Best SuperSonics of all time

Pearl Jam made a crowd wait as they watched the end of a Sonics game in the 1996 Finals backstage before a show. And as I look back at the Sonics I think about the history of and people around the Sonics. Once I sat next to Eddie Vedder at a Howard Zinn talk, Zinn said he is not one of those historians that gets lost in the library. He meant that history is not all academic and statistics and that is what this piece is about: a people's history of the Sonics embeded in a top ten list. The first year they were gone, the 08'-09' season, I named my fantasy team Sonicsless in Seattle. Obviously what's done is done, but for die hard Sonics fans, we are grappling with being out of the mix. If you are like me and grew up dribbling a basketball everywhere you went -- well I am talking to you. Even if you are not a Sonics fan, you hate to see the tradition cut off. We support classic uniforms and logo preservation. We are sucker's for nostalgia and fans of tradition. We got the love. The love is shooting hoops until the sun goes down. The love is playing after dark by the light of a street lamp. The love is for the game. That is how a franchise can become something more than corporate. More than a product. More than pro. Here are some quick graphs about the team I remember as if they are still here. This is not a list of Sonics in an academic or statistical sense, just my memories and a few I ripped off from other crazed Sonics fanatics. Here are my top ten Sonics.

SHAWN KEMP
Last winter, I was at The Duchess (a Seattle institution) with a couple friends, I looked up from my beer and there he was -- "The Reign Man." It was a quiet night, he was with a few friends. He looked good, like he could still get up and throw it down. As I sat there, a voice flashed through my head. Nobody can do the voodoo like you do. It was former voice of the Sonics, Kevin Calabro's, trademark description of Kemp acrobatics. Kemp was the most powerful game-time dunker I have ever seen. The fact that he couldn't replicate his greatness in the dunk competition added to his legend. He had to be in the he heat of battle to communicate with the basketball Gods. The last time I saw Kemp in a Sonics uni, I was at a Beastie Boys concert in 2004 at Key Arena. Mike D, MCA and Ad-rock wore green and gold Adidas track suits. A gigantic flat screen repeated Kemp dunks in slow motion. Shawn was known for playing pick up ball at the Belltown and Greenlake outdoor court's. Last summer, Kemp talked about the Sonics move on KJR-AM and said, "back in the day no one expected a new arena if they were losing."

GARY PAYTON
In 1999, Charles Barkley called him, "the best player on the planet." In 1996, Payton and the Sonics lost the Finals to Jordan and the Bulls. The Supe's never had a chance due to the goofy new logo and awful brick colored uniforms they wore. Ten years later, in 2006, "The Glove" got his ring -- with the Heat. Although, geographically Miami is about as far from Seattle as one can get within the mainland borders of the country, a picture of Gary Payton hugging the trophy was above the fold in Seattle's oldest newspaper. The biggest GP fan I know, Pistol Peach Cobbler, framed the front page of the Seattle Post - Intelligencer the morning after. Even though, Gary didn't win a championship with us, he will always be a Sonic. At last year's Save Our Sonics rally in front of the Federal Court House, Payton said he would retire his number in Seattle -- no matter what.

DETLEF SCHREMPF
I grew up with a kid whose family rented a mother in law apartment to Schrempf when he was at the University of Washington. He led the Husky team that won a co - Pac-10 title in 1985. "Det" played at the Montlake community center courts. Once in 7th grade, after school I walked out with a basketball ready to play on my home court to find a bunch of my class mates crowding around Detlef. He was there to do an Adidas commercial. I remember how impressively maintained his mullet was. It was shorter than most mullets. It was sort of an elegant mullet. I never really paid attention to him when he was an Indiana Pacer, but once he came to the Sonics, it was obvious how valuable he was. Many times he carried the bulk of the load on an off night for Kemp or Payton. He was consistent. It was painful to cut Nate McMillan officially off this list, so I must give him a piece of Det's real estate. I am sure Det won't mind. McMillan never scored a lot and didn't play a ton of minutes. But Magic Johnson said Nate McMillan was the toughest one-on-one defender he ever faced. Nate was Mr. Sonic and in a weird way -- still is. I don't know how that is possible since he coaches the Portland Trailblazers, but that is the feeling. The Sonics started to disintegrate when "Mac-10" left.

