A fine day in Cleveland, oral histories, and Pixies: While We’re Waiting…

Happy Wednesday, Blawg Pound. We’re staring down the barrel of Memorial Day 2015, the Cavs open their Eastern Conference Finals series against the Atlanta Hawks this evening, and the Indians got a win (!) last night behind yet another dominant pitching performance. It’s a great day! Cavs coach David Blatt can explain why better than I can:

David Blatt greets the media: "Great day to be alive, huh? … Especially when you consider the alternative"

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) May 19, 2015

Alive > dead, folks. That’s advanced stuff. They don’t teach you that on the first day of fighter pilot school.

I love a good oral history, and this week brought us a good one (divided into parts one and two) about Kevin Garnett from Howard Beck for Bleacher Report.¹ The thesis is that Garnett was a transformational NBA player, with much of his influence due to his going straight into the league from high school, and then by signing a then-record seven-year, $126 million contract. Garnett’s rise indirectly led to the NBA age limit, the 1999 lockout, and the subsequent collective bargaining agreement.

The real fun of the story, however, is the anecdotes about Garnett. Few of them are surprising, and many revolve around his legendary intensity and propensity for foul language and trash talk. Most everyone interviewed said that Garnett is a good teammate and a decent human, although one would never guess it based on his on-court behavior.

Here’s an illustrative example, told by Garnett’s former teammate Paul Pierce, that will quench Cavs fans’ thirst for any residual Joakim Noah-related schadenfreude:

I remember [Joakim] Noah looked up to KG. He was like, “Man, KG, I had your poster on my wall, I looked up to you, man.” And then [Garnett] just said something like that, and was like “F— you, Noah.” I was like, “Whoa.” This kid fresh out of college, looks up to KG, just said he had his poster on the wall, and he tells him that! It crushed him. It crushed Noah.

The NBA Draft lottery was last night, and the Cavs were not involved for the first time since 2010. It felt good to not be rooting for ping pong balls. The Minnesota Timberwolves landed the top pick, with the the Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks, and Orlando Magic rounding out the top five. Philly could have had three lottery choices if everything bounced their way — via trade-obtained protected draft picks — but they came away with just one. The Knicks were perhaps the night’s biggest loser, as the Lakers jumped them to get into the top three. Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns and Duke’s Jahlil Okafor are the early favorites to be the top two selections.

The Cavs have the No. 24 pick in the first round, barring a trade. The full draft order can be found here.

In music news, I saw the Pixies at Masonic Auditorium Sunday night, my first time seeing the alt-rock legends. They have achieved plenty of success on their own, but perhaps their most enduring legacy will be their influence on 1990s grunge — Kurt Cobain famously admitted that Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was little more than an attempt to rip off their sound.²

I was given a tiny bit of pause by the fact that the band’s original bass player and vocalist, Kim Deal, is not touring with the band, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well her replacement, Argentinian Paz Lenchantin, filled in. Her bass playing was on point, and more importantly, her voice was appropriately haunting to complement that of frontman Black Francis on songs like “Hey” and “Where Is My Mind?”

While nearly 30 years have passed since the band’s formation, they still bring the goods. They don’t have the same energy that I imagine they once did, and they eased into the show. They opened with Francis on an acoustic guitar, and only after about six songs did they really start to rock. I was struck by how much the band’s sound is defined by Joey Santiago’s guitar and David Lovering’s drumming. Francis (and to a slightly lesser extent, Deal) has always been the face of the band, but seeing them live was instructive in showing how important the band’s non-singers are.

This is hardly professional footage, but it’s the only video I could find. Enjoy the day, gang. Thanks for reading.

1. Who I had the temerity to defend once upon a time. [↩]
2. “I was trying to write the ultimate pop song,” Cobain told Rolling Stone in 1993. “I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.” [↩]