February Hates CHB

Good thing it's the shortest month of the year, because February has been really cruel to all things Carolina and Hellenic.  It goes on today, with the Post taking a break from it's front page coverage of Greece's economic problems long enough to run an article chronicling the decline of blue-blood basketball programs like Carolina, Arizona, UCLA and Connecticut. 


Good riddance to February; I'm tired of talking about the problems with the two stales of my non-family, non-enviro life - hoops  and Hellenism (and it's not just Carolina; our hometown Wizards also had a horrible month).  


Hoops and Hellenism is a pretty good name for a blog, but I probably could not stand the competition for the Greek/basketball blogosphering public.


Finally, March will not be much better.  Just found out the Greek Prime Minister, Berkeley-born, American-bred George Papandreou, will be in D.C. for meetings with President Obama and others on March 9th, and of course a central part of the initial March Madness coverage will be reminders of the collapse of the defending national champs.


More hoops and Hellenism:

• When the Wizards traded Brendan Haywood then Antawn Jamison I decided to give up on our hometown team.  But the new look Zards, led by of all people Andray Blatche, are 3-3 including a win over Ty Lawson's Denver Nuggets.  Evan is no longer interested, but I'm thinking about giving this team another shot - and tickets on StubHub are pretty cheap.  Besides, they are only 8 1/2 games out of the eighth play off spot!
• NBA favorite player Haywood is thriving in Dallas. The Mavs are 6-0 in games he has started, and his numbers - though similar to the ones he put up in DC - are nonetheless impressive. In the six games he's started B-Hay is averaging 12 points, 11.5 boards and more than 3 blocks. His defense could make a team known around the league as soft a force in the playoffs.  Pretty ironic stuff for a guy once derided by know-nothing Wizards fans as 'Brenda' Haywood.   
• Seeing Haywood or more likely Antawn Jamison win an NBA championship this year with their new teams would take some - only some - of the sting out of this bad college hoops season.
• But my main rooting interest for the rest of this year will be the Charlotte Bobcats, led by second-favorite NBA player Raymond Felton. It looks imminent that Michael Jordan will purchase the Bobcats from do-thing black Republican Robert Johnson so they better make a run now before he screws up that franchise. The Cats are in 9th place in the east, in a tight race with Jerry Stackhouse's Milwaukee Bucks for the final playoff spot.
• Speaking of MJ, I received Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection, as a what-I-believe-to-be-sincere Valentine's Day present from Alison. I've been listening to it, especially disc one, a lot. That guy is really like Elvis, with a brilliant career that eventually choked in it's own vomit.  Disc one has three all-time great American songs by the Jackson 5: I Want You Back, ABC, I"ll Be There. The intro to I Want You Back, with the piano riff that quickly blends into a scratchy guitar part, is the ultimate Motown fanfare.  The rest of that disc includes Dancing Machine, Off The Wall, Shake Your Body, and Don't Stop Til You Get Enough. But like the rest of the four-disc set, each one is a mix of brilliance - those songs, plus Billie Jean, Bad - and absolute dreck - Ben, She's Out of My Life, and his song to his chimp Bubbles.  But it's worth wading through the dreck to listen to Wanna Be Starting Something.
• In college I had a great mixed tape that had an excellent segue from Wanna Be Starting Something to Flashlight by Parliament, FYI.
• My admission of affection for Michael Jackson may be as shocking to some (though I grew up with The Jackson 5) as last year's blog about American Idol.  But this week I was reminded once again of one of the main reasons I watch AI (besides Simon Cowell):  an excuse to engage and talk to our kids about something they like, something especially important now that Ariadne is a full-fledged teen. On Wednesday night Evan went to bed early, so it was just me and my daughter watching TV. We sat there talking, discussing each performance, having a real conversation, goofing off during commercials, etc.  And when I came home from my Greek Language MeetUp on Thursday night she gave me an update on who had been eliminated on her way to bed.  Ariadne and I fight a lot more now than we ever have, but those casual conversations and happy moments - in this case spurred by American Idol - are pretty cool.