XAVIER MCDANIEL
My friend Cod grew up going to the Pro Club on the Eastside. He saw "X-Man" there a few times. Once someone threw X a can of soda and when he caught it -- the can looked the size of a golf ball. It's ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic. The Lakers beat the Supersonics. -- lyrics from Ice Cube's song "Good Day." The Lakers beat the Sonics a lot in the 80's. But we had good teams too, just not as good. My dad and I went to game three of the Western Conference Finals in 1987 (May 23: Sat, Lakers 122 @ Seattle 121). We had good seats that night, a few rows back at half court. I clearly saw McDaniel shoot and make a three in the last moments of the game, but the refs did not count it -- it was ruled after the buzzer. Instead of losing by one, we would have won by two. My dad and I walked out of the Coliseum and talked about the last shot, we were certain X-Man got it off in time. Even though we lost, there was a confident certainty we settled into -- that X had prevailed no matter what the official outcome was. I had a six foot X-Man poster in my bedroom when I was a kid.

TOM CHAMBERS
He won the All - Star game MVP in 1987, was in the dunk competition that year, and a dunk comp. judge this year. Chambers always looked like he had two black eyes. Maybe he was a vampire. All those late nights, big black circles around his eyes. I don't know, he coulda just always had a bit of a broken nose. Banging around catching elbows from Mark Eaton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Chambers was a great scorer with no defense. A big part of me wanted to give this part of the list to Dale Ellis, but Ellis wasn't here long enough to be considered a classic Sonic. Ellis scored a ton from behind the the arc. We called him "D3." He averaged 27.5 points a game in the 88'-89' season. Ellis got a DUI getting off the 520 Lake Washington Blvd. exit and I guess due to that -- ended up leaving the team on bad terms.

FRED BROWN
Growing up, I heard many stories about "Downtown" Freddie Brown and how many deep bombs he made. Nobody knows the number he drained. He played without the benefit of the three-point line. He led The League in three-point shooting percentage in the 79'-80' season -- the first season the line was adopted. Brown retired in 1984, so he only had a few years at the end of his career to be counted in the books. Of course guys didn't loft them up at the same rate as today. Brown was on the forefront to save the Sonics. His group was trying to build an arena in Renton. Renton is a little south of Seattle and the community would have supported the team there. That is my belief. The geography between Tacoma and Seattle is where the bulk of NBA talent has come from in the area. Doug Christie, Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson all went to Rainier Beach High School which is at the southern tip of Seattle. Jason Terry went to Franklin, Brandon Roy is a Garfield High guy and those are central to south end schools. It is important to know where the community support lies. Our best talent grew up watching the Sonics -- no doubt.

GUS WILLIAMS & DENNIS JOHNSON
A poster of Gus Williams and DJ still hangs in a friend's basement 30 years after the championship they quarterbacked. Supersonicsoul.com said that most late-seventies Sonics games came down to, seven seconds left, Gus Williams with the ball -- he would sink the winning shot in traffic or at the free-throw line. Willams' nickname was "The Wizard" and Johnson's was "DJ." DJ was the Finals MVP in 79'. My knowledge wanes with the players from the championship team. I was born in 1980, so I can't rely on my own memories for this stuff, so I consulted with some tribal elders for further info. DJ was only here a few years and became a prima donna after the 79' season. When DJ hit a game winning shot, one local newspaper writer said, "Its too bad and A-Hole had to take it." I know in later years DJ was a beloved Celtic and Larry Bird said, "he was the best he ever played with." DJ was from the same place as N.W.A., Compton, CA.

JACK SIKMA
Sikma was the guy with a tight white guy jerry curl. He had great numbers and a turn around fadeaway soft touch in the paint jumper a la Patrick Ewing (who later became a Sonic, which is kinda weird to think about -- he was a shell of his former self). On a side note I wanted to name myself Patrick after Patrick Ewing, but my dad said that would be too many ck's and years later I was grateful for his advice because I don't think Paddy Wacker would have worked out too well. Sikma was that second tier center that is so crucial for a team like the 79' Supe's that had the great guard play of Downtown, DJ and The Wizard. I think of Sikma as a Zyrdrunas Ilgauskus type for Cleveland -- and he is quite valuable to the Cavs. I think Lebron would confirm that if asked.

SPENCER HAYWOOD
In 1971, Haywood v. N.B.A. broke down the barrier that said, you have to have four years of college to join The League. Early entry is not even given a second thought these days. When Kevin Garnett won the MVP in 2004 he said, "I would like to thank Spencer Haywood." In an interview with The Starting Five blog, Haywood said he almost fell out of his chair when KG gave him props. If you google Haywood, most articles are about his problems and persecution. He is one of those guys that became more known for controversy surrounding him off the court that what he did on it. What he did on it was nothing short of remarkable. He probably had the best statistical individual season in the history of the SuperSonics. Haywood averaged 29 points and 13 rebounds a game in the 72' - 73' season.

