#they state 2000 in those things instead of 1999 (and the games themselves state that the event happened in 1999!)

[tofueggnoodles]

They’re Back! Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee Vol. 1 Scene 7 (Cast Talk)

Click here to listen to the track on youtube.

This is the best photo I could find, containing only about half of the cast. I don't recognize two of the VAs, but the rest are: Kisaichi Atsushi (the one with the cap), Toriumi Kousuke (beanie guy), Ishikawa Hideo (left, seated) and Morikawa Toshiyuki.

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Summary: The voice actors talk about things (hobbies, sports, pets, etc) they will never tire of.

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Morikawa: Everyone, thank you for your hard work during the recording. It’s now time for the bonus track of the Drama CD “They’re Back! Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee.”

Ishikawa: Yeah! Really – what is it?

(Morikawa and Kawami laugh.)

Ishikawa: Er – thank you for the hard work, everyone!

Morikawa: Indeed. It’s been quite a while.

Ishikawa: Yes, it’s been a long time since the last recording.

Morikawa: Someone reminded me that the very first [Araiso] Drama CD was recorded in 2000.

Ishikawa: That was eight years ago.

Morikawa: Yes.

Ishikawa: Time flies, doesn’t it? This studio’s now filled with thirty-somethings.

(The others laugh.)

Morikawa: I’m already a forty-something. [Along with Shimura, Narita, Tobita, Kobayashi and Shibuya.]

Tobita: Same here.

Ishikawa: During the previous recording, all of us were in our twenties or thirties. [Tobita, the oldest among the cast, turned forty in 1999.]

Ishikawa: And we’re all playing high school students.

Morikawa: Yes.

Ishikawa: This is a wonderful piece of work.

(Toriumi laughs.)

Ishikawa: So I hope that we’ll be able to continue voicing these characters.

Morikawa: That’s what I’m aiming for.

Ishikawa: Really, let’s continue playing these high schoolers even when we’re senior citizens.

Morikawa: Sure.

Ishikawa: For this track, based on the last line of the story–

Morikawa: Yes, the line spoken by Katsuragi, right?

(Kawakami laughs.)

Ishikawa: Sorry, yes, it’s Katsuragi’s line. It went like this: “Good grief. It’s just impossible to find the time to get tired of life while hanging out with you guys.” So, here’s the topic of our talk –

Morikawa: Yes, the topic: As long as you can have or do this thing, you’ll never tire of it! Please provide the reason why as well.

Kawakami: Okay.

Ishikawa: We’ll give our comments one by one.

Morikawa: Alright.

Ishikawa: Well then, let’s begin!

Kisaichi: I’ll go first. This is Kisaichi Atsushi, who plays Fujiwara Yuusuke. Thank you for your hard work, everyone. I don’t really have anything I’m particularly obsessed with. There’s work, baseball, ping pong, billiard, bowling, darts, golf, basketball – I never tire of stuff like these. Ah, but strength training is out of the question. Swimming too. I don’t like bland and repetitive activities like those. I love games involving balls, since I won’t get bored playing them. Though I’m not much of a sportsman, I enjoy getting better at these games. That’s about it.

Ishikawa: Aren’t you in a baseball club?

Kisaichi: Yes. I’m a coach there, after a fashion.

Ishikawa: A coach?

Kisaichi: Yes. It was a request I couldn’t refuse. In this particular case, it’s not one of those things I never tire of, but simply a duty I have to fulfill. Still, I definitely love baseball and other ball games. Yes, that’s about it.

Ishikawa: Go Atsushi!

Kisaichi: Thank you for listening! Then, on to the next person.

Toriumi: Hello, I’m Ainoura Kousuke.

(A few of the voice actors laugh. Kawakami exclaims in surprise.) [Instead of properly stating his actual name, Toriumi provided a combination of his character’s surname and his own personal name.]

Toriumi: Speaking of what I’ll never tire of, it’s curry. Curry is a magnificent dish. I can eat it anytime. Also, I never get bored grilling meat. It’s my lot in life to continuously grill meat for others.

(A few of the others start to chat among themselves in the background.)

Toriumi: Won't you please listen to me?

Morikawa: What’s the method you use to grill meat?

Toriumi: Method? I specialize in offal **. [The phrase I manage to catch is horume/horune but the only term for grilled offal I can find online is horumonyaki.]

Ishikawa: Morikawa-san’s the only one who’s seen you do it, isn’t he?

Toriumi: The first praise I received from Morikawa-san was for my meat-grilling method, you know. (laughs) I hope to get more praises from him in the future too.

Shimura: Offal!

Ishikawa: You’re noisy!

Toriumi: I’d like to continue grilling meat in the future. In addition, I recently started to play golf as well. Golf is fun too. I think it’s also something I won’t tire of. I hope I can improve on my technique there.... Goodbye.

Sasanuma: This is Sasanuma Akira, who plays Matsubara Jun.

Ishikawa: MatsuJun! [also the nickname of J-pop idol Matsumoto Jun.]

Sasanuma: MatsuJun? Yeah, I guess. (laughs) Playing with my beloved pet dog is something I’ll never tire of!

Kawakami: Eh?

Sasanuma: Yes, it’s my dog. Patting it on the thighs–

Kawakami: Thighs?

Sasanuma: –while feeding it beef jerky – I can do this for an hour or two. Even after the beef jerky’s all gone, I find myself still patting my dog.

Toriumi: Your pet dog’s a beef jerky junkie.

(Everyone laughs.)

Sasanuma: I feed it various other stuff too, such as milk. Yeah, I guess it’s going to get fat thanks to that. Alright, that’s it from me.

Shimura: Good evening. I’m Shimura Tomoyuki, who plays Murota.

Someone: It’s your head.

Shimura: Yes, it’s my head **. As long as I have it, I’ll never tire of it. Right on. Fishing is something I could do forever – if dragons existed. I want to catch one, that’s why. Also, drinking is something I can do all the time. But, I’ll always regret it the day after. And will drink again later in the evening. Only to regret it all over again the next morning! Goodbye.

Kobayashi: Good evening. This is Kobayashi Youko, who plays the transgender musclewoman and school doctor, Igarashi. Well, someone might have already mentioned the same thing before, but for me too, it’s cats [that I’ll never tire of].

Ishikawa: Ah, cats! I love cats!

Kobayashi: A group of volunteers were looking for homes for strays in front of the train station in my neighborhood. I got a pet cat from them three months ago. It’s a black cat. I find myself liking the cat so much that I got another one yesterday. (laughs) I will bring it home next week – a tricolor one this time. Yes, soon I’ll be the owner of two cats. They seem to be increasing rapidly. My home might soon turn into a cat mansion. As long as I have my cats, I’ll never tire of life. That’s it from me. Thank you very much.

Narita: Er... good evening. I’m Narita Ken, who plays Matsumoto Takahisa, the Student Council Chairman. As for me, I basically like baths. The other day, I went to a hot spring resort. The sort with a private open-air bath just outside the room.

The others: That’s nice.

Narita: Isn’t it? I really love that sort of hot spring resorts.

One of the voice actors: Did you go alone?

Narita: No no, I went with other people, of course. Going on my own would be too lonesome. Well, going alone might not be a bad thing. I like baths, so I probably won’t mind going alone. After getting out of the bath, I typically have fish dishes to accompany the sake. To me, these are life’s pleasures. Thank you for listening.

Tobita: Good morning. This is Tobita Nobuo, who plays Tachibana Haruka, the Student Council Vice-Chairman. Like some of my fellow voice actors, I love cats.

Ishikawa: Cats!

Tobita: Yes. I have an American Shorthair and a Somali.

Ishikawa: You have a Somali as well?

Tobita: The two didn’t get along well at first, never mind playing together. It took three years before they finally slept together. But now they live together happily. I hope that they’ll live long and well. Also, I like my job and working together with the Chairman. As long as Narita-san’s there, things will never get boring!

(The others laugh.) [T/N: After all, it’s that, to quote Morikawa, ‘that Narita Ken.’]

Tobita: Alright, hope to see you all again. Thank you very much.

Kondou: Thank you for your hard work, everyone. I’m Kondou Takashi, who plays Kiba Osamu. Originally, I wanted to be the first to say that I find joy in my work but Kisaichi-san already beat me to it right in the beginning. So I had to discard the lines I prepared and was thinking of something else to say while waiting for my turn. (laughs) I didn’t really intend for things to end up like this.

Kondou: The more I thought about it, the more negative it gets. When I start playing a video game, rather than not growing tired of it, I just can’t seem to stop. I tell myself, “I mustn’t go on like this, I need to get out of the house, I have to work.” So, persevering with utmost effort, I make sure to go out every morning. (laughs) If I don’t do that, I’ll turn into a shut-in. Everyone, please take care when playing video games. That’s about it.

Itou: This is Itou Kentarou, who plays Ryuunosuke. Well, at this point, we’ve run out of unique responses. Really, I’m blessed to be working with senior voice actors who never tire of their jobs. There’s drinking too, as Shimura said. And golf, as Kousuke mentioned. I’m absorbed in those recently. I actually get bored of things pretty easily. When I think about the reason why, it could be because once I decide that I like something, I’ll just do it while ignoring everything else. So from now on, I’ll do things in moderation. Hopefully, I’ll find something I never tire of, something I can continue doing for the rest of my life. I just realized this today. So, I’ll be taking my leave of you all, because I’m going off now to join some clubs. (laughs)

Katsu: I’m Katsu Anri, who plays Shuuji. Thank you for your hard work, everyone. As for something I’ll never get bored of, it’s the same as one of things Shimura-san mentioned: fishing. Also, I’ve been playing a few musical instruments for quite a while. That’s right – I never get tired of playing musical instruments [guitar, bass guitar and drums according to his Japanese Wikipedia page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8B%9D%E6%9D%8F%E9%87%8C]. I perform mostly indoors these days. I don’t do it to that extent anymore, but in the past, I once played the bass for up to twelve hours without taking any break or eating. There was this song I just wanted to play over and over again. Once I was done, I collapsed onto the ground. My hands and legs had gone numb. I nearly got sent to the hospital. That was the level of my enthusiasm when it came to music. Everyone who plays musical instruments, please take care not to overdo it the way I did. Well, that was fun. That’s it from me.

Kawakami: This is Kawakami Tomoko, who plays Katsuragi-chan. While trying to think of things one never tires of, various stuff came to mind, such as pets and hobbies. But, for me it’s tidying up my room.

Morikawa: Ah, I know, I know!

Ishikawa: You’ve said enough. [not sure whether this was directed to Morikawa or Kawakami.]

Kawakami: Eh?

Kawakami: To be honest, my room’s far from neat. There are plenty of clutters in it. Whenever I try to put stuff away, I end up looking at them against my better judgment. Things like years-old magazine articles featuring interviews I granted. Reading some of those, I think: wow, did I really wear this attire? I never get bored of looking at old stuff like those. Though I expressly tell myself, “I must definitely tidy up my room today,” I end up not completing the task. Stuff will pile up again until I decide to have the next tidying up session, in which the same thing will happen. It’s a vicious circle. In short, I guess I’ll never have my fill of tidying up my room. Thank you for listening.

Ishikawa: I’m Ishikawa Hideo, who plays Tokito Minoru. I love cats too, so I’m a cat owner as well. Recently, I bought some black cotton swabs at the convenience store. Those are really good for picking up dirt. With just a little daub on the skin, a lot of dirt will come off. I used them on a recording location once and gave everyone there a piece. That’s how enthusiastic I’m about them. Everyone, if you like–

Morikawa: You gave everyone a cotton swab?

Ishikawa: Yes. Please give them a try.

(Morikawa laughs.)

Ishikawa: Aren’t you being silly? [He used the term from Kansai dialect for ‘idiot’, aho. FWIW, Ishikawa hails from the Kansai region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai_dialect#Vocabulary]

Ishikawa: I– I– (tries unsuccessfully to speak over the clamor)

Someone: They’re convenient for cleaning up right?

Ishikawa: Right, for stuff such as getting rid of earwax. So, everyone, if you like, please give them a try. They’re called Wholly Absorbent Cotton Swabs and are black. They’re luxuriantly thick and great to use. As long as I have them, I’m good.... Er, did I say something weird?

(The others laugh.)

[More info on the cotton swabs: https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E9%98%BF%E8%98%87%E8%A3%BD%E8%96%AC-%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%82%84%E3%81%BF%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8D%E7%B6%B%E6%A3%92-70%E6%9C%AC/dp/B000FQS0IS]

Ishikawa: Well, that’s about it. This gentleman will bring up the rear.

Morikawa: Yes. Dirty ears are gross... Sorry.

(Toriumi laughs along with some of the others.)

Morikawa: This is Morikawa Toshiyuki, who plays Kubota Makoto. As long I have or do this thing, I’ll never get bored. What is it? It’s meat! As long as I can eat meat, I’ll never... be thin.

(Toriumi laughs again.)

Morikawa: Being a dog person, I keep a Labrador Retriever as pet. Thanks to it.... I’ve had my fill of dogs.

(The others laugh.)

Morikawa: Really, my dog plays a trick on me at every turn. He’d carry off my house slippers and run around my residence trying to escape me. The minute I arrive home [and am about to wear the slippers], he’d grab the slippers without fail. I’m sick of that trick already, but he does not seem to be. Even now, I’m at loss as to how to deal with this behavior.

Someone: You’re fed up with it.

Morikawa: Sorry for bothering you all with my dog trouble. After this, I probably can’t count on your support anymore. (laughs) I’m done, yes.

Ishikawa: All right. Everyone, thank you very much. Then, let’s say it together. One, two–

Everyone: Good-bye!

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(Round brackets): actions and sound effects. [Square brackets]: translator’s notes or clarifications. Double asterisks **: Stuff I am not sure of. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are more than welcome.

Extra notes

Saiyuki fans: If you find some of the voices familiar, that might be because you’ve heard them in the Saiyuki anime.

Narita Ken, Matsumoto’s voice actor, played Koumyou Sanzo in Gensoumaden series and the Saiyuki Drama CD.

Toriumi Kousuke, Ainoura’s voice actor, played young Ukoku (Ken'yuu) in Burial OVA.

The late Kawakami Tomoko (Katsuragi’s voice actor) played Lirin.

Morikawa Toshiyuki (Kubota’s voice actor) played Homura.

Fans of old BLCD (late 1990s to early 2010s) probably would know most of the Araiso cast. I just couldn’t help smiling whenever I recalled who paired with whom in which Boys’ Love Drama CD as I translated this track.

