In more than one occasion in my past, people have suggested that I become a comedian. I don't feel those people necessarily knew what becoming a stand-up entails, and if they did would they still recommend it as my wisest career move?
I was thinking, don't ask me why about how many actual good films I could say are produced each year. I was thinking, maybe 3, but I don't know, you see because I don't actually watch many films and it seems highly fallacious to assume that the only films I see are the contenders for goodness.
Anyway, this spurred me on to thinking about films that are actually really good but you end up hating because of the fan base. Star Trek lends itself to immidiate observation for this phenomena, but I'm thinking if you really wanted to put a film on a pedastal for liking it, then making you vomit it's 'Napoleon Dynamite'.
See ostensibly, this film is really good, it is character based, moody, it sucks you into its world and ultimately it delivers. It is full of classic dialogue like 'Snatch' by Guy Ritchie.
It and Evil Dead 2 alone are the only films in history of watching films that I've wanted to watch again immediately after finishing watching it the first time.
And then blinking as I stepped out into the sun, was confronted by wall to wall 'Vote for Pedro' t-shirts. Which was no where near as annoying as seeing cool and trendy people normally reserved for standing up the back and laughing at someone else's jokes actually getting laughs for re-enacting classic lines from Napoleon Dynamite.
COme to think of it, this pretty much happened with Evil Dead 2, except the fans were much nerdier, and I was buffered by a decade or so from its release to my first viewing. At least those nerds appreciate the classical classicness of Evil Dead 2.
But then you have problem 2 which is when a movie gets revered, which is understandable with Evil Dead 2, it's a five star film. But when a bunch of unimaginative nerds revere a 3 star film made large like 'The Dark Knight' or worse, 'X-Men 3' is it the films fault that I start hating it?
See Evil Dead 2 is like Venice, even though it's overflowing with fat annoying classless tourists, the majesty and mystery of the place is too fundamental to the very architecture, try as they might to touristy overrate Venice you can't get past what an amazing architectural achievement it is.
But the Dark Knight is like Amsterdam, a cool city, but when it gets crowded with fat classless tourists it just becomes a tourist dive. And X-men 3 is like Prague.
Infact can a tourist destination be blamed for tourists is pretty much the exact same question?
And perhaps this is the answer: Yes, if it tries to attract them.
Which I would say is definitely the case with the Cherry-picking approach of Nolan, adapting the best ideas had by other people and inserting a few of your own flourishes, as well as an obligatory scene catering to the all important asian market. (China banned TDK anyway). Or worse the endless 'Comic book cameo' fest that the X-men movies are, botching characters left right and center with flat poorly worked scripts in order to satisfy the rabid nerd fan base that demands more, More, MORE, MOORE* to be made into films to validate their sad fringe interests.
So yes, it can be blamed for its fans, if that is the dollar they will chase at any cost. Just if Raimi puts together an Evil Dead 4 that is more or less a rehash of all our favorite scenes and lines from 2 + 3.
*this is actually really clever.
I just read this post at thelasthacker on 'The Chasers War on Everything' which I find more sad that the Chaser is Australia's 'Edgiest' comedy rather than the censorship issues, which in light of it being Australia's edgiest comedy then censoring it is really sad.
But it all reminds me of a joke:
Q: 'What did the blind quadraplegic kid get for Christmas?'
A: 'Cancer.'
I find this joke really funny, and that is because of the anatomy of the joke. It plays on human sympathy, and its okay to laugh at it. What generally happens in your head that makes the old Q&A format of joke so effective is that it engages your rational mind. SO anyone who hears the question has the part of their mind engaged in trying to predict what kind of thoughtful kind gift might alleviate the suffering of this poor hypothetical kid. Failing to imagine the kind of contraption that might help someone who can't see and can't walk and can't use their hands.
At which point the brutal answer is revealed, which is the joke, who would want to hear a story so sad? The expectation that the kids situation can't get worse is what allows the joke to work.
And yet...
I have made I believe this joke, and somebody in earshot tried to tell me off because they (presumably) knew someone dying of Cancer. And I stood my ground, for the first time, in the past I've backed down in the face of someone sensitive. I'm not sure what I said, but I didn't keep digging, which is I think a bad response. I merely pointed out to the effect of 'you don't have the right not to be offended, you only have the right to be offended.'
Which is pretty much the greatest freedom anyone can ever aspire to. Southpark did a great Christmass special about avoiding offense, where they removed all religious iconography to the point where they took down the lighting because it was 'offensive to people with epilepsy'. Which made an excellent satirical point of just how unworkable the 'keeping mind of peoples sensitivities' is.
Offense is a moving target, and where most people get run-of-the-mill narcissistic about it is that they believe that some tyrannical hitler needs to be offended by people standing up to their personal convictions, but that they are so sensible and normal that they should not be offended.
In short usually people can dish it but they can't take it. Perhaps I'm unusual being a person that when I went to my first public bathroom in China was highly amused when some military official called me 'guilo' or however its spelt and spat as he walked past me.
That attitude I'm sure rests on the fact that white people are far more likely to dish out the meaningful racism than recieve it, being that we have a stranglehold on most of any power structures that matter.
But alas it remains, and I will say, there is no line. It is simply that. Thomas Jefferson would say:
I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.
Letter to Nicolas Gouin Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller (1814) who had been prosecuted for selling the book Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive by M. de Becourt, which Jefferson himself had purchased.
Just as everyone has a summer they wish to remember I believe that in the post 'The Crow' and possibly even the post 'New Romantics' era, there is something else classic that occurs in just about every teen to adolescent to man-child's life. That is the Goth.
This is the story of my Goth I want to remember but alas... can't.
It happened when on my first day in a new job in of all places a call center. With nervous trepidation, I actually made calls. Being used to telemarketing, and the need to ask strangers to switch phone providers, and hit upon so many a night that I would actually get a commission I was bracing for a return to constant abuse. In market research this is rare, and if I learnt anything from the job, it is just how bored some people are. The fact that people are willing to spend 40 minutes talking about cat food to a complete stranger in the most mechanical dialogue ever, is a harsh indictment of Australian television programming.
But that is irrelevent except to say that I was expecting abuse, and found instead that getting people to do surveys was easy. I began to relax. Relaxed a little more, then more, and more until I was like 'hang on, why am I so at ease?'
With the stunned revalation that I was being lulled to sleep, I became like one of them TV show characters heading towards the light, that suddenly searches around with their other senses in an attempt to shatter the false reality.
And then I noticed, the most angelic voice I, to this day, have ever heard. It was coming directly from behind me and was asking me about ... tinea?? It seemed to surround me, like brown woollen clothes surround old people. I expected to turn around and see a kindergarten teacher in some kind of crocheted jacket and possibly matching hat wearing a necklace made out of died pieces of macaroni instructing kids on the chain reaction that takes place when one mixes glitter, glue and paper.
Yes, that's how angelic this voice was, as in when Johnny cash sang:
'I heard a voice that sounded so sweet, I thought I heard the shuffle of angels feet, it spoke to me and my heart stood still, when he said "John go do my will..."'
And I turned around to find the tell tale Betty page hair, on the pallid complexion and questionably practical attire of a goth. And alas she was it for me, my goth I want to remember.
But alas, I cannot, because in my year of working in her proximity, I never recall actually having a conversation with her, and I don't believe now that I ever actually knew her name. Because the fact was she wasn't talking to me about 'tinea' just as I was not talking to her about cat food. We were employed to talk to complete strangers about these powderkeg issues. Not eachother.
My brother who later worked in the same call center, informed me that they used to try and sit people next to eachother that were couple worthy, evidently nobody thought of matching me up with... well anybody. I wasn't there to make friends either and I had a girlfriend of probably 2 years at that stage that I was at least moderately committed to keeping.
