KOBE AND TESTAMENT TO BATTLE ORLANDO MAGIC

So Kobe Bryant scored like 17 points in the last half of the first quarter sorry that's a confusing way of describing it. Anyhoodle, a play late in the opening period saw Bryant fake his defender into the air to then step in and take the contact, while contorting to get a nice look at a 3, which he hit. It's breathtaking on its face; when you consider his determination to silence the Orlando crowd that only seconds before exploded following a Dwight Howard alley-oop, it's borderline expressionistic. Or whatever's weirder than surreal. Like David Lynch movies when an old lady tells a can of creamed corn to stop speaking in code. 

The point is that Bryant is playing like historic awesome every night. I've been a follower of Bryant's since his first post-Shaq year. Yeah when you wake up one day and Kwame Brown is on your team in exchange for Caron Butler, I say just get injured cuz shit sucks balls. But Bryant pressed on, and I learned what people were talking about when describing him. It's no coincidence that I've been rocking my Testament mix (3 hours great god) while watching the finals. I imagine I'm missing some choice shit since of the six people with access to broadcast mics during the games, two are Van Gundys, but Testament is so Lakers to me. Each was sent each into a decline by a high-profile departure. But this season is the Lakers' return to glory, like The Gathering, the album with which Testament wiped away three increasingly not-cutting-it albums -- four if The Ritual hasn't wormed into and laid eggs all over your heart. It's like heavy Aerosmith, especially on "Troubled Dreams" (above), a furious march that closes the album and prophesies the coming of a benevolent and burdened basketball mega-god named Kobe Bryant.

  

Thursday is Game 4 and Testament at House of Whites. See?

EATS, SHITS & LEAVES

Um I am aware Kobe Bryant is not a grammarian by trade but throughout the 90 minutes of Spike Lee's awesome doc Kobe Doin' Work (premiered Saturday on ESPN), he used the phrase the reason why like 30 times. It was distracting. See, the term why is embedded in the word reason, so the reason why is redundant. Retarded ESPN analyst Mark Jackson is particularly Cathcartian in his triple redundancy when he says The reason why (Jeff Van Gundy rocks) is because (of his wit and unsteady confidence). I don't know (why/the reason that) Jackson is paid to talk to people.  

Anyhow, Kobe's done a lot for me so consider the usage advice free of charge. Don't mix why with because or the reason that. Keep that shit separate. Think of them as heavy guitars and rap. Or your cake and me. Or the once-great Bjork and the always great Carcass. Actually wait no that song was titties! Crank it (above)!!

WHO DISHES BEHIND HIS BACK WINS

I bitch about my poorly-timed birth (too late for Van Halen and Hitchcock, too early for space porn) but at least I'm right on the money with The Simpsons and Kobe Bryant. I started watching NBA basketball right as Bryant was coming off a brutal ordeal surrounding charges of sexual assault followed by a couple of hideous post-Shaq seasons. He chilled out after that shit. Hence our love is so pure cuz I missed five years of his being a huge arrogant bastard. 

I find a parallel in my history with Thrash Metal. I came of age just as Thrash was growing beyond the sound of dumb heshers being dumb. Nay, by the time I was old enough to count money Slayer ditched reverb and high screams; the lyrics of Testament no longer detailed scarifying tales of horror, instead opting for the socio-political; mid-era Anthrax could really put a melody together (below); Metallica didn't once mention leather or spikes. Good times. 

I would've suffered a lot less heartache if only I could time my death just as perfectly. Like if I hadn't survived the time I dared Mike to push me in front of a train in 1992. Hey you take six hits of acid and see what sounds like a fun Thursday afternoon idea.  

THANKS TO KOBE BRYANT WE'LL ALL BE TAKING GOLDEN SHOWERS

I'm pretty sure American society only served as a hindrance to the development of the glorious, face-blasting ballers of Team USA, what with the institutionalized racism and classist economic warfare and all. Oh and don't forget that all but one Team USA player represents an ethnic group that was abducted at gunpoint from another continent. None of that stops the president and country at large from unironically showing support and assuming default credit for rich-beyond-oppression, America-glorifying athletes and their nearly all-white coaching team. (Thanks for coming, Nate. Really.)

