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 ROTATION Ice Cube Rachel's Death Cab For Cutie Lyrics Born Andrew Bird Mars Volta Space Team Electra Rob Swift Apples in Stereo Jurassic 5 Sleater-Kinney Nirvana Sonic Youth Amon Tobin Dirty Three Cat Power Pixies Fugazi Frank Black Breeders Three Mile Pilot Mogwai DJ Shadow Chuck D Shipping News Black Heart Procession White Stripes Built To Spill Los Straitjackets Jon Spencer Blues Explosion AND MUCH MORE! 
 "If
you don't think of Cubans or Iraqis as actual human beings with jobs
and day-to-day lives, if you don't see them or hear their voices,
then it's easier to be against them. They're faceless. It's a tried-and-true
way of dealing with people or nations that the ruling elite finds
troublesome or inconvenient, whether it's Native Americans, Germans,
Russians, Iraqis, Cubans, even the French -- whoever gets in our way.
They're simply lumped into the enemy pile. "Word
comes that brother Cat Stevens refuses to lend his support to
our virtuous jihad. May this turncoat's Peace Train be laden with
explosives and rammed into the Mountain of Mohammed, peace be
upon him."  "You
need gas money and a car that works. Of course, my preference
is to do it in the middle of the night! Leave them little presents,
you know what I'm saying? Like the Easter bunny." "There's
some thing in our psyche, this kind of right or privilege to resolve
our conflicts with violence. There's an arrogance to that concept.
To actually have to sit down and talk, to listen, to compromise,
that's hard work. To go for the gun, that's the cowardly act."
"Word
comes that brother Cat Stevens refuses to lend his support to
our virtuous jihad. May this turncoat's Peace Train be laden
with explosives and rammed into the Mountain of Mohammed, peace
be upon him."
 "People
are more aware of the world that they want to live in, and now
they have to realize that they can actually create that world
and fight for the things that are worth fighting for and not
feel apathetic. We are all going to die. There is no point in
holding anything back."
 "There's
a scene in Richard Link-later's Waking Life where the
protagonist crouches down to read a note in the street that
says, 'Look to your right,' which he does, only to come face
to face with a speeding car aiming right for his head. That's
what it's like to listen to Mars Volta's De-loused in the
Comatorium for the first time."
 "The
surreal-ists wouldn't know what to do with Harvey Birdman. Its ingenious brand of adult animation owes as much to absurdists like Ionesco and Duchamp as it does to Bugs Bunny."  "The
music business is run by lawyers and accountants, and
they don't really care about the integrity of art."
 "For
white people, it will be different. They will be advised
to refer to the U.S. Federal Standard 595B Color Chart
(or the Ralph Lauren color chip guide at Home Depot)
to determine the range of colors permissible in a potential
spouse." |
High Concept by Scott Thill "We weren't the Lakers, we weren't the Celtics, we were just, we were nobody. We were the Detroit Pistons, trying to make our way through the league, trying to fight and earn some turf, you know, and make people realize that we were a good team. We just weren't the thing that they had made us." -- Isiah Thomas on ESPN's SportsCentury It read like a Hollywood blockbuster from jump street. Assemble the usual suspects, the cast of superheroes out to save the world from the tidy fundamentals found in the Eastern Conference. In fact, Phil Jackson told ESPN that his Lakers, not the casino underdog Pistons, were the true "Cinderalla story." The Dream Team, both Angelenos and star-hungry talking heads called them, as if a team featuring only one player from the original Olympian version could make the simulacrum float in the headlines. And, for some reason Mel Gibson's favorite cinematic subject only knows, everyone ate it up. Except some. Heretics like myself have been crowing for years that the Los Angeles Lakers, like some of the superstars (I'm not naming names, Jack!) that attend their games, just want to show up, grab their awards and go home to their wives. Or in Kobe's case...well, you get the idea. Which is another way of saying that all the hype, pomp and circumstantial evidence is usually enough for them. All-Star point guard? Check. All-Star power forward? Check. All-Star guard? Check. All-Star center? Check. OK, let's get the refs in line and we're outta here! Like I said, you get the idea. And if you don't, check out this statement Shaq laid down at the press conference after the ridiculously underrated Detroit Pistons beat the living crap out of his team for almost four straight games: "I'll always do what's best for me." No statement I've read so far this strange NBA season has summed up this year's Lakers squad so succintly, so economically. Sure, Shaq was talking about the long, hot summer of discontent that's headed L.A.'s way starting, well, today. But the point is still valid when applied to every single facet of the torried soap opera still raging at Staples.