There’s a good ending for Fujiwara, or his voice, at least. He got to be with his Kubota-senpai for once, in Toraware no Koibito.

Kondou Takashi (Osamu’s voice actor) played the seme to Morikawa in Adult Education and the uke to Ishikawa in Castle Mango.

If you’re interested in BL Drama CDs, there is wonderful list pointing to the downloads, indexed by voice actors on aarinfantasy.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Persona 5 Questions: How old is Goro’s phone?

I’ll make this a new series, where it’s not really....a “Persona Problem” (those are more at addressing problems in a sense) inherently but it’s more aimed at a “mystery” of unanswered questions in the series....and trying to reconcile it...I mean the two posts series might overlap at times tho but if that’s the case they’ll I’ll just make it a PP (P3 ex: what’s Aigis’ birthday? oh ho ho trust me it’s a bit....more complicated than you think ;w; you can look at my meltdown in the tags for more info)

So I was remembering the scene from when Futaba.....”hacks” his phone. And it raises a few questions for me. When she grabs it she says “that’s the one I wanted!” Which is pretty innocent except.....it makes me wonder a few things, so let’s create two scenarios. Scenario 1: It’s an older phone from around year 2013. Scenario 2: It’s a recent phone (aka one in 2016).

Scenario 1: It’s an old phone from around 2013, aka about the time Goro first got his powers. So here are my questions:

Orphan 15-16ish year old Goro had a smartphone that a techie like Futaba would be “interested” in prior to obtaining powers or becoming famous. A smartphone so coveted that it wouldn’t raise suspicions for him if someone grabbed it from him. (this part isn’t a big issue for me, but I feel like I should list it juuuuust in case to cover my bases and gives the best frame to what I’m trying to ask, this one is probably the most do-able/plausible)

He’s not suspicious of Futaba geeking out over a 3 year old phone (I dunno, considering how fast tech improves, I’d be wondering why she’d want my dinky ass phone). 

If that is the only MetaNav phone Shido has access to, cause of Goro, why is he so hell bent on killing the kid and thinking he can still use the world even after offing Goro

By it being old it means the app can’t be transferred to another phone and the person NEEDS THE ORIGINAL PHONE to go to the metaverse

Scenario 2: Recent phone, makes more sense for Futaba to be geeking out about the phone but....

What about the MetaNav? 

Did it just transfer to the new phone (aka he still only has one phone with the meta nave)? So that means the app can magically transfer to a new phone if you need it

And if that’s the case, like I said Goro should be suspicious of Futaba (if you need reasons why I’ll make a different post about it), why wouldn’t he just......get a new phone he knows Futaba never touched and not worry about not having said App?

Or does Goro have a 2nd phone with the MetaNav on it 

(and if so does that mean this thing can be replicated? I mean it was created by Yaldy so he can do whatever with it and can just keep putting the app on new phones....I mean he does reinstall the app after the MC deletes it so....yeah.....maybe he just let’s one person have multiple ones or maybe he deletes it/reinstalls it on a new phone if/when someone gets a new phone) But is this why Shido is sooooooo chill with killing his golden goose? Cause he has other’s stashed away? 

And if so why the fudge don’t we have more people strutting about in the Metaverse?)

So we’re stuck with some issues with each scenario. If the phone was older it might explain that the app can’t be transferred and thus Goro must hold onto that phone (and makes it understandable why he wouldn’t ditch it even after Futaba put her hands on it), but it should raise his suspicions of Futaba geeking out (I mean he should already be hella suspicious ALREADY but to add to it), and it also makes Shido look really dumb and makes his whole “I’mma kill the one person who can go into the Metaverse, but still somehow use his Metaverse app even after death” confusing esp if Goro hides his phone prior to death? The other is that it makes Futaba less suspicious (still should be very suspicious of her anyway Goro whatchu doin’?), makes Shido’s whole plan a little more understandable (tho they probs should’ve addressed it), but then raises questions one....just how many navs are out there and why aren’t there more people (and Yaldy’s whole “I grant this shit to people” thing???? like would he even allow that? I don’t think so), and why doesn’t Goro get a new phone (this really is an issue regardless of my question, you have every right to be mad and worried about Futaba taking your phone Goro! And every right to be suspicious).

I mean if it’s the 2nd scenario it’d explain the police ambush in Sae’s Palace.....which wasn’t explained.... but tbh I always figured Goro just lent them his phone before hand? I mean it’s the only thing that made logical sense at the time (you only need one phone to sneak multiple people in, and if Goro is going with the PT he doesn’t need his phone)....of course that thing has a bigger issue I want to address later (regardless if it involved Goro lending his phone out or the police having a copy nav, either leads to the same issue surprisingly), but I just wanted to focus on in relation to Goro’s phone. 

I really wanna know which one it is. DX It could answer some questions 

[doomonfilm]

Ranking : Spike Lee (1957 - present)

There have been countless directors whose careers have spanned my lifetime, but out of these countless masses, the one whom I can find the most in common ground with (as well as endless inspiration from) is Spike Lee.  A New Yorker through and through, Lee went from a series of films that seamlessly blended hip-hop and old school Hollywood aesthetics, to personal films, to his take on the blockbuster, and currently, to the point where his canon has earned him artistic freedom and expression that many of his peers have not been able to achieve.  He is the perfect bridge between the director-driven mindset of the 1970s and the cultural boundary-pushing films of the 1990s-forward.  Not everything that he directed was a hit or a masterpiece, but this man has more iconic films under his belt that some directors have films to their name.  That being said, it’s time to stir the pot and make an attempt at the monumental task that is ranking the films of Spike Lee.

I will only be including theatrically released feature films of Spike Lee that I have seen.  His documentary work will be excluded, as well as his films I have missed or have yet to see.  Here is a list of these films : Da 5 Bloods, Chi-Raq, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, 4 Little Girls, The Original Kings of Comedy, When the Levees Broke, A Huey P. Newton Story. 

20. Oldboy (2013) Every film that you make can’t be a winner.  In the case of Lee’s attempt at remaking Oldboy, there were already two major strikes against it : a superior version of the film already existed, and that version was the middle film of a trilogy.  I doubt that even a team of the most talented directors could have made a superior version of Oldboy that surpassed the original, but after 30 years of making films, it’s admirable that Lee would even attempt something so bold and seemingly insurmountable.  

19. Red Hook Summer (2012) When your film catalog covers three decades, there’s bound to be some overlap, be it stylistically or narratively.  I’ve only seen Red Hook Summer once, but it was impossible for me to look at it subjectively, as it seemed to be a modern day mirror to another one of Lee’s explorations of New York adolescence.  While this story is not a direct copy of a Spike Lee film that I will go into more detail on later, it does feel like the update equivalent that focuses on himself rather than the childhood of his sister.  While an entertaining film from what I can remember, it sits behind a list of previous impressive achievements.

18. She Hate Me (2004) Humor has been an element present in a number of Spike Lee films, but for my money’s worth, this film is the closest thing to an outright comedy that he ever made.  Like a number of films on the back half of his career, he is touching upon important topics (sexuality and toxic masculinity, in this case), but these are topics that he has hit with more nuance and creativity in earlier films.  This film did help transition Anthony Mackie into a leading man role, and he certainly took that opportunity and ran with it, so She Hate Me could be heralded for that alone.  That being said, it was a great idea that slightly missed the mark, therefore placing it on the backend of the memorable films list for Lee.

17. Miracle at St. Anna (2008) This film had the potential to be a breakout resurgence for Spike Lee.  He was coming hot off the heels of Inside Man, a perfect blend of Lee’s style and modern Hollywood fare, so having a period-piece war film seemed like a slam dunk.  His cast was strong, while also being filled of relatively unknown young actors on the verge of becoming stars in their own right, but for whatever reason, this film failed to make a connection with the masses.  While I do remember mostly enjoying my watch, I also remember feeling a bit underwhelmed by the ending, which in turn left me lacking a reason to revisit it.  Maybe it’s a hidden gem that I haven’t seen enough times yet, but at this moment in time, its home is near the bottom of Lee’s impressive list of films.

16. Get on the Bus (1996) Many people’s eyes were opened to racial injustices during the COVID-19 pandemic, as several African-American men and women found themselves on the wrong end of violent acts from the police and other citizens in the midst of a ‘shelter-in-place’ era.  Not only have these injustices been going on for my entire lifetime, but they’ve been a generational trauma for many African-Americans in the United States.  When the Million Man March was announced in 1996, it was not surprising that Spike Lee took it as an opportunity to both document the march and build a narrative around it in which he could showcase a collection of actors he’d either featured in past films or would work with in future films.  To my knowledge, this is one of maybe two or three films about the event, and it was certainly the film released in the closest proximity to it.  For an independent, quick shoot, it definitely stands up, but in comparison to Lee’s other works that benefited from full crews and production schedules, it finds itself paling in comparison.

15.  BlacKkKlansman (2018) Despite the fact that this is the film that finally got Lee some sort of recognition at the Oscars, BlacKkKlansman was not quite the true return to form that many fans of Spike Lee expected.  The film had moments of humor, compelling moments that directly focused on racial injustice and systematic oppression, and it pulled no punches while doing so.  Like a handful of Lee’s other films, however, this one falls when compared to his other films that deal with similar subject matter.  Adam Driver continued to show fans his expansive range, and  Jasper Paakonen deserved INFINITELY more recognition than he got, but ultimately, this film checks all the ‘good’ boxes where it was expected to check the ‘great’ ones.

14. 25th Hour (2002) As the year 2000 approached, Lee seemed to attempt and make a shift from films that specifically spoke on aspects of the African-American experience in favor of occasional films that reached a wider audience.  While Summer of Sam would be considered the first foray into that realm, the true mark of this elevated sense of creative duty came in the form of 25th Hour.  With the actors in tow, in tandem with the cinematography and skilled directing ability displayed in the film, one would expect a powerhouse movie, but ultimately, the expectations exceeded the narrative of this film.  This one is entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but I personally did not find a connection with the story, meaning that the film was, at best, fun to watch.

13. Summer of Sam (1999)  I’ve been a true-crime junkie since my early teenage years, and even the most casual of true-crime fans is more than likely familiar with David Berkowitz, also known to many as the Son of Sam.  While Red Hook Summer did come out after Summer of Sam, it’d be hard to deny the fact that Summer of Sam is the last of Lee’s love letters to New York City.  This was the film where Spike Lee stepped out of his comfort zone of the African-American experience, choosing instead to focus on more colloquial aspects of the American experience, and for my money’s worth, it was the start of an important shift for him.  Despite being light on the Son of Sam action, the actors this film does focus on (and the story it chooses to tell) is a fresh look at a familiar era, and a crowning achievement that signaled new things for Spike Lee.

12.  He Got Game (1998) If you made a Venn diagram of people familiar with Spike Lee, the two biggest circles would be film fans and people who have seen at least one New York Knicks game since the 1990s.  Therefore, the only thing that was really and truly surprising about He Got Game was the fact that it took Spike Lee 15 years and 11 films to make a film about basketball.  On the outset, that’s exactly what it is : a film about basketball.  Viewed with a wider lens, however, this story is a love letter to one of the most popular American inventions, and a story about how it can serve as a common-ground bridge for those from wholly different walks of life.  The juxtaposition of Aaron Copland and Public Enemy made the soundtrack provocative, and Ray Allen stood out in his lead role, holding his own against the living legend that is Denzel Washington, who is always good for a stellar performance in a Spike Lee joint.  Don’t mistake this film’s place on the list for my feelings about it... this is a stellar film, in my opinion, and one of my favorites to revisit.

11. Crooklyn (1994) After making what many would argue to be the most important film of his career (which we will eventually get to), it’s no surprise that Spike Lee circled his creative wagons and made the focus of his next film inward.  Crooklyn covers what seem like many personal bases for Spike Lee : he portrays the New York of the past vividly and beautifully, while spinning a true-to-life tale based on his personal experience, but opting to focus on his sister Joie Lee and his father Bill Lee.  Of Lee’s many, many films, this was the one that I felt the most compelled to see at the time of release, it is one of the two I have the most vivid memories and recollections of, and it has a number of stylistic choices that keep me wonderfully perplexed to this day.  Despite not cracking the top ten Spike Lee films, this one ranks high on the list of Spike Lee films that hit the bullseye of my heart.

10. Jungle Fever (1991) Interracial romance is one of those things that seemingly will always be a sensitive subject.  I’ve heard many people say that Jungle Fever has a dated look on the subject, but I’d argue that the film was very forward thinking, especially in showing that an interracial romance is not the answer to the cultural and societal problems that life presents us.  The movie also touches deeply on drug addiction without crossing over into the realm of being preachy or talking down to the viewer.  It didn’t hurt that Stevie Wonder also managed to create a soundtrack’s worth of new material that instantly brought the seemingly controversial film directly into the public eye.  Maybe it is dated... maybe it is uncomfortable... but what it is, undoubtedly, is an early masterpiece that fell near the end of one of the most stellar introductory runs that any filmmaker has presented us.

9. Clockers (1995) Ever wonder what would happen if a Martin Scorsese film found its way into the hands of Spike Lee?  Well, wonder no longer, because Clockers is out there waiting for you to discover it.  The amount that this movie gets slept on is an outright tragedy and travesty.  The soundtrack is KILLER, the color-timing puts the viewer in an immediate ‘cold-world’ environment, the order of operations presented in this film is brutal and unforgiving, and yet, it manages to be one of the most heartfelt films in the Spike Lee canon.  EVERYONE presented in this movie brought their A-game to the table, from the Spike Lee regulars like Isaiah Washington, John Turturro and Harvey Keitel, to the glorified cameos and supporting roles, like Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Sticky Fingaz and Fredro of Onyx, and relative newcomer but promising leading man Makhi Phifer.  This film is intense, but it is more than worth your time and attention.

8. Bamboozled (2000) Bamboozled was shocking when it was released, to say the least.  The true revelation, however, has been the way that relevance has seemingly caught up to the film... fake wokeness, modern day minstrel shows, low budget/high yield television and behind the scenes scandals have all come to light many years after this film had its initial run.  While this film did not transition Savion Glover into the world of superstardom and crossover success, it certainly crystalized his immense talent and charisma in a way that his recordings of stage shows had previously been unable to capture.  The imagery of America’s strange fascination with the dehumanization of African-Americans for generation after generation is rich, and every performance is compelling.  This was definitely Spike Lee’s first masterpiece of the new millennium, and at the risk of being bittersweet, probably one of his last truly stunning achievements.

