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Edward Cullen vs. Pau Gasol: Who wins?
The brainwashed
Since this piece got little to no love over at big sister ‘site BallinEurope.com, BuckBokai reruns it here – search engine voodoo be damned – for an audience perhaps more in touch with the eternal war between the supernatural undead and NBA basketball…
BuckBokai recently read the latest anti-Laker screed basketball column by ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons, an alternately funny and blood-boiling confession-style bit about conditioning one’s children to cheer for the “right” sports team, i.e. Daddy’s sports team.
Ultimately, however, The Sports Guy’s affectionate look at dominating your child’s formative years is perhaps best characterized as “disturbing.” And BuckBokai’s only saying this because he’s an ardent Lakers fan and the Boston Celtics can burn in hell of his profound belief in children’s self-determination.
After Simmons’ 5½-old daughter Zoë demonstrates an excellent liking for the color purple (good girl!), the ‘Guy decides to do what any unscrupulous and absolutely typical die-hard Boston Celtics fan would: Namely, he informs the wee lass that Kobe Bryant is an abusive father, that Phil Jackson’s love of dogs is matched only by Michael Vick’s, that Ron Artest wants to punch him in the face (this one might be true, actually), and that Pau Gasol is a vampire.
Unfortunately, writes Simmons, “that made her like [Gasol] more,” before going on to lament that “F***ing Edward [Cullen of “Twilight”] swayed an entire generation of girls under 15.”
This last bit made BuckBokai immediately realize two things:
1) The kid gloves are off and it’s time to get right to work on daughters Zsuzsa (five years old) and Szilvia (3½). My son may already be lost to the Dallas Mavericks, but goddamn it the girls won’t be programmed to go apoplectic at the sight of Celtic kelly green. “That Ray Allen is okay, I guess,” BuckBokai’ll say, “but that guy, that Kevin Garnett, he’s a bad alien.” (Zsuzsa’s totally into planets and stars these days) “And him? Rajon Rondo? He’s an angry man who eats people. Seriously, just look at him…”
and
2) I need a column idea for BuckBokai.
So, with all apologies to Simmons, Stephenie Meyer and just about everyone else, BuckBokai today sets out to answer that metaphysical question, “Pau Gasol vs. Edward Cullen in a Q-rating fight: Who’d win?”
The contest will take place over ten metrics measuring general awesomeness, pop cultural power and the all-important potential physic hold over impressionable young daughters.
Name. Whether you’re a badass supernatural force, a superstud professional athlete, or teen heartthrob packing a killing moniker is essential. Seriously, would there even be a “Russell vs. Wilt” debate if Mr. and Mrs. Russell had chosen something like “Julius” or “Shaquille” as their son’s name rather than “William Felton”? No.
Here, Edward Cullen is “blessed” with a name fit for a childhood movie star gone awry; even worse, the sucker would have won this category going away had he not changed to “Cullen” from the former New York Knick-referencing “Edward Anthony Masen.” Against the rounded cadence of “Pau Gasol” – not to mention the mysterious missing L; chicks dig mystery – Cullen has no chance. Edge: Gasol.
Team. Pau of course consorts with the two-time defending champion Lakers, who, until hitting a recent skid, was universally praised for its newfound depth. And for those brief stretches when Andrew Bynum is healthy, Gasol’s team may have the best first six in the NBA.
When not a romantic loner, Cullen mostly sticks with his family. All well and good, but that team’s not exactly going to win any supernatural titles against the likes of the werewolf pack, the Denali coven, the Egyptian coven, the Irish coven, the Volturi, and BiE’s personal favorite, the Amazonian coven. Edge: Gasol.
Recent Run. How recent are we talking? In the past week or so, the Lakers have shed the aura of invincibility among short attention-spanned observers – no respect for a two-time champ, eh? On the other hand, said back-to-back titles surely inspired off-season moves by at least the Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks, some of which may influence the NBA for a good five years to come.
On the other other hand, the Twilight machine is influencing all of American and British pop culture right now, affecting potentially dozens of franchises for god knows how long. Edge: Cullen.
Home country. Transylvania vs. Spain? Well, BuckBokai can’t recall the last time Transylvania even qualified for Eurobasket… Edge: Gasol.
