Yeeeeeeaaaaah booooyyyyyyy!

So my dad has been asking me about Flavor Flav. Apparently, pops is mesmerized by Flav's show, which is a little disconcerting for me, but also helps explain why I call this particular form of entertainment a modern minstrel show.

But before I get into all that, we need to understant eachother.

First (a history lesson for the kids), a "minstrel show" was an early American (particularly Civil War era) stage show which (this is Wikipedia speaking) "portrayed and lampooned blacks in stereotypical and often disparaging ways: as ignorant, lazy, bufoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical." Blacks were usually used in their own disparagement as they performed in front of strictly white crowds.

Second, my dad is a 48-year-old, white, former farm kid, born and raised in southern Kansas. Don't misinterpret this to suggest my father is a racist. He certainly is not. I am merely saying that he has not been exposed to much black culture. In the 1970s in Burrton, Kansas, there was no BET. In fact, I'm not even sure there were black people in Burrton until the early 90s.

My dad watches Flavor Flav the same way he would watch a clown. He views him like some kind of societal side show, which is how most people watch Flavor Flav, I think. That's basically what Flav has become.

This is ironic because Flavor Flav was a member of Public Enemy, which might be the most influencial rap act this side of Tupac. This was a group that transcended rap music, taking it from the party music of the early 80s to a legitimate cultural influence. Chuck D was of course the driving force behind Public Enemy -- even he is a little embarrassed of Flav at this point -- but Flavor Flav was in it. Now, he has devolved into self parody.

My dad would never listen to a Public Enemy record. Until he asked, "where the Flavor Flav guy comes from" he'd never even heard of Public Enemy. But he'll watch Flavor Flav bounce around with a viking helmet on his head, trying to get into Bridget Nielsen's pants. Yeeeeeeah, boooyyyyyyy!

So obviously I'm not black. But I have to wonder what black people think about all this. I'm not sure Flavor Flav, Lil John and the Ying, Yang Twins are as representative of black people as they'd like us to believe.

Babies

PICTURED: The baby I recently held (Madeline Tanksley) and her uncle James.

I recently held a baby, which is significant because scholars believe it to be the first time I cradled an infant since 1992. And in 1992, I was virtually a baby myself.

Anyway, I'm not against the concept of babies. I hope to generate a couple myself one day (just not today, or tomorrow, or next year). I don't mind babies, necessarily, although the constant crapping is bothersome. But here's the deal:

Holding a baby terrifies me. What if I fumble it? What if I don't hold it right and deform its head or something? Babies have very maleable heads, you know. And, God forbid, what if I drop it? How would I feel then, having just killed someone's child?

Sometimes, a buddy will hand you his car keys. The last thing you want to do is wreck someone else's car. And the frightening thing is that it could happen and not even be your fault. You could easily ruin somebody's month with one slip up.
Holding a baby is like that, only 1,000 times worse.

I've just had far too many experiences with young children in which I thought I was being the good older person and harmlessly playing with a little kid until, without warning, something I've done causes the kid to bust into tears and ruin the next 25 minutes for everyone involved. People are looking at me like, "What it holy hell did you just do? All you had to do was play peek-a-boo. How do you screw that up?" And all I can do is make the Peyton Manning Face and turn my palms upward in befuddlement.

Gloriously, my last infant episode ended without tears (or crap). I think I've reached my quota for the next 14 years.

