The Madness Returns

It’s been over a year and half since my last post and in returning I feel I should clarify my long absence.  I stopped writing for one simple reason, nothing I was producing was new or very different from every other blog/news sites on the web.  I felt like I was regurgitating what had already been beaten to death in the blogosphere.  Overall my goal is to make Madness a place to come where you expect specifically themed stories.  Stories illustrating our hasty decline that seems to quicken every day as we rapidly descend into madnesses.

Now Madness is often a subjective or relative term.  Madness, as compared to what, or defined by whom?  I guess a lot of people would have a bit of a hard time defining madness, but they would probably say, as a person once famously said, “But I know it when I see it.”  Standards vary all over the world about many things, and where is the line drawn between eccentricity and insanity?  Who drew it?  Is there such a thing as any absolute standard?  Who said, and why should I believe it?  After all, the Catholic Church convicted Galileo of heresy for his scientific idea that the earth rotates around the sun.  Although they were wrong to do so, most people probably agreed with what was done, and he was publicly disgraced.  Many probably considered him insane.  Were they right?  Am I mad for talking about what is mad in a world I say is mad?

Madness Exhibit A: King Joffrey (future article plug)

A good example of a niche website with decent to humorous content is Badassoftheweek.com.  What I like about Badassoftheweek, outside of its name, is that I know every week he’ll post another rad story about some bad ass who chopped up a bunch of dudes Rambo style while rescuing kittens out of a tree. You should almost know what you’re getting before you get it and crave it like Lebron haters craved a justified Miami loss. So I will spend this first article summarizing the time we missed (of course I’m forced to cover just the last few weeks as the past few years would take a herculean effort).

I think what has transpired over the course of the past few years can been best described by Donni Darko, “some people just like to see the world burn.”

Before we get started a little announcement about June. Now that that is behind us let’s start with “The King” it seems that The Decision, a highly broad-casted introduction of the big three, and Lebron’s more recent catastrophic post game interviews have exposed him for what he is and unfortunately, the media (ESPN) tide is already turning in support of Lebron.  Apparently, we’re hating on him too much – you know what I say to that – so what!?  I will hate who I want to hate and I could not be more justified in hating or reveling in a loss suffered by a self-absorbed, narcissistic, egotistical and coddled superstar that surrounds himself with a cacophony of sycophantic suck ups who keep him in his an alternate reality. Thus explaining comments like the one below.

“All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.” Yes, Lebron we are all now Witnesses to your douche baggery.

He clearly doesn’t understand why we all don’t worship the ground he walks on and that is what is at the core of the Lebron hate.  Before he’s ever liked by an audience larger than Miami Heat fans, ESPN anchors and douche bag front runners he needs to Witness his own ineptitude in his, probably subconscious, quest to become a real boy.

His statements were not exactly an act of contrition the sports community would like to see.  America is a country where if you apologize and you’re upfront about what you did we’ll give you a second chance (see December 7, 2002: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein apologizes for invading Kuwait in August, 1990 – Maybe Bush never heard the apology) but if you lie, or hide the truth and/or pretend it isn’t happening then we’re all over you (See Rep. Weiner, Ryan Leaf, Rick Sanchez and to a certain extent Tiger Woods – he initially was misleading about the details of his golf outing with his wife that doesn’t seem to have worked out too well for him).  

It is what Lebron says that shows how out-of-touch and just how awful he truly is.  I don’t think people will let this go so easily, as many on ESPN and in Miami claim, my sense is that he will be vilified for many seasons to come.  He better learn to relish the role of bad guy or we’re going to be in his head until he gets past this and from the looks of things that won’t be anytime soon.

Trust me this is not really what I wanted to see either, although I’m happy Dirk and Kidd got their ring and Terry definitely deserves his.

