tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370240862024-02-28T13:09:51.908-08:00mojokongBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-44546881466150840432020-03-31T08:41:00.002-07:002020-03-31T08:45:57.308-07:001993 NBA PLAYOFFS: Suns (1) vs. Lakers (8) First Round<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Suns vs. Lakers</b><br />
<br />
This was an exhausting opening series for Phoenix. Despite coming into the playoffs with 62 wins and the top overall seed, the Suns needed Oliver Miller of all people to squeak by an ever so pesky Lakers squad that just didn’t want to end their season just yet.<br />
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These were teams in very different stages of their roster build. Phoenix had the right mix of stars, complimentary vets and impactful rookies that coalesced into a Charles Barkley MVP and the best Suns team many of us younger fans had ever seen. Beginning the previous summer in Barcelona, Chuck started to shed the damaging image of a malcontent brawler into a focused superstar with perhaps the most unique game in the league. This was the crest of his development as a player and he found the perfect balance between his go-to core strength and his refined passing and jump shooting.<br />
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The Lakers, on the other hand, were like the Celtics in that they found themselves with a gaping void where a hall-of-famer had resided for over a decade. Magic had the whole HIV thing, the comeback, the Dream Team and now he was either stumbling through calling games as a color commentator or goofing around with Arsenio courtside. James Worthy was still there but firmly accepting the twilight of a glorious career by that point. Byron Scott had publicly announced he would not be returning to LA the next year, making for an awkward last run with the Lake Show. And then there were the relatively new guys to the cast: a young Vlade Divac coming into his own, a younger Elden Campbell that could jump over many defenders, a scrappy new Doug Christie, a hurt Anthony Peeler. Mix in a trigger-happy Sedale Threatt running point and you have a strange group of characters that slogged through a underwhelming regular season (39-43).<br />
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Yet when these two ships passing in the night bumped into one another in the first round, it made for a very quality five games of spirited play by LA and nervous energy from Phoenix.<br />
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<b>Sir Charles</b><br />
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Now 27 years later, it’s easy to forget what Charles Barkley the basketball player was really like. The man has become such a generally warm-hearted public character of smiles and chubbiness, that to take him seriously as anything fierce is almost silly. But in 1993, when Chuck would sprint down the court in transition, get the ball at the top of the key and lower his shoulders as he crashed through the paint, no one in the lane was laughing. He was rough, but not out of control. He had delicate hands that would tip rebounds all over the glass to himself, while he let his huge shoulders and chest deflect 7-foot men off him like they were made of paper.<br />
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He had a steady jumper, could switch off on any frontcourt player in the league, and had tremendous court vision and passing. His around the back pass to Oliver Miller on the break late in Game 5 made my entire day after having watched it. He is a pure hall-of-fame talent with the heart of a champion, despite never attaining one. He would be excellent in today’s league and would show everyone how silly comparing him to Draymond Green really is.<br />
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<b>The Bigger O</b><br />
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This series was in serious jeopardy for Paul Westphal and the Suns. Los Angeles had showed an indifference to the teams’ records and defiantly stole the first two games in Phoenix. Kevin Johnson sat out Game 1 with a sore knee and the Suns turned the ball over a lot without him. Also Threatt went unconscious from midrange and finished with 35 points. Game 2 was Vlade Divac arriving as a go-to offensive focal point along with effort play from AC Green and Elden Campbell. The problem was that Phoenix wanted to run in transition against the bigger Lakers but Tom Chambers and Mark West were slowing things down. In Game 3, Westphal went with Olive Miller instead, and the series turned around because of the adjustment.<br />
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Miller is a strange animal in the basketball world. Here is an overweight, kinda short center with really long arms and a shot-blockers mentality that can shoot from pretty good range and gets frustrated a lot. His defensive play was monumental in the overtime Game 5 win that moved Phoenix to the next round, and after the game Barkley said that Miller won the series for his team. He and Chuck mixed well with good interior passing to one another and hard charging sprints down the floor in transition. You know, just a couple of fat guys that like to run a lot.<br />
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<b>Rookies</b><br />
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Miller wasn’t the only rookie to play well in the series. Campbell looked like a terrific young piece of LA’s future with his play in the series, but only became more frustrating for Laker fans than anything else. Doug Christie played lots of minutes and looked pretty NBA prepared already.<br />
The most interesting of the bunch, though, may have been Suns springy forward Richard Dumas. I remember a lot about 90s basketball, but I didn’t really remember Dumas at all (so much so that I had to read his Wikipedia page which is a doozy and well worth the read). Dumas was a classic young forward of the era: strong, lots of leaping ability, and not much of a shooter. He averaged 15 a game during the season and was the perfect kind of dunker for the style of play the Suns preferred. It’s a shame his career basically derailed after that season, but in 93 he was an excellent fit on the squad.<br />
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Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-8964114529956105142020-03-19T12:38:00.001-07:002020-03-19T12:58:49.384-07:001993 NBA Playoffs: Charlotte (5) vs. Boston (4) First Round<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Games Watched: 1,3,4</b><br />
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<b>Heir Apparently Not</b><br />
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I knew what happened to Reggie Lewis. I didn’t remember it was this game though. In the first quarter of Game 1 in Boston, Lewis had already took control of the game and scored multiple buckets when he collapsed while running down the court, causing him to bang his knee hard against the floor. The announcers weren’t sure what happened. After seeing the replay of Lewis just wobble and tumble over, one of them joked “that looks like the way I jog sometimes.” Lewis got up and walked to the bench. The game carried on and when the camera cut to him on the sidelines, he looked completely weirded out about what had just happened. He looked scared.<br />
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The weirdest part was that he checked back into the game in the second half and scored easily and fluidly. His stat line after the game showed 17 points, 13 minutes, two rebounds and one heart attack. I can’t imagine how the conversation must have gone with the team doctor.<br />
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“So what happened out there, Reggie?”<br />
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“I guess I fainted.”<br />
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“Has that happened before?”<br />
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“Yeah, once.”<br />
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“Sounds normal to me. How about firing up a few more jumpers before calling it a night?”<br />
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Clearly, no one took it seriously enough; Lewis died three months later from heart irregularities practicing for the ‘94 season.<br />
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Basketball-wise, the Celtics needed Lewis, not only for the Hornets series, but for the team’s foreseeable future. Larry Bird had just hung it up, and McHale and Parrish were operating at a permanent 38 percent battery life. There was no young hotshot ready to take Boston by the horns and make Lewis a number-two option. When Reggie Lewis lost consciousness that night in the Garden, it began the complete overhaul of the team that would first bottom out and then lead to draft picks like Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker which helped turned things around a few years down the road.<br />
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Anyway.<br />
<br />
<b>ZO!!!</b><br />
<br />
Alonzo Mourning might always be stuck in the ever-expanding shadow of Shaquille O’Neal, but the guy came into the NBA as a fully-formed manchild, ready to be an All-Star from day one (he actually held out briefly, so maybe like day 12). Even the top overall pick from the previous season, Larry Johnson, wasn’t as advanced in his development as Mourning was by the time the Hornets reached their first-ever playoff berth. With both men strong and healthy, Zo and LJ overwhelmed the aged Celtics with their youthful athleticism.<br />
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Mourning started the series draining 18-footers and forcing Parish to come out on him. Zo would then do his long-striding, sweeping layup moves that looked both explosive and goofy at the same time, but proved deadly. His buzzer-beater in Game 4 to clinch the series showed that the guy wasn’t shy about his greatness, but after that moment, he never really demonstrated being truly great again. Still, looking at him in 1993 as he smeared blocked shots all over the backboard and showed a warrior’s rebounding mentality, he and LJ looked like the bruising tandem that would be battling the Bulls, Knicks and Pacers for the next handful of years. Instead, taking out a Boston team with geriatric stars and middling role players would be the squad’s proudest moment.<br />
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<b>Other Notes:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Dee Brown was a 6’6” guard in a 6’1” body. The series showed that he was more than just extreme leaping ability, but it also showed that he wasn’t ready to knock down the big shots in crunch time.<br />
Kendall Gill looks like the spitting image of the generic 90’s basketball player. Very smooth and looks good doing everything, but in the end is a more of a tease than a great player.<br />
Larry Johnson can shoot mid-range jumpers, but it’s such a waste when he does so. Here is a 6’7” shoulder monster with good handles, an instinctive passing ability and big time power hops shooting and missing sort-of contested jump shots. His team, especially Muggsy Bogues, missed him with great post position in the paint multiple times and you can see it start to annoy Larry more and more throughout the four games. Even if his back wouldn’t have limited the prime of his career, I’m not sure Larry would have elevated his team very much without Zo or some similar level of star to pair with him.<br />
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Blazers (4)/Spurs (5) are next. Follow along and watch the games with me on the YouTube links on my Instagram bio.<br />
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<br />Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-39803921820844840502019-08-15T16:42:00.002-07:002019-08-23T15:13:24.640-07:00My Music Video<br />
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<br />
The video would take place in Latonia, an old-school Covington suburb crisscrossed everywhere by train tracks. It would be a nice blue-skied afternoon, very warm. I would be sitting in the driver's seat of an old 80’s Buick, or something similarly spacious for the camera to have enough room in the backseat for all of the fancy shots I wanted. I’d be wearing something very normal, probably a Reds hat and a Sons of Silverton t-shirt, and the music playing would be the eighth track of the album called “Bringing Your Pop Pop Back Isn’t One of Them”.<br />
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The Buick would be idled at a train-crossing as rusty, haggard train cars lurch along in front of it, blocking my pass. The camera cuts to me, only marginally irritated by the delay, nodding to the beat and gazing out of the window. I look over to the passenger seat, and the camera follows my eyes. In it is Waldo from Cincinnati, also nodding and looking out of his own window. Waldo’s civilian name is Scott; he’s a close friend, a partner in beats, and my favorite producer anywhere, so it seemed only natural that he be in it too.<br />
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I then look back at the train, camera focused on me again. I sigh and hit the vape pen. The viewer sees a hand tap me on the shoulder, and I give it the pen. The camera follows the hand back to its owner and we see that it’s Dren AD. Adrian and I became best friends after about 15 minutes of hip-hop discussion in the 6th grade. It was 1990 and there was <i>much </i>to talk about. He rips the pen, coughs and hands it back all while looking at his phone. He laughs and holds the screen up for me to see.<br />
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Camera cuts back to me smiling at whatever it is he’s showing me. The train, if anything, has actually slowed its pace. I tug on the bill of my hat and lean further back in my seat. I look back over again, and this time it’s Ill Mil seated there. Mildred is my favorite rapper that I've worked with. We first met in journalism school at UC, we both wrote for the college paper and years later made a couple of tracks together. We’re both traditional in our craft: boom bap and bars. She seemed like the right choice for the last passenger in the scene.<br />
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And then, so perfectly timed, the train would come to an end (without a caboose, of course, these are never cabooses), the flashing wooden gates would lift up, the car drives away, the beat fades out and the video ends with an ascending drone shot of the car making its way through Latonia.<br />
<br />
There, you got to see it after all.<br />
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<br />Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-90037130477619280852019-08-11T09:29:00.001-07:002019-08-12T15:26:18.715-07:00The Day The Dogs Caught a Groundhog<div>
