In the White Heat (jersey) of that Night

Lebron James was just minding his own business by making business signing with Pat Riley's Miami Heat ball club on Friday.

I'm not gonna say very much about all this, which I might by accident. Hell, it took me two days to come up with a title for this since I had 25 different references that go with the words Miami and Heat. I would've titled this "The Miami Rebound Machine", but Gloria Estefan is a season ticket holder for the team. I also would've titled this "Khloe and Kourtney Take Lebron and Bosh to Miami" but Khloe Kardashian-Odom is married and Kourtney Kardashian is a mother so they wouldn't have time to do that, or I could've used "Three C-Heat", but I might still have to have Pat Riley's permission to use that as a title, even though its his team.

I'm gonna wait until I see some performance in the American Airlines Arena that these three will produce on the hardwood court during the regular season. After that, then I'll say what I feel about the team. Plus, that hour long special with a 75 MINUTE COMMERCIAL FREE SPORTSCENTER FOLLOWING THAT wasn't really necessary, but then again, this is about a 25 year old celebrity athlete who signed a $93 million dollar Nike contract (which is more than Michael Jordan's rookie Nike contract) during his start in the pros, which he also gets thrown into major exposure and heated (no pun intended) debates in sports bars and videos on the internet that featured Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan.

Not many people liked his "decision", especially those who followed and looked up to him since day one back in 2003. The first time I heard of Lebron James was right after I came back from spending the first two weeks of June in Nigeria with my family that year. I went to Cleveland High School the month after, which was around the time Kobe got accused in that "incident" in Eagle, Colorado. Everywhere I went around the campus, I'd always see some dude or girl wearing a jersey that says Cleveland on the front and JAMES 23 in the back. I thought it was some student athlete that died during the regular school year, but it was an NBA jersey instead of the school jersey. Keep in mind, I wasn't into the NBA that much back then. I only focused on the Lakers since they were the most talked about team that time, despite being eliminated from the playoffs courtesy of the San Antonio Spurs.

As the months went on later that year during my Sophomore year at Kennedy High, I keep hearing about Lebron everywhere in the newspapers, Sports Illustrated magazines, Nike Commercials, the Laker games (when they had Malone and Payton) I'd be watching whenever Stu Lantz and Paul Sunderland (before he left and got replaced by Joel Meyers cause Paul subbed for the late Chick Hearn after he passed on in 2002) would always bring him up which made me get more interested in the NBA more. The jersey craze was poppin' that year, and people would be wearing different $300 throwback Lebron Cavaliers jerseys along with some Air Force Ones or some Air Zoom Generations, which is his first Nike shoe.

Now that's no longer a reality as people disowned those Lebron Cavaliers' jerseys with lighters and pyromania as well as sneakers being too unaffordable during this recession. Hell, even the owner of the Cavs went off on his ex-player by writing an emotional letter displaying his true colors towards Lebron's decision. Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavs, wasn't supposed to do that cause Lebron is legally a free agent and not under contract, but that's how Cleveland sports fans have been displaying their emotions through out the years aside from pro Basketball. If they want to break this "losing curse streak", the town's sports franchises just need to make very smart decisions, which is what the offseason is for. I hope the addition of Bryon Scott as a head coach and his experience in the playoffs of both a head coach and a former player will head adapt to the team, as well as the front office moving on with trying to avoid the loss of attendance revenue for the 2010-11 season. Same goes with the Indians and the Browns front office staff and players. They just need to keep staying focused more than they have been and do what ever they can to erase the doubts and earned the respect they must've had sometime in the past.

Sure, Lebron left his hometown to jump ship all the way down to South Beach and yes, that he upset his fans that grew with him for the past 8 years. To him, its about what he feels its best to just win some games so that he'll probably end those hot topic debates and those "playground bully jokes" on how he doesn't have any rings and that type of shit. Call him whatever you want, but just remember that he was very fortunate enough to get in the pros and got all the perks with that as a underage kid which is no longer valid nowadays in the NBA.

One last thing before I retire for the night on this slow ass weekend. Dwayne Wade should tell Lebron the difference between the white powder he uses for his pre-game ritual at the arenas to the crowd and the "other white powder" South Beach citizens use for their "post-game rituals" at the clubs on Ocean Drive. Shit, I could go on all day with the Miami jokes.

So Fox and Time Warner came to terms....

...after putting us Time Warner Cable subscribers on pins and needles for the past few weeks. I wonder who they're gonna screw it 11 months from now. Maybe ESPN or the Playboy channel, which I highly doubt. This reminds me of this saying from The Simpsons for some reason

Myth: Cable Piracy is wrong

Fact: Cable companies are big corporate giants who thinks it alright

Like my old babysitter from back in the day, Television is bad for your minds.

and yes I know its January 1st

Brett Favre is conceited, Michael Vick is conceived

In 2004, these two Quarterbacks were my favorite NFL players back when I was in High school. Everybody had their jerseys and ESPN would never shut up about them. Brett was in Green Bay with his consecutive starts and Michael was in Atlanta with a 1,000 yards in less passing and more rushing combined.

That was then, This is now

In 2009, these two Quarterbacks will be in brand new teams, coming off from years of media scrunity and off-field attention. In the next 20 weeks, ESPN will never shut up about them. I'm gonna get their jerseys as soon as my debit card comes in the mail. Brett with Minnesota and Michael with Philidelphia.

