Spike Lee Explains Things: A Blowtorch Joint

Aight, Mike, let's break it down. I'm not legally affiliated with the team, but I go to every Knicks game. Every single Knicks game. 41 a year, Mike. Ahmad here does a show once a week about the NBA, so he doesn't have to be at a lot of games, but he goes anyways. And then you. You run an actual NBA team. Kinda. The Bobcats, man. They're technically an NBA team, but you don't even go to the games. That sound right? That sound right?

And what's with the mock turtlenecks, Mike? Back in the day, GQ was all over you. Oh, Michael Jordan, best dressed and all that. But now you wear mock turtlenecks and mom jeans, man. Was they lying back then, Mike? I mean, Ahmad can't say too much. He got on a scarf and jacket cut from the same material, but you know better Mike. You know? Youknowyouknowyouknow?

I know you ain't want to hear it Money, but it needs to be said. Don't leave me hanging, Mike. I'm just trying to set you straight, man. C'mon Mike. C'monc'monc'mon. Awww...Mike. C'mon!

Scenes from the Hall of Fame Inductions

Friday afternoon...

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. David Robinson.

(crowd applauds)

Oh. My. Gosh. Johnny, is he really wearing jeans right now?

He is definitely wearing jeans. Ugh.

And they are WIDE LEGS. That's so '95.

Well look at his hair. Would it kill him to get some bangs and a sensible side part?

Let's just hope Michael says something to him.

Totes. He will.

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Michael Jordan.

(crowd applauds)

Killer jeans, bro.

I just wanted to thank David Robinson. He knows why. He wore jeans today. Yeah, jeans. Wide leg jeans. That inspired me though. Saturday night, I'm wearing the widest wide leg jeans you can find. Any time I see David Robinson in jeans, I'm going to wear baggier jeans that him. You can count on that.

--------------

Saturday night...

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Michael Jordan.

(crowd applauds)

Oh don’t laugh, don’t laugh. Stylish jeans, like fears, are often just an illusion.

Kanye West Interrupts Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame Speech

You all might not know this, but EA Sports used to put a fake me in its NBA Live games. I played with him once in maybe 1996, and his rating wasn't 99, which kind of upset me. I'm not saying they messed up, but Live 97 had me at a 99.

NAW MAN. WAIT UP YO. THIS AIN'T RIGHT YO. LET'S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT. I AIN'T SAYING MJ ISN'T GREAT CUZ HE IS, BUT I NEED TO SPEAK ON THIS.

What are you doing? I'm trying to remember every thing anyone ever did to offend me in the slightest, and you're interrupting me.

LOOK MIKE I'M SORRY TO BE TAKING AWAY FROM YOU BECAUSE I THINK YOU'RE GREAT AND I LOVE YOUR GAME. BUT I CAN'T LET PEOPLE SAY YOU THE BEST WHEN ERRYBODY KNOWS HOW GREAT I AM.

This isn't cool, man. You're going to make my list.

WHAT? I PLAYED WITH LEBRON ONCE AND I HAD A TRIPLE DOUBLE. THAT MEANS I AVERAGED A TRIPLE DOUBLE AGAINST THE MVP. YES I DO KEEP TRACK OF MY STATS IN PICKUP GAMES. SO MIKE, YOU'RE GOOD BUT I'M THE BEST. WHY WON'T YOU LET ME BE GREAT? I'M OUT.

I'd like to thank Kanye West for giving me the motivation to release my first rap record. I guarantee that any time I see him near a mic, I'm going at him.

The Worst Ever

As referenced in the previous post, here are my two terrible Jordan Brand clothing pieces. Like I said, these are so bad that I can only wear them when I know I'm not doing anything with my wife.

First, the tangerine elephant print jersey.

Now, the reversible zip-up blue vest. This side is blue elephant print and shiny like a fish.
This is the reversed side. As you can see, it zips up all the way, which is a great look, and not at all reminiscent of a dark time in our country's history.
And yes, you saw that right. It does have Mars Blackmon glasses printed on the hood.
I can't believe these weren't put in to mass production.

