Hirpisms

Remember when I said that the Geico Gecco should get it’s on movie back in January? Well, if you don’t here’s the proof: http://hirp-com.blogspot.com/2007/01/next-big-star.html. Turns out, their Caveman characters are actually going to be filming a pilot for ABC. Should be interesting, but I swear to God they are taking the wrong character. http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=253853>1=7703.

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Over the weekend I watched an HBO special, “Bastards of the Party,” an interesting documentary about the history of gangs in LA. Directed and featuring Cle “Bones” Sloan, who you saw in Training Day as the leader of the Bloods in the project where Denzel Washington character had an apartment. Basically, he was playing an earlier version of himself. Now he’s still a member of the Bloods, but working to change gangs from the inside. Seriously, the man is a hero. And the film is chilling and worth watching.
In high school, and to some extent today, I was almost as fascinated with gangs as I am with the Mafia. I’m telling you, you didn’t want to mess with this badass Hebrew in JoCo.

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Watched the KU-Texas game over the weekend, and Kevin Durant shouldn’t be legal. He's the best freshman I’ve ever seen. Better than Shaq, Webber, Carmelo, Kenny Anderson or Chris Jackson. He’s the most dominating college player we’ve seen since Shaq. He can score from anywhere, block shots, rebound and he has plenty of room to get stronger. For KU sake I hope he turns pro, but I’d love to see him stay.

I miss the days when guys stayed in school for four years, and not just because I wish I had. There was a time, I admit, that I kind of cheered for some guys to turn pro early so that we could see what kind of careers they would have. But think, if LeBron James had gone to Ohio State, right now we’d see the Buckeyes with a senior in LeBron and a freshman in Greg Oden. And Texas, which is in Austin, have I mentioned how much I like Austin? Oh, well Texas would have LaMarcus Aldridge, D.J Augustin and Kevin Durant on the same team. And back in the late 90’s, we could have seen a Duke team with Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon, Shane Battier and some guy named Kobe. And maybe Kobe would have had a nice little rivalry with Vince Carter for two years. That just may have been a pretty good team. Have I mentioned how much I love the “what if” game? Big fan, BIG fan.

Now I also need to mention that I think this would have improved the NBA by leaps and bounds. Players would have more discipline, discipline that they can’t get when you give a 19 year old a few million bucks and no one to keep them in line off the court. Fans would have had more time to get to know players. We’d see rivals grow, as we did with Bird-Magic. And that’s probably not the best example, since Magic went pro early too. Yet most importantly, these guys might have worked on some fundamentals a little more. Perhaps we’d see more players that can actually make a free throw or an open jump shot in the NBA.