LENNY WILKINS
He has been here for the highest high's and the lowest low's. From championship to jumping ship, it has been a long strange trip for Wilkins. He was a player, then a player-coach and then went on to coach the team that won Seattle's only professional championship. It must have been weird when he became Vice President of the franchise under new owner Clayton Bennett. It just dawned on me, as I am flushing out the the Sonic memory banks, I wonder if Bennett named the new team in Oklahoma City after "Thunder" Dan Majerle? In the 90's Majerle was a Sonic killer, with his ridiculously frequent half-court bombs. He was a long range weapon in the Sonics' Suns' wars of the 90's. If "Thunder" Dan is who the Thunder are named after, I have to give Bennett credit. That would take some sinister smarts and conniving creativity to come up with that. A rumor has been surging that Clay Bennett will get our championship banners rehung in OKC. I heard a group of fans are ready to go in, to Key Arena, pose as painters and take them down, so they don't go to OKC. They couldn't bear giving our history away. Those banners are all we have left.

Here is some cultural heritage for you. The morning the Sonics left, I ran into Sonic historian, Rod Guevara, at the Sonics team shop. We were both milling around licking our wounds. I was looking at some Supe's socks, but was not going to buy them because the line was too long. Rod balked at getting anything, said he was thinking about it. He ended up bringing home armloads of stuff. Rod sent me six pairs of socks. Men in Rod's family have called each other every year on the anniversary of the 79' championship. They play pieces of the broadcast to each other over the phone. That was their tradition. I was recently at Rod's birthday party and he was wearing Sonics shirt that had big black letters over the logo that said, M.I.A. I drove by Key Arena after the party. The comedy club closed across the street, it was boarded up and covered in amateur graffiti art. It looked like a ghost town. Of course the economy is bad, but the businesses around the Key depended on the Sonics. A lot of fans that have sworn off the NBA are just a little more hurt than me. I still watch because I like the dynamics of different teams, their players' style, coaching philosophy, and geographical attitude. I watch from the outside looking in.

I hate Oklahoma

Nobody can do the voodoo like you do. - Kevin Calabro (former voice of the Sonics) talking about Shawn Kemp

In January a women was doing a Houdini-like underwater trick and nearly drowned during an Oklahoma Thunder halftime show. Luckily she lived. But it is further evidence that the curse of the Sonics is real. A long-time Sonics' season ticket holder actually did the research and claims to have put a curse on the new franchise, he traveled to Oklahoma City to sprinkle green and gold dust in the foyer of the Ford Center -- home of the Thunder. I believe in the curse, because it makes me feel better. I hate Oklahoma for taking my favorite team. From the moment Howard Schultz did the dirty deal with Clayton Bennett they were a doomed franchise. It has been a weird season in Oklahoma City and a sad one in Seattle.

First Clay Bennett and the rest of his group, Professional Basketball Club, lied about trying to keep the team in Seattle. Then when Bennett brought the team to OKC, he went against his own instincts about what makes a good team name. Originally he said plural was important, like, the Suns, Spurs, and Sonics, but he pulled a 180, and named the franchise Thunder. Thunder sounds like a defunct arena football team. He coulda given it a little historical value with a name like Thunderbirds, but he is an aggressively ignorant meat head.

The next step was predictable. Pick the trendiest most overused color in pro sports - teal. Then approve a boring ass logo - a basketball with a couple swoosh marks. They are devoid of character - white washed. Who are they? Recently OKC's mayor complained about the city's lack of identity. But that is not true. OKC is known for being hell on earth. AskMen.com compiled a list of the top ten hells on earth , Oklahoma City was #5 (Baghdad was #10). It's the worst city in America for tornadoes. Its in the middle of Tornado Alley.

OKC is hell for Seattle. When Hearst announced the Seattle Post-Intelligencer would no longer be in hardcopy form, I texted friends, "the P-I is moving to OKC." My friend Anthony wrote back, "Damn!! They're a boom town. What next?" Good question. Maybe the space needle, Pearl Jam, sheesh send Bill Gates too. Might as well box up the pike place market and ship it out with an OKC sticker on it. Seattle in my rearview mirror. Oklahoma is where Seattle goes to die.

