Bushwick Basketball: The Blog

This blog is now about basketball in Bushwick. Specifically, the brand of Bushwick basketball played at Gilbert Ramirez Park on McKibben Street.

The court sits between a children's playground and a chain-link fence, shadowed by old warehouses in a neighborhood at the edge of gentrification. The playground features a mock-subway system complete with signs for the P Train, and on the other side of the fence Hispanic kids play handball against a massive cement wall. A sprawling junkyard stretches across the one-way street, and young plane trees are scattered inside the park. Project housing is about six blocks away, and Bed-Stuy isn't much further, but an organic grocery store is closer still, and signs in the large windows of converted lofts nearby advertise cheap studio space for artists. The west side of the park has a narrow community garden filled with weeds, wheelbarrows, planter's soil, and clay pots. A ten-foot wrought iron fence, black and spiked, encloses the whole space.

Today's feature: Player Profile.


NICK

Nick is a white male in his mid-to-late thirties. He lives in my building a block from the park, and I've played with him about five times to date. When I first met Nick, I was shooting for teams with a group of black and hispanic kids who played high school ball together and are now in their first year of college. Before Nick came through the gate, they spotted him jogging down from Bogart Street, dribbling his ball. Nick was wearing the same outfit he's worn every time I've seen him play since- a gray sweat suit and a white do-rag. "Ohhhh shit," said Nelson, one of the college kids. He pointed. "Here's our boy."

Nick is short and thin, and moves with a sort of spastic quickness. He has a perpetual five-o'clock shadow, and sullen eyes. His posture is somewhat hunched. When he jogged through the gate and onto the court, he looked up quickly and shouted, "yo, what's game?" Without stopping to listen, he took two hard dribbles toward the basket and pulled up abruptly. His jumpshot sailed well past the rim.

Nick plays point guard, and he's more or less competent while handling the ball. When he finds himself with an open lay-up, he usually propels the ball with far too much gusto, and rarely converts. His jumpshot is erratic, at best, and his technique is odd to behold. Jumping in the air and kicking his legs forward, he holds the ball at the top of his head for an illogically long time, releasing the shot only milliseconds before landing. This results in a shot that is completely without arc, and follows a flat path that typically ends with a hard collision against the front rim.

He often finds himself in arguments in the middle of a game, and is a favorite target of locals. That first day we played, he often referred to the ball as a "rock," and Lewis, a black kid who spends his time between points doing a wobbly-knee dance, kept saying he'd prefer to play with a ball. "Yeah bro," said Nick, "I'm really droppin' mad slang with 'rock.'"

On our way back to the building, after our team lost by a considerable margin, Nick told me he was a keyboard player. Kanye West had asked him to play on his latest album, and offered him millions, but Nick had to decline. He explained to me that he was in the process of trying to build his own empire, and playing with Kanye would put that dream in jeopardy. "It was a heart decision, you know, brother?"

When I played with Nick Monday, and he'd missed most of the shots he'd taken in the course of a game, he told me this was just the beginning. "It's only March," he said, "by the time August comes around you'll think Ray Allen's out here. Every shot drops."

Last weekend, I played four-on-four with a group of white guys who mostly live in the artist lofts on McKibben Street or in my building. When the guys playing are mostly white, the rules tend to change slightly. The biggest shift is that every ball has to be taken out past the three-point line after a change of possession, regardless of whether it hits the rim. When a newcomer joined the game and mistakenly shot a lay-up after a stolen pass without bringing it out, Nick said, "nah man, we're playing white boy rules."

"You're white, too, dude," said Laurence (or L.B.), a white, 6'6", late-twenties player with a decent post game and a great shot. "I hate to say it, but you're white."

"Yo, I ain't white, bro," Nick shot back. "I'm Arabic."

He caught up with me again for the walk home. "I hope y'all didn't take me wrong when I said 'white boy rules,'" he told me. "I ain't racist, bro. Your white's side your right side, right? Nah, I don't mean it like that, but you know what I'm saying."

