Who Sang For Davey Moore?

Davey Moore's father was the pastor at the Jesus Only church in Urbania, Ohio. The Jesus Only church was a Pentecostal group asserting the primacy of Jesus at the expense of the Trinitarian theology that was - and continues - to be the norm in Christianity. Rather than baptising in the name of "The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," Moore's father put all his faith in the Son.

From April 1957 through in St. Patrick's Day 1960, the pastor's son certainly seemed infallible. He ran off an 18-fight undefeated streak as a boxer, picking up the Featherweight world title along the way by upsetting Hogan "Kid" Bassey in March 1959 in Los Angeles.

Just five decisions into his win streak in early 1958, Moore was described by Sports Illustrated boxing scribe Gilbert Rogin, in not entirely complimentary fashion, as “a chunky, clubfighter who punches solidly but does not always maintain the pace.” By the time he defeated Bassey the following year, Moore's profile had risen and his notices were much more favorable. Dubbed "the Springfield Rifle" for his place of residence and for his bullet-strong punches, boxing writers and fans gravitated toward Moore, the rare American excelling in the Featherweight division, where fighters cannot weigh more than 126 pounds.

During Moore's career, the division was populated mostly by Hispanic and European fighters. Bassey hailed from Nigeria, and was the country's first boxing champion. The polyglot composition of the Featherweight ranks had Moore traveling the world to find fights. Not one to duck an opponent, Moore had unseated Bassey with infected tonsils and a 101 degree fever. After granting Bassey a chance to regain the top spot in the Featherweight division, Moore successfully defended his title an additional four times (while taking and winning many non-title bouts along the way).

Moore won a title decision over Kazuo Takayama in Tokyo in 1960. He then knocked out Danny Valdez in the first round in Mexico to keep the crown in April 1960 in Los Angeles and before winning a unanimous decision over Takayama in a return to Tokyo later that year to keep the world title. After a pummeling left-right combination to the jaw left Takayama essentially out on his feet in the thirteenth, Moore eased up in the last two rounds with the triumph assured and his foe visibly dazed. In August 1962, Moore again put his championship on the line against Olli Maki in Helsinki, Finland (where he had participated in the 1952 Olympics). He stopped Maki by TKO with three knockdowns in the second round.

By the time that the 29-year-old Moore climbed through the ropes of the ring situated above the pitcher's mound at Dodger Stadium on March 21, 1963, he had amassed a career record of 59-6-1. The WBC and the WBA Featherweight titles were on the line back in Los Angeles as were world titles in two other weight classes. It was big night for boxing in one of America's newest sporting venues, which had opened up less than a year earlier in Chavez Ravine. The opening fight paired welterweight champ Emile Griffith against No. 1 contender Luis Rodriguez. Griffith had regained that title a year earlier in a match at Madison Square Garden in which he inflicted mortal injuries on his opponent, Benny Paret. The death of a prominent fighter in a prominent fight that was televised nationally on NBC brought down a firestorm of criticism on the sport, with many seeking to ban it altogether.


In the opening match of the tripleheader, Rodriguez relieved Griffith of the welterweight crown, to the delight of the largely Spanish-speaking crowd, some of whom were likely displaced as the Dodgers bought out Chavez Ravine residents in advance of building their new home. Up next, Moore and Ultimo "Sugar" Ramos, a Cuban fighter by way of Mexico, took center stage.


The 21-year-old challenger started timidly against the established champion but grew into the match to the delight of the partisan crowd. Moore rocked his younger pursuer in the second round with a combination of punches but the crowds chants of RA-MOS, RA-MOS seemed to keep his feet beneath him. Thanks to a rapid-fire left jab, Ramos loosened several of Moore's teeth and shattered his mouth guard. For his part, Moore's right hand would pummel Ramos, swelling one of his eyes. Ramos' assault culminated in the 10th round, when series of upper cuts forced Moore across the mat to the ropes on the center-field side of the ring. Once his retreat route was hemmed in by the ropes, Ramos landed a left hook that knocked Moore to the seat of his shorts. As he fell, his head snapped back against the lower rope. Referee George Latka quickly approached Moore and began his 10-count. The battered but proud champ was up by the time Latka reached three. He returned to his corner after the bell sounded the conclusion of the 10th round. Before the 11th began, Moore's manager Willie Ketchum signaled that his fighter was done for the night.

Fully under his own power, Moore trudged to his locker room, where he chatted amiably with the press. Aside from a bloodshot left eye, he hardly looked like a man who'd had to throw in the towel a full five rounds before the fight was scheduled to be over. Defeated but not deflated, Moore told reporters "I'll take the rematch, you better believe it. Look, you guys know that when I'm right nothing gets to me. Not nothing. I was off. That's it. plain and simple."

Moore would go on to laugh and joke with reporters: "Just like you writers, if you'd only admit it. Can't write a lick some days. Well, that was me tonight. I just wasn't up to my best."

