The biggest news in the sports world this past month, aside from the World Cup (*yawn*), has been the LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade free agent saga. Last week all three of the superstars announced that they would join forces and all play in South Beach for the Miami Heat. My initial thoughts were something like “Holy shit! Everyone else is fucked!” and I still stand by that assertion. The part that I struggle with is the amount of outcry from the fans who don’t think it’s fair or that it was some type of conspiracy between the players. I don’t think it’s fair either, but that’s just the Raptors’ fan in me talking. I wouldn’t give a fuck about fair if they were all playing in Toronto. Sure I’m disappointed that Bosh left us pretty high and dry, but it was well within his rights. In the “free agent era” players have the ability to play where they wish for whatever reasons they choose. The “salary cap era” was supposed to protect against one team dramatically outspending all the others in order to put a super team on the playing field (see: New York Yankees). Both the salary cap and free agency play a big part in this whole scenario because the public doesn’t understand them fully, all they see is their beloved franchise player heading for greener pastures and leaving them for the wolves.
I like to put myself in their shoes for a minute. For the sake of the argument we’ll say that everything not directly related to basketball are created equal between rival cities, and so was money. Strictly from a basketball perspective, who doesn’t want to play with the best players in the world? It’s always understood that lesser players tend to follow superstars, wanting to play with them, so why wouldn’t the best player in the league want to play with some top guys too? Despite the common perception, Miami has not won, and will not easily win the NBA championship this year, or any year in their existence. Nobody within the league is going to roll over for them because of their star power. The NBA, of all leagues, does not work that way. Players around the rest of the league saw what went down, and whether they like it or not, they are going to find extra motivation on those few nights to go out and do your best to beat the new regular season dream team.
I don’t agree with the circus type atmosphere that has been surrounding this whole thing since last year, but that is all just part of the world that we’re living in. Everything has to be a dramatic production, if not for now, for the DVD to be released at a future date. I think these guys need to get over themselves some. But with that being said, as a basketball fan I am super excited to watch these guys play together on a regular basis and can only imagine the highlight reel plays we will see out of Miami this year!

I cannot wait to hear some new songs by these two. Both are among my favourite artists going and they are currently writing an album together! Unreal! Here is a backstage video of them performing Handmade Handgun, the secret song off P.O.S.’s latest album Never Better, for AbsolutePunk.net.

P.O.S. and Astronautalis – “Hand Made Hand Gun” Absolutepunk.net Backstage Sessions from Keagan Ilvonen on Vimeo.

I am a slacker. All apologies. I will redeem myself soon.

It’s Tuesday and it’s raining. I am already wishing the week was over because I was in London this past weekend and didn’t really get a chance to relax at all, or get a day to sleep-in in my own bed. It was a great weekend though, good to see lots of family I hadn’t seen in a few years, as well as a good friend of mine who goes to school down there. Lots of drinking and basketball, which is what this time of year is all about.

My bracket made it through this first weekend in pretty rough shape, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. I could have lost my pool to my recent ex-girlfriend to just add insult to injury like last year. My sister lost both her teams in the final in second round upsets, so she has been hating my trash talk. My Kentucky Wildcats and Syracuse Orangemen are still looking good so I am loving it thus far. I’m pretty stoked for this weekend so I can just sit at home with some friends and some beer and watch the games and relax.

There is also a UFC this Saturday which should be good. I have a feeling I will end up watching the re-run on Sunday though while I’m laying on the couch hungover. That’s usually how these UFC nights turn out with my boy G-Rock. The booze always beats us into submission, but we never tap out.

Sunday marked the day I have been most anticipating in a very long time – the Toronto stop of the Every Never Is Now tour. I had my tickets for many months in advance and there was no way I was possibly going to miss this show. It looked a bit sketchy a few days before the show when my ride’s car broke down, but I persevered. I took a day off work and bussed it down, and am I ever glad I did!

We got there in prime time to enjoy a few beers while we took in the last few songs of the local opening act. I didn’t catch their name but they weren’t terrible. We made our way up to the front for Astronautalis’ set. He was really good. He gives off so much energy for just one dude on stage that it’s hard not to find yourself caught up in the songs and dancing around. He also did a little freestyle session that was pretty damn funny about St. Patty’s Day, Jean Chretien, and Bifocals, which were all audience suggested topics.

After his set we went back to the bar for some more beers and to enjoy Dessa’s set from a comfortable distance. It was during this time that Astronautalis was chillin’ at his merch table so I went over to say how much I enjoyed his set. He was the coolest dude and totally caught me off guard when he asked my name and introduced himself as Andy. It was like meeting a new friend at a party as we talked for about 20 minutes about the tour, poutine in Quebec, Canadian whiskey, and his new album.

