As Jazzfanz rises from the ashes like a slightly retarded Phoenix, I would like to offer a few words on behalf of the Old Jazzfanz. As one of the charter members of the Old Jazzfanz—technically, I was bit late, but I doubt Doc Cherno wants to write this post—I lived, typed, and quit through several years of some of the most contentious debates and flat-out idiotic flamewars ever to grace the internet. I survived aintnuthin, TuffTiger (one iteration, at least), Duck Rodgers (four to five iterations), LostTacoVendor, and two Jazzfanz_Bayamons. I was there when Youngblood85 joined the board to celebrate the acquisition of Boozer (*chortle*), when Catzies won Ben Stein’s money, and when write4u finally lost his tenuous grip on sanity. And through it all, I stayed consistent because of my deep and abiding love for the Jazz.
No, wait. That’s not it.
In reality, I kept reading this board for one reason and one reason alone: the truly epic battles and threads on completely stupid subjects. And now, with your permission, I would like to share a few of my favorites from ages past. If you have more, feel free to share.
The Summer of 2004 was a magical time for young tatermoog. He was halfway through his undergraduate career, having just chosen the lucrative and exciting major of history for his field of study. He had actually made his first friend. And at the tender young age of 20, he had finally discovered girls.
But all of this paled in comparison to a love that glowed deep in his tiny angry bosom, a love that was the stuff that bad poets write about and post on Myspace. It was a love for Andrei Kirilenko.
Andrei Kirilenko
And young Tater was not alone in this love. Nay, most of Utah had grown to love the lanky Russian, who had just been selected to his first All-Star team and had led a team that started Michael Ruffin for 23 games and the corpse of Tom Gugliotta for 24 to a 42-40 record.
This picture haunts my dreams.
Unfortunately, AK—like all of Russia following the collapse of the communist regime—had fallen prey to the ills of capitalism. In interview after interview, he demanded a maximum contract and as much money as possible, delivering his views in cogent statements like, “I think I play very good. I think play very good, get paid very good.” This maximum contract would be $86 million, which would place him in the rarified air of other all-time greats like Richard Jefferson.
Young Tater, of course, thought that AK should be given whatever he wanted; after all, he already had his heart. But many of the Jazzfanz regulars disagreed and pointed out all kinds of nasty falsehoods. Some made the outlandish claim that his shooting stroke was a little off; others worried that he might be injury prone. A few silly sorts even pointed out that he’d be a restricted free agent the next summer, and if he had any problems during the ‘04/’05 season, he could be had for cheaper. Thankfully, all of these complaints were false. His shooting stroke improved, he never had another injury, and his ‘04/’05 season is widely considered one of the finest individual performances in the history of the NBA.
Also, everyone decided Tater was great and fell in love with him and gave him nice things and there were never any more problems and history is an awesome career choice.
*sigh*
Speaking of the Summer of ’04, the Jazz also made a huge splash in that off-season by stealing a marquee player from a blind man! Yes, Carlos Boozer, he of the terminal acne and basketball-centered Tourette’s Syndrome, joined the team in that magical summer, immediately transforming the Jazz from a First/Second Round playoffs team to an NBA Finals Contender. After all, if he was on the court, who could stop the Jazz?
"MY HAMSTRING!"
Turns out the “him being on the court” thing would be a bit of an issue. After hurting his foot in February of 2005 and injuring a hamstring in training camp for the next season, he missed what the kids these days are calling a “****-ton” of games. More concerning, his return date kept sliding further and further away, since the doctors didn’t know that all they had to do was a series of deep tissue massages to cure muscular damage. All of this combined could well have led more passionate and irrational fans to question his desire to return to the court.
"MY HAMSTRING AGAIN!"
And, of course, that was all Jazzfanz had, so thus began the Jacket Club. In brief, once a person finally made the irreversible decision to suspect Boozer’s zit-encrusted passion for the game, he or she was assigned a jacket to show his or her membership. Though initially a fringe movement, the club eventually grew to enormous size, finally declaring victory when Youngblood85 joined in the winter of ‘05/’06. Rumor has it that Larry H. Miller was a charter member of the group. But on the bright side, once Boozer returned to the team, no one ever had any reason to question his commitment to the Jazz ever again.
At its heart, the Pillow Fort Incident of 2006 is probably not the stuff of Great Moments in Jazzfanz. According to news reports, on October 23 of that year, four players for the Jazz—Deron Williams, Dee Brown, Paul Milsap, and Ronnie Brewer—invited a stripper up to their hotel room for…well…something other than sparkling conversation, I’ll guess. Forty-five minutes later, she appeared on the ground floor, crying and claiming she was raped. Again, this is not the kind of stuff you’d want to use for a standup routine.
Long story short, her story was crap, all charges were dropped, and the players were consistent in their description of events. Those descriptions, however, were amazing.
Deron Williams did the noble thing and left the room when he saw that she was upset and crying. Dee Brown—and I love this—had gone to his own room after eight beers at the bar to play video games. [note: the unexplained part of this, for me, is that he was playing video games in his hotel room. Did he pack his own XBOX? Portable system? Or are we talking those crappy 1980s hotel video games where you pay five bucks for half an hour of Super Mario Brothers 2 on a controller that looks like a twisted fetal NES pad?] Milsap also left the room. Which left Ronnie Brewer alone in a room with a naked, drunk stripper. And he responded the only way he could.