Yesterday, I was sitting in my attic writing when I heard some dogs barking below. My attic is very high in the air, taller than all the other houses around it. Dogs bark all the time. There is an especially neurotic collie that lives a few doors down and barks sharply and often through the the bedraggled tree line that separates our properties. As it continued, however, it occurred to me that all the fuss may have been coming from my dogs, and when it didn't cease but rather became more amplified as the seconds went by, I set down my coffee mug, sighed and lumbered down the stairs wondering again why I even own the damn things in the first place.<br /><br />Halfway down I heard Melanie loudly addressing them in the yard with more urgency in her voice than normal.<br /><br />"<i>Jade! Dusty! Jade! Dust.</i>..," and then the clatter of the screen door slamming shut and then silence. It didn't sound right.<br /><br />I got to the back deck and she filled me in of the situation before being asked.<br /><br />"Jade got a cat I think," she said pointing across the yard near the fence line.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><br />By the time I strode across the grass and made it to the scene, there was apparently a lull in the fight. On the ground was not a cat at all, but a pudgy brown groundhog on its back. It had a pathetic hold of Jade--the small black pit-bull mutt we saved two years ago that has never made it fully into my heart--and had its little groundhog teeth clutched on to the loose skin of her face. The bite was clearly not bothering Jade in the least. Jade had the thing's leg in her mouth. Dusty, our other dog, a blonde 70-pound retriever of some kind, was just barking and leaping about. He's always kind of been a flighty dog that gets by on his looks and runs pretty well after tennis balls.<br /><br />My addition to the scene however seemed to spark something in the dogs, as if their time to kill was coming to a close and that they'd better get on with it before the tall human starts yelling again. Jade released the groundhog's foot and went for the more vital bits of neck and belly. I guess Dusty was getting in there somewhere too, it was hard to tell, but he has a soft bite and was bred to retrieve already dead things so he was the secondary concern.<br /><br />I did yell, a lot, and growled their names, but the taste of blood had whipped both dogs into such a frenzy that they heard nothing but their primal wolfish instincts to make a gruesome example of this groundhog. It would serve as a message to all other yard vermin that if they dare enter the fence, this would be their fate as well. I stopped yelling.<br /><br />I remember thinking of how the dogs weren't being very efficient in this slaughter. We had a much larger pit-bull a few years back that had snatched and killed one within seconds like a true professional. This in comparison was certainly amateur hour and I felt embarrassed to own dogs incapable of killing cleanly. <i>They can't even do that right.</i> I wasn't going to reach my hands into the fray under any circumstance, so I turned my back and walked the other direction, assuming my dogs would sooner or later finish the job.<br /><br />Melanie was on the deck watching it all. I shrugged at her and she shrugged back and went inside. I meandered over to the other side of the yard where I keep my hose and started dragging it back over to the murder scene. The cheap plastic apparatus that keeps my hose coiled and out of the way is such a piece of shit that rather than feed me more of the hose as I pull on it, it invariably tilts over onto its side, completely defeating the thing's only purpose. I find myself cursing at it whenever I need it.<br /><br />My concern at this point, wasn't whether they had killed the large rodent by now, but rather getting its innards all over their faces and coats. I stormed back over to the hose and yelled out for Melanie inside. "Feed this to me," I barked when she came out, pointing at the toppled hose-roller-thing.<br /><br />On the spigot of the hose, there are options of what type of stream you'd like to employ. I chose jet, and as soon as I was close enough, I lasered a sharp beam of water into the faces of my deranged canines. It worked surprisingly well as both dogs were broken from their murderous trance and seemed to see me there for the first time. "<i>Get outta here!</i>" I screamed, spraying them further away from the victim. They reluctantly retreated back across the yard and up the deck. I gave each one a once over and rather than them being splattered with groundhog blood and licking their open wounds from the fight, each were unscathed and their fur guts-free. Jade had a small red scrape on her snout but there was no real active bleeding.<br /><br />Once both of the brutes were corralled into the house and the yard was quiet again, I allowed myself a deep inhale and a sigh, before going into my barn to fetch my snow shovel and a rake. I sauntered back over to the creepy brown pile of fur and braced for the up-close rawness of death. I stopped about five feet from the critter and had a look. It was still breathing.<br /><br /><i>Fuck</i>.<br /><br />I don't own a gun. If I did, I think I could probably fire it in my yard on a Saturday afternoon in Cincinnati without much recourse from scared neighbors or nearby cops, especially once they are informed of the humanitarian reason for the shot, but alas, it was not to be. I thought about crushing its little head with a cinder block to put the little shit out of its misery, but that was so archaic and messy that it felt a bit over-the-top. I walked inside to ask Melanie what she thought. She was in the kitchen inspecting the dogs closer with latex gloves on. Each of the bastards were panting and looking pretty proud of themselves. I explained to her that it was still breathing but was also still on its back and not looking too good. She brainstormed about possibly drowning it somehow, but how the hell would we do that? I floated my cinder block suggestion out and she made a horrified face. I thought that even suggesting something so brutal might have changed her whole outlook on me forever.<br /><br />So, still without much of a plan, but convinced that crushing its skull would be the least painful method and would certainly get the job done, I halted in my tracks as I looked across the yard to the body only to see that it was now upright and looking directly at me. This brought on a whole new set of questions. What now?<br /><br />Melanie came out and I pointed at the little groundhog head lifted over the high grass (I'm grossly overdue to cut my grass). I decided I should get a little closer to examine the extent of its injuries. I don't know what good this could have done, but it seemed like a practical fact-finding thing to do. A few steps in its direction was enough to spook the poor injured mammal to muster up what life it did have and it limped away into the neighbor's yard.<br /><br />I felt bad for the guy. When it scurried off, I could see real damage to its body around its neck and underarms. It wasn't doing well and probably wouldn't last that long out in "the wild". Sure, I live in the city, but Mt. Airy park and all of its 1,480-acre glory is only a few hundred yards from my house and plenty of predators lurk about the woodsy neighborhood at night. Maybe, and I don't know if it's worse or not than getting eaten by something bigger, the groundhog would find the closest shady secluded spot to curl up in and decide that since it can't really move well or eat well or run well, it'd be better off just to lay there and die.<br /><br />This story may not be finished. It wouldn't surprise me to encounter this poor sap's corpse in a much worse state than what my dogs had done to it. Or, maybe I will be in my attic writing again and look out through its dirty windows down to the yard and see a haggard, limping brown ball of fat fur trot across the property and sneak into my barn where I am convinced a metropolis of the bastards have made an underground city for themselves. Even a healthy groundhog only lives a couple of years, so our tragic figure in this tale doesn't have long either way, but at least he gets a little prolonged memory of his life in the virtual pages you're reading here and isn't that what any of us wants? To be remembered for a while?</div>
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Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-12786577107759387392012-02-18T12:13:00.000-08:002012-02-18T12:13:24.136-08:00Damn, I Love The Tams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For some reason I can't take my eyes off of the Memphis Tams. Maybe it's those garish green-and-yellow ABA throwbacks they sport during the retro nights, or perhaps it's because their mascot is a hat but whatever it is, I am fascinated with this team. <br /><br />Of course, for the vast majority of the season they are the Memphis Grizzlies which is not only a geographical paradox, it is also the nickname of a failed business endeavor in Vancouver. I feel the franchise should embrace the Tams image and instill a true sense of belonging to the people of Memphis rather than that of a bear who lives far, far away. <br /><br />All that aside, my interest is piqued in this bunch because they are in an awkward phase of basketball adolescence, where the basics have been firmly established but the subtleties of their collective game must now emerge. Greatness is within reach of the individuals involved, but only time, experience and familiarity will provide the finishing touches of a truly impressive postseason run in the future. <br /><br />What I like most about them is that there is always a sense of calm within this group, a belief that they can always come back. Whether that is the influence of head coach Lionel Hollins is not for me to know, but whatever the case, the Tams stick to the plan and are poised up until the end of games. I think other than just being young and headstrong, their confidence stems from the knowledge of the rigidly defined roles Hollins has carved out for each player. Because the unit has bought into the scheme, what most see as a pretty average collection of talent is now 17-14 and sits sixth in the West. <br /><br />The cast of characters is a weird one. <br /><br />There are the scorers, Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo. Gay is a sleepy-eyed slasher extraordinaire who consistently gets good looks at the rim but doesn't have the all-world shooting ability to put him in the elite scoring range; he is Durant the Lesser. Still a blooming talent, Gay combines effortless athleticism with a growing shooting range and an early mastery of the backboard. He is a rangy, loping player that excels more in an uptempo environment. Maintaining a level of consistency is Gay's final frontier and that only comes with time. <br /><br />Mayo (North College Hill High, Cincinnati) comes off the bench and hoists shots anywhere and anytime he touches the ball. From a distance he looks like a deranged gunner who is blind of teammates, but he is instructed to spray shots at will, and while he grumbled about it at first, his role of bench shooter now suits him just fine.<br /><br />There are big men. All-star Marc Gasol is a distribution center of offense who towers over everyone else and holds the ball in one hand ready to fastball it to a cutter at the rim, or stand-on his tip-toes while shooting an 18-footer. He has great hands, a good basketball instinct and a developed sense of finesse that comes with most European players. To me, he looks like a Spanish Wookiee who dominated the Kashyyyk league before joining the NBA.<span id="goog_1683666007"></span><span id="goog_1683666008"></span><br /><span id="goog_1683666002"></span><span id="goog_1683666003"></span><br />Next is Marreese Speights, a polite but slow-witted young man who is there for rebounding and put-back scoring. Every so often, Speights will put the ball on the floor and complete an impressive spin-move lay up to the left, or knock down the open 20-footer himself, but for the most part, he's there to clean up the garbage around the rim. He does have the size and make up of a promising power forward for the future and has given Memphis quality minutes since injuries forced him into the starting lineup. He is an interesting pick up and is arguably underrated. <br /><br />The ball-handling on the team is primarily made up of Mike Conley. Finding a consistent shooting ability is still the career goal for Conley, but he has made strides in that area already in the first half of this season and is another youngster coming into his own. He is developing into a crafty left-handed floor manager who looks comfortable running both the break and the half-court offense. He plays good defense and stays under control. Conley still isn't great, but he is more than serviceable and getting better everyday. <br /><br />Lastly are the eclectic energy guys. There is no better energy player in the league than Tony Allen. The man is hell on wheels, Captain Chaos, and his effort alone leads to the rapid dismantling of the opposition's plan of attack. He is a defensive stopper and a thorny physical player that wears most men down, but he is also a very controlled offensive player on the break and even a fairly clutch outside shooter. He is a coaches dream and a key ingredient in a playoff series. <br /><br />The other energy bursts off the bench are forwards Dante Cunningham and Quincy Pondexter. Cunningham is good on the glass and is tall enough to defend big men in the post, while Pondexter is deceptively thick and often plays bigger than his 6'6'' frame. These two have the most impact with their hustle and both are important to the season's remainder, particularly Cunningham.<br /><br />Yet for all that praise, there are still a few loose threads on these Tams. <br /><br />One concern surrounds Zach Randolph—the 20 points 12 rebounds guy—who is due to return from a knee injury in the next month or so. Z-Bo flashed in the playoffs last year, pairing with Gasol as a low-post scoring machine that dispatched San Antonio from last year's playoffs in remarkable fashion. It was perhaps Randolph's greatest stretch of play and caused quite a buzz around the league at the time. During the run, Memphis played a deliberate half-court set that relied on the high-low game of the skilled big men underneath. Rudy Gay was out then with an injury himself, so the team went through the post to win instead.<br /><br />Four games into the season, Randolph hurt his knee and the mixing of styles between Gay and Z-Bo was again put on hold. Since then, Memphis has sped up their play and prefer a fast-break offense predicated on the many steals they force. It serves the team's youth, energy and speed, but Randolph isn't known for any of those qualities and one has to wonder how Hollins will go about placating Zach without disrupting the others when he comes back.<br /><br />The other problem facing the team now is a lack of a back-up point guard. The two rookies off of the bench, Jeremy Pargo and Josh Selby, are cannon fodder for the league mostly, and neither are guys you want to give many minutes. Pargo seems quiet on the court which isn't always a bad thing, but also doesn't provide a ton of job security, while Selby is just brainless with the basketball far too often to rely on. To Selby's credit, he is very young and isn't used to playing point guard but as of now he does not look NBA-caliber.<br /><br />These problems are minor and this is not a franchise that needs three more years to compete for a championship. Many of the pieces are in place and now it's time to see them all work together. It feels presumptuous to consider them championship-caliber this season, but I do expect more heads to turn and check out those hideous uniforms worn by the wily Tams, challenging the big dogs of the West. Perhaps not quite a success story, I expect the rest of the season for Memphis to be a later chapter in a coming-of-age novel where the protagonist realizes he or she really can do it after all. So if you're looking for an underdog sleeper team to slay a few dragons this April, tune into Memphis and cheer on the hats! <br /><br /><br />Mojokong—we river cities stick together.<br />
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<br />Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-33769420363667227022011-12-14T09:28:00.000-08:002019-08-12T15:02:53.923-07:00The Crosstown Punchout<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_404h/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/12/10/Production/WashingtonPost/Images/Cincinnati_Xavier_Basketball_0d6c5.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_404h/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/12/10/Production/WashingtonPost/Images/Cincinnati_Xavier_Basketball_0d6c5.jpg" height="148" width="200" /></a>I wasn't at the game—didn't even
watch it on TV—but that doesn't mean I didn't <i>feel</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
it when I saw what happened. Like a shock wave that emanated from
the Cintas Center on Xavier's campus, I too was swept up in the
chaos' aftermath, despite my most resolute intentions to ignore the
whole fiasco.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The game I refer to was the 79<sup>th</sup>
Crosstown Shootout—an intra-city event that has produced a lot of
stuff to feel good about—but sadly, the 80<sup>th</sup> may have to
wait some time before the rivalry resumes. Today marked a sad day
for Cincinnati. The tension between the Bearcats and Muskies had
been brewing for a few years now. The crop of personalities on both
sides formed a perfect storm of fists and trash talk that many times
prior had boiled over in the city's prominent summer league games,
the Deveroes League played at Woodward High School. There, Yancy
Gates and Kenny Frease would shove each other around on a regular
basis and Tu Hollaway would just get mad at everyone so he could play
well. Those three guys, plus Tu's little Pomeranian, Mark Lyons, are
all you need to start a gang brawl on a basketball court.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Before everything came to an
unfortunate end, it's important to look closely at these individuals.
