Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Yeah, Phil. Enjoy!
Phil Bender-Simon
@philbendersimon
Idk how this season is going to end, but that was one of the greatest @sixers wins i’ve ever seen in my life
10:17 PM · Apr 30, 2024
·
6 Views
OH My Lord
Dick Weiss
@HoopsWeiss
Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey played 52 minutes in 112-106 ot victory v the Knicks at the garden. had 22 of his 46 points in fourth quarter and overtime.
10:15 PM · Apr 30, 2024
·
685 Views
Pathetic. MSG Broad Street. smh
dawnstaley
@dawnstaley
I need the @WellsFargoCtr full of @sixers fans….season tickets holders DO NOT SELL YOUR TICKETS to Knicks fans….I repeat DO NOT SELL YOUR TICKERS to Knicks fans! Pour into our @sixers! We can really do this ish man!!!
10:01 PM · Apr 30, 2024
·
7,289 Views
Devan Kaney
@Devan_Kaney
I don’t wanna see a single Knicks fan in Philadelphia Thursday
10:00 PM · Apr 30, 2024
·
9,697 Views
OVERTIME! 97-97. Woo-Hoo What a game!
Josh Hart made 1 of 2 fts to give Quakes a 97-94 lead and then ⚡️ STRUCK! A 34’ trey! Maxey has 41!
Amway or the highway! 48-47 HT
I bet the “Magic” win this game. 🚀 Mortgage has the green shits. They’re gonna fold like the soft pussies they are.
Quakes 17 Quakers 26, End 1Q
Joel's playing. I worry about Joel. He has had so many injuries over his career and said he experienced depression while recuperating from his last one, this season. He labors like an old man. He does not look well. Take care of yourself, 21.
Hurtings
Jaime Jaquez, Jr. out for G5 for the 45's vs Beans.
Jimmy Butler out.
Terry Rozier out.
Joel Embiid missed shootaround today with migraine. He was recently diagnosed with Bell's Palsey.
Kawhi Leonard out for G5 vs Fat Cuban Horse.
Bojan Bogdanovic, Manhattan Earthquakes, out for season (foot surgery).
Kristaps Porzingis, Beans, out "several games". Beans has enough without him.
Fat Thot Fucker didn't play a game for Disgruntled Pelicans in OKC's 🧹.
 (https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-gold)
April 30, 2024, 4:39 p.m. ET
Michael Gold
And even as Trump has complained that the gag order has kept him from commenting on the trial, a post on his social media account, published while he was in the courtroom, called the trial a “witch hunt” and complained that it was “hours of sitting down and listening to nothing except EXONERATION AND LIES.”
So others do it for him? Interesting.
This is good reporting by Alan Feuer. We need the panoramic view too. Love his “gossip industrial complex” line!
 (https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-feuer)
April 30, 2024, 12:52 p.m. ET
Alan Feuer Reporting on the Trump trial
Just stepping back here for a moment: The gossip industrial complex that Keith Davidson is describing is remarkable — and remarkably crass. He’s out there leveraging his client’s sexual liaisons for money and employment opportunities in a way that resembles a Mafia shakedown.
An American President
"Trump's not really an American president".--Joe Biden to Ron Klain, explaining why he had to run for president.
President Biden is at the end of career in public service. Whether it is six months or four years and six months, the end is in sight. The touchstone of his presidency has been to have no regrets that he did the right thing as he saw it by available light, regardless of personal political consequences.
And he has succeeded. On every issue foreign and domestic he has done and continues to do the right thing and America is stronger, healthier, calmer, and less disunited. He has been stalwart. On Ukraine, he has not wavered; on Israel, he has been consistently consistent. As his political support has ebbed and been dented he holds on firmly to the touchstone: Do the right thing and there will be no regrets.
He is also fighting an existential battle for Democracy in America. Yet, at best, he is in a neck-and-neck battle with an opponent who would make the country weaker, sicker, febrile, rent, and undemocratic, and the greater weight of the evidence is that this American president is headed for defeat in November. If defeat comes he will accept it. There will be no Biden Jan. 6. He will have no regrets that he did the right thing.
