MLB All-Star Game 2008 - The perfect ballot

American League
1B: K. Millar
2B: B. Roberts
SS: Umm...I'll get back to you on that one.
3B: M. Mora
C: R. Hernandez
OF: L. Scott, A. Jones, N. Markakis

National League
1B: L. Berk...umm, never mind. Irrelevant
2B: C. Ut...forget it. Irrelevant
SS: Irrelevant
3B: Irrelevant
C: Irrelevant
OF: K. Griffey (I grew up worshiping the guy, had to do it), Irrelevant, Irrelevant

As you can see, I take this All-Star stuff seriously. There were a lot of deserving players, and some tough choices to make. It's not a fan popularity contest, people. It's the players who have put together a stellar three months of baseball that deserve the honor. It's hard to be impartial, but hey, somebody's gotta do it.

I know you all agree with my picks, because they are the obvious choices based on performance. Therefore, it is your duty to give these players your allotted 25 votes per day. And I mean EVERY day. So click the link and do what you know is right.

The wackest rap beef ever

Last week, two unlikely opponents took the ring. One is a washed-up heavyweight: Tracy "Ice-T" Marrow, and the other is an amateur featherweight: DeAndre "Sold Ya Boy" Way. What has resulted since has been pure, unadulterated comedy.

Ice-T threw the first punch, saying on a mixtape that young DeAndre is "singlehandedly ruining hip hop", and that he should "eat a dick". If you know me personally, you know that I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment, with "Crank Dat" being on the short list of most annoying songs of all time. In response, seventeen-year-old Sold Ya came out with a YouTube video in which he addresses the remarks, half of the time making fun of the fact that Ice was born in 1958 (damn!) and the rest of it pleading to be accepted by the OGs of hip hop. He stops just short of admitting that his own music is bullshit, defending it by saying that he was "poor as fuck", living in the hood and had to do what he had to do to support his mama n' em. The stage is set for them to be the spokesmen in some some sort of bullshit Old School vs. nU sK00L showdown.

I'm inclined to score the first round to T, mostly because I agree with him. My being much closer to Sold You in age doesn't compensate for the fact that his music is just plain retarded. Even aside from that DeAndre also commits a few self-pwnings: he says Ice-T made the song "Fuck the Police" (it was N.W.A.; Ice-T did, however, make "Cop Killer"), and ridiculing him for being born before the internet was created (so was Sold You in 1990; the World Wide Web was created in 1991). Its obvious that the kid is just not that smart. However, let it be said that Sold You's eight-minute video did, at certain points, exceed my expectations. I am actually impressed by his reading skills as he reads from the Wikipedia page (especially after reading from Bol that he and weed carrier A-rab failed out of the ninth grade).

Ice T issues his "apology", which is really a four-and-a-half minute video of him talking more shit. He really doesn't say much of anything in it. He tries to kill the notion that the beef is old/young or regional, instead saying that it should be "good hip hop" waging a war against "wack hip hop". After apologizing for telling a seventeen-year-old boy to "eat a dick" (nullus), he finishes the video by telling his sixteen-year-old son to do so, which I found corny as fuck.

As much as I hate to say it, folks, Sold Ya (or, more likely, some hired gun working on his behalf) may have just delivered the knock out punch with "Crank Dat Ice-T". The video, which was just released today, features a self-deprecating cartoon of Ice (the voice impression is spot-on). It also draws an interesting parallel between the "Crank Dat" dance and Tracy's break dancing history, with some hilarious footage included. The song, "Crank Dat Ice-T", is perhaps the funniest part. While Ice-T may have been a hall-of-fame rapper and b-boy back in the day, this video should be a reminder that it is the Age of the Internet, and us Generation "Y"ers tend to pWn in that arena.

Also, if ever there was an Old School/nU sK00L war to take place, I can't think of two worse generals for either side. True, it's easy to call Sold Ya is a no-talent, one-hit wonder, but Ice-T is not without his shortcomings either. First of all, let me say that I have been listening to both old and new school hip hop for the better part of 20 years, and I hardly know any of his hits. In other words, not only is he washed up, but he doesn't really have any timeless classics (remember, the 80s were a looooong time ago). Second of all, Ice can't continue to speak on behalf of "gangsta rap" when his day job is to play Detective Fin Tutuola on Law & Order: SVU (no disrepect to the show, which is excellent). If those are, in fact, the two spokesmen of hip hop, this my cue to get into bluegrass, or opera, or something.

