Asian Pickup Basketball

Yesterday I was at Alumni Arena, trying to shed the weight I've gained over the winter which is equivalent to a fat 10-year-old. I've "gained a fat 10-year-old" over the past 4 or 5 months. It's sad. At any rate, my normal routine at the gym is to co about 30 minutes of cardio, hit a few machines, go play some ball and then hit the sauna.

Because it's finals time for most of the kids, the campus, specifically the arena and gym, are like ghosts towns around this time. So when I hit the court to put a few shots, the only cats playing were a group of Asians, with the few requisite girlfriends standing on the sidelines looking demure and afraid of the big black man that just walked in the gym wearing a hoodie.

Depending on how much ball you play, where you play, what city you're in and a few other variables, you have varying degrees of familiarity with the phenomenon that is Asians playing ball. The best place to take this in is on the campuses of huge state schools, in my case we're talking University of Buffalo. Asians probably make up 10%-15% of the student body. Now, when you're talking about 25,000 students, that means anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 young Asians walking around campus with 4.0 GPAs and fuel-efficient cars.

I have a theory and it's that foreign studying Asians don't party. I never see large groups of Asian kids at the college hangout spots. I suspect, in the most ignorant manner possible -- that they are either studying or doing something far less damaging that whisky shots. One of these things is playing basketball -- an abhorrently poor brand of basketball.

When it comes to basketball -- the Asians come out at night. You won't see them too often during the day, when the gym courts are packed with pickup games. And it's for two good reasons: 1.) they'd like to save this leisure activity as a evening substitute for normal college revelry and .....

Asians Only Play Basketball With Other Asians
I have yet to see even a token black or white male playing in an Asian pickup game. It's startling to walk on a court -- no matter where or when -- and see that one HALF of the court being used by a group of Asians and only Asians.

You want some other hallmarks of Asian basketball? here they go...

Asians Will Never -- Under Any Circumstances -- Play Full Court Basketball
They adhere to this rule with fastidious and comical conviction. I have no idea why. You'd think with their healthy diets and slender frames that a good game of full court wouldn't be a problem, but then you recognize what's holding them back...

Asians Don't Know How To Dribble A Basketball Like An Adult Male
Have you ever seen toddlers or grade school kids try to run while dribbling a basketball? It's cute isn't it? Tey fumble the ball, have to turn around and go retrieve it, then start the process over again. Well, when you're dealing with young adult Asian men, it's not cute, it's tragic. They lose the ball dribbling it so high over their shoulders that it drifts over their head. Some throw caution and rules to the win and dribble with two hands if the awkwardly physical Asian defense gets too tight. For a group of Asians to play full court would be a grave sight, for it would entail the ball never passing half court, or men straight picking up the ball and running or dribbling with two hands, like, say, Richard Simmons or some other gay blade that never bothered mastering the insanely difficult skill of bouncing a ball. You'd think those scientific Asian minds could master the mechanics of bouncing a ball.

Anyways, to ensure some fluidity to the game, they only play half-court basketball, which sometimes gets ridiculous because....

Asians Never Bother Putting A Ceiling On How Many Dudes Can Play At Once
These niggas will play 10-on-10 -- no bull. I once saw a group of Asians playing 6-on-6 halfcourt. Do you know how insane that is? yes, they're a typically diminutive ethnic gender and, yes, they're used to living in cities like Tokyo and Beijing, where there are 50 million people living in a city the size Yonkers...but still, what about rules? It's disconcerting to see 15 Asians frantically running around a halfcourt, double-dribbling and shooting up airballs.

These dude will also pull out a 4-on-3 with no problem, like they're 10 and one of the dudes is 16. Remember how that might have went back in the day? We had a dude like that in my crew. He was, like, 25 years older than everyone, so sometimes, if number were uneven, he'd count as two people. Well, all that trash stopped when we reached junior high. It doesn't for young Asian men. If 9 of them roll up to the court on a Thursday night, then it's gonna be a 5-on-4 scrubfest.

It's a scrubfest because they have the weirdest games. For instance...