To the press, the 5-foot-2 Moore may have sounded like an aging fighter trying to explain away his inevitable decline like so many fighters before and since. After all, Father Time remains undefeated in all weight classes. When those reporters rushed back to their ringside seats for the third bout of the evening, they may not have believed that Moore would regain his belt from Ramos, but they likely believed that they would be there to see him try. And they certainly didn't expect that he was about to die.

Shortly after Moore was left alone with Ketchum and sparring partner Ronnie Wilson, he began experiencing sharp headaches. He called for his manager. Moments later, he collapsed into a coma. Seventy-five hours after the fight he was dead at White Memorial Hospital. The cause of death was massive trauma to the brain stem, presumably suffered when the back of his head hit the bottom the rope in the 10th round.

California Governor Pat Brown seized on Moore's death to (again) call for the abolition of boxing. Even the Pope spoke out, proclaiming the sweet science was "contrary to natural principles." Of course, most people were convinced that boxing was actually too close to the sort of base and violent natural principles that English philosopher Thomas Hobbes laid out in Leviathan. One of the voices that rang out in the aftermath of Moore's death belonged to a young folk singer named Bob Dylan, who wrote and performed a song entitled "Who Killed Davey Moore?"

The song was never on any of Dylan's officially released albums during the 1960s but was an occasional part of his live act. When introducing it to a crowd in New York on Halloween 1964, Dylan, in prototypical ironic fashion, said:

"This a song about a boxer...
It's got nothing to do with boxing, it's just a song about a boxer really.
And, uh, it's not even having to do with a boxer, really.
It's got nothing to do with nothing.
But I fit all these words together...
that's all...
It's taken directly from the newspapers,
Nothing's been changed...
Except for the words."

The prominence of topical songs during the 1950s and '60s and in Dylan's early folk/protest work made such a subject far less unusual than it might seem from the distance of nearly 50 years. Because other than Tom Morello, formerly of Rage Against the Machine and now of The Nightwatchman, I can't fathom any serious contemporary musician devoting an entire song (and space in their setlist) to asking "Who Killed Dave Duerson?"

"Who Killed Davey Moore?" by Bob Dylan:

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not I,” says the referee
“Don’t point your finger at me
I could’ve stopped it in the eighth
An’ maybe kept him from his fate
But the crowd would’ve booed, I’m sure
At not gettin’ their money’s worth
It’s too bad he had to go
But there was a pressure on me too, you know
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not us,” says the angry crowd
Whose screams filled the arena loud
“It’s too bad he died that night
But we just like to see a fight
We didn’t mean for him t’ meet his death
We just meant to see some sweat
There ain’t nothing wrong in that
It wasn’t us that made him fall
No, you can’t blame us at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says his manager
Puffing on a big cigar
“It’s hard to say, it’s hard to tell
I always thought that he was well
It’s too bad for his wife an’ kids he’s dead
But if he was sick, he should’ve said
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the gambling man
With his ticket stub still in his hand
“It wasn’t me that knocked him down
My hands never touched him none
I didn’t commit no ugly sin
Anyway, I put money on him to win
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the boxing writer
Pounding print on his old typewriter
Sayin’, “Boxing ain’t to blame
There’s just as much danger in a football game”
Sayin’, “Fistfighting is here to stay
It’s just the old American way
It wasn’t me that made him fall
No, you can’t blame me at all”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the man whose fists
Laid him low in a cloud of mist
Who came here from Cuba’s door
Where boxing ain’t allowed no more
“I hit him, yes, it’s true
But that’s what I am paid to do
Don’t say ‘murder,’ don’t say ‘kill’
It was destiny, it was God’s will”

Who killed Davey Moore
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

(Happy 70th birthday, Bob)

Biggie and the Unnamed Knicks Cuckold

It was 14 years ago today that Brooklyn-born hip hop juggernaut Christopher Wallace - better known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G. - was killed in Los Angeles. A tuxedo-wearing gunman in a Chevy Impala pulled alongside the Suburban ferrying Biggie and opened fire. Riding in the passenger seat of that 'burb, the drug dealer turned wordsmith was killed. Despite the fact that a whole lot of people thought they knew who was behind the shooting, the murder was never solved by the LAPD, and is actually still being investigated on the Left Coast.

All these years later, the vivid street narratives in Born to Die and Life After Death remain poignant and surprisingly fresh. At turns angry, hilarious and vulnerable, Biggie has got songs for all seasons. And even one about banging the girl of a player on the New York Knicks. The last song on the first disc of Life After Death, "I've Got A Story to Tell," details what happens when Big's liaison with the lady of Knicks player at that fellow's crib is interrupted by the player returning home from a game against the Utah Jazz, who were fittingly in town the other night. Surprisingly, hilarity, not violence, ensues. Well, there is a robbery and there are threats of violence. But it's funny. Really funny.

