I don’t know what to say. I know this podcast is not meant for children, but we may have just crossed the line on this one. We don’t mean any harm — after all, sometimes you have to laugh through some ugly shit. But some people might misconstrue why we are laughing hysterically at certain things. Like when I say that someone looks like an AIDS patient pre-Kaposi’s sarcoma sores.
I guess if there’s anything to blame, here it is:
A variation of the salty dog that Brendan made: a traditional gin and grapefruit juice in a salt-rimmed glass. But Brendan added rosemary and a habanero syrup that gave it a little kick.
In this episode I yell at Brendan for being an asshole, learning Brendan’s mom listens to us, EDM as the new Jock Jamz, a guide for kids taking drugs, some really offensive stuff, Donald Sterling and racism, I bemoan the fact I never had my shit together so as to become a teenage hooker at exclusive Hollywood producers’ parties, Courtney Love, Kim Deal, horse racing, pari-mutuel gambling, Rob Ford sex tape?, frothing of the muzzle and a whole bunch of other drunken nonsense.
The music featured are Air Supply’s “All Out of Love” with a cameo from Snoop Dog, Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker”, Hole’s “Teenage Whore” and Pleasure Forever’s “Goodnight”.
Again, if you’re sensitive about shit, don’t even bother.
I don’t know what the circumstances were, but I was watching the television as they counted down when the blast would occur. I happened to have a lead-lined suitcase in the middle of my bedroom and did my best to squeeze into the cramped quarters as the news anchor counted down. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
Silence. Nothing. I emerged from the suitcase, checked on my grandmother and went to the bathroom to take a piss. It was then that I woke up because I had to take a piss.
When I got back to bed I couldn’t go back to sleep. It wasn’t a nightmare because I wasn’t particularly upset about the end of the world. Eventually I wound up masturbating then fell right asleep.
Now, it’s hot , and I’m tired. But I bought some ginger ale days after I had a hankering for some soda pop. I feel a bit better now.
In Game 2, the Kings hoped to capitalize on their scrappy third period of Game 1 when they scored three times to cut their deficit to 5-3. The Sharks eventually scored an empty-netter for the 6-3 Game 1 victory at home. But when the Kings jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period of Game 2, things looked optimistic. After all, the Sharks had pretty much outplayed the Kings during that first period, and Jonathan Quick made some pretty epic saves.
After the 17-minute intermission, the Sharks continued where they left off and the Kings jumped into the abyss. Mike Brown. Raffi Torres. Justin Braun. The Sharks then took the 3-2 lead going into the second intermission. Then in the third period the bigger guys weighed in: Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Joe Thornton.
After the Dodger Stadium game I thought the Kings were done. They're done.
After their Game 3 loss Game 4 looked like a mere formality, but something funny happened along the way to a San Jose sweep. Rather than trying to bully the Sharks into submission which obviously hadn’t worked to that point, the Kings decided to go back to their game. Sure there were still hard hits, but they made sure to refocus on trying to get their forecheck going, to stop turning over pucks in their own zone, to limit the Sharks odd-man rushes that led to that 7-2 drubbing in Game 2.
As the Kings kept winning, the recurring question about the Sharks during the playoffs came up. And it crescendoed in Game 7 last night: how do they shrink and shrink as the spotlight gets brighter and brighter? Head coach Todd McClellan will probably take the fall. General manager Doug Wilson will probably keep his job. But that team as constituted with Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Patrick Marleau cannot return. Barring runs to the Western Conference Finals in 2010 and 2011, this team has proven they can’t win in the postseason.
The Kings, meanwhile, joined the likes of 1942 Maple Leafs, 1975 New York Islanders, 2004 Boston Red Sox and the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers as teams who have completed reverse-sweeps in a best-of-seven-games series. And they won the game despite the Sharks scoring first. Before yesterday’s triple-header of Game 7s, the last 16 Game 7s were won by the team who scored first. The last team to come from behind in a Game 7 to win: those 2010 Philadelphia Flyers who overcame a 3-0 Boston Bruins lead.