"I get you," I said.

Nick and I found ourselves on the same team in a full-court, 5-on-5 game yesterday. We won 22-16.



Personal results, 3/26: Team won 22-16. Miserable shooting performance. Shoelace broke mid-game. Hit winning three-pointer- only made jump shot of the game. On the plus side, several beautiful passes.

I put this up as a favor to a friend, so he could link the picture onto a messageboard. It is not because I'm creepy.

I'm an asshole who is trying to redeem himself

Okay, so a few posts back I wrote that lengthy and sadly misguided piece about why I was supporting Hillary Clinton.

A couple days after, my viewpoint began to change, and today I sit at my desk completely in support of Obama, and terrified that he might not win the nomination, much less the general election. Luckily, the shift has come about in time to influence my hordes of Pennsylvania readers.

But how did it happen?

First, I have to admit that I didn't know all the facts when I pulled the blog-trigger for Hillary. I wasn't aware, for one, that Obama took absolutely no money from lobbies, while she took lots. This leads to a very simple and very obvious conclusion, which is that Obama is more deeply committed to labor and, if elected, will be less indebted to big business and their lobbies.

I call that an obvious conclusion because it's well-known that Bill Clinton has one of the worst labor track records of any democratic president in history, and of course his wife will have the same money connections and the same vested interests.

Jobs, wages, and the prevention of corporate abuse is, to me, the biggest issue on the table. If we're able to resuscitate a dying economy, it will come through forcing big businesses to keep jobs in the country, and to show some financial accountability. It will come from imposing fair taxes on business, too. Hillary won't do that, Obama might.

The other big factor is that I was intensely cynical of his idealism, and his supporters. I wanted someone tried and true, I said. The first and most glaring hole in that argument is that Hillary isn't tried and true. In her time as First Lady, she only proved that she can make enemies. The way she's conducted herself in this campaign, with the litany of cheap shots thrown at Obama, shows that not much has changed. I like her ideas, but not her record. I wildly overestimated her past accomplishments, while wildly underestimating Barack's.

But more importantly, I underestimated the idea of hope. Sure, his campaign is based somewhat on rhetoric and the idea of sweeping change. But why not support that? Why not believe in a guy who, so far, has done everything right? Is it a fear of being hurt, of Obama proving himself insincere and the rest of us feeling tricked? Maybe that's it. But honestly, America is in such dire straits, on the verge of such an ugly future and in the midst of such a decaying present, that it's almost criminal not to throw your support behind the one guy who might have a shot at changing things. I committed that crime with Hillary, who is, at best, a status-quo candidate.

On the subject of fear, here's a great article by Michael Chabon, one of my favorite authors, called "Obama vs. the Phobocracy." Short, editorial, and well worth reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020302526.html

Long story short, Barack is a politcian who finally seems to believe in something other than himself, and who gives America a chance at recovering from eight awful years. I believe in him, I made a mistake with the Hillary nonsense, and I'm fully on board the Obama train.

I think it would be almost tragic if he didn't win, another stalk of hope cut in its infancy by the scythe of skepticism and fear brandished by media, big business, and the power structure in Washington. We need an idealistic outsider with legitimate belief to right the ship. That's Obama, and nobody else. I'm fired up and ready to go.

I Had A Big Day Off

I tell you: every sentence starts with I.