Who y'all talkin to man?
Uhh
Check it out, check it out
This here goes out
to all the niggaz that be fuckin mad bitches
in other niggaz cribs
thinkin shit is sweet
Nigga creep up on your ass, hahaha
Live niggaz respect it, check it

I kick flows for ya, kick down doors for ya
Even left all my motherfuckin hoes for ya
Niggaz think Frankie pussy whipped, nigga picture that
With a Kodak, Insta-ma-tak
We don't get down like that, lay my game down quite flat
Sweetness, where you parked at?
Petiteness but that ass fat
She got a body make a nigga wanna eat that, I'm fuckin witchu
The bitch official doe, dick harder than a missile yo
Try to hit if she trippin dissapearin like Arsenio
Yo, the bitch push a double-oh
with the five in front, probably a connivin stunt
Y'all drive in front, I'm a peel with her
Find a deal with her, she fuck around and steal, huh?
Then we all get laced
Television's, Versacci heaven, when I'm up in em
The shit she kicked, all the shit's legit
She get dick from a player off the New York Knicks
Nigga tricked ridiculous, the shit was plush
She's stressin me to fuck, like she was in a rush
We fucked in his bed, quite dangerous
I'm in his ass while he playin gainst the Utah Jazz
My 112, CD blast, I was past
She came twice I came last, roll the grass
She giggle, sayin i'm smokin on homegrown
Then I heard her moan, honey I'm home
Yep, tote chrome for situations like this
I'm up in his broad I know he won't like this
Now I'm like bitch you better talk to him
Before this fist put a spark to him
Fuck around shit get dark to him, put a part through him
Lose a major part to him, arm, leg
She beggin me to stop but this cat gettin closer
Gettin hot like a toaster, I cocks the toast, uhh
Before my eyes could blink
She screams out, "Honey bring me up somethin to drink!"
He go back downstairs more time to think
Her brain racin, she's tellin me to stay patient
She don't know I'm, cool as a fan
Gat in hand, I don't wanna blast her man
But I can and I will doe, I probably chill doe
Even though situation lookin kinda ill yo
It came to me like a song I wrote
Told the bitch gimme your scarf, pillowcase and rope
Got dressed quick, tied the scarf around my face
Roped the bitch up, gagged her mouth with the pillowcase
Play the cut, nigga comin off some love potion shit
Flash the heat on em, he stood emotionless
Dropped the glass screamin, "Don't blast here's the stash,
a hundred cash just don't shoot my ass, please!"
Nigga pullin mad G's out the floor
Put stacks in a Prada knapsack, hit the door
Grab the keys to the five, call my niggaz on the cell
Bring some weed I got a story to tell, uhh...

Yo man, y'all niggaz ain't gonna believe what the fuck happened to me.
Remember that bitch I left the club with man? Yo, freaky yo. I'm up in
this bitch playa this bitch fuckin run them ol mink ass niggaz and shit,
I'm up in the spot though. One of them six-five niggaz, I don't know.
Anyway I'm up in the motherfuckin spot, so boom I'm up in the pussy,
whatever whatever. I sparks up some lye, Pop Duke creeps up in on some,
must have been rained out or something *laughing* because he's in the
spot. Had me scared, had me scared, I was shook Daddy - but I forget I
had my Roscoe on me. Always. You know how we do. So anyway the nigga
comes up the stairs, he creepin up the steps, the bitch all shook she
sends the nigga back downstairs to get some drinks and shit. She gettin
mad nervous, I said fuck that man! I'm the nigga, you know how we do it
nigga, ransom note style put the scarf around my motherfuckin face,
gagged that bitch up, played the kizzack. Soon this nigga comes up in
the spot, flash the Desert in his face he drops the glass. Looked like
the nigga pissed on his-self or somethin, word to mother! Ahh fuckit
this nigga runs dead to the floor, peels up the carpet, start givin me
mad papers, mad papers. (I told you that bitch was a shiesty bitch cuz!
Word to mother I used to fuck her cousin but you ain't know that! Hahaha.
You wouldn't know that shit. Really though.) I threw all that
motherfuckin money up in the Prada knapsack. Two words, I'm gone!
(No doubt, no doubt... no doubt!) Yo nigga got some lye, y'all got
some lye? [conversation fades out]

While the anonymous cuckolded Knickerbocker is likely just a stand-in for the stereotypical ideals of straight-laced, milk-drinking masculinity that this overweight, black market superstar was trying to supersede, I did like to wonder who the gal would have been if the story had been true. Usually, I'd just assume that, Big was banging the wife of Charles Smith. A Connecticut-born college graduate who was well paid but little respected on the block (or at my suburban middle school). Smith's four misses in the waning moments of Game 5 of the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals were still an open wound in this town during the period when the song was likely recorded.



Life After Death was released shortly after Biggie's death in March 1997, but it was, according to my extensive Wikipedia research, originally slated for release on Halloween in 1996. An autumn '96 on-sale would have meant that most of the songs were likely written and recorded during the three-year window between September 1994 when Ready to Die dropped and the start of the 1996–1997 NBA season. Although the Knicks' roster was fairly stable during that span, the only clues that we have about the 'bocker from the song is that he was scared and that he kept a stash of cash in a Prada bag beneath the floor of his bedroom. He's also described as "one of them six-five niggaz," which likely rules out the 6' 10" Smith. Despite the scars I carry from Charles Smith's time with the Knicks' I'm going to say that he simply doesn't fit the description.