And now in periodic fits, like acid flashbacks that bubble up from time to time, I think of the goth I want to remember, and can't I'm sort of certain I know exactly what she looked like then, but then can't even facebook stalk her because I can't remember her name. After much meditation I kind of suspect that it started with 'D' but am only 40% sure of that.
Alas... the goths of our youth are but a fading memory.
No this has nothing to do with shaved vaginas. No today as my rear wheel is being trued having popped a spoke, and regrettably I didn't ask them to ditch the humiliating pie plate while they were at it...
Where was I? I was walking into town today, and Melbourne was being blasted like it was on the shores of lake wendoree. I have totally pussed out (okay maybe it does have something to do with shaved vaginas) since leaving balifornia, and thus was glad I invested twenty bucks in a new hoodoo at the next best thing to an Op-shop in the CBD 'Jayjays' (I haven't done any hilarious pranks or stunts with my attractive model friends since wearing their clothes though) and well I put my hood up.
You see I decided the old crooked mohawk was getting old and stale and I need to go back to basics and start growing my hair out for my next exciting hair sculpture. So I shaved it down to a number 1, 3mm and was pleased with the semi transparent result. So pleased I thought I may even go shorter down to 0 or go subzero with the actual razor next time. (beard rash on my head though?)
And that remained the ace up my sleeve the past couple of weeks. You see being a skinhead I figure would only be a pain come summertime because of the whole burning sun of vengence in Australia, and having to lotion my normally self greasing scalp with spf 40+ or wear some kind of nerd hat all summer... but winter, well winter if worse comes to worse you chuck on a beanie.
Or on a day like today you put your hoodie up over your head. Alas! with the wind pretty much just blowing in my face, the only thing keeping my hood from blowing clean off my head was the 3 mm of hair on my forehead was gripping tenuously to the soft inner of my hood and keeping it put.
If I were to shave down to the skin then to my horror, that hoodie would slide off and I would be presented with an all out brain freeze attack. Such constricting cold could lead to the error in judgement that might end my life in busy traffic.
So I was shattered, hair loss plan A just took one huge leap backwards, Hair isn't just cosmetic, it provides valuable traction (but now me thinks if I had my old slick and greasy ropes of hair, that hoodie would have slid off anyway where...oh yeah my hair would have kept me warm).
Anyway I guess the compromise is the mysterious Ronaldo:
I have long held the belief that basketball is the perfect analogy for business, so confident am I that it is, that I have previously proclaimed that if it doesn't happen in basketball it doesn't happen in business.
Thankfully I can hide behind vague interpretations, and stage multiple definitional retreats. My theory is less falsifiable than the theory of intelligent design.
So let's begin on what will some day form the basis of my book on business and how my love of basketball shaped my superior mind.
And let's start with what it is all about - always: the lead.
Perhaps it wasn't until Michael Jordan hit the gym the day after his first Championship that basketball truly perfected its approximation of business, but when I say that the lead always has to be maintained, that's exactly what I mean. If you are playing ball, you are trying to build your own lead. I could say the score, the win but lead will make it easier for me to break down.
You have to keep in mind that when you hoist that championship trophy over your head, and you stand on top of the world, that the moment is fleeting. It is a moment simultaneously eternal and infantismally small. It is a laural that may bring you some consolation in the times ahead, that at least at that moment, when it counted to you - you took the lead.
But here is what I mean, the average NBA career is going to be around I'm guessing 5 years, once you discard statistical outliers, like number 29 draft picks that don't play a minute and get sent to D-league. But in that career you have effectively 1 run per year at a championship, and realistically less than 1 run. Thus when you win a championship you can retire, or you go into next season, where you go back to square one in winning enough games to get to the playoffs, winning the playoffs to be conference champion, winning the finals to become champion and then... same again.
Championships aside, any playoff series is a best of 7 games. That means you have to win 4 times to win an individual championship. If you win game 1 that means best case you have to win game 2, 3 & 4. Drop a game and you have to play 5, drop two 6, drop three 7, drop 4 it's over. You have to do that for round 1 of the playoffs to go to conference semi-finals, and win round 2 to go to conference finals, win 4 times there you go to the finals.
You win game one by 100 points (unlikely) it still read 1-0 same as if you win by 1 point (far more likely). Then you have to win again, at home, on the road. The name of the game, in business and basketball is win and go again.
But enough about winning, this is about leading. Let's get within the intamacies of the game itself. Basketball differs from say 'soccer' and even it's closest cousin 'afl' in that if you have the lead, your play does not really change at all. Mentally maybe you will relax a little, but strategically you do the same thing until somebody stops you.
You have possessions, which are your offensive game. Without possession you are playing defence. Offence is about scoring points, you need at least 1 point to have a lead. Defence is about regaining posession, getting stops, turnovers, steals, grabbing rebounds etc. Defence is employed solely to enable attack. The team must always attack.
Basketball stands out because a lead has to be tirelessly maintained. It is a 'leaky bucket' lead and therein lies its fundamental similarity to business and the highest level. The speed of change is fast. The competitors scorecard is driven up by their sales force, their offensive strategy, you can confound it somewhat but ultimately you are not in control. Your lead has to be built out of your offense, your sales. It ain't soccer, you can't play nil all draws until it goes to penalty shoot-outs.
The shot clock winds down, your advertising dollars, Your dealers finance, your sales incentives program, your products lifestyle and like it or not the ball is turned over to the competitor. A crappy competitor might put up 30 shots and sink none. But it never changes the fact that you are trying to build and consolidate your lead.
You win the first game by 100, it doesn't matter come the next game, you have to win again, that means build the lead up from 0, get back on defence and try and score as hard as you can.
So too in business, you sell the most one quarter, you have the largest market share, the biggest revenues, the widest profit margin. The quarter, the week, the day ticks over and you have to start from square one. The competition/opposition is going to close the gap on you unless you keep widening it.
You keep doing what you do well crucially UNTIL something changes. This is where business goes to the wall against basketball. In basketball the objective is clear, the rules are more concrete, the perception clear, the management, top-notch. The environment changes constantly and the offence reacts. Fisher dribbles down court and tosses the rock to Kobe for the open corner 3 and he lays it in - what happens on the next offensive possession, Fisher dribbles down court and looks for the pass to find that KObe has moved. The environment has changed, why? Well whoever is on Kobe has either gone out to him and Kobe has adjusted his strategy, or Kobe moved in anticipation. Perhaps he couldn't get by because of where he was forced on the defensive play, perhaps they switched to a box-and-1 defence.
The point being that even though basketball has far less variables, (perhaps because it has far less variables) the players are far better at recognising and reacting to changes in the external environment. That is everything beyond their direct control. Thus the offensive strategy (and defensive) is constantly adjusting to both realised and potential threats.
Businesses have a bad habit of being good at something in a certain environment, and then when the environment changes, taking measures to fight the environmental change, not actually adjusting too the environmental change. They do things like ask for subsidies when another team starts killing them on labor costs, or marketing cars that don't suit the economic environment, they demand the market serve their company, not make their company serve the market.
Contributing value is the business offense, just as scoring points is in basketball. Value has to be constantly generated in order to sustain the successful existence of a business, just as a lead has to constantly be maintained in basketball. Furthermore, business has to contribute more value than it's competitors to take the lead. In basketball you can be a superstar on a losing side, you can't take the championship every year, but if you come close you can sell enough memberships and season passes and sponsership to stay in business. In business, you can not have the lead but through creating enough value, return profits to investors. But coming second is as ephermerial state as coming first, second has to be maintained just like first does. To progress requires either better competitiveness, or weaker competition both are possible, but there's only one you can truly control.
That's the fundamental connection between business and basketball.
