In Which We Measure the Cosmic Expansion of Serena Williams

A Day at the U.S. Open

by Molly Young

The U.S. Open is not a typical American sporting event. The score is announced by a voice with a vague European accent and the event is sponsored by luxury brands: Lexus, JP Morgan, Heineken. I meet a pair of Italian princesses on my way into Arthur Ashe stadium. Most of the people occupying courtside seats are tinkering with blackberries, and there are significantly more blondes and Chanel cap-toe shoes than you'd expect to find at, say, a football game.

safin

The first match we see is between Marat Safin (Russian) and Vince Spadea (American). Safin walks like Gene Kelly. He's as graceful as possible without losing an ounce of masculinity. Spadea has legs like cedar trunks.

I've never seen live tennis before, and a few obvious thoughts present themselves. One, the ball moves faster than I thought. They must slow it down on television. Two, the stadium is almost silent. After a stellar point there might be a murmur of polite applause, but otherwise you can hear the squeaking of shoes against court. We're more an audience than a crowd.

Serena Williams is scheduled to play as soon as the match between Safin and Spadea is over, and her agent sits in front of us with a plastic badge announcing her VIP privileges. She's a tall woman in a blazer, the kind you'd classify on first glance as a 'tough cookie'. At one point she turns around and spots me writing something down.

"Are you writing or watching?" she asks, staring. "Do you want to be here or not?"

"Are you kidding?" I say.

"I've never seen anyone write at a match," she says, turning back to the game.

At one point Safin gets pissed and throws his racket into the air. "Tranquilo," someone yells. He ends up winning the match and shortly afterwards Serena Williams comes out with her opponent, a delicate-looking girl named Kateryna Bondarenko.

Serena is a babe. In red dress and big earrings, she could be dressed to go out if it weren't for the huge Nikes on her feet. Her status as an exceptional human being is apparent in her posture and proportions. She operates with the restraint of someone whose talent is commonly acknowledged. Watching her move about the court is a little like standing inside the Metropolitan Museum or some other grand human achievement. You feel ennobled by association.

The game starts and Serena proceeds to crush Bondarenko. There's something solemn about the slaughter. I have to leave midway through, and I say goodbye to my friend who arranged for our tickets. He is a friend of Serena's, and later that night I get an e-mail from him with some photos from the day.

"I saw Serena after the match," he wrote. "She asked me who was that Lolita chick I was with."

Molly Young is the contributing editor to This Recording. She tumbls here and frolics here.

COME ON NOW PPL

aweiss website

"I Don't Wanna Be Here (live)" - Allison Weiss (mp3)

"I'm Ready (live)" - Allison Weiss (mp3)

prince designed wii tennis rackets

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

That didn't happen.

Danish says what to do.

Yvonne & Oma.

In Which The Name Is On The Jersey

Sports Corner: A Taste Of Honey

by George Ducker

Manny Ramirez loves the Red Sox's new blue uniforms

The end of August comes on drenched in sweat and flecked in peanut shells. With the Olympics finally over after 17 days of CGI enhancement, Michael Phelps' abs, power walking and Grecian-style debauchery in the Village, it becomes an unavoidable fact that our National Pastime has been asleep at the wheel since the All Star Game.

"

06.08.09," Xia Xing

"The Ark" - Dr. Dog (mp3)

Cleveland's Shin-Soo Choo, Texas' Gerald Laird

Certainly there's drama in all parts of the American League, but it's been a quiet, workman-like kind of drama. In the East, the Tampa Bay Rays continue, mind-bogglingly, to rack up the wins (excluding last night's loss), while the Twins and White Sox keep playing Jenga with Central's top standing.

Comes in Fenway colors, too

Everyone wants the Cubs to win the World Series. Maybe. They're the winning-ist team in baseball (by 1) and they wield a nasty bullpen threesome of Carlos Marmol, Jeff Samardzija and Kerry Wood. And, speaking of pitching, my current favorite just happens to be the Giants' Tim Lincecum.

At 24 years old, he looks more like an ungainly ninth-grader who skipped school to throw a couple of afternoon sessions.

Boy wonder

At 14-3 with a .248 ERA he's the only interesting component of an otherwise drab season in San Francisco. Lincecum has such a violently lopsided delivery that many are wondering how long he'll last.