1994–1997 New York Knicks
Patrick Ewing 1994–1997
John Starks 1994–1997
Charles Smith 1994–1996
Derek Harper 1994–1996
Hubert Davis 1994–1996
Anthony Mason 1994–1996
Charles Oakley 1994–1997
Greg Anthony 1994–1995
Anthony Bonner 1994–1995
Herb Williams 1994–1995
Monty Williams 1994–1995
Doc Rivers 1994
Charlie Ward 1994–1997
Doug Christie 1994–1995
Ron Grandison 1994-1996
Greg Kite 1994–1995
J.R.Reid 1995–1996
Gary Grant 1995–1996
Brad Lohaus 1995–1996
Willie Anderson 1995–1996
Matt Fish 1995–1996
Scott Brooks 1996–1997
Chris Childs 1996–1997
Allan Houston 1996–1997
Larry Johnson 1996–1997
Buck Williams 1996–1997
Walter McCarty 1996–1997
Chris Jent 1996–1997

First, I think we can rule out the handful of white guys that played on the team since I believe it would have been noted explicitly in the lyrics if this dude was white. Next, I'd eliminate Ewing, Oakley and Mason. Mostly, because they are all too tall, but also because I think this situation ends with a murder if Oak or Mase are involved. Also, Rita Ewing ain't playing like that if it's going to jeopardize her settlement in the divorce. The Ewings also lived in New Jersey. Third, I'd tend toward knocking the older players like Herb Williams and Buck Williams from the list as they're likely married to women too old to end up in bed with a young rapper who they met at a club. Those veterans also probably would have had kids in the house. The next to go would be the itinerant players who only had a cup of coffee with the team during that span. Please move along Gary Grant, J.R. Reid, Greg Kite, Ron Grandison and company. After removing all those guys we're left with a group of young players and a few veterans, that includes Starks, Childs, Davis, Bonner, Ward, Christie, Houston and McCarty.

Of these candidates, I'd think that the religious Houston and Ward would have quoted scripture when faced with such a situation and that Biggie would have mocked them for it. More importantly perhaps, those Christian brothers didn't arrive in town until the very end of the window during which the song could have been written. Same goes for LJ (who is probably closer to being 6'5" then whatever he was listed as during his playing days), Bonner, Childs and McCarty. So I'm going to say that they weren't in town long enough to qualify. Elementary, my dear Diddy.

That leaves us with three likeliest candidates: Davis, Starks and Christie. Davis and Starks are both listed at 6 feet and 5 inches tall while Christie is just an inch taller. They all fit the bill. It's possible that Starks' nightmarish 1994 NBA Finals was brought about by having been "robbed" by Smalls at his home, and the former grocery store clerk does seem like the type that might have kept his money stashed in bags rather than banks. Of course, I see Starks opting for a plastic bag if given the "Prada or plastic?" choice. Now, knowing what we now know about Christie's wife, Jackie, he seems a darkhorse candidate. Lastly, Davis is the college-educated All-American sort that seems a candidate to have a Prada bag and to not stand up for himself. Such measured cowardice is the wise play, of course, which is why it may potentially rule out Starks. This a complicated case with a lot of ins, outs and what have you. Among the many unsolved mysteries surrounding this fallen icon, is the identity of the player that begged Biggie not to shoot his ass.

Bieb Ain't A Part of It

As you may have already heard elsewhere around the Interwebs, teen pop sensation Justin Beiber, who sports fans may remember for A) inspiring New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's 2010 hairdo and B) sporting both San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers gear in some bizarre music video that FOX forced on us during the 2010 World Series was mercilessly booed at Madison Square Garden last night during the Knicks loss to the visiting Mavericks.

Although I'd like to think that I'm hip to what the kids are listening to on their Iberries and Facespaces, I don't think that I'd come face to bangs with the Bieb until that World Series promo video. I'd heard the name before that, mostly in reference to Brady, but was, and actually still am, unfamiliar with it is exactly he does here.

In any case, getting shown on the big screen can be tricky business. Just a few weeks ago, Ethan Hawke was greeted with an apathetic silence during the Knicks-Suns MLK day matinee. It was awkward for him. Awkward for us. Just weird all around. A New Yorker whose wife played soccer on a team with my sister at Chelsea Piers, Hawke was at the game with his kid, and, unlike Bieber, he probably hadn't had the courtside seat booked by a publicist in some attempt to raise his profile among males aged 24-39.

Although Frank Sinatra sang "if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, it's up to you, New York, New York," I'm pretty sure that this kid will probably keep doing just fine for himself without making it here. By doing whatever it is that he does.