Anyway, the key to victory was clearly not this garbage nation and its asshole ruling class; the credit belongs to the greatest basketball minds and bodies in the world. During the NBA season, I spend about 15-20 hours a week staring at these titans and in all sincerity, mega-HooM! Horns to Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Tayshaun Prince, Chris Bosh, and all of the Redeem Team who surmounted the handicap of being natives of America to win the 2008 Men's Basketball Gold Medal.

GET OFF MY LAND

If you give two shits about the Olympics, you're totally gay. At least that's the prevailing mentality here at HooM! HQ. The whole thing takes place in disgusting-but-rocking Beijing (China's Chicago, if you will) and involves a bunch of lifeless droids doing pointless things slightly faster than lamewads from years past. And this Olympics' superstar looks like the guy from Nuclear Assault. Yuck.

The exception is basketball, and today I finally was able to catch a USA game. If it could be called that. More closely resembling a total, merciless slaughter, the match involved God Of Basketball Kobe Bryant, Prince LeBron James, and other sorely-missed (see you in October, CP!) USA ballers just blasting Germany's national 'team' out of the damn gym. Good thing all those protesters of China's awful government weren't around to distract anyone. Just like the pesky hikers who keep disrupting James Hetfield's beauty rest. From Marin Independent Journal:

James Hetfield of the band Metallica has erected a metal fence on his property on a Terra Linda hilltop, closing off a popular trail and angering hikers, bikers and equestrians.

Someone scrawled "SHAME DISGRACE" on the 300-foot-long, 8-to 10-foot-high corrugated metal silver fence adorned with barbed wire at its far edges.

"Look at the barbed wire. This a serious fence," said hiker Tom McMillan of San Rafael, as he walked along the shiny behemoth late last week.

But David Warner said vandalism of a previous, smaller gate, and of signs and other property along the trail, prompted Hetfield to block access with the large structure.

"It is private property," said Warner, who does construction work for the rocker. "There was some damage done by certain people. If people were cool, this would not be an issue."

Ha. 'If people were cool.' That sounds like the very same excuse Lars was peddling to explain his anti-Napster thing. And the abysmal failure of their last record. And since when is James such a narc? I can see him waving a cane, hoarsely screaming "Hey you kids! Get outta here! This is my property!" But hey, at least this flap has lead to some fresh HooM! Hexclusive in-studio rehearsal footage of Lars and James.

Burrrrn: Shaq Freestyles, Kobe Polishes MVP Trophy

We loudmouth jerks usually stick together, and I love cheap shots, but it'd be tough to defend Phoenix Suns' center Shaquille O'Neal and this week's, ahem, 'freestyle rap.' There are better MCs doing fast food commercials, but that doesn't stop a clueless O'Neal from leading a roomful of sycophants in a rousing chorus of the holiday favorite "Kobe, Tell Me How My Ass Taste."

O'Neal's, shudder, 'rhymes' also make pointed mention of the Laker guard's defeat in the NBA Finals last week; I'm no scientist, but since O'Neal's Suns lost horribly in the first round of the playoffs, the dumbshit might consider zipping it. Instead, he displays at least one trait also found in real MCs (a total disconnect from reality), stating that 'Kobe can't do without' O'Neal's out-of-shape, immobile, offensive-fouling lard ass. Oh, and that Bryant is somehow responsible for his 2007 divorce. Um. What?

Asked for comment, O'Neal downplayed the outlandish claims as 'what MCs do.' Like he'd know. Come to think of it, he did precisely what awful MCs do: mention Biggie a lot, stumble around, and go for cheap laughs that don't stand up to the most superficial scrutiny. Plus, the guy is a fucking cop! Yeah, how hip-hop can you get?

Well, real NBA heads are enjoying a hearty guffaw as O'Neal is stripped of his beloved law enforcement officer status this week. From ESPN: 

Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown said Wednesday that he has asked the Phoenix Suns center to return a badge he was given for his work with the southwest Virginia county's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The decision comes one day after a sheriff in Arizona asked O'Neal to return a special deputy's badge because of language he used in the rap.

The closest thing to a Metal diss is Metallica's cheap shot at Iron Maiden's 'Run To The Hills' on their Garage Days Re-Revisited EP. When is Overkill gonna write a diss track about Avenged Sevenfold?