PaulKatcher.com

This Is an 'Open Window to Freedom.' Supposedly

This past weekend I made my triumphant return to the New York City's Museum of Modern Art, the "leading museum of modern art in the world" (according to Wikipedia's MoMA entry), and a great place to sample new drugs. The reason? Paintings like 'ol Blue Monochrome over here.

It's not only the works themselves that leave visitors wondering "What the fuck?" The accompanying info cards are head-scratchers, too. Here's what we're told about Blue Monochrome, completed by Yves Klein in 1961 (presumably about five minutes after he started):

Monochrome abstraction — the use of one color over an entire canvas — has been a strategy adopted by many painters wishing to challenge our expectations of what an image can and should represent. Klein likened monochrome painting to an "open window to freedom." He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, he called it "International Klein Blue." Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness that reflected his own peculiar utopian vision of the world.

So, just to be clear, use off one color over an entire canvas is a way to "challenge our expectations of what an image can and should represent." And here I thought it just just being lazy. What a peasant I am.

Other Ridiculous MoMA Works:

• Barnett Newman's Onement I — An "artistic breakthrough" or a straight line? You decide!

• Jeff Koons' Three Ball 50/50 Tank (Two Dr. J. Silver Series, One Wilson Supershot) — Three basketballs in a fish tank. I shit you not. (Click on the audio to hear how the balls being inflated is a symbol of life. So, too, must be a blow-up doll.)

• Lucio Fontana's Spatial Concept: Expectations — A mocha-colored canvas with a slash through it. Or, as I like to call it, The Bi-Racial Vagina.

Today's Web Finds:

• Still OK to Whack it to Anna Nicole? — Dan Savage of the Village Voice says no, believing that "whacking off to the dead violates the hope that masturbation represents." Which is why I stopped beating off to Rosa Parks in 2005.

• YouTube: Collection of Michael Scott 'That's What She Said' Moments — Wow, this clip is really long.

• News: Fertility Clinic Used Wrong Sperm, Suit Claims — For the first time ever, white parents are gonna have to figure out when to tell a black child that he's not adopted.

• Village Voice: Kiko Was Here — The paper subtitles the piece "A would-be Basquiat goes to prison in a misguided graffiti crackdown." I call it "The story of a another inner-city scumbag whose defiance against cooperative society led him to mar public and private property and landed him in the slammer."

• Central Park Is Worth $528 Billion — Or so says the Trivia section of this Wikipedia entry.

• Kansas State Is Getting 2 of the Top 3 Hoops Recruits Next Season? — And neither of them are from the state. Which makes this either Bob Huggins' biggest recruiting coup, or the reason he school will be on probation in five years. Maybe both.

• The Ballad of Big Mike — The New York Times' lengthy excerpts from Michael Lewis' "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," which is part "Moneyball," part Hoop Dreams, part Diff'rent Strokes and part Trading Places.

• How to Deal With an Asshole Commenter — Check out how the author of this Cracked article shoots back at an unsatisfied reader in the comments section.

• All Time Favorite Poker TV Moments — Lots of great discussion and links to YouTube clips.

Real Yankees Fans Will Cheer This Man in 2007

Last season, Alex Rodriguez finished 13th in voting for AL MVP, higher than any of the Yankees' stable of eight-figures-a-year a men, save Derek Jeter, who finished second. (Jeter has three top-10 MVP finishes and no wins; A-Rod has seven top-10 finishes and was named league MVP in 2003 and 2005.) But Alex faced more persecution than any of his teammates for the Steinbrenner-defined "sad failure" that ended in a second straight ALDS exit.

Gary Sheffield had seven hits (and none for extra bases) in 33 at-bats in the 2005 and 2006 postseasons. Randy Johnson, in the same couple of playoff series, got bombed for 20 hits and 10 earned runs in 13 innings. Good thing unnamed clubhouse sources didn't say that duo "tried too hard" or acted "phony" or "wanted everyone to like them." We would've really thought they stunk.

We do hear those things about A-Rod, of course. It must be some breach of clubhouse credo to "try too hard." Or at least more severe than "'roiding up" or "not hitting one's own weight" or "balking at team orders to hit the minors," as did Jason Giambi, whom teammates universally supported in 2004-05.

Whatever the Yankees' beef with A-Rod, whatever he does that prevents teammates from backing him with conviction, I ain't making time to worry about it. If they have something concrete against the guy — whose on-field play is defined by hustle, durability, smarts and impossible demands — then nut up and spit it out. If not, I'm gonna view their distancing from Alex as nothing more than sissy-fighting among the super-rich.

Or maybe they're going easy on A-Rod. Maybe he's a two-faced prick who deserves worse and someday will get it. But Yankees fans aren't privy to these clubhouse politics. We can only go by what we see on the field, where Rodriguez has performed at a much higher level than given credit for. His stats per 162 games bury every Yankee since Mickey Mantle. Real fans don't boo guys like that. They bring the heat to the opposition, 50,000 strong every night. Real fans don't bring it to their own All-Star Game starters, play into the media's manipulative hands and send messages to future free agents that New York may not be worth the trouble.