7. Girl 6 (1996) Every ranking list has to have the controversial placement, so here’s mine... Girl 6 started as a lingering interest for me.  The internet was just about to change the world, but we were still locked into landlines at the time, with cellular being a luxury, so the world of phone sex still had relevance.  Upon seeing the film, however, I quickly realized that the phone sex exploration was playing counter to a Hollywood hopeful narrative that was brave enough to explore new ground (per the changing times) while being mindful enough to pay homage to the countless stories of Hollywood hopefuls that came before it.  Many of the shifting cinematography looks that made Clockers so gritty were used to make Girl 6 feel dangerously euphoric.  The list of cameos and brief supporting roles were not only a who’s who of cultural movers and shakers at the time, but it ran about as long as my arm.  I recently revisited the film and expected it to be a bit more on the side of kitsch, but surprisingly, the times had not been as hard on the film as I anticipated.  The film shifts quite well between light and dark, and even the ending that initially slightly annoyed me has found a strange sort of charm in my older, more life-experienced years.  Add to this the hilarious running joke of Isaiah Washington being a kleptomaniac in nearly every scene he appears in, and there’s a realization that there are sublayers going on right in front of our eyes.  This collaboration with Suzan-Lori Parks gives me hope that maybe one day, we’ll get a Spike Lee film adaptation of Topdog/Underdog, but we will see.

6. Inside Man (2006) If you had to pick the most ‘Hollywood’ of the Spike Lee films, my money would be on this film ending up as the chosen one.  By this rationale, it makes the film that much more impressive, as it also stands out as one of the most compelling, well-directed and well-acted Spike Lee films.  At the time of its release, it was not only a return to form, but it seemed to signal an evolution.  Spike Lee was able to use his signature, iconic shots that he was known for, like his camera-turned-to-dolly float, or the push-pull zooms, but he was also able to incorporate familiar Hollywood tropes, including the twist ending, and give them a breath of fresh air via an newly infused sense of style.  Lee also stayed true to himself by educating as well as entertaining, bringing to light how atrocities from the past have more than historical connections to modern day benefactors.  While I do think there are a handful of better ‘pure’ Spike Lee films, if I had to pick one movie for a curious party that my be skeptical, this would easily be my pick.

5. She's Gotta Have It (1986) Oh, the joy of having your first film be a breakout success, but not to the point of pigeon-holing your career.  She’s Gotta Have It was an important introductory step to the masses for Spike Lee : it showed his dedication to putting African-American performers into familiar narratives, it showed an appreciation for the voice of women on film that many first-time directors would likely not want to be the initial association to their style, it introduced the world to Mars Blackmon (who became a cultural icon), and it presented sense of style that switched on the viewer the moment before they could label it pretentious.  Having characters address the camera made it feel like a play or a novel, but when the film shifted into movie mode, the camera moved with the energy and grace of a performance artist or dancer, which in turn fed into the character development and narrative it presented.  As a bonus, the property found new life nearly 40 years later as a Netflix original series, introducing new generations to a modern day classic statement of feminism, and how it does not excuse bad behavior.

4. Mo' Better Blues (1990) Those familiar with Spike Lee’s family know that he was raised by jazz bassist Bill Lee, who scored some of Spike’s early films.  By this rationale, it comes as no surprise that Lee could make such a rich, nuanced and heartfelt film about jazz music that serves as an allegory for the hurdles that beset those driven purely by passion.  The conversations about race, musical integrity and commercialism also work on both direct and symbolic levels, giving Mo’ Better Blues some of the highest repeat viewing value of any film in the Spike Lee canon.  The film also marked the first collaboration of Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, a combination that yielded artistic, career, creative, commercial and critical success, led to a multitude of classic performances, and ultimately led to a generational collaborative changing of the guard in the form of John David Washington.  The only negative I can give this film is that it did not lead to future films that explored genres of music like hip-hop and soul.  While She’s Gotta Have It did focus heavily on relationships and intimacy, it could be argued that Mo’ Better Blues was Spike Lee’s first adult contemporary film, and his first look at modern romance in the more ‘traditional’ sense.

3. School Daze (1988) The African-American college experience, specifically that of HBCUs (Historically Black College and Universitys), is one that has often been neglected in the annals of film history.  As a graduate of Clark Atlanta University, it makes total sense that Spike Lee’s second commercial film would focus on that specifically overlooked culture, as it became a fitting vehicle for establishing Lee’s sense of duty and responsibility for education, sharing the African-American experience to the masses, and exposing systematic injustices and hypocrisies that kep the disadvantaged in a disadvantaged position.  The real genius of this film, however, comes in the juxtaposition of presentations it jumps between... for the majority of the film, it is an unflinching look at the coming of age process that teenagers must traverse on their way to adulthood, including the hurdles of romance, forming your identity and expanding your view of the world around you.  At key moments, however, the film switches into musical numbers, song performances and school dances that not only expand on the inner feelings, emotions and desires of characters, but heighten the reality of the story to a dizzying pace.  In all the ways that She’s Gotta Have It put the world on notice that a unique voice was present in the industry, School Daze signaled the continuation of a run that would last another handful of films, and it firmly established Spike Lee as a generational talent. 

2. Do the Right Thing (1989) I would guess that over the course of a career, a director secretly hopes that at least one of their works comes close to making an impact culturally.  In the case of Spike Lee, however, we have a man who released two cultural-shifting films, and did so in a span of less than 5 years.  They say the third time is a charm, and that’s exactly what Do the Right Thing was for Spike Lee.  The vivid colors, stylistic earmarks, historical and cultural sense of urgency and focus on telling minority stories all expanded greatly with this film, which acted as both a parable of how past injustices can come back to haunt you, and a harbinger of how the reactions to these continued injustices would only amplify if not addressed.  The fact that Spike Lee not only directed this film, but played the lead actor as well, is a monumental achievement, especially considering how few flaws the film has, if any.  Several established actors played some of their most iconic roles in this film, and a breadth of newer, younger faces exploded onto the scene, almost all of whom either continued to work with Lee or found themselves evolving their careers in the wake of Do the Right Thing.  The film is also directly responsible for perhaps the most iconic hip-hop song of all time, Public Enemy’s classic protest anthem Fight The Power.  Any fan of film would be foolish to skip the Spike Lee catalog, but regardless of whether you’re interested in his work or not, this film is one of two he made that should flatly be considered required viewing across the board.  The other one, being...

1. Malcolm X (1992) For everything that Do the Right Thing did for Spike Lee and those involved in the production, the monumentally powerful biopic Malcolm X did all of that while also managing to humanize, canonize and create and icon out of a man that America tried its best to demonize.  The masterful hand that Lee used to direct this film shows, as this film is the most ‘every frame a painting’ in his canon.  Everything from the period costuming to the locations to the dance numbers to the cinematography absolutely leaps off of the screen.  The editing is kinetic, the performances are full of life and depth, and the narrative does just enough going forwards and backwards to make proper connections without beating it over the head of the viewer.  The respect shown to Malcolm X is massive, so much so that almost seemingly overnight, Malcolm X went from being a feared and often heavily criticized sign of aggressive blackness to a commercial commodity and household name, with the famous X suddenly adorning t-shirts, baseball caps and necklaces of all American youth, not just minorities.  The impact of this film was so immediate that many schools held field trips for viewings, which further cemented the immediate and historical value of the film.  Often, the connotation of saying someone ‘peaked’ for a film so early in their career would be negative, but the heights to which Malcolm X achieved on all fronts meant that even if the rest of Lee’s career was a steady decline (which it certainly wasn’t), he more than likely still would have ended up in a pantheon far above that of the average director.

With projects reportedly in the early stages of development, it doesn’t look like Spike Lee has any plans on stopping anytime soon.  I certainly owe it to myself to see the handful of his films and documentaries that I’ve not seen yet... who knows, perhaps I may even go back one day and add the documentaries into the list, or find a surprise gem in one of his more recent movies I’ve yet to see.  

[animelow7-blog]

Reflections on the cusp of the 2019 Cubs season

It’s so easy for those of us who follow baseball and the Cubs closely to get caught up in minutiae — who’s going to be the 25th man on the roster, how the Cubs will handle a tough late-season schedule, whether Joe Maddon will manage the team beyond 2019 — that I think sometimes we forget that baseball runs in cycles. Always has, always will. Teams have periods where they lay fallow for years (or decades, in the Cubs’ case), eras where they dominate.

What am I getting at here? This was supposed to be the Golden Age of Cubs baseball, once they returned to postseason play in 2015 and won the World Series in 2016. And yet, a NLCS loss in 2017 and the stunning wild-card game defeat in 2018 have some thinking that this Golden Age might be tarnished.

Let me remind you of a cycle that the Cubs’ current management team went through when they were in Boston, chronicled in an interview Jon Greenberg did with Jed Hoyer in The Athletic:

This winter it was really helpful for both of us to have that those shared experiences in Boston. Listen, 2006 in Boston was miserable. It was a really bad end of the season and we fell short. We didn’t do much at the deadline, we fell short, we had tons of injuries in September. We won 86 games, missed the playoffs. We ended up being active that offseason and winning the World Series, but that feeling after ’06 was very similar to that feeling after last year.

That’s pretty much where we are right now, isn’t it? The Red Sox broke their drought in 2004, lost a division series in 2005 and then missed the playoffs in 2006. The latter isn’t precisely what happened to the 2018 Cubs, but the feeling is certainly quite similar, as Hoyer stated.

The difference, of course, is that the Red Sox were “active” in the 2006-07 offseason. Their biggest move was signing Daisuke Matsuzaka, and while Matsuzaka’s entire big-league career was mostly a failure, he had a good year in 2007 (4.1 bWAR) and was a key contributor in Boston’s run to a World Series title that year, a sweep of the Rockies.

This is a reminder, again, that it’s very, very hard to repeat as World Series champions. No one has done it in 18 years, now, since the Yankees’ back-to-back titles in 1999 and 2000. There are various reasons for that, but these days it’s more likely that a team will use its “cycle” to win multiple titles over a short period, as the Giants did from 2010-14 (three championships) or even the Red Sox, who now have four World Series titles over the last 15 seasons.

I think if you had asked any Cubs fan, when Theo Epstein took over the club after the 2011 season, if it would be okay if the Cubs won four World Series over the years 2012-26, the answer would have been an emphatic “Hell yes!”

I’m still at “Hell yes” on that. There will be eight baseball seasons completed between now and 2026. If the Cubs can win three World Series in that period, to add to the 2016 title, I think we’d all be fine with that.

In another article in The Athletic (and really, you should subscribe, and they didn’t pay me to tell you that), Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma detail the massive offseason effort by everyone in the organization to change the vibe from the bad ending to the 2018 season. There was a lot of soul-searching, a lot of discussion between management and players, and the results of those discussions were these five major changes in the way the 2019 season will be approached:

Holding mandatory batting practice four or five times a week.

Releasing the lineups on a series-by-series basis.

Circling 10 or so trap games and challenging the group to win all of them.

Spending more time in the dugout during games and being ready when the national anthem is sung.

Limiting the amount of alcohol and fast food consumed in the clubhouse and on charter flights.

These were apparently identified as issues by players and management and my takeaway from all these is that while Joe Maddon’s management style had, up to now, been to pretty much let players police themselves as long as they got their work done, it seems that Theo & Co. want Joe to be more “hands-on” and to have more accountability from everyone. The entire article is a must-read.

As you know, this wasn’t the best offseason the Cubs have ever had, from the Addison Russell situation to the Joe Ricketts email controversy to the fact that the most significant addition to the Cubs’ roster for 2019 was Daniel Descalso (plus, I suppose, the exercising of the option on Cole Hamels’ contract). Many fans had a “Do something, anything!” mantra for much of the offseason.

My take? The Cubs’ “free agent signings” amount to getting a healthy Kris Bryant and a healthy Yu Darvish back from injuries that ruined the 2018 season for both those star players. Bryant was off to a great start in 2018, and then hurt his shoulder diving for a ball in Cincinnati in June. He tried to play through it for 10 games in July, performed poorly, then sat out until September. From the initial injury date through the end of the season, Bryant hit .256/.356/.416 (32-for-125) with only four home runs in 36 games. Obviously that’s not the KB we had known from 2015-17, but he appears to be 100 percent healthy and ready to go this year.

So, too, does Darvish, who has had a solid spring (four starts, 2.25 ERA, 14 strikeouts in 12 innings) despite a bit of a scare when he left a game with a blister. Darvish, too, appears ready to go, and has taken to joking around with media in English:

To me, that’s a real sign that he appears more comfortable as a Cub, more a part of the team, and also ready to go.

The tweet above mentions Pedro Strop, whose hamstring injury last September might have cost the Cubs the game they needed to win the N.L. Central. (Not that specific game, but perhaps Pedro would have helped them win one game that they didn’t after he went down.) Strop, after a minor hamstring setback this spring (the other hamstring from the one he hurt last year), also appears ready to go.

The Cubs will not have an easy road this year. Almost all the other teams in the N.L. Central have improved themselves, though I don’t expect the Brewers to have the “perfect storm” kind of season they had in 2018. The Cardinals might be tougher, with nemesis Paul Goldschmidt now facing the Cubs 19 times a year instead of six or seven. The Reds have improved their starting rotation, though if they don’t get off to a good start, they might be very active at the trading deadline. The Pirates? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, they got off to a fantastic start, going 8-1, 17-5, 25-6 and 47-20 before an inexplicable 5-15 stretch brought them back to the pack... sort of. After the first week of May they never led the division by fewer than six games and won it by 17½.

That, too, was a “perfect storm” that isn’t likely to be repeated, though Hoyer said in the Greenberg interview:

It’s important we get off to a good start. I’ll say that. There are seasons where I feel like OK, let’s get into the season and see how things go. Sort of get conditioned to the season and then you take off. I feel like this is a year that I’ll be disappointed if we don’t kind of hit the ground running. I think it’s important for this division and I think it’s important for the psyche of this group after last season. Getting off to a good start is something that I think is really important.

I’m with Jed here. The Cubs have had rough starts in some of the last couple of seasons, including being under .500 at the All-Star break in 2017. I don’t think they can afford that this year.

And this team seems ready for that challenge. In 2015, 2016 and 2017 the Cubs had great runs in August and September that sealed their postseason positions. I think they thought last summer, “Oh, we’ll just do that again this year.” But it didn’t happen, instead the Brewers were the team that had the great September run and beat out the Cubs, even though the Cubs had a decent September. It appears the Cubs have learned from that and understand that their sense of urgency has to last all year, they can’t just flip a switch and turn it on.

