March 13, 2006

From the ACC Tournament

Business…here’s my redux on the ACC Tourney. Ummm, and I’m giving lots of props to Duke. Yeah, really.

Anyway, it’s so hard for me to explain how cool that tournament was. For a newbie like me, it was damn near religious. The colors in the crowd, the emotion from the folks, the thrilling basketball from the last two days. I couldn’t ask for anything more. Here are some particulars.

1. Being around all those writers. For the first time, I was able to see how other people handle business. How they put pieces together, the things they look for, etc. For me, that was refreshing. Also taught me that, in many ways, I was making things harder than they had to be.

2. Seeing sorta famous writers. Lemme tell you what I learned–the more famous they guys were, the worse dressed they were. That I wore jeans every day means I’m well on my way. That I brushed my hair means I might have a lot to learn.

3. The atmosphere. I’m just saying this–come to this tournament once in your life. Just once. If you love basketball, you have to. It’s that damn serious. Next year–Tampa.

4. People actually have heard of me. Those that know me know I’m stunned when anyone’s ever read anything I’ve written. At the tournament, I told at least three people my first name….to have them tell me my last name. Granted, Jones is a safe guess, but i thought that was pretty cool.

5. On the bad side, lots of guys seemed bored. I guess this stuff gets to be old hat, but I had so much fun at the table I could hardly contain myself. The old heads seemed to have figured it out. I just hope they’re not disillusioned. I hope to everything that this never gets old. It’s the most fun thing in the world to me, and I’m lucky to get paid for it. I’m more concerned about the former changing than the latter.

6. The food was spectacular. Yo, it’s been hard being back home and having to fend for my own food. Man, they had steaks and chicken breasts and bake potatoes and mashed potatoes prepared with mashed potatoes fixings and bottles of water and coffee everywhere and free Haagen-Dazs ice cream bars everywhere and really tasty green and red apples and really good pigs in a blanket in the hospitality sweet and all of that stuff. Then I got back here and was making a bowl of oatmeal.

7. Great folks. Special shouts to John Baker and Eric Eggers from Florida State. Hung with them on Friday night, and it was the funnest. Amazing who you can meet at these things.

8. Rode an elevator with Howie Schwab of Stump the Schwab. He’s much more socially adjusted than he might seem on television. The only thing about him–he just knows too damn much. I don’t know if it’s possible to hold on to all that sports knowledge and still remember shit like your social or address.

9. I learned one thing about myself. I’m objective enough in this job that I can sit at that table and not root for Carolina. I nearly got an ulcer sitting at that table not rooting against Duke.

10. I rode the bus with Woody Durham–Carolina’s radio voice–on the way back to the hotel. I can’t imagine just hearing that voice all the time. I bet he makes his kids sound as cool as Phil Ford when he talks about them mopping the floor.

And that’s what I’m thinking of right now. More if it comes up.

March 13, 2006

Just a quick thought

There’s an update coming later today with a new piece about the ACC Tournament, and I’ll share some fun thoughts from the weekend. It could best be described as a religious experience. Really. But then again, I’m as religious as a pint of whiskey.

Anyway, I just read somehwere that Toure said on Star and Buc Wild that Cam’Ron might be gay. Why? Because Cam called Jigga ugly and tsaid hat any man that could call a man ugly could probably find another man handsome.

Yeah, that makes a lot of fuckin’ sense. Here’s why that’s rather moronic.

1. I personally have trouble telling if a man is attractive. I’m just not attracted to men. You can’t even use the ability to meet women as a proxy because game makes the world go ’round.

However, I can peep ugly from a mile away. Ugly is universal. If saying another man is ugly makes you gay, then we’re all gay. In your head, document the first thing to come to your mind when thinking of the following people–Flavor Flav, Shabba Ranks, Biz Markie, Sam Cassell, Tyrone Hill.

You don’t have to be gay to think Jigga’s ugly. You just need to be able to peep those coolers.

But here’s the thing about Jay being ugly–so what? Ummm, have you seen that stunna he keeps on his arm? Lemme be ugly. You could throw chicken grease on the left side of my face and shove a stiletto through the right. For Beyonce, that’s a fair trade.

2. Even if I were able to tell if a man is handsome, that wouldn’t make me gay. Men and women are different animals, but women peep the attractiveness of other women all the time without wanting to get in their pants.

3. If someone were looking for a superficial reason to believe Cam’s gay, now wouldn’t be the time to start. Folks, he drove a pink Range Rover. Pink. That says a lot more to me than calling somebody ugly. And it still says nothing at all

4. Random question–why would Toure even go on Star and Buc Wild? I can’t speak for nobody else, but stupid people make my stomach hurt. And hanging with stupid people’ll make you look, well, stupid.

That’s all for now. I’ve been up since 3am making deadline, so I’m really lost as to what to do with myself. Guess I’ll go to the gym or something. Maybe some breakfast afterwards. After a weekend of wonderful AND free food, going back to cooking is really going to suck.