"A Foggy Day" - Rufus Wainwright (mp3)

Total Assault will not make the playoffs

In case you're wondering, my Fantasy Team has proven to be fun, but ultimately unproductive. Choosing the Autodraft option back in April was my first mistake, but it won me the coveted A-Rod. This should have been a great thing, but Rodriguez has spent this season hitting with all the artistry and inspiration of a DMV worker taking a license photograph. That same sweeping generalization can be made for the poor, poor third place Yankees. "Swept Away" becomes a delightfully emblematic phrase.

Madonna, Ritchie

"Just Wanna See His Face" - The Rolling Stones (mp3)

The upside of my fantasy team is that it's introduced me to two instances of youthful vigor: Milwaukee's Ryan Braun and the Dodgers' Andre Ethier. Both have been producing results since the beginning of the season, but Braun's taken the gilded path (he got an All-Star nod) while Ethier has to force a smile and take his bench assignments when Torre hands them out. Even last week's game winning, walk-off homer hasn't convinced Torre to lock and load Ethier, but with an outfield already crowded by Juan Pierre, Matt Kemp and newborn Manny Ramirez, there will still be sad, Andre-less days in the future.

"Don't Let This Mean Old World Swallow You" - Andre Ethier

By the time you read this, the U.S. Open will be in full swing and, although the news will be dominated most assuredly by Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, the Williams Sisters and Rafael Nadal, I would like you to take a moment and ponder a young ginger from Scotland named Andrew Murray.

"I Am A Full Grown Man (I Will Lay In The Grass All Day) (Live)" - Phosphorescent (mp3)

21 years old, Murray has made headlines as much for his courtside moodiness as the ease with which he (sometimes) crushes opponents. He lost in the first round of the Olympics to Chinese Taipei's Lu Yen-Hsun, ranked world No 77. Currently, Murray goes into the Open ranked #6.

Don't forget to write to Rafa.

Lastly, even though the Games are over, sex is still a constant. Here's a bit from Jeff Marron's long excursion into the netherparts of Olympic competitors:

Roman historian Pliny the Elder tackled the issue in the year 77. In "Natural History," he wrote, "Athletes when sluggish are revitalized by love-making, and the voice is restored from being gruff and husky."

Brit Linford Christie, the 1992 100-meter gold medalist, went without, according to Paul Thomas of U.K. newspaper The People. In 1994, Thomas reported that Christie "locks up his famous lunchbox" three days prior to a race. Christie said he wasn't sure it would hurt him, but he didn't want to take any chances.

Christie

"Down Along the Cove" - Johnny Jenkins (with Duane Allman) mp3

The Times Online canters along the edge of bad taste with this photogallery of Yelena Isinbayeva.

And we go right along with them

"In The New Year" - The Walkmen (mp3)

George Ducker is the senior contributor to This Recording. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Insane movie projects that are exciting us.

A morality play that This Recording can get behind.

Molly’s Shia posts have aged like whine, here and here.

In Which The Team Redeems The Biggest Dream in Beijing

To cement the coming conclusion of my day job I decided to hop a plane to Beijing to offer a closer perspective on world events for those of you who can't peel yourself away from that clip of the dog falling down the slide. - A.C.

They Took Our Jobs

by Alex Carnevale

BEIJING - The U.S.A. Basketball delegation to the Olympics didn't address the situation in Darfur in comments to the media this week. And indeed, the Bush family followed suit in Beijing, saving its harshest language for the Russian invasion of Georgia and simply indicating to China who we are and what we're about.

"It's the Olympics," some say. Right. It's an international conspiracy for advertising revenue. The IOC is about as credibly non-partisan as the United Nations.

China is a fruitful marketplace: its marketers, its operators, are thugs and tyrants.

Kobe Bryant was showing just how free he feels when he suggested he'd be open to a big money offer from a European club, after he opts out of his contract after this year.

kobe gameplanning with The House Bunny

The irony is not lost on us. We promoted free minds and free markets, and now the world market is stealing our basketball players. In short, those goobacks have taken our players.

No, not a chicken sandwich! I want a goddamn cheeseburger and some goddamn fries, you fucking Goobacks! (watch the full ep here)

For Kobe's young fanbase, it is inconceivable to think why he'd leave the NBA for smaller crowds in Italy or Spain. But for Kobe, the prospect of making twice as much money for half the games while living in a palace in Italy just doesn't seem that bad at all.