I woke up at 9 and went on my computer. I felt bad from the night before. I listened to "Killing the Blues" 20-30 times in a row. I ate a bowl of honey nut cheerios. I made a dvd. I thought about reading. I made myself a sandwich. I went outside to play basketball, but the courts were still covered in snow. I stared at them for a while and tried to hatch a plan. I walked around industrial Bushwick, looking inside mechanic shops. I stepped into the garage at Little Man Auto Body and Truck Repair four blocks from home. I spoke with the Hispanic man about a metal shovel that looked unused. I also spotted a push broom. I convinced him to let me borrow them. I left my basketball and water bottle as collateral, though the water bottle wasn't necessary. I walked back to the courts. I spent the next hour shoveling one half of the court. I used the push broom to get rid of the excess water. I considered that this is what people do when they have ennui. I wished for my water bottle. I finished and returned the equipment and got my ball and water back. I tried to play but it was still a little wet. Nothing is absolute. I just shot free throws. I went back in after a half hour or so. I listened to "Killing the Blues" a couple more times. I read a book that documents book-banning incidents in America. I opened the windows because I thought the apartment smelled smoky. I imagined a short story where boys at a school force the innocent child of book-banning parents to sit in a classroom at lunch and listen to them read the book in question. I went back outside to play basketball before it got dark. I told a black kid how to hop the fence because it was after five o'clock. I shot with him until it was dark. I asked about his life, and he claimed to be the MVP of the NYC Private School Athletic Association as a sophomore. I didn't necessarily believe him, but he was very good. I googled him this morning, and it turns out he is a good player for the JV team, but not Varsity. I went in and had missed calls to meet a friend for dinner. I took a shower. I read more of the book-banning book. I went and bought lunch meat and wheat bread at the organic grocery store. I thought about watching The Wire or a netflix movie. I chose to read a different book, 1919. I messed around on the computer until midnight. I went to bed and slept well.

I had a big day off.

