theLeftAhead

Thieves in the Temple – Friday was Earth Day. One day after the passing of Prince, the world was still blanketing itself in purple showers. A resplendent purple Earth. At least that’s how I imagined our beautiful planet might have looked on Friday from outer space. I spent a fair amount of my day that day thinking about that sort of thing. Thinking about the precious gift that is our…

Idioteque – Ice age coming, ice age coming. Let me play both sides, let me play both sides. The NBA has been put on notice. The Spurs are coming. Not only are we coming, but (over this past season) our starting small forward completed his mutation from an ordinary White Walker into the best two-way player in the game. It has been quite a transformation for the quiet, humble kid…

Ignition (Remix) – Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines a remix as “a variant of an original recording (as of a song) made by rearranging or adding to the original.” As a musician, I love remixes because they have a funny way of making things you’ve heard dozens (or even hundreds) of times before feel fresh and exciting. As we parted ways this past July, I left with this feeling that I get…

Pompeii – Against my better angels, I did it. I’ll admit it. I know better, but somehow it still happened. I’ve been to this rodeo way too many times and yet I still couldn’t help myself. How does the proverb go? As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. Yep, that about sums it up. I allowed myself to get overconfident after the 27 point…

Deliver – ¡Viva la Fiesta! Going into the AT&T Center in San Antonio as the road team and winning a playoff game is a difficult proposition. Going into the AT&T Center as the road team and winning a playoff game during Fiesta? There are few things harder in the NBA. Obviously, it is not impossible. Last year, the Dallas Mavericks came into our home during Fiesta and stole Game 2…

Ready or Not – Whew. Let me catch my breath. It’s been almost 48 hours, but I’m still feeling the effects of all the nervous energy it took to watch the most entertaining game of the 2015 NBA Playoffs thus far. That was big. On the verge of falling into a disastrous 0-2 hole on Wednesday night in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, the defending champion San Antonio Spurs…

What’s Up? – As my good friend and bombastic pop culture writer, Ken Adams, might say: howdy boys and girls. Welcome to the third installment of the Black & Silver blog series. I’m thrilled to be embarking on yet another San Antonio Spurs playoff run with all of you, the loyal readers. What an exciting time. It’s spring, it’s Fiesta back home in San Antonio, and the Spurs are defending…

Wish You Were Here – I clutched the rose on my necklace and peered blankly at the television screen. Moments earlier, I had been standing with my wife, Jenn, in the center of the living room. After screaming, receiving a spectacular hug and then exhaling when it finally happened, I subsequently retreated to the couch and sat down utterly exhausted. I couldn’t move. I quickly realized that my momentary euphoria…

Juicy – It was all a dream… All thirteen players that suited up for the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the 2014 NBA Finals dotted the box score with at least two points. Yes, thirteen players scored for one team in an NBA Finals game. This has never happened before. The NBA expanded the active roster for an NBA game from 12 to 13 players during the lockout-shortened…

City of Blinding Lights – It has been quite a long time since the San Antonio Spurs have had a superstar basketball player on our roster who was born on the American mainland. 29 years to be exact. “How could this be?” you ask. Well, Tony Parker obviously doesn’t fit that criteria. He was born in Bruges, Belgium on May 17, 1982. Manu Ginobili obviously doesn’t fit the criteria either….

B.O.B. – When the hip hop duo, OutKast, released their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, on April 26, 1994, Tim Duncan had just wrapped up his freshman season at Wake Forest. Fast forward twenty years and OutKast is the most buzzed about act on this year’s summer music festival circuit and Tim Duncan is making his twentieth appearance in the NCAA or NBA postseason. In the past 20 years, OutKast has sold…

Heirplanes – In another brilliant performance, two-time NBA all-star and first-time MVP candidate Kawhi Leonard took the air out of the Staples Center last night with a suffocating all-around display of his versatile skills as a basketball player. The Los Angeles Lakers seemed flabbergasted with their inability to contain Leonard on either end of the court as Kawhi, who is this generation’s closest attempt at reincarnating the talents of Scottie…