Here is Yancy Gates, a little boy in a grown-ass man's body. He's
the local cat with more to live up to than most UC star recruits and
he and everyone around him is openly frustrated that he hasn't
developed into the beast he should be. The bottom line with Yancy as
player and as a person is that he is soft, and the reason he punches
people first is to prove that the opposite is true. He's the biggest
little man you'll ever come across, but you'd better keep your
distance when you see him in person.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Then there is Kenny Frease, another
wide-bodied load that looks like the big hairy orange thing that
hangs out with Marvin the Martian on those cartoons. With good hands
but terrible feet, Frease too has frustrated scouts and onlookers.
Plus he's the token Palooka on the team—just a big dumb white boy
whose best attribute is the five fouls he starts with. Kenny Frease
is usually the first guy getting punched in any brawl and that proved
to be true today.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Tu Halloway is next. Here is a nasty
little dude. Some players like T.J <i><span style="font-style: normal;">Houshmandzadeh</span></i>
, for instance, have to be angry to play at their best; Tu is one of
these guys. I don't know why he is most successful when in a
disturbed frame of mind, but from what I've seen, if he isn't pissed
off at somebody, he's bored. Overtime, angry guys become <span style="font-style: normal;">permanent
assholes, and this is the fate of Terrell Halloway, I'm afraid. A
terrific talent, but completely unlikeable. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Never
far from Halloway is Mark Lyons. If Halloway is genuinely a shitty
dude, than Lyons is faking his shittiness and that's even worse.
He's not even tough; he just runs his mouth and makes faces a lot.
Aside from bouts of brainlessness, there's really nothing wrong with
him as a player, but he will always be Tu's little lapdog, yapping
away in my memory. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">With
the cast of characters out of the way, some back story is needed. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">As
mentioned, the summer league games were often heated, and the
previous shootouts were always good for a shoving match for a loose
ball, but nothing to the degree of what took place today. Earlier in
the week a local reporter asked Bearcat shooting guard Sean
Kilpatrick if he thought Tu would start on UC. His response was
stately and well thought out. “With the guys we have now,” he
said, “I would say no.” Not necessarily inflammatory stuff
there. The reporter served it up to him, he essentially was asked to
compare Tu to his teammates, and he sided with his teammates. No
story there.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">But...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Tu
Halloway took offense to this and confirmed as much after the brawl.
Instead of ignoring what anyone—especially the other team—had to
say about him, Halloway decided that the comment mattered and he
wasn't going to leave it be after a twenty-point victory. As the
seconds ticked down in the game, he started barking to the UC bench,
then at an opposing player on the court and then pushed said player
to the ground. Shortly before all of that, Tu also asked Xavier beat
reporter Shannon Russell, to tweet her followers that “XU put them
in a (presumably f-word) body bag.” This to me is a shit-talker
gone mad. This is going beyond the realms of a game. If such a
fueling of misguided testosterone happened in a night club or an
automobile, someone may have been killed. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Nobody
disrespects the little angry guy, though. No one talks shit about
the 5'10'' toughy without getting what's coming to them. My God!
How old are these people? And the funny part is, as soon as the
fight broke out, Tu was safely restrained by the referee while his
carnage erupted around him. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Yancy
Gates acted very cowardly with his solid right hand to Kenny Freise's
jaw. Frease was not squared up with him and looked to be acting more
of a peacekeeper than an instigator. He wasn't even looking at the
punch that floored him and where I'm from (and where Yancy's from),
that's called a sucker punch. Yet, to one up such a cowardly move,
the big Senegalese UC center whose name sounds like Mooge, stomped
Kenny on the ground with his giant basketball shoe. Stomping someone
on the ground. That's prison behavior.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Friese
wound up with his face split and bloodied, and a bunch of yelling and
shoving and breaking up ensued. Yancy looked the most aggravated of
everyone and ended the fracas by throwing air punches at pretty much
anything. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Eventually,
long after the teams left the court and the violence-charged crowd
filed out of the building, some kind of order was restored and press
conferences were made manageable. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Mick
Cronin's statements were good. He talked about how society as a
whole puts sports on too high of a pedestal. He tried to convey to
us and to his players and maybe even to himself that none of it is
that important. He aired his concerns of getting fired over the
brawl and said he made all of his players take off their jerseys. He
looked shaken, angry and mortified.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Then
Tu and his mutt took the mic on their side and embarrassed themselves
even further. Tu talked about how his team is made up of
“gangsters”, and of how he felt disrespected by Kilpatrick's
comment. He clarified his comment to Shannon Russell when he said
his team “zips them up” in body bags to close out games—he said
it was the team's motto. He was really fixated on body bags that
game. Then Lyons yapped about how the media expected a brawl from
the teams because of the hype the press created around the Crosstown
Shootout. He pointed out that if someone put their hands in his
team's face, bad things would happen to them. What class acts.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Days
after the fight, the city couldn't stop talking about it. I
overheard old guys on the bus recounting the incident blow-for-blow,
librarian ladies in the break room trying to decipher who started it
and even grade-school kids pretending they're Yancy Gates and Kenny
Freise in slow motion.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Suspensions
were levied: six games for Yancy, Mooge, and some guy named Ellis.
For X it was four for freshmen Dez Wells and Landen Amos, two for
Lyons, and one for Tu. Obligatory apologetic press releases were
issued by both universities and their respective conferences. UC
dragged their participants in front of a microphone for a public
apology later in the week where Yancy gave a tearful lament of how he
was now mostly referred to as a thug after the fight.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Meanwhile,
basketball rallies on. Both teams now have short-handed lineups and
have to make due with the ends of their benches. Fortunately for
each program, this stretch of the schedule is always cupcake row with
teams like Oral Roberts and Wright State coming up next for X and UC
respectively. Halloway said that everyone will forget this even
happened in a day or two and I'm sure everyone affiliated with the
teams hopes that were the case, but it isn't likely to happen. The
Crosstown Brawl of 2011 will be remembered in Cincinnati for at least
a half-generation if not a whole one.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Whether
the rivalry will continue is still up in the air. Yes it would be a
shame to cancel one of the city's premier annual sporting events, but
everyone would understand if it was temporarily halted until some
fresh faces appeared on each bench. Yet, I think these same groups
have learned some kind of lesson here. With strong reactions coming
from all angles, I would almost think a rematch with these two teams
would lead to a clean game without incident. Then again, perhaps
simply seeing the opponent would raise the hair on their neck and the
mouth would begin to froth once more. In the end, it's just
basketball and not really a big deal to the rest of the world.