“One more, just one more”
One more regular-season victory, just one more, and the Heat would have been the No. 5 seed. Two more, and they would have had homecourt advantage in the first round, at No. 4. The lesson is that November, December, January and the other regular-season months also matter. Whether that truly sets in going forward . . . we shall see. Ira Winderman.
Monday, April 29, 2024
(One of) My "Heat" Theory(ies)
Pat Riley is a man who holds ancient grudges: from back in his "Lakers" days toward Boston ("Danny Ainge should shut the fuck up and manage his own team."); against LeBron James and to some extent Dewayne Wade for the break-up of the Heatles. The concept of a Big Three was not unknown to Riles. He had a Big Twelve in the Showtime Lakers, including a Best of All Time center in Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He had the same in New York with Patrick Ewing. And his first move in Miami was to trade for dominant Big Alonzo Mourning.
But the summer of 2014 changed Riles. He deeply resented the rug being pulled out from under him with LeBron's "I'm Coming Home". He blamed D-Wade for not heading it off when LeBron was tilted. And Riley set out to target James' new team, Riley's old, old team, the "Lakers", when they met in the Bubble in the 2020 Finals. The word was planted among the pliant local pencils that that the Godfather wanted La-La Bron-Bron most of all, to beat him and humiliate him and show him that Miami didn't need him to win another championship. Jimmy Butler got hurt and we lost that series 4-2.
My theory is that it was Riley's psyche to win a championship without those troublesome, independent, extraordinarily well-paid slaves. He would do it, or attempt to do it, with "diamonds in the rough" found in abandoned fields in California auditions, selective free agents, the undrafted, and the G-League. The result: 10 straight seasons of 45 average wins, two Finals appearances (which was the sum of Barry Jackson's answer to my first email (he didn't bother to respond to the second), and which he did not need to remind me as I wrote my acknowledgement of those runs in the second paragraph of my first email to him, which he didn't read)). But now, the yawning talent disparity, the cavalier treatment of the fans for 41 desultory home games every season at full price for approximately half a team effectively, the basically .500 record when this iteration of the “Big Three” has played together, and the current spectacular unmasking of The Team That Riley Built has Jackson announcing "perhaps the end of a Heat era."
It seems to me that Riley, traumatized at being rejected by LeBron for Dan Gilbert (Oh!) went the anti-LeBron route, that he deliberately eschewed any additional Super Team building and that he convinced himself that "We have enough" with Dion Waiters, Hassan Whiteside, Tyler Johnson, James Johnson, Jimmy Butler, Justice Winslow, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Patty Mills, Delon Wright, Duncan Robinson, on and on, enough to compete with and to triumph over teams with Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis; over another team with Jalen Brunson, Isaiah Hartenstein, Julius Randle (not healthy for the second half of the season), and OG Anunoby; over another team, defending Champion Denver with a former MVP and a top 75 all-time player; and even an exciting, young, up-and-coming team which plays pinball offense.
None of it is true but that is the path not traveled by any other team that Riley has composed. I believe Riley has deliberately chosen this path. It's not enough and it has failed and it has gotten 45 wins for 10 straight seasons and it is not good enough.
Barry Jackson
This Heat season, and perhaps this era of Heat basketball, stands one loss from expiration after a sixth consecutive home playoff loss and a second offensive dud against Boston in three days.
[I’m glad he wrote that. I do think that this is going to finally get through the thick skulls at 601 Biscayne that WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH! NOT CLOSE!]
Undermanned and seemingly out of both firepower and answers…
The eighth-seeded Heat fell to 23-21 at Kaseya Center this season and dropped to 1-12 at home against teams with sure-fire Hall of Fame players. Miami has been outscored by 148 points in those 13 games, a signal that major roster change is likely needed.
…
the errant-shooting Heat never did anything to suggest it could actually win on Monday.
