Man's Ambition

Man's Ambition has moved

2013-05-31T08:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers (and the Illiterate),

There are a few great moments in the history of mankind: the discovery of fire; the invention of tools; the forming of societies; the distilling of whiskey; competitive athletics; but today marks another milestone, possibly greater because it combines all of those and more - today Man's Ambition is re-launched as the redesigned beacon of hope for humanity it was destined to be.

Many of you already know that my brother Ryan and I started the subversive site Mans Ambition over 2 years ago. 300 plus articles later, we have gone from a small group of dedicated readers to a slightly larger following. Needless to say, we thought it was time to progress our site in order to make it clear, concise, and user friendly. We also thought it was time to change its appearance so it doesn't look like a dark, seedy literotica site.

So quickly drop whatever you're doing, leave this blogger and head for the new and improved site. We're sure you'll be pleased.

www.mansambition.com

Take a look and let us know what you think. Like us on the Book because honestly, why wouldn't you. We are also looking for contributors so if you have any interest and know a thing or two about a thing or two, write an article. If you fear your writing is terrible and should not be consumed by the public, we'll edit it and post it under an alias of your choosing. If you can't form sentences, then a congratulations is in order for making it this far in life. If you want us to write about a specific topic, let us know. Most importantly, keep reading. We plan on posting more frequently and you don't want to be that person who can't contribute to a conversation because you forgot to read one of our articles.

Yours Truly,

Ano and Crew

www.facebook.com/MansAmbition

@manliermen

-Feel free to forward

NASCAR’s Marathon Mayhem at Charlotte

2013-05-28T07:36:00.001-07:00

(Credit-AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

This past week’s race in Charlotte earned every bit of its billing as the longest race in NASCAR. At just a shade under 6 hours after the red flag delays and multitude of cautions, racing fans got their money’s worth.

In a race that saw big time names fall to the back, it was a banner week for fans of Chevrolet and Stewart-Haas Racing. Chevy took the haul with five of the top seven finishers and Stewart-Haas enjoyed its best week of 2013 as Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart finished sixth and seventh respectively and Danica even lead a lap, albeit for about 14 seconds.

Starting with the bizarre occurrence of the camera cable falling onto the track and tearing up cars and ending with supposed lame duck Kevin Harvick’s victory off a crucial restart, this race had enough for everybody. Just ask the hula hoop guy.

The Hamlin-Logano-Stewart feud seems to have cooled a bit as they all finished within four spots of one another with no fireworks. They’re clearly just interested in points, especially Denny Hamlin who is looking to break into the Top 20 and Logano and Stewart sitting right on the edge at 19^th and 20^th respectively.

NASCAR’s handling of the cable fiasco is worth noting. David Newton from ESPN tweeted that Kyle Busch should be allowed to revert to his backup car and some fans suggested he at least be

(Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports)

allowed to repair his car under the red flag, which is exactly what happened. NASCAR gets a lot of flack but I think it’s evidence that it really does, in many ways, listen to feedback and criticism. Constructive criticism does not fall on deaf ears in this sport. I’m sure there are plenty who will disagree, but from my perspective, I think they do a good job by and large.

The real stars of this race were the pit crews and you heard it on the radio – there was a lot of positive feedback from the drivers to their crews. From the myriad repairs to cars attacked by the now infamous SkyCam cable to lightning fast pits in the home stretch of the race, the crews were at their best churning out four-tire changes and wedge adjustments inside 100 laps. Jimmie Johnson’s forgotten lug nut notwithstanding. In the end, pit stops turned out to be the difference.
Especially for Kasey Kahne.

Kahne had a dominant car Sunday night and he drove it well. This was just a case of good ol’ fashioned bad luck. For all the benefits of running out front, there is also an enormous amount of pressure as you not only set the stage for pace but also strategy. It’s a paradox much like that in golf where the best score gets “honors.” In other words, you’re winning so you get to take the first crack at making a mistake and the rest of us get to learn from it.

That’s exactly what happened when an ill-timed yellow came out with 14 laps to go. Kahne had the car to go the distance, but when pit road opened up on Lap 386 the 5 Car kept on driving and everyone from P2 on back gladly did the opposite.

“Did everybody come?” Kahne asked crew chief Kenny Francis. To which Francis replied “Yes. Everybody came.”

“Oh boy,” said Kahne. “We’ll see what happens.”

What they saw was Kevin Harvick on fresh tires. Harvick took off and Kahne went nowhere on the restart. From there, the 29 car locked it up.

I wrote a piece a few weeks back discussing pit strategy and the influence it has on a race’s outcome. There is no clearer example than this. Understandably, Kahne was in an untenable position. Had he pitted, the rest of the top 10 would have likely stayed out.

I think Francis made the right call; Kahne just needed a better restart. He was in a position where he was leading the race with just over 10 laps to go and he couldn’t get the car to go. Kahne had just pitted on Lap 364 in what was expected, at the time, to be the last round of pits. So you have to believe he had some tires left. Easier said than done, of course, but in this sport you’ve just got to make it happen.

What did you think of the race? Let me know on Twitter @fordNASCAR

-Contributing Writer and NASCAR Aficionado Rob Ford

Papa Bear Retires

2013-05-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

(Pic taking from Chicagonow.com)

Over the past several years, Brian Urlacher’s name has been synonymous with the Chicago Bears. He became a great in an organization that has a rich history of badass linebackers. Sure, Urlacher is not the best linebacker to don the blue and orange. He is not even the second best, but he is a beast who absolutely dominated. Mike Singletary, Bill George, Dick Butkus were all better players but Urlacher brought the same intensity, physicality, and game changing ability that was apparent in all of his predecessors

Urlacher’s intensity transferred from his game to his regular life. Over the last three years, his body has been declining, leading to the release from the only organization that he knew, but whenever he could even barely walk he fought ferociously in the arena like a one-armed gladiator. After being released, he made his feelings known about how upset he was with the organization, but that wasn’t surprising. Urlacher is not a complex man as he says exactly what is on on his mind. 5 years ago, to the chagrin of the Bear faithfuls, he asked for a better deal while still in contract and did not show up for offseason workouts until his demands were met. It was his response to the haters that personified who he was: “It’s easy for people to criticize me for wanting (a new deal), and I understand that it’s a contract and I signed it,” Urlacher said. “But this is the NFL, and if I’d signed it and I’d played like shit, they’d have cut me or tried to get me to take less. In my mind, there’s no difference. If they can ‘break’ a contract, I have a right to ask for more if I play well enough.” While most players would have worded it differently in order to cause little commotion, he put it out there. He is not a subtle man and honesty he had a valid point. The aftermath from the Chicago fans was bad, but he overcame this by playing through blood, sweat, and tears and not giving a flying fuck what anybody else thought. He did things his way.

Urlacher is a proud man, maybe even too proud. He despised losing probably more than anyone else in the league, whether he was actually playing or watching his Bears from afar. While he has felt slighted by the Bears for releasing him and creating a minor feud with the organization, he never received offers from other organizations that he deemed worthy and thus chose the only way out that he thought acceptable. I believe he still has the drive and the passion, but between the injuries that caused him to miss parts of the last few years and the lack of interest from other teams, his only options were to succumb to a hit in his pride or retire. He chose retirement. Whether you liked him or not, his decisions stemmed from the fact that he is a man of principle which needs to be respected. While it’s debatable whether he will be a first ballot HOF, he will eventually be enshrined in Canton. Now let him hibernate.

Stats

Tackles- 1353

Sacks- 41.5

Fumbles Forced-12

Fumbles Recovered-16

Interceptions-22

Games Played-182

(stats taken from ESPN.com)

Career Highlights and awards

8x Pro Bowl

5x All-Pro

AP Defensive Player of the Year

Ed Block Courage Award

NFL 2000s All-Decade Team

NFL Defensive Player of the Year

NFC Champion

NFL Rookie Defensive Player of the month

NFC Player of the month

Careers single season and career records in Tackles

- Kyle

The Roaring '10s - How GATSBY May Be the Quintessential American Movie For Right Now

2013-05-23T10:01:00.002-07:00

the modern dance party pic courtesy of addicted2edm.wordpress.com

Culture comes full circle. That is to say, styles and trends don't move on a Darwinian evolutionary ladder but more like the sine function of an occasionally lopsided wave.

See all the many rebellions, uprisings, and acquiescences that define our human history, the push and pull between barbarian and civilization, between empires and feudalist states. See the alternations between complexity and simplicity in the symphonic (as well as chamber) musical forms. It's always been true. But never has this been moreso than in the 20th and now the 21st century. And that, my friends, is what is so great about THE GREAT GATSBY, all you hatin' reviewers be damned.

I want to start off by saying F. Scott is a miserable writer, using stilted language, bad grammar, and with seemingly little real grasp on correct verbiage (I'll always be irked by a line in the book where he writes "she said decisively" when it seems like "she said derisively" is what he meant to write). I went to the movie because I love the Jazz age and out of respect to F. Scott's superior friend, Hem, not to mention the fact that Leo is just the man, period, done.

But as I left, I was staring at those unceasing blue eyes of reality as it smacked me in the face: the roaring 20's is back. Look at popular books like THE PARIS WIFE, Oscar-winning movies like MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, hit TV series like BOARDWALK EMPIRE, and now GATSBY - yeah, the 20's are roaring again.

And why not? With all the confusion that's befallen us since - the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, hippies, acid, cocaine, heroin, cultural revolution followed by the backslide into the soullessness and cold consumption of the 80's, the melancholy depression of the 90's, Enron, 9/11, Iraq, the Great Recession, drones, Patriot Act, environmental destruction, identity theft - I mean, shit, doesn't it sound nice to just have a few drinks, an illegal vice everybody was in on (giving it both the allure of the forbidden and the acceptance of the authorities) and just simply live like there's no tomorrow? And, of course, dance until you black out or get in some bloomers?

It simply didn't hit me how much we're recycling of that roaring generation until I saw GATSBY. The ease with which 20s jazz flowed into modern dubstep and the believability of a Long Island party that resembled a poolside rendition of Electric Daisy just reinforced it. The music of the 1920s more than anything else was all about dancing while highly intoxicated. The music of today - whether you're talking jam and folk bands or the monster that is EDM - is all about dancing while highly intoxicated. Women in the 20s dared to bare leg and hosiery - women today dare to bare stomach, ass cheeks, some even flash T&A as a rebellion against those damn authorities. There was a phantom of doom back then lurking behind everything that was so frightening and foul that everybody decided to just get fucked up and ride that mother until the wheels fell off. And today, with the oceans rising, the air strangling us, the hideous manipulations of the Street and a government where it's hard to say who's the good guy or, for that matter, if there even is one - shit, all we can do is dance and mollify and fire down dingers and live, man.

Even more, GATSBY the movie pointed out the vast chasm between the haves and the have-nots - and not since the 20s has that gap been so wide as it is now. F. Scott never fully developed this theme, or his characters - maybe it was fear, maybe it was drink, maybe it was simply that he couldn't paint a complete enough picture (which explains his miserable failure in Hollywood). And the flick pointed out the soullessness embraced by many of the 1% and corporate interests that were running America at that moment and which led to the Depression. At the same time, what both the book and movie show is that all those Horatio Alger stories are bullshit, and that even if they happen every so often the man who climbs as such is surrounded by others just waiting - and hoping - for him to fall.

But no, in this day of fedoras and people again partying in suits, or at least ties - of loose morals and loud, wild dance music - we're officially echoing the roaring 20s. Only took 90 years. Maybe someday they'll call these the roaring 10s.

I leave you with the most indelible shot in the whole flick, a moment that is wonderful for its culmination of all these points I'm getting at here.

