Encounter #105: Kobe's just like you, nerd. (Not!)

I'm waiting for the day when we hear about how Zen Master got Kobe to read something goofy like Alan Watts or how when he retires he plans to sit down (maybe treadmill it?) and really read Truth and Method. (He loves the Continent, right?) Until then, here's a story about Kobe buying comics after hours for his plane ride to China. (Yup: this is timely shit.) In any event, since my basketball blogging is strictly parasitic for the time being (and probably will remain so), I should again announce that I'm of the camp that, asshole or no, Kobe is fucking fascinating; singular in a way no other superstar has been. It's kind of similar to what makes Chris Bosh so cool (on the surface: they have personalities!) but Bosh's youthful enthusiasms are charming whereas Kobe's odd trajectory to now makes him more enigma than a known entity, a mamba with all kinds of crazy fighting inside that only shows up in how ferocious he plays. Here's where the Gadamer comes in: what is play for this dude? I've seen him laugh, I've seen him jump over things on youtube with a smile, I've seen him arm in arm with teammates and trophies; I've rarely seen him smile on the court, in a game, and when I have it was during some broadcast-muted trash talk with the other team's luminary. I guess plenty of athletes are intense and fierce competitors. But, and here comes that cliché, there's something else in how Kobe attacks, and how Kobe walks away from, the basket -- even a fade away is cut-throat for him -- that makes him so good and so ruthless and so compelling. I mean, he said, "I like that dark shit," when asked what comics he likes, and I think there's other stuff going on there, too. The idea of Preacher appealed to him. And apparently he's a big fan of 100 Bullets, too. That's some down right abject mess. Maybe Kobe will read Georges Bataille instead of Gadamer. Hyuck, hyuck. --RWK

[Pic 1, stolen from the original post, of Kobe with Lee's Comics' intrepid reporter slash employee Taio Iwado; Pic 2 stolen from Tirico Suave]

Encounter #104: This is fandom. Or something. (Mostly? A waste of time.)

Remember when Nicole Richie was kinda fat? Yeah, I forgot about it, too. It's a laugh. She's a weirdo, all skinny now, and apparently pregnant again (because we want to turn this into a celeb gossip site, clearly), despite not looking like she can support her own weight, much less the life of yet another parasitic embryo; oops, I mean baby. In any case, through the power of internets, I found this awkward, stupid video -- from when I don't know, for what reason I don't know -- that gets cut short by Tool Type 1A just when things start to get interesting. First reaction? I dig how she just says what a lot girls (and some guys) at sporting events are thinking: these guys are primal, buff, macho meat on next to full bodily display. This isn't beach volleyball, of course, nor swimming, but there's plenty of guns (and calves? collar bones? what's the focal point?) to relish. Plus, you know, ballers are tall, with big feet. Makes sense why she'd marry (and spawn twice with) a lame white wannabe punk rock douche with no neck, right? All kinds of different ideas of funny and gross and right-on apply. --RWK

Encounter #103: "One ugly muddafucka."

The Ratatat shtick is getting a little tired but this video is pretty good, even if it falls into the same traps that cripple their music. Repetition is all well and good in a pop song but when shit's this synthetic it only gets grating. They make their point and then hammer at it, hammer at it, drive it deep. Except it's not that deep, just kinda cool. I like how goofy their whole deal is but after a while I want something new (or newer): they should do more hip hop remixes. Selfish, I know. While we're here: Predator is awesome, by the way. A real gem of trashy 80s action cinema; it revels in tacky color-characters with such self-awareness that it's hard to take seriously, or get turned off, and real easy to enjoy. --RWK

Genius Marketing #30: Tiger 2.0, or Tiger is really from Nazareth

Look at Tiger (or Team Woods, or EA, or whatever firm): he's not just Jesus, walking on water, he's all Web 2.0, too. His new EA ad riffs on youtube and you can watch the add on youtube, setting up a dizzy turtles-all-the-way effect. I can't wait for the time when somebody just keeps filming themselves watching themselves on youtube to the point where it's just a long line of deferrals inside frame after frame after frame, a jagged line of shrinking perspective. But I'm way too lazy to do that. I'd rather just think about it. Maybe I'll search for it. In any event, it starts here. Somebody's got to film themselves watching Tiger's ad, which watches another clip, and then keep layering. It should resist sense, the sound clamoring and clipping and fighting itself. Somebody, do it. Please. --RWK [via all kinds of sports blogs, which I seem to be reading more and more; meaning, of course, that I'm reading less and less film blogs]