Friday, July 09, 2010
The LeBron Hypocrisy -- It's Not His
How dare he turn all of this into a circus? How dare he act like the second coming of Michael Jordan when he hasn't won anything yet?
This is the general -- not just Cleveland -- media denunciation of James for his "The Decision" special that announced his plan to play for the Miami Heat. His former owner, Dan Gilbert was ruthless in castigating James for his escape to South Beach. The words drip with venom: "deserted," "cowardly betrayal," "shameful display of selfishness," and the coup de grace:
This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his "decision" unlike anything ever "witnessed" in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.In a later interview, Gilbert added that James "quit" during the playoffs. (Strangely though, Gilbert still wanted this "quitter" to resign with his team! Funny that, eh?)
Again, it all came down to three words: How dare he?
Well, quite easily actually. It's not like all these bigger-than-the-game impulses just popped into his head out of nowhere. Let's go back a mere seven years:
[With] Jordan retiring for the third--and he says final time--if all of the hype and expectations are valid, the answer to that often-asked question could come in the form of a 6-foot-8, 240-pound, 18-year-old high schooler whose spectacular play has prompted onlookers to refer to him as "King James."
LeBron James, who has been called "the best high school player ever," is a creative dunker with the explosiveness of Jordan and the passing ability of Magic Johnson. Not since Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was a high schooler in the '60s has a high school sensation gotten so much exposure and generated so much excitement. He is what sports experts call "a legitimate showstopper" who has, during his tenure at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, exhibited the kind of fan-pleasing ability that will likely make him the NBA's No. 1 draft pick on June 26.
James, who has a 32-point scoring average and 3.75 grade-point average, is a cordial, sometimes engaging youngster who is characterized by his unselfishness on the court that's mixed with a bit of flamboyance. And it's those credentials that elevated him to the level where he was the focus of what was called the "Fantastic Scholastic LeBron James Tour," an 8,500-mile, cross-country road schedule that included stops in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Dayton and Greensboro, N.C.
[SNIP]
The McDonald's High School Player of the Year is a unique package of athletic ability and charisma that has enthralled spectators in ways not seen before at this level. This spring, for example, sellout crowds of 20,000 or more attended several All-Star games in which he played, and some paid upward of $85 to see him. There are nearly 1,100 LeBron James items listed on eBay. And when was the last time that a high schooler has generated so much excitement that his regular-season games were nationally televised? Earlier this year, James' introduction to nationwide TV gained ESPN2 its largest audience in two years.The title of the above article from the June 2003 Ebony? "Is LeBron James the next Michael Jordan? High school phenom could be the answer to one of the NBA's biggest questions"
Just read that piece. It makes quite clear that, despite what LeBron critics say now, the "King James" appellation was given him by "onlookers." While other eighteen-year olds high school students are allowed to be eighteen in relative anonymity, LeBron James was anointed by his local school and athletic program as the second coming of Jordan. St. Vincent-St. Mary High School was allowing ESPN to broadcast his games. Think about that: This wasn't just a reporter and camera crew coming by to cover the latest phenom. This wasn't the network covering the end-of-season McDonald's All-Star Games; this was the biggest sports network in the world telecasting a high school game because of a wunderkind. And being rewarded with huge ratings!!
Yeah, you can bet his school didn't sell those rights for nothing. And "[James] was the focus of what was called the "Fantastic Scholastic LeBron James Tour," an 8,500-mile, cross-country road schedule that included stops in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Dayton and Greensboro, N.C."
So, a high school team was "treated" to a schedule that might exhaust a college -- or pro -- team.
So, after being pimped out by the adults around him in high school, who helped promote him to the heavens in national media -- accruing all sorts of attention and financial ripples themselves -- LeBron learned a major lesson: There's major interest in what he does and where he goes -- and if he doesn't market/manipulate the direction of his life, someone else will and they'll reap all the benefits that go with it. "1,100 LeBron James items listed on eBay." When he was still in high school!
Did James go about announcing "The Decision" in the "correct" way? Maybe not. But what was the "correct" way for a still-young man who has been told from early on that every aspect of his life had to be on stage? NowLeBron James' existence mean to Dan Gilbert's Cavaliers over the last seven years? Hundreds of millions easily. How much to Cleveland? Arguably billions. But, he's required to "stay bought"? Really? And Akron-Cleveland got to unilaterally introduce LeBron James to the world, crowned him before his time and reveled as his star grew. But, he doesn't get to depart that circus on his own terms?
Please.
People may think that LeBron thinks that "This is my world and everyone else just lives in it." Nope. He's just taken the cues that the world's been giving him from an early age and has adapted himself to them. And that may turn out to be the best "decision" he ever made.
Labels: ESPN, LeBron James, Media Phoniness
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Prints
OOO!! OOO!!! MR. POTTER!! MR. POTTER!!!
Sorry, wrong medium, wrong decade.
Now that the last turd in the Harry chamberpot has been dropped, perhaps we can all get back to some REAL reading?
