Feeling Cavalier

Last night was a crushing defeat for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and it's time to reflect on the series to date. This series is beginning to feel a lot like the 2004 Pistons-Lakers matchup in the NBA Finals and the 2007 Mavericks-Warriors first-round matchup. The Magic is playing the role of the Pistons and Warriors: feisty teams that have taken the momentum from the more talented favorites. In 2004, the balanced and scrappy Pistons trounced the much-favored Lakers who had a star-laden roster with the likes of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Gary Payton and Karl Malone. In 2007, the top-seeded Mavs, the best team in the league in the regular year, faced an upstart Warriors club that played a frenetic style with a bunch of half insane players.

I realized this last night when Mickael Pietrus made a number of big plays on both sides of the ball. Why Pietrus? He was a key player on the 2007 Warriors. The Magic remind a lot of those Pistons and Warriors: balanced scoring, decent defense and nothing to lose. They keep coming at you in waves, with similar players and matchup nightmares in Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Pietrus. All 6-9 or so and 3-point bombers.

The Magic have been laughing and smiling a lot, even in tense moments. The Cavs, court jesters when winning, look completely dejected. The Cavs won 66 games in the regular season and have home court advantage throughout the playoffs. And so they've played much tighter than Orlando, which came into Quicken Loans Arena with fearlessness for Games 1 and 2. Save for one miracle shot by LeBron James, the Magic would lead 3-0 right now. Winning 66 games takes a lot out of a team--especially one that has never done it before. Maybe fatigue is part of this, too.

Some are suggesting not to panic. For these grave-whistlers, everything's fine and Cleveland has Orlando right where it wants 'em. But these sanguine folks likely are in for a shock in the next few days. It's hard to picture a scenario in which the Cavs turn this around. I'll be pulling for them hard tomorrow night in Game 4, though.

P.S. The officiating in this series has been terrible. NBA refereeing has become a perverse, ass-backwards experience. These people actually relish making bad calls now. It seems to have become exacerbated in the playoffs. I've never seen so many obvious out-of-bounds deflections called the wrong way. And clean blocked shots called fouls. It's becoming routine.

Magic coach Stan Van Gundy raised a good point yesterday. Every time James dribbles it results in a score or a foul. I know James is great, and I'm rooting for him, but it is bizarre that this could be the case. Then again, last night, even the refs allowed the Magic to get two clean blocks on No. 23.

Little solace

I've been waiting a long time to post something about this. Browns receiver Donte Stallworth killed a pedestrian while allegedly driving drunk a couple months back. This is a sad, appalling story. But hopefully the NFL is taking this seriously, at least according to this article that just appeared on Yahoo. One of the biggest travesties of all time involves Rams defensive lineman Leonard Little, who was drunk 10 years ago when he killed another driver in a car accident. The NFL treated the incident with a shrug--Little served an eight-game suspension. He's since enjoyed a long career, the horrific accident increasingly becoming a footnote. Sure, he shouldn't be punished forever. But society shouldn't forget about it either.

Cheese seas

Sometimes dusting off an old album is the perfect elixir for a musical malaise. I never really listened to Primus' 1999 release, "Antipop," until the past few days though it's been sitting in my CD collection. I thought of Primus a lot during our trip to California. The Bay Area trio often references NoCal locales in their songs--places like San Pablo Bay, El Sobrante and Coddingtown. I realize now that frontman Les Claypool's Rancho Relaxo is in Wine Country. Especially when we drove past Dee's Diner in Sebastopol, Calif., during our trip. Les has a solo song that is a tribute to the diner.

I rediscovered "Antipop" when I was reading Primus' Wikipedia entry. The piece suggested that the album was well-received by longtime Primus fans. That surprised me since Primus' hey-day was in the early 1990s. Purists prefer the stripped down weirdness of 1990's "Frizzle Fry" whereas latecomers prefer the stained-out oddities of 1993's "Pork Soda." I love it all, even the mid-1990s stuff.

Despite its name, "Antipop" always seemed the most "pop" of Primus' albums. Several stars guest on songs and several even guest-produce. The list ranges from Tom Morello to James Hetfield to Fred Durst.

In giving it another listen, I am blown away.

Maybe it's the new affection for NoCal, I don't know, but what an album. It's heavier than the records they made in the mid-1990s (most of which were filled with trippy ditties, upright bass and fuzzed-out drums--fuzzed-out drums, only Primus could achieve that!). "Antipop" delivers a return to the sound of "Fry" and "Cheese"--lots of heavy riffs and even the use of small cymbals and other unusual additions to the drum kit. Primus even discovered a new sound--a distorted guitar that sort of sounds like someone waving a piece of sheet metal.

Claypool announces his return to rocking with a yell at the beginning of the opening song, "Electric Uncle Sam." The fifth track, "The Antipop," opens with a Pink Floyd/Rush freakout and climaxes with a wall of metal that would make Metallica blush. Same with "Eclectic Electric," which actually includes Hetfield (of Metallica) on the ax. Strangely, "Lacquer Head," the first single released off the album (the video was banned by MTV despite it's anti-sniffing message) is not one of my faves. Anyway, Primus still "sucked" as they will be the first to tell you, and they were still discordant (as my college dorm-mates used to say) in 1999.

Airport alienation

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Wire walk

If you haven't seen "Man on Wire," rent it. Now. It's a movie anyone can enjoy.

"Man on Wire," which won the best documentary Oscar, is about Philippe Petit, a Frenchman who tightrope-walked between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. What's as amazing as the walk itself, is the level of planning that went into the stunt. Even standing outside, on top of a 1,300-foot-tall building and shooting an arrow across to the other one is absurd.

Light show

It's such a great feeling to happen across a band that blows you away. Inspired by the Sabaijai blog, here is a video by Battles. I heard about this band because the drummer used to be in Helmet, one of my favorites of alltime. I especially like the 2:50 mark or so when the guitar kicks in and the lights come on.

Economy pageant

When I was growing up, only a handful of young women participated in the Miss SNPJ Pageant. We would visit the SNPJ Recreation Center near Enon Valley, Pa., and gawk at the old photos of Miss SNPJs past. It seemed like dozens of teens signed up for the pageant back in the 1960s and 1970s. By the early 1990s, there were only about four or five contestants per year.

This week, I opened my issue of the newsletter Prosveta to discover nearly a dozen contestants signed up for this year's pageant. I have a theory that perhaps the surge in interest is due to the economy. Here's why: several Miss SNPJ contestants will receive generous scholarships for college.

And perhaps this was the case back in the 1960s and 1970s, too. The success of the market in the 1980s and 1990s may have kept participation low. What's more shocking is that membership in fraternal insurance societies like SNPJ (which stands for Slovene National Benefit Society, in Slovenian) is generally down. Yet the pageant is soaring.

I'm not an economist, nor do I play one on the radio, but I thought I'd share one of the odd theories I come up with from time to time.