In the past fortnight I have picked the killer about 45 minutes before I was supposed to. I just watched 'Horsemen' with Dennis Quaid, not that Dennis Quaid and I went to the movies, but that he was in the movie.
Anyway, I doubt anyone is particularly hanging out to see that film, even though I'm sure heaps of people read nothing but 'Crime Fiction' and watch all the CSI shows.
So it occurred to me shortly after the opening scene that they made a superfluous effort to call in the detective character as an expert, when they could have just left this out and had him show up at the sight and no member of the viewing public would have gone 'hang on a minute, how come he got the case?'
And because it's a movie, this is information. Which you can couple up to the information you have going in, that it's a religion themed serial killer film. Which basically means its going to be like se7en, which was actually a really good film. You know it's going to be worse than se7en though because of the actors in it.
So I drew the parralal, you know because the director gives you the superflous expert information that the Detective is going to ultimately end up being the target a la se7en. Then they cast a creepy emo-kid as his son and crucially you see him in the second to opening scene of the movie.
Now here's the thing with the traditional detective story, to be clever you can't have people running around to solve a case and then at the end the killer turns out to be 'Henry Peterson' some serial killer dude you've never heard of before. To be an interesting and 'clever' story you can't pull out the 'Deus Ex Machina' that is the resolution of any story has to come from within the internal logic of the narrative. Thus typically the way to avoid 'Deus Ex Machina' is to introduce the killer as early as possible and hide them in plain site.
Now it may not be the stuff of good police work, but in movies you can make such safe assumptions as to conclude when they give you superflous information that it won't be so superfluous in the end. Hence you can go, 'aha it wasn't necessary to establish why Dennis Quaid was on the case, but they did therefore he is the target being played with therefore his son is actually the killer!' and it was right.
Mystic River was the other film I saw recently, and it was infinitely better. Albeit the films are almost two different genres of detective movies. Horsemen is you know all about shocking horrific murders, whereas Mystic River was more about the community and the characters than the singular unremarkable murder that takes place.
But anyway, it was one of those movies I'd thought must be good on account of the Oscars it won, being Sean Penn beating out Bill Murray and Johnny Depp, and Tim Robbins beating out Ken Watanabe and Benicio Del Toro.
Furthermore Clint Eastwood directed it, ergo it must be brilliant. Alas for me it wasn't but that's probably a product of films like 'The Departed' and 'Gone Baby Gone' that have come since but I saw before it. Alas though, people may actually want to see Mystic River and enjoy the realism of the actually detective story involved, and preserv a bit of mystery. So I won't go too far with the spoilers:
Here's all the information you need.
1. Girl is scene with Tim Robbins character in the same bar the night of her death.
2. Tim Robbins shows up home covered in blood later that night, tells his wife a man tried to mug him and that they can't call the cops and they can't go to hospital.
3. Director does not show the murder.
Here because it's a movie it's safe to conclude that Tim Robbins didn't do it. Real life, different story. Why? Because the director is pushing you hard in that direction, but crucially won't admit it. It's like listening to politicians once you know the tricks of avoiding responsibility eg. passive tense 'The report was poorly written' as opposed to 'I wrote a poor report'.
4. Early in the film you are introduced to a completely superfluous character, sadly decked out in very symbolic attire.
Which lead me to call it very early. And don't get me wrong, you don't go see Mystic River because it's a mystery like say 6th sense. The film still offers heaps in terms of the characters and drama within the story, albeit it is a bit of a mess of a film.
Thus though, I find there are certain intractable plot limitations to writing a 'crime fiction' screenplay, made worse when put into motion pictures because in a book it doesn't cost much to add heaps of superfluous information, an extra page is like 2c per. Shooting an extra 15 minutes of movie comes at the expense of something else and probably costs in the neighbourhood of $2 million dollars. Hence hencely detective movies are inherently predictable.
Yet they endure. Will anything kill off this staid and boring genre? Well Horsemen may ironically be ringing in the end times for the detective story. In it there's a scene where a kid says 'Come and See? Come and see what?' and Dennis gets up and dusts off his old book 'Dickensons Quotations' or something and finds out 'Come and See' is from Revelations 6. Then he rummages around in the bottom of a closet and discovers the passage in the bible.
As it turns out the '4 horsemen' in the film end up having met on some thing called the 'internet'. Something book reading on gut instinct Dennis Quaid is presumably baffled by. And it is in this mystical 'internet' that one could see the end of the Detective story.
You see, forgive me if my expectations are too high, but I had assumed that in modern detective work, if people were to write 'come and see' 4 times at a murder scene, then one might actually plug that into google. As it turns out, it appears several times, most popularly according to google in John 1:46, which would have been problematic. But hopefully that there were 4, and that it appears to be a bible reference, the cops would have made this connection on day one.
Mystic River was different because the turning point in their case was actually the forensics coming in to Id the murder weapon, ruling out the obvious suspect and ruling in the actual killer.
But at the very least, serial killers be warned, your undoing has come, and it is the internet, a vast mystical land where you can leave your digital fingerprints all over, even in cached websites, and no longer will you be able to rely on obscure religious texts and rest safe in the knowledge that only some kind of super expert profiler detective will have that obscure text in their bookshelf.
The end is nigh for biblical killers because now, anyone can look up your favorite passage in a matter of minutes, seconds even. Dropping pennies just don't get up the velocity to kill people anymore (and its a myth that they ever have).
Curiously, se7en stands out because the killer was nobody you'd ever heard of before, the director won out because it became a film that wasn't about the killer and the mystery but about the plan and machinations itself. Unfortunately if you just make a whole bunch of movies like se7en then you end up with a bunch of depressing films being watched by depressed and desensitised audiences.
Also possibly momentum, as in when Mike Patton at the Brixton Academy attempted to fart into his microphone, but it was silent, he just ploughed on with sniffing the microphone head and you'd swear he knew what he was doing.
But anyway, I started listening to some of the 'Career-Tools' podcasts on manager-tools, and I thought there is a real dividing line between employees and curiously it ties in with 'those who walk the walk' except for me it was the employees willing to 'walk' as in say 'you can take this job and shove it' or 'damn your eyes!' in obviously a much more diplomatic way that curiously had the brightest prospects.
ostensibly I set out with this post with the intention of not bringing up the NBA finals for once. And so will avoid mentioning the LA Lakers league best employment of the bench.
Instead, I think confidence comes from having 'an ace up the sleeve' in the basic corporate form it is in having savings. The more savings you have, the longer you can take to find another job whilst maintaining the same lifestyle. This goes beyond quelling the fear of being fired to actually having the option of walking on your own volition.
Germaine Greer made a point of 'security' that companies and social scripts often promote as your basis of confidence. Has nobody ever noticed that having a mortgage on your brow is the very opposite of security, never moreso than the threat of losing your house does getting fired suddenly threaten to wipe out everything you've striven to achieve.
Also you can look at the notion of security promoted in groupist cultures, most notably Japan. My friend Yoshi was amazed that in Australian high-school life, in most cases if you decide your current circle of friends are a pack of douchebags you can just switch circles. It's only as hard as changing a habit. Whereas groupism as practiced in japan your 'nakama' in highschool is pretty much the only 'close' friends you'll have for life. The security of the group infact restricts you to just maintaining the status quo.
I know I practice a model of this contingency planning of savings/switching friends that is probably a bit extreme for most people, being used to hard living as I am. But I recommend at least in acknowledging that insecurity paradoxically gives one the freedom to move and master their own destiny. I recommend it. Security then is the opposite of confidence.
Whereas Lebron just gets told who he is supposed to be. Already the two vs. Magic series have nothing in common. The Lakers won game 1 at home convincingly. So all my fancy analysis amounts to shit.
