Get in on the Ground Floor on This

My good buddy Aaron, along with his friend Jordan, have a pretty kickass blog called Good At Internet. On it, they utilize their mad Photoshop skills and boredom to create little nuggets of genius.

Now why am I just getting around to telling you about this? It couldn't possibly be because I got credit for coming up with the name on this one, could it? Of course it is. I don't like to wait and let the game come to me.

So go over and eyeball rape their art. And tell 'em Amanda Cobra sent you.

Liveblogging Self-Indulgence

You Go Live in Utah has decided to make a rare return to the world of actually writing about basketball because the most ridiculous thing to ever happen to basketball since someone said, "Seriously, don't worry about guarding this Wilt guy because he's probably harmless" has occurred tonight. Mind you, it wasn't good. In fact, it was ridiculously bad. And unlike an out-of-the-blue 100 point game, we all had time to take our Dramamine before this mess hit our television screens tonight. So without further ado (which is far more than I can say for both ESPN and LeBron James), I bring to you the You Go Live in Utah liveblog coverage of Brawdo Presents ESPN's Boys and Girls Club of America's Night in a Gym with the Owner of the Fewest Number of NBA Rings: LeBron James.

(It should be noted that I actually turned it on 20 minutes into the whole thing because a) I was cooking dinner and b) I figured that they had to get read off all the sponsors and show the highlight reels of him throwing powder into the air thousands of times so I had a good 15 minutes to burn off before I needed to tune in)

8:22pm: Stuart Scott tells me that "we've been waiting for it for almost 7 years and it's about that time". Hold the fuck up. As far as I was aware, this season's free agency did not start back in July of 2003. I don't remember the summer of '03 being the summer that I marked in my calendar as being the one where I could finally start anticipating that I would one day sit on my couch and watch some drawn out ESPN jerkfest where some uncomfortable looking kids squirmed around looking bored while LeBron James gave non-answers to softball questions for 60 minutes. Hell, I don't even think I had a TV in 2003. And if I did, I sure as hell wasn't using it to watch Sean Salisbury's creepy ass.

8:22pm: Jim Gray uncomfortably asks LeBron if he's ready to go, smacks his hands together, throws them in the air and asks, "Where's the powder?" Le Bron dryly responds, "Left it at home." That's the kind of banter we've waited 7 years for, folks. Gray's follow up question is borderline performance art: "So what's new? What's been going on with you this summer?"

8:23pm: "You weren't able to be recruited because you went into the NBA straight out of high school. So have you enjoyed this free agency process?" Are you asking a man who has given himself the name KING JAMES, a man who is currently sitting in front of you lording over a ONE HOUR PRIME TIME PRESS CONFERENCE if he is enjoying finally getting fawned over? I think he might be. It's a hunch.

8:25: "When did you decide?" "I think I decided this morning. I mean I wake up one morning and it's this team. I wake up one morning and it's this other team." This is the only part of the press conference that makes me like the guy. Say what I really want you to say, LeBron. "Let me level with you, Jim. I have and will continue to make more money than most humans ever. I have more power than most humans should ever have. My ego has fed daily from the hummingbird feeder of press attention that I receive with each day of free agency that passes. Life really can't go wrong for me no matter who I pick. So let me give it to you straight. I hung a bunch of dart boards up in my garage, backed the Bentleys out, put a blindfold on, spun around and just threw a gold-plated dart about an hour before I got here. Truth."

8:25pm: "So the last time you changed your mind was yesterday?" "Uh, the last time I changed my mind was in my dreams." LeBron went on to say that he dreamed that he went to the Nuggets and he had to hear Chris Anderson explain each and every one of his tattoos and how they corresponded to a line from a particular Crazy Town song and how sometimes even when he's on the court he still feels really alone out there. LeBron concluded the story by saying that he woke up screaming and crossed Denver off the list of franchises he keeps written in a Snoopy notebook on his night table.

8:26pm: "So does the team you're going to, do they know?" "They just found out." Mark Cuban is yelling at everyone in his house to stay off the phone. Jay Z isn't even bothering to look at his phone because I imagine he's as annoyed with LeBron as I am. And just to be safe, that guy who owns the 76ers is chasing people away from all the pay phones outside of the Wells Fargo Center.

I just fast forwarded. I skipped over the part where LeBron said that winning is important to him. And he listened to his family. And he likes to help his teammates. To win. We all caught up?

Oh no wait, he also wants everyone to remember that you never know if you're going to win until you go out there and play the game. So just remember that. Unless you're Biff Tanner and you find a discarded sports almanac from the future in the trash. In which case, you probably already know LeBron's decision.

8:27pm: "This fall, and this is very tough, I'm going to take my talents to South Beach."

OH MY GOD. LEBRON IS RETIRING TO LIVE THE LIFE OF A CAREFREE BEACH BUM, TROLLING OCEAN BOULEVARD'S WATERFRONT BOUTIQUES FOR COUTURE AND LIVING THE GOOD LIFE! NO MORE BASKETBALL!

