QOTD 3.2.10

“Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” – Austin Phelps

Book review: 212

This is a review from my Favorite Books list; the link from which will be also on the Books Page.

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“So simple is the analogy, that you can stop reading right now, walk away with the opening thought firmly planted in your mind and benefit from it the rest of your life.”

212 is one of those small, back-pocket book which I read in 20 minutes. The premise of 212 is how the simple 1-degree change from 211 to 212 turns very-hot water to steam, which is powerful enough to power trains. And this analogy can increase the output of anyone’s life. Simple enough, right?

Book Review: The Book Of Basketball

This is a review from my Favorite Books list; the link from which will be also on the Books Page.

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“”That was supposed to go in,” he groaned. “How did that not go in?”
More than twenty-two years have passed since that night… And I still don’t have an answer for him. For everything else, I have answers.
I think.”

Bill Simmons is my favorite online author, favorite NBA writer/ observer, and I hope he watches me play someday and writes at least a paragraph about what he sees. With all that said, you must believe me in my saying that is completely without bias that if you are a fan of the NBA (whether it be from its beginnings or circa now), you MUST read this 700-page manifesto.

It took me 30 days and I did it in chunks. TBoB is one of those rare read-100-or-so-pages-in-one-sitting-and-not-even-notice books — something I don’t think I will be able to say about Obama’s Audacity Of Hope, which got bumped (for the fourth time!) when I received TBoB in the mail. Simmons tackles topics that bball fans love to discuss, such as who was better between Russel and Wilt, the definitive list of the best players of all time (in order), his ultimate hypothetical team, the Greatest Team of All Time, and much much more.

If you’re unsure and would like a risk-free trial reading of the man devoted enough to own the title of  “The Sports Guy,” just go here to his online page at ESPN.com.

Tear The Wal-s Down

There are a lot of general topics out there that polarize the participants when the subject comes up. ‘I love Kobe’ vs. I HATE Kobe!’ Biggie vs. ‘Pac. Pro-life vs. pro-choice. All matters of opinion based an individuals tastes. One topic that I cram to understand though, is how there is a huge legion of anti Wal-Mart people who swear that the discount giant is ruining business across the board.

A lot of folks I know either like Wal-Mart for its convenience and low prices or despise it because of its low quality products, low wages, and aesthetically poor store designs. There are sites that have side-by-side running debate posts arguing both cases.

They say Wal-Mart kills the little guy businesses. They say Wal-Mart forces everyone to lower their prices and, in turn, kill their own profits. They say Wal-Mart runs the mom-and-pop stores out of their own towns, and generally bullies their way around in whatever municipality they choose to open another monstrosity in. There’s even a book that I read: How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World, and What You Can Do About It. This book not only tells, in detail, how Wal-Mart is bad for everyone, but then tells you, in detail, how you can do your part to slow the wrecking ball.

I say Wal-Mart is the American dream at its best.

As far as the argument that Wal-Mart kills the little guy, running small mom-and-pop-been-here-since-the-50s stores out of towns, let’s take a look at where Wal-Mart started. I read Sam Walton’s book (very long and very wordy). Sam used to work for another person’s store as a manager, and when he saw an opportunity to start his own, he did just that. With one store. Just like anyone else. Sam Walton was, at that point, a little guy business owner.

His business faced threats and competition, just like any business today would. But did Sam walk up to City Hall, hat in hand, asking for help? No, he went to work, and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He shopped in his competitor’s stores and took note of what they were offering. He looked at how his distribution agreements worked and how he could have more control. Sam identified the inefficiencies in his business, and figured on how he could make them strengths. As a result of his work, he was able to lower prices — of course, this is what draws a customer! — and beat his competition.

But it seems that people feel Wal-Mart has done something wrong by simply taking steps to defeat competition. Isn’t that what capitalism is? The best business gets the consumer’s dollar?  In 1970in the New York Times Magazine, Milton Smith laid out the social responsibility of business:

“… to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits…(through) open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

So yeah, Wal-Mart does muscle smaller, weaker business out of their markets. That’s how business works. I mean, Michael Jordan muscled Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, and John Stockton out of championship rings. Is MJ a bad guy for it? No — just playing the game. It appears to me that Wal-Mart has mastered the Law of Supply and Demand, and found the prices at which what they offer will match how much consumers want. Don’t all business strive to reach this ideal?

Wal-Mart, with its own distribution plants and basic-structure stores, has cornered the market on low prices. But there are other ways to compete. Target has shown that even with slightly higher prices, they can sell quality and ambiance. A Wal-Mart moving into town isn’t a scarlet letter, by any means, for another business. But the second you mentally paint yourself a victim, you become one.