…
…at a talent deficit against Boston…
[It’s not just against Boston, not just against teams with sure HoF’ers, WE’RE AT A TALENT DEFICIT AGAINST THE FUCKING INDIANA MAD ANTS!]
Playing before..,another sellout crowd, the Heat trailed by double figures for the final 44 minutes of the game.
[He mentions that. I have mentioned that. I mentioned that to him. Will that be in jeopardy? I don’t know. I do think if the Bus is sold out next season, you’re going to hear an “involved” crowd, one with a boo hair trigger.]
As was the case in Saturday’s 104-84 loss to Boston, the Heat again shot blanks, repeatedly missing open shots.
[I listened to several minutes of the game on “Heat” radio excuse me “the Heat audio experience”🙄. I thought I heard the lead Heat audio experience hominem state that Tyler shot an airball and I immediately heard a cascade of boos.]
…
Per TNT, Adebayo had some “choice words” for teammates after Miami’s 104-84 Game 3 loss, and Love implored teammates that they “can’t go out” like this.
None of those words made the least bit of difference, not against a vastly superior opponent and not on a night the Heat shot threes as if they were blindfolded.
…
…there wasn’t nearly enough offensive firepower for the Heat to keep up.
Many of the Heat’s missed threes were open looks…
The Biden campaign ought to do an ad buy, a different ad each day from now until the election, calling attention to something stupid or outrageous that Trumpie said, or a lie that he told, on the exact same date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, or 2023. There will not be a paucity to choose from but a superabundance.
Green White 3, 31-47, 3:57 2Q, "Heat" FTO
Good night everybody! Fuck the "Heat"! Have a blessed night you fucking fucks!
14-23, 4:58, Another 🎡🔥 TO
FORFEIT! Fucking fuck Spoelstra. “We have enough.” YOU WOULDN’T HAVE ENOUGH IF THE FUCKING BOSTON PLANE CRASHED!
THREE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS KILLED, FIVE WOUNDED IN CHARLOTTE
U.S. Marshalls were serving a warrant for a single suspect and were met with a hail of gunfire. Support our police.
Paper Moon
"If you WERE my pa, it'd be different" (you could legally have the $200). Positive sense. Beginning of movie.
"If I knew you WASN'T my pa..." (dropping me off wouldn't be such cruel child abandonment). Double-negative sense. "I'm not your pa," Moze replies. Penultimate scene. He refuses to walk her to her aunt's door. He knows she will recognize him (from prior meeting(s)) or will see the resemblance as the mourners did at the grave site in the opening scene.
In the scene where Moze is lying beat up below street level, having lost everything (his and Addie's), Addie keeps her "sunny side up". We can get it all back, do a little widow business, drop some twenties. Moze looks at her and Addie, such feminine intuition, says, "You're going to drop me off at my aunt's, ain't you?" Moze nods. "Now don't you cry.", Moze tells Addie. "I won't," Addie defiantly. The only time Addie cries in the movie is when that show of emotion suits her-their transactional interests.
Does he drop her off so as not to involve her in his criminality any longer, as a loving father might do? He doesn't have the "scruples" for that.
In the very last scene, Addie, running away from her aunt's house, runs after Moze's truck. He has paused to take a cigarette break, finds the paper moon picture card "To Moze from Addie" that she stuck between the seats. He is torn, he sighs heavily, looks about, and sees the little figure running toward him from behind in his side mirror. As she comes closer and he recognizes her he leaps from the truck and sternly says, "I told you I don't want you ridin' with me no more!" He could have driven off without getting out of the truck. And as my son pointed out, he could have gotten back in the truck and driven off leaving her stranded on the road when the truck starts to roll away. Instead he grabs her luggage and wearily tells her, "Come on." He only does that because she guilts him into it over the $200.
Beyond a reasonable doubt theirs was a transactional relationship in petty criminality at base. Addie had Moze by the short hairs throughout, she knew she had, and she had more and more of his short hairs in his grip as his involvement of her--a child!--in so much criminality continued. The relationship was not exclusively transactional for Addie, she is only 10 years-old and has just lost her mother. It is clear that she loved Moze, as Tatum did Ryan. Both Addie and Tatum wanted reciprocal love, if it was father-daughter and if it wasn't, but when the chips were down Addie had no problem playing the transactional card and did from beginning of movie to end. There is no evidence that Moze loved Addie as his child. He did not look after her interests and safety as even a responsible guardian would.
