This is the first part of my 3-part End of the Year extravaganza that I’ll be posting over the next three days.  It seems trite, in a year that has meant so much growth for me, to condense 2011 into a few lists of good movies and albums, but, oh well, I’m doing it anyway.  Film & music have been and will always be a big part of my life, so the art I watched and listened to this past year are the works that spoke to me personally through the good and the bad.  Tomorrow, I’ll post some of the same I’m looking forward to in 2012 (aka the year we’re supposedly all dying,) and the following day I’m posting an open letter to 2012.  This is the wordless version. Full list can be found here.

Warning: This is a sports-related post.

I’ve been so engrossed in the current football season (finally a winning one for the Oakland Raiders!) that I almost forgot that the NBA had quietly reached a deal to end the lockout after 5 bitter months and was getting set to start a truncated 66-game season on Christmas day.

That’s when Twitter exploded with news that Chris Paul was headed to the Lakers in a blockbuster 3-team trade.  Then, it exploded again with news that David Stern & the league office had blocked the trade.  Ahh…welcome back, NBA.  No givsiebacksies.

Living in LA, I’m definitely a Lakers fan (and not a bandwagon fan; I’ve loved them since I knew what basketball was, even in the pre-Kobe years), but I’m not unhappy with the NBA for their decision because it hurts the Lakers.  I’m unhappy with the decision because I think it hurts basketball.

Let’s remember that the NBA is coming off of a 5-month lockout that pitted billionaires against millionaires in a bitter battle over - what else - money.  The league’s already in need of a positive PR boost.  Then, this.  Who loses in this deal?

• The Lakers, the Rockets, and the Hornets all lose because they now have players stuck on their teams who know that they are expendable.  Lamar Odom has mentioned in interviews that he doesn’t feel wanted by the Lakers any more and was a no-show at training camp Friday.  The Rockets and Hornets players have been less vocal, but knowing that your team wanted to get rid of you doesn’t exactly inspire loyalty for the upcoming season.
• The Hornets, in a basketball sense, lose doubly.  Arguably, the Hornets go the better end of the trade, getting rid of a disgruntled superstar, but gaining a variety of diverse players.  Now, Chris Paul will be gone at the end of this shortened season, when he is a free agent, and New Orleans will have nothing at all to show for it.
• “Big market” teams lose, too, because any big stars that are attempted to be traded by or to these teams will be (or, at least, should be) put under the same scrutiny that the Lakers proposed trade was.  If the NBA really wants to level the playing field and keep “super teams” out of the NBA, how can they allow Dwight Howard to go to the Nets or Clippers or Lakers, as may happen?  By blocking one trade, the NBA has created a standard by which all other trades must be judged, if their judgment is to be rendered fair.
• Chris Paul loses.  Undeniably, he wanted to play for the Lakers and now he doesn’t get that chance.  He’s reportedly mad enough about it to explore his legal options against the NBA.
• The owners lose.  Whether or not they had any part in getting the Paul trade nixed (and, if Dan Gilbert is to be believed, they did), they’ve lost the trust of their players.  When owners start treating their players like monetary playing pieces, that’s when the chain of trust starts to break down.
• David Stern loses.  He’s now the most hated man in basketball; maybe in professional sports.
• The fans lose.  It’s impossible to keep “super teams” out of the NBA in principle, and, actually, the NBA is a superstar-driven league.  Fans would have paid more to see Chris Paul don a Lakers jersey, just as New Orleans fans would have paid more to see a rebuilt Hornets team.  Last year, the games that sold out the most, even in smaller market cities, where the games in which the Lakers, Celtics, or Heat came to town.

So who wins?  In my opinion, no one.  By arbitrarily deciding to step in and flex his muscle, David Stern has created a standard by which the NBA must be judged.  I can imagine a variety of horrible scenarios that cause the NBA’s PR face to take more hits because of this decision.  Apparently the Hornets are still trying to trade Paul.  Let’s say that he does get traded and it’s to another of the teams in the running - the Clippers, the Celtics, the Knicks, etc.  If the league allows that trade, there will be even more public outcry.  Imagine: Chris Paul is allowed to be traded to another team, just as long as it isn’t the Lakers?

I’m a huge basketball fan, so I can only hope that this won’t permanently affect the morale of the teams involved, but the NBA season is certainly starting off on a dark tone.

Over the past few months, my frequency of blogging has gone down dramatically.  Every day, I think to myself, “I should blog something,” and then something comes up, and this blog is forgotten.

I started this blog as a way to stream my personal thoughts/feelings/inspirations on my journey as an aspiring filmmaker and social justice advocate.  I think that the main reason my blogging has slowed is because I felt a burden to consistently come up with long-winded essays on the deep subjects of life, or, to post some awesome Instagrammed photos from “inside the studio” of the latest musical project I am a part of.

The truth is, I am realizing, that, as much as I would love to post exciting updates every day, some days just look mundane on paper.  ”Waiting to get licensing approval for a cover song” is not a very interesting subject that can be illustrated with clever drawings and soundtracked by the latest in indie music.  A lot of what Rock for Justice is right now, for instance, is boring email answering, conference calling, and Excel spreadsheeting.  I haven’t been on the road, in the tour sense, in nearly a year.  My film projects, currently, are a mass of scribbled notes and breakdowns that would bore the average reader to tears.

To some, blogging is a very personal task - a way to spit one’s own personal and unfiltered thoughts out onto the Internet as an often cathartic way to vent without requiring or receiving any judgmental response.

For me, though, I blog not for myself, but for you.  I write in hopes that I may inspire others by what I have to say, whether that inspiration is in the form of a stirring argument on some important, deep topic or simply a recommendation to check out a new band I think is breaking on the horizon.  The truth is, though, that inspiration can be found everywhere, even on days when not much develops on the project side of my life.  

Of course, I remain focused on Rock for Justice - the non profit movement I founded, for those who are unaware - and remain committed to seeing some film projects through to completion.  That is who I am and, for those who choose to read this and have similar dreams and goals, I hope that my fractured journey can somehow be a lesson (whether cautionary or uplifting) to you in your own life adventures.

This blog was meant to be explosive, abstract, artistic, and, above all, collaborative.  I find it fascinating that technology can connect people who are often impossibly geographically separated and how, often, incredible movements and relationships are forged from these connections.

By the new year, this blog will be getting a facelift and I will hopefully be able to integrate some more interesting contributions soon…

I look forward to 2012.  I might be the only one. (Sorry, Mayans…)

-M