It Aint For Everybody

So this reporter is writing a book that seems to be based on trashing Alex Rodriguez’s reputation in baseball.  If you want to know the details of that, click that link and read up; it’s the most blogged-about topic in the world today.

What got me to thinking is, wow, how tough is it to be atop a pedestal in the public eye? A-Rod has been widely regarded over the years, off and on, as the Best Player in Baseball. He admitted to a history cheating a couple of months ago, and the vultures came out. Now, this reporter stands to make money completely on A-Rod’s back, with a book that sheds a completely negative light on his entire being.

Back in the early 90s a similar thing happened to Michael Jordan, when a Chicago sportswriter penned The Jordan Rules, which, albeit less scathing, also set to make MJ seem less bright-smiley behind closed doors. And both of these book s are completely legal, with no recourse for the subjects to stop it from happeneing. The beauty of the First Amendment.

How would you feel, though, if a person wanted to bring all of the skeletons out of your closet, or at least the most juicy ones, for their own profit while you watched?

UPDATE: Finally, someone stes up to Rodriguez’s defense- MLB Player Doug Mientkiewicz (LA Dodgers), who was a HS teammate of A-Rod’s, speaks up and questions the credibility of the book.

The Grand Finale

So I stood in line at the USAir Customer Service counter for 90 minutes. I was told there were no more flights to Miami for me Friday night. But on the bright side, I could, however, take advantage of a discounted rate at the Howard Johnson hotel for $77.
“This coupon is unacceptable,” I told them. “You might as well have given me a dinner coupon to Denny’s.”
This line of humor didn’t work to get me on an earlier flight of a very rainy Philadelphia. I had an average-at-best meal at TGI Friday’s, had a run-in with a clueless baggage worker at the USAir offices near the luggage belts, Went back through security (and was “selected by the computers for special screening” for the second time that day), and sat in the concourse writing this while Santa Claus passed by me. And I dutifully went to gate B8 at 5:30 PM to see if I could finagle a seat on the flight. And by the grace of God, I made it.
There were plenty of empty seats on the plane too, as I had the whole set of 3 to myself. At the gate I learned that your place in a stand-by list matters not; you have to go get in the faces of the people working the computers at the gate to get on the plane. A lesson well taken.
The flight out of Philly the next morning would have been my first ever Fist-Class seating. And I’ll gladly pass on that for the 80-degree day that awaited me this morning. So Dave & Buster’s, here I come! And I saw a carnival/ county fair as Phu and I rode on the highway last night; we will be making an appearance there as well.
(And I’m about halfway through Malcolm Gladwell’s newest $28 book, Outliers, so far. Very good work that I recommend. I see I could’ve gotten it for about half of what I paid at the airport bookstore on Amazon.)

Juiced

I was in 7th or 8th grade. And I remember the day vividly.

First, the back story: Our 6th (or 7th) grade class had taken a trip on the same day as an NBA Finals game, and when I came home that evening my head was spinning once the TV came on: my beloved Knicks (I was a huge Pat Ewing fan) were in a dogfight with the Houston Rockets, and Orenthal James Simpson was driving the speed limit down a highway in LA with 30 or so (estimation) police cars following him.

This part you know: The Knicks went on to lose the Finals (damned John Starks!!!). OJ went to trial and Johnny Cochran became a celebrity.

The trial stretched out for some time, and on October 3, 1995 (I looked it up- my memory is not that good) the verdict was scheduled to be read. At Masterman (my school at the time), almost every teacher and student was excited to hear the verdict, and most teachers actually paused class to watch the verdict on the televisions that were in each classroom.

Except for our bitch math teacher. I don’t recall her name, and believe that if I did, it would be printed here in full. So she was going over something on the board when we heard the shrieks and screams from the hallway: OJ had gotten off. Not guilty.

OJ went on to lose the civil case against him, but he moved on as if nothing was even wrong, at least from afar. Wrote a preposterous book detailing how he would have killed his wife- if, you know, he had been the one to do it. Interesting.

Flash forward to today. 13 years to the goddamn day! OJ is found guilty of 12 counts of armed robbery, kidnapping, and is looking at 20 years behind bars. Is this karma coming back to him? I think so, in a way: had OJ been found guilty of the double murders, he was sure to receive life in prison or worse. 20 years is a lighter sentence than life; I’ll say the great work he did in covering up the murders and hiring that great defense team was worth something to the Karma Gods.