Holding Steady

As if reciting her lines from a Noah Baumbach script, the twenty-something brunette gal behind the bar at Spike Hill, the Irish pub on Bedford in Williamsburg, informed me that she hadn't owned a television in, like, four years when I asked her if we could tune the television in the corner of the bar to the in-progress Knicks game. I told her that me and my brother would like to watch the game all the same and, after restating her lack of television understanding, loudly, for the sake of the waifish, western-shirt wearing couple at the end of the bar, she handed me the remote. Thankfully, the bar has DirecTV. Which meant that we had to look no further than channel 634.

While I have been known to pilot a ramshackle, co-ed fast break on blacktop in Greenpoint during the summer, I don't make a habit of traveling to Kings County to watch hoops. And I wasn't really there last night for basketball. I had traversed two rivers to catch The Hold Steady in concert. The Brooklyn-based (but not raised) band was playing two sold-out shows at the cozy Music Hall of Williamsburg (which was called Northsix back when the band first played there several years ago) as a warm-up before crossing the Atlantic for a run of UK shows before then heading down to Australia to feature prominently in some large festivals.

When the boys return from abroad they'll be playing at the much larger Terminal 5 in Manhattan. From there, one only imagines that they continue on to larger and larger venues until calling it quits. For all people not actively meh-ing everything in the comments section over at Brooklynvegan.com, these MHOW shows were a big deal. They smelled of rich mahogany and sold out within a matter of minutes. Me and one of my brothers were lucky enough to have a pair of tickets. Which is what brought us to Hipster HQ in the first place.

According to our tickets, the doors to the venue opened at 8 pm, which was approximately the time that we embedded parked the car in a snow bank on N. 5th Street between Bedford and Driggs. It was nearly halftime when we ordered our first round of PBR tallboys (when in Rome...) at the bar. Having no interest in seeing the opening band, we ordered dinner and another round of drinks as Charlie Villanueva staked the Pistons to a two-point lead heading into halftime at the Garden.

"Let's just see the score at the end of the third quarter," I said as the second half of the Knicks-Pistons game got underway and the second round of PBRs gave way to the third. "As long as we get to the show by 9:30 then everything should be fine."

Based on several memories and on zero research, it feels like the Knicks have hosted the Pistons on a Sunday thrice per season each season ad infinitum; and that most of those games were matinees in which the Knicks beat (or at least covered the spread against) superior but lackadaisical Detroit clubs who looked like they'd spent the night enjoying New York's many clubs. For years, Rasheed Wallace was prominently involved in this tradition. In fact, I even took my mom to see just one such game on her birthday a few years ago. Yeah, I'm a selfish wretch with a railroad mind. Let's just move on.

Unlike those half-remembered games from seasons past, the Pistons didn't come into the Garden to observe the Sabbath meekly. These lower-level Pistons knew they could win this trap game (Knicks were coming off Miami and Atlanta and perhaps looking ahead to Dallas). Familiar nemesis Ben Gordon was shooting from distance, Tayshaun Prince was still marauding from midrange and even Tracy McGrady was displaying functional court vision. Just a few weeks ago, the Knicks lost this exact game to the Sacramento Kings. But last night Amar'e Stoudemire and Danilo Gallinari fought to hold the line. The teams entered the fourth quarter even thanks to a STAT put-back flush just before the buzzer.

"Alright, let's just see how the first few minutes of the fourth quarter go, I said after 9:30 had come and gone. If either team gets out ahead then we'll hustle over there. It's possible that the opener is still on stage."

Gallinari outscored the Pistons 10-5 in the first few minutes of the fourth quarter, and it looked like the Knicks had taken control of the game. And when you add in the additional six points that Gallo's teammates scored during that same stretch, it really, really looked like this one was in the books. But then Prince and Gordon drained a few quick threes to keep the game within reach heading into the last five minutes.

"It's still a ballgame if Gordon is shooting like this. Remember that buzzer beater he hit against us on MLK Day when he was with Chicago?" I asked my brother was we ordered our last round of beers and asked for the check. "They don't call him "Madison Square Gordon" for nothing. We might as well stay 'til the end. Right?"

At this point, there was no arguing. The concert was running a distant second to the Knicks. Sort of like the Pistons. Had we been out at a bar in Brighton Beach when Mozgov sank a baseline jumper for the final bucket of the game, I'd imagine the Ruskie ex-pat patrons would be hooting and браво-ing over their ice-cold vodka and steaming hot pelmeni. But we weren't and nobody at Spike Hill noticed but the two of us as we were slipping arms into coats and wrapping scarves around our necks. We didn't leave our table until the final buzzer, and waltzed up to MHOW at nearly a quarter after 10. The flyer on the ticket window indicated that The Hold Steady was scheduled to have already started their set. Oh well.

Although Mozgov's 23-point, 14-rebound explosion was the take-away from the game for most, it was more a "man bites dog" headline for me. I thought the real story was about Stoudemire entering the game with a sore knee, going down in a heap while the game was still in doubt and gutting his way to a stellar 33 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 1 block with just 2 turnovers. Likewise, Gallinari came through with 29 points on just 12 field goal attempts. He hit big shots all night long and was aggressive, getting to the line for 11 free throw attempts (and sinking all of them).