Bennett was officially honored for killing the Sonics. He was named person of the year in Oklahoma. Thunder watchblog Bend It Like Bennett had this to say about that. "Yes, bringing the 2-24 shell of a basketball team to OKC at the expense of another region's fan-base, civic heritage and cultural identity is quite possibly the most important achievement in our city's history . . . they (Seattle) weren't "Real America" anyway."

Here is some cultural heritage for you. The morning the Sonics left, I ran into Rod Guevara, at the Sonics team shop. Rod is the biggest Sonics fan I know and its in his blood, his whole family is Sonic crazed. I was looking at some Supe's socks, but was not going to buy them because the line was too long. Rod balked at getting anything, said he was thinking about it. He ended up bringing home armloads of stuff. Rod sent me six pairs of socks.

Men in Rod's family have called each other every year on the anniversary of the day the Supersonics won the whole damn thing. They play pieces of the broadcast to each other over the phone. That was their tradition. A rumor has been surging that Clay Bennett will get our championship banners rehung in OKC. Rod's family plan is to go in (to Key Arena) posing as painters and take them down, so they don't go to OKC. They couldn't bear giving our history away. Those banners are all we have left.

"This would never happen in Europe," says my friend Cod referring to the death of the Sonics. Cod was hurt so badly that he swore off the NBA. If he detaches himself, he risks nothing. He has a safe place as a European soccer and U Dub football fanatic. Fans literally buy into the futbol club and vote on the coach and management's future. Stadiums are not built with public taxes. Its kind of a crazy concept, to not be held hostage by a franchise - thats the American way. College football will not betray him either. The Huskies may have lost every game last year, but they will be back for this season. There is community tradition in that.

A lot of Americans help define themselves by scoffing at the Superbowl, by not giving a rats ass about the value of sports and what teams mean to a community. But for many, sport is part of the fiber, especially a franchise that is 41 years old. Now, I know that little bit by little bit when you lose a piece of your culture it does not repair itself and you lose a bit of your identity and that turns into anger and bitterness towards the enemy - whoever took it from you.

Looks like Kevin Durant is the nail in the pine box. He was the second pick in the draft for the Seattle SuperSonics a couple years ago. Last year he was rookie of the year as a Sonic - their last year. Now he is unconscious with the Thunder, he had 46 points the other night, pushing his season avg. up to 25 points a game. It hurts to hear about how good your ex is doing and dream about what could have been. Reality burns. All we can do is look from the outside in.

The Bad Captain America

During the George W. Bush years, we leaned heavily on the Captain America brand. In the late 1980's there were two Captain America's: one good, one bad. The newer bad Cap was supposed to be righteous like the old good Cap, a similar botched comparison took place when the War on Terror was sold as a World War II like struggle. The confusion concealed reality and contributed to accepting otherwise unacceptable policies.

In 1941, before the US entered WW II, comic book writer Joe Simon, and illustrator Jack Kirby created Captain America. His alter ego was, Steve Rogers, a skinny sickly GI. Rogers was rejected by the Army, but because of his big heart was chosen to be a guinea pig and was injected with a super soldier serum. Simon and Kirby, faced with an evil nemesis, depicted a hero whose violence always proved reassuringly right. Cap was good not bogged down by the truth. There was no nod to the Japanese American internment or US equivocation toward the Holocaust, that would have complicated the image of the American freedom fighter. Rogers was devoid of the messy facts, he simply fought the fascists.

In 1988, Rogers quit the job of Cap and became a vigilante. His growing disenchantment with US governmental corruption, mirroring the mood of the country, was a decisive factor in his resignation. A new blood thirsty cavalier character named John Walker was his replacement, the bad Cap. Mark Gruenwald, the psycho Cap saga writer, made a hero that was patriotic, but not admirable. Walker was part of a wave of psychologically troubled antiheroes introduced in the late 80's. He was the type for teens that grew up watching Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. They knew about the Iran-Contra affair and watched Oliver North testify on TV. Generation X had come of age, they were cynical and proud of it.

The Good Comics blog described a Walker scene as, a crazy blood frenzy, and freakish. “Walker used a bad guy’s body as a human shield to protect him from gunfire."  At nine years old, that image irked me. I became unnerved by the convergence of zeal and homicide. At stake was this great state gone wrong and its one time fascist nemesis. The black and white comic world turned grey and the classic patriotic symbol suffered an identity crisis. Rogers used his shield to deflect gunfire and threw it like a boomerang, whacking the gun out of a Nazi soldier's grasp, and Walker used his shield as a guillotine; slicing and stabbing his way through the world. This neophyte transformed the shield from protector to slayer.