Fine, We Didn't Wanna Play in Your Dumb Tournament Anyway

For a minute, I thought the NCAA Tournament added a fifth Mideast region or something.

When CBS revealed the field of 16 in the South, the fourth and final region to be announced, I kept waiting for Syracuse to come up. 10 seed? Nope. 11? Nah, not allowed to go up against Louisville.

Uh... 12 seed? Anything? Bueller? Bueller? Lunardi?

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!

There are a few arguments for Syracuse being in the field of 64, most notably a 10-6 record in a major conference and a recent thrashing of Georgetown, the Hoyas' only loss in their last 18 games. And there are arguments against the Orange: terrible non-conference resumé, and a relatively weak Big East slate. Punching the dance card or snubbing teams like this is akin to hitting or sticking on 16 in blackjack when the dealer shows a 10. There's a technical "correct" play, but in the end it doesn't really matter; you're gonna lose your money way more often than not anyway. (SU vs. "in" teams, all equally blah.)

I never cried for underachieving traditional powers when they failed to get a crummy 11 seed, and I ain't gonna do it now. But I am surprised that nobody really saw this coming. I checked Joe Lunardi's Bracketology almost every day since we throttled G'Town, and 'Cuse was always in and never even listed as one of the "Last Four In" on the bubble. Even guy who lives to get these right whiffed badly on Syracuse. He's probably more pissed than I am.

OTHER THOUGHTS (SOME OF WHICH ARE WAY OLD):

• I'm headed down to Tampa on Thursday for Yankees spring training and really hope that the combination of St. Patrick's Day and Spring Break — the baking soda and vinegar of amateur partiers — brings out the same photo ops as when I snapped a pic of this underwear-less skank overseeing a senseless closing-time street fight.

• Do flies shit?

• How soon before we see a porn spoof, about a hooker who makes in-calls only at odd hours, titled An Inconvenient Ruth?

• Kid-sized Pacman Jones jersey on eBay. Perfect gift for the future criminal in your life.

Jones has been questioned by police in 10 separate incidents since being drafted in April 2005. Disgusting. His employer doesn't seem to care much, because he's really fast.

• Pretty soon Kobe Bryant is gonna claim that stabbing a defender with a knife is part of his natural shooting motion.

• Here's hoping actress Melissa Sweet's credits on IMDB.com someday expand further than "Slutty Girl."

• When ESPN used an image of Brendan Shanahan being carted off the ice on a stretcher as a teaser to keep viewers through a SportsCenter commercial break, the network hit a new low. (Did this man get paralyzed? Stay tuned!) Which it probably topped the next day.

• Saw the beginning of a Gonzaga vs. Santa Clara basketball game that featured eight white starters. Neither team was ranked, of course.

• Retrieved my bag at Las Vegas' McCarran Airport last week only a few feet from Brian Urlacher, who must've flown in on the same plane from Chicago. It was the closest I've ever been to a man who's had sex with Paris Hilton, and I hope it's a record that will not be broken soon.

• Maybe I'm not peering down the right dark alleys, but what about modern Vegas screams Sin City? It's like an expansive, expensive ($25 buffet brunch, $30 club cover) mall. Fun, but I wouldn't say altogether deviant. Truly sinful experiences are not served up by men in suits who call you "sir" and carry your bags. Maybe it's because some of things that are supposed to impress — the high-rollin' action junkies, overpriced strip clubs, VIP access that separates people into categories of worth — have the opposite effect on me.

• I know I'm late on this, but did you see the effort LeBron James gave in the Skills Challenge of the NBA All-Star Game? I try harder than that when I take a dump.

• How much would Dominique Wilkins hate to see the NBA scrap the slam dunk contest? Is any Hall of Famer's legacy so tied to an annual exhibition?

• If you're a tall, black man, say 6-7 or more, and you weren't in Vegas during All-Star weekend, you probably missed the easiest opportunity to get laid ever.

• Anyone else check out every seat in first class when boarding a plane to see if anyone famous is on the same bird? (I'm always disappointed, BTW.)

• I'm glad I DVRed the Oscars for the next time I have trouble falling asleep. It was so boring, the people on the remembrance reel were probably glad they were dead.

• Think you've been to hell? You probably don't work customer support for flower-delivery websites on Feb. 15, when they must receive a zillion complaints about orders that passed through an equal amount of brick-and-mortar affiliates.

• Anyone who purchases a Man of the Year DVD for $19.99 at Circuit City should be arrested on the spot. We can't let crazy people like that just roam the streets.

• If your bar employs test-tube shot girls and plays songs like "Come On Eileen" that pander to the after-work dork crowd, I want no part of it.

• You'd think paying Manny Ramirez $18 million would give his employer power to dictate when he reports to camp.

• Only in Dallas, where football is king even while the Mavericks are destroying the entire NBA, do newspapers dish on such things as Terrell Owens not knowing the Cowboys playbook, at a time when even Ron Jaworski doesn't want to talk about the NFL for another month.

• In 2008, my vote goes to the presidential candidate who promises that all future editions of Guitar Hero include bonus tracks that do not suck balls.