You Never Know Who’s Watching

I read Rod Benson’s latest entry on Yahoo! this morning, concerning the question of whether an athlete should put his life and thoughts on the internet for public consumption. Rod talked about whether doing so may be a red flag of sorts to teams interested in his services. This of course got me to thinking the same about myself, something that crossed my mind when I opened this site on August 1, 2008: what if a team sees this and thinks I may not be as focused on my career as I should be?
The thought didn’t last long. As one of my favorite books states, “It is better to regret what you have done than what you haven’t.” I’d rather have this site, the creating of which was on my initial 10-year goal list back in 2003, and live with what comes with it than hold back on it in hopes of fitting better into the “basketball player” mold. besides that, Rod just signed in France, according to SLAMOnline.com. A business owner should be able to separate off court interests from on-court production, anyway. And if there’s one out there who can’t? As Tucker Max would say, fuck him. Or her.

Not that this is a pressing issue for me, at least as far as I know. Rod’s blog entry just caught my attention. In other news, I went to the golf driving range yesterday and hit about 70 balls. At around the 40- ball mark, the rented driver I was using blew up- the head of the club flew off and about 20 yards! As I strolled back to the rental counter with the decapitated club, the attendant there, who was talking on the phone, didn’t flinch- he just grabbed me another driver and told me- with a smile- that that happened often to the older clubs. During the course of my time on the range, I, at one time or another, almost: injured my shin by hitting a ball into it; threw out my left hip; twisted my ankle. And for some reason (most likely being that I have no fundamental golfing ability), my hands always sting when I hit with an iron.

Phu & I went to the casino and blew a couple hundred dollars in a few hours. The Hard Rock didn’t have anything other than slots, and a huge poker room- two games I’m not much for. Phu seemed to be getting into too much of a zone on the slots, though- I may need to call on some of her friends for an intervention.

BBall Blog, Entry 5

- This past Sunday, a summer league team I’m on had a game in Orlando, 2 hours away. Naturally, that morning, several players popped up without a ride to the game. I received a call from a player who, along with another dude, needed a ride from me to Orlando. Yeah, I told him, yall can ride- it’ll be $10 each gas money.

They got a ride from someone else.

- Ahh… 3 hours of pickup ball on concrete brings back memories of Philly.

- at the courts I played at Monday night, there’s a button you can press to turn on the sky lights for playing late into the night. That’s a big contrast to my home playground in Philly- the lights were controlled only from the office in the rec center building. And if the guys who ran the building- they played out there too- felt sour about a particular pickup game loss, the lights wouldn’t come on that night.

- Thank You to Shaq for giving us some (somewhat) basketball- related things to talk about with his Kobe-dissing rap. I didn’t like, however, Shaq’s copping out and not standing behind his actions when the video surfaced. Keep it real, Shaq!

- stepped out of comfort zone Tuesday evening, and went to Target wearing my flip-flops and NO SOCKS. No one stared.

- just finished the longer-than-it-looked The Last Saeson by Phil Jackson. Next up: Power, Money, & Sex: How Success Almost Ruined My Life by Deion Sanders.

BBall Blog, Entry 3

-started the day with an eight mile bike ride and burning thighs.

- now that the NBA season is completely over, I can dedicate more time to reading. I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, and I’m now 60 pages into Phil Jackson’s The Last Season, which I began after watching LA fall to Boston Tuesday night.

- even though the NBA season is done, it doesn’t stop… The Bay Pro-Am features a strong collection of current, former, and future League guys (like me). Every July in Orlando, there’s a week-long NBA-sponsored league. Between 5 and 8 teams send their rookies, young veterans, and fee agents hoping for a training camp invite to participate. I’m aiming to hustle my way into a roster spot there, but if that doesn’t come thru I’ll still be in attendance for a day or two to see what these guys have that I lack.

- an invigorating Thursday morning session ended with me burying some White guy 16-6; 16-7; 16-4; 12-16 (I decided to begin this game by attempting 6 straight 3-point shots; I missed all six and fell into a 7-0 hole. My plan was to ‘flip the switch’ and storm back to victory. The plan didn’t succeed, which means I have work to do); 21-11.

- two new YouTube vids posted! www.youtube.com/dreupt
- I have an ambitious 15 mile bike ride scheduled first thing Saturday morning.

Book Excerpt, Pt. 2

No, you haven’t missed my book’s release date. The following, along with Part 1 before it and the excerpts that will follow in the future, will be included in my as-yet-untitled book that I do not yet have a publisher or contract for. But it’s coming. Trust me, it’s coming.

This time we’ll take it back to ’98. Dam, 1998 was 10 years ago?!?!