And with that, I’m ready for this baseball season to begin. As always, the beginning of baseball brings with it a sense of renewal and hope, and I personally am filled with hope and expectation that the Cubs are in fact in a Golden Age for the team. It’s almost impossible to win the World Series every year, but this team seems primed to do it again. If they do, then we’ll really be seeing one of the most dominant eras in team history. If not... we’ll likely see a very different Cubs team on the field in 2020.

#LetsGo

Source: https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2019/3/27/18283982/cubs-2019-season-reflections-kris-bryant-yu-darvish

[bittenpath-blog]

48cm:John Burke: The Checklist that Could Change Our Industry

A recent opinion piece in Bicycle Retailer stated that our industry is plagued with “zero leadership and vision.” That got my attention. And with the polar vortex sending me to the basement each morning to ride my trainer, I have had some time to think about the state of our industry and whether or not we indeed have a vision and leadership problem.

So how is the industry? We live in interesting times, an era of massive change, and the bicycle industry is certainly not immune. As with everything else, there is the good and the bad. 

Let’s start with the bad: according to BPSA data, dollar sales have been relatively flat three consecutive years, with units down 13% over that same period. There is no question that fewer people are riding bikes due to safety concerns, the American obesity epidemic, and our nation’s obsession with screens. America is getting older, fatter, and more addicted to screens and none of that is good for the bike business. 

The good news is that we have four massive platforms for growth moving forward. First, more and more people are heading off-road to enjoy mountain biking and those people are buying higher end bikes. The second is that the road bike market is coming back due to technological innovations like disc brakes. If you ride in a road bike event today, maybe 10% of the bikes have disc brakes. Five years from now, they will all have disc brakes. The third positive trend I see is NICA. This could be the most significant innovation in the bicycle movement — a coed high school mountain bike league where everyone makes the team and where everyone gets to play in every game. It gets even better! NICA has a cumulative effect in that when a child joins, it gets their parents and siblings interested in cycling. NICA has been growing at an average rate of 40% over the last 10 years and is now competing in 22 states. By 2030, it is highly possible that all states will have NICA leagues with over 200,000 kids participating annually. New kids coming into the sport every year, along with their families, is a game-changer. 

I’ve saved the best for last: America is just at the beginning of its E-Bike Revolution. According to NPD data, e-bike sales were up 79% in 2018. All signs point to a huge e-bike business this year, and we are just scratching the surface. In some European markets, the e-bike business is larger than the standard bike business. In good retailers in the U.S., e-bikes now represent more than 10% of total sales. We could be looking at a business in the near future where e-bikes represent 30% or more of sales. It is safe to say that e-bikes could represent a greater growth opportunity than mountain bikes did in the late 80s and early 90s or carbon road bikes in the early 2000s. E-bike riders and this industry have benefited greatly, and will continue to do so, from the thousands of hours of legislation work our friends at PeopleForBikes have done. 

There is a tug of war currently between the good and the bad and the determining factor as to which side will prevail will be advocacy. Since 1999, the US population has grown by 50 million people. In that same time span, the number of miles Americans will drive has exploded. The US Department of Energy estimates that Americans will drive 600 billion more miles than in 2019 than in 1999, representing a huge and rapidly growing barrier to cycling participation and satisfaction. The question before our industry is this: Can we make America a safe place for people to enjoy our products? This has been the most important question the industry has faced for more than twenty years. The numbers speak for themselves. Boulder, Colorado and Bloomington, Illinois have the same population and are relatively the same size but bike sales in Boulder are 8X because it is a better place to ride. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are similar sized markets, but the number of bikes sold in Pittsburgh is 4X that of Cincinnati because it is a better place to ride. According to data compiled by PeopleForBikes, per capita bike sales in US cities that have complete, connected bike networks are more than double those that don’t. Great places to ride do not happen by accident; it is not luck. If you look at history, there is a reason why Pittsburgh is better than Cincinnati and why Boulder is better than Bloomington. America is just at the beginning of its E-Bike Revolution

What differentiates the winners from the losers? People. As Margaret Mead once said, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” And now we get back to the greatest challenge (or opportunity) in the bike industry. It is not vision or leadership. It is execution. Ask any national advocate — people who pour their blood, sweat, and tears into creating a more pro-bike America — how well the bicycle industry supports bicycle advocacy. Ask them on a scale of 0-5 and the answer is a 2. Other industries would die to have the sport that we have and the potential governmental support that we have to help build our activity and yet, we are a 2. We don’t lack leadership or vision; what we lack is companies stepping up and getting involved. I gave a speech in Las Vegas a number of years ago, and I told the story of how President Bush won the 2004 election that illustrates the opportunity for the bicycle industry. The story is about how Bob Paduchik, the man who managed Ohio for the Bush campaign, won the state with a brilliant strategy. Instead of focusing on areas where the campaign was weaker, he focused his efforts on areas where they were strongest and made sure that voters turned out. They won BIG in the areas that they were supposed to win, took Ohio, and won the election. The lesson for the bike industry? If we can win where we are strongest — with bicycle companies, their employees, and retailers — we can win the game. 

The bike industry is more dependent on government support than just about any other industry. Almost all riding takes place on public roads, in the public right of way, or on public land. Competition for these spaces is fierce, and bicycling is far from the biggest or most powerful voice in deciding what gets funded and prioritized. We’ve got to be united, active, strong and professional. It’s not going to happen by accident!

But if we want to be exceptional, grow, and create a pro-bike America, we need to have high standards for ourselves and hold people within our industry accountable.

The standards I would suggest for any manufacturer/distributor participating in the U.S. market would be to judge yourself honestly with the following score card:

1.     Is your CEO actively involved in creating a more pro-bike America?

I have never seen a company make a significant contribution to bicycle advocacy without the CEO being personally invested.

2.     Would a group of leading local and national advocacy leaders say that your company supports their efforts?

Advocates around the country do amazing work on behalf of the bicycle industry. They are the ones that know who is pulling their weight and who isn’t. 

3.     Does your company take responsibility for helping to make your local city and state a pro-bike community?

Companies can make a massive difference in their home markets. If a company is really engaged in advocacy, they care about their own backyard. If every company in the bike industry made sure that their hometown was a pro-bike community, it would make a massive difference. Santa Barbara, California is a perfect example. Over the next five years, 8 major projects will be completed with a total investment of $113 million. There is a total of 447 current active bicycle projects in Santa Barbara County today. All it took was a group of highly dedicated local advocates, some guidance from PeopleForBikes, and someone from the industry who cared. Opportunities like this exist in every community across the country.

4.     Is your company a dues-paying member of PeopleForBikes?

In 1997, I attended a meeting of bicycle industry leaders at a time when the industry truly lacked any kind of leadership or vision. The solution at that time was to form Bikes Belong, which later became PeopleForBikes. At that time, the federal investment in bicycle infrastructure averaged $20 million per year. Over the last twenty years, PeopleForBikes has delivered leadership and vision bringing business, taxes, and jobs into the equation. They’ve pioneered protected bike lanes and complete seamless networks that are now widely accepted as the appropriate standard. In just twenty years, PeopleForBikes has secured $14 billion worth of public funding for cycling infrastructure which has created over 37,000 bicycle projects. In that same time, our industry has grown to what the NPD states is a $6 billion industry. Imagine the state of our industry today if those 37,000 bicycle projects never happened. 

The sad fact is that only 37% of the bicycle industry’s companies are full paying members of PeopleForBikes. An organization that is the best in the world at what they do and has delivered 37,000 new bike projects in 20 years and 63% of companies take a pass. Let me be clear, those who say that they are contributing in other ways are pulling the wool over your eyes. The companies who are the strongest supporters of PeopleForBikes, support many other organizations and projects. You can do both.

As we head toward an uncertain future, have a discussion at your company about what you can do to make a difference in creating a pro-bike America and then do something. Become a member of PeopleForBikes, make a contribution to NICA, meet with your city’s leaders and figure out how you can make a difference. Meet with your elected officials and ask for their support for cycling. Implement an advocacy tax on some of your products so your retailers can help make a difference. Adopt a trail system. Just. Do. Something. 

I can tell you that at Trek, we are reviewing our advocacy efforts and will be increasing our investment. Not just because we believe that it is good business, but we believe that we have a responsibility to help change the world by getting more people on bikes. 

[jodyedgarus]

Are The Warriors Now The NBA’s Greatest Dynasty?

With three NBA championships over the past four seasons, the Golden State Warriors are a bona fide dynasty. Regardless of how you feel about its 2016 acquisition of Kevin Durant, which lifted an already historic team to an entirely new level of dominance, Golden State has done something special: Only seven NBA teams1 have ever pulled off the three-rings-in-four-years trick. Even for the most talented roster ever, that’s not an easy thing to accomplish.

The league’s history is, in many ways, defined by its dynasties in a manner that other sports aren’t, and the Warriors are nothing if not the defining team of our current era. But where do they rank in comparison with those other dynastic teams from years past? Although there’s no definitively correct answer, it’s still fun to argue. So we thought we’d fact-check Golden State’s case using our Elo ratings, which are designed to measure a team’s inherent strength at any given moment.

Let’s start with the best runs of four consecutive seasons according to the method we favor for judging historical Elo seasons: a blend2 of a team’s final, peak and full-season-average ratings.3 To ensure that a team rated highly every year, I took the harmonic mean of its blended rating from each of the four seasons. Here are the all-time rankings, excluding any duplicates from the same franchise over the same span of years:

Elo’s best four-year runs

Highest average* blended Elo across four consecutive seasons for NBA franchises, 1948-18

Team Seasons Titles 4-Year Blended Elo Golden State Warriors 2015-18 3 1789 Chicago Bulls 1995-98 3 1745 San Antonio Spurs 2013-16 1 1736 San Antonio Spurs 2003-06 2 1719 Chicago Bulls 1991-94 3 1717 Boston Celtics 1984-87 2 1716 Los Angeles Lakers 1985-88 3 1715 Los Angeles Lakers 2008-11 2 1706 Los Angeles Lakers 2000-03 3 1703 Miami Heat 2011-14 2 1702 Utah Jazz 1995-98 0 1702 Milwaukee Bucks 1971-74 1 1701 Philadelphia 76ers 1980-83 1 1698 Detroit Pistons 1987-90 2 1695 Oklahoma City Thunder 2011-14 0 1692

* Using the harmonic mean.

Source: Basketball-Reference.com

According to Elo, the Warriors of the past few years have snapped off what is easily the best stretch of four consecutive seasons any NBA team has ever had. By that standard, then, they absolutely belong in the conversation of the league’s greatest dynasties. But of course, they’ve also only had four dynasty-level seasons to speak of. As hard as it is to remember what things were like before the Warriors started dominating, Golden State’s reign has been brief in dynasty terms.

So how should we measure the Warriors’ four-year stretch against, say, the Chicago Bulls’ pair of three-peats in the 1990s or the Boston Celtics’ ridiculous championship monopoly of the 1960s?

To help put various dynastic runs on equal footing, I began with a thought experiment: How easily would a generic championship-caliber team be able to match a given multiyear run from NBA history? The most difficult-to-replicate stretches are, by definition, the most impressive ones — and in my conception, make for the best dynasties — because a normal contending team is so unlikely to pull them off.

As a way of quantifying this, I assigned our generic team a preseason Elo rating of 1600, aka the average preseason Elo for NBA champs since 1948. I then ran a series of regressions to determine what we’d expect its average blended Elo over the next given stretch of seasons to be and compared every possible stretch of seasons in each franchise’s history to those expected ratings. I isolated things down to NBA teams that won at least three championships in a span of 10 or fewer years and tossed out overlapping runs from the same franchise that didn’t prove to be more impressive than other, higher-ranking ones. The dynastic runs we’re left with are the most successful — i.e., the most difficult to replicate — out of all possible multiyear periods in NBA history.

As you can see in the table below, the most impressive period for one team might last only three years, while another’s could span an entire decade. For example, the current Warriors’ best period came over the 2015 to 2018 period, because their four-year mark of 1789 was 188 points higher than what we’d expect our generic contender’s average blended Elo over the next four seasons to be. Another example: The San Antonio Spurs’ best run came over 10 seasons, from 1998-99 to 2007-08,4 during which time they had a blended Elo rating of 1702 — 145 points better than we’d expect that generic championship-caliber team to do over a 10-season period. Some franchises, like the Bulls, are listed twice in rapid succession, because they had multiple short runs that were highly impressive and didn’t overlap.

Here’s Elo’s ranking of all-time NBA dynasties:

The Warriors are Elo’s most impressive NBA dynasty

Highest multiyear blended Elo rating relative to expectation for a championship-caliber team for NBA franchises that won at least three titles in a span of 10 or fewer years, 1948-2018

Team Seasons Championships Blended Elo vs. Exp. Golden State Warriors 2015-18 3 of 4 1789 +188 Chicago Bulls 1996-98 3 of 3 1793 +181 San Antonio Spurs 1999-08 4 of 10 1702 +145 Chicago Bulls 1991-93 3 of 3 1746 +134 Boston Celtics 1980-87 3 of 8 1696 +130 Los Angeles Lakers 1982-91 4 of 10 1685 +128 Boston Celtics 1959-67 8 of 9 1676 +115 Los Angeles Lakers 1998-04 3 of 7 1684 +112 Minneapolis Lakers 1949-54 5 of 6 1651 +72 Miami Heat 2005-14 3 of 10 1596 +39

A “championship-caliber” team starts out with an Elo of 1600, and dynasties are measured against what we’d project that team’s multiyear blended Elo to be after a given number of years.

For franchises that made the list multiple times in a given time period, only their highest-rated stretch during the span was included.

Source: Basketball-Reference.com

Even compared with other dynasties, the current Warriors and Michael Jordan’s second Bulls three-peat stand out. Our method says that it is slightly more difficult for a typical championship contender to replicate Golden State’s four-year run than Chicago’s three-year stretch, but that’s just splitting hairs. Either dynasty could be considered the GOAT, which is truly a testament to the impressiveness of what the Warriors are currently doing.

A few notes on the rest of the list: The Spurs dynasty is difficult to pin down — we once coined the term “Grover Cleveland” (instead of the often overused D-word) for teams like San Antonio that won multiple championships but never consecutively5 — but this approach considers their most difficult-to-duplicate period to be that aforementioned decade from 1999 to 2008. It also considers the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers’ best run to be the seven seasons from 1997-98 to 2003-04, which includes (but is not limited to) the 1999-2000 through 2001-02 three-peat that most fans consider to be their dynastic peak.