I've Never Seen An Asian Successfully Make a Layup
There are only a few conclusions to an Asian Drive and none of them include actually making the layup. After the Asian has double dribbled his way to the basket, he will either shoot it over the backboard, violent scoop it to hit the bottom of the backboard or get tackled by the Asian defending him..at which no foul will be called, they will simply get up and continue playing.

Also....

On The Court, Asians Will Neither Stand Upright Or Jump When They Shoot
Seriously, they are always in a crouching position. Perhaps this comes from martial arts training. What this does, however, is totally prohibit them from ever making a pass that leads to a bucket, what is known as an "assist". Asians play assistless games, namely because they're always crouched, unable to see the floor and the fact that the teammate they pass to knows neither how to dribble or complete a layup.

They also never jump when they shoot. And because the defender is always playing either butts-to-nuts or crotch-to-crotch defense, this leads to an inordinate amount of blocked shots, which always leads to EVERY player on the court pursuing the loose-ball. That means that almost every possession there will be a moment when anywhere between 8-22 Asians make a mad dash for the up-for-grabs ball. It's chaos, I tell you.

You know what else bothers me?...

Asians Let Girlfriends Play
And they are usually still dressed in their school gear -- jeans, flip flops, tank tops. I once saw a girlfriend playing with her winter jacket on. This displeased me. Here i thought Asians came from a strict patriarchal society where broads knew there place, but they come stateside and get all egalitarian on me. "Sure, we need another body so we can make this an 8-on-8 halfcourt game...and do us a favor Sun, we need to legitimize this game, so keep on your parka."


I hope I don't/didn't come off bigoted/prejudice/ignorant with any of this. I mean, at the end of the day, Asians, Too, Is A Beautiful Thang

Stuff Vince Does and Doesn't Like

I told you that I was gonna have my won personal response to the websites Stuff Educated Black People Like and Stuff White People Like. They're my two favorite websites on the Internet right now and I wish they were like some of these other blogs that update multiple times per day. Anyways, as I went through both sites, I found instances where I thought, "Yep, I'm definitely on some EBP steez right there" and other instances where the EBP rhetoric was insufferable. That's been somewhat of an insecurity of mine. You all know that buppies irritate the snot outta my nostrils, but, in so many ways, I'm a true-blue buppie. For a dude that grew up in a working class family on Buffalo's crack infested eastside, I don't know if that's an accomplishment or an indictment. What I do know is that buppies/EBP can be a hoe-azz sect when they wanna be.

I've also tended to be a black dude that could identify with a certain type of white person, mostly the kind of white person describe in hilarious satire on the Stuff White People like blog. I found my self scouring that list and mostly thinking either, "Yep, I love that or feel that way, too" or "yep, i love those kind of white people." I'm a fan of two types of Caucos 1.) hard-partying manics; and mostly, 2.) liberal, semi-gult-ridden whites that are hip enough to know that white people aren't hip. It's #2 that gets extensive insight from the SWP blog.

Anyways, this just might be what I needed to get my own blog poppin again, a jumpin off point for some thoughts, anecdotes, etc...I wanna begin by lookin at the first 5 items from the EBP website...

1. Fraternities and Sororities -- I have very close friends, both male and female that are Greek and I spent much of my early 20s, my first years in DC, railing against the Greek culture in the most obnoxious way possible -- whether that be purposely standing in the way of their ridiculous and stupid souped-up conga lines or getting thrown out of a Homecoming step-show for being a disruptive, drunk-jerk -- so I don't wanna start spewing any vitriol, here. But, I'll never forget how startling it was to see how omnipresent Greeks were at HBCUs. I spent my first few college years reading novels at University of Buffalo, a large state school with a predominatly-cauco student body. Blacks were a real minority, BLGOs (Black Greek letter organizations) were an even smaller minority. When I went to a college party, Qs weren't crawling on the floor and barking like dogs. And most of my disdain for BLGOs was the notion that I ascribe to it, the notion that most of the pledges were sheep that used these organizations to attract friends and be apart of something. Followers have always annoyed me and, to me, frat boys were the quintessential followers. As I've grown older, I see the good and benefit of BLGOs, but only the grown-adult portion of it. College-age greeks still get the gas-face.

