ThatKidInTheCorner

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April 27, 2005

Fake Revolutionaries Need Not Apply

In which I (appropriately enough) hide in the corner at the Immortal Technique show

Immortal Technique's "Dance with the Devil" is one of the most disturbing songs I've ever heard. The synopsis: enterprising young gentleman from compromised socio-economic circumstances decides to pursue opportunities in the narcotics sales and distribution space. He enjoys early success, but decides that he would like to advance into the ranks of management. To do so, the hiring committee insists that he demonstrate his commitment to the firm's objectives by participating in a sexual assault and first-degree murder. He complies, but is soon disappointed to discover that the victim of said sexual assault and first-degree murder was his mother. In despair, he leaps from the roof of a building. The narrator uses this incident to illustrate the presence of "the devil" in the ambitions of certain wicked young men. In fact, said "devil" is probably here right now.

Yeah, pretty awful. But also pretty compelling. Though the song contains a fair amount of tough-guy posturing, it's very sobering, very reflective, and very well told. (And the fact that the hook is the theme from "Love Story" doesn't make it any less creepy.) And that's what drew me to the Immortal Technique show last night at S.O.B.'s on Varick Street: anyone who can tell that compelling and creepy a story on a recording is going to be even better live.

Turns out he actually was pretty good in person. I feel like I've been burned by half-assed hip-hop shows in the past (but more on that in a moment), but not last night. Immortal Technique had a ton of stage presence, did a great job connecting with the crowd, and generally seemed like a gracious and competent performer. I walked out of his show more impressed by Immortal Technique than I had been before.

The crowd seemed pretty into him as well; they definitely knew a lot of the words to his songs. Which, from a macro level, is pretty encouraging -- because, unlike most popular music (and especially hip-hop), Immortal Technique actually has something to say. Beyond his graphic commentary about Why Drug Dealers Aren't Nice People, Immortal Technique raps extensively about the Bush Administration, the DEA, 9-11, and the morality of United States foreign policy. This is not Lil Jon; Immortal Technique is pretty political. And his politics seemed to resonate with the crowd.

That his politics seemed to energize the crowd is something of a mixed blessing. In general, it's good to see pop music, and especially hip-hop, engaged in the relevant political questions of the day. It's good that there's a voice in entertainment that questions the government and the mainstream media -- and that said voice isn't a spoiled Hollywood know-it-all. Some of his songs are dead-on; "Peruvian Cocaine" does a great job describing how the drug trade in the United States and a complicit CIA are keeping scores of poor South Americans trapped as indentured field hands, "On the border of Bolivia/ Working for pennies." (This was also the best tune at the show last night). But some of his accusations are a bit scattershot and, ahem, ridiculous. Though the connections between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens certainly merited journalistic investigation, I do not believe that "Bush Knocked Down the Towers." This is the refrain of his song "Bin Laden": the ostensible reason for last night's event (it was a single release party for a "Bin Laden" remix). Again, it's worth discussing the past connections between the CIA and Osama Bin Laden in a pop song, but saying that the President killed a few thousand people and crippled the country to serve his own interests? There's a word for saying things like that: demagoguery. It's easy to make wild accusations and stoke people's fears; it's much tougher to provoke meaningful debate and discussion. Immortal Technique straddles that line.

Still, I'll take a little demagoguery over the nonsense thrown out there by the three opening acts. Ugh. Not to go all Chris Rock about it, but dudes like this are why people can justifiably criticize hip-hop. The first guy, Diabolic, would have been a bit more decent if he didn't keep talking about how tough he was. Yawn. Dude, if you're so tough, then go box someone. Also, his attempts to talk about politics made Technique seem nuanced; it was the sort of unsubstantiated drivel you expect from a drunk auto worker. Next up was Poison Pen. There were a bunch of them, and they were pretty unremarkable -- but at least they were in a good mood and were friendly to the crowd. (In fact, they hung out in the audience afterwards -- right next to me for a bit -- and they seemed like a pretty funny bunch of dudes.) Boring, but not offensive: essentially exactly what you're looking for from the opening act.

It was with the third guy, Akir, that things started to go off the rails. Following a a lengthy and, ahem, rather florid introduction, Akir (it means Always Keep It Real -- I know, very clever) took the stage and started to talk about how he had just been written up in a bunch of magazines, and how he was about to become very very rich and famous. Uh huh. That's lovely. Now do a song.

