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Lou Pickney's Online Commentary

The Disjointed Column

Saturday
June 25, 2005

"I'm going to say a few things, I'm going to say some bad words, and you're just going to have to deal with it."
-Tony Soprano

I've tried to think of something really clever or insightful to write about the Spurs' Game 7 win over Detroit to capture the 2005 NBA Championship, but I don't know that there's anything more that I can add to what's been written. I did notice that many people who were rumbling about Tim Duncan's legacy being on the line have mysterious gone silent about that issue, which irritates me. Lousy lazy sportswriters. If you're going to throw down that ridiculous gauntlet, at least have the balls to back it up by doing an article following up on it. Some people did; one article I found that I really liked was this one by Nick Prevenas. "Duncan's Game Seven performance rates as one of my favorite 'Shove It!' performances in NBA history," he wrote. I think that sums up my thoughts nicely.

I had two people independently complain to me at the office on Friday about the officiating in Game 7 against Detroit. That took some goddamn brass balls to say to me, a Spurs fan, after the way San Antonio got gutted, sliced, pounded, and given the Abner Louima treatment in Games 3 and 4 in Detroit, with the refs turning a blind eye like the guards at Shawshank. The great Bill Simmons has me believing the NBA referee conspiracy theories, but you notice that I didn't bitch about the wonderous no-calls from Game 3 on here. Quid pro quo, Pistons fans.

I've been feeling strange this week. You'd think I'd be all happy with my favorite NBA team having won the championship, but I've been in this odd funk for no particular reason. It does help me to write some really biting columns, but I'll trade a little sanity for taking a little edge off of my writing. This is my webpage, not a bitching post (but you're going to get a little bit of everything here). Maybe it's because I have a sinus infection but I'm too damn stubborn to go to the doctor. It makes me mad that I have to book an appointment and fork over the co-pay to be told something I already know, just to get a prescription for antibiotics, which I also know I need. You don't need all those years of medical school for this sort of thing. But because there are too many idiots out there who misuse antibiotics, you have to jump through hoops to get them. Idiots, as always, are ruining things for the rest of us.

Here's the thing with doctors: I've always been a bit skeptical about the whole medical process, since it's a guessing game anyway. The worst has been dealing with these horrible intermittent headaches I've had since 2000, especially having switched doctors a few times due to moving and then switching insurance companies a few times (and then the clinic I went to had revolving doctors, which was a whole new inconvenience). I respect doctors for knowing what they are talking about on such a wide array of topics, but when it comes to me and knowing what has and hasn't worked with treating the head-splitters, I don't like getting second-guessed. And that has happened a few times, which makes me mad. Look, I'm a smart guy; if I need knee ligament damage to be diagnosed, that's one thing, but my own headaches I know much better than a general practitioner who has seen me a few times, at best.

Geez, now I'm going off on tangents on here. It's bad enough when I start doing it in real-life conversations. The worst is when someone asks me a radio question. I'll tell them: look, if I start rambling, you tell me and I'll shut up. Ask me about the Variety Hits format and I can talk for an hour and answer just about any question you might have about it, within reason. Ditto for Hot Talk.

Tonight I contemplated going out, but I'm still not 100%, and another problem is that so many of my old Ybor running buddies are gone. When I first moved here, it didn't bother me to go out on my own and hit the clubs by myself. A little bit of adventure, y'know. But there's strength in numbers, plus when they're places I've been before, after awhile it's not so much a new adventure. Or maybe I'm really getting old when it comes to that sort of thing. I dunno anymore.

My first love is always Fantasy Football, but I was talked into joining a Yahoo fantasy baseball league this year. Currently my team, the Ybor City Brawlers, teeter between 8th-10th place (out of a 12 team league), in large part because I missed the draft and got stuck with an auto-picked team, and also because I just don't know baseball like I do football. My team is dead last in ERA and saves (the latter part thanks to Armando Benitez being on the DL), so I put Miguel Cabrera (great OF for the Marlins) on the trading block, saying I wanted an ace starter or closer. You should've seen the crap offers that came my way. Since they hit me in Angry Lou mood (totally sober though, as I haven't drank at all since I was in Nashville; maybe that's why I've been so crabby), I shot back with some really vicious retorts to their offers. Things like "Don't waste my time if you're going to make these sorts of intelligence-insulting offers," only with some saltier language than that.

It's funny to me, there came a point in my life, sometime from the end of college to the beginning of 2003 (I only remember it because of the infamous run-ins with the Executive Meddler) where I went from being passive-aggressive about things to being very direct. And being direct is the way to be, I believe. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, but screw it. Like when the Meddler (speaking of passive-aggressive people) tried to scare me one time toward the end of my run at WTSP by saying "Maybe we should meet with Lane (the news director)" when she was giving me the business about some stupid shit and I called her bluff and actually organized the meeting myself. And when Lane asked "What's this meeting about?" I turned to the Meddler and asked her to explain to him, since she's the one who called it. And she sat there, quiet as can be, with nothing to say. It was the equivalent of bluffing in poker and being called on it, only she was playing with house money, and the game was fixed like something out of Tilt. But such is life.

I didn't bring this up to rattle the Meddler's cage (but I'll do that from time to time; she made January 2002-February 2003 hell for me, and I have plenty of stories yet untold on here about that horrible woman), but my point is that being direct is the way to go every time. I just have to watch to make sure I don't get too abrasive, though really I'm not too terribly concerned with that. Being direct and rational (not being emotionally-driven, where facts stop being processed) helps to create positive communication, which is critical in almost every interaction in life.

Wow, this is one disjointed, rambling column, but I had to post something, even in the very early morning hours (I still list it as Saturday though, since I haven't been to bed for the night). I've had to go back through and fix places where I used the word "you" instead of "I", quite possibly due to an overdose of Hubie Brown color commentary in the NBA Playoffs. And for people in, say, Hawaii, it's still Saturday. Or something like that...


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