With Dallas coming to town at midweek and then what should be a tense home-and-home series with the 76ers looming at the weekend, this is the sort of "meaningless" game - in terms of hype and ratings and national appeal - that means everything when you look back at the end of a season. Had the Knicks dropped this and and then gone on to lose a hard-fought game to Dallas then they're quickly mired in another losing streak. Had they dropped this and then lost to Dallas and split with Philly then they'd have dropped 10 of their last 15.

With 25 wins before the All-Star break, these Knickerbockers just need to keep coming. Keeping moving forward a quarter at a time and lock up the wins when they are available. Just get to 40 wins, somehow, and we should get to attend a home playoff game for the first time since Tim Thomas seemed a useful rotation player. Last night the Knicks did those things with gritty, relentless efforts from STAT and Gallo. And some unexpected help from the Moz, who, to his credit, was everything that any of us could have hoped he would be when he was signed by Donnie Walsh. For one night. Despite the frigid temperatures gripping the region, his hands seems to have miraculously thawed out after appearing to be rock-solid frozen since his arrival in the New World.

When we emerged onto the balcony at MHOW, the stage was clear and the houselights were still up. Maybe the band had also been watching the Knicks game. They did sing the national anthem at a Twins game once, so it's very possible that at least one of them fiends for hoops the way that so many of the characters in their songs fiend for various pharmaceuticals. When they took the stage a few minutes after our arrival, there was no keyboard or keyboardist to be seen. For some, the big story about these two intimate shows was that the band was officially and irrevocably without pianist, keyboardist and mustache wax connoisseur Franz Nicolay, who had moved on to pursue his many other musical and artistic ventures. Having cited the Muppets and the Band among his key influences, he's not someone whose departure should be taken lightly. His boozy but earnest barroom piano is largely responsible for the group's E Street majesty and Bandesque rusticity. In a moderately bold move, The Hold Steady opened the show with Stuck Between Stations, an anthemic rabble rouser with one Nicolay's signature piano lines. The guitars came roaring in like whatever hemi-powered hotrod Springsteen was driving in "Born to Run;" lead singer Craig Finn started singing about Sal Paradise and began his manic, surprisingly dandy-ish, stage antics; and the crowd became one roving blissful blackout, noisy, drunk and flailing. Yeah,it seemed like these guys would be just fine.

LeBron James and the Plastic Riley Band

In December 1970, songwriter, guitarist, painter, author and aspirant fisherman John Lennon sat down with Rolling Stone mogul Jann Wenner for an interview. With the entire world listening during the past decade, he'd gone from writing about holding hands to screaming about kicking heroin. The Beatles had disbanded just better than a year earlier. Lennon was 30 years old. And Famous. Really, really damn famous. Bigger than Jesus, in fact.

In the aftermath of the Beatles break-up, each of the Fab Four was publicly coming to grips with their accomplishments and the damage that accompanied them. Ringo even put out a country record. Not coincidentally, Lennon released his solo debut, Plastic Ono Band, the same month as the sit-down with Wenner, agreeing to the interview in order to help promote the album. Then undergoing something called "primal scream" therapy, which had been helping him release pent up emotion and deal with the apparently overwhelming paranoia that had built as a result of the scrutiny he'd been under (as well as the copious drug use), Lennon was unflinchingly honest at this point in his life. Gone was the cheeky wordplay and the surrealistic imagery of his youth, replaced with unadorned, and sometimes downright nasty, truth on record and in person. The transcript of the interview was later published under the title Lennon Remembers.

Sonically, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is at turns spare and rootsy. There are blues, folk and rock sounds. Lyrically there is anger and vulnerability, introspection and aggression. In "God," Lennon tears down civic and religious idols from Jesus to JFK. To the chagrin of twenty-something acolytes, he declares, "I don't believe in Beatles." In the early-Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", he refers to his middle class listeners as "fucking peasants," a turn of phrase that had the album's second single banned in various locales.

Aspects of the record are so caustic and elemental that a case could be made (and probably has by those better equipped to write about music) that this is even proto-punk. The vocal-chord shredding wail in the middle of "Well, Well, Well" sounds a lot like Kurt Cobain's cry of "go away" at the end of the "Scentless Apprentice" on In Utero, an album that I think has a few tunes that would fit right onto Plastic Ono Band. In particular, Lennon's "Look at Me" seems a precursor to Nirvana's elegiac "All Apologies."

"Look at Me" features John singing accompanied by his picking at an acoustic guitar while the lyrics detail his complex relationship with his audience, whom he addresses as "my love." Lennon dutifully admits that he feels compelled to comply with the world's demands on him and his art, even asking his listener/lover, "What am I supposed to do?" Rather than lash out (as he does several times in Lennon Remembers and on the record), here Lennon concedes the symbiosis between the famous and the fan. He admits that part of him hopes to please them. That he loves them and needs them.

Upon its release, the record was a critical success and Rolling Stone ranked it No. 22 on its Top 500 Albums of All Time in 2003. Last Sunday morning, I was alone in the car listening to the record for the first time in a few years, and "Look at Me" reminded me of another commercial meditation on fame that I saw for the first time just a few weeks ago.