But no, more talkie. Talkie talkie talkie. All about Akir. And that's when the boos started, or as Akir called them, the "hating." Dude, Akir, the "hating" was your fault for standing up there bragging instead of doing a song. And when he did start performing, it was pretty half-assed. He started two songs over (unforgiveable -- just keep going, jackass). He argued with people in the front row, but not in a funny or cool way -- more in a petulant, don't-you-know-how-hot-I-am sort of way. When he finished, there were some polite cheers, but mostly boos.

And the boos were justified. We paid to hear you perform, Akir. Nobody booed the other acts, and they weren't spectacular, but they were put together and at least tried to do a good job up there. You disrespected the audience with your lack of effort -- that's why they booed. You wonder what it means that of the four performers last night, the one with the lamest show was the one with the most press and hype. I've gone off about empty and meaningless hip-hop before, but it really is pretty offensive to see these dudes posturing about how famous they are and how rich they're going to be without having the talent, or even the effort, to back it up. Play your music, dude. We'll decide if we like it.

And it made Immortal Technique, when he did finally take the stage, all the more refreshing. Sure, maybe he's a bit blustery, but he was gracious and friendly toward the audience, and you could see that he really believed in what he was saying. Immortal Technique didn't care about the haters, he cared about the "fake revolutionaries," the folks who just pay lip service to his political agenda but who aren't actually committed to it. I have no idea what the hell being a real revolutionary is about, but I prefer listening to someone call Bush a draft dodger than talk about how famous they're going to be. It might be partisan bullshit, but at least it's something.

Posted by thatkid at 5:23 PM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2005

Chelsea USA?

Five (Sort Of) Big Ideas to Market Chelsea Football Club in the United States

As promised in an earlier posting, things were a bit busy the past week with the class-related assignments. Luckily for me, I was able to shape some of my assignments such that I could actually write about topics I found interesting (instead of, say, doing another freakin case analysis). The following is an abridged and edited version of one of said assignments....

Despite efforts in recent years from global soccer giants Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Barcelona to establish a significant brand presence in the United States market, no foreign soccer club (or domestic club, for that matter) has claimed the title of Soccer's Coolest/ Most Iconic Team. Whereas the average European knows very little about baseball, he/ she will likely be able to conjure up the name "New York Yankees" if asked to name an iconic baseball team. The closest thing that soccer has to an icon in the United States is Pele, but only the real sports fans could tell you what team he was on; certainly very few ten-year-olds know.

So there's a job opening. And it turns out that there might be a new applicant. Since Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich bought a controlling interest in Chelsea Football Club for $233 million in 2003, the team has spent $470 million on players. Success on the field has followed: Chelsea are currently in first place in Barclays English Premiership and in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League.

But being the world’s biggest football club is about more than just goals and wins. It is also about marketing and establishing a globally recognized sports brand. Chelsea have just announced some big plans for Asia; why not the United States? Most U.S. soccer marketing to date has been very mainstream: they're all going after the soccer-mom crowd. But there's an opportunity to go upstream of that -- to introduce a premium soccer brand that's edgy, sophisticated, worldly, and trend-setting. (There are plenty of reasons why this can work as a long-term strategy, but they're too boring to detail here; it's all that marketing/ biznass-blather about opinion-leaders and early-adopters and whatnot.)

Here are five ideas for establishing Chelsea as The Coolest/ Most Iconic Soccer Team in the United States:

(1) Find Regional TV Broadcast Partners: one of the most important trends in the sports media business has been the growth of regional sports cable networks. Typically owned in conjunction with a local sports franchise in a region, these networks broadcast sports-related content to large metropolitan areas; powerful regional sports networks already exist (Comcast SportsNet regionals, CSS-Comcast Sports Southeast, ASPN, Empire Sports Network, MSG Network, NESN, SportsWest, Turner South and YES Network) and total 50 million subscribers. These regional sports networks need content, especially when their team is out of season. Manchester United already have a deal with the YES Network. Chelsea should strive to strike deals with as many of these networks as possible, and insist on both live weekend broadcasts and then midweek rebroadcasts during the day (for the youth audience in the after-school hours) and in primetime (for the adult audience). Regional media deals would not impact the larger deals that UEFA and the English Premier League have struck with national media channels, and would allow Chelsea sole exposure in large US markets.

