UNC basketball

As I write this, I am twenty-some-odd hours removed from having watched UNC’s first (and hopefully sole) loss of the 2007-2008 Division I Men’s Basketball Season. I am devastated. For those of you who didn’t watch the game, shame on you. Regardless, I will give you a recap. We lost to Maryland. Maryland, an unranked school whose wins over such well-known perennial juggernauts as Northeastern University (7-10), Savannah State University (10-14), and North Florida University (1-16!) should have belied their hidden power that on Saturday emerged from the ACC’s also-ran column, fully formed like an angry phoenix with a wicked jump shot and killer defense. Bambaly Osby, you are my enemy.
I care about UNC basketball more than I feel that normal people care about most things. For example, I probably care more about UNC basketball than my mom cares about the fact that over Christmas break, I returned her car to her with an inexplicable dent in the fender, an event that, hypothetically, should elicit massive retaliation from any parent. I care about basketball more than I care about (at least) a third of my classes at school. And I definitely care more about UNC basketball than I do about the individuals who make up the UNC basketball team.
This is what separates me from the superfans, those who would literally give their firstborn for a chance to have lunch with the likes of Tyler Hansbrough or Coach Roy Williams or even a non-prominent player such as Quentin Thomas or Greg Little. At UNC, the superfans dominate — you can’t swing a dead cat around this place without hitting somebody who knows that Tyler Hansbrough comes from Poplar Bluff, Mississippi and that his father is a plastic surgeon.
Oddly enough, it seems to me that females are much more into the cult of personality that UNC cultivates around the team. Girls who in high school had no vested interest in UNC basketball or even a cursory knowledge of the basic rules and principles of the game are now seemingly obsessed with the team’s actions both on the court and off. It is because of these idiotic doters that I have become aware of such trivial minutia as the fact that Wayne Ellington drives a (insert car name here) or that Tyler Hansbrough lives with Bobby Frasor and takes care of him now that his ACL is torn. I’m sure that Bobby Frasor is a genuine, decent human who will go on to live a worthwhile life, but the fact that he has torn his ACL officially deems his existence completely irrelevant in my eyes.
Simply put, I don’t care about these people the same way I care about human beings. These young men are all clearly worthwhile individuals, but I have no vested interest in their lives. Tyler Hansbrough is not the best player in the country because he lives with Bobby Frasor. He is the best player in the country because he is gigantic, physically dominant, and has the work ethic of Stalin’s ideal laborer. Wayne Ellington’s (insert car here) doesn’t score 17.1 points per game. The fact that Ty Lawson carries a Spongebob Squarepants backpack is a cute footnote in the book of his basketball career, but Ty Lawson’s backpack cannot penetrate the lane with half the effectiveness that Ty Lawson’s body can. I do, however, care about UNC basketball for actual reasons, such as the fact that I attend college here, and the fact that we are the number-one-ranked team in the nation (Okay, so we were. I’m still having trouble coping. Lousy Memphis.).

Modeling job part II

Okay. So a quick recap of what’s happening here. Last month, I wrote a column about how I was approached to be a model for an Italian pottery company called Vietri, which sounds like a stupid move on their part. What’s more, it actually was a terrifically stupid move on their part, and here is the story of how I messed up a job that required nothing more of me than standing and holding a cup.
When we last left off, it was 10:30 on a Saturday morning — which, if you know any college student, is disgustingly early — and I was about to be taken to the mall by some woman whom I had met only in passing, which might scare some, but not me, as I am foolish and will do just about anything for any sum of money exceeding fifty dollars. And it just so happened that this company was willing to pay me $300 to be photographed, which is essentially an offer that, financially, I could not refuse.
The woman who was in charge of the photoshoot had assigned herself to taking me to the mall, for as she so eloquently put it, “If I let anybody else take you, they’d probably mess it up.” To say that this woman — five feet tall and dressed like somebody who refuses to acknowledge that she is now sixty — was intense would be to make the understatement of the very young new year. She took me to a mall and bought the most expensive Italian-looking clothes that she could find, and told me that I couldn’t keep the clothes and if I messed them up, I’d be paying for them. Most. Awkward. Moment. Ever.
Before returning me to my dorm room where I could burrow into my bed and sleep for several hours, I was told that I was to be picked in two days and transported to someone’s house where I would be photographed with pottery and that I was going to enjoy it and if I didn’t like it I wouldn’t get paid and then my kneecaps would be broken. At this time, I also decided to ask her why in the world that this company, as big as it was, wouldn’t hire actual, y’know, models for this.
“Well,” she didactically explained, “that was what I would have done. But the photographer we hired — (Insert overly-complicated Italian name here), he’s very good, I’m sure you’ve heard of him—only likes to work with real people instead of models.”
Oh. Huh? My questions as to why a policy of not using professional models for a high-budget photo shoot wasn’t insane were left unanswered as I waited two days to be picked up by some nameless entity who was to drive me to what I had built up in my mind to be the world’s lamest photoshoot.
Monday arrived with little fanfare, as nobody mourns the death of the weekend as I do. On the other hand, I was excited to see what could prove to be the finest moment in my life, my one day of glory as an Italian Pottery Model. Somebody from the pottery company picked me up around 1 p.m. and took me to the place where I and the other model were going to be photographed. Now, I should make a note on the other model. She was a girl, and was, conservatively, one of the seven most beautiful females I had ever encountered in my entire life. Clearly, these people had put more effort into finding a female model than finding a male model, as I’m a pretty goofy-looking dude, and she was as lovely as the Italian countryside where many Italian potters had no doubt crafted the fine pottery that we would be posing with on this day. Did I mention that she was gorgeous? I just really want to emphasize that point.
I’m normally a pretty smooth operator when it comes to girls, but this girl was so intensely attractive that I could barely think, let alone speak. We arrived to the place where we were to be shot, met the photographer, and I immediately ran into problems. The photographer sent the girl to get dressed, and then coolly looked me over, smoking a fine Italian cigarette and generally acting as stereotypical as possible. He concluded that I was too young-looking for the shot that he wanted and they were going to call in an older model, and that I should come back on Wednesday, presumably when I would be older.
I did come back on Wednesday to find a different scene being photographed with an altogether different set of models, none of whom were the girl who was so attractive that looking at her made my brain seize up, explode, reassemble itself only to program me to shave my own head a la Britney Spears. I was made up and had my hair done (really!), waited around for two hours while eating bagels, and then the other models and I assembled ourselves in the tableau formation that you see pictured, held that pose for two hours, and then went home.
Not bad for a day’s work, right?
Three quick final notes:
1. The reason that I’m never going to get a modeling job ever again is that I slouched waaaaaaay too much during that photo shoot, and both the photographer and the woman who took me shopping pointed this out. In fact, I’m pretty sure that my posture has been digitally altered in the picture you see, because I’ve never stood up that straight in my life.
2. I’m probably using that image illegally, as it cost a lot of money to make it happen, but on the other hand I’ve already been paid, so I’m not going to worry about it.
3. For those of you wondering whatever happened to the girl from the first photoshoot, it turns out that the photographer made her kiss the older model, and she complained about how he was too old and that she wanted me back. It’s the little moments of bittersweet victory that make life worth living.
Hot Jam of the Week: “No One” by Alicia Keys — I have never heard this song in its entirety. However, the snippets of this song that I’ve heard are so good that they make me want to drive a hundred and fifty miles per hour across the country to Alicia Keys’ house and propose to her.