There seems to be a lot of confusion about the term based. Lil B has spoken about it in both song and interview, but true to his nature, oftentimes his right brain takes control, leaving one in a state of even more confusion. One thing can be said though, being “based” has absolutely nothing to do with wearing tiny pants and using words like “suck, “dick” and “bitch” a lot.

As a modern day philosopher, Brandon McCartney shares a lot more with motivational speakers like Norman Vincent Peele, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, a self help book that defined the era of post-Reagan business, before Swimming with the Sharks became the rule of thumb. Being ‘based’ is derived from just what you think it means; back in The Pack days, Lil B and company used it as a term for wild, or “crazy like a crackhead.”

But somewhere down the road it has mutated into much much more. Now when Lil B speaks about being based, he is espousing a lifestyle of positivity and tolerance. His hope is to create an environment where people are free to be exactly what they want to be.

One look at video of his recent speaking engagement and it becomes clear that many of his fans might not even get it. Amidst the college kids and hipsters there seemed to be more than a few people who perceive being “based” as looking and acting just like Lil B. It really isn’t their fault though, as McCartney spent a decent chuck of his 90 minutes speaking about the influence of media and why he chooses to avoid it.

We have been conditioned to think this way. It is difficult not to listen to Lil B, or any other person in the public spotlight and try to figure out just what it is they are trying to sell. This is what makes Lil B so special in today’s consumer culture. Everyone has secretly been waiting for him to reveal his sinister intentions.  Those of us who are fans have waited with our wallets half open, just waiting to shell out some money. We do this because that’s the way it has always been.

We are used to paying for our brand, having to make an investment in order to forge an identity.  Well its been three years now, and Brandon McCartney has stayed true to his ideals, and has no plans of marketing Based Culture in the near or any foreseeable future.

Based is first and foremost about having an open mind, and its detractors always tend to display the polar opposite emotions. Any comments page on any article about Lil B is bound to be filled with the most bilious and negative displays of homophobia, racism and an almost conservative fear of our changing culture. To quote Lil B: “Nobody asked to be born… you didn’t ask to be you bro!”

In a recent argument with an East Coast rap centered Lil B hater, this writer brought up the fact that baggy jeans and XXXL shirts are a thing of the past. In fact, one look at pictures of old school rappers, and their manner of dress is closer to this new generation than it ever was to any of the crass commercial styling of the “Golden Era” where being a walking Billboard was favored over personal expression.

It is funny, because they same people arguing about how “gay” Lil B dresses are the same folks who spend the rest of their time damning materialism in music and media. Brandon McCartney makes a point of wearing the same shoes every day, he brags about buying his clothes at Ross and the Goodwill. It is this philosophy, and the fact that he seems eager to be a role model that makes him so important.

This freedom of expression has led to one of the greatest renaissances in rap. With the aid of affordable (and often free) digital audio workstations that can produce the same beats one hears on the radio, the playing field has been entirely leveled. The Based phenomena has shown people that you don’t have to chart on Soundscan to make a buzz anymore.

Perseverance and creativity seem far more important in today’s hip hop climate. Two of the most unlikely rappers are shining examples of what is is to be based. Joeyy Green and Kitty Pryde are both young, but live completely different lives on opposite sides of the East Coast. Still, almost unbeknownst to them, they are bonded by this underlying atmosphere of freedom that has been created by Basedworld.

Joeyy Green might be Lil B’s great fan. On the outside he is an awkward high school student from suburban Rhode Island, but once he gets on the mic he is a bonafide lyrical monster. I first came across Green when I heard his freestyle over the Clams Casino beat Lil B used for “Realist Alive”  I was immediately blown away by how distinctly this young man carried on the tradition of heartfelt based poetry.

Hit the jump for the rest!

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Welcome back to the super secret underground vault, where we’re about to take another trip down un-memory lane and uncover the mysteries of Мишка projects that, tragically, never made it into this big beautiful messed up world of ours. In our first installment, we gave you the skinny on a triple stack of sneaks we collaborated on with Reebok.

At least those, however, we’re still bummed about never going all the way with. These Skullcandys on the other hand…Whoa boy, not a good experience. Seeing how much music stuff our brand is involved in, it made perfect sense to produce a Мишка-ed up pair of headphones. This idea first germinated sometime in 2010, and at the time Skullcandy headphones were selling like wildfire (maybe they still are? I’m not exactly plugged into the pulse of the headphone game…).