For the first six years of the Bush era, it seemed as if the original icon was hovering above. Almost everyone was going along with the War on Terror and anti-Arab crusade. Engaging a standing army with slate wool uniforms was no longer in the cards. Skipped was the fact that our military would fight a guerrilla, and civilian insurgency.

Let's look at this scenario as if it was a comic. Once an Iraq War veteran was asked to appear as the good Cap. On paper, he was to operate on the moral high ground, but was put in a position of duality. He didn’t want to, as he put it, “hand out candy to kids when he had just blown up the house across the street.” The soldier arrived in Falluja soon after Blackwater contractors were burned and hung from a bridge.  During the day he gave candy to kids and talked with locals, but at night he called in bombs. He stopped talking with locals. He was the enemy, not the candy man. The fairy tale of walking through the desert helping the Iraqi's didn't square with the reality of blowing them to bits.

By the early 90's Steve Rogers was back as Captain America and Walker exited the series. Rogers was killed in 2007, and his WWII sidekick, Bucky, took up the mantle of Captain America. Ed Brubaker, the death of Cap series writer, said that the left-wing fans wanted Cap to stand up and be out front against the Bush administration and right wing fans wanted Cap fighting in Baghdad, punching out Saddam. Our actions pinball back and forth between, freeing the oppressed and working as the world's bully.

The good Cap and bad Cap compete in the popular mind. The weird dualism in this icon reveals something, generalizations don't get at, a trippy unrealized attempt to integrate right and might -- the great democracy morphed into a hyperpower, leaving the relationship between might and right unsettled and glossed over by pieties about flag and country.

The "human shield" image is from issue number 335 of Captain America.

Willingham and W.

The Willingham regime is arguably the worst in Husky football history. The Bush regime is arguably the worst in American history. They are both coming to a close, but only one was fired.

I am not defending Willingham’s exit. But wasn’t Bush in a similar position?

Bush’s administration has been just as diabolically bad as many Tyee and Husky fans believe Willingham’s has been. Neither have many victories just dead-enders.

Most in the sports media bring up firing coach's all the time. And there have been impeachment movements towards Bush. But those don’t get the same results as the get-rid-of-the-coach chorus.

Jerry Brewer of The Seattle Times wrote "put him out of his misery", Mitch Levi of KJR-AM said "he should have been fired last year.” Husky Honk’s host Dave Softy Maller called for Willingham to quit or for the new athletic director Scott Woodward to fire him. 

Many commentators have called to impeach Bush for different reasons. Lying us into Iraq, the tragedy of Katrina, illegal wiretapping and even the tomato salmonella outbreak are a few of them.

The fire Ty voices got what they wanted. Still Bush will fulfill his second term and leave without punishment. Maybe something will happen after he leaves, but it lacks the symbolism of an on-the-job exit.

Sports media is a sharper more effective critical tool. It is not uncommon for results to come from the pressure of prominent sports writers and sports media figures.

Just recently the Cleveland Browns benched a good QB in Derek Anderson in favor of backup Brady Quinn mostly due to the pressure from fans and sports talk radio.

The public sets the tone for what reporters cover. We show what we want by what we consume. And we can’t get enough football.

We want more sport and we want more sports talk. We want influence and we want blood. We want a winner and we want it to happen quicker than ever before.

Day of the BYU game I noticed big white letters in the University Village parking lot on the back of a Jeep Grand Cherokee it said "Fire Ty Save Washington Football."

Obviously sports is not as important as the presidency, but that is why I think it is peculiar that sports media has sharper criticism.  It should be more urgent to get rid of a leader with power like the president, not the coach.

Tyrone Willingham does not have the same power over our lives as George Bush.  Ty can sign off on bump and run--not shock and awe. 

The president makes life and death decisions. A troubling reality that takes the fun out of being an armchair general. 

Sports allow us to live within a structure and have what seems like reasonable expectations.  When things don't go as planned we have a clear path of blame.

I almost crashed into coach Willingham a few weeks ago. I was turning left too fast and I swerved to the right of his oncoming Benz. He smiled at me and raised an eyebrow.

It was about 11 a.m. on a Monday morning and I knew he was probably driving to his weekly press conference. I turned on the radio and the news came down. He would be leaving, but not before coaching the last five games of the season.

I immediately texted the most passionate Husky fan I know. “Willingham just got fired.” He wrote back, “Finally Losingham is gone.”

As I watched the ASU game, I told this same Husky fan about the premise I am grappling with in this article. How Bush should have gone the way of the losing college football coach.