I think though the Lakers key advantage is their 2-starting line-ups. Big with Bynum or fast with Odom. But both have their options offensively against Magic, so Bynum can get in foul trouble early and just play the same sort of minutes that he has been. Dwight's far more likely to get in foul trouble than Kobe, but unlike the Lakers' line up that destroys their ability to spread the floor.
And most crucially they actually shut down the Magics 3-point game even with Dwight in the paint. I'm not sure they can count on that during games 3 + 4 when Magic's accuracy will pick up at home.
The thing about Dwight Howard is that he's throwback to NBA days of yore. Until Dwight sank the Cavs, it was hard to understand given the past decade or so, perhaps even stretching back to pre Jordan days, why the preference to go big with draft picks still dominated mentality.
If you dismiss Jordan as a freak at the 2 position, the two most lasting trends in NBA teams have been the emergence of the truly powerful, power-forward, and the emphasis on Point Guards. This logic works perfectly if you look back to the Payton-Kemp Sonics vs. Jordan & Pippen Bulls finals won by Jordan in 6 games. You dismiss Jordan as a freak and try and emulate the Sonics.
The point guard has been the star of the past 5 years, with Tony Parker, Billups, Gilbert and Iverson as your shoot first style point guard, your Nash's and Kidd's as your pass-first style point guards and lastly your Chris Paul all rounder floor generals.
Then there's the Barkley lead school of uber forwards, culminating arguably in MVP's Nowitzki and Garnett. They rebound, and dominate the low posts, yet drop back to downtown and sink 3's.
But the Magic dismissed with the Power-Forward all-together. That's the luxury of Dwight Howard. Big enough, strong enough, dominant enough to require a double team, they are best off just running an isolation play permenantly. They go 1 point guard, 3 shooting guards and Dwight at center. Then they just pass around the 3-point arc until they get an open look. They spread the floor, that's Orlando's game summed up, and they can do it like no other team can, because they have the best center in the game.
And I thought, how the fuck do you defend against that? Best bet is to try and get Dwight in Foul trouble, but even their back up center allows them to play a slightly less effective version of the same game plan?
The Answer though is to adopt the Magic's perspective. Lakers can run two centers, Bynum and Pau Gasol, They can run them at the same time, if necessary they can go to three low-post players in Bynum, Gasol and Odom all much bigger than anyone in the Magic line-up bar Dwight. Then to spread the floor they have the reverse situation, they have Kobe who arguably could be called 'Mr. Tough Shot' next to Billups 'Mr. Big Shot' out west.
I was impressed by Brandon Roy's ability to seemingly be unfased by Houston's defence, but when it comes to experience, Kobe can probably take a Ron Artest & Battier double team and make 20 points worth of shots. Beyond the low post, Magic don't have a defender anywhere near the calibre of Battier or Artest. And they would be useful against a good field goal shooter like Paul Pierce or Ray Allen, not a guy that can create shots for himself out of nowhere.
The situation with the Lakers is reversed, instead of having a defensive liability in the low post, they have one out in the field, then they have 3 low post to midrange scorers, and players like Vujakic that can sink 3's off the bench.
So Lakers have a one man floor spreader in Kobe, and multiple threats in the low post, Magic have a one man floor spreader in Dwight, and multiple threats in the field. All things being equal - mathematically the Lakers are going to win offensively because the field goal percentage is where it will be decided, and the best 3 point scoring team in the league is only going to hit 34% of their shots.
Except History says that Magic have the Lakers number, the Lakers haven't beat them yet this season, and the Finals is a bad time to have to start beating a team. Furthermore Lakers were the 'giant slayers' when it came to ousting Cleveland and Boston at home, but that was last year, Orlando are the true giant slayers, I don't know how their record ended up worse than Cavs and Boston, because they must have dropped some stupid games along the way.
The tend also to just gather momentum over the course of a match, slow to start but good strong finishers. Lakers wins come all over the place. I actually think one of the factors that really decided the Cavs magic series was timing. It was all about when you had the lead, when you pushed etc. I think if the Magic push early in the 2nd quarter, they give the openents too much time to adjust, vis-a-vis game 5 against the Cavs. If they make their push in the 3rd quarter that's optimum, because that hits the right combo of the opponent thinking they have time to push back, but not actually leaving enough time.
From the other teams perspective, at least in the Cavs series, they would go out and build these seemingly dominant leads in the first quarter. I think building big leads early is exceptional in that it's bad against the Magic. Normally a team only resorts to 3's out of desperation or necessity, as in the only way to make up the point differential in the time remaining is to hit a bunch of 3's, you switch to long-range game to get you back in it. Putting the Magic into the long range game as early as Q2, puts them in their most dangerous game, that is rotating the ball between their 4 3-point shooters.
Furthermore it gives them each a few practice shots to get going, and once 2/4 or 3/4 have seen the ball go in the net, that is your defence shattered, you can't double team Dwight anymore and you don't know where the next 3 is coming from.
Once those shooters get going on the 3's they will have that up their sleeves for the 2nd half of the game. They'll shoot daggers into your heart.
The Lakers need to visualise these matches as a 800m-1500m foot race. You don't want to sprint out and play 'who hits the wall first' basketball, because shooting 3's is less energy intensive than driving the lane or backing down a defender for the low post plays. They want to tuck in just behind or just in front of the Magic, and then: LISTEN, WATCH, FEEL for when they try and make their move.
If you know you have a strong sprint finish, that is, you are a strength runner, then the longer you can keep your oppenent(s) from making their break, the more guarunteed is your victory. That is what the Lakers need to do with Magic, don't sprint the first lap, because Magic will just open up their stride a little and beat you down to the finish line.
Lastly:
With Dwight, Mike Brown was right, the league has no Ben Wallace these days, not even in Ben Wallace, so you are probably going to foul him to get the stops and send him to the line. What you don't want is to make a 3 point player out of Dwight and give him the And-1 plays. So you have to fall on his arms or some shit so he can't follow through on his scoring play.
The Lakers really should be the underdog/dark horse of this finals series, except they have the home court advantage, and the idiot media will overhype them on their win loss regular season record, which is bullshit, because the only regular season games that count in this series are the 3 against Orlando, for which their record is 0-3. In other words the Lakers should be the underdogs, but have lost the underdog advantage.
There is no objective way to actually determine MVP. Perhaps it would have been better if the NBA had adopted a Brownlow style referee voting system instead of the end of season vote. The NBA has a weekly blog entitled 'Race to the MVP' which utilises a top 10 style list that remains more or less static for the second half of the season. Nicholas Nassim Taleb points out that food and movie critiques tend to be mutually referential, that is they influence eachothers opinion, in other words success compounds and so does failure in the views of critiques. And whilst said blog author doesn't get a vote, their opinion I would say definitely persuades a lot of the voting media personalities to cast the same vote.
My dad pointed out long ago, that the Brownlow voting shifted to only voting for players on winning teams, because they were building a tradition of voting for the star player who racked up a heap of disposals because they were surrounded by dud players. The NBA acts similarly, MVP usually just goes to the star player of the winningest team.
This season though, Lebron probably was the best mix of both. He was the star player on the winningest team, and he plays with a team of relative duds. So it was a fairly earned MVP. Now that MVP is bitter consolation against what was supposed to be the season where Lebron dethroned Kobe.
I'm looking forward to the finals series because I just don't know how the Laker's can win, but I suspect they just might in 7 given the home court advantage. Right now though there's Lebron's bitter bitter end to talk about.
Lebron's Bitter Bitter End:
As the Orlando home crowd chanted 'MVP! MVP!' mockingly whilst Dwight Howard shot the last few sets of free throws, Lebron no doubt could comprehend his own fate that night. And looking at the Cavs' faces as they sat on the bench for their final time out 14 points down with 42 seconds to go, it was not deliciously cruel for a Schatenfeuder like me, it was just plain cruel and devastating and bitter. Except that like last season when the Celtics went 3-1 up on the Lakers, I knew it would be far more bitter to take that away from the Celtics than for the Lakers to accept defeat.