Along the way, the Lakers forgot they had to play team ball to win another place in the history books. Along the way, Kobe decided that some poor Colorado starfucker was a suitable replacement for his wife. Along the way, Shaq forgot that he had to remain in peak physical condition to win it all. Along the way, Gary Payton lost his game in his luggage on the plane to Cali. Along the way, Karl Malone decided his notorious elbows -- for more on that score, ask The Admiral -- were better offensive weapons than his jumper. Along the way, Phil Jackson forgot that at-peace Zen masters don't call the fine citizens of California's capitol "hicks" or insult the entire city of San Antonio. No, there was more flash than sizzle in the Lakers' pan this year, and the only reason most sportswriters or talking heads avoided bringing it up is because they didn't want their locker passes revoked. I spent some time working in sports -- barely missing suicide by a few inches or so -- and that was the first thing I noticed. Everyone kisses the ass and ring of the monarch, especially when the alternative is the dungeon or doghouse. So Vegas picked the Lakers. ESPN's entire crew did the same -- even the ones that didn't work for Fox Sports, whose boss still owns a stake in Staples Center last time I checked. But they were all barking up the wrong tree, ignoring the plain facts of the case. Rick Fox put it well in the L.A. Times: "A team always beats a group of individuals," he said. "We picked a poor time to be a group of individuals." Even Michael Jordan, who unlike Kobe is the finest basketball player to ever play the game, eventually conceded that it takes a team to win a championship. And the Pistons -- a talented group of ballers like Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Big Ben Wallace and more who spent much of their careers trying to work their way past all the shine and sheen that passes for 21st century sports -- were above all a hoops team that played as one. Always on the same page, always on point. But no one gave the Pistons credit at all, and that's because no one has really watched them play. Inhabitors of La-La Land know their sports like they know their politics -- which is to say, not very well. So if it wasn't the Lakers, they weren't paying attention. Which is one reason why L.A. fans get a bad rap. They don't study the game or the league. They only look in the mirror and see high concept scripts and increased revenue. They don't see people who would rather, like Kobe, coast alone than truly work together. And that goes for the Lakers as well. After their Game 1 home loss, Kobe Bryant told Michele Tafoya that his team was still feeling out the Pistons. Really? After getting smacked down at home in the NBA Finals? Now that's coaching you can be proud of.
A day before the Finals, I cruised down to my neighborhood park as usual to grab some pick-up action and talk hoops with guys who, although not pros, nevertheless have spent close to anywhere from five to 25 years playing hoops whenever they could. The older ones were easier to talk to, while -- this being Los Angeles, of course -- the young were, mangling Yeats, full of "passionate intensity." One kid in particular forgot that being so young stripped him of the historical memory that comes in so handy when gauging these kinds of things. "This is the greatest team ever assembled," he crowed. "Who's going to be able to stop them?" A couple older cats, including myself, tried to get the Lakers fans to be objective. After all, we've all played the game for decades; we know how it works, and why it doesn't when it doesn't. I pointed out the various positional matchups, and how many of them favored Detroit. Chauncey Billups, for example, had raised his points average by four or five over the last couple of years, and routinely dropped 30-point performances before Larry Brown showed up and settled him down; add that to his relative youth and Derek Fisher, the aging clutch master and one of the only Lakers with class, didn't have a chance. The kid rolled his eyes at me, but Billups ended up being the Finals MVP. Same with the rest of the team. Ben Wallace had spent time as one of the NBA's Defensive Players of the Year, and had the size, energy and skill to, if not slow Shaq down, then at least capitalize on his mistakes, all while galvanizing his team and hustling for loose balls like they were winning lottery tickets. Rasheed Wallace, although a step slow, always had more game than Malone, and with the latter hobbled by injury, it was a given that the former would win out there. Rip Hamilton, while not Kobe, was capable of running teams ragged and had averaged close to 20 ppg since 2000. Someone was going to have to guard him, and whoever that was going to be tired as hell when it was over. In other words, the Pistons had firepower to spare -- plus, they could play defense -- and everyone in the Eastern Conference knew it. But the Western Conference, no doubt aided by hyperbole and a fawning press corps of Dubya-like proportions, couldn't care less. They looked homeward only, manufacturing schemes to slow down Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Mike Bibby, forgetting about everyone else in the process. And that is where Phil Jackson let them down. He's always been more of a middleman than a coach, soothing his players' egos and inflating their already overinflated sense of worth. And, let's be honest, it worked like a charm. Jackson's teams always knew they were already better than the others; his gift was getting them to channel that cocky energy into a championship performance. But hubris and self-absorption can only take you so far; at best, it's fuel, at worst, it's a death-knell. And now the bell tolls for Los Angeles and its star-studded Lakers. Like Jackson's Bulls before them, they will disintegrate, scatter and set up shop somewhere else, leaving the scrubs and true fans left to pick up the pieces and soldier on in 2005. Either Kobe or Shaq will be gone, and the mystery of who it will be will be this summer's most alluring drama. It seems obvious that the two just don't have the chemistry needed to stick together, mostly because Kobe still doesn't understand that until he wins a league or Finals MVP, he will always be the Pippen to Shaq's Jordan.