He nodded in agreement and said something ominous. “People are more passionate about their sports teams than who runs the country.”

Death of the Seattle SuperSonics

“When your pushed, killing is as easy as breathing.” -John Rambo

Uber capitalist Clay Bennett sure knows about that. In under two years he organized the Death of the Seattle SuperSonics. Sure, with the support of the NBA (which is key), but mostly it was his muscular vision to bring pro ball to Oklahoma City come Hell or high water. He was undaunted by the Save Our Sonics movement or Seattle’s so called Scorched Earth Policy and in the end he intimidated Seattle. Swiftly defeating an inexperienced group of guerrilla fighters much like Shock and Awe during the invasion of Iraq. There are many similarities between Bennett and Dick Cheney. Sheer power. The will to go through with each man’s personal obsession no matter how unpopular it was and how many people it winds up hurting.

July 2, 2008: This is a dark day for Seattle. The Sonics are gone. No more history. No more basketball. No more fun. Sure you can put a price on food and farmers markets but what about fun? Fun needs a lobbyist. Who cares about basketball? We have bigger things to worry about like schools and gas prices and recycling. That may be true but I prefer to think of it this way: I was made for dreams and looking up to god-like figures. Price tags and monetary value cannot be put on sports heroes and little kids dreams and all the good that pro ball brings to youth culture and the community in general.

Front page of the P-I: “Starbucks plan to close 600 stores” and that is fitting because the CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz sold the team to some goddamn outsider group that had a whatever-gets-you-through-the-night policy to bring an NBA team to OKC. History will be rewritten. Does anyone remember where the Utah Jazz were originally from? Probably not. Bennett said he will have our banners redone and rehung in OKC. This is a sort of ethnic cleansing American style. Bennett's press conference in OKC looked premeditated with the NBA logo hugged up against the letters OKC as if it had been planned two years ago and Bennett's’ tie was matching the color scheme...and I couldn’t help but thinking the boys of Seattle will grow up to watch the Storm and have sex changes and play below the rim.

July 3, 2008: Thunder rumbling and rain has been pounding the city since the terrible news came down last night. P-I’s front page headline “Hoopless in Seattle.” There is no joy in mudville today. Where is the Glove this morning and how does he feel? And what is the Reign Man Shawn Kemp thinking? On the radio earlier this week Kemp said “back in the day no one expected a new arena if they were losing.” That is logical and now things are turned around and weird. Why the fuck does Stern want the NBA in the 60 biggest city in the country and not in the 13th? Is this his 50 state strategy? It is a bad one. Makes no sense. That would be like if Barack Obama decided to abandon Seattle and Washington (his biggest financial support from all 50 states) and move all his resources and attention to West Virginia. Why go where no one cares about you or at least understands you?

I found this piece published by Reuters citing OKC as the 5th worst hell on earth. It brought me a kind of morbid happiness if only for a few seconds.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Had a bad vacation? It probably could have been a lot worse, with men's portal AskMen.com coming up with a list of the top 10 hells on earth to prove how much more dire it could have been.

This list was compiled by AskMen and is not endorsed by Reuters:

5.Oklahoma City, United States

Type of hell: Natural disasters

Located in the direct path of "Tornado Alley," the worst time to visit would be from March to August. Tather is pretty much expected. The severe weather season makes Dorothy's Kansas look positively calm, with Oklahoma City being the city worst affected by tornadoes in the United States.

July 8, 2008: I have slept straight through the last two days minus a few meals here and there and tonight finally Val and I went down the street to the Attic for some Coors Light. I am guessing that I am depressed. My head has been pounding for the last three days and I am feeling sorry for myself. Woe is me. I was mad at myself for feeling a bit aimless and down, but then I thought “old sport don’t beat yourself up during the grieving process.” A lot has happened since the team moved to OKC. A day is not enough. I mean “it” happened two days before Independence Day so I could only really soak it in for one day and then had to gear up for a day of drinking and blowing stuff up.

On the 4th my good friend Seamus took out the windshield of a car across the street with some illegal fireworks but that was the good news: a couple inches higher and he could have blown up the family’s house across the street. An errant bomb shooting into your living room is something families in Baghdad have come to be prepared for but not Seattle. The next morning Seamus said “that could have been a horrible thing that would have scarred the whole party” Yep I said, like one time at a house party when the back deck full of people collapsed. We were in the kitchen and all of a sudden it was like the titanic was going down and people were clawing at the side of the house, hand rails and anything they could get their hands around trying to hang on. Blaine and I started throwing pots and pans out the window. We figured if the ship was going down we should probably lighten the load.