*************

(* names have been changed to protect the innocent)

Basketball tryouts at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering & Science (or E&S for short) were always a huge event. Being that we were an under-funded Philadelphia public school that offered no junior varsity program, combined with the school offering a fresh mix of every ‘hood in the city, dam near every heterosexual male in the school dusted off their gym shoes to try out for the squad. (note: if you grew up in any city in the North part of the USA, you know: in high school, EVERY dude thinks they can play ball. )

Being that this was my junior year, this tryout was pivotal for me: even though I knew I probably wouldn’t be much of a contributor to the team, a year of practicing and going to the games would prepare me, physically and mentally (which I really needed) for a breakout senior year. And even though I had been unceremoniously cut on the first day of tryouts in 9th & 10th grade (I think I made a total of one basket in both tryouts combined), I still had a golden nugget of knowledge: Michael JORDAN didn’t even make his HS varsity until he was a junior. So as of 3PM that day, I was still on course to be the next MJ, just as I’d planned.

Guess I should’ve told everyone else to go along with it.

I was ready and knew what to expect for tryouts: we’d play a randomly-selected 5 on 5, Coach would sit and watch quietly, and a list of the best 20 or so guys would be the talk of the school the next morning. I was in great shape for a 16-year-old, so I could run all day; and, with a strong running start, I could DUNK. Oh, it’s on!!!

Only this year, Coach decided that he could get a better read on players if we played half-court, 3 on 3. No problem, I told myself. I can do more than dunk. “Let’s do this,” I thought as I was called out as part of the first 3 on 3 group.

The player I was assigned to guard- let’s call this guy Jim- was a senior and had been on the team the year before. He was about an inch taller than me but I knew I was more athletic. But 1998 was before I had ever been into a weight room- Jim was at least 3x stronger than I was. I’d watched Jim play before and knew he wasn’t a scorer- he was a strong, scrappy hustle guy whose major contribution was rebounding and tough defense. Outside of a layup, guarding Jim would be no problem for me. I knew his limitations.

Well, Jim knew his limitations too, and he knew of my (literal) weakness.

The first play the ball goes into Jim, posting me up (which for those of you not into bball, means he was standing very close to the basket, and I was too weak to move him from that spot. Remember Jim & I were roughly the same height, though). He makes a short turnaround shot over me. Sensing his advantage, his other two teammates forget about showing off their own abilities for Coach and feed Jim the ball, and he keeps making shots. Over me. Again. And again. And again.

Being that my mentality of how I would make this team had gone into crash-and-burn mode at this point, details are foggy. Ill say that Jim scored between 5-8 points in a row on me, without a miss, as the murmurs from the sideline grew louder and I was embarrassed off the gym floor. I do remember, however, a female saying after maybe Jim point #5, “he should just go home.” (oh yeah, I didn’t mention- anybody who was somebody at E&S came to see tryouts- either watching or trying out. Needless to say, I didn’t get asked on many dates after this.)

The legend of this story grew in proportion over the following weeks; Jim’s point total ballooned to 13 at one point. Even dudes in my neighborhood who DIDN’T EVEN GO TO MY SCHOOL heard about it through the grapevine. One day later that school year, I was a spectator at a lunchtime basketball game that Jim happened to be playing in. Noticing me, Jim scored a basket, looked at me and said, loud enough for everyone to hear: “remember that, Andrae?” (this was before I legally changed my first name to “Dre.”). I couldn’t even muster a response.

After not touching a basketball for a few weeks after that fateful day, I eventually picked up the pieces of my ego and basketball career. I joined a neighborhood league for the year. I finally made the varsity on my 4th and final try in my senior year, averaging an astonishing 2 points per game (really!). Somewhere between then & now, the planets aligned, I lifted a few weights, got better at basketball, and became the man that stands (writes?) before you today.

And if anyone ever sees Jim* out there somewhere: tell him if he ever makes the pros, we’ve a score (or to settle. I don’t forget anything.

Who Is YOUR Money On?

I often save photographs off of the internet into the ‘My Pictures’ folder of my computer. Scenery, sports, funny pics, women, etc. And I used to go thru them every once in awhile, trying to find a good one that inspired me & matched my mindset for the moment. That photo would become my desktop wallpaper: Michael Jordan, Jay-Z, Kobe, South Beach Miami, a stack of money… They all spent significant time greeting me when I pressed the power button in the morning.

Then I started looking at things from a different perspective, and changed my desktop to a photo of myself.

I’m sure you may think that’s vain, or I’m too full of myself. And you may be correct. And I know I’m correct when I hypothesize that Allen Iverson & P. Diddy don’t have pictures of me anywhere on their hard drives.

