“A JetBlue flight attendant apparently upset with an uncooperative passenger on a just-landed flight unleashed a profanity-laden tirade on the public-address system, pulled the emergency-exit chute, slid off the plane and fled Kennedy International Airport, a law enforcement official said.” What did he actually say? Reports a passenger, “To the passenger who just called me a motherfucker: fuck you. I’ve been in this business 28 years and I’ve had it.” Flight attendant Steven Slater was soon arrested at his home, but I think even the most airline-phobic among us can sort of look at his great escape and offer a silent cheer.

Q. “I’m an alcoholic. Help me feel comfortable with my alcohol intake. On average, I figure I consume about 25 units of alcohol per week. I can remember the last day I didn’t have a drink. It was six months ago and I was on antibiotics…. Is it reasonable to keep drinking like this given that I’m productive and it makes me happy”?

A. ?

(Photo by Simon Pearson.)

A reminder to Angelenos and those who happen to be in the environs: Tomorrow night marks the Official Awl Los Angeles Commenting People’s Good Times Jamboree Get-Together, hosted by DeepOmega and Natasha Vargas-Cooper (credit the multi-talented Ms. Vargas-Cooper for the astounding graphic that accompanies this post). In any event, it’s called for 7 at the Dresden, which some say is in Hollywood but others will argue in that typical LA way that makes New Yorkers seem laid back is in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOOD ALTOGETHER. See you there! (I mean, I won’t see you there, obviously. LA makes me itchy. But those of you who are there will see each other there, and won’t that just be great? I hear there will be a surprise!)

It is nice to see that there is finally some pushback against the whole “state and public-sector employees are the cause of every problem we have in this country” nonsense argument that is being made with increasing frequency. It probably won’t make a difference, because numbers and statistics make for terrible arguments unless you’re dealing with rational people, which you’re not, but it’s still nice to see.

This is “Memories,” Weezer’s recently released first single from their upcoming album Hurley. (YES: THAT HURLEY, who graces the cover.) The album has been the subject of some buzz lately, because many fans quietly hoped that Weezer’s switch to Epitaph would improve the band’s sound, maybe make it a bit more grounded than their last release, Raditude. Well… the song is better than the first single off Raditude, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To.”

But, and this is a bold claim, Weezer’s new song is worse than Nickelback’s new single. You may think this is a pretty unfair comparison, Nickelback being the Chernobyl of pop music and all, but if you listen closely they’re incredibly similar songs. Here’s the Nickelback song in question, “This Afternoon”.

Lyrics:

Weezer: “Memories” has pretty Weezer 3.0 lyrics, lots of reference and shallow emotion. The first noticeable standout is “playing hacky sack when Audioslave was still Rage.” And of course, who can excuse the sheer kiddie-pool-depth of the chorus, “Memories make me want to go back there, back there. I want to be there again.” Well, that’s some Radiohead-level shit right there.

Nickelback: “This Afternoon” offers a similar level of lyrical mastery with lines like “Looking like another Bob Marley day / hitting from the bong like a diesel train” and “Down on the corner in a seedy bar jukebox cranking out the CCR.” Oh, and every single line in the song ends with the phrase “this afternoon.”

WINNER: Nickelback, because if you listen to the lyrics the ratio of cultural touchstones to actual human emotion is lower than Weezer’s.

Musical Arrangement:

Weezer: Similar Weezer fare, punchy verses, a catchy repetitive chorus, a quiet, sparkly bridge. The only real problem is that the chorus is also almost identical to the lead line in The Stroke’s “12:51,” so that’s kind of a problem, sort of.

Nickelback: White people reggae mixed with country music.

WINNER: Weezer, because nearly anything in the entire world is better than a country song about smoking weed.

Relevance:

Weezer: See, this is a problem, because it’s tough to imagine the typical Weezer fan in 2010. Maybe it’s a very easy-going Gen X’er. A man in the IT field who wears sandals often and remembers how good Pinkerton was. Maybe he listens to the radio with their kids driving to little league and feel comforted by a familiar voice when Weezer’s on the radio. And we do mean “he.” But again, it’s a bit mysterious.

Nickelback: Most of the the southwest and midwest of America… and anywhere cars or sporting goods are sold. Also sports bars.

WINNER: Nickelback, because the first rule of pop music is that you’re writing for demographics and Nickelback knows their demographic shockingly well.