And I quote: “Brewer said the woman got naked and flopped on his bed. He built a divider with blankets and pillows, telling her she could sleep on the bed or the floor if she wanted to stay.”
Perhaps the saddest part of Old Jazzfanz’s death is that the thread on this subject is now lost to the ages. But for me, the phrase “pillow fort” can never again be uttered in my presence without me thinking of defenses against sexual assault charges. This is a problem.
[to be continued]
No, wait. That’s not it.
In reality, I kept reading this board for one reason and one reason alone: the truly epic battles and threads on completely stupid subjects. And now, with your permission, I would like to share a few of my favorites from ages past. If you have more, feel free to share.
PAY AK
The Summer of 2004 was a magical time for young tatermoog. He was halfway through his undergraduate career, having just chosen the lucrative and exciting major of history for his field of study. He had actually made his first friend. And at the tender young age of 20, he had finally discovered girls.
But all of this paled in comparison to a love that glowed deep in his tiny angry bosom, a love that was the stuff that bad poets write about and post on Myspace. It was a love for Andrei Kirilenko.
Andrei Kirilenko
with disguised Young Tater
And young Tater was not alone in this love. Nay, most of Utah had grown to love the lanky Russian, who had just been selected to his first All-Star team and had led a team that started Michael Ruffin for 23 games and the corpse of Tom Gugliotta for 24 to a 42-40 record.
This picture haunts my dreams.
Unfortunately, AK—like all of Russia following the collapse of the communist regime—had fallen prey to the ills of capitalism. In interview after interview, he demanded a maximum contract and as much money as possible, delivering his views in cogent statements like, “I think I play very good. I think play very good, get paid very good.” This maximum contract would be $86 million, which would place him in the rarified air of other all-time greats like Richard Jefferson.
Young Tater, of course, thought that AK should be given whatever he wanted; after all, he already had his heart. But many of the Jazzfanz regulars disagreed and pointed out all kinds of nasty falsehoods. Some made the outlandish claim that his shooting stroke was a little off; others worried that he might be injury prone. A few silly sorts even pointed out that he’d be a restricted free agent the next summer, and if he had any problems during the ‘04/’05 season, he could be had for cheaper. Thankfully, all of these complaints were false. His shooting stroke improved, he never had another injury, and his ‘04/’05 season is widely considered one of the finest individual performances in the history of the NBA.
Also, everyone decided Tater was great and fell in love with him and gave him nice things and there were never any more problems and history is an awesome career choice.
*sigh*
The Jacket Club
Speaking of the Summer of ’04, the Jazz also made a huge splash in that off-season by stealing a marquee player from a blind man! Yes, Carlos Boozer, he of the terminal acne and basketball-centered Tourette’s Syndrome, joined the team in that magical summer, immediately transforming the Jazz from a First/Second Round playoffs team to an NBA Finals Contender. After all, if he was on the court, who could stop the Jazz?
"MY HAMSTRING!"
Turns out the “him being on the court” thing would be a bit of an issue. After hurting his foot in February of 2005 and injuring a hamstring in training camp for the next season, he missed what the kids these days are calling a “****-ton” of games. More concerning, his return date kept sliding further and further away, since the doctors didn’t know that all they had to do was a series of deep tissue massages to cure muscular damage. All of this combined could well have led more passionate and irrational fans to question his desire to return to the court.
"MY HAMSTRING AGAIN!"
And, of course, that was all Jazzfanz had, so thus began the Jacket Club. In brief, once a person finally made the irreversible decision to suspect Boozer’s zit-encrusted passion for the game, he or she was assigned a jacket to show his or her membership. Though initially a fringe movement, the club eventually grew to enormous size, finally declaring victory when Youngblood85 joined in the winter of ‘05/’06. Rumor has it that Larry H. Miller was a charter member of the group. But on the bright side, once Boozer returned to the team, no one ever had any reason to question his commitment to the Jazz ever again.
The Pillow Fort
At its heart, the Pillow Fort Incident of 2006 is probably not the stuff of Great Moments in Jazzfanz. According to news reports, on October 23 of that year, four players for the Jazz—Deron Williams, Dee Brown, Paul Milsap, and Ronnie Brewer—invited a stripper up to their hotel room for…well…something other than sparkling conversation, I’ll guess. Forty-five minutes later, she appeared on the ground floor, crying and claiming she was raped. Again, this is not the kind of stuff you’d want to use for a standup routine.
Long story short, her story was crap, all charges were dropped, and the players were consistent in their description of events. Those descriptions, however, were amazing.
Deron Williams did the noble thing and left the room when he saw that she was upset and crying. Dee Brown—and I love this—had gone to his own room after eight beers at the bar to play video games. [note: the unexplained part of this, for me, is that he was playing video games in his hotel room. Did he pack his own XBOX? Portable system? Or are we talking those crappy 1980s hotel video games where you pay five bucks for half an hour of Super Mario Brothers 2 on a controller that looks like a twisted fetal NES pad?] Milsap also left the room. Which left Ronnie Brewer alone in a room with a naked, drunk stripper. And he responded the only way he could.
And I quote: “Brewer said the woman got naked and flopped on his bed. He built a divider with blankets and pillows, telling her she could sleep on the bed or the floor if she wanted to stay.”
Perhaps the saddest part of Old Jazzfanz’s death is that the thread on this subject is now lost to the ages. But for me, the phrase “pillow fort” can never again be uttered in my presence without me thinking of defenses against sexual assault charges. This is a problem.
[to be continued]
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