The End of the Road for Damon Huard

This is probably it for Damon Huard. And I wouldn't normally do this, wouldn't normally write this, but I think it's too bad.
At age 34, with all of 13 starts in 10 NFL seasons, Huard still believes he's a starter.
That's what you have to understand about quarterbacks. They all believe, the ones that last, anyway. These guys were the shortstops in little league. These guys were your homecoming kings, the captains of your basketball team, the guys who could have any girl. Stars. College coaches camped out on their lawns. The letters came in from everywhere -- Florida, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Southern Cal.
Nothing changed in college. They made SportsCenter. When they went to parties, people whispered about them and called to tell their friends they partied with the quarterback. They broke records.
Then, for guys like Huard, they lived their dream. An NFL roster. Made it.
So what you went undrafted and you sign as a No. 3 quarterback. You know you can play. Two years later, it's your turn. You're not throwing up video game numbers, but you're winning. You win five of your six starts.
And, somehow, that's it. The regular starter comes back and you sit down, thinking you'll get your shot. You've been playing behind Dan Marino, for crying out loud. But you don't get your shot. For five years, you sit. You hold the clipboard. You're what's called the "emergency quarterback," which is just what it sounds like.
You stay in the league because everybody wants a veteran backup. But nobody thinks you can play. Then the starter gets hurt again and you light it up. You're playing better than everybody but Peyton Manning and you're winning. Five of six. On the road. Coming from behind. The city is buzzing.
And now, at 34, with a 10-4 career record as a starter, it's over.
Huard's time has passed. He'll sign a two-year deal this offseason with some team looking to stabilize its quarterback situation. But he'll never be a star in the NFL. It's too late.
You don't get many chances in the NFL. One or two, usually. Maybe three if you're really talented. You have to perform.
And that's the sad part of Huard's story. Every time he's gotten a chance, he's performed. And now, with one more payday coming, it's too late. There are 10 years' worth of homecoming kings to compete with, all of whom think they're stars.

Muzak: Up with Head, Down with J. Johnson

RIGHT: The cerebral Common



I finally got around to the music suggestions y'all dropped on me (For the record: Common, Hit The Lights, Head Automatica, Thursday). And by "got around to" I mean "really wanted an excuse to not do research for my Media Effects term paper."
Anyway, without further procrastination and pithiness, The Review:
Common -- This guy is a beat poet, not a rapper. He belongs in some dark, brick-walled basement, doing slam poetry in between yazz flute performances. He's not bad, just not much of a rapper. He's not a wordsmith, has no edge whatsoever and isn't funny. He did a song with Mary J. Blige called "Come Close" which, while having a lovely melody, sounds like a perfect fit for the Love & Basketball soundtrack. Suffice it to say that, if this was 1998 and people still actually paid for music, I would not be paying for it.
Head Automatica -- I'm assigning two (2) bonus points to Head Automatica for writing songs called "Tara Reid is a Whore" and "Zack Morris is My Hero." I always hate the cheap "all this band's songs sound the same" criticism (of course they sound the same, it's the same band), but Head Automatica's sound is rather dynamic. "Tara Reid is a Whore" sounds little like "Graduation Day." And these guys are willing to use instruments other than drums, guitar and bass. These qualities, if not their specific sound, remind me of Queen, which has long been one of my favorites.
Which brings us to ...
Houston Calls -- These guys are the spokesmen for the "kids who intentionally alienate all their classmates then complain about being ostracized, and also show up for family reunions wearing eyeliner and black lipstick and and refusing to talk to anybody, then wonder why their fathers are embarrassed of them." I can't stand these kids. And this band reminds me of all those mainstream punk bands that are as contrived as O-Town.
With that rant over, I move on to ...
Kanye West doing a song with John Mayer -- I couldn't find a full-length download of the song, just some goofy bit with Mayer and Kanye talking about black people liking John Mayer while a clip of the song plays in the background. But while we're on this topic, I would like to point out that John Mayer is so much better than Jack Johnson, that Jack Johnson should just go back to watching the Cartoon Network and waxing surfboards in his underwear, or whatever it is he did before he started writing anti-climactic songs about pancakes. What a sham. Talk about a guy whose music all sounds the same. Jack Johnson has one song. Why hasn't anybody else figured this out yet? Just put "Situations" on a loop for 55 minutes and you have a Jack Johnson album.
Tech N9ne -- A work acquaintance suggested I listen to Tech N9ne, a Kansas City-based rapper whose style is totally unclassifiable. I think Tech can rap. I also think he desperately needs a producer to grab him by the throwback-jersey neckline and tell him to stop using that dumb demonic-sounding voice in his songs. With a decent producer and someone to redo his image, he could be a star.

Music Update

I'm pleased with the response to my rap music obituary. I promised to do this, so in the next week or so, I will listen to and blog about the following, based on your suggestions:
Common, Hit the Lights, Houston Calls, Thursday, Head Automatica. Jimi also suggested Kanye West, who I have listened to, though I don't own any of his albums. He is creative, which is good. He's a fine producer, but I don't think he's much of a lyricist, nor am I taken by his raw rapping ability (flow, I guess we could say). I understand his appeal.