So at the final time as NBA.com tells it:
LeBron James walked off the court, head down, brushing off a few pieces of confetti. He ignored the few taunts by Magic fans and took one last look at the crowd without muttering a word.
Not to anyone.
A scintillating series by the NBA's MVP was washed away by his not-so-supporting cast, as the Cleveland Cavaliers were eliminated Saturday night with a 103-90 loss to the Orlando Magic in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.
James dressed quickly in the locker room, put on headphones and went to the team bus without talking to reporters.
Symmetry is attractive. Asymmetry is not. Here is the basic assymtry in thinking that is human beings at their worst:
1) We like to take credit for doing good.
2) We don't like to take credit for doing bad.
As Noam Chomsky points out numerous times, the classic government model is 'public risks and privatised profits'
And it explains... pretty much everything. like:
Why people invested in properties and maxed out mortgages when they thought they would be getting rich off the capital appreciation, yet now want the government to bail them out of their deflating bubble assets.
Why shareholders want the government to bail out their finance institutions, yet don't wont those institutions nationalised.
Why soon to be retirees were happy to let the pension dwindle when they thought superannuation would sustain a jetsetting retirement lifestyle yet when the super funds took a big dive now balk at the retirement age and pension cut-offs being lifted.
Why we are ostensibly committed to fighting climate change, yet don't want to disadvantage the industries generating the problem.
I would simply point out, that if anything is idealistic or naively greedy, it is that whenever you do right everyone pats you on the back, and when you do wrong everyone looks the other way.
Jim Collins identified in 'Good to Great' a trait he labelled 'the window and the mirror' amongst the leaders of the best companies of the past century. That is, they did the exact opposite of human feebleness classic, they aportioned blame only to themselves when things went wrong, and when things went well they skeptically attributed it to the efforts of others or at worst, just plain dumb luck.
Anyway, to go a long way in making the world a better place, you have to know this behaviour pattern and stomp on it any time it rears its feeble head.
Don't [stay in Malaysia].
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Oh yeah, pretend your name is 'Sophia'.
I'm trying to finish 'The Female Eunuch' as what often happens when I read is I get excited until I've read most of the content and amazingly my attention always dwindles at the conclusion. Guess I'm a journey not destination type guy.
Anyway I was trying to finish it and gave up in my favorite park yesterday and lay back and looked up and I saw: life.
Specifically I saw a tree branch hanging over me and all the leaves hanging off of it. I remembered the session at RYLA I had on 'deep-ecology' which was the theory that we can't live off of nature until we can comprehend our relationship with it, which pretty much means meditating surrounded by nature.
The first time I did it, I was struck by how in the middle of scrubland, as far away from civilization as most of us can get these days, there was far more living activity going on than in the heart of the CBD.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway this is why a leaf is of interest to you. It occured to me that the hardest chanciest part of a leaf's existence is jokying for position, specifically a position in sunlight. Then it sprouts, it absorbs the light and grows until eventually it drops off.
Of course a leaf is not sentient, indeed a tree isn't really sentient, I think it uses that mathematical constant 'e' or something to actually decide where leaves will crop up in an evolutionary process that maximises leaf exposure to sunlight. So the hardest part of a leaf's existence is pretty much out of its hands to begin with.
Alas, this is how most people lead their lives. The hardest thing they really do, is swim up the philopean tubes in the number 1 position. For many it's the only race a person wins in their lives. So yes in a way we are all winners. But once that position is obtained, we just passively live a life of growing, until we drop off.
The structure, the tree that supports our existence is the economy, it is that rational framework that informs our decision making. We are yet to come up with one as beautiful and simple as the golden ratio based 'e' but basically you are born. Then the 'nuclear' script is you pay off a house for the entirety of your working life, and then you die. Relatively recently ie. the next generation coming up for retirement, it expanded to paying off your own home, an investment property or two and you travelled through tuscany in your retirement. Although it is a quantum leap in expenses, it isn't a quantum leap in ideology.
So really whilst leaves may represent no more sentience than hair in it's function of sprucing up a tree a bit, I feel it is an apt metaphore for the average human life. And furthermore, I feel more emotion at the loss of the hair around my temples than any tree ever did when it sheds leaves to survive the winter, reclaiming the nutrients that rot into the soil.
And that's pretty much how the economy was designed to treat people. You retired at 50 and checked out at 60, it could handle the dead weight of an old person collecting a pension and leading an otherwise non-productive lifestyle, as they would leave most of their assets being the house and land to any survivors, or it would be auctioned off and the proceeds going to whomever a judge sees fit to give them. People were leaves of a decidiuous tree. People still are those leaves. Because the economy is happy to sacrifice not just the little leaves out on its limbs, if the rot sets in, that is what it will do. It will wipe out everything those people have to show for their lives completely without emotion.
And I thought of my dog, a much higher, more complicated lifeform than leaves on a tree. It has a liver and kidneys and all that shit. My dog's life long struggle is not jockeying for a position in the sun, it moves around the yard effortlessly and 'lays doggo' where the opportunity for sunlight is.
And more curious than that, we are no more dogs than we are leaves (okay, technically we are more dogs than we are leaves, we are invertebrae, mammals and have much more common ancestors than fucking leaves have with us). We are apes, we are intelligent beings with opposable thumbs that can move around, manipulate crude tools, sophisticated tools, manipulate atoms, why the fuck can't we handle our crappy economy?
Well first up, I think with past blogging it's pretty clear that my own bias is as a 'LeBron' hater. But if you had been following the playoffs, as I have, then yesterday ou would be hard pressed not to sympathise with my stance.
Basically what happened was that Orlando almost won game 2 in Cleveland of the Magic vs Cavs series. This would have been dramatic and upsetting by itself for a team with a 39-2 win-loss record at home in the regular season. Except that two days earlier Magic had beaten them at home in game 1. After wiping out a 16 point halftime deficit. Cavs' coach Mike Brown won 'coach of the year' and Lebron took home the MVP trophy. The Cavs had the leagues best regular season record. But I digress, what happened was that in the final seconds of Game 2 the Cavs were down by a point facing humiliation at the hands of Orlando. They got the ball into Lebron's hands for a buzzer-beater (basically getting off a shot before the 'final siren' as we would call it in AFL, although in AFL you only have to mark it before the final siren and be within range of goal). And he got it in.
My Issue with Lebron:
My issue is not strictly with Lebron, the only thing I have against Lebron personally is that he adore's Jay-Z and wears another man's number on his jersey. I've never heard the Jay-Z song that is supposed to make me respect him, I'm assuming it's not the hook up with Lincoln park, and wearing Jordan's number is perhaps the worst decision Lebron ever made.
But really my issue is with Nike, Slam magazine, Cleveland and the NBA, and I've reiterated it time and time again. Basically these four big spenders have spent between them perhaps 100 million promoting Lebron as the biggest thing in basketball. The times they are a changing wrote Bob Dylan, and yes it's certainly changed since back in the day when a player became a celebrity after actually achieving something.
Jordan at least had the class to win the Slam Dunk contest to highlight his air-jordans. He also wore damn good shoes, something Lebron is yet to manage. By all accounts I hear Lebron is a nice guy. I probably wouldn't describe Jordan as a nice guy, from what I've heard about him. Civil enough, but I would have said 'fierce, fierce competitor' before 'nice'.
But yeah the 'media' current is with Lebron, SLAM ran a story on the 'Lebron vs. Kobe' debate, to me it is hands down Kobe Bryant, the achievements are stacked up with him, 3 championship rings, 1 MVP, a bunch of scoring titles, 5 All Star MVPs (the Grammys of MVP awards) 1 Gold Medal, A Slam Dunk winner, 3 time NBA photo of the year...