Kobe has further irritated his American fanbase by touting the primacy of Olympic Gold. He and his compatriots have all but guaranteed a win after a humiliating Bronze showing in the 2004 games in Athens. He also has gamely frequented the vast plethora of hobags that Beijing has to offer.

As ESPN reporter Chris Sheridan put it:

Those venturing to the gambling tables have learned that the local currency is no good in the casino, which accepts only Hong Kong dollars -- nearly identical in value to the pataca.

The currency du jour will become the yuan once the team gets to Shanghai and Beijing.

oh hey dwayne, i want you to know if i see another one of your T-mobile commercials, i'm going to take your mom hostage

When the 1992 team swept to a gold medal, the talent on other countries was meager at best. Now the United States faces a number of competitive teams, including a Spanish team that features twin 7 footers Marc and Pau Gasol and backcourt whizzes Jose Calderon and Rudy Fernandez. The Argentinian and Greek teams are also deep and talented, and have been playing with one another far longer than the 18 month period the U.S. team has been intact.

josh childress going to greece

The U.S. has also faced major problems adjusting to the intricacies of the international game. The wider trapezoidal lane means it's more difficult to penetrate zone defenses. The three point line is also shorter, making for a more difficult adjustment than you'd think, as the U.S. shot terribly from that distance in their opening win against China.

Another major difference in international play is that once the ball has hit the rim, anyone may touch it. You can also block shots against the backboard. This should theoretically be an advantage for the much more physically impressive American team, but the instinct to not do something is hardwired, and it's really only been LeBron James who has utilized the rule to its best effect.

Much like in Athens, the Americans are cocky and overconfident. Despite the fact that the team is composed mostly of African-Americans from humble backgrounds, and that a few of its players were not even born in this country, they ooze arrogant patriotism at their pores.

The remaining opposition is a litany of stereotyped villains straight out of central casting. I believe a few of the members of the German team actually appeared in Beerfest.

The Germanics feature four seven footers (really!), a disturbing assemblage of testicles, broad shoulders, and beer stiens.

The Spanish team is composed of rogue villains along the lines of Inigo Montoya or the guy that fucked up Zorro's mom. Point guard Jose Calderon flanks the menacing brothers Gasol, and soon-to-be Portland Trailblazer Rudy Fernandez is a potent scoring wing. They're so comfortable with one another, they posed for a racist picture:

the spanish team making squinty eyes...you can't make this stuff up people

The Argentinian squad is led by everyone's favorite flopper, Manu Ginobili. The defending champs feature a number of talented NBA players. They have considerably less firepower for this go around, but they are no pushover. What the American public won't understand is that this Argentinian team is maybe the fourth best in the competition, and they have more than a prayer of beating the U.S. team over the course of a forty-minute (that's the international length of game) contest.

david blatt shaking hands with an iranian player

The Russian squad, led by Jazz point forward Andrei Kirilenko and American expat J.R. Holden is probably the most bizarre. In a typical Russian move, the evil empire hired American/Israeli David Blatt to lead their squad, causing my head to spin completely around seventy-five times. You can't help but feel they've abducted someone's wife as ransom.

The basic problem that the Redeem Team will have is the same problem America has, making this a convenient article for me to be writing.

The Redeem Team is basically Bush. He's one cocky SOB and he rolls up to China and he's like, "I gave him some of my strong talk." I think he actually said that to Bob Costas. He hasn't really taken stock of the situation, and his influence doesn't take him as nearly as far as he imagines. At the end of the night Bush is probably going to find himself in the same place as the Redeem Team - with very low popularity with the American people.

That's why it's important to emphasize what's great about America while the world is watching. This is the place where some Polish dude can order around the world's finest athletes and they love him for it. This is where superhumans can become cute friends and watch The Notebook together on plane flights to Macau.

how adorable are cp3 and deron on the miniature sized computer!!!

In the meantime, we stand with our peace-loving friends.

Cuttino's Georgian Life

The Latest

Yglesias-Kristol

Obama's statement

Moscow's Sinister Brilliance

Bob Kaplan on the conflict

George Will on Russia's big d

The War on the 'Net

Gorbachev on what's happening

The neocon and realist responses

Georgian journalist in The Nation

In memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them play again, in some other way, and let them be happy. - Philip K. Dick

"Nothingman" - Pearl Jam (mp3)

Alex Carnevale will be taking reader questions about the Olympic games in our TR Live Chatroom on Thursday. Tune in to win bonus prizes like a lock of Lambert's hair, or the shampoo bottle Danish left in my bathroom.