And for a guy who gets compared to Jordan every time he dunks over Yao Ming -- but, strangely enough, not when he pulls a Playstation move right into a triple team and hands the opposition a turnover -- that is some hard medicine to swallow. Indeed, Kobe's ego is so massive right now that he would like nothing better than to prove to everyone that he can win a title without Shaq. Sure, he wants to stay a Laker like everyone else does, but Shaq's line about looking out for number one is instructive -- Kobe will opt out of his contract and set up shop somewhere else. That is, unless the toupeed Jerry Buss shocks the world and dumps Shaq, the one guy that brought the Lakers back out of the post-Magic dark ages, for Kobe, the Air Apparent who so far hasn't been able to climb out of the former's immense shadow. While this is not the most probable move on paper, look for it nevertheless. After all, sports is a business first and foremost. The 49ers dumped Joe Montana, for Christ's sake. The Lakers will lose someone, that's a certainty. One of the underachievers they'll lose quicker than a heartbeat is Payton, unless he wises up, learns the triangle and realizes that no one is going to pay him the $5 million the Lakers will after the Invisible Man impression he pulled in the Finals. But Payton has always been the headstrong sort, and unless the Lakers change their offensive plan he might walk anyway. He's still got a good four or five games left in him. Malone is another story. It's clear that he can't compete like he once did, and that his body, which has always been one of Earth's natural wonders (minus the Rogaine), is breaking down. Unless he relegates himself to the bench and assumes the grizzled vet status that, say, Lindsey Hunter effected for Detroit, he's done like Bush 41. And 43. And no ring to speak of. But the biggest loss for Los Angeles will be Jackson, who will most likely take off on another soul-searching sojourn to try and figure out when and why he turned into such an asshole. As in Chicago, losing Jackson will lead to losing Shaq, which will in turn lead to losing Malone and onward. The domino effect, the military once called it. No more baiting the refs. No more insulting fans and cities. No more pretending to be Kobe's coach. Phil will walk into the sunset a well-decorated coach who hasn't had to lead a crappy team since he left the CBA years ago. He'll lie in wait until someone else spends every waking hour of their life putting together a championship team together and step in at the last minute and replace him.
I mentioned all this to the kid in the Lakers shorts at the pickup court -- before Game 1, mind you -- and he simply lost his mind. "Who's going to guard Kobe? Tayshaun Prince? Please!" "Who's gonna stop Shaq?" "Malone will shut down Rasheed and Ben by himself!" You know, the usual ignorant fan blather. My older buddies laughed it off, as did I, because you can't teach the deluded anything until they realize that they've been in the throes of a delusion. Because Lakers fans have been living on delusion, not basketball knowledge, for years now. They've been convinced that the mystique of their All-Star-studded squad would be enough to cow the refs, crowds and players alike. They figured that Detroit would simply lie down and hand them the trophy. They figured wrong. And now they'll pay the ultimate price -- ignominy. It's a sad ending, to be sure, but it may be just what the doctor ordered. If this whole experience -- the rape accusations, the internal squabbling, the ego explosions, the Zen hypocrisy -- doesn't teach Los Angeles that it takes a team to make it happen in the end, then nothing ever will. 16 June 04  Scott
Thill usually finds the time to write on everything that does not include
those fearsome words, "boy band". He's also a gainfully employed
editor who writes for XLR8R, Popmatters, All Music Guide, AOL and others.
His first novel, The Dangerous Perhaps, should be done by the time
the War on Terrorism is over.
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