Now comes another bit of history: the first ever Freeway Series in the playoffs between the Ducks and the Kings. On paper the Ducks should win, but then again so should the Sharks have won. There will be a lot of space wasted in deep analysis, the goalie matchup, the forwards, the stars, the whatevers. It’s an exercise in futility, and frankly those who do it are complete idiots.
Simply put, I like the Kings to dispatch the Ducks in six games en route to their third consecutive conference final berth.
Bereft of advertisers, the scoreboad promotes only Clippers pride and unity during game 5 of the NBA Western Conference playoffs at Staples Center. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Little did I think after I wrote my little diatribe against Donald Tokowitz Sterling Friday morning that the shit would hit the fan that night. But it did, and the words “banned for life,” uttered by commissioner Adam Silver Monday morning has opened the way to a forced removal of the Donald.
Bomani Jones has been the most eloquent voice in this whole shitstorm, and I’ll just present his conversation with Dan LeBatard on Monday as the definitive cheat sheet on this mess:
While it’s nice that people are acknowledging racism still exists despite a lot of white folks saying this was a post-racial world after Obama’s election. But Bomani is correct. This is a pretty stupid thing to be mad at. How about the inherent racism of the death penalty especially in Oklahoma where they can’t even get it right.
Nonetheless, here we were at Game 5 between the Clippers and the Warriors with the series tied 2-2. Had Silver not thrown the book, the anthology and the whole damn library at the Donald, the San Jose Mercury News detailed a plan by the Warriors for a dramatic boycott. The Warriors would have gone through the normal pregame rituals, and once the ball was jumped for the opening tip, the team would have walked out en masse while the ball was descending back to the ground. In fact, as Roger Mason told the media in Los Angeles earlier in the afternoon, all six teams playing yesterday would have boycotted yesterday’s games had Silver not done what he done.
The Clippers looked drained and a step slow during Game 4 in Oakland the day after the shit hit the fan. They certainly looked better to start this game getting out to a 31-21 first quarter lead. After the game Doc Rivers said that his was still a step slow, that during fast breaks in transition DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin were panting still behind the time line in the back court. Hell, he had to use all of his second half timeouts in order to get his guys some rest.
But it seemed the person most unburdened was DeAndre Jordan. In Game 4 he didn’t have a single point in 25 minutes played and managed only six rebounds. Last night? A career playoff high 25 points in 38 minutes played with 18 rebounds, six of them on the offensive glass.
After the game he told Brad Turner of the LA Times, “I felt like that just took our minds off of what has been going on,” Jordan said. “I feel like we get a lot of [stuff] from our family and our friends.
“It’s never going to go away. But I feel like it was definitely a weight lifted off our shoulders so we can just continue to focus on playing basketball.”
DJ might have been physically tired but not exhausted enough to not be in the middle of everything. As the Warriors tried to claw their way back late in the game, there was DJ on the bottom of the scrum after Stephen Curry was once again lackadaisical with the ball (he had eight turnovers), got the ball to Blake Griffin who outletted the ball to Jamal Crawford for an easy transition dunk.
The Clippers left the arena with the 113-103 win, a 3-2 lead in the series and it seemed like everyone could exhale for a second. Perhaps everyone could get a good night sleep (or as good as one can get in the middle of the playoffs.)
For me, it was a strange night. After years of wanting to root for the team but pulling back because of the specter of the Donald, I felt that for the first time I didn’t have to feel guilty about wanting the Clippers to do well. And I have to admit it felt a bit liberating.
The “Sandley Cup”, a sand sculpture of the Stanley Cup made for the Kings playoff run in 2012.
I was shocked when the Kings won Game 4 at home. The Kings were on their way to getting swept by the San Jose Sharks in their first round series, and I had them losing 4-1. The Kings won 6-3 keeping their season alive. I went to Twitter to confess my sins and got this response:
@JimmyBramlett To make up for this I feel you should do a Kings edition “Blowjob, Handjob & Anal” thing.
Due to laziness I didn’t do it that night, but I maintained that if they won Game 5 I’d do it.
Here we are. The Kings beat the Sharks 3-0 in what Darryl Sutter termed “The Cage”. The Kings still trail the series 3-2, but that light at the end of the tunnel is looking less like a train as each shift passes.