Skullcandy was a big company that was only growing, so we knew the’d have no problems cooking up some Мишка specific headphones. Plus, the spherical build of their ‘phones immediately jumped out at us.

When we see a sphere ’round here, there’s a little pavlovian tickle: we can put a Keep Watch Eyeball on that! Much like the pumps on the ‘boks, what better way to show it’s a Мишка item than big bloody eyeballs? And stuck to the side of your head like some sort of streetwear Guillermo Del Toro creation? Sign me up, amirite?

Skullcandy was on board too, and some time later we got the models you see above delivered to us. Keep Watch ear casing, Мишка embroidery on the headband, and magenta speaker liner. They looked great! But. There’s always a but. The first thing we noticed was that the sound quality wasn’t exactly stellar, but at the price point it actually was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Listen, I’m never going to say they were studio quality headphones but they weren’t gonna be sold like that.

As far as casual use – subway rides, sitting at home on your laptop, etc. – there were no problems there. The bigger problem was the Skullcandy people effectively dropping off the face of the earth. This started to get us a mite worried, as we had already started promoting these bad boys. But our communiques went unanswered.

What could have happened? Skullcandy had been so excited that they were planning on selling the headphones themselves as well, out of their online store. They even told us – after we pitched having the outside be a fully molded Keep Watch – that we could implement that on the second edition because they envisioned a long partnership.What could have changed? We still don’t really have the answer to that question (at least I don’t think so) but eventually they got back to us and said they just didn’t think they would sell enough of them. Which we knew was utter BS. It’s not like we were doing a run of tens of thousands. Greg tweeted about it here, here, and – to be fair – here.

We were totally pissed, but it may have been a blessing in disguise, because soon after all the samples we had around the office started to break hard and fast. Plus the earbud samples we had requested never even showed up. Less than two months of use and we were getting busted speakers, broken headbands, and fucked up wires. Turns out they were really low quality after all. So I guess we dodged a bullet after all. But that doesn’t excuse Skullcandy’s unprofessionalism. Not cool bros.

The 2012 Academy Award nominations were announced early this morning and for some reason I can’t explain, I still give a shit about this. Everyone knows that the Academy always makes predictable choices – taking the bait of emotionally manipulative movies, especially historical biopics about royalty overcoming stuttering problems. This year the nominations are even more of a joke, with brazen snubs and jackass picks abound.

Any film with an inkling of indie production or spirit was overlooked, while bullshit movies that stick to the Oscar formula are lavished with nominations. Original, challenging movies like Take Shelter, Drive, Martha Marcy, and 50/50 are completely snubbed while moronic productions like War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are nominated heavily. It’s been obvious for years that the Oscars award celebrity status and not actual achievements in cinema, so it’s really no surprise. But this year stings more than usual.

I’m not unhappy with the nominations that went to The Help, Hugo, and Nick Nolte, who got a very well deserved nod for his supporting role in Warrior. C’mon, the hotel scene where he gets blasted listening to Moby Dick on tape was absolutely gut wrenching. I watched The Help a few weeks ago. I put it on while doing laundry thinking it would be some bland 90 minutes about civil rights, but by the end I was weeping into my freshly washed towels. I honestly hope The Help sweeps this shit. Cheers to Bridesmaids, Tinker Tailor, and Bullhead as well.

While we didn’t review them on the Bloglin, I’ve seen The Artist and Moneyball, both nominated for Best Picture as well as in several other categories. These were two of the best reviewed movies of the year, but are you fucking kidding me? The Artist is a well-crafted gimmick with no heart and Moneyball was as deep as a bird bath. Brad Pitt plays Brad Pitt and people eat that shit up whether it’s engaging or not. Moneyball was a saccharine underdog movie with no emotional insight whatsoever. Oh I’m sorry, he does cry when his daughter plays guitar. *fart noise*

As much as I bitch, will I watch the Oscars next month? Of course I will. I’ll get drunk and scream at the TV and annoy my girlfriend about how retarded the Academy is. But at least they’re over at 11:00pm, just in time for Seinfeld.

