Da Boy Tommy's Birthday Weekend

You know you won't get much sleep in during Da Boy Tommy's birthday weekend. That's a given for Monsieur Le Président's friends, just as much as they accept the laws of gravity.

It all started on Thursday night when, after running (or actually: swimming) into Justine and Josefien at the Olympia pool and inviting them over for spaghetti and drinks at the Kwekersstraat Mansion, I ended up stumbling out of the Pick bar well past midnight and returning home for a short night's sleep.

On Friday night, both Stijn and me joined Tommy in a pubcrawl which extended itself from the Rica to the Bras, then onto a local pita bar for some grub. Next up were De Vetten Os, Il Fiore, once again the Bras, with a final drink at 't Speelmanshuis.

As much fun as Thursday and Friday were; it was only last night we shifted into top party gear, at the annual election of Prince Carnival in Blankenberge - the infamous Prince Ball at the local casino. Normally around this time of the year, the Belgian Beach Club roams in the mountains of Switzerland, France or Austria, but as the 2011 skiing trip was postponed due to various reasons, at least we got to go to the Prince Ball.

And a ball we had. Our party of nine (Tommy, Julie, Julie, Bens Tiller, Pimöne, Katrien, Stijn, Eva and me) got the best seats in the house: right in front of the stage where we saw performances of the Quality Schlager Band, Swoop (see picture above), some ripe Dutch schlager queen and a couple of dance performance outfits.

We also got to enjoy the moment suprême - the election of the new Prince Carnival - from the first row.

Which was nice.

I must admit that I'm a sucker for these Carnival events. They're such fun: I like the music because it gets people moving around in polonaises and everyone's there with just one goal, and that's to enjoy the evening without too much fuss.

During the evening, we probably spent more time on the stage than the actual Prince Carnival did, performing several polonaises, exploring the backstage area and dancing around the various schlager artists. The rest of the crowd soon followed our lead - there was a moment in time during the Swoop show when the singer couldn't see his backing vocal girls anymore.

And when he started off the encore by getting the whole venue to sing along with 'Happy Birthday To You' - which I had requested while passing by the singer - for Tommy, we just knew this would be a night to remember.

Things only went uphill from there.

There's no ball like the Prince Ball in Blankenberge, believe you me.

BY THE WAY

Happy Birthday, Tomy.

SOMEONE WHO'LL BE LESS THRILLED TODAY

Renault driver Robert Kubica, who suffered broken bones in a rally accident in Italy yesterday. According to the BBC coverage, "there will be doubts about his ability to continue in the sport." This is to hoping that Kubica fully recovers and one day makes it back to Formula One.

True Grit ***

There used to be a time when 'Coen Movies' guaranteed an unforgettable evening, be it after seeing them in the cinema or in your living room. 'Fargo', 'The Big Lebowski', 'O Brother Where Art Thou?'; even 'The Ladykillers' and 'Intolerable Cruelty': they're all masterpieces which combine clever storytelling, amazing photography and a wicked sense of humour.

But then things went pear-shaped with 'No Country For Old Men': a dark thriller with some western elements. Most movie critics lauded the film, though I found the dialogue to be stiff and strained and the storyline to be far-fetched and difficult to keep track of.

I wasn't too thrilled with it's follow-ups: the bleak though star-studded 'Burn After Reading' and the only mildly amusing 'A Serious Man'.

On Thursday, I got to see the latest Coen outing: 'True Grit', starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and fresh new face Hailee Steinfeld. This in a press screening which took place at the NBC Universal HQ in Brussels.

It's always a special experience, attending press screenings there, not only because you get to see the films serveral weeks before they're released; also because you wouldn't guess there's a cinema when you enter the nondescript building in King's Street. There's this whole secretive vibe which looms around the visit.

Anyway, I liked the film. It didn't wow me the way the early Coen movies did - I don't think they'll ever get back to that original level - but I found the acting supreme, the backgrounds breathtaking and the attention to detail unparallelled.

'True Grit' is about a 14-year old girl (Steinfeld) who seeks to avenge her father's death by hiring a bounty hunter (a rugged Jeff Bridges) to hunt down her father's killer (Brolin in only a minor role). They're joined by a quirky Texas Ranger (Damon) in their quest through Indian territory.

The story clanks now and then, but both Damon and especially Steinfeld (Hollywood seems to have discovered a new breed of 14-year old ass-kicking heroines; young girls that talk trash like you've never heard - see Chloë Moretz in 'Kick-Ass') deliver magnetic performances.

It's a full-blown western with some ingenious dialogue and the odd hilarious scene (especially those involving Indians) which more than makes for an entertaining evening.

