Whose Shake Is This!!?

It’s not really the destination that’s important. It’s the journey. So going nowhere is not always a bad thing. Because no matter WHERE you arrive, well…there you are. And along the way, what you have uncovered, discovered, lived and relived determines where you arrive and when, but more importantly, who you are when you arrive there.

So many people get this all backwards and confused. This is not some hippy love-generation psuedo-zen nonsense. ((Although it used to be)) It’s honest philosophy that has been lost in the time-management business motivation and other euphemistic instant gratification psycho-babble. The journey is forgotten, an after-thought, and a mere means to a mostly mean end. As long as the journey is over with quickly along the unrelenting fascism of the Interstate, that seems to be all that matters.Fire up that GPS and get there NOW.

And there you are. But who are you when you get there?  And where are you really when all is said and done?

It’s all fine to have a destination in mind. That’s well and good. But HOW you get there…that’s the key that’s missing most often. The irony of all this is that most people, without realizing it, wind up going nowhere FAST, or somewhere FAST. But all was a blur, and where they arrive is more blurry than they realize. The only people who should be going nowhere FAST are Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Danica Patrick and the rest. Motorports is the ultimate metaphor of going nowhere fast. Although they all have the same destination in mind, Victory Lane, getting to Victory Lane is all about the journey.

A journey does NOT have to have a destination. The journey can be and of itself its own destination. So with that thought in mind, let’s go nowhere and see where we end up.

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“In the 1st running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29th 2010…”

Once again, since the race was postponed because of rain, I had to hire an Observer to watch the Sprint Cup race for me. The Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 was postponed to Monday, and since I’m paid to sell advertising, and not paid  to be a sports writer, my Observer watched the race for me and filed this report:

“In the 1st running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 in 2010 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29th 2010, Denny Hamlin overcame questionable mathematical odds to win a race at a track where he’s won xxx times before. His victory was secured by a 4  tyre pit stop that a sizable majority noted with alacrity. Denny Hamlin’s victory was also secured when Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth staged a repeat performance of their turmoil at Bristol in the 1st running of the xxxx at Bristol Motor Speedway on xxxx. It should be noted that unlike at xxxx, at the 1st running of the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 in 2010 at Martinsville Speedway on March 29th 2010, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth did not engage in any fighting after the race.”

The spoilers didn’t come into play too much at Martinsville. But that was to be expected. I liked how the cars looked though ((since, on my Observer’s suggestion, I watched a partial replay on the race)). It’s breath of fresh air to see cars that don’t look like glorified IROC cars. Gordon got the better of his bitch-slapping feud with Kenseth, dropping Matt to 3rd in the standings. Jeff Burton almost jumped off his own bandwagon, especially since he finished behind David Gillillilliland. But I’m still hangin’ on for dear life.

Next up is the night race at Phoenix. More on that later. And by the way, the xxxx‘s in my Observer’s report are deliberate, since she thinks this is secret information….

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Yes, I know it’s the Holidays. Christmas, New Years and all that and I hope it’s happy. Also, it’s not only the end of the year, but also the end of the Decade. But if you’re expecting anything Holiday or Fin de Year/Decade related, or a sad parade of Top 10 Lists, well, best prepare yourself to be disappointed. Or at least, dispense with those expectations entirely and then you won’t be disappointed at all, and might, when all is said and done be somewhat pleasently surprised, albeit vaguely.

Most likely, I will leave the Decade Stuff, the Best O’ The Year Stuff, to better, simpler minds. There is one GREAT Best of The Decade List I saw recently, and i highly recommend it. Ben Cohen has complied a Top 10 Best American Sports Writing Of The Decade. This is GREAT reading. Fabulous stuff. If I could write 1/10th as well these sportswriters…well…I’m begging the question. Onward.

While having a beer at the Grumpy Troll this afternoon, I got to wondering about when, exactly men’s basketball shorts stopped being short. There had to be a moment, or a descending series of moments when that occurred. What got me thinking about that was that I was watching the replay of last night’s Wisconsin vs. UW-Milwaukee basketball game, and UW-Milwaukee has this big galoot trudging around out there, 6’7″ 310 pound (yes, you read that right) James Eayrs, who looks more like one of those Eastern Europeans sumo-wrestlers. Anyway, those basketball shorts on him looked especially ridiculous….you could’ve used them to wrap up a Minneapolis-Moline Tractor as a Christmas present. If fact, he looked like a Minnneapolis-Moline tractor. So it made me wonder…when did this goofy trend start.

Doing a little digging, I re-discovered my memories of University of Michigan Fab 5 from the 1991-92 season. The Fab 5:  Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson bagn the 1991-92 season as freshman finished the season by winning the NCAA Championship. They popularized and propelled the trend towards baggier and longer basketball shorts. When they first hit the courts in their long baggy shorts, and black shoes and socks…they were like nothing anyone had ever seen…and they played like nothing anyone had ever seen. Long and baggy became cool and pretty soon College and then NBA player began adopting the new look. BUT…

The look didn’t start with the Fab 5 however. While I haven’t pinned this down to the exact moment…the actual origin of the look began with the Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team during the 1990-91 season. Back then, the Razorbacks were not nationally televised and though a pretty good team that made it to the Elite 8 that season under head coach Nolan Richardson, they weren’t poised on the brink, so to speak. They didn’t have the flair and the style that Michigan had the following year.

Early in the 1991 season, Michigan assistant coach Brian Dutcher noticed his players pulling their shorts down to their hips and wearing their jerseys untucked. Remembering seeing the Arkansas team wearing longer shorts the previous season, he ordered shorts for the Fab 5 to wear that were about 2 to 4 inches longer than average. Juwan Howard liked them, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Well…it really IS the end of the Noughties…and as much as it galls me to spit those words off my tongue, I guess there is no avoiding the reality of it. And a dreadful decade it was from a cultural, political, economic, social, emotional, ethical standpoint. If not for sports, the Noughts would have been even more a total miserable hell than it already was.

Sports survived it all. Even the Milwaukee Brewers were able to rise above by the end of the decade.

And speaking of the Brewers…

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