For full list of nominees, hit the jump:

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ED NOTE: This article was originally published in December of 2011. Today, the internet is collectively speaking up in protest of SOPA/PIPA so we felt we should repost an earlier article we did about this terrible bill in case anyone is still in the dark about it. Go here for more info about contacting your representative!

I’m always reticent to get up on a soapbox about things political, but the press’ continued and purposeful ignorance of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an incredibly frightening bill which is this close to passing in congress, has forced my hand. If it passes, which is becoming a surety, SOPA is the first large step towards censorship of the internet that is managed not only by the government but by private companies. Ostensibly a way to cut down on internet piracy, the bill is spearheaded by major entertainment companies. That is why you will not see it covered on any mainstream news outlet. The bill is a kind of addendum to last year’s Protect IP.

That bill had much more restrictive parameters for what sites it deemed required censorship, but anyone reading this who is passingly familiar with internet piracy probably experienced the same Orwellian fear I did when you visited a site only to be greeted by a Federal Seal and a paragraph describing its seizure by the US government. Let me quickly clarify that the loss of piracy is not the problem here. I acknowledge that piracy is wrong. I like it, but it’s wrong.

The problem is the means that will be used to achieve that end, means that any American should immediately recognize as wildly unconstitutional and infuriating. Many of the channels through which illegal piracy is conducted are also channels through which massive amounts of legally transmitted data passes through every day. If you’re prepared to accept legislation like SOPA, then prepare to say goodbye to things like MegaUpload, YouSendIt, Mediafire, etc.

If that still doesn’t get your goat, then consider this: the logistical methods that will be used to enforce the censorship of those sights (the same methods, by the way, that are used by the Chinese government to prevent their citizenry from “dangerous” information) will fundamentally compromise the safety and infrastructure of the internet itself. It will also force major internet companies to divert their time and effort away from innovation and into keeping pirated content off of their web properties for fear of shutdown.

Y’know who is for this? People who have no idea what it really means. The members of congress are famously bullheaded about technology, and still somehow think it’s just a place for “nerds.” Speaking of the “nerds,” wanna know who’s actively and fiercely against SOPA? Companies such as Google, Wikia, reddit, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo, AOL, Mozilla, and eBay. The giants of the internet, people who understand it better than anyone else, are certain that this bill is an absolutely terrible idea.

It boggles the mind that congress refuses to listen to them. Almost never have they come off as more ignorant and unintelligent, like a complete gerontocracy who are utterly out of touch with how the modern world works. I never thought I would be the person to say this, but if you’re looking for something to do about this, please call your congressman. Apparently they don’t know how to use the internet.

Further debate over the bill has been postponed until after the government recess in early January, so hopefully more of the public will become aware of (and against) SOPA. The internet’s one of the few good things we have left. Let’s not fuck it up, okay?

It is no surprise to any of us that, when watching a show like CSI, you can see a midget get ground up in a wood chipper and fed into a sewer, and yet Marg Helgenberger is not then allowed to say the name of that brown liquid the vertically challenged vic’ ended up in. The double standards of censorship in American media are as sewn into its DNA as dating competitions and quirky platonic friends who live in impossibly large New York apartments.

I bring this up because, for the second time in 5 years, the US Supreme court will be taking a look at the constitutionality of censorship on major network television. Keep in mind, first, that even if they did declare it illegal due to violation of free speech legislation, the content of NBC/ABC/etc… would not necessarily change overnight. These entities are still beholden to their advertisers for profit, and as such are essentially obligated to hold themselves to their standards.

The practical result would be that the FCC (a government agency) could no longer fine these networks for their supposed transgressions (think Janet Jackson’s nipple). It would, however, be a moral victory (or loss, depending on how you look at it. My feelings are mixed, as you’ll see). With the presence of classic “family-values-oriented” conservatives like Antonin Scalia in the court, I happen to think that the legislation will remain the same (maybe slightly altered) but that’s not the point (at least not here). The point is to, hopefully, get a discussion going about the utility of “morality” based censorship in American media and its reflection on our personal conduct.

