meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow” Meschery's Musings of Sports, Literature, and Life Meschery's Musings on Sports, Literature and Life: 2019-05-12

What my musings are all about...

Blogging might well be the 21st century's form of journaling. As a writing teacher, I have always advised my students to keep a daily journal as a way of organizing their thoughts for future writing projects, a discipline I have unfortunately never consistently practiced myself. By blogging, I might finally be able to follow my own good advice.

The difference between journaling and blogging is that the blogger opens his or her writing to the public, something journal- writers are usually reluctant to do. I am not so reticent.

The trick for me will be to avoid cluttering the internet with more blather, something none of us need more of. If I stick to subjects I know: sports and literature, I believe I can avoid that pitfall. I can't promise that I'll not stray from time to time to comment on ancillary subjects, but I will make every attempt to be interesting and perhaps even insightful.

Monday, May 13, 2019

Good Stuff and Bad Stuff

Let's start with the GOOD STUFF: CJ McCullum of the Portland Blazers has proven like Klay Thompson of the Flash Brothers, that his presence is essential for the success of his team.Whereas Dame's drives to the basket are usually straight line bursts, C.J. is bustro phedonic, albeit much swifter than the ox, able to break down defenses.

It requires saying that the Blazers lucked out signing Enes Kantor a month before their young and talented center Notic broke his leg. Let is also be noted that Kantor, a devote Muslim, played the game in Denver on a dawn to dusk fast as part of his religious tradition. Might be a good idea to consider the decent and positive qualities of Islam and not all the negative crap the Trump White House is chucking around like turds.

Now, how about that five bounce K Leonard jump shot from the corner for the Toronto Raptors' win!
Note: Raptors are lucky to have acquired Marc Gasol. Like a second coach on the floor. I don't hold out much hope for our northern cousins against the Bucks. I just don't feel comfortable with the Raptor's guards. Yeah, Lowry is OK, but as the recent AT&T commercials on TV ask us, is OK good enough?

I'm still knocked out by Golden States performance to win the series against the Rockets. The Warriors' offense might be described as a motion offense, but how do you describe the Rockets' offense: It's dribble, dribble, pass at the last second and sometimes a skip pass or pass around the horn for an open corner shot, but maybe not but back to Harden to dribble, dribble, dribble or to Chris Paull to dribble, dribble, dribble, pull up fade away jumper. They have all the skilled players they need to beat our Dubs, but couldn't do it because they lack one component: for lack of a better term: TEAM FLOW. 

The BAD STUFF: It broke my heart to see Tiger Woods accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump. How can an African American, I don't care how many previous projects he's been a part of with the Trump Organization in the past, or his recent designing of the Trump World Golf Course in Dubai (which, by the way, will turn out to be a financial loser like Trump's golf course in Scotland) to associate himself with a RACIST like Trump, speaks to Wood's shallowness of spirit. I thought he didn't look particularly happy, but he did bend his neck when the time came for Trump to place the medal over his head. What a sight, arguably the greatest golfer in the world being honored by a guy who cheats at golf.

I love this basketball prose poem that I've used before, but it's worth repeating.

Basketball   by Louis Jenkins

A huge summer afternoon with no sign of rain. . . Elm trees
in the farm yard bend and creak in the wind. The leaves are
dry and gray. In the driveway a boy shoots a basketball as ta
goal above the garage door. Wind makes shooting difficult
and time after time he chasesthe loose ball. He shoots, re-
bounds, turns shoots. . . on into the afternoon. In the silence
between the gust of wind the only sounds are the thump of
the ball on the ground and the rattle of the bared steel rim of
the goal. The gate hangs in the wind, the dog in the yard yawns,
stretches and goes back to sleep. A film of dust cover he
water in the trough. Great clouds of dust rise from open fields
and stretch a thousand miles beyond the horizon.