The Russell-era Celtics strike me as surprisingly low on the list, perhaps as a consequence of only examining 10-year windows of time at a maximum (the Celtics won 11 rings in 13 seasons, from 1957 to 1969). But Elo also has never been all that high on those Boston teams, with only one — the 1965 version — even cracking the top 50 for single seasons. In some ways, those Celtics were a very early prototype for today’s superteams who pace themselves through the regular season and then peak during the playoffs: Boston won 60-plus games in only two of their 11 championship seasons during that span and won a pair of titles with fewer than 50 regular-season wins.6 However conducive that was to winning championships, it didn’t help earn the Celtics many Elo brownie points.

Finally, Dwyane Wade’s Miami Heat also qualify for this list, although they’re not necessarily a “dynasty” that many people think of when perusing the annals of NBA history. Between Wade’s Finals MVP turn in 2006 and the two rings they tacked on after LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined the team in 2010 — plus a number of solid seasons in between7 — the Heat could be considered a dynasty if you squint hard enough. If so, however, it also makes sense for them to be stashed away at the very bottom of the rankings here.

But back to the Warriors. Elo already considers them to be on par with the greatest dynasties the game has ever seen, and as my colleague Chris Herring wrote over the weekend, they also seem poised to keep their core together longer than most. Although the end does come sooner for these types of teams than we tend to think while we’re in the middle of their dominance, Golden State now has a chance to build on what it’s already accomplished and solidify itself as the clear No. 1 choice among the NBA’s all-time dynasties. Let’s see if they can take advantage of the opportunity.

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-the-warriors-now-the-nbas-greatest-dynasty/

[bedssleepscience]

Health Benefits of Napping

What is a nap? We define a nap as mid-day sleeping of under an hour, during which the body experiences light sleep. Longer sleep periods during the day are called siestas.

You might hear about microsleep periods and think these are naps. They are not.  Microsleep is unintentional brief (as little as a few seconds) of sleep, often of only part of the brain, and usually unknown (not consciously perceived) by the person.  You do not want to have microsleep episodes.  Indeed, intentional naps are a preventative measure against microsleep.

The afternoon slump

Thankfully, short afternoon naps are good for us, so there’s no need to feel guilty about the afternoon slump – the midday energy slump experienced by many adults. But why does this phenomenon happen?

The afternoon slump can be attributed to a variety of factors, from a heavy lunch to sheer boredom. However, your body may also be signalling you to fall asleep. Your body temperature changes throughout the day as part of your circadian rhythm. Its lowest point is in the morning just before waking, and it rises during the day. Between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., however, your body naturally experiences a small dip in temperature, signaling the brain to produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. This is a normal part of your circadian rhythm, but it helps explain why you feel sleepy in the afternoon.

Benefits of afternoon napping

Is napping good for you? When done correctly, the benefits of napping are numerous. Short naps (of less than 1 hour) are associated with lowered risk of cardiovascular disease, improved productivity, and increased mental performance and learning.

Naps reduce your risk of heart disease

Afternoon naps can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, especially for males, according to a report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Naps reduced the risk of heart problems about as much as statin drugs do (medication designed to lower cholesterol). People who napped at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week, were 37 percent less likely to die from heart disease. Occasional nappers had a 12 percent reduction.

Naps improve mental performance

Research continues to show that daytime napping can improve mental performance in adults. A study in 2006 concluded that regular naps of less than 30 minutes, and even a power nap as short as ten minutes, can improve productivity and mental performance.

Studies like these have led to enthusiasm behind the midday power nap as well as preparation naps for hurry-up-and-wait occupations such as surgeon and airline pilot.  National Geographic even compared the brain to an email system, “sleep—and more specifically, naps—is how you clear out your inbox.”  That’s too simplistic, of course, but sleep in general makes us more receptive to learning.

So we know naps can help us remember things we just learned, but are they better than equivalent period of time awake relaxing or watching television?

Yes, the time spent in napping is better for remembering than the time spent awake.

Naps help you remember

Longer sleep durations such as nighttime sleep are even better for memory than daytime naps. However, research has established that the gains in improved memory occur in the first half of the night. A sleep period of 3.5 hours is pretty much as effective as a period of 7 hours.

Sleep plays an important, if not wholly understood, part in formation of long term memory. Memories are consolidated during sleep. Brain researchers have shown events they call “spindles” happen in Stages 1 and 2 of light sleep and these seem to be connected with memory formation and learning. Short naps can be very effective in facilitating and consolidating learning since the body experiences light sleep. Thus the “power nap”. It is thought that power nap might accelerate memory consolidation by inducing NREM sleep, when light sleep occurs and spindles appear.

Why does light sleep help us learn? One theory is “synaptic pruning” takes place during sleep. This holds that during waking period synapses grow stronger and the number of synapses increases, crowding out the brain’s ability to absorb more information. Sleep is a time when the brain eliminates the number of synapses and frees up resources for further learning. Previous learning is sent to long-term memory. This theory has some animal evidence to support it, but it is just a theory.

How napping affects sleep

All other things being equal, what is better: an afternoon nap or getting more sleep at night? There is no correct answer of course, but the addition of 30-45 minutes in nighttime sleep does not significantly affect measures of vigilance and daytime sleepiness the next afternoon. Mid-day naps do improve performance on the psychomotor vigilance test and they make people less sleepy in the afternoon as measured by the MSLT. Caffeinated beverages also help us over the mid-afternoon hump more than extra sleep at night, too.

The timing of the nap affects your sleep architecture. Morning naps and afternoon naps differ, with people tending to drift off faster in the afternoon for longer naps with more slow-wave deep sleep than morning naps.

Naps over 30 minutes usually bring post-nap inertia, though.  If the sleeper goes into Stage 3, slow-wave sleep, it will be harder to wake up.  The cognitive benefits of the longer naps last longer, too.

However, developing a habit of regularly taking long naps is associated with higher mortality rates, especially among the older population.

Long naps and siestas

The tradition of the siesta in some countries and cultures has posed a question for a long time: is taking a siesta on a regular basis good for you?

Determining this type of thing is tough. It has long been known that people in these countries generally have lower rates of fatal heart disease than their counterparts in siesta-less countries, but nobody ever knew if there was a cause and effect relationship. Maybe other factors such as diet may have been responsible for fewer heart attacks.

A 2007 study conducted by epidemiologists at the University of Athens of over 23,000 participants found that siestas were correlated with lower rates in fatal heart attacks, especially in working men.

Meanwhile, a study conducted at Hadassah University Hospital in Israel in 2005 looked at a sample of 455 70-year olds and found that those who practiced siestas had a higher death rate.

An earlier (2003) Israeli study found that long siestas (over 2 hours) were correlated with increased mortality among men, but that shorter naps and siestas for women had no major correlation with mortality. And siestas appeared to be worse among men with chronic health problems.

A 2000 study by Harvard Medical School researchers of people in Costa Rica found that daily siestas in fact increased the effect of heart attacks.

Source: JAMA 1999

The evidence remains inconclusive whether siestas leads to higher mortality rates from heart attacks. Regardless, the Spanish government (the country most known for its siesta) recently launched a campaign to eliminate the tradition of siestas. Spaniards reportedly sleep an average of 40 minutes less per night than other Europeans and have the highest rate of workplace accidents in the European Union.

Researchers tend to agree that resting in the afternoon without sleeping does not pose any health risk and is often very beneficial. Napping can be taken as a sign of excessive daytime sleepiness, a symptom of many sleep disorders, but this is an example of how we look at sleep differs whether we are looking for pathologies or recreation. Recreational and appetitive naps are fun, and not a sign of a disorder.

Daytime napping: power naps and coffee naps

Sleeping is fun, and one of the most fun ways to sleep is daytime napping.

There are many ways of napping.  Different lengths, locations, and times of day.  Some people have a regular nap in the afternoon (common in toddlers and retired people), while others have a catnap during their lunch breaks. Opportunity and preferences play a big part in napping behavior.

Some investigators distinguish between appetitive nappers and replacement nappers.

Appetitive nappers can nap at almost any time, and do so often to “tune out” of their surroundings. On the other hand, replacement nappers are trying to catch up on sleep.  Appetitive nappers can nap even when they’re not sleepy, like an afternoon nap.  Replacement nappers are usually not in the mental state or habit that allows them to sleep at will.  

Another way to classify napping is by saying some naps are prophylactic and some are recuperative, respectively before or after sleep loss.  Planned power naps before anticipated periods of busy work can raise performance and cut the risk of sleepiness during times when a person needs to be at the top of his or her game.

The power nap

What used to be called a catnap is now called a power nap. The word “power” makes it socially acceptable for working adults who think of themselves as on the top of their game and helps sell napping to people who might otherwise think of it as an activity for small children and old people.

Usually the power nap is under 20 minutes, so the brain doesn’t have time to go through all the phases of sleep. Longer naps often leave the person groggy upon waking, but power naps can be refreshing without a sleepy hangover.

Some people take their power nap at their place of work – at their desk chair for instance. More ambitious nappers have a cot near their office or even go out to their car for a nap. Most do not use alarm clocks.

How to take the perfect power nap

If all this talk about naps has made you sleepy, embrace it. If you want to take a power nap, follow these tips for success:

Take advantage of the afternoon slump, when your body is already primed to fall asleep.

Don’t sleep at your desk. It takes about twice as long to fall asleep sitting upright versus lying down. Instead, find a dark and cool place.

Use earplugs or a sleep mask to block out extra light and noise.

Meditate and relax. Take slow, deep breaths. Clear your mind of all stress-related thoughts from work.

Don’t sleep for longer than 20 minutes. Set an alarm if you must.

The coffee nap

The coffee nap takes the power nap to the next level. Sleep researchers at the University of Britain at Loughborough did several tests on fatigued drivers to compare the effects of different methods for a driver can use to stay awake. They put the volunteers in driving simulators while they were sleepy and let them drive. Some of the tests included rolling down windows for cold exposure, blasting the radio and slapping oneself in the face to try to stay awake. But what researchers found worked the best was a Caffeine Nap or Coffee Nap.

Most American adults drink coffee, and caffeine is possibly the most widely used and longest self-administered drug in mankind. Caffeine is a stimulant and is often used when people want to stay awake. The coffee nap is an example of the paradoxical effect of many substances in the body.

How to take a coffee nap

The Coffee Nap is simple: you drink a cup of coffee and immediately take a 15-20 minute nap. Researchers found coffee helps clear your system of adenosine, a chemical which makes you sleepy. The combination of a cup of coffee with an immediate nap chaser provided the most alertness for the longest period of time in tests. The recommendation for a coffee nap is a bit shorter than a power nap – 15 minutes vs 20 minutes.

Drink a cup of coffee right before you sleep, so the caffeine kicks in just as you wake up.

Take advantage of the afternoon slump, when your body is already primed to fall asleep.

Don’t sleep at your desk. It takes about twice as long to fall asleep sitting upright versus lying down. Instead, find a dark and cool place.

Use earplugs or a sleep mask to block out extra light and noise.

Meditate and relax. Take slow, deep breaths. Clear your mind of all stress-related thoughts from work.

Don’t sleep for longer than 15 minutes. Set an alarm if you must.

Best time of day to nap

While the afternoon slump is the ideal time to take a nap, when that slump occurs may depend on whether you’re a lark or an owl.

Morning larks

WAKE UP: 6am

BEST TIME TO NAP: 1-1:30pm

BEDTIME: 9-10pm

Night owls

WAKE UP: 9am

BEST TIME TO NAP: 2:30-3pm

BEDTIME: 12-1am

In 2012, researchers at Stanford University found that caffeine during the day disrupts night sleep more in morning people (larks) than in evening people (owls). Morning larks may want to avoid coffee naps, and opt for regular power naps instead.

Can napping cause insomnia?

Although there is always a risk that daytime naps lead to nighttime insomnia, individuals can learn the specific needs and response of their bodies. Many people can nap in the daytime without nighttime problems.

Insomniacs, especially those attempting sleep restriction therapy, are discouraged from daytime napping because it could make it harder to sleep at night.

The link between insomnia and daytime napping is more prevalent among older adults, although the research is still conflicting on whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship. Retired people take a lot of naps because they have less structured days than younger people, but those of all ages can take naps.

Napping as you age

A Pew Research Center survey found that 34% of U.S. adults nap on any given day. Among those past age 80, the percentage was 52%. Men are more like to nap than women and regular exercisers were more likely to nap than sedentary people.

Little kids often nap as part of their regular day. Old people are also stereotypical nappers. In both these cases, age-related sleep patterns can explain part of the predilection. Toddlers and small children usually need an afternoon nap, and this nap lasts an hour or more. In contrast to adult nappers, toddlers more often go into deep sleep.  Kids need lots of deep sleep to support their growth.

Children are great nappers, partly because they are learning so fast. Many preschools and kindergartens incorporate time for napping in the child’s day. Research has shown naps help children remember things learned earlier in the day and that the children who get the most cognitive benefits are those who nap habitually. When a child skips a regular nap and makes up for the lost sleep time by extending nighttime sleep, the cognitive benefits are not recovered in the makeup sleep.

Researchers have charted how as an infant ages, they’ll spend less time sleeping during the day and more of their total sleep hours during the night, as charted by researchers.

INFANT AGE: 1 month

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 14-15 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 8 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 6-7 hours

INFANT AGE: 3 months

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 14-15 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 10 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 4-5 hours

INFANT AGE: 6 months

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 14.2 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 11 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 3.4 hours

INFANT AGE: 9 months

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 13.9 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 11.2 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 2.8 hours

INFANT AGE: 12 months

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 13.9 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 11.7 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 2.4 hours

INFANT AGE: 18 months

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 13.6 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 11.6 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 2 hours

INFANT AGE: 24 months

AVERAGE TOTAL SLEEP PER 24-HR PERIOD: 13.2 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE NIGHT: 11.5 hours

AVERAGE SLEEP DURING THE DAY: 1.8 hours

Working adults who nap usually do so in short bursts – the power nap.  Weekends present the opportunity for longer naps.  Power naps do not last long enough to get to slow-wave sleep.  Even short naps can be refreshing.

To take naps to the next level - find the best mattress at a bed shop, like The Bed King, that can offer you expert advice on mattresses, beds and the like.

Article source: https://www.tuck.com/napping/

[junker-town]

Athletes are leading cannabis into the mainstream

The bottle stared at Cullen Jenkins for two weeks untouched on his nightstand, and he stared back at it.