Though we may deride it in private circles, distancing ourselves from censorship by glibly drawing attention to its hypocrisy, we nonetheless tend to tacitly accept and even support it in day to day life. After all, though the argument would be that swearing or sex is a part of our existence (which it is) and as such should be just as acceptable and prevalent on television, would you not only be shocked if Matt Lauer suddenly started saying “fuck” a lot and Meredith Viera popped a titty, but also inspired to take to the internet to point out how insane it is that they’re doing it?

This all stems from our cultural conditioning to these standards, stretching all the way back to our puritanical roots as a nation. Or so it seems. I’m no psychologist, only a guy with a keyboard, but I’d like to think that my own personality could have at least a measure of control over my reactions to hearing a swear on TV, in the sense that I can judge it subjectively and not as the member of a collective. So do I not take at least some actual offense to these things?

I suppose the answer has to be yes (or at least for this article to be interesting) so then why? And what is to be made, then, of the acceptance of violence? Let me first say that none of these ideas have to do with the intent of the FCC (though I don’t want to pigeonhole them either, I just don’t know) but rather the way these things have been interpreted/altered/absorbed by us, or I guess me.

The FCC Attempted to Fine NYPD Blue $1.2 Million for this Shot

The simplest way to ask this is “Why am I okay with being shown/not shown certain things and what would be the effect of that changing?” I think, optimistically, that the answer lies in the desirability of allure. By that I mean that, 9 times out of 10, the idea of what is in the box is more attractive than what it actually contains. The next step being that, when shown only translucent boxes, the box loses its meaning entirely.

So keeping the public (ostensibly “the children” but in reality everyone) from sex and vulgarity preserves them, while constantly exposing them to violence protects them from it. Let me start with the second half. I’m not saying that CSI “desensitizes” you to violence. I think that idea is idiotic. Of course if you saw those things in real life you would still be horrified.

I think that reaction is innate in most people (there are, of course, aberrations). I do think, however, that violence on TV can take away some of the dread/existential burden of the unfortunately violent society we live in. Which I think can be a good thing. It’s okay to be afraid of violence and death, but maybe watching it on a little glowing box can help you not be afraid of it all the time. It is, to be clumsy, like a nightlight.

The much more uplifting side of this coin is the preservation of the mystique of sex and swearing. I enjoy the censorship of swearing because, obviously, if that is taken away then swear words become just words. And I love swear words. I don’t want “fuck” to become equitable with “pumpkin”, “mortgage”, or “whisk”. We, as humans, need to feel as though we’re doing something wrong every once and awhile, even if it’s just a word, to keep our sanity.

Then there’s my favorite part, the protection of the mystique of sex. Sex (and it’s inextricable bedfellow romance) being perhaps the only thing in our society that retains a palpable ethereality. Not showing sex to kids is a good thing, not because it would hurt their brain or something, but because it allows them to (when they deem appropriate) discover all it’s wonders, quirks, and intangibilities for themselves. To bombard them with it before then would be to ruin a good surprise.

So, while I think (not know, mind you) that agencies like the FCC and the particularly maddening MPAA are filled with corrupt assholes, I do see how our society has parlayed their actions into something that has, at least in part, a positive effect. One of many counterarguments is that censorship is blatantly in violation of the first amendment, which it totally is (I see no way around that), and as such should not be allowed in America for any reason. That would be a counterargument I could undertand. I’m sure there’s plenty of counterarguments I could understand, and I would love to hear them. It’s an immensely complex issue that is by no means as black & white as some people treat it. Thoughts?

I’m always reticent to get up on a soapbox about things political, but the press’ continued and purposeful ignorance of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an incredibly frightening bill which is this close to passing in congress, has forced my hand. Yesterday was the first day of tweaking and debate over the final version, and all six amendments put forth by the small contingent of people who aren’t completely crazy were handily shot down.

If it passes, which is becoming a surety, SOPA is the first large step towards censorship of the internet that is managed not only by the government but by private companies. Ostensibly a way to cut down on internet piracy, the bill is spearheaded by major entertainment companies. That is why you will not see it covered on any mainstream news outlet. The bill is a kind of addendum to last year’s Protect IP.

That bill had much more restrictive parameters for what sites it deemed required censorship, but anyone reading this who is passingly familiar with internet piracy probably experienced the same Orwellian fear I did when you visited a site only to be greeted by a Federal Seal and a paragraph describing its seizure by the US government. Let me quickly clarify that the loss of piracy is not the problem here. I acknowledge that piracy is wrong. I like it, but it’s wrong.

