Wintertime Ikettes, Close Calls, and Primal Scream Therapy
Saturday night proved what we all pretty much knew about the Bucks this season: they're not a bad team, but something is missing, and I'll let professional sports pundits analyze it to death, but I'll chime in with a bit of the emotional side. Maybe it's a good thing the Bucks passed on trading anybody before the deadline. Maybe it was a message to the team, "Look, you're all still here, like it or not. You're all still on this team. Now play like it." And so they did Saturday night, a game that talk radio guys admitted "Look, you didn't expect them to win at all did you? So the fact that they only lost by 2 shouldn't really be that upsetting."
When you think of it that way, well, yeah, I guess not. But why didn't this go into overtime? Because Michael Redd missed not one, but both his free throw shots. Yeah, it shouldn't have come down to this, but Brian and I are a little down on Redd, and when it's the game tying throw and you're paying Redd as much as he gets, he needs to hit crucial free throws in the clutch. Oh well.
Still, it was a fairly electric night at the Bradley Center. Smelling a possible win against, the Rim Rockers come out and put on a spectacular show during one of the last timeouts -- better than I've seen them all season. Energee turned in one of their best routines yet: to the tune of a latter day Tina Turner live version of "Proud Mary", the girls come out in 60's shimmy-style dresses and heels that, while not in Tina's league, still forced the Energee girls to dance with that almost bowlegged style that Turner trademarked. It was like there was a whole army of Ikettes, all rollin' on the river and doo-DOO do-do-do DOO do-do-do -ing it up. Bravo, girls! Excellent referential treatment and routine -- let's see more of this and less of that nondescript pole dancing wanna be stuff you've been obviously pressured by the NBA to be doing.
I really don't want to discuss the anthem. It was by some fan who somehow managed to be allowed to do this. I get the impression that she's probably a darn good singer -- she had a good voice. But you could tell she hadn't done this sort of thing in front of this large an audience before because the poor woman's face said it all: She was excreting perfectly formed bricks. This resulted in an overall (as Simon would say) pitchy rendition, which was a shame, because I bet she normally can bring it at her church choir. I kind of wanted to sing along with her, hoping the rest of the crowd would too, and bail her out, but nobody else was singing along.
While the anthem is not supposed to be sung flat, good ol barroom caberet almost doesn't sound right if it isn't flat, and Eat the Mystery got the job done at Linneman's after the game. They were part of an evening long benefit show, and they were theatrical and terrific as usual. Angie Livermore was especially melancholy and incredible, and I learned later that she'd had a particularly toughass week. But this speaks to the artist that she is: Lesser people would have let this destroy a show. Rather, Livermore took every ounce of bad juju she had to put up with this week, poured it into her art, and squeezed out a brutally brilliant performance. "How many people out there have ever been f*&(^ed over?" she bellowed, as the crowd hollered back in communal agreement. Three people were chosen to voice their renditions of just how bad they'd been screwed, with a winner chosen after Angie and her crew staggered across "Stagger Lee." The winner of course, was the woman whose primal scream was genuinely thereapeutic. It was just what the doctor ordered.
When you think of it that way, well, yeah, I guess not. But why didn't this go into overtime? Because Michael Redd missed not one, but both his free throw shots. Yeah, it shouldn't have come down to this, but Brian and I are a little down on Redd, and when it's the game tying throw and you're paying Redd as much as he gets, he needs to hit crucial free throws in the clutch. Oh well.
Still, it was a fairly electric night at the Bradley Center. Smelling a possible win against, the Rim Rockers come out and put on a spectacular show during one of the last timeouts -- better than I've seen them all season. Energee turned in one of their best routines yet: to the tune of a latter day Tina Turner live version of "Proud Mary", the girls come out in 60's shimmy-style dresses and heels that, while not in Tina's league, still forced the Energee girls to dance with that almost bowlegged style that Turner trademarked. It was like there was a whole army of Ikettes, all rollin' on the river and doo-DOO do-do-do DOO do-do-do -ing it up. Bravo, girls! Excellent referential treatment and routine -- let's see more of this and less of that nondescript pole dancing wanna be stuff you've been obviously pressured by the NBA to be doing.
I really don't want to discuss the anthem. It was by some fan who somehow managed to be allowed to do this. I get the impression that she's probably a darn good singer -- she had a good voice. But you could tell she hadn't done this sort of thing in front of this large an audience before because the poor woman's face said it all: She was excreting perfectly formed bricks. This resulted in an overall (as Simon would say) pitchy rendition, which was a shame, because I bet she normally can bring it at her church choir. I kind of wanted to sing along with her, hoping the rest of the crowd would too, and bail her out, but nobody else was singing along.
While the anthem is not supposed to be sung flat, good ol barroom caberet almost doesn't sound right if it isn't flat, and Eat the Mystery got the job done at Linneman's after the game. They were part of an evening long benefit show, and they were theatrical and terrific as usual. Angie Livermore was especially melancholy and incredible, and I learned later that she'd had a particularly toughass week. But this speaks to the artist that she is: Lesser people would have let this destroy a show. Rather, Livermore took every ounce of bad juju she had to put up with this week, poured it into her art, and squeezed out a brutally brilliant performance. "How many people out there have ever been f*&(^ed over?" she bellowed, as the crowd hollered back in communal agreement. Three people were chosen to voice their renditions of just how bad they'd been screwed, with a winner chosen after Angie and her crew staggered across "Stagger Lee." The winner of course, was the woman whose primal scream was genuinely thereapeutic. It was just what the doctor ordered.
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