And well, I know already that Lebron's Game 2 buzzer beater will probably now be the NBA photo of the year. Alas...
Here is what under normal media scrutiny the buzzer beater would be reported as - 'Lebron sinks last second shot to save team from incredible embarassment'. It was not a good thing, not even a great thing, it was game 2, not 'championship point', buzzer beaters happen all the time. Like the numerous buzzer beaters Ray Allen sank AGAIN & AGAIN in the Celtics vs Chicago series. That I found more impressive than a team with the best track record saving itself from going 0-2 at home.
I think logic would interpret it not as a great play, but for a team that was up by 23 points at Q1 time, a major embarassment that it even came to that.
It is though instead being interpreted as some fucking 'nail in the coffin' for Orlando, which is looking at the very real prospect of now taking a 3-1 lead in the series, and have rested home court advantage away from the cavs. NBA fans are being invited to rate 'the shot' amongst the best clutch plays of all time. I would rate it near the bottom.
It is being compared to Jordan's 'last shot' (at Chicago) were he sank a buzzer beater against Utah to steal the 6th championship. Even if you look at the two (NBA.com has a dedicated gallery) you will notice that Jordan's last shot has an electrified crowd on their toes watching in barely contained excitement, Lebron's shot if you look at the crowd is the lacklustre Cleveland crowd, that need a recorded loop 'Defence' to even make noise for them. Lebron has not lit up Cleveland like Vegas, Cleveland is a shithole:
I would not blame Lebron if he drops this series from moving to the New York Knicks, where a crowd might actually make some fucking noise for him when the opposition is hammering them with 3's. It's the first time I've seen the Cavs play at home when they have had a lead wittled away by a visitor, not when they had their arses handed to them by the Lakers while Kobe was sick. Lebron SHOULD go to the Knicks.
The NBA, Cavs, Nike & SLAM should just shut the fuck up and let the man play. The most intelligent contributor to the 'Lebron vs Kobe' debate in the ever diminishing in quality publication known as Slam, was one that to paraphrase said: 'Kobe's gone to the gym and perfected his game like no-other, if size didn't matter I would say he is the best, but size does matter and so Lebron is the future.' Even I would conceed that Lebron is the best in the same sense as 'you are only as good as the last game you played' sense, but if that was taken as literally, then it would be Kobe who played a much better game 3 in Denver, than Lebron did at home.
But yes, just let Lebron be Lebron, stop trying to make him something that he isn't yet. Yes he may only be weeks away from starting down that road. But it's still risky, because Lebron is no more Shaq than he is Jordan, and Mo Williams is not Kobe Bryant or Dwayne Wade to his Shaq, nor Scottie Pippen to his Jordan. Not by a long shot.
To those who know AFL, this is the biggest craw-sticker for me, remember when Gary Ablett Jnr aka 'Gary Ablett' first started playing AFL. Geelong wanted him to the be the next Gary 'God' Ablett, luckily the rest of the league (the vast majority) knew better. Eventually all the wishful overhype from Geelong supporters calmed the fuck down and Gary was allowed to just be Gary. He shaved his head and in four years was shitting all over the pathetic Port Adelaide in history's most one-sided and boring Grand Final ever, truly the best and most entertaining part of the match started when the final siren went. Now imagine, if that wishful thinking wasn't just amongst the crazy backward hicks that populate Geelong, but simply every single NBA commentator, Nike Billboard and Basketball magazine cover.
They hope that Lebron is some superstar like Jordan, or perhaps even Lance Armstrong, but he won't be until he is. So stop acting like he is already. He swept the Detroit Pistons, the worst team in the East, then the Atlanta Hawks who were slightly better than the Heat. Meanwhile back in the wild west, Lakers dropped one to the Utah Jazz a team coming down with one of the up and coming point guards of the league, then went on to play Houston, a team whose crowd actually makes noise and has in Ron Artest and Shane Battier arguably the two best stoppers in the League who rightfully pushed them to 7 games. Denver will probably push them close to 7 too. The point being that the Lakers are doing it tough, they are crawling through fire to get to the Finals whereas so far Lebron and the Cavs have been having tea and biscuits against some of the weakest teams the playoffs have offered.
Ironically, I'm pretty sure the Lakers would rather face the Cavs in the Finals than Denver right now, or Orlando in the Finals. They have been the tough fucking competitors.
So yes, as before Lebron = Overrated. And I don't think you can argue that. Another good contribution to Slam's 'Kobe vs Lebron' debate said: 'Kobe, because Kobe is hated, people don't want him to succeed, and he rode through all that and is still top of the game, Lebron, everybody loves Lebron he has it easy' again I'm paraphrashing but yes, Kobe goes and he is little and succeeds on his own. I wouldn't say that Lebron doesn't have haters, but certainly he seems to recieve adoration by acclamation from the media in the limelight.
'The World Will Witness...' was the big build up to Lebron's Olympic campaign and what did we see? Kobe destroy teams and go sit down on a bench, and the resurgance of Dwayne Wade. Nothing much from Lebron, the coach wouldn't tolerate any 'pimp my shoe' shit.
To my considerable advantage, I was born left handed. Sure they never had hockey sticks for me, but this spared me from what is otherwise a 'once in four years' attention getting sport, and only fleetingly at that.
But being left handed means one important thing: you learn from a very early age that you are not normal. Trying to be normal resulted in my signing my name 'mot' all the time because I was simply inverting the writing instruction I was recieving to left hand mode. It was only later I was told to write 'left-to-right' but just use my left hand to do it.
A right handed kid though, doesn't hit this obstacle at all, they just coast straight through the writing lesson and are far more susceptible to the delusion that they are normal.
Being left handed is not like being black, because if you are black in Kenya, you are normal. The left-handed diaspora doesn't even have a controversial state to fund from their New York apartments. Left handers are 1 in 10 people no matter where you go on earth (except for some reason the creative departments of advertising agencies).
Left handers will always be a minority. So the notion of 'normal' just cant stick to a left hander. Furthermore there is no point really trying to be normal. In this modern day and age I am sure as soon as laptops get light enough, the private primary schools will introduce them, or Julia Gillard will provide them to public primary schools as a smokescreen to disguise the fact that crappy education has more to do with crappy teachers than lack of technology.
Since handwriting was the number one reason to go righty if you are a lefty, this is a thing of the past. And Asian writing systems (namely Chinese and Japanese) go top-to-bottom, working right to left so fuck that.
With all the hoo-hah around the Star Trek reboot, what better time to think about nerds, with the question: What qualities does a nerd make?
I've been thinking about this for a while. Nicholas Nassim Taleb in 'The Black Swan' has a personal definition of nerds, being 'people who are incapable of thinking outside the box' which I think is certainly a workable definition, but I think it goes deeper than that.
1. Nerds are not very imaginative.
What's that? But aren't nerds those people who draw Ligers, and go to renaissance fares and sci-fi conventions and love all that crap? Yes, they love all that crap, but the important word is crap. Why do nerds love stuff of nieche appeal? and particularly why do they go for low quality products too, like Stargate SG1, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, 300 (the movie, and arguably the graphic novel) and so fourth...?
Of course quality is a matter of opinion, but behavior is observable, it can be seen and documented.
And for me one of the defining behavioral traits of the nerd is that they are fans of shit, dogmatic, proscriptive fans, they fall in love with shit that to others is just good. Sometimes they are described as 'hardcore' they will 'hate' on other fans of competing products.
Case in point, at De La Soul's concert I was embarassed to be associated with some white fans quizzing eachother on De La Soul trivia to see who had the right to stand in front of the other, ie who was the biggest fan.