There is one scene where Addie calls Moze' bluff on dropping her off. It is one of my favorites. They have money in excess of Addie's $200 (thanks to Addie). She wants to give a little to the "poorly" people on the side of the road that they just passed in the car. Moze refuses and reasserts his decision-making authority over bible price-setting. Addie reasserts her authority: "It's my money too you know, $200 belongs to me, and don't you forget that!" Moze rejoins that she can just take her $200 and he'll drop her off at the nearest train station. "How do you like that!" Addie crawls over the front seat to the back to get the money box. Oh shit (in Moze's head). He overplayed his hand and he knows it:
Whaddya doin? (in Moze' head).
Addie pulls out a map and tells Moze he can drop her off at the train station [names place]. Where's that, Moze asks. HERE! Addie replies. All the way over there, I'm not taking you all the way over there. "Then there's one at Sylvan Grove", Addie. "We gotta go through Lucas", Moze. "We gotta go through somethin' to get to Sylvan Grove!", Addie. "I am not complainin', I'm just saying it will take us through Lucas!", Moze. Addie names several other towns they have to go through to get to Sylvan Grove. "Oh, we could do some business [in those towns]", Moze. "I'm getting hungry, are you getting hungry?", Moze. "Uh-huh," Addie in the sweetest little girl voice. She can afford to be conciliatory--she won! But then--She gathers up her boxes to put them back:
This is as clear as the movie makes it that Moze IS Addie's real father and DOES intend to abandon her. As the credits roll and the ending music plays they drive off together. Consistent with that, they could "re-earn" the money together and he drop her off, or just abandon her, again. That is more real life and the screenwriter was exquisitely artful in leaving paternity in this ambiguity. It was also Ryan O'Neal's real life as a father to Tatum. But real life is painful, and it is painful to me to watch. I have a soft spot for children.
Death in Death Valley
“Roster-wise, everybody talks about the firepower [that the🌞have]...but it's a super important thing. You can't just go out there and think you're going to win off talent. The game is more complicated than that."-United Wholesale Mortgage 🌞 employee Devin Booker
Yeah. 🔥🔋 is not be-all, end-all. Hell, you can win practically 45 games every year in the Association with YMCA league 🪫! You need "connectivity", you need to play with "intentionality", you need a "Culture". But God, you do need 🔥🔋. If you want to win a championship. If you don't, if you just want to fleece your fans 41 times a year then you can do that with 🪫.
UMW🌞are in a tight spot. Their business model is mortgaging, right? Well, they've mortgaged their corporate basketball team's future to Kevin Durant, the afore-quoted Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal. They used their draft capital through the remainder of this decade and into the 2030's as collateral for the mortgage. Owner Mat Isbia is, of course, a billionaire, but the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is mucho punitive on wholesalers who mortgage their franchise's future. Mat can afford to pay the "luxury tax" that the Association levies for this luxurious roster but the new CBA also limits a billionaire’s ability to complete his luxurious home even if faulty construction leaves the top floors unfinished! Mat’s going to have to employ scrap he finds behind the local Y rather than expensive marble craftsmen to finish the job. It is difficult to envision beauty in the finished product. We wish Mat the best.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
Yep, too tough a lift for Doc's Crew. FT Indy (3-1) 126 Beer 113
I don't know what the timetable is for Giannis' return; Dame just hurt himself so I don't expect him back before Tyoosday. Without Antetokounmpo though, Indiana has a real good chance to close this out in two days. I am very happy for Indiana, who have never won shit since the merger, but you hate to see this season from hell for Milwaukee, a good team in a city of good people with a a former MVP and one of the most cerebral players in the game (Giannis is going to be a coach or exec when he's finished playing), but, unfortunately, with GM who has badly damaged this franchise: the draft picks, the foregone draft picks; even the trade for Lillard is viewed, I read, as a loss for Milwaukee; firing Adrian Griffin mid-season. I forget that dumb ass's name but he really fucked up this season.