LeBron James' "Rise" spot for Nike was created by Wieden & Kennedy of Portland. Directed by Stacy Wall, the spot tackles head-on the fallout of James' decision to take his talents to South Beach. The director was previously behind the NBA puppet commercials as well as several other notable spots. Just as LeBron repeatedly asks "What should I do?" in that recent advertorial, Lennon alternately asks "Who am I supposed to be?" and "What am I supposed to do?" in "Look at Me."

By asking such questions, both men are admitting that the opinion of those strangers matters, regardless of how much it may rankle them. The only thing outstripping the creeping disdain for the audience is the continued need for the attention and the platform. Their nearly unprecedented worldwide fame* is both addictive and alienating.

In answering Wenner's first question of the aforementioned interview - "Would you take it all back?" - Lennon says:

And these fucking bastards there just sucking us to death, that's about all we can do, is do it like circus animals. I resent being an artist, in that respect, I resent performing for fucking idiots who don't know anything. They can't feel; I'm the one that's feeling, because I'm the one expressing. They live vicariously through me and other artists, and we are the ones ... even with the boxers, when Oscar [Bonneventura] comes in the ring, they're booing the shit out of him. He only hit Clay once and they're all cheering him. That's what I resent, you know. I'd sooner be in the audience, really, but I'm not capable of of it."

After watching James's most recent commercial and noting his increasingly defensive and combative statements since signing with the Miami Heat over the summer, I can't help but think that he'd have a knowing nod for Lennon's feelings about fame and the fickle nature of the crowd.

Like Lennon after the break-up of the Beatles, LeBron is now attempting to get out in front of the stories being told about him. He's trying to write his own narrative rather than let jersey burnings commence in Cleveland unabated. LeBron's defiant shots at his critics, such as Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan, echo Lennon's own verbal barbs for former bandmate Paul McCartney and even his younger self. In each case, the anger and resentment comes off as petty. But both Lennon and LeBron are humanized by their melancholy and their pathos. Both Lennon, directly through his lyrics, and LeBron, at the behest of ad mavens and marketing wizards, admitted that they need us not only to look at them, but to support them. And perhaps even guide them. In both cases, fans have mixed reactions to seeing the flaws of their heroes.

I can't help but wonder if Wall and the fine folks at W&K created this commercial with "Look at Me" in mind, or if there are just so few ways to described the rarefied place that LBJ and Lennon have held in popular culture that they pair of searching creations just seem intrinsically linked.

"Look at Me," by John Lennon

OK? (yes sir)
Look at me,
Who am I supposed to be?
Who am I supposed to be?
Look at me,
What am I supposed to be?
What am I supposed to be?
Look at me,
Oh my love, oh my love.
Here I am,
What am I supposed to do?
What am I supposed to do?
Here I am,
What can I do for you?
What can I do for you?
Here I am,
Oh my love, oh my love.
Look at me, oh please look at me, my love,
Here I am - Oh my love.
Who am I?
Nobody knows but me,
Nobody knows but me,
Who am I?
Nobody else can see,
Just you and me,
Who are we?
Oh my love, oh my love.
Oh my love...




*Random Music Footnote (at the end of a random music post on a sports blog): John Lennon received a song-writing credit on David Bowie's "Fame" after singing the word FAME over the Carlos Alomar's guitar riff during a one-day studio session in New York with Bowie in 1975. Bowie was inspired by the theme and the chords and dashed off the rest of the lyrics. On the finished single, Lennon contributes backing vocals.

Rock and Roll Is Not Water Soluble

A moment after a duly ordained representative of Summerstage in Central Park, perhaps the second-best job in the New York City Parks Department after whatever job Jerry's cousin (Uncle Leo's kid) had in Seinfeld, informed the drenched crowd of mid-20s-to-mid-40s indie rock fans that Pavement's set was being halted for the safety of the band, the ever-inscrutable Stephen Malkmus retook the microphone to inform us, with that sweet sarcasm that may be his trademark, that the officials were, of course, worried about our safety as well.

Perhaps. I mean, they did eventually inform the increasingly waterlogged crowd that the metal bleachers toward the rear of the space were not ideal seating locations due to their lightning-conducting capabilities. We were also informed that the unexpected free time would be best spent purchasing beer and souvenir T-shirts. Considering that the sky above the park looked the final act of Ghostbusters (although I'm pretty sure that Dana lived on Central Park West), the enforced break was probably for the best. As instructed, I purchased a round of unopened beers can for my date and myself.

Unless you happened to grab one of three and a half spots under the umbrella at the City Winery stand (and then managed to not be pushed out by the older couple hiding from the weather in full rain gear and wondering aloud, "Why can't the band play in the lightning storm?") then you were soaked. But, for the most part, nobody seemed to mind. Which was nice. This was as unaffected a crowd as I've been around for a concert in any of the five boroughs in quite some time. There were "oohs" and "ahhs" as the lightning forked through the night sky but no exodus, no one (that I noticed) worried about their shoes getting wet or their vintage Shawn Bradley jersey getting soaked. Such an unaffected, hipster-free vibe at an NYC concert was even more refreshing than the rain after the wooly humidity that enveloped me when I left my Midtown office to hike up to Central Park. Maybe E. 69th street is too far to travel from Williamsburg and Park Slope?