The scene when the great man, the legendary host who makes it possible for people to explore the depths of their debauchery with only the finest booze, music, and dancing, turns and introduces himself. He holds out his hand just as Gershwin's RHAPSODY IN BLUE is crescendoing. This was the original drop, by the way, people, the classic crescendo. And RHAPSODY IN BLUE may be one of the most important American songs of all time because it holds in its very self the key to American musical greatness. It's the crossroads, where classical music essentially handed off its crown as reigning audio entertainment for the masses to jazz and in general music based in the rhythms of the black man (jazz became rap, blues became rock, and nobody but a small handful of squares, myself included, listen to classical music anymore). And it's a love letter to New York, the quintessential American city, both then and now, the heart and soul of our massive, beautiful, fucked up, thumping, dropping, hopeless and hopeful nation. Just like GATSBY which, while chastising the gangsters and Wall Streeters and blue bloods draws the very ethereal dream world in which they buzz and vibrate amidst a city which itself is one of the greatest monuments to just what man can accomplish when he is ambitious.

But I digress. That scene, where RHAPSODY is crescendoing and the fireworks, which we took from the Chinamen who dynamited the railroad tunnels and now signify holidays in America (happy Memorial Day), and the party is building, foaming over like champagne racing up a flute, and a man with a smile and a handshake, if he does it well, if he's confident of himself and lets the world know it, knows that smile and handshake will very well propel him to the top of the world which, in spite of its near-impossibility and heavy fallibility is still possible in America like no other nation - this is the type of awe-inspiring cinematic moment that will be forever tattooed on my brain.

This is America in a nutshell, a nation of over the top celebration and fortunes built on little more than charm and a predilection towards socializing. A place where the only difference between the supposed respectable powerful men and the supposed criminal powerful men is the great hypocrisy embraced by the respectables. A grand old time. And a place where dancing and cutting loose and to hell with tomorrow brings all this vacuous beauty and world-creating hope together in one visceral revelry. And where in spite of our puritanical ancestry, we all love the sauce.

Cheers, good sirs. May the 10s continue their mighty roar. And may you have a great Memorial Weekend.

- Ryan

The Power of Nature

2013-05-21T09:08:00.004-07:00

(Taken from CNN.com)

Every now and then our presence on this world is put into perspective. We have cultivated most lands, explored every region, built structures able to ward off weapons, and developed weapons capable of destroying the world; but we are still not the most powerful force on Earth. While humans are at the top of the food chain, we are still at the mercy of nature. With all of our knowledge and technological advances, we still cannot bar nature when it’s at its strongest. This is no more apparent then what occurred yesterday as a vicious tornado swallowed Oklahoma City suburbs, leaving a trail of destruction 22 miles long and 2 miles wide. An early estimate rated it as an EF4, which means it had winds between 166-200 mph. Dozens were killed and hundreds were injured in the unrecognizable communities.

Even with contingency plans and preparation we are no match for such an undeniable force. Oklahoma City had been affected by powerful twisters previously in 1942 and 1999, and since then they have been aware that it could occur again, and yet even with this knowledge gained from previous storms they couldn’t stop it. This fall, parts of New York and New Jersey were destroyed by Sandy even after warnings and hurricane-type precautions were made. One needs to look back at the deadly volcano Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in AD 79 killed around 25,000 people and as recently as 1944 relinquished nearby villages. In 2011, a deadly earthquake and tsunami occurred off the coast of Tohoku, Japan leaving thousands dead or injured. It’s terrifying to think that we aren’t in 100% control of our lives because all it takes is one natural disaster to destroy everything. We can mitigate the effects with precautionary measures like with the levees in New Orleans, but just like Katrina proved, eventually nature always wins.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by the several tornadoes that have occurred this week and to all of those still dealing with the aftermath of previous natural disasters. I can't imagine words can begin to describe the pain and suffering you are going through.

-Kyle

Random Weekly Update 5/20: Taibbi Was Right, Everything is Rigged

2013-05-20T10:53:00.002-07:00

It's official - the game is rigged.

Or so showed Matt Taibbi a month or so back when he published an article about how it's come to light that the banks have been colluding on prices for interest rate swaps. This, when taken on top of the whole LIBOR-fixing scandal, means that a handful of banks have been basically fucking the world over twice on many of the financial instruments that determine most of our financing and investment actions. Even more, he hinted at the fact that in in fact the rigging of prices seems to stretch beyond financial instruments to heavily-traded commodities like oil, coal, gold.

BP, as South PArk pointed out, is no doubt very sorry for rigging oil

Just recently, following the embarrassment that was the eventual near-acquittal of possibly the biggest global price-fixing ring ever, European regulators have descended on European oil companies (including our spilling buddy BP, who no doubt is still sorry) for fixing oil prices. To all the right screaming that the system is fair and just for everybody and there is no great conspiracy to try and manipulate the masses for the benefit of a select few, I have just one question - what would you call international price fixing perpetrated by a few insiders and one-percenters with wide-reaching bad ramifications for backwards and struggling cities as well as middle-class "worked every fucking day of my life so I could finally retire" folks?

But at least we're righting things now, right? Punishing these corrupt, price-fixing bastards whose theft and graft has affected trillions of dollars? Per Taibbi re: the LIBOR trial:

"In any case, this all-star squad of white-shoe lawyers came before Buchwald and made the mother of all audacious arguments. Robert Wise of Davis Polk, representing Bank of America, told Buchwald that the banks could not possibly be guilty of anti- competitive collusion because nobody ever said that the creation of Libor was competitive. "It is essential to our argument that this is not a competitive process," he said. "The banks do not compete with one another in the submission of Libor.
...
"But these numbers are supposed to reflect interbank-loan prices derived in a real, competitive market. Saying the Libor submission process is not competitive is sort of like pointing out that bank robbers obeyed the speed limit on the way to the heist. It's the silliest kind of legal sophistry."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425page=2#ixzz2TqfezyUF

So basically after all the shock and awe over this insidious insider scheme, essentially nothing happened. But it's okay because the government is still enforcing its anti-trust laws against the enemies the American nation - that's right, they've managed to blow up a dastardly e-book price-fixing ring run by the evil Apple and all those greedy publishing houses out there.

You see, Apple wanted to sell e-books for 12.99 to 14.99. Amazon, being a shining emblem of mass-market capitalism, wanted to sell the books for 9.99, under the actual cost of the books, and planned using its wide reach to force those damned greedy book publishers to lower their prices. I mean $14.99 for a work of literature (or, as is more often in contemporary American fiction, escapist poorly-written brain candy), that's an outrage! Much better spent on some Snookie Ultra Dark Leg Bronzer.

What kind of a world is this where a handful of banks who are literally playing roulette with everybody's money but their own can continue to do so without ramifications while mere purveyors of a struggling medium which holds some of the last hopes of restoring mankind to its former great civilization (reading is power and such) are taken to task by the very company that has put under countless small storefronts and retailers? Even more, is anybody else outraged that the banks fought the law and won, Apple is fighting the law and who knows who'll win in that one (but when you look at the good Apple has spread through the world by inspiring creativity and the easy ability to make movies while on the shitter in a restaurant using tablets you carry in you pocket, if they lose while the banks, who do little real good for anybody, win, that would be yet another disgrace), but the book publishers for whom profit margins are already thin, settled and paid.

"Three of the publishers, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette, settled with the government immediately. Penguin, Macmillan and Apple originally decided to fight the charges. But in December, to clear the way for its merger with Random House, Penguin settled, followed by Macmillan in February."- NY Times

Never mind that they said Amazon's practices could very well put them out of business. Who needs publishing? Especially when Amazon is running its own publishing house - hey, might that be a conflict of interests? Ahh, who gives a fuck? As long as the government continues prosecuting the small fish while the big fish keep their pockets flush and the average American has pills and reality TV, what does any of it matter?

Hell, we could be in Texas where twisters just demolished hundreds of houses and killed 7. I guess that's the point. Who cares about New York City publishers and international finance when they're broke and homeless? And you wanna know the real kicker? As always, these weren't mansions, they weren't big city high-rises or luxury condos. This was a neighborhood of houses built for working class people by the nonprofit volunteers at Habitat for Humanity. This time it isn't the right pushing down on the poor man. It's not the government. It's not the elitist media or the leftwing intelligentsia or anybody like that. Nope, it's God Himself destroying the houses of poor folks, houses that had been built out of the goodness of the hearts of people who actually care for their fellow man. God, as I've always suspected, has rigged the game for the rich man.

But no, tornado season is roaring. In classic fashion twisters have destroyed trailer parks in Oklahoma and swaths of Kansas. Again, God vs. the poor. Though their houses have been destroyed and some lives lost, no doubt they're feeling for the folks in Connecticut involved a broken rail and a collision of two commuter trains.

The damage is supposedly massive and I imagine it would be. Not to mention the headaches experienced by all the daily commuters from Connecticut to the City. I'm not sure which is more frightening - disaster resulting from an act of God or disaster resulting from man's confidence in the imperfect technology he's set up as the infrastructure for his society. Or the belief that a man-baby in blue pajamas staring from his secluded nation through heavy blank eyes mounted on flabby double chins may actually have somewhat decent weaponry that he might begin using against our allies.

While I may not see the world in polar absolutes, I do believe that North Korea is one of the most frighteningly fucked up and backwards nations in the current universe. Thankfully their closes society means that they also never get the real talent needed to make great things, including long-range missiles. Still, it's a bit disconcerting when the blubbering Kim Jung-un continues overseeing several straight days of launching missiles out into the ocean like a golfer blankly driving balls into the ocean just to see the plop. Yeah, South Korea should be a little worried. But not really because North Korea is like that fat kid on the playground who gives you dirty looks and makes dirt effigies of the classmates he doesn't like but when it came down to actual fighting his only move would be the quick throwing of sand. If North Korea didn't have China backing them, the Kim's woulda been deposed long ago and the Korean War would have lasted longer than the TV series about it, MASH. Maybe that war was rigged. We'll see soon. With China, NK's only international friend, increasingly getting pressured by the discovery of wealth to join the whole fun capitalist party, they just might cave in, give up their support of the pants-pooping dictator, and become America East. I mean, hell, even if you become a democracy you don't have to stop spying on your media.

To add to the list of Obama's government's abuses of American justice, the justice department is ceasing AP call logs and there are even suspicions that Uncle Sam's spying on American journalists. I mean, why not? Obama preached a lot of things that he still hasn't done but he never claimed that he would end the privacy-killing Patriot act. In fact, quite the opposite. When I voted for Obama I was hoping he would mirror some of the actions and beliefs of the republican party. Like the way Buch and Cheney did what they thought was right for the American people and didn't let anybody - the Senate, Congress, the populace, any of it - stand in their way. Because sometimes a leader knows what's better for his people than they do. The boldness and quickness to action of the GOP is something the meek and over-analytical Democratic party could learn about. Because Obama is still a meek president when it comes to taking on the Senate and Congress, trying to work with people across the aisle when it's obvious they won't work with him, acquiescing as they defeat one effort after the next in spite of the fact that he was elected by the popular vote based on carrying out those changes. The ways he's mirrored the previous and highly-flawed administration - by fucking with non-profits, spying on citizens and organizations, continuing costly wars, and continuing such archaic battles as the war on marijuana - are just despicable. He had been an inspiration for you people and no doubt a source of hope for the increasingly-disenfranchised middle-to-lower class black population in America. But it turns out he's just showing us even more that the politics game is fixed and everything is rigged in the favor of the few. So who will fill that hope-giving gap now?

Ahh, entertainers. Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine are donating $70 million to USC to found a program based around helping aspiring music industrialists get the skills and knowledge to navigate the increasingly tricky world of music production and distribution. This dovetails off great nonprofits like PTones records, an org baed around providing inner city kids with the experience and tools needed to pursue dreams they may have of working in the dynamic world of music and engineering entertainment. And I'm sure Dre's program will do that. I mean, USC borders on South Central, no doubt most of its student body is made up of poor local Angelenos, right? Or is the system rigged against them, too?

Ahh, fuck it Donnie. Let's go bowling.

- Ryan

Going Up with Down's - Eli Reimer's Great Trek

2013-05-17T09:05:00.005-07:00

This Spring we've come up on a very important milestone in American mountaineering history - the 50-year anniversary of the first American expedition to successfully stand atop Everest, the 3rd pole, the tallest point on earth, the legendary and deadly dream and nightmare for most men who choose to live a life in the mountains. And in spite of Sagarmatha's growing reputation as little more than a tourists' trek, it's still a massive, looming force to challenge all but the strongest among us. And back then, hell, it was a whole new universe.

