Kanye West

I guess Vick isn’t enough, because I feel the need to deconstruct another black guy. In Kanye West’s recent album listening party, which MTV covered, he talks of his album as one of the top ten hip hop albums ever. He lectures about the songs like a professor would literature, saying rappers are like modern day preachers. The sad thing is, I bet he is right about his album too. He probably has made a great one, but something about this guy annoys me to no end.

I mean, for real, his music is hot but this guy is comparing particular songs to ones by U2. This is interesting, but the thing is: Why does he have to say it? Its like he creates the buzz about himself through his own hype machine. I know a lot of artists do this, but I think he does to an unprecedented extent. He craves attention. I like for artists to be free and open with the media, but it is whole other thing to be completely plugged into your image, trying to control it, reacting to everything said about you. It’s like he is telling you how great he is, while at the same time, whining because he doesn’t win all the awards and everyone doesnt universally love him. People hated the end of the Sopranos at first, and David Chase said nothing. He didn’t feel the need to explain himself, and people have generally come around to fully acknowledge the depth of it. It’s like Kanye is so arrogant yet so obviously insecure; one almost feels sorry for him. He will never be loved like Caesar, like he wants and needs. Some people will dislike him, simply for the reason that he self-aggrandizes himself to such a grand extent. The fucking album hasn’t come out yet, and he is claiming he just made one of the best albums ever! And with all his noise, a fan feels little room for praise. What can I say to top that? I actually like his music and what he brings to hip hop, but the guy is too self-obsessed for me to take seriously. And I want too. Its like he wants to be multifaceted but it feels like he really spends most of his time focused on himself and what others say about him.

Vick

Well, he did it. He apologized to the world for all his sins. I thought it was a well delivered speech. It seemed like it was from the heart. He wasn't reading from a prepared statement courtesy of his attorney, Billy Martin.

As part of his plea bargain agreement, he will also be an informant for the government to attempt to bring down more people in dog fighting. Is the Vick case a racial thing per se? Or dog fighting for that matter? No. It's just the atmosphere surrounding it. I think that one of the guests on this weekends Bill Maher show said it best: There are people standing in front of the court with a Confederate flag flying overhead with signs stating that Vick should be castrated in the former capital of the Confederacy. If it isn't racial yet, man, it sure smells like it. There is no way in this world that you can tell me that the media coverage over this has been disproportionate considering the crime.

The press has gotten on Stephon Marbury for saying that he, "heard that dog fighting was a sport". He's not saying that he believes its a sport, but just that he heard that. I happen to agree with that. If you're going to tell me its legal for these slobs to hunt defenseless animals for "sport" with assault weapons, you're crazy. How sporting is that exactly? How humane is that exactly? Do you think it matters to the animal in question that he is eaten after he is, quite unfairly, killed? Would you care if the situations were reversed? The only difference between these two unfair "sports", is that one is avidly practiced by a people in a different socio-economic level. Thats it. And the other is practiced, "behind closed doors", by the other people. Stephon was right. Broadcasters will tell you that he is just the typical athlete standing up, blindly, for one of his peers, but I think he was right. And, I already posted his craziness on TV the other day, so I know he doesn't come off as the brightest bulb in the batch, but he hit it right on the head with this one.

My wife and I just brought a baby girl into this world and I am deathly afraid for her safety. All the time, but more so when she grows to into adolescence and beyond. The statistics for sexual assault on women is staggering. One in 6 women will be raped or, at least, someone will attempt to rape them in their lifetimes. One is 4 women on college campuses will be sexually assaulted. Its mind numbing. This doesn't even take into account the unreported rapes and just domestic abuse in general. However, countless athletes have been charged with raping someone or beating a woman or their partner and it gets printed in the media and forgotten. The guy will catch a little bit of flack for a little while and that will be it. Back to playing sports practically immediately. So, dogs are more important than women now. Right? These animal "activists" are so stupid to me. They'll march up and down the street if they think you're testing a cologne on a dog. But violate the civil rights of a person of color systematically, beat a woman or sexually assault them and its all good. But, hurt "(White) Man's Best Friend", and its on.

Again, Vick did the crime. He was incredibly stupid and arrogant to think that he could get away with this for so long. He broke the law, he should suffer the consequences, but HE is the most evil man in the world? Are you kidding me?

There's still sports going on right?

As Andre stated, my wife and I have ushered in a brand new citizen into this world. Catalina Matthews Espinoza. She is the cutest thing alive. I know, I know, all parents say that. But she is. We should have a cute-off and see who's baby is cuter. I challenge anybody. I double dog dare you. Above is exhibit A. 'Nuff said. And that was only her 10th cutest pic. I'll save the heavy ammo for a worthy challenger. Especially considering she's only 8 days old. Anyway, back to the rest of the world...