(2) Sponsor Konami Winning Eleven Soccer Series: Konami’s Winning Eleven soccer game (aka "Pro Evolution Soccer" in Europe) series is the best sports video game I have ever played. Better than Tecmo Bowl. Better than Double Dribble. Yet it's barely marketed in the United States (hitting shelves each year five months after its European debut, and six months after its Japanese debut) and enjoys only modest sales (it sells really well everywhere else), while Electronic Arts' FIFA series sells very well (which is ridiculous since the EA title isn't nearly as good). Chelsea should make Konami an offer: Chelsea will sponsor the sales and marketing of the product in the United States in return for preferential treatment in the game packaging (meaning that a Chelsea player will be featured on the cover) and in the game content (meaning that the skill level of the Chelsea players and team will be at least the equal of any other team in the game – which is not a farfetched concept). The game itself is outstanding; with marketing support from Chelsea it could sell well, and when it does it will offer a unique promotional experience for the Chelsea brand.

(3) Partner With a Hollywood Studio on a Soccer Film: with the upcoming release of "The Game of Their Lives” featuring MLS players, as well as a film about an American soccer player making it big in Europe financed by Adidas and featuring top Adidas-sponsored stars, it seems that a film is almost essential to keep up with other soccer-sponsored media. But instead of going after a family market with the film, Chelsea should seek a partner to make a grittier, tougher movie about the challenges facing a young soccer prodigy growing up in poverty in South America (a familiar trope for most soccer fans, but an unknown story for American viewers) and struggling to reach the pinnacle of success, which is, of course, a spot at Chelsea Football Club. Essentially, it should be “Hoop Dreams” meets “City of God” only with a soccer game at the end.

(4) Seed Chelsea With Entertainment And Music Celebrities: Chelsea should approach a number of music and entertainment management agencies to offer complementary Chelsea attire as well as offers to attend a Chelsea game – in a luxury suite – if they are ever in London. Plenty of celebrities seem to be Chelsea fans; the club should approach them about wearing Chelsea attire in public. Chelsea should also approach up-and-coming rock and hip-hop musicians through their record labels with Chelsea attire and merchandise, and, if available, should sponsor inclusion of this merchandise in music videos and public appearances. Essentially, get them shirts in the videos and on Pimp My Ride!

(5) Fetishize the Gear: speaking of getting the shirts in videos, you need to get the shirts at retail. Just as with American sports, the soccer shirt (or "jersey" in America) is the backbone of soccer club licensing and merchandising. In addition to promoting the club by placing the jersey in popular media and on celebrities/ opinion leaders, it is essential to get the shirts into selected retailers. Although some sporting goods retailers should be included in the mix of distribution, Chelsea should also seek placement in high-end athletic boutiques, retro jersey dealers in major markets, and youth-driven specialty retailers like Urban Outfitters. In selecting the right mix of retail partners, Chelsea can communicate that they aren't just a soccer team -- they're an important and iconic unit of cultural currency, something that the cool kids are into.

Of course, all of this is contingent upon Chelsea continuing to win. All the sneaky brand marketing in the world can't compensate for success on the field. Americans like winners, and if you're going to be cool here, winning is the price of entry. Luckily, Roman Abramovich has $12 billion to make sure that isn't a problem.

Posted by thatkid at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Habemvs Papem!

He likes it when you call him "Big Papa"

And we have a new Pope!

If 12 years of Catholic school taught me anything, it's that it is definitely not my place to comment on the larger questions of spirituality and religion. There are plenty of REALLY smart folks who, over the course of the past few thousand years, have devoted considerable time, energy, and effort to the task of discerning the presence and role of a spiritual element in the human experience. Unless you've got your act pretty together (and are exquisitely careful with your language and word choice), you shouldn't be too vocal in re: God.

All that said, I do feel more than empowered to comment on the media coverage of religion, as well as the general proceedings from Rome as presented on television the past few days, especially since this is my religion (just me and 1,099,999 other people!) that the cable news blathermonkeys are braying about. Some quick hits from the past 24 hours:

Awesome Name Choice: while the blathermonkeys were shamelessly speculating in re: the "meaning" of Benedict XVI, I was appreciating just how papal it sounded. I mean, "Benedict" is pretty medieval sounding on its own (my immediate associations are Friar-Tuck-looking monks), but the "XVI" is what really seals the deal. The whole John Paul I and II thing was a little Johnny-Come-Lately -- but being the sixteenth dude to pick Benedict? That's old school.

