Couple of interesting links

I've enjoyed all of ESPN's "30 For 30" series, with a few exceptions (the Len Bias doc was surprisingly weak), but Steve James of Hoop Dreams' piece, "No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson" was exceptional. It's about a race-driven brawl that Iverson was in at a bowling alley during high school, and how the following trial divided the town in two. James doesn't necessarily come out and say "these people are racist," but just hearing all of the figures being interviewed, they all sound like people trying not to sound racist. They're speaking in those couched terms people use in these situations, talking about the "bad crowd" he was "running with," or how if he wasn't a famous athlete, no one would be making these accusations.  But underlying their tone, there's a clear dislike for Iverson, a refusal to believe that he could be innocent because of the kind of person that he is. They're far more transparent than they think, and ultimately, they're damned by their dishonesty. Here's a link to the show's site, so you can see the trailer and check viewing times, and I'd recommend watching it next time it pops up on ESPN or ESPN2.

Rebecca Traister has an excellent piece on Slate about the possibility that Tina Fey has failed feminists (spoiler alert: she hasn't). It mentions, but does not delve into one of my constant frustrations when discussing actors and culture: the inability to separate character from actor, and character's viewpoint from actor's viewpoint. Because Fey's created an upper-middle-class sitcom character who can't maintain her stated values when push comes to shove, she herself must be gulty of the same failings. It sounds stupid when you say it, but for some reason this is human nature. I feel bad for Kelsey Grammer, who must be constantly chided for intellectual snobbery.

I also enjoyed this Wired article on Bill Amend about the geek aspects of Fox Trot. Which reminds me, I have a large magazine rack in my office installed into the wall by the previous occupant - it's too much trouble to take down and have our facilities team patch up and repaint the area, so I've just jammed it with some old back copies of DV magazine, but since it's the thing that everyone comes into the office and flips through (and the mocks), I feel that I should have some more interesting reading material there. So, if anyone knows of any good cheap/free magazines that a video producer could have in his office, let me know.

 

Baseball Predictions 2010

Alright, here are my ten brave predictions for the coming MLB seasons. I'm assuming I'm gonna get seven of these at least partly right, which in my mind makes me an expert, even if some of them are things like "the Cardinals will win the NL Central!"

1. The Seattle Mariners are wildly overrated and will not win the AL West.

2. Brett Anderson will put up monster numbers in his second season and finish in the top-5 for Cy Young voting.

3.The Red Sox will sputter through a solid month this spring and look completely disoriented. Fans will panic, but they'll put on the jets over the course of the summer and finish with 95 wins.

4.The Rays will be the third-best team in the American League and possibly baseball, and will still find themselves out of contention and make at least one "looking to the future" trade, most likely involving Carl Crawford or Rafael Soriano.

5. Out of Nick Johnson, Javier Vasquez, Joba Chamberlain, and Chan Ho Park, at least one Yankee will flame out in spectacular fashion.

6. Comeback player of the year: C.J. Wilson. Close second: Lance Berkman.
Breakout years: Billy Butler, Gordon Beckham, Garrett Jones. Still not having a breakout year: Grady Sizemore, Alex Rios.
Not going to have an impact his rookie year, hype or not: Aroldis Chapman. Who will: Jason Heyward, Stephen Strasburg.
Severly underrated: Rajai Davis.
Not a fluke: Ben Zobrist.
Change of scenery would do him good: Corey Hart.

7. Not dead yet: David Ortiz, Rafael Furcal, Jermaine Dye, Bronson Arroyo, Brad Penny, Orlando Cabrera, Orlando Hudson, Daisuke Matsuzaka.

8. Dead: Huston Street, Mike Gonzalez, Milton Bradley (left), Brad Lidge, Melky Cabrera, Pedro Feliz, Matt Lindstrom, Johnny Damon's outfield-playing days.

9. The NL playoff teams will be Phillies, Cardinals, Rockies, and Braves. None of these races will be particularly exciting, though none of them will be insanely out of reach.

10. The AL playoff teams will be the Yankees, Red Sox, White Sox, and... Angels. The Twins will remain in the hunt all season, and Texas will look frisky but deeply flawed. They'll be 2011's "look out for this team coming on!"