The first two games in San Jose, the Kings lost by a combined score of 13-5. They were thoroughly outplayed and looked much like the team I saw lose to the Ducks at Dodger Stadium 3-0, my final game for LAist. Tonight, the Kings were the ones who outplayed the opponent. All of a sudden, they look like the team that could do damage in the playoffs.
Handjob – Jake Muzzin. He didn’t show up on the score sheet in Game 5, but he has two goals and an assist in this series. He also is one of the few Kings players with a positive +/- rating with a +3. His efforts on the blue line do get overlooked at times, but he is one the reasons the Kings haven’t hurt with the loss of Rob Scuderi.
Blowjob – Jonathan Quick. A lot of people were questioning him after the first two games. But anyone who watched the games knew that most of the problems were the players in front of him. It’s hard to be perfect when the players in front you look lost and are chasing their tails for 40 minutes.
Here in Game 5 in San Jose, Quick pitched a shutout with 30 saves. If you want to look at the big reason why the Kings are still in this series, you can look no further than who’s minding the net. Normally this would deserve some anal action, but he’s really boring as fuck. My pubic hair has more personality than what he shows to the media.
Of course, that’s not what is required of him. All he really needs to concern himself with is being a top-notch goaltender.
Anal – Jeff Carter. Okay, Carter hasn’t looked his best in this series, although he did score the Kings’ third goal tonight on the power play. But look at him.
Original image on Hockey Gods.
Even with his missing teeth I’d let him fuck me any time. And yes, I had to black out the bikini clad girls who were originally in the photo because I just couldn’t handle it. I can barely stand that he has a gorgeous girlfriend.
I guess it was just as well that he hardly ever talked to the media post game because my heart probably would have seized up on me. It’s hard enough for me to ask a question that will elicit something more than the mindless media-safe drivel we normally get from athletes. But to do that while repeating the mantra “be still my beating heart” silently? Pfft.
Right on cue, last night, TMZ released the Donald Sterling tape half a day after I enumerated my reasons for not being able to root for his team. And, judging by the reaction on Twitter and Facebook, people are shocked. Why?
Everything Sterling said in that phone conversation with his girlfriend is nothing shocking to anyone who has read any of the coverage surrounding the Donald. He doesn’t like Mexicans, blacks, Salvadoreans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, etc. He’s a complete misogynist.
All of this has been public knowledge through court records, depositions and transcripts. And despite it all the NBA has chosen to look the other way for decades. So forgive me if I’m not quite so optimistic anything will be done in this case.
Keith Olbermann floated the idea on Twitter that the Clippers should refuse to play if the Donald remains the owner. That is a fine thought on the surface. But most of these guys chose to take his money, to help his team be successful which in turn lines the Donald’s pockets with the precious money.
Today Charles Barkley on TNT said that we have to separate the team from the owner, that we should support Chris Paul, Doc Rivers, Blake Griffin and the boys but denounce the Donald. The problem is you can’t separate them. Their success is the Donald’s success. That’s the way economics works. And that’s why I can’t root for the Clippers despite finding them to be very entertaining to watch.
Perhaps it’s a good thing it took a recorded phone call to be leaked by TMZ for all of this uproar to come to a boil. I guess it has the impact that mere words do not.
I don’t know if the NBA has a “best interest of the game” clause like MLB does. If they do, commissioner Adam Silver needs to yank the Clippers away from the Donald yesterday.
The best and most articulate response to this came from Mr. Calvin Broadus on Instagram.
Edit: I completely forgot to put this in here. But Sterling, despite all of his philandering, is still married to his wife, Rochelle, of almost 57 years. She, by the way, is suing this girlfriend V. Stiviano. I. Don’t. Know.
The Clippers are everything that would normally give me a hardon as a sports fan. They’re a historically shitty franchise that has finally stumbled onto something good. They play some of the most entertaining basketball seen in the NBA in some time. Chris Paul is one of the nicest superstars, and Blake Griffin has a charisma and a sharp urbane wit that belies his Oklahoma upbringing.