The best front office in the Association is OKC. The best front office in the East is in Boston. Then either New York or Miami, but Milwaukee's front office is a train wreck, Charlotte Midwest, Cleveland North. There are some bad orgs in the East and unfortunately a former champion is now one of them. I just hate to see that. But...congratulations to Indy if they close this out, this has been a magical (and lucky) season for them. They've been a great story all season with their pinball scoring.
I think Cleveland's done. They're so gutless they make the Celtics look like a team of Nietzsches. And Miami doesn't have enough talent. Indy has NO chance against New York or Phila and none of them have a chance against Beans. It's the Eastern pennant by default this year. Boston's not going to beat Denver, there's no way. The West is best and the East is Least. Agayne.
I hope that I speak for "Heat" fans that this is it for this core. I want no more of "we have enough" from Spoelstra when he has averaged 45 wins for ten straight seasons and hasn't gotten close to winning a championship. There better be some furniture replacement, no rearrangement, in the off-season. I don't believe in 601 Biscayne. I know better than 99% of cognos what to expect year in and fucking year out. You don't have enough Biscaya Bambino and if you go through a desultory summer again, you need your heads examined. I will never pay money to see a "Heat" regular season game again and will follow them intermittently and with knowledge of the ending. Fool me three times, shame on you. Full me a fourth time and you can forget it. I'm not that big a dullard. I want a whale, major moves in the summer. This basketball franchise is ceding Greater Miami's attention and good God, don't you know in your C suites that there's a lot of options for fans besides the inevitable 45-37. Beware 601 Biscayne, my sense is that you are on a very short leash with the fans, and one more big toe injury to Jimmy, one more horrific optic of him watching the Miami tennis open on a Saturday and sitting out a Sunday game for not feeling well, one more disinterested series of regular season games and it is reasonable, nay likely, that you will see see impatient, angry booing if you bring back this same YMCA team. You could lose the city's attention to a promising NFL team, to the "Panthers" hockey team, to UM, not the "Marlins" who are dysfunctional, but to sun and fun and beautiful people on South Beach. We have no interest in 45-37 forever.
HT Indy 67 Beer 64
Like the Clips against Dallas, Beer trails this series 2-1. Both games were crucial to the trailing side. Clips didn’t have Kawhi, but man they had so much besides: George Paul, Beard, Westbrick. Beer doesn’t have Giannis or Dame. This is a tough lift for Doc.
FAT CUBAN HORSE PUT DOWN!
La-La Clip-Clip evened the series at tyoo with the 116-111 dub in Big D. Clips blew a 31-point lead. Bed Bugs put the Fat Cuban Horse in front for the first time since the first quarter with 2:05 left to play, but the Clips retook the lead and never gave it back again.
HT Fat Cuban Horse 49 La-La Brick-Brick 66
For a team with Bed Bugs Irving and Doncic, that's not insurmountable. Especially since LAC doesn't have Kawhi. GO CLIPS!
FT Phila. 92 New York 97 (3-1)
Brunson finished with 47 points, 10 asts and only 1 turnover.
Embiid had 27 and 10.
Maxey, 23.
The Jalen Brunson Show off-Broadway, on-Broad Street today.
Do you know he was a SECOND ROUND draft pick? Taken 33rd by the Fat Cuban Horse in 2018.
And it was an and-1. 61-54. Brunson with 26.
There is one other Quake in d.d., Obi Wan Kenobi with 10. Quakers have fo' guys who have scored 10+. Joel and Electric have 18.
In my late movie phase I have watched Peter Sellers, who was an asshole to his kids, Ryan O’Neal, who was an asshole to his kids, Jeanne Dielman, directed by Chantal Akerman, who was an asshole, and Stanley Kubrick, who was an asshole to Shelley Duvall. Seems like there’s a lot of assholes in the acting biz.