I have nothing against Scholastic. I'll be forever in debt to them for one of my favorite childhood memories, the 1970s Dynamite Magazine. From a purely market standpoint as a pro-capitalist-type, I applaud Scholastic for taking a small piece of children's literature and helping shape it into a multi-billion dollar industry on par with Lucas-Films and the Star Wars saga, or any number of Marvel and DC characters writ large on the Big Screen.
From a literary perspective, however, I find it disgusting that the Potter series is compared to the great works of Charles Dickens by empty-minded talking heads. I think most of these journalist and media types make comparisons between The Half-Blood Prince and Nicholas Nickleby because they are such unread imbeciles that Dickens is the only comparative English-language author whose greatness they can comprehend. Were they a little more well-read, we'd be subjected to Harry histrionics that engulf Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, or Rudyard Kipling. Are we really to believe that The Prisoner of Azkaban is on par with Gulliver's Travels, Captains Courageous, The Red Badge of Courage, Oliver Twist, or Huckleberry Finn?
In an age where the educational establishment doesn't think that there should be rigorous standards, that self-esteem and feelings are more important than tangible accomplishments and personal sacrifice, and that no one should have to suffer the indignity of poor grades because they didn't work as hard as another, it doesn't surprise me that poorly written trash lit for kids like the Harry Potter series is praised more than it should be. There used to be a time when "children's literature" consisted of books that were written for adults but accessible to children in such a way that youth could readily enjoy the immediate plot of a work then grow into deeper understandings of the subtleties and shadings within the texts as they matured.
Good night, Allan (and Harold and Leopold) Bloom, wherever you are ...
Now, I'm not one to claim snobbery, as anyone who reads Ragged Thots can tell from my love of three-minute, repetitive tonic-chord pop ditties. Intelligence, however, is to know the difference between my AC/DC or LL Cool J records on one end and my Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev or Duke Ellington CDs on the other. One reason why I hated the Batman Begins movie is that it seemed to me that screenwriters were so embarrassed that they were writing about a wealthy weirdo that runs around in tights, that, much like an eighth-grader caught reading Mad Magazine in English Lit class, they felt the need to explain every single detail of how Bruce Wayne got the car, this bat device, that suit, etc. It was a two-hour apologia for engaging in low-brow entertainment. By contrast, there's something to be said for the honest, unassuming camp of the old Adam West incarnation. The producers of the 1960s TV show knew they were passing off pop entertainment, not Kafka or Nietzsche, therefore they excelled at being a great TV show, rather than a poor-man's Masterpiece Theater.
Read Harry Potter, and enjoy it. But please, please, PLEASE, stop trying to justify a simple read as the progeny of more advanced works!
For parents who'd prefer a less pretentious (and FUN) read for their little dumplings, I recommend THIS Scholastic series ...
Labels: Captain Underpants, Children's Literature, Harold Bloom, Harry Potter, Media Phoniness
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
And the winner of the Mega Millions Lottery is ...
Finally, something to kick Imus out of the news cycle on the cable channels. Unless, of course, Imus turns out to be O.J.'s real killer. Then we're back to square one ...
(Posted by Madscribe. Normally, I put the disclaimer at the top, but the formatting on Blogger made the thread read like I'm a lot luckier than I actually am!)
Labels: Anna Nicole Smith, Media Phoniness
The Pursuit of Nappyness
Madscribe:
or Much Hairdo About Nothing.
Funny how an innocuous phrase that, heretofore, was an apt description of the uncombed black head is now the latest in a long list of politically incorrect phrases that require "skin privilege" before being bandied about. Being of "red bone" genetic makeup like another famous Black-Indian mixture, "nappy" was a word I heard quite often as child in the 1970s when my hair seemed to defy both convention and combing, much like Will Smith's son in his last attempt for Oscar glory. For those not in-the-know, "nappy" was and is black folks' terminology for uncombed (or unmanageable) hair.
"Nappy," however, was a fluid word whose usage could also range from playground taunting ("your head's so nappy, it's unbe-weaveable!") to affirmation of African authenticity. It's also inspired some great Black music from the ribald Funkadelic tune, "Nappy Dugout" (referring to nappiness south of one's navel) to the famous musical number in Spike Lee's sophomore outing, which brilliantly and humorously managed to sum up 400 years of black identification issues and race-class struggles under white supremacy into a five minute interlude that would make Louis Jordan or Cab Calloway proud. My non-Greek Letter organization black friends and I always referred to it as the "Kappas Vs. Deltas" song in college.
Then there's the word "ho" (or "hoe," if your slang spellings were taught to you by Dan Quayle). Unfortunately, it seems as if you can't even get on MTV, VH1 or BET without peppering your conversation with the word as a synonym for "black female." The usage of the word in popular music has probably helped garden tool sales to remain brisk at Home Depot. Even my favorite band, Fishbone, is about to release their next album with a cut titled "Let Dem Ho's Fight."
Which brings us to the latest non-event that's been ginned up to seem more significant than it really it is by our brain dead media, which continues to prove my military hero Admiral Rickover correct that "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." So, allow me to be small-minded for a moment like America's media and consider one Mr. Don Imus. I say "non-event" because such conversations go on daily, hourly, on radio stations all over America from the orifices of potty-mouthed shock jocks and comedians. Why Imus, and not Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Carlos Mencia, or a host of others?