Today, I'd like to just shoot out a free-flowing entry. A little bit written on a few topics. First...

Baseball:

The Mets somehow have adopted the philosophy of, "Ok. We're older than you, so all y'all should give it to us or other people will think you're bullies". Jeff Conine for two minor leaguers? They're both Single A players so you can't say that they gave up too much for him yet, but the guy is 41. If anything, the Mets will lead the league in Arthritis. Meanwhile, the Phillies and Braves are doing some of the dirty work for the Mets since it seems that the Mets can't seem to beat the Braves whenever they are relevant. This will be a race to watch. If anything, I'm pretty sure the Mets are hoping that the Braves don't sneak in as the Wild Card representative and play the Mets in the playoffs.

The Yankees were steam rolling teams after the all-star break and then seemed to have the wheels fall off for a second when they lost 2 of 3 to the Orioles who seem to have the Yanks' number. They rebounded nicely to take 3 of 4 from the Tigers and are about to play the Angels now who are to the Yankees as the Braves are to the Mets. It always sucks to play the Angels, especially when they're on the West Coast. I say West Coast because I refuse to call them the El Lay Angels of Ana----. What kind of ridiculousness is that anyway? BTW, where are all those idiots now who were calling for Cashman's head? This guy has turned around their minor league system ala Gene "Stick" Michael (A nickname I always loved just because of my love for the Daredevil comic book series growing up. Grrr. How I hate Ben Affleck for messing that movie up. Bastardo). He made the Yankees' minor league system go from one of the worst to easily one of the top five in the majors. Unbelievable job. Especially when you consider he did this in a matter of 3 years. GM of the year anyone? This Yankee team is starting to remind me a little of 1998, minus the starting pitching when that team fielded three aces. Giambi is to this team as Darryl Strawberry was to that '98 bench when teams were afraid to bring right handed relief pitching in against the Yanks later in the game. That, coupled with their new and improved bridge to Mariano, is making them seem like they're going to make a big run to the Series.

Boston is shook. Period. Dustin Pedroia doesn't spend the time to say this unless he's shook. Yanks are four behind with more than a month to go and with a big series coming up starting on the 28th of this month. That series and this one starting tonight against the Angels are going to be the real barometers of the rest of their season.

Football:

It seems to now be official: Michael Vick is really, really stupid. According to reports he's going to be pleading guilty and accepting the plea bargain offered him. With his money, if he really were innocent, there is no way that the guy would plead guilty and serve - according to unofficial reports - 18 to 36 months of Federal time. Which is just mind boggling. This guy was on the cover of Madden Football! He was the second best athlete in computer game sports since Bo Jackson! And now he's going to be eating lunch daily with Tony Montana Jr. in a - most likely - medium security Federal Penitentiary? Wow. Dog fighting is ugly and I saw a great piece on it on HBO today - while baby was asleep - and it just made my skin crawl. He did the crime, so now he's got to do the time. It's a sad example of how people blow these guys heads up and then are surprised when it explodes. Don't get me wrong, if some athlete bumps into me in a bar and then just snarls at me, i'm still going to think he's a jerk. However, I do know that he was cultivated and conditioned into becoming that jerk. If you were consistently taught that no matter what you did you would be forgiven because of your physical abilities, you would think you were invincible too. But this was ridiculous man. Pac Man Jones. You better ask somebody. Stop acting the fool and clean up your act.

Music:

I have been listening to two albums for the last couple of weeks. The two latest albums from Pharoahe Monch (Desire) and Common (Finding Forever). If you haven't got your hands on them yet, you MUST GET THEM. They are great. Especially the Common drop. It's littered with great production and tight rhymes. I'm going to post a review of each this week when I have more time. While we're on the topic of Hip Hop; there have been many great artists and albums released in hip-hop over the course of the last 30 plus years. I'm going to start a poll on what you all think are the greatest "debut" albums in hip-hop, ever. Think about it and lets hear the opinions from the Cypher.

For that matter, let's hear the opinions from the Cypher on everything. Especially you all visiting the site from far away places like England. I know you're reading, so leave a comment. They most certainly will be welcomed. By all.

Welcome to the Party, Pal...

We interrupt this dose of "Sprots" and debate for an important message:

Here at the Cypher we like to argue about a great many things. But every now and then there is an issue that is not up for debate. Recently one of these issues has been brought to our attention. And I would like to take a minute to acknowledge it.