I know almost nothing about this short film by Eran Hilleli, and presumably it was passed my way due to my fascination with bears and constant posting of bear videos. Having watched it twice it is still something of a mystery to me-what does it all mean? etc.-but for a five-minute animated movie for what the Internet tells me is a graduation project for an Israeli art school, it is pretty transfixing. But then again, it has bears in it, so I’m an easy sell. Give it a look. [Via]

According to at least one math-doer, Americans have a total of $826.5 billion in “revolving credit”-largely credit cards. The current estimated total of outstanding student loans, both federal and private? $829.785 billion.

by Bethlehem Shoals

As anyone who once gave $15 to the Obama campaign knows, POTUS had a birthday this weekend. We signed the card, along with the family dog… and Michelle left town.

Naturally, the most powerful man in the galaxy had but one option: invite over a Murderer’s Row of basketball greats past and present to play some ball and have an informal cook-out. Footage from this unusual event is fast becoming the Holy Grail for, well, me; if nothing else, we deserve a few choice vignettes. There’s infinite grist for jokes-”did you hear the one about Kobe Bryant, Bill Russell, and the last bag of chips?”-and, more seriously, a thousand conversations I wish I could have heard.

Really, though, is a basketball game ever just a basketball game? When Obama first took office we were treated to article after article comparing running a government to a box of chocolate-err, a game of basketball. Hillary Clinton would make a great point guard, Joe Biden could have his contract bought out if things went awry, and Obama himself knew how to sweat the details. I wish it had been that interesting. Most of it was dangerously close to Sarah Palin’s mangled explanation of how beating the full-court press was like fending off the liberal armies of Satan.

But there’s another dimension to this story. It’s not just about basketball-as-metaphor; the game was played often amongst Obama and his closest advisers. I have a scouting report on David Axelrod filed away in case I ever find stuck in the paint with him, trying to earn his respect. Everyone knows that Rahm Emmanuel WILL NOT LOSE-everyone, that is, who wants to preserve his incisors. This is how men grow to live and breathe as one, where trust is forged. You build a team through late-middle-aged pick-up ball, not flowery, post-facto analogy.

Oh, how long ago that feels. Now, with memories of Obama’s astronomic pull having become something a burden (“Man, you fell off”), it’s time to build for the mid-terms. So where you see a bunch of hoops celebs brought over to entertain the President like a one-man weekend fantasy camp, I see quite the opposite: an audition for a new crop of advisers the only way dude knows how.

Here, in a world exclusive, is what these players might bring to a revamped administration, or at least do to help bolster Obama at this crucial juncture:

Carmelo Anthony: Anthony has been loved and discarded more times than his fans would care to admit. He entered the league as the reigning NCAA champ with Syracuse, and two years later, was alone on a mountain contemplating a string of on- and off-court stinkers. This resilience, and return to the source, is what Obama needs.

Shane Battier: A brilliant smokescreen: Let them groan about how Battier made it just because, like Obama body-man Reggie Love, he played ball at Duke. Privilege, the ivory tower, and other nefarious constructs that, these days, are used to keep good men down. But like his game, Battier’s stealth. Famous for doing the little things, he’s just what this team needs to make sure it gets back that “on message” mojo, not just a distant memory.

Chauncey Billups: His charisma is equal parts blue collar grit and deus ex superstar. That’s the delicate balance that The Man himself seems to have let slip.

Kobe Bryant: Kobe didn’t play. Damn straight this administration keeps secrets.

Derek Fisher: Not to minimize Fisher’s infant daughter having eye cancer, but that’s exactly the kind of selling point for health care that Obama needs. Get Fish on television telling his story-leaving out, of course, the fact that he’s a millionaire-and universal, single-payer care becomes a no-brainer. Crank up the holograms and house of mirrors if anyone holds out on the Senate floor.

Grant Hill: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Back when everyone was outwardly racist, and figured that the only way a black man could find his way to higher office was through sports or entertainment (like Reagan), Hill was near the top of the list for First Black President. Still, he seethes. Oh also, Duke again, so watch for that coup.

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh: Miami’s Big Three offer up both a flexible definition of leadership and greatness, and a visionary stance on shit like bailouts and takeovers. Why will we all ultimately come around? Because this team will be fucking awesome, that’s why. If the banks and auto companies sponsored monster teams, or at least showed us flying cars and checks that glowed in the dark, we wouldn’t feel like we were getting nothing for something.

Magic Johnson: The Dems have serious concerns about African-Americans showing up for the mid-terms. Magic owns a Starbucks and a movie theater in every predominantly black neighborhood that still has roads. That’s a power base. It’s like when quack doctors first harnessed the power of radio for non-sports self-promotion. Someone needs to plant that seed, though.

