Music, Basketball, Maddox, Top Chef, bleh

I'm in Kansas City, again, and I wandered hot and humid through the steamy jungle that is the Eastern edge of the Ozarks.

Yay.

Let's just say that

So let's cover this:

MUSIC: At this point, I'm sorta seeing everything blend together into two categories: The Hold Steady and Everybody Else. Kings of Leon? Jonathan Coulton? Avril Lavigne? Angels and Airwaves? All the same...blend it all together and what do you get: Not the Hold Steady, and therefore, not the ultimate music. The Raconteurs "Hands" kinda sounds like the Hold Steady might have played a role in its creation, though.

Basketball: Did I mention that KU won the NCAA basketball title this year? For the next five years, I don't fucking care, KU won it all. I might just cling to that for the next 10 years. I really want to write about 10,000 words about how weirdly improbable that was, but I won't, because nobody else I know is as big a fan as I am. And no, I would have still remembered this team if they had lost.

NBA: Well, actually, I'll save this for the end so you non-NBA people (basically everyone) can ignore it easier.

Maddox: The best page in the universe. I've been reading through it again lately...man that guy's funny.

Top Chef: So....I watched the last three episodes and the new one tonight, and I could probably write another ten thousand words about this. Let's try, really hard, to keep this brief:

Richard and Stephanie: Richard spent most of the season being very non-critical of his fellow competitors, probably because compared to them, he's high class. In fact, there's probably only a couple of hundred chefs in the US who have more experience than him, whereas the rest of the Top Chef competitors are basically children by comparison. But once down in Puerto Rico, and to some extent in the last episode in Chicago, he's sorta taken off the gloves. I would say he was borderline insulting to Lisa. However, my wife pointed out that the whole season they've been playing up this "Is this the year a woman wins Top Chef?" angle. And it may be that they're creatively editing Richard to push the male v. female thing.
At any rate, I have a hard time imagining this contest coming down to anyone but Stephanie or Richard, and really, Stephanie is a long-shot. And that's how it has been since day 1. I think of Stephanie's cooking as more comfort and basic, whereas Richard's cooking is just plain spectacular. The one time Richard nearly got canned on the show was when he left scales on the salmon, at this point that seems more and more like the kind of thing that could hurt him: Details that he usually has underlings watch.

Lisa and Dale: Wow...talk about burning bridges and creating drama. The restaurant wars episode was hilarious. That was like open warfare in the kitchen between Lisa and Dale and I think it was so obviously a universal disaster. You could tell that they knew it too. As soon as Bourdain walked in to guest judge it was like Dale gave up, he just seemed to lose it. Really, in the Puerto Rico episode I would have preferred Stephanie paired Dale and Lisa together, because it would have just been so obviously ridiculous. The big question would have been whether or not Dale would have openly sabotaged Lisa. I think yes, but I could be wrong.

Spike: You have to bring up Spike's amazingly masterful performance in the Restaurant Wars episode. First, he figured out that he wasn't going to be able to cook with those two egomaniacs in there ignoring him. So he focused on the decor and the presentation, and did well at it. Second, when the judges asked who decided on the decor, he knew that they liked it, and so he deflected the credit to all three of them, but Lisa and Dale were on-edge and defensive, and their reaction immediately said "that was all Spike." Which is what Spike wanted, because the judges then knew that it was he who made those decisions. Meanwhile, he ended up with no credit (or blame) for the disaster that was the meal. Now, if Spike had been clever enough to toss the scallops in the steakhouse, he might have moved on to the final.
Overall I had mixed feelings about Spike. He refused the stupid game of assigning blame to teammates when the judges asked him, with one noticeable exception (when Zoi got eliminated). I think that by the end, he seemed like the least experienced competitor, and therefore got sent home. He never seemed quite as sure about what he should do as, say, Richard or Stephanie, or even like Nikki and Jen were. And sometimes he was kind of an asshole.

Antonia: I was really bored by Antonia early on in the competition, and she totally threw her teammate under the bus in one of the early episodes (Remember Valerie?). However, she just hid out in the middle of the pack on several episodes, bombed totally on an episode where she had immunity, and eventually turned up the skill level in the last three episodes in Chicago. However, I still think she's kinda weird in her food sense, and I can't really complain on the cooking side about her being kicked out before Lisa. Al dente beans? Really? Seems gross to me.
Oh, and I thought it was kinda interesting that Padme had to compose herself before telling Antonia to pack her knives, and afterwards Tom immediately whispered something to her. Did Padme want to see Lisa gone? Was she about to cry?

Everybody else: I think a number of the eliminated chefs really proved themselves to be excellent cooks on this show: Jen, Spike, Dale, and Nikki spring to mind. But I don't think any of those guys had a chance in hell at winning this thing. The requirements are too varied. For instance, I would probably love, love, love to eat at Nikki's restaurant because I love that rustic Italian style, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do when the contest is 'Classic Elements'. Similarly, I don't know if I'd trust Dale to make me a pirogi, but I bet the food at his restaurant would be pretty amazing.

On the other hand, I feel really bad for the first two chefs eliminated (Nimma and Valerie), since we really didn't even get to know them as cooks. I mean, shrimp scampi (that eliminated Nimma)? Who the fuck cares?