Back in my college days, I did business with a company called Pre-Paid Legal, and one of the pulls of joining this business was the ability to earn “passive income.” That is, the money you earn when you’re off the job because you have certain mechanisms in place to work for you.

We all actively participate in passive income; just so happens that most of the time it’s someone elses money. When we wear a name brand shirt with a distinctive logo, we’re working as unpaid advertisers for that company. So not only an I spending $80 on a Polo sweater, I’m gonna make 4 or 5 more sales for the Ralph Lauren company just by wearing the sweater, because others will see it and they’ll spend money on Polo gear too. Smart concept, huh?

Well, this post is not attempting to tell you to change your wardrobe (even though that same $80 can get you a T-shirt with your own face printed on it). This post is about the ego that exists within each of us, and how & why we sometimes try so hard to suppress it.

According to Sigmund Freud, the ego is the human sense of self: self-awareness, self-esteem, what makes each of us different from everyone else in the world. Let’s assume we were given egos for a reason. Those folks who covered my computer screen have big egos. So does the person who designed the most expensive shirt or pair of shoes you own.

We come into this world as bold creatures. Remember being 6 years old, and whenever company came over we were so anxious to tell them everything great about us? Well the negativities of life beat down on that child-turned-adult, and we come to hide what makes us great- some of us to the point of not aspiring to accomplish anything- just to avoid the mental exhaustion of it all. Having an ego is a habit, just like shrinking from the spotlight of attention (either consciously or subconsciously) is a habit. There will be negativity cast your way- remember, most people would rather you stay anonymous, right along with them.

Paul Arden stated it perfectly in one of my favorite books (‘Whatever you Think, Think the Opposite’):

“My father was a modest man, and like all modest men he tried to keep his ego in check.
He did a pretty good job of it, remaining anonymous for most of his life. ”
So why not invest in you, if not financially, at least mentally? How about we begin to think of ourselves as highly as we think of the faces on TV? Those people didn’t get there by living through others or suppressing their egos. You already know what makes you unique. Use it! There’s no reason you can’t be the logo on that kid’s shirt.

And if you ever meet me in person, and I’m nice enough to let you use my laptop (hey, I’m a stingy guy), you’ll be greeted by a wonderful sight: a 1200 X 1000 pixel picture of me.

And you’ve got 5 minutes, tops.

Book Excerpt, Pt. 1

Embarasing childhood stories? hmm, pick a number from 1 – 27…

aight here’s one: my mother was and is, very disciplined, especially when it came to education. my sister & i had our homework checked every single night, no exceptions. we were not allowed to play nintendo or play outside on school nights. we werent subject to any type of All-’A's-Or-You’ve-Failed-The-Family type of dictatorship, but anything less than getting all the work done was unacceptable.

by the 3rd grade, i had began to explore more of what everyone else seemed to be dong: talking in class, half-assing class assignments, using profanity, etc. i made some friends whom i know werent having their homework checked every night, and listened intently to their stories of the previous evening’s goings- on in the streets that i could only see from the window after 3:15 pm.

mrs. dorman was my 3rd grade teacher, and being that my sister had passed through her class two years earlier (after skipping the 2nd grade), my mother’s reputation was well- known and welcomed by the teachers at A.B. Day. it’s gotta be great for a teacher to have an involved parent that the teacher could feel was on thier side, right? homework always done and signed, (not ironically, my mother is a teacher now herself.) so when i bullshitted through a mini- parachute experiment one day, mrs. dorman didnt do what she would have done with most of the kids in her class in the same situation- frown and shake her head while making the corresponding mark in her grade book.

she called my mother.

early the next morning, eeryone is sitting in his or her seat, wondering who’s mom that is in the front talking to the teacher. for the handful that had been in classes with me before, there was no doubt about it.

“andrae, that’s ya mom, aint it?”
(nervously, but trying to play it as cool as possible): “yeah.”
word got around fast.

with sufficient teacher information, mommy turned and approached me in my seat and (loudly and clearly) asked me about my lack of effort in class. after a few mumbled “yes’s” and “i dont know”s,

SMACK in the chest,
PUNCH in the shoulder,
accompanied with, and followed by, loud delarative statements.

and, like we all know, it’s not even like the blows always hurt that much, the emotions of the moment are un hold-in-able. mrs. dorman put on her sympathetic face and gave her i-want-to-help-you schpiel, and i believed her, but all i wanted to do was get out of that room for the rest of the week. or month. unfortunately, it was just Tuesday, and after a stern talking-to in the hall from mommy, 3 minutes in the boy’s bathroom drying the tears and nose blowing, i quietly returned to my seat and avoided all fellow student eye contact until recess.