Rice Burners

Those Hondas with the 4-foot spoilers and the huge mufflers and the stickers all over? Hate 'em.
And I know that was a fragment. I don't care.
This has been welling up inside of me for some time, now. Actually, it's been so long that I almost forgot how angry it makes me.
First off, can someone tell these clowns that a Honda Civic is not a sports car, not a muscle car, not a luxury car, not really a cool car in any way? It's a Honda Civic. It's a fine car -- very durable, great gas mileage, high resale value. But it's not a race car.
A Charger is a muscle car. A Chevelle, a Camaro, a Challenger. A Fairlane, for crying out loud. You can work with these cars. They have 8-cylinders and are simply constructed. You can run a 13-second quarter mile for about $3,000. And you won't look like a toolshed or have a car that sounds like a leaky vacuum cleaner.
But let's say you drive a Civic and you've poured $11,000 into it and you're running in the high 14s. You're a sucker, but at least you've actually improved your car's performance. I respect that.
If you're driving around in a Geo Prism with a 4-foot spoiler, a carbon-fiber hood, tachometer, alloy wheels, a keg-sized muffler and some NOS stickers in the windows, you're a douchebag. You just are. You're delusional, a sucker, a waster of money and probably play lots of Halo in your parents' basement. You spend your weekends loitering in abandoned gas station parking lots wearing fake diamond earrings and wife beaters, smoking Black & Milds and lying about how much action you get.

A Sports Blog

I'm somewhat proud of myself and somewhat disturbed at the same time, because I'm writing my 20th blog entry, and none of them have been about sports. Not really, anyway. I had the cross country post, but that wasn't really about cross country.

I'm proud of myself because I don't want to be That Guy that relates to everyone he meets through sports. On the other hand, I'm a sportswriter -- it seems like I should have some sports columns welling up within me.

Anyway, I'm writing about college basketball this time, because it is time.

In case you didn't notice, the Kansas-Kansas State got roughly 48 times more interesting over the offseason when K-State hired Bob Huggins, a man who was fired at Cincinnati because "character counts" according to the university president. I don't feel like running down the reasons Cincinnati's prez would say that, but it involves, among many things, both DUI convictions and the punching of a police horse.

I'm not a K-State guy, but I like Huggins. As my friend and boss, Kurt Caywood put it, "He doesn't care. He's as bored with life as I am."

Huggins has been burned enough times by media that he has basically said, "Eff it. I get ripped no matter what I say, so I'm just gonna start firing my unfiltered thoughts on everybody, consequences be damned."

He's a sportwriter's dream.

Without him, this whole thing would be about Kansas, because until this season (and part of the last), KU has been the only relevant basketball program in the state. But now, I present the 5 big questions.

1. How long will it take for K-State's Jason Bennett to break Shawn Bradley's career dunked-on record?
The early line has it at 2.7 seasons for the 7-fot-3 Bennett, whose most famous picture is one in which Tyler Hansbrough (now at North Carolina) is teabagging Bennett during a high school game. Furthermore, there are some big dunkers in the Big 12 now -- KU's Julian Wright and Sasha Kaun, Texas' Kevin Durant, KU's Darrell Arthur to name a few.
2. How many times before Christmas will Kansas freshman Sherron Collins be called for a carry?
I'm putting this one at about 11. Kansas has 13 games before the break and Collins, whose main weapon is his crossover, is entirely capable of drawing one call per game.
3. Is this the year Bill Self's toupe falls off?
Doubt it. The way he massages that thing during games, I don't see him losing track of it.
4. How long will it take for K-State fans to start calling their school a "basketball school?"
This should have happened months ago. K-State historically has a much better basketball program than anything else and was even with KU right up until Kansas built Allen Fieldhouse. KSU was not far behind in the 80s. But Wildcat fans are still so delusional about their football "dynasty," -- this includes one conference title in the history of the program -- it may take some time.
5. How many McDonald's All-Americans does it take to win a first-round tournament game?
KU had two (three if you count Brandon Rush) last year and lost. It had three in 2005 and lost. This year the Jayhawks have five (again, if you count Rush, and you should). They'd better hope they don't play Belmont in the first round.