My neck of Cackalacky's been dominated by drama the past few days. Most of the Bobcats drama's been tempered by the realization that Emeka Okafor will be extremely difficult to trade. The status quo reigns, unless you count Ryan Hollins coming back for another year as a threat to the balance of things.

No, the real drama was live on stage with Avenue Q and in the cinema with The Dark Knight. Dramatic literature never ends when the curtain comes down, when the end credits roll. If you're not connecting the drama to other experiences, then you probably weren't paying attention.

I saw Avenue Q for the first time on Thursday, though I'd grown familiar with many of the songs and the plot via overwhelmingly positive response on the internet and among my friends.


It sucks to be me. My basketball team is a rudderless ship. What's worse, nobody in my city gives a shit. And now we're in year five of a three year plan. Our drafts stink. Our front office is a joke. It sucks to be me. It sucks to be me. It sucks to be me.


Everyone's a little bit racist sometimes. It doesn't mean we go around committing hate crimes. Look around and you will find no one's really colorblind. Maybe it's a fact we all should face. Everyone makes judgments based on race. No, not big judgments like who deserves everlasting scorn for playing crappy uninspired ball (coughPrimozcough), just little judgments like who to downgrade for not being as good as Dwight Howard (coughEmekacough), even though he's extremely valuable, and who to cheer for being a scrappy three point artist with floppy hair off the bench (coughMattCarrollcough), even though he's totally expendable. Man, I must be coming down with something.

The Dark Knight presents a different set of philosophical questions. (No specific spoilers ahead, but thematic ideas are there.) For now, I'll concentrate on one. The safety of Gotham's residents is dependent on Batman, Dent, and the police doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately, they're already struggling to do their jobs, and then they get completely overwhelmed by an enemy who operates outside the conventions of motivation and apparent reason.



My safety and satisfaction as a fan depends on Michael Jordan, Larry Brown, and the rest of the Bobcats' front office doing at least a respectable job of fielding a good team. Unfortunately, neither Jordan nor Brown is all that good at this, especially since the game is changing. As long as they stick to "the rules", guys like Kevin Pritchard will pick their pockets and always be ten steps ahead. Brown makes for a good symbol of playing by the rules, but he's an outmoded coach who will try to impose his outmoded rules on a world where many have discovered they thrive without boundaries.

(No. Michael Jordan is not Batman. I concede the analogy breaks down a bit, there.)