Occasional Observations on Several Subjects: Michael Jordan Thoughts

• My due date was February 17th, 1984, which was Michael Jordan's 21st birthday. As anyone who has studied Nordic mythology will tell you, sharing a birthday with someone gives you that person's powers, meaning that I was to inherit at least some of Michael Jordan's skills. However, my mom's womb was so warm, and her amniotic fluid so nourishing that I hung out for another two days and was finally born February 19th. As such, I became an average basketball player with a rump the size of Jahidi White's, with whom I share a birthday. Tough break.
  
  
• The second pair of shoes I remember owning as a child were aqua Sky Jordans.
  Back then, they called kids' sizes Sky rather than Air. I was convinced, at 6, that this was because theoretically, you could touch the sky, but not the air. Like there was ground, then sky, then air. Even with that reasoning, teachers let me skip first grade. Suckers.
  
  
• The first pair of shoes I remember owning were paint splattered Chuck Taylors.
  
  
• My history with the Air Jordan XI is well documented. Even though they're quite beat up and eight years old, I'm wearing them today.
  
  
• Jordans I have owned that I remember off the top of my head include: Jordan V (aqua), Jordan VI (black), Jordan VII (Olympic, black), Jordan XII (white), Jordan XI (white), Melo 4 (Oak Hill), Jordan 2009 (black).
  
  
• The Jordan 2009 is a sad story. I bought them about a week ago, brought them home, and wore them around the house for a little. Because my ankles are apparently made out of marshmallow, I returned the shoes and got LeBrons instead. It's the first time I've ever chosen LeBron over Jordan, and it made me have sadness at least 3%.
  
  
• I'm pretty proud that if you Google Image Search "Jordan XI," this website is the first result.
  
  
• All my life I've been told that Michael Jordan was a well-dressed man. He's been on the cover of GQ multiple times. I've now come to believe that this is one of the greatest myths of all time, because look at these.
  
  Then: Now:
  Liars!
  
  
• In a similar vein, I have two Jordan Brand samples that I got from a Nike store that my wife absolutely hates. One is a reversible blue zip-up vest, and the other is a bright orange elephant print jersey. These are kept in a special drawer where no one will see them, and I can't figure out why she doesn't like them.
  
  
• I'm of the opinion that Jordan should have been inducted in to the Hall of Fame immediately after he retired in 1998. Not only would this have honored Jordan like Gretzky had been, it probably would have kept him from returning to the Wizards as well. Win win.
  
  
• Michael Jordan is my favorite athlete of all-time. He tops a list that includes Deion Sanders, Dennis Rodman, Chipper Jones, and Ryne Sandberg by miles. My mom loved him. My dad loved him. My sister was in the Shaq fan club, but that's beside the point. My wife loved him. Her mom and dad loved him (they also loved Bill Wennington, and there's a candid picture of him displayed in my living room). I still watch his games on DVD. I still read everything I can about him. I can understand why people didn't like him, and that he's probably a terrible person, but he's one of my heroes. He's why I love basketball. He's why I love Nike. He's a big part of why I'm me.

Michael Jordan-esque

I am ill today, and not in the Beastie Boys sense. However, I watched Game 5 of the '97 Finals this weekend, so it'd be insulting to recent Hall of Fame inductee Michael Jordan if I didn't produce some bloggable memes. That being said, I had to dig very deep in to the YouTube vaults to find Jordan videos that have no views. But here's two.

First, a Bulls-oriented promo where the producers blew most of their budget on writing a Robert Palmer parody and only had enough money left for two words from Jordan.

And of course, Michael Jordan being a normal guy. Renewing his license, dressing like Samuel L. Jackson, and blinking during his picture. Because Michael Jordan is nothing, if not a totally normal guy who is in no way different than any of us.

What Happened Was

I was in Canada (the country) for three days, and just returned to a totally different NBA. And it's not just the NBA that changed, it's everything about America. Maybe I'm just seeing things in a different light, now that I've experienced a completely different culture, but things aren't making sense.

When I left, so many moons ago, cloning was illegal. Now, it appears that if you have enough money you can pay someone to make your identical double to give you back rubs and laugh at your jokes even if they aren't funny.