On Wednesday night in Jackson Hole Broughton Coburn, one of the last true great educated and ambitious menches in an increasingly sterile world, gave a presentation on that expedition based on his book, THE VAST UNKNOWN . Brot spoke, along with David Dornan who was part of a group of climbers who helped Sir Edmund Hillary first start building schools and infrastructure for the sherpas as a thanks for all the guidance and muscle the sherpas gave them. Brot and Dave themselves had never been to the summit of Everest but just being in Nepal, climbing the lower peaks, staring up the monstrous mountain led them to live lives filled with awe and adventure.

That first American expedition occurred 10 years after Sir Edmund Hillary had made the first successful summit of the world's tallest point. It also achieved its own mountaineering first, however, when the American team, led by Jackson Hole climbers Tom Hornbein, Willie Unsoeld, and Barry Corbet (namesake for the legendary Corbet's Couloir, posterboy for outdoor adventure and, after a horrendous helicopter crash left him paralyzed, champion for the disabled and founder of the magazine NEW MOBILITY), actually made the summit via the never-before-done West Ridge. These are all great, ambitious men and it's amazing what an impact on the lives of so many and, hell, the world they made simply by climbing. Not to mention the fact that this event, occurring when it did during the Cold War, on a route taken through communist China, had much bigger geopolitical ramifications than simply a mountaintop stroll. And there's the revelation made in Coburn's book that the CIA recruited a few of the climbers to ascend one of the nearby peaks and plant a device through which they could spy on the evil Red China.

All these great political human interest angles aside, climbs at their very core inspire us. The metaphor for a great challenge is climbing a mountain so what better way to show one's physical strength and mental fortitude in the face of adversity than to climb an actual physical mountain?

Everest has always been a benchmark, too. There are so many records for first ascents on it - Erik Weihenmayer making the first blind summit of the peak, Jordan Romero being the youngest to summit at a freshly-pubescent 13, Mark Inglis who summitted without either of his legs. But this year we had another first, one which I think is not only a true testament to the human spirit but also, like many of the great achievements in the history of man, will hopefully spread understanding and hope to a society growing increasingly cynical.

Elisha Reimer is only 15 years old. Eli Reimer is from Bend, Oregon and in March made it to the Everest Base Camp at 17, 600 feet, higher than most people on this planet will ever be outside the pressurized comfort of an airplane, after a 10-day trudge over 70 rocky snowy miles. And Eli Reimer is the first teenager with Down syndrome to accomplish such a feat. This grueling climb was part of a fundraiser for the Elisha Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping challenged families confronting disabilities.

This feat has just so many great aspects I don't know where to begin. Eli proved that a man with ambition can conquer anything in spite of whatever challenges may be thrown his way by the gods or man.

Eli proved that a seemingly selfish activity like climbing a mountain can actually be a part of an undertaking for the betterment of society.

Eli proved that we're all way too damn lazy and make too many excuses for not doing what we love and want to do. Eli at 15 is already one hell of an ambitious man and to hell with any other adjectives or describers, any groupings or denominations society might want to put on him.

Happy Friday.

- Ryan

The Celebrity on the Pitch

2013-05-16T11:50:00.001-07:00

(Beckham's glory days with Man U-Picture from the Telegraph)

He is a sex symbol, a fashionister, an international icon, but first and foremost he is an athlete. David Beckham announced his retirement today, making this the last season in one of the most distinguished careers in futbol history. He is similar to Jordan, Gretzky, and Mantle in that he became a global superstar who transcended his sport.

Say what you want about the guy, but he could definitely ball. With the circus that surrounds Beckham, you tend to forget that he was a fucking beast futbol star. His dashing good looks led him to be posterized on the walls of countless women - and maybe men - and he's known as a successful model who is one of the most endorsed athletes in history. He is estimated to be England’s wealthiest sportsman and there is even a movie whose title revolves around his mutant-like ability to bend the ball. On their free time, Beckham and his Spice Girl wife Victoria Beckham hang out with A-list celebs such as Tom Cruise and the Smiths (Will and Jada) and attend entertainment awards ceremonies and exclusive A-list parties, which overshadows the fact that the fucking guy was a good enough football player to have a 20 year career in the most competitive leagues in the world.

(Becks and Cruise are boys-pic from National Turk)

Beckham made his Premier League debut at the age of 18 and went on to win several championships throughout his career. He won the Champions League with Man U and won league titles with Man U, Real Madrid, AC Milan, LA Galaxy, and Paris St. Germain. For those who are not privy to international futbol leagues and teams, these clubs are in 5 different countries. He holds the England record for most appearances as an outfield player for the national team—115 --and was named the captain of England in 2000 where he held the position for several years. He was twice runner-up for FIFA World Player of the Year and the first British footballer to play 100 Champions League matches. Twice he was a specific league’s highest-paid footballer between salary and endorsements. He was a great player, but what I want to point out is that this ambitious player pushed himself to overachieve way beyond his natural abilities.

He wasn’t the strongest or fastest, he didn’t have the best footwork nor was he the greatest finisher, but in spite of that he played the game at its highest level and had one of the most accurate feet in the game’s history. His crosses were pristine, sending the ball 40 yards accurately. Beckham was also an intelligent player who knew where to be and managed to always find the ball. What separated him from those who were overall better players and athletes was that he had the most dangerous free kick in soccer history as he could bend the ball with enough power to elude both the wall and the keeper. In a low scoring sport, one goal often means the difference between a win and a loss, which made him a necessity on any roster. It’s like having a field goal kicker in the NFL who can hit the ball consistently from 65 yards away. He had a lot of haters, but he never seemed to really bother him.

Congratulations David on a fucking epic career. Enjoy riding into the sunset knowing you created an empire that few only dream of

Manchester United:
Champions League: 1998–99
Premier League (6): 1995–96, 1996–97, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03
FA Cup (2): 1995–96, 1998–99
Intercontinental Cup: 1999
Community Shield (4): 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997

Real Madrid
La Liga: 2006–07
Spanish Supercopa: 2003

Los Angeles Galaxy:
MLS Cup (2): 2011, 2012
MLS Supporters' Shield (2): 2010, 2011
MLS Western Conference -
Winners (Regular Season) (3): 2009, 2010, 2011
Winners (Playoffs) (3): 2009, 2011, 2012

Paris Saint-Germain:
Ligue 1: 2012–13

-Kyle

The Future is Now - How Soon The 1% Will Be Able to Fly Their Cars over Rush Hour Suckers

2013-05-15T07:58:00.003-07:00

On MAD MEN Sunday Don Draper is flown up to a client meeting by Ted Chaough, his new business partner. Once they make it above the clouds, Ted asks Don how he's planning on wooing these clients and Don says "It doesn't matter what I say, you're the man who flew us up in your own plane." And it's true. If you've mastered the air, you're a true conqueror, a man who has at his own hands access to he endless highways in the sky.

Imagine if you could reduce your commute to a quick takeoff and landing followed by a 15-minute careen through the skies, above the traffic, above all those mere mortals shuffling at an ant's pace to work?

Already there are a few communities like this, where people commute to larger cities by airplanes they store in their own 1-jet garage. But the real dream is the flying car. Just like those bastards promised in BACK TO THE FUTURE II, by now we ought to have our own jet mobiles to pilot around town, go where we don't need roads and all that jazz.

And there have been a couple attempts. Just recently some weird Canuck contraption involving a rear-mounted fan and a parachute crashed near a Canadian elementary school. But for my money the future of the flying car rests in the Terrafugia TF-X. Still just a concept car, this rad vehicle will have the ability to take off vertically like a chopper or a VTOL plane as well as wings that fold out for flight and fold in for driving and parking. And best of all, it's electric so instead of polluting the environment with gasoline it merely uses coal-powered electricity like most of the grid. But hey, nobody's started pointing that out so far be it from me to start harping on it. This isn't about the environment, it's about flying cars. And goddamn will this one make a new jewel in the crown of whoever can afford the thing.

- Ryan

Titus Young is a BAAAADDDD MAAAANNNN…Or is HE?

2013-05-14T11:27:00.001-07:00

Lindsay Lohan is demanding adderall while in rehab, Beyoncemight be pregnant again, and Angelina Jolie had a double Mastectomy. These are all of the headlines that seem to overshadow one of the most absurd stories in sports right now. Titus Young, the troubled yet talented young wide receiver, was arrested 3 times in one week, including twice in the same day.

His issues began last year on a Lions team he was released from this off-season due to countless issues. He was suspended from the team 3 times last year due to behavior detrimental to the team including lining up in the wrong position on purpose. I mean that should have been a big indication. The players in the past just dogged it instead of lining up incorrectly when upset. That’s a huge fuck-you move. It’s like getting into an argument with your wife about your child and informing her you never wanted him/her in the first place. HUGE no-no. Last week he was arrested 3 teams for: burglary, resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, and driving under the influence. This guys has some serious fucking issues, but we shouldn’t fully reprimand him for all of his actions.

I know, I know. You're probably rolling your eyes Elisha Cuthbert style and wondering why I would defend such a “monster”, but the bottom line is that the chemical make-up of someone’s brain can overcome clear decision making. According to his father, his brain is compressed to the front of his

(Image of Elisha's roll -National Post)

skull and thus this disorder is causing the issues, although he can’t remember the name of his son's medical issue. When a loved one who is supposed to help with the treatments and deal with the issues can’t even remember the problem, there is a GIANT flag. Although I could not find anything related to what his father described, Young has been diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenic and is taking medication for these disorders, but there are obviously several issues that come into play that need to be examined. A lot of times, individuals who are diagnosed with those disorders forego taking their medication due to the side effects and these lapses can have unwarranted effects. Either way, he truly needs to get help from physicians, including in-patient assistance, before he hurts himself and those around him. More, maybe his medication needs to be reevaluated as these disorders have more of a tendency than others to be prescribed incorrectly. Finally, he needs to separate himself from those who influence him negatively.

Look at Brandon Marshall for godsakes. He had several problems when coming into the league, but took the proper steps when dealing with borderline personality disorder. I, like the rest of the sporting world should be, am rooting for Titus to find the necessary help he needs. Before anyone truly judges him, they need to understand that his issues are beyond simply just making bad decisions.

-Kyle

Random Weekly Update 5/13: Treating shop-owners worse than billionaire thieves and yet survivors emerge

2013-05-13T10:03:00.003-07:00

Some MJ wisdom found on coedhumor.com

California first legalized medical marijuana 15 years ago. It was around this time that my mom got cancer in Baltimore and her doctor suggested she get some weed from a street dealer since medical herb was more heavily regulated than prescription pharma.

Fast forward to 2010 and I get a medical license for chronic pain due to a nasty shoulder injury. If I've been writing too long my shoulder will start aching. And if I practice any of my regular activities - surfing, climbing, so on, outdoor adventures which makes my life fulfilling, my shoulder is a throbbing mess by end of day. Pharmaceuticals scare the shit out of me - not only have they managed to enslave close to a third of our population but they kill more people annually than heroin and cocaine combined and their use is going up. So I smoke a little weed from time to time to mellow out, ease my shoulder pain, and relax.

Relax, you say? That's recreational use. And what, exactly, is the problem with recreational use of MJ? One day some bastard on the Jackson Hole tram told me he was afraid of going to California because you never know who's stoned driving around. I countered with "I'd rather have stoned drivers than drunk drivers". This dumbfounded the gap-toothed bastard.

Soon I'll write a little something about the stupidity of continuing this harmful war on marijuana which has little effect other than to put more money into the pockets of Mexican drug cartels and fill our prisons with harmless citizens due to atavistic laws based on racial profiling and the hypocrisy of politicians who prefer the deep-pocketed pharma lobbies to dictate what drugs should be sold to our citizens.