You never know how your going to feel until the horrible thing happens. Some said,”you knew it was going to happen” referring to the loss of the Sonics but that did not mean much to me. I saw a picture of Russell Westbrook our... oops that was a slip they are no longer our team...Westbrook was wearing a blue tank top with white letters that said Oklahoma City. Jesus that will be tough for the rest of my life every time I see an Oklahoma City jersey it will be like the tightening of the screws in my back every single time a reminder of the loss. It will represent failure for a city and a community. I grew up playing basketball and the Sonics were a big reason I bounced a ball everywhere I went as a youth. And no more Kevin Calabro the best voice for the game I have ever heard. These are scars that will not fade any time soon. We will see what it is like to live with them. The voice of the Sonics Kevin Calabro is staying put in Bellevue and he will become the new voice of our MLS team Sounders FC, but he said something on Softy’s radio show that stuck with me “We are staying here in Seattle because of the attitude of the people and the laid back lifestyle, a live and let live mentality.” So we will see where that leads us.

I took the picture at the SOS rally in front of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Seattle.

Sherwin Williams Paint vs. The Obey Giant

This is how Shepard Fairey was brought to my attention: a guy noticed the Andre the Giant Obey shirt I had on. The guy said: "I haven't seen those out here much. They are all over the east. The Andre the Giant posters started popping up in South Carolina."  I asked: "Who is the artist?"  The guy thought it was a homeless man who died and never got credit. I googled Obey later that day. Fairey.

The pictures were an excuse to delve into the problem with Fairey. The "cover the earth" knock off has not been reported anywhere even with the recent scrutiny surrounding the AP suing Fairey over his Obama Poster. The Obama Poster was as commercial as it gets, it was the freaking official symbol of the candidate who became president.  How much more corporate, how much more established can it get?   He has been a corporate for so long now and what does that mean maybe corporate means successful. I had a feeling about the Obama Poster, it reminded me of an Warhol-like iconic image, and coincidentally -- an AP writer called the print Warhol-ish. Andy Warhol said, "art is whatever you can get away with." I wondered is Fairey got away with stealing the Obey logo from the homeless man.

I don't quite know what Fairey does, or what I think of it. There is this sense that he doesn't know what he is trying to say.  I would dare to say that most of us -- truthfully -- don't really know what we are trying to say and by the time we have said "it" -- our minds have changed anyways and so we must work on communicating the current thought.  But that may not be the main issue.  Ken Johnson did a great piece in the NYT about Fairey's work and what it meant. 

In the interest of full exposure -- I like the Andre the Giant Obey insignia. It has a mysterious haunting feeling -- that may have more to do with Andre the Giant -- the man than the image. The Obama Poster is the same way -- we have latched onto it because of what we see in Obama himself. We took part ownership. Back when people wanted Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" lyrics translated -- Eddie Vedder did not explain what they meant. He said fans interpreted the lyrics for themselves -- lending more meaning than he could have given. He said they were part owners of the song. Part ownership makes something become iconic. Gives the creator the ability to go further and see the next step or level of the work: how it was received and in turn grows larger and larger with each re-interpretation or re-telling of the the work.

I am not really in the mood to trash a whole body of work. I think its important to point out that the Obama Poster has become -- something more, than Fairey could have planned for and a lot of that had to do with the mood of the country the rise of Obama, that he has come to stand for many different things to many different people. The AP picture and the way Fairey manipulated it into a sort of patriotic portrait. All these ingredients made way for part ownership by the masses to be the inevitable outcome. What do you feel when you look at it? It represents the colors in our country. The poster has been in many of the houses I have painted for. The so called street artist entered into the suburban stay at home white women's living room. For whatever reason -- the print conjures up the mix of hope, pride and belief we have in Obama. That is a lot. Think of all the art and pictures and comics the President has been the subject of, but for some reason this "one" print represents that feeling we have been walking around with for the last two years. Just because you draw a pic of Obama does not mean whey we look at it a hopeful full feeling will come over us. 

Fairey has a history of no transparency. Fairey slaps his Obey Giant logo on the watcher from Citizen Kane or the MC5's logo and calls it a new print. Unless you happen to know the original -- you think its an original by Fairey.

Wow, I had no idea I was writing this, I went into it, thinking Fairey was wrong to steal, but now -- I just think he is tacky and not creative. I don't get the feeling that he is wrestling with how to say something in order to adequately make a piece that challenges common perceptions. He never gave credit to the original piece.  Put a a foot note at the bottom of each print.  Something like: the original logo is Sherwin Williams paint supply.  I tweaked it by inserting the Obey logo where a map of the world originally was.  It wouldn't take much, like when a writer quotes someone else's words, but credits the author.