Siblings. Cullen’s brothers and sisters (though, admittedly, many among them adopted) include the superstrong Rosalie and Emmett, the empathic Jasper and the future-telling Alice – and yeah, they’re all gorgeous and immortal, too.
Pau has Marc, whose stats are a bit down in 2010-11 to 11.7 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.4 stocks (steals+blocks, courtesy Simmons’ “Book of Basketball”). Gasol the younger has also been praised by Phil Jackson for being more physical that Pau, but, hey, the truth is Marc is with the Memphis Grizzlies, a deader-end lot than James’ leaderless posse. Edge: Cullen.
Superpowers. Cullen: super-strength, -speed, -endurance, and -agility; mind-reading telepathy; immortality.
Gasol: great range; best European skill set since Dirk Nowitzki; awesome back-to-the-basket and post games; well above-average defender; superhuman ability to defer in alpha dog role to Kobe Bryant; teflon-like skin protects from Jacksonian barbs. Edge: Even.
Antagonist. So often is a hero defined by his polar opposite: think Batman and the Joker, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, Captain Kirk and Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Both Cullen and Gasol have inherited their enemies: the former in factions who disagree with the Cullen Family’s “vegetarian” diet, while the latter arrived just in time for the resurrected Lakers-Celtics rivalry.
While the vegetarian/carnivore battle goes back to Genesis 4:2 (look it up), the Lakers vs. Celtics war began in the NBA’s first decade and has been a nearly continuous storyline since while creating two of America’s most universally loved sports franchises. Edge: Even.
Popularity. Gasol got up to a stunning no. 4 in jersey sales in Europe last season and his gear surely sells well in the huge L.A. market. But geez, *Twilight*?
Stephenie Meyer’s is the sort of franchise that would make any Simmons wannabe hack (and any writer this side of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, really) Celtic green with envy: the books have sold over 100 million copies sold in 40 languages; comprised the entire top four in USA Today’s best-sellers list for 2008; won the 2008 British Book Award, the 2009 Kids’ Choice Award and an MTV Movie Awards best film nod.
They may love you in L.A., Pau, but until those free-throw time chants of “M-V-P!” are directed toward you rather than you-know-who, this one’s not even close. Edge: Cullen.
Physical Appearance. Have you seen Robert Pattinson? Good. Now check out the picture at left. BiE’s glad we’re all in agreement here. Edge (huge edge among the girlie set): Cullen.
And now we see just how Edward Cullen has become such a dominant force, even in the seemingly hermetically sports-sealed world of Simmons.
Poor Pau is going to have to get to work to win over the world from the eerie forces of superstudly vampires … or maybe the big Spaniard could just give in and become one himself under the motto of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Now if you’ll excuse BuckBokai, there’s some brainwashing to be done…
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Terry Gilliam’s Hallowdega: *The* Halloween sports highlight
BuckBokai’s not sure from exactly where Terry Gilliam’s apparent recent interest in NASCAR racing came from, but if it means a new Gilliam flick on Halloween, who cares?
Reads press material, in part:
“For decades, legend and lore have swirled around the 2.66 miles of asphalt that make up racing’s fastest track: Talladega Superspeedway. This Halloween, in celebration of the AMP Energy Juice 500 at Talladega on October 31st, the world will learn the truth.
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21st century sports: Snowboard Basketball
Now that winter’s getting ready to set in over wide swathes of North America and Northern Europe, let’s hope we see a revival of the greatest 21st-century sport invented in 2010: Snowboard basketball.
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Rangers vs. Giants World Series: The future is here
Well, welcome to the future: the San Francisco Giants (!) and Texas Rangers (!!!!) will meet in the 2010 World Series, thereby giving the first World Series title ever to one of these entities, snapping a half-century long deprivation of such, and eliminating the possibility of using either squad to represent far-flung o-so-strange science-fiction futures.
Like the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates to which BuckBokai devoted an earlier entry, the Giants and Rangers are seeking to break historically notable runs of futility. In fact, the vanquished team in 2010 goes home with the second-longest active run of World Series futility. Reads the all-time list:
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Sports Guy on boring stuff, Unbreakable 2
Bill Simmons, a.k.a. The Sports Guy over at ESPN.com, has outdone BuckBokai – imagine that – and in his latest LOL-packed mailbag column, Simmons riffs on “Seven Topics You Should Never Discuss.” The ‘Guy brings some salient points to the discussion about the undiscussable; unfortunately, his list is rather bereft of science-fiction references.