AMERICA: WE'RE IN YOUR TALONS AND WE'RE NEVER LETTING GO

"Dark Horse" - Bowerbirds" (mp3)

"My Oldest Memory" - Bowerbirds (mp3)

"The Marbled Godwit" - Bowerbirds (mp3)

"In Our Talons" - Bowerbirds (mp3)

"Hooves" - Bowerbirds (mp3)

bush's approval rating over eight years

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKJ5oJs3iNY]

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Mary-Louise Parker and her booty.

Molly talks ALL THE TIME.

George and George Saunders.

In Which We Never Score A Perfect 10

On Second Thought

by Yvonne Puig

Bela Karoyli, the Romanian gymnastics maestro of Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton fame, runs a gymnastics camp in the piney woods of Huntsville, Texas. The state’s oldest prison is located here, home of that notoriously well-worn death chamber. Other sites of note in and around Huntsville include: Sam Houston State University, the Sam Houston National Forest, and to the north up I-45, a 67-ft tall statue of Sam Houston himself, Texas hero eternal.

The camp features an impressive spread of leisure activities beyond gymnastics. Aside from the gargantuan gym, there’s horseback riding, a petting-zoo, a quiet lake, and pleasant paths on which to stroll through the sticky woods. Years ago, I attended this camp with my best friend Ashley, both of us dreaming of the elusive “flip-flop.” We were twelve.

Bela Karoyli drives around his camp in a pick-up truck. He wears shit-kickers and tucks his starchy khaki button-ups into his jeans. He hunts. The man might even walk the hallowed river-of-blood-a-la-Kubrick halls of the Texas Trophy Hunters Association. He’s an Eccentric Texan of the Kinky Friedman sort. Proof that anyone, even a Teddy-bearish women’s gymnastics coach from Transylvania, can go to Texas and become a Texan. To quote the great Alan Jackson, Bela Karoyli has “gone country.”

ashley and yvonne, gymnastics-aged

Very few people, however, can go to Bela Karoyli’s gymnastics camp and become gymnasts. Ashley and I learned this on the first day, when the coaches divided us into groups by skill level.

Though we’d worked tirelessly to perfect our front limbers and back-bend kickovers (the skill vital to mastering the flip-flop, the flip-flop vital to cheerleading!), we were sent to Group 16, the Karoyli camp short bus. If you can do a somersault or a cart wheel, they told us in that asinine tone typically reserved for Young Life leaders, you’re in Group 16! Group 15 was for the flip-floppers.

Shawn Johnson, not in Group 16

We spent the week, me absurdly homesick, Ashley annoyed with me for being absurdly homesick, doing round-offs across bouncy floors, feeling self-conscious about wearing the same leotards every day, and listening to “Holding Out for a Hero,” by Bonnie Tyler, the camp’s unofficial theme song, on repeat. We clapped our hands with uneven bar chalk to feel professional, and watched the real gymnasts doing quadruple layouts and 100 mph vaults.

By the fourth day, observing the compact power frog-legs of the girls in Groups 1- 15, and considering my own string-bean of a body, it occurred to me that, although the lanky, birdish Russian Svetlana Khorkina had defied the odds, perhaps I wasn’t a flip-flopper. Ashley, who in bored desperation had resorted to feigning a torn tendon to the indifference of the counselors, was just pissed. The heat outside was insane. We had a fight. I remember stomping off and scolding a girl for squashing June bugs beneath a dim porch light.

If she can do it, why can't I?

I bring this up because Bela was on NBC the other day, chatting with Bob Costas at the Olympics trials in Philadelphia. His wife, Marta, is coaching the team this year.

“I am-a telling you de livalry and de nerves are real high but it is a positive lilvalry,” says Bela.

“So as a coach you like that kind of internal competition?” says Bob.

Bela leans in and lowers his voice. “I-a love it, a-deeply love it. Lemember every competition need to be reinforced. De force behind is livalry. If you don’t feel nothing, if you lay back and vaiting for something, that is nothing, there is no progress.”

The man manages to be charming while sounding quite literally like Dracula. His moustache is full and gray in that tender, grandfatherly way. Still, I wouldn’t want to anger him. His charm seems set on an easy pivot. The rivalry in question is between Shawn Johnson, current world all-around champion, and Nastia Liukin, winner of nine world championship medals.