Imus and his staff have said much worse in terms of race-bating humor, and black writer and commentator Ishmael Reed has been calling for the heads of Don Imus and his staff for years while mainstream journalists, black and Caucasian, have virtually ignored Reed. Reed, of course, isn't part of the sycophantic journalist crowd of Beltway Butt-kissers that feign critiques of sitting administrations and national figures while simultaneously buck-dancing for nearness to Pharaoh. Why is Imus now ripe to be trotted out to the village square to be pilloried? Well, on the left, now that liberal media's darling, Barack Obama has been designated the new Black Messiah, no white figure on radio or TV will be allowed to utter anything even remotely hinting at racial sideswiping (regardless as to the distinction of whether the remark is an intelligent criticism, or just redneck roughhousing). On the conservative side, Fox News and Republicans see an opportunity to draw blood from someone perceived to be liberal and anti-Bush (although Imus, by his own admission, is a registered Republican) and receive payback for all the white male Republicans, from Trent Lott to George Allen, that shot themselves figuratively in the foot with their own racial slip-ups.
Sadly, I've just come to accept the cognitive dissonance that passes for "intelligence" among black "leaders," and that black American thought, from the Armstrong Williams of the right to the Michael Eric Dysons of the left, will continue to be (to paraphrase an old Seinfeld episode) unreal and unspectacular.
Don Imus is (rightly) criticized for unwarranted insults against hard-working young, black female college students, yet black journalists and so-called leaders give a pass to all sorts of cultural pollution and degeneracy in the name of "modern black culture," "keepin' it real," "street cred'," or "hip hop/youth culture." Like Voltaire's alleged motto, I am against politicians, media, or any other "activists," black or white, attempting to curb free speech; but what's sauce for a guy's whose goose is cooked, is gravy for the gander that panders. The black mayor of D.C. rails against circuit court decisions upholding private citizens' Second Amendment rights of legal gun ownership, yet sees no need to crack down on black thugs that use illegally obtained weapons to terrorize other innocent poor unarmed blacks. Black leaders, conservative and liberal, rail against the evils of "big boxes." Wal-Mart, and "white corporations" for their alleged economic sins, and then expect said entities to magically open shop and create jobs from thin air in impoverished areas without regard to (fair or unfair) racial criticism, government regulation, market pressures, and wage demands. In other words, protected speech for protected classes.
A further irony is seeing Mr. Imus being trotted out to answer for his racial sins before, of all people, the modern-day jack leg, Al Sharpton. The Axis of Evil that terrorizes the intelligent modern black mind is public school education, welfare state regulation and politics, and most of all, organized religion. Mr. Sharpton is hardly the clean glass to put beside the dirty glass, considering his history of slander and his chocolate-coated, Father Coughlinesque anti-Jew rants. Of course, since the mainstream media has already elected Sharpton as the modern, Bizarro heir apparent to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., gone are any attempts at holding ALL Americans, black or white, to a universally applied standard of justice, decency, and civility.
Two words of advice for Mr. Imus : Satellite Radio. It helped Howard Stern to turn his trashy rants into big cash. It can do the same for you, too!
"Only in America ... "
Finally, there is the question of exactly when is it ever appropriate (or inappropriate) for a white commentator, writer, or artist to appropriate black lingo, history or images? Whether it's the generally lowbrow (and low-IQ) culture of pop media such as Don Imus, or the more intellectual pursuits of white Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists, is there some hard and fast set of rules that creative Caucasoids are supposed to always consult before attempting to put pad to pen, or mouth to microphone? Why does Spielberg take on the mantle of the New Lord Jim for adapting a black feminist novel, but Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones are revered for stage interpretations of the same work? Is it okay for all sorts of lyrical sewage to spill forth from the mouth of black hip hop artists, or will become the Day the Universe Stands Still when Justin Timberlake or Eminem utters the unutterable?
Update:
As a side note, the inspiration for the pun headline reminds me of an interview with Mr. Robert O. Carr, CEO of Heartland Payment Systems, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal ("Share The Wealth," by Joann S. Lublin). My favorite film critic, Armond White of the New York Press, considered Will Smith's last magnum opus too much of an urban fantasy, an African-American appropriation of the quintessential Horatio Alger mythology.
Although I won't deny that racial problems are an undecurrent at any corporate entity (the magnitude and flow of the undercurrent depends upon the company and its leadership), there are some business people who don't see the marketplace as an excuse to grind others into the ground. Mr. Carr believes that corporate success for his company in 2007 entails cutting the salaries and bonuses of top executives, giving free lunches (fresh salads) to employees to encourage weight loss, and sets a base pay of $15 for call center employees. What amused me about this corporate generosity was that it was not inspired by the CEO of Costco or Starbucks, but Ayn Rand!
Personally, even as a libertarian, I find Ayn Rand and her tomes to be monumentally insufferable; but, hey, if Mr. Carr can find wealth and happiness from reading the overwrought Atlas Shrugged---and even more, spread the wealth around to his employees---then who am I to complain?
Labels: Black Hypocrisy, Don Imus, Media Phoniness, political correctness