My Basketball Jones

It's well past midnight and I just finished doing the dishes after fixing dinner for two most charming ladies (my sister and The Sauron). I have every reason to be wiped and hit the deck. And if it weren't for the fact that, while doing the dishes, I listened to Hatebreed's 'Perseverance' album in its entirity, I probably would be in Dreamland by now.

But seeing as though that album gets your blood pumping faster than speed ever could, I'm still here, kickin' it on da blog.

This morning - before driving from Zwijndrecht to Zele, from Zele to Vilvoorde and from Vilvoorde back to Zwijndrecht - the picture which you see above this post caught my eye on nba.com (my 5th favourite website after Hotmail, this blog, Webstats for this blog and standaard.be).

Not only is it a magnificent shot of The Best Basketball Player This Side of Michael Jordan; it also represents my early love for basketball in general and the NBA in particular.

(Also, looking at the picture, it occurred to me that I have only referenced my Basketball Jones - that's how they call 'love for basketball' in the States - sideways on this blog, in the three weeks that I have been back in business. As this cannot be tolerated, I decided to dedicate today's post to my passion for the Beautiful Game of Basketball.)

My Basketball Jones showed up as early as my seventh year of life. I was in third grade of elementary school (OLVA Male, where u at??) and one of the many after-school activities was learning how to play basketball.

Though I wasn't very good at it, I soon started to wear Jordan apparel (even though I had never heard of this guy named Michael Jordan; when I first saw the name on the outfit, looking at the Jumpman logo, I thought he did ballet - that gives you an idea of how distant a notion the NBA was to me, growing up) and Nike sneakers.

(God dammit, if I think about the sneakers I wore back then, I would've copped a couple o' more larger sizes, so that I could still wear those fine, neon-colored butters today.)

We're talking 1990 here, around the time this Michael Jordan dude led his Chicago Bulls to a first of two three-peat World Titles in the NBA. Names were thrown around such as 'Johnson', 'Robinson', 'Jordan' - they all meant sh** to me as the National Basketball Association was about as underground in Belgium as the up-and-coming grunge movement.

(God dammit, if only I had known back then what I know now; I would've checked out Nirvana at Pukkelpop, I would've bought the first Tool LP's and gone to see them in obscure Belgian venues, I would've checked out the first RATM gigs on the European continent. There's so much that I've missed.)

From time to time, I would see highlights coming from the distant US. By 1992, the Dream Team came and took Europe by storm. 'Johnson', 'Robinson', 'Jordan' were no longer just names; I could now put faces on them. And highlights, lots of highlights.

The NBA soon became an obsession. I bought the XXL mags and the Upper Deck Cards, copped the gear and the sh**s, but it wasn't until 1998, when this scrawny, 18-year old kid named Kobe Bryant came along, that my NBA appetite was whetted forever.

This guy had it all: a cool team (the LA Lakers), a cool sneaker ad with a West-Coast trash metal soundtrack, and hops which hadn't been seen since MJ first showed up. This guy was the real deal.

All this time, I never played organized ball. Bruges had a pretty lively streetball scene back in those days, especially in the summertime, when guys like me only got to play when it got dark and the real ballers got tired. But I loved the game - and I still do.

In 1999, the New York Knicks advanced, as the second no. 8 seed ever, to the NBA Finals. That was one amazing run with some amazing players. Camby, Ewing, Sprewell, Childs, Ward - heck, even Dudley. A gritty team which never said die. I watched their run to eternal NBA glory night in, night out, on the Canal + pay channel. Got up in the middle of the night to see them play.

Canal + got too expensive the next few years, so my attention swung back to Formula One - though I never lost track of the world's greatest basketball league via nba.com.

Coming April, I plan to get a subscription to NBA League Pass, the online network which lets you enjoy every. Single. NBA ballgame. Live. (Non-basketball fans better stay away from this website then, as it'll be my primary point of focus.)

I could wax lyrically about Kobe Bryant and the NBA all I want, but maybe I should point out the reasons why I love this sport so much: it's fast, intense and very often the most exciting sport you'll ever see. It's not a discipline made up of a bunch of wankers (which you all too often see in football) kicking the sh** out of each other - no, this is a hard-punching man's game.

And I think the NBA is made up of amazing athletes with often electrifying personalities, writing basketball history through emotion-laden matchups.

So to me, 'Where Amazing Happens' is a pretty good tagline for this sport. Anything goes, anything can happen, but it's always the most talented and persevering (there we've got that Hatebreed album again) which take the prizes.

And if you could excuse me now, I'm off to bed. I've got a special treat planned for tomorrow, which my inner movie geek will certainly appreciate.

Happy trails

DM