Well, you heard it here first. Dwanye Wade and Chris Bosh will be playing for the Miami Heat there next season so maybe he can get some season tickets and take in some games in his down time. Good for you, LeBron. Long live the King! You've earned it. And way to get out on the top of your game. Sure, the people of Cleveland would have loved a title and all of this drama you've put them through was sort of humiliating. And yes, they should probably hate you. But take those talents to South Beach. I'm sure you'd make one hell of an inline skater. Godspeed!

WATCHING YOUR STORIES: THE AUGHTS EDITION

I watch horrible TV. So let’s just acknowledge that nothing that I am about to write is going to be written from the haughty perspective of someone who is really getting into Breaking Bad or someone who has written a thesis about the socioeconomic moirés of The Wire. I would probably watch America’s Farthest Poo Flingers if they showed it. That’s only a slight exaggeration.

I get that television can be a perfectly respectable and wonderfully artistic medium and all that jazz. For me, television is the glowing thing that is on in the background when I clean house or write a column. It’s the thing that gives me recipe ideas, tells me what the weather is going to be like or brings me the new episode of Top Gear. It just isn’t a medium in which I put tremendous faith or importance. I like it but it’s pretty dumb.

And this is why I feel like I am missing an important strand of DNA which most of my fellow humans possess. Each time I hear or read someone who genuinely expresses some sort of concern, anger or really any actual opinion on the situation between Jake and Vienna of Bachelor fame, a tiny little corner of my mind is blown. Now I’m not talking about people that I know who watch the show for the sheer absurdity that it dishes out.

I’m talking about people who have taken this show as a real-life soap opera. They’ve assumed that the fiendish pilot Jake has woefully mistreated his bride-to-be Vienna. Because the TV told them so. And it’s reality TV so it REALLY HAPPENED (apparently)! There’s no shame in getting wrapped up in these shows like a housewife gets wrapped up in General Hospital. But it baffles my mind that people are allowing the tag of reality TV to supersede things like, you know, facts.

The fact that none of these people actually, um, get married might be your first red flag. But there’s no reason to be bitter about it. And I’m not. You or I would do it. Go on a show, go on fake dates, get real alcohol, get some fake action or maybe some real action. Get roses or maybe a ring. Show up in public places. Do photo shoots. Develop plots and follow them accordingly. I’d even play the villain role. The whorish woman who ran off and broke the Bachelor’s heart and left him at the chapel. He’ll be in tears in the reunion special. He’ll come back for Bachelor 38: This Time It’s Love and I’ll go on Celebrity Apprentice as the assertive bitch character who makes Weird Al cry. All the time, we’re both cashing checks and the cycle continues.

And the only part of this that confuses me is why we don’t just acknowledge that it’s all, to a huge degree, a set up and that’s ok? Is it because Bachelor viewers can feel intellectually superior to frumpy stay at home moms in their stained sweatpants who watch soaps because when they watch their shows, the performers use their real names and not character names? So there’s still an outside chance that it’s all real? Is it because people who watch the Bachelor so desperately want romance novels to come to fruition that they’re willing to suspend all logic just to watch sunset beach picnics and balcony serenades actually happen? Is it the feminine equivalent of professional wrestling wherein we want an obvious villain to boo and hiss and at which to vent all our pent up anger? They need Jake the Jerk to be their Iron Sheik, so to speak.

Now what’s the big deal about some dumb TV show and so what if some people get really into it? Really, not that much in an isolated setting. Except I think the ever increasing erosion of what fame and reality has brought us to the point where, when reality actually happens it causes intense vertigo. The plane starts to dive, the shaker stick starts to shimmy violently and the next sound you hear on the black box recorder is the ground proximity warning alarm. And if I’m talking about a plane crash, I am of course referring to Lindsay Lohan.


When reality television can make it so easy to fool the public, it can also enable someone in the public eye who has severe issues with narcotic abuse, obviously shitty parents, a tremendous sense of entitlement and a history of pathological lying and self-delusion. So when they crash their car into bushes while drunk and coked up, abandon the car, lie about that, get arrested, bail out, hijack a car with two occupants held against their will while again drunk and high on cocaine, blow through red lights while chasing another car, lie again, refuse to adhere to the terms of probation which was mercifully offered to her, leave the country on the eve of a court date, fitted with a SCRAM bracelet yet continue to drink then show up to court to face all these charges with “fuck u” written on her middle finger….there’s still a sense that in this reality show world that things will just work out.

Surely there’s an edit that can be made. Surely there’s a rewrite that can be done. Can’t her part be recast? Even with her 90 day jail sentence ending up being only 23 days, can’t that shoot be rescheduled? Can’t it be done on green screen back in LA on the Paramount lot?

If that doesn’t work, try the Amnesty International Manic Tweeting Route of comparing your much-needed three weeks in LA County jail followed by even more sorely-needed rehab to International treaty on torture and legislation dealing with federal crimes, of which you are not charged. Sometimes reality is best not dealt with until absolutely necessary.