BSNYC/RPTMS once described belief in 'miracles' as an indicator of stupidity, such that a really stupid person would go through life observing what to them appeared to be a long succession of miracles, such as the miracle of elevators, escalators, sliding doors, the automobile, the cell phone, smoothies etc.
So too, a feel the first qualifier for nerdom is the lack of imagination that means they don't scrutinize/criticize any of the products, services or subcultures they enjoy because they simply lack the imaginative capacity to form the necessary ideas.
Thus you take the two biggest nerd magnets of last year 'The Dark Knight' and 'Watchmen' (and here I craftily extract myself from nerdom, because I was not impressed by the first and didn't even bother to go see the second). Nerdy observable behaviour was the outrage that 'TDK' didn't get 'Best Picture' consideration at the Oscars, demonstrating an inability to imagine A) that people could exist that didn't think it was the greatest film ever made "it made heaps of money!" B) that a story revolving around action and unrealistic psychological archetype characters might be considered not even in the same league as films that do actually explore the human condition such as 'Slumdog Millionaire' and 'Revolutionary Road' and shit. C) Maybe the Oscar itself isn't as important and even necessarily true validation of what the 'best picture' of the year was.
And Watchmen, oh god, apparantly when the legal dispute was up in the air as to whether Fox would let Watchmen be screened or not (because the film rights where effectively filched from fox by WB or whoever made it) internet fangroups tried to arrange a boycott of the current Fox release 'Wolverine' demonstrating an inability to imagine: A) That people who would fork out money to see Watchmen might not even bother to go see Wolverine anyway. B) That 'Watchmen' needed to be made into a film, since the fans were excited because they'd obviously already read it anyway and at best could only hope for a faithful adaptation. C) That if Losers win, that may not necessarily mean they are no longer losers.
So I hope I've made the point. The lack of imagination naturally makes nerds fans of things that otherwise normal people wouldn't get into because they can imagine a higher standard for which the work does not favourably compare too.
And this I feel distinguishes nerds from the a-typical fan. For example, I am a fan of Primus, I lack the imagination to concieve how I could play bass guitar like Les, and even if I could whether I could actually compose the same music. Les does something for me that I can't do for myself. This might explain why many men are fans of blowjobs. But I'm not a fan of say Stargate SG1, because I'm sure if you gave me the same budget I could make a better written, better acted and better executed TV show (albeit it may not make as much money).
2. Nerds are not very intelligent.
To me this seems apparant, but it might be taken as a departure from the stereotypical 'brainiac','science-geek' or 'computer-nerd' image. Afterall the consolation of being a nerd is supposedly that you get the superior intellect that compensates you with unnearned future millions that allows you to buy yourself a prom-queen bride, right?
Practical experience tells me this is wrong on two accounts, one most millionaires in this world I believe possess in IQ terms only average intelligence and many below average. Secondly growing up in our meritocratic education system, my experience was that the high-achievers academically seldom crossed over to those ostracised as nerds. The academic performers at my school were by and large also the jocks. Many played musical instruments or were active in the arts as baby-boomers trained from birth to expect everything for themselves wanted the all-around-genuises in their own kids.
Nerds liked computers, mathematics, physics, chemistry and other geeky subjects but they weren't necessarily geniuses at them. It was more because these subjects are very logical and literal, there's no subjectivity, and unless you are a world leader in the above fields (which education based on normal distributions doesn't encourage) almost no imagination.
If anything, if I concede that nerds can be intelligent, I would be using such a narrowly defined band of intelligence that in practice they would appear dumb. I would say an 'Idiot Savant' though is cooler than a Nerd, because at least a savant has perfect pitch, extreme analytical abilities or whatever and more importantly an excuse to be inept at sports.
But again I feel this hinges on my criterion 1, the keystone if you will of the nerd genus' evolution. Nerds were drawn to subjects that may have got them 'labelled' as geniuses because they couldn't imagine that sports might yeild much intellectual development, or learning a foreign language or whatever. Or that social skills might call upon much higher brain function intervention to yeild better results.
3. Nerds are socially inept.
I believe I put in my 'rules for cool' that self-referential or opinion leadership was cool. This could be argued as the dark side of the same coin. Many people would say 'duh' when I say that the third characteristic is social ineptitude and I'd wager many would put it first.
But I believe the dividing line between self-referential cool people and nerds is that self referential people are aware that other people have opinions, and choose to assert their own in favour. A nerd simply reflexively disregards other opinions because they don't even realize they are there.
They have if you will a low social intelligence. This I feel is the true tragedy of nerds. I'm aware one could make a case that I'm saying a nerd is just someone with aspergers syndrome, however I'm trying to argue a nurture not nature argument (although I guess low general intelligence, lack of imagination and low social intelligence are probably going to be genetic traits, but also nerds often come from nerd families whom survive Darwinism presumably because they meet at sci-fi cons and christian camps and what not.)
Hence nerds wear bright white cross-trainers with jeans, bum-bags (or fanny packs), they don't buy their own clothes unless it is a tshirt advertising they are a fan of some tv or game show, they argue passionately about star-trek in public (or apparantly even De La Soul), they get dropped off by their nerd parents at a high-school paddock party, they don't bother to put their tracksuit pants on the right way in primary school once they realise they put them on back to front. And so fourth and so on.
They are not so much self-referential as just plain oblivious. One could argue that there is a beautiful innocence to this ignorance, and that Films like 'About a Boy' are kind of vindictive in suggesting kids are better off learning to 'dissappear into the masses' than stand out as a nerdy individual.
4. Conclusion.
The title 'Genus Nerdus' suggests nerd-hood is more genetic than memetic. I'd argue that attractiveness is certainly going to be a product of your genes, and its hard for an attractive person to be a nerd when women/men pay him a lot of attention, but its not impossible, furthermore its certainly not impossible for someone ugly to be cool. It's certainly possible for someone to be neither.
I would side with Drucker though who says 'effectiveness can be learned' certainly the social ineptitude is a manifestation of ineffectiveness, social skills can be taught, as proof I would submit my own brother who has aspergers - which I would call in his case 'involuntary arseholism' that through his own ability to learn is now 'selectively charming' namely he did telemarketing for a year or so which he had the advantage of genetically not being disposed to give a shit what people thought anyway whilst learning to interact with a constant barrage of new people. He also simply practiced talking to women on friday and saturday nights by going to pubs and clubs with work-mates. I find this a really positive story and whilst he isn't the best and most socially conscious person, he can hold down relationships for about as long as most normal people whilst having an advantage in any situation that requires straight talking and literal analysis.
If someone with aspergers can learn how to chat up women (which I am yet to get around to doing) a nerd must have a half decent chance. It is understandably an uncomfortable subject to broach though. It is unpleasant to point out to someone that you don't like them as you are. It is in essence a more benign form of the 'deoderant conversation' where people are afraid to tell their colleague 'hey man you stink'.
In both cases though, I would be surprised if the reaction wasn't embarassment, followed by an alarming amount of relief for all parties when the person rectifies the embarassment through changed behaviour. Either wearing new deoderant or subbing out their cross trainers for some black dunlop volleys.
It's also a touchy subject in suggesting that if social adeptness can be learned, then perhaps we should proactively teach it. It has the potential to ruffle parents feathers if misinterpreted as 'we turn nerds into jocks' much the same as teaching people to think critically has been misinterpreted as 'turning christians into athiests' (possibly these two activities share large overlap).
I feel no affection for nerds great enough to suggest that they should be forced to endure the bullying, ridicule and social isolation that is too often part and parcel just to preserve a subculture. Just like I don't feel enough attachment to 'organic' food to want peasants to continue living subsistence life styles and the occasional famine by blocking 'GM'.