OSCAR THOUGHTS FROM A DUDE WHO MATTERS

A lot of people will be chiming in with their thoughts on the 80th Academy Awards, so I thought I'd better join their ranks in case there's a party or a club. Normally I don't enjoy the Oscars, but this time around I was a little psyched because it was a great year for "mainstream" Hollywood movies, and I felt that, by and large, the best were nominated. It's easier to write a bunch of bullet points than to pen a cohesive piece, so here we go... *Armed with a tube of cookie dough and a six-pack of Dogfish Head "Raison D'Etre" beer, ("Reason For Being" - a great name for alcohol), I settled in at 7:30 to catch some of the pre-show hoopla. Fifteen minutes later, my step-dad called, and we yelled and cursed about Duke basketball right up to the broadcast. Summary: Nolan Smith should replace Slow Whitey, aka Greg Paulus, at the point. *Jon Stewart is a great host. My favorite one-liner came when he noted that even Norbit had earned a nomination. "I think it's great. Too often, the Academy ignores movies that aren't good." *I caught snippets of Barbara Walters' pre-show interviews. She is a smug, preaching, self-satisfied woman. I hope I spelled her first name wrong. *Going in to the show, I thought the Most Obvious award was Daniel Day-Lewis for best actor. But as the musical nominees were performed over the course of three hours, that honor was transferred to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for "Falling Slowly" from Once. It was so clearly superior to the other four songs that I would have been irrationally angry if they'd lost. At that point, I was on Raison D'Etre number four. Also, they couldn't find anything better than the three, count 'em three, songs from Enchanted? Each one was a lame-o 1950s cookie cutter show tune. And I like Amy Adams- she's beautiful and apparently talented- but it's got to be embarrassing to sing that "Happy Working Song" in front of anything but a room full of five year-olds. That performance narrowly beat out the adoring gaze of Cormac McCarthy's son for "Most Uncomfortable Moment." When the folks from Once won the Oscar, though, it was one of the night's best moments. Gotta love seeing the Irish take a prize, and they seemed genuinely thrilled to be there. My Gaelic heart thumped with pride to hear the brogue-ish "Tanks" on film's biggest stage. It also led to one of Stewart's funniest quips of the night- "Man, that guy was so arrogant"- and a classy gesture when he brought Marketa back out after the break to say her thank-yous. *Nice to see Javier Bardem take the inevitable Supporting Actor prize. I'm not quite sure how the role of Anton Chigurh is considered a supporting actor and not one of the two male leads, but so be it. I got a few goosebumps when he spoke to his mother in Spanish. Then I wiped some cookie dough off my shirt. *The best non-Oscar moment of the night came from an unlikely source- a JCPenney's commercial. The ad was introducing a new line of clothing for dudes who forget to take the tag off their jeans, but the song caught my attention immediately. It was a beautiful folk-ish tune with great harmony between male and female voices. I looked it up online, and it turned out to be a cover of a song called "Killing the Blues" by country-music legend John Prine. The collaborating artists are Allison Krauss of Union Station fame, whose voice I've loved since O Brother Where Art Thou, and former Led Zeppelin (edit for KQE: LEGENDARY) front man Robert Plant. Apparently these two released an album together in October. Who knew? Anyway, I downloaded the song and it lives up to its billing and then some. I hate to describe music, since you can't experience it any way but the right way, so I'll just say that if you want the song, leave a comment with your e-mail and I can send it to you. On first listen, the rest of the album sounds pretty good too. *Anybody else sick of movies about rich people, past or present, in England? How much mileage can we get from the make-emotions-seem-more-profound-since-they're-coming -from-an-obnoxiously-repressed-culture formula? And on that note, what the hell is Woody Allen's problem? His bread and butter is making movies about neurotic Jewish people in New York. I'm not saying an artist shouldn't branch out, but it's hard to watch the ongoing train wreck of his murder-obsessed British period. The ghost scene in Match Point, to take one example, is one of the worst ham-fisted moments in cinema, and it's hard to imagine the guy who made Annie Hall and Manhattan stooping to that level. *Tilda Swinton is weird. I want to have tea at her home. I want her to silently judge me from across a table littered with controversial objects she dares me to comment on. I want to kiss her and have her bite me hard on the lower lip, and when I step back and say "wha-", she is already walking away. I want to try in vain to decipher her poetic non-sequiturs at a fountain in the middle of America. She will only smile and twirl in the wind, and when I least expect it, she will push me into the fountain and leap in after me. Her striking red hair will splay out in the water, and she will whisper "I am a Naiad." She will leave me at a Greyhound bus station in Cleveland, wearing a white dress she bought from a runaway bride in Toledo. Tilda Swinton is weird. *I think Marion Cotillard won by default this year. I'm not saying she wasn't great. I didn't see La Vie en Rose, but I heard excellent things. It's just that I can't imagine a French actress winning the award for a French movie in a year where there was a legitimate American contender. Who was her competition this year? Nobody was going to pick Ellen Page, good as she was. Too young. Laura Linney played herself, as usual, in The Savages. Effective, but not Best Actress material. Elizabeth: The Golden Age was a bad movie, so forget Cate Blanchett. I was hoping Julie Christie, one of my favorite actresses from the golden decade (70s) of American film, would win, but her movie was a low-profile Canadian affair that didn't stand much of a chance. Good for Marion and all, but I'd say she's the beneficiary of a bad year for leading ladies. *Diablo Cody. Jesus. How could this award happen? I'm not even someone who hates Juno. I thought Jason Reitman, the director, had an amazingly deft touch. I liked the music. I liked the acting. I'll even admit that after a while, parts affected me. But the movie's weakness, which everybody knew, was the too-hip-for-its-own-good writing. It makes you cringe at times with its smarmy, pop-intellectual tone. Like I said, the story is good, the film ended up being okay, and its possible to get over the dialogue if you come in with an open mind and stick it out. But an Oscar for Best Screenplay? Come on. Tony Gilroy wrote one of the best suspense thrillers I've ever seen in Michael Clayton. It was smart, topical, compelling, etc. It had terrific characters. It was a showcase in superb film writing. He was in a different class, and this was the worst screw-job of the night. I like Diablo, and it was cool to see someone so unconventional win an award, but I can't say it was deserved. *Daniel Day-Lewis. What more can you say? To think that the guy who accepted that award, the soft-spoken Englishman with two earrings and a gentle bearing, was the guy who played Daniel Plainview...unbelievable. It's one of the best performances we'll ever see in a film. *And to cap off the night, in the long-standing Oscar tradition, a filmmaker (or in this case two) gets rewarded for work they've done in the past. No Country For Old Men was a strong movie. There's no denying it. Chigurh is one of the best eerie characters ever, and the Coens stuck to their guns with Cormac's death-morality metaphor. I saw it twice in theaters, and liked it even better the second time. But There Will Be Blood is a classic, a once-in-a-lifetime effort that combines an excellent script, excellent directing, and excellent performances. Watching it on the big screen was like a revelation. Hollywood films are inundated with hype, and sometimes, as a moviegoer, it's impossible not to feel numb to the whole process. Then you see a phenomenal work of art like this, and, corny as it sounds, the idea of film's potential hits you like a hammer. P.T. Anderson made a movie that defied the various diseases plaguing American cinema, and rose to a level that can't be called anything but stunning. It's something that Joel and Ethan Coen have done before, but it's not something they did this year. When they announced Best Director, I watched P.T. Anderson in the split screen. To his credit, he kept his smile, but there was a slight grimace, and you could see the hurt, subtle as it was, pervading his expression. Here's a guy, a true talent, who went out and made the movie of his life. Anyone who's ever tried to put together something as small as a five-minute short knows how challenging filmmaking can be, how many problems you have to overcome, and how improbable it is to have any kind of result at all. But P.T. Anderson did it. From nothing but an old book by Upton Sinclair, he wrote, directed, and produced the best picture of the year. For his troubles, he went home empty-handed. In three or five or eight or ten years, he'll probably win Best Director or Best Picture for a film that doesn't reach the same plateau. That's just how it works. But he wasn't recognized this year, and it's a shame. So them's the Oscars. I had a good time, I must say. I hope you did too. Have a nice week. Be safe.