The problem is the means that will be used to achieve that end, means that any American should immediately recognize as wildly unconstitutional and infuriating. Many of the channels through which illegal piracy is conducted are also channels through which massive amounts of legally transmitted data passes through every day. If you’re prepared to accept legislation like SOPA, then prepare to say goodbye to things like MegaUpload, YouSendIt, Mediafire, etc.

If that still doesn’t get your goat, then consider this: the logistical methods that will be used to enforce the censorship of those sights (the same methods, by the way, that are used by the Chinese government to prevent their citizenry from “dangerous” information) will fundamentally compromise the safety and infrastructure of the internet itself. It will also force major internet companies to divert their time and effort away from innovation and into keeping pirated content off of their web properties for fear of shutdown.

Y’know who is for this? People who have no idea what it really means. The members of congress are famously bullheaded about technology, and still somehow think it’s just a place for “nerds.” Speaking of the “nerds,” wanna know who’s actively and fiercely against SOPA? Companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo, AOL, Mozilla, and eBay. The giants of the internet, people who understand it better than anyone else, are certain that this bill is an absolutely terrible idea.

It boggles the mind that congress refuses to listen to them. Almost never have they come off as more ignorant and unintelligent, like a complete gerontocracy who are utterly out of touch with how the modern world works. I never thought I would be the person to say this, but if you’re looking for something to do about this, please call your congressman. Apparently they don’t know how to use the internet.

Further debate over the bill has been postponed until after the government recess in early January, so hopefully more of the public will become aware of (and against) SOPA. The internet’s one of the few good things we have left. Let’s not fuck it up, okay?

I’m no genius, I’m just a mad guy, so here are some links to articles that can give you even more detailed looks into the massive problems with this bill, I highly suggest you read them if you’re at all interested.

I’ve been confronted recently with a lot of great games. Coming hand in hand with these, however, have been what people in the gaming community insist on referring to as “glitches.” If you were to head over to IGN right now, you would see two front page articles about these “glitches,” one about Skyrim and one about Skyward Sword, both of which have abnormalities that are potentially game breaking.

I’m feeling like playing devil’s advocate today, so I’m going to take some time to deconstruct (in the most basic way) what is wrong with referring to these things as “glitches,” and how looking at them differently can actually (hopefully) start an interesting conversation about that nature of gaming.

First things first: the word glitch is just an easy excuse for what amounts to a mistake on the game studios part, though even that definition is somewhat reductive. The thing is, these “glitches” are only perceived by the user as they relate to some sort of imagined game experience that does not in fact exist. There is no such thing as a PS3 Skryim in which framerate is consistent once the save file surpasses 6MB.

That is not a glitch, it is simply the way that Skyrim plays. That is Skyrim. It is what we payed $60 for and what was consciously presented to us by Bethesda. So, instead of excusing it away, let’s look at it at face value. This particular anomaly drastically affects the ludonarrative of the game (meaning the experience that the player controls. A game like Skyrim or GTA is almost entirely ludonarrative, whereas say Uncharted is all narrative).

The story does not on its surface change, but your hand is bizarrely forced in the way you play it. Here are the facts: when your character has been played for roughly 60 hours, the game begins to slow down rapidly, with skipping animations, texture pop, and severely restrictive framerate issues. This dissonance is particularly jarring because of how fully developed the province of Skyrim is, as it gives the impression of not just a game but indeed an entire world slowing down, falling apart, coming undone at its seams.

By 60 hours into the game, your character will most likely be heavily embroiled in the main plot of the game, having transformed from a backstory-free (but presumably mundane) prisoner into the apparent savior of the world. You will also have done a lot of stuff, the most minor of which contribute to the size of your save file (the agreed upon culprit). Things such as leaving doors open, moving things around on tables, killing animals, etc.

The combined effect of these two things (that being the hero-story and the stuff) is a large shift in the actual playable story and “message” of Skyrim. The game becomes not about saving the world, but it becomes about a character who has experienced so much so quickly, had so much responsibility thrust upon him, that he loses his (or her) ability to perform simple tasks and even comprehend their own world around them.

