The astute reader has surmised that I put in a lot of work on these internets elsewhere, routinely offering glimpses into my non-Michigan-sports life over at Straight Bangin'. But I am not convinced that this strict maintenance of my blogging duality--Michigan sports here, everything else there--works to the benefit of the Schembech. So I am hoping to start mixing in some more posts of the secondary- and tertiary-relevance variety over here.
Today I start with the latest BlogPoll roundtable offered up by Dem Gator Boyz over at Every Day Should Be Saturday, one of the greatest internets to ever emerge from the cyber morass.
1) Education. List the region of the country you were born in, what universities you attended and at least one other you would have attended if your alma mater didn't exist.
I was born in the bastion of liberalism that many call the "Upper West Side" and those prone to less specificity might call "Manhattan" or even "New York." When you come from such a place, you tend to memorize the Bill of Rights, inhale The New Yorker, root for whichever college football teams are on TV the most, and always be right.
As you may have been able to detect, I attended the University of Michigan, graduating with a B.A. in political science. I know a lot about voter behavior and very little about, uh--what's that thing you do with the numbers? It's like adding and stuff? Whatever it is, I don't know that one.
Had I not gone to Michigan, I would have most likely died. Ironically, I applied early to Duke and was waitlisted, but I think that my eagerness to matriculate in Durham was really an eagerness to attend college with a best friend of mine and an eagerness to go some place where the basketball team wasn't run by incompetents. In retrospect, I would have hated Duke, not least of all because I have never liked Coach K. Had it not been Michigan for me, I think I would have liked going to school some place totally different than New York--Athens, GA? Austin, TX? Eugene, OR? I don't know.
2. Sports Affiliations. List your top 10 favorite teams in all of sports in descending order. For instance, your alma mater's football team may be number 1, but perhaps there is a professional team that squeezes in before you get to your alma mater's lacrosse team.
1) Michigan Football - Nothing hurts so good...
2) New York Knicks Basketball - ...except for maybe this...
3) Michigan Basketball - ...or this, although the pain is dulled by the comedy of the errors.
4) Detroit Pistons Basketball - This team helped me take my NBA fanaticism to a new level.
5) Tiger Woods - It's always exciting to feel as though you're witnessing greatness incarnate.
6) UConn Basketball - It's kind of a geography thing. It's also kind of a I-like-watching-amazing-athletes thing.
7) Scottie Pippen - Whatever he's doing, I am rooting for its success. Painting, commentary, sexing()--whatever. I don't care if he is retired.
8) Whomever is playing The Ohio State Prison Team - Call me a frontrunner, but I just love seeing officers of the law attempt to put a beatdown on these low-life criminals who lie, cheat, and set fruity picks.
9a) Georgia Tech
9b) Penn State
9c) See #1 above
9d) Michigan State
9e) Purdue
9f) Stanford
9g) UCLA
9h) Navy
9i) North Carolina
9j) Air Force
9k) Army
9l) USC
10) Bad decisions Phil Mickelson could potentially make on a golf course
3. Movies. List the movie you've watched the most, your favorite sports related movie, the movie you secretly love but don't like to admit it (possibly a chick flick or b film), and the movie you were (or still are) most looking forward to from this summer's season.
Movie I've Watched the Most: The Hobbit (Animated). You can't front on the Tolkien ditties or the fantastic Glen Yarbrough score and original songs.
Favorite Sports-Related Movie: (Tie) The Karate Kid; White Men Can't Jump. Self-explanatory, I'd imagine. "Billy, you so stupid!" remains a signature excoriation.
Guilty-Pleasure Movie: Desperado. So many bizarre, hilarious moments. And Salma Hayek naked.
Movie I Was or Am Most Looking Forward to This Summer: X3. And Jesus Christ was that a mistake. What an unsubtle, bumbling, ungratifying, forced, poorly paced letdown. Strangers With Candy would have been the top pick here, but I was a little skeptical about its ability to work as a film and not as a legendary TV program.
4. Music. List your favorite band from middle school, high school, college and today. Also, as with the movies, include the song you secretly love but don't like to admit. If Nickleback is involved in any of these responses, please give a detailed explanation as to why, god, why.
Middle School: A Tribe Called Quest. Tribe remains one of the greatest rap groups ever, and Low End Theory is still the best album I've ever heard. That record was the gateway drug that got me into hip-hop.
High School: Wu-Tang Clan. The visceral experience created by a classic Wu-Tang track remains singular in the realm of music. Probably the most engaging hip-hop collective I can recall.
College: The Roots. I got into the Roots during high school, but I was still basking in the glory of Things Fall Apart as I embarked upon what has become a fairly impressive concert-going career, and no group performs like The Legendary. The Roots crew made music that helped me understand and articulate my taste as I began a more sophisticated consumption of hip-hop.
Today: I don't think that my interest in any of the aforementioned acts has waned, but as hip-hop has become increasingly horrible, I've been forced to pull out more and more classic material to help me stay sane. De La Soul is still canonical; OutKast still sounds innovative; NWA remains powerful; Public Enemy is still protest music; etc. Of the new jacks, Little Brother is the most exciting for me.
Current Guilty-Pleasure Song: Jeannie Ortega ft. Papoose, "Crowded." I usually tolerate but fail to fully embrace this exploitative, transparent, club-banger shit, but the beat really works, and Papoose is amusing for reasons good and bad.
5. Books. Favorite book you've finished, worst book you've finished and the book you really should read but haven't gotten around to it.
Favorite Book: Beowulf. I am a sucker for classics and love epic poetry. Milton's Paradise Lost would be a close second.
Worst Book: Jane Eyre. This book is for women, as I don't know a single dude who liked it. And fuck the Brontes.
Book I Really Should Read: A piece of contemporary fiction. Thanks to a love of periodicals, classics, nonfiction, and my inability to suffer the dull pace of character development, I haven't read a novel written in about 50 years since I was in high school. It's shameful.
6. Travel. Favorite city you've every been to and the one place you still must visit before you shuffle off this mortal coil.
Favorite City: London
Favorite College Town (Bonus!):
1) Madison, WI
2) Ann Arbor, MI
3) Eugene, OR
Worst College Town Ever (Bonus #2!): South Bend. This is not even close. There is nothing to do; it's in the middle of nowhere; everything that isn't part of the campus looks like an ugly suburb; there's no diversity; the girls aren't hot; and there are about three bars.
Place I Need to Go: Florence. So much important art history. So much good food.
7. What do you love most about college football in 20 words or less?
The outcome can be happily rendered secondary or not-that-bad by the attendant pageantry. Lloyd Carr loves this!