But the brief today is the fact that California is cracking down and hard on its medical marijuana dispensaries. They've decided this has gotten out of hand. If every street corner has a liquor store that sells Night Train to homeless alcoholics who shit on the street in front of my past houses in Hollywood and Silverlake that's just A-OK, but a place that sells marijuana to peaceful and mostly gainfully-employed citizens? Unacceptable.

I remember being in line at the dispensary one day behind a classic pachouli-smelling stoner, a square-jawed captain of industry, and a 60-something school marm. They were purchasing a drug much less harmful than alcohol (not to mention pharmas) that they would use more responsibly than most angelenos use the booze and pills. Yet this is what our politicos are wasting our time and money fighting.

Doesn't this just look like a threat to society?

Why is that? Oh right, because it's much easier to focus on shuttering marijuana shops run by upstanding citizens than to try and take on the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, not to mention the Zetas, the Gulf, all the narcotraficantes on the other side of the border. You try to fight people selling pharmaceuticals? You get high-powered lawyers taking you to court, thanks Pfizer. You try to fight people selling crack, heroin, cocaine, meth? Hope you got an arsenal backing you up. You crack down on marijuana dispensaries? You send conscientious objectors to jail with little more than an angry yell or two. Obviously this is the right move, though, right? I mean, certainly it's not yet another sign of California slipping backward while the rest of the country moves forward, is it? Let's see - in spite of having been a home to the earliest gay rights movements, California is the most liberal state to not allow gay marriage. And in spite of being a state where medical marijuana was first approved, it's rolling back those laws so people will again have to buy from street dealers supplied by shady folks in Humboldt or murderous narcos.

Still, good thing they're cracking down on these little storefronts mostly run by kind stoners. I mean, certainly they hurt more people than the big banks and such, right?

Or not. I have to give those guys credit, maybe Cali is just cracking down across the board. Wouldn't want to live in such a closed society. I mean, its fight against social and lifestyle liberties is disgusting. But it's also finally taking JP Morgan to task for robo-signing. What's robo-signing? Basically it's a practice where banks cut corners and save themselves time and money that would be spent on stupid stuff like due process and oversight and actually looking into individual cases. This enabled JP Morgan Chase to issue an insane number of debt-collection lawsuits under the premise that the poor little credit-card-holders wouldn't have the sophistication or the legal means to fight them. Included in this grouping are active members of the military who were late on payments because, oh, I don't know, they were FIGHTING TERRORISTS. This sound familiar? It's a now-illegal practice utilized by the big banks to approve and then foreclose on hundreds of thousands of innocent American home-owners. But it's okay, the government made those home-stealing bastards pay. Or did it?

Just recently a lawsuit against basically the major banks (BofA, Wells Fargo, and, surprise surprise, Morgan Chase) ended in a settlement of $9.3 billion. This sounds like a lot until you do the math and figure out it means that each homeowner who was wrongly foreclosed on - now, to clarify, this is a person who no longer has his or her home - received about $300 bucks. And then there's the other side - the banks hired the regulators and consultants who were reviewing their individual cases. That would be like a mafiosi hiring the prosecuting attorney trying to indict him for RICO. And how much did the banks, which paid the people it had wronged $9.3B, pay these consultants? $2 billion fucking dollars. Disgusting. So basically, the government allowed companies to once again fuck with the system in spite of receiving huge chunks of government bail-out monies and, in fact, allowed them to stage their own farcical display of adhering to the rules. Why does the Tea Party not protest outside these banks?

The original Tea Party wasn't about protesting the government- they were about protesting the government passing laws aimed to benefit the British East India Tea Trading Company. The original Tea Party was an act of stealing and destruction of property from a private company - sounds more like Occupy Wall Street or Communism to me. Though the Tea Party isn't anti-corporate, they're anti-government. And the government is apparently anti-them. Which really brings into question the name but, hell, that would take way too much time to learn all that. Like, you'd have to read, like, a page of stuff.

Tom Toles summed it all up in a comic

In a disgusting move reminiscent of the political and social ideology targeting perpetrated by administrations past, the IRS had been auditing and targeting conservative groups for the past few years. They've fucked with tax exempt status, over-scrutinized non-profit ledgers (which, c'mon, aren't the tightest anyway because they're nonprofits and can't afford a 10-person accounting staff) and in general fucked with any orgs which have the name "tea party" or "patriot" in their documents. Even more shocking, they didn't really find anything out of the ordinary. Elsewhere, though, people have found something pretty amazing. 3 women survived a deranged kidnapper who held them for 10 years.

Ariel Castro is the worst kind of scum. He kidnapped, raped and caged 3 women for a decade. One he impregnated several times - and after he found out about the pregnancies, he would beat her in the stomach and starve her until she miscarried. Another he forced to have a baby in a kiddie pool without any medical attention. He's so disgusting even his brothers have said they want nothing to do with him and hope he rots. In jail. I personally hope they castrate him, balls and shaft, without anesthesia. Then they can either let him bleed to death or cauterize it with a flaming chunk of metal and make him live the rest of his life pissing out of a poorly-sewn wound. But the real story is these women never gave up; they endured such a horrible fate for so long and yet never quit. This is true ambition - never giving up in spite of the most depraved and wicked life. Always looking for escape. Like that woman in the collapsed factory.

Last week I wrote about the collapse of a garment sweatshop in Bangladesh which killed hundreds. This last week, against all odds and as a tribute to the hard-working workers digging through the rubble of the collapsed building, a female survivor was found. After 17 days buried amidst the ruin of a shittily-made factory, a woman named Reshma was found in a muslim prayer room. Praise Allah, this is what religion is all about - offering refuge, a place to hope for one's survival. Not as an excuse for hatred and war.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world an Argentine city buried under about 30-feet of water for the last quarter-century has re-emerged, a modern-day Atlantis. That is, if Atlantis had actually reappeared. It gives one hope.

If a woman can be found buried alive for over 2 weeks, 3 women and a baby born in the most squalid of conditions can escape to freedom after a decade of captivity under a vile monster, and a city can re-emerge from its watery grave, then maybe we have a chance of a better tomorrow. A place where government resources are pulled from the pointless bottomless hole of our war against mary-jane and turned towards punishing the real blue collar crooks, where corporations are no longer able to prey on the less intelligent or less resourceful average citizens of this supposed great nation, where the government doesn't see targeting and/or attacking its ideological opponents as "business as usual"; where twisted demons spawned from hell can be better identified and dealt with, where profits are no longer put before lives, and where we can all truly be proud of our treatment of each other.

I mean, if a city can rise from the sea in two and a half decades, anything's possible, right?

- Ryan

Blackballing-The New Tebowing

2013-05-10T06:52:00.001-07:00

(Jim McIsaac-Long Island Newsday)

It’s amazing what a difference two years makes, but I actually feel bad for Tim Tebow. Two years ago, Tebow overachieved his way into the playoffs while averaging around 10 completions a game. I had written an article blasting this religious fanatic for several reasons, but now I feel nothing but empathy for the poor guy. OK, so he does not seem to be the brightest individual in the world, and my imaginary sister has a stronger and more accurate arm than he does, but he does have the tools to impact a game and truly tries, which is more than I can say about a lot of other professional athletes. Now due to all of the hype, though, no one seems to be even interested in this free agent.

(Phil Sears-USA TODAY Sports)

Tebow was just named the most influential athlete in the US by Forbes Magazine. Even without a job, he is still getting corporate deals such as a job offer as the head QB coach for the Lingerie League, offered $30,000 to throw footballs at windows to prove their strength, and has received offers from lower level leagues such as the CFL and the Arena League, which was going to pay him the standard $75 per game rate. Shit, there is even the Tim Tebow Bill allowing home-schooled student-athletes to play for their local public schools in Texas that just passed and there was a petition from Jacksonville Jaguar fans to sign him that had made its way to the White House.

Tebowmania really began while playing at a high level in college on his way to two national championships and becoming one of the most decorated college players in NCAA history. After fading away slightly, he came into the public eye again with the Broncos where his team went to the playoffs. Although he received the attention, it was really the defense and Matt Prater who should receive most of the credit. It was then that Tebow became more of a character than a football player. While he didn’t seem to have many other choices after the Broncos canned him following his coming out party, I think his exposure was increased by being on the roster of a team described by multiple outlets as a circus—The Jets.

They promised him opportunity but barely used him in the wildcat and Tebow was eventually demoted to the third string even though they were not good enough to make the playoffs. They never gave him a chance even though the two QB’s ahead of him were also dismal. It was an unfair situation. Ever since becoming a Jet, the media has constantly raped him worse than the Kardashians (though they actually deserve the negative attention). The guy works his ass off, plays with more heart than most players in the league, stays out of trouble, and now he is blackballed due to unwarranted attention. Maybe he is a little too preachy, but I have come to realize that about 80% of all athletes talk about God in interviews. As a passionate Ravens fan I will always be obsessed with Ray Lewis, but during that epic Last Dance playoff run I wanted him to become an atheist. Organizations fear that signing Tebow will be a distraction, at no fault of his own. Imagine becoming a joke just for doing something that you love. While I used to think this was brought on by himself, after last year of staying quiet and saying all of the right things, it is apparent he just can’t win. He is willing to play any position so I thought of listing possible positions where he could make an impact.

Possible Positions

Fullback- He has proven his ability to get those tough yards and can also catch occasionally when needed. He would need to learn the techniques of blocking, but with his strength, quick feet, and balance he should be able to pick it up.

Halfback-The guy can run. He’s not going to break records or burn the defense with blazing speed, but in the right system he can be a factor. He proved in college, and while playing in Denver, that he certainly has the ability to tuck the ball, break some tackles, and find the endzone.

Tight End- He is a little short compared to most tight-ends, but he can catch the ball and make some solid plays. He would need to work on blocking.

OLB- Although already a tank, he would need to beef up. But with his understanding of offenses, his athleticism and his speed he could potentially be thrown in a 3-4 defense just to rush the QB on third downs. He is certainly not an every down back and I think he would run around like a drunkard if in coverage, but he can make some plays if a team just sends him kamikaze style at a QB

Long Snapper- He would need to hit the gym, but longsnappers tend to be a little smaller than most of the other linemen anyway. He should be fine snapping the ball after some extensive practice and has enough grit to keep the other team at bay long enough for the kicker.

Quarterback-Just kidding

The dude needs a break.

-Kyle

Musical Revelations: The Hellhounds on Robert Johnson's Trail or How the Devil Always Gets What's His

2013-05-08T08:08:00.002-07:00

The guitar is a wicked bitch. You strum her real nice, she'll sing a song captivating to all around. You play her rough she'll wail. And if you have a poor hand, she'll tell the world how lousy you are.

But it's the center of American musical art, as important to our cultural artistic heritage as the moving-picture camera and stream-of-consciousness prose. Even as we turn more and more to dance halls, guitar-driven folk and bluegrass acts have never been more popular (MUMFORD AND SONS leading the charge just like the Beatles took over American rock in the 60's - goddam brits - and if you're in SoCal, I highly suggest checking this fest out). But the whole popularity of the guitar, rock and roll, hell, all American music can be traced back to the black blues singers of the early 1900's. And none was considered more influential or important than Robert Johnson.

His musicianship was second to none back then for one simple reason: he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads to become a great blues guitarist.

This Faustian trade is one of the last true legends of American folklore; appropriate to have this on the heel of New Orleans JazzFest, a onetime tribute to dirty blues and bloody jazz in a city steeped in voodoo and black magic that every year is becoming more and more just another music festival like one would find in cities like Dallas or Manchester, Tennessee. Today there can't be such folk stories because before Johnson could claim it everybody and his brother would have gone to the crossroads, taken pictures, done analysis, posted YouTube footage, inspected his soul; holy men would try to get his soul back while racist Baptists would claim him a hellion and launch hate-filled pickets at his shows and his publicists and handlers would tell him to recant.

While Johnson talks about his fear at being late night at the crossroads in "Cross Road Blues", it isn't until he came out with "Hellhound on My Trail" in 1936 that Johnson finally straight up said the devil is after him. It tells the story of a man running, "blues falling down like hail" and he has to just keep running 'cuz he got a "hellhound on my trail".