The Roman Numerals: speaking of old school, the Roman numerals in the Pope names are just spectacular. As utterly silly and presumptuous as they seem when attached to a particular Super Bowl (and I say that as someone who adores NFL football), that's how absolutely classy and powerful they seem when attached to the name of a Pope. Also, it is the "Roman" Catholic Church -- that's their own IP we're talking about here. And say what we will about the marketing strength of the NFL and the power of the NFL brands, those folks ain't got nothing on the Church from a sales, marketing, and brand management perspective. Nothing. It's the little touches, like the Roman numerals, that really set our Church apart.

Stop Calling Him A Nazi: and speaking of brands, the blathermonkeys just couldn't help themselves from using the word Nazi about a million times last night. The thing is, when you hear someone's name and the words "Nazi" or "Hitler Youth" in the same sentence, you don't usually listen for an explanation. And, in all fairness, as far as "worst global brands of the 20th century" go, Nazi and Hitler Youth are puh-retty high on the list. Yet without going too much into it (not my place), I'm pretty confident that this guy wasn't in the genocide business. It's not like this was a secret either -- this isn't Gennifer Flowers we're talking about or Dubya's drug problem -- people have known this his entire life. Like everyone else in Germany at that time, he kind of "had to" join the Hitler Youth in order to "go to school." Enough with the scare tactics and alarmism. (Note that this also applies to folks who don't seem to trust that the man is German. Errr, no. You're not allowed to say that, and I don't care how many world wars they started last century -- we've moved on.)

This is just like grade school!: wow, I don't think I've ever seen that many nuns and priests on TV at once. Most of the hosts didn't know what to do with them, with the obvious exception of Chris Matthews, who, if anything, should have been identified on screen last night with the caption, "Went to Catholic School."

That Would Be THE Sistine Chapel: back on the old-school/ brand marketing tip, another thing I can't say enough about is the fact that when the Church chooses a new Pope, they use the Sistene Chapel as a conference room. (!!!!!) Whoa. Global financial services firms might buy a lot of nice artwork for their lobbies, etc etc, but using the Sistine Chapel as a conference room? Such are spoils of running Europe for the past few hundred years.

Oddest Man-On-The-Street Interview: some CNN blathermonkey was interviewing folks in St. Peter's Square yesterday afternoon. Mostly softball stuff, of the How Does It Make You Feel Variety. Over the course of the afternoon, this guy spoke with a few lower-level members of the Catholic clergy, one of whom (a young priest studying in Rome) offered that he was "just talking" with the Vatican's "Chief Exorcist" who told him that the "demons" are still "very afraid" of Pope John Paul II, and that "his spirit" is still very "powerful." I had NO IDEA what to do with that. (Neither did the blathermonkey.) I mean, I suppose I like to forget that demonic possession is still a part of official Church doctrine, but to drop the title of "Chief Exorcist" on national TV, I mean, wow. How do you get to be Chief Exorcist? Do you think the Chief Exorcist has an e-mail address? A blog? And just when I start to feel really cynical, I remember that I'm also in the religion that believes in transubstantiation at every single celebration of the Mass -- that we believe that we eat the body and blood of Christ (not symbolically, literally) at every Mass.

And that's when I know it's time to stop writing. Please send me an e-mail if any part of this is blasphemous; I'd prefer to not go to Hell.

Posted by thatkid at 6:16 PM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2005

The Worst Class At Business School

In which I describe the most excruciating genre of classroom experience encountered in business school

So this is it. My final week of graduate school. Whoa. Full adulthood beckons. I figure it's a time for reflection, contemplation, and examination of the 22 months I've spent as a grad student. And I suspect at some point there will be time for all of that. But right now I'm having some bandwidth issues in re: all-the-work-that-I-should-have-done-all-semester-but-didn't-because-
I-mean-really-it's-my-last-semester-of-grad-school-and-I-have-a-job. So. I don't suspect I'll be doing much posting on the electric internet over the next week or so, save for some repurposings of class projects that fit with the overall theme and tone of thatkidinthecorner.com (said theme and tone being "whatever the hell it is I choose to think and/ or write about at that moment").

All that said, I can't let the final week of b-school pass without some summary comments; let's start with what is consistently the most painful classroom experience at business school....