This show would be more interesting if the first 2-3 episodes were non-elimination, but scored, and then the bottom 4 were eliminated all at once. Ok, maybe not more interesting, but at least we'd get to see all the contestants.

Of all the contestants, I would have a hard time picking a chef to cook for me. Richard is definitely my favorite, but I'm not 100% sure I would like his food that well, since I've got so many things I refuse to eat (like beef, food heated in plastic, etc.). Stephanie would probably be excellent, but I am such a sucker for really amazing Italian, that I'd be hard pressed to turn down Nikki.

Now some notes about those judges: So Bourdain is a 'personality' and certainly has a lot of experience with foods from everywhere, but in the pantheon of guest judges they brought out, they included mexican chefs, steak chefs, french chefs, asian chefs, pastry chefs, gastronomists, and BBQ experts. Where the hell was the Italian guest chef? Didn't all that fancy French cooking come over to France from frickin' Italy? Where's the Italian guest chef?

NBA: Man, I've been writing for a while here. Let me just write one sentence about each of the eliminated teams.

Nuggets: This team has the worst chemistry of any talented basketball team I've ever seen and they should trade everyone but Melo.

Suns: Shaq killed these guys and they have to pay him for two more years.

Mavs: Gee, let's ask Kobe Bryant how easy it is for an NBA team to do well when there is only 1 legitimate scoring option.

Rockets: Nobody believes T-Mac and Yao are ever going to figure it out.

Hawks: That was a cute playoff run but you still suck.

76ers: With just a little more cohesion, this team could turn into the Pistons.

Wizards: Nobody is going to take you seriously until you stop acting like idiots.

2 sentences for the 2nd rounders:

Jazz: I have no idea why this team isn't in the Finals. What are they looking for at this point?

Hornets: Great talent and a good coach, but they need a young perimeter player. And they need to get rid of Pargo.

Magic: I'm not sure Dwight Howard is good enough to build a team around. And this team is the worst in the league at managing assets.

Cavs: If LeBron James played for the Suns last year he'd have averaged 50 points a game. Cleveland's offense is a crime against basketball.

3 sentences for the 3rd rounders:

Spurs: Manu and TP have to get more consistent. The Duncan Era is over, unless they find a real draft pick. I hate this team.

Pistons: They've had a good run, no matter what anyone says. People forget that Flip turned them from a brutal offensive team into an efficient offensive machine. They need to upgrade Rasheed.

And the finalists:

The Celtics: I've felt all year that this is the only chance this team will have to win it all (guys are getting older). They've come together so quickly that the league didn't have time to react, and they used their intensity to jump all over teams. They've certainly got the pieces, but since the playoffs started they've all seemed pretty awful. I have no idea why. They've survived because of Paul Pierce and sheer will, but unless the four days off allows them to regain their intensity (a possibility), they are badly outmatched in the finals. If they can win the first 2, I think they can win the series, if they lose either of the first two, it's already over for this group. The only way that happens if it Paul Pierce raises his game (as he typically does against the Lakers).

The Lakers: I'm not sure why, but nobody really wanted to believe this team was this good 2 months ago. I read a lot of articles about how they still "needed Bynum to return" or how Lamar Odum was the weak link that would become their fatal flaw. The reason that was all crap is that Pau was a huge upgrade over Bynum in the present even when Bynum was playing great. The reason Bynum was more valuable is because of his moderate skill level today combined with his probably great skill level in the near future, whereas Pau isn't likely to get a lot better. The only teams that were going to have a chance against the Lakers were cohesive teams that could take advantage of their very minor weaknesses (poor defense and Kobe's ball-hogging). You can't take advantage of the Laker's without an extremely well-oiled machine of an offense and a defensive philosophy that bends but doesn't break. Exactly how many of the teams in the league had that kind of combination? The Jazz did, but even so they couldn't quite get it done. The Spurs might have, but apparently Manu was hurt or something. The Mavs, and especially, the Suns, had that kind of team, and I firmly believe that the Suns with Marion would have been capable of handling the Lakers (but maybe not the Spurs).
But it isn't like those are huge weaknesses. And I seriously doubt the Celtics are going to be prepared to disect them. I'll be shocked if we ever even get a "Kobe's pissed off" face going in these Finals, because he's probably just going to shred that Celtics team.

And that sucks, but you know what: At least this isn't like the 01-03 Lakers teams that featured Shaq. I don't know if you remember, but in those days Shaq was getting every stupid call, he couldn't dribble or shoot from further than 3 feet away, and basically he was annoying in every way. I hated those teams, because it seemed like the best play had less basketball skills than me, and was just getting by on being huge. This Lakers team is different. Guys like Lamar and Pau and Ariza are freaking players. Sasha and Farmer and Derek Fisher are all bringing something to the table, and guys who are sometimes amazing (like Luke Walton and Turiaf) are going to be coming off the bench. The only ball-hog is Kobe, and he's efficient enough when he needs to be that it isn't as bad as it used to be.

Which doesn't mean I'm in favor of the Lakers. I'll be rooting against them. Go Boston, city of idiots.