Watching the Clippers this playoffs, and it’s clear how much they have improved this season with Doc Rivers at the helm. DeAndre Jordan has turned into a defensive and rebounding machine tying Bob McAdoo’s franchise record for rebounds in a playoff game last night with 22. Blake Griffin, once an amusing study in why a “big guy” should never run the offense, can actually create offense whether it be by finding the open man on the perimeter or actually creating his shot. Yes, Blake Griffin can create his own shot! And that is key with Chris Paul hobbled by aching hamstrings and a still sore shoulder.
And, of course, the Clippers have the sharpshooters in Jamal Crawford and the smouldering JJ Redick whom I still would love to go down on.
Add the bench players Danny Granger, Big Baby, Matt Barnes, et al, and you have a team that can actually win an NBA title. But one thing has me sitting on my hands: Donald Tokowitz Sterling.
Clippers owner Donald Sterling is one of the most odious people alive, to put it politely.
1. Donald Sterling sued a former mistress to get back a house he gave her during their relationship. And the deposition he gave was glorious. “It was purely sex for money, money for sex, sex for money, money for sex.” “Best sex was better than words could express.” “Maybe I morally did something wrong.”
2. Donald Sterling is a racist. In 2005 he had to pay $2.73 million to settle claims by the Justice Department that he engaged in discriminatory rental practices. He refused to rent to non-Koreans in Koreatown. He wouldn’t rent to African-Americans in Beverly Hills. He issued repeated eviction notices to a black woman despite her paying her rent on time.
3. Donald Sterling is an asshole. He heckled Baron Davis. While Baron Davis was a Clipper.
For years Sterling would not spend money on his team. General manager and living legend Elgin Baylor made only $350,000 annually. It wasn’t until the turn of the century that Sterling finally started spending money on players.
Let’s face it. Donald Sterling is a dickhead of the highest order, and him hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy will mean karma does not exist. Sure, it would mean Ralph Lawler would finally see a championship. Chris Paul will finally get his ring.
I wrote a nostalgic piece about Hole’s Live Through This a couple of weeks ago. Brendan and I did a tribute to 1994 music in our most recent podcast. Yes, I fully accept the fact I’ve fallen into the nostalgia wormhole, something I try to spend as little of my life wallowing in.
A lad on Flavorwire is urging us to stop the nostalgia and realize that 1994 was a shitty year in music. He points to Kurdt offing himself, Green Day’s Dookie and the genesis of the seemingly never-ending grunge derivative bands (or, grunge-lite).
And that’s true. All true. But even with those warts, look at this list of gems. Alice in Chains, Meat Puppets, Cornershop, Tori Amos! And that was all only in January.
I am fully aware that I am biased here. I was 15 at the height of adolescence and the weirdness that entails. So there is some corner of my heart that has some fondness for anything that helped me survive my teenage years.
Yesterday I made a mix of songs released in 1994. If you want a portable version, you can download the Mixcloud app.
By the way, I cheated a little. This picture was taken in 1996. This was also the haircut that got me kicked out the house for a weekend because it was deemed “too gay”.
Since it’s been 20 years since one of the best years for music, we do our little tribute to it. The music featured are Unwound’s “All Soul’s Day”, Jawbox’s “Cooling Card”, Hole’s “Rock Star” and Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair”.
The podcast is brought to you by sazerac, although it is not to blame for my utter lack of ability to string words together. We talk about:
* Music in 1994
* Mogwai live
* Couples making out in concerts
* P-22 and my ignorance of what to do if confronted with a mountain lion
* Donald Rumsfeld and Errol Morris
* Why we don’t really like President Obama
* Sex
* Fuck the AIDS Healthcare Foundation
* Yasiel Puig
* Bill Plaschke
I suppose it would be professional of me to either re-record this podcast or do some major editing in “post”. I guess I could have stricken a couple of “You know”s or dubbed Marvin Miller’s name where I forgot (yet I remembered Curt Flood’s name).
It’s still an entertaining podcast that actually had me cracking up as I was doing my weekly Sunday cleaning. Brendan clearly carried this podcast. I’ll do better next time.
With sideline reporter extraordinaire Craig Sager and his loud suits sidelined for the NBA playoffs because of his battle with leukemia, TNT brought in his son to interview Spurs coach Gregg Popovich after the third quarter. It was just as endearing as anticipated.