2. Neo Soul -- Here's a portion of what the blog said: "Neo Soul music makes educated black people feel like they are getting in on music that regular blacks don’t know about. The most popular neo soul artist is Erykah Badu….even though some of us may feel she’s a little bit crazy. Some educated Blacks have distanced themselves from Ms. Badu because too many people know about her. Neo Soul allows these educated blacks to feel they are the only people who know about these artists and are the only ones educated enough to understand this music. Once an artist “catches on,” it’s time to move on to the next undiscovered talent." There is no greater EBP cliche and identifier than this music, to me. It rages with buppieness. But here's the thing, EBPs don't actually have good taste in music, they simply follow trends and attach themselves to what "seems" highbrow. That's why they can't tell the sonic difference of direction and quality between, say, India Arie and the new Badu. People don't understand this, but Badu really stopped making neo-soul after her first album, because she understood that the genre had become a cartoon. Same goes for D'Angelo. Neo-soul is for the Glen Lewises, it is the tired, musical carnation of No. 5 on this list, the hackneyed poetry slam. That's why I can't get down with a lot of EBPs. Neo-soul, however, is not the EBP equivalent to indie music. White people actually take their music seriously. The artist they like are musicians and actually write out substantial lyrics. They really do seek and search out hidden gems. That's not neo-soul. Neo-soul is basically just EBP pop music. I love Angie Stone, but Angie Stone is as much an EBP poster-girl as she is a great artist. Give me Georgia Anne Muldrow everyday and allday. Neo-soul is for squares.

3. Baked Chicken -- I didn't know this was an EBP thing. But I gotta admit, I'm a baked chicken dude, although I'll always enjoy a good piece of fried chicken, so long as you soak it in butter milk and coat it with a nice seasoned-flour. This is an excerpt of what the blog wrote: "Educated Black People have a more sophisticated taste. We like BAKED CHICKEN. Some even go so far as to use lemon pepper seasonings, but this is only for the upper echelon blacks with advanced degrees, so don’t try this at home if you only have an undergraduate degree. Now if you want to really show off your education, bake chicken breasts only! By eating baked chicken, we educated Blacks feel as though we are beyond the stigma of eating common fried chicken." Now, I believe that a good deal of the baked-preference is due to health concerns, which should be a greater premium in the black community. But, somehow, fried chicken did become the modern-watermelon in that it was used as the food-stereotype for niggas. More than anything, buppies and EBPs are image conscious and spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on distancing themselves from niggas theoretically and aesthetically. This would definitely mean getting your chicken fix -- because buppie niggas still love chicken -- without stooping to the perceived porch-monkey levels of frying the chicken. Of all EBP MOs, this baked chicken stance is one of the most trifling.

4. Natural Hair -- I love black woman that rock their hair natural. I think it's sexy, because, not only does it look hot, it also says a lot. I wrote this column about it when I was a young pup. I think it says it all...

5. Poetry Slams -- i HATE...let me repeat, HATE spoken word. It is the most cliche, hackneyed, imposter-portion of black culture right now. Spoken word and poetry slams are about 2 years away from caucos fully taking it over like they've done break-dancing...that's how bad it is. Every BS nigra thinks they can string together a few big words and spit them in the same exhausted staccatto/cadence and feign like they're sophisticated and above the nigger-fray. I liked this portion of the EBP blog: "It also allows us to show off our verbal rhythm, because true slampoets……..always…….talklikethis ……because if you don’t …..thenyouare …..a …..FAKE …..poet *thoughtful look*." I tried to watch Def poetry Jam last year and it was excruciating, like a construction worker was jack hammering my ballsack.

Stuff Vince Likes

Ever seen these sites?

Stuff Educated Black People Like
Stuff White People Like

Well, these twi sites have really thrown me for the most entertaining loop in quite some time. Get ready for an epic posts about why I like and don't like some of the Stuff Educated Black People and White People like...