And he confirmed that with his later song "Devil At My Door", about the devil finally showing up at his door telling him it's time to go. Of course all sorts of white folks, from Eric Clapton on, covered RJ.

There are people who say these songs are really about being a black man and slavery. "Crossroad Blues", thought by some to be about the the devil deal, is interpreted by others as being a man meditating on his fear of lynchers on empty southern rural roads or fear of the cops thanks to the old "colored man" curfews. Hellhound on my trail can be interpreted as a slave running away, the master's dogs giving a fierce chase and all he wants is just to see his girl. But whether it's about the Devil or slavery and racism - and, really, what's the difference - it's fucking deep.

There was a time when people could believe a man would sell his soul to be the greatest musician and to hell with all other concerns. Today, with manufactured pop stars and Disney singers and overly-polished troubadours, what's the point? You won't get radio play, much less be considered a "great" musician by the people supposedly in the know. The most popular and lauded songs today don't say a thing, replacing substance with the opportunity for its performers to swagger and gyrate surrounded by all the riches of the kingdom. If anybody would sell his soul to the devil today, I would think it would be in exchange for being the head of a big financial brokerage (didn't they already - Blankfein at the crossroads?) or possibly to be Justin Bieber - rich, popular, and poised to run through groupies at a pace to make the Rolling Stones blush.

That's why we at Man's Ambition are going to find the great stories buried in our American songbook. And just like everybody knows our nation's sprawling story - rebellion, expansion, conquest - all Americans should know about the blues and the bluesmen who are sadly disappearing from the face of the earth. Because a deal with the devil is much deeper and more interesting than some bullshit about whether some teenage girl likes you enough to go steady or whatever rot those bastards are singing about today.

- Ryan

The Power of the Sixth Man

2013-05-07T13:52:00.003-07:00

Of all of the awards, the sixth man is my favorite. Sure the league MVP receives the most prestige, the Offensive and Defensive players are the best players on the court 50% of the time, the Rookie of the Year showcases the future, and the most Improved player of the year shows desire, but the Sixth Man of the Year award exemplifies the best team player. The sixth man doesn’t refuse to play because he is not starting, nor does he take plays off. The majority of the time, the person who wins this award could start on several teams, but for one reason or another has be relegated to watching the beginning of the action from the bench. Look at what James Harden has accomplished after winning 6^th man of the year last year with Oklahoma City. As a starter this year and leader for the Houston Rockets, he lead the team with 25.9 points per game while also averaging 26.3 ppg in the post season.

Last night, the Warriors lost a game at the hand of one of the best 6^th men in NBA history. Emanuel Ginobili, better known as Manu, has been basically a perennial bench player with one full and healthy season as a starter during his 14 year NBA career. Every year, though, he has been a big factor for them. Last night he proved just how important he is by hitting a beautiful game winner to take game 1 in the playoffs. It goes to show that just because someone does not start, they are not necessarily a bad player. Below are the top ten best NBA players to have won the 6^th man award (followed by the rest of the award winners) since its inception in the 82-83 season.

1) Kevin McHale- Considered by some to be the best true Power Forward in NBA history, he was elected to the NBA Hall of Fame after an NBA career that most desire. Not only did he have an arsenal of moves and a great stroke (Tenth in NBA history with a career field-goal percentage of 55.4%), he was one of the most feared defenders in the game. He averaged an astounding 17.9 PPG, had 17,335 points, blocked 1689 shots, and is among the Celtics career leaders in several categories. Career Highlights and Awards-2x Sixth Man of the Year, 7x All-Star, All-NBA First Team, 3x All-Defensive First Team, 3x All-Defensive Second Team, All-Rookie First Team, 3x Champion, and 50^th Anniversary All-Time Team

2) Bill Walton- This basketball player turned hippie-or other way around- is only 1 of two players on this list to be elected to the HOF. With an astounding career field goal percentage over 50%, 6215 points, 1034 blocks, and 13.3 PPG, he was an absolute beast. Career Highlights and Awards- Sixth Man of the Year, 2x All-Star, League MVP, Finals MVP, All-NBA first team, All- NBA Second Team, 2x Defensive Player of the Year, and 2x Champion.

3) Bobby Jones- Considered to be one of the best defensive players in NBA history, he was also a coach’s dream. He was an unselfish player who gave maximum effort. Career Highlights and awards- Sixth Man of the Year, 4x All-Star, ABA All-Star, 8x All-Defensive Player First Team, All-Defensive Second Team, 2x ABA All-Defensive First Team, ABA All-Rookie First Team, NBA Champion

4) Eddie Johnson- No one in NBA history has been snubbed like him as the only accolade he received was the Sixth Man of the Year award while putting up staggering numbers. His 19,202 points over his career is higher than all but 17 players in the Hall of Fame and his 16.0 PPG is higher than a lot of the other players on this list. He also added 2550 assists and 4832 rebounds. Where is the love?

5) Detlef Schrempf- This German phenom was one of the more complete players in NBA history as he averaged 13.9 PPG and totaled 15,761 total points, 7,023 rebounds, and 3833 steals. Careers and Awards-3x All-Star, 2x Sixth Man of the Year, All-NBA Third-Team

6) Manu Ginobili-The Argentinean sensation has quietly amassed a great career as a perennial sixth man for a team that never seems to get enough attention yet always vies for the championship. He has averaged 14.9 PPG, 4 assists per game, and has amassed almost 11,000 points in a career that is not over. Career Highlights and Awards-Sixth Man of the Year, All-Rookie Second Team, 2x All-Star, 2x All-NBA Third Team, and 3x Champion

7) Ricky Pierce- He was a shooting guru, hitting 75 consecutive free throws at one point, and averaged 14.9 PPG for his career. In fact, he holds the highest average of ppg in a season by a non-starter (23). Career Highlights and Awards- 2x Sixth Man of the Year, All-Star

8) Cliff Robinson- An iron man of the sport, he played in the 7^th most games in NBA History at the time of his retirement (1380) and had some serious shooting range for a big man. Unlike so many other professional athletes, it was a rarity when he did not go to the playoffs making it 17 times over 18 years. He averaged 14.2 PPG and had over 6000 rebounds. Career Highlights and Awards- Sixth Man of the Year, All-Star, 2x All-Defensive Second Team

9) Antawn Jamison- His stellar college career has seemed to overshadow what has turned out to be a great NBA Career. While in the NBA, he has averaged 18.8 PPG and 7.6 rebounds. Career Highlights and Awards- Sixth Man of the Year, 2x NBA All-Star, All-Rookie Second Team

10) Danny Manning-He was a college legend who had a decent career in the NBA that was hampered by knee injuries. He averaged a respectable 14 PPG, averaged 2.3 assists per game, and averaged 1.1 steals per game. Career Highlights and Awards- NBA Sixth Man of the Year, 2x NBA All-Star

Other Players who won the Award

11) John Starks

12) James Harden

13) Roy Tarplay

14) Dell Curry

15) Jason Terry

16) Anthony Mason

17) Tony Kukoc

18) Corliss Williamson

19) Darrell Armstrong

20) Lamar Odom

21) Rodney Rogers

22) Mike Miller

23) Ben Gordon

24) J.R. Smith

25) Bobby Jackson

26) Aaron McKie

27) Jamal Crawford

28) Leandro Barbosa

- Kyle

The Random Weekly Update, 5/6: What does Terrorism Actually Mean?

2013-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

I feel terrorized constantly. Everytime a police office pulls behind me, every time they address me I feel a shiver of fear down my spine. I've had a few brushes with the law but nothing real, no, it's not from that. It's the fact that they're given so much power with little oversight, often with little education, and on top of it all they adopt this swaggering bravado that comes from knowing they're above the law. I've been helped by a cop once, maybe twice. I've been harassed by them several times a year for the last decade and a half. It's a well-known cop tactic to use force or threats to intimidate people into coercion and/or arrest. That's also the definition of terrorism according to Websters. Does that mean that cops are terrorists?

Of course not, that would be silly. And don't get me wrong, there are some good cops out there. A friend's brother seems like a good guy. My wife's childhood friend sounds kind enough. But with "terrorism" the hottest new word since "synergy" and just as capable of capturing the public's attention, what does that mean?

What if a civil rights activist on the wrong side of the law (a law which, must be noted, often was a tool of the very establishment often oppressing these dissidents) shoots a cop in an escape gone wrong? Is that an act of terrorism? Or a simple act of rebellion compounded by a basic criminal act?

Assata's mug

This last week the FBI added its first woman to its most wanted list of terrorists. Assata Shakur, fka Joanne Chesimard, was a leader of the Black Liberation Army in the 70's. She killed a trooper who stopped her and two other in 1973. Went to jail until '77 when she escaped with the help of the BLA and the Weather Underground and she fled to Cuba. Yet in another example of how our nation's priorities are seriously fucked up, New Jersey and the FBI just issued a $2 million bounty on Shakur (incidentally she's Tupac's step-aunt) for her return as they consider her a dangerous terrorist.

So a woman who killed a state trooper in 1973 and escaped jail in '77 for Cuba is worth $2 million and being called a terrorist? Does anybody even know what the word means anymore or is just another worthless catch-all, like "freedom" or "justice" or "derogatory"? For those of you unfamiliar, terrorism is what happens when college kids blow up a crowd or shoot up a movie theater or shoot up a school and possibly wipe out a community's education system, as well as flying planes into Wall Street trading buildings. Basically, it's violence launched on a group of people with the intent of striking fear into their hearts. So is terrorism what's going on in Damascus?

NPR posted this pic - is this kid a victim of terrorism?

Israel's been bombing Syria without even having the courtesy to officially declare war. I know we're allies with the great tribe nation of Israel but seriously, how is this different from the bombs anti-Americans have launched at us? It just is? Ahh, it's okay because Israel's acting in our interest. I mean, hell, Assad is a horrible bastard and we do want the anti-government rebels to win. I mean, imagine Iraq had we not supported the secular young warlord Saddam Hussein's rise to power. It would be a mess.

At least their people are being attacked from outside instead of crumbling from within thanks to corrupt heartless leaders and regulators.

Collapsed sweatshops killing citizens - is the architect a terrorist?

Am I referring to Wall Street? Not this time. No, this time I'm talking about Bangladesh and the ~~factory~~ sweatshop collapse. Bangladesh is the world's sweatshop. It makes 80% of its GDP from selling cheap clothes to the Western world. This particular building was apparently built with little regard for structural soundness or the safety of its workers, as evidenced by its collapse, leaving a death toll now close to 610 poor workers. Or about a fifth of the amount of people who died in the 9/11 strikes. Is it terrorism if the greed of a few kills many citizens of a nation? Especially when the citizens were going to work in the very industry that employs most of the citizens of that nation? To go to a shitty job where you may die for pennies an hour? How can we purchase goods from companies that treat their workers like this? Isn't such disregard for human life, undertaken for the sake of capitalism, completely counter to the American way?

Ahh, fuck it. The stock market is rallying thanks to American innovation (even if some people, like myself, might believe the single-minded obsession with tech is a bit limiting and short-sighted). U.S. home prices are up. Minority purchasing powers keep rising, a sign of general American improvement through diversity (which, let's be honest, is currently one of our only remaining real and true international strengths). "Iron Man 3" just set the record for second-best opening weekend, a sign that Americans have a little extra money for the pictures and, even more, that kids are enthralled by a rich playboy who also happens to be a genius engineer. Rhode Island just became the 10th state to legalize gay marriage, nevermind the fact that it's about the size of my backyard in Wyoming. Or, on the topic of homosexuality, that the Jets have yet again embarrassed themselves with another spectacular PR mess. But for all intents and purposes, things are going okay at home.

Maybe that's why they're issuing a $2 million dollar bounty on a woman they're claiming is a most-wanted terrorist for killing a state trooper 40 years ago as part of an organization that was extinguished before I was even born. Maybe the button down D.C. suits are confusing a slight uptick in our national fortunes with a warning that soon the rising proletariat might have enough free time to really start protesting? Or the authorities are worried that this rise on the back of widespread liberalism might lead to another 1960's situation with rebellions and activists left and right and it won't just be bored rich folks pushing forth draconian measures and taking the wrong things too seriously?