As if that already wasn’t cool enough, P.O.S. came wandering past a few minutes later. So I sparked up a conversation with him, snapped a couple pics and chilled for a bit. We watched the better part of Dessa’s set standing together, even cracking jokes about not being able to see past people in front of us. It was also just like being at a party and he was some random dude I befriended. Too cool, but it gets better!

During P.O.S.’s set I was right up front. He called Dessa up on stage for a couple songs and she came out of the crowd to join him. They were super tight and nailed my favourite Doomtree song Dots & Dashes. Later in his performance he called on Astronautalis to play Handmade Handgun. Astronautalis came out of the door on stage and P.O.S. made a crack about it and me, being drunk, yelled out “What a bitch!” I was standing in the second row directly in front of Astronautalis and both he and P.O.S. were laughing and ran with it, but not before Andy made gave me a very emphasized bitch slap.

P.O.S.’s set was probably the best thing I’ve ever seen. Dude nailed every song with unreal precision and timing, played all my favourites, and even got a mosh pit going at a rap show. I’m a haredcore kid so it wasn’t anything impressive as far as mosh pits go, but it was still cool. I also really enjoyed the amount of crowd participation that he got going, with lots of call and responses that fit perfectly from his album.

After the show we stuck around for another beer. Sneaky Dee’s cleared out super quick so we got another chance to chat up Astronautalis. It was super cool because he remembered my name and also that he slapped me during the song! So we had a good laugh about that and bro’d it up for a bit more. Then I got him to sign his latest album for me, which I have added to my vinyl collection, and he wrote me this little message: “Friends who let friends slap each other are friends for life.”

So if that’s not the best concert experience ever, I don’t know what is!

I know I’ve been slacking with the site updates recently. Ive had a lot going on with work and personal affairs. I’m hoping things will settle down a bit after next weekend and I will be able to find some time to get some shit done on here.

Steroids in sports is a big issue these days. More than 30 athletes were banned from the Olympics before they even began for testing positive for illegal performance enhancing drugs. I’m not going to sit here and defend those people, a high majority of them were cheating to try and gain a competitive advantage and that is wrong and needs to be punished. If you intend to participate in an event of that caliber, you need to respect it and your opponents and follow the rules. Especially in the Olympics which are all about sportsmanship and friendly competition.

On somewhat of a flip side argument, I do think that there should be a place for these steroid using athletes to display their talents. If you want to do it cleanly you can go to the Olympics, if you want to do it on performance enhancing drugs you can go to the Steroid Olympics. I guarantee the Steroid Olympics would be more entertaining to watch because they would be ridiculously bigger, stronger, and faster than their clean counterparts. Science and technology has improved every aspect of all sports over the last 20 years except for the use of drugs which are still illegal. Why is that? Why is our world so afraid of drugs? I think it’s about time we embrace what scientists have been able to create in order to benefit our bodies. It is the natural course of evolution, survival of the fittest type shit. Why the government feels the need to over-regulate steroids and other such drugs that are far more beneficial than harmful. But that is a rant for another day, right now I just want to see openly juiced up freak athletes destroying all world records and endorsing their steroid of choice. It’s bound to happen, and when it does I want in on the action cause it’s my idea!

Scored some new vinyl today in the mail courtesy of my sister. It’s a late Christmas present but I’m sure she’ll try to pass it off as an early birthday present. I got a split red/white coloured Blink 182 album as well as a really fancy looking Such Gold 7″ that you can see below. I’ve also updated my vinyl list.

Such Gold - Stand Tall 7"

The Olympics are pretty well in full swing now in Vancouver and it blows my mind how many people become fans and experts of these obscure sports that only come around every 4 years with the winter games. I know I’m guilty of it also to a certain degree, but I don’t go overboard with it. I have a few people on my Facebook list that are FREAKING OUT every time Canada wins a medal. The Olympics bring a sense of national pride about which usually indicates who we will root for, regardless of any of the athelete’s other characteristics. Everyone I know cheers for the Canadians because they are Canadians themselves, but that seems kind of lame reason to like someone, doesn’t it?

I always like to root for the underdog, it’s the easiest way to avoid disappointment because they aren’t expected to win in the first place, so if they don’t it’s no big deal. But those times when the favourite falls it is so much sweeter. I’m not saying I don’t cheer for the Canadians myself, because I do, but I can very much enjoy watching anyone celebrate their victory at this level because I really have no ties or vested interest in any of them. And maybe my nationalist values are failing me when I say that part of me hopes someone else wins the hockey gold medal.

That is all.