He fell into the same lazy old guy looking back and believing the legend drinking the cool aid of his brilliant First Work.  Hunter S.Thompson did that too.  How many times can one use Fear and Loathing for a title, how many times can a guy stamp Andre the Giant on a print and feel edgy and cool?  You jumped the shark once you had a logo you couldn't let go of and you became a product a brand -- for some reason in our culture the brand has become the most important thing -- Once Hunter said it sucks when the author becomes bigger than the writing.  

North By Northwest

Dave and I were discussing the Sonics move last night and we wondered,when the Sonics do eventually move to OK City, will they take all the retired jersey's and Championship banners with them and raise them to the rafters in the Ford Center? We also wondered if Clay Bennett would be nice enough to offer true Sonic "diehards" a weekend discounted package to be able to fly to Oklahoma City and get some great seats for the night they retire Gary Payton's jersey and celebrate his great career as a Sonic...

American professional sports are a complete joke. I could care less about the NBA or the Sonics and I consider the NBA, as a whole, to be comparable to that of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The people of this city should focus their energy on boycotting Starbucks and running Howard Schultz out of town than wasting their time and resources on Clay Bennett and a situation that is hopeless. It's not as depressing if you've already accepted the fact that it's over, like I have, but how about the Storm signing Sheryl Swoopes? I smell another WNBA Championship on the horizon!!! Go STORM Baby!!!

PS- Shouldn't Seattle's greatest fan (that guy who holds up the Sea-Fence" sign at Seahawk games), shouldn't he be doing something like handcuffing himself to the bumper of the team bus or to the landing gear of the team plane? I mean, you are Seattle's biggest fan so go out there and do something about this. The city is relying on you and your passion...I haven't heard a peep from that guy. What a joke...
- Cod the Fish on the fate of the Seattle SuperSonics.

My phone keeps ringing but I will not answer anytime soon. I have bigger fish to fry. I sit here in Seattle with a keyboard in my lap perched on a pearl white yoga ball. Here in the Northwest we are under a dark cloud. This may not be much of a big deal for the rest of the country. Sadly Seattle is relegated to weird looks from much of America. We are thought of as almost Alaska to so many. It is a deeply disturbing and hurtful thing for us natives. We are a proud people and know we are right and true. We have supported Obama like no other territory in the Empire and done the same for Ron Paul. Recently 40% of registered Republicans in these parts have been projected to support Paul in November even though his name will not be on the ballot. But never mind that. This is not a political story.

This is about basketball and 41 years of support for the Seattle Supersonics and now they are on the way to Oklahoma City. A foreigner bought the team from the king of a coffee empire named Howard Schulz who sold the team because the city would not give him a new arena. It was a childish and spiteful move by Schulz and he has paid for his stupid decision. These days his beloved coffee brand Starbucks is slipping down the Dow Jones and I know many people who routinely slap Starbucks cups from a person’s hand if seen on the street with it. It is no longer fashionable to drink the stuff.

Schulz is suing Bennet to get the rights to the team back. He is trying to save face because he knows his image is suffering and will forever be blamed for the reason we lost the team. In Seattle we have a shoddy history with sports. The Mariners have always sucked. And now in 2008 the Year of the Rat, the Mariners have the worst record in Major League Baseball. As a kid growing up the Seahawks were awful and now they are finally good, but for me it has been a hard thing to get used to. They are not a proud franchise in my mind and most people I know are more excited for the first year of Major League Soccer with the Sounders FC. Owner Drew Carey has done everything right following in the tradition of European teams with a board of members that can vote in or vote out the manager of the team and voting on the name for the team. All very classy and elegant decisions.

It was a sad day when Commissioner David Stern decided it was a better to make Seattle the premier WNBA city with the Storm Juggernaut and get rid of the Sonics the most hallowed franchise in Seattle sports history. The Sonics have always been good except for a few recent years where they have been treated like the Cleveland Indians in the movie Major League where they purposely built the worst possible team they could so it was easier to move them. And in real life the Cleveland Browns situation may be the closest resemblance to what we face. Same thing in Seattle. So now our fate is the WNBA hall of fame which will be built here soon. We can all look forward to that as the WNBA hall of fame takes over Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project.

I took the picture of the GP poster inside the Key @ the last Sonics game I ever went to.