Not really sure. But can somebody tell me the definition of terrorism? Maybe in the comments section below? When do Al Qaeda strikes go from being terrorist acts to being considered acts of war or espionage, with Al Qaeda members being afforded Geneva protections? And why the fuck are we wasting ANY time or money on some sextagenarian who hasn't been relevant in America since the Carter administration, much less calling her a terrorist? Because seemingly right now the word "terrorist" is being used the way that "religion" seems to mean people who use holy texts as a justification for hostilities, hatred and prejudices without embracing the parts that tell them about love, acceptance, mercy, and that whole "he who has not sinned cast the first stone" thing. It's been twisted and spun to have no meaning except in subjective context, which in reality means that the word "terrorism" (like, increasingly and sadly, the word "religion") means nothing. And it's way too dangerous a word to be left without meaning.

- Ryan

Don’t Call It A Comeback – Why Is Hamlin’s Return Significant?

2013-05-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Because it’s ‘Dega. Plain and simple. Denny Hamlin’s anticipated return comes to fruition at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend and, even though he’s likely just going to hang back until the first caution to collect some points, this is a big deal.

Why? Because Talladega has played host to some big, memorable crashes. I highlight a few here:

Perhaps the first that comes to mind is Bobby Allison’s 1987 Winston 500 crash where he flew up the catch fence down the front stretch. The wreck isn’t as grisly as some of the others, but this was a different era and was enough to pave the way for restrictor-plate racing. Allison’s memorable quote: “You won’t believe the ride I just took.”

Dale Earnhardt’s chilling crash at the 1996 Die-Hard 500. Earnhardt and Sterling Marlin got into each other and the Intimidator went into the wall at 200 mph. Save for a broken collarbone and bruised sternum, Earnhardt walked away unscathed.

Just two years later in the same race, Earnhardt was again involved in a big wreck, this time starting with Ward Burton and ending with Bill Elliott. Burton got into Dale and sent the 3 car into Awesome Bill who found himself on the business end of this one.

Skip to 2003 in the Aaron’s 499 where Kurt Busch clipped Elliott Sadler’s 38 car and sent him airborne flipping and rolling to a grinding halt. The wreck resulted in a mangled M&M’s car but an uninjured Sadler.

And of course, we come full circle by looking back just a few months to 2012’s 25-car pileup precipitated by Tony Stewart on the last lap. I save this one for last because it has been the Ghost of Talladega Past this year because of the Hamlin-Logano-Stewart controversy over a block Logano threw.

How ironic would it be were another crash to occur this time involving Stewart and Hamlin?
The reason I bring this up is because while Hamlin running to the first caution seems harmless enough, the nature of Talladega lends itself to some big wrecks as I’ve noted above. Granted, a number of these crashes came in the thick of the race but there’s no rule that says the first caution that comes out can’t be the result of a big wreck.

Hamlin is smart but he also drives with grit. I don’t expect he’ll put himself in a position to risk anything, but you never know what happens when he gets back behind the wheel after an unwelcome hiatus.

Stay safe, Denny.

-Contributing Writer and NASCAR Aficionado Rob Ford @fordnascar

How to take the Kentucky Derby Flyfishing - The Thirsty Thursday Review of the Early Times Mint Julep

2013-05-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year, the biggest horse race in the country, hell, maybe even the world. That's right, this Saturday is the 139th Kentucky Derby. Talk all you want about this year's historic jockeys (a 50-year-old? a woman? the first black man to win the derby since 1902?) or the greatest athletes on the planet (4-legged track and field stars powerful and strong enough to be an accepted measure for engine strength), we all know what the Kentucky Derby's really about - it's one sordid southern party.

The official drink of the Derby is the mint julep. A refined cocktail that harkens back to old Loulvul (sic) Gentlemen in seersucker suits with Colonel Sanders beards, the julep is also the perfect drink to celebrate spring in full blossom, combining freshly plucked mint with sweet sugar and god's gift to man, good old Kentucky bourbon. According to Mr. Boston the correct recipe is "4 sprigs of mint, 1 tsp. powdered sugar, 2 tsps. water, 2 1/2 oz's of bourbon - in a silver julep cup, silver mug, or collins glass, muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water. Fill glass or mug with shaved or crushed ice and add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with a mint sprig and straws." Muddle the shit out of that mint, too. That's key. And when done you'll have the classiest and most refreshing way to get hammered since the French invented champagne.

Most of my Kentucky friends are stand-up gentlemen of the first order. But as I told a couple hammered Louisvillians outside Ye Coach in Horses on Sunset, Hunter S. Thompson is a native Kentucky boy and told the world that the Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. And those drunk bastards agreed. And let's be honest - walk through rural Kentucky or watch all the backwoods drunks vomiting just outside Churchill Downs and the last thing you'll think of is southern class. Makes it strange to associate such twisted behavior with such a civilized beverage. No, I've had some mint juleps, made with craft by some great Kentuckians and the last thing the juleps make me think of is debauchery. But fear not, fellow drunkards. The folks at Early Times have made a quick and easy way to combine Kentucky class with all-time twistedness. Enter the Early Times pre-made Mint Julep.

With Derby Saturday 2 days away, I decided to do a little test run. And lacking a Kentucky horse track, I figured what better way to check it out than while fly fishing on a tributary of the Snake River? Hell, country's country.

The first swig - sheeit, the first swig tastes minty, sure. Maybe a bit like chewing gum. But it has bourbon in it. The bottle says so. There must be something good at the bottom. No doubt this is a fine beverage. I only need give it time.

I watch my buddy throw out a few casts. The fish are jumping today, ooh boy. Goddamned creek's teeming with finespotted cutthroat trout, hopping through the ripples looking for flies. Spring feeding frenzy. I take another swig. This shit's foul, there's no escaping it. It's worse than even the worst mint julep I've ever had. But there's a twisted satisfaction in such things. Like a Baltimore Prep who drives to a corner past 28th St. to get drugs. Or a man who cheats on his wife with an ugly fat prostitute. The sordidness is part of the experience. It sets a man up to lose himself in the carnality of being a dirty beast.

My friend goes another cast and snags a trout. Fights it on in, grabs it in the net, a 20-inch cutty. Hot damn. I light a cheap cigar and wade upstream, 8-foot rod in hand. Feel the river go into your boots, Ryan. I do a few casts. Get it caught on a tree. Lose my fly. Wade back to the riverbank. Another swig. That's it. Toothpaste. This shit tastes like toothpaste. Can't even detect the bourbon in it until I stumble a little. Stare at nature. Embrace the julep. It's springtime, goddammit. This is the official drink of oldtime gay frivolity. Tie on another fly but not correctly. Lose it after a few casts. Back to shore. Another swig.

Just like a horse race. Ever spent a whole day trying to actually watch a horse race? Especially without having any money on it? The damn thing is tedious. I've been to a few Preaknesses in my day and they were only fun because of the infield carnival of bared breasts and booze. At least they were in high school, before those idiots at Pimlico outlawed BYOB and ruined the whole damn thing.

But and so, fortified with my liquid toothpaste and puffing deep on the stogey, new fly tied on, I wade back out. In spite of the snow-melt-stream and the 50-degree air my feet don't even feel cold. I walk into the middle of the water. My motion is more fluid. My aim better. And then, BOOM, steee-rike.

I'm puffing on my cigar, fighting the first sucker I've ever hooked on such a rod. With a fly you're pulling the line by hand, the way men did it thousands of years ago, fighting the goddman thing mano a mano.

So ends the day. The pre-mixed bottled julep, the lazy man's drink of spring and the Derby, tastes like goddamn liquid toothpaste. But when you're slugging it from the bottle on a nice backwoods spring day and thinking of old Kentucky gentlemen in sweat-stained suits and debutantes in hats that could make the British Royal Family applaud stepping over vomiting horse-fans, why, it just goes down smooth. And it certainly puts an extra sparkle on a man's first cutthroat trout.

So buy some Early Times Mint Julep if you want to get hammered off toothpaste in honor of the world's greatest horserace but have neither the time, the money, nor the patience to drink proper mint juleps. A perfect way to get properly soused for the races. The ETMJ is sanctioned by the event, made in Kentucky, has a special drawing of a horse and, hell, it's better than spending another Saturday drinking the same old beer.

Life's all about changing it up and getting a bit weird, after all.

Cheers.

- Ryan

R.I.P. Chris Kelly

2013-05-02T08:47:00.002-07:00

My brother and I grew up with a varied musical taste, most likely due to growing up as skateboarding groms in Baltimore city. We eventually moved out to the suburbs and attended higher-end schools where everyone dressed the same--polo, vineyard vines, bright colors-- and had the same elitist views. While we transformed slightly to adhere to our surrounding, we still maintained some of that urban lifestyle, mostly in the form of our choice in music.

At one point, Kris Kross was at the epicenter of the pop hip-hop world. The rap duo, discovered by Jermaine Dupri and signed to his label “So So Def Records”, was composed of Chris “Daddy Mac” Kelly and Chris “Mac Daddy” Smith. Their album “Totally Krossed Out” went multiplatinum due to the power of their undeniably catchy song “Jump”, which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 8 weeks. Although this song pushed them into the public’s eye, they gained notoriety for their fashion sense by wearing all of their clothes backwards. While it’s uncomfortable, inefficient, and simply odd, it’s their style. Even the notion of wearing clothes backwards will always make me think of this group.

Chris Kelly was pronounced dead last night in Atlanta due to possible overdose. It’s always a shame to hear about another young star wilting away after his time in the sun has faded. After their megahit they toured with Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous World Tour”, they appeared on TV, and even had Kris Kross: Make My Video” for Sega CD. But eventually they faded as their next two albums were not strong enough (Although "Young, Rich & Dangerous", which was released in 1996, did reach Gold status) to maintain their stardom. While he was keeping a low profile, Chris was still working on music and had hundreds of songs that had been recorded. He had also apparently gone back to school to be a studio engineer. The best way to find out who someone is is see what they do when they are alone. From what it sounds like, Chris Kelly was someone who loved and was passionate about music. And passion is one of the main attributes of an ambitious man.

I can’t wear backwards clothes due to my corporate surroundings, but at one point today, I will jump as my tribute to him.

- Kyle

How a Snowboarder Changes the World

2013-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Jones - comfortable atop cold mountains, now he's climbing the Hill

Athletes have never been known for their political fervor. Especially all the bro bra athletes - snowboarders, skaters, surfers. Like, yeah, they have some organizations like Surfrider, an org that brings together funding and support from the surfing world to try and clean up the oceans. And having lived in Newport Beach constantly plagued by waste spills from Huntington I can appreciate what they do. But Surfrider seems to be focused on local action - getting better restrictions and regulations in area beaches - and you don't hear much about Surfrider lecturing DC on environmental standards. Even more, Surfrider isn't run by the pros. You don't see Bruce Irons or Kelly Slater sitting on the board, much less hustling politicians.

Enter snowboarder Jeremy Jones (big mountain, not jibber).

Jones founded his own environmental conservation org a few years back, POW (Protect Our Winter). And then he put his money where his mouth is - in an industry that currently revolves around getting access to new lines by chartering gas-guzzling choppers, Jones decided to shoot a series of movies where he and a few snowboard mountaineers put down burly lines following ascents made under their own power. That means everything they went down they first had to go up.

Having spent this last season in Jackson Hole without a pass to the resort, I've gotten a taste of this. That 30 minute or less 3000+ foot run is appreciated a lot more when you had to spend 3 hours skinning up it, not to mention when you're bootpacking and/or clambering over rocks. I've also seen a winter with banger snowfall in December and April and very little during the actual winter months of January and February, with a March in which the town thawed out, just to be pulled back in. From what I hear, winter used to go from January through March, not the other way around but, hell, such is life in a world with a seriously schizo fucked up weather pattern. J Jones knows this all too well.