Cronin hit the nail on the head when he said we make this crap more
important than it is, but it's these kinds of primal distractions in
society that spice up our routine and predictable lives. It could be
considered sad that we obsess over public fisticuffs like this, but
such is human nature. The depravity in all of us sometimes rises to
the surface, even in the harmless confines of college basketball. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Mojokong—play
to the whistle.</span></div>
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Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-69620973456286760372011-02-11T23:39:00.000-08:002013-07-02T08:10:08.775-07:00Mojo the Mighty<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11F6qN8_focfHRh-SClnJ44jmwbtGt8zW06ZbtIiqON94D3BaRyzv8UucCVkOZhAjtwnYxs6BbMYt6VTUx9wLTS1-8200vF62SEwPFdY75FkZmU-stuApDqoqITa5TMW3KPyh4Q/s1600/photo+2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572882370165285746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11F6qN8_focfHRh-SClnJ44jmwbtGt8zW06ZbtIiqON94D3BaRyzv8UucCVkOZhAjtwnYxs6BbMYt6VTUx9wLTS1-8200vF62SEwPFdY75FkZmU-stuApDqoqITa5TMW3KPyh4Q/s200/photo+2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
Not an ordinary dog, Mojo had the strength of many men and could crash through drywall for a tennis ball. In his prime, he was a beast with a hemi V8/400 horsepower engine. His playing weight was around 88 pounds, but he could hang with the fastest dogs on the block no matter what the size. Obstacles? Over or through them. Objective? The ball. Nothing stopped him and his career lasted a solid eight years or so of high-caliber play and an unmatched tenacity to make catches. He is, without question, the greatest I've ever seen and my all-time favorite.<br />
<br />
He was a German Shepard-rottweiler puppy, six-weeks old, on the east side of town and he was handed to me by a man I had never met before or since. The man wanted him to go to a good home and I gave him my word. Once Mojo grew out of his fluffy, awkward puppiness, he almost right away became the legend we remember him as today. <br />
<br />
The routine trips to the park weren't much of an option for me. A day without going meant a day of him blasting around the apartment being too big and too excited to ignore. So we went. Every day for years and years and years. There he turned his haunches into muscly pistons, his front legs into those of a race horse's, and would thrash the turf between himself and the ball with supernatural force. Our areas quickly became either swampy mud islands or clouds of dust from his powerful running style. And, during his athletic peak, I could never wear him out. Never. I could throw the ball until my arm fell off and he would be back with it at my feet smiling up at me with his obscenely large tongue, waiting for the next throw. <br />
<br />
He was never a frisbee dog; he didn't have the patience to wait around for it to land. And he would chase the kong, but didn't like the unpredictable bounces it took—even though I did. The tennis ball was his obsession and he went through <span style="font-style: italic;">hundreds </span>of them. The sport was that I throw it and he catch it on a bounce. For a long time I couldn't over throw him, he was a bullet. A large black bullet. <br />
<br />
It wasn't just at the park either; Mojo also had an indoor finesse game that he constantly tricked human beings into playing. His placement on people's laps, on armrests, on the very ledge of an end table, was most impressive. Once the ball had been expertly placed, the human would be distracted by conversation or television or whatever and lightly toss the ball to Mojo. He was a master at getting his way in this regard. He tricked me a million times or more.<br />
<br />
There were a couple of ways he played indoor. If it were a close range toss right at him he would snatch it with no problem. In fact, you could put a little heat on your throw, and release it as close as a foot from his face, and he would envelop the ball like a first-baseman's mitt. If it were a lob intended to lead him into a certain direction, that too was no problem, as he could make over the shoulder snags, shoe-string catches and leaping grabs (but only when he had to). He was respectful of wires and electric fans but disregarded everything else around him. Many, many spilled drinks and other disasters came about because of Mojo's recklessness, but it was part of who he was and I rarely stopped him. <br />
<br />
If the game was a kicking one, he showed excellent blocking technique by moving his broad chest low to the ground and spreading his legs out wide. He was especially good at using his paws to deflect kicks attempted to go past him. I also enjoyed watching him roll the ball around on the ground for a while with his foot, smash the ball into the floor until it squirted out and then collect it on the backspin he anticipated. It reminded me of a skateboard trick, or spinning a basketball on your finger—pointless, but cool. <br />
<br />
Eventually, he slowed down some in the twilight of his life, taking things easier but never giving up all the way. Up to the very end, he played ball at the park and still loved it. <br />
<br />
There might be stronger dogs and faster dogs in the world, and many of these will have decent ball skills themselves, but to find another dog with the combination that Mojo possessed is damn-near impossible. That dog could play. The best of all time. <br />
<br />
He stays in my heart.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWEeHm9axL8CaTcoLRmb1ZgPBsDR9_6gq8ieNhV5p59GM-RVhN-YDTNg5R_qG7nz72uiPklcEiWUb7QCwCV36cOJw26VjVnPeos47Y4dItvyC2PaN5muOt94lQwP9k0DV5bib6Ow/s1600/photo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572882231966022402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWEeHm9axL8CaTcoLRmb1ZgPBsDR9_6gq8ieNhV5p59GM-RVhN-YDTNg5R_qG7nz72uiPklcEiWUb7QCwCV36cOJw26VjVnPeos47Y4dItvyC2PaN5muOt94lQwP9k0DV5bib6Ow/s200/photo.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 400px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 300px;" /></a>Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-15572923173450797052010-05-14T13:15:00.000-07:002010-05-14T13:41:02.594-07:00Today I am sore, I am tired, I have blisters on my feet, but I am immensely happy, and here is why.<br /><br />It's now late Wednesday, but my tale begins on Monday night around 6:30 pm or so. <br /><br />It was a glorious evening, nice and cool for mid-May but still sunny with the trees in full bloom. I lounged on the deck—there is no other way to live on the deck—and sipped on one of my father's beers—a Stella Artois, I believe it was—and contemplated dinner. The Reds would start soon and I hadn't watched them in a while. They were playing well; my interest was peaked. I decided I'd meander up to Chicago Gyros and eat something greasy while I watched baseball and drank beer. My Dad was outside and I explained my intentions to him.<br /><br />“Get me a Gyro,” is all he said about it while he tooled with something in the dirt. <br /><br />I reached down and petted Mojo on the head.<br /><br />“I'll be right back, buddy,” I told him. It's what I always tell him. Most times I tell where I'm going. If I'm off to work, I don't say that I'll be right back, I tell him I'm going to work and that I'll be back that night. But he knows that without me telling him. Like all dogs, he is a master observer and picks up on the slightest cues from my behavior. Still, I like to believe that he is more observant than most dogs and is what we would call smart. <br /><br />This time he didn't know where I was going and it bothered him. My Dad continued working on something, transfixed on his task. I wandered away from the house and my mind wandered away from the present. No one noticed Mojo follow me.<br /><br />On my walk to Chicago Gyro, it dawned on me how content with life I'd been of late. It had been a good run for a while. I enjoyed my job, loved my woman and found being happy the normal state of being; there was nothing worthwhile to complain about it. <br /><br />But like any good sports fan, I felt the jinx lurking just behind such pleasant sentiments. Superstition may be silly, but it hasn't lasted this long by accident. I see it as a weird byproduct of the freewill of humans. Prior to human intelligence there was no superstition on Earth. Things happened for scientific reasons only and there were no mysteries. Then somebody got the idea that too much of a good thing can only spell eventual disaster, which is invariably the case and then allows some sage of paranoia to leap up out of his hut and yell, “Ah ha! I told ya!” once the shit hits the fan. Based on that guy, the world can't shed the idea that maybe there is something to this superstition stuff after all which leads to all kinds of nonsensical traditions including organized religion, but that rant is preserved for another day. The point is, thinking everything in my life was gravy, immediately led me to regret thinking it in the first place for fear of swift personal tragedy brought on by the power of the announcer jinx—the announcer in this case being me. <br /><br />I laughed off the notion and once more began considering ways to properly end the novel I'd been tinkering with off and on for years. Thirty minutes later I returned to my house with a six-pack of Sierra Nevada's Glissade and two gyros. There is a large grassy field next to my house where many dog-owners—myself included—use as a play area for their dog's recreation. Mojo loves this particular field. He has spent most of his life coming here to play and no dog has ever played harder in this field than him. Chasing the tennis ball is as much his job as tackling people is for Ray Lewis. It's no-nonsense and visceral. You would be impressed. <br /><br />In the field on this day, was a different, smaller dog (Mojo is a Rottweiler-German Shepard mix and weighs in around 90 pounds). This other dog's owner was a college-looking dude—fairly non-descript—and was throwing his own tennis ball to this clearly amateur dog. I expected to see Mojo galloping along side this stranger showing it how the game is played, but he wasn't. If he saw this game taking place, he would have stormed the scene and caused a moment of fear and apprehension from the other dog's owner. “Why is this giant dog running at us unattended?” he would have asked himself. “What should I do,” he'd wonder. <br /><br />My Dad was still fiddling with something and uninterested in the tennis-ball chase taking place nearby.<br /><br />“Did Mojo try to play with those guys?” I asked him, assuming since he wasn't in sight, Dad had put him in the basement.<br /><br />“Where is he?” Dad asked.<br /><br />That's when I knew he was gone. His tennis balls laid there in the yard. I picked one up, called his name and bounced the ball to get his attention. Nothing. Dad tried yelling too—he does have a booming voice that dwarfs mine in a yelling contest, but still to no avail.<br /> <br />The only place I walk my dog is to my girlfriend Melanie's, so I set off in that direction. A middle-aged man who I often see in his yard was there now. He hadn't seen Mojo. I called Melanie and told her I was outside of her apartment and that Mojo was missing. We drove around for a couple of hours looking for him. I was also able to enlist my buddy Aaron and his dog Apollo. The two cars (Melanie's and Aaron's, as well as Dad's briefly), cruised the neighborhood with our eyes peeled. He was nowhere. After a while, darkness set in, and it began to rain. I relieved the drivers, borrowed Apollo and set off on foot. I canvased huge swaths of Clifton yelling his name every now and then. Nothing. I walked for a few fruitless miles and even had the unpleasant experience of hearing one pit-bull kill another other pit-bull, or at least significantly maim him, as I unintentionally got the dogs riled up by simply walking past their yard. I didn't hear anyone come out to check on the carnage. Needless to say, that only sharpened my worry and anxiety for my buddy, Mojo. <br /><br />Eventually, I became listless and very tired. I reasoned that in order to search more tomorrow, I had to go home and get some sleep. I took the long way home, checking on all kinds of weird, dead-end roads and ended up at home near midnight, dogless and distraught. <br /><br />Once the idea settled in that I was now giving up for the night, all the terror and fear for Mojo fully set in. There was only one way this saga would turn out okay, and that was getting my dog back unharmed. But there were countless ways it could go wrong, and they all consumed me that night in my bedroom. I'm not ashamed to admit that I sobbed then; a total emotional meltdown. The thing that wouldn't leave my head is that old dogs weren't supposed to run away. Yes, old dogs die, and that was a big enough challenge to wrap my head around, but an old dog wandering off just wasn't the way the universe was supposed to work. It wasn't right. I couldn't swallow it. I tearfully prayed to anyone tuned in to that kind of frequency that night, that I would really appreciate Mojo's safe return, and mentally projected at him to hang tight for the night and that I would find him the next day. It was a miserable night.<br /><br />I fell asleep close to 1am. I woke up at 6:45 and was out of the house by 7:15. Anyone who knows anything at all about my regular schedule and sleeping patterns will unanimously agree that anything before 8am is completely unheard of, and yet that was the case. No breakfast but coffee, an umbrella, a rain coat and I was out again. <br /><br />The part of town I was convinced hadn't been covered enough was the basin of McMicken and it's random offshoot streets. I considered the night before to walk around that neighborhood but it's kind of a rough patch of the city and I thought no one gains anything if I were stabbed, so I put it off for the next day. This was the next day and I plowed through those seedy no-outlet streets like I owned every abandoned apartment building in the neighborhood, still to no avail. It stormed that morning and I knew Mojo hated the thunder and I caught myself telling him that it was okay, like I always do. <br /><br />I weaved through all the area's major parks on my way home to change into some dry clothes. I thought about eating once I made it back to the house but still couldn't do it—I drank some water instead. My next mission would be into the woods; I was really beginning to feel desperate. <br /><br />I tooled around the woods near my house for about twenty minutes, skimming the wood line parameter. The wooded hills are steep bluffs of a sizable hill that our house sits atop. We live on the ridge of the hill that descends in many directions and my concern was that maybe Mojo had fallen or was stuck somewhere. <br /><br />I moved into one section of the woods that used to be a trail that connected the grassy field that sits next to our house with the city park perched at the bottom of the hill. There were never proper steps on this trail, but many people used it, especially the Hughes High School football team who would practice on the lower field but still have to walk back to school after practice which meant climbing the trail up the hill every day. My sister and I and our friends used this trail all the time as kids. Now it's overgrown and not much of a trail; you wouldn't know one was there if you hadn't seen it before.