In the casual conversations you may have had regarding business school, perhaps you've heard someone make reference to the "business school case study." The case study (or just "case") is a big part of the b-school experience. It's typically a 7-10 page document that describes a recent real-life business situation (though sometimes they change the names to protect the innocent!) for the purposes of framing a class discussion. Essentially, you read a little story that's supposed to capture some complex and poignant business dilemma, and then you talk through it to uncover the fundamental themes and recommend some conclusions/ actions.

As a pedagogical device, the case works pretty well. It allows for a discussion of concepts and techniques in the context of an actual business situation -- instead of just pulling it out of a textbook or lecture. You ground the conversation in a narrative and humanize the larger business issues: which is essentially how you encounter any sort of business issue. On the flip side, the cases writers too often boil the narrative down to a single (usually coded) insight -- the observation or analysis that will "crack" the case. Unfortunately, this style usually leads to a discussion that chases its own tail for a while until we all get to learn the Big Secret, handed down from on high by a professor with a teacher's edition of the case. Pretty beat. Though, in all fairness, cases only constitute about a quarter of class content at my school; at some places, the curriculum is almost exclusively cases. I can't even imagine.

An important distinction in a case-driven class is whether or not the students have handed in an assignment related to the case (as opposed to merely reading it and thinking about it beforehand). Obviously, if you have to hand in a couple pages of analysis (that will be read and evaluated by the professor), you're going to read the case a bit more closely than you would if you're just showing up and talking about it. More importantly, if you have to complete an assignment on the day's case (typically by answering a few questions in memo format), you're going to have a distinctive perspective on what the issues are, what's important, and what the big secret/ answer is. An assignment definitely guarantees that everyone in the class will have read the case; it also guarantees a very divisive class discussion.

The perfect storm of case discussion (aka "The Worst Class at Business School") arrives when (a) the class has completed a written analysis (that will be graded) prior to the session and (b) the class discussion mirrors the assignment. That is, the questions discussed in class are exactly the same questions that each of the students has already answered. At length. In a paper that (gasp!) will be graded.

The discussion typically starts innocently enough. The first moments of any case discussion are almost always devoted to establishing key facts for the discussion. So people raise their hands and offer the little tidbits of information that they think are key to the conversation. Fair enough -- this part is rarely contentious. Most people can handle this part without agita. But pretty soon, the discussion must enter its next phase: the part where you start to dig into the more substantive elements of the case. What are the key issues? What's the big problem? What sorts of recommendations would you make? We've now crossed the border from "fact" to "opinion" and it turns out that not everyone has the same opinion. Tensions rise. Tones change. Disagreements surface. The professor begins to bless certain opinions as more correct than others. Anxieties begin to crescendo -- this assignment is graded, after all! This is my future we're talking about! Did I not do it correctly?

And that's when it happens.

Concerned that he might have gotten the answer "wrong," some poor Type-A schlub succumbs to his neurosis and unburdens himself in front of 85 people. That is, he begins describing his ENTIRE PAPER in front of the ENTIRE CLASS. In detail. It usually includes phrases like, "Well what I did was...," "Is it okay if I said...," or "Is is still correct if I wrote that...." It is, in a word, unbearable. Total car wreck. For people who are otherwise capable and people-savvy, it's remarkable how shamelessly they will monopolize the time of the entire class. Unreal. It's as if the rest of us have disappeared, and the class session exists as a one-on-one confessional in which this student can beg for the professor's reassuring blessing on their inconsequential homework assignment. The lack of shame is astounding.

And once one person crosses the line, then the rest of the neurotics quickly follow suit, all offering up detailed descriptions of their individual homework assignments while jutting their brow upward and smiling: simian code for desperate obsequiousness. It's really tough to get the class back on track at that point, though some professors are more skilled at dealing with the situation than others. At the same time, the only professors who end up in this situation in the first place are the ones who (a) are of the "there is a right answer to every case" school and who (b) make the mistake of talking through the questions from the assignment during the class.

And, really, the students should know better. I wouldn't write about it if it didn't happen, oh, every single time we have to turn in a case assignment. I actually feel some pity for the folks who sit beside me while it happens; I tend to lose a bit of self-control and start nervously clicking my pen while whispering, "This is the worst class in business school; this is the worst class in business school." Bad behavior (by this I mean "people being rude") is a big problem in general at my b-school, and though this isn't as bad as showing up to class late holding breakfast and noisily bulldozing your way to a seat, it's still rude and selfish. At the very least, it's unprofessional.

(This is another reason why no one likes MBAs.)