I personally would like to see Kool Moe Dee go at Lil Wayne. Or perhaps Grandmaster Flash vs. Kanye. Even KRS-One vs. Nelly wasn't that bad, back when Nelly was still had a career. Essentially, I'd take anything, I mean ANYTHING but Ice-T and Sold Ya Boy. But fuck it, I'm done with this until it gets to fisticuffs, and the YouTube video hits the streets.

EDIT: This currently stands as the wackest rap beef ever. However, if Kobe comes back with a reply to Shaq, I will shamefully eat my words.

Another career bites the dust

zSHARE - curtis-young-buck-convo-pt2.mp3

If you were on the G-Unit bandwagon a few years back (I can't even front), be cautioned that this audio will be especially disturbing.

To be honest, the title of this post is a tad inaccurate. David "Young Buck" Brown's career actually pretty much ended about three years ago. But the leaking of this telephone conversation, which I'm sure Mr. Brown thought was taking place in confidence, ensures beyond a shadow of a doubt that we won't be hearing any more gangsta rap records out of "Ca$hville" for quite some time.

To summarize: Buck waxes poetic to 50 about how his career and his finances went awry, and how he got "confused" and never should have left 50s side. As the clip rolls on, it becomes obvious that he is weeping hysterically. 50 offers a few comforting words, and tells him that he never would have had to worry if he had been like fellow G-Unit member Tony Yayo, who "stayed close".

The most noteworthy thing about this clip is that it's now obvious that 50 and Buck's relationship transcended ordinary weed-carrying, to the point where 50 essentially adopted young David as a son. Yayo, who is exemplified as the obedient son who obeys his curfew, is put on blast here as well. For the record, I see nothing wrong with rappers adopting each other. In fact, I find it rather heart-warming (nullus?) that Curtis saw David struggling, and took the young boy under his wing, on some Finding Forrester shit. The problem is that this type of behavior cannot be reconciled with gangsta, posturing, or threatening lyrical content of any type, which is what these two gentlemen (emphasis on "gentle") have been using to pay their bills for years.

Small wonder how Young Buck could end up "confused".

"Clutch"ness is overrated

I have wanted to rant about this for a long time, so I apologize in advance if you read the anger that I felt while writing this post. Saying that a player is "clutch" is one of the most worn-out cliche expressions in all sports. It's supposed to be high praise to be known as clutch, because that implies that an athlete has performed well in the plays or game situations when the outcome of the competition is most directly affected. I am willing to accept that there is some legitimacy to this, but much less than most people think. Quite frankly, I want to pull my hair out of my head 99.99995% I hear it used in the context of sports journalism.

Sports, just like everything else, are subject to chance. Shots are made and missed, balls are caught and dropped, and contests are won and lost by the best and worst players/teams. Presumably, everyone within the area of top-level collegiate and professional sports is capable of performing well, and absolutely no one is perfect. The mediocre players/teams are separated from the good and great ones by looking at how they perform over a number of games/matches/situations. Specifically, a good player/team is, by definition, expected to prevail more times than a mediocre one in any given competition, provided that there is a big enough sample size.

One problem with the concept of "clutch" is exactly that: sample size. "Clutch" situations refer to those that have a directly causal impact on an important outcome, whether it is a single game, match, tournament, series, or championship. Games and seasons are long, so these moments are rare and brief by comparison. If you've ever learned anything about probability or statistics, you know that playing with sample size can drastically affect the conclusion you draw by analyzing a set of data. My point is that wacky stuff can and does happen in these relatively infrequent "clutch" situations, and people read too much into it.

Take Robert "Big Shot Bob" Horry, for example, who has been a mediocre-to-respectable basketball player over the course of his NBA career. What separates him from most mediocre-to-respectable players is that he has made game-winning shots in playoff contests, that have led to his teams advancing past their opponents, and eventually winning seven NBA titles. What most people find so amazing about this guy is that he can be so average during the regular season, or in quarters 1 through 3 1/2 of playoff games, and yet have the composure to sink a game winning three point shot, seemingly out of nowhere. This leads people to believe that there is something in his blood that gives him the propensity to literally become a better player when the game is on the line. Many people would even argue that he is more "clutch" than Michael Jordan, who was always great at making shots, no matter when it was during the game or season. I don't have the stats on this (does anybody know where to find them?), but I wouldn't be surprised if Horry has a better success rate when taking potential playoff game-winning shots than does Michael Jordan, who took a lot more of them.

