War and Basketball

Posted 9:02 AM by sean
Eight in the morning on a Saturday, and I am awake. Everyone is out doing stuff, so I am here by myself, trying to decide if I should go to an audition being held at the same time as, and right in the middle of, a huge anti-war demonstration.

I feel as much fear of retribution, when I think of the war, as I do concern about the Iraqis. I trust that my government is making it a priority to hit military installations primarily. I know that people are dying in Iraq today, but I hope that fewer will die over the long haul than have been dying in the last 12 years.

You can debate all you want about whether or not we should be at war. But watching it is sickening. It is spontaneously horrifying, you don’t have to decide. The one image that will remain with me are the people wandering away from burning buildings. Obviously, it took me back.

I have spent my avoidance time watching basketball and being with my friends. I missed ten of the first 32 match-ups in my pool, which is about par for the course. However, I only called one team wrong for the next round.

And let me say this; I am frustrated by the total lack of upsets in this tournament. Last night, Maryland was outplayed, out-hustled, out-coached and out-hearted by the number eleven seed UNC Wilmington team, and they led by one with three second left. A Maryland player, not their star, not even their second option, made a running one handed heave at the buzzer that dropped through as if he was sitting on top of the backboard by himself and let it go. Maryland wins, to solidify that only one real upset (If you call a 10 over a 7) would occur on the whole South/East side of the bracket.

In fact, let’s say a 10-7 match-up isn’t an upset. Then you have two in the whole tournament, Central Michigan beating Creighton (an 11-6) and (the only real long shot) Tulsa beating Dayton (a 13-4). If you had just picked the seeds as is, you would have missed 6, and that’s including 3 nine-over-eight picks.

Speaking of long, I saw Spider last night. At about ten minutes in, I thought ‘Wait, did this character do X?’ and about thirty minutes in, I was like ‘Oh, these characters are not who he thinks they are.’ and it turns out I was right. It was ninety minutes long, but it didn’t really mean anything to me. Great acting.

Listen, if you want cohesive thought, look elsewhere. I can’t believe I write this much…

NCAA and War

Posted 11:06 AM by sean
Sorry. I was in Florida and then, y'know, the war.

I can’t talk about the war. Plenty of other people can and are, but it turns out that my reaction to it is sort of unreasonable. I was actually up vomiting all night Wednesday.

So, two things. I discovered, during my stay in Florida, that my unreasonable fear of flying is actually a loss of anonymity. We were on Space Mountain at Disneyland, and for a moment I was really scared. I somehow explained to myself that these rides do sometimes break, and it might break with me on it. This was Space Mountain, for chrissakes, it wasn’t even a scary ride. In the same vein, I know that planes don’t crash, I don’t even think I am scared of crashing. I am just suddenly afraid that the one time something terrible will happen will be the plane I am on, a logic I scoffed at up until… well, it turns out, up until September 11, 2001.

So apparently, I’m not quite the tough guy I have been thinking I was.

The other thing, can Duke please go ahead and lose the games they are supposed to lose? I mean, there is a reason that Colorado State is a 14 seed, they were badly coached and the choked so bad. But if they had done one or two things differently, they would have won, and I wish they had.

Also, that last blocking foul in the Mizzou game was the worst call I have seen in post season play. EVER. Kije has entered the pool for the fourth time in as many years, the second time since he died, and although he guessed the same number of opening night games as me, he lost three of his sweet 16 and one of his elite 8. Of course, he is a dead dog, so he’s doing pretty well. Jordana, Kije and I all have Kansas in the final, and they damn near lost last night.

Anyway, I really can’t think about the people dying and the people who want to kill me because of the war. My sister thinks New York is more dangerous than other places, but the Channel 1 local news is convincing me otherwise. In LA when I was a kid, I used to think the helicopters that constantly flew over head were ironically funny, now I feel so good every time I see them fly the East River pattern in front of my window.