Ideas

In gym class in elementary school, they taught us how to keep score in bowling.

Why is there no standing long jump event in the Olympics?

It's impossible to succeed in life with the first name Brad (this can be empirically proven).

If you take an extra blanket, roll it up until it is roughly in the form of a human, and spoon with it while pretending that it is a woman, you are pathetic.

Crowds love me.

A monk is a person you have to admire. There isn't a way around it.

David Denby in his article on the Coen Brothers insinuated that it was far-fetched for Llewelyn Moss to return to the scene of his crime just to offer a dying man a drink of water in No Country For Old Men. In fact, he was returning at night with the jug of water to wipe his fingerprints from the door handles he had touched in order to cover his tracks. David Denby is a film critic for The New Yorker, and should not make this kind of stupid mistake.

I'm starting a softball team, and I'd like to guarantee that we'll go undefeated.

Nobody can stop thinking about Barack Obama.

They say 3/4 of the Earth is ocean. But, what percentage of the ocean is salt? And isn't salt considered "land," since it's a solid? A salt mine, for example, you would consider land. We need to check on this.

If you pick ten people to ask on dates, how many will say yes, and, of those, how many will it be possible to marry? Answer: it all depends.

"Grab the brass ring" is a phrase that comes from carousels. It may be the only one. Unless you count "merry-go-round" as a phrase, which I guess it is.

Time is an idea, but it's also a thing. In that sense, it's like karma. But if I told you that karma was the Buddhist word for time, I'd be lying. Then I'd have wasted time and invited bad karma on myself. See how the world works? It's confusing, and that's why only people who hate themselves care about things like philosophy.

Owning Part 12

Brian makes his second appearance in the "Jes mindin' mah bisness, bein' a citizen, gettin' owned on g-chat" section of the blog, and goes down in history as the first person to get owned in two lines:


Brian: You like The Concretes?

Me: No, I prefer Pavement.


















OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(people running around yelling, waving hands above their heads, pumping fists and grinning)









Someone get that sumbitch a fat piece of corn on the sob.

Another G-Chat Owning

I was in my sixth hour of g-chat browsing today when I came across the following status message from a fellow on my list:

"I've got more game than a wildlife preserve."