With all due respect to Horry, whose long, successful career, amusingly enough, includes winning one more championship than Jordan, it is absolutely ludicrous to even entertain that he has been better than Jordan at any second or in any situation of any game ever. If I'm a coach with both men on my team, and my team is down by two with six seconds to go, I don't care if Jordan has the flu, a broken leg, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, I'm getting him the ball ten times out of ten. Being the better shooter and all-around player, his chances of making the shot on any given attempt is much higher. What's that you say? Jordan is clutch too? Well, I guess you're right. To make my point stick, I'll even put Horry on the same team as Dirk Nowitzki, a great scorer throughout his career who has been ridiculed for the last few years about choking in big moments. Nowitzki is unquestionably the more talented scorer, because he performs better over a larger sample size, and I'm giving him the ball.

There is one more thing I want to say in response to all this clutch talk. Everyone wants to hate on A-Rod, because his career playoff numbers are noticeably less impressive than those during the regular season (which, I should note, are pretty damn impressive). First off, the concept of sample size should let him off the hook. In the playoffs, you play a maximum of nineteen games, compare to 162 during the regular season. Which is a better indicator of your value as a player, April-September, or October? Not only that, but in all of this hype over "clutch"ness, people seem to forget that you have to perform well in order to get to a pressure situation. It was A-Rod, with his .400 on-base percentage, 45 HR and 130 RBIs, who carried your team on his back so that you could make playoffs in the first place! As far as I'm concerned, he should be able to take off the whole month of October if he wants to (Yankees fans, maybe this is the solution? No? Then, please, shut the fuck up.).

I'm not denying that some people are more chemically predisposed to remain steady under pressure, and others are more likely to panic. I wasn't a biology or psych major in college, so I have no idea what's responsible for this. There are examples of this everywhere in life; some doctors can treat people in life or death situations, and some can't. The ability to perform especially well under pressure is highly valuable in sports, as well as society. However, many people want to hype up its importance, when, in reality, it is secondary at best. Lest you get it twisted: without Hakeem, Shaq/Kobe, and Duncan/Ginobili/Parker, Robert Horry isn't winning shit. Take A-Rod out of the heart of the Yankees lineup right now and they're a fourth (or fifth?) place team that's not sniffing the playoffs, so don't tell me he that he's a liability in the postseason. To even consider that David Tyree would be the MVP of Super Bowl XLII because of one "clutch" caught football (that he almost dropped) is nothing short of an insult to the Giants' defensive line, who played its ass off for the entire game, holding Brady in check.

One of you all out there in my internets fan base needs to send this as a memo to sports writers and broadcasters worldwide. Because, to be honest, next time I hear that A-Rod sucks or that Robert Horry is a first-ballot HOFer, it might just drive me to commit violence. (No, that's not a threat, just a warning; disregard at your own risk.)

If what I think is wrong, I don't want to be right

I didn't know that by starting this blog, I was tampering with the supernatural. That's right, it's no secret anymore: Da'Rell's Johnson (nullus) holds Perfect Jinx Power (PJP). You don't believe me? Check it:

1) I dropped a post in praise of the New England Patriots right at the end of their 16-0 regular season, only to see their less-than-spectacular performance in the playoffs, that ended in a more-than-spectacular upset.

2) I picked the New York Giants twice to lose in playoff games against higher seeds, and as a result they went on arguably the greatest playoff run EVER.

3) After my post in praise of Kobe Bryant, whose team had just torn through the best basketball conference in history, Gasol, Odom and Farmar all forgot how to play the sport, which, in part, caused them to suffer an old-school style beating at the hands of the Celtics.

4) I told you to bootleg Tha Carter III, but instead, a "A Milli" of you clowns went out and bought that shit - in the first week, no less.

The implications of this are serious, because I do not take this magical blogging responsibility lightly. Do not expect me to write a post containing one shred of optimism about the Baltimore Orioles, Baltimore Ravens, Barack Obama, gas prices, health insurance, Maryland Terrapins, my family, my life, the national economy, or upcoming job interviews.