“I thought I was going to be high,” Jenkins says. “I thought I was going to be just tripping the same things as weed. But it wasn’t anything like that. It’s more of a mellow, calming, smooth feeling. I felt pretty good.”

Within just two months of trying Fresh Farms CBD Oil, Jenkins is already a cannabis evangelist. This past NFL season was his first out of football. As the season began, he worked out and digested tape, believing he might be signed by an NFL team at any time. Jenkins started 138 games as an NFL defensive tackle across 13 seasons. He won a Super Bowl with the Packers. Including his high school days, Jenkins had played competitive football for nearly 20 years. But after being cut by Washington in 2016, teams didn’t call and Jenkins felt listless.

“And you have that sense of — I guess, not of being a failure, but not being good enough as well,” Jenkins says. “I went through a while where I wouldn’t get out of bed until 2 in the afternoon. You just felt kind of like a bum, or you just felt like — I don’t know there’s a word that I’m looking for to use.

“You just felt unimportant, I guess. Like you didn’t really matter.”

Jenkins says his wife and cousin both pushed him to try CBD oil, which can be taken like a nutritional supplement by using a dropper to squirt a not-unpleasant tasting gob of brown-gold tincture beneath the tongue. Jenkins was leery, but then he quickly noticed a change in himself. His says his joints feel better, and his depression and anxiety eat at him less. He has been able to talk to his two teenage daughters more easily, and without becoming irritable. He’s been more vocal and focused in his carpentry classes, and “anybody who knows me knows that’s not really the type of student I am.”

“At the foundation of what I’m talking about is player health and safety. If you want to get distracted by the stigma or what not, well that’s on you.” —Titans linebacker Derrick Morgan

Jenkins used to drink half a fifth of vodka and several beers to chase it every day. He started drinking just to sleep, but then the drinking would make him feel sick when he woke up. So he would take pills as needed to handle any pain, then drink, try to sleep, and repeat.

Cannabis ended that cycle — for him. The emphasis is necessary there because though the product that Jenkins takes doesn’t get him high, it is derived from the cannabis plant, which is classified as a Schedule I drug by the United States Controlled Substances Act, alongside heroin and DMT. As such, the evidence of cannabis’ medicinal benefits is still not as thorough and as vetted as many would like, nor is any understanding of its negative side effects.

What, exactly, cannabis can and can’t do is incredibly hard to say. What we can tell you is Jenkins is not alone. That across the United States — and among former professional athletes, especially — people are telling stories of how cannabis curtailed their epileptic seizures, helped manage their chronic pain, and gave them their lives back. We can also show you research that says in states where medical cannabis is legal, opioid overdose deaths and addiction treatment admissions have fallen, providing a glimmer of hope to perhaps solving an American epidemic.

And just as those stories are adding up, so too is a $9.7 billion and growing industry in North America around things like tinctures and creams and inhalers and tablets and vape pens and more that all can purportedly make you feel better in just about every way you think you need to feel better — from strong evidence that it soothes regular ‘ol aches to nascent (but not insignificant) evidence that it slows the production of proteins that cause Alzheimer’s.

At the forefront of this green rush are athletes, perhaps the best possible ambassadors for an industry that would very much like you to know that they are not trying to sell you a good time, but something that will soon come to be categorized officially as medicine. A product that, with any luck, can help fix some of this nation’s biggest problems — not just substance dependence, as it did for Jenkins, but also things like a prohibitively expensive healthcare system and the disproportionate arrest rate of people of color.

Sounds pretty good, right?

The word you should implant in your brain now — because in due time, you may have no choice — is “CBD.” See-bee-dee is an easier way to say cannabidiol, one of at least 113 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant. Cannabinoids are why we’re here: They’re chemical compounds that act on receptors in the brain and can alter neural function. For example, tetrahydrocannabinol — THC — is largely responsible for getting you high, and may also have a host of benefits that are still difficult to study as long as cannabis is illegal at the federal level.

Alongside THC, CBD is also abundant in many strains of cannabis, but won’t get you high in exchange for all the purported good it does.

The idea that cannabis (which you might better knows as “marijuana,” but that term has issues) is good for body and soul goes as far back as at least 2900 B.C. when the Chinese emperor Fu Hsi wrote about it as a “popular medicine that possessed both yin and yang.” In 1851, cannabis was recognized as medicine in the United States Pharmacopeia, a compendium of drug standards still enforced by the Food and Drug Administration. Back then, it was indicated to treat “neuralgia, gout, rheumatism, tetanus, hydrophobia, epidemic cholera, convulsions, chorea, hysteria, mental depression, delirium tremens, insanity, and uterine hemorrhage.”

But over time, cannabis developed a stigma. The Marihuana Tax Act made it officially illegal under federal law in 1937, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. In 1969, the Supreme Court struck down the act, but then the Controlled Substances Act took its place and categorized cannabis as Schedule I — meaning, in the government’s view, that cannabis has a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medicinal value.

Richard Nixon appointed a commission to review cannabis’ criteria as a Schedule I drug. But by the time the Shafer Commission recommended that cannabis be descheduled — and, in fact, decriminalized — Nixon had already officially declared the War on Drugs, and stated outright in 1971 he would reject the commission’s findings if it proposed legalization:

As you know, there is a commission that is supposed to make recommendations to me about this subject; in this instance, however, I have such strong views that I will express them. I am against legalizing marijuana. Even if the commission does recommend that it be legalized, I will not follow that recommendation ... I can see no social or moral justification whatever for legalizing marijuana. I think it would be exactly the wrong step. It would simply encourage more and more of our young people to start down the long, dismal road that leads to hard drugs and eventually self-destruction.

And this is all, roughly, how we wound up with Ricky Williams.

The NFL instituted rigorous drug testing in the 1980s, coinciding nicely with Nancy Reagan taking up Nixon’s torch and telling America to “Just Say No.” When Williams was drafted in 1999, America was still largely afraid of pot. In 2000, a Pew Research poll found roughly three in 10 Americans supported marijuana legalization, and just four states had legalized medical cannabis.

So when Williams privately struggled with anxiety and depression, and was revealed publicly to be relying on marijuana, America wasn’t kind. Williams described being abandoned by sponsors after it was announced that in December 2003 he had tested positive for cannabis, thus failing his second NFL drug test.

Ricky Williams when he played for the Dolphins. Photo by Getty Images

He has said he started smoking regularly during his first three NFL seasons, which included a league-leading 1,853 yards rushing for the Dolphins in 2002. He retired early from football in 2004, only to come back, after soul-searching, as an unapologetic cannabis user. He would later say he wouldn’t have won the 1998 Heisman Trophy or played 11 NFL seasons if not for pot.

By coming back, Williams set an important precedent: He proved you could use cannabis and still excel — he rushed for 4.4 yards per carry in 12 games in 2005, before violating the NFL drug policy a fourth time and being suspended for the 2006 season — even at a sport that supposedly demands utmost discipline and commitment to succeed. Former Jets defensive end Marvin Washington credits Williams as one of the first pro athletes to normalize cannabis use.

“I know some of these guys ... and they’ll tell you this themselves that they’ve been involved with cannabis since high school,” Washington says. “So you look at the sacrifice and the things they did, and it goes against everything that you’ve been taught, that you’re lazy, unfocused, you get the munchies, you’re not going to accomplish much.

“These guys graduated from high school, got a scholarship, got degrees, they excelled, and came into the NFL and had long careers, and they were medicating and using cannabis all the way through.”

Whereas then Williams was seen as a rudderless screw-up, today he can be credited as one of the cannabis movement’s pioneers. He has been outspoken about his social anxiety disorder and his cannabis use, even opening a line of weed gyms and more recently revealing a personal line of cannabis products.

Washington discovered cannabis independent of Williams, mind you. The two men weren’t contemporaries — Washington retired after the 1999 season, the same year Williams was drafted. Instead, Washington says he was approached by a company making CBD products about four and a half years ago.

“I didn’t know the difference between THC or TLC, or CBD and CBGB,” Washington laughs. “And that brought on a deep dive into cannabis, because once you’re in the space then you meet all these cannabis nurses and doctors and kids that are medicating and what have you, and you learn about different strains, and you learn that that your body has a system in it called the endocannabinoid system, and then you learn that you see all these soldiers that are suffering from PTSD that are being helped. You see people with MS.”

Former NFL players suffer opioid addiction at four times the rate of the general population.

Washington mentions former Saints, Rams, and Chiefs offensive tackle Kyle Turley, who began experimenting with cannabis in 2012 after reading a study showing a cannabinoid was able to protect mice from brain injury. Turley credits cannabis for saving his life. He once recalled standing on a balcony the night he was inducted into the San Diego State Hall of Fame when he had a sudden desire to jump, and says the fact that he was smoking cannabis is the reason he didn’t. He battled thoughts of taking his own life, and the lives of his wife and children, something he has blamed on the anti-depression medication he was taking.

Turley says he hasn’t taken any kind of pill — no anti-inflammatories, no opiates, and no antidepressants — since 2015. He is convinced that football deteriorated his brain, and calls cannabis “the best psych medication I’ve ever been prescribed in my life.”

“You know we’re football players, we’re alpha males charged to play a game,” Turley says. “And individuals like myself playing positions where we’re supposed to be violent, we’re supposed to get our point across through being loud and forceful. That doesn’t go over very well in the real world.

“And I’ve found that this plant has the ability to help us control our brains more than anything.”

Washington and Turley are now veterans of the movement, one that’s seeping into the realm of current players. The NFL still has a draconian cannabis policy relative to just about any professional sports league you can think of, but that didn’t stop Eugene Monroe from becoming the first active NFL player to advocate for the use of cannabis to treat pain in 2016, nor is it stopping current Titans outside linebacker Derrick Morgan, who is pushing the NFL to follow through on its promise to study medical cannabis.

Morgan credits the Titans for standing by him, even if they don’t necessarily support his views. When Morgan became an active advocate for cannabis in 2016, he wasn’t sure whether he would face repercussions, but he had done his own research and made a calculated decision to speak up.

“I felt like me being able to spread the word was worth any type of repercussions that could come to me,” Morgan says. “Because I looked at it from a logical standpoint — as in what I’m talking about, the subject matter, the education I have on it ... they were all coming from good places. So I felt at peace with any type of repercussion that could come my way because my motives were right.

“At the foundation of what I’m talking about is player health and safety. If you want to get distracted by the stigma or what not, well that’s on you.”

The list of current and former athletes who have advocated for cannabis is now long. UFC fighters seem to use cannabis liberally, though THC is still banned, and Nate Diaz has become a de facto CBD poster boy. In the NBA, Al Harrington, Cliff Robinson, and Rick Barry are all advocates who have vested interests in the industry.

Photo by Getty Images

Former NFL players who support medicinal cannabis may stretch into the dozens, including the likes of Leonard Marshall, Jake Plummer, and Jim McMahon. The league is a flashpoint for the cannabis debate, because football is both immensely popular and immensely violent. The link between repeated physical trauma and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (a.k.a., CTE) is nearly incontrovertible, as is the fact that former players suffer opioid addiction at four times the rate of the general population.

This wave of athletes supporting cannabis isn’t a case of retirees needing new hobbies; the debate is personal. And where once cannabis was associated with locker room misfits, it now seems to be building a loud and legitimizing chorus of support.

“We have more information at our hands than at any time in history, and people are starting to see that those were lies, that was misinformation, and this plant has been here for over 10,000 years,” Washington says. “We need to get to medicating with bio-based medicine, which is plant-based medicine, because we cannot continue down this path that we’re going with the opiates and benzodiazepines, or else we’re going to lose a generation.”

By 2021, Troy Dayton predicts that cannabis will grow into a $24 billion industry. He’s the CEO of The Arcview Group, a network that connects investors to entrepreneurs who are developing cannabis products and product lines. He is a founding board member of the National Cannabis Industry Association, and was named one of Fortune’s “seven most powerful people in America’s marijuana industry.” And even he says he was “late to the game” when he realized the potential that athletes had to speak to America.

“It hit me that sports stars are the true icons of American culture. And it just started dawning on me like, ‘Oh, right!,’” Dayton says. “And the sports media really hits a different audience than the political media. These are cultural figures that are really speaking to how Americans see things.”

Today, many of those early athlete cannabis advocates are now financially staked in the industry’s growth. Dayton says Williams was an early investor with Arcview, and Monroe is involved with the group now. Turley has his own line called Neuro XPF. Washington represents Isodiol. In the NBA, Harrington began a company called Viola Extracts, and Robinson has his Uncle Cliffy brand. Barry, at 74 years old, is an ambassador for a bulk CBD producer, manufacturer, and distributor called Folium Biosciences.

Says Barry: “The beauty of life is that if you can be involved in the business world and do something that’s providing a product or a service or whatever that helps to improve the lives, and maybe even saving the lives, of other people, and you can make a living doing that. That’s pretty darn cool.”

Advocate Ryan Kingsbury realized the power athletes had while working as communications director for a Colorado hemp producer. CW Hemp, founded and run by the Stanley brothers, created a low-THC, high-CBD oil named Charlotte’s Web, which CNN spotlighted in an impactful special about a girl named Charlotte Figi who suffered from frequent and severe epileptic seizures. Charlotte’s family tried to help her with pharmaceutical drugs, but found they were only effective for so long before the seizures would come back, hundreds per week. With the help of two doctors and the Stanleys, Charlotte was able to start a CBD treatment. Today, the family says Charlotte has fewer than three seizures per month, and Charlotte’s mother continues to be an advocate for medical cannabis.

“We need to get to medicating with bio-based medicine, which is plant-based medicine, because we cannot continue down this path that we’re going with the opiates and benzodiazepines, or else we’re going to lose a generation.” —Former Jets DE Marvin Washington

Off the notoriety of Charlotte’s story, CW and its its non-profit partner, the Realm of Caring, tasked Kingsbury with reaching out to former NFL players for a campaign called When the Bright Lights Fade, which raised money for studies into how CBD can treat and prevent the onset of symptoms associated with CTE. At the time, the NFL hadn’t yet admitted what now appears to be a clear link between the neurodegenerative disease and football. Kingsbury noticed that ticket sales would spike at cannabis conferences whenever the athletes he recruited would speak. One of the first people he reached out to was Plummer.

“Plummer was doing interviews, and I would get emails — tons of emails,” Kingsbury says. “In fact, a CW representative at the time estimated that 60 to 70 percent of their call volume was people referring to something they had read about one of the athletes.”