<br /><br />I took perhaps five steps into the wood line when I saw something odd on the old trail. It was a shirt that was sort of upright. The reason it was upright was because something was wearing it. That something also was wearing jeans and New Balance sneakers. It had large, hulking shoulders and was slumped onto the trail. It appeared that it was close to sliding down the hill. It was facing away from me and seemed to be leaning a bit against a nearby tree. It wasn't moving. <br /><br />I looked over this thing and decided it looked an awful lot like a person and noticed something near its head. At first, I thought it was a long staff that was going through its head, but upon a few more seconds of observation, I determined that it was a necktie which was caught on a branch overhead and the other end was tied around his neck. This was what kept him from sliding down the hill along the old trail. <br /><br />The idea that I was looking at a dead person began to set in. When it did, for some reason, I decided I should get a look at the person's skin. I for no reason was going to get any closer—I was roughly ten feet from it already—but I could see his hand. It was completely black. That didn't make sense. Dead people don't turn black, do they? I decided it was still inconclusive. <br /><br />I looked at his head. His scalp was gray with wisps of black hair. At that point it seemed to me that this was either a corpse or a really elaborate hoax. In retrospect, I now realize that it was only my ego that allowed me to even hypothesize someone would go to such an extent to prank me, but I wanted to hold onto another possibility other than me actually finding a dead guy. I looked back at his shoes. One was curled in a very uncomfortable position, and they were decent gym shoes. For whatever reason, that was what convinced me that this was a person who, by my inexpert eyes, appeared to have committed suicide in the nearby woods less than a hundred yards from our house. That's when I realized it did indeed smell like something dead and I got the hell out of there. <br /><br />I don't know anything about who it was, how he died or how long he was there. I do know this: both myself and our neighbor, Bill, smelled something dead in that corner of the grassy field for the last week or so; I found the body mere feet away from that corner of the field. Many residents on that street have witnessed a small homeless contingent congregate in those woods and I assume that this unfortunate soul was part of that group. I honestly don't want to know who he was or anything more about it. <br /><br />It was one of the strangest moments of my life. It was a quiet, private discovery. It was creepy but not traumatizing—I couldn't see his face. No matter how you spin it though, it is sad. This man not only presumably killed himself, but no one came looking for him. He may have been homeless, and was likely haunted by depression we should be grateful we don't know about. If anything, I feel sorry for the poor guy. It took me, who was looking for something else entirely, to find him. <br /><br />Once I did though, I continued searching for my dog. The way I figured it, Mojo could still be alive and the guy in the woods wasn't, so my priorities stayed true. I carried on through the rain and woods without finding anything else of any real interest. After a few more hours of nothing, I went home and called the cops to tell them what I found. <br /><br />The first cop there was a youngster. He didn't like the idea of dead bodies. He also didn't like the idea of me being too involved in a crime scene so he was faced with the challenge of having me point the body out to him without me disturbing any evidence or anything. We reached the tree line and he didn't want to go in. I went in first, cleared away the branches for him and pointed the guy out. The young cop didn't like it a bit but he soldiered over to the body. I said, “From what we're looking at now, I determined that that's a dead body.”<br /><br />He took two more steps, became visually grossed out and said, “It is. You need to get out of here.”<br /><br />A slew of more police arrived. Adhering to traditional sexism, the men cops made the lady cop stay with me to chat while they investigated the scene. We mostly talked about my missing dog which I was eager to get back to finding, and she tried reassuring me with stories of a dog she found after missing it for two weeks. She took down my information and they “let me go home” even though we were all gathered on the driveway of my house. <br /><br />The next stop was the SPCA. This was a chaotic place of scared, loud mongrels essentially screaming at you to take them home or back to their owners or anywhere else that's not called the pound. There were rows of cages of all sorts of dogs. I scanned the cages with a desperate anticipation feeling increasingly let down as the options dwindled to nothing. There was one dog there that looked a lot like Mojo. He was younger and smaller but had a lot of similarities; enough to make me stop and make sure it wasn't him. It wasn't. The guy working there was sympathetic and reassured me that they get new dogs everyday and that it's important to keep coming back. <br /><br />I felt like my last real hope had gone and my sadness soaked all the way to my bones. I had officially let him down and now he was truly lost. Not seeing him again was a possibility that was hurdling toward the forefront. I started emotionally fragmenting and a deep regret began to build within my chest. <br /><br />When I returned, more cops were there to talk with me. They wanted to know if I knew him or recognized him or <span style="font-style:italic;">moved </span>him. They even asked if I saw any identification on him. It was a series of head shakes and “no”s. <br /><br />My friends, Elliott & Jen, came over to help me look for Mojo. While I dealt with the homicide detectives and the rest of the Police Circus, Elliott & Jen made “lost dog” posters. After answering just a few more questions from the detectives, I caught up with the poster-making duo and admired their work (it was Jen's work, really). They made flyers to put on cars, posters to put on lamp posts and cardboard signs for busy intersections. We posted maybe six posters around two intersections when I got the call.<br /><br />“Hi, I just saw the sign for your missing dog,” said a college-aged female voice.<br /><br />“Yes?” I said.<br /><br />“I found him. I have him. He's at my apartment.”<br /><br />At those words, a thousand lashes were removed from my back. I thanked the woman as legibly as my lips would allow, and, for the first time in my life, had a happy cry. <br /><br />Later that day, I leashed my healthy, happy dog once more and brought him back home. I gave the girl twenty bucks for her trouble and talked with Mojo the whole trip back. <br /><br />He's an old boy, ten and a half, and I got him when he was only six weeks old. To have lost him would have been unacceptable. It would have gone against all logic, belief and superstition that dictates the universe in my head. Once I knew he was beyond my help, which was, in all honesty, long before I found any dead bodies, I put all my faith in humanity and it worked. People saved my dog. Not me, nor the institution of the SPCA, nor Mojo himself. It was a person who cared; a stranger. <br /><br />I have ever so slowly become a person who believes that things happen for a reason, and while I trudged through muddy hillsides and pouring rain with sizable blisters looking for my aged and arthritic lost dog, I questioned that belief to its fullest extent. I never really believed that any superstition played a part in Mojo's disappearance, as coincidental as all of that may have been, and so it came down to finding a purpose to him disappearing to prevent me from giving up hope. <br /><br />It still didn't make sense until I got Mojo back: Mojo ran off to make me look for him but it made me find the dead guy instead. And look at the nice, neat happy ending we have all tied up into a bow. I have my dog back, who spent his only night away—a stormy night—comfortably chilling with some young woman and her puppy in a Clifton apartment, I found a deceased human being who may have gone a lot longer without being found and now doesn't have to haunt the nearby woods, and the girl got twenty bucks. <br /><br />Everybody wins!Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-58748494928800715212010-02-05T13:12:00.001-08:002010-02-05T13:54:19.375-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hotmaths.com.au/upload/GLOSSARY/R/glossary_roman_numerals.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 169px; height: 176px;" src="http://www.hotmaths.com.au/upload/GLOSSARY/R/glossary_roman_numerals.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />X-Live!<br /><br />Almost sounds pornographic doesn't it? Yet that's close to what this year's Super Bowl looks like; XLIV. <br /><br />I think Roman numerals are cool with low numbers, but when 38 becomes XXXVIII, or 44 is XLIV, it gets a little silly. <br /><br />It seems obvious that the NFL stuck with the system to emphasize the magnitude of the event, not unlike World Wars. It also adds to the gladiator motif that football marketers insist is the way to go---the first Super Bowl was played in a place called the Coliseum after all. <br /><br />Now that so many have been played, however, the Roman numerals are annoying, especially when reading about a variety of former Super Bowls. Converting the numbers needlessly slows me down and at some point, it seems pretentious. <br /><br />I realize this just sounds like another lazy American unwilling to take the time and energy to actually learn something new like Roman numeral conversion, and while that isn't entirely accurate, it's close enough to disarm me of any decent comebacks, but c'mon! We don't speak that way; it would take forever to spit out 38 (“ecks, ecks, ecks, vee, eye, eye, eye”), and our brains aren't programmed to rapidly handle anything over 12 really. Sure, we can take a few seconds and figure it out, but when you're reading, you don't want to stop the flow and do some math. Those are two distinct brain hemispheres that don't always work well simultaneously, at least not for me. <br /><br />Therefore, anything written by the feathered plume of Mojokong (did I just go <span style="font-style:italic;">fourth </span>person?), will, in the best interest of you, the gentle reader, ignore the the Roman numeral system in regards to past Super Bowls and will do what typically scares most Americans: go completely Arabic.<br /><br />So here's to Super Bowl 44; may the 45th (as opposed to the “ecks, el, veeth”), be wrapped in Bengal stripes.<br /><br />[A hearty cheer, glasses raised, <span style="font-style:italic;">clink</span>, drinks all around.] <br /><br />Mojokongus Tyranusis Rex---has spoken.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.crystalinks.com/romegladiator.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="http://www.crystalinks.com/romegladiator.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-17280618847777341282010-02-01T10:35:00.000-08:002010-02-02T08:51:58.140-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMnCZTreoHsWbMlrZcubqFwUVh0Xvodv83amd5fQcG_2Vs3nbOg7oDHsINDtFA-MVVQbBT1zLmygN_t9vDQnDup8d-lvBOwFxD_O6v1aXS_bIrHOUG7b5e_l7AKdCNm2RiV9o/s1600/Bengals-Dorseyrunning.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMnCZTreoHsWbMlrZcubqFwUVh0Xvodv83amd5fQcG_2Vs3nbOg7oDHsINDtFA-MVVQbBT1zLmygN_t9vDQnDup8d-lvBOwFxD_O6v1aXS_bIrHOUG7b5e_l7AKdCNm2RiV9o/s1600/Bengals-Dorseyrunning.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">NFL Squabbles Could Lead to UFL Success</span><br />B. Clifton Burke<br /><br />While the negotiations between the NFL and its players over a new collective bargaining agreement continue to stall and worry its fans, a new football league, the United Football League, is quietly building momentum and could stand to gain a swell of attention should the NFL owners lockout their players in 2011.<br /> <br />The general attitude toward the NFL's future beyond next season is as bleak as the Mayan calendar. The owners claim the players haven't made a serious counter-proposal to their original offer. The players say ownership isn't listening to their demands. They have met 11 times with little progress of any kind and the possibility of a work-stoppage grows. <br /> <br />The main sticking point is the amount of team revenue that must go to player salaries. The NFLPA wants that percentage to stay at 60; the owners want it down to 42. The thinking is that 51 percent of team revenue earmarked for player salaries could end the impasse and allow the games to continue uninterrupted. It remains likely, however, that serious negotiations will not heat up until closer to the March 5, 2011 deadline. Until then, expect both sides to do their fair share of posturing for the public's support. <br /> <br />If the NFL is unable to make a deal on time, and if there are no games played on the first Sunday after Labor Day, then many fans could very well tune in on Thursday and Friday nights to watch the UFL instead. <br /> <br />The landscape of the UFL as it enters its second season will look much different from the “premier” season of a year ago. Two existing teams will change locations---The California Redwoods (based in San Francisco) move to Sacramento and will change its name, and the New York Sentinels will go to Hartford, Connecticut. The league also said it will expand by two more teams in 2010, bringing the league total to six. <br /> <br />The two new sites have not yet been made official, but UFL Commissioner Michael Huyghue announced that either Omaha, Portland, or Salt Lake City would be selected for one of the expansion spots. Other cities rumored as possibilities to land the second team include San Antonio, Memphis, and Los Angeles. <br /> <br />With more teams, the season will grow to 10 weeks, beginning in September and ending on Thanksgiving Day. UFL games will be aired on Mark Cuban's cable network Versus for the upcoming season, but the league has not announced a television deal in place beyond that. <br /> <br />The UFL is taking some unorthodox methods to ensure its survival. Unlike start-up leagues in the past where one or two owners outspend the rest of the teams and ultimately kill the whole operation, the UFL has hired one person, Rick Mueller, to perform as general manager for all four teams as a way to properly allocate its resource of talent. <br /> <br />That talent is more impressive than one might first imagine. There are many players and coaches with NFL experience, and a majority of the UFL front-office personnel also worked with the NFL in the past. Each roster includes a handful of reputable players that football fans will recognize, and last year's four head coaches were Jim Haslett, Jim Fassel, Dennis Green and Ted Cottrell; not bad.