Posted by thatkid at 7:34 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2005

Torture-People-Until-They-Talk City

In which I admit that I'm something of a sucker for revenge fantasies with lots of special effects; that is, I really liked Sin City

Way back when, the first time Hollywood decided that it was a good idea to make big-budget movies based on comic books, the challenge seemed to be translating the universe created within the comic book into a familiar (and filmable) reality. How do we make Superman look like he's flying through a real city? What do the Daily Planet offices look like? (Mostly like a cube farm in a New York office.) The next time through, they riffed on the comic book world a bit more, and allowed it to inspire a creepier take on reality -- and it was cool. Batman's Gotham was the twisted, haunted-house version of New York.

Cheap digital effects and the realization that comic-book stories and themes tend to resonate with the core multiplex customer (teenaged boys) have given us a whole slew of comic-book-inspired movies over the past ten years: some good, some not so good. What most had in common, though, was a license to interpret their setting through the lens of a comic-book. Spiderman, X-Men, Hellboy, Hulk, and Men in Black all gave us worlds that looked roughly like our own, but with riffs and twists that made them just a smidge more fanciful and magical -- a little more comic-y. These films, while certainly true to the themes of their source material (and more than willing to offer a charmingly edited tribute in the opening titles), all still translated the visual components of those sources for the big screen: we got worlds inspired by a comic book.

And then we come full circle with Sin City, which chucks the whole idea of interpretation right out the window in favor of verisimilitude. Why try to translate the comic book look and feel onto the screen when you can just make the screen look pretty much like the original comic? Why interpret when you can import? You take the most distinctive elements of the comic book's visual style and make them really really big and cool-looking.

That plan -- just make the comic book movie look like the comic book -- is, I assume, what the folks who made Sin City were trying to get at. Cool idea. Even cooler to deploy that visual idea in the service of a completely (and gloriously) ridiculous story, one whose morality is every bit as fabricated and imaginary as its setting. Sin City is essentially Pulp Fiction meets Kill Bill meets Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. That is, it has three loosely connected stories about revenge (and killing tons of people) that take place in a digitally rendered fantasy world. As you might have guessed, I really enjoyed it. Some thoughts:

If You Had To Pick One: in re: above, the film is divided into three semi-related, chronically jumbled segments a la Pulp Fiction. Though of course I enjoyed how they all fit together as part of a larger post-modern narrative framework, I'm willing to say that the one with Marv (Mickey Rourke) is the best. By a bunch. The one with Clive Owen is the weakest. The one with Bruce Willis is somewhere in the middle. End of conversation.

Thank You For Skipping the Part Where You Explain Everyone's Powers: nothing is more boring in the comic-book movie genre than the obligatory 45 minutes of franchise-launching "And here's how we got our super powers!" (This was essentially the entire point of the first X-Men movie, which was watchable despite it all.) In Sin City, no one seems to have actual super powers, but they seem to be able to do superhuman things. As in, apparently everyone can safely leap from the roofs of buildings to the ground below. Also, you can absorb dozens of bullets without dying. Luckily, we don't have to waste any time explaining all that. We just go with it. And really, if you want to have a comic-book world, why not let everyone be able to survive crazy falls and multiple gunshots?

Was Peter Gunn A TV Show Or Just A Theme Song?: I really wasn't feeling the music as much as I should have. The main theme essentially sounded like a limp rip-off of the Theme from Peter Gunn, give or take a few notes. Which is fine, but when the rest of the film is so different-looking, you'd like the score to follow. Oh well.

Just Because You Gave Them Uzis Doesn't Make It Less Awkward: for the record, I don't think there are any women in this movie who don't walk around in their underwear (or less than their underwear) for most of their time on screen. The majority of the female characters play strippers or prostitutes. Not so polite. Of course, you could defend this by saying that the female characters are actually strong and defend their part of town, yadda yadda yadda. That's all well and good, but they're still half-nekkid hookers up there on the screen. Not that any of the actresses are complaining, as they seemed to have signed up pretty much every young starlet in Hollywood for this thing. Sigh. It's a man's world.

Actually, He Is Too Old: speaking of young starlets, get ready for more Jessica Alba, who's in two more mega-movies this summer! One wouldn't say that she seemed particularly talented in this movie, but at least she was credible when she had to "dance" (at least a lot more credible than Natalie Portman in Closer, which, for the record, is something of a pile of crap -- talkie talkie talkie, too much talkie, though Clive Owen is pretty sweet in it, definitely sweeter than he was in this one). Still, I have to admit that it turned my stomach a little when she made out with Bruce Willis. I mean, I understand that the story actually calls for her to be very young and him to be very old, and that Hollywood trots out far more preposterous couplings, but it was still kind of gross. There. I said it.