You should never discuss, proclaimeth the Simmons:
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Happy 40th, Ball Four!
How this event passed so low under the media radar is beyond BuckBokai – unless it can simply be attributed to the reality that *nobody reads books anymore* – but the 40th anniversary of the release of “Ball Four” was celebrated in Burbank yesterday with a show put on by nonprofit historical group The Baseball Reliquary.
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World’s greatest sports mascot prevented by George Lucas
Admiral Ackbar may have led rebel forces to victory in the “Star Wars” saga, but he lost a simple fight for fame in Mississippi.
The University of Mississippi Rebels were without a mascot since 2003 when the question was put out the student body by vote. A group of (geeks) students used a bit of cool logic in conceiving of the perfect mascot in Ackbar: After all, he’s the Rebel Leader, right?
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TMQ returns to ESPN.com, makes it so again: Yes!
Not that BuckBokai worships the computer screen upon which his words float or anything, but Gregg Easterbrook, a.k.a. TMQ on ESPN.com, is definitely a role model.
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Insights from parallel universe: Iverson goes to Olympiacos
Sometimes seemingly minor incidents in the grander scheme of sports history are exactly the opposite, for who can truly know the axis upon which events revolve?
Going into the 2009-10 NBA season, a handful of European news outlets tersely reported a rumor that those freewheeling, free-spending Angelopoulos Brothers running the Olympiacos basketball club had offered one Allen Iverson a huge chunk of change to come play in Greece with the Reds.
Yours truly’s speculation then was that ultimately substituting A.I. for Linas Kleiza – for as things turned out in the market last year, Kleiza was the highest-end free-agent the Brothers could coerce to jump the pond to play hoops – would have gotten the Reds off to the exact same start, namely near the top of the EΣAKE and Euroleague tables. (After all, i argued then, there’s nothing even A.I. could’ve done about the H1N1 that struck several members of the club numb for weeks.)
Now that this unfortunate season for both Iverson and Olympiacos are in the books, we have more details to expand the parallel universe of 2009-10 basketball.
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Brett Favre might retire, believed to be former Obsidian Order officer
In one of the most nauseating annually repeated stories in recent sports history, mainstream news outlets are once again paying attention to that Elim Garak of the NFL future Hall of Famer Brett Favre and his on-again/off-again talk of retirement. Reports ESPN.com this morning:
Favre has informed the Vikings he will not return to Minnesota for a second season, according to multiple reports.
Favre has sent text messages to teammates saying, “This is it,” league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Here’s the thing. BuckBokai has figured for years that this whole will-he-won’t-he dance is a charade worthy of Starfleet’s favorite Cardassian tailor. To wit: Brett Favre *simply doesn’t want to go through the grueling workouts of training camp.* That’s it, seriously. Waiting for a decision like this every summer is tantamount to Lebron James’ ballyhooed PR-heavy exit strategy.
Except every year.
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Bukimi no Tani Genshō Gō Gō Gō (or, Why the Speed Racer Movie was So Bad)
One of the key scientific theories of the 21st century is certain to be Masahiro Mori’s Bukimi no Tani Genshō, a.k.a. “The Uncanny Valley” Theory. The supposition suggests that as robots or animated objects more closely and closely approach a human form, the more likely there are to cause revulsion in a human observer until a great degree of realism exists.
ESPN.com’s excellent Patrick Hruby applied the Uncanny Valley Theory to video games back in 2005 (How long ago was that? Check out the image from the Madden ’06 he’s reviewing) and, by inference via BuckBokai’s idol Gregg Easterbrook’s “The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
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Happy Turn Ahead the Clock Week!
Today is July 25th, which means BuckBokai will take this opportunity to celebrate that greatest of real-life sports events ever, namely the Turn Ahead the Clock games held by Major League Baseball in 1998 and 1999.
Begun with a single freaky promotion designed as a parody of “Turn Back the Clock Nights,” the first such game featuring futuristic duds happened on July 18, 1998 in a game pitting the Kansas City Royals against the Seattle Mariners. (Is there anything Seattle couldn’t do in the 1990s?)
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