<br /> <br />Fassel led his team, the Las Vegas Locomotives, to the league's first championship with the help of the game's MVP, running back DeDe Dorsey.<br /> <br />Dorsey, who was released by the Cincinnati Bengals, found a roster spot on the Locos and went on to average 6.4 yards a carry and five touchdowns on the season, tops in each category. <br /> <br />“[The UFL] was a fun experience,” Dorsey said. “the league has some hall-of-fame caliber coaches, it's some quality football being played there and I think it will stay around for a while.”<br /> <br />Dorsey said it is possible that NFL players could be interested in playing in the UFL should they be locked out in 2011.<br /> <br />“I could see it,” Dorsey said. “It would be a good way for guys not to stay idle. It's a chance to stay in shape and play good football.”<br /> <br />In 2008, the NFLPA instructed player agents to consider the UFL as a viable option for their clients. Commissioner Huyghue told agents that his league would compete with the NFL for players drafted in the third to seventh rounds in the NFL Draft, and has since seen UFL rosters filled with many players formerly on NFL practice squads. Even veterans like Simeon Rice and Dexter Jackson have made their way to the new league. <br /> <br />No matter how big the name, though, none of these guys were rich last year. <br /> <br />The UFL paid a league-average of $35,000 to each player, with quarterbacks making a little more and punters and kickers making a little less; miniscule next to that of the NFL league-minimum of around $300,000. What attracts many players to the UFL, however, is not only a chance to play and stay in football shape, but also the fact that the league offers free housing to its players during the season equipped with what it claims 'first-rate facilities'.<br /> <br />“It helps,” Dorsey said of the housing program. “Not having to worry about something like that makes it easier, and I think that is something else that will help this league improve.”<br /> <br />Mueller, the UFL's general manager, said in an interview with <span style="font-style:italic;">Pro Football Weekly</span> last November that clubs will gain more autonomy as the league expands and becomes more established, but that a firm and equal salary base is important for the league to control costs.<br /> <br />Game rules were also somewhat unusual in 2009 in that they were designed to assist the quarterback. Defenses must always use four defensive linemen and can only blitz one additional player. This rule was set up to allow inexperienced quarterbacks to become more comfortable facing pro-style defenses and to ensure the QB's health. It is said that this rule will be eliminated in the upcoming season, though the UFL has not yet made such an announcement. <br /> <br />Like the rules, the cities where the teams play and the league's unsightly uniforms worn a year ago, there are many scheduled changes that will improve the UFL next year and beyond. Dorsey sees the league as a work-in-progress too, but is encouraged about its future. <br /> <br />“Whenever you're working from the ground up, you're going to face some trials, but [the UFL] is making strides and is only getting better.” he said.<br /> <br />If DeDe is right, the NFL has another big reason to end its squabbling and get a deal done soon. Otherwise, the UFL may get more of our viewership, more of our favorite players and ultimately more of our money; all things the NFL has worked hard to corner in the past 50 years. <br /> <br />As the AAFL and the AFL have proven in the past, the NFL, at times, can be effectively challenged; I believe this could be one of those times. If there is an NFL lockout in 2011, I certainly hope that is the case.Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-30449492206585482542010-01-19T08:53:00.000-08:002010-01-19T08:54:31.325-08:00Haiti<br /><br />An earthquake of all things---a damn fault line right under the world's poorest place. Of course, of course. Not even humans can be this cruel. Yet, like everything, I suppose, humans are Nature's byproduct, so in turn, not only can humans be that cruel, they are designed to do so. <br /><br />A pessimistic outlook, I concur, but it's hard to think of it in other ways when something as shitty as this flops upon the news stand. <br /><br />As a kid, Haiti was probably the poorest country I could recognize and only because a friend of the family had traveled there and he told me it was poor. “The poorest,” he said. So now, when I read that the Right Wing is concerned about their various military campaigns being sidetracked by the efforts to restore life to the poorest of people, it darkens the spirit of humanity. <br /><br />People will always show their true selves in moral crossroads. The fierce Libertarian ethos of “leave me and my money out of your problems” is maddening in a situation like this. <br /><br />Yet what am I doing about it? Texting Haiti to 90999 and feeling satisfied with myself? If I really believed in these words I would be standing in Haiti with a tool in my hand, complaining about my back and feeling really desperate for a beer. Instead, not only am I comfortably ranting on my laptop drinking a beer that is realistically more expensive than my lifestyle should allow, but drinking it out of a glass no less. <br /><br />Perhaps the unreasonable fruitcakes that are overtly selfish are actually better people than the ones who agree that it sucks, then pretend they kind of want to get involved but never lift a finger, and eventually completely forget that it even happened eight months later. I still don't think that's true; mainly because I don't want to get grouped behind the Right Wing on the shittiest-demographic-during-a-crises list. <br /><br />Still, Haiti has had it rough. Out of the Caribbean, it is the one place you don't want to visit. Every other place is known for its still very serious poverty but also its fun. Haiti is known for its dirt, and I only know that because of the first Fugees album. <br /><br />And now they get clobbered with an earthquake. Just them; the nation it shares an island with, the Dominican Republic, was somehow not effected. I have miniscule to zero knowledge behind the science of seismology or epicenters, but, if nothing else, it seems giving Haiti an earthquake is like taking the New Jersey Nets' draft pick; there's no fairness involved. <br /><br />That's the thing about this weird planet and this weird existence; it whimsically continues. As Nature's lead creation, we like to assume we have this life thing under control, and for the most part that's certainly the case, but every now and then something comes along that unexpectedly changes things and we're reminded of who's house this is. <br /><br />I don't mean to say God, though you can take it like that if you're inclined to, but plate tectonics, for instance, is a hell of a thing. There's science that we seem to understand regarding how it all works, but we still don't have a very good handle about predicting when all that groaning and stretching takes place. The rub of it all, is the major damage it always invokes. There are forces on Earth that, from this day, seem uncontrollable and impossible to fully understand or predict, and these unknowns are as natural as mankind or any old tree. <br /><br />What we can do about it all is instead of boosting up Haiti to return to its daily misery, we can work to make it a less shitty place to live by instituting social change that promotes sharing and a value on humanity rather than competing and a value on capitol---you knew this would turn into socialist rhetoric at some point.<br /><br />Good luck, Haiti; may you survive better than before.<br /><br /><br />Mojokong---Internationally renown.Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-65537923463863195572010-01-13T11:33:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:34:34.737-08:00Saturday, August 19, 2006 <br /> <br />Knee Deep in Gossip and Fleece<br />I've recently relocated to another part of the zoo and I now share a cage with the acclaimed Basilgrey. I settled on a particularly sunny area so I can work on my ashy complexion. That, and Basil needs his reading light. The cage is pretty comfortable. It smells okay for now, and the area is quieter than the ape house I lived in previously, but there is one concern.<br /><br />Basil is a goat and a damn sharp one at that. He 's been at the zoo for a long time and has seen just about everything within it's walls. He previously lived in the area with the other caribou and sheep and gazelles and such, before they moved him in with me. The sheep love him and constantly follow him around. When he made the move to the new cage, many of the sheep trailed closely behind. <br /><br />Now it should be known that I have no problems with sheep. Through Basil, I've even made friends with a few. He is a sort of unofficial leader to them, and often enjoys his role. They hang out by the cage all the time, even when Basil is away, and I admit that it's better than sitting by myself most times. It's apparently unusual for sheep to socialize at all with bipedal species or anything outside of the ovis genus in general, but they've really taken to me and I've been told I should be grateful. The problem is they wont go away. <br />They baagh their woolly heads off about who's mating who, about who's fleece is the best, and about how certain sheep don't deserve to be anywhere near the front of the flock. It's ridiculous. They might as well be chickens.<br /><br />I, like Basil, am the only one of my kind here at the zoo. He's somewhat anatomically similar to the sheep which allows him to rub hooves with them fairly easily. I on the other hand am more of a novelty to them and slip into the token ape role. That's not so bad, but an orangutan has dreams too, and this ape gets a little tired of counting sheep every night before I get there. <br /><br />I miss my primates, especially ol' Ming Krosky. He would tell me that I'm wasting my time around sheep. He's never been a sheep fan. He would smack me for even complaining about such a thing. "You're a big fucking ape," he'd say. "If somethings bothering you, fix it. Who's gonna stop you? A bunch of worthless bah bah's?" He's a cantankerous old cuss, but he's right. If Goat (the little dog I used to hang out with, not Basil the actual goat) were here, he'd ramble on about how sheep are nothing compared to the evils of the hood rat bitches he loses his mind over. He's always one to top a complaint with some gut wrenching tale of his own. I haven't heard from Goat since he was taken to the pound on a drunken driving charge. He smashed his van around a telephone pole on a bender one evening after chasing a young chicken head around the back streets of Price Hill. He claims she was cheating on him when they really didn't have any established relationship to begin with. It's too bad to. I could really use a good night out on the town. Away from all these damn sheepBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-1890658666501520692010-01-13T11:30:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:32:44.887-08:00Thursday, July 27, 2006 <br /> <br />A Mammoth Waste of Time<br /><br />South Korean scientists admitted to trying to clone a woolly fucking mammoth yesterday! They acquired mammoth DNA from a glacier in Antarctica and tried to clone one in three attempts but failed each time. Now I'm all for stem cell research, but I'm not sure cloning extinct species is a good idea for anyone. Wasn't Jurassic Park featured in Korean movie theaters? Earth seems to have a very finicky ecosystem, and re-introducing an animal that didn't make it the first go around all that well is just asking for trouble. Then again, what more could we humans possibly do to screw up this lemon of a planet even more than we already have? <br /><br />I could see a mammoth being cloned and hate life from day one. For starters, it's woolly. Our planet is warming. Why bring back an animal that sweats a lot, and wears a thick coat everywhere? It's like those homeless guys in the ghetto all wrapped up in an old puffy Charlotte Hornets parka in the middle of July. Who needs it? Then there's likely birth defects to deal with because lets face it, we mortals can't crank out good old nature like the Big Guy Upstairs Corporation can....yet. Pfizer and Merck have been negotiating purchasing some possible trade secrets with BGU Corp., but the bartering of souls have proven to be a tricky legal process. The mammoth would probably be blind and smell awful too. It would feel the need to spit all the time and the weird enzymes in it's saliva would cure any bird flu threat because it would immediately kill off every bird on the planet. Then the cloners would need to do dinosaurs again in hopes of a quick evolution into more birds. Rather counterproductive if you ask me. <br /><br />They might clone mammoths and then realize they cant be killed. Tar pits would be developed throughout the US in hopes that the mammoths will happen into them, but gruesome reports of pet and child accidents will ruin that suggestion as well. They could potentially serve as useful mountain guides but remember they're blind and the tours would take upwards of months to finish. <br /><br />Eventually, once the sheer usefulness of a mammoth became apparent, it would be subjected to being the worlds most popular gag gift and become a species of humiliation and low self esteem. They would be dropped off at bachelor parties and going-away events with messages actually pinned into the thick skin of the beast that read "Like marriage, this too is your problem now." Modern elephants would rally for the euthanization of all cloned mammoths for fear of being replaced at their jobs. "No dumbass mammoth can do what we do. I don't care how cheap you can get 'em. Go ahead there Woolly, balance your hairy ass on that ball there. I don't think so," said one angry elephant at a nearby rally. "I say put all of these test tube debacles out of their misery."