Although small, it is an issue that will continue to grow, and with it's growth, there will no doubt be a slew of laughter, tears, sleepless nights, stressful mornings, moments of overwhelming joy, uncontrollable fits of amazement, and even a speechlessness that could lead a grown man to devolve into a cro-magnon-like gibberish.

This man is our very own Executive Editor, Luis "Its gotta be the Brows" Espinoza. And the issue is the reason for his hiatus. We all know he will return shortly to resume his quest to explain what "sprots" really means. But until then we would like to acknowledge this very relevant and incredible issue. So without further ado, I would like to wish Luis and his beautiful wife all the greatest as they embark on their new quest as parents. And let us all welcome their beautiful daughter, Catalina, to the world.

Catalina,

Sleep well in the knowledge that you have two wonderful parents, as well as a group of sentries for your protection and to assure that you will know all there is to know about "sprots" by the time you form your first sentence. Although as for protection, it looks as if you can hold your own already!

So welcome to the party, Catalina... And welcome to the Cypher.

Barry Bonds. Asterisk?

Barry Bonds is the home run king. Man are people pissed at this reality. All this anger, all this vitriol directed at the "evil" Barry Bonds. He represents everything that is wrong about professional athletes. He's a cheater. He's a jerk. He's really, really mean. And I think he hates kittens too. Not sure. He's not an All-American type of guy.

Look, it's obvious that he did steroids. I would be incredibly surprised if somehow, some way it's able to be proved that the guy hasn't been juicing for years and still is. He was a Hall of Famer before he ever started juicin'. Or, as Gary Sheffield said, "Steroids is something, you stick in your butt". Great interview by the way.

My only issue with all of this is how the media and baseball fans in general go after him and just can't bring themselves to talk about anyone else. Maybe, just maybe, this is only all because Bonds has made this run to to the top of the home run list. I just don't like the hypocrisy of the media. They have made it a habit to, "look the other way" when other players are bad guys, jerks or cheating. The 1993 Phillies' is yet another example of this practice. Take this paragraph from a Philadelphia newspaper on Lenny Dykstra (Who I was a fan of) when asked about how he put on the 30 pounds of muscle over the winter:

Dykstra was the one who opened the door into steroid speculation with jokes about the "real good vitamins" he was taking to add 30 pounds of muscle in the early '90s. Everyone had a wink-wink, nudge-nudge relationship with Dykstra. Stories about him and his goofy behavior are legend around the Phillies.

Dykstra's trainer was constantly hanging out with and training with "half the guys on that team" and yet no one reported this. This information went by the wayside. Just some innocent reporters who didn't follow a lead, right? The media for years did not like Mark McGuire because he was a brooding, jerk ('Roid rage perhaps?) but never told the public of this. You have to ask yourself why. They seem to be so anxious to talk about how much of a jerk Bonds is. And this is not new news. This has been reported on for years. Bonds just happened to be the best player in baseball for years (before the allegatons of steroids). When you add that fact, it makes the reporting of his personality even more rare. McGuire was just the best home run hitter on his team and reporters didn't want to report on it. Can you imagine if Bonds would have said he gained 30 pounds of muscle because of his, "really good vitamins"?

The hypocrisy of this, to me, is just disgusting. In a sport littered with cheaters, Bonds, and subsequently steroids, gets nothing but hate. Spit balls, scuffed balls, corked bats, stealing signs, vaseline on balls, etc. It's not a short list. Gaylord Perry is in the Hall of Fame and he WROTE A BOOK titled, "Me and the Spitter". Reggie Jackson (another jerk who was widely reported to be a jerk) got thrown out of a game because he went nuts after striking out against Perry when everyone knew he was cheating. His former manager, Gene Mauch, stated, "He should be in the Hall of Fame with a tube of KY Jelly attached to his plaque." Cheating. No other sport can even come close to baseball in that statistical comlumn.

Now all you're going to hear from here on out is, "Hank Aaron was all class", "Babe Ruth was hands down the best player of all-time", "Hank Aaron was the best player I ever saw", etc. Meanwhile, no one was singing the praises of Hank Aaron when he meant so much to so many for so long for much more than just baseball. There will be nary a mention that maybe Ruth should have an asterisk next to his name for playing in a league separate from his. Of course it's not Ruth's fault, but there should be an asterisk next to his name. No question about it. Satchel Paige wasn't allowed to pitch in the Major Leagues until he was 41. He pitched for four full seasons after that and was still a real good pitcher. He wasn't even the best pitcher in the Negro leagues when he was allowed to join and still excelled. Can you imagine what he would have done if would have been allowed to play in the Major's? Or Josh Gibson for that matter?