Okay, let's rewind it for a second. For those of you who don't know who Jeremy Jones is, he's the Michael Jordan of big mountain backcountry snowboarding (yes I've said that before so you mainstream bastards have a frame of reference - it always comes back to Jordan for you folks). There were a few who came before J Jones - Craig Kelly comes to mind (God Rest in Peace) - Terje - but none took it to the level that Jones has nor has anybody dominated for as long as has (Big Mountain Rider of the Year for, like, a decade). Jones pushed far beyond what was possible on a snowboard as far exploring uncharted and undescended terrain. Just check out this footage of him longlining it into a burly couloir.

Just recently he and Bryan Iguchi made history by taking a route down the Grand Teton that no snowboarder had ever done before. But that's not the most interesting thing he's done. Somewhere between his endless runs to Alaska and Jackson and Europe he found time to go be honored at a White House dinner.

That's right, when the man was a boy he dreamed of snowboarding all day in the sickest untouched peaks on the fringes of society. He went to AK with 1000 bucks and 100 Cliff bars, spent most of his money on helis and lived on the bars. The boy became a man known for exploring and opening up uncharted super-sketchy, technical terrain when most of the snowboard establishment was becoming obsessed with baggy-pants jibbers sliding down handrails and doing park laps. The man became a godfather of the current hottest part of the sport, big mountain freestyle, the living legend who teaches current superstars Travis Rice and John Jackson how to do what they do on the steepest, gnarliest virgin terrain on the planet. And at the same time the man became an entrepreneur with his company, Jones Snowboards. It's only 2 years old yet 1 out of every 3 riders in big pow places Jackson, Tahoe, BC, so on swear by his boards. Just check the average backcountry bootpack or skin track and you'll see the now-familiar Jones Mountain logo staring back at you. And just to add more to his schedule, the man is a politician, trying to use his influence, his name, and his good fortune at living a life most people could only dream of, of being a man us average schlubs have to settle for looking up to (both figuratively and physically, as he's usually atop mountains high above most of us) to make the world a better place. He's no longer just traveling the world riding to enjoy himself. No, that's selfish; that's childish; that's a job little boys have. He's trying to change that very world - though, let's be honest, he DOES have a personal reason. If the globe keeps warming, where the fuck will we snowboard?

In my opinion this issue is more important than gun control, immigration, and gay marriage combined. Those all deal with civil rights that should already be sorted out (yes on background checks but counteracted by increased treatment of mental illness funded by increased background check fees; give current illegals a path to citizenship but also start looking at American policies that exploit Mexico and turn it into the shithole it is AND all legal citizens must root for USA soccer; is there any logical reason for not letting gay people marry that doesn't sound like a bigoted child babbling on about a family system that never was? I didn't think so) and, yes, I believe they are very VERY important, don't misunderstand. But what good will it be if dudes can exchange vows, crazies can't get guns and Mexicans can become Americans when our planet becomes a miserably hot toxic dump where nobody can live anyway?

So applaud Jeremy Jones. And check out, donate, whatever to POW.

A truly great and ambitious man is one who changes the world for the better.

- Ryan

What's the Deal With Boeing's Dreamliner?

2013-04-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

Flying has become a pain in the ass. I remember being excited to fly when I was younger. Airports were this amazing portal that transported you to new and exotic places, the seats were comfortable, the stewardesses were pleasant, you were provided meals on most flights, and delays/issues didn’t feel as inevitable. Now they've done everything in their power to jam as many seats as possible in the cabins (including diminishing the size of bathrooms), the food is a bag of chips the size of a quarter, the stewardesses are simply assholes, airports in general have cut back on food options, all of which force you to deal with one line after another, and flight delays and cancellations are expected. The fact that flying costs have actually increased while positive consumer experiences have decreased has given this form of transportation a negative stigma. Boeing is hoping to change that. Well, maybe not entirely.

The 787 Dreamliner doesn’t provide the most space, I’m sure the airport will remain the same overcrowded unorganized hub that it has always been, the stewardesses will probably still be assholes, no planes are immune to delays and cancellations, and the food might still be shit. Aesthetically though, it’s a stunner. It has enhanced the visual experience for the rider with an interior that has taken notes from Virgin Air with a vibrant, club-like theme. The windows adjust dimness instead of needing shades and it does a great job of accommodating someone with physical or visual disabilities, but that’s not why this airliner is gaining prestige. The biggest changes are related to the technical make-up.

The 787 is the first major airliner to use composite material for its frame. It’s the first production airliner with a fuselage assembled with a one-piece composite barrel which eliminates 1500 aluminum sheets and around 45000 fasteners; it has two new types of efficient engines, and it's extremely aerodynamic. I’m not a engineer so I don’t really know what the fuck all of that

technically means but, from what I gather, this means it’s efficient as shit. Plus, Rolls-Royce developed one of the engines so you know this thing is high class. Finally, it has an electric system that can detect maintenance needs, but they must have finally turned it off.

The concept began around 2003 and after 10 years the Dreamliner, loaded with excited passengers, finally took flight this weekend for the first time since it was sidelined three months ago due to safety issues. The biggest issues revolved around faulty batteries that melted on two of the planes. Thank you airplane analysis technology. Apparently lithium-ion batteries love catching on fire.

So what does this hyped plane mean to us wary travelers? Not much, although hopefully the concept will decrease the costs of air travel due to not needing more fuel. More importantly, while this is not the greatest thing since porn, it’s biggest contribution hasn’t been mentioned. It reveals that in an age of computer entrepreneurs, entertainment moguls - things that lack real substance - people are still out there building and inventing legitimate products that will continue to evolve and really help mankind. It’s good to see companies continuing to push the boundaries and help enhance infrastructure, which is why the US used to flourish. Sure there were mistakes endured and money lost, but these are minor prices to pay when developing concepts that are revolutionary.

- Kyle

Untamed Baja - 2 Dudes, Surfboards, Cameras and a Dream

2013-04-26T10:26:00.003-07:00

photo snagged from Nat Geo.com

Justin DeShields won a Young Explorer Grant from Nat Geo for basically being badass. Everybody, especially up in the Tetons where I'm currently hanging my hat, is always talking about the great hikers of epic mountain peaks. It's the in thing to do, bagging peaks. Everest has never been more popular (hell, they even had a Family Guy Episode about it) and nearly all impressive U.S. peaks are regularly crawling with amateur mountaineers, like admittedly, me. So it takes some balls to buck the trend and propose a couple hundred surf-centric hike south along the coast. And not just any coast, along the coast of Mexico, where the possibility of narco-related death or scorpion sting pain is very real. I mean sure, once you get on foot beyond the villages and cities you're probably okay but then you gotta deal with the basic act of survival in that Baja heat.

On a personal note, every time I've gone to Baja, and that was quite a regular occasion in my San Diego years, I or somebody from my group has been hassled by bandits, federales, or both (and really what's the difference anyway?). You don't gotta worry about crazy drug gangsters possibly appearing with AK's to mow you down while summitting K2, that's for sure.

So anyway, right now Nat Geo Young Explorer Grantee Justin DeShields and his buddy Bryan Morales are in the middle of an epic hike down to the tip of Baja to be followed by a stand up paddle across the sea of Cortez and beyond.

Check out their site to keep up with where they're currently exploring and get inspired by the fact that, hell, even in North America along the Pacific there are still unexplored lands.

And, hell, it's the soul of Spring right now. Get out and do something, goddammit.

Happy Friday.

- Ryan

Trains, Planes, and Buses...-Public Transportation at its Best and Worst

2013-04-24T08:42:00.004-07:00

As someone who travels home frequently from New York to Baltimore for weddings, holidays, engagement parties, and sporting events, I have extensive experience with different modes of public transportation. I want to first start out by stating that public transportation is generally crap. Between the lack of communication and intangible forces that can affect buses (traffic or a blown tire), a train system with prices that far exceed anything that abides by the laws of human decency, and air travel that continues to feel like torture, there are really no decent options. You can travel by water but from what I can tell by Royal Caribbean it’s not much better. Plus, I tend to get sea sick quickly. I have taken three different types of buses, the train, and flown. While this article revolves around my travels between NYC and Baltimore, this should serve as a general basis when considering your travel options.

Now, individuals have their own reasons to take a specific mode of transportation which I believe falls under one of the three C’s (costs, convenience, comfort), so I started off ranking each option based just specifically on these categories. I then followed it up with my personal opinion as each category and form of transportation is not weighted.

Convenience

1.       Amtrak
2.       Bolt bus
3.       Mega Bus
4.       Chinatown Bus
5.       Flights

Costs

1.       Chinatown bus
2.       Megabus
3.       Boltbus
4.       Amtrak
5.       Flights

Comfort

1.       Amtrak
2.       Boltbus
3.       Flights
4.       Megabus
5.       Chinatown bus

Overview

1. BoltBus

The Boltbus is without a doubt the best option. It's one of the most cost-effective and while the Amtrak is more comfortable and convenient, the additional $100 it costs to travel each way is not worth the additional 30 minutes to 1 hour it takes to travel. The leather seats are comfortable and certainly provide more room than airplanes and the other bus options. While the Mega and the Greyhound are cheaper, the difference in cost does not compare to the comfortability and punctuality of the Bolt. They also seem to be more organized than the other bus options as the staff are more communicative and you get called by letter group, similar to flights.

2. The Megabus

It's another cheap option and slightly less expensive than the Bolt, but it has never arrived on-time and I have taken it at least 20 times. It’s a crapshoot. While all the buses have the propensity to arrive late due to traffic, especially during the summer, it is guaranteed Mega will be late. It’s even worst than Chinatown bus with delays and as uncomfortable as a yuppie in SpaHa. I mean, they seem to have added way too many seats which creates an atmosphere too intimate for strangers. The seats themselves are probably taken from old, rundown planes. While it is fun to sit on the upper deck and look down on the world, it’s not usually easy to get a window seat up there. Possibly the worst aspect is the chaos that takes place while waiting for the thing. Hundreds of people waiting for different buses with no direction whatsoever. It’s like being in the Thunderdome.

3. The Amtrak

It’s the most convenient as it has the best track record of being punctual, you can wait indoors (you’ll really appreciate this if it’s pissing out), and you can show up essentially right at departure time. Sure, knowing when you'll get in for the most part provides peace of mind but the Amtrak is not immune to delays or cancellations, as I have experienced 30 minute to 1 hour delays and even a two-day cancellation during Snowmaggedan 2 years ago. You also don’t need to arrive hours early to ensure you make it through the zombified, uneducated security guards mishandling the lines due to negligence. It’s rather comfortable but it’s difficult for someone who travels fairly frequently to justify spending $300 round trip to travel 6 hours total, or $50 every hour. By the way, around the holidays it can cost up to $300 one way. I thought by now that the competition from the buses and flights would decrease the cost, but apparently my business teacher was wrong. Amtrak has led me to reevaluate everything I learned in school.

4. The Greyhound

I will say that I have not ridden the Chinatown bus in some time, but that’s due to the fact that I'm still affected by PTSD that resulted from one of my trips. As far as I could tell there were no rules, similar to the basement in Paddy’s Pub. When I arrived everyone was milling around, the seats were uncomfortable, they oversold many tickets, and the bus smelled of urine and dirty feet. Don’t take the Chinatown bus under any circumstances. EVEN IF THERE'S A FIRE

5. Flying

Flying to Baltimore is my least favorite of all modes. While it’s slightly cheaper than the Amtrak and certainly more comfortable than the Chinatown and Megabus, it’s not convenient. Flying is the quickest form of travel and is obviously preferred for longer distances, but arriving 1 to 2 hours before the flight, landing, and then driving home from the airport makes it essentially the same duration as taking the train or bus. Even worse than gambling on plans for a direct flight running smoothly is taking a connecting flight, which is like playing Russian Roulette where, instead of dying, you miss your flight, ruining your plans, adding unnecessary stress. You only need look at the FAA furloughing air traffic controllers, to understand that air travel is fucked. I mean, I get the government cutbacks, but you would think that they'd coordinate this shit a little better instead of flights averaging 80 minute delays since Sunday. With flying the way it is nowadays, I would rather stay grounded.