Warning: Contains 23% Torture Scenes: so you know, a suprisingly large portion of the film is devoted to characters brutally torturing other people for information. Not once or twice -- like six or seven times. And they play it for laughs. Which is pretty funny in itself. I mean, I don't mind lots of violence (especially when nestled in an extended revenge fantasy), but I could see how some of the scenes might be a bit unsettling. Still, it seems like the only way you can get stuff done in Basin City is by cutting off a few fingers (and possibly feeding them to some dogs). I dunno -- must not be any lawyers there.

[Editor's Note: I wrote this like a week and a half ago, but never finished it, so apologies on the lack of timeliness. Still, it made more money last weekend than that stupid movie about the Red Sox (that it took all of my powers to resist writing about; the subject being how much I'm enjoying watching Boston sports fans have their favorite thing co-opted by the lame-ass national media, but then I thought I'd just come off as the stereotypically bitter Philadelphia supporter), so I figured it was worth publishing.]

Posted by thatkid at 1:15 PM | Comments (1)

April 12, 2005

FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Rankings...Explained!

strong>In which a member of the FIFA Executive Committee is perhaps 13% too candid

Among the exceptionally unique/ almost-justify-the-price-tag features of the business-school experience is the opportunity to meet and listen to the exhaustive roster of really impressive and accomplished people who come through campus as guest speakers. Whether invited by professors or by student organizations, not a week goes by without some brand-name CEO stopping by to give a presentation and answer student questions. Typically these folks are luminaries from the corporate world, but sometimes you do get someone from off the beaten path (where "off the beaten path" means they don't work in financial services or consumer packaged goods).

We had one of those off-the-beaten-path folks today -- a member of the FIFA executive committee. For the soccer geeks at school (meaning like three Americans and a few dozen dudes from Latin America and Europe), this was pretty juicy. There aren't that many "members of the FIFA Executive Committee" walking around, and certainly not that many in America, so this was a huge chance to get some good dirt on The World's Most Popular Game directly from one of the bigwigs who run the sport.

For the most part, our guest speaker met expectations. One wouldn't have judged his performance to be inspirational or overly charming (especially considering that some of the CEO-types we get are unnervingly persuasive), but he did offer a nice history of CONCACAF, the development of US Soccer, and some details on the politicking that attends the selection of World Cup hosts (he claims it isn't a done deal that 2014 goes to Brasil). He thought that soccer still had a long way to go in the United States, and that the responsibility for its continued development needed to be shared by MLS and the US Soccer Foundation (not terribly controversial). One of the South American kids made the mistake of complaining that South America doesn't get enough slots allocated to their federation (they get 4.5 slots), at which point our speaker pointed out that those 4.5 slots are contested by 10 countries, while Africa gets 5 slots for 50 countries (actually 52). He then pointed out that CONCACAF put all three of their entries through to the second round in the 2002 World Cup (go CONCACAF! -- though I don't think that's actually true) and certainly had as good a case as anyone for more slots.

But the best part of the presentation came when a student asked if he could explain the FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Rankings. (The context here is that global soccer is to FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Rankings as college football is to the BCS -- no matter how much you follow the game, you still really don't understand how these things are calculated. It's a big topic of conversation and FIFA has even admitted that the rankings might need some reform.) Our speaker chuckled and said that it's a "mystical formula" before defending the rankings by saying that "at least we don't use them to decide who gets into the World Cup." Fair enough, but not a great answer, and we grumbled our disapproval. So he continued, "To be honest, and I shouldn't say this, there aren't any journalists here, right, but mostly it was a really good idea to sell to Coca-Cola."

Luckily, I don't count as a journalist. And I swear I won't tell Coca-Cola either. Honest.

Posted by thatkid at 8:56 PM | Comments (0)

April 8, 2005

Memo To New Yorkers Looking for MSG Network

You mean all I had to do was travel to Cancun?

In the midst of a lovely little jaunt to Mexico. Weather is great, beach is lovely, life is good. Even played an ill-fated round of golf yesterday, which I managed to enjoy even as I lost, AHEM, seven golf balls. (In my defense, the course boasted a lot of water hazards. Also, I´m not very good at golf.)