Maya Moore: Obama’s already made history by supporting the WNBA, and Moore is as formidable a lady baller as you’ll find. And she interested in applying for a Rhodes scholarship, which could help shore up support among the Bill Bradley wing of the party. Speaking of nothing, if FOX is wondering, there’s no white American voters here. Maybe that’s why the New Orleans Saints made it to the White House today.

Chris Paul and Derrick Rose: Naturally, Obama’s interested in turning the White House over to shadowy fixer William “Worldwide Wes” Wesley, the most sinister part of anything involving LeBron James. Where do you think LBJ got that Freemason shit from? Paul, the league’s supreme PG, has been reduced to a pawn of James and Wesley’s LRMR firm. Rose, even more dramatically, is just there to fill out this roster with Wes-approved talent. Also, I get a distinct Manchurian Franchise Player vibe from him.

Bill Russell and Etan Thomas: Not only is William Felton Russell the most winning-est pro athlete this side of Babe Ruth, he’s also one of the pillars of jock activism, a die-hard progressive who has absolutely refused to hold his tongue, ever, about anything. I can only guess that this is a nod to those fractious lefties who still think Obama belongs to them-just like Cleveland thought it owned LeBron. Thomas, too, is here to placate. More or less irrelevant as a pro, this journeyman does write a lot of pieces attacking war and oppression, and also gets his poetry slam on. True or false: this would make the first time Obama has been spotted alongside someone with ‘locks? The cynic in me wonders if Thomas would get this invite if he were still a Washington Wizard.

(Notable exclusion: John Wall, the DC rookie who is the latest Next Big Thing. Suspect that backroom dealings with Stern are to blame to this; you don’t want an athlete political before he’s established his station in sport.)

David West: A four-year college stand-out who ended up an NBA All-Star, West is all about staying in school. He’s also interested in “black history [and culture], philosophy and various societal issues”, and plays the tuba very, very well. This is how you fuse education and basketball to dramatic effect: Put West in charge and integrate these programs. Oh, and it saves music class, too.

Joakim Noah: You know Obama is feeling the music of Noah’s father Yannick, the French tennis star-turned-reggae-songster. This is exactly what you’d expect to hear on Obama’s iPod, no?

Pau Gasol: When the EU fails, and the so-called “PIGS” (Portugal/Italy/Greece/Spain) become economic anti-matter unleashing an army of swarthy malcontents, only Gasol can raise his right hand and intone, slowly but surely, “Stop this way, I want to get off.” Obama’s planting seeds. You know he always plays the long game.

Bethlehem Shoals, a regular contributor to NBA FanHouse, is a founding member of FreeDarko.com, whose Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History will be published by Bloomsbury, USA in November.

Things To Read: A Brief Recent History of India

I’m not sure how best to tease you into reading this piece in Triple Canopy on India, Slumdog Millionaire, money, terrorism and globalism, besides the fact that it coins the phrase “Regis ex machina,” which, how jealous are you about that? And there’s this: “In 2007, Mukesh Ambani-the energy tycoon who later said ‘a fear-psychosis is being created to slow projects of national importance’ when forty thousand protesters forced the return of expropriated farmland on which the Tata Nano factory was to have been built-was named Forbes’s richest man in the world: the first Indian thus distinguished. Shortly afterward, he set up a new company to fund the films of Steven Spielberg and started building for himself, his mother, his wife, and his three children a two-billion-dollar, sixty- story house on land that had been set aside for a Muslim orphanage.” It’s also available as a handy PDF download in case you find the side-scrolling unbearable!

Nice one-two punch at Salon’s War Room: Steve Kornacki looks at how Islamophobia has replaced anti-Communism as the unifying force for Republicans (“The Republican Party of the Bush years had the same magnetic allure to Islamophobes as today’s does, even if it didn’t use quite the same inflammatory rhetoric.”), while Alex Pareene takes on a Wall Street Journal editorial about who’s to blame for unemployment (“While the actual ‘data’ show a miserable climate in which there are millions more jobless people than there are job openings (there are 3 million openings and 17 million jobless, according to the ‘chart’), the Journal’s Mark Whitehouse found anecdotal evidence of employers who desperately want to hire people, but simply can’t find any applicants. Sure, ‘many employers are inundated with applicants,’ but ‘a surprising number’ can’t find anyone to hire, anywhere!”). Good stuff.