From this perspective, a texture popping in is not a mistake in the code, but rather your character’s mental and physical exhaustion altering their perception. Notice that the game has a defined calendar and time system that is strictly adhered to. Day will always become night, etc. Consider how much stuff your avatar is able to accomplish in a single day (travelling across the map multiple times, raiding several dungeons, killing a hundred people, stealing thousands of dollars, meeting kings) and how “unrealistic” that is.

Now consider that all of those things have actually happened to your character, and in that timeframe. Do not make excuses for the game, because that is the situation that is openly presented to you. People lauded games like Metal Gear Solid and Eternal Darkness when they meta-ized their gameplay by either imitating your console crashing or, say, forcing you to switch controller ports to defeat a boss.

Hit the jump for much more!

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As is customary, let me begin at the beginning of what is becoming my most intense period of discontent with professional athletics. On July 8th, 2010, LeBron James announced his decision to sign with the Miami Heat basketball team in a televised special called, aptly, The Decision. Let me qualify that, though I think it was not the most loyal choice, I have no real problems with LeBron’s actual decision to leave Cleveland.

Part of this comes from my theory that LeBron James, or at least the one we see, is not a real person. He is a cipher, a carefully calibrated almost-hero whose authors made a grave error and brutally tarnished the legacy of a preternaturally talented young man who, from the age 14, has been literally referred to as a King. Any human with a realistic sense of the world around them would have avoided The Decision like a plague. LeBron on the other hand appeared genuinely shocked at the backlash.

The season and playoffs, despite my malaise at the Lakers’ early exit, ended up being the most exciting in recent memory, and ended with the underdog Mavs defeating the evil Heat. Hooray for all, and well deserved national schadenfreude ensued. Then something quite strange happened. LeBron, in one of the most inexplicable moves I’ve ever witnessed an athlete make, even more damning than The Decision, gave an interview in which he essentially told his detractors to shut up and retreat to their shitty jobs.

That was when I really realized that this was not a human that lived in the same world as the rest of us. That comment showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what professional sports are. To draw a distinction between a team or a league and its fans is to nullify the league’s existence in every way. Could a professional athlete really behave like that? I was comforted by my belief that LeBron was the most obvious of outliers, a selfish and misguided deviation. I was wrong.

Somewhere, in a parallel earth, it is basketball season right now. My father, a born and bred Pittsburgh boy, was a devout Pirates fan and general baseball super-enthusiast. That is, until 1994. That was the year when the MLB cancelled their whole season. It took him over 15 years to really start appreciating the game again. I fear that, without a resolution soon, I will feel a similar betrayal. All because of pure monetary greed.

In many ways this lockout has been like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real. Any sense I had of a team fighting for their city or their fans has been damaged, I hope not irreparably. The NBA Lockout is a sad and disheartening thing to watch. Especially in our country’s time of economic struggle (to put it lightly), it infuriates to no end watching players stubbornly grasp onto almost incomprehensible amounts of money, refusing to give an inch even at the expense of THE GAME NOT EVEN BEING PLAYED.

I really can’t stress that point enough. I’ve lost the ever-important suspension of disbelief about why athletes deserve so much money, because right now the players of the NBA are not professional athletes. They will regain that title when they play a game. So perhaps the rest of the league is more like LeBron than I feared. To them, their mere existence is the spectacle, the importance. Not throwing some silly orange ball through a metal ring. They just want us to go back to our shitty jobs.

I have two questions: “What did we do to deserve this?” and, more troublingly “did we do this?” Does it not logically line up that our continued treatment of these players as superhuman has contributed to their comfortability with values that are in no way indicative of the adoring public’s? Or is it the player’s responsibility to “stay grounded” and maintain perspective, contextualizing themselves as a proletarians who just happens to be payed enormous salaries? Is that even possible?

Why does it somehow seem wrong to everyone (at least me) to pay them even vaguely normal amounts? I know I seem to be coming down pretty heavily on the side of the owners right now, but the fact is that the league loses 300 million dollars a year. I’m no economist, but when reminded that the league could theoretically be profitable if less than 15 players were released from their mega-contracts, it feels like something is out of whack.