Anyhoo, I was at a cocktail party last night at one of the hotels here in Cancun. Lovely party -- everyone had a blast. As the party was winding down, the hotel staff arrived to clean up a bit and return the room to ready-for-public-consumption status. Turns out the room hosting the cocktail party doubled as a sports bar (I guess the pool tables should have tipped me off? I dunno.). So this one dude is walking around the room turning on a bunch of TVs and tuning them to what looked like a basketball game. Cool enough, I thought. Who´s playing? Hey! Look at that -- it´s the Knicks playing at the Nets. Not exactly a scintillating NBA fixture, but hey, it was a little slice of home. I wonder who´s winning?

I looked at the score and started laughing. The game was being broadcast on MSG. That is, you can´t watch MSG in Manhattan, but you can watch it in Mexico.

(This is me shaking my head in amused disdain in re: Cablevision and Time-Warner Cable.)

Posted by thatkid at 9:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 5, 2005

The Joe Theismann of College Basketball

Billy Packer almost ruins the NCAA tournament. Again.

Every year that I watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament -- a.k.a. March Madness (TM) and The Big Dance (TM) -- I say the same two things: (1) Man, the whole idea of a big knockout tournament where everyone plays their hearts out is just awesome -- I love this thing; (2) Why is this glorious sporting event sullied by the semi-sentient Billy Packer?

I thought about just going on and on about how much I disliked Billy Packer. There's certainly plenty to talk about, and I don't have anyone to stop me from calling the man lots of impolite names. I find him incompetent and insufferable. Sports on TV are entertainment products, and the presence of Billy Packer negatively impacts my enjoyment of said entertainment. Although there is certainly no shortage of blathermonkeys offering half-baked opinions on any number of television programs/ web sites, Billy Packer stands out as one of the worst -- one of the few that is so bad that they distract me from enjoying the entertainment product in question. And not even in a Howard Cosell "controversial" way -- more in a ESPN Sunday Night Football "grossly incompetent" sort of way.

I know that makes me sound like the sort of troglodyte who sits on his couch armed with beer and remote shouting at the disembodied voices that accompany the entertainment products. (As it turns out, that statement is only 73 percent true). So instead of calling Billy Packer names, I'm going to point out why he is very bad at his job.

For a national broadcast of a large sporting event, where the audience will have a national (and even global footprint), the commentators are expected -- at a minimum -- to (a) clearly describe the action that is taking place, (b) offer additional information to viewers that explains the action on the court as well as the larger thematic context, and (c) remain non-partisan out of respect for the broad national audience. On last night's telecast of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game, Billy Packer failed at all three:

(a) Clearly describe the action that is taking place: for a couple games, it had been obvious that Illinois were taking liberties with the rules about setting screens and picks. That is, the Illinois big men were setting clean picks on an initial defender and then, in the act of going to set another pick, would continue to screen off opponents. You're not allowed to move while you set a pick. It's a rule. Billy Packer did not point this out until about there were two minutes left in the game, ostensibly after one of his producers had shouted sufficiently in his ear about it. In fact, Billy Packer kept talking about Illinois' skill in setting screens (see below).

(b) Offer additional information to viewers that explains the action on the court as well as the larger thematic context: in explaining Illinois' success on offense, Packer repeatedly -- and I mean, REPEATEDLY -- complimented the strength and effectiveness of the Illinois players setting picks. That is, he believed that Illinois was doing a good job of scoring because they were setting good picks. Which is almost true, were it not for the fact that a lot of those screens looked dicey (and which he finally pointed out). A more cogent way to explain this would have been that Illinois figured out early on that they weren't going to get called for moving picks and were playing -- like a smart team -- to the specs of the officiating crew. Billy Packer tried to say that, but it didn't quite come out clearly.

(c) Remain non-partisan out of respect for the broad national audience: it's tough to prove media bias, but Billy Packer definitely declared an Illinois three-point-field-goal attempt in the final two minutes to be "Good" when it had not yet reached the goal and was, in fact, not "Good" but rather a "Miss." Said three-pointer would have confirmed the Illinois "run" he was so excited about, and might have capped off the "comeback" that didn't "happen." Note that this statement also violates Section (a) (above).

That's it. I'll stop. No more Billy Packer rants. I can at least take some solace in the fact that he isn't remotely involved in professional football.

Posted by thatkid at 2:49 PM | Comments (0)