9:53 pm - 09 August 2004
columbine & BASEketball
I�ve been watching two very different films this evening. First off I watched Bowling for Columbine, the Michael Moore documentary one, to be intellextual. Although the main thing is the Columbine shootings in �99, that isn�t what the film is about at all. It is more an investigation into why more Americans shoot each other than any other nation. Its not even down to the population: one statistic is that there are 68 people killed by gunshots in the UK every year (yardies in Brixton or gangs in wood green mostly), out of a population of 60 million. Lets slightly adjust the average to 1 shooting for every 1 000 000 people. The US has over 11,000 shootings, which for a population of 300m is one shooting for every 27 000 in the US. Dude, that ain�t cool.
To ease the mood a bit I watched BASEketball, with Matt Stone and Trey Parker from South Park. In the extras on the DVD there is an interview behind the scenes thingy, in which Matt says �we realised it was going to be the dumbest movie ever made so had to do it�. He isn�t wrong. It�s about sport being all ballsed up because of money pissing stuff up, like teams moving around the country. That�s just mad. I didn�t know the LA Lakers started off in Minneapolis. or did they. I don�t know. The only football team I can remember moving are Wimbledon (home of the Wombles) who moved to Milton Keynes this summer and renamed themselves MK Dons. Catchy, eh. I like some of the sponsored stadia in BASEketball, like the Maxi Tampon Stadium and the Preparation H Arena. It�s all mad. Sport isn�t the same as it was all those years ago anyway, these days its all about money. I remember Shaq moving for $125 000 000 about 10 years ago. In 1962, Bill Nicholson paid �99 999 to bring Jimmy Greaves to Tottenham from AC Milan because he didn�t want to make him the first �100k player. �100k? Alessandro Del Piero earns that a WEEK at Juventus.
also. i've been wondering. in pretty much every team sport, each player has a number, yeah? what is going on with the numbers in the US? there doesnt seem to be any consistency. in football, you have numbers 1-11 for your first team, unless its squad numbering in which you gets other numbers in there too, maybe for luck reasons. usually the keeper is 1, right-back is 2, left-back is 3, central defenders are 4 and 5, central midfielders are 6 and 8, right-winger is 7, left-winger is 11, and the strikers are 9 and 10. but what goes on in basketball and american football and hockey and that? the numbers seem pretty random. someone let me know because its starting to bug me a bit. I�d best stop now.
Nothing else to write. I was going to write about racism but that�s always a tetchy subject so I didn�t.
Its just rock �n� roll