Some more of my ESPN YouTubes

For those that didn't get a chance to check out the past couple weeks' ESPN seg...here they are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-btMYSX_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwm-TbnsU5Q

(FYI...if you don't check the blog that often anymore, I post all of these on my Facebook page, if your on Facebook)

Google is evil and awesome

I absolutely LOVE Google. It's reached a critical point. I mean, these dudes and this company are so impressive that I'm beginning to think of them in a conspiratorial light.

I watch a show on HBO called In Treatment. It's about a shrink, played by Gabriel Byrne (Dean Keaton from Usual Suspects, Tom Reagan from Miller's Crossing) and the whole show takes place, primarily, in his home office. It ran five evenings per week for about 9 weeks. The same patients came back at the same time each week. Monday was a sultry young woman that had a crush on Byrne and wanted to ball him. Tuesday was Blair underwood's character, a military dude that left his wife, killed a bunch of Arab kids in an air strike and had a litany of other emotional problems. Thursday was the fractured married couple, etc. Wednesday was my favorite day. That's when Sophie came thru. Sophie was an Olympic hopeful and suicidal brat that may, or may not have been sexually abused by her absentee father.

Sophie is germane to this post about Google because she dropped one of my favorite television lines of the Spring. there was one episode that began with Paul (Byrne) unexpectedly paying a pizza delivery guy. Minutes later Sophie arrived, the pizza was hers. She goes off on some tangent about she hadn't eaten all day and, while on the bus en route to her session, she searched google for a good pizza spot near Byrne's office and had them order and deliver the pizza. Byrne, your typical old dude, seemed surprised and asked, "Google can do that?"; Sophioe smirked and responded: "Google can do anything."

"Google can do anything." If you don't agree with that, then you need to get hip. It's scary, because if Google channeled its genius and mind-boggling resources for evil efforts, I'm of the mindset that it could probably rule the world.

Anyways, I awoke this morning and did what I do every other morning, I put on the pot of coffee, piss and check my email -- always in that order. Google has a really simple and informative log-in screen for Gmail. Many times, it'll have announcements if there's a new Gmail feature (Gmail, by the way, is leaps and bounds above every other email provider. I seriously can't understand why any of you rubes still deal with AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail...). This morning, I was greeted with this announcement:

NEW! Gmail Custom Time
Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything -- if only it hadn't slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities.

• Pre-date your messages: You tell us what time you would have wanted your email sent, and we'll take care of the rest. Need an email to arrive 6 hours ago? No problem.
• Mark as read or unread: Take sending emails to the past one step further. We let you make emails look like they've been read all along.
• Make them count: Use your custom time stamped messages wisely -- each Gmail user gets ten per year.
• Worry less: Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We'll make it look like you remembered.

You have to recognize how simultaneously great (in an extreme way) and evil (in a debased and devious way) this is. I mean, just in terms of utility, this is, perhaps, the most awesome email development since email was developed. For a irresponsible, forgetful and also conniving schmuck like me, this is a proverbial godsend. I'm ALWAYS forgetting to send emails, or missing a deadline. But that second bullet is sooooo greasy. "We'll let you make emails look like theyve been read all along"!!!!!! That is sooo grimy. So now we can not only lie that we sent an email to a significant other, business partner, scorned friend, offended parent, etc; but we can make it seem like they're the idiots that never received OUR communique.

It could go like this:

You get an email from this friend that invited you to a dinner party that you really didnt want to attend. The friend is mad that you didn't show thru. There was acold plate of lamb chops and stale glass of red wine sitting in front of a seat meant for you, not to mention a bored bimbo they had invited for you to meet. Your friend is furious, mainly because he/she suspects you blew the engagement off to do something trivial, like play with your ballsack watching the Flavor of Love marathon and drink vodka. That's when you send them a custom time email that shows up as read in their inbox, the day before the engagement, telling them you had a project with a changed deadline and you had to go in the office. Then you send them an email, blasting them for being sensitive and imploring them to check their inbox "for real and not like an illiterate idiot"...and you demand an apology, too. This ish is sinister.

"Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We'll make it look like you remembered"?!?!?!!!!!! Wow.

At least they have the foresight to only allot 10 per year.

But here's what I can't shake: I can't shake the feeling that this is an April Fools joke.