If you're a big fan of wildlife preserves, like me, the absurdity of this statement is immediately evident. These areas are designated to protect animals. The term "game" refers to animals that can legally be hunted, of which there are none on a preserve.

In effect, this person was saying that they had no game. What folly! I informed him in no uncertain terms:


Me: a wildlife preserve is for the conservation of animal and plant species
Me: therefore the animals aren't "game"
Me: because they can't be hunted
Me: you just dissed yourself

Him: to you maybe

Me: this is my greatest g-chat triumph yet

Him: cool man
Him: live the life








Someone get that bastard a bawling card.

(so he can phone long distance to his mommmmmmmyyyy)

I've always gotten along better with guys than girls

I don't watch a lot of television, but last week I watched the semi-finals of American Gladiators. My mother and I had a little tradition of watching the old reruns on the USA Network during summers when I was young. She'd go to work after and I'd try to go running or get a baseball game together or agonize over having to mow the lawn. But the morning hour from 10-11 was probably the best part of the day.

If you'd told me a year ago that they'd bring it back, I could have told you just how they'd fuck it up. The flashing lights, pounding music, drastic camera angles, mile-a-minute cuts, stupid choreographed screaming crowd. All the futuristic crap that some moron producer thought would appeal to a modern audience. It's the same wrong idea that makes bad filmmakers think that 100 years from now, the most popular sport will be RocketLaunchMoonBallExtreme. Nope. It'll still be football basketball baseball soccer golf tennis. And it's because those sports are timeless, and if they're complex, it's only a complexity that's laid on a simple frame, and so the complexity becomes elegant.

Anyway, the new AG is about 8 levels beneath the original version, but it's still okay to watch because the concept is great.

Here's what they've done right:

1) Keeping Assault. This was by far the greatest game on the original, and it's still the best. There's something primitive and awesome about having to dodge the projectiles of an overlord while you scurry between protective boundaries and try to take him out with a lucky shot. It's the ultimate underdog game. When I was a kid staying at my dad's for the weekend one winter, we set this game up in the front yard. It had just snowed, and it was packy, so we built a series of boundaries in a zig-zag pattern. Each one had a single snowball behind it. Then my dad had his station, in front of a garbage can, with thirty or so snowballs stacked up. I had to run between the snow walls while he tried to pelt me, and if I hit the garbage can I won. Some of the most fun I've had. At the same time, this game is hilarious. You have this huge gladiator, probably on steroids, posing and posturing and talking shit and being all physical, and when the game starts, he's behind a gun. It completely nullifies any strength he has, and you could bring in any random redneck who's hunted his whole life to do a better job. It's the only AG game like that.

2) Having the Gladiator shot backward into the water if he/she loses at Assault. Fucking awesome.

3) The water motif in general. Great call.


Here's what they've done wrong, and how to improve it:

1) Making the Gladiators into posturing villain types. Listening to these idiots make puns on their own names gets old about halfway through the first time. Nobody wants that. It just makes the Gladiators look ridiculous.

How to fix it: Give the Gladiators masks and don't let them talk. Think about it. How badass would it be if you never saw a Gladiator's face, or heard him speak? It would add an amazing element of mystery, and would make them ten times more terrifying. Instead, we have to listen to shit like "JUSTICE IS ABOUT TO BE SERVED," and think "oh, I see, he's just a moron."

Additional idea: Have a Gladiator coach. A small, brooding, mysterious figure in a suit. When a Gladiator wins, he walks through a tunnel back to Gladiator base, and the coach gives a little nod. When a Gladiator loses, he walks back with his head slumped, facing the coach's withering gaze. Basically, I want the Gladiators to be like my idea of sports teams in the old Soviet Union.

Also, before each event, the coach looks at a clipboard in front of the tunnel, then turns and gives a secret signal, indicating which Gladiator he wants. Then, boom, the music starts and Titan runs through the tunnel. This would make it more personal, like the Gladiators were really a team who wanted to defeat the contenders at every event, and not just a bunch of individuals who would talk some shit but not really care if they lost.