That being said, I’m sure there are some ins and outs of this process that I don’t fully grasp, and probably a lot of deep seeded acrimony between the players and owners. But that’s not what I’m thinking about right now. I’m thinking about how I’m not sitting on my couch wearing my Kobe jersey and watching those beautiful purple and yellow bastards play basketball. That hurts.

Whenever someone tries to stop me on the street in order to discuss a world-bettering issue, or sign a petition, or donate money, I don’t know what to say. Of course I keep walking, never wanting to discuss anything that could potentially improve peoples’ lives, but I’d like to have a stock response ready. I want to say something funny, but I’m always at a loss for a joke, which is funny, because jokes are my forte. Witty responses and quips are where I excel, so for that reason this constant lack of material bothers me. I’ve tried my hand at some jokes, but I’ve yet to find that ideal response.

The thing is, I’ve never heard anyone else have a good response either. The problem clearly is beyond me. I was walking with a friend recently and someone with a clipboard and a visor tried to stop us on the sidewalk, saying, “Hey there, can you take a minute to support gay rights?”

“I don’t support gay rights,” my friend responded, as we walked by without stopping. “You like that?” he asked me.

I didn’t. This guy isn’t particularly funny to begin with, but his whole joke here was that he does actually support gay rights. That was supposed to be funny. He thought that by telling the man with the clipboard the opposite of the truth (essentially, a lie) that it was really witty. Or he might have just thought that not supporting gay rights was funny. I don’t know. Either way, this was not a good response.

He’s used this response before, too: “Hi, can you take a minute to support forest preservation?” “I don’t support forest preservation.” I do have to give him credit for at least trying to make a joke. Other people make these long-winded excuses, things along the lines of, “I’m so sorry, I’m running late for my cousin’s recital and he had a horrible relationship with his father growing up and yellow is not my favorite color but if I’m late to this it’ll bring up all sorts of painful memories for him, also I have a cramp in my side…”

I feel I speak for all the petitioners when I say: spare the to-do list. Real or imaginary, no one is interested in what other people have to do.

Some people think they’re being clever by avoiding eye-contact, or worse, they give the snide response:

“Hey! How about you take a minute to–”

“How about you take a minute to watch me keep walking?”

Really? You’re gonna try and be mean to these people? They’re just trying to help out people in need (not that I’ve ever once stopped to help anybody). Though as it turns out, a good many of these clipboarders don’t even care about the spiel that they’re attempting to give you. It’s a horrible thought, but standing with a clipboard bothering people is an actual profession. People are being paid to do this. Actually, that’s a beautiful thought: make money to get people to stop-and-chat? That’s brilliant. Nevertheless, because there is money to be made in this pestering, there are people who don’t care whether you stop, or you ignore them, or you lie, or explain yourself, or even if you belittle them.

So none of these responses work. Not the belittling, nor the ignoring. They’re fine responses if you want to convey your lack of comedic genius, but not if you want to be funny. Today I was walking to get lunch wearing a green vest, when I heard, “Green vest – green energy!” I looked around, and sure enough, there was a man with shoulder-length hair, an old ball cap, and a clipboard looking right at me.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Hi! You got a minute to talk about green energy?”

“That’s how you’re trying to start this? ‘Green vest – green energy’?”

“Yeah, you like that?”

I thought about it.

“Yeah, actually. That’s pretty good” I said.

“Fantastic! Let’s talk about green energy then!”

This was my moment. It was joke time. I had to say a joke.

“Oh, well, maybe after lunch!”

I blew it. What was that? It certainly wasn’t a joke. I entered my lunch destination and ordered some soup. I was furious. I could do better. I had to do better. The thing was, I wasn’t sure of what type of joke I was trying to make: Was it a joke for me, or for him? Was I trying to make fun of him without making him feel too bad, or to playfully explain why I would never stop-and-chat for a good cause? I couldn’t answer these questions. But then, suddenly, as I was waiting for my soup, it hit me: I knew just who could provide me with the answers I needed. I got my soup and left.

“Hey! Green vest–”

“Hey. Look. Can I ask you a question?”

“Is it about green energy?” he asked, hopefully.

“No. Well, kind of. Listen, I don’t want to talk to you about green energy. You seem nice and all, and green energy is great, but I just don’t want to talk about it. The problem is, I don’t know how to tell you that in a funny way. I want to make you laugh. Or if I were walking with someone else, I would want them to laugh. You wouldn’t necessarily have to laugh if I were with someone else. So, what would you want to hear?”