<br /><br />Surly their could be a cooler extinct animal we could clone. How about those little hobbit like people who lived on the island of Flora like 10,000 years ago? They weren't midgets per se, but they were close enough to them to remain funny, and if we cloned them then maybe it would be morally justifiable to hunt them. That would be good cable TV viewing.<br /><br />MK- Clone me, and suffer the circumstancesBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-32329342899944673342010-01-13T11:21:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:23:24.865-08:00Sunday, July 16, 2006 <br /> <br />Bread Crumbs pt.2<br /><br />Is Israel being a bully? It sure seems that way when they destroy civilian infrastructure and claim that's what a country does when one or two of their troops are kidnapped. But we really don't know what it's like over there. Innocent, non-combatant folks from both sides are blown to smithereens regularly going about their daily business . The reports we get are difficult to discern any quality opinion from. It's a sprinkling of information of quotes and numbers from spokespersons, and intelligence officials who are the least trustworthy of all sources.<br /><br />I've read there are 9000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Since the conflict isn't termed as a war, these prisoners are not prisoners of war, and therefore can be handled, interrogated, ect, outside of Geneva convention and any other globally agreed upon, but largely ignored humanitarian laws. The US and little bro Israel have made it clear they're above any of that shit anyway. When Kofi Annan yells at us for being tortuous nation builders, the Bush administration responds by sending linebacker Ray Lewis to the Hague to thump his chest and yell, "We must protect this house!!!" <br /><br />Kofi and everyone else there, shits themselves and calls it a day. That's how we negotiate so well in these trying times. "We must protect this house!!!"<br /><br />What's an Arab to think these days? If your from a poor family and in the way of US/Israel interest you have to stick it out and hope for the best. All around the middle east, today, as we speak, American weaponry is blowing shit up. That'd make an Arab think that America wants to at least control his land, and he'd probably resent it. <br /><br />It's like the US is a mall developer, and they really want a super giant mall in the middle east, but the middle eastern countries are a little strip of small mom-n-pop stores who have been there for years and don't want a mall there. The mall developers try to be nice at first and offer something lame for their "inconvenience" and get progressively tougher as necessary. Eventually uniformed men and bulldozers physically make the mom-n-pops leave and a mall is constructed. Mom-n-pops get jobs at Wal-Mart and Home Depot and take to drinking the harder stuff and experimenting with meth. In no time spirits are broken, televisions are turned on, and people everywhere get fatter. The mall does okay for a couple of decades before going bankrupt and being converted into a trucking school. The area becomes popular for strippers, crack distributors, and graffiti artists. The mall developers move on to the next town and do it again and again The end. <br /><br />Hezbollah's and Hamas' tactics have been inexcusable for ever. We westerners feel they should fight a military battle to oppose occupation of their land and not terrorize the civilian innocent. But they can't organize an army without Israel vaporizing every soldier before they can even tie up their combat boots. Not to mention they're not legally allowed to obtain weapons from other countries. Israel has a blank check from the US for weapons. It's like those cheesy action movies, where the guy is about to go on some dangerous mission and stops over to his weapon buddy's house and gets to pick out what he needs from a secret room in the basement loaded with guns and rockets and shit. It's just like that. <br /><br />So Hezbollah acquires some missiles and just randomly fires them as deep into cities as possible. It seems like a waste of military resource, but they cant really damage strategic military targets within Israel. The Islamic fighters are simply over-matched, so the just try and wreak havoc in any form. I'm not condoning it, but I see their struggle to find a morally just military alternative. That can be easily misconstrued so please don't think I support or condone terrorism in anyway.<br /><br />It's also interesting how Israel has responded harder to abductions of a handful of soldiers than to marketplace bombings that have occurred for years. It's the shadowy motives of world leaders and the timing of key decisions they make I cant get a handle on. How should we interpret these actions we read about? What's really going on?<br /><br /> <br /><br />MK- We must protect his house!!!Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-11094655900226855552010-01-13T11:19:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:20:32.995-08:00Monday, July 10, 2006 <br /> <br />I emerge from under the rubble. *<br /><br />I think mosquitoes like me more because I drink good beer. The things you ingest in life are worth the most money. After all, you're only allowed to bring one pair of shoes to the afterlife. Mine will be basketball shoes. Probably Air Force Ones. Though I could see the advantages of basic flops too. Especially with all the nice swimming pools and beaches just waiting to be jumped in. You're not gonna want to untie big ass basketball shoes every time. I'm changing my answer to flops. It being an afterlife, we can probably play barefoot anyway.<br /><br /> <br /><br />What an amazing game futbol is. The whole world cup tournament was time well spent watching television. Their command of the ball is insane. And the running, and running, and running... One things for sure, the US isn't good enough at the sport to be the only ones to call is "soccer". A Brit first called it that, and England still calls it football. I propose we as a nation, refer to our football as Madden and to soccer as football. Old timers would gripe their old wrinkled faces off, but the kids would get it. And the next generation would make an easy transition. The NML it's one letter difference, what's the big deal? Now I admit that calling the actual ball a maddenball sounds too ridiculous, so there's a few kinks to iron out still, but that's nothing really. Watching players like Zadane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Toni, and all of them, showed me why the world loves this sport. I've become a big time fan. <br /><br /> <br /><br />You ever hear of "tennis elbow"? It doesn't sound like much of an injury, but that shit is for real. With all my injuries, I sometimes wonder if my body was constructed with leftover parts . "We got a big pile of scrap over there, why don't we just use that stuff for the next one?" I'm going to a chiropractor this week to be told I'll soon need a cane and a new spine. I'm gonna be one of those old timers who takes like 120 seconds to get on the bus and then another 48 seconds to get my money out, pay, and find a seat. Lately, I've felt mentally crotchety too. These young whipper snappers and their outlandish public behavior these days. Sometimes it takes all my restraint not to lecture some of the real prize winning ghettoness I see regularly. But a smart ape knows his place, and a crowded bus aint one of em. <br /><br />Mojokong- Looking out through the thin bars.<br /><br />* Title is a quote from KRS-1. All legal rights reserved.Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-47391494464921656872010-01-13T11:13:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:14:26.657-08:00Friday, July 07, 2006 <br /> <br />My Early Book Review<br /><br />Early Book Review<br /><br />I'll finish my novel in October and I expect it to be rejected, ridiculed, and even spit on. It will not be great or even very good. I imagine no more than four people will read it and they will only do so because they're friends.<br /><br />It wont sell. In fact, Ill have to pay for it to be read by a small-time editor who will make notes on the book, throw the book away, and tell me how much I suck.<br /><br />Hundreds of years after my death, a social phenomenon will sweep the literary world, motivating readers to dig up crappy books and marvel at their crappiness. My novel will be born again and new generations will find new ways to tell me I suck. Financial proceeds of any book sales will never go to any surviving relative of mine. Instead it will appear in the accounting journals of a global corporation who owns everything ever written. They'll have a special division of crappy writing where my picture will hang above the entrances to the buildings. They may even name the division "The B. Clifford Burke Division of Poor Literary Skill" in honor of my immense lack of talent, which future critics will hail as timeless. Of course, my name isn't Clifford, but that detail will be washed over during my own lifetime. What does the true name of a bad writer matter to anyone anyway?<br /><br />Perhaps my book will be used in my lifetime, but not for reading, of course. Discount stores in small rural towns will collect and reproduce thousands of copies and advertise them as "cheap kindling". The paper weight industry will pounce on the commercial value my book presents, calling it a "perfect weight to keep papers in place." Babies will become potty trained with it, the homeless will construct shanty towns out of copies of the book, and even dogs will be allowed to relieve some nervous energy by chewing it to bits.<br /><br />It will be a complete literary embarrassment to which books will be written on how not to write a story. It will be compared to such failures as Communism and the Hindenberg. In churches, sermons will be given to exemplify how my book is whats wrong with America. School children will be shown how to safely burn it. Couples will wear matching t-shirts about it. One will say I'm with stupid with an arrow pointing to the other shirt which will have a picture of the cover on the front.<br /><br />It will become the most reproduced piece of writing in the universe, yet only four people will read it. Those four wont remain my friends for long and will demand some type of retribution for having spent time on such a pointless activity. I will be court ordered to sell my gull bladder in order to financially settle the four pending law suits filed against me. The operation will kill me and the doctors will install a copy of my book inside my body where my gull bladder once lived. They'll explain later how it proved to be a good fit to make it appear that I had died of natural causes, hoping to avoid a lawsuit of their own. By the time this information will have surfaced, there will be no surviving family members to pursue any legal action on my behalf anyhow. I will be buried in a modest grave whos headstone will say this: B. Clifford Burke - A waste of time, ink, and now earth.Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-91240027253873711202010-01-13T11:10:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:12:57.956-08:00Friday, May 19, 2006 <br /> <br />This here's mine.<br /><br />I feel it's time to weigh in on the immigration issue. I see it in two words, "manifest destiny". It's not just the US either, pick up a NY Times and every article that mentions immigration (and there's lots of them), all take place in an Anglo-Saxon origin country. White people. They don't wanna share. Here, the whites in power know they can't kick out the black folks, because of obvious reasons (slavery). And they've done a pretty good job at breaking the spirit of the precious few Native Americans left. But it's different when minorities were not forced to come here. Those types are not gonna ruin things even further for the white man who has killed so many to establish this here America. Not on their watch. France is crapping their pants about the Muslim wave sweeping through much of western Europe. Laws in France have been passed that allow the govt. to base immigration on a value basis. "What can Brown do for me?", they ask. Dutch immigration officials are throwing out a Somali-born legislator for lying on her application seven years ago, even though she admitted to the mistakes publicly when being nominated into Parliament. England's getting tougher, Germany's getting tougher. Expect Canada to make noise about it soon (new p.m. Stephen Harper is more conservative than most recent Canadian leaders). White men in power historically have been, and will continue to be, hell bent on taking then keeping other people's lands. Enough of that.<br /><br />Military contractors have been commissioned to provide materials and technologies for border protection. We know about the warm and fuzzy relationship between Republicans and the weapons makers. <br /><br />Congressional elections are fast approaching, and the Republicans need a response to a whole bunch of ugly shit. War, oil, bribery, privacy invasion, debt, inner-city collapse, emergency response, global outlook, that kinda ugly shit. Immigration isn't a new phenomena, it just blew up because Team Bush needs some leg to stand on. Board meeting notes in oval office; "Fuck it. Let's just do the Mexicans."<br /><br />The world continues to shift as urgency over things like land, oil, and water continue to shrink. Capitalism is taking on more of a protective approach than the traditional "take yo shit" form we grew up with. A restlessness smolders everywhere, with a cautious eye toward tomorrow and an occasional glance at the clouds in wonder of the unstoppable ecological change headed to theater near you. Currency value is bouncing all over the place, and the smallest world event in the news papers tilts every market more and more everyday. Too many humans. Stay tuned.<br /><br />Mojokong in MayBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-34418076107535344722010-01-13T11:09:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:10:13.474-08:00Friday, May 12, 2006 <br /> <br />To the Nukaks chillin up in the brush.<br /><br />An Amazonian tribe called the Nukak, emerged from the brush recently in Colombia, ready to assimilate into the "real world". They were forced out of their habitat by the fierce civil war happening in Colombia, and were told there would be trouble for them if they stayed. Humanitarian aid groups have fed and sheltered the Nukak since they've arrived, and say they're a happy, peaceful people. The Nukak are flabbergasted that other people would just hand food over to them for free. They still return to the brush to hunt little tree monkeys, which they consider their favorite delicacy. They've had no exposure to the common viruses we breathe often, and even a common cold would probably kill them. They are unaware of their countries name, and would be horrified to discover it's in tribute to one of the worst people in history. They have never heard of Earth, or God. A similar tribe emerged from the brush some months ago, and now do nothing but wait for aid groups to feed them. They don't work, don't migrate, don't farm. They hang out. Human nature at it's most raw. Hand outs are easy gettin' used to. The Nukak says (via interpreter) they want land with water, nuts, and monkeys. How many stories start out with a tribe, group, family, sect, wanting their own little piece of land with the basics of survival? And how many of them end in sadness, and violence? The Nukak is gonna have to fight someday, probably for their land with water, nuts, and monkeys. They'll learn about guns the hard way. Disease my not give them a chance for even that.