HT Quakers 49 Quakes 47
Manchester City beat Nottingham 2-0 in the Forest. We are one pernt behind first place Arsenal with a game in hand. Arsenal have three left, we have four. For the Sheriffs, the result was expected but ominous. They sit 17th in the table, one point from splashing into Coca-Colar ahead of Luton Town. If Luton goes down you know who is position to come up? Fucking another Town, no not Huddersfield, IPSWICH. I don't think Ipswich has ever been in the Premier League. Too many towns in English soccer's top flights.
It has been so many hours that I can't remember how I fell down that internet rabbit hole on Shelley Duvall, but it was a disturbing, disturbing fall. Stanley Kubrick was cruel to Duvall, it really was like Stockholm Syndrome. And Ryan O'Neal was an asshole to Tatum, he was no father to her. And Chantal Akerman was an asshole. Peter Sellers was an asshole. Maybe I should end my movie watching.
“It’s not just aging. It’s violence.”
I literally dropped my phone in shock when I saw this current photo of Shelley Duvall.
“I was a star; I had leading roles,” she said, solemnly shaking her head. She had parked in the town square for a takeout lunch — chicken salad, quiche and sweetened iced coffee, finished off with a drag of a Parliament. She lowered her voice. “People think it’s just aging, but it’s not. It’s violence.”
Stanley Kubrick’s physical and emotional demands of her in The Shining, this scene in particular, 127 takes,
caused her hands to bleed, her face and eyes to become red, tear-stained, swollen and puffy, her hair to fall out--a nervous breakdown. Later, she descended into mental illness.
Kubrick was inspired to cast her in his film after seeing her in Mr. Altman’s “3 Women.”“He said: ‘I like the way you cry.’”
Duvall played the role of a woman suddenly trapped, isolated, made a hostage to a man who himself descended into murderous madness. Kubrick intentionally instilled terror in the cast members, especially Duvall, as well as in the audience. He kept the details of Jack Nicholson’s “axe door” scene from her. He recreated the conditions of the screenplay in Shelley Duvall the person. The Shining took 500 days to film, one scene 127 takes. She was isolated on set, ignored and demeaned. She had no idea until she saw the final cut what was to come in the scene with the twin girls “and what was behind them”, the flood of blood. “It was scary, very scary.” She speaks fondly of working with Kubrick. Indeed, those taken captive come to identify with their captors, a response given the label, Stockholm Syndrome.
So, Shelley Duvall was not acting in those scenes “crying in pain, fear, and exhaustion”, she was “enduring a trauma response.”
The former “Texas Twiggy”,
last acted in 2002, moved out of L.A. and now lives in a small Texas town.
Mimi-Beans
“They set the tone with their disposition. ...They were the more physical team. They bodied us, bullied us on screens, got through stuff, distorted screens, everything, flattened us out. ... So you have to credit them for that. They were the more physical team, the team with more physicality and force on both ends of the court.”—Spo
FT La-La Bron-Bron 129 Pebbles 108
To absolutely nobody's surprise, LeBron James led the way.
James scored 30 points, Anthony Davis added 25 points and 23 rebounds…(AP for Espo)
When America Worked
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
Launch, Sept. 5, 1977
The most distant spacecraft from Earth stopped sending back understandable data last November. Flight controllers traced the blank communication to a bad computer chip and rearranged the spacecraft's coding to work around the trouble.
…
It takes 22 1/2 hours to send a signal to Voyager 1, more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away in interstellar space. The signal travel time is double that for a round trip.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
May I borrow your double-edged axe?
"We have enough to get the job done,"-Spo.
Also, what's his address?
La-La Bron-Bron Get One, 119-108
A proud franchise, a proud man, I'm happy they got one. They deserved it.
The faces of Tatum O'Neal. Little devil-angel. My God, what an actor in this movie.*More*Still More
I am reposting this as the last post of the night. Paper Moon is a perfect movie. Young Tatum O’Neal was a phenomenon.