NBA Draft note: David Stern just entered to kick off the 2011 NBA Draft accompanied by a lovely chorus of boo’s. He seems to relish these encounters with the fans every year. (If it’s not obvious yet you should know I was watching the draft as I wrote this post – hence some extra basketball coverage)

Like Lebron I needed to find my niche writing style.  I found it in the original origin of the name MadnessLetters.  The term Madnessletters comes from Friedrich Nietzsche who, as he began to succumb to mental illness, he penned a series of letters (dubbed the Madnessletters) to friends and colleagues about the Madness of our world.  So to will I write about the Madness of our world, in a more succinct fashion, as I assuredly spiral down my own dark path of mental illness made possible by the never ending and relentless news covering our absolute and total decay. OK, so maybe I’m not that dark or mentally ill but you get the general idea.  Typically I will focus on the most gross violations of our general social code (note I am fairly moderate in my social views, liberal regarding domestic policies and conservative when it comes to international affairs).  For example I would have written about the following events that have transpired over the past few years: Congressman Weiner (are you kidding me!) you can’t script a better set up for the late night comedy circuit.  After claiming his twitter account was hacked he came clean as the evidence began to mount which provided us with one of the larger falls from grace we’ve seen since Tiger Woods.

A now ex-member of the shinning city upon a hill.

Speaking of bad decisions how is it that we are now engaged in the 3rd war and nobody seems to care? If Bush did this he would not have gotten such a pass with the media (I’m not a Bush fan I just think this is extremely obvious and not debatable unless you’re a kool aid drinking fool ). What is scary about this ill-conceived venture is that we are backing Libyan rebel forces who are, you guessed it, Al Qaeda: Who did we just support?  If that doesn’t scare you than this should.  By engaging in an unnecessary third front it only seems to add further financial difficulties to our already crippling debt and as an ancillary benefit the conflict in Libya is producing more conspiracy theories. Here’s my contribution to conspiracy theorists: Doesn’t this seem like it’s straight out of a Jason Borne movie cover up?

Why did the media follow Sarah Palin around on her bus tour?  It would be one thing if the media adored her like they used to adore Obama but the media has a clear history of hating Sarah Palin even going so far as to send out reporters to Alaska to read emails from when Sarah was Governor. What they found. Not exactly earth shattering stuff.  Who cares? Can we focus on real issues and report about real problems?  Every month it seems that the media’s biases on both the left and the right are exposed and more credibility is given to mock news shows like Jon Stewart.

Prediction about last night’s NBA draft: the 2011 Rookie of the Year will be Kemba Walker.  If I was a GM, with a top 5 pick, I would draft according to the  Moneyball rules and I would draft Walker for a few simple reasons: 1.) He’s a proven winner. 2.) He doesn’t have the prototypical NBA body 3.) His athletic gifts aside he has “the drive” just like Kobe and Jordan (I’m not even putting him in the same ballpark – yet) but I will say no one saw UCONN winning it all but the team that won it and without Kemba none of that happens.  Without Walker they would have been out in the sweet sixteen when they barely beat a San Diego State team that had played an off game and almost stole a victory from UCONN.

The problem with Walker is that he doesn’t fit into the standard NBA archetypical top 5 pick.  He’s not exactly a 1 and he’s seen as too small for the 2.  Too often NBA teams make a bad decision with a top pick because they seem to base their drafting on the physical look of a prospect, (for a small example see: Michael Olwakandi (#1 1998), Darius Miles (#3, 2000), Hasheem Thabeet (#2, 2009), Sam Bowie (#2, 1984)).  Just think about how terrifying Portland would be with Kevin Durant. A possible dynasty in the making.  Instead Portland took what they thought was the safe bet in a sure fire center that they could build a dynasty around.  How’s that working out for you Portland?

Another great move in last nights draft was the shrewd pick by San Antonio in acquiring SDSU Star Kawhi Leonard for George Hill.  Hill was extremely well thought of in San Antonio which should give you a clue as to the potential the Spurs see in Leonard who guided SDSU to its first Sweet Sixteen in school history.  This is the team that found a diamond in the rough and picked Tony Parker #28 in the 2001 draft.  This was the same draft that saw Kwame Brown go #1 and Eddy Curry at #4.

I think I’ll leave it at that for now. New content to be posted weekly until then I leave you with the worst thing I’ve seen this week and the best thing I’ve seen this week:

I know it needs a better name.  I’m open to suggestions.