He thought about it.

“Maybe something with a green energy pun?” he said. “Like, ‘Oh, I would love to talk about green energy, but right now I’m on my way to the green market!’”

I realized this was a mistake.

“Oh, okay. Well, thanks.” With that, I left.

“Stay green!” he shouted after me. I winced. A few blocks up ahead I noticed a woman with frizzy hair, a fanny-pack, and sure enough, a clipboard. Perhaps she would provide an answer to my joke dilemma.  And a bit past her was another fundraiser. I approached the first woman.

“Hi there! Do you have a minute to talk about a woman’s right to choose?” she asked me.

“Yeah! Well, no. Hold on.” I took out a piece of paper of my own. Now I could see where the clipboard would come in handy. “Let me ask you something,” I began.

We love sports. I don’t mean me, and I don’t mean bloggers, and I don’t mean Мишка, at least not exclusively. I mean the collective “we,” the “we” that is invoked by Presidents in wake of tragedy or religious men in sermon. This is not to say that everyone loves sports, or even likes them. But we do. I’m afraid that now, for this hopefully ephemeral moment, perhaps we love too much.

Joe Paterno was college football. The elder, the sage, the allfather. His craggy visage and never-graying hair were the living breathing representation of every NCAA football faithful’s argument to an NFL fan about why their league was so much better. “Look at what this school, what that man, can do with just a group of young, unpaid kids, a pigskin ball, and a whole lotta heart.” That’s gone forever now.

In his fantastic and wrenching article about the unfolding scandal at Penn State, Grantland writer Michael Weinreb quotes his friend, a State College native and lifelong Nittany Lions booster: “The nature of this crime is the worst that has ever happened anywhere.” A hyperbole (though perhaps only slightly), but one imbued with true and visceral pain. The kind that you know is vividly real for the person expressing it. The hyperbole of a sports fan.

“That was the single most exciting thing I have ever seen.” “He is literally the best player who has ever lived.” “That catch was impossible.” “Please god, if you just let them win this I will never ask you for anything ever again in my life.” These are the hyperbole we are accustomed to saying and, for a moment, believing. But now, mostly for the citizens of Stage College, PA, but in a way for everyone who’s ever waxed poetic about Joe Pa, we must come to terms with a new kind. The worst thing happened. The worst thing happened.

Jerry Sandusky is an evil man who deserves to have the book thrown at him in the most brutal way possible. But his is not the only true betrayal. It is Joe Paterno, and the Penn State Football staff, and the University president, who made the grave and nauseating error of believing that the preservation of football was more important than justice for a sickening crime against children. And yet, somehow, a large contingent of Penn State students are still outraged at his firing.

People, people my age, protesting the firing of a man who like it or not contributed to the continued molestation of children, if only through his gross inaction. Is this what fandom means now? To have football be the biggest thing in State College, and indeed in any town, used to be a point of pride. It is only now, when we truly understand what exactly football has been put in front of, that the ignorance of that belief can be awfully realized. We thought we learned a lesson when we found out USC gave Reggie Bush a motor vehicle. How naive we were. How trusting in the fact that that was as bad as it could get.

Unfortunately, and I’m also a part of this, the victims are the ones getting lost here, once again caught up in something that is unfairly larger than them. Kudos to those who stood outside of Beaver Stadium this weekend in solidarity with the victims, protesting the attendance of the game. Shame on the people that mocked them. The fallout from this event is bad now. It will get worse. The more I think about it the more distressing it becomes. Decades of both past and future Nittany Lion football will be tainted. That’s a significant blow to the lives of innumerably many, based on the actions of a terrible few. Is there anything less espousing of the camaraderie of sport?

I, of course, don’t mean to suggest that the horror of this situation is in any way applicable to any other school, but it should be a sobering lesson to anyone who loves sports. The wounds are fresh, yes, as fresh as they can be. We are not complicit. But we have been included. Against our will. Any cheer for Paterno or Linebacker U is now… it’s simply ruined. That can’t be reversed. But at this point I have to wonder: can we trust ourselves to make sport that important again?