When they came back out, Pavement rampaged through a hit-filled setlist (read: most of the songs that I, admittedly not a superfan, knew) with what may have actually been enthusiasm - something missing from most of the shows they played toward the end of the 1990s. I'd never seen these guys play live, but having heard about the vaguely antagonistic shoe-gaze fuzzfests that they were prone to before they hung up their instruments in 1999 and being a little weary of reunion shows in general, I was super-duper please with what I saw and heard. It was a great show.

I'm probably going back for the finale of the four-night run on Friday thanks to a friend with extra tickets. And friends with extra tickets are in abundance, because of the way the shows were announced, so if you have any interest in this band or would like to go see some live music this week then get up to 69th and 5th and you will find a way in for less than cost of a round of unopened beers can inside.

(Image is lifted from Brooklyn Vegan, where there are many pictures and more musically-inclined commentary)

For Love of the Game

What if the Velvet Underground had been more interested in the hit and run than intravenous drug use or had felt more at home in the Polo Grounds than on the Bowery? Or if Bob Dylan had written about Ray Chapman instead of Davey Moore? Of if the Gashouse Gang had been a New Wave band instead of a bluegrass outfit?

Then there would have already been something like the Baseball Project. But those things never happened. Like Harvey Haddix's perfect game. So this group featuring Steve Wynn (from the Dream Syndicate), Peter Buck and/or Mike Mills (from REM), Scott McCaughey (from the Fresh Young Fellows and the Minus 5) and Linda Pitmon (from my dreams) is the first All-Star band singing songs about Big League All-Stars.

I'd read an article in some MLB-produced publication about this group at least a year ago and thought that it was a fun novelty project for some musicians accomplished enough to pull it off. And then I heard a few of the songs and thought they were clever novelty tunes befitting the talents of those involved. So when I scored a free pair of tickets to the show last night I assumed it would be a light-hearted diversion on a Thursday night. But nothing more. Certainly not. I mean, how many rock songs about baseball could I listen to in a row? I thought I'd pedal over to Maxwell's, chain up my girlfriend's bike and head in to check out some live music for an hour and then pedal back home to catch Seinfeld at 11:30. Even if I wasn't planning on staying for the duration, it was tough to pass on seeing a band singing tunes about baseball in the town that claims to have hosted the first organized game in the sport's history.

I wasn't expecting to find a bigger crowd - especially one that included at least two guys sporting Clemente shirts - than I've seen at the Hoboken venue for the last few shows I've been to (although the familial atmosphere the makes the place so special was still in full effect with bandmembers greeting family and friends before, during and after the show). Nor was I expecting for the bona fides of these performers to make these songs really seem genuine and poignant. But all of the above happened. They had Maxwell's rocking like Shea in '86, Forbes Field in '60 and Fenway after Game 6 in the '75 Series. And, I stayed throughout the long set, not only missing Seinfeld but also the episode of The Simpsons that followed it. Because The Baseball Project was [forced baseball metaphor] rocking and rollicking through their entire catalog as well as a few tunes from the musician's day jobs.

Whether it was Mills impersonating the late Yankees announcer Bob Sheppard introducing Manny Mota as a pinch hitter in the Bronx, Wynn add-libbing references to Armando Galarraga in a song about perfect games, McCaughey expressing thanks for players like K-Rod that screw up just enough to keep the game and its participants from seeming too corporate, there was no doubt that this foursome knows there hardball nearly as well as their hard rock.

Without any t-shirts or commemorative beer cozies being sold at the back of the room and the band's latest tunes being given away for free online, there was also no question that they play these songs with each other because they enjoy the hell out of it. Whether talking about sports or music this sort passion and spirit seems like a relic from the sepia-toned age that so many of the songs engage. Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson and Ted Fucking Williams populate the group's lyrics, song by Wynn and McCaughey.

Ted Fucking Williams
People say it’s hard to like a man who doesn’t fail and show he’s a human.
But failure’s not a sign of grace. It only means you don’t know what you’re
doing. And everyone says “hey Mick!” Mantle this, Mantle that—it makes
me sick. It’s just so hard to see. Why do they like him better than me? I’m
Ted Fucking Williams!

Although they are happy to sing about Curt Flood and Willie Mays, the group's members do make an appearance in "The Yankee Flipper," which chronicles the night when Mills and McCaughey were out for a night in the Big Apple with former pitcher Jack McDowell when he playing for the Yankees. A night of boozing and covering The Replacements led to "Black Jack" passing out in a bathroom and ultimately flipping off the crowd at Yankee Stadium the next afternoon as he left the field after getting shelled in the second game of a doubleheader on July 18, 1995.