Kingsbury pushed CW to strengthen its relationship with athletes, but he says the company wanted to target its marketing and advocacy toward families, like Charlotte’s. So Kingsbury branched off, taking his rolodex of pro athletes to form Athletes For Care, an organization run for and by athletes who are interested in cannabis. Both Morgan and Washington sit on the board of directors, along with former Jaguars offensive tackle Eben Britton and former Broncos wide receiver Nate Jackson.

Athletes for Care not only develops advocacy campaigns, but it helps current and former athletes navigate the cannabis industry by, for example, reviewing any contracts they sign with cannabis companies to make sure they are fairly compensated. According to Kingsbury, the experience athletes have with cannabis is often worth more — much more — than they realize.

The idea that athletes are great at hocking products goes back to Honus Wagner agreeing to let Louisville Sluggers ship bats with his signature in 1905. Since then, athletes have been used to sell insurance and shoes and beer and all sorts of horrible flavors of sports drinks. However, very rarely have they been able to sell something that could be so acutely important to them.

“The fans only see Sunday. We know how the sausage is made during the week,” Washington says. “And we know what it takes to get on the field. That’s why we speak out about it so passionately. Listen, if they only knew, they would be in favor of something that was non-toxic and non-addictive for athletes to use, and it’s cannabis.”

And athletes appeal broadly. According to Kingsbury, pro-cannabis advocates are often on two ends of a spectrum: the heavy recreational users — your stereotypical stoners — and those with severe neurological ailments — like Charlotte. Kingsbury says athletes have the ability to appeal to the wide swath in the middle, those who don’t want to define their life by cannabis, but may be struggling with anxiety, or some physical pain.

The general public may not need to be as worried about CTE, and their bodies certainly don’t take near the beating of, say, the average starting offensive guard. But we all need maintenance, and as athletes show us how they use cannabis to get by in their daily lives, their message is that we can, too.

Photo by Getty Images

“The reality is that there’s a huge population in between that I really think could benefit from cannabis, but do not feel empowered to talk about it,” Kingsbury says, “because there’s no message coming to them about, ‘Hey, it’s OK, you can be active, you can be healthy, and still use cannabis.’

“And I felt very powerfully that while Charlotte and the story of what she endured really opened the door to be able to have the dialogue, and for people to kind of accept the healing properties of cannabis, I really felt like the athletes were going to be the key to remove the stigma that’s been there.”

That power in advocacy is a good thing provided that the cause is just. Again, a lot of what former athletes claim that cannabis can do hasn’t been vetted in a strict testing environment. And before cannabis, alcohol and tobacco were also marketed both as conduits to fun and relaxation, as well as (albeit in bygone eras) health elixirs.

Athletes may be normalizing cannabis to America, but whether America is ready for cannabis is, as of yet, unclear.

Federal legalization feels inevitable. Medical cannabis is now legal in 29 states, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. Recreational cannabis is legal or decriminalized in nine states and D.C., and is expected to be legal in Canada as of this summer. Currently, 61 percent of Americans support legalizing cannabis, a figure that jumps to 70 percent among millennials.

And with these new and burgeoning markets comes the possibility for exploitation. There’s good reason for skepticism. In 2015, for example, a Buzzfeed report found many cannabis users bought products that appeared to be mislabeled or falsely advertised.

“There’s no oversight. There’s no mechanism that gives the consumer some assurance that what they think they’re getting is what they’re getting,” said Amanda Reiman, the manager of marijuana law and policy at the Drug Policy Alliance. “If someone sells you 30 percent THC cannabis, and you don’t feel high, you have an idea it’s not quite what was advertised. Because CBD is non-psychoactive, if someone gives you a tincture that’s says 25 percent and it’s actually three percent, you’re not going to be able to tell that just from ingesting it.”

It also means that no one is testing hemp CBD products for whether THC traces exceed the legal limit. A truck driver is suing Medical Marijuana Inc. over a product he used to alleviate hip and shoulder pain. The product was advertised as containing zero percent THC, but the driver claims it was the reason he failed a drug test, lost his job, and has been unable to find a new one.

Turley says he has seen those bad actors in the industry, “providing poor product, producing just to produce with no purpose.” He operates directly opposite how a snake oil salesman would, he says, using his business as a conduit to continue to raise awareness, foremost.

“I could care less about the business, I could care less about the million dollars worth of product I’ve sold in this business in just a little bit over a year,” Turley says. “If you’re going to talk about it, you have to be about it, and there needed to be a shift in presentation of this product, of this unbelievably medicinal plant so that it could be palatable. And nobody as I was going around this industry was doing that.”

But there, again, is the rub: A good huckster can be indistinguishable from an earnest man who says he’s trying to make a better world.

Cannabis distinguishes itself from alcohol and tobacco in several significant ways. It has never been definitively linked to a death by overdose, nor to lung cancer. However, it is far from perfect. It has been linked to respiratory, psychological, and dependency problems with heavy use. Adolescents who use cannabis are actually more likely to misuse opioids. And though the state of Colorado has benefited in many ways from the legalization of recreational cannabis use, it has also seen a worrisome spike in traffic fatalities.

The 2013-16 period saw a 40 percent increase in the number of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in Colorado, from 627 to 880, according to the NHTSA data. Those who tested positive for alcohol in fatal crashes from 2013 to 2015 — figures for 2016 were not available — grew 17 percent, from 129 to 151.

By contrast, the number of drivers who tested positive for marijuana use jumped 145 percent — from 47 in 2013 to 115 in 2016. During that time, the prevalence of testing drivers for marijuana use did not change appreciably, federal fatal-crash data show.

“... For people to kind of accept the healing properties of cannabis, I really felt like the athletes were going to be the key to remove the stigma that’s been there.” —Ryan Kingsbury, founder of Athletes For Care

And yet, the potential benefits of cannabis legalization may be irresponsible to ignore. Doctors For Cannabis Regulation is an organization of physicians who support legalization efforts around the country, and acts as a face for the 76 percent of doctors who support medical cannabis, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. DFCR’s Declaration of Principles points out that there are more than 700,000 cannabis arrests in the United States every year — disproportionately for people of color — and that access to legal cannabis coincides with a reduction in opioid overdoses.

And in order to drive its platform, DFCR has partnered with former NFL players, penning an open letter to the league in 2016, asking it to revisit its cannabis policy. The partnership began when Eugene Monroe approached Dr. Sue Sisley, one of DFCR’s board members, to see if the organization would support his call for cannabis research.

They were perhaps a perfect match: The DFCR found that by backing the former players against the league, it was also essentially fighting a proxy war against America’s own draconian cannabis policy. Players are stand-ins for the people cannabis criminalization most negatively affects: Not only are they nearly 75 percent black, but former players are also disproportionately afflicted with opioid addiction.

“When you look at the NFL and its policy, it’s an interesting microcosm of larger policy,” says DFCR’s executive director Brian Muraresku. “It’s a way for us to engage the argument around drug policy for folks who might not necessarily think in those terms, or be familiar with the larger debate, which is our whole interest — taking the debate beyond the field, especially during a national opioid crisis.”

The effectiveness of the pro-cannabis side of the debate depends on America’s ability to believe — just this once, after decades of being sold bills of goods — that something isn’t too good to be true. It sounds farfetched, and yet here we are, at the outset of an age of cannabis, with people like Turley poised as shepherds. To argue that cannabis doesn’t help would be to deny their pain.

“I’m not afraid,” Turley says. “I’ve faced suicide, I’ve stolen the last few years of my life thanks to this plant and the good Lord and my beautiful wife. So whatever. Fuck off.”

Washington compares this moment to the Wright brothers taking off at Kitty Hawk. It’s a helluva sell.

“We’re still cranking our plane up at this stage,” he says. “But imagine this industry, imagine this sector, imagine this space when we get to the twin engine, and the jet age in 10, 20, 30 years from now. It’s going to be unbelievable.

“And Bob Marley always says cannabis can heal the world and can heal a nation. I believe it.”

[foryourdiscerningdisruptionblog]

Beware the World: Beware the Slenderman Reaches Into Our Problems

What started as an intriguing watch due to the subject matter of Slenderman, the tall lengthy faceless scary as fuck suit wearing monster who haunted my later college years due to the first webseries that got my attention in Marble Hornets, unraveled into a two-hour journey that spawns across many of the major crises that face our world and ends with three thirteen year olds who’s entire lives are forever changed.

If you don’t know the story behind the documentary Beware the Slenderman it revolves around two 12 year old girls, who under the “spell” of the fictional monster Slenderman’s wants, brutally stab and leave for dead one of their best friends in order to escape off to Slenderman’s mansion and protect the lives of their families.

 As I’m watching this I can’t help but be instantly drawn to role technology has played in all this and how eerily similar it plays out to another recent horror for most of us. The two girls read about the stories of Slenderman online via a website called Creepypasta. One of the girls is later diagnosed with schizophrenia (more on that later) so it’s easier to understand how this story became so real in her head. For the other girl, it’s a more harrowing mirror to our societal online intake.

The more we’re fed, the more we believe. I’ve kept this HBO Go page with the picture of the Slenderman up on my TV with the lights out for way too long now and I’m starting to worry and expecting to look at the glare in my computer screen and see him behind me. I literally have fucking goosebumps and need to go into the main room where my roommate is. But that’s somewhat the problem. The more we surround ourselves with people who believe the same things, the more quarantined we get from what’s real. That’s precisely what happens between the two girls. I believe it was a psychologist who said, if they had more friends who they regularly spoke with (especially ones that didn’t associate with Slenderman), this probably would have never happened because the friends would have grounded their far out beliefs. Since they didn’t, it was just the two of them constantly conversing, bubbling themselves in this belief that Slenderman was real.

This isn’t just a problem that faces our youth as more and more adults tune into read “alt-facts” from websites that prey on the uninformed. I believe it’s almost scarier that most of these news sources are only doing it for a profit and that those in power, who should clarify instead choose to again exploit this to their financial and theological benefit.

Which is why it’s important to have truthfulness in content. At least some understanding of what it is that we’re consuming so we can properly digest it. We need “those friends” that ground us. Whether that comes from actual human beings or a more reputable news source, the concept is still the same. We need to break our bubbles and make sure we are aware of what is really happening.

It’s difficult to discuss this and not parallel over to the election. You can see where less than truthful news, whether that comes directly from Trump’s mouth or from the news organization covering, needed to be put in check. BUT maybe even more of a glaring omission is the Democratic Party’s obliviousness to what the people wanted. Whether it’s the belief that the party tipped the scale for Clinton in the primary or the belief that Clinton just couldn’t connect to the mid-westerns, many didn’t see there would be a problem for her campaign because again they were bubbled up.

It’s also impossible to dive into this story and not at least examine the cockblock that technology has become for relationships. Whether it’s between lovers, friends or in this case between parent and child. The two girls’ parents never seemed to understand there was a problem with them and the role Slenderman was taking in their lives. The girls instead went to the internet with their problems, forgoing confiding in a parent as has happened in the past. The girls created their own worlds with Slenderman playing the star and king. If the parents could have caught on earlier, they could have played the role of grounding those beliefs and putting them in context of a fictional story. (Please do not take this as a slam against the parents. No one knows exactly the amount of attention and care put into those two girls’ lives by their parents, but this event should at least act as a cautionary tale moving forward.)

This is not a new task for parents as they’ve had to do this forever, back when kids would get their stories from books, then later onto tv and movies, then again with video games. Each step becoming harder and harder to monitor all intake. It’s important to be able to have that dialogue after a kid watches something so that the context can be properly ingrained in their child’s consciousness. Now it’s almost impossible with kids having access to cell phones or anything and everything with the internet to monitor and can achieve that task every single time.

 Though this event is certainly a first, looking for an out of the world you live in and finding solace in some media or another is hardly new. Especially when it’s a child who has problems fitting in while being bullied. In the two girls’ cases both had struggles making friends and being bullied at school, which is why they confided so much in one another.

In 2000, officials at the US Secret Service concluded that two-thirds of the 37 premediated school shootings they researched found that bullying was a major reason. This came on the heels of the infamous Columbine Shooting, that for me at least, put school and mass shootings in the hot bed of topic and worry. Both Columbine shooters were bullied and tied back into media consumption, immersed themselves into the 1st person shooter Doom and obsessed with Natural Born Killers.

But the bigger take away, because I assume the two shooters knew Natural Born Killers wasn’t a documentary and Doom was a video game, is the bullying leading to needing a way out. Statistics say bullying has decreased 7% over the past 11 years but is still listed as about 21% of all kids. The numbers that stood out most to me was over half of bullying ended when another kid stepped in and school bullying programs decreased bullying on average by 25%.

While bullying tends to address school shootings, it doesn’t 100% account for the 476 deaths over 59 mass shootings since 1999’s Columbine. These numbers have led to serious debates over gun control and mental health.

 The girl who goes through with the stabbing has schizophrenia which at least in part comes from genetics, something her father also has. There is an emotional powerhouse of a scene when the father breaks down while discussing his daughter’s disease. He weeps for her, knowing what’s she gone through, what she continues to go through alone in a jail cell where she routinely believes and “sees” others in the empty cell with her. He tries to explain how unmalicious her malicious act is. That his daughter really can’t tell that Slenderman isn’t real, she’s not this horrible unemotional monster, she’s a victim herself all while wishing he could have been there earlier to talk her through the hell of schizophrenia with her.

And those are the issues. How do we evaluate and properly process someone who is a danger but also not punish them for what they can’t understand while also, and maybe more importantly, getting them the proper care and treatment they need, preferably before they do harm?

If her dad had been onto her condition earlier, it’s possible he would have been able to talk with her about his experiences and again ground her back to the reality we exist in. We see this more and more, we must improve our mental health treatment and remove the stigmatism associated with it. With proper mental health treatment, we not only save that person’s life but all the potential affected lives.

 The idea of belief is a scary one and one that people have forever pushed the boundaries on. Whether it’s the boundaries of our belief of reality in films like The Matrix or any conversation with a Dead Head, or whether it’s our religious beliefs.

The girls go through with this plan partly because they believed Slenderman would come to take them away from their problems similar to how we believe that God/religion will fix our problems, show us the way or make our biggest fear, of death, into a can’t wait celebration full of all the treats we were deprived of while on Earth. We finally have that retribution for keeping our heads down and being the wholesome person.

It’s easy to see the blurred lines of this case and an extremism group like an ISIS, or even further down to the thoughts that turn us into believing a person is somehow less “good” because they do something that “sins” against our God’s beliefs. These girls read about Slenderman online, something that spiraled from a creation to deceive, and went through the attempted murder and stabbing of one of their best friends because they believed that’s what their fictional “God” wanted. Otherwise Slenderman would strike down their families and they wouldn’t be allowed into his “mansion” which was far away from them in a Wisconsin state forest. We watch this and go how sad it is that these young kids with underdeveloped brains fell for this story but it’s a very real thing in our daily lives.