Freshman at Life University

So if you know me outside of the internets (which, I'm sure, all four of you do), you know that I graduated from one of those universities four weeks ago. To be completely real, it's a bit of a mind-fuck. Not that I've actually done anything but pretty much sit on my ass since taking off that cap and gown. Actually, trying not to forget that I won't be back in college this fall has literally been my most difficult undertaking since my economics final way back in the beginning of last month. Nevertheless, I've had plenty of time recently to reflect on "college", and "post-college" life.

People always tell us that college is a place to grow up, and to transition into adulthood. In reality, it's kind of the opposite: it's a place to act like a dickhead for four years or so, and get it out of your system (did I unintentionally shed any light on the nature of my college experience? I'm sorry.). Hopefully, by the end of it, you've messed up enough to realize that you can't act that way in real life. Of course, this is a good thing.

The catch is that college gives us a false sense of security. If you fail a test, you can make it up by studying more on the back end (or, if you're sly, you can schmooze with the teacher and get her to let you re-take it). But if you miss one credit card payment, it's a blemish on your record for years to come. Cutting class is nothing; but if you're late for work it'd better be because your life is in jeopardy. Your classmates want to get drunk with you on Thursday afternoons; at work your co-worker is plotting to stab you in the back to ensure himself that promotion. What happened to the hundreds-to-thousands of single, mediocre-or-better looking girls living within walking distance? They've moved away, and found boyfriends that are older and richer than you.

It's just like being a freshman again. Just when we've mastered the last game, we're stripped of our accolades and forced to earn back our respect.

Two new albums (part II)

I figure that June 10th must be right around the best time to drop an album, because it means you've probably leaked a single or three since February, and if your shit is anywhere near decent, it will be bangin' in the streets for the entire summer. If my math is right, that's about six months in the limelight.

Unfortunately, Pharrell and his crew haven't taken much advantage of the spring to build anticipation for "Seeing Sounds", releasing no lead singles (unless you count the use of "Spaz" for a commercial). The Neptunes, who arguably controlled the beat-making game from '03-'05, haven't really been relevant since. Skateboard P's solo album straight flopped back in the summer of '06, on some Anderson Varejao shit. Of course, N.E.R.D officially went their separate ways sometime around my freshman year of college, but I always figured that P would get sick of dancing around by himself, and Chad and Shay would start having trouble paying bills with their unemployment checks. Sure enough, N.E.R.D. releases their third album under that group alias, and their first collaborative effort since '04.

This LP fancies itself a bit of a concept album, starting off with a half-stoned Pharrell explaining what the title, "Seeing Sounds" is supposed to mean. He claims that he has had the unique ability to see sounds from a very young age, on some Sixth Sense shit. From there, we're thrown directly into "Time For Some Action", a song that could not be more unlike the 1992 Redman classic if it tried. The song's catchy bass line and overtly sexual innuendos are a bit reminiscent of the first N.E.R.D album, "In Search Of...". Next up is "Everybody Nose", whose nonsensical, chant-able hook and uptempo beat make it a prototypical hipster club hit. "Windows" is completely devoid of any quality lyrics whatsoever (even for Pharrell), and is pretty much skip-able. Be careful, or the metallic, intentionally annoying "Anti Matter" will have you nodding your head. If "Spaz" sounds familiar, you probably heard it in that Zune Microsoft commercial. The melody is charming, but the song's fusion of hip hop with intermittent metallic riffs and atrocious lyrics doesn't really work. The smooth, yet confrontational "Yeah You" accommodates Pharrell's pseudo-falsetto vocals in a way that isn't too terribly offensive to the ears. The next song "Sooner Or Later" does the complete opposite. P tries to impersonate Coldplay, and his painfully bad singing voice is totally exposed. "Happy" is the purest rock sound on the album and doesn't try to be too creative, which makes it an enjoyable listen. "Killjoy" is proof that Pharrell suffers from a severe case of AD-HD, but the drums somewhat hold the song together. "Love Bomb" is along the same lines as "Sooner Or Later", so I'd recommend skipping if you want to keep your sense of hearing intact. "You Know What" has the classic N.E.R.D feel, so, assuming that's what you bought (or downloaded) the album for, it will be one of your favorite cuts. The band plays with your emotions in "Laugh About It", the album's final track, shifting from minor to major chords and almost simulating the roller coaster ride of a relationship that he's singing about.

WARNING: this album is NOT for everyone. You must 1) Be a fan of both hip hop and alternative rock, 2) build up a tolerance for Pharrell's voice, and 3) Listen with an open mind. If you don't do all three of those things, in order, you will HATE this album. But once you have those three prereqs covered, I'm betting this album will grow on you.

