Basketball Jones v. The Muzik Peoples

Here's a piece that was initially due to run in the Independent in my column, two days after UNC won the national championship. Maybe cut for space, maybe in the case that we didn't win. Think it bears repeating now.

You can also get one of these:

here

Which you should post-haste.

Digging in your Heels

One need not stand on Franklin Street, licking a finger and waving it to see how the wind's blowing in Chapel Hill in this maddest of Marches. The Heels are in the Final Four for the first time in five years, and from powder-blue streams of parents and students lining the shops of campus-centric East Franklin to the dog-eared record bins of points West, the crackle in the air is audible. Here's a representative conversation overheard at a local music bistro this week between two women discussing the evening's social agenda from both sides of the sales counter:

"What're you doing tonight?"

"I'm watching basketball…"

"Oh no, not another one…but, I mean…"

"I've got two words for you: Sean May."

"Oh, yeah."

"I mean, yeah, I think I'll probably try to cut back on my TV-watching of games after this, er…"

"Yeah, that's what they all say. But it's like crack!"

Xgau does the blues

Robert Christgau's tawdry review is downright pungent with the smell of sex. On the mark, as they say. How better to write a review of a bunch of box sets of artists that are so storied and held up in the canon than clipping it down to a...well, you see what I mean. Does the Dean give us the most direct-to-the-libido review of 2005? I'm not starting a list for that category, because no others will exist in it but this.