The bottom line is that there is no question that Bonds cheated. We all knew. The same way we all knew that McGuire was cheating when he did, even though the press and America lived and died on every word that he uttered when chasing Maris. Sosa cheated during that race too for that matter. Brady Anderson clearly cheated when he hit 50 HR's for one season and his neck disappeared from his body. But i still don't understand how people pick and choose who they go after. Bonds was a no-brainer pick for the Hall of Fame before he started juicing and he still is. And if you decide to put an asterisk nest to the records that he's breaking, you should reconsider your logic. There would be a whole lot of players accomplishments that would need to have asterisks next to them for not, "playing the right way". For cheating. A big can of worms would have to opened at that point.

Movie Review: El Cantante

I never listen to critics, unless of course, you can tell that a movie is bad from the cast and the trailers and even then I'll rent it to see if I was right. Often times though, I have found that the majority of critics are so far off base when they critique a movie, I never listen to them. This, to me, seems to be the case with, "El Cantante".

I can't believe so many critics didn't even get the movie's concept. The movie is told from the perspective of Lavoe's longtime partner and wife, "Puchi". This is the plot synopsis from IMDB.com:

"Salsa great Hector Lavoe is the subject of this biopic starring Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. Spanning three decades in the Puerto Rican singer's life -- from his 1963 New York arrival to his 1993 death from AIDS -- the film tells Lavoe's (Anthony) story in flashback from the perspective of his Bronx-born wife (Lopez). Chronicling both the good (the music) and the bad (the drugs), the film provides a riveting portrait of a passionate artist."

So you get it from that synopsis right? The movie is loosely based on interviews with "Puchi" about Lavoe and their life together. "Puchi", or Nilda Rosado, was filmed during a series of interviews for the purpose of a documentary in 2002 just before she died in an accident. If people have an issue with the movie because there is, "too much Lopez", then that's on them. If you know going into the movie that the movie is based on interviews with her about their life TOGETHER, then I don't get what the issue is. Usually when one actor overshadows another in a movie, critics don't bash the person doing the overshadowing, as they are to Lopez. She did a better job than Anthony, so they bash her? I don't get it.

As for the movie itself, it starts out with an older looking "Puchi" being interviewed in one of Lavoe's recording studios. She's a tough, at times repentant, woman in her 50's who looks pained and angry at times. At one point she curses out the director for questioning whether or not she wanted Lavoe to change his ways as a partier and drug addict. And, this line may have been meant for the critics, another time yells, "Of course that's my version of the story, do you see anybody else here? I don't." I think we all understand how the movie industry works, most time it doesn't matter how good a movie is, you need some drawing power from your stars. Lopez is that. La India is currently producing her own Lavoe movie called, "The Singer". This movie sounds like it will be the real, fact driven biography that some seem to be asking for, including myself.

I thought Leon Ichaso did a great job depicting the era(s). The 70's felt like the 70's, as did the 80's. One of Ichaso's earlier works was, "Pinero". another sad, destructive story of Latino poet-playwright-actor, Miguel Pinero. After seeing this film, you can tell that he finds flawed, sometimes destructive, life stories more interesting than nice, cookie-cutter stories and he's not the first director to be intrigued by this.

Marc Anthony, known much better as a singer, does a credible job as Lavoe. This is the first film that I have seen where he plays a central role towards the success of a movie and while he doesn't blow you away as Jamie Fox or Joaquin Phoenix did in their roles as singing icons, he didn't embarrass himself. As far as the music for the movie, he sang the vocals himself and blew you away with his renditions of the Lavoe classics. In this regard, I'm a bit biased since I am a Marc Anthony fan (only with his salsa though) and an even bigger fan of Lavoe's. Anthony did a good job portraying Lavoe as a kind of innocent young guy from Puerto Rico whose life spirals down the all too deep pool of sex, drugs, alcohol and fame.

I have two criticisms about Cantante: One, Marc Anthony should have gained a little weight. He's a buck 20. The other criticism is that I think that the director could have done a better job with make-up to show them aging better over the course of the 20 years that the film covers. Although my friend Joe pointed out that maybe that was done on purpose because one of "Puchi's" lines in the movie was that she, "wanted to remember Hector the way I always remembered him". As in young and full of life. I wouldn't consider myself a fan of Lopez', but I can give her props when she deserves it and she does with, "El Cantante".

Go see the film for yourself. Don't go by what the critics are telling you, not even me. In the big picture, we have to go support movie's like this that will tell stories about other stars of color. I won't deny that was one of my motivations for paying to see this film: to support. I hope you do too. Then, let us know what you thought of the movie. Just be prepared, it's not a happy ending, holding hands and walking off into the sunset film. It's real.

MLB's Trade Deadline is over. Now What?