But education is narrowly focused on one hemisphere of the brain, and it kind of makes sense why this one survives and doesn't tolerate the other. But I'd like to see teachers at least representing alternative social memes for the sake of these kids. Its much healthier than outright rebellion, and parents in my opinion are frankly granted far too much autonomy over the shaping of their childrens character, treated if you will as extensions of their selves not their own persons.
I deny the right of parents to enforce any shared beliefs with their children. I concede it might occur naturally, for natural reasons. But it should never prevent anyone from making up their own minds differently down the track.
Then 2, low intelligence. It is genetic, and nothing much can be done. Except you can be hard done by low intelligence if people reinforce the idea that you are smart because they patronizingly/condescendingly believe you 'gotta have something'. The notion that nerds are smart is providing them with a security blanket to cling to rather than address critical weaknesses, and also comfort for us that people can be born dealt a hand that rates a '7 high' in poker ie. they have no real consolation.
Except in poker as in life, if you are dealt a dud hand, yes its disadvantageous, but you can learn to bluff effectively, or more courageously acknowledge you were dealt a shitty hand and ask for 5 new cards (unless you are playing texas hold'em, which is currently in vogue).
As I hope life has established, intelligence is not the sole criterion of success, nor is looks, nor is charisma, if there is anything it is persistence. And you can fucking work on any of these so long as it is acknowledged and you have the will to intervene.
The keystone then, is the one that is critical to address. A lack of imagination I would equate to a lack of creativity, many artists make a living without being creative at all, but nerds even lack that one creative idea they can endlessly reiterate. Creativity certainly can be taught, (but isn't, again logically because people with creative dispositions have a low incedence of being fans of disciplines and structure) Edward De Bono being a good example.
Ironically one of the least imaginatively taught skills in my education was critical thinking. This is because our education is still based entirely around assesment and the bell curve, you can't really test kids abilities to have different opinions from everyone else because this makes assesment really difficult.
Thus I learnt to pull apart essays by reading really cliched interpretations of symbolism and recurring themes, and was never given the essay question 'How would you improve falling down?'
But that essentially is all creativity, imagination and critical thinking consists of. All you really have to do is ask questions that prompt critical and creative thought. As a marketing lecture once illustrated for me, much of the creative process is in the single question 'why?'
Come to think of it, it would be interesting to ask nerds 'why?' as a simple challenge to ideas such as 'World of Warcraft is the best game ever' and 'Watchmen is the best comic ever' and 'Heath Ledger's Joker was the best ever' and so fourth. Because if my theory is correct answers would more or less boil down to 'it blew me away' which to me can be boiled (like ginseng) down to 'I was impressed because I can't imagine anything as good as that' whereas a non-nerd would probably provide academic reasons for it eg. 'World of Warcraft has emphasised simple gameplay over graphical polish, psychologically addictive repetition, well timed reward systems... etc' or 'Watchmen is a deconstructionalist narrative on comics itself, it enriches all comic reading experience and provoked myself to think why I even like reading comics, to which instantly all other comic form narratives and several literary efforts immeadiatly began to pale in comparison' or 'Heath Ledger kept the actual character of the Joker ambiguous whilst still being energizing and entertaining on screen, it was a captivating enigma'. I guess in the day and age of web-forums if you give a nerd time they will go and steal one of these actual opinions, but to me they need to be taught to form actual opinions on their own using critical thought. I wouldn't suggest its bad to actually like something, but liking something because its big and flashy and wow and not much else is a social liability when you make a lot of noise about it.
There is a cure, people.
Somebody said, maybe D.H. Lawrence according to google, 'I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself' and thus robbed me of this quote I had devised myself for when I was a famous old wise man - 'Does the three legged dog stop wagging its tail?'
Indeed the ability to comprehend our own fate seems to be what sets us apart from 'the animals' but as evolutionists (aka scientists) will remind us, we are afterall hairless apes.
And our ability to comprehend our own fate does not yield much. Again I must return to Germaine Greer, for poigniant and succinctitudeness:
The disenchanted vision of these children has revealed the function of the patriarchal family unit in our capitalist society. It immobilizes the worker, keeps him vulnerable so he can be tantalized with security.
5 things I hate about mens fashion right now:
1. The ironic moustache. Moustache's shouldn't be ironic. I mean what the fuck is ironic about it? That you want to attract women, yet ironically a moustache is unattractive to women? Just grow a proper moustache, an RAF moustache they are dashing or a 70's Pro-sports Moustache they are fucking man's moustache.
2. The 'femdora' I couldn't help but notice on 'Australian Master Chef' last night an alarming amount of contestants wearing hats, indoors presumably at night. So too at the de la soul concert I could not believe the number of guys in these hats at night, indoors at a fucking concert where people aren't looking at you but trying to look over you. I call it the femdora because it seemed the only people rocking these hats 2-3 years ago were female: Alicia Keys, one of the pussy cat dolls and 13 year old girls from the outer suburbs. It isn't say a proper fucking cowboy hat (also feminised) a bowler hat, a baseball hat even the masculine yet touted by metrosexual trucker hat. It is a girls hat now sported by pretentious coffee drinking jazz enthusiasts that are too young to actually get enthusiastic about jazz. They used to wear the beret, but it seems the femdora hasn't crossed into the same strata of pretentious unacceptability as the beret yet. I also suspect most wearers of the femdora are trying to conceal receding hairlines and thinning crown patches. Just go the clippers.
3. Stove pipe jeans, anthropology told me that women were naturally attuned to liking muscular men, because in the cave days that meant you had a strong alpha male protector whom would also pass on the genes he had successfully used to survive thus far onto a girls own progeny meaning her half of the genetic contribution had greater chances of survival. But with stove pipes I'm not entirely sure whether it is the jeans or the physique that seems feminised, but I am sure I hate the jeans. And fuck it I'm tired of silently tolerating it. Do these guys shave their leg hair to prevent the friction removal service from wearing lycra like denim? or do they just slip on a pair of stockings underneath. And why the fuck do skaters wear them? I know, because they are cool, but why the fuck are they cool? Hey baby check out my underdeveloped leg muscles and sickly chicken like posture? Big pants allowed skaters a degree of freedom for pulling off ollies, grinds and whatever else. Sure if they were really big the crotch would restrict your stride length, but I noticed my skater friend hadn't followed the trend and was still wearing big pants for utilitarian reasons. But to me a guy in baggy jeans just unequivocally looks both manlier and cooler than a douchebag in stovepipes. It's Davey Jones from 'the Monkees' look. Even the beatles stopped wearing stove pipes, presumably because they were tired of being a pack of pussies.
4. Hair Sculpting, Russell Brand has little to no talent. Tim Minchin is just another annoying 'musical comedian' benefiting from the fact that whilst a pure standup has to be really clever, insightful and witty to make the audience laugh, a song has to just have a silly chorus to be deemed 'hilarious' and 'brilliant' the funniest musical comedian I have seen is Dimitri Martin, because he played a guitar/xylophone/keyboard whilst doing a normal standup routine. Anyway, the third member of the triumvirate of Farrah Fawcett/Nashville hair sculpting is that guy from the Mighty Boosh. Bane of my existence all three of these comedians are shite, yet all three almost perpetually get recommended to me as 'something I like' but it seems these comedians also have incredible sex appeal, because I am seeing guys in increasing numbers sculpting their hair up into a big nashville ball. They could be housewives in Tennessee. I love Dolly Parton too but I don't want to dress up like her. Admittedly this one can't catch on as fast as other fashion trends because you have to grow your hair out first, a risky proposition because by the time a year has passed and you have the length, Russell Brand may be out of fashion as well.
5. fixed gears, of which there's an entire blog pretty much dedicated to how pretentious they are. bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com I don't need to say anything else except that it goes some way to explaining 3. I imagine jeans trends spread faster than the mode of transport they were adopted for.
