional sports. I hear these all the time but the only reason I can understand to hate sports is the Charlotte Bobcats. 

If pro sports offer a bastion of possibility, potential, and what it takes to become a success, then the Charlotte Bobcats are staying in your hometown after graduating high school as a prep superstar. The cool kids stay the cool kids, and you stay whoever you were and try to block out the depressing truth of wearing your varsity jacket as a morbidly obese thirty-year old. 

The Bobcats are epitomized by the group think of complacency, offering no insight other than "Hey it's happened before." 

The Bobcats primary owner is Bob Johnson. A magazine mogul who named the team after himself. Is a Bobcat intimidating? I guess so, but that doesn't excuse your entire franchise reeking of vanity. 

The other two owners of the Bobcats are Michael Jordan and...Nelly. Nelly. That Nelly. The one who wears a band-aid. In the basketball hotbed of North Carolina, a former athlete and rapper were the two best candidates to take an ownership stake? Nepotism without the convenient adhesive of bloodline is the overwhelming underlying philosophy of the Bobcats. 

Forgetting Jordan's massive failure as an executive, he was put in charge of the team's personnel decisions. What did Jordan do? Pick the player with best college pedigree, especially if they attended college in North Carolina. The good ol' boys have come back home and proceeded to shit the bed. With the exception of Gerald Wallace, their careers are the basketball equivalent of getting a job as your former high school's assistant golf coach. 

Emeka Okafor- Famous for being an African College Basketball Player

Adam Morrison- Famous for crying during a college basketball game. 

Raymond Felton- Famous for being an above-average basketball player

Sean May- Famous for being a college basketball player who frequently dressed up as the Michelin man and sneaking into local bakeries. 

Grow up Bobcats. I won't be like you. 

Their coach wears a catheter.