Both will go to Bejing for the U.S., but only one will take the top spot in individual competition. (Watching them, the tautness of their bodies, the fierce gaze moments before they leap backwards onto a four-inch wide beam, one is awed by these tiny women, humbled by their absolute material greatness.)

Nastia Liukin, also not in Group 16

When Ashley and I were at gymnastics camp, the big thing was 15-year-old Kim Zmeskal, Bela’s latest sensation. In one of the few times I remember seeing him up close, he was presenting Zmeskal to the campers. Zmeskal seemed shy. She was rock-hard, definitely under five-feet tall. Her voice was exceptionally high. I was underwhelmed. She could do some incredible flips, but when I was fifteen I wanted to be a woman, or at least headed in that direction. It was pretty much over for me after that. If gymnastics meant possibly not having boobs, I wasn’t interested. (Zmeskal went on to disappoint at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, falling off the beam in the first rotation and out of medal contention.)

Camp went downhill from there. The glut of group activity proved too much for me, and my parents picked me up a day early, in the middle of a downpour. I don’t think Ashley was speaking to me at that point. I left her there with her bunkmate, a flip-flopper named Natalie who ate sliced green peppers out of a sandwich bag before bed.

Ashley and I never learned to flip-flop. And we never became cheerleaders. I’ve wondered if it was Bela Karoyli’s gymnastics camp, in fact, that propelled us into our prolonged adolescent hell, a period defined by our inability to do flip-flops and therefore, in essence, to be normal Texas girls. We attended our high school’s cheerleading tryouts however, judging from the sidelines with a scrupulous disdain we may not otherwise have perfected were it not for that week in Huntsville.

As for Bejjing, it will be interesting to see how Alicia Sacramone performs; she’s the underdog who was left off the team in Athens, but made a stellar comeback in this year's trials. The big question mark at this point is whether Chellsie Memmel, the 2005 world all-around champion (with a shoulder injury), can give Nastia and Shawn a run for their money .

"Etsa great!" says Bela. "I am-a so excited!"

Yvonne Puig is the contributing editor to This Recording. She blogs here: It Was Evening All Afternoon.

SONGS OF THE UNEVEN PARALLEL BARS

"Ocean Front Property" - George Strait (mp3)

"She's Gone Country" - Alan Jackson (mp3)

"Honky Tonkin'" - Hank Williams Jr. (mp3)

"Clear Blue Sky" - George Strait (mp3)

mary lou retton & goose gossage

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Marshall didn't need hot tips.

Podhoretz vs. Buruma.

Love to drown.

from here

In Which The NBA Playoffs Are Here Meow

The NBA Playoffs: Where Oral History Happens

by Alex Carnevale

OK, so you guys, the NBA playoffs. The NBA ranks as the biggest dysfunctional family out there. It has guns, and bling, and sex outside of marriages. And it has older white men commenting on it. It is basically like The Real World meets Gladiator with a dash of Marv Albert's freaky deaky. And it has victims, too. After a hard foul by Celtics forward Paul Pierce, Lebron had to be held back while yelling at his mom, "Sit your ass down." Incredible.

We sat down with the biggest stars of the National Basketball Association to discuss this season's playoffs, TR-style.

LEBRON JAMES, Cavaliers forward: I don't know what was up with me you guys. I told my mom, "Sit your ass down" during an athletic competition. It seemed like such the right move at the time. Mom hasn't stopped taking my money, but she now bunks with DeShawn Stevenson. I can't believe I said that to my mom.

GLORIA JAMES, Bron's mom: He had no right to talk to me that way. I got Kevin Garnett's number, how do you like them apples?

Bron telling his mom to "Sit Your Ass Down":

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=4cpHeSNwuok]

LEBRON JAMES: Did you know I am worth more than the entire nation of Luxembourg? I ate grilled chimpanzee the other day. It was a little tough but good. Afterwards, my entourage came up to congratulate me. I feel I have not known true satisfaction until now.

DESHAWN STEVENSON, Wizards guard: You guys. In one summer I played against the best player in humanity, had Jay-Z write a new track just to diss me, and got with with FORTY hos. Long live Summer 2008.

