WEEKEND ROUND-UP: The less said about this past weekend the better. I did make a few new friends Friday night, which was very much appreciated. As for the rest of it, I think this will say all that needs to be said:
SPORTS: The best news of the last couple of days came with my cruise to stubhub.com to find there are playoff seats available for the Indianapolis leg of the Bulls-Pacers series. In fact, there were plenty to be had, and I managed to score a couple of upper-deck seats for only 30 bucks a piece, which includes the stubhub fees. Not bad at all, and I’ll get to catch a Bulls playoff game with my friend and fellow Chicago fan, Ryan. So if you watch Saturday, I’ll wave to you. I’ll be the one with the glasses in the upper deck.
I knew the NBA playoffs would be good, I just didn’t think they’d start out that exciting. Eight best-of-7 series started Saturday and Sunday, with six of those games coming down to one possession inside of a minute to go. There were also upsets of the top two seeds in the Western Conference (the Lakers will be fine and the Spurs will be too as long as Ginobli comes back, since San Antonio’s success all depends on being a perimeter team with Duncan getting older). It all made for two exciting days of basketball.
Since then we’ve had a pair of Game 2’s. Miami looked in control and took down the 76ers in a series the Heat should win fairly easily. The Bulls, however, really struggled again but still won game two. Derrick Rose, who is expected to be the league’s MVP, has been scoring a lot, but the offense has been sloppy and there have been defensive breakdowns. I’m hoping these are just a few playoff growing pains, as it seems pretty silly to complain too much. The fact is they’ve played two games and the Bulls have won them both, so you can’t do any better than being up 2-0 after two games. Besides, the Bulls are a lot deeper.
So despite the early upsets and close games, I am still planning on maybe one upset in round one. I think the conference semis will include the Lakers, Spurs, Thunder and Mavericks out West. In the East I’m definitely thinking Boston, Chicago and Miami will move on. The only series in a lurch for me is Orlando against Atlanta. This is a bad matchup for Orlando, and sure enough they dropped the first game. The image of the Hawks folding up in last year’s playoff like a cheap card table is still fresh in my mind, though, so I still believe a Magic win in Atlanta in either game three or four will hurt the Hawks’ psyches. Just my impression.
READING: I finished a terrific book written by Sudhir Venkatesh I’d like to recommend to anyone interested in some good non-fiction. The book is called "Gang Leader for a Day," written about Chicago’s Robert Taylor homes and the people who lived in them.
I first ran across Venkatesh’s research as part of the phenomenal book "Freakonomics." That book is a wonderfully entertaining look into economics in a way I almost promise you had not occurred to you before. Now that I mention it, if you haven’t read “Freakonomics” go do that too. Both of these are enjoyable reads give a perspective not often found. Venkatesh’s contribution to “Freakonomics” comes in a section called “Why do so many drug dealers live with their mothers?” and explored why, when there is so much money in drugs, the people selling drugs seem almost as poor as the people buying them. That chapter focused on the now-destroyed Robert Taylor homes, and “Gang Leader for a Day” goes into that as well as the rest of Venkatesh’s research there.
For those of you who have driven through Chicago, the Robert Taylor homes were a series of high-rise projects that loomed to your left as you drove up the Expressway, not far from Comiskey Park. Of course, most of us know to avoid the South Side if you can help it, but Venkatesh was a sociologist at the University of Chicago, and whatever that little censor is that’s embedded in our brains to warn us of danger seems to have shorted out in Venkatesh. He naively strode right into the heart of gangland Chicago and began asking questions. It went so well he was held hostage for the night, leading to a harrowing experience of the author sitting in a concrete stairwell in the projects listening to the gang members debating the pros and cons of shooting him.
Eventually, he met the gang’s leader (Venkatesh calls him only “JT” to protect his identity a bit), and against all odds the two formed a bond. Over the next several years Venkatesh shadowed JT, who was a former athlete who left a perfectly good “real” job to run the gang. The author became part of the scenery as best he could, and spent day after day in the Robert Taylor homes, learning how this area of spectacular poverty and unemployment (well over 90% on both counts) managed to live day-to-day. Venkatesh did his best to get both sides of the story (gang and normal resident), although his close relationship with JT does cast a shadow over him at times.
What makes this book so interesting is how the author navigates his way through the underground economy that goes on in the projects. He gets to learn the inner workings of a street gang and is surprised at just how ingrained in the community it really is, and how complicated it is to run successfully. He learns how residents deal with emergencies we take for granted, since the police and ambulance services rarely venture into the area (and many that do are dirty, including alleged shakedowns and robberies by police). There are also the regular people paying rent, the squatters who are not on any lease and occupy the buildings illegally in exchange for a cut of their side businesses of everything from prostitution to handiwork to car repair in the parking lots. Note also the similarities between the gang leader and the woman who is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the projects’ residents. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell their actions apart.
Venkatesh uses his outsider status well for the most part. Despite his friendship with JT the non-gang affiliated people there still talk to him to a point. His look back in his college days (tie-dyed shirts and a ponytail) and heritage allow him to ask questions that would probably get most people beat up. The gang members and residents of the projects just aren’t as suspicious of him as they would be of most people. At first they talk to him because they find him a bit amusing. Later, they talk to him because they know he’s listening, and you get the distinct idea they are relieved to have their voices heard by someone.
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