Verdict: Cop it if you're a N.E.R.D fan. If you're not, bootleg it with extreme caution.

(I reviewed Lil' Wayne in part I, which is the post just before this one)

Two new albums (part I)

So I got my hands on two 6/10 album drops: Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III and Seeing Sounds from the reunited N.E.R.D., The Neptunes' spin-off/weed-carrying posse from earlier this decade. While the two are quite different in content, they are similar in that they have their highs, lows, and their "what the fuck were they thinking?"s.

I'll start with Tha Carter III. Wayne at this point has established somewhat of a "hate him or love him" presence in the game. Not only has he had the number one song on the charts for about the last month, but he's also featured on damn near every single you can hear on the radio (if you can name me one song that gets spins on hip hop stations that doesn't have Wayne, 'Pain, or Chris Brown on it, I'll give you my next two weeks' paycheck. Seriously). Not only that, this dude has so much love in the streets that he could mic his toilet while taking a shit and put it out as a single. To be honest, there are several points on this album, and throughout his career, where he may as well have done just that.

Despite what I said before, I neither love nor hate Weezy. If anything, I hate these 12-year-olds on their MySpace pages and blogs crowning him as "The Best Rapper Alive". But that hatred will be detailed in another post. While his presence at the top is a sad commentary on the music loosely defined as hip hop, I find his rhymes to be entertaining in the most basic sense. While many rappers portray original thoughts and tell engaging narratives (ideally speaking), the appeal of Weezy F.'s sophomoric similies is that they make you chuckle while wondering "why didn't I think of that?" Let's not forget that because he is selling ringtones, he's getting access to the not-quite-as-shitty producers. Kanye donates four beats to the project: "Comfortable", "Tie My Hands", "Shoot Me Down", and "Let the Beat Build". I naturally had the highest expectations for these four tracks, but, alas, the only one of them that's any good is "Comfortable", which amusingly features Babyface. He is overqualified; this is the hip hop equivalent of Mike Ditka resurrecting his coaching career at the high school J.V. level.

This album starts strong beat-wise with Cool & Dre's "3 Peat", Just Blaze's "Mr. Carter", and Bangladesh's "A Milli". I'm shocked that the star-studded "Got Money" with T-Pain didn't warrant a better beat. The album lags a bit after "Comfortable", as Weezy makes a laughable attempt at genre transcendence by pretending to be E.T. in "Phone Home". It doesn't help that David Banner mails in the beat. The retro-sounding "Dr. Carter" is endearing, but our boy can only somewhat pull it off stylistically. When he tries to get his emo-rap on in "Tie My Hands", it doesn't work; this is the movie equivalent of Will Ferrell taking a role in "The Notebook".

The album somewhat picks up again with the Hot-Boyz-reminiscent "Playin With Fire", the teenage-white-girl-tested "Lollipop", and the Bun B cameo "Good Girl Gone Bad". The second Banner beat on the album, "La La" is funny, provided that it is intended only as a joke (also, sue me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this beat sound an awful lot like that Gucci Mane song from last year?). "Nothin On Me" is the highly anticipated, and even more highly disappointing Fabolous/Juelz co-feature, which shows that the East Coast will continue its A-Rod-in-the-playoffs slump through FY08. The ironic part about "Let the Beat Build" is that I waited the whole song for the beat to build, and it never really did. The main disc ends with "Misunderstood", which would be a decent cut if it wasn't Weezy running his mouth for the last 6 minutes of the song on some Kanye "Last Call" shit. However, I LOLed at his political commentary: "fuck Al Sharpton, and anyone like him". Wow, Weezy really is a transcendent figure in this society.

Your satisfaction with this album will depend largely on your expectation going into the experience. Personally, I wasn't expecting all that much, and came into it with an open mind. As a result, I was mildly entertained. If you've been waiting the past two years for Weezy to cure cancer, as many of these youngsters seem to be, then you will be disappointed. If you hated Wayne to begin with, then you certainly won't make it through this album without jumping out of your 18th story window.

Verdict: Bootleg it.

(I review the N.E.R.D. album in part II, which is the next post)

I'm so excited to join the corporate work force

Office Worker Goes Berserk

Everyone in the office should be fired, except for the dude who came with the single-leg takedown near the end.