2) Speaking of music: the loud blaring rock that plays after every event is completely ineffective. So are the swooping shots of the audience giving the thumbs-down in rhythm to the beat. Watching some grinning disney-land dad cheer with his two spoiled kids is the exact opposite of badass.

How to fix it: Give each Gladiator specialized introduction music. Sure, some could be rock, but there could be variety. As my friend Brandon once told me, for example, the best serial killers always listen to classical music. Imagine if you had a Gladiator strutting out to Bach while some contender stood shaking on the Joust platform. That's scary shit. It gets psychological. Also, the audience should be audible only. Black them out. They should be trying to re-create the howling masses of the original Coliseum, and showing the actual crowd makes it painfully clear that it's onlay a bunch of over-fed Americans.

3) Gladiator names. Boring, predictable.

How to fix it: Instead of the usual fare of Titan, Siren, Venom, Justice, etc., how about something that personalizes them a little more? What about Gladiators from different nationalities? What about identifying characteristics? Couldn't you have a Gladiator called Saint Christopher, who wears a cross around his neck and a long white cloak? Or one from Samoa who does a tribal dance before every event? (editor's note: apparently they have this. oops.) The closest we come now is Wolf, who has his howl, and Helga, who I guess is from Germany.

Another great idea is to have Gladiators specifically suited to each event. Like one called "The Spider" who is ridiculously fast on the wall, or "Tarzan," who dominates the rings. Or, like I said before, a redneck type called "The Sniper" behind the gun in Assault. The downside to this is that it'd be really tough for the contender to ever win.

Additional idea: "The Sniper" could have a hunting dog with him. Actually, every Gladiator could have an animal. I want one called "The Shepherd" who wears tattered clothing and leads around a lamb.

4) Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali. Completely unnecessary. They add nothing.

How to fix it: Have a single, unobtrusive host. Someone out of the Jeff Probst from Survivor mold. The host is not the show, and all their bits are just designed to waste time. I do, however, like the fat referee. It's one of those inexplicable decisions that gives a show character.

5) Interviews with contenders. Over-talky, useless. More times than not, they make me dislike the contender.

How to fix it: Show two heavily produced bios at the beginning that make the contender seem likeable. Show them at home, doing their thing, helping kids, training, whatever. Do NOT interview them during the show. I hate that for the same reasons I hate interviewing football coaches as they jog to the locker room at halftime, or baseball managers in the dug-out in the fourth inning. It's even worse for a contender, because they're actually playing. They should be focused completely on the task at hand, and it spoils the tension of competition to get their thoughts on every single aspect of what they go through in the arena. That shit is sacred.

6) Only five events.

How to fix it: They have eight events to work with. Use all eight. There's definitely enough time, even with commercials. If they cut all the interviews and the posturing and the crowd shots, they could roll through, and it would be better. More people would watch.

7) The Gauntlet. Stupid event. New, I think.

How to fix it: This is where a contender tries to run through a narrow alley and reach the end line while being shoved and pinned by Gladiators with mats. There's zero sophistication to the game. It's a football drill. Get rid of it.

Instead, bring back the game where you jump on a rope and grab balls from the hanging pod at the center! That was great! Also, the roller ball game where you move inside huge spheres and try to settle on a pod while the Gladiator tries to knock you off. Those two games were clearly hatched from the mind of a demented genius! And they replaced them with the fucking Gauntlet? Come on!

Basically, it comes down to substance and personality over empty style. By catering to their notion of what America is like, the idiotic writers and producers created a boring, predictable show full of masculine cliches. What people really want is something mysterious and original. And American Gladiators isn't a show like Arrested Development where that kind of originality would hamper its chances; it has a basis of competition, which everyone can relate to, and was already popular years ago.

Viewers need to feel that real victory is at stake. By distancing the contenders and Gladiators, and creating an atmosphere of mystical, almost cabalistic gloom, the perceived triumph is greater. That's how you make American Gladiators great.