- Kyle

What I learned from the Boston Bombing

2013-04-22T15:41:00.001-07:00

Tsarnaev Brothers - So familiar they're dangerous

What the fuck happened there?

By "there" I'm referring to Boston, of course.

I mean, seriously, two Chechen kids decided to blow up bombs at the Boston Marathon, then the next day continued living as if everything was normal.

Details are emerging. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had supposedly become an Islamic militant as his time in America, as a foreign exchange student, drew to a close. The Russians asked the FBI about him in 2011, or so the record goes. But instead of leaving, he wanted to deliver a big knockout punch - an explosion that killed fewer people than about any shooting we've had over the last year set in place at the finish line of the third biggest marathon in the country. The 26-year-old jihadist roped his little brother into the scheme - side note, Kyle should I become a militant Muslim you have my permission to have me committed to Gitmo if you don't honor kill me first - and now Tamerlan's little brother is recovering from a failed suicide attempt in a hospital and will most likely be charged with all sorts of things that will result in his well-deserved execution.

A couple things jumped out at me here:

Amidst all the hoopla about how America will be safer when we get guns off the streets, a bomb is set off that kills 3 and maims over 100 during one of the busiest and most regulated days in one of America's largest and most historic cities. BTW, the last mile of the marathon was run in honor of Sandy Hook. Reinforcing my belief that passing any gun control bills will only further advance the American illusion that the world is safe, just like TSA precautions that are widely-denigrated by anybody with half a brain and some scientific analysis into the efficacy of these intrusive practices.
Everybody thought they would be Middle-Eastern Muslims, leading to the red herring detention of a Saudi who just happened to be there. Luckily they weren't right. No, it was a Caucasian Islamist. Seriously, how did people even discover Islam in the Soviet Union? Right, that whole Afghani war thing. It all comes back to Afghanistan. Anyway, they don't look white so let's just go with "Islamic"
Terrorism vs. tragedy - because that's what's really important.

That's right, Bill O'Reilly, perennial winner of the "Either I Was Malnourished as a Child or I'm an Evil Genius At Whipping Idiots to a Froth" award, rambled on about Boston by starting off claiming Barack Obama was wrong. Because Obama called this a tragedy. And it's not. It's an act of war or treason or both. Then he went on to say a kid opening up on a crowd of movie-goers isn't a terrorist but the Boston bombers are. His reasoning? The intent in Boston was political. That is, it's a statement against the government and so a crime punishable by death. The shootings in Colorado and Sandy Hook and all were just disaffected youths which has nothing to do with America. Wait, isn't the fact that our population is growing increasingly psychotic and we still have a weak infrastructure (at best) in place to deal with mental imbalance an insult to the liberties and ideals on which our nation was founded? Downright terrorist if terrorism is considered an attack on our nation and what we stand for? Oh wait, I get it. What O'Brien was trying to say is, if it's white American kids - Christian kids, I mean - shooting up a bunch of people, it's just some big accident. If they're cafe-colored or darker, not to mention foreign, and worship Allah, yeah, that's an attack on America. Never mind that Dzokhar Tsarnaev looks like a younger Bob Dylan.
I think they're all attacks on America and James Holmes and Dzokhar Tsarnaev should be tried the same. For all we know Holmes was brainwashed by Islamic jihadists like in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. He seems really out of it.

Tamerlan was killed by his younger brother as he drove their stolen SUV at the police arresting Tamerlan after a murderous shootout. Tamerlan was run over and then dragged. These aren't Islamic militants in the standard sense that they were not well-trained or equipped. They were douchbag copycat wannabes. Like the kid at VA Tech who liked ultra-violent Korean movies.
Everybody who claims that our society has been desensitized by movies and video games needs to shut up right now. These bombs killed a fraction of the people killed in most Tarantino or Scorcese movies and such death and mayhem wouldn't be a blip on most video game screens. Yet the response and outpouring of anguish, love, and support has been amazing. It's something that revitalizes a person's belief in America, brotherhood, all of that.

But now what the fuck? Where do we go from here? Is this yet another stick to be thrown on the Islamic bonfire? Further proof we need to destroy all worshipers of Allah and Mohammed, kill the good with the bad, like chemotherapy but for religion instead of cells?

Or is it proof that we need to realize that the party is over? For a long time America was the ivory tower, a majestic monument to all that was right in the world. A tribute to freedom and strength and peace. Now we're more like the old rundown mansion from SUNSET BOULEVARD peopled with a society of Norma Desmonds holding onto atavistic values in a world that has seeped in over the last 60 years of neocolonialism and short-sighted socio-economic policies. This is a tragedy and is traitorous and all that. But compared to the violence and death that occurs every day in most of Africa and the Middle East, not to mention regular bombings and violent riots burning their way across Europe, it's not even a blip on the screen. Sure, perhaps the significance of the day adds to the impact. But only slightly. It's an exercise activity. Yes, it's Patriots Day but most people didn't even know that. It would be like a bomb going off during a Patriots game being declared an act of terrorism only because the team is the Patriots and that has meaning. Belichick would probably rally people to believe that.

But no, it's time to really step back and take a long look at ourselves. Maybe the party is over. The outpouring of love from local Bostonians has been a wondrous reminds of the goodness of humanity. But why does it take horrible things happening to get us to look out for one another?

Why do we waste countless hours and dollars debating regulations when we should really be addressing our woeful discarding of outcasts and disaffected, our ignorance of bullies and religious fanatics, whether it's Christians bombing abortion clinics or Muslims bombing footraces? All Religious fervor is dangerous in the wrong hands, no matter what higher power you embrace.

When will we actually make steps to address this Militant Islamic thing? And I mean not with weapons, it's woefully obvious we'll never win that way. You can't destroy ideals with explosives - as we learned when bystanders didn't miss a beat tending to the injured. But we have a serious PR problem in which we've been identified as the enemy of Islamic Jihadists in spite of the fact that, let's be honest, most American couldn't give two shits about them. But hell, when all they know of us is that we've turned their ancient backwards cities into smoldering rubble piles and our camouflaged boys can be easily scapegoated by power-hungry warlords as the cause (even though they'd been destroying such cities for much longer), of course they'll be irrationally angry. We had two small bombs rip through a city that for the most part is unscathed and it's a national outrage.

I don't know where we go from here. But hopefully instead of using this as an excuse for political infighting like d-bag O'Reilly or an excuse for killing Islamists or claiming it just another random act of violence, it will open up some serious national dialogues:

We spend billions to regulate (poorly) and assess and our nation's employment and economic health on an hourly basis. When will we start doing the same with the mental health of our citizens?
We show outpourings of love and helpfulness and attention to our brothers and sisters in a time of tragedy yet when everything is going good many of our citizens are quick to judge, turn a nose away, and claim that charity and goodwill is akin to communism.
We have yet to really address the rise of anti-American fanaticism, especially in the Islamic world, except to claim that somehow we'll magically bomb every head of a 1000-headed hydra before they grow back and then all their cousins and family left behind will just decide those heads were stupid.
We foster illusions of safety and certainty in an increasingly unsafe and uncertain world. The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is growing rapidly. Such a situation breeds this kind of violence - look at Mexico, for example. Why doesn't one of our liberal politicos sack up and say something like that?

Again, though, I don't know what the solution is. But in the words of Jerry Springer, "Till next time, take care of yourself, and each other."

- Ryan

Colorful Thieves: Blue Collar vs. White Collar, Fun All Around

2013-04-18T15:46:00.001-07:00

A playboy walks into the U.S. Bank of Jackson Hole dressed to the 9s and wearing glasses on New Year's Eve. He says he's from a Mexican gang, his cohorts are outside, and if they don't give him all their money he and the narcos are gonna turn this place into the goddamn Alamo.

The teller rounds up about $150k in cash and the man leaves. The money is nothing in a big world and, even more, it's federally insured. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and John Dillinger said, robbing a bank is robbing "the man". And amazingly enough this exact robbery happened a few months ago in my small town of Jackson, WY. This was the biggest crime most of the small-town keystone cops here had ever seen, a movie-worthy bank robbery in a town whose population is only barely higher than its elevation.

The man is caught in Sandy Utah and awaits trial. But here's the big twist - the Australian national Corey Donaldson has just said the Federal Government is too corrupt, slimey, and downright greedy to try him for any crime. Because here's the kicker - Donaldson claims he gave all the money he stole to poor people.

So nobody was hurt. No weapons were used. The minimum sentence if convicted of 2nd degree bank robbery is 5 years. No doubt he'll get much more.

Just a couple notes, the amount was $150k and it came from no citizens of the nation but actually from a pool of all citizens so the average hurt per person is in the pennies. It was just a bold, old west robbery and the robber is now pulling a whole Robin Hood act in a nation where the division between the haves and the have nots is greater and greater, a perfect such scenario.

On the other hand, tonight "American Greed" on CNBC is doing a profile on a man named Charles Martin. Charles was the head of a company called One World Capital. He and his partner ran their company, a hedge fund which utilized the shady world of Forex trading, like a personal money supply.

He and partner ran a ponzi scheme that swindled what amounted to $17,000,000 dollars they simply stole from about 1000 victims. Or in other words he and his partner stole $17,000 from each of 1000 people who trusted him and believed that the world of capitalism is well enough regulated that such could not happen. He was sentenced to 17 years for this - I wonder how many of these he's going to serve. An interesting fact, over a one-year period he spent over $1 million on strip clubs and restaurants. Now that's a playboy, for sure.

I have some personal experience with the man - he invested $250k in a movie I was producing starring guys like Jeremy Renner and Simon Baker. He pulled out when the spoiled trust-funder director had a poop fit over the phone about the tight strings Martin was putting on the money. I met with him a few times, including a dinner at Mastro's in which the man bought me a rare New York Strip. Or rather he said he was covering dinner so I ordered one. Then we tried to sell the hideous Tom Berenger/Busta Rhymes movies he'd invested in. Then he went to jail for running a ponzi scheme and my brief experience in film finance went belly up alongside his investors and the rest of the finance world - his downfall was just a few months behind Lehman Brothers'.

So the lesson is if you're gonna rob somebody, go big. Because you'll probably get caught. And go high-end. Low-end gets caught quickly and prosecuted intensely. A white collar thief bangs high-end strippers and drinks Cristal with his stolen money for over a year. Low end, you get $150k. High end, you get $17M.

On the other side the low end crooks only hurt a few people, if that (violent robberies aside). High end ruins lives and destroys the dreams of aspiring young film producers.

So it goes.

- Ryan

J.R. Smith: Tattoos Do Not Always Lead to Championships

2013-04-16T08:35:00.001-07:00

It seems like J.R. Smith’s 100 tattoos has lead to ink poisoning which has affected his ability to think properly. Him emulating Jason Terry’s vow of getting a tattoo if his team wins the NBA championship will not lead to the same result. While Jason Terry's declaration seemed more out of desire, J.R. Smith's declaration feels like it is based out of motivation/desperation. The Knicks look solid and with Melo basically guaranteed the NBA scoring title since he has averaged upper 30 ppg over the last several weeks and Durant’s Thunder locking up first place in the West thus leading to the decreased playing time of the only competition, they will certainly be a difficult challenge. In fact, this Knicks team does remind me of the Mavericks when they won the Championship two years ago (they even have three players from that championship roster), but that was against a Heat that was still developing chemistry between their big three. Miami has progressed substantially since then and cruised all year long to the best record in the NBA and second longest win streak in NBA history. They locked up 1st place in the Eastern Conference more than a week ago and neither the Knicks, nor anyone else, can match up with a rested Heat. Even if they do squeak out a series victory in what would be an exhausting and pain-inducing Eastern Conference Finals, they will be limping to the end like THE OFFICE since losing Michael Scott. They will be left with little fuel when competing against most likely the quick and athletic Thunder and there is not enough adderall, steroids, or cocaine that allow them to match the intensity

Coincidentally, J.R. Smith doesn’t have any more room on his body for another one anyway unless he decides to get the face tattoo and we saw how well that worked for Stu.

- Kyle