"Blow the Whistle" - Jay-Z (mp3)

gilbert sleeping like an angel

GILBERT ARENAS, Wizards guard: It is with great regret that I shut down my blog. "One Day You're Here, The Next Day You're Gone." - Pimp C. RIP Pimp C. RIP My Blog. RIP Our Playoff Hopes 2008. Long live my contract extension.

put an R on us after the game Kobe!!!

KOBE BRYANT, Lakers forward: When I came to Denver, where it all went down for me with that white ho (we call them Mileys now), I felt a twinge in my back. Things got better momentarily when I got my MVP and all the guys were like, are you going to get us Thank You Prezzies? And I was like, you guys gotta stop reading lolcats. The next day before the game, I had my assistant put a wrapped gift in each of their lockers.

PAU GASOL, Lakers forward: I took a cameraphone picture when I saw what was in mine.

When Kobe arrived for Game 2, everyone went up to thank him. I didn't say anything. When he came over and asked how I liked my gift, I couldn't hold back. I hugged the crap out of him.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS, injured Pistons guard: Was I upset when I hurt my hamstring in Game 3? Sure. Was I glad to have the opportunity to break out the swankest "I'm-out-with-an-injury" jacket? Yes. Am I planning on sitting out Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals to debut my new kicks? Most probably.

Chauncey, we love that jacket so much we cannot even express it

"Mathletics (live)" - Foals (mp3)

"Cappo" - No Age (mp3)

"Camouflage" - Glorytellers (mp3)

STEVE LAVIN, NBA referee: Three things. One, Kobe called me a cracker. Two, where was my thank you gift, Kobe? I need weed. Three, Manu Ginobli is a fucking asshole.

BARON DAVIS, Warriors guard: MY TEAM JUST DOESN'T APPRECIATE ME! I AM THE FRANCHISE! I AM CUTTING OFF THE HEAD OF A CHRIS MULLIN DOLL! I AM RIDING MY HORSE WHICH I NAMED BARON JR! I AM MAKING ANDRIS BIEDRINS PREPARE ME CEREMONIAL CUPCAKES! I AM A BEAST IN THE LOW POST! BRING ME TO NEW YORK!

BARON THOSE SHOULDERPADS ARE OUT OF CONTROL BUDDY

KEVIN GARNETT, Celtics forward: My coach doesn't know who to play at point guard, so he moves Sam Cassell from his regular role as a backup into starter's minutes, forgetting that he can't play that many minutes. Cassell goes on a 0 for 15 shooting slump. My coach benches perhaps our most valuable reserve besides James Posey in Leon Powe for no discernible reason, and continues playing Glen Davis even though Davis matches up poorly with Cleveland's athletic front line. He won't call enough plays for me in the post and I'm naturally unselfish so I don't even play for most of the fourth quarter and then come in and try to take over. Surprise, it doesn't work. We don't run any plays for Ray Allen off screens, and we're playing veteran P.J. Brown big minutes even though he sat out most of the season. Bill Simmons jinxes us by proclaiming us as great before we've even won anything. I've been outplayed by Zydrunas Ilgaskus in this series, and I'm seriously questioning whether or not Doc Rivers has an IQ above 100. My team nearly lost to an Atlanta team that struggled to make the playoffs, and with home court advantage against a team with Lebron and motley collection of three-point shooters, we can't get our own shot or shoot the 3 consistently. I really wish I could be born again and drafted by the Spurs.

BILL SIMMONS: It's all my fault.

Lebron's mom & his girl, it's much cooler to knock up a betch if ur lebron

MIKE D'ANTONI, new head coach of the New York Knicks: 4 years! 24 million! Steve Kerr can suck on my Italian balls, as can the next person who calls me Mike D'Antonio!

arrange yourselves in the form of a bunny rabbit! dance for me bitches!

MARV ALBERT,TNT announcer, after calling Lebron's dunk at the end of Game Four by pronouncing, "Lebron James with no regard for human life!": I practiced that call in the mirror before the game. You can't see it on camera, but I'm holding onto my toupee as I say those fateful words, which enter themselves into sports history like so many of Lebron's dunks. I think of the dunk and my call of it for days afterwards, while eating, sleeping, having sex, dancing, in TGIFridays, in line, at church. This was Lebron's moment, and I took it from him. Booyakasha.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=VhSyIoDUZNk]

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

reggie miller, we treasure every moment with you

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Will on Gertrude Stein.

It was 9/11.

Our girl in Germany.