Round-Up on NBA predictions

I hadn't looked back at my NBA predictions for the year since I did them, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did better than expected. Of the ten predictions, most of them are roughly on the money and some of them are dead on. Of course, my 1-through-15 list of all teams in each conference was... spotty at best. My major problem seemed to be an overabundnace of faith in my Boston Celtics, which is I guess undertstandable though not really excusable.

I said that the Celtics would suffer through a slew of injuries and "inner turmoil" (right), but still end up with the Easter Conference's best record (whoops). Likewise, I felt that the Spurs' depth and experience would lead them to the top seed in the Western Conference (didn't work out that well, either). However, I correctly saw that preseason playoff buzz for the Clippers and Wizards was pie-in-the-sky nonsense, and now the teams are a combined 51-106.

I also felt that the Thunder and the Rockets were both severly underrated and would be in playoff contention (they're currently the 8th and 9th seeds in the West). I also felt that the Warriors (24-54) might be a sleeper pick, but I don't feel terrible about that (that one felt a lot like picking a 12 over 5 in the first round of March Madness - you feel great if they win and demand high-fives from passers-by, and if they lose you shrug it off. I've shrugged off my Warriors love).

My sleepers for players who would have unexpectedly big years were King's eighth-man Jason Thompson (averaging 12.5 ppg and 8.5 rpg, and just became a starter), Allen Iverson (well, he did make the All-Star team), Baron Davis (had an average year for him), Carmelo Anthony (upped his game in every category, including 4 full ppg higher, making him 3rd in scoring in the NBA this year), Andrea Bargnani (also made huge leaps in every category), and Michael Beasley (showed slight improvement, nothing dramatic).

I also predicted big years for anyone on the Thunder under 25 (Kevin Durant (30 ppg, 7.5 rpg, might win scoring title and an MVP candidate), Russell Westbrook (16 ppg, 5 rpg, 8 apg, and had numerous "where did this guy come from?" articles written), Jeff Green (averaged 15 ppg and 6 rpg, continues to be excellent role player for Thunder), Serge Ibaka (came out of nowhere to average over 5 rpg), and James Harden (10 pgg, slightly disappointing rookie year, but fitting into the team nicely), and for anyone on the Rockets not name Yao or T-Mac (Aaron Brooks (averaging 20 ppg and 5 apg, can now be considered a legitimate All-Star-quality point guard), Trevor Ariza (became solid starting SF, averaging 15 ppg and 5 rbg, appears to be fantastic value for the contract he was signed to), Chase Buddinger (9 ppg, a steal in the mid-2nd round last year), Kyle Lowry (improvement in all categories), plus the addition of Kevin Martin (22 ppg, upped his scoring and shooting percentages as soon as he arrived in Houston)).

I'm counting most of those as wins, Beasley and Davis as a wash, and Iverson as my only failure. Doing well!

Plus, I had the following players - all of whom were predicted to have significant regression in their games - holding steady in their production: Ray Allen (maintained his career-high FG% but dropped slightly in both 3-pt FG% and scoring) Dwayne Wade (dropped slightly in most categories), Steve Nash (at age 36, actually improved his numbers), Jason Kidd (age 37 and also improved his numbers), and Nate Robinson (couldn't get playing time under Mike D'Antoni, traded to Celtics to provide offense off the bench rather than start).

So, we'll count Robinson and Wade as a failures, Allen as a slight failure, and Nash and Kidd as wins. Meh.

Lastly, based on the fact that I felt he wouldn't be able to return at full strength from his knee injury and that all this talk of it being a "one-man draft" was stuff and nonsense, I predicted that someone other than Blake Griffin would win the Rookie of the Year Award, which - since he ended up missing the entire season with the injury - should probably be a lock.

That was fun! I'm encouraged to do a run of baseball predictions sometime this weekend and to hope for similar success.

Much more fun than you might expect.

I went the National Funeral Museum this week for work - I had to do a shoot there with a girl who's training to be a funeral director - and enjoyed myself immensely. It's mostly a collection of old hearses, some of which were quite ornate, and a interesting caskets, the best of which was one covered in money called the "You Can Take It With You" casket.

The best part by far was the fact that the museum has a large gift shop, because, of course it does. T-shirts and mugs with mildly catchy slogans ("Any day above ground is a good one", etc.) were prevalent, but the real winner was the large collection of death-themed toys and children's decorations.  I didn't buy anything, but I did take some pictures:

This last one reads: "Cremation: The Last Time Anyone Lights Your Fire"