There’s a scene at trial where they ask a psychologist after the stabbings did you ask the girl with schizophrenia, ‘What if Slenderman doesn’t exist?’ Her response was, “She can’t tolerate that. She becomes oppositional. (To her) It can’t be proven untrue so its true.” We’ve heard this time and time again when it comes to religions across the world. From the early crusades, to Arab–Israeli, to ISIS and here at home with Westboro Baptist Church and the way conservative groups attack Planned Parenthood, LGBT members and more. Yet for some reason, we’re far more accepting and understanding to this situation despite all our views of sadness while watching these kids. We’ve accepted that people can stand by their unproven religion as way to dictate how everyone should live their lives.

 Though maybe the biggest take away is that two girls at an early age of 12, who were wrapped up in the biggest shit storm of modern problems, find that their one single life, is essentially over before it began. There’s no doubt there needs to be serious consequences for their actions but it’s heartbreaking to know that two 12 year old’s lives are over this early into them, before they could craft their own tale. While seen with world eyes this might sound as a 1st world problem as many kids across the world struggle to even make it to 12, it’s a depressing tale none the less. One that I’m not excited to see unfold in a documentary ever again.

[jodyedgarus]

The Only Opponent Villanova Has Left Is History

In the battle between the nation’s best (Villanova) and hottest (Michigan) teams, it was the latter who started Monday’s NCAA men’s national championship game right on script. The Wolverines led by 7 about a quarter into the game, and it looked like Michigan was tracking for a title-game upset that would rank alongside Syracuse over Kansas in 2003, UConn over Duke in 1999 and Arizona over Kentucky in 1997.1

Soon, though, reality set in, and the superior Wildcats asserted themselves. With its 79-62 victory over Michigan, Villanova ended any debate about who was No. 1 this season — and instead opened up the discussion about where coach Jay Wright’s team should rank among NCAA champions from history.

When things were going well for Michigan, the Wolverines were perfectly playing to their strengths — and shutting down Villanova’s. Led by the versatile 6’10” forward Moe Wagner, Michigan had the big advantage over Nova in Ken Pomeroy’s effective height metric (which measures frontcourt size), and they flexed that muscle early on. Michigan outrebounded Villanova 7-4 in the game’s first 7 minutes, while Wagner scored 9 quick points in the same span. At the same time, Michigan’s staunch 3-point defense — which held opponents to the fifth-lowest rate of attempts from beyond the arc during the season — gave Villanova few clean looks from deep. Uncharacteristically, the Wildcats missed 8 of their first 9 shots from the outside.

But after the textbook start, the wheels fell off for Michigan. Midway through the first half, Nova embarked on a 16-5 run that saw them take the lead for good. The rest of the game was a clinic for Villanova; the final stats for the title game bore little resemblance to the numbers that generated Michigan’s early lead. Nova ended up outrebounding the bigger Wolverines 38-27 and knocked down 10 of 27 3-pointers. (In the end, it was Michigan — another team heavily reliant on the 3 — who went cold from deep, missing 20 of 23 attempts from long range.)

It helped Nova that sophomore guard Donte DiVincenzo saved the game of his life for the championship. Despite starting the game out on the bench, DiVincenzo poured in 31 points, including 15 from 3-pointers alone. Every time Michigan appeared to be on the verge of mounting a comeback, DiVincenzo came up with a big shot to quell the rally. On the heels of a mega-efficient 15 point outing in the national semifinals, Monday night’s performance earned DiVincenzo well-deserved Most Outstanding Player honors for the tournament.

Now the only real question that remains is where Villanova ranks in history. By winning two championships in three years, the Wildcats have already earned some measure of immortality: Before Villanova, just three teams in the 64-team bracket era — since 1985 — have won twice in three seasons. (The others were Duke in 1991/92, Kentucky in 1996/98 and Florida in 2006/07.) But this season’s team is also in elite company by deeper metrics than simple ring-counting. According to KenPom.com’s power ratings, Villanova ended the season as the third-best NCAA men’s champion since 2002, trailing only Kansas in 2008 and Duke in 2010. The Wildcats also rank eighth among champs in the 64-team era according to our Elo ratings,2 which estimate a team’s quality at a given point in time, and their impressive title run in particular should elevate them on anybody’s list of all-time champs.

How to judge a champion’s tournament performance? One way is to look at how much more it outscored opponents than we’d expect based on those opponents’ Elo ratings. During the 2018 tourney, Villanova trounced opponents by an average of 17.7 points per game — never winning by fewer than 12 and covering the Vegas spread in all six games — against a set of foes that we’d expect the average champ3 to beat by just 9.8 per game. That difference of 7.9 points per contest ranks fifth among men’s champs since 1985:

Which champion had the most impressive tourney run?

Best NCAA tournament points per game margin vs. expected (based on Elo ratings) for men’s champions, 1985-2018

Points/Game Margin Season Champion Games Team Opponent Average vs. Expected 1 1996 Kentucky 6 89.2 67.7 +21.5 +13.0 2 2016 Villanova 6 83.5 62.8 +20.7 +12.9 3 2009 North Carolina 6 87.8 67.7 +20.2 +10.2 4 1990 UNLV 6 95.2 76.5 +18.7 +8.2 5 2018 Villanova 6 83.8 66.2 +17.7 +7.9 6 2001 Duke 6 86.8 70.2 +16.7 +7.5 7 2015 Duke 6 71.8 56.3 +15.5 +7.0 8 2008 Kansas 6 75.0 60.8 +14.2 +6.5 9 2006 Florida 6 72.7 56.7 +16.0 +6.1 10 1991 Duke 6 82.8 68.8 +14.0 +6.0 11 1993 North Carolina 6 84.5 68.8 +15.7 +5.7 12 2013 Louisville 6 79.5 63.3 +16.2 +5.4 13 2000 Michigan State 6 71.7 56.3 +15.3 +4.6 14 2005 North Carolina 6 84.2 70.3 +13.8 +4.4 15 2002 Maryland 6 83.5 69.5 +14.0 +4.4 16 2010 Duke 6 71.3 56.8 +14.5 +4.2 17 1998 Kentucky 6 85.7 72.3 +13.3 +3.7 18 1995 UCLA 6 86.3 72.0 +14.3 +3.6 19 2007 Florida 6 82.7 68.5 +14.2 +2.5 20 1989 Michigan 6 90.0 80.2 +9.8 +2.4 21 2012 Kentucky 6 81.3 69.5 +11.8 +2.1 22 2017 North Carolina 6 81.7 70.5 +11.2 +2.1 23 2004 Connecticut 6 77.2 63.8 +13.3 +2.0 24 1992 Duke 6 82.3 69.8 +12.5 +1.7 25 1986 Louisville 6 85.5 73.7 +11.8 +1.6 26 2011 Connecticut 6 66.3 56.0 +10.3 +1.5 27 1999 Connecticut 6 75.8 64.0 +11.8 +1.1 28 2014 Connecticut 6 71.7 63.8 +7.8 +0.9 29 1994 Arkansas 6 87.5 76.3 +11.2 +0.3 30 1987 Indiana 6 89.2 78.7 +10.5 +0.1 31 1988 Kansas 6 73.8 65.0 +8.8 -0.1 32 1997 Arizona 6 78.2 72.8 +5.3 -0.2 33 2003 Syracuse 6 77.0 68.0 +9.0 -0.4 34 1985 Villanova 6 55.0 50.0 +5.0 -2.6

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Expected margins were generated for an average champion with an Elo rating of 2150.

Of course, as impressive as Villanova was this year, Elo still thinks more highly of the team’s championship run two years ago. So it’s not completely open-and-shut where this season’s Wildcats even rank relative to themselves in terms of recent champs. But after the way Nova dismantled Michigan and Kansas in San Antonio, they’ve run out of yardsticks from 2018 with which to compare anyway. The only opponents left to vanquish at this point are the ghosts of the past.

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-only-opponent-villanova-has-left-is-history/

[junker-town]

Verne Lundquist says he’ll miss your college town, but won’t miss traveling to it

The longtime voice of the SEC’s biggest games talked with SB Nation in Rhode Island.

NEWPORT, R.I. — This part of the year is now radically different for Verne Lundquist.

These days, the legendary CBS broadcaster is emceeing American Athletic Conference Media Days and being the featured speaker for an Alaskan cruise with 500 Big Ten fans.

No longer is he taking part in his mid-July ritual of compiling notes on every SEC team. Instead, he’s readying for back surgery. He plans to return to CBS for The Masters, but he’s unsure about the NCAA tournament.

Health concerns were, in part, the reason Lundquist semi-retired at the end of the 2016 football season, delivering this heartfelt goodbye after Army-Navy.

His baritone tinged with Texas twang is as hearty as ever, but it cracks when he remembers the farewell tour that 2016 became.

As Lundquist went stop-by-stop through the Southeast, he received gifts at every campus.

“I’m about to get teary-eyed,” he said to SB Nation. “The most remarkable, unexpected expression of goodwill from everybody.”

“Every stop. Every stop,” Lundquist said. “I mean, we’ve got framed jerseys, I don’t know what the hell we’re gonna do with ‘em. All the stuff is going to my alma mater when I pass. But that was — I guess it was the unexpected nature of it. It started with A&M-UCLA and Kevin Sumlin. And he gave me a pair of cowboy boots and a framed No. 12 jersey, and if you grow up in Texas like I did, you understand ...”

He trails off to collect himself as the tears well up behind his glasses.

(No. 12 refers to A&M’s 12th Man tradition.)

The farewell tour for the one & only Verne Lundquist begins! #aggies @TAMU @CoachSumlin @CBSSports @SEConCBS http://pic.twitter.com/TfxaeYXClk

— Allie LaForce (@ALaForce) September 2, 2016

A video tribute by Ole Miss:

Archie Manning, @CoachHughFreeze and @RossBjorkAD present @SEConCBS's Verne Lundquist with a retirement gift http://pic.twitter.com/gcM43FDgEF

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 17, 2016

At LSU, No. 18 symbolizes leadership:

LSU director of athletes Joe Alleva just gave Verne Lundquist an LSU jersey as a goodbye gift for his last year calling the SEC. http://pic.twitter.com/2zy1cgCMZ2

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) November 6, 2016

And so on.

Lundquist may have been born in Minnesota, but he’s a Texan through and through.

He graduated high school in Austin and attended Texas Lutheran University. So near and dear is the university to his heart that he serves on its Board of Regents.

After spending much of the first half of his career in the Lone Star State, Lundquist and his wife, Nancy, moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado in 1984, pretty much because they felt like it. By that time, he had broadcasted everything from Bowling for Dallas to Cowboys games on the radio. He began a first stint with CBS at 1982, but not everyone was thrilled with his move.

“We don’t have children. We had a little vacation home, and we thought, well, we can do this. So we did,” Lundquist said. “The first time I told my golf producer Frank Chirkinian we were moving, he said ‘where?’ I said ‘Steamboat Springs.’

“And he put his finger in my chest, and he said, ‘You’ll live in effin' Steamboat Springs until you miss your first-ever golf tournament.’ Ok, I know what the bottom line is now. It’s a great place, and we’re very much at home there.“

The travel concerns from the quaint skiing town, three hours away from Denver, are actually real.

He says he won’t miss the act of traveling to remote SEC cities one bit, although he will yearn for the towns themselves. Anyone flying to a destination in the South can empathize.

“Chris Fowler, who’s a dear friend, when he was hosting GameDay, said the three most dreaded words in travel are: Atlanta Delta connection,” Lundquist said. “I told Chris, I want that on my tombstone, and he’s right. So I won’t miss that. We’ve lived, by choice, in a mountain resort, and there are no nonstops from Steamboat Springs to Tuscaloosa.

“But the actual experience, there’s nothing like it. And I’ll miss that for sure.”

His role with the Tiffany network rocketed him to cult hero fame, with his old-timey anecdotes and homey charm.

He forever will be affectionately known as Uncle Verne by those who welcomed him into their homes at 3:30 ET on Saturdays. That role was, frankly, a bit of a demotion at the time.

“There are a lot of Ritz Carltons and Four Seasons in the NFL,” he said. “There aren’t many in the SEC. I was really comfortable.”

“It was not my choice, but obviously it turned out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

Lundquist was the No. 2 guy on CBS’ NFL coverage by the late 1990s. In the winter of 1999, the network had a chance to hire legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg, and Lundquist saw the writing on the wall.

“[My boss] said to me, ‘now, in the unlikely event that we were to hire Dick Enberg, how would you feel about moving to the SEC?’” Lundquist said. “And I said the appropriate things and hung up the phone and looked at my wife and said, ‘honey, pack your bags for Tuscaloosa.’ So it was not my choice, but obviously it turned out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

Lundquist shifted to the newly vacant lead play-by-play college football role for 2000. By 2001, CBS and the SEC had the exclusive marriage that beamed the conference’s marquee matchup into millions of living rooms.

They took a regional behemoth and made it a national brand.

Verne may have just been at the right place at the right time, but as the conference claimed the top of the sport, Lundquist was its voice.

The Kick Six would be an iconic college football play either way, but the spice of Lundquist making it clear that there are “no flags” as Chris Davis crossed the goal line goes down as one of the game’s best calls.

And as good as that narration was, perhaps the most poignant part of the call was what Lundquist didn’t say. The 71 seconds he and Gary Danielson laid out to let the delirious din of Auburn’s crowd carry the broadcast.

As tough as it was for him to step away from fall Saturdays, he says he’s ready.

“I just turned 77 yesterday,” Lundquist says. “Keith Jackson called it quits at 76, and I can go to my grave saying I lasted one year longer than Keith. It’s the only thing I outlasted him at, ‘cause he’s one of the great great voices of this sport.”

Another great voice, Brad Nessler, will fill his shoes. And Lundquist will be watching on Saturdays just like the rest of us.

“I’m gonna call Gary and say, ‘what the hell were you thinking? Why did you say that?’”

His summer is different, just like his fall will be. Instead of getting ready to listen to crowds in the South, he’s settling in for rehab with the compositions of Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff.

They are the soundtrack of his autumn now. We’ll miss him as the soundtrack to ours.

Here’s much more on his amazing career, his time as a doo-wop singer, that time a tornado interrupted one of his games, and the one sport he’d like to go back and call again.