A new generation of the NFL. That means more Rachel Nichols to make me weak every Sunday.

My dearest Rachel Nichols...

PLEASE don't end up like your collegue Erin Andrews

on second though, you can look like her, but only better. You know what I mean. Look forward to seeing you this upcoming season on Sundays.
Sincerely, David Nwachuku
P.S. You still owe me an autograph headshot of yourself from two years ago

She was sad.....real sad, Paris Jackson

That title was to paraphrase Kanye West's verse from Keri Hilson's "Knock you Down" single, which to me, might be this summer's anthem.

On Monday night I missed two of the rarest telecasts in the history of television. A replay of Game 6 of the 2000 NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Los Angeles Lakers and Wall Street on the Fox Movie channel. Starting with the Game 6 repeat. ESPN Classic used to be a venue where you can watch classic NBA games and vintage NFL Films programs like NFL Films Presents, The NFL Game of the Week, and highlights of some team's season in a particular. This was like back when I was in high school some 5 years ago. Now with the advent of NBA TV and the NFL Network (which is a travesty to get in the San Fernando Valley unless you have satellite) ESPN Classic became a display of Poker World Series, RECENT, not classic, recent NCAA games, AWA Wrestling, and countless, countless, countless hours of professional Boxing which they hold endless marathons every weekend. Nowadays they rarely show the REAL good vintage sports that they used to show, and I do mean rarely. In fact, that NBA Finals game came in a heartbeat. It was the actual NBA on NBC telecast with the John Tesh "Roundball Rock" theme music, Bob Costas and Ahmad Rashad getting airtime with the peacock logo on their blazers, Chick Hearn still calling the shots, the then newly built Staples Center when the 300s section and the rest of the damn arena was lit up and a just barely legal 21-year-old Kobe Bryant rocking the Afro with his signature Adidas sneakers. This was the last finals game where they won at home court. The next 3 they won at Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Orlando. Confetti was flying and riots were all abroad outside at Figueroa St. and downtown Los Angeles (I don't know whether to compare that years riots to this past years riots). You won't find that game ever played again on a network, unless if you have a friend who's been a devoted Laker's fan since Elgin Baylor and Jerry West played in the Sports Arena before going to the Forum that taped that game. The only other alternative to watch that game is the internet, which is fine but I can't dig the slow frame rate there.

Wall Street is another film that I've been wanting to see for the past two months. Michael Douglas plays the antagonist in the film along with Charlie and Martin Sheen as the Co-stars. You can't find it on the internet. I couln't find it at Target or the Best Buys in my area. But I'll just keep looking and I'll get it once I'll see it. Again they rarely show that movie on TV.

So today I was supposed to be at a meeting with a couple of job developers to find out why I haven't been working for the past year around 10:00AM. I ditched it because I wanted to see the Michael Jackson memorial, which SHOULD'VE took place at at larger venue like the Rose Bowl where he preformed at halftime during Super Bowl XXVII in 1993 or the Coliseum where 90,000 plus people filled the place for the Lakers championship rally after the parade last month.

And it was worth missing the meeting.

They had two memorials that day: a private one in Forest Lawn cemetery at Griffith Park and a public one at Staples Center. In order to get to the public one, you had to register for the tickets at the Staples Center website, and out of 1.6 million people that entered, they randomly selected 18,000 people to witness the event. I registered the second they announced the web address at last weeks press conference at LA Live. Knowing that there was gonna be a shitload of web traffic, I had to use two computers and my brothers Playstation Portable to get through. Unfortunately I didn't get selected, but those who did had this emotion as if their child was the first one in the family to graduate from college with honors or if Sir Richard Branson (the billionaire who owns Virgin) gave everyone in England a Jaguar or a C300. Hell that ticket is so powerful, that the bids for these on ebay went for more than a 2 room house in Arleta, and people bidded on them regardless of the price.

Every channel you can think of televised this special. This event was to honor and show support for a worldwide entertainer that shut down the internet for half an hour and had his albums literary sellout everywhere after his death was announced. Despite being held at a 20,000 seat venue, the memorial went very great. It was like going to church as I was watching. A lot of famous people came and gave their share of their experience with Michael.

-Magic Johnson's speech was the most amusing, along with Kobe Bryant who's speech was the only one I missed because I was upstairs. He left out Joe Jackson's name while he was thanking the family and plugged Kentucky Fried Chicken that shot up its stock in the New York Stock Exchange like crazy a few seconds later.

-Jennifer Hudson looked really fantastic, even though she's pregnant thanks to David "Punk" Acuna from VH1's I Love New York, and I haven't seen her performed since this years' Super Bowl.

-Brooke Shields should've brought Emmanuel Lewis on stage with her.

-Al Sharpton still did his thing.

-I'm surprised that Berry Gordy is still alive. He should buy Motown back from Universal Music Group and sign that kid from Britians got Talent.

-They threw every religious symbol on the same screen during the "We are the World" performance which I thought it was awkward.

The ending was where it really went down. Michael's daughter, 11 year old Paris Katherine Jackson, spoke publically for the first time ever. If I was there I would've brought out the waterworks after she thanked her father. Honestly that was very powerful, possibly the highlight of the whole show that pundits and critics are talk about for a long time. Again, the man is a very special entertainer. The last time I can recall an event this great was Princess Diana's memorial back in 1997. He's gonna be greatly missed.