<br /><br />It's hard to remember that all of the planet and it's people lived like that, thousands of years ago. Strictly based on location they've been able to carry on the ancient way of life. Now they get to see how we fuck everything up. They get to learn about ideas that will add stress and regret to their lives. Money. How great their lives will be when viewed in monetary worth. Before, in their minds, their individual identities were obliviously sufficient. Now they're given a new measuring stick to gauge how well they've done in their existence. Money. <br /><br />THe final thought on the Nukak is that of "the clean slate" idea. When a baby is born in the amazon it's understanding of the world is the same as you or me, right? First things we learn are language, and how to get food. Then we learn to what were exposed to. What is shown to us, what is told to us. When were young we all look up to learn. An American baby looks up the same way an Amazonian baby looks up. They both see their parents, and base who they become off what they see. Point is, man made principles we've determined as truths are not natural, and therefore can't be true. <br /><br />* I strongly oppose, and condone in no way, the hunting of, and especially the eating of monkeys of any kind.<br /><br />MK - The ape with the capeBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-82341579860690063232010-01-13T11:07:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:09:12.575-08:00Monday, May 01, 2006 <br /> <br />Stork Hunting<br /><br />I don't think I've written about kids yet...so let's do that today.<br /><br />Do want 'em? Do you see yourself as a parent? For those that already are parents, how is it? <br /><br />* Don't worry, there are no future apes on the way.<br /><br />When I dream of having children, I see me playing in a comfortable yard with my kids on a clear sunset in autumn, laughing. Not on the verge of a nervous breakdown from sleep deprivation and constant loudness, while your kid won't stop puking/crapping all over everything. I think many times, more than we'd like to think, people allow themselves to buy into the grandiose version of being parents instead of allowing themselves to be jarred by some harsh reality. I did it with my dog. I love him, but I shouldn't have taken him when I did. Obviously, teens and other immature individuals, are the most likely culprits to the "better life" fantasy of having children, but right-minded, down-to-earth people can have these moments as well. Not to say this is always a bad thing, but it's not recommended unless your life is already pretty under control. The point is, I guess, is having children will rarely make living conditions more stable. So plan accordingly.<br /><br />Another thing is the whole population issue (take this time to scoff and roll your eyes). Without getting into the drawbacks of overpopulation - which are fairly obvious - I just wanna remind everyone that the world is gonna get progressively uglier as we begin to run out of natural resources. Less means more.<br /><br />It's important to acknowledge the instinct we all have to carry on our own genetic bloodline. I know men consider this a bit of a pride issue. Like they've fulfilled a duty that will carry on after they've died. I imagine the instinct in women is probably stronger, though I'm just assuming that. It should also be said that individuals instincts range from very strong to indifferent, to almost anti-children. But everyone has at least some of that instinct within them. <br /><br />Alright, I've rambled long enough today.<br /><br />Uncle MojBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-80167155071598739332010-01-13T11:04:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:06:08.058-08:00Friday, April 28, 2006 <br /> <br />Cininnatus the Microwave<br /><br />Did you know?:<br /><br />The Roman general Lucious Quinctius Cincinnatus, was a farmer his whole life except when the Romans were threatened by barbaric tribes. They would then call on Cincinnatus to lead Rome during tough battles. Rome would win the skirmish in sixteen days and he would then return to farming immediately. He feared for his family's farm during his call to duties and would only serve the Roman military when they absolutely needed him. Otherwise he was known as a regular citizen and a farmer. Like Vinnie Johnson off the bench.Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-23306564507595698952010-01-13T11:02:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:03:28.038-08:00Wednesday, April 26, 2006 <br /> <br />Global Positioning Scam<br /><br />Osama is not a real person. The "messages" we receive from him, are fabricated govt. attempts at scaring everyone a little bit more. Ever notice how when the news falls into a lull, Osama sends Aljazeera something threatening to the US? With our satelite technology and all the other Bond like inventions for finding people anywhere on Earth, certainly we could at least catch him outside making these video recordings every now and again. The US needs a boogieman and Osama is the perfect fit. I think he died a while back and they just keep perpetuating his image to frighten the common folk into agreeing with current foreign policy. <br /><br />Hopefully big brother won't get all Ezra Pound on me for sharing these opinions to y'all. Then again, I already live in a cage.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Mojokong - "He brought a note from his doctor...it's a suicide bombing".Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-27379372376654664442010-01-13T11:01:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:02:24.965-08:00Saturday, April 22, 2006 <br /> <br />Bonus Time<br /><br />It was my father's birthday yesterday. He told me he felt he deserved to live to fifty. Anything after that is bonus. He's in his second year of bonus.<br /><br />Happy Birthday - Bob Burke 4/21/1954Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-11747868741930596862010-01-13T11:00:00.000-08:002010-01-13T11:01:43.555-08:00Friday, April 21, 2006 <br /> <br />"And now they got me in a cell"<br /><br />In the past ten days, Cincinnati police have carried out huge sweeps of arrests in the west end, and over-the-rhine area in response to the killings of two white kids from the suberbs trying to buy drugs. 527 arrests have been made in the "clean-up" effort, and police have issued fines for things like jaywalking and spitting.<br /><br />The claim is that drugs have saturated our inner cities and the easiest way to remedy that problem is by locking up anybody with an unpaid moving violation, and boarding up another thousand or so buildings rotting away in the ghetto.<br /><br />A couple of things to think about here.<br /><br />We all know many black folks have been shot and killed over drugs. Most of us shrug over such crime. "If they wanta kill themselves off over drugs, let em." But the moment a white teen from the burbs is killed, city council loses their shit, and orders a Nazi sweep over the entire inner-city ("your papers!"). White life seems obviously more valuable than any other skin tone, check your history. It's not about drugs at all. The police and city officails see these murders as a reason to improve the living conditions and escalate property value in neighborhoods where developers are trying to lure wealthier (mostly white) young urban proffesionals. That's right...yuppies. Check the west end. The new condos built there are not for the former residents of the Lynn st. projects. No sir. Those people have been pushed into Price Hill to make way for the yups. <br /><br />The same in OTR. The city NEEDS more entrepeneurs to take the risk and open up in the hood to bring new money into the area. That's fine, nothing wrong with that. But the only way to make people feel comfortable to shop there is by removing the undesireable demographic that constantly hangs outside. There not going anywhere on their own so police give them a good reason to flee. "Move out or I'll arrest you". CIncinnati knows it's image is circling the drain and they can see a future like that of Flint, Mich., so they'll do whatever it takes to stay afloat, including arresting your inner city ass for sitting on a milk crate that doesn't belong to you.<br /><br />The other thing to think about is how "good" this looks for a police force who's image might be the worst in the US. They need better PR to allow the migration of yuppies back into the hood. It's a show of force that says "see, we got this. They can't riot again if they're all in jail. We run this shit. Move into these neighborhoods. We'll keep you safe." Police chief Tom Stricher seems awfully Rumsfeldish to me. The buildings that are being boarded up are hoped to be converted into usable business space, which I'm all for. But the crackheads are gonna go somewhere right? If there are no crack houses to smoke and sleep in, what places will their desperation lead them to? My yard? Your car? Drugs won't leave the Nati all together (see blog entry: druggies), but the gustapo may push them out of OTR and West End. Bad news for Northside, Price Hill, Evandale, and the like. The crack zombies are coming.<br /><br />Cincinnati is a racsist town, plain and simple. Black inner-city neighborhoods are used as zoos where social control dictates everyday life. The residents in these spots have the right to do what they're told or the right to be arrested. Largely, their futures are determined by city officails and police. And whatever place these folks get pushed into they should expect more of the same.<br /><br />MK - A big chip on a big shoulderBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-5884599589863591502010-01-13T10:58:00.001-08:002010-01-13T10:58:48.213-08:00Monday, April 03, 2006 <br /> <br />This Message Brought to You Buy...<br /><br />Yesterday I watched a local news report about the Iranian torpedoes and their hi-tech capabilities. I could hear the entire west side of Cincinnati ask their TV's in unison, "Can they reach the US?" Get to the fall out shelter you Bush-backers, but first donate to the Republican party, buy a bunch of overpriced shit for your "nesting" efforts, and sign your freedoms over to the federal government. Okay, now go be scared in your basements. Propaganda bullshit.<br /><br />I'm sick of every "news" report telling me how scared I should be living my life. It's all social control methods that encourage us to behave in a particular fashion. "The terrorists want to change our way of life". Please, what the hell do we do to any country we ruthlessly invade? Wouldn't you say that we're changing their way of life? I'm way more scared of the neo-cons that run our own country than Osama or his homies. I'd rather die instantly by a WMD than spend my years in prison for expressing my dissenting opinion of our national foreign policy. Okay, that's a little extreme, but you see my point. <br /><br />The media scares us when it's election time. They scare us when our economy needs a boost. They scare us when rallying support about an issue we otherwise would have no opinion on...like Iran. How many middle-class republicans are engaged in global politics? American high-school seniors have a hard time finding states in the US on the map, I doubt their all that familiar with real going-ons in the middle east. Yet once they're "informed", they get all fired up and are willing to send their kids to die for it. Suckers. <br /><br />I'm gonna live life smiling the best I can. If my smile vanishes because of a biological weapon, a bird flu, or a prison sentence, at least I didn't stress my minutes away. Jack Atherton can go fuck himself, because he's not foolin' me. Read more news sources. Decide on your own.<br /><br />Mojokong - "about to blow the fuck up..."Bryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37024086.post-74339827696763054262010-01-13T10:55:00.000-08:002010-01-13T10:56:21.554-08:00Monday, March 27, 2006 <br /> <br />The Greatest Getting Some (Try The Adlibs)<br /><br />Goat got laid last night, and he's worried he caught something. He got really drunk and emotional and decided as a social experiment, he'd hit on women in awkward locations. All day he'd been whining about his ex, and finally he got drunk and cracked. Well, he drove about a half block and scored with the second woman he'd seen. Experiment over. <br /><br />The first one was an old haggard lady that knicked his car door with a rock when Goat "hollard". I asked him not to (I was riding on top of course), but he proceeded to say one of the most crass things a dog has ever spoken to a woman before. Whatever you just imagined it was he said, is it exactly. (Adlib 1)<br /><br />The lucky lady at the bus stop was a big one. She could have been a not-so-distant cousin of mine. She had on the worlds poofiest coat which looked like bubble tape wrapped around a baby sperm whale, all squeezed into one of those bus stop shelters. Goat rolled down his window again. It wasn't as bad to her because he used his best material on the hag earlier, but it still might make your mom cry.(Adlib 2). The fat girl stared back wide eyed, and turned around. I thought she was going to cry, but instead she pulled her pants down to her ankles and began jumping. Plate tectonics come to mind. Tremors... everywhere. Goat lost his mind.<br /><br />He ran out of the car and scooted the huge bouncing, rippling ball of sex freakazoid she apparently was, into the back of the van. Laughing maniacally, he raced the half block back and scooted her this time into his shitty apartment. I just stayed on top of the van until he came out minutes later. He asked me for twenty bucks, and he was making those dog throw up noises when he went back inside. <br /><br />Today he says he feels "funny", and wants to see the vet, but is ashamed. Me and Ming Krosky didn't let up on him at all about it today in the cage. Krosky is the king of caps (Adlib 3). Goat left cussing us out...it was really hilarious. <br /><br />Mojokong the Laugher<br /><br />with guest appearance,<br /><br />Ming Krosky the PointerBryan Burkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15838307469309784661noreply@blogger.com0