And that's not the only genetic modifications that are now allowed. Always ahead of the curve, the Spurs have somehow found a way to make their players 15% larger than they usually are. The advantages of this are numerous. Not only are scoring, rebounding, and defending far easier, kneeing people in the genitals is almost commonplace after the size increase procedure.

I'm not terribly surprised because Obama. He's changing things (mostly basketball-related genetics, obviously). But it was a little weird to me that David Stern decided to change the rules of basketball when they've been the same for so long. That he's no allowing Greco Roman wrestling during games is off-putting. That it occurs between a Spaniard and a Frenchman is all the more jarring.

And to top things off, the Kings retired my Dad's number. I mean, I've always enjoyed playing with him; he's a great passer and suprisingly nimble, but I'm not sure why an NBA team is retiring his jersey when he's never played in the NBA.

Canada is so much different than America, and I spent so much time deeply embedded in their culture that it's been such a hard adjustment coming back. In time, I hope to understand this fascinating new league.

Happy Birthday, Michael Jordan

On this day, 46 years ago, Michael Jordan was born. Approximately 24 years later he was creeping people out with his slow motion grin.



Happy Birthday, Michael Jordan.

Someone Needs to Monitor Michael Jordan's Brand

I'm a big fan of Michael Jordan (obviously - see above) and I'm nearly as big of a fan of his brand (obviously - see here). Howevsies, I'm just as big of a fan of pointing out things that don't make sense.

With those few things in mind, answer me this question:

Would someone please quality control Michael Jordan's endorsements?

When I was starting out this post, I needed to look at Michael Jordan Steaks. This is hilarious in and of itself, considering that a) why would Michael Jordan have a mail-order steak business and b) his restaurant in Chicago failed. But then, it took the page at least 5 minutes to load. Not an exaggeration where I say it took 5 minutes, but it was really like 30 seconds; a legit 5 minutes.

So when I finally get to the site, I find the image I need. Here it is:

I'm not entirely sure why they used an elderly Black man to sell Michael Jordan Steaks, but then again, I don't have a marketing degree. I'm sure it has something to do with urban markets/demographics/mail-order steak trends, but I'm surprised they just didn't use Michael Jordan.

But maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I mean, they modelled his Upper Deck figurine on Chris Rock:

Look, I know that everything post-Bulls hasn't been a roaring success. The Wizards were bad, then they fired you. The Bobcats are bad. That whole turning-your-restaurant-into-Sammy Sosa's restaurant thing seemed a little harsh. You signed Derek Anderson, Fred Jones, and Bobby Simmons to represent Team Jordan. Roy Jones (Team Jordan) started losing. Marvin Harrison (Team Jordan) shot a guy. You got divorced. I get it.

But can I ask one more question: would it kill you to slide somebody a couple thousand dollars to give your image a once-over? You're ruining our childhoods here.

CSI: Chicago

You might think that Doug Collins is the only former Chicago Bull returning to the Windy City, but you'd be wrong. The Blowtorch presents to you two independent pictures that surely hint at the return of another legend. Draw your own conclusions.
HMMMMMMM...............

My Hanes Commercial Script

During the playoffs I've seen this Cuba Gooding, Jr. / Michael Jordan commercial numerous times. Ergo, I decided to write my first script. I think it turned out pretty great.

Cuba is sitting in his trailer. He is digging through a set of drawers, desperately searching for something.

CUBA
C’mon. They’ve got to be in here. Michael wouldn’t do this to me.

Cuba continues digging.

CUBA
I NEED that comfort soft waistband!

Cuba reaches in his pocket and pulls out a rumpled pair of Hanes Comfort Soft boxers. Cuba then sprints out of his trailer to a nearby basketball court where Michael Jordan is shooting around with 4 scantily clad women.

CUBA
Michael! I found your underwear! They were in my pocket the whole time!
MICHAEL
(Michael gives Cuba a look of bewilderment.)
CUBA
I took ‘em out of your laundry after the movie last night. You don’t mind if I hang on to ‘em, do you?
MICHAEL
(Michael starts laughing while the girls grasp his chest and arms.)
CUBA
(Cuba cries a single tear while considering the depths to which his career has fallen.)

THE END